6.3: Valentin's Day, Part III

None of them even seemed able to stand. None of the physical injuries they'd received were serious enough to still keep them down, yet down they all stayed. Curled, splayed out, on their haunches. Haunted.

A huge weight was on all of them. An emotional weight. A weight of guilt.

For they all knew what they had done. What they had been made to do, after what had been done to their minds.

But now…Now the lasso had stopped glowing. Now… Their minds were free. They could all remember who they truly were, and what they had subsequently done. They could all picture vividly the horrors they had done to their own kind, their fellow refugees, or the horrors they had stood by and silently witnessed.

Horrors so extreme that none of them could even stand.

In the middle of all of them, the huge wash of sorrow swept over Diana as she gently wound the lasso back into place on her hip, its engorged size shrinking back to normal with every rotation. Looking among the masses, she felt their pain, an empathic tear even forming at the corner of her eye. No one deserved this. These people deserved so much better than this. They'd come here looking for hope…

And even though she had freed them, that looked so very far away. It would take more than a magic lasso to really save these people's minds. It had the power to free them, but unlike Amara, they didn't have the luxury of brevity. She had only been under Pyg's hold minutes, hours at most. Some of the others could have been under for weeks.

From the moment she had set foot in the Cuore dei Beati Antenati camp, Diana had known the Nairomian's needed help. But she had thought that meant social aid, food, water, shelter. Now it also meant psychological, physical. Most still wore the bandages from Pyg's surgeries, though while others had torn them free, doctors would have to make sure any harmful effects of his alterations were undone. At that was only at the surface. From how broken they all were, enlisting the mental health professionals was paramount.

Diana would see to it. She would arrange it all. One way or another. Once these people were safe, she would make the UN get them whatever help they needed.

Somehow…

As she finally put the last strands of the lasso back in its place, Diana finally turned away from the masses spread across the chamber, instead facing back behind her, back towards that surgical table. The only other two lucid beings remained on it, courtesy of Walif's limited abilities to move. An uncomfortable thought, considering Diana could well remember what was under those tarpaulin's mere metres away as if the sheets weren't even there, but she didn't need to stress that fact to the pair. They needed the calm. She couldn't take that from them now, not when they both came so close to the brink.

Still, Diana couldn't help but admire them. After all that they'd just been through in such a small space of time, to be so calm was remarkable. Despite all the trials they would no doubt still have to face, to return to such a near sense of normality spoke volumes of both of them. To be so human. To be so in control. And to be so in love. They were leant in close to each other, foreheads touching, Amara's hand gently caressing Walif's cheek as for a long moment there was clearly nothing for either of them but each other. Only when they heard Diana's soft foot steps as she moved closer to them did they finally look up, yet still staying in each other's arms.

"Are they going to be okay?" Walif asked, voice calm, croaky from it all yet still soft, delicate. As he said it, he gestured out to all the freed Dolls with his chin. "Is it over?"

"They'll need time to heal," Diana answered truthfully. "They've been through a lot, just as you both have. Over is not the word I would choose. But on the right path. And speaking of which, how do you feel?"

Diana had turned to explicitly face Amara with that last point. Yes, she held concerns for Walif's health too, but Amara's state could impact so many. If she was already feeling as restored and free as she now appeared, then it meant more hope for the rest. It might mean their path was an easier one to tread.

"Grateful." Amara had taken a moment to answer, but when she did, it was with a voice as gentle as Walif's. Her eyes were also wide, full of emotion and showing her truths. "I'm so grateful to you Diana. I'm so grateful that you freed me… That you freed all of us. No one deserves that fate. To be trapped in your own mind. To have no feeling but to obey. To be without love…To almost…To try to… To…"

She broke off. The words stuttering, the look on her face slowly dropping away until her mouth could only hang aghast, eyes staring off even wider into nothingness. A fear had struck her, leaving Wonder Woman immediately spinning to look around her in case she had missed one of the Dolls. But that wasn't the case, a fact proven as Amara suddenly shouted out again a second later, reaching out to clutch Diana's arm as she did so.

