Incoming, the Hard way!

[Fleet]

Kyle had sped through the school, down the stairs and right to the door to the Med Lab. He waited for the door to open, which when dialed up like this seemed an eternity. The door slid open and Kyle dashed in. "DOC! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!" He shouted out. Realizing he was still dialed up and prob ally talking to fast. He dialed down and stood before Beast.

"Dr. McCoy, something happened up on the basketball court! A loud Boom. There was no explosion, but some of the students are hurt and can't hear. And are laying on the ground curled up. Haven sent me to warn you they are coming down." He pointed to the ceiling. "They are going to have Lian bring them down through here!" He was still unsure about how that would work out. Since he had been gone, he didn't even know Lian could use her power on other people.

He looked to beast with a bit of a worried expression, his knee and calf were throbbing, and a bit of pain was starting to swell up, but he shrugged it off. "What can I do?" He waited to be directed in some way of how to help.

[Torri]

Several minutes later Torri jogged in. She was ahead of the group of people who where more disoriented than in pain, or weren't as bad as the three who were teleported in. "Dr. McCoy," she said quickly. "I assume Kyle told you what happened. Just thought I should let you know... we have incoming..." With that she held the doors open, allowing passage to those who needed to head in. "C'mon mates!" she continued as she watched the group pass by. Poor Dr. McCoy... he's going to have a long day, she thought kindly.

Torri was always fond of the hairy blue doctor. He was a kind and very intelligent man; one who never resorted to violence unless it was necessary; and just an all around good bloke. She remembered how she use to be slightly afraid of him, but that was when she first arrived. Now she was able to speak with him as if he were a giant teddy bear... a blue giant teddy bear. "Do you need any help Doctor?" she asked with her big blue eyes. "I know Karma might need me soon but if you really reallllllllllly need my help I can stay."

[BEAST]

"Yes, yes, calm down everyone," Dr. McCoy said not just to those that came in, but also to the patients looked in serious pain. He had shot up at Fleet's entrance, and was already getting his lab coat on as well as pulling up charts. It took him a bit longer than he would have liked, reminding him how he would need to get in contact with Tony to upgrade the technology, so long as he played it off that it was just for the sake of his own work and nothing to do with the school.

He made the disoriented Chase sit down on a lab table, checking his pupils to see them dilated, his vision unstable slightly as well as his movements. He sighed and moved on to Skylar. "Thank you very much Mr. Nomis, Ms. Moore. To be perfectly honest, there isn't much that you can do in this situation. Best thing would be is to make them all as comfortable as possible, perhaps give them some water to keep their bodies hydrated. There is a case of bottled water in my office by the door," he said moving on to Heather. Sky seemed to have gotten the worst of it pain wise, but Chase was hit so hard he didn't even feel the pain.

"There is not much I can do for you all other than to give you some medicine to speed up the blood circulation to ease the ringing in your ears. Unfortunately that means you will have to lie down and keep still for a good while," Dr. McCoy said as he handed each of them a capsule of medicine, writing on the computer monitor for them to read instructed them to keep still. "This is something that can only be healed with time. All any of you can do is wait it out comfortably." He hated that he couldn't instantly help any of them, but this was the best he could do. "Now," he turned to the others that came in behind Torri. "What can I do for the rest of you?"

[Aqua]

It was really hard to hear anything at this point. She wasn't deaf, but Heather still heard the ringing in her ears above anything else. The nerve endings were dying and she remembered hearing in science class and once that nerve ending dies, she would never be able to hear that sound again. It was interesting if you thought about it however physically painful as well. She lay onthe examination table trying to pop her ears and make the pain go away but was unsuccessful.

Her crying stopped but she still had tears come down from her watery eyes. She was still in great pain but able to control her emotions a bit more. Everyone in the medical lab made her feel a bit unstable but she just wanted the pain to go away. She looked for Gavin, hoping he could make her feel the least bit better but he wasn't in site. Didn't he see her react to Kat's power? Or was he just being oblivious as always? Little did she know that it was the latter, and she feel a bit upset that he wasn't there yet. I hope he's OK, she thought altruistically before feeling another pulse of pain shoot through her.

She looked helplessly at Dr. McCoy and wanted whatever he had to help get rid of her ear problem. It was weird how sensitive her ears were. She wasn’t anywhere near as close to Kat as Sky or Torri were and Torri seemed to have been fine. People did have different kinds of hearing sensitivity; however it was strange in Heather’s case… Looking around the room again, Heather wondered how everyone else was doing. She wondered how Veronika and Ana were as well as the rest of her close friends.

