Welcome to Gaia! ::

Eva perked up as two newcomers joined them in the room. When one of the girls--Reine--settled in beside her, Eva offered her a friendly nod in greeting. "Hi, uh..." Perhaps she had just missed it--after all, she had been a little overwhelmed with taking everything in--but she realized a little belatedly that she didn't know this girl's name (granted that she didn't remember the names of at least half of the people in this room).

Well, it didn't hurt to introduce herself again, just in case.

"I'm Eva," A pause, "Though please, just Evie is fine. And you are...?"

The door to the room crashed opened a loud bang and a hooded figure entered, followed by a woman dressed as they had been during their nightmare Testing, mask included. "Right then! You, you, you..." the voice was male, possibly familiar, and he proceeded to point out a large number of male trainees in the room, "...aaaand, you." He turned to the woman, "Clarice, my delight, since Cael is still slightly indisposed, please make sure that he gets the bulk of the sausage fest. To make up for his infirmity of course. I'm sure it'll do him some good to see a bunch of strapping young men strutting about his offices."

The woman sighed and nodded.

"Right, then. Good girl." It was then that he took out the gun and shot her in the head. A nice spattering of grey matter hit the wall and her body collapsed to the floor. "You may call me Dr. H. Most of your questions only have one of two answers. The first being magic. The second is deal with it."

Whatever Deryk had been saying or thinking at the time, he stopped as the door burst open with two people entering. He froze for the moment as he saw the gas mask figure, not quite certain what was going to happen. Oh, maybe they'll finally get some ans-

BANG

Seeing the guy shoot his assistant right in the head had him jump out of his seat with a shout. Oh God, was he going to kill them all?! What sort of doctor shot people in the head?

He was about to start blabbing his mouth off as usual, but he bit his lip for now to keep it shut. So instead, he just stared at H with wide eyes while standing relatively still.

"Oh yeah?" Minerva questioned, lifting a suspicious brow in response to Wilson's remark. Was he only making stuff up to ease her embarrassment? To the women, it certainly felt that way. He really didn't have to...But, if only to drain her face of the heat and color, Minnie played along. "Must be tricky to keep from falling! Good to know, though." She smiled, nodded, and then propped her arm up onto her desk to lean into.

Personally, Minerva enjoyed reunions. Granted she agreed completely with Wilson's addition to the topic, but then again she hadn't been a part of one that WASN'T enjoyable in some way. And as for family, well...they had all made their decisions, apparently.

"Ryan's right." Reaching a free hand out to press against the edge of Wilson's desk. She looked to both of the boys quickly before continuing. "They don't know what we know, and they definitely can't see what we see." Minerva paused to shudder, retracting her hand to cup her right cheek. "...with great power comes great responsibility--that's how the phrase goes, right?"

SLAM.

Another stranger entered, another voice filled the room; one that she couldn't quite pin point in the state of alarm she was in. It was clear that this one held some high authority at the facility, but as for what sort...Minnie had no clue. She looked over to Bix briefly, blinking several times before shaking her head...So this was what he meant about an overload or a lack of information.

The conversation between hooded figure and gas-mask wearing woman--Clarice as she was addressed--was dealt with speedily. One minute he was singling out individuals, the next...oh god.

Minnie sucked in a sharp breath when the woman was shot, eyes gradually getting wider. Killing another being was not a new experience for them; they had seen it all before. Neither was watching another die, no matter what kind of death it was...but the shooting happened so quickly and without warning. She couldn't help but stare, a mixture of horror and intrigue furrowing her brows. "What the hell!?"

...had he just...REALLY?! Magic?! Holy s**t.

Tedan frowned slightly at the answer he got, not entirely sure he'd named the right team anymore. "Uh, it was the guys in orange I think ..." he started to say, but was interrupted when someone else came into the room.

And behind him came someone wearing the all-too-familiar suit and gas mask. Oh great what now ... please please don't ******** tell him they had to do more trials or something.

Then the man shot her.

Just. Shot her, right in the head, in front of them all. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!" Tedan half-screamed, jumping up from his desk. Fists clenched at his sides, he was fully prepared to rush the man and punch him in the face or something ... and yet. He couldn't quite bring himself to do it. This wasn't a simulation ... if ... if he got shot, he would really die. Probably. God.

"Is she gonna magically come back to life then, a*****e?" he growled instead, holding his place beside the desk for the moment. He could still get himself shot like this but maybe talking was slightly safer than physical action. Maybe.

Sherry sat back to think as the last few people had wandered into the room. There were quite a few of them, altogether. Before she could really think about much else, two others burst through the door. They were clearly not people who had just woke up. One was even wearing a mask..just like...

BANG

Sherry jumped, an automatic response. She couldn't say if it was the suddenness of it, the noise, or the brain matter that caused her surprise. Not it mattered, in the end. Sherry swallowed a bit of revulsion. The sight before her wasn't nearly as bad as that room had been.

As the questions began to race through her mind, the one who did the shooting spoke again. Was what he said supposed to answer their questions? Sherry looked at the body on the floor. Magic? Well, Sherry supposed she shouldn't be sitting in this room-not after knowing death so well. But she was. Magic seemed reasonable. Deal with it? Ok, she thought looking at the body again, I can do that. So she sat there and waited.

"Oh yes...please do keep those expressions and show them to me as often as possible." He gave the body at his feet a kick, causing an odd mud mixture to begin oozing out. "No, no, my lovely assistant won't be brought back to life, as she never truly died in the first place. She's likely getting up just about now and..." His cellphone rang, and he placed it on speaker.

"Sir, I'm confiscating the contents of your lower right hand drawer."

The doctor placed a gloved hand to his chest, "My dear, I am hurt that you would think I'd begrudge you anything you desire, especially after such a brave showing today."

"Great. And to clarify, I was referring to the locked box in the drawer's false bottom. Kay? Bye."

The doctor stared at his phone for a moment before shaking his head, "She never ceases to break my poor, generous heart." He closed the phone and pocketed it. The things he had to put up with from his staff. "The lesson here," he continued, "...is that many things are possible that are beyond your distinctly finite comprehension. Your little adventures during the Tests don't even compare to what comes after. What you've just witnessed, and experienced for yourself, was the death of a golem. It dies so you don't have to. You may pay homage to my resplendent genius and ingenuity by becoming beings of actual use to this facility."

He began stalking around the room, "Sadly," he stopped at Minerva's seat and put his hands on the chair's back and leaned down, "...that's not quite possible for you. Any of you, really, which is a tragedy since there's a few of you who would make truly lovely additions to my labs, but alas...a firm, well-rounded presence is simply not enough to make you actually useful to me."

He moved back to the front of the room, "So, in order to make all of our efforts something other than a total waste of time and resources, we'll be giving you partners of a sort. They will, to a degree, complete you."