Well, shit. You throw a glance around and people are either zoned completely out or starting to look at their phones, obviously having seen Crystal scream past. No cameras and no attention on you, you hit the desk with a notice-me-not long enough to disillusion yourself and hit the door with a second NMN as you pass through it.
Once in the hall you only need to go down one room before you find an empty classroom where you apparate to your lair. Changing takes moments and you slide your extra wand into the holster on your other arm. By that point your Warlock phone has started up.
I heard you have wounded, where are you? :W
PRT supposedly dispatched to BW btw :W
L: dntn 35 n mulligan
L: in cafe
L: b down gsw to torso
L: lot of blood nurse helping
You pluck a couple of blood replenishers and a Wiggenweld, charm them unbreakable, and stash them in pockets. You have a decent idea of where those streets are, so disillusioning yourself again you apparate a few blocks away.
For being perhaps half a mile away from a gunfight, there isn't a soul on the street, but you can hear irregular pops just out of sight. There's also a screech of metal and animal roars, but they sound farther away. Smokejumping to a roof farther down you finally see the site of the current battle.
Despite all the gunshots, only a small percentage of gang members seem to be armed with guns. That isn't helping Manpower though, as he is currently in the tatters of what was once a suit dodging attacks from both Stomtiger and a kimono-clad woman in white with long scraggly black hair who is shooting blasts and whips of water.
The regular gang members have bunkered down behind cars and construction dumpsters, occasionally popping up to fire off potshots, constantly screaming bile at each other.
Manpower seems to be holding his own, and from what you can tell over the screaming is trying to get both capes to stand down and let the wounded evacuate. Neither seems to be listening, and both seemingly ignore the occasional fire coming their way, the bullets ricocheting off a wind shield for the Nazi, and the force dissipating when they hit the bubble of water around the drowned-looking ABB cape.
Stormtiger launches another slash that is met by a water-whip and all sight down at street level is blocked by the explosion of water for a few seconds. You look past the fight and get a glimpse of a purple shield in the cafe at the intersection of the two streets. It looks like they've pulled back into the kitchen and Lady Photon is providing defense.
Pulling out your phone you text:
Eyes on fight, see the shield :W
L: tried 2 get out side alley
L: hkwlf next st over fghng lung
As if summoned by his name, you catch an infernal scraping sound and see silver and sparks fly from the next street over.
You…
[X] Plan Vote
You step back from the edge and slowly start texting with your left hand and conjuring birds with your right.
Making distraction :W
Will tp in and pop thru shield :W
In 15 sec :W
L: K
Looking at the masses of conjured birds blanketing the rooftop with you that you had summoned while typing you see more than a thousand soulless, beady eyes stare back at you. Rather than Hermione's little finches and swallows, yours look more like ravens and crows. It's like you're one mask away from being a plague doctor.
You billow into smoke as a black wave of wings descends upon the street and begins attacking. A number of idiots had been standing up and firing, but you manage to tag a number of them while on the move as they look up at the shadows that fell over them and freeze.
You made sure to exclude Manpower, but everyone else gets swamped by beaks and claws and the timbre of the screams goes from angry to confused to frightened and pained as you reform just outside Lady Photon's shield. Only a moment after she acknowledges you you're on the other side of the shield. Clearly no one explained what you looked like as the shrieks from your appearance are still thick in the air. You ignore them.
"Lady Photon," you nod your head and touch your hat brim. "I left a distraction behind me. Where is Brandish?"
She jerks her head back. "Kitchen. Do you have a shield you can put up?"
Pausing halfway through a step you turn back to face the entrance, put your arms out to the side, and lift. It takes a few seconds, but a head-height wall of transfigured concrete and tiles blocks the view to the street and the purple shield disappears moments later as Lady Photon heads towards the back. You can feel the frightened eyes following you as you move through the swinging door.
Brandish is writhing on a steel table on her stomach, hands white-knuckled along the edges. A brunette in cartoon-patterned, bloody scrubs is holding a distressingly wet, crimson cloth against the cape's left side. "Nurse, your assessment?"
Without looking up a strained voice says "Gunshot wound to left hypochondriac region, profuse bleeding, possible liver damage. I'm not sure, I'm just a pediatri- madre Dios!"
You ignore the cry when she turns to look at you and finish running your own diagnostic. "Spot on, the bullet is lodged in the middle of the liver. Keep pressure for a moment." Kneeling down in front of Brandish you're unsurprised when she flinches back and hisses. "Do I have your permission to heal you?"
"You didn't say he looked like fucking death, Sarah!" Brandish hisses venomously, a shining blade starting to appear in one hand before she smacks her palm down on the table and and clamps it on the edge again. "Fuck! Fine, yes."
You flick your hand and hit her with the strongest painkiller that will leave her conscious. Carol immediately stops twisting in agony, her breathing still heavy. A ramekin flies into your other hand from the floor and you walk over to stand next to the shivering nurse. As much as you don't want to, you pull out your wand and hold it in your right hand—healing the liver and the cavitation damage is too delicate to try and do wandlessly. "You have done well," you murmur, "move your hands." As she does you summon the bullet out and drop it in the container with a clink and hand it off to her before murmuring the first of a series of charms you'll need to use. As her liver begins to reknit you look up at the tiara-wearing woman. "I can have back to fighting fit in roughly two minutes. After that I will defer to your experience."
Lady Photon watches the twitch of your wand for a moment before turning and calling for Laserdream. When your girlfriend flies in a moment later she gives a report. "Lung's tied up chasing Hookwolf, they've moved farther east. I've seen Rune on a platform with someone else roughly south-east. Vicky and Eric finally responded, she's dropping Amy at Brockton General and he's coming straight here, she'll be right after." With a twitch of her lips she acknowledges you as she heads out to fly over the building and back up her father.
Brandish's liver is healed and you're working on closing the wound channel. "I bypassed large parts of the battle, but the west didn't seem to have capes, just gangs," you offer.
The cape's eyes drift to the front of the store and then back to where everyone is crowded in the back. "I'm unwilling to leave any civilians near either of those bastards if we have an option to retreat safely. Once Brandish is up she can guard while we ensure the west is clear, then we head that way." She floats out front, whether to stand guard or join in you don't know.
You manage to finish the healing perhaps half a minute later by using a spell to dump the contents of one of your blood replenishers into her stomach. "Alright, you're largely healed. You are low on blood, however, and while I did something to fix that it will take a few minutes to top you off. You will likely also be passing blood for the rest of the day. Have Panacea or a doctor check everything for a second opinion." With a flick you clean the blood that had soaked in to her clothes and mend them, then do the same to the nurse. Taking the ramekin back you set it down with a clack on the table. "And a souvenir for your trouble."
Without waiting for a reply you head back to the wall and don't find Lady Photon anywhere. The sounds of gunfire nearby seems to have stopped and you smokejump out and throw a notice-me-not on yourself before venturing outside.
There are bird corpses littering the ground, thickest where the capes had been fighting. Stormtiger and a number of Empire thugs are on the ground under a purple shield while to the north there is an unnatural, heavy fog like a wall halfway up the block. You drop the notice-me-not and make sure to take an audible step and both Manpower and Lady Photon turn from where she had been fussing over her husband's clothes. "Brandish—"
"Is fine." You flick a hand and the fallen bird bodies dissolve away. "She was about two pints low so I forced her bone marrow to overproduce. You will want Panacea to check her over, if only to satisfy yourselves that it was all done correctly." A second flick repairs Manpower's suit.
Something blares DANGER in the back of your mind and you spin and look up to see Glory Girl barreling down on you, fist leading.