trans_9 | Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. (Pt. 5: Chances)

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Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. (Pt. 5: Chances)

The plan was...well, it wasn't simple, but it sort of was.

While the CLF attacked multiple Clone Processing centers to distract the government, the group with the CLF would target one particular one in the region that'd once been New Jersey. The group with the government would offer their services in putting down their own people.

In the center, they'd split up into several groups. One would fight a fake fight, create a massive diversion, and blow up the room where the samples their DNA were being kept in the process. Another group would secure a teleporter pad. That team would teleport out other teams to steal a ship, steal some med tech to teleport to said ship, and steal a medical database. Another team would go to the main command center and hack into the government mainframe to down the sensornet around the planet so they could escape. And Nightwing himself would accompany the clones to upload the harvested memories to the Mother Brains, left unguarded because of the diversionary fighting, and make sure that was all they did.

Meanwhile, there'd be a standing order for all teams to avoid killing other crewmates, and avoid killing guards unless absolutely necessary.

It was a complicated plan. If a single part fouled up, they might find themselves dead, trapped, or worse. But if it worked, it'd work pretty spectacularly and leave them with medtech, a medical database, the clones helped, and possibly a grateful Council depending on how the fight went, because of the ones seemingly aiding the government.

In some worlds, things that were a million-to-one-chance (exactly a million-to-one) by their nature had to work. Let's hope this world is one of them, eh, mission crew?

[ooc: Only comment to threads if it says they are open here. All threads: OPEN. Characters may get injuries up to and including 7 on the Injury Scale (scroll to the bottom). Any higher, and they must ask permission of the plot-runners, just to make sure everyone isn't immobilized without enough people to help move them.]

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Superboy scooted closer, still gripping his bleeding arm, despite the dangers.

"Sssh. Sssh. It's okay."

A lie.

"It's okay, just...look at me. Look at me. Don't fight, just--look at me."

Don't look down at your body, please don't look down...

"I--" The clone coughed up blood. "I don't--understand. I don't-- I had my mission. I don't--"

He was confused. He sounded all the world like a small child, scared and confused and just learning what death was as they were dying.

That's what he was, just a day old and learning what death was before learning what life was.

"I'm scared."

Tears started to trickle out of the corner of his eyes, as he looked up at Superboy, as the shock started to set in.

"Don't worry about it. My hand's gone. I'm pretty sure I'm going into shock. If your mission was knocking me off, s'probably gonna be a mission fulfilled. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about anything, okay?"

Tears pricked Kon's eyes, and his voice dropped into a gentle hush.

"Jus'--jus' go to sleep," he said, voice thick. "Close your eyes and go to sleep."

Using his telekinesis to keep pressure on his arm, his free hand, covered in blood, went to gently press through the clone's hair.

"It's okay," he lied again. "S'okay."

the clone choked out.

It seemed like a very important question all of a sudden.

"'Course you did. Of course."

There were a few last gurgles, and the last thing he wondered was if it was supposed to be his first and last day at the same time.

Is this...how it's supposed to work?

Then he was gone.

"You mattered," Kon promised weakly, still petting his hair, refusing to let himself look at where the teleporter severed the rest of someone that should have been whole or not created at all.

It took him some time, but he knew he had to get back in the fight--yes, even missing a hand--and to do that, he needed medical attention, and he also needed it before he, y'know, bled to death

His face pale and grim, still gripping his wrist and using his teke to help staunch the bleeding, he made his way back to the fight.

"I just fixed you!" Howard says, rushing up. All that blood is pretty hard to miss, even staunched. Oh yeah, and the missing limb. Generally one tends to notice these things.

Howard gestures over to where some wreckage has made an overhang. "Get over here. It doesn't help either of us to have me patch you up under open fire."

Kon was sweating a cold sweat and his eyes were looking out of focus as he sat down.

"Teleporter--teleporter did it. Wound's pretty clean, just--"

It was just gone. Like that. He still hadn't really come to grips with that thought. He'd been hurt really bad before, even lost his hand before, but that'd been right before he'd died. In general, he was not used to injuries like this, not used to being...vulnerable.

"S'just the bleeding."

"Lay down," Howard says, elevating Kon's stump so the blood flow will decrease. "I think we stole the regen machine, and you know, Stacy grows parts."

He uses the belt to tourniquet again - really, why don't these come standard issue in the new med kits? - and starts bandaging. The bleeding's bad, very bad, but Kon has the advantage of a healing factor if they can just get him patched up enough to utilize it. A normal person would have bled out by now.

He pulls his pocketknife out. "Do you have laser eyes? I can try cauterizing it."

He'd worry about a replacement later. Right now, it didn't seem the most pressing issue at hand.

As for cauterizing it...

"Normally, that might help, but it'll heal faster if it's just left alone."

