Dev laid sprawled out on the ground with his limbs spread to his sides. He was exhausted. If another robot-zombie attacked him right now... he might let it win.
His arms and legs ached. In fact... ow.
He cradled his left arm close to his chest. He'd forgotten about the gash he had taken from the Quillcat.
Right... he needed to get up and disinfect it. That meant starting a fire and boiling some water.
Or did they have some of the potable water left? He couldn't remember. It seemed so long ago that they had been doing normal camping activities. Then he'd placed as many traps as he could while Bit brewed the zombie-poison that he applied to them.
Then...
Oh. Right. They'd won. Right?
Dev raised his head. The clearing was a mess. There were headless corpses all over the place - not to mention their brains just lying on the ground. If he didn't look too hard, he could pretend they were just oddly shaped red rocks.
Everything blended together if he didn't look at it too closely. He let his head lower back to the ground. He could just rest his eyes for a moment...
"That's pretty deep." Dev opened his eyes and looked at Bit. She was holding his left arm and he hadn't even noticed. "You've lost a decent amount of blood. Nothing dangerous, but when the body loses blood it takes it a while to adapt." She was sewing him up while she spoke. Somehow, he barely felt a thing. "I can make you a shot for that later. That will be easier than a pill. With a pill or a drink, I'd have to have it propagate to your marrow and stimulate blood production. With a shot, I can just whip up a batch of blood for you and that will be it."
Dev thought for a moment. "I'm B negative." That's what you needed to tell a paramedic before they gave you an infusion, right?
"I know, but that doesn't matter." Bit continued plunging a needle in and out of his flesh - and he still didn't feel any pain. "I can make blood O negative easily enough. Do you want anything special added to it? Increased oxygen capacity? Some chemicals that enhance adrenaline? How about some stem cells that will repair whatever they come across? That's a good one, but it is a bit slow."
Dev blinked. "What?"
Bit smiled at him. "Your blood. As long as I'm making you some, I might as well do something interesting with it. Don't worry. I have lots of experience with substitutes. They're all perfectly safe now."
If only she hadn't said 'now'... Why? Why was she so cute and creepy at times? She had to be doing it on purpose, right? "My regular blood will be fine. Just normal blood you'd fine in a blood bank back on Earth."
She gave him a flat look. "You know those are two different things, right?"
"What?"
"Your blood and what you'd find back on your Earth." She shook her head. "You've already evolved past a baseline human."
"What!?" Dev was suddenly a lot more awake. He struggled to prop himself up with one arm. "I'm... what? A mutant? Can I not get regular infusions anymore? Am I not human?"
Bit shrugged. "'Normal' blood will work just fine for you, but it's not as good as what your body is producing. There's a field on this planet, which I'm going to go ahead and call 'magic' for lack of a better term." That was a lie. Bit was smiling at the word 'magic'. "It accumulates in people and and changes their cells. As far as I can tell, they're strictly superior - aside from needing magic to power them. I'll need to perform some tests to see what happens when they no longer have access to magic, but I haven't figured out a way to block it yet." She shrugged. "It's mainly in your muscles though, so it's no big deal either way. Humans can lose muscle mass without any major detrimental effects."
"Those are called 'galas muscles'." Pinky was suddenly standing on the top of Dev's head.
"Galas muscles?" Dev asked.
"Yeah. They're the stuff that lets high-level people do high-level stuff!"
"How specifically do they work, Pinky?" Bit asked.
"I have no idea!" The Fraerling proudly stated.
Bit closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "Well, I'll figure them out on my own. Anyways..." She opened her eyes and looked at Dev. "What sort of blood do you want?"
"A... regular transfusion?" He couldn't remember the options she'd given him. "I guess?"
"Okay!" Bit nodded and smiled. "I'll get right on it!" She turned to leave.
"Wait!" Dev called out. "What about the robots? Do I need to set more traps? Are you okay with... making blood... while they're out there?"
"Nah." Bit turned back and shook her head. "We got them all in this area. We only have to deal with the twenty that were back in the village now!"
