Kalte's forced quickly moved into position, spreading out over the battlefield and taking ground inch by inch. With the omnic forces having to focus on multiple targets spread over a wide area, it was much easier to take them out. Grenades were lobbed into fortifications, rifles fired slews of bullets, chipping away at walls and soon busting through what soon became nothing but heaps of scrap. However, despite their success, the wounded [i]were[/i] piling up. Where Fareeha was taken, most of the medics were taking care of people who had sustained very severe injuries or had been knocked completely unconscious. Jumpers that fell from the sky with minor wounds often had very hard landings that turned to more serious injuries, breaking bones, or at the worst rupturing internal organs.

Angela was still doing everything she could for those on the frontlines, dashing from soldier to soldier, mending their wounds and either letting them continue fighting or having another medic drag them off to the backlines. Sweat dripped from her face and blood stained her Valkyrie suit, but she pushed onward. There was no time to rest.

As she had both hands on the thigh of a woman whose femoral artery had been severed, she was almost done with the process of healing it when an explosive shell landed only a few feet away. The few who were in the area, three soldiers, Angela, and the wounded woman, were all knocked away from the blast. Angela slipped into unconsciousness.

-[i]flashback[/i]-

[i]"Ana, do you ever make the decision between life or death?"[/i]

[i]"Hah... I am no angel of mercy like you. Most of what I deal is nothing but death."[/i]

[i]"And yet you brought life into this world years ago."[/i]

[i]"Indeed I did, Angela. Life is a wonderful thing. I try not to think about what I take away when I kill. Someone's mother, father, daughter, son... I don't know what I would do if I ever lost Fareeha."[/i]

[i]"And what if she loses you?"[/i]

[i]"The dead often come back as a shadow in a dream. She won't lose me forever. You are her friend, you know. What if she loses you?"[/i]

[i]"I... don't know."[/i]

[i]"Grief is burnt as fuel for life. The shadows in dreams become shadows on the walls and sometimes it feels as if you're fighting alongside them again. Hopefully Fareeha will come to terms with the pain she will feel when I go. Hopefully she won't have to see the day when you leave as well."[/i]

[i]"You sure have some profound thoughts about death, Ana."[/i]

[i]"They are only profound because you have yet to experience them."[/i]

-

Her ears rang as bullets rattled around her, shouts and commands were incomprehensible and muffled. Explosions in the distance and the stench of blood. Angela opened her eyes, blinking away the blurriness, looking around. A few soldiers were protecting her while a medic leaned over her torso. Jumpers in the sky rained down Hell on the omnics. Angela moved to sit up, but a wave of pain stopped her. The medic said something to her, pushing her back to lay down, but the Swiss woman was too dazed to understand what she'd said. The doctor lifted her head and peered at her body, seeing blood staining her abdomen. She was wounded, pretty badly from the looks of it.

She reached her hands down, feeling the wound, trying to focus what strength she had to heal it. It hurt, immensely. She cried out, gritting her teeth. She was sure there were tears in her eyes but it didn't matter. So this was how it felt for the nanotechnology to heal your body. It was far from painless.

After a few moments, the pain became only a dull ache and Angela grabbed the medic to help herself sit up. From the look of things, a few minutes had passed. Kalte's forces were farther forward than she'd remembered them to be, pressing even further into omnic defenses. The battle was still in their favor.

"Come on, Ziegler, we've got to get you out of here!" The female medic pleaded. Looking at her nametag, it said Kantor.

Angela finally understood what she was shouting at her. The doctor nodded her head, standing up with Kantor's help. She wrapped her arm around the woman's shoulders, allowing herself to lean on the medic for support as they walked to the backlines. Angela would have to resign herself from this fight. The exhaustion was too much at this point, and having been wounded... She'd need a bit of time to recover.

As she was sat down with the other wounded, Angela vaguely remembered the bizarre dream she'd had while unconscious. It was a memory. A time when she'd spoken to Ana back when the sniper was still around. She wondered now, if she understood what Ana had been talking about. In a flash, she recalled that she'd seen Fareeha get taken down, but only for a moment.

Before Kantor could leave, Angela grabbed the sleeve of her fatigues. "Fareeha... Is Captain Amari okay?" She asked. Kantor nodded her head.

"She'll be fine from what I saw. Sneak got close, and she got hurt, but she's being taken care of. I've got to get back out there, doc." She said before hurrying back to the frontlines.

The Swiss doctor breathed a quiet sigh of relief. If Fareeha was okay, the jumpers wouldn't lose hope. Angela herself wouldn't lose hope.