"Pyg! Diana, he's still out there!" she called out in a sense of panic evident throughout her being. "I remember. He was called away. He left us to…complete his desires here. But he was called away! Some sort of accident. Accidents… He said it was an opportunity. The chance for more tests. Maybe even… Diana, you have to stop him! He's been developing a new gas capable of removing the emotions of people almost instantaneously, of taking their love! And he might be about to use it, to test it on all those people! The Ospedale di Sfortunato. Diana, you have to save them too! We have to warn them!"

She knew this wasn't over. She hadn't vocalised it to the pair of them, but it hadn't only been the recovery of the Dolls that Diana had been thinking about when she'd said that. But a gas to have an instant effect on the brain, to immediately drain a person of their compassion and emotion and love…? That wasn't a thought she wanted to have. But then again, she'd already seen Pyg's chemical skills in action with his anaesthetic, still sat in the tanks right beside her…

Wonder Woman had no doubt Amara was telling her the truth. She had no doubt the danger was real.

"Is there a phone? We can call ahead, have them get people clear before you can arrive."

Walif was quick thinking, still showing his remarkable calm. A valid point. Not normally one Wonder Woman had to think about. But even for her it would take a few minutes to get to this hospital. She wasn't Wally after all. And Walif was right – if Pyg was going to unleash this gas, every second counted.

At first, Wonder Woman instinctively moved her hand towards her League communicator. Her go to system, she knew the Watchtower and those on monitor duty would easily be able to connect her through. But as she was going through the motion, she suddenly remembered the device, the spare phone that Lois had given her back at the docks. Struck by inspiration, she quickly drew out the device from where it nestled.

And only then did she finally see the message Lois had sent to her minutes earlier. The message about a Doctor Valentin. About the very hospital Amara had just warned was in danger.

And about how Lois was going in…

Oh, Hera… Things just got even worse.

"Diana, what is it? What's wrong?"

Her face must have given her away as she stared at Lois' message on the phone screen. The couple were both staring at her now, worried at her look of fear. Walif had asked what was on both of their minds.

"My friend, Lois Lane. She's at the hospital," Wonder Woman quickly responded, almost having to say it aloud to believe it. She should have known Lois wouldn't let things lie. She should have known she would keep digging, that she would invariably find something. She should have known she would get in trouble. Hera, if she was in big trouble. "She was helping me try to find you, to try and stop the Pyg…"

"Go."

It was Amara this time, speaking almost commandingly that Diana had to look up at her to make sure she'd heard it correctly.

"Go," Amara repeated. It was clear what she was thinking. She was remembering what had happened to her. She was fearing what could happen to them. To Lois. And she was aware that Wonder Woman was these people's best – if not only – chance. "Go now. Go save your friend. Go save her before Pyg can do to her what he did to me. Go. Please. Give me the phone. We'll try to get through to the hospital to warn them. But you go. Before its too late."

Wonder Woman hesitated though, glancing around her once again at the former Dolls still moping all around her. It felt wrong to just leave these people here. It felt wrong to leave Amara and Walif alone here with these broken people. It felt wrong to abandon them. But it felt more wrong to summon the local authorities to be the ones to protect them, after they had failed these people so much to bring them here…

"I'll contact the Justice League. I'll make sure they send members down here straight away to see that you're safe, to keep you away from the corrupt. Are going to be alright until they can get here?"

"We will be," Walif was quick to answer. "Thanks to you, we will be."

"Save them, Diana," Amara added, the fear still prevalent in her eyes, the empathy. "Save them…"

Lois… An entire hospital full of people… There was no doubt Wonder Woman was going to go try. But as to how she would manage it…

She didn't know why, whether it instinct, intuition, divine intuition or plain dumb luck, but suddenly Wonder Woman's eyes once again drifted to those anaesthetic tanks stacked up beside the surgery table on which Walif still sat. And suddenly, it was definitely inspiration that she was feeling. The faint curl even managed to touch her lips again as she looked back at Amara and Walif.

"Don't worry," she declared. "I intend to."

She was on the balls of her feet as soon as she felt the momentum come to jarring stop. The moment the doors opened wide with a ping, she was immediately falling out into the corridors beyond. Pyg would be coming for her, she knew that. The escape in the lift had bought her a brief bit of time, but nothing more. Now she had to find some way to use it. To warn the people in this hospital of the living hell Pyg was about to unleash down upon them.

