I am brought into a dark room by the women, and they shove me in roughly. From within the darkness, a male voice states,


    "Strip."


    I respond,


    "Gotta wine and dine me first buddy, and I ain''t cheap."


    There is a quiet,


    "Goddammit..."


    Then the voice says,


    "Okay, please remove your clothes so you can be looked over medically. It''s dark right now for the sake of the ladies who brought you in."


    I sigh and drop my coat, which hits the ground with a heavy thud due to all the compacted ash and some modifications I had made to it over the years, the cut-resistant leather I stiched on adding the most weight. As soon as it hits the ground, I hear it being grabbed and dragged off. Standing in my insulated underclothes, I ask,


    "Are there still women in the room? I don''t like being blind like this."


    The voice responds,


    "No, those are automated arms grabbing your stuff for storage and possibly research, considering how heavy that coat sounded."


    I grunt in frustration and remove the multiple layers of clothes from myself. Without the sun, the ashlands were cold as hell. My plate carrier hits the ground with a loud clang as the steel I duct-taped to an old webbing rig is bare to the world without the cloth covering I wore over it. I drop the few knives the guards hadn''t found on my person, and I start removing my boots and socks. After I remove my mask, I get a whiff of myself and I ask,


    "Hey... I don''t know how you''ll take this, but I stink really fucking bad. I don''t think I''ve properly bathed in like three years."


    The voice sighs, and a door illuminates on the other side of the room. It says,


    "Okay. That''s disgusting, and normally we only allow showers after the preliminary inspection because we like to research the bacteria and other microorganisms growing on the exterior of any new acquisition. I guess thanks for warning me, I really don''t feel like whiffing straight body odor today. There should be some underpants in the bathroom illuminated. "


    I grunt in approval and head to the light. I open the door and have to cover my eyes. I never realised how dingy the lenses on my mask are until now. Even in the light of the room I arrived in, the dirty lenses protected my eyes from the worst of it, especially in the clear skies of Yellowstone. The ashlands on a bright day could be best described as twilight. I stumble into the shower with my eyes squinted and fumble with the valves for a while until a nice stream of hot water washes over me.


    I can''t help but let out a groan of pleasure as it''s probably been a decade since I had a proper shower with running hot water, especially with good soap. I wash myself, and slowly my eyes adjust to the brilliant artificial light. I towel myself off, and when I look u,p I leap back and let out a shout of surprise, until I realise what I see is a mirror, but I don''t recognize myself.


    I saw my reflection about 2 years ago, by my estimation, and I was a white-haired and grizzled-looking old guy, beaten down by the harsh life in the ashlands. I was considered highly respected for surviving to old age in such a harsh and dangerous place, but looking back at me is my 20-something-year-old self, both in build and age. I guess this is why my clothes felt loose because I lost my old man fat and bulk, replaced with the lean, mean fighting machine I was when the volcano first erupted, although I can still see the old man in there.


    My eyes are still off-color, my blue irises are so dark navy it appears almost as if I only have pupils, and my whites are still grayish and bloodshot, my eyes looking this way as a side effect of living in the darkness. My skin is grayish due to lack of vitamin D and direct sunlight, the only sources in the ashlands were from certain mushrooms, which were damn-near inedible in taste, or in the rare event you find someone''s vitamin cabinet still intact.


    I realise the Protector didn''t cure my genetic back pain, it practically reversed all the main effects of aging, no clue how or why, but all my ashwalker traits are still there, just not on an old man. Also, for some reason, it shaved me as I know fully well I had a scraggly and patchy white beard.


    I run my hands through my rethickened dark brown hair and notice the texture is silky and nice, not how it was last, stringy and rough. Also my body is still covered in the multitude of scars I gained along the way, so I just was deaged, which is nice...


    I pull the underwear on and enter the dark room once again and say,


    "I am clean enough for now, but I have some questions...Ah!"


    The lights flash on before I finish, and I cover my eyes, which are still adjusting to all the light. The voice then says,


    "Yes, of course, I''m sure some of your genetic woes are gone, but we have tests to run, and it''s almost dinner time. "


    I laugh and rub my eyes as a strong hand grabs me and directs me to sit on a table. My eyes adjust and I meet the voice, a mountain of a man with a thick black beard and blad head. He is wearing scrubs in the same pink color as the women before, and it causes me to snigger. He glares at me and asks,


    "What is it, gray boy?"


