Gideon spent his earliest years in training dealing with Mistburn, when he pushed too hard against a limited power trying to compete with guys like Lee, Zimmy and, particularly, Galahad. 

He was not the tank that Setzer or Kitty were. And Lori was an entirely different sort of case, but still a beacon of the power. 

But he'd learned something from that suffering about limits, about adapting. It made Gideon into a different type of WARDEN, a dangerous mind. He did better in training, once he learned that he had personal limits. 

Others never did. The Citadel never put out stats, though they probably existed in secret, on just how many youngsters in training burned out in every stage of WARDEN training; when they first touched the power, midway through as they learned to use it, and toward the end, when people got overly familiar with it. A WARDEN was trained to use it for all sorts of feats, but underlying that was the constant danger of overdoing it and becoming demented, catatonic, comatose or simply a corpse. Some washouts went into other endeavors, but many wound up in carefully guarded, dead metal-impregnated sanitariums, remote and kept under guard, constantly drugged.

They'd all seen it, and knew the seriousness of Mistburn. What happened to Zimmy was like tripping over a root when you couldn't see, but that really didn't encapsulate the risk. She took it in good faith, considering the need to scout quickly urgent.

With the rifle against his chest, the worn canvas sling holding it there, he found himself under Zimmy's shoulder, bringing himself down to a knee again, but with her supported on his. Only against a specimen like Setzer would Gideon look somewhat normal; he had strong shoulders and a wiry strength, but more endurance, a good amount of it mental, that carried him through the training. 

"Got you. Breathe. Go loose." 

He knew the feeling of balloon-like tension as limbs felt swollen and leaden, as muscles convulsed and skin felt unbearably taut. Your head hummed and your ears could hear something, but faintly, and you strained to listen. When the Mist burned, one's vision swam with seething, malevolent visions of sparkling power that tempted even more, even as the Gods themselves were saying [i]you dare too much, Mortal![/i] But the lesson was drowned out by the visceral, instinctive reaction of a magic user to use more to fix the problem. 

Stage 1 made you feel like shit. Stage 2 was hair of the dog, more of what got you there to keep you going. In the altered logic of the mist, it told you to go ahead and take some more to deal with the effects of taking too much already, like drinking salt water to alleviate thirst, only to find yourself even more parched and thirstier.

If the breathing exercises and self-control mantras didn't work, every WARDEN carried a medkit, and he had his on his hip, on his belt. It held a syringe injector that would fix the effect. Certain types of medication, like adrenaline shots, like insulin and others, could massively offset an underlying condition but too much could kill. And in any case, there were side effects to a potent cocktail of tranq drugs designed to stop a WARDEN in their tracks. It was like a hangover the way a tiger was like a housecat. Zimmy would not be functional if they had to inject. Everyone in the squad had everyone's doses memorized, because it happened before.

Gideon didn't want to go there. "Breathe. Don't take in more. Let it go little by little. Release. Breathe. Release." he told her, using the formulaic mantra, the sort of thing they said to someone starting to go through Mistburn to break through the Mist's little siren song.

And if she didn't come back, he'd have to stick her.