“Burns, crushed ribs, severe lacerations, radiation poisoning.”

  The skin rapidly knit together, arteries clamped down where they were squirting blood into the abdomen and stopped the rapid loss. Blisters shrank as their liquids were drawn back in to retain as much as possible to heal the cape. He groaned, despite his nerves being numbed. The ribs flexed and reformed, a partially crushed lung reinflating. Finally, countless leukocytes were modified to feed on radiation, and die off when there was none left.

  “Next!” Amy yelled, giving the cape’s shoulder a slap.

  As soon as he cleared the cot, Lia and an Indian nurse lifted another into place. What little she could see of Lia’s face was ashen, her eyes wide and haunted. She was a fighter, used to dealing out damage like this. Being confronted with it constantly for the past forty minutes...yeah, it was wearing on Amy too.

  But she kept going, rattling off the injuries each cape passed along to her had and fixing them as she did. It was almost easy; she’d told them Pandora couldn’t do brains and that was that. Anyone with TBI was taken somewhere else, she never even had to look. And the sheer variety of injuries kept her on her toes, mind always racing to think of the best way to counteract whatever Behemoth had done.

  It wasn’t simple to keep her mind on track though. Amy had spend years healing and nothing but until a month ago, and that massive fuckup had opened the floodgates. Not to mistakes, like she feared, but to thoughts. An insistent poke or prod, here and there, knowing that she could sheathe this cape’s nerves and make them more resistant to electricity; or like she’d been doing, making capes functionally immune to radiation.

  Was it right? Amy had asked Lia breathlessly, in a rare gap between patients. She asked if it was better if they lived or died, and that had been the end of it. The changes were minor, pretty much invisible unless a specialist like her was looking for it, and all temporary. Nobody had complained yet though, so she kept going and hoped she wasn’t burning away pieces of her tattered soul doing it.

  She flinched at the sight of the next cape, a lanky blonde with a piece of rebar stuck through her kidney. She didn’t look a thing like Vicky but… It took Amy a little longer with her, just to make sure she didn’t make a second worst mistake of her life. When the girl left a minute later, flashing and blinking ahead three feet with each stride, Amy had a moment to breathe.

  Lia and the nurse had run off to help with more casualties, no rest for the nurses. She could have followed them, but her knees were shaking bad enough that she didn’t want to try. Anyway, she’d been told to stick to her tent, just so they could make sure people were triaged correctly. She grabbed a bottle of lukewarm water, grimacing at the taste as she took a sip.

  A loud crackle of lightning made her flinch, and she swore under her breath when she looked up; a storm of lightning bolts coming as thick as a downpour around the Endbringer. Amy was suddenly relieved that Lia had been a stubborn kid and stuck around in the field hospital. She took another sip of water and poured some over her hands, scrubbing at the dried blood that cov—

  “Behemoth’s through the first line!” a frantic cry made her freeze. “Pack up, teleporter’s coming!”

  She leaped to her feet and began closing up the many open medical kits, stuffing unused supplies back in; they couldn’t waste anything. Lia was with her a minute later, grimly taking down the tent and bloodstained cots for transport. She didn’t say a word to Amy, focused on her work. Amy admired that, even if it stung a little.

  A call rang out for healers to gather, and after giving Lia a brief hug, Amy ran over and joined the crowd. Vala, Mab, Headjob, Zipperdoc, Scapegoat, Platelet, and half a dozen more she didn’t know or hadn’t spoken to; all healers like her. Better probably, since they didn’t have to worry about fucking up their family members...or people who reminded them of them.

  A smoky haze gathered around them as Cumulus’ cloud grew. With a rumble like thunder, it shut the light out around them, then blew away and revealed a wide plaza with dozens of Tinkers servicing tremendous cannons. Most buildings had been flattened, but Vala led them to the foot of a tall, heavily built one that had survived.

  No sooner had they arrived than more injured began pouring in. The rest of the equipment hadn’t arrived yet, so capes lay on the ground as the healers scrambled back to work. Lia was nowhere to be seen, but Amy couldn’t worry about that right now. Right now she was Pandora, healer and...cape. She wasn’t Amelia Lavere, couldn’t afford to be.

  Fortunately, the trickle of capes seemed to slow after just a few minutes of intense work. She guessed, if their lines were broken, they were busy running away rather than getting crushed by the now-distant Endbringer. ‘Distant’, like he wasn’t a twenty minute jog away. Pandora shook her head and slapped her cheeks, breathing heavily through the medical mask around her face.

  “You’re doing excellent work.” Pandora started and turned, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw Mab.

  “Thanks,” she grumbled, staring back out at where Behemoth was rampaging through a firestorm. She tapped her foot against the ground, searching the streets for Lia.

  “She’s going to be okay,” the hero said gently. “The staff are making their way here on foot, but are well out of danger.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” A tinkling laugh echoed in her ears and made her blush.

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  “There’s no shame in being worried,” Mab replied, a tinge of tension in her voice. “We all have someone out there. And it seems yours is here.” Mab gestured, and Amy saw Lia’s bright costume amidst a crowd of nurses in scrubs and heroes in armour and more dour colours.

  She held herself back from running over; Lia was carrying two large duffels crossed over her body and seemed to be on a mission. The staff began setting up tents and cots again as more injured began to flow into the plaza. Amy ducked under the tent marked with a black square, the temporary logo they were using for her. A moment later, Lia and another nurse had joined her, helping a one-legged cape into the cot.

  Pandora wasn’t able to do much for him, beyond making sure he survived another day and had a good base for a future prosthetic. He was ferried away a moment later, and another cape flashed into existence on the cot. He was an Indian cape, with wiry hair and a pair of comically large goggles. A Tinker, if the devices festooned on his belt were anything to go by.

