Phoenix

Chapter One - First Flight

PART ONE - PHOEBE

This was Sunday, twelfth of May. It was my first time to ride the plane as far as I could remember but the Empress was telling me that I wouldn't believe her if she would tell me I had been in a plane like almost a hundred times before with her to New York, Italy, California, and even Africa but that was before the tragedy. Yes, before I lost my memory and my past. It was one and a half years ago when I was found wounded and barely breathing in the woods. My recovery from the serious head injury, not including a broken left rib cage, three serious broken joints and nine stitches, took me that long before I get to travel. The Empress always seemed to be monitoring my condition acting like anytime I could be attending a wrestling match. Today, we were heading to New York and to our second base. I know almost everything now. My only family explained what I should know: my birth, my education, my work, and some of my past. Of course, there were times when I still ask things —you can't take that away and besides, it's not easy to lose your own past being a bookmark stuck in the center of an empty book.

The Empress —that was too odd for you to call your mother, if you say, but that was the way it is and from what I've learned, my Mother is our boss. One way or another, it is a sign of our respect to our Commander; she's the toughest woman. The Dark Knights that she has told me about on the day after the tragedy was us —it is our profession. The Dark Knights is a secret organization funded by the US Federal Arm to annihilate hidden criminals in the society. Alexia told me we work for the Government and that she's merely a representative of the Government's Order. We're not totally US-based but most often, crime doesn't only involve the State but as well as the many perpetrators all across the globe. It has never been easy to accept the magnitude of the duty, considering that I was starting over, but the fact that this has been my home all my life has helped me towards acceptance. This is what I am. This is where I belong. This is my only place of safety . . . from the enemies who diligently seek to exterminate us. Yes, the men who almost killed me and now I'm pursued to kill. This is the way I've been brought up and there's no turning back, especially when there isn't any other road to go.

Unlike the organizations existing among the society, no one truly among humans has a basic idea about the Dark Knights. The Dark Knights has a secret . . . a deadly secret that is the foundation of our work. And I discovered I wasn't normal, too. We belong to an evolution of mankind —the hypergenes, people who have superhuman potential especially in terms of strength and senses. The existence of this unique race has long been hiding under the shadows of a thriving humanity where crime and justice plays the wheel of fate though not absolutely. There still remained traces of us in our history that could not be erased and the potential of the human anatomy and the limit or range of abilities it can display have never been fully documented. There are others names to call us such as iron-borns —they say it had something to do with our violent history —and sometimes witches and demons —obviously insults to our kind. That was because some people still believe we are an abomination to our civilization. Though, our characteristics were the primary reason why the government prefers to train individuals like us; it is because of our potential to be precise during operations.

Nevertheless, there was an even more mysterious side to it —immortality. For centuries, humans never wanted anything but to build technologies that prolong their prevalence in the face of the Earth yet the truth remained hiding behind the ignorance of humanity. The Empress told me that she is immortal. It is a uniqueness only she possesses among us; she is not immortal in a sense that she cannot die but she ages slowly. The cells in her body regenerate faster than a common hypergene's and much compared to an ordinary human. Though, we are humans, too, in anatomy and in spirit.