Chapter 17

Luis was avoiding Sarah’s attacks when he sensed that Robert disappeared through his enhanced perception. He thought it was odd but too busy trying to stay alive to care. This was possibly the strongest changeling Luis had ever fought.

The green-skinned changeling assaulting him was stronger than Luis was expecting. He had attempted to wrap many of the blue bandages that formed his body around her but she tore them with her claws at every opportunity.

While Luis knew that girl’s face from anywhere, even after so many years, her changeling body was vastly different from a humans. Sarah’s skin wasn’t just the color of a leaf but had the veins of one on the surface of her body. Her hair was a spring green that grew vines branching from different strands. Even the gem on her forehead and the ones on her legs and feet were a yellowish shade of green.

Thorns decorated her arms and legs and they even grew where the nails of her hands would be. When Luis would send out blue bandages to try to wrap around her, the stickers at the end of her fingers would carve them up. This pained Luis so he began withdrawing his body from Sarah’s attacks to prevent himself from getting hurt.

After her last slash at him, Luis flew back before reforming his body into the humanoid shape of blue bandages. He now looked like a floating mummy as he levitated off the ground to avoid Sarah slashing at him. All the while, a former Wielder was giving him advice on his battle performance.

“I don’t know how she’s able to slash your attacks so accurately,” Trevor said. “It’s like she’s moving before you even strike. Usually you’re able to overcome a gap of brute force but the accuracy of this creature is too much. You’ll need to rethink how to defeat her.”

The man’s face looked chiseled out of pure, light blue ice as he stared down from the ceiling of the Soul Chamber. The walls of the room were frozen over with a thick layer of darker, navy blue. Beneath the frozen water was liquid where faces and figures of fighting against one another in grand battles or planning grand schemes.

Purple chains connected Luis’s body within the Soul Chamber to Trevor. One set of chains were attached to each of Luis’s limbs which connected to the edge of his face. These chains not only connected the two more than most former wielders were connected to their hosts and suppressed the other Wielders from appearing.

Trevor was a coldhearted man. He had been that way most of his life and had taken the title of a man “The Ice-Heart”. Whatever conscience he had once had was frozen over by years of watching people die from an early age and nearly dying himself too many times to count.

Trevor had gained the Suffocation Armor by happenstance while being experimented on by Fulir technicians. Upon it latching onto him he escaped and went on the run for years, trying to evade Fulir agents. Afterwards, Trevor finally fled underground by discovering a secret tunnel into Seren and found a Remnant Village.

The years had not been kind to him as he was not only forced to kill humans to survive but was a fan of culling the Remnant Village’s population. While this made him unpopular, it did help keep the Remnant Villages alive and functional with a more stable number of mouths to feed. Trevor had always hated most of the chief elders of the Villages as he viewed them as too soft to keep everyone alive, especially Thomas Olier. This callous attitude eventually became represented by the Soul Chamber he inhabited to be covered in ice.

“Then what do you suggest I do?” Luis asked.

“Stop throwing individual bandages at her and form your body into a cylindrical, spear shape,” Trevor answered. “Take each wrap and form it into a spiraling lance with a singular point. That motion should be enough to stop her dead in her tracks.”

“So what you’re saying is that spinning is enough to break through her defenses?” he asked.

“Do you want my help or not?” Trevor asked.

He would have argued more before sensing something amiss. Akemi and the changeling that attacked her were now on the floor of the warehouse. He turned his attention to them to make a horrible discovery.

Akemi was lying on the ground with one of her elongated feathers ran right through her chest. It was speared through where her heart was and blood now painted the floor around a dark red. Omar, the canine changeling, knelt down beside to check her wounds.

He had a long gash across his chest that bled lightly but it didn’t seem to affect him. He was trying to shake her awake after placing his hands on her shoulders but it was no use. There was no movement to be detected.

“No,” Luis breathed.

