Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aaron tried his best not to fidget too much. He couldn't help it, though- this entire meeting with Lance's parents really should've been an email. Dear Nexo Knights, there's a weird fucked up fox killing our chickens, please go take care of it, Sincerely, The Richmonds. 

Poor Lance looked exceedingly uncomfortable, being forced into the same room as his parents again. Aaron couldn't really blame him considering how blatantly his mother had called him a disappointment in front of everyone at their ‘Gold is Good’ ball. It had taken a long, long meeting for Clay and Macy to get it into their heads that parents could be bad sometimes, and that Lance had good reason for wanting to be rid of his own. Aaron would rather be in that room again, listening to famously orphaned Clay Moorington talk about a subject he clearly had a rose tinted view of. Then he wouldn’t be in stupidville.

Instead, though, four out of five Nexo Knights were sitting at an unnecessarily opulent table while Goldie and Cuthbert Richmond wailed about their ‘prized flock’. Clay was doing his best to get any useful information out of them at all , but they just would not stop crying about the chickens . 

“Look, good sir and ma'am, I promise on my honor as a knight that we will find what has been attacking your chickens-”

Cuthbert wiped a tear from his eyes. “Our prized golden chickens! ”

Clay took a deep breath and scratched at his arm for what had to be the hundredth time this meeting. “Yes, your prized golden chickens. We'll find the animal-”

“The savage giant fox -” Goldie interrupted.

“ The savage giant fox , yes.” Clay said, with annoyance in his voice. The Richmonds didn't pay any mind though. They just started going on again about how mutilated their poor chickens were. Once again, Clay began to itch at his arms. Aaron frowned to himself. Had Clay ever done that before? The way he was doing it seemed like a nervous habit, but he'd seen plenty of Clay's nervous habits over the years. Scratching at his arms so hard that they might’ve bled if Clay wasn't wearing armor hadn't been one he'd personally taken note of. He could even see streaks on the metal from where the fingertips of his gauntlets were pressing too hard.

Finally, after more painful back and forth (and increasingly loud metal scraping as Clay scratched harder and harder) Lance let out an exasperated groan and slammed his hands on the table. “Oh for the love of- just tell us where the last sighting was! ”

The room went silent for a moment, save for the scraping coming from Clay (Was he okay? Should Aaron be worried?). Then, Goldie sighed and said, “Ugh, always so rude, Lancelot. The forest on the southeast end of the property was where the coop keeping bots last saw the cursed thing.”

Macy blinked. “Wait. If you have coop keeping bots, are they the ones who found the bodies?”

Cuthbert huffed. “Of course they found the bodies. Do you think we would waste our time going into the dirty muck of the coop?”

Before Macy could say anything else, (like how ridiculous it was that they were freaking out like this when they couldn't even be bothered to look at the chickens) Axl sprang up and said, “We'll start searchin’ right away, sir. Thank you for the information.”

After that, and with a few parting words from Clay, they walked out of the meeting. Aaron spotted Macy talking to Clay in hushed tones. Once she split off and began talking to Lance instead, Aaron took the opportunity to approach Clay himself.

Clay perked up when he spotted him coming closer and Aaron smiled at him. “Hey man,” he said, “you feeling alright? You were scratching at your arms a lot.”

Clay's expression fell and he sighed. “That's exactly what Macy was asking me about.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I just get itchy sometimes. Usually it's just my fingertips and I train to get my mind off of it, but tonight was worse somehow.”

The group grew closer to the Fortrex, where they'd be grabbing whatever supplies they needed for the patrol ahead. Clay rubbed at his arm in lieu of scratching it. The dirt made hardly a sound beneath their clomping boots. Where most people would pause before they asked their friends about their uncomfortable medical problems, Aaron hardly hesitated before he asked, “Worse how?”

Having no fear tended to translate to little hesitation in a social setting, after all.

Clay sighed. “It’s further up my arms now. It’s also… deeper , somehow. Almost like my bones are itchy and then the flesh around it is burning as a result.”

Aaron frowned. “Have you told Lance or Axl about this problem? They are our designated medical guys.”

“I’ve thought about telling Axl.” Clay snuck a side-eye at Lance. “I’m afraid I trust him a tad bit more than the guy who only took the medical classes so that he could go to less weapons training. Plus, I-“ Suddenly, he hissed through his teeth and staggered, reaching to scrape the ends of his left armored fingertips harshly over the plating on his right arm.

“Dude, you’re starting to worry me.”

Clay’s eyes darted to his, and for a moment, Aaron almost thought his pupils were glowing a vibrant blue. In the next moment, though, Clay was closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. When he opened them back up, the blue was gone. “I’m okay, Aaron. I appreciate the concern.”

The ramp leading into the Fortrex had opened for them as they’d gotten closer, so nobody really had to pause before they walked in. Aaron hesitated, though, stopping and reaching out to touch Clay’s shoulder in a bid to make him pause as well. “Just… promise me that once we get back from this and it was just an ordinary fox and we give the Richmonds advice on how to protect their chickens…” He took a deep breath. His worry was starting to bleed into his voice, into the way he spoke his sentences. “…please tell Axl what’s happening to you. I’ve never seen an ailment or injury drive you nuts like this before.”

For a moment, Clay only looked at him with an unreadable expression. Then, his brown eyes softened and he gave Aaron what was probably the softest smile Clay had ever given anyone. “Of course I will.”

“You promise?”

Aaron wasn’t sure what possessed him to say it, nor what made him speak so softly. He removed his hand from Clay’s shoulder to awkwardly allow it to hang at his side. They were definitely the only ones left outside now, and the only reason the ramp into the Fortrex was still walkable.

Clay nodded. “I promise.”

Aaron smiled back. “Thank you.”

They continued their walk inside.

—

When Aaron walked back into the main room of the Fortrex, Lance was on the phone. In his other arm, Hamletta was being bounced like a fussy toddler- just a bit pinker and more quadrupedal than the average human baby. Aaron looked at Clay with a raised eyebrow, but he only shrugged.

Clearly putting on the most polite, most sickeningly sweet voice he could muster, Lance was saying, “Okay, dad, which forest on the southeast end were you and mom talking about? The regular one on the southernmost-southeast end, or the one with the gold foliage and grass on the easternmost-southeast end?”

Oh for the love of- why do the Richmonds have to have a golden forest? Seriously?

Lance grimaced. “Of course, of course. Bye.” He pinched his nose as he put his phone back into his pocket. “They don't know which one it was. We're going to have to search both of them.”

Macy let out a drawn-out ugh and put her head in her hands. “Are you kidding me ?! If they're so worried about the chickens, then why would they not confirm where the thing killing them is?!”

Axl shrugged. “Who knows? They're fancy people who outsourced all the effort of raising their son to an underpaid Squirebot.” Noticing that Dennis was in the room, and not busy doing something Lance didn't feel like putting effort into, he added, “No offense, Dennis.”

“None taken.” Dennis grabbed Hamletta from Lance's arm and deposited her on the floor. Scratching her behind the ears, he began to lead her in the direction of Lance's bedroom. “I'm just in here to take Hamletta so I can give her the nightly bubble bath that Sir Lance usually does.”

Aaron turned his attention back to Clay, who was looking at a map of the southeastern end of the Richmond property on one of the large screens. He and Macy were talking in hushed tones, likely discussing what the plan of action was. He kind of hoped they’d just pick one of the forests and do that because he was not looking forward to searching two forests. After a moment, Clay walked up to where the majority of the Knights were and clasped his hands together. “Alright. Here’s the plan: there’s no way we’ll get this done tonight if all of us go into one of them at once. That’s why three of us will be going into the…” He sighed deeply. “The southernmost-southeast end, which is larger, and two will be going into the easternmost-southeast end. After that, we’ll split up to cover more ground.”

Lance raised his hand. “Uh, isn’t it dangerous to split up in a forest at night?”

Clay shrugged, his arms crossed tightly. “From what your parents described, it’s either a fox or a really ginger wolf. We’ve been fighting actual monsters summoned by magic for about a year now. I think we can handle a normal animal.”

“The only remaining question is,” Macy said, stepping forward, “who goes where.”

Axl raised his hand. “I'm pickin’ the regular forest. If my axe hits somethin’ and a tree goes down, I don't want it to be a valuable one.”

Lance stepped forward, brushing something off of his armor that nobody but him could see. “I'm picking the southernmost-southeast end. My armor is a lot less likely to get scraped up on regular leaves than gold ones.”

“I was already planning on heading into the easternmost-southeast end.” Clay said. “That just leaves Macy and Aaron.”

I'm going with you, Aaron wanted to say, I'm going to keep an eye on you because I'm worried sick. His eyes briefly flicked to Clay's hands, which were twitching where they rested on his biceps. You haven’t scratched throughout this whole meeting but I can tell that you really want to.

“Aaron,” Macy asked, before he could say anything, “which of your crossbow models did you grab?”

Aaron pulled it off of where it was holstered to his back, careful to keep his finger away from the trigger. Even with safety on, he'd rather not risk shooting one of his teammates.

Clay blinked with surprise. “Is that the physical arrow model? Aren't those meant to be for lethal force?”

“I picked it because I see the only scenario where I actually shoot this thing as one where I've got no other choice.” Aaron carefully returned it to his back, adding, “The energy blasts from my other crossbow wouldn't do any good if this animal was dangerous enough to need to fire at. If I need to kill this thing, I want to do it humanely and in one shot.”

Macy nodded. “Smart. You should probably go with Clay, then. I'll head out with Axl and Lance.” When Clay gave her a baffled look, she sighed at him. “I don’t see you being able to do it if things get dangerous enough for lethal force. No offense.”

Clay sighed. “None taken. We should head out.”

During the trek to the garage, Aaron ran to catch up with Clay. Before he could get the chance to climb into the Rumble Blade and go quiet, Aaron asked, “How are you feeling?”

Clay answered with a shrug. “Same as before, I guess. I've just been trying to resist the urge to scratch.” He began to climb into the car, but hesitated. Looking back at Aaron, he asked, “Are you planning on taking the Bow Flyer or are you just using your hovershield?”

“I was gonna use my hovershield.” Aaron patted where it was mounted to his back. “The Bow Flyer blew an engine in the last battle and I haven't had the time to ask Robin to fix it.”

“Do you want to hitch a ride? We're heading to the same place anyways.”

Aaron blinked and nodded. “Yeah, sure, man. I don't see why not.” I can save some of my hovershield's power for if I need to get to you quickly.

Clay gestured to one of the detachable bikes at the end of the sword-like shape of the vehicle. “Go ahead and get comfortable.”

It was a bit of an awkward moment, trying to figure out how to get into something he'd never sat in before. He finally got it, though, and shot Clay a thumbs up from where his head was peeking above the glowing edges of the driver's seat (cockpit? the top of the car could come off to serve as a short-distance aircraft, after all).

With that, Clay yelled for everybody to roll out. For a good while, everybody stuck together, heading in the same direction. Then, though, came split as the two groups headed to their forests.

There was something odd about the Rumble Blade being the only vehicle around, especially this late at night. Aaron was used to the missions where they were all driving something. Without the cacophony of every engine making noise at once, it was almost… unnerving .

Eventually, they reached the edge of the golden forest. When the bright glow from the Rumble Blade hit the plants, it looked like there was a disco ball made of leaves in there. They stopped, Aaron climbing out as Clay leapt from the cockpit of the vehicle. Putting their helmets on, they began to talk the rest of the distance.

Seeing Clay reach up to turn on comms, Aaron blurted, “Please be careful in there.”

Clay gave him a surprised look.

Aaron sighed. “I just- I'm worried, okay? I can tell you're still not as alright as you're pretending to be.”

Clay gave him a reassuring smile. “I'll be okay, Aaron. I graduated top of our class at the Knight's Academy, remember?”

A loud rustling sound coming from the bushes interrupted the conversation before it could properly end. Standing still, they waited for any sign of more movement. When none came, both of them reached up and turned on their comms, flipping the visors on their helmets down.

“ Clay and Aaron, do you read me? ”

“I read you loud and clear, Macy.” Clay said. “We're at the edge of the easternmost-southeast end now.”

“Okay,” Aaron interrupted, “before we go any further, can we just call them the ES and the SS? Seems a lot easier than specifying southernmost and easternmost or whatever.”

Over comms, Aaron could hear Lance hum. “ That could work. ”

Clay nodded in Aaron's direction and gave him a thumbs up. Into the comms, he said, “All in favor?”

