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1373 Words
A second check showed all his teammates were being healed or were already healed. Annie and Emily were together already.
Matt twitched as he felt something in his back start itching. As it turned to tickling, he started to struggle against his restraints.
“Try not to move.”
In between gasps for air, Matt got out, “It tickles.”
“Oh, sorry.”
The tickling stopped, and he was back to just the weird itching. “Sorry about that. Happens to a select few people. Gotta change my methodology.”
“How bad is it?”
The healer was looking at Matt’s stomach, but even with the mask on, he saw their eyes wrinkle.
“Bad enough I’m questioning the judgment of the Army personnel. You are f****d up, kid. You have nearly no meat left on your leg. Not to mention half a dozen stab wounds.”
Matt was kind of surprised. He hurt badly enough, but he didn’t think it was that bad.
“I think they let me finish beating someone to death first?”
He lilted it off in a question. He wasn’t really sure.
“Are you the armored fellow? Had more than a few people cursing you and your family line for a dozen generations.”
A burning sensation started to crawl through Matt’s stomach, but after a moment, he got it under control and answered, “Maybe. We got pinned in a fort we had just taken, and then had to fight our way deeper. Finally, they took us out.”
The healer just nodded. “Yeah, you’re not the first team to have that happen to. Apparently, it’s a pretty common event at the start of training wars.”
What felt like a bubble was filled in his guts, and a loud fart was inadvertently released.
Matt would have been embarrassed, except the healer nodded and said, “Okay. Stitched up your intestines.”
He looked at Matt and asked, “How ya feeling?”
“Not that bad. It just itches and feels like hot water’s moving around in there.”
The man nodded. “Good. Good. The pain blocker is working. How are you mentally about your death?”
Matt shrugged. “It wasn’t a real death. More angry than anything else.”
“Oh?”
Noticing that the man wanted more, Matt half changed the subject. “On a completely unrelated note to being left out to dry, what’s the worst thing to deal with while healing? Maybe a particularly painful thing to break?”
The healer laughed. “I’m not going to help you get revenge. I’m worried about your mental state. A lot of people don’t handle knowing they would have died without the intervention very well. It can be a pretty heavy moment when you’re forced to recognize your mortality.”
Matt thought about it, while what felt like bugs crawled down his right leg. There was a pop that sounded like a tree branch being snapped apart, but he barely felt a thing.
“I think I came to the realization that I could die a long time ago.”
At the single raised eyebrow, Matt continued, “My planet and city had a lot of rift breaks, and a lot of people died. I knew a long time ago that I only lived because I got lucky. Today, I got unlucky. It might happen again. Fighting people is a lot harder than fighting rift monsters. The skills…”
Matt trailed off. The fighting had been more than a spar or anything else. Even the battle at the hidden base. No, this was brutal and primal.
He made a move, but his opponents made a move to counter him at every turn. He had to be stronger, faster, and smarter. All things he hadn’t been at the fort.
Matt felt a burning desire to not only beat their reinforcement’s leader’s ass but prove to everyone that they had only died because they were unprepared. If he had known…
He forced that line of thinking down. He should have been prepared and expected…well, everything.
If this was a real war, he would have actually died, and not woken up in a healer’s room. Matt needed this experience against people with skills and tactics.
Being forced on the defensive was hard. He had tried to make plans, but the enemy commander had been a step ahead the whole time. He had felt clever when taking the fort, but now understood how the defenders had felt. He was outmaneuvered, and unable to plan for the enemy’s strategy. Even the things they had planned for didn’t turn out as well as they could have.
“It was a good learning experience.”
Matt finished with that, and the healer let it drop. He started telling tales about his younger days.
He was thinking about how much harder it was dealing with thinking people when one of the stories caught Matt’s attention was the story about how he tried to heal a femur. The man in question was in so much pain, the healer needed to sedate them to heal the bone. Apparently, it was the worst bone to break, with pain levels not seen anywhere else in the body.
Matt started planning on how to break both of someone’s femurs at once.
He had to smile at the healers’ roundabout way of helping him get a little revenge.
Before he knew it, he was guided up as the bed bent forward.
“Back to rights. You’re out of all combat for two weeks.” The unnamed healer pulled down his mask and met Matt’s eyes with his own. “I’m serious. No fighting at all. If you need to be healed again, your body might not be able to handle it. The mana cost was already increasing toward the end. Whatever you did to your body is making you stronger, yes but harder to heal. Give me your word.”
A petty part of Matt wanted to say that his friend could fix the healing downtime with a single spell, but he took the healers’ good intentions as they were meant. No one else knew of Melinda’s Talent, and even if he did get healed by her, it wouldn’t get him into the field sooner.
He did make a note to get her to heal at least Liz and Aster, though. Just in case there was a lingering problem. It was also good to know that his near perfect body was making it harder to heal. That was a side effect he hadn’t thought about.
“I promise. Thank you for the patch-up.”
Matt stuck out his hand and shook the healer’s. The man didn’t let go until Matt added, “And I won’t get into a fight or anything until after the two-week healing cooldown.”
The healer grinned, then let him go, saying, “My assistant will guide you to a relaxation room. Take your time and let your mind wander for a bit. You need to spend at least an hour in there. Enjoy it. There are rabbits and all sorts of cute critters to cuddle.”
Matt froze.
“Did you say rabbits? And everyone had to be in there?”
“Yeah?” The healer seemed confused.
Matt started to run to where his bond was still doing circles.
He could only imagine what his playful bond would do with a room full of traumatized people and cute fluffy animals.
Aster! Please, don’t be mutilating the support animals!
When he arrived, he found a forest meadow with goats, sheep, and rabbits bouncing around. It was full of people in white clothes matching the ones he was somehow wearing. What he didn’t see was his bond, or any bloodshed.
After following his AI, he found Aster holding onto a rabbit’s tail with her teeth, while the plump bunny bounded around in circles. His bond was bouncing around behind said rabbit getting kicked in the head with each leap.
He would have been worried if his connection didn’t show her having the time of her life finally with a rabbit who wasn’t too weak to play.
- Writer
