Here's chapter 2, and with it the beginning of the Hunter Exams!

Disclaimer: I don't HunterXHunter (insert funny pun here).

Enjoy!

"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did."

~Newt Gingrich~

The beauty of forethought is the ability to plan, and planning had always been a special talent of mine-after all it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Thus the first thing I did when I got to Zaban City was have Navigator-chan escort me to the nearest pawn shop, after confirming that I still had plenty of time before the deadline. Once there I preceded to sell just about everything in my back-pack, luckily that weirdo psychic had caught me in between classes so my bag was filled with a variety of things.

Textbooks, a graphing calculator, a laboratory coat and goggles, my cellphone, a laptop, and more. After checking to see if either electronics were compatible with this world's systems-they weren't-I resigned myself to selling them.

The textbooks were written in English which apparently made them 'antiques' as all modern works were written in that weird cipher language they call Anak* it doesn't quiet make sense to me how a world can support a plethora of spoken dialects but then operate under one written tongue.

Especially once I realized that the ciphers were based off of Japanese Kana, if I remember correctly Napaj (Japan) was rather unknown to the characters in the series-excluding Hanzo who was born there and Kurapika who knows everything-yet it was the birth of the language archetype this world over...it was all very interesting and I resolved to look into this World's history when I had the chance.

Any-who, I ended up quite lucky-according to the sales man-because decent 'Old Texts' go for around 10,000 Jennie a pop. I just smiled and accepted his money all the while thinking that if the exchange rate is really 100.00 Jennie to $1.00 then he bought my text-books for roughly $100.00 each...still less than I had to pay when buying them last week.

The graphing calculator went for quite a lot too. Unfortunately my phone and laptop would basically be regarded as metal scraps and fetch just as much, thus I gave up my laptop but saved my phone planning to use it as some sort of notebook or something. I also decided to keep my lab coat and goggles, while I doubted I would need to experiment with chemicals any time soon I was about to enter a test that would-at multiple times-test my survival skills. An extra jacket and a pair of goggles could certainly come in handy.

After gathering the Jennie I had Navigator-chan take me to the nearest shopping center where I began to buy everything and anything that I felt would help me pass the phases. Then I followed her to the testing site. It was sometime during the three hour shopping-spree that I began to notice something...odd...about my body.

Namely, that I was not tired.

On top of that the constant throbbing pain I felt in my right thigh- ever since I pulled that muscle years ago-was gone. Noticing this I immediately stopped to check my flexibility only to find I could to an over-split a foot off the ground, no problem.

Standing up I threw a few quick punches and some kicks.

It quickly became apparent that this trans-dimensional journey had some how given me a body that was just as physically fit as I had been back when I was twelve, and was both a competitive gymnast and red-belt in Tai Kwon Do. A body with the vitality and stamina of a twelve year old, and the muscle-memory of a nineteen year old.

Cool.

I still stood no chance in these exams but at least this way when I lost I could say I gave it my best.

Hmmm, if I was back to my physical peak then I wonder...would I be able to unlock my nen? It took that Zoshi-kid 6 months to master Ten, right? But he managed to unlock his 'pathways' or whatever in 3 months. I don't remember how long the exam is, and it'd change depending on whether this universe follows the 1999 anime or the 2011 anime or the manga or some weird conglomeration of the three, but maybe if I meditate a bit each day I could link to my pathways before it was done.

Even if I don't get anywhere it's supposed to be helpful in the long run, right?

Thus, with a plan in mind I happily followed the navigator to the old restaurant and into the backroom/elevator thingy. When I entered the testing site I was given badge number 209 which meant that we were roughly half-way through the contestants arrivals.

After tracking down contestant 1 and finding out he had been here for two days already I found myself a nice little piece of wall to lay against and meditate. After all there's no time like the present and if meditating gave me a viable excuse to ignore Tonpa and just about every other person giving me an 'what are YOU doing here face' then all the better.

I was actually starting to look forward to these events, I may have been nothing in comparison to the super-humans like Gon, and Killua, and less than nothing compared to those who had mastered their own nen like Hisoka or Illumi but compared to the average Jo-shmo who took these exams I might not be a complete waste of space, if nothing else I know I could at least exceed their expectations of me.

Okay, I officially understand how all those characters felt when their masters told them the key to success was to 'sit there and meditate.'

Mediation is NOT easy. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a lying...liar! A dirty, lying, liar! Patience has nothing to do with it, and neither does perseverance. I have both of those in spades. I was able to sit in the same spot for the last day and a half, I was even able to sit there and not fall asleep.

But after the first hour, that was all I could do. Sit there. And sitting in one place, eyes open or closed, awake or asleep, it doesn't matter...just sitting there was not the same a meditating. But in my defense I don't know anyone with the attention-span needed to not let there mind-wander after an hour of intense contemplation.

