....
Nazuna and Pandora headed towards the phoenicia, the stronghold that housed what remained of humanity.
She had forced Pandora to return through the forest, following whatever hole he crawled from would only delay the inevitable.
The sun had gone down, their path steadily became dimmer. "So how long have you been there?" he'd decided to pass the time by engaging her in some conversation.
" Fourteen days " she replied still maintaining her forward walking pace.
" Was that enough to send you outside on your own ?"
"Any question you have will be addressed upon joining.
What I'm interested in is your gift,what exactly does it do?" she'd been curious ever since he evaded her gunfire.
"She ignores my question and throws one of her own,If joining the military is mandatory for ability users then I'll most likely be assessed upon arrival. Meaning....."
Pandora replied sarcastically "any question you have will be addressed upon your arrival" .
The phoenicia's walls slowly entered their range of vision, it was well over three hundred feet tall. Phoenicia itself spanned two hundred and fifty thousand square miles in area, just slightly larger than the fallen world's "France".
On top the walls someone caught sight of them and shouted "the seventh centurion has returned,send the hoist down" .
A metal floor with steel chains on both sides was slowly lowered from above descending till it reached the ground. Upon their arrival they both got on it and the individual on top the wall gave the order once more and the hoist was slowly sent back in the direction it had come from.
The width of the walls were more than enough for hundreds of people to stand upon, it was even enough to contain multiple rooms that could only be accessed from the inside.
Awaiting them at the summit was a pristine looking silver haired female teenager .
"Yo Nazuna, find anything?"
"No, what about the others?"
"It's the same for them". She leaned slightly closer to Nazuna and whispered "who's that?"
"Oh him? an ability user I found outside "
....
....
...
Meanwhile Pandora's focus had been captured by something else, he'd never been on top these walls before and was more interested in observing the scenery around him than the conversation between his would be "murderer" and appearance of another child soldier.
"Judging what she said they probably sent more humans with abilities to scan the area. They're surely planning some big project,war? is that why they're hell bent on recruiting more ability users?....
The hoist from inside the walls wall was already stationed at it's paraphet ready to transport all three of them down, half way through their quiet descent the hoist slowed down the silver haired girl spoke up "Nazuna you can head on down, I'll have to take him inside for registration".
"Fine by me " Nazuna replied.
"Um.....you..."
"It's Pandora"
"Ah yes, mr Pandora please do come with me".
The hoist stopped on a large opening within the phoenicia's Walls.Pandora and the girl went off into it leaving Nazuna the only one left to descending downwards .
The inside of the phoenicia's walls were very dark,upon entrance she picked a lantern from the edge of the wall and guided them both in .
"Someone's clearly controlling that thing, but when did she give the signal for it to stop? " Pandora pondered within himself.
"I'm Anna Frost, I look forward to working with you "
"Oh drop it, you look forward? hehehe, this is basically a done deal isn't it?"
"I'm Pandora hagreaves" he replied "politely".
They arrived at a closed wooden door,Anna tapped lightly and said softly; "I've brought someone, he's capable of manifesting the sixth limb. Nazuna found him outside the walls, he's here to register"
"Let him come in" a female voice answered.
"She's calling for you"
"Yeah,I can hear that" Pandora snapped within himself but politely replied "yeah thanks".
He quietly opened the door. Inside the room was dark,the only source of illumination was a yellow lantern on the desk a few meters in front of him. A woman was seated at the desk,she wore the same all black uniform as Nazuna and Anna .
She had blonde long hair that stretched out towards her back, she wore thick black glasses and was quite elegant.
She flipped through pages of an antique looking book. Pandora tried to ascertain what she was reading but it wasn't written in a language he could understand.
"Is that Latin or Hebrew maybe?" Pandora found himself perplexed.
She paused her reading and looked up at him.
"Take a seat"
Pandora quietly drew out the chair on the opposite side.
"Now then, please answer the following questions".
"I believe you were found outside the walls, what exactly was your objective going beyond phoenicia"?
"This isn't my first time leaving the walls, the first time was an accident. I stumbled upon a time capsule and kept going back to it".
"So that was you huh"she whispered slightly
"They kne.."
Second question "how exactly did leave phoenicia"
"A spatium tunnel".
"Where do you live?"
"Zone 33"
"Any parent or guardian"
"Zeldris hagreaves"
"When did you first notice you were able to manifest supernatural phenomena ?"
"As long as I can remember?"
Not even a split second later she pulled out a gun and fired it at his right leg. And just like her predecessor before her, she missed.
"What are y...."
"Thank goodness" she exhaled in relief. "I thought you were one of them, y'know the Aryans ".
Calming his aggrevated spirit down he replied "politely ".
