Consciousness ca back in pieces.
The first piece was the dirt, not the feeling of it against my skin but the taste, fine wasteland dust settling into every breath I was not controlling, coating the back of my throat with the flavor of the ground of the wasteland. It was not a pleasant flavor.
I could not move my head. I could not tell my body to do anything. I was aware, and the awareness was useless. Like owning a map while buried alive.
The second piece was a thought.
Damian had been giving insane assignnts since the day I returned from exile, building outposts and a corridor in the deadliest zone known to us.
This ti I’d gotten rid of an Acolyte, helped a bunch of Corruptors escape from an underground trap, escaped a seven headed serpent, and sowhere in the middle of it my own body decided it was done with .
I thought about how, in the orphanage, the hardest thing I had done in a day was to carry boxes and crates filled with stuff until my arms stopped working. That had been the whole challenge.
Now I was breathing dirt in the wasteland after kidnapping fifteen monsters and using myself as bait.
’Progress.’ I thought dryly, the word forming without any energy behind it.
The third piece was clarity, and with clarity ca the math.
The helt was sowhere near , silver, which ant Finn could feel it if he was close enough. After everything that had just happened, the noise, the collapse, the Corruptors, there was no version where the camp had not noticed.
Jim would probably scout, since Jim could fly.
’I am getting left here.’ I thought, the conclusion coming easily, almost reasonably.
He had adjusted his glasses at . He had called a child with a yo-yo.
Bad luck.
After a while, footsteps ca from behind , careful ones, asured, soone reading the ground. They stopped.
A pause.
"You did good kid." A voice said, calm and slightly dry, like soone who had just updated an opinion. "Now I know why Damian calls you Argent’s weapon."
I tried to respond.
Nothing moved.
Darkness pulled under again before I could manage it.
The next ti I opened my eyes, the ceiling above was silver, not the wasteland sky, four walls and a roof with clean geotry, a bunker of so kind, small and functional.
The floor beneath was soft in a way sand was not. I looked down and realized I was on top of vines, layered into a mat thick enough to pass as a bed, Kira’s work.
I was not dead.
Sothing small and warm was sitting directly on my chest.
Wip.
She was curled there with her tail wrapped around her paws, her large black eyes fixed on my face at close range, the way she looked at things she was monitoring very carefully. The mont my eyes opened she sat up straight, ears fully forward.
"Wip." She said firmly, like she was confirming a situation had changed.
"Hi Wip." I said quietly, eting her gaze.
"Wip! Wip, wip wip." She continued, each one sharper than the last, like a sequence of escalating complaints.
"I know." I said again, a little more carefully this ti.
She held my gaze for two seconds, then headbutted my chin once, firm and deliberate, and settled back onto my chest with the finality of soone who had made their position clear.
The first thing I felt was hunger, but the deep exhaustion that I had felt was gone, replaced by sothing lighter, not normal, not what I expected after pushing that far, sothing closer to waking up after a long sleep where everything resets slightly and your limbs rember what they are for.
I sat up slowly, careful not to dislodge Wip. She transferred from my chest to my shoulder without comnt. I checked myself over, but there was no obvious damage.
"You’re finally back." Phinyx said calmly from my right, like he had been waiting for that exact mont.
I turned my head. He was sitting against the wall, legs crossed, hands resting loosely in his lap, like he had been ditating a mont ago.
"For how long..." I started to ask, my voice rough from all the dirt I had inhaled.
"A while." He said, tilting his head slightly. "This takes back to the agility training."
He then continued. "Wip was angrily wipping in the direction you left." His normal tone then shifted into a surprised one, which felt unusual. "For a long ti, she kept facing the sa way no matter where anyone tried to move her."
I glanced at Wip on my shoulder. She was looking at the wall like none of this involved her.
"Then when Coll and Jim ca back with you." Phinyx continued evenly. "She was the first to notice. Before any of us heard them, she went completely still, then ran straight out and found you."
Wip said nothing. She had clearly decided this information did not require confirmation.
I reached up and scratched lightly behind her ear, she leaned into it just a little.
"Thanks." I said quietly, then looked back at Phinyx. "You used healing vibes?"
"So." He replied. "Also resting ones." He paused slightly. "You looked like you needed those two the most."
"I feel a little too good." I said quietly, testing the thought as I flexed my fingers.
"Then that’s impressive." He said matter of factly. "Because you’ve only been resting for a day."
"That’s a big improvent." I said, referring to the las ti I’d gone unconscious.
He nodded once, acknowledging it without adding anything.
"Thank you." I said, more seriously.
He nodded again, the sa way, accepting it without making it larger than it was.
I was sure his ability was improving, and that was a part of it, but the state I was currently in didn’t make sense. Unless...
I pulled up my stats.
The numbers loaded.
And my brain took a second too long to catch up with what I was seeing.
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