Coming Home (Part 4 - Conclusion)

Posted on Thu Dec 22nd, 2022 @ 2:54am by First Lieutenant Bethany Harrison & Private Mattias Tonelly & General Dyami Bentley (Tribal : Bent Leaf)
Edited on on Thu Dec 22nd, 2022 @ 2:55am

Mission: The Mutant Underground
Location: Underground Base
Timeline: Present Day

The shaman nodded at the young man, “I will, if you work hard, you will learn everything in time.” Dyami moved a wheelchair over to the boy and motioned for a nurse. “Please take him to the cafeteria and find him something to eat.” Turning his attention back to Mattias he said, “When Beth wakes up she will be confused and probably quite angry. It is best if you were not here to see that.”

Mattias put the brakes on the wheelchair, stopping the nurse from taking him out. "No! I don't want to leave her side!" It was clear in his look and tone of his voice that he would not be forced out of the room.

Dyami shook his head at Mattias. He sighed, then smiled at the young man, “Well you have spunk, I will give you that. Stay if you wish. Now we just wait for her to wake up. Knowing her, it will not take long.”

Once Bethany was out of immediate danger of involuntarily leveling the compound’s hospital wing, and everyone in it, her nano slid back to its hiding place beneath her hair on the back of her neck and she immediately jolted awake. “Jon!” she cried, trying to see past the nurses that had come in to clean her up and started swatting their hands away.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted, pulling newly attached leads off as she scrambled to crawl off of the bed, nearly hitting her knees when she finally managed to get away from the nurses, then ran to Jon’s side. “No, no, no,” she muttered, tears flowing down her face once again as she took his hand.

After a moment, and a gentle, loving stroke down his cheek, she whirled, glaring at the people in the room. “What happened?” she demanded, her teeth grinding together in a rage, her eyes sparking to life with furiously swirling rainbows, her own dried blood standing out against the disturbing pallor of her skin.

The doctors and nurses backed up, giving the furious light-bearer space. They all knew her, and they all knew better than to push her limits. “Beth, you need to calm...” the lead doctor started, then the poor man went pale as her attention turned to him.

Bethany’s disturbing gaze turned slowly to the doctor and she shook her head, using every ounce of self control to keep from lashing out at the short, plump man. Her hands clenched into tight fists, her neatly trimmed nails digging tiny crescents into the flesh of her palms.

“Tell...me...what happened! Now!” she demanded again, absently moving into a protective position between Jon and everyone else. She was trying, but she was ready for a fight, her tactical mind already coldly determining how to deal with everyone in the room if she needed to.

Talon stepped into her vision from the side and moved between the confused young woman and the small herd of doctors and nurses that began quickly filing out of the room behind him.

“Beth, you need to calm down,” he said quietly in Tsalagi, while his eyes stared deep into hers. “These people have done everything they can. They are the same people who have worked to heal you and Jon on several occasions.” Dyami raised his hand slowly and moved even slower towards the girl, his movements almost imperceptible. They are friends. Take a deep cleansing breath and hold it for a moment.

Mixed in with the normal words he spoke he interjected words of power subtly as to slowly sway her emotions away from fear and hatred and into a more peaceful frame of mind.

Bethany began pacing as the medical staff made a run for it, her steady, angry gaze moving to Dyami as he spoke, not even realizing that he was speaking in anything other than English. Her head tilted to the side slightly, as though trying to hear him better. She suddenly took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

When the rainbow-eyed brawler spoke to him, it was in the same language that he was speaking in. “Just tell me what happened, Old Man. You told me he would be safe here! You told me they would take care of him!”

The Indian shaman continued speaking in a subdued, respectful tone. “He has been and will remain safe here from anything that can attack from the outside.” He raised his hand to stop any protest coming from the young woman, continuing, “This attack came from within Beth. The nanites activated and his body, while fighting back, began draining life energy from you.”

Dyami sighed heavily, obviously weakened from the spiritual drain of his recent actions. “I fed him through you and we were able to stabilize him. But there was damage to his brain and he could get worse at any moment. The doctors recommend putting him in stasis until we figure out a way to fix this.” Dyami reached out his hand offering a shoulder to cry on if the girl wanted it.

