Friday, 7 June 2024, 9:29 am
"Um, so I just… punch it?"
"Correct. You punch, we analyze. We see what mental and physical conditions are required to activate your aetherics. Actions and reactions. Cause and effect. We start with a push. If this does not work… we start to pull. You want to avoid the pulling, Mr. Mitchells."
"Yes, sir." Reyn sighs as his face twists with apprehension. He takes a deep breath and steps one foot back, loading up a balled fist at the end of his right arm.
As he loads his strength into his muscles, he considers the possible outcomes of his fist connecting with the cube, but only one makes logical sense to him. He launches his hand forward, prepared to accept the consequences of his action.
His ARCH-unit bursts to life with a flickering brilliant color as he quickly brings his fist towards the cube and when skin meets metal, he is again swallowed by a familiar sensation. He finds himself once again adrift on an endless shimmering ocean. Above him, a featureless sky undulating with radiant colors. Below him, an abyss of infinite possibilities.
He sighs, resigning himself to the situation and taking a moment to indulge in the warm, calming waters in his mind. As he lays staring up at nothing, the occasional sound of a popping bubble would remind him of his current situation in his base reality.
He rallies what little conviction he has left and dives, searching for the nearest doorway to his reality. He watches as a bubble erupts from the abyss, ripping through the darkness and coming to a rippling stop in the ocean's transition zone just below him.
The aether bubble's scene plays out, and in it, Reyn punches the cube with all his might. His hand fractures in an eruption of blood and bone and he falls to the floor writhing in incredible pain. He winces as he watches the scene play out, an imagined pain suddenly ticking his hand.
He quickly moves away from the bubble contemplating what he just saw, while the bubble launches itself out of the ocean to a pop.
Yet another bubble floats by, and in it, the same scene plays again as Reyn looks on with his face twinged in imaginary pain.
More bubbles appear and they each show him the same scene. A powerful punch erupting into blood and bone. The inevitable outcome to his only choice is revealed and he comes to accept its consequences.
The next bubble appears and he beams toward it fast as the ocean would carry him, erupting from his position as an explosion of water catapults him to his target. He hits the bubble at maximum speed and is instantly enveloped in its shimmering light.
In an instant, his fingers bend and break, his bones shatter and his hand erupts in a bubbling bloom of blood and sinew. He slumps to the floor, snot and tears choking him as he writhes and screams. His mind and body beset in unbearable pain and confusion.
"Hm… very interesting." The doctor ponders quietly while stroking his chin.
Reyn once again opens his eyes to a black-light room. The shimmers emanating from the darkness heal his broken appendage. The pain in his hand is mostly gone as aether fuses and fixes his flesh.
"Didn't expect to see you again so soon, Mitchells" A distorted voice snickers. It is familiar to Reyn and he welcomes it warmly with a sincere smile.
"I take it you're not a bio-kinetic, then?"
"Nah." Reyn sighs deeply. "Kinda wish I was though."
"Trust me, it sucks. Punching things is way more fun." He laughingly responds. "So you figure out your ARCH-type yet?"
"Um, not really."
"Oh… oh. Ok. I'm sure you'll figure it out in no time."
"Yeah, thanks." Reyn smiles, but his face looks forlorn, as the man's words remind him of his circumstances and why he finds himself once again in need of healing.
"Well, that should do it Mitchells. Take it easy out there. Can't keep seeing you under these circumstances." He chuckles as he finishes his work and bids Reyn farewell from the darkness.
One of Ravinoks assistants arrives to remove Reyn from the black-light room and they move through the training facility to meet the doctor in a new location. They arrive at a gymnasium featuring all kinds of exercise and training equipment and at its center a very large and professional-looking fighting ring.
Ravinok appears in the ring and beckons Reyn over. He struts toward the doctor, his stride confident, but his mind abounds with apprehension as he approaches.
"You ok? That was not a pretty sight." The doctor questions. He observes Reyn closely as he enters the ring, squinting at him hard. "I did not expect you to hit it with all your power. Just like Lunara, so hothead. Always giving 100 percent. She would be proud, Mitchells."
Reyn smiles. The comparison to his mother lifts his spirits more than any of his own attempts. "Thanks, sir, and I'm all good." He holds up his healed hand, fluttering his fingers.
