Chapter 8: More Tests

It's been a while guys, decided to start this new story and see how it does, I'm a bit rusty.

This story is going to be revised completely into something else once I get some feedback, thought I might as well post something for the time being.

let me know what you think in the comments.

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[~July 16th, 2192~]

Strolling down the white halls of the facility, Morgan could be seen pushing someone in a wheelchair as they showed him all the different rooms of the facility, the duo slowly making their way to a larger area of the facility.

"Come on Morgan, you're pushing me like an old lady!" The person said, laughing despite her temporarily crippled state.

Pushing his mother figure down the halls, Sandra was released from the medical ward and placed in a wheelchair until she fully recovered. Though, she didn't let that stop her from being her usual, lively self.

"Well, you are an old lady," Morgan teased back, causing Sandra to swat at him playfully.

With a smile on his face, Morgan stopped in place and hugged Sandra from behind, catching her off guard. "I'm glad you're ok". Sinking into her shoulder, feeling her warmth after so long, soothed him.

Placing her hand on his, she momentarily reciprocated the hug before flicking his forehead. "Let me go before you break something else". Grinning at him flinching back, she quickly changed the subject.

"We have a few things to get out of the way today. I've already taught you everything I can, for a ten-year-old, you're already smarter than most adults in terms of pure intelligence, but you still have a lot to learn." Pausing for a moment, Sandra pulled out a notepad from her coat pocket. "The last thing is your new abilities, this electric field that's constantly around you, we need to get that checked out."

Staring blankly at Sandra as she read off her notes, he briefly disassociated before continuing to push her wheelchair down the halls.

Soon arriving at their destination, Morgan walked through some sliding doors whilst carefully maneuvering Sandra around any obstacles in the room. They arrived in front of a glass barrier, ahead of it being a massive roughly twenty-five cubic meter wide room filled with various futuristic machines specially prepared per Sandra's request.

Gently removing her from the wheelchair, Morgan walked her over to a control panel set up facing the testing room.

"Look at my big strong man" Teasing Morgan, Sandra feigned being flustered, earning her strange looks as he placed her down comfortably.

Removing his extra clothing, and being left in black skin-tight pants designed with dark blue luminescent lining, Morgan entered the testing area and waited for Sandra to finish her preparations.

["Ok, I'm ready, let's get started"]

Looking over at the grinning Sandra through the glass, Morgan shook his head and sighed in mild exasperation. Levitating from the floor, small, nearly imperceptible crackles of electricity danced around him as he awaited her instructions.

["I want you to complete the obstacle course as fast as you can without touching the ground."]

Nodding at her instructions, Morgan raised himself higher in the air and launched forward, the air whistling behind him as he elegantly traversed the large obstacle course with ease. Nearly reaching the end, Morgan glanced over to the focused Sandra as she struggled to keep track of his flight path.

Returning his focus to the course, he collided against one of its obstacles and tumbled through the air, shortly colliding with the wall of the large room.

Bursting out in hysterical laughter from behind the glass, Sandra couldn't contain herself at the sight of Morgan embedded into the wall, though a sharp pain in her back immediately ceased her laughter. Regaining her composure, she lightly snickered as she called out. ["Having a hard time?"]

Pulling himself out of the wall and continuing to levitate, Morgan extended his hand at a piece of rubble, the piece of the wall levitating and rocketing towards his hand. Gently tossing it against the glass, he grunted at her teasing, returning to the starting point of the room to continue to the next test.

For the next hour, Morgan performed various tests to examine his newly blossoming abilities. Finally completing his flight analysis, Sandra guided him to a different area of the room, an area filled with various machines aimed at the wall.

["Hit the targets as best you can"]

Nodding in preparation, he faced the wall and readied himself. With the first machine firing, small ceramic disks were launched into the air in front of him, prompting him to release a focused blast of energy from his eyes, swiftly vaporizing the target as he moved to the next.

Behind the glass, Sandra could be seen glued to a monitor set up next to her control table, the screen split into several smaller sections that each display separate light spectrums.

'I still don't get it, he just keeps growing, and this new addition to his abilities just makes it harder to understand

Closely examining the monitors, she always noticed that Morgan would come up blurry in most of the monitors, or just a mass of light in the shape of a person. But the monitor that gained her attention was in the infrared spectrum. Through this, she could make out a field of energy constantly around Morgan's body, blocking nearly everything from touching his body or clothes directly, though she figures he can control it as she can still touch him.

