Chapter 2 - The Big Rescue
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Diana filled Kenny in on the drive to the Vancouver Airport about the best way to approach the whale situation - Diana would become Wonder Woman and hopefully convince the whale to let the trainer loose, and to avoid drowning, Kenny would somehow get oxygen to the trainer herself. Of course, Wonder Woman could probably lift the whale out of the tank with the trainer in it's mouth, but that might not have ended good for the whale. And they wanted to get away with the least damage possible. That's where The Coat would come in as Wonder Woman's support guy. And possibly, his mind-control powers might be a great asset.
By the time the plane was ready to fly for San Diego, it was 8 Pm on the evening of the 23rd. The plane would land in California by the next morning, and both Diana and Kenny would have to take sanctuary in a hotel.
They didn't need to be frugal, so both of them got different rooms on the same floor and almost immediately hit the hay when they signed in.
The next morning, at 8 am, they were both awake with the help of alarms to get them to the situation at the right time - Orlando was 3 time zones ahead and even through time travel, that remained a fact. If they went into the machine at 9:00, they would arrive in Orlando at noon. The attack took place a few minutes after noon.
After a short breakfast, the 2 met in the lobby, and took a cab to the San Diego University, where they had both been kept for 4 days in Cryogenic freeze 7 months before.
When they arrived at the university, Diana walked by the same spot where she had beaten up a jock who was giving his girlfriend a hard time. She remembered it, and wanted to talk about it.
"This is where that girl was...remember the one who had that abusive boyfriend?"
"Oh, this is where it happened?" Asked Kenny
"Yeah. I wonder if she's still...nah, forget them. It's not worth it." Diana changed her own mind.
"Yeah, screw 'em." Replied Kenny.
The 2 subjects arrived at the machine. And only one of the original 4 students was there, it was Micah Ellefson, who was more than excited to work with the CIA again.
"Hey, glad you made it in time." Micah approached the 2 heroes.
"Good to know...how much time do we have?" Asked Diana
"Well, in about 20 minutes, the incident will have happened exactly 10 years ago, so if we send you within 5 minutes, you'll have plenty of time to do what needs to be done."
"We discussed it on the way here." replied Diana
"We just need your magic and we're good to go." Kenny added.
"Ok...Who's going first?" Asked Micah
"I will." Diana volunteered. "I get to see him naked this time."
Kenny blew a raspberry at Diana.
"Ok, You know the drill...by the way, you'll only be gone for about 25 minutes so your bodies won't be cryogenically frozen, they'll be clothed and laying on those medical beds there." Micah pointed to 2 medical beds set up in the corner.
"Alright, i'll get set up." Diana walked over to the changeroom to get herself ready, while Kenny awaited his turn. But something else was nagging on his mind.
"By the way...have we told Mrs. Lebeau's widow about this? Does he know he'll return home and find his wife resurrected with a massive bite scar on her arm wondering how she got there?" asked Kenny.
"The CIA wanted to surprise him...Just because we want to keep this whole time travel thing under a lot of wraps." Replied Micah.
"The CIA has a twisted sense of humor." Kenny spoke as Diana walked up to him in her robe.
"Uh...yes they do." Diana didn't want to tell Kenny about the plan AFTER they dealt with the situation from 10 years before. "Your turn."
"Right on...play some techno music and I might strip on my way out." Kenny joked as he walked into the changeroom to get into his robe.
"You want to go ahead?" Asked Micah, signalling Diana to enter the chamber.
"Sure thing. Send him after me." Diana walked into the chamber and closed the door, and disrobed, and just like before, put her hands to the sides.
After 2 minutes, Kenny was ready to go. While he was getting prepared, Diana was already in the machine, and headed to the past. By the time Kenny was out of the changeroom, Diana had already gone to the past, and the students already had the robe back on her future body, and had laid it on one of the medical beds.
"I heard the machine." Said Kenny.
"She's there. Go in, you'll be there almost right after." Micah instructed.
Kenny walked over to the machine, went inside, and disrobed.
"Ok man, i'm ready to go."
Kenny was a bit nervous. Luckily for him, he wasn't as sensitive to pain as most people, thanks to the bullet in his brain. But he was still nervous as anything could've gone wrong. So Kenny did what he normally would. He bowed his head, and prayed to the voice that spoke to him in many of his dreams.
"Ok, here we go!" the voice outside of the chamber spoke.
Kenny lifted his head, and into the past he went!