"Good, good. You have me worried, Mitchells." The doctor complains as he approaches Reyn, who straightens his stance and raises his chin. Ravinok stands before him, an immense figure, his grey, balding head sits flush atop a short, thick neck. He strokes his stubbled chin as he inspects Reyn more closely. The doctor swiftly cocks back his hand and violently slaps Reyn across his face, sending the young man to his knees. Reyn looks up at the doctor as tears swell in his eyes, clutching his searing cheek.
The doctor stares at him sternly. "Apologies, boy. A test. Experiment. Crude, I know. But such is science." Ravinok bemoans as he helps Reyn up to his feet.
"Yes, sir!" Reyn responds, wiping his face and straightening his appearance. He stands strong and erect before his assaulter.
"Excellent. You must be able to handle at least this much. For we must learn, we must experiment. This is science, Mitchells. Sometimes it is a painful endeavor. And it seems for you, it may be even moreso." The doctor explains as he grabs Reyn's shoulder. "But within you boy, I sense something. Something strange. Something powerful. The aether, she whispers to us. But to you… she speaks in a different way. And I think when you learn to listen… you will find she sings a beautiful song."
The doctor's seriousness fades and his smile returns as he slaps Reyn on the back. "For this. We need to experiment. Reactions! We need to see reactions. We must prod and poke and beat at your body until the aether sings within you, yes! This is the old way. Before GAIA. Before all the machines. When we had to pull the aetherics out of you through pain! Stretching the mind to its limits through physical stimulation!"
Reyn shudders. The doctor's allusions fill his thoughts with new, frightening possibilities while a familiar figure enters the gym behind the doctor and makes his way to the ring.
"Oh, Mr. Justice. Perfect timing. This is the boy. Lunara's boy! Reyn Mitchells."
Rick Justice slowly makes his way into the ring, his eyes intently focused on Reyn each stop of the way, beaming bolts of intimidation straight to his mind. Reyn maintains stares back, engaging all mental and physical strength to hold firm his posture and resolve.
"Good to meet ya, Mitchells. Lunara couldn't shut up about you." Rick greets with a miniscule nod, every little movement of the man's body seems to bring with it an innumerable amount of flexing muscles and bulging veins.
Reyn flusters as he reaches out a hand, but quickly greets the man with a firm handshake and formal welcome.
"Mr. Justice here is gonna help us with a little experiment, Mitchells. It's simple. The aetherics stem from our subconscious. It's primal, raw. So what better way to provoke that sensation than with good old fashioned fist-a-cuffs, ha?" The doctor proclaims with a chuckle. "You will fight Mr. Justice, here. Man-on-man. But Mitchells, for this to work, for it to really work. You need to fight my boy! Mr. Justice is a biokinetic. He can greatly increase physical strength and resistance. Not just of himself, but so too of others."
Reyn's eyes widen at hearing the doctors plan to release his aetherics. Rick snorts. "Yes, sir!" Reyn responds firmly.
"Good, Rick will boost your strength and resilience, this will allow you to survive his punches. But it will still hurt. A lot." Ravinok says with a pointed grin.
"Yes, sir!"
"Relax boy. Just remember the goal of this experiment, yes? Reactions. We want to see what it takes to release your aetherics. Inputs and outputs. Cause and effect. Once you understand it, you control it!"
Reyn nods a stern approval and turns his attention to Rick Justice. The doctor speaks a few more words of encouragement and instruction before swirling away, leaving the two men to face each other in the ring.
Rick's dark skin glistens, almost to a glow, under the blistering gym-lights searing the air above them. He spreads his stance and crosses his arms, flexing every muscle in the process, tiny drops of sweat roll down mountains of muscle and ridge like veins as Reyn looks on in fearful admiration.
Rick snorts. "So, how do you wanna do this, boy?" His face seems beset in a angry snarl.
Reyn stands apprehensive. Rick Justice is one of the most combat effective biokinetic on Earth and master of close quarters combat. He is a legend of the gate defence.
"Did they not teach you how to speak at that fancy school?"
"Yes, sir!" Reyn barks in response.
"Good, so how do you wanna do this, boy?"
"Whatever suits you, sir."
Rick snorts as a small grin sneaks across his mouth. He quickly weaves one of hands in front of himself as his ARCH-unit lights up.
