So much was going on at once, Alexis barely knew which way was up any more. This battle was brutal and the Foesitians clearly intended to destroy everything in their path during their extremely hostile take over. Earth’s army fought with all its might against the invading force but it was too early to tell if Earth was winning. All Alexis knew for sure was that there were a lot of injured soldiers out in the field.
She went as quickly as she could but she often found herself wishing she had a similar ability to Pietro so she could whizz around the scene and get to more patients. Still she worked diligently, seeing more blood and gore than she had ever wished to see in her entire life. She was aware of the Foesitian’s fear inducing influence on the edges of her consciousness but for the time being, she was able to ignore it, focusing on her patients instead.
Perhaps she was a little too focused on her patients and not on what was happening around her. She had crouched beside an agent who had sustained a nasty looking injury in his side and was holding gauze over the wound when she heard his voice.
Alexis looked up from her patient and looked around her wildly for her love. He was supposed to be in space, taking the fight directly to the Foesitian source. He was not supposed to be here on Earth, involved in this fire-fight.
She shook her head and went back to her patient. The bleeding was slowing, thankfully. She changed over the gauze and muttered genuine reassurances to him, even joking that he was going to live another day. But then she heard him again, and he was crying out in pain.
She finished wrapping the agent with more clean gauze and bandages, telling herself that Jack was not here. What she was hearing was not real. The agent in front of her was real and he needed her help. The version of Jack haunting her now was a figment of her imagination, or a figment of imagination of the Foesitians’ making. Either way, this Jack, the one crying her name out while in agony, was not her Jack.
“You’re good to go. Hold back from the front line. If you want to keep going, help out the medic team set up on the perimeter.” Alexis stowed her supplies back in her bag, ready to leave the fallen agent to make up his mind over what to do next and stood up, already looking for her next patient.
She gasped out loud when she was faced with a man engulfed in flames. It was Jack underneath all of that fire, she knew that. It was a struggle to remind herself that Jack wasn’t here, burning in front of her eyes. “You’re not real,” she barked at the flames.
Alexis choked back a sob as she turned away from the fake Jack, intent on finding someone who truly needed her help.
“Alexis, please. Your Farm Boy needs you.”
Another sob wrenched itself out of Alexis’s throat and she had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop any more sobs from escaping. She trudged on, increasing the distance between her and ‘Jack’.
“I’m warning you, Alexis. If you don’t help me, I’ll kill us all.”
Alexis stopped in her tracks and turned to look over her shoulder at the burning figure. Now that she was so close, she was able to see that the Foesitian imitating Jack hadn’t managed to get all of the details right. This definitely wasn’t her Jack and her Jack would never threaten to kill like this.
“You’re not Jack so stop pretending. Show your real self, you bastard.”
“You don’t want that, Alexis.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
“Fine. But you will regret it.”
The flames surrounding the Foesitian intensified, changing colour until it became bright white and Alexis was unable to look directly at them any more. She turned and started to run, as did the other agents who had been close enough to witness their exchange. A high pitched whine filled the air and Alexis knew in her gut that whatever was going to happen next was going to hurt. “Get down,” she screamed, “he’s gonna blow.”
And blow he did. The resulting explosion shook the ground and sent those closest to it flying through the air. Alexis landed heavily and she could feel that her back was badly burned. Pain took over all of her senses and blackness threatened to take over her consciousness. She tried to clear her mind, make sense of what was happening, but all she could think about was the future she and Jack was destined to never have. If this was her dying thought, let it be a good one.
Her and Jack on their farm, far away from aliens and battles and explosions. Her and Jack being blissfully, sickeningly happy because they had each other.
Blackness took over as Alexis said her last words: “Love you, Farm Boy.”
{Next up: moveslikelightning}
After setting down the soldier, Pietro went around the site, quickly checking up on some of their other patients who were still recovering after being patched up themselves; moving around like a hummingbird, giving one patient some water, checking to see if others needed dressings changed or if they were ready to go in an attempt to clear his mind before going back out into the field.
The downside to moving so quickly though was that damn ability to also think fast, so even as he worked, he thoughts jumped from what he was doing, to his experience on the field while rescuing the soldier. He’d seen his teammates. His former leader. His sister. But he realised, thankfully, that he was yet to see-
He quickly looked up when he heard Alexis scream and suddenly forgot about his hatred for his ability to think quickly. It was moments like this one that he was glad it wasn’t just his movements that were fast.
Suddenly he was beside a small group of their patients, but there was no way he could move them all in time. He looked around, not surprised to see others running, although to him, they looked more like someone had thrown a slow motion effect in to make everything more dramatic. In the past Pietro may have done the same to save himself, but not this time. Still moving faster than the rest of them, he grabbed the nearest large object – an empty bed – and used it and himself to shield the group of patients as best he could. He knew it wasn’t a highly effective shelter, but it was the best he could do.
