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Lilian Rook     Given successes with excursions against Beast, Spirit, Giant, and then Demon-class Antegent, and their survival of the London Exclusion Zone training exercise, and recovery of two of the black mystery spikes, repeated requests to meet with, and ostensibly tour, the career Academy that Lilian had mentioned before, prime training grounds of the Immune corps, have finally been met with lukewarm approval. That is to say, the location of the place is still not up for knowing; it's a direct Warpgate transit in. Nor is a permanent visitation visa on the table. It's straight to the vaunted halls of the post-Onslaught intensive training academy for those aspiring to the Path of the Immune: Arx Zenith.

    The first thing that strikes you is that the air palpably tingles with energy here. It's as if there is a constant field of static all around you, fuzzy and crawling, but never quite sparking, or perhaps the direct light of the sun on a mild sunburn. The air is a little difficult to breathe, like being atop a mountain, where the oxygen content is simply lower than the comfortable threshold. Only those with tremendously high magical aptitude or general inurement will feel it for what it is; for those few, it feels like basking constantly in idyllic warm spring, with the slightest of breezes, invigorating mentally and, more pointedly, magically. The very atmosphere stimulates the magical body like caffeine. It's not just inside the building either; spending any time on the small strip of accessible outside space, wide open and green, with white stone paths, the sound of water, and a bright blue sky with a faint corona of refracted sunlight wherever one looks, has the same effect.

    The building itself is extremely modern, however. Ultramodern, even. Huge and imposing, made of a cross formation of fused arches and swept angles, flush with the low gleam and matte shine of glass and steel, grey, black, and white polycarbonate, an exterior with the texture of a tactical add-on and an interior like a state of the art tech company clean room, with shined floors, frosted glass dividers, panoramic windows from room to room, and stripes of bright colours painted across the white and grey walls to direct between different sections, with only the odd, bold print.

    There is no map, nor visitor lounge, and scarcely anything like a front desk. The security checkpoint doesn't seem to respond to anything. No doubt there are scanners for various things, but the message is clear; someone bringing a gun or sword or magical object on campus wouldn't even be dignified with a beep. There's only a central terminal where a rounded counter surrounds several work stations, where multiple suited secretaries work through walls of holographic data crunching and management, only really interactive for the purposes of approving timetables and requisitions, providing licenses and writeups, stamping cards and handing over budgets. It's that kind of place. 'This isn't a college campus. If you need directions or help, get out.'
Lilian Rook     Rather than a tour guide, PR employee, or government suit, however, the figure who set aside time to show some persistent nosey people around is, going by the platinum badge, an instructor. He's six foot ten, built like a fridge and a half, barely fits into the largest size of urban camo tactical pants and boots and a t-shirt stretched across his chest, and has such a quantity of red hair that would absolutely never be regulation in a standard military, with a short, grizzled beard to match. He radiates a sense of invisible pressure just by being near him. His posture is rigidly perfect despite being ostensibly relaxed. He exudes an aura of hot-blooded confidence, but it feels like his stare picks up on every single tiny detail about his subject. M.C.III Gerart, reads his badge.

    "Is that all of them?" he asks seemingly no one in particular, his vocal range firmly in contrabass. Without even waiting long enough to receive an answer, he says "Doesn't matter. I'm not waiting for stragglers anyways. If they want to be here so bad, they'll be on time." Without prompting, he says "By the way, that's my rule. Every time a recruit is late without a note, their final grade drops five percent. We fail at eighty." Waving with a hand that seems like it could squash someone's skull, he says "Come on. We'll walk and talk. I'm not a tour guide; I have my class in full contact training for the next hour; that's how long you have to see whatever it is you came from. You do have an itinerary, right?" Notably, he didn't say 'sparring'.
Arcadia Last time it was a war memorial to remember and learn from the past.
This time it's where the present trains to protect the future.

Between the two Arcadia's curiousity has been thoroughly perked. Which only intensifies when she steps into the building and feels the arcane energy literally in the air as it resonates with the nature of her own magitek. It makes her wings twitch a bit, surfaces shimmering in idle reaction until she retracts them completely to her back to keep them out of the way.

Despite not being involved with more than city-state militia the guide's sheer presence is enough to make the sphinx stand more stoicly, even when she can come nowhere near that impressive height. Gerart just has that sort of essense to his simply being there.

Someone more akin to talking can respond, she's here mainly to follow, observe and learn. Understanding this world's defenses is just as important as understanding the threat it defends against.
Strawberry Princess      This time, thank god, Strawberry Princess hasn't dressed herself. She's adorned in her magical girl costume instead: a blend of Golden Age superhero sensibilities with outline-breaking frills and a skirt, alongside an opaque visor that hides the top half of her face. This is a place to be respectful, but it doesn't demand the same degree of solemnity as did the 'war museum'.

     Her wand, a monstrosity of plutonium and pastels, is slung over her back- dormant and dead, of course. In the invigorating magical atmosphere, its five-minute timer flickers to life even with the reactor cold, stuttering between 00:00 and 00:01.

     "I was... you know, hoping to understand your training regimens, mostly," she answers the fridge-instructor, not having to look up terribly far to meet his gaze. "I don't really- have a formal itinerary, but... whatever you can show me would be informative." She smiles, despite the halting and hesitating voice.

     Having Lilian here would be helpful, of course, but...
Tina Natsumi Has Tina ever actually fought an Antegent? No. Has she ever seen an Antegent? No. Does she even know what an Antegent is? No.

Why the hell is she even here, then? Because her buddy Lilian's here, and she's curious about how things work in her neck of the woods. Plus, she needs something a little less heavy to do, and learning about a new world's fauna and the like seems like the perfect way to relax.

It'd just be a lot easier to relax if it didn't feel like she was being visually patted down by the super TSA. At least she doesn't have to worry about her own safety for the most part, but the decorum and overall cleanliness of the whole place has her feeling a little out of place.

Tinareally should have worn sneakers instead of the cowboy boots. They're so jingly. She doesn't even have the benefit of whipping out her phone to speak to her audience back home, either, so that just leaves everyone else that came to be that audience for her.

"Eighty? Dang, and I thought passing grades back in the States were rough." Despite all the preamble from the giant redhead, she's still going to try making those light-hearted quips. "I'm just here to take a gander at Rook's stomping grounds. She does good work out there, so I figured takin' a look see around here would give me some ideas on how to fix up my own trainin' regimen."

After a pause to think, she finally comes up with something that has a little more substance. "So what's your daily routine like, anyway? I reckon from you bringing up full contact training, it's gotta be rougher than just sparring matches that stop every time someone lands on their ass." A beat, and then she tilts her hat back. "How many people get retired on average before graduation?"
Rean Schwarzer "Uh...wow." Rean says, listening to the 'We fail people at 80' and 'full contact training' comments. He figured Lilian's school was intense, but not quite this much. His school was /extremely/ lax in comparison.

Then again, with what they were up again, this feeling of  'succeed or die' made sense. It also explained Lillian's, well...Lillian-ness. in some ways.

He turns to face their 'tourguide' of sorts.  "I-I was mostly just wondering where Lillian Rook got her training. I work with her and she's spoken rather highly of this place."
Arthur Lowell     ARTHUR LOWELL is here. He checked his QUEST MAP at the Warpgate, which involved physically grabbing and pulling it off his nearby UI and then placing it on the desk of whatever security there was. As a MAGE OF SPACE, he figures there'd be suspicion that he could know where he is, even if, practically speaking, he probably wouldn't without intensive and obvious magical effort.

    Kept his minimap, though. Otherwise he'll get lost.

    He basks in the magic, enjoying it. His ASPECT BAR visibly shines, going from a simple white bar filling up to fancy black and white undulating VFX. He immediately heads towards the guiding instructor, locking onto him like a cruise missile and intending to deploy a bunker-busting tactical package of coolkid handshake gestures at the humanoid mountain that is trying to disguise himself as a teacher. "What, you don't dig FASHIONABLY LATE here? DAMN, HOMIE. How you gonna TRAIN UP DUDES for all those THOUSANDS OF TIMES they're gonna get into an ANTEGENT FIGHT all LATE TO THE PARTY?"

    Does he have an itinerary? "Homie, that sounds like NERD SHIT, gettin' all up in the PLANNING OUT on the TOURS. I like IMPROVISING. You know, like, uhhhh..." He pauses for exactly the amount of time that's just slightly too obnoxious, and which is carefully calculated to make one THINK that Arthur hasn't thought this through at all. "This place is all about global human defense. Combat is /part/ of that. I wanna put some eyes on what you do to sharpen the cutting edge here, 'cause academia's where shit gets shipped off to labs and manufacturing, and ain't nobody capable gonna be stuck in a classroom or a school without their off-time going full-on in that tenure research shit. I wanna see what resources you got about emulating Antegent practically, on account of I've seen your wild magic shit /tamed/ in the Big Test when I got my license, but I haven't see how the day to day shit looks. And, holy shit dude, I dunno what you got circulating in your vents but I wanna take a goddamn /bath/ in it, for real."

    That last one is less serious.
Ishirou I4 was here, of course, to view the grounds and learn about his allies that he is helping out, as well as see about any trades he could get away with.  There is a limit of 'I can't tell you' that exists on both sides, so he just has to sit right in the center and avoid anything too important.  Hopefully, he'll remember that and not try and find everything out.

The air was pleasant?  This is the first thing he notices, that his internal efficiencies are improved.  Magical intake efficiencies, mental efficiencies, and even physical ones.  This was pleasant, a nice change of pace for once as he felt more comfortable here.  

Entering the ultramodern building, his eyes scan over the surroundings.  No security, no maps, no directions; it seems that this was a place you know where you needed to go or didn't enter at all.  Near him, the black box with arms floating around him chimes once, but says nothing.  

To greet them was Slab Bulkhead, I mean Gerart.  "I see, no room for error then," he says with what might be considered controlled excitement.  I4 does not seem bothered by the stare through him, scanning him.  This is because he was doing the same.  

"Oh, an itinerary.  Well, a calm tour, followed by a training regimen Q and A, followed by how your mana manipulation techniques work here as opposed to other places.  I think we have some other thing son here, some other Q&As, but nobody filled out the form to my liking, I also had questions on the potential sharing of traditions."
Tamamo     Tamamo no Mae arrives precisely on time, which turns out to be just good enough. Gerart has a certain demand for punctuality that fits with the standards she expects of the place. She regards him with some detachment--here stands a soldier, a man fulfilling a purpose. An area of time has been cleared, and there will be no further interference with the schedule. The meaning is well understood.

    Strawberry Princess speaks up. "The training... ah, yes, that is a broad question, is it not? It does hold my interest, but it is the styles of magical art here taught in which I am most interested. If you could speak some few words upon the matter, or show the breadth of favored arcane technique, that would be most appreciated."

    Aside to her fellow visitors,"The air here is like that of some inner shrines, no? How... invigorating, though not, I think, pleasant for a human's rest."
Korra The metropolis of Republic City, shining beacon of progress in Korra's world, has nothing like this that the Avatar has ever seen. Certainly there were things she thought fantastical, but nothing quite this cleanly futuristic.

And nothing so grand as a 'temple' to the defense of humanity. Republic City has the metalbending police, Master Tenzin - and Korra.

Spacing out inside the warpgate reception area, that Avatar exudes a palpable aura of heat, shimmering like a heat mirage as she basks in the magical energy - like boiling coffee sizzling pleasantly behind her eyes and pumping through her veins. A sizzling sauna of energy rolls off of her, the mirage having a vague shape around her: a strangely skeletal series of lines and swooshes like ribs aligned to her chakra points and radiating out of the various mystical points.

If anyone bothers to stare at her. She's staring! 'Mirin, really.

With a 'vaguely high' airiness to her voice and with crossed arms, Korra looks up at the instructor as he barks. Her eyes flick and drift down, before nodding. "Yeah, they said it."

She indicates both Rean's 'hey how do you train' and Arthur's 'that's NERD SHIT' equally. It has been Said.

"Wait, there's a test? With cards? Dang, missed out."
Roxas It's been a while since Roxas was anywhere near Lilian. He's not really interested in the 'place' so much as the person, and it shows in his utter ignorance of what he's actually meandering through. He may not have actually properly put together what was supposed to be happening here, for that matter. Having a lack of familiarity with this place though, he ends up trailing after ARTHUR LOWELL, who seems to know what the heck he's actually doing around here.

This means that he's effectively a member of Arthur's party, which may or may not be a thing that actually exists for Arthur.

