The pain I felt from healing Joanne hadn't lessened. If anything it had increased by an order of magnitude.

Miss Toontastic's hand at my shoulder, covered in sinew-strands which had crept over her clawed fingers, trembled. She was grimacing from the pain she felt, her lips curled back to reveal her pointed canines. It made her look menacing, the huge white orbs of her eyes had darkened to the point they became shiny black like eight-balls, and the peachy-hue of her face became a shade of gray, as if all the colour had been washed out.

Graham, the little boy, had moved over to his mother's side and was holding her arm at the elbow. And Rodger, the old man I had seen in the memory which had flooded my mind before, and who had needed Miss Toontastic's assistance to close the gas main further down the street, was kneeling with his grandson and holding his daughter's hand.

"It's alright," said Rodger to his grandson, "These people are doing everything they can to save her."

I caught an amazed look from the little boy who flinched at the sight of me. The skin across my body up to my neck had all but burned away, revealing the deep red sinew-flesh beneath. My face had also started to burn away beneath the mask.

Joanne's breathing had steadied, but it wasn't going to be enough. And what progress Miss Toontastic and I had started to make was slowing.

Miss Toontastic's hand was tugging at the sinew. Not from her trying to remove her hand, but from the increasing effort it took for her to keep it there. I could sense through the newly applied sinew strands over Miss Toontastic's hand that she was in a great deal of pain. It was necessary because she was fuelling most of the power which was carrying out the healing process.

Miss Toontastic let out a scream as the pain of holding on climbed massively; the healing had started at Joanne's burnt eyes and the pain of healing that was immeasurably worse.

And then, like before when I had seen into Joanne's memory, another flooded my mind.

This time however it belonged to Miss Toontastic:

She was standing within a changing room late at night in a store she had stealthily broken into, and had just finished tugging down the cream-coloured dress which had caught her eye.

Looking in the full body mirror, Regina, in control of Xandra's body for the first time in thirteen years, struck a pose. She could feel Xandra inside her mind, watching but hardly registering what was going on because of the grief she felt over what she had done to that Pied Piper officer.

What did she do? I thought, because this was the first time I became aware of just how culpable Xandra was for the death of the Pied Piper officer she had murdered.

"Ya know," said Regina, absently with a hand at her hip.

"I've always wanted us to have nice long curly hair…"

She waited for Xandra to protest, but none came. Regina tapped into the power and grew out their hair, long, thick, black, and curled at the tips.

"Magnifique!" Regina squeaked.

"I'd finally win the Miss Toontastic contest back home lookin' like this," said Regina excitedly, "They all said I was too much of-a pipsqueak to win! Ooo, it makes me miss home!"

And then the memory ceased, and I was back on my knees, the tangled sinew strands of my unravelled arms burning with yet more sobering pain.

A series of choking coughs filled the air followed by a rasping voice speaking at a whispering volume.

"Dad?"

"Me and Graham are here," said Rodger, clasping his daughter's hand tighter.

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"Mum!" Graham cried, "Mum, they're making you better!"

Joanne's eyes had healed to the point they were no longer like the burnt marshmallows they had been before. She couldn't, however, see just yet. There was far too much fine detail to the functioning of the human eye for the healing power to give healing her eyes precedence over the rest of her burnt skin and failing organs. Her eyes had at least regained their shape, but were milky and still very much blind.

It was then I felt a much harder tug at my shoulder, where the strands of sinew were helping keep the connection with Miss Toontastic steady.

"I can't!" she pleaded.

Her face was twisted and thickly veined from the extent to which she was struggling.

"Just a bit longer!" I yelled back.

But I knew it was hopeless even if Miss Toontastic could last even another minute. The progress was too slow and, I could tell, Miss Toontastic wasn't going to let herself reach the brink of her ability to use the power like I had. She wanted to help Joanne too, but not as recklessly as me.

Something hard struck my other shoulder. It was warm, smooth, and gripped like iron. And then I felt another surge of power, stacking on top of what was already being given by Miss Toontastic.

"We've got this!" came a bold ringing voice.

Miss Toontastic's hand stopped trembling and steadied. And, in turn, Joanne's wounds continued to heal at a steady pace.

There were a dozen people surrounding us, some of them with their phones raised and recording.

Each second which passed felt like an entire minute, but the progress we were making was getting better too. Or rather, the healing power in line with the medical knowledge was learning how to heal better and faster, because it was working off the increasing amount of genuine experience of being in use.

A metallic rasp escaped Clang.

He chuckled.

"Enjoying yourself?!" I yelled with a pained smile on my face.

"Never better!" Clang's voice rang.

His grip strengthened.

The pain climbed yet higher because the power was working harder and faster to get the healing of Joanne done. Her charred skin had started to regain its peachy-hue, and her eyes, finally, were starting to regain their colour.

Together, Clang, Miss Toontastic, and I worked as one to save a life. There was still so much to do, so much healing to be done. No amount of wishing on my part was diminishing how hard it was to complete the task we were united in. The healing power was something miraculous, but there was no getting around the hard limitations.

It was up to Clang to take on the brunt of fuelling the remainder of the healing process. Miss Toontastic continued to do her part, but she had already given a huge amount of her power to the healing process already. Like me, the best she could manage was keeping hold and giving what support she could to keep the healing process strong and steady.

Clang's rasps and grunts increased, followed by more chuckles.

The pain spiking into his body and mind was no joke. Miss Toontastic and I knew full well just how torturous it was - and Clang was taking it head on.

But the pain was climbing relentlessly, not least because the healing process had started around the temples and forehead on Joanne. Which, the medical knowledge told me, was by far the most painful place to heal. Burning and piercing in the forehead, both of which had happened to Joanne severely, were a level of agony to experience unlike anything else due to the sheer volume of pain receptors under the skin at that location, signalling pain directly to the brain.

And this pain, like a crown, pressed severely down atop the minds of myself, Miss Toontastic, and Clang.

We all screamed from the new brunt of it. Every time I thought I knew what real pain was, the power reminded me I hadn't learned a single thing.

I heard a huge metallic yell of pain from Clang.

And another memory flooded my mind:

Azad was running at high speed through a forest. Another young man, looking similar to Azad, was being given a piggy-back. The other young man, who I figured was Aaron, Azad's brother, had started to yell.

"Stop! Stop!"

"We can go just a bit further, bro!" Azad yelled back.

"No please!" Aaron cried out, sounding at the end of his rope, "Please!"

Azad slowed and set his brother down onto the muddy forest floor.

"I can't do this anymore!" Aaron cried, his face a shade of red and streaming with tears.

"You can!" Azad yelled back, "You can do this! We have to stick together! You need to be strong!"

"I can't!" Aaron cried, "I've tried! I want to go home! Please! I wanna see Baba again!"

Azad didn't want to relent. He wasn't tired at all. He could keep running for hours. It was his brother that was weak. He'd hoped his brother had the power too, but even the pressures of being on the run together hadn't brought the power out of him.

Azad felt repulsed, disappointed, and angry in equal measure as he watched his brother, who had been a bold bully and terror at school to plenty of students there, blubbering like a three year old.

"Fine!" Azad yelled back, "I'll take you back! Just shut up already!"

The memory stopped. And in its place there came a sudden fresh wave of screams that didn't belong to Clang, Miss Toontastic, or me.

The three of us looked across the street. Two women were screaming and running away from what looked like a giant slithering snake.

It was Soaks. And he was getting away.

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