“ Yeah, we're good with that. ” Then, Macy added, “ Axl's comms are bugging out a bit but he agrees too. ”

A loud burst of static made Aaron grimace. He got the feeling that was Axl's attempt at responding. “Can he at least hear us?”

More loud static, with a small “eh” sound between. That was probably a yes.

“Alright, then.” Clay began to walk past the tree line, onto golden grass and between trees with golden leaves. “Axl, we'll just have you refrain from talking through comms unless it's an emergency, alright? We'll have Robin and Ava take a look when we get back.”

After a few moments, Macy said, “ He's nodding. ”

“Good.” Clay said. “Let's all go about five feet in and then split up into different directions. Whoever is on the left will go left, whoever is on the right will go right. Macy, whoever is in the middle of your group's formation will just keep pressing forward.”

“ Roger that. ”

After a few more seconds of walking, Clay nodded in Aaron's direction. Aaron nodded back. He was on the right, so he turned in that direction and pressed onward. In spite of the feeling that he really, really didn't want to leave Clay alone in the dark woods at night, he continued forwards and followed orders.

—

Things remained uneventful after that. Every now and then he'd hear rustling and it would either be a rabbit sprinting away or a bird taking off into the sky. Nobody had really said anything the entire time, which he understood- if they were trying to catch this thing, then they didn't want to scare it off by being loud.

He resisted the urge to check in on Clay, only because he knew that everyone could hear what he said on these and he didn't want to expose Clay's problems to the entire team. That didn't change the worry in his gut, though.

Absentmindedly, he wondered what kind of insane plant breeding you had to do to make something that looked gold. The leaves on the trees glittered like a golden necklace. The bushes shone like a set of golden chainmail. The grass was not as vibrant, but still had a little bit of a sparkle to it, all the same.

Suddenly, his comms beeped to life and Clay whispered. “ I found it. It's not a fox at all, it's a maned wolf. ”

“ Maned wolf? ” Macy asked, in a similarly hushed tone.

“ What's a maned wolf doing on my parent's property? ” Lance whispered.

Aaron could hear Clay attempting to move quietly. “ I'm not sure. Maned wolves aren't supposed to even be this far up north. They're from the more southern kingdoms. ” There was a pause. “ Oh, no. ”

“What is it?” Aaron hissed.

“ It's missing a leg and hobbling around on three feet. It must've gotten caught in a beartrap or something and it tore it off to get out. ”

Immediately, Aaron grabbed his crossbow and began to flick safety off. “Clay, that means we're going to have to kill it. There's no way it doesn't have an infection, and injured animals are a lot more likely to-”

He was interrupted by Clay's pleading tone. “ Maybe not, though! We don't know how long it's been injured for. It might still have a chance if we get it to a rehabilitation center. ”

“ Clay, no. ” Macy quietly snapped. “ You are not going to try and approach an injured animal- ”

On Clay's end, a twig snapped. A loud snarl split the hushed tones of the comms. He heard Clay swear. “ I'm not sure if I'll have a choice, it just heard me- fuck! ” A loud roaring bark interrupted him and Aaron could hear Clay scrambling away. “ It's surprisingly fast for something missing a leg- I- I guess it's been injured long enough to be used to it- ”

Aaron turned around and began to run in the opposite direction he'd been going. Pulling out his hovershield, he leapt onto it and set it to full speed. Over comms, he could hear Clay continuing to struggle. “I'm on my way.”

Why didn't it run? Or at least try to get away? Clay's still being bothered by his arms. He might not be able to fight to his fullest ability.

Suddenly, Clay screamed and the comms went silent. Aaron swallowed thickly. Fuck, fuck, fuck- “Clay, do you read me?”

Nothing.

“Clay, respond!”

Still, nothing.

“ He's not going to respond anytime soon, Aaron. The best thing we can do is try to get to him. ” Macy sounded terrified.

“I'm already on my way- shit!” He was forced to stop his hovershield before he jammed into a tree. Looking around, he realized that there wasn't any room for him to fit between if he stayed in the air. “The trees are too dense in this area, I'm going to have to continue on foot.”

“ Be careful, please. ”

Aaron mounted his shield onto his back and began to squeeze between the trees. “He's going to need medical attention once we get there, right?”

“ Yeah, why? ”

“Who's the closest to the Fortrex right now?”

After a moment, Lance spoke up. “ I am. ”

“Go back and get the first aid kit and whatever medical supplies you can.” Aaron grunted as he nearly tripped over a root.

“ Shit, you don’t think an injured maned wolf is going to do that much damage, do you? ”

“Better to be safe than sorry, Lance.” 

Suddenly, a loud drawn out howl split the air. Aaron could hear loud rustling and stomping in the distance ahead of him, and his blood ran cold at the thought of an injured Clay running into whatever that was.

Macy's end burst to life. “ Did anybody else hear that? ”

“Yeah.” Aaron said. “I think it came from the same direction that Clay was last in. Lance, how close are you to the Fortrex?”

“ I'm getting on Concordo now, I only just got out of the SS. I'm going to try and go as fast as I can, but this terrain- ”

He was interrupted by the sound of loud static. Whatever Axl was trying to say was extremely unclear, but the short bursts that Aaron could make out were frantic.

“ Ther—so—thin’—eyes —”

“Axl, what are you trying to say?” Aaron finally made it to a clearing where he could get back on his shield. “Can anybody decipher that?”

“ It—going—ES— ” Aaron heard the vague sound of a hand slapping metal, like Axl had taken his helmet off to hit it to try and make it work.

Suddenly, Aaron spotted a figure lying still on the ground. He landed and ran up, expecting to see Clay lying there-

-but was met with the grotesque sight of the corpse of the maned wolf Clay had encountered. He could tell it was the same one because it was missing one of its legs.

He didn't want to think about what state the rest of the body was in.

Suddenly, the static from the comms peaked and Axl finally spoke more clearly. “ Aaron, it's headin' right for ya! Look out! ”

Aaron looked up from the body just in time to meet the glowing blue eyes of the giant animal running right for him.

He swore loudly as he was tackled to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he fired an arrow directly into its neck. At Macy's concerned yelling over the comms, he quickly snapped, “I think it's a fucking bear- big and brown-” He punched it in the muzzle, but instead of the roar he was expecting, there was a wolf-like whimper instead. 

It staggered back and Aaron was able to get a better look at it. There was a patch on its chest that looked like Axl had attempted to hit it, but only succeeded in cutting off a large chunk of fur. He guessed that the threat of physical harm and Axl being built like a brick house must have made it run back into the ES after going into the SS.

When it turned its head to grab the arrow lodged into its thick neck between its teeth, Aaron realized that it wasn't a bear at all. Taking his opportunity, Aaron scrambled up and reloaded his crossbow. All too quickly, it tore the arrow out and snapped the metal between its teeth before he could take aim at its head. He noticed, with crawling skin, that its muzzle was soaked in blood, splattering from the nose and front all the way back to where it connected to its head. Aaron was sure that if he checked his hand, there would be blood on it where he'd punched it.

The wolf snarled and lowered itself closer to the ground, before taking off in a circle around Aaron.

It was similar to something the Knights had been taught to do at the academy. If they were fighting an opponent who had a weapon when they didn’t- move fast enough that they can’t aim properly, and if possible, back them into a corner where they can’t run.

“ Aaron, me and Axl are on our way! Try to hold out until we get there! ”

The more the wolf lashed out and he dodged, the closer his back got to the trees that were behind him. This thing was smart enough to purposely force Aaron into a bad spot. He had no doubt that Clay, wherever he was, was in bad shape.

Aaron lifted his crossbow and fired another arrow, hitting it in the shoulder. Reloading, he fired another, and another, and another. It did not falter, even with four arrows sticking out of its side. He attempted to fire again, but the mechanism had overheated from the rapid fire and was jamming.

That was when it struck.

With a near deafening howl, it leapt forward and knocked the helmet off of his head with a powerful swipe. The force made him stagger and it bit his crossbow, crushing it between its powerful jaws and throwing it to the side. Within the next moment, he was pinned to the forest floor, a heavy paw holding his head down into the dirt. He bit back a scream when thick claws slashed his side, tearing through his armor effortlessly. Aaron struggled, clawing at the foreleg and paw still on his head futilely. Its claws dug into his head and he yelled out, screaming when it dragged his head through the sticks and rocks and roots covering the forest floor. Lifting his head, it slammed his skull into the ground.

Dizzy, he panted, nearly blinded by the pain in his side. He’d been badly injured before, but something about those claw marks specifically burned like hell. It was like his veins were being lit on fire.

The wolf opened its jaws and reared back, clearly aiming for his throat. Frantically, Aaron looked and spotted a large rock on his right that seemed to have been dislodged from the ground when one of the wolf’s paws scraped over it. He grabbed it, gripping it tightly. The wolf howled, even more deafening when it was this close to his ears, and lunged its head at his throat.

That was when he struck.

He slammed the rock into the side of the wolf’s head, causing it to howl in pain and hesitate. When it didn’t let him go, he hit it again. The paw on his head was then removed, but the rest of him was still pinned, so with an angry roar he hit it one more time. This time, he heard a crack and the wolf screamed , far too much like a human would, and scrambled backwards. It continued to wail, clutching at its head. Aaron staggered upright and threw the rock, causing it to flinch and duck before it finally let out a loud whimper and ran back in the direction it had come from, the arrows embedded in its side coming out when it brushed against a tree. 

Shakily, Aaron stepped towards where his helmet was lying, wondering if his comms even still worked. A fresh wave of pain came from his wound and he cried out, falling to his knees. He whimpered and curled up, clutching his side. There was so much blood- how much had he lost? He didn’t know- couldn’t think well enough to figure it out. He closed his eyes against the pain, swallowing thickly.

Suddenly, there were rapidly approaching footsteps. He whimpered again, curling in on himself closer. No more, he thought, please no more. It hurts.

“Aaron? Aaron! ”

…Macy?

Cracking his eyelids open a little bit, Aaron could see a vague red shape and a vague white shape rapidly approaching. Once Lance was close enough, he dropped the box he was holding and got down onto his knees. Reaching forward, he attempted to peel Aaron’s hands away from the wound, but he instinctively growled and curled up more.

Lance patted his shoulder. “Come on Aaron, let me take a look at you.” Reaching forward, he attempted to brush the hair that was in Aaron’s face out of it, but the sudden pain from the bloody hair being peeled away made him flinch back. Lance hissed through his teeth and swore softly. “Aaron, please. You’ve lost too much blood, and- Macy, do you think you could help by cleaning the cuts on his face, I’ll try to get him to roll onto his back.”

Lance’s voice was getting fainter. Everything was getting fainter, really. His vision was beginning to darken, and the pain from his side was becoming fainter. A different set of hands- Macy’s hands- brought a wet cloth to his face and he whined at the sudden sting. Distracted by this, he hardly noticed Lance pressing on his uninjured side and pushing him into his back. Above him, the stars twinkled in the sky. Somebody peeled his now limp arms from his stomach.

Suddenly, there was a light being flashed into his eyes and he could only whimper in protest. Macy was talking, saying something, and shaking his shoulder. His vision was blurring more and more, though, and soon she was only a red blob in his vision.

He missed the stars. They were so pretty.

Chapter Text

“ Clay, no. ” Macy, on her end of the comms, snapped these words quietly despite not physically being there. “ You are not going to try and approach an injured animal- ”

A stick snapped beneath his boots.

The maned wolf's head snapped in his direction and it snarled loudly. He swore under his breath. Stepping slowly backwards, he kept his hands up in a gesture of surrender. 

“I'm not sure if I'll have a choice, it just heard me- fuck!” His attempted response into his comms was interrupted by a staggering lunge from the maned wolf. It let out an angry roar-bark, prompting Clay to scramble backwards away from where it was slamming into the ground. With only three of its legs, its balance was clearly compromised and it could not stay upright after a lunge. 

With surprising speed, it managed to scramble back up and hobbled towards him again. The way it staggered spoke of starvation and desperation. He was forced backwards once more, careful not to trip over any roots. “It's surprisingly fast for something missing a leg- I- I guess it's been injured long enough to be used to it-” The maned wolf sprang forward again and he had to dodge to the left. It slammed into the tree that had been behind him and whined in pain. 

Clay wracked his brain, trying to figure out how he could safely restrain the animal and get it somewhere for treatment. He'd packed a muzzle and some rope, but now he was quickly realizing that he wouldn't be able to get close enough to safely apply either of those.

He hadn’t even known that wild animals could survive losing limbs for as long as this one clearly had. Granted, he’d heard of deer surviving with arrows stuck in them from botched hunts, but an entire missing leg? How was he supposed to plan for that ?

