William Edwards's Story

Izzy loitered, her interest having her wander after for a while. Phantom seemed to be stirring. Craning her neck, she peered at him through the crack in the door. “I’ll make sure you don’t wake up next time” said Izzy, her tone betraying no hint of sarcasm.

She moved out and back towards the reception room and out of ears reach of Batman and the nurse. The berries which the nurse had asked for still sat on the counter, the tiniest, deadliest little things. Something else they had to worry about, other than the murderous criminals and storms which were already after their blood. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was taking those to her.

“Hey” she called to Edwards, beckoning him away from Batman and crazy candyfloss with her free hand. “We should split up, take a walk, see what we can find that’s useful. Give Batman some time to rest.”] He eyes flittered to the door which the nurse was concealed behind. “I don’t trust her, though, careful. See you back here in a bit. Make lots of noise if you need help. Or die quietly so I don’t have to deal with you.”

Izzy swanned off for a corridor leading off the reception room. As she passed the bowl of berries, she knocked it purposefully with her elbow as she walked by, sending them rolling all over the floor. The bowl landed with a clatter, and Izzy was off at a jog.

---

In a green medic’s bag with a white cross on the front, Izzy had been dumping anything of interest. She was trained in basic first aid, but she couldn’t pronounce half of the words which were printed on the labels. Hurrying along, she dabbed at face with a towel and some antiseptic which she had also deposited in the bag, cleaning up her lip. She’d scavenged all that she thought might be useful; bandages and dressings and tape, cleaning solutions, antibiotics, painkillers… and now, after dumping the bloody towel, was headed towards the hospital cafeteria which was signed to find some water.

Everywhere so far had been deserted.

She knew what would happen a split second before it did as she walked into the food hall. Her foot had caught something as she stepped through the doorway. Izzy’s heart stopped. A trap.

Rusty needles rained down upon her, falling from the ceiling where a plaster board had been pulled away when the trap had been triggered. Luckily, Izzy had detected the trap quickly, so hadn’t stepped right under the downpour. Still, the exposed part of her right arm was pretty scratched up by the time the needles all fell to the floor in a symphony of pings. If it had been more sudden, she probably would’ve screamed. But the trap was amateur and she’d even had a small amount of time to shift backwards before the heavens opened.

Izzy looked down at her new wounds in a sort of daze. She should’ve been more cautious.
What she was getting from this was that crazy candyfloss really was, well, crazy, assuming she’d set these traps.
And Izzy and Edwards had just left her alone with Batman.

Izzy paled, turned on her heel, and raced for the reception room, trying not to think of what those needles could've been carrying...

Not particularly fond of the nurse either Edwards decided to stay instead. He had some things he wanted to asked Phantom, particularly concerning the armories. The man was roughed up and the chances of him surviving to the end seemed unlikely. At least at this point in the game he was better off to hide than to fight. That was unless this nurse was some miracle worker that she could sew whatever internal organs he'd had sliced open. Edwards had given Izzy one of the guns, and he'd emptied the clip, but here was hoping he had more rounds. Edwards looked around his things. Nothing particularly revealing as it was mostly everything he had with him at the start except slightly more blood drenched. Unable to find anything Edwards looked to the man hitting on his caretaker.

"Hey Batman, got any extra bullets for that pistol? I might need em if someone comes busting through the doors here to kill us."

Giselle was absolutely ecstatic. It looked as though all of her patients so far were going to make full recoveries and although she was still curious about the man behind the mask she didn't question him about it and decided to let him recover while she cleaned up her equipment.

It hadn't been easy or pretty stitching p the gash in his side. The bullet hadn't stuck but it had torn away a fair amount of flesh and she wasn't surprised that he had passed out from blood loss. She was surprised that he hadn't passed out sooner. He was lucky that he hadn't lost too much flesh or she would have had to graft some skin from his ass on to his side. It had taken a good deal of staples and quite a lot of stitches, both to his side and his head but the wounds were closed, cleaned and the bleeding had stopped meaning he was on his way to a healthy recovery.

