17

Once we had gotten a large distance away from the PRT building I came to a halt in midair, craning my neck to look around at Cheshire on my back behind me. Before I even got my question out she said,

"Let's start with getting Panacea. If we're going to go after these people, it is probably going to require some not-so-healthy interrogation tactics."

I nodded silently and took off and the direction of the hospital. The trip would give me some time with my thoughts.

The Workers, Cheshire had said. They were the ones that killed Hookwolf and it would be too much of a coincidence that they weren't involved with the other murders. Namely, Rune's. I felt something twist inside of my gut as I thought about it. Rune… was a racist. She had been a gang member. She had done a lot of things that weren't all that great, but she was willing and wanting to change. We hadn't been the best of friends, but we were friends, I hoped. But that wasn't even the reason why I was so angry at these people, at least not entirely. It was because she had potential. She could have gone on and been a hero, become someone other than 'the Nazi'. People could have stopped thinking of her as the worst dregs of society and maybe start thinking about her as a human being for once. In the end, these nameless people didn't just kill Rune or a friend. They killed everything she could have been. And that hit me harder than anything else.

I was suddenly hit with the desire to be at the hospital that much quicker, but instead of my wings picking up speed to carry me, I felt my magic shift within me to accommodate. Instinctively, I start to let it flow out of my horn and felt it envelop me and Cheshire and stop, waiting for more input.

I focused on the hospital, more specifically, my want to be there. My magic hummed responsively like I was making the right choice but I wasn't quite there yet. I tried pushing my magic one way or another. Shoving it, pulling it, expanding it, shrink-

Suddenly Cheshire and I collapsed with a pop and reappeared outside the front doors of the hospital, causing a nurse on her break to shriek and drop her coffee cup. I reached out with my magic to grab it before it hit the ground, a little bit of coffee spilling out as I did so.

I floated it back up to her and said, "We're looking for Panacea, can you take us to her?"

The nurse grabbed the cup out of the air with wide eyes and said, "Ooo, girl! You done scared the livin daylights outta me! You go around flashin' around and poppin' into place everywhere you go? You gonna give old lady a heart attack, oh my Lord."

I looked back at Cheshire just to make sure this was real and my improvised teleport didn't just make her out of my subconscious or something crazy like that. She seemed undeterred by the events.

"Um," I said, giving my head a shake to attempt to get my thoughts back on track. "Panacea? Can you tell us where she is at?"

"Panacea? Oh thats easy! She'll be the emergency room takin' care of them gangers that been shootin' themselves left and right, uh huh. I tell you I don't know how this city still has a crime problem the way these people shoot each other all the day long. Mhm, every God given day people out there droppin' like flies and actin' like that's our problem. And then there's Panacea, puttin' them back together when the going get tough and we get more than usual. Sure makes my job easier though, that's right."

"Alright," Cheshire said cheerfully, too cheerfully to be real. "We'll just going then."

"Alright sugar," the nurse said with a wave. "Don't you go poppin' in on me like that again now you here?"

At the first opportunity to escape, Cheshire and I hurried into the hospital.

"What was that," I asked as people turned to stare at us as we walked through the reception area.

"Veteran nurse," Cheshire said casually. "Apparently, you're not nearly as weird as half of the other things she has seen come through since she started working here. Really makes me want to go back and try to find out more about the other half, and at the same time, it doesn't."

We walked down the halls, drawing more and more stares as we went. Mostly from patients and people visiting them, nurses and doctors didn't seem all that surprised by us. Now I was also beginning to wonder what could possibly be coming through this hospital that a magical cartoon horse with a mane that seemingly defies gravity isn't automatically the strangest thing they have seen.

The noise emanating from the emergency wing hit us before we actually got near enough to the door to see inside. Every chair was full of gang members of all colours. E88 sitting next to Merchants as they silently cradled their wounds, stretchers out in the walk ways and waiting areas, nurses running back and forth with paperwork in hand, doctors being forced to remove bullets right in the middle of the chaos. And all the while the white blur that was Panacea was darting back and forth on a touch and go basis. She would walk up to one, quickly ask if she could heal them, and give them a brief touch before drawing a circle on the backs of their hands with a green marker. To indicate they were stable if I had to guess.

Despite the way the two of us stood out among the crowd, barely a single person turned their heads towards us. Let alone Panacea. I thought about raising my voice to call out to her, but I doubted we could drag her away from her work here. My next thought was to pull her away and get her to grow ingredients at a constant rate while I used my telekinesis to make healing potions on a mass scale. But while the thought was tempting, the potions would cause any wounds to heal around any bullets or otherwise lodged into these people. Causing unnecessary surgery later they probably couldn't afford.

