I used to say, "Go boldly in among the English," and then I used to go boldly in myself. Saint Jeanne d'Arc

Chapter 11: Mortal Wounds

A brief silence filled the air—the dark sky filled with a red and orange haze mixed with dark gray smoke. Embers gently floated down as Jeanne shut her eyes, feeling the world spin slightly, her hand pressed against her wound, yet feeling more blood seeping out.

She tried to focus her eyes to the best of her abilities. She could see Artoria in the fight flicker of flames that illuminated her tortured face. The look on Artorias face pained the young Maiden to no end. Guilt, loathing, and even self-hate. "I-it… wasn't your fault…" Jeanne coughed, a trickle of blood came up, rolling down her chin, "I was taken…"

"Shut up." Artoria was having none of it. "I did… I did this…" Artoria winced as her sword dropped to the ground.

Mordred's hate-filled laughter filled the air, "Y-y-yes, you did! It was perfect! I knew you were heartless, father, but this… this is just perfect. "

Hearing that laughter. The hate-filled laughter… Jeanne wanted to silence it. Knowing that it tortured a dear friend, it had to be stopped. Wincing in pain, she stood up. Hobbling over, she picked up her standard. The world spun as her legs crossed several times, unable to keep steady.

She gathered the last of her strength.

"Jeanne… no!" Artoria shouted, dreading what was about to happen.

It was already too late. Jeanne dashed forward, skewering the knight through the shoulder. The knight turned her head to see her shoulder skewed by a sharp spear tip. There wasn't even a whimper of pain. It barely registered at all.

The crimson knight placed a hand on the banner and snapped it like it was a twig. "You are going to pay for that," Mordred grunted.

How? That pole was made of solid oak with an iron core. Mordred pulled out the blade and tossed it aside. Just like that, Jeanne's strength left her as her beloved standard was thrown to the ground.

An iron gauntlet connected with Jeanne's face, sending her tumbling to the ground. All she could feel was the ground as she rolled around. The only thing she could focus on was a resounding war cry.

"DIE!"

She heard a familiar voice scream in agony and pain.

As she landed, she felt like the world shook underneath her as metal rang out with metal. Light danced in her vision as blue and red mixed together. Crossing and crisscrossing, sparks flew in wild, unstoppable arcs that demanded blood.

Jeanne's vision grew hazier and hazier as the world started to swirl around her. The Earth shuddered and shook as the world fell apart. She closed her eyes to the halt of metal clanging. "Jeanne! Stay awake!" She heard another voice call out.

She wanted to.

"MORDRED, I'LL HAVE YOUR HEART!"

That… that couldn't be Artoria. Artoria wasn't filled with so much hate.

Opening her eyes, she saw emerald eyes looking down at her... "Ata..?"

Atalanta dashed from soldier to soldier, slicing and dicing like a tornado of slashing swords. The English never had a chance. Her soldiers charged, firing their crossbows at the unsuspecting soldiers arming the siege weapons.

By the time they reached their weapons, they had found themselves hit by a swarm of angry Frenchman wielding swords. Men fell to the ground, clutching their chests as bolts impaled the Englishmen. The ones that missed the bolts were mercilessly cut down.

The body count was past thirty, and she was only getting warmed up as she drove her blade into a man's back. With an unceremonious kick, she freed her sword and waved her soldiers forward as she slashed the ropes and knocked over the support beams; the catapults became undone.

Unslinging her bow, she shot the jars of oil, igniting them, sending pillars of smoke in the air. The ground violently shook. Two men came out of the tent as walking, screaming torches which she mercifully put down with an arrow in the chest. Their burning bodies collapsed to the ground.

"You men! Alert the garrison and meet back in the camp! GO!" The huntress roared.

The soldiers rushed to the city a little distance off as she planned to reunite with her comrades. Slinging her bow, she dashed like a lioness, staying low to the ground as a man raised his sword, swinging down.

He fell to the ground, clutching his stomach. Whirling around, she swung downward, slicing through another's chest.

"You foul monster!" The last one said as he took several steps back.

"I am," Atalanta whispered.

