Envision - The Tale Of Aries

Chapter 5 | Testing

The white flooring and walls of the hallway make it seem like there is no end. The hall is lit up from lights beaming up from the ground, alongside the wall. “Where are we heading to?” Aries asks. Marco looks down to his wristwatch and says “We have a secret training facility; you’re going to be staying there for some time. I am handing you over to somebody else to supervise you, as I have other duties, I must take care of.” He replies. Aries looks down towards the doors at the end of the hall as they have gotten close and says “Oh I thought you would be training me, but if you’re not, then who is?” Aries confusingly asks. As they approach the door Marco stops, and looks at Aries. “This is where we split, once you go through those doors, I won’t be seeing you for some time. Take care Aries.” Marco says as he pats Aries on the shoulder and walks away. “Hey Marco, thank you. You know, for telling me everything, well mostly everything” Marco turns and nods his head to Aries, and walks away. Now standing face to face with the door, Aries let’s out a deep sigh, as he presses the buzzer on the wall to page in. The large doors slowly begin to slide open, and through the opening a bright light breaks through and shines on the face of Aries. His eyes still adjusting to it, Aries wipes his eyes and looks through the doors to see a luxurious looking office. He slowly enters the room, glancing at the art on the wall and the statues in the room. In the room, he is instructed by a voice over the PA system to sit on the couch and wait for the trainer to come. Right before Aries even sits down, he hears footsteps coming towards the door. A man barges through the doors and looks around, and then sees Aries. He smiles and closes the door behind him. “It’s great to finally meet you, Aries.” The man said. He walks over and proceeds to sit on the one seated couch across of Aries. “My name is Threx, I’m gonna be training you to your full potential!” he exclaims. Aries stands up as he is ready to start training right away. “Woah, Woah, Woah there buckeroo, hold your horses! First I have to test you.” Threx says as he pulls out cards with pictures on them. He flashes the first card, a picture of a bird flying. “What does this mean to you?” He asks Aries. After thinking about it briefly, Aries passes back the card and says “I think of freedom, the freedom I need from this mental slavery.” Aries says. Threx smiles as he had anticipated an answer like that. “You question the things around you, correct? Threx asks. “Yes actually, I do. How did you” before Aries can finish his sentence, Threx flashes another card. A picture of a pack of wolves, surrounding a slaughtered deer. Aries glances at the photo and says “This is pure dominance, working as a team towards a common goal.” Threx smiles at this response. “Great answer, next one” he says as he pulls out the next card and shows Aries. The photo is of Aries parents, dead on the ground. Aries looks infuriated. “what… is…that?” he whispers in shock. His hand begins to light up, a flame is building in his palm. “What is that!” Aries screams as he throws a heavy fire punch towards Threx. In a split second, Threx smiles and grunts as he grabs Aries fist with his hand, and crushes it. Aries screams out in pain and falls to the floor, rolling around while holding his hand. “Why would you do that, who are you? Why are we doing this?” Aries cries out. “Relax, I only broke your knuckles. You should be healed up soon” Threx chuckles and says. He picks up his cards and taps them on the table to straighten them out. He gets up and says “Based on the mental test alone, you are not even remotely close to leaving. You’re going to be staying here, training your power and skills” Threx says. Aries wipes the tears that were streaming down his face and says “No! I refuse to partake in your government experiment bullshit, why do you have that picture, why are you torturing me?!” he screams. Threx chuckles again and begins to walk towards the doors that lead to a staircase. “This isn’t a government experiment you tool, we’re putting our time and effort into making you stronger… it’s what your parents wanted.” He looks down and says. He reaches the door and opens it. One last time he looks back and says “I’ll send up a nurse to come look at that hand, but after that meet me downstairs.” As he closes the door behind him and walks down the stairs. “What my parents wanted? They knew I would make it here, how?” Aries thinks to himself. He gets up off of the floor and proceeds to walk over and sit on the couch again. The sound of clicking heels approach the stairway door, and it slowly opens. The familiar face of the nurse catches Aries by shock. “Mrs Waiters? What are you doing here? How’s Joy?” Aries quickly asks. “Hi Aries, I’m the nurse here, I know you thought I was just the receptionist but that’s because I can’t talk about this job. Also, Joy is doing good, she’s going to be so happy to hear that you’re here!” Aries pain in his hand slowly starts to fade away. “She’s… here?, right now?” he asks. Patty laughs as she looks at Aries hand and says “Yeah she’s here, you’ll see her soon, let’s work on that hand, it looks bad.” Patty then pulls a smaller machine out of her bag, one that wraps around Aries hand. She tells him to lay back and let the machine do it’s work. Aries lays his heads back and closes his eyes, slowly drowsing off. Some time passes, Aries is awakened by the soft voice of Joy waking him up. “Aries, it’s so good to see you again” she whispers. Aries awakens quickly and hugs Joy. “It’s so good to see you Joy I missed you so much!” Aries yells with excitement. Joy blushes as Aries wraps his arms around her to hug. Aries looks at his hand which is now perfectly healed. “Wait, what? How is this possible? How long was I sleeping for, couple of days?” Aries asks. Joy looks at his hand and chuckles. “No Aries you’ve been only sleeping for three hours!” Aries is shocked by this response as he investigates his hand. “How is that