<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/xjhTJfR.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Gabriel<br/><strong>Alias:</strong>Runner<br/><strong>Date/Time:</strong>Trials morning, Day 1<br/><strong>Starting Location:</strong>Outside the school premises<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Anyone still around the course<br/><hr/><br/>With the newly acquired bat starting to tax muscles rarely used, he arrived at the other side of the city, at the gates of Super High. After locating the button decorated with the symbol of a bell, the locking mechanisms clattered for a while, then the comically huge gates gave way for him to explore. With this permission granted, he headed straight to the first door he could find, to talk to the first person there, to ask for directions about what to do. The man in the outhouse of gardening supplies seemed eager to help.<br/>-Sorry. Where can i apply with this? - he asked, presenting the golden card he won just last night.<br/>-Oh! Howdy, fella! Gosh, I'm not sure but if i were you, I'd go to the main reception. Just follow the road you came in on but I'd hurry, the trials have allready started!<br/>He forced a weakly floating "thank you" out of the mouth as he turned and followed the directions given, which led to a great building. Having helpfull people put on the obvious route a newcomer would take sounds logical, but with his luck, it's better to make sure. But what was that about trials? Could it be the yearly event everyone talks about for like a month every year? He never payed much attention to it as the information seemed to serve no purpose.<br/>-Wasn't that sopposed to be staged anyway? No way a school would put their new students in such danger, right? No way...<br/>The entrance hall housed the reception. Picking the person looking the most bored, he walked up, produced the golden card and shallowly exclaimed:<br/>-I won this.<br/>In the heat of the moment he completely forgot about having the first part of every conversation, but instead of the questioning yet disapproving look of a stranger, he was met with well oiled enthusiasm and cheerfullness.<br/>-Fill this out and you can head straight to the course! - exclaimed the receptionist.<br/>He took the paper and pen shoved towards him and sat down to one of many tables in the hall. The questions put fourth by the form made him feel like he was attending a job interview, pushing him to describe himself in the best light possible. A quick look from the cheerfull receptionist and a quick scan with a machine was all it took to attain yet another set of directions that took him to the course, and not a minute too soon as there were only him and another person waiting to be tried.<br/>A big clock ticking down, a grandstand full of cheering people and an immense course littered with obstacles geared to find any weakness in one's physique. Looking across the proving grounds, he noticed the three students giving their all but rather than having a good look at their powers, he pleasantly noted that the start and finish line were within line of sight to each other. One step in and out of a portal should be enough.<br/>-Just have to make sure i can't be disqualified for going "around" the course. No portals before the timer starts and before i step over the starting line. This should be easier than expected even without rehearsals. - he thought to himself. It seemed that his luck turned 180 degrees since yesterday.<br/><br/>As the cheers for the previous group faded and the clock got reset to five minutes, he and the other guy have been instructed to different podiums to start. Resting the bat on his shoulder, getting ready to take 2 steps and get to the top of the list under the timer, he let out a sigh of relief. Two lower pitched beeps and then a higher, louder one marked the start of the trial. And with that, at blinding speed, houndreds of walls erected leaving time to catch only a glimpse of the finish line appearing in a different location, then ceilings erected from the walls, capping the structure and leaving only darkness for a moment in dead silence. The course eventually treated it's captives with an ominous, deep red floor lighting, revealing the first short corridor and the T junction at the end.<br/>Designating an initiation point confirmed his fear, he didn't have enough time to set one at the finish line. The wall was black and cold to the touch. A metal maybe.<br/>-Damn it! - he exclaimed as he found himself in the absolute worst environment for his power, a maze.<br/>-Allright... Pick a hand and follow the wall on that side. That's the most efficient way to cross a maze.- He thought out loud in an attempt of calming himself down after this new development but just as he uttered the words, loud bangs, gongs and cluttering could be heard from behind the walls.<br/>-Oh... Yeah... Actually that's the most efficient way..-he said defeated as the banging noise got further and further away.