Welcome to Gaia! ::

What has been learned must be forgotten. We do not ask ourselves how to prevent this behavior happening again, because the absence of one behavior is not the presence of another. We must teach the new behavior and reinforce it properly on the positive and negative scale. The outmoded behavior will become extinct within its own irrelevance. She'd arranged that there would be no human contact for three days. Meals were to be delivered only when he was sleeping, and then a fare that was without flavor or stimulation, even if it supported the body.

She'd had a room prepared, sealed of exits and fitted with lights. The walls were grip-less, stainless, smooth white. While he slept, again, she wanted the subject tranquilized and then moved into this new room. The general stood and waited there for the corrupted senshi to wake. Sole color, lurid greens and gold, and sole stimulus apparent after designed deprivation. When his breathing shifted to one that spoke of ending sleep, she spoke.

"Salute."

Stimulus, response. Incorrect response likely on first exposures and with the effects of deprivation or overload. The general cracked her cane in a swift motion off the floor, the sound splitting compared to the silence that had been there a breath before. A few moment's passed to let the silence settle and a mental reset establish between the first stimulus, response, and result.

Second.

"Salute."

The behavior was modified by jerks and failings, but it was enacted. It was followed. The General smiled, and withdrew a small flask and a cheap, red plastic shot glass of the variety made to imitate a Solo cup. The color was exact to what she needed, and wit hits turned lip, it lacked any edges to provide danger to himself. She poured into it the 2.5 fluid ounces it was designed to hold, a pungent and fresh white grape juice. White grape and apple were the gentlest on the stomach, while also having a strong presence of flavor. A treat, compared to water. A flavor, compared to what he'd been subsisting on. Packed with vitamin C, Thiamin, B6, Folate, Potassium and Magnesium, not enough ounces for the high sugars to have too much an overload on his blood sugar.

She took two steps forward, set the little cup on the floor and took one step back. "Officers are allowed to drink."

"Have a drink."

Schörl ignored the pointless question. It was air, white space, background noise that wasn't waiting and didn't need an answer. He drank the offered reward, providing a second proper response to stimulus. Judging from his expression, he very much wanted more and rued the finite nature of pleasure compared to banality.

"State your name, rank, and division, Officer. " She drew out a small energy orb, rolling it from palm to back of hand to toy with momentum and velocity. Establish selection of living and dead, good and bad, Officer and not officer.
"You'll feel much better."

One high-arched brow lifted, amused. One drink and ignores a direct order to sound off, instead asking self-directed questions. The lack of a basic training for 10 weeks has done poorly for this one in understanding how rank works in a military.

Schörl did not move the hand holding the energy ball, but the other hand with the cane swung, aiming for his temporalis.

"State your name, rank, and division. " She waited.

"Division is how you serve. Division determines the focus of your efforts. Why do you not know your division, Ochre, Basic Senshi? "

Your debriefing and the basic training both introduce the concept of the divisions and their names. Umber and Xenotime. Will you blame the lack on them? Own it yourself? Some other solution?

"Ah, such a fine four words- I didn't ask for this. It defines tragedy, disappointment, shame and embarrassment. We don't ask our parents to be sent to school, but we are, and we are enriched by it. We don't ask for many things. The best thing we can do is go on with adjusting to our 'new normal'. "

"To learning our new situation. You were wrong, to just tune out. Tuning out, brooding, these things make us alone. It increases our separation. You've separated yourself, you see. "

"Time spent in the company of others is therapeutic, Ochre, Basic Senshi, " She said the name and rank every time without even a hint of irony or mocking. It was a reiteration, not because he was stupid, but because repetition without other input became its own truth. Gaslight the certainties of self. The use of the group is difficult or impossible here, though. It should have made manipulation infinitely more easy. But he has no feelings of investment to exploit. No one to disappoint. No relationship of seeking approval and understanding that could be a path to degrade with fault. It was his brother's find and friend, and here Ochre is, having undermined even Umber. How far does that go? Hate? Disappointment? "Do you miss company, Ochre, Basic Senshi?"

"Who is your family?"

Maintaining neutral and neither grovelling, snapping, nor pointing out fallacies so far. No...there's a sigh. University of Leuven -may give one a sense of relief. Oslo—a sign of disappointment, defeat, frustration, boredom, and longing. 'Good' company, he still holds some shreds of personal morality or opinion to define what that is against what it isn't. Continue, but what is another conversationally. "Your brother misses you."

"I'm here to talk to you, Ochre, Basic Senshi, to help you get back to your family, Umber and Xenotime and..." she left a deliberate length of pause, as if the sentence continued somewhere. Then began anew, "I'm tracking you in this wilderness you've lost yourself in, not the four of them." Tracking down a traitor's family as punishment is ....'shitty'. How entitled to our own rebellions. At least their callnames are the use names.

"What is good company?" She held out the small energy ball again, "You'll feel much better."