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"Cuteguy to Hotguy, where are you"
Scar wishes he could answer that in a better way. However, as he stares around at the building he's stuck in, rubble around him blocking anyway out, he isn't sure what he can really say.
"Hotguy here, I'm inside the building. Basement level"
"Are you injured?"
He looks down at himself, searching his skin for anything that looks wrong. There are a few cuts on him, and his left arm burns from where it sits, only held in place by his costume. "Slightly, yeah. Something hit my arm as it fell, can't tell if its a super serious injury or not, it just hurts"
"Stay there, we're going to try and get to you"
"Don't let anything fall down and crush me" Scar jokes, but his voice is hollow, and interrupted by a cough as dust fills his lungs. He curls up, throat burning as he hacks, coughing up all the powder in his lungs. His right hand fumbles at his belt, finding the mask on his belt. He pulls it over his lower face, thanking Cub for thinking ahead for situations like this.
The air feels a bit clearer as he breathes, the particles in the air no longer filling his lungs. His throat still itches with the urge to cough, but he doesn't let it happen, turning on the flashlight attached to the mask. The dim light fills the area, and he peers out into the dusty room in front of him.
The villain was across the room, looking unconscious, maybe knocked out by the rubble. The room is still somewhat intact, beams holding it up, yet some of the roof had fallen in on them, and all the exits were blocked. He reaches for the wall behind him, using it to pull himself up. The villain doesn't seem like a threat right now, so he heads towards the exit, checking it out. There is something in him screaming to check on the villain, make sure he's okay, but Scar knows he isn't that great at first aid, and he's worried he'll find a serious injury but be unable to help. So he ignores that problem, inspecting the stairway out.
He can't see a good way to get out without more collapsing. The holes in the roof don't look much promising either, the rest of the collapsed building closing him and the villain in.
Scar finally turns around, looking at the villain on the ground. His heart fills with a bit of relief when he sees the man sitting up, but his relief drops when he sees the red powder on the man.
Redstone.
He feels his skin pale a bit, and god he's glad he's wearing the mask instead of breathing in full redstone air. Redstone was very deadly, which means it's even worse that it's covering the villain.
"Virus?" His voice breaks through the thick silence in the room. Virus looks up, surprised, as if he had expected Scar to have been crushed in the rubble.
"You're alive" Virus mumbles. His voice is so familiar it hurts. He's surprised he hadn't recognised it before Mumbo had come to their door that day.
They had never managed to have that talk. By the time Grian and Scar had woken up the next morning, Mumbo had been gone. His bed had been made, blood cleaned up, the only trace of him being the breakfast he had made for them. He had blocked their numbers, no way left to contact him. So they didn't, not making any attempt to speak to him in any way until now, when they had been sent on a mission to stop his attempt to blow up this building and capture him.
They didn't have much luck stopping the explosion, it seems.
"Yeah. Are you injured?" Scar is glad Mumbo's mask is still on. Surely the other would have built in some sort of ventilator but something in his gut told him the other didn't. Even if he did, Scar doesn't know how much it would help, as redstone covered Mumbo's bare skin. That was probably just as bad as breathing it in.
Mumbo didn't answer. He seems more focused on standing up, leaning on the leg. However, he quickly falls to the ground, crying out in pain simply from putting weight on his leg. Scar has to stop himself from rushing over and grabbing the other, knowing he can't put himself at risk by touching the redstone too.
"Do you know where all the redstone came from?" He asks, voice quiet, as if the slightest noise will send the redstone swirling in the air.
Mumbo stays quiet for a few seconds, then finally moves his hand, pointing towards the weapon he had been using earlier. It's been crushed by the rubble, and very obviously seems to be the cause of the redstone dust everywhere, just like Mumbo said.
"Is it supposed to do that?"
"Supposed to what? Be destroyed? Be crushed? NO ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BROKEN-" Mumbo yells, and the noise makes more dust fall from the ceiling, surrounding them in more of the particle filled air. Mumbo makes the smart decision to shut up, and they wait for it to settle a bit before Scar speaks, his voice kept quiet.
