The Wounded
Air pressure assaulted Louise's as she soared across the skies. All around her she could see around a hundred Hunters flying in the same direction as she was. Behind her, the floating city slowly became smaller and smaller. She took a glance to her left to see a Kleiner Hunter performing weapon system checks for all of his arsenal. Another Hunter below the previous one had an anxious look on her face. To her right another Wolyn Hunter had a stone-cold look in his eyes, telling her that he's experienced an incident like this before.
Aside from these Hunters, she also picked up radio chatter between two Wolyn Hunters. Nothing much noteworthy to pay attention to, just two friends talking bravado about how they will deal with the threat really quickly. She checked her radar, which was located in the lower left of her vision. They were close. Looking forward, she spotted seven dots that were getting more and more recognisable. Suddenly, her head was assaulted with a loud radio static.
"Alright Hunters, we got ourselves a situation. If you take a look over at bearing 245 you will see the problem,"
Louise looked towards the bearing mentioned. Initially, she couldn't see nothing, only a massive expanse of desert. Her brows furrowed; she then commanded her eyes to zoom in. The ground was now closer than before to the point that she can even see some dried foliage on the sand. Scanning the same bearing from left to right, her results remained the same – nothing. She gave it one more look over.
Sand
Sand
Sand
Dried foliage
Sand
Large black ball
Sand
Sa-
Louise took a half-second to realize the oddity on the sand. She refocused her sight at the black ball. The chip in her head began to scan the ball, giving information she needed. The results presented itself, it displayed some numbers that she didn't bother looking at. What she did look at however was the label above the information given to her
[RAVAGER MONSOON]
[RADIUS: 250m]
[THREAT LEVEL: 5/5]
[DISTANCE: 16.7 km]
"Note to self: 500,000 rpm is too much even for a railgun," Louise groaned.
A large crater was formed from where she fixed herself. A large smoke screen had accumulated blocking any sort of vision within two meters. Even with the assistance of a nanotech wall, the recoil of the railgun that she had formed was still too much. Nevertheless, she still had to confirm the kill. Standing up like nothing had happened, her back shifted into its usual thrusters. Lifting herself up from the crater, she emerged out of the smoke and looked over to the direction where she fired her railgun.
If there was one thing that Louise admired about railgun cannons, it is their ability to absolutely destroy their target. The fact that what she fired was something akin to the firepower of an orbital cannon clearly showed its effects on the massive rock golem. She had aimed directly at its centre mass. From the looks of it, when that small piece of rock impacted the golem it punctured a massive hole while at the same time causing its upper torso to outright explode and scatter in a million pieces. In fact, the velocity at which the rock was going was so fast that she can see some clouds part.
Cutting her observations short since she still hasn't confirmed a kill, she flew towards the destruction. As large smokescreen had piled up due to the golem's collapse, preventing Louise from seeing anything past the smoke. Not a problem, with a simple thought process, Louise's vision changed from what she normally sees into thermal. Now, she can see multiple figures, all were in a prone figure and covering their ears. She winced and felt bad for causing them temporary deafness. Nevertheless, she can apologize later, the intruder is still out and about.
A solid minute had passed and her frown became deeper, despite having thermal vision, it seems that the intruder had eluded her. She tried looking for a figure moving away from the scene of battle, problem was, there were also other people further away from the fight. After confronting three people who were far from the fight, she concluded that none of them were the intruder. She clicked her tongue. It shouldn't be that hard to find the intruder, after all their ears should be the one that's ringing the most.
The smoke that had gathered had finally settled and from the looks of it, the knights, students, teachers and even Henrietta were regaining their hearing. Louise landed and approached Colbert, who was still rubbing his ears.
"Colbert!" she called out.
"Huh!?"
The fire mage looked towards Louise, "The intruder escaped,"
This made Colbert click his tongue. "We must consult with the princess, if I am right, then who we fought against was none other than Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt,"
Louise looked at him in confusion, "Who's Fouquet?"
Upon hearing that question, she could see Colbert seize up, this made the pink-haired cyborg upset. Apparently, they didn't trust her enough to debrief her about who their up against. She breathed out a 'really', her frown turned to a pissed look. Colbert started backing away, a cautious expression on his face, he even went so far as to aim his staff at her. Before it could get anymore worse, Louise managed to calm herself down. The core in her chest, which had unconsciously turned red returned back to a dim pink. The took a deep breath before asking him a question.
"What do you know about this Fouquet?"
Colbert hesitated to answer but spoke out nevertheless; a thief that's well known to steal artefacts and pricey items from nobles. A noble gone rogue. A square class earth mage. After hearing out Colbert Louise started thinking. Then, that's when it clicked.
"Can earth mages create tunnels?"
