Chương 72: Chapter 69.5: Interlude 3

Celeste groaned, stretching after what felt like hours. A sharp gasp escaped her throat as she felt something pop in her back. Mentally, she made one more meaningless promise to herself that she would never again hunch over her workbench like a shrimp for a full day before brushing herself off and heading towards the kitchen. As she extracted herself off her chair, her mechanical arm chirped, letting her know she had a message.

Flipping down her goggles – one day she'd install a holoprojector into the actual arm itself – she read off an automated note she'd written to herself: "Check for Val." Her head spun around and located the speedster walking alongside her, an eyebrow raised. Right… she'd literally just been helping out while Celeste had been putting the finishing touches on the coolant delivery system.

"Something the matter?" Val asked.

"No," Celeste lied, fighting to keep her heart rate down, "just a little hungry." Val nodded at that, "It is late for lunch, yes." Celeste checked the time in her heads up display and grumbled. She hadn't meant to ignore eating for that long, especially after skipping breakfast to try and iron out a kink in the jet boots' output which she bet her boss hadn't even noticed.

However, with the changes to the costume courtesy of Luna Lace – who definitely lived up to her reputation considering she'd watched the woman seemingly conjure the costume from thin air, complete with dummy versions of the armor plating – some of the wiring and tubes were now threaded wrong. That left her needing to figure out how to rearrange the guts of the suit without causing anything to pinch when Menace folded his arms.

She'd had the genius idea to work with a polythamorian rubber for the new hosing along with using a hex cell copper zuricate threading for the wires, but that pivot had meant DIY-ing those components herself. She wondered how long she could keep the disassembled toaster a secret, especially since she'd had Val fetch it, but that was a problem for future Celeste to worry about. Another message scrolled across her HUD, a text she'd previously dismissed a couple hours ago from T.

Apparently Sand Devil and she had decided to head out around lunchtime. Celeste wondered if they'd made their way back by now, but didn't feel like flipping through the security cams footage while she was this hungry. She pushed the goggles back up to her slightly sweaty forehead, and picked up her pace, hearing her speedster assistant adjusting her own gait to match her. For as annoying a gimmick as Val seemed to have, Celeste was actually glad to have her around.

She was actually glad the woman had accidentally discovered their boss's secret when she and T had as well as the fact that the two had elected to kidnap her. One of their better spur of the moment ideas since she was getting so much more done with the extra hands. It took her a moment to realize what she'd just thought there and decided she must be starving. Despite her moniker, she was the only sane one here, and it didn't do well for people to start second guessing that.

Strolling into the kitchen, she and speedster ran into a small surprise. Turnaround was there, hovering over the sink while the villain watched a video on her phone which was propped up a little distance away. Both of her hands were clutching a small cup of ramen noodles tightly, thumbs holding down the lid. The neon haired woman looked up at the pair.

"What are you doing here?" she had the audacity to ask like she owned the place. Celeste kept her cool. Turnaround, Devil, and Menace had all started treating the labs like their own personal lair without even consulting her, and she'd been trying very hard not to let that bother her. It was a big space. She could share. Even if it had been just her and T's space for years.

Sure they'd teleported in some people for a quick meeting before missions before, but those guests hadn't been allowed to roam the place as they wished. The scientist couldn't help but feel like these newcomers were violating her privacy, even though they'd quickly become fast friends with T, and it wasn't like the big spider lady could hang out with them in one of the old Eight hideouts.

Still, Celeste was thankful that Val, who was one of the only one's that she'd expressly invited, stated the obvious, "We live here and got hungry. What are you doing here?"

"Apparently not meeting up with Devil…" Turnaround muttered, sticking an elbow out towards her phone and awkwardly attempting to lock it without taking her hands off the cup.

"Need help?" Val offered half a second before the villainess managed it.

"Are you alright?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, just warming up some noodles," Turnaround looked down at the cup in her hands. The pair of newcomers followed her gaze before looking back up at her with confused expressions. Turnaround laughed, "Uh, yeah, I have a minor heat power from my mom's side of the family. Dad has a tornado thing which is where my real one comes from." Celeste pursed her lips. Something about the way that Turnaround had opened by chuckling, felt deflective to her.

