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Anabel entered the room a bit late. DCAccess was a new thing, and it wasn't taking hold as fast as she would have liked--you know, some people couldn't really pull off rush hour commutes on their feet. Assholes tended to sit in the handicapped seats, and then… not surrender them. Rude.

Anyway, that was not really a concern. She waved to Finn and his group, and--after a moment's thought--joined them. She recognized Maggie from the last meetup. It was hard to miss the effusive teenager; she'd practically latched on to Finn like a tick, which was firstly, totally understandable, and secondly, kind of adorable. She smiled at them and would've then continued on to introduce herself, but someone was hovering near the door and Anabel wasn't going to leave them flying solo. "Hey," she said to the dark-haired woman. "I'm Anabel Au. Mistral Page of Mercury. What's your name?"

Darren sank into a chair near the back without much noise. He wasn't one to draw attention to himself, and the speaker seemed to be the kind to notice you if you made the wrong move - so he was hoping desperately not to. He held no illusions that this was going to be a basic first aid course. He frowned a little at the speaker's attitude to the way people were naming things.

It wasn't like they knew what it was after all - but that wasn't the point. He grit his teeth for a moment, and then let it go. Pick your battles - you lived longer that way.

Drumming his fingers on his lap, he looked around for his girlfriend but didn't see her. He hoped she wouldn't be long, this person didn't look like they played nice.

Still once they got the group assignments he got up, moved over to who he had been assigned and sat down, giving the older girl a smile.

"Hi, I'm Darren," he said with a nod. She looked older than him by a fair margin, but he wouldn't bring it up since it wasn't really important and he knew girls could be a bit... touchy about age and all that.

"So what made you decide to take the course?"

Today was turning out to be one of those days when everything seemed to work against Hafwen. First her phone battery had died which meant that she never got Darren's text nor was she contactable if anyone tried to reach her via her number. Then the bus she was on had to, of all the times that something like this had to happen, break down when she was about to reach her destination, leaving her with the option of waiting for the next one or making her way to the boot camp training she had signed up for with Darren by foot.

Going with the latter, she had sprinted part of the distance before she became out of breath and was forced to walk, slipping into the classroom as inconspicuously as she could just as everyone started breaking up into their respective assigned groups for the first task at hand. "Um... sorry for being late. The bus broke down en route..." She went up to Kaatje to offer her apology, catching Darren's eye and smiling wistfully as she looked about confused for a bit before locating her assigned seat and partner.

"Arian..?" She remembered the long-haired youth alright. He was the baker extraordinaire whom she had ordered Mercy's birthday cake from about a year ago. "Fancy meeting you here. It's nice to see a familiar face among so many. How have you been?"

Arian's assumption that the tall purple-haired woman that had sorted out signing in during last month's laser tag event was absent this time round had turned out to be wrong, as he'd found out when he spotted her quietly signing people in. He'd nodded quietly however when Keren had mentioned that he didn't need to sign in this time round and kept quietly to himself. He'd spotted a few faces that he thought he remembered from last month, although none that he knew by name and then he'd spotted the guardian cat on the table.

He recognised her. Hard not to given that it had been just last month that they'd met, even if it hadn't however Arian would have still recognised her - after all having one's starseed yanked wasn't something that one tended to forget and they'd both ended up having that in common the night they'd met.

Walking over in her direction, Arian had waited until he was in earshot before saying quietly "Hi Cora, you're looking well." And at least to his eyes she appeared to be. There hadn't been much time for chit chat though, since it didn't feel like that long after that Kaatje was calling for them all to gather round. Arian had felt a little embarrassed at her car vs porsche analogy as he'd kind of been thinking that the whole thing was some sort of first aid thing, although he'd hadn't said anything, just quietly listened as she outlined the session.

The name assignments had been something of a surprise, if only because the name Hafwen made him think of the blue-haired teen who had talked him into baking something for a friend of hers, he'd ended up making up a batch of chocolate and raspberry cupcakes for her after dithering between the two flavours if he remembered right, but it was probably too much of a co-incidence for that Hafwen to be one and the same.

Except it turned out it wasn't as the girl in question slipped into the seat next to him. "It's nice to see you too Hafwen" he said, his quiet voice friendly, a part of him wondering if her friend had liked the cupcakes he'd made up for her. "It's been a while, how..." Arian's voice trailed off as he realised that she was asking how he'd been too and his lips quirked into a slight smile as he waited for her to finish before continuing "I've been doing okay" which was true of sorts if you skipped out the fact that the bad dreams that had taken to plaguing his sleep meant that he was sleeping poorly. Adding "How have you been?" before continuing "And I guess if we're doing introductions I should admit I'm Sailor Athene when powered up." After all the fact that Hafwen was there at all suggested she had a powered alter-form too. Arian left it up to Hafwen to decide whether she wanted to share, personally not having a problem either way.

