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Ezekiel strolled in with a wealth of bandages on his left arm, and headed more or less towards Tommy before sink down on an available couch. From here he'd take note of the faces round him(he didn't know many of them. Most of them in fact), filing them all away for later.

Was it that time of the year already?

Nellie's mind had gone completely blank the moment she saw the text from Lance with instructions to report to the Mist lounge with whatever she was working on or snacks or intel. She wasn't working on anything specific nor did she know enough people from the other divisions to have any useful intel/gossip to offer. But she did have a bag of cookies. Cookies always made her happy and she hoped that they would have the same effect on the others whom she was going to share them with.

Making her way into the room, she sat down and reached into the bag to retrieve a cookie, intent on helping herself to at least one before passing the bag around. It was then that she couldn't help but notice a rather nervous looking girl (Radley) who was alone like her which made her decide to stretch the hand that held the cookie tentatively out to her with a small smile.

"Hi... ... cookie?"

"I am always in a good mood," said Arorangi cheerfully to Noemi. "I find it is much beneficial to be cheerful than it is to be sad, so I have made it into a habit to be happy when I can!"

This clearly wasn't how he was in all cases; he knew when to be serious about things, but a little positivity never hurt. He beamed at Stormy, dreadlocks swaying about as he grinned around at the little group. "I am Arorangi!" he said, by way of introduction. "I am still a trainee, but I have been here a few months now!"

Noemi had brought over a friend, and Arorangi glanced over at her, eyes crinkling into a pleasant expression.

"I like to think I am very nice, yes," he said brightly. "What is your name? Are you new here? Noemi here is also very nice, she is very small and pretty and so are you!"

"He is always in a good mood" Noemi chirped after him. Her blush only rose at his compliments.

There was a large amount of mist coming in and it was starting to make her feel even smaller among them. Though she was intermediate...she wasn't use to so many people. Her hand gently reached for Scouts.

"Aro is really good friends with one of my close friends too. His name is Oliver." She explained to Scout. "And that over there is my cousin Stormy. She's a disney princess."

Was she late? She hoped not, but she strolled calmly into the room anyway. Even if she was late, oh well. It was a wonder she had even made it in time. Candace had almost missed the text entirely, having collapsed into bed to sleep the moment she was next to it, and had quickly gotten herself into a presentable state so she wouldn't look as if she'd just gotten out of bed. b***h I woke up like this. She didn't say anything yet, instead scoping out those she knew. As she passed Stormy she playfully tapped under her chin and winked at her, pausing only to snatch two cookies from the platter and then lean in to press a light kiss to her temple. "Long time no see, pretty lady," she greeted her cheerfully before making her way over to her husband. Dakota received a sweet kiss at the corner of his mouth, her hand finding his as she settled in to lean against him and force the man to support all of her weight. All of it. If he didn't like it she had no problem letting him fall under her weight, even if it meant she'd be falling to the floor with him.

Love you.

"Mm, lots of faces I don't know," she murmured quietly, looking over the faces of everyone around her. It was both wonderful and saddening at the same time. More Mists, always more Mists, but she wasn't around enough to know any of them. Good job, Candace. You're an A+ trainer. One of the cookies she had taken was offered up to Dakota, the other had a big bite taken out of it.

"Alright everyone, enough chit-chat for a second," Lance announced as he placed his mirror reflective-side down on the table and kicked his feet off of it, sitting up straight and as imposing as he could in such a feminine chair. "It looks like we've got some new faces in the division. My name's Lance, and I'm more or less your boss. Somewhere in the background is our division assistant who'll introduce herself later."

"More importantly? By the looks of some of ya, I think it's fair to say we've all been through hell recently. Some of you are even looking around like where am I? What's going to happen? Let me put this out there for you: things will get tough. Things will push you to your limit, things will try to break you. Things will come close to besting you, and hell. There will be times where you will be beaten. You will suffer. You will end up getting hurt. But you know what?"

Lance had stood up at this point and began pacing around the room, doing his best to lock eyes with anyone looking in his general direction. "We're Hunters. We're better than any superhero on the silver screen. We're here to kick a** and get our asses kicked, but we'll be all the more stronger for it. Our strength comes from ourselves and our partners."

The division leader held out his hand and summoned his weapon: a massive dark lance covered in flickering, fiery runes. Anyone near the division leader could feel a tangible heat emanate from it. "Our partners are both our weapons and each other. If you're new to Deus, look for Hunters with colored sleeves. The fancier the coat the more likely they're an experienced hunter, but the colored sleeves are reserved for our most veteran of hunters. Hell, you can even see some of them here in this room."

