Rise of the Omnimage

"Wake up Mr. Ekart." Tapping to the side of his face as he slowly opened his eyes. Sorin felt blind as his Storm sense was cut off by the collar around his neck.

He was sluggish it was like all of the effort he put into his mind, body, and spirit was stripped from him. He moved his hand to his neck where he felt the heavy plastic smooth seemingly metal collar.

"That collar stays on for you. Gave our team more trouble than should have been possible for a tier 2 or 3. Suggests cunning and skill that should have been recognized from the beginning by those imbeciles in receiving and training." The voice he now recognized as female.

Sorin slowly looked up meeting the sapphire blue eyes of a very attractive woman who appeared to be around his age.

'What is with this universe and everyone being so damn attractive?" Sorin grumbled.

The woman, hearing him leaned forward showing her assets a bit more. "You think I'm attractive?" She said.

"Really? That line is the most overused in any sort of manipulation scheme. You're going to have to do much better than that." Sorin said looking back down.

"Then you're into men more?" She asked with a slight pout. Leading to Sorin letting out a snort of laughter.

"You guys are not very good at this. You capture me, collar me, then put a woman in front of me dolled up to try to appeal to me. Sorry guys, I'm a married spud who has a woman many times greater than any woman you can put before me." Sorin mocked.

The door to the room he was in opened.

"That's unfortunate Mr. Ekart. We didn't realize you were well versed in interrogation techniques and manipulation. Licillia you may go. It was a text book performance." The man said.

"I'm Yixillian. I'll be taking over." He said revealing a folder which he set down before Sorin.

He opened it in front of him and even tossed out pictures of himself and his team over the last few weeks.

"We have been keeping an eye on you. There is a lot about you that has been of great interest to us here in the academy and will be to the Empire." Yixillian said absently as he looked over what appeared to be growth charts and stats.

Sorin reached over to the pictures. He saw a great shot of him firing his Ion cannon up the rear of the giant turtle.

"Can I have this? It would go great on the wall." Sorin asked giving a tone of uncaring amusement.

"You mean the wall you blew up on extraction? Let's talk about that encounter shall we?

"No, there isn't much to say. Your thugs showed up, attacked me, I fought back, your men were stronger, I lost. Everything else was collateral and not worth discussing further." Sorin said.

"I disagree. See you were hit with a tier 5 tranquilizer that knocked your teammates out in under five seconds. How did you pull that off?" Yixillian asked.

Sorin reached out and pulled a piece of paper from the stack and flicked it over to the man.

"What does that say?"

Yixillian picked it up and skimmed it. "Pretty strong regeneration skill for it to resist a tier 5. So let's stop beating around the bush. We believe you are an elite and want you for the empire."

Sorin raised an eyebrow and laughed. At this Sorin saw the man's eye twitch with fury at his laugh.

"You want to get home to a wife and son according to our files."

Sorin put his hand up causing the man to perse his lips. Sorin couldn't believe he was getting to this man. How was he being interrogated and being put through this by someone who couldn't control their emotions. What amateurs.

"Look dude, the empire rather than treat me right, enslaved me, beat me, treated me like garbage. Rather than help me get home, it told me I was nothing but fodder. Then I get to feel the collar you put on the slaves who didn't make the cut to this exam then...pause for effect...you sit here and tell me the empire all of the sudden gives a shit about me? Yeah nah dude, get bent." Sorin said switching to his true personality where he is nothing but brutally honest.

"You will watch how you address me conscript! You will watch your tongue how you speak about the empire! Yixillian shouted standing.

Sorin calmly watched the man who was now white with fury. Sorin just giggled.

"Do you know the key to manipulating someone?" Sorin asked.

"I'm sure you will tell me." The man said mockingly.

"No, now I won't. You're being discourteous. I'm just going to be quiet now." Sorin said as he started to hum the music from Mauville city from a generation 3 gameboy game he played as a kid.

*smack!*

Sorin was rocked from his chair and sent into the wall. The door opened and the man walked out.

Sorin got to his feet shakily and looked around. The room was straight out of a Hollywood interrogation room complete with what he believed was a 1 way glass.

He just sat down and began to poke around at the collar. There was a barrier that felt like concrete around his body keeping all ambient aether out, and all his aether in. There was no connection with the world around him. He experimented with the barrier trying to find a weakness, but it was a complete barrier with no perceived weaknesses or seams.

Sorin was convinced it was a form of energy and was about to really zero in on it when the door opened again.

"Sorry about that." A different woman's voice said. She was different than before.

"Nice! A bad guy, good guy routine. Let me guess you're about to put food and a drink out in front of me?" Sorin asked as the woman bent down to a bag beside her only to freeze on the way up.

She continued up with sure enough and plant wrapped meat sandwich looking thing and a cup of something hot and sweet.

She just looked at Sorin he could tell rather irritated.

"I know unsolicited advice is usually unwelcome, but here is some anyone for you and your boy toy out there. When in an interrogation, interview, etc it's best if you can keep your emotions in check." Sorin said taking the cup of what he realized was hot chocolate.

"Preciate you by the way, but doesn't earn you any report with me." Sorin said flippantly.

"So is this the part where you tell us what will happen?" The woman asked.

"No actually, what you did was another psychological tactic where you try to give me the false sense of control. I already know, I'm not in control. I haven't been since I got nuked." Sorin said putting the cup down and taking a bite out of the wrap.

"What do you need to leave the team of Euryale Aegis?" The woman came out and said it in the open.

Sorin paused caught off guard by the straight forward response.

"Huh...unexpected actually. I didn't expect you to just come right out with it." Sorin said.

He set down the wrap.

"Two things actually. First this collar off."

He turned and went back to eating not saying another word. The woman snatched the plate and food from Sorin.

"And the other thing?"

Sorin glared at her. "Can't seem to remember. I have this collar on still and you're being rude like the other child was." He said.

She narrowed her eyes. She slapped the wrap on the plate. "Either tell me or I'll have your whole family executed!" She shouted.

"Hahahaha! You guys suck!" Sorin exclaimed laughing outloud.

*smack!*

Sorin went tumbling again but this time the lady didn't leave as Sorin got back to his feet.

"Lady...do you know the golden rule of hunting?" Sorin asked.

"I don't actually care." She said.

"Well you should. See the golden rule of hunting is to ensure that you are in fact the hunter and not the prey." Sorin said coldly to her.

"Is that a threat conscript?" She asked growing very serious.

"Oh not at all, but a warning. See I'm not that strong, I'm just smarter than you and it turns out that people who are smart tend to live better lives than those who are stupid. Think about it. Life is hard in general, but when you're stupid...you not only have to go through what the rest of us do, but also have to deal with your own stup...

*smack!*

"Ouch!*

"OK that one hurt." Sorin said staggering back to his feet.

"If we were not prohibited from killing, you would have been pasted across that wall." She said.

"It is better to appear stupid, that to open your mouth and remove all doubt." Sorin said.

"Fine!" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small disk. She touched it to the front of the collar causing it to retract the needles in his flesh and fall away into her hand.

"Now! What is the second requirement to leave the team of Euryale Agis?" She asked.

Sorin looked her cold in the face.

"Bring me a dragon that will rift walk me home." He said.

The lady got up.

"Not possible."

She got up and opened the door leaving Sorin alone in the room.