Chương 104: Part 86: Down.

It made a peculiar sound, to have every last bit of air pushed out of her lungs all at once. Nestra had been engrossed in the fight. It had been so much fun, being the eye and the hurricane the others were using to strike that the sudden stop just didn't register at first. She was fighting, then she was punted by something heavy, then she was on the ground, incapable of breathing, unable to move. I don't need to breathe. But her brain wasn't listening. Her body wasn't responding. Her eyes searched for a reason.

There was a wall of risen dirt, with a broken pottery, then her sword lying in the dust. And blood. More blood. And there was the black spear of Night Cloud stuck in her chest, its long shaft bumping awkwardly against the ground. Oh shit. The spear ended in her chest, upper left. Right next to the heart. Not into it or it wouldn't be beating so fast right now, but give the spear had a diameter of 'too fucking much', it was probably Very Bad. Couldn't move well.

Just turning her head to the side was like moving it through thick jelly. Still couldn't breathe. Really I don't need it. Blinding pain. Pain that drowned everything. Just pain. Just it.

"Shit, get her." Man's voice. Tristan.

"How bad is — ""GO NOW!" Hands. Shifted to the side. Black sky, red clouds, flashes. Smoke. Movement.

"Grab the spear. Make sure it doesn't jolt," the Tristan voice said.

"But…"

"If you remove it or it jerks, she dies." Pain pain pain. The Skin shivered. It moved towards the wound, pushing around the foreign object lodged in Nestra's chest cavity to slow down the bleeding. Internal bleeding would still occur. A cough. The taste of iron her lips. Lungs hit, at least one. Pneu-mo-tho-rax. Pneumothorax. Maybe. The sky darkened. She saw the shapes of the humans around her, one holding the spear, the other grabbing her under her armpits. Faces hidden behind masks and cowls. Shadow mana.

"They're not following," a female voice said.

"Oh, shit, is that…"

"The A-class. Look, I need to get her to the rescue team now. Can you —""They're not pursuing. We'll be fine. Go." And it was Night Cloud's spear. But why? Why Nestra? It was like being in a fight against two dangerous fencers at the same time and throwing your sword at a passing ant. The fuck? Darker sky. Nestra's legs were dragging in the dirt. She still couldn't move, not that she'd want to. It was bad. It was bad bad.

The outer bleeding had stopped but she still had a fucking artefact stuck in her chest cavity through the armored plate of her Skin, all of her physical resistances, and even her fucking ribs. Ow. Cold. Oh, that was a bad sign. Need to calm down. The more I panic, the faster I bleed. Faster dragging, as fast as a slow car. Panicked calls. Distant lights, above. More sky. More trees. The smell changed from ash and smoke to the deep forest.

"We should have taken the communicator. Fuck!" the unknown man's voice said.

"I'm blasting shadow mana. Just do the same and they'll find us."

"I'll use earth then. Send pulses."

"Do it." More ground. Pain, so much pain that Nestra was tearing up now.

"Is she still conscious?"

"Well her eyes are open. I can't tell if they're moving."

"Well shit."

"She's crying."

"Ok that's a good sign. I see light ahead. Keep it up." Flashes of mana. Light. The two masks left. Lots of noise, lots of mana signs rushing ahead. Two mana signatures stopped. Tents.

"Bring her here," a familiar male voice said.

"AND CLOSE THE DAMN FLAPS."

"Nestra?" another person asked. Aunt Claire? Why was she here? Why was she so worried? Voices, an exchange at B-class speed that she could barely follow.

"Don't say her name. Don't move her. Take out her mask," the man said. His head appeared. Mazingwe. Well, he was a doctor. Nestra wasn't feeling so much pain anymore. Something was wrong. Maybe… maybe she should change shape. That worked before. She tried, and realized she couldn't. Masks could be removed. They could be damaged or repaired. This wasn't a mask. This was her. She was dying. That was it. She was fucking dying. Her mask was removed. Claire was…

she'd seen her aunt aloof or amused or sad or even furious but never like this. Never so devastated. Never broken. But she was broken now. Panicked.

"Fuck fuck hold on. Help is on the way. Doctor?" Someone touched her chest around the wound.

"Her armor has plugged the wound at least. I can't help her. Not without a full operation theater and not for this. We need the big man."

