Rebuilding

Posted on Mon May 17th, 2021 @ 12:26am by Private Mattias Tonelly & Head Mistress Absynthe "Syn" Drake

Mission: The Factions
Location: Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, Long Island, New York
Timeline: (2 weeks following attack)

Mattias was sweating and straining. Everyone was amazed by his amazing recovery milestones. His first surgery, to repair the damaged caused by the attack, had only been a week ago. The fact that he was already getting the use of his arms back was phenomenal.

"That's it, Matty, you keep digging in, jefe." Carlos Cruze, former US Marine Corps combat medic, turned juvenile physical therapist, had been working with Mattias since he started his physical therapy sessions. He and Mattias had quickly become fast friends, though there was a friendly rivalry, as Mattias's father, David, had servedin the Army.

Pulling on the arm bike handle cranks, Mattias was doing excellent and gaining speed. When he first started to use the machine three days ago, he struggled to even turn the cranks. Now, he was running the bike at an impressive simulated ten miles per hour. Already, there was muscle growth in his chest, arms, shoulders and upper back. More so than he had before the attack.

"Come on! Just a little bit more....aaaand...stop!" Carlos stopwd the motor on the machine, causing the resistance on the bike to slowly diminish, allowing Mattias the abity to cool down. "Alright, bubba! How you feeling?"

Breathing heavy, Mattias looked up at his friend and joked, "Just about as strong as a Marine!" He grinned broadly,knowing Carlos would get a kick out of it.

"Oh! Oh! You got jokes now?!" Carlos chuckled in reply. He found that he really liked this kid. While his recovery was advancing faster than he had ever seen with an injury like Matty had, he still hated that the kid had to experience this amount of pain. "Yeah, lets see how well you do in another few weeks, funny guy." He moved Mattias over to the cooldoqn area and, after wraping his neck and shoulders in icepacks, he sat back and talked comic books and video games with the kid.

"So, did you hear they're making a new Godzilatron movie?" Mattias asked. He like talking to Carlos. He never treated him like he was just a kid. "There's gonna be a showdown between him and his fellow hero AutoSaurs against the evil MechaSaurous Rex and his vile TerrorSaurs!"

Carlos nodded. "Yeah, I did hear about that one. Supposedly, there's gonna be a big booth display for it at Comic Con."

Just then, Mattias' parents walked in to the room, happy smiles on their faces.

"Hey, Matty!" Baeryn moved over to kiss her son on the cheek, her auburn curls tickling his nose.

"Hi, Mama!" Mattias replied happily, then giggled when he was tickled by her loose stands.

Baeryn then moved to allow David a chance to say hello. "Hey, bubba! You been taking this Jarhead to town?"

Mattias chuckled, as did Carlos. "He's been teaching me how to be a tough Marine, Dad!" Mattias enjoyed the Army versus Marines game that the three of them played. It helped take his mind off of his situation.

"Oh, is he now?! Guess I'll have to take em to the mats one day, show em who's boss, eh?

Carlos chucled. "Anytime you want to go, G.I.Joe, I'm ready." The two men then playfly squared off, before the two former warriors fistbumped each other.

Baertn rolled her eyes playfully. "You boys and you stick swinging." She then moved to sit next to her son. "Guess what, sweety?" She asked.

Mattias looked at his mother and smiled. "What that, Mama?"

"Because of all the hard work that you've been putting in lately, your father and I decided to get you a gift." She opened her purse and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Do you want to open it, or should I?"

"You can open it, Mama. My hands are tired right now."

"Okay," she said, with a crinkle of her nose. She then carefully opened the page and showed it to Mattias, who, in turn, became cery excited.

"Tickets to Comic Con!!" Mattias was so excited that his legs actually twiched slightly. "Thank you, Mama! Thank you, Dad!" He then looked over at Carlos. "I'm gonna see the Godzillatron booth!!"

Carlos laughed at Mattias's excitement. "Well, you certainly earned it Jefe. Enjoy it!"

===OFF===

Mattias Richardson
Unawakened