Even better than I was last year [2a only]

Ryoken Shidou was not in a good mood. If there was any day of the year that he was least looking forward to, it was this one. He had performed miserably last year, and was most likely going to suffer just as much this time around. For all of his offensive prowess in combat, being the winner of last year's sports festival to show for it, it all meant nothing in the face of his relative lack of athleticism. It'd at least let him have his own version of bragging rights, but this set of exercises was a different matter. While the list of activities didn't give him much hope, it at least didn't leave him feeling completely hopeless either. Ball Throw, Grip Test, Cement Block, and perhaps he could work something out with Long Jump. He could at least do something well here, which would help his otherwise abysmal overall standings, but really, Ryoken just didn't want to come in last. Compared to his more athletic friends and classmates, such as Alain, Emily, or Serena, Ryoken at least wouldn't be forced to prove himself to anybody, but it still kinda sucked to see the difference.

"Well, it is what it is." Despite this, he was still the first in attendance, somehow. His studious nature didn't let him down in this area. The boy let a sigh, looking around for the others.

The first year he took these tests, Atsushi barely put his all into it, just trusting in the weight of one transformed arm, and his own personal training, to get him by. Thankfully, the teacher at the time just wanted to get base numbers to work with, and did not put some ultimatum of 'the weakest overall student is out'. Back then, though, he was even scared to change his legs. Now though, even if he still can't trust in fully transforming, his numbers were bound to be different. His elastic hero suit rested under his PE suit as he went into warm up stretches. There was also the fact that he wasn't just hanging in the back hoping to be forgotten this year. However, Atsushi's attention was on the teacher running the test this year. New addition to the nursing staff is one thing, but his brain was caught on the name. He's found himself trying to be more in touch with the social side of hero society, and was trying to place if he ran into that hero name before in forum discussions or the like.

"Brine... Brine huh... hm..."

OOC: (Would like to have Gigabite for a personal assessment)

Last year felt like such a blur to Mei who appeared meekly alongside her classmates. Did something happen? Well, she was improved from last year in some regards so there was that. Moreover, this would be an even better chance to get to know her classmates in-depth; something she felt she didn't do as much last year. But the tall mantis girl held determination fast in her heart.

She didn't need her speaking implement today. Not because she had improved speaking on her own. No. Of course she hadn't improved in that regard. She wanted to show how actions prevailed over words and was focused on trying to do her best for these assessments. Learning to improve speaking could come later. She just wanted the confidence to do so.

With her head held high, she looked at each of her respective classmates with a small wave of acknowledgement from her humanoid hands and a small bob of her antennae. Alain was obviously going to leave everyone in the dust for this one. She had seen this strength in her first year. Atsushi had seemed to have faded into the background last year and Mei promised herself she'd notice him more often. Ryoken as well though he had more of a presence, no offense to Atsushi. As for Morgan, Mei hadn't really seen much of them much like Atsushi. But she was interested all the same what they could do. There was someone else, Mei had felt. Once they showed up, maybe it would jog her memory.

Hal shivered as the cold breeze from Serena absorbing the heat blew past him, but he barely looked away from his notebook after taking notice of what he could of the planned tests, mostly the same as last year's tests, which would make sense. The faculty would want to see how each of their students had improved over last year. To that end he had a few ideas. He dismissed the idea of a jetpack as preposterous, he didn't need to fly for any of these tests and it would be impractical, much as he thought it might be fun, and he could just swim normally for the swimming part of the exercise. Perhaps for the sprint test, something smaller, rocket-propelledroller blades--yeah he could work with that.

Perhaps a prosthetic aid for the grip test and maybe the block bust, he jotted that down too. But there were far more tests here where his quirk really just wasn't going to help him much, like the aforementioned swim test or the ball throw (though on second thought he might be able to use flippers for the swim, he jotted that down as well). He'd have to depend on his very normal albeit honed athleticism for most of these exercises--and that was ok. He was confident he was in even better shape than last year, plus the fact he'd grown at least a couple more inches, so he should at least improve on last year's scores.

