Oh The Webs We Weave;;, (Reserved for Antia)

It was surprising after two days of being introduced to the whole concept of VG that she had decided to join them, and now two weeks later she was already on her first mission as one of the members. It was a solo mission, a dangerous one at that, and she was really the only one willing to take it up and be able to pull it off without many complications. First off, she wasn't known to be aligned with the VG at all because she had been neutral and wandering around for so many years many mistakened her for a typical citizen. And second, she had the best abilities when it came down to spy work, which was her shapeshifting abilities that she was required to keep under tabs and unknown to the organization she was hoping to get into as a spy for the VG.

Staring emotionlessly at the papers in her hand that were apparantly required for the try-outs she followed the directions to where they were getting held, knowing well enough she was now officially out of safe territory for those of her alliance. The mechs ignored her, thinking she was a typical citizen, which is pretty much what she appeared like thanks to more help from the VG. After multiple failed attempts of trying to shapeshift her own appearance, she had merely picked up the idea of bleaching her hair to be a light brown and used contacts to hide the amber hue of her eyes with a light blue hue. Heck, it looked like it naturally belonged to her surprisingly, but those who knew her thought it looked off.

Of course, she had her thoughts trained to be simple little things that would not give away her guise to any telepaths, making her seem like a typical citizen once again. But her outfit said otherwise, being a pair of black leather pants and her dark gray short-sleeved shirt being hidden under a sort of black trenchcoat, which held seperate slots for all her usual equipment. She refused to carry her vials in fear of having to try and explain why she had them in the first place, knowing well enough if she ever wanted to do spy work she could easily gather the proper amount of DNA of the animal she needed when the time came.

Upon reaching the building she noticed many citizens she had seen around hanging out outside, giving them a small greeting before heading in without a second thought. After passing through the 'security' checks that the NINE had set up to make sure there were no spies she headed further in, handing in the paperwork to the proper secretaries around the room before isolating herself into a corner away from everyone, just observing each individual. There were a good amount that looked like they were already aligned with the NINE, others who were already picking challenges with each other, and a small amount like herself. Well, like herself to the point where they didn't 'belong' to either organization, but wanted the opportunity to get hired and be part of the NINE.

Rolling her eyes at the thought, but masking it as if it was the immaturity of those in the room through her mental barrier she leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest in an uncaring manner. She had no clue what these tryouts held for her at the time, but she was dedicated to making sure she accomplished her mission and not failing it as she promised. All she needed to do was pull off everything she had been praticing for the past few years of her life and she would be able to hopefully impress Antia to the point of her getting hired over the others who were also here for the same reason. Sure, it would be a little difficult not using her powers, but it would be more impressive if she could easily take on someone with powers without using her own in the process, now wouldn't it?

((ooc: Hey, I hope you don't mind if I made your alias 'Gwendolyn Wells'. . Oh, and I never thought about how Mist should be included. Maybe he could already be her body guard...? I'll talk to Brad about it.))

A small, elderly woman walked into the room, her entrance heralded by the sharp sound made by her high-heels as they collided with the ground. Several clip-boards gravitated around her slowly, unbound by any visible force. She was a telekinetic, then. “Morning, dears!” She greeted the group with a wide smile that spread across the entirety of her round, wrinkled face. She snatched one of the clip boards out of the air and produced a pen from her pocket, scribbling something down on the paper. “My name is Fran Sherman and I will be acting as overseer for our next few activities, but we‘ll get to that lot in just a moment. First I‘d like for you all to…give yourselves a good pat on the back!”

Some of the crowd clapped half-heartedly, while a few people(most of whom looked like unsavory individuals, to say the least) hesitantly patted their backs. An awkward silence fell over the room. Fran Sherman took no notice. She pressed a finger to her ear before striding to the center of the room. “Right, then! On to our business for the day. I’d like for you all to separate into two groups. Those who possess super human abilities, please come together on my left. Those who do not, come here to my right,” She said, waving her right hand in indication of her order.

Her left hand went up to her ear again. Her eyes rolled around the room, sifting through the small group of participants that had begun congregating to her right and she zeroed in on Lycan. And she smiled. One of the clip boards came to a stand-still, pointing directly at the young woman. Turning to the rest of the group, she started speaking again. “Your first task is relatively simple. You each will be led to a room where you will find waiting for you a…what are you children calling them these days? Mechs? Right, a Mech. It is programmed to attack any moving thing that enters. We ask you only to disable it. Those lacking superhuman abilities will be equipped with rudimentary gadgetry to assist them.”

