Chapter Text
The relief Stanley feels when he finales sees Xeno alive and well, standing on his own two feet, can’t be expressed in any of the languages he’s able to speak. There are no words that can encompass the magnitude of the feeling. It’s like a thousand tons of weight lifting off his shoulders at once.
The soldier pays no mind to the wounded foes writhing in pain at their feet—so much for ‘we are civilians, don’t harm us’, the moment they could they fought and wounded Leonard. It is understandable, of course; just not as advantageous for them as they probably thought. They had a thousand chances to lay back, even surrender, he would have been merciful; they could even just left Xeno on some random coast and Stanley would have picked him up and abandoned the chase. But they decided to keep going to the bitter end, and bitter it had been.
He walks around them to meet face to face the only person he cares about right now.
“Took you long enough” says Xeno. He’s got one of his pretentious smirks stretching across his face, as if he hadn’t doubted for a single moment that Stanley would arrive in time. “Took you almost a hundred days. Are you getting lazy? Or is it that a scientist is not enticing as a damsel in distress”
Stanley can’t hold his own smile back. This guy… he can’t be serious for a single moment, really. Not even with an alien weapon being deployed right behind him.
“Shut up” he says, but comes out softer than he intended. “There is no time for heartfelt greetings, the petrification beam is coming”
Most of the bottles of fluid have broken, some because of the bullets, others from being droped carelessly. Stanley can see one intact one, in the hands of a tiny blond child, stumbling across the woods. He’s not going to shoot the kid, not only because he would certainly break the last bottle, but because shooting a little kid goes a bit beyond what he’s willing to stain his soul with. He already broke the helmet the child was wearing, it’s more than enough already.
He’s about to give chase as fast as possible when a hand closes around his wrist.
“Stay” says Xeno. And the soldier stays, as if nailed to the ground. He turns around with the question written down on his face, Xeno’s expression is somber, grave. “It’s not worth it”
Stanley opens his mouth to argue, because how is it not worth it? It’s everything they have ever wanted, everything they have worked to achieve; it’s on the line, all their hopes, their dreams; their perfect kingdom.
“You’ll never get her before they do. Stand down”
“But-” Stanley wants to fight, to debate, to be right. He knows he’s not, there is nothing to do against the petrification.
“But nothing” Xeno’s tone is harsh, hurried. “Listen to me, the petrification is going to hit in a few seconds. You won’t have the time to get the bottle and come back here. Our best chance is staying together and wait it out”
“Your orders?” he asks, because he needs some. Stanley is scared. He’s scared of losing Xeno again when they just barely met again. He’s scared of the infinite darkness of the stone. He’s scared of never getting to say all he wants to say.
“Do you trust me, Stan?” Xeno’s voice is tense, like the cables of a bridge about to snap.
“Yes” their eyes meet as the ghostly green light bathes the clearing. “To death”
“Good” he says, with a small dangerous smile.
Xeno holds the soldier’s face, careful with his claws as he traces the lines over his cheeks. He pulls Stanley down and kisses him softly between the eyebrows, a tender parting gift.
“Don’t let go” he says then, yanking the soldier’s armor to drag him against his body. Xeno’s arms circle him, one hand burying itself into the strips of his cape while the other tangles in his hair. He does the same, holding tightly onto his coat and hides his face against Xeno’s shoulder.
“I won’t. I promise” he answers. He’s pretty sure he has stained Xeno’s shirt purple. Stanley doesn’t care. Gravity pulls them down.
“I will think of you” he whispers, right before the petrification strikes.
*****
Senku has counted to 607,068,000 by the time he gets to feel the world again. He blinks, the remaining dust in his eyes stinging uncomfortably, and looks at his surroundings.
There is a girl there, brown eyed, blond, wearing a ratty poncho with E=mc2 written on her chest.
“Suika” he says. And she jumps on him, tears streaming down her face.
He stays frozen in place at the sudden hug. Senku is not one for physical contact, he’ll accept a pat on the back, a high five; but a hug is usually too much. He lets her do it still, and it feels oddly comforting. He doesn’t hug back, because he doesn’t know how to do that, but lets his cheek rest against her head.
“Suika has worked hard all the time” she says, slowly, as they begin working on more revival fluid. “We failed a lot and couldn’t understand your instructions”
“You have done an impressive job” it is certainly. She has survived on her own and managed to forage supplies and fabricate all her tools, all in unknown land! And she also managed to revive him, all while being barely able to read his instructions. “I knew you were very capable, but you have beaten my expectations”
“Suika didn’t want to be alone anymore” she says in a soft whisper.
