“Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy, yes you are! Oh, you’re so adorable! Get that tail, get it!” I had no idea what was happening, but it was the most realistic dream I have ever had.

Before my very eyes, was Green. She was sitting on the ground cooing over Leo who was spinning in circles trying to catch his tail. I admit to being a bit odd, but even this took the cake. What the hell kind of dream was this?

Before I could dwell on it further, the entire illusion came crashing down, and Green looked up at me smiling. That smile was utterly frightening. Her voice, sweet as molasses, doubly so. “Oh, you’re awake. Perfect. We can begin tonight with a CAT-scan. I want to make sure the blood oozing out of your ears from earlier didn’t involve your brain.”

No, it was from you! I wanted to shout. Realistically I think it had more to do with me using Psionic Tempest. It wasn’t entirely outside of the norm to blame the lovely doctor though. “Do we have to?” was came out instead of my original snarky comment. I ignored the whine in my voice. Green did not.

“Now now, this adorable little ball of fur is the puppy. Not you, don’t steal his whining shtick. Now be a good boy and get in the wheelchair.” I looked to the offending object in question that seemed just magically to appear by my bunk. I dimly remembered it being placed there before I left though.

I looked like I was going to argue because the good doctor just looked all the sweeter for a moment before speaking. “I suppose I could always help you into the wheelchair myself. It will allow me to check your body for injuries further.”

She made grabby grabby motions with her hands, and I was suddenly acutely aware that Green was a little bit to forward at times. I put my hands up, stopping the woman. “No! No, I can do it. I’m just waking up still.”

She nodded a little as though she understood. Her small smile told me she knew exactly what she was doing. The conniving woman that she was! I felt the urge to scream for Andy to save me but knew it wouldn’t do me any good. I sighed and started moving toward the wheelchair.

I say moving. The reality was I scooted my ass along the bed because my legs felt like pure jelly and everything was still so sore even just that small movement hurt like hell.

I groaned and did my best to ignore the smirking doctor utterly. Yeah, yeah. Eat up my pain you demonic hag! Internal monologue and discomfort aside I did make it to my wheelchair without significant incident.

“Perfect! Here you go,” she plopped Leo into my lap. The little fluff-ball started licking my hands, and Green moved me out of the room while continuing her talk. “Now then, as I said you began bleeding from your ears earlier. During the initial examination, you showed no signs of elevated temperature, and one of those lovely people who joined you stated you had used an excessively powerful Psionic Ability during the extraction which could have been the cause of that bleeding.” She paused a moment, easing me down the ramp that led into the Command Center.

“Continuing from that you had multiple fractured bones still. Your left Ulna, right Humerus, and both Tibia being the worst. Several minor fractures were found in your hands, and your collarbone was dislocated. I decided to prevent some suffering and fixed that while you were unconscious.” That explained the bloody ache around my neck at least. It also explained why everything hurt so bloody much.

“All the injuries I stated were originally obtained from the battle that was fought at Bastion. They were also well on their way to healing before you decided to take off, without Andy or myself mind you, and make those injuries worse. I am very aware that something is odd with the way everyone heals but I will still feel better if we go over every aspect of the examination so I can ascertain the extent of all your injuries, external and internal. You wouldn’t want to explain the odd healing rates, would you?”

I coughed at that question. The woman was a little too good at her job. I waved it off, and she looked down at me, halting our advance for a moment. “Very well, but I will find out one day. After we finish doing all of the wonderful examinations I will take you to see Nova. She started showing signs of waking up, oddly enough it was after you last visited her room. I have no way to explain the phenomenon logically, but I felt you should know.”

That certainly got my attention. Nova was showing signs of waking up. The last time I visited the woman I was one-sidedly in love with I had given her the Hero Upgrade Card. Had that improved her condition beyond what little the Regeneration Passive could do? I hoped it had.

“That’s wonderful! Take me there now, please.” I added the please, it never hurt to be nice to the evil entity that sucked the will to live out of anyone around her for an extended period of time. She smirked at me, and we resumed our little trip to the new Medical Facility that she ran. “After we examine you fully, Damian. I do not want Nova to decide I didn’t do my job properly.”

I was about to ask her about that last little comment. Leo ended the train of thought though by deciding I wasn’t showing him the proper amount of love and attention by nibbling my fingers and trying to jump up and bite my chin. “Hey! No biting!” I shouted in reflex. Green just giggled behind me, and Leo seemed to adopt a puppy smirk while I resumed petting the needy little shithead.

I was still grumbling when we arrived at the facility, and Green rolled me in. I took the time to examine what I could see.

The primary entrance was stark white with a large patient room. Why it had a patient room like this was beyond me. What looked like a clerks desk took up the back wall at the center of the room. Two people wearing the Medic uniform, the out of combat one, stood behind the counter. One was male and the other female. I ignored their looks of pity as Green rolled me through the room and took me past a door that slid open on the farthest right-hand side.

“I would like to thank you for this gift as well, Damian.” Her voice was suddenly very close and sultry sounding. Oh, shit, please no more edible panty talk! “There is really no need…”

She made a shushing sound and ran a single index finger along my other ear. I felt her warm breath blow against my neck. I will not lie, the resulting mixture of utter terror and arousal made all the things I thought at that moment relatively tricky to get out.