[Fleet]

Kyle watched as Beast began getting things organized. The students were being made as comfortable as possible. He quickly moved to where Beast said the water bottles were. He collected a bunch in his hands, and began moving around the room. Chase and Sky had come in together, the most seriously affected. He moved to their beds and opened two bottles of water and carefully placed one in Sky's hand trying to help her drink a bit. Then he placed the bottle on the small table by her bed and did the same for Chase. He would have tried to say something to comfort them, but realized it wouldn't do any good, so he gave then a reassuring smile and moved to the next bed.

There was a lot going on and he tried to weed his way through the commotion without getting in the way. Haven and Gavin hadn't arrived yet, and he knew there were more up there that were close to the sonic boom like sound. He saw Heather and sighed, he thought she would be one of the ones here that would rather die then get help from him. But he planted his smile on his lips an moved to her bed side. He opened the bottle of water and pointed to it. He leaned in carefully to help hold her head and let her take a sip. He gently laid her head back down and placed the bottle of water close by if she wanted more, and moved on to try and help the other students.

[Decay]

"Does it look like I want ^*&$ing water right now?" Sky yelled, clutching her head still and throwing the bottle across the room. "What the ^*&$ Doc, gimme some more drugs, or knock me the ^*&$ out, I'm not just gonna sit here and wait all happy when my mother^*&$in' head feels like its gonna explode. Why the hell would I want water of all ^*&$ing things?! I want drugs! Or a drink! ^*&$!" She screamed rolling to the side and waiting for the medicine to take effect. She felt like she was going insane, like someone set off a steam whistle in her head and it wouldn't stop.

Sky groaned loudly, clutching her head and just talking for the hell to hear something other than the sound of the ringing. "Why the ^*&$ would I want ^*&$ing water?! God damnit Enema Boy, you're more useless than Titless. And where the ^*&$ is that stupid Chink when I need her?" she yelled banging her fist on the bed and looking for something nearby to throw.

[Riff~Raff]

"Keep yer bloody hands off her b'fore I make sure ye dun got 'em no more, didn' ye bloody hear Doc when he told 'em to stay still?" Riker growled from the doorway, not liking the way that the white haired pansy touched Heather. She was in his pack, and a female on top of it. He was extremely protective of his pack, and more so of the females. Heather was the most delicate of his pack, and just seeing that sleazy eejit's hands on her. "Dun need no bloody wanker tha' had his backdoor kicked in an' gets chubbed up whenever a betty looks his way. Pathetic," Riker growled pushing his shoulder aside and going to Heather's side.

"Her bloody ears hurt, she can hold her own bloody head up withou' yer disgustin' hands on her," Riker growled and went over to sit next to Heather protectively, glaring at anyone that looked their way. He brought his clawed hand up and stroked her hair softly, taking a protective stance on her. He hated to see her in pain, and although he wasn't all that better off with the crazy ringing in his ears, he could deal. His first priority would always be his pack. If any member in his pack was hurt, it put him off balance.

"Dun ye worry Heather lassie, ye'll be a'right," Riker soothed, stroking her hair and snapping to look at Dr. McCoy. "Oui, Doc, how long b'fore they bloody start te feel bette' eh? This dun look like it an easy thing." He glanced at Sky in total agony and swearing worse than she did after a couple of pints on a Friday night before looking over at Doc tending the others. He had no plans to leave Heather's side the entire time he was there.

[Haven]

Niki shoved her way in then, knowing she must have looked a fool carrying nothing over her shoulder. Not that Wraith was completely out of it, she had his arm slung over her shoulders as she walked him in supporting the lion's share of his weight, and he hadn't said a word since she tripped over him and most unceremoniously discovered his whereabouts.

She'd done her best to try and sound soothing as she walked him in the back of the mansion. The glass walls of the cafeteria revealed Dante who leaned against the wall at the side of the building pulling on his cigarette. The look she shot the tattooed and mohawked Paragon was somewhere between disdain and envy as she felt both for him right then. She envied his distance from it all, a position she herself had held and guarded with her pride, just as he looked to be doing at that moment. Yet she also felt a strange new sensation in the pit of her gut for his inaction, and if she didn't know better she'd say she pitied him.

It was possibly the first time she counted herself lucky for having opened herself up to so many. She was beginning to understand that she didn't need to be so guarded with her heart and that the best times in her life had come from opening herself up to others. First Aideen, then Ian and the Doc.. then the rest of her team and Colossus.. and now she guessed she was including more.

She'd turned away from Dante without so much as a word, another divergence since she might have said some quick-witted bitchy comment about him at one time, but she didn't need to now. She had found her center, the peace in the eye of the storm that swirled in her. The rage for the wasted life she had lived up till then was somehow a distant rolling thunder in the back of her mind and she only wanted to get through this to come out on the other side and take a look back at it all.

