I actually had a decent sleep session for a bit, no dreams or nightmares, just inky blackness and rest. Unfortunately, it was interrupted by a stabbing pain in my right arm. I woke up instantly, lifting my arm back to slam into whatever was attacking me, but before I could someone caught my arm and held me down. I thrashed around, trying to break free from the hold I was in.
"Inari, calm down! It's me!" I heard a familiar voice say, snapping me out of my panic. I looked over to see Arc holding me down on the bed I had passed out on earlier. I still felt the sharp pain in my arm, and as I looked back over at it, I remembered everything that happened. Now that I was able to look at my new arm better, it was very obviously a prosthetic. A very good one, but clearly not a natural part of my body.
"Sorry about that. I just... did that really happen?" I asked her, and she nodded, pulling me into a hug while avoiding touching my new arm. I put my head on her shoulder, trying my best not to tear up as I felt myself relax into her arm. I pulled back after a bit, looking around the room again. Most of the people from earlier had seemingly left, probably because of what happened. The doctor from earlier was still here though, looking at me with concern. I realized he was probably the one that touched my arm and woke me up.
"Can I get some more painkillers or something? This arm is killing me." I asked, and the look of concern on the doctor's face only got worse. Celeste appeared in front of me, an incredibly sad look on her face.
"Inari, that's phantom pain. It most likely isn't going to go away with painkillers."
"What?! I have a new arm! It has touch sensitivity, how the hell do I have phantom pain?"
"From what I can tell, your body is having a hard time recognizing it as your own arm. Chances are it will come and go for a while." She said. I glanced over at the doctor from earlier, and I felt myself getting angrier. This asshole ripped my arm off in front of me, and he was just standing here watching me! I pulled myself off the table and walked towards him as he stumbled backwards, terrified.
"Inari! Let's not do this here!" Arc said, appearing next to me. I looked back and saw a blue trail in between where she used to be and where she was now. Damn, that girl was fast. I looked back at the doctor, cowering on the ground, and I realized I needed to stop. This wasn't his fault, my arm was gone either way.
"Right, sorry. It's my fault for hurting myself. Guess that's just a good lesson for a Guardian, right?" I said to Arc, who looked at me in shock.
"You are taking this much better than I thought you would. Does this not freak you out?" She asked, and I thought about it for a moment.
"Depends on what you mean. The arm itself doesn't freak me out at all. I've never had a problem with the idea of modifying my body or anything. But uh, I probably will have nightmares about watching my arm fall off for the rest of my life."
"I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I'll probably also have nightmares about that." She said, making me feel kind of bad. She shouldn't have to deal with that because of me. I mean, it was rather horrifying. I remembered seeing strands of the old arm still hanging off the shoulder- oh shit, I should not be thinking about this. I pushed Arc to the side and ran over to a nearby trash can, vomiting again. Someone came over and rubbed my back, which I was extremely thankful for. After a minute, I looked back up to see Mia standing over me, holding a washcloth. I used it to clean myself up and looked at her.
"Thanks. Sorry I made your first day as a Guardian so shitty."
"Liara, you've been a Guardian for a few hours more than me. Don't you dare try and blame yourself for anything, I'm doing fine. Besides, I got out and did some work while you were asleep."
"Oh shit, how long was I asleep?" I said, and she shrugged, looking at a clock nearby.
"Couple hours? Invasions still going, but we're near the end probably." She said, pulling me over to a more private area, Arc following as well.
"Dammit, I could have been out there helping people! Instead, I'm in here losing limbs because I can't control myself." I said, and as I did, I felt Mia put both her hands on my shoulders, shoving me into a nearby chair as her and Arc glared at me. Celeste stared at me as well, the same sad look as before.
"I am going to say this once, Liara. I said earlier I didn't want you to die too soon, because you really do seem like you can make it far as a Guardian. But you are not the strongest Guardian in the universe. You aren't Warforger, you literally got started on the same day I did. So, take a minute to calm the hell down. You don't need to throw yourself into danger at every opportunity." Mia said.
