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Sure enough, there she was, coming up fast just after he quickened his pace. She overtook him, flashing what seemed to him like a thoroughly mocking grin and... what was that? Well... he knew what it was, but he couldn't recall having heard anything like that coming out of her in... ever. Laughter. It was laughter. Her faint, wind-dampened chuckles seemed to loosen something in West's head, and his legs moved forward on their own as his mind raced. He remembered... he didn't remember much, actually. It was kind of frustrating. He wanted to catch up with her now, not for the sake of his dignity, but to hear that sound again. He shook his head. Wait. No. He wanted to win.

By the time he came he came back to himself completely, she had pulled well ahead. Jackdammit. He rid himself of Steve's threat easily enough, growling at the creature as he passed, and made a goal of the twining coil of her tail, completely missing the fact that there was a bomb.


At least he hadn't looked at the explosion.

West stumbled off to the left in a wide arc, nearly missing another friendly flying bomb. To his amazement, he kept upright, navigating the crumbling posts with no more than a little hesitation. Next up... swimming. The boil muttered a curse and ran on.

"---"

*rp bit comin before deadline

She was already drenched from one of the previous stages, clothing taped to her like a wetsuit, so Levi had no troubles thinking to diving right in when the water drew near. Briefly looking over her shoulder before readily hopping in, the tatzel marked West's distance from her. Under normal circumstances, the rough wrestling ghoul wouldn't have done so, but it was almost like she was tempted to wait for him this time. Had it been because of their brief separation while she'd gone home? There was no more time to reason; Levi's competitive urge told her to just jump, and jump she did.

Into the depths, the tatzel's long tail snaked through the waters side to side not unlike that of an eel, providing adequate propulsion while her legs and arms took to swimming. This wasn't, however, an ordinary bog or pool, it seemed. While she moved along easily enough, it became evident that they were not alone in these waters when a sizable elusive floresce brushed against her thigh on its way towards the surface. Kicking defensively awe from the thing that had touched her, Levi's eyes keyed in on what had just moved up above and couldn't help but be pulled in by the temptation.

It was one heck of a fish.

Wriggling her tail in front of the beastly fish like bait on a line, Levi taunted the critter till it came back towards her. Once it was within reachable distance, the furry white tail snapped at one of it's fins, pulling it in towards her so she could give it a few good jabs and kicks wherever possible. Had there been a chance for threats under the water, Levi surely would have spoke on the subject of meals and making this floresce a part of one once she was finished with it. She would wrestle and catch her meal herself and make something tasty out of it to celebrate her victory over West in this race- Oh Jack! The race! If there was anything more distracting than West or the promise of a challenge, it was what now was unconscious in the ghoul's grasped tail. At least her lapse in focus came with some reward... but onward! Floresce trailing behind Levi in the coils of her tail's end, the ghoul shifted her gaze across the water to try and spot that pinkish hue to catch up. Once she'd found that spade-tailed boil, Levi swam to overtake him again.
A wrath demon may have gotten a fin-slap in midst of bubbles and a tatzelwurm brushing along side him.

Next up was ice; not the best follow-up course after a long swim in the water. Levi had half a mind to remove her pin, but the buzz of the helicopters alerted her to the potential downsides of that choice. It was best to press on as she was and just carry on speedily floresce still trailing behind. Aside from the chilling cold that wrapped right down to the vertebrae of her tail, Levi stuck to sliding through the icy terrain as best as she could without falling victim to any pitfalls or mounds of ice. She may have lost a few fishy scales in the process, but that was the least of her worries. West couldn't be too far behind, and the next part was- oil?

It figured that the first event in this competition would be a race. The young reaper had succeeded in avoiding his dorm's booth for the length of the festival so far, but he couldn't think of a good enough reason to miss the actual activities he had signed up for. Well, he could have, but knowing that his mother was watching back home made it impossible for Brenley to stay away. If he did, she would be disappointed. He could think of only a handful of things he wanted less than that.

Sure that there was a camera around here somewhere, the boil waved sheepishly at the helicopter, lightly running his fingers over the top of his head soon after to mask that he had done so. He felt a little naked without his normal excess of pouches and baubles, but he hadn't felt right wearing them with this Amity-issued attire either. He just had to get through this obstacle course and then he could get back to his books.

"Okay. Let's see..."

Brenley swallowed as he took his first real look at the track ahead. He couldn't see much past the slimy climbing wall, but the towering pillar of fire was enough to make him consider turning back once more.

Fortunately, he had no time to think about it for more than a moment. Brenley yelped in surprise as the starting pistol was fired, his legs carrying him forward before his body could balance properly. He tripped and fell, the entirety of his torso hanging over the edge of the opening chasm as the wraps around his legs began to smolder in the wall of flame. He squeezed his eyes shut and scrambled away from the edge, suddenly thankful that he had no accessories to speak of. The helicopter whirred overhead once more, and Brenley rose quickly to his feet in response. He recalled the towering creatures from the fog as he tried to psych himself up. He'd defeated some of them by himself, hadn't he? Of course, he'd had a gun then and had been athletic in a way he could never even touch in Halloween and...