Within his humanoid form he could still speak by forming a mouth just underneath the bandages that made his face. The wraps that formed his body could be made to replicate human features but Luis didn’t often do that. There was usually not much of a need to speak in battle.

“Did the changeling somehow force Akemi to kill herself?” Trevor asked. “Maybe they’re stronger than we anticipated.”

Something within Luis broke at that moment. He wasn’t able to control himself. The anger rising within him was swelling until it was all he could feel.

Akemi…Her name was all he could think of. You were…the comrade I was closest to. I…I never thought you would die…in battle.

“Luis,” Trevor said. “Focus…you need to think of your own survival before her death. No matter how angry you get you must-”

“Akemi!” Omar shouted. “Akemi! P-Please…no!”

The wolfish changeling began shedding tears.

“This is…” Omar said. “Not how it was supposed to happen. She…she was not supposed to die…”

“Oh what are you complaining about?” Sarah shouted.

Omar turned to her in fright, clearly embarrassed.

“I understand you were not supposed to let the Armor Wielder die,” she said. “But you’re weeping over her as if you still care for her. Shouldn’t you no longer care for that woman?”

Omar shook his head, looking confused.

“Your loyalty should be to Fulir,” Sarah said. “And you should care nothing for that woman as a result.”

“But-” Omar said. “I-I-I still remember…I remember the time we spent in college. I…remember how happy I was. I can’t forget it forget it for the life of me.”

Sarah groaned in anger.

“I see you’re weak due to your memories,” she said. “Most changelings have their lives on Earth completely deleted from their minds or altered so that it doesn’t matter. But in order to conduct this experiment…”

Luis then figured out what was happening.

“You needed to remember your human lives,” Luis said.

Omar’s tear stained face and Sarah’s cold indifference.

“So you psychic changelings are vulnerable in ways most changelings aren’t,” he said. “You still have your memories of when you were humans intact.”

Fear appeared in Sarah’s expression as soon as he said that. Omar still appeared as sad as ever, holding Akemi’s body as if it would do anything. This only made Luis angrier.

Within his Soul Chamber, heat began to rise. Flames appeared in the very center of the room above Luis’s head within the chamber. The fire grew hotter and hotter until much of the ice in the room melted. Trevor began growing nervous at that.

“What are you doing?!” Trevor shouted. “You’re letting your emotions get out of control!”

“How can you weep over her death when you killed her?!” Luis shouted.

“But-” Omar said. “But I did not-!”

“Don’t lie to me!” Luis shouted. “You psychic changelings invaded her mind or something and forced her to kill herself!”

“No!” Omar said. “You don’t understand! I want to bring her over to our side! Once she was captured I would take good care of Akemi and-!”

But Luis was already unwrapping himself as he spoke. With his humanoid shape gone he wrapped the bandages forming his body into a cylindrical spear. He quickly formed his body into a spiral shape with a pointed end, a shape that at first resembled a lance. However, once Luis finally contorted his body into his desired shape, the end product was a drill.

“Watch out!” Sarah shouted at Omar.

She attempted to intervene by rushing forward but Luis was too fast for her to make it. Sarah didn’t even get close before Omar let go of Akemi. But otherwise the canine changeling did not move. He merely stared at the floating drill made of blue strips of cloth as Luis rocketed towards him. He felt like a space shuttle that had been sent flying into orbit, his speed exhilarating him. The spiraling motion he made as jettisoned toward Omar blurred all of Luis’s vision except for the sole target of the changeling.

“Die!” was Luis’s only word.

The end of the drill that he’d formed pierced Omar’s body as easily as a knife stabbed through tender meat. The flesh of his body felt soft and spongy as Luis bored through his heart. He could feel the bones and veins ripping out from the inside as his body caught them and plucked them out from within. Blood and bits of flesh covered the drill forming his body as he exited through Omar’s body.

