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 Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:38 pm
The day after the Sahara mission, Madison woke up late - she felt it was entirely justified, really, as was the extra helping of bacon she permitted herself at breakfast. Why couldn't things like that happen when they were in golems, or something? At least then...
... Nope. No, she wasn't going to think about that. Because then she'd have to think about what she'd done during that mission in more detail, and... no. Just no.
There was something else to consider too, after all - the 'hatchling' she'd been assigned to. Madison wasn't anything like a seasoned warrior, but she wasn't so raw and new as the freshly awakened trainees. And she felt a bit of responsibility for the girl. Thus, she found herself searching the doors until she found the name she was looking for.
"Sherry?" she said, quietly, knocking on the door. "Are you in?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 4:36 am
The visitor at the door was a welcome distraction from both her unpacking and her thoughts. The mission from the day before was still far to fresh in the new trainee's mind. Bodies. She shuddered a bit as she rose to answer the door.
"Madison!" Sherry was pleased to see her partner from the day before. Things had been a bit...busy after Sherry had been ushered back through the portal. Between reports, showering, minor wound care and laundry Sherry hadn't had time to track her down.
"Feel free to come in." Sherry gestured to her room. It was still very sparse, having only the bed, a desk and a chair for furniture. A couple of books were resting on the desk, and the small bag of clothes Sherry had been going through was near the foot of the bed. "It's not much, though. I'm still unpacking. How are you doing today?" The 'after yesterday' was heavily implied.
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Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 11:41 am
"Oh, good, you're still here!" Madison said with relief. "I, uh... wouldn't have blamed you if you tried to run for it or something after all that, I mean, that's all," she added, quickly. "Because yeah. That was pretty... pretty bad. Especially for a first mission, right? Though I guess it's a good lesson. Lesson one: the people at the top use us to do all the crap. Like, all of it."
She came in when invited - the room was familiar, pretty much the same as Madison's own. They all were, really. "I wanted to check on you, and stuff. Make sure you were doing okay. And were still here."
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Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 6:48 pm
Sherry laughed the slightest bit, grateful that Madison had wanted to check on her. "Yeah, I'm still here. Not too surprised to hear they make us do the grunt work, but I suppose I signed up for it. More or less." Entry level always got the grunt work in any job. She could handle that. But yesterday...
"It's not always like that, is it? With all those...Bodies?" She almost shuddered at the word. The monster had been a shock, but she'd signed up to fight monsters, so they weren't wholly unexpected. Mangled, bloody corpses, however, reminded her of the room with the walls. Now she knew the bodies inside the room were only golems, but she hadn't at the time. Nothing could be as bad as that room had been.
"I...I mean, I guess it's okay, I just don't like..." Sherry sighed. "During my initial test, there had been a room with moving walls. It had been full of bodies. In the end, it squashed everything," the memory made her wince.
"As long as nothing is as bad as that room, I can handle it. Bring on the shadows, but I prefer the corpses to be few and far between," it felt good to say it all out loud. To tell someone other than Armagnac about it.
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:09 pm
"Oh god, no. No no no no." Madison shook her head sharply. "That was the first time I've ever, um, seen... bodies. I mean, other than like zombies and stuff in Halloween, and that's really really not the same thing..."
Her voice trailed off as Sherry mentioned moving walls, bodies. Squishing.
"... yeah, I... know what you mean." She gave the other trainee a curious look. So Sherry had been in that room too... given that Ennea had been one of the other survivors until the end there, that narrowed down the field of who Sherry could be considerably. Funny, she hadn't really thought about this fresh group of 'hatchlings' being from the test they'd all been through. The test had long since ceased to be that important, really.
"I was in that room too. Alpha Two?" she said, with a wry smile.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:23 am
It was a bit of a relief to hear that bodies weren't on the regular list of duties around here. Still, it hadn't stopped her from gushing about why she hated them. Then she saw the look on Madison's face. For half a moment, Sherry had regretted mentioning the incident. She suddenly felt like she had said too much. Until she realized the other girl had just agreed with her.
Sherry blinked as Madison continued. Alpha Two? Sherry knew an Alpha Two. They had been there when Sherry woke up on that beach, and she'd been there when the walls closed in.
"You are Alpha Two?" it was a silly question, filled with an odd tone of surprise and hope. Of course she was, she'd just said so. To think that her first partner for her first mission would have been another Alpha, an Alpha she'd known...the joy Sherry felt was obvious on her face. "Wow, just...wow. It's really good to see you," her tone was calmer now. Mostly because that was odd thing to say, she'd just seen Madison yesterday.
