“You are no Main.” The Korean Officer said and stabbed Emily in the chest.

“Where are the real Mains?” He asked her and stabbed her in the chest once more. Then his facial features changed and he looked Middle Eastern.

Emily looked away and saw the woman from the jungle. Her face was full of disgust. “What kind of girl are you? You’re no daughter of mine.” She told Emily.

“You’re no Main.” The Middle Eastern man said leaning close to Emily’s face. He forced her to look at him then he stabbed her in the chest.

Emily’s body shook as the Middle Eastern man stabbed her again. She tried to move but she was stuck to the rock table. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. Then Middle Eastern man with an upper-class British accent laughed at her.

He raised a rock that looked like a knife in the air. “I’m going to bring you home to my wife. She’ll love you.” He told her as he brought the knife down on her neck.

“I think you’ll do fine on the shelf above the fireplace.” He told her as he lifted her head by her hair. She looked down and saw her headless body below.

“See, you’ll have good company.” He told her as he swung her decapitated head around so that she could see a fireplace with a nice cozy fire burning merrily in it. Above the fireplace sitting on a shelf were the severed heads of G and Kyo. Their mouths were open and they were screaming.

“No!” Emily screamed sitting up in bed. She groaned as she felt a sharp stabbing pain from her chest.

A woman dressed in hospital scrubs came running into her room. “It’s ok Sergeant Emmerson. You're ok. You’re in the hospital. You’ve been wounded but you're going to be ok.” She told Emily.

Emily nodded her head at the woman and looked around her. She was in what looked like a hospital room without a window. There were some machines next to her and as she tried to calm down the Lady in the scrubs came around and started playing with them. Emily leaned back down in bed groaning in pain.

“I’m Lieutenant Hooker and I’ll be your nurse tonight. Are you in a lot of pain?” The Nurse asked her. When Emily nodded she continued. “The Doctor was worried that your powers might make taking pain medications problematic. I have orders to get the Healer to take your pain away when you woke up. Let me go call him.”

Emily closed her eyes and heard the Nurse leave. She opened her eyes again after a few minutes and looked down at her chest. There was a large bandage taped to her chest along with a lot of wires that were attached to white sticky things all over her chest.

“Hey Never.” Someone said from the door. Emily immediately recognized Yrawl by his southern accent and the way he dragged out his words like a stoner. “How’re yeah doing?”

“Yrawl!” Emily cried happily.

“The Nurse said you’re in some pain. I can take care of that with my zombie powers.” Yrawl told her.

“You’re so weird.” She told him smiling as he crossed the room to stand beside her bed.

Yrawl looked at Emily for a few minutes from the doorway. Emily was just getting uncomfortable with him just standing there staring at her before he smiled and moved into the room. He grabbed a stool that had wheels on it and rode it over to her bedside.

“So, I’m supposed to do this thing where I use my powers to take away your pain. The problem is that I’ve never done anything like it before. Don’t get me wrong, Doc had me read a book so I kinda know what to do. So, if I screw this up, sorry beforehand?” He told her with a half-smile.

“You fill me with so much confidence,” Emily replied dryly.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He said shrugging.

“Ok, let's try this.” He said as he reached out and touched her forehead. She watched a little leary as he muttered to himself. “The pains only in the mind. Neurotransmitters and stuff.”

She felt nothing change for what seemed a long time. Yrawl stood beside her, muttering to himself. She didn’t want to interrupt him but he was just standing there so after a while she opened her mouth to tell him that it wasn’t his fault and that he was a brand new healer when a new sensation swept through her body. At first, it was a wave a coldness that started like a chill running up her back then like the tide receding the coldness turned to an uncomfortable warmth and swept down her back. When the wave of warmth hit her tailbone, the pain just stopped.

“Whoa,” Emily muttered in surprise.

“Got it,” Yrawl said opening his eyes. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Sorry about the hot and cold thing, but I couldn’t find the right area to tag. I got it now. How do you feel?”

“Pains gone,” Emily said with a smile. She pushed on her bandage and there was no pain.

“Yeah, don’t do that. I’m not good enough to heal all that damage to your heart. All I did was take away the pain.” Ywarl said reaching out and grabbing her hand to stop her from messing with the bandage.

“So, what’s wrong with me?” She asked him as she looked up at him.

“Well, I’m not an expert but the real Doc said you messed up your heart real bad. You’re going to have to talk to him about that. I can feel it’s messed up bad, but it’s healing. I have no idea what’s wrong with it though.” He told her shrugging.

“Thanks, Ywarl.” She told him with a serious tone of voice.

“Yeah, no worries Never.” He said as his cheeks turned red. “Sorry for not being able to heal you up, but I’m still learning. They say it takes like two years or so of Healer school before they normally let you do anything. All I got is this manual that’s written in Korean.”

