The afternoon sun fell over the patio, painting the brick walls and the dry garden soil in a soft golden hue. Nothing could be heard but the sound of a distant bird and the rhythmic panting of Luna, who waited eagerly in front of Nicolás's chair.
He was relaxed, sitting with his legs stretched out, enjoying the kind of calm that can only be felt at home.
With one motion, he threw the worn tennis ball toward the back of the yard. The dog — white with black and brown patches — shot out like a spring, skidding on the loose dirt as she tried to brake right where the ball had bounced.
Nicolás burst out laughing watching her wrestle with the toy, her tail wagging with such energy that it shook her whole body.
On the small wooden table in front of them, a thermos rested beside an open packet of Don Satur cookies.
The man sitting beside him — around sixty years old with gray hair — stretched his arm out to pass him the mate.
"That dog has a lot of energy," his father commented, watching Luna trot back with the ball in her mouth. "She reminds me of Samuel when he was young."
Nicolás took the mate, feeling the warmth in the palm of his hand.
He took a short sip, letting the bitterness of the yerba run down his throat, while the dog dropped the ball right between his feet.
"I was just a kid when he was still alive," he replied, stroking Luna's head while holding the mate in his other hand. "The most Samuel ever did, as far as I can remember, was lie down on the floor and wait for nono to toss him whatever he happened to be eating at the time."
His father shook his head, letting a nostalgic smile slip out as he remembered.
"That dog was a handful when your grandfather brought him in off the street. He'd jump all over the place, climb on the table and steal your food if you looked away for a second. The number of times your grandmother chased him with a broom because he knocked over her flower pots..."
Both shared a quiet laugh.
Luna stayed firmly beside the chair, ears perked and eyes locked on Nicolás's hand, waiting for the game to start again.
"And what about Antonio?" his father threw out suddenly, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Nicolás stopped smiling immediately, furrowing his brow as the memory came back to him.
"That damned dog stole my ñoquis when I stepped away to the bathroom for one second," he muttered, shaking his head. "I still remember walking into the kitchen and finding him up on my chair, licking every last trace of sauce off the plate."
His father burst out laughing, leaning forward as he cracked up at his son's misfortune.
The young man looked at him with a straight face, though deep down he couldn't help but find the story a little funny now that time had passed.
He felt a wet touch on his hand and looked down. Luna was right there, pressed against his leg, nudging the tip of her nose against his fingers so he wouldn't forget about her. Nicolás leaned slightly toward the dog, softening his expression and pitching his voice just slightly higher — that tone people only use with animals they love.
"You wouldn't do that, would you, girl?" he said, gently scratching the bridge of her nose. "You're a good girl. You'd never eat my ñoquis, would you?"
Luna lit up immediately, half-closing her eyes and wagging her tail hard. She looked up at him with those enormous eyes, bright with pure anticipation, waiting for his next move.
Nicolás gave her one last pat, closed his fingers around the ball and threw it with force toward the far end of the patio.
The dog shot off again — a white blur cutting through the air in pursuit of her treasure.
An older woman, her hair covered in gray and her back slightly hunched, came slowly from the kitchen. She was carrying a plate with two generous slices of homemade sponge cake, still steaming. When she reached the table, she set the plate down carefully and stroked her grandson's head with a warm, soft hand.
Nicolás's father eyed the slices sideways with a look of mock suspicion.
"You know this isn't good for me at my age, right?" he said, though he was already reaching toward the plate.
The elderly woman looked at him with the kind of reproach only a mother gives her son.
"Everything is bad for you now," she replied, crossing her arms. "But when it comes to red wine, suddenly nothing hurts, does it? Then you ask for the whole bottle. Don't be so dramatic."
The man raised both hands with a sideways smile, admitting defeat.
"It was a joke, Mom, it was a joke. How could I say no to your sponge cake?"
The grandmother tutted, shaking her head while muttering that he was just like his father — who complained about everything except the drink.
Then she shifted to a much sweeter expression as she looked at the young man.
