Alex is staring at the roof of a rather familiar office.
Huh, when did she fall asleep? Her memories are kinda spotty after Adam showed up, with her last being bleeding all over his back while he carried her. She’ll have to apologize for that later, and thank him for saving her. She can hear the clacking of keys so she knows that Clarice is here.
“How long?” She says, feeling the air pass through where her cheek should be. The typing stops and she hears wheels against floorboards as Clarice goes to get up. She walks over and pulls a chair beside the couch before taking a seat.
“Three hours,” She says
Alex sighs in relief, not that long. She still has time.
“And the Scar that brought me here?”
Clarice cracks open a can of fizzy peach.
“Tilt your head,” She says.
Alex squints at the woman.
“You are not drip feeding me.”
Clarice stares at her.
“Get up and grab it then.”
Alex scoffs, that’s barely a challenge, she pushes her magic through her body-
And stops when immense pain overwhelms her being, she cries a bit. Clarice rubs off a tear with her thumb.
“Doesn’t work?”
Alex looks perplexed at the woman, “does everyone know about magic these days?”
Clarice just shrugs and tilts the can over to Alex, who acquiesces and lets her slowly feed her the sweet nectar.
“The Scar left after dropping you on my couch” she says “which I now need to clean.”
Alex looks sheepishly at the woman as she sips her drink.
“You also don’t need to do any more jobs,” Clarice says, “he’s covering the bill for you, premium recovery bundle.”
Alex barely holds herself back from spitting out their drink, it’s a close thing, but it would be rude, and Alex can’t tolerate being rude right now.
Clarice sighs, “You don’t get a hospital, Ellie wants you and the rest to move as soon as you recover. Your admission would take too long.”
Alex takes one last gulp and lets out a breath. “Isn’t that just going to kill me? I have bullets sitting in my guts, I can feel ‘em” She doesn’t think Ellie would just let her die after she sent a Scar to save her. She assumes so at least, that or Adams stalking her, but he doesn’t really give off those kinds of vibes.
Clarice sighs, “you have magic, she expects you to use it. Or die”
Wait what?
How the fuck is she supposed to do that while her souls still broken? She starts to panic, is she gonna die here? Slowly and in pain because Ellie thinks she still has free reign over her soul? What the fuck does Ellie even know about magic other than that it exists, how could she expect something so ridiculous of her. Even with a whole soul she can barely roll a pencil.
“Calm,” Clarice says, “I will take you once it gets dangerous.”
“You’d go against a Finger for me?” Alex chokes.
Clarice just gets up and nods before heading back to her desk, conversation seemingly over. Her eye’s turn yellow then she continues her typing.
Alex thinks about healing her wounds, just a little bit, just enough to close a papercut, and pulls the trigger. Lightning and fire, that's what courses through her veins. Judgment and penance, that’s what fires through her neurons. Pain and suffering, that’s what encompasses her being as tendrils snap, and the pieces of her soul start to drift away, barely held back by what remains. It takes Alex a moment to realize she is screaming her throat raw, she doesn’t stop as Clarice rushes from her desk to try and calm her down.
Tears and snot overwhelm her as more voices sound out around her, she can’t distinguish them right now, all she can feel is the pain. She’s survived PAIN before, and it was worse than this, yet here she finds herself helpless as wave after wave of fresh agony crashes into her. It just keeps going and going and going-
Until it stops, and Alex is left panting on the couch as she tries to gain her bearings.
“What the fuck was that?” says a familiar voice, Alex sees a few threads of pink on Sasha’s officially brown hair. Alex goes to answer but her stomach contracts and blood pours out of her mouth.
“Get her on her side!” Alex feels hands grasp her body as she is lifted to her right, the side where the shotgun tore through her, She holds back tears as a new pain throbs in the wound. She coughs out the last droplets of blood and they roll her back on her back.
“You used magic?” Sasha says sternly.
“What now?” Takeshi replies.
“I have to heal,” she says weakly.
