Chapter 14: Old Wounds

Sorry I'm late again. I'm in the middle of finals season so I'm kind of swamped with work. I probably won't have a consistent upload schedule for a few more weeks.

Man, what a joke of a company Nintendo is. WTF was the Xenoblade 3 special edition preorders. I was expecting this but holy shit, it went down literally 10 seconds after it went live. I'm so glad I don't care about special edition stuff and preordered a regular copy months ago.

On the other hand, Monopon is doing good consistently revealing new info, and every time we get something new, I get more excited, but I also want to stop looking in case I get spoiled.

…

Nia moved to the side, trying to coordinate with Brandon to herd the stupid baby armu away. He was busy shooting at its feet trying to spook it into moving away but it seemed to be doing more harm than good as the deafening noise caused the animal to panic and run in a completely different direction than what they wanted towards its parent.

Nia got in between, blocking the baby armu off from its destination. A round fired from Brandon caused it to run again towards the direction they wanted.

"There you go!" Nia chased after the cub, "scram!"

"Now kid!" Vandham yelled. Rex released his anchor from the adult armu's leg and let the beast sprint past him. Nia dove to the side and Brandon had long since scrambled out of the way. It caught up to its cub and cast one last spiteful glance at the group before guiding it away.

Brandon sighed from his spot on the ground, "phew. I thought I was going to get trampled."

"Oh stop bein' a drama queen," Nia rolled her eyes, sitting down on top of Dromarch who had already moved over and laid down to serve as a pillow for Brandon, "I hardly would've have let that happen."

"Right, because you can stop a charging armu with your bare… hands… Holy shit, can you?"

"No!" Nia flushed, "I'd use water to divert its charge. I'm not strong enough to stop it physically. Maybe Vandham over there is."

"Ha!" Vandham laughed, sitting down with Rex and Pyra to form a rough circle, "an adult armu? Hardly. We Drivers may be stronger than any average human, but you'd need a beast of a Blade to stop the momentum of such a large animal. Hell, they grow larger than several of me combined. That one was no exception."

Brandon sighed as he unloaded the thing from his gun. Nia didn't know what it was called, but he seemed visibly annoyed when he loaded it back in, flipped a switch, and holstered the weapon.

"Somethin' wrong?" Nia asked.

"No. Just annoyed at how quickly I'm using up my ammo."

"Is it hard to make?"

"No, technically speaking, it's not hard to replace… in the city. But out here?" He shook his head, "I have limited resources and no access to a proper forge. I can't really make more until we get to the city."

"Hm. Isn't there something you can do with a mold thing?"

Brandon stared at her, eyes half lidded, "thank you for such a descriptive suggestion. If what you're talking about looks like this," he drew a rough pattern into the dirt and sand they were sitting on, "then you're talking about technology hundreds of years old to my gear and is therefore incompatible."

"Uh yeah… I've seen some soldiers usin' that sort of thing before so I just thought it might be somethin' you could make use of."

"Yeah, unfortunately the way my weapon works isn't the old style of stuffing a barrel with a metal ball and as much gunpowder as is safe."

"Well why not? It doesn't seem more advanced if you can't make more in the field."

"Because of reload times," Brandon drew his pistol and pulled out the magazine. "All you have to do in combat is swap out one of these magazines, or in some cases they're clips. Takes a few seconds at most compared to an older musket which you'd be lucky to reload a single round within twenty seconds. Not to mention a mag has several rounds in it at a time whereas you'd have to reload bullets individually in a musket. In that case, it would be over two minutes of reload time just to equal the number of shots from a modern mag."

"So it's better for combat is it?"

"Well yeah."

"Then why make this instead of what you're callin' the older style? I thought you said that you didn't want to help fuel the war effort." Nia said accusingly.

"I didn't sell these things. I only gave them to members of my security team after a long lecture on gun safety and assurance that they wouldn't use them unless absolutely necessary." Brandon rolled his eyes, "the weapons I sold were non-lethal. Stunning and blinding weapons for the most part."

