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English
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Published:
2019-01-03
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1025
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1/1

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There were times, these days, when Colleen spent so much time working with virtually indestructible people (or those who did a pretty good impression of at least thinking they were, like Matt) that she tended to forget Misty was an ordinary person, as breakable as anyone.Which was brought home to her when one of the human traffickers they were apprehending on a Red Hook dock smashed Misty over the head with a boathook. Dropping her gun, Misty slithered limply over the edge into the water."Misty!"There was no question between going after the fleeing smugglers or going into the water after her friend. Colleen sheathed her katana and dived off the pier into water as cold and dark as death.Sinking into the black water, she lit up the Fist, and its cold white light blazed through the murky water off the end of the pier. It was deep here, meant for bringing in deep-water ships. Colleen held her breath and kicked her way deeper. Her jacket grew heavy with water; the katana tangled with her legs. She couldn't go too much farther down without having to come up for air.But there was a flash of Misty's red jacket in the light of the Fist. Colleen released her chi with relief -- trying to hold onto it for this long was terribly draining -- and got hold of Misty under the arms before kicking toward the surface.They broke the dark water with a splash. Colleen put Misty in a rescue hold -- a long-ago lesson from Bakuto coming back to her -- and swam toward the shore. Misty was terribly limp in her arms; she didn't respond to Colleen's attempts to rouse her. Her sodden head lolled against Colleen's shoulder.Colleen dragged them both out onto the rocks and concrete of a breakwater. Misty was as limp as a rag doll, and Colleen discovered that her phone wouldn't power on, a casualty of the salt water."Misty! Damn it ..."Misty wasn't breathing, but a light pulse fluttered when Colleen pressed her fingertips against Misty's cold throat. Colleen took a deep breath, tilted her friend's head back, and breathed for her.As she did so, she gathered chi in the hands pressed firmly to Misty's face and chin. Her fingertips tingled, and she felt Misty's cold skin growing warmer beneath her hands.She couldn't heal the way Bakuto might have been able to teach her. Thinking back to the way he'd taught Danny to purge her body of poison ... it hurt, sometimes, an ache that was equally for the things she might have learned if he'd lived, and for the person she'd thought he was and then learned that he wasn't. But she had been trying to teach herself, the same way she'd taught herself to channel her chi into the katana. It wasn't like her life didn't give her ample opportunity to try to heal herself. She got few opportunities to try it on someone else, though. It was a very different feeling, sharing her chi with someone else rather than gathering and focusing it around her own injuries. She could feel it leaving her, trickling into Misty's body, centering around Misty's head injury and her water-heavy lungs ...Misty jerked suddenly, choked, and began to cough violently. Colleen rolled her to the side as Misty hacked and coughed. She kept up the trickle of chi, offering her own energy to warm Misty's cold body and vitalize her weakened life force.She wasn't sure if she planned to tell Misty that she'd done it. Misty tended not to have the most positive reaction to phrases like "I used my chi to heal you.""What ..." Misty groaned, trying to raise her flesh-and-blood hand to touch her head. Colleen caught her fingers."Don't. Just lie still."Misty subsided, sprawled on the breakwater -- her compliance a sign of how terrible she must feel. Colleen peeled off her own jacket, sodden though it was, and put it over her friend. It wasn't a cold night, but the wind cut through the light shirt she was wearing as it clung wetly to her skin."My phone's dead," Colleen said. "Do you have yours?""Backup ..." Misty coughed again. "They'll be here in a minute ... anyway."As if to underscore her words, the sound of sirens rose above the sound of waves slapping the breakwater and the pier."I guess this ought to be my cue to leave before awkward questions need to be answered." But Colleen hesitated; she didn't like leaving her friend just lying there."Awkward questions ..." Misty paused to cough. "Like questions about a jacket two sizes too small for me ... with a dragon embroidered on it in silk.""Uh, yeah." Colleen shrugged back into the jacket. "You gonna be okay?""Fuck, my head ... I will be." Misty sat up with some difficulty, the servos in her metal arm whining. "This thing's gonna need a checkup after its little saltwater bath," she muttered, her grip slipping on the rocks. "Did we get any of 'em, or am I the only casualty of the evening?""We got most of them." Colleen pointed to the pier, where the majority of the gang were still sprawled. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the warehouses down the street. "I'd better get moving.""I owe you one," Misty said, her voice gravelly as she fought off another coughing fit."Like when you saved me from a twenty-story fall last week? You'll probably save my life again before the week's out."With that, she squeezed Misty's left hand and scrambled ashore. One quick climb up a fire escape later, she was on top of a nearby warehouse, crouched down to watch Misty's fellow police wrap her up in jackets and escort her ashore while others cuffed the suspects on the pier.Right before she was hustled into a warm squad car, Misty looked up at the rooftops like she knew Colleen was up there, and gave her a thumbs up.Colleen grinned, and returned it, even though she knew Misty couldn't see her. Knight and Wing ... they did make a pretty good team, after all.

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