Rebuild and Rehab

"That's to be expected - in times of crisis, your body ignores pain and starts pumping adrenaline. Even grave injuries can be ignored for quite some time... ugh..."

The explanation was simple enough - the feline caught his breath, relieved that the worst of it was over. Well, the worst of it in terms of him working through the injuries that were actively threatening her life: as that arm finally exposed itself, the Mikemon couldn't help but give a tired sigh. A moment later, Alicia's realization of that half-metallic limb settled in, panic curling at the edges of her expression. Quickly yet calmly, the Mikemon moved to the opposite side of her bed, and clutched her normal hand inside his own.

"I know this is hard, but listen to me. Take a deep breath in, hold it for a moment, then let it out, nice and slow." The instruction was more given as a distraction than anything else, but it had a purpose: if someone was distracted from the problem, even for a moment, the Mikemon usually found their ears more receptive to the news: "It's not a surprise. The totem was already halfway lodged into your core - it stands to reason that your outer data could change too. That arm is not going to hurt you. You were just able to move it naturally after all, right?"

He gave a nod, and even a slight smile, as he looked to her eyes. "I do have to work on it and touch it up - mostly, clean away the peat moss from the Dark Area. If you can do me one favor, just save your frustrated shouting match for later, alright?" He even gave a slight joke at the end!

Good news: Alicia wasn't completely panicking - not to the point where she would stress her newly mended wounds.

Bad news: she was completely distraught, and not listening to a single word that Mikemon was trying to say. She was entirely focused on that arm, that hand, trying to make sense of what it had become. More bizarre was the fact that she hadn't noticed until this very moment. So long as she was calm, the Mikemon would allow her to look it over, and try and make sense of it. He even took a moment to step away, opening his nearby supply closet to pull out a set of supplies meant for his more mechanical patients.

Finally, her second question came through: just how much of her was like this? The Mikemon already knew the answer from scanning her data. To her question, the feline brought back a small case, setting it on the table next to the bed. Flicking it open unfortunately revealed supplies more attuned to mechanical limbs: oil, rubbing alcohol, small clean cloth to clean affected areas, and the like. "... Only two things. If you promise not to immediately bend over and try and look at it, I'll tell you the second, alright?"

The Mikemon prepared a cloth: "Let me get a better look at that. Now... it's your right arm... and your left leg." His tone was calm, not trying to worry her any further than that. "Its a common side-effect of spirit possession."

'Nothing felt unnatural'. As Alicia said that much, the Mikemon's ear twitched in slight surprise - was that just because she hadn't fully settled in from her exasperated state? Or were the limbs so natural to this new 'species' that it was just natural to recognize it as a normal arm and a leg? "Well, if it feels natural, at least your body isn't rejecting the metal parts. That's a good thing, mind you - it'll save you a lot of medicine you would have had to take otherwise."

That said, her arm and leg would need different care than the rest of her body. Once she would finally settle that arm down, the Mikemon would start with a hand towel, quickly-yet-carefully brushing the outside of the half metallic arm. "Oh, you're a mechanic? Um... I hate to put it this way, but that's good news as well. In that you'll understand what I'm doing now, and what you'll need to do to maintain this arm down the road." The cat was careful with his words, as he readied that cloth with the cleaning solution. The first time through, this was going to take quite a while: starting at the shoulder and the forearm, Alicia would feel the cold tinge of the alcohol against her limb, a careful rub pulling away the excess dirt, giving the limb a much cleaner metallic sheen.

It would look 'nicer', at least compared to its distraught state: peat moss, oil, and small amounts of blood stained each small cloth, before they would be discarded. As for the limbs themselves? "Well, removing the totem might undo it. Or, it might render the limbs completely unusable. The split in these cases is about... thirty-seventy, I would say..."

"Let me be clear, I'm not asking you to be comfortable with this. If it happened to me, let me tell you, I would not be acting as calm as I am right now." With that rather honest tone, the Mikemon gave a nod to Alicia's concern. "All I can do is treat it as best I can, and give you whatever advice I can that will be of use to you. Once you're bouncing back up on your feet, feel free to let all the frustration out of your system."

The Mikemon managed a chuckle, continuing to work further down that arm. Past the shoulder, it wasn't hard to polish over the metal parts above and below the elbow - without many joints to work around, there was little that could pinch against the cloth. Weird as it was to say, perhaps the arm looked less normal now that its sheen was properly showing in the light of the room. "A little run of sandpaper will dull it out well enough if you find the light glinting too bright off of it. Now, this next part's a little more involved..."

That would be the elbow, and the hand. Throwing away that last bit of cloth, Mikemon gave a sigh, and drew a cue-tip between his claws. Inside those deep joints, the feline would have to carefully clean out each section, throwing out a bit of moss or dirt as he was able to pick out of it. It would have been easier if he could dismantle the arm, somewhat, but...