A flick of the wrist and the sword were embedded through the helmet. Putting a boot down, she pulled her blade out.

"MORDRED, I'LL HAVE YOUR HEART!" she heard a very familiar voice roar over the fire and chaos.

The drawbridge was lowered off in the distance. A great many soldiers clad in metal armor charged out on horseback.

She raced through the camp, killing an unfortunate fool that tried to stop her until she reached a large circle of soldiers watching in awe. She leaped through the crowd.

What she saw horrified her. Artoria was going full force against Mordred, the two being equally matched blow for blow.

Jeanne was on the ground bleeding profusely from a wound, her banner broken. Her body was broken and mangled. The huntress rushed to her side. "Artoria! We need to go!"

Lifting the blonde's head up, she lightly tapped her cheek, "Hey Jeanne, stay awake. No time for sleep right." A few more taps. "Jeanne, stay awake!"

She breathed a sigh of relief when two tired Amethyst eyes opened slowly, looking around, unable to focus on anything. "Hey, there you are." The huntress whispered with a smile.

"Ata…?" She murmured with a pained wince.

The huntress nodded with a smile. "Yes, I'm here." Her attention shifted up to the fight, "ARTORIA!"

Swing after swing was countered and rebuffed. Blows were countered with an opposite slash and thrust from her opponent. Her daughter was a fierce fighter, that was true. In the past, she unrefined, unpredictable, and, dare say, lacking any self-defense.

However, this time, Mordred was much more precise and, dare say, reflexive. It was like she could predict all of Artoria's movements and countermovements. She gave the King a run for her gold.

Hack, slash, parry, counter parry, sparks flew as the blades constantly met in different gridlocks. "I'll make you pay…" Artoria hissed through clenched breath. "You will die for all of this."

"And you would betray your own people?" Mordred countered with a headbutt, dazing Artoria slightly. "You betray your own blood for a stranger."

The two broke off slightly, circling one another. Though she could sense that Mordred wanted to finish Jeanne off for sure. "Father, you're the one killing your own people. I'm trying to end a war. Our people deserve France. It's our rightful inheritance."

"Inheritance." Artoria went wild, dashing forward in a hail of slashes, "You… are… corrupted… by… your… self… entitlement!" Artoria roared through the maelstrom of blows.

Metal clangs filled the air.

"And you're blinded by your arrogance!" Mordred swung her sword downward. It connected with the ground. If she had remained in that position, it would easily have cracked through Artoria's defenses and sliced right through her.

"THE FRENCH ARE COMING!"

"GAH!" Mordred screamed with fury as she slammed her sword into the ground in utter rage.

In some semblance of control, the red knight picked up her blade, "Sound the horn!" Mordred shouted.

With that, Mordred sheathed her sword and mounted a horse brought to her. Artoria was about to launch herself into her Mordred and her bodyguard when Atalanta grabbed her by the arm. "We need to go!"

"No! I can kill her!" Artoria hissed.

"No!" Atalanta shouted back as she tried to restrain the dragon, "You want to end one life at the cost of another?!"

That stopped the king. The murderous intent in Artoria's eyes was that of a wild dog. "The French are coming!" a soldier shouted; the ground started to shake from five hundred knights galloping straight towards the camp.

"We need to go."

The red knight sat up on her horse. "Sound the retreat!" She ordered again

"No…" Artoria huffed in exhaustion, "We will finish this."

The Knight laughed as a horse was brought to them, "You were always so single-minded, Father. I almost feel bad for them. They'll get to know what kind of inhuman monster you are." Mordred huffed as she mounted her horse. "Have the men perform a delaying action."

With Mordred galloping off with her guard, Artoria was left in shambles. Her muscles were giving out, being pushed to the extreme. Artoria looked over to see Atalanta treating Jeanne.

Wait… Jeanne!

Throwing down her blade, she rushed over to the blonde girl, blood pouring out of her mouth slightly. Remarkably she was still conscious as the knights rode through the camp.