Glancing at the law enforcement in the room, I saw them guarding the doors and accepting the members from the hospital attendants as they were cleared. I knelt down next to Cheshire and quietly as I could while still being heard over the bustle, I asked,

"What would it take to get drag Panacea away from here?"

"Hmm," Cheshire considered a moment. "You wouldn't by chance have some sort of mass heal spell, would you?"

"Uh, no," I answered. "But the healing potions originally came from my magic, and now they're getting powered by magic of their own. You think I could cut out the middleman, so to speak?"

"I have no idea," Cheshire sighed. "Magic, it's like it is covered in water. I just can't get a grip on it."

"Then point me towards one of them that doesn't currently have a bullet in him."

Without responding, Cheshire grabbed my hand and dragged me across the room. An impressive feat given that I was the size of a small horse, my flowing mane making up about half of that space, and that the room was as packed as it was.

She brought me in front of an ABB member that was suffering from an eye wound and a bullet through the shoulder. He was attempting to apply pressure to each but wasn't very effective at it.

"A shallow knife cut to the eye," Cheshire told me. "And through bullet wound to the shoulder. A sniper of some sort. Either Coil's or one of the Four."

I nodded silently to her and focus my magic to my horn and tried to get a feel for how I wanted my magic to take form. Before now, all my magic had been a more general all body effect. My telekinesis, my plant charging, even my recently discovered teleporting. But I was getting a different feeling when I thought about my intentions. Some underlying instinct telling me a more directed form would be better. Something like… a beam.

With the form of it decided, I tried to give it the catalyst to actually move into him. With plants, it is specific emotion, with telekinesis it was actually reaching out with the magic, with teleporting it was intense desire to be at that one place. This needed something like that. And considering that my healing potions were made from plants charge with love, I figured that was a good place to start.

I brought up an old memory of my mother giving me one of my favourite books, focusing specifically on the emotion of it. Instantly something clicked in place and I felt my magic shoot out of my horn with a flash.

Opening my eyes, I saw the man was enveloped with a bright pink light, the same colour of my potions. There were a few sound effects that accompanied the beam and it striking the man, followed by him going invisible for a few moments. The rest of the room fell silent for a moment and stared.

The light faded and the light faded to reveal the ABB member in perfect condition, eye repaired and shoulder perfectly fine. Even the blood stains that had been on his clothing were gone.

I turned with a grin to look at the now staring clinic. "Now that I'm sure that won't end horribly, care for some more cape help?"

"Um," the nurse closest to me said slowly. "We'll need to get permission from the head nurse." The woman suddenly straightened up and whistled loudly and suddenly a familiar voice started shouting across the room.

"Woman! The hell you callin' me over here for? I got thugs to yank hunks of metal out of!"

"Uh," the woman said, a little embarrassed. "Nova here can apparently heal people and we need your permission to get her assistance."

"You stupid or somethin'? We gonna need all the help we can get around here, you outta- what you still standin' here for? Go get doing ya job! Go on, git!" She waved the files she had been holding in her hand at the nurse, causing her to duck and scamper off. It stirred the other people back into action and the clinic was suddenly busy again.

The head nurse turned back to me. "Alright, you got some fantastical magic doodads to hit this sorry lot with. I 'bout had up ta here with these fools I tell ya! If I weren't such a kind patient woman I'd smack these fools upside the head I would!"

"Yes," I said, still trying to get over the way this woman talked. "It's a bad idea for anyone with foreign objects lodged in them, though."

"Notta problem. Girls! And Tim!" The nurse called out over the crowd. "Now you all bring them without bullets lodge in 'em on over to miss pony here! Y'all hear me?"

"Yes!" The staff responded almost too fast.

"Good," she said before turning back to me and looking at Cheshire.

"You got any of them fancy healin' powers by any chance."

"Not really, no," Cheshire answered honestly.

"How about a medical degree? Or you spend all that money you steal from gangers on spandex?"

"I got the next best thing," Cheshire said.

"Close enough, now get moving."

"Wait," I said. "What's your name?" But she was already gone. I looked at Cheshire and she shrugged. I guess this was our life for the next hour or so. I found it odd how far I had come off track in such a short time, heck I was grinning just a moment ago when I found out I did, in fact, have a healing ability. I didn't want to forget the reason I came though, Rune's death. Something had to be done and the PRT wasn't going to do it.

The Workers were going to find themselves at the receiving end of a horn that is decidedly not shooting healing beams.

The three of us were in the staff lounge now, Panacea and Cheshire sitting while I elected to stand as it felt more comfortable. We had spent almost an hour and a half running around healing the various gang members that had been hurt in a strange increase in fighting between them. Then we discovered a side effect of my healing beam, it made people I used it on unable to swear. At that point all the black nurses handled the Empire gang members and poked fun at them, causing them to get red in the face as they tried to cuss them out and couldn't.

