Enhanced

XXV

Katherine stood at the bunker's opened entrance, staring into the room with Cody at the console, the place where his soul parted from this world and joined the next. The blood of her friend, nor the flesh of the dead mercenary that scattered like butchered meat startled her even a single bit. The Strider stayed still, millions upon millions of guilt-ridden thoughts veiling her once rational mind. She could've saved him, he didn't need to die today.. and yet why did it feel like his death was one of such perfection in time. Her tired eyes could barely stay open, her head hardly knowing how long she'd been standing there and mourning her friend while her comrades shared happiness with their families. 

There she stood, "In front of my own family.." Katherine continued her thoughts with a dying tone, her legs shaking up as she felt the string of her bow leash round her body and her helm in her grasp. If she fell, would she just die? Maybe, she thought as she was untimely disrupted by someone else that stood behind her as long as she has.

"The Sixth are also your family, don't forget that." Cassidy reminded, his arms crossed as he looked to Cody who sat lifeless at the edge of the console. "He died with a smile on his face." He added, knowing that under his helm sat a simper that transitioned him from life, into death. "He died a hero, Katherine." He voiced to her as she began regain her strength and focus.

There were many things that she has been and has become. The sergeant said it clearly, the Sixth were here family now. The souls that rest in the afterlife were not apart of this world and weren't apart of her life anymore. Her vigor returned not because she had to be strong, but because she was the living example of strength. She's moved on, because where emotion lacks to give, it also give more than it should. "Kath.. Is fine.." She suggested to him, glancing on Cody a final time. Then, she bent a knee and bowed her head to her lost Strider. Rising from her curtsey, Kath turned to face her sergeant. "You don't seem like your leaving." She observed from his pride in the uniform.

"Well," He started, "we already have a few voices to tell the public about Never and Epsu." He explained, "There has to be someone fighting for the Enhanced in the inside." Cassidy revealed, his intentions better than the person he was two months ago, "But I assume you are?" He asked her.

Nothing, but a nod to tell him that she was going to explore the real world on her own. Katherine saluted him a final time and then given ease by her sergeant. "For eighteen years, I've only known what camps like this have looked like. I guess no better time to discover what I've missed from a childhood long gone." She alleged, "Thank you.. Blake."

Similarly, he nodded and gave her way. "There'll be a bus I scheduled that's arriving to bring you to the station in Detroit." He made amends, making it easier for her rather than simply letting her walk the miles. "Till we meet again." He gave his sayonara as he watched her walk down the corridor to the stairs and eventually knowing she made her way out and to the rusty stop at the camp's leftward.

As Miles and his parents exited the camp behind Clea's they were halted by a soldier that required their contact and address info for a future conversation with the cadets themselves on a further explanation of what happened so that they could add to the evidence that Aiden provided them with initially. The series of attacks on several Never Camp's weren't even presented to the US Military, according to the trooper. It was pretty alarming considering the fact that not only is Epsu covering up the Enhanced genome but their hiding multiple deaths of teenagers in their Never encampment. The rest of the conversation was just his parents both filling out a sheet with everything they needed to give them.

It was dry and that gave Miles the encouragement to look around at the surroundings. Some of the parents that lost their children today were still trying to cope with the loss, some even getting into their car and driving off to avoid anymore attention being draw towards them. Not only that, there weren't even any bodies that they could identify, which was very strange regarding the circumstance. But it slipped Miles' mind as he caught Katherine exiting the camp with her own two feet alone and turning to make a seat down at a make-shift bus stop which he was pretty sure had no buses arriving.