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Anton wore his best suit as he went into the training facility for his new team. It did end up with the Royals being the only team to really offer him a position. Their backline was supposedly thinking of retiring in a season or two and they wanted time to groom up a replacement and chose him. Unfortunately, the fact they were looking at him was flattering, especially as they saw him as a potential starter rather than just an alternate. He was definitely surprised, however, at the reception he got. Admittedly he wasn't all that big of a name yet. There was no reason to expect anyone to know who he was, but both the receptionist at the hotel and the driver knew who he was when he stated his name. And both seemed rather cordial enough to him. Far different than what he had been getting the past month from his own side and how they normally react in the media regarding whenever one of their players came over for a visit.

There wasn't any real greeting for him at the training facility. Part of that might have been not giving him any specific time to show up. So he just headed there after dropping all his stuff off at the hotel. He takes a deep breath and enters in the player entrance with little more than a suitcase carrying his garment for his projection as well as the documents that said he should have been there. The guards there were decent enough, if somewhat unenthusiastic. They hand him his new badge that would let him get anywhere he needs to go, had him sign a few more things for legal matters, which took a few minutes and then just let him into the facility unsupervised.

Though as he walks through the building the reason why he wasn't really watched super closely started to become rather apparent. On all of the doors aside from the bathroom there are card readers, not to mention quite a few cameras around the place. So it really didn't matter if security went with him or not. In the end he'd be able to enter no more rooms than he would have otherwise. Eventually he's able to find some signs pointing out to the locker rooms and then with a deep breath to center himself he scans in his badge and steps into the room. In it he finds the rest of his team just somewhat casually hanging out, though he is surprised that even in the comforts of the locker room, Korin is still in his projected form. Though thinking on it he can't remember when they were ever not in their projected form. The team leader and support Mellisandre is sitting in a recliner aimed at the door, sipping some kind of spirit. Their frontlines Beleor and Rojan as currently in a discussion of something or another, though they don't really seem to be paying all that much attention to his entrance.

"Was wondering when you were going to show up," she says as the conversations stop. "So, welcome to the Royals. Not that we particularly care much for some lying piece of trash."

"What? I haven't even said a word. How do you have the gall to accuse me of lying?" Anton demands, taking a step forward to try and press his own defense.

"Relax, kid," Korin says, raising up an arm in a placating gesture. "it's just par for the course. People from your country all call us dirty cheats and we call people from your country filthy liars. It's just how things are."

"But why?" Anton asks, to which Korin just shrugs.

"Though I guess the first thing to deal with is I want to know just what all it is that we are getting out of you."

"What, like saying what my powers are?" Anton asks, somewhat confused.

"More to it than that. There's only so much that can be given from just watching a recording or you describing. We need to be able to trust you. And I don't particularly care for people who spend their entire time hiding in a garment that makes it impossible to tell who they are. So I need you to go ahead and project so that we can verify that you are who you say you are."

Anton was somewhat conflicted to what he really wanted to do at the moment. On one hand, he understood that as the new player on the team it was expected that he must try and prove himself to the others, especially to the team's leader so that they can best coordinate how to use him in regards to making plays and whatnot. Though he knows more or less enough that it shouldn't really be necessary. On the other hand there is the fact he's being pretty much accused of having faked everything by someone clearly bigoted against him just because of where he came from. His hands tingle a bit and considers just walking off and contacting his agent about everything, though he knows they were the only team that offered to him. Eventually he decides that he's not going to just allow himself to be bullied, even by his own team.

"Well if that's how you're going to be, then so be it. If being a pro requires that I get such treatment from my own team, then I don't really feel like it's worth being a pro. I have better things I could be doing with my time than being made a pariah." Anton huffs and turns around, heading back toward the door.

"Wait," Korin says, raising a hand to stop Anton, "How about we make this a fairly simple arrangement," he says, moving over to his locker and pushing against the back, causing the back to open up as it was apparently a false wall. "You show us what your projected form looks like and I'll let you see me as I really am, a thing that I'm sure you've wanted to see. And both instances are required for us to all work coherently as a team."

Anton sighs, still considering whether or not to just leave but he eventually relents and puts the briefcase down and gets into one of the nearby projection chairs. He has to admit that these are far more comfortable than the ones his old team had. But he works past that and closes his eyes with his hands on his chest and initiates the process. The most disorienting part of it all is always the initiation, where even though his eyes are closed he can start to see the surroundings. With that it's just a bit more of a push, of willing the part of him that can now see to sit up. There is obviously some resistance as to do this one must master the concept of moving while not actually moving their real body. But he is able to do it and then once the head has separated it becomes a lot easier. He glances at the response of his new teammates and frowns, extracting the rest of this body from his real one and then steps away. Anton has always found that his hands tingle slightly just after the initial release, his real hands, that is, and not the projected form. Anton shakes himself a bit and then opens up the briefcase holding his normal garment. Thankfully the projected form doesn't come out naked but rather wearing the same clothes as their main body. But Anton prefers to be wearing his special outfit that obscures what he looks like.

"Aww, it's so cute," their support says, causing Anton's ears to blush with embarrassment. And it definitely strikes as something completely different from how they were acting just a moment ago, making him wonder if it was all an act or if they are just that mental.

