Relinquished

[Xel-Naga]

The pain. It was the only constant through the entire ordeal. From the moment he hit the pavement, his legs shattering from the force of the fall and the bulk weight of his body. He had survived, and that triumph was enough to keep his head above the waves of bitterness. Oh, he tried. Tried to get back into that building and kill those bastiches, but to no avail. The meds can come for him, and taken him away. No. He let them take him away. And that was what hurt the most, more than any superficial pain. He had let them take him away. He, Xel-Naga, man of legend and lore, the ageless mercenary, bullet dodger and thief of time, had left something undone, had abandoned a fight, had let himself lose. It had broken his psyche. Downright shattered it. The meds were concerned, thought he was in a state of shock. And perhaps he was. He was a failure now. Not just to the galaxy, but to himself.

And then he fell under the waves, drowning now in a red ocean of pain. And then he felt the cold needle in his neck, and the pressure as fluids were dumped into his system, and then everything became soft and fuzzy. The pain retreated, but was still there at the back of his mind. He paid no more attention to the screaming of meds above him then the sun paying attention to an ant. They wanted to get the bleeding under control, to do something about the blood remains of his legs. They all thought he was going to die before they got to the hospital. He did not care. He couldn't even hear them anymore. He wanted to die. Maybe it was time for Xel-Naga to finally hang up his gunbelt and go to hell like the rest of his kind. A hundred years, and he was going to die like this...

The world around him changed. The white walls of the hover ambulance were replaced with equally white walls of the hospital. He felt the world rush by as he was pushed through doors and into the hospital, straight into the ER for immediate surgery. He could not so much as look to the left or the right. Occasionally he saw a masked face look down at him, but for the most part he only saw the ceiling, towering above him with it's collection of surgical lights. So bright, like the pathway to heaven. He wanted to reach out, take the star in his hand and fly to the eternal feast in the sky. But he shrunk back instead, for he had no place at the table of the Gods.

And then something was placed over his face, but he was too far gone already to care. Someone was saying something, but it all came in muffled, like he was hearing it through a wall. Several walls in fact. The air tasted funny now, and then everything went black.

And then he woke up.

He was lying in a bed, surrounded by white. He tried to sit up, but an unseen force resisted his movement. His hands clumsily quested around until they located the straps holding him down at the waist. Tilting his head up, which sent fireballs of pain through his head, revealed that he was in a hospital room, tied down, and that his legs were smothered in some kind of medical foam cast that looked far to bulky to contain a pair of legs. Then a doctor game in and rambled on about his situation, the injuries, and the steps they were taking to repair the damage. Xel was only listening with half an ear, he was too busy trying to move his legs, trying to get some kind of sensation of feeling or movement. But there was nothing. It was gone.

Stolen away...

[Sorsha Kasajian]

[SORSHA'S SUITE]

:: The vigo lay on a massage table, being tended to by her handmaiden. She was deliberating with Bambi over what to do with Xel-Naga ::

"Yes, do pay him a visit. I believe he's still able to talk. Make him realize that he lives because I wish it. If he shows you the slightest hint of ingratitude, have the procedure carried out."

[Bambi Maddox]

Maddox pursed her lips thoughtfully. She could pretty much predict how Naga was going to react, and truth be told, the trip would be a waste of everybody's time.

Not that she was about to tell Sorsha that.

"You are more generous to him than he deserves" she said, moving a step to avoid being in the masseuse's way as she kneaded the Vigo's back. "I will see he understands that"

[Sorsha Kasajian]

"Mmmmmmmmm." she purred. "Meet me at the Manarai when you're finished."

[Bambi Maddox]

She'd been watching him sleep fitfully for some time and now she was bored.

Access to Naga's room had been no problem given her disguise. She'd barred the door with a strategically placed chair jammed up beneath the door handle, ensuring privacy. Maddox popped the last stick of gum into her mouth before poking Naga rudely in the ribs with her fingers. When he opened his eyes with the slowness of a man forcing himself to conciousness, Bambi smiled brightly at him.

"Hey baby, you dreamin of me?"



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[Xel-Naga]

One eye opened, and for a moment the iris was blue-gray before dissolving to brown. The second eye opened, repeating the eye-changed and like the other changing to brown from a strange blue-gray. Xel attempted to push himself up, his large arms straining against the arm rails of his bed, trying vainly to get himself at least into a sitting position, but all he got for his effort was a sweaty forehead. "Come to finish me off?" he asked, his deep voice filling the silent room as he laid back down on the flat of his back, shifting about, trying to find a comfort that was not there.

