Friday, 22th November 2024, 2:43 pm
"Settle down, recruits." The Director scowls as he walks up to the center of the lecture hall. "I'm happy to announce that each and every one of you have passed the recruitment program with exceptional results. The Brannon-Brook initiative once again proves it's worth every cent we've invested to get each of you where you are today."
The recruits all sit huddled together in the middle of the lecture all, each beaming with smiles of accomplishment as the Director praises them.
"Your graduation ceremony will be held on the Monday the second of December, the main event will be held at the western conference hall with a dinner and after party arranged for those wanting to attend. Note, attendance of the main event is compulsory. In the meantime, we have already begun setting each of you up with your post-graduation work program. You'll be expected to do three to four months of on the job practical training with your assigned organization or agency. As always, strict standards of professionalism and etiquette must be maintained at all times. You'll return here after your work-program to begin training and preparations for the next gate defence. I, um… yeah, that's it from me. Ravinok?" The Director gestures to Ravinok at his side who quickly walks up to the podium.
"Thanks Director Martinez, as for me, I only wish to offer you my greatest and most sincere thanks, my beauties of Brannon-Brook. Each of you have proven worthy of the hardwork and sacrifice that we have made over all these years. Everything led up to the creation of the Brannon-Brook initiative, but never could we have imagined the outcomes would be… this! What I see before me today. Young men and women, each with the potential to become the greatest warriors this planet will ever know." Ravinok says proudly, lifting his glasses to wipe at stray tears.
"Right, thanks, Doctor. Check your schedules, we've set up some revision classes and we've got Victoria Amari available a couple days a week. Take this time to revise what you've learnt and put it into practice. Soon you'll be out there in the real world, tackling real problems. You won't have time-bubbles and healers at your beck and call. So make sure you're ready for whatever's out there, recruits. Now go!" The Director says with a smirk.
The recruits all greet the Director and Ravinok with a swift nod and verbal affirmation and quietly move out of the lecture hall, breaking out into a chatter as soon as they leave the building.
As Reyn and Jocelyn are about to exit, Ravinok calls out, gesturing for Reyn to stay behind. He quickly sees Jocelyn and his friends off and marches back into the room to stand before the Director and Ravinok.
"I shouldn't have to tell you , Mitchells. But the work-program will not apply to you. We still have much work to do here, still much to understand, yes?" Ravinok asks with a slight concern.
"Of course, sir! Looking forward to it."
"Brilliant, my boy! The things we are learning together. You make me feel like a schoolboy again, Mitchells!" Ravinok says as he slaps at his belly.
"Good answer, Mitchells." The Director smiles. "It should come as no surprise that you'll be the vanguard in our next gate defense. We're still working on some strategies, your arrival has pretty much thrown out everything we've planned before. We have to think up whole new approaches based around you. Make sure you're not wasting everybody's time, Mitchells. Do what Ravinok says, and get us the data. We'll make sure we're ready to handle whatever the fuck those gates can throw at us."
"Yes, sir!" Reyn nods with a smile.
"Good, now go before Webber gets on my case again."
"Y-Yes, sir…" Reyn says, confused.
He slowly walks out of the lecture hall before bursting into a sprint as soon as he leaves the building, chasing after Jocelyn as she walks toward the dorms. He yells at her, stopping her in her tracks.
"Did you… speak to the Director about me?" He asks between coughs and catching his breath.
"What? Oh, oh yeah. I did." she replies with a smirk.
"What? When? What did you say?"
"About a week ago, you went missing for three days, came back and said Ravinok pretty much dismembered you…"
"Oh…"
"Yeah, I had a world with ol' Jesse after that."
"What did you…"
"Told him I'm madly in love with you and never forgive him for any permanent damage to…"
"Joze! What the hell. And he just left it?" Reyn asks, his face covered in confusion. "The fucking Director?"
"Yep, why wouldn't he. They won't mess with our emotions like that."
"W-what…"
"You know, our heads. They don't mess around with our emotions and personalities... Wait… you didn't notice?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Reyn asks, his brow broken into perplexity.
Jocelyn chuckles.
