Chapter Text
3 years after the death of their grandfather, right after Miri’s 15th birthday, Miri and Maxus decide they are ready to take the Hunters Exam (and their parents had promised they could take the exam after they had turned 15 so there was nothing stopping them). Miri goes to the other side of the island to talk to the family of Kiriko that live there since Miri is fully aware that they are navigators for the Hunters Exam, thanks to Netero…
(“But if the location changes every year, how do you get to the Hunters Exam, Uncle Netero?”
“Well, since we can’t possibly test every single person wanting to be a Hunter, we hire navigators to do some…pre-exam testing. And they lead their passed examinees to the site of the Hunters Exam.”
“What kind of navigators?”
“If someone is travelling from far away it might be the captain of a ship, air or sea, retired Hunters sometimes do the job, your grandfather was a navigator one year, a long time ago. Sometimes, we even have magical beasts to do the job.”
“Magical beasts would be good pre-examiners…So, creatures like Kiriko would be good at something like that.”
“Definitely.”
“Well that makes it easy then, we have a family of Kiriko already living on the island.”
“0_0.”)
The Kiriko tell Miri very simply that they’d be happy to lead Miri and Maxus to the Hunters Exam because they passed the two of them years ago and figured they would just wait until the pair was ready. So, the Kiriko, Maxus and Miri head off a few days before the exam starts.
The small crew take a boat from their small island to another, somewhat larger, island (AN: If you look at the Hunter x Hunter world map, it’s kind of shaped like a donut and has no name). Upon arriving at the island, just as the sun is rising, they see that they are not the first examinees to find the exam site, although they are still in the first 100, and are handed their badges; 78 and 79. The Kiriko leave Miri and Maxus, wishing them luck but assuring them they will lead them to however many future Hunter Exams the pair choose to take.
The exam does not start immediately, so there is some wait time to (unfortunately) meet some of the other examinees. The two are obviously rookies, having never been seen before so they are already being watched by the other, more experienced examinees. They arrived before Tonpa, but as soon as he gets there, the “Rookie Crusher” approaches the siblings, and considering the last time a stranger was in the vicinity of Miri and Maxus, their grandfather was killed, the two are not exactly amenable to Tonpa’s approach. He pulls his classic nice guy act, tells the pair about all the returning examinees and offers them juice (the same way he does in the future to Gon and co.). Miri takes the can, if only to humour him, but considering how high strung Miri is at all times, she stares straight at Tonpa and pours all the juice out. Maxus shrugs and follows her lead. Tonpa assumes he used too much laxatives to spike the drinks, (as this was the first time he attempted that trick) the thought that some people are just cautious not even crossing his mind. The Resting Bitch Face of Maxus and the extremely high strung energy Miri gives out keeps everyone else away from them.
Eventually, after 213 examinees have made it to the island, the first phase begins. Tsezguerra steps out from who knows where and explains that the first phase begins here. That's the moment the examinees notice that there seems to be huge, covered objects all around them. Tsezguerra calls out his men to unveil the coverings and reveals that the first phase is a huge, difficult, obstacle course and the only way to get to the second phase is to complete the course, which, while that sounds obvious, there were already people trying to look around the course, to see if there was another way through. But it was just the course in front of them and the water leading home behind them. All the examinees murmur to each other and themselves until eventually Maxus speaks up and asks, ‘Does it matter how we get through it?’
Tsezguerra smiles and shrugs. He answers, ‘If you can get through my obstacle course in any way other than using your physical ability, I’d like to see it.’
And Maxus, staring at him, refusing to break eye contact, smirks. They proceed to pull out their very fondly named, ‘Swiss Army Mountain Bike’ (a vehicle Maxus designed himself that started as a standard mountain bike but was changed to be capable of so much more, a literal ‘all terrain’ vehicle) and tells Miri, ‘Get on.’ Miri tries to refuse, happy to just run the obstacle course but Maxus insists, ‘I’m not asking, Miri, you will get on the bike.’ Miri relents and gets on the back of the bike. Maxus races off, using the force of how hard the wheels turn in the ground to drench the rest of the examinees in mud. Tsezguerra stands in shock for a moment before chortling. How was he supposed to know one of the examinees would have an object that would make them capable of passing the test without running the course that he had never heard of before? [;)]
Maxus cycles through the course, the bike giving them the ability to go around and over all the obstacles. Miri, not wanting to feel like they’re doing nothing, grows the grass behind them to trip up the other examinees and does her best to clear any unplanned, plant obstacles that might be in front of them. It is a long obstacle course, so while Maxus and Miri finish quickly, that is only in comparison to all the other examinees, who all lag way behind the two covered in mud.
150 examinees pass.