It's only once Arthur is done speaking to Gerart that he pipes up, "Wow, you sure know a lot, Arthur. It sounds to me like these guys are kinda too strict for what I'm used to, though... usually, if somebody isn't late at /least/ four times, we think they're early. That would get you failed out of here! I've never heard of anything like that..."

He has never spent enough time at a Garden to draw the parallel.

"... Hey, how bad was that test for you, anyway? I spent a lot of time talking to something that seemed kind of distressed..." He adds, looking a little concerned, "You don't suppose it's here, is it? Should I go visit it? Also, is your house kinda like this place, too? Because this is reminding me a lot of home. Just, everywhere is like the lab instead."

Korra, being present nearby, gets an alert look! Roxas replies, "Oh, no. I mean, sort of? There were a lot of little things. Like control of magic, and um, this room where somebody sort of talks to you, but it's all weird and sad?"

He is not good at describing the existential breakdown room.
Touta Konoe     After quite a bit of convincing, a bit of hard work, and probably quite a few strings being pulled Touta's been granted access to the Immune academy, Arx Zenith. Upon arriving the young man really is soaking in the decor of the inside once he's through the Warpgate. He takes a breath in and immediately takes notice of the lack of air, but the abundance of energy that fills him to the core. For a person who's literally just made of meat and magic it's probably quite the experience. Of course...He doesn't get to enjoy this experience with his trusty sword of all things, but he'll just have to give Side-stick the details later.

    The one thing he didn't account for in all of this. "Man...There's waaay more people who wanted to check out this place than I thought...Wonder if I'll get through my list in an hour..." He pulls out a small sheet of paper, it's crumpled up a bit and looks more like a sticky-note than an actual document but this is basically what would be considered his 'itinerary'. Though seeing so many familiar faces at once well... "Mmmm, maybe they'll be some overlap. Hey Arty, Berry, Rean, Hime-chan!"

    He walks over to Tamamo acting as if he's known her for ages. A youth of black-spiked hair with a carefree attitude that makes him approach her with no formality to her regal appearnce, but the moment he goes to speak more thoroughly to herthe red-headed instructor asks to clarify said itineraries. For the most part as he listens to everyone it seems like they're all just rather curious about the general training of the school, what Lilian's done or things of a similar nature. But when it comes to Touta's turn he seems to be rather...More directly focused.

    "Yeah, actually I got a few things..." He takes a double take at the list, "I was wondering if you guys had any instructors who specialized in dark and light magic, some people who maybe work with magical theory and spell-crafting, maybe things that have to do with magical transformations uh...Oh yeah, just wondering but if the hours up would it be cool if there's a library or something to maybe just sit around and read some books you have on a few of those topics? I know it's a lot to ask, but Lilian's really boasted about this place so I really wanted to see if you guys might be able to help me with some self-study! Oh, and before I forget, Name's Touta Konoe, nice meeting ya teach!"
Lilian Rook     "Weird bunch, aren't you?" Gerart says bluntly, and utterly fearlessly. This is a man who *never* has to not speak his mind --anyone can tell. He's so physically --and mystically-- intimidating, that most people wouldn't dare backtalk, most likely, and there is certainly the sense that he has some kind of clout or status that means he's never bowed or scraped to an officer in his life. He only really looks at Strawberry Princess' costume for a moment on that note, though. He seems to have eyes more for Tina's cowboy stirrups.

    He snorts with a half laugh. "Ha. If I had it my way, we'd fail at ninety five. Minimum quota to meet, though. Re-armament of Humanity Initiative has their demands. They wanted three hundred a year. They had to settle for a hell of a lot less. We're not polluting the pool with walking targets."

    From there, though, he strokes his chin, rubbing thick fingers through his short beard. "Friends or Rook? Or just fans? Had enough of those from her school." Despite that though, he sounds . . . surprisingly positively disposed. It might not be a surprise that he knows the name off the top of his head --the classes can't be that big. "Damn right she should have spoken highly. There isn't a higher goalpost in the world, or a tougher program. The top half-percent of the top tenth-of-a-percent of humanity make it here." His chest swells slightly.

    Being accosted with coolkid handshakes appears to not overly phase him. He gets the gist of it. Even his controlled strength is enough to leave Arthur's hand smarting like a way-too-hard high five, followed by him being gripped and pulled to an almost-chest-bump before being let go. "Late ain't fashionable on the battlefield. You're card carrying though huh? House of the Seven Worthies. Yeah, I'll overlook that smart comment then.

    He nods almost imperceptibly once people get to the point of requests. "Physical, combat training --that's my wheelhouse. Department head. North wing. Antegent study and sim. South and west wing, academic and practical. Tacticals are west wing too. Cultivation and mystic practicals, east wing. Same place for 'the arts'." He pronounces the term with emphasis, but without disdain, despite his Chad physique. "We're a multi-national outfit. We accommodate the strengths of as many Traditions as is feasible. Won't find many alchemists or esotechs or anything here though. Third line types are all on summoning, warding, ESP, that kind of thing. Academics are south wing --where we are. We can pass by that. Nothing too interesting for visitors unless you plan to sit in on a lecture; by the looks of it, it'll go over half your heads. Maybe everyone except Ayakashi Madam and the robot pal. Maybe the costume princess." Again, he manages to use a mix of respectful and irreverent nicknames without sounding condescending about any of them.

    "Archives are strictly for students only." he says gruffly. "Sitting around in a library reading; that happens on your own time. Most of these kids have studies at home, and all of them at their primary schools. Spellcraft here is field abbreviated. Pure practicals. Pushing whatever talent you've got harder and higher than you'd ever get in any other career field. Doesn't matter what kind it is. Transformations even --yeah we've got enough half-bloods for that."

    "Tell you what. Since you kids want to see 'everything', we'll do a full round tour. If you're not scared off by then, I'll vote in favour of that auxiliary attache accelerated course pile of papers the board is looking at." He says so with a certain amount of grim pleasure.
Ishirou "It's true, I would greatly like to sit in on those lectures!" I4 says immediately, "Though that's mostly because I am really interested in it, rather than the need," he says with a small smile on his face.  "Also, sorry for not properly introducing myself.  I am Inspector 4, Model 31C.  You can call me I4, or foureyes for short."

"Huh, so the very elite, those who have the gifts and want to push them to their limits.  I can respect that.  As for Fan or friend, I guess friend?  I mean, I am not a /fan/, but I don't know if she considers me a /friend/.  I mostly just come to help kill monsters, because that's what I was designed to do."

I4 listens to the breakdown of what is where, and nods, seemingly mentally writing all of this down for later.  "Well, reading on your own time is fine.  I'd do it whenever I'd get the chance."

"Sorry, what?  Auxiliary attache accelerated course?  What's that in reference to?"
Arthur Lowell     Arthur finger-guns at the instructor. Oh yeah, getting to be obnoxious and still somehow swagger about like he isn't? That's the /good shit/. Arthur /carries/ that card. "Hell yeah, homie. This MF gets that WORTRHY up to SEVEN." A broad, shit-eating grin. "And yeah, most'a us know PRINCESS HIGH-HORSE. We done WORK together, dawg. Lemme take a look at that NORTH SIDE." He gestures. "I wanna see that SIM WORK." Arthur thinks that whatever there might be in the sims could give him even a tiny bit more insight into the issue of what was found at the bottom of that pit. The intersection of artificiality and Antegent is one he needs to understand more of, in some broad sense.
Arcadia Always pushing higher and harder than you've reached before. Arcadia can share that sentiment, it's how she's always done things. There was no other way to survive the intensity of the realm she comes from.

Now she's invested enough that the archives being said to be student only access doesn't dampen her spirit for more than a moment. There was enough archival studies done at the museum.

While she had been lingering at the back of the group before, the spurred interest has Arcadia shifting closer to the front of the group with some vaguely controlled ethusiasm. "I for one would also like to see your training and tactics, but to get a feel for everything on a general scale is a good encompassing so we don't drift too long into a specific department in the given timeframe."
Seifer Almasy      Seifer Almasy isn't really the visitation kind of guy.

     He's seen all this kind of thing before. He's seen the college campus that doesn't offer guidance (other than an incredibly vague map, which, good luck with that). He's seen the security checkpoint. He's seen ultramodern building made of fused arches and swept angles, flushed with low gleam and shine of glass and steel (seriously, what is it with paramilitary academies? Garden's got the same aesthetic). This is so familiar to him that he's barely even paying attention to the instructor past a brief military salute, a man who reminds him so much of people he has beaten the living hell out of on more than one occasion that he doesn't even need to look at the guy to get a sense of him. He doesn't know literally anybody here, but that's fine. He's not here for any of them.

     He is here because he is damnably curious about Lilian Rook.

     Oh, he liked her fine. And that was the problem. He had seen too much of her in action, not just in combat but in the way she spoke, the way she acted, to think anything innocent of her. More than one person in the Concord was fooled by the bully act. More than one person in the Concord thought she could only throw her weight around.

     Seifer, having been cut from the same cloth, liked her, not because of that, but because she was competent enough to hide it and clever enough to play it.

     And that meant she was dangerous enough for him to bother holding onto her name, a thing he didn't do for most of his own team.

     He gives Tamamo an odd side-look, the look of someone thinking something about how they're dating another person's twin and that odd sort of off-putting similarity creating a mild bit of awkwardness when you inevitably arrived at Certain Thoughts, but other than that, doesn't really pay attention to the rest of the party more than he needs to.

    
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry smiles an awkwardly chagrined smile at the man's remarks. Costumed princess- she doesn't have enough pride to be wounded by the moniker, and betrays her appreciation for the acknowledgement. "She's... Lilian's a friend, yes," she says, in the suspicious and faltering way that one might concede a pizza is a sandwich. It's closer than 'fan', at least.

     Having 'friends' is scary. It's unsafe.

     "The lectures could be- enlightening, but... I'm mostly trying to see what I can learn for my own world's sake. I doubt your systems of magic are... broadly cross-applicable. You know?"

     Arthur's continued and perpetual verbal tomfoolery is interrupted by her putting a hand on his shoulder from behind, in a vaguely pal-ish fashion. She bends down to his level, as if talking to a child, but her voice is painfully sincere: "I still... really appreciate, all the stuff you did with the Antegent. You're brave. Really brave. Don't get yourself hurt on the sims, okay?"
Lilian Rook     NORTH:
    Given the North/East/West/South group-settled itinerary, the walk to the opposite end of the campus is surprisingly long. For training such a small number of applicants, the place is huge, and one gets the feeling, essentially 'infinitely funded.' No nation on Earth skimps on the contributions to their best and brightest star program, and it shows

    .There is a field opposite the entrance, arbitrarily at the 'north' position. It has only one entrance to it. Oddly enough, despite the several panoramic windows that look out onto the disjointedly scenic surroundings that enclose the campus, it isn't visible from any of them, only coming into being when entered through what are obviously changing rooms and out through heavy steel doors.

    It's notable in that sense. The sheer size of it means that it should have been visible from the entrance, creeping out to either side of the building, but looking up at the sky, and finding it faintly broken up by a mirage of broken glass patterns, it should be evident that this isn't the case for a reason. The concentrated tingle of mystical energy is even stronger here. Multiple leylines palpably thrum under the area, converging into a star that this field was probably built on first.

    Coal black sand is the foundation of most of it, populated by snow white grasses, save for where there are deliberate clear fields and pits, and added to by a number of spaced out constructions. Some are little more than raised and tiled platforms, where others are short plinths of variegated heights, some are scatters of raised walls and columns, where a couple of places approach an outright jungle gym, largely made of metal and pale stone. A tower of sorts occupies the center and breaks it up into quarters, with divisions of the broken glass illusion radiating from its cardinal corners. For some reason, it has a bell.

    Gerart paces around the exterior of it, around the very wide, circular outer path, its railing there to demarcate the boundary more than help with anything. "This is our on-site Local Field, for all of our live energy exercises. Those of you who aren't idiots will have noticed it doesn't overlap with the realspace the rest of the campus occupies; that eliminates the potential for stray fire or flying recruits to damage anything. The main purpose is to prevent fatalities during training."

    "That feeling in your bones, though, that's an abjurative local causality. Alters the properties of life-threatening injuries and triggers when someone is put in an incapacitated or critical condition, layering them with protective enhancements drawn from the leylines. Doesn't make it hurt any less though. Training's no good without a broken bone or two. If it doesn't hurt --if it ain't scary-- then you don't respect the danger. You don't weigh your own safety, and you don't overcome that fear. This is about the real world, not goddamn simulators."

