I woke from an uncomfortable sleep, cold and in darkness. Restless and wanting to leave this hard bed. Unsure if this was part of the fevered dreams that had been flashing in and out of whatever nightmare I currently existed in. I remembered being close to death, but… that wasn’t exactly a novel experience for me.

Shaking, my left hand came up awkwardly, fingers numb as I rubbed at my aching head. My hair was matted to my scalp as if I had been sweating profusely, despite freezing my ass off. Nothing on my torso, so that was probably why. Just shorts covering my modesty.

With a grunt, I shifted and managed to sit up. Numb all over, and still dizzy. Surroundings were… dim. Blocky shapes unfamiliar, not exactly hospital-like but adjacent. No clothing to put on that I could see - I’d have to venture further to warm up.

I moved down and shifted off onto the floor. Lower half was numb as well. So cold. I blinked my sluggish eyes and glanced over at a door.

My hand was pressing against it before I even clocked that I had moved across the room. It opened easily, and I managed to stop myself from falling through. Looked like a waiting room or something. A mixture of comfortable armchairs and seats arranged against the wall. No handy fireplace, although there were a pair of green lights glaring at me through the darkness.

“You need to sit the fuck down, Gunquake.”

The words struck me like lightning, sobering some of my errant thoughts. Memories clicked back into place.

[C… Clara? Why?]

“If your body rejects the cybernetics, you’ll lose your legs for good.”

I frowned and looked down. Dark metal in place of my usual feet, the replacement material extended up where my legs used to be and over my knees. The realization hit, and I took two steps before practically throwing myself on the nearest armchair. Clara was up and beside me in the same amount of time, putting the blanket she had been sleeping with over me instead.

[Oh, I remember. I had my legs cut off. Things are somewhat muddled from the point I leaped from the window.]

Clara sighed. She looked stressed, but stranger than that, also angrier than I’d ever seen her. “The necklace that Belle gave you tipped her off that you were in trouble. She messaged me and I gave her the coordinates of your bike. Captain picked her up to get her there in time, and Ren was closer naturally. Roxy arrived and… put an end to Red Dust.”

The memories came back to me. My team arriving to save my life. The way Roxy had killed the villain with no hesitation after seeing the state I was in. I could only imagine how she was feeling at that point. After glancing around the room again, I furrowed my brow at the techie.

[Where is Roxy now?]

Her expression dulled, and she sat on the chair to my right, putting her hand on my gun-arm. “The League took her in. Killing a villain in the streets is… Rockslide was so angry she almost went rogue right there. I convinced her to go along with it for now, because you didn’t have much time.”

We had brought our cavalier wasteland attitude into the city, but weren’t outside of the law. Roxy was enraged and had killed Red Dust, instead of incapacitating him to be jailed. No matter what we thought about that, the League was heavily against it. Now I was…

[You prevented them from taking me to hospital. I am… this is where you are educated?]

She nodded slowly. “It was only due to the prior agreement in place that they eventually relented to allowing me to take you. Forgive me, but I thought Dr. Jarl would be able to do more for you than I could alone.”

Looking down at the new metal parts attached to me, I was inclined to agree. Still, it was a lot to take in, and some things hadn’t truly settled in to the part of my brain currently functioning. The images before I finally fell asleep flashed back into my mind. The good doctor knew who I was.

[Where is Doctor Jarl now?]

As if on cue, the door off to the side opened, and the man himself walked in. He looked tired and nervous, clearly not getting much sleep after the surgery. I fought the desire to leap from my chair and throttle answers from him.

“Gunquake,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out of bed so soon.”

[You did the original cybernetic work on me, didn’t you?]

His mouth opened and closed as he glanced between me and Clara, but no words came out. Eventually, he sighed and flicked the light switch on, illuminating the room. “Let me pull up a chair, and I will answer any questions you have for me.”

The brightness of the bulb made my eyes ache. I pulled the blanket away to inspect the damage properly for the first time. My chest was black and blue, bruised all over. Several stitches ran across my ribs. Below my compression trunks, my legs were equally discolored, especially near where the metal knee caps ran over my flesh.

