A/N: Sorry about the wait again. I've been finding myself thinking a lot about my FanFics recently and am now writing this at 11:45 pm on the one day a week where I don't work at all the next day. I may even go back to Undertale, re-write the fic I have of that, and possibly even jump back to Doki Doki Literature Club to really crack down on that re-write. It's been 2 years since I updated that, after all.
Current obligations first, theories for later.
Chapter 8: Respite, Recovery, and Reevaluation
"Gah, fuck." I hiss quietly as the in-castle medical professional, a pleasant-ish lady with waist-length chartreuse colored hair, changes my bandages. I'm still sore from the events a month prior, where my ass got shot near dead-center through my chest with what was later determined to be a super heavy metal bullet specifically designed to penetrate armor on war vehicles, and fought off a killer robot while trying my damnedest to defend Queen Gwain ('And pretty much succeed aside from her injury,' I think to myself with the rare bout of pride).
Said professional levels a half-lidded stare at me. "I've said it before and I say it again; You're lucky that you got off with-"
"-This much, yes, I know. It doesn't stop it from hurting like a total bitch." I reply, only to let out a wheezing sigh of air against my will as she tugs the fresh bandages going on just a touch too tight.
"Use this as a lesson to be more careful. Frankly, I'm amazed that you were even conscious when you got back to the castle." She reiterates for the what must be the hundredth time since I started being treated for this. I recognize what this is; a dig for information on me.
It should go without saying, but Gwain kept as much of the staff of the castle proper unaware to my true nature as a Human as was possible; as far as I am aware, only Gwain, Ami, Elo, and B-Top are aware of that status. And I have every intent of keeping it that way.
"And I've told you time and time again that I don't know how it happened. It could have been adrenaline, Gwain's light magic keeping me going, or something else entirely. I just don't know." I reiterate. Again.
"Mm." she grunts, and I know that, once again, she doesn't believe me. I suppose that's fair because I actually do know the reason, and I'm not telling her it. Maybe she's good at picking up lies?
"... Look." I sigh, and she glances up at my non-visor covered eyes. "I actually do know the reason but I'd be in real deep shit with Gwain if I told you it exactly. Just know that It's nothing that will impede my recovery in any massive way, and you don't need to worry about my health declining. I'm perfectly healthy if you consider my circumstance." I mutter to throw her a bone.
She seems to consider this, then nods. "If Gwain has prohibited you from telling me this information, then I cannot overturn that. Thank you for at least telling me this much."
I shrug. "I'm not an ass, and I don't like to see people struggle on something for no really good reason. If you do figure it out though, please don't talk to anyone about it and keep it between you, myself, and Gwain. It'll make things infinitely easier for all of us." I implore.
"Alright." she states, and then finishes binding my chest. "Okay, you're good to go; same as before, no strenuous activity unless necessary, and get plenty of rest, water, and food. Magic doesn't seem to quite be as cooperative on you as anybody else I've treated, so it's slow going."
"Yeah, and don't I wish it weren't the case." I grumble, before standing with a small wince and a sigh. "Thanks again, Sonata. I know I'm kind of a pain in the ass patient, but I really do appreciate you putting up with my grumbling for as long as you do."
"Don't mention it. You may not know it yet, but you're starting to grow on Gwain. That's more than enough for me to want to help out." Sonata replies with a smile before turning to her notes and writing something down. "Now, get. I have other things to handle today." she playfully chides.
"Yeah, yeah." I say with an eye roll and a small smirk. "Have a good one." I finish as I walk out with a wave behind my back.
It's only 5 minutes to Gwain's throne room from the medical wing, which I know she's at by this point, reading a book. She's relaxing as much as she can with heavy bandaging around her right leg, though she's practically done with it in a couple days. It's gonna take a few more weeks for me to be done with mine.
I'm not jealous, you're jealous. Stop looking at me like that.
"Hey Gwain." I state casually as I slowly walk into the throne room, my gait somewhat strained and hunched over.
Gwain looks up from her book and smirks, gently snapping it closed. "I see that you've still got your bandaging." Gwain replies to my greeting, and I shrug slightly.
"Being a Human not from this world does have its downsides. Healing magic isn't as sticky on me as it would be for the average Teoran, beneficial magic in general isn't as potent on my person, and combat magics fuck me up badly, as you already know." I reply. "But at the very least I only have this for another week, given nothing else happens. It's still been faster going than just the normal healing process."
"Indeed. I will have this removed by tomorrow evening myself." Gwain replies, before shaking her head. "If I'm being honest, I'm amazed that you even managed to fight in the circumstances we found ourselves."
"Gwain, I'm the Human here and I'm astonished that I managed it. I was always a ninny at home and had the pain tolerance of a 10 year old, and yet I managed to fight through it for long enough to get us outta there." I mutter, not used to admitting to my own faults rather than have them pointed out.
