Author's Notes:
This is from a 50 theme Gwevin-drabble challenge I have given myself with the title being the piece's theme. The actual list of themes will probably not be seen outside of my pc. As such, any drabble based on the list will be indicated as such. Otherwise, it's just another random Gwevin drabble.
--
Through The Fire
Energy Dampers hummed in a steady monotone, their pitch spiking from the sporadic attempts of mana dispersal. Arcane runes etched onto the floor and each wall shone dimly, their glow fluctuating with each spell countered and contained. Whatever forces these two preventive measures couldn't manage, the morphine drip picked up the slack.
This had been the methods the Plumbers devised to keep the likes of Hex and Charmcaster under control during incarceration. Other beings, criminal aliens adept at manipulating life force, twisting and bending them to serve their own selfish purposes, had also been restrained in this manner.
Never would the Plumbers have anticipated they would be forced to use this on one of their own.
And it hurt to see her like this.
Bound and strapped down to a gurney, wrists and ankles secured tightly, emerald-eyes once bright and clear now glassy and dull. Her lids remained open but she was never truly awake. For the moment, Gwendolyn Tennyson was in her quiet phase. Deathly still save for the rise and fall of her chest, the only motions of her otherwise catatonic state.
Only hours ago she was in a state of frenzy where she writhed, she screamed, she raged. In a bout of fever-induced madness, she screamed out for help. But the hallucinations in her mind would not give her the privilege of being aided by anyone. And so, she had desperately screeched out spells meant to destroy things, to rend creatures limb from limb. Had it not been for the dampers and the runes, Gwendolyn might have very well leveled the entire medical wing the Plumbers had kept her in.
She had been admitted two days ago.
--
There had been a mission and the suspects in question were well known intergalactic criminals. Dangerous, powerful and as far as the general populace knew still trapped within the null void. An exchange of highly illegal elements and stolen jewels was to occur between these two. The team sent to arrest them and retrieve these items was a small unit of three, veteran plumbers who were familiar with the individuals involved.
Before they set off, their numbers grew by one. Against Ben's better judgment, an additional member was taken along, a fresh face, a promising rookie named Creed. The team would find that the criminals they were meant to apprehend had also grown by one.
But this addition was anything but a rookie. This addition was the infamous Kevin Levin.
At first, things had gone according to plan. Alan and Creed were to team up against one of the lesser threats while Gwendolyn handled the other, leaving Ben to keep Kevin occupied. The other two criminals were systematically apprehended with a null void egg.
Kevin proved to be a more difficult target. Even with the combined efforts of the veterans, the dark-haired mutant seemed unstoppable.
It was the sight of Kevin effortlessly pinning all three plumbers that prompted the rookie to use the experimental weapon he had borrowed and forgotten to return to Cooper's arsenal. It was a small handgun of sorts, meant to emit a beam that would over-stimulate an individual's energy to the point of exhaustion. Creed aimed, and fired.
The beam hit its mark and Kevin released a series of pained screams as he fell writhing to the floor. The other Plumbers got to their feet, watching in amazement at how effective the weapon proved to be.
For all of ten seconds.
Kevin's mutated DNA easily broke down the beam leaving him none the worse for wear. He set his wicked gaze at the rookie and Creed feared for his life. In his panic, the rookie switched the weapon to its maximum setting and proceeded to fire blindly.
"Creed! Stop it!" Ben yelled.
But the deed was done as beams ricocheted off the walls. Alan repelled the incoming rays with his fire and Ben done the same. It was Gwendolyn who managed to knock out the panic-stricken rookie. Just as Creed lost consciousness he fired one last time and caught the female Tennyson by surprise.
Like Kevin, she fell to the floor in agony.
Unlike Kevin, she did not display any signs of recovering. The team forgot about dark-haired criminal as they struggled to stabilize Gwendolyn's condition.
--
That had been two days ago. Two whole days with no signs of improvement.
An individual stood in the observation deck built above the room housing Gwendolyn. Her cousin Ben had never left since she had been admitted. A young, blonde man peered in quietly, his face sympathetic and concerned.
"Go home, Ben." Cooper insisted, "The doctors say there's nothing we can do but wait for the fever to run its course."