When he was sure he'd jotted everything he could think of to help him on these exercises, he tucked the pen and notebook back under his arm, and gave a friendly wave back to Mei. Despite seemingly having been absorbed in what he'd been doing, he had noticed her greeting a few moments ago but had wanted to make sure he got his ideas down first with as many details as possible to ensure they didn't fail. Now that that was done, he looked around curiously to see what everyone else was doing to prepare.

Seeing several doing warmup exercises reminded him that it was probably a good idea for him to do the same, and so he too started some light stretching until Doctor Brine indicated they should start with...whichever exercise would be first.

Atsushi's attention, as he tried to remember what he might have heard about a hero named Brine, before he noticed just how he had slipped into similar stretching as other students, and from there noticed the mantis girl waving at the rest of the class... Mi? No, Mei pretty sure was her name. He tutted at himself that he still didn't have his classmate's names down yet. He started a small wave, but it was accidentally pulled into a shiver as the heat deprived breeze passed by him. He looked over at Serena and the other momentum monster in the class, Alain. They really did seem to have a rhythm down between the two of them, though he wondered if that's cause their quirks gave them an in sync mindset, or if they're just that casual a pair... oh right. He made a point to give it another shot, giving a more clear wave back to Mei, less she misread the earlier small wave as just part of the shiver, or a snub.

OOC: This round of posts will consist of the three coordination activities. Use your quirks as you see fit to excel in these activities. Or if your quirk isn't suited for the task at hand, just make a realistic description based on how you think your character's athleticism is. The posts should be schemed rather simply to depict what your character does. This round can have up 2 posts from each person. One dedicated activity post, and if you'd like to post your character's reaction to their classmates, you can. Once the coordination section is done, we can move on to the other stuff.

___________________IC:



Quite a small group. The staff member would go ahead and line the radar robos up with each exercise station. A small class meant they could get a lot done in a short amount of time. Clapping his hands to garner some attention, he- "Okay, okay. We're gonna start with the Ball toss. After that comes the timed consecutive side steps. We'll give you a minute and a half to get in as many sidesteps as you can. " He said, first tapping his pen on the top sheet of paper. Coordination. "For fun, I've tacked on one more excercise. Which will be the 50m swim. It's the same as the dash, but I'd like to see how you young heroes can move in water. " He'd pause before continuing. "Of course... I'll give plenty of time to dry off and catch your breath... I'm not THAT heartless."




One by one he'd line students up to each coordination exercise and click a remote for the radar robo's ready.

It was quite an odd sight, one that would undoubtedly alarm anyone who wasn't familiar with the rivalry that Alain and Serena shared, seeing the two bruisers trade zealous blows in the lead up to their first test. At the peak of his kinetic charge his muscles bristled with a violent excitement, thick veins pulsing under his skin beneath the burden of the raw power he carried. He gave Serena one of his titular cocky smirks, and a light slap on the shoulder. "Good luck shortstack, you're gonna need it~."

Atsushi's demonstration was a welcome sight. It filled Alain's spirit with pride seeing the progress his classmate had made over the past year. Back when they'd first met, Alain remembered how terrified Atsushi had been of even contemplating using his quirk at all. While he still hadn't seen the full breadth of a transformation, Alain was honestly impressed at how fluidly Atsushi was able to control his partial transformations. It was a step in the right direction no doubt.

