The doctors watching the Kage division had been watching the group warily for several months. The children had begun to associate with the Juuryoku division, and the two groups were teaching each other abilities that neither group should be capable of. Generals and physicians alike had been rather horrified when the subjects had suddenly begun walking through walls and other solid objects.
Although reluctant to concede any point for fear of losing control of the subjects, the doctors in charge of the two groups had grudgingly combined the two groups into one during training sessions. They had decided that they were willing to risk the children becoming uncontrollable in return for the additional power they were accumulating.
The head physician present glanced at the charts in his hands while the other doctors and observing generals waited silently. He stared intently at the information on the boy in the Kage division that was supposedly responsible for the groups mingling. His numbers were the first in the group to skyrocket and his abilities still surpassed his peers'. He glanced up at the boy, wondering if the last line on the sheet could possibly be true. The subject was standing at attention along with the rest of the group, completely docile.
"Five forty-six," he called, eyes narrowing slightly. "Come to the front of the group without physically moving."
The boy blinked at the order, but nodded sharply a second later. Inky blackness spread outwards around his feet, covering the ground with a stretch of shadow incarnate. The moment the darkness was shoulder width, he sank into the obsidian depths, disappearing from view. A matching patch of onyx appeared on the earth several paces from the doctor, the five-year-old rising out of it calmly.
The physician gripped the charts so tightly that his knuckles bled to white and his hands shook. The information was true. The subject could completely immerse himself in his element and travel through it. He glanced at the other doctors, all of which were staring at the boy in horror. It was only a step up from walking through walls, but it was worrying that the child could move around so freely. Unchecked. A sudden thought occurred to him and he had to repress a shudder.
"Without moving from your current location, retrieve an apple from the mess hall," he ordered tightly.
The boy held out one hand, a black sphere forming above his outstretched fingers. The requested red fruit dropped into his waiting palm, the darkness dissipating once it was in his grasp. Looking slightly bored, he held out the apple to the physician, who snatched it and dropped it into a pocket on his white coat.
"Return to your place," he said stiffly.
The boy calmly turned and walked back. Worried, the physician began shuffling through the charts to the boy in the Juuryoku division that the departing child spent most of his time with. The elevated numbers made it distressingly simple to locate the other subject.
"Six seventy-eight," he called, eyes still fixed on the chart in disbelief.
He prayed that the last doctor had somehow been exaggerating when he wrote down the sloppy notes at the bottom of the page. When he looked back up, he didn't see the boy at the front of the group and only then realized that he had not issued an order. Slightly mollified that the boys were at least obedient, unlike those in the Kaze division, he snapped out a command.
"Fly."
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, the clothes on the children began to float gently, suddenly weightless on the slight frames. Small pebbles began to rise slowly from the ground, floating towards a central point above the Juuryoku division. Slowly, one of the figures was pulled off of the ground, drawn inexorably towards the new center of gravity that had formed above the group. When he was two stories above the earth, his ascent ceased and he simply floated in place, awaiting new orders.
Drawing a deep breath to steady himself, the doctor looked back to his charts, trying to ignore the muttered prayers from the generals a few paces away. The ability to control gravity had been intended only to control battles in zero gravity. They had discovered early on that the children could increase the gravitational pull in one area so immensely that a mobile suit could be crushed like a tin can. However, they had never imagined that the children would have fine enough control to move like that.
He looked up again to issue the order for the boy to return to his place. What he saw in that instant made his blood run cold and he inadvertently stepped back. As one, every child in both groups snapped their heads towards the main compound, violet eyes blazing in cold fury. The first blood-chilling howls came from the boy still floating above the rest of the group and the prodigy in the Kage division, the other children crying out a heartbeat later.
The doctors and generals were thrown to the ground from the sudden continual flux of the gravitational pull around them. Only the disorganization of the group kept the gravity close enough to normal limits not to kill them instantly. Tendrils of shadow whipped around like living things, dissolving anything they touched. An ocean of blackness swelled outward from a single child, roaring over the remainder of the group like an obsidian tidal wave. Those not immediately disintegrated were crushed an instant later from the burst of gravity from the still hovering figure above them, too high in the air to be in danger from the searing darkness. The only Kage survivor was pushed into the sanctuary of his own shadows from the forces above him as the remaining children were flattened by the powers they could not defend themselves against.
