As Zen's mind was wandering to the events of the past month he suddenly heard the elevator ding and felt it stop moving . The elevator panel suddenly began glowing and celia with familiarity swiftly walked towards it and put her eye close to the panel for a retinal scan. After a few seconds it stopped scanning and presented a biometric scanner which she put her palm on for it to scan once that was done the panel requested many more security tests, much so that it made Zen raise a brow in slight confusion.
"What's this all about?" He thought
Celia noticing his confusion smiled apologetically but didn't turn to face him
" sorry if this takes a while, it's a bit of a chore but trust me it'll be worth it"
Zen simply nodded although still a bit confused, he also noticed that although this place had to have some importance due to all the security, celia didn't try to hide what she was doing and he could clearly see everything she was doing, Zen himself had a very good memory, almost eiditic infact and he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't memorize any of the codes she was using, infact he was presently trying his best to and had memorized everyone so far of course excluding biometric scans. It wasn't a matter of his trust in her it was simply who he was,he had learned that one of the most important things was knowledge. Zen knew that it was only a matter of time before they found him, when that happened he would need every advantage he could get, he knew that Murphy and the other fools who believed they had won that battle would never be able to stop what was coming, he himself was a ticking time bomb in more ways than one, he knew that fact and accepted it, wherever he was there would always be death and this was no different, they were coming and couldn't be stopped, not by the fools who had naively believed they had captured him.
Zen while thinking that they would soon come to collect him couldn't help but sigh while discreetly monitoring celia he honestly wondered if they knew exactly where he was not that it was very hard to figure out anyway. Five minutes later the door had finally gone through enough security checks and opened to the apparent delight of celia who was exhausted from all the checks.
"Ugh finally,those tests were so exhausting and invasive. I mean seriously, they were just a little short of asking for my damn bust size damnit !!!"
Yelled an exhausted and slightly infuriated celia "
Zen actually just stood there not really sure what to do it wasn't like he had many friends or any for that matter,at least that's what he thought. Celia turned around and on seeing his usual blank emotionless expression suddenly got angry and was about to yell that he didn't care about her frustration but quickly realized it was pointless as he always had that expression on all day everyday so it wasn't like it would change anything so she just sighed and took a deep breath before smiling
"All right come on out, here's the big surprise, what do ya think?"
Zen unceremoniously accepted her invitation and stepped out, the moment he did what entered his vision was a massive space which resembled a massive warehouse, it was filled with massive shelves,racks and hangers which displayed weapons armors and accessories of all kinds, Zen looked around slightly surprised at the large room and eventually spoke
"Not bad"
Hearing this Celia's jaw dropped.
"Not bad? Not bad? It's frickin awesome you douche bag, it's an Aether gear paradise,any normal person would be amazed by all this!"
Aether gear was the term given to special weapons created from Aether cores which were gotten from Aether beasts, creatures which were the result of evolution of common creatures both plants and animals caused by aether's infusion into the world. This evolution had gotten to such a stage that semblance could barely be found between beasts and their weaker predecessors and they had become so dangerous that humans were unable to compare with there physical strength alone even with them having grown and evolved stronger as well , however the evolution of beasts came with a new use for them , Aether cores, these were crystals gotten from beasts after they had been slain and these cores could then be made into Aether gear, equipment possessing the power of the beasts they were forged from. cores, beasts and gear were all ranked the same way into tiers,nine nine to be specific. The rankings actually weren't anything fancy or difficult, they were Weak,Poor, inferior, normal ,high, excellent,superior, supreme and finally perfect grade .
Zen simply shrugged his shoulders and was about to say something when he felt the back of his right hand tingling slightly and immediately turned to face a random direction before suddenly moving towards a location in a place he'd never seen before almost like he knew where he was going. Celia saw him quickly moving towards that place she quickly ran after him and tried to explain before he saw it
"Wait Zen, this place is..."
But zen stopped moving and interrupted her as he started at a particular rack
"I know what this place is"
Celia sighed as she saw him staring at the rack and was about to speak when he stopped her with a brief I'm fine. The closer he got to the rack with those weapons the more the back of his hand tingled and felt numb eventually causing him to rub the back of his right hand through his leather gloves.
"I don't get why you still wear those things, you haven't taken them off since I met you, and why do you cover your face like that "
Celia slowly moved towards zen as
"Can you... let me see?"
She slowly brought her hand up towards his face as she slowly leaned in in an to brush his hair aside and see his face fully but as her hand slightly touched his hair and was about to move it he quickly grabbed her wrist
"Stop" he said but he noticed she was staring at him strangely and before he could react she suddenly moved in and pressed her lips against his as Zen's eyes went wide and his heart beat for the first time in a long time his heartbeat quickened.
The kiss lasted for about six seconds before celia abruptly pulled away with her face beet red as she blushed furiously before turning around and running in a random direction.
Zen honestly confused just stood there, he had never lost his default mechanical stoic expression and honestly felt confused about why she had done that but he couldn't focus on that his mind was on something else. Before he could deliberate on it his watch vibrated and he brought it up to look at it. Celia was texting him. The watch was no ordinary one, it had all the functions of a phone and much much more, one was given by the government to each person at birth and was bound to the person forever as it couldn't be taken off, plus it was the government's way of tracking people.... normal people, this didn't apply to zen and the "others"
Zen looked at the message confused at why she wouldn't just call or do a video chat which would project a holographic image of the person they were chatting with however he ignored all this and read it , it read
"I didn't bring you all the way out here so you could mope and feel miserable, if you're going to the academy you'll need an edge,a big one at that since you're unawakened, I'm gonna go straight to the point here,i want you to take something, one piece of equipment and don't ask any questions, you're not stupid so I know you won't say something like this is wrong or whatever so just do it " at that point the message ended abruptly and it showed celia had blocked calls and texts from him so he couldn't call her back, not that he wanted to as he was still bothered by something, when she kissed him his heart sped up however Zen felt like it wasn't because he was nervous or excited or anything like that, no his heart barely fluttered, he was too far gone for something like that at least that's what he believed. It felt more like..... like apprehension, almost like he was instinctively reacting to danger around him but for some reason before he could deliberate more on it all his suspicion suddenly disappeared almost as if due to some external factors and he suddenly focused his attention completely on the weapon rack in front of him as he was familiar with them, he slightly stretched his hand towards the rack as he thought
"So this is all that's left of the doppelganger protocol huh?, hmmm what a shame....i guess"
He suddenly pulled off one of his gloves to reveal a strange symbol inked on the back of his right hand like a tattoo, the same symbol was on every single piece of equipment on the rack
"This is where the government keeps spoils from the fallen, interesting". Interestingly enough zen could recognize each and every single piece of gear, he could actually still remember some of their previous wielders and he had a strange but not foreign feeling pass through him every time he looked at the aether brand on the pieces of gear
An Aether brand was a sort of mark of ownership most weapons possessing one and some two. The brand had various functions and benefits and the design was to the choice of the equipment's owner. The moment the owner died one brand would disappear and the other if it had one would activate it's return function. Zen distinctly remembered that every piece of equipment here should have two brands but of the hundreds in front of him none had more than one