Facing the Needle

The moment Zack's finger pressed the switch that was placed on the bottom of the machinery a distinct 'click' sound entered everyone's ears as the cubic container at the top started rotating.

At first, the speed at which the cube was rotating was quite low but it slowly started gaining angular velocity to the point that even the distorting of air became audible to everyone present.

This garnered quite a lot of curiosity and anticipation from all the students that were present at the scene as they didn't dare to shut their eyes lest they should miss something important and end up regretting it later.

Fifteen seconds later the cubic container had attained its maximum angular velocity which was evident to everyone by the fact that the sound it was making now was much less piercing to their ears compared to earlier (A/N: Indicating that the critical speed has been reached, for the curious peeps out there).

Just then the bottom-most section of vials that were wound around the cylindrical structure upon which the cubic container was mounted started rotating in the direction opposite to that of the cubic container to ensure the stability of the structure.

It was just the starting as starting from the bottom-most section the rest of the 14 sections also started rotating one after another and attained a rotating speed that was comparatively lesser than that of the cubic container to ensure the overall stability of the rotating structure.

All the boys looked at the current scene with great delight as watching all of the 15 sections rotating in an unsynchronised manner had a calming charm to it which captured their attention. They couldn't point a finger at it but they were so captivated by the sight that they didn't feel like averting their eyes from it.

The show however was not over because soon a red liquid started pouring into the vials starting from the bottom-most section and not long after the whole rotating structure turned crimson red from top to down.

The previous anticipation and curiosity of the onlookers were replaced by heavy expressions as the whole structure was now surrounded by a grotesque aura that was being emitted by reddish liquid that was slowly being stored in the vials.

"Beautiful..." Zack muttered as he looked at the piece of beauty that was formed right in front of his eyes. No matter how many times he watched this he couldn't help but fall in love with the process.

He along with the rest at the Research branch of the Warrior Academy had been devising various ways for all these years to reduce the risks that the aptitude test carried. 

After several tests, the only plausible way that the researchers could think of was to make the red energy tolerable for the newbies. The way to do that was to convert it into a liquid state and dilute it several hundred times.

This was what they had come up with theoretically but the practical conversion of red energy from the stones into liquid state was met with quite a lot of difficulties as no suitable methods could be devised for its conversion.

Condensing the red energy from its gas-like state inside the stones to a liquid state was not an impossible idea but it required such a large amount of energy which made it unfeasible for its intended purpose as a result the research was put on hold for a couple of years.

Having lost all hope they decided to publicize their research data in the Confederation's research portal and to their utter surprise just a couple weeks later a research paper was mailed to them along with the blueprint of a strange device by an anonymous ID. 

After going through the research papers one by one everyone's eyes revealed an astonished expression which was soon followed by a series of curses which were directed towards their incompetence for their inability to discover such a simple thing.

They all had been wasting their time in attempting to condense the stone's energy unbeknownst to the fact that the answer lay entirely elsewhere.

The paper talked about the property of the red stone to transform the energy that was stored in it into liquid form once it is placed in an enclosed space and subjected to very high speeds of rotation.

This was all the information that the researchers needed to create an appropriate device but the anonymous person was kind enough to send in the blueprint for the device aswell.

Wanting to thank the sender for their generosity they all tried various ways to identify the person's identity but none of them succeeded and the mysterious sender became even more mysterious in their eyes.

In the end, they all could only sigh in defeat because by now it became evident that the person had no interest in revealing to them their identity and had already put in place several shields to prevent any attempts by others to identify them.

The machine that was currently in front of Zack was created with the help of the blueprint that was provided to them by the mysterious person and they named it after the initials of the anonymous ID.

It took a while for all the vials to be filled up and after that, the machine slowly started shutting itself down. Since the machine was quietening down the sound was not a barrier to communication any longer and Zack finally opened his mouth to address the onlookers.

His voice came very low in the bar of roughness which suited his thinly built frame,

"The machine you see here is called Musk3202 and is the sole reason that we are freely able to conduct your aptitude tests on such a large scale without worrying about the side effects. There have been a total of 100 human test subjects until now and not one of them has shown any harmful symptoms except for light nausea or losing their consciousness..." 

Hearing Zack's pride-filled words a lot of doubts of the students were answered as they were reassured that the risk to their health and life has been mitigated by this invention. Zack went on to talk about how violent the red aura inside the stones was compared to the diluted liquid form that was currently being presented to them.

That much information would have proved sufficient but Zack continued on and even started explaining the use of each component of the Musk3202.

Seeing that the Vice-principal and the students were losing their patience, Ron, Zack's superior stepped in and said "That's enough Zack, let's start with the testing,"

"Right on it Sir!" Hearing the words of his superior Zack immediately started with his preparations. Just one look was enough for the students to realize that Zack truly respected his superior from his attitude.

A few minutes later,

Zack was equipped with a shiny metallic casing the size of a toothpaste box. What caught everyone's attention was the packets of thick steel needles that were placed beside Zack, seeing him unpack one and adjust it into the metallic casing they all soon realized what fate had in store for them as quite a lot of gulping sounds echoed in the room.

Zack then took out a red vial from the machine and inserted it inside the hollow compartment of the casing.

"Alright, I'm ready." Zack nodded towards his superior and after a while, Miss Jane stood up and started calling the students one by one according to their respective roll numbers.

Everyone looked at the first person who was to be called with looks of pity and delight. Pity because they wouldn't want to share the same fate as him and delight because they could see how the test was conducted before their turn came.

As for the person in question, 

'I know that look, you bastards...if something happens to be I'll curse your entire generations,' The roll number one, Tyler, muttered under his breath as he made his way towards Zack who was waiting for him with a thick needle ready to inject his life out of him.

"W-would it hurt?" Tyler asked Zack with fear clearly written in his eyes as he took a seat near him.

"Yes, it would," Zack didn't give a damn about how the students felt as in his eyes they were all test subjects.

Lightly flicking the ends of the needle with his other hand's index finger he used his hand to stabilize the shivering body of Tyler and the other one which was holding the syringe moved towards the deltoid muscle of Tyler on his upper arm.

Sensing the incoming needle Tyler shut his eyelids tightly hoping for all this to end by the time he opened his eyes but alas his foe, the needle, came with the full intention of tormenting him.

"Eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" Tyler hissed under his breath as his eyes opened up and witnessed the thick syringe already inside his body. Just seeing it happening intensified the pain by several folds for him as his earlier plan to keep his eyes shut went down the drain.

Zack didn't even care a bit about the resistance offered by Tyler as his hand had already tightly held onto the boy not allowing him to move even a bit. He was fully focused on the task and when it was finally over he noticed the tears that were welling up in the eyes of the lad.

"You're crying from just that?" He asked.

"Just that..." Tyler muttered under his breath as he soon started questioning whether becoming a warrior was the right decision for him.

It looked like fate agreed with his thinking as Zack who had been observing Tyler's body all this while finally said, "Not compatible, failed," 

Tyler went back to his group of students with a downcast expression on his face. He was very confused at the moment as his face was telling him to make a downcast expression while his heart was telling him how relieved it felt.

Seeing the downcast expression on Tyler's face the students who were earlier very keen to question him about his experience got silent and allowed him to go to a secluded corner to take his seat.

The next student in line was soon called up for the test and after taking a couple of deep breaths and slapping his face to revitalize himself he soon made his way towards the man who was waiting in anticipation for the arrival of the next test subject.