And for the hundredth time in the last two hours, he wished he had a blaster.

[Bambi Maddox]

Maddox gave a careless shrug, "Maybe."

She chewed her gum loudly and brushed the front of her uniform straitening out a crease that wasn't there, "You like it?"

Naga glared murder at her with those weird eyes of his.

"Nah, me neither. White never really was my colour. How you doin, anyway? You look awful" She leaned forward and jiggled the IV lines. "I dont think this pain medication is running fast enough"

She grinned down at Naga, knowing he was completely helpless beneath her hands, and that fact alone was probably killing him more than anything else right now.

[Xel-Naga]

He looked away, instead looking up at the ceiling. He did his best to ignore her as she chitchatted while fingering the drip lines feeding him the pain killers that kept his pain at bay. He just... wanted to forget about her. Forget about it all. He had no will to right anymore, no sass to throw back at them. He already played their game once and he'd be damned if he did so again.

[Bambi Maddox]

"No you dont" she puckered his lips by squeezing his cheeks roughly with her hand, "no tuning out. I want you to pay attention to what Ive got to say. I didnt come all this way to talk to a leg-less lump of dumb meat"

She waited till he dropped his eyes to meet her stare. "You listening to me?"

[Xel-Naga]

He grudgingly turned his view to the side and let it drop until he was staring her in the eye, his two meeting her one. And he glared, the same glare he shot her with while he was paralyzed down at the floor. The death glare, filled with hate and bitterness, and yet, this time around, it was somewhat softer around the edges, like a strong stone that had been worn down by the wind.

He wanted to glare harder, but it was hard to glare and hold back the tears. He couldn't cry. Wasn't able, more like it. The infamous Xel-Naga does not cry. The cryo had messed all that up, so why was it working now?

His eyes, on the other hand, started to cloud up and turn gray.

[Bambi Maddox]

"That's better" she said as Naga struggled to keep a focused gaze.

It was an odd look he was giving her, she thought, but put it down to the dope his body was suckin' up through the intravenous to try harness back what must be horrific raging pain. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"I've been sent to remind you who you work for, Xel-Naga." She would have tweeked one of his big toes, had one been available, but, of course, he was casted from hip to heel and so she was denied the whim.

"Sorsha considers you an investment - your fancy new legs to be the latest installment. She, and she alone, decides when to terminate a relationship. The Vigo just wanted to make sure (with all the excitement and all) that this fact was still clear to you." Maddox eyed the hypodermic she was holding in her hand, "You are clear on this, Xel, honey right? Unswerving loyalty is an absolute, you get that, right?"

She waited. Naga had a choice to make and either option required him to man up to a difficult reality. He must swallow his bitterness and remain obedient to the Vigo, or Maddox would finish what the pavement outside the Kasajian Tower did not quite get done.

"What's it gonna be...?"

[Xel-Naga]

He coughed a little. His internal organs had, after all, sustained quite a shock from that impact. His hip bones had, more or less, been shoved all the way up to his shoulders, but that damage had already been dealt with. But the medication repairing his organs, or rather, making them think nothing is wrong, had given him a cough. So he coughed again.

"I have been nothing but loyal," He replied, his face hardening, "You don't have to come in here and try to scare loyalty into me. I don't frighten easily. You where the one with that bloody snake, and Kasajian pulled a blaster on me. You two were the aggressors, not me. My loyalty is sound. I could go back to work today, but as you can see, their still scraping my legs off the sidewalk."

[Bambi Maddox]

"That'd be a Yes, then" she said flippantly. She wasn't here to argue with him. She'd made the point and got the answer, legs or no legs, no one walked out on Sorsha. Naga at least grasped the concept. She squirted the lethal dose housed in the syringe into a waste basket beside the bed, and eyed the small tray on Naga's bedside table, "You gonna eat that jello?"

[Xel-Naga]

He looked to the side, to the tray he had pushed aside earlier. The little plastic tub sat untouched and alone, set aside to die in isolation and abandonment. It's friends were all gone, eaten away and digested. He could relate to the jello in every way. His friends were all gone, and had been so for years now. The thing about being placed in cryo is that the rest of the whole flies by while your frozen. He came out and everyone was either dead or old. All his old gang buddies, all his former contacts and companions. He had stepped into an alien galaxy that had left him behind. Xel-Naga was just a character of stories now, told by old spacers. A man so ferocious that he made Gods cry. A man so cunning he could steal fire from the sobbing Gods. A man so ruthless that he could hold a planet ransom, ruling with iron first and smoking barrel. The legend of Xel-Naga had faded away, ready to be forgotten as new heroes and villains rose to legend. He didn't belong in this galaxy.

