A/N: We left off with the team deciding not to tell Agura. I cannot tell you guys how nice it was to get this chapter written! It's long, hooray, and we'll get not only Vergura but a flashback (that I'm unabashedly proud of) and some humorous AJ/Vert camaraderie thrown in besides, just to keep those spirits up. Read on!
Vert was allowed visitors the next morning. While Agura was undeniably first in line once again, she promised herself that she wouldn't take up all of his allotted time.
"Good morning, beautiful," Vert tilted his bandaged head towards her as she walked in, and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
"How'd you know?"
"Well you couldn't have changed that much in the past few days," he responded wryly.
"I meant that it was me, Vert." Agura sat down and took his hand, gently stroking his warm fingers with her own.
"Because I know you," he replied simply. "But I'm glad you're here now." His grip on her hand tightened, and Agura smoothed his hair back lovingly.
"How much longer until these come off?" She asked wistfully, thumbing the bandages over his eyes.
"Soon, I think," Vert chuckled.
"Good," Agura sighed. "I need to see you."
"At least you can see part of me," he groaned, and guilt blossomed in her heart. "Feels like I haven't looked at you in weeks."
"Eh." Agura shrugged. "I haven't changed that much in the past few days," she smiled and tousled his hair again. "Oh, I'm sorry, is this hurting you?" She bit her lip and pulled her hand away.
"No, no, it isn't," Vert was quick to assure her. "Please." He took her hand, brought it to his chest. "I mean, my skin is fine. Really. I can't feel a thing."
"I'm glad you're getting better," Agura smiled, pushing back his hair once more. God, she just wanted to run her fingers through it and kiss him and touch him. Her words were a meaningless effort to bridge the sexual tension between the two; she was hardly allowed to touch him and yet it was all she could concentrate on. Restraining the urge felt like fighting against a magnetic pull.
"Sage says I should be out within a week," he commented absentmindedly. Neither of them was focused on the conversation now, just the rhythmic strokes of her fingers through his hair, his thumb rubbing the inside of her palm. Agura had never felt more at peace than she did then, wishing she could close her eyes and fall asleep in his arms. Every ounce of her being wanted nothing more than to be with him again, unrestricted, free. She sighed, let his hand slip from her grasp, pulled her hand from his locks, stood up knowing she had to be stronger than this. He barely held back a sigh of longing as he felt her leave him.
"I'll send in AJ, okay?" Agura offered by means of compensation, even though she could feel that electric current trying to pull her back. "He misses you." It took everything she had to resist the pull, and she lingered just a moment more.
"You're still there," he stated, unable to disguise the amusement in his voice at the fact. Agura blushed.
"I just… really want to kiss you." She confessed.
"What's stopping you?"
She loved this about him, the frank honesty and carefree joie de vivre that she could never bring herself to match. "I—I can't hurt you."
The faintest smile touched his lips. "Do you honestly think you would be hurting me?"
Agura shook her head wryly. God, he was irresistible. She approached him again, sat in the chair at his bedside and gripped his hand tightly once more. He felt her lips brush over his own and then press, fervently, as if she couldn't get enough of him, and he felt the same way. He brought his other hand up and cradled her cheek, brushing his thumb along the soft curve of her jaw. She wished that she didn't need to breathe. He wished that he could look into her eyes. And finally, they had to break apart, each gasping for air and still yearning for the other.
Agura was the first to speak, to recover from the ache.
"I'll get AJ." She practically ran out, her heart pounding in her ears. If she had stayed any longer, she never would have left. As the infirmary doors slid shut behind her Agura pressed a finger over her tingling lips and smiled, as if the two of them were wrapped up in a conspiracy of affection. She leaned against the cyan wall and lingered for just a moment, reflecting on the pull between them, and finally peeled away to find AJ.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Hey, man." His best friend was the next in line.
"Hey AJ." Vert sighed. Being with him was far different than being with Agura. He knew it was important for his friends to see that he was on the mend but he felt uncomfortable surrendering to his teammates obvious proof that even their leader was not invincible.
"Wow," AJ chuckled quietly, taking in all of his wires and gauze. "This is worse than the time we duct-taped our snowmobiles together."
