A wave of emotion flashed through Evelyn's eyes as she looked at Maximilian without saying anything. He had always been so aloof and distant, why did he care? She inclined her head slightly and peered at him with narrowed eyes and a hardened expression. She would not be seen as weak in front of him, or anyone else for that matter.

"No," she said icily "I'm perfectly-"

Suddenly the walls of the s**** began to rumble violently. Evelyn, still on edge, already held her crucifix-dagger in hand to strike out at whatever was coming at them this time. The walls toppled and fell outwards, fading away as if they were made of dust revealing a scene that could not be possible. They were outside, and the sun shone brilliantly above in a clear blue sky as a subtropical wind blew past them. Before them stood sprawled an ancient abandoned city, where long swaying blades of grass grew in between the various ancient vine-riddled buildings and various towers could be seen in the distance.

"Welcome to Apollon, the City of Seers" spoke Miss Rachel as she walked out from the shade. They noted that a young man with ruffled hair followed by a griffin walked behind her and stood off to her side with his arms crossed. "Allow me to introduce Lloyd, and his magnificent griffin, Grayson. They have transferred to our team from All Saints High School." She smiled as she watched the various expressions pass over the faces of the children who stood before her. "I have been informed of the various trials that you have been through in my absence," she began "However, rather than dwelling on what has happened, we must regroup and continue forward. Which is why I brought you all here" she indicated to the ruined city behind them, "Apollon was once home to the schools of the artes, where many of your forebears lived, studied and trained. Which is why I brought you all here. Here, you shall all reconnect to your spiritual roots."

Their PDAs all buzzed once again as they received a new email from Miss Rachel, who paced in front of them casually with a cheerful glint in her eyes. She seemed much brighter since the last time they saw her in the apartment building those weeks ago.



"You have all received a map of this fairly extensive city. In the North East tower there is a red flag and in the North West tower there is a blue flag. Our training exercise today shall be a match of capture the flag. The first team to bring their coloured flag to Plaza Apollon will be the winners. Now aside from Alice and Lloyd, from who I do not want to see any fusions or fully powered totem spirits, I want you all to go all out with your abilities, stretch them beyond what you can do now. Do not worry about hurting each other or destroying the structures here. Li, Maximilian, Evelyn, Lotus, Lloyd, and Derrek, will be the blue team going after the red flag and defending the blue flag. While Alice, Logan, Tsubaki, Dom, Johnny, Damian, and Daniel will be the red team going after the blue flag and defending the red flag. As I said, don't worry about hurting each other here. Go all out. Now!" She stepped aside and moved away from the front gates allowing them to run into the ruins.

Lotus ran forward on all fours. She wanted to be first to the flag. She ran towards the flag.She just knew people would like her if she got the flag. That was going to be her ticket to acceptance. She stopped and stood as she looked around, realizing she had gotten herself lost. She looked at her PDA trying to figure out where she was. She eventually put it away. "Well it looks like I need my instincts." She sniffed the air scenting it. Nothing. She summoned Dot. After a brief pause Lotus continued the hunt, using Dot like a blood hound, She speed towards the red team's tower.

If there was one thing Johnathan knew for sure, it was that Miss Rachel had answers. Hopefully she would explain things and make it more clear. A loud rumbling jolted Johnny from his thoughts and reflexively he summoned his billhooks while he quickly got into a stance. Fortunately, it was the complete opposite of what he expected. Relieved, Johnathan then dispelled his weapons and took a look at the scenery. 

It was not long before Miss Rachel appeared with a young man that looked like an upperclassman accompanied with a griffin. He followed her and stood off to the side with crossed arms as Miss Rachel introduced him by the name of Lloyd and Grayson. Johnathan couldn't get over how bright and cheery she seemed to be. Which in returned perked him a bit. Maybe today won't be so bad after all. 

As Miss Rachel described the city of Apollon, and how it was the place of training and study in the past, Johnny wondered what on earth they were doing there. Though as soon as she said they were going to reconnect with their roots, he felt excited. Hopefully he'll get stronger by coming here. 

Soon she introduced a game of capture the flag, which Johnathan couldn't wait to get started. He summoned his right billhook and marked himself with the sigils Fors and Arx. Ever since Johnny discovered he could use another sigil, he'd been anxious to test them out. She named off the groups, and on his team was people who he normally hadn't socialized with, with the exception of Damian and possibly Logan, which was actually what Johnny wanted, hoping to get closer to more people in the group. 

