un: Panacea | video (shortly before the event)

[ontologically]

TW for: body horror, regrown limbs

[A video comes alive to Amy Dallon, a frumpy looking girl with a mess of frizzy hair and pronounced tattoos standing back as she checks that it's all working. Peeking out behind her is a short young girl with a short wavy bob of blonde hair and a expression clearly meant to put a facade of professionalism over her bubbling excitement.

Amy adjusts it one more so that both her and Riley are fully in frame and then, stepping back, she clears her throat.]

So, um. With the mission happening in the next few days and uh, a lot of injuries being sustained in the last mission with the whole... curfew breaking... thing. [That SHE wasn't invited to, despite how crucial her powers could have been!! But whatever.] I've noticed that there's like - god, speak clearly. I've noticed that there's a lot of injuries that people have sustained either here or in their original world that seem to have gone unaddressed. So, I think I -

[The shorter and younger girl pipes up.]

We!

[Amy rolls her eyes, not entirely unfondly.]

We haven't been advertising our powers and their utility enough. If you've been injured or are suffering with something more, uh, longterm - then we can help. I have the ability to shape biological matter over a short process, so I can accelerate healing over scars, severed limbs, regrow organs, mend broken bones - that kind of thing. And Riley...

[She pipes up with a shrug.]

Pretty much the same thing, but I can't do it with just a touch. I need to actually cut you guys up and open, so I'm basically her sous-chef.

[Amy nods. Riley looks up at her, sticks out her arm, a small eager smile on her face. Amy looks down, grunts in what is probably supposed to come across as disapproval or reluctance but it's not very convincing.]

As an... example, of what we can do, we've prepared a perfectly safe demonstration. Um. Riley, go ahead.

[Riley grabs hold of her right arm with her left, and detaches the joints cleanly, taking what appears to be an entirely normal arm entirely off of her shoulder. It's clearly not a prosthetic by the way that it continues to twitch as the nerves react to no longer being connected to her body and brain, and like, the blood. Less blood than there probably should be but there's still definitely blood.]


And for our next trick... [She looks up at Amy with a grin as Amy places a hand on Riley's shoulder.

Slowly, skin and flesh begin to tie together, bone grows and restores. It's a process that takes about half a minute and it's visible for every disturbing moment as an arm is reshaped from blood, mucus and raw biological material into a fully functioning human limb. The arm is paler than the rest of Riley's body, the hand takes a bit longer to form, sprouting one miniscule bone at a time as Amy Dallon or Panacea recreates them out of practically nothing. Fingers proud on the palm of the hand one at a time, and at first one is shorter than it should be before with a light cracking sound, Amy starts to adjust it and sets it into place. There is no sign of anything other than a huge enthralled smile on Riley's face as she watches the arm form into place, and the concentration and focus on Amy's face doesn't stray into disgust or discomfort. On the contrary, this is the most at peace she's been since she got here.

The arm forms. Fully functioning and Amy steps back. Riley wiggles her fingers on her new arm before using both arms to break into jazz hands.] Ta-dah! Arms from torsos; way cooler than rabbits from hats.

[Amy barely suppresses the small smile that threatens to creep onto her face.] Um, so yeah. That's an example of what we can do, though it's not always that visible, that was an example so you'd know we're not like, exaggerating. Anyway either reach out or come visit my room in the apartments and we'll see what we can do for you. I'd encourage anyone to do a checkup since, it's kind of necessary in case there's any underlying issues.

[Amy gives an awkward smile, an awkward wave and then the expression drops.]

Uh, stop recording? Riley, I think the arm might be a little too offputti-

[And the video cuts off.]

(This is a shared post between ontologically and beagoodgirl, so commenters will get responses from both!)

Comments

[sleepfan]

It is.

To what degree of magnitude was your earlier mention hyperbole?

[It has to be hyperbole. Otherwise, they need to have a very different conversation.]

[ontologically]

[She can see where this conversation is going. Acknowledging that her situation is fucked (she knows). It grates on her all the same.]

It's probably a bit of an exaggeration. But I don't actually know the real numbers. I was seeing over a hundred patients every day officially and even more unofficially. In the wake of disasters sometimes even more. In the wake of the end of the world, way more.

Like I said. Nobody in my world can do what I can do. None that weren't active supervillains, and even then they couldn't do it at the scale that I can. [Like Riley or Jaime.

It only tracks that it all fell on her shoulders until she fell apart.]

I know the situation wasn't good. They knew the situation wasn't good. I don't really need pity if that's what you're going to offer.

CW: Mentions of suicide

[sleepfan]

My feelings are approximately 5% pity, 5% judgement of you, 70% judgement of the people around you, and 20% an unspecified negative emotion that I haven't properly interpreted yet and am unlikely to as it causes me great discomfort.

I understand that your abilities are unique. That is why working you until you throw yourself off a high tower with no backup plan is moronic. Not to mention that if your abilities are unique then nobody will be able to tell if you're making mistakes, which becomes exponentially more likely the longer you're denied proper rest.

