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Something that Six had learned a long time ago was that, in his line of work, there’s no way to maintain any kind of routine procedure. You can learn the patterns, perfect the motions, but every situation is different and each case requires a new perspective, an alternative line of thinking. He may no longer be a mercenary by title, but it still wasn’t exactly a desk job that occupied his nine-to-five. Point was, he had to keep sharp and expect the unexpected. Especially now, in the midst of the most paradigm-shifting pandemic in human history.
Yet somehow, he had let himself slip into a kind of familiarity, a facsimile routine that operated as follows - mutated creature appears and causes havoc, Providence’s ‘secret weapon’ gets called in to handle it, and Six follows along to watch until the kid (as always) gets himself into a tough spot, then helps him out of it. Eventually, the creature is either cured or captured, and clean up crews are called. Any casualties related to these incidents usually occur before Providence arrives (fortunate; as far as they both know, the kid hasn’t witnessed any death more gruesome than a clean, instant vaporization, which had shaken him enough on its own, and Six isn’t looking forward to dealing with whatever reaction he might have when he is someday forced to observe a worse fate - inevitable in a line of work like this) so all he has to do is wrangle Rex back to base before he escapes in favor of whatever mischief he had been cooking up in that half-empty head of his and call it a day until the next emergency. Even with the differences between each attack, the mutations and abilities that vary so widely between each unique EVO, the general procedure has remained the same in most cases - so long as a character like Van Kleiss isn’t involved and trying to manipulate events for their own dark purposes.
Today had been by all accounts fairly standard, however. No elaborate plans or ostentatious villains, just a good old-fashioned monster terrorizing a city. And Rex loved missions like these, loved the chance to show off without some manipulative bastard distracting him with taunting and mind games. So Six stood back and watched the kid have the time of his life, chasing some slimy blue thing that spit corrosive juices at anything that moved, and he let his guard down.
Mistake.
Slinging acid was not an uncommon feature among EVOs, and they had had enough experience with dealing with it that even Rex, as reckless as he was, had gotten pretty good at dodging liquid attacks. The problem was that the substance coming from this creature didn’t seem particularly damaging - it let off some steam when it landed, but when one of Rex’s metal fists got covered in the stuff without any obvious damage, that cocky little grin emerged onto his face, the one that Six knew meant ‘too easy.’ And Six agreed, despite his better judgement, so he let him have at it. Rex always seemed to feel his machines as if they were extensions of his body, if maybe somewhat muted in comparison to his actual flesh, so without any outward signs of pain, Six assumed that this particular hazard was weak enough that dodging would only be necessary in that they wouldn’t have to spend hours trying to get the stains out of their laundry later.
So when Rex recalled his build to pull something else from his arsenal and started screaming immediately, Six was caught off guard in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. A moment was spent staring at the kid as he curled up over his right arm, the side that had been hit by the acid, releasing an agonized sound that Six had heard too many times from someone so young, especially considering he had known him barely two years. Six spurred himself back into action, knowing that he would be stewing over that moment of shock and vulnerability when he had time for it later. With a quick and practiced motion, a magna blade speared through the creature’s center and rendered the thing dead in moments. He largely agreed with Dr Holiday’s belief that killing EVOs was a waste and a last resort - better they were cured, now that it was an option, or at least captured for research - but his list of priorities was dominated at the moment by the boy on the ground in front of him whose sense was overtaken by a mindless pain as he hunched over on the rough asphalt. Six didn’t think this particular EVO was even of human origin, not that he was especially interested in killing animals, either. In this situation, however, it didn’t make much difference to him. Not with the cries currently piercing through him, causing an unpleasant heaviness in his chest he chose to pretend meant nothing.
He crouched beside the teenager and gripped his left shoulder - the side that hadn’t been hit by the acid - and tried to speak loud enough to be heard over his yells. “Rex, what’s wrong?” A stupid question, ultimately, but he was just fishing for specifics. When he didn’t receive an answer, he reached up and activated his comm.
“Holiday,” he started, and was promptly cut off.
“Six! What’s happening? Rex’s vitals spiked suddenly. His heart rate is off the charts.”