Almost immediately after Miss Rachel started the game, Johnny noticed Lotus had already started running. In response, he ran to the other tower.

-------------

When the other members of his new group emerged, Lloyd followed Miss Rachel with his arms crossed, and tried his best to hide his excitement, while looking at each and everyone of them. Though by the looks on some faces, which showed varying degrees of emotion from sadness and somber to indifference and even anger, he could tell something big happened. Not knowing what to say and wondering if he'll say something wrong, he kept quiet and listened to Miss Rachel, as she introduced the city and an activity, an extreme game of capture the flag. Lloyd was starting to like her already. 

However everything must come at a price, and it seemed for him it would be that he couldn't summon Grayson at his full might, along with someone named Alice. He glanced over at his griffin, who also seemed a bit bummed out but also very eager. For Lloyd it wouldn't matter what team he was on, but hoped he would make a good first impression and make some new friends. Not that he didn't like his friends at his old school. Though he did want to get the flag first, thinking it would be a first good step. 

As the game commenced, however, a girl with white hair on his team rushed to get the flag first and a boy with black hair ran the other way. Great, he thought as he and Grayson ran to catch up with the girl, and hopefully get the flag first. As a precautionary measure, he ordered Grayson to go ahead.

OOC: Infinity, I think you misread Lotus' post. She was running towards the tower where the red flag was held, she hasn't found it yet. See on the map, in the northeast and northwest there is a large box with an x. Those are the towers. You guys are at the gates all the way at that bottom of the map. Each team has to run to the towers and then run back to the plaza of apollon. No worries. It happens, you just need to edit your post accordingly and it'll be all good.

OOC: Huh. It seems I did. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

Logan did his best to pretend that he wasn't impressed by this turn of events, but in truth he was amazed. It seemed to him that this was some manner of construct, but that didn't make it any less incredible. He couldn't help but wonder if any of his predecessors had lived here.
Logan acknowledged Lloyd with a nod and a smile as Ms. Rachel introduced him, but his heart wasn't in it. He still wasn't in the mood to talk to others. In fact, he didn't really feel like playing games either. He was seriously considering sitting this one out when a thought crossed his mind. Moping wouldn't bring Carter back, nor would it help Logan to protect others in the future. This was a chance for him to unwind and exert the full extent of his abilities, and the fact that he wouldn't have to exercise restraint would make it much more interesting.
He looked over at the others to see that a few of them had already dashed off, eager to be the first to reach their respective flags. It was a shame that he would have to disappoint them. With a mischievous grin, Logan disappeared into the market.

((lol, I have a friend who goes to a school called All Saints High School))

Just when Li thought he knew more than his peers, he was shocked once again. He felt just as amazed as the rest of his peers. Whatever means cause this city to appear in the s****, Li didn't care how. Another new face was being added to the group. He was introduced as Lloyd and seemed like a an upperclassman just like Li. It was good to see another student his age after Adi left.

Miss Rachel gave the introductions for the exercise. Pleased, Li was ready to begin.

"Alright, we should probably plan how we do-"

Before Li could finish, Lotus was already heading towards the opposing flag. Realizing there wasn't much more time to discuss his plan, he decided to act, not talk. Li started to run towards his own flag, feeling he's more capable of defending rather than attacking.

_____________________________________________

A huge grin appeared on Dom's face. He was excited for the next activity. Capture the flag was one thing, but capture the flag around a city where they can do whatever they want, this was almost a dream come true. The blue flag was what he was after, and he started to make his way towards the north west corner following Johnny. Once around the market area, Dom had an idea. Now that he was more in control with his powers, wondered if he could propel himself upwards, increasing his vertical height.

Dom approached a fairly low building and started to focus his energy towards his legs. After a second or two, he leaped upwards. To his surprise it somewhat worked, sending him higher than normal. For a brief moment, Dom panicked mid air. Soon enough, he managed to grab the side of the building and pull himself up. Overjoyed, he planned to hop from building to building, where no one can reach him.

Tsubaki had never officially met Miss Rachael, but knew the lady just from the way she presented herself. Standing with her was yet another new student, a transfer student, apparently. Miss Rachael told the club that their next assignment was to play a large scale, no-holds-barred, game of capture the flag, splitting the group exactly in two, if you counted familiars.

Despite being placed on opposite teams, Tsubaki tried to say hello to Lloyd, but almost everyone immediately bolted into the city, preventing her from doing so. Taking the hint, she also began to run at full speed, only to go sprawling, face-first, onto the ground. As she would soon realize, it was all because of Derrek, which had reached out and grabbed one of Tsubaki's boots and pulled it off, tripping her.

