Alex hates infirmity, no, hate isn’t a strong enough word. She loathes infirmity. Needing to have someone carry you to the bathroom is fucking embarrasing, and having people feed you through a spoon is just the icing on the cake. She can’t fucking do anything, and it’s pissing her off beyond belief she doesn’t know what’s even wrong. This isn’t how her magic is supposed to work, it’s supposed to give her fuck-off migrains as a warning that ‘hey, maybe stop’, this full body experience shouldn’t be happening. Although admittedly she doesn’t know shit about magic, which also means she doesn’t know shit about how to get better quicker.
But she has been recovering, if at the pace of a snail. barely muster the strength to speak, now, after a week, she can wiggle her toes! Progress. It’s a little funny how the folks from The House look at her with some fear now after her apparently impressive display of mass murder, the same looks coming from her friends is less funny. If only that was the worst of their problems.
They are now squarely behind enemy lines.
Apparently their warehouse wasn’t the only place that was targeted, ‘cause when she woke up the whole district and presumably the neighboring districts were no longer under House control. Which is a pain, Alex doesn’t really like the whole hiding away shit they’ve got going on right now, and doesn’t trust the geezer who's letting them borrow his bunker not to rat them out if it gets him some extra creds.
Apparently the purple lady decided to let them go, which is fucking weird because last she checked, she was alone, and they had seven people with guns. But a House ganger with a chrome arm named Elian insists that the woman could’ve ended them all if she felt like it, apparently he recognized her teeth as a signifier that she’s part of some obscure elite group that isn’t the Heretics or the Exalted. Called the Hyenas apparently, which is kinda funny since it doesn’t fit the Kingdoms motif at all.
Alex has her doubts, what are the chances that of the millions of gangers in the Kingdom they send a heavy hitter to a simple raid? If it wasn’t for her magic they would be very, very dead, so she doesn’t see the point in wasting resources like that.
“How are you feeling, little demon?” the woman with the rifle asks, her name is Rania and she’s been Alex’s caretaker for the past week, Alex refusing to have her friends do the job and risk dying of embarrassment. It would be a stupid way to go after all the murder she’s committed.
Damn, she’s killed a lot of people.
“Alex?” Rania says while shaking her a little.
“What? Sorry, got lost in thought there”
Rania purses her lips into a thin line, “I know we’re not exactly close” she starts “but you can talk to me if somethings bothering you. I’ve wiped your ass after all.”
Alex goes bright red with embarrassment which gets a chuckle out of Rania, fuck she hates not being able to punch right now. “It’s nothing,” she says, “just thinking.” Rania sits down next to her “about the people you killed?” she guesses. Alex nods.
She hums “I don’t know how much this’ll mean coming from me, but you saved my life, you saved all of our lives. That means something. Killing is…well it’s a part of the business, as i’m sure you already know, but you did it out of self-defence, that’s different from just executing someone” Alex flinches hard at that which gets a raised eyebrow from the woman. “you’ve executed someone before?” she asks.
Alex wishes she could hug her knees right now, but she can’t, so instead she settles for looking down in shame “they were dealing in crystal” she mumbles out her excuse.
Rania has a disgusted look plastered over her face, “then they got what was coming to them, I meant executing someone for the fun of it.”
Alex keeps her gaze on the floor “what’s the difference?”
Rania sighs, “It means you have limits kid, that you’re not just a wanton killer.”
-
Luckily for Alex, her recovery is exponential, after two weeks of hiding under the bunker and munching on beans, she can finally start walking, well, she can shuffle. But that’s enough to get to the bathroom so that’s good enough for her.
“Yeah! Go Alex, you have the best shuffle this side of Arthas.” Sasha cheers. Alex gives her a big smile, and with some struggling lifts up her arms to flex her muscles, which gets another cheer from the girl. The others are looking on with bemusement, with a soccer game in France playing in the background.
Pushing her muscles doesn’t seem to be hastening her recovery, but Alex still tries. She needs to get back to her normal as quickly as possible. She’s holding everyone back right now, and she doesn’t like the feeling.
Then she trips and falls face first onto the concrete with a squawk.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Oh shit!” Sasha says as she rushes over, “you ok?”
-
Beans for breakfast, beans for lunch, and beans for supper. The owner of this humble bunker doesn’t seem to understand the concept of variety, there are other cans but they’re so few that their being used as a kind of currency.
Alex eyes Sasha, looking for any tells and finds none.
She places down a can of pineapples.
“All in” She says gravely.
