[AMY IN DISPATCH (2025)] CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It had been a few months since that mousy, snack-obsessed girl from another world, known as Panacea, had healed her eyes from what should have been permanent blindness born from an ill-advised prank.

Jane Hallows, with her personal green healing slime perched comfortably on her lap—and yes, Steve was a perfectly valid name for him, thank you very much!—sat in the SDN office with the rest of the petty staff. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard in front of her, unmoving, as her attention remained fixed on the large television mounted high on the wall. The SDN logo appeared between live footage of City Hall Plaza and a growing crowd of reporters, all but climbing over one another in their eagerness to get a proper look at the hero of the hour.

“Is… is she going to be okay?” Jane whispered to Galen, who was leaning forward in his chair, coffee long forgotten in his hand. “I swear she looks like she’s about to faint from all the attention.”

On the screen, Blonde Blazer stood beside Panacea, expression calm but undeniably proud, like a parent or big sister watching their kid receive an award. And there she was, the healer heroine herself, hood up, shoulders slightly hunched, and hands clasped together as the mayor extended a cartoonishly large, gleaming key toward her.

“The key to the city,” Galen murmured, unable to hide his awe. “What did she even get it for again?”

“She saved them,” Jane replied softly. “The mayor’s family… all of them. That alien dinosaur thing from Jupiter. Everyone thought—” She swallowed, memories of frantic emergency footage flashing through her mind. “No one thought they would survive. But she did it. She saved them before it was too late.”

On-screen, Amy accepted the key with a humble, if shaky nod. The applause from the plaza rolled in waves, the crowd cheering as camera flashes lit up the square. She visibly shrank inside her hood, like a turtle retreating into its shell.

The camera cut to Blonde Blazer, whose hand rested lightly on Panacea’s shoulder in an obviously reassuring gesture.

“Torrance’s best healer is what people are calling her,” Galen commented, and Jane felt something warm bloom in her chest. It was not an exaggeration. Everyone in the city who had been touched by Panacea’s work—directly or indirectly, thanks to those healing slimes spreading throughout hospitals and emergency services—already knew it. Her reputation had grown faster than anyone could track. Paramedics whispered her name with awe, nurses swapped stories, and even the local news had started calling her “The Miracle Healer of Torrance.”

Jane thought back to that day, to the first time Panacea had touched her eyes and said gently, “That’s alright. That happens. I promise I can fix this.”

And she had.

Now, watching her on the screen, key in hand, celebrated for the lives she had changed and not just for her powers, Jane felt that same awe again, the same gratitude, and the same reverence she was sure so many others felt.

“Do you think she knows how much she’s changed things?” someone asked softly behind her.

Before Jane could answer, the broadcast audio crackled as a distant boom resounded through the plaza.

The camera jolted as shouting erupted, reporters scattering as smoke rose somewhere off-screen.

An explosion.

The crowd broke into panic, and everyone ran.

Except Panacea.

She turned and sprinted straight toward the smoke, toward danger.

“I think she already does,” Jane said just as softly, a small smile forming despite the fear in her chest. “And she’s not done yet.”

. . . . .

Everything was too much.

Ever since she had woken up in wherever the fuck she was, the world had become a blur of sound, light, movement, and pressure. Every sensation slammed into her all at once, like a thousand overlapping signals screaming inside her skull.

Black wires hissed around her like living things, snapping and writhing in the air, vibrating with every heartbeat, every breath, and every footstep that passed too close. 

She tried to move. She tried to stop. She tried to focus.

It was impossible.

The air felt thick and sticky, her skin raw from invisible pricks of sensation. Her mind could not tell where her body ended and the world began anymore.

The only thing she could do was lash out blindly.

The wires responded instantly, slicing through anything near her with a snap and metallic screeches. People screamed. She did not know who they were. She did not know if she cared.

The world was just noise. Endless, horrible noise.

Then something different cut through it.

A hand closed around her arm, gentle despite everything, and she froze in response. 

Every instinct screamed at her to tear it away, to reflexively shred it with her wires in her panic, but the touch felt warm and grounding in a way nothing else had been since she woke up.

And somehow, impossibly, the noise in her head began to fade and the wires slowed.

Her breathing came out ragged, but the chaos inside her no longer felt so all-encompassing. The world was still too bright, too loud, and too intense, but it was no longer trying to crush her from the inside. Control no longer felt like a distant thought. 

She blinked, and through the haze of exhaustion and fear, she finally looked up at the person holding her.

The young woman in front of her looked like she had walked straight out of a lawnmower: her medical-stylehood costume was shredded with sleeves torn, gloves scuffed and smeared with blood, cuts and bruises mapping her visible skin.

And yet she did not look afraid. She was not backing away.

“You’re… okay?” she croaked, her voice barely working, but she had to know. “You… you touched me…”

The young woman gave a small, patient nod, stepping just close enough to hear the words without crowding her. 

“I did,” she said. “I know it’s hard, but I can help. You’re safe now.”

She swallowed, the storm inside her chest still rumbling, but no longer uncontrollable. 

“H-How did you do that?” she asked. “And you… who are you?”

The young woman smiled, brushing a bloodied strand of hair out of her face with a gentleness that felt almost unreal at the moment.

“I’m Panacea,” she said, and there was something about that name that was almost familiar, though for the life of her she couldn't say. “And I want to help you. Can you tell me your name?”

She hesitated, heart still racing, but slowing with every second the girl remained there.

“…Hunter,” she finally whispered.

Panacea nodded once.

“Alright, Hunter. I’ve got you.”

And for the first time in a long, terrifying while, Hunter believed that.