The Lost Chronicles Of Pangea: Apocalypse

Encounter

David took a deep breath as the early morning wind whipped past his face. The urge to scream out loud was stifling, because such an action might make him look stupid, or give others the impression that he was crazy. But David was still very much being drowned by pressure and as of a few hours ago; fear.

His body was not strong enough to handle his abilities, this made him similar to a ticking time bomb that could just as well go off at any given moment. Getting to the city of iron now seems to be more of a priority than before. Although his current situation seems like it can be solved by enhancing his physical abilities the next time his body goes through an energy surge. But the rate of growth for his abilities are completely random and unpredictable. It would be a mistake if be placed his hope on his physique evolving to an acceptable state.

The regulator seemed to place more emphasis on his mental evolution from the previous two surges. The surges and evolution are guided based on lifestyle. If you think a lot and use your brain most of the time, then you would be experiencing a mental evolution. But if your style of living was more physically oriented, then you would just as well expect to evolve with your body being the focus.

Training his body be would be a rather slow process, but for the time being it was the only option he has available to him. He also had other problems to worry about than just the fact that his abilities were killing him, but right now this was the most pressing concern.

“ We can not keep traveling on the highway.” Lilith said behind him.

David bowed his head in contemplation for a while before turning a bit so that she could hear him over the blast of the wind.

“Why? Using the highway will get us to the city of iron faster, and the stops on the road can provide a places to replenish our supplies.”

“You make a good point David, but its not that simple. We’re wanted, and traveling on the highway makes it quite easy for the soldiers to track us down and find us. Whether we’re strong enough to fight them off, there’s definitely going to be a lot of traps waiting for us. We won’t survive very long at this rate.”

David was able to understand what Lilith meant after she gave her explanation. But just like she said things were not that simple. The issue of their survival was complicated enough that David would consider this whole endeavor a waste of time. It was only a matter of time before they were caught and put in a situation where fighting to the death is the only option left. He turned his head a little and raised an issue to her.

“while the highway has its own dangers, we at least know what to expect from such a journey. But if we leave the highway and choose to travel through the country’s side, we’re most probably going to end up dead. The dangers out there are more unknown and unpredictable than the soldiers we would have to deal with. We have absolutely no idea what we will be dealing with if we choose to travel the country side.”

Lilith was silent for a moment and David knew he had made a good point. The soldiers were the devils they were familiar with. But the evolved monsters that covered the country side, and forests at the side of the highway were angels that he had no idea what to expect from. As the popular saying goes “the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.”

“David I understand what you’re saying, but I think traveling off the highway is the best choice at the moment. The soldiers are humans just like us, which makes them unpredictable and extremely dangerous. Even though much of everything, from plants to animals have evolved into entities that could most probably kill us in a single breath, they are still the best options available to us. Because that can be somewhat predictable and escape from them in case of danger would be infinitely easier than when our pursuers are humans just like us and probably have better equipment and weapons. You can’t expect to be that lucky all the time.”

She was most probably right, but David disagreed with her. He felt the soldiers were much easier to deal with, and the fact that she seemed a little adamant about traveling the country side raised certain flags in his mind. Especially when you consider the fact that she had asked and had a conversation with him…..politely I might add when she could just have demanded he takes what ever action she depicted.

Any how you look at it he was not really left with a choice, he was too scared of her to say no. And to make matters worse some part of him agreed with her suggestion even if it seemed a whole lot more dangerous. There is no fear greater than the fear of the unknown and right now Lilith’s suggestion was just that, the unknown.

David gave a sigh of exasperation as he engaged the flight mode of the hover bike and drove into the side of the road. Victoria island was south east of Pangea. It was close to the part of Pangea where land curves like a sickle. A few thousand kilometers north from where Victoria island is located there was a harbor city, it stretched for kilometers along the curve, it was a natural bay and harbor and had also served as a place of commerce with the islands of the sea just like Barigga.

Fom where David was on the highway, a few more kilometers ahead would have brought him to a diversion going east which would lead him straight to that harbor city. However the city of iron was north west and highway snaked across the continent in a slanted and curved direction. It went through a few dozen cities and towns and quite a lot of little villages.

So when David left the highway going directly west, he was somewhat taking a short cut. Following the highway offered the most safety, but it would take a very long time for them to get to their destination. This was the only consolation David could give himself, even if the country side was more dangerous the journey to the iron city would be shorter and eventually they would meet up the highway once again and at least completely circumvent the expected route the soldiers would think they followed.

Besides not every town or village was off the highway, David did not really have a map, and for some reason the hover bike GPS was not functioning. But he was sure they would definitely come across a few towns or villages. Pangea was a massive land mass more than four times the size of earth, and even though its population was in the hundreds of billions, there was still enough land on this planet to make it seem desolate. But traces of civilization could definitely be found everywhere, you just had to know where to look.

