Medbay Five
Cait sat in a comfortable leather chair next to the bed Fate was resting in, her wearing new clothes courtesy of the Flaming Crows and him in a hospital gown and covered from the chest down by a blanket. A metal pole held the bag which connected to Fate by a tube, pumping him full of IV fluids. She had been sitting in silence for over three hours now.
Medbay Five was reminiscent of a standard multi-patient hospital room. The walls were white, the floors covered in tiles mixing brown and green, and it was longer than it was wide. Every ten feet against the east and west walls held a bed, covered in white cotton blankets and with a pole next to each for any fluid transfers.
Next to each bed was a comfy chair for visitors, and above each bed was a digital screen, meant to show the status of the patient resting on top. Fate's was the only one that was on, for obvious reasons.
Fate was in the middle of the row of beds on the east, and Cait was sitting to his right, facing the opposite wall. To her left, at the far end of the room, was the only door, white with a barred window and a hefty lock currently not being used. Above Fate's head and the head of the bed opposite his were analog clocks, which is how Cait was keeping track of time.
It was surprisingly empty, considering the warfare the ship's crew was currently engaged in. Gwen had told her that this was because getting injured in a battle like this was next to impossible. You either died under the precision shots of the Advanced or their tricky tech, or you put a bullet in their skulls. There wasn't much room in between.
Which is why Cait was having the pleasure of stewing in an empty room with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. She had tried to sleep, but the stress and worry gnawing at her psyche refused to even let her close her eyes for too long. She had come down from her adrenaline high an hour or two ago, leaving her mentally and physically exhausted, yet unable to pursue the comfort of slumber.
As a Personification, she no longer needed sleep to survive. It was a comfort now, an escape, just like eating, and her continuous steady breathing even though she had long ago lost the need for oxygen intake. It kept her calm, centered.
It also helped distract her from the constant explosions rocking the ship and the anxious worry that any minute now, the Advanced would kick down that door and take her again. Then she'd be subjected to untold horrors that would make her beg for death, just like when she was first under their oppressive grasp.
As the four-hour mark ticked past, her worry for herself turned to worry for Fate as he still showed no signs of waking. The enhanced strength and durability of her Level had saved her from fatal damage, but Fate was still an Avatar. While he was much stronger than a typical Avatar due to his unique Manifestation, he still had the same vulnerable body he had as a Prodigy.
By mortals' standards, he was at the peak of fitness. By the lofty standards of Embodiments, however, he might as well be made of paper.
Which brought her to her next train of thought. Fate's Manifest Power was, quite frankly, pure bullshit. If his stories were anything to be believed, he fought an Incarnation… and won. Even if she had just Leveled up, an Incarnation was an Incarnation. Yes, her inexperience and disrupted emotional state played a part in the victory, but he had emphasized several times that it was his Manifest Power that had saved his life, sapping away just enough Divine Energy to heal himself and prevent organ failure.
If even an Incarnation's lightning, derived from Sadness or not, couldn't harm him, then how could normal, run-of-the-mill lightning do so?
This brought her to think about what Brigg and Norman had referenced: Quox metal. She had never heard of it before, even during her intensive studies at the PPK, but Brigg had alluded to this new metal being the source of Fate's defeat. She had a feeling the information was on the data chip she had taken, which she had handed over to Gwen after she had changed clothes. According to her, the Flaming Crows had long since deduced how to use the chips.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the door opened, the soundproof seal breaking and allowing the noise of hurried footsteps and screamed commands to flood into the room. Margaret walked in, or who Cait thought was her.
Fate had described the woman to her before. Her fiery red hair and dark clothes fit the moniker of Flaming Crow to a T, her hard grey eyes seeming to pierce through Cait's outward expression of relaxation and root out the unease storming within her.
Her beautiful face softened somewhat, and moved forward, stopping in front of Cait to look down at her friend.
"I apologize," she said softly. "Had I known you two were in their custody, I would've accelerated our approach. Here." She handed Cait a black ring, subtly pulsing with Divine Energy. Cait almost hadn't noticed it, and wouldn't have if she hadn't known what to look for.
"Thank you. I'm sure waking up to find this will help put his mind at ease," Cait said. "How goes the fight?"
"We've routed them. There are only stragglers left now, but I do not doubt that they've already sent for reinforcements. Some of our strongest technology comes from reverse-engineering theirs, including our communication blockers.
"The bastards seem to make leaps and bounds in every field each year, though, so our comm blockers are virtually useless. We have maybe two days to pack up the planet and leave before an entire armada shows up.
"That data chip you stole will go a long way to helping us. In another year, everything we learn from it will be irrelevant again, but until then it will win us many battles. Just count yourself lucky that this is a personal cruiser, and not one made explicitly for battle, or we might not have been able to get you out of there."
Cait nodded, not responding. She forced the thought that all this trouble was caused by a simple cruise ship to the back of her mind, along with the harrowing thought of what their battleships might be capable of.