It was already recovering from where it had slammed into the tree. It almost reminded Clay of tales of werewolves, who could keep attacking until their entire body had been mangled. Clay silently hoped he wouldn’t have to find out if those tales were real the hard way. He didn’t plan to get bitten, of course, because this thing could also potentially have rabies, but the thought still manifested itself.

On the other end of his comms, he could hear Aaron's hovershield humming. “ I'm on my way. ”

Clay wanted to tell him to not kill the maned wolf once he got to them, to tell him to please hesitate, but he tripped over a root he missed. The animal was on him in an instant, immediately spotting the only gap in his armor- the small area between the protection for his neck and his helmet. 

It lunged. Teeth dug into Clay's throat.

He screamed.

Agony tore through him, everything burned, it wouldn't stop-

Clay gasped as his eyes opened. Panic burned in his chest, causing his heart to pound. Tightly gripping the blanket draped over his body, he sat upright. Immediately, pain tore through his skull, blurring his vision and causing his eyes to tear up. Gritting his teeth, Clay attempted to clutch the part that hurt the most- his left temple- but was stopped by the bandages wrapped around his head. He took deep breaths through his nose and closed his eyes tightly against the agony.

It wasn't until he opened his eyes again that he realized that the room he was in had all of the lights turned off. His vision was adjusted, so he wasn't having any trouble seeing, but Clay found it peculiar that he had just been lying in the dark. Where was he, again?

The answer felt like it was on the tip of his tongue. However, it was like he couldn't string his together thoughts to enough try… wait. That wasn't right, was it? Clay's brain felt like a scrambled egg.

Think Clay, think. You're injured. Your head hurts. You have bandages on. You are laying down on a bed. There's a blanket. The lights are off.

Somewhere in there was a way to connect all of these things in a way that made sense. However, Clay's thoughts were too disorganized, too muddled to properly fit together. It frustrated him to no end. 

Suddenly, the sound of muffled whispers came from somewhere. Clay looked around until he spotted the door, noting that there was a small amount of light coming from a gap underneath. Interrupting this light were two shadows, showing that somebody was standing just ouside. The conversation was difficult to make out, but Clay thought he heard something about “transfusions” and “resting”. His head began to hurt more from the strain, though, and he even had to look away from the small amount of light under the door. The pain continued to pound against his skull, though, and he let out an involuntary whine.

There was the sound of soft footsteps that faded away, and a distant click. When he looked back at the door, the light from underneath was gone. To his surprise, somebody knocked. A few seconds after, the sound of a soft beep (a keycard being read?) met his ears and the door opened.

Axl carefully walked into the room, looking directly at Clay. “Hey, you’re up early. How are you feelin’?” He asked, softly. He began to move towards a chair that Clay hadn’t noticed before.

Clay should have answered the question, but instead he found himself blurting out, “Where am I?” Something about finally talking scratched at his throat uncomfortably. He cleared his throat in an attempt to relieve this discomfort.

Immediately, Axl froze. Carefully, after pausing for a few moments, he moved to sit down in the chair. It was directly next to the bed that Clay was laying on, although he wasn’t entirely sure how he hadn’t seen it before. Clasping his hands together, he took a deep breath in his nose. In the next moment, he let it out of his mouth. He was acting like he was scared- why would Axl be scared? Clay was just having a little bit of trouble, was all.

“Before I answer that- I promise I will answer that- can you answer some questions for me, first?” Axl reached over to a nearby table, where a clipboard and a pen were, and picked both up, placing them in his lap. “Some of these questions might seem weird or obvious, but I promise that they’re important.”

Clay almost nodded, but then he remembered just how much his head was hurting. Moving it too much was probably a bad idea. “Yeah, sure.”

“Alright.” Using some of the lights from his armor as a source of light, Axl flipped through a few papers on the clipboard. “Answer honestly. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say ‘I don’t know’. Question one: What’s your name?”

“Clay Moorington.”

Picking up the pen, Axl made a note. “Alright, that’s good. What is the name of the person asking you these questions?”

“That’s you, Axl.”

The pen scratched against the paper. “That’s right. How old are you?”

“I am 20 years old.”

“What day is it today?”

Clay opened his mouth to answer, but hesitated. He could say the last day he remembered it being, but he wasn’t sure if he had been asleep long enough for the date to change. Nervously, he fiddled with the blanket, noting idly that one of the fingers on his left hand was bandaged. “I- I don’t know.”

Axl watched Clay for a moment. “Would you like me to break the question down into smaller parts?”

Clay nearly nodded again, but stopped himself. “Yes, uh, please.”

“What year is it?”

“2016.”

Axl nodded. “Good, good. What month is it?”

Clay thought for a moment. “March.”

“Alright. You’re doing great. Do you know what day of the month it is?”

Clay hesitated. Should he answer the last day he remembered? Should he try to estimate what day it could be now? What if he got it wrong? If he wasn’t completely sure, was he just supposed to say ‘I don’t know’? Axl said to say that if he didn’t know, but there was a chance he did know.

Axl noticed him wringing his hands through the blanket again and asked, “Why don’t you just tell me what the last day of the month you remember is?”

“The 15th, I think.”

Axl nodded and wrote something down. “Alright. If you’re having trouble with a question or just need me to be more specific, let me know, alright?” He put the pen and clipboard down and looked Clay in the face. Clay was silently grateful he hadn’t chosen to look him in the eyes- he’d always been bad at eye contact. “I’m here to help you.”

Clay felt like he could cry. He hated feeling this confused, feeling this helpless . Normally, he was so much more put together and capable of forming thoughts and responses. Nonetheless, he responded, “Okay.”

Axl turned the page on the clipboard and wrote something down before he continued. “Do you remember what you were doing on the 15th of March?”

Clay thought for a moment. The Nexo Knights had gone to that meeting with the Richmonds, then they’d gone back to the Fortrex, and then they’d set out into the forests on the Richmond property. Was he supposed to tell Axl about the entire day, or just part of it? “Do you need the whole day’s events?”

Axl hummed for a moment and tapped his chin with the pen. “Why don’t you just tell me about the last things you remember before you woke up?” He paused for a moment, then added, “That is, the last events from the 15th that you remember before you woke up here.”

“Me and Aaron set off into the golden forest- I think he suggested calling it the ES? I went left and he went right. After a little while, I found the maned wolf we were looking for, and…” Clay frowned. “…and something… happened. I think it saw me?” He wracked his brain, desperately trying to parse more details. “It… um. It was injured. Things get kind of fuzzy after that.”

“That’s alright.” Axl said. “Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

Clay nodded. Immediately, he hissed as the pain in his head spiked. Dammit. I wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Is your head bothering you?”

Clay took a deep breath in his nose. “Yeah. Yeah it’s hurting.”

“Let's cut off the questions here.” Axl wrote something down on the clipboard before setting both it and the pen back on the table. “Would you like to ask some of your own?”

“It-It's been hurting since I woke up.” Swallowing thickly, Clay clutched the blanket tightly. “Nodding just made it worse. If you need to ask more questions, I can handle it.”

Axl shook his head. Speaking in a soft, soothing tone, he said, “No, no. It's okay. I don't want you to push yourself. Do you have any questions, or do you want to take a break?”

Clay wanted to protest further, but he got the feeling that if he did, he wouldn't get to ask any questions. Axl took his job as one of the team's medical men very seriously. If he thought Clay was pushing himself too hard, he'd insist on making him take a break. “I want to ask some questions.”

Axl nodded. “Alright. What do you want to know?”

There was a question Clay had asked when Axl had first walked in- what was it again? It felt oddly far away. It seemed like it had scared him. After a moment, it clicked in Clay's head and he blurted out, “Where am I?”

“You're in one of the private medical rooms on the Fortrex.”

Oh. Ohhh. Shit. That was really obvious, wasn't it? “That- that makes sense. I'm not sure how I didn’t figure it out on my own.” Being injured and bandaged and lying in a bed in a dark room. Obviously it would be one of the medical rooms. Dammit. “I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“You're injured, Clay.” Axl reached out to gently pat him on the shoulder. He was moving in a much more gentle manner than usual, and had been the whole time. Something about that made Clay wonder just how bad off he was- if he couldn't even identify the room he was in, then what else was he missing? “Of course you're going to be strugglin’ for a little while. It's alright.”

“What happened to me?” Clay whispered.

Axl almost seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, though, he sighed and said, “You got attacked by somethin’ out there. We're not entirely sure what it was, but we think it got drawn to the sound of the maned wolf attacking you. It mauled the hell out of the maned wolf and beat you pretty badly.”

“What are my injuries?” He needed to know. There had to be some logical reason he was feeling so off. He’d been injured before, but never to the point where his mind felt like it was betraying him.

Picking the clipboard back up, Axl flipped the papers until he found one near the very bottom. He cleared his throat. “Your worst injury is a fracture to the left temple of your skull. That’s the cause of the pain you’ve been feeling and the reason why you’re feeling disoriented. If you got hit hard enough for your skull to crack, you definitely got hit hard enough to be concussed. You’re bandaged up because there was an open wound at the site of the break.”

So that was why Clay felt so muddied and scrambled. “What else?”

“One of your teeth is broken, though we’re not sure why. I went ahead and numbed the site just so that it won’t bother you until you can get to a dentist. Any food you eat will have to be soft and you can’t chew on the right side of your mouth right now.” Axl took a moment to read back over the notes, before he added, “It kind of looks like you bit down on something hard enough to break it. We’re assuming that a rock must’ve ended up in your mouth durin’ the altercation with the thing that attacked you. For your skull to fracture, your head probably got slammed against a rocky part of the ground. That means that the idea that you might have accidentally gotten something in your mouth at the same time isn’t too out of the question.”

Idly, Clay thought about how much he was going to miss eating crunchy stuff until that was dealt with.

“You’ve also got some pretty nasty looking bruising on your side. Looks like you got hit by a few hard blows that got blocked by your armor. Well, mostly, at least.” Axl turned the page humming to himself a little. “One of your fingernails got torn off, too, though we haven't figured out what caused that, yet. There’s bruising on your foot and neck, too.”

“Is that all?” Clay asked.

Axl nodded. “Yeah, should be. Any other questions?”

Clay looked down at the blanket. Rubbing it between his fingers, he thought idly about how nice it was to be able to fiddle with it. Doing something with his hands always helped him focus. He frowned, though. Something was pushing at the back of his mind- something that he felt must be important. However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t grasp it. “I- I think I’m forgetting something important.”

“You’re probably forgetting a lot of things. They’ll come back, in due time.” Axl reassured him. “Why don’t you eat something and try to get some rest?”

“That sounds good.” Now that he was thinking about it, he was kind of hungry. “What do we have?”

“Only thing we have that you can eat right now is some applesauce.”

Clay narrowed his eyes. “Is it the good texture or the bad texture?”

Axl blinked. “Uh. Macy was the one who bought it during our last grocery run?”

Satisfied, Clay said, “She always picks the good texture. I’ll have some.”

“I’ll be right back, then.”

With that, Axl was out the door, leaving Clay to sit alone in the darkened room. He probably wasn’t going to be gone for more than a few minutes, but to pass the time, Clay began to fiddle with the blanket again. This time, though, he felt a dull ache begin to radiate from his wrapped finger. In fact, there was pain in other places, too- his side, his neck, and his foot. Those were all places where Axl said he’d been injured, aside from his head and tooth. The new pain was tacking itself on top of the never ending ache from his skull. He remembered what Axl had said about numbing his tooth and wondered if he could do something for this other pain he was feeling. 

The familiar beep of the keycard reader interrupted his thoughts. To his surprise, it hadn't felt like much time had passed at all since Axl left to get the food.

“Sorry, I was gone a little longer than I should’ve been.” Axl said. “Robin wanted to know how you were doing and if you were alright.”

… And now I’m losing track of time. “It’s alright. I hardly noticed.”

Axl walked up and held out a small bowl and plastic spoon. “I hope you don’t mind using a plastic spoon. I figured it’d be less risky for your teeth. Remember not to chew with your right side.”

Reaching out and taking the bowl, Clay set it in his lap carefully. Idly, as he grabbed the spoon, he noticed his hands were shaking. In spite of his efforts to keep them still, they still trembled as he gripped the bowl with the unbandaged fingers of his left hand. He scooped up some of the applesauce successfully with his right, though. 

Clearly noticing this struggle, Axl asked, “Are you alright?”

Clay swallowed the spoonfull of applesauce, careful to avoid using the right side of his mouth. “A lot of stuff started hurting after you left.”

