"What the fuck happened to him? Who did this?" Panicked voices come through my subconscious. I can feel hands on me, tearing and cutting my clothes off as my body moves around uselessly, nothing but dead weight.
"This is bad, this is really bad." I know that voice, it's Aster. Thank God, I had made it back at least. Though, the nervousness in Aster's voice was making me wonder if maybe I hadn't actually made it back in time. I had been under the impression he could fix any wound, but I guess the weird exploding bullets the portal chodes had shot me up with wasn't being factored in before.
Great. What if I ended up losing the use of my legs? Wouldn't that be amazing? If that was the case, I might go ahead and tap out early on this whole immortal thing.
"Can you save him?" Thank you, to whoever that was, because that was what I was wondering right now, too. Weirdly, I wasn't sure I recognized who it was, but they sounded very worried about me, so it had to be someone I was close with.
"Uh. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, let's get him on the table. One… two…" I moan in pain as I'm lifted up by a few pairs of hands and dropped onto a cold metal table. This was giving me a serious feeling of deja vu. I bet I was in the same room I'd had my modifications done in.
"Come on Aster, what's it gonna take?" Someone asks. I feel a little left out, because I wasn't sure what they were talking about. No one was touching me now, no trying to stitch wounds or clean me up. What was Aster doing? No way he would just let die… right?
"I… I need blood." I finally hear Aster say.
"You can have mine." That vaguely unfamiliar voice speaks up again. Who was it? They were quick to offer their blood; they didn't hesitate for a second.
"No, no. I… I need human blood. For him. It will help him heal, and hopefully his body will be strong enough to push whatever this shit in his leg is out." I can feel dabbing at my leg, and moan again, because God does it hurt when it's even just touched. "His fucking flesh is rotting off." I hear Aster mutter, and footsteps as he walks away from where I lay on the table.
"Where are you going?" Someone calls. Who was leaving? Not Aster, I hope. I needed him back here dealing with the rotting flesh situation.
"To find a human." There's that voice again. They were clearly on my side; the one taking action to try and save me the most.
"We can't just sacrifice some human because we want to save him. That's not our place." I hear Aster protesting. I know he's right, but with the amount of pain I was in right now, I kind of wish he wouldn't be so morally correct for once.
"You were the one who said he needed blood." The voice says again, the irritation in their tone and making it sound a little more familiar. No… there was no way he was the most worried about me in the room.
"I know but we can't just-"
"And I can't just stand here and let him fucking die!" York snaps angrily, his voice angry and raw. "You try and stop me; I'll kill you too." I hear him saying in a watery voice, then footsteps, then the slamming of a door.
"Should I go after him?" I hear a gruff voice asking.
"No… no."
After this, I would look at York with a little more respect.
".... wake up… come on…" I groan, rolling my head away from the voice demanding I open my eyes.
"Cooooome on." My eyes only open because of the familiarity of the situation, especially when I do open my eyes and meet the all white ones of York. It brings memories back of when I'd first died and woke up in that void of a space with York.
"Hey buddy." I grumble, wincing as I shift away from him a little.
"Buddy?! Oh god, he's concussed." I hear York rambling.
"I am not fucking concussed." I hiss at him, sitting up and shoving him off the bed I was in and onto the floor. He hands with a thud, then pops back up to peer at me over the edge of the bed.
"See, that's more like it. How are you feeling?" I rub at my temples a little and throw the blanket that was over me off to look at my legs.
"What am I looking at?" I ask, glancing at York. The lower halves of my legs were now all metal, like I was God damn cyborg.
"Well." York says a bit sheepishly, standing up and rubbing at the back of his neck. He looked around a little, like he was checking to see if there was someone else around he could push this off on. But it was just him and me. I almost miss it, but I realize then it was just him and me because he'd been at my side this whole time, even when I was just lying there and he was unsure of when I'd wake up. "Your legs were pretty fucked up when you came here… which, you made quite the entrance, you know." He says, laughing a little as he remembers.
"What do you mean?" I ask, even though I know I'll regret knowing. If it was making York laugh, it had to have been embarrassing.
He snickers a little more, clearly enjoying the memory. "You fell through a portal you'd made right in the middle of the meeting table. Scared the shit out of Aster and Grey. You had a gun that you tried shooting Grey with when you jumped awake once you landed, so you might want to buy him a fruit basket or something." I wince a little, making a mental note to apologize to Grey.
He stops and turns as the door to the room opens, and Aster comes in carrying an armful of pillows. He drops them as soon as he spots me sitting up and talking, rushing over to touching my face like I was a child with a fever.
"You're awake. How are you feeling? Your legs? What can you remember? Can you use all your functions?"
"Yes, yes. I'm fine." I say, nodding along with his questions.
"Good…good." He says, backing up a little and letting out a sigh of relief. Then just as suddenly, his face shifts to one of annoyance, and he's smacking me on the arm. "What the hell happened to you, Zero? Do you realize you've now lost your shins because I couldn't save your flesh? Explain yourself!" I wince, but not because his hits actually hurt. It felt bad to be scolded by him, and I felt incredibly guilty that I'd made him worry about me so much.
"Look, I'm sorry." I say, holding my hands up in innocence. "I just had a little run in with the portal chodes." I wink at York as he grins ear to ear at my use of his little nickname for them. "I barely made it out, and it was because of a weapon they've developed to use especially against us."
Aster and York are both all ears as I tell them everything that had happened to me on the rooftop with the Portal Hoppers