Initiation Day [[Annulus Members Only]]

[benton]

Doctor Benton sat alone in the middle of a large ring-shaped table. Waiting patiently for his honored guests to arrive. It was a very special occasion today, and he hoped no-one would be late to the first official meeting of the newly-formed Annulus Institute. Hosted within the faction's very own headquarters, a towering fortress of mismatched angular shapes, which had only been constructed recently. Though initially barely distinguishable from the surrounding blank wasteland, the very nature of the empty cyberspace in which they were based would mean that each of the potential new recruits would perceive the building in their own unique way. Why bother with the trouble of painting the walls when he could just let their minds paint it themselves?

He'd designed the whole complex around the same principle. The cylindrical room he was sitting in was white. The table was white. The chairs were white. In fact, everything that conceivably could be white, was actually white. The only reason the Doctor could see things as they were was because his mind expected it to look this way. In that way - the building was perfectly camouflaged. If you expected to see nothing but emptiness, from the outside, that was exactly what you would see. But to anyone looking for a building, his guests for example, they would no doubt see it in whatever form they expected the Annulus Institute to look like. Sure, the basic outline would be the same, but that was where the similarities would end.

About five people, himself included, had signed on to join the independent enterprise. One of them was here, Benton was quite certain... but the other four chairs positioned around the outside of the table were empty. Their occupants either on their way, or hopelessly lost in the barren blankness surrounding the institute. Kicking out his foot, Benton spun around in the swivel chair he'd positioned directly between he other four chairs, laughing maniacally. With his gauge stuck firmly on happiness mode, the crazed Hollow didn't mind having to wait. In fact, he was getting a kick out of the anticipation. Just a little longer, and one of them was bound show up! He knew it! And when they did... they were gonna have so much fun together! He was so excited, he felt as though he was gonna puke. Or was that just from the spinning?

[John Pierce]

((ooc: sorry, posting using my proboards app... I didn't notice I was posting as John until after I posted. I'll fix it later, if I remember.))

A young girl pushed the door to the meeting room open, a doll dangled from her hands. "Are you sure this is it, Cinderella? There's no one in here except this funny looking guy spinning around in a chair." She looked down at the doll, and sighed, apparently the doll made a valid point, because she moved forward and climbed up int a chair, watching the Doctor spin. "You're right Cinderella! He IS crazy!" She giggled slightly and an evil grin spread across her face. She held her hand up, deciding if the Doctor gets to have fun, so did her and Cinderella. A small orb of black energy formed at her hand, growing to about the size of a small basketball. She launched this forward at the Doctor, timing it so the ball would hit the back of the chair. The ball of energy stretched out, covering the doc and most of the table. This was her Spacial rend, causing all movement to alter. Gravity meant nothing, and anything that moved in too fast would move back out in a hilarious fashion. Having fun, Doc?" she asked with a giggle.

Zane stepped into the plain white room, a grin on his face. The Doctor was his favorite person lately, he was awesome! Just a little crazy and extremely smart. Zane had even gone far enough to buy a pair of goggles and a hat to match the Doctors. He pushed into the room and saw the doc spinning in an area of a type of energy. His HUD reading gave him flawed results on the doctor. He looked at the girl, and saw that she had two distortion-like abilities. "That could come in handy... Someday." he said, his pink hair bouncing as he walked. He sat opposite of the girl with her doll, feeling uneasy as she looked at him with evil eyes. "H-hello little girl, what's your name?" he asked nervously.

"Redheads." she said, looking down at her doll. "I guess you're right... It's pink, not red... Wait. Did he call me a little girl? I HAVE TO SHOOT HIM NOW!" she held the doll up with a sad look. "Fine... I'll let it slide... This time..." she mumbled, sitting back down. Giggling at the scared expression on Zanes face.

"Rosemary Anne Weatherby! Be good." a stern voice came from the doorway.
"Who thinks they have the right to use my middle name?" she asked angrily, and her eyes widened as she saw who it was.
Alyssa Weatherby moves across the room slowly, taking a seat next to the little girl, placing a hand on the little girls head. A soft smile was on her face. "I see you're still well, Hun... I missed you." She looked over at the doctor. "Benton! Pay attention. Were here." she said with a slight laugh.

[SARA RENES]

Sara Strolled the barren area. For miles, Nothing came in sight as she didn't bring her thoughts to reality. She sighed, maybe the building needed to be imagined in order to be seen as as well. Closing Her eyes, an image of three tall white tower together came in vision. On the top center of each tower a red ring with embossed text - ANNULUS, written royally in each. She opened her eyes as she saw the same, she seemed tiny compared to the building. Scanning the area, it seemed quite and in utter silence. Not a person in sight, quite a good place for a hideout.