Clara drummed her fingertips on my shotgun. “We had to cut your chest open to reset your ribcage, and then we also had to remove some of your legs over your knees so that the cybernetics would fit and be equal.”

[They look… nice.]

I wasn’t sure what to say. They were certainly better than having no legs, but given the Doctor’s previous work on me, I was hesitant to jump for joy. Not just because of the potential gore explosion.

“I had to twist his arm to bring these out of storage.” She glared at him as he sat opposite us. “They are more than nice, Gunquake.”

Jarl gave me a sheepish shrug. “It’s… the least I could do. Normally there are restrictions on higher Grade cybernetics and who I can put them on. Miss Clara made some… convincing arguments for breaking protocol.”

I imagined that involved plenty of threats, especially with my life and continued existence as a hero on the line. Internally, I cringed at the looming conversation about the mistakes I had made came up. For now, I leaned toward putting pressure on the doctor.

[I’m glad you didn’t hobble me with fucking terrible tech this time.]

He held his hands up as if he was trying to prevent me leaping at him. “It was under duress, I assure you. Your mask and the gun-arm were provided to me, and I had to do the best that I could.”

I rubbed at my head. Some throbbing pain had started. Perhaps the pain meds were running out. I tried to ignore it by prompting the doctor for his tale. Given that I hadn’t tried to shoot him yet, he seemed to be gradually calming.

It turned out that part of the story we already knew, or had guessed at. What we didn’t know were the origins. Doctor Jarl and Boss had been colleagues when they were much younger. Not exactly in the same field, but they swam in similar circles. One day Jarl fell foul of some laws with his work. He assured us it was nothing heinous, and for now I believed him, but if the scandal had gotten out, it would have been career ending.

That’s where Boss stepped in. He knew how to sweep things under the rug, and just like that, the Doctor’s problems went away. A favor owed. They fell apart in the years after, as connections often do, until the day five or so years ago when Boss turned up with my half dead body and an eye on that festering IOU.

Given that Jarl had become the most esteemed and well-regarded cybernetics expert on this side of the Grand Reef, he felt that he owed a lot to Boss. Even then, the job of working on me was something he took on begrudgingly. Not half because of what state I was in and what tech had been provided to install.

I was made to be odd. Untraceable. Despite intentionally crippling me, my mouth had been removed so that I could not speak and be recognized, nor cast spells the traditional way. With my super soldier experience, I could learn to use any weapon over time… so the near archaic shotgun wasn’t too much of a liability.

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“Miss Clara has informed me that she is working on a new arm, Gunquake.” Doctor Jarl rubbed at his chin. “I would like to offer my assistance.”

[That’s entirely up to her. I am actually wondering if you are able to graft me a new mouth.]

He immediately grimaced before he could regain some composure. “It’s… not impossible. I was not instructed to make it easy to revert the work that I had done to you, so it’s not a simple process. It would be expensive and very labor intensive. Depending on how realistic you wanted to go, some materials or parts are restricted or not easily obtained legally.”

The doctor was telling me the chance was slim, but if the stars aligned… he wouldn’t say no to doing the work. Whether that was due to guilt or the challenge of it, I didn’t care. A small chance was better than none.

[Shame. I am still hungry and wish I could eat.]

Clara furrowed her brow. “We’ve been replacing your nutritional canisters as needed. You should have sufficient energy.”

The doctor nodded, but also furrowed his brow. “While that is true, this might be a side effect of no longer taking the… canisters that made you forget.”

I chose not to press him on that. We all but knew the old stims and canisters Boss gave me were suspect, and ditching them was a good idea. My body was shedding that shell and so much of my past was now coming back to me.

[Muscle memory, then. My body is now remembering the process of eating food, bringing about a faux hunger.]

“Correct.”

Terrible. If this was going to be a common issue, then we needed to find a way to make my body stop with the complaining. It was bad enough that I had almost died, but now I had to listen to a grumbling stomach?

