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He was sort of ok. Sort of. The fact that it had been a dream--but he'd not realized it, the punk boil thought. He almost always realized that he was dreaming. They'd jacked them over all too well. At least, he thought as he strolled down the path to the demon dorm, it had only been those in the trials.

It had been, hadn't it? Should he have checked on groanspring or something? He paused, glancing at the sun that was slowly rising in the sky, then digging his phone out of his pocket and bringing up groanspring to send out a question.

That's why Roch was standing right in the middle of the way, not paying attention to what was going on around him.

He looked at her, pressing send on his phone. "Hey," he said quietly. "Maybe you can answer my question, y'know, since you're here. Were you in the trials?" He didn't remember who all had been on the other teams.

And the whole issue of whether they liked or didn't like each other didn't really matter after that dream, did it? Right now it was just the sight of people being ABLE to smile that was enough. She sure was dressed funny, though. Oh well.

He took a deep breath--and shockingly, it was slightly shuddering. There was a hitch in his breath, showing the same thing as the tiny hint of shaking his hands showed. Roch's hands were never anything less than steady. But they were slightly shaking as he slipped his phone into his vest.

"Do you know..." he said slowly, "if we were the only ones that went through it? What about the kids that weren't in the trials? I asked on groanspring, but--" He shrugged.

He was silent for a moment, a blank expression on his face, then he let out a long breath. "They caught us, since we stupidly went up to those two guys. They trapped us in nets, and we were knocked out. They put us in a giant fish tank. Then Edel..." He shoved his hands into his pockets, forcing himself to go on. "Was in a tube. And she screamed. And became a spear. An ugly, dull looking spear."

There was more. But he was going slowly. "This blonde chick came, then left, and the door opened--I ran. I think Moure ran, too--he's faster than me, even with my shadow step. But I couldn't keep running... so..."

He shrugged, looking at her. "I make a really strange weapon."

He was silent. "It... damn, so that was our best choice? To hide?" he asked her. "I..." He ran a hand over his face. "We couldn't summon our weapons or our FEAR when we were in the fish tank or the tube. They've got ways of suppressing our FEAR--that's what happened when they caught us in nets. And y'know what? We rushed into that one, too," he told her. "And the gigantic jackin' mouth in the wall of the haunted house-- I KNEW that one was a trap."

She was all ready to fight, but Roch was thinking something different. "We can do stuff now, they ain't here like they were in that... dream." He looked at her, his hands deep in his pockets. "But whatever we do or don't do, we need to change our approach."

"Words don't work," he said bluntly. "They grilled us in the place, I lied to them, told them something like what they wanted to hear, cuz they said they'd let us go if we told them where the base was. I don't know if he knew it was a lie or he just didn't give a jack, cuz he stands there and tells us that we're gonna haveta do it 'the FUN way.' Which consisted of turnin us into weapons."

He headed to the side of the path, dropping down in the dead grass and looking serious. "When we were goin' to save you, or maybe after that, I dunno, they captured Barth. So here I am, mindin' my own business, goin' through this jackin' room, and I make it to the hub room before the rest of my team--just in time to see a mouth on the wall invitin' Barth's group to fight hunters. They had the room we wound up in booby trapped."

He might have been repeating himself, but he was trying to think this through. "They plan ahead, they work as a group, and they know how to fight as a team," he summed up. "We didn't save Barth--we lost more. Sure we got them all back later, but... that was because that super powerful lady let us do a repeat run on the tent. And we only got those wins cuz of numbers and her help--not our brains or abilities." He looked at her, seriously. "She died the second time around. Red died over on your side, right? Two seriously badass fighters are gone now, cuz of them. And they were adults--and the lady was a hell of a lot more compelling than we are, but she still wound up fighting."

There was something going on in the back of his head. He could feel it--no, it wasn't a ghost nearby--it was the glimmer of a thought. A plan. He just couldn't grasp it yet.

There was a look of enlightenment on his face when she said the word "strategy." He stared at her for a long moment before asking something strange. "What type of FEAR abilities do you have?"

"Both offensive, huh?" he asked, his mind rushing. "I would pair you with someone with defensive abilities. Hell... I need to think about this," he said, frowning.

"I need to teach Moure to fight--he did a jackin' good job when he threw things," he said thoughtfully. "If we could... hell, teach those with defensive to fight with those with offensive--to gang up on one together, it worked when fighting boos, and at the time they were tougher than us--"