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Hiromi	The invitations didn't come from Hiromi, herself, but are sealed with a name that could be read as Yoshinja -- an organization? -- and, more helpfully, signed with 'Representing the Followers of the Wolf,' as well as the 'Maidens of the Archwolf.' It might be less mysterious if the writers had not troubled themselves to translate the missives into more common languages within the Concord than their own -- languages in which they might not be fully fluent.     What is perfectly clear is the location, the name MOUNT FEATHERMAN having no apparent relation to surrounding areas or peoples, but easily found on relevant maps. There's even a Yelp review, stating, "They don't let you in, but I was allowed to take photos from outside. I think they film movies here." 4 stars.     When the elites arrive, they're greeted by people who could be feudal period actors dressed as fishermen, deeply tanned, partially shaven, shirtless muscle-men with straw sandals. The language, which translates just fine when spoken, sounds vaguely like Japanese. Despite the rough appearance, the one who speaks is perfectly polite, saying, "Welcome!" with a fist-to-palm martial salute, and directing anyone not burning with questions for the first soul they find to go right in.     "In" is a rough approximant. The mountain is a mountain, unnaturally steep for its size, with enough flat shelves that it's surely been carved away in places, as has what should have been the ground leading up to it. More people like those fishermen(?) can only be spotted well off to the side, whereas those clearly in charge of the trenches, pits, ramps, and rows of flat-topped logs leading to the mountain are--     They're shrine maidens, clearly. Only one is in the traditional red and white, but traditions must surely vary between worlds, or else it's just that their order is so permissive, that the other is in a full contrast of black and blue. Their tall, fluffy ears are the same silvery-white and black as their respective hair colors, as are their tails. Facially, silver-haired is smiling, black-hair (with little bells and ribbons) is faintly frowning, but they're united in the legs apart, arms crossed stance of "waiting for challengers."     They're also both remarkably short, if taller than the last time Petra saw them. Those who've met one of the wolf-miko before will know what to expect in contrast to their size, but billowy clothing does a good job of hiding it.     "You are here! Welcome to Mount Featherman! I am Shino!" That's silver-hair. "A place that will not be renamed, to know the ones who failed to challenge it!"     Black-hair is a bit less shouty. "I am Nobu. We're in charge of today's testing. If you make it to the top... it's okay to focus on that. You can get there however you want."     "But there's a trick! You don't want to-- oh! We're not supposed to tell you that!"     "We could, but it's more fun to figure it out." Nobu smiles, with an air of danger -- or maybe that's just mischief.
Hiromi	Even from down here, it's apparent that the top of the mountain is suspiciously wide, flat, and arena-sized, even with the pieces of it that rise like spikes. Mountains probably don't usually form like that, but no examination will reveal anything but natural stone.     Getting up there probably shouldn't be hard, to anyone who can fly. Jumping really well is a bit trickier, considering how few areas of ground aren't covered by some sort of trap or obstacle. Areas have been dug out and crossed by narrow stone bridges, single fallen trees, or twenty-foot logs with extra length driven into the ground to form stepping stones. Other logs form wooden arches as if to funnel challengers through certain paths, with enough living, green brush on the ground to hide purely mechanical snares, pitfalls, and flipping boards.     The pair of wolf-miko stand poised and, subtly, like coiled springs. There's an unexplained tension in their stance, even Nobu's, as if waiting for some specific action to which to respond. ("Speaking" is not that action.)     It gets worse once the mountain is reached, where it's not so much a climb as it is a cutting back-and-forth path up the side over more platforming, but there with greater and greater falls should one make a mistake.     Only someone with particular senses would notice what's waiting up at the top.
Arcadia	It was a challenge. That was enough to get Arcadia interested. Not that the mountain was very hard to locate, or reach. But even the high speed sphinx has to pause a moment to admire the location when she arrives, from the traditional dress of the men, the styling of the wolf-mikos, to the myrad of platforms and pitfalls arranged up the slope likely holding many more traps and tricks out of sight. "They've done a lot of work." Should she just fly up to the top, or actually take an attempt at the potential obstacles? Then quickly shakes her head at the duo. "No spoilers! That would take the interest out of the potential challenge."
Audrey Basque	There wasn't any time to make a new outfit. Despite Petra's insistances, Audrey would be showing up in her school uniform, on a Sunday, and that's perfectly fine to her. She'll get the shopping done eventually, for sure, absolutely, likely this week, probably, or perhaps the next--     The mountain being easy to find was a blessing. Audrey is still getting used to getting around, and as much as apps help, she looks forward to not needing one of those to navigate the Multiverse. The outfits of the staff certainly make her understand Petra's comment about 'fitting in', but the fact they're buff half-naked men makes Audrey...     Well if she had questions, she doesn't anymore, gaze avoiding the men not-so-subtly until they finally reach Shino and Nobu, receiving... those are instructions, right? Get to the top?     Deep breath.     The Archwolf knows Lilian, so Audrey has to make an impression too.     She looks about - at the sky, especially, but the ground and the layout and past it all, at something else entirely. The faintest hint of a silver, mirrored glimmer of light under her feet, trailing behind her like cracks in glass.     "Right... here."     She steps forward and disappears as if she were stepping through her own reflection. And then steps out of it again, right at the top, or at least the part of the top she could see, the edge of the flat area.     She's putting her best smile on. She's TERRIFIED, and that's all the more reason to PERFORM. There's no room for anything else right now. Not the way Petra phrased it.
Odette Raskins	Once again, Odette has received a mysterious invitation! She's a little wary about it at first since the last time she accepted an unexpected invitation, she nearly ended up dying (or even did without knowing it) multiples times. Then again, it was a pretty interesting interesting experience overall, and she did grow somewhat as a person and as an alleged Elite, right? But this one sounds way more scary since it's from the 'Followers of the Wolf' instead of someone's actual name. Is it a cult? She's still mulling it over even as she arrives at Mount Featherman, one hand jammed into a coat pocket while the other taps away at her PDA screen. "Movies...? Wait, is this going to be recorded, too?" The EMT sucks in a light breath once she realizes this is going to be second time this has happened. She feels a little more prepared for whatever this trial might be, at least, although what she's not prepared for is the parade of shirtless muscle-men. "Th... Thanks for the welcome!" She squeaks out, doing a terrible job of not staring at them even as she tries to mimic that fist-palm greeting somewhat clumsily. She lingers at the entrance for a bit at first to try and come up with any questions, fails at that, then waves briefly before shuffling further in with everyone else that's present. "D-did you see them? Are they... Are we supposed to be training with them?" The EMT asks to whoever happens to be within ear shot, glancing back for a moment before straightening the front of her Trideag jacket out so she can be a little more presentable for whoever (she assumes) might be recording all this. The obstacle course gives her reason to pause, but it's the shrine maidens that really have her stopping to stare. "C... Cute..." She murmurs under her breath, going a little starry-eyed at the sight of them. Even from a distance, she can sort of tell... They might be shorter than her. Maybe. "N.. nice to meet you, Miss Shino and Miss Nobu! Thank you for the invitation. I'll..." Right. It's time to focus. Odette slaps herself on both cheeks, then pumps her fists at her sides as she looks towards the platforming challenge laid out before her. "I'll make it to the top. And if anyone gets hurt... I've got something for that, too!" Patting her trusty duffel bag full of medical supplies, Odette tightens the strap and readjusts her hold on the bag so it's held flush against her back instead of just dangling at her waist. As someone who can't fly with gravity being what it is, she has to rely on a lot of running leaps, balancing, and short hops to get through the more obvious sections. The traps are what trip her up, though, since she's not expecting them at first, and each new one gets a different octave of yelp out of her. Whether it's through sheer dumb luck in falling the right way, quick reflexes to throw her arms out, or even just gritting her teeth and scrambling through before she can really process the danger, Odette goes for it as hard as she can to keep up with everyone else! Or, at the very least, catch up before everyone's ready to go home.
Riku Asakura	Getting an invitation to Mount Featherman was a strange thing to receive, but Riku arrives here regardless to challenge the mountain.  Today he's all smiles, despite the challenge made, and is here to give it his all.  Riku still has bandages all over himself, indicating he's far from fighting fit, but why he answered the challenge is anyone's guess.   He approaches the people waiting for them and bows respectfully to the shrine maidens who speak to them first.  He could easily fly to the top of the mountain as an Ultraman, or grow tall enough to bypass most of the problems... but that wouldn't be sporting. However, he does grip the Fusion Riser, ready to transform to start the challenge. "Hello!  Nice to meet you two, I'm Riku Asakura.  I'll take on your challenge!" he smiles brightly.  He is wearing a jean jacket with an orange shirt underneath, jeans, and tennis shoes.  "I'll figure it out, don't worry about that!" he says to the 'trick' about getting up.   Before they start he starts the transformation sequence.  "You go!"  He states, activating a capsule in his hand which causes the form of Ultraman to form next to him.  "I go!" he states again, activating a second capsule that forms Ultraman Belial.  "Here we go!" he scans both capsules that have been inserted into a holster with the Fusion Riser.   ULTRAMAN ULTRAMAN BELIAL "Time to get ready! GEEEEEED!" he shouts, pulling the trigger on the Fusion Riser, and activating a blue flame that seems to cover his body with light.   ULTRAMAN GEED PRIMITIVE! Transformed, Riku is no more and Ultraman Geed has taken his place.  His body is silver, black, and red with two large blue eyes that cover most of his face.  On his chest is a gem that shines blue.  He takes a step forward, ready to challenge the mountain.
