He knew that awful wailing. It haunted him, served as a reminder for that horrible mistake he made that one day in town.
Ernie stared at the patch of sky past the limbs caging him in. Almost there.
There was no sunlight to welcome his escape. Nothing holy or symbolic to indicate his escape from the depths of hell. As soon as he made it out, he fell flat onto his stomach, no longer caring when the side of his face was dunked into the steadily growing pool of blood. His nerves, his mind was unravelling. His rope had flickered out of existence seconds ago and the resulting exhaustion seemed to weigh on him as much as the bodies did. The boy rolled onto his side, attempting feebly to coax himself out of the panic flashing within him.
Liam was gone. Liam was
gone. Not in Reno, not here on the other side of the country. There was no reason to shiver like this.
Get away. Ernie pressed his drenched forearms to the ground, retching and heaving until there was nothing left to expel. The heaving continued even after his stomach was emptied, choked coughs doing nothing to get rid of the rancid taste in his mouth.
Piecing things together was difficult. Too difficult for him to do properly at the time being. His pounding heart seemed be beating any rationality out of him.
He needed to wash--no. Cleaning came after. The ammonia was under the sink. Throw their clothes away, burn them later if possible. Wash the mop out after wiping the floor. Too many things to take care of. So much. Everything. But first, he needed to get him away from here, beforeโฆbeforeโฆ
Why are you showing me this? Ernieโs gaze was indistinct, almost delirious as he looked for
him. He wasnโt too far away.
A stranger, a
Regular of all things, was grabbing Christmas. Christmas was crying, in hysterics and terrified. That was all Ernie needed to see. All he could hear was the fear in his classmateโs voice. Rage drowned out the rest.
Get away. Get AWAY. Were he in his right mind, Ernie would have remembered that heโd never killed anyone before, not a single soul. At least, not with his own hands. An unarmed Regular should have been out of the question, by USARILNโs standards anyway. He would have chided himself for forgetting about Rain straight afterwards.
Were he in his right mind, Ernie would have observed the situation better, noted that the manโs grip was firm but not harmful, that he was merely asking if the sobbing boy was the one that had saved these lives.
But he wasnโt. He hadnโt been thinking straight since that mound of bodies had almost crushed him and forcibly shoved sensibility out of him. In its place was the unreined sadism that had caused him to stab Allisonโs eye out with a table leg. The lack of judgement that had forced Christmas to eat rotting garbage.
Ernie pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster, the main body still unsoiled since it was protected by the reinforced leather of its sheath.
Whatever modicum of compassion the Aberration held for Regulars, for humankind, it had been eroded away long ago, the beaten remains washed away by bitter memories of years living in hiding. There was no feeling, nothing acting here but primal instinct, the ringing reminder of Kardosโ orders, and the roar of his Stigmaโs bloodlust. A practiced hand aimed. A part of him did consider making it a warning shot. But mere warning had delivered David into Marcus' APC. It had endangered his friend. It was endangering his objective, a classmate.
It wouldn't happen again.
The barrel jerked back twice, letting loose two thunderous
bangs that boxed Ernieโs unempowered ears. Immediately, as the bullet entered his temple, the stranger was whipped onto his side. His grip went loose, and Christmasโ arm was freed. The man was unconscious now, but the minor blessing of Christmas's persistent mist was already healing the wound and pushing the bullet out of the other side of his head. Gunfire had the secondary effect of shocking Christmas out of his mindless terror, and the healer stared at Ernie now, terrified and deafened from the gunshots. The Aberration didn't notice the Regular's survival. Ernie turned his attention to the rest of the survivors, blood dripping and bordering his wide, feral eyes.
Those Regulars had crushed him.
They had dirtied him.
He didn't want to see them.
โGET AWAY FROM ME!โ he roared, emptying the remaining six shots above the crowdโs heads. His neck was wiped by his remaining hand, revealing a black X behind a smeared veil of red.