"With that said..." Lance dismissed his weapon. "We're implementing a new system here at Deus Ex. Starting out here is tough, and if you're not careful it's fully possible to slip through the cracks. Let's see if we can fix that. I want every full hunter to partner up with someone they haven't seen before. Show'em the ropes. Go on a mission, go spar, go on a training exercise, whatever. If you're new, I want you to find and approach someone who's been here awhile. Ask them questions, get them to help. And if they blow you off, just pick yourself up and find someone else. I'll be honest and say that we hare our collection of asshats and jerks here on Deus, just like anywhere else."

Lance held up his hand. "Let's not stop there. Every Division on Deus Ex has a purpose. As Mists, our specialization is everything. Don't limit yourselves to just Mist hunters. I want all of you to go out and spend time with someone from another division. Even if you're a transfer-in from another division, I want you go out and experience what it's like helping out and acting in another division. See their side of things, understand what they do and how they do it."

The division leader swept his eyes across the assembled Mists again before dropping back down into his chair. "Right. Now that particular motivation speech is over with, I want everyone to introduce yourselves. State your name, your weapon's name, what your weapon is - or if there's enough room, go ahead and summon it to show'em off - your rank, and what you specialize in. If you don't have a specialization, don't worry about it. If you have any questions about Deus, now's a good time to ask too if you're new. Or not-so new."

After that, Lance reached out and snatched a cookie from the table and began eating it. "Who wa's t'go first?" He asked, mouth still full of cookie. Stay classy, Lance.

She froze up when Candace entered the room, and the softest of noises left her as her former mentor greeted her. No time to attempt a smile or anything. Coupled with Noemi calling her a Disney Princess and Arorangi's suddenly too bright smile, Stormy suddenly felt an impulse to run out of the room and away to God only knew where. Someplace less noisy, less colorful, less peopled.

Thane rattled around in her head, and the imagery of a wall of bones checked her thoughts. It was less calm down and more cease and desist. She preferred the fact that he seemed less verbally inclined these days; the dracolich had couched himself quite comfortably in her misery and fed on what darkness still remained. Her features settled into something peaceful again. "Thank my cousin, noemi, she made them," she told Tommy, offering the platter to the man by him as well before stepping away to put it back in its place.

Lance's rousing speech went in one ear and out the other--not for his lack of trying, but because she had heard it all before at previous meetings. Too much had happened to her for the cheer to really settle in her body, or at the very least Stormy felt strangely impervious to the hope she knew was in those words. Hope wasn't what sustained her these days anyway.

She waited her turn, studying Momo's features and committing her face to memory, as she would for everyone that would follow.

"I'm Stormy Ortega," the little Mist introduced herself, sweeping the bangs from her eyes with a hesitant smile, revealing even more scars beneath. She was still a little self-conscious of them, not for her appearance but because of what they meant. "Full hunter with no specialization yet, though I've been following Death people mostly; sorry if I randomly stalked you, I was just practicing my stealth!" That wasn't awkward. She rubbed her arm, scratching at the radiation of marks. "Um...I've got some proposal ideas I'll ping at our fearless leader after this...Oh. Um."

Making sure there was enough room and stepping back a few more steps just in case, Stormy summoned her greatsword, a massive thing when compared to her short stature but which paled in comparison to some of the other weapons awake on Deus. "This is Thane, a heavy greatsword," she added a little more quietly before returning him to his totem ring. "He's hard to use without getting some momentum, so I try to keep on the defensive. A-Anyway, I'd be happy to take on whoever." And then she went back to leaning against the wall, fiddling with her now empty pockets with a slight frown.

In the meanwhile, Evan received a strange text from the thief holding her phone hostage. At least it didn't get sent to Nevada, right?



"I'm gonna guess that our mysterious div assistant lifted my phone?" she asked casually, glancing around.

The words partner up with strangers and introduce yourself had Scout sinking into the floor. She could do it, she could, but working up the gumption to do so was hard.

She watched the others summon their weapons with quiet aw, particularly impressed by Momo's sharp blade and the sheer girth of Stormy's weapon. Then Dakota's came out and she was mildly impressed by the intricate ruins.

Maybe if she was quiet they would just ... skip over and forget her.

For now she was going to listen, and hopefully that would be all they'd make her do.