Chapter 29- Assessing the Damage

Citadel Fist Floor- Grand Entrance Date unknown (Early Evening)

Nath’aniel-

The mage looked at the other man that had been with him in the basement. John only now took in what was in the room with them. His teammates were down and clearly injured. Noticing the early signs of shock and confusion, Nath'aniel knew that the other man needed a purpose.

“John. Pyro!” He shouted. When he had the other man’s attention he ordered. “Find Exodus, we will need his power to move her.”

John waited and pointed at the fur-covered person Basilisk carried. "What about her, she didn't come with us? What if she did this to them?”

Nath’aniel knew that words would not calm the other man. So he nodded as he decided to reveal a secret. “Guards, secure the stranger.”

On his words, three militant constructs emerged from the walls of the Grand Entrance. Two were identical, male models that wore what was made to look to be wearing furs while wielding a long-bladed spear. While the third was sculpted to look female, and also made to look as if it was in a heavy coat and a wide-brimmed hat. At the small of her back was a solid cylinder made to look like a quiver, when it pressed his left hand to it a bow came out of the bottom. She took the time to string the bow, before pressing its right hand to the other end of the quiver, making an arrow slide out the top.

Meanwhile, the two spearmen approached the trio of bodies. One had the long table between it and them, and he deftly hopped on top of it like it was only another step in its way. While the other strode unobstructed, in a kind of cocky way, as it spun its spear above its head. Once it was within range it slammed the butt of its spear into the ground, but its face and eyes were on the furry.

The mage only looked at the other man. Before the other nodded and muttered. “Right find Exodus. Citadel?”

Nath’aniel zoned the other man out, as he quickly moved to the bodies. As much as he understood Pyro’s hesitation to care for the stranger. But Basilisk hadn’t excluded her in her plea. ‘They deserve better, but what about you?’ he pondered as he jogged over.

He knew the theories for several spells that would enhance his strength, but all of them came with side effects. Effects that he didn't want to be under while looking over any wounded person, let alone three. He looked at the cube in his hand, as he jogged over. Having forgotten about the errand he had been on when he saw the scene before. As he passed the spearman on the ground, he passed it over to the construct to hold, before looking over the three tribesmen.

With just his eyes he could see that Erik was alive as he was releasing pulses of magnetic energy with every other breath he took. The fur-covered one, he realized on closer inspection was female, and only appeared to be wearing a collar and nothing else. The collar was more complicated than Nath'aniel expected it should be, as he could pick out sections that have their own thundering and solar pathways, as well as several blank areas, which he assumed still had components there as much of the thing was covered in pockets of metal.

He could make out that the collar was surging thundering energy into the furry, and that surge was passing up in Basilisk through her arm. Nath'aniel cast a weak but widespread detect life spell. It would only last for a couple of minutes, but it would tell him if any of the three were already dead.

It brought a small smile to him to see that all three were in fact alive. However, he noted that both women were in the worst shape of the three. And worse yet, the energy surges seemed to be draining them. 'Who would want to wear such a thing?’ Nath’aniel wondered as he prepared to move them.

He waited for a surge to pass, before touching the furry, however, once his hands were on her the collar surged early and pulsed into his arms too. The sensation was unpleasant, but nothing compared to the pain he had endured before the sarcophagus healed him. He dragged the woman several steps from the other two. The three constructs turned so they were always facing her.

Then spearman holding the power cell suddenly turned and readied himself into a stance and braced his spear one handed. Nath'aniel was taking a closer look at the collar but ignored the action as he could see the increase of yellow and green auras, as well as feel the life approaching them.

The mage didn’t say anything, as Quicksilver burst into the hall, stopping before he impaled himself on the braced spear. “Wooo. That’ssome wayto greeta guestbuddy.” Quicksilver blurted out while holding his hands up with the spear only an inch from his throat.

Nath’aniel reached for the collar. The surge came again, stronger this time. But he was ready for it. He didn’t cast a spell, he didn't think he had the time for it. Instead, he just willed energy from the plane of ice into his hand. Once the energy caused ice to form around the collar, he dragged his hand around the front half of the collar, causing all the components there to slow down and or fail completely.

The construct recognizing that he was a guest lowered its weapon. Spotting the power cell, Quicksilver reached for it asking "oh, what's that?"

Nath’aniel stood, now that the collar wouldn’t continue to kill the unknown woman, and ordered the boy. “Help me move your father.” The construct was able for a time to keep the cell out of his hands, but the mage knew that wouldn’t stay true forever.

Quicksilver started to defend himself saying. “Hey look, I was doing stuff, and I shouldn’t....”

Nath'aniel let him start his rant since he needed to pry Basilisk's fingers from the wounded man. But once that was done, Nath'aniel interrupted the boy “I didn’t ask, and I didn’t condemn. I said to help me move him!”

Quicksilver stopped looking at the power cell long enough to notice that Basilisk wasn't moving and what she was held in her arms was his father. "What the hell happened?" he asked, but the boy didn't move, he was too fast for that. He just suddenly was elsewhere in the room.

Nath'aniel was at Magneto's head, while Quicksilver grabbed his hanging legs. So the mage slipped his hands under the leader's arms and lifted. The two of them walked him slowly toward the long table. The construct on it took a step back so that there was enough room.

“Ishegoingtodie?” Quicksilver asked, worry all over his face as he spoke. Not that his inability to slow down enough to be understood, didn’t help.

Nath'aniel wrote an Appraisal spell over the man. When the flash of the spell activated, Magneto stirred but didn't wake. So much of his attention was on the data that floated above the man. It told the mage it wasn't all that bad. Major bruising was all over, and he had a few strained muscles in his arms. Nor was there any bleeding anywhere or anything else life-threatening.

