Chapter 03 - Phase I
"RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG!"
One of the mechanical walls opened and revealed a seemingly mouthless man with black mustache, pale blue expressionless eyes and light violet hair. He was taller than Accelerator, had long thin limbs and wore a dark violet suit with a reddish pink tie. From him came the annoying ringing noise.
"I apologize for the wait. The entry period for the Hunter applicants has ended. The Hunter Exam will begin now!" said the man, his mustache moving as he spoke. The participants started to look a lot less tense then before, some of them were already smirking. "As final caution, if you are short on luck or ability, you could very well end up seriously injured or even dead. Those who accept the risks, please follow me." The expressions of the crowd turned more serious. "Otherwise please exit via… elevator…" All of them turned to look at the completely broken elevator.
"Sorry, that was my fault." said Accelerator calmly. Even though he destroyed the elevator and elevator shaft the other applicants appeared to be unfazed. They all wanted to compete in the exam, not one of them wanted to tuck their tail between their legs and run. He smirked, everyone stayed and would participate. Not too bad, he thought. At least they were willed to bet their lives on this, no going back or taking anything back. From now on everything between them was strictly business.
"Very well." the man continued, "All 405 applicants will participate in Phase One." Hmm? Four hundred and five? Oh, number 44, Hisoka, killed one gladiator styled guy and Last Order disabled the other one to get the scooter. The man turned around, raised his right foot high, roughly a hundred degrees, and started to walk like a mechanical toy soldier. The only thing which seemed to lack was the key on his back to wind him up. What was wrong with these people? First the living pincushion who was walking with jerky movements and now this? People here surely were weird.
They started to go comfortably after the man. After a while he realized that the man started to gain more and more speed and Accelerator hopped onto his skateboard, which looked like to the other participants as if it was driving without his help. Last Order did the same and used electricity to move her scooter forward. There decided to keep driving a little bit behind Gon, Kurapika and Leorio group. Maybe they could entertain him for a while with their naivety or stupidity.
After some minutes of fast going or slow jogging the different groups started to run in earnest. So that guy, Nicolas, was right. He was not quite sure if he could trust him, but Accelerator and Last Order were lucky that other people were not good at running too. Hopefully this would only last a few hours and then be done with it. "I neglected to introduce myself." said the man running at the front, "I am Satotz, the Phase One examiner. I shall lead you to the exam's Second Phase."
"Second Phase?" asked the bald ninja. "What about Phase One?" That was also a question which answer he liked to know.
"It has already commenced." answered Satotz without turning around.
"It's already begun?" he heard the others murmur, "This is part of the test?"
"You must follow me to Phase Two." said Satotz while turning only his head around to face them while still managing to go on, "This is the exam's First Phase."
"Follow you? That's it?" asked Baldy. It could not have been better. It was an endurance test, but people could use anything they wanted to get to the goal. He also saw a woman riding a bicycle in the back. If you came prepared, they would have better chances to complete the different tasks.
"Yes." answered the examiner, "I cannot tell you where or when you must arrive. You need to follow me." Not bad from the examiner. It was not only an endurance test, but also tested one's mental stress capabilities. The mental strain of not knowing how far they had to run or when it would end could bring some of them to their knees. They would have to crawl to the end. A simple trial for testing the mental fortitude of the participants. Two in one, rather ingenious.
After approximately half an hour the others had to run at full speed, while he and Last Order just drove alongside them comfortably. Last Order was talking nonstop at the moment, he just kept answering, "Aha." and nodded along to whatever she said. The calculation of these vectors was not that complicated and she feed the scooter engine enough energy to last a while. If Nicolas was right, they have to do this for the next three hours or so and then hopefully his boredom would end. After all he was in the whole exam because of the excitement, not to be bored.
Two hours later and he had nearly died of boredom. At the speed the others were now running, they have already managed to run over thirty kilometers from the start. Only ten more to go or so number 187 said. Some of them already fell behind, but still continued to run. It could also be that the course was longer than they thought before and were forced to run at the examiner's pace with no goal specified. Poor them. He was still driving comfortably. Maybe he was a little bit stiff from staying still on the skateboard the whole time, but mostly he was all right physically. He was however bored like hell, the mental stimulation here was nearly zero.
He had already taken a look at all the other participants, judged their strengths and weaknesses, listened to the brat and was still bored. He looked at Last Order who drove the last two hours well-behaved beside him, but he started to see signs of boredom on her face too. She was quiet right now, clearly untypical for her. No, that would not end well. A bored brat was an annoying brat. The last time she was bored he had to search through the underground shopping center for her, but he could understand her boredom. The course was so fricking monotonous and boring, he wanted to kill someone. Hmm, a killing spree would be the right thing to lighten his mood.
