Special thanks to pastellisse because she's such a sweetheart and is so fun to fangirl with~
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Chapter One: Lily
Breathe in; breathe out.
"Hey, Zack?" You asked him as you carefully stripped him of his armor. The button on his suit had gotten jammed, so you had to remove the plates manually. The bloodied and misshapen pieces of steel were a bit difficult to peel off, as they weren't made for being broken easily. But Cloud, Ven, and Roxas all pitched in to help you take the pieces off while Yuffie wiped blood off of Zack's face and body. It was only when his armor was fully removed that you saw that pieces of shrapnel were sticking out of his pale body in some places.
"Remember how you told me that I'd be calm if someone came in with a bullet lodged in their chest?" You laughed bitterly as you discarded the last piece of his armor. "I could really use that sense of calm right now."
If Zack were conscious, he would've told you not to worry, and that you were going to be fine. He would show you his perfect pearly whites and reach up to ruffle your hair, no matter how much it hurt him. He would tell you that it was okay, and then joke about how STELLA would give him a prosthetic leg, and maybe even plastic surgery to restore his former "good looks". He'd ease your tension in a second.
But he wasn't conscious.
"[Name]?" Cloud snapped you out of it, and when you looked up at him, you saw your emotions mirrored in his eyes.
"Sterilize your hands first!" You slapped Roxas' hands away as you saw that he was trying to poke at one of Zack's many wounds. "All of you. Go grab some medical gloves, masks, and two bottles of Isopropyl alcohol for us to use. You guys shouldn't even consider touching a wounded person's body and helping out with a surgical procedure without sterilizing your hands and putting on medical masks."
You sighed while pinching the bridge of your nose, then grabbed your surgical eye loupes and turned the light on. You placed the battery in your pocket then received your gloves and mask and put them on.
"...Well?" You stared at the four before you, who just put their gloves and masks on then stood there, looking at you until you gave them further instruction. "Do you guys not know how to sterilize?" You were so stressed that you were snapping at all the little things that they were doing incorrectly, but you were only acting that way to cover up how nervous you felt.
"Hey, you're the medic here, [Name]..." Ven said, shrugging.
You rolled your eyes, uncapped one of the bottles of alcohol, then poured a generous amount of it over both of your hands and shook them off.
"Hey [Name], I think you forgot to put in his IV and hook him up to the vitals monitor," Cloud noted once you all had sterilized your hands. You nodded at Yuffie absentmindedly in response, silently asking her to get an IV for you. You began to feel even more nervous- how could you have forgotten to put in his IV and turn on the monitor? You chided yourself as you wrapped a tourniquet just above his elbow. Your movements were shaky even as you hung the IV bag on the pole, and when you actually poked in the needle, you almost missed his vein, which caused Yuffie to give you a sympathetic look. You grabbed the wire from the monitor and turned it on, then put the pulse oximeter on the pointer finger of his left hand and watched as the display blinked and came to life.
Temperature: 82.4˚F
Blood Pressure: 100/80
Pulse: 52 bpm
Respiratory Rate: 17 b/m
Not very good, but could be worse, you thought to yourself as you looked at his vitals.
"...How did this happen?" You asked, trying to control your breathing as you brought out your sutures, scalpel, clamps, hooks, scissors, bandages, and forceps.
"Impact grenade," Roxas muttered. He seemed angry, stressed, heartbroken, and frustrated all at the same time.
"Wh-what?" You asked, almost dropping your tools. You regained your grip on them and focused on getting the pieces of shrapnel out of his cuts. "Who launched it?"
"No one," Ven hissed, rubbing a bit too hard on the place where he was cleaning up Zack's blood.
"Cloud, be a dear and hold the wound open with the hooks, will you?" You nodded in the direction of your tools and waited for him to position the hooks before you started to go into the cut and examine the damage. "And what do you mean?" You asked while carefully placing the extracted piece of shrapnel on the tray that Yuffie was holding for you.
"It was a little kid," Roxas muttered. "And if you think Zack looks bad, I don't think you want to see Riku. We dropped him off to Aerith before coming here."
"...I don't get it," you said while suturing his wound. "What did the little kid do?" You dismissed the part about Riku, because you felt like you would throw up if you talked about him.
"Please, [Name]," Cloud said. "I'll help Ven and Roxas explain everything later. Just please focus on Zack."
