"Good day, ma'am," Ares greeted, but the lady just kept staring at him, a flicker of what looked like annoyance in her golden eyes. As she stared, a line of faint text above her head.
SQ: 37 | Threat Level: Moderate
This stuff again, Moderate? What did that even mean?
Wait, do they not greet in Bastion Zion? Ares wondered as the woman's silent gaze stretched, the situation growing more awkward by the second. Just as he was preparing to apologize for some unknown offense, a blur of motion.
Whack!
A surprisingly sharp smack landed on his bicep, the sting of it shocking him.
"Hahaha, I'm just messing with you!" she laughed, the sound loud and genuine. "You must be the boy Marc has been talking about."
Marc, so that's his name. But how did she know who I was? Ares wondered, rubbing his arm.
"What are you still standing outside for?" she asked loudly, tugging on his arm. "Come on in."
The inside of the room felt much warmer than his and was also more spacious.
"Oh my!" The woman clapped her hands together, getting his attention again. "Where are my manners? My name is Valeria, and what's yours?"
"Ares," he answered. "Ares Creed."
"What a name," she said, smiling. "That's Lyra, my daughter." She pointed to a little girl who sat on the hospital bed. Her features, from her bright eyes to her wild energy, showed she was every bit her mother's daughter. His eyes flickered to the space above the child's head.
SQ: 11 | Threat Level: Negligible
The dark lens of the augmented reality glasses she wore lightened, allowing her eyes to shine through as she smiled at Ares, the chocolate bar paused at her lips.
"And that's the star for today," Valeria's voice came through again. "My husband, Marcus."
Ares looked at the man on the bed. One of his eyes was bandaged, his left arm was missing from the shoulder, and judging from the flat expanse of blanket where the girl sat, his right leg was also gone. Did this happen while he was rescuing me? What's there to be grinning about without an arm and a leg?
"Ahh, Baldy, don't put too much thought into it," Marcus spoke noticing Ares panicked look, his voice a cheerful rasp. "This all happened before I found you."
Ares felt the tension that had been coiling in his gut ease. Thank heavens. But then his mind caught up. Who is he calling Baldy? The thought was answered as the cool, recycled air touched his scalp, reminding him of his missing hair.
He heard suppressed giggles from both mother and daughter. Lyra's AR glasses were now completely transparent, her curious eyes trained on his bald head. Ares was beginning to regret this visit.
He looked questioningly at Marcus. If he was already missing two limbs, how had he managed the rescue? A graphic image of a desperate warrior crawling through the debris of Bastion Genesis was slowly coming to life in his mind.
Mmm-hmm! Marcus loudly cleared his throat, grabbing Ares's attention before he began his grand declaration. "Of course! I am Marcus Rend, a Limit-Level Second Order Warrior! Rescuing a little sapling like you is a piece of cake, even with a few limbs missing."
Ares felt his newfound sympathy for the man drop a couple of notches. But as he looked at the grinning, one-armed warrior, his internal system provided its own, starkly different assessment. The string of text above Marcus's head was staggeringly bright red, almost painfully so.
SQ: 123 | Threat Level: Extremely Dangerous
Ares's breath caught in his throat. One hundred and twenty-three?The man was not bluffing.
"But most importantly, what do you have there, my boy?" Marcus asked, his eyes fixing on the small gift bag in Ares's hand, pulling him from his shock.
"Just a little something I got for you," Ares said in a low voice as he pushed the bag forward.
Marcus accepted it with his only hand and skillfully brought out the content, his movements experienced, like he had been living with a missing arm for a long time. As he revealed the item, he shifted his body, trying to shield it from his wife's view.
"A Solaris Vitae! We really are kindred spirits, Ares of House Creed," he spoke with an excitement that should only belong to a child.
"Oh, Ares brought a gift," Valeria's voice came through, deceptively sweet. "What is it?"
"Nothing fancy—" Marcus started, his voice a bit tense, but before he could fully hoodwink her, Lyra's voice cut him off.
"Mama, Ares gave Dad a cigar pack."
The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Marcus stared daggers at Lyra while Ares instinctively took a step back from the intensity of the glare. Lyra, unbothered, kept sucking on her chocolate bar as Valeria wrung the cigar pack from Marcus's grip.
"Thank you for the thoughtful gift, Ares," Valeria said, pocketing it. "But he's currently weaning off things like this."
Oh, crap. Why the hell did I get a hospitalized man a cigar? The thought hit Ares like a bullet train.
"Care to join us for dinner?" Valeria asked, turning and bringing out several wooden food packs from a large thermal bag.
Ares shook his head. He was already feeling deeply uncomfortable with the intimacy of the family's interactions. I'll just come back later, he thought, glancing at Marcus's missing limbs. He's definitely not leaving the hospital any time soon.
"Ah, but we'd really like you to stay," Valeria protested. "Right, Marcus?"
Marcus nodded vigorously, though Ares couldn't tell if it was from the ominous undertone in Valeria's question or his own genuine intention.
"Okay then," Ares agreed quietly. It isn't like I have anyone or anything else to attend to, his mind chipped in.
Surprisingly, there were four meal boxes. Noticing Ares's gaze, Valeria explained that she brought an extra one for Marcus, a declaration that made him raise his brows in a pleased gimmick.
"Thank you for the meal," Ares said as he pulled down an inbuilt retractable seat from the wall. Opening the box, he was met with a vibrant vegetable salad and a large serving of fried fish, with a small compartment holding a light pink sauce.
"Uughhh," Lyra's protest reached his ear as her face turned into an ugly scowl.
"Eat your food, loudmouth," Marcus said as he took the chocolate bar she had been nursing, an action that earned him a wicked stare from his daughter—a stare he happily ignored.
Ares's ears filled with their family banter as they ate. Marcus and his wife clearly had no basic respect for table manners. Thankfully, their daughter seemed not to have inherited the terrible conduct of her parents. She was the first to finish her meal.
"What the—" Marcus swore at some point, his fork hovering over an empty spot on his plate. Lyra had snatched his serving of fish and chugged it down in one gulp. His first reaction was to scan Lyra's plate for her own fish, which she, unfortunately, had already dealt with.
As Ares looked at Marcus's ugly frown, something alien reached his mind. He was amused. The laugh died in his throat, however, and the cold returned, sharper than before. The feeling of amusement only stabbed into his hurt, reminding him of what he had lost.
The small family's banter lost its flair. It only made him feel more alienated. He couldn't finish the meal, no matter how hard he tried.
Closing the box, he apologized to Valeria as he once again tried to excuse himself.
"Oh, dear, we'll be leaving soon anyway," Valeria protested. "Just hold on a little longer, and Lyra and I will escort you on your way back."
It would be rude to refute their hospitality, Ares thought, trying his best not to dash out of the room as his emotions urged him to.
Even though Valeria had said they would be leaving soon, they still spent an extended amount of time that felt like torture to Ares before they were finally ready to go.
"Why don't you hold back a little," Marcus asked Ares just as his family was about to leave. His playful tone was gone.
"We do have something to talk about, don't we?"