"Yeah, remind whose idea that was again," Vert drawled sarcastically, and AJ laughed.
"Okay, I'll admit it wasn't my best idea," he acknowledged, holding his hands up in surrender. "But let's not forget the two-man skiing team of '08…"
"It'd be a lot easier to forget if you would stop bringing it up every two seconds…" Vert muttered, but couldn't mask his amusement.
"Hey, it wasn't your legs that ski flew up between…"
"As you continue to forget, that happened to both of us at the same time, and your overly feminine cry of pain drowned out mine," Vert chided.
"Overly feminine—please!" AJ exclaimed. "You should have heard your screams of terror when we stayed up all night watching monster movies—"
"And your little sister jumped out from behind the couch in a werewolf mask and made you wet your pants?"
"Dude, that was ONE TIME!" AJ defended. "And in third grade, too, who didn't wet their pants now and then?"
"Um, most normal third graders?"
"Oh, you want to talk about normal third graders?" AJ snorted. "You refused to use the erasers on the end of your pencils because you were worried about where the letters had gone!"
"For the last time, that was a PHASE!" Vert groaned in exasperation but laughed all the same, and at the moment, AJ felt as if a very large and sharp object had stabbed him right through the heart. This was Vert in front of him, joking around even though he was covered in bandages. Vert who had always been there for him and would never change, and now would never even have the chance.
Vert who was going to die, mutate, transform, melt, he didn't know. All AJ knew at the moment was that it hurt like a deep wound, one that would never fully heal. And Vert didn't even know what was to come.
"Dude, are you still with me? I didn't even hear a fiery retort," his friend joked, and AJ was momentarily pulled from his brooding.
"Oh, right, bandages. Sorry," he managed, thankful that Vert couldn't see the eyes that betrayed his blatant lie. "Um, how are those working for you?"
Vert sighed, and it conveyed all AJ needed for an answer.
"I'm really sorry, man," he said sincerely, not just for the bindings but for everything else. "I know it sucks right now, but they'll be gone soon, and if there's anything I can do in the meantime—"
"Don't let Zoom in." Vert said it suddenly, more like a spur-of-the-moment decision than anything else.
"Don't…Zoom?" AJ asked, perplexed. "But he really—"
"I know," Vert cut him off again, clearly upset. "I know. But he can't see me like this. In fact, none of them should."
AJ was worried his friend was becoming too drastic. "Vert, everyone understands that—"
"I'm their leader, AJ," the blond said forcibly. "They don't need to be reminded that people who do what we do can be hurt. They don't need to see that I'm not invincible. I don't want anybody else to visit me because I don't want them to know how injured I really am. I realize they want to see me but in the long run, I'm doing this for my team." AJ knew the words pained him, and Vert gritted his teeth as he spoke. "Only you and Agura can know."
"Don't you want to let them know you're okay?" AJ asked quietly. He could tell it had taken a lot of maturity to make such a decision but didn't want his friend to be too rash.
Vert's response was somber, repressed by his longing for contact with his friends. "They already believe it. If they see me like this, they won't."
AJ bit his lip. "You need to talk to Sage."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,
"Vert, I'm afraid that there is no easy way to deliver the news I am about to tell you."
"Sage, you know that you can tell me anything," Vert said. "What's going on?"
Sage turned away from him, facing the cyan wall but seeing none of it.
"Do you…remember anything? From Vandal?" She asked carefully. "After you went back?"
After a long silence from Vert, Sage turned around. It was difficult to discern how he felt about the matter, with those bandages over his eyes, but when he finally did respond, he sounded despairing.
"Don't tell Agura."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,
When he drove out of the portal the second time, they were there. Kalus and his three cronies all investigating the tracks he and she had left just moments ago. He caught them by surprise; he was at least that lucky. The portal zapped shut before he could go back through and so he drove, slamming the gas pedal into the floor as the mutants behind him clamored into their vehicles. He sliced through the jungle brush, driving blind without road or path to point him in any direction. His heart pounded and he thought of the warm body he had left behind him, remembered her plea.
Be careful.
