Polaris Garden

Chapter Eighteen: Coming Back To Life

Noise filled the halls of the bustling hospital station as Achlys made her way past room after room, cold determination guiding her every step. She scowled, ears drooping at the volume of the actions surrounding her, unused to such clatter and chatter in what was beginning to come off as a crude and undisciplined facility. To think she'd been here almost an hour, weaving her way about as she mentally mapped out the facility, brought upon nothing more than pain and excitement -- pain for the time wasted, and sheer excitement for the moment she'd leave such a disgraceful hunk of metal behind, never to look back.

This is only going to get worse, she thought as her gaze shifted from room to room, The moment any chaos breaks loose, this is going to become an absolute Noise Hell...

She marched down the hall, doctors passing by oblivious to the Eshekkan protogen among them - despite having been seen, they thought nothing of her presence.

Or her making passive glances at their clipboards as she passed by, for that matter.

Jay certainly thought nothing of it, looking at a hologram of a clipboard as she passed by. The violet cyborg only quirked a brow at an unfamiliar, silver-colored doctor, but otherwise thought little of them. There was nothing unusual about a doctor being in a hospital, after all, and it was high time for someone to take her place in monitoring Hera-Hes.

"... Newbie, if you're lost, Hera-Hes is only three more doors down," Jay spoke up, "... But don't worry. We all get a little disoriented here at first."

Achlys nodded with a grunt before snapping her gaze to the door the doctor referred her to, focus shifting entirely onto it as her feet found themselves redirecting her onto a new path. A grin slipped onto her face, and she slipped into the room as another familiar face made his way to the door. Stopping her motion, Achlys gave an awkward smile to a blue and white protogen who stood before her. Jora quirked a brow as she gave a small wave.

"Hi, hi! I'm Doctor Achlys, just here to watch over the patient!" She squeaked out in a desperately sweet tone of voice, "Hera-Hes, yes? This... is her room? I'm awful new around here, so..."

Jora nodded with a slight shrug, patting the stranger on her shoulder as he stepped around her.

"She... seems alright to me," he said, making his way out of the room, "But thanks for looking out for her. She means a lot to me."

Achlys nodded, finding a seat to kick back in, facing the four-armed feline patient while being just out of sight of the door's window. For a moment, she just smiled at the unmar in silence, a peaceful look to the eyes on her visor as her target watched on in confusion.

"... Is everything alright?" Hera-Hes asked, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as the room began to feel more and more silent.

The silence, for the catlike creature, was growing at a rapid pace -- soon, she could only hear the breaths of the strange doctor sitting across from her and the ticking of a clock. Achlys seemed calm, her expression unchanging as she tapped a panel on her him, opening up a small hatch.

"Absolutely," Achlys' words rolled out of her mouth as her pleasant smile twisted into a sickening grin, her hand sinking into the compartment to retrieve something. Hera-Hes focused on it, her eyes glinting with a golden light...

"... Hera-Hes, ma'am, I know what you're trying to do," Achlys said, lifting a small pistol out of the compartment, "But will your Echo really be able to do much? Let's be real, here."

Hera-Hes frowned, eyes having burned away the illusion -- before her was an Eshekkan assassin. In her hand, a pistol, disguised as a pen by an Echo to fool onlookers.

"Coming back to life, in more ways than one... I always wondered why you'd name your echo that. Weird, really, but I guess it was a touch of foreshadowing," Achlys grinned as she rolled out more words, "Where the truth was killed, you revived it... That's what I always thought it was meant to be, no?"

Hera-Hes nodded, but before she could speak, a burst of heat came from the pistol, scorching fur and flesh, melting it away as the air escaped her lungs through a newfound hole. The unmar's eyes went wide as she hopelessly gasped for breath, watching Achlys slowly stand up and pocket the pistol. The assassin shook her head, giving a deep sigh as she took out a camera from the hatch on her hip.

With a flash of light, she pocketed the device and went through the door, leaving the room behind her utterly silent as the Unmar's vitals faded for the last time.

Nols' terminal blinked, playing a small tune to wake him up with a slight jump as he straightened up his position. While slouching over one's desk for a nap is far from professional, when one holds such a lofty title, they can lose care about such trivial matters -- as Nols had done a healthy amount of time ago. Grumbling, he tapped the monitor to see what had been sent to him, only to smile at what he'd found.

REPORT FROM UNIT: ACHLYS

ASSASSINATION SUCCESSFUL

EVIDENCE ATTACHED

Gently nodding, Nols clicked the attachment, only to blink in bewilderment at what he'd seen.

Before him was not the intended target, but someone else -- an unmar with a hole melted through their chest, staring at the camera in horror as blood and slime that had once been flesh and bone oozed from the sizable cavity that now made itself a comfortable home in her torso. This wasn't just any unmar, though -- it was Hera-Hes.

The one who was supposed to have been killed in that raid he'd requested in his sector. The one who fell before they could return the results of their studies to the Unmaratan Union.

The one he never knew got away.

A smile stretched on his face as he typed a reply...

Achlys, sweetheart, I'm proud of you. You've done an excellent job, and I'll make sure you will be given a reward upon your return. However, your mission is not over, so please don't forget. We need Bain taken care of, as well! Otherwise, this mission will have to be marked as a failure.

We don't want that, now, do we?

I'm so proud of you. Nols.

Today, it seemed, was a good day to be Nols.

However, Banco was less than pleased as a strange, silver doctor grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him into a janitor's closet. Finding a pistol pressed against his throat was far from anything he'd ever wanted to experience, let alone from an otherwise ordinary looking doctor.

"... You're not Bain," Achlys started, her threats rolling off her tongue not unlike a hiss, "But I know you've been sticking near him. What room is he in?"

Banco scowled, shaking his head in defiance at the stranger, even as she pressed the gun closer into his neck, causing a short, ugly, gasping hrrk to emerge from him as he glared at her in fear and hatred.

"Why should I say...? If you're really... supposed to be there... Then you should already know!" Banco gasped, his body trembling as he stared death in the eye,

"You're... You're not a doctor, are you?!"

He called out, as loud as he could. Hopefully, someone would hear, investigate, save--

The door opened, bringing light into the room as Jora stood in the doorway.

"... What's--" He began to ask, blinking.

"... So what's why you dragged that guy in here."

He awkwardly stared at Achlys, who returned his utterly dumbfounded expression in a moment of stunned silence. His eyes slid down her face to her shoulder, gliding down her arm and into her hand that held the pistol at another being's throat. His surprise soon grew into disturbed horror as he lunged forward, grabbing the arm.

The only thing anyone heard was something heavy collapsing in the Janitor's closet as he made his attack -- and not the silent gunshot that followed...