It sounds to me as though the people in charge of governing your world don't want to do their jobs and would rather rely on your guilt until you drown yourself in a river. They're idiots. If there are millions of people, then even if it takes a thousand people to replicate the scale of your work, it's still perfectly doable. If the ability itself is too rare, then people need to specialize in other forms of care and medicine, even if they are slower. We can heal broken bones immediately, but if we need to prioritize other matters, it is best for those with broken bones to have them set and wait for them to heal.

Setting aside those who are governing (as in my experience there are many people who want the power of governing with none of the responsibility), I am also heavily judging your family and friends if you have them. If you are alone, I am judging how the people around you prefer to exploit that vulnerability. They are not good people.

cw: mentions of incest, emotional abuse, child exploitation, body horror (1/2)

[ontologically]

[Of course it's all right. Yes, she was exploited, yes her family were the ones doing most of it. The PRT had her on the side to heal all their wounded toy soldiers as they wound all of them up to go die in pointless battles against monsters that the greatest heroes of America had created in the confines of their own minds. Her family bought into all of it, made her life a living nightmare of stepping on eggshells to avoid triggering her mother's barely hidden contempt for her, to avoid being a problem for the family that she intruded on.

She's a horrible person. She knows that. Two feelings conflict inside of her, the one that knows what role her family played in everything that happened to her and everything that happened to her sister. And the other... the sharp knowledge of what she's done. The crystal clear memory of limbs splayed out in a nightmarish imitation of a human body repeated over and over, every inch of skin held up in deific glory. In love. In desperation.

And that side of her can't help but yearn for what she had before she ruined everything - because it was her that proved them all right, no matter how hard she was pushed by the Slaughterhouse Nine - by Riley - or by her family long before that, or even if she wanted to be particularly pathetic, by Lisa. It was her. The rot starts with her. And they let the red death in. And with it came darkness and decay. A brood parasite waiting to hatch.

There's a space of about ten minutes before she finally responds, settling on the anger she feels, not for herself or for the hypocrites and murderers she was raised to follow the example of, but for what she left in her wake.]

(2/2)

[ontologically]

My family were heroes. They fought, and died to save millions of people. You don't know a single fucking thing about them.

If you talk about them like that again, I will turn you into something so grotesque nobody will even believe you were anything resembling human before I started.

[It doesn't really click for her that in saying this she's confirming that it was her family that made the choice, not the government. She might say that they always checked with her, but she was never going to say no.]

[sleepfan]

You're correct, I do not. Which is why I specified 'if you have them.' I understand it is an emotional topic and I won't bring them up again.

[ Clearly, if the woman had no family, it is not her family's fault that her wellbeing had not been looked after. The only reason Linhardt doesn't stop speaking altogether is because of the nature of the threat she makes - the curious areas of his mind are alight with questions and the slight chance of being turned into a monster has never stopped him from indulging his curiosity before. He doesn't see why it should now.]

Can you do that? Is that an extension of your displayed powers - that is, would you use my natural self and warp it beyond all recognition - or is it an entirely different ability? Does the monster created depend on the initial creature used as a base?

[ontologically]

[Vaguely she recognizes there's a misunderstanding. It feels a bit wrong, as much of a relief as it is. Her family isn't dead. Not most of them. And she knows that a lot of responsibility rests on their shoulders for what happened to her, for how she turned out.

What distracts her is that reaction.]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

[sleepfan]

That depends on who you ask.

If you expected a shocked and horrified response, I will supply the context that I have seen people changed into monsters against their will, and it is a potential side effect of my own research. Therefore it is not a new or unusual threat. However, information about preventing such things is either non existent or hidden from us, so I asked you questions in hopes of understanding as I would like to prevent such transformations in the future.

Would you prefer me to scream into this device? That seems like it would be unpleasant. Or were you hoping for fear? I normally can control my fear response until I'm actively in danger of dying in the next five minutes.

[ontologically]

[Sweet jesus.]

You balk at the sight of a little blood and skin growth but your response to the prospect of being turned into an I Have No Mouth And I Must Beg is to enquire into it with active curiosity. You're the weird one.

[Amy, you are absolutely the weird one.]

Yes, I can do that, and yes I could probably turn someone forced into that state back into their human body. That would be considerably harder, and I wouldn't be able to restore their mind, but yes.

[sleepfan]

A minor point of correction: I balked at waking out of a peaceful slumber to be confronted with someone having their arm ripped off. It reminded me of seeing limbs removed on the battlefield and needing to choose who to help and who would die calling for their mother. I did not mind the demonstration of your abilities - I'm aware of how healing knits together the inner workings of the body and while I still have little fondness for seeing humans looking like slaughtered animals, I have learned to temper that distaste.

I am very strange. Thank you for noticing - I do dislike when people consider me 'normal'.

That is understandable. I do not think I would mind being a monster, but most people would and eventually would go quite insane.

Would you need to know what their human body was like or would you be able to feel out the process of changing them back?