[Fic] Six Seconds, Power Rangers RPM
Warnings: Severe character injury.
Dillon had absolute faith in the invincibility shield. Doc K had pounded that into him with all of her stupid training exercises, and Tenaya 7 had sealed it when she forced him to demonstrate the shield actually worked.
Faith wasn't the problem, for once.
Time was.
Dillon kind of wished he was human. Then he might have been taken by surprise by the shield's collapse, instead of counting down every hundredth of a second to it.
Summer went to her knees by Dillon's side. "He's going into shock. We have to get him to the hospital."
"And what doctor would you take him to, lookin' like that?" Flynn asked, nodding to where the black bioarmor had been torn away, at the bits of metal and circuitry visible amidst blood and torn flesh. "Under the circumstances, I can't think of too many I'd trust not to have a little accident as soon as they found out he's as much machine as man."
"Flynn's right," Scott said. "The only one we can trust with him is Dr. K."
"Do I look like a medical doctor?"
Dr. K was giving them a level stare, the one she used to intimidate them... or try to, at any rate. Flynn thought right now she was using it as an excuse not to look at the figure currently bleeding all over everything. He couldn't imagine it was helping much, when they were all covered in Dillon's blood.
"What were we supposed to do, take him to a hospital?" Scott demanded, echoing Flynn's earlier argument. "Take a chance they'd decide a machine wasn't worth saving?"
Dr. K glared at them a moment longer. "Fine," she snapped, turning away. "Bring him in here."
The base had an infirmary; of course she had been prepared for the possibility that, one day, one of her Ranger Series operators would be injured. Like everything else, the medical equipment was top of the line, and she had collected the most extensive medical database in the world...even in the world from before Venjix.
She simply hadn't wanted to bother with staff underfoot.
Well. Just because the knowledge wasn't already in her head, didn't mean she couldn't access it.
She went to the computer while the Rangers settled Series Operator Black on the bed, and when they left she methodically connected him to the machines that would keep him alive until she repaired the damage.
It was more difficult than the instructions had made it seem. There was blood on her gloved hands, on her lab coat, by the time she finally stepped back and looked at the bed's occupant.
She had no idea what to do next.
Ziggy was sitting on the couch, not moving, not talking, not being annoying at all. In short, not being Ziggy.
Summer thought he might be in shock. Well. Join the club.
She sat on his left, not close enough to actually be touching him, but close enough to feel him shaking. Shock. Yeah.
Flynn wandered over a few minutes later, smoothie in hand, looked at them, and sat on Ziggy's right. A moment later, his arm went around the smaller man's shoulders, an expansive gesture that made Summer wonder what was in his half-finished drink besides fruit.
She wished he'd thought to share.
"I called my dad." Scott crowded down beside her, shoved her tight against Ziggy, and Flynn's hand, which had been patting Ziggy's arm, gripped her shoulder instead, the connection between them warm and solid. "If she can't...if she won't..." Scott's voice cracked, and Summer echoed Flynn's pose, arm going around Scott and pulling him into what had become a four-way embrace.
"Military doctors are good at following orders," Scott managed after a minute. "He'll be okay."
She wasn't doing anything for him.
The machines weren't doing anything, either.
And she took a certain pleasure in the fact that the medical team which had barged into her infirmary was just as ineffectual as she had been.
It was the energy grid itself at work, rebuilding Dillon cell by cell, molecule by molecule. Dr. K thought she should be excited by this new discovery, taking notes, documenting every aspect, thinking how best to harness this unexpected manifestation.
Instead, she stared at the monitors, throat tight and eyes inexplicably blurred.
Eventually, she left the infirmary - Dillon didn't need her, and the medics were driving her mad - and retreated to her room, sealing the door behind her. Safely away from the world, she did something she hadn't realized she remembered how to do.
Dr. K put her head down on one of the consoles, and wept.
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