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Lilian Rook     Where Lilian takes those showing up for the 'test' mentioned before is impossible to tell. That is, it's not just 'some vague place that's difficult to pin down', but quite literally 'go through a warpgate, GPS stops working, tracking signals cut off, topographical senses cut off at a sharp boundary a few miles away, those lame racial bennies like 'sense how far below or above ground' don't give anything useful, and the like all happen. The air is filled with such a substantial, heady tingle of mystic energy, almost intoxicating for those who respire it, that it surely must be somewhere very important, but even if one were to ask Lilian herself, she doesn't know either. She, in fact, insists that nobody does, and that is the entire point; you're either here, or you can't interact with here, and that is the wisdom of the people who first built here.

    It more or less seems to be a city, described loosely, though instead of having been fully developed by urban planning and stretched out from there, it occupies a horizon that must be as big as New York without fully filling a tenth of it, leaving natural features like streams and massively ancient trees mixed in with the narrow stone paths and roads that weave between them, connecting 'blocks' more like facilities on a college campus. It butts up against the foot of a mountain further away, spreading out into more 'rural' areas, and what is either a very large lake or possibly the ocean, bizarrely close if it is (albeit still miles away in the other direction) at the other.

    You don't get to go near the greater bulk of it, as you appear to have been taken to its outskirts, where the land has been more heavily cultivated into being clear and level and not filled with anything especially old or valuable, but even from a great distance, you can spot clusters of massive towers of ancient weathered granite or gleaming better-than-modern glass, grand archives and galleries set with fluted pillars and endless steps, shaded streets of ivy-clad manors and secretive stores with either fantastic displays or dark tinted windows, winding roads into wooded enclaves or up hard mountain paths to a myriad small temples and dojos, floating city blocks out in the water, and some construction even up in the air. Fire smoke and alchemical steam rises from a distance, not too far from private fields for cultivating who knows what.

    Far from the ultra-compact, energy efficient, cleanly modernized, and heavily surveiled, beautiful panopticon of before, it's spacious, natural, full of private places, a little idiosyncratic, and buzzes with energy that is not a dome of protective wards, where people live a lifestyle of bespoke marvels and cultivated talents, rather than mass production and hourly jobs. It is, what Lilian called, The City Waking.

    The small part you're allowed to go to (for now) is what she'd given both the names 'House of the Seven Worthies' and also 'administrative offices of enlightened examinations and permissions'. All that can be said of it as an area or a facility from the outside is that it is a gigantic hemisphere of honeycomb metal lattice and dark crystal panels, with many different roads converging on it from many different directions across well-kept but empty landscape. There are a few parking lots, because some people here like cars and motorbikes enough to own them. Getting close on the approach to the heavily reinforced entries that permit visitors and business, you can faintly hear the sounds of field exercises far behind it, largely from the weird noises and frequent loud rumbles they make.
Lilian Rook     Inside is kept to 'relatively cool' indoor lighting by the dimmed amount of sunlight entering in through the exterior panelling and interspersed with warm indoor lights to guide attention around the extremely wide and labyrinthine spaces to the actual points people need to be going. Most of the actual height of the dome is divided up into what must be a good fifty floors, sorted by how much space each one needs. After some checking with the desks, you begin with the first.

    "So." begins Lilian as the group is lead down blued steel hallways to personal storage rooms. "Like you might guess from the name, there are seven discrete steps in examination and certification, because this culture likes the number seven. And thirteen. And five. And three." She begins counting on her fingers for emphasis. "In the spirit of 'humanity endures', you start and end with the two most grueling --the physical first-- so no part is easy. The seven virtues of worthiness go by excellence of the body, refinement of enlightenment, virtue of word, depths of knowledge, practical prowess, resilience of mind, and externalized arcana."

    "They'll test your physical abilities, mystical force and control, conduct interviews and questions, test psychological resilience, and push your limits on your special abilities. They'll dispense with the virtues of knowledge and prowess because, given your outside origin, most of you would get near or actual zero on the academia, and since you're testing for Immune auxiliary status, there's already so much combat data we can pull up that it's frankly sort of a waste of time to go through the kill house and all."

    "There's one thing that I should tell you now. Nobody will say it outright, but it's commonly understood here: consider what you show and what you don't. You'll receive a grade and certification based on the highest and furthest you can push, but plenty of people elect not to display *all* of their ability or knowledge, due to the way that things go here; whether that's reputation, wanting to keep trump cards, or swing for a specific position, plenty of people do it, and the examiners won't demand anything if they think you're holding out on them. They'll actually factor in how sneaky or how up front you're being into the assessment. You don't *have* to do anything, is the ultimate rule, knowing that what you let everyone know you can do, what you infer that you can, and what nobody knows, do make a difference." she finishes. "Also I'm here for my annual anyways, so shout if you need help~"

    The first few floors are indeed for physical tests, and they make it quickly obvious why they requires the most space. You get private space to store whatever you brought with you for the time being, having to do the first part with flesh alone. There's no kind of medical poking or measuring, since basic biometric data is readily gathered by stepping through a sort of energy gate that takes those measurements like a MRI right away, albeit you're all provided a choice of a few kinds of greyed, oddly perfect-fit clothes that amount to more or less 'swimsuit-tier' for this stage (alongside everyone else already using the place).
Lilian Rook     The starting stuff is all very ordinary in respects to the actual tests, though not the scale of it. Lifting weights, running at speed, running for distance, jumping heights, throwing for length, point turning relay exercises and the like, are pretty standard fare, like a military fitness exam, save that the provided equipment can go up to many multiples of tons to lift, gel 'sand pits' cleared to chuck things or jump hundreds of meters, and clocks that go down to the microsecond instead of millisecond, for who knows who.

    From there, it starts to get more esoteric. You're pushed to handle courses of increasingly improbable feats of coordination, meant to get as far as you can along what starts as climbing a difficult wall, gets to the tier of running across water atop tall and narrow poles spaced too far apart, and eventually becomes total nonsense 'sprinting across a winding rail that goes at multiple right angles while heavy objects are launched constantly' impossible TV unfairness, with the point of failure, or finishing time, recorded. You get shown to series of dummies and pressure plates and blocks of material to hit, to wrangle into place, to launch off of, and similar, starting off with expecting someone to be able to snap what amounts to a narrow tree in half or hop up to the top of a cluster of concrete blocks dangling from chains, and goes as far as smashing slabs of rock, steel, tungsten, and then esoteric magic materials, either to pieces, or as far back along pressurized tracks as possible.

    The worst parts are at the end, where you're subjected to an atmospheric pressure chamber that amounts to placing more and more crushing 'weight' on you, where you're asked to express when the discomfort sets in, when pain sets in, and then when you want to stop, while the actual physical effect is also measured separately via scanners. The process then repeats in what one especially 'characterful' instructure refers to as 'the hell chamber' and 'the hypothermia chamber'. There are professionals at every step making sure that nobody kills themselves and making sure to dutifully record the data, as well as providing any guidance or instructions anyone needs, who are, for the most part, curt but helpful, uncannily willing to accept 'I give up' at any time, rather than encouraging someone to keep going like a physical trainer *should*.

    After that, you get to go back to storage, take along any gear or use any enhancement magic or techniques you like, and do it all over again. The only qualifier is that you have to be able to fit and turn around in a cubic space about the size of a small office first, and also limit the 'area of effect' to that same cubic space --no mecha or giant explosions, but anything goes otherwise.

    he people here are all over the map. A great deal of them are pretty young (16 to 20), and clearly the real tryhards, though a large number of adults who are probably doing this routinely every few years for recert. It's easy to tell the aspiring Immunes from other forms of office in the physical test; people who look like they're here for the other tests are basically doing it 'to stay in shape', while the young adults looking to get into an elite combat role are trying their absolute hardest to impress supervisors with crumpling steel blocks or running the movie martial arts training courses, stubbornly sitting in the endurance trials longer than they probably should. The spectrum in between is pretty wide as well; the Immune goalposts are the highest, information work the lowest, and various kinds of crafts and practical professions in the middle.
Alexis The difference, and disruption, in location is almost immeadiately noticable. Enough that Alexis' C-Gear bleeps loudly at being unable to locate any GPS signals, and it takes a few minutes of fiddling before she finally finds the command to disable the navigation app and slide the sleeve of her overcoat back down. "I guess this place is really that well hidden." Other than that she pretty much takes it in stride. She came prepared with a variety team since they didn't know what the 'tests' would actually be, so she shouldn't need to switch anything in her roster, thankfully.

    Though for the first round of tests even the belt of pokeballs is set in the storage locker before changing into the testing clothing (making a faint face at the almost swimwear level of it, but rolls with it). 'Special' stuff comes later, and unlike some pokemon trainers Alexis is fine with that, she is more than capable of handling herself when need be. "Welp. It's certainly the most thorough licensing test I've been through," she comments after everything has been explained, doing a few warmup stretchs in the process. Is she actually looking forward to this? Darn right. A new challenge is a new challenge, and that's the sort of thing Alexis really goes for.

The 'basic' tests are pretty much that when it comes to results. Alexis is very athletic, but she's not really anything 'superhuman'. The stand-out tests being her stamina allowing her to run for a very long time/distance, and 'throwing for distance' despite her only human strength making it surprisingly far down the distance, and with a nice curve to it to boot. After which Alexis pitchs in a quick explaination of how throwing pokeballs is an integral part of what she does so they're a little less dumbfounded, and moves on.

The obstacle course after a few rounds starts to get a bit past her 'average' capablity once it's more than climbing walls and jumping obstacles since she's not using her 'special' gear for this round. Again stamina is the only real exceptional feat she has, so while all her push and pull and break stuff tests don't go beyond human capacity it's noted that even after all that she's only a little more winded as one would expect for an average training session.

The pressure chamber, as one might expect, doesn't last very long for her. Again, only human here. The extremely hot and extremely cold ones on the other hand she actually manages to hold out longer than one might expect, because heat and cold are things she's gotten very good at dealing with being a Fire type trainer as part of her volcanic subtheme.

And when all that is said and done, she's still got the energy to sprint back for the storage lockers and grab her other stuff. "That was probably boring compared to what you guys normally see." By the time she's returning she's buckling her belt with the dual-color spheroids clipped to it back on. "This will be a real show."
Gawain Gawain journeys into the city for the tests pretty interestdly. He can feel the sheer magic of it, as he glances at the towers and strange buildings. This must be that special city, obviously, and Gawain can't wait to see more of it...once he passes his exams, of course.

As Lilian explains that they don't need to necessarily show everything, Gawain nods. "Of course! I would not hide anything out of deceit, but some of my abilities should only be used against the biggest matters." When Lilian says to just give a shout, the knight smiles and nods, and then, as they step through the magical MRI field, he moves to deposit his phone and other devices, and change into the clothes.

When the tests start, Gawain is excited, though modest about it, and hasn't said as such. Training! Exams! Those are great. When it comes to lifting weights, he'll immediately be shown to be superhuman, lifting heavy weights easily, and then it continues with a show of superhuman speed as he takes off in a rapid sprint, strong stamina for distance, a superhuman jump that takes him off the ground for a bit as he leaps over one of the smaller pits and most of a bigger one, and a decently strong (though unpracticed) throw.

The climbing a wall is pretty easy for Gawain, who does it rapidly, as is the similar stuff of that tier. It gets harder when he has to start leaping narrow poles across water - he can get across the distance with his super jumps, but he's not the most coordinated for it, and almost takes several dunks into the water, only barely getting past it. Sprinting across the winding rail is when he finally gets knocked off the course, as a heavy object harmlessly slams into him a quarter in, knocks him off, and into the point of failure.

The next stage of training with the dummies starts much the same. The knight easily snaps the 'narrow tree' in half and hops up to the cluster of concrete blocks, and can smash some of the slabs, but his superhuman strength isn't concentrated - he's just generally superhuman. He eventually reaches a block as they start to get past steel (which wasn't the easiest in general, though was still smashed with clear effort), where he just starts pushing it back at shorter and shorter distances.

The atmospheric pressure chamber is 'fun'. Gawain's clearly giving it his all, and being superhuman can do it for quite a bit, as he holds out as long as he can, to his actual limit. He tells them when discomfort sets in, when pain sets in, and when he feels he can't do it anymore, he simply and politely tells them. "I'm incapable of going further." The temperature chambers get him /much/ faster, as he doesn't have any superhuman resistance to those besides his natural (and clearly pretty amazing, based on tanking the heavy objects and how he handled the pressure chamber) endurance.

When Gawain returns to storage, he summons his sword, Excalibur Galatine, as well as his armor, and takes them with him deeper inside. What changes is the distance and mobility courses. He clears the longer gel pit with the help of Galatine's thrusters, which fire up and launch him just barely over the end, and he manages to get even further in the mobility course before a heavy object yet again knocks him off the winding rail, about mid-way through, thanks to use of boosters and his armor steadying him. The pressure course he lasts a few seconds longer, whether it's because he's been exposed to it already or because he's wearing his armor, it's a little difficult to tell, but the armor certainly helps.

When he groups back up with the others, he's sweating, but clearly smiling. "Isn't this great? I can't wait to see the rest of the tests!"
Roxas The bizarreness of the location didn't seem to perturb Roxas, who took Lilian's explanations in stride and nodded as if he had already encountered such a thing before. Because he has. For a teenager who very definitely doesn't know jack all, he took to that concept /blindingly/ fast.

He's uncomfortable with ditching his gear, even for a little while, but doesn't really object to it as such. The overall up-and-down of the physical assessment is fairly straightforward. Roxas is a speedy and agile little devil, and he has plenty of stamina but he's not terribly robust in terms of lifting ability. Oddly, if it should be distinctly tested, his /striking/ power is exponentially higher. It's like whatever super strength he has is incredibly focused. Works for throwing, too.

His navigation ability is fantastic, though. Even not accounting for his physical oddity, he's kind of naturally built for it. A bit lean, but a lot more muscular than his coat permits people to see.

His ability to 'just smash' things winds up relatively poor, even with the obvious disparity between 'strike ability' and 'lift ability'. This is because Roxas isn't using his keyblade at all throughout this.

It's unclear if he's hiding it or just shockingly honest.

Probably honest, though, from what Lilian knows.

His discomfort levels in the environment chambers still track for 'superhuman', but his tolerances are bizarrely low relative to that. Given how Roxas acts, there's a nonzero chance it's some of the worst stuff he's physically experienced and he just doesn't have an adult's minimum tolerance for such things.

When he gets to the point of being offered another go 'round with his equipment...

"No thanks," Roxas says, "most of it isn't going to be very different, so I don't think it would be useful to see those things."

Consequently, Roxas ends up sitting around the storage room when most everybody else is entering their second run. He'll probably be found chugging a bottle of water, which he stops once Gawain joins him and begins to enthuse about it all.

"It /was/ mostly pretty fun," He agrees mildly, "but I don't know if I really get it..."
Xion 'Woooooooooooooah!' is Xion's first reaction to the surroudings, followed shortly by pinching the bridge of her nose at the raw density of magical energy.

'Woooooooooooooah!' remains her second reaction, her third, and her fourth. In fact, gormless wonder seems to be her default state about everything, from the magical nowhere-realm's wide-angle shot, to the distant smokestacks, to the glimmering of superglass, to...

The grass. "It's so green!" She exclaims, tugging down her black coat's hood to spin once, arms out, like she's doing a quiet rendition of the Sound of Music.

"This is great! It's so... so!"

Then she's shoved into a changing room and told to put on a skintight bodysuit. Even if she's one of the first people to get shoved in the changing area, she'd most likely be one of the last to leave, stubbornly refusing to divest herself from her hooded coat like a security blanket until assurances are made a few too many times for patience to remain. Then again, the proctors may be used to or prepared for that.

In her SEXLESS GREY BODYSUIT OF FUTURECLOTH, Xion seems mutedly depressed, an air of morose hanging about her. "If this is fashion, I don't like it. Maybe I want to wear black." She complains, before settling in for the start of the physical section. "So, uh, no magic, right?"

Right. With a 'Good luck, Roxas!', Xion starts into her room, and then her tests.

Simple physical tests are taken at a deliberately 'she's holding back, but doesn't really understand what holding back means, so it's just sort of Supergirl At Jogging Pace'. She jogs across the obstacle course... and then up a vertical wall with nary a scramble. She jogs across the hoops, lopes across the track, maneuvers around the relay race, and leaps 'aiming at one of the lines arbitrarily' - landing in a muted 'ptt' of sand down-range right at her target.

The 'she has no idea what holding back' looks like when she hits the surface-of-water with poles stretched too far out, beginning to stretch out her legs and visualize. Then, instead of actually doing the test... she just starts jogging across the surface of the water, slaloming through the poles with quick half-leaps to reach the end. Really, none of the physically based 'get from a to b' even phase Xion's deliberate jogging or 'pick a target, hit it, okay!' arbitrary completion, up until the Spinning TV Unfair Parade of Doom. That one gets her fairly good, her mobility complicated by the distracting feature of THINGS going at her HEAD. She's knocked off her game - and the track - by that.

The hitting/smashing/lifting goes the same way - she eyes the object, hits it, and moves on. Once more arbitrarily picking targets, she taps out when she knocks on a piece of something electric blue and hollow-sounding when rapped on by a bare knuckle, given one chop with the blade of her hand, and a shrugging 'nah', without doing any damage at all to it.

The physical pressure chamber is one that Xion treats more like a sauna, plopping down and waiting as the pressure builds. And builds. And builds. Then, once more, arbitrarily, Xion mentions that 'her ears popped' and that 'she'd like out now'.

The Hell Chamber is the only one Xion hard-passes on, shaking her head vigorously after only a few seconds. "I don't want to be cold, this feels bad, so, no."

At the end, she puts back on her coat and does it all over again, at the same pace, picking different arbitrary targets when appropriate, and finally, getting back to the only trial she actually 'failed' physically - the TV Bullshit Test. When she runs it again, she simply doesn't get hit - the objects avoid her, orbit her, or lose momentum and fall with small pops of darkness filling the air around her. Beyond that, it's the same - except the cold room, which she just HARD passes on.

"Hey, how did you do? Fun? That's great!" Xion thumbs up at her companion.
Doctor Strange      Strange nods along as Lilian explains the favored numbers of her culture. "Thirteen, but not four? Weird." He listens as she explains the trials in order, extening a new finger for each one she mentions. Her advice, when it comes to selective displays of power, does not fall on deaf ears. There is a glimmer of understanding in those emerald eyes, followed by a nod--and that's the only acknowledgment she gets.

     Unlike the last time he visited her world, Strange is bedecked in his usual array of artifacts. A dull blue tunic, a vibrant red cloak, a brass amulet, and a similarly-hued ring which covers two fingers. He passes on the standard-issue examination clothing. When it comes to the first few parts of the physical examination, Doctor Stephen Strange seems to be a middle-aged man in decently good health. When things get more difficult, he starts to cheat. If asked to lift an object many multiples of tons, Strange simply inverts gravity within the weight lifting room, letting the natural forces of the earth do the heavy lifting for him.

     Likewise for hurling things, and for jumping hundreds of meters--he combines his mastery of gravity with the Cloak of Levitation to make long jumps and 'hurl' the heavier objects. Much of the physical examination follows this trend of borderline cheating. Objects thrown his way are sent through space to collide with those ahead of his current position. At once point, an object does nearly knock him off the railing, but another Strange, pulled from the future, arrives to catch him in the nick of time. From there, he'll simply alter his gravity so that he can walk at a leisurely pace along the wall, rather than the perilous right-angle strewn ledge.

     The one thing that Strange gives up on immediately is the hypothermia chamber. He is quick to tell the professionals on staff that he will not be partaking in that particular test, and that they can mark him down as a failure if they have to. This he admits with not a bit of shame. If, at any point, he is asked to demonstrate his abilities without the use of magic, he'll do so, and show himself to be, physically, rather plain and average.
Zenos yae Galvus The General of Garlemald has come to answer the challenge, perhaps mostly more out of selfish desire to push his limits, than any sort of desire to help people of this world.  It, however, makes a great pretense.  The man is fully armored as he walks with Lilian as she leads them first into the world outside of the world.

"Mmm.  Quaint," He says, without much emotion.  It wasn't boredom, so much as he was watching, understanding, and simply not paying attention to those directly around himself.  Once more, shown that the power of magic is something that should be in the hands of Garlemald.  The Multiverse was a wondrous place and one that he would indulge in.  

As they walk down the steel hallways inside the House of the Seven Worthies, he is reminded somewhat of home.  Garlean steel is much darker, but still, the feel of the place was much more what he was used to.  Eventually, the sequence of numbers is explained.  Xenos, with his characteristic dispassionate tone, simply shrugs.  "Very similar to the training I received in studying the path of the blade," he comments, "However, I will undergo these tests, as I had said I would."