Reyn feels a new sensation rolling through his body. His muscles grow dense and his bones thicken with aetheric energy. He feels light and powerful as his entire body tingles in anticipation. His physical strength and resilience greatly boosted by Rick's aetherics.
"Like it?"
Reyn's eyes light up and he twists and flexes his muscles, his astonishment relieving him of his formality. "Yeah, this fucking is awesome!" He cries out excitedly.
"Good, let's see what you can do with it." Rick smirks, his ARCH-unit flashes and sparks as he launches forward in a flurry, leaps across the ring in an instant, landing firmly before Reyn. His body quickly twists back as he loads his fist with power. Aether erupts from his ARCH-unit, shooting through his body to bath every bone and muscle in unnatural possibilities. The flesh across his body ripples impossible power, forcing all strength to his fist as he throws it at Reyn's face. It wraps firmly against Reyn's nose before he has a chance to blink.
Reyn's head flicks back and his entire body is swiftly lifted off the ring mat. He twists through the air, flying across the ring as his ascension clears him of the top ropes and lands tumbling across the gym floor, sliding to a halt.
"The fuck they teach at that school?" Rick snorts.
Reyn lay for a moment in silent contemplation as the aetheric boosting works intensely to maintain his bodily functions. His nose is dripping blood and his muscles and bones are pounding with pain and excitement. He begins calculating. Options, possibilities and probabilities. Causes and effects. Trying to compute his best course of action and how his aetheric precognition will work to help him in his current predicament. Then a new realization besets him as his mind reaches its conclusions. His precognition was perfect for a simple one on one fight. Being able to accurately predict his opponents movements would practically guarantee his success.
Reyn stands up slowly as Rick looks on, unimpressed. He wipes the blood from his face and peels off his suit jacket. All anxieties now replaced with a calculated confidence and bursts toward the ring filled with certainty. He jumps, clearing the top ropes and lands in the ring with a boom, fluttering the ropes and tassels along its edges. He tenses and relaxes his muscles, flicks and folds his appendages and twists his neck. "I'm ready!" He announces, staring Rick down.
Rick snorts. He launches toward Reyn like a bullet and meets the boy with a roaring fist to his abdomen. Reyn blocks the attack, but the force knocks every molecule of air from his lungs and rolls him across the ring floor gasping for air. He quickly pulls himself up and prepares for the next assault as Rick approaches again, but Reyn manages to dodge the fist flying at his ribs.
As the fight progresses, Reyn's eyes furiously flicks around the ring, inspecting and collecting every aspect of data he can about his opponent and environment to add to the processing of possibilities happening in his mind. He considers each movement and decision he and Rick make and how they are affected and limited by their environments. Each datapoint adds to his calculations.
He skips around Justice, then quickly launches at the man with a fully loaded punch. Reyn's hand approaches the man with fury, and as it it's about to connect, Reyn activates his ARCH-unit, ripping his mind from reality.
As soon as he splashes down inside his mind he dives below the ocean surface and furiously searches for the aether bubble that would show him his future. In the distance a light rises and he rushes to meet it. Inside, he watches Rick effortlessly dodge his punch, slide under his arm, and counter with an uppercut, lifting Reyn off the mat once again.
He carefully considers each movement and reaction in the vision, calculating a trail of actions that would allow him to change the outcome of the scene to meet his needs. The bubble disappears as it reaches the surface and Reyn scans the depths for another sphere of light.
He quickly finds one rising from the depths and blasts towards it. He watches the scene again looking to confirm various details before he returns to reality, but he notices something that causes all his compiled considerations and calculations to crumble into abyss as his mind is raptured by the vision before him.
He sees Rick again dodge his punch and weave around his arm. But instead of an uppercut, Rick hits him with a right-hook, sending his head slamming into the mat, blood bursting from his mouth and nose. He saw a different future.
His mind erupts with new possibilities as he floats in the depths for hours, considering what this new information meant. Different futures, different possibilities, different choices. His precognition didn't just show him his future, it showed him the outcome of his choice. But not only his choice, but the choices of others. He could see the futures of Rick Justice's choice before him.
As he lies and thinks, he watches the occasional bubble rise from the abyss and float patiently in the middle of the ocean before finding its end at the surface. Every aether bubble brings with it a possibility. A future. A choice. Not only could he see the consequences of the choices being made around him, but he himself could choose the outcome. His aetherics made him lord over the choices of others, definitely a unique ability, but he could not contend to its usefulness in combat.