Upon sensing he had driven himself straight through the changeling’s chest, Luis unwrapped himself before reforming into his human-shaped body. He watched as the wolf changeling’s body fell to the floor as Omar growled one last time. The gaping hole in his body was maybe a foot in diameter, causing much blood to pool around him.

“That,” Luis said. “Is for my friend.”

“Luis!” Trevor shouted.

“What?!” Luis barked.

He only noticed when it was too late. The ice freezing every surface of the chamber surface was melting into water. The liquid had poured down until Luis was standing in a pool up to his knees. The vague, black silhouettes and figures of unfamiliar people still clashed beneath the surface. The purple chains uniting them were breaking apart.

The fire ignited by Luis’s wrath was a ball of pure flame with four streams of fire emitted from it. The orb of flame spun in a perfect soul as the limbs of fire melted away the frozen water. Luis could feel the temperature in his Soul Chamber rising not as a result of the flame but of his own anger. It had consumed him so greatly that it was the only emotion Luis felt.

The callousness and indifference he usually shared with Trevor was gone.

Usually they were united by the simultaneous feeling of coldheartedness and both even had a scheming nature. They rarely showed emotion other than stoic displeasure and even had the same desire of becoming head of the Remnant Village.

But with that emotional connection to the former Wielder gone, Trevor’s influence over him was lost. And now that Trevor was no longer synchronized with Luis, other dead Wielders appeared. Luis became fearful once to his left and right appeared the face of a former Wielder of the Suffocation Armor.

To his left was Katrina, a woman whose face looked to be sculpted entirely out of red ruby. She had pure gold irises that scared Luis every time he looked too long at them. To his right was Austin, a plain faced man whose skin was paper white and featureless. His black eyes were that of any other normal human. Both looked surprised to have appeared.

“I see your transformation is broken,” Austin said. “I could sense something was off but…since I was unable to look directly at you I couldn’t tell.”

“I see,” Katrina said. “Your wrath broke your connection with Trevor. What an unfortunate series of events.”

And right on que Luis began de-morphing. The individual wraps forming his body began adhering together into a solid body. His humanoid shape became even more humanoid. His hollow body began filling with organs and bones as Luis became too heavy to float in the air. He landed on his feet to discover the armor that surrounded him was a thin blue sheet. A few bandages sprouted from his limbs and waved in the air.

“I’ve reverted back to the basic-most original form of the Suffocation Armor,” he said. “I-I hate this stage!”

“Of course you hate it,” Trevor said. “It’s weaker than the Manipulation stage of the Suffocation Armor. Now that it’s in its original state…you’ve left yourself very vulnerable.”

Luis groaned in frustration, angered that his being was no longer combined with Trevor’s. One could evolve their Access Armor into more powerful and advanced forms by combining their psychology with a former wielder. This was called Morph Shifting and when successful the Access Armor transformed from its original stage into one with vastly different capabilities. The Suffocation Armor didn’t have the ability to take control of different beings until after Luis combined his mind with Trevor’s.

However, Morph Shifting had many weaknesses. And the most vital one was that the current host of the Access Armor and a former wielder must be united in goal and emotional stage. They had to share feelings and desires on a very intimate level and this connection was exceptionally fragile. The link between the current host of the Access Armor and a former one could easily break if one of the two (usually the current Wielder) experienced an emotion that the other did not.

In this case, Luis’s anger overwhelmed him so that now he could no longer connect with Trevor’s desire for control and apathy to most human life. Luis was too worked up with wrath for the death of a person Trevor had no emotional investment in. Now that their overlapping feelings were gone, he had reverted to the base stage of the Suffocation Armor. This did not go unnoticed by Sarah.

“I see you’re weaker now,” Sarah said. “The Iceheart or whatever his name was doesn’t seem to have any room for humanity.”

Luis turned to her with fear tightening in his chest.

“What?!” he shouted.

“Do you really think psychic changelings are called that for no reason?” Sarah asked with a wry smile. “We all can read minds to some extent and I’m one of the best at it. I can’t really use telekinesis much but I certainly can hear every thought you have. I can read every move because of that.”

