Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part Two

 Notes: Pulling it all together now! Never fear, soon everything will be...well, not wrapped up in a bow or anything because this is an eternally expanding universe, but ready for new adventures at least!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-One, Part Two

 

Catie, for once, didn’t ask a heap of questions when they got back. She simply confirmed that Kieron was going to be okay, then got to work handling the absolute fucking mess that was ensuring their tracks were covered—destroying satellite footage, rerouting frantic requests for information, and stopping less impressive AIs in their tracks.

“I’ve goooot it, Daddeeeee,” she said when Elanus asked whether or not she needed help. “Lizziiiiiie needs to rest and you need to take care of Kieroooooon.”

Rest? Lizzie needed rest? In what sense? Elanus wanted to ask, but the hatch was already opening and Lizzie had activated the floaters on Kieron’s stretcher so that Elanus could get him down to the infirmary quick.

He’d follow up later. He took hold of the stretcher’s handle and began to push it out into the bay.

“Elanus?” Lizzie asked quietly as he exited. “What would you like me to do with Restaria?”

“Is xe awake?” he asked, not stopping to look back at the hold where he knew his ex was being held.

“Yes. Xe’s been awake for nineteen minutes now.”

“Good. I’ll come back for xir after I make sure Kieron’s all right. For now, tell Restaria to sit tight, and if xe gives you any trouble? Throw some knockout gas down into the hold and put xir back to sleep.”

“Yes, Elanus.”

The trip to the infirmary was uninterrupted, which was nice. Elanus could feel his implant pulsing with the onslaught of information he was holding back. A quick glanced showed a huge amount of speculation in the news about the explosion on the Stellar Cabinet, messages from Caria Jayde and Fritz and a slew of other somewhat important people demanding to know whether or not he had anything to do with it, and finally a message from President Moreno himself.

Hmm. Something connected to Elanus must have slipped through the net somehow. He pushed it to the back of his mind as he got to the infirmary, where he was more grateful than ever that he’d installed an extra Regen tank after Kieron came to live with him. Not that he wouldn’t have kicked Ryu out of his if he’d needed to, but he’d have felt bad about it. A little bit. Eventually.

Elanus set the tank to fill, then opened the lid and picked Kieron up in his arms. He was a reassuringly solid weight, even as short as he was, and Elanus took a moment to press a kiss to his battered forehead. He was covered in blood and lymph and free-flowing Regen, but he didn’t stir, and his heartbeat sounded in a reassuringly steady rhythm through the autodoc.

“You knew I’d come for you,” he said as he laid Kieron down. “And I did. Now you have to do your part, baby. Get better. Come back.” His throat was uncomfortably tight, but he forced himself to speak. “I need you back. We all do.” He closed the lid and watched the Regan flow over Kieron’s precious body, and then…

He just sat there. He couldn’t bring himself to move. He ought to, he knew that. He had so many things to do. He had Restaria to deal with, he had Lizzie to reassure, he had a million messages to deal with and false trails to check on and a future to decide and, just, so much that needed to happen, so much, and yet the thought of taking his eyes off Kieron now that he had him in front of him seemed impossible. Just impossible.

You’ve ruined me. Kieron had absolutely ruined Elanus for the life he used to live. Or maybe that had been Catie, the first lifeform he’d truly fallen in love with, enough to wedge a crack into his heart and leave room for Kieron to crawl inside with her. Stars, what a ridiculous pair they were. They had next to nothing in common, different upbringings, different priorities in life…except where they were exactly the same. They loved the girls, they loved their independence, but they also loved being dependent on each other.

Kieron didn’t need Elanus for anything, not really. Even when Elanus had held complete professional power over him, Kieron had never bowed or scraped. He hadn’t been intimidated, and he’d made his case to get both their goals taken care of.

Elanus didn’t need Kieron once he’d gotten Catie back, either, but that was part of the allure. Kieron didn’t care how wealthy he was, how brilliant, how in demand. All he cared about was Elanus, in all his snarky, occasionally stupid glory, and their little family.