Tamiel Luxis	Her first proper outing as an elite...Did she count as an elite? She was in the broadband, and she had connections, but was she really...?     But then, putting those sorts of questions to rest...That was part of what she was here for, right?     Tamiel's wings, such as they were, were like gleaming shards, held out behind her. Rather than pure white, they were iridescent in color, ending in two black tips. Her halo was much the same--small, colorful shards rotating over her head. The loose white tunic that the angels at Vineta considered formalwear looked somehow awkward on Tamiel, thought it was less to do with anything but the way she uncomfortable tugged at it, here and there, quarterstaff still strapped to her back.     She claps her hands together as they meet the shrine maidens, eyes gleaming. "So cute!" A pause. A mortified expression slowly crawling across her face. "I mean," she backpedalled, wings drooping slightly behind her. "It's an honor to meet you."     This is a challenge. She she had to prove herself. If I didn't ruin it all already... No! Stop that! Challenge!     "I'll make it to the top." She said, trying for brave, maybe even making it mostly there. "Three...Two...One...!" She held out a finger, let it snap.     Shadow curled around her, like a flower blooming in reverse. Coiling black replaced a stuffy tunic into a black-red dress leggings, and black-gold gloves. Darkness like umbral ink coiled out behind her, solidifying into a scarf that hovered behind her, untethered by gravity.     She bends her knees, then, takes a deep breath, scarf coiling briefly around her, and then--     --She launches UPWARD, a blur. Abandoning the thought of flight entirely, she bounced from point to point along the mountain, steadily moving in rapid dashes between open spaces, even through the open air.
Petra Soroka	"It has not been more than a few days since Lilian retracted your invitation to visit, and you have already, somehow, found another of her classmates to..." "Besides. You can't leave the Library, and Soroka is too busy seething about no one wanting to use her as a horrid little baby factory." "You should come here. For a bit. We'll get ice cream." . . . "Do you want to spend the night? I'll get you spare pajamas and you can look at the stars until you fall asleep."     It's not a good look. Nothing happened, of course, and Petra genuinely had no intentions otherwise, but it's just a really bad look for, less than twenty-four hours after Lilian called her 'Soroka' for the first time in years, Petra to be making a pink-faced walk of shame out of the dormitory of Lilian's school, after having spent the night with one of Lilian's classmates and waking up to her cooking breakfast for her. She didn't do anything, though!!! She promises!!     It's actually *so* blatant, that a thought crosses Petra's mind, once she's back on Hydrochoeria. Face-down in the grass on a floating chunk of dirt orbiting the main island, attending to the very important task of thinking about fixing the warpgate so she doesn't have to take an airship from the Grand Dorado every time, Petra is struck by wondering: is it possible that *Audrey* was hitting on her? She invited her over to her room, shared ice cream with her, leaned up against her and hugged her, and Petra can't remember for sure, but it *seems* like Audrey *tucked her into her bed*. And then she woke up to Audrey asking her what kinds of *eggs* she wanted and saying she could come back any time!! Isn't that a lot?!     No. Surely not. Petra's brain has just been cooked by being an Elite and also a freak evil pervert who naturally preys on women in every interaction with them and she should be euthanized for even entertaining the thought. Audrey's obviously normal and she's just trying to be a nice friend. This is why no one wants a dyke at a sleepover.     Anyways. To the toku quarry conquered by the Archwolf!     The fact that the invitation isn't Hiromi's own immediately fills Petra with a spark of dread, and it's immediately validated upon seeing the two miko. A thousand years ago, Petra met them when stumbling into their monastery on a goofy, misguided little adventure with Cinder shortly after they started dating, because Cinder wanted to hand-deliver some fanmail to the Archwolf. It was, essentially, pointless and embarrassing, and an unproductive waste of a rare day off from Lobotomy Corporation, but the stronger memory from it was taking the trip through the wilderness together and bone-headedly trying to come up with a plan and hanging their heads together in apology and then giggling about it later.
Petra Soroka	Petra looked a lot healthier last time. This time, she looks exhausted, incrementally better from days before but worse than any months prior, still mid-healing. She's wearing green harem pants and a compressed workout binder under a loose button-up t-shirt, newly golden eyes flicking up to look at the wolf-miko with a tired smile.     "Hey Shino, Nobu. I'm looking forwards to the test."     Before she spacially-warps away, Petra gives Audrey a murmured word of advice. "She's like, a goddess of strength. Be careful not to underestimate her followers, either, even if they look small."     Then it is time for the most effective form of therapy that Petra has ever found for herself: jumping and leaping and dodging and wall-running and jumping and bouncing. Despite having means to do so otherwise, she takes the obstacle course entirely raw, insofar as her psychically-enhanced control of personal physics is unassisted. The tokusatsu themed Wipeout course is exactly up her alley, and running through it eases her aches and pains more than it aggravates them. She balances on even narrow spinning logs, comes to a perfect stop and backpedals at the last moment when a trap in the ground reveals itself, and kicks up and over the terrain as long as there's even a little bit of grip to be had on the walls for her boots.     Wiping her forehead with her forearm, Petra clicks open her morphmetal bottle to coil two gleaming bands of metal around her arms, ending on the back of her hands. In terms of fighting, she's practically handicapped herself, but there's an aesthetic demand that needs to be met.
Hibiki Tachibana	"You /know/ you're too hurt to be doing anything. You were told it'd be bedrest for a month, at least!"     "...I know."     "And you /just/ got back from one of the worst things you've ever been through. A whole week. You really could've..."     "... ...I know."     "You don't have to go. This doesn't look like a personalized invitation, so I'm sure others could handle these trials..."     "No. ...I'm the only one left who can."     "I won't be gone long. And I won't do anything dangerous, promise. I already know I can't use Gungnir much until it can get fixed, so..."     "...Well then, if it won't be anything dangerous. Curupira should be alright for a while. So I'm not letting you out of my sight again. Not this soon."     "...Eh?"     "I'm not letting you out of my sight," she repeats, staring firmly into her eyes.     ...     Such is why it's not just Tachibana Hibiki standing at the foot of Mount Featherman today, standing stiffly with bandaging still visible beneath her jacket, around her right hand, her legs below her shorts - but her partner Kohinata Miku as well, black hair tied back with her usual white ribbon into a more sporty ponytail than her usual style, along with a violet-and-white tracksuit. In other words, all set for physical activity.     "The ones who failed to challenge it..." Hibiki murmurs with a frown, staring up towards the distant mountaintop.     "You were ready to come out here no matter what, Hibiki," Miku airily chides her after a pair of greeting bows, one each to Shino and Nobu. "But if you want to go home..."     "Ah, I--- no..."     Utterly defeated, Hibiki gives a rougher-by-virtue-of-injury bow that echoes Miku's, before looking between the two Miko. Her expression tightens up some. "...Then-- we'll take on your trials. Again. I'm pretty sure I know how this works by now," is all she says on the subject of the 'trick'.     With Hibiki not using her cracked pendant to transform - for now? - and Miku being an entirely ordinary girl, the dearth of obstacles is tackled straightforward and head-on. It might be because of her injuries slowing her down, or perhaps Miku's history as a school track ace coming in, but Hibiki is the one who lags behind and needs to struggle to keep up.     But only for as long as it takes Miku to wait up for her so they can progress together; with the black-haired girl taking first over fallen trees or log bridges to lead the way, and Hibiki using her prior experience with the upwards journey to watch for and call out snares and traps... and be wary for otherwise, on the roughshod jaunt to the top.     'Nothing dangerous' was just another Hibiki-ism, after all. ...Though she'd also by lying if she said the duo trip didn't make her feel a little more at ease.
