Nothing was right. She had a hard time stringing her thoughts together. She couldn’t remember much from that night. Just the one thing that seemed to be the root of all of her troubles. She had those glowing eyes seared into her brain. Every waking moment, that was in her vision. It was overlayed over everything she saw. It never left her.

After she had seen it last, her life as it was before was over. She remembered hearing voices. She could only make out bits and pieces. It was made more difficult because she was constantly fading in and out of consciousness. There was one recurring theme from the fragmented conversations however—she wouldn’t survive the night. Her head had been pounding that night. She could feel her heartbeat in her brain. The doctors had started to ask her something, but it was all jumbled. She could only groan in response. She had faded again.

When she awoke, she was being rushed away through multiple sets of doors through a winding hallway. The lights overhead were bright, extremely bright. Then, they had turned down another hall and had entered an elevator. They descended, and when the elevator doors opened, it was no longer bright. She had looked around everything was fuzzy. She could see blurred figures holding tablets, talking as they continued to move. The last complete memory she had was of the doctors thanking her for her sacrifice. They eased a mask over her face, and then everything was black.

When she awoke, everything was fractured.

Her body, her mind, her sense of self were all gone. The only thing that remained were the eyes. Not her eyes, but his. She saw herself in a reflection.

Joorir screamed and everyone around her fell to their knees. What had they turned her into?

Her life was an unconnected string of thoughts from there. She had been called into battle by the commander. Thinking was hard for her, but for some reason, she could follow her commander’s orders. Was it programmed into her? She didn’t know, but when the commander had told her to standby in case something went wrong in the plaza, she complied.

She had heard the fighting above her, but she remained where she was. The fighting was expected. What wasn’t expected, was the Saxan army intervening. The commander had found her and told her to ready herself. She was about to enter the battlefield when a series of explosions rumbled the ground beneath her. She rushed into the plaza and saw those eyes once more. Not the overlayed ones she was plagued with. These were the real ones. She stared at the monster for a while, dazed by the sudden unexpected confrontation. Her thoughts were a mess, but she still feared those eyes.

The man yelled at her and it was enough to snap her out of her stupor. She teleported right in front of him. The next moments were a complete and total blur in her mind. Her carnal desires took over and she began to annihilate the man. He fought back, but she was winning. It felt like he was giving up. He wasn’t resisting as much as he had been before.

Joorir felt a sudden fear as those eyes locked into hers one last time. A light overtook everything. The next moment everything was black. She was free. Finally free.

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Alex could move. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He theoretically could move, but it was hard to do so without any limbs at all. He coughed a glob of blood. Through his remaining eye, Alex could see the wreckage his suicide bomb had inflicted on the library. It was unrecognizable. The entire block was unrecognizable. He tried to find any remnant of the deranged Zotari in the debris, but was unsuccessful. Either it had been launched out of his limited field of vision, or there wasn’t enough left for him to spot.

He breathed out in relief, which was difficult with only one lung operational. He felt like someone had buried him in sand and he was breathing out of a straw.

Ugh. My everything hurts.

He looked at his health and saw it plummeting. He had so little left, that he was worried he would die before it stabilized. He had taken a huge risk by essentially making himself into a human fertilizer bomb. That was why he had tried to move the energy as far out as possible. It had only done so much as Alex was currently a torso with a head. All of his limbs had been blown off and a good chunk of his ribcage on his right side. He was lying in a pool of his own blood.

He was worried, but he had hope that he would be able to regrow parts of himself. He had lost a toe when he stormed the power station and it had grown back, the same would have to be true for the other parts of his body, right? It would just take longer. If it didn’t grow back, Alex would figure something else out. He wouldn’t go back and change anything, however. This outcome was far preferable to the alternative. He was unable to do anything with the deranged Zotari. It had far surpassed his strength, no doubt at the expense of its own sanity. He wanted sure why, but this made him want to balance his stats out even more. He feared that if got too powerful in certain areas, he could end up losing himself like that Zotari had. That, more than almost anything else, terrified him.

