[SC] Regroup and Reform

Dr. Briggs walked into the room where the bandaged patient lay. "Ah I see you have gotten him up a bit. That is a good sign." Darwin walked in a little closer to have a look at his patient. He slowly started removing a few of his bandages. He has been sedated for so long that his muscles have weakened quite a bit. "We can remove some of these bandages so that he can speak and have a little bit more motion, but..." The doctor continued to look over his body. He tilted his glasses up and looked at Lan's bones with his X-ray vision. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he continued. "Actually for the most part Lan seems to be ok. I worry that with how long he has been on bed rest, his muscles have given out a bit." Darwin looked at Apollo, "He might need some help getting around for a little while. His body won't be as up to the task anymore. At least for a couple of weeks. It is possible he might need some therapy." Darwin looked back at Lan, "This part of the recovery is all up to you and how determined you are to getting back up on your feet." He watched as Lan was still struggling to sit up and conscious.

Dr. Briggs looked up from his clipboard and over at Apollo, for the most part he too had recovered from most of his damage. But before he could get a word in, he noticed both of his patients distracted with something and Lan trying to escape. Darwin turned around and saw a glimpse of the intruder. "STOP! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?" He blurted as a concerned doctor for his patient and as a close minded citizen. "That THING should not be in here. Where did it come from?" Darwin tried to stop his patients from leaving. He extended his arms in both directions, one to stop Lan from sneaking out the door and the other reaching for the call button to alert the rest of the staff. As a doctor he was curious about the being since they are seen as less than human, he had never seen a shamed person before. He wondered if they were truly as despicable as they say. Dr. Briggs had a good sense of ethics and believed that no one should be harmed in a hospital unless they pose a threat to others. So far, this thing... didn't pose any such threat. Darwin put down the call button cord. "I should be calling the authorities. As a care provider I am giving you one chance to persuade me not to do so. But for now he needs to be out of sight." Darwin was very conflicted with the actions he should take. He thought that no one would willingly bring in someone shamed unless they had a pretty good reason to do so. At least with these two still in recovery, he didn't feel like any harm would come from asking questions. "Whatever is going on, since you are my patients you reserve the right to patient confidentiality. No one else has to know." Darwin sat down on his stool and eagerly started twisting back and forth on the seat.

Apollo felt his body jerk and bounce as Phillip carried him out of the danger zone, just barely grabbing a single crutch. The screams he heard made his eyes widen as he realized the immediate danger. The pain from the movement cause his head and world to spin, but he remained conscious. “What the hell…” As the giant made his way downstairs setting the two boys down, Apollo rested on his single crutch and began to hobble in the same direction. The exit signs were visible, and he had the goal of escape, as he was in no condition to fight back.

He looked back to the giant, fearful for his life “I will go get help…” Determined to come back with reinforcements, he quickly hobbled his way out the door, only to see that the entire hospital was now in flames. Dark smoke clouds blackened the sky as he made his way to the nearest guard station. Alerting them to what had happened. However, he could already see that help was on the way as he made his way. This, however, did not end the grim expression on his face, as he was too weak to help the friend who had saved him twice now.

Let it be known that not all Draconian military were soldiers. This particular one was a medic! Or so he liked to think of himself. He was a meatball surgeon at best and working in a real hospital like this one where he was actually allowed to take his time was weird to him. He was learning though. Right now it was his break time and he was relaxing in his office (What he claimed was his office), feet propped up on the desk while he leaned back in his chair. His medical bag was open, a ball of yarn was resting

inside of it. He was currently knitting a scarf for a rather attractive individual who worked on the same floor as him. He was hoping this would be a good ice breaker, maybe he could convince them to go out for coffee with him or something. Or dinner. Or a walk. Or something. Definitely something. He was humming softly to himself, fingers nimbling working with the needles to get this scarf made. If he was going to be the judge of it, it was about half finished. He was smiling, that much could be seen if only because this was a rare moment in which he had taken his surgical mask off. The black material hung loosely around his neck, resting softly against his chest. Things were coming along so nicely. He had to decide if he was going to stay in here until he finished or if he'd finish it later. Could be a great opportunity to ask them out to dinner if he stayed in here and finished it now . . .

Fate, however, had other ideas. And boy was fate cruel.