Ruined me for solitude. I need you so much now. It wasn’t the first time he’d had this thought recently, but the last time his conclusion had been that they needed to get married. Now it was that Kieron needed to recover, wake up, and hopefully remember who he even was. Regen was so good but his poor head, his beautiful, precious mind had been damaged. He ought to heal fine, but what if he didn’t? What if something went wrong?

A warm hand touched his shoulder, and Elanus didn’t even realize his eyes were blurry with tears until he spun around on the chair he was sitting in, pressed his face to Xilinn’s shoulder, and felt it get wet beneath him.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to—if anyone in this house understood what Elanus was feeling right now, it was the woman who had lose her beloved husband to space. She wrapped her arms around him and let him cry and didn’t speak at all until he was empty of tears and, happily, empty of some of the sense of vicious hopelessness he’d been stricken with as well.

“Do you want some water?” she asked once Elanus finally lifted his head up again.

“I can get it,” he croaked, but she shook her head and got some for him instead. It was cool and refreshing, just what he needed to feel human again. “Thank you,” he said after he downed the cupful.

“Of course.” She looked down at Kieron and touched the surface of the tank. “Is he going to be all right?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” She took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll keep Pol out of here until Kieron’s recovered. I don’t want him to see him like this.”

Elanus nodded. That was a good idea, and Kieron wouldn’t be here long. He wouldn’t. Maybe a day, maybe less than a full day.

“What happened to him?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Elanus said, getting to his feet. Upright, he towered over Xilinn, who was a petite five-foot-two to his seven-foot-six-inch height, but she never seemed put off by it, just looked up at him calmly.

“But I’m going to find out right now.”

It was time to get some answers out of Restaria.

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 Notes: Sweet resolution...kind of. The start of it. Breathe, my darlins, it's all right.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 

It could be worse. That was what Elanus kept telling himself as he laid Kieron down on the floor and immediately hooked him up to Lizzie’s autodoc. It started flashing all sorts of warning lights and spouting prescriptions and actions, all of which Elanus immediately approved.

It could be worse, he thought as he watched Regen flow down tubes into Kieron’s body, where the doc had quickly placed needles to ready him for emergency treatment. It could be worse, he thought as pure oxygen laced with a sedative to keep him asleep began pumping through the mask over Kieron’s face. Intubation would be even better, but the doc wasn’t advanced enough for that and Elanus didn’t want to try it when the risk of hurting Kieron was so high. They were close to real medical facilities—as long as Kieron could still breathe, he’d be all right for now.

It could be worse. Elanus knew that because he’d seen Kieron worse, seen him after radiation had all but liquified him, seen him with sloughing skin and a swollen brain and with massive organ failure that could barely be counteracted in time. This? By comparison, this was imminently survivable. Already some of his vitals were stabilizing, although the autodoc was still giving dire warnings. “Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate—”

“Shut that off, Lizzie,” Elanus snapped, and she did so.

“Is Kee going to be okay?” she asked quietly into the ringing silence, only broken by the sound of Kieron’s lungs slowly sucking in the relentless oxygen.

“Yeah, honey, but we have to get back to Chelen City right now. You can fly us there, right?” Because Elanus wasn’t going to leave Kieron’s side. He might be unconscious now, but who knew what this idiot might get up to if Elanus wasn’t here to stop him? Blowing up the side of the Stellar Cabinet and hurtling himself into space, what the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t thinking!

“What about the other person, Elanus?”

“What other person?” he asked distractedly as he adjusted the Regen lines so that they didn’t pull so much at Kieron’s limbs. A little red-tinged pool of the stuff was already gathering on the floor, but Elanus didn’t care about that. There was no such thing as waste when it came to keeping Kieron alive. Stars, his poor face…

“The one in the EV suit.”

Elanus’s head whipped around so hard his neck hurt. “What?”

