<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/51/Venom-550x362.jpg)</div><strong>Name</strong>Sam DeMarco<br/><strong>Alias</strong>Umbra<br/>Tagging: Any<br/><hr/><br/>It was the weird, almost subsonic growl echoing in his head that drew Sam out of his contemplation of the course he would soon be having to run. He glanced around, but most of the other prospects weren't that close, either talking in small groups, or doing what he had been, and studying the course. Of course, given that they'd been told (with some degree of relish by the staff) that the challenges magically reset themselves into entirely new ones after each run, well, studying was perhaps of limited use. But hey, it gave you something to do.<br/><br/>"What has gotten into you now?" he murmured, glancing around, but unable to see anything that seemed in any way an immediate threat.<br/><br/><em><strong>That one. It stinks. We should kill it.</strong></em><br/><br/>"What? No, look, we can't just go around killing anyone you like."<br/><br/><em><strong>Are you sure? What if I really want to kill them?</strong></em><br/><br/>"No. Bad people, remember?"<br/><br/><em><strong>This one is a bad person. It stinks of faith, it makes my teeth crawl. We should kill and eat it. No, not eat it. It probably doesn't taste good. We can eat a bit to see, though, just to make sure. Maybe just the liver.</strong></em><br/><br/>Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly shook his head. "Look, we do not want to kill and eat people."<br/><br/><em><strong>Yes, we do.</strong></em><br/><br/>"We are not killing anyone right now." He moved back from the course and made his way into the stands where he could see over a larger swathe of it.<br/><br/><em><strong>Alright. But I get to kill and eat the next bad person.</strong></em><br/><br/>"Look, we can worry about killing and eating people after we finish the course. We need to put on a good showing, remember?"<br/><br/><em><strong>Yes, yes, yes. It will be simple, trust me.</strong></em><br/><br/>He watched as different candidates made their way around the course, eyes narrowed in thought. Most of it didn't really look that challenging ... tricky in places, but no real sense of danger.<em>Of course, they probably adjust the run for each candidate</em>he mused.<em>They have an idea what each of us can do, so they give something that will push us, but I guess slaughtering applicants in job lots isn't exactly going to be good for business.</em><br/><br/>A short time later he stood at the starting mark of the course, half listening to the speech that the staff guy was giving to the next batch of applicants. He snugged the earpods into his ears, scrolling through the songs on his playlist. He drew in a deep breath, settling himself as he walked up to the starting line, letting the music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vvPhJIYtY8) flow through him.<br/><br/>"Alright," he murmured, "Let's dance."<br/><br/>Anyone watching would see him virtually engulfed by what looked like a thick, oily black liquid that settled into a roughly humanoid shape some 7 feet in height, and thickly muscled. Milky white oval eyes and an overly large mouth filled with very large and nasty looking teeth completed the transformation, and Malcarion surged down the course.  He lept into the air as the ground gave way beneath him with a loud<em>click</em>, landing maybe 30 feet further along, and barely breaking stride.<br/><br/><em><strong>Pitiful. Is that supposed to be a challenge?</strong></em><br/><br/>Ahead of him was a net ladder, climbing some 40 feet into the air, and swaying gently in the breeze. Malcarion lashed out with a razor edge talon, tearing the rope like it was string.<br/><br/><em>I think they meant us to climb over that.</em><br/><br/><strong>"You go past obstacles your way, I'll go mine."</strong><br/><br/>It was kinda hard to argue with that. Getting past the obstacle was what counted, not how.<br/><br/>The machineguns would probably have slowed most people down. The idea seemed to be to make them crawl underneath the firing arc. Malcarion solved that one by tearing part of the wall paneling loose and simply charging through the fire, smashing the gun into uselessness when he reached it.<br/><br/>The corridor with the inverted gravity field was a nice trick. The field cut in halfway along, just after an easy to find pit trap that most people would leap over .... and end up freefalling down the corridor til they hit the far wall. They fell less than a quarter of the way before thick, black tentacles erupted out from his body and slammed into the wall, slowing and then stopping their fall. After that it was a simple thing to spider climb their way down the corridor and climb out at the far end.<br/><br/>The final challenge was a trio of combat servitors, programmed (presumably) for non lethal attacks. The first had barely time to bring its stun baton up before Malcarion smashed it into the ground at the end of a 30 foot leap. Grabbing the servitor by the throat, he smashed it into the second that had closed on them, flooring it, then spun aside and threw it into the third.<br/><br/>He turned and pounced on the second one that was starting to rise, snarling as it managed to get the shock baton up enough for a glancing blow. In a shower of sparks, he tore the arm from its torso, then rammed the baton through its faceplate. Another shower of sparks erupted from the hole as it keeled over backwards, smoke starting to plume into the air.<br/><br/>The other two didn't last very much longer than the first, and Malcarion sauntered across the finishing line, tossing and catching the severed head he carried like a ball.<br/><br/><strong>"So, when do we get some actual challenges?"</strong>