"Just push," Max commanded.
Her face was set in a familiar scowl, the corner of her full lips turned down as she glared at the usual suspect of her irritation. She was squatting in front of Alec who was sitting on the floor of her office. He had been in that spot ever since she came into the room and had been recruited to fix the troublemaker's problem.
"I am pushing," Alec snapped back.
Sweat glistened off his forehead and the red blush on his cheeks deepened as the X5 followed his leader's instructions. They had been at this for hours and had collected a lot of attention in the main hub of Transgenic Central. Joshua, Dix and Mole were observing the catastrophe on the sidelines. Behind them there was a small crowd gathering attracted by the loud shouts and groans coming from their leader's office space. Max was getting increasingly frustrated and Alec was tired and close to tears as the process dragged on. Joshua looked worried and Mole was amused by the situation.
"How did this happen," Dix asked, a bit bewildered.
"It happened because he has nothing but grey space between his ears," Max hissed in irritation.
She temporarily let go of the object she had been pulling on in favor of hitting Alec over the head before he could make a snappy retort. Alec's face was already twisted up with pain so the only affect the slap had was that it made him more irritated.
"Hey! Be nice to the man in pain," Alec complained.
"Stop being a sissy and put more muscle into it," Max instructed as she reapplied pressure and twisted.
Her actions resulted in a painful groan from Alec. After a few minutes of pulling Max let go and stared at the problem with rising ire. Ever since Alec got himself stuck she had been tried everything to help loosen the vice like grip. She used liquid soap, floss, and even tried greasing him with her chap stick. So far nothing had worked, and now the issue was whether or not they could get Alec's limb out in time to reestablish blood flow. Not to mention she needed a new tube of cherry flavored chap stick.
"It's blue and purple," Joshua commented in an anxious voice.
"Yup, probably will have to chop it off," Mole said smugly.
"No, he still has a few more minutes before his nerves become irreparable," Dix added in.
Alec's hazel eyes glared heatedly at his supposed friends. "Can we ditch the three stooges over there?"
Max ignored Alec's question in favor of trying a different angle to pull. Alec bit his bottom lip to stop the yelp of hot pain her actions forcefully brought on. He braced his feet against the floor as Max leaned her whole body into another pull. Alec slipped out a pitiful whine as he felt bruised flesh get strained again. He panted heavily when Max eased up on her grip, trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling rather the hot throbbing of his appendage.
"You sound like you're giving birth," Mole quipped with enthusiasm.
All the desert modified transgenic got was a dirty look from both Max and Alec. Alec wiped the beading sweat from his face and looked desperately at his trapped extremity. He wanted to get it out in one piece, but glancing at Max's calculating brown eyes he was beginning to doubt that his leader had the same priority. When Joshua asked if they were going to cut Alec the dog man received contradicting replies:
"No!"
"Yes!"
The two X5's trained in lethal combat glared at each other in stubborn defiance until the silent throw down was interrupted by a nervous cough.
"I think I have something that can help," Dix said with a hopeful smile and left the group for a few minutes to retrieve Alec's salvation.
Alec and Max were still trying to pull the offending object off of Alec when the transhuman came back. When they turned to look at their friend all the blood that had been in Alec's cheeks drained out and his eyes widened in terror while Max grinned at the sight of oncoming victory. Dix held in his hand a small worker saw that he had borrowed from another fellow mutant. The ragged teeth of the tool gleamed with, what Alec thought was, dark intent in the bare overhead light. Max held out her hand expectantly as Alec tried to twist out of her superhuman grip and escape. However, Max was not about to let go of her second in command and enlisted Joshua's help to hold the X5 down as she set to cutting the old piece of pipe open.
"Do you really think that you should be the one holding that Max," Alec questioned in fear of his person.
"Shut up, Alec."
Alec tried to put on a brave face as a sight born only from his nightmares played out right before his eyes. It only took ten minutes, but Alec had held onto Joshua's hand the whole time in dread that Max might make good on her intention of cutting his limb off. Once the pipe was cracked enough for Max to break she stopped sawing and in one quick movement freed Alec's finger. Alec snatched his hand back from Max's imposing grip and massaged his palm to return life into his numb middle digit. Max tossed the now-broken pipe into the trash bin and handed the tool back to Dix. She thanked the nomaly with a genuine smile, happy that the small crisis was solved and she could kick Alec out of her office for the day.
After being booted out of his leader's room Alec walked with his friends to Dix's workstation. He would have to cast his finger for a week since all the pushing and pulling he and Max did had severely sprained his digit. Dix supplied Alec with a short flat stick and some tape, and after the X5 had his finger taken care of the ex-soldier joked that he now had an excuse to flip off the government siege that was just outside the fenced area of TC. Before Alec left his friends Dix again asked how Alec got himself in that situation. The second in command had the grace to look a bit sheepish.
"I though I saw something shiny in the broken water pipe in the back of Max's office," he admitted before walking off with the sound of his friends laughter trailing behind him.