"Come on, cheer up." A voice calls out as its silhouette walked here and there with a set of metallic and dangerous tools around her limited surroundings. "You will be back in no time..."
As the silhouette was treating up the patient of its horrendous wound, Chau-Min was rushing here and there with supplies carried by her small petite arms that she had to hug tightly to avoid dropping it and contaminating it. To and fro from a cabinet towards a small surgical table, she placed the tools and arranged them properly and neatly.
"Doctor, are you sure, she will be able to revert from her corrupted form?" Chau-Min asks as she scribbles up some checks on her clipboard with multiple official medical documents. Making sure she doesn't tick up any wrong boxes, she scanned it with her accurate eyes over and over again.
"Yeah, she will be fine..." A voice replied hesitantly while its body carefully makes a careful cut onto the patient's body. Making sure the cut is perfect, her cheeks puffed in rosy red as her sweat dropped from her forehead as it dripped onto the bloody lab coat that was adorned by the silhouette. "...." She stayed quiet as a mouse as she slowly finishes her performance.
Chau-min in the meantime took a short break before picking up a phone that was latched beside the door on a wall. Lifting it and dialing a number that was written down on the clipboard for reports, she gave it a call up as she hears a static ringing in the receiver of the phone.
"Come on, pick up...Sherrinford, we need you right now..."
***
Sherrinford was patrolling the area outside of the embassy. As she gestured survivors and the hostages to enter a few vans to be taken to safety, she herself kept an eye on any Infecteds that were ready to attack her or the innocent people.
"Come on people, follow the line... come on!" As she shouted in her translation machine, converting her speech to German, she carefully watches any potential victims of the infection that may need to be treated of its virus. As she guides over time, she takes a break as a german soldier pat her back and asks her to shift places.
"Phew..." Sherrinford sighed out as she wipes her forehead from sweat with her creased handkerchief as she opens a fresh bottle of an ice-cold water bottle from a blue cooler brought in by a paramedic van. Sipping the ice-cold water and relaxing by sitting on a mildly broken chair, she looks at her electronic watch which gives out a hologram of the current time and any messages or calls she received.
Surprisingly to her, she received a couple of logs of missed calls from an unknown number. "Who is this..?" She questions as she then turns on the vibration mode of her communication microphone. Summoning Griffina, her contracted guardian, she waited for the crystal to glow as she held on to it with her free left palm that held the same watch on the wrist.
After some time of waiting, no reply from the call has picked up any acceptance of call as her guardian suddenly pops up in front of her who was a little curious as she made a gracious smile towards her.
"What's the sudden call-up, honey?" Griffina asks as she sat on the table in front of Sher, lightly floating to avoid putting an abysmal amount of atoms which could lead to the table breaking from her wing's weight alone.
A little surprised, Sherrinford held onto her chest as she coughs in panic. Sipping water and rubbing her torso, she swallows her second load, as she sighs and calms down.
"Jeez, you almost killed me." She teasingly told to her guardian as she chuckles for a while. "Anyway, I got some sort of emergency call from this line and I was wondering where was it coming from. Could you take a look? Maybe, you can find out who it was from."
Showing the hologram of the call log towards Griffina, Sherrinford waited as she held her wrist towards the human-like beast as she awaited an answer from her partner.
"Hmm..." Griffina hummed as her eyes reflected the hologram. As she calculates answers in her head and makes up an answer for Sherrinford, she stood still and tilted towards the screen as she hums a pretty little tune between bird tweets and a lioness simple runts. "Seems to be coming from a hospital."
"A hospital? Related to my family? Did they find out!?..." Sherinford starts to panic as she was worried she may pay up for the funerals for her "missing-in-action" siblings and mother which would cost a hefty price.
"Relax, Sher. It's from Lieutenant Chau-Min. Here, she left a voice message, do you want to hear it?" As she swipes the hologram and interacts with a few buttons, she activates the voice message from her inbox as it plays into the headphones of Sherrinford's communication headphones.
