The girl was knocked over, I was hit by dust, and a brick shard from the wall painfully struck my long-suffering right arm. It twisted at an unnatural angle, a piece of bone protruding from the skin. And also, it smelled incredibly strongly of ozone and gas.
Only after that did I realize that I had gotten too carried away and completely forgotten about my friend. Jubilee had it much worse than me! She was lying at the end of the corridor, pinned by a large piece of the wall, barely groaning with her eyes closed.
In an instant, I put my limb back in place and found myself beside her, trying to lift the damn shard. It wouldn't have been difficult, but I suddenly realized that my vampire abilities were rapidly leaving me. Shit! The piece of the wall suddenly became unbearably heavy, and my arm shot through with excruciating pain.
"Oh no!" the girl said with a familiar deep voice.
Throwing a quick glance, I saw several people standing in the gap, behind which was part of the kitchen: Morbius, Blade, and Storm. They all looked battered, as though frozen in the middle of a grand fight where each was battling the other two.
One of them was clearly responsible for the explosion, but finding the culprit wasn't on my agenda at the moment. Instead, I quickly scanned the surroundings and spotted the leg of one of the vampires sticking out from under the rubble. Rushing to it like it was a life raft, I pulled up her pant leg and touched the exposed skin. A couple of seconds, and I was full of energy again.
When I was back at the shard of wall that had pinned Jubilee, Blade was the first to react. She moved closer and, standing on the other side, helped me push the heavy slab away.
"Fuck," was all I could say, quickly surveying the state my friend was in.
"Sorry," Storm said weakly, still struggling to move her tongue. She had fallen to her knees, stunned by the consequences of her lightning games. No wonder I had smelled ozone? "I didn't think it would turn out like this, I guess when we were fighting, we damaged the gas stoves, and the lightning…"
I really didn't feel like listening to her rambling excuses. It wasn't that I was angry at her, no. Shit happens, though of course, one should anticipate the consequences of their actions. The explosion could have been triggered by even a stray spark from Blade's blade.
Honestly, I was more angry at myself. If I hadn't wanted to play with my opponent, if I had defeated the second vampire as quickly as the first, Jubilee and I would have been long gone, leaving this insatiable trio to kill each other.
No, if anyone was to blame, it was me.
Sitting by Lee, I touched her cheek with my left hand. Only later, remembering the details of what had happened, would I realize that at that moment I wasn't concerned with switching abilities and was easily maintaining both the vampire strength and the powers I had taken from Masquerade.
None of my abilities could fully heal. But I could maintain Jubilee's condition until I figured out a way to help. For example, I could stop the bleeding, turn off the pain, or put her into a healing sleep. Yes, the last one seemed like a good idea.
"I… I can help," Morbius said, realizing that no one else was planning to continue the fight.
Storm was clearly out of it, deeply affected by the result of her lightning antics. She probably wouldn't recover soon.
Erica, realizing she couldn't help me, decided to do what she did best and went off to finish off the vampires who had attacked me.
Morbius stood nearby, grimacing in pain as he looked at Lee. It took me a whole minute to process his words. Partly, I was distracted because I was also trying to figure out what needed to be done.
My underage mutant friend had taken an insane amount of damage. She was clearly not born with luck, and certainly not in a T-shirt. The lower half of her body was the worst off: her legs were pinned, and her pelvis was nearly crushed to hell!
Her spleen had ruptured, and her liver was damaged. Additionally, she had lost about a liter of blood, which was leaking around the piercing, reinforcing rod that some clever builder had placed between the bricks in the wall.
"Thanks for the offer," I responded to Morbius. "But we'll leave that option for a last resort."
"How about me?" Blade asked, positioning herself to keep the vampire in sight.
"Can you turn others into vampires too?" I asked in surprise.
I didn't know she was even theoretically capable of something like that.
"No," she shook her head. "But I know how your abilities work, and I heal fast."
That suggestion made my mind work at full capacity. Indeed, she had witnessed how I worked and what I needed to achieve certain results. After all, Obra had probably shared with her how I "healed" her leg.
Erica understood that in this situation, the disassembled cow carcass likely stored somewhere in the kitchen wouldn't help me much. I doubted I'd find a new spleen here. Maybe a liver, but that wouldn't fix the problem.
"Thanks," was all I could say.
Blade simply nodded. She knew what she was getting into and understood that she was the best donor here. I wouldn't risk transplanting parts of vampire organs—either normal or like Morbius's—into Jubilee. Honestly, I had no idea what would happen after Lee received parts from a half-vampire body, but there didn't seem to be any other option. I didn't notice any Wolverines nearby.
Before getting to work, I turned a steady gaze on Michael Morbius.
"If you really want to help, push that hysterical blonde aside and check if there are any other injured people."
He looked at me oddly but didn't argue.
Now, with everyone in action, I needed to give it my all.
"It won't hurt," I promised Erica.
"That's the least of my worries," she grinned, showing her fangs, then knelt beside the unconscious Jubilee and extended her hand to me.