"Sorry, china doll," Derrek said as he walked past her, slinging her boot over his shoulder, "but I think that you might need this more than me, and I can't allow that."

Not knowing or caring Tsubaki was actually Japanese, Derrek began walking towards his own team's tower. He didn't know exactly what he could do there, but he didn't really feel like racing his teammates to victory. Tsubaki was left at the gates, rubbing her head and trying to pull off her other boot, which, together, worked against each other.

Miss Rachael's reappearance and this new training ground she had spirited them away to known as Apollon was an incredibly interesting new development but at the moment none of it really mattered much to Maximilian. This game of capture the flag that he was ordered to take part in, this new student which he had no interest in meeting, and all the students who stood around him wide eyed and amazed, raring to run about and act savage and fight, none of it meant anything. The only thing thing on Maximilian's mind was Evelyn's reaction to both him and the situation. After Miss Rachael had spoken and he had been given ample time to look over the map of Apollon Maximilian dropped his PDA back into his pocket and watched his peers run off to play their game. He stood by idly for sometime before he spoke once more to the on edge Evelyn.

"Are you lying to protect your pride? Or perhaps you'd rather not talk about such things with someone like me." He dropped his hands into his pocket as he turned his attention away from Evelyn and redirected it towards the eastern most tower. "The others might not see it, they might not have taken notice of the way you looked not too long ago, all torn and battered..." he paused for a moment trying to find just the right words to express just exactly what he saw in her eyes now and how they related to what he had seen three days ago but was unable to come up with anything that wouldn't seem insulting or degrading. "You're upset and I know you don't trust me, but perhaps that feeling of distrust, among other things between us, could change." Maximilian exhaled deeply, he could feel the tension around him building up and none of it sat well with his stomach. Meandering towards Evelyn he passed her calmly and headed to defend his own tower stopping only to get a final word in before he completely left her. "Thank you for protecting me, I never got the chance to properly express my appreciation... and if you're willing to talk, I'll listen. I'm not trying to humiliate you." with that he continued strolling towards the tower. For all he cared his flag could have been taken and the game could have been completely over by now, besides, what was he going to do to stop anyone from taking his team's flag? Splash them with water? Even if he wanted to play this game he was completely outmatched by his peers, he needed a source of water near by to fight anyone and there was only so much to he could do with the liter or so of water he could carry with him if he were even bother carrying such a thing.

Yawning aloud Maximilian pulled for his PDA once more and inspected the map, he began to seriously think about finding an empty building to sleep in until everything had passed, but first he felt he needed to at least visit his own tower and put forth some effort. Besides, if the tower was tall enough he could possibly get a decent view of Apollon and doze off with some beautiful surroundings planted in his head.

Evelyn barely acknowledged Lloyd as he was introduced. She was neither impressed by his griffin or the energy that emanated from him. A totem disciple was expected to have a vast pool of energy to draw upon by this point, so she expected nothing less. Miss Rachel's cheerful demeanour only seemed to further sour her mood. Where had she been when they needed her the most? And then, when she did return, she wanted to play games? That didn't solve anything, there was a demon prince inhabiting a poor soul; Ms. Sullivan was still holed up in the Sanctuary; there was a presumably powerful magical artifact on the loose; and they still had yet to deal with a ghost that was threatening people in a scrapyard of all places.

She snapped her head in Maximilian's direction as he spoke to her again, ready to berate him verbally. Why was he so insistent? Couldn't he just let it go? Though before she could even say anything, he continued, and slowly she began to relent and her expression softened. She stood there alone with her thoughts for a few moments left without anything disdainful to say, for once, and watched as he walked away. She breathed in deeply and launched herself into the air to think. Up in the sky, she could see everyone moving throughout the city like ants. Part of her wanted to join the others and ignore the opportunity presented by Maximilian, though she shook her head knowing what she had to do. She sighed, and flew towards Maximilian, until she was just behind him, a rush of air following after her, and she tugged softly on the back of his sleeve while she hovered barely off of the ground.

"I'm scared" she said quietly, her voice almost a whisper, "More scared than I have ever been in my whole life. I've been raised to fight...to kill demons, ghosts and all sorts of monsters, but what we've been up against," her voice trailed off momentarily as she looked at the ground "We're not good enough...I'M not good enough. I couldn't save Carter, and now" her eyes moistened as she relived Carter being dragged into the gates, the look of terror and hopelessness on his face, "He's gone."

