Upkeep

As John stumbled down the ladder, Charlotte caught him. Helping him stand but keeping a hand on his back. For a minute it reminded him of what had happened on the first day of training, but this time he didn’t faint.

“You ok John? It’s good you got out in time, you were almost gone,” the healer said, somehow both more confidently and softly than he had heard her speak before.

“I’m fine. Thank you,” he immediately felt the energy rush back to his body as the poison was cleared from his system by Charlotte’s magic. The now familiar coldness spread across his back in an almost comforting manner. Looking to his right, he saw the rest of the group had been in a bad state as well, only Bass was above half HP and Yan was on her last third. As they came into sight that wasn’t obvious at all, however, they were all just as perky as usual. Mountains of charred spider remains had piled up on the floor, and were slowly being moved away from the mecha by Bass’ sound waves with Ember’s help. Yan was waiting behind them and keeping an eye for more of the spiders.

Looking around, the Gamer saw the vast changes to the room. Most of the liquid had been moved to one side of the hangar and was slowly flowing down a slope to the lower level, and the only remaining evidence of the chitin was the cable still snaking into the floor some distance to his right. The walls were still covered with gunk, and some of it began dripping from the ceiling. John suspected the cutting off of power might have been the cause of it flowing again.

John spoke again when the path to the ladder had finally been cleared, “Ember, I know this probably isn’t the most important detail right now, but why did the Gundam connect to me psychically?” he asked, now that his mind had settled and the threat had seemingly passed he had become extremely curious.

“That requires me to tell you a bit more about the history of this world, but I suppose we have some time,” she said monotonically, sitting down on the now exposed concrete.

“Boss, is this really relevant right now? There might be more spiders around,” Bass said, her tone almost sounded scolding.

“We can do it as we leave this place instead, if you wish,” Ember responded, turning to John for confirmation, not Bass.

“Yeah, that sounds smarter,” John agreed.

Charlotte had already removed her hand from his back, and they all moved to the door again. Through it were the same corridors as before, but the blood had definitely begun flowing, sliding slowly towards the stairs.

“As I told you, Newtypes existed before the Council arrived at this Plane, but they were not mages. They had been discovered among some of the human population who had lived in space, and they had two particular abilities. Predicting the future to a very limited capacity of milliseconds or seconds at a time, and an innate and higher understanding of how to pilot a Gundam. It gave them a clear advantage among pilots, but it seemed like not much more than that. Only when the Council arrived was that discovered as a consequence of Psychic potential, and that was when Gundams started being built to enhance that attribute. Particularly focusing on strengthening the Psychic connection between the mecha and the pilot,” Ember explained, her tone a little more enthused than usual.

“I suppose that makes sense, thanks for explaining it Ember,” John returned. It was useful information, at the very least.

“Huh… I didn’t know that either,” Bass chuckled, “guess that’s not important knowledge for us to know,” she made air quotes as she spoke, staring Ember down.

“Indeed it isn’t,” Ember’s expression was blank, but she moved her gaze away.

Not long afterwards they arrived back at the entrance to the facility, ’If any more spiders were in there, they’re not there anymore… I wonder what that shadow was,’ even despite them encountering nothing, John was concerned, something felt off to him. Yan had remained quiet the entire time as well, in an almost uncharacteristic fashion.

The soldiers were still waiting behind the **** field, and as soon as John’s group appeared on the surface one of them was dispatched to call for the scientist. A short conversation with him followed, it didn’t take too long to explain the situation and for him to confirm this by sending his troops into the mine. Few spiders had been left on the lower floors, but they were wiped out without much of a struggle now that their numbers had been reduced.

They were allowed to wait for the news back in one of the capsules, and food was provided to them. John noticed the interior was essentially identical to the one they had been in before, the temporary headquarters of the miners.

“At least we can get some rest now,” Yan had said when they were left alone inside, speaking her first words in the last hour. Her tone was strangely upset and the first thing she did was head into the kitchen to eat.

“Yeah, so let’s relax!” Bass agreed, and dropped onto the couch, sitting across half of it.

Ember retreated to one of the corners without a word, and Charlotte excused herself to the bedroom in order to get some rest. John had noticed that she was clearly drained, it was more evidence to show that healing was hard on her body.

’I need to consider that more in the future. Should have thought of it before, it’s obvious that she uses Mana to heal us, and they already told me how rough that can be if you tax yourself too hard...’ John beat himself up over the thought. She might not need protecting, but that didn’t mean she was invincible.

“You did good work out there, all of you,” Ember stated directly, breaking the silence that stood in the air for a moment.

“Wish I could say the same, but I don’t trust you, spy,” Bass shot back.

“There’s no need for you to, my loyalty is to this team as much as it is the Council.”

