Announcementcontent warning: description of injuriesI was beyond relieved to hear Lily decre that the world was safe, but I wasn't quite ready to rex just yet.
"How do we know for sure the rift's sealed?" I asked. "We never actually saw it, did we? Do we know where it was? Do any of you know what it looks like? If not, how can we be so sure it's really closed?"
Azura pointed out, "If the rift were still open then there'd be more Outsiders coming through. We would still be fighting them even now."
"The rift was almost certainly beneath the surface of Lake Hazen," the white magical girl added. She gestured towards the rge cold bck body of water to our south, "That's why it was frothing when we arrived, and why it's calm now."
She continued, "The st rift was underwater too. Back in the nineteen fifties, it was at the bottom of a water-filled crater from a nuclear weapons test in the Marshall Isnds."
"Oh right," I grimaced. Then I smiled, "So it really is over. We stopped the ritual and closed the rift."
Lily nodded, "Correct. Now let's get Violet and the survivors and head back to the crash site. We need to check on Peri and the other civilians."
Just like that my relief faded as my thoughts switched to my friends. During the fighting I'd been focused on stopping the Outsiders, now I couldn't help worrying about Ellie and Harper. As much as I wanted to race back to check on them I accompanied the others to the expedition camp first, to get Violet and the two students. Then all six of us started making our way towards our downed pne.
I took the lead since I was really impatient to get back, but the others were moving a lot more slowly than I liked. In fact the purple magical girl was limping badly enough that she ended up leaning against Azura for support.
My anxiety got a little worse when we passed the crumbling remains of a few more Outsiders as we neared the site. Then I spotted the green magical girl perched ontop of a rge boulder with her green crystal bow in hand. She had a good view of the whole area from there, and she waved and gave the rest of us a thumbs-up as soon as we were all in view.
At that point I couldn't hold back anymore. I broke into a run, eager to see my friends and maybe get some hugs. Except when I reached the wreckage I saw both Harper and Ellie were busy.
The handsome blond jock was nearest. He was on his knees next to our pilot, who was id out atop one of our sleeping bags and an air mattress, with a bnket covering him from his neck down to his knees. I could see enough to know that Chester was in bad shape though. He had a bloody bandage around his head, and a make-shift splint on his right arm. There were more bandages and another splint visible on his right leg too.
"Hey Bke," Harper greeted me quietly as I moved to his side. "How'd it go?"
Then he frowned and in a worried voice added, "What happened to your arm?!"
When I gnced down at it I realized there was a nasty-looking wound where that one tentacle touched me. The skin was all red and blistered like a second-degree burn, but I'd managed to tune out the pain. Except now that I was looking at it again I became aware of the dull burning ache. Fortunately it was nowhere near as bad as when it first happened.
"One of them touched me," I replied with a grimace. "I'll be ok, it's just a burn. Anyways the fighting sucked. My grandmother's dead, along with her assistant and all her henchmen. One of the students died too. But we won, the rift is closed, and the world is safe."
My boyfriend looked conflicted about all that, which kind of matched how I felt.
Then I nodded towards the pilot and asked, "How's Chester doing?"
Harper gave my arm another worried gnce, then sighed and shook his head. "Not good. Broken arm, broken leg, possible concussion, and maybe a couple broken ribs. There might be other internal injuries too? I've done what I can for him, but the man needs a hospital."
"So does Ellie," he added quietly. "Her cut wouldn't stop bleeding, so I had to try and stitch it myself. I did what I could, but she's going to have a nasty scar there."
My eyes widened and I asked softly, "When did you learn to do stitches? That sounds pretty advanced for first-aid."
He shook his head, "I learned to sew in home-ec. And I had to use a normal needle and thread since we don't have proper sutures. That's why she needs a doctor, I don't know how to do this stuff right."
I suppressed a shudder, but rather than say anything I crouched down and gave him a tight hug. We held each other for a few seconds, then I quietly excused myself and headed over to my girlfriend to check on her.
