" You went a bit overboard on them..." Boris said to the boy who stood in front of him.
Purple hair, standing at an average height, his build lean, round face with hard angled eyebrows, his pitch-black eyes stared quietly at Boris, his hands behind his back.
" It was needed to calm the chaos," he said softly, his voice low.
" Sigh, well what's done is done..." Boris shrugged.
" When they wake we proceed with the next test..." Boris added, the boy saluting in acknowledgement.
With a perfect turn on his heels, he slowly exited the room, closing the door behind him.
" Sophia overdid it a tad too much, they are all so boring..." Boris pouted, relaxing in his chair.
His mind drifted to the so-called psychological conditioning the Starborn special forces went through.
A full-blown mass hypnosis and mental manipulation to make obedient soldiers out of them.
Everyone who was part of the special forces could be controlled one way or another, either made complete tools without a mind of their own or just hypnotized to believe they were doing it out of their own will, a stronger form of psychic manipulation.
" This batch shouldn't be that boring, they can't be easily controlled after all..." He leaned forward, turning to the computer on the desk.
On it were the camera feeds of the four teens.
They each lay in bed, their breathing steady.
They were asleep, the fatigue and injuries from the first test long healed, though it had been barely an hour.
The military had the means to heal such injuries in a jiffy; if not, the purple-haired teen would have been penalized for his actions.
From the feed, it was evident they were each in different rooms, probably to prevent the same events from happening or just because of the nature of the next test.
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In Luke's room
His eyes fluttered open, pupils dilating at the light in the room.
" Where am I?" he thought, sitting up on the bed.
He was confused, yet it didn't show on his face.
" Sweetheart!" A familiar voice sounded from the door.
A voice that he was sure he knew, but it sounded different; the person to whom the voice belonged would never call him sweetheart, not to mention speak in such a cheerful way.
With slightly raised eyebrows, he watched the door, his mother, Milena Smirnov, walking into the room with a cheerful smile.
" Huh!!" Luke felt a shiver run down his spine, not out of fright but disgust and cringe.
His mother's cold beauty was gone, replaced by something he didn't recognize.
A cheerful expression.
His mother, even before his father's death, was never one to smile like that.
" Is this an illusion..." Luke quickly concluded.
There was no need for him to think too much about it.
To waste time pondering wether maybe his mother had changed.
Or she had been pretending all this while and is finally trying to be a good mother.
There wasn't a need to delude himself as such; even if this was real, he would still believe it was an illusion, a plot by some nefarious party wearing his mother's face.
" Hey, why the long face..." She sat by his side, Luke's expressionless gaze scrutinizing her.
He was racking his brain, trying to remember anything that might help him identify this imposter, but nothing came up, not even the memories of a few hours ago, the memories of the first test.
He couldn't remember; it felt as if he was trying to remember a specific time in his childhood.
Difficult to remember, remembering only random things that didn't relate to his current circumstances.
The memories, though there, couldn't be accessed for some reason.
" Did they hit my head a little too much?" he thought, remembering the beatong that had landed him in a hospital a few months ago.
His earliest memories seemed to be right after the hospital.
Not to mention, the infirmary in which he lay looked to him like his room.
" Light...?" Milena grabbed his cheeks lovingly.
" What the..." Luke jumped back in fright.
Cold sweat beading his brows as he stared at the woman who he was sure was not his mother.
His heart raced, his expressionless face broken and in its place, pure horror.
" What's wrong, son..."
Before Milena could get any closer, Luke jumped out of the bed. " Who are you?!" he asked, his voice shaky.
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Meanwhile, in the principal's office, Boris leaned forward, brows raised in surprise.
" Wow, he caught on real quick..." His gaze then shifted to the feed beside Luke's, Arthur's test.
He sat atop his bed, conversing with another teen adorned in black tactical attire, one of the Psionic who was meant to test him.
Arthur, just like in the earlier tests, was not affected by the Psionic abilities.
The illusion the Psionic Starborn tried to create couldn't even initiate, unable to overcome Arthur's electrical impulses, which passively protected him from Psionic attacks.
He conversed with the teen, asking him about the special forces and other related things, the boy answering as much as he was allowed, and in the process trying to breach Arthur's defenses, yet it was to no avail.
" This kid's ability could come in handy..." Boris smiled slightly, his gaze shifting to the round-glasses boy who was also conversing with the person who was to test him.
But with him, he behaved as they had wished.
He had fallen into the illusion easily.
He was unable to tell that the person he was talking to wasn't his elder brother but a total stranger.
" How did he overcome the first test..." Boris thought with raised eyebrows.
The boy had failed two tests in a row, thus anyone would believe his first victory was a fluke.
" Meta perception?... Maybe he could pass the next test... There is still hope," Boris said to himself as he glanced at the boy's file, then turned his gaze to the last feed.
The black-haired girl.
" Sullivan Kotori, age 13... Telekinesis... Hmm, what a unique background?" Boris muttered under his breath as he looked at the black-haired girl's file.
He then looked back at the screen at the black-haired girl; she too was unaffected by the illusion.
" I will have to watch this one carefully..." Though she passed, Boris narrowed his eyes, a plan brewing in his mind.
" Well, I will cross that bridge when I get there..." He leaned back into his chair. " Sophia, move on to the next test, would you?"
" Sir, please,... It seems examinee 004 is responding strangely..."
~~~~
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A/N
Still here