Heart Like a Machine

Chapter 35

"Aloy," I said, wanting to get up and greet her, but Beta stopped me from standing up.

"The stitches in the smaller wounds are fine if they were to come undone, but the big one would be detrimental if you reopened it," Beta said, sitting me back down. "I-I'll let you two talk. Make sure she doesn't move around, Aloy."

"Don't worry. I won't let her," she said and walked over to me, Beta walking out of the room.

"How are you feeling?"

"Terrible. There's what remains of a giant gaping hole in my stomach."

"I thought I had lost you for good this time. The way that projectile hit you in the stomach, it almost got some vital organs. But it just barely missed. The protector you were wearing, it slowed the projectlie down a bit so the impact wasn't as bad if you didn't have it on."

"What about you? Before I blacked out, I tried to help with the oncoming projectile, but I miscalculated it and I saw it was going to hit you."

"It did, but something saved me from it going through my chest."

"What was that?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the now broken Thunderjaw tooth.

"Even if you weren't physically there to protect me, you still did in a way I never thought you would."

I chuckled, "Would you look at that."

Aloy took the one piece that was already attached to the thread and put it back on. She took the other and placed some thread between an opening of the tooth. She handed it to me and I put it around my neck.

"There," she said. "Now we have matching necklaces."

I looked down at mine and then at hers, smiling, "There was something GAIA told me about from the Old Ones. Couples would sometimes have matching necklaces or bracelets. And there was like a magnet in them so when they would come together, the magnets would attract one another and stick."

She chuckled, "Well there's no magnets in here."

"True, but that doesn't mean it will come together when we do."

She smiled once more and placed her forehead against mine, "I'm glad you're alright."

"I should be, but what are you going to do about Nemesis?"

"We can worry about that later. Right now, you need your rest," Aloy said and wrapped her arms around my waist, pulling me down onto the bed next to her. "I could use the rest as well. I'm kind of tired of running around saving the world."

"You wish you could go live your days out in the woods alone?" I chuckled.

"I would love to do that, but right now," she yawned, this time, she cuddled up to me. "We need to sleep."

I tapped my Focus to see the others were doing their own things. I looked into a different room to see Sylens was working on something. He might be the biggest help we can get right now to find a way to defeat Nemesis. He contained HADES and made him spit out answers. So he probably knows more about Nemesis than anyone here. I don't think Aloy even knows how to stop him. But I tapped it once more, laying my head down, looking at Aloy as her eyes were closed. I pulled her close to me and rested my head on top of hers, letting all my worries wash away as I could be close to her for just another moment more. Who knows. Maybe this could be our final peaceful moment together. I closed my eyes, trying not to worry about it.

I opened my eyes to see Aloy was no longer laying beside me. I slowly lifted my head and looked around, seeing I had moved from my room into a different room. It looked like it was Aloy's. The bed was a bit bigger and there was much more room for storage and to put things. My bow was hung by hers and my spear was near hers. I slowly sat up from the bed and got up, slowly making my way towards the main part of the base to see the others were there.

"We're going to need all the help we can get," Aloy said as she had a trajectory of when and where Nemesis was from Earth. "Nemesis is coming and we don't have a lot of time. So we need to inform everyone of what's happening. Erend, do you think you can inform the Oseram nearby Barren Light? There's even an Oseram camp nearby.

"Kotallo, if you could warn Hekarro and gather all of the Tenakth, that would be wonderful. Zo, you're in charge of the Utaru. I know they can be troubling at times, but they saw what we can do with the Land Gods. People seem to do more when they have physical proof. Sylens, we're leaning on you to create something or think of something to stop Nemesis.

"Beta, I am going to put you in charge of overseeing how we can get HEPHASTEUS once more. It's going to be angrier the next time we get to it. But the Zeniths had more of the subordinate functions. Maybe we can put them to use.

"And Alva, we could use the help of the Quen. Maybe there's something they know from the Old Ones that we don't have here. I know Legacy's Landfall is far from here, but I will override a Sunwing for you to fly back over there."

They all nodded and went to do their respective parts. We watched as Zo, Erend, Kotallo ride off on Chargers while Alva was riding on a Sunwing. It was her first time flying, but she was getting the hang of it pretty quickly.

"What are we going to do?" I asked her.

"Well, you were asleep for about a few days. So your stomach wound is still healing, but it should be a lot better now. I told Zo I would look at that before we headed out."

"Where are we going to go?" I asked.

She looked to the East and let out a sigh, "If Varl was here, he would be here to do what we are going to do."

"We're not going back, are we?"

She turned and nodded her head, "We're going back to the tribe."