It was fun, but it was also a distraction. Now that it is over, we can finally move on to the more serious topic. Finding Rune's killers.

"I think it is pretty clear who is behind this," Cheshire said, gripping a cup of coffee. "The Workers hit Hookwolf with an elaborate trap design specifically for him. It took lots of time and money to set up and can't possibly be unrelated to Krieg and Rune."

"But if The Workers did this," Panacea cut in, "Why have only Empire and ABB members come in? Along with the rare mercenary from Coil's men?"

"Because of how they did it," Cheshire said. "The sniper Krieg took was clearly meant to throw attention at Coil. The melting of Hookwolf was meant to throw attention at the few pyrokinetics in the city, meaning Lung and Faultline's Crew. And Rune's death was to get the PRT into panic mode at how easily someone shut off their systems and did something completely unnoticed. On top of the fact that The Empire had been biding their time to take back their territory anyway. These people want the major groups to fight, probably because it means they won't spend their time fighting The Workers and the like."

"You say that like they're two different people," I pointed out. Cheshire nodded.

"That hole had to be dug months before The Workers actually became a thing, meaning whoever these people are they have been here for a very long time. And since they and the other three gangs all popped up at the same time, I think it is safe to say there is no way in hell they aren't working together."

"But do you guys need me?" Panacea suddenly asked, looking between us. "This all sounds like a job for the two of you. The one that can knock heads and the one that can deduce things. I heal people."

"You can do much more than that," Cheshire said. "If the plants and elixirs are anything to go by." Panacea frowned and opened her mouth to say something but Cheshire silenced her with a dismissive wave. "Relax, we just wanted you to heal some guys we planned to beat the snot out of." Cheshire paused and said, "But if you did by chance decide to experiment I might have a few suggestions as to-"

"No," Panacea said flatly.

"Fine, fine." Cheshire held up her defensively. But then a thought entered my mind.

"Panacea," I said slowly, thinking as I went. "You're not just a healer. You're a biokinetic, correct?"

Panacea's frown deepened. "In a sense, yes."

"Well, taking Cheshire into the field with me is always has some risk. I can fly and pick things up from across the room to avoid danger. I have a shield that can stop bullets and was able to take a hit from Hookwolf. But Chesire doesn't have that. While it is nice talking to her over the microphone to get information, it is better simply to have her there."

"What are you asking?" Panacea asked flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm asking that you making Cheshire's body better," I told her bluntly. "Increase her muscle tone, iron out any faults in her organs or otherwise. Something like that."

Panacea made a face as she considered it. We watched her as the idea went through her mind. Eventually, finding no fault in the reasoning, she sighed and said,

"Alright, give me your hand and I'll see what I can do."

Cheshire grew a vulpine grin and held out her hand. Panacea took it silently and started working.

I didn't see any outward changes besides the occasional movement of her skin. The expression on Cheshire's face underneath the domino mask shifted every now and then as her eyebrows shot up and her grin came and went.

Five minutes had passed when Panacea finally took her hand away from Cheshire and smiled a little as she explained to me what she had done.

"I increased her muscle density so she has more muscle without actually looking like it. On top of that, I increase her lungs' ability to absorb oxygen while simultaneously creating a bacteria that produces oxygen at a much higher rate than normal. Her immune system is strong enough to kill anything that might make her sick. I also made her skin a middle ground between a hard, shell like substance and a rubbery kevlar-esque material. It still feels like normal skin but it should be enough to stop knives. I don't know about bullets though. I wouldn't suggest it. Chemicals like adrenalin are going to be more effective and last longer."

"This is fucking great!" Cheshire said enthusiastically as she examined her hands. "I'm basically a Brute now." I couldn't help but smile a little at that.

"Thanks," I told Panacea. "Now, are you ready to head out with us? I don't want to hurt anyone too badly, but I will if I need to."

"I don't know," she responded indecisively. "There is still a lot of gang fighting going on. They might still need me here."

"Well," Cheshire began with a grin. "We can always ask the head nurse if she needs you."

Panacea paled a little. "N-No! That's fine, we don't have to go and see her. Let's just go and you can drop me off back here when we're done, right?"

"Right," I said with a nod, though I didn't quite believe it myself. We were probably going to be out for a long while, probably longer that Panacea would be able to work as per our agreement. And once these potions come out, she probably won't be needing to work much at all except for the occasional genetic deformity.

"Now let's get going," I said with a stretch of my wings. "I have some questions I need to ask."

***

"Alright," I said. "Let's try this again." I was holding a Worker just beneath the cloud layer with my magic. Cheshire said we still have a few thousand meters before the four of us were going to need oxygen, but I didn't think going above the cloud layer was going to be that necessary. Besides, with both Panacea and Cheshire on my back, flying was a little more difficult. It was harder as a whole, but it made it harder to change course or pick up speed. Though, I doubted the ganger cared about that.