Echolalia	This is the sort of scenario that Echolalia lives for. Mysterious training by 'The Followers of the Wolf'? She doesn't think she really NEEDS training, but she figures it'll be fun. And if she DOES need training, all the better! That means she can have a martial arts adventure where she learns more about herself and the world and maybe gains a new understanding and appreciation for those around her and the world. Echolalia continues to have green skin and antlers, her hair continues to pop and spark colorfully. She arrives energetic and bows her head to the miko, if briefly, when they introduce themselves. "Hi! I'm Echo!" Echolalia says, energetic and vfriendly. There's a mischevious trick?! Echolalia bounces lightly on her feet, excitedly. She CAAAAAN fly, of course, she can just turn into a dragon and fly but they spoke of a trick! And surely that would be too easy! And she can't really show off as muich while flying. She raises her hand up to her forehead and examines the mountain. She taps her foot against the ground, using her tremorsense to try and get a feel for what might be up there or in the way. She by comparision, looks pretty great! But she frowns as she notices the golden eyes of Petra. Did she always have golden eyes? She thinks back. She sure didn't. She squints. Are they contacts? Ah well, she decides, she doesn't actually really care that much! Have golden eyes if you want! Echolalia instead follows along with Hibiki, since she hasn't met either her or Miku before. POSSIBLE FRIENDSHIP? This means she ends up slowing herself by comparision. "Wow, it's nice of you to help your friend along the way." She tells Miku, assuming she's the Elite of the pair. "Do you want any help getting up?" This is probably a bad idea to accept.
Hiromi	"Haha! Right, no spoilers!" Shino answers Arcadia, while Nobu gives a lazy finger-wave back to Odette. Ultraman Geed gets a curious look at his transformation, followed by a nod from the former miko, and a, "Whenever you're ready!"     Interpreting Tamiel's exclamation to have been more narrowly directed to her fellow miko, Shino openly agrees, "Yeah, she is! You should focus, though." Nobu puffs.     Challenging it normally gets Odette the expected mix of platforming struggles, and then also the issue of traps left wherever they could possibly be out of sight. Since not every place has limited visibility, and there are zero moving traps in plain sight, being more careful around any place she can't see is something she might learn from this. If she doesn't, it's a fiendish mix of false hopes and trick platforms, dumping her into pits or dislodging counterweights that catapult her backwards. At least the directions never do worse than tossing her toward soft earth -- which seems to only cover the stone quarry in those places someone is likely to fall.     Things are somewhat easier for Miku and Hibiki. Prior knowledge isn't nearly enough to get through this place -- even if she could clearly remember everything, in the time since, plenty of traps have been moved or added. In fact, there's the feeling that other hands, or more hands, were at work in designing its new form. Better for her progress is the simple fact that they're together. All of the actual traps seem designed to trip up single challengers, making them less dangerous when approached as a pair.     Echolalia, going up behind Miku, benefits from much the same -- it's much easier to avoid traps when you can watch someone else either trip or avoid them. Her tremorsense finds that there's a curious arrangement of stones here, like a bunch of obelisks were buried in a pattern on purpose all throughout, but whatever import that has doesn't seem to have any relevance to the challenge. The traps are mostly wood and rope, and hidden in foliage or on other wooden platforms, which makes them very easy to miss, even with this.     Petra has a yet easier time with the straightforward platforming challenge, with difficulty coming more or less directly from the fact that she outpaces the others on the ground, and is therefore first to fully cross the ground-level-ish obstacles and reach that back-and-forth upward path. That's when a masked figure leaps from her blind spot and into a spinning arm-bar aimed to send her right back down the path. Without introduction, the white-and-red makes it clear that this is a third wolf-miko, and not one she's met. Way too tall to be Hisako but, similarly, a ponytailed, deep brunette. The mask is a plain white, with only the eyes open, somehow giving the impression of a theater hand -- someone playing a role. The way she bounces on her toes shows a more than rote eagerness for that role of 'interfering with one's ascent,' hands up in an MMA-like readiness to grab and throw. It's safe to guess she's more practiced on the jumping puzzles than any of the challengers.     Once others catch up, there will be no second masked miko. She firmly sticks to harassing only the person in front, which gets more dangerous the further up someone manages to ascend.
Riku Asakura	Ultraman Geed approaches the obstacle course carefully.  He's still not at one hundred percent, so any false moves could send him spiraling down the mountain and into unfortunate spirals of getting up again only to fall farther.  He uses flight-like hovering, using it to help with certain platforming challenges, but opting to not fly to the top of the mountain.   The challenges are hard-faced, with Geed attempting them in turn, he manages to hold his pace carefully with each ascent until he's attacked by the masked miko.  Usually able to hold his own in a fight like this, his injuries make him susceptible to being tossed from his position, and falling from his place back down farther.  It sucks, but despite it all, he has fun.   Once more, he's attempting to scale it again, bursting through places he already trod with his flight, and seems to bounce along the obstacles.  Eventually aiming to reach the top and drag himself up to where the others are gathering.
Hiromi	When Audrey disappears, both Nobu and Shino have ink-scrawled talismans in their hands, which they rip apart in a single, unified motion. Their knees bend, weight lowered in preparation to leap, ears raised high -- but they don't see where she went. Landing on the top of the mountain means being out of sight, because there's a lip to it, a small depression upon mounting the plateau. This means, likewise, that there's no way for Audrey to have seen what she was stepping into.     Unable to locate Audrey despite her being the trigger, it's Tamiel's wide leaping that ends up drawing the double miko aggro. They don't fly, but their kickoff leaves a pair of loud cracks and rush of air, with Nobu suddenly holding a long spear that she, with a wide-eyed, intense focus, swings around to catch Tamiel on the staff between leaps. Shino's leaping arc instead aims to catch the angel bodily, tumble and spin through the air while grasping her with her hands, and launch her down and backward, then land on one of the wooden arches and go after her again. This is a lot higher impact than what Petra's dealing with, in rough proportion to their speed of interaction.     Following this trend, one might expect Audrey to have entered into the worst situation, and that would be--                 I am Hiromi.     The words are only understood afterward. What hits her mind is a feeling, rather than words, but is afterward processed and remembered as if someone spoke to her. Even that is only an approximation, something immediately understood but impossible to exactly verbalize. Hiromi is heard as a name, but overlaid with a litany of titles, the totality perfectly understood to be a single symbol of being -- the Final Hunter, The Empress of Wolves, The Terrible and Beautiful Tyrant, and on and on. It's an exact description of a being in a way that a single word shouldn't possibly be.     What she feels, physically, is explosive force, as a giant of a wolf-woman strikes the ground under her, both the passage of her leg and its result on the mountain's stone -- exploding upward like water rather than stone, keeping to a single shape while remaining entirely solid, aimed to lift her up and back over the edge and into a long, tumbling fall. The words that follow are definitely words. Some of them, at least. The rumbling voice will be familiar.     "You are brave." Did she say 'brave,' or was it 'recklessly confident'? "To think to face me alone. Come. Climb." Ascend, grow, surpass. "Test yourself against me."
Odette Raskins	Without the ability to skip to the top, Odette just has to keep hoofing it! She's glad to see she isn't alone, at least, seeing some familiar faces in Petra and Hibiki around with the latter coming along with someone entirely unfamiliar. The temptation to follow Hibiki's lead as the apparent veteran to this place is strong, but there's am itch in the back of Odette's mind that keeps her from just doing that. She knows she can't just stay behind everyone forever, so she just keeps going. She might even be pushing herself a little too hard to stay at/near the front of the group taking the long way up, too, and that means she isn't in the front for long. Although she's careful to look for those traps at first, peeking around bends and flicking rocks at suspiciously empty landings, the EMT does eventually let hubris and a need to look decisive get the better of her. "What kind of... Nnh. Wolves would even come up with this kind of obstacle course? I-I never heard of wolves being devious like this!" She shouts, half-complimenting the buidlers and half-complaining about leaving so many indentations in the dirt from getting tossed around so much. By the third or fourth time she's flung backwards and fallen into a pit that costs her valuable (to her) minutes just to get out of, though, she's looking much more ragged and frustrated than amused. The one silver lining there is that she's not quite front-enough to be the first one to get ambushed by the masked miko. As she sees the mysterious brunette going after Petra, the EMT lets out an uneasy noise as she braces herself for what's to come. She can't just NOT try to reach the front of the pack again, after all. She just needs to brace and be ready to try and handle the masked miko nothing more than some physical conditioning, whatever she could commit to muscle memory from her own training, and grit.
Arcadia	"Whenever you're ready" is all Arcadia needs to hear. Leonine tail flicks a few times, adjusts her wings as the magitek visor manifests from her tiara, and the sphinx takes off. Could she try to just fly to the top? Sure. But that would defeat the purpose of THE CHALLENGE. Same reason she doesn't just go bombasting through at supersonic speed and just outrun the traps. That would just disrespectful of the effort put into setting this course up. Besides, Arcadia is too much of a daredevil to not try and take the obstacle course on as intended. But even when restrained Arcadia is exceptionally fast and agile. As well as an experienced dungeoneer (even if it's secondary to her bullet hell skills), so spotting and navigating around traps is nothing new to her. It is still a challenge, because these people have done their work making them hidden and cleverly placed, and even she has a few close calls. Weirdly enough she appears to be enjoying the fact that she's actually come close to some risky situations. "Yeah! Been a while since I've gotten a proper challenge!"