Inside the changing room, the armor is peeled off, and the 'protective swimsuit' ware replaces.  Zenos, when he exits to the main room for the actual physical tests, reveals a very well chiseled and rather /large/ physical form.  It is just not the armor, but rather the armor had to be custom made for /him/.  More like a super soldier than a human, he pushes his hair behind him and starts.

It is already physically obvious that Zenos is cut from a different cloth than most people.  He does not excel in any one category, however.  He is fairly physical strong, well beyond that of mortal men.  He is faster, able to jump higher and last longer.  Though Zenos seems more than willing to keep pushing himself, far past the point that he should have stopped.  

However, when improbable feats are introduced, this is where things get interesting.  When his talents are combined, this is where he truly shines.  He easily climbs up the difficult wall, even going to hard as to jam his fingers to create his hand holds.  He flashes across the narrow poles, combining his natural speed and strength to almost make it look like he was capable of teleportation.

Through the tower of TV unfairness, he responds to things that there would be no way he could have seen.  His other senses working far more, and his body responds to them in almost perfect synch.  His physical power in hurting things is second to none.  Dummies are punched, if not split in half, wrestled into submission, and expertly dealt with.  When breaking through material is given, however, once more he is above human standards, however, he is not given to Hulk level strength.  

Zenos withstands a fair amount of pressure, heat, and cold.  He could push himself past his limits, but Lilian's words are taken to heart.  He does not reveal something like the Resonant without a good reason.  However, when allowed to use his equipment...well things get even more interesting.

While he is not any physically stronger, though one might notice he is a bit /slower/ with all of that armor on.  However, with a blade in hand, many of the challenges that required him to avoid or deal with thrown objects are dealt with by physically cutting his way through them.  The TV unfair test being the best example.  Cutting through obstacles as he makes his way towards the top.

Similarly, with the blade, there are very few materials he cannot cut through, performing MUCH better with a blade in his hand, than anything else.  The interesting thing about his blades...are they aren't anything special.  Well crafted blades, but not magical or anything else.  When Zenos attempts to put real physical power behind his blows, he swings so fast that the very air moves like a swift wind.  
Spider-Man     Spider-Man is feeling a tad overwhelmed. It's like SHIELD things and Thor business all got rolled into one thing. How does this even happen?! /How/ does something like this get built?! He's kind of stuck in a permanent wowed state by the time he manages to make it to the main gate of the big-ass dome. "So is this all... geo...mancy? Geo... Something. The numbers and shapes you guys keep using really make me think there's some kind of ritual." Spider-Man mutters and jokes as he follows Lilian.

    SpiderMan dons the GREY SUIT, which he adds to his mounting collection of SPIDER-SUITS. He keeps his mask, because of course he does, but has to leave behind the goggles and the web-shooters. "Huh. Wow, this is kind of easy to move in. I wonder if I could get something like this." He thinks aloud as he heads to the challenges. And then he digs into them.

    He lifts weights with tremendous, unexpected strength. For a boy the size and shape of a fifteen-year-old nerd, Spider-Man is lifting well along the lines of up to thirty tons in weight if he strains hard and focuses. The proportional strength of a spider indeed. He's fast as hell too when he dashes, breaking instead into leaps and bounds. Jumping for height? He'll easily clear multiple storeys. Agility is well ahead of anything humans should be capable of. Strength almost as much so. He is, after all, proportionally as strong and fast as a spider.

    The same is... almost true for the more esoteric tests. His scores start getting weird and erratic. It's not that he can't complete them; in fact, he can complete most of the tests with fantastic, flying colors. The tests of simpler things like balance are easy, and the challenges of poles and rails and such evoke almost a show-offy nature. But sometimes, he seems almost unfamiliar with the things he's doing to succeed; do-overs are often asked. For example, when he seems to get really confused about something on the heavy-shot rail challenge, he eats shit and gets knocked off quite early. He'll come back later.

    At the Hell Chamber, they get to see just how inexperienced he is. "Discomfort" is noted almost immediately. His goggles start sputtering and flicking open and closed repeatedly, as a danger-sense keyed into air disturbances that he's almost entirely unfamiliar with kicks into overdrive. But it sticks to "discomfort" for a much longer time, before shifting to pain, and from there, he seems to far overestimate his body's ability to resist it for quite some time before he calls for stopping. He'll take some time to recover back in the locker... and some time to grab his gear. However, oddly...

    He's back on the rail again, and this time, he almost perfectly ACES it, seeming to sense the incoming strikes before they happen! It's not just the goggles, he seems to have figured something else out too. It's like he only literally, just now, on the course, figured out how to use a part of one of his abilities, and needed a do-over to do it again. On one hand: He aced it perfectly. On the other hand: It's kind of surprising, the fact that he's literally so new to his abilities that he hasn't ever used some of them.

    It may be clear he's not exactly holding back so much as still finding out what buttons on his metaphorical controller do what.
Roxas "I don't know," Roxas admits to Xion, "about the same as I usually do? I didn't like those chambers at the end, but... you know. I'm me." This is the only way he has to explain that he's a JRPG protagonist who does JRPG protagonist things. He assumes he did Pretty Well.

"What about you? How do you think you did?" He asks, and /very/ noticeably only changes back into The Coat once Xion has long since done so. It's a very specific order of operations.

His attention swings around towards Spider-Man, next chance they're near each other, "This place. Places like it. They just... you know, happen sometimes. I know a lot of places like this. I live in a place like this! It's a lot darker most of the time, though."
Tomoe So Tomoe understood you needed to be assessed and licenced in this world to operate, on worlds where that was needed the was always happy to do so. With this in mind, Lilian's world is no exception she'd taken to reading up the material on the creatures that she had got he hand on beforehand. She took in the whole place, her phone GPS cut out and she put it back into her inventory she didn't expect a trap or anything not on the level. This was dealing with magic actual magic in her mind. Rather than the strange emulation she had. Which the multiverse fusing several VRMMORPGs with the material world caused the birth of her own powers.

The city was strange an interesting the trees almost reminded her of the fairy race's capital? The pathways all of it made her feel a sense of pleasure at seeing a place like this. She doesn't get to go near the main part though maybe later?

She was clad in her full combat kit though, she had no weapons out just yet given she knew there would be testing them and she wanted to just be ready. She followed after Lilian for a moment.

"That would be true there's a lot of data on most of us when it comes to combat."

SHe notes to Lilian before Lilian carries on and gives them all a heads up about holding back could be a useful factor. Having them not knowing everything could be /very/ good if someone was to go after her. Given her own reputation got a close friend killed.

"Honestly it's nice where things are licenced likely keeps the fatality rates down."

Tomoe own scans might get some bizarre reading she does have biometrics but there's really odd stuff with her form flat out digital like features to it as well.

She will get changing into the perfect-fit clothe that she was provided with and the rest of her gear will be put into storage just a formality right? She does not seem to mind the

The physical tests are pretty cut and dry for Tomoe, she's able to lift several times her own body weight on the weights she's not the hulk but she can heft a good bit and it's clear from her pushing the weights, the running test is pretty damn good she's certainly above the human normal but when it comes to mobility like jumping that's where she really starts to shine. Her general speed times are very good she also does not seem to be tired at all by any of this either.

With that out of the way she will be eager for the next test.

To some this would be suffering but with Tomoe's superhuman abilities and her longtime studies of Parkour, this is flat out fun for her. She shines quite well finishing all the courses she's thrown against.
Tomoe The damage output unarmed is decent enough she's able to do well as pushing everything up to the Steel back a fair distance the poor tree never had a chance though it splinters pretty hard, she can move the other object not as far as she did up to the steel.

The pressure chamber is where Tomoe really might get attention she can take a good deal of it, the pressure weighs down on her more and more testing her endurance when she even starts to notice the pressure and the pain it's far past one would expect for someone she does start to show red lines on her exposed body parts but the time she says to stop but one thing is clear Tomoe can endure a staggering amount of that and she's not even in combat gear right now.

Tomoe is able to take a decent amount of heat and cold but it's just a bit beyond human norms still she's just in the grey form-fitting body suit so she's done fairly well at that.

She goes back to storage gets her gear and she does everything all over again and once in armour and with using her abilities along with 'magic' she's able to keep pace with her previous times and the like through several poitn she actually flares out her wings to either make up lost time or to blitz past certain things on the tower of unfairness once more. All and all Tomoe has put in a very good showing here. It's also clear she can take superhuman levels of punishment and keep going.

Shes's is winded a bit after but she has a grin on her face.

"I want to get one of those towers back at Haven it would be fun to throw the GU through that!"
Spider-Man     "I know a lot about things that can just sort of condense! And usually it's not..." Spider-Man makes a weird gesture at Roxas. "Something like this. Is that what happens where you live? Places just sort of show up and exist like this? I mean, I've seen urban places just sort of suddenly exist, I live in Queens. But there's actual civil planning here!" That's the part that most surprises him. "There's /actual civil planning/ here!" Of all the many things, the idea that someone can make a New York City sized area while actually planning it both deliberately and sensibly blows his mind.
Sarracenia      Sarra is probably one of the people least concerned with how they got here, where 'here' is, or how much magic is around them at any given time. She doesn't worry about those kinds of things anyway unless she is actually trying to find something, and has little to no magic sense. But, she does marvel at the city before them. So well made, futuristic, sleek, and beautiful in its own way.

     She doesn't find any problems with the proposed tests until she is presented with the outfit. "...-this- is the testing outfit?!" One might be able to glean what her issue is upon a glance. Sarra displays little to no skin at any given time, even if her dresses are often form-fitting around the upper body.

     The princess looks around nervously before letting out a huff and going to the appropriate changing area to get into the swimsuit-like garment. Which reveals her to be quite the toned and long-legged beauty, something she seems quite self-conscious about showing. Having to leave her dress and even her satchel behind causes her even more distress. It takes quite a bit of convincing for her to give up her satchel, but finally she does and proceeds into the first grueling round of physical tests.

     The princess's base, unaided physical scores most likely turn out to be in the lower tier. She can only lift several hundred pounds on her own, her running speed is merely close to that of an Olympic sprinter, her endurance is high but not super-human. She does a bit better on the point turning, displaying a moderate amount of agility and grace, and in the throwing tests she displays high numbers in the distance and nearly pinpoint accuracy. Her jumping is enough to clear a few floors of a building. All in all, noteworthy perhaps but not really impressive. The same holds true through the more extreme tests, though she does display uncanny grace and accuracy when jumping from one object to another or even onto large objects that are thrown at her to keep going down the right angle sprintway.

     The tolerance tests are really where she gets her low marks, though. Being a pampered, spoiled princess combined with the knowledge that she doesn't really -have- to put up with this stuff means that she gives up far before her body is actually in any danger of lasting harm. Basically when it becomes actually painful is when she calls for a stop. Far from ideal...and with the trainers actually just accepting it she doesn't get the pushes she usually needs to actually challenge herself.

     The second part, when she is able to reclaim her satchel...that is when she finally pulls her hammer from the hardly proportional bag and grins. "Now they can see what I can really do..." she murmurs before taking off, much more enthusiastically than before. This time, with the use of her hammer, most any 'move this weight' challenge is in a much higher tier. Rather than lifting weights, she hits them upward or smashes them sideways with force enough to probably knock down a building. And tests to actually smash something display the same aptitude.

     Her agility doesn't suffer for her carrying a hammer that is obviously heavier than she is. In fact, her scores get a bit better as she uses the hammer for counterbalance to make quick turns, to stop even faster, and to change direction with surprising speed and accuracy. The throwing tests get...rather more destructive as she throws a multitude of explosives ranging from the classic Bob-omb to hammering Bullet Bills to produce incredibly accurate artillery strikes. As the destruction mounts, so too does her maniacal attitude rise. She loves to destroy things, it seems, and doesn't hesitate to over-destroy something. Whatever the biggest 'try to destroy this' test is, she pulls out something from her bag and it deploys into a cannon that a person could stand inside of and fires a gigantic, fairly slow-moving missile that explodes with a force that might reach the low end of a nuclear strike.

    
Alexis You got to see how Alexis handles herself. Now it's the Pokemon's turn.

We'll spare the details on trying to put six creatures through the initial medical testing. Alexis tosses the examiners a copy of the Pokedex entries for the six pokemon she brought with, that has all their standard biometric statistics listed anyways. That and she is still keeping a few trump cards tucked away. She didn't bring her Entei, or any of her Mega Evolution pokemon. They tend to be more for her 'when shit gets serious' needs anyways.

The basic tests go about how you would expect. Some pokemon are stronger, some are faster, in general they are all 'supernatural' in comparison to the animals they may resemble, and being natural fighters can keep up the efforts for a very long time. The obstacle course is where things get interesting. Alexis makes it a little farther this time herself, since now she's got her rolleblades to do some parkour grinding skills with. Her Typhlosion gets around a lot by rolling like a big fiery pinball, and being the odd dragon-insect thing it is Flygon just flies through a lot of it, proving to be very agile, an even carries the smaller Salandit and Rockruff through the tougher levels. Yay teamwork. The real star of that course is Hawlucha, as the acrobatic bird-man does all sorts of flips and wall-jumps and gliding to get through, and even manages to balance through part of the poles in the water, finding it similar to turnbuckle rope walking.

Shoving, lifting and pulling large heavy objects? That's what Mudbray is for, living up to the sort of stubborn tenacity mules are known for. Not to mention that back kick can really put out some force. Things are broken, burnt to ash thanks to Typhlosion's intense fire ability, or melted down by Salandit's poisons being corrosive enough to even eat through metal. No one is surprised to see Hawlucha karate chop and judo throw things bigger than he is, and even Rockruff due to being a Rock type has jaws strong enough to chew up stuff a dog shouldn't be.

The pressure chamber most of them tough out, either by stubborness or being durable types, though Typhlosion has a hard time keeping his fire burning. They pretty much own the temperature chambers, because again heat and cold are things they are due to their elements very resiliant against.

By the end, all six of them plus Alexis have worked up a sweat. The athletic Hawlucha and subborn Mudbray appear to be the only ones not completely wore out for stamina due to their exceptional physical traits. "Typhlosion.. (Geez, and I thought -your- training regiment was rough.)" Scorch mumbles as the badger sprawls out on the floor.
Xion Xion shrugs. "I did the things, so, probably fine? I'm used to Zexion shouting at me, mostly 'wrong!' or 'do it again!' or 'do it right!' with this sort of stuff. Nobody yelled anything at me! They even let me out of that awful cold room early. Really nice guys."

"Which was the other bad room?"

Spider-Man speaks about CIVIC PLANNING as Roxas relates the World that Never Was. "Yeah, this place reminds me of Traverse Town, but... Sunny. Oh! Where we're from, instead of a sun there's a biiiii-" Xion spreads her hands as wide as they go. "-iiiig grey heart in the sky. It's probably important, but nobody told me what it is. It's pretty to look at, though!"
Note     Note would love to fly around this weird place, but she's here for the test and she can't afford to mess that! So she flies in low with others to sign in and hear out Lilian's explanation, putting off 'checking out this weird tingly place' for later - hopefully.

    "I don't get it... you should totally hide your best moves from your enemies until you're ready to get the drop on them, but why hide 'em from your friends?" Note, youthful as she is, simply does not realize how things aren't always that simple. She'll just have to ponder on that one though as she eventually changes her attire for the provided outfit, to emerge wearing the simple uniform with only her hair ribbon left in place.

    Although she might've had to tear a hole in them for her tail. If so, she'll smile apologetically at whoever might take offense at this. She -definitely- registers as something not-totally-human on the biological sensors, if it checks DNA. But other than genetics and the tail, she would seem perfectly human otherwise... odd. Though said scans might have also revealed that she entered with a bunch of hidden weights attached to her clothes... hundreds of kilograms worth of weight.

    The starting tests don't prove to be any sort of challenge for Note, even restricting herself as instructed by the testers. The little Saiyan-blooded youth dashes along at raceway speeds for sprints and easily proves capable of lifting and pushing around hundreds of times her own body mass - easily a couple of tons, including hurling boulders for thousands of feet.

    Things start to get tricky during the coordination feats though. She springs like a monkey from pole to pole, displaying startling balance with the help of that tail. The crazier things are where she starts to struggle, getting whacked several times by objects too heavy to fling off without better footing, forced to swing around by her tail more than once (but it's handy for hanging onto odd places!) and eventually tumbling off the course. Leaping, smashing, and breaking things goes far better. Most ordinary materials she tears right through with simple punches, not even having to try... except the densest metals. Sending them FLYING is easy, but she more than once withdraws a hand that HURTS from the impact, yelping and leaping around!

    The pressure chamber is an oddity. She does stagger at first, but soon adapts to the mounting resistance. She's surprisingly slow to so much as twitch, but eventually - at many times what any human could hope to deal with - she's forced to her knees, struggling to breathe, and waves a quit signal.

    Unfortunately, she doesn't deal with heat or cold very well at all. No more than any fit olympic athlete might've, without special training for it.

    But then... it's time for round two. ANd Note doesn't even bother to return for any of her 'gear.' It was just clothes and weights anyways. INstead...

    Instead, she stands at the beginning of the course again and unleashes a terrific kiai, focuses her energy deeply... and erupts with a now-familiar flood of golden light that shifts her hair into a spiky array of golden locks and changes her eyes to a greenish shade. The change is obvious - anyone standing too close can feel the SHOCKWAVE of air caused by this change. ANy sort of spiritual senses surely detect things cranking into overdrive.

    But she doesn't just stop there. Digging even deeper, the little martial artist clenches her fists and spends another minute focusing her power even more. All along her body, her lean muscles ripple and bulge out an inch or two and arcs of ki rip up the ground as her aura briefly goes wild... then compresses into a thin golden glow sparkling and crackling around her. This somehow makes her spiky hair part and wave about even MORE outrageously than before.
Note     THIS TIME, the physical tests are a completely different story. Her running speed proves to be fast enough to kick up vacuum gales and pull debris behind her. She can fling things so far that it proves exactly WHY this course is so huge. ANd when it comes to getting past obstacles... well, that's easy. She can just fly past most of those without a care in the world, at rocket-like speeds. Even dense metals like tungsten are dented to the shape of her fist while they're sent flying.

    As for atmospheric tests, her results are magnified tenfold.... but heat resistance isn't affected at all. Cold is mildly up, owing to the warmth of her own blazing aura of warm excess ki... but it's a negligible increase of a few extra minutes.

    When it's all over, she returns to the rest of the group... and powers back down, all of the light show dying down and her spiky hair shifting back to black and collapsing into the smooth ponytail it started as. "Whew.... that's a workout!"
Alexis Alexis does glance in the direction of Roxas, Xion and Spidey as she picks up a bit of their conversation. "Huh. Sounds like an interesting place." Not the weirdest description of places she's heard over the years, but its still one of the more unique ones. Though after a moment she pauses, then uuhs. "Wait... Are you talking heart as in heart shaped, or the actual way a real heart looks?"
Roxas "Uh... I don't know," Roxas admits, scratching his head, "it just felt really strange, and I didn't like it."

He looks between Alexis and Xion for a moment, his face momentarily screwed up in concentration. Then: "What's the difference?"
Touta Konoe To say the place that Touta's looking at is quite a view is an understatement. When Lilian had talked about her home world he wanted to check it out just to see a new place, but honestly this entire world was beautiful. It was difficult whether to define it as just rural or industrial as it seemed to have a very balanced mix of both that just seemed to work so elegantly. He can't help but want to go through the entirety of the city and just look around more indepth at what this place is like. Sadly that'll need to be for another day as the group is brought to the place known as the 'House of the Seven Worthies' upon the outskirts.

     Upon appearing at the administrative offices, his appearence was probably a bit younger than those present. Even among the younger members of 16, the boy dressed down in black with the blade resting on his shoulder looked like he was maybe somewhere around the age of 12 to 14, though now he would be close to fifteen with the new year. Still his height was probably doing him no favors.

    "Seven's a lucky number here? Guess, I'm in luck. I'm actually a number seven in my group. Oh right, Lilian before I forget, you said we need pass these exams before the city will let you take tours around and read about the history here right? I really want to check out some of the libraries here if we get the chance later." He doesn't go into too many details but he was the 7th member of the group UQ Holder back in his world. Though that number had less to do with a rank and more to do with when he had joined. He doesn't have to say that though!

     As she continues speaking, he takes note of the rule that they aren't really expecting the participants to show all everything they can do. An emphasis that they don't have to do anything. He figures there's probably something more to that so he'll...Try to play along? As he enters the private space he takes all his belongings, his sword, his collapsable hula-hoop (yes he has one of those as strange as it seems), and his casual clothes and swaps them out for the grey clothing provided by the facility. From there he enters into the strange MRI machine to take measures of his biometrics which shouldn't be anything abnormal...As long as it doesn't scan for magical responses. Also he'll probably ask if this MRI is magically in nature as well cause...Well he doesn't want to upset anyone if he touches something by mistake. He'll need to be careful with that.