A crazed gunman would have already been enough reason for panic. A crazed Aberration was suicide on two legs. After hours spent wallowing in the same pit as the broken and deceased forms of their fellow Wisford citizens, none of the collectorโs inhabitants wanted to stick around for another brush with death. Screams and cries drowned out the healerโs as they clambered away, running as fast as their newly healed legs would allow them. Those who could not run crawled frantically, though eventually climbed to their feet as the mist took its effect. Ernie basked in that fearful noise, his Stigma suddenly sated in a way that not even Christmas or David had been able to fill. Within a minute, it all petered away. The road was quiet once more, save for the continued bawling of the healer.
Ernie breathed heavily and stumbled to the dirtied blond. With most of the distractions gone, he could feel himself coming back. Things were getting clearer. The Aberration shoved a fresh clip into his weapon but holstered it in the end. They still had a job to do. They still needed to get away.
โChristmas,โ he croaked, as if he was unsure of his own voice,
โwe need to go.โChristmas blinked at him, the ringing in his ears surpassing anything Ernie was saying and he continued staring, frozen in fear.
"Come on!" Ernie insisted, stronger this time. He offered a hand to help the blond to his feet,
"Angel's waiting for us!"Sounds came through distorted and blurred, so Christmas stared at Ernie's mouth instead, trying to figure out what the words were. The extended hand made more sense than trying to discover if he had any natural talent for lip reading, so he took it without thinking. Ernie leaned back to pull him up, and Christmas stumbled just standing straight, nearly pulling both himself and Ernie back down to the blood-smeared ground. He righted himself and tried not to look at the spread of bodies around. It took another minute for Christmas to disperse his healing effect, stumbling again from the bout of lightheadedness. Blood streamed from the gash on his neck again, and Christmas placed a hand over it thoughtlessly, trying to orient himself and swallow the urge to panic once more.
Hazel, in her blind desperation, slammed violently into what was left of the Collector's hull, sending sharp jolts of pain from her mangled right hand. Any thoughts of her own safety was long washed away under the waves of fear and panic, but she still managed to catch herself with one projected hand out of sheer instinct alone. Had there been nothing else that intruded onto her senses, she would have simply started bashing the monster's hull regardless if it was moving or not, until the beeping collar shut her down. As it was, the noise from both Ernie and Christmas drew her attention. The noise... it was -
- the girl screamed as the razor sharp knife sliced effortlessly through her skin, a crescendo backed by the constant wailing of the unharmed girl still tied up--annoying; it pierced through her skull like an auger, filling her mind with irrational anger. Not even the steady pulse of pain growing ever stronger and the incessant beeping of her collar annoyed her this much.
Setting herself on the ground, Hazel walked a few steps towards the two, before running straight at them. She was in no state of mind for visualizing a weapon, thus, all she projected and swung towards them was a large right fist.
Barely as she finished coughing and gasping for air after her most recent attack, shouts of panic and gunfire could be heard not so far away. It came from where the mammoth-sized clockwork blocking Ernest and Christmasโ path. Suddenly, Angรฉlique feared the worst. Were there Rogues over there as well? The raven-haired Aberration ground her teeth in anxiety. For fuckโs sake. All she wanted was to save people and prove she wasnโt a bad person. But it would seem like she would have to leave the people inside this Collector behind and rush to help her fellow teammates.
โIโll leave this up to you. Iโm going to see whatโs going on over there.โ Angel simply told Grant before taking off running.
Hazel was already there though, and soon Chris too. Did she manage to free the civilians out of the Collector? Were those the voices of panicked Regulars? What was causing that commotion?
As Angรฉlique turned the corner of the street, she now witnessed the horrible sight, and the explanation to everything. The gun in Ernest's hands and Hazel charging at the two members of Halvost Team with a projected hand. Nothing made sense as to how this all happened.
โHazel, stop! What the fuck are you guys doing?โ Angel shouted. However, her voice did not come from her mouth. Instead, of voice was projected elsewhere, displaced. To everyone in the area, it seemed like the obsidian-haired Mage was yelling two inches away from their faces.
Anger bubbled once more at the back of Angelโs mind. Hazel really was a liability. She has been a great asset, but always with a potent risk of backfiring. Angel did not know the girl personally, but previous sightings of the girl in action suggested so, and right now she proved so.
