New quest 'Brotherhood of the Sightless Eye I'!
Put in a good showing in the Search and Rescue team! Taking this quest removes 'Warband of the Berserks I' and 'Way of the Healing Hand I' from your quest list.
Success: Ring of Inner Sight

New quest 'Warband of the Berserks I'!
Put in a good showing in the Assault team! Taking this quest removes 'Brotherhood of the Sightless Eye I' and 'Way of the Healing Hand I' from your quest list.
Success: Ring of Battle Command

New quest 'Way of the Healing Hand I'!
Put in a good showing in the Medical team! Taking this quest removes 'Brotherhood of the Sightless Eye I' and 'Warband of the Berserks I' from your quest list.
Success: Ring of Lay on Hands

It was a complete fucking no brainer.

'Warband of the Beserks I' and 'Brotherhood of the Sightless Eye I' have been removed from your quest list.

Rain lashed the windows of the PRT Humvee as it pulled up in front of Brockton General, so thick and heavy that it completely obscured the outside from view. The chill seeped into the cars interior, pushed by the same winds that made the rain a near deafening rolling crash.

I couldn't hear myself think, the roaring rain so loud I couldn't even feel anything. No fear, no anger, just a background refrigerator hum of blank shock. Leviathan was here. Here in Brockton Bay.

A hand shook my shoulder. I turned, blinking in surprise at the PRT trooper in the driver's seat.

"You good to go, kid?"

His voice echoed oddly as the shape of the car interior imprinted itself onto my awareness, a feature of my Echolocation. I didn't bother to answer him, I just got out of the car.

I felt the wind pushing back as I opened the door, instantly hammering me with spray as soon as there was enough space for it to snake through. I slid out into the freezing rain, the cacophony a little disorienting to my enhanced ears, and hustled the few feet to the covered area near the front doors shaking off the little water I'd managed to accrue as it wicked off my uniform.

I glanced back out at the grey sheet of rain, swallowed, and headed inside. The automatic doors opened up for me and the already chill day managed to drop a few degrees with the air conditioning. The shivering nurse on reception pointed to the right, where I could hear worried, murmuring voices. I headed down the corridor, coming out into a larger waiting room packed with various medical staff all clustered into little groups and talking amongst themselves. A few looked up as I entered, but went back to either talking or staring blankly at a wall or the floor.

Only Amy sat unruffled, in her white robe with the scarf pulled off her face. She looked… fuller figured than I remember her being a fortnight ago, but maybe it was just her robe bunching up in a flattering way. She waved me over, a lazy, confident gesture.

It was like walking in a dream, time stretching out as you go nowhere then snapping back disorientingly, that feeling of struggling against molasses. It was all in my head, it was just the stress.

"About time you showed up," Amy patted the empty chair next to her. "You ready for this wild ride?"

She was also high as a kite.

I didn't answer as I sat down.

"You will be," she smiled, expression rich and charismatic. "I was going to give you more of these tomorrow before you left but Leviathan is probably going to smash my warehouse."

Amy reached into her pocket and casually tossed me something that looked like a big fish oil tablet. I caught it easily, rolling it around between my fingers.

"Go ahead."

What did I have to lose? I tossed the pill back and forced it down. It tasted like strawberries.

"What now?" I asked.

"It'll take a little while to kick in," Amy slouched against me, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "Then you'll wake up."

"So you're gonna wake me up?" I smiled weakly. "Wake me up inside?"

Amy frowned.

"Can't wake up? Never heard that one?"

"I think I heard part of it once, when Vicky was going through one of her phases."

I leant against Amy, staring at my knees. "That sounds really cute."

Her hug around my shoulders tightened, too hard to be naturally produced. I glanced an Observe at her protruding wrist… ah. Cool.

"It was. She would put on a ridiculous amount of eyeliner."

"I'm surprised it wasn't you who had that phase, but I guess you did end up smoking which is edgier, actually."

Amy snickered. "I quit, actually. Terribly unhealthy stuff, gives you cancer, you know."

I scoffed, but it was more like a sob.

"There's less than twenty years until society collapses," I whispered, shivering, goosebumps pressing against the fabric of my uniform.

"Because of… Hmm," Amy relaxed her hug a little. "Yeah, that makes sense. Bummer."

Would the pill Amy gave me do that, wipe all of it away and just leave me with maximum chill? I hoped so. I really, really hoped so.

"Yeah," I echoed. "Bummer."

"Think of it like this," Amy said. "At least you can prepare for it and you'll get all the shock out of the way long in advance."

"I guess."

"Oh," Amy ruffled my damp hair with her free hand. "You. Everything will be ok soon, I promise."

"Thanks, Amy," I said, though I didn't really believe her. "I appreciate it."