"How's Creed?" the older man asked.
"He's been to see the psychiatrists but I was informed he's planning on giving back his badge." The technician sighed. "We've told him no one blames him for what happened to Gwendolyn."
"But he doesn't believe it, does he?" Ben clenched his fists in frustration. Friendly fire was the worst for all parties involved.
"Not a word." Cooper felt he was as much to blame for the accident as Creed was. If the blonde hadn't been so eager to show off his latest projects maybe the rookie wouldn't have been so gung-ho to test any of his weapons out.
"She will make it, won't she?" Ben murmured, staring down helplessly at his cousin's body tensed with violent spasms. The speakers to the observation deck had been set to mute, there was only so much screaming and pain-racked sobs Ben could take.
Cooper kept his silence. Theoretically the gun was meant to cause an energy burn out, rendering an individual unconscious long enough to be apprehended. But with Gwendolyn being an Anodite, a species made of pure energy, she risked burning out her life force. It was not something the young man wanted to personally contemplate, let alone discuss.
Outside, the halls seemed to explode in activity.
"Ben! You're gonna want to see this!" Alan burst in. The half-pyronite refused to take no for an answer as he forcibly dragged Ben towards an emergency room with Cooper following after.
"What? What is going on that is more important than Gwendolyn?" the brunette snapped angrily.
"Creed's been attacked," Alan explained quickly.
A body mangled beyond recognition was wheeled past, and if Alan hadn't told Ben of its identity, the brunette would never have known it was Creed. There were multiple fractures where the young man's arms had been, the skin on his neck was seared to a crisp, his lower extremities were torn off, and his face was little more than a mass of burnt, fused, bloodied flesh.
Cooper could taste bile rising in the back of his throat at the stench and the sight.
"Who did this?" Ben demanded.
"The psychiatrist Creed was with at the time remembered seeing a blur before getting knocked out." Alan explained.
"But why attack a rookie with such violence?" It didn't make sense to the blonde since Creed was far too new to have made himself a name or any enemies. The only thing the rookie had done of note was the friendly fire.
Still, no Plumber would brutalize one of their own, especially since Ben himself had done nothing about it. Apart from Creed and the psychiatrist, the latter appearing to be more like collateral damage, there were no other reported attacks in the medical facility.
A sense of dread had begun to form in the pit of Ben's stomach. He'd been away from Gwendolyn too long and he rushed back to see his cousin. On the way he heard a series of dull thuds in a storage closet. Opening the door, out fell the bodies of Gwendolyn's attending physicians. One of them had regained his senses and in a fit of claustrophobia started to bang against any available surface in hopes of being freed.
"What's going on here!?" The brunette growled.
"K-Kevin Eleven Thousand!" the sole conscious doctor squeaked in terror.
Eyes widening in horror, Ben hurried to Gwendolyn's room. What remained of the energy dampers littered the doorway and the etched arcane runes had been scorched away. In the very center of the room stood Kevin, clutching a freed Gwendolyn against him.
--
Two days, two whole days it took Kevin to discover where the Plumbers hid the red-head. They did a fine damn job covering their tracks too, but Kevin was better. Compared to escaping the Null Void, sneaking into the medical facility was child's play.
His body understood what being hit by that beam was supposed to accomplish and he knew what kind of havoc the weapon would wreck on the female Plumber.
He knew it would hurt.
He knew it could kill her.
But it was when he saw her unmoving, bound and shackled that Kevin got completely pissed off.
The doctors had come in for a routine check up and received a swift blow rendering them unconscious. They should be grateful that Kevin was saving his rage for someone else as he unceremoniously stuffed them into a storage closet.
After locating her, the first thing he did was to make sure the dumbass that put Gwendolyn's life in danger learned never to do that again. And yet Kevin found no satisfaction in pummeling the rookie into an inch of his miserable life.
It should have.
It didn't.
Because it didn't do shit to help Gwendolyn's condition.
Amidst the panic of having another one of their precious plumbers injured, Kevin managed to sneak back to Gwendolyn's room. He returned to find Gwendolyn in a bout of fever-induced nightmares. The sight of her normally calm, collected face crazed with fear and helplessness and pain made Kevin wish he had done more to Creed than just mangle him beyond recognition.