    I reply,


    "Did your dimension have Kirby?"


    He grunts and says,


    "No. Why?"


    He wraps some sort of device around my arm and sticks a needle in my very visible veins. I answer,


    "Well, hes this pink little ball thing that can''t stop shoving food in his face. I just noticed some comparisons."


    He doesn''t seem amused, and the next needle goes in quite a bit more forcibly. He then shoots back,


    "At least I don''t look like a fucking zombie, I''m really more impressed you have all your teeth, and how the hell are they so white?"


    I shrug and reply,


    "Dunno, something we ate in the ashlands was really good for dental health. No clue which thing it was."


    He asks,


    "Yeah, about this ashland. What the hell does that mean? Your clothing was covered in soot or something."


    I respond,


    "Well... It''s ash that covered me, and the ashlands are a place filled with ash. Kinda the whole continent I lived on got turbo-fucked by a supervolcano and somehow the ash never settled so we had like clouds over us the whole time."


    He grunts in acknowledgment and mutters,


    "That explains the need for a tanning bed..."


    He then asks,


    "Have you always been such an asshole?"


    I shrug and reply,


    "Well sorta, probably since I was like three or..."


    I trail off as I note I can suddenly remember that I''ve been a smartass since three years of age. Then it comes to me, why in my later years I really went all out on finding Yellowstone and a place to rest. I say to no one in particular,


    "The Protector cured my Alzheimer''s..."


    The pink man looks at me confused and asks,


    "Alzheimer''s?"


    I respond,


    "That''s why I''m young now... There is no real cure for the disease as it''s a degeneration of the brain..."


    He steps back and asks,


    "Is... is that contagious?"


    I shake my head, now confused,


    "Did your world not have alzheimers? It''s when old people go crazy because their brains degenerate."


    He shakes his head, a look of horror in his eyes,


    "No... old people where I am from are revered for wisdom until their dying breaths. What the hell kind of world lets a disease like that come?"


    I shrug and respond,


    "It runs in my family, it''s genetic, or at least our scientists think it is, I mean it doesn''t affect everyone."


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He shudders and continues hooking me up to machines, scolding me,


    "Well, let me know it''s a genetic thing. The Protector cured you of that. But what about being young?"


    I answer,


    "I was a wrinkly ass old man at the ripe age of 76 or so, now I''m physically in my twenties or so, just with all the negatives I picked up in the ash through decades."


    He shakes his head and responds,


    "Well, lucky you, I came here at thirty-eight and am still thirty-eight, no one in Salvation ages, so I got all the benefits of being middle-aged."


    I laugh at his predicament, but keep it in the back of my mind that no one in Salvation ages, I''ll have to ask about that. I watch my blood being collected for various tests, and all the different pieces of equipment begin buzzing around me. Information that I cannot understand scrolls across the various screens in the room, and the big pink blob stares at them with mild interest. There is a ding like a toaster finishing its job, and the man reads the information that is now static. He then says to me,


    "Very interesting, your blood-cell count is considerably higher than what''s normal for people, but you aren''t built like the others who lived in mountainous environments. There are signs that dissolved oxygen was low on multiple occasions in your recent life... ah, that makes sense... we just took apart your gas mask filter and found it practically clogged with ash, so you were basically in a low oxygen environment."


    I then respond,


    "That and all the trees, grass, and algae were gone in my world too, or at least in the areas I frequented. I''m not a volcano-ologist, but I''ve read somewhere that massive volcanic eruptions can cause massive atmospheric changes, so the ratio of oxygen in the atmosphere could be off. What''s the composition in Facility-Zero?"


    He thinks for a second, pulls out what looks like a smartphone, and after he checks, he replies,


    "About 25% give or take one in either direction."


    I let out a long whistle and say,


    "No wonder I''m so ornery, that''s a massive boost in good air in my lungs, even before the eruption, we sat at a healthy 21%."


    He nods and continues reading off my blood work,


    "You have a massive vitamin-D deficiency, but your body is somehow not falling apart at the seams. Actually it looks like your body adapted pretty well to work with critical levels of it. I can also see a few other deficiencies, but nothing as bad as that. Also, you have type B+ blood, can''t even get a perfect score."


    I laugh at the joke, and he then explains,


    "Your heart is the strangest thing to me. Your heart rate is stupidly slow, but your blood pressure is really good, like your heart does these slow but massive beats, probably another oxygen-related adaptation. Does your heart rate ever get high?"