She rose her right hand up again and turned, walking towards the door from which she had entered. The clip boards rose up higher, so that their orbit was not disrupted by the crowd of participants that now flanked Fran. “Now if you will please follow me, we’ll get this show on the road.”

---

Somewhere in that same compound, through a maze of halls and office spaces, and unused rooms, Antia sat in the dark. Projected before her were twelve different screens, nine of them showing what was being recorded by those clever little cameras she’d had hidden in the clipboards only hours before the try-outs had taken place. The other three were the standard security cameras which were controlled by the panels of buttons and switches that lined the wall just to the right of her. It was manned by a scrawny NINE agent; a child prodigy who’d been allied with them since the day he was born. In the chair next to her was a wan, balding man who’s name escaped her(it was Jake or Blake or something like that). He held a list of the names of the participants--seventeen in all--which were accompanied by thumbnail pictures and a brief description. His pen already stood poised against the paper, eager to begin jotting in notes about them.

She cleaned her nails absentmindedly as she watched the screens, narrowing her eyes at each person who walked through those doors. Analyzing them, their size, they way they moved. The way they interacted with the others. Her lip curled in a sneer as two of the try-out participants began to quarrel. “Screen two, the men arguing. Names and status.”

“Marco Lombardi, avid NINE supporter, can compromise the structural integrity of an object and cause it to collapse in on itself. That’s the brown haired one. The black one is Ed Robinson, working for us in Portsmouth at the moment, possesses pyro--” Antia waved her hand in front of Jake-or-Blake's face to hush him.

“Cut them both.” She said snidely.

He gaped at her for a split-second before regaining his composure. A thick black line was put across both of the participants names and pictures. She didn’t have time to waste on needless belligerency. She wanted to see tact and speed and cunning. Antia smirked and turned her eyes back up to the screens, and continued observing the ever-growing crowd through those three limited screens, growing increasingly bored as time went on.

Then wizened, old, hopelessly British Fran Sherman showed up on the scene. Fran belonged to a small group of similarly minded folk that worked in the NINE who were working to have Antia accept the English Crown. Whenever they passed in the hallway Fran would curtsy, and, if the old woman made an announcement over the building’s intercom, she always addressed her as ‘Her Majesty, Antia, the Queen of England’. It was a bit embarrassing to tell the truth.

She tried not to think of that at the moment, instead focusing in on the new images that showed up on the other nine screens. The cameras attached to the clipboards gave Antia whole new angles over which to scrutinize. Her eyes fell on a solitary figure in the far corner. A young-ish woman with brown hair and a face…a face that she could have sworn she’d seen before. She turned to Jake-or-Blake and pointed at the woman. “Screen eight, that girl in the corner. Name and status.”

He floundered, his eyes running up and down the paper a few times. “I-I didn’t get a good look at her face.”

“Dammit! Boy,” She said, addressing the kid sitting at the control panels. “Fran is wearing an ear piece. I need you to patch me in.” He nodded and, after a flurry of pale, knobby limbs, he gave her a thumbs up and tossed a small microphone her way. She caught it and brought it to her colorless lips. “Fran, separate them in to two groups, the super-human and the non.” The British woman’s voice rang clear through all of the speakers, ordering the participants to split themselves in two. “Alright, do you see that girl who’s standing on her own in the non-superhuman section? The one with brown hair. Keep a camera on her, please.” One of the screens centered on the girl.

Jake-or-Blake spoke. “Gwendolyn Wells, has kept fairly neutral, no preternatural abilities of which to speak of. She’s passed all of the physical requirements, though.” He said, tapping the end of the pen over the woman’s picture. Antia said nothing in reply. Her yellow gaze stayed fixed on the face that was plastered on the middle of the screen. She studied the girl’s hair, her nose, her jaw line, and she knew her.

She knew those eyes.

(ooc. Nah, sounds good, she'd call herself Gwen all the time. I couldn't think of a false name.)

It was interesting to see everyones reactions over a period of time, especially with the entrance of who was to be the overseer of the tests she were to go through. While the woman spoke she refused to do anything until she said for the groups to split, which she gladly did but kept herself in the corner. She wasn't fond of trying to hold a conversation with anyone in the room at the moment, knowing if she bonded with any of them she would maybe regret it in the end. She wasn't here to form bonds with anyone, just to do the mission she was assigned to. Of course, she didn't fail to notice the clipboards floating around and how one eventually seemed to point at her, as if there was some kind of reason to why they did that.