"Oh." Dev sagged back down. "Okay." He wanted to lay his head back and get some sleep, but if he did that, Pinky would fall off. "Pinky, could you get down? I want to take a nap."
"Nope!" The Fraerling replied joyfully. "That's why I'm up here! We can't have you falling asleep AFTER the battle - not when there's another one coming up! You'll waste your counter-leveling chance!"
"My what?"
Pinky flipped down and onto his chest. "Your counter-leveling chance! When you're going up against a stronger opponent and you survive, then you can actually gain levels mid-combat!" She began walking in circles. "That's what the Tallguard say at least. Basically, you get knocked around - which is bad for you, okay? You get knocked around and lose consciousness. It doesn't take long, just a blow to the head that leaves you dizzy or something or fainting from a little from blood loss. But! If it happens, and you've put up a good enough fight to level, then you'll get [Classes] and [Skills] that are super useful against what you're fighting!"
"What?" Dev blinked. "Really?"
"Yep!" Pinky crossed her legs as she sat down. "It's something that the Titan says high-level people have to watch out for. In fact, it's often better to retreat if you encounter it."
"Oh." Dev really, really wanted a nap right about now, but... "Okay, I'll sit up."
"That's great!" Pinky hopped up, ran down his body, and grabbed his hand. "You'll see, you'll feel better as soon as Bit uses whatever new [Class] she pulls out of her... uh... hat." The tiny woman then grabbed his finger and tried pulling him up into a sitting position.
Dev leaned forward and then palmed his face with his free hand. Were they going to go to the Jungleclad's village? That... would be the right thing to do... IF any of them were alive.
...If they all were dead? Maybe it would be better to leave the homicidal robots alone.
Like always, Riley didn't have the time to do everything she wanted to. It was especially galling that the cause for her current time-crunch issues was one of her old solutions to it!
If she had her Mets, and they were loyal and not crazy, then she'd be able to harvest all these perfectly good bodies for later use. Sure, they were missing some important sensory organs... but she'd gone through that 'headless' phase when she was seven. She knew how to make a body work without eyes, ears, or a mouth.
...It was the least she could do with the knowledge she'd gained as Bonesaw.
She set the cadaver down for a second and sighed. There was nothing to do about it but smile and power-through. She'd find her big brother eventually, and everything would be better!
Oh.
The realization struck her like a thunderbolt.
THAT was why she felt so connected with Pinky. She hadn't realized their similarities before. Sure, the specific details were different, but the same yearning, the same dichotomy between their inner selves and the face they showed the world. Between their past and their present...
Now she missed Kevin even more. He would've been able to see that from the start. He would've explained it to her. He would've solved everything already.
Riley sighed again, and then got back to work.
She needed blood. Or, rather, Dev needed blood. She'd given him some options, but he'd chosen a 'regular transfusion'. She didn't have the time to clone something with his bone marrow, so if she was going to give him a transfusion, it would have to be with blood they had on hand. Which, thankfully, was quite a lot.
Badgy's and the monkeys' blood was out. Sure, she could make it work, but Dev would most definitely object to white blood. So, it was either Quillcat, Lizard, or Redno blood.
Her first impulse was to examine one of the headless lizards. She hadn't gotten a chance to work with one before, and they were sure to have some fascinating adaptations!
But... no.
She didn't have the time. Transfusing reptilian blood into a human would take too many extra steps. Sure, it would be a fun little puzzle to figure out... but... later.
That left the Quillcats and the Redno. Both were mammals. There was plenty of blood for each in total, but the Redno's was all in one place. Plus, she hadn't gotten to examine one of those yet either!
Besides, if you were going to use an animal for a base, it was better to use something at the top of the food chain! It would probably have something cool that would come in handy more than 'normal' human blood too!
Riley nodded to herself as she made her decision. First things first, she needed to examine the Redno's blood and see what made it tick. Specifically, if it coagulated like human blood. She was pretty sure it did. Across all animals that she'd encountered - including Badgy - blood's natural state was solid.