Instead of resting Ellie was sitting crosslegged on the ground, messing with some of the avionics stuff from the pne. And she had her gsses on, although the left lens was broken. I also noticed the bandage on her forehead had some telltale red stains seeping through, that made me worry she was probably still in pain too.
It looked like the tomboy didn't mind though, she was busy twisting a couple wires together. Whatever she was doing seemed to work, the equipment in front of her lit up with some numbers on an LCD screen.
As soon as she saw that Ellie picked up a microphone and called out, "Mayday mayday mayday! This is Raven! I mean, this is charlie-romeo-four victor-three-november, decring an emergency! We've crashed just west of Camp Hazen, and we need immediate assistance!"
My eyebrows shot up as I watched, and as soon as she stopped talking I asked "You got the radio working?"
Ellie made a 'shh' gesture as she fiddled with one of the knobs on the battered electronics in front of her.
There was a burst of static, then a moment ter a male voice came through the speaker. "C-R4V3N this is CYLT, we copy your mayday. You said you crashed near Lake Hazen, do you have coordinates?"
"Yeah standby a sec," my girlfriend replied as she pulled out her phone. She already had her GPS app ready, and once the screen came up she adjusted her gsses then clicked the mic again and read out the coordinates. Finally she added, "I got that off my phone, I hope it's right? Like I said, we're just west of Camp Hazen, maybe half a kilometre?"
The guy on the radio read back the coordinates to make sure he heard them correctly. Then after Ellie confirmed they were right the guy asked, "And what's your status V3N? How many souls on board, how many survivors?"
"Our status is our pne crashed and we're stuck here!" the cute tomboy stated. Then she gnced around to take a quick headcount before continuing, "There's ten of us here. Looks like a few minor injuries, but our pilot is seriously hurt. He needs urgent medical attention!"
"Roger that V3N," the man replied. "Are you the copilot then? Who am I talking to?"
My girlfriend grimaced, "I'm one of the passengers, my name's Ellie."
There was a pause, then the guy responded "Ok Ellie, you're doing a great job. My name's Frank by the way. It's going to take some time for search and rescue to reach you, but I promise help is on the way! Can you continue to monitor this frequency? I'll keep you updated as best we can."
"Thank you!" Ellie replied with a rge sigh of relief. "We'll be standing by here, as long as the battery sts."
I leaned in and gave her a gentle hug as soon as she put down the mic. Then as I held her I said, "You're amazing. How did you do that? Fixed the radio, then called for help, and actually reached someone right away?"
My girlfriend blushed but smiled, "It wasn't that hard. And I didn't fix anything. I just wired it straight to the pne's batteries and made sure the antenna was still connected."
"Actually getting an answer was just luck," she added. "I assumed Chester would have had it on the right frequency, and I was right."
"Still amazing," I insisted. "Like you knew what to do, what to say, you had the coordinates and everything."
She blushed a little more as we continued to hold each other, until the guy on the radio interrupted us. He wanted to get a full list of survivors, like names and everything.
Ellie told Frank to stand by, then went to ask the grad students who they were. And while she was doing that me and the other magical girls ended up having a very quick conversation about whether or not to use our code-names or our real names. And whether we should be in our magical-girl forms when the authorities arrived, or if we should change back to our non-magical forms first.
There was also the question of what to tell the authorities about Judith and her expedition. That was an easier decision though. Lily said not to say anything at all, and just leave the entire debacle for Cel to deal with. Preferably after the rest of us were a long way away from here.
As for the five us, nobody wanted to have to expin magic and magical girls to the government or the military. So we had a brief conversation with the two grad students, who fortunately agreed to keep all those details secret. Honestly they were both happy enough to be alive and unhurt they were probably ready to agree to just about anything.
