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“Enjin?” Zanka furrowed his brow, slightly adjusting his hold on Rudo’s thighs. The boy was slung over his back, dripping blood from his nose, ears, and nearly any other hole. Riyo and Follo went on ahead, after taking down the Instrumental trash beast and rescuing Rudo from his three surrounding him, Riyo and Follo went on ahead to personally report to the boss. The fact that there were four trash beasts with Vital Instruments was alarming and worthy of high priority alerting.
Enjin grunts in response, holding Umbreaker over his shoulder, closed, in a show of nonchalant, well, it wasn’t much of a show - he was really nonchalant right now. Something tickled his bones, telling him he wouldn’t be in a second.
“I might be- …I don’t think Rudo is getting enough food.” Enjin stops, turns to look behind him at Zanka and raises a brow. “Huh?” Zanka doesn’t cower, his eyes meet yellow and he nods firmly. “Our gear all weighs differing amounts but… I’m holding him and he’s just so light.”
“So you don’t think… well, now that you mention it…” he looks over Rudo again: blood caked on his face, all around the mask, deep bags under his eyes, his arms are all scratched up and the gas mask over his mouth keeps him from seeing the blood he knows is pouring from there… he looks rather- what’s the right word. Enjin rubs his chin as they begin to walk again, but this time Zanka comes up beside him so Enjin can continue to inspect the young boy.
Rudo has thin arms, they pack quite a punch, he himself can tell testament to that… but other than muscle there really isn’t anything there. No ground dweller is necessarily chubby, they’re nearly all skin and bones, good food is not the easiest thing to come by, but at the Cleaners they have food provided from a chef… Rudo does look a little too skinny.
With the amount of—okay Enjin, you’re rattling on.
“I-I just mean—here, feel how light he is!” Suddenly a body is being thrust in his arms. He snaps back to reality, catching and holding on tight to Rudo’s back and knees, bracing his body to catch the weight that… ….never comes?
“Oh wow.”
“Yeah.” Zanka pans.
“Damn! He’s like- like fifty pounds! With the gear!” Zanka sighs and rubs his forehead as Enjin scrambles and freaks out beside him. Nearly dropping and irritating Rudo’s air tank. “Careful, Enjin, it’s probably hard enough for him to breath unconscious with that mask, we wouldn’t want to disturb the air tank and have it malfunction.”
Enjin completely stops, like. Stops walking, stops holding on as hard to Rudo, who seems to be - “He’s out cold. ” Enjin looks down at him. Noticing that Zanka's observation is in fact correct; Rudo hasn’t so much as even groaned.
Thirty minutes earlier
The air was stale as they walked into the polluted zone. It hung heavy in the air, the land around them filled with trash, Rudo’s eyes couldn’t stay ahead of him, he was discreetly ( read: obviously ) stopping to pick up a piece of ‘trash’ he liked and stick it in his slowly ripping bag.
The team let him, so long as they could still see him, and he always came back, it was okay with Enjin and Zanka. Who were - and have become, Rudo’s keepers of sorts. “At least the walk wasn’t long from HQ.” Riyo sing songs out to the group and into the open air.
Follo, the only Supporter with them, nods his head and wipes sweat off his forehead. “Was that real sweat?” Rudo whispered to the man. “No.” He whispers aback, they cover their mouths with their hands like it will keep the rest of them from hearing their very loud conversation; it won’t.
Rudo stops at another pile and picks up a black cylinder poking out of the ground. He shhwing! ’s it out and sees that it’s a—“ Katana! ” He calls out, holding it up in the air for a moment before bringing it down and inspecting the blade.
“Huah?! What’d ya find?” Enjin calls, stumbling over with Zanka and Riyo behind, Follow reaches him first. Laying hand on his shoulder and looking down at the rusted blade as well. “Woooww…” Internally, Rudo agrees.
When Zanka lays eyes on it they narrow and he crosses his arms. Enjin doesn’t necessarily notice, his near full attention on the weapon in Rudo’s child-hands. “Wow, kid, nice find, especially here.” Rudo almost beams up at him.
“Why would… why would anyone throw this out?” Follo speaks up, staring at the weapon with sad eyes. Rudo wishes he didn’t ask, he knows first hand how it feels to wonder why people throw perfectly good - or just in need of a little love, items, into the trash for the sole reason of: just so no one else can have it.
“That’s a deformed sword. Looks like it was a fail.” Everyone’s eyes shift to the owner of the voice: Zanka, who just stares down at it with near hatred in his eyes before he flinches and notices the four sets on him.
“H-huh?! ”
“You know a lot about Katanas?” Riyo perks up. Enjin looks away and pats Rudo’s shoulder as they all stand and keep walking. Zanka scoffs and absentmindedly adjusts his staff.
“Some things…” Enjin, surprisingly, gives him a little soft smile when no one’s looking. It shocks him but works as it’s supposed to, his nerves calm just a little.
“Hey! There!” They don’t really need Follo’s scream. The giant trash beast lifts itself from hiding as a pile and starts roaring at them. “Well there it is, folks! Take it down quickly so we can go home!”
“Aye!” Everyone nods.