"I'm sorry I wasn't very helpful…." Jeanne gave a weak smile

"Hush.." Atalanta said as she started to dress the wound though it didn't stop bleeding

"Artoria…"

This was her fault. Her daughter did this. Mordred will pay dearly for this. While she might have had no ill will towards her in the past. Seeing her now what she did now…

She felt a hand reach out and touch her own, snapping her out of the malicious thoughts. "Please… never be so hateful…. Family should not hate one another, no matter what…"

Then…

What was she to do?

Artoria nodded apologetically with mournful tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you saw me like that. This… this… this my fault… I.. let this happen."

By now, a man on horseback rode up to the three; he dismounted and pulled up his visor, revealing tufts of scraggly black hair that jutted out.

"What happened here?!" By his peckish accent and curly unkempt hair, it was the Duke of Orleans, Jean.

Artoria could see that Jeanne was struggling to stay awake.,

"Its… Orleans, all over '' she chuckled, "though no arrow." She winced as she pulled her hand away and fell limp.

Atalanta shook Jeanne a little, "Jeanne, stay with us." The man approached, putting an ear on her chest.

For a few minutes, he tensed up until he smiled.

"She did the same thing… she slept when she was wounded."

Artoria nodded slowly as she struggled to pick herself up.

"The army is coming; I'll have a stretcher come and get her. We'll mop up the rest of the English. Thank you all.

"It's going to take much longer for her wound. To heal.. Ava spoke, if Emily is dormant, the body will be relying on half the brain.

Artoria didn't care as she slumped to the ground. She felt herself become incredibly weak. Looking up, she could see a small child looking at her. The same eyes that Artoria had… "Mordred…?"

People were dragging the young child away. Her child… Her Mordred. "Nononono….!" Artoria shouted.

You're going through a desync. We're pulling everyone out.

Atalanta came too, feeling the intense pressure behind her head ease up as she took off the helmet. Undoing the restraint, she freed herself from the strange machine bed.

"We need to get them to the ICU." Dr. Anders said with utmost urgency.

Undoing the helmet for Jeanne, the doctor held up a flashlight to Jeanne's eyes. "She's in shock."

He lifted up the shirt slightly, and disturbing scarlet and violet, mixed in with deep brown and yellow. "This is what I was afraid of." He murmured; he looked up. "Atalanta, I need you to take her."

The huntress nodded as she gently picked up Jeanne. Looking down at her, Atalanta could see she was in great pain.

Dr. Anders helped Artoria up, "Hey Artoria, I need you to focus on me. You're going into shock, so I need you to focus on my voice. Alright "

"Mordred… Mordred. Where are you" Artoria whimpered. "I can't find her…"

"Mordred isn't here…" Dr. Anders tried to calm her.

"She was taken!" Artoria snapped.

We were warned that this would happen. Voleta spoke sadly. Artoria wasn't prepared for the emotional strain of fighting Mordred. Her mind is starting to break.

So desyncing is a mind sickness. That's a shame to see such a noble person crippled by memories of a former life.

Following Voleta's instruction, the huntress found herself in a clean room that stunk of harsh fumes from sources unknown. There was a padded table that she laid Jeanne down.

"And you…. Were such a cold-hearted person…" A whisper of a voice could barely be heard.

The comment caused Atalanta to practically leaped out of her skin. "I am." She asserted, "but I don't like seeing friends in pain.

Jeanne's tired eyes looked up, grabbing her by the arm. "I'm glad we are your friends." She mustered a weak smile despite the pain. "Did we save Orleans?"

Atalanta nodded with a rare smile, "Yes, we did. The English were defeated."

"And Artoria?"

"She'll be alright." The huntress tried to take the worry away from Jeanne; she had enough to deal with.

A frown started to form as if she were thinking about something, "I hope the two can become family..." She murmured with a sigh.

In Atalanta's experience, sometimes families weren't meant to be, for one reason or another. Like her own experiences as her not being a male, she was an automatic disappointment to her father.

It was bitter to know that her father gave up on her. Dare she say, she could almost understand Mordred's pain.

"Where is my daughter?!" Artoria shouted from down the hall. "They took her! I want her back! Morgan! I will end you! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Atalanta looked up. The shouting was coming from the room next door. It seemed Artoria was losing herself.

