Chapter 19: Unexplained consequence
After answering a few questions from all of the spectators, I bottled up some of the gummi berry juice and placed the top on the pot. Then the three of us made our trip back to the hospital to visit the others. Along the way, we stopped at a few merchant booths and Ella purchased a leather side bag to help me transport the bottles of gummi berry juice better. We visited Luna first. Apparently her sedation had worn off and she was out of bed and walking around holding her side like it was still very sore. "Luna." I said while entering the room. She turned around to see where the voice had come from and began to relax when she saw me. "Sis. What is this place? Where are we?" She asked slightly nervous. "They removed the bullet from your side and set you down to heal. I hear you've been giving the nurses a hard time." I said with slight truth and sarcasm all rolled into one. She gently shuffled her left foot back and forth in embarrassment and said lightly, "I was worried about you. They told me that you had cracked your skull against the quick car and I just wanted to see if you were alright." "How is your side?" I asked. She placed her hand on her once wounded side and answered, "It still stings but otherwise I think it's healed." "Perhaps you should get back in bed." I suggested, "You actually may have a greater pain tolerance than most others. Mine was the lightest wound of all of them and I can actually still feel it every now and then." My statement was true, throughout the day, that spot on my head would cramp up and I would have fleeting headaches.
Reluctantly, Luna crawled back into her bed and folded her arms in a huff. I decided to at least try and cheer her up before going to check on Rose. "Here." I said reaching into the new leather bag that Ella had bought for me and bringing out a bottle of gummi berry juice. I placed it on the counter close to her and she asked, "What is it?" "This is gummi berry juice. Don't drink it until you absolutely have to." I warned her. She looked up at me and asked, "How come? What does it do?" "I don't know what it does to gummi bear clones, but my guess is it might do the same thing it does to a gummi bear." She looked at me confused and worried until I answered, "I makes us bounce like rubber." She lifted her left eyebrow in annoyance, confusion and insult at the same time and said, "That's just crazy." "Just trust me on this. It'll come in handy." I stated in confidence. She simply shrugged her shoulders and slid into her covers to try and rest some more.
We continued to the next room, which was Rose's room and once we entered, we saw her treating her own wound with a kind or device that resembled a kind of metal tube with lights and two buttons. "Rose, what are you doing?" I asked with slight confusion on my face. She looked at us with a fright and was finally relieved once she realized that the three of us were all females. "Don't startle me like that. This is an experimental procedure. I just finished programming it a few minutes ago. I'm hoping that it works and heals the wound faster than natural healing." She explained. She had removed her top to handle the small device. She rubbed the tip of her device around the wound, completely exposing her naked breasts to us every now and then. "Experimental... procedure?" I was thoroughly confused now and tilted my head slightly to the right side to show it. "I'm going to call it, 'Cell Regenerative Frequency Scans'. I simply program this tiny scanner with a wavelength that activates and accelerates the regenerative qualities of cell reproduction. Each set of cells, I figure, responds to a different wavelength so figuring it out may be tough so I asked the doctor for tissue samples from my wound to try and figure it out and, voila." As she spoke, the wound on her shoulder began to rapidly seal itself and even the skin that was sewn together began to fuse together and momentarily evaporated into thin air. I failed to notice her cringing as the wound healed itself. "That was amazing!" I said turning my gaze to look as her face which had tears of pain streaming down its cheeks. "She relaxed her brow in a few seconds and retorted in heavy breaths, "Yah, but it hurts like hell", and flopped back down onto her pillow. Then she asked herself, "If it hurts that much from such a small wound that has been already treated, what would it be with an equal sized wound that hasn't been treated and the body is already feeling the intense pain?" "Maybe you should take some pain killers?" I suggested with worry in my voice. "That's just it Sunni. I am on pain killers." She answered.
My eyes opened wide at the concept of the whole thing. "How could regenerating hurt so much worse than the initial wound?" I found myself asking aloud. Before Rose could try and answer with her endless vocabulary, an explosion interrupted her thought process. The explosion came from the outskirts of the town and another one followed in closer. These explosions were soon followed by two more explosions and thus followed by two more. Rose shot out of bed and quickly and hurried to put on her bra and hospital shirt. During that Ella, Selina and I ran to the nearest window to view where those explosions had come from. "Igthorn's army? How did they find us?" Selina stated in surprise. In an instant, I ran to Eric's room while Rose and Luna dashed out of their own and followed. "Eric. Igthorn found the village." I stated to him in a mild panic. I found him sitting in his bed looking at me with a determined look.
"It's him." He told me with slight anger in his voice and vengeance written upon his face. "Who?" I asked as another explosion erupted inside the village. He sank deeper into vengeful anger as he recited his name, "Maximus Landwall!" The name rang in my head like a cemetery bell from Eric's earlier story of how he had gotten his scar. "The guy that led the attack that killed your father?" I gasped at the realization. His face tensed up even more when I reminded him of the treachery that man had committed. His eye brows lowered in defining anger and he clenched his teeth tightly. His hands balled themselves up into tight fists and he began growling at the mere thought of him. "This won't be his only attack point." Selina stated. "He prides himself on his three pronged attack patterns. He'll have two more striking points set up already. And you can bet that the other four assassins are gonna target me." "Miss Selina, let me battle at your side." Ella asked. Eric snapped out of his revere when he heard his sister beg to go back into battle. "Are you crazy, Ella? You only have one arm! What if you get yourself killed?" He shouted with concern for his sister. She simply glared at her brother and said, "Not doing anything is worse than dying. Besides, I've more than made up for the absence of my arm. I can fight. Miss Selina trained me." As we all turned her gaze to her, Selina replied with a calm determined expression, "It was the only way I knew how to bring her confidence back and teach her how to live with only one arm and eye. Her left side is both blind and deaf, so she compensates by staying mobile."
"But you swore off killing?" I reminded her. She turned to me with even more confidence than I have ever seen in a human and replied, "I'd gladly break my vow to never kill again to protect these people from annihilation." She then turned her attention to Ella. "You will be protecting your brother and his friends. Quickly get your weapon and come back here." Ella reluctantly nodded and ran off to retrieve the mysterious weapon that was mentioned. "You both must survive." She then said to both Luna and I. "Word will spread that two gummi bears survived Igthorn's wrath and are now fighting against his rule. As long as you survive, you will inspire many people to rise up and take the fight."