Mark woke up on the ground and attempted to push himself up subconsciously before collapsing on the ground.
White-hot agony poured from the side of his chest, his wound was clenching up in reaction to the electricity that had slammed through his body. His muscles were contorting and it felt like biting insects were crawling beneath his skin.
And as suddenly as he had found himself on the ground the pain disappeared. He was left staring at the blank white ceiling and an armored man who stood over him.
“Sorry about that, human, priority targets and all.”
From the glimpse Mark got as the security officer walked away, he was inhumanly tall and wore a full suit of dark armor.
A similarly inhumanly tall orc approached while Mark blinked, staring at them.
He breathed in and out; the fall and minor electrocution exasperated his wounds and left him gasping while his muscles trembled unprompted.
Eventually he did manage to speak.
“Fuck.” He said as he sucked air in.
Zirrilit lowered her head and sniffed at him, before ascertaining that he was probably fine.
Eventually after what felt like an hour Mark rose to a seated position, wiping his eyes.
“How long was I out?” He asked to no one in particular.
Zirrilit tilted her head, “Like a minute? Maybe less?” She nodded. “Probably less.”
His nurse offered a hand to help Mark to his feet though the human refused it, choosing to instead push himself up.
“How come I’m the only one who got my ass kicked? Why am I the only one who keeps fucking needing to get medical attention or whatever?”
Zirrilit tilted her head. “He shocked me too. It didn’t do anything.”
“Who the hell zapped me anyway?” Mark looked over his shoulder, “Did you guys get him?”
The nurse cleared his throat to draw attention, “Erm… Actually, you were subdued by hospital staff due to suspicious behavior. After they tested to ensure you were the human they-”
“God fucking damn it. More god-damned testing, everyone’s just waiting to prod me and fucking fuck fucking fuck-”
Mark descended into expletives, cursing at the hospital, aliens, magic, and tasers before shouting unintelligible garbage.
“Mark, I assure you that we will not use any of our samples for anything other than identification purposes. There will be no testing other than for rehabilitative exercises.”
“Oh don’t think I don’t know what that means, whenever you want to figure something out about humans you’re just going to say it’s super important healing shit and then convince me it is super vital for my own good that I do whatever you say you white mage mother-fucking piece of-”
The orc had a decision to make, and diplomacy was breaking down. The human was rapidly reaching the end of his ropes.
For most people, being abducted by slavers and then hearing the screams of hundreds of people as they were mercilessly torn limb from limb and flayed by the construct of an angry and vengeful god would cause high amounts of mental stress, most likely it would be enough that a person could not function properly in a social setting.
Mark had dealt with that, the paranoia he must have gained upon realizing he was an isolated and valuable test subject, a demon banishing people’s souls to Hell, being shot, and then the drug withdrawals.
Being tasered for being suspected of breaching a law he couldn’t have known existed seemed like a good catalyst for a mental break.
The human walked over to a small end table and shoved it over, breaking a vase that was on top of it. Then he grabbed a hardcover book on a small coffee table and threw it across the room.
The orc watched as it hit the wall and then fell to the ground without damaging anything, then saw Mark pull a painting off the wall and throw it onto the ground.
The glass shattered and the paper within the picture case slumped over, someone would undoubtedly need to come in to cast [mending] on the glassware after this.
Mark leaned over out of breath and gasping for air, the mild fit he had thrown had exhausted him and beads of sweat poured from his face. The nurse watched as he drew in too much air and pulled a muscle in his bad lung, resulting in a coughing fit.
Zirrilit turned, adjusting her attention between the human and the orc. Although she hid her motives well, for someone without an innate blessing or ability, he could tell she was wondering if she would have to kill him to protect Mark.
He sighed. The human wasn’t going to get into trouble over something minor like this. Even if he was, the law was nowhere near as harsh as it would be on a deathworld. At most he would get a small fine or an official reprimand from the hospital.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
She concluded the same thing and he saw her tensed muscles relax.
The nurse took a step forwards and helped support Mark’s bodyweight as he slumped slightly, the human’s body was already weakened from one or multiple curses, one known parasite, minor blood loss and a hole in his pectoralis muscle. The electrocution and exertion on top of that threatened to render the human unconscious.
After a moment, he steadied himself, and Han the orc led him to the couch on the other side of the room, with Zirrilit following and staring from nearby. Nearby clearly being ample charging distance from a direction perpendicular to the human so as to eliminate crossfire.
Another sigh escaped Han’s lips. Deathworlder immigrants went straight to fighting to the death too often, and she clearly thought there would be a physical reprimand on the human for his actions and was ready to kill over it…
Like this wasn’t a hospital. They didn’t do ‘physical violence’ unless absolutely necessary, and even then it was performed to the absolute minimum.
A moment later, the human’s choking gasps - either as a result of sobs or actual choking - settled, and he was onto the next stage of psychohealing.
A simple question. “How are you feeling?”
Mark didn’t answer and pointedly looked away.
The human did not trust the hospital. The human was markedly unlikely to trust any xenos due to past problems.
So he decided to trust the human.
“The person who’s room you entered was an escaped slave. The security staff was worried you were a stealth or infiltration type species, since your signature did not work properly to identify you and then you immediately entered the room of a high risk individual. Thus, our specialist rank troops were deployed to ascertain your identity.”
Mark turned to stare at the orc, so he continued.
“We found eight bodies bearing markings and other arcane evidence of enslavement in the demon’s lair, all dead from heat related injuries. This was the only one to survive, because Zirrilit carried them to the extraction zone. We were worried that they were killed to cover up someone’s involvement with illicit dealings after the demon’s charm wore off, thus we were suspicious when someone who’s name did not register walked directly into their room. That is why you were incapacitated and tested.”