As soon as she was in that corridor, Lois Lane saw what she thought was her chance. Simplistic, cliched and uninspired it may be, but the fire alarm could give her everything she needed with just a single hit. Still clutching at the gash in her side with one hand, Lois was instantly stumbling her way towards the red box on the wall as fast as her legs would take her. She practically fell into it as soon as she arrived, heaving all her body weight towards it. With the palm of her hand, she smashed the glass screen that was the only thing in her way…

Only for nothing to happen.

There was no wailing sound, no warnings, no alarms. Nothing. Frantically, Lois tried to press the alarm trigger again and again. Yet still all to no avail. Panicking, she quickly looked around, as if she was actually going to see a loose wire hanging from the ceiling that she could simply plug back in. But there was nothing. Nothing but the failure of her sudden and futile hope. There was nothing else for it. Her idea had failed. She had to stay away from Pyg long enough to come up with a new one. She had to keep running.

She had no idea where to go. Even looking up and down the corridor told her nothing. In the end, she had to guess, and hope that she got lucky. But when she did chose, she only made it a few steps before she was skidding to a halt all over again, so rapidly she almost fell in the process.

She heard him first, even over the sound of her own footsteps. The limited height of the building, his foreknowledge of it, the delay with the fire alarm… But even then she'd thought she'd have more time than this. Yet there was no mistaking it, especially as he burst through the door from the stairwell up ahead at the far end of the corridor.

"Lois Lane!" Pyg howled with rage as he stood there, body visibly puffing from the exertion of getting there fast, broken cleaver still clutched tight in his hand, sharper than ever after its run in with the lift doors had snapped its edge. Anger clearly welled within him, to the point where it was clear he would not be willing to play this game too much longer. It was a good job, then, that Lois at least had some distance still between the two of them to keep her from his clutches. "I've had a long time to make these corridors my own, Lois! I've had a long time to arrange to make this space my own, to adapt it for my plans. You cannot escape! You cannot stop Perfection!"

Yes she could… Yes she could! She just had to know how… She had to stay away from him.

She had to keep on running.

She span, gracelessly in her pain and fear, but she span and she kept on running. Away from the Pyg as fast as she could. She didn't care anymore what lay ahead of her. For now, it didn't matter. She just had to get away.

But Pyg, of course, had other ideas. His scream of rage burst forth behind her as soon as she began to move. The thud of his weighty footsteps boomed down the corridor behind her, his panting breath, but Lois didn't look back. Looking back would slow her down. She couldn't afford to be slow.

And she also couldn't afford to be dead.

Lois didn't know how far she'd gone, how long she'd been running again. Her mind was to ablaze to have truly realised it. But thankfully, she was aware enough to hear his grunt, to almost feel the air splitting behind her as it was cut apart. It was almost inhuman to register it, yet somehow she did. Somehow, she knew it was coming just in time.

Just in time to hurl herself down to the ground, mere moments before the cleaver came crashing through the air once more.

Once more, she was literally a hairs breadth away from Pyg taking her head clean off.

Lois hit the ground hard. Her momentum was still strong enough that she kept on skidding across the ground, feeling the rattle in her joints and the sharpness in her wounds. But she only winced for a moment. That was all she'd allow herself. All she could allow herself. All she could spare before forcing her eyes open again, to stare back down to the oncoming Pyg. He'd hurled his cleaver, now once again embedded in a distant wall. But he was still coming, striding forward like a remorseless killing machine. Like a man already devoid of love…

And a man getting ever closer to her… Too close!

The nearest door caught her eye, an idea striking hold. The crisis had thankfully passed, but at the time there had been plenty of panic. The highly infectious, potentially deadly disease sweeping through the West of Africa, making the headlines day after day after day. Making people afraid, nervous. And if the current episode showed anything, it was that migrants from exactly those kind of areas could pass to these shores. The locals clearly took those fears to heart when constructing this hospital, yet now the virus couldn't be presented, not with the entire wing deserved for the renovations. She might not be able to read the Italian, but she recognised the universal symbol on the wall beside the doorway well enough to come up with a new plan. After all, what she needed most was not space, but time. She wasn't coming up with a new idea yet. If she could at least delay Pyg long enough for Wonder Woman to finally pick up her message…

Quarantine. A place designed to be sealed, to not let people in. A place that would be on its own ventilation systems, separate from the rest of the hospital. A place where she might just her a chance…

And from where she lay on the floor, despite the intense risks, it was the only chance she had.

