Trusting You: Chapter Three: Preparations

Ivy watched as Markel grasped a syringe in his gloved hand. She swallows hard as the light reflected off the needle's surface. The syringe itself was empty, though the fact did very little to calm the young woman's nerves.

"Could you, maybe, tell me about what you're going to be doing as you prepare?" Ivy asked, hoping her voice wasn't shaking.

"You have an interest in medicine?" Markel questioned, arching an eyebrow at the woman on his table.

"Somewhat. It's sort of a distraction, more or less. My doctor back home would talk with me to keep my mind off what's going on,"

"Ah, I see. Vell, I vill do my best to distract you, zen. Right now, I am going to start by drawing a sample of your blood, after zat, I vill perform a standard exam,"

Ivy gave a small nod, chewing on the inside of her lower lip. She averted her gaze from her left arm to the metal of the table to her right as she felt Markel grip her arm. The needle sharply pricked her arm, and it burned a bit as the empty body of the syringe filled with the sample of her blood. Markel carefully removed the needle and covered the wound it left behind. The man then set the vial aside, and began to prepare for Ivy's exam.

It was a routine exam, just checking reflexes, breathing, heartrate, and various other things. The off putting silence would occasionally be broken by Markel's narration of what he was doing, simple phrases, but nothing much more than that.

"It vould seem zat you are very healthy," Markel said. "Zat is vonderful, it vill make zings far easier coming up," the German stated, his lips curling into another sinister, devilish smirk. "If you vould lay down, zere are a couple of zings I need to do,"

"Um, okay," Ivy reluctantly replied, laying down. The young woman winced as the bright surgical lamp overhead was turned towards her chest, causing it to flash in her eyes for a second. Her obvious nerves came through as she spoke, while Markel brought over the small table of surgical supplies, "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, nothing major. I vill simply be putting a device on your heart zat vill allow you to take and withstand the Medigun in battle, and I vill also be putting a chip in at zee base of your skill to allow for you to go through respawn," Markel stated. The tone he used was very casual as he spoke. Far too casual for what he was going to be doing.

"Um… Shouldn't I be asleep for this, or something?" Ivy questioned. Even without any medical training, she knew that this sounded like a very major undertaking, regardless of what the German doctor said.

"Don't you vorry, I have done zis for every person on zee team. It is perfectly safe," he told her, expecting it to reassure her that she was going to be fine.

That was not very reassuring, in all honesty. As Markel began to draw the incision guides on her chest, Ivy forced herself to remain as still as she could. She watched as the German slipped on a set of red gloves and picked up a syringe.

"You vill be under a strong pain killer, though," he told her, just before delivering the dose to the young woman.

For a short moment, the site of the injection stung and burned, but she soon began to feel the effect of the medication. She lay her head back as Markel picked up a sharp scalpel from the table and got to work. The young woman could only vaguely feel the occasional tug at her insides, though she really couldn't tell what was going on inside of her.

'All the better that I can't feel it,' Ivy thought through the haze of the medication. 'This'll be over with soon enough, and after this job, this stuff'll be taken out, you'll recover, and get back to work.'

It was barely an hour later that her chest was being sewn back together. Ivy took this as a chance to take a look at what damage had been done. She was left with an angry red mark along her chest, with expertly made stitches holding the skin together. At this point, she noticed a device mounted to the ceiling, a device she could only guess was the Medigun that she had been told about earlier.

Markel flipped a switch on the device and turned to prepare for the next operation. The device overhead softly whirred to life as a pinkish-red beam flowed from it and around her chest. The surgical wounds began to heal, as Ivy felt a subtly warm, somewhat calming sensation. After a short moment, Markel had turned off the Medigun and gotten Ivy to sit up so that he could get the respawn chip implanted into her head.

This took far less time to do, as he only needed to make a small cut to get the small chip in, along with a total of three small stitches to close the wound. After another quick minute with the Medigun as her German comrade cleaned up, Ivy was able to get herself put back together behind the curtain.

"Zere, now at zis point, you vill be ready for battle come Monday. We have mandatory weekend ceasefires, and as today is Friday, and battle has already wrapped up for zee day, you vill have two days to prepare," Markel told Ivy as they made their way back to where the others were still socializing.

"So, how'd it go?" Robbie asked, being the first of the men to notice the pair enter. Ivy couldn't tell if he was being genuinely curious, or if he was intending to be sarcastic. Luckily, the team's Medic answered before she could say anything.

"All preparations have been made. Everything is in place come Monday's battle," Markel stated.

"Seems all there is to do now is to get acquainted, and for you to settle in," Dell offered, with his calm southern drawl. All the others nodded in agreement, though the statement really hadn't been necessary.

'Well, here we go. No turning back, now, Ivy. Let's get this going,' Ivy thought to herself. She had to go through with her assignment, now. Even though she hadn't had a choice on it in the first place, she could've found some way out. Not now, things were on their way to being done, and the young woman was along for the ride, whether she wanted to be or not.