"That's literally our jobs now! What else am I supposed to do, it's not like I knew the skill would do that!" I yelled back. Arc immediately shifted into anger when she heard this, I could tell she was fuming.
"This isn't about that! It's about the fact that you just lost your arm, and the first thing you do is make yourself feel like shit for resting! You aren't going to save every person on this planet, so just relax for five minutes and keep yourself safe!" Arc said. I went to yell back something stupid, but I turned and looked at Celeste and thought about something. I had promised Celeste I wouldn't throw my life away like her other Guardians had. And here I was, having just injured myself severely and trying to find excuses to keep fighting. Shit, I was being a moron.
"I'm sorry. To all of you guys. I've only known you for half a day and I'm already making you worry about me, that's not fair. I just, I feel like if I have the power to do something, and I don't, that's bad." I said, and as I did Arc and Mia both crouched down to look at me in the eyes. They didn't have to go very far down though. I was almost eye level with them while sitting down.
"I understand that, but you've already done plenty. In five hours, you saved maybe a thousand people. More if you just count those turrets and those drones you put up, the convoys would have never made the trips without those helping. But there are people who care about you, and you don't want them to mourn you just because you thought you were bad for not saving one more person." Arc said, and I scoffed.
"I really don't have that many people who care about me Arc, trust me." I said, and Arc looked at me like I was a moron.
"What about me, huh? I care about you! Celeste cares about you! And I don't know about Mia, or Fortress and Blossom, but I know at the very least, they want to care about you! They want to learn more about you, see you grow as a Guardian, and they can't do that if you're dead. So please, just be careful." She said. I simply looked at her, stunned.
"...do you really care about me? We just met. I thought you meant like, my parents cared about me." I said, and it was her turn to scoff at me this time.
"Inari, I am very much aware that a lot of peoples parents don't give a shit about them. Me and Fortress are both orphans, we don't even have parents. I'm guessing it's a similar situation for you?" She said, and I nodded.
"I don't really want to talk about it. I'll just say, my mom's dead and I don't talk with my dad very often. I... I want to know more about you guys too. Listen, how about this. I'll just stay here for the rest of the invasion and help heal any injured people. And after this, maybe me and Mia could join you guys in future invasions? You can tell me if I'm pushing myself too hard. We could have a safe word or something. If you guys say anything, I'll stop fighting and take a backseat right away." I said, and I saw Mia and Arc both smile at that.
"Fuck it, I'd be down. You guys seem pretty cool, I'd be fine with joining. By the way, how the hell does that work? I thought you got shoved into invasions randomly?" Mia said, turning to Arc.
"Oh, well you can make what's called a Party, and join invasions that way. So, we all decide together what invasions we want to do and join them at the same time. We still get random invasions on occasion, but in that case, we all still join together, it just rolls for us as one collective entity. It's how a lot of those big Guardian team's work. But yeah, I'll ask Blossom and Fortress if you guys can join. I mean, I'm sure they'll say yes, but I still should ask." She said, and I nodded. As her and Mia began discussing more about the whole Party, I looked down to Celeste, who still hadn't said anything.
"I really am sorry. I think I might have some issues I need to work out."
"I understand. I can't forgive you just yet, but if you genuinely try to keep yourself safe, that would be enough. Can I ask why you think you have these issues?" Celeste asked, and I felt my face go stone cold.
"No. Not yet at least."
"Okay then. I still think you should go to a therapist if you aren't seeing one already." She said, and I rolled my eyes.
"Celeste, therapy is for people with real mental problems, I just have some bad tendencies." I said. As I did, both Arc and Mia looked at me like I was insane.
"Uh, that is definitely not true. Anyone can go to therapy Inari. Also, I was positive you were neurodivergent in some way, have you never been diagnosed?" Arc said. Well, that was rude! I was a completely normal person!
"No, because why would I go get diagnosed? I'm fine, everyone's a little weird." I said, and Mia raised an eyebrow.
