Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of the Abyss or any of its properties.
Notes: This was written forever ago as a response to a prompt on tumblr. After deciding to update my FF.N account with something, I decided to have a trial run with this. This was proposed as something of a joke, but I accepted the challenge and here we are.
Ant-Lion Man Medic
Asch the Bloody was feared across Auldrant.
It was to be expected. You didn't earn the title "the Bloody" without good reason, and it didn't help that he could ordinarily be seen with a scowl. It was just as well. Asch didn't have time to socialize, and because of that, the more people that ran away from him rather than toward him, the better. Better to be feared than not taken seriously, especially considering all that he had to do.
But it was because he was so feared the world over that the current situation was hilarious, in the same way that his life being stolen from him by a worthless replica dreck was hilarious. Asch had faced countless enemies; he'd taken down hordes of monsters and swarms of soldiers, all without batting an eye. To face all of that—everything that his wreck of a life had to throw at him—and then be taken down by a scorpian that had somehow gotten stuck in his boot?
Hilarious.
Asch stumbled into a Chesedonian alleyway, raising one hand to brace himself against the wall. He'd long since stomped the scorpian out of existence, but the damage was already done. He could feel his foot swelling inside his boot from the sting, and the poison was making his vision swim, heat rushing through his body. It was all he could do to keep from falling over, though he knew he wouldn't last much longer. Dimly, he knew that he should go see someone for help, but who? He could think of no one that could give him the proper treatment besides Natalia, and he had no idea where she was. Even if he did, the simple fact that she wasn't in Chesedonia at the moment meant that he'd never get to her in time.
He might never get to see her again. He'd long since accepted that fact, but now that he had reunited with her, the fact that he may never see her again made him feel even worse than the poison threatening to take him down.
His body started to tremble viciously, then, and he stumbled a few steps forward, fighting to stay on his feet. By this point, he was halfway down the alley, and though it was impossible to bring anything into clear focus, as he looked up, he thought he saw someone in front of him. Someone wriggling in front of him.
"Me, Ant-Lion Man!" the person said. Asch made a face. Ant-Lion Man? Was that some kind of joke? Those things existed only in fairy tales. "You . . ."
The rest of what the person said became scrambled noise to Asch's ears. He tried to listen, but at that moment, his vertigo gave in. He swayed on the spot before losing the battle against balance, falling face first toward the sand, but although he knew he should have connected with the ground, somehow, he kept falling. It felt like he was falling forever.
And presently, his conscious mind gave out, too.
Asch awoke sometime later, feeling as though his body was filled with foam, and his head had been bashed against the Tartarus.
He couldn't move. He was vaguely aware that he was lying horizontally on something hard, but that was the only information he could glean from his current situation. He managed to open his eyes a crack, but all he could see was a sand colored wall before his eyes shut again, and he groaned. He hurt. He hurt so very much. Why wasn't he dead yet? From what he could remember, he was supposed to be dead.
"Here. Drink this." The voice that spoke was gruff, male, and strangely familiar, though Asch couldn't place from where. He turned his head and tried to open his eyes again, but failed as something grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head up. The brim of a cup was pressed to his lips, and Asch obediently tilted his head back to swallow as water was poured into his mouth. Swallowing took effort. "It help."
"Th . . . Than . . ." His tongue felt as swollen as his throat felt raw, making talking nearly impossible. Whoever it was that was helping him dropped him unceremoniously back down, and Asch didn't have the strength to protest it. The water had certainly helped, but not enough, and he could already feel his consciousness ebbing away again.
Whoever it was, they were keeping him alive, and though he didn't know what for, it was too much effort to think about it at the moment.
This cycle continued on for Asch didn't know how long. Bouts of consciousness filled with broken speech and water sips before he slipped under again, his body aching, his lungs struggling to breathe. It wasn't until his fever broke that he finally awoke with some sense of coherency, and though he still hurt in more ways than he could count, he could at least make the effort to open his eyes all the way and see where he was.
He was in some sort of small room. The walls, the floor—everything was the color of sand, but made out of hard rock, including the bed he was lying on. Asch grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position, his muscles sore and stiff, but before he could make it much farther than that, someone entered the room with a cup of water handy.
Asch stared. And stared. And stared some more.
It was an Ant-Lion Man. He hadn't read them in years, but he recognized the picture from the fairy tale books. Everything, from the mummified look to the wriggling movements, fit the Ant-Lion Man tale perfectly. But how . . .
"Ah! You awake." The Ant-Lion Man shimmied over, and it was only the weakness in Asch's muscles that kept him from jolting away. He did continue to stare, though, as the Ant-Lion Man held out the cup of water. "Here. Drink this. It help."
Asch took the cup and drank deeply from it, figuring that since the Ant-Lion Man had been giving it to him that entire time, there couldn't be much wrong with it. Once he had the cup emptied, however, he gave the Ant-Lion Man a flat look. "Who are you?"
