Let's go save Captain Stick-Up-My-Ass - open to those saving Sykes

[hunt_the_devil]

What was really meant by the term extraction when referring to John was teleportation. He was their way into the camp once they were on the perimeter, as well as a scout for that matter, and with only a few hundred yards to go to the fencing it was easy to feel the team getting themselves all psyched up and prepared.

The undergrowth was thick enough

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[codenamepyro]

At first, he was just trying not to let the shots affect him. One by one, insurgents dropped like flies and Pyro had to admit, as far as skill went, yeah. Jack was fucking good -one good eye and everything. The problem really presented itself after Pyro set a tree on fire and a trail along to it in order to draw attention.

Another gunshot sounded but this time it was closer. And then pain blossomed and then his control went to shit and the fires just raged on their own as he dropped to his knees and gripped his stomach. Fucking Christ.

His hand came away slippery with blood and holy hell, that was a lot of blood. That was so much more than the first time, so much more than when his fucking shoulder was just seeping blood back in Russia. Missions were not something Pyro liked. "Fuck, ow."

Practically collapsing in the grass, letting the heat surround him as he tried to focus and failed, Pyro just held a hand on his stomach and blinked a few times before grabbing the radio. "Can- ca-" coughing at the smoke that was gathering now, Pyro tried again, "can someone remind the old- the old man that it's not me he's meant to shoot?"

Fuck they better move it and get Sykes out so that he didn't bleed out on the fucking grass like road kill. Unless Jack had some insane urge to come over and put a bullet in Pyro's head. All that did was make St John pull the control back the tiniest bit and make the fire dart out in all directions, not even caring about who was where anymore.

[hunt_the_devil]

John stared at the radio wondering what the hell was going on! He needed to keep focused on his mission, get the Captain, watch Olivia and make sure she didn't get hurt and get the hell out of there but yet he was getting radioed by Haylie and now bloody St John.

Oh wait. Maybe the bloody St John was a little too apt.

"Haylie? Find out what the fuck is goin' on an' then take a look at that location if you can. We're making a move. Keepin' contact to a minimum; radios on emergency contact only. Pyro you better not be playing pranks!"

And with that John left Haylie, Pyro and Jack to fend for themselves. If they were desperate they'd have to deal with it and hope for the best.

[angelica_jinx]

Angel stopped and groped for her radio. She had an earpiece for stealth but she had to be hearing this wrong. Did Pyro say Jack shot him?

"Pyro? Pyro, are you okay? What's going on?" She felt a little desperate for information. She was lost in this building with no idea where Sykes was and she had no idea what was going on outside but it didn't sound good. "Someone talk to me. Please."

[codenamepyro]

Hearing her, Pyro stared at the hand set as if willing it to just pop over and let him tell Angel that, no. No he was not okay, he had a new hole. But it stubbornly remained where it was.

He would've sighed if it didn't hurt. And then Haylie appeared.

[notouchpolicy]

That was it. Clearly, Hendley didn't get her warning and she was ready to blow up his gun and feed him to the wolves. Just because she refused to kill anyone, didn't mean she wouldn't watch him die. At this point? She might enjoy it.

"Fine. I'm not responsible for what happens to Hendley." She snapped into the radio and leapt from the watchtower into a nearby tree, grasping onto a branch as she swung herself towards another tree and repeated the process until she ran out of trees to cover her. The last hundred yards brought her into a full sprint while she sent off a series of small explosions to lead the operatives to Jack. He could deal with them on his own. He deserved it.

Reaching Pyro, she focused her sonicboom around herself to get through the flames and drop to her knees. Jesus, it's like Spencer all over again.

"Hey, I need to get a look at your injuries."

[codenamepyro]

Pyro heard John's comment, and had he had any energy right then, he'd have picked up the radio and shot back another snarky comment loaded with foul language. Followed by an apology just for Angel. As it was, he couldn't even tell Angel that no, no he was not okay, Jack had put a bullet in his gut and now John was being an ass. First time the man had to flat out be an ass it was when St John was bleeding out. Fabulous.

