The Southern Colossus

Replacing a leg is a fairly simple repair, but even so, it's almost a week before Vulcan Specter can walk under her own power again. 

Coincidentally, it takes about that long to walk across the Pacific Ocean. 

By the time the tech crew bring her out of enforced stasis, there's an enormous puddle of seawater on the Shatterdome forecourt, dotted here and there with drifts of seaweed and other flotsam. Hydra stands as far out of the way as he can manage, his body language somehow managing to be worried, apologetic, and fiercely protective all at the same time.

He watches silently as the support harness keeping her upright disengages, and Vul takes her own weight on the newly-attached leg for the first time. She wobbles, steel groaning as it settles into place. There's a tense silence, and Hydra shifts his balance, readying himself to dash forward and catch her if he needs to. The bright silver of new welds litters his forearms and sides; battle scars. 

He now has five Kaiju kills to his name.

Chook's catching up to me, Vul thinks.

The new leg holds, though it groans alarmingly. The head boffins frown and make notes on tablets, and Vul knows she's going to be in repair for a while yet.

She lifts her gaze to Hydra again, and takes her first few steps. She wobbles alarmingly at first; her gyroscopes are still a little off-balance. But the distance between herself and the hangar door disappears steadily, and soon she's standing out in the sunshine, looking out across the Harbour.

She braces her hand on the hangar, and spares herself a minute to appreciate the world. She'd come to very close to losing it, after all.

Hydra moves closer, hesitant. She can see the marks the Kaiju left on him now, each ragged tear and puncture through his plating. It seems he didn't even wait to be properly repaired himself before rushing over to make sure she was going to be alright. His insistence on looking after her is simultaneously irritating and gratifying; she's capable of doing that for herself, thankyouverymuch - but at the same time the raw care that colours his every action with her makes her feel... safe. Flattered that he wants to keep her around so much. Happy that someone values her as so much more than what she was created for.

Relieved, so so much, that he was around to back her up. She's faced exactly one Category IV Kaiju before, and that was the one which had killed her.

She knows she ought to thank Hydra, somehow. But how do you thank someone for saving your life? How can anything you could possibly say or do possibly express the debt you owe, the gratitude you feel? She really had not wanted to die - but with her leg gone and the Kaiju digging into her processor core, it had seemed inevitable.

But she'd fought, blades flashing, cannon firing until the clip was empty, and just as her vision faded into bright glitches she'd seen bright silver flashing in the sunlight, Hydra striding to the rescue.

"How do you feel?" Hydra asks, his voice carefully neutral. Doubtless he remembers the last time she'd been injured, when she'd almost bitten his head off for asking after her wellbeing. 

"Pretty good, all things considered," she replies, no less carefully. "I don't think they'll be using this leg, it ain't quite up to scratch."

Hydra makes a small noise of empathetic disappointment. "I see. But, otherwise, you're fine?"

"Yeah," she grunts. "Hey, Chook - Hydra, I mean..."

She trails off, not quite sure how to word the thoughts floating around in her processor. Hydra waits, patient as he is in everything, and eventually she thinks she has a way to say it.

She reaches out with her free arm, tucking it around Hydra's shoulders and pulling him close against her. He, by now well acclimatized to her touchy-feely ways, keeps himself balanced as he lets himself be hugged, his EM field prickly with relief, nervous joy.

"You're turnin' into a regular ol' knight in shining armour, aren't ya?" she says, and the part of her that still thinks it's human grins wide and happy. "Thanks for comin' to my rescue."