     From there, the test begins! Beginning with the physical exams he figures that since he's alreay hung out with Lilian before that she has an idea of how much he can lift from speaking with Kurobo. So when one of the smaller one's in this group of outsiders starts lifting weights comparable to an industrial struck over his head that may or may not be a bit overwhelming to see. Though when he sees the other kid lifting up like 30-tons, he thinks maybe he might have been holding back just a bit....

     As for the feats of speed. He can imagine he'd be pretty quick if he used Shundo to speed through the course, and it'd probably help his jumping heights (especially if he decided to double-jump) but instead he decides to take her words to heart and just try to keep pace with some of the other teens he's doing the exercise already. Though he can tell that these kids are definitely pretty impressive in regards to just normal runners none the less.
Tomoe Tomoe falls in with Alexis, Roxas, Xion and Spider-Man. "Huh sounds like you have been to some interesting places." She notes to Xion and then looks to the others grinning a bit. "not bad so far for anyone here and the name I go by is Tomoe."

"A real heart is well? Not symitcal and has all sort of blood vessels coming out of it."
Touta Konoe Then there was the coordination. Touta does the wall climbing the standard way with just his hands and feet but ends up completing it in pretty good time. And while he could run up the walls or run on the water, but instead just tries to do his best across the narrow poles. When it comes to the heavy objects part though...While he's shown to have strength, keeping his footwork is putting him in an awkward position as it effects his base that would have allowed him to deal with some of these heavier objects so he becomes quite susceptible to getting smacked by incredibly large heavy objects. That probably has him end up failing that portion of the exam. But at the very least...He seems to pick himself up again rather quickly after getting knocked off. Next was all the materials he needed to hit, which for the most part he does very well snapping those trees, or crushing the tougher materials as demonstrated from the materials before probably leaving dents in them. The only problem he finds himself having is when he's asked to crush an unfamiliar magic material...The material just smashes muc easier than the less magically materials. As if whatever was so enchanting about those materials hadn't been the case at all...

     The pressure chamber was next. Touta's already shown that when it comes to gravitational pressure that his training with his blade has made him pretty strong in that regard, but with that in mind he'd figure he'd just tell them to stop when he felt something. But this causes another issue. After a few seconds of being inside he asks the instructors when it's going to turn on. The response being 'It's already on.' To which Touta waits a few seconds and just says he's done. Hopefully that won't seem too odd. As for the hypothermia and 'hell' chambers. While he might be immortal he still definitely feels hot and cold and so those go about as well as you'd expect, maybe just a bit better from the many times he's been frozen, or had plasma shot into his chest or other such wonderful experiences.

     When the first set of tests finish up, Touta opts to leave his other items behind. Another thing of note is that after all of that work out, and being bopped with those stones and punching steel plates...He doesn't seem tired at all and there isn't even any bruises on him. While it was true they could probably enhance his score at the same time those types of things felt like...Add ons? If this test was to see what the individual was comparable of, then he felt like it might be cheating to use them. Though, to a certain extent that is what it seemed like they wanted them to do. But ultimately he takes the opportunity to go back and check out who else decided to appear, which to his surprise is a lot of people who seem his age.

     Walking over to Xion, Roxas, and Spider-man he can't help but give a smile as he gave a wave.

    "Hey, I saw you guys during the test. You guys were awesome out there! How old are you guys even?! Oh uh, right name's Touta by the way, nice to meet ya."
Xion "No... no, it's a normal heart. You know, like this!"

Xion signs a heart with her fingers, in the way Teenaged Girls do, arching fingers and pointing thumbs. "But a big one."

"In the sky."
Spider-Man     Spider-Man's goggles sort of squint up and narrow at Xion, as if he's trying to figure out the solution to a puzzle written on her forehead. "Wait, a giant heart? Does it... Make sunlight, at least? Or some kind of light?" He glances between Roxas and Xion, trying to figure out the matter. "Or do you come from one of those rogue planets? I read about those! Never heard about the heart thing." He clarifies to Roxas, "Hearts inside the body look like weird bulgy meat. Like a weird pump that a butcher's shop would make." He also greets Touta! "Hey! Nice meeting you. I'm Spider-Man."
Roxas "Uhhh..." Roxas gets a deer-in-headlights look. Saix had once told them what they were supposed to say in response to that question, and he's blanking on it. His /real/ age is nonsense, and doesn't actually mean anything at all. After a bizarrely long time of thinking about it, "I'm Roxas, and I guess you could say I'm about sixteen. This is Xion--"

He gestures towards Xion, "And she's around the same age as I am."

Roxas nudges Xion lightly in the ribs in response to her 'oneteen' thing.

"Oh. No, it's not a pump. It's like she just showed them," He jerks his head towards Xion, "But... well, we don't really live on a planet. It's more like a place parallel to Earth? It's not separate exactly, but it doesn't exist on the same layer either. It's one of the realms of the Underground, or 'UG' for short. Um, for instance, Faerie is another place like where we live."
Sarracenia      In the tolerance tests, she produces a plethora of power-up items ranging from ice powers and fire powers that let her extend her tolerance to extremes a bit more to a frog suit that lets her tolerate even deep sea pressures to a green mushroom that lets her keep going even when she really -should- have stopped to keep from injuring herself.

     When -all- of the physical tests are -finally- over...Sarracenia collapses in the changing area and just sits there for a long while, trying to properly catch her breath. She obviously doesn't push herself to actual extremes very often, despite her obvious fitness.
Lilian Rook     "Geomancy is where the power grid comes from. Numerology is what you're thinking of." Lilian tells Spider-Man at the start. The proctors actually say they can keep the outfits after. Some of them are more flattering than others, but apparently if you're exceptional enough to be allowed here, handing out free turbo-nice gym clothes isn't hard. Putting a tail hole in them is fine. With Sarracenia's fussing, the best they eventually get her is more or less a one-piece that ends up terminating as spats and short sleeves, exposing the rest of her lower arms and legs.

    Xion gets to put her dumb black hoodie robe on for the second run, while a few supervisors try to explain the obstacle course and then give up after she starts running on the water. Zenos gets more than a few 'miring glances at his Peak Physique, and some real interested data entry at the wrecked targets. Gawain gets equal amounts of Blonde Chad attention, and a fair few line up to see a legendary Knight of the Round Table in action. Strange is indeed urged to do it normally the first time, and then anything goes in good humour, with many of the supervisors seeming as amused as they are impressed by his creative solutions.

    Alexis seems to rate more or less 'satisfactory', though they'll actually offer to put her Pokemon through the same stuff, if they're at all capable of it, and factor them into her results, since she is effectively 'a summoner'. Some of the tests are altered a bit, but clearly 'calling up weird critters' isn't a totally unheard of powerset here (albeit six at once seems to be considered really high). They try to poke Roxas to redo it for the second round when it looks like he isn't quite comprehending right, but give up quickly, likely assuming he's actually very clever and faking ignorance. They seem frankly perplexed when Spider-Man blows through so many tests only to freak out in the Spider Oven though.

    Sarracenia's hammer just barely fits in the square, after much fussing, but it sure shoots her marks up once she starts slamming the superheavy pressure weights back into her slots, which is a good thing after all the eye-rolling she'd gotten at whining about the tolerance chambers before. The examiners don't seem to expect much more on Note's second run, given how incredibly impressive it'd been the first time and her refusal to pick up gear, but when she does take round two, the wisdom of having microsecond clocks and kiloton pressure plates in exchange of weights starts to become obvious. There are still materials that won't casually break with even a super saiyan punch though. When Touta somehow breaks a few of the earlier magical materials just like that, they actually ask him to stop, not wanting to test if he can do it on the really valuable stuff.
Lilian Rook     Given about enough time to cool off and grab the rest of your stuff (and probably shower a little), the next couple of floors up are mostly broken up into an assortment of sealed chambers of largely identical contents, built up to capacity to handle probably at least a thousand people going through on a busy day. Just the one of them is reserved for all of you, given that it's something which can apparently be taken in turns. The reason there are sealed doors becomes pretty obvious, when the inside is clearly lined with heavy layers of materials that should be capturing basically any kind of radiation, traces of magic, sound or shock, to isolate everything from every other room for the sake of capturing fine measurements.

    The isolated room is defined mostly by a series of circular steps leading up to a pedestal of sorts, the size of a small, round table, mostly made of various metals and visible mechanical extrusions, but seemingly having no machinery more complicated than clockworks going on, and made of a lot of mechanically non-useful items, such as gold, jade, diamond, and traces of rare mythical metals. The main fixture is a perfectly spherical, polished stone set into the center of the top surface, filled with some kind of grey fog, big enough to lay two hands on. That appears to be the purpose, as Lilian reconvenes with the group to lead them through it, apparently being very simple and not requiring a supervisor.

    "These are the standardized setups we use for more comprehensive and reliable measurements of generalized mystical ability than portable devices." she says after a brief intro. "Rather than testing the execution of specific powers --just yet anyways-- these are keyed to receive whatever energies you can muster and direct, and to gauge the quality, quantity, and degree to which you can control them, on the more fundamental scale. They don't do anything so crude as just take a raw number of how much you can squeeze out and compare it; there is a trick to these, going along the seven stations and five stages of enlightenment."

    Lilian demonstrates by putting her hands on the big glassy orb, and straight away the grey fog becomes a shining white light, pure and untinted, causing tiny sensors in the walls and ceiling to gleam. "There are five stages to each station, which this setup displays based on colour. There's a bit of a poetic way of referencing them, but they mean roughly what they sound like."
Lilian Rook     "White is where everyone starts. White light contains all other colours and kinds of light, not being any one thing, but containing the potential to be just about anything, once it's focused and refined. It illuminates the world around you, but reflects back the qualities of the things that you can now see, more than it illuminates yourself. The intensity here is usually seen as latent potential."

    The white light then becomes a deep, shifting, shimmering silver. "Silver is where you progress to next. White becomes silver as insubstantial light becomes a metal, hard and defined and capable of interacting with the world. Silver is a substance associated with purity and driving back evil things, indicating mastery enough to keep out the potential for all the worst facets of any power from plaguing you, but though it has taken shape and is stable, it's still a somewhat fragile metal, and can tarnish or break if neglected or used poorly. That's a metaphor for mystical talent still, obviously. The hue here is interpreted as how diligently you're maintaining and refining your power."

    The silver then becomes brilliant, glimmering gold. "Gold is where it has matured and revealed its inherent value and worth. It's now solidified into something weighty and permanent and imperishable, as well as malleable as the metal, easily shaped into just about anything without breaking, as mastery over power allows you to use it in any form you're able to imagine and skilfully craft it into. The degree of shine here is typically interpreted as how much work you've put into polishing and molding those talents."

    The light then loses its metallic cast and becomes bright, glaring, almost lurid red. "Crimson comes after gold, and indicates when power has ceased to be something external to you, which you appraise and polish and sculpt and define, crafting and developing and improving it, into something internal to you. Crimson represents blood, as power becomes an integral part of you that is no longer just a talent, but something vital and fundamental. If it is diminished, it diminishes you. If it is lost, you're all but dead. Even if you expend it rashly, it's never without reason. Its flow and structure is palpable to you, rather than something to think on or invoke or practice. The intensity of the colour here is usually thought of as hinting at your fundamental capacity."

    Finally, the light is sucked back in, and the room goes dim, where the orb becomes a sphere of pitch blackness interspersed with tiny, glittering stars. "Lastly, black indicates that there is nothing left to learn or master at your current state of enlightenment. You've transcended beyond the power becoming a part of you, and into you entering the sort of 'cosmic space', for lack of a better word, where the power originates. It's revealed its deepest, blackest secrets to you, and opened a vista where you can glimpse the stage of enlightenment beyond this one, like stars in the sky --in sight but not yet in grasp. The number and brightness of the stars here is supposed to be how close you are to further enlightenment."


    The 'tabletop' then begins making a loud series of ratcheting clicks and glassy chimes, gradually rotating, reconfiguring, exposing new surfaces, rows of esoteric gems, raising small structures, and then turning the white of a single star into a whole orb of shining white all over again. "Then it goes back to white again, when you breach into a new level of enlightenment, where everything beforehand is mastered and internalize, and you're working on yourself anew. It takes raw power to reach a new stage, but also a different kind of control and mastery, and the input changes. You can have a ton of latent power, but be at a lower station to someone with less raw energy, due to having not yet refined yourself as far."
Lilian Rook     Lilian gestures to the exposed gems. "The jewel is the first station, representing where inner power is searched for and first discovered, dug out of the ground, the metaphorical dirt cleaned away, where it's appraised and polished, and you begin to have an idea of what's within yourself, and gaining access to that priceless core of power deep inside."

    After cycling through a full white to black sequence, the setup rotates and clicks again, going completely flat and exposing concentric surfaces of polished, glassy diamond. "The mirror is the second, where you can access your power at any time, but are working on gasping its full shape and dimensions, and coming to understand it and yourself. It's the station of self-reflection and understanding, polishing yourself and your skills until you know who you are and what your power is."

    More mechanical swiveling and reconfiguring follows the next white to black, where the edges raise, the center depresses, and the pillar narrows, like having hands on a bowl on a pedestal. "The station of the chalice is third, which is supposed to represent 'questing'. It's when you know what and who you are and the time at which you're supposed to go out seeking challenges and knowledge and new things, to achieve and to better yourself, bringing you up from humbler beginnings to greater experience and maturity."

    White chalice to silver chalice to gold chalice to crimson chalice to black chalice, and the table flattens again, slowly unfurling rings of silver blades around itself in sequence. "The station of the sword comes after that. This is where your 'questing' is over, and the only way to achieve further enlightenment is to take on a cause. An immutable purpose. An ironclad goal. You'll make no more progress with changing yourself until you change the world; yours is to go out and conquer, to defeat, to subjugate, to bleed, and to suffer. Not a lot of people reach this station at all."

    There though, Lilian finally stops at blindingly intense crimson, and can go no further, releasing the orb with a sigh, where it returns to grey mist and cylindrical shape. "After that comes the crown, and theoretically the throne and the tower. The crown is where you've supposedly achieved the pinnacle of human development, where you're no longer learning, but leading --pushing forward the boundaries of what is possible and inventing new aspects and dimensions to yourself. Few people ever get that far. If the mirror is learning a martial art, the chalice is taking it out into the world to fight and to master it, and the sword is crushing all the others to prove its perfection, the crown is where nothing less than inventing a brand new art is meaningful to you. People who go beyond grandmaster and into inventing new schools --it's about that rare"

    "The Throne is where you've transcended the humanity inherent in that power and become something that sits above humans. Most people don't even have the theoretical potential to do that. It's where the height of possible human achievement is internalized, and you're pushing what should be possible at all, defining the new 'impossible', leading the collective progress of human enlightenment into new eras and paradigms. Geniuses, basically. Teslas. Einsteins. Muramasas. Musashis. Arthurs. Heracles."

    "The Tower is almost theoretical. At that point someone is just totally divorced from all human experience and is more or less a god in the flesh. You'd have to be Jesus Christ or the Buddha to claim the enlightenment of the Tower. It's a once a century deal, at most. There's not much to say. Give it a whirl!"
Lilian Rook     Indeed, she didn't speak incorrectly when she said it's more nuanced than just jamming raw magical energy into it. The table soaks up mana/ki/psychic energy/pretty much anything very readily at the jewel stage, so long as you can bring it out. At the mirror stage, it starts only accepting power into increasingly fine and specific channels and patterns. At the chalice stage, it starts actively resisting you doing so and requires the ability to sense or figure out which will work. Anyone getting to the sword stage finds that it requires tremendous focus and zen-like clarity to do much of anything, and becomes extremely painful if slightly mishandled, capable of forcing hands off and ending it.

    Someone possibly getting to the crown stage finds the blades reorienting to indeed take a crown-like shape, exposing the gems of before along its sides, and they find that it no longer accepts energy at all, save for some completely unique, unusual, and uncommunicated pattern of manipulation that is obscenely obtuse and esoteric, and seemingly chosen differently to an individual, requiring nothing short of a stroke of genius or outright breathing that conceptual space. If someone were to get to the tower somehow, the whole thing rises up and lowers down in concentrical tiers to make for a tower of babel image, and begins slurping up utterly obscene quantities of energy while also shutting off with a flash of painful feedback the exact instant the delta of power shifts to even the slightest degree; one would need to be somehow actively exuding tremendous, dynamic power completely unconsciously.

    "Oh, usually these are calibrated to display personal 'alignments' as well, but given where you're all from, it's probably not going to be able to read whatever you're aimed at. It's all really esoteric imagery anyways. Professionals come along and interpret it like a doctor with a medical chart and all. It'll take a while before any of that applies to disciplines that don't exist around here." Lilian flips a couple of components and pokes the orb again, causing the interior to suddenly bloom into what looks like red and black flame or ink, before coalescing into a flickering black sword-shape stabbed through surprisingly intricate scarlet gearworks, buried in such a way as to obviously make any of the cogs turning impossible, seizing up the whole allegorical machine. It disappears when she walks away from it. "It's not very straightforward at all. It probably wouldn't show anything mostly, but who knows."

    That part is, as stated, incredibly inconsistent. There's a solid chance it just won't work for some people. Others might be able to call up manifestations of some particular element, meaningful runes or glyphs or symbology, emblematic icons or creatures, elaborate light shows, or really deeply symbolic displays or occult iconography that somehow corresponds to said 'enlightenment' or inner nature, but it's wildly inconsistent from person to person, and may just not function.
Xion Xion is all-to-eager to keep showing off, smiling at the pile of younger people - Spider Man, Touta, and even Tomoe who show up - before dragging off Roxas to the next part. "Magic! We're both, you know... magi-capable." Xion smiles emptily, just pretty jazzed to be doing this whole thing and enjoying herself.

While also, at least, trying to keep to her orders about staying ON THE DOWN LOW.

Eagerly stepping up to the magic sensor device, Xion peels off a glove to lay her hand on the gemstone, which alights white, moving through the color to black, and then it stops.

Xion's eyes glimmer, blinking expectantly at the mechanism. "Oh, no, flip over!"

The machine, instead, resets. The gem alights white, then to black. This time, the machine transitions by half - the gem sinks into the sensor, but none of the mirror-bearing bits emerge. Xion looks confusedly to Lilian, before tugging her glove back on, closing her eyes, and deliberately laying her hand on top of the gem as the machine resets.

This time, there's no color. It just sinks in to the mechanism - none of the Mirror bits come out at all.

"H-hey, don't break, let me do the next thing!"

Disappointed, Xion meanders off back to the crowd. "I don't think I did this right."
Roxas Roxas listens to the instructions on the next test intently. It's not hard to observe him following along, like any diligent student might-- and he /does/ seem like that sort of person. He approaches the pedestal -- among the first to do so -- confidently enough, and begins without a word.

It's a bizarrely quick go at it all.

Jewel and Mirror are cleared in no time at all, but when he reaches the stage of the Chalice he stalls out in the middle on the gold chalice, flickering back and forth at the 'edge' of silver and gold. Roxas seems to think very hard about this for several long moments, remaining motionless and quiet as if attempting to progress.

Then, he decides it's for the best.

"It's pretty interesting," He remarks as he moves away from the platform, "sort of like... sort of like a puzzle game, I think?"

"Good luck!" He encourages whoever is next, and joins Xion on the sidelines.

After several long moments, Roxas reaches over and grabs her hand.

"If you want to," he offers, "do the thing, and try again."
Spider-Man     Spider-Man moves on, onward and upward, and keeps watching the ongoing things keenly. His face scrunches the mask a little bit, and his lenses flutter to a concerned position. Hmmm. "I don't... think this is going to be something I can do. I tried figuring out magic before, when I was fighting the magic drugs, but I actually can't." He steps up to deal with things, and sort of... awkwardly raises his hand.

    He lets it fall from the shoulder. There's a tiny... /tiny/ flicker of maybe white. Maybe a wonky reaction to trace radiation? Something deeper, distant influence of a mysterious Web yet to be revealed or understood? Well, nothing much above human standard at least. "Hey." He says, grinning under his mask. That's it for Spider-Man. He's not magical! He does other things.
Doctor Strange      When Lilian explains the pedestal and the criteria the artifact expects from those being tested, Strange seems prepared for the task. After Roxas, Xion, and Spidey, Strange steps up. His hands move in wide, opposing half-circles, as if practicing the opening form of a martial art. Bright orange lines of mystic energy appear in the wake of his gestures, and what initially appeared to be some manner of kata is revealed to instead be the construction of an intricate mystic glyph. His hands change directions, enclosing the two opposing half-circles in a complete circle. Working in perfect symmetry, the sorcerer's trembling hands trace myriad lines within the enclosed space, until there is a slowly rotating mandala hovering in the air before him.

     Roughly the diameter of the average trash can, the mandala is turned upon its side with a swift motion from Strange, hovering over the pedestal now. It turns like the tumbler of some mystic lock, stopping in place as a ring of nordic-looking runes slowly circles around it. The runes, too, lock into place, and a beam of golden energy streams downward into the pedestal's mystic sensors. Motes break off from this stream of energy, winnowing away into nothing the further they stray from the stream. Strange provides the pedestal with enough to satisfy the first level of the Jewel.

