{ THE DARK COVE } UPDATED SEE PAGE 1

[Bittiface]

The thud had scared the day lights out of him. He was all alone in a creepy room full of sleeping faces. He'd been here many times before. Not once in his year and change at Deus, had a sleeper woken up while he was there. He knew someone would. Someone informed him ahead of time, thankfully. Still, he wasn't sure if he really was prepared.

Otto looked down at the chart he had, squinting at the terrible hand writing from the Hunter who'd written it.

Wait.. was this some kind of joke? That name was... Otto shook his head, reading it again. Maybe those books he got were making him see stuff. Nope.. it was really... or maybe that wasn't an r.. but...

Oops. She was awak----SHE!?

Otto coughed and stepped forward from the spot he'd been loitering in. "Uh, yeah. Hi. Uhm.. G'mornin'..... You're uhh..." He squinted at his clipboard again. "...Harry.. Potter? That can't be right..." Was someone punking him again?  

[Eight]

The cough got her attention and Heidi leaned around the door to find out who it was. Oh! A boy! "Hey! Uh..no, Heidi." She grinned. "Though the last name's right. Heidi Potter, I've heard just about every Harry Potter joke under the sun."

Okay so he'd said good morning. She had been asleep. Made sense. So that meant everything that had happened had just been a nightmare.

"Sooooo..where am I? This is like something you only see on the internet're somethin'." She pushed off the door and righted herself. This was weird, it was like waking up from a super long nap.  

[Bittiface]

Oh. Heidi. Damn, whoever wrote this had horrible handwriting. Otto's was messy but at least it was usually legible. What clown let this person write something down on a document?

"Yeaaah..." The internet. He held the clipboard at his side loosely now, eyeing the girl up and down. She sounded like a girl, but she sure didn't look like one. "Okay, so. You're at Deus Ex Machina. Basically, you volenteered yourself at some point to fight against the shadows and stuff you saw that other people couldn't. Sound familliar?" He remembered everything was weird and fuzzy when he first woke up. He hoped a straight forward rundown would get rid of any doubts the girl had.

"Got any immediate questions, or should I keep going?"  

[Eight]

Deus Ex Machina...god of the machine? So it was a theatre company? Heidi could act! It was fun! Being on stage and pretending to be someone else. She could totally--oh...what? "Uh..." She blinked, rubbing her head and looking around. "Kiiiiiind of.." This all sounded like some crazy D&D game. Larping. Yeah. That.

"What's your name?" He asked for immediate questions. Heidi was smiling as she tried walking, finding it was getting easier the longer she was on her feet. "You know my name, but I don't know yours. S'only polite, y'know."  

[Bittiface]

"...Otto." He replied bluntly with a flat, unimpressed look. He huffed lightly, wondering if she really did remember yet.

"Movin' on then.." He'd prepared notes for himself in his phone, covering the basics of what a trainee should know. After this was done he could shove her off to find her weapon.

"Before I shove you off to get... sorted into a Division and get your weapon.." Otto couldn't resist. May as well poke holes in her some. He was entirely poker faced, even if he knew his joke was lame as dirt. "I'll try and break down the basics." The southern teen sighed heavily as if this was all a huge pain in the a**.

"You're a Hunter, Heidi. Or er.. You're a trainee, or you will be once you got a bonded weapon, and a Trainee Hunter's coat. They're to be worn on duty and on missions at all times. That and the scarf." He tugged at the orange scarf hanging around his shoulders. Normally he shoved it in his pocket, but he thought he'd be a little more professional today.

"A big threat we fight against the Horsemen. You know the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Sort of like that, but they're a clan of creatures that branched from Halloween, a world where boogeymen and ghosts are for real."  

[Eight]

"Nice to meetcha, Otto." Heidi gave him a little salute in greeting, finally approaching the boy to stand near him. Motor skills, check. She chuckled and rolled her eyes at the sorting bit, stopping only when told she'd get a weapon. "Whaaaaat..I guess..I've got some experience with my dad's hunting stuff and...a fishing pole...but other than that I've never..is it okay to give a kid a weapon?" She blinked. This sounded like a bad idea. Was she going to be given a gun? How did a gun fight off shadows? Weird.

The 'you're a hunter' bit also did not go unnoticed. "Thanks, Otgrid." She sees what you did there. "A scarf? Neat. I like scarves..horsemen?" Well, yeah. Who didn't know the horsemen of the apocalypse? Clan creatures...Halloween? What.

What.

Heidi looked kind of..stunned. "O..kkkaaaaay...so we're like super heroes?" The coats were like capes, they had weapons, they fought bad guys.  

[Bittiface]

"Uh.. sure. It's okay." Give a kid a gun, why not.

"Super heroes is the easier way of thinking about it. Don't worry about knowing how to use a weapon. You''ll get trained. You'll learn." Trainee. "Anyway, it'll all start makin' more sense the longer yer here. One mission and you'll get it down."

He breathed a long, slow breath again, clearly trying his best to make somethign simple out of something very complicated and getting tired from it. "Advice I'd give yeah straight up? Don't piss off Caelius, the dark haired Division Lead with the attitude problem. He's the leader of the Death Division, but he oversees just about all missions." Like Otto had a right to tell someone they had an attitude problem. "Missions are dangerous. Life and Death situations are as common as a cold. Your bonded weapon will naturally shield yur body from a lot of s**t, but don't do nuthin' stupid. You could put yourself and others at risk."

Another breath. Make this end.

