Welcome to Gaia! ::

Third place, huh? Not too bad. But that loud chick, one of the two in first... She gave him every reason to outdo them, just to see how pissed she'd be at the end. Her and her idea of a mutiny, over an obstacle competition. Like, really? Now that's some serious entertainment. And that Tristan dude...he didn't even finish the course. Could easily be overtaken. If he 'survived', the judges probably took pity on him. Three people eliminated... Sore as he was, Gio knew deep in his heart he'd do the same to the rest. Now that he knew what they were like, he felt pretty competitive. Sure of himself. Not threatened at all.

He came along with the rest of the finalists to the cheering voices and the looming course before him. Last run, baby. And, looking at it, it was alllll going up. Almost as if out of spite, just for him. Whatever. He'd show them. So. Let's do this s**t!

Of course the first part had to be some bullshit, some claustrophobic climb. Gio slid in easily, a noodly boy practically made for this. He went up pretty smoothly; he was over this crap by now. And, hey, maybe someone would freeze up over some dumb phobia and be eliminated from the word go. Anything to give him an edge, right?

Giovanni shimmied and shook up through the end of the first part. He was surprised that was supposed to make him sweat. He looked to the next part with a grin, invigorated. And then. He lost that boost right quick at what he saw. "What...the hell..."

He did ask for a challenge...

Gio sighed, sucked it up, and got to it. He had to go slowly, peg after peg, upwards. Talk about excruciating. He didn't do anywhere near enough sit-ups for this. It didn't take long for his arms to remember how much they already went through that day. Tight soreness clenches his muscles. ********. He panted and groaned. Had to push and pull as fast as possible before his body gave up on him. But, maybe he started going a little too fast. Without thinking Gio slipped. The sudden motion dislodged a peg. With that, it was just ********!" He realized he had no room for stupid mistakes after that one.

It took him even more time, a lot of sweat, grit teeth, and his heart pounding in his ears. Somehow, he made it to the end without another loss. Or, more importantly, falling. Once on something solid, Gio fell to his knees and wheezed. Christ. A close call, nearly beefing it so bad not long into it... But he didn't. Not today, Satan.

Giovanni stood back up, wiping off his knees as he did. Yeah. No sweat. Back in action, he got right in on the bungees. He could only imagine how ridiculous it was going to be. Bouncing, unsettled, tricky. Earlier courses set him up for that. Hell, the gears were probably worse. He didn't know what the hell was going to happen with that one until it did. Here? He could at least guess.

He took his educated guesses and tested them out. Time to jump! He landed, and bungee cords acted like he expected. He braced himself for the erratic movement, and held himself still until it stopped. Gio continued to each platform in a similar fashion. Seemed to work well, though, because he got to the end pretty quick. His arms even got to rest for a minute, if it could really be called a rest.

Not that it really felt a rest once he looked up at the last set before him. He guessed that the people in charge just wanted to test everyone's endurance at this point. God, how high up was he even supposed to go? High enough for a harness, apparently. Cool. He did prefer to not swan dive down and splat on the floor.

That prize better be worth taking a week off work, because he was going to have to after this one.

Gio started his climb up. As he (painstakingly) progressed, it felt kind of like a rock climb. So, what's the catch?

One of the 'rocks' collapsed from under his foot, making him wobble for a moment. Ah. There it was. Soon, the occasional hold fell out somewhere around him. Cute.

Not so cute when one finally gave out from his hand while the other hand was reaching for another hold. He slipped, grabbed another with both hands, and had to think, fast.

Gio started to adapt to what felt like a pointed attack on his person. The holds seemed to be falling right out from under him more and more, and he could barely keep up. But, he wasn't out of the running yet. He looked like a lame duck. Felt like one too, but as he lost more holds, he found and held onto new ones in their place.

Now he just had to keep moving.

Suddenly, multiple holds fell all at once. Gio began to fall. Really fall. He lashed out a hand, and caught himself before he went down more than a couple of feet. Not that his wrist liked that move. Still, he forced it to deal as he pulled himself back up. A close call, with everything to collapse around him.

They weren't rid of him yet.

At this point, the biggest enemy was the sweat. Clammy hands, making grips harder. He had to hurry-!

"Giovanni, isn't it? You could have given up. Maybe you should have... How many times did you almost fall? Yet the wall didn't claim you. This course didn't claim you." She dropped down from where she'd perched herself on the scaffolding, waiting to call of Macsen in the event the young man had fallen to her youma companion.

He hadn't. He'd simply kept climbing. There was something to be said for that.

"You've challenged yourself to make it to this point. You pushed past everything to find yourself here. Are you ready to challenge your destiny?"

Tourmaline had not made her presence known with any clear intent as to how things would progress once she'd spoken. It was Giovanni's words that brightened her expression, putting a grin on her lips and a gleam in her eyes as she heard him say I'm ready for anything else you wanna throw at me, babe. She knew one thing that she could throw at him. A punch would be perfect for getting rid of his grin.

Just as her fingers began to curl into a fist she paused, feeling another presence join she and the young man atop the 'mountain'. "General Uvarovite, perfect timing... This young man was just telling me that he's ready for whatever comes next. Would you care to tell him what he's won?"

Giovanni was, in a word, taken aback. Superior officer? What the hell? He signed up for a competition, nothing that had to do with military or whatever. And where had this guy even come from, too? Was this some weird ROTC s**t? With even shittier tactics? He thought he left that crap back in high school.

Gio prepared to give them a smirk and the middle finger, but had to pause at the things the new guy brought up. He didn't care so much about the terrorist stuff going on, all the crime and troubles for the people dumb enough to stick around. Gio prided himself in being completely unaffected by any of it.

Somehow he managed to keep listening despite the Pet that appeared. But what Uvarovite said next peaked his interest more than anything else.

Power and abilities, huh? What, social status? Armed forced benefits?

He had no idea. The whole thing sounded all enigmatic, vague, purposefully hard to discern. Was this the final challenge?

Gio let out a "Tsk" at the thought of somewhere to 'belong'. He didn't need that. Did they think he was some lost, poor soul? He got through the stupid courses, and their gimmicks, even with his history of a B- in gym class!

He got this far, though. All on his own. And even with all the weird stuff, and the stuff that was supposed to reach out to some part that they expected to give a s**t, he didn't let it get to him.

"Power, huh? Sounds pretty dope. Gotta admit, I didn't get half of what you said, but the part that did make sense..." Gio grinned again, a wicked thing, on an otherwise unimpressive frame. "I'm into that."