Chapter 35

Non-magical medical procedures have never been the specialized practice of most professional medical offices. Why get a cast for a broken arm when a Healer could simply wave their hands and mend the wound? All hospitals have non-Mage staff, from mundane doctors to ordinary nurses, but those roles have always had a backseat in funding and fame compared to the miracles magic could endow.

Non-magical medical procedures are normally only used for one of two reasons.
Either,
A)The patient has insufficient financial means to afford magical healing.
Or
B)The subject is unconscious or in an altered state of mind and in immediate need of care.

I’ll keep the details about the AV ride to a functioning hospital short. Mostly because of all the drama that came from the others. I will state that during that flight, I had to… make preparations.

Between the Mage Killer round I took in the hand, and when those two lunatics dropped the floor out from beneath use, they had rendered almost all of the LokLink devices installed in the arm useless. The Scaiben Crystal residue from the bullet was causing interference in the limb’s more advanced systems. Luckily, the arm could still work as a normal limb, and the Mental Command Module did technically work with linked systems not attached to the limb, I didn’t have anything linked other than Devil’s Tail, which I had lost in the fight. So I detached all of the LokLink devices, complaining the whole time. If the interference wasn’t bad enough, the same bullet had also punched clean through my Mimic Facade device, so I couldn’t hide my appearance, which would cause trouble in the near future if not remedied.

The answer to the facade was an easy fix. Ferris just gave me his simple illusion pin.  I had made basic illusionary pins for each teammate just for the mission. I did need to tap into the programming of the pin to change my look to that of another Darkling, so my blood type wouldn’t raise questions because I knew I needed a transfusion. The change was a simple tweak of a few lines of code using my therra to access the device through wireless Near Field Communication (or NFC for short).

While I was re-tailoring the disguise device, Kharmor was practically drooling over the Executioner 34SRD Revolver I had inadvertently stolen.

Flash forward two days. I lay in a hospital bed in the same room as an unconscious Demierra. My then-current residence was in Healing Light General Hospital, a whole district and eight hours’ flight away from the ganger hideout. There was a large amount of fussing over Demierra and me when we came through the emergency care entrance. I had severe chemical burns on my hands and face (which was difficult to imbed into the illusion cleanly), a broken femur with a necrotized bullet wound passing through it, and uncounted lesser wounds. While I was fussed over by the nurses and the occasional doctor, it was Demierra who needed care, and I firmly stated as much, refusing almost any care directed toward me. While part of the refusal was because the Dracose Fury needed priority over me, it was also in part because I knew that my care was going to raise questions.

The doctors stabilized Demierra enough to keep her just conscious enough for healing magic to be safely used. Her healing only took an hour and a half, and after that, they drugged her enough to keep her sleeping for days. My healing, on the other hand, was… complicated.

None of the medical professionals believed that I had an “allergy” to Life Myst until they tried to heal my face. The instant the healing magic was applied to my skin, I bit back a gasp of pain as my skin began rapidly discharging puss. Gross, I know. It was my face, after all. So they applied bandages coated in a natural healing salve to my burns and puzzled over how to deal with my leg. The answer the doctors went with was installing a metal plate to mount the bone pieces back into place until it healed naturally. The necrotized tissue wasn’t even an issue because I forced the flesh to rot so fast it couldn’t fester. To fix the hole through the leg, they surgically implanted fresh cadaver tissue and bandaged it.

Of everything done to me, the blood transfusion was the simplest. My facade made me appear as a Fiend-bred Darkling, and I just gave the nurse the first matching blood type I could think of. Thankfully, no one looked twice.

For the three days, I was in the hospital, at least one of my friends was there to act as guard and company. Navor stopped in on the morning of the second day to debrief me and ensure Demierra and I would make a full recovery. But it was the afternoon of the third day when things took a severe turn… again.

