After another two hours, the three arrived. They followed the winding highway, taking a right at the fork, continuing along until they reached a town so small that it was only a couple of houses. The Crater mountain in the distance, cutting through town and reaching its base. The trio then ran up the side until they saw the path that turned into the cracked and mossy road which led to the stone gates.
The gates screeched open as they approached.
"Well, this is anticlimactic," Colson grumbled, looking around once inside. He wasn't sure what he expected; a red carpet? A parade in their honor? Maybe even someone waiting on them to give them an 'attaboy?' No one even looked in their direction as they walked past. Some did a double-take as Ivy walked past, her sweater still around her waist.
"I have to say, nothing's really changed around here," Zoe noted, the disappointment evident in her tone of voice. "I guess we should go turn our stuff into the quest master or maybe Neph."
"Alright. We should go together, just in case."
Zoe turned to Ivy, almost forgetting what had happened, "I'll bring you to the nurse's office right after. But you're okay now, though?"
Ivy nodded, looking at her bandaged arm, "It doesn't even hurt anymore."
Colson knocked tentatively on the door.
"Come in," a tired voice sighed from behind it.
The door of the office creaked open. Inside sat a skinny tired-looking man with clothes too big and wire glasses too wide for his face. Next to him, leafing through a large data book, was Neph. He didn't notice them enter, as he was busy talking into a telephone simultaneously.
"What can I do for ya?"
"We just completed a mission," Zoe said, rifling through the backpack Ivy was wearing, fishing out the 'signed' paper, and sliding it across the desk to the man.
He looked it over a few times, "Ah, so you're who I heard so much about."
"Oh yeah?" Colson asked excitedly, "People are talking about us?"
"Phone calls and messages from Cassius." He turned to a computer monitor on the edge of his desk and started hammering away at his keyboard. "Anyways, how'd it go?"
"Hard as heck, honestly. But we're alive."
"Apparently so, since it was supposed to take under a week to complete…."
"They didn't tell you what happened?"
"Not for me to know," he stated. "Alright, the system won't update for a bit, but everything has been input. You are free to go."
"Criminy," Neph sighed, setting the phone down on its receiver. "Now onto the—oh, you're back." He stood up, having to duck slightly to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.
Neph spent the next few minutes lecturing them, starting off by saying, "Now, I'm not mad; I'm just disappointed…" He went on to explain the multiple hoops he had to jump through for them. How if he hadn't been the first one to get the info of their departure, they all could've been banished. "Just so you know," he scolded, "I already had someone in mind to do the mission."
Then he saw that most of her arm was missing. He concluded the reprimand with another, "I'm not angry; I'm just disappointed." But he continued, "Especially with you, Zoe." He ordered one of them to bring Ivy to the nurse. As they walked through the front door, he turned back, saying, "But good job."
"Well, let's see here," the head nurse, Terra, said while removing the bandages wrapped tightly around Ivy's arm. Ivy sat upright on the examining table, her legs swinging freely over the side. Once the binds were unraveled, Terra moved a ring light connected to a metal pole above Ivy's arm, getting a closer look at it. The treatment done in Cassius had healed it well, 'No infections. No bleeding. It's been cleaned. If she'd kept the arm with her, I may have been able to reconnect it,' she glanced up at Ivy, giving her a knowing look, 'I sense that I won't have to hide anything from this one.'
"Alright," Terra stood up, walking to the door and locking it. Near the entrance were rows of jars containing sea moss and dandelion tea. She casually leaned against the counter and folded her arms. "So…Ivy, how'd you learn energy?"
Ivy's mouth opened, but she quickly remembered what Zoe had told her. "I don't know what you're talking about," she shrugged.
Terra exhaled from her nose in a breathy laugh, "Oh yeah?" The room filled with a low hum as a tan glow bathed the walls in a dull light. From the ground rose a creature. It was so large that it had to contort its body to sit comfortably in the small office.
In the waiting room, Zoe shot to her feet, startling the people around her. She didn't know what she was feeling, but it was intense. 'What is this?' She turned to the wall; on the other side was the room Ivy and Terra were in. 'It has to be some kind of energy. But whose? It definitely doesn't feel like Ivy's. So that leaves the nurse.'
"Are you alright?" The hospital receptionist noticed her staring intently at the wall after launching to her feet.
Zoe looked at her with wide eyes, "Yes. Of course."
"Are you sure, dear?"
Zoe glanced into the hallway, past the reception table. She knew they wouldn't let her back there. She took a deep breath and sat back down in the red lounge chair, trying not to let the odd stares of the people around her bother her.
The creature stood in a frog stance. Its skin was dark gray and slimy. Its mouth seemed to take up most of its body as it hung open, its tongue flopping out. Inside the creature's mouth was a pink slimy maw.
Ivy rolled backward off the table, landing on her feet. Inside her pocket, she still had the last remaining brass knuckle. The fingers of her left hand had wrapped around it. She held her hand in a defensive position in front of her, ready for the animal to attack.
It cocked its head to the side; the large golden cat eyes looked at her with curiosity. It reached a muscled arm up, scratching its head. Its fingers like that of a human, small and delicate.
