A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 8: Emergency (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 8: Emergency

-VB-

BANG

I was too late. I moved, but bullets still flew faster than I ran. 

“AMY!” I screamed. I didn’t shout, I didn’t roar. I screamed in fear.

As I whirled to her, hoping that the bullet had missed, all I saw was Amy jerking backward. She stumbled and I quickly caught her before her legs gave away from shock. Her hands shakily reached for her side, where there was a hole in her shirt and a splotch of red grew.

I saw red. I turned towards the paling Neo-Nazi and-.

CRUNCH

“ARGGGHH-!”

The shooter cried out in anguish at his mangled and pulped hand now decorating the asphalt macabrely. 

I almost left the rest of the trash behind unmolested, but I had also learned my lesson. 

A hold on their wrists and a few snaps of my wrist was enough to get the job done; this took me no more than two seconds when I blitzed through them all without a care. If few of them got dislocated joints, it wasn’t my concern. 

I knelt next to her, pulled my shirt off and ripped it to pieces. I manage a makeshift bandage and wrapped it around her stomach, where the shot was. She was breathing… less than thirty times a minute.

‘Have to check perfusion,’ I thought quickly as I applied pressure to her arm and then let go. The color returned over four seconds. Not good. Radial pulse present. 

“Amy. Amy, look at me,” I urged her. She continued to whimper but didn’t do as I asked. “Amy, please look at me.” Still no response.

FUCK!

I left them screaming and crying like babies while I scooped up Amy in a bridal carry and ran for the hospital, placing one hand on her bullet wound to keep the pressure there. I tied it tightly, and Amy whimpered in pain, trying in vain to clutch to my arms but failing as her strength failed her.

The night wind buffeted harshly against me and Amy, almost as if it was pushing back against me. Like the winds didn’t want me to go faster to save Amy.

I growled as I pushed myself faster. My legs pounded against the ground harder, and I jumped further with each push.

I didn’t even bother to use the street; I just jumped onto a car parked in front of a one-story shop, and jumped onto the roof. 

Then I was roof-jumping, speed through gaps as if they didn’t exist because of how faster I ran.

I glanced down and grimaced. Amy grew paler by each second. A shade I would not have recognized only a month ago, I now saw with clarity. And each turn of the shade made me nervous. More nervous than anything else I’d ever felt. 

I ignored all of the pain of pushing my body to the limit.

I cushioned all shock she might have felt with my own knees. My knees and bones croaked and creaked with each stride, but I ignored it all. I bit down on my own bites, feeling the briefly hot blood turn cold on my skin from how fast I was moving. I bit down to keep myself from screaming.

HOSPITAL! 3 blocks!

I tilted myself forward in the run, clutching Amy tighter to me while boosting my seed even further. 

2 blocks…!

I felt her blood on my hand.

My legs rushed back and forth faster. They burned, heated up to the point of pain.

1 block-!

I jumped up, clearing the last of the buildings and crossing over the hospital’s parking lot now. Instead of tilting my head forward, I pushed my legs forward. 

20 yards above ground-

10 yards-

5-

IMPACT!

My feet touched down and carved a groove into the asphalt. My entire body shook, but I kept my arms loose, making sure that Amy wouldn’t feel any of it. 

And halfway across the parking lot, my momentum gave out, but not before the rest of my body was pulled straight up from the feet-first slanted angle that I came in at.

I took off on a run towards the closest hospital doors: the Emergency Room. 

My body didn’t slam through the doors so much as I was able to slip through the doors as they opened for someone else.

“Panacea’s hurt!” I shouted hoarsely. “She’s been shot in the left stomach!” 

Everyone there saw me when I first shouted, and then the nurses and doctors rushed towards me. The first pair of nurses who reached me quickly took Amy from my arms.

Then I collapsed. In surprise, I looked down and then grimaced. 

I’d pushed myself too far too fast. The speed I’d achieved wasn’t one that I shouldn’t have been able to at this point, but my body gave it all.

And my legs paid the price: swollen, throbbing, bloody, and complete with shredded soles. 

I hissed in pain as another nurse quickly came to my help.

-VB-

It didn’t take long for New Wave to rush into the hospital, demanding to know Amy’s condition. 

They found me waiting for them.

All seven of them rushed into the hospital, and then they saw me in the lobby of the emergency room.

When Brandish saw me being tended to by a nurse, she turned on me wrathfully. 

“ALAN, WHAT HAVE YO-!”

“Mom, his legs,” Vicky interrupted her, pale and wide-eyed and tugging on her mother’s costume.

Brandish stopped when she felt Vicky pull and looked. She grimaced when she saw the pool of blood under my feet and the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around.

Lady Photon rushed to the front to prevent her sister from making any scene. “What happened?” she asked coldly but didn’t aim it at me.

“Empire gangsters jumped us. Knives and guns. We took them down, and Amy healed one. The one Amy healed shot her.”

New Wave stared at me with wide-eyes before Brandish stormed out. Seconds later, I heard a roar of an angry lioness. 

“S-She’s okay, right?” Vicky asked shakily. I looked at her and saw her hands clenching and unclenching. I could tell that she was trying really hard to contain herself; the girl knew better than to fly out right now and attack gangsters. Yet.

“She’ll be okay,” I said with certainty. “I did triage and brought her over. Took me … no more than two minutes to get her over.”

“From where?” Lady Photon asked.

“14th and Euclid.”

She blinked. “That’s over four miles away.”

“I cleared four miles in two minutes? Go me…” I cheered weakly. I felt the adrenaline start to wear off. Actually, it’s been wearing off and I was just now hitting the last of it. “I think … I’m going to sleep now. Pushed myself hard.”

I closed my eyes.

And slept.