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-"Dialogue"-

("Inner thinking")

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CHAPTER 2

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The so called mercenary had geared up again and was right on her way out from the main building and into the front yard with plans of getting away as fast as possible when someone started screaming, calling her out.

"OI!"

Running in her direction was a tall blond guy with bright emerald eyes. He was wearing a sort of white school uniform with a black-grey vest and a blue tie, plus a black belt with a the school's sun logo, grey pants and white boots. She turned on her optics for a second to determine he wasn't concealing weapons and then turned them off before they began to sting. When he arrived she led him speak first while remaining cautious.

"Hello."- He was about to grab her hand but she took a step sideways before he could, which prompted him to stand straight and give instead a small polite bow. - "I'm so lucky I found someone else. May I have your name?"

Although she was tempted to give another code name, it might play better if she gave the same name she had given Zeus- "Well, in this place you can call me Aria Hadron Scherzi"

"Oh, foreigner names sound pretty... but can I call you Minx because I want to become closer friends with you?" - When the other person didn't answer immediately he looked baffled and took a step forward to be face to mask. - "Is something wrong?"

The merc took a step back and prepared for a trap.-"Just who the hell are you?"- Although this guy seemed like an average civilian, she knew not to judge by appearances; After all, she could look innocuous if needed, but at the moment she didn't look common at all. So maybe this guy wanted some professional mercenary help for hire? Why the hell was he so friendly anyways? - "You just met me and you wanna be friends? That's suspicious."

"My name is Apollo. A Greek god." - He said with a cheerful smile.

"Your phenotype doesn't look Greek ."-She pointed out at him with her gloved finger but didn't feel the need to point out that gods did not exist.- "The phenotype does not mean much though..."- She also didn't look the phenotypes or stereotypes of her lands either. She sighed. In any case, she needed any info this guy could provide. He wasn't carrying any weapon and he seemed really clueless, so he was possibly one of the people transported here by the man that had used the codename of Zeus. Although this guy used the code 'Apollo'.- "What do you want from me?"

"Ah?"- Her words went right over his head as his same stupid grin remained plastered on his face. -"Minx? Are you alright?" - He asked, puzzled and seeming genuinely concerned as he leaned forward trying to get a closer look at the person hidden under all the armor and campaign clothes.-"Don't worry, I'm on your side"- His smile never faltered.- "I'm your ally."

"No, I'm not. Starting because I don't know where we are."- She didn't trusted anyone in the least but she needed to infer the big panorama. This guy was using the code 'Apollo', a greek god just as 'Zeus', so there ought to be some relation. Plus, she needed to determine his real intentions; stating an alliance without negotiations? Claiming to be on her side? On her side against what anyways? She could not let her guard down but she couldn't dismiss him either.-"Do you have any idea where we are?"

"Is there anything I could do to help?" - Apollo offered and then scratched the back of his head with a goofy apologizing smile. - "I can't tell you much though since I don't even know where I am either." He sheepishly admitted.

"So you don't know either... No one seems to know."-She turned around towards the forest.-"Well, nice meeting you and all, but we should figure our location."

"That's a great idea, Minx!" - He looked at the sky. -"Let's figure it out together!" - Setting two fingers in the corners of his mouth he whistled loudly.

The sound echoed on the air and a moment later a dot in the sky approached them. Aria's eyes widened in shock as a winged horse soared from the sky, galloping fast towards them before slowing down to a steady trot across the floor. She recognized the horse; It was the one she had seen in the rooftop. It walked towards Apollo, nuzzling against him as the man laughed and rubbed the horse's snout.

"Good boy!" - Apollo looked at the stranger and then stood at the side of the horse.-"Don't worry, he is friendly, touch him and you'll see."

"No thank you. That B.O.W. can bite my hand off"- She took a couple steps back to flank them and get diagonally in front to a tree so she could jump behind it quickly if needed.

"B.O.W.?" He asked, completely baffled-"I don't know what that is but Pegasus is a Pegasus." -Apollo said, gently rubbing its snout as it nuzzled closer to him. -"Don't be afraid. He's tame."

"You mean that horse is not a Bio Organical Weapon?"- That was a possibility too, just some genetically engineered pet. Still, there was something utterly wrong with it. It had flown.

"I really don't know what that is"- Apollo lightly laughed-"But Pegasus is no weapon. He ain't even a war horse" - The Greek lovingly smiled before hugging the horse's snout and then, climbing on its back, tended his hand to help the stranger get on. -"We can ride him up and find out where we are."

While circling them from a couple meters away she observed carefully the creature and the guy. Her lenses mode changed in unperceivable ways under the goggles. Under infrared, the horse looked warm and alive. - "Fly? How can it fly? An average horse weighs around 450 kg."

