The Demon Core [closed]

[captainbuzzkill]

Who| Dipper and Pidge
What| A duo mission gone haywire
Where| Planet Freep, the Second Galaxy
When| After Silent Horizon, before Books of Magic and Out With the Old
Warnings/Notes| N/a

The mission is simple. As part of the ongoing diplomatic missions to the Second Galaxy, they're to meet with the leaders of the planet Freep in a peaceful exchange of information about Freep's technology and what technology the UP can offer them, so that trade can be opened up between them.

Pidge is on the mission due to her technical expertise and Dipper's supposed to be some extra muscle in case things go south, to help Pidge hold out until backup can come from the Legion. Kid Quantum felt the mission was easy enough for it to be a good place for Dipper to dip his toes back in the water after his involuntary medical leave.

So far, it's been as easy as expected. The Freepians have very advanced computer technology and energy sources to share, and they're very pleased with the threshold gates and hard light holograms that the UP can offer.

There's not much that Dipper can do when it comes to all the tech stuff so he leans against a nearby wall with his arms crossed, as Pidge gets to work, smiling a little at her obvious enthusiasm.

...And trying to avoid seeming like he's staring because that'd come off totally weird and creepy. Doo dee doo, just minding his business, keeping an eye out for potential threats.

Comments

Medbay, Later On

[captainbuzzkill]

Fortunately, help comes fast. They're teleported by Gates to Freep's T-gate and brought through to Legion World within minutes.

A hazmat containment unit is waiting for them in the threshold hub. Technicians have already set up temporary screens and dividers for privacy and containment. They help clean them of any contamination and safely dispose of their transuits. Since Pidge's transuit had remained intact, only her transuit is deemed contaminated and taken for disposal. Her uniform scans as clear.

Dipper, on the other hand, gets everything taken away to be safely disposed of. Even though Pidge had patched his transuit, his uniform had gotten dusted with radioactive particles. They replace his clothes with patient scrub pants from Medbay, load him onto a hover stretcher, and quickly cart him down.

In Medbay, they treat them both on the main Medbay floor. Technicians scan Pidge and start treating her injuries from the fight with Nuclon, while Dr Gym'll and other technicians start attending to Dipper in the next bed over. Within seconds of scanning him, they start going into what's very obviously disaster mode, treating his condition as critical.

"How bad?" he asks, frowning at the weird gummy stuff that's been sprayed on the burns on his chest. It's bright blue.

He's a little more lucid now, thanks to some of the medication they've already given him.

"Can you tell how much I was hit with?"

"There's no way to be completely sure after the fact, but judging from the chromosomal damage, among other things, I'd say upwards of 1000 rads," says Dr Gym'll, waving a scanner at Dipper. "Probably within 1000 to 1100."

"Oh," Dipper says, his voice very squeaky. "Okay."

"So definitely within the treatable range."

Dipper throws an extra pillow at the doctor's face. "You could've maybe opened with that!"

"Sorry, kid. I keep forgetting how backwards the technology is where and when some of you are from," says Gym'll, picking up the pillow and putting it at the foot of Dipper's bed. "Anyway, we should have you back on your feet within a day or two, and you'll be mission-ready again in two or three days. No long-term cancer risk or problems with sterility, either. You also have a concussion and that should be fixed within the same timeframe."

Gym'll closes his little scanner.

"You're lucky, though," says Gym'll. "You said this was from only a minute or so of exposure, right? Another minute or two, and it would've been too much for even our technology to fix."

Some techs set up a bunch of IVs on a little hovering IV stand and attach the tubing to a cuff around Dipper's forearm, then set up a strange little hovering device over him that floats back and forth over his body, causing a blue light to radiate up and down it like the light from a photocopier.

"Both the gene treatments and the medication that's protecting your intestinal lining will make you pretty drowsy," says a nurse, "so don't be alarmed if you have trouble staying awake."

He places a little device on Dipper's temple.

"This neural inhibitor will block any pain and prevent nausea," he goes on to explain. "Let us know if you feel any bleed-through."

Dipper had been sitting up slightly on his elbows, tense over the news of his possible impending doom, but now he lets himself drop back into the bed with a little sigh that's half-relief, half-aggravation over being stuck in the Medbay yet again.

[isthisapidge]

Pidge didn't need even half the attention that Dipper did and so she herself barely paid attention to what they were doing to her. Does it hurt here, where did you get hit and how hard, any cuts, scrapes, places where the skin is broken, scans for radiation just in case...It's all precautionary, and Pidge's focus keeps drifting to the other side of the screen.