Ball Toss:
Even without his quirk, Alain had managed to get stellar results at the ball toss test this time last year; when he was younger, and had far less control over the minutia of his quirk. But now... now he was a monster compared to then, a titan of strength leagues beyond his past self. As he approached the plate and scooped up a softball he rolled the leather sphere in his palm and surveyed the open training ground beyond... allll the way to the back wall, nearly half a mile away. An easy target. Steadying his stance, he let out a focused breath, almost meditating on the hypnotic thrum of energy that coursed around his body, a pulse of astronomic power waiting to be channeled. His back... his core... shoulders... biceps... quadriceps... calves; every muscle group portioned out exactly the perfect amount of energy to function as the perfect machine, sacrificing all else in the name of range and thunderous power. As visceral plumes of neon energy sparked from his muscles he wound up and unleashed a titanic fast ball throw. "Palm... RAILGUN!!!!!!" The second that ball left his skin it jumped from zero to Mach 1 in an instant, splitting the air with a ringing crack, and kicking up a cloud of dust around his feet.

The radar robot at his side hummed away excitedly, tracking the ball as it vanished from sight, relying on trajectory and velocity measurements to estimate it's final landing point. As the echo of Alain's sonic boom petered out, those with keen senses would be able to hear the sound of a loud slap in the distance, a leather ball colliding with bare concrete. After a moment of excited, electronic whirring the radar robot gave a loud "Ding!" and threw up it's arms in jubilant accord "857 meters!"

As much as Alain tried to put on a brave face, stepping away from the pitcher's plate, he couldn't ignore the throbbing well of pain erupting from his arm. There was definitely a sprain there, judging by the swelling in his bicep and shoulder... Alain knew he could've pushed well further, even possibly cleared the training ground wall. But the risk of severe injury at that distance would've been much too great. Still, with the data his PDA collected it gave him an accurate view of what his current limit was for his charge.

Sidesteps:
Having his quirk on hand, Alain knew that his old scores were a drop in the bucket, and the sidestep test was no different. Rather than focus on pure power however, Alain knew to refocus his energy in one of the new forms he’d recently learned. For a test revolving around balance and agility, raw strength was far from optimal. While the usage was strikingly different to the terrifying Gatling Barrage he used in the field, the physiological concepts were identical. As he began bouncing swiftly to and fro across the line, fast twitch muscle fibers in his limbs flared, his body growing taut with his gradual speed increase. Before long his body was an electric blur, nearly an after image, with wads of soil kicked up from each turn of his heels and a visible, steaming rut carved into the dirt beneath his feet. The whole time his radar robot watched studiously, tracking every flicker of his movements up until the buzzer sounded and Alain screeched to a halt. After a moment of terse calculations the robot turned with a resounding proclamation. “561 steps!”

50m swim:
As athletic as Alain was, he was far from a universalist. His physique and skillset were geared towards land based athletics, strength particularly so. While he was a proficient swimmer he sorely lacked the body profile for competitive swimming. His dense muscle mass and hefty bulk produced significant drag in the water, requiring exponentially more effort to move at the speed of some of his more lithe classmates. Still, he had a plan, a way to use his powerful quirk to his advantage. He traded out his PE uniform for a pair of tiny, skin tight black swim trunks; unashamedly parading his scar laden adonis body for the class as he took to his diving podium and awaited the starting siren; bristling sparks of power dancing across his body, a tightly coiled spring of muscle.

The moment the buzzer blared he kicked off, a violent explosion of force that launched him over the water, clearing half the length of the pool before he touched the surface. Unlike his prolific super speed on land, his powerful strokes found significantly less purchase in the water. The moment he reached the halfway point his quirk really came to shine. Flipping to face his final leg, Alain planted his feet against the pool wall and concentrated all his remaining kinetic reserves into his legs, lining himself up for a titanic push. “Blitz BULLRUSH!” Kicking off the pool wall with a violent explosion of force, Alain rocketed through the water like a sonic torpedo. He slammed into the finishing button at breakneck speed, the absorbent quality of his quirk preventing total decimation of the pool… but failing to contain the titanic surge of water left behind by his wake, that cast tsunamis of water over the sides of the pool, utterly drenching anyone foolish enough to stand remotely close. The radar robot timing his swim turned to Dr Brine with a robotic chirp. “5.71 seconds!”