Audrey Basque	Not confident. She just misunderstood the task.     It was a terrible, terrible mistake.     Indeed she could only have stepped to where she could see, and could not have seen what was beyond, and what was waiting. If she could have...     ... she might have done the same stupid mistake, because at this point there's something on the line. Pride? No, more like... she has to prove to Hiromi that she's as strong as--     To Hiromi?     Or to herself? To Petra?     The overwhelming feeling of Hiromi's name alone causes Audrey to take a step back. Now she understands what was meant by 'you'll understand when you hear it'. That wasn't a language, that was communication in its rawest most efficient form. And it's setting the tone alright.     Audrey stands her ground despite every nerve in her body telling her brain it's bit more than it could chew. There's... something around her. The tsunami of stone and force washes over her, but rather than throw her back, it's like it just washes over her. Rocks and debris freeze in the air, suspended an inch from her, leaving two perfectly untouched platforms under her feet for her to keep standing on.     Someone with Hiromi's experience knows immediatly that to do this requires all of Audrey's focus. She looks it. Strained, a bit panicked. Is that a hint of surprise on her face, like she wasn't sure she could stop it?     She wasn't touched by any of the dust, or force - but. She looks like she ran a marathon. It might be the stress, more than physical exhaustion.     "Good to finally meet you, Hiromi. I am Audrey Basque, Crown White, and I will meet your challenge!" Tough words with a quivering voice.     She raises her hands, reaching for Hiromi. The same force that was sent her way gushes out of her, out of the field of warped space around her body, shaking the mountain a second time as she flings the blast back at Hiromi.
Hibiki Tachibana	Wow, it's nice of you to help your friend along the way. Do you want any help getting up?     "Er..." Hibiki, who's having to pace herself and watch her breathing as they move along the course, isn't sure how to respond to that... especially when it's not addressed to her. Lilian, on that first and extra attempted-morale-breaking day, might not've been entirely wrong about some of her old social recluse habits having cropped back up.     So it's probably a good thing Miku is on call to reply to Echolalia, briefly shifting from a focused expression to a small smile. "Thank you for asking, though I think we'll manage. But if you want to move /alongside/ us, you're more than welcome!"     It's not exactly a dead heat race to the top, at least to her, so she has no issues taking a brief moment to offer a handshake to Echolalia. "Miku. Nice to meet you, Echo!" Of course, she caught the name from before they started the trip up. Hibiki takes the opportunity to regain some air and recenter herself, rubbing at the back of her neck. "...Hibiki. Nice to meet you. Actually, haven't I've heard your voice around...?" Radio listening she's a little too physically exerted to recall very well, more likely than not.     Her last visit certainly was years ago, so 'prior experience' really just equates more or less to 'aware there will be hidden and sneaky traps' without actually knowing what they might consist of in the modern era. As a pair - or maybe a trio if Echolalia is up for it - the tricks presented in front of them can be navigated safely enough, even if the actual superhumans will outpace them when it comes to simply gaining flat ground.     Which means along the way, Hibiki can't help but take notice of Odette... well. "You really don't know the half of it yet..." is the vague comment she gives the medic during a period where getting caught by a pitfall lets the Hibimiku gang temporarily pass her up.     Despite Hibiki's injuries slowing her up, determination to finally make it past these trials she and the other Feathermen failed before makes up for the difference-- and when they get a glimpse of Petra well ahead of them contending with the masked miko meant to harass 'first place', she tenses up and readies herself.     "Getting caught and tossed during all this jumping would be bad..."     "You'd catch me if I fell, so I'm not worried at all."     "..."     "And I'd do the same for you, too," she adds on with an eyes-closed smile, like a cheeky reminder.     Miku is a track star, not an acrobat, so the platforming is a tiny bit more difficult; nevertheless, they tackle it similarly as before, boosting one another up to reach platforms closeby each other, and offering hands down to stay moving up together. They're not slowing down intentionally even if it'd make it simple to avoid harassment, so Hibiki has to remain on guard.     Even untransformed, she still knows how to defend herself.
Petra Soroka	Balanced on top of a teetering stone platform as if it was stable ground, Petra swivels around at the sound of voices to see... "--Miku?" And then a few seconds later, "Oh, Hibiki, too. Hey."     On a switch-back path one layer higher than them, Petra paces around on the wobbling slab of stone with her arms out for balance, circling while chatting for seemingly no reason but fun. "I'm, uh, a little surprised to see you here, Miku, but I guess not all that surprised, now that I see what it's about? I hope you're... feeling a bit better, both of you. Like, really. I-- oop--!"     Startled by the next jumpscare of the third miko leaping off a ledge overhead, Petra's psychically-intuited balance slips, and the stone starts to precipitously tip one direction over another. She skids down the side and hops to the next sturdy ground along the path, scrambling around to face the masked miko with her fists up. The morphmetal coiled around her arm snaps into veins of reinforcing metal from her elbow over her knuckles, finely webbing with precise fractalizing patterns right up to each fingertip.     There's only one way to deal with an eager-seeming obstacle fighter, and that's to engage her in hand to hand combat exactly the way she wants to. The Silver is a force multiplier on her punches and grabs, essentially just augmenting her strength to not get her hands effortlessly twisted off the miko's wrist when she moves to grab her and throw her to the side. It's just 'Petra' throwing those punches, but after over a year of combat training with Lilian and all her time in Lobotomy Corporation, she's decisive about going on the attack to clear her way forwards.     "Hey," she says between breaths, one of the later times that she's fighting off an ambush. A small fragment of the fightgirl spirit animates her. "I'm Petra. Wanna give me your name, or would you rather wait until after I've beaten the challenge?"     Overhead, Petra sees the plume of earth, and knows exactly what that means. Broadly only mentally keeping track of Audrey, Riku, and Hibiki, it's easy for her to notice which face, by process of elimination, must be the one at the top of the mountain with Hiromi. <X-Concord-Chatter> 4 Audrey Basque says, "Petra, I have just made the worst mistake of my life. Please pick me up if I get demolished."     Petra rolls her shoulder and looks up at the rest of the path. She'd made good progress, despite the miko's efforts, but going at the pace she's been moving at, it'd still be several minutes before she joined Audrey. There's merit to staying the course, maybe: Audrey teleported up herself, and Petra's considerably less interested in this challenge as a framework for anything besides a narrative punch for Audrey's development as an Elite. As far as Petra's concerned, Audrey facing off against Hiromi alone for a minute is a good thing, and it spares her from the parasitic tactically-empty presence of a crowd of other Elites, forcing her to do something herself.     But... maybe Petra shouldn't take it *easy*, at least. Redoubling her pace, the steeper slope gives Petra much more opportunity to run along the walls and leap over obstacles, adjusting her path mid-air or double jumping off the top of a barrier.
Tamiel Luxis	One minute, she was leaning off of an outcropping of rock, finding another place to launch herself to. In a jagged, but steady, path up--     --Then, a flicker of movement, a descending shape--     Tamiel's hand found her quarterstaff, her wings flaring to allow her to pivot in the air. Nobu's swing of the spear is met with a swing from Tamiel's staff with a loud clatter. A blow that, nevertheless, slowed leap to a crawl...More than slow enough for Shino to grab hold of her.     With a soft yelp, Tamiel was seized, thrown down with IMMENSE force, plummeting down the mountain at terminal velocity until her wings spread, righting her as she hit the ground. Reflexively, she looked up again, eyes widening.     When Shino hit the ground, Tamiel was already moving, even with the others in fast pursuit. No longer picking her footholds for speed, Tamiel played a messy game of tag with the miko--sometimes holding her place on an outcropping to parry or redirect. But, it didn't always work. Every inch of the climb was laborous earned, and easily taken away by the slightest slip. Wouldn't it have been easier to just--     --But the pressure wasn't letting up and she barely had time to think. "You..." She held her staff out toward Shino, ready for an intercepting thrust--eyes still darting, watching for Nobu to come from some other angle. "You're no joke. Wow." She wiped some blood from her cheek. "I guess this is the trick..."
Hiromi	Ultraman Geed finds, soon after Petra, that the masked miko isn't lightning fast, but she is frightfully mobile and flexible. She is, if anything, worse than a mountain goat, needing only one hand placed against a sheer surface to entirely change her trajectory, though there remains no sign of actual flight. She doesn't speak to him, and her expression can't be read, but the way her chest shakes suggests suppressed laughter when someone takes a particularly long tumble.     Just as Petra warned, miko strength isn't to be underestimated. She can change targets instantly, and reversing or resisting a toss once she has a grip on someone is a real uphill struggle, but there's still only one of her. Petra taking her head-on might even let someone else slip by -- temporarily, at least.     'Wanna give me your name, or would you rather wait until after I've beaten the challenge?'     There's a considering tilt of her head, without providing an opening to get past her grabbing range, before, "Sumi." She sounds the most aged of any wolfperson Petra's heard. Or maybe just the most throat-damaged, a roughness that isn't present even in Hiromi's supernaturally healthy rumble.     Taking her on with superhuman strength proves a straightforward tactic, but not an easy one, even with the silver. With neither attempting to cause real damage, Sumi's ability to know exactly where she's stepping without looking, and uncanny grip on stone, gives her a significant edge in staying in the game. It's an edge that drops significantly just when others start to catch up with them.     Whether Odette manages to experience the fun(?) of being thrown off a cliff by a six-foot-tall, masked wolf-miko really depends on whether everyone gives her the chance of getting up front. It is, in that sense, a race. In a more meaningful sense, it's really not, and avoiding traps only gets harder the more she rushes, as she continually finds.     Short hops, like Geed is taking, along with Arcadia's choice to not actually fly, avoid the specific aggro that Tamiel took, and that Audrey would have taken. They'd really told everyone to get up the mountain however they liked, while planning to body anyone spotted flying. Technically, this means it's not cheating -- it's just a choice of a different challenge.     'I-I never heard of wolves being devious like this!'     "Both hunters and the hunted lay traps, didn't you know?" Sumi says, sounding only a little like she's making fun of Odette, and more like she intends to be having more fun than anyone else during the climb.