  She blinked when she laid a hand on him. A cylinder of his torso was just...missing. No kidney, a ruptured appendix, part of his liver. What the fuck? Pandora shook her head to clear it. Whatever did this was irrelevant, she had a single job to do.

  The man was thin, didn’t have a lot of mass to work with. She closed up the hole first, keeping as much of the cape inside as possible. After a second of thought, she broke down the remains of his appendix; useless organ but it gave her something to work with. Flesh layered and hardened behind the thin membrane of skin keeping his insides from the outside. Not perfect, but Pandora didn’t have enough for a full fix. She made sure his arteries were rerouted and intact, then healed the major trauma to his liver but left it only partly intact. It would heal on its own, though it would take time.

  The man rose and shakily left when she shook him awake. He kept patting his torso in disbelief, glancing back at her and jabbering in whatever the local language was. Pandora just shooed him off, moving on as the next patient was brought to her. She did her best to ignore the young girl’s sobs of pain, crying for her ‘dada’. Lia held the kid’s hand while Pandora healed her, gently shushing her as the laceration that had opened her belly slowly closed up.

  A cape in sooty power armour that might have been red at some point scooped her off the cot, carrying her away. Another occupied the cot a moment later and she was back to work. The sounds of battle were getting louder, but she only faintly noticed, occupied keeping a young hero’s heart pumping instead of going into cardiac arrest.

  Her power was working quicker today, no question, and Pandora wasn’t about to complain that it was working with her for a change. What usually took her a few minutes was taking her thirty seconds; and the minor, temporary modifications practically leapt into action. Lia was with her the whole time, attentive to whatever orders Pandora gave, watchful of every patient she healed.

  It was a good thing she’d chosen to wear a mask, because she didn’t want anyone to see the small smile that muddied her lips as she worked.

  Time faded into a blur of new patients with new injuries, the only constants being Lia and the other attending nurse. They worked well, Pandora only had to occasionally bark an order in the shorthand jargon she half-remembered from the briefing god only knew how long ago. Sweat stung her eyes and made her tshirt cling uncomfortably to her skin. She bore it though, the capes she was working on were suffering worse.

  There was a shout for her, and Lia grabbed her arm, pulling her along towards the headquarters building. She asked, but only got a terse ‘emergency’ for an answer. When she finally got inside, after the doors were forced by a squad of Tinkers for some reason and she was pulled along upstairs, she found why.

  The command room had been decimated. One body lay by the table, missing two limbs, facedown in a pool of blood. Chevalier had collapsed in the middle of the room, across from the body of a cape dressed in red. Was he one of those Chinese weirdoes? Pandora hadn’t treated any of them yet...and if he was the one behind it she wasn’t about to start.

  A hero with a blue visor and fur mantle on her costume, Rhyme she thought, waved her over to Chevalier. She’d pulled off his breastplate and was currently holding his stomach together with her hands. Amy didn’t need a signal, she pressed her hand to his chest, a few inches above the wound, and put him back together. Internal burns and ruptured organs were gone in a minute, and soon after Chevalier was back on his feet. With a nod of thanks, he gathered the remaining capes and headed out. Pandora trailed behind them, then went straight back to the tent.

  She paused a little ways away. One of Bitch’s dogs was there, and Lia was face to face with Tattletale, speaking low and tensely. Pandora picked up her pace, heart pounding in her chest. If Tattletale hurt Lia she was going to—

  “Fucking finally,” the bitch spat on spotting Amy. “Get over here and do your fucking job.”

  “Hey, back off,” Lia growled, hands balling into fists.

  “I’ll back off when she heals my teammate!”

  Pandora rolled her eyes and approached the cot where a young, black girl was panting heavily, a leering demon mask obscuring her face. She reached a hand out to Pandora, and she noticed the other was missing. She took the girl’s hand and fleshed over the wound, patching up the litany of blood vessels to keep them from making things worse. Besides that and a few burns, and the usual radiation poisoning, she was fine and healthy again within a minute.

  “Done,” Pandora said, gesturing to the girl. “Move, more casualties.”

  “You didn’t fix my hand,” she said shakily, staring at the stump. “My hand.”

  “I can’t make a replacement without mass,” she replied with a shrug. “Move, there are capes than need help more.”

  “Imp, move,” Lia snapped, glaring at the girl.

  “Fucking half-ass healer,” Imp muttered, rising and going over to the dog.

  “Need your help,” Tattletale said to Lia as another cape was hefted onto the cot. “Think we’ve got him, but he has a teleporter, did that to Imp. Your projection should hold long enough for you to get a word in edgewise, without the chance of getting gutted like me.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Lia retorted. “I’m busy as hell, in case you didn’t notice. Doesn’t matter if we had a hundred capes in the fight or a thousand, my place is here. Yours is using that parasite in your head to make him listen.”

  “I can’t get close enough retard,” Tattletale growled. If she wound up needing healing, Pandora was going to take her time. “You can. There are enough capes here now that your girlfriend is going to be fine, your place is doing her job because you’re the one that fucked it up. Take up the mantle, like you need to.” Lia stiffened, then her shoulders slumped.

  “Fuck you Tattletale,” she cursed, then turned around. “Pandora—”

  “Go,” she said, not taking her eyes off her patient. “I’ll be fine. You...be a hero, Amaranth.” She flinched as Lia’s masked lips touched the top of her head.

  “I promise I’ll come back,” Lia said gravely.

  “I promise I’ll be here,” Pandora replied.

  She didn’t look up as Lia’s footsteps retreated, she had to focus. She had to.