He wasn't aware of the magnitude or the actual location of the explosion, but he heard just enough of it to freeze up. His eye twitched and his grip on the knitting needles tightened. He slipped into an almost coma like state, his eyes sort of glazing over almost as he was forced to relive memories of battles past. All that death. All his friends. The particular battle he was reliving was one where people were being blown apart beside him left and right while he tried to save as much of one person as he could. They had to drag him away from the broken pieces of the body and if they hadn't, he would have been the next to die. Why was war so . . . Tragic? It was a pity his hands were occupied. They could have reached for the key ring attached to his belt. If only he could have heard the slight jingle of the metal. He might not have had to experience this partial shift.

See, Logical had no control over that. Never cared to practice it. Really fucking should have. There was a reason he wore a surgical mask over his face almost all the time. When he had moments like this, the emotional response from him was so strong that he reacted by becoming the beast locked inside. Large, grotesque gorilla fangs began to appear in his mouth, replacing the humans ones beneath. His eyes shifted just a bit, becoming more animalistic. More of him might have had the chance to shift if not for the fact his door was kicked open. He wasn't sure who or what he saw, just that he felt like he was in immediate danger and threw the first thing that was in his reach at the person. Two knitting needles flew through the air and impaled the person's eyes. He saw the body twitch a couple times, but that was it. He had enough presence of mind after that to realize there was something going on. He tugged the mask up over his face and grabbed his bag. He needed . . . He needed to figure out what was going on here.

Of course stepping outside his office told him exactly what was going on and he more or less just walked into two more assailants. Either fate was making up for being cruel, or it was sheer coincidence. Two large chunks of ceiling crushed the two would be killers into puddles of red mush and the medic just sort of stared for a moment. Had to keep going. Had to keep moving. The build was on fire, it was falling apart. He should . . . He should be looking for survivors. People to help. He needed to get moving.

How he manage to survive as long as he did in this crumbling building was a mystery. However, there was at least one upside. As bizarre as it seemed to be, there was at least one survivor he had come across. Although he was fucking huge. Rumors were enough to tell him who this probably was and sure, being Draconian he hesitated. But his honor as a medical professional came first. He bit his lip, unsure as how to even approach this. he was still feeling the effects of his flashback from earlier so talking with these huge fucking teeth was going to be annoying, but whatever.

"Sir," He called out to him, "Sir, are you already? We need to get out of here. Please, let me help you. I can treat your wounds for you, should you have any, when we get to a safer location." He was completely unsure if touching him was even a good idea so he once more hesitated. "Please, we have to hurry."

At first glance, he hadn't caught sight of the leg injury. No, he’d been more focused on other things and that was probably why he looked so surprised when he finally did see it. He listened to what else the other had to say. It sounded like he’d been poisoned, but he couldn’t be sure from what. There were options here, but he had to choose the right one. Even the wrong one could buy them more time than what they would have previously had, but the side effects . . . He wanted to bite his lip but these stupid fucking . . . Why did he have to react like this under emotional duress? He took a deep breath and tried to remain calm; fix the giant now, work on getting them out of here next. From there, well he’d just have to figure it out. So he shifted to his knees and put his medical bag down on the ground and started to dig through it.

“I’m going to have to apologize. This is . . .” He trailed off as if he was unsure what to say. This was more of a situation that he was used to and yet he found himself hesitating as he dug through the bag. “I don’t know what this is going to do to you. I’m not sure what the poison or venom or whatever it is that they used to coat their blade with when they stabbed you. Even if I did know, I don’t know that I could retrieve the right vial in this mess to help you, but . . .” Again, he trailed off, tugging a small vial and a needle out of his bag. “This is an experimental universal anti-venom the lab here is working on. I’m helping develop it. I’ve never gotten to field test it before though. This isn’t my ideal way to test these things, but if you’ll allow me to try it . . .”

This time it wasn’t his fault his voice vanished with the wind. The explosions he heard next rocked him to his core, triggering another round of flashbacks. More of him began to morph and shift into that of an animal, but he had enough presence of mind to com back to reality quicker this time. He was with a patient. He had to try and help him to the best of his current ability. Which at this point was starting to get difficult. He could see this giant of a man. A quick glance from around them let him know they were alone. What he perceived to be was them alone. He was almost positive that the building collapsing would have stopped people from directly following them. But that didn’t stop him from seeing people that weren’t there.