“EVO spat some kind of acid,” he explained. “Thought it was weak when it wasn’t eating through his build, but when Rex recalled the nanites back into his arms - shit!” While speaking, he had moved to Rex’s other side to wrestle his arm from where he had clutched it protectively against his chest and moved back the sleeve of his jacket. What he saw wasn’t pretty. Holiday was loud in his ear, demanding an explanation, which Six provided as he peeled Rex’s jacket off of his right side as gently as he could, leaving it to hang off of him halfway.
“When he pulled the metal back in it brought the acid with it. It wasn’t very corrosive on other materials, but it’s doing a number on his actual arm. And, Jesus, it’s spreading, quickly.” As he spoke he watched the skin of Rex’s forearm darken, already a sickening charcoal black in some places and entirely dissolved in others, exposing the tissues beneath, with divots appearing where the fat and muscle began to break down as well. It was like watching a timelapse of rotting produce, fast-forwarded footage of an apple as it liquefied.
Holiday was quiet for a moment, but she knew as well as he did that the situation was time sensitive if the damage had already gotten so severe so quickly. Sounding haunted but focused, she told him, “You’ll have to amputate.”
“I know,” he said, already drawing his other sword. Rex’s cries had quieted to whimpers in between quick, panicked breaths. He whined but managed to look up at Six as his arm was straightened out over the man’s knee. Unfortunately, with the rate the rot was spreading through his flesh, they would have to do this here on the street, quick and gruesome. When Six met Rex’s gaze, he could see that even though he was somewhat delirious with pain, the kid understood what was about to happen. He tried to steady his breathing and put on a brave face, but seeing the tears in his eyes sharpened the feeling stabbing through Six’s chest tenfold. He swallowed it down to tell him, “I’ll make it quick.”
Six was already moving his sword before Rex could nod back. By now he knew the kid preferred to be surprised when a bone was being set or a joint re-located over waiting through a countdown and anticipating the pain, and a part of Six also didn’t want to risk losing his own nerve and wasting time trying to get it back. The blade cut through Rex’s flesh and bone like butter just beneath his elbow, as far down his arm as Six could reasonably risk with how the corrosion had already spread. Expecting another scream that would likely ring in his ears for the rest of his life, Six was somewhat relieved when Rex simply lost consciousness from the shock of pain. He held him upright when the kid started to fall forward like a puppet with cut strings and flicked the sword off to the side to clear the blood from its blade before re-holstering it.
The fabric of Six’s suit pants was quickly soaked through under where Rex’s arm rested against him, turning his customary green into a dark, ominous brown. He followed the first solution that came to his mind and made quick work of loosening his tie for a makeshift tourniquet. He tied it tightly to Rex's limp arm just above his elbow, then used his comm to call for emergency pickup. He gathered Rex into his arms and rested the truncated limb over his shoulder in an attempt to keep it elevated, ignoring the blood flowing (at least more slowly at this point) over his collar and staining his white shirt. Luckily, the jump jet that had brought them to the scene was still close by, and already Six could hear the engine as it neared.
As he waited, he spared a glance to the other magna blade, still speared through the corpse of the EVO that had caused this mess. With his arms full, he decided he would leave it for now. Chances were that the team that would come to clean up and take samples of the creature would bring it back to HQ, and he could nab it after it had been sterilized. A morbid thought crossed his mind, and he wondered if they would take samples from the portion of Rex’s arm that had been severed, now sagging disturbingly into the pavement beneath, the glove that he had been wearing seeming to deflate in the process. Six didn’t bother to collect that, either. The kid wouldn't need a right-hand glove anymore.
In the time it took him to muse over those dark thoughts, the jump jet had arrived, and he walked briskly towards its landing site as soon as it began to touch down. When the hatch opened, he made his way inside with a tight hold on his insensate cargo, barking orders at the agents aboard to bring them back to HQ now, and to inform Dr Holiday that they were on the way, though he knew with certainty that she had begun prepping the med bay for their arrival the moment she’d had a basic understanding of the situation. He could see her face already in his mind’s eye, the pale anxiety that lay subtly beneath her professional determination whenever Rex was in a life-threatening situation and needed her help to save him, once again. She cared about the kid like family, probably had since his first few days at Providence.
He had managed to worm his way beneath Six’s skin too, not that Six would admit to that most days, though he was known to make an exception on special occasions (a sheathed tanto blade hung heavily against his side, hidden beneath his suit jacket, and he felt it there now as he remembered the gift he had given Rex not long ago, and what it had meant). Rex may not have known where he came from, but he had a family, of a sort. Six knew that he and Holiday would both do everything within their means to take care of him, to help him deal with the fallout from today’s shitshow.