*Beep*
A voice cleared its throat in the speaker as it explained its reasoning for such a call that took quite a few times to receive. "Sherrinford! If you are listening to this. I may need some assistance from your guardian to help reverse some wounds! Get your ass here to the Weisenberg Hospital, behind the Ethiopian Embassy. Also, you cost me 20 euros for these stupid phone calls. Cat, over and out."
*Beep*
Would you like to listen to the voice message again, please press-.....
"Oh shit...It was Chau! Come on Griffina. We need to head there now. Grab your uniform and such, I will head there first." Switching off her wristwatch immediately, she then swings on her Submachine-gun as she puts on her blue beret, commonly used by the Dutch Military as a sign of graduation and gratitude to country and honor. Also, it was a gift from her father before he was never seen again.
As Griffina nods and disappears into a cloud of smoke and feathers, Sherrinford vaults over a few fences as a few exasperated German soldiers shouted at her in surprise. Shouting back her apologies, she points to the sign of the hospital, as she then runs through the crowd and squeezes through a few worried faces, before going through a narrow catwalk between the embassy and an unknown building, it looks to be abandoned due to its many wooden boards and rusted nails smacked into it.
Noticing some random homeless people untouched by the infected and sleeping on the muddy floor, she feels pity for them as she then unholsters her handgun as she notices an Infected alerted by her presence. Taking a few shots to its chest and then the head, she leaves the zombie-like creature to true death as she then kicks open a broken fence, which she was greeted by parked paramedic vans, many more fences and barricades, and as well some masked up faces as they look at her with their bug-eyed latex for face wrap.
"Oi?! Who the fuck are you doing, breaking about over barricades. State your business!" A masked-up figure asked as it held onto its assault rifle which was readily reloaded and pointed to her.
Raising her arms and her gun in protest of innocence, the partner of the bug-eyed soldier was pat on the back and was asked to lower the weapon as it pointed towards the badge of Sherrinford's shoulder which was part of her uniform.
"Oh Continuum? Is it an emergency?!" The bug-eyed soldier asks again as she gestures her to come to them.
"Yeah, I was suddenly called up by my subordinates to come here. I had no choice but to rush here, can I enter the hospital now?" Sherrinford asks as she holsters her handgun by her hip as she explains to them her reasoning.
"Ok ok, go ahead." The soldier replies as she lets Sherrinford skip through the barrier and into the hospital. "Careful of the patients!" The soldier warned as loud as possible in her limited oxygen supply in her respirators.
As Sherrinford wisped through many doors and levels, she finds the doctor's reception and asks them specifically for Doctor Chau-Min. As panic happened left and right as patients and victims cried as nurses and doctors did their best to treat everyone as fast as possible, the receptionist hurriedly wrote on a piece of paper the level and room of the place as she held a phone by her shoulder to her ear, as she was awaiting a call from another department for spare medical tools.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Smacking her hand onto the table, Sherrinford crushes the paper that was written as she shouts her thanks. Still sweating due to the heat she has to endure from the average summer temperature with her military fatigues, she used as much of her energy to sprint towards a staircase as the lifts were out of bounds, due to some sort of malfunction stated from a small yellow sign inked with red and black symbols.
Running up the stairs as she counted every white sign she passed which stated the level she was in, she starts panting as suddenly a figure appears up to her.
"Ahh!" Sherrinford screams as she trips and almost slips from the staircase. With minimal strength onto the stairs handrail, the person pulls her up with its wings as the being made a worried look.
"My apologies, honey. Almost killed you again...." Griffina replies as she laughs back at her in an embarrassed fashion.
"This time it is not funny. Anyway, we need to get to level sixteen fast, could you care to give me a lift up, I feel like dying here." Sherrinford heaves in inhalation for the suck of oxygen she can contain into herself.
"On it...!" Griffina screams like an eagle as she immediately wraps Sherrinford in her arms and whisks vertically upwards with a single span of her wing. Somehow breaking logic, Sherrinford was going through stairs after stairs through its concrete and metal furniture without even knocking her head.
Spotting the level they are in, Griffina immediately holds onto Sherrinford tighter as she goes through the metal emergency door which led them into the hospital's main room. "Hold on tight...This will be a little...scary."