"Crazy you didn't notice that. Even since Brannon-Brook, they never messed with our personalities, they did all kinds of crazy shit to us, but they never messed with who we are, you know. Flaws and all. It's why they never tried to shut Ghazal up, or toughen up Chunmei or Paolo or fix your head issues, or stop Lucein's shittiness, Lumari constantly boasting, etcetera. Like Ravinok said, our aetherics stem from our mind, from who we are, right? That's why they give us a lot of leash when it comes to us just being us. You seriously didn't know? Damn! Why do you think Vera Virtaski gets to look like a fucking barbie doll on official missions? It's her personality, they don't mess with that. Though I'm sure they've tried over the years, they probably realized brainwashed soldiers weren't gonna cut it so…"
The realisation hits Reyn, and as it sinks and settles into his mind, he throws himself over Jocelyn, forcing her to strain to hold his weight.
"What the fuck…" she cries out.
"Oh, Jocelyn… I'm so sorry! I've been an idiot again. Can you ever…"
"You fucking… " she slides away from under him and he tumbles onto the ground theatrically. She huffs and shakes her head. "Come on, you dummy! I wanna go see the mock battle schedule, I wanna do some fights before graduation."
Reyn jumps to his feet and quickly tags along, teasing and playing with Jocelyn's hair and accessories as they walk, much to her annoyance and his amusement.
The two go up to Reyn's room, which Jocelyn would find in immaculate condition. Mostly because she would regularly help him clean it after giving up on leaving him to do it himself.
They go through the mock battle schedules on their phones with Jocelyn making herself available for two battles and Reyn for four. She would quickly be matched for both bouts, while Reyn waited impatiently to be notified of his match ups.
Ghazal would eventually come bursting into his room to boast about the multiple matches he has scheduled, including one with Glenn Foster. Reyn laments the fact he still hasn't received any after hours of waiting.
The trio would go on to spend their day watching talk shows and variety programs on TV and enjoying a hearty meal and beers at the compound's pub.
Reyn goes to bed dejected at the seeming lack of interest in anybody willing to fight him. But, the obvious truth worms its way into his mind, as much as he tries to reject it. He was too powerful, and everyone knew they stood no chance against him. Why would they waste their last mock battles as recruits getting humiliated by Reyn Mitchells, GAARD's little posterboy, he thought to himself, a little regretful of the ability he was now stuck with and the fame it had garnered.
A week later, and Reyn still hasn't secured a bout. He sits in the audience section of the battle-stage in the center of the training ground, eagerly awaiting Jocelyn's second fight. sShe had won her first against Lumari Kruger a few days earlier after a long fought battle against the echo and aerokinetic.
Today she would be fighting Paolo Santos, who specializes in ferrokinetics and advanced aetherical weapons generation.
Ghazal and Reyn speculate on the outcomes of the battle. Jocelyn has proven herself as a powerful offence-type archaner, the manipulation and combination of her aqua and cryokinesis proving exceptionally powerful and versatile across the battlefield.
Paolo has made a name for himself as an adept combat strategist, using his skills to change the flows and direction of battles.
The combatants enter the stage, and Victoria Amari quickly sets up the chrono-sphere while Rick Justice prepares to facilitate the match.
After short and amicable greetings they signal their readiness to Rick. A snort and shout later, and the match is underway.
Paolo activates his ARCH, as the aether sparks from his back, a thick film of it, emanates from his ARCH circuitry around him, sliding across his skin until his entire body is encapsulated in a thick layer of aether. In a moment, the layer suddenly hardens, and the audience watches on astonished as Paolo now stood before them a thick armour covering his entire body, leaving only a tiny slit before his eyes for visibility.
Jocelyn looks on smiling. "You done?"
"Just one more!" Paolo replies as he lifts one hand to the sky.
His ARCH-unit activates again, and sends a shimmering swirl of aether spinning around Paolo's hand, the cloud of light collects above his palm and quickly begins to take shape. Paolo slowly brings down his hand, and by the time it almost touches him, a gigantic rocket-launcher type weapon sits snugly on his shoulder.
"Ready!"
Jocelyn scoffs at the sight while she winds up the aetherics in her hands, as she holds them out to her side. Tendrils of ice start growing from them, bursting out and into the ground below her, launching her forward with explosive force.
Paolo panics under his helmet and quickly fires off a salvo of aetheric rounds. Each carrying the destructive force of a javelin missile. Explosions rock the fight-stage, sending up fountains of rock and debris as Jocelyn uses tentacles of ice and eruptions of compressed water to gracefully weave herself across the mangled battlefield, slipping and sliding between Paolo's aetherics.
As she nears her opponent, an eruption of water at her feet launches her skyward, and once above Paolo, she wrings her hands towards him, sending him a torrent of ice spears and high-speed, high-pressure wallet bullets.