That was why it clotted in the first place, and why she needed to use chemicals to keep it fresh. Those chemicals were normally provided by the veins, and there should still be plenty left inside the Redno. She pulled out an extra-long knife from her backpack and leapt onto the animal's back.
One slow, deep incision cut through the thick skin and the layers of fat and muscles - and exposed her target. The Redno's spine, like everything else, was red. Every animal in the jungle she'd encountered so far had been like that. Sure, it wasn't THAT different from the insides of people - blood did get everywhere, but she was used to bone at least being white.
While it would've stymied a normal surgeon, it didn't slow Riley or her power down in the slightest. The Redno's biology was still similar enough for her. Riley twisted strands of her hair into tiny braids, and inserted them at precise spots.
She tied the rest up into balls, so the electricity wouldn't discharge randomly.
She activated her hair... and...
"Shoot." Riley pouted. "I need more power."
"Do you?" Pinky leapt up and landed on top of the Redno next to her. That was a pretty impressive jump, considering the size discrepancy. "Can I help?"
Riley considered her Fraerling friend. Pinky seemed to have gotten over her issues - or at least gotten past them enough to start acting like they weren't there again. Her eyes were a little wide, and her pupils were dilated more than normal... but she usually had that look when she watched Riley work.
It was probably just disturbing to see the insides of things the size of a house. Most people didn't care to watch her operate, so it was nice for Pinky to force herself.
"I need my energizing potion." Riley sighed. "But I'll have to undo all these strands I made and then redo them."
"Oh!" Pinky hopped up and down. "I'll do it!"
"Pinky..."
"Just tell me where it is and what color it is!"
"Weren't you... helping Dev?"
"Nah." Pinky made a brushing motion with her hand. "I explained stuff to him. He's sitting up and staying awake."
"Okay..."
"So, what's the potion you need look like?"
Riley considered her friend. Pinky... wasn't the most reliable person in the world, but she'd never done anything too egregious. It was just a question of if she decided something was the 'appropriate' level of 'foolish'. Still, it would be nice to have an assistant.
"If you look at my backpack from the side opposite of the straps, it will be the third row of vials from the right. They're bright yellow." She could've made them any color, but yellow was appropriate for electricity. Plus, she liked to keep a good number in stock since electrical impulses had so many uses.
"On it!"
Alright. So if Pinky brought back the wrong vial, or if she somehow managed to break or spill it...
Well, Riley had other things she needed to do. Next on her list would be stemming the blood as much as possible. Sure, the Redno had a lot, but waste not, want not. The important parts would be the major arteries - the single anterior spinal artery and the two posterior spinal arteries. Those would leak the most blood - aside from the internal carotid arteries and the vertebral arteries.
For those, she'd just have to seal the Redno's neck stump up. It would be the best place to get the blood she needed once a healthy amount of anti-coagulation chemicals had been built up. In fact...
Riley crawled to the Redno's front. She really should've done this part first, but she'd manage. It was pretty easy to identify those arteries. Even with all the red on red colors, the blood they continued to leak was plain to see.
A snip here, and a connection there... and... done!
Okay, so-
"Here's your potion!" Pinky hopped up next to her.
Riley gave the vial a once over. Right color. Right consistency. She popped the lid. Right smell. She drank it. Right taste. "Good job, Pinky. Thank you."
"Heh, heh, heh." Pinky chuckled. Then frowned and said "Not now Lars!" under her breath.
Riley raised an eyebrow. She wasn't surprised. Psychoses didn't vanish instantly... not unless Kevin used his Shard power. That... was eye-opening. She wondered what it would do for Pinky?
Regardless, the energy that had been stored in her solution was now being transformed from chemical bonds to electricity inside of her and flowing out through her hair. She closed her eyes and focused on the sensation. It was difficult being precise with the amplitude and voltage... but... there!
She gradually increased it until the Redno's central nervous system - or what was left of it - was back up and running. Or, at least, its heart was pumping - which was the main thing. Riley felt the knowledge of which strands to adjust flow into her.
