270 After Effects 1

"There they are."

Standing by to offer medical assistance, Mu spotted a pair of CAS-7 which was inbound after the successful raid on the imperial capital. Standing beside her was Lilly, Alice, and Solaris, each of them looking worried as they had heard from Mu that Dax had been injured worse than normal, something which was only confirmed when Dax walked out of the CAS-7 carrying a mechanical respirator which he was hooked up to through a cable going into his cybernetic spine. Immediately after exiting the transport, Dax caught sight of the girls and as he did a thin smile spread out on his face as he disconnected the respirator and just left it on the ground.

"Hey, good to see you girls."

"Don't just 'hey' us!"

"Yeah, you're clearly injured so why did you just unplug your life support like that!?"

"Would you please stop being that reckless already!?"

Facing way more anger from the girls than he had expected Dax's smile stiffened up ever so slightly, but even in the face of all that resistance he still stuck to his act, after all, if his pride as a man told him anything it was that he had to act cool now, no matter what.

"Don't worry about that for the moment, I have something more important to show you girls, especially Alice and Solaris."

Walking closer to the two girls in question, Dax placed a hand on each of their heads as he started grinning without reserve.

"W-what's going on here?"

Being left out of the conversation all of a sudden, Lilly started pouting as she started playing with her hair.

"T-that's my line, Lilly... Seriously, did you hurt your head or something Dax?"

And while Alice hadn't noticed either, Solaris started having an idea of what was going on.

"Dax… Don't tell me?"

"Yeah, that's it exactly."

While Dax continued patting Solaris' and Alice's hair, the angel suddenly started tensing up, it so happened that she did that at the same time as the injured started being unloaded from the CAS-7.

"You're not making any sense Dax…"

"Really? Then why don't you look at what's behind me?"

"Seriously… What are you-"

Still questioning Dax's sanity Alice looked past him, only to see Terra being carried out of the transport on a stretcher. At the same time, two archangels who both held a special place in Solaris' heart also came into sight, although they were both in critical conditions both Hemera and Apollo had survived capture by the elders.

"While they're not doing that well at the moment, Ra and Mu will have them fixed up in a flash. Don't worry about me, go and stay with them-"

"You can stop acting cool now."

Muttering those words Lilly also had a large smile on her face as she realized why Dax had acted the way he did, but in the end, she was still quite worried about how hurt he had gotten.

"But I'm not acting cool, my insides just got a little burned when the mana interface melted."

"That's not something to scoff at! Can you even breathe properly right now!?"

"Yeah, I've already healed about 2% of my lung capacity so there's no problem."

"That's still pretty problematic though!"

"No it isn't, don't underestimate a pureblood qiton's resilience."

Attempting to play his injury off as nothing Dax reached out for Lilly's head, although unsuccessfully.

"Please take better care of yourself! I was really worried!"

After slapping Dax's hand aside Lilly threw herself at his chest, crying all the while.

(Well, shit.)

Seeing something like that even Dax realized how worried Lilly had been about him, so instead of continuing to keep up his facade he just admitted defeat.

"Right, I'm sorry for making you worry."

-

In the end, Dax was dragged off to surgery when Ra got back from managing the cleanup and resupply for the extreme amount of orbital ordinance she had expended to cover Dax and the others and although he had tried to play it off as nothing major, Dax's condition was more critical than he had wanted to admit. The mana interface had completely melted from overloading and along with it a lot of other cybernetic implants in Dax's chest had also been damaged to such an extent that they had to be replaced, seeing this as an opportunity to completely rework his implants from the ground up, Ra and Mu made use of the situation to do just that, even though it was partly against Dax's will.

With even Dax needing some downtime in orbit to regrow bone connections after such an augmentation, Lux stepped up to take care of his normal duties, including not only the continuing integration of the united powers into the galactic empire, but also planning and execution of military operations against the elders which only continued to dwindle in numbers as they continued suffering losses. Doing the time he was stuck in a tank against his will Dax was visited a lot by Solaris, Lilly and Alice who seemed unusually tired for some reason, it was only when he was finally discharged and returned to Kingstead he found out why.

"I'm sorry, could you please repeat that? I think I must have misheard."

"But you didn't, like I said we're going to fight with you from now on so just deal with it!"

Acting strangely bashful and prideful at the same time, Lilly somehow managed to make an impression on Dax, although it had more to do with her wearing her hooded pyjamas with face cat ears on top of it than anything else.

(... What to do about this?)

Wearing a wry smile as Lilly energetically pointed at him, Dax felt like his already healed wounds from his surgery were starting to hurt for some reason.