First things first, gloves, mask, and safety glasses, never know if these things could be harmful to us. A single touch could end a life.
As we began going over the items it was the first time Sofia had been so quiet since she got here, she was laser focused, following my lead without a second thought.
It was the first time I actually looked at her without annoyance, it was the first time I noticed her ginger hair was beautiful and curly. She had light green eyes tucked behind her glasses, and slightly faded freckles painted her milky skin; as if she were trying to hide them.
She was a little shorter than me but seemed to be a bit built in the muscles, no doubt she works out. I could tell even though her lab coat is a little bigger than her.
She was a beautiful lady, not much older than Maria; I think. Her true beauty lied with her focus and knowledge as she worked as if we'd been partners forever, I was a little stunned with how well she had adapted to our work habits; it hadn't been but a few hours.
Maria herself was about the same hight with long, straight, black hair; that she kept in a ponytail, and hazel eyes. She had a small scar over her left eyebrow from a mishap during one of her own outings, though it did nothing to deter her beauty.
The two could easily become models, yet chose, brains over beauty.
The shield was the first thing we examined, it was pure black in color and didn't seem damaged in the slightest. Not a single mark or dent could be seen, the only thing on the face of it was a single angel wing.
The angel wing was dark in color like the shield, yet something about it made it stand out; like the rest of the shield was simply a shadow cast by its beauty.
"Here look at this, the emblem on the shield is a single black angel wing right."
"Yeah, it slightly resembles the markings you sketched in your journal."
I smiled as I reached for the journal and turned to the drawing of the emblem.
"Exactly but it's incomplete, here look at this. It's only a quarter of the full thing, originally it would have been a cracked sword shielded by both wings with a crescent moon above it.
Which begs the question, is every piece separated to make a full armor set or is the shield incomplete; in some way."
"There could've also been some kind of faction thing going on, your notes speaks of angels, demons and god like beings. Maybe each piece represents something different."
After Sofia said this, Maria grabbed the journal and started making small notes. It bothered me a little that she was altering my notes, but it did make sense so I didn't complain.
"Right, so that would mean angels would be the white wing, demons would be that black wing, I'd say humans are the sword, and the gods the moon, possibly."
"My thoughts exactly."
My eyes sparkled and a smile appeared on my face as I listened to the two. So this is what it's like sharing interests with others, all this time it had only been me looking for answers. This moment alone was all I needed, to be happy for a lifetime.
A new possibility that I hadn't thought of had just been put in front of me, with the evidence in front of me I had a new equation to go over. But that also meant there were new questions to be answered, as well.
"Then that brings a new question to light, why are the emblems merged into one. If they do truly represent the different races or "factions", they what could they be fighting against.?.? What could possibly be strong enough to make them all join forces, and did they win."
"That's a good question, since we haven't heard anything about this until now, I reckon they either won or it was a stalemate. If the sword really represents humanity, then if the war was still going on, wouldn't that mean we would know about it.?.?"
That was another good point, who came out on top, and why don't we have any records of said event.? Maybe it was covered up at some point, and being kept from the public. But wouldn't someone like Maria know, she's a valuable asset to the higher ups, so wouldn't she have some kind of knowledge about it.
The information must have been lost at some point, otherwise I'm sure they would've had someone like her looking into it.
"It's pretty interesting as well that if there was indeed a war, that this shield is undamaged, I mean after all this time, not even a scratch."
"Maybe they had more advanced technology and materials than we do."
"You know, I've always hated when people say that. I mean how do you lose knowledge like that, how do we downgrade so far just to find that the people before us were leagues ahead. Just never made sense to me."
"That is true, but there are plenty of stories of the world being wiped cleaned or restarted, so my guess is these artifacts are from one of those resets."
(Gotta say it does feel good to have someone to bounce ideas off of, especially when they help put the pieces together.)
"Well in that case we should get a sample of the material, see if it's in the database somewhere. Something like this could be really valuable, and could really help get us back on track."
"Good idea, we can use the laser cutter to get a piece of the edge. If it's really tuff, it would be better to cut with something heavy duty."
Reaching for the shield I tried to pick it up. Thinking it would be easy, I grabbed it and started walking; only to be yanked back when it barely moved.
Almost falling over I looked up at the two, whom were prepping the laser. They looked at me confused, I just smiled as I waved Maria over to help.
After a few stop and go moments; to catch our breath, we finally made it over. Placing it on the table, Sofia primed the laser preparing to cut it.
We aimed at the top point at the right of the shield, once the laser was ready, we took a step back behind the protective glass, just in case.
We let the laser do it's job and after a few minutes we went over to retrieve the piece. Looking at it though there was no incision, not even a mark was left on it.
We looked at eachother dumbfounded, then decided maybe turning it up would help. We decided to just max it out from the start, to save us the trouble of gauging it as we went.
As soon as the laser shot out, it bounced off it's surface shattering one of the lights on the ceiling. I rushed for the controls, turning it off instantly.
We looked stunned, as we walked towards the broken glass and dent in the ceiling. The room was reinforced, incase things on the inside got out of hand, like this.
"That wasn't supposed to happen, right.?"
"Not at all, there's no way that laser should have made a dent in the ceiling. I mean it's strong and could melt through most things but this isn't one of them, at least not within this short amount of time."
"Guy's, come look at this."
We turned and headed back to Maria, whom was standing over the shield. She moved to the side as we got closer, the shield just like before was unmarked.
We looked at eachother in bewilderment. We decided to have someone fix the light and check on the dent before we did anything else.
We all sat outside of the room discussing everything as they fixed up the room for us.
We decided to eat our lunches while we waited as well, since we were fixated on the thing, we doubt would get another chance, let alone want to.
After a while they allowed us back in, we were informed that the damage to the ceiling would be repaired in a few days and not to worry about it. They did ask what happened, and of course slightly doubted our story. I was sure if they didn't see the mark for themselves they wouldn't have believed us at all.
"So what now, if the laser couldn't cut it, what can.?."
"We definitely don't have anything stronger than that on hand at the moment, I can bring something from home tomorrow."
"Wait, you're telling me you have something stronger than this just lying around in your home.?."
"As a matter of fact I do, a little invention of mine, I've been working on. It's not completed yet but I have tested it to be stronger than this measly old thing."
Sofia's eyes sparkled at the thought, she was already excited for day two of working with us. She hadn't even seen the item and yet she already wanted to get her hands on it.
As I listened, my eyes were locked on the shield, for some reason I couldn't take my eyes off of it, like it was drawing me in; somehow.
I slowly stood up, and walked towards it. The two looked over at me as I got closer, I could hear there voices but I couldn't understand what they were saying.
As I got closer the lights began to flicker, dark smoke seemed to secrete from the shield as I reached my hand out.
Placing my bare hand onto the shield it crumbled to pieces under my palm, the smoke slowly rose engulfing me in its embrace.
It shaped itself into the form of a human figure with deep dark eyes, it reached its hand out for me. I reached back but it didn't grab my hand, it instead reached for my throat grasping it tightly.
I tried grabbing onto it's wrist but my hands fell through it's shadowy body, my heart raced as the circulation cut off. I tried my hardest to fight back but nothing could get through.
I could feel the life leaving me as it peered into my soul through my eyes, a tear fell down my cheak as I gazed back. I closed my eyes as I embraced death..., opening them the figure was gone.
Looking up I could see Sofia and Maria talking to on another, my ears were ringing. Once the sound returned I could hear them clearly:
"As a matter of fact I do, a little invention of mine, I've been working on. It's not completed yet but I have tested it to be stronger than this measly old thing."