Surgery sure was being helpful right now. Maybe it did feel bad? Or thought that she deserved more help in this particular endeavor?
With her Passenger's guidance, the Redno's body started flooding its bloodstream with the proper chemicals to keep it nice and fluid. Riley cut open one of the internal carotid arteries and let some sludge spill out before filling her now empty vial with blood.
Hmmm... She really needed to be closer to all her supplies if she wanted to do this right. She would have to add an electrical capacity to the Milk Box in the future. For right now, she sewed the artery shut and examined the blood.
"What'cha doing?" Pinky's face was flushed.
"I'm checking the Redno's blood type and its connectors." Riley focused her eyes on the liquid in the vial. It strained them, but she was capable of making out individual cells if she really, really tried. "It looks... acceptable. I think a few tweeks will make it match with Dev." And would prevent an immune system reaction.
Yes. She was sure of it.
Some of this and that, plus the precise amount of electrolysis to allow the chemicals to alter the blood in juuuuust the right way.
"Nice." Pinky still had an odd expression. "What can I do to help?"
"Hmmm..." Riley glanced between her friend and the Redno. It would be convenient to have her backpack up here, but that wasn't very likely. Plus, it would get it all dirty. It didn't have any self-cleaning capabilities like her dress. "Oh! I know. Hold this." She handed Pinky the vial before taking out one of her scalpels. A few quick strokes and she was done. "Now give me back the vial and hold these."
Pinky obediently gave back the glass tube, but she seemed hesitant to do so. "Is it safe?" She asked as she accepted Riley's hair in its place. "I know you have some sort of [Lightning Hair] skill."
"That's right." Riley hopped off of the Redno. "But it only works while its attached to me. I'll need to string them to the rest of my hair, but that way I'll be able to animate the Redno while I'm on the ground."
"And the blood?" Pinky looked at the Fraerling-sized lake that Riley's black strands were floating in.
"It'll be fine." Riley waved her off while strolling towards her bag. "My hair's non-permeable to most things - especially blood." She'd never minded the stuff after she'd triggered, but Bonesaw had been a Good Girl and that included keeping her hair nice and styled. Treating it so that blood would slide right off had been important at the time.
Dev sat and focused on breathing. He specifically tried NOT to focus on what Bit and Pinky were doing. It worried him that the blood for his transfusion was going to come from a magical, mutated Rhino.
But... Bit was confident. Confident, skilled, and very scary looking with how at ease she seemed to be covered in blood.
Right. Superhero-surgeon. That hadn't sounded very impressive when she'd first said it, but it now ranked pretty high on what sort of superpowers could REALLY be leveraged. Imagine if there was a supervillain with her skill set?
Dev shuddered.
Best to focus on something else. Specifically, the defense of their camp. Sure, the robot-zombies were all taken care of - assuming that the other wave didn't track them down. However, there were still wild animals in the deadly jungle - assuming the robot-zombies hadn't killed them all.
Dev stood up, and immediately swayed.
The light dimmed. Sound was muffled. All of his sensed diminished - including his balance. Suddenly, the sensation of just how he managed to stand with only two feet slipped his mind and he wobbled left and right.
There...
There was something...
He'd been dizzy before... and...
Oh... that's right...
Dev bent his knees and lowered himself straight down. If he was going to fall, then gently letting himself sit was the best choice. His actual descent wasn't nearly as graceful as he'd hoped it would be. It was more like a controlled collapse rather than anything else, but he had managed to lower himself without toppling to the side.
He'd call that a win.
Dev looked at the ground. It went blurry as his eyes unfocused. The world seemed to spin. He felt sick.
No!
He concentrated on a single spot. A single red leaf.
It was hard to make out on the equally red dirt... It blurred again.
No!
He brought it back into focus. He had to use his willpower to keep it that way as any lapse threatened to overwhelm him.
He had to just remember his medical training. It wasn't 'superhero' level, but he knew first aid. They'd taught him that in the Bharat Scouts.
Deep breaths. That was right. In and out. In and out.
His vision stabilized, and the headache he hadn't realized he'd had began to fade.
