Letting go of her Ghoulfriends hand as they reached the boxes of testing equipment Mandy quickly scooped up one of the Fear Meters, wishing Alwine a silent good luck, before weaving off to try and find a spot with plenty of space amongst the gaggle of students. This was the problem with her Fear, she needed a good bit of room to pull it off, though glancing around she noticed she wasn’t the only one struggling with the limited space. Maybe she should have gone with the written test? Then again theory has never been her strong point.... but every section needed all the help it could get.

Shrugging it off as too late to think about now she placed the meter down in the middle of her space, backing up from it a good metre or two. Taking off her jacket and boots to give herself more mobility and reduce her weight she stood there staring at the meter. She could admit she was more than a bit scared about doing this. She knew her Fear; she knew that it was notoriously finicky thing, failing more often than working. Being a Headlighter wasn’t an easy class. But she couldn’t fail at this, failure meant a lot more than taking a few wounds before continuing the fight. Meant more than dying. Failure meant not having a home. Having to run and run and never look back. She didn’t want to lose her friends, Alwine may come with her but... everyone else would have their own back up plans.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself as she tensed her muscles in preparation for the run and pounce. Emotion. What she needed in this was emotion, emotion pushed at your Fear, made it sharper, better – stronger. Emotion was the fuel in your fight if used right. A disinterested fighter could still pull off a Fear attack but one with all their rage behind it would be devastating. West was proof of that. All she needed was the right one.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she focused inward. Stopping. The core of Headlights was stopping your opponent. Not lashing back, not healing after the fact, not even deflecting away he damage. No, Headlights was full on stopping your opponent before they could strike, before they could even contemplate harm. The offensive defense.

Mandy’s face set in a grim frown. She certainly wanted to stop this, stop them from closing her school, her home because of their fear of the truth. She wanted to stop having to be reactive against them and instead be proactive. They wanted to hurt them because they’d seen and bled and fought and protected; protected against something that they wanted to pretend didn’t exist. They would hurt every single student here to get their way. Well. Not. On. Her. Jacking. Watch.

Too many people called Amity home, too many needed its protection. They may occasionally hurt and die and despair, well okay more than occasionally, but in the end this was their safe haven And no Jacking cowardly boogeymen where going to take it away from them.

Mandy felt her determination well up, pulling it around herself like a cloak. Her eyes snapped upon and a toothy grin slashed across her face before with a yell she ran forward, knees flexing as she pushed off the ground into her characteristic pouncing jump. And in that cloak of determination she felt her Fear well up, an almost visible crackle around her form.

Her jump’s arc reached its apex. Mandy descended in a rush of Fear and wind. A second elapsed. And with a great WHUMP the full force of her momentum and Fear crashed upon the meter.

She skidded after landing for a few moments before lying back, panting. That had taken more out of her than she expected. A sloppy grin then spread across her face. She knew one thing for sure, it had worked. She hadn’t failed.

With a groan she pulled herself up and walked back over to the meter, picking up her jacket and boots along the way. Now to see how well she’d done other than ‘pass’. Picking it she looked at the dial, pleased. Just over half full. For something that also had to test third years, that was damn good.

Sauntering over Mandy joined the mass of students handing in their results, handing in their defiance to the boogeymen and their last defense. She felt a bit of vindictive glee as she looked at the boogeymen’s faces, take that. She had no doubt with everyone trying they would pass. If they could beat hunters they could beat some test.

Relived of her Fear Meter she gave the boogeymen a mocking salute before heading off to find her ghoulfriend again and see how she did.


EXAM: Defensive
FEAR: Headlights (Stunning Drop)
SCORE: 7