After that we returned to our normal non-magical forms, and that's when I discovered that the Outsider-inflicted injuries were apparently immune to our magical healing. Or in other words, both Fiona and I were still wounded after changing back. We were both still in pain too, but at least it didn't get any worse in our civilian forms.
Meanwhile Ellie read off all our names to the guy on the radio, then handed the mic over to Harper. He detailed all Chester's injuries so the rescuers would know how serious the pilot's medical situation was. He also told them about Ellie's cerated forehead, along with with Fiona's leg and my arm.
Frank talked a bit more with Ellie after that, and we found out he was a soldier stationed at CFS Alert. Despite being the closest base to our location they didn't have the resources to unch a rescue operation themselves. Instead they were just reying all our information to another military base, but odds were the actual rescue would be coming from Iqaluit. Or maybe even Ottawa.
Hearing that sort of put it into perspective just what kind of timeline we were looking at, in terms of how long it might take before help actually arrived. Like we'd be waiting hours at best, but it could take up to a day or two before the rescuers reached us. Or even longer, if the weather turned bad again. The bottom line was even though we'd lived through the pne crash and dealt with Judith and the Outsiders, we were still in a survival situation.
The radio conversation wrapped up after another half minute, then Harper stood up and addressed the rest of us.
"Hey everyone," he said as he raised his voice slightly, "Let's try and organize ourselves while we're waiting for rescue. All the packs and equipment are over there near the tail of the pne. Can we get a couple people to sort out the food and water, while the others figure out the tents and things?"
"Hopefully we're not going to be here long enough to need them," he continued, "But we should have enough supplies here that we can hold out for a few days if necessary."
Anahera stared at my boyfriend for a second, and I was positive she was about to get snarky about an eighteen-year-old boy telling her and the other magical girls what to do.
Except to my surprise she actually agreed, "Good thinking."
"Fiona and Bke, please let our young medic tend to your injuries," the Māori woman stated. She continued, "And Ellie, would you stay by the radio? Everyone else, let's get to work. Glen why don't you help Val and I set up some shelters? Ivy, could you and Tina see about getting some food and drinks prepared?"
Nobody tried to argue, and no-one compined either. The two grad students did what Anahera asked, same with everyone else. I insisted on helping out too, after Harper bandaged up my arm. Even Fiona tried to get involved, before Anahera ordered the Welsh woman sit down and stop aggravating her injuries.
An hour and a half ter there were a handful of tents set up next to the crash site, and I was sitting on an air mattress with my boyfriend on my left and my girlfriend to my right. Our tent was behind us, and the three of us were quietly eating bowls of rehydrated beef stew.
Fiona was ying on her side on another air mattress nearby, with Valerie and Anahera sitting next to her on their rolled-up sleeping bags. Meanwhile both Glen and Tina were sharing another air mattress with Ivy, and the three university students were comparing notes about school and discussing their different programs while they ate.
Ellie finally broke the silence between the three of us as she commented with a wry smile, "We're going to have one hell of a story when we get home."
"Right," Harper agreed with a grimace. "Our extreme getaway vacation was even more extremier than we bargained for."
I gnced at my girlfriend then my boyfriend, before looking down at my half-eaten bowl of stew. Then I asked, "So I know it's early, and this trip isn't even over yet. Plus it's definitely going to be a hard one to beat. But what do you two want to do next summer?"
Harper and Ellie both stared at me for a second or two, then the pair of them colpsed in a fit of giggles. I joined them a moment ter, and the three of us ended up hugging each other as I traded kisses with the both of them.
The past two weeks had seen my life change in the most impossible and unbelievable ways, and ontop of that my friends and I had just survived a pne crash. And we were currently stranded in a life-and-death situation in the far north, a few thousand kilometres from home.
On the other hand we were alive, we were together, and we knew help was on the way. Plus I got to be a cute girl, who was dating a smart gorgeous resourceful tomboy as well as a strong handsome compassionate jock.
Honestly, I couldn't have been happier.
~ The End (of Book One?) ~
PurpleCatGirl