The projectiles slam into the ground all around Paolo, knocking him into the floor as they pound at his armour. He yells out, igniting his ARCH-unit, and generating an enormous shield around him, weaved of multiple forms of metal.
Jocelyn quickly drops out of the air and lands on the shield that was now covering half the fight stage with Paolo hidden and protected beneath it.
While Paolo readies a litany of offensive weapons and mini-artillery under his defence-line, she places both palms onto its surface as her ARCH-unit bursts with energy, burning into her skin with cracks and sparkles of raw aether.
The metal around her hands starts to creak and moan with structural stresses as she worms her aetherics through it, the dark glistening alloys of Paolo's shield starts to turn an icy white as Jocelyn overwhelms it with her cryokinetics.
She suddenly lifts one hand into the air, wraps it in fast spinning water and slams it through the shield. A moment later, a monumental downpour of icy liquid bursts forth from her palm as she holds it inside of the cracked-open shield.
Paolo watches helplessly as his dome of defense and weaponry gets quickly flooded with ice cold water. His body goes into shock as the water seeps into his aetheric armour, causing him to panic and forcing Jocelyn to save him from his predicament.
He would go on to forfeit the match to Jocelyn, who gladly accepted her second and final win. She leaves the stage smiling proudly, her arm wrapped around the dejected Paolo while the crowd cheers the two on for the entertaining encounter.
A few more fights follow and the mock battles would finally come to a close for the week. Reyn gets up and prepares to leave the training ground, deeply depressed by the fact he has not had a chance to freely use his own aetherics for weeks on end. Only his occasional test or experiments with Ravinok would even allow him to use his ARCH-unit, though under very controlled directives.
Jocelyn had taken notice as she had been treating his emotional wounds all week with shows of compassion and physical interactions that provide temporary reprieve from his dark thoughts, but Reyn's growing depression eats at her.
"Just wait a sec, be right back." Jocelyn announces as they exit the facility. Reyn shrugs and leans on a wall while he waits for her.
She appears a few moments later, smiling and content. She locks her arms into Reyn's and the two make the long slow walk towards the dorms, discussing various topics related to their last two weeks together at GAARD.
Another week passes, and Reyn again finds himself on the ring side of the final mock-battles of his recruitment program. Ghazal sits beside him, glowing with accomplishment after having deftly defeated Glenn Foster in a one-on-one fight, beating the world famous aerokinetic with his own aero aetherics.
As the final battle finishes, Ravinok suddenly appears next to Victoria Amari.
Reyn watches closely as the two converse in hushed whispers.
Victoria suddenly bursts out laughing as the doctor looks on with a sour-faced pout. He slaps her on her shoulder and wags a pointing finger at her. She shrugs and shoos him away with a flicking of her hand.
Ravinok disappears into the floor, a minute later he appears in the center of the ring, now clad in an extremely tight-fitting combat morph suit.
"Good afternoon, recruits. I have a special little surprise for you, my Brannon-Brook beauties. As a reward for your six months of hardwork and dedication, I will show you something not seen on this planet in over a decade. You will see the Rumbling Russian in action once more! I, Yaroslav Ravinok, challenge Reyn Mitchells to a mock battle!"
Reyn's eyes almost exit his head as he jumps from his seat.
"Sir. Are you serious?"
"As serious as science, boy! Come… or do you fear the might of Ravinok?" the doctor says with a chuckle and belly slap.
Reyn quickly hops from his seat and enters the fight stage.
The doctor tosses him a power-core which he slips onto his nape. The familiar feeling of aether filling his body brings with it a grin to Reyn's face.
"Remember, Mitchells, moderation please!" the doctor smiles nervously. "But… I'm confident in my ability, as such, I have requested we do our fight without the use of a chrono-bubble. I trust you won't immediately murder me, Mr. Mitchells?"
"Yes, sir." Reyn chuckles. "I trust I can fight you freely without consequence?"
Ravinok bursts out laughing.
"Of course, assuming you don't kill me."
Reyn nods approvingly.
"Whenever you're ready, sir…"
"It has already begun!" Ravinok shouts as he bursts into a fountain of particles.
The ground below Reyn rumbles and erupts, as thousands of tiny tendrils of concrete burst worth and wrap themselves all around him. They pull him down, crushing him into the floor with ever increasing pressure.
