Chase sat in his throne room, his entire body relaxed against the back of his seat. Eyes closed and breathing smooth and even. The warlord's mind was empty as he focused on calming every part of his body, every muscle slowly feeling as if they were numb and his surroundings were forgotten. Chase was about to completely drift off when there was a loud bang, shaking the entire room. His eyes flashed open and were glowing in anger from being interrupted for a brief moment. Several of his warriors had been resting around him and were all standing and hunched up, waiting for Chase's order.
"Stay. I will handle this myself." Chase stood from his throne and walked out of the lair, his warriors settling back down. He stepped out to the edge of the mountain cliff, not having seen anyone threats and tried to find the source of the explosion. The warlord sniffed the air and smelled smoke and a metallic taste went to the back of his throat. Chase sighed, an assumption of what had occurred ran though his mind, but a mild case of curiosity made him calmly travel down to the bottom of the mountain.
"Damn it!" A curse echoed out of a small cave Jack had claimed to use as a lab, Chase not caring that he had done so. The cave was not used by him or his warriors and with the scientist spending much of his time in there working, he did not bother Chase as often because of it.
"Spicer, what was that sound?" Chase asked, walking into the lab and finding the walls scorched and small metal parts scattered about the floor. Jack did not answer Chase's question and went on a rampage of harsh curses, the young man looking as if he was tossed into the wall near the entrance. "What happened?"
"I don't know." Jack groaned as he struggled to his feet, using the wall as an aid. "Something must have gotten cross-contaminated from my other machines and caused an erratic reaction with the catalyst solution." Jack rubbed the side of his head, realizing that he was speaking in a manor that Chase did not understand. "It blew up." He added and saw that the older man was sniffing the air, opening his mouth at one point to taste it. "What?"
"I taste blood." Chase stepped over towards Jack and sniffed again, the scent getting stronger. "You've been injured."
"What?" Jack repeated, adjusting his red-sleeveless shirt before patting his body, stopping and letting out a groan when he felt his hand getting wet after touching the back of his shoulder. "Oh, gross." He sighed, seeing the blood on his hand and let out a weak laugh. "It does look purple-ish." Jack put his hand down and dry-heaved. "I think I'm gonna be sick." He put the back of his other hand against his forehead. "I feel faint. I don't feel any pain. Am I going to die? Is this why dying feels like? I'm too young to-" Jack stopped and yelped when Chase grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. He let out several unintelligible sounds when he felt Chase's thumb sliding over the wound.
"The injury is no where near serious, looks like a deep scrap. A simple cleaning and patching will prevent it from getting infected and shouldn't take long for it to heal." Chase stated, releasing Jack's arm. "And for the not feeling any pain, you have a high amount of adrenaline running through you and when it finally stops, you will end up being in pain." Chase continued and found a piece of metal stuck to the wall close to where Jack had landed, blood on it's tip. "Looks like I've found the culprit, are you in danger of being poisoned in any way with this metal?" The warlord plucked the metal off of the wall and held it in front of Jack, who had pressed his hand into his cut.
"No, that's part of the table I was working on." Jack answered before peeking over his shoulder, trying to get a view of the injury. "Damn, I left all of my medical stuff at home."
"No need, I have bandages in my lair. We will go back, clean your wound and patch you up." Chase stated. "We will also be putting a numbing cream on it so when your adrenaline does wear off, I do not have to listen to you whine and cry about being in pain instead of working on the microlattice." He added, speaking a little quicker than what Jack was used to hearing. Jack soon forgot about the speech pattern when he thought of an idea.
"What if we just used magic to heal it? Surly there's like a spell or something that insta-heals things." Jack suggested.
"You do not need magic for a minor wound, Spicer. If we used magic to fix every single injury then your body would never know how to heal itself." Chase said, heading out of the lab with Jack following like a pet. "Your body would grow weak and then the simplest wound could easily become a death threat if you are unable to summon any magic." He continued, stopping when he saw that Jack was about to put on his heli-pack. "Absolutely not." Chase growled.
"What? It's how I get up there." Jack protested. "That weird path thing you've got is too much effort."
"Your device is probably covered in an unnecessary amount of dirt and oil and your wound does not need that. We do not want any chances of infection. Now, walk." Chase ordered, leading the way without waiting for a response.
"Bossy McBosser pants." Jack muttered under his breath and struggled up the mountain path, gasping for air by the time the two men reached the top.
"You'd think with all of the running away that you do, you'd be able to handle a small climb." Chase said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
"That was...no...small climb." Jack said, leaning over and still holding his shoulder. "We must have been climbing for hours."
"It was ten minutes." Chase corrected.
"What the fuck, man!?" Jack whined.
"Quit your complaining and get inside before I change my mind and let you suffer." Chase warned, watching Jack suddenly catching his breath and sprint into the lab. He let out a sigh when Jack let out a shriek of fear not even a second later. The young man had probably ran into one of his warriors. Even with the fact that they were less likely to attack him, Jack still had a large fear of the jungle cats. Chase couldn't blame him too much for his fear, since he had used them to forcibly remove Jack from him presence.