"Well, that proves it right there," Terra had a gleam in her eye. "If you couldn't access energy, then you wouldn't be able to see this guy right here," she patted it on the back proudly; it made a purring sound as she did so. "Unlocking your energy opens up some things in your brain—these things here exist on a different frequency of light, so the normal person couldn't see it. I call him Dr.Arret."
Ivy lowered her hand slowly, her eyes flitting back and forth from Terra to the massive thing that took up half the room. "Is it gonna attack me?"
"No, quite the opposite, actually. Since you didn't have energy when I first saw you, I'm guessing you just learned it. So how'd you manage it?" She noticed Ivy's apprehension but reassured her of the doctor-patient confidentiality. "I'm not going to disclose anything you say to me. It's just between us."
Ivy recounted the past few weeks, her awakening of energy and her fight with Kiari. The whole time, Terra didn't say a word; she sat back and listened. Dr.Arret quickly grew bored and reached a hand out, and started playing with Ivy's hair. Once Ivy had finished the story, Terra paced around the room, thinking everything over. She turned to a large filing cabinet and rifled through it until she found what she was looking for. She took out a folder with the name 'Ivy' written on it.
"Well, I'm not surprised you were able to access it so easily," she said while reading the pages.
"Easily? I had to almost die to do that."
"Well, maybe. Most people wouldn't have gone that far in trying to unlock their potential. It takes years and years for the average person to accomplish what you've done in just a few weeks. What about your friends? You said they unlocked it too?"
Ivy nodded, "Yeah. Colson was able to unlock it faster than I was able to."
"Really?" her eyes were bright with interest. "That's fascinating," she licked her lips. "At your age, if someone is able to learn it in a year's time, we say they're a one-in-a-million talent. So he would be… Well, I'm not nearly gifted enough to do that calculation off the top of my head. Do you know the method he used to unlock it?"
Ivy thought for a moment, wincing as Dr.Arret's hand grabbed a big clump of her hair. "I don't think he ever told me. But Zoe said she had to 'find' her energy. She told me she went into a dream world and walked around until she found it."
"So she used a logical approach to it. Is she the girl out there with white hair?"
"Yeah," Ivy nodded.
"Ah, that explains it. Well, I guess we should stop wasting Dr.Arret's time and get you healed." When she said that, the creature's ears perked up. His eyes narrowed in on Ivy. Before Ivy could react, he grabbed her and tossed her into his open mouth in one swift motion and began chewing.
It felt like she was stuck in a slime-filled sleeping bag that was a size too small. Ivy felt Dr.Arret's powerful jaws close as his tongue pushed her into his esophagus. She tried to move, to free herself, but the more she squirmed, the harder it was. The fleshy walls of its throat contracted and pulsed, stopping her from falling any deeper into the creature. Before she was able to collect herself to understand what was happening, she felt an itching sensation in her right arm. Her left hand was stuck by her side, so she couldn't maneuver herself to scratch it. When it got to the point where the sensation was almost unbearable, she felt the sides of Dr.Arret's esophagus undulate as she was expelled from the mouth of the creature, hitting the floor with a wet splat.
"Jeez," Ivy said, wiping the slime from her eyes.
Terra stood over her, a slight smirk across her lips. She held out her hand to Ivy, who took it, pulling herself to her feet. It took Ivy a second to realize that she'd used her right hand. Ivy held both hands in front of her face, wiggling her fingers. She closed her right hand, making it into a fist, punching the air a few times. She ran her fingers along almost everything; it felt as if she had never lost her hand in the first place.
"I never get tired of seeing that look on people's faces," Terra smiled. She patted Dr.Arret on the back. She grabbed a nearby chair and stood on it, reaching up to scratch the creature behind the ears.
"How much CC is this?"
"It's on the house every time," she said, wiping her eyes quickly.
It was an illness, but not an incurable one. Terra was only ten when her mother fell ill from a deadly disease. She wasn't native to Crater; she grew up in another colony across the seas, the colony of Virtue. Her father was not around, and her mother had been bedridden, unable to walk, eat, or do much of anything without pain. Some days were better than others. She would be able to get out of bed, make herself a cup of coffee, and sit outside and watch the sunrise before being carried back inside. Since she couldn't work, they quickly ran out of money, with Terra taking odd jobs and doing as many missions as possible to support them.
Medical bills started to pile up. Things around their house needed to be sold. The medical specialists at Virtue had one care; money. One day, they came to them, offering a surgery that would cure her mother, but they were just short of the down payment. She was too young to realize that every cured patient is a customer that is lost. Terra set her goal on becoming a doctor. Her dream was to tell every cured patient who entered her office that she wouldn't charge them a thing. Terra took many years to research. Traveling the world, finding many different natural and home remedies that outclassed what was being sold in world markets.
Ivy hopped into the waiting room several minutes later. Her hair was wet and dripping, having just taken a shower to rid herself from Dr.Arret's slime.
Zoe was absolutely speechless. She stared at Ivy's arm, looking for stitches or scars, but it was as if time had reversed, and she had never lost it in the first place. 'So it was what I felt earlier. It had to be some type of energy that did this.'
Ivy told her everything that happened, confirming Zoe's suspicions.
"I'm getting that feeling of deja-vu. I guess it's nothing," Zoe said, talking to herself almost. "Your arm actually works?"
"Yeah!" Ivy nodded, "It's like I never lost it." She took out her remaining brass knuckle from her pocket and spun it on one of her fingers.