Chapter 42: Giant Tentacled Sphere

RAM DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL.

Torture Loop messed him up pretty badly. By the time he came out of the Torture Loop, he was in so much rage that he wanted to punch Veera. Ram somehow controlled himself.

But Veera taunted him, saying he was powerful while Ram was nothing. Even that The Institute was nothing but one of a small tiered organization waging war against The Forces of Darkness.

More than that, he used Ram as a tool, that once it served it's purpose, he would destroy or discarded it.

Just like what Veera was doing with Ram. Veera used Ram to bring chaos and doom to The Institute and not only did he destroyed Ram's reactors, he even brought the doom faster to The Institute as well. That left Ram with not being able to use his powers anymore. He would not be able to protect Aunt El or aid her in achieving her dreams, whatever that might be.

Heck, the way things looked he was going to die.

Would Veera watch his demise or walk away?

Ram had a basic understanding of Veera and he could tell that Veera would want to watch the downfall of The Institute to it's end.

And Ram was powerless to prevent it.

What should he do?

The only real power he has now was memories and experiences of Elder of Water using hypnosis. But having them and truly integrating them into him was entirely different. Unless he integrated them into him, to make them his own by using them, Ram would not be able to perform hypnosis.

And even though Ram was presented with an opportunity to try hypnosis on a large scale, it could backfire pretty quickly.

If the Elders, Elites and their families, and Guards were to know that he tried and failed to hypnotize them, then they are going to kill him immediately, without any trial.

Even if he were successful in hypnotizing them, Veera would not sit quite. He would use his Powers of Time to his advantage and make sure that Ram and The Institute would go down.

No.

Hypnosis was not a solution.

He could prove to the Elders that he didn't have any powers, that he did not even have reactors and he was helpless. And that the culprit for all of this was Veera.

But Veera might intervene if things didn't go according to his plan. Or Veera might not intervene at all since he was overconfident about his powers.

If Ram was able to prove to others about the truth regarding Veera, they would help Ram. They would band together and push Veera into such a situation that no matter how much Veera predicted, he couldn't escape.

On the top of that, if Ram were to consider The Unknown Variables, the crazy twins Rita and Nano, and their device, Ram could use it to his advantage in his current predicament.

But Ram didn't know where that device was and how to use it.

One thing was for sure.

Veera hadn't destroyed it.

He was not even able to find it.

Ram hoped he would be able to find the device and use it, or at least contact the Crazy Twins and ask how to do the same from them.

But the way the guards were now surrounded Ram and pushing him towards the Temporary Justice Hall inside The Institute made Ram believe that he didn't have any hope of meeting with them.

The only way The Twins could meet him would be if they were using the Powers of Time. But Ram didn't get the feeling of such powers form them. Ram hoped that he could expose Veera, band the Elders and Elites together with him, get the help of Crazy Twins and defeat Veera once and for all.

***

The guards ushered Ram all the way through the endless halls, twisting stairs and dark chambers for god knows how long before finally appearing in front of a giant glowing sphere that's hovering in the center.

It was weird sphere with dark tentacles all around it.

Many Elites and their families that were following him as the guards ushered him, stopped few feet from the glowing sphere, searched inside their bags and produced a glass vial that contained a dark liquid.

The glowing sphere's tentacles sped towards them, attaching to their forehead, showering them with a light that blinded Ram for a moment and when his vision returned, they disappeared.

Ram turned around and realized that all around him the crowd were disappearing similarly.

Were they not afraid of this strange tentacled sphere?

Before Ram could realize what was happening, a guard elbowed Ram in his ribs.

Hard.

A flash of pain followed by Ram cursing at the guard in all the languages that Ram knew, the guard gave him a glass vial.

It contained a slimy black liquid which looked so disgusting to look at that Ram started to retch.

If he had eaten anything before coming, Ram would've emptied them right now.

But as of now, Ram was dry heaving.

The guards laughed at his misery. "Come on. Bad guy, don't act like you are a scared little cat. Be a good bad guy and drink it. It tastes as amazing as it looks," one of the guard said.

