Gladiator

Chapter 5

It took them a while to actually find two seats next to each other, due to the amount of people that were crowded into the room.

Mare was nervous with all the people, but Gray noticed her growing anxiety, and curled his hand around her own.

She shot him a grateful glance, and he just smiled back warmly. People started to file out of the room one by one, and eventually, Marcella Wood was called. 

She stood, and Gray gave her a quick hug before leaving because he was almost late to his job. Thankfully it was in the tower at least.

She stepped through the door, and was greeted by the number six hero, NotFound. His power was that he could put anyone to sleep using skin-to-skin contact.

He smiled tiredly up at Mare as she entered the room, gesturing to the chair across from him.

He was seated at a dark colored desk, a window taking up the entire wall to the right of him, pictures hanging on his left. On the back wall was a shelf that had three plushies on it, one for each of the Dream Team.

"Hello! You're Marcella right? It's nice to meet you!" NotFound said cheerfully.

"Um, yeah, I prefer to go by Mare though please. And it's nice to meet you too!"

NotFound grinned happily at Mare, before proceeding to explain the first step of the interview process.

"Alright, so for this portion of the interview, I'm going to read you a few scenarios alright? Just answer the first thing you would do in that situation. Please don't hesitate, I want to see that it would be you're first reaction and not something you need to think over too much."

Mare nods once, prompting the hero to begin reading the first scenario.

"Pretend something happened that led to enemies of some sort being on the floor you worked on, and you ended up being held hostage. What do you do?"

"Well how many are there, enemies I mean. Are they powered? Are any heroes nearby? Where in the room are the enemies? And how much can I legally hurt them?" Mare rattles off quickly, needing more information.

NotFound stares at her for approximately three seconds, before blinking slowly and proceeding to answer the questions.

"There are three of them, none powered. No heroes are in the building at the moment, except for Ja- I mean Blaze, who as you probably know has gravity manipulation. One of the three is holding your hands behind your back, and the other two are between you and Blaze. And, um. Well I guess technically you can do pretty much anything that won't result in a death?" NotFound sounds a bit freaked out, but overall curios, especially with the last question.

Mare hummed in acknowledgement, nervously fiddling with her hands as she answered.

"In that case I would wait for Blaze to attack, hopefully he would attack the one on his left, since the human brain tends to tell people to go right in nearly all situations. If he attacked left, it would cause a mild shock since the subconscious of their brains would not be expecting it, and that would give me enough time to headbutt the one holding me, if I'm lucky it would break their nose. Accounting for the second or two it would take me to recover from the dizziness of smacking my head into the guy, or girl, or non-binary person, or anyone else I have yet to be educated on, not assuming gender, they should, still be focused on their nose and by that point I can kick them in the crotch, likely causing them to double over briefly. During that time period I can reach the pressure point on the back of their neck, using the vagus nerve to send them into vasovagal syncope. From there, Blaze should have subdued at least the one on the left, leaving me to use blunt force trauma or the vagnus nerve again to knock out the one on the right by sneaking up behind them. Of course, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, so I doubt it would play out exactly like that but it's the general idea"

Silence.

NotFound is staring at Mare like she's some sort of alien creature, eyes practically bugging out of his head. His jaw is hanging open, and his hands are frozen on the clipboard before he slowly lowers it down on the desk.

He coughs once, before beginning to speak, slowly choking words out.

"Al-alright then. Well, uh, um. Good job?" he squeaks the words out, before deciding that he can't take another one of those explanations. "You, uh, you passed. I don't really think I need to do another scenario, so you can just, um, head to the elevator, I've given your badge access to floor 37, you can, uh, head up there for the next part of the interview."

NotFound struggles to form the words before slumping over in his chair, cheek pressed against the cool surface of the desk.

He was so done with this.