"I'm not following ".
"Clearly. You see the people outside the walls can manifest the sixth limb as well. Some of them even have the ability to masquerade as other people and steal their memories ".
"You're saying that you suspected the real Pandora hagreaves was somehow killed and the individual in front of you was a fake? and shooting me somehow dispersed your doubt?".
"Yes, it's possible for abilities to be able to mimic other humans, but the one thing they cannot do is mimic the abilities of others capable of manifesting the sixth limb. Let's just say we've been aware of your abilities for a while".
"So if I couldn't replicate them here...."
"That's right, I would have killed you. Unfortunately it has happened before. Although they were eventually weeded out and killed, we payed quite the price for our carelessness. I'd rather the same mistake not be repeated under my watch".
Her demeanor had changed, she sounded cold and detached upon his arrival but now after dispersing her suspicion her voice and temperament had become extremely more light hearted.
In contrast Pandora's heart started beating fast. It was fear, fear of the unknown. He had always thought the sixth limb was an ability to simply control natural objects and phenomena as extra limbs but he'd been proven wrong. His fear arose from the limitless negative possibilities that had been presented before him,if someone could do that,no. If gifted humans existed at such a level it broke the logic of what he knew, what they knew about the sixth limb was barely the surface!.
The sixth limb would be more than just a supernatural puppet show. It would become something else, something capable of tipping over logic itself.
"Mind control,mind reading, body swapping,cloning, mimicry...Many dangerous possibilities were revealing themselves to him, for the past year... No! he'd been living in danger his entire life! .
He always thought the sixth limb was simply a matter of fire power. To him as long as they could surpass that of the enemy they would keep living. He'd based his entire life on that fact and lived in apathy for several years, completely uninterested in the world around him.
So long as nothing happened to him he couldn't care less about the events going on in the lives of other people. But his seemingly invincible bubble had been broken.
Whatever, whoever was outside those walls was a threat, if there was no limit to the type of abilities that could manifest in humans, there would also be no limit to the possibility of these abilities manifesting in the enemy. Thus to him there was no limit to the possibility of what the enemy could do to them .
In that moment he came to a single conclusion "They must be eliminated".
"Hello? hello? Mr Pandora? Still here? no need to get so paranoid y'know "
"No need? has she the slightest idea what she's talking about? Oh no I'm no...."
"It's written all over your face. listen,relax if they could do whatever you're imagining they would have done so already" She replied cheerfully .
"I'm Irina claudius, I'm a member of the NEW ORDER'S logistics team,I look forward to working with you. Wait,surely that hasn't scared you away from joining has it?"
"Oh no no no" Pandora replied.
"I feel bad for you kids,we force you here after discovering your gifts when you could enjoy the lives you have left. It's too bad y'all are the best shot humanity has at surviving the "fourth Reich" . "Did you have any dreams? anything you wanted to spend the rest of your life doing?" Irina asked kindly.
"No,I planned to spend my time doing nothing, sometimes learning about things that interest me, so is she going to keep talking or" ?
"So you'd do nothing and die just like that"
"Yes, isn't that how most people in phoenicia live their lives"?
"Wait, we're not on the same page here, you do know you're going to die in twelve years right? not just you, everyone who possesses a sixth limb doesn't make it past thirty, naturally that would include me".
"Huh?"
She continued "the existence of a sixth limb isn't something natural to the human body, it's some sort of deformation inside the brain, that's why most people with it usually experience their bodily functions slowly failing as they grow older. I'm sorry to be informing you like this, but I feel it's better you come to terms with it earlier "
"So you're saying I'm going to die before I'm thirty? what a joke " Pandora started laughing hysterically, she could see the disbelief in his eyes, he clearly wasn't laughing because he found what she said funny .
"That settles it I'll be joining. So I'm supposed to register my name here?...
...
...
...
Pandora and Anna headed toward the entrance,she lead the way as she did in their arrival.
"Sorry about that , she was never really capable of reading the room ".
"So you were listening? ... I don't find her phrasing an issue. if anything I'm glad she told me sooner. It all makes sense now, you and Nazuna joined the NEW ORDER so you can spend the remainder of your lives doing something noble isn't it?
"Well you could be right" Anna replied "it's more of self satisfaction than a sense of duty"
....
Pandora was Star gazing in front of his house, he laid upon the ground admiring the stars as though it was his first time seeing them,his father Zeldris hagreaves was a high ranking member of the NEW ORDER. He lived in their head quarters and barely returned home. Not that Pandora cared though .
"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die,I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die !!! ..."
"Wait, twelve years is like a long time from now right? Just because others died doesn't exactly guarantee it happens to me !! hahaha"...
"The stars look look tinier than I remember ".