Ram glared at him. "What the heck is this thing? It looked like a black fungus that had been tortured for several days, the ones that you specifically designed for me," he said.

The guards gave him an amused smile. The first guard who had answered him earlier, glared at him. "You really are taking this acting up to a notch. You were acting as if you don't know what this is," he said.

Ram stared at him.

The guard frowned. "You really don't know what this is?" he asked.

Ram shook his head.

"Well that's what happens if you try to infiltrate The Institute without proper preparation. Don't you know the phrase 'know thy enemy'?" asked an Elite who just drunk the slimy liquid from the glass vile.

Before Ram could reply, a tentacle attached to his forehead. A brief flash of light later, The Elite disappeared.

"What the Young Elite said was correct. You should have properly done your research before trying to cause chaos to The Institute," the first guard said.

Ram glared at them. "No. I am not a bad guy and I did not want to infiltrate The Institute. I was framed. I was the good guy, an innocent guy, the poor guy that was framed by V—"

Ram didn't get to finish as the guard sighed at him, grabbed the back of his head with one hand and pulled it down, while he used his other hand to open the stopper to the vial and pored it's contents inside Ram's mouth.

It tasted as horrible as it looked. The slimy liquid slid all around his tongue right down towards Ram's throat. The slick feeling it left on his tongue made Ram's skin crawl, his body reacting as if it wanted to push this vile thing out of his mouth.

Ram tried to spit back the vile liquid, but as if the liquid has a mind of it's own, it slowly crawled all the way into Ram's throat, flew through his food pipe.

Some of the liquid tried to flow throw Ram's windpipe and Ram chocked.

He was smacking at his chest and coughing, rubbing his throat from time to time, but the slimy liquid that just entered the windpipe shot back hitting the insides of Ram's throat and it left a burning sensation all around Ram.

Ram rubbed at his throat, hoping it would cool it down. But the friction heated him up.

The uncomfortable head spread all around his body and Ram's vision were filled with tears as his stomach twisted.

No power generated this time.

The twisting of the stomach was because of the slimy liquid that was wreaking havoc inside of Ram.

Everywhere it traveled, it hit the insides of his body, spreading even more heat.

Soon, Ram felt like he was on fire and then he felt something touch his forehead.

Something cool.

He felt a brief flash of light that was soothing to his eyes and soon Ram felt himself float in endless black.

It's as if here were in a space.

It was so devoid of any color.

It's as if the blackness was consuming whatever colored light that others tried to enter it from the outside or exit from inside of it.

Ram was not even able to see his own body and for a moment he thought that he was blind. But Ram realized that he was able to see different shades of black and dark grey surrounding him.

Another brief flash of multicolored light spread all around Ram and dark spots appeared in his vision.

Once the spots vanished, Ram was able to see all around him.

He was inside a glass sphere and all around him, he was able to see Elites and their families at the back in large clusters.

There were small clusters of spheres that Ram thought might be the witness and in one of them, Ram saw Veera, who was just grinning at him while , Chandra and Sandya stood next to him, glaring at him as if he had done some heinous crime against them.

The guards came next in much smaller clusters, followed by The Elders who were inside their own spheres similar to Ram.

It's as if Ram exactly at the center of the Giant Tentacled Sphere.

A screen appeared in front of everyone, even including Ram. Though his was gigantic.

On the screen, it showed Ram using his powers and it depicted him as if he were an evil being, abusing his powers against powerless people.

It even included him maniacally beating Veera.

Followed by Ram touching Elder of Water's forehead who them fell down, twitching and foaming at the corner of his mouth.

Later, it showed Ram waving his sword. It looked as if Ram opened a portal, interrupting the fight between The Elder of Time had with his Scar Faced Nemesis.

It showed Ram stabbing the Elder of Time followed by him slowly disintegrating into tiny motes of glowing particles.

It ended with Ram grinning maniacally as he stared at the empty spot where Elder of Time had been moments earlier, when he accidentally killed Elder of Time.