Panacea limped through the crowded hospital, doing her best to ignore the cries of the wounded and dying. It never got easier, but she got more bitter. This was the worst of anything she'd experienced. The first time she'd been injured in the field, struck by a piece of debris in the receding water from the first wave. It hurt. It was nothing compared to the people around her.

A haggard nurse led her to and fro, a scattered pattern that made sense only to the woman holding the triage clipboard. Panacea could take it of course, find her own way through. Who was going to say no? But frankly, it was easier to just be led about so she could focus on ignoring the sounds of suffering. Shitty of her, but probably the least of everything.

She healed quickly and in near-silence, tersely asking consent before getting to work without another word. Skitter had been an exception. That bitch...well, Panacea hadn't done anything that bad really. The villain was fine, mostly. Just freaked out, but not nearly as much as she should be. Not as much as she deserved.

Panacea let out a long sigh. She had to move the fuck on, because it was a distraction from fixing the people who needed it. Skitter was probably going to get arrested sooner or later, and then she'd get justice. The nurse pulled back a curtain and gasped at the sight, sharp enough to pull Panacea's attention. She winced. Oh yeah, it was bad.

She quickly shooed the nurse outside the privacy curtain and drew it shut. The girl laying on the bed was unmasked, although it didn't do much to reveal her identity. Two-thirds of her face had been abraded, down to the bone in some places. Her eye had deflated and asphalt and debris collected around it. Her nose and lips were almost gone, and her remaining eye was red and teary.

“Hey,” she croaked. “Uh, I hate to ask but...” She pointed to her face and Panacea knit her brows together.

“Why else would I be here?” She snapped, sticking out her hand. “Hand on mine, if you can. If not, I can touch you somewhere.” The girl only had a leotard on, along with the shredded remains of some kind of clothing.

“Sure.” Her words slurred as her hand touch Panacea's. The healer frowned.

“Uh, do you have a force-field?” She had experience with something like this.

“Oh right.” The girl's remaining eyebrow screwed up and suddenly, Panacea could see everything.

It was a mess. She started with cleaning the wound as much as she could, deadening the nerves and removing debris herself if she had to. Panacea wasn't about to out a cape, definitely not one who looked barely as old as she was, by asking for help with something so basic. Between her power and experience, she made short work of it and began putting together the deepest damage to the girl's bones.

“Do you want a towel?” Panacea asked as she worked, then grimaced. “Or like, something to uh...cover your face? I'll need to work on it but..”

“It's fine,” she slurred, shrugging her shoulders.

Well, if she agreed... Panacea began building the face back, from the ground up. She didn't have an ID to go off of, but she did have part of it for reference. Plus, if she needed, she could rely on the cells themselves, though that might be more tenuous. She didn't need to be creative, she needed to be effective.

In any case, Panacea didn't need to do anything of the sort. The nose was the only thing that gave her much difficulty, and only because getting cartilage right kind of sucked. But soon enough, she was looking at a teenage girl with a head of auburn hair framing a pale face. An oddly familiar face. The girl's cheeks reddened and she looked at the sheets of her bed.

“Uh, hey,” Lia, the girl from Arcadia said. “Fancy meeting you here?”

“You're--” Panacea bit her tongue. “You're a cape?”

“Sorry,” she apologized, eyes flicking up then back to the bed. “I uh, I found out yesterday.” Panacea's eyes widened and she looked around. “Can I have that towel now?”

“Sure,” she said, handing a towel to L-- to the cape. “You... What...”

“Maybe talk later?” She asked, wrapping the towel around her head and mouth until only a slit for her eyes remained. “I think other people need help more...”

Panacea nodded and quickly left the girl behind. She numbly followed the nurse to the next patient, her mind racing ahead. Dean and Vicky had been pretty insistent on making her their friend. Was she a Master? Well, that didn't really make sense if she had a force-field like Vicky did. Plus if she was why not use her power on Panacea too?

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She tersely asked for consent and got it, swiftly repairing a shattered femur and gushing artery. She was thanked and ushered off to the next bed. Amelia, or Lia because otherwise things would get confusing, was a parahuman. She found out yesterday, then decided to take on Leviathan today. That was...incredibly stupid. Vicky levels of stupid. Panacea shook her head as she began healing the next patient.

Her thoughts swiftly turned away from her classmate turned cape as she continued her rounds. Dozens of near-fatal injuries were repaired without much trouble, she even managed to save a fetus that one hero didn't know she even had. Well, mazel tov or whatever lady. Try and stay out of Endbringer fights for the next eight months.

The constant flow of casualties gradually slowed. There were only so many capes that fought Leviathan, only so many more that actually survived... Panacea returned to the foyer where Vicky was cradling a weeping Crystal, and Gallant gently rubbed her back. She felt a pang of jealousy quickly smothered by guilt as she walked over, gently patting Crystal's shoulder. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose Vicky...