Nennel, Ferris, and Kharmor were all in the room, working and relaxing in equal measure. Ferris was leaning against the windowsill, practicing simple spell-casting using his Focus. Specifically, he was drawing random doodles in the air with a finger by channeling energy from the local spirits haunting the area. I thought the act was disrespectful to the dead. That is until he explained to me that the spirits seek to escape the realm by any means, and even just leaving images in the air can be enough to get a few of them that much closer to true peace.

Nennel was paging through the leaked digital documents on next-gen cybernetics released by Weaver. After she learned about them, she asked me to have Skitter acquire her copies and even paid his price. She didn’t give me any details, but she said that she needed to puzzle something out to help her in the field.

Kharmor sat in front of a table brought in at his request, set in the far back corner. The table was occupied by the disassembled components of the Executioner Revolver I had procured from Lynn. The Half-Dwarf was in the process of systematically cleaning and reformatting the biometrics of the weapon. I did notice that he was muttering under his breath the entire time he worked.

I was reading the archived messages of the G3ar Gh0zt account Weaver had pointed me to. To get access, I had Skitter patch me through a backdoor in the copper-for-your-thoughts website. I had been digging around the site before checking the chat logs of the single interaction the profile had. I wanted to get a sense of the website to get context for the type of people who would post on it and what was posted. The site was a simple affair with bare-bones designs in both appearance and function. The site mainly consisted of posts about users’ problems in life and seeking advice on how to handle them.

I was about to inspect the chat logs that truly mattered when I was distracted by Kharmor. “And…Done! Ives’, you want me to install your bios?”

Reflexively, I minimized the windows from my therra before giving Kharmor a look of mild annoyance. “Khar’, that thing is just as heavy as a stone club, and its kick would probably take my hands clean off my arms. Besides, I couldn’t fire the damned thing when needed.”

Kharmor gave an even more annoyed look than the one I gave him before turning his gaze back to his project. “This is not a thing. She is equal parts masterpiece and lethal tool. This beautiful piece would be a prized centerpiece for any collector. These lethal weapons are famously reliable and safe. She’ll never jam. She only fires when someone with matching metagraphics has an active intent to fire while wielding it. And that’s why you couldn’t fire it before. You didn’t have a recorded PVC in its system.”

“Metagraphics? PVC? I doubt you’re talking about pipes, so you’ve lost me.”

Kharmor rolled his eyes so hard that his head partly rolled with them before he started reassembling the weapon. “PVC stands for Personal Vital Codes. A metagraphic reader identifies and stores these codes. PVC code takes into account factors such as fingerprints and heart rate, and even neural response time. These codes are the most accurate form of identification other than a Universal User Profile and can’t be falsified.”

“Great.” I said sarcastically. “The gun can notice that I’m not supposed to use it. I want nothing to do with it. Personally, I’m more interested in the…disposable contents in the weapon.” I said, carefully choosing my words.

“What’s so special about the contents?” Nennel asked as she closed her windows to join the conversion.

“They’re called Stain Glass Rounds.” I Explained. “They are so dangerous that almost every nation has marked the items as banned. So banned, that just holding one can earn you an execution.”

“What makes them so dangerous?” Nel asked.

This time, I looked to Kharmor for the answer because I had no clue what made munitions so hated. The Half-Dwarf gave a weighty sigh before making us wait while he finished reassembling the gun. Once he was finished, ending the whole process by aiming down the sights and dry firing at the ground three times. Once he set down the weapon, he answered. “These rounds are formed from specially shaped and designed fragments of myst crystals set in layers. I won’t get too deep into the details of what they do. Simply put, they enter a body, and a charge is detonated at the center of the round. The explosive discharge causes damage, but its primary purpose is to scatter the myst crystal shards and send them throughout the body. The shards with elements like Fire and Death are spread throughout the body, and immediately after, the paths of the shards are healed by Life Myst shards. The result: you suddenly have burning, freezing, and rotting crystal shards pushed throughout your organs, and they can’t be traced to their locations easily, and the paths healed rapidly develop any type of cancer. In short, if you’re shot with one, you will die.”