Eventually they both drifted into a comfortable silence as they drove through the country side, about two hours into their leisure cruise they came across a forest and had to take a detour back to the highway. The hover bike had a lot of modification, but since it was still heavily reliant on the planets gravitational and magnetic field, it could not go higher than five meters. Which made driving through a forest of densely grown trees impossible.

About an hour into their journey back on the highway, they came across what looked like a crash site, there was an overturned truck, and the remains of what looked like a mutated chicken. It was the size of David’s bike and its wings had and feathers had a metallic tint to it, as it glinted under the sun.

The truck that was turned over seemed to be transporting the mutated chickens when it got into an accident. It has only been six months since the whole of Pangea became very different, but a lot of people were already seeing business opportunities and profits in the rapidly evolving ecosystem of the planet. David had no idea what could have caused the crash, but with how bad the truck looked, with various dents and deformation across its metal frames. The cause of the crash had to be have been really intense.

As David drove past the truck, he was able to see the rest of the slaughtered chickens, and standing around the corpse of the birds was a group of weirdly dressed people, all armed with military grade weapons.

At first David would have preferred to just drive past this group of people without incurring any attention, but it seemed like they had other plans in play. About half of them, which was about a dozen or so men and women raised their weapons and came to a stop in the middle of the road. Standing amidst the pool of blood and guts of badly mutilated mutant chickens, this group of people gave off a fearsome aura. David could have just drove over them, but he was quite tired of being chased and shot at. Besides he was sure this guys were not with the army, Pangea had a strict uniform adhering policy, even their spies and special forces had identifying tags or clothing for their division, and this group of people did not have anything of the sort.

“Halt!”

David did just as he was told and brought his hover bike to a stop in front of them. He left the engine running, and decided to take a cursory look around. The other half of the group of people were crowded around the half eaten corpse of a man. David assumed that he was probably the one who was transporting the chickens, and after he looked past them, he had to hold his breath as he saw a military grade cruiser parked within the trees of the forest on the right side of the road.

The cruiser was badly hidden within the trees, but it presence there was enough to let David know he was not dealing with simple people.

“Who’re you guys. Did you do this.”

At the sudden barrage of questions and accusations David was immensely startled. As he was about to reply them in an as amicable a voice as possible, when Lilith completely took charge of the situation, and in a way and manner that was completely contrary to what David had in mind.

“Are you retarded, did you not just see us coming down the road. How could we have done this, and what would we even want with bizarre looking chickens. And also show me your badge, because until you have one of those, you don’t have the right to stand in the middle of the road and ask me my name.”

David was left with his mouth gaping wide open. These guys had guns, lots of it, and David was not sure antagonizing them was the right thing to do. But Lilith lived by her own set of rules, and in the time that they have spent together David had come to understand that this woman would bend for no one.

“You better pick your next words carefully lady…..”

“Or what!” Lilith barked at the man who just spoke. It was not just the fact that she barked at him, it was the obvious fact that the dude was almost pushing eight feet tall and built like a monster truck. David could not help but gulp.

He had faced down giant bats, a tsunami and the army. But that did not make this man any less intimidating. Of course Lilith could probably rip out his arm and beat him to death with it. But David was not worried about her, he was worried about himself, and considering how surrounded they were, he felt they had to thread the path of caution.

“Let them go!” David was startled by the voice. When he looked over at the person who just spoke, he drew in a sharp breath of air. The dude was downright beautiful, and David could not begin to imagine how a man could be that beautiful.

But before he could react properly he felt Lilith tap his shoulder as a signal to drive. David still very surprised from the whole spontaneous and rather weird confrontation started his hover bike and continued on his journey leaving the wreckage and the mysterious group of people behind. He was left with questions about who they were, but as long as there was no confrontation, then everything was okay.

But not less than a minute after they started moving, David felt a violent shock wave hit his hover bike as he and Lilith were flipped over it and thrown down to the tarred floor violently. David could feel more than see his hover bike fly over his head to come crashing down on the floor completely Intact, but he was not as lucky as the impact from hitting the floor pushed his three turtles with shells as hard as metals straight into his chest, breaking a few ribs in the process. David rolled on the ground from the inertia with each turn causing and aggravating injuries.

When he finally came to a stop there was blood over his face and wounds all over his body. Under the attack of the pain, he could hear screams of pain in the background, he could not hide the smirk on his face as he thought to himself. ‘those idiots messed with Lilith……they’re so dead.” But just as that thought was done, he passed out from the strain and pain, having absolutely no idea how Lilith fared with the punks who attacked them. But he was not worried, she was the strongest person he knew, what danger could a group of weirdos pose to one of the most dangerous people on Pangea.