After the general left the room there was dead silence for a couple of minutes as everyone watching could only think how all of the earth was once vast grass lands and wild lands, something like this could possibly happen anywhere at any time.
“What if there was someone behind this incident?” Amanda asked, breaking the cold silence that permeated the air.
“I was just thinking that, it is definitely possible.
But even if it were a person getting to them could be impossible I am sure the other Kings already have a few teams doing investigations.
I assume the general showed your team and Ace because you guys could be candidates for a mission to investigate something like this in the future.” The commander responded sharing her thoughts happy that she wasn’t the one forced to break the silence.
“That’s exactly why he showed us, he already knew which team he was coming to see.
If he’s showing us that, then it is probably one our pre-requisite task we will need to complete before they even allow us to head to the ice wall, and I am sure they are going to limit my actions as always forcing my rookies to take on the brunt of the work!” Ace said his mood obviously soured as for the first time slight frustration could be heard in his voice.
“Let’s not think too deeply about the future, I want to start going over the analyzed information with each recruit since we have some extra time, you can guide them on the best meditation practices and how they can develop their own methods of training their internal energy, jack come over here, then Amanda, then Jason, then Lucile and by the time we are done the other two should be back here for me to go over their results too hopefully.” The commander said understanding Ace’s frustration, they might be sending new recruits to face what would easily be classified as a supreme threat, if that wasn’t a death sentence she didn’t know what was.
But if their speculations were correct it meant their journey to the ice wall and beyond would only be magnitudes more dangerous and that thought was even scarier prompting her to want to give these new recruits as much assistance as possible despite already planning to give them her best.
Hearing this jack got up and walked towards the commander who began breaking the information about his ability and its manifestation down in terms he could understand while asking him questions to make sure his understanding was thorough.
At the same time Ace pulled up a chair to where the rest of his team was sitting and began explaining to them how to develop their own methods best training practices in meditation for their internal energy.
“Firstly it is important for you guys to know training your internal energy is akin to training your senses, it requires extremely precise focus and a clear and directed objective.
So I always tell people step one in training is preparing your senses and your body in order to maximize your growth.
I want you guys to start with mindful exercises feel your breath feel all the connection points your body makes with the space around you, hear the sounds, smell the atmosphere, and control your breath.
I am going to show you some movements, I want you to rigorously practice these movement while being mindful of the things I just mentioned.
I will come to each of you after seeing you perform these moves and give you pointers that should help each of you impose significant,y faster once you can perform these movements while maintaining your breath and your mindfulness of the environmental stimuli we will get into actually training your internal energy.
So I don’t want you guys to even thing about using your internal energy until I give you the go ahead.” Ace said before standing up and showing what seemed to be basic exercises.
“In these movements I want you guys to pay close attention to my feet, your feet are the base of your existence because they hold you up right everything single action you take in life starts from there.” He said as he began to do a skip hop in place alternating feet double tapping the opposite foot each rotation, as he kept going he slowly increased his pace to the point his legs had become nothing but a blur to the group.
One by one each of them got up replicating his movements, as they did so he went to each correcting their form, soon jack was don’t speaking with the commander and Amanda was up, like this they alternated between exercising their footwork and receiving pointers from Ace with periodic rest to speaking with Commander Valia and better understanding the specific type and polarity of the ability they had awakened.
Before they knew it 2 hours had flown by and they were exhausted while Ace looked on in satisfaction.
The commander had just finished speaking with Lucile as Ethan and Anne were lead into the room by someone wearing the official FBSA uniform on.
Ethan was moving extremely sluggishly as he walked behind his mother and the other FBSA member; whereas Anne much like Jack and Amanda seemed to be moving perfectly fine.
“When they walked in Jason and Amanda’s had locked on to Anne shortly remember the disturbing pressure she had begun to emit earlier and now having more context on the capabilities of what that level of strength could accomplish it was like the pressure was on, she had set the bar for where they needed to be and they would do their best to catch up.
