Lexie liked to think that she had a quick reaction time.

  She wanted to say that, when faced with an imminent bomb, she jumped out of her seat and flew to the ground, or shielded her head or did anything but blink dazedly at the fireball that exploded in her face.

  But the latter was exactly what she did.

  However, she doubted there was anything else she could have done that would have landed her in a better position.

  The explosion hit the walls with a loud clang that reverberated from the point of contact through the entire room. The blast was powerful enough to send Lexie and her desk flying before crashing into another desk. Her back struck the edge of the desk and pain burst through her on impact. But, it wasn’t until she was slumped on the floor, blinking up at the roof that she realized the full extent of the damage.

  Her first warning was the blinking red health bar in the corner of her vision.

  And then the shock faded enough for her to feel her body.

  Her vision was suddenly unfocused as a wave of pure agony hit her in bits.

  Her chest was burning.

  Her stomach felt like it had caved in.

  Her limbs felt limp and useless as though lightning had travelled through them and zapped them of their strength.

  The more the shock cleared the more the pain ebbed and flowed. She gasped in breaths, weak moans leaving her mouth. She wanted to scream but she didn’t have the energy for it. She barely had the energy to stay awake. But instinctively she knew she had to stay awake. She had to keep breathing. If not…

  Well, she might die.

  Her eyelids grew heavy, and she focused on the pain in her chest shallowly moving up and down with her breaths. She stared at the roof in the aftermath of the blast as she realized that the sound she heard wasn’t solely the ringing in her ears. The alarm that somehow made it into her dreams was actually blaring and it was saying in a repetitive monotone voice:

  Blast Incoming. Evacuate the building now. Exit through the front doors and stay away from windows and walls. Observe all other evacuation protocols.

  Wow. Sure would have been nice if I’d been awake to hear that.

  But all things considered, Lexie had no one but herself to blame honestly.

  The system also made an alert as the screen popped into her vision saying,

  You Have Sustained Significant Injury. Emergency System Healing Commencing along with System Reboot. Rest Highly Recommended.

  Great. All she had to do was lie here until security came to get her. She could do that.

  A moan tore out of her throat as pain turned her vision hazy again. She hoped they would hurry though. This was pure torture.

  Lexie stopped trying to fight the waves of misery and instead focused on breathing through it. She also fought to stay awake by keeping up a constant stream of thought...I wonder where the blast was from. Is the city under attack? What about Aiden? Is he okay?

  But that final thought made her panic a little which made breathing slightly harder and so she discarded it.

  He has to be okay.

  She tried to contact him on her system interface, but her system was rebooting while all the energy was dedicated to healing. It wasn't letting her contact anyone until the system reboot was over.

  Great.

  She took another deeper breath trying to figure out if she was feeling better or just wishful thinking when she heard a door slide open.

  “Lexie!”

  Lexie frowned. The yell sounded like it was coming from far away and it took a second for her to place the voice. And when she did she could hardly believe it.

  “Xena?” she gasped weakly.

  She couldn't turn her head, but through the tinnitus, she heard quick familiar footsteps until Xena’s boots were in her peripheral vision.

  Then suddenly, Lexie was blinking up at her old nemesis who had worry stamped all over her face.

  “Oh shit,” Xena said and her hand shook as it hovered hesitantly over Lexie. And then she withdrew like she was scared she would make it worse. “Are you okay? You got hurt, didn’t you?”

  Lexie managed to grin. “You know sometimes Xena, you ask really stupid questions.”

  Xena didn’t like her joke. She narrowed her eyes instead. Lexie grinned wider.

  Some people can dish it but never take it.

  “Am I dreaming?” Lexie asked.

  “Why?”

  She made a sad attempt at a shrug. “Because you’re here and you actually look pretty worried about me.”

  Xena bit her lip, regret mixing with a stubborn annoyance. “Well, you’re not my favorite person but it’s not like I want you dead either.”

  “So I’m your second favorite?" Lexie teased. “Who’s your favorite person? Emma?”

  “I don’t have a favorite person. Look, we need to get out of here.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Lexie could finally move her neck and found that some feeling returned to her fingers. The pain was also lessening, but the flood of endorphins was making her a little delirious. “What are you doing here anyway? School closed hours ago.”

  “That’s none of your business,” Xena said, but it lacked its usual heat.

  “Why? Because I’m not your favorite person?” Lexie managed to cock her head. “Is it Diane? I notice you no longer glare at her when she sits by you.” Diane did that whenever she fought with Veronica, which was often

  “I don’t have a favorite person idiot.”

  “So then why can’t it be me?” Lexie mock-whined.