"You get your own dorm room. It's small, and you gotta use a communal bathroom and shower. When you get promoted to Full hunter you get somethin' a little nicer witha private bathroom... but I wouldn't worry bout that yet. It's a long way off. There's a trainin' field to practice with your weapon, and lots of people willin' to spar........uhm.. word of advice.. keep clear of sparrin' with a Red Headed Scottsman named Rep. At least till yer stronger."

Otto shoved his phone in his pocket and ran his now free hand under his beanie to scratch his head. "That's it for now. I can take ya to the Cove for your weapon first, and then we'll get ya to the powers that be who'll decide what Division you're suited for."  

[Eight]

Heidi was taking mental notes, even though she looked like she was spacing out. Caelius, Death Division leader. Okay. Life and..death...o-okay. Her weapon was a shield? She saw no shield on Otto. That made no sense. Things would make sense later. Right. Promotions...like the army? Weird. She blinked and seemed to focus back into reality at the mention of someone named Rep, tilting her head to one side like a bird. "Rep? Weird name. 'Kay, I won't spar 'im."

Now to the cove..okay! She smiled, nodding her head and bouncing on her toes with excitement. She couldn't wait to figure out more about this place! "Okay! Lead the way, Otgrid. Do I get a pet, too? I want an owl. A white one."

Yes. Heidi had long embraced her namesake; it was better than fighting it.  

[Bittiface]

Damnit. The name stuck.

"No. No pets. They'd probably explode." He said this with no ounce of emotion, no hint of joking. Poker faced and disgruntled 24/7. "There's minipets though... but they're kind of Fear based. Oh s**t right.. didn't talk about Fear and Insanity... uuuggggh. Maybe I can shove you at a Life techie to 'splain all that crap..."

"Basicly, Fear is what the creatures of Halloween are made of, so are the Horsemen to some degree. Its like.. their energy source. Insanity is a whole other can of beans pandemic." He huffed and led the way out of the pod room.

"Just... lets get that damn weapon of yours." Otto hated talking, after all.  

[Inle-roo]

There was a brief respite of drowsy confusion between deep sleep and alertness when Evan awoke, a few seconds while he wondered how much he'd had to drink the night before and where he'd wound up. Then reality asserted itself, and Evan realized he was in a metal box in a bright room with no real recollection of how he got there.

no no no no nonono

Panic hit him with the sudden force of a speeding car, and although the metal cover was already disengaging itself with a gentle hiss, it wasn't moving fast enough. Evan beat at the lid with limbs made weak from his long rest, inexplicably angry and terrified and unable to control it. As the pod finally opened fully, he tumbled out, managing to stay upright for an entire handful of seconds before his legs gave out and he collapsed.

It was entirely too much to deal with at once: too long asleep, too disoriented now that he was awake, inches away from a full-blown episode. He scrambled away from the pod he had slept in for God only knew how long, panting and nearly choking on the stagnant, artificial air. He needed out.  

[chiickadee]

Ami was waiting dutifully outside the pod, clipboard in hand and hands clasped tightly together. Her heels were pressed into the ground, and she took her stance very seriously.

So when the man started banging on the pod and stumbling out, she rolled her eyes. They couldn't just give her the easy one today, could they.

She gently knelt down a little, making herself appear a bit small than she was. "Are you okay? I promise I can explain everything. You're safe here." The ones that banged on the pod were usually frightened, you had to do things to calm them down. Either that, or they were crazy. If that was the case, Ami wouldn't hesitate to summon her weapon to calm them down a little.  

[Inle-roo]

Another presence made itself known and Evan jerked away from it, scrambling backwards as he turned wide eyes on--a girl. A slip of a thing, really, maybe half his size soaking wet, making herself a smaller target while trying to calm him down. The small part of him that wasn't preoccupied with freaking out noted how ridiculous the situation was. His old drill instructor would have had a field day with this. Are you a man, or are you a Marine? Those words, mockingly barked, had stuck with him, had pushed him through worse situations than waking up in a strange place with a little girl.

It was probably because the choice was always easy. Evan made a concerted effort to get his breathing back under control, though his mind was still running wild. He tried to talk and coughed instead, his throat dry from the extended nap. "Where am I?" He finally managed, his voice hoarse with disuse.  

[chiickadee]

Ami kept a straight face, her voice calm, practically monotonous. "You're at Deus Ex Academy, or Deus Ex shorthand." Explanations were easy to give, easy to ease into. "My name is Ami, yours is Evan."

She offered a slow, easy hand forward. "Do you need help up?"  

[Inle-roo]

The instinct at this point was to lash out at anything that came near him, Ami's hand included. Evan clenched his hands into fists instead, trying to get himself under control. It was shameful, the urge to want to do any kind of harm to this little girl who was only giving him a literal helping hand. He looked at it for a moment before shaking his head mutely, slowly convincing himself to relax until he could move to push himself upright. He wobbled, but reached out to steady himself on the wall.

Evan cleared his throat, trying to decide which questions were the most important to ask. "What is this place?" He finally decided, looking down at Ami as if she had all the answers. "And how did you know my name?"  

[chiickadee]

Ami couldn't tell what was wrong with Evan exactly, but she could tell that her actions were frightening him. She retracted her hand and instead kept it wrapped around her clipboard, keeping herself in a tight ball.

"This is a training facility. We equip viable candidates such as yourself to eliminate paranormal phenomenons- ah ... shadows and monsters and what have you- from the human world." She gestured slowly to the pod and said, "That place you were before, the island. It was a test of sorts. You've passed, and now you're here. So congratulations are in order."