"Do we really have to talk to him?"

"Yes… unfortunately we do have to actually talk to Parasonic."

Aegis and Alex walked the lower halls of The Hill, the ground level medical wing that provided emergency and standard care to the central district of Kadia. On good days there was maybe a troublesome sprain, some almost routine training accident, or a transfer from a civilian hospital seeking Mediknight's healing abilities. But, since the graduation, it's been crammed full of people on the recovery list.

Punching someone through a glass façade was one thing, doing it at a mach speed too excessive to comprehend in the middle of an overcrowded foyer was something altogether more devastating. Some lucky breaks had prevented a lot of fatalities from stacking up. The density of the crowd stopping most people from going flying, and an army of heroes near enough trained for stuff like this keeping the ensuing piles from crushing anyone to death. But no one felt very lucky, because the injuries were still extensive, and intensive.

Families, friends, the lucky few who were able to buy tickets, no one was truly spared. The people closest to the blast almost had their bones turned to dust, organs were ruptured, not a single eardrum went unburst. A good number were still thrown off their feet and slammed into the walls, others had bits of ceiling and façade fall on them. One poor guy split his head open on the frame of the Kashmir Peace Accords. While Liorella, Tabby's mom, got tossed into Gold Breaker's Condemnation. She was fine but the painting had a few new claw marks through it. Thankfully Mediknight hadn't been far, rushing in with his healing field on full blast the second he felt Seth break. But even he had limits, and an active battle took precedent over patients he was able to stabilize by just being there. So… all those on the long list were now forced to wait for a full heal to come their way. And there's a lot of them

The halls were spilled over, beds lining the walls on either side. Most were thankfully empty by now, but a few discharged patients still milled about with their other loved ones awaiting treatment. The pair, having to traverse this sterile triage, weaved through the collective healing ache that permeated the air. Staff tried their best to get people in and out of rooms so the wing could actually be used. But a somewhat callous crowd of still bandaged patients were bottlenecked ahead of them. Angry collective grumblings clear even from down the hall. Once they got close though, Aegis knew these people were less grievously in need and more impatient.

That nice yet faint warmth permeated the air, Mediknight's healing field emanating from the room in question. But heavily weakened from several days' worth of power consumption. As they slowed to push through, she could see him hunched over a bed inside. His hands were shaking, armor rattling as they covered a woman's abdomen. A family surrounded the bed as he pulled back, hand grasping for a window sill to lean back on.

Aegis had never seen so much fatigue on those blank armored slats. There were too many patients to fully heal, and only two hands that could. She stopped in the middle of the crowd to express her sympathy, do about all she could, but the crowd surged as the family inside finished thanking him. All of them rying to draw his attention to-

"Hey, you going to heal me now?!"

"No me, I need to get back to work already!"

"Get in line, I'm next!"

"I've been here for days already, I'm next!!"

All the while he wobbled into the deluge, desperate to move on to the next critical patient, orderlies and nurses trying to keep a path so he could move. Alex winced back, but saw that simmer in the air again, as Aegis wound up to-

"THAT'S ENOUGH!!!"

The crowd recoiled and groaned of their mildly pained movements. Her expression was an absolute inferno as the crowd scrambled back.

"Get back to your god damn rooms and be patient or so help me I'll set your fucking bones with a sledgehammer!!!"

The actually frightened hobbled away, the more intimidated slowly dispersed as the staff finally found a chance to help Medi along. He practically fell into their arms, armor echoing wheezing breaths. He'd done too much for today, but Aegis knew he wasn't going to just stop. She put a hand to his shoulder and let that inferno become a warm worry, a soft demand for him to just get some rest before she and Alex continued on.

On to a thankfully more polite and courteous part of the wing closed off from the other parts, where the hero casualties were recovering. Though there were very few that even warranted any real recovery time. Cetacean Siren, David's muscle mom, had taken a chunk of ceiling to the back for covering a group of civvies. Friction Sweep got concussed again, but she was okay. The wall wasn't. And of course-

"F-FUCK!!!"

And at least they were staying in bed.

Tabby in the next room had gotten crushed a little by her dad when the blast hit, so was recovering with him pitifully sulking over her. Her mom in the bed next to her barely worse for wear. Marco's dad had taken tile to the head but was fine. Shielding him and a few others in the process at least got Marco some notoriety. He just wasn't fast enough on the draw, and those tiles are a bit heavy for a wind barrier.

Most everyone else managed to avoid anything severe, Cleo had opened her up one of her portals and let a chunk of the crowd fall in avoid the crush . Leaving just the room ahead. A nice spacious double, curtains folded back and windows letting the city in. Making it nice and-

*clink*

"g-god DAMN IT!!!"

Pleasantly lit. Para was set up on the right side, bed table over him and full of knocked over items. A limp hand weighing the table down, desperate to lift up just one of them. Desperate to prove he wasn't an invalid, that he wouldn't be stopped by some 'pointless' injuries. But everything was just slipping right through barely his flexing fingers. As the realities refused his will.