"Do you want more, sweetheart? You look very thin. I'll bring you another slice," she said, already turning back toward the kitchen.
Nicolás took her hand gently, stopping her with a smile.
"If you give me any more food I'll roll home, nona. This piece is more than enough, honestly."
The elderly woman smiled, satisfied but not entirely convinced.
"Alright, then I'll cut half and wrap it up for you to take with you later," she declared before heading back inside.
His father popped a piece of sponge cake into his mouth and looked at him conspiratorially as he chewed.
"We're going to need something for digestion after this. Our livers are going to kill us," he commented, his voice slightly muffled by the food.
"Worth it," Nicolás replied. He set the mate on the wooden table and picked up his slice, savoring the fluffy sponge cake that still held the warmth of the oven.
At that moment, Luna appeared out of nowhere. She set the ball to one side, ignoring it for the first time all afternoon, and sat down right in front of Nicolás. She was rigid, ears raised and eyes locked with absolute intensity on the piece of sponge cake in his hand.
The young man looked at her for a second, broke off a small piece with his fingers and offered it to her.
"You can't say no to that look," he murmured, as the dog received her treat with a quick, grateful wag of her tail.
========
A heavy weight came over him.
He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt slow and the white light of the ceiling forced him to close them immediately. A constant, sharp ringing drilled into his ears, drowning out every other sound.
He felt his body numb, as if he were floating in something thick. When he tried to move, a dull ache ran through every joint. He turned his head slowly, fighting through the fog in his mind. Beside him, he made out a blurred figure sitting in a chair.
"What...?" he tried to ask, but his voice came out as a dry rasp.
Little by little, the ringing faded and the figure's words began to take shape.
"You lied to us," the voice said. "To me and to everyone else."
Legion blinked several times until his vision focused.
It was Shuri. She was looking at him with her arms crossed, without a trace of her usual humor. He couldn't grasp what she was referring to, and the confusion must have shown on his face because she continued.
"While you were losing your mind fighting Kofie, my phone started making strange beeping sounds and vibrating. Imagine my surprise when a text appeared on the screen threatening me. It said that if I didn't intervene, it was going to leak all of Wakanda's secrets to the outside world."
Legion tried to speak, but the effort sent a stab of pain through his jaw. Shuri gestured for him to stop.
"You should take it easy. Your jaw is broken. Well, that and your ribs, arms, one leg, your fingers... basically a good number of your bones. They haven't operated yet because they're debating whether they should, so right now you're completely sedated."
He nodded almost imperceptibly. That explained why his thoughts felt so slow and his body like lead.
At that moment, he heard Sid's voice coming from Shuri's phone, asking the princess to place the earpiece in Legion's ear. Shuri pulled a face, but ended up taking the small device out and carefully fitting it into the young man's ear.
"You gave us all quite a surprise, sir — myself included," Sid said through the earpiece. "I told you it was a bad idea, but you didn't listen to me."
Legion rolled his eyes heavily. At least he had tried, though he had to admit she was right.
"Kofie must be celebrating right now..." he mumbled with difficulty.
Shuri raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
"What are you talking about? Unlike you, Kofie was taken into surgery immediately. He was in almost as bad a shape as you."
Legion furrowed his brow, processing the information. He didn't remember having done that much damage to him... Had he even hurt him?
Shuri looked at him steadily and asked if he really didn't remember anything, to which he shook his head.
"I am genuinely concerned, sir," Sid cut in. "That is why I decided to threaten the princess directly on her device. If she hadn't helped, I would have had to take control of Wakanda's network to force King T'Chaka to stop the fight."
"What happened?" the hero managed to ask.
"You entered some kind of trance," Sid explained. "You stopped caring about your own wellbeing and attacked recklessly. You pushed your body to its limit until it started to break down."
Legion stayed quiet, staring at the ceiling of the medical room. No matter how hard he tried to remember, the void was total.
"I don't remember..." he whispered. "I only remember being hit by Kofie and then... everything is blurry."
