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On receiving the text machine, Davey had shrugged and made his way to the room indicated. Of course, with the directions having come from Clarice, there was some double-backing and false turns and more than once Davey found himself walking what he was sure was the same stretch of corridor.

When he finally arrived, he shot Clarice a glare, then lounged against the wall at the back of the room. He was silent as Clarice introduced the 'captive'. A surprising twist on the last mission, Davey thought. Why would the Horsemen have volunteered to become prisoners? Surely they couldn't have cared what happened to the netted monsters. Loyalty to the other Horsemen, Davey would have expected that, but to turn themselves over just to free a dozen young, unimportant students? Either Caelius was a master at negotiation, Davey thought, or the Horsemen had a very low self-preservation instinct.

He remembered the Hell Ponies. That made Davey voice a question he'd had for a while now. "In our first test, was that actually the Horsemen in the VR with us, or just a programmed simulation of them?"

Either way, it indicated that the Hunters and Horsemen were already familiar with one another.

Seeing him having to lean against the wall for support, Clarice hurried to his side, all concern and good intentions, "Do you need a chair, Davey? I sent you the instructions for the shortcut here, but you're probably still a bit worn out from the big mission. Dealing with Caelius for too long can be pretty hard on the body."

At Conquest's outburst, she smiled brightly, "But, yeah, it really was the horsemen causing all those issues during the testing. For real. No VR, no simulation. Our history with these four is...complicated at best. It's enough to say, that while they spent several years on the island, nobody was very happy about it. Fortunately dealing with them and a couple other highly powered subjects has enabled us to improve our runic tech to where it is now." She gestured to the horseman, who, despite all his curses, remained bound.

Davey's left eye twitched as Clarice hurried over. He could never decide if she was the best troller in the world, or if he intentions were good and Dr H had just provided 'suggestions' on how to be best 'helpful' around Davey.

"I'm fine," he growled quietly, halfway between anger and embarrasment. It was bad enough in the middle of a battle, but when Clarice was the person in charge and meant to be running a session of some kind, it was even worse. There was no chance of people not noticing.

He hissed a sigh. Dealing with Caelius for too long, or Dr H, or even Clarice... yes, all of them were exhausting, for different reasons. In a more even tone, he insisted, "I'm fine." He pushed away from the wall to prove it. He added another entry to his mental list of things he couldn't do around Clarice - relax against walls or furniture.

Learning that the Horsemen had been physically running amok during the testing was worrying. The Hunters wouldn't have taken setting up that exam lightly, and yet the Horsemen had still breached whatever defenses were around to try and kill all the examinees? They were lucky they'd been in special, human golems for that. Davey had come out injured enough without being stomped on by giant hell ponies.

"Good thing the tech can finally hold them," Davey raised an eyebrow. It would have been nice if it had happened earlier, but better late than never. This might give them more of an advantage on future missions. The Horsemen had interfered with their foray into the haunted house not so long ago - in the future, it seemed they'd be less of a thread if the Hunters could contain them.

"Why did they agree to come here?" he asked Clarice. Or if Conquest wanted to answer, too, fine. But Davey wasn't going to ask the monster directly - it seemed like a surefire way to make him refuse to answer out of spite. "Who actually volunteers to be restrained, interrogated and treated like the monster they really are? How the hell did Caelius pull this off?"

Robert jumped when the boy reached out to him, and he was shocked. He didn't move from his position, but he most certainly jumped as if he felt the shock himself. "Ow.." He muttered sympathetically, giving this Conquest kid a cheeky grin. "That look like it hurt."

Helpful as ever.

"Hey, beautiful." He had turned his head just slightly at Petra, before peering at Conquest again. "Just to be clear, I mean the lovely lady. Not you. You're not beautiful. Well actually for a boy you're kind of - so hey, Conquest right? I gots a question for you."

Robert leaned up and gave Clarice a vacant gaze. "I AM allowed to ask him questions, right?"

Lighthouse? Otto remembered the lighthouse. He;d watched someone's neck get snapped, saved another person's life, and then pillaged the dead guy's body for a pendant.

Fun times, but no ponies.

One pony he did not want to meet was Fire pony. Guh. Which of those horsemen had been that horrible behemoth?

There was much more jabbering and blah blah blah-ing than the teenager could stand, yawning audibly without even having the decency to cover his mouth.

Eva's expression visibly brightened when Reine showed up, and she shook her head no at the question--her friend hadn't missed anything of importance. At least, she didn't think so--Reine had only arrived a few brief minutes after she had, so unless something important had been said before then, they were both fine.

Slowly, other trainees began to trickle in. She nodded to Robert to return the greeting, waved at Davey (why was Clarice suggesting that he take a seat? Eva shot him a puzzled look at this), and--

--Woah, when did Otto get here? "Good of you to join us, puppy." She grinned, giving the boy a little nudge. She felt a little more at ease with so many familiar faces in the room, but the smile faded a little as she looked back to Invictus. Clarice said a...a big white hell pony, right? And that he was Conquest? "So you're the one who..." Oh, yes. She had met him before, during that Island trial.

Tori gave a little wave of her own when Eva had walked into the room and gave her a greeting in which Aklin poked her with the feelings that she needed to make more friends. In which she dismissed as there were more trainees that were coming into the room which she kept quiet and listened to all that was being said.

Taking her eyes off of the horseman when Clarice started to talk about the captive.

I'm glad that I haven't any of the horsemen until now as being stomped by a hell pony doesn't sound fun at all and its good to know what one he is as well. But he still looks really cute.

As he gave a little horsey snort.

I get your point, Lin. She replied to Aklin as she watched the horseman tried to reach out for another trainee and the curses that followed or what she thought could have been as he didn't look to happy about what the others were talking about.

Still a little unsure of what to think of Conquest as she didn't have any other experiences with any of them like some of the others. But when he started to laugh it startled her a little and she didn't like the grin on his face at all. Tori had been trying to think of any type of questions that she might have wanted ask but nothing had come to mind.

"Ummm, Clarice, ma'am." Tori said as she still fiddled with the note book in her pocket. "Is there anything specific we need to ask of Conquest?" she asked as she still didn't know what to ask at all.

"Emotional investment isn't limited to any particular race of being." Invictus answered, though he seemed to be somewhat bothered by how close and personal Robert was getting with him. Still, he didn't move to try and throttle the Life Hunter Trainee, just observing his strangeness. Not that it was strange by this point. He'd met it before.

But it seemed that somebody else had earned his immediate attention within moments, as fascinating as Robert was. The king of culture and language looked to Reine when she spoke out to him, before again he began to laugh hysterically, as though her attempt to be bold with him was some sort of cosmic joke.

"Here I am, being civil, and you call what I'm doing looking down on humans, mm? Tell me, I have observed humans for hundreds of years. Does that not warrant me the right to have formed an opinion based on what I have seen?"

He leaned in towards Reine, but didn't get too close, his eyes burning with twisted inquisition towards the woman who had spoken out against him.

"Aren't you doing just the exact same thing to me, but with much less time devoted to observation and more devoted to mindless judgment?"