By the time the storm had settled down, it was late into the night. Ripslinger still lay miserably on the floor of his old hangar, his expression wretched as he stared down his nose where Tom was still slumped over it. The boy still held onto the plane's prop blades in his unconsciousness. Somehow, he was still alive, but Ripslinger could tell that time was quickly running out for him. The human's blood had dripped and ran down his nose where he lay on him, covering it and pooling on the floor around them, and however hard he labored to breathe, Tom just could not seem to get enough oxygen, sporadically taking these huge, painful gulps of air like a fish out of water.

Ripslinger just didn't know what to do. He didn't know whether he should stay here with him in his last moments, or go out and find the others. But he knew that the latter option may very well be the last thing he would ever do. Time would be wasted, and he would have to sit and watch this boy die. Olive-colored eyes narrowed. No. I did this, he thought. Whatever Dusty's and the others' judgments may be, Ripslinger resolved, he would accept it quietly. But that could wait. He had to try to set this right.

Slowly and gently, he carefully tilted and laid Tom down on the floor. The checker-marked plane then pulled the sheets from the sleeping mat, holding them down with a wheel and biting and tearing them into a smaller piece of fabric. He spread it out across the hangar floor, and then went back to the human's side, but then he froze. He was at a loss for how to move him. He was worried that he may cause further damage to Tom's already seriously injured body. Pushing or pulling would jostle the boy too much. It would be best to pick him up in his mouth, but Ripslinger was afraid. He himself could admit that he had no ability to make his jaws go soft, precisely adjusting the pressure like parent aircraft do when picking up and moving their newborn babies. His jaws had only ever been used to cause harm. He fretted, shifting on his landing gear in indecision as he blew out a noise from his engine that was halfway between a snarl and a harsh flutter. He was running out of TIME! He had to try!

The huge P-51 knelt down almost to his belly, resting his chin on the floor at Tom's right side. He took stock of the damage done. The gashes in the human's side were eerily clean, opening the rich, red meat underneath the skin and broken ribs to the outside, and his arm was a complete mess, only really held together by links of skin and sinew, the bones shattered and exposed. Ripslinger winced, then opened his mouth, careful to the point of near-clumsiness as he scooped the boy up onto his lower jaw. Using his enormous tongue to move the boy more securely into his mouth, he then cradled Tom with it, and just sort of left his mouth open as he carried the human, not wanting to risk closing his teeth. Tom's blood dripped and ran onto Ripslinger's tongue and down his chin, making the Mustang fight hard against his gagging as his tanks threatened to purge themselves.

He lay him down in the middle of the patch of sheets that he'd torn away, and as he turned to start gathering in the corners, he heard Tom stir. The green and black plane immediately dropped the fabric in his mouth and went back to him. The human was still again, and Ripslinger stared anxiously.

"Mmph." Tom's teeth bite together as he pants through his nose, making an agonized, strangled noise in his throat. "Rip… Ripslinger…" An onslaught of tears began to stream down the boy's face. "I… I-it… It hur…"

"Shhh…" the checker-marked racer tried to sooth, touching his nose gently to the side of Tom's face to silence him. "You must. Stay. Strong," he breathed out, trying to gulp down his guilt and panic.

The human reached up with his good arm and grasped with as much strength as he could muster onto one of the plane's prop blades, whimpering out his sobs and fears, and Ripslinger nuzzled his nose into Tom's chest. His engine growled through his almost asthmatic breathing. He longed to be naive. To believe that everything will be fine. He longed to be able to hope so boundlessly, a hope that he was once not so short of. He pined for the days that he believed in everything and knew nothing at all. Then he set his jaw, olive-colored eyes burning with passion.

"You will not die. Do you hear me?" Ripslinger commanded as he began to feel that wet pressure behind his eyes again as he snarled his hatred for this twisted fate. "…You will not die."

He left Tom to go back to gathering up the corners of the sheet toward the middle. He picked them all up, biting and hooking them back into the sharper teeth in the back of his jaws to make sure that they wouldn't slip, and gently lifted the bundle off the floor. The P-51 felt Tom's weight become cradled into it, and then began moving with him.

He opened the doors to the hangar, and found everything wet, pitch black but for the streetlamps, and silent. The snowstorm had turned to a mixed, drizzly rain, and most of the snow on the ground had already melted. Well, that was one thing that was working in their favor. Without a second thought, he immediately taxied for the runway, the airport being closed down for the night, and started his engine. Ripslinger began his take off. The green and black plane gained speed, and despite feeling oddly quite whole this time, that familiar, leftover apprehension still lingered, but then he narrowed his eyes in determination.

"Come on, Rip, do something good!" he scoldingly urged himself through gritted teeth around his precious cargo.