Whoa. Dev blinked several times. That was a rush. He wiped his forehead and looked up from his leaf. That must've been a combination of low blood pressure and a lack of adrenaline. He took a moment to marvel at how clearly he was thinking, and how he hadn't been able to really comprehend things for a moment there.
Wow. That was scary. A different kind of scary than a magical, hostile jungle or robot-zombies.
With his newfound wisdom, Dev decided that it probably would be for the best if he just sat there. He wouldn't be able to set many traps - or do a good job of those he did create. He licked his lips and swallowed. His throat was strangely dry. Dev then looked down at his body.
Oh. That WAS a lot of blood. His left arm was sticky and red, and the left side of his shirt and pants weren't much better. Bit had cleaned away the area where he'd been cut. He brought his arm closer to his face. Ah. THERE were the stitches. They honestly looked like a really long hair that was lying perfectly straight across his skin.
How did that even work? He brought his right hand up before deciding against poking his wound.
"Ah, good. You're sitting down."
Dev looked up at Bit and then did a second take. "You're a mess." He blurted out before thinking. He hoped the little girl didn't take offense... but she was being creepy-cute again. Not in her mannerisms, but because of the smile that was combined with a horror movie level of blood coating her.
She had a few splatters on her face, and she looked like she was wearing long, red gloves. Her legs and feet were also stained with the Redno's fluids. Somehow, her hair and dress were immaculate.
Creepy.
"I'll scrub up later." Bit shrugged. "No point in getting clean when I'm about to get dirty again."
"What about cross-contamination?" Dev opened his mouth and spoke without considering what he was saying again.
"That's easy." Bit rolled her eyes. "Making a decontamination mist was, like, the third thing I ever did. Anyways," She held up a plastic bag filled with blood. "Time to fix you up!"
"Is that... a blood bag?" Dev did a second take at the clear bag with a tube. "Why do you have a blood bag?"
"For carrying blood."
Huh. Well. Dev guessed that made sense.
"So, it's just going to be a regular transfusion, right? No radioactive spider powers or other strange side effects?"
Bit glanced at him as she went about hooking the blood bag up to his arm. "Nothing like that. It is magic blood though, so you'll experience some differences."
"Differences like what?" Dev looked at her. Was... was her dress slightly red now instead of just black? And why didn't it have blood coating it?
"Well, as far as I can figure, magic comes in categories, okay?" Bit poked a needle in his arm, and Dev didn't feel a thing. "It might only be this way in the Dyed Lands, but white seems to be associated with hiding and not being noticed. That sort of stuff."
"And Red?" Dev glanced over at the corpses of all the red animals.
"Growth."
"Growth?"
"Yep." Bit nodded as blood began to flow from the bag into his arm.
"Aren't you worried about cancer or something?" That was the result of cells growing without control, right?
"Nah." Bit shook her head. "There's been no indication of malignant growths in any of the animals or plants I've examined, and we've seen them grow really, really fast too!"
"We have?"
"Yeah." Bit motioned to the jungle. "Even here, away from that crystal - which must contain concentrated growth magic, the trees grow back far faster than they should be able to. Plants just don't have the natural mechanisms to either have the capacity for such rapid and wide-scale energy to mass conversions, nor the energy reserves to do so in the first place. That is," She paused. "Unless they're MAGICAL plants!"
Her eyes were twinkling.
"Okay." Dev thought about it for a moment. "I can accept that. It's probably also why we haven't seen any cubs or offspring around."
"Right! They'd have to grow up quickly to sustain the cycle-of-life thing this jungle has going on!"
"Yeah..." Dev frowned. "It's probably a contributing factor for why there are so many predators here too. So..." He continued. "If I'm not going to get cancer, what side effects will there be?" There had to be side effects from magical blood, right?
"For the short term? None. You won't be getting Polycythemia vera or anything like that."
"What?"
"The disease where you have too much blood?" Bit tilted her head. "That comes from issues with your bone marrow. It's not something you can get from a transfusion."
"Okay." Dev nodded. "So my blood won't multiply on its own." That was good to know.