Apollo looked quizzically. - "He just does because he has wings. There's nothing to be afraid off. Pegasus is strong and can handle both of us"

In response the horse made a head move and his hoof clapped on the ground.

"That means nothing. The biggest thing to ever fly was the Quetzalcoatlus and it weighed around 100 kg yet needed a 15 meter wingspan."- She crossed her arms and in her forearm screen she looked at the factual data wirelessly called via her synch implant -"For a modern example, a condor of 13 kg reaches 3.5 meters in wingspan. If we extrapolate …"- She pressed her fingertips on the screen to get the calculus done. "-That means that a horse of this size would require 6.49 times the wingspan. A wing area of 42.1 times bigger."- She pointed at the slightly pinkish horse and its clueless rider. She then took a deep breath - " This horse would need a wingspan of 22.715 meters… and that is not even counting the weight of wings. Even if this was 'Pegasus' was a pony of only 200 kg, it would still need wings of around 13 meters in span."

"But he flies and he can take us up."- Apollo looked at the armored stranger with bewilderment and astonishment - "Those are impressive numbers Minx, but if Pegasus had wings that big he would have trouble folding them" - Apollo said with a shrug a grin on his face and pointed up to the skies. - "C´mon, Pegasus can fly us high above here and we can see where we are. Why don't you get on and see for yourself?"

"I saw him apparently fly and what I'm questioning is the how. Aviation for Equus ferus caballus is just not scientifically feasible."- And yet she had seen this horse fly… it was baffling, a phenomenon she couldn't explain at the moment, but that she was curious about. There was some trick surely and she was eager to disclose the mechanics of the trick - ("Maybe it is an animatronic horse and not an organic horse? Perhaps if the whole floor below the dirt was metal this thing could perform magnetic levitation… But that makes no sense because my instruments were not being affected by any strong magnetic field.") -She wanted to figure it out.- "... Alright"

Aria finally approached the horse and it didn't make any sudden moves. She ignored Apollo's hand and got on the horse behind the guy, who waited for her to sit down properly and then grabbed the animal's mane before motioning it to start moving. With a soft flapping of its wings the horse lifted from the floor began ascending.

Aria's sensors were all turned on and recording although it demanded much of her concentration. The dynamics weren't right. She had considered that maybe the phenomenon was like a bee's flight. The flying mechanics of those insects allowed their non-aerodynamic bodies to fly due to a rapid wing beat of around 230 times per second… and that's just for hovering. Bees stretched their wing stroke amplitude as necessary although inefficiently… yet this horse was barely flapping every few seconds. -("Maybe if I recorded it in ultra-slow motion I could analyze it later")- She briefly activated her secondary synchronization mode to set her devices to change the type of recording, and recorded everything she could look on around until the horse gained enough altitude. Her eyes stared at the sigh. They were over a floating island that seemed to float on a sea of clouds.

"This place really is…"- Apollo looked as surprised and weirded out as she was.

"How can this place seem to fly!?" - She stood over the horse's back uncaring that Apollo got a hold of her waist to prevent her from falling- "The clouds… they are cumulonimbus types. ..." - She got out her digital binoculars and checks all around. Even with the 50X zoom she just saw clouds all around. They were NOT inside a dome. They were on a floating island! Small clouds could be generated in small controlled rooms, but Cumulonimbus clouds were massive mountains of frigid water. They reached between 15 and 20 km height and she couldn't detect any materials in the distance beside clouds in any direction. The was still one thing to try. -"Can you take us down below the place or at least at its edges?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah, sure." For the first Apollo looked serious. He gently kicked the Pegasus's sides and made it gallop down across the sky towards the edge of the island.- "Do you have any idea, Minx?"

"Yes." -There was one possibility. Maybe they were indeed at a very high altitude, which would make the air harder to breath and would make things really cold, but leaving that aside for the moment, she considered that maybe they were indeed on a floating island. And the thing that came to her mind was… -"Quantum levitation."

"What is that?"- Apollo guided the horse towards the edge of the landmass and noticed the uneasiness of Pegasus, so he patted the horse's neck to calm him down while waiting for her explanation.

"The Meissner effect... Maybe this place is suspended on a superconductor plate."- She took out a button sized camera from the compartments of her suit and put a weighted gyroscope with a pebble locator on it -"When some materials are cooled down near absolute zero, they eject all of the magnetic field lines from their interiors except for the 'weak' areas of the structure. That area allows the position to be locked in place while making the superconductor float."- That could explain why they were at a height nearing the troposphere above the clouds. At this height in the atmosphere things were pretty cold, and getting something even colder would be easier. Which meant that perhaps below the surface of the land mass were heating systems and there were some oxygen containing methods, while the base under these was an isolated superconductor plaque.

