Hearing Jack, Gwen went quiet, realizing he had a point. While they rested, Jack noticed something strange about the building they'd chosen. It looked abandoned, but it didn't seem completely empty. Someone had clearly been using it recently.
"Gwen, look at this. It seems like someone is already using this place. We should probably move," Jack said, pointing toward the disturbed dust and a few footprints near the entrance.
They were about to leave the building when they heard footsteps nearby. Both of them tensed and turned toward the sound.
A Zehoberei, fully covered like them, slowly climbed through a large hole in the wall.
All three of them froze, staring at each other.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't expect anyone to be here."
The stranger quickly took a few steps back, trying to jump back out through the hole. But his footing slipped. Instead of landing safely on the lower roof, he missed and crashed to the ground below.
Jack and Gwen exchanged a glance before quickly following him down.
"Are you okay?"
Jack knelt beside the fallen Zehoberei. Under the moonlight, he could see blood soaking through the stranger's clothes, spreading across his side.
"He's hurt." Jack pulled back the cloth covering the stranger's face and realized it was a young Zehoberei, roughly their own age.
"He's been shot," Gwen said, quickly checking the wound. "If we don't stop the bleeding soon, he's not going to make it."
Jack looked around the abandoned building. There wasn't a single piece of medical equipment anywhere.
"We don't have any real equipment. Our only option is my nanobots. I've never tried using them on a human before, let alone an alien, but let's see if they can keep him alive. It's his only shot," Jack said, activating the emergency nanobots built into his Plumber suit.
The tiny machines swarmed over the wound. Jack carefully guided them, extracting the bullets and sealing the damaged blood vessels to stop the bleeding. He kept watching the boy's condition as the nanobots worked.
After a while, the bleeding finally stopped, and some color slowly returned to the youth's face.
"The nanobots stopped the bleeding and repaired enough of the damage to keep him alive," Jack said, looking relieved. "His natural healing should take care of the rest."
"Check this area! Don't let him get away!"
Both of them immediately heard the commotion echoing from the street outside. With their enhanced hearing, they could tell the soldiers were getting closer.
"It won't be long before they get here," Jack said, quickly putting his Plumber suit back on. "We need to move."
"We should bring him with us. I'm guessing he's the person those soldiers were looking for," Gwen said, glancing at the injured youth.
"Yeah, probably. I'll carry him. You fly with your suit," Jack said without hesitation.
Jack quickly checked the young man's breathing before carefully scooping him into his arms. Then he took off into the night, with Gwen following close behind.
Under the cover of darkness, they flew away at full speed, staying high enough that they couldn't be seen easily from the ground. The soldiers never spotted them, and within minutes, the abandoned building and the city were far behind them.
"Let's find a cave and rest for the night. Traveling in this cold with him injured isn't smart," Jack said to Gwen as he flew beside her.
They soon found a decent cave to shelter in. After making sure the area was safe, Jack kept watch while Gwen settled down to rest.
"Redqueen, how much power do I have left?" Jack asked. The earlier fight and all the flying since had drained a good amount of energy from his suit.
"Master, you have less than fifteen percent remaining."
Hearing that, Jack decided to conserve his remaining power carefully . He eventually rested through the second half of the night while Gwen kept watch for any threats.
As morning came, Gwen, who was already awake, noticed the young Zehoberei slowly stirring.
The moment he opened his eyes and saw Gwen's uncovered face, he suddenly shouted something in his native language.
"Kah'ra! Vael shen? Tor'kai!"
Panic was clear in his voice.
Gwen tried to calm him down, but she couldn't understand a single word he was saying, and he couldn't understand her either. The situation quickly became more tense as the young man tried to force himself up despite his injuries.
The noise woke Jack, and he sat up nearby.
"Hey, we're not your enemy. Calm down," Jack said.
The young Zehoberei froze when he heard someone speaking his language . He turned toward him, his expression filled with confusion.
Jack wasn't covered either, so his face was completely visible.
