Someone was calling me.

No, several people were calling me, from a dozen directions. It was all so confusing and murky. I wanted to answer the calls, but I was so dreadfully tired. My back ached terribly, my heart felt like it was on fire, and I just wanted a few moments of peace to rest.

There was something important I was wanting to do. No, I needed to do. Something big and important that had already been put off too long. I could finally rest when that was dealt with.

I tried to open my eyes, but it was ever so hard. Everything felt cast in iron and seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort for the smallest twitch. This felt familiar somehow, but everything was so foggy and murky it was hard to properly place it.

Everything felt wrong even through the fog and weight. Why couldn't I feel my arms? My legs felt so terribly numb too, was there something wrong with me? Maybe if I could get an eye open I could tell. Just a single eye. It seemed to take full body effort comparable to lifting a recliner more than opening an eyelid, but I finally managed it.

I wanted to immediately snap it shut again as blinding light ravaged my eye, pulling a pained moan from me. When had the sun come up?

"He's moving again!" someone shouted nearby, "Joe? Joe! Are you awake?"

Breathing hurt, it hurt a lot. There was something running down my throat that made me want to hack and cough, or maybe swallow, but that seemed to be too much effort for me to manage at the moment. Instead I tried to make sense of the fuzzy shapes shifting like ghosts around me. There were a lot of them, none seemed like the other, but my vision was too fuzzy from the light to make out what I was looking at.

I felt oddly cold. No, not entirely, there was a wonderfully comforting warmth nearby, but only on one side of me leaving the rest feeling chilled. I tried to push with my arms to rotate myself into the recovery position and put my back to that wonderful warmth, but my arms felt so painfully numb and I couldn't get them to respond no matter how hard I tried. Same with my legs, they refused to move no matter how hard I tried.

"Joe," a familiar sound buzzed as something small flicked at my nose, "Come on man, say something. You've got to be alright man."

I grunted and tried to shake away the annoyance, my arms still didn't want to move. I tried to turn my head to shake the fly or whatever it was off my nose. That caused a massive spike of pain to shoot up my spine and tore free a strangled, "'Uck!"

The pain did do an amazing job of forcing clarity and banishing the fog suffusing my mind. I was a snake, a giant metal snake coiled around a roaring bonfire in an empty parking lot.

"You're fucking alive!" something wrapped painfully around my snout. A sasquatch? Oh, right Omar. What happened? Why is his chest so heavily bandaged? Is he crying? "You stupid fucking cracker! Do you have any idea how fucking scared I was you asshole? I thought you'd died! I can't believe you did that! I thought you were smarter than that!"

"Is he conscious?" a ratty and ragged chicken with a snake tail asked, running over to start looking into my eye. What was that? Oh right, the vet. What was his name again? "Joe, don't try to talk. If you can understand me blink twice, can you manage that much?" But I'd worked so hard to get this eye open. I still managed two slow blinks for the little chicken. "Good, that's real good Joe. Now please do me a favor and don't move, you're still really badly hurt. Just let your body heal on its own a bit, okay?" Blink. "I'll take that as a yes. Melvin! I think we're out of the danger zone, you're clear to leave."

"Finally," a squeaky voice called from the top of my head. "I was here to be an electrician and test wiring, not to play defibrillator." A small fluffy spider head peaked down from the top of my vision, "You sir have some fucked up biology and I desperately hope I never have to experience it again. All you clowns owe me BIG for that by the way. I'm going to go bathe and pray I'm not going to have nightmares of this experience for the next several years."

"Whatever you want man," Omar wiped his face, "We literally can't thank you enough for this. You're a damned hero."

"Yeah, yeah, let me know if you guys reinvent beer or something would you?" The little spider man hopped off my head and started reeling in two long, thick cords of silk. I felt the thing in my throat moving and finally leave, letting me breathe a little easier, but still miles from effortlessly. "Blech! I can't believe I just did that! I hate today! Worst Thursday of my life hands down!"

"Hua?" I wheezed in confusion.

Omar just rubbed my metallic snout, drawing attention to the thick silk bandages on it, saying, "It's alright man, everything's going to be okay now."

"It most certainly is not 'alright'!" someone screeched nearby. A giant bird that seemed to be missing a massive chunk of its feather stalked into view from behind my bulk. Oh, I remember this one's name. It was the one with the same name as the guy who painted the School of Athens, Rafael! "Did you think for a single instant before doing what you did!? Do you have any idea what happened because of that stupid reckless stunt of yours!?" The next two words were interspersed with sharp pecks to my eyebrows, "YOU. DIED!"

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Omar was on his feet, lips pulled back in an instant, "Hey! Fuck off man! Give Joe a moment to get better!"

"No!" Rafael shouted back, spreading his wings wide in an avian intimidation display, "This shit has been running around acting like he's untouchable just because he's got a metal hide and heals quickly despite the fact he keeps getting holes torn out of him!" He whirled to glare at me, "How many times have you been seriously injured these last two days?" I'm pretty sure at least four times, it's a bit hard to remember at the moment, "Too many! Any sane person would take that as a sign to slow down and back off yet you keep throwing yourself in the middle of everything like you've got a damned death wish!

"Well congratulations! You got what you wanted this time! You died! No heartbeat for nearly twenty seconds!" Suddenly the bonfire didn't feel nearly so warm, "If not for the sheer luck that we had Melvin you wouldn't have made it! The poor bastard had to literally climb down your throat and attach one of his electrified webs inside you because your stupid armor was insulating you too well! Even then it still took everything we could think of to keep you alive! CPR! Every buff and healing adjacent skill we could find! Even trying to force Focus into you to make you heal faster! We still weren't sure it would be enough because of what a mess you were!"

