The Fall of the Society

Chapter 15: Training Room

     Moving away from the workstation, Sid made his way to the door and pressed a small button beside it, causing it to slide. Much to his surprise, he was face to face with a guard that must have been patrolling the corridor, but the surprise of the guard was tenfold. They stared at each other for a moment before the guard made a move for his radio and sidearm, the biggest mistake he could have made in that moment. In the blink of an eye, Sid shot forward and slammed the side of his right hand into the guard's throat, followed by the fluid movement of a kick to the side of his right knee. Without missing a beat, he smashed his left elbow into the bridge of his nose. The guard was unconscious before he collided with the wall and collapsed to the floor, blood flowing from his face, his leg crooked and broken. Sid sighed and drug the unconscious man into the laboratory. He did not like killing needlessly, but this man was a lacky of the Society and had seen his face, meaning he could place him there. Searching the guard's possessions, he removed his badge and slid it into his pocket, though he doubted it would get him into any of the labs, it may help if there were any other barriers.
     Walking back out of the lab, the door shut behind him and he removed a small silver object from his pocket that would easily be mistaken for a quarter. Placing it on the scanner caused lines to move up and down as if experiencing some sort of interference before blazing red and fading to black. He removed the object and placed it back into his pocket, before turning and walking along the corridor once more. The way the creature's eyes had looked was continuously running through his head on a loop as he walked, he had to figure out if his hypothesis was correct, he had to confirm it.
     Although the hallway appeared to be straight without any branches, he finally found a left turn and took it. Walking a little while longer he began to hear a low thumping sound coming from ahead. Whatever was making the sound must have been very loud to make it through the walls. The sound continued growing louder as he came closer and closer to a door that had another larger door slightly further along the hall. The impacts could be felt and seen vibrating on the smooth surface of the door as he arrived. His curiosity was getting the better of him, and he reached inside his coat and pulled out the card like device. Redoing the steps he had taken previously, he placed the device on the card scanner and the door silently slid open. The door opened into a small room that was completely surrounded by thick glass and appeared to be some sort of viewing room. Outside of the glass was a large training arena, with multiple different types of training environments in view. In the center was a large open area, where a very large man seemed to be doing some combat training. Each of his impacts shook the room Sid was currently in.
     He began looking around. There were no computers, but there was a desk that ran all the way across the front of the room, looking out into the training area. The sides were occupied by large filing cabinets. Due to the nature of the training that must go on they probably could not use computers due to possible damage. He watched the man as multiple attack droids moved in on him. The man easily smashed the droids away from him, which exploded them into multiple pieces, before they recovered and pulled themselves back together. These types of drones were good for training due to their resilience but lacked the offensive power of their counterparts that were used in security and military applications. Turning his gaze from the training area, he began to search through the drawers of the filing cabinets after easily picking the lock. File after file had the names of different heroes on them. The first one to really catch his eye was a hero named Avertor. She had been popular among the Society a few years before due to her ability to avoid almost any attack. However, she lacked the ability to do much offensively and quickly faded from the public eye. The file explained that she had been enrolled in a program called Competency Inspiration. Most of the file had been redacted, but she had apparently seen some growth before failing out of the program, and there was no listing of her current status.
     He replaced the file before moving on. Each folder had listings of a gain in power before failing out of the program, but it did not list why they had failed or what had happened to them afterwards. Many of the heroes were unknowns that must have wanted to make a name for themselves, so they entered the program. A large portion of each hard file had been redacted, leaving confusing wording and empty spaces. Finally coming to a file that was listed as active and had not been modified yet, the name Devastator was listed across the top. He had entered the program because he had fallen short in field training multiple times over the last few years and the Society was going to ship him to a small agency, far from the limelight of popularity and wealth. Sid remembered this hero; he was considered to have super strength and was rather durable. He had never led a So squad, but he had been on multiple as the damage absorber.
     Sid continued reading and a picture was listed on the second page. A young man, early twenties, dark hair, smooth face with high cheek bones and a broad jaw. He also had very broad shoulders and was listed as being six feet and six inches tall. His original mental screening was listed next, he had tested well and was considered a good prospect due to his desire to uphold justice and protect the people that needed it. Devastator's given name was also listed, Josh Searly. His abilities had manifested around age ten, growing rapidly he had to be sent to a special school because he kept damaging public property on accident and traditional staff could not handle him. His scores on physical training had always been superb, but his tactical and intelligence scores were middle of the pack at best.
     Since entering the program, he had been given three treatments of Concoction 817, Variant 5, 6, and 7. His physical scores blasted off the chart as well as a bump in his other testing. The researcher annotated that his ability was not actually super strength, but instead his cells were incredibly strong and incredibly resilient allowing his physical strength to increase greatly. The treatments had increased this in all aspects. After the first round of testing they moved on to a new treatment and gave him five doses of Concoction 820, Variant 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. They specially made 820 for Devastator after his positive results, but the change had caused him to become slightly unstable mentally while still growing exponentially stronger. His skin had hardened to be more like steel than flesh, allowing him to absorb large amounts of damage without any effect. The slip in his mental state caused him to lash out at anyone nearby when fighting, even allies. He was quarantined in this facility due to the possibility of collateral damage. His berserk state was far too dangerous, so they were unable to send him back in the field and Serum 349 was in the works in an attempt to help him regain his full mental capacity.
     Sid placed the file onto the desk and began observing the man in the training room. The picture of the man in the file looked slightly like the giant training in the facility. "It can't be," Sid whispered to himself, looking back and forth between the picture and the man training. Out in the training facility the giant had to be nearly eight feet tall and had to weigh between seven and eight hundred pounds. He was massive, slamming the droids with his bare hands, a maniacal glee in his eyes as he crushed walls and object in the area while waiting for the droids to come back for another round of fighting. There was nothing left in the eyes that had been there in the picture, whatever they had done to him had caused him to basically become a different person. In fact, Sid was unsure whether to refer to him as a person at all, the look in his eyes was less humane than what the creatures in the lab had displayed.
     As he continued to watch the behemoth move swiftly around the training area, destroying everything he could lay his hands on, a shiver moved up Sid's back, causing his hair to stand on end. A small chime sounded as the door slid open and someone entered the room.