A moment or two went by and then I heard her laughing. I frowned, turning my neck to look at the giggle doctor.”Oh! Oh, that was perfect! Consider that payback for calling me a Demon after I spent hours keeping you alive before!”

“You’re a pain in my ass!” I shot at her, powerful words that seemed only to make her giggle more. I growled and decided to ignore her at that point. She was being a bitch now. I sighed inwardly as we went into a room off to the right of the hallway we were currently in. It had an odd little tank thing that looked like a straight-up sci-fi recovery pod.

“The building itself has advanced our medical capabilities by over threefold as well. That lovely little item is a form of scanning pod. An hour in there and it scans every aspect of your body, internal and external, labeling any faults you may have. It has some setbacks as well of course. It can’t tell us what exactly is wrong with a brain if someone is in a coma, as an example.”

I ignored that little comment. The little hope of it labeling and identifying future issues like that slowly dying inside of me.

Green helped me into the funky little pod, after stripping me. I tried to cover my dingle-berries but all she did was smile at me, and I finally said fuck it. The evil creature that was my doctor had no doubt seen far worse, or better, in her time.

I admit that during the hour-long scan I spent the majority going over what I needed to do. I also learned a fancy little trick I could have used a lot in the past. I could activate cards without calling the fucking things into this reality!

I did just that as well, using the Mineral Card for five-thousand Minerals. I also went ahead and used the Trophy Card. It gave me something I didn’t expect when I used it as well.

Congratulations Player! You have successfully used a Trophy Card. The Trophy Card has granted you the Ghost Rifle Trophy.

Ghost Rifle Trophy - All individuals living in the settlement, village, city this item is placed within will have a five percent increased chance of awakening Psionic Powers.

I wasn’t entirely sure what the actual chance was so the five percent meant little to me in the end. I’d still place it in Bastion though; it never hurt for more boosts. I also had a dream of Marines with Psionic powers just blasting away at Zerg, Terran, and Protoss with abandon.

The Fertility Card was pretty self-explanatory as well. Using that sent me a prompt that amounted to basically all of my people would now be fucking like rabbits. They would become pregnant more efficiently and as a bonus affect overall happiness would increase because they all were fucking more. I didn’t even bother smothering the thought of ‘lucky bastards’ when that little message came through.

The Equipment Upgrade I would be using on the Medics in the end. I wanted them to be beefed up, more so with the increasing danger during the Campaign Maps as well as in our little reality. If I was being honest with myself, I had changed the original plans to give the Medics two Upgrade Cards for their equipment while the Predators got one. I wanted the Medics really beefed up so they could keep my people going in the face of overwhelming odds.

I’d do that a little later today or early tomorrow though. I also did indeed need to take more responsibility back from Fernando beyond the, I shuddered a bit, petitions and complaints. Added onto that I needed to spend this month-long reprieve from both the Campaign Maps and the war with the Confederacy preparing.

I had to prepare for both those two things and the coming Zerg. I had absolutely no idea when the little bug bastards would show up on Mar Sara. I only knew they would. The plan for that was simple. I was going to take the planet for my own, beef up my standing forces and genuinely begin resource gathering and food production while increasing our fleet presence.

Duke would be more than capable of getting the fleet in order, it would be up to Swann and the mechanics I would place under him to get them built and working. With luck, they would create Unique Units for the Battlecruisers and other mechanical units before things started getting more complicated.

I also had to deal with Hika and Hiko. I had a temporary solution with that bomb, but I felt the twins could be more useful. The plan for them involved a few Ghost babysitters and the conquering of all pirates in the fucking sector. I would turn them into my troops and have the worst killed as examples.

It may or may not work. I’d have to go over the plan with Fernando and Nova, with luck on Nova. The Protoss Item Card I planned to use later tonight after I dealt with the paperwork in question. I was personally hoping for a Zealots armor. I could only imagine what Caspian and Swann could do with that. More than likely I’d get something odd and seemingly useless though. I’d have to wait and see with that one.

The Hero Card though, that I was going to use as soon as I was no longer being poked and prodded. I had no idea who I would get, but any sort of bonus was better than none, right?

The scan completed a little bit later, and Green came over to me with something that looked like maniacal glee on her face. I felt my stomach drop when I saw the needle in her hand. The fucking thing was the size of my goddamn arm!

“You are NOT sticking that in me, you crazy woman!”I shouted at her, trying to escape from the pod. She just stalked her way toward me, looking cruel and demonic all over again before sticking the needle in...oh motherfucker she was screwing with me again. She stuck the damn thing into an odd little port in the pod and injected the solution into my gel bath.

“Stop being a baby; it’s a nutrient solution meant to replace your missing enzymes, among other things, as you soak in that gel. Now lay back down before you make your fractures worse. It’ll take another hour, and I want to play with Leo while we wait.”

I watched the demented woman I was beginning to fear, hate, and enjoy to some degree bend down and grab my puppy, whose tail was wagging. Traitor, your master is here being tortured by that woman!

Leo looked at me, gave a little yipping bark and had his chin scratched while Green walked off with the smug little traitor murmuring sweet nothings into his ears. She was spoiling my puppy! That’s my job!

I could have sworn I meant to shout that, but I was starting to feel groggy. I had the sneaking suspicion that she had laced that with something meant to knock me out when absorbed as well. “I really fucking hate you right now…”