Ripslinger's tail gear lifted from the ground and retracted, and, nearly leaping up into it, his front landing gear left the ground and he was airborne. Turning east, he kept his altitude low, eyes sharp and keyed into anything that looked habituated by humans. He needed to get Tom to a hospital, fast. He'd hoped that he would come across something soon. He was already panting hard through his intakes after only twenty minutes; he'd never felt so out of shape in his whole life! Then, gradually, he began to spot odd, tiny little hangars. Houses. The Mustang descended further as the houses grew more numerous and began to turn to proper buildings. He scanned the growing city in front of him, looking hard for some symbol that might indicate a hospital, then breathed out a sigh of relief when it became apparent that that iconic, red cross was the same across both cultures.

Ripslinger began his landing, picking a rather wide empty street. Thankfully, there were few humans and cars, living or otherwise, on the roads at this time of night. As soon as he was down he made a dash in the direction that he saw the hospital in, having had to land quite a ways from it.

He's fine, he's not gonna die, was the mantra repeating wildly in his head, He's fine, he's fine, he's fine! He will be fine! Fuck where am I going? Where the fuck am I going?!

Ripslinger's eyes are too raw to see anything, blinded by panic, freezing rain, and growing rage. All he could breathe in was the stench of Tom's blood that had now soaked into the sheets the boy was curled up in. The P-51 wanted to butcher something. Anything, everything. He wanted to slash someone's eyes out, rip off their extremities, crack their bodies in half, tear their organs out with his own teeth. He wanted to see someone else's blood in place of Tom's. He would take anyone else's life for his!

"God damn it!"

Ripslinger could hardly breathe through his mania. He was seeing red, sobbing for breath, and everything was blurring into hideous, dark apparitions as rumbling, gurgling growls and hissing echoed in his hearing.

"R-Rip-slinger…"

And that brings the checker-marked plane back down to the world he was slowly leaving. He couldn't lose himself. Tom needed him. Only he couldn't seem to get his voice to work to sooth the human with a lie that he was going to be okay, or manage to keep his own conscious stable enough to even sanitize himself. He could only so much as bark a short, harsh "Quiet!" through his teeth as he gripped the corners of the sheets in them. Don't talk; breath. Don't waste what you have left.

Meanwhile, Ripslinger wasn't watching where he was going. He hadn't given a damn until he found himself suddenly blinded by a searing, growing explosion of light. No… By the time his eyes adjusted to the extreme luminescence of the high-beams, a large, faceless SUV could be seen barreling down the street right for them. …No! The P-51's darker coloring doing no favors for the human behind the wheel's attention, the vehicle crashed right into Ripslinger's flank. T-Tom! Fuck!

The force of the impact knocked him aside where he went slamming into the ground and the SUV spinning off into a light pole. For a full ten seconds Ripslinger struggled to get to his landing gear in a state of near-paralysis that delayed and rattled his nerves, hallucinating the sounds of bells and seeing stars. Closing his eyes as he tried to shake off his wooziness, he suddenly went rigid, wide-eyed as he realized that the sheets were no longer in his mouth. He found the crumpled bundle lying several feet away. Lifting away the bloodied fabric, green and black plane recoiled at the sight before him. Oh, god… His flesh was turning white. He… He couldn't even… His frame shaking, Ripslinger swallowed back the vomit straining his throat, slowly leaning down to touch the dying human with his nose cone, as if one touch from him would somehow renew his health. His warmth; it was fading. His heartbeat; it was so weak. But the boy's fingers, blood-stained, were reaching up again, touching and smearing down the side of his nose. Ripslinger couldn't ask for more of a sign of life! Fuck, get moving, Ripslinger! He squeezed his eyes shut, clearing his mind as he gathered Tom back up in the sheets and heaved him up in the air again.

Once he'd arrived at the city's house of recovery, lit up like a beacon, he went crashing through the large, grandiose glass doors and into the lobby, spraying glass everywhere. As Ripslinger stood there, wet with rain and still drenched in the remnants of Tom's blood which dripped onto the immaculate white floor, the humans inside shrieked. They shrieked! They didn't even help him! He rushed up and dropped Tom right on the front counter where the receptionists sat and sobbed in terror at his mutilated body, scattering pen-holders and clip-boards all over. Ripslinger spoke to one of them, her horrified face speckled in red droplets.

"Help him…" Ripslinger panted through his teeth, "NOW!"

The poor human girl was frozen in fear, unable to move or speak when Ripslinger thrust his nose into her face.

"Are you blind, bitch?! Do you see him?! I said LOOK AT HIM! Do you see him?!"

He gripped her by her collar in his teeth and yanked her forward, forcing her to see this poor child dying.