    A long walk around the four sections, at an almost windingly brisk pace, carries past four classes of different sizes. At the south end is easily the largest, numbering one hundred students --or recruits as the MC likes calling them-- in ten rows of ten. Judging by their widely varied heights and builds, and the fact that some are obviously struggling more than others, the single silver stripes on their shoulders can only mean they're first years. They're all wearing identical outfits to Lilian's combat suit, save stripped of any armouring, and without the etched crystalline circuits, being more generic and plain.
Lilian Rook     An asian instructor only a half-foot shorter than Gerart and barely less built, topless and lean with a monk cut, is pushing them through a grueling series of constant, repetitive, physically strenuous katas, holding difficult stances broken up with sudden motions. Every few shifts, he calls out something in Chinese, and the whole block completes the motion with a hundred discharges of energy through palms or stomps or kicks. The fact that they're not entirely in unison creates a sort of rippling, roaring effect, and the strain is obviously exponentially worse for the extra component. A great deal of them are visually distinct.

    Rather than being a patient sensei about it, he singles out someone frequently enough to be keeping up a constant stream of Drill Sergeant barking. Too slow. Out of synch. Off balance. Weak projection. Wobbly knees. Louder. Faster. The more physically built members from martial traditions, are sweaty but keeping up, while recruits that had gotten in from likely more study-oriented traditions are obviously struggling. "First years." Gerart grunts, confirming the obvious. "They're all over the map, so they get crash course intensive physical training and cultivation multiple times a week. Brings them up to standard. Or they flunk. We take in four classes of a hundred each year. Half of those fail the first year." he says, proudly. "A few of them die, but not from this, as much as they might bitch. Third year and up have it drilled into them and do it by themselves."

    The next quarter, counter clockwise, encompasses what is obviously a tactical range. An improbably long target field, kaleidoscopically disappearing into the distance, down to three kilometers, is occupied by a score of older, taller, three stripe recruits with further more advanced suits, in various stances, using ultramodern weaponry in gunmetal greys and tactical blacks, replete with holographic and LED indicators. Cyan starbursts of muzzle flash pop rapidly back and forth across the firing line, spitting black casings into the ground and streaks of light downrange at absurd velocities, strafing and sniping targets that are obviously projections, computers marking where they've been hit.

    The other half is split into a rambling maze with an open ceiling that is obviously an evolved concept of the modern 'kill house' used by special forces, where they're being timed one by one through the course. Notably, there are no pop-up steel cutouts; the course is occupied by drones and turrets that are *hopefully* using less-lethal ammunition to fire back, protected by some sort of field so as not to be destroyed by counter fire before folding back down 'eliminated'. The concept appears to be not getting hit as much as it is to go through the whole thing as fast as possible.

    "Platform training." the instructor grunts again. "Used to be a minor part. Bi-weekly. For armed civil response, since the use of enhanced force on human insurgents is strictly limited. Since the army --sorry, 'G.D.F'--" he says, with audible airquotes "Started stepping up their game though, we've included military-issue instruction. Familiarity with weapons platforms they're likely to see in the field, if they graduate, with Immune deployments being integrated into holistic joint military doctrine, and rounds are less costly than personal energy reserves. Supposedly they're coming out with models specified for Enlightened use sometime this year. I'll be the judge of if they're worth course time."
Roxas "I /am/ pretty weird." Roxas agrees with Gerart unreservedly, his tone neutral-tilting-friendly. He's certainly utterly unoffended, at least. He looks up at Gerart, "You look like you could win a fist fight with an angry bull. That's pretty weird, too, but I think that's just sort of the crowd that really powerful people tend to get involved in? I mean..."

"Normal people are normal because they don't stand out in the crowd."

"Friends," he confirms cheerily, "she helped me learn how to not dress like a cultist."

Currently, he is wearing one of the outfits acquired during that shopping trip, which bends him at least lightly towards what Lilian would consider appropriate for a teenager of his age. Probably doesn't fit into a military base all that well, but he wouldn't look out of place interning someplace serious if that's what he happened to need to do.

"... Half-bloods? Um, you don't mean demigods, do you?" He asks, nervously.
Arcadia Arcadia walked the entire length of travel to the field like everyone else. But once they're there she is not ashamed to use her hovering ability to get a better view of things, espeically with the amount of 'larger on the inside alternate dimensional space' going on here. She doesn't so much feel the leylines as feel them resonate with her magitek, but it still makes her feel like she came fresh out of a recharge despite the long hike to the end of the complex.

The sphinx is watching the various excersizes they pass with intense interest. She has never really been a part of such large training regiments, just seen Argo Alexandria's defense militia doing such, when she wasn't out in the field. Just the concept of not going out into action alone was still a fairly new and fresh one to her, the sphinx having relied mainly on programming and field experience.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur is interrupted! A friendly hand on the shoulder. He tries to transition it to a quick coolkid handshake, but Strawberry Princess is too tall for the maneuver he attempts. Several noises form a traffic jam on the way out of his mouth. "Hhhhhhnnnnrrrrrrrrr" He articulates, then changes topic to, "Hell yeah I'm brave! But like, the cool indifferent kind, so it's no big. Don't worry, I went through the Seven Worthies shit, I can deal. It's no big!" He was only reduced to miserable near-crying /once/!

    The /earnestness/ is just killing him. Why doesn't she have a five-minute timer on /that/? There's gotta be too much power draw from it, right?

    He progresses to the North...
Ishirou Gerart talks about the barrier and revealing what he knows is its purpose.  This makes some amount of sense to the scanner, nodding as the finer points are expounded upon, as well as the reasoning.  "So enough to not kill them so easily, but also to remind them of their mortality." As they come by the Chinese drill Seargent, I4 feels a bit more to those of less physically inclined traditions.

"Oof, reminds me of applied training once my programming was complete.  Inspectors are not direct combat models, but my duty as a scanner means I have to be put into that alot...soooo there was a lot I had to learn.  Which means I hurt a lot."

When they moved around to platform training, I4 watched for a moment and listened.  Incorporating elites into general forces?  That sounds weird to him, as Indus only ever used elite forces.  I4 isn't even sure if the humans of his world were CAPABLE of fighting.  "Efficient, especially if you have casters who can augment themselves as opposed to direct attacks, allowing them to take advantage of heavier caliber rounds."

When Strawberry and Arthur talk, I4 mutters something about 'a brave jerk, maybe'.  Though he tries to get back on topic and fails to actually think of anything else to say.  Shit.
Strawberry Princess      "I know it isn't a big deal for you, Arthur," Strawberry replies, straightening up and giving him one last shoulder-pat. "But... I worry about you, even though I shouldn't. I do worry, because worry isn't always... reasonable. You know? And this helps me to worry less." A brief pause as she connects some dots. "Say, you took that 'test'- they gave you a card like Mr. Deveaux had, right? Can I see it? I bet you're really cool! Like an Adversary, or something." She says this in the tone of someone asking to see a kid's Lego collection.

     In the North wing, Strawberry watches the brutal physical training with evident fascination- she seems almost a stranger to it herself, her noodle-esque body ravaged by years of cup ramen and liquor. "They're really dedicated," she says, quietly marvelling. "But I don't think this is... applicable, back home. If you need to punch things, it's already... you don't win." And things like cardiac health don't matter if you're only useful for five years.

     The guns get her silent appreciation, too- she picks up one and turns it over in her hands like a relic, getting a feel for the weight of it and the general design before putting it back. She watches the students train, assessing their aim and progress, but doesn't take any shots herself. Quiet self-assurance. "Human insurgents," she repeats quietly, evidently not completely foreign to the idea. "Yeah. It's... yeah. You don't send your heroes to do... that."
Tamamo     'A friend or a fan?' "I am Lilian's houseguest, as it happens." That's potentially misleading and certainly oversimplifying, but the fact that she hasn't corrected him or named herself may be enough of a tip-off that the gently smiling fox-woman is being less than totally forthright. She certainly has enough pride, but this visit isn't about her; she only says that much of her relation to carefully watch, with an appearance of casual relaxation, for a reaction, or a lack of one. 'Listening without appearing to' is a useful courtly skill.

    She does notice Seifer, and that slight hesitation. Curious, like Touta's aborted reaction. But she won't recognize Seifer until he speaks.

    They move north. The hundred new students and their workout is one of the most immediately familiar things Tamamo has seen since arriving in this era. It, and the number of less familiar sights, pass without comment.
Seifer Almasy      G.D.F. Probably Global Defense Force or something similar. The way Gerart said it, and said 'army', said a lot to Seifer. They weren't professional military, they *were* paramilitary. He'd already sort of figured as much but that was the nail in the coffin, the unmistakable last sign. Yep. Just like him.

     A month and a half to the day and they'd've killed each other.

     He doesn't look especially perturbed at 'some of them die.' Nobody in the room would know why, but when your final exam was 'storming a beach during an actual military invasion', that kinda thing just doesn't bother you anymore.

     He's also pretty quiet, for Seifer. Seifer tends to be real loud-mouthed and aggressive. He does bother asking Gerart, "Do the dropouts hit the G.D.F. or private sector, or do they usually not survive enough to get a referral?" in an extremely conversational tone, though - it'd be weird if he said *nothing* and he's not really here for a deep cover infiltration. Just to satisfy his own curiosity. The training is mostly what he expected. Nostalgic, a little.

     Less an actual military invasion exercises with monsters and a lot less live ammo than he'd like, personally, but this is the first years so you sort of have to expect that kind of thing. Although, that did bother him, after a moment.

     "Is this the youngest you take in?" He adds, in that same sort of tone, "I've seen a lot of military academies take kids younger than this."
Touta Konoe     Touta can't help but feel the gravity of just how complex this place was, and it was simply the Northern section that they were seeing so far. It's enough to make him give out a bit of a whistle. He's a bit ruffled that he can't get into the library, "Hmmm, guess I should see if there's a Multiverse exchange program or something. And hey, pot calling the kettle back on the whole weird thing! Oh as for Lilian....Mmmm, I'd wanna say we're friends but not sure she'd feel the same. Never really hung out outside of missions." It's meant to be a joke in regards to the transfer student stuff, and the other joke simply meant to jostle the behemoth instructor. He's definitely had his fair share of hulking individuals both friend or foe so he hasn't been too thrown off from this guy's aura or demeanor.

    Also the moment the guy brings up the Seven Worthies Touta perks up a bit, "Oh yeah, I brought mine too. I think I was an...Immaculate Adversary or something?" He pulls out the card towards Gerart as if expecting him to maybe take a look at it while they're walking towards the Northern section. "So, are there any wings you'd suggest for someone with this kinda of...Typing?" He's really not sure what else to call it in honesty, but he is curious to hear if this department head would have any recommendations on people who might be similar to him tend to gravitate towards.

    While the training areas are definitely things of interest, whether it be the rooms that keep students from dying with just the 'local casualities' and the next room detailing the katas that are drilled into the first years so arduously, he seems...Not fully invested. He came here for a reason and well...He wanted to make sure he could do it, it was great if everyone got a tour, but...When you've got goals in mind...

    He finds himself bringing himself to the front of the group to speak to Gerart again, "Hey, speaking of the instructors do these guys get any one-on-one instruction in their first year? Or is it just, make sure they're up to snuff and then go from there?"
Arthur Lowell     Arthur is focusing as much as he can on the spatial things. Those are what he knows best. He can examine each contour of how spaces are overlapped, and examine how the geometry is layered here such that the Local Field, from his perspective, is sort of on a shelf above the rest of space. He speaks to Roxas as he chats, answering his question semi-belatedly. "Yeah, these guys go wild strict. They've found one winning strat, and they can't afford to experiment. Shit's too rough, wild out there." He explains a bit as he goes.

    He also answers Roxas's questions honestly, somewhat belatedly, or as honestly as Arthur can speak to Roxas, anyway. "Shit was tough as hell. I mean, easy for me, because I'm super cool. But like..." He pauses for a long while. "Honestly, some shit, you can't even play cool through. Just got real heavy. Even the raddest brains got a couple gaps. Don't think it's here though. This stuff isn't tamed, it's simmed. At least, northside, far as I can tell."

    And he continues...
Tina Natsumi "Weird ain't even close." Tina snickers at Gerart's comment, his response to the failure rate getting a laugh from the faux-cowgirl as well. "Can't blame ya. If you want the best of the best, you can't cut corners too much, or you end up with folks like..."