It was a good thing she hadn't come along. His head swam with thoughts; he would have to find a clearing wide enough to activate the portal, but he couldn't do it until he lost the Vandals that were right on his tail. He heard them crashing behind and cursed; the path he had carved for himself was only making it that much easier for them to follow him. He had to get back to a road, had to get back to Earth.
The Saber jolted to a stop, jarring his bones as its blades bit into a trunk too dense for any metal. He slammed the car into reverse, tried getting out before they came, but it was no use. His car was stuck, and he with it.
They were gaining now, to the point where he could hear Kalus rallying his troops onward. He gritted his teeth; he would never let them take him.
He gritted his teeth and jumped out of the car—
And they were upon him.
Vert had hardly taken a step when the lion leapt from his own vehicle. Kalus seized him by the collar, his claws sinking into his skin.
"I've got you now, subcreature." He hissed, tightening his grip and slamming his enemy's back against the same trunk that had trapped his car. The man gasped for the air that had left him, and the lion cackled.
"Hatch! Tie this pathetic excuse for a warrior up!"
The insect scurried to do his captain's bidding, fastening thorned vines around the newfound prisoner's wrists so tightly that they drew the same blood that was being cut off to his appendages. Vert struggled, and Kalus took the butt of his spear and cracked it into the side of his head.
The Crimson One saw stars, and his head dipped, but he fought to retain his consciousness. He felt the warm blood dripping from his hands and into the cracked soil as the thorns dug deeper into his skin, and focused on the pain to keep him conscious.
"Take him back to the stronghold!" Kalus commanded, his eyes glinting with cruelty. "We will deal with the subcreature there," he added, dragging a single claw from his captive's forehead to jawline. Inherent malice seeped from his words and trickled like blood into Vert's eye. Kalus grabbed his prize and threw him between the teeth of Sever's Water Slaughter, clamping the mouth together so that he was trapped. The young man felt the decorative teeth bite through the Shocksuit and into his skin, a dull, constant pain throughout his body. The primitive engine roared in his ears and rattled his skull, and he glanced down to his hands, painted bright red by his own gore, the last thing he remembered seeing before succumbing to a leaden darkness.
His rise to consciousness was slow and murky, like digging up through layers of obscuring snow after being toppled by an avalanche. His right eye was blinded, crusted shut by dried blood. His hands were chained by a different means now, each separately to the wall behind him, leaving him hung up like a carcass for slaughter.
Which, he gulped as the deadly thought resonated in his already-nauseous stomach, was becoming more and more of a possibility.
His head throbbed where Kalus had attacked him. The ride in the Water Slaughter had left tiny, punctured bruises all over his body, and the claw marks around his neck from the lion's deathly grip formed a sort of decorative, gruesome necklace around his collar. Several other aches and pains told him that he hadn't been under Kalus's protection in his sleep, and all he wanted was to close his functioning eye and give in to it again.
"I see you're awake, subcreature," the salivated, all—too—familiar cackle of Hatch invaded his thoughts, and the man realized that he was in the insect's laboratory. "Captain Kalus will be so excited."
"Always glad to make an appearance, but I've really got to get going," Vert winced. Agura was probably worried sick about him, he realized, and wondered how long he had been out.
"You and I both know that that decision is not yours to make, fool."
The bone-chilling voice of Kalus pierced the humid jungle air, and the trapped young man inadvertently shivered. The great lion strutted into the cavern, eyes searching his captive hungrily, and Vert tried to avoid his stare by watching Sever and Krocomodo file in behind him.
The silence that hung in the air as he waited for Kalus to speak was suffocating.
"Now we will teach you why you should avoid our planet, subcreature," the captain said. Vert was in too much pain for banter, and did not respond. The captain growled, agitated by his silence, and swiped a paw across his prisoner's chest, leaving three distinct slashes in the courageous red suit. They began to bleed slowly, small droplets of crimson that ebbed from the wound like heartbeats.
"Captain Kalus, you should seal that wound. We wouldn't want to risk infection," Krocomodo sniggered, grabbing the nearest beaker from the earthen countertop and splashing half of its contents onto the glaring open wound. Instantly, the human's open flesh hissed in objection as the liquid seared his perforated chest, and he bit his lip until it bled to hold in the corresponding cry of pain.
