[h2]Zone 2[/h2]
[@Sho Minazuki][@TheWindel][@KoL]
The weight of even two dummies over Hikari’s shoulders was crushing enough, over a hundred and fifty pounds of mass per dummy pressing down on him, but the rubble made it hard going as well, and for all his projected plans, the blond light manipulator only managed to struggle his way through mounds of debris after scraping his knees more than few times by tripping over unseen objects within the fog. It was thoroughly exhausting, and his nonchalant mannerisms were undercut by how much his limbs felt like jelly, how much sweat he had paid to work at things solo without any physical augmentation to back it up.

Compared to the girls, at least, he didn’t smell of smoke and reek of soot. Though there was nothing technically challenging about the burning rooms that Houki and Minami plunged into, the ‘fires’ that were set inside the rooms were more obnoxious, irritating smoke than anything, and it was simply insufferable to spend too long in any room at all. Though Houki’s eyes were certainly watering at the end of it, it was Minami’s fine sense of smell that suffered the most from the effects of the smoke. Their stretcher was a good choice, but the lack of rags to protect their noses and mouths from the black clouds evened it out soon enough. Between the two of them, they came up with only half the amount they initially aimed to grab, two adult-sized and one child-sized awkwardly squeezed into the makeshift stretcher, the combined weights of the dummies against the already somewhat damaged plastic of the curtains making it a somewhat difficult proposition as the material began to sag. Thankfully, the stretcher held out long enough for both of them to lift the 300 pound combined mass of their dummies off and out of area, coughing and tearing up all the while.

Though her muscle mass wasn’t optimized towards displays of strength and endurance, Minami was still the chief reason that the two girls made it back to the bus to begin with, Houki’s own strength hardly sufficient to help with even one-third of the uneven weight. They definitely couldn’t run like this, though, and it was probably for the better if neither of them had worn makeup before heading out to the exam.

They’d looked like a total mess, after all.

Regardless of what cost had been paid to gather five dummies in front of the bus, it was now not only up to the unlikely trio to decide what they would do next, but also [i]who[/i] would be the one to take credit for the dummies, if any of them planned on bringing the dummies into the bus to begin with.

Would it be Minami, who could easily be credited for all the best ideas so far, from preemptively exchanging contact information to creating a stretcher to doing the majority of the heavy lifting between the two girls?

Would it be Houki, who was instrumental in finding the dummies in the smoking rooms while Minami was still struggling with the assault on her senses?

Or should Hikari, just because he’s a guy, do the rest of the heavy lifting while they were all tired and thus inadvertently grab the points?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Five dummies were a lot, after all.


[h2]Zone 5[/h2]
[@Stern Algorithm][@zelosse]
The terrain itself conspired against Mari’s attempts to pick up speed, but physical augments weren’t the only thing that Kaito’s rhythm boost offered, and her eyes were able to pick apart the more dangerous spots to be putting her feet as she sailed through the desolation and destruction of the central zone, her healthy, tanned thighs pumping up and down with the regularity and speed of pistons. Twisting right at the car, her foot lashed out like a professional soccer player, applying all the built-up momentum in a powerful, scooping kick.

[i]WHAM![/i]

The first thing Mari felt was the rusted chassis of the car [i]break[/i] as her foot smashed into it. The second thing Mari felt was the sharp, hot pang that accompanied splinters of metal tearing through her shoe and leaving bloody gashes behind. But the worst case scenario, that of her own foot getting trapped within the complex network of cylindrical shapes beneath the vehicle, did not pass, and her kick was indeed potent enough to flip the burnt out remnants of the car over, exposing the dummy underneath.
The first dummy of many, if she were lucky.

But the throbbing of her foot, the injury that it sustained…was it quite worth it? And would running further only aggravate the wound until she became just as invalid when it came to rescue efforts as the many dummies littered around the disaster area?

Those thoughts impeded Mari, caused her to think twice about her next actions, if only temporarily.