Imbalance 4.R
Her entire world was pain.
No, that was an exaggeration. She remembered a time her world had been nothing but aching pain and misery and foggy thoughts, and this wasn't that. No, her entire world wasn't pain. Just her left arm.
She opened her eyes, groaning. What the hell had happened? She took stock.
She'd been fighting Behemoth. Eidolon had done an unfamiliar attack, as he was wont to do. Behemoth had responded, and she'd been disoriented by the flashbang-like explosion. Then-
A trail of pain tore through her train of thought. She gritted her teeth and discarded the useless recapitulation. It didn't matter, because right now, she had to deal with the pain. She looked to her shoulder, and received a visceral shock.
Her arm was gone. There was just a stump, perfectly cut in a diagonal plane, and pouring what she knew was a very unhealthy amount of blood onto the ground.
I'm losing blood. I'm going into shock. I need to get help.
She groaned as a fresh wave of pain hit, and pushed off the ground. A moment later, she lifted off the sidewalk with flight, and reached over to try and staunch the flow. Gripping the stump caused yet another wave of blinding pain to course through her, like what an electric current might feel like; a jolt, an unsuppressed cry of agony. She barely remained airborne.
Her wristband was gone; it was most convenient on the left arm. She didn't know the current situation, and people likely thought she was dead. She needed to make it back to a fallback point.
Agony, wave after wave of agony, was radiating from the wound. Not the dull ache of chemo, stronger than the phantom pain of her missing eye. She was unused to pain, and it was distracting her from the priority.
South. Go south.
She looked to the sky, but the sun was behind the clouds. She looked to the street signs instead, and headed south in search of help.
She was slipping, she knew; blood loss was killing her, dulling her exceptional mind and senses. Pain was ruining her focus, slowing her flight.
The sound of Behemoth roaring in the distance. Avoid. No condition to fight.
She cried out again as another wave of pain hit, making her swerve through a wall. The hot, black-red blood left a running trail on the floor as it spurted between her fingers, soaking the black fabric of her costume in a familiar fashion. Normally not her blood in the fabric, but it was familiar nonetheless.
The clouds began growing darker, more ominous. She found it funny somehow. Behemoth didn't make storms. She giggled a bit at that, delirious, but her laughter was soon interrupted by her own screams of pain. It was distant, but it still hurt.
I need help, now. Faster.
Through a building, boom, boom, the walls coming down as she flew straight in this direction. Rain splattering onto her black costume, pinging against her helmet. A light, purple and flat. She headed for it. It looked like a nice place to crash for awhile. That thought set off another round of laughter, unhinged, now too far gone for the pain to matter.
She smashed through the barrier, still laughing, and fell to the roof, skidding to a stop. The purple light was so welcoming, the rain so cool. The laughter died down. She was so tired… she'd just take a nap for a while, right here, and then do whatever it was she'd been doing.
Her eyes closed, and she lost herself to the welcoming void.
-Shangri-La-
Earlier
Clockblocker was alone.
He wasn't really alone, but there was a difference between having people around you and being part of a group.
It really didn't help that these fucking people didn't want to get along.
"Oi, kaffer, you got a #3 wrench?"
"Sy naam is kom terug en sy van is bloedbek, but sure."
"Fine, I just gonna tighten this bolt then you can put it back in your gat where it belongs," the first man said cheerily, taking the wrench from the other tinker.
It sounded innocent enough, considering it was another language, but he'd heard similar conversations back home. People who despised each other, being forced to work together.
"Done, or you gonna pocket that, khaki?"
"As long as you're offering, you can't complain…" he motioned to do exactly that, then tossed it back to the man in carbon-black armor.
"Fokken soutie," the man in black mumbled, picking up the fumbled wrench.
He was stuck on a rooftop with two people who despised each other, while his teammate was risking his life alone. The armband was stubbornly silent at this range, and all he could see of the battlefield was the distant edge of the craggy area, and the massive plume of smoke rising from the far edge.