Hearing her screams and shrieks and watching her struggle against her bindings was unbearable for Kevin. He undid the straps and though Gwendolyn thrashed and fought him, Kevin managed to ease her into an embrace.
She snarled in his arms, seeing only the twisted, deformed phantasms that had danced before her eyes the past two days. Her nails clawed at his bare shoulders, drawing blood before her fingers clutched tightly at the leather clothing his body. She sobbed into him like a child and she begged and pleaded so desperately for him to make the hurting to stop.
"What kind of hurt is it, Gwendolyn?" he asked softly.
"I don't know," she whimpered weakly, throat completely raw from screaming. "I feel like I'm going to burst and everything's so hot."
Kevin's brows knit as he glared at the door where the doctors had entered earlier. Those retards were handling Gwendolyn's situation wrong. They worried that as an energy being she would burn out her life force, when all they were doing was building up an unnecessary amount of pressure.
The dark-haired man set her down on the gurney before he went about destroying the energy dampers as well as burning away the runes. With these restrictions gone, Gwendolyn instinctively began to release the pent up mana that had been boiling inside her.
The outpour of energy was too much too soon for Gwendolyn's already weakened body. The tips of her fingers felt white-hot, as the pressure inside her grew to excruciating proportions. After two full days of agonizing pain interspersed with catatonic inactivity, she was ready to simply give in and give up.
Kevin pulled her to her feet before crushing her against his chest. "You are not this God damn weak!" He hissed with a strange tenderness only Gwendolyn had ever been privy to. "You are trusting and stubborn and mature and stupid and beautiful and trouble and a survivor. You're a hell of a lot more but you. Are. Not. Weak!
"Do you hear me, Gwen?" he asked desperately as he stared into the glassy, faded, green depths that had once been so bright and full of life. "You are mine and nothing of mine is ever weak."
He pressed his hand tenderly against her cheek, unwittingly absorbing the excess mana that threatened to destroy the red-head. At his prolonged touch, Gwendolyn regained lucidity.
Gwendolyn's eyes regained their clarity and she gasped when she recognized who it was that held her.
"K-Kevin?" she whispered barely audible. She tried to push herself free but found she didn't even have the strength to stand. Her heart began to pound in her chest and she knew Kevin could feel it through the fabric of his shirt.
"Told you." The dark-haired man smirked.
--
"Get away from her!" Ben yelled angrily from the doorway. "Kevin if you've hurt her I swear I'll-"
"Shut it, Benjie." Kevin glowered, "If you had kept that trigger-happy dumbass under control Gwen wouldn't be in this shit-hole you call a hospital in the first place."
"Oh that's it I am going to rip you apart!" The brunette snarled.
"No more fighting!" Gwendolyn declared, erecting a barrier between the two men despite her already weakened state. The shield wavered as a dizzy spell caught her in its maw before it clamped down hard enough for her to faint.
Gwendolyn would wake up in an ordinary hospital room filled with flowers and fruit baskets and other assorted get-well gifts. The chainsaw-like snoring coming from one corner of the room made the red-head aware of her grandfather's presence.
She smiled fondly at the elderly Tennyson and tried to sit up. She found herself still sapped of strength as any sudden movement made the room spin. On the bedside table were three small boxes.
The first box was from Creed and to Gwendolyn's sadness, inside was the rookie's plumber badge and a letter profusely apologizing for the mess he had caused. Gwendolyn shook her head, making a mental note to return it to the young man. She wasn't one who bore grudges for what had obviously been an accident. Had it been intended, well, that was another thing entirely.
The second box was from her cousin and it contained an upgrade chip for her own Plumber's badge. It would serve as a portable worm hole that would return any projectile or energy aimed at her. Another mental note that she had to find a way to reassure her cousin that the gift was appreciated but also slightly unnecessary.
The third box was left unsigned, but upon opening it Gwendolyn's breath caught in her throat. Nestled in obsidian velvet was one of the stolen pieces of jewelry her team was meant to retrieve on their mission. A smile slowly made its way across her face as she closed the lid.