Trash: Chapter 109 Intervention (Patreon)

Chapter 109

Intervention

Amazing the details that appear in the face of a bright flame. Suddenly things that had blended into the background became illuminated due to the flashing lights of an intense flame.

Thinks like the subtle tattoo that lines the inside of the Chief’s wrist, the one on the hand he is using to hold open the now wide-open door. There are other signs that are less memorable, the way the stains on his uniform seem to be suddenly highlighted by the bursts of light, everything from a drink stain on his shirt, to the odd silver hairs that are suddenly more prominently displayed in the hairs on his head.

Everything is shown, my eyes see it, see that he is safe, but just staring off into the room where violent tremors are erupting from and that’s when I make my move. Turning left, into the room and letting my eyes scan the room as I enter.

Having been in the holding room multiple times before, my eyes scan for the details that are normal and instantly discard them.  My eyes see the oddly painted bricks, and discard them as a distraction, then continuing my scan, I see the one bench, a discarded shoulder satchel that my mind instantly recognizes but cannot place. Then I take another step, allowing for more of the room to come into view, and that’s when I see what caused the guard to stand in locked amazement. Suddenly the satchel’s relevance makes sense, as I realize the satchel in the corner belonged to Mousey.

My eyes also see that Mousey and Johny were fighting, something that seemed almost inevitable given how the two always seemed to butt heads, but this was a fight that seemed entirely different than I would have imagined. Rather than Johny winning, or there being at best a tie, this was a one side beatdown. A beatdown involving multiple Skills and an intense flame that radiated from Mousey and seemed to be incinerating Johny from the inside out.

Worse, Mousey seemed entirely unhinged, as a complete look of unrestrained anger filled his eyes, as his fingers seemed to be choking Johny, who admittedly looked like he was trying to resist, but was failing. Especially as everywhere that Mousey touched, seemed to be burning with an intense golden flame.

But even now, I could tell that there was something off about the flame, as it wasn’t hot. At least, it didn’t feel hot to me, instead, it seemed to be closer to the Holy energy I might expect to see radiating from one of my power infused songs, or the amplified lights that caused burning damage to the Death Eater at the arena. The same light that was used to show that Sal was a known transporter of Death Eaters.

“AHHH!” Johny, the boy that is being burned alive from the inside out cries out in pain, alerting me to the danger and immediately charging into action. On instinct, I revert to the lessons highlighted by Mr. Yi, seeing that Mousey is actively engaged in his attack, I move to separate the two. Turning my back to Johny, the injured party, I lower my hips, dropping my shoulder and end up charging into and through Mousey’s outstretched and burning arms.

I close my eyes, a natural reaction to expecting the flames to come. As I in turn expect those same golden flames to transfer onto me, to my shoulder, and even more of my body. There is a thud, as our bodies collide, and then I feel Mousey’s hold on Johny break, as his arms fly upwards, and I move to the position I had aimed for. A spot right in between the two of them.

There is movement, and after a second’s pause, I open my eyes, while balancing myself and taking a half step forward in the process. The result was what one might expect in such a situation, chaos.

My face smacked into Mousey’s face, and I could feel a burst of pain on my nose and mouth as I felt my teeth scrape against bone. With my eyes now open, I wince in pain, but fortunately the intense burning hatred that had been blazing in Mosuey’s eyes a moment ago stopped. I could even see the intense burning connection he had to the golden flames that were coursing throughout his body stopping. In that moment, something in him flipped, he went from being a crazed teenager ready to kill someone to the Mousey I knew. Our eyes met, as I could see dawning realization and horror filling his face as he looked at me.

Even now, my lip still burned, as I was pretty sure I could already taste and feel a drop or two of blood pooling from my top lip, just above my front right tooth. My mouth moved on autopilot, pulling my lower lip over my bleeding upper lip, and proved that, yep, I was definitely bleeding. That’s when I looked in horror and saw the apparent tooth mark on Mousey’s face as he too looked like he got scratched up in the encounter. Worse, he looked completely unfocused as if he was about to go into shock from his body burning up too much energy too quickly. He tried to focus, but his eyes were already dilating and rolling back in his head. Realizing it was my fault, that I had possibly caused him to be knocked out with my thick head, I panicked. Reaching out, I grabbed Mousey, quickly stabilizing him as he looked to be swaying. Half from the sudden attack, and inadvertent headbutt to the face, and partly because he looked like he had burned himself out of Mana, which could cause symptoms similar to diabetic shock from my own personal experience.

Without even thinking, or asking for consent, I began treating him. As my arms reached out to hold him steady, I was already putting my Healer Skills to work. With my stabilizing left hand, I use Streamline Healing* to give me a quick layout of how his body is doing. He has a few bruises, a few scrapes, including the one I accidently gave him on his face. It was clear that there was a scuffle of some kind before I got here, one that had taken place between him and Johny as most of the injuries were relatively new. No signs of his body having time to start the healing process, instead they were all new and just being alerted to by his body. Yet it was the use of my right hand and my newest healing Skill Recuperatio Vitae* that told me a story of something far different happening.