"The Nephrites outside?"

"They're not equipped either. We would need a B-class. Shit, I can't even get a needle through her skin. Hold. Shinran? Crescent was hit by Night Cloud. She's critical." Explosion outside. Roaring, distant sound.

"On my way. But we will need to pull back," a voice replied through a machine.

"The enemy A-class?"

"Not here yet. We've captured Night Cloud." Should have done that faster.

"I'm almost there." Not pain anymore. Tired. So tired.

"Nestra, stay with me?" Claire begged.

"Nestra? Nestra!" Slapped but what for? She needed rest anyway. Being awake wouldn't help.

"Yabai," a new voice said.

"No IV?"

"I can't pierce her skin."

"Ah, that is her real bo—" Nestra woke up with a start. No dreams. Just being awake and panicked. Gasping for air. No problem breathing. At all. The ceiling was white and flat. The ambient mana was too low to be the Bridge World so she was back home. She was currently in her human form so there was no pain. Interestingly, she was wearing her civilian clothes which meant no one had changed her. Getting up on her elbows led to a grunt of effort. So damn tired. The room was dim, but it was a hospital room.

Outside, the lights of the city informed her she was still in the center. Probably the Beacon. There was a shape sitting at the visitor's table, hands on the top, head on the hands. Quiet. Maybe resting. Nestra's shift woke her up.

"Aunt Claire?"

"Ah, you're awake." Her voice was weird. It lacked warmth.

"Errr."

"Hold on. Doctor Mazingwe said you'd be hungry." And she was. Ravenous, even. Claire left while Nestra pitifully dragged herself to the table feeling one billion years old. Her aunt soon returned with a covered tray of food that smelled like hospital. Nestra still had no idea how they always managed to make it taste this bad. There had to be a special process, and yet hunger, as always, was the best seasoning, and she demolished the entire meal in record time. Claire waited for her to finish.

"I'm supposed to tell you not to change back into your true form until Mazingwe is around. The room is under your name. The human one, I mean. You were carried here covered so your identity should be safe barring a fuck up of… oh who am I kidding? I called you by your real name out in the field. Nobody was around at the time but I can't guarantee no one heard." Nestra nodded. She'd gotten lucky again.

"What… happened?" she forced out, focusing her attention on a forgotten chocolate bar,"Well. You were speared in the chest by Night Cloud, a powerful A-class lizard huntress."

"I remember… but why?" Claire was more animated but there was still something wrong with her.

"I can only surmise, but she was losing badly. Apparently, Shinran was much more prepared for this fight. He managed to cut her arm off to disable her. As a last gesture of scorn, she threw her weapon at you… probably because you were the most tempting and obvious target. You know. A very talented and promising 'human' C-class on the frontline."

"Oh…"

"Then Tristan rushed you to the reinforcement group, which was us. You weren't told about us for operational safety reasons, but we were camping at the limit of lizard-controlled land to rush in and protect the extraction in case the lizards gave pursuit."

"Uh."

"We didn't have anything to handle your wound, or even anything to properly treat you since apparently you can just go without breathing oxygen for a while, and also your skin cannot be pierced by any medical needle Mazingwe could find." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Ah."

"You were really at the edge of the precipice when Shinran showed up. We removed the spear while he healed the damage as it went out. When enough was healed that you would be mostly stable, you switched back to human form." Nestra frowned. That made sense, maybe? As a survival mechanism? If the Aszhii became unconscious but was no longer dying, then it made sense to switch back to the host form in case they got found. She couldn't be sure, and Sereth wouldn't tell her. Sereth.

He had done nothing, just as he'd promised. And she didn't blame him. She couldn't. He'd been very honest, and she'd been… maybe a little reckless. It still hurt a little.

"So we carried you back because there was nothing left to do. Your Aszhii form is unharmed, though unconscious."

"There is a link between forms. They can exchange nutrients. My human body's probably working overtime to help the true form heal."

"Right, ok," Claire said, still sounding a little weird. That was enough of that.

"Ok what's wrong?" Nestra asked, worried.

"The hostages all died?"

"What? No, we got them all. They're getting debriefed. Apparently, a few of them were taken a year ago. So everyone thinks they're dead. Makes it complicated, what with the funerals and everything."

