Chapter 22: Skills Challenge
Arriving in front of a black wall, the black-masked man put his hand on what seemed to be a random place, until a blue light appeared around his hand, enveloping it.
No one showed even a reaction, until the wall, in front of them, parted, thus revealing some sort of completely dark room.
The two masked men stepped aside, giving her a sort of permission for them to enter.
"Upon passing through this door, you are going to be transported to another room where you will perform the first challenge," he commented without any emotion in his voice, now sounding as nonchalant as possible.
This made some in there flinch a little, but they returned to their initial normal state, trying to calm the feeling as much as possible.
Nodding slightly with satisfaction, the white-masked man continued speaking.
"I will tell the content of the next test at the end of the first one, the Skill Challenge counts with a one-point weighting, keep that in mind."
With the High Command's explanation, everyone nodded, including Nova, who was listening attentively to everything they were saying.
"Good, now come in," Lars declared still sideways, no longer was his personality amused, but was extremely serious and even in a voice almost as cold as the white-masked man.
Thus, though hesitantly, each of the people entered the room filled with darkness, and after taking a couple of steps into it, his figure was lost from sight, as if he had disappeared.
Everyone was nervous, except for two people who stood out from the rest, obviously Nova, and it was a man around 38 years old, with tanned skin, short black hair, and a very muscular figure, 1.90 meters tall.
Wearing the black uniform, he made his muscled figures even bigger, or so he gave the impression at first glance, his face showed no emotion but seriousness.
He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't very attractive either, although the muscles he possessed gave him a certain advantage over the opposite sex.
Nova had been listening attentively to the words of the white-masked man, but she hardly ever saw him when he spoke, but rather watched the expressions of the other participants.
They all had the same reaction, nervousness, and fear, but also a bit of hope in their eyes.
But the one who caught his attention was that man with tanned skin.
His always unchanged expression made Nova think he had great confidence in his abilities, so she targeted him as a target to copy.
'But I mustn't rush...', he thought with a slight frown.
He wanted to wait until the last test, the best of the best, to copy his skills, he still had two uses of Copycat and he was going to use it all to the best of his ability today.
As he pondered this, it was his turn to go through the door, obviously being the last one.
Lars, the black-masked man, turned his head slightly to look at Nova, who was passing through the door, as he took two steps beyond the door, he instantly disappeared from his vision.
The two masked men stared at each other until at last, one spoke.
"Lars, the first time I've seen you greeting an aspiring recruit."
At this comment, Lars shrugged, as he gave a small chuckle.
"Hahaha, what can I tell you, Sarl, for some reason my gut is telling me to befriend him, I have a feeling he's going to be someone very relevant in the future," Lars commented with a mixture of emotions, amused, confused, excited and even, a little scared.
Sarl simply nodded, remembering when he watched everyone's expressions as he spoke.
"You may be right, he was very different from the others, just a glance shows the difference, but he also looks like a rookie who hasn't even been killed," Sarl spoke, turning around to start walking.
Lars followed close behind.
"Well, let's monitor them, a large portion of the participants look promising today," Lars commented ecstatically, they had weeks without a new member and they would get several today.
Sarl simply nodded in agreement, at the same time the two walked to a wall that didn't even need scanning when it slid open, several cameras, holograms, Cyborg like Cia, and whatnot were there, but not much could be seen as the two masked, mysterious beings even in the organization, entered the room, which slowly closed.
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Presently, two boys stared at each other, both at the epicenter of the room.
One, with silver hair and transparent eyes, was, of course, Nova, who was staring at another boy a little shorter than him, with light brown hair and honey-colored eyes.
The young man looked no older than 17, had a slightly toned body, and was not ugly, but not stunningly attractive either, he was just a little more attractive than the average young man.
"I thought I heard from the two fellows that we would have single rooms," the brown-haired young man said, looking at Nova as if he had daggers in his eyes.
Nova, on the other hand, simply nodded, his face indifferent and cold, not relieving an emotion.
But inside, he was very uncomfortable. It must be said that this was the first time he had spoken to anyone other than his family in nearly a decade.
'I can't show weakness,' forcing himself to keep an indifferent face, he continued to look at the boy in front of him, who suddenly sighed as if he felt relief.
*sighed*
At him he sighed, the Nova previously would have simply asked why he sighed like that, but now he had become more confident and more intelligent.
He merely raised an eyebrow as if judging him.
At this action, the young man didn't know how to respond, so he said honestly.
"Sorry," He sighed, "it's out of relief, I can sense that you are at least as curious as I am as to why we are in the same room.
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