Third Exam: Trick Tower(Part 3)
As it was nighttime outside, the group was still in the small room waiting,
Killua shows Gon the first step of skateboard by flipping with it, "If you hesitate on the first step then you'll get hurt." He hands Gon the skateboard.
"Got it." Gon takes it.
"That was cool." Wendy compliments.
"Oh-uh, thanks." Killua awkwardly thanks.
"I see what's going on." Happy smirks and teases.
"Huh... what?" Killua looks down at him.
"Ah, forget about it." Happy turns around but still has a smirk on his face.
"Hey, Kurapika." Leorio calls, "Once we complete this fifty-hours, we'll have fewer then 10 hours left, right?"
"That's way more than enough time!" Leorio is glad to here it.
"What a fool." Tonpa insults after drinking tea.
"What?" Leorio turns to him.
"Phase three lasts 22 hours and each phase is designed to weed out half of the remaining candidates. So, on average, it's meant to take 72 hours." Tonpa smugly explains, "Just goes to show that your an idiot."
"Well, our chances of reaching the goal in ten hours will depend on the trails that remain."
After sipping again, "But when we've got a guy who's so down on luck, he can't even win a simple game of rock-paper-scissors."
"What was that?!" Leorio raises a fist at him while sitting down on the couch.
"You deliberately lost a bet, just so you can satisfy your libido." Tonpa smirks smugly at him, "Then you chose rock-paper-scissors, a contest you couldn't win."
"You surrendered without even a fight!" Leorio retorts back before seeing happy walk over to his bag, "Hey, Happy! Back me up here!"
Happy turns to him, "What is it?"
"Oh, there just going back and forth about who lost for horribly." Kurapika explains and sighs with his hand up to his head.
"If that's the case then yeah, tonpa did freak out like a coward and surrendered his match." Happy starts to say.
"Ha! How'd ya like that!" Leorio points delightedly at him.
"But at the same, you lost a betting game, which was the easiest match out of ours, so it's basically your fault that we're sending a long time in here... but complaining about it won't do so there's that." Happy says the truth before smirking, "But I'll admit, that libido gamble was pretty funny." He teases before walking back to where the kids are.
"Hey! You traitor!" Leorio points at the cat and is surprised happy called him out as well.
"Wow, he was stating facts on that one." Kurapika was surprised a little.
After sipping tea, "See? Even the cat called you out." Tonpa smirks smugly.
"He called you out too!" Leorio exclaims and points at him.
"But he and everyone else in hear knows that it is your fault for wasting hours." Tonpa retorted, "And like he said, your match was the easiest and you still got your ass handed to you."
"Why you...!" Leorio readies his fist.
"Sure, I surrendered, but I only wasted a second of our time." Tonpa smirks and retorts back, "You lost, squandering fifty of our remaining hours." He closes his eyes, unimpressed, "Take some responsibility, would ya?"
Leorio is pissed now, "What sort of hunter is terrible at gambling?" Tonpa then sips some tea.
"Shut up! You don't even want to become a hunter..." Leorio stood up and had enough of him, "You only care about ruining our chances!"
"And now you'll have the guilt of eating it for the guilt of eating it for the rest of this exam." Tonpa smirks.
A skateboard then flies across the room, almost hitting them
"Hey, what do you think your doing?!" Leorio questions.
"That was an accident." Wendy explains.
"Sorry about that." Gon scratches his head.
"Don't skateboard inside this tiny room!" Leorio warns.
"Aww..." Gon complains.
As it was nighttime outside, Everybody was sleeping in their own spaces, while killua is up and thinking about something as the hour was 40.
"Can't sleep?" Wendy wakes up next to him.
Killua looks at her and blushes again, "S-so close!" He thought.
"Killua?" Wendy questions.
"Oh-uh, it's not that at all." Killua assures.
"Then what is it?" Kurapika then wakes up.
"I can go 2 or 3 days without sleep." Killua looks at the time.
"Wow, that's a surprise." Wendy states before looking at the hours, "Ten hours have passed, huh..."
"There aren't any windows, so it's hard to tell, but it's probably morning." Kurapika guesses.
"Most likely." Killua guesses as well before getting up with a pillow to try something on gon.