"Oh, shit yeah… Hmm. So…"

"How are you feeling?" Claire cut.

"Hm. Ok? Just very tired. I'll recover fast." Claire pulled her brown hair away from her face. It didn't look gaunt or anything, but she was still somehow showing her age. It was subtle, but it was there.

"Right. So, let me ask you something," she began.

"Huh?" And then she exploded.

"What the FUCK were you thinking? Engaging over three B-class guards as the front woman? Right under an A-class fight?"

"I mean, I was mostly fine until —""You are always fine until you aren't!" Claire yelled, pushing Nestra back just from the violence of her words and the tectonic fury of her mana. Now that it was bleeding out of her, it was abundantly clear Claire was on her way to A-rank at some point. It radiated out like a sun of air and stone, making the floor shake with tremors and Nestra's lungs struggle.

"You're fine until you're so stupid you almost die! By your own doing! You were not even remotely close to unlucky, you dumb cunt. It was you! It was all your decisions that led you to bleed out in my fucking arms like… like…" She stood, the aura calming a moment later. Someone knocked on the door, which partially opened. A sliver of yellow light seeped into the dark room.

"This room is sealed by municipal decree," Claire grunted.

"It's 3AM, and there are patients all around you," a male nurse chided before closing the door again. Claire calmed down, but that just meant her voice was a low growl and only her face carried her anger, not the entire structure.

"I mean, the operation was sound?"

"Because it worked? Hah! Because Threshold authorized it? Double hah. Fuck. Did you forget? The city doesn't know about people's abilities so it gives arrogant raiders the final decision because it counts on them to know when they're hopelessly outclassed. Like you were, dammit! But you know the worst part? You could have called it off to make another plan.

At any point, you could have called off the operation, retreated with Specter and let the rescue-specialized operators plan a proper mission using the invaluable data you'd collected. Shinran and Rangarok would have delayed their attack to make it work. The prisoners would have survived for three more days. Everyone went in because you organized the mission, and everybody else believed you when you said it was the best option. And it fucking wasn't.

Because you are C-rank and you were playing tag in the middle of an American football league match. So let me ask you again, jackass? What. The fuck. Were you thinking? What's your fucking problem? Do you hate breathing? Do you think I went ten years risking life and limb to give you a chance to experience being one of us just so you could suicide by lizard not THREE FUCKING MONTHS LATER?" Claire stopped there but only because her voice was rising again and she needed a second to breathe.

"I'm sorry," Nestra squealed.

"No but seriously, explain to me why you thought this was a good idea. Go on. Tell me. I need to understand. Did you really, really, really look at the village and think you could single handedly tank for a shadow guild? Did you? Did you?"

"I, errrr."

"Is there something in that alien cortex of yours that short-circuits higher brain function when it comes to risk assessment because GOD."

"Hmm, yes."

"You… what? Uh, really?" Nestra was weirdly on the verge of tears. The explosion of verbal violence had caught her completely off guard. Claire had never lost her temper at her before in twenty-five years of existence. Ever. Now, though, Nestra's answer had cast cold water over the outrage.

"Really?" she asked again.

"Buuuuh," Nestra sobbed. Claire breathed, lowering her volume again.

"Look I'm sorry, but I am very understandably upset. We've lost… Your parents and I, we have lost many people, and we have done our best to teach you from our mistakes because all of those lessons were written in blood. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"What is this higher brain function shutdown thing. Is it real?" Claire handed Nestra a box of tissues. That was needed. And it provided a small and necessary break.

"So, we have this thing called hubris that pushes us to ever greater risks and challenges. It's also addictive. Winning just feels so, so good. Not just winning, but being better at something. And that also means taking handicaps to make the fights fair and interesting. Honestly, I thought I had it under control…" Nestra stopped to think. Was this really hubris?

"But I don't know. It felt different. I don't think I did it to show I was the best…"

"So it wasn't hubris," Claire summarized. Nestra slowly shook her head, lowering it from shame. Claire was still right. She had fucked up. The argument that hostages could wait a couple more days felt bad to her because it showed a lack of care for their conditions, but Nestra had been lucky she'd been the only casualty of this little escapade. Night Cloud might just have decided to vaporize the column of slow-moving prisoners instead. Claire was right. She had been careless.