However just because he was on his way did not in any way mean that he would get there. She found minute traces of rust in his side meaning that the bullet that hit him was rusty, She had managed to remove most of the rusted flakes but even a minuscule trace could lead to tetanus. Giselle made a mental note to watch him for spasms and hoped he'd had his shots. As she thought of tetanus she remembered her trap and wondered how long it'd be until some criminal set it off.

Before she had time to think too much about her trap she heard her patient start stirring behind her. She finished drying her tools off and made her way over to him to see how he was coping with the stitches. He was definitely awake and talking although she couldn't tell how well he was dealing with the wounds since she couldn't read his facial expressions. By the way he moved it didn't look like they were an excessive bother but they did hurt.

He wanted to know about her so she told him. "My name is Giselle Demence but you may call me Nurse Gigi. I am a certified doctor, although I don't have my certificate to show you so you'll just have to take my word for it, but I do prefer to be called nurse. I just think the nurse's outfits are cuter. Don't you?" Even though she had asked the other two people to stay out the man had still come in and he was asking her patient for ammunition. She doubted he had any and even though she didn't want him to agitate the masked man there wasn't much she could do about it.

She had several needles full of different surprises on her at the moment but she wasn't allowed to kill any other heroes and she didn't having anything that wasn't deadly or incurable. So she just sat down and glared at him, hoping he would leave, soon. At least the woman had listened enough to leave her to her work. She wondered where the woman was now. She hadn't looked too good when she came in and Giselle wanted to take a look t her lip, it was swollen and if she wasn't mistaken she had seen signs of infection in it.

Phantom bent upwards, feeling pain shoot up from his abdomen, making him grunt. He held it instinctively before realizing that it had been bandaged and the wound had been shut. He touched his head, feeling the grooves of the closed skin upon his fingers. The part of the mask where his head was shot had been ripped open, but it overall still covered his face, only exposing the wound on his head. He also realized that they had either took off the mask and saw his face before he awoke or they left it on. Either way, he had hoped the cameras didn't see his face if they did, he could care less if the heroes saw his face though.

He grinned under his mask, assuming that the so called "Nurse" had flirted back to him. But, he turned his attention towards Edwards who had just asked him about rounds for his pistol.

"Yeah, I have five more rounds to spare for you. You gonna head out with that woman?" Phantom asked curiously, wondering why Edwards would need more rounds. Then it hit him, they probably thought he was a burden. Phantom couldn't blame them, he would of thought of the same if he was in a similar situation with someone else injured the way he was. Without reluctance, he unstrapped the rounds and handed them to Edwards.

"If so, good luck. Thanks for the help back there, I appreciate it." Phantom wasn't the type to say thank you to anyone, he always worked alone until now.

Izzy was much more careful as she moved through the hospital back to where she’d left the others. She slowed to an easily maintainable jog, decelerating right down where any corridors crossed and constantly checking for other traps.

The hospital was big and it did take a while for her to find herself back in the reception room. There, she broke into a walk, her heavy boots crushing the knocked over berries into a mush as she went. Izzy was a bit flustered when she made it to the treatment room. They were all still there, including Edwards, which made a flash of agitation cross her expression.

“Hey” she said, more announcing her presence than offering them a greeting as she sidled into the room. It was against the rules to kill heroes, but she’d have still liked to raise the handgun to stare down that psycho nurse. But she didn’t think that’d do much to preserve her oh-so-heroic persona; it wouldn’t sit well with the audience. Izzy dumped the bag of collected medical products at Edwards’ feet, but didn’t take her eyes off the nurse.

“You. Candyfloss bitch, what kind of game are you playing?” She demanded, the colour in her cheeks rising. The injuries caused by the falling needles were nothing, she barely felt them, but still, the shock she’d got from the trap was enough to make her resent their creator. “This your game? Draw heroes in here with promises of treatment, let them roam the hospital without precaution and let them get themselves killed or tangled in your traps? We’re not the rats in this city, lady, in case you hadn’t noticed!”