"What assurance?"

"Assurance by if I deemed that they used them unnecessarily, it would cost them their entire year's salary to get a reload."

"Ah. I suppose that is a good incentive."

"They're good people though. Not many people would take on such a thankless job for relatively low pay. And before you say power, if they wanted real power, they'd join the military or police force of an actual nation. Not be a security guard where you can't even legally arrest people while taking all the heat of police officers in their stead."

"You can't arrest people?" Nia asked.

"No."

"Wait, so what you were doin' against me was illegal?" Nia said in annoyance.

"Technically yeah. But considering, you know, Torna, I took the risk that you wouldn't be able to take me to court afterwards."

"How considerate of you."

"Oh cut me some slack," he tapped his fist to her shoulder lightly, "besides, we're friends now right?"

She snorted, "as much as I regret it."

"Hey, I'll take what I can take." Brandon laughed. "Sounds as close to a compliment from you as I'm going to get."

"I'm not that bad."

"Okay," Brandon said, "name any compliment you've given me or Rex."

"..." She had no response.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Brandon crossed his arms.

Nia frowned. She wasn't that bad, surely. She wasn't an entirely negative person was she? Bah, whatever, who cares what he thinks. The engineer with a superiority complex chastising her on social conduct? Right. He can shove off with that bullshite.

"Hey," Rex said, "don't be an ass about it," he said to Brandon, coming to Nia's defense.

"Well at least someone's got some manners," Nia huffed, "see, you could learn a thing or two from your younger brother." She said, emphasizing the word younger.

"You know," Brandon scratched his chin, "Rex probably could teach me a few things. But I don't think manners is one of them. It's kind of funny actually, salvagers are known to be kind of brash and rude."

"It's a bit of an inside joke to ask salvagers to teach manners," Rex appended.

"Which you've somehow managed to guess," Brandon chuckled.

Nia crossed her arms smugly, "well it only makes sense for someone with as refined a sense of humor as me."

"I wouldn't call it refined exactly." Brandon teased, "it's salvager humor. They literally curse more than I do for fucks sake. Also you swear as much as I do as well."

"I don't curse that much," Nia said defensively, "I just curse… as much as you do."

Brandon snickered.

"Oi, listen to Rex and don't be a dick." Nia rolled her eyes, accepting the loss.

"Me?" Brandon put a hand over his heart innocently, "why I'd never."

"Oh really?" She hummed, "I seem to have a much different impression of you."

"You wound me, milady." He chuckled for a moment before it turned into a wheezing cough. He turned to the side and continued to cough for a few seconds before it stopped. He glanced over and averted his eyes as they made contact with Nia's.

"Are you alright?" Rex asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he reassured Rex, "just not used to the uphill trek."

He looked back over to Nia and mouthed 'later' to her when her accusatory stare still wasn't gone.

"Hm," Vandham said, "I suppose we can rest for longer then. No point in damaging your health doing this."

"Thank you."

Nia scowled and tapped his leg. She jerked her thumb in a direction and he sighed, but acquiesced and followed her to the side.

"What was that?"

"I can't convince you it's just that I'm out of shape huh?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Heh. I'll take that as a no. We… we were stupid. Our technological progress was put before our own health a lot of the time. The air we breathed was no exception and we polluted it beyond what's healthy to breathe in. As far as I know, even with our advanced technology, that kind of damage to your lungs is irreparable. I'm honestly more surprised you didn't sense it before with your magic healing thing."

"It's not magic, it's Ether." Nia scowled as she did a more in depth scan.

"Same difference."

She shook her head instead of dignifying that with a response. "Yeah… it's bad."

"So what's the sitrep?"

"I…" She bit her lip. She could fix it. But if she did, she'd be giving that away. She had already used her powers more than she had ever intended fixing up this stupid inventor. "I can't fix it. It's too complicated. Maybe a stronger healing Blade could but I can't with just Dromarch's powers."