“How long have you been awake?” It has been seven years in total, but she doesn’t look nearly old enough. Malnutrition could have made her not grow as expected, but she looks like she has managed to feed herself well enough: her cheeks are rosy, her hair shiny and her nails hard and strong.
“We don’t know exactly. The weather doesn’t change that much here. It has been three rainy seasons since Suika revived”
So, around three years, probably a bit more… close to four? give or take… that adds up.
They work together in making enough revival fluid for all their friends. Suika has put all of them together and made them new clothes, with the exception of Ginro and Matsukaze, who were still on the Perseus when the petrification struck; the ship has sunk after seven years without upkeeping, but they’ll be able to retrieve them once their numbers increase.
By the time the twilight turns the sky purple and red, all of them are together again, celebrating their victory around a fire with unending food. They eat, talk, sing and dance; enjoying their newfound freedom. Senku looks up, to the sky, to the full-moon shining bright.
“What are you planning” asks Gen, always so observant.
“We are going to the moon” the mentalist chokes on his drink.
“We what?”
“We’ll have to go to the moon, to face Why-man” silence falls over the group. Nobody moves a single muscle and all eyes set on Senku. “What? We know Why-man is on the moon, so we have to go there”
They all begin mumbling and whispering between themselves, exchanging opinions and judgements. The volume rises slowly, soon turning into a heated discussion.
“Everybody shut up!” yells Gen, making the whole group jump in their places. “Let’s listen to him, he’ll explain and everything will make sense”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mentalist” Senku puts his pinky in his ear and begins talking. “It’s not new! We already talked about this” he’s pretty sure he has already explained that. “The most logical position is for whoever sent it to be on the moon. So we have to go there”
“But we can’t! We’ll have to go back and restart Corn City before we even think of attempting that” says Kohaku, crossing her arms. “The crops are probably gone already”
“And how do we build a rocket?” points Tsukasa. “It’s not something we can guess. We have gone back to zero, how are we going to get a rocket now? We’ll need a lot of advanced technology and materials, we don’t know where to begin!”
“Yeah, that’s why we needed Dr. Xeno” Senku scrunches his nose. “He’s the best aerospace engineer I know about, but…”
There is a collective nod around the group. The day of the second global petrification had been… there were no words to describe it: Brutal, gruesome, horrific, terrible… it all paled compared to living that macabre experience.
“We’ll have to make do and learn ourselves. Xeno was my ace on the sleeve to try and build a rocket, I had the hope of being able to bring him to our side” unfortunately what he got was lead to the stomach. Again. Never meet your heroes. “I underestimated him, his insanity and his fucking war dog. Now his statue may have been lost forever. But we can’t give up that easily”
They had won but, at what price? It had been a phyrric victory if all. Xeno had turned out to be a fearsome enemy with powerful and loyal allies.
“Suika has something” says the girl, lifting her hand. She’s sitting with Kohaku at Senku’s right and had kept mostly to herself. “We have good and bad news”
“Let’s hear them” says Gen, at Senku’s left. “Good ones first”
“Suika knows where Dr. Xeno is”
“Good” Senku smiles wide, as Ryusui says, ‘the wind is changing’. That fucker didn’t get too far after all. “What are the bad ones”
Suika pouts as her expression turns somber.
“It’s better if Suika shows you”
And thus, they parade through the jungle armed with torches, Suika leading the way. It’s not too far away, a few metres away from the ruins of their small fort wall, eaten up by the vegetation.
“Suika found them while searching for our friends” she says, as she approaches a voluminous irregular shape resting on the floor. It’s covered by a big tarp, which used to be one of the Kingdom of Science flags. “Thought Senku may want to keep them”
When she pulls the tarp off there is a collective gasp and a chorus of curse words and swears. Because there is Dr. Xeno, yes, but also their most dangerous foe, Stanley. They are petrified—as is expected—, and their statues are clinging to each other in a tight hug—which is not as expected but certainly more problematic.
“What do we do now?” asks Gen.
Senku lets a deep pitiful sigh out and turns around. “We go to sleep, this is a problem for tomorrow and they are not going anywhere”
Everyone is tired, so nobody protests his decision. They go back to their camp and settle for the night, all neatly piled up to preserve heat. Senku finds himself trapped between Gen and Kohaku, who is also holding Suika; it’s not ideal, but the warmth is comfortable and he’s too tired to care. He closes his eyes and makes an effort of not moving a muscle.
