Sidestory: Licking your wounds
Amy looked up from her phone as she popped the bubble-gum she was chewing. The minty taste masquerading the taste of the cigarettes she smoked before going outside with the rest of her family in costume.
Mark was standing near her as Flashbang, somewhat more alert than his usual self, and looking in the direction of where the rest of the family went to survey the area that Carol's informant had told her was located one of the drug depot of the new gang of the Bay.
She mused on how rare it was to see her father in costume nowadays. Aunt Sarah and Carol had practically hanged the spandex a long time ago in favour of a more civilian type of life, focusing on their day jobs instead of heroics. Mark had stopped even before that, falling into a depressive state that he had yet to pull himself from. Some days he wasn't even there mentally when he forgot to take the prescribed medication. Crystal was dedicating herself fully to college while Eric was still being a bit too young for the family to let him patrol without an escort forcing him to wait for an adult to unstick themselves from the daily routine to go with him, which was usually Neil who had an open working schedule for most of his month. But besides those times Neil didn't get out that much either. New Wave had been running half-steam for almost half a decade, and only half of the younger generation of New Wave kept going out caping with enough regularity to actually call the outings patrols.
Only her Victoria was still patrolling with the same enthusiasm that she usually has for everything cape related, and damn if Amy didn't know that what with the last four midnight calls to heal someone who Glory Girl was bit too rough with.
Of course, then there was her but what she did was hardly a hero patrol and more like a glorified videogame medkit being passed around the Carol-approved hospitals in the Bay.
It had been something like 10 minutes since the group had left her, with Flashbang as her bodyguard, on the roof of a random building near the target when she finally got a hint of what was happening.
The growing spot on her line of sight revealed two people flying towards them. One being held up by the other…
Ah shit.
It was quickly shown that it was Glory Girl mostly holding Brandish up while both tried to fly together towards them.
"Amy." Said Mark in a warning tone of voice.
"Yeah, I see them." She replied, trying not to show her worry.
As soon as they got near the roof, the pair descended from the skies and fell to the floor as soon as their feet touched ground.
"Injuries?" Amy asked already moving towards Vicky to start fixing her.
"I got shot on the shoulder." Glory Girl, winced as she spoke. "I think it went through. Mom got a sword through the stomach."
"Amy, take care of Vicky first." Rasped Carol, now lying down on the roof, one hand on her husband's knee and the other on top of Mark's, who was putting pressure on the wound.
"Yeah, let me see." Amy immediately put a hand on top of Vicky's outstretched palm and took the protective glove off to get to the skin below. As soon as she got skin contact, she started diagnosing and fixing the problem. Bullet wounds were shit to deal with, especially when they hit bone and break it to tiny little pieces or worse when the bullets themselves are fragmentary rounds. It's either a low velocity or medium velocity gunshot wound. It hit the bone, shit. But it didn't break it, only grazed by but there's still a big fracture on the wound that she needs to patch. Let's see, speed up the production of blood, deal with any possible infections in the meantime, start patching the cracks in the bone, healing ruptured blood vessels, healing the muscle, skin layers…
"Ok, I'm done. There's a bit of food on the bag over there, eat it, you'll need it."
"Sure, thanks Ames." Her Vicky said, although she gave no indication of actually going there and instead started to fly upwards. "I'm going back."
"Not yet." Mark said in a surprising show of seriousness.
"But-"
"Not. Yet. Eat the energy bar and wait for your mother."
"Your turn." Amy told Carol, trying to keep herself from telling Vicky just to stay put instead of throwing herself to danger.
Putting her hand directly on the wound, Amy started to diagnose Carol's injuries. A clean cut through the belly, rupturing the small intestines, cleaving through several lower back muscles while sufficiently away from the spine to not be too onerous a task to heal but a bit too near the pelvic girdle to be comfortable. Some sort of substance coated her wound… Something her power seemed rather keen on exploring. She saw no harm in it for she was curious as well of the liquid coating Carol's wound and spreading through her insides. A quick tinge of her power removed the vast majority of it and cleansing the veins through which it was spreading. But a small, miniscule really, part she refrained from annihilating for her to study.
She felt her own eyes widen from the sight before her, her bubble-gum utterly forgotten in between chewing.
The liquids chemical formula was astounding. The sheer potential versatility in its applications was almost too many to count. What was left of the formula was swiftly eating away Carol's flesh and it would've spread slowly like an acidic poison, using the body's circulatory system to spread its corruption. This version, in itself, was amazing in a terrifying away. But with a simple alteration of the current compound to change it to a healing drug, both as an agent in accelerating the body's natural repairing process and as a nutritional fuel for the body to use. The process could be reverted and-
She was broken out of her train of thought by Vicky who, in her impatience, ate the energy bar like a ravenous puppy and was already starting to fly away.
Amy quickly finished healing Carol, destroying the chemical, but now only paying half an ear to her surroundings.
What in the world? She thought, nevertheless memorizing the chemical formula with her power.
She could ponder it later, she decided, as she saw Brandish trying to catch up to Glory Girl, high in the sky.