Aria felt it difficult to keep going. Her lungs felt like they were burning every time she took a breath, and her muscles protested with every step she took. Yet the relentless whir of the treadmill spurred her on.
"Just...a...few...meters...more." She breathed out keeping her gaze on the increasing numbers in front of her.
5 meters...
4...
3...
2...
1...
"Yes!" She exclaimed as the treadmill slowed. After five minutes, Aria stepped off and away from the machine, each step deliberate. She hasn't gone far before her legs buckled.
Thud!
Aria's exhausted form fell face first to the Training Room's cushioned floor. Gathering her small amount of strength left, she rolled on to her back. The overhead lights hurt her eyes so she turned her face to the side.
As she lay motionless on the floor trying to catch her breath, a deep red glow, then a pair of rubber shoe-enclosed feet entered her field of vision. She slightly tilted her head upward and saw Frey offering a hand. She reached for it, and he pulled her to a sitting position without effort.
"You're doing great." Frey handed Aria a bottle of water.
"Are you sure?" Aria's shoulder sagged as she crossed her feet underneath her.
"Yes. You made a lot of progress in just two days," Frey assured her. "Enough for you to move on to the next phase of your training."
Aria's eyes widened, "There is still another phase?! Noooo!" She brought her knees up, pulled them toward her and buried head. "I don't think I can do this." She admitted. Aria has just finished the 3-kilometer jog that Frey set for her under 30 minutes and before that, she had to suffer through the full body weight training. She groaned and rubbed her aching muscles.
"The next phase is learning how to deactivate your ability." Aria's face contorted into a frown. She was so tired that all she wanted to do was to lie on her comfy hospital bed and fall into a deep uninterrupted sleep.
"Before you complain, know that we needed to wait until your body stabilized to a certain point."
"So, will you tell me now?" Aria was curious to know how much her body has stabilized the past two days. Every after training, when she got back to her room, Miss Nate would always be there to take a blood sample from her.
"5.02%." Frey sat cross-legged in front of her. "Now, let's begin."
Aria sluggishly imitated Frey's sitting pose. "What do I need to do?"
"You don't really have to copy me. Just sit in a way that you feel comfortable with."
"Noted." She nodded but she did not make a move to sit differently. "I feel comfortable this way."
Frey gave a slight shrug and threw a 'do-what-you-want' look at Aria.
"To deactivate your ability, you just need to think about it and will it to stop."
Aria threw Frey an incredulous look. "Seriously? I exercised to death for two days, and now you tell me that deactivating is actually as simple as that?!"
"Yes, but it's not really 'that' simple."
"What?" Aria's face turned red. She felt stupid for wasting time and training herself to death. "Then what was the point of the training?"
"As a person's level of stabilization increases, the person's control of his or her abilities increase with it. By 5%, you should be able to at least deactivate or activate it at will. The training is to rapidly increase your stabilization rate."
All the anger deflated out of Aria. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"That's fine. Just do what I told you before."
Aria closed her eyes. She focused her attention on her body and felt her energy slowly being drained from her body. She commanded her ability to stop in her mind but nothing happened. She tried again.
[Stop.] She thought but there wasn't any change in her body. Aria kept her eyes closed and for the third time, she tried again.
[Stop.] She felt the energy being drained out of her body decrease by a small amount, then she felt her body regain a small amount of energy. So she tried again.
She kept commanding her ability to stop until, little by little, she felt her body's energy is restored. She kept her eyes closed and relished the feeling of her strength returning.
After a long time, she opened her eyes and found herself looking directly into Frey's crimson irises.
"Uh...is there something on my face?" She brought a hand to her cheek.
"No, there isn't."
"That's good, I guess." Aria rubbed her nape and gazed at her shoes. "Oh!" She looked back to Frey with an ecstatic expression. "I can't see the glowy thing around you!" She quickly craned her neck around to look at the other people in the Training Room. She rubbed her eyes and then blinked them rapidly. When she realized that she can no longer anybody's aura, she pushed herself up and jumped around, shouting "I did it!" repeatedly.
"Good for you." Frey uncrossed his legs and stood. "It still took you-" Frey glanced at the clock-" around twelve minutes to do that. Anyway, that's all for today."
Aria stood. "Thank you for your help the last two days."
Frey raised an eyebrow at Aria. "We're not done yet. We'll come back tomorrow."
"Why?!"
"You need to keep training so that your body will stabilize faster. You also need to learn how to use your ability properly and improve your activation and deactivation time." Frey started walking towards the elevator.
"Fine, then." Aria huffed and followed Frey out the room. They boarded the elevator in comfortable silence.
When Aria got back to her room, she found that Miss Nate was waiting there to get her blood sample.
"Miss Nate, can I pass?" Aria groaned but Miss Nate gestured for her to come and sit on the chair.
"I'm sorry, but you can't dear." Miss Nate reached out and took her hand.
**********
"So, you deactivated it already? That's amazing!" Cassandra clapped her hands, her eyes were shining brightly. "You did it in two days! It took me four days to do mine."
The two of them are in Cassandra's room. Aria went to visit her sister and they ended up talking about their abilities, stabilization and such.
"What about the training?" Aria wondered if her sister is also experiencing the torturous training like her.
"What training, kiddo?" Cassandra's blank look gave Aria the answer she hoped she would get from her sister. She exhaled with the breath that she did not realize she was holding.
"Uh...I just wanted to ask your percentage of stabilization. I mean, are you okay now?"
"I'm doing great. Today, it reached 12.4%. Amazing, isn't it? And it's only been eight days! They say, we of the third generation have it easy, you know. We're sitting in the middle of the spectrum. Not too weak, not too strong. And we don't suffer any backlash from the awakening. Why are you asking, by the way? Aren't yours about the same?" Cassandra chattered enthusiastically.
"Uh, yeah." Aria gave her sister a toothy grin. Guilt crept in her mind yet she did not regret keeping the truth from her sister.
"And, oh, they told me that we can go home by Saturday. And..." Cassandra trailed off. She fidgeted in her seat and refused to look Aria in the eye.
"What is it, Cass? You know you can tell me anything."
"You know our ability to foretell things, right?"
Aria just nodded at her sister even if this is the first time she was hearing it.
"Right now, I can only activate it once every two months, but Cerberus offered me a job. It's not field work or anything. It's office work for the most part except for when I need to use my ability, that is." Cassandra was now waving her hands around. Aria cleared her throat to get her sister's attention.
"Do you want the job?" Aria asked. She decided that she would support her sister whatever decision she would make.
"I...uh...Are you okay with me working here?" Cassandra's voice was filled with uncertainty.
"I'm okay with. They have nice facilities and stuff so they must have good employee benefits. Plus, it's much closer to our house than your previous workplace."
"Really?" Her sister asked. She looked at Aria with disbelief.
"Yeah. As long as you're happy with it."
"Yay!" Cassandra sprung from her seat towards Aria and enveloped her in a tight hug. Aria hugged her sister back and the guilt in her heart receded.