Author's Note: This story is set during select events of chapters 8 and 9 during Year 2 (ZAC 2061) of "Remain in the Light of the Stars," the second story in my Earthling trilogy. If you're not at least passingly familiar with that piece and the characters featured in it, you probably won't get much out of this one.
This story will contain a scene readers may find confronting or triggering, and therefore reader discretion is advised.
I've got at least one more story planned for my Earthling crew. If you've been with them, and me, since the beginning, you have my deepest gratitude.
Enjoy, and as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.

DEDICATION
For the friendly, knowledgeable, talented, and delightful members of the Zoids Discord - I'm so happy to have found my "tribe"
And for jdoug4118 - you know why

One Past Noon

He had never heard Zeke bark like that before.

The former military Command Wolf had been his frequent companion since Phoenix had been brought, delirious and half-dead, to this abandoned ruin some days ago by Zeke and his pilot, a mysterious girl named Willow. And as such, Phoenix had spent enough time with Zeke to know by now that the big wolf did not vocalize like this under entirely ordinary circumstances.

And yet, Zeke was barking, over and over, urgently, as if calling to Phoenix: Come here! Come here now! Help! Phoenix knew better than to ignore a well-trained Zoid like Zeke trying to get his attention, and so he stepped out from the Zoid hangar where he'd been working on his own Zoid, a Helcat named Fuzzy.

Far down the dusty street that led northwards to the other end of the base, he saw Zeke, turned in his direction and obviously awaiting Phoenix's appearance. Beside one of his front legs was Willow, who was standing a bit oddly, though it was hard to tell from here just what was going on.

"Willow!" he called, jogging down the street towards them both. "What's going on? What's Zeke so upset about?"

As he drew closer he saw she was hunched a bit forward, as though Zeke's barks were physically paining her. She turned to him at the sound of his voice, and her eyes widened.

"Hen!" she gasped.

Hen? Who was Hen?

"Willow, what's going on?"

Phoenix was now standing about ten feet away from her, and he looked from her to Zeke and back again in bewilderment. Zeke barked once more, obviously highly agitated by something. Willow was still staring at Phoenix in utter shock, as though he were a ghost.

"Are you okay?" he asked her. Her face was white; her pupils were so large they nearly eclipsed the caramel color of her irises. Something was very, very wrong with her, but he didn't know what.

As he watched, color rushed alarmingly into her face until she was flushed bright red. She licked her lips and asked, as though her words were a struggle to utter, "What...what are you doing here, Hen?"

Who was Hen? And why didn't she recognize him? Zeke whined.

"Are you here...to help me?" Willow's eyelids fluttered. "Help me..."

And that was when Phoenix saw, when her hands loosed the hem of her shirt suddenly and unleashed its cargo, five plump apian berries fall to the ground.

Apian berries. His blood ran cold at the sight of them.

Could she have possibly - ?!

Her lips appeared redder than normal. Stained.

Oh, stars, no.

Even as he was still processing what was happening, Willow sunk to her hands and knees and began vomiting with a violence Phoenix had never beheld in anyone before, her small body contorting with the power of the spasms.

"Willow!" he cried, rushing to her side. "Okay, okay. You're okay. Come on, I've got you. Hold on. Hold on. Stay with me..." But she was already slipping into unconsciousness. He pulled her into his arms before she could fall face-first into the grit of the street.

There wasn't much time.

He looked around him frantically, trying to determine the fastest way through the side streets and yards and alleys to Willow's counting house on the other side of Fort Zephyr.

Zeke whined again; Phoenix had forgotten he was even there. "Zeke!" he cried. "If we don't help her soon, she's going to die. Please! Can you get us to the west side of the base if I'm holding her?"

He hadn't even finished speaking before Zeke had already raised his canopy glass and slammed his chin into the ground, denting the earth enough that it was an easy step into the cockpit. Phoenix did so, clutching Willow's small, limp body to his own, trying to keep her head upright and steady. "The counting house," he gasped to Zeke. "Do you know how to get to the counting house? Do you know which one that is?"

Zeke raised his head and looked west, in the direction of the wide thoroughfare that ran north and south on the western end of the base. He knew which house Phoenix meant. And he knew that to take the correct way, by staying only on the wider streets that could accommodate his bulk, would take too long. With nothing left to lose, he leapt headlong into the residential area standing between him and the counting house.