She sighed, resting her head against my armoured shoulder. Her presence alleviated the curdling feeling in my blood a little, warded off the chill of the hospital air some, too. Her organic power armour was giving off a decent amount of heat. Wasn't she hot? Maybe it was something she'd done due to the depressing cold of the day, or maybe it was just externally hot and the layer against her skin was normal room temperature.

Woah.

I blinked, eyes flickering like a hummingbirds wing. A kick of something just shot through me, it was gaining momentum, building. I was flying. I was free.

You have ingested 'Panacea'!
INT has increased!
WIS has increased!
CHA has increased!
Skill experience gain has increased!
You are [Euphoric]!

The light in the aging fluorescents on the ceiling that seconds ago dull and grey was now white and pure, putting everything into perspective. The feeling of Amy leaning against me, already calming, magnified in that intensity. I took a deep breath, drinking in a whole new world.

"I'm awake. Kept you waiting, huh?"

"You're right on time," Amy let go of her hug around my shoulders, turning to face me properly. "Come to any good realisations yet?"

"Like how I'm a self pitying twit whose biggest enemy is his own pride? Yeah, I'm thinking I'm good."

I stood up suddenly, we were wasting so much time. The mood in the room was not conducive to a productive Endbringer attack. The doom and gloom needed to be done away with, these people needed a figure to resonate with. I glanced around, studying faces. None of these people knew what to do. Sure, they had their orders and a vague idea of having skimmed over the Endbringer prep sheet the PRT sent out, but the room was devoid of vision. There was no bigger picture. The same ungodly amount of stress that I'd been feeling a minute ago was resonating throughout the room, everyone echoing back to each other the same anxiety and panic-clouded thoughts that set the bar at surviving until tomorrow.

They needed someone to start resonating hope.

I turned to Amy, offering a hand. "I'm going to start clearing the mood. Do you have a plan?"

Amy didn't take it, "I thought about dosing everyone with a weaker version to take the edge off of them, but the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea."

"What don't you like about it?" it sounded like a great idea. To calm everyone down so that I didn't have to, and give them a lasting resistance to the stress that the incoming tsunami of mangled bodies would be.

"I kind of want this to be an us thing."

I lowered my hand. "I can see the appeal. We'd be the heroes of the hour. I don't agree with it, but I understand."

To be honest with myself, I also really liked the idea. I'd be the cool one everyone looked up to, I'd have all the answers, I'd be the alpha to everyone's beta. It was something I'd always wanted but could never understand how to get. Now though? I didn't need that. It seemed unimportant, like a small but welcome side effect of my mere existence.

However, taking the opportunity to aggrandise myself in the middle of an Endbringer attack wasn't a very nice thing to do. Still, I wasn't going to condemn Amy for it.

I smiled warmly. "I wouldn't worry about it, Ames. You're Panacea, you just being here should be enough for them. Anything you choose to do here today will be more than enough."

"What?" said Amy. "No. I meant that I don't trust any of these guys to keep their fuckin' mouths shut. If this gets out too early I'll never hear the end of it; I already get enough cunts begging me to fix them on the street. If I make them for the public it's going to be under a different name."

"Oh, I guess that was just me, then."

"That pride, huh?" Amy rolled her eyes patronisingly.

"Apparently," I sighed. "I need to do a bit more thinking. But first, the mood."

"Don't let me stop you."

I held out a hand again and this time she high-fived it. We smiled and I turned and left.

God that was fucking embarrassing, I just projected all over Amy's face.

Well, can't mourn forever! The bodies would start piling up soon and we needed to be ready. I strode toward a man I recognised, the Chief Physician at the hospital, who was huddled in a corner with two senior doctors. All three of them clutched lukewarm cups of coffee and looked up as I drew closer.

I put on my serious face.

"Dan," I said firmly, nodding in greeting. Then to the others, "Patricia. Fernando."

"Dark Smoke Puncher," Dan said, mouth drawing into a tight line.

I mimicked his expression for a brief second. "I need a favour. One of my powers is that I learn quickly, but I don't have much experience beyond first-aid. Everyone in this room is better than me at this, I was hoping you could fill in the gaps for what I'll need to know."

"Ah… Well, I can. I can," Dan faltered, tightening his grip on his coffee. "How much do you know?"

"I've watched a few surgeries take place, mostly for gunshots and stab wounds, and I've read a couple of books."

"We'll be looking at trauma more in line with a traffic collision, and mostly we'll be working on stabilising until one of the Parahuman healers get to us," he took a long sip of his coffee. "Few that they are. God bless Panacea."

He, Patricia and Fernando raised their cups to her.

"I'll be able to do that, one of the surgeries I watched was a car accident. Is there anyone here who specialises in that I can talk to? Do you mind introducing us, I think it would go over better if it was you asking."

