章節 169: Chapter 34: Hong Fu and Vindy
Vindy woke up to a strange music playing in the background, as Hong Fu is washing her body in a tub. The warm water surrounded her body and gives her a nice little fuzzy feeling. She felt her body laid bare in the water, and immediately freaked out.
'You are awake.' Hong Fu said, as he continued to rub her hair with a brush, 'I found you after your fight...'
'I...I figured.' She said, as she wrapped her hand and covered up her body. 'what...what are you doing with me?!'
'Washing the pieces of monster off you.' Hong Fu said with a bland tone, as he nodded his head towards the Probable sat on the table. That's his artifact, and it is glowing at this very moment too, 'Probable showed that both of us and the house we are living in will eventually be taken over by the monster if we do not get rid of every piece of it off you.'
'But you can't just strip me clean like this...' Vindy said, as her heart is beating so loud in her body that she could bare hear the sloshing sounds of the water.
'Don't worry, I don't get aroused in the slightest by this.' Hong Fu said as he concentrated on the business, 'I apologize for any intrusion of privacy, but I hope you can understand.'
'I can understand alright.' Vindy said, letting out a breath as she turned around, 'I will wash the front by myself...I am sensitive there...'
'Ok, then I will do the back.' Hong Fu said, as he handed her a small bottle of hair conditioner towards Vindy, who turned around in the tub. The composition of hair is the same across humans and Rockies, so they can actually share the use of it quite easily.
And Hong Fu's hands are actually really working it's magic, as Vindy's back felt warm and loose after his fingers worked through strands of it. It's hard not to relax with his touch, and Vindy slowly began to drift into sleep again as her head slouched forward.
'I...why am I so tired...' Vindy said, as she yawned and shivered, sending bubbles flying everywhere on the ground as the cleaning droid hustled to pop and mop it off the floor.
'Artifact overuse, it crashes your body for a little while after.' Hong Fu said as he continued to work through and pick out pieces of stuck flesh and metal from her hairy back, 'We have to clean your body as soon as possible, but you can relax. I will do it all.'
'O...Ok...I will trust you.....' Vindy said, as the waves of fatigue extended outward from her right hand where the artifact's at, and she leaned her head forward onto her knees.
Hong Fu lets out a little sign and looked to a bloody tray next to him where he left all of the metallic pieces that he took out of Vindy's body after the battle. He was making good progress in restoring the electrical system of the building, but the amount of electricity is just so slow that he realized that something must have been wrong with the habitat's main supply system. That's when he heard the giant explosion when Vindy threw off the ceiling of the music shop. He rushed towards the origin of the sound as quickly as he can, and witnessed the horrific after maths of everything.
Thankfully, he had Probable with him, and that helped him grasp the current situation right away. Carrying Vindy back to their house as quickly as he could, he felt the pieces of flesh still crawling and moving in her hairs, meaning that she will need to be cleaned up as quickly as she could. There really haven't been anytime for her at all since the end of the battle to recover and process what has just happened.
Hong Fu continued to move down Vindy's back as he finally cleaned away the last piece of flesh and flushed everything away. Then, the tub began refilling slowly once more as he reached out and laid Vindy down yet again. Whether she likes it or not, Hong Fu will have to wash the front as well as her legs.
Some of pieces of flesh are stuck in too deep, so Hong will have to cut off a few strands just to get anywhere near it to remove it, as the clean water in the tub began to be reddened by the pieces of the flesh and blood on Vindy's body. Hong Fu continued to move his hands down Vindy's body, guided by Probable which showed areas that contained the pieces of flesh all over her body. As his hands moved over the sides of Vindy's ribs, she moaned slightly.
Hong Fu glanced over towards her, and she's breathing heavily with his every touch.
'Sorry, but you will have to bear with it.' Hong Fu apologized, as continuned on as Vindy's breath became faster and faster with his stroke. Then, she grasped onto Hong Fu's hand and kept it in the ribs area and pressed it into her ribs as her light moans became even louder than before.
Hong Fu swallowed hard, as Vindy's eyes opened slowly before she also froze and was overcome with embarrassment.
'I...I...' She wanted to explain what has just happened, but Hong Fu simply let out a chuckle.
'I promise I won't tell anyone.' Hong Fu said, 'it's clean now though.'
'It is...Thank god...' Vindy said, avoiding Hong Fu's gaze and now wishing to dig a hole in the ground and hide herself away.
The rest of the wash happened without much further drama, as Hong was able to continue his work in complete and utter silence and Vindy sitting there allowing him to work in complete and utter embarrassment.
'That should be it all.' Hong said, giving Vindy yet another small bottle, 'wash your body with the disinfectant, and you should be good to go.'