An angry shout burst from his throat, its volume partially muffled by his lips, which it seemed he had forgotten to part. Brenley ran, vaulting, swimming, and sliding through the course to the best of his ability. When he reached the finish line, the boil dropped to his knees in the mud, the wraps that hid his tattoos waterlogged and gathered around his ankles. He would have to rewrap them soon, but right now, all he wanted was a nap.

He had just finished admiring the giant flaming wall of flaming science at the end of the first turn when the obstacle course took a vertical approach - literally. Thankfully the propulsion from the rocket boots gave him enough a boost, as well as a bonus curiousity of what was lying on the other side of the wall what could it be that he scaled the obstacle relatively fast, passing through what looked like a series of decorative Mashers minipet peelers before arriving at the three large red balls suspended over some sort of clear liquid.

He paused at them.

What could they be. Why it could be anything. They could even be three red balls! The power of observation would cut through the veil of uncertainty!

Zero had never been afraid of a little swimming, seeing that as a ghost student he wasn't exactly capable of asphyxiation or something, which was an odd phenomenon of its own, come to think about it. Swimming was sort of like walking, only it wasn't, clearly. He grabbed onto an overenthusiastic minipet - what looked like the cross between a jellyfish and that professor that hung around in the school office and preached about loving humans - and as it propelled him forward eagerly and excitedly, he wondered if it would notice if he snipped off some of its limbs for science.

The start of the course was rather mercifully, a hill. Zar was fine with hills, hooves were good for speed and even the twists and turns were navigable easily. The momentum quickly carried him over the hill. Leaping across the fire he was glad that he no longer had his paper wings, and was even more glad he had actual membranous wings as he leapt across the chasm, the rest of the students around him, in front of him and right at his heels.

The climbing wall was steep and difficult, but he managed it with a lot of patience, ending up covered in green slime which made traversing the hurdles a lot more difficult than it probably should have been, almost faceplanting several times as he leapt them, tail outstretched. Somehow he traversed the balls, though doing so meant surrendering quite a large portion of his dignity along the way.

The pit beyond was in all actuality not a pit but something far more awful. Zar found out far too late. Slowed by the viscous slime, he was snapped up mid jump and spat out where he lay for a time, covered in an awful combination of slime and saliva. It was not really going as well as he'd hoped. He only had to hope that he wasn't flammable as he dodged right and left away from pursuing bombs, wincing as some of his peers took direct strikes.

When he found himself at the water, he was far more delighted, taking some time out to simply scrub himself respectable before leaping into the dangerous depths, his strong tail propelling him rapidly through the water. Coupled with wings without too much crippling membrane much closer to fins and strong fit hooves, he made very light work of the crossing, evading all the mines he encountered and kicking one shark like minipet very hard in the nose.

The closing distance of the course however was far far less fortunate. Hooves provided zero traction on ice and even less traction on oil as he careened head first over the finish line and face first into the mud.

He was really starting to hate exercise, and he'd only just gotten back into it.

Merope crossed his arms as he stood behind the starting line. It wasn't that he was feeling particularly antisocial, or that he was leery of falling off. Or that his knees were shaking. Was this seriously what it was like to fly?

A loud shot rang out, signaling the start of the race. The undead boil moved forward --



Merope jumped to avoid the leg of another student, landing on the sleep slope. He began to slide downward, fins spread and tail waving to balance himself as he leaned forward to pick up speed. Merope slid down the hill quickly, his tail "accidentally" slapping into the other contestants as he breezed through the first part of the course. The wall of fire didn't phaze him as he braked, sending up a small plume of displaced mud as he avoided the sudden fall.

At the next course, Merope's fins drooped as he stared at the slime. They drooped even further when a student higher up dislodged even more slime down on top of him.

His green eyes glowed like sullen embers as he clawed his way up the wall, fuming and making note of the student in question. He would get him, oh yes. He would get his proper dues soon enough...



In the meantime, Merope slimed and slid his way through the rest of the course without too much of an issue.

The next course, on the other hand, at least looked better than the last one. Merope rubbed the dripping green slime out of his exposed eye, pausing before he threw it against the ground. He stared at it, grinning as he threw it towards Steve. With Steve preoccupied, Merope was able to leap over him and use the green slime to slide under the Bombs before hopping from pillar to pillar.



All in all, that part wasn't so ba-WATER! Merope practically shoved and trampled anyone between him and the sparkling body of water before him. He dove into the water and flexed his fins, swimming effortlessly through the course.



The water section ended all too soon. Merope climbed out of the water and flicked his fins, shaking the clinging droplets of water off of it. The undead frowned as he spied the course ahead. Ice? Really? Really? He flapped his fins to try and dry off faster as he approached the next section, wary.



Merope ran forward and jumped, landing to slide first across the ice, then across the oil, then he stumbled and landed face-first in the mud. Sputtering, he half-waded, half-swam his way through the mud and across the finish line.

Once he crossed it, Merope immediately headed off in the direction of the nearest shower.