Brandon sighed, "I expected as much. I haven't told Rex by the way and I'd appreciate it if you didn't either. Honestly I was fine until now, I suspect that the arduous climb after years of being kind of stagnant wasn't super great for my lungs."

"How did the people of your world survive for so long?"

"Technology. Instead of fixing the cause of the problem, we fixed the problem. A lot of people went around with artificial organs. I never got any since it wasn't exactly a procedure you could do outside an operating room with trained professionals, something we didn't have access to."

"So intelligence doesn't beget wisdom huh."

"No, no it doesn't."

"Have you never tried to seek out a healin' Blade?"

"With what money?" He shook his head, "would be nice, not worrying about dying when I'm forty, but not much I can do about it now. At least Alrest isn't so bad. Not such a bad place to die… Ow! What was that for?" He rubbed his arm and shot a glare at Nia who was lowering her fist having just punched him.

"Don't say that. We'll… we'll get you fixed up."

"Thanks but I don't need the pep talk. World isn't all sunshine and rainbows but that's fine. As long as the next generation is better off, I'm satisfied." He said, looking towards Rex.

"Brandon…"

"Anyways, I'm recovered now. We should get a move on."

"Yeah…"

Brandon really felt like he was dying by the time the group reached the top. He could feel Nia patting his back as he hacked away with his hands on his knees, but at a distance, probably wary of him throwing up. Not entirely unwarranted to be fair, he could feel his insides churning. At least the air was fresh and brisk, a few minutes of rest and he'd be fine.

The rest of the walk from here was on flat terrain, and obviously going back to Garfont would be entirely downhill. It would still be a chore to walk the distance but at least it wouldn't take as much effort. It also wasn't so bad right now since they had taken another short break as they waited for Roc to clear up an Ether miasma.

"Come on, not much further to the energy signature," Vandham waved.

"Right…" Brandon groaned but straightened up and started walking.

"You doin' okay?" Nia asked, "how you holdin' up?"

"Is that… genuine concern I'm hearing?" Brandon teased but a clenched fist gave away his less than jovial mood, "I'm touched, but I'm fine. I don't want you to treat me like I'm made of glass all of a sudden."

"I'm just makin' sure you're alright. Can't have you keelin' over on me here. I'd hate to have to carry your body back to town." A small smile flitted across her face.

"As if it would burden you in the slightest," Brandon grumbled.

"It would. You're all the wrong shapes to be carried," Nia crossed her arms with a little head shake, "I mean come on, where do I store your stupid arms? Unless you're okay with me princess carryin' you."

"Honestly speaking?" Brandon panted, "I wouldn't care at the moment." Genuinely, he felt too tired to really care. He would straight up do the rest of this job buck naked if it meant he could instantly teleport back to bed once this was finished.

He yelped as he suddenly felt his feet swept out from beneath him as he was picked up by Nia. "Whoa!" Brandon exclaimed, "what're you doing?"

"Hm, this isn't so bad actually." Nia mused.

"Hey! I didn't consent to this!" Brandon complained, but immediately tensed as Nia shifted him in her arms, "okay, don't actually drop me though."

"I'm not that cruel," she said as she set him down gently.

Brandon rolled his shoulders, "next time, ask first."

"That implies that there will be a next time… you know I wasn't bein' serious about carryin' you back."

"Aw, I was kind of hoping you were."

Nia rolled her eyes, "Dromarch, you mind givin' this lazy bum a ride?"

"As you command, my lady."

"Uh, I don't want to force you."

"Nonsense, master Brandon. Fulfilling my lady's will is my only desire."

Brandon snorted, "oh so now all you care about is following Nia's orders. When it puts me in a compromising position."

"Yes."

Brandon blinked at the frankness. "Oh, gang up on the weak. Very funny."

"Indeed," Dromarch seemed amused, though it was hard to tell without seeing human expressions.

"Wow, okay, I-"

"Hold up," Vandham interrupted, coming to a sudden stop. "Something ain't right here."

"What is it?" Rex asked.

"This Ether signature…"

"It's of a Blade and Driver powerin' up," Nia finished, coming to the same realization.

