“Well…this is a bit of a fluster-duck.” Clover commented as I paced the floor of the office we had commandeered.

Gloria chuckled mirthlessly. “That's an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”

Privately, I agreed with her.

Not only did it turn out that Ruby Dreams didn’t have any connection to the ABB in general or Lung in particular, making my whole plan to use them to call out the gang in question utterly useless, but during the time we were away from the city bombs had been going off all over the place seemingly at random.

The ABB had already moved to free Lung. I’d misjudged how much time we had and ended up wasting it thanks to relying on bad metaknowledge.

I sighed and did my best to pull myself together.

Okay, I’d screwed up. So what? I could either waste time complaining about it or focus on the actual situation and do something about it. So let's think…what did I know for certain, and what did I think I knew but might be wrong?

The ABB was bombing the city. Very likely they were going to try and free their leader.

Whether that succeeded or not wasn’t guaranteed with the new players in the Bay but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lung escaped anyway. Bakuda – the ABB tinker responsible for their entire bombing campaign – was technically known to the public thanks to her trigger event as the Cornell Bomber, holding an entire college campus hostage with tinkertech bombs was still newsworthy even in a world that had Endbringers and town-enslaving cults, but she hadn’t done much since escaping and presumably getting recruited by Lung.

And it was one thing to know a bomb tinker was coming. It was an entirely different thing to do anything about it.

Bakuda could – and probably had – make her bombs look like normal everyday things or disguised them after the fact and scattered them around the city. She had effectively taken all of Brockton Bay hostage this time and I wouldn’t be surprised if the PRT let Lung escape out of hope he would reign her in if it looked like there was too much collateral damage to the public even if they did manage to stop the initial breakout attempt.

So that was two things I could confidently say I knew.

Bakuda and the ABB were behind the bombings and Lung was most likely going to escape.

Now what could have changed?

…Bakuda losing to the Undersiders.

From what I remembered of that encounter, the entire fight had been one giant close call that only turned out in the Undersider’s favor because of Bakuda’s arrogance. If she took them seriously from the beginning or even just had slightly more willing help…

There was no plot armor protecting the ‘true’ storyline in this world. Amy wouldn’t have died if there was.

So there was a very good chance of the Bakuda winning that fight and as much as I would like to make sure that didn’t happen…I didn’t have a clue where to find them, if the fight hadn’t ended already. I didn’t remember off the top of my head where that encounter was supposed to go down either and flying around looking for explosions when the city was full of them…

Can’t stop the breakout attempt.

Can’t stop the fight with the Undersiders.

Okay, what can we do then?

“Earth to Rias, you still with us?” Clover prodded me.

“Yeah, just thinking.”

“Neat, you have a plan then?”

“You all want to be involved then?”

There were nods and determined looks all around. Unsurprising, but I would have liked it if at least some of them wanted to sit out. Most of them were okay fighters at this point, and they would wipe the floor with the average gang member, but explosions didn’t really care about things like that.

“I have the concepts of a plan.” I lied, but it was important to at least look confident to my Peerage. “Sam, did Crystal say what they were going to be doing?”

“She and Eric were going to meet up with the rest of New Wave. Vicky and Amy were headed towards the hospital to help out.”

I guess their family feud had taken a backseat to the current emergency. Okay, I could work with that a bit.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Any word on what Carl is doing?”

“Trying to track down the detonation signal or something according to Crys.”

“Okay, so here’s the plan. Gloria, I want you to head back to the hospital to help protect Amy. if it looks like someone is going to try and attack or detain her, get both her and Vicky out of there. I don’t care who they say they are, I don’t want her going off alone.”

“Sam, Alex, and Clover, I want you three working with Carl to get in contact with Emergency Services. There’s going to be a lot of blocked roads and fires because of this. See what you can do to help out. And if Carl finds a way to track the bomber’s signal make sure to let me know immediately.”

“Got it!” Alex snapped a salute followed by Sam and Clover a half second later in a way that I knew was to mess with me a bit, but I didn’t mind because I’d take all the amusement in the moment I could. I probably wasn’t going to get much more of it tonight.

Gloria smiled and shook her head at the three before turning back to me. “What are you going to be doing?”

I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I’m going to be flying around waiting to stomp the first idiot to try taking advantage of this mess into the dirt.” The ABB, E88, Wily, or any others out there…it didn’t matter. Anyone trying to do anything but help was going to have to explain themselves very quickly or get worn as a boot.

‘Charming.’ Ddraig commented. ‘I’d make sure to wash your feet afterwards, though.’

‘It was hyperbole, you overgrown coin purse!’

‘And that was sarcasm, you airheaded bat. Now focus on your minions.’

I rolled my eyes at the dragon but turned my attention back to the group. They didn’t look thrilled that I was going off on my own when I was deliberately grouping everyone else up, but they didn’t argue with me. The unfortunate truth was that I was simply faster on my own. If I had picked up a Knight things would be different, but I hadn’t – and having the girls Promote to one would just tire them out quicker and leave them vulnerable. Best save that as a trump card.

“I know things haven't exactly gone to plan today, but the main goals haven’t changed much - kick in the ABB’s teeth if we can, and make sure everyone comes home safe. Things have just…escalated…a little bit.”

“Understatement, much.”

“Be careful and don’t hesitate to call for help if you need it.” I ignored the interruption and connected the five of us with my communication spell before teleporting all of us back into the city before quickly teleporting myself back to the manor.

