Omake: How Gully Became A Disney Princess
To Gully's relief, when she met Apeiron, he had been more reasonable than she expected. Almost too reasonable, in fact, and were it not for Weld pulling her aside earlier and telling her that Apeiron's mercenary attitude was more fiction than fact, she would've wondered about whether all of this help had strings attached.
But as it was, not only did Apeiron treated her politely, he also welcomed her into his own base as well as fed her a feast. And by a feast, it was truly a feast, a table full of the most wondrous foods Gully had ever tasted to her known memory, beating out even five-star restaurants with the quality of his cooking.
And once that was done, Apeiron led her to be scanned by his equipment. Shortly after, she was sitting not-so-patiently as Apeiron studied something on his screen.
"How is it, Apeiron? D-Do you think you could cure me?"
Gully wished that Apeiron didn't wear a full mask, because she had no idea what his expression was at that moment. "Just studying the results of your scan. Before I do anything though, I'd like to give you my condolences for your condition. Seeing all this... Surely, it wasn't easy."
Gully could barely hide her own bitterness at that. "At least I have it better than some of my fellow Case 53s."
"I understand. Know that I have no issues with Case 53s, and will be willing to help whoever else comes my way." Apeiron's voice was compassionate, and soon the scanners were turned off. "As for your condition though... I have some good news and bad news. Where do you want to start?"
Gully gulped. "How about the good news?"
"Good news is, I can easily cure you." Her heart jumped at that. For Apeiron so say it so casually, truly the man before her was the real World's Greatest Tinker. "If you haven't heard it from Weld, one of my healing technologies is based on countering mutations such as this. And while your internals are a mess, you are still one of the more humanoid Case 53s and unlike Weld, I don't have the issue of your body being made out of living metal. It helps that I've improved since then too."
It has only been a few days since he helped Weld. Surely the Tinker was joking?
Looking at him now though, Gully couldn't help but reconcile the idea of someone already powerful enough to partially fix a Case 53 getting that much better to properly heal one in a period of few days, all the while juggling a gang war and whatever else Apeiron did in his spare time.
"What's the bad news then?"
Apeiron was far grimmer this time. "Weld probably haven't told you about it, but my Thinker power warns me that this?" He waved a hand, as though gesturing all of Gully. "What it is that is behind Case 53s? It tells me that there is a great big threat on the scale of the Endbringers behind it. If I just heal you, it might put you at risk of being targeted as soon as you leave this base of mine."
Gully froze at that. At the scale of the Endbringers? Shakily, she ended up saying the first thing on her mind, "A-And are you implying this base is enough to block the Endbringers?"
"Oh no, this base is not enough." Apeiron responded all too dryly as Gully tried to recover herself from the shock of his words. "After all, this base is just a temporary slapdash thing I made for the sake of receiving you. It's closer to a field camp than a base to me, really. As for my real base, while it can't fend off an Endbringer easily, it has a good chance to and precogs don't work in there."
Gully blinked as she studied the base, no, "camp" around her again. Everything about it screamed "Tinker Secret Hideout" to her, on the scale of the Toybox since the last time she visited them, and to Apeiron this was just... a disposable thing? And what was that about his base fending off Endbringers? And precogs?
Just how ridiculous was his actual base!?
"Does this mean that you won't cure me?"
Because Gully might just take his offer, even if it meant being targeted. If it was the cost of looking normal, then...
"Oh, I will cure you, no doubt about that. It's just that this means I'm also giving you the protection you need to remain safe without my help." Apeiron said it so easily that Gully could be even made to believe that what he was saying was easy, not impossible. "Fair warning though, the protection? It involves some... really weird tinker tech, with some awkward requirements. Don't overreact, alright?"
And before Gully knew it, Apeiron was already taking her hand. Just like with all the other times he healed people, immediately his skin lit in an array of blue lines, lines of which spread towards the rest of Gully's body. Gully gasped as she felt her body change its shape before her very eyes, but even that was soon overshadowed once Apeiron opened his mouth and the most melodious voice she had ever heard came out.
May you be blessed
Of happiness and joy
May you be blessed
Of calm and peace
May you be blessed
With safety and protection
Today the Unseen will know
You are protected by Apeiron.
When Gully looked at herself in the mirror after, she almost couldn't recognize the beautiful girl that looked back at her. But as she waved her flawless hands, as she stretched her shapely legs and finally let herself make an earnest, if tearful smile, soon she came to accept that her best dreams had in fact, come true.
Behind her, Joe's cheeks burned in embarrassment. Not only did he need to Sing to the Unseen for Gully's protection charm, the spell also involved putting a blessing on her through a physical medium.
At least, the kiss was just on her hand, Joe thought, not having an idea of what he would unleash on himself later once the world heard of Gully's story. But at that point, the Cinderella comparisons were on-point, and Garment had a very fun time designing a costume for the newly renamed Cendrillon before she left Brockton Bay.