It had all gone so wrong so quickly. Six cursed himself for thinking he could ever rely on routine, even subconsciously. He wouldn’t make that mistake again, he decided. Moreover, he would emphasize situational awareness and not underestimating your opponent when training with Rex from now on, knowing that he wouldn’t always be there to pick up the pieces when Rex’s carelessness landed him in a tough spot.
Six came back to himself as he saw they were nearing HQ and prepared to disembark. He felt the blood drying against his neck, itching in the dip of his collarbone. He felt Rex breathing shallowly against him, still unconscious - probably for the best. The moment the jet was clear in the hangar, he exited and sped through the facility on the familiar route to the med bay. He paid no mind to the agents that had been with them on the jet, or the ones who turned their heads to watch as he sprinted through the halls. As he neared his destination, he heard White Knight barking in his ear, demanding a debrief. White Knight wasn’t an especially compassionate leader, and Six didn’t want to have to split his focus between ensuring his charge’s wellbeing and providing an explanation with his usual aloof neutrality, so his requests would have to go unanswered for the moment.
Six breezed into the med bay and saw that he had been right in his assessment earlier - Holiday had scanners primed and ready as well as a cart of sterile supplies standing by - surgical equipment and wound dressings, among other odds and ends that Six wouldn't know what to do with. She watched him as he lay Rex on the exam table, the boy pale and breathing shallowly. Holiday ignored Six and his blood-soaked clothes for the moment, understanding immediately that it was likely all from the teenager in front of her, and that even if it wasn’t the man could take care of himself until she had finished seeing to the higher priority.
Six watched her face as she grimly assessed the situation. He saw her expression change, surprise and something hopeful drowning out the pain and suppressed panic that had been there before. She nabbed a portable scanner from the cart beside her and aimed it the stump of Rex’s forearm, eyes lighting up as she read what was on the screen. Six didn’t bother to ask what she was seeing, he knew that as soon as she was confident in her understanding of the situation, she would provide a full and clear explanation. He didn’t have to wait long.
“This is incredible,” she breathed. “This nanite activity… Six, look at the amputation site. Closely.”
Six raised a brow at the odd request, but did as she asked, trusting her to have a good reason to direct his attention to the dismemberment he’d been forced to subject his charge to.
“It’s subtle,” she continued, “But watch closely. His nanites… they’re rebuilding his tissue!”
As he continued to observe Rex’s injury, he saw that she was right - not that he would doubt her in this. Already Rex’s arm had extended itself slightly past where it had been severed, the boundary made obvious by the line of clean skin absent of the layer of mostly dried blood caked just above it. Six watched with a morbid curiosity as new flesh continued to build itself from the stump at a pace that was slow, but perceptible if one was paying attention. New skin, fat, muscle, and bone was growing out from the open end as if Six was watching Holiday scroll through a particularly detailed cross-section scan. But this was real, this was healing at level that was certainly impossible for anyone but Rex, and watching it relieved the pressure in Six’s chest that had been pressing insistently against his heart since he’d heard the kid’s loud cries of pain just minutes ago.
“You think the whole thing’ll grow back,” he said, not exactly a question given the relief in her expression that mirrored his own sentiments.
“I have no reason to believe it won’t at the rate it’s going,” she responded, now occupied with making sure the wound appeared relatively clean and without debris before she removed Six’s improvised tourniquet and started gently cleaning Rex’s blood from his skin.
“It really is incredible,” she continued, almost breathless in her wonder. “This is it, one of the primary objectives of the original nanite project. Nanites were meant to facilitate this kind of healing in everyone. The event happened before they could be perfected, as we all know. The loss of this kind of life-saving technology is as big a tragedy on its own as the people who have been hurt and killed in EVO attacks, in my opinion. But as usual, Rex’s nanites are somehow different.”
Rex’s arm continued to ooze blood slowly from the site of his impromptu amputation, but now the mess was manageable with gauze pads placed carefully underneath the area. Holiday looked back to check Rex’s vitals on the screens behind them; his heart rate was still a little high, and his blood pressure a little low, but nothing was of any immediate concern, and his oxygen saturation was still well within normal limits. Reassured, she turned forward and brought her attention back to the portable nanite scanner to watch the tiny machine’s progress via the display of data there.