There is only so much 'okay, I think I can feel...no that's wind from someone walking by' I can take. If anything knowing about nen was making it harder and it didn't help that I was hungry. All the "spiritual energy" shows I'd seen had pointed to our 'core' being near our stomach, but the only thing I could feel in my stomach was the gnaw of my hunger.

So yeah, meditating was not as easy as people made it seem. Luckily, I had an excuse to stop attempting it, assuming that slightly short little boy with spiky black-green was indeed Gon and not Gon's evil-twin Nog, or something.

"Hi, I'm Gon, and this is Leorio and Kurapika!" the kid shouted at the slightly chubby middle-aged man in front of him.

A~nd that answers that, hmm thinking on it now I wonder if I should warn the kid off from Tonpa, I mean I know he makes out alright in the end but helping might, I don't know, ingratiate him to me or something. Which may be helpful in the later rounds or if I ever need a place to crash, I'm sure he'd invite me to stay with Mito-san if he new I was virtually homeless...it does have merit.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" An ear-splitting screech pierced the air, and caused my eyes to swivel to my right where I saw Hisoka dicing up a fellow contestant.

Excuse me, I mean 'making it rain petals.'

And that is why I need to stay f-ar away from Gon and co. lest I risk catching the eye of that psycho, hot or not he us simply too dangerous to justify prolonged contact. I thought, while carefully backing away from the blood-lust filling the air. It might be unnoticeable to these freaks but having grown up sheltered in a nice suburban area, anything above "I want to punch the idiocy right out of you" was jarring to me.

Unfortunately my retreat seemed to set off the 'prey' instincts in Hisoka, or something, because the next thing I know the freak was starring right at me!

"Eh-hem."

...or he could be looking at the creepy no-smile proctor behind me.

"My name is..."

Running. Running. And more running. Such summed up the first exam. Or in my case I suppose I should say 'skating' as I wasted no time in pulling on my skates after Satotz announced that we had to 'follow him.'

It was all rather boring, and other than a brief "hey, that's cheating!" from Leorio-san, passed in relative silence. On the bright-side I confirmed that we seemed to be following the 1999 anime, or at least I assumed the reason Gon blasted through the wall had been because he'd gotten side-tracked by some hallucinogenic plants.

Honestly I was just too happy that this meant I didn't need to climb stairs to reach the end of phase one. Skating may have taken most of the effort out of the run but 80 kilometers was still 80 kilometers!

After leaving the cave I wasted no time in changing out of my skates, they were dead useful in the flat-cave and would probably be helpful if I made it to trick-tower, but they were not exactly suited for the swamp-land. My lab-goggles, however, and a piece of cloth to wrap around my mouth and nose to prevent any unwanted gases from messing with me, most certainly were.

I was so busy preparing myself for the task ahead that I didn't notice the piercing gaze Gittarackur *cough*Illumi*cough* had trained on me. Nor the way his eyes seemed to slink to my backpack before turning to face the proctor. Had I known I probably would have turned tail and fled right there, content to find a nunnery or some such place to take me in.

But I didn't, and so kept going with my preparations blissfully ignorant. Too busy trying to give myself a pep-talk to notice.

"Okay, so this is just more running and you'll need to stay up at the very front and even at your best you were never able to run a mile in less than 8 minutes. But that's okay, because you know something they don't know, which is that this is the last time you'll really need to run in over a month. So you are gonna get up there, and give it your all, and NOT get caught up in creepy magician's ideas of 'games.' Right? Right."

"...any attempt from this moment on will be taken as an attack on the proctor and disqualify you, now follow me."

Thus began, running...take two.

*Anak is simply Kana backwards since my research hasn't revealed a name for the cipher-like writing used throughout the Hunter-verse. And I can say it gave me a head-ache trying to understand why they had a universal system of writing that shows up on all important documentation, and yet when learning about Nen from Wing-san (and don't get me started on the honorifics) they were taught using the Kanji for 'Nen' 'Ten' 'Ren' and 'Hatsu.'

Thus, for my own sanity, I've decided that 'Anak' is the universal written language that everyone can read (sort of like math-it's a universal language) but each country has it's throw-backs to the 'Old-Tongues' (original Languages of said Country.) Thus, when studying something old; like a specific marital arts' principle *cough*nen*cough* it is explained using 'old Toungu' sort of how we use Latin and Greek terminology when talking about science or math.

Thank you to those who read and reviewed! I've decided (as of my last fic) to respond to all reviewers at the bottom of each chapter, thus I can respond to those of you who either don't have an account or are too lazy to log-on along with everyone else.

TheEvilToothFairy: Thank you, hopefully you'll like this chapter then :)

foreverellen: Ha Ha, thank you! Yes there aren't many SIXHisoka stories because most of us would be a little smarter than that. But, hey what can I say things just don't seem to go the way Yuki wants ;)