Welcome to Gaia! ::

There were others here before him. Jordan paused only barely before continuing into the room. Not - well. Not late, perhaps, but not the first, which was, in some ways, a relief. "Feels weird without the masks," he commented to the room in general. There'd been enough times during the test he'd been damn near grateful for the way the thing concealed his expression; but now they all had faces.

He took a chair and glanced curiously to the girl clinging to the guy across the table - they'd known each other, he assumed. Before the island? Or had they been - no time like the present to find out who was who, he decided, and scribbled his name on the card. "Jordan Miller," he said. "Alpha One."

Hungry? Candace blinked and looked to Milton as he called her Hungry, and then Epsilon Ten, and then finally Candace. What the hell? Nervous wreck much? She raised a brow and just watched as he made a complete idiot of himself trying to apologize to her and anyone else he may have hurt. Ohhhh, right! He did hit her with something! Her memories were a bit vague before she went totally batshit insane. "You're forgiven by me as long as you don't do it again. You can't be blamed for trying to survive when that was the entire point of that whole catastrophe." And she felt, despite her death, that she passed that whole 'test' with flying ******** colors. She then heard Valley Girl. Good lord her voice was annoying. Candace shot a narrow eyed look at the girl as she introduced herself; she remembered her, alright.

Others went on to introduce themselves, others she didn't recognize. They weren't worth her time if she didn't even know who they were. Quite honestly she was hoping to hear a guy introduce himself as Epsilon Thirteen; she wanted him to be okay, she wanted him to have made it. Alpha Seven? Seven, Seven...that was familiar. Hadn't he been the second guy to get that scythe? Oh, right. She remembered him now. <******** you." She shifted a little uncomfortable and tore her attention away from the happy reunion to instead return to her new hobby of coveting the scythe with her mind. Do want. Do want. Do want.

"I don't think most people consider a squad number to be their names." Candace replied calmly, her eyes flickering toward Petra. Another person she remembered..killing. Lovely.

"Oh, I am proudly keeping my number as well." Candace agreed with a chuckle, relaxing in her seat again. This was much better than the last time. Last time she had been worried people would call her out for this or that, call her some kind of traitor and kill her off. But now? There were not enough ******** in the world she could give for what they thought about her.

Oh, so that guy was A-One? She tilted her head a bit to give him a good look. "Lookin' good, Steaksauce." No seriously. He was.

Bix's sort-of-smile fell slightly as more people entered the room. It was great and everything.. they all passed! But that meant more people to try and get on the good side of.

AND MORE CUTE GIRLS.

His face looked rather pained, almost panicked, but he was trying his best to stifle it. He wanted to be a better brand of guy these days. Stronger. Cooler. And then the one girl shrieked and threw herself across the room and the poor boy almost jumped out of his chair in surprise.

"Oh god.." It was barely a whisper. Did anyone see that? Him looking like a scaredy cat? He wasn't! He was just that guy that ALWAYS jumped when he was surprised. You can't help that! He had balls!!

Bix spaced out slightly during his own inner panic session and came back into reality only to realize there were some Alphas who were all friends, if not more.

So many cute girls!!

He threw his gaze back to Before, Milton, and seemed like he wanted to get up and move his seat next to him. He didn't of course. Instead he sneezed, again, and buried his face into his arms to stifle it. Amongst all the reunions, the lanky young man simply peered over his arm with allergy-watered eyes and hoped someone else he knew showed up. Boss? Thor maybe?

Familiar, yet undecidedly so. With a smattering of complete strangers initially occupying the room, it had been easy for Scott to grasp onto his surroundings as some sort of reality. This wasn’t the room back on the island. Well, maybe it was a room on some island, but not the one everyone refused to shut up about. The walls weren’t about to close in on them. The cloaked figure wasn’t at all cloaked. He was pretty sure one of the fluorescent lights was just the slightest bit dimmer than it had been in there mutually simulated world. There were distinct, easily definable differences to establish this room, right here, as the genuine article.

And yet…

It started when she sat next to him. Those doubts, gnawing at him, making him question his own perception of reality. Scott bristled at the fact that anyone would sit next to him – didn’t they know the chairs beside him were empty because he wanted them to be? – but the girl he suddenly found at his side and staring intently at him was intriguing for reasons far beyond the questionable choice of tattoos running down from her eyes.

“Hermione?”

He cringed as soon as the name left his tongue, the slightest admittance that there was some aspect of their “test” that had been real. It was instinctive, subconscious, and he opened his mouth to correct himself with the name Hanna when he found the wind knocked out of him by a sharp elbow.

He turned. Alpha Seven. No, Robert. The man who had almost choked him. Who had wanted to kill him. Who was now talking about snacks because being an idiot was the same no matter where you were. Scott gaped at him, words dying in his throat as he attempted to brace himself against the overwhelming thought that this room was no more real than the one where he had had his face sliced open.

“Huh?” he muttered in a daze as Hanna spoke up, turning back to her with a faraway look. He tried to focus, tried to plow through the protests clanging around inside his head, tried to make a connection with the very real Hanna Nowicki.

