Author's note: Happy 2019 Everybody! Well it's official, this story is one year old today! And now for the moment you guys have been waiting for, what is going to happen to our beloved Meghan Castellano? Enjoy.

What Will It Take?

Chapter 19

Her eyelids were unbelievably heavy, she noted as she struggled to open her eyes. It took her an incredible amount of willpower to return to her senses, although it felt like she wasted it all when she finally made it. A never-ending void surrounded her, almost as if she remained with her eyes closed, although she knew for a fact that was not true. The whole atmosphere made a chill run down her spine, making her entire body jerk.

"Hello?" She dared to utter a sound, her voice echoing through the infinite.

She waited for a response, but nothing came.

She tried to step forward, only to find out that she couldn't move, as if boulders had been tied to her feet, she looked down, but couldn't even see her own feet.

"Anybody? Where am I?" She asked as desperation begun to take the best of her. She's been hardened by battle, but this was a first. She tried raising her feet, but nothing, not matter how much strength she'd put into it, she didn't move an inch.

Again, no response.

She tried to look around for anything, any sign of life. Nothing, she couldn't even see her own hands right in front of her, there was just a never ending world of nothing. She wondered what was going on.

She tried to reason her way out of there, but nothing in her mind could come up with an explanation as to what was happening to her. She couldn't help but panic, her mind going into overdrive.

"Someone?! Anyone?! What's going on?!"

It finally dawned on her, she was alone, she wasn't in control, she was at fates whim. She realized that she was feeling something that she had never felt before. Helpless. She was completely helpless and alone.

"Is anyone there?! Anyone!"

Silence. Deafening silence.

"Ela?! Eliza?! Monika?!...Lena."

Nothing. They would not hear her cries. They were really gone, or more accurately, she was gone from them. She couldn't help herself as she laid down on the floor, pulled her knees to her chest and curled into a ball, and cried. She cried as she could do nothing but accept her fate. "Someone…please."

"Hey kiddo." An alien voice broke through the void, ringing her ears in full volume, as if it was right beside her.

She immediately sat up and looked around for the newcomer, disappointed at not being able to see anything at all again; no matter, she wouldn't miss that voice anywhere. "Dad?"

"It's been a long time, Meghan…"

Meghan was taken aback; her father had been killed fifteen years ago when she was still a teenager. If he was talking to her now, did that mean…

"Dad, where are we?" Meghan asked.

She gasped as her father suddenly appeared out of thin air right in front of her. "Don't worry about that."

She took a while to process it all, ending with the conclusion that all of this must be some sort of hallucination; she had nearly forgotten about her history with the latest events in her life. Nevertheless, her long lost father was standing before her, looking the same as the day he left, father she had missed so much. It was all too real to be just a mere hallucination. "Dad.."

"It's wonderful to see you again sweetie." He said with a smile. "You've grown so much."

"I can't believe it, is it actually you?"

"Yes." He took both of her hands in his. "It's me."

Meghan was overwhelmed by an incredible amount of relief and happiness that she got to be with her father once again. Although she wanted to savor that moment for as long as possible, she couldn't help but be worried by all the circumstances surrounding their meeting. She was worried, she's still got to see Eliza, Monika… Ela. Meghan still had unanswered questions. "Dad, what's going on, where are we?"

He gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid I can't answer that."

"What? Then why are you here?"

Her father chuckled, "To see you of course." He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "I'm so proud of you, Meghan"

She returned the embrace as tears began to flow again, that had been a normal recurrence lately, she noted, "I miss you so much."

"I miss you too, and your mother."

"You know she misses you as well."

"I know. I love you both very much, ah, and I'm happy for you and Ela, too," he said through a gentle smile.

His comment caught Meghan by surprise, who leaned back off the embrace to see her father's figure a little bit better "You know about her?"

"Of course, I've been watching over you since I left. I think you picked a good one this time."

She cringed slightly. "So, you know about the other ones as well?"

"I'm not here to judge." He laughed.

It didn't take more than a split second for her to be reminded about the green-haired girl. Talking about her relationship suddenly caused her to remember what happened back in Honk Kong. She let go of her father so she could look him in the face. "Wait! Ela, is she okay?!"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that either." He looked at his watch. "Looks like we're out of time."

"Out of time, what's that supposed to mean?" Meghan demanded answers.

"I love you kiddo, and I always will. And again, I'm very proud of you." He slowly started to fade.

