It was a sunny day. Sone sat in the living room, staring at the door of the room where Kiro lay in the recovery capsule.
Worh shuffled out of the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee and rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
"What are you staring at the door for? He'll wake up soon," Worh said.
"I know," Sone replied.
Worh turned and left through the front door. Sone sighed and buried his face in his hands.
*Let me out,* a voice said inside his mind.
*Leave me alone, damn it,* Sone shot back.
He struck himself, trying to calm down at once.
*Shitty pow... Ah,* he thought.
He drew a deep breath. The transformation had helped him, but it was also like another being. It tried to seize control of his body whenever he was caught off guard, and every time, he shut it down.
"Having trouble?" the scientist asked.
Sone's head snapped up.
"Something like that," he said.
"I can help with one of my machines. It can go into your mind and root out whatever is causing that voice," the scientist offered.
"I accept. I don't want this damn voice in my head," Sone said.
The scientist nodded and motioned for him to follow.
They approached a door, and the scientist punched in a code. It slid open at once, revealing a huge room.
The room was nothing but technology, full of weapons Sone had never seen in his life. There was armor for every situation: radiation, smoke, fire, and water.
The scientist pushed up his sleeve, revealing a small screen covered in numbers, and quickly entered a code.
The floor slowly split open, and a chair rose until it reached their height, the floor sealing itself behind it. The chair came with a helmet, and above it two small pillars wove bluish electric energy between them, forming a miniature ring in the middle.
Sone sat down warily. The scientist fitted the helmet over his head and adjusted it. Sone felt something sharp dig into his scalp.
He dropped suddenly into sleep. The scientist connected a cable from the chair to the computer. The screen showed something golden inside the brain, and he pressed enter.
What looked like a spirit came into view, the energy turning to look at them. The scientist created a little figure armed with a trash can.
It approached the spirit, but the spirit shoved it violently backward, and the figure pulled itself back together. It drew a gun and fired. The bullet hit the spirit, which let out a shrill cry.
"It seems this was caused by using the full transformation," the scientist said. "I want Sone to be able to use it at will, though it will still drain his energy and be unstable until he perfects it."
He pressed a button, and the little figure hurled itself at the spirit, but a beam of energy struck it and knocked it back. The scientist instantly created a thousand copies, and they all charged at once.
The spirit began shooting at each of them, but the trash can slammed into it, and it froze, paralyzed.
"Please, don't do anything to me," it begged.
"You're in the way, and the power will remain his anyway," the scientist answered.
He pressed delete. The spirit warped violently, writhing in agony, its sounds twisting into noise before it vanished. It had been erased completely, and the power stayed with Sone.
The scientist removed the helmet, and Sone woke with ragged breath, trying to steady himself. A bitter taste rose in his mouth, but he quickly ignored it.
"Did it work?" Sone asked.
"Yes," the scientist said.
At that moment, an alert lit up, signaling that Kiro was waking.
They rushed to the recovery room. The capsule was draining its liquid through a tube into a large glass tank, where it pooled.
Kiro opened his eyes and blinked.
"Am I alive?" Kiro blurted out.
He turned his gaze toward them as the capsule opened with a hiss of cold air.
"Kiro," Sone said with a faint smile.
Kiro nodded and gave a thumbs-up to show he was fine.
Worh burst in, followed by Eduin and the hybrid, and they all stopped dead when they saw Kiro standing.
The hybrid walked up to Kiro and touched his face, checking his body heat. Then she stepped back with a nod of approval.
The scientist cleared his throat.
"Now that you're all here, you need to get stronger, because the Bosses keep arriving more powerful than before," the scientist said.
He slowly entered a code on the computer, and a door appeared. When it opened, they saw all kinds of training equipment, with a button to raise the gravity, another for balance, and one last for strength.
"Moment of truth... We train here from now on," Worh said.
Night fell, and a great storm lashed the world outside, but inside the laboratory they trained their specialties.