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Relax....relaxrelaxrelax...

John tried to repeat the word like a mantra. He tried to will his muscles to slacken, to turn from rock to dough...but after his hand was healed and his blood had returned to a sufficent amount, he let out an almighty scream as Grace's magic moved to his head.

Within John's head sat his brain. Unlike the lump of thick, compact spaghetti like most peoples, John's brain looked like spaghetti that had been metled together in places - clumps of brain tissue stuck together like melted plastic, as if someone had taken a flame and seared his synapses together. It was a common result of electroc-shock therapy. Something - or someone - had literally fried John's brain into a lumpy, barely useable mess.

Now that Grace's healing magic was done on his body, its magic was now tearing what was left of John's brain apart, in an attempt to reconfigure it - but this was doing more harm then good.

Somewhere within the center of his brain, wedged between his occipital lobe and his cerabellum, sat a bullet. Whether the magic would begin tugging on the bullet in order to extract it or not was now a moot point - John was in more pain now then at any time in his life. His electrical powers now surged into Verandi as his body began to defend itself, attempting to fight off whatever it was that was attacking him.

Gracefully, someone has the witherwal to call an ambluance when the giant raving in the corner had stabbed himself in the hand.

An engine roared on the roads of Latent as red and blue lights flashed through the window in the tavern, an ambulence reinforced with steel and titanium screeched to a stop outside the establishment, the engine thundering like a purring lion before the engine was killed and a door was opened....

"...Lots....lots of...stuff...." John slurred absently, now openly drooling onto the table, his eyes blank as Verandi finally drained him dry. He didn't register the hand upon his brow, nor the soothing tone of her voice - John Tomorrow had one foot outside reality now, swimming in dizzying pain, but finally able to relax fully now that his power was drained.

"Someone call an ambulence?" A paramedic called from the front door of the tavern, the doors swinging shut behind him, the streetlights silhouetting a young man of fit build and wavy brown hair dressed in a paramedic's blue suit, carrying a large metallic case full of medical equipment in one hand and a stretcher in the other. He was handsome in a debonair fashion, scanning the crowd with smoky grey eyes which made women swoon and men envious.

This was Jimmy the Paramedic, the hardened ambulence driver of Gaia, first-aid officer and all-around hero. A meta-human of incredible strength and endurance, he had seen it all and saved it's life in the process many, many times, usually by sticking his hands into an open chest cavity and pinching something shut.

((Feel free to use Jimmy in any way you'd like, but be careful - you may be overwhelmed by a rush of gratitude and

"You got it, doc." Jimmy said with a sure smile.

Approachimg Johns dazed form, now whacked out on morphine, Jimmy placed both the stretcher and the large metallic case down besides the giant elemental. Gripping the bigger man umder the armpits, Jimmy managed to wrestle him from his seat and onto the stretcher, pressing a button on the hydralic lift to raise John to chest height.

Hooking the case onto thw edge of the stretcher, Jimmy opened it and placed a neck brace aeound Johns neck, the brace having two thick cords leading from.its sides into the case. Flipping a switch in the case caused several lights to start winkimg within thw case - power nutreliser on.

He then wheeled john out of the tavern, past the crowd and into the turbo-ambo, slammimg the doors shut to rum around amd jumo into the drivers seat, the a,bulence roaring into.life to take off down the road...

Fifteen minutes later...

Jimmy's turbo-ambo rocketed up to the emergency entrance to Our Lady of Peace, screeching on it's wheels to stop straight at the entrance with the back facing the doors.

Jimmy was out and opening the doors as several nurses came rushing from the hospital. "We got a white male, 200-plus kilos, electric elemental for a Doc Sarona..." He said as he helped off-load the sedated giant. "He's sedated with 20cc's of morphine, but he's starting to fight it, so he'll need more within the hour, and his power nutreliser is almost full..."

"We got it, thanks Jim." One of the nurses said as they rushed him through the doors.

Within his room, the nurses went to work on John.

