Chapter Forty Two
The bodies were being stacked up. People were lying them neatly, marking them as identified or not. Those that were recognised were marked on pads and logged with DECA. Everything was getting organised. The rebels were keeping busy to try and stave off the horror and what they'd been through.
Apart from those already grieving.
Hunter wandered through the bodies. He'd looked at a list of the dead, but it had barely begun. So now he looked at those so far unknown. Blank, empty faces lay in the endless sleep. Hunter saw them all, but he didn't feel grief for them. He just felt emptiness. It was as though some part of him decided that the hurt was too much, it had just shut down all emotions. So he walked along the ordered rows and felt hollow.
"Hunter!"
Hunter turned and was met by Dustin, who pulled him into a frantic kiss. There was so much need in it, a desperate desire to have a taste of life after witnessing so much death.
At last, Hunter felt something. But after the overwhelming wave of delight and relief, came the fear. He pulled away, slightly breathless.
"Wait. Which Dustin are you?"
"We met at Mercer's pla..." Dustin didn't even get to finish the word. Hunter kissed him again with bruising intensity. There were no words for how he felt. The sickening revulsion lay like a lead weight in his stomach at the sight of so much carnage. But the brilliant joy at seeing Dustin alive and well shone like a beacon that nearly drowned out the fear he still felt.
"Have you seen Blake?" Hunter asked when the kiss eventually ended.
"No," Dustin answered. Then he said, "Sorry."
Hunter took little comfort in that useless apology. It wasn't Dustin's fault. Hunter turned back to the rows of corpses, hoping with every fibre of his being that he wouldn't see his brother's face among them. His mind was racing with possibilities of what might have happened. And there was a little voice at the back of his thoughts murmuring that maybe he'd been a little too concerned about Dustin when he should have been watching his brother's back.
But still Hunter clung to Dustin's hand, despite the guilty whisper that maybe, if it weren't for him, Hunter would know where Blake was.
"Dustin!" A guy ran up to them.
"Shane, what is it?"
"It's Tori."
Dustin set off at a run after Shane. Hunter followed. He might not have found Blake yet, but he wasn't about to lose sight of Dustin so soon. He found a group of rebels along with Vida and her friends. A brunette girl was having a gaping wound in her leg inexpertly bound by one of the others. Hunter guessed that the professional doctors were fully occupied by the life and death cases. She was sobbing uncontrollably, but Hunter guessed it wasn't from the pain.
Within the group was someone who no doctor could help. There was a blond girl being loaded onto a stretcher to be carried over to the other bodies. Dustin stared at her in pale-faced horror. Hunter wished for anything he could say that would be of comfort, but he settled for placing a hand on his shoulder.
Vida left her place beside the sobbing girl and walked to Hunter.
"Hi," she said. "Glad you're OK."
"You too." It was kind of awkward. They'd never really been friends, despite their time together with Mercer, but Hunter was grateful she was still alive. She'd been an amazingly tough fighter and it would be terrible to think of her gone.
"Your brother?" Vida asked.
"I don't know," Hunter answered.
"No. I mean, is that your brother?" She nodded to a point behind Hunter and he turned to look. Blake! Alive. Clutching at an arm that was soaked in crimson, but alive.
Hunter left Dustin briefly to rush over to Blake, needing to be certain this wasn't just his hopes conjuring the image of his brother. He grasped at Blake's arm, afraid to hug in case of hurting him. There were no words. No words were needed. They just smiled at each other, knowing that both felt the same way.
For a moment, Hunter felt a stab of guilt. He shouldn't be feeling so happy, not when the group behind him were suffering such grief.
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Tommy didn't dare demorph. The battle was well over, but he was surrounded by people who would kill him without hesitating if they saw his face. So he wandered the battlefield, locating those from his world. He found Trini and Kim. Trini had been hurt, her hair matted with blood from a head injury. Kim was talking to her, making sure to keep her conscious while Trini was severely zoned out.
Tommy really wanted to just gather his Rangers together and get out of here before anyone else decided to kill him. But he had to wait. Zack had been taken onto the ship by medical crew and Tommy wasn't going anywhere without him. He kept seeing Zack lying there, half his torso a mass of scorched flesh. Tommy just wished he could charge the Megaship and make certain the doctors were doing everything humanly possible to save him.
He found the other Dino Thunder Rangers and sent Kira and Ethan to see if they could get onto the ship and find out what was happening with Zack.
He saw Jason and recognised him as this world's version. It was getting easier to tell those two apart now. Jason wasn't breaking down or crying or anything, he was just staring blankly around him. The rebels were currently ignoring him, but Tommy still thought the guy ought to pay more attention to the people around him. After all, Jason was considered a sell-out by most and these were the people most fanatically about destroying the prince and all those connected to him.
"Jase?" Tommy asked. "I suppose it would stupid to ask if you're OK?"
"I can't find my Tommy."
Tommy didn't know what to say. He'd been thinking much the same thing. There was bound to be uproar the moment any of the rebels saw this world's Tommy. It seemed that hardly any of them knew about the other world. Several had come to talk to Tommy's group, asking how they'd managed to activate powers. There were so many of the rebels here, gathered together for what they thought would be their final victory, and there had been no opportunity to tell them what had happened recently. If any one of them saw the prince, they would assume he was still an enemy.
But there had been nothing. No one had brought him in to the others, either dead or alive. Tommy could think of several options, none of them pleasant. One possibility was that the prince was still partly evil and had taken this opportunity to escape. Another was that he'd been completely destroyed in the fight with Dark Specter. A third was that one of the rebels had found him but wanted to take personal revenge.
Tommy didn't feel like mentioning any of these possibilities to Jason. No doubt he'd already thought of them himself along with other, even more horrible ones.
Tommy just led Jason over to where his people were gathered. It didn't matter that Jason wasn't from their world. After everything that had happened to him, Jason needed friends to comfort him, and they weren't going to find any from this universe.
Tommy looked across the battlefield and saw Andros organising a group of rebels. Tommy now knew the whole story; his Jason had filled him in after Dark Specter was defeated. Someone needed to explain things to Andros. Tommy just hoped the Astro Ranger was in more of a mood to listen than he had been before the battle.