"Shit," Brandon cursed, "was this a trap?"

"It's only a single Driver and Blade pair," Vandham said, "if it was a trap, they'd be foolhardy to attempt to spring it against seven combatants."

"Oi, watch it buckethead!" Nia suddenly exclaimed, tackling Brandon to the side and out the way of a massive string of webs. An ear shattering screech filled the air as a spider, several times even Vandham's size leaped down to the ground. A light blue line of Ether connected it to some Blade that was hiding out of sight.

"Keep your wits about you," Nia warned as she drew her twin rings and leapt right into the fray. Brandon drew his pistol and skirted around the side, trying to get a clear shot to the arachno.

He threw himself to the side as a Blade weapon swung right where his head was a moment ago. "Coming right for the weak link huh?" He said as he rolled to his feet and got a good look at the monster's Blade. It was a bit odd, knowing an animal could resonate, and if it got a brand new Core Crystal, it could influence how it looked. That was the case here as it resembled more a beast than a human, standing inhumanly tall with pure black skin, though it resembled more an exoskeleton than skin. Horns came out of its head over its blank white eyes and its razor sharp teeth glinted in the dim light of the Urayan Titan.

Brandon fired at the monstrous Blade as he rapidly backpedaled, hoping to buy himself some time as the Blade had to heal. But his bullets pinged off of the Blade's hide, barely leaving a scratch which healed nearly instantly. He rolled to the side to avoid its next lance swing. The Blade's swings themselves were lightning fast, but the overswing made its recovery relatively slow.

He holstered his weapon and activated his gauntlets, feeling the familiar hum of electricity burst to life. If he couldn't damage the Blade, he'd have to stunlock it. He cringed internally at how stupid that sounded out of the context of a video game.

That was kind of what he had to do though. He needed to hit the Blade in between each of its heavy lance swings and make sure that he could keep it down long enough for some help. He kept himself low, ducking swings and hitting the Blade's sides.

He lept back as a wave of fire blasted past him and separated him from the Blade. "Watch it!" He yelled over at Rex.

"Sorry!" Rex called, dodging a strike from one of the arachno's gangly limbs while Vandham yelled something in the background.

"Shit," Brandon swerved back to dodge another strike, though not quite making the dodge in time and took a nasty cut to his arm. He stumbled back, a gauntlet covered hand over the bleeding wound.

"Focus!" He heard Nia yell as a familiar blue green light, something he was getting a bit too familiar with, washed over him. She moved closer to him and had Dromarch distract the beastly Blade.

Brandon nodded in appreciation. He let Nia lead the charge against the Blade, following behind her. She deflected the Blade's lance, letting Brandon get in close and land a few strikes while she landed a few slashes from her own twin rings.

She nimbly weaved between the Blade's attacks, a far cry from Brandon's own clumsier movements and footwork. He winced as an Ether shield popped up, blocking what would have surely been a fatal attack to his side. He nodded towards Dromarch before backing off.

His teeth clenched in frustration. He couldn't do jack shit here other than slow the Drivers and Blades down and it frustrated him to no end. He was a liability here, and liabilities in war sat out. Morag's words came back to mind. Could he actually protect Rex? Nia was already proving to be a better guardian and Rex himself was showing that he didn't really need protection. If anything, that more applied to him.

Maybe if he had his armor… but that would just make him a bigger target wouldn't it. Nia's twin rings sliced through his armor like it was made of warm butter. A more piercing weapon could probably just slice through any protective layer and get easily to his even squishier body which, if his armor was warm butter, he was probably wet toilet paper in comparison.

"What're you doin' buckethead?" Nia yelled, "come help me over here!"

"Sorry!" Brandon raised his fists and advanced. Well, if nothing else, at least he could be a distraction. Dodge tanking huh? He could do that. Probably.

What little confidence he had mustered up ebbed out as the Blade refocused onto him again, either sensing that he was the weaker opponent or just picked the bigger target. Either way, it wasn't very comforting.

