Despite his limitless regeneration, he still curiously felt some measure of fatigue when doing particularly onerous tasks. A strange quirk of Empowerment. He felt it especially now, as he carried Vola on his back, stumbling through the storm. It was all he could do to focus on his feet, on every step that carried them inch by inch towards home. Wisp could feel the slickness of remnant gore shaking his balance, as his shoes threatened to give from the abuse they’d been subjected to.
Leaden limbs drenched in shame, he dragged himself home, step by step. When did he start to think of this terrible job as home? Shredded, crushed, stabbed, shot, ripped to pieces, and then put back together again. At some point he kept moving, not through the glucose broken for energy, but through the burning wrath that set his body aflame, a warm beacon in the accursed cold. If Vola was awake, even she would hesitate at the molten metal of his blood.
Steam hissed as the rain began to evaporate, turning into little white wisps that whispered in his ear, egging him on. For a moment, the darkness seemed to recede, kept at bay by willpower. Dave carried Mei on his back as well, smoking gears and machinery struggling to maintain the rough pace Wisp threaded through scarcely lit streets, empty of their usual lively cheer. Hundreds of dark windows eyed the pair as they finally came upon the towering hotel that they defined, and that defined them.
Rico stood outside, rainwater running off his rock arms. His eyes searched the darkness of the storm, shivering in dread of the next monster to assault the familiar safety of brick walls and unexpected friendship. That was how he found them, the four who came back, weak and overtaxed.
“Wisp? Dave?? What the hell happened out there???”
Wisp’s aching muscles slowly mended as he spoke.
“...Monster. We were almost goners, but I got lucky and it couldn’t kill me. But the rest of us aren’t well. They need help.”
Dave remained silent, unreadable behind his reflective visor. Rico gestured at the broken glass of the doors and the windows that used to line the front of the hotel, now scattered across the pavement. Only some tarps kept out the wind and cold rain.
“Us too. Snake is busy stabilizing Dime.”
“Stabilizing?!”
“They got him.”
Wisp only paused to drop off Vola on a couch before dashing over to a room with a red cross plastered over the door. Inside, Snake sat on a stool, a white hospital bed against the far wall. Dime laid under the covers quietly, unresponsive. The rage drained out of his bones as Dave collapsed behind him, the suit arresting his fall. Snake spared Wisp a glance before turning away, preparing reagents in both hands as she fought to drag Dime back from the edge of death.
“Go bother someone else, Wisp. I don’t have time.”
“Is he… will he be okay?”
“I don’t think he’ll die. He’s got a heavy fever; healing potions tax you proportional to their effect, and he nearly got, you know, gone.”
She turned to him, and he didn’t see the annoyed scientist that commanded the respect of everyone here. In her place was a scared, trembling animal, eyes red with a few moments of secret tears, even as she obsessively treated Dime’s near-death condition.
“Well, if he’ll be okay, maybe you could take a look at Mei and Vola and Dave too. We ran into something out there, and Vola and Mei both won’t wake up. Dave just collapsed too, and I don’t know what kind of wounds they have-”
“Just shut up and bring them in.”
“I mean I haven’t really been doing anything useful, so I wanted to know if you needed any help with, like, making the potions we all know you for.”
And that was the last straw on the camel’s back, piled high with paranoia and the stress of fighting off monster after monster. She pointed to the door and affixed Wisp with a gaze that could’ve killed lesser men.
“NO, Wisp, I’ve had enough. You know why you’re not supposed to be where I’m working. I’ve given you MORE chances than I should've, and every time you’re more a nuisance than any genuine help you could offer. That’s why you’re BANNED from the lab, and now I’m banning you from HERE TOO. Just go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He didn’t bother replying, bringing in the three afflicted and shutting the door behind him. At the same time, Acid came out of Dave’s lab, gesturing to Wisp.
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“Oh, hey, Wisp. You’re back. You didn’t find Kyki?”
“No. We were interrupted, and Snake’s treating the other three. I’m alright, though.”
“Yeah, we were attacked too. I won’t get into the details, but you can meet our new friend! I say new, but it’s just Husky.”
“What about him?”
Unze slowly shoved the robotic body of Den through the doorway, who looked bashful and a little afraid of the sudden spotlight. Wisp gaped at the radical chance in appearance.
“Husky???”
“It’s Den now, but yeah.”
“But??? How??????????????”
“I think I was Empowered. Back when I was a robot dog. I don’t know how that works, but Dave built a new body for me, and I can properly use my powers now.”
To demonstrate, he raised a wand, and a few orbs of light danced in the air, leaving trails of light rays in their wake. Wisp looked a little glum at the new change, though.
“You too? When do I get a good power?”
“Your power is great,” commented Unze, “you can survive pretty much anything and come back swimming in a moment!”
Wisp sighed into his reply, “Yeah, but I’m not really useful for anything beyond being chewed up every other day.”