After he spoke they sat in silence. The human was looking down at the coffee table, now devoid of reading material, and the orc decidedly did not stare at the human, Zirrilit finally sat down on the floor halfway across the room.
Eventually the human spoke, his voice rasping slightly. “Are the people who enslaved them the same ones that got me and Zirrilit?”
“We don’t know. We need them to wake up before we can get testimonies or evidence towards any individuals. The markings that were still in the victim’s flesh show that they were still a slave while they were in the demon’s lair, though, so it was recent and likely still exists somewhere on the main island.”
Zirrilit nodded, “So we need them to tell us where they are so we can kill them-”
“-Bring them to justice, but yes.” The nurse clarified.
Mark put his face in his hands. “So those monsters are still out there. Do you think they will come back for me?”
Han paused to consider how much of the truth he should give the human.
All gods had reflections, they were powerful enough that they generated smaller and weaker copies of themselves. But one angel had wiped out an entire garrison of war-trained specialists with high tier blessings, no one understood what Mark’s actual abilities were, a god had died, and if Mark went missing it would attract serious attention from anyone who was currently interested in him which was everyone…
He was not a good target for opportunistic predators like slavers; they were unlikely to risk themselves without great reason like incriminating evidence.
“I doubt many religious institutions would go against your god right now Mark, so cults are likely to avoid you. Similarly, I understand many higher rank parties within our government have noted you as an important asset. Criminal organizations will absolutely fail in a strength comparison with the government as evidenced by the fact they are usually in hiding. Should you go missing, the government will likely declare martial law in the surrounding territories and track you down - eliminating any cults or slaver groups they find in the process.”
“But not the other slave person?” Mark asked.
“No.” He answered plainly.
For a moment they sat in silence and Han expected Mark to ask why.
He never did. Mark understood why declaring martial law over the thirteen thousand square miles of the main island plus any nearby coastlines before deploying a significant portion of the military to find someone at all costs was not a normal reaction for just any abducted person.
“That’s not fair.” Mark settled.
Han sighed. “It isn’t fair. Depravity should be punished but it is often not.”
Minutes ticked by in a pregnant silence before the human spoke again.
“What do I do?”
It was an open ended question. People wanted things from him, and he was lost, confused, and paranoid. He had no real options.
Mark had nothing to work towards, and the orc considered.
“What if I told you, there was a method of ensuring your safety so that you wouldn’t have to rely on others?”
Mark raised his head and the orc saw his eyes widen ever so slightly.
“Yes, you could receive-”
“-A gun.” Mark finished. “I could get a gun to shoot people with, like those fucking slavers.”
“-training.” the orc continued. “You could receive training. We have facilities here to keep an armed garrison and I could teach you to defend yourself.”
“Oh.” Mark deflated a bit, “like- punching people or something?”
The orc noted the human pointedly staring at his green biceps that were likely wider than the human’s torso.
“I could teach you to shoot a gun too, of course, but even ranged specialists need melee training or else they will be countered by invisible, stealthed, or teleporting targets.”
“I’m going to get a gun.” Mark decided.
The orc sighed, he could already tell the human wasn’t going to innately understand weapon safety laws.
He rose and gestured for the human to follow.
“Okay then. For starters, what kind of gun do you want?”
“Uh… A…” Mark thought about it; he didn’t actually know anything about guns. “A machinegun?”
He looked at Zirrilit, whatever he had should use her as a baseline for what it could rip apart.
“You generally need explosive ordinance to incapacitate a deathworlder Mark, and I think a machinegun might weigh too much for you- besides that’s not a type of ‘gun’.” He started.
“The two main types are energy weapons and ballistics. Energy weapons are oftentimes cheap and mass produced, but they are generally considered weaker because they are easily countered. Someone with access to the spell [resist energy] or an enchanted item which reduces the effects of heat or light based attacks will render said weapons ineffective. Ballistics, on the other hand, can have enchanted munitions with a variety of effects, but will require said munitions to be supplied to them regularly while most energy weapons possess their own power supplies or can be charged from an outlet-”
Zirrilit followed behind the group. Despite the conversation being aimed at Mark, she was actually writing it down.
“Um, if people will easily counter energy based attacks, is my breath weapon useless?”
“Most defenses have a physical limit, so if your attack has enough power to turn them and their surroundings into slag then you will probably pierce their defenses. I would mainly look into some form of personal protection against mental attacks and movement-impairing effects if I were you. That’s how you take down deathworlders.”
They entered the elevator and the orc mashed a button.
“I’m taking you both down to the range where we can work on some target practice. The good news is that since you don’t seem to know what to do you will have no ingrained bad habits.”
The elevator stopped and Mark blinked in surprise.
Everything until this point had the color scheme of white on white: white furniture, white walls and floors, white clothing.
The floors were a dark gray metallic color, the walls were jet black and held exposed beams of metal criss-crossing to hold the weight of the ceiling.
There was no artworks or small potted plants to break up the monotone settings; the lighting kept this place bright, but instead of fluorescent lighting, there were interspaced bulbs hanging from the walls.
It was a straight hallway with no turns, intersections or rooms to branch off.
The orc put a hand on Mark’s shoulder before grunting, “This is where we keep our combat oriented facilities such as our armory and training areas. Don’t wander off and do not come down to this floor without me or another nurse, this place is employees only.”
Mark nodded.
“Okay, so can you fill me in with what you know about human weapons? Just so that we can copy what you are probably more comfortable with?”