My new Skill Recuperatio Vitae* was the one specifically used to help a body naturally regenerate the blood, particularly blood generated from a wound. While Mousey only had a few cuts and scrapes, his blood told me something entirely different had happened. I didn’t know what exactly, as there seemed to be a process where his body was adapting and simultaneously burning away the old blood within his body and replacing it with more powerful blood. I honestly didn’t know what to make of everything, other than the fact that the moment I began helping to regenerate his blood, it was as if something had switched within him. Before, when he looked almost woozy to the point of barely being able to remain conscious, he now seemed to be stabilizing, that glassy-eyed look began to fade from his eyes as he seemed to be able to stop and focus on me. Taking a stabilizing half step with his right foot, he stopped, closed his eyes, and managed to regain his mental faculties. All the while I finished my own work. My left hand long since running out of external wounds to heal also switched to helping speed up the internal healing process.

When he was safe, and out of the woods, diabetically speaking, that’s when I broke my grip from him and took a half step back, my feet already feeling the slumped and crumpled form of Johny. Knowing he was behind me, I needed to wrap things up with Mousey first, but I also needed to make sure he was no longer a threat to me, or my future patient.

“You good?” I asked, my tone calm and measured as I held up my empty hands in a placating gesture.

“Ye-yeah,” Mousey stammered out, suddenly seeming to realize where he was and that I had somehow gotten in front of him. In fact, I was a little curious about this too, I knew I had been practicing and had seen an explosive burst in my Life Reinforced Movements* Skill, but the world had almost seemed like a blur to me with how quickly I was moving. Particularly with how quickly I was able to weave my way into and through the stream of students who were all trying to run away from here.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to sit down, so I can take care of him,” I said calmly, first pointing with my left hand towards the corner where Mousey’s satchel was still sitting, and then using the same hand to point to Johny’s body. Then just as I expected, the calm demeanor that had overcome Mousey a second ago stopped and was replaced with barely constrained rage.

“You can’t! Do you know what he’s done!” Mousey hissed out, as he jumped in place clearly being one wrong word away from going back and finishing the job he had done on Johny. Taking a second to look back at Johny, I realize things are bad, as he is showing signs of deep penetrating burns that would require multiple skin grafts in my past life, and a lot of personal attention, that would most likely lead to his death by infection, if he somehow managed to survive these initial injuries. Fortunately, this was a world filled with magic and Skills where I knew I could save him, but only if I had Mousey on my side. That’s when I went with my training and made it so Mousey would want to work with me.

“I know that, regardless of what he is done, if I don’t do anything he will die,” I begin. Then I pause for half a beat realizing that is not enough, normal Mousey would have at least stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet ready to strike past me and give a killing blow. I really don’t know what Johny said or did, lord knows he likely deserved this and more, but I couldn’t let that fall on Mousey. I can’t let that happen, Mousey is too good of a person to let this fall on his consciousness, which is why I push. “And if he dies, you will be labeled a murderer.”

With those ten words, I could see that I finally got through to Mousey as the rage that had been building up in him stopped. He was still angry, but he stopped bouncing like he was barely able to contain his rage, and he finally looked at me. Making one last push for this to be about us working together, rather than me going against him, I made my final appeal to his humanity.

“I will not let that happen. You are too good of a person to have that hanging over your head,” that was the final push needed to have all the anger and built-up rage that had been near to bursting in Mousey suddenly deflate. Seeing that his fight was finally gone, I made my move again.

“Now sit down and be prepared to help me when I need you,” I declare while pointing at the corner, the same corner that Mousey had angrily refused earlier. Now I could see him already bending and twisting to sit in the corner, his legs suddenly wobbly and shaking as the adrenaline that had been coursing through him was finally extinguished, leaving behind a poor and exhausted body.

With the main threat gone, I nodded my head then turned in place and began treating the other idiot. Moving onto Johny, I realized this was a lot worse than I originally expected it to be. Reaching out my hands, I felt how I would need to once again use both Streamline Healing* and Recuperatio Vitae* to just keep Johny alive. With my mind mostly focused on trying to heal the moron in front of me, my filter came off as I began speaking the same way I would have in my past life. The same way I would do to all of my problem patients that always managed to find their way to the emergency rooms when it was the tail end of my shifts.

“What have you done this time, moron.” I think to myself. For a moment, I wondered if I actually said my thoughts out loud. Only to realize the next second that, yes, yes, I had spoken my thoughts out loud to my patient.

Johny let’s out a pained chuckle before responding, “my angel.”

Seeing him, I see the glassy eyed look that a lot of my old patients had with me, that same one that spoke of misplaced adoration and regrets.

“Shut up,” is my two-word response that somehow elicits a deeper smile from my patient. A patient that is barely hanging onto life. Shaking my head, I know this is bad, if he dies then I don’t know what will happen to Mousey, but whatever will happen, Mousey does not deserve such a fate. At least I don’t think he does. Glancing out to the hallway, I see that more people are gathered around. The Chief that had been holding the door open a moment ago, is inside, along with Officer Jinx. They are towering over a cowering Mousey who is doing his best to count how many fibers are out of place on his shoes.

Madame Voyou and a few other ROW officers are at the door watching, which is fine as it means they are not getting in my way, which is all I can ask for at this moment.

There is a resistance, as something deep within Johny’s body seems to be reacting to my healing attempts. I scrunch my lips, as I try to understand what is happening, an act that I instantly regret as the pain of my lips are still there, still lingering. Yet I need to focus.

“Tell me the truth doc, am I gonna’ make it?” Johny asks, as he likely can feel the obstruction in his own body that is impeding my healing efforts. I can keep him alive with my powers, but unless I manage to change something, I don’t know what else I can do. But I can’t let Johny know that, so I respond the only way I know how to.

“Unfortunately—” then I realize I need to try something stupid, if I am going to get Johny to live.