As Reyn's body begins to crack and tear under the writhing mass, he grins as he activates his ARCH-unit.
In an instant, every chemical compound of concrete connected to the main stage suddenly disappears in a poof, leaving behind a gigantic cloud of dust. Reyn, standing erect and fully healed, holds out his hand before him, and a moment later, all the concrete dust collects in a little ball in his palm.
He tosses the ball into the ground ahead of him, where it immediately craters, digging meters into the soil as the earth caves into its immense mass.
Reyn surveys the now barren arena, the crowd all sit in silent shock, some slightly hiding behind each other or their seats.
Ravinok's laugh bellows across the training area, before a sudden spiral of invisible air blasts toward Reyn, slicing through molecules as they streak at his body.
The first spiral hits him in the right shoulder, blasting a neat round hole through his body. He screams in pain as he hits the floor.
Just as the next spiral is about to hit, he slams his fist to the ground, sending out a wall of pure aetheric energy that instantly nullifies the effects of all other aetherics in the vicinity.
Ravinok screams as he suddenly appears, dropping out of the sky where he had hidden in a thinly dispersed cloud of particles.
Reyn's ARCH ruptures with power as he grips his mutilated shoulder tightly. His aether weaves into his body and quickly repairs the gaping hole as he winces in agony.
He drags himself up to his feet and stares across the barren ground to Ravinok, laying half-hidden in a cloud of dust as he struggles to get to his feet.
Reyn points a finger-gun at Ravinok, his face beset by a cruel sneer.
"Bang!" He roars.
An instant later, Ravinok explodes into millions of little wobbling balls of flesh, each frozen and suspended in the air while the crowd looks on in horror.
"Give up yet, Doctor?" Reyn chuckles.
The flesh globules begin to vibrate wildly as Reyn watches on with a sly smirk.
They break free from their invisible prisons and quickly smash back together. Ravinok gasps for air as his body takes its natural form.
"Mediocre, Mitchells!" Ravinok yells out, but his body again erupts into millions of pieces, this time swirling themselves into gigantic tentacles and blasting toward Reyn.
He holds up his hands to intercept, but relents, eager to see what Ravinok was capable of.
The doctor's matter hits Reyn in the chest, but with no physical force, instead, it slips between the cells of his clothes and skin, quickly weaving through his body.
Fear finds Reyn's face as he struggles to think of a solution while the doctor's matter begins to collect into various parts of his body.
His leg suddenly erupts in an explosion of flesh and aetheric particles, quickly followed by his other, and then his left arm and his right. Reyn shrieks out in unrelenting agony filling the training facility with screams of pain, followed quickly by Jocelyn's wails of concern, Ghazal screaming about revenge and numerous other audience members reacting with horror or disgust at the outcomes of the fight.
"Stop wasting time, Mitchells. Just show them…" Ravinok moans as he appears standing before what remains of Reyn's body.
Reyn's screaming suddenly stops as his ARCH-unit activates once more.
This time, it erupts with such violence that it rips chunks of flesh from Reyn's body.
The crowd watches in stunned silence his sparks of aether crawl and creep along the ground and air all around him, and in the blink of an eye, everybody watching the battle finds themselves floating alone in a dark, empty void.
The recruits and archaners all react wildly as they try to make sense of this new form of existence. As their minds begin to unravel under the strain of thoughts trying to process their experience, a sudden shimmering light envelopes them and they find themselves all huddled together, standing on the surface on an endless, shimmering ocean teeming with raw aether.
Above them was a featureless sky, only adorned by rays of aetheric light that seemed to emanate from no visible source.
They look around wildly, finally finding Reyn and Ravinok conversing a ways off. As they approach, they hear the two men arguing.
"That really fucking hurt! I didn't hurt you like that. What was that about moderation, Doctor?" Reyn scolds Ravinok, waving his hands wildly in the air.
"Oh, come on Mitchells. We've been through worse. I was giving them a good show!"
"Whose we? I'm the only one getting beat to shit and mutilated here. I wanted to show off a little, not gonna cut into little fucking pieces again."
Reyn turns away from Ravinok pouting only to be violently slapped by an approaching Jocelyn.
She stares at him awash with anger and confusion.
His eyes widen as he comes to grips with her flaming eyes and his burning cheek.
"Ravinok!" He yelps out. "It's him, I swear. He keeps doing this to me." Reyn whimpers.
Jocelyn fires a death-glare at Ravinok who quickly averts his gaze.