Axl frowned. “I guess one of the painkillers I gave you must’ve worn off. I expected it to last longer.” He walked back up to the door Clay pulling out his keycard before looking back at him. “Sorry about that. Since you’re awake you can take something by mouth, if you want.”

Taking another bite, Clay thought on it for a moment. He didn’t usually take anything for pain. Axl would probably look at him sadly if he didn’t, though. He was always worrying him by refusing any kind of pain relief. Besides, he was also probably going to be expected to try to sleep after he finished eating. That would be a little bit easier to deal with and slightly less uncomfortable if he took something for pain. “Yeah, sure.”

Axl nodded and swiped the keycard. “I’ll get you some tylenol and water.” With that, he was out the door again.

Clay continued to eat.

—

Macy stared up at the canopy of her bed. She’d been lying awake for hours, attempting to sleep, but to no success. Sure, Lance and Axl had told her to sleep as soon as possible, but she just couldn’t. She wasn’t feeling sleepy at all. Macy knew she should have been feeling at least a little tired, considering everything that had happened, but she just… wasn’t.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the moment they’d found Aaron lying in a pool of his own blood out of her head.

They found Clay first. Lying prone, with only rapid breathing to betray that he was alive. There was so much blood around his mouth, but it seemed to be drying. That was more than could be said for his left temple, which had an open gash that was steadily leaking blood. Only heaven had a chance at knowing where his helmet had gone, since it didn’t seem to be anywhere in the near vicinity. Immediately, Axl crouched next to him, pressing two fingers to the side of his neck to check for a pulse. Lance moved to set down the box of supplies but Axl shook his head. “Clay's trained for more direct combat and his armor is made for it, too. Aaron is trained for agility and long distance weaponry.”

In other words; Aaron was probably in worse shape. With lighter armor and less hand-to-hand focused training, he'd be taking worse hits. Macy remembered something she’d heard about head wounds- how they bled a lot and generally tended to look scarier than they actually were. Still, the idea of just leaving Clay here without any first aid supplies made her stomach tighten uncomfortably. She had to remind herself to trust Axl’s judgement- he’d graduated the Knight’s Academy with top scores in the medical classes, after all.

She and Lance continued in the direction they'd been going, following the trail of trampled foliage. They passed by the mangled corpse of what looked to be the maned wolf Clay had encountered, now long dead and nearly unrecognizable.

Then, the flashlight Macy was holding illuminated a humanoid figure cloaked in green and red.

It wasn't just humanoid- it was Aaron, lying on his side and curled in on himself. He was whimpering. Macy had never heard Aaron whimper before.

Her heart froze when she noticed just how large the pool of blood surrounding his body was. “Aaron? Aaron! ”

Slowly, his eyes cracked open and he looked up at Macy and Lance as they ran to his side. His face was covered in smears of blood and nearly hidden by his messy hair. Lance set the box down nearby Aaron and got onto his knees, reaching towards Aaron's hands. When Lance gripped them and attempted to pull them away from what must have been a grave injury, Aaron growled at him and curled in on himself even more than he already had.

“Come on Aaron, let me take a look at you.” Lance said, patting his shoulder gently. He attempted to brush some of Aaron's hair out of his face but was only met with a flinch. Hissing through his teeth and swearing softly, Lance said, “Aaron, please. You've lost too much blood, and- Macy, do you think you could help by cleaning the cuts on his face, I'll try to get him to roll onto his back.”

Macy quickly opened up the box and found where Lance had put the cleaning cloths. Taking out one of the bottles of sterilized water, she quickly approached where Aaron was lying on the ground. Carefully, she brought the cloth up to Aaron's face and began to gently wipe at the blood, dirt, and cuts. Aaron whined and Macy felt her heart squeeze a little.

Using the distraction from his face being touched, Lance was able to successfully push Aaron to where he was lying on his back. “Macy, use the flashlight to check his pupils. The dirt on his face means his head probably got slammed against the ground.” 

While Macy set the dirty cloth aside and grabbed the flashlight, Aaron's arms, now limp, were peeled away gently by Lance. The lack of reaction when he'd been so resistant before made Macy's stomach turn. She kneeled next to him and held the flashlight up, holding Aaron's eyelids open with her fingers, one eye after the other, as she watched how they reacted to the light.

He didn't try to make her stop, or say anything in protest- he only whimpered. Macy watched the rate at which his pupils changed- were they too slow? Was that one larger than the other? Her lack of experience in this field made her nervous, and the fact that Aaron kept trying to close his eyes wasn't helping.

She began to shake his shoulder, desperate to keep him awake. “Hey. Hey! Aaron? Aaron! Stay awake! I'm pretty sure passing out when you've lost this much blood is a bad idea!”

It was to no avail- soon, Aaron's eyes were slipping shut, and no attempts to get him to open them back up were working.

Macy looked desperately at Lance. “What do we do?” 

He didn't pause from where he was packing Aaron's wound with gauze when he responded, “Check his pulse.”

Macy did just that, pressing two of her fingers against the side of Aaron's neck. “It's faint, but it's there.”

“Okay. That means he’s still with us. We're going to have to do a field transfusion if we want things to stay that way. Get the kit.”

Macy rubbed her inner arm, fingers running over the small bandage. Never before had she been so glad to have an O- blood type. If she hadn’t, then there wouldn’t have been any way to get Aaron the blood he needed in time.

The thought still creeped into her head, though, of what would have happened if they hadn’t been able to do the transfusion. Aaron’s pulse would have continued to slow without enough blood in his body, and he would have died before they could get him back to the Fortrex. She closed her eyes, trying to banish the thought. Aaron’s alive, she reminded herself, Aaron is alive and he’s being operated on by Lance.

Maybe the part about Lance being the one to operate on him wasn’t all that reassuring. Still, though- he was alive and likely to make it, which was something she knew verifiably. He’d been bought enough time to get to the Fortrex, where they had blood stored specifically for transfusions- if he needed blood, he'd get blood.

Aaron wasn’t the only thing bothering her, though. Macy hadn’t heard much about Clay at all since Axl had taken charge of treating his injuries. She knew that Axl had just so happened to pack some gauze in his supplies, that Clay had been successfully transported back to the Fortrex, and that Axl had found a fracture in the same place on his head that the gash had been. Otherwise? He was unconscious. Axl was waiting for him to wake up so he could properly assess his cognitive function. She’d spoken to him outside of the room Clay had been put into before she’d tried going to bed, but she still really didn’t know much. Even though they’d thought they’d heard something from the room, it ultimately didn’t mean anything if there weren’t any answers. Axl had still had her turn out the lights in that section of the hall just in case, though.

Having locked herself in her room like this, Macy had been isolated from any news on what was happening in the rest of the Fortrex. She sighed and pressed her palms into her eyes. Maybe a short walk around the halls would help. If she just so happened to run into somebody that could tell her what was happening? So be it.

Mind made up, Macy got out of bed, slipping on the pair of slippers she rarely ever used. Walking around in anything but her armor was going to be bizarre, but she didn’t see herself sleeping anytime soon. Making sure to grab her keycard on the way out, she unlocked her room and stepped out into the dark halls. The only light available was from the illuminated lines on the walls, since the large overhead lights had been turned off completely. Allowing that to light her way, Macy slowly walked, not really thinking much about where she was going. 

The Fortrex was actually surprisingly serene at night. She’d expected it to be sort of eerie, but something about it was remarkably calm. Maybe it was the fact that it used to be her dad’s RV- even though it had looked different back then, she’d roamed these halls many times during fun road trips as a child. As she passed by the training deck, she thought about how the holographic technology in there used to be what her dad used to watch movies with her and her mom. There was something different about experiencing a movie when the heroes and dragons were right beside you.

Of course, the tech had been completely overhauled and updated when Ava and Robin had done their modifications- considering how physical and real the hard light projections could be, trying to have a movie night in there probably wasn’t a good idea. Still, the thought made Macy smile softly as she moved on in her walk.

Maybe I should ask about that sometime, she thought. Once Clay and Aaron are better, maybe we can take a break from training and missions and danger and just… do something fun for once.

Already feeling better, Macy continued her walk. She passed by several pictures hung on the wall, depicting the Nexo Knights in their ‘heroic poses’ after their successful battles. It wasn’t difficult to figure out which ones were which battle- the setting and the state of their armor always told a story she could recall well.

To her surprise, it wasn’t long before she saw Axl walking around, too. He seemed surprised to see her, but quickly recovered. “Hey, Macy.”

Macy walked up to him and they stopped, both standing in the middle of the hall. “Hey, Axl. How’s Clay doing?”

“He’s awake, for one thing.” Axl said. “Though he’s a little confused. He knows who he is and he knows who I am, but he needed help figuring out where he was.” 

Macy was overjoyed to hear that he was awake, but she was still hesitant. Sure, it was good that he knew who he was, but what if that was where his recollection ended? If he’d been struggling to figure out where he was, then what did that mean for his mental state? “How much does he remember?”

“The entire day before he got attacked.” Axl yawned and stretched. “I managed to get him to eat some applesauce and he’s agreed to take some tylenol for pain. I completely forgot to ask if he prefers liquid or pill, though. I was considering asking Merlok, but with his memory fragmented-“

“He takes pills.” Macy interrupted. “The terrible flavor and generally bad texture of most liquid medicines can make him throw up.”

“Huh.” Axl blinked, thinking for a moment before he spoke again. “I probably should have considered asking you from the beginning, considering the fact that you apparently always get ‘the good texture’ when it comes to applesauce.”

Macy nodded. “Yeah, he doesn’t really like telling people when he has problems with food and texture. It’s something he’s always struggled with. I try to make sure that the stuff I get when it’s my turn for grocery runs won’t bother him.”

“It’s a damn good thing that you do. I don’t know if I could have convinced him to eat if you hadn’t been the one to buy the applesauce.” Axl’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Do you think I could convince him to take a sleep aid? The painkillers I had him on so he wouldn’t be too uncomfortable when he woke up wore off faster than I thought they would. If the tylenol wears off too fast, I wonder if I could keep him from getting woken up by the pain if he took something for sleep, too.”

Macy frowned and crossed her arms thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. I don’t think he’s ever taken them before.”

“Has he ever taken anything for pain before, either?”

“Good point. Maybe take some with you and don’t tell him you have them unless he says yes? That way, he doesn’t feel too pressured but you still have them on hand.” Clay tended to get in his own head, sometimes, about a lot of things. She knew that if he knew that Axl already had the sleep aid with him, he’d be more likely to overthink the decision. She couldn’t imagine how much more difficult thinking straight was with a head injury.

Axl nodded thoughtfully. “I might do that. I’ve already been gone a while and I don’t want to have to leave him again. If I’ve got them with me, then I won’t have to go unless he says no or actually falls asleep.”

Macy hummed. “What do you plan to do after that?”

“I was hoping to help Lance with Aaron once Clay’s back to sleep again. Apparently, he found something stuck in that big wound on Aaron’s side after he got him into proper lighting. He’s been trying to figure out a plan to get that out without risking too much blood loss again for a while. Not much you can do when you’ve only got one set of hands.”

“You should probably get going, then.” Macy said. “I’ll go ahead and try to sleep again. Knowing more about what’s going on might help me actually pass out this time.”

Axl patted her shoulder. “I was wondering why you were up. Take care.”

“You too.”

Macy watched as Axl walked off. He was definitely going to be grabbing the supplies he needed before he returned to Clay. She stood there a for a moment, with nothing but the low hum of the Fortrex to keep her company.

She turned around, beginning the trip back to her room.

Chapter Text

When Aaron opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that there was something obscuring the vision in his right eye. The second thing he noticed was that he was staring up at the dimmed lights of the Fortrex’s medical wing. There was a third thing, too- he was kind of sore. His mind had a fuzzy feeling to it from having just woken up. There was a low beeping he could hear that radiated throughout the room.

Aaron blinked. He blinked again. Physically, he could feel that both of his eyes were opening and closing, but no matter what he did, he could only see through his left. Aaron reached up with his right hand to feel at his face and found the culprit- bandages.

Bandages? Why would there be-

Suddenly, everything came flooding back. The mission from the Richmonds, venturing into the woods with an unwell Clay, the giant wolf- the fuzzy feeling left his mind and he gasped. Clay. He needed to know if he was alive. That giant wolf had attacked them both . Aaron attempted to sit up, but the IV currently attached to his left arm tugged uncomfortably. For a moment, he debated just ripping it out and moving on, but the thought of getting scolded by Lance or Axl kept him from doing so. That was fine. As long as it was on a rolling stand, he could just take the IV bag with him.