At least Nia's twin rings were effective, leaving long gashes on the Blade's body where they connected. The rings, their Blades being made of Ether, left much deeper and longer lasting wounds on the Blade, doing far more to damage and slow it down than any of his modern weaponry could accomplish.

No, he wasn't sore about it.

He attempted to imitate Nia, trying to spot the pattern in the Blades attack so he could counterattack, letting his electric gauntlets stun the Blade whenever there was an opening. Nia would leap in and take advantage of the distractions as they came.

Of course, anything they did to the Blade was temporary without smashing its Core Crystal and he had already sacrificed his weapon and Nia's weren't built for that kind of damage. But eventually, Rex and Vandham wore out the spider creature and landed the finishing blow, the Ether barriers around it weak enough for Rex to incinerate the creature.

Brandon sighed in relief as the Blade glowed with blue light and faded, returning to its Core Crystal which dropped to the ground with a small bounce. He reached down to pick it up but hesitated when he thought about it for a second.

Nia rolled her eyes and scooped it up and tossed it to Brandon who caught it instinctively. "It's fine. The Crystal's dark. Means the Blade's still recoverin' and it's safe for anyone to handle."

"You still shouldn't be tossing it around like a toy though," Vandham reprimanded, causing Nia to go pink.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"How did that arachno get a Blade anyway?" Rex asked.

"That," Vandham pointed. Brandon's eyes followed his finger and he winced at the sight. He hadn't noticed it due to the giant spider and Blade gunning for his head, but there was the corpse of a small Titan slowly dissolving into Ether in the corner. Vandham extended a hand and Brandon carefully passed him the Core Crystal.

"Core Crystals come from Titans. The arachno must have sensed the same type of Ether signature we did of that Titan."

"What?" That was news to Brandon.

"Yeah, Titans you see, they grow Core Crystals in their bodies. We're not really sure how it happens but it's how Core Crystals are constantly brought into the world. Otherwise, with how many Blades die and Core Crystals lost, Alrest would probably have lost them all by now. Torna's not helping the problem either."

Brandon noticed Nia flinch. "Um, about-"

Vandham tossed the Core Crystal to Nia who fumbled with it for a moment. "Keep that safe yeah? You never know if you'll need it in the future." He winked at Brandon, "come on then. Job's done. Let's head back and get some rest before we set off for the capital huh?"

Brandon nodded, understanding what Vandham was doing. He shook his blood off of his gauntlet before folding it up and storing them in arm band form.

Nia clenched her hands over the Core Crystal. Brandon nudged her and she looked like she was about to jump out of her skin. She quickly slid the Crystal into a pouch on her belt and followed along.

"Hey, you alright?" Brandon asked.

Nia's eyes seemed to glow for a second, no doubt her checking up on his physical condition. "I should be askin' you that." A soft glow surrounded him as all of his minute wounds sealed up from the fight. A few cuts he didn't even notice that he received from the tail end of the Blade's attacks itched a bit as they healed.

He coughed, his aching lungs working overtime and not happy at the sudden exertion. He nearly fell over as the adrenaline left his body, leaving him feeling like he was about to collapse. Nia caught him, to which he looked over gratefully.

"Are you sure you can go? We can ask Vandham for a rest again. I'm sure it's fine."

"I'm fine. I can keep going." Brandon assured her. Though he wasn't too sure about that himself. Obviously every wound was healed but his muscles obviously weren't since Nia didn't heal 'wounds' from exercise. He could feel every part of his body burning from the exertion.

"For some reason, I find myself doubting that," Nia said, "I was jokin' earlier but Dromarch can carry you the way down if you need. Hell, I could carry you if I have to."

"The offer's appreciated, but I'll be fine." He said through gritted teeth. If he survived the most devastating war the Earth had ever seen, he could survive a hike. He nearly stumbled again. "I wouldn't be against some support though."

"Yeah, that's not a problem. Here," she lifted his arm and hung it over her shoulders as she did the same with her arm, though it took some finagling given their height difference.

"Thanks." He coughed.

