Welcome to Gaia! ::

"My name in Simon Cutler, and should you find yourself under my authority, you'll quickly understand the value of making the most of your movements and timing. Now, you've just woken up in a pod," he reached down and removed a pair of wire rim glasses from his pocket, cleaning them as he went without a pause in stride or voice. "This is because you were asleep for weeks, months, or possibly years. It make take some time to regain yourself fully, but know that you are here voluntarily, and that being awake now is the reason you came here. It means you will soon become hunters." He put the glasses on and pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

Upon exiting the building, Simon explained, "These are the Life labs and infirmary. We are now proceeding to the main building of Deus Ex Machina. Welcome, by the way." He straightened his tie and he strode toward the building in the distance, fog obscuring much of the scenery. "Being a hunter means you will be capable of more than your average human being. It also means you'll be placed in more danger and exposed to more potentially lethal scenarios than a regular human as well."

A soft glow surrounded his hands and suddenly he was holding two handguns lit with odd runes, "This is my weapon, Fletcher." Holstering one, he began to smoothly disassemble and reassemble the other as he walked, "He was once an Abaddon, a type of demon. However he has been transformed into a pair of handguns for the dual purpose of aiding in our fight to protect our world, as well as taking steps toward a working partnership between mankind and the creatures made of an energy which we call FEAR, you'll find out more on that later." He entered the door, holstered the gun, and pulled it's twin out, repeating the same actions. "You yourself will soon find yourself bonded to a similar weapon, enabling you fight and survive to a much greater extent than you are able to now."

Several people in white and gold coats were in the hallway, but didn't pay the new trainees too much mind and promptly got out of Simon's way, as the man had the kind of momentum that indicated he would rather walk through them than around. "You'll have the option of bonding after this initial orientation, though generally not a great deal of information will be available to you right away for fear of overwhelming you," he said this with no hint of irony whatsoever. "Once you've bonded, more information about Deus, hunters, and our facilities will be made available. You will receive a dorm room and other necessities. You will also be given a coat, marking you as a hunter trainee, and division assignment. There are five main divisions: Sun, Moon, Life, Death, and Mist. Each have their own specialties and purpose here and on the battlefield that you will be trained in."

They had reached a classroom, complete with a whiteboard and impractical, uncomfortable, tiny little desks. A man in a white hooded coat with a scruffy cheshire grin waited at the front, and beside him was a feminine figure in a terribly familiar suit.

"Please take a seat in a quiet and orderly fashion. This is Dr. H, head of the Life division and his assistant, Clarice. I myself am the assistant of the Sun division. For the sake of efficiency, please keep your reactions to anything that follows here brief and non-violent." Simon turned to the doctor with a brisk nod, "They've been briefed, sir. The orientation is now back on schedule."

"I'm quite sure it is," the hooded man drawled in slightly bemused irritation. His assistant snorted softly and Simon just nodded again, taking a seat at the back of the classroom. He quickly spotted a slightly dusty, somewhat bloodstained rubik's cube and began turning and twisting it as his pale green eyes observed the rest of the orientation.

As she scurried behind Simon, listening raptly to each and every word that he spoke, Sasha did her best to retain all of the information he was giving. She'd always been a sponge, soaking up facts and instructions as if she were a living sponge. Sasha had always loved to learn - and Simon seemed to have a lot of information to give the small group.

A lot of information. The weapons, when he saw fit to summon them, held her rapt attention for a mere two seconds before her silvery-blue gaze once more flickered up to his face. Weapons, demons, transformation, bonding, protecting the world.

Overwhelmed? A bit, but each tidbit of knowledge that Simon parted with was one more answer that Sasha had.

When they came upon the classroom, Sasha paused. She'd seen guns before - papa had had a few, and she could vaguely remember seeing people with them at the trials. But this, the classroom... this was something utterly and completely new to the young woman. It was so...

"Amazing," she whispered to herself, sliding in to one of the cramped desks with something akin to reverence. Smoothing her hands over the top of the desk, Sasha's gaze shot to the whiteboard before settling on Dr. H and his assistant. Clasping her hands before her Sasha waited in enthralled silence, just as Simon had ordered them to do.

Emma's breath caught. There was her proof, at least; it had not been a dream, and she had not been the only one. She remembered those suits, those masks. She clapped a hand to her face as if to make sure it was gone. Lord above, this was real...

'Hunter'... that word seemed familiar. Weapons? Monstrous weapons! They were right, this was a lot to take in, but it was incredibly exciting. Emma turned to the new hunter nearest her and grinned as she sat.

She was ready.

Rep's estimation of the Dr grew from the outset as he seemed completely unwilling to take her insubordination, simply ignoring it with a reprimand, that was the way things should function he reckoned. This subtle show of assertiveness won him over to actually paying attention.