“Numerous people were ejected into space during the implosion, but the only other one who survived is wearing an EV suit. They’re currently moving away from the station at a speed of two hundred and twenty-six kilometers per—”

“I get it, I get it.” Shit. If this was one of the assassins, they could keep sailing into nowhere as far as Elanus was concerned, but if it was Restaria… “Do you have a visual?”

“Yes, Elanus.” Lizzie projected an image of the person on her front screen. They were hurtling end over end, their EV suit trailing a thin line of gas—they wouldn’t be alive for long. “Zoom in.” Lizzie did so. “Focus and find a still of their face.” She complied once more, and—

Yep, that was Restaria. Xe appeared to be unconscious, which was probably a blessing for xir. It made Elanus want to grab xir and shake xir until xe woke up and told him exactly why the fuck this had happened, and what xe wanted him to do about it, because that much was clear. Kieron was nothing but a lure to xir, a magnificent lure with just the right skillset to buy xir some time.

Never mind. Let xir rot in space.

“Kieron?” Lizzie sounded tentative. “Should I go and get them? Only, their life signs are starting to decrease…”

Damn it to the stars and back. “Fine,” Elanus gritted out after a second. “Use the hook to reel xir in and pull xir into the cargo bay. Pressurize it so that xe can breathe and keep monitoring xir life signs, but unless Restaria is on the brink of death, I don’t want to so much as look at xir until Kieron is taken care of.”

Lizzie didn’t say anything else, just gave a satisfied hum and started away from the Stellar Cabinet. Elanus stared at the ruin in the side of Restaria’s quarters as they began to turn, shards and debris flickering past them, and contemplated how it would feel to get rid of the entire damn thing.

Wow. Contemplating an act that would undoubtedly lead to civil war wasn’t exactly what he thought he’d find himself doing today, but some days were like that. Elanus turned away from those thoughts; that was for later. For now, all he wanted to do was take care of Kieron.

“You’re terrible,” he whispered, holding onto Kieron’s one relatively-good hand with both of his. “The worst fiancé ever, I can’t believe I want to marry you so bad. Are you going to do this every year? Find some new way to vaporize yourself? Because I have to tell you, babe, I don’t know if my heart is going to be able to take that. Let’s make this the last time, okay?” He heard Lizzie’s hook deploy, was vaguely aware of the process of bringing Restaria into the ship, and nodded to acknowledge Lizzie’s confirmation that xir life signs were stabilizing.

Good. Good for xir. Restaria was going to need to be stable in order to withstand the firestorm that Elanus was about to rain down on xir.

“We’ll be home soon, Kee,” Lizzie said, her voice a croon. It made the floor rumble comfortingly, a gentle vibration to let her really feel her father’s weight. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

“Are you okay, Lizzie?” Elanus asked, still not looking away from Kieron.

“I am now.”

Yeah. Me too.

Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

 Notes: SO! Please be aware this is a chapter with lots of violence and lots of pain. I'm mean to Kieron in this chapter, but you know me! Trust that I'll make it better in the end :)

Title: Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

***

Interlude 6: Kieron

 

By the time the first person dropped down out of the ventilation in the bedroom, Kieron was more than ready for them. He was done with waiting, done with this sick, stupid game, done with everything except keeping himself—and, reluctantly, Restaria—alive long enough for Elanus to get to them.

No communication? No problem.

Assassins closing in? Survivable.

Having to face disappointing his family with his death? Kieron would do absolutely anything to prevent that, up to and including pushing Restaria in front of a bullet. Xe hadn’t done anything to lay a claim on Kieron’s faithfulness other than ensure he had the means of protecting them. Luckily for xir, xe also knew to stay out of the fucking way.