His second attempt at sitting up, in spite of being more careful this time, was interrupted by pain on his right side. Growling frustratedly, Aaron removed the blanket to find that he was dressed in a medical tunic. It was one that was secured by tying strings on the side, leaving an open gap visible at the side of his torso. Plainly visible through this gap were thick layers of bandages, wrapped over where he remembered being torn open by the wolf. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Supporting himself with just his right hand and his legs, he pulled himself up into an upright sitting position. He choked out a small grunt as pain continued to radiate from the wrapped wound. The beeping he heard earlier increased in speed. Taking deep breaths in his nose and out his mouth, Aaron rode out the worst of the pain, waiting for it to subside. It was some of the most awful pain he’d ever experienced. It simultaneously burned and ached, leaving him trembling where he sat. Eventually, it did wane a little, though he doubted it would truly leave. Injuries loved to ache.

Once he was certain that the pain was as low as it was going to get, he took a deep breath. Now or never. He thought. Bracing himself, Aaron scooted to the edge of the bed. However, it appeared that there were wires taped to his chest, and they were tugging. He followed them visually to where they came from, and- that was a heart rate monitor. That was probably where the beeping was coming from. Aaron figured he’d just have to figure out a way to turn it off without making it think he was flatlining once he was up. Mindful of the wires, Aaron took a deep breath and placed his feet on the ground. The hardest part was shifting his weight so he was actually standing. The effort made his legs shake. Fighting against the weakness, Aaron persisted.

For a moment, he had it. He began to take steps to get closer to the heart monitor so he could turn it off. Then, though, his legs suddenly gave out. Quickly, Aaron used one of the feet still pressed against the ground to throw his body back towards the bed. He grunted painfully when the IV got torn out by the sudden lurch. The tape holding the heart monitor’s wires on his chest was loose, having been yanked by his dive. His side hurt like hell. Once again, Aaron was left breathing deeply in his nose and out of his mouth, waiting for the pain to subside. At least he’d been able to keep himself from hitting the ground.

It was only once the pain from his side lessened that he realized the heart monitor wasn’t beeping anymore. Looking over, he saw a ‘signal lost’ message. Apparently, he could have just removed the wires the whole time. Great.

Unsurprisingly, there was a warm, wet feeling on his arm where the IV had come out. Aaron readjusted himself on the bed and took a look, hissing through his teeth at the sight of the blood that was leaking out. There wasn’t as much as he’d expected there to be, considering how much it had hurt, but he wasn’t about to get upset over that. He was distracted from his thoughts by the sound of a keycard beeping and the door opening. Aaron looked up and smiled sheepishly at the very exhausted, very annoyed Lance standing at the door. Once he noticed the blood leaking from his arm, though, the annoyance faded and was replaced with concern.

“Are you alright?” Lance stepped forward, entering the room. Surprisingly, Macy was following close behind, wearing what was probably the most casual and comfortable outfit Aaron had ever seen her in. Normally, she was in armor or training suits, not a hoodie and sweatpants.

Using the arm that wasn’t bleeding, Aaron shifted himself into a sitting position. “Yeah, I’m alright. I, uh. I tried to walk because I wanted to know what happened to Clay and I ended up falling.”

Lance let out an exhausted sigh. “I should’ve tied you to the bed.” Macy slapped his arm and gave him a look, but Lance glared at her. “Oh, come on! Aaron literally fears nothing, it’s not like it would scare him to wake up tied down.”

“This is why Axl got the ethics seal and you didn’t.” 

Lance rolled his eyes and walked up to Aaron. “Whatever. Show me your arm, Aaron.” Aaron complied, wincing a little at the spike of pain that came from the movement. Lance grabbed the arm gently and held it in place while he examined it. He stepped away for a moment to wash his hands and put on a pair of gloves, accessing a cabinet where he grabbed alcohol wipes and a small pack of bandages. He set everything down and then thought for a moment. Turning to look at Macy, who had been awkwardly standing in the middle of the room, he asked, “Do you think you could try and find out where Aaron’s phone went? He’ll be a lot less likely to accidentally hurt himself like this if he has a way to keep busy.” 

Macy nodded. “Sure.” With that, she walked out the door and down the hall.

“What-? hey. I’m right here, you know!” Aaron said incredulously.

Lance raised his eyebrow. “Yeah, you are, and you know as well as I do that you cannot stay still and do nothing if it saved your life.”

Aaron couldn’t argue with that. He’d had good reasons for getting up, though! How else was he supposed to find out if Clay was okay? It wasn’t like he’d get answers just sitting alone in an empty room. Speaking of which-

“Is Clay okay?” Aaron asked. Lance had unwrapped one of the alcohol wipes and was cleaning off the part of his inner arm where the IV had torn out. The sting made Aaron wince, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the pain that kept flaring in his side.

Lance nodded, not taking his eyes off of the fresh injury. “He’s alive. Axl assessed his cognitive function because he found a fracture in his skull. He’s got a pretty severe concussion and he’s suffering from some confusion. Nothing that he can’t heal from in a few months. There’s some bruising and a broken tooth, too. I think he also said he lost a fingernail.”

Aaron relaxed. “I’m relieved to hear that he's okay.” Then, though, he processed what the final thing Lance had said about Clay's condition was. “…did you say Axl said Clay lost a fingernail?”

“Yep.” Lance applied the bandage and smoothed it out with his fingers. “Not sure how that happened.”

“Did one of his gauntlets break in the struggle? That thing was really sturdy and persistent.” Aaron thought about his arrows, fired with what should have been lethal force, that seemed to only get stuck in the wolf’s fur. At most, they would have caused some bruising, but nothing near the kind of immediate deadly force the crossbow he used was designed to put out.

Lance shook his head. “Nope. They weren't even damaged. It's an oddly specific coincidence, though.”

Aaron frowned. “Coincidence?”

“Yeah. Clay lost a fingernail through some mysterious way. Meanwhile, this mystery monster that attacked the both of you ended up leaving a claw in your side.” He walked over to the trash can in the corner of the room and tossed the gloves, the used alcohol wipe, and the packaging for both the bandage and wipe inside. “It's definitely a coincidence, though. I highly doubt there’s any actual correlation.”

Their conversation was cut off by Macy returning to the room. In her hands was Aaron’s phone and charger. “Found it.” She said, holding the phone up in the air. “You’re lucky you left it in your room because I don’t think it would’ve survived the attack.”

Aaron perked up and held out his hand, taking it gratefully when Macy walked up and deposited it in his palm. “Thanks, man. I won’t die of boredom now.”

Macy rolled her eyes. “You would have been fine.”

“I owe you my life, man. My. Life.” Aaron said, dramatically.

“Uh, yeah you do.” Macy said. “You wouldn’t even have blood right now if we hadn’t used me as a bloodbag.”

Aaron’s playful disposition faded at the words. Maybe joking about dying hadn’t been the best thing to do. “Oh. Well, uh, thanks. I guess.”

Macy sighed softly. “I wasn’t going to just let one of my friends die.” After a moment, she added. “I know me and Clay give you shit sometimes for your reckless behavior, but we do care. The whole team cares. Even Lance, despite the fact that he wanted to tie you to your bed.”

Aaron laughed. Realizing that Lance had been quiet for a while, he looked over at where he was still standing by the trash can. It kind of looked like he was swaying a little. “Lance? You alright?”

He jumped a little and looked back at Aaron. “Huh?”

Aaron frowned. “You look like you’re about to collapse, dude.”

He really did- upon taking a closer look than he had before, there were deep bags beneath his eyes. His normally perfect hair was messy and it looked like it hadn’t been washed since yesterday, which was very out of character for Lance. Normally, he spent an unnecessary amount of time fixing his hair when even the slightest strand was out of place. He was also looking kind of pale, too.

Macy sighed. “He didn’t sleep at all last night. Too busy working on you and making sure your vitals stayed good afterwards.” She walked up to Lance, patting him on the shoulder a few times. Addressing him this time, she said, “You should probably try to sleep. We know Aaron’s alright now.”

Lance shook his head. “Axl wanted me to meet with him because he’s working with Merlok and Ava on some way to turn healing spells into usable Nexo Powers. I think Robin was trying to make something that they could be loaded into, too.”

“Does Axl know you didn’t sleep at all?”

He looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “…I might have left that detail out of the text I sent him.”

Macy pinched the bridge of her nose. She sighed deeply, closing her eyes “I can’t believe you. This is Clay behavior.”

“At least Clay sleeps for two hours.” Aaron pointed out. “Maybe we should be tying Lance to a bed, not me.”

Lance rolled his eyes and shrugged Macy's hand off of his shoulder. “Oh, shut up. ” He muttered. “It was one night and I had important stuff to do. Give me a break.” Checking the time on his phone, he added, “Would you look at that. It's about the time Axl wanted to meet. I suppose I should get going now.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Macy rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “You're definitely not trying to get out of this conversation or anything.”

Lance was already getting closer to the door. Before he fully exited, though, he turned to Aaron. “If you need anything, call or text somebody. Do not try to get up again. You may not have as severe of a head injury as Clay but you do, in fact, have a concussion. You need to be resting.”

That's probably why I didn't notice that the beeping was a heart monitor. Aaron thought. Then, though, a new thought crossed his mind. “Aren't you going to ask me for the full story of what happened?”

“Axl wants to wait until Clay's healed and we can talk to both of you.”

Huh. Makes sense I guess?

Macy nodded, walking up to where Lance had paused in the doorway. “That sounds like Axl. He probably doesn't want to stress Clay out too much and I agree with that.”

Aaron frowned. Another thought had crossed his mind. “Don't injuries like Clay's take months to heal? My memory isn't that long lasting.”

“If what Axl, Merlok, and the kids are working on is successful then it shouldn't be more than a day.” Lance said. “If it doesn't work then I'll probably just interview you myself.”

Macy snorted. “Or have Dennis do it.”

Lance rolled his eyes at her. “Dennis is going to be away for a week because Hamletta had a check up at the vet a few towns over. Believe it or not, I am capable of doing some things on my own.”

The both of them began to walk away and down the hall, engrossed in what was either a conversation or half-hearted argument. Whatever it was, the door closed behind them and Aaron saw the keycard reader flash red. Locked.

I guess sneaking out won't be easy.

Aaron pressed the power button on the side of his phone. Glad to see that it was still around 90% charged, he opened up Templr. With nothing better to do right now, it was time to see what was happening on the hellsite.

—

Axl turned the gauntlet he was holding over in his hands. It was only a prototype, but it looked damn good for one. There was even a set of buttons on the side to allow for a change in size. If somebody with smaller hands than his wanted to wear it, they could just press a button and it could compress. 

“The second one is done!” Robin said, walking into the room. He set the aforementioned gauntlet down on the table for Axl to look at. It looked virtually the same as the one in his hands, except the metal was in slightly different shades of color. It made sense, with how these weren't final. Robin was probably using whatever parts and pieces were readily available. When he put together the finished model, there would be more of a design and sense of cohesion.

For now, though, these did the job. Axl slid the first gauntlet on and picked up the other. “These are lookin’ really good, for prototypes.”

“I've paused all other projects for these. They also weren't that difficult to put together once I reverse engineered the way my Black Knight mech channels Nexo Power so I could recreate the effect.” Robin paused. “Well, I mean, technically I didn't really have to reverse engineer since I have the original plans. Doing it the way I did was a good way to make sure I got it perfect, though. I was able to find any flaws in the original reference and fix them.”

“Either way,” Axl said, “you've still done an incredible amount in the short time since I asked about the idea. There's a reason we trust you with our tech.”

Robin smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. “I just hope that it's enough to help Clay and Aaron.”

“I'm sure it'll be great, Robin.”

Axl and Robin both looked over at the sound of Macy's voice. Lance was a few steps in front of her, slightly unsteady in the way he walked. Taking note of the bags beneath his eyes, Axl frowned. Did he sleep at all last night?

While Robin struck up a conversation with Macy about the latest project, Axl walked up to Lance. He was at the table now, shakily lowering himself into one of the chairs. Looking more closely, Axl saw that his lips were rather pale, as was the rest of his face. “Did you sleep last night?”

Lance sighed deeply and crossed his arms, slumping over the table and resting his chin on them. “What does it look like?” Axl opened his mouth to respond but Lance interrupted him. “Don't answer that question. Macy and Aaron already gave me a hard time so I don't actually need your input.”

Even though it was good to hear that Aaron was up and talking, it concerned Axl to see that Lance was this bad off. He looked like he was halfway to falling asleep where he sat. He would have to ask for more detail on how Aaron was doing later. For now, though… “You should sleep.”