"Wait! Please don't leave me here!" She begged.

"Give my regards to your mother." He said, ignoring her plea, only to vanish completely.

"Dad, wait!" She shouted at the void again. "Did I at least push her out of the way?! Is she safe?! Dad!"

It was too late, he was gone, and she was alone again. Not only did she get no answers, but now she had even more questions. "Please, don't go," she weakly sobbed.

Out of nowhere, a small light had manifested and caught her attention. It was only the faintest of glows, but it still stood out in clear contrast to the darkness that surrounded her. She tried to get a better look at the strange new phenomenon, only to be reminded that she still couldn't move from her spot. It seemed like that wouldn't be a problem however, as the light soon began to grow. She noticed that it was slowly getting bigger and brighter. As it grew, it seemed to be pushing the darkness away, and she could begin to feel its warmth. Soon she realized that it wasn't stopping, it was growing so bright that it was now blinding. She could barely look directly at it now as it engulfed everything, including her. She didn't feel fear or helplessness, but instead felt peace as it washed over her and she fell into its embrace.

Her eyes twitched as they slowly opened; the blinding lights above her being difficult to adjust to. Except that wasn't the omnipresent light she's just been engulfed into, these were… ceiling lights? "Where am I now?" She thought. "And why does everything feel numb?" She noticed that unlike before, she could now barely feel anything or even think clearly, and she was still unable to move, although she now felt too weak to even try to. At least she could see.

She strained to move her head to look at her surroundings. She quickly assessed that she was in a bed of some kind. As she looked to her right, she saw a bunch of machines displaying all different kinds of readings, the most obvious of which was a heart monitor. Only then did it finally dawn on her. "Of course, I'm in a hospital." She once again took notice of how she felt numb and figured she was on some kind of medication. "Did I really get hit that bad?"

She looked over to her left, and was greeted with the most precious sight she had ever seen. Ela was sitting in a chair with her head resting on the edge of the bed, fast asleep. It looked like the poor girl had tried to stay up all night before succumbing to exhaustion. Meghan noticed the bags under her eyes and the vague remnants of dried tears on the girls face.

She ran her fingers through her girlfriends hair, at which she slightly stirred and let out a small moan. This made Meghan smile as she ran her fingers again and cupped the girls cheek. This finally caused the girl to wake. Ela drowsily lifted her head, still half asleep, she lazily opened her eyes, upon seeing Meghan's eyes staring back at her own, all sense of tiredness disappeared.

"Meghan?" She said, almost unable to believe that she was actually awake. A wave of emotions hit her all at once. She wanted to say everything, and yet, she found herself unable to say anything, her voice completely eluded her. She mirrored her girlfriend and cupped her cheek as well, both simply thankful to be in each other's presence, knowing the other was alright.

"Are you okay?" Meghan asked, her voice hoarse.

Ela let out a small laugh. "You're the one in the hospital bed and you're asking me if I'm alright?"

Meghan smiled back. "I wasn't sure if I pushed you away in time."

"You did." Ela's smile faltered. "You idiot." She moved the oxygen mask away and placed her lips upon Meghan's.

"I'm glad you're okay too." Meghan said after they had tried once again how much time they can live without oxygen being an issue before parting with a gasp. They both missed that feeling greatly.

"Oh." Ela looked down at the floor and kicked something. "Get up."

After a few seconds, the red disheveled hair of Eliza popped up into Meghan's view, still clearly sleep deprived. Like her girlfriend, seeing Meghan awake woke Eliza up better than any amount of caffeine. "Meghan!" She immediately got to her feet and wrapped her arms around the blonde.

The shout was so loud that it shocked Monika out of her sleep. She also popped her head up and noticed her friend had awaken. "Gott sei Dank."

"Nice to see you two are okay." Meghan said as she hugged Eliza back.

"You had us worried there for a minute." Monika said.

"What are you talking about? We knew you were going to be fine." Eliza replied.

"Sure you did." Meghan smiled. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"You should be thanking Gustave." Monika pointed out.

"And Ela." Eliza added. "For bringing you back and whatnot."

"Bringing me back?" Meghan looked at her girlfriend questioningly.

Ela was hesitant about telling her, getting chills from just thinking about it. "Your heart stopped. I performed CPR until it started again."

Meghan grabbed her girlfriends hand. She wasn't sure how to express her thanks, but the look she gave Ela told her everything that words alone could never say.