He started to snicker, he just thought of something funny. 'A good worker is a living worker, he lives and works. A bad worker is a dead worker…'
They were passed by a happy and unnaturally motivated Nicolas, who was once again tipping away on his laptop while running. Leorio before them was sweating profusely which was no wonder in this business suit while dragging along something unhandy like a briefcase. He was running jerkily because one arm had to stay still because of the weight of the briefcase. People with mostly backpacks and shoulder bags were snickering at this sight. They probably thought he was something like an idiot and an oh-so typical newbie, not knowing what he had to do here. Maybe they could annoy him some more, he desperately needed some entertainment.
Maybe he should have bought a mini television and brought it with him, so they could at least watch something but he did not know that the exam would be so dull. Everyone always said that it was difficult and exhausting, but he was neither, just literally bored stiff. His iPod did not help at all.
They quickened their pace and drove beside Leorio. Last Order who could not contain her boredom any longer started to drive circles around a now red faced Leorio grinning happily. She was laughing cheerfully annoying all the other participants with her seemly endless energy and happy expression. Leorio immediately got angry at the sight of her and shouted "Hey! Wait up, kid! You should show the Hunter Exam some respect!" She stopped driving circles and looked at him questionably.
After thinking about what to say for a while or if she should even answer him, she asked, "Why, asked Misaka as Misaka tries to understand what you want to say to Misaka." Well, he should not think to highly of this man, it was the same who took one of Tonpa's drinks with a dumb smile on his face and a thankful expression. Of course, he, who came here in a suit of all things and an unhandy suitcase with clearly no idea what could happen in these tests, would be jealous of someone smarter and better prepared than him. Idiot.
"Why are you using an electric scooter? That is cheating!" Leorio pointed out. Really big idiot. Accelerator just chuckled darkly and drove beside him with his skateboard, "And you too!" Leorio pointed at him.
"Why?" he repeated Last Order's question. Let's see what the small brain of his had thought the whole time. Will he be naïve or not so naïve? Most people here really did not understand the real world. The pain it could cause the people, how it felt to kill a person in cold blood, to see their remaining life being drained from their eyes, some people here were just too naïve.
"Why? This is an endurance test!" Leorio screamed enraged. In a way yes, idiot, but nobody had forbidden them to use some aids to reach the goal. And what the hell? All those flying hearts and goody two-shoes not knowing idiots were getting on his nerves with their stupid ideals. Cheating was part of the deal and the everyday life. That was real life and it was mostly unfair. If he was too stupid to bring such a thing like a bike, skateboard or anything else with him, even his clothing choice was idiotic, why should not they?
"No. It is not." interrupted Gon. He looked surprised at the kid clad in green. Maybe the little brat was not as stupid and naïve as he first thought, he could have been wrong after all. Since he had limited experience with other people and social things, he was not perfect in judging other people's characters. Last Order was far better than him in this kind of thing.
"Gon, what are you saying?" But the man seemed to be an idiot, an old-fashioned idiot.
"The examiner only told us to follow him." Gon defended Last Order and him and with that he was right. 'Follow me' nothing more, nothing less. If the idiot could not even listen he should not be in this exam.
"Whose side are you on, eh?" Neutral or at last not on Leorio's side.
"Eh, you did not seem to be that bad." they heard a voice saying from behind them. The white haired kid with the number 99 came up from behind their group and ran beside Gon. "How old are you?" the other brat asked.
"I am twelve years old." answered Gon honestly.
"And how old are you?" he turned his head to Last Order who once again started to drive circles around them.
"Misaka is eleven years old, answers Misaka while Misaka raised her fist happily to the ceiling." she told them cheerfully. The white haired kid starred at her for a moment, before his face turned into a nice red shade, but still pointed his finger at her.
"Oye, you are the one who stole my skateboard!" the kid shouted reproachfully and everyone looked surprised at her.
"Stolen, asked Misaka as Misaka tries to look innocent. Misaka merely borrowed it from you, says Misaka. You will get it back once this boring running test ended, states Misaka as Misaka tries to look neutral and composed." Well, his little brat was right.
"Whatever." the brat turned with a slight blush back to Gon, "My name is Killua."
