"Move!" a voice yelled above the chaotic clamor. Boots were clanging on the metal flooring, people were breathing urgently.
"By Vincintine's name, how the hell is this kid still alive?" another spoke.
"Is that his mechbeast?"
"Yeah, but it won't let free of him. It's like it's fused to his chest!"
"It's a Red Lizard. How could he survive with a Red Lizard when others died?"
"That doesn't matter now! Get the Lizard off him! Hurry!"
"I can still feel his core, but it's fading fast. Pull! Get him to the health post, fast!"
Those words blurred past Jethro's senses as he felt himself being pulled on a slim hover-bed over a smooth floor. His eyes tried to open but his eyelids were too weak to pull apart from each other. So through the tiny, blurry gaps, he managed to see the faces of a healer and a nurse, looking down at him.
"What's… happening?" he slurred.
"Shh, conserve your strength, kid," the healer said to him. "You're being taken to the health post where Beastcorp's top healers will take care of you."
Jethro rolled his head, tired. "Beast… corp." He looked around the bed. "My Lizard… Where's my… Lizard?"
"You'll be reunited with your mechbeast once you're better. Just hang on tight."
"No… I want to be with my Lizard… Where… is… it…" Jethro protested feebly, but the effort was too much and he dozed off shortly after.
"He's fading! Hurry!"
They finally arrived at the room as the metal doors hissed open, letting them in and shutting once after.
Outside, one of the nurses lingered, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. She stood beside a hulking Beastcorp trooper, who had been amongst the rescue team.
"This doesn't make sense," the nurse said. "Why bother bringing a tamer bonded with a Grey Rank beast into a high facility like this. That has never happened."
The trooper looked at her. "Didn't you hear? A training squad somehow ended up in the Darc Throne Depths when they entered their Rift. The conqueror himself lives in the Darc Throne Depths."
He returned his gaze to the door. "Somehow… that kid survived."
The nurse's face turned pale as she joined him to stare at the door.
"Beastcorp is going to do everything in their power to make sure he survives," the trooper said. "He has a lot of questions to answer."
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Jethro, when he was simply David, had lost the most important things a child needed when growing up: love, connection, and stability.
After his parents died, he moved from foster care to foster care. In all of those fosters, one thing was the same; he never stuck it out. Every time things changed, every time new relationships started to bloom, he always left.
That was why he was in a new foster care almost every other year.
He was also the smartest in all of these fosters. The funniest too. He never expected it.
Someone who was so afraid to form relationships with people usually would be cold and reserved. But he couldn't help how outspoken he was and everyone liked him for it. Wherever he went.
Yet, somehow, Jethro had made it a priority to always be alone. He became scared of it— bonding with people. Making friends to him was just like forming a family, and there was just something about that that terrified him.
Jethro didn't know what it was.
That was a lie. Of course he knew.
He was terrified of losing them. Again. Just like he lost his parents.
The full truth was that Jethro had never really healed from that day. The other children at the foster homes, they too had lost their parents, but at least they were lucky enough to not have watched them die. To not have heard the sizzling of their flesh and the cries of their pain.
The two people he loved the most. How could he ever allow himself to love a person that way again? Knowing they could die. Knowing they could lit up in flames just like his parents did.
…Just like he did.
It was bitter how poetic that had been. When Decterion's flames engulfed him, there was a part of Jethro that wanted the death. That wanted to go out the same way his parents did. To fire.
Maybe then they could finally be together again.
But he had survived. Saved by the despised, ridiculed creature he'd called useless. His Red Lizard. That was when Jethro realized that he had been ignoring another important connection.
The one he had with his mechbeast.
This world, with its circuits and beasts and Rifts and magical madness… maybe it wasn't just another stage for him to lose everyone again. Maybe that was why he was here.
If the vulnerability of human connection was too terrifying, there were other living creatures that he could bond with in this world.
Mechbeasts.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
"Hargghhhhh!"
Jethro woke with a gasping roar, belting upright as if he'd clawed his way out of death itself.
He took a moment to calm down, taking deep, heavy breaths as he looked around his surroundings.
It was a blue-and-white room, and he was on a bed levitated an inch off the anti-grav panelled floor. There were screens on the walls that showed what appeared to be his skeletal, muscular and nervous systems, including a line graph tracking his heart rate. On the metal shelves were strange vials bubbling silently, and tubes connected to other bigger tubes.
He was in a very high facility health post, which left Jethro worrying for a moment about the health bill.
The door slid open and a nurse in a dark teal synthweave uniform froze in the doorway, eyes widening. She looked like she was scared of him.
"You're awake," she said, startled. "Please remain here! I'll notify the people in charge!"
Jethro's face formed a frown as he watched her run out of the room faster than she had come in, panels shutting behind her. "The people in charge?" he muttered.
He threw the thin blanket off his body and tried to lift his feet out of his bed. "Ughhh!" he groaned. His body felt like a hundred knives had been removed at once and his nerves were catching up to his absence.
Ignoring the pain, he dropped to the floor, his feet landing hard on the cold panel floor, legs wobbling slightly as his body adjusted. He gritted through the stiffness and stood tall after. Then he turned to the bed, searching.
Where was it?
His Red Lizard.
He was just about to panic when he realized he could still feel the mechbeast in his soul core. The bond was strong which meant his Lizard was alive, and closeby.
Jethro sighed in relief. But, he couldn't wait to be reunited with the little monster, and so he started to make his way to the door.
Halfway across the room, and with a few steps left to reach the door, his eyes caught something. His reflection.
Jethro stopped mid-step, twisted his neck to his right, and stared into the full-length reflective panel set into the wall beside the door.
"What?"
He stepped closer, slowly because he couldn't even believe what he was seeing. His reflection walked closer to him too, staring back at him, but it was not filled with burns, torn skin, wounds and a hairless head.
He was completely healed.
There were no burns at all. No scabs. Not even as much as a scar graced his skin. He was only wearing white clinic trousers so he could see his entire body and it was as smooth as it had been just before the expedition.
His head was covered with a full forest of his snow-white hair, and the gray coloring underneath. Jethro leaned in, almost disoriented by what he was seeing. He turned his head slowly, inspecting every part of him.
"It's a relief that I won't have to be bald at sixteen but…" he inspected under his jaw. "What kind of healers did they use on me?"
The door hissed open.
Jethro snapped his head sharply, just as a tall imposing man stepped in. He recoiled, stumbling back a step as if struck by the sheer weight of the man's presence.
"Jethro Merrick," the man spoke, his voice modulated through that terrifying mask. "Beastcorp is glad to see you alive."