Hibiki Tachibana	I'm, uh, a little surprised to see you here, Miku, but I guess not all that surprised, now that I see what it's about? I hope you're... feeling a bit better, both of you. Like, really. I-- oop--!     "Oh--!" Miku doesn't even get the chance to reply to Petra ahead and above them before she catches sight of her getting aggressed by the third miko, briefly having her hands cover her mouth and catching what she can of the imminent fisticuffs before they have to resume their own maneuvering ahead.     Well, it's not as if they can't talk while they climb. Or while Petra stances up. "It's good to see you again, Petra, it's been some time! I couldn't leave her to come here all alone, after all. I wouldn't say... mnn..." She pauses to take a few paces back, and then get a running start to leap to the next rocky outcropping over, gripping onto the edge and pulling herself up. "...that I'm totally okay with how things went, from what I was told."     Once she's up, she drops down low to offer her hand down to Hibiki, so she'll have an easier time up. "But I think I understand why you all had to do it..." Beneath the physical exertion in her voice, she - as ever - doesn't sound like she's casting any judgement.     Just sad it all had to happen in the first place.     "I'm... ugh, there we go... ...I'm managing. Honestly, I shouldn't even be out here at all, and my side feels like it's gonna split wide open, but..." Hibiki exhales once she's joined Miku on said outcropping, pushing to a stand to reach the next. She doesn't continue after the 'but', glancing up at what little she can tell of what's going on at the peak, and then up at Petra's situation.     "...But what about you? You haven't had it any easier..."     "...I'm sorry." That might possibly be in regards to Cinder.
Echolalia	Echolalia doesn't imagine she'd be having any trouble with traps that she can see coming (thanks to other people triggering them) or any that are buried in foliage (foliage is her JAM). She vibrates slightly like she does kind of have the instinct to ZWOOM up as far as she can, but she clasps Miku's hand tightly, grinning at Miku like she finally found the shounen rival she's been waiting her whole life to compete with. "Nice to meetcha, Miku!" But then she hears Hibiki introduce herself too. And mentioned the radio? Was she listening in on Miku? "Yeah...!" Echolalia remarks smugly. "I have access to the radio, it's where people go to ''make fun of me''. But words will never hurt me, theyt better get some sticks and stones if they wanna do that!" She DOES consider just leaping right up to the top, she's really considering it. But... This Miku lady gave her a smile! "And if you both fell off I'd catch the both of you... I have two hands for catching two people...!" Echolalia seems loud by nature. Sometimes she bounces across the platforming in a hurry only to RUN BACK DOWN to make her way back to Hibiki and Miku. Then back up, then running back like an excited dog. "You're doing great, you're doing great, you're kicking this challenge's ass!" She encourages as she does her real best to avoid being too evidently impatient. She is distracted briefly by mysterious ROCKS and nearly gets a log to the skull for her efforts but deftly ducks underneath at the very last moment. "Ack! Clsoe one!"
Hiromi	It's weird. It's overwhelming. It's a situation that leaves little room to think -- by intent, most likely. Audrey is face to face with the Archwolf, and subjected to her presence. Everything around her is suddenly in sharper relief, as if everything up until now had been dreamlike, unnoticeable without a contrast.     The way the stone moved wasn't from impact. When she reflects the force backward, it hits raised waves of stone and shatters pieces of them -- that hadn't happened when Hiromi struck. The broken shards of stone fly away, and Hiromi sets her back foot an inch into the mountaintop as her hair whips wildly. Her mouth is closed, raised corners just slightly hinting a smile. Keeping her away is instinctively necessary to life.     But that's all that happens. The tsunami of stone is utterly frozen, rather than flowing backward, and Hiromi took no steps back.     "Curious." Interesting, strange, new. "You hold. Can you step forward?"     Hiromi, herself, steps forward. "'Meet.'"     The stone beneath Audrey's feet flows toward Hiromi, directed by command, more like a thing alive and commanded than the result of a force.
Odette Raskins	"You really don't know the half of it yet..." Odette sighs lightly as she takes stock of her situation from where she's lying on her back, watching Hibiki and Miku pass her by. "Does it get worse?" She asks while fumbling her way back up, re-tightening her duffel bag's strap with another sigh before starting to jog again. "Is there going to be some kind of... B-bigger contest at the end of all this?" She can already guess the answer, but she really hopes she's wrong. Miku's still an unknown to her, but seeing her and Hibiki stick together the entire time is rather invigorating even though she's deliberately trying to get up the mountain without relying on anyone else's abilities. "So that's why you're here... Huh. Y-you're keeping up really well! Are you a... One of those sports runners? Uh. Track?" Odette does eventually get the hint to go back to taking her time. It really helps her, too, not just in not getting flung backwards again or getting trapped in more pits, but also keeping her mental state in check. Losing progress feels much worse than making slow progress, after all, and it even gives her a chance to actually see how everyone else is progressing. "I-I think I'm... Starting to see the pattern? Nnh... No, that kind of thinking'll just get me caught in something else." She just needs to focus. She just needs to breathe, and to keep moving steadily. After another leap, Odette steps forward once and quickly jerks herself back as a log falls out from in front of her, clinging to her own for dear life (or at least her dignity). "Both hunters and the hunted lay traps, didn't you know?" "Hunters, yeah, but... Are we supposed to be laying traps, too? Is that allowed?" Odette asks, looking around to try and even find Sumi while also fighting that fear instinct to slow down. She needs to do this right, after all, and that means... Wait, would that actually be the right way to do things? Not that any trap ideas come to mind while she's the one going through the obstacle course, but it does give her a bit to consider even as she starts running and hopping along another set of logs while peeking around corners once again. "If this is the spot, then..." Odette starts talking to herself as she goes through the course, too, still bracing for a visit from the masked miko whenever she gets anywhere remotely close to not-the-middle. She's flinching at nothing every now and then like she's expecting to have to slip underneath an imaginary arm or get low to the ground before nothing can throw her off the cliff.
Arcadia	We would love to say Arcadia suspected something when the two wolf-mikos almost gave away that they had something planned... but it is mostly her desire to actually experience the challenge directly that kept her from taking the flight option. Seeing the mikos actually put their retaliation into action on those that did try to take the quick approach just reinforced that enduring the obstacle course was the right choice. Props to them for having something planned though. It's hard to accomidate for the wide weird range of abilities Elites can have. Arcadia does pause for a moment to watch Sumi do her thing to knock the others back down the track. Got to admire the dedication to the task. "Just consider it playing in Hard Mode," she calls over to Hibiki. "Like using extra weights than you actually need for a workout." And then she takes off again, intent on seeing this obstacle course to the end of the challenge.
Riku Asakura	Once Geed gets back to where he was, he decides to take a different approach to the masked miko.  The goal wasn't to beat her, but rather get passed her, and up the mountain.  So when he gets close, his arms course with red and white energy, the power surges through him and he leaps to finally get up to her... And releases crescent blasts of energy from his hands, aiming to damage both her and the ledge she is on so that she would lose her footing and have to worry about that rather than trying to knock him down again.  Geed uses this chance to hop again, aiming to try and hop to a ledge above the one he just damaged and climb up the edge.   He keeps going, bouncing from ledge to ledge, aiming to try and get ahead of to the top of the mountain...!
Hiromi	Tamiel doesn't get forced any further down than ground level. There, as soon as she's stopped moving, so do Nobu and Shino, though they stand ready in those low, pounce-ready postures. At their speed -- if it were just one or the other of them, the boost she gets from her shadow-shaping would have been enough to keep off them indefinitely, probably, but they're almost as coordinated as if they shared a mind.     'You're no joke. Wow.'     Shino, proudly, "Yeah!"     'I guess this is the trick...'     Nobu, smugly, "Yeah."     "You can take any route up..."     "...but it can't be easy."     Engaging in dialogue seems to be possible. It even looks like Nobu is leaning on her spear... but that might be another trick. What they lack in reactive ability, they're making up for in bursts of strength, even if that means overshooting and having to redirect.