"I almost lost you." Ela felt like crying, but there were no tears to be shed anymore.

"But I'm still here. And I don't plan on going anywhere." She gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

"I-I'm glad." Ela managed to crack a smile.

After a moment, Meghan finally asked the question that had been plaguing her mind since she woke up. "How bad was it?"

"A-are you sure you wanna know?." Ela asked with uncertainty; she knew Meghan valued her own physical condition, she was proud of what she had become. She wasn't sure how she would react. "I mean, you're still under treatment and all, w-we don't know if anything's going to change."

"I want to know, Ela."

With a sigh, Ela looked down to the ground; there was no easy way of saying that. "Your left leg took the hit. The explosion tore your artery and you nearly bled out."

Meghan tried to recall the incident, she remembered seeing the bomber and grabbing Ela, after that it was all blank. "Wait! The femoral artery? That could mean…"

She attempted to lift the blanket off of her to see her wound, but Eliza immediately shot forward, grabbing her hands. "Don't."

Meghan looked back at her friend, fear in her eyes. "I-I'm going to lose my leg. I-I can't lose my leg!" Her voice bounced around the walls as genuine fear plagued her vocal cords. They were taken aback, there never was an instance in which they saw Meghan like that - afraid, truly afraid about anything.

"You're not going to lose your leg, Meghan." Eliza tried to reassure her friend, "For now, just be thankful you're still here, with us." Eliza looked at Ela and gestured at her, "With her."

Meghan breathed, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. It was difficult and took her a while, but calming down was probably the best thing she's done so far, now that she managed to think clearly. She opened her eyes, meeting Ela's own gazing at her. Yes, if there was any feeling that should remaining in her, it was gratitude. She grasped Ela's hand again. "Thank you for being here."

"I'm going to let Gustave and the others know you're awake." Monika said as she stepped out of the room.

"Hurry back babe." Eliza said as she blew her girlfriend a kiss, causing the German to roll her eyes.

"So how did the rest of the mission go?" Meghan asked.

"It went well actually." Eliza answered. "We defused both bombs and got both Irvin and Norman out. They're going to be okay."

"Nice. So it was a success?"

"As successful as it could have been."

"That's good to hear." Meghan was relieved to hear that no one else had been hurt. She looked back at her girlfriend. "It looks good on you by the way."

"What?" The Polish girl asked. She followed with her eyes the finger that was pointing to her neck. "Oh." Ela realized what Meghan was referring to, and began undoing the shemagh. "Sorry, Gustave gave it to me and-"

"No." Meghan stopped her from untying the fabric. "I think it looks cute on you."

Ela blushed at the compliment and retied it around her neck. "It helped me actually."

"With what?"

"I spoke to them last night, all of them."

"You mean?"

"Yes." Ela smiled. "And it went really well."

"See, I knew you would be fine."

"Um, what are you two talking about?" Eliza asked, confused.

"It's a long story." Meghan said.

"Well, we have plenty of time."

"I guess if Ela's okay with-" Suddenly Meghan's entire body seized up. Her breathing became erratic, her grip on Ela's hand became so great that it began to hurt.

"Meghan? Meghan!" Ela called her girlfriend's name but she was unresponsive. She pried her hand out of Meghan's and grabbed her by the shoulder's, trying to figure out what was wrong.

"What the hell is happening?!" Eliza asked.

Meghan still wasn't responding, Ela looked up and noticed the readings on her heart rate and other vitals were going crazy. "Get Gustave! Now!."

Eliza, not wasting another second, bolted out of the room, hoping to find their doctor friend, or anyone who could help.

"Meghan," Ela tried to comfort her girlfriend. "Hang on, Eliza's getting help." Ela was starting to panic, the SEAL was just fine a moment ago. Now every muscle in her body was had tensed, her breathing was quick and panicked, and her heart was beating so fast it seemed like it was going to explode. To top it all off, Ela was absolutely powerless, she wanted to try anything to help the girl before her, but she knew that no matter what she tried, she'd just make things worse…

Just like everything else, she thought. "Just hang in there, please," the Polish girl said as she squeezed the blonde's trembling hands.

None of that mattered, as it all stopped, just as suddenly and unexpectedly as it started. Meghan finally relaxed, her breathing had calmed and after a couple of beeps, the machine indicated that her vitals stabilized. And to Ela's relief, she became coherent again. "What the hell?"

"Meghan! Are you okay?" Ela asked, taken aback by what just happened – she had never seen someone recover from a seizure that fast.