“Commander, these recruits are done in the infirmary I brought them back here as instructed by the captain.” The FBSA member leaded them stated.
“Thank you, if there are no more people in the infirmary you guys can start shutting down the facility for today, if anyone is still in the infirmary get them transferred to the main hospital for the time being.
Tell everyone still training that they have one hour left to train tomorrow we will be back up on our 24hr schedule.” Commander Valia said dismissing them and giving them a bit of time off.
Anne and Ethan could see the rest of their team drenched in sweat as they were all strewn across the room like dirty laundry laying here and there watching them come back into the room.
“Perfect let me catch you two up to speed.
Then we can wrap up, I will have your team come in for weekly analysis so we can make sure you guys are optimizing your training to the fullest…” The commander said before sharing with them the video the general had sent down and giving them some contextual information as well as letting them know about Anne’s supreme awakening and all the implications that came alongside that title.
After hearing all of this and seeing the video like the others Ethan and Anne could feel a similar shell shock type feeling, it was almost as though every step in this changing world was more overwhelming than the next.
‘How great was my miscalculation…
this can’t be the same world I traveled back from how could going backwards in time create this…
is this hell?’ Ethan thought to himself after seeing the video realizing how infinitesimally small the chances of him actually succeeding in time travel were, in this he also realized despite his wealth of knowledge about the systems of the world there was absolutely no way he could have calculated this, there was simply too much he didn’t know and could probably never comprehend.
‘Terminate me…
It would take someone or something with the same potential as me to level that city?
So I am just another one of the monsters this new world created?’ Anne thought to herself battling the fear in her heart of losing her family as the world she had loved was already lost.
“Don’t worry about that stuff too much you two, what’s easier crying over spilt milk, or cleaning the mess and getting more?
Probably crying but then there’s still a mess and you’re milk-less, all we can do is now is work together.
It was situations like these that the FBSA was created for.
On humanity’s darkest day hopefully we can be the light that guides humanity to safety or at the very least one of the lights protecting the path.” Ace said, having a little bit of understanding of the deep gloomy looks each of them bore.
“Anne come over here, I will explain as best I can the detailed information regarding your awakening.
This will detail your energy’s type and polarity as well as your bodies’s composition in regard to that information.
Ace has an exercise that he will show you and has ordered you to do as homework.
Hearing both of these words reminded Anne and Ethan there was little time to sit and worry about the things they could not change every second lost was one they should never try to replace.
Ace walked up to Ethan while Anne walked to the commander.
Once Ace got near Ethan he lifted his arms while walking around him analyzing his body wondering just how he could have torn all of the muscle fibers in his body.
“Tell me, what happened when you got your amplification?” He asked simply still not quite able to put a finger on what kind of energy he could sense faintly emitting from Ethan.
“Well…
I guess it was like time slowed down, you guys didn’t see how slow I was moving?
My body was super heavy I don’t even know how I had the strength to stand up…
then as I fell time stopped.” Ethan explained giving ace some key clues as to what kind of ability he may have awakened.
“Oh wow interesting, that makes senses sense why your body broke down on a muscular cellular level.
You may have a temporal affinity, if so…
that puts you in the same boat as your mother, honestly your entire team seems to have awakened abilities that are universally considered high risk if you guys were to be working for any other agency.
Well like I told the others we need to start on a fundamental and foundational level so we are going to first work on your footwork, stability, coordination and core strength.” Ace said before he began giving Ethan guidance on the exercise he wanted him to do.
After about 45 minutes Anne and Ethan swapped while the others had continued periodically doing the exercise until they were completely exhausted and needed to rest.
The stakes were higher than ever it wasn’t just their lives on the line the world as they knew it had already been lost, they were now fighting to hold on to the last shreds of normalcy the world had, if they didn’t push themselves to their limits the world would do it for them, that was made clear by what the general had to show them.