Legion tried to move his arm toward the Omnitrix, but the cast stopped him. He tried with his other arm, but his body wasn't responding the way he wanted. He looked at Shuri, who was watching him with one eyebrow raised, confused by his erratic movements.
"Could you... give me a hand?" he mumbled with difficulty.
Shuri huffed and nodded, helping to guide his free hand toward the other one.
The pain was there, but thanks to the sedatives it felt more like a distant sting. Finally, he managed to reach the device with his fingers. He activated the dial and began turning it, searching for the icon he needed among the holographic silhouettes.
"Do you really think this is a good time to transform?" Shuri asked with skepticism.
"Of course it is," he replied, barely audible.
When he found the right alien, he pressed the dial.
The gurney creaked under a sudden weight and Shuri stepped back as an intense green light filled the room. Where the injured young man had been lying, there now lay a crystalline figure of emerald green.
It was Diamondhead. However, his body looked battered — the crystal surface was chipped, full of cracks and missing fragments that reflected the damage Legion's human body had suffered.
But little by little, the mineral structure began to repair itself on its own. The cracks sealed and the broken fragments grew back in just a few seconds.
The figure, now completely intact, managed to stand up on the gurney.
Diamondhead stretched, making his crystal joints let out a groan.
"That's much better."
Shuri didn't look particularly pleased with the improvisation, but she couldn't help moving closer, amazed to witness a transformation up close and study the unique structure of that crystal being.
She fixed a small scanning device on Diamondhead's arm while he finished stretching, moving it quickly and murmuring to herself about the molecular composition of the crystal and how a structure that dense should theoretically behave. She was fascinated, analyzing the resistance and light refraction in his mineral skin.
While she remained absorbed in her readings, Legion spotted his helmet on the floor, right beside the chair where Shuri had been sitting. He walked over with a heavy step, picked it up, and while bringing one hand to the Omnitrix symbol on his chest, raised the helmet to his head.
He pressed the dial and the green light flooded the room once more. By the time the glow faded, Legion was back in his human form, finishing adjusting the helmet over his face. Looking down at himself, he noticed he was only wearing the trousers and a hospital gown.
The princess let out a sigh, regretting not having had more time to scan Diamondhead, but turned around to hand him a garment.
"That voice told me your armor wasn't going to explode, so I brought it," she said, offering him the small metal square that contained his gear.
"Thank you."
He took the device and placed it against his chest. Instantly, the mechanism activated and the metal plates began to unfold, covering his body until the full armor was in place.
Shuri looked him up and down.
"Are you really going out like that, with a hospital gown under the armor?"
"I'm not planning on taking the armor off, so..." he replied, simply shrugging with indifference.
The hero began to stretch, feeling his body crack slightly as it recovered its mobility.
Shuri watched him in silence, debating internally between interrogating him about the astonishing regeneration his transformations provided or reprimanding him for having hidden from them that someone else knew Wakanda's secret.
"I didn't lie to you," Legion said, breaking the silence as he finished adjusting himself.
Shuri crossed her arms, waiting for an explanation. He let out a short laugh, shaking his head.
"Whoever you spoke to... well, whoever threatened you, is my partner. Her name is SID and she is an artificial life form."
Shuri tilted her head slightly, processing the information.
"An AI?" she asked with curiosity.
Legion nodded, confirming that she was responsible for looking after him and assisting him at all times. At that moment, SID's voice resonated through the helmet.
"Greetings, Princess Shuri... I apologize for the inconvenience of a moment ago, but I came to the conclusion that it was a necessary measure — otherwise, you would have taken far too long to act."
Shuri huffed at the artificial intelligence's logic, though she couldn't help feeling intrigued.
"So you have your own AI, huh? I've been working on one too..." she commented, moving a little closer to Legion's helmet. "But mine doesn't seem to be as fluid as yours."
She looked at him steadily with a spark of interest in her eyes, setting aside part of her initial annoyance.
