Excalibur {Complete}

20

A few weeks later, several repetitions of explaining what had happened so that the entire group was all caught up, and things seemed to have settled down a bit. Not to mention that we had to take time to recover. Everyone needed the respite, especially Tristan. He'd been hurt pretty badly; the ribs were going to take the longest. Both he and Zak had broken ribs, Zak had a few that were fractured, but Tristan had a good handful that were broken. He was lucky that none of them had punctured his lungs or anything awful like that. There wasn't much Kilia could do for him aside from pain medicine and keeping him still as much as possible.

Of course by day five, Tristan was complaining and wanting to move around. Kilia kept him in bed though for two more days. This meant more complaining and a very grumpy gang leader. He was even upset that Zak got to get out of bed before him, which made me laugh, though I tried to hid it. Boy, the evil I got... I didn't think Tristan was capable of such a look. That only served to make me laugh more though, which in turn made him a bit crankier. I think it was a mixture of the powerful pain killers that Kilia was giving Tristan and having to be in bed all the time. He mostly slept, which was good because it increased the healing process. For me, I settled for sitting next to his bed and keeping him company, sleeping or not.

Day eight and he was allowed to walk around but under strict orders not to do anything strenuous. To me it seemed like that was Kilia's favorite order to everyone that was hurt. I didn't blame her though, all the work she put in to keep everyone in one hundred percent, tip-top shape... It must have been a lot and I was sure that there were a few times that someone went and overdid it only to come back to her in pain again. I didn't want to be one of those that had to see her twice in a row for the same injury. She was scary enough as it was.

Plans were being thrown around the moment that Tristan was up and moving. We needed to get some vial of Excalibur so that Kilia could analyze it. Sure, they could draw my blood since I was now a user of the strange drug, but Kilia wanted a vial of the green liquid untainted by human blood. Added onto that were the many thousands of questions everyone asked me about how I felt. I didn't mind answering them, but the one that was starting to irk me was the 'are you okay?' Yes. I was fine. I didn't feel like I was going to turn into some strange, giant green hulking thing that was pissed off at the world for no apparent reason. Nor was I going to start shooting out webs, and swinging from rooftops, or go flying around like a maniac and I definitely couldn't see through walls, or shoot lasers from my eyes.

I sighed every time that question was asked, the 'are you all right' question. I knew they were only looking out for me, but honestly they didn't have to. I wasn't a kid, I wasn't dying and I sure as hell wasn't going to be doing anything stupid. Well... mostly anyway. What I was doing was practicing. I practiced my skills with the gun, Jace overseeing me to help me with that, I sparred with Zak often to try to hone my hand to hand combat and what I did in secret was practice my new found abilities with Excalibur. Or, rather, I had done it in secret... Until Jace found out. He had been a little bit pissed off, but more like put out really.

After convincing me to allow him to oversee my practice, he and I would keep tabs on what I could do. Mostly I wanted to see how far I could push it. Jace was against the idea of practicing till I dropped –which was my original intent anyway- so I had to suffice with stopping when my head started to hurt. Of course, Jace had the brilliant reminder that if I did drop anytime soon, Kilia would be on my ass, which I didn't want. In addition to that, once Jace found out, Zak soon found out about my practicing as well and finally Tristan.

I was nervous about Tristan knowing that I was utilizing Excalibur. In honesty, I had been distancing myself from him and the gang. The feeling that had sprung up on me when I was attacking Alik made me nervous. I didn't like it at all, the way I had been fantasizing what I could possibly do to the jack ass. The way it felt. It was a rush, a rush that said I was 'Godly' and could do anything I wanted. I think it was the drug talking, not me. At least, I hoped so.