Work Text:
“STELLE!!”
She hears someone call out to her over the din, just barely. Who was it? March? Dan Heng? Firefly? No clue, and frankly, she doesn’t exactly have time to respond at the moment. Stelle swings her bat in an upwards arc as she runs, preparing to bring it down on a grinning Nanook’s head like a sledgehammer.
Suddenly, though, an odd, numb feeling pulses in her left leg. That’s weird. The surprise breaks through her focus, and she looks down to see what’s happened, and—
Oh.
Well, that’s inconvenient.
Starting from around the middle part of her thigh, there’s just… nothing. Not even any blood– or residue from a messy cut, just a straight line separating the part of her leg that still is and the part that used to be.
She falls, of course, since she’s lost half her balance support, and an explosion of sound booms around her. Instantly, someone’s holding her up, taking her away from the fight while others move to take her place at the forefront of the battle, but it’s blurry. Her senses feel dulled, like she’s underwater.
Stelle feels delirious. The reality that her leg is gone hasn’t quite set in, she thinks, because she doesn’t exactly feel terrible about the whole situation. Just a calm sense of it is what it is. On second thought, maybe this is just a consequence of taking half of everything as a joke her whole life. She can’t help but feel like that’s a little funny too.
But as she’s being carried further and further away, blurry little spots moving in her vision faster than she can currently process, her eyes miraculously clear, and instinctively focus on one man: Mr Yang.
Mr Yang’s always had something up his sleeve, if you ask Stelle. He doesn’t like to show it, preferring mostly to act as the dad of the Express, or just an unsuspecting animator, but there's an undercurrent of power about him– just small enough to go unnoticed if you’re not paying attention, but not quite if you are. Dimly, Stelle wonders if he’ll finally show his cards now. They are facing off against an Aeon. If not now, then when?
She tilts her head, and mutters “wait,” to the person carrying her, so she can see if she’s right. Whoever it is, they stop, maybe out of confusion, or maybe because she sounds real sure of herself, but either way she’s grateful.
Because if she hadn’t been paying so much attention, she might have missed it.
Between one moment and the next, Welt Yang’s warm features harden like steel.
Between one moment and the next, Stelle’s leg is back like it never left, and her senses return in a flood of stimuli.
And between one moment and the next, Nanook is gone like he was never there.
Stelle sees all her friends, and she does mean all of them – March, Dan Heng, Himeko, Sunday, Blade, Silver Wolf, Kafka, and Firefly, who was the one carrying her, it turns out – blink in shock.
“Eh? What… where’d he go?” March scratches her head, bow now hanging listlessly from one hand.
“Someplace where we’ll never have to deal with him again.” Stelle hears Welt replies simply, but the rest of their conversation is drowned out by her knight in shining armor.
“Stelle? Are you oka– OH MY GOD YOUR LEG IS BACK!!” Firefly yells and nearly drops her in shock. “Sorry, sorry! How did that happen, though??? Is this some… special stellaron power?”
“Um.” Stelle opens her mouth and closes it again like some kind of fish. She glances covertly at Welt, but he’s animatedly talking to the rest of the crew, and she can’t tell if he’d want her to keep his secret or not. “Yyyyyeah. I think so! I’m not too sure myself, though. It kind of just came back all of a sudden. Kind of like how it left.”
“That really isn’t as funny as you think it is.” Stelle can hear the disapproving pout in Firefly’s voice, and it makes the corners of her mouth twitch.
Just then, March 7th rushes towards her, everyone else following behind her. “Stelle! Stelle!” She yells, a huge victory grin plastering her face as she waves manically. “I saw your leg grew back! Are you okay? Does it still hurt?”
“I’m fine, March. It’s like it never happened!” Stelle waves the concern away, but noticeably does not move to leave the princess carry she’s currently held in. No one comments on this.
“Well, then that leaves one question,” Dan Heng starts. There’s a worried look on his face, and his tail is twitching a little in the way that Stelle recognises as nervous. “What killed Nanook? And whatever it was, how are we going to beat it?”
The group falls into a tense silence charged with newfound worry, and Stelle just barely manages to keep a neutral expression on her face. Clearly, they’re really very stressed about the prospect of an even stronger god to fight. She doesn’t want to ruin the moment.
That is, until Mr Yang does. “Oh. I, uh, thought I made it clear earlier. It was me. I killed him.”
The tension breaks abruptly. Eight heads turn to stare at one Welt Yang.
“Uhhh… Surprise?”