"No matter." Gwain states as she gingerly stands, making sure her leg isn't getting irritated on the way up. "This gives us time to recuperate after what happened. Frankly, I'm amazed that Luna had the guts to attack you and I so blatantly, and I think it's time to reevaluate my standing on her."
"That's... fine? I'm not sure why you're telling me this, I don't really have any input on the matter..."
"That's fine, I just need to consider things." Gwain states, before stretching her arms over her head.
I merely stare blankly at her for a moment, then shrug. "Whatever. So, what have you got going on today?" I ask, changing the subject.
"You know full well the answer to that." Gwain replies with a small smirk.
"Just because the answer is always 'queenly duties' doesn't mean that-" I start before cutting myself off. "You know what, whatever. I'm getting bored with all this sitting around that I'm doing while I wait for my shit to stop hurting and heal. You got anything that you wanna do?"
"... Such as...?" Gwain askes with a raised brow.
"I don't know, toss me a bone here!" I grumble.
Gwain stares for a moment and then sighs. "Come with me. Let's see if we can't figure out what to do about Luna."
Gwain walks off with a slightly awkward gait, her bandage somewhat impeding her walking, and I walk after her.
It takes us a few hours to work out what should be done about Luna, but it's eventually decided that there need to be measures taken to start reducing her monopoly-level hold on the technological expansion of the city. What those measures are will be discussed at a later time, and myself and Gwain need to start preparing for countermeasures to whatever havoc Luna causes, whether it's a militarized force or us doing it ourselves.
That's a lot of pressure to put on me. After all, I'm still learning how to actually fight, even though I've got the advantage of being Human.
Hurk.
Well.. at least there's some kind of plan going on here, I guess.
Something's been bothering me though...
"I wonder why Luna wanted as sample of my blood so badly. I'm also wondering why she took a sample of yours as well." I end up pondering mostly to myself aloud as Gwain and I slowly lurk toward the throne room once again. "I mean, yeah, I'm Human and all, I imagine she could definitely use that sample to get a lot of information on not just how I tick, but also up her arsenal even more. I'm rather concerned about the other half of that coin, too..."
Gwain remains silent, obviously thinking on the matter as well.
"... Maybe she's looking for a way to combine the properties of the blood samples? Your inherent magic, which is insanely powerful, and the Human body's ridiculous physical prowess?" I wonder aloud. "Man, that'd be terrifying."
Gwain raises a hand to her chin and holds it, slightly tilting her head to the right as she does. "Indeed, but to do so would likely be astronomically difficult... right?" she questions.
"Eh, maybe." I reply with a 'so-so' gesture of the hand. "It really depends on how adept Luna is at biological sciences over technological ones with that."
"She's a genius-level inventor and scientist. I heavily doubt she'd be inept." Gwain counters.
"True, but there's also the time investment required to see any kind of progress. For all we know, the cells that Luna got from us are long dead. Though that's not to say she didn't have some way of preserving them..." I trail off. "... Man, that's getting me paranoid. Time to get off this topic, there's gotta be something else we can-"
I'm cut off by a loud crash sounding from the main courtyard of the castle, so absurdly loud that several windows shattered on the spot.
Gwain and I don't think twice, rushing toward the source.
When we arrive, there are thankfully no casualties as there was nobody around at that particular instant, but several guards and staff members are rushing to the scene as quickly as we had. In the dead center of the courtyard lies a sizable crater, and at the center rises a humanoid machine that has a startlingly similar stature to Gwain herself, colored all black and with a few MoonTech logos around its plating.
I step back as its eyes light up, and the machine glances around before locking its gaze on me.
"Ah, fuck." I manage to groan, before I take a metal fist straight to my forehead and it sends me careening backward into a wall, which crumbles around me.
"Goddamn motherfucking son of a BITCH." I bellow as I stand from the remains, rising to my full height. I ignore the faint agony in my chest as a seething, boiling fury rushes through me. "Are. You. Fucking. KIDDING. ME?!" I rage, before stomping the ground and using the leverage that the crack in the flooring provided to launch off as hard as I could at the robot, which was changing targets to Gwain, who got into a battle stance.
The machine barely had an opportunity to respond to my furious shout before I was on it, and I launched a haymaker into its torso, returning the favor that it gave me to send it flying headlong into the wall opposite the one that I got punched into. One wall destruction later, the machine is standing on its own smoothly. I can faintly see an indentation of my fist against its armor plates, but it seemed overall unaffected.
The machine's eyes flash to a brighter white, and then suddenly take on a yellow hue. Bright lines of yellow energy began shining on the lines and joints of its armor, before it raised a fist at me in a very familiar stance.