"Yeah, and now you know why I always wear my outfit. There is no way anyone would take me at all seriously when they see what it really looks like."

Anton has always hated the way his projected form looks. The ears that are each as large as his head are bad enough but he could deal with if that was the only problem. But the rather rounded looking face, short little muzzle, large, expressive eyes would necessitate a mask at the very least. Add to that he's easily a foot and a half shorter in this form, even with his strange stance of only walking on his toes as his feet are so much longer than normal and shaped like an animal. The fur he doesn't mind. There are a lot of projected forms that come with fur and the sand-colored fur really isn't that big of a deal. At the very least he's thankful it wasn't something that came out with a pastel color, though his fur is very soft which is annoying as it makes people want to keep touching him without permission. And to finish things off a long, extremely fluffy tail.

"Ooh, and it makes your voice so adorable too," Mellisandre coos at him, reaching out to try and pat him on his head. He swats the hand away and goes to start putting on his own personal uniform. A mask to hide his face and lower the pitch of his voice, a cloak to hide his appearance and tail and a few other things so that nothing of this body is visible. Can't do anything about being shorter, though. Not really worth it at any rate. Wearing something to make him seem taller would be extremely obvious and hinder his mobility.

"I don't really mind if you all force me to have a uniform specifically for this team. Just so long as it obscures everything, I look like. I have a reputation to maintain and I refuse to let people see what my projected form actually looks like."

"I'm not going to fault anyone for trying to hide a part of themselves from the public," Korin says. "Anyway, I am a man of my word. Feel free to walk into my room and you can see what I've kept hidden from the public for almost my entire career." With that his projected form completely fades out, the clothing he had been wearing falling to the ground, letting Anton know that he too was wearing a special outfit for the projected form.

Anton's head tilts to the side, leading their support to coo at him again before he huffs slightly and then heads towards the false wall in the locker. He isn't entirely sure what he was expecting, but it most definitely is not what he ends up finding. On the other side of the door is what looks to be a hospital bed with a lot of medical equipment set up. And in the middle of the bed is someone that looks more like someone in a cancer ward than a professional player.

"Heh, now you see why I never do any interviews. Can't even get out of this bed anymore for more than a minute or two."

"What happened?" Anton asks.

"Arilax Bane," he responds with a shrug, causing Anton to recoil slightly. Arilax Bane was a degenerative disorder and was completely untreatable. Though occasionally it could be genetic or an environmental trigger, most known cases occur when someone dopes on blood of a Manifestor. Once someone gets it that's just about it for them. Drugs can alleviate the pain but can't stop the body slowly rotting from the inside out.

"How'd you get it?" Anton asks, wondering if it was okay for the newcomer to ask such an accusatory question. Manifestors are much more powerful than anyone who can only project, which is why they're always arrested and put to death, there is simply too much danger to let them run loose. Doesn't stop some people from trying to inject the blood of a supposed Manifestor in order to try and supercharge their own abilities, which is one of the reasons for why the people in Anton's homeland call the people here a cheat, in that they had a Manifestor helping out, theoretically also helping them become more powerful than they had any right to be.

"You mean was I trying to cheat?" He half-laughs at the statement. "No. I got it most likely when I was very young and stupid. There was a nasty flu going around and I couldn't afford to get a vaccine at a hospital. So I went and found a place that was offering to the flu vaccine for a fraction of what it'd cost at the hospital and I went there. And I got my vaccine and paid. It was only a couple of years later when I started to notice some of the symptoms that I figured out what had happened. Apparently, the place I had gotten my vaccine from was notoriously bad about recycling needles to cut costs, among other things. And I just happened to have lucked out that the person they injected right before me was a Manifestor."

"So why are you here and not in a hospital?"

"And do what, exactly? The only thing I ever wanted to do was participate in these games. The team knows my history and has enough documentation that I haven't tried to cheat. Even the league knows of my situation, they just test me far more often than most and just pretend I don't exist the rest of the time to not raise the tensions between the two countries any higher. But in a hospital I'd have drugs that'd take away the pain but then I wouldn't be able to do anything else. When I project, none of the pain of this body carries over. When I project I can be pain free, just as mobile as anyone else in whatever arena we're in and still do my job. I know I'm dying, I can feel it. The doctors have said as much. That's why the team brought you on, so that they can have someone to take my place when I die."

"And you're okay with that?" Anton asks.

"Well it's not like there's anything I can really do about it. It's not like there's any medication out there to stop my body from rotting. I have accepted this fact. Though I will strongly ask that you never tell anyone outside the team about my condition, not even with other players you might think you can trust. They would never understand and instead say I've been a cheater this whole time. And I'd like my legacy be about the accomplishments I actually did, rather than a careless mistake I made in the past."

"Okay, little cutie, come on back into the main room," Mellisandre shouts into the room. Anton groans and then turns around and heads back in, seeing Korin starting the process of projecting himself again. But once back into the main locker room the moment it looks like that their support is about to try and make a grab at him again he releases the projection so that all she grabs is his garment. Anton gets off the chair and goes to retrieve his outfit from the disappointed woman.

"As for what I can do, basically anything in regards to wind. Haven't exactly found anything involving the air I haven't been able to do, just haven't thought to really try everything yet."