Taking his vitals was easy. He was obviously still breathing, his thick chest rising and lowering steadily, his blood-smeared nostrils and mouth open and whistling slightly with each autonomous breath. As the other women began to cut off his clothing, the head nurse took up his right wrist and found the pulse with her index finger. His heart was strong, beating slow and steady. So far so good.

As she moved up to check his blood pressure, one of the other nurses shrieked as she finished cutting off his shirt and pulled on the material to leap back, crashing into some equipment as John's left arm rolled off the bed and slammed into the floor with a metallic CLANG! "By the gods, he's got a fake arm!!" She cried, pressing her hand to her chest to help slow her breath.

"Ya think, Janice?" One of the others muttered with a smirk, the frightened nurse whacking her on the shoulder as she bent down to pick up the arm, grunting in exertion as she grasped the hand and tried to pull it off the floor. "Cripes, this thing must weight over sixty pounds!"

"Leave it, we'll get the orderlies to put it with the rest of his things later, lets just concentrate on him for now..." The head nurse said as she fnished taking his blood pressure from his right arm, noting down the results on her chart before moving to his pupils. Raising his left eyelid, she saw a bright blue iris looking dully up from a sea of red. "Gods, we got to get a move on, his eyeballs look like they're about to pop..." She muttered to herself as she looked at the other eye.

One of the other nurses threw down the drip needle in exasperation. "We're going to need thicker needles, this guy has skin like hard leather..."

"Well, dont be gentle!"

"Oh shoosh Nora!" The girl remarked as she was handed a thicker needle. She had to grab his upper forearm with her other hand to force the needle into the skin on the top of his hand, expertly puncturing the vein as she released her breath through her teeth slowly, her hands shaking from the effort. "There...I'll set him up on the morphine. 260?"

"380. He may have lost an arm but he's still a big boy...make sure you use the treated stuff too, i'm betting he's got some sort of healing factor or something thats fighting it..."

"How much?" Nurse Nora asked with a smirk as she handed Janice a different bag of fluids then the one she had taken off the drip-feed.

"Put me down for ten!" Janice asked as she changed the bags, switching the feed on and watching as John's entire body went from subtly slack to completely loose, literally flopping down, his chest deflating as if he'd been holding onto his breath for a long time. "Wow, thats always scary..." She breathed.

"Well, he looks like he's been through a few wars. Hurry up with that blood and we'll get him down to radiology - I got the feeling Dr. Sarona wants to look at his head before anything else." The head nurse said as she clipped the heart monitor to the end of his thumb, the little machine blinking to life to read his slow thumping heart's onward journey.

"Almost done..." Nurse Nora replied, having managed to work a needle into one of the veins in his arm and taking vials from the little connection. She took eight in total for the entire tox-works, before removing the conneciton and taping a small piece of cotton over the little puncture mark.

Nurse Janice took a damp cloth and wiped his mouth and nose down, scrubbing the blood from his beard the best she could as Nora threw a blanket over his naked form and began wheeling him out of the room and down to the elevators.



Over half an hour later at radiology, the radiologist was pouring over the x-rays he'd taken of John's body and head, writing down his notes in the chart as he did.

Patient has a large metal plate of unknown metallurgy connected to the end of left claviacle via surigcal screw, with surgical steel rods inserted into the body cavity, ending just at the ribs. The left scapula has been removed and replaced by a metal plate of unknown metallurgy, with many smaller cords of metal feeding into muscle tissue within the back and chest cavity.

Personal note - judging by condition of plate, i assume it was placed by a professional prosthetist, for personal and combative reasons. Also, judging by the placing of the rods and the cords leading into the deep muscle tisue, i can only assume it is connected to the patient for a reason - looking at the prosthesis itself, it could be concluded that the mystery metal is magnetic in purpose. Do not allow patient anywhere near MRI department.

Due to density of patients bones, substantial viewing of skull contents are somewhat inconclusive, but there is definately a bullet lodged within the brain, between the occipital lobe and the top of the cerabellum...