"Yes, yes, YES!" she went on sobbing.

Everyone's staring. Everyone's gasping. But no one is helping him! The P-51 turns to them all, the wounded, the sick, and screams in hysterics.

"Help him, god damn you! Get someone and fucking HELP HIM!"

Suddenly, Ripslinger felt a pepper of hot, stinging pin pricks rat-tat-tatting into his plating. An instant later the report of over a dozen small caliber gunshots registered in his hearing. He turned around, moving toward the direction of the assault, seeing what looked like the entire police force gathered outside the hospital behind black and white, faceless vehicles, their guns still drawn and ready. More were arriving, wearing heavier armor and carrying even heavier weapons. Blue and red lights flashing and reflecting off of his paint, the Mustang let out an almighty roar of unhinged fury in the face of it all, the officers raising their guns again in preparation.

Meanwhile, back in Propwash Junction, Dusty and the others had regrouped, and were instantly thrown into anxiety and worry at the realization that Tom and Ripslinger were not among them. They broke off into pairs, searching everywhere. Dusty and Skipper eventually found themselves headed toward the old hangar that Ripslinger was once kept in. The hangar doors were slightly ajar. Dusty nosed his way in, Skipper coming in right after him. The orange and white racer and his older Bonded Companion were immediately struck by an odd scent in the air, like nothing they'd ever smelled. It was a wet, sickly, slightly metallic smell. Something about it made their plating crawl and their frames tremble in innate fear and alertness. The hangar was empty. Skipper studied the ripped and torn sheets from the sleeping mat when Dusty had called out to him.

"Skipper," the smaller plane's voice shook, afraid of what the answer might be as he looked down at sickening pools of a rich, red liquid, congealing and almost turning black in the places where it was clotting,"...what is that?"

"Oh dear lord…" the old Corsair breathed.

Further inspection had revealed a trail of more little drips and drops of blood, leading out of the hangar and continuing on toward the main runway. Dusty lead the way, having gone to Des Moines many times to visit Clarice at her home there. Chug followed with Dottie down below, all hoping against all hope that their assumptions were right.

The hospital was not difficult to find. When they all arrived, the scene down below was still quite chaotic. Numerous cop cars remained in the area, people bustling around taking stock of the damage done to the entrance of the hospital and the lobby. It certainly looked as if Ripslinger may have been there, but neither he nor Tom were anywhere to be seen. When the group of machines had first approached, they were not surprisingly met with hostility.

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Dusty placated, "We're looking for a big, green and black airplane; a P-51 Racing Mustang."

"He was here," an older looking officer spoke, signaling for the others to lower their weapons.

"He was?" Dusty asked anxiously, "Do you know where he is now? We're hoping that he may have had a boy with him; a human boy. He's sixteen years old, he has kind of curly, short brown hair, greenish blue eyes-"

"The boy has been taken to the ICU," the police chief interrupted, "and the plane is missing after a short engagement where he was fired upon multiple times."

"Oh my…" Dusty said weakly, starting to feel faint as his fears just went from bad to worse.

"I'm assuming that you know the plane and this boy. Do you know who his legal guardians are and how we can contact them?"

"Well, he doesn't-" Dusty started, but then Dottie suddenly spoke up in front of him.

"We are. Is there a doctor we can speak to?"

The officer looked at them all in a somewhat scrutinizing manner, but turned and went into the hospital, ducking under the yellow lines of police tape. Several minutes later, he came back out, a man wearing a white coat over solid blue clothes at his heels. He didn't bat an eyelash at the mixed group of Viven's machina in front of him calling themselves a human boy's guardians, and introduced himself as if he were talking to any human family.

"Hi, my name is Dr. Pelsue, I'm the trauma surgeon on your boy's case. Does he have a name?"

"Of course he has a name," Dottie took over, being as good as a doctor herself. "His name is Thomas. What is his current status?"

"We have already done what work we could get away with stopping any further hemorrhage and have started on a transfusion," Dr. Pelsue began, "But his condition is still quite critical."

Dottie's brow furrowed somewhat. The others were completely in the dark, but she had the innate feeling that she knew what the terms the doctor was using meant. However, it was Dusty that spoke next.

"'Get away with'?" he quoted.

"Thomas has lost over seventy percent of his total blood volume," explained Dr. Pelsue, "That, plus the fact that his lung function is compromised is forcing us to delay the surgery that is going to save his life. We're in a very delicate balancing act here."

Everyone breathed out, confused and anxious as they looked at one another, not fully comprehending what they were being told, but still having the sense that it was very bad.

