Mob 5.4

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

April 17, 2011

3:19 PM

Emma.

Greg let out a sigh at the thought currently holding center stage in his mind, the boy unsure how to deal with all the feelings just thinking her name brought up to the surface. So much had happened with the two of them just in the last hour…

So much.

His mind was still reeling from what he had seen… from what he had done. Holding a battered, bruised and bleeding body while trapped in that wreck of a building, cradling her to himself as he desperately tried — and failed — to keep himself from crying.

Worthless. The thought repeated in his mind the longer he stood there, intruding into his other, more important musings like an alarm that refused to shut off. Unable to do anything worthwhile with something like that staring him right in the face… how was he supposed to deal with that?

Granted, his powers had been doing their very best to keep his head on straight. If it hadn't been for Gamer's Mind seemingly working overtime to keep him from falling into a bawling mess of nerves and feelings, he would have been even more worthless than he already was.

Worthless.

Whatever he could do to keep Emma alive, he had tried it. Everything he could think of… pointless. Every plan that came to mind… impractical. Every single idea that he could possibly pull out of his stupid brain… Worthless.

He stood slumped against the wall, head down as loud noises assaulted him from all sides. Such was the nature of a hospital's emergency room, all that and bright fluorescent lights searing into his eyes without a hint of mercy. Really, Greg wouldn't have expected any different almost any other day.

"We were at… at… I think the place was called… Highlight… or something," Greg muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a free hand as he tried to bring the actual name of the place to mind. "Or… I don't… I don't know. Maybe… Daylight…"

Today, though, with all the overcrowding and the din of people complaining of their pain — whether through actual words or a much more guttural form of communication — it wouldn't have been wrong to say that the mass of humanity was almost overbearing due to the sheer volume of people packed into such a tight place.

At least it would have been if Greg bothered to even pay the slightest bit of attention to all the chaos going on around him. His attention was unusually focused at the moment, the boy's eyes staring straight ahead at the blank wall in front of him as he held the rectangular rose-colored object in his hand to his ear.

"It was a place… in downtown, I guess. Skylight, maybe… Look, I…" He paused, fingers tightening around the phone slightly as the man on the other end raised his voice. "... I guess… maybe…."

The pink phone wasn't his, of course. He doubted he would ever willingly use any pink item if he could help it, to be honest. Really, what boy his age would? Still, circumstances required him to use the device regardless of the fact that the person who it belonged to wasn't aware that he actually had it. Not that they were aware of much at all right now, to be honest.

"...Moonlight, yeah," Greg nodded along, closing his eyes with a relieved sigh as he finally recalled the name. "Moonlight… that was the place we went to."

The blond took in a deep breath as the man on the other line continued to speak, the deep baritone voice managing to keep his attention despite the voices of the many, many people crowding the emergency room acting as background noise. He couldn't help but ignore everything else, though, far too focused on trying to keep his head straight as the voice continued to grill him.

"I'm not lyi-" Greg frowned, eyes narrowing as he pulled the phone away from his ear slightly, the voice on the other end almost shouting his head off. With a deepened frown, he placed the smartphone back on his ear. "Look, would I even lie right n-"

His other fist tightened at his side, jaw hard as he paused again for a few seconds before biting out the sentence, "Yes. I said Moonlight."

Another pause. "That is where we went." The boy blinked as the voice on the other end spoke up again, unsure of why this line of conversation was at all necessary. "I paid for it… Yeah, with myown money. What else?"

Another shout met his reply, the baritone gaining a new level of volume born from whatever annoyance the man on the other end was feeling. Greg forcefully shut his mouth rather than let himself speak, the teen well aware that the next words out of his mouth would not help this conversation at all. Gritting his teeth, he spoke again. "Yes, I know how much it costs. I'm not st-"

"...No… no. No. Listen, I…" He cut himself off halfway again, fingers curling dangerously around the phone in his hand as he stared straight ahead with narrowed eyes. "No, nothing like th… Alright!" Greg bit back, yelling back with just as much heat to his voice as he had received.

Ignoring the stares of several of the waiting patients and on-duty nurses startled by his outburst, the blond shook his head and continued speaking. "You don't believe me. That's… that's okay."

"Look…" The blond let out a tired sigh, eyes drooping slightly as he leaned further back against the wall. He didn't have it in him to be angry right now, mind too occupied on far more important things than to waste it on something as worthless as this. "Look, Mr. Barnes, you don't have to believe me, alright? I'm just trying to tell you what happened."

There was silence on the other end.

Sadly, it barely lasted long enough for Greg to take a breath.

