Ravens of Eternity

124 Pit of Vipers, Pt Eva stumbled slightly as the platform hit the bottom of the Pit. As she ambled out into the preparatory floor, the corpse of her dead opponent was dragged off to who knows where.

She grasped at her abdomen, which dripped blood out of her two puncture wounds.

“That was really kinda dumb of me,” Eva muttered.

“Yeah, it was,” Severas said.

She had made her way to Eva’s side quickly the moment the platform hit the bottom. The Justicar placed a hand on her shoulder and helped steady her.

“Armor got dinged up a bit,” said Eva, “and I gotta get it patched up.”

“No,” replied Severas. “We need to get you to the clinic and get you patched up.”

“But-”

“The armor can wait.”

.....

Severas practically pushed Eva in the direction of the medical clinic. Although she wasn’t rough, she wasn’t going easy on her either. They wove through the throng of duelists waiting for their turn, or recovering from their turn.

Many turned to look at Eva, some with hatred in their eyes. But the sight of the Justicar next to her halted any thoughts of violence. But also those of charity.

Eva nearly had a dozen cuts on her armor, more than half of which had blood dripping out of them. The largest wound she had was the one which pierced through her abdomen and out her lower back.

The human, strong as she was, hobbled as they went down the hallways. Pain shot through Eva with each and every step that she took.

“You should’ve been more careful,” said Severas. “You’re lucky that Rezhathii’s attack wasn’t deadlier – she could’ve been going for your heart!”

Eva grinned under her helmet.

“She was – I just adjusted my trajectory by a bit. Otherwise, she woulda skewered me. Though I would’ve been able to cut her head clean off in exchange.”

“And so? You let yourself get hurt just to confirm your kill? You could’ve easily just evaded and tried again.”

“Well, you know, theatrics.”

“More like foolishness,” huffed Severas.

They didn’t travel too far to get to the clinic – it was in everyone’s best interest if it was close to the platform in the first place. There was a more robust medical facility further in the coliseum, but it was reserved for the more grievous, life-threatening wounds.

Duelists typically didn’t come back out of there alive. If they did, they were no longer duelists after that.

The clinic was a different story altogether. It was a medium-sized building set into the wall at the other end of a small courtyard. The courtyard itself was filled with a number of duelists all of whom had varying degrees of bodily damage, from fresh cuts to fresh scars.

A few enterprising Drogar had even set up booths along the sides of the open courtyard, where they sold food, drink, and overpriced medical trinkets.

Eva and Severas went past the riff-raff and went straight into the clinic itself. Neither were prepared for the chaos inside. It was akin to a madhouse.

The waiting area’s seating was packed to the brim with the mildly wounded – usually a number of nicks on their bodies. Many were even standing up and did their best to hold their wounds closed.

Off to the side were a handful of lines with signs above them that denoted what kind of wounds were being treated there – broken bones, dismemberments, and severe lacerations. Since Eva counted as having a severe laceration, that’s where they immediately headed towards.

But a complaint immediately interrupted the moment they headed there. One of the seated, lightly-damaged Drogar complained in the air loudly.

“Hey! Why does some ape get treatment ahead of Drogar?”

The Justicar turned towards him and pointed at the sign above them, irritation laced in her voice.

“This says we should go here to get treatment. It’s quite clear.”

“Drogar should get first treatment,” he countered. “It’s our right! In fact, I’ll challenge the ape to be treated next! How about that?!”

Severas sighed in exasperation.

“There aren’t any rules or laws that state anything about species and medical treatment. All duelists get medical attention according to the severity of their wounds! How is this so difficult for you to understand?”

“What I don’t understand is why a Drogar Justicar is defending a sunbleached ape!”

Severas darkened at his comment. She reared up to full height and walked straight up to the mouthy Drogar. Venom dripped from her tone.

“I defend the law,” she said. “Not your pitiful, lawless ideals.”

The Drogar shrinked in her frightful presence. He might have been a deadly duelist, but he was certain that he was no match for a Justicar. And a Silver one, at that.

As Severas put pressure on the confrontational Drogar, Eva opened up her armor through her DI. Feather-shaped plates all along her back curled away and opened up, which allowed her to step out from behind it.

The lavender glow all over the armor dulled before it winked out – now that it was disconnected from its owner, it was forced to power down.

Her blood coated a good portion of the inside, especially around most of the cuts. The wound in her abdomen had spilled out so much blood that the entire inner left leg was coated in a layer of crimson.

