//------------------------------//
// Bleeding Sweat 
// Story: Cryo-7 
// by Metal Pony Fan 
//------------------------------//

Annabelle woke to a dull ache in her side and a pounding in her head.  Ponies were shouting around her, and the smell of disinfectants fought to drown out the smell of sweat, burnt flesh, and some overpowering sweet stench.  Everything went out out of focus as she sat up far too quickly.  She wobbled, but stayed upright, gasping at the chaos that slowly worked its way back into focus.

The dividers that used to keep the medical organized into rooms were torn down, leaving one large space full of wounded.  Security personnel and civilian volunteers hurried around, helping those they could.  The lights were dim, except for the operating room, which was pried open, and piles of torn wrappers and discarded supplies were starting to form.

She could recognize the effect of painkillers in her own system, and checked herself for injuries.  She was surprised not to find any.  There was a clear pain in her side, but touching the spot did nothing to exacerbate it.  A broken rib, or a bruise under her coat, would have hurt to touch, even if treatment had been applied.

"Softy," she whispered.  Just before she lost consciousness in the comissary, she felt something strange.  Softy said she would feel what he did for a while.  That wave of heat, the sudden pain, was that him?

She looked around in a panic.  She didn't see him among the wounded.  What happened?  So many hurt.  Lights were at emergency levels, and the medical bay was set up for triage.  Lily was rushing from patient to patient, aided by a Curaxxan in security armor.  Others were going around as well, treating injuries as they could.

Only three of the injured were dragons, and none of them had blue scales.  Where was Softy?  Was he...  No.  He couldn't be dead.  She still felt his pain.  He was hurt, but alive.

Annabelle brought a hoof to her head.  She felt heavy, and her head was swimming.  Painkillers.  It had to be.  Somebody must have scanned her, and treated her for the pain.  She probably would have done the same thing.

But, how did she get here?  And what happened?  Annabelle closed her eyes as a loud noise nearby echoed through her head.  "Ugh, she moaned, "beat my head in with a rock instead, why don't you?"

That colt, that colt from earlier, he must have brought her here.  She wished he could remember his name, but it would be easy enough to find out.  Not many of the Tankrit refugees had white fur.

She looked around again.  It looked like most of the serious injuries were taken care of.  The security guards going around were mostly disinfecting small cuts and scrapes.  Some ponies were even leaving.  It looked like she wasn't really needed.  Not that she would be able to help in her current state.

She worked her way up, taking a break once standing to let the throbbing in her head fade.  A security guard, a young gryphon, much paler grey than James, noticed the wobbly motion and rushed over.  "Hey now, if you're not feeling right, you should lay back down."

"I'm fine," Anna groaned.  "I need to find Softy."

He grabbed a scanner from the floor beside Annabelle's mat.  "Who?"

Annabelle swatted away the scanner as the guard tried to use it.  "He's a dragon, blue scales with yellow markings."

The gryphon's expression fell.  "Oh."  He recovered quickly, and put on a stoic face.  "he, um, he's still in surgery."  The pony's head turned towards the open door to the operating room and started towards it, only to be grabbed by the gryphon.  "Wait!  You don't want to go in there."  He realized he mispoke and tried to correct it.  "I mean, please wait out here, ma'am, I'm sure they're doing all they can."

"I need to see him."  She shook off the gryphon's grip.  He reached for her again, but she stumbled and his claw only caught air.  "I need to see him!"  She was halfway to the door before he could react, drunkenly slipping through by the time he took chase.

"Ma'am!"  He dove through the door, grabbing her where she stopped inside the operating room, staring blankly inside.  "You can't-"  He looked over and fought back the urge to gag.

On the table, a young dragon laid under the the light of a sterilization field.  His open, bloodshot eyes moved about unfocused, and the oxygen mask over his snout fogged with his uneven breaths.  Behind his shoulder, held in the arms of a bloody white mechanical abomination, a large swathe of scale, skin, and fatty tissue was peeled back by four robotic limbs whose otherwise clean, white surfaces were streaked with blood.  Other arms held his broken ribs open so that the doctor working on him could use the remaining arms to work on the lung beneath.

Computer screens held on the two cleanest arms offered the older gryphon a means to input commands while also operating tools manually within dragon's chest cavity.  The machine moved as the dragon breathed, adjusting the doctor's input to follow the visible expansion and contraction of the organ.