Take her out! Sheโs a menace to your survival! To what you desire to accomplish! โI SAID STOP!โ the Aberration screamed, a sonic wave erupting from her being as it shot wide in front of her. She didnโt care now if Hazel would hate her guts for that. The voices were right. She was a threat now. She deserved no mercy. Better her than her friends.
As she finished screaming, Angel fell on her knees, panting and coughing again. She was dizzy from the large amount of blood she had been losing since earlier. Breaking into a run just now and screaming did not help, as the physical effort tensed up her facial muscles and forced more blood out from her face.
Impact, a wall of force smacking his entire body.
He tried to summon his invulnerability but the magic in him seemed fast asleep. It wouldn't have worked anyway, considering the properties of Hazel's powers. Ernie was thrown backwards, the breath knocked completely out of him as a pained grunt escaped his lungs. His backpack did little to cushion his fall, driving something hard into his back as he landed on top of it. Ouch. At least his helmet, or what remained of it, did its job.
Everything was so much. The pain vibrating through his bones. The lack of air from Hazel's slam. That sticky clamminess from the blood. And that ear-piercing scream. Jesus Christ, who the fuck was screaming?
Before Ernie could even consider getting back up, another force threw him forward right onto his face. An ominous
crack sounded through his head triggering pain and blood radiating from his nose that joined the rest of the nonsense plaguing his senses. The world seemed to swirl for a second. He whimpered, clutching his nose, and tried to prop himself up. Despite the blood and matted hair obscuring his sight, Ernie could make out Christmas' form roughly beside him. He wasn't moving. He didn't have his helmet on.
HEโS GOING TO KILL ME. DONโT LET--
"No."The Aberration scrambled to the healer, searching for signs of life or consciousness. He hadn't even noticed that their clothes had disappeared.
Hazel felt the impact of her fist on Ernie, before a scream hit her from behind, sending her tumbling heads over heel.
Had she not already applied the wishalloy an hour ago, her translucent arm would have been torn to pieces, sending chunks of meat and bone flying everywhere. As it was, it felt like someone slammed a fridge onto right arm, the pain feeling ostensibly worse with the previous injury.
"Don't look at me..." It was but a whisper, barely audible save for those with sharp ears.
With that sonic attack, it was obvious that she would turn her attention to Angel, but...
That girl stood there instead, smiling sadly even as wounds on her face opened, and blood started spurting. Hazel's movements were starting to get noticeably slower by now as the collar continued beeping. More of a sweep out of reflex than anything, her projected hand swept low on the ground, before exploding the area in front of her.
Angel's hands clasped to her mouth as she witnessed her scream accidentally hitting both Ernest and Christmas. She didn't mean to get them too, even though part of herself wanted to put Ernest out of commission as well as she feared he would do something stupid with his gun. At most, she wanted Ernest to actually use his rope to tie the crazed Aberration down and stop her without injuring her too much. But now, it would seem it would come down to a power struggle with the girl that was known as one of the most frightening in terms of powers in Experimental Unit B.
The explosion in front of Angelique caught her off-guard, her vision obscured by the cloud of dust rising up from the explosion. Then again, she should have expected that, as it was something she had been doing a lot of times during this fight. She could blow that dust away, but that would require another forceful shout, something that was starting to tire her. She was almost at her limit. The pricking in her throat told her so. She'd rather try and calm the girl down, now that her attention was entirely focused on Angel rather than the other two. The voices in her mind told her to just keep screaming at the girl until she finally kneeled in submission to the Angel, but the raven-haired sonic Mage fought back her previous urges. This wasn't the right thing to do, even if the girl deserved to put out of commission for what she was about to do to Christmas and Ernest.
"Hazel... get a hold of yourself! We're teammates! You're actually trying to kill your classmates! Don't cross a line that will result in being locked up for the rest of your days as a Mage, or worse... discarded and killed by the institute for being uncontrollable! Fight it, Hazel! Fucking fight whatever's plaguing you. Please... don't fall.. like most of us did..." Again, Angel's voice did not came out from her mouth, but projected itself directly in front of Hazel, as if she had been standing right in front of her, inside the dust mist. It wasn't a yell or a shout. Her voice sounded strained, weak, hoarse. Clearly, she didn't have much voice left in her.
