Summary: After the fight, the trio have to ground themselves.

Set after 352.

AAAAAAH, 352. 8D Vague spoilers.

Thanks to Kai for prodding the plotbunny, and oceanlover4evr for giving me their thoughts about Dark Spear.

I didn't make any assumptions about how the fight ended, so I made it as vauge as possible, haha.

Grounding

By Dark Ice Dragon

Tao wobbled on his feet after the fight, slumping against Takeo. He winced, his throat dry, the places where Dark Spear (was that even its name anymore? Should they call it something else?) had transformed feeling like the flesh had been flayed off the bone.

'If you give us more access we can-'

Shitshitshit. Tao clamped down on Dark Spear, gasping as Dark Spear spread further anyway, inch by inch. He heard an accompanying groan from Takeo and shit, their Dark Spears were setting each other off.

When they took T2, it was an all-or-nothing transformation: they couldn't control how long it lasted and once it was over, the only way they could transform again was by taking the drug again.

This kind of maintaining wasn't something they were used to.

It wasn't working. Every time Tao started getting control, Takeo's aura lashed out, making his own react, and Tao knew he was doing the same back. Fuck, they should have listened to Boss, but they'd needed that extra boost-!

Tao registered someone approaching them, but he ached too much to move and if he got distracted, Dark Spear would consume him.

Someone slammed into him and Takeo, wrapping an arm around his neck, and all three of them went down in a heap.

Tao sucked air into his lungs, trying to keep his concentration - and then let it out in a spluttered laugh when someone's breath tickled his ear. And that growl was one he would recognise anywhere.

Tao blinked, the grip Dark Spear had on him loosening and sliding away. Huh? What was going on?

M-21 turned his attention to Takeo, nuzzling the side of Takeo's face and Tao saw the fur stripes (and, really, they had to talk to Boss about that) on his cheek disappear as M-21 passed over them.

Oh. Oooh! Was M-21's aura disrupting Dark Spear's?

When M-21 lifted his head to peer at them, his slitted eyes were shrinking back to their usual shape, though still a little pointier than usual.

Okay. They could do this.

"Hey!" Thundering feet. "Are you all right?"

"We're fine!" Tao called back, waving a hand in Regis and Rael's general direction. "Just...give us a minute. Or twenty." Maybe they could just sleep here. It wasn't like anyone else would be able to find them.

"Ah, all right." The footsteps left.

Tao heard M-21 growl.

His brain somehow got 'Comrades safe?'

Yeah. They really had to talk to Boss some more about Dark Spear.

"We're safe," Takeo said, patting M-21 on the shoulder. His bare shoulder, and now that the fight was over, Tao could lament over how the new suit still hadn't lasted. It had been close, but not enough.

He could make a new one though, and Tao smiled, seeing M-21's eyes stop flickering and settle to their usual shape.

Once they'd slept and made sure everything was back in order.