95: A Cautious Approach

One-by-one, the students finished up their battles. Electra had been the first to finish, but after laying on the ground for a couple minutes waiting for her breaths to slow, she fell behind Ryker. As for Ryker, he busted through the door the automaton had entered from. Greeted by a dusty, dark closet, he blew his way through, and emerged within another sterile lab space.

White, ceramic tiles.

He took slow, light steps forward while shielding his eyes. Bathed in a harsh white-blue light, he felt like a rat waiting for an inevitable dissection on the surgery table. The tiles covered the ceiling, the floor, and the walls. They varied in size, but light reflected off of them to create a near blinding sensation within the hallway.

“There’s... nothing,” Ryker mumbled to himself while sweeping his eyes up, down, left, and right. Before he could take another step though, his radio crackled back to life, and a crackling voice came out the other side.

---

“Ryker... Did you not read the manual I gave you all? Did none of you read it?” Angelica grit her teeth as she stood by the wall they had been sucked into earlier. “You’re the team leader! You need to be better than this! RYKER! Do you hear me?”

In her hand sat her phone with the tracking app open. It reported on everyone’s approximate location, along with their vital signatures. It lit up the otherwise dark cavern as she stood on a now-neatened pile of rubble.

[I did read it... was there something I missed?] Ryker’s voice came back over the radio after a brief moment of silence. Hesitation laced his voice as his usual boisterous energy seemed sucked into oblivion.

“Yes, the section that describes the exact trap you all fell into, explicit descriptions of how and why it's dangerous, along with instructions to NOT ENGAGE. How did none of you recognize or figure this out...” Angelica massaged the bridge of her nose. “You all got a little too caught up in the fever of battle.”

She couldn’t help but sigh as Electra also came onto the line—having escaped her room as well. The two seniors, the two most experienced and the soon graduate division students apologized time after time for their mistake.

“It’s... fine, don’t worry, just check on your classmates and free them,” Angelica’s weary voice traversed back into the radio. “The situation’s not too dire... I’m pretty sure...”

Should I have stayed with them? They did manage to figure it out, and among the possible traps people have reported, none should pose an actual threat to them on a mortal level.

But what if it had been worse...

Angelica, you dumb *****, you have to be better.

But they also missed so much on their way down that it was very much so worth it to help them categorize all the data. It’ll help them get a far better evaluation on their mission assignment.

Among the damage... it’s just Nyssa who lost control of her powers it seems. Surprising, but not expected. Something was going to shock her out of the rut she’s been in for the past few years. Kaiser told me to expect it within this first half year, but I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly...

“So... Now's just a question of how to help her stabilize her powers, regain her confidence, and build on this to reach new heights,” Angelica counted out on her fingers as Ryker and Electra reported over the radio as they freed Albion and Titus, then Celeste and Conrad.

---

“It’s just Nyssa left now?” Celeste stretched as she emerged from the hole torn through the wall. She and Conrad took a moment to catch their breath as a few final sparks fizzed outward from the electronic boards of the automata they had eviscerated.

[Nyssa will be in the last room, approach it with caution.] Angelica’s voice instructed them over the radio as everyone fell quiet. [She’s in a touchy state right now. Nothing truly dangerous to her, but something that will require caution for yourselves.]

A heavier silence descended on the group. Conrad and Albion, who had been crouching, stood up with a frown. Electra crossed her arms and sighed before speaking into the radio. “Did she lose control of her powers?”

After getting confirmation, everyone in the hallway felt a pang of sympathy strike at their hearts.

“Happens to the best of us.”

“Surprised it hasn’t happened more with her, given how complex and powerful her abilities are.”

“What’s the plan then, everyone?”

“Why don’t we see her first, we can make a judgement once we see the situation for ourselves I think.”

With a coordinated effort, the group of now-motivated students shattered the tiles covering the section of wall, discarding them to the side. Titus stepped up once they had cleared the area, heating his hands up to tear through the thin metal wall with a near silent screech. He opened up a hole just a little larger than himself, standing off to the side once he finished to let the others in first.

Ryker and Electra led the way. In crouching positions with their hands up and breathing shallow, they scouted the inside first before waving for the others to follow behind. Though the youngest among the four remaining members, Albion, Titus, and Conrad, for ‘no particular reason’ let Celeste be the next to enter.

“Thanks,” Celeste slipped in through the crack. Her heart raced as heat emanated off her body. Her eyebrows creased as caught up to where Ryker and Electra had taken position. Crouching down as Albion, Titus, and Conrad appeared behind her, she whispered, “It doesn’t look... super great... I’m not sure how we should approach it. How do we usually do it? I’ve never been around another person’s loss of control. Only my own, and... well, like with most cases, I don’t have memories of it.”

A shapeshifting, bundle of a mess sat in the center of the room. By now, it had stopped making noise, it morphed shapes in silence as different animals, limbs, heads, wings, spines, and more appeared on its surface before disappearing into the chaos once more.

“Depends on the person,” Electra whispered back, patting Celeste on the back. “With me, it used to always be that you’d fight to get close to my body in the center of a storm and sedate me with a shot. With Ryker, it was to trap him and slow his regeneration. Speaking to him helps a lot.”

“Sedation works most of the time, but obviously, people don’t carry around strong tranquilizers like that, and it's preferable to use a personalized method to make them come back to their senses. Helps in the long run I believe,” Titus shared, patting Conrad and Albion on the shoulders. “Like these two, putting out ice cream for Albion, and novels for Conrad has helped in certain situations in the past. Though for Conrad it's only happened once, more for the rest of us obviously.”

“So, something Nyssa likes, that’s a good first step, what does she like?” Celeste murmured aloud to herself as they stood in the corner of the gymnasium-like room.

Nobody said a word, but as if they had a telepathic link, everyone looked towards Celeste who now pressed her fingertips together while staring off into space.