"I am Gon." He, being the over protective brother of course, saw the slight blush on number 99's face and scolded. He would get her away from him and before Killua could ask her for her name, they began to drive to the front and take a look. They passed Nicolas who was sweating profusely, drool running from his mouth and snot from his nose, eyes wide and panting like there was no tomorrow. He looked at his watch. Three and a half hour already passed, so they run probably fifty kilometers. Too bad number 187 obviously only trained for those forty kilometers. They did not even spare him a pitiful look and continued their journey to the front.
"I won't accept that!" they heard a wail from behind but kept driving forward. They passed the smirking clown brothers, Amori, Imori and Umori, who were slowing down a bit and Tonpa who jumped out of their way as soon as he met his death glare. There was another wail behind them which was also ignored. Tonpa looked smug; he had probably something to do with this. Rookie crushing was probably his hobby, well, he should not say something against him… his hobby often involved dead people. He looked to the front.
It was rather incredible. Right behind the examiner the pig wrestler, the Mickey Mouse huntsman, the bald ninja with weird eyebrows, the snake man, a monkey man, also a woman, the living pincushion and the magician were running and not even sweating that much. Whoa, not so bad. At least they all had great stamina. He looked once more at his watch. More than four hours had already passed and they traveled at least sixty kilometers.
And it was still boring. He thought the Hunter Exam was supposed to be exiting, not dull as hell. He sighed loudly; he could do nothing against it. He even thought about taking out some of the other participants, but it would be too dangerous for him and the brat. He could accidently touch the floor and the whole tunnel could collapse and bury them alive. No, using his power here was far too dangerous and maybe a little bit suicidal. They passed the first crowd and drove comfortably beside the man called Satotz.
After ten minutes the examiner looked his way and fixed his stare on his skateboard. His blue eyes started to glow shortly before returning to its original pale blue color. "My, oh my, I have never seen something like that before. If you do not mind me asking you, but how does it run without you doing anything?" the others behind them seemed to try to listen in on this conversation. They were probably on one side pissed and on the other interested, because he was stiff but comfortable standing on the skateboard not really moving a finger or lifting his foot to push and not sweating or looking as if he did something. They probably thought, Last Order's scooter had some kind of huge battery somewhere installed to drive so long, but he was just standing on a magical or maybe Nen or aura powered skateboard or something like that.
"My power." he said shortly. Of course he would not tell them anything about his 'vector change' ability and that he could stop the rotation of the planet if he put his mind into it or destroy whole cities and armies which was the definition of being a Level 5.
"Ne, mister examiner. How long do we have to do this, asks Misaka as Misaka tries to not yawn. It is so boring, exclaims Misaka loudly while looking bored around." said Last Order on the examiner's other side. He felt a little bit of killer intent from the participants behind him at her statement. Satotz looked surprised at the brat before answering,
"A while…" And they continued to drive beside the man. Boring. Sometimes Last Order would send a burst of energy to the scooter engine only to shoot pass them while laughing uncontrollably and to turn around and drive back to them. For a while she even talked animatedly to the examiner much to Satotz's amusement – she talked, he listened. Her still being so full of energy and the speaking in third person about herself seemed to really tick all those people behind them off, he chuckled.
And then after approximately eighty kilometer and some hours later, they reached the stairs. Those behind him started to snicker loudly, thinking now that the ground was not even anymore they had to run and would dropout. But he was not really sorry to disappoint them, Last Order and Accelerator just continued to drive on the left and right side of the examiner a little bit on the even wall. He just changed the vectors of gravity around him and she just the magnetic fields to stick the scooter to the metal wall. He heard some cries of outrage behind them, but simply ignored it. Satotz got even faster once the first group of participants was on the stairs. His steps could now take ten stairs in one go.
"Wait, are you serious?" the pig wrestler said behind them.
"That guy is insane." said the bald ninja, "He is prancing up the stairs as if they are not even there and those two are really pissing me off!" Baldy pointed his finger at them. As response Last Order just waved her arm happily at him. They continued to drive for some time before they finally saw the lights of the exit. The two kids, Killua and Gon, had managed to run to the front as well and that was rather incredible. Those two had more energy and stamina than most of the adults here.
"The exit!" they heard the ninja exclaim, "Whew… Finally, I can get out of this dark tunnel!" The others started to speed up when seeing the light. Tch, the wall by the last few stairs was vertically, so he told Last Order to give her scooter a burst of energy to jump the last few meters, which they both did. The examiner stopped right at the end of the stairs while Accelerator, Last Order, Gon and Killua passed him all at once.