He counts back form a thousand towards zero, he loses count around two hundred and sixty.
When he wakes up, the sun is rising and the birds chirp around them. He can smell bread and fish being cooked. Suika, Taiju and François talk quietly by the fire as they cook breakfast for everyone. Senku detangles himself from the pile of limbs, stands, brushes his hair back and joins them.
Slowly, the Kingdom is Science wakes up. Soon, the noise of laughter and conversation fills the air of the clearing. It’s good having all their friends back. Senku thinks of all their other friends, back in Ishigami Village and Treasure Island and Xeno’s Domain in California; they are still petrified, they have to go back and save them all. Fuck, things have gone so wrong. What the fuck was he thinking when he decided to take prisoner their enemy leader and challenge the American military? Nothing at all, it would seem, it was obvious for anyone it would end up going wrong.
They finish eating, cleaning up in the river and all their respective morning routines; there are choices to be made. Gen calls them all around the embers of the fire and their war council is convoked.
“We have to decide what to do with the American soldiers” says Gen first thing.
“We can leave them here” speaks Tsukasa. “While they are petrified they will be fine, we’ll bother about them some other time”
“I don’t think that’s a good option” says Ukyo. “We said we would save everyone”
“Yes, but it doesn’t have to be right now”
“Yeah, but what if they wake upon their own?”
“They can’t do that without the revival fluid”
“But what if they do!”
Kohaku rises her hand and Gen interrupts the other two debate to give her the turn.
“If we want Dr. Xeno to help us, shouldn’t we show how nice we are and just take them captive?” she asks. “I’ve never had to fight other humans like this, but I think keeping them and treating them good will make us look good and Dr. X will be more willing to help if he sees we are nice to his friends”
“He was not good to us” grunts Hyoga.
“Like you are one to talk” whispers Gen, to himself, but perfectly audible.
“That’s not a bad idea, Kohaku” says Senku. “But we have to be very careful. This is going to require a serious logistical preparation”
They group all of the soldiers statues together, one of them is missing an arm and they have to find it too. Once they are all accounted for, they take off their weapons and equipment and begin the process of reviving them.
“Let’s start with her” Suika points at the soldier to the utmost left, a curvy woman with chin length hair. “We helped her with a venomous bite, so she may be less prone to attack”
“She’s one of Stanley’s closer soldiers” says Gen “I saw her and this other woman around”
The other woman is gigantic, statuesque (pun not intended). She’s tall, strong, looks as if sculpted by Michelangelo. She’s a fierce fighter, as Tsukasa remembers.
“Her name is Maya” adds Gen.
Everyone agrees is probably better to wake up first the one Suika helped, the one who won’t take the whole strength team to be defeated. Then we can threaten her to make their rest of the soldiers compliant enough to reduce them.
Her clothes are battered and thorn after so long exposed to the elements, so they put one of Suika’s tunics on her, as some sort or shirt; her trousers and boots are mostly intact, so they will do. Kohaku, Hyoga and Tsukasa draw their weapons surrounding her, ready to strike if she tries to fight. Senku pours the reviving fluid on her, he has to stand on his toes to reach her head; the stone cracks and glows, crumbling into dust and releasing the soldier.
“Hands up!” yells Gen in English. “Surrender!”
The woman gasps, returning to life. She blinks, disoriented, and rises her hands. She looks scared for a few moments, but soon her face returns to a neutral expression which doesn’t betray her feelings.
“What is your name?” asks Gen.
“Charlotte Bony. Lieutenant” she answers, and doesn’t say anything else. No matter how they try to pry, no other words leave her mouth.
“Well, she isn’t supposed to say anything else” explains Ukyo. “When soldiers are taken prisoner they can only state their name, rank and identification number. But I don’t think a number is of any use right now”
“A lieutenant is a pretty high rank, isn’t it?” asks Chrome. “That means she will know a lot of things?”
If she does, she doesn’t say.
“I don’t think there is much she knows that can be of use for us right now”
Still, she’s probably one of Xeno’s trusted soldiers, which probably marked her as a rather relevant part of the American colony. Gen points her as the next in line of command, second only to Stanley. She’s also an impressive pilot, and everyone can see Ryusui’s eyes sparkling in greedy satisfaction; their avaricious skipper back at it.
