9 didn't know how long he had been sleeping for, but by the time he awoke it was late afternoon and 7 wasn't by his side. He heard voices coming from down below.
He got out of his matchbox bed and walked over to the lift. He figured 7 had left it there for him if he woke up and jumped down to the ground. He could still remember how graceful she looked when she once jumped off one of the shelves and doing a perfect flip before landing on the floor with ease. 9 pushed his thoughts aside and activated the switch on the lift to make it go down to the bottom.
9 stepped off the lift once it reached the floor and he saw the others gathered at the large book. When they heard the sound of the lift stopping and 9's footsteps on the ground, they all turned around to see him. 7 said to him with a chuckle, "Look whose finally awake." 3 and 4 both came over to him and hugged him, greeting him. 9 laughed as he rubbed their hooded heads, "Hey, guys. Good to see you too." 7 and 2 laughed happily at their moment together.
The twins let go of 9 before he asked, "Where's 1?"
7 answered, "He's in the workshop. Hasn't left his spot for the whole day since he saw 8 in there." 2 nodded in agreement, "I haven't seen him this distraught in so long. Not since the war. And he says he wants to have 8 back as soon as possible." He said to 9 with a small assuring smile, "I checked 8 for any broken parts inside him, and just like he is on the outside, he is in perfect shape. Not one single broken part."
"That's good news." 9 smiled in relief. Last night he had been relieved that 8 was still in one piece after surviving the explosion, but what he was more worried about what his structures inside and that if anything was broken, he would never fight or protect anyone again. "And 5?"
"I checked him as well. Nothing wrong with him either." 2 looked down with a sigh, "But I need to find a new eyepatch to replace the one he has with a burn hole."
"What was 5's eyepatch made of, exactly?" 9 asked with curiosity. 2 replied, "It was made of a piece of leather I found when 1 led us to Sanctuary. 5's eye was too damaged from the war, I couldn't even fix it. So the least I could do to help was clean the debris out of the socket and fix the wiring because I was worried that his face would catch fire from the sparks." He could remember when they first arrived at the cathedral to escape the bloodbath of the war, and he was always comforting 5 after he lost his eye in the crossfire. He still remembered how scared and traumatized poor 5 had been from that experience and after replacing his lost eye with the patch, it took him weeks to help 5 get over it all as they and the others waited for the war to end, and 2 helped him adjust to having only one eye until he had less trouble with it.
2 tried to remember where the leather he used to make 5's eyepatch came from. But all he could remember was that he found it on an old shoe that was left behind near the cathedral when the humans were fleeing the city while others stayed behind to fight against the Machines. He only took just enough to heal 5's missing eye, and he didn't know what happened to it afterwards ever since.
"I know it was shoe leather," he said to 9 and 7. "But I just can't remember what kind of shoe it was." To their surprise, the twins grabbed 2's hands and pulled him towards the lift. 9 and 7 didn't know what had gotten into the 3 and 4 all of a sudden, but they knew they were trying to show 2 something that caught their interest. While they waited for them to return, 9 decided to go talk to 1 in the workshop.
He found the leader sitting on a spool of thread in front of two makeshift gurneys where 5 and 8 were laying peacefully next to each other. 9 walked over to him and placed a hand on the old Stitchpunk's shoulder, making him turn his head and face the younger one. He sighed softly before looking away, "You brought him back." He looked at 8 laying on the gurney with his wide mouth closed and his arms crossed over his chest.
"I needed to." 9 replied. "I couldn't come back here with him left behind. Not after I let this happen to him." He sighed sadly as he looked at the dead bodyguard, "And I'm the only one who watched him die in front of me. If it was you, I didn't know how you'd react losing your only protection." 1 looked at him and said sadly, "He wasn't just my bodyguard. He was my closest friend. I didn't realize it until I lost him, but I saw 8 as not just a bodyguard or a friend, he was like a son to me." He looked at 9, "I wanted to destroy the Machine so I could avenge 8. At first I thought you took everything away from us when you awakened the Machine, but I was wrong after your heroism. We may have lost our lives to the Machine because of you at first, but then I realized you had brought us together to bring down the biggest threat, and you are helping us make our lives anew."
"But you said it yourself." 9 said to him. "I endangered everything you've been working for your whole lives because of my stupid mistake. I even endangered your own lives and killed my own people after I started caring about them." He looked away in shame at 5. His eye patch was already removed, and all that was in its place was a broken eye socket and melted and burnt wires from when the Talisman sucked out his soul from that socket. 7 was right; he and 5 almost did look like twins if they had matching buttons or zippers and the same shade of brown in their burlap skin. He sighed sadly as he ran his hand over his best friend's cheek. It felt ice cold.