"Wait, what do you mean by a scar-" She was suddenly zooming through rooms after rooms. Panicked nurses and passersby who noticed the sudden white and yellow being going past them, ducked in cover as they thought if what they saw was just a ghost or some hallucination.
"Sorry, excuse me... Ahh!" As Sherrinford covered her eyes thinking she was going to crash onto a random nurse, the flight was somehow stopped as the sound of doors opened by itself with the inertia of the wing's flap. "We're here...?"
Opening her eyes, she notices Chau-min who was raising her eyebrow in surprise as she held onto a tray with medical tools on it. "...." She stayed quiet as she notices her partner finally arriving at such a strange entrance as usual.
"Ugh, hi?" Sherrinford replies as she waves to them, as she was dropped down and carefully placed by her guardian.
"Well, finally you are here...Could you come and help me with this patient. The doctor can't do it anymore. She's over there crying if you are wondering where she is." With a spare finger, she points to the corner of the surgery room.
Poking their heads in, they notice a doctor weeping her soul out as her glasses were on the ground. Covering her face, she cried rivers onto her latex glove as quietly as possible.
"Owch..." Sherrinford replies softly as she sneaks in and commands Griffina to use her reversal magic onto the patient which had quite a lot of blood all over the room and wounds that were sewed as carefully as possible without any faults. "This is...."
"This patient is a doctor. She was attacked by William because she was keeping hostage of the staff in the embassy. Could you do something about the wounds? Before she dies, from blood exhaustion?" Chau-Min asks kindly as she places the tray onto the table and walks briskly towards them, watching as Griffina palms her hands over the wounds and chants softly some strange runic verbals, reminiscent of old guardian language.
Seeing the wounds slowly glowing in vibrant ochre yellow, she walks away as she heads to the doctor and calms her down. "We got help, the patient is safe. Enough crying, doctor."
Wiping her tears with her bloody sleeve, the doctor slowly reaches to her pair of glasses as she puts on them with her shaking hands. "Really, the job is done?"
Nodding with a smile, Chau-min moves to the side and sits next to the doctor as she shows her partner with her guardian friend finishing the job for the doctor. "My friends will help, just relax doctor. You did your best."
"They don't look like doctors though? The lady with wings over there, what is she doing muttering and leaving off a strange bright light." The doctor asked as she was sipping juice from her side pocket which held upon a drink sachet.
"Oh, they may not be doctors but they do have medical skills indeed. The lady there is a guardian. She has the ability to fix wounds swiftly with her "Reversal Magic"." Chau-min explains as she sighs and arches her back towards the wall, relaxing happily.
"Reversal Magic? Interesting. I suppose the wounds will just disappear as if it didn't happen, I suppose." The doctor replied. "If everyone had that power, that's basically just free insurance, immortality perhaps?"
"Immortality, I don't think so. Yes, you can fix back corpses and reverse them back to healthy form, but resuscitation has to be done manually. Had a patient once that was shot through the head. Head wound, through and clean the skull. Brains had turned mushy, but she somehow managed to fix them all up, fwup...¬" Chau-min explains as she jokingly cheers up the doctor with the story of how William managed to survive the gunshot from Rose and how he was able to survive after his coma.
"Wow...magic does break scientific barriers. If only we knew about these people way before technological rising. We could have made wonders even better than current technology." Eyes gleaming, the doctor stands up as she watches the patient cleanly healed with no wounds or blood whatsoever, even if the strings and clippings used for the surgery disappeared out of thin air.
Amazed, she claps in happiness and immediately grabs Griffina's hands and shakes it respectively. "Thank you, miss. Thank you!"
"Woah Woah, easy there doctor." Sherrinford shrugs as she moves to the side and looks at Chau-min, whispering "What is up with her?".
Shrugging and smiling innocently, Chau-min turns back as the doctor stops shaking Griffina's hand and smiles back at her.
"Your pleasure, miss Doctor. I did what I could best. I am glad you are happy. Your surgery actually helped make the recovery easier." Griffina explains as she calmly expressed her gratitude towards the doctor's careful skills.