“So…” Luis said. “That’s how you could evade all my attacks. It’s not because of your strength…it’s your ability to know what we’re thinking. If you were just leaps and bounds ahead of me in physical strength then you could have stopped me from killing Omar.”

“Precisely,” Sarah said. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m not here to beat you. I’m here to test you. The experiment’s quite a bit more important than just seeing who can beat who.”

“I see you’ve really given yourself to cruelty since Fulir messed with your memories,” Luis said. “When we were children, the Sarah I know would never have done something as cruel as try to kill a person.”

“Hmm,” Sarah said. “But you didn’t know Sarah. Not even I did.”

“What?” Luis asked. “What kind of cryptic nonsense is this?”

“In all your life,” she asked. “Did it ever occur to you that your memories had been tampered with? Before you were immune to Yeltael’s mind distortion abilities with your Access Armor?”

Luis stopped himself from asking any further as it was a good question. In all his time in the Remnant Village and listening to how bizarre it was, entire fictional lives were constructed and deleted from a person’s mind, Luis never considered it ever occurred to him in his life. Obviously sensing his frustration, Sarah’s smile became more devious.

“You now understand it,” Sarah said. “The person we both knew as Sarah Flowndery was fiction. Her identity was just a fragile construct as one of the millions of test subjects to study human behavior.”

“That’s wrong,” Luis said. “That’s just wrong.”

“But why?” Sarah asked. “Why are you so special that your distorted memories are any more real than others?”

Luis was stunned for a moment, her reasoning solid enough to leave him speechless.

“She’s messing with your mind,” Katrina said. “Don’t listen.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I know for a fact you’re heeding my words over her’s,” Sarah said. “You’re beginning to realize how fake your memories of meeting me as a child are.”

“I don’t remember saying that,” Luis said.

“But you believe it,” Sarah said. “You know deep down your life with me was fake. I can even prove it.”

“That’s impossible!” Luis said. “Even if you could say my memories were fake there’s no way to definitively say they are.”

“Oh, I certainly can,” Sarah said. “The first part of this experiment for us psychic changelings was to attack the person we were familiar with to see if they would retaliate against someone they once knew and loved. And you defended yourself against me without a second thought.”

“So?” Luis asks. “Anyone will fight to keep themselves alive. Even a loved one!”

“Not true,” Sarah said. “Through mind reading I know what the majority of the people in this warehouse are doing and there was a clear distinction between what you did and what the rest of you rebel humans did.”

Luis became aware of a dark truth as Sarah spoke. While fighting Sarah he had observed Robert not making even an attempt to battle his former wife. Akemi wounded Omar but only after her failing to evade his attacks and tried to support him once he fell. This was vastly different from Luis who never attempted the pacifist approach.

I fought Sarah as soon as she showed up. He realized. I would have taken control of or wounded her had she not been such an incredible fighter. In fact…I became more emotional over Akemi’s death than the idea of Fulir manipulating Sarah.

“Correct,” Sarah said. “It was easy to see who you were more attached to.”

“But then what are you getting at?” Luis asked. “What is this game all for?”

“Like Kyle told you,” Sarah said. “To see if we can use mechanical, physical and scientific methods to confirm the existence of a soul. And from the results I’ve observed…it seems the Fulir researchers were right in assuming there was one.”

“And how does me fighting you mean anything?!” Luis demanded. “How does whether any of you win a fight, whether we defend ourselves or if you could kill us mean anything?! How?!”

“Because despite all our scientific advancement,” Sarah said. “It appears as if real versus false memories have a drastic impact on our subconscious.”

“Drastic impact?” Luis asked. “But shouldn’t real memories versus fake ones be interchangeable? That’s how everyone explained it to me.”

“There was no scientific explanation for it,” Sarah said. “No matter how many times the subject’s memories were deleted or altered, they react more strongly to someone they had a real experience with. If they only knew a person via fake memories they react less strongly to them.”