Distant peals of thunder rocked the air, lending an ominous bent to the massive stormclouds on the distant ridges to the north. Beams of light flashed down from flying capes, giving him a vague sense of where the Endbringer fought. The ground began to melt- wait, what?
"Holy shit…" Cheers, sounds of awe, and yells of confusion echoed from other rooftops nearby, where other teams of defensive capes were doing similar preparations.
Over the course of around thirty seconds, the distant area became a floating field of orbs. It had to be Mandala. He knew the kid was powerful; nobody would deny that, his powers were stupidly broken; but this was the first time he'd really seen him go all out. Even at this distance, it was incredible to see. He smiled. This had to be one of the biggest moments of Mandala's life.
"Wow, that's really something. What the hell did they do to that place?"
He spoke up. "That's my teammate. The other guy that was with me earlier."
"The kid!? You're fucking with me!"
"Nope. His powers are complete and utter bullshit, and I do my best to remind him of that at every opportunity."
He laughed. "If so, you are a true friend. That kind of power makes the warlords look weak, if you know what I mean."
Dennis frowned. "I don't really."
The man turned his golden-clad visor back towards his work, continuing. "It takes a good person to befriend a monster. Here, he might have ruled a country with that kind of power. I do not know much about America, but I have fought a few warlords who tried taking from South Africa, and few could hold a candle to that."
Dennis turned back towards the fight, processing the statement. Eventually, while watching the distant flashes of powers, he had an answer.
"I guess I don't care whether he's strong or not. He's a good friend, and that's all that matters. Powers don't factor into it."
"Like I said, a true friend. I wish him luck."
"There, finished. No thanks to you, khaki," the man in black said. "Too busy being a pillar of goodness to help me finish the field emitters."
"Look, are you looking for a fight? Cause after this bastard's gone, I'll fight you. Name a place!"
Suddenly, the battle shifted. Distant, tiny figures fled the pit, flying up as fast as possible. Dennis called out, "Guys! Look!" He immediately regretted it.
The entire area was bathed in a flash of blinding light, and a deafening boom came a second later. Cries of pain and surprise came from the surrounding rooftops, where others had been looking as well. Dennis blinked away the tears from his eyes, the cityscape etched in light on his retinas fading slowly.
A sense of dread filled his stomach as he tried to get a clear view through the newly-raised forcefield.
Where were the orbs? What the hell just happened?
"Goddammmit, kid! I can't see kak!"
"I'm sorry?" he said, frustrated. "Something went wrong."
"No shit, it's a fokking Endbringer! Of course it went wrong, it always goes wrong!"
The ground shook, and Dennis cursed as he stumbled, falling to his knees.
Mandala – Michael – might be dead. A lot of people might be dead, and he could do nothing but wait and watch. He envied Shadow Stalker, even; search and rescue had to be better than this fucking intolerable waiting game.
A distant crack of thunder signified the start of combat with Behemoth. There was no sign of the reality-altering area's return.
The clouds were dark now, close and dark. He watched them blankly as they slowly crawled past.
His teammate was probably dead. He'd barely known him a month. He was just a kid. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and none of that mattered because Behemoth didn't care about that. Michael had been an inconvenience, maybe. And now-
The rain began to fall.
He raised his armband, pressed the button. "Es- Estimated time till Scion arrives?"
It beeped, and a robotic voice answered. "Scion's last known location is in North America. ETA 20 minutes to 120 minutes."
Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes ago, he'd been riding with Michael. Twenty minutes from now? This might be over. He couldn't do anything about it. It was just a waiting game. Delay and distract the monster as long as possible.
A building collapsed a few blocks north of him. He glanced up, expecting the worst. It was dim now, despite the fact that it was morning, because of the clouds, and the glowing violet forcefield made it hard to see. Whatever it was, though, it wasn't Behemoth.
He peered through the rain, and made out a figure. It was flying erratically, at speed, smashing into walls as it flew. He backed away as he realized it was heading straight for them.
