Welcome to Gaia! ::

He watched the others arrive with some degree of dread. For every person who arrived it felt like another moment ticked away.

It was going too fast, way too ******** fast.

All the familiar faces, some of them looking blissfully unaware. He wanted to scream, to ask them didn't they realise what could be coming? Had they fought those ******** creatures?!

He still ached all over. He'd been well enough to get out of the infirmary only a day or so ago, but he didn't feel fit enough to be fighting anything. It was all he could do to try and ignore it. Instead he turned his attention to checking out the runic gun he'd actually remembered to pick up for a change, finding a comfortable way to carry it.

Eva knew that she should have tried fixing her sleeping problem earlier.

It was early, early enough that on most days, Eva would probably have already been up and out training in the fields. However, ever since that last horrifying mission, her sleeping schedule had really been thrown off course. In an attempt to avoid the nightmares that plagued her every night, she turned to pulling all-nighters, catching a few hours of sleep whenever she could during the day and afternoon.

Which was, in hindsight, a really stupid idea. Especially considering how mission debriefings and meetings--such as this one--were usually around 10 in the morning.

When the girl arrived, she immediately took to scanning the crowd for friends among all the familiar faces. A part of her--the exhausted part--wondered if someone would let doze on their shoulder until this meeting got started.

...Let's see, who would make the best pillow?

Jerry entered quietly, milling about in the back. He saw all of the friendly faces, ones he recognized, ones he cared for, but he couldn't shake the feeling of dread in his stomach.

He at least had been smart enough to leave the guitar at home. Class A mission? He tried to wrack his brain for what that could mean. Images of folders emptied out across the floor, reports from dead hunters all spilled as far as the eye could see washed through his mind. The sound of horse hooves. Sasha's burns.

Just relax. Just be quiet. Just be ready.

A hand instinctively went to his pocket where he had been carrying his flask, but it was empty. Right. Good. Confiscated. For the best. Just relax. Just another mission.

Molly turned to Candace and smiled at her in return as she riffled through her small bag. “Of course, Miss Candace!” She pulled out a few, actually, and placed them into the woman’s hand. She paused though; taking Candace’s in both of her own and gave it a reassuring squeeze and a wide smile. “It’s important to have your energy.” She let go of the Mist Hunter’s hand, and turned back to Davey as Gale introduced them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Davey!” Smiles all around man, smiles all around still.

She turned back to Bix though and her smile widened as she clasped her hands. “Wonderful! I’m really looking forward to it! Oh, and I added ball pit to my list.” She gave him a sheepish grin, and seemed to be debating something for a moment, before she just threw her arms around Bix in a tight hug and squeezed before letting go. “I’ll see you all around, alright? If there’s anything I can do, please let me know!” Molly wanted to keep on moving for now, and besides, she felt like she was interrupting something. She waved to them all and wandered off with her pink cheeks.

She ended up wandering over to Deryk, who seemed to be fidgeting. “Hey! Good morning.” She greeted, beaming at him as well. “Did you eat breakfast?” While waiting for his answer, she glanced around, and spotted Mercedes as well.

“Ah, good morning, Mercedes!” She called out to her fellow Mist trainee and waved. “Did you eat breakfast, too?”

"How's it going, mate?" Davey asked Bix. He and the archer hadn't seen each other in a while. Maybe it was due to being a fellow Brit, but he and Gale seemed to catch up rather regularly. Davey was going to have to take the time and extra effort to chase down other people, too, he decided.

He gave the redhead a nod and extended his hand. "Nice to meet you, Molly." Man, how many waves of 'new' trainees had there been now? Davey was starting to feel old. And kind of lazy, seeing how many of 'his' wave of trainees were advancing to the next rank. More things for him to work on.

~Intense?~ Azrael repeated Gale's cryptic words. ~Are we going to war, Davey? Hmmm, maybe you should stay home if it's getting serious. The rate you've been going lately, your dead and missing arm could kick more a** than you could.~

Davey grit his teeth. "Yes, thank you for that, you utter b*****d." His voice was a quiet snarl. Uh, maybe not that quiet. He eyed the others around him and waved in the direction of his dogtags. "Not you guys. The Bitchblade is awake and kicking."

~Don't call me that, you miniscule, insignificant flea. Some broken little toy like you could never comprehend my might and~

Davey tuned the ranting out. It took Azrael several minutes to realise that he was being ignored.

~Davey! I'm talking to you, Davey! Don't you dare ignore me, you cretin.~

"Any ideas who'll be running this mission?" Davey idly asked the others. The anonymous text message was rather annoying that way.

~... Davey?~

On the one hand, it was the Apocalypse.

On the other, he had totally gotten out of Marcus's sub duty.

It was a minor victory. Truth be told, he would have been relieved to be at the bottom of the sea for a week if it meant dodging this particular bullet. It was for the best, he guessed. Since they'd gotten the A-level Mission date right on the nose, there wasn't any waiting for the axe to fall.

The text had given him enough time to see off Killer. He had his bandaid tin. He was wearing the t-shirt Julie had knitted for him (because he figured if he was going to die in anything, it might as well be that), his combat boots, and had his scarf knotted securely around his waist.

The odds had been against him before.

And you wiped. B0nez hadn't been there, but Harrison had thought about it enough.

And here I am, Harrison countered.

It's like having Christmas for a respawn point.

In spite of the needling, B0nez was in a good mood. He didn't think Harrison would die. Even seeing the lair full of tablets and dead hunter parts, his only sentiment had been n00bs.

Still. Even if he made it... as he walked up, he looked uneasily at the pool of trainees milling around the training field. There were statistically limited slots. Who did he expect to see again, if anybody? Everybody was on this mission. Division Leaders. Assistants. But the more people that survived, the better everybody's chances. He'd played enough L4D by now to know that. And H was smart, he had to have some kind of plan.

He looked for other trainee Moon coats. Who knew how many were fresh out of the pods? He had his stripes. He was an intermediate, now. Him, Marcus, Dakota.

...He needed to talk to Jordan. Rep was out of the infirmary it looked like, which...he wished Rep had stayed in the infirmary. Team Unicorn was here, too. ...Later. He needed to take care of Division stuff.

Marcus and Dakota were already together. He headed over to them first.

"Hey," he greeted gruffly, "...Some of these other Moon Trainees haven't even been on a Mission yet. I think we oughta gather them up. ...Talk to them, some."

And suddenly Eva spotted a large, walking pillow in the distance.

On closer inspection (and after rubbing her tired eyes), she realized that that pillow was actually Jude. Or at least, it looked like him from the back, judging by his hair. Despite Chara's protests, she moved up towards him, not even bothering to greet the boy before she suddenly rest her forehead against the back of his shoulder.

She frowned. Something was...

There was a pause, and then Eva sudden drew back, brushing some of Jude's hair over the same shoulder before leaning her head forward again.

...Hmm, yes, this would do.

"Hi Jude," She grumbled sleepily, eyes sliding shut, "How are you today...?"