"Goal!" the two children screamed loudly. They stopped a little bit away from the exit to not hinder the other participants of coming out. Accelerator and Last Order turned around to face them.
"Eh, how unfair. Since both of them had help, I am going to be the winner." said Killua to Gon while pointing at Accelerator and Last Order. They did have help, but what did it matter. Who was first was not important after all. He took the skateboard from the ground; he had to give it back to the white haired brat after all. He was not a nice guy, but if he said he would return it, he would.
"What are you talking about? I was first." said Gon. They continued their little fight.
"I was faster…" said Killua which was followed by a long 'Yes, I was.' and 'No, you were not.' and it ended with someone buying dinner or something like that. Accelerator looked around. Now there were in some kind of forestish environment. Foggy, wet, muddy, mixture between grassland and forest, nothing interesting like the place of the second phase anywhere and hopefully not another boring run...
"Hey, Satotz-san. Is this where the Second Phase of the exam takes places?" asked Gon curiously.
"No, we still have quite a way to go." answered the examiner. So it was another run and it looked like he could not use the skateboard or Last Order now her scooter. The ground was too uneven and muddy to even think about driving on it. He had to think of something else. There were not that many things he could do, but something will have to function, hopefully.
"Oh…" Accelerator just answers and gave Killua the skateboard back with a thankful nod of his head. Without it would have been troublesome to complete the first part of the still ongoing first test. They sat down on the ground and decided to wait for the other participants. It was boring again, sitting there starring at the fog.
Maybe he should take a little nap before trying to come up with a solid strategy. More and more people started to come out of the tunnel like for example the remaining part of the Gon group. Kurapika was still running normally up the stairs now only in his white full body training suit while Leorio was crawling at his hands and feet out of the tunnel only wearing his pants and his tie. Where was the man's suitcase? He looked around and realized that Gon also dragged Leorio's suitcase with him. Incredible.
"Hey, Kurapika!" yelled Gon joyfully.
"Is this our destination?" asked Kurapika after looking around.
"No, it is not." answered Gon.
"I see. The fog is fading." Only partly.
"Really?" Gon looks happily around. Some ravens cried out in the distance while the exit slowly started to close. They tuned their heads towards the examiner as Satotz began to say,
"The Numere Wetlands, also known as Swindlers Swamp. We must cross these wetlands to reach Phase Two of the exam. This place is home to many bizarre animals, many of them being cunning, insatiable creatures who deceive humans and prey upon them. Be very careful." Satotz turned around and looked at them, "If you let them fool you, you are dead." There was a nervous laughing in the group. The door behind slowly closed itself. One of the slower participants trying to reach for the exit, before it fully closed. "These wetland creatures will use every trick in the book to fool their prey." the participants turned back to the examiner. "An ecosystem in which creatures obtain food through deceit. Hence the name Swindlers Swamp. Stay very close to me so you won't be deceived."
"What a joke." Leorio spat, "How can they fool us, when we are expecting it?" Said the idiot who nearly drank the tampered soda and who did not really understand the instruction 'follow me' and thought they were cheating. Well, they were, but it was allowed.
As if it was planed they heard a voice from behind one of the sidewalls of the exit, "Don't let them fool you!" Everyone turned around to face the person to which the voice belonged.
"I just said that they cannot." said Leorio stupidly. Sometimes it was better to just shut up then to say something embarrassing.
"D-do not fall for it…" came from the corner. A dirty blonde haired man appeared, "He is lying to you!" the man pointed at their examiner. Apparently he was dragging something behind him. "He is an impostor! He is not an examiner, I am the real examiner." A weakling? This beaten-up weakling should be the real examiner. What an idiot.
"An impostor?" asked over half of the participants. Ohoho, now things were getting more interesting, but they should do so quickly. He wanted to get out of here and eat something and maybe nap a little bit. His still continuing and growing boredom did not really help the situation.
"What is going on?" Leorio asked for once quietly.
"Then who is he?" asked the ninja from the other side of the crowd.
"Look at this." the man dragged an ape like being with a face not even halfway similar to the one of the examiner into view.
"He looks just like Satotz-san!" said Gon, Killua just looked skeptical at them. There were not many similarities between Satotz and the whatever-it-was-in-the-first-place. It did have the same light violet hair and hair style like the examiner and a somehow similar mustache, but the rest, the shape of the face, the height and the proportion of the limbs of the creature were all just too different from the real thing.
"It is a Man-Faced Ape, one of the creatures that dwell in the Numere Wetlands!" Ah, the creature was an ape, an ape, which could speak, and look and dress like a normal human and manage to infiltrate the Hunter Exam. Bull shit… ah, he was getting irritated.