She'd led a small group of walking wounded down the elevator to the chrome corridors below and found herself in the only other room of the school besides the one she shared with Aideen that she could call her own. Not that it was, but she'd spent more time there than anywhere else. What with all her time as Beast's assistant as well as all the months before that she been under house arrest, how could she not have grown to think of it as her own place in the bowels of this dump of a school.

"Looks like a banner day for the invisible kid Doc. This has to be a record here, twice in his first day alone and it's not even dinner time yet." She looked over at Beast and shook her head slightly. "He ain't said a word and I don't know if it's cause he don't like me or he can't hear a stinkin thing I'm sayin, but his balance is off and his legs felt kinda rubbery walkin down." She did her best to sit him against an examining bed and then spun against him to push his big mass back just as he lurched forward, a toy of gravity's whim. "Uggh, he ain't light either." She grunted as she managed to get him to lay back, all lanky six feet of him, finally taking a good look around as she leaned against the bed.

"Who are we missin?" she asked as she tried to count heads.

[FreezeFrame]

Chase sat up grinning "I like the druuUGGHhss!?!" and promptly fell off the far side of the examining bed with a thud. Arms and legs flopping as he dropped, the water bottle on the table next to him getting caught with an errant flailing leg on his way down and popping open. "Ugh, shit man. I'm soaked! Help???" He sputtered as the water glugged out of the bottle from above him on the table. Cascading down on him he looked at the way the water was flowing straight at him as he spun around it like an astronaut in space.

"Oh dude, I think I'm gonna be si-*iiieyuhhkk*" he finished his sentence by throwing up, mostly on himself. His total balance and internal inner ear was all screwed up from the blast of sound. A trick that Kat stumbled on by accident but other sonic powered dudes and dudettes like Banshee and Decibel probably knew pretty damn well. Picking his head up from the floor his eyes rolled around a little and he grinned again before he said "I think I have water in my ears" and passed out.

[BEAST]

"One moment Niki, Mr. Nomis would you please see to him and keep him upright?" Dr. McCoy said as he had just moved over to check on Heather. She looked to be in severe pain as well, but different from Sky. The Paragon was in pain, but fully mobile and aware of her surroundings while the New Mutant seemed to barely be able to move without being in pain, which was unusual for just hearing damage. "Now, now Riker, I am only trying to see what's wrong and help her, her pain is unusual and I think it may be more than just hearing. In order to find out I will have to look her over," Hank said to the snarling wolf boy that glared at him as forcing Heather to sit up caused her immense pain.

"Hmm... if it was a sonic boom, I'm sure you're body would have involuntarily jerked hard from the impact...." Hank looked over her head carefully, noticing something off about the angle. "Pardon me Ms. McCarthy, I will try and be as gentle as possible," he said as he moved her hair away from the back of her neck. "Ah there is the culprit. The boom caused your body to jerk in such a way that you pinched a nerve, or rather multiple nerves from the disk in your neck. It is no wonder your ears and your body is in such pain." Hank gently took her head in his head and turned her head from side to side at a deliberate angle. He continued the careful actions until he heard the slight 'snap' of the disk moving back into place. "Ah, that must feel better yes?" He beamed as he saw the look of relief come across Heather's face.

"Good as new, just drink some water and relax, your hearing should be back to normal soon. I must see to Mr. Maguire," Hank said and patted Heather's shoulder gently with his furry hand before turning to the passed out Chase. "This does not look good, not at all," he said looking over the young boy that was now again on the examining table thanks to his classmates. "Inner ear damage most likely. Did I hear correctly when he said he felt like there was water in his ears?" He looked at the other students for confirmation and scratched his chin as he fell deep in thought. "Hmm... I suppose I could start a drainage process, but that may take hours... Ms. McCarthy!" He turned to the water manipulator that got most of her color back to her face and looked less shaken now that everything was where it should be.

"I realize that this may be a bit much for you, but I fear that there will not be enough time for me to set up the process to help Mr. Maguire without risking permanent damage. Listen very carefully, because I know you will try your best to help him," He smiled encouragingly at her before he proceeded to explain. "Mr. Maguire's ears are filled with fluids that occurred to protect as a result of the damage to his vestibular system. Would you please try and concentrate on getting the fluids out of his ears? The sooner the better, but please try as best as you can." Hank had a lot of confidence not just in the girl's ability, but her will to help and the good heart he caught a glimpse of often. He was also curious to see just how far she could push herself if needed with her powers. Now was the moment to find out.

[Aqua]

The pain immediately began to ease and the longing for relief finally came for Heather. The disk or disks in her neck that pinched her nerve were definitely messing her up badly and she was more than happy when she felt that SNAP completely make her ears and body relax. Now all that was left was a bit of a ringing but it was no where near as bothersome as before. After she sat up she drank some water and breathed deeply, moving her neck slowly to make sure all was well. The doctor knew what he was doing and the New Mutant was thankful to be taken care of by someone who was trustworthy.