Gallant looked at her, cocking his head slightly. The stupid, paper domino mask made him look like a kid dressed up for Halloween. Fractured hip, break in his c-spine that would have been fatal if he hadn't been recovered in time. Easily fixed, though Panacea had been briefly tempted to leave him crippled from the waist down. She hadn't of course, but that she thought of it made her stomach churn.

She headed outside, making an excuse that she needed some air. Really she just needed to not be a part of this, she didn't belong anyway. The cool air outside reeked of smoke and petrichor. Panacea wasn't sure how flooding caused fires, but there were more than a few buildings that had been set alight in the aftermath of the attack. And with the streets flooded and choked with debris, the fire department wasn't exactly on hand to help. She sighed and leaned against the railing, staring out at the wrecked city. Home. What was left, anyway.

“Hey,” a quiet voice spoke up from behind her. Panacea glanced back and saw the cape who's face she healed and identity she pointedly didn't remember. She was wearing a set of PRT issued sweats now. “Can I join you?” She paused, but nodded, and the girl came up and leaned on the same railing.

“Sorry,” Panacea apologized. “About your...face.” A snort of laughter.

“It's alright,” she said. “Really, it is. Uh...call me Amaranth, I guess.”

“Amaranth,” she echoed, trying it. “Not bad, what's it mean?”

“It's...personal.”

“Ah, sorry.” Panacea paused, staring at the concrete. “You said...yesterday?”

“Yup,” Amaranth replied flatly. Looking up, Panacea saw her gaze fixed on the distant sea. “And today I decided to fight an Endbringer. Pretty stupid, right?”

“A little,” Panacea agreed, earning another huff of empty laughter. “But brave, I guess.”

“I guess,” she repeated with a shrug. “Are you okay? I saw you limping and...well.”

“It's nothing,” she said, brushing it off. People shouldn't worry about their healer being injured. Bad image. “Just a little sore.” Or as she suspected, probably a tear. That wasn't going to be a fun doctor's visit.

“Oh, okay.” Amaranth glanced down at her, an odd look in her eyes. “Maybe...get it checked out anyway. You never know, right?”

“You're pretty concerned with other peoples' health.” Panacea regretted the bitter comment as soon as it left her lips.

“So are you.” A sarcastic retort that she deserved, but still irritated her. “Nothing wrong with worrying about people, shows that you care.”

“Of course I care,” Panacea snapped.

“Well, good.” There was a pause in the conversation, and Panacea worried she'd killed it like an idiot. Talking to this girl was a little annoying but...better than thinking about the devastation just within eyesight. “So, uh, don't tell anyone about me being...you know?”

“Do you think I'm an idiot?” Panacea asked, rolling her eyes. “I work with the Wards, I can handle keeping some new indie's identity a secret.” Her eyes crinkled like she was smiling.

“Thanks,” she replied gravely. “Thank you, seriously. I was...a little scared, I won't lie.”

“I was kind of freaked out when I realized who you were,” Panacea admitted. “I thought...nevermind.” Voicing it would make her sound like a paranoid weirdo.

“What, that I was a Master trying to get close?” Panacea froze, but nodded slowly. Amaranth made a thoughtful hum. “Well, I kind of am a-- wait!” The girl held out her hands as Panacea whirled on her. “Hold on! I just mean I'm a Master and-- ugh, fuck I'm so bad at this... Okay, just, look.”

Amaranth, the maybe-Master-trying-to-get-close held her arm straight out to her side. As she insisted, Panacea looked then frowned. It looked normal at first, a girl just holding up her arm. But as she focused, she could see what looked like a thin line or...or a fold moving up and down, through Amaranth's arm. Panacea narrowed her eyes and looked closer. What was...

“My projection,” Amaranth explained. She moved and I saw the fold in space following behind her arm. Then it was just...gone. “Hard to see against my skin,” she continued. “As far as I know...it's unbreakable. I took more than one hit from Leviathan today.” Panacea's brows furrowed.

“Then how...” She stopped herself before she could stupidly ask 'how did your face get ripped off'', like the insensitive bitch she was.

“How did I get my face ripped off?” Amaranth said with a teasing edge. “I...flinched. It's a bad habit. Thanks, by the way, for um...fixing it.”

“It's fine,” Panacea replied. “It's my job.”

“Still,” she insisted. “You sort of...saved me. Don't know how much plastic surgery could do for me...or how much could be done with...you know.”

“Don't say you owe me.”

“I don't,” Amaranth assured her. “I mean, kind of, you know? But not really because I earned it by facing down a nine-ton lizard more--” She cut herself off with a sharp breath. “Sorry. Um, anyway. Are we...cool?” She held out a hand at waist height. A handshake?

“Depends,” Panacea said, looking her in her eyes. Grey, like the stormy skies above. “You just got your powers yesterday. What are...what are you going to do with them?” She got a distant look in her eyes and turned toward the ocean again.

“Survive.” Saying that seemed to weigh Amaranth down.

“Yeah,” Panacea said, looking again over her ruined home. “Me too.”