     After this, the energy stops, and the mandala is banished with a flick of the sorcerer's wrist. It would seem he's taken Lilian's optional route of concealing just how much power he can muster, in the most extreme sense possible. As far as the pedestal or the researchers know, he's still on the White portion of the Jewel.

     "Well, there it is," says Strange with a not-convincing-at-all shrug. "Looks like I have a long way to go." He gives an affirmative swing with a closed fist, which likely doesn't make his performance any more convincing.
Zenos yae Galvus Zenos follows Lilian into the office room, watching as events unfold around him and listening with interest now.  His blood was flowing, and these sorts of tests...excite him.  Knowing his limits, knowing his strengths...knowing there is something more to reach for.  This is what he lives for, what he pushes himself even more for.

As the orb is touched, he listens to the explanation, watching as the orb reveals colors and symbols, the explanation from her getting a serious expression.   Surely, a device could not possibly understand and reveal such matters?  However, dismissing anything as impossible is a sign of ignorance...perhaps they have found a way to quantify this, or perhaps it is just a measuring stick.

Regardless, when it is his turn, he removes a gauntlet and holds it to reveal his hand.  He focuses his mind, slowing his breathing and allowing the power to flow through him and through the orb.  He need not force, but push gently and only using the amount of strength he needs to.  

Jewel lights up first, as white turns into silver, turns into gold, into crimson and then black.  The cycle starts over, as it switches towards the mirror.  Once more, the colors come in sequence and come to an end at black.  Sword comes next, and like before the colors fill up, but instead of stopping at crimson, it pushes towards black.

Crown appears, and it is expected by Zenos.  He is a ruler, he stands above men and he has known it his entire life.  Unlike most, he does not sit on his laurels but sharpens his power.  However, once Crown starts...it stops as soon as it begins.  The white filling up to be a brilliant white sheen, but it does not turn to silver.  

After a few moments, the machine resets.  As Zenos pulls his hand back and walks away from the machine.  "Hmph, that is as far as it sees me?  Good, it means there is much more for me to obtain," he says, and while his face is hidden, you can almost hear the smile of satisfaction.
Gawain Back in his normal clothes, Gawain listens to everyone talk, but doesn't speak up much. When the magic test comes, though, Gawain isn't sure what to expect. Somewhere in Sword, probably?

He steps up to the magical sensor device, places his hands on it, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath...and he's absolutely made of mana, so it begins to flow out him. It quickly oves fro white to black Gem. Slower, white to black Mirror. Even slower, and somewhat stressful, white to black Chalice. Sword is where it gets interesting.

Gawain's body struggles with Sword, but it putters along. He's focusing, focusing, almost feeling pain...and it finally stops.

Crimson glow, Sword. His 'alignment' also seems to be relatively sword-like, being a Saber and all. Gawain turns and asks, afterwards, genuinely curious instead of bragging. "Is that good?" He does pull back, allowing the machine to be used by the next person.
Note     That is a HUGE pile of words. When the presentation begins, Note's pretty wowed at the amazing display of lights, even if she doesn't quite understand the explanation. "That's... a lot to remember... I don't think I'm gonna be able to, Lilian. Not all at once." But the demonstration IS clear enough. Put hands on orb, inject power! ... Carefully.

    When Note steps up... her hands glow with a strange white-gold light. Her eyes go wide at that slightest touch then her grip tightens slightly. She can clearly feel what she's supposed to do. "ohhh...!"

    ANd so, she pushes. Carefully at first. Then further and further. Frustration and tension builds as the lights swirl and race onwards and onwards...

    Eventually, it begins to warble up and down around Golden Chalice. "Uhhhh.... what's that supposed to mean again?"

    She's not really worried about it, but she's going to be awfully careful about watching others results.

    When she does curiously try the thing LIlian did at the end though, to show her 'alignment' as it was called...

    The orb fills with swirling blue-white energies as a background, with what appears to be something like a bipedal, girthy monkey made out of insubstantial golden 'fire' floating in the center.

    "Oh come on, why's it always monkeys?!" She promptly slaps a hand to her forehead in exasperation.
Alexis "So it's Earth... but not. Alternate dimension? Or just out of sync with another reality?" Alexis' curiousity is perked a bit by Xion and Roxas' comments and sorta-explainations. "Sounds like the Reverse World. Or Glitch Town." Gives a dismissive wave of one hand. "But that's just an urban legend, don't worry about it." Wait, which one? Or both? She's not clarifying. Interesting conversation but it's time to move on.

"Com'n you guys. You can rest in your 'balls." Alexis recalls the group. "On to the next test."

Or whatever this is suppose to be. A lot of it sounds a lot more estoic than the previous tests. Oh, wonderful. Ranks by colors and shapes and... Abstract concepts, and... stuf... really a lot of the explaination is not so much going over her head as it is being things Alexis doesn't really bother herself with thinking about too hard usually. uh... She just does what she sees fit to do, from fighting criminal organizations to helping restore a whole world. Not to mention that technically a lot of her 'power' isn't even technically hers.

Not like she isn't going to try when its her turn.

With a hmmm on that regard, then she gets an idea. When she steps up for her turn, rather than just put her hand in the device she taps a pokeball to release her Typhlosion again. As her Partner and constant companion he was in many ways the embodiment of what she did as a Pokemon Trainer.

Plus, he's got elemental energy, which probably has a better chance of being picked up. Fire is one of the primary types she works with, after all.

So Alexis grabs one of Scorch's forepaws, and puts both on the sensor-whatever of the weird device. It, for a while, just sits and gives a few flickers. Like it's trying to actually figure out what it's scanning, because it's not quite magic but it's kind of close and the bond between the two is strong enough for it to pick up on. Maybe. Hopefully.

It does eventually get a reaction out of the contraption, but it's shifting and kind of stuttering like it's not entirely grasping the alternate source it's reading.

Eventually it clatters its way into a gold color, and the chalice imagery. All that training and honing the elemental association with Fire being the primary specialty; but yet she's always venturing out, exploring and looking for new challenges, always reaching for that next level. And probably because she's always picking up other causes to work on, like she is being here now, instead of having one of her own per say.

"... I'm surprised that actually kind of worked, so I'll take it." Alexis pats Scorch on the shoulder and tugs him out of the way of others. "Thanks bud." "Typh (I have no idea what I did, but sure?)"

Alexis also makes a bit of a face at Strange only scoring white. She's fought him, she knows there's something more there... but she just shakes her head and doesn't say anything. Playing reserved was allowed so no reason to.
Tomoe Tomoe does not seem to get too much attention form her own but to the people native here? Who the hell is she? It may be an edge, in the long run, to not garner too much attention if things were to eve get complicated. Still she seriously wants to get a course like that for the GU back at Haven, which would be something she would find fun. For the rest of the guild? Maybe not so much fun.

She doesn't get to chat much longer with Roxas, Xion, Alexis, Spider-man as she needs to shower up and take a little time to recover.

The next place they are in is heavily protected likely to contain things from within Tomoe judges.

So it's about refinement rather than power when it comes to magic here.

"I do have magic of a sort but well it's a rather new thing to be something other than fiction on my world, I'm part of the first generation to even have access to it."

SHe notes It's some kind of Digital Magic? the idea to talk to Doctor Strange about it later does come to mind and she may very well do so.

She makes not to catch up with Xion and the ret when they get their next respite but for now, she looks to the magic.

Tomoe will wait her turn then go up to it and start to focus so far she goes to the Jewel stage without any issue and she will be able to make it to Mirror as she keeps her focus she's not a front line caster but she more than just direct casting all of her tanking abilities are a form of magic for the most part after all.

She pushes past that to the Mirror stage without many issues she will take a bit to push a part way through Chalice but it halts at gold and goes no farther.

She has a similar reaction to as Zenos does.

"Seems I got a lot more to learn good, I'd hate to think I'd peaked already."
Sarracenia      If Sarracenia is given a chance to shower...well, let us just say that what is supposed to be showering a little turns into at least 15 minutes of luxurious showering thanks to all the things she carries in her Mary Poppins bag. The scents of high-end soaps, shampoos, and conditioners probably fills the entire shower area and changing rooms.

     She emerges looking quite refreshed with her hair once again properly styled after all those stress tests. She also seems much more happy with the sleeved one-piece suit than she did with the two-piece, even though with how tight these clothes are it really doesn't make much difference. It's the principle of the thing! Still, as soon as it is indicated that they can change clothes, Sarracenia puts her dress back on. And looks several times more comfortable afterwords.

     The next testing room makes Sarracenia's eyes grow as big as saucers and sparkle with the wonder of a child at all the shiny artistry that the room displays. She is only half-paying attention to all the explanations for a minute or so, but finally does focus when the different tiers of enlightenment are displayed.

     Sarracenia seems to grasp just what the test is testing, judging by her confident expression. But, when she actually touches the orb...all that really happens is the white gem appears. And really not all that brightly. Does she have no power? Does she just have no idea what the test is actually about after all?

     Whatever the reason, she mmphs and grunts and strains and finally growls and shouts at the artifact. "That cannot be all! I know I am strong! And I'm a princess! A very special princess! Turn into something else, curse-ed gem!" As she is yelling at the artifact, the white swirls in chaotic clouds, crashing waves, and random lightning. Power being thrown at whatever happens to be there, with no real purpose or task.

     Finally, Sarracenia's hands ball up and she actually strikes the orb in frustration! "No! Th-that cannot be all!" She steps - or more like staggers - backward. She gets very quiet after that and just stares into the orb, eyes a bit moist and a very angry expression on her face. "I am Princess Sarracenia, Crown Princess of the Sundew Kingdom! Do you hear me!?" She glares at the orb for a long moment, then with a growly cry she turns away from it and crosses her arms over her chest, angrily pouting and trying to figure out what went wrong.
Touta Konoe There's quite a bit of explaining that is given and Touta thinks he understands it. So when it's his turn to place his hand on the gem he really does try to focus. But he really has no idea what the hell to expect of this next challenge. It was one thing to just try to measure how /much/ power a person had but this test appeared capable of showing not just the quantitative overall power of a person, but rather...The qualitative representation. This actually sparks great intrigue to Touta. He could imagine he had plenty of power to work with but more than anything he really did want to know how /well/ he handled it. This test seemed to be the perfect way to understand that.

     So when it's his turn he seems a bit more serious than before as he places his hand on the gem. It's a legitimate struggle for him. Instead of going from white to black instaneously it feels like there are certain climbs and hurdles to reach colors some taking longer than other to reach. But Touta does everything he can to focus. After a few minutes of 'Just one more second.' 'I think it's changing color again.' 'Just hold on just a bit more.' He ends up making it to a gold chalice.

     Oddly enough, Touta actually looks more strained after doing this than he had doing the actual physical tests from before.

     "Sorry about that Lilian, didn't mean to hold that up..."
Lilian Rook     Lilian looks on and covers her mouth with her hand in an effort to try not to snort at Strange, but seems to accept it in stride, waving him off. She looks a little sympathetically feelbad at Spider-Man, and says "Yeah, I know it's not super fair to all of you here, but procedure is procedure, you know? There's seven tests in all for that reason. A fancy measuring machine doesn't mean all that much out in the field. It's to measure how much progress you've made since last time. Being Gold Crown or whatever doesn't actually qualify you for anything by itself. You might be a total idiot! Or, like, a quadriplegic." Even saying that though, she is pretty clearly making eyes at that White Crown from Zenos.

    "Huh. I expected you two to be a little closer." she says to Xion and Roxas. "I'd say something about it malfunctioning, but these things really . . . don't." She replies to Gawain next. "It *is*, but I wouldn't take it as a measure of abstract 'excellence'." She looks pointedly to Sarracenia. "It's a way to measure how far you are on your journey to mastery of . . . a lot of things, really. It tells you where you are and hints at what you should work on, if you want to cultivate that kind of power further. Of course, it's more meaningful to some people than others."

    To Note "That basically means you know what you're doing, and you're doing it well, but you need to get out there, face more challenges, strain yourself more, learn new things, before you'll truly understand what you're capable of. More or less. Sort of like our Trainer here. And the . . . fairy? I suppose it wouldn't be too uncommon for people to make it their business to poke about in the Multiverse. That's a kind of questing." She squints. "Why a monkey *on fire* especially? I mean the creature that's *on fire* makes sense that it'd be fire, but . . . oh whatever. I'm not a karmatechnician."
Lilian Rook     After all that fancy and esoteric nonsense, what you're lead to next is shockingly mundane. It actually feels weird. Offputting, even. Lilian splits off again, and you're all taken to individual rooms, where you're literally sat at a desk, and at first given papers to fill out with a pen. It looks basically like a written exam, save that it asks odd, open ended, yet strangely particular questions.

    The written material concerns itself with personal questions first, largely revolving around describing oneself and their experiences, then gets into sort of abstract 'ink blot'-esque interpretations of metaphors, thought exercises, parables, and koans, a few of which are probably familiar to some (the Original Face, a version of the Trolley Problem, the Ship of Theseus, and things like that). It eventually culminates in asking for what amount to fifteen minute 'essays' on three major questions, regarding 'the nature of power and the responsibilities of those who have it', 'the nature of human beings, what defines a person/consciousness, and what the purpose of 'people' is', and 'what is right in the universe and what is wrong in the universe', all with vague moral undertones, but not really being about ethics.

    The second half is equally mundane, but with a sort of uncanny element to it. Each person, after having their papers finished, has a trio of people brought into a room with them. Qualified examiners, no doubt. They're different for each person, but there are always three, and they appear to have a certain pattern to them.

    The trio of judges begin an interview. As in, like a job interview, almost. Questions where they're looking for correct answers, and closely scrutinizing how well, how promptly, how sincerely (or convincingly), how consistently, and how coherently they're answered. For a while, they're basically all the same questions as the written portion, with some twists and alternative takes that might disguise them as a different question with a different answer. Soon, they cease being 'answer the question', and become actual debates, where you're supposed to argue and defend an outcome.
Lilian Rook     After a while, the roles of the three become more and more obvious. One is always assigned to be hostile and critical, attacking the validity of answers, skewering professed ideals, and doing their best to rattle and shoot down everything one says.

    One never objects to much of what you say at all. They're always accepting, seemingly interested in or impressed by your answers. They repeat your conclusions for verification, asking 'if they've got it right', but always subtly off what you're trying to get at. They provide 'outs' whenever you seem stressed, or offer slightly different worded alternatives to your points that are immediately accepted by all three, despite not quite being what you're insisting on.

    One challenges every answer with a question. They meticulously record everything you say, and then constantly refer back to it, throwing your own words in your face, citing your own scripture to argue against you, and demanding that you justify everything with proofs, throwing out endless examples and hypothetical cases that they then put through elaborate and confusing hoops that track back around into the answers you've given, slowly becoming more and more of a spiderweb of the volume of 'things you've said' obviously increases as the interview continues.

    There is one more trick to it too, though few will figure it out. One is always, mentally, fairly mundane. One is always on guard against manipulative efforts and passively resilient to glamours, compulsions, and the like. One is always especially trained to be practically immune to all forms of non-verbal suggestion and command, and to veil their thoughts from being read. This is intentional. There is always a weak link, always an anchor, and always a middle ground. They *expect* magic, psychic ability, or other unfair advantages to be leveraged here, secretly and without saying so. It's the second layer of the process that is revealed to someone who tries to 'cheat'. Cheating is, in fact, almost the whole point.
Gawain Gawain nods. "I see...then it seems I still have to learn more about my 'art', then. I'll reflect on it!" He frowns at Sarracenia's outburst, but says nothing, since Lilian is handling it. When they reach the next test, Gawain takes a seat in his individual room, taking the pen and moving to his exam.

And this is where Gawain, despite having excellent penmanship, kind of 'fails'. His answers are pretty quick, simple, and decently direct, though his personal experiences are pretty in-depth. He answers the Trolley Problem by refusing to pull the lever after much thought because it's not his duty as a knight to sentence the innocent to death, and much of this is answered thinking towards the knightly virtues and chivalry. The nature ofpower and the responsibilities of those who have it very much leans towards Paladins party lines and typically knightly justice and 'to serve the people', though he answers 'what defines a person/consciousness' with some meandering, as if it's not something he's considered much, and it turns out that most things that can think and talk he considers a person. The purpose of people, is simply, to live a (preferably virtuous) life.

As the judges are brought in, Gawain probably doesn't do well at this either. He does aim for the correct answers at first, or what he thinks they are, answering the same things he wrote pretty much as he believes that's correct, but as it starts getting more complex and that they're hostile and critical ones, he stonewalls a little. Gawain keeps having to go 'that's not what I meant' to the judge who doesn't object, and while he's patient and not outright stressed, it's a bit fuzzy for him. The third judge will, however, note that Gawain doesn't really contradict himself when it comes to ideals and virtues. He believes what he believes and has for years, and is pretty consistent about them.

Gawain does not (and cannot) use coercion. He just debates through the whole way, trying to maintain ground. He's naturally very charming, even when frustrated, and is eloquent enough that he could probably easily impress a regular job interviewer, with skills of oration. But...he doesn't cheat. It doesn't even cross his mind.
Spider-Man     Oh hi, what, did you say "taking highschool tests"? Because Spider-Man is apparently really really good at that. Spider-Man's inherent nature is one of incredibly wholesome, deliberate, and articulate positive ethics and opinions on abstract concepts and questions, and so he answers them well and he answers them thoroughly. First, a rough and anaonymous history of Spider-Man and his interactions with gang crime and the Paladins. Various fairly direct but thoughtful interpretations. The essays are answered sensibly: The purpose of people being life lived in a broader process of unified civilization and species drawing from internal disparity and diversity, the nature of life defined in terms of learning, changing, interacting with others, and thoughtful introspection, and...

    Well. He fills out multiple pages of details about his opinions on the nature of power and the responsibilities of those who have it. If there's anyone with a strong and rigorous set of beliefs about this topic, it's Spider-Man. A highlight: "Responsibility isn't something you get alongside power. Responsibility is part of power. You can't have power without having responsibility the same way you can't have water without hydrogen. You can strip it off, you can abandon it, but you can't not have it in the first place. No matter what power you have, big or small, you always, always have responsibility with it."

    As for the debate segment? It's... strange. The hostility is something Spider-Man barely seems to engage with itself. In fact, if there's anyone here who might actually fucking infuriate the Aggressor, it's Spider-Man, because it's like he refuses to take hostility /seriously/, constantly using every bit of criticism and hostility with a joke, a pun, a quip, or some other bit of deflection, avoiding answering while also avoiding having to think too hard about it. The middleground he takes more seriously. He always puts a few seconds of thought to everything they say, not taking anything that he said for granted. By the time he gets done with this, the middleground has likely actually /taught him/ at least one or two important bits of ethics. The last one, interestingly, gets him actually frequently clarifying. He refuses to win an argument with a misunderstood statement, unless it becomes just clearly impossible to be understood. He's principled, but he isn't invested in those principles being proven right in debate, he just wants them to be known. Even if, by the end of the discussion, Spider-Man has likely found himself shifting one or two definitions, or at the very least heavily refining a moral framework.
Tomoe Tomoe looks to Lilian when the tests are done. "It makes sense to have a wide array of tests, people might fall through the cracks if there were only one or two."

She'll make ready to move on as the next test is mundane, quite mundane really it certainly gets her attention for a bit. She will write a bit about her history the basics of the death game, note a bit about her time in Lordran, the small part she played in Arthur's own death game and her general service in the union. As for herself, she describes herself in a very video game term a tank so9meonbe who take hits for her companion so they do not end up dead, so a protector of sorts.

The metaphors are a mixed bag for tomoe but oddly the ship of Theseus get a more insightful answer than one might expect out of Tomoe, that people are always changing with every experience they get and have.

The essays are handled in short order she will answer about nature of human beings? It can be summed up as everyone wants to generally live well, if they have children to see their children grow up strong and leave some kind of legacy, but the problem comes down to the old tribal wiring of the brain going off at the unknown with groups of other people who seem different and that's where most of mankind's suffering comes from.

The what defines a person/consciousness? Now that's a fun one for Tomoe but it comes to if they have thought if they have a sense of self it does not matter what they are made up of.

The purpose of people is to find one purpose that is their own not to have one imposed upon by someone else.

Then comes the live interview that did catch her off guard and Tomoe is not the best debater in the world and she does not have anything in the way of mind powers here, she's a very direct person when it comes to it. She can be crafty but not in a social sense most of the time. She does not think to use trickery here or try to coerce the judges but she does think something odd is up with how it is, it's like dealing with layers she is more constant than one might think it's clear she isn't spouting things doesn't' believe but there is a level of frustration one can hear with her. She may struggle some times with her ideal but she is human and clearly trying to /stay with them/. She does not become hostile to the judges though she is friendly enough even when she's seemingly getting frustrated what is seen she isn't provoked to be extream say violent towards them. Still, when it's over it's clear Tomoe is /very/ glad it is.
Zenos yae Galvus If Zenos has noticed Lilian's stare at his results, he does not show it.  Instead, he walks with the group until they reach the next set of tests.  He is not overly warm or talkative, instead, he treats this all as one large challenge.  

