[AMY IN DISPATCH (2025)] INTERLUDE

By the time Hunter made it outside, Amy was already halfway down the block running. Because of course she was fucking running.

"AMY!" Hunter shouted, breaking into a sprint after her. "ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!"

Amy didn't even slow down.

"It might be hurt!" she called back over her shoulder, like that explained anything.

"That is not a person!" Hunter snapped, dodging around a startled pedestrian who had frozen mid-step. "That is a fallen object from the air!"

"It COULD be a person!"

"It COULD also be an explosion waiting to happen!"

"Then I'll heal the explosion!"

"You know damn well that's not how shit works!"

Amy waved a hand dismissively without even looking back. "Details!"

Hunter swore under her breath and pushed harder, her boots striking pavement as she closed the distance just enough to keep Amy in sight. The streetlights blurred past, her lungs were already burning, but she didn't dare slow.

The glow was clearer now.

A thick plume of smoke rose in the distance, lit slightly from within by something still burning. And it was still moving.

Hunter's stomach dropped.

“…That’s not normal,” she muttered.

Amy slowed as they got closer, her attention becoming narrowed and more focused. Hunter could see it in the way her gait shifted, and the way her breathing evened out despite the sprint, her panic replaced by something more comfortable in real time. 

Healer.

Idiot healer, but still.

They rounded the final corner, and the crash site came into view.

A crater had been carved into the asphalt at the far end of the street, spiderweb cracks radiating outward in jagged fractures, catching the glow of shattered streetlights and headlights alike. Cars were pulled over at odd angles, alarms blaring in a staggered, discordant chorus. 

And at the center of it, something moved.

Hunter stopped dead.

The air felt different here, charged with something that made her skin prickle and her instincts scream. The smoke still drifted in lazy curls, but beneath it, something hummed a low, mechanical sound that vibrated up through the soles of her shoes.

“…That is not a meteor.”

Amy didn't stop.

She was already stepping toward the crater, even slower now, but still moving forward like gravity was pulling her in. Her hands were loose at her sides, ready, though for what, neither of them knew.

"Hey!" Hunter snapped, grabbing her wrist. "We don't know what that is!"

Amy glanced back at her.

The usual brightness was still there in her eyes, but underneath it was something steadier rather than reckless. Something that had seen enough to know what she was walking toward.

"I know," she said quietly.

Hunter frowned. "Then why are you—"

"Because it's alive."

Hunter's grip tightened instinctively, her fingers pressing into Amy's wrist as if she could anchor them both in place. Her mind raced through the implications, each one worse than the last. 

“…You can tell?” she asked, her voice lower now.

Amy nodded once. "Yeah."

Another sound drifted up from the smoke, metal scraping against stone, grinding in a rhythm that wasn't quite random. Oddly enough, it sounded like something trying to force its way through, and it scraped against Hunter's nerves like nails on glass.

“…This is a bad idea,” she said.

"Probably," Amy agreed.

She gently pulled her wrist free; not breaking Hunter's grip so much as slipping through it, her touch lingering for just a moment before it was gone.

"But if it's hurt—"

Hunter dragged a hand down her face, the motion sharp with frustration. "Of course that's your priority."

Amy offered her a quick, crooked smile; the kind that said I know I'm impossible, but you're still here.

"You coming?" she asked.

Hunter stared at her, then the crater, and finally, the thing moving inside it, shadows shifting against the glow of dying light.

She exhaled hard.

“…I hate you,” she muttered.

Then she stepped forward anyway.

"Yeah, yeah," Amy said lightly, already turning back toward the crater. "You love me."

"Debatable."

Together, they approached the edge of the crater. The asphalt crunched under their feet, loose gravel skittering into the depression ahead. The heat hit them first, radiating up from the impact site in waves that shimmered the air. Then the smell: scorched metal, ozone, and something chemical and sharp that stung the back of the throat.

The smoke thinned just enough.

And out came an injured man struggling to climb out of his nearly destroyed high-tech armor.