I found myself in a hospital bed again, at this point they reserved one for me. I was cold and light-headed.
'Orin?' I asked, groping for a mind-link.
No response.
'Orin?!' I asked again, I was lashing out at the boundaries of my consciousness for my companion.
No response.
"ORIN!" I shouted aloud, alerting the entire room.
My vision was hazy, and I could only make out shapes, but there must have been at least four people at my bedside.
I started crying uncontrollably, shouting Orin's name.
"ORIN ORIN ORIN! WHERE ARE YOU!?"
A familiar hand delicate hand tried to put me back on the bed but I thrashed out of my mother's reach and started to run. I raced to the door, barely avoiding people in my blindness.
'The school is conductive.' I thought as I stopped.
I put my arm to the ground and spread my Eneru far and wide, looking for Orin, but as soon as I did I had sensory overload, the brain was not made to process this amount of data.
I clutched my head, with nothing holding me up, I fell face-first into the ground.
"AHHG!" I screamed in agony and determination, renewing my efforts.
It took a glance to know where Orin was, then I got up and only used my Eneru to see nearby, I couldn't see non-conductive things very well, but anywhere where Eneru was found I could see clear as day.
I sprinted to Professor Lana's classroom where Orin was, outpacing the medical staff thanks to a subconscious decision to build Skeleton Armor. I burst through the door and Orin was like a sun to my Eneru Sight. There were several healers continuously placing painkiller spells on him and healing the more grievous wounds. Orin wasn't just wounded, he was covered in frostbite, and his core was cracked.
'Spirit! I need you! Now!'
No response.
I had never felt so alone or helpless, even in my previous captivity I still held a little hope.
A memory of my past life resurfaced, I was in a factory, hammering away at something when I witnessed another worker fall, I attempted to fire a grappling hook to save him, but it malfunctioned, when he landed he was still alive so I tried to stop him from bleeding, but no one responded to my calls for help.
I was pulled from that memory to one with the man I was trying to save, we were playing, and I was small.
"Orin..." I said the man's name out loud. "Never again."
My eyes glowed blue with power and a powerful green flame enveloped my horns, obliterating my shirt from the sheer heat, yet never harming me or those around me. I placed my hand on Orin's back and started to bind the world energy to his cracked core, nearly the same procedure that Spirit had done for me. The green flames pulsed, and one of the cracks sealed, then another, all the way up until Orin's core was a perfect sphere.
I didn't stop there, I wasn't becoming tired yet, so I continued to heal Orin's wounds with my unique style of healing. His frostbitten parts would wither away with entropy, and then immediately be regenerated by one of the healers. His wounds would stitch together while the healers mended them.
Then, out of nowhere, it stopped, my eyes dimmed, the flame dissipated, and I fell to the floor with blue veins sticking out of my skin. I was conscious only for a moment.
"This is the most extreme case of Eneru exhaustion I've ever seen! We need detoxifiers ASAP!" one of the healers shouted.
"Don't worry, it'll be ok kid, you did well." Professor Lana said over my body.
I lifted my hand above my head and Eneru Sight revealed a speck of energy coming from the back of my hand.
"I did it, I think."
Needless to say, I went unconscious.
I woke up an hour later feeling like I had just finished the most intense workout I'd ever done, I could barely move even if I weren't tied to the bed.
"Hey. Where are my glasses? I can't see." I asked. Those same four people were still around my bed, but there were more, and I felt a familiar mass of fur on my chest.
One of them reached over me and grabbed something, and I knew they were my glasses when they put them on my face.
"Thank you." I nodded to my mom.
There were a total of nine people watching over me: Orin, Devin, Laura, mom, dad, Professor Lana, Pei'ye, James, and Teacher. Well, ten if you count Spirit.
Of those nine, Professor James was the only one without bags under his eyes, but all of them looked like they had been crying.
"Why did you have to make me wait so long!?" Laura said while she pushed Orin aside for a hug.
"And then you went off and almost killed yourself!" She shouted, sobbing into my chest.
I couldn't help it, tears started to stream down my face as I struggled against my restraints to embrace Laura.
"I was so scared!" I cried, letting all of the detritus of sorrow flow down my face.
Mom and Devin joined the hug, sharing in our grief.
I was the first to stop crying.
"I swear I will stop this! This can't ever happen again! Not to me or anyone!" I was driven to stop core hunters.
I couldn't see it, but a blue diamond formed on my forehead at those words.
Teacher's face changed to one of surprise.
"Ingen. That's an Oath Mark!" Teacher was excited, but also concerned.
"A what now?"