"There's an explanation?" - Apollo looked at the stranger. He clearly hadn't understood what had been said. He stirred Pegasus towards the border of the island.

"It's just an hypothesis. It could also be that somehow whomever build this place made an EM-Drive work."- She entered the programming on the locator and made sure the camera, locator, and gyroscope were firmly attached. -"There are some theories about an EM-drive assembly with a superconductive shell that may produce around 500 kg of thrust for every KW of power input..."- She looked at Apollo's bewildered face and sighted - "An EM-Drive is little more than a metallic chamber with a greater area at one end of the device than at the other. It supposedly works by repeatedly bouncing microwaves back and forth inside of it. This would violate the laws of conservation of momentum, so the mystery lies on how exactly it manages to produce any thrust at all… unless one counts on resonant cavities operated by creating a virtual plasma toroid and Magnetohydrodynamic forces acting upon quantum vacuum fluctuations."- All too caught up in her explanation and the possibility of someone finally managing to make that work, she epically failed to make the explanation understandable for the greek. - "If this is not on a superconductor, then it could be on an EM-drive. I can hardly think on anything else."

"I'm glad that you have a vague idea of what's going on, Minx. But Pegasus is having some difficulty reaching the edge of the land. "- He grabbed tighter onto the horse and leaned forward while the merc grabbed onto him with one arm around his waist while preparing her other arm to throw her item. -"Let's try getting down the edge and below!"

When they managed to reach the edge of the island a huge wind pushed them back, but not before she managed to throw the locator out of the island's edge towards the cloudy void.

Once they were away from the edge, the wind stopped and Pegasus steadied itself.

"We better get back"- Apollo had a look of suspicion on his face.

She agreed, and on their way back she remained silent while considering other possibilities. She already had a couple hypotheses about the island or about Pegasus, but until she could get evidence she would concentrate on the most important thing. She had no idea where she was or how to return to that country to continue on her last mission. For the moment she needed to gather intel and that meant ambiguously play with this charade. At some moment supplies needed to come here, so maybe there was an heliport somewhere or some service passage to get down to land.

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They went back to the patio of the main building of the so called academy and went back inside. All the while, Apollo kept talking and asking her stuff, of the witch she evaded. When they were about to reach the central room and staircase, she felt the electric jolts on her spine from the connective inner layer of her suit that warned her about various people gathered in there. She quickly side stepped to disappear and hide behind a column seconds before Zeus's voice was heard.

From her hiding spot she had a clear view of where everyone was or at least her sensors could detect them all, including guys that she hadn't previously seen or the 2 people hidden away at the entrance of a side corridor. At the bottom of the staircase were the brothers of cyan blue and purple hair with their rabbit. Apollo approached them; behind a column just across the hall was the green haired man. On the upper floor and leaning on the rail, the redhead she had seen near the rooftop stairs was hanging around the pale, light blonde guy she'd seen at the patio.

"It appears that everyone has arrived." - Zeus walked down the red carpet of the grand staircase and stopped midway. -"Welcome to my garden, my academy, beloved students"

"Cut the crap! "- The roar of indignation had come from the guy with spiky blue hair that she had seen previously and that stood beside his purple haired brother .

Zeus ignored the guy and continued speaking. -"Japanese god of the seas Susanoo, Japanese god of the moon, Tsukiyomi. Norse god of light Balder, god of fire Loki, Australian aboriginal god of thunder Mamaragan. Greek god of the underworld, Hades. God of harvests Dionysius, and god of the sun, Apollo….and whomever else might join us."

She caught a glimpse of Apollo narrowing his eyes at Zeus. It looked as if they knew each other. That was interesting and potentially useful.

Zeus's didn't wait for their question or regards- "You will learn about humans in order to revive the ancient link between gods and humans."

From the railing above, the redhead deemed as Loki spoke with distaste and quite a freak expression- "Do you really think we'll just do as you said?"

Below her gasmask she gave a small smirk. Things seemed about to get interesting.

Taking a couple steps on the staircase with a clearly menacing demeanor, Susanoo was the next to reclaim Zeus with a deep and angry tone - "Return my brother and I to our world!"

(Their world?)- She became more attentive and moved slightly forward to see how this developed even better; luckily she was close enough to not have to turn on her synchronization mode and activate her optic's zoom.

Zeus remained impassive, looking down at Susanoo, the blue haired guy that got angrier at the moment.