"Uhh... What are you doing?" Wendy is confused, to which killua grins in response before throwing the pillow at gon, but to his surprise, gon catches it and throws it back.
"Oh no..." Wendy sighs, "A pillow fight?"
Killua throws it at gon again and they start a pillow fight, "And wendy this is for you." Gon ends up throwing it at her, to which she barely catches, "Okay, you've done it now." Wendy decides to join them as they pillow fight.
"Hey, pipe down." Leorio sleeps but talks.
"Yeah, I'm trying to sleep here." Happy does the same and agrees, to which the trio laughs and goes back to their positions.
"Let me sleep more..." Leorio mumbles, but tonpa's feet gets near his face, which drives leorio crazy, "That stinks!"
The group laughs at his reaction, even happy as he wakes up.
"That wasn't funny." Leorio sits up before checking on tonpa, "You better not be pretending to sleep, you bastard."
As the time is 39:59, "Damn, now I'm totally awake... and we still have 40 hours left?"
In the morning:
Everyone is in their own little space, doing their own thing while Gon teaches the basics of his rod to killua and wendy.
"Oh, I thought you just had to stock bait on a hook and you could fish." Killua thought it was.
"I thought the same." Wendy agreed.
"You have to think like a fish." Gon explains as he holds his rod in the air.
"Like a fish?" Killua questions and they don't get it.
"How would a fish feel if it saw bait dangling in front of it? Give me that." Gon takes the hook from killua.
"You guys talking about fish over there is now making me hungry." Happy listens and goes in his bag to get a piece, "Good thing I grabbed a lot out of the dining hall on the airship."
Gon analyzes the distance before throwing the hook forward, land perfectly in tonpa's cup.
"Wow!" Killua and wendy beamed.
"You can go first." Gon hands wendy the rod.
She analysis the distance a bit before throwing the hook forward into a cup on the table, "I did it!" She beamed before rowing it back.
"Way to go." Gon congratulates.
"Let me try." Killua takes it next before doing the same and hooked forward next to leorio's feet.
"You missed." Gon laughs a little, and so did wendy.
"Just watch." Killua then rows it back grabs onto leorio's pants, which wakes him up from his nap.
"H-Huh... what are you doing? Hey..." Leorio struggles to get the hook off him.
"Just as planned!" Killua rows.
"Nice." Gon congradulates.
"Hey, my pants will get torn at this rate, stop it..." The hook then gets off of leorio pants, rip it a little.
"See? I caught him." Killua told them.
"Yep." The two can see that.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Leorio exclaims.
"No need to be upset, leorio." Wendy tells him.
"Yeah, it's not like I'm gonna grill and eat you." Killua jokes.
"Don't mess with me, you fool!" Leorio warns, "Man, I can't even nap." He complains and the trio laughs at him, much to his annoyance."
Tonpa is smiling about something, and leorio notices, "What are you smiling about?"
"Oh, nothing." Tonpa lies.
"You must be up to something again." Leorio knows.
"It's pretty obvious that he is." Happy is munching on his fish while sitting down and listening a distance back.
"Of course not." Tonpa turns his head, "I just want to spend the rest of my time here peacefully.
"Liar! I don't trust you, got it?" Leorio makes himself clear before sitting down.
"The feeling's mutual." Tonpa thought.
After the group slept through the night and on to the next day, everyone was getting prepared as the time was nearing the end for them to get out.
As the time was now 1 minute:
"Ok! Ready to go!" Gon and the group is readying themselves at the door, prepared to take off.
"One minute left and we're finally out!" Happy flies up.
"This is one long minute." Leorio groans.
As the door opens, gon is the first one to step out, followed by the rest of the group. After thirty minutes of running:
"After 30 minutes, we're right back to where we started." Leorio bends down a little.
"You're tired out already? I'm not." Happy brags.
"That's because your flying, cat!" Leorio looks up at him.
"We should of taken those stairs down." Killua shrugged.
"Shut up! We all agreed on this route!" Leorio shouts at him.
They then proceeded to encounter different sort of routes, much to their dismay and struggles. After being chased by a huge rock, the group is covered in dirt from all of that.
"Man, I'm all dirty now." Killua complains a little.