She decided to risk asking the obvious awkward question first as she made her way over to the fridge, "Were they… hoping it would combine?" It wasn't unheard of for some families with long histories of superpowers to try and "game the system". Hereditary powers tended to get a little… flexible when mixed with other "bloodline powers".

As far as modern science understood it though, things were a lot more complicated than just finding two good powersets from parents and rolling the dice so to speak, since what a lot of people conceptualized as "a power" tended to actually be a lot of small things working together. It was extremely rare for people to only be able to do one thing with a metaphysical ability, and there were often a lot of what people would call "secondary powers" when you had something "super" enough to join the cape world.

A lot of "unenhanced" people out there actually had full powersets which just didn't go together into anything useful or had low output abilities across the board. You occasionally heard horror stories about true believers though. Families with histories that still tried to selectively breed for golden children.

"Eh…" Turnaround wiggled her head and shoulders back and forth, "I kind of think granddad was hoping for that. He's the only one in the fam who really cares about that stuff. The rest don't really care about superpowers that much, at least around me and my cousins. Although they might just not want to talk about it since everyone feels like they dodged a bullet when I didn't end up making storms after all. We had to leave Xeta when I was real young after a couple of people thought dad was related to Cyclone Eye."

¹ Turnaround's fragile smile hinted at her own hatred of the League which Celeste had witnessed boiling under the surface that night Arex hovered over their table. In fact, there was a lot being left unsaid by the number one blabbermouth here which reminded Celeste just how little she knew about her new coworkers.

"So…" Val thankfully decided to break through the tense silence that was beginning to creep in by shifting the conversation in a different direction, "you can heat your own food?" The other villainess seemed grateful to move past talking about her past, "Yeah, uh, kinda. Can't really roast a bird but I can make my own cup noodles in 15 minutes." Celeste and Val shared a look before the mad scientist decided to point out the obvious, "Isn't that longer than using a kettle or a microwave?"

"Well… I mean… yeah…" she blushed slightly.

"But it's about using all your powers! Like you probably like using your tinker powers, even when you don't have to!"

"I don't have 'tinker powers'," Celeste groaned.

"I'm just smart." Turnaround blew a raspberry, "Everyone I've met in the biz who builds super tech got it as a superpower. Bet your family's full of super nerds." Celeste's eye twitched as the woman hit a little closer to home than she'd probably meant to. Not about actually having superpowers – although she did have a slight genetic anomaly that let her operate with less sleep than most humans – but rather about her family.

Her family's history was basically a long series of inventors, engineers, roboticists, and scientists and she'd had a headstart on that just by the circumstances of her birth. She missed it… but she'd burned too many bridges to run crying back to Grandpa now. Especially with nothing really to show for it. Her mechanical arm itched, prompting her to pretend to ignore Turnaround's guess. The woman just snorted, "Bingo! Knew it. Big brains are something you're born with."

When that didn't get a response since Celeste busied herself constructing a simple sandwich out of cold cuts – one positive about all these new villains was that the fridge no longer was full of expired food – Turnaround gave up on her and turned towards Val, "What about you, sneaky? You get your powers from your family?"

Val, who had also apparently been busy constructing a meal for herself, shook her head as she finished swallowing a bite of cereal, "I got my abilities from the Quick Quake awhile back, like a lot of speedsters these days."

"Yeah, no, I figured that," Turnaround said, opening up her cup noodles after finally being satisfied with the heating process, "I'm talking about your weird stealth thing. The only Quickies that I know with dual powersets had them before it hit." Val hit her with a flat stare, "Don't call us that. And no, I… am not sure what that is."

"Maybe part of how your powers work?" Celeste offered as she shoved her food in the microwave and went over to grab a bag of chips from a box nearby. It was possible. Incident like the Quick Quake which granted "exposure powers" to multiple people at once, especially on a worldwide scale, didn't always give out the same powers, even when they were in the same ballpark. Just like with hereditary powers, the metaphysical changes tended to manifest in different individuals in a variety of ways.

Celeste wasn't too big on the study of superpowers themselves, but knew offhand that both Fast Forward and Synaptic were both Quakers. They might both technically be speedsters, but FF's speed worked by accelerating his own personal timestream, absorbing chronons as he did so in order not to age rapidly, while Synaptic turbocharged his body's biochemical responses in some weird way. There'd been a special on TV about it one time. Certain power sources gave more reliable results across populations.