The young woman froze and gasped. “Damage to his brain? I don’t know what you mean by...stasis,” she said, as though struggling to find the proper words to convey her confusion. For a moment, she stood there, staring at Dyami, struggling against the pain and rage, the fear and confusion. Then she suddenly, wordlessly, punched him in the face. Hard.

The Shaman did not react to the punch. He saw it coming of course, he could have moved away, but Beth needed to hit something and better him than someone else. So he took the full brunt of a straight jab, perfectly executed he noticed, as it hit him just as he had trained her.

He continued to hold out his arm, not remarking as a small trail of blood dripped out of one of his nostrils. The bleeding stopped after only a drop or two. “Stasis is a way to stop all bodily functions and restart it later using machines. This way the nanites will be frozen, in a manner of speaking, but so will Jon. When we are able to find a cure we can restart where we left off and hopefully rid him of these nanites.” He extended his other arm slowly. Waiting to see if she accepted his offer of consolation.

“You conveniently left something out of all that,” Bethany said, shaking her head. “How bad is the damage that you want to just lock him away somewhere like this? Is he dying? Is that why you’re trying to trap him here? So that I won’t die?” The young woman’s entire body was shaking out of sheer frustration and grief and blood was starting to drip from her palms as she punched the man again.

“We’ve always known the risks. So just let us go,” she said, a pleading tone over-riding her anger as tears rolled down her face. “You can’t do this to him! You can’t do this to me!”

“Beth, do you remember when he lost his leg? The day you were stabbed and laid bleeding out in his arms. The day I tied your souls together, he begged me to save you, he offered his own life to save yours. I could have taken his life and made you whole. He wanted you to live more than he wanted himself to live. But instead I choose to give you both a chance. A chance to not only live but to love, and to enjoy life together. All those happy moments are because I saw something in his eyes. He was willing to sacrifice himself for you.”

Dyami paused and reached up, laying his hands on her shoulders. Turning her to face Jon on the bed behind her. Speaking quietly he said, “He will stay just like this, no matter the damage, I can heal that no problem, but we need to get rid of those nanites. And right now we do not know how. But we are trying to delay his death, so you both can live.”

“So you want to put him into some hellish limbo on the off chance of finding some kind of fix one day? Just make him live like that until the sun burns out, just to keep me alive? I can’t let you do that! It’s not right! It’s not fair!” Bethany screamed, the sound burning with absolute devastation. “I’d rather die than make him do that! I’d rather die without him. Please. I can’t do this.”

She wanted to punch him again. She wanted to make someone hurt as badly as she was in that moment. The furious light-bearer did swing again, but it was weaker, and hit him in the chest. Then she sank to her knees, burying her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

Talon knelt in front of the woman before him and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, they both shed tears of loss and pain for quite a while before he spoke again. “Stesi, he wanted you to live. This gives you both a chance. But, it is your choice to make. I swear to you I will spare no expense to find a cure.”

“How am I supposed to condemn him to nothingness, Dyami?” Bethany asked, her voice soft, pained. All of the fight had gone out of her and all that was left was heartbreak and grief. “He’s my partner, my world. How am I supposed to do this without him?”

“Nothingness? Stesi, do you think I would leave him alone in the dark? No, child he will be as he is now. Happy in the dream world. He will remain there until he awakens, and then he will remember nothing of it. I have been keeping him close while you cannot.“ Dyami brushed away one of her tears even while his own still slid down his face.

Bethany pulled back and looked up at Dyami, seeming confused. “The dream world?” she asked, shaking her head. “He hasn’t been in my dreams since this happened.” She started sobbing again. His absence from her dreams had been another aching blow that the young woman had been trying to choke down since Hydra had robbed her of the most important person in her life.

“He is in his own little pocket, one I created for him. One that no one but I will ever find. Safe and secure, he lives there now.” Dyami, Lord of the dream realm, looked back at the one he called daughter. “You told me to keep him safe and happy. He is, he knows nothing of the here and now. He dwells in a world of dreams, one he created himself, his dream of a life with you.” The Shaman thought for a moment and said, ”If you want you could see him, although interacting with him could prove difficult.”

