DIVISION 52 - BOOK III

CHAPTER II

A R T E L L A

Location: Redacted

Ground temperature: 42°C

Time: 11:58 a.m

At first they took only my possessions. Which I didn't care much for.

They took my clothes and my comm link. They took anything of value and perhaps the only items I second glanced at were my weapons–which got melted down with the rest of it. But I had long ago become comfortable in my own skin and they kept the temperatures sweltering in every room despite the shade.

They. Had perhaps many names in many continents.

I knew them by their real one. The Deathless.

No introduction was needed. No arrogance or declaration of their own greatness proceeded them. They went beyond all of that. They could topple planet leaders just for amusement if they wished–but not even that would satisfy them. Material gain certainly did not. The few things their members owned were for making them more efficient at what they did or they did not bother at all.

So, why the hell was I there at all?

Days ago I was lying in that bed with Proximo Dartega and everything was so possible. The glimmer of a life that held promise and those steel grey eyes. The ones that matched me word for word and had no fear of saying exactly what someone did not want to hear. The way that darkness broke in his eyes when I got through that stoic demeanour and the way that fire would match mine when the competition got a little too interesting...

But I made no error sat here naked in the dirt before them. I do not regret a moment. The hands that shaped me in those walls made me better. Not only better but a force. A force so great that the darkest shadows would shudder when I shifted between them. A force that could counter every enemy the Division's second stacked upon himself–ones that not even he saw around him.

But he would hate me for it. For leaving. I knew this.

I went to them to acquire everything I would ever need, so when the darkness came I would not fight it... I would become it.

"Your mind first." The caramel skinned woman with many gold rings reminded me. Those green eyes gave nothing away. They only watched and waited, for what I wasn't to know yet.

I nodded before her as two of her own brought me carefully to my feet in a strange respect and chrome armour I had never seen the like of. But I would see that armour eventually. Armour you cannot buy but only earn. Any that tried to steal the technology or were truly foolish enough to take from a member of the Deathless never lived long.

I flexed the chrome fingers of it now that mimicked ancient armour before our time. It's the very reason I never flashed such technology around the halls of the Division. Not even Proximo had lay eyes on me wearing it. I had been near... Only never seen.

I thought on him now.

Far outside the city limits in the dying outlands of mostly dust and rusted skeleton structures. These places used to home so many. I enjoy walking the endless stretches of cracked rock they built for their vehicles. You only saw early versions of them in the outer sectors of Merridian now.

I placed an armoured finger to my temple.

"We still good?"

Dazz came back quickly and quietly.