Pyg was only a few metres away from her as Lois scrambled up from the floor, leaving a bloodied handprint in her wake. Immediately, she hurled herself for the opening. As soon as she passed through, she saw that the builders of this hospital had taken their concerns over the virus seriously.

The room was split in two, a large glass screen running clean down the middle as a divide. On the far side, the patients bed, and all the material that may be required. On the side of the entrance, a whole array of monitoring equipment, camera feeds, even what looked like TVs.

But all Lois really cared about were those doors. The first half of the room, it was effectively an airlock, the means with which they could keep the air beyond clean and clear. To entranceway and the door built in the glass screen, both had seals. Very heavy, near unbreakable looking seals.

Lois needed time, not space… She would be trapped, but Pyg would also be trapped outside…

She only hesitated enough to take stock of her surroundings and make her plan firmer. The fire extinguisher by the door was quickly in her hand, the first heavy tool she could get her hands on. With all the strength she could muster, she slammed it into the glass screen. Or more accurately, straight into the control panel built into its outer side.

Sparks were immediately flying, but once again Lois barely had the chance to register them. The heavy breathing was starting to resound around the place again, almost like Darth Vader himself was closing in on her. Pyg was coming, but Lois wasn't going to let him take her, not know. Which was why she hurled the extinguisher on the spin with as much force as she could, right for that open outer doorway.

She saw Pyg emerge into view a mere fraction before the extinguisher went smashing through, but her aim was off. Its flat base caught the frame of the door, sending the weighty lump of metal and carbonised oxygen clattering to the deck. The delay was enough to allow Pyg to leap back out of the way, to avoid it smashing into his shins. To allow him to dodge the attack and to then keep on coming.

But in turn, that delayed the Pyg, and that was all Lois had needed. It was all she needed to dive through the open door in the glass screen. And, with the only working control panel now the one inside the second chamber, to slam the button hard the seal the place off.

"No!" Pyg unleashed the twisted scream as he surged forward as fast as he could, watching the thick, glass door sliding shut. He practically threw himself for it, all of his weight hurled onwards to get through before it sealed. Lois couldn't help but leap back out of reflex, slamming herself against the empty hospital bed behind her and sending the whole thing crashing over to the floor, tripping herself over it too.

As her back smashed down to the floor, she once again had to cast off the wince to quickly look up again. To quickly look for Pyg again. But this time…This time it was to see good news.

This time it was to see that door nestling firmly closed in its frame. To seal the second quarantine chamber seal itself off with her trapped inside.

And to see Pyg slamming face first against the barricade now firmly in his path.

She'd done it. She'd made it. With that thought, her breath finally started to slow, even Lois herself not having realised how much she had been panting, how quickly her heart had been pounding. She even couldn't hold back the faint twist of a smile that had come to her lips.

But, a moment later, she wished that she had held back. Because then, she saw that this was far from a time to smile.

It didn't take Pyg long to regain his composure. Slamming headfirst into the glass had clearly disoriented him. It had sent his mask askew. But soon, his was setting the pigs head straight again. Soon he was casting off the pain. And soon, he was ready to cast it back onto others.

Lois' smile faded as she watched Pyg take a step back away from the door, as she saw him look at the broken control panel on his side of the chambers, as she saw him examine the reinforced glass. The next moment, she practically leapt out of her skin as the clang resounded, as Pyg redrew the cleaver she hadn't realised he had retrieved and slammed it hard against the glass. The same for the second time, and the third, and the fourth. For every time Pyg smashed the metal hard against the reverberating glass. Each time, Lois felt sure she was going to watch it break. Each time, her fear almost got the best of her as she still lay there atop the toppled gurney. It was designed to stop the passage of microscopic disease, not this assault. But each time, the glass just about held firm. Somehow…

With a howl of rage, Pyg finally stopped, catching himself mid-air as he almost smashed the cleaver down a latest time. Still howling, he clearly had to vent somehow. Spinning, he instead hurled the cleaver the opposite way with all of his might. Now the sparks really flew as it shattered through one of the various screens across the way, leaving Pyg stood, ventilating, back to Lois as fury still flowed through him.

