[EVENT] Falling Into Place (Percy/Leon)

As bad as it was, Percy was glad for any sort of break. He'd worked in the trauma ward of the hospital while getting his medical license, but that paled in the face of this. What little aversion Percy had to blood that wasn't his now was effectively gone. There was no time to think about it when people were actively bleeding out all around you. Even as he stood in the crowd, his arms and medic coat were smeared in who knows how many soldier's bloods. He looked tired with some darkness under each eye and a slump in his shoulders as he stood in the crowd, vaguely hailed by those he was working with as a good man to come volunteer like this. If only they knew the truth. Selfish reasons brought him here and those same reasons kept him wading through the limbs and gore. At least he was useful, and at least Leon hadn't been through the tent. They'd both been assigned to camp.

He'd been looking for Leon in the crowd, but most of the people around him were tall enough to block his view in the direction it counted. Just as he took a break to carefully rub his damaged eye with a clean palm, a hand came down on his shoulder. Even though he knew who it had to be, he still flinched. Peeking around, Percy looked up at him and smiled, glad to see he was alright and just as intense as usual. That was good. Nothing had changed...yet.

Before they could speak much, the announcement started. They didn't have the time to waste in such an urgent situation. The Bellian Major began to bark out whatever update was coming, and even though Percy had picked up a lot more of the language in his six high-stakes days as a trauma surgeon sporting a translator that frankly worked too slow, he was hoping he'd misunderstood. Not all the words were clear, but the intention wasn't something he needed translated. Turning to Leon with an odd look on his face, he repeated what he really didn't want to hear. "([Reserves dispatched to the frontlines...in the morning?])" he asked in ungraceful but understandable Bellian. His accent was a little off and his mouth clearly fumbled with it, but then again he fumbled Ishgar most of the time with all his stuttering. "I didn't get the rest of it, but was that the gist? Our numbers are getting thin and now we have to go?" he asked. The words would normally sound stressed, but it seemed he was too tired to emote that at the moment. Instead, his words sounded flat, like that of someone who, after all he'd seen, felt nothing anymore. In a way that was true. If he had to amputate one more leg today, he thought he might scream...or go take a nap. Still, something bothered him. "...how have we gone through so many soldiers when everyone here has magic?" the peppermint head asked, face finally showing something other than weariness. When you were taught all your life that absolute strength comes from having money and magical power, it was a bit of a twist to see something like the magical Bellum struggle against magicless Pergrande...

[wc: 545 || total: 1090]

Percy looked about the same as before. He'd managed to get a nap in, and even now as he walked across the camp, he had half a granola bar hanging out of his mouth as he pulled on a canvas coat over his black shirt. The weariness was still there, but there was tension in his eyes that made him seem full of energy. It was that nervous energy of the unknown, and it was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. So much fear and dread, but also the anticipation of seeing what it was that was bringing in patients like the ones he'd had and the opportunity to make sure Leon made it out alright. It was darkly thrilling. There wasn't really a term for it.

Locating Leon easily, he increased his pace to join him near the truck. "Hey," he mumbled around the snack in his mouth, clumsily rustling an unopened bar from his pocket to offer to the man. Glancing over the intense face, he tilted his head in concern. "Did you sleep?" he asked as he adjusted the large bag on his back that held all the things he could think of that he might need. It was heavy, but it was all necessary things. Weapons, exosuits, medical supplies, all sorts of things. After a pause to stare at Leon for a moment, he seemed to remember something. Fiddling with something on his wrist, a high-tech film of self-replicating nanoskin spread over his body and altered his appearance right before Leon's eyes. His scar disappeared and his eyes turned gold, and that hair the taller man loved turned a dark black-brown and lengthened, fading into a light goldish brown the closer to the tips it got. Though he'd never done this in front of Leon before, he seemed to forget to offer an explanation, not that he could explain too much. This was his appearance when he partook in the highly secret aspects of the Dagger empire, which was only ever visible in the darkest recesses of the basement of Dagger Corp. It'd be best if he wasn't recognized on the battlefield as a Dagger, just in case. Blowback came when it was least expected.