Perhaps it was the dirt getting into her eyes, or the ever-growing weariness, but her vision started to get blurred. Maybe she overdid it, in the end. Was it the right thing to do? Saving classmates from one of their own? Probably. The more the world of the Subnaturals revealed itself to Angel, the more she was starting to lose faith in it. Perhaps it would be better if she just stopped going against the current and let it take her away. Stop trying to form all these bonds and only experience pain as a result.
Tears started to form into her eyes, trailing onto her dirtied face. She was so tired. Physically and mentally. If it could just end...
Angel simply stood on her knees, waiting. If Hazel decided to stop, then it would be a small victory. If she came through that wall of dust with a raised fist, then that would be her failure... again.
Even if Hazel wanted to, a Stigma wasn't something she could just push off with sheer will alone, especially not one like hers. It was one tied intimately to her very person, trauma from her darkest moments in her life. Perhaps one that was as attached to her being as intimately as her trauma could pull her off her blind panic, but not Angel. Not someone she barely knew, someone she would likely classify as simple acquaintances, someone who barely knew her in turn.
The beeping of the collar would tell Angel that Hazel was running closer to her, before Hazel parted the dust cloud herself, manifesting a gigantic fist above them.
But, instead of the giant fist crushing Angel, Hazel collapsed, the momentum of her swing bringing her own injured hand towards Angel's face. Anyone investigating the collapsed girl would realize immediately that she was unconscious, though those with keener intellect would note that it was more like she had fallen into a deep sleep. The collar was beeping rhymically now, the antler logo embossed upon it no longer blinking red, but a steady yellow.
Ah, so there she was. Looks like her little speech was in vain, wasn't it? Hazel came out from that dusty wall with the same fury as before. No doubt, she came to finish the job and splatter her on the pavement, just like what she intended to do to the two boys before she came interrupting.
It was probably for the best. So tired. Just let it go. Free her from this stupid existence as a caged beast.
So weak... so pathetic..."Yeah... just end it..." Angelique resigned herself, bracing herself for a hit as she looked defeated to the silhouette of the rampaging Aberration.
I WON'T LET YOUEven if Angel willed herself to allow someone else take her life, it was a form of suicide, for as long as Angel still had the means to defend herself. Like Hazel, her Stigma wasn't something she could control. The will to dominate others, to reign supreme and stand above the rest, it has always been there, subtle but still there nonetheless. If the raven-haired girl wouldn't take matter into her own hands and leave herself to die, then it was absolute to return her to the path she had chosen in her dream, willingfully or not. The Stigma would not allow Angelique Lachance to let herself be killed though lack of will or faith in herself. It would not accept death nor suicide as a valid answer.
As if her body's control was wrenched away, Angel's face quickly shifted. From a defeated look to one of pure rage and hatred, her lowered head rose up to meet the other brown-haired rampaging Aberration's eyes. Just as Hazel brought down her hand to the raven-haired young woman's head, Angel's mouth opened. She let out a scream out of sheer spite. There was no intention behind that scream but to protect this body and annihilate anything that would try to kill it. Angel didn't will this attack; the Stigma did.
It was a bit too late however, but the impact on Angel's head was less than expected. It was weak, not as threatening as it first appeared. It was meaty, nothing like she would have expected from a projected magical fist of destructive force. Did Hazel managed to regain control at the very last second? Angelique couldn't tell through the haze and realized the girl's unconsciousness just a second too late. She looked on the poor girl being knocked a few feet back away like a ragdoll, result from a scream forced out from her throat by the darkness inside her.
There was only by a small aching from the spot Hazel just hit. The real pain was inside though. Did she... really screamed down a girl that wasn't going to pulverize her onto the concrete, that was already unconscious by the time she brought her hand down? That wasn't being dominant, that was being a coward.
Angel quivered, her control over her own body and thoughts returning to her. Tears kept on going as she slowly dragged her body next to Hazel. The girl didn't need sympathies. She tried to kill both Angelique, Ernest and Christmas. And yet, there was this feeling of guilt. Somehow, she felt like it was her own mistake. The fault lied in her, for being such a failure as a teammate, a leader even.