“Macy already said that. I'm fine. If I let myself crash now then I won't be able to help if something happens and I'm needed.” Lance's voice was pitching upwards. He sounded upset.

Axl was surprised. He'd known that Lance had been getting better with participating in the team, but he hadn't seen him go as far as to lose sleep like this. It was kind of unnerving. The state he and Macy had found Aaron in must have really scared him, if he was treating himself this poorly. Axl allowed a firm expression to pass over his face, crossing his arms for emphasis. “If you're too exhausted, then you won't have proper coordination and something bad might get made worse.”

Lance just glared at him. “I'm still functional, you know. I can do things.” He sat up defiantly and slammed his hands on the table. “Macy only had to catch me once on the way here!”

“What- she had to catch you?!” Axl's eyebrows raised. This was bad . “Good grief , Lance! That's not good!”

From where she was chatting with Robin, Macy yelled, “He's lucky I forgot to turn off my usual alarm last night! I wouldn't have been awake to catch him, otherwise.”

“It was only once . I could've caught myself.” Lance muttered. From where his hologram was positioned at the center of the table, Merlok put the hand that was not holding his staff on his hip and gave Lance a skeptical look. 

“You may be young, but that does not mean that sleeping is not important!” Merlok said.

Lance glared at the holographic wizard harshly and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare give me a lecture while- while Clay is always getting two hours of sleep at the maximum! ”

Axl stepped away. Maybe it would take Merlok nagging at him for Lance to finally let himself rest. That was, of course, if they could make it past the stage of the conversation where Lance was pointing out Clay's usual habits.

From where she'd been typing profusely at the main computer, Ava suddenly stood up. She'd been so quiet the whole time, focusing solely on her work, that Axl had almost forgotten she was there. Ava held up a wire and pointed at the prototype gauntlets Axl had on. “I have the code done. Get over here so I can upload it to the prototypes.”

Axl shot Lance one more look- which he did not notice, having engrossed himself in arguing with Merlok- before he walked up. Once he got close enough, he turned the gauntlets so that they were palm up and Ava could plug the wire into the proper ports. The first gauntlet experienced some lag, with the uploading progress bar on the Fortrex's screens staggering a little bit. Once the wire was plugged to the second, though, the download went more smoothly. Axl watched as the lights on both gauntlets began to glow softly, indicating a successful boot up. 

Robin did a little cheer and hop. “Alright! Now we just have to take them to the training room and test out their ability to harness Nexo Powers!”

“If that goes well, then we can start testing healing magic on plants.” Ava said. “I’m not sure where we’ll get the plants yet, though.”

Lance raised his hand from where he was slumped against the table. Cutting Merlok off, he said, “A lot of families in Auremville won’t bother to revive plants when they start to die. Most tend to prefer buying a fresh new flower, rather than having something that’ll look ugly for too long. We could probably go around there and find some salvageable plants in the local garbage.”

Macy wrinkled her nose. “That’s so wasteful .”

“Eh.” Lance shrugged. “Do you really think the wealthy, opulent, influential Auremville families with plenty of money to throw away care?

“...probably not.”

Robin raised his hand. “I can send some Squirebots down to Auremville to gather some plants! That way, by the time they get back, we’ll be done with some of the basic initial power transmitting tests. When they get back, we can continue our testing from there.”

Macy rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea. Good thinking, Robin.” She looked at Lance. “Oh, and Lance helped too.”

“Fuc- I mean, frick off, princess .” Lance stuck his tongue out at her. 

Ava looked between them before sighing. “You do know me and Robin can handle hearing swear words, right? We put our lives on the line during battles at least once a week.” She put her hands up in finger quotes. “Somebody saying an ‘ oh so scary ’ bad word isn't a big deal.”

“You're still kids- or, well, young teens, at least.” Axl said. “That means we're going to be censorin’ ourselves. Sorry.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Let's just go to the training room.”

—

It hadn't even been that long of a walk. Yet, though, Lance had somehow managed to trip over his own feet twice. Axl had wondered at first why Macy had decided to stick so close, but watching her grab Lance by the back of his underarmor and hoist him up had shown why. He'd looked like a potato sack.

In spite of the comedy that was Macy dragging the proud Lance Richmond around, it was starting to get worrying. If an attack happened now, they'd already be down two team members, one of which was their leader. If Lance were to be thrown into a fight like this, he'd be unable to protect himself. Not only would Lance get hurt, but they'd be down to just Macy, who would no doubt be at less than peak condition after giving blood, and Axl. Depending on circumstances, maybe they'd have Robin at the Fortrex's defense crossbow. There was no guarantee they’d make it through a fight like that.

Hopefully, Axl thought, Lance will let himself rest once we get these gauntlets working. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts when the training room activated a simulation, placing several artificial monsters in front of him. Quickly, Axl pulled out his shield, dodging to the side when the simulated Burnzie swung an arm at him. The beeps signifying an incoming Nexo Scan hit his ears and he prepared to receive it. The beeps quickened in frequency until all he could hear was a consistent tone. With the raise of his shield, he accepted the Nexo Power.

Merlok’s voice echoed around the room, declaring which Nexo Power he had just received;

“Gauntlet of Truth!”

Axl felt the power go into his armor, lines of magic erupting across the metal. The prototype gauntlets lit up as well, the palms glowing a brilliant gold that matched the parts on his armor. Turning to face the simulated Burnzie, Axl put his shield on his back, freeing up both hands. He clenched his hands into fists, running forward and punching the hologram directly in the chest.

It staggered backwards, flickering from the force of the blow. From the sidelines, Robin yelled, “Try opening the palm, charging up some power, and then punching again!”

Axl nodded and leapt backwards with a grunt. Opening his right fist up, he focused on centering a buildup of power. The glow became brighter, particles of magic-infused light flowing into the air like dust in a sunbeam. The holographic Burnzie charged and Axl closed the gauntlet back into a fist. Looking up and rearing back, Axl hit it directly in the center of the torso.

The holograph exploded in shards of golden light. The force behind the hit was so great, in fact, that the simulation flickered out and the walls of the training room flashed with red errors.

“Yikes! That was an extreme power overload!” Merlok yelped, his hologram flickering where it was projected on the side of the training room. Being the equivalent of the operating system for the Fortrex, he probably felt that. Oops.

Macy whistled, impressed. “Damn! Imagine using those in a real fight!”

Lance laughed from where he was sitting on the ground next to Macy. “He absolutely obliterated that hologram! Of course, I could have done better-”

“Okay.” Ava said, cutting Lance off. “If those gauntlets do become a permanent thing, they’re not allowed in training sessions that involve downloading Nexo Powers. I don’t want to have to reset the training room a million times.” She walked over to one of the hexagonal panels on the wall, enabling a screen that displayed a console. “Speaking of resetting…”

Axl flexed his hands. Sure, these were capable of putting out extreme destructive force, but could they harness a healing spell? “What’s the estimate on when those Squirebots get back?” He’d rather test out healing sooner rather than later. The quicker they figured this out, the quicker they could speed up Clay and Aaron’s recoveries.

Over where he was sitting, Lance looked like he was drifting off. He quickly jumped and shook himself awake, though. That was another thing that needed to happen- Lance getting some rest. Maybe, if there was the reassurance of a way to quickly heal Clay and Aaron, Lance would finally calm down and let himself sleep.

Robin checked his phone before turning the screen towards Axl. “I got an update from the Squirebots five minutes ago. They got some plants and were headed out from Auremville. They said they’d be here in about forty minutes or so.”

Macy hummed. “If you subtract the five minutes it's been, there's thirty-five. That’s not too long of a wait.”

“In the meantime, you should work on trying to control the energy output.” Robin said. “That way, you’re able to have fine control over the amount of magic coming from the gauntlets. I’d suggest using small amounts of the power at once, in increments. If you can master that, there’ll be less risk involved with trying to do some healing.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Axl said. “I’ll be more careful this time and I’ll try not to overload the training room again.”

Ava huffed and continued to type away at the debug console. “You better.” Suddenly, the red errors were gone and the rest of the panels blinked for a moment. Then, they regained their consistent blue outline. “There we go.” She moved to enable another simulation, but hesitated. “Actually, I’m going to put a ban on simulations for the rest of the day, just so that the training room gets a break. You can use some of the wooden targets or something.”

“I’ve got it.” Macy said.

Axl stepped forward. “I’ll help. You’re probably still not at a hundred percent from having to give your blood-“

Macy whipped her head around, cutting Axl off with a sharp glare. “I’ve got it, Axl. I’ll be fine.”

It didn’t take long for Macy to haul the aforementioned targets into the room. She lined them up side-by-side, putting five total in front of Axl. As was expected, she was showing signs of exhaustion by the time she was done. Rather than continuing to stand, she chose to sit down next to where Lance was struggling not to pass out. In spite of his own exhaustion, Lance smirked. “You’ll be fine, huh? Seems to me like you should’ve listened to what one of the team's medical guys had to say.”

Macy sighed. “Shut up.”

“Since we’ve got the targets in place, why don’t you try using varying amounts of power, Axl?” Robin asked. “You can also try sending out blasts instead of punching.”

“Like the Steel Knight in the Steel Knight movies!” Lance said. “You know, I was in one of those. Not as the main character, unfortunately, but they still couldn’t have done it without me.”

Ignoring Lance’s remarks, Axl walked up to the targets. Looking over at Robin, he asked, “Should I go left to right? Highest power to lowest power?”

Robin nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably how you should do it. Working your way down after already starting at a high output would be for the best.” After thinking for a moment, he added, “Once you’re ready to release the energy, twitch your thumb inwards.”

Axl nodded and stepped back, raising his right hand. He opened his palm, facing it towards the first target. Focusing, he gathered up power the same way he had when he’d punched the holographic Burnzie. The gauntlet glowed brighter once more, the vibrant gold accentuated by the small particles of magic flowing off. Taking a quick look to make sure that his friends weren't in range for the inevitable wood explosion, Axl paused. Once he reassured himself that it would be fine, Axl went ahead and twitched his thumb.

A bright ball of energy hit the bullseye. Similarly to the hologram, the target exploded. This time, though, it was mostly wood that was illuminated by the burst of magic. Once the light faded and the particles settled, all that was left of the target was some wood from the base and the wheels. Axl focused on the second target and lifted his hand again, preparing to charge a slightly smaller blast-

There was a distant impact. The Fortrex shook, sending everyone who was standing stumbling to stay upright. The alarms blared red, the loud sound echoing throughout the training room. On the wall, several of the panels changed to show the camera feed outside.

Monsters. Word must have gotten out that the team was down two members. There was no doubt that the Book of Monsters had convinced Jestro that the time to strike was now.

They were going to have to fight with only Axl at full health. Lance was running on no sleep and Macy was exhausted from giving blood. Two of their teammates were currently lying in beds in the medical wing, unable to fight. Considering the fact that the Fortrex had already sustained damage, Robin was probably going to be working on damage control with Ava, which left him unable to give support from the defense crossbow.

Axl's heart leapt into his throat. This wasn't going to be easy.

Chapter Text

The dashboard of Aaron's Templr account was the usual. It was almost like he hadn’t come within an inch of losing his life the night before.

There were Static River fans arguing over which of the original Cedar triplets was irredeemable. He never involved himself in such arguments, but if he did, he’d probably be cooked alive for saying that none of them were evil, actually. So what if Marjorie and Margeret got into a twenty year long feud? Seriously- and he was getting a bit too caught up in thinking about this debate. There were bigger problems than people on the internet.

Some fans of that old cartoon ‘Knightron’, with the giant combining robot wolves, were talking about the new reboot being worked on. Aaron had actually thought about watching the original 90s cartoon a few times but had never gotten around to it. Maybe he should check out the reboot after its release. It looked promising.

Knightcraft: Storyteller’s Tales fans were getting hyped for the new episodes, which were scheduled to come out in a few months. Some folks were theorizing on what recent updates to the base Knightcraft game would be included. 

Fanblogs for various knights of the realm were posting and reblogging images of their favorite celebrity knights. Usually, these were old paintings of Ned Knightly or selfies taken off of Lance’s various social medias. Every now and then, somebody would post about Macy, Clay, or himself, but most of the time it was the more… fame-oriented knights. Aaron himself, though he would never admit it to anyone he knew, ran a fanblog of his own. It wasn’t for himself, of course- that would just be silly. It was for Clay. 

All in all, nothing was really all that different than the last time he'd logged in. While he was busy bleeding out, the world had kept spinning, and the fandoms had kept… fandom-ing. The internet really was an escape from the real world.