  “Because…”

  “Because what? You have a problem with me or something?”

  Xena leveled her with a familiar glare for a few seconds but when Lexie matched it with an even stare of her own, Xena finally heaved a long-suffering sigh. Lexie was no longer bothered by Xena's snark and her animosity. She was getting used to it. Plus annoying Xena was a fun distraction from the pain.

  Until Xena shocked her by releasing another bombshell.

  “We can't be friends, Lexie. Look, you’re not going to remember this, but we have spoken before that day at the hospital. And we kind of had a fight."

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  “We did?” This came as a surprise to Lexie. She thought they might have known each other from class, but she didn't think they'd spoken before then. What did Lexie Sparrowfoot do to make Xena mad? “Why?”

  “Because you’re really annoying.” At Lexie’s fallen look, she sighed. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, I probably need to carry you out of here.”

  “I don’t think you should. I mean, if something’s broken then maybe you shouldn't move me at all. I'm sure help is coming.”

  "I don’t think so. It’s chaos out on the streets. And the security guard is trying to help control it. I don’t think they know anyone is still in school. I only thought about you because I remember you dozed off in class and no one woke you up.”

  “Wait…” Lexie blinked at her, finally regaining movement of her neck. “You came back for me? Seriously?”

  Xena groaned. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Awww. You do care about me.”

  Xena shook her head. "The system will probably alert you if something is broken. Did it?"

  Lexie scanned her list of injuries and shook her head. Underneath the blinking health bar, the system warned her of damages not limited to bruised tissues, ruptured eardrums, and torn vessels. But no fractured bones.

  “Good. Then it means I can probably carry you. We should go before another blast hits the walls.”

  “You sure you can carry me?” she asked, feeling slightly nauseous from the movement.

  Xena scoffed and gave her a look.

  Lexie scowled. “I’m heavier than I appear.”

  “Right.” But then Xena squatted in front of Lexie, took her hand, and dragged her up to a sitting position. Lexie groaned as her sudden activity brought fresh waves of agony but Xena didn't stop, lacing Lexie's arms around her neck and telling her, "Hold tight."

  Lexie did or at least she tried to get her fingers to cooperate. It wasn't easy even as she gripped her opposite wrist with all her might.

  Xena put both hands underneath Lexie's knees, and then stood in the air, leaning forward so that all of Lexie's weight was on her back. She took a few steps forward with little effort, as though she weren't carrying anything at all.

  “Light as a feather." She threw in for extra measure.

  “Jerk,” Lexie said.

  As they started out the door though, Xena moved slowly so that Lexie wouldn't slide off. There was little destruction in the rest of the hallway, which meant that Lexie's window had taken the brunt of the blast.

  What bad luck.

  Xena followed the instructions from the announcement and kept to the very center of the hallway away from the walls. Lexie's hands slid off Xena's shoulder at a point, and Xena struggled to put it back there. She also had to pause and hoist Lexie higher, having some difficulty holding up Lexie's limp form.

  “Told you I wasn't as light as I look.” Lexie pointed out smugly.

  “I’ve never seen anyone proud of being heavy before.”

  “You would be too if people made fun of you for being short your whole life.” In her past life, Lexie had heard, 'short stack', ‘pinch of a person’, and even 'stubs' more times than she cared to count.

  “Yeah try being called Daddy Long Legs," Xena countered. "I’m probably going to be six feet tall when I'm an adult.”

  “And I’ll be lucky to get to five-four.”

  “Yeah, that might be worse.” Xena seemed to genuinely pity her because she added, “You might still hit a growth spurt. .”

  “No I won't,” Lexie grumbled.

  “You don’t know that.”

  But actually, I do. “I can’t believe you risked your life and ran into a bombed classroom for me."

  “Don’t be too flattered. It was just one blast and everyone is losing their mind.”

  “Yeah but still. Imagine if there were more bombs on the way. Or if there was some kind of noxious gas. I bet if you were there when the bomb went off, you would have pulled me out of the way and shielded me with your body. Like those cheesy romance movies." Then Lexie decided to take a page out of Dewie's book and grinned. "Do you love me, Xena?"

  "Shut up or I'll drop you."

  “I’m just saying. You’re putting in a lot of effort to save someone who’s not your favorite person.”

  “Stop making me regret it.”

  Lexie laughed so hard that she slid to the side of Xena’s back, banging her head into her shoulder.

  "Ow," they both said simultaneously and Lexie groaned because it made her headache so much worse.

  When they reached the entrance, Lexe finally had some feeling return to her legs. Maybe not enough to walk, she still felt pretty weak and lightheaded but she didn’t want to be a burden on Xena anymore so she said “Put me down.”