The arms retracted from the lung, pulling along a bloody shard of shrapnel the size of a paperclip.  "That's the last of them," James said, taking it from the machine's grip with one claw, while his other remained inside the dragon.  He tossed it on the floor with the others, where, at the center of a gruesome pile made of bits of metal and flesh, was a thin, twisted support brace from a standard cargo crate.  James grabbed the nearest screen, checked the scanner readout, then directed one of the arms to seal off a vein pinched shut in his own claw.

With the immediate task accomplished, James spared a glance towards the door.  He was already back at work before he said, "let her go, boy, she's one of ours."  He grabbed a piece of bone from the table next to the dragon, and fed a small translucent wire into the marrow.  "Anna, come help me with his ribs.  The auto surgeon will apply the bonepaste, but I want you double check alignment for me."

"Anna,"Softy gasped, voice quiet and raspy beneath his mask, "Anna?"

James looked up from the bone fragment.  "Oh, hell, he's conscious."

Annabelle took a shaky step forward.  "Softy?"

"Anna?"  The dragon's eyes moved faster, darting in the pony's direction then aimlessly around.  "Anna...  Where are you?

"I'm right here, Softy."  She moved closer, focusing on his face to avoid seeing the horrors beyond.  She brought her hoof to his face, touching his cheek right behind the mask.  "I'm right here."

"I'm scared."

"It's a flash burn, your eyes will recover.  So will the rest of you."  James grabbed the screen and started furiously punching in commands.  "I don't know how long you've been awake, but you've lost a lot of blood.  We have you on IV saline, but we need to get you more blood.  We can't find a match, we can't synthesize it, and your body has already gone through two gallons of plasma.  We tried to contact your family, your previous employer, even your educational referrences, but all of your records are forged.  Who can we contact?"

What?"  Annabelle looked over at James, then quickly looked away as he started cramming bits of bone back together with the aid of the autosurgeon.  "Softy, we're trying to help you, but we don't know how.  Who can we call?"

Softy's claw opened and closed on air, and Annabelle placed her hoof in it, letting his weak grip .  "Honored ancestor," he whispered, "of my clan."

"Which clan?" James demanded.  He snapped the last bone fragment into place, and applied the bonepaste, leaving the ribcage whole again.  He then started prepping for the actual closure, though the autosurgeon would perform most of the work.  "We don't care if you're in any trouble, we just want you to survive this.  You can't make new blood fast enough to recover, and we can't keep you oxygenated artificially for more than a day or two.  What clan are you from?"

Softy closed his sightless eyes.  "No name."

James froze.  "You...  You're an elder dragon?"

The drake's head moved slightly.

"Explains why you're still alive."  He looked up at the other gryphon, the security guard who was still staring in shocked disgust at the dragon's opened torso.  "You!  Go bring me the limiters from evidence, and the largest gems you can find!  Saphires and Citrine are best, but diamonds and tourmaline will work too."

The guard tore his eyes away from the dragon, and gave the older gryphon a confused look.  "G-gems?  Yes, sir!"  He ran from the room coughing dryly.  His retching was heard a few seconds later, followed by shouted orders to fellow guards.  "You!  Head to security and get the limiters from the evidence locker.  You!  Come with me, and bring an empty medkit."

The old Gryphon sighed and turned his attention to Annabelle.  She was usually the most energetic and positive of the nurses, able to brighten everyone's day.  But seeing her holding the drake's claw as he lay cut open on the table was bringing back some bad memories for him.  He started the autosurgeon, and touched Annabelle on the shoulder with the tip of his tail, the only part of him not covered in the poor dragon's blood.  "Anna, we can save him.  But, I'm going to need your help."

"Anything," Annabelle answered quickly.  "Whatever you need, I-"

"No," Softy wheezed.

"Quiet you!  There is sacrifice involved," James continued, "but nothing too severe.  I need tell you everything before you make a decision."  With a sigh, he settled down to watch the machine put his patient's skin back together.  "Before I became a mercenary, before I left Choria, and even before I met Growl, I was a student in a monastery dedicated to the lost history of the gryphons.  Our planet had a population of dragons as well, and they had a similar monastery.  I studied there as well.  There was a legend, of a line of dragons more powerful than any other.  And, the legends say that the first of the line was born of unicorn magic..."