It’s only a few moments later that a new one shows up, slaps the lot of them down and the original one piles on top. Rudo is the sole Cleaner not under a giant trash beast pile - but that doesn’t last long as two more come from who knows where and pin him to a fight a bit away.
Enjin and Umbreaker take care of half of one, Shooting up into the sky to land a lethal blow on one. “Enjin! This one has a core! It has a Vital Instrument!" That changes things. Then they all escaped and saw two beasts on Rudo and two over here they thought nothing of it, Rudo was strong and could take out a few mounds of trash…
But two instrumental beasts? “Zanka- go help—”
A beast's paw slams down into him, Umbrekaers rough shell is the one and only thing that saves his life, they haven’t had time to visit Remlim, so they have no insurance. It looks like they’re all somehow being held up by two, while Rudo faces two on his own.
Riyo, from trapped inside one of the beast's mouths, yells out, “Hopefully that sword transforms into something good! ”
.
.
.
It did… the second time… and then the third time… and then after the third blow Rudo passed clean out, falling from the sky after landing the finishing blow. Zanka doesn’t make it in time to catch him. But he’s there milliseconds after and looks him over completely.
Enjin checks his pulse and swipes his hair around. Looking at his head for any injuries, it’d be quite easy to tell with the whole white hair thing. But still, he couldn’t quiet the urge pushing him to make sure Rudo was overall, kinda okay.
“Follo, escort Riyo back to headquarters. Tell the boss about the four instrumental beasts immediately.” Riyo is shooting off immediately after, she herself must’ve noticed how alarming this was.
“Four beasts? What are the Raiders planning…” Enjin helps put Rudo up on Zanka's back, dusting him off a little bit before Enjin retrieves the vital instruments from the bodies and the take off.
Present
“Is he okay?” Semiu only rises slightly when they walk through the front doors. It seems Riyo nor Follo had informed her of the situation. “He needs to see Eishia, but yeh, he’s fine.” She raises her brow, but slowly sits back down again.
It’s not so uncommon for them to return with a bloodied up Rudo. His power is magnificent, strong, and impressive beyond belief, but if he overdoes it - like he often tries to do, he’ll be a bleeding mess in just a few hits.
“Well on with it.”
…
Zanka, Gris, and Enjin all sit in the infirmary where Rudo is resting. He’s fully healed, just exhausted, word of their trusty medic. Zanka seems a few bad thoughts from blowing up or crying, and none of them have seen Zanka cry for real… sides Enjin. Speaking of, their leader of sorts, Enjin, looks slightly concerned, which means he’s extremely concerned and trying to hide it.
“Eishia. How much does Rudo weigh?” The girl stops and tilts her head at Enji’s question. “oh, yes, it should say on his chart… Mrs Semiu told me but I forgot, don’t worry I’ll get it for you right away! I can be helpful in this way at least… maybe I won’t mess up…”
Zanka lifts his head to hear her response, Gris doesn’t seem to care, since he wasn’t with the two of them when they had their conversation he doesn’t know that they’re… concerned. Enjin and Zanka wait patiently, eyes focused on the files Eishia is zipping through.
They hear a quiet ‘ sha’ before she pulls out a file and flicks through it. “It says here he is roughly one-hundred and seven pounds…”
Enjin's lips purse. Zanka's arms uncross and he immediately stands, the stool he was previously on scoots back with a teeth-gritting sound. Enjin watches him leave the room. “Is that healthy?”
Eishia shakes her head. “Even for a ground dweller that’s… poor Rudo is quite skinny, he must start eating more, has he not been?” Enjin really can’t say, he knows the boy eats sweets whenever he gets the chance, but normally other than that Enjin doesn’t hover over him while he eats. …or, doesn’t eat .
“I… really can’t say.” Gris clears his throat. From his spot directly to Rudo’s left side, he looks like a father waiting for his ill son to wake. “I do, I remind him every now and again to be eating his meals. Used too he’d skip most and give away a lot of his food to the team.”
Ooohhhh, Enjin's eyes widen, thhaattt would make sense… sometimes Rudo comes over to him with a slightly lesser scowl than usual and scoops off some of his food onto Enjin's plate. He usually takes it, thinking it’s just a food Rudo doesn’t eat, it’s okay for them to be a little picky.
But when he looks at everything together it
does make sense.
“Aaahh, yes, he does do that.” Eishia nods her head, looking worried, but when does she not look worried.
“Y-yeah, just make sure he’s eating his meals and maybe a little extra after a few days.” then she leaves.
Gris sighs and places his hand on Rudo’s. Truthfully, Enjin's worried too, yes. But he does think he looks less like a scared dad worried that his one and only son isn’t going to wake up, and more like a nonchalant fun uncle with tattoos and a buzz cut knowing the kid will pull through.
( He wishes he felt like that as much as he looks like that )
Later, Zanka returns just in time for Rudo to wake up, hungry as a hippo, with food from the mess hall.
As their boy—as THE BOY gulps down his food, the three of them stare in different forms of quiet endearment. Enjin is the first to say something,
“Hehe, you’re looking kinda fat, brat.”
“ENJIN!”