In spite of this sense of normalcy, there were a surprising amount of scrolls in his most fanblog's mailbox. Normally, he didn't get more than ten a time, but this time there were over fifty. What the hell could have possibly happened in the world of knight fanblogs to warrant that? Aaron hit the ‘new post’ button, curious about what had happened but also kind of intimidated by the number of scrolls he'd be met with if he opened his mailbox.

claymooringtonappreciator

what the hell happened to warrant 50+ scrolls in my mailbox??? i've barely been gone for more than like 12 hours

Setting the blog he wanted to post on to the correct one, Aaron hit the ‘publish’ button. Immediately, a string of replies and reblogs hit the post. 

nedknightlysnose - follow - block

DUDE READ THE SCROLLS

weaponsmastrr - follow - block

i promise you HAVE to look at those articles

rawring4evr - follow - block

HOW do u NOT kno??? ur THE clay moorington blogger!!!!!! u know everything abt him!!!!

(That made it sound weird. It wasn't. Sure, he was really prolific compared to other bloggers in the community, but that was just because he knew when a news report was being made before it was published! Aaron didn't know everything about Clay. He was just trying to give his friend the recognition he deserved!)

Aaron had missed something big , hadn't he? Was there a rumor about Clay going around? Screenshotting all of the frantic responses, he made a reblog. 

claymooringtonappreciator

Okay??? i got attacked by a feral dog last night so i'm not exactly up to date on stuff. i like just woke up within the past hour man, geez

Aaron frowned, going back into his mailbox. Clicking on one of the articles, he read the headline and froze.

KNIGHTS SIR CLAY MOORINGTON AND SIR AARON FOX SEVERELY INJURED BY WILD BEAR

That… was not a rumor. Aaron swore under his breath. There's articles already?! How did that information even get out? Taking a deep breath in his nose, he clicked off the news site and made a new post.

claymooringtonappreciator

Holy shit

What was he supposed to say? What else could he say? It wasn't like he could just admit to the entire website of Templr that he was actually the knight Sir Aaron Fox and that he already knew what had happened. Then he'd have to admit that he had an entire blog dedicated to his team's leader. That would be embarrassing. Then he'd actually die.

More scrolls and reblogs rolled in. Apparently, whatever the full article said about what had happened to him and Clay had people freaking out. It was overwhelming how many people were putting in their own two cents. There were a lot of people asking if there was a chance they'd died . He wasn't sure why they expected some random blogger who liked Clay Moorington a lot to know that.

(He didn't mean it in that way- that would just be weird. Besides, even if he did like Clay like that, he wouldn't return the feelings. It was a good thing he didn't, because man would that fact make his chest ache a lot . He could almost feel it now.)

Aaron was pulled out of his thoughts by one of the reblogs that caught his eye. The wording threw him off, but the person did have a point.

badboyclown - follow - block

There's no way Jestro hasn't heard about this by now. He's probably on his way to beat their asses already.

They… had a point. Shit. So much for the internet being an escape from the real world. He should text somebody on the team and warn them about the articles. Aaron opened up his correspondence app and hovered his thumb over the group text. Before he could even start typing anything, though, the entire Fortrex shook with an impact. Outside of his room, he could hear the alarms blaring.

Too late. He thought. Great. While this is happening, I'm stuck here as a sitting duck. He could hardly walk- there was no way he'd get away with trying to help. Poor Clay's going to feel bad that he had to sit on the sidelines and not help the team.

Then, though, Aaron's heart sank. Clay was not the kind of person to sit on the sidelines in a fight for justice. In fact, he'd broken his arm their second year at the Knight's Academy. In fact, Aaron's post stating that fun fact was one of the most popular ones on his whole blog. There was absolutely no way that, concussion or not, Clay would stay down if the Fortrex was being attacked. He was going to do something completely reckless, stupid, and charmingly brave.

Swearing under his breath, Aaron threw the blanket off of himself. He debated taking his phone with him but decided against it- if he needed to catch himself, he'd need both hands. Hopefully, his second attempt at walking wouldn't end like the first. It was better to be safe about it than sorry, though. It was worth the risk. Even if there was a chance he was wrong, Aaron knew he wouldn't forgive himself if something happened and he could’ve stopped it.

Once his feet touched the ground, he was reminded of just how weak his legs felt. That was probably because of how much blood he'd lost, now that he thought about it. He supposed a blood transfusion probably hadn't been enough to fully fix the consequences of the blood loss. Aaron didn't let it slow him down, though. He took several unsteady steps forward, struggling not to trip over his own feet. With each step, it became easier. 

Slowly, he began to feel more confident, walking right up to the locked door. Squinting, he took a look at the keycard reader. He may not have the same skill as Robin or Ava when it came to tech, but he knew enough. His shield wasn’t presented to him with the ability to act like a hoverboard built-in, after all. He’d had to quickly rig that up himself. Opening a locked door was going to be nothing compared to that.

Aaron located the debug button on the side of the keycard reader and pressed it. From the side, a holographic screen popped out, displaying a rather simplistic menu. He tapped on the ‘restart’ option. Now, he'd have to act fast.

The way the emergency opening mechanism worked had to do with a multitude of factors. One of which was in the case of a total disconnect from its primary power source- that being the Fortrex. In that case, it would switch to the emergency battery and use that power to hold the door open. That was under normal circumstances, however. Both fortunately and un fortunately, the doors had failsafes for when people were trying to break out once locked inside. Since the most common method to do so was to fake a power failure, that was what the failsafe was programmed for.

As such, Aaron was going to have to force it to open the console so that he could enter commands into the code directly. Doing something as drastic as, say, cutting out the main power source by fucking up the wires would be exactly the thing he needed to trigger that kind of event. Whilst that was precisely one of the ways somebody could fake a power failure, that didn't mean the failsafe could keep any consequences from happening. A sudden cutoff of power was going to cause an error, failsafe or not. Once he was in, he’d set the ‘doorlock’ value to ‘false’ and he’d be home free. Unless Lance had the foresight to put the door into quarantine mode. Then he’d have more problems.

While the restart cycle continued to run, Aaron attempted to pry open one of the panels that lead into the inner wires. As weak as he'd been made by his injuries, though, he couldn't do it. The Fortrex shook again and nearly fell over, wasting some of the precious time he had with trying to catch himself. The restart cycle ended and the debug menu returned to normal. Swearing under his breath, Aaron looked around the room for anything he could use. His eyes caught on the biohazard waste bin and a very, very stupid idea presented itself.

Aaron didn't know much about medical things, but he did know that needles were involved with putting an IV into somebody. He’d also just learned, by witnessing his own IV tear itself out, that the needles were removed once the tube thing was put in. It was not too far-fetched to assume that the biohazard waste bin, which was for things like needles, would have the needle from his IV in it. A needle that might be able to get into the seam of the panels that led into the internal wiring.

It was very stupid, but it also was his only option if he wanted to get into the wiring. Walking over to the biohazard bin, Aaron pressed down on the pedal that opened the lid. Grabbing the plastic bag, he lifted it with very little effort- they didn't often have medical situations that required needles, so the biohazard waste was actually rather empty. He took it over to the counter that had the sink Lance had used to wash his hands and set it down. The Fortrex shook once more and he caught himself by placing his now free hands on the edge of the counter. 

For a moment, he hesitated. The shaking seemed to have stopped, and he attributed that to the fact that Lance, Macy, and Axl had probably made it outside. With them fighting the monsters, all attention would be off of the Fortrex and onto them. That was going to make this a lot easier. Aaron carefully opened the bag and located what he'd been looking for- the needle that was in his arm a few hours ago. Finding it was made far easier by the fact that it seemed like the biohazard bag was a rather fresh one- there wasn’t anything else inside aside from some bloody wipes. The thought that this needle was inside of his arm probably would have been unnerving to anybody else. He wasn't all that bothered, though.

Picking up the needle, Aaron carefully made his way back over to the door. He tapped the buttons to begin the restart cycle again and located the seam he'd been trying to pop open earlier. Jamming the sharp end of the needle inside, he forced the two sides to come apart a little bit- just enough for him to jam his fingernails between and tear the innards of the keycard reader open. 

Aaron cheered victoriously and, instead of dropping it on the floor where it would be a hazard, jabbed the needle into the wall. With both hands free, he swiftly located the wires that connected the door's system to the power of the Fortrex. He gripped them in his right hand and braced his left on the solidly closed door. Tugging once, tugging twice- the wires came out and the points where they should have been connected sparked. The debug screen flickered wildly and an error message came up. He held his breath, but let it out with relief when the console loaded up.

Several messages appeared in the code-

power_error02: ABRUPT DISCONNECT OF frtrx_pwr_wi WIRES

TO RESOLVE power_error02: SWITCHING TO bckp_pwr_wi WIRES

DISABLING frtrx_pwr_co CONNECTOR

BREAKOUT ATTEMPT DETECTED

INITIATING capture_failsafe

DOOR WILL UNLOCK IN 5 HOURS

The holographic keyboard flickered to life. Aaron dropped the wires, allowing them to fall to the floor. He didn’t have time to wait for the five hours to run down. With his hands free once again, he began typing.

/status

doorlocked=true

quarantinemode=true

emergencymode=false

intrudermode=false

Aaron huffed through his nose. Dammit. Lance knows me too well. 

/quarantinemode=false

Please enter the passcode on the back of your medical access keycard to disable Quarantine Mode.

_ _ _ _ _

/cancel

No longer attempting to disable Quarantine Mode.

/doorlocked=false

Door cannot be unlocked due to Quarantine Mode. Please turn off Quarantine Mode.

Dammit. Aaron was going to have to set ‘emergencymode’ to true, wasn’t he? If he did that , there was a chance the systems on the door could use wireless connection to send that command to the entire Fortrex before burning out completely. Then, he’d be caught trying to break out and Merlok would probably override several things to keep him from doing something stupid. 

He weighed his options- stay in here and risk the fact that Clay was going to get himself hurt, or risk activating Emergency Mode for the entire Fortrex. Sighing deeply, Aaron typed in the command.

/emergencymode=true

INITIATING EMERGENCY MODE. 

QUARANTINE MODE DISABLED

DOOR UNLOCKED

doorlocked=false

quarantinemode=false

emergencymode=true

intrudermode=false

Turn on Intruder Mode? If an intruder is the cause for emergency, then Intruder Mode can alert Merlok2.0 of the situation and send a signal to all Fortrex systems.

yes/no

If a response to this query takes longer than 30 seconds, Intruder Mode will be enabled automatically.

/no

You did not enable Intruder Mode. If this was a mistake, please type in the command /intrudermode=true.

Aaron sagged with relief as the door opened. Quickly, he stepped out into the hall, squinting at the flashing red lights. He was reminded that, even though he was not as bad off as Clay, he did still have a concussion. These flashing lights were definitely going to give him a headache.

It was only once he was out in the hall that he realized that he didn't actually know where Clay was. He knew that he was somewhere in the medical wing but that was it. Aaron wracked his brain for some idea of how to find where he could be. Looking in both directions of the hallway, he spotted a sign that pointed out which direction the main area of the Fortrex was and which direction went deeper into the medical wing.

There was no way Clay would have made it that far out into the Fortrex during the time after the attack started. Aaron would probably have better luck finding him if he started in the medical wing first. Even if he didn't find Clay, he'd probably at least find some evidence of where he could have gone. Decision made, he turned and began walking deeper in.

It didn't take long before he found his first clue- when he made it to the fork at the end of the hall, the side labelled with ‘private medical rooms’ seemed to not have any light at all. If Lance and Axl had dimmed the lights in Aaron's room for his mild concussion, then turning off the lights completely to accommodate Clay sounded like the next logical step. 

He’d hardly made it a few steps into the dark, though, when the Fortrex shook again. Being mid-step, Aaron yelped as he was sent falling forward-

-only to be caught around the ribs by a very familiar arm; one that was strong enough to catch his full body weight. His heart fluttered a little bit and he looked up to see Clay heavily leaning against one of the walls. It was still dark, but the occasional flash of the red lights from the rest of the Fortrex helped Aaron parse some details. There were bandages wrapped around his head–likely due to the injury Lance had mentioned–and he was looking at Aaron like he was studying him and his wounds. He noted that Clay's eyes were lingering on the side that Aaron couldn't see out of, meaning he was likely looking at the bandages covering his face. Looking down, he saw that one of Clay's feet was bandaged, along with one of the fingers on his left hand. Realizing just how much effort he was likely putting into holding him up, Aaron shook himself out of his daze and used the wall to get himself standing again. 