I stayed long enough to link Carl into the communication spell (the newest version could cover the whole city!) and then randomly ‘ported back into the city.

Almost immediately I saw the burned out remains of several cars with a small crowd of bystanders standing nervously nearby. No one seemed to be doing anything but watching the fires, and I understood that. There didn’t seem to be anything they could do about the flames and if anyone had been in those cars and hadn’t gotten out before they went up…well they weren’t worrying about it now. But the thing that sparked a dark feeling in my chest I didn’t quite know what to call was the sight of the blackened and burning child seat in the back of one of the wrecks.

“...Okay, let’s see who’s going to be the first Darwin Award winner for the night.”

-o-

[Amy POV]

By the time Vicky and Amy made it to Brockton General Hospital, the place was already preparing for the waves of patients the sudden explosions were no doubt going to cause.

It said a lot of things about the city - and not many of them good, honestly - that this wasn’t even the tenth time Amy had seen the hospital getting ready for a rush of injured people. But for the first time in a while Amy isn’t filled with bitter resentment and annoyance at the thought of dozens of injured people begging for her help.

She feels nervous.

Because she isn’t the Panacea anymore.

She can’t diagnose every problem at a touch and heal almost everything within minutes anymore. It takes more time, more information, more of everything really, and worst of all – it takes effort to heal now.

Amy never needed to worry about things like that before. Before that building fell on her she could keep healing as long as she could stay awake and focused. After…Amy knew that thanks to the Bishop piece Rias used on her, Amy had the second largest magic reserves in their group. And even if healing was easier for her than other types of magic, she had a limit of what she could do now.

Just in time for some bomb psycho that could turn people to stone, or remove their bones, or some other messed up shit to pop up.

She shook those thoughts out of her head as she landed on the hospital’s roof and made it all of three steps before freezing at the door.

“Hey,” Vicky said softly behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder with a gentle squeeze, “I’ve got your back.”

Amy appreciated that.

The two of them entered the building and made a beeline for the nurses’ station. Thankfully, the person manning the desk was not only one of the nurses Amy knew the name of, but also one of the less chatty ones as well. That meant that Amy should be able to –

“Amy, is that you?!”

All thoughts were driven out of her head as Nurse Mary, one of the most stoic and brusque people Amy knew, practically ran over to pull her into a tight hug.

“Bwah?”

“We heard about how you were caught in that attack. When no one saw you for so long… I’m glad the rumors were wrong. We’re going to need you tonight.”

“They weren’t completely wrong.” Vicky commented while Amy was still bluescreening from the sudden hug. “Amy got hurt…bad. A friend managed to help her but things happened that might cause issues.”

Amy extracted herself from the hug. “My powers changed. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do everything needed, but I can heal at range and do multiple people at once now.” She went on to explain some of the differences.

Mary was frowning by the end of it. “That’s not great news. We’ve heard of some pretty wild things that conventional medicine might just not be able to do anything for but I guess we’ll just have to deal with it. But if you’re still willing to help we’ll get you set up in your normal spot. We’ll just have to hope for the best…”

“My powers changing won’t cause the hospital issues?” Amy asked.

“Your Parahuman Healing License is still good and you’re still providing care with your powers,” Mary replied. “Legally you’re in the clear and I know you wouldn’t put others at risk. Frankly, we can't afford to be picky. We’re desperate enough to let that robot help…”

“Robot?”

“Nurse! Where are the supplies I requested?! The first ambulances are going to be returning soon!” Amy turned to see what must have been one of Dr Wily’s robots walking towards them with a scowl on his face. It might have been more intimidating if it was taller than four feet and not wearing a ridiculous red and teal coat that doubled as armor.

“Sandra is still getting everything together, Medicman.” Mary snapped back. “You can either yell at me until she comes back, or you can go make yourself useful somewhere else.” She turned to Amy and said in a softer voice. “He is right though, we’re about to be swamped. I’ll call ahead and let the staff know you’re coming and about your powers.”

Amy simply nodded and rushed to the Ambulance Bay with her sister trailing behind her. Her job would be making sure everyone arriving was stable enough to make it to an ER room.

“Weird that they let a villain’s robot minion work in a hospital.” Vicky muttered as the first ambulance’s lights could be seen racing towards them.

“Hospitals have their own Truce rules.” Amy muttered back. “Everyone helps out unless your group is the one causing the crisis. Doesn’t happen here much because Othala was the only other cape in the Bay that could heal and she can’t be seen helping ‘undesirables’ outside of an Endbringer fight.”

Then there was no more time to talk as the first ambulance threw open its doors and Amy got her first patient of the night.

“Do I have your permission to heal you?”

It was spoken more out of habit than anything else. Thousands of repetitions made it so Amy barely even noticed she asked.

But now she felt a bit of her demonic power stretching out, waiting for an answer. Rias had mentioned this when she had given everyone the rundown on their new species. The ability to make deals with people in exchange for helping grow their own power a tiny bit along with whatever else was offered.

Before she could take it back the person accepted and Amy felt a small compulsion to heal them. Thankfully, it was just two broken bones and not too draining. And the second she finished she felt almost all the energy she spent healing return to her, about eighty percent or so and the instinctual knowledge that her own power had grown just a sliver.

…Amy needed to use this.

If making deals could extend how long she could heal for it would be criminal to let it go unused. But she was going to have to have a loooong discussion with Rias after this was over about what could be considered a deal in the future! She was getting tired of new things getting sprung on her in the middle of a crisis!