"Fuck-!" I begin to shout before throwing myself to the side out of pure instinct alone, which saved my life as a beam of Light Magic pierced the space I had been in previously.
"Ayo, Gwain! This bitch is using magic! Your magic!" I exclaim in shock, and the machine quickly adjusted its aim to try and puncture my ass with thin rays of light, all of which I had to evade to the best of my ability.
"HA!" I hear Gwain shout as she finally saw an opening and used her magic to propel her uninjured left leg at speed to slam into the side of the robot's head. Its eyes flicker briefly, but all that was actually accomplished was giving it an easy target.
The robot grabs her leg, spins her around, and as she gasps in pain when her right leg's injury twists, it throws her left leg out to the side and lands a clean hit to her gut, a straight jab to the solar plexus.
Gwain staggers back while gasping through having the wind knocked out of her and the pain in her leg, but keeps her bearings just enough to aim a precise elbow strike to where the machine's nose would be.
The machine's eye lenses and face plates strain audibly as the force is delivered, and it falls backward as it loses balance.
I'm on it in an instant, rushing up to it and driving my foot onto its face as harshly as I could. The faceplate caves in this time and the lenses shatter, but the machine does not go limp. As a matter of fact, it glows even brighter as it channels more energy through its body, then sets off a nova of Light Magic around itself.
I eat the blast at point blank and it's the singular most painful thing I've ever experienced.
I howl in agony as the burning light sears over me, doing everything it can to destroy me. Luckily for me, the blast was just as concussive as it was magic, so I was sent flying out of the radius of the effects of the magic very quickly, but I'm still feeling like I just ate a third degree sunburn all over my body.
I only feel heat and agony before blacking out.
-Ouch-
I awake to pain, and a feeling of just being way too hot all over my body. I blink against the light, and groan as I force myself upright.
I allow my vision to adjust before glancing around. Violent clangs are present nearby, but... I can't...
It hits me like a train. Gwain! The castle! Robot! Magic Robot! Fuck, how long have I been out?!
Before I I can even consider getting up and moving, the machine slams face-down into the ground in front of me, missing an arm, leg, and half of the armor plating on its body. The bright glowing of the magic circuits on its body are now only a dim yellow, and only last a few moments before guttering out completely.
As the machine tries to get up and move, it takes a horrific blast of light magic from the sky. Mere instants after the blast of cataclysmic light hit the machine, Gwain rockets down from the air and lands on the robot with the force of a meteor from on high, nearly vaporizing the ground around her impact point thanks to heat generated, which just makes me more uncomfortable as the burns on my body get agitated from the extra heat.
Gwain is heaving in exertion before I walk up to her from behind and place my hand on her shoulder. "Gwain, you okay? Sorry I was knocked out."
Gwain whirls around with wide eyes as she hears my voice, and I swore that I saw tears in her eyes for just a second. Before I can say anything, Gwain grabs my hand on her shoulder for a quick moment and takes a shuddering breath.
"I'm fine." she manages to get out, before she slumps against me. "Too much magic used just now. Enough of me, are you all right? I saw you take that blast and thought..." she stated and I understood.
She thought I may have died.
"I'll be fine when I get a healer." I reply, before walking up to the crater that housed the robot... or what was left of it. All that remained was one arm, two thirds of its torso, half of its head, and all of the armor plating.
Wow. Don't make her think I killed someone she likes, message received.
Gwain shakes her head and, with a small smile, says, "Let's just get to the healer at this point. You certainly need it, it seems."
"Heh, yeah." I state in as light a tone as I can manage.
Gwain and I both turn and walk off, heading to a soon to be very irritated medical professional.
-?-
Luna takes in the data from the robot she sent to the castle in a hidden lab. After all, it wouldn't do to be in MoonTech if Gwain decides to bring the heat to her right then and there. She'd have to find her first.
Luna narrows her eyes as she ponders what this data could mean. The robot managed to land a decisive blow on the human to knock him out, but then started getting thrashed on a level previously unheard of by anyone by a well and truly enraged Queen Gwain. Why?
...Perhaps her teasing was actually correct, could they actually be an item?
Luna considered that and immediately dismissed it as ludicrous. Gwain has a strong enough aversion to humans that, even if she decides that one or two are alright, she's not going to get with one romantically.
...But just to be safe, put that idea on a backburner. Don't forget it, just consider it later.
However... that thought just gave her an interesting idea. She specifically made this machine to have properties of both Gwain and the Human, and she saw the promise on just the prototype.
However...
Machines? They only have so much potential. No, this requires something a bit better.
Maybe some flesh and blood would do it.
And Luna grins as her plans evolve.
A/N: Whew, done. Maybe people could figure out what's going on in the end there? I do look forward to all your speculations.
Keep safe out there ladies, gents, and everything in between/outside of. I hope to see you all next time.
-Phaazed