Tales of Mysterra
Chapter 2-The Test part 1
After entering, Victor walked into a somewhat large hall, filled with multiple long tables lining the room, and a doorway on the opposite side of the entrance. There were already some recruits here, however, Victor could tell they were rather pitiful; it was sorta embarrassing for him to be here, in his own opinion. He took a spot down at a table, folding his arms and sighing slightly. "ALRIGHT RECRUITS!" The booming voice prompted everyone to look up in shock. "STAND AT ATTENTION!"
All of the recruits scrambled to their feet, standing in a line side by side as Victor somewhat lazily took his spot amongst them. The door finally opened, a muscular anthropomorphic bloodhound entering the room, dressed in warden's attire. He looked the group over, frowning sourly before spitting on the ground. "I was actually expecting something...impressive. But it looks like I got the bottom of the barrel. Pathetic," he muttered, Victor frowning slightly at this comment.
The dog continued to look over the group, now pacing around in front of the group, a light clinking heard from his equipment after each step he took. "But, it is my job to separate the weaklings from those with even a shred of potential out of you lot. So...this is what we're gonna do!"
With this comment, the hound motioned to the door on the other side of the room, saying, "One person at a time will go in there. If you can make it out of there...you passed the test. Now..."
A wicked smirk suddenly found its way onto the hound's muzzle, unnerving most of the lesser composed recruits. "...who will go first?"
For a moment, the hall remained silent; Victor hadn't said a thing, instead wanting to gauge how difficult this test really was. "So, no one's gonna be the example?" the bloodhound murmured with a scowl. "Then I'll choose who's going in first."
Before any other movements could be made, the dog grabbed a random recruit from the crowd and pushed him through the door, closing it behind him. Victor sighed; this might take a while.
-Meanwhile-
In the recruitment tent for the Twilight Society, the hall was much more active, filled with recruits that were pushing and shoving each other in a frenzy; obviously a rather barbaric bunch. Despite this, there was one recruit that stood out quite well, remaining stoic and composed amidst the frenzied room. It was a rather slim anthropomorphic wolf, a black jacket lacking sleeves on his torso and coming down to his ankles, and a katana around his waist, held up by a plain brown belt. The wolf's eyes remained closed for the duration of his stay, until one of the soldiers accidentally bumped into him during the energetic mosh pit. "Hey, watch where you're-"
The soldier didn't get the opportunity to finish his sentence, as the wolf effortlessly grabbed a hold of his neck, slamming the recruit head-first into the table, cracking it straight in half and causing all eyes to turn to the wolf. He turned towards the crowd with a look of cold disdain; his left eye had a rather nasty scar, and was a bright yellow color as opposed to his reddish-colored right eye. "Now now, settle down everyone..."
All eyes went to the other side of the room, where a rather elderly hound, not unlike the one overlooking the Lunar Guild exam, was standing. "Save your strength for the test. All you must do is make it out of that door."
The recruits' attention was turned to a door behind the old dog, where a door, also similar to the one Victor had seen, was set up. "One at a time, please." Oblivious to the dog's request, the recruits began shoving their way towards the door, with the exception of the intimidating wolf, who began leisurely taking his spot at the end of the line.
-Meanwhile-
Many of the recruits were starting to get discouraged, a large majority of them having failed to emerge victorious from whatever challenge awaited them. After the dog received word that yet another recruit failed, he glanced over at the small amount left. "Next..."
Finally having seen enough, Victor stepped up, saying, "I'm going in."
The dog turned his attention towards Victor, the dragon being a few inches shorter than him once his hair was added into the equation; without the added height, Victor would've easily been about a full foot and a half shorter than him. Another evil grin crept onto the dog's muzzle, though his draconic target was unperturbed. "Good luck..."
With this comment, Victor headed into the room, soon finding it starting to slope downwards, meaning that he was headed underground. This didn't bother the dragon all that much, and he soon found the path in front of him opening up, revealing a rather large chamber. It wasn't so much the room that caught his attention; more or less, it was the intimidating mech in the middle of the room. Victor guessed it was at least 10 feet taller than him, and had four segmented spider-like legs along the bottom of its round, orb-like body. On top of this were four other appendages which held weapons, namely a buzzsaw, blaster, a blade, and mace.
Before Victor could examine the machine any more, a red light suddenly sprouted on its front, the mech starting to slowly stand up with a low grinding sound. Its eye soon settled on Victor, who frowned, crouching lightly in preparation for an attack. His cue came when the buzzsaw began spinning, before being shot like a projectile towards Victor, who expertly hopped to the side as the weapon smashed the ground, before being reeled back in. The dragon took this opportunity to lunge forward, grabbing a hold of the blade on his back. He quickly unsheathed his weapon, leaping at the mech and bringing his weapon downwards. Instead, however, one of the bladed arms blocked the attack, managing to knock Victor's weapon out of his claws before plowing him backwards with the mace.
Victor quickly toppled to the ground, rolling back to his feet and skidding to a halt, picking up his blade in the process. The mech obviously wasn't done, and proceeded to fire several large rounds of energy from its blaster arm, which Victor dodged by stepping to the side, all while rushing towards his opponent. Seeing that he was approaching, the mech prepared to fling its mace at him, only for Victor to quickly hop over the incoming attack, landing on the round object. The mech's bladed arm was the next to be hurled at Victor, who grunted, before quickly leaning to the side, causing the blade to just barely nick at his side.
Ignoring the sharp pain and the blood flying from the newly formed wound, Victor leaped at the mech, lifting his sword and delivering a smash onto the robot's metallic shell. The dragon's eyes shot open after his blade was deflected with a resounding clang, having no effect on his target. Victor let out a growl, watching as the blade arm was slung up at him, the dragon managing to block the stab with his sword and redirect it to the side. However, this also caused him to be sent flying back slightly, Victor landing with a thud on the mech's head. The slick surface caused him to begin sliding back, Victor growling angrily as he dug his claws onto his makeshift platform, trying to get a foothold. His desperate attempt was rewarded when his nails snagged on an opening, forcing Victor to hastily scramble to grab a hold of the object, which he noticed was a square shaped panel on the robot's head. "Wha?"
Victor grabbed a hold of the panel, which soon began creaking slightly, only to abruptly fly off from Victor's repeated prying, sending the dragon flying to the ground with a painful slam. He quickly got back to his feet, glancing at the opening in the mech's head that had been uncovered by the panel; Victor could barely make out a tangle of wires and various bits of machinery inside. "That's...a way inside..."
The mech began stumbling around, a thought slowly starting to form in Victor's head and causing the dragon to grin confidently. "If I can't destroy it from the outside...I'll have to destroy it from the inside!"