<br/><br/>He peered to the left to see if the could see and use the route the other guy punched through the walls but all his side had was a ramp elevating and separating him from the other contender. After making peace with the return of his usual luck, he slowly accelerated to running speed, taking every right turn possible. Every elevation and depression noted in his brain, he was now two levels over the finish line. Contemplating the complexity of this structure his eyes caught something. The red glint of a piece of fishing wire about 30 centimeters from the floor, the dim red underlight barely tinting it to make it stand out from the dark backdrop. Approaching it, keeping his eyes on the wire and it's immediate surroundings he felt tugging on his leading leg.<br/>Looking down revealed a second, black wire blending in perfectly into this environment. Even the allmost instant initiation of the portal under his feet and and the downward acceleration provided by gravity have allmost been futile to avoid a swinging weight propelled from a trap door in the ceiling. After observing the mass swing by through the portal, Runner found himself back at the starting line where he set the the first initiation point to test if the one at the finishline worked.<br/><br/>After the weight settled a bit, he climbed back over to the other side. Touching the weight while squeezing past revealed it to be stone. Collecting his bat and slowing his target speed to a light jog, still sticking to the right wall, he reasoned that the variety of materials means that power over a single type wont let you to just open a road to the finish line. But as he allmost started to praise how well this course has been thought out the corridor gave way to a chamber with 3 routes to take on his level and about 8 on two others.<br/>-Sticking to a wall just won't work anymore. - he confessed, trying to remember his orientation to the start or finishline.<br/>When he managed to get his bearings he opened a portal two levels below and one on his to get down. In the perceived direction of the finishline was a corridor ending in a left turn and cut in half by a long chasm.<br/>-That's a good sign, they don't want me to go there.- he thought to himself, trying to make light of the situation.<br/>Standing at the edge of this hole into nothingness, he opened a portal to  the other side but because of the angle and distance he couldn't get it perfect, and the portal couldn't spread to it's maximum size. It landed just before the corner,pointing at the ground awkwardly but a somersault could work quickly.<br/><br/>Just as he tumbled out of the portal and gained his footing in a crouching stance from a roll that wasn't even on speaking terms of gracefull, under his foot the rectangular floor of the turn sunk half a centimeter with a smooth and expensive sounding click. The sound barely registered for interpretation before this same sense got overwhelmed by a rumble.<br/>-something to the left- the voice of his mind warned, as he turned his head to the source.<br/>His eyes strained trying to follow focus on the wall approaching at an incredible speed. Before understanding what happened he initiated a portal, then with a blinding light and unearthly racket of shearing metal, he felt the world tumble over from under his foot. And then, with a bone rattling bang, came darkness.<br/><br/>A few seconds went past while he started to comprehend that he's still alive. The ringing in his ear starting to overstay its welcome, every point of skin on his left side in contact with the ground sending alarming signals of heat.<br/>-At least now i know which way is down- he thought to himself in pitch black, but as soon as he tried taking advantage of this information he banged his head into the ceiling. After a bit of cursing and rubbing of the forehead, followed by fiddling in his pocket he managed to get a hold of his lighter and coaxed it into life. The weak flame illuminated an unfamiliar space completely enclosed, barely big enough to house him. After fidgeting some more in an attempt to riddle this conundrum, searing pain started emanating from his left ankle. Eventually delegating some more attention to his surroundings, he found that the knocked over cylinder in which he has ended up had warm walls littered with an odd assortment of shiny and matte spots and rings going all around but the caps were still cold to the touch.<br/>Looking more closely, the circular face at the top of his head was his portal stuck partially open but got completely blocked from the other side by a completely smooth material that didn't refract light at all. The realization came slowly but surely.<br/><br/>The metal boulder has been moving with such inertia that upon contacting the partially opened portal, the middle of the boulder forced itself through, shearing itself all the way around, ending up poking out from the opening left on the other side of the ravine. The rest of it just slowly ground to a stop but not before knocking runner's foot out from under him and laying him inside the space the teleported metal should have occupied, then making full contact with the wall that was to the right of him.