But was this hubris or just Nestra being Nestra?

"Did you feel driven by the need to, what, prove yourself?" Claire asked. She no longer sounded accusatory which was definitely progress.

"Yes? Maybe? I need to… I need to show that I can really help." She sniffed and went for another tissue.

"Look, my kind, the Aszhii, they will visit at some point. They love to fight new creatures. That means fatalities, and those will be levied from the best of us."

"Of us?" Claire said with a soft chuckle. Nestra waved the comment away.

"I don't consider myself an alien as much as a spicy human. I'm a human-born Aszhii. I'm closer to you than to any of my kin. I want us to get along. I need it. It's going to be super important in the not-so-distant future. The lives of many people depend upon it, and I, as the first of my kind, can make a difference."

"You can't do that if you're dead."

"Yeah, yeah, okay…"

"Don't give me shit, Nestra. Not now," Claire warned. She was definitely not done with the issue.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I know I fucked up. I know the risks were too much. It's just… I need the humans to look favorably on everything I will have done after the truth comes out."

"Hopefully not too soon."

"Hopefully, but it will. I was too careless with my secret. It's just a matter of time now. I need to be accepted. It's so important."

"And you think humans won't accept you?" It was Nestra's time to scoff. She gave out a short, derisive laugh.

"Really, Claire? Really? Has my latest coming out gone well? I was attacked in my fucking home by people who think I'm a transformation gleam and you think revealing to everyone that I'm part of a parasitic species that deceives and sexually abuses mothers will go any better? It's an uphill battle, I think." Nestra sniffed again. Claire looked just sad by now.

"It's about Debbie and your dad, isn't it?" she asked. Nestra had to do a double take.

"What?"

"You just mentioned your announcement. Fuck, that reminds me of my youth with people doing coming outs in religious families. Are you trying so hard to be accepted and recognized because Debbie kind of, well, you know…" Nestra froze. Was she? Just thinking about it made her feel so insecure and brittle somehow. Like she'd regained something and lost it again and now she would never be sure in her life. It had been, what, ten days? Since it happened?

"Oh. I, uh. I don't know. I can't exactly go to a shrink with this pile of information now, can I?"

"I don't know," Claire admitted after a few seconds.

"I really don't know."

"Has there been any news?"

"They've been raiding again. I think your mom is processing. It's not about you, Nes. Really it isn't. It's just… sexual abuse was really bad where we came from because it was always the girl's fault. Those who dared talk were labelled temptresses, or disruptor trying to ruin a good man's reputation because of course it was almost always someone in power. And even if they were believed and persisted, there was this… stain. So now she's, well. She's having a hard time.

We were so vulnerable when it all started, back when I dragged her to Australia just to be sure our parents wouldn't snatch her back as an 'intervention'. We lost a lot of our friends — people you never met, when the portals really started to open and we just had to get in or folks would die. Debbie took it really hard. She struggled so much to be safe, to become strong so she could protect those that were dear to her, even though she was never the sort of warrior your father and I were.

She probably thought her days of being at the mercy of others were behind her and… they weren't. She was deceived as a B-class. Your dad is here for her, though. He knows it's none of their fault and none of yours either. You just, ah. I'm sorry, Nes. It really isn't about you but you're like… the living result. Sorry."

"I mean I knew all of this. I thought it might happen."

"But it's not the same as things really happening, isn't it?" Nestra shrugged.

"Aaaaaah I wanted to forget," she exclaimed, grabbing her head with two hands. Claire's voice was softer now.

"Ok, well. Ok, obviously you're hurting much more than I realized even though I really should have. It was super obvious this would hurt. Maybe we should have talked."

"I needed space," Nestra replied. She thought about it for a while, then decided to be honest about her conclusions. Not like she hadn't already fucked up anyway.

"It's my bad. I should have waited until after the operation to tell mom and dad. I was feeling so guilty I decided to go for it, but obviously it was not as important as being in the right state of mind to infiltrate a lizard dwelling. I understand that now. It's just… I didn't have the willpower to wait. Or maybe I was just afraid of being a coward, of postponing yet another truth I definitely owed them. I don't know."