Superboy knew his own body.

"Burnt tissue won't knit. It wants--to heal. It just needs...help."

If only they could get the bleeding to stop long enough.

"Alright. I'm going to pull this tighter, alright?" He gets the belt as taut and tight as he can make it. He may be damaging Kon's stump by cutting off so much of the blood flow, but he figures Kon's healing factor would rather work on dead tissue than on actual death. "Just keep talking and keep conscious."

He starts pinching and pulling the edges of the wound closed with butterfly stitches, trying to do what little he can to aid that healing factor on its way.

"What the hell am I supposed to talk about?"

Seriously, he had no idea. He could barely think in a situation like this.

"I don't know. Tell me about what it's like to fly," Howard says the first thing that comes to mind. He just needs to keep Kon making noise and conscious so he can work on the wound without having to check back every few seconds to see that Kon isn't passing out.

He sees the edges of the wound very, very slowly - although significantly faster than any other injury would - start to stitch themselves back together. He keeps helping them along with the butterfly bandages.

Okay then.

"It's like--it's like breathing."

That didn't really explain much.

"Sometimes I do it on instinct and only do it on purpose when I--when I think about it. Like when you think about breathing and--and your breathing becomes a conscious thing until you forget again. And for me, it's something--something I couldn't live without."

It was hard to talk through the pain, because it did hurt. A lot.

"I guess I'm exaggerating, I guess I could live without it, but I sure as hell--nngh--" It hurt. Even as it healed, it hurt. "--don't want to. I flew before I ever even walked. Being up in the sky, it's like--you feel like you're the captain of your freakin' fate, like the whole world's wide open and--and waiting for you. Because it is."

Howard's done what good he can around the edges of the wound, so now he just applies as much pressure as he can through bandages at the base of the stump, making sure to keep the arm up. The bleeding is slowing.

It must be nice to fly. Must be nice to be able to escape things upwards instead of just side to side.

"Okay. That's good. Keep talking, Conner." It's the name he heard around the Med Bay back during that deaging fiasco, and thus the one he associates most with Kon. He tries to think of an open-ended question for Kon to keep rambling about. "You have a girlfriend, right? Tell me about her."

"Sort of girlfriend. Trying. Trying to have something again."

He focused on his breathing.

"She was my first girlfriend. I was a relative fifteen but only one year old chronologically, she was twenty-four, and it was so damn complicated the first time around. Age difference was way too big. Got worse when I got stuck at age fifteen a while with no idea if I'd be stuck that way forever. We broke up. But I ran into her again later. I loved her and she loved me, and there was still...something. And then she died. The ship--ship saved her right at that moment."

He closed his eyes.

"We're trying again. Seeing if we can make it work. Maybe. If she decides she wants to. I want--ever since she died, I wanted to know what could have been. She's...she's just..."

Boy he was dizzy.

"Ballsy. Brave, always snooping around in the middle of everything--she's a reporter. Sweet, so sweet just like the kindest damn person you could meet under all the brass tacks. Also looks amaaazing in a bikini."

That part was important.

"One of the benefits to living in Hawaii was how she dressed. Shazam."

Almost there. The bleeding was slowing.

"Oh, gag a maggot," Howard mutters under his breath. He should have asked something less boring. Like Kon's opinion on the drying speed of paint or the flight path of an unladen swallow or anything except girls.

Seriously, on the list of things Howard couldn't care less about, romance barely ranks above the Byzantine Empire and the newest fifty Pokemon.

Still, he stays listening. For all he knows this information could be useful at some later point. "You're almost in the clear. Stay with me, Conner. Tell me about Hawaii. I've never been."

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It had to end one bad way or the OTHER bad way, didn't it? Jr. forced himself not to look toward the teleporter, either. And as much as he wanted to try and hide the emotion in his voice, he sort of failed at that after what happened.

"Hey," he said when Kon began to move again, "hey! You shouldn't be doing that after--!" He looked at and motioned to his hand.

After what? Getting bandaged up by Howard? Because he'd been bandaged up by Howard, see?

And now he was wading right back into the fray, punching out clones one-handed.

"What shouldn't I be doing?"

"You know--" another motion to his hand. "If something hits you there again, that's not gonna end well."

Of course, he was freakin' Superboy, but that was beside the point.

"If something hits me there--" he said, punching out another clone. "--there's not much more damage it could even do."

Jr. himself was constantly moving, guns in his hands though he didn't raise them. And if he did it was for a carefully aimed shot to the leg - nothing fatal, nothing like the finality of death.

"Still, watch yourself, okay?" he said worriedly, shifting his stance.

"I'm watchin', I'm watchin'--though I appreciate the concern, short stuff."

He actually did. Jr. was growing on him.

Which was good because it was probably the only growing he'd do, bahaha.

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