“He’s always healed at an abnormally fast rate,” she resumed. “Which I assumed was due to his unusually well-trained nanites. But I wasn’t sure that they could handle an injury of this severity. Obviously, I wasn’t about to test any theories, but…” She trailed off, some of her enthusiasm fading as her compassion for the boy again outweighed her excitement for the science of the situation. She watched Rex’s face, paler than usual, though his pained expression had relaxed somewhat since he had first been carefully set on the exam table. She reached to move a small section of hair that was plastered in cold sweat to his forehead, with the kind of caution one used when handling something fragile and irreplaceable. Fragile wasn’t accurate; today notwithstanding, the kid could take a hit like no other. Irreplaceable, however, was a given. As far as anyone was aware, there was only one Cure.
Only one Rex.
Holiday moved back, satisfied that Rex was stable. She finally turned her attention to Six, eyed the blood making a mess of his clothes. Her eyes softened with compassion, and Six wondered what else she saw.
“Go get cleaned up,” she said quietly, carefully. “I’ve got him.”
And because he trusted her, he did.
Six showered quickly, ignored the pink tint of the water as it rushed down the drain. He decided against keeping the soiled suit and chose instead to toss the whole outfit in the garbage. He had plenty of spares and figured that the time spent trying to remove the stains and ruminating over their origin wouldn’t be worth it.
Once he was clean and dressed he ignored his own desire to rush back to the med bay to check on the people there, and instead detoured to finally present White Knight with the debrief he’d been requesting so insistently. His report was brief and professional, as usual. White’s reaction overall was expected - general irritation and disdain over the kid getting himself injured on the field against what had been assessed to be a weak opponent, especially given the speed with which Six had dispatched of the thing after the fact. However, when Six spoke of the way Rex’s rate of healing had surpassed their initial expectations, there was a gleam in the pale man’s eyes that made him feel vaguely unsettled. White Knight hadn’t tried to hurt Rex directly since that stint with Dr Fell two years ago (though Six still had his suspicions about what exactly had happened between them in the time that White and Rex were the only ones left awake in a nation overtaken by a sleeping sickness), but Six didn’t trust him to have the kid’s best interests at heart if he got the idea in his head that something could be gained from his mistreatment.
Not that Six would qualify for ‘guardian of the year’ either, but he had at least regretted having to perform an amputation on the field without any anesthetic. He didn’t think White would have quite so many reservations in a similar situation.
When White Knight seemed sufficiently appeased by his report, Six excused himself and made his way back to the med bay. When the door slid open before him, he was greeted by the sight of Rex sitting up on the exam table, trading banter with the chimp who had slithered in at some point while Six was gone. The boy still looked pale, and his voice was tired, but he was smiling and laughing, and his right arm looked remarkably less severed than it had the last time Six had seen him as he used it to playfully shove Bobo’s head out of his personal space, complaining about ‘monkey breath.’
Six left them to it for the moment in favor of checking in with Dr Holiday who was at one of the computers, reviewing data and pretending that she wasn’t still rattled by the day’s events. She offered a brief, welcoming smile as Six approached, then turned her attention back to the screens.
“Good as new,” she said.
“Me or the kid?” Six responded in his usual flat affect, though he knew she was one of the few who could recognize a joke from him where most others wouldn’t. He was proven right as she huffed out a laugh.
“Both, but I was talking specifically about Rex’s arm.”
She turned one of the monitors in Six’s direction to show him the data as she dove into an explanation, as if he would be able to comprehend it. She forgot, sometimes, that not everyone was as smart as she was. He looked at the data while she spoke, anyway, as it seemed the polite thing to do.
“Some agents on the scene managed to collect a sample of the substance that corroded Rex’s arm and sent me some data on the chemical composition,” she explained. “It looks like it’s almost harmless on inorganic material - any corrosive reaction is essentially negligible and dies out quickly due to the steep energy requirement to keep it going, so when Rex’s metal was doused with it, it seemed completely inert. But you were right before; when he recalls his builds, his nanites recycle the material, so they get broken down and carried back in through his skin. It’s a really interesting process that-” she paused to redirect herself, “-isn’t relevant right now. At least, not the specifics. But basically, his nanites brought the material back in, but they didn’t know what to do about that substance. They didn’t pick it up as anything harmful, because it wasn't doing much, but obviously they wouldn’t pull foreign chemicals back into Rex’s body, so they just ignored it and left it to sit on top of his skin. Unfortunately for Rex, as soon as it touched him, its corrosive effects were activated by the contact with his flesh."