"You fool!" Kalus snapped at Krocomodo, snatching the beaker from his grasp. "That's all that we have left!"
"Whaaa, now the experiment won't work!" Hatch sniveled, hopping from foot to foot in distress. "You moronic reptile!" He snapped, redirecting his anguish into anger at his comrade. "See what you've done?!"
"I didn't know that was the potion!" Krocomodo yelped defensively, while Kalus's disapproving eyes burned into him.
"If Hatch's plan fails, I will personally see to it that you are the next victim we experiment on," he said coldly, and Krocomodo gulped.
"Y—yes, Captain Kalus."
"Now," he continued, "Hatch, the next step."
"Of course, my Captain," Hatch said, retrieving a firebrandand handing it gingerly to his superior. Kalus regarded his quarry with a leer as he approached him, stooping low with the flame and touching it to his feet. Vert felt the heat intensify and knew it would not be long before the flame would devour his Shocksuit, leaving only bare flesh for it to feast on. The sparks jumped up and spread throughout the suit until he could feel the burning around his neck as his collar slowly disintegrated into ash.
"If you think that destroying me will destroy the threat of the Battle Force 5, then you're wrong," he said through gritted teeth. A bead of sweat escaped his forehead; the fire was already edging dangerously close to his skin.
"The plan is not so much to destroy but to demoralize, subcreature," Kalus answered menacingly. "But you can cease any attempt at banter, for we WILL annihilate you and everything you stand for. Your demise is…" The lion stuck his great paw into the flames and plucked a strip of burning Shocksuit from the human's shoulder. "Merely the spark," he chuckled, pinching the scrap between his claws and extinguishing the flame. "Sever, Krocomodo! Assemble the horde. Hatch, watch our prisoner closely."
His subordinates scurried out to perform their duties, and Kalus turned to look at Vert's burning form over his shoulder before he followed them.
"And make sure his flame is not extinguished too quickly. I want the screams to echo throughout every clan inhabiting this planet, the power of their warlord, Kalus!"
"It will be done, oh Mighty One!" Hatch bowed lowly, unable to resist a cackle of glee.
"Poor little subcreature, all chained up with no place to go!" He taunted, dancing around Vert's pyre.
"My team will stop you." Vert gasped for air as the flames began to lick at his face.
"Maybe so," Hatch chortled to himself, looking for all the world like a child in the midst of a candy store, "But alas, subcreature, alas! They will be too late!"
He wished he could say that he had been a hero. That he had glorified Earth and the Battle Force 5. That he had been brave. Strong. The very picture of composure. Everything a leader should be. That he hadn't screamed.
But as the fire burned, as the flames ate through his flesh and bit at every nerve ending, as the heat coursed through him until he felt his very soul tugging against the constraints of his body, desperate for an escape to either heaven or hell, he did cry out. He howled, he shouted, he pushed the agony out by any physical means possible. He sobbed until the fire had devoured even his tears, but they stemmed from the pain of loss rather than blaze.
He thought of Agura. He thought of his team, of Sage, of his father. He thought of their faces, of the last time he had seen Agura cry. It had been long, long ago, he recalled. He hated knowing that he would be the next cause of her tears, and he was trying to remember why she had cried that first time, the beginning, when they had started. Not when they had met, but rather when they had truly connected. He wondered why he was thinking of these things, and then the pain took him again, and he finally let the blackness of smoke surround him, deciding that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to die thinking about the person he loved the most, and dreaming of her kisses, soft like butterfly wings on his cheek. She enveloped his vision like an angel, his last saving grace, and just as he decided he was ready to let his soul free, when he was too tired to reach for her to hold on to, there was a splash, liquid all over his body, dousing the flames and bringing him the tiniest taste of cool, wonderful relief. And he was grateful for it, and about to say a prayer, and tell Agura that he would be able to come home to her, but then the relief vanished, and burned up in a heat greater in intensity than the fire itself, and it scorched and fused and mangled, acid on his flesh, and it created a pain like nothing he had ever felt before, and he tried to scream but not a sound came from him, and that was when the pain knocked him hard and sent him spinning, crashing, hurtling and falling, hopelessly and despairingly, into the dark.