Once his appearance had changed and his hands were free, he reached forward and, as it seemed was his new habit, pinched the fabric of Leon's shirt between his fingers. "I guess this is it, isn't it?" he asked, shifting back and forth from leg to leg, starting to get rather antsy. Soldiers and people he'd worked closely with were piling into the truck around the back, making it seem more and more real by the second what was about to happen. The glows of fire and the distant booms of explosives and combat magics never stopped day and night, and the feeling of heading right into that was something he'd never forget. "We'll be okay," he said quietly. It was unclear if it was to himself or Leon or both.

[wc: 500 || total: 2200/8000]

"Uh..." he said, momentarily lost in the sight of the chaos. Seeing it on LV was much different than in person, which he'd known, but there was no way he could have prepared for it. It took a moment for him to shake himself out of his daze to where he could swing his bag around and dig around for the retracted suit. "Of course." Handing one hard-shelled pack to Leon, he got himself one as well and strapped it to his back. Pressing a switch on the shoulder, a sleek black exosuit covered his body up to his neck, where his helmet remained missing for now. The thin creases between the metallic segments glowed red and pulsed as power flowed into the limbs. He then dug out some other equipment like guns and swords that would become full-sized with the press of a button and handed them off too, attaching some to himself. There were a few other things he attached to the belt area of his suit before he returned the backpack to its place on his shoulders.

It was hard to see all the injured coming over the trench and not run in to try and help. After six days of it, it was almost second nature, but no. That wasn't his job now. His job was to send Pergrandians to their medical tents. It was naive for him to have decided he wasn't going to kill anyone, but that's what he thought. He didn't have the stomach to kill anyone. It wasn't even a choice. Not really the spirit of war, admittedly, but they just had to survive and contribute for today. As long as he could do enough damage to take people out of the fight for the day, that was enough.

Despite being so tired, the adrenaline pumping through him almost had him running into the battle head-on. In a way, he was excited to test his mettle, to see if his strength and tech stood up in the worst, most dangerous of situations. Percy wasn't one to shy away from deadly situations. He wasn't so much a fan of Leon being beside him, but if it had just been him on his own, he would have probably been in a much better headspace and recklessly excited. But instead, he stood pensively looking at Leon, conflicted. "Uhm," he started, not sure what to say at first, but doing his best to come up with coherent words. "Let's stay together, okay? I want to back you up," he said but continued to linger closely. As dumb as it was, he wanted a kiss before they jumped in, but he didn't know how to ask for it and he definitely didn't possess the ability to initiate it on his own yet. He'd just hover awkwardly in hopes that Leon would pick up on it, and if not, he'd put his helmet up and go to the position that the general was barking at the new arrivals.

[wc: 500 || total: 3450/8000]

The member 'Percy' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Monster Dice' :

The member 'Leon Hoffman' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Monster Dice' :

Even though his suit radiated heat from the inside to offset the cold of the mountains, he could still feel it seeping into the less air-tight joints of his suit. It actually felt nice though because his adrenaline was pumping and keeping him sweaty even without the heating. The sheer number of enemies crawling from every crevice in these mountains was overwhelming. They were like ants escaping a flooding ant hill. Percy persisted. It hurt, but he persisted.

Staying near Leon, he did his best to keep the enemies off his back. Using a specially designed input area in his suit, the suited man injected himself with his special cocktail of physical enhancers, both natural and unnatural. Between his own abilities and enhancements from the suit, Percy was almost blinking across the field and over the mountainsides. Bullets ricocheted off of him left and right, sometimes hitting other Recruits and wounding two of them enough to take them out of battle, but he didn't have time to worry about it too much. The impacts from the bullets were unpleasant and jarred him to the bone, but once Percy was in fight mode, he sat aside all his pain and discomfort. One Recruit he punched so hard that he went sailing into his two comrades and fell off the edge of a cliff. In a panic, Percy rushed to check on them and was relieved to see them slowly moving and rolling off each other.

