DECK Prologue

Chapter 7 - Candor

 Ajax slowly walked off of his graduation stage, as the spotlight slowly moved away from him and back towards center stage. He could feel his heart pound as he exited Ethra HS. As he exited through the back door, he could see a bright red bus at the end of the street.

"Ajax, wait up!" shouted Keith, running up to him. "How was the test? I heard the last group normally gets a ridiculously hard test, don't they?" continued Keith with a friendly smile.

"It wasn't too bad, met some great people too," replied Ajax half heartedly while yawning. He was really tired and was determined to catch up on some sleep on the bus.

"Sure drained you of your usual energy," said Keith while shaking his head and chuckling while getting on the bus.

"Well," started Ajax, yawning even harder, "Maybe it did, maybe something else did, who knows?"

As the bus approached the large DECK facility, Lind could feel Atlas practically jumping in his seat out of excitement.

"I'm guessing your head is thinking something among the lines of "I did it!" in the most vainglorious tone possible, am I right?" asked Lind with a laugh. Atlas appeared to be flustered for a bit before giving Lind a friendly jab in the arm.

"Don't tease him too much now, you're taking over my job!" grumbled Rose jokingly.

"Isn't it a bit too much to get a facility that large for eighteen people?" observed Ezra, noticing how large the DECK building was.

"Who knows what they have in store, if it's anything like our test, they'd need an entire forest as well," said Lycus with a chuckle, fidgeting with his silver-like bracelet. Lind noticed the fidgeting, looking down and staring at the obsidian colored crystal locket he was wearing.

"Don't mess with it too much," whispered Lind as they were walking towards the bus' exit.

As Cassia entered the building, she noticed quite a few interesting details here and there. Everything looked pristine and completely untouched, despite the predecessors that predated their group. Joy seemed to have recovered her ego already from the battering it took from the test and was as jovial as always.

Even through all of that, she didn't push herself enough for her true power. Thought Cassia, staring blankly into space, getting lost into her thoughts.

"You gotta watch where you're going," said Ajax, stopping her from running into him.

"Thanks," said Cassia with a smirk before walking with the rest of the group to the main hall.

Artem gazed at the 18 pods lined up against the wall as he entered the testing room. Each of the pods looked untouched on the outside but had signs of use on its internal functions. Artem could feel the room freeze up as everyone lined up next to the pod that had their name on it. He walked over to his pod and opened the card. He followed the instructions inside and set up his pod. He deposited a small amount of his energy into a given slot before entering the machine. The sound of the pod calibrating rang like an echo chamber as Artem passed out in his pod.

After a few minutes, the lights in the room dimmed down as Daedalus walked into the room. He looked around in satisfaction as Virgo and Pisces followed behind him.

"These were definitely the right picks, this batch will be full of surprises!" announced Daedalus histrionically as his beaming smile unnerved Virgo and Pisces. The three stood around for a bit before Daedalus gestured to the other constellations waiting outside.

"What are you waiting for? Pick one of them to inherit your abilities," said Daedalus as the door closed behind the constellations. After that was done, all the constellations left as Daedalus checked one pod before leaving.

And thus, the cards are dealt to the final deck.