"Ok. Well, it sucks, sorry. Look, let's just get out of here for now. Talk later because this was really intense. Helena wants to see you too; She's worried. And then maybe take it easy for a couple of weeks?"

"I will."

"No more suicidal bullshit. Please."

"I know, I know. I'll just take a moment to calm down and train. Maybe do a cooking show. Those are fairly harmless. Then… we'll see." Claire nodded. Then she surprised Nestra by leaning in for a hug. Nestra almost yelped but the hug was gentle and surprisingly needed. And she usually disliked spontaneous physical contact. But Claire was just so familiar: her strength, her floral smell, her wild hair ticking Nestra's nose. So Nestra decided to stay there for a while.

There would be time for more introspection later.

Alden heard the ping just as he was pushing a vegetable dish into the oven. The notification almost bypassed his brain before he realized what it was for. With a certain pleasure, he grabbed his visor for what he knew would be a good time, before turning his attention to his bedroom's door. Yoko walked out wearing his hoodie and nothing else. She casually stretched, perhaps sensing his gaze on her body. He would never get tired of it.

"Hmmm, what's cooking?" she asked.

"Oven vegetables and sea bream en papillotte with rice."

"Nice. What are you watching?"

"A new episode of Cooking with Crescent just dropped."

"I remember. She is the mad raider who got you into the culinary arts, ne?"

"The very same."

"Well, put it on the large screen!" This time, the background was that of a lush temperate forest centered on a delicate pink flower as gorgeous as it was large. Thick vines supported heavy petals hanging in a way that convinced Alden it had to smell divine. Crescent popping on the screen in front of a simple work table was just as strange as always.

"Hello everyone, and welcome back to Cooking with Crescent. Today we're going to do something a little different. I know I've done almost exclusively high protein meals recently, which makes sense because it's easier on the fly, and raiding is hungry work, but a balanced diet is paramount! So today we're going to be working on fiber, and here is my special guest." She stepped to the side to point at the large pink plant.

"Manadionae muscipula triffidis. A Venus Maneater, fairly common in temperate worlds, though there are large variations between subspecies. The Venus Maneater 'leaf' is both nutritious and, most importantly, tasty. It is also one of the very few leafy greens with some protein due to its diet and nature. I think it's easier to demonstrate why via example, so, if you will give me a moment." Crescent walked out of the screen. Soon, angry snarls covered the quiet sounds of the forest.

The raider came back in view carrying a weird monster, a mix between a pitbull and a gorilla probably slightly smaller than a human but incredibly muscular. It lacked forearms, instead having two scythe-like claws it could probably walk on. The beast struggled but Crescent was holding it by the scruff and back and the creature simply didn't have the leverage to free itself. The furious screeching quickly turned into panicked yelps the closer they got to the plant.

"Oh," Yoko commented by Alden's side. She was fully engrossed by now. Crescent unceremoniously tossed the beast at the Venus Maneater. Thick, rope-like extensions grabbed it with incredible speed. The pink flower widened, revealing a maw of serrated thorns that looked eerily like teeth. The beast was silenced after the first ghastly crunch but it still took another twenty seconds before it was fully ingested. Nestra turned back towards the camera.

"As you can see, the Maneater is partly carnivorous, which makes the feeder limbs especially tasty. Ok, let's begin with the sauce. Honestly, any normal salad sauce will work with Maneater leaves, but I have a personal preference for a classic vinaigrette. For this we'll need olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and mustard. I like whole grain mustard as much as the next girl but prefer ground mustard for a vinaigrette as the thick paste will provide much needed texture.

What we want is something thick enough to coat the vegetable, and if it's too watery you'll just end up with your entire sauce at the bottom of your bowl. We're just going to mix the ingredients aaaaand…" It looked like a nice vinaigrette, and definitely on the thick side. Alden would have used more vinegar, but he preferred apple vinegar that was a bit less acidic.

"And now, the star of the show." The long awaited moment was here. Crescent walked up to the plant with confidence, jumped, dodged (or so Alden thought. It was going too fast) and then the plant and the woman were struggling in a contest to the death. It was a whirlwind of limbs and lianas, but it was clear from the start Crescent had the advantage: she had managed to hook one leg around the main stem and was forcing the maw away from her with her elbow.