"Take care of yourself. I'm bein' serious. I'll break my weapons over your head if you don't."

He let out a raspy laugh, "well that's a threat."

"Yeah, because I don't think most people are this stubborn. I thought you'd want to be pampered by an attractive woman."

"What attractive woman?" Brandon joked. Nia poked his side with her free hand.

"Repeatin' the same joke twice doesn't make it funnier."

"Ow. Understood milady… I just realized, is that buckethead nickname just a thing now?"

"Huh? Oh. I guess I just said it without thinkin'. Yeah, I think I'll stick to it. I quite like it."

Brandon snorted, "if Rex starts using that nickname, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something horrible."

"I'm shudderin' in my boots," Nia rolled her eyes.

Brandon chuckled then quickly fell silent, forming a rhythm of walking with Nia. His mind wandered back to what Vandham said. Core Crystals from Titans? How? Core Crystals were incredibly complicated computers, they weren't organic in the slightest. Even if they contained the data of organic beings, they were made of metal and silicon and plastic. How the hell did Titans generate them?

Core Crystals were built in labs with engineers and scientists working overtime to perfect the insanely complicated technology. The revelation that they were just grown inside Titans was causing his brain to short circuit.

Obviously they weren't the same as they were on Earth, being the housing for non-resonated Blades and the central, almost brain of the Blades.

"You've got that look on your face again," Nia said, drawing Brandon back out of his thoughts.

"What face?"

"The broodin' face."

He sighed, "am I so easy to read?"

"Like a picture book."

"I told you what Core Crystals were originally right?"

Nia bit her lip, "yeah. Some kind of brain thing, yeah?"

"A replacement for human brains. Basically the main thing about the human body that's supposed to be impossible to replace. That's why it took decades of research and multiple teams of the smartest engineers alive. Why can Titans replicate that?"

"What're you askin' me for?" She shook her head, "I'd have no idea. It was just somethin' I grew up knowin' so I didn't think twice about it. I mean, do you think twice about why grass is green?"

"I don't but that's because I know why the grass is green, it's because the chlorophyll absorbs all light except for green."

Nia rolled her eyes, "you're annoyin'. Then how come it doesn't absorb green?"

"Well it does absorb it technically. It's just that that's the small amount that plants reflect since they're not a hundred percent efficient."

"Oh for the love of… Then why do girls seem to baffle you?"

"Uh…"

"Well there we go."

"That's… how is that relevant?"

"It's somethin' else you don't seem to understand but you don't question it is the point." Nia shrugged, "I dunno. It's just somethin' accepted."

"I don't know. It's just… everyday I learn something new about Alrest, I get more and more weirded out. Everything is just slightly off, it makes my head hurt."

"I guess I'd be the same if I was dropped into your world."

He snorted, "yeah. All that would need to happen is a single picture of you leaking online and you'd have a rabid fanbase following you."

"... What?"

"What?"

Nia sighed, "I didn't understand half the combination of words that came outta your mouth."

"Uh, how to explain? It's hard enough to describe what the internet is, let alone describe social media. I guess think of it like a quest board that everyone can see at the same time and whenever one person updates it, it's updated for everyone. Basically that but for more than just jobs. You have those as well, but there's a lot of social aspects as well. Also, Gormotti," he gestured up at her ears, "you catgirls didn't exist and there are a lot of people who are into that kind of thing."

Nia made a face. "I remember you sayin' that second part. You mean like…"

"Yeah. Unfortunately."

"Not like there aren't people like that in Alrest," she sighed, "I dunno what's worse, the people who look at us like objects or those who look at us like second class people."

"The latter probably. It's a lot more immediately harmful I'd say."

"Maybe. They both suck though."

"Not saying they don't." Brandon said. He then stumbled on a patch of uneven ground and let loose a string of curses as he did a little hop skip to retain his balance.

Nia laughed, "alright, let's get this professional walker back to town so he can rest before he falls down, probably off a cliff."

"Hey… I'm not that bad."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are…"

…

Might have put more cussing in this chapter than I initially intended.