The changeling shrugged.

“Our researchers have been searching for an answer to this for years but…” she said. “There lies no material explanation for. From a scientific point of view there is no reason that fake memories should be interchangeable with real ones. Yeltael’s effect on them is too great. However…”

“Many of the scientists began suspecting there was a far deeper, more esoteric element of sentient species,” Sarah said. “Souls. The superstition great civilizations outgrow once powerful enough.”

“I don’t know if I’m much of a believer in a soul myself,” Luis said. “This reality is crazy…but not that crazy.”

“But there seems to be no other explanation,” Sarah explained. “What is deeper than the mind and neurons that host a person’s living consciousness and being? When Fulir researchers latched onto the theory, it was like discovering a new organ in the body. And all the evidence of this battle seems to point to the direction of a soul.”

“And it points in that direction because…” Luis said. “Because I fought Akemi and didn’t fight you?”

“Right,” Sarah answered. “You’ve met Akemi before. You lived with her in your little Remnant Village. But you never met me.”

“Not true,” Luis said. “I knew you quite well.”

“Then why did Akemi and Robert hesitate to fight their loved ones while you attacked me right off the bat?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Luis said. “I guess I’m just more empty than they are. Living in the bowels of Seren…it makes you heartless.”

“Oh that’s true,” Sarah said. “But if I could…”

She raised her left hand.

“I’d like to show you just how empty you really are,” the changeling said. “And where that emptiness came from.”

The crystals on her left hand glowed a bright green before the scenery around Luis changed. He could feel Katrina and the other former Wielders in his Soul Chamber growing fearful at this. Katrina even screamed as soon as it happened.

“No!” she shouted.

But after the green flash lit up Luis’s world, he could feel the influence of the dead Wielders inside him gone. It was as though they no longer existed. He was blinded by a flash of green light before Luis could see again. He no longer stood in the warehouse. Instead he was in a place that he recognized a great deal.

It was someone’s house. The walls were an eggshell white and pictures hung of faces he recognized. The living room he stood in was fitted with a red velvet floor and expensive white furniture. Luis turned around to find that three people were racing down the stairs.

“The Norris family?” he asked.

It was them alright. The father, Sam, had dark brown hair and a slim build with a crooked nose. Rachel, the mother, was blond and taller than her husband and had bright green eyes. But their daughter Sarah was the person he remembered the most.

She was just as he remembered. A twelve-year old girl with long blond hair tied in red ribbons. Luis had never seen her frown. After heading down the flight of stairs they began speaking about something that warmed Luis’s heart.

“I almost forgot to pick up Luis from school,” Sam said. “I was so worried about if we’d have time to go the fair that-”

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Don’t worry honey. I would have reminded you anyway.”

“Yeah!” Sarah said. “The fair is fun! Do you remember the ferris wheel from last time, Mom? I was scared at first but now I like it!”

“Okay,” Sam said. “You stay here and I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

After kissing his wife he turned around and exited through the front door. Sarah and her mother sat down on the white couch. As Rachel began braiding her daughter’s hair to pass the time, tears welled up in Luis’s eyes.

“I remember being here,” he said. “This is just before they took me to the fair. This…”

For the first time in years Luis gave a genuine smile.

“This was my family,” he said. “They had been for seven years. Ever since my parents died in a car crash they had adopted me. And…they treated me like one of their own children. I never felt like a stranger or a burden.”

He then walked towards Sarah and gestured towards her.

“And…” Luis said. “She was my best friend. She had been ever since her parents took me in. I…I loved all of them.”

He then turned around to find Sarah, the changeling, staring at him.

“How are we here?” he asked.

“Time travel,” the changeling answered. “Psychic changelings can return to a specific point in time by linking their memories to a person they once knew. By sharing them, we can roll back the clock to a specific time so long as we remember.”

“Is-Is that true?” Luis asked.