A plastic cup splashed its water as it fell through his grasp, immeasurably pained expression staring down at it with just the right eye remaining. Pins jutted out of his left jaw, setting what few bones remained and keeping him still, but the bandage over the eye was just window dressing for a hollow socket. His right arm struggled to move, an arm brace discarded to the side said he had chosen to start physical therapy on his own. But the prospects were almost nonexistent.

Medi had tried, but as far as his powers were concerned there was nothing to heal. The nerves in his right foot, right arm, and the left side of his face weren't just torn to shreds. Odd sections were just disintegrated to nothing, split open several times over and burned into… Into a gradient that told a familiar story. His left eye though couldn't even be found after the fact, let alone reattached. There was just nothing left. And he was fighting against what honestly he deserved.

"Para, at least wait for the actual physical therapists. I know you can't stand it, but you won't heal like that."

Aegis was still coming off a little bit of her simmer from before, but still-

"Like you really give a crap!"

She wasn't willing to take Para's shit.

"Why the hell didn't you chase him down? Why the hell is he still alive, while I'm…?! rrrrAAAHHH!!!"

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That limp hand flailed away the plastic cup, splashing it across the room at-

"GaAh!! What the hell!?"

"Shove it Butterknife!"

At Razor, who apparently drew the shortest straw several times over.

First he had his knee slammed into the hallway corner during the blast, shattering it of course. Then he got saddled with Para as a roommate, which had very evident downsides. And finally, as a low grade hero just starting out who was more than capable of handling it, he was put on the lowest priority list for being healed. So he was stuck here with only commiserations and a hail of insults to keep him company.

"Hey! I earned my hero name, so use it!"

"As if!! You're only here because I needed to make sure that THING didn't graduate! If I had-"

"PARA!!!"

Aegis may not have lost enough of that simmer as she took up the room from just its doorway.

"It's a good thing you're in the mood for confessions, because we need to speak to you about that… thing!"

Aegis stormed over and yanked a chair up to his bed, Alex trying her best to sneak in without ire but there wasn't much point. She waved to Razor, both thankful there was at least one friendly face here. Notepad in hand, she was ready to follow along, but it wasn't looking pretty.

"We need the files you took out of the system, chiefly Seth's application but really anything at all. We need every bit of information we can get if we are going to track him down. And you're our bottleneck right now."

"Hmph… You're two months too late. I burned it."

Aegis' expression was flaring again.

"You what!?!"

While Para had regained his smug.

"As if we were ever going to allow someone like that into the League! As if they ever had a place in this society from the beginning! You saw with your own eyes just what kind of person he was! What kind of thing he became! He didn't survive the crisis! He didn't survive the laceroids! He fucking BECAME ONE!!!"

All of Para's conviction stared back through his one remaining eye, dared Aegis to refute his assertion. They both saw the same eyes, the same terror remanifest. But only one seemed to care for other possibilities.

"That doesn't matter right now… does it?"

Aegis' fury seemed to cool, whether a show of force or just a bluff, she was done arguing.

"We need anything you remember, any details, anything that can tell us where he could go or what kind of-"

"*Yo it's the man of the hour!! The crew with the power!! The-"

*beep*

All three looked across the room at Razor, scrambled over to his nightstand and silencing his… custom ringtone. Face red as a beat and mouthing "Sorry" as best it could as he quickly drew his privacy curtain over and answered with harsh whispers.

"Dude what the hell?! I said I'd call you later!"

Aegis looked back at Para's sneering, both at least in some amount of agreement. Alex snorted a little as she stifled a laugh, drawing Aegis to look back. She smiled flatly at her, but quickly Aegis started chuckling in kind. The curtain drew back open as they tried to hide their laughter.

"I can hear you, you know!! It's not funny!! My friend made it special for-"

"SHUT UP BUTTERKNIFE!!!"

Razor recoiled, but franticly redrew the curtain. Para wasn't letting go of the tension. Aegis sighed and went back to it.

"So… anything… everything. I don't care what you don't want to admit. We need everything."

Para kept sneering, it was clear he had little to give.

"What's there to even say by now? Dit- hrghm… Mimic here already has enough to refill his dossier right? She's been through those files at least twice over. And I sure as shit don't care to know the fuckers name, let alone what hole he crawled out of! Why not ask the receptionist, it's her job to take those sorts of things."

"We did… but Felicia already told us about your little scheme. You're supposed to file those applications immediately, not have them all funneled to you so you can know how best to get your trainees to quit. And yeah, Mimic's already shared all she's gotten. So there something you're not telling us. You're the only one whose ever really laid eyes on that piece of paper… And the only one who knows anything else about Seth. So…"

Aegis leaned in close, hardened stare putting a point across that even she didn't want to throw out.

"Unless you want to get shipped over to Omni for Psyclops to play with like you deserve… I'd suggest you get remembering."

Para never let up his sneer, simply grunted off her intimidations, but looked down to at least try. The only reward being a deeper sneer.