"A Man-faced Ape?!" Leorio yelled surprised. The man clearly did not know when to keep quiet.
"Man-faced Apes love the taste of fresh human flesh. However their limbs are long and thin, so they are quite weak." He was slim too and looked physically weak and was still a human being. Only that was not really a good argument. "That is why they disguise themselves as humans. They trick humans into following them into these wetlands, where they team up with other animals to kill and devour them. He intends to trap every single applicant!" the man pointed his finger at Satotz. There was a general exclaim of a mixture between surprise and outrage after the 'real' examiner's statement, but let's just cut the crap. He wanted food, a nap and then some entertainment and in exactly that order, so let's get this on.
"I have a question." said Accelerator for all to hear. "Just how weak are you?"
"W-what?" answered the 'real' examiner surprised, but he was not the only one. Most of the participants looked confused at him. They probably thought something like, 'What does this matter? Talk about random questions…' It was kind of pissing him off, but while looking through the crowd he discover some who thought about the meaning of his statement and some of them who already knew the answer. Accelerator took some steps towards the 'real' examiner.
"You seem to know these Man-Faced Apes quite well, don't you? So you as a man, who managed to pass the hunter exam years ago, were taken out by such an animal, which you just proclaimed as physically weak? And now you point your finger at the Hunter who brought us through a part of the First Phase, because you have found a cheap imitation of him in this forest from which you could miraculously flee after the apes beat you unconscious and did not eat you? Idiot." he said, "Please, Satotz-san. Can we continue with the test, I am bored as hell and maybe even beyond. If some of those losers are as stupid as that and get tricked by an ape, let them go with the impostor. At least then we don't have to worry about too many idiots participating." He said rather loudly. It would have been even more boring if everybody went with the impostor and nobody remained. So he could still watch others get killed. He turned back to face the imitation.
"And for you, you dirty piece of shit. Go back to the hole you came out of I will send you six feet under myself." He sent his death glare at the creature. The 'unconscious' ape in his arms jumped up and ran for his life and the impostor not that far away. There was another loud outcry of surprise from half of the participants.
"He was attempting to confuse the applicants, to lure some of them away." said Satotz as explanation cutting through their stupor.
"We cannot relax our guard." whispered Killua to Gon besides him.
"Yeah." answered Gon shortly.
"You will be encountering such deceptions on a regular basis. I believe that a number of you were fooled into suspecting my identity?" Ninja and Leorio laughed nervously. Idiots…
"Do you understand? If you lose sight of me in the Numere Wetlands fog, you will never reach the exam's Second Phase. Do bear that in mind. Then let us be on our way. Please follow me." Satotz turned around and started to walk like at the beginning of Phase One. Three hundred sixty seven ran quickly after the examiner, thirty six already dropped out and Accelerator and Last Order remained behind. While sitting around and waiting for the others he came up with a rather ingenious plan. Of course the needed also luck and whatnot, but there was a fifty percent chance that they would manage to get to the Second Phase.
"What will we do now, asked Misaka as Misaka looks after the last participants who vanished in the fog." Yes, he did have an idea and hopefully it would work exactly his way. He began to explain.
"The ground is too wet, muddy and uneven for us to run or drive; we would probably get stuck in the ground and get all of our clothes dirty. I also do not think that the examiner will run circles through this forest, only straight ahead. It is for the participants already difficult enough to just follow him, so he would probably not make it too complicated. My solution would be to fly into the direction in which Satotz went." he told her seriously. He would not go into his awakened state, but he could feel a faint wind in this area. He would use this to create whirlwinds behind his back and propel himself into the sky and then forward. This was the only thing they could do in this situation.
"YEAHO, flying, yells Misaka as Misaka runs around wildly." She wrapped her arms around his neck. He concentrated the wind behind his back in circular motion and they took off into the sky hoping that they would find the place of the Second Phase in the direction Satotz and the other participants were running.
AN: That was part of first phase of the Hunter Exam. I read somewhere that Accelerator reflected/redirected the UV rays of the sun, which was the reason why he was so pale and had white hair and red eyes, so I thought he would also be able to negate the effect of gravity. As for flying around… that's what he mostly did in the fight. I think first against the teleporter from GROUP, then 'Number 2' and so on.
I decided to make this fanfiction mostly anime (new) based, because there are occasionally different events and it sometimes get complicated with the skipping around between old and new anime and the manga. Next chapter will be the Second Phase.