He felt close to crying invisible tears again, but a clawed hand was placed on his shoulder to comfort him. He looked over to see 1 standing next to him with sadness. He said to him, "You both cared for each other, didn't you?" 9 nodded, "He was not only my friend. He was my brother."
1 looked back at 8's body, then back at 5's. He thought for a minute before saying to 9, "Then you must bring him back next." 9 looked at him and said with surprise, "You mean, you're letting me even after 2 said to me that you wanted 8 back right now?"
The elder said to him, "As much as I need my bodyguard again, as a leader, I need to put my people's needs before my own. And since your friend means so much to you and you brought me back here, I will return the favour and let you have your friend back next." 9 couldn't believe his leader. Apart from his touching reunion with him, this was the very first time 1 had ever showed 9 any form of kindness. He wanted 8 back, but now he was letting 9 have his best friend back in his life. He could feel a smile grow on his face and he could have sworn he could feel tears of joy forming inside him. Even when he couldn't produce any real ones, he could still feel them inside.
He couldn't hold back this emotion anymore and, out of his control, he embraced 1. He said to him softly, "Thank you for seeing how much he means to me." 1 didn't know how to react next when he felt the arms of the boy he once hated around him, but he just rubbed his back kindly in return. They both parted from their embrace and 9 left the workshop to grab the Talisman from his quarters. He ran into 2 on the way out.
"9! I found a new patch for 5." he said with a smile as he held a piece of fabric in his hands. It looked like the same leather from 5's old eye patch, but it was a bit lighter in colour. 2 said to him, "The twins took me to one of their shelves and showed me an old boot, and it was almost the exact same leather I used for 5. They were willing to give up a little piece of it for him." 9 smiled softly at him before he left the workshop and went to the lift to his quarters, leaving the two elders behind.
Once he got to his quarters, he grabbed the Talisman and the wire from the corner of the room and placed it inside his chest to keep it secured until it was time for 5's revival. He came back to the workshop and saw 1 had already left and 2 was standing over 5. He looked over to see 9 there and 2 asked him, "9, I'm going to need some help fixing 5's face. Can you help me keep his head still so I could patch it up?" 9 nodded and went over to him.
He stood in front of the one-eyed Stitchpunk as 2 tighened some brown thread on a sewing needle, and 9 held both 5's head and the patch in place with both of his hands while 2 carefully sewed the patch on. Once he was done stitching the front of his face, 9 turned him over and 2 continued the process on the side of his head, then he finished on the back. They laid 5 back down and they looked at his new eye patch. It was a perfect match, and the stitchings were the exact same pattern as how the original version looked.
2 and 9 nodded in appreciation at each other for their teamwork. 2 said to 9, "1 told me what he said to you before you got back. I couldn't be happier to have my apprentice back." He added as he put his hand on 9's shoulder, "Are you ready for this?"
9 nodded with a smale smile, "I've waited so long to see him again."
2 told him that he would get the others while 9 brought 5 outside for his ressurection. He picked his fallen friend up in his arms and carried him outside the globe. He went outside to the courtyard and placed 5 on the same brick he revived 1 on the other day while the others had followed outside and gathered around. He took out the Talisman and wire, then he unbuttoned 5's chest and placed the wire in the socket in the middle of it before connecting the budded end of the wire with the Talisman.
He looked back at the others, and they all looked at him with hopeful smiles and 1 and 2 both nodded reassuring. 9 nodded a little back and looked at the Talisman in his hands. Remembering the pattern of the sequence, he slowly but carefully pressed each of the symbols on the Talisman in the same order; lower left, top, bottom.
The round, imprinted device began shaking in 9's hand and he quickly aimed it to the sky before the three glowing beams shot out from it and started extracting 5's soul from the clouds. The green essence traveled through the wire and back into its empty shell. The beams came back into the Talisman and the device closed up again.
9 closed 5 back up again and he and the others waited for their one-eyed friend to wake up again. After a few minutes, 9 felt a feeling of happiness when he watched as 5's fingers made a sudden movement.
So what did you guys think? 5 and 8 are good to go for their ressurection, and 1 and 2 share a couple of moments with 9 about their son figures. And now our beloved one-eyed engineer 5 is about to come back. How will his reunion with 9 and everyone else go?
I know you guys can see a little Beauty and the Beast vibe in this chapter, but I thought it would be a bit fitting for 1 and 9's moment.
9 belongs to Shane Acker and Tim Burton, and Beauty and the Beast belongs to Disney.