Chapter 3 #4
I watched the scene as if in slow motion as Sebastian deflected the blade and sent the foreign mechanical soldier stumbling backwards.
In the fraction of a second the other machine was off balance, Vetala shoved one of his energy swords straight through the core of the enemy, penetrating what I assumed was the pilot’s chamber, then forced the blade upward, rending the machine in half and setting off a chain reaction of explosions.
Sebastian didn’t waste another second as he blasted off to the next enemy unit with unmatched speed and agility. It was like watching a fine dance, as he twisted around explosions, ducked under blows, and mercilessly eliminated every threat.
But I was still staring at the destroyed conglomeration of metal in front of me. What the fuck was I looking at? The orange, the Gehennan emblem… that couldn’t be a resistance invention. Which meant Gehenna was attacking us.
Was this… war? Again? It had barely been more than a decade. There was still a treaty in place. One both nations benefitted from.
Why?
I was still stunned when Vann embraced me in a tight hug that forced me back together and back into reality. I hadn’t had a chance to speak before that hug turned into him hoisting me into his strong arms, and running in the opposite direction of the too-close battle.
“Put me down, Vann. I can run myself.” I called to him through a haze of adrenaline and noise. Though my brother was strong, with me in his arms, he’d be too slow. We needed every single meter of distance we could get right now, and I could keep up on my own.
“I don’t want to hear it, Fi.” He snapped with a grimace.
“You’re injured, and you’re not going to get far like that.
” His words sent my focus to my ankle, where a broken metal shard pierced clean through my skin.
The pain didn’t register until the visual did, and I found myself suddenly flinching at the sting.
“It’s a surface wound. I can handle it.” I protested despite myself, but I remained still, not wanting to risk disrupting his balance.
“You don’t know that, and we don’t have time to assess it right now to find out.
” Vann picked up the pace, his strong legs throwing us forward, possibly legitimately faster than I could run.
This was Vann the trained soldier, and no longer Vann the reluctant medic.
This was the reality of his life that he didn’t let me see.
“Trust me. Let me protect my little sister for once.” He squeezed me just a little tighter.
“We’re not dying here. Not after everything we’ve been through. ”
I nodded in silence, and I let him carry me. This wasn’t the time to fight over something stupid. We’d carried each other in different ways plenty of times throughout the years. This was his turn, and I had to give it to him.
I tucked in and held tight to my big brother’s shoulders, while he sprinted forward with everything he had.
Vann may not have been a willing warrior, but he would always fight for me.
I glanced over my shoulder at the battle zone disappearing behind us.
The auditorium and cafeteria had both been leveled, the black military vehicles were blown to shreds—possibly the source of the shard in my leg—while enemy units crashed through the science wing, as Sebastian’s Shinka skewered and sliced them into pieces.
Tens, possibly hundreds, of people, my classmates and peers and professors, bled in the grass, while one single Shinka Unit Pilot, outnumbered by ten, stood to save us all.
We were almost to the dorm, when searing heat lit up my face again. Vann lost his grip on me when another explosion sent us both flying, scattering our battered bodies a solid ten meters apart.
I was back on my hands and knees, only to get bowled over by a gust of wind when an enemy unit came blasting onto the scene, directly in between us.
I lost sight of Vann, but his blood curdling scream was loud, clear, and impossible to miss.
“N-no—”
Vetala was on top of me faster than I could breathe, protecting me in the small space between his armored legs.
He sliced both swords downward in vertical slashes, taking off both of the enemy’s arms, then before the machine could come smashing down on us, he grabbed it by its head and hurled it as far away as his Shinka could throw, sending it pinging off the farthest wall of the space station.
He was gone as quickly as he’d appeared, though something told me he’d not focused on this unit by sheer coincidence. If I were to guess, he’d seen the explosion, realized I was alive when I started to get up, and he was doing his best to save any living students he could.
He may have still technically been a trainee, but he was a full-fledged hero, in my eyes.
I exhaled the relief of still being able to breathe, giving myself a millisecond of respite before my vision drew the scene in front of me into focus.
Red was the first color to register. Blood that soaked the grass, flesh that was mangled, crushed, and smeared by a giant steel boot, and my unmoving brother who was bleeding uncontrolled on the floor where his right leg used to be.
“No no no no no—” The only word I seemed to know anymore burst from my lips in rapid fire.
I didn’t recall moving, but at some point I’d appeared at his side, immediately assessed what remained of his leg, retrieved first aid supplies from my bag that was somehow already in my hand, and let desperation and determination control my movements.
My medic training kicked in mechanically as I tied off the limb at mid-thigh to stop his femoral artery from hemorrhaging further.
My brain shut out the paralyzing image of crushed bone and muscle below his knee, detaching my reality from the gruesome scene and everything it meant.
I didn’t have any time to think, let alone be squeamish.
I worked in a trance of adrenaline and hope and muscle memory as I severed the remaining barely attached flesh that couldn’t be saved, and I stabilized the body in this open battlefield.
But all of that professional indifference shut off when it came time to check his pulse.
I sucked a breath in through my nose as I placed two fingers over his carotid artery.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Alive. He’s alive. He must have blacked out from the pain, but he was breathing, and his heart was beating, and thank the fucking stars he’s not gone yet.
But the longer we stayed in this field, the less likely he’d stay that way.
I got to my knees, and I attempted to lift him from behind his shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, we’re okay.” I rattled through my tears, as everything hit me at once. “Stay with me, Vann.”
He was so damn heavy, but I would make it work.
I channeled every bit of medical and leverage training I had to hoist him into a fireman’s carry, but I was barely strong enough to actually move with his weight.
I was fairly certain it was by the power of will alone that I was able to drag him to the nearby men’s dorms on my shaking knees and skewered ankle.
It was by a miracle that I made my way to his dorm room, where he had more emergency medical supplies on standby.
I dug a bottle from his medicine case, strapped a rubber tourniquet tightly around his bicep, filled a syringe, then shoved it into his arm, thankful for his big, obvious, veins and every single one of those years of training I used to resent so much.
I may have been a C-minus student in Medella First Aid, but I knew how to take care of Vann.
I bandaged the open wound of his leg, and I prayed to the stars themselves that this wouldn’t be the last time I ever existed in the same world as my big brother.
With a deep breath, I hauled him to his bed.
He was heavier now under my subsiding strength, but I made it.
I leveraged my body to pull him up, and I wrapped him in his blanket.
I had him securely on the mattress with his head in my lap, then I hugged him around his shoulders as I waited, cried, and hoped it would all be okay.