Looking back into the room at Morgan still firing at the targets, she grew curious about a theory.

[Morgan, forget about the targets for now, I want you to fire a steady stream for as long as you can.]

Raising a brow at her request, he did it with no questions asked, facing the wall and firing a beam for as long as he could. Roughly thirty seconds passed, and the beam was still going strong, already melting through a majority of the titanium-reinforced walls.

Behind the glass once more, Sandra continued to examine the screens, noticing that the field around Morgan had grown considerably weaker, allowing him to be picked up better by a few of the other screens. Though this was short-lived as the field quickly began to recharge the moment Morgan halted his release.

"Was that enough?" Speaking in confusion, Morgan appeared in front of the glass without making a sound, startling Sandra and causing her to jump in her chair.

["You need to stop doing that… there's one last thing I want you to try"]

"Like what?" Sitting cross-legged in the air, Morgan yawned out of boredom.

["Do you think you can release energy from anywhere other than your eyes?"]

Pondering for a moment, he shrugged. "I always could".

Caught off guard by his answer, she raised a brow. ["What!? Since when?"]

"Since I first developed these new abilities"

["And you didn't think to tell me"] Now slightly annoyed, Sandra glared at him, only to receive a smug grin.

Returning to the target area, Morgan waited for another disk to fire before extending his hand toward it, causing it to stop in midair. Looking at the cameras, Sandra was shocked by what she noticed. Following the path of his arm, the field of energy around him extended into a steady stream and engulfed the disk, trapping it in place.

Making a fist with his outstretched hand, the disk promptly exploded into a flash of light, crackles of electricity briefly spreading out before swiftly dissipating.

"Doing that drains more energy, so it's a waste of time to use it"

Writing this information in her notes, she gradually disabled the various devices in the room. ["Makes sense why you didn't bother bringing it up… Alright, come out and change, I have something I want to tell you."]

Shortly, exiting the testing area, Morgan donned his previous clothing and walked over to Sandra, picking her up from the control table and gently placing her back in the wheelchair. Though, before he could begin pushing her, she grabbed his arm.

"I know you're smart enough to know the people in this facility shouldn't be trusted, Morgan, even me, I want you to be careful how much you show in these tests." Gripping his arm tightly to convey her message, he could feel how serious this warning was.

Placing his hand on hers, he warmly smiled at her, "Ok mom, I know".

"Good, now let's head back".

[~1 hour later~]

In Morgan's designated quarters, the two could be seen at the center of the room, Morgan sitting cross-legged on the floor whilst Sandra remained in her wheelchair.

"What I'm about to show you was supposed to wait till you became older, but the higher-ups deemed you capable enough to reveal it early" Taking out a stack of photos from an envelope, Sandra handed them to Morgan one by one, allowing him enough time to take in what he was seeing.

In his hands were pictures of various creatures he has never seen before, grotesque abominations with unnatural shapes and sizes that didn't seem normal. Focusing on one in particular, its largely humanoid shape was violently distorted by its purple skin and various sharp spikes that protrude from its body.

"What are these?"

"No one knows for sure, but we've gotten accustomed to calling them the Beyonders. An abnormally powerful group of creatures that seemingly appeared out of nowhere nearly a hundred years ago, we suspect they come from a world beyond our own, hence the name."

Pulling out another image and handing it to Morgan, she continued to speak. "They are mindless creatures hellbent on killing everything they see, nothing is safe when they appear, each having their unique way of slaughtering the masses in large numbers."

"And I'm guessing this facility was built to stop them?". Examining the last picture, it showcased the remains of a city, buildings toppled over as countless bodies riddled what was left of the streets.

"Yes. We quickly realized bullets did nothing against them, even our heaviest artillery failed to do any significant damage." Retrieving the photos and placing them back into the folder, she tossed them to the side. "From that day we needed a way to fight back, so we looked to genetic and cybernetic modification… Though, in some immensely rare cases after the invasion of the Beyonders, humans with supernatural abilities are born into the world, you were one of the very few we've ever found so young"

Mauling over this new information, Morgan appeared deep in thought. "I understand the gist of it, but why am I being told this, exactly".

"In a year from now, the higher-ups want to have you go on your first mission. You'll be facing off against a Beyonder"