Everything hurts. His calves, his arms, his voice, his eyes. Todd slumps numbly on top of a thin ‘Tennessee Titans’ jacket and his back up to back with Joe. The captain watches out thoughtfully in the other direction, with his arms on his knees and his jersey draped over his head. Todd rests tilted just off-balance to keep Candra up, as she lays with her head propped on his shoulder, eyes drooping closed.
Randall lays on the bare stone, face up with his hands on his belly and an inscrutable expression.
A pale clear crystal with cubic faces sits in Todd’s open left palm, warping the mirror faces of the figures up and walking around them.
In his right hand is a rough, tarry colored ball about the size of his pinky. He mechanically curls and uncurls his fingers around the small miracle pill. Watches it tumble between the grooves in his palm.
“He’s gonna be alright, kid,” a woman’s voice informs him. Todd looks up and Nayira the emergency technician squats down. “How ‘bout you, you okay, kiddo?”
Todd wipes away at his eyes with the back of his hand, just in case. “Yea.” The motion wakes Candra, but Joe only turns his head to listen.
“He wouldn’t’ve made it without that pill.” Nayira winces a bit as she pushes a stray frizz of hair out of her face. The dark bruise over her eye, the swelling, the burst capillaries, are all reduced and faded. Looks more like a week of mending, instead of a score of minutes.
Todd shakes his head. “You did the CPR.”
“Kid, not a lot of people know this: but CPR has a pretty low success rate. Even in the hospital. Whatever this is –” Nayira sighs and holds out her hand to show her two remaining [Nettle Salve Skin Mending Pill]s, and then waves them over the right side of her face. “I mean look at me. This shouldn’t be possible. So thank you. You saved old Walter’s life today.”
“Is the girl okay?” Joe asks, his voice still hoarse.
“Yea,” the ER tech bobs her head slowly in an optimistic maybe. “Yea, she’ll be okay. It helps Walter’s being such a nice guy about it.” Nayira screws up the side of her face in a grimacing, goggle eyed impression of an old man and growls out, “ah, whatcha worried for, they did worse to me in Vi yet naaaam!”
Todd chuckles once, but it makes his vision bleary. “That’s a pretty good Walter.”
They sit for a moment, the sounds of barely restrained arguments barking in sputters here and there. It’s under control though, just people stressed and venting.
"Could've been worse. Two hundred black eyes or so. Sixty maybe? Broken noses. Most everybody's got a bruise or two. Won't be long before we start finding some fractures. But nobody dead. And to be real, in my line of work we call that a win." Nayira raps her knuckles gently against the toe of Todd's shoe. "Could've been real damn worse."
“Anyway. The old man just figured out his menus. Wanted to return the pill he owes you.” She puts her two pills back into her right velcro-thigh pocket and reveals a third in her left hand. She reaches over to drop it in Todd’s, but he recoils.
“No, he doesn’t have to. Give it back to him.”
“Kid. I see you only have one left. What did you do with your second one?”
Candra and Joe tense up against Todd, then all three turn to look over at the military guy. The Ranger. “I gave it to the guy who fought Drew,” Todd whispers.
“Right, I saw that,” Nayira follows their gaze. Drew the special forces ranger is standing with his back to them, at the other edge of the Human group, alone in conversation with Aefore.
The Pixie looks pleased. Of course she does.
“What I've seen so far, I don’t think the pill is as good with broken bones, but Pete is set okay and we got him resting up. Do you know if it’s safe to give him a second pill in the meantime?”
Randall and Todd shake their heads. Somehow they seem to have become the resident experts on anything ‘System’ or magic related.
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“Alright. Well Pete owes you a pill then. And here’s Walter’s. There’s a lot of other people who didn’t get beat on today because of your wrestling idea, so don’t you dare say no. I’ll give you one of mine if I have to. Shove it right down your damn throat.”
Todd relents, opening his hand up and Nayira drops the pill into it. Then she stands and leaves to get back to helping the others.
“Eat the stupid fruit,” Randall says suddenly.
“Huh?”
“The magic star promise whatever berry. Stop being lame. You won, it’s yours.”