“Seriously, you did a good job, Ywarl. I don’t feel any pain. Anyway, when is the Doc coming around so I can get out of here.” Emily asked as she looked at the door to her room like the doctor would show up any second.

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere for a while Never. You’re pretty messed up. The doc’s this old dude with the National Guard. He was doing his two weeks at the clinic in Camp Caroll when everything went down. There are two other Doc’s who survived the surrender, but he’s the only one who has experience with Sups. He’s an okay old dude but lays the ‘I’m an office’ crap on pretty heavy so watch what you say to him.” Ywarl told her in his soft southern accent. “He should be around in the morning. He does his rounds with all his patients right around sixish. I bet he hits you up right at six.”

“How bad am I?” Emily asked him suddenly worried.

“If you were a normal person you’d be dead. Doc says you lost something like four liters or so of blood plus your hearts are pretty messed up. According to him most of it left your body but you had a lot that didn’t. It pooled around your heart and squeezed it. It’s why you passed out when you got here. I don’t know much about blood pressure but they say it was really low.” He told her.

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She looked down at the bandage with renewed concern. “There was nothing we could do about it but let your healing take care of it. It’s mostly gone as of this morning. The thing that has everyone worried is that your healing powers left some scarring on your heart. Apparently that’s really bad. It’s messing with the electrical part of your heart. Makes it beat weirdly. That’s why you got stickers on. They’re watching what your heart is doing.” Ywarl told her.

“Oh, wow,” Emily said stunned. She had been hurt before and had spent a lot of time in the hospital but somehow this was more serious for some strange reason.

“Am I going to be okay?” She asked him feeling scared.

“Yeah, Doc thinks all you need is time and your healing will take care of everything. Doc’s is sleeping just down the hall so if anything goes wrong he’ll be here in a hurry.” Ywarl told her.

“Okay, thanks Ywarl.” She said softly.

Hey, man, you missed it. Hook went ballistic when you didn’t show up. Started bitching about Rangers and stuff. At first, we all thought you got held up but when you and that marine guy didn’t come back we got worried. Hook went from ‘She’s going to be cleaning latrines for the rest of her life’ to ‘We need to send everyone out to search for you’. You want to talk about it?” He asked her softly.

“We know about the marine by the way. He surrendered with everyone else. People say that they took him and his family away as soon as the North Koreans got there. No one saw him or his family after that. The Major thinks that he turned traitor to save his family.” Ywarl told her.

“Yeah, but he didn’t know the bastards already killed his family. They told him after they stabbed him.” Emily said looked down at her hands.

She could still see his face when they told him. She didn’t know him all that much but she wished he had told them that they had his family. Maybe they would still be alive if he did. She wanted to not be angry at him but she couldn’t. She still remembered sitting in that dental chair and the guy telling her what he was going to her. She had never been that scared in her life. Even when she had been upon the stone table and the Magus was about to stab her, she hadn’t been that scared as when she was sitting in that dental chair.

“Hey sorry I didn’t mean… Dammit. Sorry I should have known better than to ask.” Ywarl said interrupting her dark thoughts.

“No. It’s cool. It’s just I was scared, Ywarl. Like, really scared. They took my powers away. I was helpless. It couldn’t do anything. I was…” Emily trailed off staring at her hands again.

Ywarl cursed. “They can do that?”

“Yeah,” Emily told him softly. “They got this super who could lock down your powers. The marine killed him though.”

“So, he’s dead?” A new voice said from the doorway. Emily looked up and was surprised to see the Major standing by the doorway with Hook.

“Yes, sir. But sir, the other supers told me that the Taewang has the ability to give people powers. The Marnie though the guy he killed was the one, but the super that I was talking to said he got the power to tell if someone was lying from the fat guy himself.” Emily said fearfully.

“He might have been lying. Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.” The Major said stepping into the room. Hook followed him.

Emily started with when she woke up but the Hook told her to start with the mission so she did. She told them everything, but the meeting with the lady in the jungle. She didn’t know why she woke up in the carter but suggested it might have been the Marine with a suicide vest or something like that. They asked her a bunch of questions. Some she could answer like how many supers did she see in the prison and what their powers were. There were some of the answers she couldn’t answer like how did she survive the explosion if her powers were gone. She just had no idea.”

“The super’s powers might have a time limit. It makes sense if you consider why they didn’t ask where this bunker is or any other actionable intel they could have gotten from you.” The Major said as he looked back at her. He had been staring at the wall for several seconds.

“Or they let her powers come back to track her here.” Hook said speaking for the first time. “If they can really have someone who can give powers out like candy why can’t they give someone the power to track her.”

“True, but why didn’t they act when she took out the seven Mains in the forest?” The Major asked with a mild tone.