"That…felt…amazing." The blonde responded.

"What?"

"I feel great, for some reason… I feel like I just did a line of coke, but without the side effects." She responded, feeling rejuvenated, as if she was suddenly capable of conquering the world all by herself. "What the hell was that?"

"THAT, was medical science… pushing its boundaries." The two female operators turned to see a panting Gustave beside with Eliza. "Damn, you're too fast," the Frenchmen commented as he walked up to the bed to shook Meghan's hand. "I'm happy to see that you're awake."

"Thank you for helping me, Gustave," Meghan shook Gustave's hand hard, clearly watching as he squinted his eyes in their little impromptu showdown – he was impressed at how she was still so strong after being in bed for so long, "Now, mind explaining to me what just happened?"

"Sorry, I was hoping that you would have woken up earlier so I could warn you, but that doesn't matter anymore." He scratched his head. "The medical procedure that was done to you is highly classified. However, since it's about… yourself, and that you weren't even awake to give consent to it, I feel like you deserve to know everything."

Uncertainty plagued the three women around their resident doctor, his words weren't the most reassuring thing they had heard from him – and that meant something, as Doc was known to be a bit pessimistic.

"I have two colleagues, that I cannot name just yet, who have developed… well, a new kind of technology." He continued. "Nanobots. Tiny robots, thousands of them each the size of a human blood cell, coursing through your veins. That surge you just felt was them activating. Their purpose, to heal all minor and severe injuries to the body, efficiently and quickly. Major wounds, like your leg will take some time, although they'll decrease drastically how long it takes for it to heal. The real deal is when it comes to minor wounds," He removed a couple of layers of the bandages that covered one of the smaller cuts on Meghan's shoulder, "those are healed instantly."

The three operators looked in awe as the cut that was previously there was now completely healed, not even so much as leaving a scar. Meghan peeled off several more bandages, yielding the same result. "That's incredible! Why were you so apprehensive?"

"Because I don't trust a robot to do a human job. How do we know it will do what we want it to do? What if there's a malfunction in the programing, what if it cuts a vein instead of regenerating tissue? The only way we would even catch it is when the patient had already bled out. And in case it falls into the wrong hands, there's no telling the damage they could cause. In my opinion, this crosses a line man was never meant to cross."

Meghan couldn't help to feel concerned as she reminded herself that thousands – if not millions – of nanobots were now treating her instead of Gustave, she wasn't thrilled with the idea of tiny malfunctioning robots killing her from the inside out. All they could do was wait and hope for the best, as even their resident doctor was powerless, a mere spectator.

"But, credit where it is due." He continued, hoping to cure Meghan's fear. "Your procedure is going exactly as planned. Your wounds are healing as well as we projected and we're expecting you to make a full recovery. And yes, that means you are keeping your leg, and its full range of motion. But just a heads up, they will surge like that every few hours for the next few weeks."

"What's going to happen when I'm fully healed?" Meghan asked.

"They will automatically shut down and your immune system will take care of the rest. The white blood cells will then collect them and flush them out of your body naturally."

"This whole thing sounds creepy if you ask me." Eliza commented.

"I agree, however, it was a necessary procedure." Gustave explained. "The fifty-fifty odds I gave you last night…well, they weren't working in your favor."

"You mean…" Meghan began to ask.

"Yes. It looked like we were going to lose you, again." Gustave answered. "I may not see eye to eye with my colleagues, but without them, you wouldn't have made it through the night."

That last statement really hit everyone hard, realizing just how close they were to losing Meghan.

"You pulled through in the end." Eliza pointed out. "That's all that matters."

"Yes." Ela agreed. She kissed Meghan on the lips. "I still have you here with me."

Meghan kissed her back. "Yeah, you still have me." She looked back at Gustave. "So what happens now?"

"I've declared you medically stable and thus, cleared for travel. In a few days you will be flown back to England to make your full recovery."

"Sounds good." She looked at the three of them. "Where's the rest of the team?"

"What do you mean he's not here?!"

"I mean he's not here."

Isaac and Kowalski were walking through the theme park. The cleanup crew and investigation teams had worked tirelessly through the night investigating what exactly had been going on here and more importantly, find Peterson.

"That's not possible, nobody left the park, he was definitely here when the raid took place." Isaac reasoned.

"Maybe he ran off while the raid was happening, it was chaos after all."

