Welcome to Gaia! ::

Arias had taken the time after his run to help himself to a bit of a break; he had almost downed his drink since he'd finished. He smiled when Kinley approached. "Thank you," he said, though still seemed a bit sheepish. "I ran for a few years in high school, but with all the cupcakes I've been eating…wasn't sure I still had anything in me. But—" he took another swig of his drink so that he finished it off and then shifted positions.

"No, I'm not a senshi. I was walking home with my sister when a youma attacked. The cat awakened her, but I was sort of on my own. I mean, sort of." He seemed to have a bit of a difficult time explaining exactly what had happened; he could have described it in as much detail as he remembered, but he hadn't quite understood everything that had happened. He hadn't seemed to take any offense to her question, and in fact seemed a bit more relaxed to talk about it. He had been sitting on thoughts for a while, but being around people he could trust…it was just felt like such a relief.

"When things were getting messy, some gloves just showed up. I don't know what I was thinking, I grabbed them. So, I guess that's when it happened for me. But they don't call me a senshi, I'm a Knight. Or, at least, supposed to be. Still working on that. Page, for the time being." He rubbed the back of his neck as he confessed, "I'm not surprised if you thought I was a senshi. I've been looking for some other knights but...they're a little hard to find. I'm sort of just scraping together what information I can find but--what about you, how did everything go down for you? When you first...awakened?"

[Estelle]

<3

It wasn't that Finn had an aural radar for anything involving knights - except he sort of did, and hearing someone only a few yards away explaining that he was a page finding other knights hard to find definitely make his ears p***k up. "Hey," he said to Delilah, "Want to go make a new friend?"

They were still waiting for everyone to reconvene after the run, so Finn figured he had time to go chat up the page-apparent. "Hiya," he said, approaching the man and his partner. "I hate to seem like a creepy eavesdropper, but I heard you mention you were trying to meet other knights? So..." There was probably a better way to start this conversation, but he didn't know what it was.

Cutting to the chase, Finn stuck out his hand. "Finn Derouen. Alias Babylon Knight of Mercury. This is, uh," he looked around for his partner, to see if she'd followed, and then, wherever it was she'd wound up, said, "Delilah. What's up? Having a good time?"

"Yep," said Finn, popping the p and shrugging a little bit sheepishly. Sure, he was proud of his rank - but he wasn't exactly used to people making a big deal out of it! Maybe he just needed better friends, who would be more encouraging, and not... Well, he was pretty sure that he just made bad impressions. So, better not blow it!

"Just about three years on the dot," he said, like he'd just told Delilah. "But it only took me about a year to work up to knight? Seriously, it's not-"

He stopped, because it wasn't not hard, which was what he'd been about to say. Finn had worked for his knighthood more than he'd worked for anything else in his life, and that included the bachelor's degree he'd almost finished.

"It's hard work," he clarified. "But you'll get there. Once this is over, come find me, we can talk shop, yeah?" To Kinley, he flashed a smile, "Hiya," said Finn.

Luca smiled brightly when Orah mentioned that she recognized her. "Yeah! That'd be great, wouldn't it? We should totally hang out together sometime." When the time came for the run, Luca simply nodded that she was ready and assumed her position, ready to charge.

And hooooooly hell, did she rock that mile! She manged to come in at a bit over nine minutes- not quite the Warhawk standard that Kaatje had mentioned, but definitely well below the 14:28 graduation standard. DANG was she proud of herself when that was done with, especially considering her mediocre job at the situps. Sure, now that she was done, she was kind of out of breath and wanted to lay down for juuuuust a moment, but while it was happening, it felt great. Barely missing a beat, she replied to Orah after she spoke, "Yeah, that was a workout! Do you feel refreshed? I find a good workout always helps to clear my head."

"Oh, running..." She muttered to herself softly. How often during her senshi career had she run from an altercation? From a youma, from an officer, from an ally? She lost track by now, but as she looked toward their course, she realized that this portion of training would possibly be the easiest for her. No reason to suspect otherwise, right? But... Was she a slow runner or a fast one? What qualified as fast? What if she chose fast, but was slow? Or what if she chose slow, but was fast? "Come on, Sirsce, not this again..."

With a sigh, she tried to clear her mind of the cluttered thoughts and self-doubts. She reassured herself that Maia would've asked the same of her, and finally she decided to claim one of the middle lanes. There, I don't think too fast or too slow matters so much here.

At the mark, she took off running at a sprint, and soon afterward reminded herself to slow down to a more manageable pace. She'd done miles before as a student in Meadowview, and between the teacher's instruction and her own experience, realized it was important to pace herself for the long haul. Finally she settled into a run more easily maintained by her breathing, and found that she made good time compared to some of the others that lumbered through the track. Maybe they're just having off days, or they could be injured. I heard about a huge warehouse battle not too long ago. It could have something to do with that.