"After all that, it's no surprise." Wendy then checked her watch, "We only have an hour left now."
They then made it to another voting screen:
"We're supposed to vote on whether to open the door?" Leorio questioned the screen, "We need to move on. So obviously, we want to open the door."
They then pressed the answer and the screen reveals to be 6 for O and 1 for X.
Leorio angrily thinks it's tonpa and grabs him by the shirt, "I've had enough of your crap."
"Here we go again." Happy shakes his head.
"Wait, I pressed O." Tonpa tries to explain.
Pulling him closer, "Don't lie... your specialty is ruining the chances of other people!"
"Sorry, leorio." Gon apologizes, "I accidentally pressed the wrong button."
"What?" Leorio then let's go of tonpa, "Oh, I see." He proceeds to walk but...
"Hold on." Tonpa halts him, "You owe me an apology. I can't let that slide."
Leorio turns to him, "It's your own fault for doing things make me not wanna trust you. I don't owe you a damn thing."
"You make it sound like I'm to blame for everything that's gone wrong." Tonpa retorts.
"What was that?" Leorio questions and sneers.
"Have you forgotten who cost us those 50 hours?" Tonpa reminds and keeps on going, "You're the one who made that critical mistake."
Leorio was about to go at him until kurapika stops him on the shoulder, "Hey, leorio..."
"Shut up, kurapika!" Leorio tells him to stay out of it.
The two then get ready to fist fight.
"Are you two really gonna settle this now?!" Happy questions as what they're doing.
"Please stop it guys." Wendy tries to break them up.
"Yeah, it was my fault for pressing the wrong button." Gon tries to do the same.
"It was just an accident so don't worry about." Wendy assures him.
"Stupid. I'm going on ahead." Killua insults leorio and tonpa as he opens the door.
"So am I." Happy follows him as they went on.
"Wait, you two!" Wendy tries to halt them.
"Hey, gon, wendy..." Killua peaks out, "We're getting close to the goal."
"What? Really?" Gon and wendy are delighted to here that as they proceeded on.
They than go in the room with two doors labeled as X and O:
"Let's see, "This will be the majority rule's last decision. Are you ready? Choose O or X" That's all." Killua reads with hands in pocket.
"Am I ready? You bet." Leorio said before they voted and it ends up being 6 for O or 1 for X.
"Bastard..." Leorio has had enough and turns to tonpa.
"Stop it!" Kurapika halts him.
"Yeah, would you stop trying to argue." Happy agrees.
"Please select a path." Bippo's voice comes through the top of the statue, "There will be two choices. One path allows all 7 to pass, but is long and difficult. The other path allows only four, but is short and easy." The sound of that surprises them, "Incidentally, the long and difficult requires a minimum of forty-five hours. The short and easy leads to the goal in approximately three minutes. Press O for the long and difficult and X for the short and easy path. If X is required then two people must be secured to the wall with handcuffs on them, before the door will open. The two chained members will be unable to move until the expired time limit."
Around the group are different kinds of weapons, "The examiners were very prepared. I think I have every weapon under the sun here." Kurapika looks around, "4 out of 7..."
So we're suppose to fight to decide the three who pass?!" Happy exclaims.
"That looks to be the case." Wendy answers with a worried look.
"What?!" Happy couldn't believe it.
"Let me make this clear. I'm going to press X, But I have no intention of staying behind. I'll do whatever it takes to be one of the four..." Leorio declares.
"Your shameless..." Tonpa insults, "Had you not wasted fifty hours, we could have taken the long path. Shouldn't you take responsiblity and stay behind?"
"What!?" Leorio raises his fist at him.
"I'm sure everyone else agrees! Have I said anything inaccurate?" Tonpa turns to them and questions, "I mean the cat already agreed that it was his fault."
"Don't drag me into your bickering." Happy warns him while flying.
"Hold on." Everyone turns to gon as he makes an announcement, "I'm going to press O. We made it all the here together. I want us all to pass together."
"Gon..." Wendy looks at him.
"Even if it's a big risk, I want to give it a shot!" Gon makes himself clear.
"It would be crazy to go for that risk?!" Happy exclaims.
"Come on, you can't really call this a risk." Killua says.