Colbert tilted his head in confusion, "A dot earth mage can make a small den a square class ca-,"his eyes opened wide in realisation. "You don't mean… actually it makes sense, earth mages thrive more underground, due to their capability to sense vibrations,"
"That, and because the ground is cold… cold enough so that the intruder could hide from my thermal vision,"
Colbert raised an eyebrow prompting Louise to sigh. Deciding that it's better to tell him now rather than have him pestering him about it, she explained her thermal vision and how she is able to see through the smoke using the body heat of each individuals. Of course, Colbert's reaction was to give her a look of doubt, Louise just shrugged, telling him that she's told him the truth and it's up to him whether he should believe it or not.
Looking to the side, she saw her old childhood friend using her water magic to heal some of the injured students who were caught in the crossfire. Louise approached her which prompted guards near her to grab their swords, in wary of her presence. Henrietta took notice of the sudden tension from her soldiers and looked at Louise, an uncomfortable look on her face.
"Princess, any idea how this all started?" she asked.
One of the knights that stood beside her grit his teeth and was going to give Louise a piece of his mind for speaking in such an impolite way to their beloved princess but was halted when Henrietta spoke.
"Once we proceeded with the awarding ceremony, a maid came running and started yelling about how there was a golem attacking the academy. When Captain Agnès asked where she pointed us to the direction. I rallied some guards while a few helped with the evacuation. Your sister, Eleonore was fighting the golem off when we reached the location, we tried everything in our power to destroy the golem but whatever we did, it would always regenerate its wounds. Just when we were running out of ideas a deafening boom overcame the entire school and the next thing I knew; the golem's upper torso had been blown away,"
Louise winced. "Yeah, that loud boom was because of me… sorry about that,"
Henrietta widened her eyes a mix of awe and disbelief that told her 'you seriously did that?'. The entire conversation wasn't missed by the other knights, the one beside Henrietta had a look of doubt in his eyes. Meanwhile, others didn't care what she said and opted for a more 'logical' reason as to how the golem collapsed. She didn't know what's more logical than a small piece of rock hitting a large golem at Mach 12. While Henrietta tried to grasp the idea of her childhood friend's capability to cause such a destruction something clicked inside of Louise's head.
"I-Is my big sister alright?"
That made the princess seize up. Her words stuttered as she tried to say something. This didn't bode well for the cyborg, her concern rapidly increasing. A few seconds of not hearing an answer, she demanded to know where her sister is located.
Cracks formed underneath Louise as she made a mad dash towards the infirmary, not once did she lose speed. Maids and servants who were running to and from, moved out of the way as soon as they spotted the barrelling cyborg. Worry etched on Louise's face as she neared the infirmary, where she was told where her sister was placed. Behind her and the one that mostly went unnoticed was her pod bot companion, Bench.
When she reached the door, she slammed it open it almost fell off its hinges. A long room that was filled with bed all lined up side by side. Water mages ran everywhere like a busy ant colony, treating injured students, servants and maids. Fortunately, the people who required medical attention were lesser than the water mages who were capable of healing magic.
Louise started to walk around, eyeing every single patient. And the further she went the feeling of dread increased because initially the patients who were closest to the entrance of the infirmary had injuries ranging from dizziness to a slight bruising. The further down she went the symptoms and physical conditions for each patient started getting worse.
It was when she finally reached the very end of the room did, she froze. Doing a small head count, she counted around nine water mages. From the looks of their faces, they all looked like they were struggling to save the person that was on the blood drenched bed. One of the doctors moved aside and started washing his bloodied hands. This action led to a series of reactions. First was Louise taking a look at whoever was on the verge of death, then she rushed towards the bed as fast as she could. Her eyes turned into pinpricks as she observed the almost dead patient.
The way how her chest moved paradoxically told her that might've broken several ribs. The open wound that's on her stomach, caused by a rock spike. Multiple bruises scattered her body, the crushed right arm and left leg. Despite all of these the part that was the least damaged was the head. Louise locked on her face; she was unconscious for now but it won't take long before she'll remain that way forever. With a trembling hand, she cupped Eleonore's cheek. She ignored the looks that the water mages were giving her. One of them whispered to another, questioning as to who she is.
"How is her condition?"
That left all of them in confusion. One however, answered. "She has multiple broken ribs, a crushed arm and leg, internal bleedings and a stab wound. We're trying our best but she's losing a large amount of blood,"
While the last bit was a standard way of ensuring Louise but from how grim the atmosphere feels and how tired the water mages look, she can tell that her sister's life is slowly slipping away from their hands. She needs immediate treatment right now, possibly even a serious surgery. Louise took a deep breath before turning around and looking at Bench.
"Bench, do you still have those files about medical surgeries?"
There was a short silence as Bench searched through his whole memory banks. Two petabytes worth of information dismissed as the pod bot searched for the information that Louise needed. Less than ten seconds later, Bench gave out a pinging noise telling her that he had found it. Louise gave the pod bot a nod before turning around exposing the nape of her neck. The synthetic skin separated and what was pushed out was a small chip. A compartment opened up in Bench front revealing a small claw which took the chip. Afterwards, Louise fell unconscious.
