"Oh, I'm sorry. Where are my manners."

Her body giggles. She directs it to stand and walk over to a less gory patch of pavement. Then she conjures it an outfit made of stained-glass rainbows, a near identical recreation of her rescuer's attire.

"That's not gonna get you far, copying," says rainbow girl, "but least it's not your birthday suit, s'pose."

Alicia smiles, staggers a little and finds another vehicle to lean against.

"So... you go to school here around here, or what?"

"No, somebody saw you dying out here and called 911, stupid."

"Not a bad response time, then. Sixty seconds to here from wherever you got called in from. You a teleporter, or was it just a matter of augmented flight speed?"

"Flight speed. You're lucky I'm fast. Get a weapon before you try fighting these things if you can't go pew-pew and for fuck's sake keep your costume clean."

"Well. This has been a very informative first ten minutes. Suppose I am lucky.

"Again. Thank you."

"You're welcome. You need an ambulance or anything?"

On the one hand, she feels pretty lightheaded. She has definitely never lost this much blood before. If there are circumstances where it's be ideal for an MG to get medical attention, this is probably one of those circumstances?

On the other hand, she feels fantastic. Euphoric, even. And after a first ten minutes like this, it seems a shame to spend the next in an ambulance and then the hour after that in a hospital.

"No, it's alright, I'm fine."

She pushes herself back fully upright, sets her heading in the general direction of the main school building, and starts off in that direction.

She makes it about a dozen steps before she collapses again.

"- you sure you don't want an ambulance? I don't wanna bankrupt you but you look in a bad way."

"Ambulance please."

Rainbow girl pulls a cell phone out of a rainbow pocket and calls it in.

An ambulance - which takes eight whole minutes to show up - appears and collects Alicia. Rainbow girl stays with her till the EMTs know what happened, then flies away.

So. This is what an ambulance is like. She's actually never ridden in one before. Hasn't had any emergency room visits she can remember, in fact.

Today's just full of new experiences, huh?

She has a bit of a wait at the hospital, and they want to talk a lot about her insurance status, and then she gets a couple units of blood.

She spends the interim messing around with glowing accessories in an attempt to further fine tune their aesthetic efficacy. This process is, due to Alicia’s almost terminal lack of fashion sense, little better than trial and error. She does not actually make much progress.

“Wow. I think you might have set a world record there?”

An Atlanta appears in Alicia’s hospital room.

“You know me. Always pushing it.”

The Atlanta hops up onto the side of the bed, her illusory outline phasing through the sheets a little bit.

”But seriously. You could’ve been killed. What the hell were you thinking?

“The last time a swarm spawned near our campus, three people died before an MG showed up. I wasn’t going to let that happen again...”

“You don’t get it. We’re different from them. We’ve always been destined for something greater and we’ve got that destiny in our grasp now and you do not trade that away for just a couple of bystanders.”

Alicia looks at the IV still hooked up to her arm.

”...you’re right. That was stupid. If I take fewer risks I’ll last longer, save more people in the long run.”

“Sure. We’ll go with that.”

Alicia pushes her body back against her pillows, propping up to look the Atlanta in the eyes.

(She realizes, after she does this, that this is a sort of silly gesture given Atlanta isn't seeing through those eyes at all.)

"I'll get the hang of this. I'll get stronger."

"I know you will."

"Please stay safe. You're the only one I can't stand losing."