Todd digs for an excuse. “Joe hasn’t eaten his.”
“Oh, no yea I ate it right away,” Joe grates in somewhat of raspy tone of surprise. “It’s pretty amazing – sorry Candra – yea, you should eat it before it goes bad.”
“Still hate you.” Candra remind Joe before poking one finger at Todd’s shoulder. “But you should. Surprised you haven’t taken a healing pill either,” Candra mumbles. “Your eyebrow does not look great,” she points out.
Todd opens his mouth to argue, but honestly it’s hard enough to just talk. Instead he stuffs the medicinal pills carefully into his pocket and withdraws the [Limitless’ Charity Blooming-Promise Berry]. He presses it to his lips like a kiss, then parts his teeth and bites deep.
“Mhmph, oh my God,” Todd purrs. “It’s like someone took all the best parts of Christmas and rolled it into a Margherita and then told you it was only a dollar.”
But Margherita Christmas is about more than taste. The heady juice of the berry is pulsing with vital energies, a nutrition that feeds a deficiency Todd had spend his entire life not knowing he had. It spills out into his stomach, and from there sweeps into his blood and nestles deep into his cells. He snip snap snacks three more bites with sharp incisors and then there’s nothing left of the fruit but a small black bead of a seed which peeled cleanly from the fruit.
He swallows, savoring the taste and the flood of something new.
“You want to beat up some people and steal more?” Joe whispers with a bloodless irony.
“Huh, what?”
“That’s what they want us to do, right? Come on man, I know I’m not like a wonder genius like you and Cans –”
“Nope. Vetoed. Call me Cans again and I will end the line of clan Lawnmower,” Candra slumps down, sliding off of Todd and onto the floor. She flops into a weary splayed recline and grimaces her eyes shut.
“Hey I’m smart,” Randall whines.
Joe rolls his eyes at Randall and flashes Candra a look, then continues. “But even I figured it out. These things want us to fight.”
Candra and Todd hum a non-committal note.
“I don’t even think they would have been upset if Walter had died.”
Candra and Todd hum a medium-committal note.
Joe lurches to standing in one motion, nearly dropping Todd, then wheels to face him. “So what are we gonna do about it Drips?” he asks, turning to look him in the eye.
Todd hauls himself back up and shakes his head helplessly. Because honestly? He’s just waiting for the Pixies’ next move and praying they’ll survive it.
----------------------------------------
“The humans will require water and food soon,” Ciforre reminds her distracted sister. Aefore shakes out of her vigil and motions to float upwards for a fraction of privacy.
“Already? They can wait a little longer, can’t they? What’s the completion percentage on their menu quest?”
“86 percent.”
“Pathetic.”
“Yes, but without sustenance their physical performance, information retention and instruction compliance will suffer significantly.”
“Let the weak fall behind,” giggles Befor, joining them in a lazy cloud of orbiting pinkness.
Ciforre shakes her head. “Please sister, you forget yourself. Even the most promising of the humans will need rest and water if they are to advance.”
Aefore glares at her sister, simmering at her defiance. “There are pills --” But Ciforre reaches out with her tome and lightly taps her sister on the forehead with it.
“
Aefore stops for a moment, then eases down into a more accommodating mood. “You’re right. You’re right. Room, board and perishables. But we can at the least, not be allowed to delay the day-one promotional divinations. Is that acceptable?”
Befor circles like a prowling tiger, but offers no objection. Ciforre adjusts her glasses and nods her approval.
“It will be good to give them a concrete goal to work towards,” she agrees.
“I do not like that our survival rate was 100 percent today,” Aefore grumbles.
“Forgivable. The other sections may have received better warriors, but I feel we will find soon that Section 4 has received the better leaders.”
“Nevertheless,” Aefore turns to Befor, and the Pixie snaps into attention and a single coherent torso. “Our recommended cull rate before the first rated challenge is now 2%. I leave that to you, sister.” Befor snaps her hand to her head in a salute, teeth bright in a leering grin.
“Sister mine, to my pleasure I promise you: before the week is through, twelve of the humans will die.”