"Who are you? What did you do to me? Why am I here?" the young man asked, firing off one question after another.
"What's he saying?" Gwen asked, glancing at Jack.
"Hi, I'm Jack Walker. This is my girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. We're both from Earth. Some unfortunate circumstances brought us to this planet. We found you injured last night. Do you remember seeing two people before you passed out? That was us. We saved you from bleeding out and kept you from getting caught by those soldiers. You don't need to be afraid of us," Jack explained.
Hearing that, the youth slowly remembered what had happened. He looked down at his wound...now partially healed, and his body finally relaxed, though Jack could tell he still hadn't completely lowered his guard. Given the circumstances, that was understandable.
"Thank you for saving me and getting me away from them," the youth said.
Since the youth hadn't denied being the person the soldiers were chasing, Jack decided to ask him directly why they were after him, translating everything for Gwen as they spoke.
"My name is Kalen. I'm just an orphan trying to survive in the slums near town. I don't know why, but about a month ago, some soldiers suddenly tried to kill me out of nowhere. I got lucky and escaped that day, but they've been hunting me ever since. I can't think of anyone I've wronged. Last night, they somehow found where I was hiding in the city and attacked me. After that, everything went black, and now I'm here," Kalen explained.
Jack translated everything for Gwen.
"Did you do anything unusual? Anything different from normal?" Gwen asked after hearing his story.
"No, nothing. I work normal jobs, and sometimes I steal a little food, but every kid in the slums does that just to survive. I'm nothing special," Kalen said, shaking his head.
"So, do you have anywhere to go? We can at least drop you off somewhere safe. We're already heading toward the royal city because we're looking for a spaceship," Jack said.
"The royal city...?" Kalen repeated, his expression changing slightly. He looked down for a moment before slowly looking back at Jack.
"Honestly, I don't know where else to go. I've spent the last month running from those soldiers, knowing that one day they might finally catch me."
Kalen clenched his fists.
"I never even met my father. My mother raised me alone, and she never told me much about him. Before she died from her illness, she only told me that he lives in the royal city."
His voice became bitter as he continued.
"I spent my whole life without him, while my mother had to suffer alone. I want to find him. I want to know why he abandoned us... and I want to make him answer for what happened to my mother."
Kalen looked directly at Jack, anger and determination mixing in his eyes.
"Could I travel with you?" he asked. "I just want to find my father."
"Let me think about it." Jack stepped outside the cave with Gwen , then translated everything Kalen had told him and asked for her opinion.
"Taking him with us is going to slow our journey down, and it might make us a target for whoever's after him too," Jack said, laying out the downsides.
"He doesn't have anywhere else to go, and he's already being hunted. Why don't we just bring him along? From what we've seen so far, this place doesn't seem to have the kind of technology or manpower that could actually put us in serious danger. We can afford to help him," Gwen reasoned.
Jack sighed.
"Fine. It'll just make the trip a bit less predictable."
He turned and headed back into the cave.
"Kalen, we've decided to help you get to the royal city."
"Thank you. I really appreciate this," Kalen said, a visible sense of relief washing over him.
Ding!
A notification suddenly appeared in front of Jack.
[Host has altered the fate of an important individual who was destined to die, triggering multiple downstream changes. Reward: 1000 Heroic Points.]
What?! A thousand points? Are you kidding me? How does this even work? Saving Peter's Uncle Ben only gave me 500. Even Tony only gave me 150. And now some random kid I've never heard of gets double what Uncle Ben was worth? Just from saving him?
Jack stared at Kalen.
Does that mean his fate is connected to a lot of other people's? Is saving him going to cause some huge butterfly effect?
Jack studied the ordinary-looking Zehoberei youth in front of him, unable to shake the feeling that there was something far more important about Kalen than he realized.
Just what exactly makes this kid so special?
A/N: The Patreon version is already updated with 20 advanced chapters. If you'd like to read ahead of the public release schedule, you can join here:
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