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Kenny opened his eyes, and was face down on the ground next to a seal. Then, he got up and noticed Diana had already become her Wonder Woman persona, and was wearing the star-studded navy wetsuit and holding a first-aid kit. That would be a great help, as she needed to keep warm in the icy cold tank and the first thing that the trainer would need would be first aid.
"Present and accounted for." Kenny got up and covered his extremities with his hands while walking up to Wonder Woman.
"You made it. Good." Wonder Woman looked at Kenny's hands covering his masculine identity.
"Wow, you really are compensating with that truck." joked Wonder Woman.
"Shut up." Kenny made a grumpy face.
"Go get some clothes on." Wonder Woman smirked.
Kenny turned to the sky, and held out his arms. This was his other way of getting what he needed.
"God of heaven, hear my cries for help..." Kenny spoke into the sky.
Then, it descended - the hooded leather trenchcoat. Kenny quickly put it on, and buttoned it up to cover up the parts that made him stand up to urinate.
"I'm good." Kenny put the hood over his head and became The Coat.
Wonder Woman was spying on the whale show in the aquarium tank. There was a nearby clock that indicated the time.
"Ok, we've got 8 minutes. Go find 2 hoses, we're going to need them." Wonder Woman ordered.
"There's going to be 3 people under there, who's the unlucky contestant?" The Coat asked.
"Me." Wonder Woman replied.
"You? How are you going to breathe?" asked The Coat
"I hold the breathholding record in Themyscira. Just go get the hoses." Wonder Woman whipped her arm at a storage hut.
"Roger-roger." The Coat did the battle droid voice and walked off to go find what was needed.
Wonder Woman kept an eye on the situation.
"Woah!" A crowd cheered as that 4-ton orca jumped into the air in front of them at the Oceanworld park in Orlando, Florida. The trainer was guiding the whale around, making him do as he was told. And while Wonder Woman wasn't entirely for the idea of helping someone who would keep a whale from his natural enviornment, she understood that the trainer was a mother, sister, daughter, and wife to somebody, and would be sorely missed by those 4 groups who were innocent and didn't deserve to lose anyone.
"Alright, good job Kilitum!" the trainer praised the whale.
A few moments later, Kenny came back wearing shorts under his coat, and holding 2 hoses in his hands, along with a 10-lb weight he could use to sink quickly. He had the weight in one of his trenchcoat pockets. His shorts were from a trainer who he had mind controlled into taking them off, and putting himself in a storage closet to keep quiet.
"How far can you jump?" asked Wonder Woman.
"I can make that pool from the awning." The Coat pointed up to a protective awning.
"You sure?" Wonder Woman asked.
"I used to jump the cliffs at Cultus lake, some are 50 feet up." replied The Coat.
The 2 heroes checked back on the trainer, who was still topside.
"Good job, come and get the fish!" Dawna held the fish out for the whale.
"OK, it's probably going to happen soon. You take the right awning, i'll take the left." Wonder Woman jumped to the roof of the Awning, while The Coat began to ascend the other one using the hoses as ropes.
The whale took the fish, but then Dawna turned to get another one. That was when the whale made his move - he popped up and grabbed the trainer by her ponytail and pulled her into the icy pool!
"Ahhh!" The trainer went headfirst into the lion's den.
The crowd watched in horror as the whale took the trainer down to the bottom of the pool and essentually, took out a lifetime's worth of frustration.
Wonder Woman took a running start, and began running to the edge of the awning to make a jump.
The whale brought the helpless trainer back to the surface.
"Help!" she screamed before being brought back under. As soon as the whale's tail went back into the water, Wonder Woman dove right in headfirst, and began swimming downward to find the trainer. She swam down and placed herself right in front of the whale and stopped him dead in his fins.
"Stop, let this lady go!" Wonder Woman communicated in an unexplainable way to the angry whale.
Back on the surface, the tourists watching had no idea what was going on. Then, The Coat took a running start and landed in the water with a great splash and began sinking downward with the weight he had found. Using the weight to drop to the appropriate level in the tank, The Coat swam over with the hose in his hand, and just as Dawna was about to take the breath that would kill her, The Coat took the hose and put it in her mouth to give her life. Blood was clouding around her arm and if she stayed in that water any longer, it wouldn't be the lack of oxygen that would've killed her, but the lack of blood.
"Let the trainer go!" Wonder Woman demanded of the whale again.
The coat placed the other hose in his mouth to provide himself with breath, and crossed his arms in front of the whale in the hopes he could intimidate him into letting the trainer loose.
Wonder Woman wasn't about to give up on the trainer's life.
"You are going to let her go...or you will regret the decision..."