Audrey Basque	PHONE: Petra Soroka says, "... If someone asks you 'how strong are you', and your answer is 'I haven't checked', then this is the best opportunity you can have to know. Because the next time someone checks, maybe they wouldn't be as strong as Hiromi, but if you guess wrong, you could end up dead, or thousands of other people might in the worst case."     Oh how easy it is to say that, and to agree with that, when the massive Hunter isn't right in front of you, commanding the very stone under your feet to make you approach.     Audrey only knows one thing, right now: if she steps backwards, she loses. If she steps forward, she might get mauled. Might. If she stands her ground... that feels like a loss too, isn't it? When you're being told to approach. Challenged, even? Then turn it around.     "Can YOU?"     WHY? WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!     Because it's what Lilian would, isn't it?     YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!     Audrey flicks her hands, she reaches for the boundary between the mountain and the sky, and she-- twists. There's a pearlescant light, dimly forming a copy of the space, in shimmering mirrored whites and faded colors. Like she's holding the cube of space they're occupying right now. The top of the mountain turns a whole ninety degrees, like a sliced platform of stone now forming a wall. Gravity doesn't. Hiromi and Audrey are still bound to the ground they're standing on, but the twist has placed Audrey over Hiromi.     Then with another flick, gravity twists too. Five times multiplied, trying to force Hiromi off the wall and into the mountain. She's not sure ten times would even do it. She'll just keep increasing the pressure until it works. It'll work, right?     "She's like, a goddess of strength."     Why am I even doing something this stupid?     You know why.
Hiromi	If there's anything to catch Echolalia unaware, it's probably just that it springs too fast, or was around a blind corner rather than hidden in the plants. The number of raised and leaning logs make a few of those corners, but fewer once they reach the back-and-forth path up the mountain side, where Sumi is still trying to throw down whoever's in the lead to have a tumble -- as well as anyone else who gets too close to her without keeping their guard up.     Without being in the lead and having to deal with that, Miku's having not too bad a time, even without acrobatic skills. This place does seem like it was made for those with a lot of leaping ability, but there are also a lot of smaller footholds for anyone taking it slow and paying attention to their balance. Those would, of course, provide less protection to someone fighting while traversing.     Odette may be onto something, similarly. There definitely is a pattern to it all -- several patterns, maybe, but related ones. This obstacle course is entirely missing those things from game shows like the machine-rotated swinging logs. It's all triggered by progress, instead.
Petra Soroka	"I wouldn't say... mnn... ...that I'm totally okay with how things went, from what I was told."     "I know. Obviously I know." Petra's tone cools, though she can't really come across as 'terse' towards Miku. Shifting to, explicitly, talking about last month's events dims her mood some, but it's not as if she wasn't already thinking about them, so it's only natural.     "... I know Hibiki probably retold it all to you in a way that puts, like, literally any amount of blame on herself. But for what it's worth... it's not 'you all'. It was just me, really, that decided how it went. So, uh... sorry I stole her from you for a week." "...But what about you? You haven't had it any easier..."     Petra, balancing on a ledge overhead to remain in conversation distance of the two, crosses her arms and looks away. "I'm..."     It actually takes her a while to come up with a response that feels right. 'Fine', obviously, isn't. She would only say it to be specifically dismissive and hostile, and she doesn't mean to communicate that at the moment. So then, what is she? Talking about killing herself daily again, after a long stretch of not doing it? She doesn't want to say *that*. She's very many things right now, but none of them are 'better'.     "... The one at fault. So it doesn't matter how I'm doing. But I'm working on it." 'Getting better', sort of, but more importantly, 'being better so as to not cause this again'.     Petra absolutely doesn't have the home field advantage that Sumi does, but the way she interacts with the contact points of the ground is remarkably similar. Inevitably, there's a point where she's overwhelmed by the miko and thrown off to the side to go tumbling off the edge, but forcefully digging her heel into the steep slope stutters her fall. Grinding her way to a stop with her boot diagonal against the rock, she flicks her hand and condenses the network of morphmetal into a spike and wedges it into the wall, pulling herself back up without too much time lost.     Slipping out of the lead gives Petra a chance to utilize the tactic that others could've utilized with her before. Predicting the earth-mastery of the wolf-miko, Petra doesn't expect Geed's direct assault on Sumi to cause her to slip for long, and instead uses Geed himself and the expected incoming retributive focus of Sumi to dash past both. Then a running step takes her up the face of the cliff, a second wall-jump off of an obstacle log takes her higher, and then she stabs her morphmetal into the wall to heave herself up to the mountaintop. "Can YOU?"     This is exactly what Petra was hoping for.
Hiromi	Even without flight, Arcadia's speed and mobility are high strengths, letting her catch up to the masked miko challenge area, where the footholds are more precarious, the ledges and beams chaotically narrowing or crossing and breaking up the 'obvious' path, without making anything particularly easier.     And being there at the same time as Geed breaks a ledge with energy blasts means she doesn't even have to deal with Sumi right away, as Geed's plan works -- catching Sumi on one of the more precarious perches, her perfect balance doesn't help when the place to stand, itself, is broken under her.     "Hah. Whoops." She doesn't sound too worried about the distance she's falling, probably because it's not just one sheer cliff, and she can work her way back up as soon as she gets her hand onto the wall.     More importantly, breaking part of the course creates a bigger obstacle for those still working their way up, and starts a small, directed avalanche of falling rocks in the same section Hibiki's climbing through, along with those near her.     It's not Sumi who goes straight for Geed, contrary to Petra's expectation. Rather, she's not the first to make it. It's Shino who looks up, from where she's facing Tamiel, and goes, "Hey! That's--"     "Not against the rules."     "But it took time to set up!"     If Tamiel doesn't do anything that would prevent it, the silver-haired and suddenly pout-fuming wolf-miko breaks the ground under her in her haste to catch up and give an Ultraman a whalloping smack. He still has a bit of a head start before that can happen.
Arcadia	Arcadia pauses a moment to look down over the edge because that's what you do when someone falls. "That is a long way down." But there is little doubt that Sumi will find her way back up. Plus there's also the other wolf-mikos still around to harass people, so there's no reason to linger longer than necessary. Arcadia continues on, though the traps getting trickier and less spread out continues to keep her on her toes. Arcadia partially opens her wings, using the thrusters built into their frame not to fly but in conjunction with the maneuvering boosters that are part of her warskirt leg armor to push her mobility that much more. While her visor can help pinpoint the more stable footholds to utilize. She's going to need it to get through the disjointed arrangement of beams and ledges that leave no clear path, and even when she jumps off a wall to help cross the gaps she's cautious to keep it within the limits of the course so she doesn't draw extra heat from the mikos by looking like she's trying to sequence break.
Tamiel Luxis	"Yeah."     "You can take any route up..."     "...but it can't be easy."     "Smart." Tamiel pants, and she can't help but smiling. "No wrong answers. But some are more complicated than they look. My teacher would like that...!" How irritating that normally was to Tamiel, didn't immediately come to mind. Her gaze darted between the miko, worrying at her lip. "But. That means. I don't have any more excuse to lose than the others! Right...?"     Her wings shimmered behind her.     "Hey! That's--"     "Not against the rules."     "But it took time to set up!"     Tamiel's eyes were drawn up with all the others, watching Riku wreck havoc. She barely recognized the man--she thought she'd seem him transform? But with Shino gone, the duo that was keeping her down was cut in half, and the way was clear to...     Her eyes followed the course of the rocks down, to the little bodies in the way.     She vanished in a shadowy line, darting across the mountain, but not up--not straight up, at least--but rather straight toward the rockfall. Finally, she rematerialized BEHIND it and, making a wide strike with her staff, cast them AWAY from the mountain.     It wasn't enough to stop the rockslide by far, but perhaps, she could open up a safe place...!
Riku Asakura	Geed hadn't realized that the rock fall would be so bad, he sometimes forgets his strength.  Noticing it would fall on the group farther back he attempts to land and deal with it.  Of course, this is his plan, to try and make up for his mistake and attempt to shield the others... Until the angry miko comes to wallop him.  He only barely manages to see her in time, erecting a barrier to protect himself from the wrath of the wolf-miko.  This does, however, cause him to lose footing and fall down the climb! He catches himself farther down and exclaims at her.  "Hey, what's the big idea!?" he calls out, caught out by her sudden attack.  Regardless, he stops climbing and sends more of those energy busts down toward the falling rocks to try and stop them.  Which of course leaves him open to more attacks from the angered miko.