"Nice kitty, good kitty, please don't eat me." Chase walked in to find Jack sitting on top of a rock ledge, one of his warriors sitting at the bottom and smirking, obviously amused by the young man's reaction. "Your cat-"
"Warrior."
"-tried to eat me!" Jack yelled.
"What are you speaking of, Spicer? My warriors do not attack without my command." Chase stated.
"I ran in and it started to lick my blood! It was getting a taste of me!" Jack cried.
"Raja, get Nani and both of you gather my medical supplies." Chase ordered before turning his attention back to Jack. "Several notes for your accusation. Raja is a male, not an it. He was only following his instincts and cleaning the wound, as animals tend to do."
"That's gross, I have cat slobber all over me now."
"A feline's mouth is much cleaner than a human's. It's especially cleaner than yours." Chase added the last comment and smirked a little at Jack's offended huff. "And if you continue to reek of fear every time that you are near one of my warriors, they will never respect you and will continuously treat you as either a mindless kit or a play-toy."
"Can you blame-"
"No excuses. Now get down." Jack let out several mutters as he climb back down. Chase waited till Jack was on the ground before walking off, Jack following without needing to be told. Chase was relieved to not hear Jack complain about how many steps they were taking. "Sit." He ordered, pointing to a marble bench when they reached a large and open floor. Jack obeyed with no protest, rubbing his shoulder and showing that the adrenaline was gone. "Looks like I was correct." Chase said. One of his ears twitched when he heard a soft mewl before a soft body pressed against the back of his legs. He turned around to face his warriors, the two feline's carrying baskets in their mouths. "Good job." Chase rubbed the top of both warrior's head before taking the baskets. "You're dismissed." The warriors bowed their heads and padded off. Chase went back over to Jack and knelt on to the floor, the baskets next to him. Jack opened his mouth to say something when Chase pulled out several sharp blades from one of the baskets. He swallowed as one of the blades was almost as large as Chase's hand, the metal reflecting in the light before being sat down on the ground with the others. "They're not going to be used on you, Spicer. They're simply covering the bandages that I need."
"What are they used for?" Jack couldn't help himself from asking as Chase continued to empty the baskets. Several white bandages came out of the one basket and Chase was now removing leaves and bottles from the other.
"They're used for cutting the bandages to appropriate length and for when something gets lodged into the flesh that needs to be removed." Chase stacked the baskets and set them aside.
"If you're immortal, why do you need all of these medical things?"
"I may be immortal, but I can still get injured, as can my warriors and any allies that I require." Chase ripped a leaf and dropped it into a small bowl.
"Oh. I thought you just wore the armor as a fashion accessory." Jack admitted as Chase soaked a cloth in water.
"Clothes mean nothing to me, Spicer. I could walk around bare and have no worries. But I do like to have precautions since I do not wish to deal with healing if I do get injured." Jack made sure that he didn't say anything about the 'no clothes' comment and the contradiction of a body being weak if it doesn't heal and continued rubbing his shoulder.
"What are you making?" He asked instead.
"A numbing and anti-bacterial potion." Chase answered, adding several drops of liquid from a bottle to the bowl.
"That's so cool." Jack said in awe as Chase dipped the hand that was covered in Jack's blood into the bowl, the liquid turning white and as it was stirred with his fingers, the liquid started clumping and was soon a thick paste.
"Indeed, magic does have its uses." Chase said and stood up after grabbing his supplies. The warlord walked around Jack and laid out the items next to the younger man. Jack's hand was slapped away from his shoulder and was replaced with the wet rag, the cold making Jack shiver. The cloth was soon dropped in front of Jack, it landing in his hands. "Clean your hands, I will not have you spreading your blood all over my lair."
"Okay." Jack said as he did what he was told. "Is that potion thing going to hurt-" He let out a curse of pain, dropping the cloth as Chase slapped some of the paste over his wound.
"Yes." Chase stated.
"That was cause I called your warriors 'cats', wasn't it?" Jack gasped as more of the potion was rubbed in, stinging the wound intensely.
"I don't know what you mean, Spicer." Chase said, the sarcasm dripping in his voice. Jack didn't bother responding to that comment as the potion finally kicked in and he could no longer feel the stinging. "Are you numb?"
"Yes. Thank every divine creature in the universe." Jack groaned.
"After I patch this up, we'll go to the dining room and if I'm content with your color shading, we will begin your next drawing lesson."
"But, my lab."
"Your lab can wait till tomorrow unless there is something down there that would cause another explosion."
"I don't even know how much damage that explosion caused. I hope I don't have to start all over." Jack sighed.
"Just get the armor done." Chase lightly patted the bandages after getting them placed and taped. "You're done, help me clean up and we'll head down for you lesson."
"Yes, sir." Jack said with a small smile, weakly chuckling when Chase's only response was an eye-roll and scoff.