In an attempt to keep them from swarming Leon, Percy ran around and landed small hits on the enemy, just enough to grab their attention. He wasn't one to rely much on his tech's abilities ironically enough. He was much more interested in using his body to prove himself until he got his magic. However, if he'd learned anything in fighting the endless waves of armored soldiers, it was that he didn't have the luxury of preference. He had to use all his tools effectively as he got the opportunity. With the five recruits from before down and his attention-drawing scheme in the works, he soon drew the fire of thirteen more recruits. Bullets rained down on him from everywhere, some from high vantage points and most from the ground as they circled around him. He grunted from the pressure and the noise, even feeling blood starting to drip from his ears. He made a mental note to make his suits soundproof from now on as he stood at the center, watching a gauge on his screen raise and approach max charge. With a squeeze of a button in the webbing of his thumb, his suit discharged a powerful, infrasound sound wave that rolled out from around him in a dome, rushing toward all of his attackers and knocking them several meters off their feet. So powerful was the vibration to their bodies and ears that it rendered them immediately unconscious, and even when they regained consciousness, they would be sick and off-balance for days following. He'd hoped to save that move for a stronger enemy since it took so long to charge, but taking out weaker enemies in bulk would be just as helpful. He had other tricks up his sleeve.

Once the platoon of white-suited recruits was down, he advanced closer to Leon and found this area crawling with enemies in black armor. After a flying kick into one from behind and lurching off that one to grab and knock two others' heads together, he deduced that they were no more durable than the ones before. His body screamed under the strain of his super serum enhanced movements. His joints ached and muscles strained beyond their normal limits. A simple shoulder charge rocketed a fourth Officer off an embankment to roll down into a tree. As his helmet located and focused on Leon's suit, Percy's urgency intensified. Leon was struggling with an Officer in a knife fight, and even as he prevailed, yet another officer took the high ground behind him and got in a few shots. As the display informed Percy of the impacts to Leon's suit, Percy scowled. His friend was clearly dazed by the high-impact rounds, and while they were bulletproof, the suits could only take so much abuse.

Pushing his legs to their limit, Percy dashed up the embankment and kicked Leon's shooter high into the air, then landed a second kick as he came back down that sent him flying into an approaching officer to slide down the side of the mountain in a snowball. Thirteen more Officers converged on him again, which was good. "Leon, get out of here," he said into the communicator built into the helmet, dashing out of the way of some of the bullets that pelted him, but unable to dodge them all.

The metallic clinking bored into his brain, bringing on a headache that turned into a little more. The display on his armor was flashing red as the impacts started to dent and squeeze into the glowing crevices between the plates. Not killing people was harder than he thought. Crossing his arms and knocking the forearm portions of his armor together, one started to glow red while the other glowed blue. This would cause a little more damage to his enemies than he was really okay with, but...this was war. His built-in pyrocryo gauntlets started spewing ice and fire at the officers, burning those unlucky enough to be too close, while nearby foes were frozen from the neck down on the other side. Pointing his cryo gauntlet down, he formed himself a tall plateau of ice to give himself some distance and range. The fire ceased and that hand reached for his energy gun. The blasts that came from it weren't enough to penetrate the thick armor on the officers, so he took a moment to reconfigure it on the spot as another idea occurred to him. In the meantime, the bullets from the seven remaining officers at the bottom of his pillar continued to fly, and to his dismay, one slipped through a damaged portion of his arm armor and through the fleshy part of his upper arm, taking some circuits out with the blood on the other side. He didn't cry out, but his suit did as it whoop whoop whooped in alarm. Just before the red glow in that whole arm flickered out it cauterized the wound, and soon enough the metal on that side was cold, which soothed the pain from the damage and burn... a little. It was hard to keep his wits about him to continue his alterations to his gun, but he managed it. Soon enough he was raising it with his good arm and discharging mini bursts of infrared sound. No amount of armor would repel that low of a frequency vibration, and within a few shots, the remaining seven were unconscious and disabled.