"Let me guess, some asshole told you that when you were a kid and now you think it's actually true?"
"Hey! I... I mean, yeah that's true, but they weren't wrong!" I tried to rebuke. Everyone else just gave me the same look, which made me feel severely stupid. I huffed and walked away, going over to the main area of the medical room. The doctor from earlier saw me and got scared again, but I held up my hand.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so angry at you earlier. I really don't think you could have done much." I said, and after a moment he nodded.
"It's alright. My names James, by the way. I normally do research for this PMC, but I also fill in as a medic if they need. You mind helping me out with these patients?" I nodded, getting started on healing everyone. Over the next couple hours, I talked to Arc and the rest of the Guardians here while I healed people. I also recalled my drones, who I realized were still just floating with the military group out of ammo. While I was here, I ended up having to heal a few Guardians who I had never met before. Turns out, Guardians are usually pretty chill people. After I had finished healing someone with a ton of bite wounds, the captain from earlier walked up to me.
"Inari. I and all my men appreciate the help earlier. You doing okay after the whole, incident?" Nianshi asked, and I nodded.
"Yeah, I'm mostly fine now. Kind of hurts, but I'll get used to it. Oh, I wanted to ask you something. What's up with that suit you're wearing? You aren't a Guardian, right?" Nianshi gave me a cocky grin and flexed her arm.
"Nope, that was all me. And the suit obviously. This is a special exoskeleton designed by our research team, it's similar to that arm you bought there. At Starbound, we're working on making people less dependent on Guardians. Makes me about as strong as a high-end Aquamarine ranked Guardian, and it has some other special tricks."
"That sounds amazing!" I exclaimed. I was all for having people be able to defend themselves without a Guardian necessary.
"Sure is. You should come by the lab sometime, it's basically right above us. I offered to that Blossom girl too if you both want to see everything."
"Well, I'd have to ask her, but that sounds like a fun time." I said. Before Nianshi could respond, a popup appeared in my vision.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Invasion Complete
Thank you to all the Guardians who fought today.
Invasion Stats for Inari:
Entities Killed: 638
Civilians Saved: 976
Points Gained for Personal Efforts to Save Civilians: 5783 + 1 Tier 2 Gem, New Total: 12487
Would you like to stay for an extra twenty-four hours to assist in cleanup? Extra points will be awarded if done.
Yes/No
"Uh, Celeste, mind explaining this to me?" I said, walking into a corner as people began cheering at the end of the invasion.
"Oh, that's rather simple. If you stay an extra amount of time after an invasion and help clean up any remaining entities, or just do anything helpful, you will get extra points. It's not mandatory though." She said. Well, I didn't really feel like going home yet, so I selected the yes option. Unfortunately, this did mean I would have to do one thing. I sighed as I tried to make a call to a very familiar number.
"Hey, what's up?" My roommate said as he picked up the phone.
"Hey Jake, It's Liam. If anyone calls and asks where the hell I am, just tell them I went on a day trip or something." I said, cringing at the use of my old name.
"Uh, okay? Why do you sound so weird, and what's up with the new number?" He said.
"Alright, don't tell anyone about this, but I'm a Guardian now. I'm not even on Earth at the moment."
"Uh huh, sure. Anyways, I'll tell everyone you went somewhere. What about your work?" He said mockingly. Clearly, he didn't actually believe me, but that was honestly fine.
"Don't care, quitting anyways. See ya." I said, ending the call. I was very glad I didn't have to work that shitty job anymore. I went back to healing people up before someone tapped on my shoulder a few minutes later. I turned around to see Fortress standing behind me.
"Hey Fortress! Did Arc talk to you and Blossom yet? By the way, where is she anyways?"
"Arc? She was feeling pretty beat, so she decided to head home. Me and Blossom are going to help with rebuilding a lot of destroyed things. And yes, she did talk to us. We would be happy if you and Mia joined with us. By the way, you never gave her a name, so Blossom did it while you were asleep."