Sasha doesn’t react other than to place her peaches into the center.
They stare at each other, Alex’s face set into a deep frown while Sasha is the picture of serene impassiveness.
Alex smiles.
“Flush!” She says as she places down her cards.
Her smile wanes as Sarah’s face stays impassive.
Sasha puts down her cards and Alex’s eyes go wide as saucers.
“Bullshit!”
Sasha breaks into a big smile “Those pineapples are mine chink!” she cackles.
-
Alex is facing the greatest enemy of mankind.
Boredom.
There’s just nothing to do, other than watching cable, but everyone else wants to watch sports and she’s not really a sports person. Well, except for combat sports, but even then it’s a mild amount of enjoyment. They had to disconnect anything just in case a skilled netrunner was in the area and noticed multiple signals coming from underground, that’d be an embarrassing way to get caught. So no phone for poor little Alex. She just has to deal with the mind numbing task of watching the entrance since she’s the only one who isn’t a fan of football. It’s not all bad, it gives her some privacy to test out her magic. She doesn’t know if the House grunts suspect anything (they most likely do) but it’s better to be safe about this stuff.
She nudges the empty can with her mind.
A spike of pain shoots through her skull.
Okay, so that’s still normal, now why was it different during her little festival of blood? She wracks her brain and can’t really come to an answer. Better to ask Banzan or Fleshy. As she waits for the pain to subside the door to the bunker opens.
Instantly she has her Tengu trained on the entrance, it’s a little hard to carry the thing, and the recoil with fuck her arm to hell, but only one person from the outside should know where this is, and they have no reason to come here.
The gate opens slowly, hinges creaking from years of rust, to reveal the silhouette of a man. His eye’s glow a red so deep it looks like blood, and his sclera is pitch black. His arms would look normal if it weren’t for the fact they were matte black, every muscle moves as it should and the joints actually replicate human biology rather than just mimic it. He’s wearing a sleeveless jacket with no shirt and regular ass jeans alongside regular ass runners. There are two pistols holstered to his hips. They are pistols only in shape, because they are absolute monsters with a gigantic clip resting under the barrel.
How does that work, an idle part of her mind wonder’s, there’s like, no space for the bullet to travel.
Then she notices the katana handle peaking over his shoulder. There are deep bags under his eyes.
“Can I come down and not get shot please” the man says “me and bullets have an understanding right now”
Alex lowers her gun slowly as her mind is trying to process what she’s seeing, “did the House take back the district?” she asks with no small measure of hope.
“No” he says, “I’m just here for a mission, and now that it’s complete, i’m going to fucking sleep”
And he does just that, passing out immediately and hitting the floor hard.
-
“Is he in hibernation?” Alex asks, staring at the man
“I’m pretty sure humans don’t do that” Aki replies
“It’s been three days!”
“Maybe he’s dead” Sasha says
“He’s still breathing” Aki points out
“A coma?” Alex asks
Aki hesitates “I don’t know, maybe?”
The man grunts and grumbles and all three of them go on high alert.
Then he keeps snoring.
“False alarm” Aki says.
Sasha sighs before turning to Alex “So, more poker?”
“Fuck you, I barely have any good rations left.”
Sasha turns to Aki who shakes his head vehemently.
“You guys are no fun”
-
Alex is staring at the roof, it’s a pretty meh roof, made of concrete broken up by ventilation, there are light bulbs illuminating the room, dangling from they’re little wires. Very apocalypse aesthetic, there are still people who believe the world will end with hellfire, even after the nukes were made defunct. She guesses the elderly man serving as their host is one of those people. At least he’s probably making some money by having this as an open safehouse for the House, though it comes with risk. But doesn’t everything?
Alex is bored out of her mind, she realises, if she’s examining the damn roof.
She opens her last can of pineapples and fills her time with sweetness to distract from the daunting task of continuing to do nothing.
She can’t even exercise!
Well she can, but lifting her leg slowly while sitting on a couch doesn’t really count.
She notices Elian and Rania peeking over while she lays on the ground.
“What do you want?” Alex asks, lamenting that she probably knows the answer.
They glance at each other, shrug, and look back at Alex.
“Who’s the new guy?” Elian asks.
“A Scar,” Alex responds, “This is the fifth time you’ve asked today, the answer isn’t any different man.”
Elian scrunches his eyebrows with skepticism, “is this one of those ‘I can’t tell you or I die’ scenarios? Blink twice if it is.”
Alex blinks twice just to fuck with him.