"And we only have an hour left. we wouldn't be able to make it in time." Wendy warns.
"Exactly, gon, so there's only one option if you want to pass this exam." Killua tries to make him understand.
"There you have it." Leorio says as it's decided.
"Now we have to decide and pick four out of seven of us." Happy states.
"Well, I'm planning on it to be only gon, wendy, and me." Killua decides, "And probably happy too."
"Probably?! I know for a fact I'm not getting left behind!" Happy points at himself dramatically.
"I made it this far so I won't fail now." Tonpa thought and backed away, "Who makes the first move wins."
"Must we really fight amongst ourselves?" Kurapika doesn't know what to do.
"We really don't have to do this..." Wendy thought as well.
Just then tonpa swings an axe down at leorio, who barely dodges.
"What the hell, ton[a?! That was dirty!" Leorio exclaimed as the whole group was on guard.
"In a fight there's no such thing as dirty!" Tonpa picks up the axe and faces leorio and starts swinging at him, which leorio dodges a lot before setting his suitcase down and grabbing a circled spear, "Bastard!" Leorio is in his fighting position.
"Stop this right now, you two!" Kurapika tries to halt them.
"Come on... let's do it together." Gon tries to say.
"I know there's an easier way..." Wendy tries as well.
"Before we start fighting, we have to choose O or X!" Leorio states as he trades spear blows with tonpa.
"It's already too late for that." Tonpa trades back as well and his weapon crashes into the wall, cracking it.
Gon notices the crack and starts getting an idea
"Time to put you in your place!" Leorio states at tonpa.
"Right back at you." Tonpa replied and pulled his weapon out the wall.
"Seems like we have no choice but to fight." Killua gets his claws out and ready.
"Come on, are we really doing this?!" Happy exclaims, not wanting any part of it.
"What should I do?" Kurapika sees that this has gone out of hand.
Gon backs away and grabs an axe.
"Hold on gon! don't tell me your gonna fight too?!" Wendy questions him.
"No, I actually have a plan." Gon tells her and let's her in on what the plan is.
Wendy gets it and likes the idea before calming everyone else, "Guys! we have an idea!"
"What type of idea?" Kurapika questioned.
Gon explained that they could press the O button and then cut a hole in the wall to sneak into the short and easy path. The group likes the idea and each grabbed a weapon(Happy grabbed a short axe) before commenting to the plan. Each of them are axing down the wall(Happy is doing it but is only making a little progress due to his small body) for the next 55 minutes before entering through and running down the easy path.
Three minutes later, the door opens and they makes it through in order:
"Happy, applicant #408, is the twentieth to pass."
"Kurapika, applicant #404, is the twentieth-first to pass."
"Killua, applicant #99, is the twenty-second to pass."
"Wendy, applicant #412, is the twenty-third to pass."
"Gon, applicant #405, is the twenty-fourth to pass."
"Total time, seventy-one hours and fifty-nine minutes."
"Man, My butt hurts..." Killua sighs.
"I didn't expect a slide for the short and easy path." Happy deactivates his wings out of exhaustion and wendy catches him.
Hisoka sees them from a distance, "Four of them and a cat..."
As thirty seconds are remaining, "That was really close." Gon says.
"My hands are covered with blisters." Kurapika raises his hands.
"Same here." Leorio and tonpa are pushing each other as they are coming up at the finish line.
"Leorio, applicant #403, is the twenty-fifth to pass."
"Tonpa, applicant #16, is the twenty-sixth to pass."
"Total time, seventy-one hours and fifty-nine minutes."
"My hands are blistered, but all five of us passed together." Leorio looks at his hands before giving gon and wendy pats on the head, "And it's all thanks to gon and wendy."
The two laugh, "Actually, it was really gon that thought of the plan and filled me in on it before you guys." Wendy explains who's idea it was.
"Either way, we finally made it through this!" Leorio is delighted.
"In the extreme situation, you were able to calmly evaluate our two options and circumvent them. That's what makes you special." Kurapika smiles and looks at gon.
The bell then rings and the third phase of the exam is now over and twenty-sixth examinees have passed.
All right guys, Trick tower is done. Now it's time for the hunting target in the next exam.