Happy Birthday! Or The Good Days End!

Planet: Tarsonis

Year:2526

Place: Confederate ??? Academy

0850 - type-2 Gymnasium 01, PSI101 - Before class

Some time had passed, and the young recruits were quickly pushing ten. Caesar, initially hesitant to spread the news about their impending isolation. Buried his head in training and studying.

At first, the group thought nothing about it but after some time. Victoria, the most obsessive about him. Notice then confronted him about his deviating behavior. Yet was politely shut down, alerting the others of a potentially dangerous situation.

While Samir and Kai were quickly told. The others resorted to pestering him, yet it was Rishul who convinced him to confide in them about his growing worry. Upon doing so, the information sparked rampant debate. Which divided the group and further threatened to spiral into a psionic shouting match between them.

Upon seeing this Rishul came to understand why Caesar always withheld information. They're emotionally fueled over sensitive arguments that not only drove him insane but threatened to leak out into the surrounding recruits.

Having seen enough, Caesar bombarded everyone with a wave of his unrestricted psionic energy. They quickly folded under the short onslaught of his tainted lime-green energy and the haunting glowing green eyes that went along with it.

His words, nothing.

The message? Clear. His will? Enforced. These last few years, the dread they felt had only been sensed on two separate occasions [ch.5, ch 18]. However, today they learned from whom it originated.

Yet the smarter more wilful members of his group would later realize this raw display of power, only rivaled by two; neither set off the alarms nor alerted the cameras. And of these members, only Samir knew about his previous breakout.

As for Caesar, he started to wonder if this group could survive the next three years.

---- Another time skip ---

Some more time passed, and the group watched as recruits were taken one by one. The first to be taken was Kimberly Ann, who cried as the guards ripped out of bed during the dead of night. The second notable person to go was Bryce; he withheld his tears while looking to Clark for confidence.

Shortly after him, was the young black child Darron Smith. One of the few easygoing members of Caesar's group. However, unlike the rest, Caesar's group had time to mentally prepare, and with Sarah's help, they did. #An: when she's not in class, Sarah lives in the isolation cells. #

With the disappearance of every friend, Clark's intensity, training, and hatred increased. At first, he and his group blamed Caesar. But with the disappearance of Ivory, Simon, Lokee, Rishul, Kai, Victoria, Samir, Ingrid, and Kelly. Their blame turned to pity and later bullying; the monster was alone. But Caesar still dominated, so the bullying would stop. However, the disdain would remain and Kalen's fists crashing against the base of his skull would be their reward.

Sarah would go next, leaving him, Clark, and Clark's followers. Until eventually, his day would come, and it came with a bang!

The most prominent 7 to 9-year-olds recruits were gathered within the gym to study a live unrestricted sparring match between Caesar. The unstoppable tyrant of the underaged recruits and Clark, their rising, uprighteous hero.

Clark entered the arena standing at 4 foot 3, dressed in a skin-tight all-grey uniform. When the kids looked upon his tiny yet well-developed muscles they smirked as he sighed. At one point they would've cheered him on while yelling words of encouragement. But as the months passed, their joy turned to misery than their misery to acceptance. This hell was their life, and their eyes were like…

His...Caesar's.

When he walked out of the change room the smirking stopped as the cameras zoomed in. Suki, high within the observation deck, leaned forward. While members of the audience quickly began to adopt Caesar's now infamously stoic face.

They looked upon Caesar then towards Clark. Where Clark was a small 4'3 with developing muscle, Caesar, now a towering 5'5 with a body that had the scientists salivating every time they got the chance to study him.

He looked at Suki, who yelled. "Begin!" Over the PA system.

Clark's psionic energy churned as he moved toward the center of the ring. The recruit's datapads rose as visible tornados gathered around fists and legs. Suki's eyebrows rose while Clark began to channel psionic speed throughout his body.

She looked to Caesar, who moved to meet Clark within the center of the ring. A smirk flashed across her face as she watched Caesar rely on nothing but his psionic sense to counter Clark's lethal offensive.