There were few buildings that could withstand the sheer physical force of his weight and speed. A cacophony of splintering wood, shattering glass, and collapsing walls and roofs accompanied them as Zeke tore across the base, leaving in his wake dwellings leveled and yards trampled beneath his vast paws. Long seconds passed as a chain he hadn't seen slowed them down, as he stumbled over a dry indentation in the ground that had probably been someone's pond long ago, but he muscled his way through until, at last, they reached the street in front of the counting house.

He brought his chin down again and Phoenix leapt lightly from the cockpit back to solid ground. "Please stay here in case I need you," he told the big wolf, "but I think it's going to be all me from here."

Phoenix carried Willow inside the counting house and immediately to the hearth. She began coughing suddenly as he placed her on the floor, seated and leaning against his arm, and sounded like she might throw up again. "Okay, hold on," he told her, "just hold on. I'm going to need you to eat something for me, okay? It's not going to taste good, but..." With his other hand, he flailed blindly about inside the cold fireplace until alighting upon a few bite-sized chunks of charcoal. Seizing them, he placed all but one beside them on the floor and brought the last to her mouth. "Just eat this, please...please just eat it."

Willow's head turned side to side and she moaned slightly, probably already lost in some fever dream, but her mouth, alas, remained resolutely closed.

He couldn't hold her upright while also having enough hands to wrench her jaw open and feed her anything. "Oh, heavens, forgive me, Willow," he sighed before determinedly heaving her back a foot or so to prop her against the mantel. There was no time for ceremony nor respectful consideration. He pinched her nostrils shut until she took a wet, shuddering gasp in through her mouth, then seized the opportunity to shove a piece of charcoal in. She coughed, trying instinctively to spit it back out, but he held her mouth shut with both hands until he was sure she had either swallowed it whole or it had dissolved enough to be swallowed anyway. All the while, she clawed blindly at his arms, trying to pull his hands off of her face, but he held on tight.

"Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up," he chanted like a mantra.

He released her mouth and she coughed again, hard, her upper body spasming, spraying flecks of black all over the both of them.

Disgusted with himself for manhandling the girl who had saved his life this way, but knowing she hadn't had enough, he readied another piece of charcoal. "Please," he implored. "You need more, just eat this, just a little bit more. This will save you." She was still mentally gone, but had enough strength left in her to try to push him away. Enough was enough; fighting her was wasting valuable time, and it was time they didn't have. "I'm sorry, Willow, I'm so sorry." He straddled her lap, easily pinning her hands beneath his knees, and repeated the harsh process of forcing another piece of charcoal into her, holding her mouth closed for a few seconds, and then another piece, and then another.

Outside, Zeke whined desperately, nearly frantic with apprehension.

"I'm trying!" Phoenix yelled reflexively, then immediately regretted it - Zeke was understandably worried about his pilot - but there was no time to dwell upon such things. He held Willow's head in both his hands, trying to hold her still and keep her mouth closed at the same time. Phoenix was no medic, never had been, but in the absence of someone more qualified, or even any variety of dependable medicine, charcoal was the best he was going to be able to do. It would sop up whatever toxins remained in her stomach like a sponge, preventing most or all of them from entering her bloodstream. If she could only just keep it down, however...that was the challenge they faced right now.

The danger apian berries posed to Zoidians, not to mention most other animal species, was very well known by the population. Nearly everyone knew someone who had overdosed, accidentally or not, fatally or not. The symptoms of the poison, its types of progression, and the very chancy nature of any possible care and treatment were understood.

And now, the crumbling, powdery substance blackening his hands and Willow's lips and face was probably all that stood between her and the long darkness.

She had stilled, probably from having lost consciousness again, and Phoenix backed off of her, picking her limp form up to bring her back to the cottage. She felt so light and frail as to seem ephemeral, like one gust of desert wind would carry her away forever.

He stepped into the strong afternoon sunlight and nodded once to Zeke, hoping his face didn't betray what he'd just done. Tears of fear and shame leaked down his cheeks as he held her up higher, bringing his lips to her unhearing ear: "Please forgive me, Willow."