Nennel just stared at the bearded guy in shock and horror as she digested the answer she asked for and clearly regretted it. She slowly turned her head back to center and stared at the ground for a moment before standing and hurrying out with a mumbled excuse about getting food.

Ferris pushed off the sill and followed Nel out with the yawned comment: “She’s got the right idea.”

Kharmor wordlessly went back to the sidearm, polishing it like some prized trophy while muttering to it. When he said nothing more to me, I took it as the opportunity I needed to finish reviewing Copper-For-Your-Thoughts.

With a few gestures, I pulled my browser windows and dove straight into the archives.

The only conversation in the records of the G3ar Gh0zt account was with one person, a user under the name GentlemanWolf55. I was already aware that G3ar Gh0zt was Weaver, but this GentlemanWolf figure must’ve been someone the phantom found immensely useful, given the number of messages traded between the two.

I skimmed each message for a rough idea of what was going on before taking my time to dig deeper. At a glance, Weaver, or G3ar Gh0zt in this instance, had contacted this Wolf figure under the claimed intent to provide emotional support. GentlemanWolf spilled his complaints and problems without hesitation, emotionally ranting about his cold and toxic mother, who he lived with, and his dead brother, who the Razor Wings killed. After a few messages of G3ar Gh0zt spouting hollow sympathies, he became manipulative, and this Wolf person fell for it without question.

G3ar Gh0zt fed this clearly young man a concocted mix of advice pushing for revenge and the tools needed. One of the earliest tools that Weaver gave to this boy was a modified copy of the Zyzivane formula that was supposedly poisoned. G3ar Gh0zt spoon-fed the kid a plot to ruin both his mother and the gang. Just glancing at the instructions given to GentlemanWolf55, I could see that this scheme was overly complicated, which might’ve been to keep the puppet confused. I did gather a few helpful tidbits from the talks. This kid lived in Grimvale. His toxic mother was some kind of corporate higher-up for a medical mega-corp that could only have been Evea-Life.

Continuing to read, I noticed a serious turn in the tone of the discussion. GentlemanWolf55 was uncomfortable with how the scheme was unfolding because of some snag. He didn’t want to follow G3ar Gh0zt’s commands because he was about to head to an academy in the mountains. That raised my brows as a suspicion took root. The suspicion was confirmed when the name Aegis Academy was used along with the legal name of GentlemanWolf55; Jonathan. The name tickled at the back of my head. I knew of a Jonathan who was tied to the academy, but I couldn’t grasp the memory.

I was shocked out of my pondering when an instant message appeared in my inbox. When I saw that the sender was labeled G3ar Gh0zt, my heart skipped a beat. I hesitated briefly before opening the message, which only read, “White Rook moves to take Black King.”

I stared at the single line, rereading it two more times as my heart rate spiked.

I was shocked out of my paralysis when the doorknob turned. I scoured the area around me for any kind of weapon but found nothing. The door swung open, and I readied myself for a struggle. And an unsuspected figure stepped into the room.

Ozwald, dressed in a black suit with a red shirt and darker red tie, stepped into the room, carrying a bouquet of flowers with both hands. He was not someone I expected to see visiting me, and with a bouquet, no less. Maybe he was here for Demierra, and the flowers were for her.

“H-Hey Ozwald.” I said woodenly with a stiff hand wave of greeting. “Nice to see you. Here to see Demierra?” I asked.

The dark-skinned Human stepped farther into the room, refusing to look up from the flowers in his hand. “No.” He said in a voice just as wooden as my own.

I knew that something felt off, so I truly looked Ozwald over, from head to foot. He wore a classy dress suit, as always. A black jacket and slacks over a deep red silk shirt and a deeper red tie. He looked like he was dressed for a funeral. But his shirt was wrinkled, and his tie was loose and off-center. Then I noticed that the entire bouquet he carried was composed of nothing but Red Spider Lilys. Those flowers were the hint I needed to what was about to happen.

