You flinch when Luhan, the Telekinetic you met the very first time Amber and you battled, flings backward against the force field in a loud clang! from a psionic blast.

The contender, Lay, a mild tempered Power Negator like yourself stands trembling from the psionic shock with Tao grinning in amusement. The 15 minutes mark isn't up yet but Lay looks like he's already dying.



"Now that's enough."

Dr Song's leveled voice rings out and you think you see a hint of disappointment fleets across Tao's face before he recedes his power, Lay crumbling to the floor in exhaustion.

Hands rush to pick the two injured participants up whilst Dr Song continues, arms crossed.

"Tao, you know you are not suppose to hurt the variant. Now without the variant, the standards are different. The mock test requires two rounds for me to grade you."


"I'm sorry, Dr Song."

The dark haired boy makes a reverence.


"_____________ sshii."

You startle when you hear your name.


"Yes, Dr Song."

"You're up."


You widen your eyes in shock.

"But Dr Song, we've never practiced without a-- "


"Without a variant before, I know."

Her icy gaze bores into you.

"This is not a game, ___________ sshii. In real battle, there's no variants, no control. You don't fight, you lose. Do you still want your grades? I understand you've only had one round."


"But--"

"You're the strongest Psionic we have here, _________ sshii. I supposed we've verified that one year ago?"


You wince secretly inside. You know she's still sore over that incident.


"Besides," Dr Song continues. "Tao is the star student from his school. We've got to give him some fair competition, don't you think?"

She beams and stretches out a hand to nullify the force field.


"Now in you go. Since we are working without a variant, I'll give the two of you a shorter time limit. Two minutes."

Your eyes spark wide.

"The one remaining standing after two minutes wins."


You open your mouth to say something but knows it's fruitless. You throw a glance at Amber who's standing at the side, dumb-founded.

"Go on."

Dr Song is starting to sound a little impatient.


You take a deep breath and enters the force field, face to face three metres away from the mocking boy.

"It's nice to meet you again, ___________ sshii."

Again, his lips curve up, but the smile doesn't quite reach his eyes.


"Two minutes." 

You hear Dr Song's voice.

"Starts now."


You close your eyes and concentrates.


Willing your consciousness into action, you target the other's sub-consciousness. At the same time, a bout of energy is already forcing its way into your consciousness.

Gosh, he's fast.

Like a surgical knife, it starts to cut through and you feel yourself reeling from the sharp pain.

.

You whimper and desperately gathers your psychic energies and in one brutal force, pierces through the other's mind.



It seems to work, because the grating pain suddenly staggers and you can focus again. Drawing your energies, you focus on overloading Tao's consciousness, expanding and breaking his mind.

You hear a short wince.


Then, as quickly as the voice comes, you sense a groping at your sub-consciousness.

What is he doing?

This isn't part of a psychic weapon.


Before you can stop it, the memories flow and you jolt at the realization.

He's grabbing your memories.


You are a second too late because suddenly, the past you've kept inhumed inside your sub-consciousness spills over and--


Silent scream.

Fear.

His lustful eyes.

Please...

The hands that your parents have trusted with now feeling all over you.

No!

Shhhh... Don't tell.




"S-Stop."

You choke weakly.


The secondary wave of psionic blast hits you and you clutch at your head.

The memories are threatening to collapse on you.


You are losing.







No.

You grab at your memories fiercely.

Any memory that can shut this down.


That's not very fair.



Positive memories.

Anything.


I'm curious... But...



Maybe you just need to try.





Try.


You snap your eyes open.


And attacks.