"No. The helicopters had specific orders to look out for anyone attempting to escape through the jungle, they were even equipped with thermal sensors. They reported no one even tried to escape, they all made their last stand here."

"Well, he escaped somehow."

"Are you sure you looked at all of them."

"Ugh, yes." Kowalski answered, irritated that his friend couldn't just take his word. "We spent all night looking at every single one, we even brought back most of the operators to help. Even though they should have been resting like they deserved."

"And you were able to do a facial recognition on all of them?"

"Well there was one guy who had his skull smashed in, and another who was blown up into about six different pieces, but yes, all of them came back negative."

"Are you absolutely sure?"

Kowalski had enough, and he snapped at his longtime leader. "Look, if you want to see for yourself then by all means go ahead!" He gestured towards outside, specifically at the rows of body bags that lined the courtyard. This mission was hands down the bloodiest that Rainbow had ever conducted, and it weighed heavily on some. Enemy or not, it was difficult not to be disturbed by the amount of dead bodies.

Kowalski walked off, while Isaac took a moment to take in the sight. He was so obsessed about getting results that he never really noticed the aftermath. After a moment he turned and caught up with his friend.

"So how do you think he got away?" Isaac asked, finally accepting his results.

"Honestly, I have no clue." Kowalski answered.

"Six isn't going to be happy about this."

"We're not totally out of luck yet." He reassured, "We still have the one we managed to take alive."

"Right." Isaac remembered the man that Frost had knocked unconscious, "Think you can get him to talk?"

"Here's the problem, they're all fanatics, I doubt we'll ever get him to talk. Not without breaking the Geneva Convention."

"I didn't say anything about the fucking Geneva Convention. Can you get him to talk?"

Kowalski stopped and looked at his friend, "Definitely."

"Thank you."

With that, the two men parted ways to take care of business. Isaac walked into one of the multiple tents they had set up around the main building. There he saw his other colleague. "How's it looking?"

McConnell looked up at him with a smile. "It's all here." He gestured to the table in front of them. On it, multiple pieces of circuitry were laid out on display.

"All of it?" Isaac asked.

"Got the schematic right here." He gave Isaac the piece of paper. "Every single component. Granted some of them have a bullet hole in them. But yes, all of it is right here."

It was the radio that Isaac had briefed the team about before the raid. Echo team had managed to successfully recover the piece before the enemy could get their hands on it.

"Where did they find it?"

"In the jungle, about a hundred yards from where Norm and Irvin were posted." He pointed to the spot on the map. "It seems you were right, they were too focused on them to realize what it was. In fact, they probably didn't even notice it was there."

"So, just to clarify, our communications network?"

"Still secret, accessible only by us." He smiled.

Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, at least that's one crisis averted."

McConnell noticed the stress Isaac was under and decided to try to cheer him up. "Hey, it could have been worse. I mean, yeah we didn't get him, but we still took their headquarters, raided a bunch of their supplies, and inflicted who knows how many casualties."

"One hundred and seventeen." Isaac pointed out.

"And even thought the investigation is still going, we can already draw one conclusion. If this is where they set up their main base of operations; this filthy disgusting abandoned shit hole, then they must be hurting. No matter how you look at it, this was a huge victory for us, and a devastating blow to the White Masks, and it's going to be hard for them to recover. And at what cost to us? Three wounded, all of which are expected to make full recoveries, a damaged helicopter and a broken radio." He put his hand on Isaacs shoulder, "It could have been worse, man. A lot worse."

Isaac didn't say anything, but he took his friends words to heart. McConnell was right, they had won this fight, and nothing could change that. All that was left was for them to wait for Peterson and the rest of his goons to show their faces again. They would definitely get him next time.

He took one last look out into the theme park, noting the destruction and the teams of people working tirelessly to get every bit of information out of the place as they could, making sure not to waste this victory. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

Author's note: I can't believe it's already been a year, and twenty chapters since I started this story. I originally started writing as a new years resolution and I'm happy to say I kept it and I'm still going. I'm also glad we get to celebrate the new year with a new chapter, and the final chapter for Act 3. Don't let that statement fool you, we're not done here, not by a long shot. Whether you've been following me since the beginning or since the last chapter, thank you so much. You guys are awesome and I can't thank you guys enough for making this one of the most popular stories in the fandom. Like always, a special thanks to RStyle for being my beta reader. As always, I hope you enjoyed and feel free to leave a review. Until next time.