“No,” he said with a sigh, looking around the room. “This is normal at this point." He frowned at the hugging, finding it rather unsuitable for the circumstances. "Is that really a boat you wanted to get on in the first place?"

Something flickered in Hanna's golden eyes. "No, I suppose not. I care more about truth than friendship." She shrugged, scratching at the area under her left eye. The black tattoos under her eyes had been an extreme choice the night that she decided to sign away her life to Deus Ex. She wanted to mark herself in a permanent way, to give herself a sort of brand that would prevent her from ever appearing normal. It was... a choice. A permanent one. She seemed nonplussed by it.

Tilting her head to one side, Hanna watched Scott curiously. "And unless you want me to scream 'Cho' at you every time we see each other, I suggest you don't call me that," she said coolly. "You aren't Asian. Interesting. I have no idea what made Gamma Three make you her Cho." Back then, Hanna had been aware of the lie she was telling herself. It was just the only meaning she had in the time when her memories were gone. So she clung to it like a life raft, even when it killed her.

Well, only killed her a little -- obviously.

The sound of a fist colliding with skin snapped Hanna's head away from Scott. She caught the spin of Robert's head, putting two-and-two together. Wow, she really liked Petra suddenly. She could appreciate a woman of action. But when Robert got down on one knee and embarrassingly pledged himself to her in the middle of a crowded room, Hanna had to stifle a laugh.

"I think we have found the program's romantic leads," she said quietly to Scott so that Robert and Petra would not hear. Wide golden eyes glanced up at him. "Would you hold it against me if I called you my sunshine, sunshine?" Her face was so intent for a moment that it almost seemed sincere before dissolving into a wry smile. "Sorry, being in a pod has made me jaded, it would seem." She glanced back to Petra and Robert. "They seemed pretty dedicated to this melodrama though, for two people who barely know each other." Hanna had no idea that they knew each other beyond the island.

Petra shook out her hand a few times before her eyes returned to Robert, watching him crumple a little only to hit the wall a few feet away. There was no guilt in her eyes, only a distinct icy hostility as she watched him straighten, cupping her own hand to rub her thumb over her now-sore palm. He was a big boy, far larger than her, and she knew she couldn't do any real damage to him -- the punch might have stung a bit, but they both knew it was the emotional blow that was ten times worse. It was for this reason that she didn't feel guilty in the least, the squeeze in her chest fueling her resentment as he re-knelt in front of her, looking like she was close to decking him again. Instead, she merely listened silently as he spoke, going a little rigid as he grabbed her hand, ignoring how warm it was. There was a million things she wanted to say to him. All of them would have been completely justified -- although it wasn't quite the truth, at the moment she would have loved nothing more than to tell him he was the reason she was here and not back in her apartment, sketching out building designs on the desk they shared. She wanted to confront him about that night, hiss at him all the things she hated about him, just to hurt him. And she wanted to do none of those things at the same time.

So instead she listened, following his eyes as he got up, not saying anything for a long time, even when the silence lapsed into awkward. She had promised. Even when she didn't know who he was, when they didn't remember anything of their lives, she had promised to never let him go. Somehow, it only made things worse. There was a rising sense of frustration growing in her chest, the guilt she probably should have felt for hitting him now making a comeback as he said just the right thing, like he always did. Exhaling hard, she glanced away as he did, taking the moment he was greeting Jordan to let her eyes dart a little back and forth, thinking for a few seconds before his voice returned, and she glanced back up at him, eyes narrowed.

"You'd rather start it with Robbie."

Despite the jab, her fingers closed on his where they were still resting against his palm, squeezing gentler than her hissed words had been as she turned away from him, not letting go of his hand. Instead, she glanced over at where Hanna and Scott were talking, unyielding blue eyes settling on the girl for a long time before flicking to the blue-haired boy, then back to her. She couldn't have heard what she'd said, but it seemed she had certainly felt Hanna's eyes on them. Whether or not it was a good thing was to be decided, but for now there was definitely a sizing up, none of the hostility she'd expressed to Robert bleeding through.

Ennéa bounced into the room just in time to see some guy get punched in the face. She paused in the doorway and blinked. "Oh are we fighting again? Is this another test?" She tilted her head. "I thought we passed though..." Ennéa craned her head to look beyond him at the various other people seated in the room. She didn't recognize any of them, though she supposed it would be kind of weird if she could considering they were all wearing masks before.

Maybe she and her fellow squad members could recognize each other by their voices! A-Two's odd way of talking was pretty memorable. And there was no way she could forget A-One's voice.

"Hi everyone!" She said brightly. Ennéa looked about the room to see if there were any glimmers of recognition. Hm. She then noticed the paper and pens on the table. "Oh, wait. Are we supposed to be introducing ourselves?"

She grabbed a pen and a notecard and quickly scrawled her name. "I'm Ennéa Petrakis, though you all probably know me by A-Nine." She looked about the room hopefully. "I hope?"

She sat down and fidgeted with her card. "So... anyone from Phoenix Squad here?"