Ultimate Chicken Horse (HIVE)

It was hard to get a written curriculum down in H.I.V.E Academy. The tutors were either changing due to circumstances beyond foreseeable control or they came from a stock not given to keeping commitments. If you were a supervillain dastardly enough to catch H.I.V.E's eye for hiring, you were unlikely to keep to a previously agreed schedule. Many became a villain to get away from such banality and demand.

So the lesson plans could end up being whispered secrets. 'Did you hear I.N.S.T.I.G.A.T.O.R is gonna run a seminar on bitcoin duplicity today? Come. Don't tell your other friends.' Which made it usually worth your while to follow a group of skulkers on their way to some misbegotten part of the underground facilities.

Only problem was you never quite knew what you were getting yourself into that way.

"LISTEN UP YOU TWO MILL' WONDERS. CLASS IS STARTIN'. So you best be getting the sand out your ears and the sleep out your eye - or I'm about to knock it loose." Sergeant H.I.V.E had arranged this little meet up in the danger room of the facility. The floor was all shifting hexagonal plates. A combination of weapons, terrain, and traps could be simulated with access to the control room, "Hope you got yourselves an appetite for pain - cus by the time you've run my obstacle course pain will be there for you on a three course platter!"

A little sprite hand went up, "Sir-"

"That's Sergeant to you! Officers are Sirs."

"Riiight." (-__-) Yeah this wasn't one of Pix's better ideas. But backing out of a class was easier said than done. Villains tended to take it personally, "Sergeant. I don't know if it's escaped your notice, but I'm a mass of pixels. I don't have muscles or tendons or sweat glands. Exercise isn't going to help so much aaas waste both our time. May I be excused?"

"NO YOU MAY NOT SOLDIER! This ain't no ordinary obstacle course. This obstacle course trains the muscle of your mind!"

"...sudoku?"

"You must think fast. You must adapt. You must design your own course." The soldier stood on a single raised platform in the currently flat room, arms crossed, back straight, "You will each be given access to the control room. You will add sections to the course. Your goal is to finish the resulting course first. Add what's difficult for your enemy - but comfortable for you. But if you go make things too easy on yourselves - I will make additions of my own as we get underway."

(0_0) "You don't really train a brain like that."

"Any questions which aren't coming from the discarded cartridge shooter?"

Superstar raised her hand rather exuberantly. "Yes, I have a question. Can we do teams? And if so, can I get a hot guy as my teammate?" Kassandra was unaware that this type of outburst and mentality was inappropriate, and was also labeled "thirsty" by the masses of society around her age or younger. However, most of the background villains grew anime style bright pink hearts in their eyes at the mere prospect of a team up with Kassandra.

Kassandra was quite enjoying the HIVE academy and it's many classes. Almost all the physical ones were pretty easy for her and for the mentally challenging ones it usually wasn't too hard to convince teachers to give her a passing grade. She usually either just broke something in front of them or let them take her out for mischief. Most of the time that was pretty fun and ended up with her taking back something expensive. But in any case, she did usually try pretty hard at school. Kassie wanted to learn more about Earth and it's customs. The HIVE had taught her so much already - more so that most of the laws here were just guidelines really, and that me more power you had, the more you could do without having to answer to the higher ups. What a wonderful little world this was.

This class she found especially interesting because most of the hot boys in this academy were often in this area. So she figured having a class here would help her meet them, maybe even find a date to this dance event coming up for some girl she had yet to meet called Sadie Hawkins? But it was turning out to just be yet another easy physical education seminar it would seem. The female Kryptonian wore her hooded black and red uniform and folded her arms while levitating a bit off the ground as she waited for a response.

"Is this the only way I can eat some pain? Or is there a private tutoring version where you can yell at me all you like?" Another voice cut in that was possibly thirstier than the sahara itself. Wasn't hard to find the speaker either, for two very obvious reasons. It was the green hair and the two horns- the horns come in a pair and onl count as one. Ally had moved over here from Steel City purely because she wanted to enjoy the beach. The biting cold was only so enjoyable for so long, and there was some buzz going about that something may be happening soon. She wanted to be a part of that, it sounded like it'd be a good time. ALSO, Jump City had clean air... she... almost forgot what that was like. Also yes, she was totally hitting on The Sarge- didn't think matter if he wasn't as strong as he sounded.

She had only paid SOME attention the actual context of what was going on, apparently they were going through an obstacle course. Ally remembered having to do one of those after she first joined HIVE as an evaluation of her abilities... she did very well in it. But what was that about picking rooms? How big was this course? Her tail started to wag about excitedly at the possibilities.

But wait... did he say something about this excerising your brain? That sounded less fun and also meant that they should totally do teams so she could pair up with someone smart that could deal with the smart people things while she just handled the physical stuff.

Unlike most other students of the HIVE Academy, Alpha didn't really "hear" about classes in the same way that the others did... It was more so that the director of the facility told him where to go, and when. He didn't have much choice in the matter, and this obstacle course/physical education class was no exception. He didn't exactly feel like he needed much further physical training, but he supposed it was helpful in its own unique ways.

...But interacting with the other students was irritating to no end. Especially the Kryptonian girl. Something about her rubbed the Tamaranean the wrong way, without fail. "You never have anything meaningful to add, do you, Kent?" he asked, using her last name to add a bit of a cold element to his question. He walked towards the front of the crowd as he spoke, causing some of Kass's little fanboys to glare quite angrily at him for being so rude to her.

Alpha made a point of taking stock of some of the other students who had spoken so far. He didn't know them, at least not as much as he did Kass, much as he dreaded to say that he knew her better than anyone else. There was a girl, with green hair, that he wasn't sure he'd seen anywhere before, but who struck him as somewhat similar to Kassandra in terms of personality. Then there was a younger looking guy... And something about him was odd to Alpha. He obviously had some unique metahuman physiology, but what exactly that entailed, he wasn't sure.

Alpha sighed, and looked to the Sergeant. "Sergeant, are we ready to start?" He hoped that they wouldn't have to be on teams. He dreaded having to work with any of the others.