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Lotus, Dot, Lloyd and Grayson stood at the bottom of the tower, it was at least four storeys high. Inside the tower stairs ran upwards alongside the wall in a great spiral, where a light could be seen at the top, where the flag would be. Otherwise, the tower was fairly dark.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The market was empty, much quieter than it would have ever been in the height of Apollon's history. The warm breeze blew over the grass, causing them to "swish" sounding almost like the ocean.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Li could see Johnny up ahead as he ran towards his respective tower, while overhead he could see, or rather hear, the gusts of wind provided by Dom as he took each leap from building to building towards the tower as well.

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Derrek, from behind, watched as Dom jumped from building to building incredibly. Each of the main streets Naturae, Angelorum, and Antiquarum, were lined with various statues depicting mythological scenes from ancient Greece.

ooc: LOL Derrek is SUCH a prick.
OOC: Y'all have free reign, feel free to duke it out without me.

OOC: Considering how behind this post is, I'm going to go ahead and catch up automatically, apologies if this isn't allowed, just let me know.

As a number of the club members ran off in different directions, Damian remained standing with Tsubaki nearby sitting on the ground. His thoughts screamed at him to simply sit by and do nothing, but alas, he felt he should show some usefulness. Despite the goal being to capture the other teams flag, there were far too many people headed toward his team's flag. He wouldn't allow it to be moved. One thought in particular pleased him, Ms. Rachel said not too worry about hurting each other. Damian found some happiness in hearing that, he needed to let loose on someone, he may as well do it as he protects the flag. With that thought in mind and his own goals set, he took off sprinting after those that were after his team's flag, covering much ground quickly thanks to his powerful legs.

After some running, he slowed to a stop upon seeing Lotus, the new guy, and their spirit animals or whatever they were called. Though this did not seem an even fight, it did not matter to Damian. He wasn't one to think rationally anymore so with ease, he hid himself from vision by becoming invisible and speedwalked over to them. When he was close enough, he remarked out loud "You're not taking my flag." As he finished the last word, he fired a bolt of green lightning at the tiger and swung his foot at the legs of Lloyd, intending to trip him.

Dot heard Damain's footsteps and alerted Lotus. Know of they enemies presence Dot dodged the bolt by just vanishing. Lotus jumped on a wall with her claws out as she began climbing the tower. She saw only one goal, acceptance. She stared the flag down as she jumped from ledge to ledge climbing the innermost part of tower. She climbed with an unusual amount of courage. Lotus had a plan:get the flag, give it to new kid, protect him, run the flag if he fails.

Maximilian almost leapt from his skin as he felt a slight tug on the back of his sleeve, his mind was still obviously fixed on where he could find a place to rest in the ruins of Apollon. Turning quickly he hoped that what was behind him wasn't some horrific beast that had come to eat his face. The wind he thought, his mind still running wild with possibilities, It's... just... the wind!

Pivoting on his heels and holding in his breath he quickly turned to face whatever creature had decided to prey after him alone in the ruins, but to his honest surprise it wasn't some murdering abomination or hideous spider like monster... it was Evelyn who immediately poured onto him a ocean of sincerity and despair.

"We're not good enough...I'M not good enough. I couldn't save Carter, and now... he's gone"

Evelyn's concerned, soft, and sulky words passed through Maximilian's head, but they didn't quite register with him. The boy was far too caught up in the girl's eyes. He could see it..tears... Evelyn was ready to emotionally burst, she needed something to relieve her of the pressure... She had been burdening herself with every misstep, every casualty, every failure. She wasn't ready to shoulder such things, she was too young, too naive. Had she ever even experienced death in her life? Was it possible that she was doing all of this because of her inexperience? Evelyn was a pretty girl, a rich, pretty girl. What could she have known about these kinds of hardships, what exactly did she think she was doing? It was like looking into a mirror, a mirror that reflected back a much younger Maximilian... A boy who was not yet stern enough to burden a life of failure, not personal, but hereditary. Crippling debt, high expectations, illness, and eventually even a death in the family. It had worn down the boy for 14 years, 14 long years lost to keeping alive a tradition he hated... and now... the same weariness that plagued him from behind a mask of disinterest, loathing and apathy was staring back at him, challenging him- and it made him feel sick.

"No-" Maximilian quickly reached out and grabbed for Evelyn's shoulders. "you can't do this to yourself, do you hear me?!" he never wanted anyone to become like him, despite what his snarky, insulting self might have ever said, he never wanted anyone else to become the same contemptuous thing he had turned himself into to hide his weakness.