"That makes sense. Sorry, stupid question. Back to my earlier question, are you injured? Other than your leg?" He does his best to inspect the other for any injuries, but its hard to tell if some of the red is blood or fully redstone.
"I don't know" Mumbo mumbles, shifting how he's sitting on the ground, trying to get comfortable. He clutches his head with one hand, the other wrapped around his stomach like he's about to get sick.
"Please don't throw up" Scar's voice is insistent, knowing that if Mumbo were to throw up he'd need to remove his mask and would be fully exposed to the redstone in the air.
"I'm not going to throw up." Mumbo responds. He doesn't sound too sure about that though.
There's a beep on Scar's comm as Grian speaks again.
"Cuteguy to Hotguy. Is the villain down there?"
Scar turns away from Mumbo a bit, clicking on his microphone. "The villain is down here with me. How much longer until you guys will be able to get in here?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Other than being stuck in a collapsed building?"
"Not the time Hotguy. What's wrong?"
Scar looks back at Mumbo, trying to figure out how to phrase this. "Virus's weapon broke, there's redstone everywhere. Mostly on him"
There's silence on the other line for a second, probably used for Grian to relay the information to the rest of the team and curse at the world a bit.
"Alright. Stay there, we'll get you out soon. Is your mask on?"
"Yep" He answers, getting that question done quick and fast.
"Good. Keep it on. We'll get down there as fast as we can to get you both out"
"Thank you. Hurry" There's silence on the other side, but Scar knows Grian is probably trying to focus now.
He looks back at Mumbo, not sure what to do. The other lays on the ground, covered in deadly dust. He could be injured in more ways, but Scar can't safely get close enough to check.
One of his -- best? -- friends could be dying and he can't even get close enough to check his pulse without putting his life at risk as well.
His own injuries are catching up to him. His cuts sting in the air, his arm still burns, and his body is starting to feel sore from taking so many hits earlier in the fight. He wants to sit down, but he finds himself staying up, heading back towards the stairwell, checking again if there was any safe way out.
He approached the rubble in the stairway, staring up at the pile that is there. Faintly he was see sunlight though a pinprick of a hole, but something shifts and the hole is covered again.
He sighs and turns around, not wanting to risk being too close to the rubble if it was still shifting. He returns to being near Mumbo, back to trying to inspect the other for injuries.
Mumbo was still curled up where Scar had left him. He was brushing the red stone dust off his skin with his left hand, which seemed to shine from the light of Scar’s flashlight.
In the bright light of the flashlight, the red stone seemed to glow. It shimmered, like hundreds of pieces of red glitter. They didn’t look dangerous, but Scar knew better.
“Use your sleeve to cover your hand while you do that” He quietly orders, not wanting Mumbo to get his hand even more covered by red stone doing this.
“It’ll be fine” Mumbo responds, not covering his hand with his sleeve. He keeps brushing the red stone off skin that had looked burnt and bruised. Scar’s stomach drops when he sees Mumbo’s skin, feeling sick as he sees that.
Mumbo’s action had caused dust to swirl up in the air. Scar stays a few feet away, safe, but Mumbo is right in the cloud. He seems to be trying to hold his breath, but when he finally breathes in he starts to cough, curling into himself as he does. He’s coughing hard, sounding almost as if he is about to cough up a lung. Scar’s stomach picks itself up, slamming back up and sending his heart into his throat as he watches the other cough.
“Hotguy, stay away from the staircase”
“I already am. Just hurry, ok? He’s covered in it, he needs a medic” He’ll feel guilty for the harsh tone he uses later, but for now he can’t make himself feel that bad.
“Understood. Keep him talking, make sure he stays conscious”
“Got it” Scar responds, turning off his microphone. He’s kinda pissed they keep calling down to him when they need to be getting the door open, but he’s sure they are trying to keep him informed and safe.