* * *
Several miles away, a young doctor who was late to arrive on the practice grounds was standing outside of his car, staring in a mixture of horror and morbid fascination as the skies above the site grew preternaturally dark for a few moments before the blackness was forced into the earth. He could only watch helplessly as the roiling power suddenly burst outwards, trees and buildings flattening from the unfathomable, uncontrolled power of the subjects. The young man stood calmly as his death approached.
"My God," he breathed. "What have we done?"
The powers overtook him.
* * *
Several dozen doctors circulated the room where the Denki division, well known among the doctors and other divisions for being cold and calculating bastards, sat at their assigned computers, working silently. Each had been assigned to bypass the most complicated firewalls and security safeguards that could be found. Without a mouse or keyboard.
Most of the children had a hand placed somewhere on the computer, whether it be the monitor or tower. One of the boys had dismantled the tower casing and had his hand submerged in the wires connected to the motherboard. Sparks of electricity visibility crackled between his hand and the wires. A doctor stopped to observe him, eyes widening when he took in the scene.
The boy was sitting perfectly still, taking slow, shallow breaths. Information flickered by on the screen so rapidly that the computer could barely keep up. Leaning forward, the doctor examined the boy's face. His eyes were closed, moving rapidly beneath the lids as though responding to the information flitting across the screen.
Curious, the doctor turned his attention to the screen. He blanched and nearly gagged on his own tongue. Almost thirty windows were open, all of them flickering wildly between various sites, all of which should have been secure. No window stayed on a page for more than a mere second. Several sites that were clearly bank accounts being altered might have gone by, but they passed too quickly for the doctor to see.
On every other computer in the room, the details of a hidden account flashed on the screen for a millisecond. One hundred eleven responses flickered back to the initiating computer in a heartbeat, varying between acknowledgement of the information to additions to the account. Though he had been watching avidly, the doctor never saw the responses.
Stunned by the sheer amount of information the child was able to process, the doctor flipped one hand into the air, knowing it would attract the attention of the other physicians. In under a minute, the remaining doctors had clustered around him, waiting for further information. His explanation simply consisted of pointing at the screen.
"He's getting faster," one of the senior physicians murmured, unaware of the attention he was garnering.
"What can he do, exactly?" a general asked, pushing his way in and peering over the boy's shoulder.
Before the doctors could warn him of the danger of his actions, he laid his hand lightly on the shoulder of the slender youth as he leaned to glance at the screen. Electricity arched through the offending appendage. The general stiffened involuntarily, the raw current racing through his body locking his muscles and stopping his heart. Only seconds after making contact, faster than the doctors could compensate for his reckless move, smoke was rising from his skin. By the time he was knocked loose by a well-aimed kick from one of the younger doctors, only seconds after his folly, he was already dead.
"Eight nineteen requires lessons in control," the head physician murmured to himself, quickly scrawling notes on the chart. He paused in his scrawling when a loud shuffling sound echoed around him. Uncertain, he raised his gaze and promptly froze.
Every child had turned to face south, eyes still flickering with the unlimited knowledge they were privy to over the internet connections they had tapped into. Slowly, the gaze of the children shifted to face the boy the doctors had been watching only seconds ago. He swayed slightly in his seat, visibly struggling with himself. A muffled whimper escaped his lips. He hyperventilated for several breaths before throwing his head back and howling in pain and despair, the rest of the division following his shriek of pain a mere breath later.
Lightening skittered across the ceiling, slowly building in power until the fiberglass tiles began to char from the current. The power surged down to several dozen of the children vying for power before singling out the most powerful of the group. Doctors, generals and children alike slumped under the energy, unable to survive the unadulterated force rippling through the air.
Electricity arched through the room long after anyone was alive to witness the pure energy that sparked from the sole survivor of the division. Tears threatening to fall from his amethyst eyes and his jaw trembling in hopelessness and pain, the sole surviving youth could only shriek his agony and desolation to the heavens as everyone he had ever known was destroyed by the power he could no longer control.
To Be Continued…
Sorry for the delay and for this part being extremely short. Medical school is treating my skull like a piñata and is beating my brains out. I intended on getting all of the sections out with this part, but real life intervened. The next section should do it. Maybe.
Please say you love me and R&R!!!
Kage – shadow
Juuryoku – gravity
Denki – electricity