The door opens revealing the desk.  Zenos sighs, and removes his helmet as he sits down and places it to one side.  "How droll," he initially comments, unhappy with paperwork.  However, he does perform the task set in front of him.  For the most part, his answers are what you might expect, and while Zenos can think abstractly, he focuses on simple and clean problems.  He cares little for ambiguity, cutting straight to matters.  

On the three major essays, things open up a bit more.  On 'The nature of power'; power is its own sake.  You collect power because it is there because it is something you do not have.  If it is beyond your grasp or a threat to your power, then it is destroyed.  If the power is inherently causic to the mind, then it is destroyed.  Those who have power, are destined to rules who do not have power.  

On 'The nature of human beings', Zenos is less than kind.  Might and the power to change the world around them makes a human.  If they have no other desire than to live a peaceful life, then they're no better than the cattle.  On the final topic, it is simple: It is up to the strong to determine what is right and what is wrong.  Those who rule decide and dictate these things.  Nothing is inherently evil or good, and to say otherwise is to ignore all of human history.  Humans can decide anything is good or evil, and hide their deeds by being the victors.

In the interview, Zenos has returned his helmet to his head, and is composed but ultimately bored sounding the entire time.  It is how he normally sounds, uninterested in the proceedings, but here anyway because of the prize beyond them.  However, as this turns into court politics, in a way, he becomes a touch more interested.  Eventually, his eyes glow slightly under the mask, though impossible to see under it.

One, revealed to him is beyond his ability to understand, the other two are open to him.  He uses this to understand the test, or at least, the goal of each individual.  Eventually, he turns one constantly challenging him, into turning his point to counter his objection, poking holes in his objections.  To the one in who gets everything just slightly wrong, he corrects them very firmly.  Eventually coming to a warning about 'misrepresenting him again at his own peril.'

The final one is handled by attacking his understanding, insisting that he simply only wrote down the words, but failed to understand their meaning.  Repeatedly aiming to make him reexamine his own attempts to trap him, and turn them into clever traps.  Zenos does not just accept the combativeness, he embraces it wholeheartedly as one might a battle.  
Doctor Strange      "It doesn't matter," says Strange to Sarra, offering crpytic advice. He sounds like he means it, but he doesn't offer further explanation. Lilian, at least, gets a nod from him, as well as a slight smile.

     Strange takes to the written essays without any cheating or showboating. His answers for each section are telling in ways that his display with the pedestal might not have been. The Trolley Problem has a little drawing of two Stranges, one at the lever and one bending the tracks into a harmless spiral. He goes give a serious answer, favoring whichever option saves the greater number of lives. His thoughts on the responsibilities of those with power indicate a belief that power should be used to guarantee the safety, and more importantly, the agency, of those without, or with less. He seems to believe that 'right' and 'wrong' are mortal affairs, and that true good/evil are concepts the average person will never encounter in their lifetime. The best that one can do is live in a way that makes life the least painful for others.

     The nature of human beings, what defines them, and their purpose, according to Strange, is a shakily-drawn picture of the poop emoji and the word 'no.'

     When the interview portion arrives, Strange is reclined in his seat, one leg crossed over the other. There is no attempt from the Sorcerer Supreme to cheat here, either. All of his efforts to answer the interviewers' questions are made sincerely. His answers are often cryptic, as if trying to force the interviewer to come to their own conclusions, or work out just what he meant by the answer. When his own words are thrown back at him, rather than immdediately correct the interviewer, he first attempts to find the reasoning for their tactic with open-ended questions. He also uses the tactic of the passive, impressed interviewer against the aggressively critical interviewer, expressing his disagreement with passive utterances like 'Maybe, but have you considered ___?'

     It's the tactic of the insufferably arrogant, who fancies himself a teacher of others, but with repeated efforts and the time-honored Socratic method, the interviewers can whittle him down. Overall, Strange's opinion seems to be that, in the vast majority of situations, pure ideology is a dangerous, stupid thing. He believes that trying to ascribe meaning to life is an exercise doomed to fail, that most things which appear opposed are simply sides of the same coin, and that fixating overly on what's considered 'good' or 'evil' leaves one blind to the affairs of average people.
Alexis Alexis can only really shake her head at Sarracenia's tantrum. And drag Scorch away before he tries to go 'comfort' her in the same sort of well meaning but vagely creepy manner that usually gets Brock into trouble. "Don't even think of it. It's bad enough you flirt with a skunk."

And the next round of testing is... paperwork. "Oh. Look at this." Alexis flumps down in the chair by the desk. "Now we've got the -boring- part of the process." Snark aside, she picks up the papers and starts going through them. The personal information is easy enough. Even with the side notes to some, like Hair Color: Pink (Yes that's real). Experiences gets to be a bit lengthy, Alexis has been around the Multiverse for a pretty long time. Most of the 'thought excersizes' get quick scribbled answers to them because she's not really the deep introspective type of person and more likely to act than think. Though there's a few.. peculiar ones, like answering the Trolley problem with 'Have Aggron eat the tracks so it won't go anywhere... and probably the trolley too.' and 'Who the fuck cares as long as the ship can still sail' for Theseus' ship.

Yet in some manner of contrast the essays on power and responsibility get some pretty thorough answering. Considering they're being answered by a young adult that's been handling 'Cute Animal WMDs' since she was ten and had her share of spats against the very sort of people that would corrupt and misuse that sort of power, she's got plenty to say. And doesn't go light on the language used, either.

Then people show up for actual interviewing in person. Yeah, that's expected. It's taken in stride, if a bit snarky about answer the same questions in different formating.

And then it turns into a debate. Which gets very heated, very fast and involves a lot of things said in ways that are not suitable for a young viewing audience. A lot of it revolves around responibility with power, dealing with those that seek to corrupt it, and that what you believe in using it for means more than being told what to do or not do with it. The interviewers find out very quickly that despite her athletic tomboy attitude Alexis is -very- passionate about certain ideals and will vocally chew others up like a Granbull with a squeaky toy if pushed enough.

Good thing those chambers are sound proof and whatnot, because there's a lot of very hot and passionate arguing, yelling, pounding fists on things and thankfully nothing pushing Alexis to the point of actually hitting anyone.
Touta Konoe There's a sigh of relief as they go into the other rooms. It felt really awkward after that last test like he had been struggling. So when they go into a more written testing part of the process he's not complaining. In fact, it's openly welcome! He may not look it but he did pretty well in school and isn't too afraid of open responses questions. There are certain personal questions he'll refrain from answering...Like his age. But besides that he just describes what his personal life of almost 3 years of memory he can recall. Amnesia sucks. The more abstract things he just answers as honestly as possible. When it comes to the three major questions he takes a bit more time to answer a bit more thoughtfully.

     In regards to power he expresses that there's definitely many ways it can be used but believes that those with it should use it in productive ways that help people. It's a simple response but it's a reasonable one.

     When it comes to human nature he rights that while he's seen plenty examples of people abusing systems for their own benefit but at the end of the day believes that base human nature is to look out for others.

     When it comes to 'right' and 'wrong' on a universal scale, he takes the answer from his teacher. That 'right' and 'wrong' are defined from a point of view. That there's no definitive answer. That things such as good and evil, right and wrong, are all things that come from perspective. It's probably the most profound tidbit they'll get out of Touta.

     Then there's the examination room with the interviewers, doing as much as he can for the normal questions before it goes into actual debate. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to cheat for some, and while Touta has no qualms cheating in a fight, he can't really cheat even if he wanted to. So he just debates.

     As he talks to the three he seems pretty upbeat in his conversation skill. Sometimes he even ends up cutting the flow of the conversation just to ask them more in depth questions about this world to which he might be scolded for, but he doesn't get discouraged. It's the same situation for when a hostile response is given at least for a little while. As it progresses though there are certain questions that he does seem to get a bit more heated under but not once does he ever request an 'out' from the second instructor. To which when such things occur ends up acknowledging that while some of his arguments may not be agreed upon, he'd still stick by certain answers even if the one disagrees simply stating that they can 'agree to disagree' or 'This is the option I would go about it'. There are even cases when he would simply validate parts of what the hostile individual states before stating what he disagress with in the argument and just leaving it at that. As for the final interviewer who records and questions Touta's words, whenever he gets asked a question that is cited using his own words for he'd end up asking if he can look at the sheet to confirm that the person was recording what he was saying properly. And if he sees he says something that counters his own argument he'd probably just admit fault to the question or try to clarify his stance when it reaches certain hypotheticals.

     Probably the most intriguing thing though is that sometimes during the most difficult intended to ensnare people in their own statements, Touta even being aware that these people want concrete answers will openly admit that he can't give them a proper answer. That he simply doesn't know definitely what would be correct. In these cases he ends up just explaining that he doesn't have an answer right now but would try to give them a better one the next time he spoke to them when he had more experience to give a more well-constructed answer...If they gave him the chance to talk to them another time!
Roxas "A little closer to what?" Roxas wonders in answer to Lilian, uncertain /exactly/ which bar she expected of him. He wasn't holding back on that one, but he has a lot of uncertainty about where he's going. It's not a surprise to him, then, that somebody who doesn't know enough about themselves would be stick somewhere in the middle of 'questing'. Everybody else here -- almost -- has had more opportunities to accomplish... whatever.

His written materials come out a little lopsided, and without exception a little curt. Roxas doesn't seem to understand the 'original face' thing at all, and anything related to his experiences flattens out immediately because he doesn't have that many to start with. There's a strong feeling that very little thought goes into some of these answers, but others...

On the subject of the Trolley Problem he indicates that he would prefer to hurt the fewest people, but that it depends a lot on who the specific people getting hurt are. Roxas wouldn't prioritize strangers over familiar people at all, and 'who the subjects are' changes the context dramatically for him. In the absence of familiarity, he favors the option that provides the smallest harm, but admits that if it was sprung on him in action he might just freeze.

On the 'Ship of Theseus' concept, he merely writes that it only matters if it matters to the object.

A lot of 'I don't knows' follow, except on the subject of what defines consciousness, to which he writes that maybe people aren't really prepared to make that decision, because most of the people he knows of don't recognize things as conscious unless they're similar enough to themselves that it doesn't make them uncomfortable. In light of that, he reasons, most people can't really be trusted to make that decision at all, and in the event that something should exhibit signs of consciousness and "existing as a person", it's worthwhile to attempt to treat that thing as a person until some contrary evidence occurs.

The entire thing regards the questioning of a claim to consciousness and personhood as an extreme moral failing. It is the only thing he expresses a complete and coherent stance on.

Consequently, when interviews occur it's nearly impossible to actually address him meaningfully. It's not hard, within the scope of this interview, to begin observing that Roxas is a little emotionally shallow. Not in the sense that he is only interested in superficial things but, rather, that he literally does not have full functional emotional depth. It is like some critical aspect of his biology is malfunctioning, like a disorder, but no such malady seems to be in effect.

As Roxas literally only gives them one thread to pick at, the examiners are forced to engage him on that one little spark of belief in consciousness.

Roxas is not functional enough as a person to actually comprehend what is going on, or what is intended. He carries on for a very, very short period of time before the intensity of his disagreement exceeds his investment in actually engaging this in good faith and he leaves to go wait for Xion.
Xion Xion is flat, less like a depressed young woman, and more like a deflated balloon. Her eyes hollow and glassy in their shocking blue. "You did really good, Roxas. I'm happy for you. Don't worry, I'm fine."

Her companion puts his gloved hand in hers, and she squeezes with the soft sound of creasing leather. "That's... Roxas, I don't need to be you. It's fine. I'm fine."

She lets her hand drop, cupping her chin in her elbow, propped up on her knee as she slouches over to watch until the trial ends. "I didn't do it becuase it could't find any 'myself'."

Lilian's comment sure doesn't help that. "I guess I'm still jumbled up inside."

The tests proceed apace. And Xion is...

Predictable. Like the Google Moral Simulation for Test Taking algorithm, Xion reads the question, spins her pen once, and then writes down the Correct answer. It's the answer you'd get if you put a thousand people in a room (or a billion on a search algorithm and ran the mean every time).

Experiences like a hallmark store of pithy stock photos.
Flip the switch.
Spin the wheel to hit the animals instead of the grandparents.
Truth is what you make of it.

For the essay questions, Xion is shockingly milquetoast about power and responsibility, some 'the more you have of the former the more you need of the latter' drek.
Xion glances at the second question, and moves on to the third question first, penning in simply 'Things that feel good are good and right. Things that feel bad are bad and wrong.'

The rest of the time Xion spends staring at the second essay question, before, as the time ticks down to nothing, simply writing in 'I am' and then closing up the packet to hand it in. Then, the verbal portion, which also happens mechanically, but in an odd way.

Xion is utterly unphased by the aggressor nearly the entire time. The questioner who always gets it wrong but is positive about it, sabotaging words with their poisoned support, is corrected quickly and robotically. Really, the note-taker has nothing to work with, there being less a web and more a straight line. Facts, or their best approximation. Precision. Simplicity and cleanliness, unhurried and empty - perhaps rattled from the previous test.

It's not until the aggressor goes to the 'nature of humanity' question and questions her if she really is.

"I am." Xion repeats.
She's asked for evidence.
"I'm the evidence."
Being picked apart gets worse and worse for her, before Xion raises her hand. "I'm done now."

She moves towards the way out or, if not available, shuts down completely until let out.
Sarracenia      A written test. This is much more up Sarracenia's alley. As a princess it is a priority that she be well educated, well spoken, and capable of defending herself in a verbal joust. Such has been drilled into her since she was a small child, and even though she often acts like a loose canon with little in the way of beliefs or knowledge.

     At least...that is what she thought when she first saw that it was a written test. But, much like the orb the test is more abstract than academic. She answers the questions to the best of her abilities, but she has never been a deep thinker and it shows in her answers. The doesn't really seem to grasp the concept of the Original Face. She doesn't know who she is herself, so to convey it to others is quite difficult. She is a princess. A beautiful and -respected- princess, got it?! Is there anything else? The Trolley problem gives her quite a bit of difficulty, but eventually she'd settle on saving more people. If someone has to die, it should be the fewest possible, shouldn't it?

     She takes her time on the essay questions, wanting to think them over properly. What is power and what should people do with it? Her answer is that most everything is power in one way or another, and that those who have power should use it for the most part to help improve the lives of others. Even a ruler is supposed to help his or her people with his or her power. On the nature of human beings and what defines a person she points out that human beings are not the only beings to count as a person before she answers that she thinks the nature of human beings is that they are basically confused kids. Sometimes they want to help, sometimes they want to hurt, most of the time they just want to have fun and live without danger except when danger is also fun which is why people enjoy roller coasters. What constitutes a person is more difficult to answer. In her opinion, a person is anyone that can communicate with others, use logic to solve problems, can question why they exist, and has emotions.

     Her answer to what the purpose of 'people' is gets a pretty simple answer. Their purpose is merely to exist. Any purpose beyond that is something they or their circumstances have dictated. Right and wrong also gets a simple answer. If it harms another, be it physically, emotionally, monetarily, or anything else, then it is probably wrong. But, someone who wronged another no longer has any right to claim they have been wronged by that person until they have made amends for the wrongs they have done.

     In the second phase, Princess Sarracenia proves to be well educated and proper in her dealings with the interviewers. She defends her points with well thought out arguments, but when challenged she quickly becomes annoyed and if pushed far enough she becomes obviously angry. Still, she recognizes this is a test and so keeps her temper carefully in check as long as she can. The abusive interviewer gets angry answers pretty quickly, the more moderate one that keeps using her own examples against her is soon getting the same, and even the one that agrees with her starts to receive abrupt and exasperated replies when he keeps slightly mistating what Sarra has said. Being right is very important to the princess, and so specificity and exactness are both also important. Technically right is one of the best forms of right.

     They will also find that Sarra really doesn't try to manipulate people much. If 'I am a beautiful princess' doesn't get her anywhere, there is no further attempts made, and her short fuse makes lying a rare thing. She has no special powers to use on them, and really doesn't try to cheat her way out of anything. But, she does argue a point to the edge of eternity if she thinks she is right and thinks she can logically prove it or that it should be obvious.
Lilian Rook     "To each other" Lilian clarifies to Roxas, before leaving it at that.
    As far as the interviews go, Gawain seems to have done about 'as expected'. That is to say, not what would measure up to the realpolitik here, but what a Knight of the Round Table would reasonably hold to, and he's told that his ideals are 'admirable' by the end with some sincerity. Spider-Man doesn't even use any mindfuckery and manages to flummox and annoy half the trio, but also earn some begrudging respect for his straight and true approach, especially from a kid his age. They show some vague interest in Tomoe's whole 'death game' thing, but it's probable that she's not cut out for high society BS.

    Zenos, oddly, despite conducting an interview in a medieval Darth Vader helmet, seems to draw the most attention for his essays, having some kind of resonant quality that these people may have been looking for. By comparison, they practically pass Strange with a knowing nod and a slap on the back for his sorcerous bullshit. It becomes pretty obvious that the examiners are reading the answers first (apparently very quickly) before conducting the interview, because Alexis' trio kind of give her the impression that they think they're talking to someone with some kind of brain problem given the most baffling/zero effort answers. Aggravatingly, they're all far better at keeping their cool than she is; they seem to thrive on getting her off-balance, actually pushing it worse and worse on purpose with obnoxiously unperturbed professionalism.

    It also seems that way because Touta gets way less of a questioning period than everyone else, due to having written in 'big protagonism amnesia' into the tell-us-about-yourself part. They seem oddly pleased that he demands to see the transcript when his own words are being used against him, perhaps seeing the baby basics of some healthy skepticism for what people say to him, and likewise his willingness to give the answer 'no comment' at certain parts, rather than risk looking like an ass.

    They're also especially satisfied with Roxas' oblique answers to some of the philosophy problems, especially the one about the trolley varying in abstract based on valuation of the people themselves. They get tired of the talk pretty fast when he just openly throws out a lot of "I don't knows." and non-answers, possibly debating whether he's just simple or whether he's stylishly memeing them by pretending to be. Xion, by contrast, gets weird stares when she walks out on that one particular question --such a strange one to be offended by. They at least let Sarracenia go with an apology for the strenuous use of her time, and one puts his hand on her shoulder and gives her a really meaningful look while wishing her good luck with the next one.

    This is worrying. When they reconvene with Lilian, she very seriously and very solemnly warns them "If you're currently enjoying yourself, you'd best get ready to stop. The second last one is the worst by far. There's no shame in tagging out the minute you feel uncomfortable with it. Just look forward to the last one and enjoy yourself there."
Lilian Rook     Since it'd be pointless to try and grill people on academia and arcane knowledge regarding a world they're not actually from, as well as the aforementioned 'they're going on combat position criteria and they already have accessible information about how well they beat things up', two tests are skipped and they go up another many floors to what is termed with the dreaded name of 'mental resilience'.

    This too is a sealed chamber sort of deal, but they're pretty small, private, and dimly lit. You have to go into them individually, rather than being able to share one in turns. Each one is connected to an intercom system, where a calm and soothing-voiced professional on the other end tells them that the process is very simple: you sit in the middle of the room, and every so often they'll ask you if you want to continue the test. If you say yes, they clear the stage and start you on the next. If you say no, they cross off the stage you're on. You don't get points for finishing a stage but declining to go to the next. There are seven stages in total. Good luck.

    Why this setup exists as it does becomes really obvious really fast. Though there's nothing really in the room except a single chair to sit in and a door that locks ominously from the outside, you're immediately aware of the presence of Something Else in there with you. That something isn't visible. Isn't tangible. Isn't human. But it wants you to stop the test.

    At first, it's the mental equivalent of 'asking nicely'. A gentle mental presence pokes and nudges to call it off and just leave right now. It isn't very powerful, but it is faint enough to be somewhat subtle, pushing and prodding to answer no when the instructor asks five minutes later. Not too bad. A totally mundane person would immediately answer negative and then go 'wait why did I stop?' a second later, but it's not too bad.

    The stage after that is much more subtle. Insidious, even. For the most part, it feels like a break. Did they say there'd be breaks between? What bubbles to mind is much like a normal set of intrusive thoughts, coming in out of sheer boredom of sitting in a chair for five minutes before anything happens. This is sort of dumb. What's the point of this? Does this actually matter? It can't affect the grade that much. Wouldn't bailing out early be convenient because then you'd never be put up against something mentally stressful? The later stages are probably going to be horrific. The physical was exhausting too. Just come back fresh. Plus it's not really fair to do this right after that incredibly vexing interview. For most, it's like there's nothing in the room at all. It's their own rationalization. Bargaining. The mental ability to justify a 'cheat day' or weasel out of a commitment.