The lianas pulled on her while she struggled with particularly thick ones in a contest of brute strength. It didn't take a raider to understand that Crescent could have used her sword at any time to turn this into a gardening session. Instead there was a furious battle of the idiots on screen, with one of the contestants being devoid of a brain and the other categorically refusing to use her own.

Eventually, Crescent pulled the large limb from its socket in a spray of transparent sap following which the plant lifted her, then tossed her bodily against a nearby rock before returning to a sulky quiet, petals ruffled after this cruel indignity. Crescent returned to her work table triumphantly, the rock behind her no worse for the impact, which surprised Alden a bit considering how thick that skull had to be.

"Right, so the limb is obviously much less solid after being detached, but it's still not tender enough for pleasant consumption, especially for baselines, so we're going to tenderize it in order to break down the cellulose in the cell walls to release all that nice juice and make chewing it much more pleasant. Unless you're B-class and you like your food crunchy. And if you didn't know, vegetal cell walls are partly made of cellulose which humans cannot digest but still need for proper transit.

Please note that if you get your maneater from deliveries, then most of them have already been tenderized. Just check the package. Now it's better to let a robot do it for you but this is a C-class world and I have no robots so I will be doing it the old-fashioned way." Crescent grabbed a comically large hammer with a slightly spiky head. She laid her pilfered trophy on the ground, then smashed it at high speed. WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM.

She paused to properly reposition the liana since the ground wasn't perfectly flat so it had fallen a bit to the side. WHAM WHAM WHAM. This went on for another ten seconds, then she looked up to the camera.

"Since this will take a minute or so, I will use another bit of time magic." She snapped her fingers and as usual, the transition was slightly mangled with her not being in the exact same spot afterward. It was the background that had changed the most. A larger version of the sacrificial monster she'd fed to the plant was now standing against the stone, its head punched clean off. Spectacular blood splatters covered the rocky surface and half a dozen trees beside.

The cause of the decapitation was a perfectly square-shaped hole between the shoulders, the meat under it showing the indents of the tenderizer's head. Crescent completely refused to acknowledge it.

"And we're done. I've also washed the oversized leaf in clean water, which you shouldn't do if you buy it processed. The next step is to slice the leaf flesh into convenient pieces. A majority of Threshold's chefs favor julienne, that means long and thin strips, but I personally prefer small cubes which will match the additional ingredients I've selected, so that's what I'm going for. If you're doing cubes too, mind that they don't end up too thick. You should go for a centimeter or less per side."

Crescent cut a portion first very slowly to show the baselines how to do it, then at gleam speed. Her paring knife played a pleasant staccato on the cutting board, with neat cubes ending on the side. She pushed them all into her bowl.

"As for additional ingredients, it's entirely up to you. I will personally be using goji berries, feta cubes and croutons, but you can add anything from quail eggs to olives to Emmental cubes to anchovies or slices of red onions if you're feeling adventurous. Really it's up to you. You decide how you want your salad. Now after you're done, give it a good mix and be careful not to have anything fall out of the bowl!" Even the mixing part was elegantly done with precise movement.

The result was strange for a salad in the sense that there were no big leaves, but there was a lot of color, and it just looked fresh and nice.

"I see why you like it," Yoko said with a chuckle. She was leaning against Alden. She smelled nice, and her naked leg pushed distractingly against his own. Now he was regretting wearing his pajamas.

"Got me into cooking," he admitted.

"Which leaves us with the best part: the tasting," Crescent said. She sampled some of the goods with a large spoon. Alden realized she was taking great care not to show her teeth but the thought faded. She was obviously some sort of transformation gleam so maybe there were features she preferred to hide. The mastication didn't take long, mercifully, though he knew some people enjoyed that part. He personally hated the sounds.

"Right, so compared to lettuce it's definitely thicker and crunchier. The raw Maneater reminds me of cucumber, only more potent, and it compliments the vinaigrette quite well. Interestingly it makes the feta the star of the show even though most of the mana comes from the Maneater itself. I can see this going well with a roasted meat dish and a bit of toasted bread. It's also fast to prepare. An ideal lunch, I'd say. Alright! This concludes the episode. I hope you had fun.

Next time we will be heading into a volcano."

"A what?" Yoko interrupted.

"See you people. Eat well!"