[h1][center]Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop[/center][/h1]
[hr]

A neural network, a spider's web of neurons and synapses and chemical receptors and nerves, branching out into infinity. A face. 
The [patient], pressing a face, unbidden, against the flesh. Changing it beyond will.
Fear. Confusion. Mind trying to break, being held together by tape and sheer willpower. Determination beyond the likes of which it had ever seen.
The [patient] spoke, overriding it’s control, a sensation not unfamiliar, but not felt in years either.
Time. A concept so abstract, so… unsustainably unusual. It became familiar, understandable, comprehensible. A small eternity, the agonizing trickle-tickle-tick-tock leaning from one second, to the next second, to the next second…

The [surgeon] never wavered. Let the [patient] speak through it, give the [patient] an outlet. There was work to do. Another face arose, younger, but no less different from the first.

A memory. Played out like it was happening again. [TRAUMA], like a pheromone trail, dragging the overwhelmed Umbri, and the apathetic J-3, down a lane of recollection. 
‘Memory lane’, if the street was cracked and torn, if the houses were muddy, foggy, and filled with vines and ink and bone and steel and-

[i]She was too young for this. Standing beside a dumpster, baby in arms, staring at a billboard that danced. Exhaustion laid in her bones, pulling at her everything-[/i] 
It skipped.
[i]Trapped! She couldn’t get away! [HER-NOTSAFE-WHY-WHY-WHY?!] had her by the hair, kept pulling her around! The bruise on her face ached like a broken bone, a broken heart-[/i]
It skipped.
[i]”NO! Fuck off! Stop!” As her arms, her hands, barely able to hold back a blade, grew weaker by the moment. The gravel of the alley bit into skin, into the back of her head. She almost had enough air to scream-![/i]
It stopped.

[b][color=Red]Anger bloomed.[/color][/b]

[s]Stop! Hey! Back off-[/s]
Another memory rose.
[i]The thresher. Beaten, being butchered right before her eyes. [GUILT] swallowed everything in her, oppressive in its weight around her throat, in the turn of her stomach. She was responsible! She did this. All of these memories? She was-[/i]
[color=Red][b]It. Better. Stop![/b][/color]

In the space outside the memory, outside the dream, in the realm of the [BODY] and not the [MINDS], ink pulsed. It streamed over two bodies, as one shrank, and shrank, and shrank. J-3 became more human, allowing more of the tentacles that held it up to fuse together into two legs.
Eyes melded back into the body.
Wings vanished.
Horns rose, shifted, and then sank away.
Claws and talons and fangs, returned to humanities normalcy.

It’s mouth opened, as if to opine something… Before it all [url=https://youtu.be/PEP1npqK0Xs]changed[/url].

Ink swarmed over Umbri’s body, pulsing along with the rhythm of two hearts beating in perfect sync. Venom was annihilated, an anti venom pouring through veins and chasing the necrotic death back into nothing.
Internal damages were mended, stitched back together by ink and focus.
A third face, Umbri’s true face, was exposed, as Jemma well and truly grew angry. Again. Wow.
The maw that had contained Umbri’s head, arm, and shoulders, shifted. It instead became a scorpion's tail of the largest degree, with its stinger-tip just barely sank into the back of Umbri’s neck. 
Her arm was no longer enveloped, instead, it came to rest on the top of Jemma’s bowed head. Hypersensitive nerves in her scalp and her hair noted every twitch and change. 

[s]You absolute fucking idiot! How dare you! Where is your kindness? She’s freaking out! We don’t scare for no reason! Protect these people! Idiot! Idiot idiot idiot![/s]
A pair of minds, tangled together by [INK] and [MAGIC], were [i]yanked[/i] out of a shattered and crumbling memory scape.
[b][color=Red]Fury raged in her veins, at the sheer unfairness of it all. Who the hell did this to her? To this poor girl? She didn’t deserve it! Didn’t [i]deserve[/i] to have all this fear and hurt and pain and scarring! What the fuck?! What gave them the right?![/color][/b]

Jemma’s voice, in the ‘dream’ and out of it, rumbled and roared into the air. Distorted by ink, warped by wrath.
“[b][color=Red]I fucking [PROMISED] no harm to her! What the HELL ARE YOU DOING?! I will [i]destroy[/i] you! She needs rest! How dare you! How dare you harm her! She deserves none of it! What right do you have?! May my fang and claw sunder your flesh! Ruined so much for her for what?! FILTHY FUCKING STREET-SAMURAI! LOCKDOWN?! LOCKDOWN! I’ll ruin you! Ruin everything you [i]ARE[/i]. FAILURE OF MOTHERHOOD! [i]RIP YOUR MIND INTO MINE! SUFFER AS SHE HAS AT YOUR HAND![/i][/color][/b]”

Jemma distantly heard a voice, someone outside of this joined space, away from this protective fury, yelp.
Koba? No. Graham? No… Names and faces were fading again. Time was becoming a slippery nothing. Again.
She WANTED to keep her hold, but… No. Not at the expense of another. Never at the expense of another.

The woman knew she sounded crazy, she knew she was shouting without preamble or warning. But… the Anger of it all. It was so stupid! It was unfair! This girl didn’t deserve that! And she didn’t deserve to see that! Have it torn from a mind unprepared! This should’ve been a conversation!

In the ‘dream’, one of two minds raged. [MIND-SIEVE-COMMUNE] bloomed in the astral, weaving a shaky spell. Nerves and Aetherial [connections] spun a dream-catchers shape, laying intent and purpose down as easy as cards on a table.
Jemma forced herself past the uneasy feeling of ‘haven’t done this before’ and focused instead on ‘must do this now.’
She spoke again, through Umbri’s throat, as the spell slowly worked its way. Her voice, audible within the dream and without.
“[b][color=Crimson]Hey! Hey no! You’re okay! You’re not gonna die. It’s okay. You have yourself, now, and I’m out. It’s just muscles and nerves now, no minds. You’re okay. Breathe. Slow. I can’t and won’t do it for you. But you have to [i]breathe[/i]. I know you can. C’mon.[/color][/b]”
Jemma’s voice was [i]alive[/i] now. Lacking that clinical apathy. She laid out a rabbit-crumb trail. Led the little bit of Umbri’s psyche that she was willing to touch back to stability. ‘Come along, this way to calm again, this way to you disconnecting from me, disconnecting from you’, but with neurological action.

“[b][color=Red]We have to walk ourselves away from eachother. Okay? What’s happening right now, is I’ve disconnected the, um, memories. You won’t get dragged into yours anymore. Okay? It’s okay. I can’t just cut our connection, I don’t want to hurt you. So you have to calm down, and breathe, and ‘walk’ away with me. It’ll be easy! I [PROMISE]. Listen! Like this! You can do it.[/color][/b]”

Her own body abruptly hitched a breath, sucking air deep into her lung for a count of four. Holding it for a count of seven. Letting it go for a count of eight.
Repeat.
In for four. Feel nerves of your own tingle, muscles of your own shift under [i]your[/i] control.
Hold for seven. Let it ground and burn. Focus on the act. Bring it to yourself.
Out for eight. Let the fear and anger go, remember where you actually are. Unlatch your claws.

Oh. They were both crying. Ink. … Well shit.

Procedure complete. 
What a shit show.
And only in four minutes! That could’ve… gone so much better.
She needed to puke…