She leaves the rest of that thought unsaid. It's probably better that way. Intead, she goes right to the next question. "Bit of A, bit of B. Gal like her needs more friends, but I ain't got enough into her head to figure where any of us sit aside from the foxy lady over yonder." She gestures at Tamamo, the comment about the air drawing a light shrug from Tina in return.

"Definitely feels better than the air back home, but something's... Weird about it. Not a bad weird, though. Reckon I'd have some trouble gettin' some shut eye in here, though." Another chuckle at her own joke, and then it's back to paying attention to the explanations! Her gaze flits arund rapidly as Gerart goes over the directions, notwithstanding the fact that Tina isn't actually sure where north and south even are right until he explains that they're in the south wing.

"Yeah... I dunno how much lectures would do for most of us besides brain-boy here-" She gestures at I4. "-but the practical training and physical stuff sounds right up my alley. Gotta be ready if I get caught too close without Uncle Sam and can't afford to go loud or..." She trails off as her expression hardens for a moment, and then she breaks into that practiced grin again. "Ah! Right. Uh. I geuss I'd be closer to a summoner with what you said before, but... Doesn't hurt to know how to wrassle someone down, right?"

Time to see what's what on the North side. The first thing Tina notices is that more intense supernatural feeling around her. Gerart confirms the source of that feeling, and she lets out an impressed whistle as she glances around at the layout more closely. She's quieter when they get to the groups, having enough sense not to try distracting them from their drills, although she does watch the instructor closely before the group's moving onwards again.

At the maze, Tina finally speaks up again. "I'm surprised budget's even a thing to worry about. I mean, this entire place looks so... Like. Dang. I don't think any amount of money could build this kinda stuff back home." She whistles lightly for emphasis.
Arthur Lowell     "This is some wild rad shit. Tough as hell, but I guess I can kinda see it. Got some grueling shit sometimes back at that Sburb Academy, if I remember right, this seems like ultra-hardcore versions of some of that." The mage mutters as he wanders. But something is still stuck on his mind. "Hey, before we head to the next wing... You got any gear here that sims the heavy shit, best ya can? Like, white giant shit, or like, hell, maybe some gold demon shit, man?" Arthur is hassling the instructor now.

    He's quite focused, intently, not on things like student fatalities or how students are trained per se, but on that key intersection, where Antegent meets technology. The black spike sticks in his mind like an ice pick in a botched lobotomy. He's not expecting to find secret antegent technologies or whatever here, but he's broadening out that knowledge as much as he possibly can.
Tamamo     At Strawberry's comment, Tamamo says, "I can recall the voice of a 'hero' who might be the right man to send into such a place, if you wished for humans to live. Perhaps a few. Their 'heroism' might not survive, but such is the casualty of war, is it not?" The words on their own may sound flippant, but her cadence is slow, her tone somber."

    Seifer does speak, and after a moment... Ah, yes, the Fox Knight. Now she can place a face to the voice.
Lilian Rook     Gerart makes a half-laugh sound at precious boy Roxas just wholeheartedly agreeing. "Right on both counts." he says. He glances at Roxas a second time, eyeballing him for real, when he mentions dressing himself though. For some reason, his dull green stare feels even more analytical this time. "Making nice outside of work too? Not what I'd expect, but . . ." He then waves it off. "Demigods? Got more than a few that'd claim god blood --none of it's substantiated obviously. Kids who were born into it, more like. Seems like there's some lycanthrope or half-youkai or something in every class, if you're talking about transforming. That's restricted for outside of physical training though. They don't get to crutch on that crap to avoid drilling the basics into their muscles --their bones."

    "Otherwise it's the usual bloodline rigmarole. Whether or not they're claiming it's 'divine' doesn't matter. Those types are usually the biggest drop outs. Used to having it handed to them. A few make it, but not many."

    He offhandedly remarks to Tina with "Don't worry about the air. That's what it's like being on the Hidden Continent. It's not toxic to normal people until twelve hours or so." He then shrugs his shoulders without really looking back at I4. "Efficiency's about the point. A few pounds of weaponry to deal with the small fry is fine. The Immune-issue stuff down the pipes --that's the idea you have there. Usually second line personnel focus on that, if anyone does." He actually completely about pivots, arms behind his back, when Strawberry Princess disparages the merits of HARD PHYSICAL WORK. "The fundamentals are always applicable, girl. Getting to know your body. Knowing your limits and then pushing them. Turning the forebrain off so it doesn't get in the way of your reactions. Controlling your energy. Developing your endurance. Keeping it up day after day after day --no breaks, no days off, no shortcuts-- develops character. Develops determination. Half these kids who even move on aren't going to be hitting much of anything with their fists, but they do this to straighten themselves out. Hammer out the impurities. Temper the body and spirit." He's very serious about that point.

    She can snag a handgun on the way past for a bit. It feels heavy in her hand, but well-balanced. The lights and displays come to life at the touch of her hand, though the ammo indicator reads 45 somehow. Most of the components are in the ergonomic places. There doesn't appear to be a real muzzle, rifling, or slide action. Aligned with the ejection port, the bulk of the solid metal construction splits open slightly, exposing four striped tracks of some sort. She doesn't get to move on before putting it back.

    Gerart continues pretty conversationally, all things considered, while taking the long walk around the huge area. "Not many of them." he says to Seifer. "The ones who drop out are usually demoralized enough that they don't go back into combat training. Only the ones who really want to be a big damn hero but just don't have the right stuff attach to the G.D.F. It's not a bad fallback, since they can get into special ops by mumbling into their hands. Private sector; there isn't a private sector for this. Nobody 'here' hires someone else for security. Civil security is beneath them too --like the girl said, we don't make appearances to gas rioters." The way he says 'here' seems to imply more than just the Academy --a broader space that encompasses it.
Lilian Rook     He verbally hesitates a little at the last question, though he doesn't break stride. "There ain't technically an age limit. You don't see any of these kids younger than sixteen though. Families won't let them. Need all that time to instill the values and culture and unique talents and all that --the right stuff to continue the Tradition-- before they'll let them run off to anything like this. Most of them show up when they're legally an adult so their parents can't stop 'em anyways. I'd be a liar if I said we haven't taken some kids at their word, though." He grunts. "Ones without families, mostly."

    "First years gotta prove they have the guts before they get much of personalized *anything*." Gerart says to Touta. "Tailored instruction is for mystics only; everyone's got muscles, everyone's got a brain, everyone's got a will that can break or bend. Individual instruction in first year --that's special cases only. Advanced students. Prospects for double course load and extra privileges." He pauses only a second. "Like your 'friend'. Had three of them last year. Unusually high number." As an addendum, he adds "And your host." He makes sure not to quite ignore Tamamo, even for lack of pointed questions. He's certainly canny enough to have guessed by now that she isn't here to tour the facilities themselves. She's also clearly the oldest, and most assuredly 'mystically robust' of the lot, in a way familiar to him. He isn't deferential, but vaguely regards her in the way of a fellow professional from a different field.

    "'Course we do." He half-sighs at Arthur. "Simulations are only so useful though. Mostly first years, before they see real action. Then we throw 'em to the walls to get some real experience. The Immunes have a real well of data though --more than anyone else. It's a popular resource; people pay a lot to get access to some of it."
Arthur Lowell     Oh right, Strawberry Princess is hassling him about the card. "Look-- I'm /totally/ Adversarial." Arthur explains. "But-- okay, so, they only got room for two titles." He grits his teeth a little bit and brings up the card. "I mean I'm totally an Adversary too. I'm /adversarial/." He says this in an assuring tone. "But-- I mean, it's still /cool/."

    He brandishes the qualification with a little bit of pride, declaring him an ENCROACHING ARCHITECT, whatever the hell that means. "I got hella rungs! I'm super good at fights. I have no idea what the deal was, pinning that shit with me just 'cause I do some space and crafting stuff." He makes dismissive motions with one hand, as if waving off a hostile ghost that has bad takes.
Lilian Rook     NORTH-2:

    The third quarter, at the twelve o'clock, is evidently his class --the one he said he'd left to their devices earlier. Second years, going by the stripes again. Massively to his credit, nobody has slacked off in the least knowing he'd be gone for an hour; however he'd motivated them this far, or at least today it must be working.

    *Really well*. The reason he hadn't used the word sparring is almost disgustingly apparent now. The hundred on this field are absolutely *going in raw* on each other. The racket here is almost as bad as the gun range, solely due to the sheer force of impacts and speed of strikes going around. There's little form or organization to the melee, with pairs and matched doubles going at each other unarmed in a constant stream of violence that creates its own erratic breeze for the constant turbulence and shock.

    A lean east Indian recruit kicks off a field wall to dropkick a burly blonde classmate into the ground hard enough to rumble through the dirt. A pair of Japanese students wrestle with each other for several seconds, reversing each other's holds and locks until one succeeds in throwing his opponent a hundred meters across the field, before he bounces upright and digs his fingers in to stop, then charges back in a blink to tackle him. A pair of girls --rarer than their male counterparts-- are trading blows almost impossible to trace, jabbing and weaving around each other, bangs and cracks sounding off each attack, until one connects and fires a spike of green-white energy that washes through her partner's abdomen and sends her rolling over the sand, smoking and smelling faintly of charred flesh. A taller, olympic built young lady is locked in a brief bout of tackles and strikes with a lean, pallid young man that stays off the ground obviously long enough to be involving flight, before tossing him down and knee dropping him two inches into the ground.

    Gerart only casually gestures, wordlessly, for what apparently some people have come for. Lilian is apparently here for the time being, if one cares to spot her in the crowd. She's actually kind of tiny compared to most of her class, and engaged with a boy a half foot taller. He intercepts a flashing round kick from her, gets a hold on her ankle, then thrashes her several times against the ground, only able to defend her head and neck. He attempts a ground grapple, but she twists out, and punches him in the groin. He flinches, and she delivers a rolling series of punches up through his solar plexus and ribs, then an uppercut that snaps back his head, finished by her curling backwards and vaulting off both hands to plant both heels in his chest. There's an audible snap of a broken collarbone. She wipes dirt, blood, and sweat off her cheek, then leaps on top of him, pinning his arms down with her knees and hitting him and hitting him well past the point it's unnecessary, viciously beating him limp.

    The look on her face is . . . new. Without overwhelming casual confidence. It's so . . . earnest. Purposeful. Sincere, even. Open, and yet deadly focused, on something that she doesn't seem to believe is completely beneath her.

    She hasn't teleported once.
Lilian Rook     Gerart nods with approval on his way past, seeming to be satisfied. "Second years. They pass the wash rate, we figure they have at least the guts to be worth putting through the real wringer. Fundamental combatives are thrice weekly, two hours each time. On-site medical fixes them back up at the end of the day, not before, unless they literally can't get to class under their own power." Repeating apparently his favourite phrase, he says "Broken arm makes electives harder? Suck it up buttercup. Welcome to the real world. If you can't handle that then what are you gonna do with a field injury, huh?"

    He then suddenly bellows out into the field "ELISE GET YOUR ASS OFF THE GROUND RIGHT THE HELL NOW! I SEE YOU DIVING! AND ROMANI, STOP BEING A PUSSY! IF SHE WON'T GET UP THEN YOU BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HER WHILE SHE'S DOWN! THAT'LL TEACH HER TO *FUCKING KIP UP* LIKE I KEEP TELLING HER!"

    Finally, the last quarter of the field hosts another second year class, and is dominated by what looks to be an insanely convoluted steel obstacle course in four parallels. They're being set up to race each other to the finish. It involves a straight sprint across five centimeter wide poles which blow up out of the ground after a moment's contact, climbing and dropping multiple thirty meter walls in a row, navigating a twisting maze of what might as well be a balance wire, a diving trench crawl not just under, but through, razor wire, and what looks like a run through an actual minefield, albeit some sort of concussive magical explosive rather than a genuine anti-tank article.

    Multiple sub-sergeants follow along to the side, spraying bursts of gunfire at them the entire time to add more stress to the ordeal. There's the sense that, if they really wanted to, they could easily hit them, but most of it appears to be cosmetic, though one of the recruits evidently performs unsatisfactorily and is tagged in the gut, thrown bodily off the top of a wall and landing, bleeding from a puncture wound.

    "Not much to say." Gerart opines. "This group's on monthly scoring. Second years still wash out at a rate of half. Start with four hundred, end up with a hundred by year three. Lots of kids think they have what it takes. Most don't. I'll give 'em that only a quarter drop out on the physical portion though. It's more about determination and how much you want it. Plenty of 'em want it. Want to be heroes. Want to be the best. A fifth or so flunk out on the classes, because they don't have the brains. A few drop out on the fact they just don't have the mystic potential to be worth shit. Half . . . well, the psychological part breaks 'em." He adds, darkly.
Korra Following the directions is easy, though some of the shots go over Korra's head. "But why would we bail? I'd not bet against me." Korra quips, the exact tone of voice of a literal protagonist that actually 'knew they were one' that Gerart has probably seen and heard dozens of.

