As Axel lay there, he wished for a power to reduce pain because, dear Goddess, was he in pain. Thankfully, he was the only one hurt, and Aria was heading over to him once she was sure the Thunderer was dead. This was a great haul, even with the damage he had suffered, and would put this expedition into profitability. Axel knew that Jareth would be happy with that, as the merchant, while a nice man, worried about profitability a lot.

As Axel’s mind wandered to random things, trying to ignore the pain, he noticed the clock on his display informing him that he would need at least three hours to have his legs fully working again. As Axel was looking at his medical data, something was shoved into his mouth that tasted very bitter. Before he could spit it out, Aria sealed his lips with hers and forced him to swallow. Shortly after, the pain started to recede, allowing Axel to think again.

Taking a deep breath, Axel looked to Aria, who was still kneeling next to him with a worried look on her face.

“Thanks for the pain leaves, love,” Axel said while his head felt lighter. “I think I am going to be rather useless for a while.”

Given his experience, though, these herbs would burn through his system in a few minutes, but he did not want to bring more stress to Aria. It had always been a thing that his body just did not allow pain herbs to affect him for long.

“Aria is so glad you are fine… Well, not fine, but alive and healing,” Aria said and hugged him tightly. “Aria noticed that the Quake had rolled on you, but the Thunderer just kept taking hit after hit and shrugging it off.”

Axel kissed Aria and just enjoyed her holding him as he could already feel the pain returning and his lightheadedness leaving. At this point, everyone else headed over to Axel after checking to see if any more beasts would try to attack them now that the fight was over.

“I am glad to see you are relatively whole, Axel,” Pearl said while walking over to him. “I was worried there when our targets switched themselves up.”

“Thanks for keeping that female distracted, or it would have squished me flat,” Axel turned his head and thanked her.

“It was my responsibility, but damn, your legs look rough,” Pearl leaned down and looked at Axel’s mangled legs. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I should be fine in a few hours, but I won’t be able to help much with the transportation work coming up,” Axel said while still holding Aria. With another squeeze, he got Aria to let him go. “Love, there is still work to do, and I am not in any immediate danger. Please keep an eye out for any other predators that would like to eat me while I can’t walk.”

Aria nodded and leaped into the air before landing on a high branch to overwatch the area. Axel then looked to Pearl and shooed her away so that she could help with transportation. Axel was surprised again when Jareth took a large crate off the cart and tipped it sideways. Jareth then had Larimar lift the head of one of the Quakes and moved the crate sideways.

The beast seemed to thin and disappear into the crate as it moved until it was gone, at which point Jareth tipped it back and put a lid on the crate. Then he, Pearl, and Larimar worked together, lifting the crate onto the cart, which had several more of these crates. Axel did not realize how many expensive space-holding containers Jareth owned until now.

This process repeated itself for each of the Quakes, but at that point, Jareth ran out of storage containers, and everyone, besides Axel, worked together to haul the Thunderer onto the cart. After an hour, the clearing was cleared, and the cart was hitched by Jareth’s beasts. The cart was heavy to the point that everyone also had to push behind it to help get it moving. Axel got to ride while sitting on a crate and watched as Star pushed while growling with effort, along with everyone but Aria, who was flying overhead.

The trip was rough going back, but no beast decided to interrupt the journey, and in about twenty minutes, they entered the little valley where they had made camp. Axel was relieved that nothing happened while they were gone, as leaving it defended by just Sky and Lyra seemed like a large risk.

After arriving, Lyra took one look at Axel and had Sky make a floating metal stretcher to get him down and into a tent for an examination. Everyone else just moved the cart into the location for harvesting hunts, then everyone went to rest as this was a demanding task getting the cart back with such a heavy payload.

Lyra laid Axel on a blanket and then closed the tent after having Sky leave to check for any other injuries that may need her attention. With the tent closed, Lyra removed Axel’s boots and cut off his pants before going over his injuries. Axel passed out for a few minutes when she removed the boots from pain. The worst part of all of this was Lyra was in what Axel thought of as healer mode and was completely silent, causing him concern every time it happened, even though he had his medical interface.

When Lyra was done with her examination, she covered his legs with a heavy blanket, and Axel could just see a faint glow of green coming from under it. Axel also noticed that his medical interface was updating tasks and queuing new ones, which was cutting healing time down by full minutes. He could feel the healing energy working with his regeneration to speed up the healing process.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Axel could see how Lyra was using his blessing to either clean up the bone fragments, or place splinters into their original spot on the bone, and the regeneration boosted by her healing energy rebuilding the damage at a speed visible to the naked eye. With all of these, his system updated from one and a half hours to just under twenty minutes, which was only slow as his regeneration was running out of physical materials and seemed to be remaking him from pure energy provided by his core.

“I think that is all I can do for you right now,” Lyra finally said after wiping the sweat from her brow, then looking at some of the dried blood on her hands and frowning in annoyance as she smeared a large streak of blood across her forehead. “You would have been fine in time, but I don’t like watching you sit there in pain. I will also go get some food for you to help you rebuild your reserves as I can see you are already losing weight from your quick healing.”