"You can't change what happened, none of us can. None of us were prepared to deal with what happened back there, but that doesn't mean we have to eat at ourselves and blame ourselves for what we did. Clinging to the past will only shatter your hopes for a future." What in the hell was he even saying? He was completely contradicting his life, the way he lived. Maximilian paused for a moment and removed his hands from Evelyn's sides as his eyes fell to the ground and words slowly roll through his brain and off of his tongue. " 'The bird that falls from the sky will learn once more to fly and over the course of its years it will fall many more times but it will always fly again, but the bird that falls and devours its wings as payment for its mistakes... will never fly again. And though it will never fall again, it will never have the opportunity live with its kin who soar above in the skies.' " Uneasily Maximilian brought his eyes up from the ground and locked them with Evelyn's. A stare of determination had taken him over, though it might not have been apparent why exactly to anyone else, it was at least apparent to him. He wanted to help Evelyn, he wanted to protect her, bear the load with her or even for her, whatever she needed at that moment to keep her from spiraling away from who she was now in this exact instant, he wanted to do it for her.

"Don't be afraid, don't let them win, but don't let them take away who you are. You'll get stronger, much stronger than me or anyone else. I know you will." his voice trailed off as he removed himself from in front of Evelyn and found a step to sit himself down on. If he had kept himself so close to Evelyn for much longer he felt he might have created an even more awkward situation for himself and her. "For now you're safe and I wish that I could sit here and tell you you'd be safe forever, but I can't, I know you know better than that... But please, don't be sad and don't cry, you can't blame everything on yourself. You're not the only one who considers themselves guilty. Do what you need to do to make amends, but don't blame yourself dammit... none of us are free from this and at least, for the moment, what's lost to us will remain out of reach. Dreams of fear, vengeance, regret-" Maximilian paused for a moment, taking a deep breath he continued on now more sincere than ever. "They'll make you blind and mute! they'll take away your senses and turn you into something you're not. You'll see nothing but what you loath, and speak to no one about it." exhaling deeply he turned his attention towards his beautiful surroundings before his eyes inevitably wandered back to Evelyn's insecure eyes. "We need to forget and forgive all of our shortcomings."

Johnathan found himself to be varying his steps as he ran. Mainly because he was still thinking. Everything was happening so fast. Each time he found himself straying off, he had to remind himself why he was doing this game in the first place. To get strong. To save Carter by doing anything and everything he can. His sadness turned to anger, and his run turned into a sprint. He noticed most members in the group were scared and terrified about the events that took place, but he knew moping about and feeling sorry for yourself won't change anything. Only actions and how you respond would. You couldn't change life like some magical remote control, you have to get up and change it yourself. 

He had been so into his thoughts he hadn't noticed Dom leaping above him. When he reached the tower, Johnny acknowledged him, also finding Li on his tail. He headed into the tower, not slowing down. 

--------------------------

Lloyd couldn't help but to gaze at the looming, and if not ominous, tower. He honestly should have expected something like this, and not to be a walk in the park. He was liking his first activity here so far. He wondered what had happened that was so horrific that made a number of students sit this game out. He turned to the girl he was following earlier and began to speak. 

"Okay, I think we should-" 

"You're not taking my flag."

Lloyd turned around, and before he could say anything else a boy, who apparently was on the opposing team, attempted to trip him. He jumped back, though stumbling a bit until Grayson came to his rescue. At top speed he swung his spiked tail in an attempt to hit the boy. Thankfully, he wouldn't have to worry about any injuries. Soon he found Lotus climbing the side of the tower. If he could just hold him off long enough, Lotus could get the flag.

Logan was awed by his surroundings. Being attuned to the past, he felt a connection with a place of such antiquity. He had half a mind to abandon the little game he was playing and go exploring. As appealing as that idea seemed, however, he was in the middle of a competition. He wasn't about to be shown up for the sake of a bit of sight-seeing.
He was making good time, keeping pace with Dom. He had sliced diagonally through the market and was now headed toward the road that had been labeled "Naturae" on the map. Logan could see Johnny and Li headed in the same direction nearby. Now was his chance. He summoned his chain mail, targe, and claymore, then quickly turned the corner, jumping out in front of Li.
"If ye know whit's good fer ye, ye'll turn around 'n' scurry back th' way ye came wi' yer tail atween yer legs!" He roared, prepared to fight with the full extent of his strength. He wouldn't afford his opponent the luxury of mercy as long as he didn't have to worry about hurting him.