“Bass, don’t you think that’s unfair? We all work for Ingrid, after all. Directly or not,” Yan spoke up again, her tone rough again.

“And what’s up with you today Yan, you’re acting strange?” Bass asked openly, getting up from the couch now.

“It’s none of your business,” for the first time John heard the shapeshifter sound outright angry, “and you didn’t answer my question.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, but I don’t like people who are trained to lie to my face,” the sound mage looked right into Ember’s eyes.

“Bass, I think that’s taking it a little too far, don’t you?” John knew this needed to be settled, but escalating this further would only make this worse.

“She’s right, my job is to lie and cheat people, and I can’t say I wouldn’t do that to any of you if I was ordered to. Trusting me is going to be hard, but I trust you, and especially John. I can only do so much to show that…” Ember stopped for a second to think, her tone had been more somber than flat, “I asked Ingrid for this assignment. Even a spy like me can be tired of the deceptions that came from the profession, I wish to stop living my life that way.”

John was surprised for a moment, ’is that really why she wanted to join us?’ he couldn’t be sure, but that was more information than he had just a few moments ago.

“At least you’re being honest, I think,” Bass said, her tone still showing her suspicion. She sat back down, and elected to ignore the spy instead.

“Welcome back!” the lieutenant noticed them as soon as they were back in the warehouse, and through the portal. Heading over to them with a small item in his hand he continued, “I heard you guys succeeded, good work! And Matthew was here a bit earlier, think he was looking to tell you guys something,” he turned to Yan and winked.

“Really? That’s the first time I’ve heard him actually volunteer to share something,” the shapeshifter responded, curious.

“Yeah, you should ask him when you see him,” he faced John and paused, “oh, and this is for you. From Ingrid, I believe. Something about being able to call your girlfriend?” in his hand was a small SIM card exactly identical to mundane ones he had seen before. Grabbing it quickly, John spoke up.

“It was just to talk to my parents,” he tried lying, but his voice shook as he spoke.

’Revealing Alice to more people is just going to put her in more danger. Ingrid really shouldn’t have done that…’ even while he worried, he felt a warm feeling fog his mind as he thought of her. The reaction he got a moment later showed there was more to his feeling.

“John’s blushing! This is one hell of a day,” Bass was straight up laughing, although from her tone the Gamer could tell it was not malicious. The look on her face didn’t look as amused, it was oddly neutral.

“Shut up!” he was almost **** to chuckle back. Now he had to tell them, however, that much was clear, “yeah… I do have a girlfriend. She’s mundane though so I’ve been trying to keep that a secret to keep her safe. Probably should have told you guys, sorry,” he tried to keep his tone as clear as possible, but a bit of guilt snuck into it. Too many lies had been exchanged already for John to be satisfied with what he had to do.

“There’s nothing to worry about, we all have our secrets,” Yan was the first to say anything again. John couldn’t spot a reaction to what he had said. Charlotte, in contrast to the other two, was clearly even less comfortable now. Fidgeting with her crosses and looking in every direction as if for a way to escape.

“Thanks, Yan. I suppose you’re right.”

“Are you guys done? I had something else to tell you,” Strong stated, grabbing the attention of the group again.

“Seems like it,” Bass responded to him first.

“You know the rewards I promised? Unfortunately, you’ll get them tomorrow, so you all should go get some rest.”

Not long after that, the group broke up, all of them quiet for one reason or another.

John took his phone out of his inventory the minute he closed the door of his room. His excitement with the SIM in his hand caused him to almost drop it a few times, but with a finger he eventually managed to open the tray and changed out the SIM, putting the old one directly into his inventory.

The phone opened as normal, except the carrier showed up a bit differently. Right next to his mundane one now showed up the letters ABY AUC.

’Huh, probably from the Abyss Auction, then…’ that made sense from what Ingrid had told him before, 'more importantly though, I have cellular!'

John quickly decided to test it out, and a familiar name appeared on the phone's screen.

"John? You back in Springfield?" Alice's voice appeared on the other end, and her tone sounded more excited than anything.

“No, but I got a new SIM card that lets me call you from here!” just hearing Alice’s voice was refreshing to John. Being able to talk to her let him forget everything else that had happened the same day.

“Where the hell are you that you couldn’t call me with your normal SIM card?” her tone was more curious than harsh, but John felt both.

’Shit, what do I tell her now…’ his mind raced to try to come up with a reasonable explanation.

“I’m out of state, for some reason my SIM only worked for texting around here. It’s pretty damn rural around where I am though… So I guess that’s not surprising,” he tried explaining it away best he could.

Alice sighed, “I know you can’t tell me why, but your lies don’t have to be so obvious, John,” her tone clearly showed her disappointment.

“This place is really rural though, I swear!” that much he was not lying about, given the forest that was barely a kilometer outside of the headquarters and the lack of anything else around.