The Adventures of the "Four Muskytears"

🪄 Oblivion [4/8] 🪄

69's POV:

The moment my visor lit back up, I was surprised to see that were in a veterinary hospital.

My lights shifted back to their normal cyan blue, complimenting the calm white of the medical bay we were in.

Stick sat next to me in an office chair, typing something into his personal laptop.

Jester stood beside a patient's bed, silently gazing down upon whoever was on the mattress.

I had a good idea on who that was.

Standing up, I walked over to the bed, being careful not to accidentally touch one of the several monitors that were tracking vitals.

"She's under anesthesia." Jester whispered as I gazed down at Polar's tiny, shredded-up form, holding back tears.

The shapeshifter had only been in this world for fifteen years.

There was a chance that she would never reach her sixteenth.

According to the doctor, who Jester took some notes from, Polar was in critical condition and was immediately taken into surgery.

When that serpent attacked her, it nearly ripped her apart.

However, what kept her together was her frigid body.

The water around her froze when she was severed in two, acting as a protective barrier to prevent any more damage.

The only downside was that frostbreath had somehow leaked into her entire circulatory system, forcing her body to shut down.

Polar had frozen herself, and we knew no ways to thaw her that wouldn't take her life.

That was, unless Jester worked some sort of miracle.

"Yeah yeah, I'll fix her up..." The masked man said, reading my mind while simultaneously trying to fight his grief. "It'll take a few hours, though."

When I blacked out, Jester had sailed back to Port Starboard, an archipelago just off the coast of Key West.

He hauled Polar to the nearest hospital and got her patched up from there, and took her here to recover for now.

Such a gruesome incident doesn't deserved to be described.

She was immediately wheeled into the operating room, with several surgeons (including Jester) had to work their magic on her.

Apparently, Jester couldn't heal people very well with his divine power. He could fight just fine, though, that's for sure.

When Polar finally got out a solid twelve hours later, she was a wreck.

Several monitors were stationed by her patient bed, each one attached to a limb or two.

Patches of her delicate fur were shaved off where operations had taken place, giving her the appearance of a disheveled stray dog,

Her claws were nearly torn off; gauze wrapped around her limbs like the ivy on a medieval castle wall.

A ventilator was installed beside her, practically the one thing stopping her from asphyxiating.

Stable, but a wreck nonetheless.

I stood beside her on the bed, my eyes trailing across her flanks and towards her tail, which was motionless and wrapped in a cast.

"She can't even wag her tail with excitement anymore, like the puppy she was." Jester sighed, turning away from the bed. "Man... This is..."

"Terrible." Stick finished for him, his tone serious. "She'll be okay though, right?"

"Heck yeah I will be..." A raspy, faint voice came clearly from the patient on the bed.

Shocked, I stepped back a bit. "Polar! Hey, go back to sleep! You gotta rest, kiddo."

She groaned, and to my surprise, ripped the ventilator off of her snout. "Ugh, rest this, adventure that... I'm alive. I'm not in some
stupid-coma-thing-whatever. The surgeons don't know I'm a shapeshifter, shh."

Extending a bandaged paw out toward me, the shapeshifter gently brushed her paw pad against my visor. "Did I worry you guys for too long...?"

Her cutthroat facade had clearly faded from her face, giving way to a soft, fragile appearance.

I don't get emotional too easily, knowing that we couldn't do anything to help her...

"Yes, you did." Stick murmured, spinning his office chair toward us. "Doctor said you had hours left to live. Can't you just shapeshift into a new form and heal that way?"

Polar shook her head, closing her eyes. "It works a little more differently than that. When I-"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

Jester turned to face it, putting his hands in his maroon hoodie pockets. "Come in."

The knob turned, and the door creaked open to reveal a person in a white lab coat, almost identical to Stick's.

He had long, russet-brown hair, evergreen eyes, and a solemn expression on his face.

I assumed he was the surgeon who took care of Polar.

"Welcome back, Doc." The engineer said, addressing the newcomer.

I warily cocked my head to the side, assessing the person. "Who are you?"

He crossed his arms. "Dr. Pine, Polar's surgeon who pieced her back together. I have some news."

Gesturing for us to follow him out the doorway, I hesitated for a moment before stepping out after him.

Once we were outside, Jester closed the door behind us, the sterile scent of the hospital flooding my senses.

Everything, though it was quiet, was loud.

The faint beeping of monitors echoed through the halls, as well as ventilators fighting to keep patients alive with artificial breaths.

Fluorescent lights flickered ahead, illuminating Dr. Pine's figure as he began to speak.

"Want the good news or bad news first?" He asked, eyeing the three of us.

Stick sighed. "Good news, please..."

The doctor nodded. "Polar will make it."

My visor brightened. "Really?"

"At a cost," Dr. Pine added in, pulling out a notepad and reading a page. "She will be trapped in a vegetative state. Polar won't be able to-"

"UGH. C'mon, get the bear and let's get out of here!" Jester groaned, abruptly casting his arm out and making one of his signature portals.

Dr. Pine's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, what in the world are you all doing?!"

"Your MOTHER!" The masked man yelled back. "69, the heck are you waiting for?! LET'S GO!"

He threw himself through the rift, leaving Stick and I to deal with the bewildered surgeon.

"I too, have no idea what's going on," I came up with, looking at the portal. "But one thing's for sure- We can't have any witnesses."

Stick whirled around, wielding his steel staff and slamming the blunt end into the back of Dr. Pine's head, knocking him unconscious.

Polar burst through her patient's room, ripping off the IV cord and streaking towards the portal like a jet.

I glanced at Stick; The message got across.

We sprinted through the portal, closing it off the moment we had the chance.

Far from safety, we blindly came out through the other side, dropping directly into the unknown.