Den searched the pockets of his long wizard’s robes, as he was dressed for his role. After a bit of fumbling, he pulled out a little wand of brass, wreathed in a helix of gold and silver wire.
“Here you go, then! It’s my personal backup wand. I’ve been trying out the full scope of what I can do, and I’ve been able to tie a [Fireball] spell to this thing for now. I can’t make too many of them or it strains my ability, but a few spare should be okay.”
Wisp caught it in midair as it was tossed to him, marveling at the weight of the wand, built out of Dave’s suspiciously stocked materials storage.
“That’s incredible! How many times can I use this?”
“That one’s pretty strong, so maybe ten times? I’ll get you a few more weaker ones, come in here.”
Acid went in first, nabbing a wooden rod off its assigned holder and waving it around. With a flourish, she pointed and shouted:
Acid casts [Burstlight]!
Unze and Den were smart enough to cover their eyes. Wisp was left with a flash that seared his vision, preventing him from being able to see for at least thirty seconds. Den snatched it out of Acid’s hands, handing it and another wand to Wisp.
“Sorry about that. They like to mess with the wands. I think Unze’s favorite is the [Confusion] wand.”
Unze pointed the wand in question, made out of glass, at Wisp threateningly, only for Den to gently nudge his arm away. Wisp stared down at the wooden [Burstlight] wand and the other one, square and hard plastic.
“What’s this other one do?”
“Well, it’s-”
The TV monitor behind them began to flicker crazily, flashing all sorts of strange and unspeakable colors. Acid and Unze backed away as Den and Wisp eyed the screen uneasily.
“Is that your magic?”
“No, I don’t have any tech powers…”
With a crack, the screen spat out a ball of pixelated garbage data, before splitting in two and turning black. The smoke coming off its internal components did not distract from the mess of squares of various colors shaking in front of them. Acid pointed her gauntlets at it, hesitant.
“I’m gonna gas that thing.”
Wisp yanked her gauntlet away, pointing down at the heap.
“Hey wait, don't! Look, it’s kind of human shaped!”
It did appear to be somewhat humanoid. Before their eyes, the pixels stabilized into the panting, but unmistakable form of someone they all knew pretty well. Unze leapt up into the air with a jubilant:
“Yippee! Kat’s here!”
“Kat? You too? How’d YOU get here?”
Exhausted, Kat rolled onto his back, breathing heavily as he tried to answer Wisp.
“I turned myself into data. Sent myself through the nodes to fast-travel. Bad idea. Never doing that again. Where’s Kyki?”
Acid sighed, leaning against a wall tiredly.
“Not here. We couldn’t find them. And it looks like it’s too dangerous for us to go find them right now. Some of us almost died.”
Kat pushed himself off the ground, static becoming a long coat and a sharp blade with an invisible edge. A test swing whistled as it cut through the air, chiming like a crystal.
“Then let me be of assistance. It can’t be much harder than doing it in For Honor.”
“Now’s not really the time for jokes…”
Kat planted his blade in the floor, leaning on it as he stared out of Dave’s laboratory windows.
“I know. But it doesn’t matter whether I am. I’m going to find Kyki, with or without you guys.”
Unze saluted him for his bravery.
“We won’t give up! We’ll get stronger, and then we'll blow up the company that took Kyki!”
“Yeah, exactly! We just have to work on ideas on how to kill robots better, and everything will be okay. It’ll all go back to the way things were before.”
Wisp pocketed his new wands, slinking away as Den tried to enchant Kat himself, wondrous at his technophile Empowerment. He threaded his way out the door, down the hall, across the main room, and was nearly to the stairs when a rocky arm caught him by the shoulder.
“Everything alright, Wisp?”
To Rico, he looked like a deer in headlights. Suddenly pale and flushed skin, eyes that trembled with frozen terror and anticipation. He said nothing, a statue in the face of confronting his problems. Rico tried his best to give him an endearing look, more comforting than alarming.
“Okay, well, if you can’t talk about it right now, you can come to me anytime you need. You know that, right?”
Wisp nodded, and Rico let him go, retaking his position as tired sentinel of the hotel. Alone, Wisp crept up the flights of stairs quietly, counting down the steps until he reached his floor. Then it was a lot of walking under the dim fluorescent yellow lights until he got to his room. It was nothing fancy, relatively bare. A bed, a closet, and a nightstand with a lamp. A few luggage cases sat around, mostly unpacked.
He slid open the bottom drawer and removed the false bottom, reaching in and pulling out a familiar crystal ball, surrounding a cube marred by gray wisps of some mysterious substance. He felt the aching in his bones now, the proximity to the marble whispering to him its purpose. He never spent much time here because of that. But now he felt the calling to consume it, to absorb its power.
He raised it to his lips, uncertain. A moment's hesitation, and then— down the hatch…