"Half the damn thing was blank, no social, no claimed history. Heh… didn't even know his own blood type. But… grrr… can't picture the fucking address. M… something. Too many damn numbers. Think it was an apartment."

He looked back up, a defeated smug shrug meeting Aegis.

"Yeah, that's all I got. I tore the damn thing up as soon as I even laid eyes on it. I at least give my trainees the first day to surprise me. And look how that all ended up."

His scowl returned, but at least he was quieter n-

"HOLY SHIT!!!"

The three… once again… stared over in Razor's direction.

"Butterknife…!"

Para was losing the quiet moment.

"I swear to god…!"

Distortions flaring up around his good hand before Aegis stifled it with her own and turned back to the now cowering curtain.

"Razor…"

Even she was tired of it by now. A sudden orange flash and the curtain flew open, shield pushing it away leaving Razor exposed and regretting.

"You going to share with the class or am I going to have to drop you outside, take the phone away, and explain your burgeoning needle fetish to your friends?"

"GAH!! What the… ffff I'll call you back!! *beep* Huggh… Okay!!"

Razor was withering under her growing glare, and Para's but his was just expected.

"My… friend was just telling me about some new guy in my town that beat them up and… Well fuck he took on an entire crew of Dockers and… and fucking disintegrated them!"

Aegis' glare flinched.

"Did you say… disintegrate?"

Even Para was intensifying his glare.

"Ye- yeah. Like… turned them to piles of ash or dust or whatever. Even chewed through chunks of the alleyway it went down in. Apparently he saved someone but-"

"Butterknife! Description! Now!"

Razor flinched, but tried to work through what his friend had told him.

"Uh Uh… er! He… said he was wearing a hat and trench coat, like he wanted to stay hidden. Uh… oh and he had a red scarf kinda like…"

He didn't need to say anything more, even he knew what he'd just described. Para's good hand was rippling, Alex was jotting down as much as she could, but Aegis' determination was shining brighter than ever. But it dimmed slightly into a puzzled stare.

"What the hell is a Docker?"

"Ugh… Bored."

"and five…"

"Are you- Are you counting?"

"Well you won't shut up so it's better than nothing."

"Well if fucking Lenney and his crew would just get the fuck back already, I wouldn't be stuck here! Those stupid kids playing on 9th couldn't a' been that hard to get around!"

"Tell that to the new fish. Fuck…ugh. Jam or Tam or whatever."

"Tram? The fuck happened?"

"They found him over at the general, throat slit and bled dry."

"Shiiit… Eh he was too squirrely to cut it anyway. Who buys a gun before getting initiated?"

"Losers trying too hard."

"Yeah. Dude wouldn't have lasted a week. Would've 'damaged the product' or whatever the fuck… why the hell we even letting that shit happen anyway?"

"Didn't place you as a-"

"Not a chance jackass! I mean why are we letting this fucking wacko turn our people into freaks like him?"

"Because they deserved it."

"But they're still ours! Why aren't we just dealing with them? Why are we… grrr… why are we letting it happen again?"

"Because we aren't. The second he's out of patients, he's dead."

"…heh… Thought we were supposed to keep that low?"

"He knows already. Doesn't care. Thinks we're children who just need toys to be distracted by. Ain't saving him. Gonna be a good day when he's on the table, but till then we need the cash and the muscle. So just shut up. Let Lenney have his fun. The rest of us know what comes next. And their ain't gonna be a single freak left when it's over."

"Yeeaah. …What do ya think-"

"Did I not just say shut up?"

"Huugh… listless sigh…"

"Are you- Did you just narrate yourself."

"Well! What else am I gonna do!? They stole my favorite sparring partner! …And she hasn't even called to say how she was doing yet."

"Ughh! And you wonder why they kicked you out."

"Hey!! That's a tender subject. And it wasn't my fault."

"Didn't you cause a 7.4 in the middle of a slum?"

"They were killing each other! I don't see you stopping a riot anytime soon without turning the whole block uninhabitable!"

"That's the difference between us Kinetic. I actually accept the precautions. You think I enjoy living my life behind lead lined full body underwear?"

"At least your chains are light."

"At least I never punched a crater into the public park by sneezing too hard."

"That's why I need my Buster back! She was the only one who could handle me letting loose! Huggh… and now all I can think about is her getting all the action without us. hate this stupid base and these stupid bracers and this grumblegrumblegrumble-"

*bonk*

"Ah!"

"Just calm down already boss. You know damn well that whatever she fought before isn't going to die so easily again. And the Elite can't be fucking asked to get their hands dirty. Sooooo…"

"… So a man can dream. But I don't think shit's even left the ass yet, let alone neared the fan."

"Fucking disgusting dude."

"Ah you understand it."

"I don't want to!"

"Nothing's going on! It's fucking quiet! And I'm bored out of my mind! They need to hurry up and find this guy so it can all hit and I can finally be useful again."

"Way to make all of our plights about you again dude."

"Eehhh… grumblegrumble…"

"Stop that!!"

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