Once he was fully up, Aaron blurted out, “Hey. What are you doing up?” Stupid question. Obviously he's up because of the attack.

“I was looking for you.” Clay said, and holy wow he sounded rough . There was a husky feel to it that, for unexplainable reasons, made Aaron's ears burn and his heart speed up. It was like there was a constant growl at the edge of his voice.

Swallowing thickly, Aaron willed his heart to calm down. “You were?”

Clay nodded. “Yeah. I- Ever since I woke up, my mind has felt so scrambled that I can hardly think about anything. I knew I was forgetting something about what happened, and- and then I realized that, since you were out there too, then you were in harm's way.” He hissed uncomfortably and shifted so that not as much weight was on his bandaged foot. “I was originally planning on asking Axl about you when he came into the room again. Then this attack happened and I decided to go looking for you myself.” A sheepish expression fell over his face. “I was also hoping to help with the attack in some way.”

“Clay, you're injured .” Aaron said. “Personally, I don't think you should even be up at all.”

Clay frowned. “I can’t just stand by and do nothing , Aaron.”

Aaron raised his eyebrow. Pointing at Clay’s bandaged foot, he said, “How much are you going to be able to accomplish on that thing?”

“Well- um-” Clay stammered. “I could- I'll… Maybe-” His attempts at answering in any way that would make his plan seem reasonable fell flat. He sighed. “I don't know.”

He sounded so lost . Aaron felt his heart squeeze. In a gentler tone than before, he said, “Look, maybe you should go back to the room you were in and rest. You've got a pretty severe concussion right now.”

Clay sighed with resignation. “Maybe you’re right.” He tilted his head slightly, looking once again at the bandages Aaron had on his face. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be resting, too?”

“Yeah, probably.” Aaron said. “Getting the strength to break out and walk here at all was really tough.” He shrugged, a mischievous smirk tugging at his lips. “I'm already up and out, though, so if I can find a way to help I will.”

Raising his eyebrow, Clay said, “That's not fair at all. You're injured, too.”

Aaron crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Okay, well, neither of my feet are injured. I can walk a lot easier than you can.”

Clay smirked. “That's not what it looked like when I saved you from hitting the floor.”

“ Hey. ” Aaron said. “You're, like, severely concussed. I'm only mildly concussed, dude. Clearly, one of us is a lot more suited for sneaking off to help.”

Ignoring his protest, Clay began to limp in the direction Aaron had come from. In spite of his limp, Clay was actually moving quite quickly. It was, of course, the opposite direction of where he’d need to go to rest, but still impressive nonetheless. “So I guess those bandages of yours must be for show, then?” He asked.

Aaron muttered grumpily and followed behind him. “...no. You know, you're weirdly lucid for a guy who, according to what I heard, was suffering from some big confusion when he first woke up.”

Clay shrugged. “Getting some rest helped. I'm still struggling a lot but it feels less like my brain is a scrambled egg.” He paused from where he was limping to gesture at Aaron's bandages. “What are the bandages for?” Upon completing the gesture, he continued forward.

“I've got a pretty badly scratched up face from being dragged along the ground.” Aaron said. “Lance didn't say if there was anything wrong with my eye at all, even though the bandages are covering it. I don't know if he didn’t know or if he was just too exhausted to think about it.”

“Your side?” Clay’s eyes had deep concern in them.

I guess being concussed doesn't change how overly worried he gets. I’m surprised he didn't say anything about Lance's exhaustion, though. Aaron wasn't completely convinced that Clay was as hunky dory as he claimed to be, but he figured he'd humor him a little. Keeping an eye on him would be a lot easier if they stuck together. “I got torn open by some wicked sharp claws. I almost bled out.” He paused. “But- but I’m fine now!” Aaron hastily added upon seeing Clay's eyes widen with increasing worry. 

They were reaching the part of the hall where the flashing lights were the worst, now. Clay was squinting, a pained expression on his face. The scrunch to his face told Aaron he was likely getting a headache from the rapidly pulsing lights. Nonetheless, Clay still said, “...and you were getting on me about being up. If I hadn’t caught you-“

“-the gash would’ve opened back up. Yes, I know. Making sure you were okay was worth the risk.” They'd picked up speed as they were talking, presumably because Clay was getting the hang of limping around more. They were approaching the exit to the medical wing. 

As they passed through the doorway, another blow shook the Fortrex. They both grit their teeth, Clay flinching and hissing, as they struggled not to fall over. Afterwards, there was an eerie quiet that put Aaron on edge. The pair hesitantly moved forward once more, into the main body of the Fortrex.

Some of the systems in the hall must have sensed their presence, because one of the projectors on the wall lit up. As they were passing, they caught a glimpse of the battle outside- Macy was on her Thunder Mace, Lance was on Concordo, and Axl was on the ground. He was fighting hordes of monsters with what looked to be a pair of prototype gauntlets.

Aaron squinted. Something about Lance’s driving didn’t look completely right- he was swerving wildly, barely avoiding a crash each time he turned. He was reminded of just how exhausted Lance had been when he’d last seen him. Why was he driving? Hell, why was he in the fight at all? Surely it would’ve been better for him to sit this fight out. Why wasn’t Robin at the external defenses?

Aaron looked over at Clay, intending to voice these thoughts, but paused at the troubled expression on his face. “What is it?”

Clay met his eye with a frown. “Why haven’t they used a Nexo Power yet? The fight would be over by now.”

That… was a good point. “Huh.” Aaron said. “I’m not sure.” He backtracked to the screen, frowning. Looking closely, he realized that, while Lance and Macy weren’t lit up the same, Axl was powered up. It had just been hard to tell because of the base color of his armor. Pointing, Aaron said, “Axl’s powered up, but Lance and Macy aren't.”

“Why?” Clay asked. “Was he training or something before the attack happened?”

Aaron thought for a moment. Then, he remembered what Lance and Macy had headed off to do. “Oh! Lance said something about Axl working with Merlok and the kids on some prototype to harness Nexo Power or something. They wanted to figure out how to use them more like spells.” He ran to catch up to Clay as he was talking and the holographic screen went dark.

“That means that they'd need to use Nexo Powers to test the prototype.” Clay said.

“Which means that the attack probably happened right after Merlok sent out the power.” Aaron grimaced. “You know as well as I do how much the cooldown period can suck.”

They entered the lounge, eerily empty and illuminated only by flashing emergency lights. Aaron nodded towards one of the seats. “You should probably sit down. There isn't as much to lean on in here.”

As Clay allowed himself to sit, Aaron walked up to one of the large television screens attached to the wall. Getting camera feed of the battle again would be good- he and Clay could see what was happening and figure out ways they could help. If the defense crossbow still wasn't in use, Aaron was going to figure something out using that.

Then, suddenly, the sound of a loud impact sounded from outside. Being inside of the Fortrex had muffled it, but the both of them still recognized the sound of screeching metal and breaking glass. Clay's eyes were wide, a worried expression on his face. “Did somebody crash?”

Aaron hastily navigated through the menus to pull up the camera feed outside the Fortrex. His mind was racing with scenarios of what could've happened, but what stood out the most were the ones where-

The feed loaded. Lying against several broken trees was Concordo. Aaron didn't see any sign of Lance, but the bent and mangled metal across the whole body of the mecha steed wasn't making it easy to find him. Several of its legs were twitching, bent awkwardly by the impact. The back wheel had detached entirely and was laying a few feet away from the wreckage. The entire thing was swarming with scurriers and globlins. Macy was attempting to fight them off the best she could, but the continuous influx and lack of Nexo power meant that there was only so much she could do.

-Lance had crashed. Aaron stared in horror, his heart sinking into his stomach. The team needed help if they were going to survive this fight. Now.

“What do we do?” Clay asked. He sounded so uncertain. He'd been moving a lot since he'd woken up. The head injury was probably really taking its toll on his ability to think, now, and Aaron really wished he'd been able to fully convince him to just lay down and rest. Now he was dealing with the stress of a situation he could not possibly help with the way he was now. “Aaron?”

Aaron swallowed thickly. “Give me a sec.” Think Aaron, think. He was too much of a ‘go with the flow guy’ for this. The defense crossbow had been his first thought, but how much help would it be now? It wasn't like it was affected by a Nexo Power download. The team's weapons and armor were only effected because they were actively connected to their shields.

Wait. Connected to our shields…

“In the case of injury or extended stay in the medical wing,” he asked, “where does the protocol say to put our shields?”

Clay perked up. This was definitely something that took little thought- after all, Aaron was pretty sure he could recite protocols in his sleep. “I wrote down that our shields should be put in our bedrooms. That way, a knight trying to quickly grab a shield before heading out won't grab the wrong one in the absence of a teammate.”

Aaron snapped his fingers. “If I can get in my bedroom, I can grab my shield, head up to the defense crossbow, and connect them so that they both get the Nexo Power download.” He set off into the direction of the bedrooms, determination in his steps. “You stay here.”

Instead of listening to him, Clay got up and followed. Great. He probably should have expected that. That man was really stubborn, wasn't he? Aaron couldn't stay mad, though- it was really endearing. Part of what made Clay such a good knight was his willingness to help the people around him. It was something Aaron admired about him.

“I'm not going to be able to dissuade you, am I?” Aaron asked, though he already knew the answer.

Clay smirked. “Absolutely not.”

As they walked along, Aaron snuck glances at Clay to make sure he was still alright. Doubt still hung in his mind on Clay's claims that he was feeling as okay as he said- especially considering how much energy he'd undoubtedly been using- but Aaron did have to admit that he was a lot more cognizant than he'd expected. It didn't take long for them to make it to the rooms. They weren't that far from the lounge, after all, which meant that the walk was rather short. Problems only arose once they were in front of his door and Aaron realized that he did not have his keycard to get inside. 

If he'd taken his phone with him, he'd have been able to gain access that way. However, it was currently lying on the bed in the medical room he'd broken his way out of. Very far away. Getting to it would take too long and he didn't have any needles to use for prying the panels on the keycard reader open. Aaron pressed his hands to his face and resisted the urge to scream. Fuck.

Suddenly, though, Clay limped over to the keycard reader and squinted. He pressed his hand to the wall next to it and began to drag his palm across the cool metal. Once his hand was about a foot of distance away, he lifted his palm and pressed his fingers into the wall. With a serious expression, he tapped on the wall firmly until he found what he was looking for. Aaron was about to ask what he was doing when Clay suddenly reared his hand back in a fist and struck the wall.

After a few hits, the edges of a metal wall panel, previously hidden by how perfectly flat it was, were visible. Dents that Clay had made in the center of the panel had caused some weaker points to peel upwards. With these edges now accessible, he gripped them and pulled, a loud metal screech filling the air. Aaron winced at the sound but Clay was undeterred by it, continuing to peel until there was a gaping hole in the wall where wires were visible. By the time he was reaching in and grabbing the wires, Aaron realized what, exactly, he was doing. With the external wires connecting the door to the Fortrex's power torn out-

The keycard reader flashed with a power error. Within seconds, the door to Aaron's room was open.

-then the door would actually use its emergency opening mechanism. Aaron had been forced to do what he did to escape that room because the mechanism had accounted for people good at messing with tech. There was no contingency for a guy who could tear open a wall and attack the wires there.

Then, a thought hit him. “Wait, is that how you got out?” In the rush to make sure Clay didn’t hurt himself, Aaron hadn't even thought about how he’d escaped in the first place. With no offense meant, Clay wasn't exactly good at working with technology. He knew enough to get by in the modern world, but that was it.

“Yeah.” Clay said. “How else would I have escaped?”

Embarrassed, Aaron looked away and walked into his room. Reaching over to flick the lights on, he muttered, “I dunno.” It took a moment after the influx of light for him to open his eyes without being blinded. Once he could, though, Aaron found exactly what he was looking for. Lying on his bed was his shield, surprisingly intact. Aaron figured that he must have dropped his shield when he'd first been tackled to the ground by the wolf. As a result, it hadn't been involved in the fight whatsoever and was definitely still usable.

Suddenly, Aaron heard the beeping that indicated an incoming Nexo Power download. The cooldown must have worn off. Quickly, he went up and grabbed his shield, hoisting it upwards. He yelped when his limbs felt weaker than they should have and the shield fell back onto his mattress with a thump. Aaron grit his teeth frustratedly. If he could just lift the damn thing-

Clay limped in behind him and nodded towards the shield. “I'll help you lift it. We don't have much time until the download goes through.”

With Clay grabbing one end with his unbandaged hand, Aaron gripped the other with both of his. They dragged it out into the hallway and lifted it skyward as the beeping hit its peak and the Nexo Power download was sent through.