“And you didn’t think about talking to us first!?!” Aki yells, which stuns Alex, she’s never heard him yell before. He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Honestly Alex, you’re missing so much muscle on your limbs I can literally see bone. There’s a funcking chunk of your stomach just gone along with a hole the size of my fist, and your face! A quarter of your face is gone! Along with so many teeth. That and your tits are more bullets than flesh.”
It is at this moment that she realizes the only thing covering her is bandages and she blushes hard at the thought of her friends watching as Clarice tended to her.
Sasha rolls her eyes, “Relax, none of us are into corpses. Well I don’t know about Takeshi, hey Takeshi, are you into corpses?”
“No, and I still haven’t gotten an answer to my question.” He complains.
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll figure it out pretty boy. Anyway, could you kindly leave? We need to have a talk with our resident dumbfuck” She says.
Takeshi stares at her, then shrugs as he heads out of the room.
“So Alex, tell me what you’ve been up to while I’ve been sick. I’d love to hear it from your half-mouth before I punt you through a fucking wall.” Sasha says sweetly.
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Alex begins to sweat.
-
The verbal lashing Alex received was of epic proportions, even Clarice seemed to wince every now and then. A lot of words were said, and Alex is kind of hurt. But to be fair she did go on what was basically a suicide mission.
She’d do it all over again if she had to.
“Anyway the fuck did you even do to get such a violent reaction?” Aki asks once things calm down.
“I told my magic to heal like a papercut's worth of damage.”
“Yeah, but like, what specifically?”
“That’s as specific as it gets,” She says.
Aki stares at her, “Alex,” he says slowly, “did you tell your magic to heal you without specifying what kind of healing you want.”
“Yes?” She says innocently.
The tirade continues.
-
Alex’s ears hurt.
Anyway,
turns out she can actually heal herself, almost as cheaply as moving was before she got this fucked up. She just has to give her natural healing a little push with the magical touch, and produce more blood. On account of the internal bleeding.
Alex honestly prefers vomiting over the slow stream of blood coming out of her ass.
Clarice really will need a new couch.
So she kinda just lays there while pushing her healing and blood, she stops whenever a headache comes on, and starts again when it leaves. It’s kinda boring honestly, but she uses the time to get a feel for how her magic is actually interacting with reality. She’s made a few discoveries. At first she thought the thing that channels her magic is the soul juice mentioned in her contract, but no, that just dissipates into whatever the fuck surrounds her soul. Turns out she’s just using her soul directly to make what she wants to happen fucking happen. Which answers some questions and raises a couple more.
Why does soul juice exist?
Why doesn’t it seem to actually do anything?
Why would a demon want something she can’t even use?
She really needs to see Banzan again, though she’ll avoid talking about the demon. She can feel her contract in the back of her mind, her contribution being barely a drop in what she owes. At this rate she’ll die of old age before she completes it. Or they’ll ask a favor, which will probably be bad for everyone involved.
Considering, you know, demon.
The door to the office opens and Roan enters with his fists all balled up, he sees Alex and power walks towards her.
“Hey Roan! How ya been, sorry about cla-”
He slaps her in the face, then walks back out of the office and slams the door.
Alex looks stunned as she blinks multiple times to process what just happened.
“I feel like I'm being bullied for trying to help a friend.” Alex grumbles.
“It’s because they love you.” Clarice says.
Alex yelps and twitches as her instincts tell her to jump. “Holy fuck, I forgot you were there.”
Clarice raises a brow, “Spatial awareness is a virtue.”
-
Alex has to wear diapers for all the blood.
Fucking diapers!
The indignity!
That and Sasha had to help her get dressed, which was more painful than it was embarrassing. After a few days she can use her magic to move her arms again! If only barely. Which means she can start using a wheelchair. Lost Hope doesn’t have any elevators, so she can only really roll around in the lobby and Clarice’s office, which she doesn’t appreciate, so lobby it is.
She’s planning on going to visit Anya but her friends insist she needs to be going faster than a meter a minute before that can happen, so she’s redoubled her efforts.
“Miss ghoul,” says Geller, “how come you’re still alive?”
Alex scoffs at the boy, “I’m a bad bitch kiddo, flesh wounds don’t got shit on me.”