Sara entered the building without hesitation, she wondered where she had to be. The surrounding was new to her as she looked behind every door she passed. Finally she reached a door where voices could be heard, entering so she found an odd site. A rounded Table with fives chairs around it. An Old Man spinning on the main seat, a child half her age talking to a doll and a pink haired man, somewhat having a look of fear on his face gazing at the child. Weird Group....she though as she put up a smile. No meaning behind the smile of a Hollow but a sign she was comfortable. The Man spinning on his seat was sited in the center probably meant he headed the institute. He didn't seem like much, but looks can deceive....She herself looked pretty sweet , her blonde hair open as two red eyes wide opened, but she was nothing as she appeared to be. A rather cold and merciless killer from the inside, only revealing her true colors when needed.

"May I...Come In?" she asked as she stood by the door awaiting an answer.

[ZERO]

[[Is it okay if I jump in? I just signed my newest character up for Annulus]]

There was no place more barren than the blank area, especially to a mind like hers, one that was largely void of all emotion or creativity. For the most part, the area stayed as empty as ever as Annalise Bishop, or Zero, as she had titled herself, walked through it, her head down.

A part of her wondered why she was coming to this institute. She'd decided to join at the last minute. This organization was trying to find a way to help fix the world's problems. She could care less. She only wanted to survive long enough to see the VDF brought down, if nothing else, and she saw this institute as a way to possibly make sure she didn't expire before she was ready. Beside, education was power, and she might be able to put what she learned here to good use. She'd put on a helpful face when she got there, though. No one needed to know what her true intentions were. At least having no conscious made it easy to lie when necessary.

A shape finally appeared in the emptiness, an odd, angular building. That had to be the place. It looked as white as everything else at first, but as she approached it, it shifted to shades of gray, crimson, and black, the walls cold and hard. Maybe her own subconscious was finally altering something. She didn't pay much notice, though, striding in.

She didn't see quite what she expected. There was a Hollow doctor with some sort of odd helmet spinning around in his chair, a little girl with a large doll, a pink-haired Claw man who looked slightly frightened for reasons that she couldn't discern, and...was that woman a Virus? She could sense a slight distortion wafting from the direction of one of the members. There also appeared to be another Hollow girl waiting by the door. "May I...Come In?" She heard the other Hollow asked.

Zero didn't bother waiting for an answer, walking right passed the other girl and sitting a few sets down from the Claw. She didn't say anything, her head slightly down. She'd speak when she needed to.

[/size]

[benton]

Benton simply sat in place and smiled as one by one the people he'd been waiting for wandered to their places at the table. One of them, the little girl, had done something to the space around them. As a result, the chair the doctor was spinning on gained momentum as it twirled, instead of gradually losing it. The gauge on his head switching from happy to serious, the chair beneath the doctor disintegrated as he used his reversed powers of materialization to break apart it's molecules. Releasing him from the rotating runaway chair. Unfazed, he waited until he heard a feminine voice ask permission to enter the room, turning in mid-air to look down on the assembled congregation of intellectual misfits. "Anytime this millennium would be superb." He drolled in sarcastic acknowledgment of the female Hollow's request. With her included, everyone was now accounted for... with the addition of one extra. In his current state, Benton couldn't care less. At least, until his dial flipped again. His outlook changing to 'the more the merrier!' in the spin of a moment.

Deciding that it was time to get the meeting started, Benton maneuvered to the edge of the distortion field and reached out one of his arms; creating a Bentonium chair to replace the seat the newcomer had taken. Descending to the ground via a counterclockwise motion, he flashed the assembled members as toothy grin. Spreading his arms wide in welcome."Hello folks! I'm Doctor Benton! Delighted to meet you!" Folding his arms behind his back, he began walking around the inside the space of the circular table. Subjecting each of the people seated around him to a long, calculating stare. "It makes me happy to see so many like-minded people in the same place! We're like a family now, so don't be shy!" He declared enthusiastically. Young Zane's interesting new fashion sense not passing by the good doctor unnoticed. Stopping as he came to the Hollow with platinum hair and a steely expression, Benton turned around at an angle which let him face them all simultaneously. His face twisting unnaturally into a devilish smile.