Jumping off his ice pillar, he was across the clearing in a flash, approaching Leon. "You okay?" he asked as he skidded to a halt, out of breath and voice strained. He dared not look at Leon for too long, afraid of an ambush. The size of Pergrande's forces was unfathomable. His mind was whirling with strategies and concerns, knowing that he could put this sort of strain on his body with his concoctions for only so long before it would start to fail. He couldn't afford to lose his strength at a time like this, but he also needed these boosts to move beyond what any normal human could do, even with the enhancements from the armor. Between the serum, his base martial arts proficiency, and the exosuit's increases to speed and strength, Percy was a frightening fighting machine. But it wasn't without its costs. The alarm in his helmet kept flashing various warnings, like one for the compromised arm armor, one for structural integrity, and one for his dangerously high heart rate. The blood coursed through veins and muscles so fast and hard that the pressurized whooshing in his ears almost deafened the alarms.

But another alarm screeched above the others. Whirling toward the edge of their inclined clearing, he jumped closer and peered over. Below was a woman in Oblivium armor, which was causing the alarmed screeching. If Percy would have had magic it would have been more alarming, but it also meant that this enemy's defenses were leagues above the grunts up until now. As he watched, chest heaving at a quickened pace, he watched something strange. "...I didn't think Pergrandians could use magic?" he questioned, watching as the woman somehow lifted fallen weapons off the battlefield and hurled them at Bellian fighters as they fell back, clearly struggling despite outnumbering her. If she followed that path, she'd be up where Leon and Percy were soon enough.

He was too busy watching and already moving to intercept the new intimidating threat to notice a second weaker oblivium alarm coming up from Leon's side of the mountain.

[wc: 1500 || total: 6070/8000 || 18/18 Imperial Army Recruits Defeated, 20/20 Imperial Army Officers Defeated]

Percy was already a decent distance away, intending to head off the stronger enemy slowly making her way through the bevy of magical attacks being slung at her like it was nothing. She effortlessly blocked and dodged cannon fire. From what he could tell, the only thing actually making her slow was fending off the sheer number of attacks on her, otherwise, she would already be upon them. While she was distracted with all the magic attacks, he could probably zip right in there and sneak into close range for a surprise attack--

Leon's gut-wrenching screams blasted through the speakers in his suit, both so shocking and devastating that Percy whirled immediately to look. His suit zoomed in on the sight and... the feeling was indescribable. Leon was coiled in the snow, screaming just like all those patients he had in his medical tent. Just. Like. Them. Blood was everywhere. His suit was screeching that Leon's was compromised. The forearm portion of one arm was compromised, undetected. Undetected?! The suit's alarms and Leon's anquished cries were overwhelming for just a second, and before he could think about it, Percy smacked the button on his suit that would retract his helmet, as unwise as it was. Now the screaming was further away and he could think.

He had to save Leon. How could he have missed that threat??

"LEON!!!"

Percy poured on speed so fast that even his suit whined under the stress of the movement. Blinking into view within a second, Percy wrapped an arm around her neck and tugged just as she was in the middle of the killing blow. Just in time, the blade thudded into the snow and dirt in front of Leon. She dropped the sword and instinctively reached for the arm cutting off her air supply as Percy dragged her back a couple more feet.

She was far from done and she was surprisingly strong. This one appeared to have some sort of supernatural ability like the ones he saw earlier. The segments of his armor started to pull apart, starting with the damaged arm portion. He knew he couldn't let her go either, or she'd disappear out of sight and could kill Leon before he could react.

Leon's screams.

The thunks of his armor falling to the ground.

Cannon blasts.

Heart beats.

Nothing.

There were plenty of sounds, but Percy didn't hear anything. He didn't even hear his own "I'm sorry!" and screams as he came to terms with what he had to do. There was no other choice. He had to kill this woman, right here, right now, while he had his arm wrapped so tightly around her neck. He had the ability. Arguably he'd been trained for this all of his life. There were a disturbing amount of ways to kill someone with bare hands, and Percy probably knew them all but had never done them on anything but a training dummy. This one was simple. Just a little more strength and a jerk and it'd be over. He didn't want to. He didn't want to take a life, but the life screaming and suffering because of the life he played god with was... frankly more important. It felt like his heart was going to explode.

Nothing.


