“So what exactly is the plan though?”
Mark thought it over before responding, “Well, we’re pretty sure people are after you. And we wanted to get those people, so we were waiting to see if they broke into your room to kill you so that we could subjugate them.”
“Oh, so how’s that going?” The harpy asked.
She looked surprisingly human and could likely be confused for one at a distance or with concealing clothing. Though her face was gaunt and her wings gave her a stretched appearance: something too long and thin. Similar to many depictions of horrific monsters that Mark had seen in various types of media back on Earth. She was thin enough that her ribcage protruded through her flesh and the burns had resulted in a complete lack of hair on her head alongside missing eyebrows.
Other than that she was simply pale with bags beneath her eyes culminating in a tired expression.
“Pretty good I guess.” Mark decided. “Not much going on really.”
Zirrilit nodded; it was best when nothing bad happened.
They had simply come back from the cafeteria to find her awake and unbandaged, leaning against the backboards.
“So how long have you been here?” The harpy asked.
“About…” Mark had to think, the days were starting to blur together. “Three weeks? Maybe more?”
“So you have just been sitting here, in my room, for three weeks?”
“Oh well,” Zirrilit interjected to explain, “We couldn’t stay in here the whole time, we still had our own medical checkups and we had to do physical training… Also we forgot stuff in our room and had to go back to get it and drag the mattresses over here.”
“So you spent three weeks sometimes being in here, so that you could catch anyone who came in here to harm me but you would also just leave sometimes?”
Mark was starting to realize she sounded fairly irritated.
“It's not like we had anything better to do.” Mark replied. “I was just sitting in my room and now I’m just sitting in yours.”
“So how is that supposed to do anything? You’re going to what? Fight off deranged cults and sociopathic rich assholes with what? That shovel? Don’t worry guys the guards can’t stop them all but this skinny pink asshole has a shovel! He’ll go dig a fucking hole about it.”
“I wasn’t planning on fighting them off…” Mark stumbled. “They just said that I was important and the government was going to keep me secure or something so I thought if I stood near you they wouldn’t get you… Or something…”
The harpy sighed, “I see… You’re a rich kid. No, I understand now.”
Mark was about to interject, his family had been middle class at most, but decided it might be best to keep his mouth closed instead.
“So… You decided that you would keep me close to you to ensure my safety…” She brought her featherless wings to her face, revealing bat-like appendages close to the middle of the wing, which she used to rub at her face.
Mark stared at the utterly alien limb structure as she finally decided on a response.
“Fine. You decide to free a random slave girl to join your harem, you keep me safe and I sleep with you right? Well okay then, I accept.” She crossed her wings in a startlingly humanlike gesture.
“Ew…” the human’s face scrunched up involuntarily before he noticed the look on the harpy’s face and smoothed his features.
Zirrilit squeaked, “Mark-”
“Ew?” The harpy paused.
“I mean er…” Mark stumbled over his words. “I was just here in case the slavers came here, and if they didn’t I thought it would be good they didn’t get you too?”
“You’re just trying to get back at the slavers?” The harpy clarified. “This is just what? Spite?”
“Yea- no… I mean I didn’t want people to get enslaved or loose-end-ed either… Hans just said that they probably wouldn’t come near me, especially since after they kidnapped me the first time everyone related was skinned alive by my god or something.”
The harpy blinked, “Fucking one percenters get everything for free, don’t they?”
“Yup!” Zirrilit nodded. “Wanna come with? They set aside some combat training areas just for us.”
“I don’t think I’m well enough for that.” She raised a wing, revealing a decrepit, featherless limb, “the doctor person told me I would get in trouble if I left my bed for the next few days.”
“Oh, yeah you do look like crap- er… You don’t look super good right now, but I have a muscle therapy appointment soon. I’ll be back in a few hours and we can talk about our next steps then.” Mark decided. “The hospital's quarantined, and the nurses have these dudes in crazy dark armor walking around guarding you, so you’ll be fine.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Right…” The harpy deadpanned. “They can keep watch now. Thanks for staying here and guarding me, I guess.”