The words "1000 rads" drifts across the partition and she nearly has a heart attack on the spot. And then it's followed up by the word "treatable" and she unclenches. She's essentially given painkillers and told to call them in the morning, and let off the exam table.

She lets Gym'll go by before she peeks around the corner to look at him. He's hooked up to IVs and covered in salve, but he's alive.

"If we were on the Castle of Lions, you'd be suspended in a magical cryogenic healing pod right now," she smiles at him, "Funny how a future hospital seems less impressive in comparison."

Too much on her mind, too much adrenaline still in her body and somehow, it's easier to say that right now than to ask point-blank if he's OK.

[captainbuzzkill]

"They do have tanks full of healing goop here, so I just got lucky this time," he says.

He waves a hand vaguely.

"For a given value of 'lucky,' considering I need to get my entire DNA structure fixed. But at least they can do that without making take a bath in stuff that smells like cough syrup and feels like jello."

He does at least feel better. Already. The crisis is averted, he's not going to die, he's all medicated up and not in pain, and healing up apparently won't even take that long.

It could be way worse.

"You okay?" he asks. "You weren't hurt too bad, were you?"

They'd both gotten knocked around a fair bit.

[isthisapidge]

"I'm fine. They gave me a few painkillers and a temperature pack." She pulls up the leg of her uniform to show him the variable heating/cooling pad strapped to her ankle. "But, you know, I wasn't the one who got radiation poisoning. How are you feeling?"

She takes a place by the side of his bed. "You were kind of out of it near the end there."

[captainbuzzkill]

"Nothing hurts, and apparently I'm not going to have to be buried in a lead-lined coffin anytime soon, so..."

Wow, that went all morbid again.

"You totally saved my butt back there," he says gratefully. "If you hadn't gotten to me as fast as you did and patched my transuit, I would've been a goner. I didn't see all of it -- I was in and out while you were fighting him, but I saw some of it, and that was amazing."

[isthisapidge]

Pidge blushes a little bit, trying to play it off with a chuckle. "He made me mad, what can I say? I mean, when I saw what he did to you..."

Nnnnno, we're staying out of morbid right now. She's seen friends at the mercy of maniacs before, and it never stops sucking.

"Anyway, what about you? We both would be in those coffins if you hadn't made that incredible throw! I mean, I even had the odds calculator on my Omnicom working and making that was almost a million-to-one, even if you hadn't been poisoned! And concussioned! That was just incredible!"

[captainbuzzkill]

He'd blush himself, but his circulation is absolute crap at the moment, so his face just feels a little hot and gains a little color back.

"Eeh, that was like 99% luck," he says.

His eyelids are feeling heavier now. The look he gives her is soft and fuzzy, due to the drowsiness that's waging a winning battle against his brain.

And maybe it's a little soft and fuzzy due to other things.

"I'm really glad I was with you. I mean, if I was going to be stuck there with anybody, where it was just me and someone else having to fix something that big..."

There were very few other people he would've preferred at his side. Even some of their really powerful team members might not have been able to figure out how to shut down the core.

His fingers reach out to gently grasp hers. He's starting to drift off now, despite how hard he's trying to fight it. The wooziness causes him to be a little more honest than he might've been otherwise.

"Seriously, you're like the coolest person I've ever met," he says fuzzily, his eyes drifting closed. "And the bar is set pret-ty high there."

Between Wendy, and his sister, and Ford, and all their teammates...

[isthisapidge]

Pidge's lips curl into a cheeky little cat smile. "You better hope luck had nothing to do with it, in case you need to do it again."

He's drifting off, judging by the look on his face, but her mind is still going a mile a minute. She needs to give a formal report, she wants to see if she can get some readings on whatever Nuclon is made of, she needs to contact the reactor and make sure everything is still stable.

But then he says that and, well, she can push all those thoughts aside for just a minute.

"Me too...You know, we make a really great team." It took a while for Pidge to understand how important that really is and she can't know if Dipper realizes what that means coming from her, but when he reaches out for her hand, she lets him take it.

"I know, I know," she says with humor and warmth, "hope you remember that when you're not poisoned and medicated up to your eyeballs."

[captainbuzzkill]

"Eeeh, I won't need reminding. I thought you were cool already. This just means you're even cooler. So now you can rest on your laurels."

He smiles one last time and then his eyes finally flutter closed.

"Though, by all means, keep singlehandedly beating up...giant evil jerks in front of me in the future. It's fun to...to..." He's drifting off now. "To watch..."

And then he's out. Despite how dire his condition is, his expression is...almost content? There are worse things in life than falling asleep holding the hand of a really cool girl you like.