"Right. It will continue to do its blood thing. It will transport a normal amount of oxygen, unlike my own. It will probably help you heal quicker until it runs out and it will let you build muscles faster too. I'm curious to see what the extent of that is and how long it will last." Bit brightened up. "In fact, I bet it'll help you grow those 'galas muscles' that exposure to magic results in."
"And... you're not worried about that?"
Bit shrugged. "I'm worried a little. Strange reactions and all that, but if magic was innately harmful to human life, then there wouldn't be any humans on this world at all. Would there?"
Huh. She had a point.
"Wait." Dev thought back to something she'd said in the middle of all of that. "YOUR blood isn't normal?"
Bit gave him an incredulous look. "You'd think a wet Tinker like me, or, uhm, a wet Superhero like me would keep on using her boring old blood? Do you know what percentage of deaths are technically due to suffocation from blood not delivering oxygen?"
Uh... "Ten percent?"
Bit sighed and shook her head. "Try thirty six. If you only care about how people die from wounds gained from fighting? That number jumps to like ninety percent. Unless you're hit by an attack that instantly kills you, the thing that will actually do you in is the lack of oxygen your brain gets while you're bleeding out."
"Oh." Should he have asked for some of her blood? Was she a match? If Bit could make the Redno's blood safe for a transfusion, then she could've done the same for herself.
Then again, she was pretty small. Plus, like she said, the blood he was getting would be replaced by his own natural blood in time.
Riley looked around the camp. She didn't want to miss anything.
Sure, the materials that she was being forced to leave behind were still piled up on the ground. She totally COULD make a bunch of headless minions, but that would take too much time. The surgeries alone to add external cavities for their brains would last for days.
Although... she could experiment with placing the brain of one species in the body of another...
No. She shook her head. There would be time for 'fun' later. She could collect all the spare bodies that she wanted to from the jungle when they had more time.
Right. The checklist.
Brains? Those were the most valuable. She'd barely managed to fit them all inside of her backpack. It had taken some creative measures and cramming multiple brains into one jar, but she'd managed to pack them all. Check.
White flesh? Badgy's body was tied to Kraby. She'd sewn up his neck, and the cold water would help minimize its deterioration - at least while they used the river. She'd also tied three monkeys to him, two of which still had their heads. Check.
Red flesh? She'd taken a few samples - just in case she couldn't procure more later. Check.
Milk Box? Still working. No room inside the backpack, so it would have to go on top of Kraby with the rest of them. Check.
Dev? The civilian seemed to be holding up. Riley didn't have Kevin's empathy power, so she couldn't really be sure, but Dev hadn't resisted the idea of going back to the Jungleclad's village much. That was probably in part due to his encounter with the Stranger having been overshadowed by the fight with the Mets. In part because he'd seen that she could defeat her former minions with ease. In part because of her flawless logic and moral argument towards stopping her wayward helpers. Check.
Pinky? Where was Pinky anyways? Riley rotated as she scanned the clearing. Even if she couldn't see Pinky due to a power, her sense redirect would let her know if something was messing with them... Then again, Fraerlings were small. Riley didn't have a way to overcome natural stealth.
"Pinky? Are you here?" She called out. "We're ready to go!"
"I'm hear...ing you just fine!" Pinky hopped up on Riley's shoulder.
Check.
"Okay, let's head out then." Riley glanced between Pinky and Dev and got nods in return. "We'll see what the Jungleclad's village is like and go from there."
Yeah, right. She knew they were all dead. Her Mets were thorough. They wouldn't leave survivors. It was also unlikely that she'd get back in time to revive any of their victims. There was only so much she could do to repair a decaying brain.
Still, hope sprung eternal.
[Scout Level 21!]
[Spear Fighter Level 3!]
[Skill - Basic Stealth obtained!]
[Skill - Swift Stab obtained!]
[Skill - Basic Poisoncraft obtained!]
[Soul Survivor Level 3!]
[Skill - Ghostly Presence: Laremy Fiddlestack obtained!]