From his chair, off to the side, Mattias watched the interaction, even though he couldn't understand the language they were speaking.

Bethany reached up and grabbed hold of Dyami’s standard AC/DC faded t-shirt, balling up her fists again. “Please. I have to see him. I have to know he is really happy and not just...trapped, lost, and alone.”

As Mattias continued to watch the exchange, he slowly rolled over next to them and gently placed his left hand on Bethany's right shoulder. It was the soft touch of compassion, one meant to tell her, she wasn't alone in her pain.

There was a flash of movement as Bethany tensed at Mattias’ touch, and faster than the eye could register, she had released Dyami and reached across to grab the boy’s wrist. Her grip started tight, hot. Painfully so. Then she gasped and her grip slacked and she gradually released him. All of this was done wordlessly, without looking at him, as she continued to look pleadingly at Dyami.

Mattias gasped in pain when Bethany gripped his wrist tightly. To his credit, however, he didn't cry out. Pain was nothing new to him, unfortunately. Nodding slightly, he pulled his hand away, after she released it. "I'm sorry, Beth," he said softly.

Dyami looked around Beth to see Mattias, “Does not like to be touched. You are going to have to learn that quickly, or you will end up with broken fingers.” The Indian man looked back at Beth and smiled. “Right?

“And yes I will bring you to see him,” Dyami added, looking her in the eye. “You cannot stay though. No matter how hard you plead,” the shaman said seriously.

“Just take me to him. Please,” Bethany said, hanging her head, her shoulders slumping in defeat, the weight of her loss and pain seemingly dragging her down physically, leaving the powerful meta looking small and weak. “I just have to make sure.”

“Wait a day or two,” Dyami said and tousled her hair. “You need to rest after all of this chaos.” he motioned to the disheveled hospital room. “Right now we need to place him in stasis lest this happen again and we lose both of you.”

“No,” Bethany said, her voice soft, but firm. “I won’t let you put him into this...stasis until I see him, until I know. So, you can do it now, or you can wait a couple of days. Your choice.”

The shaman looked into Bethany’s eyes and then slowly slid his gaze to the young man in the wheelchair. “You two are going to be an absolute pain in my ass going forward.” He stepped away from the green-eyed brawler, rolled his eyes facetiously, and said in a sarcastic tone, ”Fine, we do it now.” He pointed at the bed.

Mattias didn't reply to Dyami. At least not at first. Then, despite the situation and the pain he was feeling in his wrist, he smirked slightly. "Imagine how we will be against Hydra together."

“That is the plan, young one.” Dyami said with a wry smile.

The mentally and emotionally exhausted young woman dragged herself up off of the floor and crawled back into the hospital bed. Bethany took a deep breath and let it out slowly, afraid of what was to come. She almost wished that they would just put her into stasis with him, so she wouldn’t have to feel the agony that she was doomed to suffer forever. “I’m ready when you are.”

Mattias rolled his chair back out of the way, to give Dyami all the room he needed to help Bethany.

The shaman reached into his Dream Bag and pulled out a small, slightly glowing, blue potion. He took a moment to admire the beautifully hand blown, engraved bottle, before handing it to Bethany. “Drink this, and you will fall into a deep sleep, you will not awaken until I command you to.” Dyami stepped back and watched the green-eyed brawler as she examined the bottle and the liquid within.

If that weird liquid was what would bring her to Jon, Bethany was all for it. After eyeing it and him a bit dubiously, she drank down the fluid and handed the container back to him. Before she could even extend her arm fully, it dropped limply to the bed, the small bottle slipping from her fingertips.

“It never ceases to amaze me how quickly water from the dream realm puts people to sleep.” Dyami said over his shoulder to Mattias. "Nothing much more to see here. Time to get your affairs in order. My lawyers have a bunch of papers you are going to need to sign.”

He patted the now limp hand of the sleeping woman on the bed. “Your dreams will guide you as the way is now open to you. Sleep well Stesi, and may you find the peace you need.”

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FIN
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Dyami Bentley
A.K.A. Talon
Mutant Underground

Bethany Davies
A.K.A. Fractal
Mutant Underground

Mattias Tonelly
A.K.A (TBD)
Mutant Underground