And then Haylie walked through the fire and for a moment Pyro wondered if the flames were even there, if he was just imagining them or not. But he felt them still, calling out for him, almost asking him to take control of them again. "Well, it's covered in, in," a cough caught in his throat and Pyro wondered if the bullet hole was high up enough to have ripped his lungs, "fucking hell, it's right there." And it was, bleeding almost steadily, although probably not as much as it should.

The bullet was still in there, but Pyro's elevated body heat was already heating the metal and probably starting to cauterize the tip of the would where the bullet lay in his gut. "Don't suppose you brought a magnet?" Lucidity wasn't his strong point.

[notouchpolicy]

"Sorry, kid, but a magnet isn't exactly in my first-aid kit." She replied pathetically as she reached into the vest she was wearing to pull out some gauze and a few rolls of bandages. Really, all she could do was pack the wound enough to keep the bleeding under control until Olivia healed him or she could get him to a surgeon. Not that the place was crawling with doctors or anything.

"I need t'move your hand and get some bandages on you, okay? I'm a medic, not a surgeon, so it has to stay in there until we get someone with tools and training to do this the right way." Because from what she could see, there wasn't an exit wound, and that meant it could be tangled in a lot of nasty places that she'd prefer not to think about.

While she waited for him to comply, she got on the radio to respond to Angel. "Fuckin' Hendley shot him. He'll be fine, Red, just hurry up and find the Captain so we can get him outta here and to a doctor."

[hunteroffreaks]

It was a clever maneuver that Haylie had done, drawing the attention of the men to Jack. But all he could think was, "That little bitch." If he could have had half the chance, he would have shot her too. But he had his hands full with the group now shooting at him. Setting aside the sniper rifle, he picked up a smaller handgun. Compiled with some fire that had gotten out of Pyro's control, Jack found himself in quite a pickle. Still, he was pissed and wanted everyone to know it.

For the first time, the radio crackled to life with Jack's voice. The words were punctuated by occasional gunfire and once the loud boom of a grenade. "Still alive, kiddo?" Bang! "Damn shame. Better hope-" Ka-bang! "-you bleed out soon. It'll be better'n what I've got planned for you."

He had to pause as the fight grew fiercer. But after a lifetime of facing mutants, a group of normal humans was no challenge. Coughing on smoke from the nearby flames as the last one fell, he picked up the radio once more. "None of you seem to be remembering one simple fact. I'm a mutant hunter. My job is to kill you. Get it through your fucking heads." Picking up the sniper rifle, he looked through the scope towards the area where he had last seen Pyro. Spying Haylie kneeling next to him, a grim, thin smile graced his lips. Aiming for her, the hunter let off two shots. She was the one who had wanted to play hardball. Let's she how she coped now.

[notouchpolicy]

Hendley was lucky that the large power surge she'd experienced during the invasion seemed to have died down for the most part, or he would've eaten his words. She almost wished that power was still there, because the more he opened his damn mouth, the more she wanted to kill him. Her anger was starting to bubble out past her mental blocks, and the random sparks of red in her eyes were the only physical indication that she was about to lose it.

When she heard the shots, she winced and growled, sending out a large explosive wave that annihilated everything within a thirty-foot radius of herself and Pyro. Her bicep burned like a mother, and once she realized she'd been shot, she threw Pyro over her shoulder and took off towards the trees. Had she not been blessed with genetically-enhanced strength, it would've been much harder to not only carry him, but to get them up into a tree where Hendley wouldn't be able to see them. She just hoped that Pyro didn't burn the damn thing down.

Her radio crackled to life just long enough for her to respond, "Your job, Hendley, is to distract the assholes holdin' the Captain hostage so we can get him out. And you can bet your ass that you'll be lucky to walk out of here alive."