"Me, Ant-Lion Man," he said, and though Asch had already surmised as much himself, he still couldn't believe it. "You fall down hole. Me help."
"Fall down hole?" Asch repeated. The Ant-Lion Man bobbed his head.
"Yes! You poisoned and fall down hole. Me help you get better. Feel better?" Asch scowled.
"I'm fine." It was a lie, but it wasn't as if lying was an unfamiliar territory for him by this point. "How long have I been here?"
"You sleep for eleven days. Me—"
"Eleven days?!" Asch threw the cup across the room, where it smacked into the wall before clattering to the floor. The Ant-Lion Man, to his credit, didn't even seem startled. "How could you let me sleep here for eleven days?! Do you have any idea what could have happened?!"
"You poisoned. You need rest," the Ant-Lion Man said, but Asch—far from taking no for an answer—swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.
"Shut up. I don't need—" He clenched his jaw and put a hand to his forehead as his vision swam again, and swayed unsteadily on his feet. As much as he hated to admit it (and would only ever admit it to himself) he felt as weak as a newborn kitten. He had to put a stop to Van's plans, and had to make sure the replica dreck was on the right track, but in his current state, he likely wouldn't even be able to fend off a chirpee. The Ant-Lion Man seemed to sense this, for he put a hand on Asch's chest and pushed him back onto the bed.
"You sick. You rest. Me get soup." The Ant-Lion Man turned to shimmie from the room as Asch glared at his back, but made no further attempt to get up.
He did need rest, but damn it, he did not have time for it.
He stayed for two more days. On some level, Asch knew he should have stayed to rest longer, but on a bigger level, he knew that he really couldn't afford to.
Of course, telling that to the Ant-Lion Man was a difficult task.
"Look, I need to go," he said, his patience wearing thin. The Ant-Lion Man continued to wriggle in front of him, swinging his arms back and forth, utterly uncomprehending. "Where's my sword?"
"You no need sword now. You need rest." The Ant-Lion Man tried to push him back onto the bed, but Asch knocked his hands away.
"I don't need anything but to get my sword and leave, damn it! Where is it?!"
"It gone." The Ant-Lion Man said this simply and bluntly, and Asch blinked.
"Gone?"
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
"Me sell it to nice merchant. It sell for five thousand gald."
Asch stared. And stared. And stared some more.
"You sold it?!" His throat was still too dry to yell properly, but he was still impressed by the volume he did manage. The Ant-Lion Man, however, still appeared unrustled.
"You no need it anymore, yes? You stay here and rest. Me sell the sword you no need, and make nice profit."
"That wasn't yours to sell, you worthless piece of—!" Asch choked back his words, biting back the snarling oath he so badly wanted to say. Whatever the Ant-Lion Man had done with his sword, he likely wouldn't even be alive without the strange man's help, and he knew it. "Whatever! Just get out of my way. I'll get a new sword once I get out of this place."
"You stay here and—" the Ant-Lion Man started to say, but Asch—his patience completely lost—shoved the Ant-Lion Man out of his way and stomped toward the exit of the room. It was still a bit hard to walk in a straight line, but even so, he didn't look back as he left the room and rounded the corner.
There'd be plenty of time to repay the Ant-Lion Man later, after he'd saved Auldrant from crisis.
Of course, there was never a time when Auldrant wasn't in crisis. There was never a time to break, to rest, or to relax, and though Asch eventually regained his strength even without the Ant-Lion Man's help, he couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit guilty for leaving in the way he did, especially since he'd never said thank you.
So the next time he passed through Chesedonia, although he was there on business and didn't have time to stop, he made a detour for the alley he'd stumbled through before. Sure enough, the Ant-Lion Man was there, wriggling next to a giant sand pit, which Asch assumed must have been the pit he'd fallen through.
"Me, Ant-Lion Man!" the Ant-Lion Man said as Asch neared, and though it was difficult, Asch restrained a snap that yes, he knew that already. "You, give me stuff!"
"That was the plan," Asch said shortly, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a small pouch of gald, which he held out. The Ant-Lion Man snatched it from his grasp. "Five thousand gald, as tha—payment for helping me before." The Ant-Lion Man stared at it for a moment before he tossed it into the pit, swinging his arms back and forth as the gald pouch disappeared down the middle. "Hey, what are you—"
"Thank you!" the Ant-Lion Man said cheerfully, interrupting him. Asch shut his mouth, and though he felt as though he'd just wasted five thousand gald, a little voice in the back of his mind told him that perhaps the pit was just a portal to the Ant-Lion Man's home, rather than just a pit that the Ant-Lion Man had fished him out of before. "Come again!"
"Yeah," Asch said, even as he turned away to stomp back the way he'd came. It wasn't as if he had time to socialize, after all. "Don't bet on it."
But still, if the Ant-Lion Man could somehow make a portal from Chesedonia to Nam Cobanda Isle, and if that talent could be utilized for other purposes, maybe future visits wouldn't be such a waste of time after all . . .