"... No. No, I'm not saying… No, I'm not calling you… Seriously, I'm… I'm… I'm not... Fine." With an edge to his voice that Greg didn't think he had in him right now, the blond grit his teeth and continued speaking, eyes narrowed to annoyed slits. "Think what you want. I'm not the one with a daughter in the hospital."

Hanging up before Emma's father could say anything else, Greg dropped the phone into his pocket, the device vanishing into his inventory as the blond muttered the word under his breath. Shaking his head in a mixture of annoyance and exasperation, the teen found himself muttering another word under his breath, one that perfectly conveyed his feelings toward Alan Barnes.

"Dick."

Greg Veder let out an exasperated sigh, sinking further into the wall in a display of tiredness that he wished was more physical than mental or emotional. With another sigh, he let himself slide down the wall, finally sitting down as he sank to the linoleum floor. If it was a matter of rest, he could just sleep off this feeling and be right as rain in a matter of hours.

Unfortunately, the blond doubted something as mundane as a nap would ease any of his problems right now. Another sigh left his mouth as Greg raised his gaze upwards, turning to glance at one of the several televisions hanging from the wall of the waiting room.

It was tuned to the Brockton Bay News as all of them were, every single TV set displaying scenes that wouldn't look too out of place in an urban war zone. He stared at it for a few seconds more before turning his head away, a disgusted scoff leaving him. None of it was anything he hadn't already seen on his way here.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Forty-Eight Minutes Ago

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Come on. Come on. Greg thought to himself, eyes narrowed. He thrust his arm out one more time, a grunt of annoyance leaving him as he did so. The young man let out a grimace as he twisted his wrist and pulled back his arm, a shaft of light meeting his eyes and forcing a wince from him. The hole he made in the wall was small, admittedly, but it was enough.

Enough for the sounds of screaming and chaos to fill the cramped space of the ruined restaurant.

He brought his arm back down again and in one movement, a long furrow was carved through the wall, sending a wide shaft of light across Greg's face. Just a couple more and this will be over with.

It was hard enough doing this with only hand, moving slowly enough that he didn't send the entire thing collapsing down on his head. What made it even harder was the unmoving figure slumped over his shoulder, further hampering his range of motion.

It hadn't taken more than a second or two for Greg to confirm that whatever that strange light show had been, it had managed to restart Emma's heart. Under Greg's continued vigil, he could only watch with muted surprise as the worst of Emma's wounds began to fade in front of his eyes over the next few minutes. It was shocking to see, to say the least, and for several minutes, Greg found himself torn between grateful surprise and puzzled musing over whether this was how Sparky felt every time he saw Greg's wounds heal in front of his eyes.

His conflicted emotions hadn't lasted for long, however. After using his Structural Analysis to confirm that Emma was no longer in danger of dying, Greg quickly realized he had to get the two of them out of here.

While the girl in front of him wasn't quite in critical condition anymore, it would have been a far cry to call her okay. Greg knew that what she needed was actual medical help, i.e., nothing he could ever hope to provide.

At least for now, Greg thought to himself, an unusual focus in his eyes. I'll see what I can do to fix that.

With one hand keeping Emma in place — albeit greatly assisted by his Surface Adhesion skill — the other remained free enough for Greg to continue slashing at the closest wall he could reach, Gram firmly in hand as the sword continued to glow with a steady application of Reinforcement to the named weapon. Whatever the building material was, it couldn't stand up against the edge of the blade, Greg continuing to slide the sword through the barricade in front of him and meeting as much resistance as he would expect from warm butter.

Each cut was a careful one, despite how it may have looked to anyone else not named Greg Veder. A single use of Structural Analysis had told him all he needed to know about the structural weak points of the section of wall in front of him and he did well to keep the image in mind as he continued his work. Staying well away from the parts that served to give some sense of stability to the slumped-over wreck of a restaurant, Greg continued to slowly and steadily make himself an exit.

His hand came down once more, the last cut intersecting the previous few as he dragged the blade diagonally across the wall itself. Several cuts had been made through the wall, nearly a dozen of them intersecting each other in order to weaken the area as much as possible without inadvertently causing a structural collapse of the entire thing. Let's get this over with.

Steeling himself for the next part, Greg dismissed the sword in his hand with a muttered "Inventory" and took several long steps back before turning to focus all his attention on the wall in front of him. His blue eyes narrowed as he leaned forward ever so slightly, one hand tightening around Emma's legs as he reaffirmed she was still there. Okay.

Greg raised one hand to protect his face and just like that, he said the words.

"Reinforcement… Burst."