“No problem!” Zirrilit waved as they left the room.
Mark retreated into the hallway and Zirrilit closed the door behind him. They walked past four figures in dark armor who had some type of spell blurring their appearances heavily, which made it difficult to distinguish any useful information.
“It was a good idea to stay in there though, right?” Mark asked Zirrilit once they had gained some distance from the hospital’s special forces. “Like, even if we can’t just stay in there and watch her twenty-four seven it was still a good idea right?”
“Oh for sure!” Zirrilit nodded. “Like uh… Yeah what if a demon showed up or something? No one else knows how to mess with those.”
“Yeah…” Mark nodded, “Damn it, why didn’t I say that?”
“Yeah- Oh! Hi Hans!” Zirrilit broke off and started waving.
The orc waved back, he knew she wouldn’t stop until he reciprocated, “You both ready for today?”
“The bird person woke up!” Zirrilit screamed.
“I heard, fast healing methods destroyed most of her fat reserves and muscle mass to fix her body. The lack of feathers is also bad news, but no helping that when she’s survived burns that bad.” Hans sighed, “The whole thing is a mess isn’t it? Good thing we kept you active.”
Hans poked Mark in his stomach, and they made their way to the hospital’s private training areas.
“Okay, so first should be Zirrilit.” Hans checked his clipboard. “The power clean should be at roughly eighty-one hundred pounds for about four reps of twelve.”
Zirrilit walked forwards. Whereas the standard hospital facilities tended to be a bright white to contrast blood or other filth that needed to be cleaned, the hospital’s private facilities tended to be a dark gray as they were constructed from an extremely dense material.
The room was a dark gray with similarly colored tile, and there was a bright red metallic bar floating in the center of the room. Unlike the other tiles, the ones near the bar were bright white, glowing slightly and emitting a deep humming noise. A slight shimmer blanketed the area, and Mark attempted to tap what must have been glass.
His hand bounced off the shimmering material without making a noise, almost like a magnet repelled his fist.
Seeing Mark’s questioning look, Hans answered while the human changed out of his armor.
“The bar is far too dense and might cause damage to the room if dropped or thrown around repeatedly. Thus, it is suspended in the air using gravitational-type magics, and the same gravitational control systems can adjust the weight until it reaches the desired amount. Similarly, there is a [wall of force] surrounding the area so physical force will not be able to harm the people surrounding the area just in case.”
“So how much does the bar usually weigh, then?”
Hans thought for a moment before concluding, “I have no clue.”
That was the first time Hans had failed to answer Mark, and it made him all the more curious.
The bar lowered itself as Zirrilit closed distance, reaching the point where Zirrilit could comfortably squat down and fit her claws beneath the bar to lift.
The human watched her perform a couple power cleans, raising the bar to her chest before ducking beneath the bar and pushing it into the air.
He watched over eight thousand pounds be effortlessly thrust into the air and turned to his own equipment.
There stood a pullup bar.
Unlike Zirrilit’s magically augmented weight chamber to allow the exercises to actually strain her muscles, his equipment was a simple metal bar held in the air using two other steel bars.
Zirrilit finished her exercise and then launched the bar off of her shoulders, watching the ground light up to catch with the insane forces required.
Mark, on the other hand, performed six pullups.
“Zirrilit, when you began almost a month ago, your maximum weight for this exercise was seven thousand five hundred and sixty three pounds. Currently you have performed the same exercise with eight thousand one hundred pounds for a strength increase of six point six percent.” Hans started.
The orc flipped the page on his clipboard and cleared his throat. “Mark, you on the other hand were only capable of one pullup last week when we began this exercise. Today you performed six, that is a five hundred percent increase.” Hans finished. “Now to begin the running segment.”
“Yeeeeaaah!” Zirrilit screamed and reached her claw up for a high five. “Five hundred percent increase! That’s more than I got! We just need to do that every week forever!”