Finn was... paired with the cat? Well, okay. He could handle that, and he liked meet and greet exercises. So, he offered the cat his hand, for as much of a handshake as she could manage with her paws. He was glad to see a good number of participants from the camping trip had made it to this event as well - order side camaraderie was important!

Anyway, Darren and Laney looked like they could take care of themselves just fine for the moment, so Finn turned his full attention to the cat. "Hi again," he said, taking a seat. "I'm Finn. Or Babylon Knight of Mercury."

Cats didn't have much to do with Knights at all, did they, huh?

Well, besides Zirconia, of course. But he tended to think of her as less of a cat and more of an exceptionally small and fuzzy knight.

Kaatje spent the time while everyone chatted away counting her splinting materials, making sure she had enough for her 'class'--twenty people was a respectable number, and maybe she'd even let Anabel do something more useful than be an exemplary noncombatant this round? No, probably not. "Sup, Jacobs," said Kaatje, waving; she didn't bother commenting on any late arrivals. It always happened. It would continue to happen. She had learned not to expect timeliness from most of the White Moon senshi.

Instead of fussing about it, she got right down to business. "Hope you at least shared your names," said Kaatje, "because now we're going to pretend we're from Harry Potter. I'm Professor Lupin, and you're my third year Gryffindors, and Tallulah here is our boggart."

There was a crafty, knife-sharp smile on Kaatje's face. "Or, more to the point, our dementor."

She hopped off the desk she was seated on and turned to the whiteboard behind her. "There's a principle in combat and survival called situational awareness. This means that no matter what you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, you stay focused on what's going on around you. When facing an enemy whose magic affects your mind, your situational awareness should be paramount. Think through the fear."

"Tallulah, if you would?" Tallulah henshined, leaving Anabel spitting glitter for a minute or two, and Kaatje said, "Europa here has a talent called Deep Ocean Terror. Basically… she's gonna scare the crap out of you. I want you to not panic. That's literally all you have to do. Line up, let's go one at a time now."



For this round, please roll one ten-sided die! Characters with the Wisdom trait will receive +3 to their score this round. Characters with the Teamwork trait will receive +1 this round.

1-3: You do not keep your head. In fact, you lose your head. Better hope your teammate's good at calming people down.
4-7: Well, no one's going to be looking to you for leadership in a crisis, but at least you're not crying.
8-10: Stalwart and steady and true, that's you. Was that supposed to be frightening?

Daran wasn't too keen on the whole 'socializing' aspect, and it clearly showed when he was asked to introduce himself to his partner. He took one glance at her and gave a solemn nod, before remembering that he actually had to speak up. "Daran Moreau. Cosmos page."

That was as far as he was willing to go. Something about giving away his identity just seemed to make him weary. Or perhaps it was his body preparing him for what was coming next, as the next stage was enough to alarm him. Suddenly Tallulah had transformed, and seconds later, her attack swept over him, and even he had flinched in response. He wished it had stopped there.

What he saw simply unnerved him! He didn't scream, but he sure as hell wasn't keeping his head, either! He bit down on his lip so hard that he threatened to bite it off, though maybe he did and he was simply too terrified to realize it just yet. He'd deal with reattaching his lip later, as right now, he was kind of too busy staring at the tentacle abomination that coiled itself into existence before him. He tried not to scream. He wouldn't scream.

But holy hell, was that frightening! He couldn't wait for it to be over... assuming it ever ended. Yet when he did, he didn't feel that much better. Whatever that thing was would remain planted in his head for all eternity, for that he was certain!

As much as Orah wanted to support her faction and be a responsible eternal, things lately had been... hard. The betrayal had bitten deep and it was hard to think past the pain, which was only renewed each night when the nightmare seized her. It was hard to have your chest ripped open every night as your starseed was pulled from it and then watch the city filled with your petrified friends dissolve into darkness and destruction. She'd become a little reclusive, preferring to spend most of her time alone and brooding, patrolling in the wee hours of the morning when sleep escaped her.

It was entirely because Xander had asked her to come that she was here and she knew he was just trying to make her feel better... he'd shown a remarkable amount of care for her mental state lately and she was grateful for it, even as she struggled to not worry him too much. When they arrived, she sort of just trailed after the red head with her fingers wrapped around the strap of her messenger bag, playing the part of his shadow until he turned and spoke to her.

Drawn out of her thoughts, Orah blinked and put a smile on her face for him. "I'm fine, Xander. Don't worry."

Sweeping her eyes over the people who'd come, she spotted Arian and lifted a hand to wave at her team mate. It was good to see him, even if she'd been avoiding her team. They had enough to deal with in the normal routine of things, they didn't need her moodiness. Waving in their direction caught her eye and Orah gave Lily a wave too, glad to see her friend. It was good to know that some of the eternals were attending these things. Keeping skills sharp and showing support.