As far as Celeste understood it, Hereditary magic and artifacts of power tended to produce more reliable powersets and super serums were direct attempts by mortal science to game the system, but even those had variance all over the place. Val set down her spoon, digesting her words, "It seems to happen more when I'm using my powers a lot…"

"I might be able to help you test that later," the mad scientist offered as her food dinged.

"Gotta finish up the suit and the Ray first."

"Any timeline on those?" Turnaround asked, an eager look on her face. Right, she'd be driving the rig the Death Ray was hooked up to and Celeste had seen just how enthusiastic her driving was.

"Suit should be functional by tomorrow, but I've got a few extra gadgets I want add on," Celeste said.

"A few cosmetic adjustments, courtesy of our new Tailor, but considering the upcoming job, I think you guys would rather if the big guy had some toys that could keep Amberheart's finest off your backs." The two villainess nodded at that, and Celeste felt like they finally were beginning to understand the value of her work here.

She didn't need to mention that a few of the ideas had come from Alex when the pair had spoken with Luna Lace, but honestly she was doing the bulk of the work here so she really deserved the credit. Ideas were the easy part… even if her idiot boss could come up with some frankly inspired ones when no one was looking. She was still mad that he'd pointed out that by modifying the cryodelivery system, they could effectively also develop a short range freeze ray for emergencies. That should've been obvious!

"As for the Ray, which you will be careful with," she locked eyes with Turnaround for way longer than she needed to in order to get the point across, "I might have it done by Victory Day. I don't care what the plan is though, you're not taking my baby to Amberheart."

"Alright, alright, I got it," Turnaround held up her hands before checking a nearby clock.

"Hey, you know when Devil's gonna be done?" Celeste exchanged a smile with Val over that, earning yet another round of unprompted denials of a relationship from the neon-colored villainess.

Luna placed down her latest project to stare once more at the copy of Lord Menace's new costume she'd left up on the mannequin nearby, admiring her handwork one more time. She needed the motivation it radiated to help complete this comparatively simple little piece. It didn't matter how elaborate this number actually was or that this order was a special request from the current King of Avalon, it wasn't the kind of thing that truly inspired her to bring out her best work.

This little old thing was just gonna have to survive a few social events. Maybe even some ceremonial use every couple of months. It would have a dozen specialized staff members maintaining the fabric and seeing to its care, like it was a newborn babe rather than one of her creations. It wouldn't be like that beautiful piece she'd managed to bring to life alongside her old client and his adorable little mad scientist. That was true art!

The balance of function and durability which needed to be bold and impactful while knowing where to be subdued and refined. Working hand and hand with the preexisting armor panels to present a statement: I am Lord Menace and you shall all respect that claim! Ah! Shivers! She let herself grin, remembering hovering over those schematics that little ball of starlight calling herself Celeste had whipped out. She'd been the one with a vision, even if hers was narrowly focused on the practical side of things.

In contrast, Alex had been more nebulous with his requests, but knew his way around a supersuit and asked the right questions. With her expertise, the three of them had summoned this glorious work of art from the ether itself and breathed life into it as though they were the gods themselves!

"You're thinking something blasphemous again," Ferric noted, his own gaze fixed on that prize she'd managed to snatch right out from under his nose. Her grin flickered but didn't fade, "No one's seen Themara for centuries now. I doubt anyone's gonna be turning me into a spider like ol' Arachne for having a little bit a' pride in my work." ² That got the little twerp to laugh, "Funny you should mention that. You do know who he's dating right?"

"All the more reason I'm safe," Luna laughed herself.

"We've already got our quota of spider gals running around in this story." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"You should still refrain from mocking the gods," the man advised, turning away from the costume that got away from him to meet her eyes.

"They can be rather scary." She huffed and put a hand on her hip, noticing that Pierre had returned with the refreshments that he'd offered the pair a few minutes ago. She smiled at her assistant and thanked him for his hard work. The man had a heart of gold and wanted nothing more than to help make the world a more colorful place with her, even if he had a tough time showing it.

"I've met all sorts in this job," she returned her attention to her old… well, he wasn't quite a friend but in terms of suppliers he was a lot less businesslike than the others. Could do with a touch more humility himself though.

"Even tossed together a few outfits for a couple of gods myself. They're just people." Fencer's mouth pursed, "No, they're not. Trust someone who has spent a long time studying the apex of us mortals; gods are something else. It's not just their power, it's their connection with the world. You've met their physical forms and I'll bet you've even seen a few of them in the cape business and think they obey the same rules as the rest."