"Get back, we've got incoming!" The two tinkers dived for some semblance of cover, and he himself hid behind an AC unit, freezing it to make an invulnerable barrier.
A moment later, the forcefield shattered like glass, crackling. A moment after that, the thing skidded to a stop on the far side of the roof, a black figure against the light gravel surface. The forcefield thrummed and reformed, bathing the rooftop in violet light once more.
Cautiously, Dennis stood. The figure was moaning, in what he quickly realized was pain. He broke into a run to the figure, flipping her over.
Alexandria. The invulnerable woman, now missing an arm. Without a second thought, he froze her.
This was something he could do.
-Shangri-La-
"Priority message: Clockblocker reports that he is holding Alexandria in stasis at grid D-A4. She needs immediate medical assistance. Her left arm is missing."
Damn it, that was almost as bad as her being dead. Eidolon was the only one who could heal her, in their experience, and Behemoth was only being hindered through his intervention.
He sped up, praying that she would stay alive long enough for him to get to her. Shifting his grip on Mandala, he pressed the buttons on his wristband, sending a return message.
"Clockblocker, hold her as long as you can." Then, a message to Eidolon: "Alexandria's alive, but she needs healing soon. Clockblocker is keeping her alive for now, but you need to get to her asap."
He decelerated, forcing himself to do so in a way that didn't injure the unconscious child under his right arm. He headed to the medical tent, calling for help, then left Mandala in their hands.
He rushed back to the fight, arriving in less than a minute, and dove into combat. Pulling up next to Eidolon, he shouted over to him.
"She's lost an arm! I'll work with the others, you go see if you can help her!"
Eidolon nodded, and headed in the direction of their fellow teammate.
He turned back to the battle. Years of fighting Behemoth told him he had nothing that really hurt it, but he had to try. His eyes fell on a familiar group of capes, and he smiled as a plan formed.
He swooped down to meet Revel, Assault, and Battery. "Alright, here's the plan…"
-Shangri-La-
Eidolon flew, drawing and discarding powers as he searched. Delving deep for a power that could save his partner.
He found it just as he spotted the rooftop. Not a perfect match, but a familiar one. The strange time acceleration power that he'd used on her last time she'd been injured, when regeneration had failed.
"Eidolon? She's frozen right now, over here." He followed the Ward, seeing up close the scene he'd spotted from above. Alexandria, sundered. Lying in a pool of blood that was washing away in the rain, frozen in a partial fetal position. One arm gripping the stump of another.
She looked so very fragile. There was something wrong about that; she was always the confident, powerful one, always the one who could both dive in headfirst and have a ten-step plan for the rest of the fight. She hadn't been fragile once in the decades he'd known her, even on the day she'd lost her eye.
The power he would be using might change that. It wouldn't fix the arm, just keep her from bleeding out. Even now, he was using his last slot to search for an alternative, something to use that would be better, anything at all.
None came, even as he waited, standing vigil in the rain. After almost three minutes, she started breathing again. He begged her for forgiveness, and began to use his power.
A/N: Sorry for the week's delay. I only had a half-finished chapter last Thursday, and it was complete garbage, so I had to scrap it and rewrite the whole thing. For some reason, I was trying to write this entire interlude from the perspective of Mr. Guy in the Black Armor, whose name is Versper for those wondering. Anyway, it's gone now.
Translations:
Kaffer- derogatory term for Black South Afrikaners.
Khaki- derogatory term for Caucasians.
Gat- Hole, either mouth or, more commonly, ass
Kak- shit
Fok- fuck
'Sy naam is kom terug en sy van is bloedbek'- "It's first name is Come Back, it's last name is (or I'll give you a) Bloody Mouth." Warning when loaning things.
Soutie- literally 'salty dick', derogatory to English-speaking Caucasians in particular; derived from the saying "One foot in England, one in Africa, and their dick in the Atlantic."
Afrikaans is an amazing language, isn't it? So quaint.