  "At the gate," Xena said and continued to trek across the field towards the security post.

  Mitch, the security, had his back turned to them and was currently on the other side of an iron-wrought gate, trying to calm down a crowd of people rushing down the street and scrambling over each other.

  The street was filled with sounds of panicked horning, people running, and general chaos.

  Lexie wished she knew where her dad was. He’d told her he was working somewhere down the street but she didn't know exactly where. And she was worried. What if there was another bomb and he got caught up in the blast? He might have been a [Hero] at one point, but right now he had no powers and he had weaker physicality than even some mundanes. Plus, she’d read up on his Tilling bands and it seemed they also interfered with healing so he wouldn't heal as fast as Lexie was.

  It was truly a cruel punishment and Lexie was once again, angry at the [Heroes] who gave it to him.

  "Remain calm!" Mitch was yelling as they approached. "Just get to a bomb shelter as fast as you can but don't hurt anyone! Jeez."

  "Mitch," Lexie called out weakly and he spun around. Shock spread across his features as he walked through the gate.

  "What are you girls still doing here?" he asked.

  Lexie didn't answer, instead scanning the crowd to see if any of them looked familiar. But no. None of them was her dad.

  Urgency flowed through her. She needed to find him.

  Where was he?

  I should put a tracker on him, she thought distantly. That way I can always find him when I need to.

  "What's wrong with her?" Mitch asked Xena as he stepped closer through the gates for them.

  "She got hit," Xena said. "And I think it made her head funny."

  Mitch scanned Lexie's face and body.

  "She's healing?" he asked next.

  "I think so."

  "Can you carry her to the bomb shelter? There should be at least one healer there. And the [Heroes] should be here any time soon but they’re making sure there are no other bombs that need disabling. All security personnel are tasked with keeping everyone safe and orderly in their absence.”

  "Where is it? The bomb shelter?"

  "There’s one about 5 km from here. Near the Altazin Mall. You'll have to walk, there’s too much traffic to get a cab.”

  Lexie did the conversion to miles in her head and said. "That's too far away. You can’t carry me all that way. Besides, I need to call my dad."

  The system reboot was finally done and so she opened her call tab, to see that she’d received a bunch of missed calls from him.

  She called back immediately and he answered on the first ring.

  “Lexie!?”

  Lex froze for a second. She’d never heard him sound like that before with so much fear and anxiety and desperation in his voice. The last time he sounded like that was the first night she'd woken up on Earth 9, after her untimely death.

  Lexie hadn't appreciated Aiden's despair back then because he was still a stranger to her.

  But now…he was her Dad, and she hated to hear him so worried.

  That brought along a complex mix of emotions that she wasn't quite ready to deal with.

  “Yeah I’m fine,” she said to Aiden. “Um… kind of. I got hurt in the blast but nothing’s broken and I’m almost healed up.”

  “Where are you? In front of the school?”

  “Yeah. Can’t really walk too well though.”

  “Stay there. I’m almost there.”

  "Alright." She turned to Xena. “My dad’s on his way here. He can carry me to the bomb shelter. So you could probably go now.”

  Xena seemed doubtful. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for the help. You know, for running in there and saving my life."

  “I didn’t save your life.”

  "Yeah, you did." Lexie shakily patted her head the way Aiden often did to hers and Xena rolled her eyes.

  Mitch helped Lexie get off Xena's back and she found she could now walk a little, although he needed to help her into a chair by his security post.

  "I guess I'll see you around," Xena said, watching Lexie closely.

  "Yup." Lexie smiled and waved. "Thanks for everything."

  "Yeah." With one last look, Xena turned heel and ran, disappearing into the crowd and heading to the bomb shelter.

  Mitch made sure Lexie wasn't bleeding before he went back to his crowd control.

  Lexie continued to watch for her father, while her body healed up, biting her lips anxiously as she waited for his arrival.

  And then after about a minute of waiting, she finally saw him across the crowd, on the other side of his street. He couldn't see her yet. His eyes searched through the school gates wildly and as he tried to cross the street, he got bumped into a bunch of times.

  "I'm here!" Lexie tried to call out but she wasn't loud enough over the chaos. She got up and hobbled to the gate, waving her hand widely. "Dad, I'm here."

  Aiden's eyes met hers across the stream of people. Relief flashed on his face for only a second.

  Lexie tried to go to him, but then her body froze, not of her own volition.

  A force tugged at her, until she was off her feet, flying in the opposite direction away from Aiden toward the other end of the street.

  “Lexie!”

  She didn't know what was happening but suddenly someone foreign that smelled like sweat and yoghurt snatched her up and ran.