"If you tell me how you managed to create the first truly sapient AI, I'll stop being angry at you for deceiving all of us."
Legion, finishing his stretching, met her gaze calmly.
"I already told you I didn't lie. I didn't tell anyone — SID found out at the same time I did, so technically it doesn't count as revealing the secret."
"I agree," SID added, backing his words.
Shuri opened her mouth to reply, but Legion got there first with a gesture of evident exhaustion in his movements.
"I'm a little drained — could you leave me alone for a moment?"
The princess didn't seem entirely convinced, but decided to give him some space for now. She turned to leave the medical room, throwing him a warning before crossing through the door.
"This isn't over. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
The hero simply gave her a dismissive wave as she left the room, finally leaving him alone with his thoughts and with SID.
"I know you are very dedicated to your role as a hero, and I can understand that, sir," the AI commented. "But we can no longer delay Project Cell."
On the visor of his helmet, a recording of what had happened in the river played out. Legion watched the footage in silence — he could see his own body moving with an inhuman ferocity, a savage behavior he didn't recognize as his own. It was him, yet at the same time, it wasn't.
"I have scanned your brain once more," SID continued as brain activity graphs scrolled before his eyes. "But there is nothing physical to indicate that something like this could happen. This is clearly a sign of what you mentioned to me... that dangerous transformation that..."
"Yes, I know," Legion interrupted, his voice subdued. "Ghostfreak is a problem... a very serious one."
He stared at a fixed point in the room, processing the brutality of his own recorded actions.
"Project Cell will now become the top priority," he declared. "As soon as I finish what I have pending here."
"In this state, I don't know what could trigger something like this happening again, sir," SID insisted. "It is dangerous to take the risk. Your mental stability is at stake, and if something happens to you... I don't know what I could do to help you, sir."
"Easy, I know," he replied, letting out a sigh. "But I can't leave them on their own. Hydra definitely has something to do with all of this. Something serious is also happening in Atlantis and I need to be there. There's no valid excuse."
He paused, adjusting his armor's controls as he felt the tension returning to his muscles.
"I promise you — as soon as we're done with this, I'll focus exclusively on finishing the project and locking down the Ectonurite DNA once and for all."
SID was quiet for a moment before closing the recording files.
"Noted. I hope you keep your word before it's too late, sir."
Legion let himself fall back onto the bed as he stared at the ceiling.
Moving his body, he could feel those echoes of pain that always lingered after an emergency transformation.
Although his regeneration alien repaired all the physical damage when he returned to human form, the brain kept a record of the trauma. It was like phantom pain — he knew his bones were no longer broken, but his nerves kept sending warning stings.
Two steps forward, one step back, he thought.
"You have a call from Miss Jubilee, sir," SID informed him, breaking the silence.
The young man thought for a moment before nodding.
"Put her through."
"Hi, Legi!" Jubilee's animated voice rang out through his helmet.
He made a face, though he couldn't help smiling a little.
"Legi? Seriously?" he replied with a tone of mock complaint.
"Hey, you have no right to complain," she defended herself between laughs. "You still haven't told me your real name, so I had to improvise."
"Fair point," he conceded, settling more comfortably. "How's the inhibitor I gave you holding up?"
"Well, both the Professor and Jean say it's an impressive mental barrier. They say they could break through it, but they'd have to get very serious about it and it would take them quite a while."
Legion nodded to himself. It was a good start, though he knew it could always be improved.
"But do I really need this?" Jubilee asked, lowering her tone slightly. "Jean and the Professor are good people, they wouldn't..."
"You never know, Jubes," he cut in gently. "Besides, they're not the only psychics in the world. It never hurts to have an insurance policy. I'll prepare more for the other kids later."
"Will they also be pendants like the ones you gave me?" she joked with a little laugh.
"No, of course not — yours are clearly more special," he replied, and both shared a short laugh.
"Hey... are you free by any chance?" the X-Man asked after a moment. "I was thinking we could go out tonight — you know, what we talked about last week. Maybe that Italian restaurant? Kitty told me Piotr took her there a few days ago and the food is amazing."