The whale stood steadfast. Then they had to switch to plan B. The Coat knew what was happening, and he was ready - he took his left hand, and placed it over his bulletwound, and began to use his mind control powers on the whale. However, the whale's brain was much larger than his, and his power over that whale was limited. He could not convince the whale to let the trainer go, but he could keep the whale at bay.
Then, Wonder Woman went to work. Using her Amazon strength, She opened the whale's jaws with her strong arms, and the trainer was able to free her broken, lacerated, and bleeding arm. Wonder Woman let the whale's jaw go slack, and grabbed the trainer and made a burst for the surface, while The Coat waved goodbye to the whale with his free hand, and floated back to the surface after Wonder Woman and the trainer.
Topside, The trainer spat the hose from her mouth and took a scream to express her broken arm. She went into the air with Wonder Woman flying with her. If there was one thing that Wonder Woman absolutely hated, it was animal captivity for profit, and she had to let her feelings out just the same in private...just 5 minutes alone.
The Coat ascended from the water, and climbed out before the whale could figure out what was happening, and possibly pull him back in. He was rudely greeted by suprised trainers who were planning to try and rescue their fellow trainer, but those efforts would've been in vain.
"Get out of the tank!" the trainers were ready to scold The Coat. "Don't you know it's dangerous in there?"
The Coat didn't have time to argue, so he just punched the biggest trainer he saw in the face, and the other trainers saw that he wasn't horsing around and let him be to do what he wanted.
He turned to the awning where Wonder Woman had landed with the trainer, and he could hear Wonder Woman chewing out the trainer up there.
The trainer herself, was shivering and whimpering from the shock of lost blood, and the fact that she nearly died. The laceration on her arm was really, really bad and she was bleeding like a stuck pig. The first thing that Wonder Woman did was open the first aid kit, and use gauze to stop the bleeding.
"Do you know how lucky you are?" Asked Wonder Woman to the trainer, who couldn't stop her whimpering.
"I almost should've let that creature show you who the real master is. Trying to run his life, keep him down. Keep him locked in a cage." Wonder Woman cleaned the cut, and then prepared to sew it up despite the fact she was still bleeding. She didn't even care to use a form of anesthetic.
The needle went into the first section of the cut. The trainer screamed but Wonder Woman held her down and ignored her screams.
By this time, The Coat had climbed up the awning's side which was made up of spots that he could grip and get himself up, and walked over to where Wonder Woman had the trainer.
"Is she OK?" asked The Coat.
"She'll be fine. She's not going to like this." Wonder Woman spoke with great disappointment.
The needle came out of the broken flesh, and The trainer's screaming continued. The sound and the vision of the trainer's screaming and the vision caused The Coat to turn his head, as he hadn't seen anything that ogrish for some time. Even seeing the dead bodies on the MV Nautilus wasn't all that bad compared to this, or the bodies he had seen die in poverty. Maybe it was because this trainer was screaming her head off. Neither Wonder Woman nor The Coat could blame her. The trainer's bone was exposed at the centre of the bite wound and the muscle had been sliced wide open. It bothered The Coat, but Wonder Woman didn't seem to mind looking at it.
"Is this what childbirth is like?" asked The Coat.
"You wanna hold her hand and find out?" Wonder Woman tightened the thread in the needle and pierced the next section of the laceration. The trainer began to cry from the intense pain.
"Geez, I used to sew up little girls in combat zones. They take this way better than you do."
The Coat could totally understand why Wonder Woman was acting so mean. He remembered how she talked about Equality between human and beast aboard the MV nautilus and knew how she would feel about anyone who would enslave an animal.
The needle came out of the arm and the trainer's tears continued.
The Coat, with a feeling of sympathy and compassion, knelt down beside the trainer and put his hand on the trainer's upright one, and held it. She turned to him, and looked into his eyes from underneath the hood, and looked at her teary eyes rather than her broken arm.
"You're going to be OK. She's the best nurse I know." The Coat comforted the trainer.
A piece of the leather sleeve rubbed against the trainer's wrist. For a moment, she felt a bit of calm. It was like the hand of God had reached down to comfort her in her misery. Perhaps that coat was more special than just keeping it's wearer warm on a cold day or safe in a rainstorm of bullets.
For the next 5 minutes, Wonder Woman kept working on the arm, and eventually, had the whole arm sewn up, and not a moment too soon. It was nearly time to return to the future. The other trainers couldn't make it up the awning to see how things were, so they were totally in the dark to the screaming and crying, and the chewing out.
Then, Wonder Woman began to disappear into the future. The Coat stayed with the trainer, and held her hand until he himself, began to disappear into the future as well.
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