[codenamepyro]

Between the distraction of the fire surrounding him, the pain in his stomach and side and all over his chest, Pyro wasn't really listening enough to hear Jack or his threats, or even most of Haylie's directions. The fires stayed in the distance, and the only thing that told him he'd been moved was his distance from the fires and how little he felt them. Well, that and the searing agony of the jostling that had moved him.

This must've been so much worse than the last time; the last time the bullets grazed him, the last time they struck bone and just stuck there. This was much more painful and likely enough, much more serious.

"Hope's gonna be pissed." Probably not only because Jack was trying to kill them, but because she had another bullet to pull out. "So's Frost." And that got another wince out of him as he finally dawned on another tidbit, "Oh, Mac's gonna kill me." Mostly, St John became strangely pliant, allowing Haylie to pretty much work without fighting her. It was probably better that way.

[notouchpolicy]

"No one's gonna kill you, kid. I won't let 'em. If anyone's gonna get killed, it'll be Hendley." Reaching into her vest again, she paused and let out a long string of curse words. In the fray, she'd forgotten to grab the bandages and gauze. It would be dangerous to go back there, especially with Trigger-Happy Hendley on the loose, but Pyro's wound needed dressing (and so did her arm, for that matter, but she wasn't focusing too much on that right now).

"Sonuva bitch." Running a hand through her hair, she fished around for something -- anything -- to work with and came up with a needle, fishing wire, a couple syringes of morphine and saline, her sidearm, and a protein bar. None of which would really help Pyro in the long run. She could close up his wound, but if there was significant internal bleeding, it would only make matters worse.

After a moment of racking her brain for ideas, she shook her head and took off her vest. Pulling a knife from her boot, she stretched out her shirt and sliced it off from about an inch below her bra. "Fuck it." Tucking the knife away, she made quick work of the fabric, ripping it into strips and laying them across her thigh as she ripped off Pyro's shirt around the wound. Combining the fabric - his to pad the wound and hers to wrap around it - she created a makeshift pressure bandage that would keep the bleeding from getting too out of control.

"How's your pain level? One bein' minor to ten bein' unbearable." Haylie put her vest back on and then took a remaining piece of her shirt to wrap around her arm and tie off to keep her own blood loss to a minimum.

[codenamepyro]

"You don't know Mac," his voice wasn't as annunciated as usual, not quite to the slurring stage, but getting there. "She's a- she's a-" sighing, Pyro managed a little wave of his fingers and a tiny smirk, "she's a big sister. Not that I have one." Mac was what he supposed a big sister would be like; annoying as hell, teasing but fiercely protective. And it was strange, but he didn't really mind that protectiveness most of the time. She was the exact same way with Ethan. "'s her fault I'm here."

While Haylie cut up fabric to make bandages and wraps and whatever, Pyro mostly just dazed in and out of coherency, not losing consciousness but feeling for the fire and loosing himself in that. It took away a bit of the pain. At least until Haylie started to wrap the wound. "Ow, ow," the pressure seemed to trigger him back into awareness.

"Well it was two before you went and did that. What comes after seven? It's one more than seven." Blood seemed to be all over the place now, and really, he should've been far more comfortable with blood than he was. "I'm starting to hate red. Which is a probl'm for me. Cause fire's red. Y'know. Sometimes."

"'s the Cap'n out yet?"

[notouchpolicy]

"So that was her handwritin' on the list. It's my fault you're hurt. I warned him to back off, and I think he did it just to spite me. I'm sorry."

While her head told her repeatedly that it was Jack's fault he got hurt, she couldn't help the guilt that was starting to manifest in her gut. Lately, it felt like that was the only emotion she was feeling - guilt for attacking Sykes, guilt for not protecting Spencer, guilt for getting Pyro shot. He wasn't a bad kid. He didn't deserve this just because of what he was.

And the more she thought about it, the more her guilt turned into anger, and the more it pressed back at the walls keeping it all at bay. Curling her fingers into tightly-balled fists, she took a moment to just breathe because she needed control. If she got too worked up, she'd only hurt Pyro if she touched him.