"'orry," I murmured weakly.

Rafael just huffed and turned away, "I'm glad you're leaving. I've seen enough death. Go find that end you're looking for out there away from us." He spread his wings and flew off.

"Man, he is such an asshole sometimes." Omar grumbled sitting back down. He was quiet a moment before giving me a curious look. "He did raise some solid points though. You okay man? You never acted this reckless at work."

"No good sacrifice there." I grunted, my face and jaw feeling oddly fragile, "'m expendable, better me than you."

"Like fucking he'll you're expendable!" Omar shouted angrily, "What the ever loving fuck made you think that for even a second!?"

"Imma average Joe," I chuckled weakly before stopping quickly. Laughing hurt. "Not special. Little smart, a couple minor tricks. Nothing valuable enough to exempt me from manly duty to fight and die for the community in hard times." I moaned softly, "Words hurt."

"How long have you believed that?" The little chicken, Anthony! That was the vet's name! asked with a concerned tilt to his head.

"Two decades." Or around about that.

"Look at me Joe," Omar said, standing up and glaring deep into my eyes, "You want me to lead this community? Fine. My first order is this. You are not allowed to die, Joe. No matter what happens from here on out, you must survive."

"As your doctor I will second that." Anthony stated, scowling up at me, "No more suicidal heroics. They are terrible for your health and the health of everyone around you."

It was suddenly much harder to breathe. I found myself unable to speak, barely managing a painful nod. It was so painfully rare to be reminded that anyone beyond God and my parents actually cared.

After taking several minutes to get myself together again I weakly asked, "Other casualties?"

"Not for our side, no." Anthony stated happily. "Aside from you and Omar, almost no one on our side was even scratched." His little body sagged a bit as he continued. "The same can't be said for the Foritos sadly. A fair number of them got pretty roughed up by our volunteers' over exuberance. I'd probably listed most of them as seriously injured if not for everyone's casual regeneration speeds. I'd be willing to bet most of them are already fully healed."

He took a deep breath, "They also suffered three fatalities."

"One of them was my fault." Omar sighed looking forlornly at his perfectly clean hands, "When you attacked Jorge and didn't come out for over a minute, I tried to fight my way over to him. I thought I'd, I don't know man, pull you out? I just needed to get over there. Some fuckhead cono wouldn't get out of the way and I just got so ass-mad at the fuck I started swinging. Was even using Focus to make it quick. He went down after the first hit, but I just, felt compelled to give him a couple more hits to be sure... Got the pop-up after the second swing. His name was Gomez."

I'd know Omar for long enough to see how much this was tearing him up inside. He'll, I was still at the stage of trying to pretend nothing had happened with the man I'd murdered and I probably had a second name on my consciousness now. I could check and be sure, it was doubtlessly in that pile up of unread updates blinking in the corner of my vision... but I could check on that later. Omar needed cheering up first, and I knew just how to do it.

With blatant racism.

Doing my level best to click my tongue disapprovingly I wheezed. "Y'all beans just can't help yourselves. It's not even been a week and you're trying to get those crime statistics up." Anthony looked horrified, Omar looked confused for a moment then started laughing into his hand.

"Dude, fuck you." He giggled through a wide smile, "My ribs are still sore from you breaking them!"

"I've got to try to balance the scales man." I smiled while playing up my moan, "I got to try and keep the whites on the top of the scoreboard but you beans are just so good at the crime and I am but one man!"

Omar took the opportunity to start playfully punching at my side, thankfully one of the few places that didn't hurt. I bemoaned the building crime lead of his people while he declared the end of mine's dominance. We enjoyed a few good minutes ribbing each other like this until our mutual injuries forced us to stop.

"Are you two done?" Anthony asked, a kind of annoyed resignation filling his voice. I paused as if seriously considering before weakly affirming. Omar just gave a thumbs up before smirking at my jealous look and flipping me the bird. I flicked out my tongue catching him full in the face, much to our mutual amusement and sorrow. Anthony had the look of someone who desperately wanted a smoke as he watched us.

"Sorry, other fatalities?" I asked, "Jorge dead?"

"Yes, that monster is well and truly dead," Anthony confirmed, "You'd already done a serious number to him by the time he managed to nearly kill you and we got the notification of his death while we were still hauling your comatose form away from the battlefield for treatment. He ended up falling on a few of his people which killed one and seriously injured a couple more."

"And the captives?"

"We've got them held in the Globe Life Stadium," Omar said leaning against my side. "A couple of people we actually had to tie up with chains, but most were pretty docile after Jorge fell and we captured them. Nolan, Matilda, and Jeremy were watching over them with the threat of their summons last I checked. We've got Daphne, erm Cami, mixed in with them.

"We haven't really decided what to do with them yet." Omar rolled to look up into my eye, "Honestly it felt like it would be heavily dependent on if you lived or died from the attack, and if you lived I wanted your thoughts on what to do." He shifted uncomfortably and looked down at his hands again, "You put way more thought into this kind of stuff than I ever did before everything went to shit. You paranoid ass cabbage eater nutter."

"Oh good, you remember that one!" I proclaimed happily before coughing. "I've got a fairly good idea of what to do with them all. Though an example will likely still need to be made, I'd have to see them myself to be sure. Was a man calling himself 'Spider' or 'Half-Breed' among them?"

"Spider is indeed among the prisoners, yes." Anthony confirmed.

"Ugly ass fucker." Omar shuddered.

I nodded, wincing at the movement, as I settled in to think. "Give me an hour to get better and we can head over there. Go ahead and start bringing the civies back over, let them watch the proceedings if you wish. Oh and serve some breakfast if we have any, I for one am famished."