{More like dumb bitch} Roan signs.
Did Clarice teach him curse words? Good on her.
{I can be both} she signs back, which gets a small laugh he tries to cover to keep up his grumpy façade. Can’t stay mad at her forever little lad!
“Can you teach me how to be a bad bitch?” Ai’s eyes sparkle. Alex goes to pat her on the head but the flinch Ai gives stops her mid motion, she pulls back her hand.
“When you’re older.” Alex says with fake cheer.
It gets a little awkward after that but the conversation gets flowing like before eventually. The kids (excluding Roan) are really interested in her stories from the past few days. It’s pretty raw still, but exposure therapy is best therapy, so she powers through and regales them with her suffering.
Word’s it better than that though.
They especially liked the borg story.
-
After another few days her internal bleeding has stopped! And she’s gone through so many diapers they had to ration them.
She lost a lot of blood.
Smart on Aki to recommend forcefully producing more ‘cuz she doesn’t think a persons supposed to lose that much blood.
But she is officially out of the danger zone, and can solely focus on boosting her healing. Most of the external wounds have scabbed over, meaning her bones aren’t visible to the world anymore. It also means she’s extremely itchy, but she doesn’t scratch! That would be a waste of all her efforts.
Which has been consistent enough that she feels physically drained.
Add that to the list of magical effects, does any of this make sense anymore?
She doesn’t know, she’s not the dumbass who made magic, if it was created, or maybe it was a happy accident of souls existing?
What is a soul anyway? Beyond all the philosophical bullshit.
Hmm, well, she doesn’t care much so it doesn’t really matter.
She hasn’t looked at the mirror in the five days she’s been recovering, doesn’t need to, doesn’t want to. Why subject herself to that anyway? Aki’s description was good enough for her, inspecting the damage would just rub salt in the wound. She might honestly prefer salt over seeing her state. The scared glances from the kids, and the starring of her friends tells enough of a story for her.
So mirrors are banned until she can get skin grafts, new muscle, and something to replace the missing chunk of her stomach.
Her internal monologue is interrupted when Takeshi grabs the handles to her wheelchair.
“Ready?” he asks.
She nods, “yeah.”
-
The crowd parts for them like they’re Moses to the red sea.
Alex chooses to believe it’s not because of her wounds.
“Why’d you ask this of me?” Takeshi asks, “your friends would have gladly transported you.”
“What first you don’t pay for my friend and now you complain about a small favour? Truly the rich cannot be arsed.” Alex teases. She doesn’t see the flinch Takeshi gives at that comment.
They walk in silence for a bit before Takeshi speaks again.
“I’m…sorry,” he says weakly.
Alex blinks in surprise, “huh?”
“I could have helped and I didn’t. Now you’re in this state.” He clarifies.
Alex blinks some more, then gets a little angry, “I’m not some princess to save Takeshi. Who got Anya shot? Me. I didn’t seriously expect you to pay it off like you were my piggy bank, I was just pissed you were telling me to stop.”
Takeshi looks at her oddly. “You did not shoot her, you were in a position that you couldn’t have possibly controlled.”
“I could have played along,” she spits out with venom, “let them beat our asses rather than turn it into a deathmatch.”
Alex doesn’t see Takeshi’s look of confusion, “Is this Anya such a good friend that she warrants you to be this strict with yourself?”
Alex deflates, “not really,” she says, “we only hang out sometimes. But she’s so innocent, so pure. Not like the rest of this city, I…I don’t want to be the reason someone like that gets hurt. I don’t want to be the one to taint that purity.”
Takeshi sighs, “being ignorant of the dangers in this city is not a good thing.”
“Yeah,” Alex says quietly, “I know.”
-
Going to visit Anya in the hospital was kinda funny. All the staff rushed around, assuming she was her to get admitted, she had to explain multiple times to their bewildered faces that she was just here to visit a friend. They tried to get her treated anyway, but enough refusals and a paper to sign later she was free to go see Anya.
A nurse opens the door for her and Takeshi rolls her into the room.
The first thing that greets her is a scream.