"Dammit, I wanted to name her! What did she choose?"
"Jetstream." He said, and I paused for a moment.
"...ugh, that's actually pretty good. Anyways, what's up?"
"Arc said I should speak to you about something before she left. Something about talking some sense into you about your transformation? I didn't really get what she meant." He said, and I racked my brain confused. After a moment, I realized what he meant.
"Ugh, I know what she's talking about. It's nothing, but I wanted to have a chat anyways." I said, and he nodded.
"This probably isn't the best place for it. You good to stop here?" He asked, and I turned to James. He nodded, so I turned back and gave Fortress a thumbs up. He started walking out of the bunker, and I followed him. When we made it up to the surface, he held out his arms.
"Would you want to check out the view from the top of the building? I think the sun is just setting now, I can fly us up."
"Sure, sounds good. But I don't need the help, one sec." I said, decreasing my density and casting an explosion under my feet. I launched into the air, flying up past the top of the building, and I increased my weight to fall back down onto the roof. As I did, I saw Fortress fly up next to me, landing on the edge. He sat down and threw his legs over the side, patting the spot next to him. I sat down and did the same.
"How much did you spend on that armor?" I asked him, and he smiled.
"About fifty thousand points, but that's because it works with my sign. I can manipulate technology much easier than normal. This suit is my pride and joy, I don't dip too deep into magic. So, what did Arc want us to talk about exactly."
"Do we have to focus on this?"
"She seemed pretty adamant." He said. I sighed, preparing for a very annoying conversation.
"Ugh, fine. So, before I became a Guardian, I didn't look like this. I looked a lot more masculine."
"Oh, I see. So, you're trans?"
"See, that's what I was saying to her! I didn't choose this body! I'm just using a new name and pronouns because it's easier." I said. He nodded but looked at me like he was trying to glean something.
"I get that. But you know, these transformations aren't random. I mean, sometimes they make people look insane, but I've never met someone who didn't enjoy the way their transformation changed them. How do you feel about it?" He asked, and I groaned.
"I can't exactly say I'm a fan! I was fine before. I mean, I do like the hair, I could never grow my hair out very well before. And the ears and the tail are honestly cool now that I'm more used to it. But like, look at this chest! It's absurd! Well, the extra weight does kind of feel nice. And I guess my face is really pretty now, I look a lot like my mom now. Oh, and being this tall is fun." I said, rambling on. Fortress gave me a smirk.
"So, what I'm hearing is that you enjoy your new body?"
"Well, uh... fuck. Maybe I do like this. But that doesn't make me trans! I mean, imagine if I went up to an actual trans person and tried to tell them about this, we'd have nothing in common!" I said, and he just kept smirking at me. I stared at him confused, before something occurred to me. Why exactly did Arc think Fortress was the best person to talk to me about this?
"You'll get there eventually." He said jokingly.
"What is that even supposed to- OH! You mean, you're..." I asked, and he nodded.
"It's not a huge deal, most people know. And I actually was in the process of transitioning before I became a Guardian. It just sort of skipped over the whole process"
"Well, in that case I'm very happy for you! I'm glad that you got to have the body you always wanted." I said, and he grimaced.
"Yeah, about that, I should probably warn you about something. These transformations can do a lot, but they aren't perfect. You should go get a checkup soon just in case, but I think this is the same for everyone. The reproductive organs aren't transferable, so I can't have kids, and you probably couldn't carry a child, even if you have a womb." Oh. Well, that kind of sucked, but it was whatever. It's not like I had thought about that really, it was fine. I tried to respond but couldn't really get out the words for some reason, I just kept choking up. Fortress leaned over and pulled me into a hug. As he did, I broke down into tears, not understanding why I was crying. I didn't actually care about this, did I?
"It's okay, I've been through this too." He said, holding me tightly to his chest. After I had pretty much cried myself out, I looked back up at him,
"I just- I don't get it. Why do I care so much about this? I thought I didn't even want to be a mom, even before all of this happened."