Ozwald stepped up to my bedside nearest the door and said, “I was told these flowers were for you.” Then he flung the flowers into the air to reveal a dagger within the bouquet and lunged for me. In answer, I flung the covers off the bed and over Ozwald before I gave him a hefty kick with my nearest foot. However, that was my right foot, the foot of my broken leg, and the strike rang a gong of pain up my leg that caused my entire body to lock up for an instant. The force of my kick was only slightly stronger than I thought it would be, but it was a paltry excuse for an attack. While my body was locked in pain, Ozwald threw aside the sheets and made another attempt.

I panicked and did the first thing that came to my head as Ozwald flew at me. The first idea that popped into my head was simple, direct, and brutal. I drove my horns into his brow with as much ramming force as I could muster. The boy staggered back two steps, his eyes hazy and his brow bleeding from two gashes that were just off-center to the left.

Before he could recover and make a third attempt, there was a large gun barrel pressed against the side of his head. Kharmor stood beside Ozwald, gun hammer cocked and his expression cold.

“Don’t move.” Was all the Half-Dwarf said before gripping the collar of the Human’s dress jacket and physically flinging him into the nearest chair.

Ozwald struck the seat propped against the wall opposite the beds and folded over as his dagger spun across the floor to stop beside Demierra’s bed. The Human didn’t sit up as Kharmor took up a shooter’s stance between Ozwald and the beds. Instead, the dark-skinned boy covered his face in his hands and began sobbing uncontrollably.

I suspected it was a scheme to make me and Khar’ lower our guard until a mix of snot and tears visibly dripped from between his fingers onto his pants. I hadn’t known much about Ozwald, but I did know that the guy was meticulously clean and organized. If he wasn’t in distress, there was no way he would look that much of a mess.

I gave a weighty sigh before I said, “Jonathan. Jonathan Ozwald. You’re the one Weaver was talking about when he gave that fourth hint: look into those around you who have been hurt by the Razor Wings.”

Ozwald struggled to get control over his sobbing before looking up at me. His face was the picture of guilty betrayal. His eyes were puffy, and his face was stained with tears and mucus. “What?” was all he said before the sobs overtook him again.

“Weaver sent him?” Kharmor asked me without looking away from the emotional wreck of a guy.

“Kind of.” I said. “I need details from him, but as best I can tell, he was forced into this whole thing.”

“So… don’t shoot him?”

“Please don’t Khar’. Especially with what’s loaded in that thing right now.”

“I told you, she’s not a thi-” Kharmor started, only to be cut off by the door opening again.

A stranger stepped into the room. The stranger was a Human man, shoddily dressed in an expensive midnight blue suit and robin egg blue dress shirt. His shirt was half tucked and hung past his jacket. The man’s dark blue jacket was buttoned incorrectly, and his dress shoes were completely untied. His black hair appeared to have style gel in it and was once slicked back but presently hung as a chaotic mop. All of that raised questions, but the most disturbing thing was his eyes. The capillaries throughout his sclera were horribly ruptured, turning the white a mottled pink and red. His stare also gave the sense that there was no one home in that skull.

The strange man said one thing “White-t pawn t-takes white rook, or black knight t-takes white-t pawn.” in a flat and mechanical voice. As he spoke, he raised his hand, which was out of my line of sight, to reveal it was holding a simple kinetic pistol.

With a curse, I threw myself out of the bed, putting it between me and the man. I hadn’t even fully left the bed when a gunshot rang out, followed by a hard ‘thud’ sound. When another gunshot didn’t ring out, I looked over the bed. Kharmor was facing the door with his gun pointing toward the foot of the door. Ozwald was still sobbing but now clutched the side of his head as blood ran down.

I pulled myself to a standing position, keeping weight off my healing leg by bracing against the bed. When I stood, I found the stranger lying on the floor, dead, with a dagger lodged in his left eye.