Emotionlessly she removed her gaze from the clipboard seeming to be focused on her, she listened as the older woman spoke, only to smirk at the idea of the first task. That was a relatively easy task indeed, since she was trained on how to disable them by the VG and had some gadgets with her that she could easily say were handmade by herself. Though she wouldn't dare to mention she had her own equipment on her, knowing well enough one of the tasks of her mission here was to prove she could stealth in stuff and be a true asset to Antia by having stuff to counter anything that might challenge her. Of course, this included the senbon needles for when she encountered a VG member, knowing how to hit one point that would make them pass out and seem dead, only to later wake-up as if nothing ever happened.

She dared not to keep up with the rest of the crowd, subconsciously tagging behind a good amount and keeping her uncaring personality showing. It seemed to be creeping out one of the other females within the group, who looked back at her every once and a while like she was almost afraid the undercover girl would pull out a gun and shoot her. After a few times of that she gave a soft growl, almost replicating that of a wolf or a dog, which made the girls eyes widen for a second before focusing forward and not daring to glance back again. Well, how she got this far made no sense at all, especially if she was so afraid of her, one of the most harmless people until angered or she needed to fight.

It was at this point she gave up on the whole contact thing, carefully removing them without a second thought, the blue no longer existing as her natural amber eyes gazed around. She hated the contacts, they made her vision blur because they were not tuned to her naturally slightly enhanced vision, and besides it would throw a few more of the people off around her. Figuring she should try to make a small impression she lightly cleared her throat as if to catch the leaders attention, before giving a sort of confident smirk. One thing she loved was mind games, and she was planning on trying to make her competition grow nervous.

"Question." It was a simple word, but faintly demanded attention while holding almost no emotions. Until attention was given, she didn't speak, but once she got it she spoke up again. "Shouldn't those with abilities have to complete the same tasks as us? For example, they can run into someone who might have the ability to disable whatever powers they have, so they should learn how to not use them as well." Those with abilities seemed to glare at her, and she knew exactly why as well. Many were so used to having their abilities to an advantage, yet she learned how to fight without them far before she learned to fight with them, so it was only fair in her mind.

Reaching up to fix the pure black bandana with silver markings on it she made sure her ears were carefully pinned against her head and hidden under her hair. That was the one thing that would give her away, but she wouldn't be afraid to admit it at a later date that she had abilities if Antia were to ask. Sure, the female would hate her lying, but going through a whole test without using her abilities? That would be impressive when it came down to it for some, while to those who trained like herself would find it rather normal. Heck, like it even mattered, she was only here for one reason in the end anyways.. to win and to bring down the one person who she owed vengeance on.

“Question.”

Fran Sherman slowed her pace a bit and turned her head, squinting suspiciously back at the girl with small, watery eyes. “You are allowed questions, but I must warn you, dear, I cannot guarantee you an answer. I‘m not of a high enough position,” She spat the last word out bitterly. The professional hierarchy was obviously a sore spot for her. The clipboards (save for that one that focused on Lycan) careened through the air more quickly, more erratically. One dipped down a bit too far and clipped one of the taller participant’s on his bald, tattooed noggin. The man staggered back and placed a mammoth hand over his forehead.

As Fran waited for the aforementioned question, she herded the group through an nondescript black door and into a very, very narrow hallway, whitely lit by harsh fluorescent lights. A stark contrast to the warmer lightings of the outer rooms. Then, finally, the girl spoke. "Shouldn't those with abilities have to complete the same tasks as us? For example, they can run into someone who might have the ability to disable whatever powers they have, so they should learn how to not use them as well."

“You didn’t think that we wouldn’t cover all of our bases, little Gwendolyn? On behalf of the NINE and this entire compound, I take offense to that! We aren‘t like those Valor Guard heathens, you know…we have means and we have ways!” She laughed. It was an annoying laugh and not unlike a yapping dog in sound. She sobered up very quickly, though, and waved the group on as they rounded a corner. “But I’m afraid I cannot the question directly. As I stated before, it’s not my place to tell.” She glanced over her shoulder and shot Lycan a condescending look. “And, quite frankly, dear, it’s not your place to know.” They continued on for a while, seemingly losing themselves in a maze of white walls and impossibly bright florescent lights.