"No. He's not. They're workin' on it, though. It'll be over soon." How much she believed that was up for debate.

"...I could give you somethin' for the pain, but I don't know if that's a bright idea right now." An injured pyrokinetic on morphine in the middle of a warzone? What could possibly go wrong there?

[codenamepyro]

Pyro was sure that Mac would've written everyone's name on that sheet if she could've gotten away with it. Hell, she'd have been here herself. It wasn't really like Pyro was in the blame game, but with Mac, later, he'd play the card to his advantage. Because she'd feel a little bad overall. "'s just Jack bein' Jack. Done it before, done it 'gain. 's just what he does."

Fuck, how many did that make? Killed Evan -maybe, no one knew what killed Evan, Pyro or Jack, but it was Jack's fault that it had become what it had. He'd killed Talia the acid girl and El too. Fuck knew who else he'd killed since he'd been on the team, members came and went. Pyro only hoped that some of them; Allison, Manuel, Kurt, Jemaine, maybe they at least walked away. Or ran.

He just mumbled his assent to the hope that Sykes was out soon. Ethan Sykes was not Pyro's favourite person, but that hardly mattered. The man had done rather a lot when it came to Pyro's self-control and in that building Pyro's control over his power. They'd knocked heads, sure, but that didn't mean St John didn't have some respect for the guy. He'd just never voice it.

"No, no drugs. Can't." As far as a patient went, Pyro wasn't the easiest. Certain medications caused his powers to flare, or his heart-rate to spike, or his blood pressure to drop. And then there was the fact that anything that altered his awareness could alter his control and with the fires raging around them it was just a bad plan. "Might end up killin' everyone on meds."

Which meant he'd just need to deal with the pain, and the bleeding. "Y' should go help distract."

[notouchpolicy]

"Yeah, well, that doesn't excuse his actions. Mutant hunter or not, he needs to learn where to draw the line. Because one of these days? He'll piss off the wrong mutant and get himself killed." The fact that she might be one of said mutants was going unsaid for now, but if Pyro really paid attention, he'd hear the implication in her tone.

Haylie knew that the radios were supposed to be for emergency contact only, but she was getting antsy. Pyro needed medical attention yesterday and Haylie was starting to feel somewhat light-headed from blood loss herself. At least her wound had been a clean through-and-through in the bicep. The angle at which the exit wound was situated indicated that the bullet essentially bounced off the side of her humerus, exiting through the top of her arm. Whether it managed to chip or even fracture her bone was up for debate and she wouldn't get a clear idea without an X-Ray or just putting pressure on it.

"Understandable. I'd do the same thing if I was drugged. Just try and focus on your breathing. My radio is going to be on channel five if you need me. It'll be a different channel than the one everyone else is on so Hendley won't be able to listen in." Shifting on the branch so she could move to the next tree, she paused and looked back over her shoulder at Pyro. "I'll be back soon t'check on you."

Another pause.

"Got a lighter I can borrow?"

[codenamepyro]

There were plenty of mutants that would like to kill Hendley, plenty that he'd tried to kill and would happily melt his face off. But that time wasn't now, and as much as Pyro would love to do it, he wasn't quite at the 'kill or be killed' point so much as the 'slowly bleeding out' point. Thoughts of killing Hendley would have to wait.

"Channel five?" He wasn't too sure what that meant right then, but after a minute or so it clicked and he remembered the radios could work on different channels, "Right, five. Okay." So, focus on his breathing, keep himself from letting the fires run into each other and magnify even more, don't die. Sorted.

A lighter? She wanted one of his lighters? He had to actually think about that before nodding slightly, "In m' pocket." In his right pocket there were three, in his left five. If she wanted matches they were in his shoes but he wasn't about to give her his zippo, which...fuck, he'd dropped when he'd gotten shot. "Shit, m' favourites out on the fucking grass." And had he been able to, he'd have sat up in shock -and probably fallen out the tree.