“W-what happened?” I asked.

A familiar but unexpected voice answered. “I wasn’t able to sleep with all this noise.” I followed the voice to find Demierra sitting up in her bed, her right arm extended as if she had thrown something.

I looked from the Dracose Fury to the corpse, back to her, then to the dagger in the corpse’s eye. Only then did I realize the dagger was the very same one that Ozwald had attempted to kill me with. When I thought back to the initial fight with the Human, I recalled that his weapon had flown from his hand to land beside Demierra’s bed.

“I-uh…wow.” was all I could say to my rescuer before the sound of heavy footfalls closing in from the hall outside. “Khar’!” I hissed. “Gun. Gone. Now!”

He took my meaning instantly and shoved the Executioner Revolver down the back of his pants, covered the grip with his shirt, and placed his back against the far wall. A few heartbeats after, two security guards and a nurse stormed the room.

The Nurse checked Ozwald’s freshly trimmed ear while the guards got the story from me and the other two after I pulled myself back into bed. With Kharmor’s and Demierra’s help, I convinced the guards that we did not know why the attack happened. It wasn’t hard to sell the story because I was the only one in the room with even the slightest idea of why it happened. I also claimed that Kharmor was the one to kill the attacker. That also wasn’t hard to sell either, because he was the only one in the room who was not maimed.

While the body was carried away and the blood pool cleaned, I talked the nurse treating Ozwald into letting him stay in our room for the evening, just in case he was the target of the attack. After the nurse left, I told everyone in the room to hold their tongues until Nennel and Ferris were present. The silence in the room was heavy and charged with dangerous potential. In that silence, I thought about the recent events and discoveries.

Nennel and Ferris walked into the room, both with trays of food. Nennel froze just inside the door, clearly sensing the tension. Meanwhile, Ferris casually walked over to Demierra and set his tray of food on her lap.

Ferris and Nel both spoke at once, in totally differing tones. “Glad to see you’re up.” Ferris said with a casual smile and relaxed body language. “What in the hells did we miss?” Nennel demanded. She might not have shouted, but the threat was obvious in her voice.

I glanced at the cold-cut sandwiches, mashed potatoes, and assorted fruits on the tray in Nel’s hands before locking eyes with her. “We are leaving. Immediately.”

“What?” Ferris asked in innocent confusion.

“What?!” Nennel demanded in an even more angry tone.

I threw my legs over the side of my bed as I started issuing instructions. “Fer, I need you to get our clothes and gear that the hospital collected.” When I had been admitted to the hospital, the nurses had collected my clothes and the only weapon that had been left on my person, my Infusion Dagger. All of my other gear and armor had been handed off to Khar’ before we had entered the medical facility to prevent undue questions. The gear should be safely stashed back at the safe house. “Nel, can you get me a crutch? Khar, can you scout an exit route?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Ferris said before hurrying out of the room, finally catching that something had happened.

“I’ll find a crutch. But I expect a full and complete explanation.” Nennel said in a controlled but clearly upset tone as she wagged a finger at me like an angry aunt.

“I promise.” I said before turning to Demierra while my sister stormed from the room. “Can you walk?”

Demierra twisted and flexed gently to test her functionality before giving me a ‘so-so’ sign with her hand.

“And what about me?” Ozwald asked in a raw voice, holding a tone of mixed dread and hope.

“Oz, your job is going to be helping Demierra walk out of here. Demierra, if he tries anything stupid, crush his head like a melon between your thighs. Now, I need to get us a ride.” With that, I pulled up my therra’s HUD and sent a message to Teefa with a request for transport. The Order member, who was undercover as a taxi driver, griped and complained about us using her for free rides all the time, but she agreed to come get us.

Three minutes later, Demierra and I were dressed in street clothes. I had a crutch, and Kharmor was guiding our group to the nearest exit that passed as few guard and nurse stations as possible. We were leaving before the Regulators arrived and started digging.