Xander jolted as pain went through him and he fell forward. Tor caught him. Rory held up his hand.
"Mini stun gun, he's not even unconscious, just overwhelmed with pain, he'll come out of it in a couple minutes. It's a good thing he works so hard not to read people's minds. Get him out of here, get that force field reversed and go. I'll take care of the bomb."
"Why?" Tor asked, lifting Xander into a fireman's carry.
"To make this work before those things have a chance to react, the timer needs to be set at a minute. He thinks he can run fast enough to get to the force field before it goes off and he probably could, but things could go wrong. I'm an old man and he's my nephew. Even he can do that math. Go, have a long life, kids."
"Jenny, you and Cordelia reverse that force field and contain the blast, the rest of you, keep those people out there off of them while they do that." Tor ordered, carrying Xander. "You won't be forgotten, Rory."
"Just go!"
Once again, Jenny opened a door and this time all of them moved though it. Grasping Cordelia's hand in hers again, Jenny turned the force field back towards the now fully emerged Thirdspace portal. Tor set Xander down on the other side, he knew from the paramedics portion of their training that once the stun effect stopped, the pain immediately began to lessen and would be gone within a few seconds. The stunned "feeling" could take a little longer to recover from. Xander swayed on his feet. "No, Rory! What have you done?!"
"Link our staffs!" Heidi called out the others. "Overlap the ends and force the people back! The force field might not hold! We need to try to get everyone as far back as possible!" Following her instructions, the fighters formed a square around the Thirdspace portal and the force field around it and began physically pushing the people back. After a few steps though, they began pushing back.
"They're fighting back!" Heidi called out. The crowd began to yell.
"We need them!"
"Don't let them stop us!"
"Oh, now they notice us!" One of the girls muttered. "Not while we're fighting to get through them, but while we're caught between them and a force field holding a bomb about to go off! Murphy's one sick son of a bitch!"
The bomb went off and the area within the force field turned white. Blood began to trickle out of Jenny's nose as she worked to hold it, anchoring the force field to the Thirdspace portal itself, Cordelia pushing her abilities against it as well. It wasn't enough and the force field collapsed. The teenagers were knocked into the crowd, who no longer were under the control of the Thirdspace creatures, but were now very confused, as those closest to the blast were knocked back as well. Cordelia flung herself against Jenny, covering her. Everything went silent.
And than the world started up again as people began to scream and ran, jostling each other in an effort to get away from the roaring noise behind them as the ground beneath the Thirdspace portal collapsed under the stress of the blast.
"We have to help them!" Xander yelled, throwing off the last of the effects of the stun. "Tor, call 911 and than start assessing people!" Tor did as he was ordered. Xander bent over the nearest prone body and checked for a pulse. Once Tor completed his call, he began doing the same thing.
Heidi abruptly came to feeling agony in her back. 'Pain is good.' She thought. 'Right now anyway, it means I'm alive.' She tested whether she could move or not and found moving probably wasn't a good idea as she was laying at the edge of a crater where the ground had collapsed.
Cordelia rolled off of Jenny's own prone body and wondered why she couldn't see anything. 'Did that bitch Catherine Madison come back and strike me blind again?' She hazily wondered, then realized she couldn't see because there was a lot of blood on her face and eyes. She tried wiping it away and realized that just called attention to the fact that the back of her head hurt.
Xander and Tor were the only Anla'Shok still on their feet as they'd been farther from the blast. Ambulances began to pull up to the devastated area. "What happened?" One the paramedics asked. "And who are you kids?"
"We're part of a private security force that Mayor Chase hired to patrol Sunnydale while he overhauls the police department." Xander told him. "I think there was an earthquake, the ground seems to have collapsed over there. Some people were having a block party when it happened." Xander lied.
"Oh that's right, I heard about the new Mayor hiring a private firm. Alright, what kind of injuries are you finding?"
"Those farthest from the area were just stunned, but those nearest to the area have trauma injuries. We've been trying to stop bleeders and keep people immobile."
"It's a good start, let's see if any of them need to go to the hospital." The paramedics began their own assessments as they moved through the injured, deciding which needed hospital attention.
That's when Tor found Heidi. "Oh, gods! I need help over here!" Two of the paramedics responded to his urgent call
"She's not only going to need the hospital, she's going to need surgery. She's tore up bad." They put a neck brace on her and got her on a guerney. Tor wanted to go with her.
"No, Tor." Heidi told him. "Stay and help. Please." He reluctantly agreed.
Xander meanwhile had found Cordelia.