The changeling nodded.

“Yes,” she answered. “They can’t see us right now but if you interact with them, namely any of these three, you’ll be able to alter the past to change the present.”

The strangest sensation flowed through Luis at that moment. The feeling was so unfamiliar he didn’t know what to call it at first. Then he understood what it finally was.

Hope. He realized.

“Sarah!” Luis shouted. “Sarah! It’s me! Luis!”

There was no response. He walked over to Sarah and attempted to touch her shoulder. But when he did, she flickered. Luis pulled his hand away to find her image faded in and out like a malfunctioning hologram. He then touched her again for his arm to phase right through Sarah, as if she was made of immaterial light.

As soon as he touched her the second time, the scenery around him changed. It began with Sarah melting as if she was made of ice and it was the middle of July. Soon she was reduced to a puddle of mismatched color before the same thing happened to her mother. After they became liquid and sunk into the floor the rest of the room did the same.

The interior of the house began bleeding into non-existence like water washing paint off a canvas. As the white walls and fancy furniture disappeared it was gradually replaced by a dark, dingy basement. Fear rose in Luis as he turned to Sarah with a gaping expression of horror.

“I lied,” she said.

“What?!” Luis demanded.

“The illusion I showed you was no real event,” Sarah said. “It was not time travel. If it had actually happened it would have been but the memory that we technically shared…it was an illusion Fulir created within us.”

“But-!” Luis shouted. “I remember it clear as day! I remember your family…! They…!”

“Did you not catch the hints?” Sarah asked. “The memory you had of me never happened. Just an illusion created by Yeltael. They were fake memories we were forced to live through as we had never met each other in real life. I know that some part of you longed to go back to the surface one day. Some part of you longed to bring me down to you…but the truth is we’d never met and a fiction was implanted within us to pretend as though we were childhood friends.”

“But…!” Luis shouted. “Why?! Why?!”

“We wanted to see how false memories could change personalities,” Sarah explained. “Real events in a person’s life change their personalities, that we know for certain. But Fulir wanted to see if original memories a person experienced could still influence them even if erased from their mind. And in your case, your false memories actually had such a deep impact on you, even when you forgot them…”

The scene of the basement around them had completely overtaken the warm and wealthy-looking household. Broken furniture and boxes of things littered the room. And what was worse was that Luis could hear disturbing moaning sounds. Once he turned around he screamed in shock.

“Your personality has still not changed even after we implanted the fake ones,” Sarah said. “Your real life was too overwhelming a reality.”

The moaning came from his twelve-year-old self. He was curled up at the foot of a bed with a urine stained mattress crying as he hid his face in his knees. Luis’s younger self was whimpering in pain as he rubbed his buttocks. He was naked and shivering.

Lying on the bed was a burly man drinking from a dark bottle. He looked relaxed and sluggish as he reclined in the nude against a pillow. He had more facial hair than what could be described as a 5 o’clock shadow but less than what could be called a beard. A sudden familiarity shot through Luis so strong it almost felt like it jostled his brain.

“I-I-I-I-” he said. “I don’t…I don’t remember this place. But-But…I feel as though I do. I…I know what this room is.”

He burst out into tears.

“All to well!” Luis shouted.

His chest was being squeezed by two invisible boulders as he was unable to even gasp for breath. He panted as much as possible but his throat felt dryer than if sand had been poured down his gullet. Everything in Luis’s body felt unnervingly hot and a stinging, burning sensation flooded the surface of his skin. His knees were giving out as they knocked against each other.

“I don’t remember this place!” he shouted. “I’ve never been here before! But I feel as if I know every inch of this room! I’ve breathed every stale bit of air and choked every last bit of dust!”

Luis pointed to the hairy man lying on the bare bed.

“And I remember being pushed against that old, disgusting mattress on so many nights!” he said. “Another man slammed against as he broke my body to…to…to do horrible things!”