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Alex had placed one more health bomb in his suit and it had luckily been left unscathed. He guided it into his mouth. He was unable to swallow it, so he forced it down with the Eonsteel. It nearly made him gag which sent pangs of pain through what remained of his body, but his mission had been successful. With the incredibly spicy flavor came waves of healing energy.

I really need to stock up on this stuff before I leave. This is truly invaluable.

He had seen the returns of the health bombs diminishing as he grew in strength. A larger piece only restored 750 health. That was still a significant amount, but as his health pool grew, it wouldn’t help nearly as much. It was enough to help stem the loss of vital energy. He could see his health start to level out. Instead of a free fall from an airplane, it was more like riding a zip line. It was still fast, but it felt a lot more safe now.

Alex laid in the ruins of his own making for what seemed like days. He was alone. The only thing to keep him company was as the pain. Every time the wind blew, sand flew into his wounds making him wince in pain. The Eonsteel that had been on his limbs had been blown away. He could feel it around him, almost as if it was an extension of himself. He had started to pass the time by trying to get it to come back to him. At first it hadn’t worked, but slowly, he was able to guide the slivers back in his direction. The further the pieces were, the harder it was to command.

After a few hours, Alex had reclaimed his missing armor. He used it to cover his wounds. This had been enough to finally stop the loss of health. Now, Alex could focus on healing himself. At least, now he didn’t have to worry about his imminent demise. His actual immediate concern was getting out of dodge. It was only a matter of time before someone came poking around. The Zotari were probably focused on the plaza and the wounded and dead there, but they would eventually start searching further out.

The remains of the library would be a fairly noticeable area. It had obviously been destroyed by an explosion, but wasn’t close enough to the place for that to be the cause. That, and the fact that the explosion that had caused this wreckage came a few moments after the ones in the plaza. He was honestly surprised that someone hadn’t come to check it out already. He also wouldn’t be surprised if they already had, but hadn’t seen anything of note. Even if they had seen him, they probably would’ve thought him dead. He sure looked the part.

Still, Alex didn’t want to risk being there when patrols started to come by in earnest. That was when he had a brilliant idea. He formed the Eonsteel into eight legs. He skittered around like a spider. It was surprisingly easy to maneuver around like this. He was gliding over debris like it was nothing. Before long, Alex was far enough away from the city that he decided to rest. He dug his way into a sand dune and made a makeshift den. It wasn’t much, but it was all Alex could muster with the energy he had left.

Alex slept like no one had slept before. All sense of self and time slipped from Alex’s grasp. He remained in his den, unmoving, for more than five days. When he awoke finally, he had indeed started to grow back his limbs. Started being the key word. His arms and legs were no longer than three inches. Alex didn’t care. Any growth was a good sign. He wouldn’t have to live his life as a human spider. A spider man would be a terrible super hero. It would be terrifying. And what was he going to do, shoot Eonsteel webs out of his butt? That would help calm people in a crisis.

Alex was a little alarmed at the slow regrowth, but he would make do until they grew back fully. His most immediate problem however, was his grumbling stomach. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but with how hungry he was, he knew it had been more than a couple of days. He needed to make it to the Saxan camp, if it was even still there.

He could try to scavenge something in the desert, but he wasn’t entirely confident in his abilities to kill anything right now. If it was a low level beast, maybe he would be able to beat it. That wasn’t a risk he was willing to take right now. He felt like he had used up every bit of luck and good karma he had in the universe, and didn’t want to tempt fate. All it would take was a beast that was slightly too strong to walk in his path and it would be all over.

It would be better to make a direct path for the war camp. If he could make it there, he would be able to focus on healing. That was what he needed more than anything else. The sooner he could get to his full power, the sooner he would be able to power up and beat the Sand Drake and leave this planet. Never had Alex wanted to sleep in his own bed more than right at that moment. He remembered waking up many mornings sore and exhausted because of the terrible, cheap mattress he had in his apartment, but that didn’t matter to him. It sounded like pure heavenly bliss.

He also wanted to go back to camp for another reason. They had likely gotten their food shipment. That meant that the mouthwatering goop would be back on the menu. He had been denied the pleasure of eating it before he was sent on the suicide mission of destroying the towers. He would not be denied that pleasure ever again. He would make it to that mess hall if it was the last thing he ever did.