[hider=Joseph's test]
The childlike professor, Emilya Vance, waited outside of Laboratory room One for the rest of the students to enter, then followed after them and gave them a chance to inspect the table from where they stood. After a few moments, she began to speak, instructing them to step forwards and demonstrate their abilities. She called two students forward before Joseph, then turned to him as well.

[b]"Mr. Milit, it's your turn. Please demonstrate your magic for me."[/b]

After stepping forward, Joseph wordlessly performed the simple act of summoning a standard issue military pistol. [b]"It's unloaded, by the way."[/b] He told the professor, displaying the fact that the gun lacked a magazine. He then tossed the gun into the air. As it was up there, he summoned a magazine in the palm of his hand. As the gun came down, he lined the magazine up with it and managed to land in their perfectly. He then stood there, silently awaiting a response.

Professor Emilya stepped forwards and looked up at the weapon he'd conjured. She poked and prodded it, then stepped back, nodded, and scribbled down her notes on her clipboard. [b]"Well practiced. You pass the demonstration portion of the exam. Next, Ms. Braunschweig."[/b]

[hr]

Eventually, the students all completed their demonstrations, and Professor Emilya moved to the opposite side of the room, where she unveiled the caged Ashhopper. It was throwing itself against the cage's wire mesh at a rack of gas masks the entire time she explained what the combat test was, what the creature was, and why they were perhaps more dangerous than they appeared.

Berke Bayamaar was the first to enter the Deadlands-esque room across from the entry hall, and he returned from his combat exam fairly quickly. Emilya then turned to Joseph. [b]"Mr. Milit, please secure your hood and enter the room. You may take one of these military issue knives with you, if you wish."[/b]

[b]"I will, thank you."[/b] He said as he took a knife. [b]"Wish me luck, everybody."[/b] He said to the others as he affixed his mask and made his way into the room. 

Professor Vance reached up and pressed the button next to the blast door, and the door slid shut with a soft thud, sealing the faintly lit room. Just as it had for Berke, the room quickly filled with a thin white mist that caught the glow of the parasitic vines strewn about through the air. Moments later, a short wave of magical energy almost identical to what Joseph felt when summoning his weapon swept through the room, lightly tickling the base of his brain for a split second, and the room came to life. The razor-sharp crystalline grasses rustled under the movement of Ashhoppers that hadn't been present moments before all around Joseph, in three spots around the room to the front, left, and right. It was still impossible to see any of the creatures in the darkness, but they had made themselves known.

Taking advantage of the lack of offensive activity, Joseph prepped himself for the coming battle. First, he made sure his pistol and knife were tucked into his belt where they could be reached for easily. After that, he conjured the family's Saxe & Coburg type 11 semi-automatic rifle from where it had been left in advance. He and his father knew something like this would come up, and there was quite the arsenal kept aside in preparation for this moment. The rifle had a bayonet affixed in case of an exceedingly quick close quarters reception. With his preparations complete, Jospeh dropped to one knee, and kept his rifle aimed and ready to fire. Now he was ready, but for now he would wait and observe.

While he was preparing himself, the movement continued around the room. To the front and the right, razor grass shifted slightly, and to the left, the grass outright snapped under the weight of something larger than had been seen in the cage. But nothing came out for some time. Perhaps thirty or forty seconds after Joseph had readied his rifle, the first Ashhopper flung itself at his filtration canister from the right side of the room. It wasn't the same breed as had been shown, and had something akin to a plowlike horn jutting out from the front end of its head. It wasn't quite flying, but rather gliding along under its underpowered wings, and was perhaps ten pounds in total, including the chitin horn. In front of Joseph, another one of the creatures, slightly larger, launched itself upwards with a soft 'pop' and disappeared into the darkness beneath the cap of the mushroom tree.

Choosing to focus on the immediate threat, Joseph swivelled in his kneeling position, taking aim at the charging Ashhopper and opening up with the short burst of fire from his rifle.

The first shot penetrated deeply into the insect's horn and split the shell covering what should be its head, though it continued its charge through the fire and its injury. The second shot passed above the horn and effectively annihilated the creature, which erupted into a small shower of brown fluid and cracked shell fragments. It looked almost as though it had imploded the instant its main body had been penetrated. Silence came once more, save for a very soft crunching noise far behind him, where the creature on the left had been.