She took the bottle and nodded, then Hong Fu stood up and left the bathroom and Vindy alone. She looked in the direction of the door as grasped onto the sides of her ribs as she thought back to the sensations that she felt when Hong Fu caressed that area. The tingly and itchy feeling...the thrill...No...this is wrong.
The subject of inter-species relationship has been one of taboo in the galaxy ever since the early days of inter-species communication was enabled. Sexual reproduction just happened to be one of those qualities that formed the major construct for all three intelligent star-faring species, and with the desire and lust around, anything that could have happened have happened.
However, Vindy is still conservative enough to be unwilling to commit such 'bizarre' acts even before when others have tried to get close to her during her travels. Though there are certainly signs that the galactic civilization is shifting in the direction of further and further mixing socially. Socialization is also one of the qualities that enabled the three species to be the way they are today.
And yet...Vindy bit down on her lips and continued to wash her body, trying to wash away her frantic thoughts with the sounds and feels of the warm water.
When Vindy came out of the shower, she is quite literally on her last legs, as she dropped onto the ground with fatigue before she even took two steps out of the bathroom. Hong Fu was unpacking and loading the ingredients that Vindy has brought into the food printers and distributing the supplies across the various storage compartments of the house when he heard the loud bang of Vindy hitting the floor. He hurried over, picked her up and put her in the Aquarian bed in her room before turning on the recovery and rejuvenate settings.
'She's quite a fighter.' Hong Fu noted down in his mind as he thought back to the end of the fight that he got to witness when Vindy surpassed her previous limits and blew up the entire monster, possibly unlocking a new use of her power in the process. Initially when Hong Fu reached out a helping hand towards Vindy, he only viewed her as someone that's at least somewhat useful as an artifact user that unfortunately fell under the control of Lady Lily, however, it appeared that Vindy may be a lot more than that.
Perhaps the two of them could do more than to hide out here and wait for everything to be over. Hong Fu thought, as he continued his setting up of his house. After the food printer's been restocked, he then needed to work on connections to the galactic network, and perhaps he will need to set it up using the service on their shuttles has.
Vindy slept for over a day or so as Hong Fu continued working around the house. The quality of the network is rather inconsistent and grainy, but it does the job certainly. As Hong Fu chucked a bowl of stir fried rice, beans and vegetables onto the table, he also turned on the galactic news network at the same time. Though not the best source for information that anyone ever gets, it's a good enough starting point to grasp the big things going on around the galaxy, and speaking of big things...there aren't anything bigger recently than the popularity, or notoriety of the Falling Star Conspiracy/Theory.
'Huh?' Hong Fu's reaction is shared by many of the galactic citizens, as the notion of a star suddenly falling out of the stable orbit that's been inhabited for millions and millions of years just doesn't make sense, considering the lack of external forces impacting it. That's basic grade school astrophysics.
'External forces...' Hong Fu revisited his thought process as he sent a spoonful full of colorful grains down his throat before his eyes widened, 'no way...'
Flipping his phone open, he began to track down the pathways of information that first lead to the wide spread influence of the Falling Star Conspiracy, and eventually tracked down the source of it all, the website of the Rocky Solar Research station. Seeing the words Rocky immediately prompted him to look over towards Vindy's room as he pondered on the meaning of it all.
Is this it? Is this what Zero was trying to avoid? Hong Fu thought, as the floor shrieked slightly behind him. He turned to see Vindy leaning against the door frame and looking at the news too.
'Good evening.' She said, and Hong Fu waved at her before pointing a finger towards the food printer in the kitchen.
'I made dinner.'
Vindy nodded towards him as she waddles over and climbed onto the table to pick up her bowl of food and a spoon before jumping down and sitting right next to him on the sofa.
'What's going on?' She asked, her voice flatter than usual possibly due to the slight dehydration in her sleep.
'Sun's falling out of the sky.' Hong Fu said, 'makes no sense.'
'Can even an artifact do that?' Vindy asked, as she began to send the rice down her throat too. Not spicy enough.
'It's never a matter of whether an artifact can do it, but rather is there any being that's capable of doing it...' Hong Fu replied with a low voice as he seriously pondered the possibility of it all. It has been a long and slow journey away from Olympus Prime as he piloted his shuttle deliberately away from any major acceleration gates, so the timeline should make sense, when reflecting upon what Zero wanted to do, 'but moving a sun...that's way above what any of us can do.'
However, the fact that there is a hint of this meant something has gone horribly wrong in his plan. Perhaps he activated this exact power that's going to destroy the Olympus system. Hong Fu isn't quite correct in this regard, but that's his best guess given the current situation.
'What does Probable say?' Vindy asked yet again, and Hong Fu was surprised at how introspective she has become just over the past two days.
