Wounded Pryde

Tags

doctor, Kitty Pryde, mutant, Shadowcat, short story, superhero, The Blob, X-Men

Shadowcat

The Doctor lifted her in his arms, carrying the unconscious woman over to his operating table. Her thick, auburn hair framed a face that would have been alluring if she didn’t have such a deathly pallor. Her lips were devoid of color and a blended hue of black and blue encircled her eyes. He could tell that this injury had been sapping her life for a while. There was no time to waste.

He ran his hands along her limbs, sensing with his mutant ability for the cause of her ailment. After a few minutes he discovered the root of the problem: a shard of metal the size of his pinky. Further probing revealed that this was no ordinary metal. He had never seen vibranium in person, but he knew its properties.

It was considered by many to be the anti-metal, capable of cutting through any metal. Its popularity came from its presence in Captain America’s shield, but no one had been able to duplicate his signature weapon. Prolonged exposure during experiments had brought about varied results in individuals, many of which ended in a cancerous death. It seemed that the same fate was threatening Shadowcat, although how it entered into her body remained a mystery.

There was no guarantee that his body could repel the negative effects of this metal. He paced around the room as he debated the course of action to take. He could heal her instantly at great risk to his own life and health. He could operate and attempt to remove it manually, but it didn’t look like she could live through the surgical trauma in her current state. Or he could do nothing. After all, he had no affiliation with the X-Men and owed them nothing.

Yet he felt a certain connection of kinship because she was a mutant. He stopped pacing and looked at her, watching her chest rise and fall with struggled breaths. He was wasting time with this internal debate when he already knew what he would do. He would save her life. He never turned away someone in need, and she needed him more than anyone who had previously been on his table.

He placed his hands over her shoulder, palms directly above the metal. He closed his eyes and began to envision the metal leaving her body. His hands grew warm, emitting a pale green glow. Someone in the crowd outside of his home screamed, breaking his concentration for a moment. He felt the vibranium slipping back into her shoulder.

He shut out the outside world, focusing on the task at hand. The heat from his hands started to burn a small hole into the yellow fabric of her uniform, filling the air with the scent of singed cloth. He sensed the vibranium leaving her body and entering his even though the metal never pierced her flesh.

He sent his aura through her body, cleansing the damage from the exposure. As he purged her system he felt his becoming overwhelmed, his antibodies rushing throughout his body to fend off the invader. It took every ounce of concentration to keep from fading into unconsciousness.

Her brown eyes fluttered open, locking with his. Her complexion had returned, a rosy blush coloring her cheeks and forehead. He felt the last of the illness leave her body as the door slammed open again. The doctor fell to one knee, holding the table for support.

“Here kitty, kitty,” Fred Dukes said as he stepped into the doorway. “Time for you to learn that nothing moves The Blob.”

——————-

This is the second installment in this story. You can read the first by following the link to The Doctor. You won’t want to miss the third installment when Shadowcat takes on The Blob in battle.

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The Doctor

Tags

Brotherhood of Mutants, comic, doctor, healing, Kitty Pryde, mutant, short story, superhero, writing prompt, X-Men

The doctor woke up afraid. He was fairly certain that he had nearly died this time, yet he knew that would not stop him from doing it again. People were coming from around the world to seek him out, praying for him to heal them. They called him a miracle worker. Some whispered among themselves that he was some sort of messiah, come to save them all from the depravity and degeneration of the world. If only they knew the truth: he wasn’t a messiah, he was a mutant.

Of course he had been watching the news for years and knew all about the conflict raging between the Brotherhood and the X-Men. About the widespread chaos and destruction that their battles often generated. He had no place among those mutants. He was a healer of illnesses, not a leveler of buildings. And he had far too much work to do to chase childish notions of donning a costume and parading around as some farcical superhero.

He struggled to his feet, his knees shaky. Perspiration dripped from his forehead as he shuffled across the room, cautious not to overexert himself. It was always like this for a while after he healed someone. It drained his body to absorb their illness or injury, and even with his accelerated healing it took time for his body to fight the disease or heal the trauma.

They would consider him crazy if they knew what he endured to heal complete strangers. Sometimes it caused him to black out as the pain overwhelmed his senses. Last night he had blacked out when he healed the little girl. She had broken a few ribs during a fall and it had punctured her aorta. Her elderly father had come to stand in line, like all the others crowded outside his office, hoping for a chance to be seen. He had sensed the little girl’s suffering and called them in. He didn’t know at the time if his body could come back from that, but he knew he had to try.

And he knew, when he woke up, that it had almost killed him. But the girl lived, and to him that was the important thing. He felt a great responsibility to use his power for the good of others. Where modern medicine failed, he did not. It was his gift, and at the same time his curse. The crowd outside would never let him leave until they were all healed, and he could only heal a limited number before he needed to recover.

His thoughts were interrupted as the door slammed open. He turned to rebuke Virginia for bothering him so soon, but it was not Virginia standing in the doorway. It was one of those mutants that he had seen on the news lately. He racked his memory for her name, trying to recall which side she fought on.

Not that it mattered. He knew he would heal her, like he had healed so many others. She looked up at him, her eyes imploring assistance before she collapsed onto the floor. And in that moment he remembered who it was. Katherine Anne Pryde had come to him for help.

To be continued…

———————–

This is a response to the fourth Master Class writing prompt, which came from Anne Rice’s novel, The Witching Hour. We had to begin with the line “The doctor woke up afraid”, which stumped me for a while. And then yesterday I went for a run after work and hammered out the basic idea for this story.

I’ve been a huge X-Men fan for a long time. While I never collected the comic books, I did watch a lot of the cartoon series when it was televised. I thought it would be fun to finally write a superhero story, since I’ve been wanting to do that for months. At this point in time it seems likely that there will be a total of three parts to this, although it all depends on how in-depth I start to get with the story.

So, between this and Monster Hunter, check back often for some continuing stories!