He crouches down where he is, still a few feet away from Mumbo. He speaks up, eyes focusing on how Mumbo’s left hand shines in the flashlight. “Is the whole hand being shiny thing part of the red stone touching there?”
“No” Mumbo replies. His voice is hoarse but the coughing had calmed down. “Not a symptom of red stone poisoning, no”
“Why is your hand shining then?” Scar motions to the other’s hand. “In my light, it looks shiny”
Mumbo looks down at his hand, flexing his fingers. After a second, he reaches over with his right hand, and starts to unscrew his left hand.
Scar pales when he first sees that happen, but soon starts to hear the sound of a screw being taken out of metal. Mumbo holds it up, and Scar is sure he can see Mumbo’s eyes twitched up like he’s smirking under the mask, inwardly laughing at Scar’s shocked expression.
“Your hand isn’t real??”
“You didn’t notice this when my hand was replaced by a gun that one time?”
“I thought it was like! Just a weird gadget you made… what happened to your hand?” It’s after those words leave his mouth that Scar realises asking Mumbo about it might be bringing up bad memories.
Mumbo doesn’t seem phased though. “One of my first fights against a hero. Some sort of laser power, was annoying. They aimed for my tool belt I think, but got my hand instead because I was running.”
“So your hand is just.. gone?”
“This one works better” He says, slowly screwing back on his hand. “Doesn’t get tired. Doesn’t cramp, doesn’t shake. No paper cuts”
“How much are you doing with paper for that to be a big issue?”
“Everything gets blueprints Scar. I might need to replicate something so every thing gets a blueprint”
“Did the hand design get a blueprint?”
“Yeah. Took a while, not used to writing with my right hand”
Scar hums, nodding a bit. He understands, he's managed to break his dominant hand while on a mission once, sucked to do all the later paperwork with his other hand.
Behind Scar, he suddenly hears things falling behind him. He turns around, seeing sunlight peeking through the staircase. "Yes! Yes they've gotten through, medics will be here in a minute to help you-" He whirls back around to look at Mumbo, pausing. "Mumbo?"
The other was trying to stand again, holding something in his hand. Smoke bomb.
"Mumbo, sit back down. They're coming to help us."
"They're coming to help you. They're here to arrest me. The medics are for you, I'll just get whatever shitty treatment there is in prison"
"Mumbo, sit down. They'll help you too!"
"Scar! You don't understand what I've done! I've hurt people, I've killed! My life now holds no value to them! If I die, they won't care! One more villain out of the city" Mumbo's red eyes meet Scar's. They are filled with anger, but even deeper there is a glint of panic that shines through his shield.
".. I'll make them help you Mumbo, please you can't leave, you're badly injured" Scar tries to step closer, but Mumbo shoots him a glare. Scar stops, standing still as Mumbo speaks again.
"They are going to get that door open. I will be near the exit. They will come in, you will say you lost sight of me. This will hit the ground, I will leave, and you will not follow, understood?" His voice is harsh, no time for kindness.
"Mumbo please. Let us help.." Scar takes one more step forward.
"Its Virus. I'm not Mumbo. I'm not your friend! Mumbo has been gone for years, he left after I learned the only way to survive in this shitty place is to be stronger than everyone else, and you can't be stronger if you help! On top of that, you don't even help, do you Scar? Heroes don't help! They sit there and take credit when good things happen, but more frequently than not, they cause everything to get worse! You're supposed to be a hero Scar, you're supposed to help, but you were so focused on fighting me that the building still collapsed, people still died! You helped nobody!"
Scar is quiet as Virus speaks in a whispered shout. His heart is in his throat, tongue too heavy to pick up from his mouth and speak.
"... Okay. Go.. stand near the door then. I'll distract them while you leave."
There is no thank you from Virus. He just limps towards the door. He moves fast, even with his leg possibly broken and his skin burnt and bruised from the redstone poisoning.
"Goodbye Scar"
There's a crash as the heroes finally break through the rubble, and a bang as smoke fills the room.
Virus is gone by the time it clears.