"Aya-what?" She adds, looking back -- and locking eyes on Tamamo, blinking a few times. "Oh, wait, there's spirits here? I guess it makes sense, I just-" Was too high on the local supply to notice the snappily dressed person had three tails and fuzzy ears. "-... Wasn't really paying attention, I guess."

The group moves to the north, Korra sliding her thumbs into the cloth-and-hide belt around her waist as they go. The tangible aura of the north field causes the little hais around the fringe of her brow and neck stick straight out, a subtle wind riffling the fabric of her pants. The trainees being gruellingly drilled causes the martial artist to linger. She follows the (shirtless...) instructor's shouted drill instructor lines, and then plays a game for a few moments, picking out who she thinks will get called out - for a stance ou of alignment, for a tremble in the fingers, a fidgit of the foot.

The shape of the energy is interesting to her, and she examines it as a master practicioner rather than a gawker. She can't help but wided her own stance, not-so-subtly following along for a single rep without following through with the blasts of elemental power.

Then she's hurried on, by the flow of the group. Live combat, shooting practice...

"You keep saying there's parts where we're going to run away. What's up with that? I get the idea you're not just talking down. Why's the psychology so rough?"
Rean Schwarzer "...Well, we're coworkers." Rean says with a shrug. He couldn't really say they were friends (and she'd probably laugh at him if he said so) and he wasn't a fan of hers in the way Gerod was likely thinking.

The group heads north, and Rean intently watches the drills, not saying anything.
It reminded him of that time Instructor Neidhart dragged every boy in Class VII to run swimming drills to make up for (apparent) poor performance in their regular swimming course. Or his initial training in the way of the sword, though Kafai was definitely the patient sensei type.

Otherwise, this place is...different than what he was used to with his school. If he'd wound up here, or if Thors was truer to its status as a military academy, would he have eventually washed out like so may others did?

Rean does spot Lilian out in the crowd of second years, watching her fight another student. She looks...truly focused, and challenged. He watches her for a moment, and then nods. If this was what she considered worth all her effort, then no wonder she smuged her way through most things. He turns away from the glass, continuing onward.
Seifer Almasy      The fact that Chosen, Special People with Special Blood are the usual dropouts gets a wry smirk on Seifer's face. Yeah. He liked that. He liked that the Special Ones failed. It made him happy in the deep, animal part of his brain, the part that was still a little jealous at how hard he had to work for his dream when other people less willing to struggle got to coast on 'talent' (or more simply: fuck off, Quistis Trepe, thank you very much).

     "I'd assume that just having gone here for a little while is enough to secure whatever job you want," Seifer replies, "The fundamentals probably could get you in the door for civil service instruction, probably research depending on your specialties. I'm actually surprised you *don't* have a program to put drop-outs to work, now that I think about it. Seems like a waste of manpower and budget." It's not really a smarmy 'ha ha I can't believe you don't do this' kind of thing - it's, again, the conversational tone of a professional to a professional. The guy may remind him of a whole lot of people he's pushed around before, but there's no reason to be an asshole.

     He catches Tamamo's glance of recognition, and it almost throws him off *his* game.

     The verbal trip tells him everything he needs to know, though, so he refocuses on those thoughts. The whole society was a funnel. The people who went here only came after all the basics. But unlike Garden these people had varying levels of training, tradition; they came from multiple backgrounds. "Sounds like you have to break 'em down every so often if they haven't learned what they need for you," he says, "But I bet you can't say that out loud." He flashes the guy a likable military grin before he goes back to focusing on watching the training.

     Yep. Martial arts. He watches dispassionately - he'd never gotten the hang or the need for it, so he wasn't able to critique anything other than the stance and the approaches in his head, considering how he'd counter with his beloved gunblade if he had to. A step there, a spin there, a cut there. It's training, but, again, not as live fire as he'd like. Something something, training without danger only prepares you for training.

     And there's Lilian.

     And there's Lilian just beating the shit out of a downed man.

     Yeah.

     That told him basically everything he needed to know.

     Every, single, thing.

     Gerart's commentary finishes *that* off. It was basically live. It just wasn't deadly. Admittedly, it was the deadly part that *he* needed, but Seifer had been an odd one even in Garden, and only...

     Well. Nevermind.

     "And what's the rate of graduation?" Seifer asks, again, in the tone of a man who expects that he knows basically everything about it.

     Once he's gotten his answer, he turns and holds out a hand to Tamamo. "Hey."

     "I'm really sorry that nobody else in the world apparently listens to voice patterns or anything else. It's pretty awkward to hear and I imagine it's pretty awkward to be the target off. I'm Seifer, although I already introduced myself over the radio - but, y'know. Better in person, right?" He gives her a grin.

     "Anyway."

     He scratches the back of his head. "I've just been thinking of you as twins for now. Seems like the easiest way to resolve...all kinds of awkward crap."

     "But if you ever need any help, lemme know, I guess." He shrugs. "As long as it's not against my own team, I'm...you know, you're basically sisters, I feel *some* obligation to help you out of trouble."
Arcadia The brutal fight-training session is interesting... Up to the point that the obstacle course comes into view. At that point Arcadia completely forgets about watching the second years beat the shit out of each other to gravitate towards the tests of mobility and dexterity. Racing each other, no less. The gunfire adding that bit of deadly atmosphere, the chaos that is inherent to the midst of any battlefield.

Let's be honest here, it's only out of a respect for how important training is to pushing one's limits that she doesn't try to just run out there herself to try it. That would be rude, ruining others' efforts to improve themselves. She's not that kind of asshole, even if she does tend to think of herself as one of the best when it comes to stunt acrobatics.

But there's no mistaking that the sphinx has taken a rapt interest to it, to the point that she's stopped hovering so she can focus entirely on watching, tail doing that flick-flick of curiousity cat's do, movement mostly only made noticable by the tuff on the end, eyes forward in awe.

Eventually she does comment, "I want to run something like that sometime. I can even disengage my wings and flight systems to keep within parameters." That's not bragging that she'd be able to do it easily by flying. That's in the tone of someone that really wanted the full immersive and challenging experience.
Tina Natsumi "Twelve hours? Not too-uh." Tina shuts herself up as she tries not to let that apprehension show.

It is totally showing super hard right now. Maybe watching some people beat the everloving shit out of each other will help! It... Kind of does, actually, watching Gerart's students fighting it out with all manner of close-ranged techniques, energy-based blasts, and even moving faster than her eyes can keep track of. She doesn't even recognize Lilian beating the crap out of someone else until Gerart's already prepared to take the group further onwards.

From the looks of it, Tina looks hyped up. "Holy crap... I'd freakin' die in here. I want in." She murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else despite being loud enough that Gerart and the Elites present could easily hear her. It's brutal and moderately scary, to be sure, but it's hard to hide that excitement regardless. As they're walking off, though, she finally puts two and two together, then breaks her don't-disturb-the-students promise to herself.

"Hey, Rook!" If Lilian looks up, she'll see Tina flashing her a thumbs up before following Gerart again.

And then they get the rest of the tour including the (hopefully non-fatal) minefield. "Dang... Yeah, I can see why people would bail on this. But if we're lookin' this far in..." She's still looking fairly pumped after what she's seen, although the intensity of it still has her reeling some.

Also, the mines. "Anyway. Does this place normally take off-world students, or is that more related to the accelerated course thing? Adn... Heck, how accelerated are we talking here?"
Touta Konoe     Touta listens intently as he talks about his 'friend' and just how capable she apparently was to need that added study in her first year. While that does make him smirk at how supposedly talented he knew Lilian already was, it also made him raise a bit more questions. "About that though...Uh...So I'm sure I got an idea of what a 'Mystic' is, but I know in the Multiverse terms change from place to place. So I figure I should ask, what exactly makes a Mystic different from other students? Also you said those with extra work load get some extra privileges, what kind of privileges we talking about? I'm guessing it's not later curfew or something right?"

     Just as he's about to wait for an answer though he sees the second years and of those second years he sees Lilian. He watches her fight and while there's aspects that make him cringe...Like watching her punch the poor guy in the groin, there's something else that he notices in her. Something that he can respect which he doesn't see as often on the field. Determination, a desire to get better. He sees it in the way she focuses, how she earnest goes at the fight. He can tell that this practice is for her and she knows it, that this is all for her betterment and she's not taking any shortcuts to do so. "Huh...I guess I'm really not as much of a friend as I thought..." It's not something he intends to say to the instructor but more something that just comes out. Though while it maybe a bit of disheartenment to that statement there's plenty of respect that comes along in his voice too. If there's another question that comes to his mind now is...What kind of goal is driving her in this moment that she's doing this that she does it so earnestly?
Roxas Roxas doesn't seem to understand Gerart's 'making nice' question. He smiles faintly, but the lack of comprehension is obvious. On the subject of god-bloods, he says, "Demigods are bad news where I come from. I guess I just sort of expected something similar here. They're... well, they're people. Everybody's different. But they're bigger, louder, kind of crazy. Even compared to this sort of crowd. So when they get involved, things get chaotic and difficult."

He falls silent, trailing along almost-but-not-quite-aimlessly. It's only when the subject of age is addressed that he speaks up again.

"That's okay. People act like it isn't, for some reason. I don't really understand. Sometimes you just know what you're meant for, or... you can see the road in front of you, and need to reach for it." He shrugs, loosely. The concept of somebody being too young to fight is alien to him.

He pauses to watch Gerart's class, finding Lilian's ongoing battle during the middle of it. There's a sort of quiet enthusiasm to him, an unnatural stillness to what would -- ordinarily -- be a young man whooping and shouting in support. But he doesn't really have it in him, apparently. Smiles and grins only.

He raises a hand as Gerart begins to head away, a wave of green particles washing over the distant Lilian, diminishing or wiping away whatever bruises or difficulties she might have just suffered.

The student she thrashed he considers for a moment, and then decides against. If Lilian is out there, he reasons to himself, she's probably helping with the exercise. So it's "correct" if she, an instructor, gets an unfair advantage. But giving it to the student would be an unacceptable disruption.

He actually does pause to 'help' at the batch where the sergeants are doing some shooting, stepping forward and waving several times to supplement gunfire with a pattern of columns with white light that create a predictable-but-obnoxious net of moving hazards on the field.

Then, with the rest, he moves on.
Ishirou This whole system of treating humans roughly is a bit foreign to I4.  It's so /odd/ to him because humans from his world seem to avoid living like this whenever possible.  That's why /he/ exists, right?  The casualness of how Geralt does this is equally strange.  Not 'horrible' or 'awful' or 'heartless'.  Strange.  

The figures come by him, as he starts calculating.  What drives these people to finish this place is beyond him.  Is protecting the world the real goal?  Do each one of them have that same bottomless drive of empathy for their fellow man.

Oh hey, it's Lilian beating the crap out of someone.  Gonna put a big nope on that one.  I4 considers maybe needing to work his problem backward, using data from his world's humans.  Maybe there is a connection there?  For now, he gives a small wave from where he is to her.  

"Psychological?  Is this because of the rough natures of the monsters themselves?  Trying to break or mentally harden them?"
Strawberry Princess      "'Encroaching Architect'," Strawberry repeats, trying her best to sound impressed by Arthur in the total absence of comprehension. "I... remember, what you did with the Endling. You're- you don't need to tell me again. That you're good at that sort of thing." She makes another effortful, vaguely-wearied smile, like it's not the thing she really ought to be smiling about. "You're proud. I can tell. You should be. Thank you, for... showing me. You should show me the 'crafting' things, sometime, too."

     The hands-on training, it soon becomes evident, she doesn't have much of a taste for. Her visored gaze sweeps the field, not lingering on anybody for long- until she reaches Lilian, whom she watches for a good several seconds. Her unease is evident in the slight twitch of her lips, the flinching angle of her posture.

     Not because she hasn't seen worse, but because she has.
Strawberry Princess      In response to Tamamo, she eventually manages: "Someone's heroism- it's not, not a currency, just to be traded in like that. It's... their heart. And the perception of it is just as important. Insurrections- they're a reflection of the people's will, aren't they? And so if a 'hero' is responsible for crushing them..." She pauses for a moment.