Luis finally collapsed onto the floor, screaming for air as he couldn’t take his eyes off the young, naked boy at the foot of the bed. As he lay on his side his legs spasmed and his hands twitched nervously. He was immobilized by negative emotion flowing through him. And this time, it coursed through Luis stronger than the positive energy of the Norris household.

“How come I can remember nothing about this place?!” he shouted. “And yet feel with everything in me the cruelty of this dungeon?! How?! How can I never have seen this place before and yet know this place’s darkness with my soul?!”

Sarah laughed at his discomfort.

“Because,” she chucked. “You idiot. This is your real home. You were never adopted by the Norris family.”

Luis turned to look up at the changeling.

“Wh-What?” he asked.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along,” Sarah said. “What you remember about your childhood was a fiction we constructed through Yeltael. We wanted to see if your personality would change if you went from a miserable upbringing to a happy one.”

“What?” Luis asked. “So…you’re saying…my entire life…I was a test subject…for an experiment?”

“So are all puny humans,” Sarah said. “Luis…you know you’re a cold-hearted bastard. You know that you’re a schemer who doesn’t care for anyone else. Why do you think you were able to bond with Trevor so well?”

As more tears rolled down his face, he felt the truth of every word. What came from her mouth felt like a bedrock of solid facts. The idea of his adoption by the Norris family became a more and more distant reality as the hope of the first memory disappeared from his heart. Sarah stood quiet with only a devious smile drawn on her face as she allowed him to regain his senses.

Something weird began happening. Sarah’s feelings and thoughts began permeating through the space of the basement. It was similar to how in his Soul Chamber the thoughts of any Wielder began being shared by the others. Their mental state could be sensed and overtake another Wielder if it was strong enough. As Luis began speaking he felt as if Sarah’s words came from his mouth as their feelings began to be shared.

“Yes,” Luis said. “My heart…it is as cold as Trevor’s. It is a heart that could never be born so callous. It was only made that way…by indescribable pain and unrelenting sorrow. It’s a personality that is as unfeeling as stone because every part of me that could feel…is gone.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Sarah said.

A pregnant pause rose in the air as Luis stopped snivelling in pain. He took in a few deep breaths to regain control over himself. He finally was able to speak again after what must have been minutes. Luis could bet his eyes were red and puffy from so much sobbing.

“You wanted to see if the cold, hardened personality developed by being raped would melt away once I was given false memories of a joyful, loving family,” Luis said. “And according to the results…my cold and callous personality remained largely unchanged.”

“Very good,” she admitted with a nice laugh.

“And if I kept my bitter personality it gave credence to the idea I had a soul,” Luis said. “Because even if such memories were blotted from my mind…it doesn’t mean the pain of them would be healed. The scars to my inner, spiritual being would go away with new, happy memories so long as they were false. My…callous…twisted personality that sought to gain power over people…was the result of my soul…wishing to gain control over others so that they could never control me…”

He then turned back to the burly man sleeping on the gross mattress and his younger self leaning against the bed frame and weeping.

“That was the pain of my soul,” Luis said. “The pain the immaterial portion of my being experienced…nothing Yeltael could do could change it.”

Luis looked around at the basement.

“What is this place?” he asked. “Is…Is it real?”

“Well,” Sarah said. “Yes…in a way. I could materialize it into existence but because we do not share the memory I can’t transport you to it. If I was here when you were being molested you could change the future, possibly by killing the perpetrator. But that’s not the case so it’s just a space that temporarily exists.”

“No,” Luis asked. “I mean…what happened here? Who…Who is that man? Is…Is this my home?”

“It is your home,” she said. “More precisely the basement of your home. As you can probably imagine, your family was very poor so your mother sold you to men who lusted after your young, vulnerable body. You always cried in the end.”

Luis began sniveling again.

“That’s horrible,” he said. “I’m glad you erased it from my mind. No matter what memories I have…I’d never want to remember that.”

