Agony
She found Sersi, Phastos and Kingo in a warehouse on the outskirts of town where the fancy houses slowly got replaced by dirty sidewalks and dried out lawns with wild bushes on the outside of weathered fences.
It had taken her three quarters of an hour to walk here and another ten minutes until she had found the rather hidden building, which, from the purely optical point of view, seemed to be an empty fire brigade. The only way of even getting to this location had been through a few quickly typed text messages from Sersi, filled with shortened words and emoijs because of course that was how Sersi tipped her messages.
Her difficulties to find this place meant however that, unless he was looking for them right here or flying in front of crowds of humans and therefore breaking Ajak's orders, it would take Ikaris a while to find them in turn.
Good thing because she really didn't want to see him right now.
The building was hidden behind a cement wall about two meters high, but she knew from Sersi that there was an unsecured back door through which she entered the empty parking garage.
Or well, it likely had been empty before. Where once the red and white fire brigade cars must have been parked, there were now thick plastic tarpaulins with a bio-hazard symbols printed in the middle, underneath which there seemed to be something large and, from her knowledge, incredibly ugly. An unpleasant odor of burnt flesh and decomposition was already thick in the air. Jackpot.
"Looks like the government was slow." she remarked as she stepped into the hall. Her footsteps echoed off the empty, once white, high walls.
Phastos was fumbling with one of his scanning devices on a half-covered Deviant corpse, clearly focused on his work, but Sersi and Kingo both looked up.
"There you are, it took long enough." Kingo said as a way of greeting, cheerfully as always.
Sersi frowned slightly. "Where is Ikaris?"
The bitter feeling from earlier crept back up Sprite's throat and she had to swallow to keep her hurt feelings from showing.
"Don't know, don't care" she merely grumbled.
Sersi blinked in surprise and Kingo raised an eyebrow but Sprite didn't give them a chance to ask. "Have you found anything yet?"
"Angry police patrols" Kingo grinned. "A small blast of cosmic energy to simulate a burglary at a store down the street distracted them, we should have time."
Sersi stared at him "You did what?"
"It'll be fine, insurance will take care of it."
"If we're getting attacked by government agents, it's your fault." Sprite remarked dryly.
"Have a little trust in me, will you?"
A movement she thought she saw out of the corner of her eye kept her from giving a teasing answer. For a moment she felt as if the cover in the back corner of the hall had shifted. Orly slightly, barely noticeable, probably not at all. It was likely just imagination or a trick of the sun falling through the ceiling windows, but Sprite was a master of illusions and had therefore learned to always take a closer look at things that caught her attention or made no sense.
"Phastos," she said, her gaze fixed in the direction she thought she saw the ominous, probably not even there at all, something. "You scanned all the Deviants didn't you?"
The inventor didn't look up from his holodata to answer her. "Almost, just two more." he said, tipping on the screen, his brow tight in concentration. "Unfortunately, a certain someone couldn't remember which Deviant it was that grabbed Druig, although that certain someone must have spent at least twenty minutes chasing that particular specimen back and forth."
"Hey!" Kingo protested. "I don't care for what they look like just that I hit them."
While Phastos was still looking at his screen and Kingo was arguing with him that the looks of a single Deviant had never mattered before, Sprite took an almost instinctive step towards the suspicious-looking cover sheet.
She no longer possessed the senses of an Eternal, but something told her something was wrong here.
"Which ones have you already checked?"
Sersi, who had meanwhile been leaning against a wall, looked up from her phone, obviously sensing something too.
"Sprite?"
What happened next happened in a fraction of a second and would only remain in her head later as a jumble of images and impressions.
With a sudden jerk and a loud cutting sound, the tarpaulin tore in two.
Sprite cried out as teeth, claws, and glowing eyes shot out in her direction. At the same moment she was thrown to the side, someone shouted her name, something shattered behind her.
She knew for a certain that she had not been hit, yet Sprite's mind shut down, blacking out as if it wasn't her own anymore.
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"Thought I'd find you here."
Gilgamesh strayed into the med bay that, to everyone's surprise had actually stayed a med bay since their group break up many hundredths of years ago. They had rarely ever needed it with Ajak's healing powers and so Phastos had taken part of it, if not most of it, over as an extension of his laboratory over the years they had used to live on the ship.
Makkari had not even hoarded her treasures in here like in most other rooms in the time she had spend alone on the Domo for whatever reason, maybe because she hadn't wanted to give Phastos a heart attack upon their return.
"If Ajak finds you here, she's might going to make a scene. She was already worried that Makkari refused to leave."
Thena had her back turned to him. She was leaning over Druig's sleeping form, just watching, and had their beloved grumpy mind-controller been awake he would have snapped at her to get out of his personal spare for sure.
Despite the somewhat amusing thought, Gilgamesh's shoulders tensed, if only the slightest, not out of distrust for her but out of a deeply trained instinct he had developed through the years he had supported her through her various attacks of Mahd Wy'ry. Now however, so close to their right now very vulnerable brother, would be a really bad time and place for such an attack to happen, he thought. It send his nerves on edge without him being able to stop it.