"I-I'm so... sorry, Hazel..."The apology sounded through both Ernie and Christmas' cuffs, signalling the end of the fight. Seconds passed with neither the sound of crashing explosions nor familiar screaming, and Ernie's nerves finally found some relief. The threat was taken care of, for now. But there was still a major problem. Ernie had pressed his fingers to Christmas' neck, his ear to his chest. Anything to figure out how severe this knockout was. He didn't know if it was concussion or blood loss. Maybe both? Fuck, now wasn't the time to panic. He needed to fix this or...or...
"Sander's gonna kill me."The blood on Christmas' neck had been warm. He was bleeding again, after stupidly throwing up a mist for those Regulars. If Ernie had just said something against healing Regulars before they left...
If he had fixed Christmas' injury earlier like he said he was going to...
If he had waited for Offensive Support to take out both collectors before he made the healer team rush in...
If he had just killed David in that house and relocated the body...
Ernie grit his teeth as he rolled Christmas onto his side and ripped open the medical kit. Fast, so they could leave as soon as possible. Even through the dizzy haze in his throbbing head, Ernie recalled the first aid basics that Liam had drilled into him. Clean, compress, wrap.
Gloves on first. Treating a wound with hands covered in the blood of a dozen different people sounded like a terrible idea. Ernie ignored the stickiness under the latex covering, knowing that it'd be a bitch to remove later. Antiseptic wipes to clean the wounded area, to get all the blood and potential asphalt out. Dressing for compression. More dressing, just to satisfy Ernie's paranoia. Bandages, wrapped tightly around the neck and secured with safety pins and tape. It was going to be a chore for Christmas to breathe comfortably, but being uncomfortable was better than being dead.
There, that should be enough. Ernie inspected his handiwork from all angles. There didn't seem to be any more red seeping through the white, so he decided to count that patch job as a success. Just one last thing.
Ernie took out a small packet of smelling salts, and waved it underneath the healer's nostrils.
The ammonium carbonate took several seconds to rouse Christmas, but his eyes finally fluttered open, unfocused and unseeing initially. He was awake, even as the touch of blurred thoughts convinced him to close his eyes again briefly. His recollection of the most recent events felt unhinged, because
something had collided with him, a sharp pain had blossomed when he was knocked to the ground, and he couldn't find the sequence of events afterwards. For a split second, he thought it was a repeat of the first battle and that waking up meant--like it almost always did in the movies--that he was back in a clean bed somewhere safe, because there weren't quite as many scenarios to wake up while danger was afoot.
Iron-scented blood and the smell of bodies informed him the battlefield still persisted around and Christmas groaned, mumbling something unintelligibly as his brain slogged through fully waking up. Something throbbed on the side of his head and he wasn't surprised--only distressed--to realize after a second that it was pain.
Ernie didn't waste any time packing his things, zipping the contents of the first aid kit back into the pack as soon as he saw the healer's eyes flicker open. The gloves were thrown away and a half-filled Flexi Bottle was offered to Christmas.
"How's your head?""...Nhuh?" The sound was gibberish. A response to the question that was just as intelligible as the nonsense answer. Christmas blinked slowly, waiting for words to fall into order and for...Ernie, yeah, Ernie...to start making sense. It scared him how slowly his thoughts pulled the name up and he made another quiet noise in a failed attempt to communicate.
Ernie didn't know much about concussions but he had enough common sense to get the feeling that "Nhuh" wasn't a good sign. Water would have to wait then. He stood up to put the plastic bottle in his pants pocket before...oh. The other effect of Hazel's power. It made him more helpless than he'd ever been before. His gun and tomahawk were gone. His radio, gone. Clothes were a problem, yes, but they were far from his main concerns. Ernie's features began to morph into a grimace but stopped as soon as the pain in his nose got aggravated. What a fucking mess.
White mist slipped out like water through a filter from behind the bandages, Christmas still staring dumbly at the gestures and faces Ernie was making. His power, at least, seemed to function with just the barest hint of decision: on or off, really. There was a lot of blood. That thought made itself apparent after watching Ernie, but he didn't know if he could help clean that when his body felt too heavy to move. So he let the mist seep out, wondering if that was what Ernie wanted because it was all he knew to do at the moment.