As the moment dragged on, Lois finally mastered her fear enough to awkwardly drag herself up from the floor. Once again, the first thing she had to do was regain her own breath and composure. But as she did so, Pyg was clearly doing the same. Mastering his rage again, Lois watched as Pyg slowly spun to face her. But even though he was no longer howling with fury, the way he held himself was now somehow even more formidable, and even more terrifying.

"It is of no matter," he calmly said, Lois able to make out every word. There must have been some kind of intercom system between the rooms. "You have only served to contain yourself within my realm. You have done nothing to stand in my way. And you cannot stay in there forever. But in the meantime… While you are beyond my reach… I can now proceed exactly as I had planned before your…interruption."

"No…" Lois breathed, quiet at first before finding her voice again. "No, you can't…!"

But she barely had time to say anything. Pyg wouldn't let her. This wasn't a man that could be reasoned with, that much was clear.

"Oh, but I can!" he forcefully cut across her. "All the pieces are already in place, all except you. The canisters of my gas, the gas that can free people of the imperfection that is love and compassion; they are already spread through the ventilation systems of this hospital, my position here allowing me access to everything – and everyone – I could need to make it happen. Disguised as harmless oxygen tanks, no one is any the wiser. No one could be, until its too late. And now… Now its too late, Lois Lane. Now, its time to make these people perfect."

The screen, the glass, the door. It had kept Lois safe, protected her, but it also left her helpless. It meant that there was absolutely nothing that she could do, other than to continue to stammer at Pyg, to futilely beg him to stop. But he did not stop. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his white coat. Lois almost recoiled as he pulled it out, but it wasn't a weapon, not directly. It was simply a smartphone. A phone which he immediately held up to show her, to make sure that she could see. Then, with his own wicked grin, he began to take a step back.

The screen he'd hit with the cleaver was still sparking. Nonchalantly, Pyg pulled out the blade, but it wasn't to use it. He casually set it aside on the worktops beside him. Instead, he moved to activate all of those screens. Lois couldn't make out exactly what he was doing, but she could see it a moment later.

Pyg had indeed turned this empty wing of the hospital into his own domain. Those screens were clearly intended for both medicinal purposes and for the entertainment of any patients locked int his chamber. Now Pyg had turned them into a bank of monitors, showing the CCTV feed from throughout the hospital. The main reception, full of the concerned and those with wounds need less severe. The cubicles, where Lois had seen the two Nairomians Pyg had already gassed. The emergency room, where even now doctors and nurses were working so hard to save the victims of the sinking ship and the burning fire.

And of the view of the air vents, seemingly harmless if Lois didn't know what was really going on. The air vents that moved the air through the whole building. Everywhere, but for the seclusion of the quarantine zones, safely on a separate system. Everywhere. Meaning everyone but Lois was within their reach.

Was within the reach of the canisters Lois could clearly see within those vents.

"No…" she moaned simply again as Pyg continued to smile wickedly out at her, that phone still clutched victoriously in his hand, finger hovering menacingly over its touchscreen. It didn't take a genius to realise what it was the signal on Pyg's phone connected to. But she didn't need Pyg's reaction to know how futile the word continued to be. It was too late. It was already too late. All her efforts, all her plays for time. She had saved herself, but she hadn't managed to save them…

All sorts of thoughts already swam through her mind. Of the people in this building, the doctors and nurses, the staff and the patients. All of them innocent. All of them free to love. All of them about to suffer a fate Lois found beyond maniacal.

And selfishly, she couldn't help but think of the red 'S' emblazoned across his chest, or of those nerdy glasses behind which he hid. Superman, Clark, the one she loved. A love like that which these people were about to lose…

Pyg's response was simplistic too, straight to the point. Said with gusto, showing clearly how exhilarating this was to him. This was clearly the moment he'd been waiting for. The day he was dreaming of. This was his day.

"Perfection."

To him, this was Valentin's Day.

And then he hit the button.

And barely a second later, Lois saw it on those screens. She saw as the canisters opened. As the gas within began to seep into the air. And as the vents began to spread it around the whole hospital.

She saw as the gas that stole people's love began to take them all.

A/N:

Only took me posting it in three parts over about five weeks to do it, but there you all have it! Chapter 6 is finally done and dusted. Yes, I mean it. Next time it will finally be Chapter 7!

And in it, there's a whole lot of people that are gonna need some saving...