It was loud. He felt pieces of…whatever it was hit him and hissed in pain, gritting his teeth at the noise, but he refused to move. The people he was shielding had already seen and suffered enough and Pietro was hoping to avoid adding more to their lists.
He let out a sigh of relief when he heard Hank and Darcy, slowly lowering the bed-shield before lifting his head to look over at them. At least he assumed it was Hank and Darcy who’d spoken; his ears were aching and ringing. He assumed though that their patients wouldn’t be talking about damage reports.
Pietro slowly got up, cautious as he moved in case he had received more than scratches; he didn’t bother checking though, more worried about the patients.
“I…think we’re okay?” he called back to the others. “At least over here.”
Henry stood up hurriedly and surveyed the scene. The tent had been ripped to shreds by the explosion, medical supplies and people bowled over by the blast. Calls of all okay from his teammates comforted the super scientist somewhat.
Pietro’s quick actions had saved several lives. The upturned bed was slightly aflame and had been pierced by various detritus. Other than looking rather shaken, the patients looked to be all right. His own back continued to buzz with constant pain, but the bestial mutant ignored it. Besides, his healing factor would take care of any damage in a matter of minutes or hours anyway. He suspected that there would be several new wounded combatants now due to the explosion.
It struck the doctor suddenly that he had not heard any word from Alexis when he asked for a sitrep. “Alexis?” Hank bellowed across the battlefield. “Has anyone seen Ms. Michaels?” Years of experience in the field and operating room helped him keep the panic he was feeling from his voice. Beast bounded over to where Quicksilver was still standing. “Pietro, our other primary medic is missing…” he said, trailing off as his blue-grey eyes landed on the collapsed form of the woman of which he spoke.
He ran and sprang out into the fray. A group of Foesitians crawled towards the prone bodies to finish the job. The bouncing blue ball of fur landed squarely on one that resembled his old foe Unus the Untouchable. “Not terribly untouchable, now are you?” he muttered under his breath. Hank proceeded to grasp an Iceman and a Dark Phoenix by the heads with his large hands and smash them together. All of his psychic training with Professor Xavier was being put to the test. Hank tried his best not to think about how his enemies had borrowed the faces of his best friends. That is not Bobby. That is not Jean. He repeated it over and over in his head.
Kneeling to check each downed soldier and medic, it saddened Dr. McCoy to find that a few were already gone. Checking Alexis’ pulse, it came faintly, but it was there. “She clings to the realm of the living!” he called out triumphantly. Scooping her up in his long, hairy arms, Beast yelled back to the medical encampment. “Quicksilver, if you would kindly collect the remaining patients I shall attend to Ms. Michaels here.” The speedster had finished mopping up the rest of the Foesitians quite handily.
Returning to the camp, Hank laid Alexis down on her stomach, being surely to support her head. She was covered in burns and small holes had been seared into her clothes in several spots. It felt like deja vu from five minutes ago and from ten minutes before that, just with a different person this time. This fight was wearing him out. more emotionally than physically. Superhuman endurance was good for something at least.
”Could someone please set and splint the leg of that woman there?” the azure acrobat asked, not wanting to forget the other patient. Pulling on gloves, the physician cut open the back her shirt in one swift motion to examine her further. By all appearances that was where the majority of the burns were. Clenching his jaw, McCoy set to work again.
hesprettycut
Darcy watched as everyone made quick decisions, she couldn’t make decisions that quickly, she was not prepared for this kind of thing. She took a few deep breaths trying to bring her thoughts back into focus. Next thing she knew Dr. McCoy was going back into the fight, wondering who had been hurt this time. She looked at the patients who thankfully did not seem too much more harmed.
Her thoughts turned to how she was the only one of the team who was unable to go out there, in some ways she was feeling useless in her efforts to help the wounded that came in here. Darcy shook her head, they had known her strengths and weaknesses before the battle had begun. She was more useful to everyone if she stayed in a somewhat safe area.
Darcy drew in a shaky breath as she saw their fourth teammate, brought in by Henry. She could not look at her for more than a few seconds. She nodded as he asked someone to take care of the woman who they had been working on before.
She had been camping before, first aid had been taught especially for broken bones, she knew the basics of setting and splinting. Darcy smiled at the woman, after grabbing some supplies. “This may be a bit painful, and I’m sorry for that, but we do not want your leg to start healing the wrong way.”
She felt the woman’s leg, moving it around so it seemed that the bones were in the places that they should be. She finished with the splint, working as quickly as she could. Before moving on she handed a couple of pain medications to the woman as well as some water.
Darcy moved on to the other patients, asking them if they had gotten hurt any more, and giving out the basic care that she could to those that were hurt.
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