Gauntlet (Old)

Part 1: Chapter 4

I was a little disappointed, but ultimately understanding. With a sigh, I grabbed the now outstretched arm, and said, "Gently this time." She listened, but went a little too slow, having dragged me up with only my upper body off the ground. I was just partially hanging there, waiting for a prompt, but after a couple seconds of silence, I realized that I probably wasn't getting one.

I began to slide my left leg forward a little bit. I had never noticed the sensation of all the muscles contracting in such unison, so many of them, just to allow me to do such a simple act as moving my leg. It was a surreal experience that brought a smile to my face. I was experiencing a feeling I hadn't noticed until now, and yet had been there.

I was lifted up just enough to push my knee in front of my waist, then continued to do the same for my other leg. Not a second later, I felt the arm keeping me up let go, causing me to fall onto my legs, which didn't hurt nearly as much as I had thought it would, but it was still strange to feel the weight on them. Corru just stood there, watching.

The next step was to put my feet on the ground, so I pushed my body up slightly with my right arm so I could move my right leg further forward and put my foot firmly on the ground, knee bent, ready to try and stand. I put my arm on my knee and pushed on it in an attempt to straighten my other leg, getting me closer to standing.

I could feel the strain on my leg, but pushed, and with some trouble, straightened my other leg. In so doing, I almost fell, but balanced out. I now looked as if I was preparing to do a split, but to get to a standing position, I had to take a step. My legs were shaking violently and I realized I couldn't rest in this position, so I pushed with my left leg and swung it forward and in an act of panic, stomped it back down a little too early.

My legs were too close together due to the swing, which proved too difficult for my atrophied leg muscles. With a faceplant, I was back on the ground. I could count on one hand the parts of me that didn't hurt yet. I craned my head up to see Corru frowning.

After a moment, she said, "Wait there," and walked to the workbench. She grabbed the arm and sighed, "I guess it would prove simpler for you to stand with extra support, but I do not wish for you to get distracted by it. That is my one condition."

I nodded, trying to keep my excitement inside. I did notice that it was a strange shape. It transitioned directly from arm to fingers; no palm to separate them. I shrugged it off, hoping that it wasn't going to be like that when I wore it. She came over, grabbed my upper arm, and shoved the large connector at the base of the metal arm into my stump. I winced and closed my eyes tightly, but it didn't actually hurt that much.

"Where is the pain?" I asked, realizing how stupid the question sounded.

"You underestimate the technology in this scrap of metal." Corru seemed proud of it, shown only by a quickly disappearing smirk. I decided not to inquire further. I probably didn't want to hear the long-winded explanation she would most likely provide. I took a moment to analyze my new arm, watching as the fingers had separated into segments, void of knuckles, and moved further from the arm, giving space for a palm. A mass of green energy spilled from the arm and rested in the space the fingers gave it, forming the palm, and thin strands of the energy crawled through the finger segments, looking to connect them.

"Looks cool and all, but how would I hold stuff with no support from my palm?" My mind seemed to have made peace with the thought that it isn't going to understand what's going on, letting me look at things more objectively, not that I particularly liked to do that.

"Kaure energy is solid." Corru was great at being too simple and straightforward with her explanations. I frowned and poked the energy palm with my other hand to find that it didn't go through it.

"You may play with it later, but walking might be a good first step," Corru started, "Just don't make any strange gestures and all will go well." I continued trying to stand, but was bored, tired and in pain by the next two attempts. I voiced my complaint to Corru, and was met with a simple statement, "If this is your stamina, we'll only get you walking in a week or two, but as you wish, we shall stop for today."

It wasn't what I wanted to hear, and didn't improve my mood much, but it did make sense, at least. The star was up, so there was still much of the day left. She walked to her workbench once more and gave me a large box filled with syringes.

"You are in no state to go exploring, so each of these will knock you out for around a day. The sooner you use them, the better." And with that, Corru left again.

I decided to wiggle my left hand's fingers around and inspected the arm. It was a matte black with a thin groove stretching from one edge to the other on the top, emitting a green light, the same shade as the palm. There were also two loosely diamond-shaped pouches on either side, a softer material than the rest of it. Finally, at the bottom, there was some branding and information on it. It read THE GAUNTLET™ in big bold letters and, in smaller letters, was written designed and built by Corru. It was funny to me that she felt the need to brand it.

Having finished inspecting the Gauntlet, I crawled onto my bed and brought the box with me. Following Corru's advice, I injected one of the syringes as soon as possible and watched as the lime green liquid disappeared from the container.

I woke up the next day and continued to try and stand a couple times until I called it a day again, but before I injected myself, she gave me a second box, identical to the syringe one. There was a scrap of paper with bad handwriting reading Only one a day. Below the note was a bunch of small balls of what I assumed to be nutrition. I was too hungry to care if it was food or not. It was near tasteless, but I was immediately full.

It took sixteen days - a very boring sixteen days - for me to feel comfortable walking, but I was glad when it was finally over.