Hibiki Tachibana	Is there going to be some kind of... B-bigger contest at the end of all this?     Y-you're keeping up really well! Are you a... One of those sports runners? Uh. Track?     "...Always a bigger mountain to climb. Don't worry. Keep it up and you'll make it up there." Man, Hibiki usually isn't this cryptic about things. She sort of trails off her sentences and leaves what she means to finish with vague but usually easy enough to interpret, or just doesn't say anything in the first place. But this time, telling Odette what she might have to expect in detail might take the wind out of her sails when she's so determined, so she probably shouldn't.     "Oh, I used to run in school, yes...! Though it usually doesn't come up much now." Her smile after that is a little wry, a little solemn. "I fell off for... a few reasons. But you can never really entirely break old habits. Besides, I like running next to others more than running in front of them."     No wonder she's not particularly fussed about rushing.     Just consider it playing in Hard Mode. Like using extra weights than you actually need for a workout.     "At least I'm used to doing things in 'Hard Mode'..." Hibiki murmurs to herself, maybe a self-derisive joke to make the climb easier. She gives a wave to Arcadia before the speedster zooms on ahead.     ...     ... I know Hibiki probably retold it all to you in a way that puts, like, literally any amount of blame on herself--     Hibiki glances away towards the distant horizon far away from the mountain, which says enough.     It was just me, really, that decided how it went. So, uh... sorry I stole her from you for a week.     I'm... ... The one at fault. So it doesn't matter how I'm doing.     Although it's doubtful Petra will see it given how busy they all are in their platforming, the small smile that Miku gives in response to that isn't really a joyful one in the least. It's just the somber sort. "Apology accepted. I wasn't angry. Just... worried. For more than just her, too."     "...I think it still matters." To her, if nothing else. Hibiki exhales, finding another foothold that won't give on her. "Take as long as you need. Curupira's been fine." Which may as well be more Hibiki-isms for showing her support.     ...     And if you both fell off I'd catch the both of you... I have two hands for catching two people...!     "Two hands meant for... catching."     Apparently, Hibiki finds that comment from Echolalia funny enough to give the first tired smile she's had all day. She doesn't say it out loud, but the high energy and cheering actually does help keep her going. Another haul upwards to another stable platfor--     Rocks.
Hibiki Tachibana	Yeah, those are rocks. A rockvalanche.     "Ah-- damnit, watch out...!" Hibiki, on reflex, reaches for her collar to get out her cracked Symphogear pendant - but Tamiel diverting part of the falling boulders stops her long enough for Miku to step over and place a hand over hers, rapidly shaking her head.     "Be careful, Echo! Some are still coming down!" Although it's completely unnecessary to say so when Echolalia has already shown she's plenty physically able, Miku still calls out as such anyway as she and Hibiki move towards the cliff face; they turn and plant their backs straight against it, hands clasped for support and shuffled as close to the 'safe zone' in the fall that Tamiel created as possible.     While transforming and bombastically punching boulders in half would definitely be one way to try and handle it, bracing against the mountainside and letting the shower of rocks pass by before continuing is probably the safer route.     One can only hope none of the pathway up gets affected, or pressing on might end up a little more difficult after this...
Odette Raskins	"...Always a bigger mountain to climb. Don't worry. Keep it up and you'll make it up there." "That's the plan... Wonder if I could even skip one of these if I..." Feeling her confidence swelling with what she can only assume is Hibiki's encouragement, Odette keeps plodding along at her measured pace. Things are really looking up the longer she goes! Sure, she might not be anywhere close to the lead at this point, but she's starting to find her rhythm. Run, jump, wait, peek, twist... It's a lot of little movements that she has to control to make sure she doesn't get hurled onto her back again, and the pattern is becoming a little clearer each time she actually manages to set off a trap intentionally instead of falling right into it. "Oh, I used to run in school, yes...!" "Besides, I like running next to others more than running in front of them." "I could tell... Old habit die hard, mhm." Odette replies with a semi-knowing nod despite not actually knowing Miku's circumstances. She can guess a little, but she's not about to pry. She's only just met Miku, after all, and it'd be rude even if she had known her for long! Plus, she's still maneuvering through the course. "Running next to people, huh...? I almost forgot..." That's why she was pushing herself so hard to begin with, wasn't it? To be able to stand by her heroes rather than just watching them from the sidelines? "That's really cool, Miss Miku... Yeah. Just need to remember that, and... Okay!" With any luck, she'll make it to the top without getting caught by another trap! Instead, she'll have to worry about getting caught by the avalanche coming towards her and everyone else that's making the climb up. Odette doesn't even notice it at first as she's still in the process of maneuvering through another trap, but the rumbling of the ground under her and the tapping of pebbles, then progressively larger stones landing near her draw her attention upwards. That's what finally gets Odette to actually scream and yelp,  having to abandon her previous rhythm and methodical approach to the climb in favor of just trying to survive. To her credit, she's actually pretty good at avoiding things falling/coming towards her in semi-predictable patterns, but not without a significantly raised heart rate as she dips and ducks through those stones while hiding behind whatever she can find on the way up. That means hunkering down behind Tamiel, marveling at those wings on her back and the strange lines being drawn above her. "Th... They planned for this kind of answer to the contest, too. Just what kind of wolves are we going to find up there?"
Hiromi	Though nothing had interfered with her portaling up, something does resist, inside the mountain, Audrey's twisting of the top. Without being able to confer with Echolalia, it's even more difficult -- not that it would help her too much to know this -- that it's centered around a pattern of buried stone obelisks. It makes things harder, pushing against her as if the mountain is attempting to reassert itself on its own, but doesn't actually stop her from twisting it all to the side.     Hiromi sets her feet into the stone, sinking like there was a thin layer of mud, and remains standing, even sideways. Gravity increases its pull on her, and she begins walking up what is now a wall, each footprint remaining in solid, unbroken stone behind her. Below and past her, Audrey can see how everyone else is doing -- assuming she can take her eyes off the approaching Archwolf, whose only concession to pentuple gravity has been the flow of wild mane, and the red ribbons tied around her bells.     "Not enough. Good, but not enough."     Audrey hasn't stepped back, which means she's still getting closer. Now she's even smiling. Her teeth look so very sharp, but that has to be an illusion. It's a human-shaped mouth, isn't it?     "I'm pleased." That word carries so many shades of meaning it's confusing to process, like something a human mind, just maybe, wasn't specifically built to handle. It hits like the feeling of a full semester of perfect grades, combined with being told one's proven worthy to take over the family business.     As nice as that may be to hear, it's only a potential distraction from Hiromi taking up more and more of Audrey's viewpoint. The fact that Hiromi is 'only' a couple heads taller than Sumi is hard to make sense of with the sensory overload inherent to being this close to the Archwolf's aura. She could be the mountain itself. Something feels right about that.     And then Hiromi is bridging the miles of distance in the last inch to reach a fistful of Heliosanctus uniform and twist it.     "Showing some of my strength, is respect, to the challenger. For your promise." She lets go of her foothold, first gradually, then with building speed, letting both plummet to the center of the arena-mountaintop.     The actual impact is over quickly, loudly, and without chance to understand it at anything close to human reaction speed. When the dust clears, Audrey is unhurt -- but her face is pressed to stone, and Hiromi's foot is holding down her back.     She can probably get out of this, but probably not before someone else, like Petra, catches up and reaches the top, only to find that Hiromi, apparently satisfied with this outcome, is done fighting.
Echolalia	Echolalia struggles more as the traps spring more quickly or around blindspots that don't have some helpful foliage nearby. The increase of intensity--and also that, like, some people just skipped these ones--means that she has to react on the fly. She can't really figure out the complexities of HIbiki's relationships with all these people just yet, it seems like something happened? But, distracted as she is by Hibiki and Miku, will she be aware of the ROCK trap?? But first...! But...SHE GOT A SMILE FROM HIBIKI. Heh!! She knew she could do it! "Heh... I saw that...! Looks like I gotcha...! Now we're friends...!" She crosses her arms smugly and then-- ''Ah--dammit, watch out...!'' "Eh?" Echolalia quirks her head. "Eh?" A small rock bonks Echolalia in the forehead, causing a bit of green blood dripping out from it--it looks like her HUBRIS has destroyed her TOUGHNESS rating completely. "Ack..!" She swings her hands up and the rock and dirt in front of her, creating a temporary shielding to stop the rocks from burying her completely...! "Ahahaha...! All is fine!!" Echolalia yells at Hibiki and MIku. "Yep...! All fine!" Is this her fault, ECholalia thinks. For choosing friendship today instead of looking badass? Has she...failed?? The two wolves inside of ECholalia war, friendship and lookiing cool...! When the rumbling aside she rushes over to Hibiki and Miku, looking a little disappointed in herself, but still determinedly smiling at them. She's gotta at least commit. "Ready to keep moving?"