Mark sighed and Hans shrugged.
Hopefully that would be how humans worked. Hans thought, though the orc somewhat doubted it.
The human wasn’t excited to begin running, though most species disliked it. He did note that the human was well above average in terms of run speed and endurance among bipeds.
Some type of endurance predator? Was that a thing?
“You don’t reach the level of a dedicated running species, like a centaur that can run for days or weeks at a time at the speed of a car, but you are well above average.” Hans noted. “Let's go for one mile, then we can take a break before moving onto the core. We will work some specific muscle groups after that warmup.”
Zirrilit nodded, “And me? What do I do?”
Hans looked over the chart, “We have you scheduled for a high gravity obstacle course. I’ll lead you over there when Mark is finished.”
Mark was unarmored and ran at a fairly high speed, statistically speaking.
A seven and a half minute mile would have been amazing to a gnome, but to a harpy that could fly, it was abhorrent.
He slowed and then stepped off the gym equipment, taking a moment to walk in a circle.
Zirrilit started clapping.
Mark flushed; seven and a half minutes for one mile was not an impressive feat. He moved onto testing his core, planking for an entire two minutes.
After that, the actual workout began.
“I am not allowing you to skip leg day.” Hans began. “Legs are the most important muscle group. Screw arms, core and legs means everything. Staying on your feet for extended periods in armor will require large amounts of both of these.”
Mark got under the squat rack, where Zirrilit had simply grabbed the metal pole and thrown it upwards, Mark needed a structured machine to perform specific exercises designed to keep him from damaging his spine.
He had been actively working out for about a week and was seeing some fairly major physical improvements, though as he understood it, they would slow down dramatically soon. First was squats, then calf raises, then leg presses…
The human squatted down, then leapt two feet up onto a bright green pad before jumping back down and repeating the motion. Mark finished thirty reps of his exercises with a grunt and rose, he was sweating through his shirt at this point and breathing heavily.
“Okay, now it’s Zirrilit’s turn.”
Mark nodded, gasping slightly while Zirrilit flexed.
He gathered his things and the orc led them back into the hall while the dragonoid whooped.
“Okay, watch me do my thing now Mark!” She shouted, “Make sure you watch, okay?”
The endless gray hallway ended at a large shutter, resembling a garage door.
“Beyond this point will represent a threat to life and limb.” Hans began. “I am legally required to tell you that anything without high tier durability could suffer immediate destruction. Do you agree to the next exercise knowing the dangers, Zirrilit?”
“Yes!” She screamed, stomping around slightly in excitement.
“Then enter. Mark and I will watch from a nearby room.”
“Yeeeeeaaaaahhh!” Zirrilit pulled the shutters up to slip underneath and Mark realized it was formed from strips of metal almost five inches thick.
It was too dark for Mark to see past the doorway; it must have been magical with how quickly the light stopped penetrating into the next room. He heard a series of locks click and began to worry.
Zirrilit was now locked behind a giant shutter made with magical alloy or whatever. Mark was now alone with Hans, who was ‘totally and completely on his side.’ He was still in his gym clothes and hadn’t changed into his armor yet.
The human swallowed, following behind the orc as they entered a room to the left of the large double doors.
Beyond it was well lit and resembled a break room. Thick carpet and cushioned seating decorated the room surrounding a small coffee table and a kitchenette off to the side.
“Want to watch Zirrilit dodge giant rocks through the security cameras?” Hans asked.
Mark nodded, “Just one second, I’m going to switch into my armor.”
The orc noted the nervous look in the human’s eyes and the sudden adrenaline spike increasing his respiration rate.
“Sure, come in when you are ready.” The orc sighed, because if I had malicious ideas I would need to resort to trickery and wouldn’t just swarm you with trained soldiers.
It was a good reflex either way, he supposed. The human should get used to wearing armor at all times.
He turned to the screen just in time to watch Zirrilit get shot in the face with a fireball.