With that, she left before Axel could thank her, leaving him in his tent without pants. His pack was outside, and getting one of his spare sets would be difficult. With only low levels of pain, Axel relaxed his mind and just rested until the tent opened again, revealing Aria holding a plate stacked high with meat and a core.

“I brought dinner,” Aria said in a happy voice and set the plate down on the blankets still on his lap. “Lyra said you need to eat everything on the plate. Also, this has meat from one of the Quakes that we killed today.”

Aria then started to feed Axel, cutting the meat into small pieces and making him say "aww" with every bite. By the time Axel was done with the meal, his medical interface was giving him a clean bill of health, and he was pain-free.

“Thank you for the meal, love, but could you go and get me some pants?” Axel asked while putting aside the plate.

“Oh?” Aria said and grinned while lifting the blanket and looking underneath. She then gave him an evil little grin.

Thirty minutes later, Axel finally had pants and talked Pearl into giving him a shower in the shower area this time. Axel also had a deep blush when Pearl gave him a knowing look and wink when he asked for the shower. After the shower, Axel worked through leg workouts to make sure nothing had somehow healed wrong, but besides some stiffness, he still had his full range of motion.

Night had fallen on the small valley quickly, and Axel could still see Sky and Jareth working through the body of the Thunderer to harvest its parts. Roran was working with Star on commands, and the Storm Drake was already looking better to Axel’s eye. Star's muscle mass was more evenly distributed, and her malformed wings were starting to be straightened out.

Pearl was cleaning her gear while using a small light stone to look for damage to the straps, while Larimar was making small ice sculptures of the Thunderer at the moment of its defeat. Axel saw that Lyra and Aria were sitting off to the side, with Aria wrapping one of her wings around Lyra while they talked in low voices.

Deciding he did not want to deal with that last sight, Axel decided to head over and talk to Roran about how well he did in the fight today. As Axel walked over, Roran tapped Star on the nose, and she glowed lightly, turning into a tiny ball of light that went into Roran’s chest.

“Roran,” Axel called out to him with a small wave. “I wanted to thank you for your help in that fight.”

“It was really nothing to be thanked for,” Roran shook his head in denial.

“No, you kept the others from being injured badly,” Axel pressed the young man, though Axel realized that he was likely younger than Roran by several months. “The only other way we had to deal with that lightning attack was me with my halberd and its discharge chain or being lucky with one of the water powers defusing it. Those other options, as you saw in the fight, were pretty bad as I was injured, and the only one who could try to defuse that bolt was Jareth. I could not see, but I am guessing he was not in a good position to do that in the fight?”

“No, he was forced to dodge back and to the side to avoid a bite while the beast then tried to launch a shot at Aria as she seemed to be hurting it with those ‘fireballs’,” Roran explained. “Also, that had so much weight behind it that my core almost completely drained pulling it away.”

“Weight?” Axel had not talked to people with electro in their power much before, and this was the first time he had heard it termed that way.

“It is the best way I can describe the feeling,” Roran said while looking up at the sky. “Depending on how powerful or how densely packed that power is in a lightning or electrical bolt, it carries more weight to it.”

“Interesting,” Axel thought about that and compared it to what his mother said about when she had to fight other air users. His mother explained that the more condensed she made her power in a fight, the harder it would be to stop, but it was also easier to grab compared to loose light attacks that were deflected easily but were harder to return to sender.

“Well, I still wanted to thank you, as without you, this hunt would likely have failed or caused a casualty,” Axel thanked him and bowed at the waist.

“Thanks, but again, it was my duty. Can I ask you something?” Roran forced Axel to stop bowing to him and asked.

“Sure, what do you want to know?” Axel said after returning to standing upright, then bent his back backward a bit to stretch it out.

“How did you get caught on the Quake?” Roran leaned forward a bit. “You dealt with the first quickly, and then I saw the way you avoided the tail before the electrical buildup took my attention to the Thunderer.”

“Sigh,” Axel had a feeling that would be the question. “The new bag I had gotten from Jareth snagged one of the back spikes. If it was just my belt or clothing, I could have torn that with my strength, but whatever that waist cord is made from did not budge. Then I was dragged down, which really hurt, by the way.”

“I can guess from the looks of your legs and how out of it you were.” Roran shivered from the thought of how much that would hurt. “Thankfully, Aria got you some pain herbs, and you, I am guessing, have human regeneration with your strength. You must be far along with your Novice cycle, and I am glad you can help lead this hunt.”

Axel just smiled but did not discuss his powers with Roran for now, as he was not close to the point of trusting that information to him. With a little work, Roran could find out more about Axel’s powers by looking at the Vanguard registry or talking to an information broker, but for now, Axel left this conversation as it was.

Axel bid farewell to Roran and started his watch as everyone was heading for bed for the evening. Aria sat with Axel as the jungle sounds surrounded them, and all Axel could hear was the rustle of Aria’s wings and the crackle of the fire. As Axel let the sounds wash over him, Aria leaned her head on his shoulder. Neither wished to talk as they enjoyed the quiet moment together.