"Who is in charge?" I asked carefully.

"I don't fucking know!" The ganger shouted as he flailed his arms wildly.

"Who is supplying you?"

"I don't know, I swear!"

"What is your goal?"

"To fight the other gangs in the city! Please, put me down!"

I looked back at Cheshire who shook her head. I looked back at the guy and rolled my eyes and let him go.

I teleported back down to the group and the wave of dizziness hit me at the same time as another hit of magically exhaustion struck me. The healing spell I had learned was far from an efficient one, with my flight time across the city being my only period to recharge that magic. The teleports I had been learning to fine tune wasn't all that easy either.

"Um," Cheshire began thoughtfully as she looked upward. "Go about fifty feet that way, the wind currents are blowing him around like a leave in the wind." I took off in the direction that she indicated, landing lightly on the roof of a defunct warehouse. I saw the ganger coming down as a black speck against the darkening sky. We were on the tail end of sunset, making the sky still a little bright but not by much.

Mindful that it isn't actually the fall that kills people but the sudden stop at the end, I reached out with my magic and grabbed the back of his shirt where the glow would be less obvious and started slowing him down.

He was still screaming up until he was only a few dozen yards from us, at which point I grabbed him fully with my magic and drew him close to us again. He had soiled his pants.

"Anything to say now?" I asked. He hung his head but didn't say anything. I looked back at Cheshire and she shrugged, sliding off my back and onto the roof. She walked up to the guy and grabbed him by the jaw, pointing his head downward at her so their eye met.

"Well, since you know we're not going to turn you into grease mark on the road, there is only one or two things left we can do." Cheshire forced his mouth open to reveal his teeth inside. Recognizing what she wanted me to do, I gave a molar in the back a little tug. Not enough to pull it fully out, but enough that it would be uncomfortable. If he made me, I would pull slowly until the tooth came all the way out. That wouldn't be very comfortable.

"Wait," Panacea said, sliding off my back to join Cheshire. "Is this really necessary?"

"We have to find out who is responsible," I told her seriously.

Panacea rolled her eyes and started walking up to him. "Sure," she said. "But you don't have to beat every guy into submission just learn what we need. I think I got a better way, hold him to the ground."

Cheshire suddenly grinned and stepped aside for her as I set the man on the ground. Panacea knelt down next to him and put a hand on his neck.

"You feel that?" She asked innocently. "That is your foot falling asleep, and unless you tell us what we need to know it is going to stay that way for the rest of your life."

"What is it going to take to get you three bitches to lay off me?" The man hissed back at her. "I don't know nothin'!"

"This feeling?" Panacea continued. "That is constant, unstoppable heartburn. Are you sure you don't know anything?"

"Goddamn it no!"

"Fine, then how about a never ending itchy spot on the part of your back where you can't reach?"

"Stop it you fucking cape bitch! I told you all, I don't know nothin'!"

"Fine," Panacea said, standing up and brushing her hands off. "I guess we'll just go then."

She had started walking away when the man called out to her again. "Goddamn it, I do know someone, the guy who give me orders!"

I took a few steps forward and looked down at him. "We've been chasing those leads all day," I told him. "The only thing anyone ever seems to know is who to gives them their orders and nothing else. We're going to need more than that."

"And don't think you can claim you don't know again," Cheshire cut in. "Because I know you know something."

I released my hold on the guy and he instantly started squirming, clutching at his chest, attempting to scratch his back, trying to decide what to do with his right foot as everything only made it worse.

"The Doctors!" The man cried. "We allied with The Doctors and were supposed to go on a joint mission twenty minutes ago!"

"What was the mission," I demanded.

"We're using the conflict between the E88, Coil, and the ABB to distract them and most of the PRT from noticing an attack on Merchant territory!"

"Why is that such a big deal? Why do you need them distracted?"

"Please," the man begged. "Make it stop."

"Answer the questions," I ordered, feeling increasingly frustrated.

"Because we're supposed to kill everyone there, including all of the capes and we don't want anyone thinking we're a threat yet! Now please!"

"Where is this happening?"

"I don't know! I was supposed to go to a location where I would get taken to the place we were headed!"

With a sigh, I motioned to Panacea while grabbing him with my telekinesis. Panacea touched him and within a second he stopped squirming and relaxed with a blissful sigh.

"Nova," Cheshire said, getting my attention. "I know the Merchants aren't that much of a presence in the city, but that is still a lot of ground to cover by ourselves. And if they are planning on fighting their capes, then it might as well be a cape battle."

"We need to call the Protectorate," I realized. They were the only ones I could think of capable of helping us with this. Even then it wasn't a guarantee.

Panacea let out a heavy sigh. "I really did want to get back to the hospital tonight."