'I can't access that sort of information from this far away.' Hong Fu shook his head, 'that would have been too convenient.'
'It would have...' Vindy said, and the two simply sat next to each other and continued digging through the bowls of food in front of them.
'How are you feeling?' Finally, Hong Fu was the first one to crack the silence, 'whatever monster you fought appeared to be...'
'It was crazy.' Vindy said, looking down on her bowl and envisioned what has happened just a day back, but felt like ages ago.
'Crazy hard?'
'Just...crazy.' Vindy said with a chuckle, 'I want to train my artifacts, can you help me?'
'Of course.' Hong Fu said, 'you are the main combatant of the two of us, so I will do anything to help you.'
And just like that, the daily lives of the two of them over the next long while began, as they focused their energy on developing the abilities of both of their artifacts, as Hong Fu has made up his mind to use Probable for combat purposes while Vindy continued to practice her sets of skills enabled by Wavestriker. Then, in the evening, they share a nice printed meal together in the living room and watches the development of the Falling Star situation. With the spare time, Vindy also tried to practice her violin skills with some online courses, but her thick Rocky fingers proved dexterous movements on the strings impossibly hard.
This schedule continued for weeks on end, and it was actually the first time in the both of their lives that they get to just train with their artifacts without any worries at all. Vindy quickly gained greater fluency when generating stationery waves as well as finding natural frequencies of various systems, and Hong Fu simply trained to match up his body's performance with the information provided by Probable.
And one night after dinner, Vindy went back to her room only to find a brand new music box sat on top of her bed.
She cried out in joy and went ahead and tackled Hong Fu, who stroke the fur on her head with a chuckle. He said he found it thanks to his improvement in using his Probable, and Vindy gave him the famous Rocky hug, almost crushing his ribs. Now, she can finally do some music.
Time flew for the two of them much faster than for those in the Olympus system, as the Falling Star went from a conspiracy to a theory, and then a reality as Olympus 1 as a Rocky planet is no more. The New Rocky government also burst into the galactic scene as a new force to be reckoned with, seemingly out of nowhere. And then what shocked Hong Fu and Vindy further is the announcement that Zero made to the galaxy. This is certainly a day to be remembered in galactic history, and that also meant one thing for Hong Fu.
That the Falling Star is for sure an act of an artifact user, and that user is also a third party away from either Absolute Being or the Bearers. So what Zero has foreseen is true. As Hong Fu watched the news, Vindy noticed him being a little distressed.
'Are you alright?' She asked.
'Yeah.' He said, laying it bare with his only friend right now, 'That Brakagi person either is the artifact user himself, or he is controlling artifact users. And this system won't be peaceful anymore.'
Yep, and just as they have chosen the Geb system because of it's reclusiveness, so did Brakagi for the relocation. Thought there are no signs of anyone approaching this very habitat in the outer planet, there is no saying that sooner or later more and more settlers will be coming here.
'What are you suggesting?' Vindy asked, but Hong Fu is sat there in place with his head in between his hands and pondering all of his options.
'You won't understand, Vindy, but I need to move.' Finally, as difficult as it seemed when Hong Fu was trying to speak, he still said what he needed to say, 'Brakagi cannot be allowed to continually do whatever he wants to do. I will go join him, and monitor whatever he's doing on Geb 4.'
'What....?' This caught Vindy completely by surprise, as she always thought of Hong Fu as one that's caring for the people on his side, but ultimately driven by monetary needs and wants. There isn't anything inherently bad with that, but it certainly contrasts greatly from whatever he is doing now. Has he suddenly gained a conscience, or is something deeper going on here?
'You are joining him?' Vindy asked, 'that's rather...out of character.'
'Not really, if we think about the state of the galaxy in the long run.' Hong Fu said, 'Sure, it looked like this will likely be it for Absolute Being and Infinity, and that would be we won't have to run away from them forever, but Brakagi wants a complete shake up in the galactic paradigm, and with every paradigm shift comes a great price for everybody.'
'There can be no relaxing future when someone is willing to drop a star to make a point...' Hong Fu said, gritting his teeth before cursing out Zero's name, 'god damn it...he's right...'
'Hmm?' Vindy didn't quite catch the last part of it, but Hong Fu shook his head.
'You don't have to come with me, but this system is likely no longer safe for you.' Hong Fu said, 'before I go, I need to make a trip to the Poseidon system. I can drop you off there, it's a bit closer towards the Aquarian regions, but that's about the most peaceful place around now. Would you be okay with that? Conversely, you can stay here.'
'...What are you going to the Poseidon system for?' Vindy asked, reaching out with her hand and grabbed onto the corner of Hong Fu's shirt.
'I am going to go through a procedure.' Hong Fu said, 'when you want to spy on Rockies, you need to become one of them.'
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