The radiologist paused, looking up from the chart to peer out to the supine man lying on his table, still resting peacefully. He looked down at his notes, continuing to write...

...Patient's brain seems to contain severe signs of cerebal trauma and scarring from an unknown origin, although personal experience dictates that the scarring strongly resembles types of cranial injury commonly displayed by people who have undergone electro-shock therapy.

Unlike electro-shock therapy, the trauma sustained by the patient is not excluded to the temporal lobes - the frontal, temporal, occipital and paritial lobes all show signs of fused synapses and deep scarring. This will make any and all surgical operations to the cranium very unwise, as the patient's autonominous functions are still working - as for the rest of his capabiities, an ruling will be inconclusive until he wakes up...

"Well, i hope you only want to dissect him." The radiologist muttered, nodding to the man as he leaned back in his chair. "Judging by his x-rays, he's a goner."

He waved a hand to the prints of John's skull stuck to the boards on the other side of the room. "He's got and had massive brain trauma. There's more scar tissue in his skull then brain tissue - I'd be surprised if he'd be able to stand up, let alone let a normal life." He pointed his pen to John's body lying in the room adjacent. "That lump of s**t he's put on his shoulder isn't going to do him any good anymore."

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep. The little voltometer would ring, the needle wavering dangerously close to the other side of it's spectrum. John's body, still thinking it was under attack, seemed to be continuously charging itself, in preperation for something. If they had operated with him in this condition....

As Verandi took up John's hand, it would tighten around hers slightly, almost as if he wanted his hand held. His brow was slightly furrowed, his forehead beaded with sweat - nightmares filled his mind, what was left of it.



"Dr Sarona, i'm going to tell you what I told her, and the tests prove it." The radiologist said, passing over his notes and films to the doctor before standing up to look out the window to Dr. Verandi and the patient, his hands on his hips. "I asked the nurse who took his vitals a minute ago - he was clothed and apparently lucid when you found him? That is impossible. This guy doesn't have a brain, he has a block of playdoh in his head! He wouldn't be able to remember his name, let alone get drunk in a bar, unless he'd been there for a very long time..."

"What I want to know is, where did he get it from? That kind of equipment doesnt come cheap." The radiologist said, turning around to walk back and look at his films from Dr. Sarona's view, reaching over her shoudler to point towards several objects. "Here's the screws where it's been attached to the clavicle, or whats left of it...and this plate thats replaced the scaplua? These cords moving into the chest cavity? Its like they're feelers or something....or maybe even circuitry...definately top-of-the-range stuff."



Within the x-ray room, John would let out a low, slow breath as his power was once again sucked out of him, his body beginning to relax once more as it found an outlet. He moaned faintly, Verandi's hand receiving a gentle squeeze as he breathed some small words.

"...No....leave it on..."

His words were very faint, but they were filled with fear, his voice trembling with each word. Sweat ran down his forehead and into his hair, his body slowly becoming moist under the sheet covering him. He almost sounded like a child.

"...Dont like the dark..."



Back in the obseration room, a nurse knocked on the door, opening it to look to Dr. Sarona and the radiologist. "Ah, found you. I have your tox-reports here." She said, approaching the woman and handing her the report.

Patient's bloodwork is clearly meta-human in nature - the bloodcells are over twice as big as normal human blood cells and the white cells are three times bigger. Platelet levels are almost triple the normal amount. Plasma is conductive - preliminary tests show one mililiter of plasma holding the flow of a 12 volt battery without evaporating.

Sodium levels abnormally high.

Protien levels abnormally high.

Glucose levels abnormally low.

Blood-Type unknown. DNA Matches human genome, but includes several unknown gene sequences not found in normal human male gene map.

Patient's toxicity levels indicate a blood/alcohol reading of 0.16. Personal note: Patient is over twice the normal height and weight of a normal human being. This indication is inconclusive to determine drunken state.

There is a slight trace of paracetamol present. Trace is miniscule, possibly for headache.