"You know, I had to make a whole toga for Alkedes after he lost that big fight with Abyssa," she pointed out, settling down at her desk along with a glass, noticing that Pierre was making no moves to offer the villain nerd one of his own.

"I don't mean to invite someone here to smite me, but I've got a hard time understanding why you of all people are so scared of them. There's all sorts of demons and monsters out there, more than a few which also look just as homa as the rest of us." Fencer drummed his finger on her couch, thinking about his answer before saying, "Without going into their whole connection to the Akashic, the big difference is what they are beneath the surface. Sure, they can lose, but…

when the chips are down, that's when you see what our ancestors saw." He shivered, looking past her and out the window, "There's a reason why the League doesn't recruit 'em. Not just because of the history with the Thelees." She sighed when he refused to say anymore, spoiling the mood without saying anything worth a damn in the end. Her eyes slipped back to her latest masterpiece and she mused aloud, "You think our little star's gonna end up running up against one of 'em?

Ain't he gunning for taking over the world?" Fencer chuckled, "The League wouldn't exist if gods cared who ruled the world. But yes… I imagine Mr. Adams might be on that path. Tell me, Ms. Lace, do you believe in fate?"

"Never figured I'd hear that question from you," she muttered.

"If you'll permit me, darling, I don't have a yes or no answer to that one. I like to think that maybe we're drawn to something. Like me to clothing or you to spandex souvenirs." That got half a chuckle out of him, and so she asked, "You think our newly minted Lord has a destiny?"

"You don't become a student of history and not see the branching paths of what could've been," Fencer shrugged.

"But it's hard not to see the past and look at the single road taken. Seeing the way men and women were in the right place at the right times to change the world. It leads you to wonder about the future. Especially when you begin to see so many threads converging on singular events as thought they were drawn together." Her eyes narrowed at that. The damn fool knew something and was keeping it to himself, even as he dangled it in front of her.

She bet all this talk of "fate" was just some roundabout way to bring it up. Well whatever it was, she had a feeling she'd find out soon enough. Especially since she had a feeling that she'd be seeing that Menace fellow soon enough. Folks like him could be rough on outfits like that, even with all the clever little tweaks she'd worked in to make sure it could take a beating. She smiled and her hand reached for a pencil nearby, finding an urge to sketch out a few renditions of some upgraded looks for him.

Leland cursed to himself in his brand new hospital bed. Damn thing felt just the same as the one he'd been stuck atop forever, but they'd given him less pillows. Which ain't that just a bitch when your first round of treatments fucks up your back like this? Twisting himself upright caused him to break out into a coughing fit, which only served to make his back feel worse. Gods dammit! There was a knock at the door, loud enough to be heard over his own flailing and coughing.

Struggling to get himself under control, he shouted, "Get on in here!" The door opened on its own and in floated that little bandaged monk that was sweet on Rhys, Secret Keeper. He strained to get himself into a comfortable spot, but figured they probably already knew how much pain he was in considering they seemed to know everything.

"Sir Lochstein," they inclined their head at him, placing a small bowl of fruit on the bedside table.

"I thought I wasn't allowed visitors yet," he muttered, but decided to grace her with a Superhero Smile – patent still fucking pending. The bandages around their face shifted in a way that was probably smiling back, "Eagles' Rest Recovery Facility owes much of its arcane treatment programs to the union of the Library and the Sanctum. We Librarians are a little less bound by conventional regulations here. We understood that the staff wanted to get you started immediately on your first round of treatments."

He frowned at the memory of all the damn glowing needles that had been poking him this morning, "Yeah… apparently, they gotta start on my magic veins before they can do anything else, and they're so worried about me being an old coot that they gotta act quick before I age even more." It was easy to have an unreadable face when you covered the whole damn thing, but Leland was still a little frustrated at being unable to figure out what the bandaged fella floating there was thinking.

The quiet definitely said they had some thoughts on that, but they didn't seem to be in a sharing mood. He was about to change the subject when they finally figured out what they wanted to say, "We knew the damage was severe, but ordinarily such treatments would involve at least a week of preparatory drug therapy to prepare the physical body for modifications to mana channels."