    I respond,


    "Yeah, of course. My life since the eruption has been nothing if not terrifying and stressful."


    He nods and logs something on the machine. I sit there kicking my feet as he goes over my vitals, I even have to breathe into a machine, and I learn that my lungs are quite efficient as I release very little oxygen on exhale, removing most of the carbondioxide from my body, but then again it makes sense because I was sucking air through a filter, the odd thing is how quickly my body adapted to my life in the ash. A few decades seem too short for that to happen.


    I ignore that for now, I assume there is a reason, and I can probably ask someone later about that. The room is quiet for a while before the man backs away from me slowly after reading something, and he asks carefully,


    "Are you feeling alright?"


    I nod and confusedly ask,


    "Yeah? I mean, I feel better than I ever have."


    He shakes his head and speaks into his smartphone thing, and he creeps away from me. I watch with mild amusement as this big guy acts afraid of me for some reason. He then gets a response which I can''t hear, but he quickly starts a whisper argument with the person on the other side before he sighs and tells me from the other side of the room,


    "So it appears you are a biohazard. Multiple unknown fungi and viruses, the ones we do know are considered quite deadly, and they aren''t the deactivated viruses human immune systems keep around for reference. On top of that, as it turns out, you are outright toxic, with multiple neurotoxins in your blood and other parts of your body, and seemingly they aren''t affecting you. "


    I nod and ask surprised,


    "And what are we gonna do about it?"


    He shakes his head and tells me,


    "Well, this checkup and biometric reading has just turned into an in-depth research of your unique biology caused by your unique situation."


    I nod and request,


    "Tell me what this means?"


    He shurgs as one of the machines beeps and a group of three people in pink biohazard PPE walk into the room. He says,


    "Well, we are putting you under while we do some... invasive research."


    I try to reply, but the world starts spinning around me as I realize one of the tubes used to take my blood is now injecting something. I try to fight the drug, but I quickly lose... I just remember I did eat and drink in the last 24 hours, I hope they fixed the anasthesia puking problem...


    I wake up tucked into a hospital bed. I am still in my underwear, but I can''t feel anything different. No pain from surgeries or anything. I pull my blankets down and look at my corpse-colored skin and find no new scars. I look at myself all over and find nothing new. I worry that they may have alien probed me, but I feel nothing out of place downstairs. I am yanked from my self-inspection by the voice of Ms.Moskovit stating,


    "I somehow expected your body to purge the drugs from your system on its own. Heck, you aren''t even groggy like most people are after coming out."


    I laugh and respond,


    "I guess you guys need more potent stuff then."


    She nods dismissively and asks,


    "Do you want to know what we discovered about you?"


    Her voice somehow sounds both disappointed and surprised at the same time. I nod, and she pulls up a tablet, explaining what they discovered about me,


    "First things first, we may have figured out why your body seems to be functioning despite major vitamin deficiencies stemming from what is likely a poor diet due to apocalyptic circumstances. Somehow, your body has formed a strange symbiosis with multiple unknown fungi and bacteria, possibly one or two viruses as well. These microscopic things are able to break down many known extremely toxic neurotoxins, haemotoxins, and at least one tetrodotoxin, be it in your blood or your gut, and both places have their own personal ecosystem, so they aren''t even the same microorganisms. The strangest part is that they can break down these poisons and convert them to usable ATP in some cases, and others somehow convert their intricate structures into something that somewhat works like the vitamins and minerals missing in your diet. How they came about is beyond us, and I''m sure you have no idea either.


    We also tested a few known nerve agents on you, guess what? Your body flushed them, be it via the same microbiomes as before, or for some reason your immune system being just... turbocharged. Again, don''t go breathing nerve gas, it was only the least potent ones we used, which still is saying something as they are nerve agents. Also, we have reason to believe they would leave you paralyzed for a little while before your body can flush them, so don''t think you''re that unnatural.


    The second resistance we tested was your body''s resistance to psionic attacks, and we found that you are nearly immune to everything we threw at you, but we stopped after a certain point so as not to accidentally kill you. Also, tell me, have you ever encountered a psychic attack?"


    I think for a moment and remember the demon. I respond,


    "Yeah, many times. A few years after the volcano blew, some things we called demons showed up. Very diverse bunch, but some of the smarter ones could talk to ya in your head and try to lure you out. The worst they could do is try to convince you with this paternal authority, and that''s about it. So I doubt I faced anything too powerful."