    It comes back in force after that. A lot of force. Whoever answers positive a second time is immediately blasted by hard, oppressive mental force, just straight up attempting to forcefully jack the words from your mouth. The feeling of the Other is strong now, trying to get in, take over, straining your force of will to an exhausting, headache-inducing degree. It's done playing nice, and forcing you to fight it --to push past it, and really sweat and work for it.
Lilian Rook     If one can answer positive a third time and subject themselves to worse, the stage after that begins inducing not just thoughts, but vivid visual, auditory, and tactical hallucinations. It stops being about control, and becomes all about making sure you never want to spend a second in that room ever again. For ten solid minutes, the presence does everything it can to shock, to horrify, to terrorize, to confuse and beguile, to bully or tempt you, into leaving. Nothing is off limits.

    It brutalizes your senses with all the sensations of the things that make you want to cringe, recoil, panic, or flee. It's not above jump scares, nor horrible sensations like worms under the skin, a razor dragged over the eyes, terrible ear-splitting screaming, or sights and smells of horrible violence and gore, but more common and subtle are the parts where the Other plays smart. There are situations where the Other takes the shape of some horrible thing in the room, switches off the lights, shorts the intercom, and then the thing that is your exact nightmare informs you that the test has gone wrong, it fakes the sounds of the instructors banging on the door to try and get in, and moves in to kill or disfigure you.

    There are situations where it instead judges that other deceptions are in order, and instead mutes the comms to hurriedly share a tale of how it's trapped there, how you've been rused, how the others are all gone already and what the supervisors are really going to do to you with this fake 'test' --how they're going to implant things into your mind in the next stage and you must get out.

    There are even situations where it takes on something entirely pleasant. Relaxing. Dreamlike. Euphoric. Addictive. To those it judges can't be intimidated, or have their doubts preyed upon, it provides the Butterfly Dream, where everything is absolutely wonderful and the time just flies, until you're prompted to answer whether you want to ditch this and move back on to the horrible things, and the temptation to answer 'just five more minutes' is completely overwhelming.

    Hell, it isn't above taking the form of an obnoxious little kid screaming and making insanely annoying noises over and over again in the corner for ten minutes solid if that's what it takes.

    If one is foolhardy enough to keep going, the presence dispenses with all indirect methods and issues a Command. It fills the room like the blow of a hammer and Demands that you give up. It doesn't struggle and wrestle with you and try to take control; overwhelming, irresistible, dominating power, fit to make one feel like a tiny, irrelevant nobody, woefully out of their depth and insane for ever coming here, makes it an Order, a couple of steps short of receiving a vision from God in its overwhelming splendor, intensity, and implicit wrath and promise of Consequences.
Lilian Rook     Someone who can overwhelm even *that* is then plunged into total darkness. Total silence. Total numbness. Complete, floating sensory deprivation. Worse. You can't feel your own heartbeat. You can't tell your orientation. You can't even tell if your eyes are open or closed, no matter how fast you blink. You could be pinching your cheek and not even know. You could have in fact have fallen out of the chair and hurt yourself, or someone could have broken in and stabbed you, and you wouldn't even know. Anyone or anything could be doing anything imaginable in this state of total, complete, utter vulnerability. Even the crazy hallucinations the human brain is supposed to experience in times like these, to preserve some vague proximity of sanity, don't come. All sense of time vanishes too. Have they already asked for the answer? Saying yes doesn't do anything. For all you know, you might be dead. Like this forever. Forever.

    What finally breaks it is being asked one more time, and this time they triple ask you to make certain you're absolutely sure, forcing you to repeat a full statement of consent before doing it. If someone *somehow* got that far, and *still* wants to go, what they're subjected to is a full sixty seconds of full experience hallucinations which defy description, defy understanding, and defy common sense. Not only the five senses, but additional special senses, and senses you never even knew existed, are overwhelmed by the unfathomable, ineffably alien, and utterly incompatible with the experiential paradigm of the mortal mind.

    There's no subtlety or urging to it anymore. There's no more yes or no to answer. It's basically just torture at that point, of the most bizarre and incomprehensible kind. It hurts. It's terrifying. It makes thoughts run in a million directions that don't make any senses. It makes one's pulse feel fit to explode out their mouth. It's roiling, inchoate madness, so vivid and intense that if someone doesn't quit before sixty seconds elapse, it ends automatically for their own safety.

    You get a towel, snacks, and free beverages after, though. That's nice. They also check your blood pressure and pupil response to make sure nobody had an aneurysm or something. Lilian assures everyone, after she comes back, sweating and looking ill, that she hates this one the most too.
Note     The problem with stuffing a Saiyan-blooded youth into a room full of writing down philosophy is that she is at most fourteen years old, and possesses only basic math and literacy skills.

    However, she does jot down several pages talking about her life experiences, a life of training and competing and learning to wield Ki. And about frequently journeying around forests with friends and such things. Not much in the way of technology or fancy culture in her life!

    Resultingly, most ink blot shapes all seem to be nature-oriented shapes. Animals, plant leaves, and so on.

    She does not understand the Original Face thing at all. Says the Trolley problem is stupid nonsense unfair, but that choosing to do nothing when you're the only person that can do anything is awful too. However, she does answer the Ship of Theseus by asking if her body is still her body even after she's made it into something greater and greater.

    Things get more interesting when actual interviewers come in. Note cheers up considerably when interacting with PEOPLE, kicking her legs about on occasion while thinking through problems. Oddly enough, after several minutes of the interview, forced to think harder than she has perhaps ever thought in her life, something strange happens. Her mannerisms and speech softens considerably, turning more polite and smooth. And while her grasp of epic philosophical conundrums is only slight, she does put forth a full sincere effort to carry out this debate, although she doesn't seem super confident in her answers after they're criticized to hell 'n back. It doesn't occur to her unless pointed out that these questions don't really -have- a 'right answer.'

    It's obvious that she doesn't have ANY sort of psychic or magical ability to influence people. She just has words.
Doctor Strange      "Sounds good to me," says Strange. He gives Lilian a thumbs-up.

     He takes a seat in the chair. The first portion of the challenge is passed without much thought. Strange gives his consent to continue almost as soon as he's asked. The second round is when things begin to change. It strikes him--he still doesn't know who he can trust, in the wake of his recent discovery. And...

     'Mental resilience' is one characteristic for which he's not certain. Certainly, there's a lot of erudite knowledge in there, and a lot of mundane knowledge as well. But how well-defended is he? Perhaps, he thinks, as he crosses one leg over the other, this is a test best taken elsewhere, away from prying eyes. What would the harm be in leaving now, and determining his mental fortitude with the Masters of the Mystic Arts? Is he ready to continue?

     "...yeah." It takes him a moment to come up with that response, and that consent is given shakily. He's off-balance. The force of the following assault would likely knock him out of his seat, were it a physical kind of blow. Thin beads of sweat form upon his brow, his jaw clenching as if trying to keep the 'no' buried in his throat.

     This is a weakness of his--something for which he has no answer. He might not make it to the end. He has to see how far he can make it, anyway. Strange swallows. "Yes." At first, there is nothing. Then, shivers and freezing cold wrack his body, as for a split second, he's back on the frozen mountaintop, left to sink or swim by his master. Then, the smell of burnt hair, the sound of fires blazing all around, while distant sirens wail in vain.

     The Ad Coelum crashes into a city block, spraying a cloud of thrown bricks and cement into the air, crashing down upon cars as straggling civilians struggle to flee with what's left of their lives. Strange stands in the middle of the street, desperately trying to contain the damage with the Eye of Agamotto.

     "Doc! Hey!" Spider-Man lands gracefully beside the doctor. "Need a hand?"

     "Thank God," says Strange, relief visibly washing over his features despite the stress. "I thought they got everyone."

     "Not yet!" Spider-Man's cheerful response belies the webbing which cements the sorcerer's hands together. "Hail Hydra."

     /That/ is what gets him to shout it--to shout 'no.' The experience leaves his chest damp with sweat, his emerald eyes darting wildly across the featureless room. He knows now the limits of his own mind, and now, the researchers do, too. If they have someone who can do that to him... he's in a lot of trouble, and so is everyone else. They'll probably ask what he saw. He can't tell them. "I'm done," says the Sorcerer, if it wasn't clear enough.
Zenos yae Galvus Zenos walks, unbothered or caring if they liked his answers or not.  Either they were suitable, or they were not...worrying about it does not suit him one bit.  The next two steps are easily skipped, which makes sense, after all for all they knew they operated on mostly different physics anyway.  

Zenos enters the chamber, walking towards the center and sitting.  He waits for the process to start, and it becomes quickly apparent at what is attempting to happen.  With a sigh, he closes his eyes and simply focuses his mind.  

He does not respond to the voice at first, it was far too weak to bother him, and asking him, instead of taking, is the only way to get him off of this path he has decided to put himself on.  When the intercom comes on, he easily answers.

The next stage attempts to tackle a part of Zenos that does not work like a normal person.  Why should he do anything like this?  For the challenge?  Why?  For power.  What does power matter?  Because it is the /only/ thing that matters.  Does /THIS/ matter?  It does because I say it does.  He does not shy from challenges or responsibility.  This is already an indulgence.  He answers yes to the Intercom another time.

This time, the true touch of Zeno's strength of mind is tested.  Attempts to force him to quit by sheer mental force, however, are ineffective.  Between a strong sense of mind, but resistance to such things seem to protect him to a degree.  Again, he speaks affirmatively to the intercom.  

Now, it ties everything, throwing everything into trying to get him to stop.  Horror, gore, the sights and sounds of battle.  To this, Zenos only grins.  After all, violence for its own sake is the only true thing he believes in.  Then it becomes subtle, force works little, but now its attempts to show something to Zenos to make him sweat.  

There was nothing beyond his current state.  For the first time before this started, his eyes open.  The chilling fear he feels at those words and thoughts cause him to sweat.  The very idea that there is nothing more for him to achieve.  No higher planes of strength to reach.  No matter what he does, he will always be as he is...unable to challenge and push himself.  "You. Are. Wrong!" Zenos denies with all of his strength, every ounce of will he can muster.  

Failing this, it attempts to directly press him with commands again.  Once more, it runs up against the protection of light.  Zenos has a certain amount of resistance, and whatever remains faces his considerable will.  Even as it questions his sanity, makes him question if there is any other challenge, he persists.  

Total darkness takes him.  Numbness, silence...time ceases for a period of time as he simply remains still.  This is life for him now, already numb to everything around himself.  Desperately trying to give himself meaning in conflict.  This is how it feels between battles, or between attempts to reach for something greater.  

Once more the Intercom comes on.  This time, he is asked.  asked again...and clarified.  "Yes, damn it, do it!" he says, with an uncharacteristic tone of frustration.  

Then the full might of this entity comes at him.  He is finally challenged to his greatest extent...his will and blessing verses these other things.  Subtlety is thrown to the wind, as hallucinations, every pressure from every direction forcing on him.  He is determined to beat this thing...to push beyond it and /prove/ it wrong.  

He grits his teeth as his pulse races, as he can feel himself physically straining against the force.
Zenos yae Galvus It's enough to almost make him scream, pressing against a wall that tests him beyond what he even dreamed of.  However, then as quickly as it started, it ends.  Forced back and taking in deep, but rapid breaths as he needs a moment to collect himself.  

His helmet comes off, feeling the need for air, fresh air, on his skin.  He takes the offered towel and starts cleaning his face off.  Snacks and a drink are welcome, as he feels suddenly very thirsty.  
Note     "One more confusing test..." Note's not sure how AT ALL that last one went. The questions are still making her head swim and heart ache some. Why does life here have to be so complicated? Do people normally think about such things?

    She's still scratching her head in frustration as she ambles into the new test chambers for her own turn and seats herself cross-legged style on the chair with feet in her hands and elbows resting on her thighs, looking about the empty room.

    She looks this way and that. With big, puzzled, innocent eyes. Her rougher side has yet to re-emerge.

    "Ah what's this...." She can feel it. Something there. But no matter how she reaches out with her senses, she can't PINPOINT it. It's as if... "am I just imagining things...?" She glances about, but decides to ignore it. The whole point is to stay here as long as she can tolerate it, right?

    So she bites her tongue and casts a FROWN at... the wall. A clear answer of 'lemme alone, I'm busy!'

    Then defiantly shuts her eyes, as if daring the thing to keep bothering her.

    She continues to stage two easily. Grinds her teeth at the sensations tyhat she's still pinning down. Clamps down hard on those irritated thoughts. She -does- want to get out of here and move on to something more interesting... but thae last test has her full of so much doubt that she's going to stonewall with everything she's got to get flying colors on this one! Didn't she promise to do her best for these?

    And so, stage three arrives. IMMEDIATELY her brow furrows and a few squirmy noises are squeezed from her throat. But this is different. This feels like an ENEMY. And an enemy is something she can sharpen her force of will against. Even if she's shaking in her chair with what looks building aggravation and a case of the anger-shivers, clenching and unclenching her fists... she does NOT give up.

    That was probably a mistake, though.

    Because as stage four begins and the freakish sensory bombardment begins, Note utterly PANICS within about thirty seconds. She LEAPS off the chair and backflips about the room, trying to escape the sensation while still keeping her mouth clamped shut against saying ANYTHING that would mess things up. "Go away, lemme alone!" But the sensation of something SLIMEY running down her back and screams assaulting her mind elicits a panicked scream of the absolute EAR-SPLITTING order, all her own.

    When even the lights go off, she has reached a full-blown panic. Illumination is restored not by any ordinary source, but by a grand golden FLASH of her Super Saiyan transformation, leaving her standing five feet from the chair in a panicked fighting stance, buzzing with refined life energy.

    Considering that the test was to stay IN the seat, that part's probably a wash by now.

    And considering the way she's freaking out, and her demonstrations during the physical tests, MAAAAAAYBE the testers will want to call this one early... before something bad happens.
Alexis "Trust me," Alexis retorted with a huff in her bangs, "That last one was the end of 'having fun'." Those interviewers knew exactly what buttons to push thanks to the essay answers, and he's mentally kicking herself for not being more subtle about them. But subtle isn't really a thing she does. But fine. If they want to think she's mostly brute force, let them. The less people know how much thought she does put into strategies, the better. That test was mostly words, and she'd prefer action.

But we're not quite back to action yet, it would seem. Though she'll take being isolated over having to deal with those interviewer know-it-alls any longer so this is good eno--
--Oh who is she kidding, it's not that easy of course.
For what it's worth Alexis just goes and sits in the chair. For a moment she's almost ready to relax after the last ordeal... but then it turns into a groan as she hangs her head over the back of the chair. Of course it's not that easy.

The 'other' presence, in vagely not there but totally there manner, doesn't phase her much. From her point of view its little different from having a Ghost type being intangible in the room, or a Dark type staying just out of sight like a living shadow. The little nagging presence is pretty much ignored as she sits and waits, and when the intercome asks if she wants to continue she gives a definate "Yes" in response.

The second stage... really is boring. Boring enough to let the mind wander if you let it. Alexis hunkers down in the chair, folds her arms across her chest, and pretty much just sits there stubbornly through the entire thing, too determined to meet this challenge and do better than the last debaucle to let what seems like her own nagging thoughts get to her. When asked if she wants to continue she insists on doing so.

Which might of been a mistake. It's not just a nagging suggestion this time. It's a full out assault, forceful and demanding inside her head. It gets a scowl at first, and then an outright snarl as she clenches her teeth. The suggestion and isolation she could take, but the forceful measures hit a little too close to home. A little too close to a psychic trying to take control and force her to do something else. A little -too- similar to the past experiences when that control of self was taken away from her.

Though she at least manages to tough it out with sheer stubbornness until the actual time limit is up. It's not until she's asked if she wants to go on that Alexis replies with a flat "No" and gets up to leave. Because she's done with this and wants to leave. Screw off, whatever nonmaterial entity you are.

Alexis does look a bit unusually haggared when she tromps out of her room. She finds the most convenient wall to lean on and cross her arms, muttering. The debate sucked less, if only because she had actual faces to yell at and express herself to. That third stage of the room just hit too close to the bad experiences she's had with psychic powers for her to put up with anything else afterwards.
Roxas Before the examinations, Roxas considers what Xion has to say. In response to her gloominess, he raises his released hand and presses a fingertip to her 'heart', "That's okay. Being jumbled up is still 'you'."

He doesn't seem to understand what Lilian means. There's a lot of different interpretations to go from there. The first one he leaps to is their lack of teamwork-- they /could've/ done some of that together, and really blitzed it. But he thought that wasn't desired.

After the interviews, Roxas is /visibly/ moody. What he wants to do is 'not this' at this point, but he keeps going along with it out of some sort of ambiguous stubbornness. Once he's seated in the room and locked in, he looks perplexed. Then the mental poking comes and-- he doesn't respond to it. At all. It doesn't seem to register to him that anything is trying to influence him.

"Uh... Yes?" Roxas replies, baffled at the quick turnaround.

It's not until the presence gets aggressive that Roxas realizes anything is attempting to talk to him at all. He blinks slowly, and looks around.

"Excuse me." He says, "Are you okay?"

When the examiner asks if he wants to continue, he makes a vague affirmative noise. Roxas is listening.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," he converses with the presence, "and I guess... I sorta get it. But there's plenty of things worth being for, you know."

"I think... the one that I hold on to the most, is ice cream at sunset. I don't know why, really. It's just easy. There's another one, too, but it's sort of private."

Every time. Every time the situation escalates, Roxas just keeps talking. Every time, he tells them to continue.

Until finally he arrives at sensory deprivation and...

It's very familiar. Roxas remembers this well enough, but he knows that it isn't the real thing. He's been there. He's dragged his way out of it. He knows with complete and absolute certainty that he can drag himself out of it again, if he has to. But the feeling isn't right. It isn't the same.

"I know. I know that it's frightening to not exist. You don't have to show me that, you know."

Do you want to continue?

Roxas rises from his chair, seeming to consider it.

"Do I /want/ to...?"

Are you sure?

He blinks.

Roxas folds his arms over his chest and regards the floor, seeming to think it through. But when he looks up again he asks, "Do... you need me to?"

The question is not directed at the instructors at all, and by now they probably know well enough what's going on to be able to interpret and respond to it. At this point, Roxas barely seems cognizant of them. He's zeroed in on the 'thing in the room'.

After a few moments more, "Are you sure you're okay?"
Sarracenia      Sarracenia doesn't leave until they release her, and then is a bit baffled by the apology. She is gracious and accepts it, and it seems to relieve quite a bit of the stress she had been feeling during the debates. She thanks the apologetic interviewer for the apology and the well wishes and offers a prim curtsey before continuing to the next exam.

     The next test is...to sit in a room? Sarracenia looks skeptically at the person that directs her into that room, but with a shrug she steps in and takes a seat. And then...is locked in from the outside. This in itself is a bit disconcerting to the princess, who is nearly always free to come and go as she pleases. But, the first few minutes pass. She feels that presence, but refuses it. This is a test, after all, and she is supposed to stay in the room. She answers yes to the question of whether she wants to continue, and then her foot starts tapping as impatience mixes with the proddings of the presence. This -does- seem to be a pointless test. What can they possibly tell about her by having her sit in a room? Whether she is patient? But, stubborness sees her through this test as well. She is a proud princess, and won't be outdone by mere wonderings.

     The third segment is much more difficult. It is only pride and more of the stubborness that sees the princess through, and she barely manages to grunt out a yes when the question is asked over the intercom. She won't lose to some formless thing! And certainly won't let it just control her like that!

     Then...the fourth segment hits. Sarracenia is startled completely off her chair as soon as the first jump startle happens, and her hammer is in hand a moment later. She swings at the terrible nightmare creature that comes for her, then gasps as she feels her body being rended. A mirror appears before her a moment later, and she feels sick to her stomach at the image she sees of herself. So horribly disfigured that she looks more like a monster than a person. Her scream of "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!?!" might be heard in other rooms if these things are not sound-proof.

     The princess sinks down to her knees and sobs, trying to cover her eyes so she can't see the mirror. Only for new horrors to appear. Screams of people being torture, and images of them that even her closed eyes can't block out. She feels sick to her stomach and her screams soon join the others. She is soon pounding on the door herself, begging to be let out in sobbing tones and shrieking words at each new terrifying or gruesome scene that is displayed to her. If the testers have reports from her fight outside the city, they are probably not surprised at the results.

     Whether they let her out as soon as she asks, or the test has to be carried through to the end and she has to scream "NOOOOO!!" into the intercom, Sarracenia bursts out of her room and stumbles before landing in a heap, where she just stays and curls up and cries.
Gawain Gawain thanks the interviewers for their time, and steps out. When Lilian warns them to tap out as soon as they're really uncomfortable, he takes it to heart. "Thank you for the advice! I'll strive to get as far as I can, though, only to see where my limits truly are."