A quick baton strike to the legs as the assassin fell out of the vent broke the one on the right and ruined their landing, at which point Kieron followed up with the knife up and under the skinsuit of armor they were wearing and into their throat. He stirred the blade, the bet he could do when he couldn’t cut laterally to finish the kill, then left the bastard on the ground to choke to death on their own blood. One trembling hand reached for a blinking device on their belt—ha, not today, motherfucker. Kieron brought the knife down in a hard chopping motion and was pleased to find out that the armor around the wrists wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff protecting the throat.

He took off the other hand too, just in case. It killed off the fucker faster, but Kieron needed to move on by that point anyhow. He’d left Restaria with the darts, and from the sound of things in the living room they’d been useful already.

Kieron slid along the wet, freezing floor to where he’d left the politician behind a couch, crouching down to minimize the chances that he’d fall. This was one of those times when being shorter than a Ganian came in handy—two of them were on the floor, flailing as they tried to get up. A third was still, one of the darts sticking out of their eye socket.

Nice targeting. That ought to numb up their brains nicely. As for the others…

Kieron skidded forward, smashing one hard in the helmet with the baton. It had a tip that could penetrate the best armor if it hit it in just the right way, and Kieron was damn good at angles. He broke the faceplate right off, and the assassin turned over and stared up at him with big, fearful eyes.

“Wait!” she cried out—a woman, huh. “Please, just let me—” He hit her between those big, gleaming eyes and sent bone shards up and into her brain.

Nope. No listening. No explanations. No chances to make things right. One assassin might be someone you could negotiate with, but a whole pack of them working in concert? That was a problem that could only be extinguished with extreme prejudice.

The person beside her pulled a gun and, after a little fumbling, got it aimed at Kieron, who had just enough time to hoist the body of the person he’d just killed up between them so her armor could absorb the shots instead. They hit again and again, until the armor was perforated and chunks of body were coming out the hole, and yet the guy didn’t stop.

So Kieron stopped him by throwing the body on top of him. The assassin tried to push her aside, but Kieron followed up by breaking every bone in his left foot with the baton. He screamed, high-pitched and tinny through the helmet, then shrieked when Kieron used the baton to make strategic holes in the thigh and abdomen of his suit. One, two, three…stab stab stab. In and stir, always stir. Stabs inconvenience, slices stop. It didn’t feel good to murder the man, but in all honesty there was something satisfying about it. It had been a very, very long time since Kieron had had to deal with someone in such a hands-on way, and he couldn’t say he minded it under the circumstances.

“Four more coming in fast,” Restaria called out from behind the couch. Xir implant was cut off from scanning the overall building, but xe had built extra failsafes into ensuring xe could use it in xir own quarters. “One of them is moving in a manner that makes me think they’re carrying something large.”

Large…what could it be? Maybe a gas bottle of some kind, something to poison them or put them to sleep. Then again, circumstances had already shown that they were willing to do serious structural damage, if the blinking device on the first killer’s belt really was the microgrenade it looked like.

Shit. Kieron hoped Elanus got here soon. If these people were willing to blow up this part of the Cabinet, then there wasn’t going to be a good way to stop them. He and Restaria were confined—they wouldn’t get far trying to go out the way the bathroom person had come in.

Actually…Kieron darted back to the bathroom to grab a few things off the body, then came to hunker down next to Restaria.

Xe made a face when xe saw what he was carrying with him. “Whatever do you plan on doing with that?”

“It depends on what they’re attacking with,” Kieron said. “If they’re trying to gas us out, then it’s a projectile meant for them. If they’re trying to blow us up, then it’s a counter-strike.” He glanced out the window behind them—nothing yet. Come soon, come soon… “Close up your EV suit just in case.”

Restaria gave him a glare. “You think there’s the slightest hope I’d live long enough to see another day if I survived space and you didn’t? Elanus would have my head.” Xe became apologetic quickly enough, though. “I’m…sorry I didn’t think to secure a suit for you. That was short-sighted on my part.”

“It was,” Kieron agreed. “I could have gotten us out of this fucking mess a lot sooner if both of us could spacewalk.”