Legion stayed quiet, staring at the ceiling. The invitation was tempting, but his current situation...
"Legi?" she pressed when she got no response.
"Right now I'm... a little tied up," he finally admitted.
Jubilee gave a slight pout that came through perfectly in her voice, though she kept her joking tone.
"What? Do you already have a date with some sexy superheroine?"
"Actually," the hero replied with an almost ironic calm, "I just had a near-death duel with the best warrior apprentice of a secret country in order to try to get its leaders to trust me. All to stop a war with another secret country and prevent thousands of people from dying."
Jubilee went quiet for a few seconds and then burst out laughing.
"Good one! You almost had me," she said, but noticing he wasn't saying anything, her laughter gradually died down. "Wait... is that serious?"
"Yep. Right now I'm in a hospital room."
"You're hurt?!" her voice filled with alarm. "Do you need help? Wait there — I'm going to find Illyana right now so she can open a portal and I'll be there in a second."
"Easy, easy," he cut her off, trying to calm her. "I'm fine. I used one of my aliens to heal myself and I'm good as new. Besides, you should see what the other guy looks like."
"That's not funny!" she scolded him, though she sounded more relieved. "Oh my God... the important thing is that you're okay."
Legion sat up slightly in the bed, feeling better.
"Look, I have a better idea. Why go to an Italian restaurant when I can take you anywhere in the world? Let's do this — when I finish up here, I'll let you know. We'll arrange something and I'll take you somewhere special where I'll show you my favorite food, prepared exclusively by me."
"And what would that be?" she asked, and her smile could be felt through the line.
"No, no — that's a surprise, miss. But I promise you'll love it."
"Hmm, I don't know..." she said, as if thinking it over.
"Jubilation Lee, are you playing hard to get?" the hero asked in a teasing tone.
"Maybe," she laughed. "But yes, I like the idea. So we have a deal."
"Deal."
There was a brief silence — a softer, more personal one.
"Please be careful, okay? Don't do anything stupid," she asked in a sincere whisper.
"Me? Never," he replied with a light laugh.
"Take care of yourself... I'll be waiting for that date."
"I will. You take care of yourself too," Legion concluded before the call cut off.
The hero sat up at the edge of the bed, letting his feet touch the cold floor.
He stayed like that for a moment, elbows resting on his knees. The silence of the medical room felt strange after the chat with Jubilee, but it helped him focus his mind.
He rolled his shoulders and heard a couple more cracks. The armor adjusted to his movements, responding to him properly. He looked toward the door Shuri had gone through, knowing time was running short and that King T'Chaka wouldn't be long in calling him to account.
"That's enough rest," he declared, getting to his feet. "We have a war to stop."
"Understood," SID's voice replied, firm and clear in his ear. "I will be supporting you every step of the way, sir."
=========
HEYYYY, HOW'S EVERYONE DOING? HOPE YOU'RE ALL WELL!
IT SEEMS OUR HERO CAN NO LONGER KEEP PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE — THOUGH FIRST HE MUST RESOLVE THE CONFLICT UNFOLDING BETWEEN THESE TWO GREAT NATIONS. I WONDER WHAT WORDS THE KING HAS FOR HIM? AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?
HE ALSO HAD A CHAT WITH YOUNG LEE THAT HELPED CALM HIM DOWN, REFOCUSING ON WHAT MATTERS IN THE HERE AND NOW. THINGS ARE COMING, INCLUDING A DATE AT THE END OF THE ARC — WHO KNOWS!
BY THE WAY, IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT — PATREON IS NOW OPEN! THERE YOU'LL GET 1 FREE WEEK, I'LL ALSO BE POSTING SMALL CHAPTER PREVIEWS, TAKING YOUR OPINIONS INTO ACCOUNT, AND WE'LL BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE MORE COMFORTABLY. I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU :)
THE LINK: patreon.com/EmptyTag
AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR COMMENTS.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, A BIG KISS 😘