After a few seconds of heaving breaths and the chilling feeling of the life draining from the body he still held by the neck, Percy jerked back and let her go. She fell into the snow, motionless, eyes open. His own wide eyes stared at her. From how he felt, he might as well died with her. There were no words for the emotions striking through his mind and body like vicious lightning, but after a few seconds of his own emotionally fueled cries and nearly throwing up that half of granola bar from earlier, Leon's pain broke through just as Percy was about to spiral. He didn't have time to deal with this. There was no time. I killed someone. I killed someone...

He shoved it down deep, turning coldly away from the body and closing the distance to Leon. Leon needed him. Leon was more important. People...they died all the time. Leon couldn't be one of those people.

There was a strange tickling at the base of his skull. That strong woman was coming, the other noises were flooding in. Closer explosions and blasts of magic and gunfire, so much gunfire and the cannon blasts he couldn't think it was so much make it stop get somewhere safe oh god his arm is gone-

Right in the middle of the mountainside battlefield, Percy's eyes flashed bright gold and he gained a new thought. He suddenly made a stomping motion and the ground beneath them rumbled. As his head ached, a massive slab of stone rose up, forming a wall between them and the encroaching battle. He did it again three more times, forming a rock tepee of sorts around himself and his lover. Shrugging out of his backpack, he tossed it down beside Leon in the darkness. After pulling a few high-powered lights out and throwing them on the walls, his hands pulled at Leon to put him on his back. "Leon, Leon, I'm so sorry. Stay with me, I'll...I can help.."

Blood gushed from his nose as he knelt at Leon's side, pushing the emergency release on Leon's suit to make it retract back into its backpack form, which he removed. Bringing out his medical kit, Percy gave the man an injection of painkillers, though it probably wasn't enough to offer more than just a little relief. His hands wrapped a rubber strip just above the elbow and tied it tight as a tourniquet. With the blood flow lessened, he got started on staunching the bleeding so he could work. He had to save the nerves... It was so much different when it was someone you cared about. Doing this on Dagda had been so much easier. Keeping his hands steady was a challenge, but he needed his skills. He had to be calm, even though he felt like he was about to fly apart. He was scared he was going to lose Leon, but even though the man had lost a lot of blood, it wasn't enough to die. "Still with me?" he asked, voice hoarse and tense.

[wc: 1060 || total: 8280/8000]

It was a difficult position for Percy to be in, let alone work through. His mind was multitasking at a rate most people could never dream of. He was compartmentalizing. Part of him was busy burying the trauma as it happened, not only because he was a doctor right now and needed a cool head, but out of self-preservation for his psyche. Percy had a twisted talent for choking the realities he couldn't accept down into manageable truths while he denied the rest and deluded himself into thinking it either didn't happen or didn't matter to him. Another part of him was running through the procedure he was performing in an unideal situation over and over again, making sure he didn't miss a single step. Another part was focused on keeping Leon in a position he could control the movements of, but also allow for the man to breathe. Taking a moment to shift him more on to his side with the stump up, he gave his back a couple hard pats to loosen any of the red liquid from his airways, while his legs essentially pinned him down from above so he could keep the writhing to a minimum. This next part would need Leon to be still, but he also needed Leon to stay awake. "It's ok, it'll be ok, just breathe, okay? Slow in and out, I know it's hard and it hurts, I'm sorry. This is why I'm here. Don't worry, just breathe," Percy chanted, working as fast as he could to do what he needed to preserve the stump as quickly as possible.

It was so hard to see Leon suffer this way. He could almost feel his pain and it settled as tightness in his throat and fueled his actions that much faster.

He adjusted the amount on the painkiller and gave him another injection just above the bloody wound, then another that was a mild numbing agent. He could only do so much battlefield pain management due to the lack of specialized equipment to monitor the patient's vitals. It was better than nothing, but... "Leon! Leon, you have to hold still. Hold still as you can!" He quickly stitched the arteries and veins closed, displaying a level of dexterity and focus not many could pull off without specialized equipment. The ground rumbled off and on under them, but the thick slabs kept the danger raging around them away. Neither side could blast through this stone. Once he was certain that the bleeding was stopped, he grabbed for a combination of different gels and salves, some that would further soothe pain and numb the nerves more topically, some to preserve the biological material until he was in a hospital setting. Once he'd done all he could, he cut the tourniquet and pulled a silicone compression sleeve over the wound and up Leon's arm.