However this tension that he felt but no one could see loosened when Thena lifted her head instead of attacking anything and he could see her eyes. Her pretty eyes that looked at him without a trace of the poisonous white that clouded her wonderful being from time to time.
"Mahd Wy'ry has been better since the Uni Mind." she said as if she had caught his train of thoughts and he relaxed right away at the sound of her voice.
And it truly had been, he could tell. She had only had one attack since the happenings of the Emergence and even that had been easily broken. It felt like she had regained a piece of herself somehow.
Ajak had told them that them, meaning Thena and the others, creating the Uni Mind together might had stabilized her mind enough to lessen her attacks and that she would look closer into it. He actually found himself not really caring for the whys and just enjoying the fact that she was more stable than she had been in a quite long time.
It was good. It was hope. Gilgamesh was not one to get delusional but he was open for hopeful thoughts. He wouldn't go as far as hoping that they might had accidentally discovered a therapy or even a remedy for Mahd Wy'ry but if there was something that might would help her then that was enough for him. Worth a shot for sure.
Maybe they'd be able to visit Fidji together in the future.
He cleared his throat. "Speaking of Makkari, where did she go?"
"He has not stirred yet." she said instead, not moving from her position or lifting her gaze, which could have been unnerving if he would not know and love every strange quirk in her. "No sign of waking for the last three hours either."
"Have you been here that long? Alone?"
"He looks pale."
Gilgamesh snorted in good nature. "He's Druig. He is always pale. One should think that living at the Amazon would have changed that."
That made Thena look at him with a smile. "I am serious" she scolded but not without a hint of amusement in her voice that might had been lost to anyone but him.
"As am I." Gilgamesh took her hand in his and gently pulled her down the three steps that lead to Ajaks treatment platform. "He will wake in time. That Deviant got him pretty bad, but you've heard what Ajak said."
"That she wants to delete his memory."
"That we have a chance to turn it to the better."
Thena looked at their intertwined hands. Her thumb caressed his callous fingers. A fighter's hand like her own and yet much rougher to the touch. She knew now that was mostly because she was build like that and he another way. It also explained why their pieces fit into each other so perfectly, like two fragments of an artwork that belonged together, that only together made sense at all.
She looked at their hands and then into his eyes. Warm and gentle and caring. Her Gilgamesh.
"I wonder if it had made a difference. If I had been faster."
He scoffed at her, those kind eyes that told her she had done no wrong. "Come on. You are Thena. You were there and you did what always do. Saving the day. Self doubt doesn't suit you, you know?"
Her lips tugged upwards. "I was telling Makkari the same."
"I'm surprised she left at all."
Thena shrugged. "She was particularly vibrating with pent up energy. I told her to take a run. That I would have an eye on Druig."
"Sounds like you." he agreed.
And it really did. Didn't it? Thena was a protector and her heart especially beat for those who couldn't protect themselves, for whatever reason that may be. She had not been called a guardian goddess by the old Athens for no reason. They had that in common, the both of them. Protecting what was dear to their hearts.
Thena smiled again, but this time the beautiful moment was brief and got abruptly interrupted by a strangled scream from the platform.
"What the - ?!"
Both fighters spun around and while Gilgamesh was still in the movement, Thena, who had always possessed a speed superior to his, was already by their brother's side in the blink of an eye.
Druig was making absolutely painful noises, inhuman, like a tortured animal. He jerked and spasmed, gasping for air like a drowning man. His whole back arching up from the platform, although Thena immediately grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down in a desperate attempt to keep him from hurting himself. Not completely, they knew better, but at least to try and stop him from throwing himself to the ground.
"Druig! Druig! Wake up!" she called out to him to no avail.
Moments later, as Gilgamesh stood by her side to help her hold the trashing body of the mind-controller down as much as possible, he let out a loud curse like he hadn't anymore since the great fire of Rome. His eyes frantically searched for what was wrong with him while he grabbed onto him as well to stop the uncontrolled spasms but he couldn't see anything that might be wrong. Gilgamesh grit his teeth.
"Druig!"
"Come on sweetie! Snap out of it!"
Druig's skin was traversed by veins that appeared deeply grey, as if every drop of life had disappeared from it. He wheezed and screamed like invisible hands where torturing him, choking him, but the worst part wasn't his screaming, nor his rapidly greying skin. No. The worst part where his eyes.
Eyes as black as night. Blank and empty. Unseeing as if not there at all. And he didn't seem to be there with them either for no amount of calling out to him from either of the two Eternals did anything to shake him from his attack.
Thena caught his eyes as Druig arched up once more, almost managing to break free of her hold which, under any other circumstances, would have been as impressive as it was worrying. "Get Ajak!" she commanded in a voice of steel and Gilgamesh had to pull back out of fear that his strength would hurt their brother further. Thena had to brace her entire upper body against their brother's to keep him from falling from the platform, but Gilgamesh was aware that she knew what she was doing.
The infirmary's automatic doors opened too slowly for his taste, so the strongest of the Eternals used his said strength to pry open the metal with blunt fore, ignoring the deep dents his fingers made on the high-quality and Ikaris-proof material.
"Ajak!" he roared, so loud that his voice echoed through the entire Domo.