     "You don't want to give anybody... a motivation. To kill the people who are holding up the sky. Do you know?"
Tamamo     Tamamo almost corrects the term at Korra's halted repetition, but--no, no, she can explain ayakashi later. There are far too many things already here to speak of, even if she is largely remaining quiet, allowing others to pepper Gerart with their individual questions. She won't be better-served by giving him more work to do, when she's already seeing and hearing what she needs.

    She catches, for example, the sight of Lilian beating a man on the ground. Out of everything on the grounds, her eyes focused there, not stopping to first grow accustomed to the inherent brutality of 'full contact' training. She had heard it explained, at least, and that should have been sufficient for there to be no further surprise. It should have been, but it isn't. Her gaze is clearly attentive, even barely-perceptibly tense, rather than affectedly casual. She doesn't call out, wave, or do anything else to distract those on the field. Tamamo's redder features are sufficiently noticeable on their own that that won't necessarily matter, especially after Tina does call out.
Lilian Rook     "You'll get an idea next." is the MC's sole, ominous reply to Korra. Her enthusiasm is probably pretty warranted. The southern quarter really does bear a strong resemblance to bending training, though rather than the four elements, there's a more esoteric mix of personal energies, with a large predominance of a sort of 'generic' white ki for people without any particular alignments in them. Gerart doesn't seem to disagree with Seifer on repurposing personnel, but he says "Not our domain. They're born into the elite. They fuck up here, there's plenty of other places to go. They can handle themselves. If they want to step down to lower rungs, that's their prerogative. More than a few do go into research 'here' though. R&D, a lot of the time. Supporting the people who passed from the sidelines."

    He then rolls his shoulders in a burly, contemplative way. "Only so many times you want to break 'em down. If they can't think on their own, they ain't an assets; they're a grunt. 'Course you get plenty coming in with stubborn streaks, hero complexes, entitlement issues --that kind of thing. Grad rates are what we say they are. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta classes of one hundred at entry. Whittled down to fifty each by second year --that's two classes in contact training there. Chopped in half again and rolled into a two classes of fifty at year three. Year four to six, you don't see as many. If they've gotten that far, usually they get the rest of the way. About forty graduate on a tough year or a weak crop; eighty is the record. One last half or so over three years. Usually the type who don't have the stuff to be leaders, who can't handle the real violence, or who get killed or compromised out in the field."

    "If you want to run a course, go to the place that kid got his card. They'll put you through your paces and then some. The license is useful." he grunts in Arcadia's direction. "Hasn't been long enough that 'off world' is a thing." he remarks frankly to Tina. "We'll see." Then, even more frankly. "I wouldn't recommend it. Too scrawny." Lilian does look up when Tina calls her, thumbing droplets of blood --her partner's-- off her cheek. She stares with the kind of wary, partially open-mouthed tension of someone who'd just barged into her room. She stands up. Her partner groans and tries to rise to his feet. She stomps on his chest and puts him back down.

    The MC doesn't seem to give a shit at the level of violence. If anything, he seems to appreciate it. Roxas flings a heal he probably isn't supposed to. She glances towards Gerart, who is probably feigning not paying attention, then flashes Roxas a weak smile. Glancing to the side, she notices Tamamo, and her eyes brighten up slightly. in that moment of distraction, another recruit uses the opportunity to leap on her from behind, she turns and spinning high kicks her in the chest, firing black and red energy through her, painting an arcing trail as she drags her all the way back down to ground and slams her beneath her heel in vaguely Tarantino fashion. She's back in the brawl.

    "Your friend's a little small for this program, but we have her card scores. Not a martial Tradition, but way out scope for the amount of physical she's done, so it flies. We don't pry into the particulars. Otherwise nobody would show up." To Touta, he says "Catchall shorthand for courses and fields having to do with anything magic, theological, supernatural, superhuman, whatever. Everyone here is one. They have to be. Some born that way, most raised into it, a few sweat it up here on their own. We don't discriminate."
Lilian Rook     "Privileges, though? Advanced combat assignments. Higher requisition access. First call on facilities and after hours use. Private tutoring. Favourable circumstances in exercises. Special circumstance pay while still in the Academy. It's a good deal. After second year they can challenge the course for a higher placement, assuming the Archetype card they've got from the House is up to snuff. We have two in second year with the Blade station, one Silver one Crimson, and one at Chalice, Black. The first two might pull it off."

    Roxas decides to 'assist' the obstacle course by shooting into it. A gaggle of recruits being loudly complaining and pointing fingers, looking to Gerart to discipline the interloper. Laughing out loud, he hits them with what they must have heard a million times by now. "WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD! DODGE BETTER!" he bellows.

    I4 asks his question. Gerart says. "Yes." and that's it for a moment. Then, "To say the least. I'll show you."
Lilian Rook EAST

    The east quarter of the building is quite obviously heavily insulated, by the strange rises, gapped panelling, and perforated grates inherent in the walls, ceiling and floor. It's not only quite soundproofed, but magically insulated, and on electronic blackout. It appears to be for pursuits that require uninterrupted focus, concentration, fine stimuli, control, and perhaps things that should be kept away from general sight.

    Gerart first takes the group around rows of glass chambers on two vertical levels, fifty in total, most occupied. Large and cylindrical, they each host a single student, of varying ages. The general arrangement is that each of them are sitting or kneeling in the center of their sealed area, a metallic hatch closed behind them, surrounded by concentric rings of pattern-etched metal and glowing light, slightly colour coded based on some arbitrary criteria by student. Most are involved in some sort of meditation or trance, completely unresponsive to the outside world, while measuring instruments chart the unseen activity in incomprehensible bars and spectrographs, recorded and interpreted by a couple of sharply dressed women.

    Ambient particles of light are gradually injected into the chambers, and are drawn in or spun around. The first years seem barely able to influence them, while the third and fourth appear to be on to using hand gestures to manipulate them into complex shapes and orbits. Some changes have marginal additions, featuring a pentacle here, incense there, or flooded with water elsewhere. Multinational as the place is, even the standardized curriculum for paramilitary purposes has a fair bit of flex for individual Traditions. Likely the place would be supremely unpopular, as well as wasting student potential, if it neglected cultural strengths and learning types.

    "These are our enhanced cultivation facilities. We're not in the business of waiting twenty or thirty years for these kids to develop strong meridians and Human Origin geometry. They get four to get up to par, and two more to get up to pro. These are state of the art. The program reconfigures their insides like nothing else. Tests their concentration. Refines their senses. Gets them thousands of hours working on accumulation, output, flow, regulation, control, and respiration. Looks comfy doesn't it? You'd be *damn* wrong though. Accelerating origin development aches and smarts like a bitch. Can't focus like that? Tough. Welcome to the real world."

    Several other chambers, these ones much larger, squared rooms, with viewports that are monitored by staff apiece. They appear to be for private magical pursuits, passing only three.
Lilian Rook     One involves a student in some sort of trance, with a staff member inside, reviewing photos and checking lists while the student slowly mouths replies to inaudible answers, likely involving some kind of remote projection or ESP. Another is a little boring, since the student hasn't finished the painstaking process of drawing out a rather large and elaborate, five point summoning and binding circle --the idea of employing demons or spirits as agents or weapons against dissidents and antegent strikes. A third involves a student surrounded by a constellation of floating metal pieces that he's rapidly putting together into a large, humanoid shape, morphing them with elaborate gestures and constructing a bespoke sort of golem or automaton, with a timer counting down and an instructor checking off spontaneous demands.

    Gerart doesn't even comment. It's super obviously a set of special facilities for private gimmicks. He limits the explanation to "Facilities for the recruits sorted into rear line positions. Three line doctrine. Hard operational support. Usually the types that need time and space and focus, with the first and second line keeping them clear to work, or active in combat downtime. Not my field here. The techs and personal trainers work here, assigned recruit to recruit. Nice perk is basically unlimited budget; that is if they can last here."

    Lastly, there are rooms with a whole lot of cables, arcane arrays, and tinted out windows. Three staff are assigned to each chamber apiece, two juniors carefully monitoring a number of charts, one of which is most certainly dedicated to vital signs, and one senior running sets of programs. No sound comes out of them. Gerart rumbles on the way past "This is the place. The black, beating heart of the program. Simulated and controlled exposure to psychohazard and cognitohazard situations, encroachment, dominion, delusion strains, and interrogation and torture protocols. No set schedule, but there's weekly limits; it ain't healthy to go over. Half the drop outs can't handle this shit. Need fifty hours to graduate first year and another hundred to graduate second. You're goddamn useless otherwise. We're not spending all this on punks who snap under stress. Get brainfucked inside out at best, go rogue or spill secrets at worst." Those feel kind of backwards. "Five hundred hours to graduate, by the way. You come out a hard son of a bitch or you drop out, period."
Tamamo     Strawberry helpfully distracts Tamamo, but there's a touch of sadness in the latter's smile. Some truths must die before passing the throat. In the end, she says nothing, and the silence has little time to draw on before Seifer approaches. Yet again, a welcome shift.

    Tamamo takes Seifer's hand, though only after a half-moment's pause, and with that barely-there grip of either a demure young woman or someone who has only recently learned what a handshake is. "You did, Seifer Almasy, Kind of a Big Deal." She smiles when she says it, with the kind of sparkle in the eyes that reminds of laughter, though her lips are still touched together. "It is a pleasure, of course, to meet you 'face to face,' as such." She looks ready to wave off the bit about voice patterns, but he continues, and her expression turns thoughtful. "It should not be impossible, perhaps, for such siblings to exist. I shall spare you the long history of such gods and their spirits. Still, I can honestly claim no such feeling of having kin... but I have no cause to shame one for a desire to honor the feeling of a familial bond, however close or distant it may be."

    She leans forward, almost conspiratorially, a trace of mischief as she raise a finger to her lips. "I accept your offer, yet must offer you this warning. There are gods who would allow it, but if your wife is anything like myself, she will /never/ suffer the existence of harems."
Ishirou I4 watches with interest to this, his internal scanning trying to get a feel for the entire place.  Magical development in humans in such a short time, this is really quite amazing to him.  There is an internal question on if it would help his own abilities with enough training?  Physical training was beyond him due to his robotic nature, but was it so with his magical abilities?  

When it turns to more practical applications, his eyes brighten a little.  This could be an interesting way to even improve his own scanning, maybe...or at least achieve an outside perspective that would be unique to his world.  

Finally, it comes to the mental testing.  "So...regulated torture of so many hours a week, with a maximum limit needed for each year here. That's..." he seems to pause trying to think of the right way to phrase it.  "Strange compared to my world.  Humanity would never subject itself to this.  I have a hard time understanding why people do here.  Instead of throwing the work onto a specially designed class for it, like androids like myself."

Of course, catching the end of Tamamo's conversation to Seifer, he turns slightly to the pair.  "Wait what?"
Arcadia Arcadia looks at Gerart when he answers her musing. Looks to who he's indicating.

And then she's at Arthur's side so fast one wouldn't be blamed for mistaking it for some kind of teleport. It's not, she's just that fast, and it's not even the kind of speed she can reach when airborne.

She looks over his arm at the license he's been showing off. The physical acknowledgement of one's role like that is a novelty to her, as she'd always just been considered her position of Guardian without such reinforcement. "Definately going to have to go do that." More challenges to expose herself to and push her own limits are welcome.

Though hopefully she'd get something more interesting that 'Architect'. That sounds a little lame. No offense, Arthur.

Though her facination with the license and how to get it is -- temporarily -- distracted by the next department the tour is passing through. She bobs her head a few times as she listens. "Endurance of mind and will. Just as important. Arguably more so. Doesn't matter what the body can take if the mind snaps in half at a poke."

Not QUITE as riveting to her as the obstacle course, but it's still training. Still important.
Seifer Almasy      "I was gonna be pretty surprised if you didn't put at least some of 'em to work," Seifer admits. Learning that the entire school is for elite children, or at least getting confirmation of it, gets an impassive look on his face. That made him angry, but he was in the middle of what was functionally enemy territory. Like *hell* if he was going to let the mask slip right now. No no no, not even a little.

     But it made him a little angrier than it might've otherwise.

     Eighty is the record, huh. Forty is the usual. Sixty's probably the average, or thereabouts. He doesn't comment on further breaking. The guy's right, but there's a bunch of other questions that he doesn't quite want to ask. He's not willing to reveal more than people already know - he's a military school kid, obviously, he'd said as much over public radio. He just...observes. The brutality isn't military brutality. Yeah, you get killed in an exercise it's your own damn fault, but Garden...didn't *encourage* the kind of shit Seifer did. Garden didn't *want* this kind of efficient brutality. It wanted efficiency, yeah, and the four or so who graduated SeeD had to be efficient, but it wanted...cleaner. Simpler. It wanted you to stop when they were down. It wanted nonlethal takedowns that didn't spill blood if it didn't have to. Yeah, *Seifer* liked the lethality, but...