"But I want to know!" You snapped, actually making one of Zack's wounds worse by partially jerking a shard out of it on accident. "I..." Your voice broke. "I need to know. Please."
Yuffie placed a hand on your shoulder comfortingly, and slowly took the forceps from your hand. "Should I get Demyx?"
"No," you said a bit too harshly. "I've got it."
She sighed and reluctantly gave your forceps back to you, and you finished removing the stubborn piece. "I know this must be hard for you, [Name]," she said softly.
"I'm used to it." You fed her the usual bullshit you told everyone else while you motioned for Roxas to hand you a clean damp cloth so that you could clean the wound before you closed it. It was larger and deeper than the previous one, so you made sure to pay it extra attention.
"Bullshit," Ven muttered under his breath. "Anything you need me to do right now, [Name]?"
You paused, your eyes falling on the large gash on Zack's thigh. "Get me the vial with the yellow solution in it from my cabinet in the next room. I need to do a split-level thickness graft over that... cut on his thigh. Grab the one with the green liquid in it as well. His vitals may drop even more while I conduct the procedure. Also, grab one of my dermatomes, which are on the third shelf down in the cabinet underneath the sink. Then get the meshing device, which looks like a small cream-colored printer. It should be right behind the dermatomes."
"Got it." He left the room just as you dropped the last piece of shrapnel on the tray. You moved to focusing on suturing the wounds and dressing them, and were surprised when Cloud started to wipe your forehead.
"Wha-" You started, but were cut off by Cloud.
"It's my job to take care of the surgeon, too," he said, giving you a weak smile.
"God," Roxas groaned. "Get a room!"
"Now's not the time for that," Yuffie chided, whacking Roxas on the back of his head.
"Yeah, whatever," Roxas muttered. "I was just trying to ease the tension in the room."
"Thanks," you said, giving him a small smile. "And Yuffie, you need to go re-sterilize that hand. Now."
She scowled slightly, then placed the tray on the table. "Fine..." She sulked, and then walked into the next room to grab new gloves.
Ventus came back with the machine, dermatome, vials, and syringes in his hands, and you silently thanked him and took them from him once you were finished bandaging the wounds.
You placed the meshing device on the table behind you, along with the dermatome and vial with the green solution in it. You drew some of the yellow liquid into the syringe, then took a deep breath as you prepared to inject it into his deltoid, as that was to be the donor site for the skin graft.
You exhaled slowly as you injected the liquid into the muscle, and Cloud wiped your forehead again.
"You guys can go wait on the couch in the waiting room," you said. "Thank you for your help."
I need to finish this alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"[Name]!" Roxas cried and sat up as soon as you stepped into the waiting room. Cloud blinked tiredly and yawned, and gave you a small smile. Ven was sound asleep.
"How did it go?" Cloud asked, tapping his brother to wake them up.
"Good." You plopped onto the couch and put your head in Cloud's lap. "I'm so fucking tired. And where's Yuffie?"
Roxas reached over and removed your surgical glasses of your face and chuckled slightly. "I can tell."
"She was deployed to Olympus about an hour and a half ago," Cloud said, taking your glasses from Roxas and setting them on the nightstand. "She was running late and left against her will, but Lightning's in her troop, so she knew that if she didn't go then she would be six feet under." He paused, then asked softly, "Will he heal completely?"
"If the graft adheres, yes," you said, yawning. "He'll have slight discoloration on the area of his thigh that I had to put the skin graft over, and also on his right deltoid because that was the donor site, but unless he goes streaking, strips off his shirt, or wears a Speedo, no one will notice."
"I just heard 'streaking' and 'Speedo'..." Ven muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Hey [Name]! You're done!"
"Yeah," you said, laughing slightly.
"You look so sleepy," Ven muttered. "Let's go nap together."
"No thanks, Ven." You grimaced, then whispered, "I could go to jail for that."
"Hey!" Cloud said, whacking the back of Ven's head and flicking your forehead.
"Ow," you said, rubbing your forehead. "I was just poking fun."
"Yeah," Ven said. "Besides, I'm pretty sure the pedophile thing only applies to men."
"Guess you attract the young ones," Cloud said, smirking.
"Ew, no!" You covered your face with your hands. "You're making me sound so creepy, dude. You guys are all younger than I am."
"Wanna get dinner?" Roxas asked. "I think you could use it, [Name]. You were in there for a while."
You checked your phone, and saw that the time was 1833Z. "Sure, I haven't eaten anything since this morning. Cafeteria?"