"Even if you accept that something isn't going to happen, it can still hurt if something gets your hopes up. And I think the fact that you thought about being a mother before you went through this, might show you need to think about this a little more." Shit, I did say that. Maybe I really did need to think about this more closely.
"But I mean... you knew about yourself before you became a Guardian. I just happened to stumble into this. Wouldn't it be weird to call myself trans?"
"Liara, there are as many different kinds of trans people as there are trans people. Everyone gets there differently. And I'm not saying you have to be trans, whatever you decide on is your choice and anyone who isn't an asshole will respect that. I just think I see a lot of myself in you."
"Well, you seem like a pretty great guy, so I'll take that as a compliment." I said, and he chuckled. I leaned back and took a look at the sky as the sun was setting, the colors mixing in a way that made the sky look yellow. I thought to myself for a bit as me and Fortress sat together, not saying anything. After a bit, I heard something happening below us, and I looked down to see a giant vine shoot up next to us as Blossom hopped off of it onto the roof.
"You two seem like you're having fun. What's the topic of discussion?" She said, sitting down next to Fortress while throwing an arm over his shoulder.
"Oh, the usual. Gender woes." He said, pulling her in as she laughed.
"A true classic. You doing alright Inari?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm all good, just have a lot to think about. By the way, I wanted to ask you guys something. Could you tell Arc to stop flirting with me?" I asked her. Both of them looked at me confused.
"Uh, I guess so. We just sort of thought you swung that way." Blossom said.
"What? No, I'm pansexual, I like anyone. It's just, she's in a relationship with you guys. I'm sure she flirts with everyone, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable when I know you guys are with her." I said. Fortress's eyes widened and Blossom looked like she was about to burst out laughing.
"Inari, she doesn't flirt with everyone. She's actually interested in you." Fortress said, and my brain proceeded to shut down.
"...what."
"She told us she was! Did you really think she was just being nice or something?" He said as Blossom exploded into laughter.
"I mean, kind of, yeah! I wasn't exactly aware you guys would be okay with that, how would that even work?"
"We're extremely open Inari. If she wants to have fun with you while still dating us, that's fine. But she actually asked us if we'd consider sort of, adding you into our group." He said. I thought about that for a moment, before blushing heavily.
"We just met like, today!"
"Well yeah, we both said we would want to get to know you more first. But she seems pretty enthusiastic about it, and we wouldn't exactly be opposed to talking about it in the future." As he said this, Blossom recovered from her laughing fit and turned to me.
"Besides, I can tell you that there's definitely no problems in the attraction part of it. We all agree that you are extremely good looking." She said. If I was blushing hard before, I now imagined I looked like a tomato.
"I, uh, I'm glad to hear it? This is kind of a lot."
"Don't worry. Like he said, we want to get to know you more first. We were just putting it all out on the table, so we all understand what's happening." She said, and I nodded. I thought about the idea to myself, and it honestly sounded amazing. I barely had any experience, but the idea of being with three people who were all so cool seemed incredible. Plus, I also wasn't having any problems with the attraction side of things either.
"I'll think about it tonight. In the meantime, I need to get some sleep, today has been insane." I said, and they both nodded.
"We're probably gonna call it a night too. They set up a nearby hotel for anyone important to stay in, you can get a room there." Blossom said. The two of them hopped off the roof, landing in their own ways and waved down to me. I decreased my weight and floated down, following the two of them across the city. It took a little while to get there, and while I walked, I took a look around the city. This place probably looked pretty cool when it wasn't invaded, but right now it was clearly trashed. They would probably be rebuilding for years after this.
We eventually made it to the hotel, and each got set up with our own rooms. I waved them goodnight and headed into mine, tired out of my mind.
"Celeste, do me a favor and make sure nothing wakes me up. I'm about to sleep like a rock."
"I'll handle it. Have a good night's rest Inari, you earned it." She said as I laid down, falling asleep almost immediately. God, this bed was comfy.