“Please excuse me, you two.” Jarl stood from his chair and gave us a brief bow. “I need to let the League know of your condition.”

“They wanted hourly updates if I was to take you away,” Clara confirmed.

We watched him leave, and as the door shut, I turned my head to the techie.

[You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?]

She rolled her eyes and exhaled through her nose. “Partly. I blame myself for being complacent and leaving you on your own for five minutes. Had I known you were going to pick a fight with… him…”

[If it makes it any better, I didn’t know it was Red Dust there. I had an intuition when I pulled up outside that shop and investigated the building. Had I known, I would have stayed well away, as promised.]

Clara’s cybernetic eyes tried to read at my facial expression, before she eventually gave up. “I believe you, Gunquake. A mixture of bad luck and happenstance that almost gets you killed sounds exactly like a Gunquake thing. If you hadn’t fostered such a good relationship with the team, you’d be dead.”

[I owe them a great deal of thanks. Did the League take them in too?]

She shook her head. “Just Rockslide, but they’ve been instructed to lie low and out of the public eye until this is all dealt with.”

I nodded. If I knew Roxy, then she would be simmering away at present, being locked up and not knowing what had happened to me. Surely they would let her know I lived, at least. They were lucky she was going along with what they wanted. I’m not sure how long that could last, and what repercussions would come from the…

My train of thought ground to a halt as the door opened again, but this time, the doctor had somebody else behind him.

Director Kingston.

“Apologies,” Jarl said, gesturing the man in. “Normally a patient in such condition wouldn’t be allowed visitors, but I had to make an exception.” That meant he had no choice, rather than being enthused about the idea.

“I’m surprised to see him up and sitting, actually.” The Director raised an eyebrow and looked for a chair to bring into our little group.

The doctor wrung his hands and gave me a disapproving look. “Were Gunquake any ordinary person, he would be laying on in the theater room floor bleeding out from the cybernetics rupturing from their settings. Among his many talents, tech grafts almost as well to him as skin would.”

[I guess you could say I’m just built-]

“I’ll be frank with you, Gunquake,” the Director interrupted as he sat down. “You’ve really thrown the shit into the fan tonight.”

[Oh, did I do poorly in the Bonemeal fight?]

“No.” He worked his jaw. “That was, in fact, very successful for your first mission. Fans will eat up the cheesy one-liners and the bravado of brute-forcing your way into throwing fists at the bad guy. No deaths and minimal collateral.”

I glanced at Clara. Red Dust had insinuated that Angel caused at least an equal share of the property damage in their fight. There was a non-zero chance that the S-Rank hero had actually killed the techies parents. Still, that was the words of a murderous villain. He had no reason to lie, but I wasn’t going to take it as gospel, either. It wasn’t worth dragging Clara back through the mud until I had concrete proof, so if she had some closure now, I’d let it lie. I wouldn’t forget, though.

[Ah. You must be annoyed at me accidentally stumbling through a drugs lab into the escaped supervillain.]

“You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.” The Director flexed out his fingers before placing them together. “Rockslide murdered someone in the open streets of the city. You may be used to vigilante justice and disregard for life, but the laws of Goldarch—especially the ones governing heroes—are very rigid and paramount to things running smoothly.”

[Is she being charged with murder, then?]

Kingston rolled his tongue around his teeth, giving the reluctant words a taste before he spoke. “Normally, perhaps. Do you remember, Gunquake, that I said I would owe you a favor?”

[I do.]

He extended his open palms as if he was revealing a magic trick. “I am pulling what strings I can to get her out of this bind. Any data about the event is being scrubbed. Information diluted and obscured. Thankfully, there were few eye witnesses. Rockslide is too good of an asset to sit rotting away in prison, but actions have consequences. One of the other Directors was calling for her to be branded a villain, before I reminded them what she is capable of.” Kingston sighed and deflated. “This isn’t without conditions, however.”

The fact that I had Director Kingston on my side had turned into more of a boon than I first thought. Of course, I hadn’t imagined that Roxy would straight up kill someone and need to be bailed out of confinement. I gestured for him to continue.