"You should help our friend…" Jeanne lifted her head up with a concerned look.

"But…"

"Trust me," she offered a weak smile, "it'll help more to know that Artoria is in good hands."

"Alright… but you better be here when I get back, alright?"

Jeanne nodded, "Don't worry, I'm tougher than I look, hehe." She added with a weak laugh

Atalanta ran into the next room.. she saw Artoria writhing in pain, screaming about Morgan and Mordred. The room was a mess. Trays and objects were scattered all over the place. Tables knocked over, with Artoria in a corner, weeping. Her hands pulling at her hair.

Dr. Anders looked terrified as he pulled her aside, "Atalanta, we need to sedate her, and I need to get a dose of R-cells, or she will die.."

"Right."

Atalanta took a few quiet steps, careful not to step on any of the broken class lest she give away her position.

"Artoria.." she called out with a subdued and warm voice.

She looked up with bloodshot eyes, frantically searching, "Mordred?! Daughter, have you returned?"

"No., I'm Atalanta." She raised her hands, giving a disarming appearance. It was important not to startle your prey.

"Ata…." Artoria hummed in thought, "that sounds really familiar. Are you one of my captains?"

She shook her head, "friends, we're friends,"

A look of wonder sparkled in her eyes as if she were a child, "friends... you say? I never had a friend. Have you seen my daughter?" The innocence in Artoria's eyes, it was like she was a whole new person.

Thinking, she paused. Everything hinged on this moment. She could lie with a yes, and that could cause Artoria to go into a tirade all over again, or she could answer no, and fill her with even more despair. Both seemed to be lose-lose situations. Atalanta sighed; she couldn't put this woman through more misery.

"Yes, my king, I have seen your daughter. She wasn't kidnapped."

The tension dissipated.

"Then where is she?"

Come think… she didn't prepare for it to go this far.

She's at your castle.

Oh, this could work great… or cost her an arm and a leg… "Don't you remember, my Lord, she's at my castle. You sent her there so I could…" Think fast think fast think fast! "school her."

Well done.

That seemed to settle her down quite a bit. Artoria loosened up, "Most excellent then… sorry… my memory isn't what it used to be."

Atalanta inched closer, "We are all forgetful, my King." Atalanta bowed, "Now, if you would please… it's time for the court… healer to inspect your health."

"Indeed." She said somewhat suspiciously as Atalanta guided her to the bed. Once Artoria was on the bed, Dr. Anders proceeded to inject her. She started to slump, "Y-You…" Artoria's eyes couldn't focus, "soined me…." She slurred.

"No…" Atalanta said, pushing her down, "It's to help you feel better."

"I… ine… I'm fine…" She insisted.

Artoria closed her eyes and was fast asleep, leaving a rather rattled Atalanta, who wiped the sweat off her brow. "I… that was… you're telling me that could happen to any of us?"

Dr. Anders nodded as she gently lifted Artoria's head, inserting a needle and pushing it deep into her neck. "She is stable for now. I imagine it'll take a couple of hours for her to be able to resync with Dr. Ava.

Without skipping a beat, Atalanta rushed to the other room with Jeanne. "What happened to her?" He asked.

"Combat with Mordred." Jeanne winced in pain, "I hear Artoria is doing much better."

The doctor raised an eyebrow, "Mor…?" He shook his head. "So what happened.

"I… was slashed…" The doctor lifted the shirt up to see massive internal bleeding with dark blue and purple slowly spreading through her abdomen. He pressed down on the spot lightly.

"GAH!" Jeanne shouted in pain, her legs kicking out.

The doctor shook his head, "Well, that confirms my suspicion.. Without the host, the brain can't interpret the neural activity of digital wounds… Death in the otherworld… I surmise, equals death in real life." He looked down to Jeanne, "Your nervous system is experiencing a neural overload, and your body is reacting by swelling blood in that region. Your blood vessels are bursting."

"That… doesn't… what?"

"Think of your master as a kind of gatekeeper for your body… They interpret what is real and what isn't. Without Emily here, Jeanne's body interpreted that strike… or the strikes as very real… and her body started to break down…"

Atalanta, having enough of this, smacked the doctor across the face. "We don't have time for your magic. Can it be fixed?"

