Enhanced

XXI

The Striders both rose to their feet, unlatching their helmets and holding them to their sides. It was a strange sight to see the dissimilar duo both smirking aside one another. Miles stowed his rifle carefully, still getting used to it. You'd think that after all this training he'd be comfortable with tucking his weapon onto the magnet on the back. Katherine did the same, strapping the bow string over her head and keeping the chassis to her back similarly. 

"See, it's much easier to shoot with my helmet." Miles reminded Cody of the first session that he trained him, that same moment where he accepted that he was going to be here and he was going to make it out of this camp alive.

"Don't get cocky, hotshot. We haven't won." Katherine addressed him by the nickname that the Sixth have given him as she treaded closer toward the console.

His mouth opened up in the shape of an O as his eyes widened while she continued walking toward the rest. Miles stood aghast with a joyful expression with the rest of them giving him their concerned looks, "She just said the thing." He bubbled ecstatically, watching as Katherine pulled his knife and rifle from her armor and returned it to Aiden.

Once the Sixth had finally joined together in unison, Cassidy made his call, "Prepare for our next move, you have five minute." He allocated, all of them segregating without question before checking and cleaning their gear for their final advance. "Four minutes, and counting down." He spoke out as he himself began to prepare. 

0507 hours.

The Sixth stood together in order with their gear all prepared for the final walk. Facing Cassidy who had his back against the door and the Eleventh's armor veiled onto him, he kept his head low with the Never rifle situated in his arms. It has been an eventful night, one that they were going to remember forever; In life, or in death. This was it, this was the moment every other has accumulated up towards. From every interaction they've had with one another, from every introduction, from every fight, from every shared laughter, from every moment of hope that their future was still bright, from every moment of despair that their future would never be.. It all came down to this last advance.

They weren't ideal soldiers. They weren't even considered soldiers at all. But they had to be. Each life they were going to take, it was not an honorable justice, it was for their survival. Each of them had to let go with the morals they believed in and be someone different, be something different. To ensure their success, they couldn't fight humans with humans, they had to fight humans with Enhanced. Be what they were trained to be even after rejecting everything that was taught to them. If that was the cost to stop the cycle of violence, they were willing to pay this last debt to break it.

Cassidy raised his head and let out a solemn exhale, looking to all the teenagers that he has had the pleasure of coming to know for months, some even years. Nine of them, the last of the camp. "For the two months that we've come to know each other," He began, the faint whirring of an departing helicopter in the background adding to the atmosphere, "I would've never expected us to have to impart in something as this." He referred, "But that doesn't matter now.. In the last few hours you've shown me how incredibly resilient the eight of you have been despite being so close to your breaking points." Cassidy applauded. "Each of you mean so much to me," He started with pride, "and I'm sorry for ever having kept you in the dark." He apologized, even with his vow not to inform them of their genetics.

Miles accepted it, which made him assume that they all did as well. The respect that he lost was well renewed, he hated authority but it was necessary for their survival. In their sergeants speech, a thought from his memory came back to him from the very first day that they arrived into the camp. 'Why me?'. This was why.  He was put into this camp to find Aiden and reveal to themselves the truth that the world had forgotten to protect themselves. This was why he was chosen among the millions of other human children. To show the world and bring to light the prejudice and animosity of society's cruelty. In return, he lost the person that he was before. The one guided by emotions, the one that lived by them.