Before she knew it, Sirsce crossed the finish line in good time. She was surprised; despite her adventures as a senshi, she still hadn't expected to run a proper mile. Afterward she couldn't help but flash Lily a warm smile and attempt to snag a hug from her teammate.

It felt good to succeed for once.



A mile sounded easy enough. Between all her walking about and her senshi duties, she knew she maintained good stamina for such affairs. Angel recognized she wasn't the fastest runner, so she opted for one of the laps along the outside of the track, but she knew she'd ace this mile well enough.

After the mark, she took off at a good clip, highly conscious to her breathing pace and energy reserves. She trotted along nicely, perhaps not as nicely as some present, but she still found it easy enough to maintain her current speed.

Until the dizziness hit her.

"Shite, not now," she mumbled with a groan, recognizing in an instant that her body felt dehydrated. Now she had two choices - finish the run at a slow jog to avoid pushing herself beyond her limits, or opt out of the run entirely and get hydrated. Rather than abandon the mile entirely, she simply slowed herself further and remained mindful of her condition. Disappointing as it was, she wouldn't consider it a reflection of how well she'd manage it normally.

Finally she crossed the finish for the last lap, and hardly bat an eyelash at her score. Slow and lengthy, but at least she never passed out. Afterward, she approached the tables once more to chug some gatorade.

Hopefully Colin would manage a little better.

There were a few people here, Kaat decided, who would definitely not have cleared boot camp. She was not going to name names, though, since in the end the fact that they henshined up or made an effort at all probably put them in the top 1% of the population of Destiny City. So… you know. Wasn't like 99.8% of people could even qualify for joining the armed services.

She didn't think she had to announce the water break this time; everyone seemed to have the idea. So she did her cooldown stretches and drank her own bottle of water, kept an eye out for anyone looking woozy--but everyone, even Drunky, did okay. What was this warm and fuzzy feeling in her chest? Oh god. It couldn't be pride. (It was pride.)

"Alright, last activity of the day and then I promise you can go home," she announced, "Thanks for sticking it out." She slapped a hand against the erected walls. At a high angle, barely tilted back enough to climb, they were eight-foot monstrosities made of wood slats, with minimal toe holds. Piled up to the side was a motley assortment of items, including but not limited to buckets, loose timber, and a single milk crate. "You're going to climb this wall. You can use this crap over here, but I'm pretty sure even if you do manage to stack multiple buckets and not break yourself, you're gonna need a hand from your teammates."

Because like heck were they going to make it up there just in pairs. "I'm here to help if anyone needs advice," she said.

Not yet posted for Round 2:


Not yet posted for Round 3:


Not yet posted for Round 4:


For this round, please roll one ten-sided die!
Evens: Your character makes it over the wall in two tries or less.
Odds: Your character makes it over the wall in three tries or more.

The wrap post will go up on April 30th. Until then, party down!

After a bit of a rough start, Tallulah made it up the wall with ease on her second try. Her strategy involved the careful stacking of milk crates, holding on for dear life, and a whole lot of huffing and puffing and pulling herself up by her noodly little arms.

But, like, hey, here she was, surveying the whole soccer field from her nifty little perch at the top of the wall, all eight feet high. "Jeanne!" she called to her teammate. She leaned down, reaching a hand out to the other girl. "Use the milk crates! Can I give you a hand?"



"We'll touch base later," Finn assured Arias, once Kaatje called for the final exercise of the day. He approached the wall, and he thought to himself - this couldn't possibly be that hard. He went rock climbing all the time, so, like, piece of cake, right?

Wrong. Trying to boulder the dang thing resulted in falling flat on his a** not once, not twice, but three whole times. At which point he wised up - everyone else, pretty much, seemed to be using the props provided to get up over the wall, and it was time for Finn to get with the program.

"I'm sorry!" he called apologetically to Delilah, knowing he was hurting their score with his continued failures. "I didn't expect to be so bad at this." After all, he'd been decidedly average at everything else!

Anyway, on his fourth try, he stacked up some buckets and finally made it up and over the dang wall.

Orah laughed softly as she shook her head.

"I don't know.. I've never been a runner or anything. I'm not really refreshed, just tired out." She chuckled. "Um.. I would really like to hang out sometime though! That sounds like a lot of fun. First, we need to... get over that wall there."

Orah had heard the last test announced, but she felt about as confident of this one as she had any of the others. Letting Luca follow as she pleased, the young woman went to study the wall, giving an experimental jump to see if she could reach the top of the eight foot span... but her fingers can embarrassingly short and she blushed as she stepped back, brushing her hands off on her hips.

"This is going to take a bit." She murmured as she looked about. "Um.. I could probably boost you over it if you want, Luca. You might be able to reach the top with my help, if you think you can pull yourself up and over." Orah said as she turned to find her partner, offering her a shy smile.