Rep fuzzily did remember the advice to keep the helmets on, though he had been too quietly rattled to question it at the time and had simply taken it at face value.

He could never have expected what came next, the explosion making him almost jump out of his chair, pulse racing as fight or flight kicked in with a vengeance. He could only stare for a few moments that felt for forever as his brain adjusted to the way the room had just gone from innards free to liberally coated, his own clothing included thanks to the proximity to it.

Anyone else might have voiced their disdain, their shock, their outrage.

Rep couldn't help it. He laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Now /that/ was how you made a ******** point. It was loud and clear. There were no rules, rules involved punishment for breaking them, the tedium of enforcing them. Instead there was advice, advice that you followed or you died, no one would make you but then again no one would stop you from ******** exploding either. It registered more clearly in Rep's simple somewhat feral mind than any classroom lesson ever had.

It took him all his effort to cease the almost manic laugh the scene had evoked, brushing bits of Clarice off of his shirt. "No s**t." was about all he could say in response, but to anyone familiar with people like Rep, the admiration and awe was apparent, the point was well made.

"I guess you probably go through a lot of exploding women?"

Terror was completely absent in the wake of sheer mad adrenaline as he chuckled again. "Bet there's a queue round the block to be life assistant."

Before had been there this whole time. No, really, he was! He'd even managed to distribute the packages of cookies he brought to the Cove before H began his little demonstration. Teal eyes widened as they watched the Life Division Leader grab for Clarice's helmet. Oh. Oh God he wasn't was going to remove her he- splat.

No, the Misty did not have his mouth open at the time because he knew what was going to happen next. He'd already seen it first hand. His gloved hands (now free of the cookie packages) flew to his mouth as he whimpered softly to himself, "J-just a golem, she's totes alright. Just a golem." Only those beside the Misty standing at the very back (as far from H as he could manage to position himself) would have heard the whimper.

He did, however, hear the laugh of glee from one of the new-faces. Teal eyes darted towards the offending party and saw it was that dude who didn't want his cookies and wanted to be called Rep. Oh s**t, we got ourselves another psycho with no regard for life. Please don't be in Mist. Please don't be in Mist. Before quietly prayed.

Emma closed her eyes briefly as the mention of 'advice' came from Dr. H. Had it been him speaking to them the entire time? It must have been. She knew what would happen from the moment it was mentioned. After all, Gamma 12, her leader for the time, had refused to play his game and removed her own. In fact, Emma herself had exploded in blood and gristle herself, albeit not because she had removed her helmet. She held her notebook up to block the spatter and shook her head.

Now, the real question was would Clarice come back? She'd seemed rather calm, and they'd already all died and been reawakened once. Certainly, the young woman decided. There wouldn't be wanton murder if they were all meant to work together to destroy FEAR.

The laughter from another startled her. There had been others on the Island that had been like that... insane with power and the absurdity of the situation. She hadn't liked them. She didn't like him.

Sasha's mouth pulled down in a slight frown as she heard the gentle ping of the bone chip when it the floor. "It's rather disgusting," she huffed quietly to Molly, disentangling a long, ropy piece of something from her shoulder. It was carefully set aside atop the empty desk next to her.

That being said, Sasha settled back down in her seat and calmly began picking bloody Clarice-bits from her arms and hair. Each tidbit was systematically set aside in a neat little pile. The young woman began to hum as she worked, thankful for something to occupy her mind at the very least.

No matter how strange the task at hand might be.

Rep watched with a sort of rapt interest at the tense friction between the doctor and Simon, picking up more than a little sarcasm in the man's responses to Simon's apparently dutiful efforts. He was trying to decide who he was rooting for more in the stilted conversation when Clarice returned, Rep looked astounded but his thoughts also almost immediately ran to.

Man I hope he kills her again.

Only once he'd lept to this did his brain shove on the breaks and question that waitaminute, people didn't just come back from exploding, and that maybe H's explaination of MAGIC was a bit inadequate. Oh well, he could deal, shrugging irritably. If it was going to be that way he was able to swallow it, magic tricks and s**t were well and good when they made a point, and at least he hadn't had to sign anything yet or sit through ******** health and safety procedures for the facility like every other introduction ever.

He did give Simon a nod as he passed, the man hadn't done anything to provoke Rep's ire, which was surprisingly hard to do so had garnered a bit of respect in the readhead's mind. But he asked no questions, he figured anything he needed to find out he'd find in due time. His first priority right now was getting armed, he didn't like his odds with a small dodgy knife on an island where people periodically messed around with guns in plain veiw.

He needed to up the odds a little.

Oh. And he didn't forget his box of cookies either. Sugar was important.

[EXIT]