"And since we're such buddies now, I'm going to trust you all with a little secret! Everyone else in this reality is going to die! But we're not! Hooray!" Clapping his hands, he wiggled his hips and bounced on his knees in joy. Literally having a fit of happiness. Stopped by an ill-timed change of personality, he stopped writhing in delight and stood up straight with a cold expression on his face. Pointing upwards towards a large transparent ring shape high up near the ceiling - with multiple pipes spreading out of it in all directions. They ran in all directions throughout the base, as some of the members might have noticed on the way inside. Currently, they were empty. "Before we go on, perhaps you would state your names, and describe to me what powers you possess. If we're going to withstand the extinction of humanity together? We should at least be on familiar terms." Casting his gaze around the room, the doctor's eyes fell on Alyssa first. The doctor was thinking of how best to assign the assembled individuals into teams, and was looking for a partner himself. He would have first pick, but who would he choose?

[rosieweatherby]

Rosie giggled softly, dispelling her Ability. She looked, noticing the doctors hat. It was... Interesting. She paid no further attention to it as she looked from person to person. She patiently awaited her turn for introduction as her mother spoke.

Alyssa nodded a small hello. "I'm Alyssa Weatherby. As you can probably feel, I'm a Virus. I apologize for my Distortion... I can't fully stop it, but it should be minor enough to not convert anyone.". She said with a soft chuckle.

"My name, Good People, is Zane Haskill." He started, adjusting his hat atop the cloud of fluffy pink hair. "I'm a mimic, but I'm better than other mimics. I can write two abilities into my coding for use later.". He held his hands up, an orb of darkness in one hand, and a blob of the same stuff that the Doctor created in the other. The two merged and shifted, turning into an Ornate chair that landed in the center of the table for the doctor.

"I'm Rosie Weatherby. This is Cinderella. She's my best friend ever.". She Said with a light giggle. She was acting the part of Innocent little girl as of right now. She brushed a hand through her dolls hair, seeming to flatten it for a moment before It sprung back up. "You're right. I should introduce my powers!" she said to the doll. "I'm unique. My powers are Temporal Modification, and Spacial rending." she said with a grin, not going into greater detail.

[SARA RENES]

Sara stood near the door calmly awaiting approval for entry. However, it seemed a sixth member entered as a woman - perhaps another Hollow entered and walked right in. Maybe she should have done the same as she might have to stand now. Not her main concern but somewhat a feeling of being left out as she assumed so. Turning her focus to the doctor, she noticed his freaky looking helmet as a sort of meter with the gauge changing its position. "Anytime this millennium would be superb" the man spoke in a quite sarcastic tone. Probably foolish of her to even ask permission but still she wasn't answered with a 'no'. He then created a chair just by sticking out his arm..."Maybe a skill of his?" she thought as she entered the room and took her seat a bit away from the young siren. The doctor was a strange man alright, his mood changing every few minutes as so he spoke seriously at one time and pranced around in some other time. She couldn't help but smile in amusement as he began clapping his hands accompanied by a few other actions.

"Before we go on, perhaps you would state your names, and describe to me what powers you possess." The Doctor's statement was answered by three others- a virus , a claw and a siren. It seemed it was sher turn now as she looked up and spoke calmly "I'm Addressed by the name Sara. A Fire Attributed Hollow" lowering her head as she fidgeted with her fingers trying to put her skills in a sentence as she raised her head again "My skills are..I'm able to ignite my opponent in flames when in contact and I can also trap my opponent's in a dome of flames..." she said trying to keep it brisk and understandable. She felt her skills useless comparative to the others.

[ZERO]

The man at the head of the table introduced himself as Dr. Benton. She quickly concluded that he wasn't quite right in the head. Was he really a Hollow? He seemed different from her and other Hollow that she'd met, with his mood continuously seeming to shift between a more serious tone and a...cheery...one? Maybe it was something more like insanity. She absently glanced up at the helmet he was wearing as the man stopped in front of her. Did it have something to do with that? She blinked, but maintained her slightly downward gaze again as he kept speaking. Like family? She had no family anymore. She didn't say anything when he asserted that they'd be the world's sole survivors, either, though there was a tint of a strange smile on her features.

She listened carefully as the others introduced themselves. So...the woman was a Virus, then. An image of her younger brother, Icarus, flashed in her mind. ...What made her different than...? She just snorted a bit. The Claw seemed a bit cocky, but his unusual skills as a mimic sounded like they could be useful. Temporal Modification, spacial rending...could the little girl be a Null, too? She wasn't certain, but those powers also sounded unusual. The other girl, the one who'd come in after asking, was indeed another Hollow, too.

Now it was her turn to speak, wasn't it? "My name isn't important. Call me Zero."

[/color] Being classified as a criminal by that cursed VDF, she didn't use her real name, Annalise Bishop, much anymore. "I'm a Null. I can create barriers that will block someone's skills or a Virus' distortion. It's useless for offense, but for that I have my arm and my gun."[/color] She added confidently, flexing her mechanical arm.[/size][/blockquote]