Welcome to Gaia! ::

Davey had remained quiet through the meeting. The new recruits earned a careful once-over as Davey evaluated their potential as best he could. It was good to know that their numbers were slowly increasing, as overrun by monsters as they had been in the recent mission. Still, was it too much to hope for that there would be more competent soldiers and less-

"YAY LIFE!"

- of that? Davey's shoulders slumped. He noticed a few of the others pretending not to know Before, and Caelius himself calling the former Beta out.

"This is why we can't have nice things," he muttered to himself.

Most of the Hunters were paired up and led off to whatever mission Caelius had planned. Several names were absent. Davey frowned. It mostly disappeared when Caelius said he had something planned for the others who would remain with him. Davey just hoped they weren't being pawned off on Dr H again.

When it seemed like the 'away' team were mostly settled, Davey turned to Caelius. "What now, boss?"

Wait. What? But she had said the other way around! Pouting, Candace sighed and stopped what she was doing. Fine, fine. If she insisted. "Kat, huh? Sure. But I'm just Candace, okay? Candy is off limits." Something she would need to tell Jerry. Candace put the mask on, lowering her headphones to hang around her neck until it was properly adjusted before adding on the ear piece. Okay...now...eh, she'd leave her headphones down. She didn't want to look like she was ignoring her partner when she wasn't trying to. This girl seemed alright.

When asked if she'd been on one of these before she chuckled and shook her head. "I've been on a couple missions but not quite one of this nature. Our first one was another test where Caelius gave us a gun and told us not to die, then left us to fend for ourselves. And then after that we were sent to the world of Halloween while they were having this festival thing to collect what they call minipets, and then most recently like two weeks ago even we were at a haunted house..." Candace paused a moment, frowning. "That one was...special. I haven't been on one like this though. Recovering..survivors." She frowned, shaking her head and sighing.

"Nervous? Don't worry. Stick close to me, 'kay?"

Petra waited silently until she heard her name, remaining unmoved from where she sat with the rest of the phoenixes until Caelius stood, eyes focused on the Death hunter. There may have been the slightest flicker of relief in her eyes, most certainly due to not having to work directly with their irrefutably temperamental, but after a moment it was gone, easily dismissed as a trick of the light. The Phoenixes were professional -- they did what they were told, silently, efficiently, ruthlessly, no questions asked. They certainly didn't avoid certain abusive staff members. With the sudden cacophony of scraping chairs, the moon-hunter-in-training stood along with the rest of the assembled group, her eyes briefly settling on Madison, Jerry and Jordan with a short nod. They knew where to find her, should there be any trouble. A shout of her name, and she would be there, and she had no doubt they would do the same for her.

It was only after they had all followed Caelius to the training grounds and had each stepped through the transporter into the desert that she finally separated herself completely from the group, her dark blue eyes lifting to scan the surrounding area for her partner. If she remembered correctly, the girl had been wearing a green scarf -- briefly Petra recalled the girl's introduction, naming herself in the subcategory 'Death.' Perhaps she was lingering with some of the other death hunters. Careful to avoid the sight of the rows of black bags, she picked up two pairs of sets and masks, catching sight of Minerva just as she was beginning to slide them on. Closing the distance between them in a few short strides, she offered them to the other with her traditional blank look.

Way to go Milton. Get yourself on death row via Caelius. Nice knowing you.

"Nice to um.. formerly meet you Deryk." He smiled a bit, but not much. The portal got a sigh of resignation. Couldn't they take a plane or boat or something? Nope, had to be magic. Not much to do about it, (it was probably less expensive and motion sickness inducing). Stepping through he though it might be a forest, or a cave entrance, not...a desert. Much less a loud one at that. "The portals I am going place a safe bet on 'we won't know for a long a** while'." Groaning as he already felt sand getting into places sand shouldn't be, (his poor boots), he was a bit presently surprised to see a moon hunter. Finally some one from his own division.

Talk about fast travel though, to bad the hunters couldn't commercialize it or something. Looking at Deryk, Marcus shrugged. "Camels spit. And no. Betting it's not a place we'll see often but you never can te-." He shut his mouth at the sight of what he could only assume to be body bags. This was- the ******** kind of a mission did you bring them on Caelius? What the huntress was saying....
Grabbing the headset and Mask he put them on..and frowned. "Well, this will make things interesting for sure. " His vision was so ********. Probably for the better.

He had to ask the moon hunter though. "What are the chances we will even find survivors and not...." He glanced over at the tent. "Well what are our chances?"

Jordan! Her heart lit up slightly; she'd been trembling and trying to hide her face the moment she saw Petra walk in, but it was as if the gods (or at least the-god-that-was-Caelius), despite what she had heard about them, had decided to be benevolent.

Waiting for most of the crowd to clear, she went straight to him first.

"Sup, Boss!" It was like old times, almost. "Counting on you to teach me the ropes! Masks first, right?"

It was true. Camels did spit. That would be highly unpleasant to deal with. Not to mention there were a lot of hunters to get camels for. Oh well. Fantasy gone. Then, hearing Marcus's question to who he thought was the moon hunter (he was standing where he last saw the guy so it was a decent guess), he turned and had to wonder the same thing.

This also brought on the question of what happened here that would call for the term 'survivors'. Something big and disastrous must have occurred to a previous team.

Davey eyed the left hand the new girl offered him. He wasn't sure what she expected him to do with it... but she realised her mistake soon enough and swapped for a hand he could actually shake.

Her fumble wasn't as bad as some others had been (Before and Jerry still topped the list). Accepting the hand, he gave a brief shake. "Davey," he introduced himself. His eyebrows raised a small way at Evie's apology. She'd handled it fairly well. "It's hardly your fault. At least you noticed. Or was that...?" Hand freed, he tapped at his temple to indicate the voices that only each Hunter heard.

Azrael perked up, seeming to realise that weapons were being discussed. ~ Introduce me, idiot! ~

With a quirk of his lips, Davey complied. He reached for his dogtags and suddenly the necklace had one less tag, and a long sword was in his hand. "This is Azrael, who demands to be introduced."

~ Tell her I'll also accept being worshipped. ~

Davey rolled his eyes and failed to pass on the message. He also ignored the resulting huff.

"So when did you wake up?" Davey asked. "Were you part of the island test, or an even newer recruit?"

Gale knew where they were going before the Moon Hunter even said anything and he also knew one other thing:

He did not want to be here.

At all.

It was like going back into one of his worst nightmares, Gale's fingers clenching and unclenching subconsciously. He willed himself not to throw up, bile rising thick and fast in his throat, and he unintentionally stopped short. If Otto ran into him from behind, he didn't notice. Instead, Gale bent double, his breathing coming out in short, staccato gasps that were muffled by the mask over his face.

<< Breathe, Gale. >>

That, perhaps, calmed him down a little, if only because Jinhai rarely called him anything other than derogatory nicknames like "moron" and "idiot." But the memories of everything he had just seen and had been trying to ignore for days now all had come rushing back in, quick and fast, and Gale did not want to face them.

You chose to be a Hunter. Face up to it.

I swear if I find B - HIS body...

Face up to it.

That nagging voice in his head was irritating - and, unfortunately for Gale, right. After a few more seconds of attempting to get himself under control, he straightened, his teeth clenched so tightly together it was hard to imagine him actually speaking through them.

"Let's get this over with," he snapped at Otto, and knelt down beside the nearest body.