     Well. It wasn't like it bothered him. It just told him more about what he wanted to know.

     He stirs on it as they walk.

     Seifer looks Tamamo dead in the eye when she says that. There's a flicker of insult in his eyes. "If you think I want anything like that then you clearly weren't listening. I'm not the Fox Playboy. I'm a Knight."

     "Just because every other moron in the Multiverse runs around tryin' to collect lovers like it'll get 'em a high score in Man or Womanhood or whatever doesn't mean I'm interested."

     The cultivation chamber is...well, it's not *familiar*, but he can grasp the principles. He's been playing with his own energy since Nie Li helped him get his foot in the door. He needs a lot more physical motion to control the gunpowder energy because it's a more physical thing for him, too tied to his understanding of fighting to be anything else, his kinetic, explosive form of combat.

     The magic shit just reminds him of Molly.

     A little crack of guilt. Damn.

     Huh. Torture protocols. Deep torture protocols. Alright, sure. Garden had some of that, too.

% "Five hundred hours, huh? That's thorough. What happens to the ones who go over?" Yeah. Yeah, he knows those kids exist. "You got help for 'em, or are they not your problem anymore?"
Arthur Lowell     Arthur regards Strawberry Princess with lips pursed so hard that if you punched him in the solar plexus, he'd make a noise like air escaping from a balloon. It's not negative towards Strawberry Princess, per se, but rather negative towards the idea of her knowing things. "Well, yeah, for sure. We can try out punchcard alchemy on your wand or some shit." He says, nodding a few times and forcing a grin while trying his best not to literally goddamn blush over his licensing situation.

    Here, here is the real psychological breaking.

    He focuses on examining the training program...
Roxas "I /did/ make it fair, though..." Roxas remarks to Gerart, of his interference in the obstacle course. It's true. Partially just because he isn't skilled enough to make it completely unfair, but he /does/ seem to understand the point of the thing, at least. There's no point in making the challenge unassailable. Unless...

"Do you ever set up no-win challenges for them and see how they handle it?" He asks.

He waves genially towards Lilian when she smiles over at him, utterly oblivious to the fact that he probably committed some kind of actual violation there.

He lapses back into relative silence-- until Seifer asks a question about the interrogation / psychohazard training, and it draws him out of his blank stare. Lifting his head to look up at the much taller man, Roxas gives him a bit of an odd look. He replies, "Maybe it's not like this around here, but... usually, when somebody is too damaged by that sort of mental stuff..."

He shrugs, not wanting to complete the thought. It's the sort of thing that makes Nobodies let go of existing. For regular people, though, it's plenty spiritually debilitating. There's a reason the Council cracks down on it.
Tina Natsumi "Wha? Aw, let a girl down easy, won't ya?" Despite having her plan to enroll shot down, Tina takes it all in good humor as they head towards the eastern section next. The differences between this wing and the north are fairly apparent, and she's even more careful about keeping her footsteps less stompy than before as Gerart takes them through.

The weird student chambers are rather jarring to look at, of course. It's not every day she seems people meditating in giant science jars! Willingly, even, from the looks of it.

"So this spot gets the big money, then... Yeah, makes sense. Figure they'd break less... Everything doing this kind of stuff compared to the training field like before."

And then they get into the real MONEY room. Tina's not even sure where to focus at first until Gerart starts explaining the significance of all that gear. "And this is the type of stuff that those... Uh. Antegents are capable of putting out? No wonder you were talkin' about all that formation stuff earlier. Looks like it'd be hard enough to focus through just the stuff you mentioned here without gettin' a bullet lodged in your skull or a tank chucked at your face."
Arthur Lowell     The psychic hazardards. "I remember that test." Arthur says, furrowing a brow. "Brutal shit. Seven Worthies got a tamed hazard in there, didn't they? What do you have? Some kinda summoning thing?" He shakes his head, recalling what Roxas reminded him of earlier. "Simmed stuff, how'd you derive it from the Antegent? Or is it reverse-engineered off the reactions? Fucked to think that anyone would be pumping up human-mind-torture tech all solo around times like this, so..." He's hoping to get some insight into the artificial/Antegent intersection here as well.
Korra Ah yes. The 'freaky stuff'. She catches Tamamo's readiness to answer her mistake, but it's in passing, and the moment ticks over - something to follow up on another time.

When they hit the east, Korra's eyes light up not in the cocksure young adult way, but once more in the way of a practicioner seeing a new school of arts for the first time. "Hhhhhuh. The chambers are pretty cool. Like high-intensity training? Yeah, you're right. I'd love to climb in one. Around here, I feel like I could go all night. There's a lot of energy in the air. Cask of water and a pillow... But what's that stuff about 'Human Origin'? Is that your chakras, or..."

Korra tilts her head, arms recrossing as her braids dangle and sway while she considers. "I guess I don't get why you'd be sore, too."

The psychohazard training gets a nulled out look, the first 'flat and generally stonefaced' she'd been the entire trip. "Alright. I can see how most people wouldn't do well with that."

It's the first straight up line she'd given.
Tamamo     'Ahh,' thinks Tamamo, 'so that's how he is.' Aloud, "I suppose I must thank you, Seifer, for that strong reaction, as well as apologize for jesting too freely. Please pardon the mistake. Perhaps I sought to contrast too heavily with the mood of soldiers preparing for war."
Seifer Almasy      Seifer waves his hand. "It's fine."

     "Honestly," he says, cheerfully, "I was like, 'I can't believe you said that.'"

     "And then while we were walking I went, 'wait, yeah I can, Caster would pull *the exact same crap* for fun.'"

     He gives her a friendly smile. It's probably the most earnest a smile he's given.
Lilian Rook     At I4's puzzlement, Gerart claps his hand on his shoulder. He says, in wise dadly tones, "That's because your humans are bitch-made." He adds "I could tell a while ago."

    To Seifer, he says "Rare that anyone does. Usually the ones that have the most trouble and the guts to be afraid of that fact. Often the . . . y'know, 'new money'. Average people who worked up to Enlightenment in their own generation. Don't have the same mental fortitude, living a life in the Urban Centers, usually. Counseling's part of medical. Therapy. Analysis. Psychosurgery in really bad cases. Don't want a promising recruit to just go insane. Then they're no use to anyone." He adds, rolling his hand vaguely. "Besides. Cruel and unusual, y'know."

    The actual contents of this part of the training are extremely black box. Partially just because it'd be a real violation of people's privacy, not to mention the sanctity of their thoughts, to let random visitors gawk at the room and the data, but partly out of a definite feeling of it being *really* proprietary. The occasional huge elevation in pulse or brainwave spikes corresponding to pain or fear reflexes are obvious enough. "Classified information." he responds to Arthur automatically. "You met one of the demons in the House huh? Those are pretty serious business. Don't worry though, we ain't literally peeling off their fingernails in there or anything. Interferes with the rest of the coursework you see."

    Though, when Roxas asks him about no-win scenarios, that gets a dark chuckle out of the MC. "Very rarely. Can't be too often or they start assuming anything 'too hard' is a trick challenge and they slack off. I see someone treat *anything* with the assumption it's unwinnable, they're out on their ass so fast they make burn marks."

    Finally, he looks at Korra with a cast different than staring at some random country practitioner coming in to wowee at the big city. "Not far off. That eastern chakra and root philosophy stuff --it's foundational blocking of the current unified theory. Human Origin. The idea that the human form mirrors an original, master form, of unlimited mystic potential. The routes and pathways through the body, the things that make it up, confluences and intersections of blood and bone, water and iron, geometries of nerves and vessels that resonate with mystic forces and all that."

    "Goes hand in hand why most every non-human magic entity has or develops a humanoid form, and why humans that undergo Enlightenment and progress further through the stations develop physical changes. Restoring the degraded form. Longer life, stronger bodies, greater magic, heightened senses. That's the theory, anyways."
Lilian Rook     WEST:

    The west wing of the complex looks more like a proper military school, albeit a highly advanced one. Seminars on historical conflicts, warfighting, the history of soldiers, and similar, are present, with fancy 3d reconstructions involved. Written tests and lectures appear to be sparse, more openly engaged and calling on the students at a constant pace. More intense study of modern tactical doctrine is a deeper subject. There are extensive texts about the uses of modern military weaponry and equipment, as well as in-depth studies of the mechanics behind them. The chemical composition of the obscene drug cocktails of 'medical foam'. The acceleration principles of G.D.F firearms. The operating procedures of qbit communicators. There's also a lot of broad mentions, on boards and projections, of joint operation, surgical insertion and exfiltration, and something called 'three line doctrine'.

    A lot of the rooms actually have large and detailed maps of areas both inside, close to, and far away from, the Urban Centers, ostensibly dedicated to precepts of urban warfare, containment cases, early interception, civil defenses, the defense bands out in the non-terraformed wilds, defense grids of dead drops, communicators, overnight wards, strike access, et cetera. The last are the hardest to glean anything from by casual examination; the maps of the world beyond are so alien and strange that it seems to be up to the class to figure out what they'd even do when navigating around them, far away from reinforcements, or even anything edible, as well as perfectly memorizing huge lists of known, fairly static threats and their countermeasures.

    An extremely large 'long hall' style area is dedicated to wargames. Huge tables with 3d holographic projection host real time tactical simulations of various scenarios, played out by singular students, trios, two students head to head, or two trios head to head. The youngest here are at least third years, playing out small squad tactical scenarios against terrorist insurgencies and loose antegent, while specially reserved sections include 'unarguably adult' officers are playing out worst case outbreak urban scorch and burn horror shows and massed military engagements vs high level super antegent from record.

    There is nothing that even resembles an army on army clash, anywhere to be seen.
Lilian Rook     Gerart only explains "Second year gets technical petty officer rank, since we can't have them being restricted by police bullshit or muscled out by jarheads. Allows emergency commandeering of limited personnel resources. Third year is automatically promoted further than G.D.F commissioned staff wish they could get in six. You see those at the back? Years five and six of the program. They ain't kids anymore. Recruits mostly stop dropping out after year three --those are the ones who have what it takes. Fifth and sixth years are on the course full time, finished with their other studies. Real-ass strategic, advanced scenario, and specialization training. Full on commanders before graduation. You don't leave until you've taken on a few Demon class and won."

    Lastly, there are stations seemingly dedicated solely to large, complex, heavily monitored seating arrangements, largely plugged into what are pretty likely to be VR headsets of a stripe, with some sort of collar attachment, and various smaller physical monitors. Given that one of the recruits using these seem to be talkative, or even moving, and the fact that they're all quite young, the purpose seems to be obvious. Gerart elaborates anyways.

    "This is the extent of our simulator training. Not basics --antegent scenarios. The kids have to get *some* practice in first, otherwise the first time they get surprised, they're dead. Modulated brainwave technology I don't deal with. Puts the body to sleep and reads signals off it --all their data's pre-programmed into the system. You do two hundred hours of this before you're set loose on the walls for field practice. Only the weaker types --Beast and Spirit class-- tend to congregate there. Dumb creatures looking to pick off settlers, refugees, smugglers, that type of thing. Cleaning them up is a trooper job, but it's a good playground for new recruits. Four teams of three with a senior officer on oversight. Makes sure that most of them don't get killed by third semester." He says.
Arcadia Arcadia's attention is diverted again, this time by Gerart's comment on non-human magic entity's having humanoid forms.

Pauses to look down at herself. Humanoid body and traits despite the wings and cat-like aspects, walks on two (abiet semi-digitgrade) legs when not flying.

Sure she technically doesn't count because she was specifically crafted this way by the founders of the city. But they did base her on the sphinxes of lore and myth.

Why did -those- sphinx have humanlike traits, though...
Touta Konoe     He can't help but smirk a little when Roxas decides to but in and how Gerart seems to tell his students, 'That's just life'. "Man, I feel like you and my teacher definitely live by the same motto here. Think she'd like this place. Especially since she'd be able to try out a few certa- Ah...Maybe it's better if she doesn't know about this part..." Knowing his teacher's more sadistic side the idea she could get away with training regimens that'd bring people so close to death would probably be so enticing that she may finally decide to step into the Multiverse herself. Something he's not sure he wants these poor students to blame him for...