“You will be expected to follow whatever narrative we give you in regards to tonight's events. Murder aside, the Natural Disasters proved themselves to be a competent and functional team that many others in the city could learn from, and in normal circumstances, I would love to lavish praise and tangible benefits upon you. Due to the what transpired, however, the team—and any member thereof—will receive no benefits from anything that comes from Red Dust’s death. No financial bonus, no viewership or promotional ties, and no glory.”

[Acceptable.]

No doubt that would have been the opposite had Roxy just subdued the villain, but you couldn’t fix a broken egg. We’d move on from this and the radio silence might even be better for Clara, rather than having that ‘win’ touted around Goldarch constantly.

“Furthermore, Rockslide will no longer be the leader of Natural Disasters.” Kingston regarded me intently, probing for my reaction. “She has proven too hot-headed for the role and the League feels she could lead you all astray if her anger continues unchecked.”

I nodded slowly. If prompted, I was sure they would all support me in stepping into that role. My confidence wasn’t quite there yet, as I was the one who got us in this hot water to start with. Kind of a moot point when I couldn’t even walk at the moment. A bridge we could cross when I could.

[Understandable, we will find a solution.]

The Director gave a brief nod in return, accepting my neutral diplomatic response. “Finally, Clara has ruffled too many feathers by taking you away from the League medical facilities. While I know she knows you best and puts your survival as the highest priority, it is against many policies as she does not have any of the necessary licenses or education to be-”

“I do,” Doctor Jarl interrupted. “If they both consent, I will become their primary care agent.”

Kingston raised an eyebrow and rubbed his thumb along his index finger. “Of course, the reason we are having this meeting here is that I believed you would make such an offer. It would allow the League to overlook the use of the restricted leg cybernetics, while keeping Gunquake within a familiar medical sphere.”

I glanced at Clara, who seemed to be mulling over the options. If she had managed to pressure the doc into fixing up my legs, then I had no doubt she could continue to keep him working for my benefit. As for me, I appreciated having allies that would keep me alive and kicking. Maybe… less of the latter for a while.

“It would be in our best interest to agree,” she decided.

[Then we accept that proposition.]

The director nodded to us both. “The paperwork will reach you soon, then.” He paused to sigh, rubbing at his eyes. “Too much work has been put into the team reveal, so delaying it isn’t much of an option. One member in jail and the other unable to walk isn’t an ideal start, but only one of those things I can change. How long will Gunquake be out of service, Doctor?”

“It’s hard to say. A normal man would take… several months to be back to one-hundred percent. Gunquake could take weeks, or even days. I have not worked on anyone with his unique physiology before to give an accurate timescale.”

A partial lie, as he definitely had worked on me before. Created me, even if it wasn’t by his design. I’d get him to share everything he knows about me with Clara later on. Have them both on the same page as much as possible. With her ingenuity and his experience, the rate at which I could gain upgrades may increase.

[I will follow my medical team’s advice, but will push to be back on my own two feet as soon as possible.]

“I don’t doubt it.” Director Kingston gave me a glum smile before pushing himself up off of the chair. He brushed down his suit before regarding us all. “If you feel you can trust Doctor Jarl, then you may avail him of all the details of any of our arrangements. Knowing you, Gunquake, I trust that you will uphold our agreement. Just… try not to get in trouble for a few days, okay?”

[Understood. You have my word.]

Kingston gave the others a nod as he dismissed himself, moving over to the door.

[Oh, Director? The event happened in the center of the city. Did any of the teams assigned there turn up?]

He shook his head, pausing in the open doorway. “With the Natural Disasters on the scene, we didn’t feel any need. The police dealt with the drug dealers. Take care.”

The waiting room fell into silence as we were left alone, aside from the occasional growl of my stomach. My thoughts immediately switched to Roxy and home. I missed them both. That, and having my own legs. Some warm clothes, as well.

“There was one hero who turned up on the scene amongst the chaos, Gunquake.” Clara held my gun-arm and looked up at me.

[Oh? Who was it?]

“Angel.”