“Ah, here we are,” Fran stopped just in front of two heavy steel doors. She turned and held up one wrinkled hand to halt the participants. Once they‘d all stopped she punched a security code into the keys fixed just above the door handles. They flickered green and an audible clicking noise sounded from inside the doors. “From this point on I would like to ask for everyone to remain silent. Are we perfectly clear on this?” She said in a hushed tone. There were a few affirmative murmurs. Fran smiled. “Good children. Very good.”

And she pushed open the doors.

This hall was much wider than the last. The walls were made out of some kind of metal, they were dark and had a glossy surface like beetle wings. Down each side of the hall was a row of doors, spaced what looked to be twenty feet apart from one another. NINE agents sat stationed in front of every door, each holding up a large sheet of paper with the last name of the participant and a headshot. No one spoke.

Fran silently ushered the group in and, once they'd entered and started moving towards their assigned destinations, scribbled something on the clipboard she had been holding.

((ooc: not exactly the best post in the world. Sorry about that. When I get the time I'll type up an Antia side for this, but since she isn't directly involved with Lycan at the moment, I figured I'd forgo her bit.))

An amused smirk crossed her lips at the response the older female gave, merely shrugging it off as if it was nothing, easily having of figured out a mind game to play if she wanted to. It seemed as if she really was irritated about not having more of a role with the NINE projects, which easily left an opening for her to mess around with if she wanted to. Not that she would at the moment, knowing her main target was to pass what was needed to become the bodyguard of Antia. She kept silent the rest of the time, being one to refuse talking to the others by giving off an aura that lacked any interest in what was going on, or at least until they finally entered the testing hallway.

Without a second thought she moved to her assigned spot, listening to what the agent had to say before accepting the 'equipment' that was for the test. It was pointless because of what she already had with her, but she didn't dare say a single thing about it, figuring she'd start something if she dared to refuse the items. Once the go was given to enter the room she did without a second thought, only to notice the mech was already in there and shotting bullets at her. Well, that was odd, she definitely didn't expect to have to try and defend herself right off the bat. Quickly she did a side flip to avoid the bullets, easily keeping her balance as she performed a few more before the mech changed it's pattern as she expected.

It had begun to fire infront of her flips after a bit as if timing her reactions, but what a mech wouldn't know was she was testing its reaction time. As soon as a bullet would normally hit her due to the timing she changed into a front flip, going close range which made it have to swing at her to get her far enough away to shoot again. She ducked under the swing no problem, however the second swing took her a bit off guard to the point where she did have to jump back, narrowly avoiding getting hit. Great, so it was timed for both aspects of combat, so how could she overcome it?

As soon as the next rounds were fired she narrowly dodged them as iif she wasn't timing it correct, before doing a quick front flip over the mech, taking it off-guard. Right before it could turn around she pulled out a device and quickly slammed it into the back of the mech before grinning. Small sparks flew from the device, sending abnormal currents through the mech that made it unable to react until the device was removed or an hour had passed, or that was what she was told by her undercover neutral friend who made the device and gave it to her to test out. Surprisingly it had worked, she dared not to question what her friend went through to figure it out, but she passed the test obviously.

Silently she headed back outside into the hallway after it was confirmed the mech was disabled, only to get a slightly surprised reaction from the NINE agent who was sitting by her door. The only marks she bore from her 'battle' was the fact a few small rips had formed on her clothing from when it started timing things correctly, yet she was unscathed. Glancing around the room she noticed a few others had begun to emerge as well, some appearing worn-out while others had scratches or wounds of some kind. There were only two that, like herself, had come out without much damage and weren't that worn out. One she recognized as machinist who was known as a cyborg ontop of that, the other was another male who she wasn't certain on. Along with that, a few others were in the testing room, so she had no clue on their states.

Chuckling softly to herself at the irony of the fact she was the only female who seemed perfectly fine she relaxed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the wall. This was turning out rather easy because of the training she had gotten from the VG, along with her previous training in ninja arts back when she was younger. Plus, becoming animals could easily train ones fighting style without the shapeshifter knowing until most of her abilities seemed based off how a snake struck with precision or how each creature would time its attacks to almost always work.

((I'll get started on this soon, I promise. Sorry to keep you waiting for so long.))