The corners of the Aberration's mouth twitched as the bones in his nose clicked back together. The aching from Hazel and Angel's crossfire faded as suddenly as they had been inflicted. No, no, what was he doing? Blood loss was exactly what they were trying to avoid.
"Christmas," Ernie made as many gestures as he could think up to denote stopping. Shaking his head, waving both his hands, crossing his forearms. It didn't seem like words were going to get through to a head trauma victim,
"No healing, please. You can stop. Stop."Christmas's mind waded in quicksand for a second, watching Ernie's impromptu attempt at charades. A part of him thought it was a little silly on the battlefield. Kind of funny.
He thought he smiled at it, but his vision slipped in and out of clarity, which quickly became a larger concern when the throbbing on the side of his head spiked in pain. He grimaced, the mist dispersing as well.
Ah, it worked. Ernie allowed himself a small smile of relief before recalling the situation they were in. Hazel was down, for now. Angel, the whole reason they had run to this side of town, was...somewhere. Somewhere lost in this smoke. He could hear her crying over the cuff's frequency but couldn't bring himself to care. If she was well enough to sob on the battlefield then she couldn't have been too badly injured, right? Plus, it would be handy to have someone who could actually fight back to keep guard over Hazel. They could regroup somewhere else. This place was too mess-- too dangerous for the healer team. They needed to get away.
"Can you walk?" Ernie asked, wiggling two of his fingers in a way to denote legs moving.
Christmas wasn't paying attention, eyes looking at nothing as he tried to figure out why there was so much pain on one side of his head. His eyes squeezed shut, and he kept them that way while spots and purplish lines seemed to flicker and fade under his eyelids.
Ernie frowned in despair. Moving him now would be a bad idea, right? But he couldn't leave him here.
The Aberration bent down and hugged the blond from behind, lifting him by the armpits. He slowly shifted backwards, away from the last noises of battle, with the sagging weight in his arms and Christmas' head leaning on his chest. It was terribly clumsy and stupidly slow, but Ernie couldn't think up any other way to support his teammate. Leaving him behind with a monster like Hazel was not an option, not while Sander's threats were still hanging in the air.
There wasn't much noise to unravel him now, nothing but the uneven plodding of his bloodstained boots and the cries of a mournful woman.
Angel's sobbing was soon to come to an end as her blurring vision slowly faded to black. She was numb, she felt cold, her mind was barely registering what was happening around her. She came here to help, but in the end she got messed up for it, and would have to rely on someone else to carry on her wishes.
For now, she was helpless. Even her fierce will to help others would not surpass the severity of her injuries. The still-bleeding lacerations on her face was taking its toll on the young woman.
As her eyelids came to a close, her head slowly tilted forward, until it would fall onto a soft cushion that would be Hazel's unconscious body. From a faraway perspective, it would look like the raven-haired Aberration was mourning a dead friend, or fell asleep on said classmate. But in reality, both Aberrations were out cold and severely injured.
Three unconscious teammates. Only two that he actually had the guts to touch.
Ernie lowered Christmas onto the ground and looked towards Angel and Hazel. He never could have predicted this if asked a week ago. His idol defending him and someone he bullied while the latter two were both covered in other people's blood. Angelique Lachance sobbing over the body of a monster who'd just tried to murder three of her own classmates, then passing out on that same body. He would have laughed and turned away at the idiot who gave such outrageous predictions. But it was really happening. Ernie didn't know what to do, how to feel. He was exhausted, mentally and physically. Everything was just so... tired.
The sudden silence brought back the fearful thoughts at the back of his head. Disgust at the blood still dripping from his hair. Disgust at the situation they were all in. Disgust. So much. Everywhere, all around him. Ernie bit back the urge to rip open all the alcohol wipes in his pack and clean himself off with those measly squares. Later. Christmas was still unconscious. Angelique was bleeding from her head. She was a priority too. Less than Christmas, but still a priority.
Ernie made his way over, taking out the same wipes and gloves he'd used with Christmas before. Even if the healer was awake, Ernie wouldn't have asked him to use his magic. Bandaids and Steri Strips would probably be the best he could do here. Christmas had lost too much blood already. It was up to Ernie now. The singer was dragged from Hazel's chest to near Christmas. Ernie spoke as he dabbed at Angelique's sleeping face.
