[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/6zc773j.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center]
[hr][center][color=silver]𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘   / /   𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥   / /   𝔾𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 ℤ𝕖𝕣𝕠   / /  𝟙𝟟𝟛𝟝[/color][/center][hr]

Rosa sent Jerry to collect the evaluation forms as she gestured for the rest of the guards to move the second set of "healers" to their locations, turning off the relevant screens with a few taps on the control panel.

In the break room, two guards entered with weapons ready, nudging Gregory and Sophia out the door and towards Ground Zero. The sky was darker now as evening slowly dimmed the sunlight and the last vestiges of twilight were slipping past the horizon. Within the ghost's projection, the unreal people had hidden away in buildings, or tucked themselves under overhangs, awaiting a new day that would never come.

The guards led the two healers through darkened streets and shattered buildings, walking past small groups of survivors huddled around makeshift fires for warmth. Any that drew near were turned away at the point of a rifle. An unruly teenager, burly and heavyset with a long jaw and thick eyebrows, ran out in front of the group. Before he could say anything, a burst of gunfire ripped through his torso.

Nearby, a woman with the same jaw and eyebrows screamed, but didn't approach, her sobs following the group and petering off into the distance as the soldiers continued towards the only miraculously intact building within the ghost's projection.

From the direction of their approach, a large circle with the words "SAFE POINT 3" printed inside in stenciled, yellow glow paint shone dimly in the darkness of the asphalt several meters in front of the main doors while the same faintly glowing paint marked out "SAFE POINT 4" to the side of the villa, positioned in front of the back doors.

Several of the long, vertical windows on the building's second and third floors were alight with flickering, failing lights, illuminating enough of the exterior to make out a white, three-story villa cut in a modern, asymmetrical style with jutting rectangles of floors and protruding blocks of rooms that still looked quite clean and well-kept despite the disaster zone surrounding it. Who had turned on the lights was a question for the ages, since no one was inside when the guards led Gregory and Sophia into the ground floor of the building. The soldiers took the two "healers" upwards, walking them past the living room where a wall-mounted TV played loud static and towards the stairs against the back wall. Like this, the two were taken to the third floor bedroom, Gregory shoved into the bathroom and left to stare at the toiletries with the simple order to [color=f7976a]"Stay hidden,"[/color] and Sophia into the closet with the same command.

[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center]
[hr][center][color=silver]𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘   / /   𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥   / /   𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕆𝕦𝕥𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥: 𝕆𝕓𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 ℝ𝕠𝕠𝕞 𝟚   / /  𝟙𝟟𝟝𝟝[/color][/center][hr]

Fredric toyed with the blood-stained tissue in his pocket as he stared at the screens, watching the guards set the second round's "healers" in the correct building. He had long finished managing some small details on his phone and now held his clipboard in front of him from habit. 

The students were still, understandably, extremely uncomfortable in their new environment. The bit of sport he and Rosa had cooked up for the group was meant for another purpose, but he had still hoped it would distract them from the depressing state of affairs that marked everything touched by Dreamcatcher's power. Ten years ago and he would have laughed at the idea that the world would end up like this when, for as long as history could remember, Dreamcatcher and its creations had never truly interfered with humanity. The being had seemed content enough to craft creatures on a whim, never remaining in place long and rarely coming into contact with people.

Before The Slumber, research into the creatures that could be contained and dissected had yielded nothing of note. Either they were typical flesh-and-blood or their makeup was so alien there was no identifying them with current methods. Even the decidedly more "regular" ones had failed to display any viability through genetic testing and experimentation, like their only purpose in existence was [i]to be[/i] and nothing further.

Theories and data and chewing the fat, because it made no difference to Dreamcatcher. Not then. Not now.

And [i]now[/i] was an uphill battle against the creatures that would be considered "generals" if Dreamcatcher's scatter of monstrosities counted as an army. Fredric paused that thought, scribbling it out in his mind and editing it to "lieutenants" instead in the military metaphor. The "generals" were a force very few of them could hope to defeat. A city and some hundred or so powerful subnaturals had been the price of victory the last time something of that sort reared its head. 

He sighed and focused his thoughts back on the screens and the immediate future. There was no point dwelling on things they couldn't change. If anything, that reminder was all the more reason to focus on these students. If the only answer to the war was to kill every single monster Dreamcatcher had left behind, then they needed to be strong enough to fight until they saw the sunrise.

An old conversation with a younger Director and a younger him came to mind as Fredric checked a series of texts from Rosa, gleefully spamming him with emotes and tildes about the next round starting soon.

[quote][i][color f7976a]"You're nuts, lady. And that's saying a lot coming from me."[/color]

The Director had only stared into a distance he couldn't see, eyes tracking and roving over some mental image as she held his paperwork in her hands.

[color f7976a]"Do you know Foresight's weakness, Mr. Francisco?"[/color]

That was weird. Didn't everyone?

[color f7976a]"Yeah? She takes too long to read her cards."[/color]

The Director had shaken her head.

[color f7976a]"The power to see a future on request, but for all she tries, she can never truly change it."[/color]

[color f7976a]"I thought she influences the future all the time. She can tell others how to fix things, right?"[/color]

[color f7976a]"And what has she really fixed?"[/color]

He couldn't really come up with an answer for that--not one that would satisfy him and certainly not one that would satisfy the Director. Instead he asked something else.