<br/>The irony of thinking that he was dead but waking up in a coffin hasn't lost on him. Though he found it funny, his body refused to respond with an impulsive chuckle on account of the sudden and unexpected pains.<br/>-Well at least now i know for sure that the portals can't move. Makes sense... Space can only be occupied but never moved.- he tried jogging his memory to shake off the effects of adrenaline.<br/>As he willed the portals to start closing in an attempt to open one again that isn't filled to the edge with metal, the portal's edges that are normally just thin black lines surrounded by a halo of distorted refraction started to glow red hot and sent sparks into the small chamber Runner got stuck inside of. The sounds of the metal pleading with the rules of physics reverberated from the walls of the confined space and grew to deafening levels of loudness even though runner was forcing his fingers into his ears with all his might. After an agonizing time that seemed to stretch to hours, the glowing nailhead of the portal disappeared into nothingness and gave Runner to the darkness for it to embrace him once more. The slab of metal from the other side punctuated this with a blunt thud.<br/>-The same spot will do- he thought as he willed the portals to open up again, preventing the need to find and fiddle with his lighter that has been running on fumes for the past week.<br/>The portals opened up as far as the cylinder allowed and Runner clumsily appeared back on the other side of the abyss. He reached back for his bat to use it as a walking stick. he went back to the chamber to pick another route. This time, after passing a wooden corridor with some motion detectors that seemed to do nothing, he emerged to an even bigger stone chamber, could have been 6 levels deep from where he was and another 3 levels to the top.  If memory served him right, he should still have been on the correct level but at this point, it was hard to tell. The pain from his ankle now dragged him to a limp, he randomly opened a portal in one of the many openings on the other side on his level but as he started to open the other, the chamber started to shake and crumple, leading the way: the corridor he was in.<br/><br/>With his busted leg he couldn't  leap or jump far enough to get through a portal completely in time, so the only way was down the chamber. Falling head first, he set an initiation point in mid air but when the portal opened, the view that greeted him were the openings of the chamber's wall, with the collapsing corridor in the middle. He was allready through when he realized he opened the portal the wrong way around. He gained immense speed at this point as he got flung back into the chamber to fall another 6 or 7 levels. The crackling chamber has allready started to give in to the persuasion of gravity, letting go of smaller stones from it's ceiling but Runner needs to do something about this speed. He opened two portals next to each other on the ground, which propelled him into oncoming debris, but gravity was now on his side. Peering into every opening he hand the chance to, one caught his eyes.<br/>A long corridor ending in a left turn that had the inviting rays of sunlight seducing Runners gaze. Without hesitation, Runner set the initiation point at the end of the corridor, facing the sunlight and opened a new portal under him. Making sure this time it was the right way around, he gained some extra speed on the way down but after this, there were no second chances.<br/><br/>Runner flew straight out of the maze, followed by a huge cloud of dust and debris ranging from pebbles to potentially deadly stones to a sound of a deafening airhorn. Upon contact, the ground grabbed onto his arm and face, turning raw speed into rotation, forcing him to part ways with his baseball bat and sending him into a rough tumble before contacting the wall about 20 meters from the exit.<br/>The impact left him on the edge of falling unconscious, but somehow he managed to stay awake. The muffled sound of the grandstands seemed to range from disappointment to elation and from terror to entertainment. As he tried to get a grip, the announcers voice through the speaker cut through the haze of reality:<br/>The last contender finished the course with barely over one second to spare! Give him and everyone else who managed to overcome the odds today a round of applause! They all deserve it!<br/><br/>As the quick response paramedics, who were on standby near the course for such an occasion, arrived to take him away, his mind started to reach a revelation. Even with the fog of adrenaline dulling his common sense, forcing every receptor in his brain to only bother with the singular moment that happens right after the present one, one of his past mistakes became blatantly obvious:<br/>-I shouldn't have put "won't break under pressure" on the "perks" list