The Icy Void

At the offer from Wes, none of them seemed to be jumping at the opportunity to be experimented on. Not like that was to be unexpected- no one had any idea what it is he could actually do. Not even the Major had any ideas on what his Skills could do. But the use of it came as naturally to him as breathing, and he could feel something buzzing around the palms and fingertips of his hands, in time with that strange, grey energy.

"You guys are acting like one of us is going to die," Sasha spoke up, the woman stepping forward toward her friend. "This is still Wes, after all," she spoke, and as she drew closer to him. His hand was still extended outward, the grey energy roiling about his hand as if it were alive. Sasha reached her hand out, and while she didn't stop or falter, Wes could see the hesitation on her face. He supposed he couldn't blame her or even feel offended- she was getting into something without any idea of what was going to happen.

As his hand touched her own, there was a sudden surge of heat at the contact point, but it didn't burn. If anything, it felt like being submerged in a steaming hot bath...at least for Wes. At the contact, Sasha tore her hand back with a small curse, and she looked down at her hand, opening and closing it a few times. "That was... what the hell /was/ that?" she asked. "It felt like I plunged my hand into ice water. It's still cold," she spoke, shaking her hand out a few times.

"Do your...Skills still work?" Ted asked from behind them, and she blinked, glancing over her shoulder.

Concentrating for a second, she lifted a hand, and while there was a delay, unlike before, the barrier still pulled up as normal and she couldn't help but to give a small breath of relief. "It felt like... I don't know. Like there was something blocking the path for a minute. But once I pushed through, the feeling went away. My hand isn't cold anymore either," she indicated, lifting her hand up into the air and looking at it, before her gaze went to Wes. "That was really weird."

"You think that would work on the Beasts too?" Evie chirped up, looking forward with some curiosity at the others. "They use Elements too, right? So maybe Wes can just eat their Elements like he just did to Sassy Sasha and then we won't have to worry about the Beasts at all anymore!" she spoke, lifting her hands up into the air in excitement, leaving the rest of them to look around at one another.

Jay frowned at that. "Man. That means that Wes is going to have to get up close and personal with them... but if he could, that could be really helpful if we went up against some of them," he mused out loud, before looking at Wes. "Well, you wanted to take the fight to them. Now I think you really can."

"This...yet remains to be seen," Theodore spoke, looking at the group. "We would need to find... an adequate test for Wes to try," he murmured, before he took a step forward toward the young man. "But for the moment..." he began, about to reach out, when the light over the door suddenly lit up a bright green. "I suppose I'll need to...wait a bit to see how it feels."

"It feels awful," Sasha commented, moving toward the door before turning to the others, looking at the group expectantly. "So can we just go and get this over with? I'm already tired of this place and want to get somewhere where I'm not led through room after room like cattle," she muttered, shaking her head. Her long, chocolate brown hair danced around her shoulders and upper back before she lifted her gaze, looking at the others. "Are you coming or what?" she demanded.

Evie hopped over immediately, grinning widely at the others. "Come on, come on! We gotta go and fight! Mr. Woodhead desires carnage!" she cheered, the enormous, puppet-like monstrosity following the girl over before it paused, still looming over her. "Carnage and bloodshed!" she cheered, dancing in place as Theodore began to move closer as well.

Jay and Wes exchanged glances for a moment as they considered the girl with her sudden bloodthirst, and Jay shook his head, stepping forward. "Well, we've got no idea what's coming up, so trying to plan for it's kinda useless, my man. Let's just rock and roll and meet this head on," he spoke, and Wes gave a small sigh, shaking his head.

While he did agree with that sentiment, at the same time, he also wanted to have some idea of how they were going to fight as a team. He imagined that for the most part they were just going to run in blindly swinging and hope for the best... and that wasn't ideal. But they didn't have any time to really plan things out- the y had been far too busy discovering what abilities they had. Maybe that was intentional?

"Whatever," he muttered aloud as he came closer, the tapping of Sasha's foot on the floor starting to get more than a little annoying as he drew closer. "We'll just play it by ear. I don't imagine they expect us to be a tight-knit unit right off the bat," he murmured as he nodded to Sasha, who's hand was on the door. "Let's go. Let's see who we're fighting."

Sasha snorted and turned the handle, pushing the door open before she stepped inside, followed by the others. The room was similar to the one that they had gotten the testing done in, and Wes could see that there was a lack of decoration here, much like the other rooms. Everything was rather plain. Of course, the main difference here was the fact that there were large pools of dried blood on the floor, which caused all five of them to pause slightly.

"I would wager... it's against Gustave. Or...perhaps another one of the established Soldiers," Ted spoke, considering the possibilities of who they were going to go up against. "Someone that... is already familiar with...what we can do," he mused aloud.

"What? Why would they do that? Wouldn't it make more sense to be someone that we aren't familiar with?" Sasha asked. "We already have an idea about Gustave and what he can do. So why would they send us up against him?"

At that, Jay frowned. "We do? Did I miss some demonstration of his power or something, dude?" the larger fellow asked as he lifted his hands up, folding them behind his head. "I didn't think he actually showed off anything that he did," the man continued as they walked toward the center of the room, their footsteps echoing on the cement-like floor.

"He was a pretty kind guy, and he seemed to have a familiarity with Life Frameworks," Wes spoke up, glancing at his brother. "Seems pretty clear to me that he's a Life Framework. Granted, I don't know why we would be fighting him, but there were some pretty obvious clues there," Wes spoke, clapping his brother on the back.

"Jay's a big dumbie!" Evie called out with a grin as she reached out suddenly, setting a hand on the man's back. In an instant, he was transported several feet ahead of them, the man stumbling as his gait was suddenly interrupted by her teleportation. Evie grinned, laughing wildly at the motion, before she drew hands back to herself. "That's what you get!" she called out to the man, who had turned around at the laughter, his sense of balance somewhat thrown off by her teleportation.

He was about to speak, when the sound of clapping came from the distance, and Jay turned back around to face the source of the noise. A faint light erupted from his arms as he did so, but that light began to flicker and fade as he realized that the owner of the clapping sound was the one who they'd expected: Gustave. "Dude, what are you doing in here?"

Gustave laughed as he stepped forward a bit more, having been back by a large structure in the back of the room. "I'm running the combat tests, along with Shannon. She's over in the other Combat room. But excellent deductive reasoning you've put together. I am indeed a Life Framework," the man spoke, before he paused. "However, I'm not the one that you'll be testing your skills against. I'm merely here to help with the first aid," he commented, before a sudden 'boom' came from the structure in the back.

"What...is that?" Theodore asked, even as he took several steps forward toward Jay, not wanting him to be up there alone. "That sounds like..."

Wes' eyes narrowed as the metallic doors buckled under a powerful blow, the metal groaning and bending as what looked like seven fingertips emerging from within. He saw a single yellow eye from within the torn hole before it vanished, and another heavy blow slammed into the metallic doors. This one tore one of the doors off of its hinges, but the shadows still hid the monstrous form within. "That's a Beast," Wes growled, his hands and teeth both clenching tightly.