Audrey Basque	-- pushback?     ... she hadn't looked. She hadn't even tried.     Places of Power are a topic Audrey knows well. And she knows almost as much as she's good at subverting them to her will. They're spaces, after all, you can manipulate them like anything else. But only if you know they're there, and... Audrey hadn't looked. She hadn't thought, for a moment, that a training quarry could hide a Place of Power. Now that she feels the tug against her twisting? She feels like an idiot.     And Hiromi is still approaching. Smiling.     Towering.     Audrey cranks the gravity up, and up, and up and--     Hiromi SPEAKS, and that throws her focus off even more. The compressed space around her can't even keep the Archwolf's fist from reaching her. It's absolutely over. She can't just twist herself elsewhere, she's being held. The wolf is past the distance. There's--     Nothing.     Nothing.     She's driven down, at which point the gravity stops pulling on Hiromi. Audrey'd be crushing herself otherwise. All she can do is focus on the field and hope it'll soften the blow enough that nothing breaks.     ... but nothing breaks, anyway.     Now Hiromi would notice, without room for doubt, that Audrey's no physically stronger or faster, or tougher, even, than a normal person. She's not going to be pushing that foot off anytime.     "You... didn't hurt me?"     The amount of control she must have on her strength leaves Audrey in awe. That impact could've... no, SHOULD'VE...     "I never stood a chance, did I?"
Hiromi	'No wrong answers. But some are more complicated than they look.'     "That's right. If you're strong enough to deal with it, that means your answer was right, even if it looks like it broke the rules. But if you weren't strong enough, it was wrong." Nobu says this with easy confidence, like it's obvious. "Oh, was that too direct...? You're supposed to think about this stuff yourself."     Without Shino's help -- no, even with Shino's help, Tamiel is still fast enough to get away. It's only that they keep catching up. But if it's just Nobu, she can deflect that spear, and Nobu's a step behind, this time, having not expected the track to get damaged.     Speaking of...     'Hey, what's the big idea!?'     "You let your guard down!" Rather than admonish him for breaking stuff, Shino just points out the obvious, that there were three miko here to act as mobile obstacles. Like Sumi, she tries to grab him and throw him down. Unlike Sumi, she isn't as strong, nor as good as anchoring herself to make those throws, so she has to go for a flying tackle to make it work. Geed may actually have an easier time finishing the course like this, though it's up in the air unto the last second who will take second place in the race.     First place, of course, would go to the young woman who just portaled straight there -- if it were a race.
Arcadia	Arcadia makes her way through the last portion of the obstacle course and onto the edge of the arena composing it's platformed top. Just in time to the spectacle of Hiromi grabbing Audrey and demonstrating her power by piledriving the other into the floor of the arena. Reflexively the sphinx jerks back to the edge, hunching down and raising a wing at an angle to shield herself from an expected shockwave. But Audrey wasn't plastered into the rock, just put facedown into a restrained position. Which says a lot about Hiromi's capacity when she can extert that much potential force yet only restrain rather than ruin. Arcadia straightens up, shaking some dust off the wing she had shielded herself with. "Well that is one way to make her kiss your asphalt." Even if it's technically natural rock up her. It was the closest pun she could think of. She holds up her hands, not wanting to spark off another fight. "I was mainly here for the challenge of the refurbished obstacle course." Which is entirely true.
Hiromi	'I never stood a chance, did I?'     "You could have failed," Hiromi says, with the immediate implication that Audrey hadn't. That hangs in the air a moment. "Failed to challenge the mountain. Failed to reach the top. Failed to stand against me. Failed to interest me. You wish more?"     With something proximal to affection, but more like rightness-approval, "Greedy pup."     There's less to say for Arcadia's entrance. A sort of grunting acknowledgment. The mountain was challenged, the top reached. At the most basic level, that's what it's for. Hiromi isn't holding out feedback forms for it, though one of the humans in the support buildings near the quarry might, if people hang around long enough afterward. The fishermen were just here to lift and carry things, but there's a robed monk who handles letters for them.     Only midway up, the rockslide is dealt with, thanks to combined efforts, and with only minor injuries. It does produce a problem of a higher section being harder to cross, but not impossibly so. Hibiki and Miku can surely help each other across, as long as they take their time.     Sumi becomes curiously absent, after the impact of Hiromi with the mountaintop. Perhaps her role is done, after all. A pity(?) Odette won't get tossed by her.
Petra Soroka	"Take as long as you need. Curupira's been fine."     Petra understands what's not being spoken there, and understands why it isn't being spoken. And, the literal words Hibiki's saying matter too, so Petra can't object at all. Petra might sullenly be taking all the blame as Angela's dark knight, but despite everything, the goal this time is to 'get better'. "...Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it." "I never stood a chance, did I?"     When Petra hauls herself to the twisted mountaintop, the Silver across her arms snaps into two halves of a spear in her fists, featurelessly pristine except for the two boar-hunting wings protruding below the head. The halves fuse together, and she brandishes the spear out to the side with her hand choked up on the haft, warily widening her stance on the rock for Hiromi's next move.     And then there isn't one. Petra sighs and waves away her spear into an orbiting constellation of metal droplets. The fight to get up here left her dust-spattered and scraped-up from the roughhousing, one sleeve of her overshirt pulled off and her exposed shoulder a little raw from sliding down the cliffside. Heavily breathing, but in good spirits, comparatively to where she started.     "Probably not, no. As far as I know," In Angela's memories rather than something she was ever told directly, but that doesn't matter. She offers Audrey a hand up. "No one's ever been able to 'overpower' her and win that way. Not even Lilian. So you did what you could."     Petra swipes a hand through her hair to shake some of the dust out, then looks up at Hiromi. She's vaguely disappointed about not fighting her, but on the other hand... the aches and barely-healed wounds from the war are starting to insist more and more on their presence. So instead, she, having fought her way to the master on the mountaintop, asks a question.     "Hiromi... when do the advantages that you have become part of your 'strength'? Somewhere between training your body and poisoning your enemy to make them weaker, there's some kind of line where a 'tactic' stops being a kind of strength, and just becomes something you're using to your own ends. Is a weapon strength? Is a mech? Is the mountain part of your strength because you can control it, or is there some other reason?"
Hiromi	Hiromi eventually allows Audrey to be helped up, after which she looks down at Petra, and considers her question.     "You cannot steal the venom from the serpent. Can you forget where you left your claws? The weak pull down weak fool leaders, but have no strength to hold themselves high. What weakness does your 'tactic' make? Can you stand on it? Will it collapse beneath you? The mountain obeys because I am Hiromi. The pack obeys because I lead." The distinction feels important, but is left unclarified.
Audrey Basque	You could have failed.     She hadn't?     Greedy (positive). Some kind of approval.     Not even Lilian.     There's... something about the way that's worded. Audrey's expression sours a bit, but she takes Petra's hand to rise and then dusts herself, suddenly concerned about how she looks.     "I guess. Thank you for the lesson in Strength, Archwolf. I have... a lot to learn. Maybe when I have, I can be allowed to try again.     At least I won't have to take that test tomorrow with a broken arm.     Not even, though. That's just how people see it.     "Well... I'm going to go and get freshened up."
Hibiki Tachibana	"Echo!?"     "Oh no...!"     Not like this. Only just made into proper friends with one another, and Echolalia is going to die under a hail of falling stones!? Hibiki can only watch wide-eyed as she shields herself from total burying, while Miku brings her hand up to her mouth-- just to let them fall away in a relieved exhale when she walks over fine.     Perhaps because she has ludicrous amounts of experience in people who are disappointed in themselves and act like they're not, she's the first to step forward and check over Echolalia's injuries before giving a sigh, and then a smile back. "Hah... I'm so glad you're alright. You don't have to act tough, you know. You could've rushed ahead on your own just fine, but you've come this whole way with us."     It seems that's what 'cool' is in her book. Hibiki takes a moment to make sure all their footing is still stable, before she also pitches in with a nod. "Think so. ...We're friends now, so you're not allowed to go down that easily. C'mon, the top's waiting."     She glances up higher, where Tamiel protected them, and even further towards the mountaintop itself.     They'll catch up with her, Odette, and the others higher up. Mayhaps as the last of them all who get there, but all together.     ...     Free of getting tossed, yet having had to take the extra effort and time to ensure the complications of the rockslide's aftermath didn't stop them, the group of two-slash-three does eventually crest their way to the very top of it all. Both girls are winded for the experience, but Miku seems rather tiredly pleased with the fact they finally ascended past the last ledge, and Hibiki...     "...Hibiki?"     The curious look Miku gives her is because she doesn't seem to know how to react, at first. Her attention goes to Audrey and her defeat, to the familiar visage of the Archwolf, and inexplicably back the way they came, after turning around to look down. She spends a lot of silent seconds just visually tracing back the route they took to get here, lingering on the starting point.     She looks back to Miku, gives an exhausted by genuine smile while shaking her head, and then looks towards Hiromi properly this time.     "Hiromi. It's been a while. You and your pack really have done a lot with the place. I can tell they have fun with it. ...I'm glad I came to climb it again, too." The way one hand grips at her injured and still-sore side while her other holds Miku's hand a little tighter probably says things in their own right.     "...Don't think this'll be the last time either. 'Up, always, forward, always... wasn't it?"     Seeing Hibiki is satisfied enough with things, Miku also transitions into a smile, and gives a deep bow in Hiromi's direction. "You're Miss Hiromi... thank you for the trial. And... for Hibiki."     Well, that could be thanks for a lot of things, but all of them are good.