Welcome to Gaia! ::

The petite huntress watched the balls of paper being thrown back and forth, it made the room like in a traffic. She had to pause, wait before she moved again. She wasn't as cheerful as she used to be, she didn't even waves to her acquaintances before she took a seat. She observed and peeked at the direction where the Death leader was, wondering if the hunters would get into trouble.

Shu didn't forget last time, Taym got cuffed. Something sparkle caught her eyes and she found the boy she knew, they were neighbours. "Hello Prince." Her voice was weak and lack of cheerfulness, the smile could barely hold by itself as well. "Is this your first meeting?" She smiled some more.

Chel watched the interaction between Gretchen and Lukas and squinted. Then she sent a text.

It took Chel a while to piece through the text, and even then she only got about halfway through the second text, but eventually she grinned and picked up her things, crossing the room to sit next to Gretchen, giving the guy next to her a look.

"So guitar? Where the ******** that come from?" she murmured, not necessarily raising her voice but not forcing it into a whisper either.

Noise: 3

SLAM.

The noise was loud enough to jolt anyone who was texting, tweeting, making eyes at each other, or asking the next person if they brought any food out of their little pantomime circle.

The Death lead looked like he wanted to say something else, scanned the crowd, briefly, and then instead, opened the first folder, which did not have a name on it. "I am reinstating portal access for all Death Hunters with clearance intermediate or above. This is not a given, it is a privilege and if misused, will be taken from the entire division. This division does not advocate incompetence, it does not advocate laziness, if you consider yourself menial, average, or useless, then do yourself a ******** favour and reconsider your division choice."

"There seems to be a sharp incline in the amount of incompetency in this division, so I want to stress something very clearly. You are allowed personal projects, and if the results are substantial, will be shown lenience. You are given an unusual amount of free time outside of the division assistant assigning you the usual amount of paperwork and organization, and you will take advantage of this."

Mark began to sweat, and then look extremely nervous, suggesting that he had forgotten entirely or just neglected to do this job about the paperwork part.

"There are two major points to discuss in this meeting. The first being where you currently stand, the second being where you plan to stand. This is not about what I personally ******** want, because I have yet to see anyone accomplish what I personally ******** want in any reasonable form of expectation. This is not about what the division wants or this godforsaken island. This is about what you can actually accomplish, and I know for many of you it is a step below absolutely ******** nothing."

The good news is that Caelius seemed to have drastically lowered his expectations of everyone and everything ever, the bad news is he did not seem keen to raising them at any point in this current timeline.

"I want all of you to consider exactly where you are at this moment as a Hunter. If you think of yourself as a leader, not a follower, if you think you can give instructions and take them, I want you to stand up."

Gale had heard this sort of speech before, so he was a tiny bit less inclined to be intimidated by it.

Just a tiny bit. Caelius was still relatively terrifying, but Gale stood up slowly anyway, fingers pressed against the tabletop, expression something between resignation and determination.

(There was, sadly, not much difference in height from his sitting position and his standing one.)

To be fair, Bradley was already standing. That was going to go over so well. The only saving grace was that Caelius seemed to have lowered his own expectations to filing mission reports. Well, at least that was something. Brad sighed a little, Yzia chuckling in the back of his mind - a welcome presence he was happy to have back.

He wasn't a leader. Not yet. He was a leader of himself, but not of other people. Considering he, well, got possessed by viruses and tried to murder people in the last attack on Deus. That wasn't a great mark on his record. Not a lot of his stuff was a great mark on his record, to be honest. He could definitely take orders and directions, provided he was in his own mind.

[ Mine, what are you so worried about? ] He flicked his earring for a moment, not wanting to reply. He wasn't worried. He was afraid. Afraid he'd fail. Afraid he couldn't be good enough for the division, for his cousins, for his weapon.

It wasn't something he wanted to focus on, to be honest. Not now, not ever. He numbed himself to it and crouched down to let others take the leadership rolls. He'd get there. Someday. Maybe.

Or he'd become a dragon. Again.

Instead of texting back Gretchen reached over and gave Chel's arm a small smack, then, when she'd gotten her attention, Gave a very pointed look before gesturing for her to stand up.

While Gretchen was not the leader sort, Chel had a sort of natural air about her.

Horace looked up from his notebook at the slam. Ah, was it finally beginning? He listened to Caelius quietly, mentally paring down his speech into the actual important bits. It was all very dramatic and clearly intended to intimidate - it worked, a little bit. Horace had heard the horror stories, some of them. And he could believe them.

-where you currently stand and where you plan to stand.

For a while, it had been enough to survive, to merely exist on the island and strive towards nothing more than personal improvement. But, especially as recent events had revealed, Horace had realized how woefully in the ******** dark he was about a lot of things. How could he make a stand without any information? He had, of course, talked to a few people, but it wasn't enough. For someone who wanted to know everything, he acknowledged that the acquisition of such information might be difficult, but he was also prepared to do whatever to get it. He watched the others who stood, some a surprise, some decidedly not.

Right now, Horace Nokoni was, of course, a nobody. He was learning his strengths and weaknesses - he knew he could lead; Horace enjoyed making snap decisions, processing information quickly and correctly. But, of course, there were areas where her would be better deferring to another. He could be both a leader and a follower, Horace thought. The two were not exclusive of each other. Jannisari only hummed in his mind, offering no comment, and he stood, leaning one hip against the table. His notebook remained in hand, the only notes were that of who stood. It might be useless information, but he didn't have anything better to do at that moment except record.