“Could be that they didn’t know the Mains were there?” Hook replied.

“Maybe. In any case, I think they’ll find we are not as unprepared as they expect. Hook, double the guard. I need to let General know that we may be having company soon.” The Major replied.

The Major then turned to Emily and smiled. “You did everything right, Never. If they were tracking you, well they would have found us anyway. This way at least we have a warning. Ywarl, stay with Never. Do everything you can to get her back up onto her feet. Never get healed up. We might need you sooner rather than later.” The Major told them. He gave them a nod and turned and left.

“Can you do anything to speed this up,” Emily asked Ywarl pointing to her bandage.

“Nah. Sorry. I don’t know how to even start. It’s not like I can wave my hand to proof you’re healed. All I can do is read the manual and hope Doc can give me permission to do something.” Ywarl told her sounding sad.

“I need to go. I need to read that book.” He told her heading for the door. Emily watched him leave feeling helpless and angry.

To Emily’s surprise, she fell asleep not long after Ywarl left. She woke up several times when the Nurse came in to check her vital signs but quickly fell back to sleep. If she dreamed that night she didn’t remember it.

The Doctor came in that morning a few minutes after six. Like Ywarl warned her he came in and introduced himself as Major Tompson instead of Doctor Thompson and called her Sergeant Emmerson whenever he had to refer to her name. He explained what was going on with her. It was the same information that Ywarl had told her last night but much more technical. He told her that because of the scar tissue on her heart it was not fluttering. He explained how the heart worked and how it pumped the blood. He also explained why fluttering was bad and if she was a normal person she could not survive with how her heart was now pumping. He made it sound like she was seconds from dying before he started to give her the good news.

“It looks like you EKG is getting better. I want to do a few tests today, but I think your healing powers are slowly healing your scar tissue.” He told her with a smile. When he left Emily thought he was an egotistical jackhole who was way too much in love with his rank for his own good, but he did sound like he knew what he was doing.

Some of the tests that the doctor ordered were problematic until a Medic suggested that Emly start her own IV. His reasoning was that she should be strong enough to pierce her own skin. To everyone's surprise, he was right. Back in Special ops school, she had learned the basics of how to start an IV. It really wasn’t all that hard. Clean the area and poke the vein. The hard part was finding the vein. Starting an IV on her own arm for the first time in her life both easier and harder than she expected. For one thing, she had to do everything backward but the pain was very minimal.

Once the IV was in Emily had to hold it in. Her body kept on wanting to eject it from her arm no matter how much tape they put on it. They gave her a transfusion of blood. The doctor told her that while she was regenerating her blood at an amazing pace he wanted to help her powers a bit. By that night the fluttering her heart was doing had slowed down noticeably. It was still concerning according to the doctor who visited her that afternoon but I was a set in the right direction.

On top of all the medical stuff that was going on, a few people stopped by to ask her questions about her time in the prison. By the time the last guy left Emily was more than through with them asking her the same questions over and over again. She even complained to G when she stopped by for a few minutes.

“They all ask the same questions. I don’t know why I don’t just record them and just play it back when they come.” She told her friend.

“This is your fifteen minutes of Military fame. Don’t worry, you’ll be back soon enough and you’ll be wishing you were back here instead of doing the next asinine thing they ask you to do.” G had replied making Emily laugh.

“Thanks, I needed that,” Emily replied dryly.

“So a little heads up. The Major is not the person who is in charge. I mean he is still in command of us but we rescued a full bird Colonel from the breakout. He was in charge of the 158th supply battalion. He’s an old school Colonel who according to rumors is on his last command. He was set to retire sometime around Christmas. Now he’s in charge of the whole shebang.”

“Please tell me that paper pusher is not in charge of us,” Emily asked horrified.

“Not sure yet but the Major likes him so let’s go with I’m hopeful. G told her with a shrug. “The good news is that his wife is a South Korean lawyer so he has some vested interest in freeing South Korea.”

“Please tell me his wife is free and not in custody,” Emily asked fearing a repeat of the Marine’s betrayal.

“Yea, she’s here at the bunker. She’s one of the people who’s in charge of the civilians.” G told her.

“Thank goodness,” Emily replied relieved. G stayed for nearly ten minutes before she had to leave to go back to work. She was helping to create defenses outside the bunker. Over the next few days most of her company showed up to her room to visit. Ywarl spent the most time visiting her as he was now part of the medical staff. He spent a lot of time in her room reading his book trying to learn how to be a healer. He was hoping that they would start letting him help treat people in the near future.

To everyone’s surprise, four days passed without any attack. The afternoon on the fifth day since Emily made it back to the bunker she was released. She was told by the nurse that she was to report to her barracks and pack. She had a new mission.