"I...I was called Alpha Eleven," she said almost shyly. The other trainee had been awake for a long time. It was possible that she hardly remembered Sherry. But Sherry remembered, and in the few days that she had been awake, she'd wondered about her old teammates. Which lead her to her next question. "Are any of the others awake?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:44 pm
"A-11? Seriously?" Madison grinned widely. Genuinely. "Wow. Phoenix does rise. Yeah, there's a bunch of us... Jordan, uh. A-1? Robert and Petra and Jerry and Ennea-" She couldn't quite remember their numbers. It had been a while, and real names had long since overwritten the simple letter-number designations in her mind. "A bunch of us woke up at the same time pretty much. Jerry was a little bit later, um... I dunno? I guess so much has happened since the test that I don't, like, really think about it that much any more. But when I was freshly awake, it was everything."
There was an almost nostalgic expression on her face before she frowned. "Oh, uh. Just so it doesn't surprise you? The gal who had the scythe in that room and, like, killed a bunch of people was, uh. Her name's Candace. But she's mostly okay now. Pretty much."
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Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 7:43 pm
"That's-that's awesome!" Sherry was so happy to find out that many of her companions from the test were awake and well. She was proud of them. They had done well in the test, and were probably all great trainees. "I'll have to track them down and say 'Hi', for sure.
"Yeah," she began in response to Madison's comments about the test fading, "Right now that test is still pretty fresh. I'm sure being around this place will take care of that."
A frown to match Madison's grew on her face. "Candace, huh? Well, if you all get along with her well enough, I am sure I can, too." Sherry didn't really want to hold a grudge, anyway. Besides, she had been two steps from trying to kill everyone, too. Everyone, including Madison. Her frown depended at the thought. It had been a test...but she had hesitated. Maybe that was good. She hadn't killed her friends.
Sherry shook her head to rid herself of the thought. "It's a bit crazy to think that you all have been awake for months, while I've been sleeping. What have you all been doing?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:30 am
"It's, um... with Candace and other people..." Madison hesitated. "We're kinda all stuck here, y'know? It's not like you can get all angry with somebody and never see them again, so, like, it's better all around to deal with it. I guess? We're not like best friends or anything, though," she added, quickly.
At Sherry's last question, Madison looked thoughtful. "Training and stuff, mostly. Going to Halloween, going to our world, some of it's been really intense. Some of it's not. There's all kinds of jobs to do around here, too. I guess do your duties until, like, Caelius or whoever yells at you to do something else?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:29 pm
Sherry nodded as she listened to Madison. It all made sense, close quarters were not good places for fights. Best to just get along with folks.
"At least everyone gets to stay busy? I mean, that has to be a good thing, right?"
She hoped it was.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:51 am
"Mostly busy. Honestly, it's like... there's lots of it just being kinda slow and routine and then suddenly everything's crazy. Maybe that's just a trainee thing, I dunno. The more senior Hunters do more serious stuff, I guess?" Madison shrugged. "It's kinda hard to predict."
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:01 pm
"So you never know what to expect? That's alright, I suppose," Sherry smiled.
"You guys," she meant the older trainees, "seem to have a good handle on things, from what I've seen." Sure, there had only been one mission, and it had been hard to see, but things had worked out. "I hope I can keep up with you all. You know, be strong like you guys." She was glad Madison had decided to talk with her, Sherry didn't feel quite as lost as she had just a bit ago.
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:23 pm
Madison grinned. Her, strong? Well... maybe a little bit. "I guess helping to take down a 30-foot-tall monster does, like, toughen you up," she said, with a touch of pride. Hell yeah, she was pretty awesome. "But I'm sure you'll catch up. It's not like you're missing anything other than a couple months of being awake, right? They woke you up for a reason. 'Cause they thought you could do it. That's why your weapon picked you too, y'know?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:42 pm
"Hm, I suppose," they had given her this chance to prove herself. She was grateful beyond measure, and she hoped she could do it. "Armagnac said something similar when we met.
"Wait- A 30-foot-tall monster?" Her eyes rose to the ceiling as if she were trying to picture it. Sherry remembered the Hell Ponies in her test, but the candidates hadn't really done anything to them. "That's insane!" Her respect for Madison and the other trainees was only growing.
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Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:57 am
"Yeah... well... that was kind of an odd situation, I guess. It's complicated," Madison said, shaking her head. "All the other freaks I've seen are pretty small, walking around like us. Going to high school, having student council elections, even. Like they're pretending to be human." She made a face. "Not sure which is worse, the ones that are really obviously monsters or the ones that think they're people."
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