     He continues moving along with the group as he tries to keep up with all the new rooms that the east wing has to provide. "Huh, this looks like the place I wanted to be at..." Literally from how it's described to him it feels like there's definitely a few things he'd want to try out or take advantage of and the way he gawks at some of these things like a child almost seems to make him probably look a little more green-horned that he might already appear.

    "Ah, hey Gerart, before I forget I wanna throw an idea your way for when the tours over...Probably'll get a 'no' but hell if it's not worth trying."
Ishirou "You...think so?" I4 isn't too surprised to hear this, but he also technically shouldn't agree with him either.  It puts him in a really awkward spot, so he tries to just walk past it.  Though he's starting to like Geralt a lot, the man is tough but he can see why he has to be.  If he doesn't, those kids he's in charge of will die.  

This section would be more interesting to most Inspectors, but the military analysis wasn't something overly interesting to I4, he was a scanner, not a strategist.  He could do some in a PINCH, but he vastly preferred problem-solving on his feet and analysis.  

"That makes sense, with the antegents being so vastly different the more powerful they are, trying to throw as much as you can at them in a controlled scenario.  Also, unwinnable scenarios wouldn't work for the type of training they are trying to do.  In fact, throwing in a very few easy ones would be better, causing them to double-check their work, and learn not to overcomplicate things...especially when the monsters can do that for you."
Korra "Huh." Korra transitions from her flat, business-neutral expression back to a self-sure resting smug. "Is that why everyone here's so tall? Or does potential select for being stacked that tall?"

Korra sweeps her hands more generally towards herself. "Or is being soul-swole give you a few extra inches... and what does that say about--" she gestures even more at the 'totality of herself', before snorting. "--that Lilian girl? She seems like your star student."

The strategic tables get the interest of a spectator uninterested with the game, but presented with a set of chess tournaments. The thing she notices, more than the monsters, more than anything. "Oh. It's like at home, I get it. You're making --" people like her "--people to 'commune with the spirit world'. Not soldiers to fight in wars, but to return balance.

A soft, sad smirk overtakes her resting smugface. "And considering the kind of monsters you guys fight, there's a lot of balance to return."
Strawberry Princess      Now away from the viscerally-horrifying things, and onto the intellectually horrifying things, Strawberry relaxes into a more studious note-taking attitude, soaking in the various details of the psychological and intellectual training. "It's all very... well-tailored, to the realities you're facing. I'm impressed. Can't learn as many... general lessons, you know, as I'd have liked. But."

     "Some parts are... easier, you know. Because you get to 'pick' these people. And because they don't just burn out. And other parts are harder, because you... these people 'start' with less, I feel like. And they need to be built to last." Her voice is heavy and tired with memories. When all you have are five years, all your training is field training.

     But it's the tactical simulations that draw the most interest from her, not the mystical cultivation. She's practically entranced by the wargames; by the very idea of them, even. It's not hard to guess why: magical girls don't get to make many of their own judgements.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur's gotten the brush-off twice now about /seeing/ the integrations, or learning about them. But it didn't feel like an entirely silly idea that this guy just doesn't know the details and knows what he needs to, to tell people how to fight monsters. He shrugs and accepts that this tour just won't get him what he's after, and checks out the tactical stuff.

    "Learning tactics on the field was tough. I'm pretty sure there's a ton of carapacians dead on account of I didn't know shit from fuck about waging war or, like, squad tactics and stuff. So this is... llllless nerd shit, maybe." He regards the VR as well. "Damn, you go DEEP on this. Shit, even the SBURB STUFF ain't preppin' like this. Kinda rad. How you manage COGNITOHAZARDS up in some SIMULATION? Or ya just gotta LEAVE THAT OUT? BRAIN-STRAIN in DIGITAL STUFF with AI around it gonna BLOW UP FAST, ain't it?" That isn't the brainwave tech, so maybe this guy knows?
Lilian Rook     "Weird way to put it." Gerart opines on Korra. "Again, not totally wrong though. Ain't much of a world, spirit or otherwise, left. 'Restoring' ain't a bad word." The grin he puts on is a little bit facetious himself. "There's requirements for entry, obviously. If you can't pass the basic physical, you're not in. The entry bar is high enough that you're either big or you've got plenty of juice to spare. If you're asking about me --I was just raised that way. Long before this academy was even a dream. Ate my greens." he says. He sort of snaps his fingers in the direction of I4 to indicate that he's basically on the correct wavelength about his tactical assessment, but doesn't have anything to say except for "I know so."

    To Arthur, he says "The sims are something I made sure to vet; it teaches them bad habits otherwise, if they're inaccurate, or too easy. It's modeled. It's all direct-to-nervous-system. Honestly, it's good motivation. A cathartic reward. You spend twenty hours in the black chambers, you wonder 'why do I put myself through this?', you come here, and bam, suddenly it isn't so scary --suddenly it doesn't get into your head the same way. People need to see that their effort gets a reward. Progress. If the two are disconnected, they lose motivation, or get mixed up and start doing the wrong things. We call this kind of training 'wargames' for a reason. Games have that kind of structure and appeal."

    He pauses, ever so slightly, for weight of the magical girl's assessment. It's not the kind of insight he expected to hear today. Not from those people. That much is clear. "That's what keeps people coming here. That's what keeps average folks going to the G.D.F offices. The way we won in the end. That promise. 'We don't spend people anymore'. 'We won't'. 'Never again'. Not enough people left to spend, sure, but once you've seen it . . . you don't want to do it ever again."

    Then, like nothing happened, he moves along, completing the circuit.
Lilian Rook     SOUTH

    The south side of the complex, nearer to the entrance, appears to be the least assuming, dominated by academic pursuits. After all, it is an academy. There has to be a certain amount of shared knowledge and book learning necessary to grasp the job. Most of the space is neatly divided up into organized blocks of seminar rooms or darkened theatres for videos and projections. They're largely all amphitheatre or round table setups, without rows of desks or college risers; it feels as if the choice to omit common factory line rows, in favour of having all students in focus at all times, is deliberate.

    One room currently has a holographic 'blackboard' covered in dense reams of script and geometry on some kind of magical theory, with a diagram of a human body filled with lines and patterns that certainly aren't biological. Another has its multiple screens dominated by esoteric illustrations of alien bodyparts and anatomy, as well as some rather bizarre photographs and looped video footage. A large central table has the complete, preserved corpse of a heavily dissected undobhar antegent, put through something like an autoclave by the looks of it. Gerart calls it "Know your enemy class." Another is obviously a medical class, with some rather gruesome images on unflinching display, obviously not tolerating squeamish students in the slightest. One is currently deep in the process of a written exam, looking like extremely dense legalize. Questions like 'criteria of escalation of minimum force against human elements', 'differentiating factors between civilian, dissident, insurgent, and unlawful combatant', 'procedure for extraordinary rendition', 'rank and jurisdiction with civil protection', and 'complete list of legally recognized 'suspicious behaviours'' are present. Between them, there are probably a couple hundred students in class

    "This is an academy, so there's classes." Gerart asserts, quite firmly, despite the look of a drill sergeant about him. "No shit. But if you wanna just hit people then go be a military non-com. Here you learn fucking advanced mystics, antegent study, law, treaty study, science, psychology, leadership, medical triage, emergency response, infiltrarion, black ops, SERE, outer field survival --the works. You wanna be 'moulded in the likeness of a soldier'? 'Join the fraternity'? Go do all that broken down and built back up, one heart one mind, responding without thinking in the line of fire shit? Go be a goddamn marine. We don't need submissive little doggy boot-lickers doing jumping jacks for their tenured army sugar daddy. Immunes aren't soldiers. They ain't officers. They're the damn ubermensch. The best of the best. Strong, sharp, canny, brilliant, tough, determined, resourceful, unbreakable. The perfect human being. The tip of the spear for humanity."

    "You know what an Immune's job description is?" he asks, rhetorically. "You'll hear paramilitary, special ops, anti-antegent specialists, modern knights, national elite --nah. The job description of an Immune? 'Drop in. Solve for X. Walk out.' That's what it is."

    Since they've come back around to the entrance, Gerart checks his watch, which is actually a projected screen like Lilian uses because smart computing devices. "That's all I'm prepared to show. Got any questions, ask 'em now. Otherwise I'm gonna be late getting back to the end of my class."
Strawberry Princess      "We don't spend people anymore," Gerart said. Strawberry's lips move for a moment, but nothing comes out. She tilts her head to one side, as if gesturing to something unseen. Finally, she manages: "Yeah. It's... that's a good thing to promise. To be able to promise. That you... expect them, to be able to survive."

     The classes, one might note- if one studies closely- get at her in a way nothing else really did. She doesn't talk or comment on them. Doesn't inspect them, even, for useful details. It hits her with a spike of nostalgia for something that never exactly was. One week you're in middle school; the next week your city's destroyed.

     Going to classes, making friends, learning things- that's something from an earlier archaeological era. Dimly reconstructed from artifacts, buried under tons of rubble. "No," she says, at the end, her voice a little hoarser than usual. Clearing her throat: "No. No questions. ... Thank you, Gerart."
Ishirou "No questions, I think I got to see what I wanted to see.  I think there is stuff I could learn here, and share as well," I4 says completely evenly.  "I've learned a lot, and wish to continue to learn more."

"Thank you, Gerart," He says, "I don't want to make you late, so if I think of anything I'll just write it down for the next time."
Korra The sentiment that Strawberry Princess puts out - the choked but affirmed 'it's good you don't spend people' - is echoed quietly by the way Korra's hand squeezes her bicep and she gazes into the middle distance at the teaching going on.

"Yeah. Sucks that your world needs this many champions. Glad you're training them like this, though." Her tone rises, the very air here giving her a bit of a boost with her bubbling espresso blood. "Then again, I don't think my ego'd take the abuse you put out here. I'm all soft and tender." She jokes lightly, her expressio reading as 'anything but'.

"Still, I've got two questions. Well, ok, two thoughts that are probably multiple questions. Anyway:"

A finger is raised from around her bicep. "Can I seriously grab some time in one of those... chakra tubes of yours? I really have been itching to try one."

A second finger raises. "Two, without saying 'breaking them and washing out rejects'... What do *you* like about this place? The program? What do you get out of it?"
Arthur Lowell     Arthur tilts his head briefly. Clarity of reward. Work, converted to specific, clear result, measured and displayed. That... makes sense to him. It adds up. Which is why he regards the next part with such intense discomfort. What resonates with him as a fundamentally correct premise is now being used to express a hierarchal opinion that almost sounds... well, Arthur can't articulate it.

    His mind is suddenly awash in a rush of subtle worry about what the world will look like if the Antegent problem is ever solved. What will become of the world if the Immunes someday have no more monsters left to fight?

    For a moment, Arthur seems to actually, visibly, ponder.

    "What'll the Immunes do when you've finally killed the last Antegent?"

    He doesn't really say or express any of his worries, but this is a man who lives and breathes the party line. For what little such a party line's statement may be worth, he wants to know it and hear it said by someone who probably believes it quite earnestly.
Lilian Rook     "Maybe." Gerart says to Korra. It's a non-response, but it's not non-committal; rather, he can't give an accurate assessment at the moment, bu does seem to believe there's a possibility. "Not all of the facilities are used all the time. Sometimes we loan them out to particular needs, when it works out for us." He says that much in an uncharacteristically flat, measured tone. "What I get out of it though? Hah. I guess it's that I get 'heard'. I push the bar. I slap down the tries at lowering it. Privatize. Nationalize. Set a quota. What I get out of it is knowing for a fact that everyone I graduate has what it takes; that they're adults with hands that can hold the future in them, and that they won't be thrown away after all that work."

    He merely grunts again at Arthur. "Fade away, hopefully. Wouldn't be a popular path without monsters to slay. By then most of them will be retired with big fat severance packages and a chest full of medals. I don't really like any alternatives."
Korra Korra nods along. "I understand. I'm Korra - the latest Avatar - by the way." Her posture shifts, from foot to foot indecisively, as Gerart explains the answer to her first question. She clearly knows it's selfish, from the mixture of respectful deference added to her shoulders and the cant of her nose. Still, she stands strong after her potentially audacious request.

At her second question, though, she straightens. It hits a chord, a measure and beat in her ear that she nods along to, her expression formalizing into an expectant respect. Streaks and flashes of confident ego remain, but she brings her fists before her and bows. "Then I hope I am blessed with a favorable response to my request, Master Gerart."

Whether or not that's his title, Korra obviously thinks it best after the final exchange.