The docs had told him the same thing, so he just told Keeper the other part, "Yeah, well, in addition to being old and in bad shape, my blood type's Moon Hollow, which they don't have a lot of that on hand." ³ Secret Keeper raised a hand to their chin, "And the reconstructive drug treatments tend to inhibit clotting. But we believed that-""Healing supes are booked solid, and the few that can make synthetic blood are stuck elsewhere. Blame the League.

They want to reserve their stock for emergencies rather than for a guy coming in for an optional treatment," he reasoned. He broke out into a smile again, "You should see the nurse they've got looking after me. Kid's a vamp and looks like she hasn't eaten in weeks. Felt worse for her rattling off about how tight things are right now." Secret Keeper didn't seem to share his sense of humor, "The treatment should still-""I asked for them to skip that part," he told them.

"They fix the mana channels and my receptors. Then they can use healing magic to take care of the meat parts. It'll even help me recover quicker." Leland could finally figure out what look was being tossed his way: disappointed judgment. Eh, the docs had already laid into him with all the risks and what not. He wasn't willing to sit in yet another bed for months at a time waiting for them to slow roll through the first of the two dozen treatments he'd need to go through. The city needed him. Rhys needed him.

"Mana channels and pools aren't completely understood, even with so much history and study," three separate voices lectured him.

"They are hard to measure and easy to get wrong. More than one story has been told of men and woman who have tapped into powers they weren't aware of slumbering within them. But we know they are incredibly resistant to change. This will be taxing, even with a properly prepared body."

"I know," he reassured them.

"I spent years pushing a magic gem to its limits and past my own. I know how much punishment I can take, and the docs are here to keep me together, okay? Let me worry about this and you worry about finally getting the courage to do what you've been wanting to do for some time. Concerning a certain someone?"

Leland watched the monk stumble in midair, the most obvious tell he'd ever seen in his life and he'd worked with plenty of people who couldn't land a bluff even with their whole face covered, "I- We don't know what you are talking about!" His eyebrows raised at that slight slip of the tongue, which only seemed to fluster the monk even further, "We- We have no further desires than to serve the Library's needs and record the events around us! Our volumes are in unison on this!"

"Is that how it works? I always wondered if all of you guys had to like him for it to go anywhere…" he muttered.

"The actions of the active volumes are created through the cohesion and union of our will," Secret Keeper said quickly.

"Our likes and dislikes are formed through consensus of individual preferences of all volumes, even if the active ones influence present actions. To 'like' someone as you are implying would require a substantial consensus of multiple emotive responses. It would not simply be a singular volume having an infatuation."

Leland smiled as the desperation underpinning the multiple voices, distracting him from his pain, "So if one volume had a crush-""It would not," they interrupted, one voice in particular slightly louder than the rest.

"But… if it did, then that would not influence surface level behavior at all. Emotive response would only be elicited should multiple volumes be in agreement. Fondness from one alone would not matter." And yet… Leland thought, if someone kept sneaking looks and making sure to always hover over nearby a certain someone then…

"I've found that in groups, people like talking to each other," he raised a finger.

"Especially about other people. Friends chat about people they met and your buddy's opinion on something might color your own. After a bit of time, you start seeing this other person in a different light. At least that's how it would happen with my team." The amalgamated being spun away from him for seemingly no reason at all and he knew he hit the nail on the head. His smile lasted until they spoke up again, "And… what if one of them had negative things to say?" It was like someone poured ice water over the room.

The way the voices trembled as they asked that told a story. One that Leland knew was gonna lead to some places he wasn't sure he wanted to hear about. He took a deep breath and turned to that old font of bravery still smoldering in his belly.

"Did something happen?" he asked Secret Keeper. It was dead quiet in the hospital room for awhile. Finally, the voices spoke up, "We were unable to help when we were needed most, so we did something… We can't remember what that was, only that it came with a price. Something valuable to us. No… integral to us. We don't think we knew what was being offered at the time, but we know what our answer would be when the time came to pay it. Or we think we do. It is… difficult to say."

"That's not very specific," Leland pointed out. The shook their head, "Forgive us, Sir Lochstein. We do not wish to be vague, but it is difficult to speak of it. Not just emotionally, we must clarify. We are a being of magic and the Akashic even if we are borne of mortal flesh. The price we paid was one that touches that part of us deeply. And one that we know we paid at the behest of bonds we made. After all, our nature, such as it is, can feel when fetters of all types are place upon us and when they are removed.