Just like the jello, which it's makers had thought would look more appetizing in green. Jello was just not suited for this galaxy. Why it had stuck around was as amazing as his own life story. So, he just shrugged his shoulders, as best as he could with his body tied down as it is. "I asked for steak."

[Bambi Maddox]

The jello was dispatched in short order, and not long after, Maddox made her exit. She'd assured Naga that he'd get the best the Kasajian name could provide.

Maddox left him with the admonishon to "get well soon," informing him it would be a short time before the Vigo would be requiring his presence.

[Xel-Naga]

It was several hours after she left before the doctors finally came in to cart him out, leaving him far to long to think. He wanted to fake greater pain for better pain killers, anything that could numb out his mind. He did not like this vulnerable state of being and the thought pattern that went along with it. He wanted to be Xel-Naga, the badass who stomped across half the galaxy leaving a trail of bodies and legends. The man who circulated stories about single-handedly killing twenty men and a dog. He wanted so desperately to be that man again, instead of this legless, worthless creature he had become. Maybe he just wasn't supposed to be alive still. Cryo had messed everything up. He should have died out forty years ago instead of being frozen for an eternity to wake up in a galaxy entirely different from the one he had grown up in.

But that was a lifetime ago...

If not for the sensation of movement, he wouldn't have even noticed that the doctors had come in, switched him over to a gurney, and pushed him out of the room. He just did not care anymore. He laid back and let them take him to the room at the end of the hall, bright light escaping through the two small windows set high in the doors. He'd heard about it, the bright light at the end of the tunnel. So this is it, he thought as the gurney was pushed through the door, his vision enveloped with bright light. But was this the light of heaven or the fake light of hell? Didn't matter. He would go wherever he was sent. Whoever heard of the infamous Xel-Naga complaining? He would shame his own legend for doing that.

He closed his eyes, the light piercing his eyelids. It would all be over soon. Something cold and metallic was pressed up against the side of his neck and there was a whoosh sound and a feeling of vertigo, and then everything went black. He was gone.

The doctor had to act quickly. The cut the casts away and began to cut away the remains of their patient's legs. right up to the thigh. They saved as much living flesh as they could, to be used later. Cybernetic legs were brought in, made out of strong, but light metals. Nerves and spine was cut open and man-made wires were connected to God-created nerve endings and spinal discs. The great bridge between man and God was crossed in that instance as machine melded with man, creating a union of the two unlike anything since since ancient times.

The salvaged flesh was cloned as best as they could, combined with synthflesh, and then used in combination with synthetic muscle tissue and ligaments to create an exterior around the metal "bones". Nurses wiped brows as blades cut and needles sewed. These doctors were elevated to the status of acting gods for the moment as half a man was created beneath their fingertips. Not a man of flesh, but a man of flesh and metal. It was a religious abomination, but they adhered to a near-religion of their own. They were fueled by greed, the desire to save a life, and the zeal to create something new. Not even an act or judgement of God would stop them or sway their actions.

Xel-Naga swam through a dark ocean, gasping for a breath that would not come. Memories, images of the past, floated by him in the murky waters. Happy memories, sad memories, painful and brilliant memories, everything so vivid, like it was happening just on the other side of a window. He saw himself as a child, pet in trail, he was walking along, and then everything went black. A truck had hit him, they had said, taking part of his head right off. They said he went crazy after that. Crazy? Him? Ha! They had been wrong, so wrong. He would show them. Xel-Naga is not crazy. Hahaha! No. Far from it. They would all see that soon!

He awoke with a gasp, because something was tickling his foot. Wait? He thought about that a moment. Ticking his foot? He tried to sit up, but once again he was strapped down. So he lifted his head and looked down the length of his body. A doctor was standing at the foot of his bed, using a feather to tickle an exposed foot. A foot! With toes! He tried to wiggle the toes, but there was no movement. "Feeling will come instantly, but it will be awhile before your body realizes the nerves aren't severed anymore enough to allow impulses for movement. Just give it a day or two, it will come." The doctor was saying as he put the feather away and pulled out a needle instead. He pushed the blanket aside to reveal a whole leg, which looked almost the same as his real one. Using the needle, the doctor worked his way up the neg, poking it, asking Xel if he felt it. He felt them all. It was the most beautiful thing ever.

When the doctor was gone, Xel laid back on the bed. So, he was given a second chance, a new pair of legs, and an opportunity to do new things. Memory of the dream came back. He would show them. Not crazy, just gifted.