He steps into the sealed chamber, hears the process, and takes a seat. Gawain waits. And he feels like he's being poked to just call it off and leave right now.

When Gawain's first asked 'yes or no', he says "Yes."

The next stage is more subtle, but even so, Gawain's a little bit resistant. He gets bored, and wonders what the point of this is, scratching his chin in the chair. He could easily say no right after the test and go on to the next, couldn't he? It sounded exciting. Lilian even said to enjoy the next one! But...he reasons that he said he'd go as far as he could, so...

For the second, Gawain says "Yes."

There's an overwhelming mental force. It's hard, and it pushes into Gawain, exhausting him and hurting his head, forcing him to resist it with all his power. Dizzied and taking a breath, Gawain remains seated however, breathing to calm himself, as he replies again. "Yes." It's a little quiet.

The hallucinations begin. They're horrible. He smells gore, feels blood writhing around him, hears the screams of those he can't save. For a minute, he smells fire. He smells rain. He smells Camlann. For a moment, he hears banging on the walls, as everything inside him is telling him to Get Out. Everything is telling him to give up. It's time to quit, part of Gawain says. But...

When the awful hallucinations end, and the knight is still ragged, he speaks up again. His breath is ragged. But heg's still polite.

"While in all good sense I should say otherwise, yes."

Stage Five rushes through him. The Command washes over him, making Gawain feel insignificant. It's something stronger than him. Something he can't fight. An order, wrath, consequences. Power. Gawain feels crushed mentally, and when they say it once again...

The Knight of the Sun sighs, stands up, and shakes his head. "N-no, thank you." He moves outside, takes the towel to wipe off his much-sweating head, and drinks some water. He got as far as he could stomach. And even then, he only went that far because he believed he could do better. But he's going to be a bit shaken for a while, the hallucinations still kicking back at him. He feels like a fool for saying Yes after that.
Tomoe Still Tomoe had measured somewhat she would have behaved far worse just in or fresh out of SAO, still she's glad that parts over even if she gets why they have to be so rigorous with everything given what she saw with the one fight she's had with the local hostiles. She does understand the need Lilians warning though is taken well she braces herself whatever it is? It's going to be hell, then when she hears what it is? Yes, it's going to be hell, but they didn't come here to do the easy thing and she knows that.

She sees the room and she enters there's a deep breath as she moves to sit down but something isn't right here she isn't alone and there is a sense of fear. It wants her to stop the test whatever is here, at the first one Tomoe holds out.

The Second is somewhat different. With how the presence comes at her? The idea of not going up against something that would mess with her head would be a nice idea she's about to say she done and then pauses a memory of how she survived SAO, the learn or die training she and everyone else on the front lines had to live by she grits her teeth.

"I will continue."

And that's when things get even worse and she has to fight back and fight back hard it's a hell of a thing as it tries to get into her head there is ahead she will keep righting as she hits the end of the third one. She says yest again barely and that's where her real nightmare will begin.

Whatever it is this may have been a mistake with how the presence assaults her? What lurks in Sheena Armstrong's mind? What things haunt her to this day? She's seen many things the void, the minions of the warp, all have left a mark on her but in the end, it might be something surprising to others. She seems to be in a dark place still there's three figures she's pretty sure she knows them.

"Hey I could use a hand to get ...."

She stops as in the dim light she sees red eyes glowings and the figure tilts it's head there are two more here. Both also wearing similar cloaks one has his face fully covered and he laughs a bit.

"Oh look who we have here. The big bad clearer, this is going to be fun, boss."

Tomoe pauses her eyes darting about now as she focuses on the third her heart rate is spiking now as the lead man he seems like just a man his face isn't hidden like the other two but the grin on his face is utterly inhuman.



The next thing Tomoe knows she's again back on that tree where her life change she's impaled again there's pain and she looks up at the trio as they move in.

"No... no, you can't be here."

Panic and fear as strong as it was when she first felt it.

The lead man leans in at Tomoe saying.

"It's show time...."

Tomoe just then screams, she can't take this anymore she's done the moment they let her out of here.

"I'm done get me out of here, get me out."

When they finally let her out she will take what's offered, the snacks are consumed the towel is use and she attempts to get the images of those three horrors that walked like men and two of them still do, out there somewhere, waiting, watching looking for their next kills...
Spider-Man     Spider-Man has a weird time with this one. Heading on into the chamber, his danger-senses go off, and keep going constantly at a low thrum. He's still not /used/ to the danger-sense, and it's hard to identify exactly what it is. He doesn't sit though. Instead, he stands, sort of pacing around and about the chair and looking around. Is there some way to find the source of that?

    Spidey-Sense, yet unnamed, keeps at the low thrum. He gets past the first stage pretty easily. The second stage is a bit more weird, but he shoves through, riding the wave of the sensation of danger in his mind. It won't go away, so he knows to keep pressing on. After all, he has an academic's heart, and an inventor's mind, and most of all, he's pretty focused on making sure he makes good grades. He's /fought/ his own rationalization in the past.

    The third stage is where he starts getting odd. He refuses to stay in the chair, or even near it now. Instead, he leaps to the ceiling, crawling about. He tries to find weak points, gaps in the influence now that it's hard enough that he can feel it consciously. Is there an emission point? A corner where the effect is weakest? He alone is probably best equipped to find it and occupy it. But he doesn't say no. Unless, you know, they demand he actually /sit/ in the chair. But he can power through it.

    By the time the hallucinations start, Spider-Man is unlikely to make it all the way to the end. As far as he can tell, he's back in the Storm of the Century, back to fighting poisoning terrorists, back to being terrorized by Tombstone... But, the one thing it can't cause a hallucination of is Spider-Man's Spider-Sense. Those wobbly lines just won't get any longer or any denser. He shuts his goggle-lenses and presses his fingers to his head to calm the dull, throbbing hum in his brain. But he's starting to understand it. He focuses, now, instead, on muttering to himself. He even scribbles on one of the walls with web, writing out elaborate calculations and esoteric guesses about what mutations might have done to his amygdala, his primary somatosensory cortex, his skin.

    He legitimately has had no chance to examine his own danger-sense under laboratory conditions until literally just this moment, and in fact he only /just now/ figured out what it actually /was/. If this was a mental influence in the traditional sense, the reason it wouldn't have been able to spoof his Spider-Sense was because he /didn't know what a Spider-Sense was/.

    Thus, when it might be able to spoof, he gets to ignore any changes from the baseline thrum. And ride that to the end of stage 4! Sadly, though, for Spider-Man, his resolve is the heroic kind, the kind only sparked by the defense of the innocent and not the proof of his worth. Once he reaches the fifth stage, he can't really put that scientific problem-solving mind to use to resist it. He tries to use his Spider-Sense to guide him, to find an emission point or an invisible foe, to use the low hum of his Spider-Sense to just spray the ghostly influence with webs if he can find the core of it. And he will, if he can. But it's unlikely, and if he can't, the Command eventually overtakes him, and he'll eat shit on stage 5 of 7, having to bow out gracefully as the thing wrenches a surrender from his skull.
Xion Xion heaves a big sigh as she moves between examinations, giving Roxas a tired look. "I didn't like some of those questions. But we're almost done!"

The smile and tight-in fistpump-and-lean is even more empty and laconic than usual.

But the next test is simple. Just wait, and then say yes until it's too much to bear. Okay. Just say yes, until no.

Round one passes without incident - Xion doesn't even notice anything, settling into the chair and crossing her legs when the door clicks shut. Another voice in her head going 'hey let's not' joins the chorus of voices arguing with each other.

Xion begins humming a little song while she waits, her eyes tracking around the room like someone looking up from their phone in the subway - aware of Others, but not of a specific 'other'.

The second step is more insidious, of course, and worse. But not worse in a meaningfully different way. "Well, I want to finish."
'But Roxas is waiting.'
"Roxas would want me to finish. Plus, he'll probably do all of it, so waiting for him is silly."

The second yes passes easily thanks to being all too used to a scrambled inner space,.

The third step, with the solid wall of Not Want, Xion has to grit her teeth. "But I want to." She repeats, and after a moment - and holding onto her stomach with her hands like she's sick - she gets through it.

A Yes. Things move on. Xion glances around the room cautiously, waiting for the next threat to come, but her heart rate remains normal, her breathing steady. She's not scared, just... nauseous. She's attacked, harried, and run ragged in the fourth act, getting up and holding monsters at bay with her chair, or simply running around the room at top speed as murderous teeth chase her. When the answer comes, though, Xion yipes out a 'yep!' while battling back the teeth with the dwindling legs of the chair.

The next step gets even more strange, as Xion's knees buckle out from under her as she's blasted with 'NOPE, SAY NO, GOD SAYS SO'. This accomplishes much the opposite - as that terrible, oppressive godwill soaks into Xion and mirrors back, a weird (and, more or less, useless, since 'end the test//tap out' being shot out into the room is probably isn't hitting the proctors - and if it did, wouldn't help Xion continue!) but Xion finally rolls around on the floor feeling sorry for herself to say, in the face of God the Other: "... But I want to."

Then the Nonexistance comes, and Xion canot tap out fast enough. Stumbling disoriented out of the testing room, Xion beelines for Roxas, before diverting halfway for towels and cookies. Sometimes wants simplify in times of great need.
Alexis Once she's had a chance to somewhat recompose herself Alexis takes the offered towel, and stuffs a few snacks in her mouth before wiping off her brow, and eventually taking a drink. Okay, she feels better now. "I'm not gonna say that was the worst yet," she remarks to Lilian, "Because then something will happen to prove me wrong."
Tomoe Tomoe will finish her snack and drink wipe off her brow. She'll look to Alexis and then to Lilian. "That's how it tends to go in my experiance too." She now looks very concerned for Sarracenia as she heads over to check on the princess and will set a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey Sarracenia. You are out of there now your safe....the test for that is over."
Sarracenia      Sarracenia almost leaps out of her skin when Tomoe touches her, and it doesn't really seem like she heard Tomoe at first. Hammer in hand, panicked look of a person driven to the limits of what their mind can take, she very nearly swings at Tomoe. The hammer is actually starting to move before she finally blinks and the hammer stops, though now it is shaking just like the rest of her.

     Her grip loosens, and the hammer eventually drops to the floor with a thud before she practically clings to Tomoe. Does she even know Tomoe? Doesn't seem to matter at the moment. She's a real, not horribly disfigured or tortured person that provides a link back to sanity. If Tomoe tries to pull away, she'd find that Sarracenia's grip just tightens. She has obviously never been exposed to anything even close before.
Touta Konoe      As an immortal there isn't much physically that is capable to indefinitely hurt Touta. And for that reason whether he knows it or not a test that tries to affect the mind was probably the most dangerous test capable to be given. Though probably an incredibly valueable test to do...If done properly. Touta enters the room without any of his possessions just being told the basic constructs of the test. To which he nods in acknowledgement and the test begins.

     The presence of the unknown existence at first seems strange but not too bad making through the first five minutes without much struggle. The second stage occurs and the invasive thoughts of just wanting to stop try to peck into his hand. That simply a cheat day would be fine. The problem is...Touta's a hard worker, and more than that he's built up plenty of patience with the types of training he's had to do. Waiting a few minutes in a chair is nothing compared to having to spin several hula-hoops on your body non-stop for 3 days, with the magical added touch of getting a heart-attack if you stop. Yeah, level 2 doesn't seem anywhere near as problematic.

     Touta's asked if he wishes to continue and is brought to level 3 which definitely starts to feel this force becoming more oppressive on his mind. His head is banging like crazy in comparison to before but it's just a headache, that he's had much more severe 'headaches' than this and while he's begins to actively sweat there's an ambitious smile on his face. He makes it till the end...

     From here he was at level 4. He was at the half-way point and he reminded him of that fact just as he said 'yes'. A firm reminder that this was just a test. A test of mental resilience. Something that just had to be pushed through. But this half-way point changes the game entirely. His senses are completely abused in crippling ways that would make one perhaps wish they were dead, even Touta who has experienced forms of total annihilation and death can't help but start feeling the effects of the negative emotions begin to accrue...And what a show that will be.

     The 'thing' has many tricks and deceits to attempt one to stop the test. Whatever it does to Touta...Is bad. Bad enough to cause a certain reaction.

     The trauma of the fourth section begins to take effect. He's wincing he's struggling, but he's still trying everything he can to keep himself in check. Even going as far as taking his jacket and stuffing it into his mouth to forcibly stop himself from speaking if he needs to. And for some time this works...Until all those feelings, all those negative emotions begin to manifest.

     As Touta continues to squirm, a black miasma begins to form behind his back. Slowly they turn into a pair of black gauntlet like arms. They begin flailing at first around Touta as he cringes as these hands claw at the boy's very body for some time before ultimately they reach for the 'thing' itself. They want to remove it, to destroy whatever it is that is causing this sensation. It's clear things like they're about to get out of hand but just as the hands fully reach out towards the invisible presence of 'it', they stopped. Touta's hands are over his mouth pulling out the jacket and with heavy breath he speaks,

     "No more..."
Tomoe Tomoe can see it she's see it in Sarracenia eyes she will see the weapon she will brace for a hit but the attack never comes he will not let go of the Princess and will use her free hand to pass her a package of cookies as Alexis suggested something to help distract her from whatever horror she'd seen.

"Hey it's okay don't worry about it and thanks for not hitting me."
Lilian Rook     Nobody is asked what they heard or saw in there on their way out. The people who run this place are sensible. Even if they were actually awful enough to prompt, who in their right mind would answer truthfully? Just handing over all the ways to get to them to a government bureau? Really?

    They do have to abort the test once Note starts flipping the hell out, and call that one a wash. Spider-Man gets to crawl around all over the ceiling as much as he wants, possibly just due to them finding it more interesting than anything. The advantage he has is strange, and indicates that whatever is in there with him --with them-- doesn't actually know how to *read* their minds. It isn't *specifically* set up for them to fail. It's simulating an intelligent, malicious entity attempting to abuse their minds --exactly what an Immune would encounter out in the field, and what many people could encounter even here with the darker arcane arts. Its 'presence' feels more like a painting with eyes that follow him around the room, more than a discrete entity. It may be that it's not so much 'with him' as it is with 'all of them', occupying every cell simultaneously. Less an entity and more a haunting. Or perhaps an Entity with a capital E; the classical definition of demon, rather than horns and fire.

    That may be why, when Roxas asks his question, he senses distinct, palpable confusion, and an odd bit of . . . it's almost sort of like pouting. A 'fine, if you won't play along' kind of thing. There's nothing to do here. It gives up. First anyone's seen of that in a long time. First they've seen for that specific reason, period. The fact that Zenos even makes it far enough to suffer through the ending portion draws all kind of side-glancing disbelief, wondering what the hell goes on in side of this guy's head. Even though Xion can't hear herself say it, the comms certainly hear the Nope, which means that the effect is definitely all personally experienced, and not visible to the supervisors as anything but people swinging chairs at imagined enemies and screaming/crying. What a job to have.
Lilian Rook     The last one was called 'Externalized Arcana'. This was a very vague term. It turns out that's because it's the most freeform and personally interpreted by far. This is where they're finally lead outside to the field exercises. The plots are myriad and apparently heavily 'personalized', designed for hundreds of broad classes of abilities to be tested. Some are basically firing ranges, fitted with swathes of targets of varying sizes and durability for battle magic. Others are impenetrable clusterfucks where one has to find various, increasingly subtle objects with special senses, avoiding traps along the way. Some are what can only be described in the engineering sense as 'torture tests', where defensive powers have to take someone through being hit with mounting and varied degrees of deadly magic and live ordnance. Others are surprisingly simple and low-key, being just personal meetings to try and read minds off of trained pros, do complicated tasks like intricate knots or copper wire tests with telekinesis, or try and perform tasks from thousands of feet away. Some involve bent space to try and navigate with transit powers, there are obstacle courses hovering in the air for flight training, and even enclosed areas full of sensors, traps, and guardian summons to sneak through with stealth powers. It easily represents many decades of getting to know all the magical disciplines, arcane bloodlines, inexplicable powers, and even weird artifacts or pseudo-technology that emerge throughout history and have survived to the present day. You're encouraged to take on literally every single one you think you can reasonably manage. You're discouraged only from ones you have no business trying (remote manipulation with no means to do so, for instance) because low scores are actually negatives, but 'doing well' is as much a matter of breadth as well as height, looking for versatility as well as raw capability.

    Lilian is already here, but not to meet them; she's engaged in her own testing. She is, in fact, the only one at the small lot reserved for her. Whatever it is, it looks obscenely dangerous. Some sort of weapon is being fired at random intervals, launching ridiculously high velocity 'rounds' at her over and over. Each time one gets close, the wind breaks and the round suddenly appears stood neatly in a row with all the previous ones, arranged off to the side. The objective seems to be pushing her limit on how many she can get before slipping up. There has to be some way they're non-lethal, but boy there's no way it wouldn't hurt a lot. Kind of weird that it'd be specifically that instead of one of the really comprehensive defensive or navigation or 'destruction' courses.

    After completing your first or second, the individual proctors assigned to each plot begin recommending new ones, with increasing amounts of specificity. Slowly grasping some idea of your general portfolio, they're all remarkably quick on the uptake, and begin giving more and more helpful directions around the expansive fields to try and raise your score, and narrow your classification, as much as possible.
Lilian Rook     Lilian had vaguely mentioned something to the effect before, but the final scores everyone gets come on a fancy black/platinum ID card, with the general photo, age, sex, height, etc. data on it, as well as title (if any), affiliation, and rank with said affiliations. The reverse side is where all the info is inlaid in seemingly crystalline etching, only revealed at a specific angle, where each test is tracked with the same flowery measurements as the second test was. Obscene physical performance might sit somewhere in the Throne region, while a horrible job in the interview might only be somewhere in the Jewel colour band. It also comes with the stamp of Immune Auxiliary, and up to two Archetypes loosely defining their general ability orientation without actually disclosing all their special abilities, setting their talents out at a glance, but not giving away unnecessary information.

    They're, as said long before, the same categories used as threat classification for the Antegent: Delusion, Messenger, Intruder, Supplicant, Convergence, Cipher, Encroachment, Immaculate, Adversary, Catastrophe, Dominion, Architect, Extinguisher, save that they're arranged with a bit more grammar and slightly less ominous overtones (it's weird to call a person a delusion, after all, but someone with illusion and combat powers might be a delusive adversary). Likewise, rather than categorized as a theoretical threat to humanity, they're re-stated in the final handbook in terms of how the powerset approaches problems. It's obvious enough that a psychic mind reader could earn the designation Cipher, and then Dominion on top if they're a technopath or mind-controller too. Most skilled brawlers will rate an Adversary designation unless it's secondary compared to the bulk of their more impressive powers, which isn't a bad thing considering they've technically gotten the job description of 'punch horrid monsters'. For the person who took them here, that puts the 'Immaculate Extinguisher' part of her Immunes title and intro into some kind of context at least.

    Then they get to hang out in on the very top floor, where the tip of the dome is exposed to the sky and plenty of windows let in a wonderful breeze. It's an atrium of sorts, specifically designed as a relaxation area, with its own indoor park and waterfall with many free-roaming birds and small animals, complete with shops to peddle incredibly expensive drinks and snacks and sugary desserts at people to reward themselves for a hard day's work, and even gift shop fare which ranges from genuinely really high quality oddities that are halfway there to brag about having suffered through a full cert as much as they are impressive, to stylized ornaments, jewelry, fixtures, even keychains, of the various combinations of seven stations and five stages, and thirteen archetypes, all the way to 'I got to stage X of the fortitude of mind and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' items, going from numbers 3 to 7.
Gawain As they get back in a good train of thought, Gawain moves outside for the field exercises. He takes the initial tests quickly, summoning his sword and armor, and shows that superhuman ability again, as well as the ability to ignite flames, and most importantly, insane endurance. Gawain would get put in quite a few of those torture tests, showing that in this sunlight, he can take an insane amount of pressure and violence, something that in the first few hits might make you think he's indestructible if he wasn't clearly taking damage and pain and having his armor crack and his skin break the more powerful his obstacles.

Gawain is generallya powerful combatant, athlete, and tank, with agility and mild (but not tuned) magical senses. It's much more relaxing than that mental torture chamber.

When they're done, Gawain gets his ID card. Gawain, technically in his 1400s+, with Knight of the Sun and Warden of the Paladins listed as well. His markings on the reverse side are probably generally pretty good...

And in the end, his Immune Auxiliary rank is 'Immaculate Adversary', it seems. Journeying to the very top floor at the atrium, Gawain moves to buy everyone a drink with his work paycheck.

Gawain also buys himself a stage-accurate t-shirt if they actually have those. Why not? It's something to remember his success and failings with.
Sarracenia      Sarracenia takes the packet of cookies hesitantly and finally releases Tomoe...but she doesn't open the cookies. She just holds them in both hands against her chest like some kind of charm against the horror. "...thank you." she says quietly to Tomoe as they walk.