possible?” He asks. Joy gets up from her seat and paces back and forth. “Well you see, technology here is far more advanced than anything you could get on the street or even hospitals. That machine right there successfully reconstructed the muscles and bones in your hand. Of course this machine deals with less serious injuries which is why your hand took three hours, normally it would just take one!” Aries just sat and listened as his mind was blown. “Man she’s so beautiful I almost missed what she said” he blushes and thinks to himself. He gets up and stops Joy from pacing and says “So where can I find… what’s his name, Threx?” he asks. Joy turns her head towards the staircase door, and points at it. “Before we go downstairs, what are you doing here?” Joy smiles as she was hoping for Aries to ask. “Oh I’m here pretty often, my mom used to bring me often when I was younger, because my dad would be at work most of the time. I don’t mind though! He’s out doing good deeds and stopping crimes, but since he is always busy my mom didn’t want to leave me at home or with a babysitter so she would bring me along. I pretty much grew up here, but I swore to an oath once I got older to not speak about here.” Joy explains to Aries. “Oh wow this whole time I knew you and didn’t know about this! Respect to you for keeping this a secret!” Aries says as he gets up and heads towards the door, Joy follows behind. They make their way through the door and head down to the lower level of the facility. Once at the bottom, two big sliding doors spread open and let Aries and Joy into a extremely large room. “Man those were a lot of stairs, I was wondering why we went down so much, but this… it makes sense now.” He says while looking up and around the room in awe. “Though an elevator would’ve been good too” he murmurs to himself. The walls in the room were tall and made of stone, there were pillars alongside the walls for aesthetic and structural purposes. The ceiling was a dome shaped ceiling, with inscribed artwork on the inner side of the ceiling going up to the top of the room. The room is open, different kinds of machines and testing chairs fill the room. Some corners are filled with scientists or doctors doing research and testing. Majority of the people in the room seemed to have one thing in common, they had dark skin. Aries was confused why everyone looked tanned, there were people who were naturally darker skinned, but a lot of people had gotten really tanned as you could see from the tanned line. “What type of testing do they down here? Why do they look like that?” Aries thinks to himself. “Ah well look who’s feeling better, your hand looks great” Threx yells over to Aries. He approaches Aries with a clipboard in hand and lab coat on. His goggles rest above his forehead, holding his spiky hair back. “Yeah it’s doing great thanks for asking… since you’re the one that broke it you scumbag.” Aries sarcastically says to Threx. He laughs at Aries as he instructs Joy to give them some time alone as they are going to be going to a testing room. “Follow me Aries, let’s get you built different” Threx says to Aries, patting him on the shoulder. They walk down a small corridor and make their way into a smaller room, this one looking similar to the interrogation room that Aries was in when being questioned by Marco. “Before we start the training, let’s take a seat. I know you have a lot of questions and I’m going to do my best to answer them, then we start.” Threx says to Aries while taking a seat and pulls out a chair for Aries. “So why am I being trained? And what are these powers I have?” Aries asks with no hesitation. Threx smiles and tucks himself in the chair closer to the desk. “If I’m being honest, I can not tell you why we are training you, yet. There is a lot more going on in this world than you know Aries. Some things that you wouldn’t be able to comprehend yet, at the end of this training though, I will personally explain to you why we are training you. As for your powers, there are four groups in this world, each group is based off of the four elements.” Threx explains to Aries. “Earth, Wind, Air and Fire, right?” Aries says. “Yes, exactly Aries. So you did not know but you are under the group that can control fire. I can give you a whole history lesson on these groups haha, but towards the end it will be more clear. Basically, anyone within these groups have the ability to take their pain, anger, and own will power; and manifest it through an element. Yours being fire, you can create fire and also manipulate fire. That is why whenever you talk about your parents, it brings out extreme pain, I’m surprised it hasn’t showed earlier in your life, I guess you used to be really weak haha! I’m gonna train you to be able to use it off of your willpower.” Threx says to Aries. Aries looks at his hands, similar to the way he did the first time he had used his powers. “Woah, so I am special. This is going to be life changing… should we start training right away?” Aries asks. “Well typically, this training takes up to two years, but with you I believe we can get it done in six months.” Threx says while getting up from his seat, as he gathers his clipboard. He makes his way towards the door that separates them from the training room. “Wait, why do you think we can be done so soon? I just started using my power.” Aries asks. Threx chuckles as he slides his goggles back down to cover his eyes and says “There are a small percentage of special people on earth that can control two elements, you are part of that small percentage Aries. Also, you are your father’s son so I know for sure we will get it done in 6 months.” These words send a chill down Aries spine, “Two elements?...” Aries thinks to himself. He stares at Threx as he opens the door and enters the training room. He sits and stares still in awe. “Dad, you were that strong” Aries says to himself while picturing his dad walking through that door. From this he gets a bolt of energy, he stands up and proceeds to walk through the door, into the training room.