Susanoo narrowed his eyes and clenched his first, then some form of blue energy formed around him, floating in the air in waves and swirls that had a watery look.- "Or else…"

"There'll be hell to pay" -Up in the stairs, Loki faced Zeus and lifted his hand. On his palm a ball of fire formed and a second later he jumped down while Susanoo jumped up towards the blonde man. When they were about to hit their target, Zeus clacked the bottom of his staff on the floor and a zap of lightning threw both attackers to the base of the stair as if they had hit an electric fence. Loki twisted in the air to land gracefully on his feet but Susanoo landed on his butt.

(How?)-Aria looked at the columns, ceiling and floor near Zeus. Since she couldn't see any posts or bars that indicated an electric fence that could be activated by the man's staff closing the circuit by connecting to the floor, she considered that there was probably some button that activated hidden mechanisms. As for the fire in the redhead's hand it was easily achievable, but the water swirls… she didn't have a fucking clue about that.

With a smug smirk and apparently not affected by the attack, Zeus patronized them. -"If you use your divine powers indiscriminately, this academy will be destroyed. Therefore..." - He rose his scepter and a golden glow came from it and separated into light trails that traveled through the air like comets and reached all the guys, then condensed into different kinds of jewelry for each guy. Necklaces for Loki and Hades, a ring for Apollo's hand, earrings for Balder and Dionysius, an anklet for Susanoo, and a bracelet for Tsukuyomi.

"What's this? " - Loki struggled to rid himself of the necklace in vain. -"I can't get it off!"

Aria set her hand over the sword pendant. The lights that had become the guy's jewelry had been exactly like the one she witnessed from the sword.

With all the air of a power crazed dictator, Zeus went on- "These shackled seal your divine powers. No one can defy me here. Those shackles are the proof."

Having seen real dictators and politicians that acted as such, she felt an almost instinctual need to shut this man down ... or rather to shoot him off. But for the moment she resisted the urge. She had always hated dictatorial assholes like this one, but for now she needed to refrain. Weird stuff was happening. Weird stuff that dealt with high energy and particles manipulation on a level she hadn't seen before outside of a lab or testing grounds, something she could perhaps use in very profitable ways if she learned more.

"That's enough!" - Loki extended his hand and tried to cast a fireball again, but the flames that came out were a mere campfire size puff that was extinguished in the air as if the oxygen had been removed from them. The same happened to Susanoo when he tried his watery waves, the liquid swirled for a second before dropping to the floor to make a small unimpressive puddle, and both guys looked astonished for a couple seconds before murderously looking at Zeus with the most poisonous gaze they could muster.

Zeus ignored them and resumed his initial speech-"You will study here. When you earn the right to graduate, your shackled will remove themselves."- He then pointed his staff towards the ceiling -"Come in!"

From the ceiling of the lobby a hole in space opened and a car sized, fancy crystal ball came down. It was rigged in golden metal swirls and hung from chains like a grand chandelier would and it provided a very soft glow.

"Once you understand the human heart this container will be filled."- Zeus pointed up at the empty crystal ball chandelier intensely. -" You have 1 year. In other words, if you cannot fill it within a year, you will all be trapped in this garden… forever"

"This isn't funny!"- Susanoo screamed, now as worried as he was angry.

"Are you serious?"- The guy called Loki spoke for the first time with a deep stoic tone.

"Zeus! That's tyrannical!"- Hades, the green haired man half hidden behind a column called out to Zeus.

"I shall not entertain protests. It has already been decided"- Zeus spoke back and then looked at the place where the other hidden person had been watching all in silence. - "...Thoth."

From the shadows, a tan skinned man with pale almost white hair, came out. He sported a monocle over his right eye and was wearing a jacket like a cloak over his half opened black shirt. With a twisted lip and annoyed expression, he looked far less amused than Zeus.

"This man will be your instructor. "-That was Zeus's brief presentation for the man.

"I am the Egyptian god of knowledge, Thoth."- The man deemed to add more specifics to his presentation.

Aria now was a bit more inclined to just kill Zeus before stealing whatever technology was in usage here rather than playing along to learn it better before stealing it. This charade was annoying and stupid. (Seriously? They all use such code names? ugghhh)

"Aria Hadron Scherzi. Your responsibility is to lead the gods to graduation, is that clear?"- Zeus smiled placidly while saying that despite her not being on sight or him looking her way.

The armored figure came out from behind the column and crossed the arms. Zeus had surely suspected she was somewhere around as he had not looked in her direction. Either that or there were hidden cameras around that somehow she had not detected and he had some communicator and had been informed of her presence. When she spoke, the voice that came from the neck of the suit was a gender-less digitized sound. - "And have you thought on your offer? Otherwise don't count on me. I'm a mercenary, I don't work for free."