"Much pleasure, miss." The doctor smiles as she looks at the vitals of the patient with the machine that was inserted into the wrist of the patient with surgical tubing. "She may need some rest, everything seems fine, for now."
As the situation was clear for the two, they excused themselves to take their leave and join up with their true team. Heading through a spiral of stairs, less tiring than actually going up, they then ran through a crowd of sick people as they knock up a Continuum van owned by the German Government. Asking the driver for assistance, they spoke in their translated german to give them a ride towards the Munchen Science Institute where the bunker was rumored to be.
Giving them the clear, the driver grunts and listens to the two as she starts the engine. Revving the engine, she then speeds off through the streets of Koln's last remaining town that was once peaceful. Full of gore, blood, and trashed objects, they drove through the debris of wood and plastic, as they then went full speed with an emergency in their minds.
***
A few hours later, in the back of the Munchen Science Institute were General Shriway and her assigned soldiers as they prepared a small communication booth for Demonica to use. Using quick-build DIY shafts and sticks, they pulled and screwed in every small knob before pulling a heavy communication device from Damonica's backpack and place it gently onto the table.
As Rampage and Specialist Bridgette set up the devices, General Shriway commanded the pilot to hold a spot for reinforcements to standpoint. Listening closely to her surroundings, she made sure her busy soldiers aren't attacked by an Infected that they had to go through during their dangerous landing among the garden trees.
"Alright, people. Take care of this place and make sure no Infecteds attacks around here. Maybe you can summon your guardians if you have one. We need all the support we need. This is our last job, maybe."
As General Shriway spoke in a rather mature and calm voice, she notices William who was a little sweaty and worried. Seeing through his body language, she can see that this may be the last for him for today and hopes all well will be done. At some times, she notices William getting a little too close with Doctor Parabel who was taken alongside for the mission as a support medic.
With small talks and quick actions, she accepts her team's finished phase one. Excusing herself to call up the support, the others prepared their equipment that was brought along through a container and made sure they had enough to last them for at least a few hours.
"Well, doctor, I suppose I may have to protect you like a damsel in distress." Teasing the doctor, William smiles at her as he manually reloads his assault rifle. His guardian crystals glowing, he managed to summon Sae-Yong and Beo as a substitute for Shin-ae since she is still in a rather corrupted state.
She was sent into the so-called Forest of Dismay for a cure-up and her physical body was latched upon and being tested by the Lead Doctor Welther and Scientist Major Augustina. The Forest of Dismay is strange in the guardian's realm where corrupted souls are sent for curing. They state that sending them there can either calm them down or cause them into a survival deathmatch for eternity. Whatever the case, they had to send Shin-ae there as her mother, Shimaya, had to take care of business with the government to solve some issues.
The parents, families, siblings, and friends of most of Continuum's members were safely transported to safety bunkers as Infecteds were separated and tested on for a cure. Easily curable, they had to make sure the Virus didn't strike a certain phase which unfortunately issues a shutdown of termination for the poor victim.
"I am sure she can handle herself, boy." Bridgette laughs as she pats William's back hard. "Tell me, you are much of a womanizer, aren't you?"
A little reddened, he looks at her with a confused look. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, look here. You communicate with mostly women and most of them get attracted to you. You must have some sort of charming secret yes?" Teasing him some more and smirking, Demonica watches as she adjusts her communication device.
"Could you quieten down abit? I am trying to adjust the frequency." Demonica complains as she holds onto her headphones and turns a couple of knobs on her radio.
"Well, someone is already jealous. Alright, enough joking." Calming herself, Bridgette became serious and more adult-like in her behavior as William chuckles and shrugs his shoulders towards Doctor Parabel who was giggling to him and Bridgette for the strange conversation.
Love birds aside, there was only one thing to do now. The end of the ruins. The rise of hope and the acquittance of desolation. Now, is THE war. The War of the Two Kinds.
The war among Humans and Infecteds, Purity versus Corruption. Allies and Axis.