RAM WAS FRUSTRATED.
As he thought about how Elder of Air casually informed Ram to have more training sessions with Elder of Water, as well as the fact that he could be hypnotized as and when Elder of Water wished, Ram was really, really frustrated.
What did they think of him?
The more Ram spent time with them, the more he realized that they were crazy beyond anyone he had ever seen or heard about. Their plan to train him — more like torturing, testing or monitoring him, even making Chandra, who had been against Ram this whole time, to train him.
It felt all too convenient. And just like Ram had said to Elder of Water earlier, he felt more like a goat or chicken that was being fed with as much as it can , fattening it up, before it can be killed for it's delicious meat.
If Aunt El hadn't been involved in all of this, he would've bolted as far away from this place as he could.
On the top of all of this, there might be a chance that he was already hypnotized and was monitored by his enemies and probably even his supposed allies.
After all, Aunt El had installed a Thought Reader that could emit his thoughts to hers so that she could receive them using her receiver, since he was a kid. Even though she did this to keep him safe, it was still violation of privacy.
But since it was Aunt El, he forgave her easily.
If Someone as close to him decided to do like this then what about others?
Ram shook his head.
He didn't know.
And he required someone's opinion about it that he absolutely trusted, someone that would answer every of his questions without even keeping anything from him.
His close friend.
Em.
He summoned her.
She appeared in her flight attendant blue suit, sweet smile self.
"What have you been doing when the Elder of Water was hypnotizing me?" Ram asked her.
Em gave him a mischievous smile.
"It's good to see you getting hypnotized like that. You should have seen the way you were acting, discussing with Elder of Water as if he were your best friend. Man, it was hilarious," she said.
She then took him inside the white or rather sunny yellow colored meeting room that exists inside his head.
This time, the meeting room also has few surprising additions.
It had small waterfall to his left side, while a beach with couple of foldable beach chair, both of them pink, and a giant umbrella that provided the shade for them from giant ball of light overhead, that was acting as an artificial sun light.
"What's with all these additions?" Ram asked, pointing towards the waterfall first, then at the beach.
She grinned. "Once you were able to use the Power of Light to perform illusions and the color of our meeting room changing based on your emotions, I also discovered that it affected me also. Now, I am able to create anything that I wanted inside our meeting room. Since it is vast and practically endless, I chose to do this first. Isn't it relaxing, after all the training that you are about to undergo?" she said.
Ram shook his head. He didn't have a peace of mind to relax everything that was present in front of them now.
He was about to ask her about his concerns when Em's face froze.
She smacked her head, muttered under her breath, and she got changed into a bikini.
She was angry at him and said that she would ruin the image of Emily Roxane from his mind because of his refusal of her request to change her appearance and name.
All around her eyes, the ruined mascara made her look more like a ghost, with the trail of tears clearly visible in bright day light. This time, she had put on a red lipstick that smudged a the corner of her mouths and it looked like it had been put by a small kid.
Her hair … He couldn't even want to talk about the hair.
It didn't exit.
She shaved it completely.
Her face were covered in tattoos with her eyebrows and nose pierced.
Em even showed her tongue to him in case he hadn't noticed that it was also pierced.
Em was acting more like a rebellious teenager, the kind that reminded Ram of Aunt El and thought is this how Elder of Air felt like when Aunt El rebelled against her?
But Ram didn't think that Aunt El's rebellion would've been so extreme.
"I am looking amazing aren't I?" Em asked.
Ram was exasperated. "I don't have any words that could describe how you look. I can accept all the other visuals. But what's with your hair, or lack of hair?" he asked.
Em grinned. "It's getting on your nerves isn't it?" she asked.
Ram wanted to shake his head. But he didn't. "Yes. It's really really getting on my nerves," he said.
Em smiled. "Then what about this?" she asked, re-growing her hair. But instead of black hair, she made her hair the color of red, orange, yellow, green, blue … to put it simply, her hair contained all the colors from the rainbow.
Ram wished he hadn't seen her like this.
Em grinned and kept the look.
"Great," Ram muttered.
"Can we proceed with us discussing about the problem at our hands now?" Ram asked.
Em nodded. "But before we could proceed, let me show you something. It will prove what I had been doing while you were being hypnotized by Elder of Water. It's for educational purposes," she said, and then a huge screen appeared a few feet in front of them.
And the scene that played on it were none other than Ram discussing with Elder of Water about his favorite books.
And Ram looked silly in it.
So silly that Ram wished he could erase this memory from his mind forever.
"Don't even think about erasing it. It's very educational. Besides, it's a way for us to detect how Elder of Water hypnotized you," she said.
"And how did he do that?" Ram asked.
Em grinned. "First step involved staring deep into your eyes until you were uncomfortable. Then playing the soothing music directly into your mind, he achieved it by using the help of his assistant. Then increasing the familiarity between the both of you by asking personal questions about things you really love and finally, asking about any information that they wanted from you or instruct you to do something that they wanted," she said.
Ram stared at her. "It's just that simple? Even I could do it," Ram said.
He stared into her eyes, imagined the soothing waves just like Ram had heard earlier and projected it all around the room, then when he could feel Em relaxing, he started.
"Hi Em, how are you?" he asked.
"Oh, I am good. How about you?" she asked.
Ram nodded. "I am fine too. What do you think ab0ut me?" she asked.
"Good looking," she said.
"And are you feeling anything?" he asked.
"I feel deep sense of attraction to you, so much so that I want to kiss you right now. Should I kiss you?" she said.
Ram shook his head, horrified. "What are you doing?"
"Oh! You are hypnotizing me right? Sorry, I thought you wanted me to tease you. Why don't we try this thing from the start or continue as if you haven't realized that you are not able to hypnotize me?" she said.
Ram groaned.
"Come on! I am not a human being. An A.I. Even though I am as close to a human being than you can ever imagine, it's still quite far away. I cannot be hypnotized. But don't worry, I saved this into my archives of Ram's Most Embarrassing Moments. I will replay it when and I feel down," she said.
Ram wished he hadn't asked her to treat him as her friend rather than as her master.