The mechs started concentrating their fire upon one spot in the cylinder, attempting to break through and reach Salem who lay within.
Mon was ecstatic.
"It payed off!" He crowed. "We now have aliens for study in our hands!"
Mon could hardly keep still.
One of them was laid upon the asphalt by the other who lay broken at the base of the cylinder. The final alien was within that cylinder, and the mechs were soon going to get him.
The inky blackness that covered the cylinder began to spread out until it covered all of the aliens in a smog that was blacker than sin.
The mechs were forced to stop firing, lest they break through the cylinder and destroy the alien within.
....
Ruby suddenly awoke, just in time to see the fog creeping towards her.
She reached her hands out as if she was embracing an old friend, and was soon enveloped in the solid black mist.
She began coughing once more, curling into the fetal position and waiting to die.
'I had wanted to truly give myself to you, Salem.' She thought sadly. 'Maybe in our next life.'
She closed her eyes and surrendered to the darkness.
....
Alina awoke within the mist, unable to feel anything below her waist.
She immediately began panicking.
'How can I walk with Salem if I'm not strong enough?' She screamed mentally. 'I don't want to drag him down.'
She tried to move her legs, but she couldn't see them to know if she had succeeded.
'All these thoughts are useless if I'm going to die anyway." Alina thought numbly. 'I might as well just die.'
She was about to close her eyes and wait for death when she saw a figure kneel next to her.
She tried to see who it was, but her eyes just would not focus.
She was about to speak when she felt a finger upon her lips.
"Shhh." The voice of Salem floated to her like a cool summer breeze. "Let me heal you."
Salem didn't move for five minutes, during which he was focusing intently on repairing damage to her spinal cord and spinal column.
Alina tried to formulate words, but the ocean of feelings drowned out anything she tried to say.
At last, she finally surrendered to unconsciousness, comforted by Salem's prescence and happy that he came back.
....
Salem knelt beside Ruby and started to heal her.
'At least I wasn't too late.' He thought, guilty that they had gone through this for him.
Many of her internal organs had been damaged or were failing outright, she had lost a lot of blood by coughing it up, her lungs were filling with blood, her rib cage had collapsed, and she had broken more than half the bones in her body.
Her weapon, mask and clothing had suffered too. Her mask was cracked in half, with only a part of it still clinging to her face, her cloak was tattered from where the shells had hit her, her sword lay broken next to her, and her wings were little more than stubs.
Salem fixed any breaks in her bones by forcibly putting them in place, along with any fragments, and fusing them together by copying her cellular structure and using that to imitate her bone cell structure, allowing her to heal in a short time.
He put a few nanobots in her lungs to pump out the blood that was filling them, before changing them, allowing them to replace the damaged cells in her lungs and internal organs.
He didn't want to just fill her with nanobots, so he let her body restore its blood on its own.
Once he was done, he moved to the recruits, who at worst had a few broken bones.
Moving to the girls, he picked Ruby up in one arm and Alina in the other.
Salem then picked his way through the tiny remnants of the mechs he had destroyed.
Ruby awoke while he was still moving through the wreckage.
Her eye that he could see was full of confusion.
"What happened?" She asked, looking around in awe.
"I killed them all." Salem said.
Behind them, he heard more mechs hitting the ground.
He didn't even turn around. He merely coalesced the shadows behind him and bisected any who touched down.
....
Ruby watched, shocked, as the shadows moved and utterly demolished the mechs that hit the ground behind them.
She pulled off what remained of her mask and buried her face in his chest.
"Thank you for coming back." She said quietly.
Salem looked at her, surprised.
"Why would I not come back?" He inquired.
"You could have run and tried to save yourself." She said into his chest.
"And leave you two?" He said gravely. "I'd sooner sacrifice myself to keep you two alive than leave you alone to fight."
Ruby uncurled from his chest, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gave him a passionate kiss.
Salem returned the kiss in kind, feeling her tongue going in a little adventure to explore the entirety of his mouth.
Responding in kind, he felt Ruby pull herself closer when he pushed his own tongue into her mouth.
They were at the city wall when Ruby finally pulled away, breathing heavily.
She licked her lips and returned to her original position, her head against his chest.
"I'm sad we always stop here.'' Ruby said, her voice muffled by his chest.
Salem pretended he didn't hear her.
....
He entered the bedroom and gently laid Alina upon the bed, taking care not to awaken her.
She awoke anyway, sitting up straight and examining the condition of her body.
"I can walk!" She exclaimed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and taking a few steps, drunk on the feeling of being able to walk. "I thought I wouldn't be able to walk again."
"I had to repair your entire spinal column and about half of your spinal cord." Salem said. "And Ruby, you broke almost half of the bones in your body, you had acute organ failure, your lungs were filling with blood, and your rib cage had collapsed. Both of you are lucky I classed up in time."
The two women looked at each other and opened their mouths at the same time.
"No, it shouldn't be a competition." Salem said, causing both of them to shut their mouths.
Salem walked over to the door that led to the baths and gestured for them to follow.
Alina, still drunk on her ability to walk, skipped over to him and positioned herself right behind him, with Ruby following close behind.
Salem started the bath to filling, before turning to the girls and embracing both of them.
"I saw both of you fighting while I was classing up." He said. "Thank you for caring enough to resolve yourselves to give your lives for me."
The girls returned readily his embrace.
"Ruby had said that I was prepared to give my life to save both of you, and she's right." Salem continued. "I would never forgive myself if I watched you die and did nothing to stop it. Even if I had to give my life to save you two, I would."
Alina stood on the tip of her toes to give him a brief kiss.
"When I was thrown into the top of the cylinder and broke my spine, I was going to try and get back up and keep fighting." Alina said, tightening her embrace. "I was ready to die if it meant you could go on."
Salem pulled his arm from around her and lifted her chin so she would look him in the eyes.
"I saw you hit the cylinder and I despaired." He said, trembling at the memory. "I thought I would watch you die after I asked you to protect me."
"But you saved us." Ruby broke in, pulling herself from his embrace and turning off the water, before returning and giving him another hug. "I'm glad you did."
"So am I." Salem smiled.
He recycled his cloak and wings, since he hadn't made it so he could compress them yet, and did the same for the two women.
Leading them into the hot water by their hands, he let them wash him once more.
"After seeing you two almost die, I realized that I have been holding on to my inhibitions too much." He said while they were washing his upper body. "I have decided that I am ready for you now."