"Yes… I believe it can be." Dr. Anders murmured as he rubbed his cheek.

"Atalanta… please don't do that…" Jeanne weakly murmured.

Usually, she would have brushed off the request, but she didn't want to distress Jeanne more than she already had. "My apologies, Doctor Anders."

The man nodded with appreciation. He rummaged through a drawer until he found a leather belt with strange 'wires' surrounding it. "We need to induce a state of shock to hopefully awaken Emily. Once Emily is awake, she might be able to regulate the nervous system and slow down the internal bleeding."

Tying it around Jeanne's head, Atalanta could see that the Maiden was scared. "It'll be alright," Atalanta reassured her.

Atalanta took her by the hand squeezed. That must have been the trick. "Neuro reading is off the charts. I'm going to overload your mind to the point it will reset you and hopefully Emily. But it might kill you."

"Do it," Jeanne said

"It'll hurt…."

"I don't care."

Fiddling around, the doctor produced a wooden spindle. "Bite down on this and make sure it's tight."

What was he going to do?

"Atalanta, you might not want to touch her. It could be painful."

She felt Jeanne tried to pull out of her hand. No. She gripped her hand even tighter.

The Doctor nodded as he tapped a button on the machine.

Out of nowhere, a powerful shock shot through her arm and into her body. It was numbing, hot, and oh so painful. It was someone driving a thousand daggers. Every inch of her body is muscles tightened and spasmed, loosening and constricting. It felt like her body was made of writhing snakes and eels.

Looked down with gritted teeth. Jeanne's eyes were wide with pain as her own body writhed in the agony of the snapping currents.

She felt Jeanne's hand tried to break free in an attempt to spare Atalanta from the pain.

No. No ally should not be alone in such trials. She gripped tighter.

Her heart stopped a few times, skipped beats, and she could have sworn she could smell something cooking as her arm as lightning coursed through her body.

Eventually, after a solid three minutes of it, the energy dissipated, causing Atalanta to gasp for air. She looked at Jeanne, who was out cold.

"Did… it work…?" Atalanta sucked in.

Looking at a paper, he nodded. "I need to take a look at the internal bleeding, but neural patterns have settled down, and I have two readings. So yes."

With a sigh of relief, Atlanta dropped to her knees

"I'll take it from here…" Doctor Anders said as he pushed Jeanne's bed.

Alone in the room, Atalanta felt her muscles relaxed as she picked herself up and stumbled into the other room with a sleeping Artoria. With great effort, she pushed the chair up to Artoria's bed.

Collapsing it with an oof, she took a look at the King, who was a moment being tormented by horrible images. She now slept comfortably like a child.

Hello everyone!

This chapter… this chapter was a doozy. To me, it felt a bit rushed, but I wanted to keep it moving with combat and the results.

Also… you might be wondering what the heck is going on with Desyncing and specifically Jeanne. So I took inspiration from several things. So I liken it two people sharing the brain and the nervous system. In the digital world, one person commands the body, the other interprets the information that occurs from there. One can work without the other, but it is much more dangerous. Wounds are wounds if you don't have a 'master.'

A master is able to interpret the damage and prevent the body's nervous system from "flaring up" and saying I WAS STABBED HERE. The nervous system goes completely haywire and inflammation to the point of destruction of healthy tissue starts to occur very rapidly due to going into shock. It's the immune system going 500% in that region of the wound, including the nerves, creating a very nasty cycle.

And Artoria, she experienced a full-on desync with Mordred… that's really rough. Does Artoria actually love Mordred? :O

I hoped this kinda shed some light on what I'm aiming for. I didn't want to go into too deep with the story as an info dump. I want to slowly reveal it over time. I also want to state, I am by no ways a medical expert, so I just butchered my understanding and idea lol. Oh well.

Anywho, enough rambling.

As always, let me know what you thought. Fav, follow, and/or review are greatly appreciated. What do you think of the relationship between Artoria and Mordred? Lemme know!

I am and will always be your most humble and obedient of servants,

Sauron.