"Transmit. Hazel went berserk and attacked us. She, Angelique and Christmas are unconscious. Christmas can't heal at the moment. If anyone from Offens-- if anyone can come, please help."God, what a mess. Ernie ended the transmission bitterly.
"Over."Over. Breathe out. The Metalwork Collector was over with. Crumbled rock now occupying the space of its shattered and broken eye. It was over. Well, almost over. The transmission of a voice came through Grant's cuff, and two familiar names came out. Angel and Hazel. Hazel, the one who had resigned to leave but now stayed to attack her own? Grant let out a sigh, stumbling slightly back from the mess of human and metal. He remembered Angel running off to help out somewhere else. Seems like where to go. Breath out. His feet began carrying himself to the source of the transmission.
"Transmit," Grant let out as he walked.
"I'm coming. Over." With the simple announcement out of the way, his pace sped up and he hurried, at least a little bit, over to the mess that had occured.
And what a mess it was. Just as what was announced over the cuffs, three subnaturals laid, still. Luckily, they were all alive, or there was no announcement of them being dead. Grant fought back the thought of
Thank god they're alright and made his way to the still conscious person in the area.
"Are they... okay? Alive?" He asked first, his chains sprouting from behind, swaying.
Ernie looked up from the mess of blood and sterile strips he was trying to plaster onto Angel's face. It wasn't working as well as he hoped. Grant was standing above. The strong one from the games. Stronger than Ernie at least.
"They're alive," Ernie affirmed quietly, putting the finishing touches on the singer's scars. He started to pack up once he was done,
"Can you help me get them back?"Grant couldn't place a name to the face of the person desperately trying to put bandaids on Angel's face, and once he was asked a question, he gave up trying to do so. He glanced over to the three unconscious subnaturals, two of which were his own teammates, one strangely having nothing but his underwear on. After a few moments, Grant gave a nod, looking back at the person.
"Sure."A simple word and Grant stepped closer to the three bodies, and the first he'd lower a chain to would be Angel, the screamer that Grant had spent most of his time with in the fight, though that's not saying much. His chain touched with her vest before her body began to lift from the ground, slowly. The pressure was barely noticeable, but it was there. He paid no heed to it and moved onto the next body.
Hazel. The one who tried to attack Christmas and the other subnatural. A second chain came down, quicker than the last, but the moment it came in contact with the Wishalloy applied onto her body, a very... weird sensation shot through Grant. Immediately, he reeled his chain back, his brows furrowing in confusion. His mouth formed slightly to make words, but no sound came out. His chain swayed in place again for a bit. He stared at the Wishalloy, before his chain lowered again. Contact. And that weird feeling came through again. He kept his chain where it was. The feeling was foreign. Strange. Enough to make him shiver only for a moment. It was almost a slippery feeling. Slick and loose from his grasp, but still there. Along with the much more familiar pressure. Hazel's body would lift just as Angel's did. Yet it was almost a bit unsteady as well. Two bodies were in the air, held by Grant's chains. Now for the last body.
Christmas was the last person to be lifted, as he had the least clothes on, if any at all. Grant's last chain lowered down and made contact with the Wishalloy covered underwear. That feeling came again. Amplified throughout his body. Shiver. Again, he pushed through the feeling and lifted Christmas into the air. More pressure coming down, but still light. Three bodies in the air. Angel was still, unmoving, but Hazel's body swayed with the chain. And Christmas more than her. Grant shook his head and tried to focus, turning back to the other subnatural.
"...Ready."Ernie looked skeptically Grant's unsteady chain on Christmas but decided not to speak up. He was stronger than Ernie. The Aberration had no right to judge. He grabbed his pack to head off, but suddenly lost track of himself. Where were they supposed to go now? To a battle against enemy mages with three unconscious, vulnerable teammates? Back to the drop-off, where they'd be abandoning everyone trying to fight? Ernie sighed and watched the yellow beacon in the sky. His friends were there. Lawrence, the dying classmate and the reason they had rushed out at all, was there. He started moving. Hopefully the battle will have finished by the time they arrived.
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