"Sure, I can-"

I turned, positioning myself like I was going to start walking in the direction he was looking. It worked, he started forward, getting us out of this cramped corner and into a more open section of the room. I let him take the lead, walking us to a suave looking guy with a scar over one eyebrow.

"Julian," said Dan. "This is Dark Smoke Puncher, he's after any last minute advice we can give him."

I shook Julian's hand briefly. "I'd really appreciate it. I have a power that lets me learn quickly, but all of you have so much more experience."

Julian smiled thinly, complexion wan under the lighting and stress.

"I can certainly try, but I don't know how much a quick rundown is going to help," Julian licked his teeth, grimacing like he'd tasted something bitter. "Head, spine, internal, lost limbs… I don't want to scare you off; people are going to die under your care today. You need to be able to cope with that before anything else."

"If I can't, I'll help elsewhere. I also have a power that gives me a general idea of someone's state, so I'll know before I touch them what sort of injury."

"That's great, might save us a bit of time. Mostly we just need to keep them going until Panacea, did you tell him that bit, Dan?"

Dan nodded.

"Great," Julian licked his teeth again. "Keep them warm and staunch the bleeding, run through your A, B, C, D, E's in case you need to go further."

No, I knew all this. What I needed was to get the room together. I needed everyone telling me what to do so that they would all be reminded that they knew what to do. Show them that even though the reality was grim, they were prepared.

"I really do appreciate it," I smiled, thinly, softening from thin into something more encouraging. "This kind of stuff is invaluable. Is there anyone else we can get in on this? I want to tap as many brains as possible."

I gestured to the room at large with its shivering doctors and nurses waiting for the killing to start. If only I'd taken fire instead of lightning, I could be warming the place up.

Julian inhaled, the breath catching on phlem in the back of his throat. He cleared it with a little cough, then turned to look over the crowd. "Alice," he called. "Tim. Could you come over here?"

Ok, yes. Better. I just needed to keep this momentum up.

"This, uh, Dark Smoke Puncher wants to pick your brains for anything to help with today."

"Don't worry," I said, punching a grim hand into the air with a puff of bright pink smoke. "It's just a name, I would love to hear anything you could tell me about saving lives."

Their eyes tracked the pink smoke as it curled into non existence. Dan snorted and groaned, rubbing at his face, a genuine if gritted smile on his face.

And like that, I'd done it. Dan was in charge of the hospital, people looked to him for cues. He'd smiled, changed the tone. There was a ripple of ever so slight relaxation of tension in the shoulders of the people talking to us.

I mirrored his exact smile, taking on his posture. "You got a favourite colour, Dan?"

"Green."

I made jazz hands, green trailing off them, then cut it off to look at the floor. "Ah, I know it's not really the time for jokes."

"No," said Dan, straightening up a little. "It really is. I should have said red, to match the new coat of paint we're getting in here soon."

I carefully straightened my own back, glancing around at the others faces from behind my visor. Doctors and their gallows humour, huh? Perfect. How long would it have taken me to learn how to do this on my own? It all seemed so intuitive, yet it was anything but. What was really interesting was that this was something I would be able to all day every day, one day in the future once my stats were naturally there. It was something I very much looked forward to.

"Christ, Dan, you animal," Tim, the new doctor, scoffed. "Are you at least going to fill a bucket, or just paint with whichever of their legs come off first?"

This was definitely it, they were straight up vibing. People nearby were picking up on it, too, looking over with miserable interest. Everything was falling into place.

There was a crack, people screamed. New people had just appeared out of thin air, teleported in, bringing the sharp salty stench of seawater. I recognised Strider, a Rogue who worked Endbringer attacks at a discount, before he vanished back into nothing. He'd brought with him Victor and Othala, but they weren't important right now. The other person he'd brought was a Ward called Scapegoat. Those three, plus Amy and I, comprised of the entirety of the healer class capes the Protectorate could field at such short notice.

"It's started," Victor barked.

Everyone burst into motion, double checking the supplies at hand, gripping gurney rails ready to ferry incoming casualties. I slid through the kicked ants hill the room had become, slipping into step next to Amy. I gripped her hand tight for a moment, feeling her squeeze in return, before letting go and parting ways.

The casualties started coming in pretty soon after that, each one broken or bloodied and screaming.

It was beyond lucky that Panacea gave me that pill, I didn't think I'd have been able to do anything useful otherwise.

Thick iron scented blood, up my arms, up my apron, up my face.

The reek of piss and shit.

Scalpels in my hands, stitches under my fingers. Patches pressed against wounds so deep I needed to conjure extra hands to keep everything from falling out.

Amy taking them off my hands when I couldn't do anything more.

Scapegoat handing me wounds minor enough that they wouldn't stop me.

Blinking away sweat and skill notifications.

My entire world; blood and piss and shit.