“He will be bruised and sore. But nothing more.” Nath'aniel answered before walking over to the hulking woman on her knees. With the last flickers of his life-sensing spell, he could feel that she was weak and needed his care.

As he wrote another Appraisal spell, a voice from behind him cried out. “Father.”

The mage noted the increase of red and orange auras in the air, as well as the increase of Abyssal energy. But all of his focus was on the woman in front of him. The data was before and he was bothered by what it told him, but he also tried to listen as he heard the brother give his explanation.

"There are more than beast men out there. There are people too. But it's like they've devolved. Because they act mostly like they are all cavemen. They have clubs and spears and not much else. And one of these groups saw Bass as some kind of affront to their god and they attacked her. And well dad didn’t take too kindly to that.”

Nath’aniel heard the slap, as she asked. “And why weren’t you there?”

“Dad had me scouting, I had to turn them away from the dog men a couple times, but I didn’t know about the other group, because they were hiding. So when I didn’t see anyone I moved on to the Grey-wing. Only to find two dozen soldiers there, and they had a blow torch and were about to cut their way in, so I disarmed one of them and shot the fuel tank. But when I held the gun it felt wrong, light. That’s when I realized it was made of plastic. So I decided to try and go another way and lure them away from dad and Bass.”

Nath'aniel could see that Basilisk's physiology was different from what he expected. He of course knew about her size and the extra set of arms. But there were other things too. Her tear ducts seemed to be able to make a simulant, whose purpose was unknown to him. Meanwhile, her bones had an under-layer to them, which was almost crystal in nature. This explained why the solar energy, left behind from her attack on her face, hadn't been able to punched through into her brain.

She also had a second heart, which he assumed was meant to aid her primary one as it was smaller and currently not doing much of anything, since it was severely burned from the energy surges, as they had channeled up her lower left arm into her body. Her large beak also hid multiple nasal channels. Nath'aniel suspected these were meant to work in concert, so she was always taking in fresh air into her lungs. But the pattern was off, as the three openings on her right side were fused shut.

“Is he going to be ok?” The daughter asked.

“The mage seems to think so.” The speedster answered.

Then there were her arms which had various burns on them. The upper left was barely scrapped and would be fine, but her lower left was severally damaged from the electrical surges. While both of her right arms had suffered serious heat damage. This energy was different from what hit her head though. It wasn't like the things the people had recently shown him. It was mystic in nature. A spell had struck her, the auras red and white. And its effects were not just the impact. It was like the muscle underneath was smoldering from the hit.

Nath'aniel wondered about the source of the spell. ‘Another mage? No, his scrying would have revealed them. Perhaps the Empire had been dabbling and they left something behind? Maybe, unless it is related to the poison that his people released?'

The sound of popping drew him out of his thoughts. The sickening noises made him turn to face the furry. What he was surprised to notice was not only was she shedding like mad, as clumps of her fur fell away from her or simply off her. The others were watching her too now, the Archer construct had aimed their knocked arrow and pulled back the string ready to fire. And the siblings were staring at the woman. As she jerked and spasmed in place.

‘Her bones are contracting.’ Nath’aniel realized.

As the woman, the wolf-like snout contracted into the rest of her head, and her general mass shrunk. He had guessed that had she been awake and upright she might be as big if not bigger than Basilisk in height. But after all this change she was undergoing. She was now perhaps the smallest person in the Citadel. With almost no hair on her person, even her hair had it cut so short it stood up like tiny spikes. And as she shrunk, the collar tried to stay with her, but with the ice Nath'aniel had placed on it, it had at some point started to malfunctioned, and instead just popped open and fell off of her.

The two spearmen moved towards her, the mage held out his hand and took back the power cell. As he did he asked the two siblings. "John didn't recognize her in her other form, but do either of you recognize her now that she is assumedly in her normal one?"

Gypsy rewrapped herself in her Abyssal energy and floated over the girl and the easily shifted the pile of ten pounds of hair. After circling the girl twice, she shook her head. While her bother just stared at the naked girl on the floor. She first cleared her throat to get his attention, but after that didn’t work twice she landed in front of him.

Quicksilver stumbled to answer the question. “What? Her, oh ah. No, I don't?"

Nath'aniel noticed that the boy was staring at the small girl's exposed privates, so he wrote a spell and conjured a blanket atop the unconscious woman. Then he looked past the two and asked "What about you?"

The amount of magnetic energy in the room had not only stabilized but had increased in the past couple of minutes, leading Nath'aniel to believe that Magneto had regained consciousness. To the mage's eyes, he saw the wounded man, wrap his armor up in his powers, and lift himself into a seated posture.

“The girl no, but I do recognize the collar.” The man’s voice was strong, considering what abuse he must have just been put through. Said collar slid off the girl’s neck, and then flew towards Magneto’s outstretched hand. “This is a more advanced version than the last one I saw, but these collars are used to keep our kind in check. Once worn they can dampen or even remove our abilities, advanced ones can even go so far as to inject us with drugs to make us more compliant."

He tried to scoot off the table but his armor got caught on something, so he instead just used his powers to lift himself into the air and floated into Nath'aniel's face.

Once there Magneto shook the metal collar back and forth spit flying from his mouth as he hissed. "It’s things like these that the Brotherhood is fighting against.”

Since the other man was so close to him, the mage said in a whisper. “How about we take care of that. After we patch up the girl who saved your life.”

Realization dawned on Magneto, causing his eyes to go wide. "Right, sorry." He then tossed the collar onto the table and aimed his open palm at the kneeling woman. Nath'aniel saw that the magnetic energy was easily attracted to her waist, and then he realized that her belt must be laced with metal that the other man can work with. But even with the power of magnetism, it was going to take time to move the very large woman.

"Citadel, prep the bio-bed in the medical wing." The mage asked once the field was strong enough to lift the patient.