"Yeah."
~~
"So tell me exactly what happened in Arendelle," you told Ven and Roxas once you were done eating your [favorite food]. "Since Spiky here made me wait until after the surgery."
"You would've gotten distracted," Cloud said, shrugging. You just rolled your eyes at him, then raised an eyebrow at the twins as if you were urging them to get on with it.
"...It was when we just finished fighting off the Darkness," Roxas muttered bitterly, setting down his sandwich. "Or at least we thought we were finished. We should've had our suspicions about it, because the towns were cleared in less than an hour, which caused the Queen to tell us to join the celebration ASAP."
Ven played with his hands. "We shouldn't have."
It was all fun and games at first. There was an ice rink outside that Queen Elsa made by using her powers, and within the castle was a huge buffet line with every food and dessert you could think of. After we all gorged ourselves with food, chatted a bit with the citizens, and tried our hands at ice skating, a bunch of the villagers' children came up to us with homemade necklaces and put them around our necks. We should have been skeptical when we realized that all the villagers stopped crowding around us and ran away.
There was one little girl that still had yet to give her necklace away. She looked to be around seven or eight, and had her long chestnut-colored hair in a braid down her back. She wore a knee-length white dress that had little flowers along the hem of it- I knew what the flowers were, but couldn't name them at the time -and on top of that, a brown fleece jacket that, unlike all the other children, she had buttoned up all the way.
Zack, being the charmer he was, went up to her and asked what her name was.
"It's Lily," she told him with a hesitant smile, and it was then I realized that those were the flowers on the hem of her dress. "Thank you for all your hard work."
Zack smiled at her then said, "That was my mother's favorite flower." He then asked if "such a beautiful maiden" would be so kind as to give her necklace to him. She smiled widely, put her necklace around his neck, then jumped on him and clung onto him like there was no tomorrow. We all thought was cute... until the grenade exploded.
I just remember hearing screaming, and seeing the once clear and bright ice turn a sickening crimson hue. The little girl's body lay mangled on the ice; yet she was still clinging to Zack. Her jacket and dress were stained red, and her torso was split about a quarter of the way through. Zack's armor had taken most of the blow, but he was still in horrible shape. Chunks of his armor had been blown off, as you could see, and we already knew that pieces of shrapnel had imbedded themselves in his body.
While we were all distracted, one of the fathers attacked Riku, who had been so nonchalant as to not be bothered to activate his armor at all. It was the worst mistake he could've ever made. He was down on the ice in a second, which was strange because he genuinely looked like he was in pain. He was clutching his stab wounds, trying to stop the bleeding, when the other parents decided to join in the fight. They kicked him; punched him; slashed at his body until you couldn't even tell that it was really Riku any more.
It was horrifying.
We had to fight like we'd never fought before. We had always known that the Darkness liked to stay in the shadows and be inconspicuous, but we never expected them to attack us quite like this. We couldn't even tell who was really going to attack us or not; who was pretending or not. It's always been against our moral code to attack citizens, but we were just so confused and so frightened that we didn't know what to do.
We disarmed the people who charged at us, and used stun guns and icers instead of real ones. Once we had gotten through all of the hostile villagers, the others ran away and we got to pay attention to Zack, Riku, and Lily. The thought of such a young girl's parents letting her or maybe even forcing her to sacrifice herself like this made my stomach churn.
We picked up Riku and Zack, and then I pressed the emergency button on my suit to notify that we needed a gummi ship to pick us up, and fast. I wanted to take Lily with us, I really did. But I knew it was too late for her, for she was just a child.
I threw one last scornful look at the castle, and saw the Queen looking at me from her window. What kind of ruler was she? I thought to myself. She just let her people fight, and watched an innocent child die.
Our eyes met, and she bit her lip as if she were about to cry. She bowed her head, and then shut the curtains.
"We came back here around 1632Z, and saw Cloud waiting for us at the docks," Ven said, poking at his pasta, which was now cold. "He helped us bring Riku and Zack in, and told us to drop Riku off to Aerith since she was on the third floor and he was in the worse condition, and we brought Zack to you." He paused. "...That's about it."
You were speechless. "I... I thought Arendelle was one of the good worlds?" You said. "Does that mean we can't trust any of them anymore?"
"I don't know, [Name]." Roxas shook his head. "But I don't think STELLA will be recruiting any new sixteen year-olds anytime soon. Who knows who's been corrupted or not?"