She frowned, pausing to review some of the readouts on her display. “It’s nasty stuff, too, degrades organic material at a disturbing rate. It’s no wonder his vitals spiked like that, the amount of pain he must have been in…” She looked up at Six and quietly added, “I’m glad you were there with him, but I’m sorry you had to do that.”
He agreed with her sentiments but didn’t respond. The silent moment was interrupted when Rex from just a few feet away loudly called, “You guys talking about me?”
Six didn’t miss a beat. “Only about how reckless you are.”
Rex groaned. “Can we skip the lecture? Obviously, I learned my lesson.” He looked down at his right arm, flexed the fingers and rolled the wrist, a quiet contemplation in his expression, though his voice was just as strong and petulant as usual. “Don’t play around too much with the spitters, or I might lose a limb.”
“Might lose more than that,” Six said firmly.
“Yeah, okay, I know, but still!” Rex looked back at Six and grinned, lifting his hands in the air and waving them around a little bit like he was showing them off. “Now we know that if I ever lose pieces of me we can just grow ‘em back! That’s cool as hell, I don’t care who you’re asking!”
“Here I thought’cha were just a regular gross human,” Bobo interjected in his typical gritty drawl. “Turns out, kid’s part lizard‘r somethin’.”
Rex frowned down at the ape. “Would me being a lizard be… less gross than a human?”
“Anythin’s an improvement,” Bobo quipped, jumping down from the exam table. He wandered off, likely to cause trouble elsewhere on the base, probably considering his job here done now that Rex was back in the care of both Six and Dr Holiday. Six had heard about Bobo’s past as some manner of service animal that had helped sick and injured children feel better, and though he wasn’t particularly fond of the creature, he couldn’t deny that he still served his purpose.
“Anyway,” Rex said, attention back on Six. “Did you actually know I could do that? I mean, I already figured I heal pretty fast, but…” He asked casually, but Six caught the underlying uncertainty. Rex hadn’t had another episode of total amnesia since Six had met him (though, apparently, if his friends in Hong Kong were to be believed, it may have been a recurring problem), but he still had lapses in memory on occasion, especially early on, and he was probably wondering if this was something they had already figured out about him, but which had slipped from his mind.
Six had suspected before that Rex continued to have issues with his memory, but this was confirmed officially when they had come across Dr Fell up to no good not too long ago, and despite having been nearly killed by the man two years prior, Rex hadn’t recognized him at all. Holiday fostered a theory that Rex’s mind was more prone than most to blocking out traumatic events, and that especially terrible occurrences could be triggers for episodes of complete retrograde amnesia. Six wondered, then, if some or all of today might fade from his memory within the next few days. He wasn’t going to remind him of it, if it did. All the better that the kid didn’t count on the fact that he could grow back body parts while out in the field. Six could easily imagine that expectation leading to some impressively stupid decisions in a fight.
Six remembered he had been asked a question. “I didn’t,” he responded bluntly, truthfully. Maybe, if he’d had more time to think things through, he might have suspected that this could be a possibility, given they’d already known about his advanced healing factor. But in reality, he hadn’t had time, and he’d had to make a decision. A Rex that was down one limb was by far preferable to a Rex that was dead, so even if he hadn’t been capable of that level of regeneration, Six wouldn’t have regretted the choice he’d made.
Rex made a small noise of acknowledgement to his answer, but he was distracted again by his newly formed limb. Six could only imagine what was going through his head. Would he have begrudged Six’s decision if things were different? He wasn’t usually a man to entertain hypotheticals, but a lot had happened today, and he felt he couldn’t be blamed for a little odd behavior.
“Well, thanks anyway,” Rex said when he had broken himself from his reverie, stretching his arms above his head. “That gross stuff hurt. I was glad to get it off’a me, even if it had to be… like that.”
Six, sensing that the mood had lightened, offered a slight, sarcastic smirk so that Rex would know he was joking when he said “Anytime.”
Rex grinned back, but it fell when he seemed to remember something.
“Oh! Did you happen to grab my other glove?”