Ancient Forces (2018 Reboot)

Chapter 22 - Mastery

Eli hadn't been doing much personal training. He'd actually lost a lot of interest in controlling the power at this point. He hadn't been in an incident, he hadn't been provoked in the recent times, although Arachnid could've very easily changed that, and he had everything he needed to keep him alive and entertained right in here. He was pretty content with his situation now, but Zayne wasn't about to let him give up just yet. It took some convincing, but finally, he'd gotten Eli back on track. The challenge now was getting Eli back to where they'd left off. Like Zayne and his injury, Eli had fallen back quite a bit from where he'd left off. Last time they trained Eli was able to somewhat stop his morphing from occurring. He'd failed a few times, which was why Zayne had a small dosage of sleeping chemicals to calm him down if it got too far.

Now, however, Eli was almost back to square one. He remembered how to do it, but the willpower and strength weren't there anymore. Building that back up was Zayne's top priority now. It also gave Zayne the opportunity to work on his personal strength too. The training session was this. Zayne would send Eli to do laps around the room. He would be tired and weak after a lot of running, so then they would test him. Obviously he wouldn't be able to hold in the Hybrid, but eventually, over time, he would build an endurance, both in physical and mental strength. Sooner or later he wouldn't be tired as often, or he wouldn't be tired as early. He'd also be able to eventually hold in the Hybrid even after all that running. Meanwhile, Zayne would use some of the weights in the room to build up his left arm's strength again. It worked out quite well Zayne had to admit.

They did this pattern several times from five to seven. Eli's tests amounted to a total of twelve tries. He was certainly lacking in the human strength department, which Zayne could understand. Eli himself wasn't a very muscular person, in fact, he was the exact opposite. But then again why bother improving human strength when you have the strengths and weaknesses of every single dinosaur from the past at your disposal? Eli's willpower and motivation also left much to be desired. He wasn't the kind of person to work for a lot of stuff. He even admitted, shamefully, that he would rather sit and wait for things to happen for him than he personally going out and doing them. Zayne noted the issue and filed it away for later. Right now Eli had Zayne to help him. Later he would need to highlight the importance of personal training.

Zayne's two-hour training spree on his arm didn't bear too many results. His arm was sore and in extreme pain by the end of the session, and he had only been able to improve his lift by about five pounds. He still had a long way to go to get himself back on his feet. At the end of the two hours, Zayne decided to try and leave Eli with some positive reinforcement about the training. Eli was very much a pessimist and a negative thinker about everything. Zayne had also noticed that Eli was somewhat consumed with asking if he was doing a good job as if he couldn't tell that his work was progress and he needed someone else to assure him of it. Eli had only admitted to the procrastination and lack of motivation, but Zayne picked up on several other things that Eli needed to improve if he wanted to make leaps and bounds in his attempt at fixing his life.

"So today was pretty good right?" Zayne started off asking.

Eli took deep breaths, obviously out of breath from the running as he paused for a moment, "If you say so then yeah, I guess it was."

"So tell me, what do you want to master first? What's your first goal in this training?" Zayne questioned as they sat down on the couch.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you want to master first?" Zayne repeated.

"Master? Like, control? Well, I would definitely like to be able to control when Hybrid appears. If I could snap my finger and make him appear or disappear that would make me feel better," Eli replied as he grabbed a glass of water from the counter and took a huge gulp.