She stroke her hair back and sighed but hearing Dr. McCoy's concern about Chase made her worry. He was very extreme most of the time, but still a person and a good one at that. And although he and Heather never had a one on one conversation, he was still a peer and fellow mutant who was there for the same reason she was: acceptance. Before hopping off the medical table, Heather played with her jaw, feeling the ringing die down even more. She was fine now, and able to function properly since the water and a few minutes of rest helped her out.

"Sure Dr. McCoy," she replied warily. Heather wasn't worried about using her powers anymore. It was more using them in someone else's body that made her a bit hesitant. However she wasn't going to deny help, it wasn't her nature. This was a challenge, different from anything she had ever done. There was much uneven fluid distribution within Chase's ears; she could sense that immediately when she focused on him. She just didn't want to "fix it" too much too quickly as to hurt him or anything. Looking at the doctor for assurance, Heather took a deep breath and nodded.

She remembered Dr. McCoy's biology lesson about the vestibular system from earlier that year. Heather was a natural A student and science was sometimes quite interesting when taught correctly. Thanks to Dr. McCoy's teaching techniques, the ability to remember and understand what he was asking of her now, was possible. The trick was to "rearrange" the fluids within Chase's ears since there was too much or two little in one of the three semicircular canals that helped the human body function in different ways. To get a physical understanding of what Chase needed to have done to him, she focused on the fluid of several people within the room. Getting the general idea was necessary in order to not screw this up badly.

She returned her focus on the Paragon, sensing the fluid within the ear canals. Slowly, she began to pull and push it; making sure not to cause more imbalance or disorientation. Since Chase was knocked out, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway but Heather was a bit cautious when it came to physically hurting others. It was getting a bit tricky but as the seconds continued, the "flow" of the situation was getting less anxious. Heather was nearly done and her face was filled with determination. She was going to help Chase in any way she could and right now, she actually was.

There was some excess fluid, most likely do to swelling, that she had to remove completely. The amount that Chase had wasn't proportional to the other signatures in the room that Heather focused on first. It wasn't much, just several drips that exited the ears. It was then that she felt the right "levelness" of the fluids settle in the right areas and she sighed in relief. "That should do it Dr. McCoy," she said. Her powers were really coming along and she couldn't help but feel a slight lift of pride in the good deed she was able to accomplish. But first, she had to get the approval from "The Doc".

[FreezeFrame]

"Ohhh man- ahh." Chase said as he woke up lifting his head from the hard cold floor with the last of Aqua's ministrations. "Whoa, that's incredible babe, thank you." He said weakly out of the corner of his mouth, not wanting to breathe his puke breath at her, she was his healing goddess after all and that meant no puke breath.

His head clunked back on the floor. "Oh gravity, my dear sweet friend." he muttered in gratuity for now knowing which way was up. "Uggh, I was dizzy." He pulled himself up to lean on the bed and grinned. He still felt like shit on a buttermilk biscuit but at least he knew up from down and that made him feel way better. "What the hell happened? What hit us?"

[BEAST]

"That dizzy spell is a sure sign of what will happen if you don't settle down," Hank said with a beaming smiled as he put an arm around Heather's slim shoulders. He was beaming with pride for her accomplishment and perhaps for a new door he opened for her powers. There wasn't a single doubt in his mind at the potential this girl had with not just what she could do with her powers, but with what she could do as a whole. Though her power seemed simple enough, it was far more useful than he suspected many gave her credit. Perhaps now she had a chance to realize her own potential.

"You did a fantastic job Heather, most impressive by any standards, let alone my own," he said with a beaming smile at her. "It is in fact refreshing to see yourself having more trust in your abilities, though I daresay the right people helped you with that." His glance moved on to Riker briefly before moving on to help Chase. "You are very lucky young man, but before you do anything else, just rest here for a moment and drink some water," he instructed, looking over to Niki next. She was a more than capable lab and medical assistant as Hank trained her himself, and nodded at her. "Niki if you please, load Mr. Shapiro's file along with the other patients while I check for a concussion on him."

The two of them set to work, moving from patient to patient and checking on their progress to see if there was no serious damage that occurred in any of them. It ended up being a busy couple of hours, with some more coming in for various reasons and medical attention. Thanks to Hank and all the others that lent a hand though, it seemed that everyone would make a full recovery. Now all Dr. Hank McCoy had left was to survive a Sunday evening and pray that no more epidemics or disasters would occur so he could finally finish listening to the New York Symphony on the radio.