He stared off into a space that was next to the other, watching figments from his imagination bring in so many wounded men. Legs blown off, arms missing. One of the stretches only had a torso. Another was just assorted body parts. And there he was, just a medic trying to piece the ones still alive back together. Realistically, he wasn’t even supposed to be performing surgery. This was more or less something that got thrown into his lap when one of the field hospitals was short staffed and they knew he had medical knowledge. He remembered losing it when he saw someone he had known come in as only a head and a partial torso.

“S-sorry,’ Muttered the medic as he managed to stand. He hadn’t realized that he’d fallen. Must have been when the building collapsed. He shifted again, dragging his medical bag back over to the giant. “Like I said, its experimental and I don’t even know if it works. But it, it might help.” Consent would have normally been something he waited for, but he didn’t feel like they had enough time for that. So he just prayed this worked and stabbed the needle into the man. He waited for all the anti-venom to leave before he took it away. Needed a second needle, had to find another one. “You’re so big so you’re going to need a second dose, I think. Just, let me find the other needle in here . . .”

Here again, the medic hadn't really been paying as close attention as he normally would have. He only noticed the knife sticking out of the man's leg when he watched him pull it out. If there hadn't been those damned explosions setting him off, he might have been able to do his job properly. He started digging through his beg more quickly, trying to locate another needle as well as some bandages. He would have protested about the other moving, but that was when he heard some more things that sounded like explosions and he just didn't want to deal with those so he hurried himself after the rather large individual.

Was it panic that the man had collapsed or was it his medical professionalism that had him hurrying to the other's side once they were a decent distance away? He could at least focus more on his job now so that was good. He once more knelt beside the man and started digging into the bag again. He was muttering about his yarn being in the way, not that that mattered much anymore. His knitting needles were lodged in someone's head that he was pretty sure was stuck in the door. Though, whether that door was still standing or not was a mystery. He had to take it out and once he did, looking became a lot easier.

"Hello, Phillip," Mused the medic who had now found what he was looking for. "I'm Logical." He glanced up at him as he started another dose of the anti-venom. "And yes, before you ask, that's my actual name. My parents thought they were funny." He made sure to pick a better spot to inject the giant this time, hoping that that would at least stop the poison in his system. He didn't want to overdose or underdose him, but honestly he had no idea just how potent his experimental concotion was. "If you experience any, uh, adverse symptoms, please let me know. I'll see what I can do for you. For now, let me see your leg." Not that he would have given him much choice on the matter.

"I haven't seen much of anyone actually walking away from this other than the two of us to be honest." He had tugged some peroxide out of his bag, moving to clean the wound. He wasn't sure if he warned him that it would sting or not though. Didn't seem to matter given the current situation though. "Honestly, I cannot tell you what happened. I was in my office, knitting a scarf. I felt the explosions rock the building and I'm going to assume would-be assassins tried to jump me. All three of them are dead. Then I sort of just found you and . . . That's all I know."

He shifted a bit more once he had the wound clean, reaching for a regular needle and some suture to sew up the wound a litte bit. He really wished he could have been inside the building, this would have been so much cleaner to do. He mumbled apology after apology because he was sure he wasn't being very careful. Normally he would have been, but those goddamn explosions had triggered his PTSD. Not to mention he was partial shifted in places so he was struggling to maintain focus. But he got the wound sewed up. He wrapped it up in a bandage next, just to make sure that it was okay. He began to put everything back in the bag and looked up at the man.

"Well, that'll have to do for now. Not my best work, but it'll hold until I can get you better help."

It was nice to know that at least two of the children that had previously been in that building had made it out alive. But had anyone else? Was anyone else so lucky? He shifted just a little bit and began to stand up. He had calmed down enough that it seemed he was returning to the appearance of a normal human. He tugged his surgical mask down and felt his face. Yep, normal human now. Thank God for small miracles. Now, what else was it that the giant was saying? Something about looking for others?

"Alright, Phillip." The medic nodded and stretched. He'd been on his knees for longer than what he would have liked patching the other up. Had they been properly located, this wouldn't have been an issue. Though, one would have thought this was something Logical would have been used to all things considered. "We'll both rest here for a bit, catch our breath. I need to relax and stop shaking so its no big deal. Take as much time as you need and we'l see if we can find anyone else together."