"You'll have to excuse us," Skipper apologized when no one else spoke up, "We don't understand you; we aren't familiar with how humans work on the inside. The situation is very grave, that much is obvious, and I know that it isn't exactly possible for us to go and see him, but is there anyway that we can see what happened? I know that for our kind, it's pretty common for us to make photo records of some of the more unusual or important cases that come into our shops and hospitals."

"Yes, you would be right," the doctor confirmed, "It is the same with our own medical records. We have taken pictures in this case, as an attack on a human by any living machine is thankfully unusual but also important academically to our field of work. I must warn you though, these are very graphic."

Chug reversed, being sensitive to such things and knowing that he wouldn't be able to stomach it as Dr. Pelsue pulled out something very similar to a skyPad, only much smaller, tapping it a few times before turning it around for the others to see. With dread, the green fuel truck watched as everyone drew back, their reactions to the macabre images immediate and visceral. Dottie had gasped, unable to stifle down a horrified squeal as a simultaneous "Oh god…" was heard from Skipper, the Corsair wincing in revulsion and sorrow. Dusty had abruptly turned, speeding a little ways away before heaving up all what was in his tanks. The trauma surgeon's brow pinched together softly in sympathy and consideration at the strong display of emotion, furthering his already favorable perception of such beings.

"The boy's prognosis is very guarded, but we are doing, and will continue to do, everything in our power for him. You have my word," Dr. Pelsue said. "The plane that did this; do you know him? It's my understanding that he's still at large."

"Don't worry about him…" Dusty suddenly spoke, not turning around as he shuddered out his pants, all consideration for Ripslinger's condition gone from his mind, "We'll take care of it."

XXxx

Ripslinger sat hiding in the dark of an old warehouse, shaking from pain and a severe build-up of nitrous oxide that had flooded his system in the extreme stress of the last several hours. The sun was just starting to come up now. Bullet holes of various sizes marred most of his frame as his breaths trembled in and out of him. Despite most of Tom's blood being washed away from the rain, it was all he could smell. It was all he thought he would ever smell. Like the morbid scent had just burned itself permanently into his senses. And what had become of Tom? Had someone actually gotten to him and whisked him away to get the urgent care that he needed, or had the boy died right there on the counter in the midst of his blind raging?

In the next moment, his thoughts were interrupted as a tremendous weight slammed against his side and knocked him hard into the ground. He didn't attempt to get to his landing gear to see who it was; they didn't speak at first, but from the contact could fairly accurately guess. Then a moment later the sound of a familiar engine roared up in fury right next to the little window behind his left eye.

"Give me one reason not to!" Dusty demanded, his voice thick and harsh with grief and rage.

"…I can't," was Ripslinger's numb response. "You have every right to kill me and I won't try to fight you. But… if it means anything… I'm sorry…" the green and black plane concluded softly, and waited.

"You…" Dusty's voice shook with his frame, barely keeping control as he powered back down. "Why? Why did you do it? He only ever wanted to help you."

"Is he…" Ripslinger tentatively asked.

"No. But he needs surgery urgently, and he's in such critical condition that it would stand just as much of a chance of killing him."

"I… I didn't mean to…" Ripslinger's eyes widened in shock and despair, "It was an accident…"

"Don't give me that!" Dusty spat, "I saw what you did to him! The bruises… One of his lungs is collapsed, they might have to amputate his arm! There is no possible way that it was an accident!"

Ripslinger could not say anything to his defense. Because it was true. He had meant to hurt him… but that was before… but it none of it meant anything now. It was too little, too late.

"Aren't you going to kill me?" he asked after a tense silence.

Dusty stared at him, shaking his front desolately.

"I hate you… I really do… I've tried my hardest with you. Sacrificed so much. Given so much. And it was all for nothing… I would gladly kill you right here and now… but I will not lower myself to your level. So get out of here. Just fly back home. I don't care what kind of deal we had before, I want you to leave…" Dusty turned to the side, ending with cold finality, "and I don't ever want to see you again…"

Ripslinger watched Dusty leave. Abandoned and broken, he sought out the nearest, adequate flat space and flew away. Away from the people that, despite all his efforts, he'd grown to care for, and yet had hurt the worst. Even if Tom survived, without his arm he would likely never play another instrument again. He may as well have killed him. Once again, he'd gotten off with less than he'd deserved, and he hated himself for it. It was just one more thing to hate himself for.

Hours later, to the shocked expressions of the RPX employees at headquarters, Ripslinger came bursting through the front doors. He went rushing through the lobby wordlessly, continuing up the elevators to his penthouse on the top floor, where he kicked out the two guards that usually kept continuous vigil before locking himself in. The tabloids and paparazzi were already gathering in droves outside the building as he collapsed onto his four-poster custom sleeping mat, almost instantly falling into a deep sleep as tears streamed down his tormented face.