“And there you have it,” Sarah said. “The results are just as we expected. I’ve gathered all the information from my assigned test subject.”

She opened her left hand so that he could see the green gems below and atop her palm glowed. A wide ring materialized above it, the circular object levitating above her hand and spinning. The ring had three purple orbs attached to it. With a flick of her wrist, Sarah sent the silvery circle flying towards him.

Unfortunately, Luis didn’t attempt to move out of the way as it spun in his direction. He was far too filled with grief and shock to move. He was cradled on the floor in a fetal position, watching as his tears pooled around him. Luis was afraid to move. At the very last moment Trevor spoke up.

“No!” Trevor shouted. It was the first time since Sarah transported him to a new place that he could hear a dead wielder speak. “That’s a capture ring! It’ll-!”

But it was too late. Just as Luis looked up at the device it was hovering directly above him. The ring then lowered itself around his neck before retracting.

“No!” Katrina shouted.

Luis shouted in pain as it squeezed his throat. He grabbed at the device around him, trying to pull it off. However, it was of no use. With another flash of green, the area around Sarah and Luis changed once again.

The world of the dingy basement disappeared and they now were back at the warehouse. Luis struggled to get the ring around him off as Sarah laughed. He writhed on the floor in panic as another green flash appeared in the changeling’s open palm. What materialized in her hand this time was a silvery disc with buttons in different colors.

“What is that?!” Luis shouted. “What is this?!”

“It’s a capture ring,” Sarah said. “We put it around Access Armor users so that they obey our will. How do you think we control you Armor Wielders if we can’t manipulate your memories with Yeltael like changelings?”

“It’s all over,” Katrina said. “You will serve Fulir until your last day alive. There is no escaping this contraption.”

“What?!” Luis shouted. “You think I’m just going to do your will because I have this stupid thing around my neck?!”

Sarah pressed a button on the disc that appeared in her hand. Pain shot through Luis as he writhed in agony. Not only was he unable to stand up but began feeling his Armor recede back into his body.

The thin, blue material that formed the original state of the Suffocation Armor sunk into his tan skin. The strips of cloth growing from his limbs receded back as well. Before Luis knew it, he was back in his human form. But the ring was still attached firmly to his neck.

“No,” he said. “No.”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “You are now a slave of the Fulir government and military.”

“But-!” Luis shouted as fresh tears blurred his vision. “I want to be-! I don’t want to be a slave! I want to be my own master! I want to control others! No one should have control over me!”

“No,” Sarah said. “You are a slave, as you rightfully should be.”

“Should…?” Luis asked. “Be?”

“Humans are born for the purpose of serving Fulir,” she said. “Whether they be lab rats whose memory we distort to gain information on the functionality of sentience, turned into changelings as foot soldiers or Armor Wielders as shock troops…you’re race’s purpose is to be slave to Fulir.”

“No,” he said. “That’s-! That’s not my purpose!”

“It is,” Sarah said. “Just as it is the purpose of the dogs to serve humankind. Lesser creatures are meant to be domesticated and put into service for the greater need of the higher species. If you believe this to be a cruel fate, then you are a hypocrite for ever using not only animals but any human for your mortal wants.”

Luis began smashing his fist against the floor of the warehouse, hurting himself as he did.

“All creatures manipulate others in order to survive and gain higher ambitions,” Sarah said. “I have accepted that as my fate…you should accept it as yours.”

She then pressed another button on the disc control she held before light surrounded him.

“And now with a control ring fitted around you I can transport you back to a holding chamber made for Armor Wielders,” Sarah said. “I’ll drop you off at the Fulir military base before carrying out my other duties.”

Luis jumped at her in fury but just as he did the warehouse around him disappeared in a flash of light as he was teleported away.

My entire life…Luis thought as he left. I wanted to control others because I felt that was the only way to not be manipulated myself. But once I let my guard down…I was made the ultimate slave. My life has been pointless. I wish I was never born.

And he was gone.