"Sir!" Jocelyn yells out, forcing him to give her his attention. "What the hell is happening here? Where the hell are we?"
"Mitchells, please explain to your woman where you have taken us." Ravinok says with a slight snicker.
"We're in my head." Reyn shrugs. "Well, not in my head, but in a space I created that kinda looks like the inside of my head. Well, not my head, you know, like, my mind. Or at least what my mind tells me it looks like…" He explains, badly.
"Argh, useless, boy." Ravinok scowls. "What he means to say is that, with the power of his aetherics, Reyn has created a sub-dimension shaped to look like the visual image he experiences when using his ARCH-type. As you know, our aetherics stem from our minds. It is fed into our bodies via the ARCH-unit, and released to the world, resulting in various reactions. But for Mitchells, his aetherics are not limited by this process, he can affect the world around him directly with thought. And what you see below your feet, is every possible thought, every possible probability, all housed in an endless ocean within his mind. Let's go down, Mitchells." The doctor says with a smile as the crowd looks on confused, trying in vain to make sense of the doctor's words.
Reyn nods, and suddenly, the entire group finds themselves housed in a gigantic, aetheric bubble.
It slowly moves down into the ocean depths, and its occupants watch in awe as the shimmering licks of light give way to an endless abyss, far below. As they move deeper, little sparkles of light begin to emanate from the darkness. First one at a time, then many, until hundreds of thousands of sparkles filled the abyss. They all stare down in wonder, watching as the lights grow bigger and brighter, and all of a sudden, they burst forth from the depths, shooting toward them like stars.
"The choices." Ravinok says softly, grinning wildly.
The balls of light come streaking into view and their eyes light up as millions of large bubbles suddenly appear all around them.
"You see before you the truth of Reyn Mitchells' ability. Each aether bubble, each sphere of light presents a choice to Reyn. A possibility. A different future. Reyn need only decide, and the universe listens." Ravinok says with a proud smile.
"What the fuck!" Rick Justice blurts out as the rest of the group start breaking into wild discussions and questioning. "You telling me this bitch-ass boy can just think whatever and make it reality? No offence, Mitchells."
"This… this is too much, Yaroslav. My brain… she is crying out trying to make sense of… this." Victoria Amari says, wincing as she fearfully looks at the unimaginable views around her. "But are you telling me Mitchells can create dimensions? He can choose futures? I mean… that's beyond anything we've seen. That's the territory of gods."
"I assure you, ma'am… um, Miss. I'm not a god. Nowhere near it. We're still just trying to figure out what all this means. I can barely…" Reyn says, trying to assure the quivering woman as well as the rest of the group.
"I'm a man of science, Ms. Amari." Ravinok interrupts. "My only gods are provable facts and truths. And Mr. Mitchells has shown you the truth of his power. If you consider him a god for this, I will not stop you. But to me, he is a man, a human, and he understands his purpose and meets it no matter the cost." Ravinok says with a proud smile as he slaps Reyn on the back.
"But, I mean, based on what Doctor Ravinok is saying. You're pretty much omnipotent, right, Reyn? You can do pretty much anything you want… There's no limit to what you can do, technically speaking. So, by some… maybe even most definitions, you are a god." Paolo states pointedly.
"You feel like worshipping me Paolo?" Reyn sneers.
"Not until you can beat me in soccer." Paolo resorts, causing Reyn to burst into a chuckle.
"So never then." He replies with a laugh.
"What is the point of this Ravinok, why show us? This seems like a major liability. If people found out…" Agent McCain queries.
"This is our future Victoria, this is what the next phase of human evolution looks like. Reyn is only the first. The Brannon-Brook initiative has shown us only a glimpse of humanity's true potential. We see here what we can achieve when we combine our science and understanding with the unlimited potential of the aether. Soon, this universe will be far too little to contain the powers humanity will wield." Ravinok exclaims, sending shivers of uncertainty through every person present, including Reyn. "Now, come, let us return Mitchells. I have a battle to forfeit."
Reyn takes the group back to their reality with a simple thought. After they return, a quick activation of his ARCH-unit will see the training facility's main battle stage perfectly restored.
Ravinok continues to prattle on about Reyn's abilities and speculate on the unimaginable future that the Brannon-Brook initiative has unlocked for mankind.
While Ravinok continues his impromptu lecture half a million kilometres away on the dark side of the lunar surface, a deeply peculiar scene starts to take form.