"To think that they would just use a child like that!" You were suddenly very, very angry, and slammed your fist down on the table. "It's not fucking fair! Why couldn't her parents have done it themselves, huh? Hidden the goddamn grenade themselves? Had it explode on them? Why their poor, sweet little daughter?" You hid your face in your hands, and fought back a sob.
Nothing was fair nowadays. Nobody could live peacefully. No one could have a normal life anymore.
But then again, it wasn't as if anyone even knew what a normal life was.
"Do you think we should check on Riku?" You asked. "Or do you think he's not even done being treated yet?"
"I don't know, [Name]," Cloud said. "You heard what the boys told you back in the surgical room. He looked even worse than Zack did."
You bit your bottom lip. "What exactly happened to him?"
"Numerous lacerations, broken bones, major blood loss, bruises, and he was really pale and his temperature was freezing," Roxas told you, his eyes never once leaving his plate. "It was so bad, [Name]. The only reason why Ven and I weren't totally drenched in blood when we came to you was because they let us clean up before we landed. He kept groaning and hissing in pain, and we were all so worried because, you know. Soldiers' bodies had all been genetically reprogrammed to heal faster, be practically numb to pain after about six months of the initial treatment, and the one thing that all STELLA workers have in common: immortality. It just didn't make sense. Riku's been doing this for as long as Cloud has."
"It can't be..." You muttered to no one in particular. "No, that's something only a STELLA operative would know about..."
"What are you saying, [Name]?" Cloud asked you. "Let us in on it."
You shook your head slightly. "I-I can't. I don't know much about it myself, and I don't want to lead you in the wrong direction."
"C'mon," Ven pressed. "Tell us."
"No. At least not until I know all about it. Plus, I've already sworn to secrecy."
"Bo-ring." Roxas rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "You even built up the mood by being all suspicious and stuff."
"Guys, I really can't tell you." You pursed your lips. "Don't soldiers get let in on stuff that they can't tell medics?"
"So what I'm hearing is, you won't tell us unless we tell you a soldier's secret?" Ven smirked at you. "Quite the bargain, [Name]."
"Oh, shut up." You rolled your eyes. "I'm not going to tell you."
"But-"
Just then, your phone started beeping, and you held up a hand while you fished it out of your purse.
"That's weird... it's an unknown number." You slid your thumb from the left side of the screen, answering the call. "Hello?"
"Can I speak with [Name] [Surname]?" It was a man's voice.
"This is she." The boys gave you a weird look, and you pressed a finger to your lips.
"This is Rufus Shinra," the man said, and your eyes widened.
"I'd like to meet with you immediately. How about dinner at Victoria & Albert's?"
"I-I..." Your mouth hung open. Victoria & Albert's was a five-star restaurant located in the one world that was off-limits to all STELLA and Darkness personnel: Disney World. Only the people who had so much money that they had no idea what to do with all of it had the privilege of living there, or even going there.
"Hm, not really to your tastes?" He asked. "How about Cítricos? A bit of Mediterranean cuisine."
"Mi-mister Sh-"
"I got it! How about we meet at Ariel's Grotto in Atlantica? I think I'm in the mood for some seafood."
"B-but I..."
"So it's settled, then? I'll send a car for you to pick you up and send you over to my private jet so that you won't have to ride in one of those dreadful gummi ships. No, that wouldn't do. Be out in front of STELLA HQ by 2000Z."
You gulped. "A-alright." It was the first time in the entire phone call that you actually finished saying what you wanted to.
"Oh, and, Miss [Surname]?"
"Yes?"
"Wear something simple, like a tank top and some shorts. I'll bring an outfit for you to change into, and my assistants can do your hair and makeup on the plane."
"Okay. Goodbye, Mister Shinra."
"See you in a bit, Miss [Surname]."
The dial tone played as the line dropped, and you just stared at the three before you.
"Well?" Cloud spoke up. "Who was it?"
"...Mister Shinra himself," you said in disbelief. "The man in charge."
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~*~Alistair's Dark Corner~*~
I know this chapter is a lot shorter than the prologue (which is actually really sad), but I thought I'd cut it off here. Please let me know how you like it so far; a little comment goes a long way. (:
I actually put in a lot of research for the skin grafting and surgical procedure, which is the primary reason why this took this long. >.< But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, so I just hope that you guys like it as well.
Vote/Comment/Follow/Have a great day/night <3