[b]"Bullseye."[/b] Joseph whispered to himself as he admired his work. He didn't spend too long patting himself on the back, and soon turned his attention to the sound from behind him. Unable to see the creature properly, Joseph made up his mind to fire three shots in the direction the sound came from, spreading them in an arc.

Two cracks could be heard where the rounds had struck the concrete walls, sending a small puff of stone dust outwards where it was illuminated by the vines' glow. The second round he fired didn't respond with the same sound, but rather a dull 'thud', and the Ashhopper charged out of the darkness, trampling the razor sharp grass underfoot. It was huge - perhaps forty pounds, with rear legs the size of Joseph's own, and it had one dark hole leaking fluid in the side of its head section, along with a shattered exit wound on the other side of what may have been its forehead. This plow-horned Ashhopper didn't seem like it was anything but angered by the shot. Moments later, a loud buzzing filled the air, coming from above and slightly to Joseph's rear.

[b]"Oh, hellfire!"[/b] Joseph blurted out upon seeing the size of the damn thing. He did not like the sight of it at all. Deciding upon extreme measures, he conjured up the grenade that had been set aside in case of something big like this. He conjured it in one hand that he took off his rifle, pulled the pin out with his teeth, and hurled it towards the big ass Ashhopper. Then he hit the dirt, attempting to shield both himself and his canister from the worst of it.

The humongous creature stopped its charge at the sight of the grenade. The grenade rolled in front of it, and it immediately shoveled the explosive into its circular maw and clamped down. The grenade crunched and cracked under the force, but its fuse went off before it could be destroyed completely. It was a lucky turn of events - the blast of the grenade was absorbed by what was once the front end of the beast, and while it still made Joseph's ears ring, it didn't cause him any injury. The same couldn't be said of the smouldering pair of legs and hollowed out carapace dripping with brown fluid on the ground some meters away.

A moment after the explosion went off, Joseph felt something big and heavy strike his back, followed by six legs clinging to his clothing and making their way under his right arm towards the filtration mask. Thirteen pounds of insect had landed from above.

[b]"Son of a BITCH!"[/b] Joseph cried out as he felt the insect strike him. With a rush of anger, Joseph attempted to throw himself from his prone position towards the right, hoping to smoosh the bug into the floor with his back and nullify its overtures towards his canister. Letting go of his rifle, he used his right arm to shield his canister while whipping out his knife with his left hand, trying to stab at the insect.

When Joseph moved, the Ashhopper lost its grip and fell to the ground behind him. It seemed agitated by its failure, and immediately hopped backwards to avoid the coming knife strike. While it was out of reach, it turned to face away from Joseph and raised its rear legs to scuttle towards him on its four forelimbs. The eye stalks were staring at him from underneath its relatively small body.

Staring back at the thing with a glare that could kill, Jospeh rolled himself onto his stomach once again. From there, he produced his pistol with his right hand, and aimed to blast the creature open at close range.

The third Ashhopper had closed in to point blank range by the time Joseph had produced his pistol, and it lashed out with its rear legs. The sound of two gunshots went off - one from Joseph's pistol, and one from the Ashhopper's kick, and the Ashhopper went down. Or, rather, its front end went down and its rear end went up, flipping over in midair once before lying on the ground motionless. The round had buried itself all the way into the creature's body with no exit wound.

Shortly after the creature's death, the whir of a ventilation fan kicked in, and the plantlife around the room rustled as the white mist disappeared. White light poured in when the blast door opened, and every corpse and drop of fluid strewn about disappeared, along with the bullet holes left in the concrete wall. Emilya's small voice came into the room from the doorway.

[b]"Good work, Mr. Milit. You'll be given your test results tomorrow morning. Feel free to leave if you'd like - you have the day off."[/b]

[b]"Thank you, maam."[/b] Joseph replied as he exited the chamber. He wasted no time getting the mask off and collecting his gear, and then getting out of there. [b]"Ya'll take care now."[/b] He said as he left, bidding farewell to everyone there. Now he was going to chill out and enjoy his well earned free time.
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