Yeah, that wasn't an option. "Yes, the odds are a crapshoot. And I wouldn't even say this arm is that much better or worse than a human arm. Maybe more durable, but certainly not stronger or anything in that regard," Mikemon remarked, with a shrug. "I can help you put together a starter kit for this, though... I would have to guess you're right-handed?"

Well, that was a thing. Discussions about sandpaper aside, Mikemon took a curious step back as Alicia said that she could 'make it easier for him'. His eyes watched on, the right arm taking a few interesting movements, clasps popping open as if the arm was designed to open.

Because it was: the outer parts of the shell were removed, the Mikemon now able to see the inner workings of the arm itself. Critical veins melded with wires. Flesh turning almost seamlessly into metal, then back again. Muscle intertwined with mechanical cable. As Alicia recoiled, the Mikemon looked on with interest: "It's like looking into a simplified Andromon arm, of all things... ah, sorry." Realizing Alicia's expression, the Mikemon set off to work - though, his work continued with a warning. "Please, please do not try and clean the inside of the arm by yourself. A lot of this deals with exposed nerve endings, and inside the circuitry itself, you can cause a lot of damage. I can fix it straight away if I do it, but if you don't notice you did something wrong, well, it might go unnoticed for months..."

His warning a bit dire, he set off to work, much more careful in the application of pressure. "Not that the inside will need cleaning, much - maybe once every other month, if it feels like its slowing down. Mechanical Digimon have internal processes to keep their inner workings functioning - it should be the same for this arm. At least, I'd hope." The cat seemed confident enough, at least!

The inner cleaning would take a while - upwards of an hour, unfortunately - but just as the arm would close, Mikemon would hear a phone ringing from a distance. "Internal line, that's Stingmon... sorry, I have to take that. If you get the idea, you can start on the outer parts of the leg - just don't pinch yourself on the joints."

At the very least, it seemed that Mikemon could exercise basic phone etiquette and not get into a shouting match if a certain blue-robed wizard wasn't the one on the other side of the line. Unlike with the last call, there would be nothing but a faint rumbling of faded words from the other room... though it was difficult to say if this would be more or less settling with Mikemon's current patient.

Thankfully, treating the outside of the leg wasn't much different than treating the outside of the arm, and a skilled mechanic probably knew more about how to apply the solution than a doctor (even if it was across a field or two). It wasn't a short phone call: a good ten minutes later, the Mikemon walked back in with a tired yawn, idly rubbing the back of his wrist against his right eye.

"Well... patient-to-patient, I can't give you exact detail - doctor confidentiality and all that - but she'll live, and she'll recover." The cat gave a nod to the likely-interested Alicia. "On any other day, she would have been under my immediate care... it's been a long while since I've had two critical patients enter my office at the same time."

Critical. Meaning the way Alicia's code was before he fixed the fractal code (something he focused on even before the grave wounds on her chest) would have likely led to her own destruction within the day. He wouldn't elaborate on that unless asked, instead circling around to see how she started on that leg. "You feel any difference there, at all? Well, wait, I suppose that would be a better question to ask once the dirt's fully cleared out..."

Yup, doctor confidentiality. "Unfortunately. Though considering that you all came in as one group, she'll be able to tell you all about it." More than likely, anyway, the five of them that were dragged in - including Patamon and Isaac - knew each-other in some capacity. All Mikemon was doing at that point was following protocol, something that Alicia understood, instead moving to respond regarding her limbs.

Her arm felt 'better' than it did before? For a moment or two, Mikemon seemed curious, until he gave a shrug: "Well, that's good news. And it seems that the leg needs similar care, though you seem to have the outside quite-well handled." Eying her handiwork, the cat cave a small nod: "Well, let's clean out the inside. Let me just see the kit there..."

The leg would proceed most likely the same as the arm, perhaps with a few more latches to consider in the lower leg. As he would proceed, though, that last question hit his ear: how bad was it? Mikemon paused, closing his eyes, mulling the thought over in his head. "Let's see... to put it simply, your fractal code was 'pooling data'. The distended flow caused by the forcibly ingrained totem was causing a build-up of both critical and excess data. Remember, you were in quite intense pain when you came here - and now you don't feel a single bit of it, right?" He paused for an answer, before pressing on:

"Eventually, the stress would have been too much for the totem. Your emotions would have hit a peak, and regardless of the situation, you would have been forcibly turned into that mechanical form. At that point, it would have been impossible to save you. The monster would have either fallen in combat, or the data flow would reach a second critical point, and you would have been forcibly deleted at the peak."

The cat was honest, and heck, Alicia asked. "The wire-grid I installed will both keep the totem stable and stop it from happening. I wouldn't use that form again, however, until you have your D-Tector to act as a fail-safe."