[color f7976a]"Well, if even Foresight can't fix things, how is anyone else supposed to?"[/color]

[color f7976a]"...That's a good question. One I intend to answer. In time. Should you choose to remain, Mr. Francisco, perhaps you might see it firsthand."[/color]
[/i][/quote]

He eyed several of the screens replaying the first two teams' fights for a moment longer before switching them to current footage of Ground Zero. They were strong, that much was certain. But would it be enough? Or was this a venture doomed to failure from the start? There were quiet thoughts that had been lurking, little moments of worry as time had passed with no meaningful gains over the past ten years. Most people didn't dare voice it, their last hopes for a better future hinging on one desperate denial of an insidious whisper that had grown stronger over the years: the Precursors weren't strong enough.

And if even they weren't strong enough, what hope remained?

A rush of vibrations from his phone reminded him that the ever-optimistic Rosa was still waiting for a confirmation that he had the screens ready on his end. [i]Her[/i] hope certainly remained, and some part of him was grateful she was around. He knew the Director felt the same way.

Fredric spun on his heels with his familiar grin, turning to face the group of teenagers.

[color f7976a]"Eyes up, folks! We're about to begin."[/color]

[hr]

[hider=OOC Interaction Tags/Notes: Teams 1 and 2]
[@Riffus Maximus][@PapiTan][@January][@RedDusk][@Deathmyster][@Baklava][@Chasers115][@Piercing Light][@Kyrisse][@dragonmancer]

You're all in a different observation room in the same security outpost tower. Big room, two long desks with snacks on them (lined with chairs and sufficient space for the eventual evaluation forms), wall of screens in front.

Feel free to chat/comment as the round progresses, though do remember that your character would very likely be watching the events unfold instead of turned around and talking extensively.
[/hider]

[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center]
[hr][center][color=silver]𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘   / /   𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥   / /   𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕆𝕦𝕥𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥: 𝕆𝕓𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 ℝ𝕠𝕠𝕞 𝟙   / /  𝟙𝟟𝟝𝟝[/color][/center][hr]

Once the soldiers had positioned the healers and left the area, they confirmed with Rosa, who checked the message on her phone before spinning around to face the remaining students gleefully.

[color=f7976a]"Okay! You guys are up! Break a leg!"[/color] she laughed at her own joke with a few quick claps of her hand.

The soldiers inside the large observation room rounded the students for Teams 3 and 4 up again, marching them out of the room and down the clean, white hallway before emerging into the chilly evening air. One of them heaved out a quick breath before checking behind him, something like apprehension on his fresh features at the prospect of dealing with so many powerful subnaturals bundled into a group. A guard dying before the cuffs could stop anyone was not unheard of, and in the urban mess that was the city projection in Ground Zero, they could only hope their bodies were found before the reset. The new soldier's features settled back into neutrality as they marched, some vague break room story about his predecessor dying in Ground Zero tapping away at the back of his awareness. Some man named Henry, if he recalled the story correctly, with "caterpillar brows and a face like a horse" whose body they had never found.

But his fears were unfounded that day as the group arrived at the designated building for the next round of flag football. Here the guards split the teams up accordingly, positioning both at their respective safe points.

[color=f7976a]"Five minute prep! Don't move from your starting points! You're searching inside the house--keep demolition at a minimum!"[/color] one of the guards called out, checking with his phone to make sure all the marked students were correctly separated. When everything looked good, they backed away, moving far enough from the house to not be caught in any unfortunate crossfire, but close enough that they could respond at a moment's notice.

The same apprehensive guard from before caught a flicker of a girl on the periphery of his vision, looking like the Ground Zero ghost herself. But in the fraction of a millisecond he took to turn his head, the specter was gone. And maybe he was just antsy, or the lighting was playing tricks on his eyes (who could say anymore in a world gone mad?), but he thought everything looked a bit more dilapidated than the day before. Just a few more cracks here and there. Nothing worth reporting, and it was so miniscule he would have missed it entirely had he not been straining to catch sight of the girl again. Shaking the extra thoughts from his head, the soldier took up position and sounded off to the supervisors in the security outpost, his eyes on the villa in the distance.

After five minutes, the cuffs beeped in that toneless voice, [color f7976a]"START."[/color]

[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center]
[hr]

[hider=OOC Interaction Tags/Notes/Floor Plans (Teams 3 and 4)]
[@Snagglepuss89][@VarionusNW][@canaryrose][@Lasrever][@ERode][@VampireOracle][@Zombehs][@GreenGoat][@Diggerton][@banjoanjo]

You may assume all furniture and objects are positioned as shown in the maps.

[b]Ground Floor:[/b]
[url=http://i.imgur.com/p6C8027.png][img]http://i.imgur.com/p6C8027m.png[/img][/url][url=http://i.imgur.com/Aj0Siy3.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/Aj0Siy3m.jpg[/img][/url]

[b]First Floor:[/b]
[url=http://i.imgur.com/bYkTRKj.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/bYkTRKjm.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://i.imgur.com/XzoKFSq.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/XzoKFSqm.jpg[/img][/url]

[b]Second Floor:[/b]
[url=http://i.imgur.com/MnH6DNS.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/MnH6DNSm.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://i.imgur.com/c65qLdI.png][img]http://i.imgur.com/c65qLdIm.png[/img][/url]
[/hider]