Tempest: The Protector

Phase 1, part 2

Once again, Ryan is with an older Castaway man named Bogdan who agreed to be the test subject of Ryan's cure. When we met him, he had Flicker near its final stage, meaning he could barely move on his own. Now, when I look at his shirtless, wiry body, I notice the scary-looking dark veins protruding from his skin, the most visible symptom of Flicker, are now barely visible.

Bogdan is sitting on a chair. Ryan circles around him with some kind of scanner in his hands, scanning all possible parts of the former Champion's body. He sees the results on holographic screens floating all around him, but I have no idea what do the data, graphs and pictures mean. Ryan is especially focusing on the man's left shoulder where a prosthetic arm is attached.

"Looks good, looks good," Ryan utters to himself, completely leaving out my presence. "I was afraid the cure would interfere with artificial body parts, but it seems there are no damages in the area of connection between organic and artificial neural system. Everything is going surprisingly well."

"That means I will recover completely?" Bogdan asks with almost childish hope in his voice. Even though his hair and beard are already gray, he loves his life and wants to live it to the fullest until the end. That's why he volunteered for Ryan's experiment.

"If nothing goes wrong, then I see no reason why not," Ryan replies.

...

"How do you feel, Bogdan?" I ask him. We left Ryan's lab and the Castaway agreed to have a cup of coffee with us. In the beginning, I suggested Ryan should talk to Oleg also known as Shaman, one of my friends who is also suffering from Flicker. However, Ryan turned the possibility down. He was looking for someone with more advanced stage of Flicker. Besides that, there's also a possibility he didn't want to hurt my friend in case the cure fails. Somewhere deep inside, Ryan has a heart.

"I thank God for Ryan and his cure," Bogdan replies, sipping on the coffee. The short sleeves of his shirt still reveal the dark veins on his arms, but it's still nothing compared to his condition when we took him in. He looked like entangled in a spider web.

Now, after two months of treatment, the symptoms are ceasing and Bogdan is once again able to walk on his own. The initial stages of treatment were painful and Bogdan almost gave up. But we pushed him into continuing and it seems it was good both for Bogdan and Ryan.

"The public must know about this cure," Bogdan continues. "You will save millions of Castaway lives, Ryan Bridger. To me, you are already a hero of our kind."

"If you say so," Ryan shrugs. He's not the best person to accept compliments.

After a while, the patient leaves and I'm finally alone with Ryan. I reach into my backpack and remove the trophy from the box. "What do you say?" I smile. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Woah," Ryan gently touches the shiny surface. "I've only seen it on TV so far. It's... smaller than I imagined. But still... thinking I'm the partner of the current Champion of Champions is still kinda surreal to me. When I saw you for the first time... tiny, malnourished... I would never guess you'll make it so far. But you showed them. Especially Nightingale."

Mentioning her always reduces the temperature in the room by ten degrees. She used to be only an opponent who used dirty practices to win. Now, she is a looming danger possessing enough power to destroy the whole Europe. My resolve to stop her doesn't cease, but how can I do that?

I ignore the remark about Nightingale. "And here... our tickets to Paradise," I smirk and show Ryan the cashcard containing half a million royals. He just stares at it with his mouth open. Ryan has always been partial to money and he has never seen such amount before.