     The princess seems rather disheartened after this last test, and walks with her head down, still with those cookies held to her chest. She is contemplating all that has happened, considering what the others have said, and whether she herself thinks she has done well. When presented with this new set of tests obviously meant to check just how many powers someone has and how skilled they are at each one, Sarracenia looks at all the options, then just...takes a seat. "What is the point?" she says quietly. She can't possibly have scored well enough on the mental exercises to pass, and while she knows she is good at fighting that doesn't seem good enough to fight the creatures of this world. She already proved that in a previous encounter.

     She knows...she just isn't good enough. Something she never would have even considered before but after several experiences lately combined with this, it is hard to deny even for a proud, somewhat crazy princess.
Zenos yae Galvus Zenos looks towards Sarracenia, shaking his head.  "Then do not.  Give up and go home.  Never leave your castle, and pray the day that someone comes for it never comes.  Or..." he says, calmly, "You acknowledged your weakness and shortcomings, and train to overcome them.  Either way, self-pity and pouting have no place here."

Zenos finally comes to the final challenge...but at this point, compared to the last, this should be fairly easy.  He takes a various series of tests based around his physical work with the blade, as he knows various amounts of swordplay.  

Zenos, able to move so fast as to appear to disappear and reappear, sword skills so potent that he can hit people at range...and the ability to summon illusionary swords that strike with the power of the elements at will.  He also shows a large number of sword tricks.  Able to deflect blows with the weapon, perform stupid sword tricks, and fire sword beams from simple swings.

Zenos decides to show one more move, as they need to know a better representation of both his skill and might.  So show it, he shall, as he thrusts his sword into the ground.  The ground erupts, releasing a blast in all directions that saps the strength from those around him.  For the most part, while you were in other places, Zenos was studying the blade.

Finally, the end comes, getting a license.  Adversary and Extinguisher, due to his unique debilitating sword skills.  Zenos did, overall, very well, though his reasons for being here are well known to be more selfish.  Zenos is not a person who is pure of heart, or is kind...but he is strong.

He takes his helmet off at the final level, walking to someplace quiet to enjoy the breeze and quiet for a time.  
Roxas "Huh?"

Roxas reacts to the confusion with the confusion. Then he snaps his fingers and points at the air, "Oh! You're just doing a job. Okay, then. I'm sorry about that, but um... you know, this is sort of a messed up job. If you ever want a different one, you should come talk to my boss."

When he emerges from the room at last, he's... frazzled. It's a stark contrast to everybody else, but he seems more like he's had a very exhausting conversation than anything else. There's also an embarrassed quality to his expression, though it's a little hard to pick out among the weariness.

It's only once he's out again that Roxas realizes he's been sweating heavily (again), his mouth is dry, and he has the shakes. He sloughs off his coat and tucks it underneath an elbow as he moves to grab a drink, joining Xion at a slower pace than he ordinarily moves at.

"I think I screwed that up on accident." He says to her.

It's only then that he notices anybody else looks really messed up. Roxas blinks slowly, surveying... everybody else, and in particular Sarracenia.

He decides he really shouldn't start asking.

When they arrive at the next and final test, Roxas takes his time figuring out the fields that are applicable to him within a narrow band of abilities. For whatever reason, he's very careful to select "magical projectile"-oriented setups, and mobility / traversal challenges. Whatever the reason for it, he's going out of his way not to use his Keyblade during these examinations, even now.

His ability to wield magical projectiles -- particularly Light-based ones -- is extremely high, though it doesn't have quite the finesse of a skilled weapon master. His aggression is notably high, and though Roxas can zip around extremely well, it does get him whacked more than a few times.

His overall abilities are 'plainly straightforward', and since he's hiding some of his JRPG Protagonist Sword nonsense, he mostly comes across as some sort of Red Mage-type.

Which happens to include remembering that he can heal halfway through getting whacked by something, and wiping away some of his injuries.

When all is said and done and Roxas ends up at the atrium, he is basically a zombie. He stands there staring at the wall for a solid minute before his attention slides inexorably towards the waterfall.

After finding a washroom to change in, Roxas stuffs most of his belongings into his coat, lays it out near the waterfall, and can shortly thereafter be found just sitting underneath it in the bodysuit from earlier.

His badge, which he hasn't checked at all yet, has the title ADVERSARY.
Note     The moment Note's out of that chamber she's flailing her arms in a panic, powering back down and stumbling for something or someone to hold onto. Poor girl probably needs a hug. Or to hug someone. At first this would seem to be Sarracenia. But when Note sees that SHE is sobbing the martial artist stops in her tracks and rapidly shakes her head, just breathing in and out and trying to settle her thoughts.

    A final shiver runs through her. She'll actually BOW IN APOLOGY to any of the testers who she might come across on the way out after thjat... and then finally inhale a solid breathe again.

    When the testing does resume though, Note is quick to cheer up and once again transform - this time with less fanfare. All that transforming and powering down is no doubt wearing on her, but she seems keen on showing off as well as she can... but for her, in these courses, that means tests of physical agility and reflexes, flight, and so on. Dodging or catching bullets. Anything that's straightforward like that is her forte... and not really anything else.

    It really shouldn't be any surprise to anyone who's seen her in action and studied the materials that her categorization is the equivalent of 'Catastrophic Adversary'.

    Note turns her card over and over again, though. She... passsed? "I passed...? I really passed?!" She sounds a bit doubtful. This isn't a trick, right?

    Eventually, though, she finds Sarracenia and Zenos, with the princess apparently paralyzed with despair.

    The way she eventually finds them, though, involves her FLOATING DOWN from above, upside-down so her ponytail's almost touching the ground, arms folded and a miffed look on her face. "I've gotta be honest. Lots of this Princess stuff you keep going on about doesn't make a lick of sense to me. All these weird dresses and frilly rules you put on yourself!" She might have gotten a few words mixed up there...

    "But I get one thing. You're tougher than this and we both know it, Sarracenia. Are you gonna go home crying, or screaming at everything in your way? Come on, show us what you got, and work on it if it's not enough!"
Tomoe Tomoe is very concerned for the Princess whom she's starting to see as a friend after their encountered so far she'll keep with her for the moment as they walk to the next test for the moment. "You had the courage to go into that room Princess. See it through to the end, you owe it to yourself do you not? You are a Princess who doesn't hide behind her troops and will go out into the world at large. You have my respect for that. You can get stronger you know, you did the hardest step already you stepped outside and went to test yourself. What you do now is up to you."

That's all Tomoe can think of for now with the Princess also the fact the Princess has become aware of some flaws? Is good she can grow, right? She will make certain to check up on her later.

She hoped the next test would be less brutal it certainly left her more than a bit haunted. Then again with the dangers of this world? It's expected now but she sees the next part and she grins she grins very widely at this, she'll get to having fun with this the first place she'll go is to the @Emit She hoped the next test would be less brutal it certainly left her more than a bit haunted. Then again with the dangers of this world? It's expected now but she sees the next part and she grins she grins very widely at this. She has several things she intends to show off, first up is the main event 'torture tests'.

She is a tank after all and it's time, from magical attacks, weapons fire, bladed things, flame throwers and the like. Tomoe is there with the mourning wall and Caliburn in hand praying, blocking enduring and one thing is clear she can take an inhuman amount of damage and just keep going. She's very good at mitigating a lot of it too, finally, when she finishes up there she will take a moment to recover.

Next comes off she'll deal with a flying obstacle course and she will manoeuvre like a pro through it at high speed she's not supersonic but she's very at the high end for subsonic flight as she manoeuvres her way through it, finally she'll go to one of the target ranges and will to unload with both spell and blade, too and leaves the target range a smoking mess from a barrage of elemental spells and sword arts.

, In the end, she does pretty well on her overall evaluation and ends up with Adversary Convergence classification with what her skills are. And somehow the ID card has her actual name on it with Also known as Tomoe the Iron Lily below it.
Alexis "Okay, I see why they put this last now." Alexis discards the towel she'd used to dry her temples off. "Something to cool down with." Or in this case Alexis can take a breather while letting her Pokemon handle what they do best. Mostly. She gets in on some of the physical tests, mostly with her fists and beating up a few test dummies with her hockey stick and blow off a bit of steam and frustration, and eventually they get her to show off some of her monster tracking/study skills. Again showing that she's not physically helpless without her 'summons'. They're just her primary means of doing things with her keeping them organized.

So this is again mainly their show, and a show of just how diverse of situations Alexis can tackle with a well rounded team.... Okay, so a lot of it is just different ways to do 'punch evil monsters in the face'. Or set them on fire. Or poison. Or flammable poison when you get to Salandit's unique aspects. Or a myraid of other things when you've also got a donkey that can cause earthquakes by stomping its hooves, a dog that can summon and fling rocks at things, and whatever bug-dragon-sandstorm thing Flygon is. Which Alexis actually rides through the aerial obstacle courses, helping to direct the agile creature like a jockey on a race horse. Though the uses for not directly combat are there. Over all they are as good at tracking monsters as they are fighting, and with some more experience Alexis will start figuring out some new tactics.

By the time they finally withdraw to the post-testing-training area the entire group is well wore out, even Alexis. She takes the card, snorting softly as the test scores are more or less as expected. That interview thing was not her strong point, but anything that's fighting was pretty good. 'Convergence Adversary' is the title assigned on it. "Yeah, that works."

Then she glances over in the direction of others trying to console Sarracenia. She shrugs, tucks the card away from safe keeping, and trudges over. Puts a hand on Sarracenia's shoulder. "Yeah, what they said. You can lose a fight, you can fail a test, but the only real defeat is when you stop trying to learn and make yourself better."
Xion Xion gets cookies and towels off. It's okay: cookies (and other sweet things) are basically moodular hi-elixir. By the time cookies and juice and towel time end, Xion's back to good cheer and dragging Roxas down to the tests.

Like an eager child, she bounces around watching someone do a run, and then immediately wants to try!

The first test is one of one of hand reflexes and manual dexterity, and she goes through an entire routine with the same casual fluidity as the last person, throwing in some extra bits.

Then she bounces on to the next test - one of sneaking and senses. An extra-tryhard tactical actor blurs his way through the area, and Xion watches with deep intent, before doing his same routine slipping through the traps as if on fast-forward, plucking the prize at the end and exfiltrating.

Then it's debate - and she argues down a whole room of executives on a proposed point, carrying the same smug power smile (and broad, male power seating stace in the big simulated office chair) as the previous applicant. Like a wave, she flits, watches, and excels, dancing between prodigies with winning encores. Passing Roxas with a wave and a big doofy smile a few times, she encourages her companion, watching Zenos's amazing swordwork with big, impressed twinkles in her eyes. It's a circus and she's the ringmaster and the clown at the same time, until the tests begin to wrap up.

At the end, carrying a stick from a wilderness survival The End arena, she shows off swinging aroud darkness and bursts of gravity, culminating in conjuring a visual singularity with a cry of 'Gravija!'.

At the end, she's as baffling as when she started.

"Lilian! Lilian! You're so cool, how you do the... sssspeed thing? I can't quite figure it out, but this is really fun! Why don't they just do this all the time?"
Doctor Strange      Now that he knows what sort of threats this place is designed to tackle, he's a /little/ more forthcoming with what he's willing to reveal.

     "Hey, check it out." Doctor Stephen Strange appears in a flash of green light, turning his ID over in the light. It's kind of a flex--'look, I technically have it before everyone else.' It might be seen as a little tasteless, in light of the bullshit literally everyone has just gone through. He doesn't care. He has an ID card that says Sorcerer Supreme on it. "Apparently I'm an 'Encroachment Architect.'"

     While the present version of him is working on those tests, this version of him does the experts a solid, presenting them with the finished ID so that they can jot everything down in advance. "Here," he says. "Write all this down while that me's doing it." Strange points helpfully to the present version of him. The sorcerer creates an illusory duplicate of the card which hovers in the air, then vanishes in a flash of green light.

     Meanwhile, the Strange of the present takes to these tests like an infinitely tesselating mosaic duck to non-Euclidean water, and don't even try to decipher what that means. In those areas requiring the use of battle magic, he is conservative, using a modified version of the beam of light he earlier displayed near the pedestal. The researchers will note that based on the design of the mandalas he weaves, there are many possible configurations which might result in different energies.

     The dense clusterfucks are handled, for the most part, by forcibly unfucking them, reconfiguring them into plain hallways or turning portions upside-down as if a child had kicked a dollhouse over. Those portions with hidden targets are found by Strange shaking them loose, where possible, or astrally projecting through solid matter where impossible.

     The torture testing involves Strange alternating between redirecting projectiles with portals used as target shields, or, in the case of magic, letting the energy of the attacks pass through his body like a current through a wire. In the latter case, Strange forms it into countermagic of his own, though this still takes the form of the yellow energy from before. He takes equally well to the flight tests, navigating the obstacles not just with the Cloak of Levitation, but with manipulation of his own personal gravity, tugging himself in different directions to make course corrections where necessary.

     Perhaps out of classic wizard hubris, he does attempt things he has no business doing. The 'stealth' portion, for example, involves sending illusions of himself running down different corridors to distract the guardians, while the 'real' Strange tries blitzing the objective with applied reality re-structuring and flight. Similarly, his idea of 'remote manipulation' is, where possible, flipping the room over so that the desired object follows gravity's pull and falls into his waiting hand.

     In short, the sorcerer's greatest strength appears to be his versatility, though he does seem to have a habit of trying to make square pegs fit in round holes, and yes, he /is/ the sort to rules lawyer. After getting his certification, he vanishes in a flash of green light, going back to provide the experts with the completed ID. When he reappears, he's in the top floor, sitting all relaxed with a cup of chai. It doesn't appear to have come from the nearby shops, because he checked and he'll be damned if he's going to pay fifteen dollars for a cup of tea.
Spider-Man     What CAN Spider-Man do? It takes a while to explain it all, because, well, Spider-Man doesn't exactly know all the details himself. Agility he knows is one, as well as martial arts of an unenlightened sort. He's going to seek out anything he can that shows that off. You got a rock wall on this motherfucker? Well you might as well have a rock floor when Spider-Man is done showing off his crawling. His swinging might take /too much/ space. His hand-to-hand prowess are instinctive, unrefined, built by reflex rather than technique. But his basics are sure, capable, and deft; he can dextrously whip webs at even small targets in air to restrain things swiftly, and if he can arrange for a /capture/ thing, maybe chasing a drone or something, he'll show it off quite easily.

    He's direct. He's very to-the-point. There's some good stealth abilities there, but they're unrefined, proooobably not enough to justify Intrudor. There's some control with his webs, but not enough to justify Dominion. He can control environments with broad webbing, but it's probably not enough to justify Architect with his tactics. For the most part, Spider-Man's abilities are pure Adversary -- or close, at least. There's a little Immaculate there, when he asks to try out something he thinks he's figured out.

    When the assessment is set up, he turns around, shuts his eyes, and dodges blasts fired at him, not looking as he lets his danger sense intuitively guide him out of the way of incoming projectiles. So THAT'S what the deal was on the wipe-out track! He's finally figured out the Spidey-Sense! It'll depend, but if it all works out, he's likely to come away from this with a strong Adversary, maybe with that Immaculate subclass!
Touta Konoe Touta takes a few minutes to breath before even attempting 'Externalized Arcana', that did seem like a very vague term at first so the explanation was greatly appreciated, especially a very long and detailed explanation. It seemed like there was a test designed for anything and everything for this last one. A specialized test given for specific things that the individual wanted to test personally rather than more generalized tests the others had done. It was probably worth while to have if people wanted specialized training to work on. In fact...It's at this point finds this test challenging in that he has no idea what he wanted to test out first.

     So he starts with a bit of sword play at first which he does reasonable well with even without increasing the weight. Though things really start getting interesting for the instructors when he ends up running around the place starting with some of the 'torture tests'. Live ordinances appear to prove...Ineffective or rather, they are but it when the smoke clears, the kid just appears back where he was before stating that those hurt... In regards to the magic though he holds off immediately and makes a request to grab something from his pocket. It's a collapsible hula-hoop and at first it probably gets him a few odd looks, but when he starts sucking up magic like an all you can eat buffet as it's launched at him there's a lot of intrigue... And then a lot of panic when said hula-hoop accidently falls off and a random explosion occurs. But at the very least he was secured in his own plot thankfully! That was gonna be something he'd need to work on.

     After displaying a bit more of his portfolio he is instructed on where he should go, he takes -ALOT- of time to talk with each individual instructor. Every time taking maybe an extra five minutes or so to get opinions on how they would deal with some problem he's dealing with. In fact these instructors seemed so confident in their recommendations that he felt comfortable talking about asking a little bit more indepth questions about things he considered 'flaws' or 'impractical'. It starts raising the question on if he's forgotten he's was trying to keep some of his powers concealed. Though perhaps asking these questions will inadvertantly lead to new and unforeseen possibilities! Hell, he's so interested in these that he ends up checking out other sights to watch some of the other students and their specialization just to see what amazing feats they can do. He hopes there's no penalties for watching...

     When all is said and done Touta does receive an ID card that labels him as a Immaculate Adversary...Even after he may or may not have conversed on another specialty he has. He really likes these instructors. But now that all of that was said and done and he could relax up the tip of the dome he's just enjoying the views.
Sarracenia      With her testing seemingly over of her own volition, Sarracenia finally opens those cookies and is just about to take a bite of one when Zenos speaks up. She pauses with the cookie hovering near her mouth and looks up at him with just her eyes as he speaks. In that small break he takes she hmphs softly and mutters, "...no one has yet..." She sounds somewhat bitter about that for some reason. He continues, and his words cause Sarra's eyes to widen a bit. Then Tomoe adds her encouragement. Sarracenia isn't sure all of it is actually accurate, but she smiles at Tomoe's attempt. Some of it is true at least. Sarracenia has never depended on others if she didn't have to...well, when it was important. She can't go and buy -all- of her clothes herself. She sets her cookies down and stands up again. "...thank you. Both of you. You are right. A person cannot simply give up, and especially not a princess!"

     She gives a double fist pump, then reaches into her satchel and pulls out...a blind? Yes, a folded up blind that she unfolds against a wall and steps behind. Some quick shuffling and rustling later and she emerges in a different dress, this one obviously designed to handle combat. Then she pulls out her hammer once more and sets it on her shoulder. "Alright...these tests do seem much more straight forward."

     She tries to complete as many as she can, focusing on the destroy that tests and the hit that elusive target with something tests. As in the initial tests, she is pretty good at destroying things, and has great accuracy in doing so even though she throws nearly all of her ranged weapons rather than firing them. The exception is her use of fire and ice projectiles she obtains by using a fire flower or ice flower. She even tries her luck on a flight course using a...tanuki suit? Yes, she pulls a small fuzzy plushie from her bag, gives it a squeeze, and suddenly is engulfed in a puff of smoke which clears to reveal her wearing a suit of the same design! In this case, a fuzzy raccoon-like creature. The tail wags and after a quick sprint she takes to the sky. She is overly agile, but she can complete at least the basic flight course. She does try an advanced course, but the first hit she takes causes the suit to disappear in a puff of smoke. She falls, but riding her hammer down keeps her from harm and causes a bit of a crater when she lands if the material of the atrium is not strong.

     She also displays a willingness to help others when she offers those she spots that are tired or injured in some way a green mushroom, which quickly heals most injuries and relieves tiredness. And those who ask are allowed to try out other power-ups as well.

     After all the tests are done, she gets her card. She scoffs at the weight listing of course, but everything else seems fine. Including her rank as...an Architect Adversary? She smiles happily! That is...until she notices that she has just white gems on her card. She huffs, then shrugs. At least she got a card! She goes and finds Tomoe and Note afterwords and gives them both a hug. Note last because she wants to ask if Note is alright. "I was a bit...um...preoccupied when you emerged, but...are you alright after that mind test?"
Note     Note keeps up that Super Saiyan Glare at Sarracenia.... up until Sarracenia finally regains her spirit. Then with a *bwash* the constantly burning aura finally dies down and Note's golden hair fades back to smooth black, nearly touching the ground. She rights herself and lands, continuing to look around in a bit of shaken wonder herself until Sarracenia sneaks up with an unexpected question!

    And a HUG!

    Both get a start out of her, but she does hug back! "Y... yeah. That... that test rattled my bones something fierce, I uh... almost freaked out... all that spooky weird feelings from nowhere! ... Okay though. I'm okay... whew."
Tomoe When all was said and done she was pleased she did well she thought and maybe she helped the Princess out a bit? Well she wound later find out as she neds up getting a hug as well which was not expected. "Hey glad I helped a little bit there, Princess."
Sarracenia      Sarracenia smiles happily at both. "We should celebrate! I will take both of you for ice cream and a new dress!" she says, then takes both their hands and practically drags them away. "Let us forget those terrible images for now and just be glad we made it through!"