Her flightsuit was also in terrible condition. It held the same amount of cuts as her armor did, and at least twice as much blood. Every centimeter under her waist was soaked in it.

Now that the adrenaline had stopped pumping in her body, she felt the sting of each of her wounds in full, and stumbled as she fought to keep herself upright.

Although she looked like a right mess, she wasn’t any more or less in rough shape than some of the others who suffered lacerations. There were certainly others who had entire limbs missing, and one whose hand was utterly crushed and twisted around.

But luckily, there were enough medical techs around to care for all of those with serious wounds. Once one of them was done patching up a lacerated Duelist, she ran up to Eva’s side and scanned her with a medical gun.

“Wow. Clean puncture,” she said. “Pretty lucky of you – only one of your organs was perforated. Or, well, it was punctured in a few places. But still! Just one! No cross-contamination.”

“Yeah,” groaned Eva. “I can almost feel the holes.”

“I got bad news for you though. All our MedGuns are calibrated for Drogar. All our equipment is... And, um, our nanites don’t know how to stitch you up. It’s not like we’ve had to heal a human before. Ever.”

Severas spun around in alarm the moment she heard that. The human’s biology went completely overlooked throughout all of this, and none thought about her eventual medical needs.

They were all too caught up by the coin.

“What?” she yelled. “Don’t we have any options? How about veterinary data? We’ve got to have some genetic similarities somewhere, right?”

“There’s a huge difference between an actual human, and a Taloren ape. If we use a template that isn’t human, we’d end up destroying her cells instead of repairing them! What we need is more human genetics to program into our MedGuns. Plain and simple.”

Severas pointed at Eva in frustration.

“There’s plenty genetic data standing right there!”‘

The medical tech threw her hands up in resignation.

“It isn’t that easy,” she said. “We need millions of varieties, not just one. Look, I wanna help, but I can’t! I don’t even have the knowledge to stitch her up manually!”

As Severas argued with the medical tech, Eva fell to her knees. The blood loss had weakened her greatly, and her mind began to work sluggishly.

“Gimme a minute,” she said feebly.

“We need to get you to your human medic,” said Severas. “Immediately.”

“No time. Sit still. Don’t move me.”

Eva closed her eyes, leaned back, and sat samurai-style on the clinic floor. She breathed in deeply, and entered Ascendant Form yet again. The rest of the world around her simply fell away as she focused all of her senses on just her body.

Like she had done with her bruises and welts, she poured energy through her blood and into repairing her broken cells. Her cuts clotted up in the space of a few seconds, her muscles and skin began to stitch together and rebind themselves anew.

She clenched her teeth until everyone around could hear her jaws grind. Sweat poured down her forehead as her stamina drained rapidly with each passing moment.

Eva focused in on her puncture wound, and felt where her small intestine was punctured a few times, all in a straight line. She concentrated on closing up those wounds, and patched up her abdominal and back muscles at the same time.

Then she sealed up any of the remaining slashes and punctures on her skin.

After nearly a minute of intense meditation, Eva collapsed backwards. She was panting extremely heavily, as though she had been running for hundreds of kilometers. Her heart was thundering in her chest, and her lungs were gasping for air.

Then, after many seconds of rest, she laughed like a madwoman before she ambled back up to her feet. She wobbled slightly as she stood. She had used up almost all of what energy she had left, and barely had enough to stand.

But she pushed past the exhaustion and got back on her feet. With each breath she took, she felt her stamina recharge. But it was a long way from full.

She brushed off her dried-up clots and inspected her skin under the cut fabric. It was just like before – not a single cut, not a single scar. Eva then looked down at her abdomen, and it was as though she had never been stabbed at all. She touched the skin where her wound was.

It tingled slightly, as though it was a shadow, or a memory of a wound.

Every single Drogar that was in the clinic were rendered speechless by what they had just witnessed. They had never seen such a feat. Not even the most advanced medical nanites that existed could heal that much damage. At least, not that quickly, and without great expense.

In between heavy breaths and deep pants, Eva spoke and broke the silence.

“Hey wait a minute,” she said. “Didn’t someone say they wanted to fight me? We can go now if you want, I’m good to go. Well okay, in fifteen minutes or so. Just gotta catch my breath here.”

With a toothy grin, Severas turned towards the loudmouth Drogar next to her, whose eyes were wide with horror.

“It was this one,” she said.

“Alright,” said Eva. “Challenge accepted. Get healed up and let’s go.”

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