They decide to leave her securely tied to a tree, careful to keep her in the shade and bring water to her from time to time. It’s rather hot during the day and they don’t want her suffering a heatstroke.
They wake up all the soldiers one by one, tie them all up and put them under the tree. They all seem to follow three of them, Charlotte, Leonard and Maya; in that order. Only one of them tries to fight, but is fast apprehended by the strength team and put beneath the tree with his teammates, all tied up like sausages.
Then, it’s time to go retrieve Dr. Xeno and decide what to do about him. They leave Hyoga in charge of guarding their prisoners, all while leaving Chelsea, Taiju, Ukyo, Chrome and François in charge of keeping an eye on Hyoga. Just in case, he gets a bit too excited on occasion.
Suika guides the rest back to Dr. Xeno and Stanley. The clearing looks less menacing in the sunlight, there are birds chirping, little blue flowers growing on the ground and a small stream of water with funny little frogs. The two petrified men could pass as a rather charming decorative feature for a garden fountain (if there was a fountain, that is).
“Suika couldn’t move the both of them at the same time” she says as they walk. “It was too bulky and, even if the Medusa stone is rather light, it was still too much for us to carry securely”
Their two enemies are still there, as expected. Suika’s decision of covering them with the tarp had been certainly wise as there hadn’t grown any more plants than can complicate the extraction. And that is about the whole extent of good news.
“How the fuck do we separate them?” says Kohaku, looking carefully at Xeno’s hand, his fingers disappearing into Stanley’s hair. One could say they had been sculpted out of the same rock.
“I don’t think we can” Senku scratches his ear, trying to reign over his thoughts. “Not without unpetrifying them”
He can’t see Stanley’s face as it is obscured by the remains of Xeno’s coat lapel, but he can see his mentor’s over the rusted armour of his knight; smiling slightly in defiance, as if challenging Senku once again.
“This son of a bitch” says Senku. And usually he wouldn’t fall onto such fowl language, but he can’t manage to keep things PG rated right now. Not like anybody will care—his dad maybe, wherever he may be; but he’ll have to forgive him just this once. “He has played us well”
And the fucker has. How many schemes has he been running? He has managed to communicate sensible information, sabotage their stealth cloaking and secure his best operative. All while being a hostage! Like, yes, they are noob kidnappers; it’s obviously their first hit at taking captives, but c’me on, Dr. X, cut a bit of slack. He didn’t need to go that hard.
Hopefully next time will go better?
“Can’t we like…” Tsukasa looks the other way while playing with one of his braids. “Y’know, break them and then put them back together? We just need Dr. Xeno, don’t we?”
“Dude, no” Gen holds onto Tsukasa’s arm in a sorrowful manner. “We already went through Stanley’s rage. I genuinely don’t want to know what Xeno would do to us if we broke Stanley’s statue. And I guarantee you it wouldn’t be painless”
Gen had met Xeno fully in control, back in his evil lair, the steampunk fairytale castle; he had met him and found him to be a deeply unsettling individual. He didn’t seem outright violent, but there was that threatening aura around him that never left him and increased tenfold whenever Stanley was in his general vicinity. It was obvious to Gen that Dr. Xeno had a rather remarkable preference for the soldier and that this preference was mutual. Those two were a package deal, like discount laundry detergent, separating them wouldn’t bring anything good. Destroying one of them? Certain demise.
“I’ve got an idea” says Kohaku. “It may be stupid, though”
“There are no stupid ideas at this moment” exclaims Ryusui. “Tell us”
“We can dig a big hole, in the sand, and put them in there before unpetrifying them” she explains. “That way, if if we can’t manage to sway them our way or at least get to an agreement, we can scape while they try to get out”
“That’s…” Senku scratches his ear. “That’s a great idea in fact. Sand is hard to climb out of, we can definitely run away effectively”
“So, we dig a hole” Tsukasa rises his eyebrows in confusion. “That’s all?”
“Well, not all” Senku turns around and they begin their walk back to the camp. “We’ll have to get our ship unsunk, rescue Ginro and Matsukaze and get the Perseus in sail conditions again. We’ll also have to make a hole in the loose sand, at least two metres and a half deep; to imprison those two”
“That’s going to take us months!” bemoans Gen. “it’s too much work!”
“Well, then we better get started, don’t we” Senku smiles at him devilishly. Gen groans dramatically. “Besides, we can probably employ some of these fine Americans we captured. They are not going to eat for free”