“They’d just come after us out there.”

He sighed. “You know who else can come after us out there? Elanus. You know who’s not going to risk firing on the Stellar Cabinet when he might his us instead of an enemy? Also Elanus.” An EV suit would have been great, but…to be fair, Kieron hadn’t thought to bring one along either. Not that he was as much to blame as the piece of work sitting next to him, but—

“All you have to do is give us the vice president!” a voice called out from the corridor ahead of them. The doors had been opened by the first two, and these ones were being cautious in turn. “We’ve got no interest in anyone else here.”

“Would have been nice if you’d led with that instead of leading with a weapon,” Kieron called back. “Bombs don’t discriminate when it comes to going off.”

“Our apologies.” The man didn’t sound particularly apologetic, to Kieron’s mind. “We promise, we’re not going to do you any damage unless you force the issue. Just step away from the vice-president and let us finish our contract.”

“Or what, you’ll gas me unconscious?” There was a moment of silence. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Mkay. The answer is no, but—”

“You fucker! You killed Emily!” One of the four broke away through the door, a long, curving blade visible in their hand. “Come out and fight me!” he screamed, ripping his helmet off and throwing it aside. “Fight me like a fucking man!”

“Get back out here!” the original speaker snapped, but this guy was too far gone.

“Darts,” Kieron whispered to Restaria, but xe shook xir head. Out…damn it. And if they used the explosive device now, they’d open themselves up to a greater attack via the gas later. “Fuck. Fine.” He pointed at the stuff he’d brought from the bathroom. “Throw that when I say so, you got it?”

“I—yes, fine, but—”

Kieron leapt over the edge of the couch before xe could finish, baton whirling into full extension. It wasn’t a sword, but he didn’t need it to be. He just needed to get the right hit on this guy.

Easier said than done. The man was a shitty assassin but a damn good swordsman, and the baton was made of a malleable metal except at the very tip. It wasn’t going to last long against direct blows.

Kieron managed to punch a few holes in the guy’s armor with the baton, but he took several cuts from the sword, one bad enough to let him know he wasn’t going to be able to use his left arm for much. Blood poured from the wound, and the man stared at him with a fierce, crazed look on his face. “I’ll take you apart piece by piece,” he snarled.

“Get him over by the door, Fell!”

“Fuck off! I’m going to—”

Kieron dropped the baton, pulled his knife, and threw it all in one smooth motion. The blade turned end-over-end and managed to hit the guy right in the mouth. Unfortunately, it hit with the hilt of the blade, rather than the point, but it was enough to make the fucker choke. He darted forward, jerked it out—pulling several broken teeth along with it, and then reversed the blade and drove it straight up through the man’s soft palate and into his brain.

Stir. Stir. Stir.

“Gas now, gas now!” the original speaker shouted. Kieron could run at them, but he didn’t know how the others were armed, and he was losing a lot of blood quickly. He needed to end this before they were too late. He glanced back at the window with a sense of resignation, and saw…

A speck of light heading toward them. Just a speck now, but he would know that light anywhere.

Lizzie!

He grabbed the baton again, then skidded back around the edge of the couch. “Throw it,” he croaked, and Restaria did so. Xe connected the severed hand to the detonator on the grenade at the last second, and as it flew the beeping sound increased, then—

BAM! Lightsoundheatpain as the couch disintegrated, as the two of them were thrown against the glass, as the fire from the grenade boiled out into the hallway and made the three surviving assassins scream. That heat hit him hard, sucking the air from his lungs and searing the tender skin of his face. Kieron closed his eyelids, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see but he knew Lizzie was coming, and Elanus was coming, and they had to go to them if they were going to survive.

Using all the strength he had left, Kieron slammed the baton back into the glass. He hit again, and again, and the glass cracked and cracked and then it shattered, it shattered and they were sucked out into space where it was cold, no hot, no—

And then space caught him tumbling, and warm arms brought him home.