Seeing this, Clark grit his teeth and released both his psionic speed and tornado legs! It caused his body to shoot forward from a distance no baseline human could react to. But Caesar wasn't baseline, his eyes could see it all, and after close to two years of intense workouts, his body could now react to these speeds as well!

Caesar's left hand rose to slap Clark's right fist out of the way. While Caesar's left foot came forward, a tornado left Clark's right hand. Its winds cut deep into his hand before reaching the audience. They gasped as Caesar's right hand, connected with Clark's jaw.

Clark hit the floor, his brain rattled. He tried to stand, however, his body fell back to the floor. The academy's AI sounded off congratulating him as guards came into the gym with stun batons in hand.

"Happy 10th birthday." Whispered the men, they grabbed Caesar. While the kid's hearts wrenched at this all too familiar sight. Clark's eyes opened to see Caesar departing back. For a moment he and so many thought they'd never surpass Caesar.

But Clark stood with hazy yet defiant eyes, his body shaken and his speech was slow. However, like always, it was powerful. "Our bodies are weak, are fist shallow. Yet our time is long, and one day we'll be strong--."

Suki ignored the remaining speech while watching the kids. She noted how their eyes were filled with rapture and adoration as she thought.

'Every time he speaks, I am reminded why the boy chose him to be a martyr...Oh, Popovich. You really! Fucked up. This boy has already won these kids' hearts. And now it is way too late to discreetly remove him. Even without Caesar prodding him, he would've still become a bane.'

Suki paused and turned to the scientists looking over Caesar's medical, psionic, and combat data.

Outside of the gym, the guards took Caesar down a hidden stairway deep within the youth dormitory. Along its walls read section B.1 in thick black letters. The pair led Caesar through an unmarked door, where he noticed the walls now read H-B.1.

"What about my things?" Asked Caesar.

A guard scoffed, "It's already been transferred." While leading Caesar into an open room of cells. When the cellmates moved towards their doors a mix of joy, anger, and pity showed upon most faces. The first face he noticed was Kimberly Ann, she smiled knowing he'd suffer with them.

As time passed Caesar found the cells of group mates but what had him shocked was the enhanced security he sensed around them! 'It makes sense, we spent some of the most time within the change rooms and showers.' Thought Caesar, thinking back to what Lossie told him all those months ago.

He watched as the guards took into the most secure corner of the room. Where Rishul's cell stood on his near right, and Sarah's beside it. His was placed on her left, surrounding it were two taser turrets built to rise out of the floor. And along his cell's ceiling were enhanced tranquilizer gas plus the latest in motion tracking.

Caesar said nothing turning back to the guards. "Starting now. The use of names is banned. Unapproved communication is banned. Recruits must only respond to their official numerical designation. All non-essential combat courses will be live-streamed on your datapads. That includes any lectures for combat and psionics. Going forward every Sunday you will be undergoing further training. Oh, and as you'll soon notice this area has people watching for psionic use..."

As their speech continued, he looked around the dull grey 10 by 10 cell. It came complete with one built-in shower, bed, toilet. A pullup bar with adjustable weights built into his bedside wall was one socket for the datapad charger. Beside it was an open box filled with all his items.

On top of the box…

… A silver datapad, complete with alpha-wave tech. 8 petabytes worth of military-grade data, all of it surrounding the latest in starship technology, warp engines, and alpha-wave tech. A nerds dream, his dream.

...It also...saved a technopathic connection to the server rooms! Which housed a portion of the academy's security system!

'Oh, bless the man who invented alpha-wave tech. This thing is broken in a technopaths hands.'

--

# An: Caesar technopathy has a range limit. The datapad, which utilizes extensive alpha-wave tech, was previously connected to the server room after his raid. But to Caesar's surprise, alpha-wave or psionic tech. Saved said connection.

If you haven't realized, this was one of the things, the scientists used to build the ghosts cloaking armor. That's why the head engineer used it for their advanced cloak detection program.

Right now I'm slowly building up the tech side for the Confederacy since I don't want to do some colossal info dump later. Oh, and although alpha-wave tech is strong, there are serious flaws I'll expand on later. #