This makes us hesitant to offer services or exchange promissory bonds. We can feel them acutely… and their absence. We felt the weight lifted of two debts paid. One from the bargain we know we made and another… another that we treasured." The gaps were filling in, and Leland frowned. So Rhys had called a favor in to help them make good on a favor, and it probably had something do with memory… And now… well, Leland wasn't sure where that left things to be honest.

Clearly one of these "volumes" still carried a torch, but from what he gathered, there was a lot of pain there. Not the kind of thing that you can jump into a relationship with, even without having to put it to a vote apparently. He chewed his lip, wondering if it was right to even try and help mend this. He hesitated as a thought struck him, "Do… the others know?" They nodded, and Leland leaned back, feeling his back ache with more than just the effort, "Gods… Blake and Nora must be torn up, I'll bet."

Secret Keeper looked away, their face twisting beneath its coverings. Silence settled over the room as Leland considered what he could possibly say next.

"We did not mean to trouble you in this delicate time," the monk apologized before he could figure anything else.

"It is just… we find hoped you might be able to provide us an answer or some guidance. On moving forward." He sucked air through his teeth and looked away, "Keep, I'm probably the worst person to talk to about moving on from pain. I spent so long in that one spot…"

"And yet you are here now," they pointed out, causing him to blink in surprise. Leland took a few moments to digest that. It was still odd to feel like he was moving forward, especially since he'd mostly just exchanged one beeping bed for another one. He exhaled, "Fair point, I guess. Well conventional wisdom would be to move on after someone hurts you like this, but-""But we don't want that," Secret Keeper interrupted, one voice trailing behind the other two.

"And we were the ones who made the bargain in the first place." Before Leland could even get in a word edgewise, they continued speaking, and he caught their voices shuffling once more in prominence, "But… even still, to call upon a debt like that. No, we don't know what happened in the moment. And yet-" Leland watched as the pluriform began to quibble among themselves. He scratched at his chin, taking stock of the situation, remembering a lot of interpersonal conflicts he'd seen other heroes break out into.

His own team had managed to dodge that over the years, even if their own romantic entanglements had involved a few late night fights between each other at points. You don't spend so long around other people with a lot of emotions involved without accidentally doing something wrong. It was clear to see that Secret Keeper was struggling with the idea that letting go of Rhys would maybe mean letting go of the rest of the team, or maybe it was letting go of all those feeling they'd been bottling up that scared them.

The other side of the argument as he listened in seemed to be a mix of questions which they were reluctant to fully share out loud. One thing became clear.

"You haven't really asked him about these things have you?" Leland asked.

"W-we spoke," they protested.

"We know-""What if I asked him?" the former Prism Paladin asked.

"Figure out what happened that night and his reasons."

"We couldn't ask you to do that while you're-""I'm offering," he said with an air of finality. In truth, he was gonna figure out what that little punk of his had done regardless. This was mostly just to let Secret Keeper know to hopefully give them a lifeline to hold onto.

"I'll talk to him and let you know what comes up, okay?" The Librarian was quiet for almost a full minute, and Leland couldn't tell if they were chatting inside their head or just trying to figure out what to say. In the end, all they did was nod. He cracked a reassuring smile.

"Great, leave it to me, alright? I know that kid better than anyone and he can't really hide things from me. Once we've got more details, you can work from there, okay? But in the end, it's gonna be up to you to figure out what do," he warned, not wanting to put too much pressure on them but figuring that they'd need to prepare themselves regardless.

"We all gotta figure out what kind of pain we're ready to move past to make things work. And sometimes… sometimes we're not ready to go back to the old life after things have changed." They glanced down at his bed then back up at him, "And sometimes we are." He shook his head, wondering if they already had their answer given how stubborn that sounded. He wasn't about to push that on them though, having spent so long pushing back against everyone trying to get him to this room in the first place.

"Thank you, Sir Lochstein," they bowed their head.

"But please, we encourage you to rest and recover. You will need your strength if what you've told us of your recovery is true." He sighed, letting himself fall back fully against the pillows.

"Don't worry about me," he reassured them, a frail hand reaching out for on the fruits they brought him.

"I'll see this through. Just be sure to look out for this city for me, alright?"