He searches the ocean of rising aether bubbles, watching the scenes as they play out, each of Rick's choices, each of the futures they represent, and every single one sees him being beaten to a pulp. The combat usefulness of his aetherics begin to seem like a slim possibility to Reyn.
He relents and reaches out to a bubble with a more reasonable outcome, and as the flash of light envelopes him, so does Rick's fist find his belly. Rick digs his arm into Reyn's abdomen, dragging him through the air before releasing him with a flick of his wrist. Reyn hits the corner pylon like a missile, his limbs explodings out around him. He lands with a thud, crumpled into a pile spewing blood and spit all over the mat. Reyn instantly regrets his choice.
Rick strolls over to the opposite end of the ring and shouts at the doctor, Reyn struggles to hear as his senses still find their way back to his mind, his eyes are a blur as he feels a hand lift him to his feet.
"You good, Mitchells?" Rick asks with a hint of concern hidden deep in his voice.
Reyn mumbles an affirmative response before he suddenly starts feeling the familiar trilling of aether through his body. "I can do a little healing. I'll fix you up a bit and we keep going. Doctor's orders." He feels the aether weave through his cells and repair what was broken, crudely fusing and fixing his body where able.
"It's not great, but it'll do. Real healer will fix you when we're done." Rick says as he pats, Reyn off, and sets him straight on his feet. "Pull yourself together, Mitchells. You're embarrassing Lunara."
"It's working, Mitchells! You're ARCH-unit, it is activating! There is a reaction! We must just find it, understand it! Keep going!" The doctor shouts from a booth high up on one of the gym walls, waving a thumb above his head.
Rick's beratement and the doctor's encouragement only helps strengthen his resolve. But it is the mention of his mother, which ignites his pride and strength. He wipes the blood and tears from his face and grunts away any notions of fear or hesitation. As Rick turns around to face him, Reyn has already leapt halfway across the ring, convinced in his ability to guide him to success. He would force Rick's actions, constrain his choices, and carve out outcomes that lead to victory. Just as Rick's eyes widen and his muscles tense to react to Reyn's approach, Reyn Reyn's ARCH-unit erupts in a blazing flurry of lights and sends him bursting into his inner ocean in rabid search of his desired future.
He immediately blasts around the dim waters bouncing between bubbles, watching every reaction he finds. Rick's skill and power is impassable. Every choice leads to Reyn meeting a painful consequence. Reyn had already come to realize this was his most likely outcome, every choice Rick presented was based on years of experience and a finely honed and maintained skill in fighting, he was mentally prepared for every possibility Reyn presented during their time in the ring and every choice he made would lead to his victory.
Yet, something within Reyn would not accept it. A desire to reject the impossible choices he was forced to make burned deep and brightly within him. Baked into his blood and bones was a primal, unbending, unsatisfiable hunger to reign victorious no matter what possibilities he faced. His mother's words, itching at the back of his being, refusing him the refuge of surrender.
His decision is made, none of the choices offered would provide him the outcome he desires. So he would make his own. He looks down into the ever blacking abyss, and with all the mental might he can muster he wraps the ocean around him and with an all-powerful pulse of water, launches himself straight down into the darkness, the origin place of the aether bubbles.
The void eager swallows him and the shimmer that flicked on the ocean surface quickly disappeared into echoes of fading light. The influence of the abyss grows heavier as rushing darkness flows past him, the water thickens and he feels the weight of an ocean push on his body, crushing his inner him with the overwhelming weight of his own subconscious. The pressure overwhelms his convictions and he feels the darkness begin to swallow him, reaching into every orifice to devour him from within himself, driving him into a panic. He kicks and screams and struggles against the forces overpowering him but it only drags him deeper, a glint of light reaching up toward him from deer in the abyss beckons and he uses the last of his strength to reach out to it.
The blinding shimmer begins to fade. Reyn feels the rush of the stale gym air brush past his body, his cocked fist on a blitzing path toward Rick Justice. Rick easily dodges below it and again lifts Reyn off the ground and straight into the air with a swift, and direct uppercut to the bottom of his jaw. Reyn lands on the mat, splayed out on his back, gasping for breath and flailing his limbs as his jostled brain settles back into reality.