Only then did she notice Phantom was awake. Hoping he wasn’t harbouring any too-fond memories for his insane saviour Izzy announced: “We’re leaving.”

Gigi spun around on her chair, bored. Her patients were all healing well, her traps had all been set and she still had plenty of beetles left in her tank so there was no reason for her to go looking for more. She swiveled around in small circles, thinking up new ways to trip up any criminals that dared to intrude on her hospital. She decided to ignore the man that had brought her patient in since it was clear he wasn't going to leave any time soon. Every time she circled around she checked on the masked man, he wounds were still fresh and she didn't want him to agitate the stitches.

She was just about to go looking for some rope for her next trap when she heard footsteps approaching. She tilted her head towards the door, the footsteps were heavy and quick, whoever was coming was coming with a purpose. She looked towards the door just as the hero woman appeared. She looked pretty banged up, even more so than before and Giselle really would have liked to take a look at her lip. Before she could say anything the woman emptied a bag of supplies at the other man's feet. "Someone's been a busy bee." Gigi thought to herself.

"Game? I'm not playing any games. But I suppose I should be, I mean this whole thing is just one big gruesome game isn't it?" Gigi looked at the woman and noticed she had quite a few new scratches, like she had been scraped with several sharp objects. The wounds looked familiar and then it hit her. The woman must have triggered Giselle's needle trap, that would explain the length and frequency of the scratches. But Gigi had set up far more needles than that, and the woman was barely scraped. "No! That trap wasn't meant for you, you ignorant woman! That trap was set for any criminals that dared to come to my hospital and you've ruined it." Gigi was pissed, to say the least. "Please tell me you didn't blunder into any of the others, you didn't try to use the elevator did you? No, you wouldn't be here if you had."

Gigi stood up and started pacing back and forth between the counter and the patients' beds. "Great, now I have to go pick up all those needles and re set the trap, although since you're not too hurt maybe I should try to improve it first. Also, I hope you have your shots 'cause all those needles were filthy and rusty so who knows what you've caught. Come here and let me take a blood sample." Giselle was upset but she stil had a job to do. This woman was a hero and she needed treatment or she would die and it would be Gigi's fault. Even though she had set the trap off herself.

“The criminals have to die, not us right?”

Edwards took the pistol from phantom and ejected the magazine. Into it he put the five rounds making sure they weren't damaged or otherwise ruined from his earlier escapes. One had a bit of blood on it, but rubbed clean easily enough. Loaded he returned the magazine into the pistol, but kept himself from cocking the upper action rearward. He didn't trust the safeties on pistols. During his time in the military he had two pistols discharge with the safety on when he ran to cover and wasn't particularly concerned with making sure they didn't hit against the ground. He was told it was a fault with the handgun, but trust isn't rebuilt so easily after a round in the leg.

Izzy burst into the room as Edwards finished loading the pistol and holstering it at his waist. She was scratched up and angry, but otherwise overreacting. The nurse had warned them of traps, hadn't she? Maybe it had been the berries though. Edwards couldn't remember what she said, his heart thumping against his chest had melded the whole experience of dragging Phantom to safety and being brought in to a fat blur. Given time he could remember, but more important matters had come up.

“You won't die from tetanus in a few hours, and none of it was more than a scratch.”

Edwards looked over the two ladies. One was the epitome of anger, red in face and ready to kill. The other one was ready and willing to help, though Edwards doubted it would be the right kind. She seemed a bit odd to have so many traps set already, though maybe surviving was her plan.

“And where are we going? The armories? Are we taking his broken ass? And what about her? She coming too?” Pointing to the cripple and his caretaker Edwards anticipated a resounding Hell no coming. Izzy didn't seem to care for anyone other than herself from all that Edwards could tell. He hadn't known her for long, but her actions spoke strongly enough of her character, and though he was certain she was a strong ally, her personality and ability to leave others behind meant she was unpredictable. Edwards didn't want himself sacrificed for her personal gain when the entire premise of this event was to kill the criminals. Heroes didn't need to die, or so was Edwards standing theory.