-40

For an instant, the blond almost froze up as he felt a stabbing pain all over, his muscles protesting this trial run of a previously untested skill. Then, just like that, the pain dulled to nothing and Greg rushed forward, moving faster than he ever had before.

Body aglow as he exploded outwards through a section of the wall onto the sidewalk outside, he would have stood out like a sore thumb in any other situation, especially with Emma slung over one shoulder like so much dead weight. Amid the chaos of several cars and buildings lit up with flames, smoke clouding the skyline and streets pockmarked with craters and filled with wreckage, he was essentially invisible.

Everything around him looked like it had been ripped from the pages of a war zone, the sights and sounds sending a slight chill down Greg's spine. A single building collapsing was bad but that could be explained away as a cape fight that got out of control. It happened often enough, but not usually anywhere near such a populated area as Downtown.

Still… for the entire street… hell, several streets… For them to look like this, something serious had to be going down. Greg's fingers tightened into fists as he glanced around, spotting the few people still remaining on the streets running around like chickens with their heads cut off; most had already abandoned their cars in the middle of the street to find cover.

Fuck. He turned his head to scope out both ends of the long street, wincing as he saw how long the traffic jam was with so many cars left behind as people ran for make matters even worse was the fact that there was rubble blocking the majority of one end of the street, preventing event the people that were still in their cars from moving any faster than a crawl. Fuck.

The blond winced as he realized something else, another cherry to top off this terrible sundae of a day. As bad as the traffic situation was, there was no chance of an ambulance making its way to him anytime soon, even if he called right now. I'm gonna have to walk to the hospital, huh. Greg let out an exasperated sigh, not knowing what else to say right now. Fuck.

Fortunately, he didn't have to stay on foot for all that long, really. After spending about five minutes running towards Brockton Central, the young man came across several ambulances attending to a crowd of people, most of the people looking more shocked and terrified than hurt in any way.

As such, with Greg and Emma looking as bad as they did, they were quickly given priority over everyone else. Greg didn't bother protesting when the EMT's loaded him onto a stretcher, Emma's unconscious body right beside him in another one as they rode together in the ambulance. The questions they had for him, though, were another matter and proved almost as nerve-wracking as the way they repeatedly kept looking at his body. The glass still cutting into his skin in places was visible to them, Greg knew that, as were fragments of shrapnel embedded in his thigh… yet they stopped asking questions soon after, turning their gazes away when Greg began to pick out the foreign objects from his body. His HP remained as high as ever, so pretending to be hurt was pointless in the first place.

In the end, he doubted either of them bought his feigned ignorance but it wasn't like he was ever going to see them again, so what was the point?

The knowing look that the two EMT's shared had done little to ease his nerves for the rest of the ambulance ride, leaving him even more thankful when they finally arrived at the hospital, the ambulance hurrying through the emergency entrance doors with Greg running at their side, the EMT's not even trying to pretend they didn't know he was unhurt.

Much like the city outside, the people in the emergency room had looked… war-torn. It wasn't just the wounds and the general sense of havoc and chaos in the air of the hospital, nurses and orderlies running back and forth dealing with the hive of human suffering in front of them. It was the looks on everyone's faces, a mix of fear, stress and general exhaustion that seemed far too intense for a situation that had begun less than an hour ago.

Greg supposed that the sight of everyone appearing so hollow might have held his attention for a few moments more if he hadn't stumbled into someone just scant seconds after entering the hospital. Blue eyes stared back at him as he crossed the threshold, expression shifting from focused to horrified as they took in every inch of his filth-encrusted body.

The blond had assumed he'd looked pretty bad, considering what he had been through. Still, it took his mother's face paling in front of him for Greg to realize that he likely looked even more hurt than the people in actual need of medical help.

It could even be said that he looked even worse than a good many of the people in here with both his flesh and clothes marred with so much caked-on grime to the point that he was virtually unrecognizable. Either way, it seemed like for everyone, this day was definitely hell.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Now

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Greg sighed again as he raised his head again, the back of his skull meeting the wall one more time. Bloody fingers tapped out an unsteady beat on the wall behind him, progressively staining the off-white paint with every moment of contact from his dirt-encrusted digits. Gross.

As he sat there on the floor, his fingers traced a patch of skin on his thigh exposed to the elements by his ripped trousers and frowned as just that light action pushed aside a small clump of blood-encrusted grime. God, I probably look like a zombie or something right now. No wonder Mom looked like she was gonna pass out when she saw me.

The blond glanced down as that thought went through his mind, his attention suddenly drawn to a pair of familiar white shoes below a set of baby blue scrubs as they came to a stop in front of his slumped-over body.

"Greg? Sweetie..."

Speak of the devil...