"Tomorrow morning, you will gather in the auditorium to prepare for the afternoons entrance ceremony"- Thoth informed and ignored everyone in general, and then he turned around to leave through the adjacent corridor he had come from.- "That is all. You are dismissed for today."

While Zeus walked away without another word Thoth addressed the mercenary - "Hadron. Come with me"

"So you are the one that will negotiate? Very well" - She followed him out through a couple corridors that ended into another long one that connected random rooms and classrooms.

Thoth continued walking without looking at her.-"Zeus modeled this academy after human schools. All necessary facilities have been provided. There's even food available in the cafeteria."

"What about my payment and the defined terms of this contract?"- The one amused now was her. They assumed she was cooperating? Ha!

He chuckled- "Don't be concerned. Once everyone graduates you'll earn a true name and your wish will be fulfilled before you return to the time and place you came from through the power of Chronos, god of time."

"Wasn't Kronos a titan and not a god?"- She stopped her paces and he did so too. -"Let's make things clear…" - She leaned her weight on one leg and placed a hand over her hip. -" ...I don't work for free and I don't believe you. It's too fancy that you are using names of mythology characters as code names, but the world runs on evidence and tangible proof. Even if this would be another world. Words are just words."

Thoth stopped and twisted around. In a quick move he stepped in front of her and then tried slamming the wall at her side with one hand, but she used her forearm to hit his arm aside. She made a circle motion to capture his arm at the elbow while raising her other arm; a hidden black blade protruded along the side of her forearm and over her fist and reached close to Thoth's flesh. "Don't take me lightly. You are negotiating. Not demanding. "- She pressed the blade's edge over Thoth's neck, causing a little puncture just deep enough to make a couple drops of blood come out.- "Any demand will be responded with appropriate disdain and physical retribution."

Thoth looked utterly surprised, even shocked, but his gaze focused on the person's covered face as he spoke pretentiously. -"Zeus has the future of both humanity and the gods in mind. The sword of heavens, gathering clouds had chosen you for some reason…."

"Answer me this. I keep hearing the mention of the word 'gods' to refer to all of you. What does that code stands for?"- That had been one of the things to cause her more curiosity. They all had used such type of codes from different mythos, so far, Japanese, Greek, Norse and Egyptian. Why? those guys had been brought here without their consent and hadn't known a thing about this place, yet they had used those codes too, meaning they had them beforehand.

"Code?" - Thoth raised an eyebrow and moved just slightly, but the force of this person's hold was strong, unnaturally so. Thoth looked bewildered that his wall slam had been deterred and that this person was threatening him- "Foolish attempt." - He answered and prepared a burst of power to show this human that he was not to be trifled with. Yet no power came. Even with a shackle on himself he should have been able to manifest some power.

"Very well. You just said that the cafeteria has food. Where is the road that allows the supplies to come in? Where is the way out of this place?"- She pressed the blade a bit further and a small trickle of blood ran on the blade. - Perhaps if she could be sure that she'd get viable info on how to escape this place she would have killed this man now before he gave the alarm. But in this corridor there was nowhere to hide a corpse and just in case she couldn't find the way out and needed to negotiate he would be more useful alive. -"Who is Zeus really? There is a huge contractor behind all this, so who do you work for?"

She was debating what to do when something was thrown her way and her suit detected it. The connective needles of the suit dug immediately into her spine and she received the direct electric stimulation on her nerves to remove her blade from Thoth's proximity and to twist her arm in order to intercept the object heading her way, which was a piece of corn that she cut in half. This gave Thoth the chance to release himself and kick this person on the side against the wall, but before he could get a hold on the attacker, the person slid down from his grasp and threw an item in the floor. A second later thick smoke covered the area and among coughs Thoth was forced to escape out of the corridor and into a classroom, where someone closed the door as soon as he entered.

A dark skinned guy with straight bob, long in the front and shorter in the back, with tufts resembling ears called. He was wearing a skintight suit exposing the midriff and a piercing in his belly button not covered by a school blazer over it. His sandals clanked on the floor as he reached Thoth.- "Bara!?"

"Yes, I'm fine. But it seems that this school year will be very troublesome"- Thoth half opened the door and looked into the direction where the person had disappeared with some uneasiness.

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All the terms like: Quetzalcoatlus, Equus ferus caballus, virtual plasma toroid, Magnetohydrodynamic forces, Meissner effect, EM-drive, etc. are actually real stuff. The calculations for why a Pegasus is not feasible are done based on proportion comparisons , now it's left to see how this can be possible then ;D , but don't worry, Aria will come out with an hypothesis for such.

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