    She asks carefully,


    "Describe these... demons... we may have different understanding of the word."


    I nod and describe all the different types I encountered, especially the last one that was about to kill me before I showed up here. I watch as Ms.Moskovit grows pale as I describe them. When finished, she responds,


    "That... is horrifying. What you just described is one of the things we are consistently fighting with. Do not call them demons, it''s considered offensive to... well, during your training you''ll learn, but those are called Khaos Born, creatures that are a massive unknown to even the Protector. They show up randomly and are usually the apocalypse themselves. You faced one of the most potent psychic attacks known to us at the moment. That last one is known as a Thorny King, one of the highest threat level varieties. At best, when it speaks in your head like that, it completely mind controls you; at worst, it liquefies your brain.


    Overall, this proves your psionic resistance is without a doubt one of the strongest natural ones we have come across."


    I ask,


    "So you can train it?"


    She nods, replying,


    "To get to your level, a normal person would have to face psychic torment for literal decades just to get to nearly your level, but even that may not be enough."


    I nod and rub my chin and she then continues with a deep sigh,


    "Then we tested your magical resistance a-"


    I interrupt her,


    "Okay, I''ve heard magic and mana and all this bullshit being thrown around, I was holding off on asking about magic but since I guess you blasted me with it, what''s up with magic? Is it real?"


    She raises her eyebrows both in shock at my interruption and genuine intrigue at my question. She asks,


    "Did your world not have magic?"


    I shake my head and say,


    "Aside from those... Khaos Born and a few other supernatural things that appeared with them or around the same time, my world never had magic, maybe like in ancient times but my modern world magic is entirely left for fantasy and the insane."


    She nods thoughtfully and explains,


    "I''ll add a basic magic lesson to your training, but for now, yes magic does exist and while it is beleived to come in many different forms it always boils down to four key elements, Fire water, air, earth, and through them their corresponding mana that forms naturally in most worlds. The lesson will be more detailed, but yes, magic exists. Now, describe the supernatural things?"


    I nod and explain anomalies and the few supernatural critters that appeared. She responds,


    "Those anomalies are what we call mana wells, and they are places where mana flows into the world around them. What you described are incredibly rich mana wells. Normally, people from low mana worlds have poor magic resistance, but if you are close enough to those mana wells to describe certain aspects, you clearly had a strong mana resistance from birth, it seems.


    Your body managed to reflect 95% of the mana we fired at you... through tiny beams so as to, at worst, burn you. Once again, you have a natural resistance that usually takes decades of specialized and brutal training, as for mana it is for individual elements."


    I flex my arms and brag,


    "Yeah, I''m just the toughest son of a bitch around. Sorry about the others, I''m just built differently."


    She then lets out a long sigh of disappointment and corrects me,


    "No, you really aren''t that tough, just against most toxins, diseases, mana, and psionic attacks. Physically, you are... below average in resistance to damage, to what we normally receive here at Salvation.


    We are able to penetrate your skin without issue or specialized tools; you literally bruised from the nurses carrying you in, and of course, your temperature resistance is really low.The scarring on your body should''ve tipped us off on how... squishy you are."


    I frown and grab what I can off my gut, now feeling a little self-conscious. She then continues,


    "We were very excited for a moment because we believed your unique resistances would make you an incredible defensive asset, but your physical resistance is lacking, and since you just confirmed you don''t know of magic, it is safe to assume you can''t use it to harden your body or something.


    While definitely unique, you have greatly disappointed us."


    I frown and ask,


    "Now what?"


    She responds deadpan,


    "We will now test your combat attributes and other skills that Salvation finds important for its assets."


    She tosses me some clothes, and I slip into the white athletic pants and shirt. I find my boots sitting next to the bed, cleaned up perfectly, and I tie them on. Ms.Moskovit motions for me to follow as she exits the room. I follow her through the halls of this medical building, getting stared at by the nurses as I pass. Our destination is a blank, white room. I ask excitedly,


    "Is this like one of those science fiction holographic rooms?"


    She furrows her brows and responds with another sigh,


    "It is a hardlight training room... so I guess you''re close enough."


    I smile widely at her as she shuts the door, leaving me in the room alone. Through a speaker,r she speaks to me,


    "The room will run you through a series of tests. Do them to the best of your ability."


    I nod to nowhere in particular as the room glows brightly, blinding me once again, and I hear a loud buzzing as a new world is formed around me...