Now that he'd done all he could, Percy released Leon and climbed off of him, collapsing onto the cold ground beside him. His hands were covered in his lover's blood, as was his clothing. It was even streaked across his face, mixed with the sweat and his own blood he'd wiped from his face with the back of his arm. His eyes stared at his hands for a long moment. Hands that once only helped now... he rubbed them in the snow and then grabbed a rag and started to clean them off, brows puckering. No one could imagine war until they were there. No piece of media could convey this horror. If his adrenaline produced by the serum and his own natural responses hadn't still been pumping so reliably, it was possible he'd have passed out by now. He couldn't and he knew it. That meant...he couldn't stay in here with Leon or it'd wear off before he took care of the rest...

Leaning forward, he placed his hand on Leon's chest, peering over him worriedly. He'd make sure Leon was stable before he went back out there and cleared a way back to camp. Somehow he knew he could do that, even though his body felt like it would dissolve. Turning the rag he'd used to clean his hands to the clean side, he did the same for Leon's face tenderly, his other hand smoothing his black hair back. "It should feel better soon. It'll feel better and then I'll fix it once we get to a hospital, okay? Please... this is all I can do here," he said quietly, trying to make the injured man as comfortable as he could. "I have to go back out there, okay?"

[wc: 770 || total: 9450/8000]

Leon asking him not to leave was a gut punch, but he didn't have the luxury of giving in. He only waited, crouched at his side and running his hand over his hair until Leon went quiet. It wasn't ideal that he lose consciousness without monitors, considering his guess at the amount of blood loss and the uncertain state of a potential concussion, but it was also probably better to escape from and survive the pain until Percy could clear the way. "I'll be back," he whispered to the motionless man, his eyes gazing over the thankfully relaxed face, then to the arm now missing a large part of it. A scowl appeared on his mouth and he stood, turning to face the end of the unnatural cave that most of the noise was coming from. His own armor was shot. What hadn't been psychokinetically ripped off, which was the arms and most of the torso portions, remained around his legs, though they were badly dented and wires sparked from the ripped off parts. However, due to how he'd built them, they'd still work. His legs would be protected and his speed would continue to be fast.

With a steadying breath, he visualized the earth moving under him. He inhaled sharply and held it, disappearing into the snowy ground. He moved beneath the surface so he wouldn't have to open the tepee and expose Leon to more danger. When he emerged outside, the bodies of Bellian soldiers were scattered all around. Now there was more than just the one woman surrounded by floating guns and swords. Another woman and a man had joined her, exhibiting similar powers. As the remaining Bellians fell back to regroup and come up with a better plan, Percy stood glaring at them. Blood rushed from his nose and dripped off his chin into the snow. His head pulsed painfully and all of his joins were discolored with bruising from strain. Still, though he looked like he'd already died and forgot to stop moving, his expression was dark. It was the look of a desperate man who had already crossed a line he was never built to cross, a man who would protect the precious person in the stone bunker no matter what. As far as he was concerned, there was no way to go back over the line he'd crossed. As far as he was concerned, these three could join their claymore-wielding comrade.

In fact, he didn't even wait for them to attack. As more blood squirted from his nose, he pulled his hands apart to open the ground, swallowing the three before they could run to escape. Then he clapped his hands and the ground slammed shut with a sickening crunch. War was much easier when taking lives wasn't a concern. Now the way down the mountain was cleared, Percy wasted no time picking up Leon and leaving.

An open-top tunnel scarred the whole mountainside down. Leon weighed heavily on his back, and even though he would normally have no trouble with the weight, his body was giving out. Getting back to camp was paramount. Then he'd see about getting him into a hospital.

[wc: 530 || 10,200/8000 || 18 Weak, 20 Normal, 1 Strong, and 3 Bosses defeated. 8000/8000 done. Event complete.]