Due to nothing taking control of her brain, the nanomachines also collapsed and what was left was a black puddle of nanomachines that looked like ashes and Louise's head. One of the water mages, a female fainted at the sight of the head while another tried his best not to throw up. If Bench had eyes, he'd be rolling them right now. He poured all of the knowledge he'd rummaged from the Pre-War Earth about medical sciences into the chip. This took a solid thirty seconds of the water mages trying to get their bearings together while Bench transferred and backed up his databanks.
Once the transfer was done, the chip came out the same way it came it, through a claw. He tried reaching for Louise's head but since, it was tilted in an angle it made it difficult for the pod bot. If he could sigh, he'd be doing it right now. He turned and faced one of the water mages, a female who looked like on the verge of fainting.
Beggars can't be choosers he supposed.
"Hey," this made the mage flinch but she looked at him. "Pick up Louise and face her back towards me,"
"B-b-but I-I-,"
"Do you want your patient to live?!" Bench said while giving out alarmed pings. She nodded and with shivering hands, she kneeled down and took Louise.
Her skin crawled and her arm hairs rose as she picked the head up. It felt like she was holding an actual head, the synthetic skin didn't help. Once she faced the nape of Louise's neck to Bench, the pod bot inserted the chip back into the small spot where it first came out. The chip was taken and it took a solid second before Louise's eyes opened.
This prompted a shriek from the woman who was holding her and through sheer terror of holding a head let Louise go. Fortunately, she didn't land on the ground since the moment she regained consciousness the Ravager Core reawakened and instantly gathered all of the nanomachines. Louise's body reformed in mere seconds making everyone in the room who was watching look with awe.
A few seconds passed before Louise finally processed the new information given to her. Her back started growing arms with each one holding a specific surgical tool. One arm which was a needle lowered towards Eleonore, the needle pierced her skin. She took a small sample of blood before removing the needle. Her robotic mind analysed the blood and started triangulating as to what blood type her sister was.
"A negative," Louise muttered.
Now the next problem presents itself. Finding a donor with the right blood type. Fortunately, she already has nine unwilling subjects. She pointed a finger towards one of them, a male, young with some level of experience. She asked him for his arm to which he was about to reject but was then silence when she gave him a harsh glare. A needle and an analysis later found that he was a B positive. She repeated this process for the rest and found that out of nine, only three were compatible with Eleonore's blood type. An O negative male, and two A negatives female and male. Separating the three from the others she looked at them.
"I'm going to need your blood; I'll transfer some of your blood to Eleonore so that she'll live longer. Understand? If you feel dizzy later on, switch with the other person… you can ask questions later. Right now, we need save my sister, understand?"
Even though there was hesitation in their eyes they agreed. They didn't know what they were signing up to but from how they looked at Louise they could tell that she knew more about the current situation than what she lets on. Her nanomachines formed a small tube followed by the formation of two needles on both ends of the tube. One for Eleonore and one for the blood donor. The first one who stepped up was the O negative male. Louise punctured the needle making him wince. Afterwards, she pierced the needle through Eleonore non crushed left arm and began the blood transfer.
She then looked at the remaining mages who didn't qualify. "Do you guys know ay spells that can numb the pain?"
All of them started fidgeting in their place, feeling inadequate but a hand from the back rose. Pushing past the group a middle-aged woman with raven black hair met Louise. The cyborg nodded and turned towards Eleonore.
"Alright, I'm going to ask you to numb certain body parts… could you do that?"
"Yes,"
She back towards the remaining five water mages. She asked them to search around the school for ingredients that could make dextrose. While not hospital quality, it should be enough. They all nodded and left the infirmary. Louise took a deep breath before the nanomachines covered her mouth. She then formed another mask and give it to the mage in charge of applying anaesthesia. Louise closed her eyes before opening them again, a determined look in her eye.
"I'll save you, sis,"
A/N: I bet you didn't see that coming huh? With Eleonore mortally wounded and everybody in the school licking their wounds what are they going to do? Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt is still on the lose and despite the being an exceptional earth mage, Eleonore still lost! Tell me your thoughts about today's chapter. I'm open to assumptions, if you can, try and guess what's in store for Eleonore in the future chapters!
In any case, I hope all of you enjoyed today's chapter. Initially, I was thinking of having Louise and Fouquet duke it out in this chapter but I changed my mind. What I want is more development for both Louise and Eleonore. Is it too much for Louise to suddenly gain knowledge of modern medical science? Is it too convenient? Tell me in your reviews!
On separate note, I'll be taking a break... I'll be celebrating Christmas! Once that's done expect for me to return! So for now, I bid you all a Merry Christmas!
With all of that said and done, time to read the reviews!
Lucian Naruto: With the newest chapter things will definitely take a massive turn for Eleonore. Based on the severity of her injuries she'll be having problems sleeping. Question is, will she be able to recover from this or will she remain haunted by her phantom pains.
And with that I bid you all adieu!
Peace~