The words settled heavy in her chest.
It should've felt like something greater, like ownership, like identity, like the smallest reclaiming of something once lost.
Instead, it stirred nothing but a pale smile and a dull ache beneath her ribs.
Myrae leaned back in the chair, hands folded behind her head, eyes tracing the fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling like they held answers. For a moment, she was thirteen again, listening to her younger sister write names into the dirt behind a shattered wall.
Naming was sacred then, everything you gave a name to, you owned, and she owned too much already.
Still, the words came with clarity. Two of them, unearthed like bones washed up on a beach.
Speaking quietly she muttered,
"Specter's Lens, and...Ashlight."
Hana blinked once, as if surprised by the sudden seriousness in Myrae's tone. Then she typed something into her slate, nodding.
"Okay lets see, Specter's Lens;
The passive affect of the growth seems allow layered vision and psychic field detection, that sound good yo you?"
Myrae simply nodded as she continued,
"Alright then next up is Ashlight;
The active abilitiy allowed by fusion, A complete Resonance nullifier with a relatively short range of approxamitely 8-10 meters. Perfect. Those will go on your file."
Myrae didn't answer. Her familiar shifted beside her, small claws scraping softly against the leg of her chair. She reached down and scratched the back of its malformed head.
Hana stood from the desk, stretching her back with a tired groan.
"That concludes the onboarding seesion. You're now officially a Rank I Field Bleeder. Assigned tag: 639-B with a primary Growth capacity of Howlseed."
"Your file will be circulated through requisitions, tactics, deployments and all other relavent operation databsses by sundown."
"Congratulations, You're finally seen as a real person again, please report to the medical office immediately, then head to
debriefing chamber 14."
Myrae simply stood without saying a word and nodded as she expressionlessly left the room.
It took some time for her to find her way around the halls of this facility, with every person she passed only giving her quick glances before moving on with their duties.
*The people here are definitely more... polite than those from the Scarfront, that's for sure*
When she finally found the medical office she was not expecting what she saw, their figures where hidden behind a curten but their silhouettes were clearly visible with the noise being..unmistakeable.
One of them was built like a shed, a towering figure seemingly of pure, defined muscle and short hair moved back and forth as the other, smaller in comparison simply seemed to just be laying there unmoving.
Myrae quietly closed the door most of the way behind her as she stepped out of the room before knocking on the door as loud as she could, causing the noises to stop suddenly and a flurry or hurried whispers to rush forth as she spoke.
"Hello? I was told to come here after my onboarding session, if your busy I can come back later if you'd li..
She didn't even get to finish as a person opened the door and rushed past her, before her an extremely tall bronze skined amazonian built women standing close to 7ft tall, with buzzed black hair and Hazel eyes, her body suit cropped to expose as much muscle as possible.
*Damn*
She watched as the giant ran away before disappearing into the labyrinth of hallways, with the door wide open she could see the lone figure inside.
A middle aged man with dark grey hair was sitting on the edge of the furthest bed, his features were sharp with a thin beard lining his jas, his hair was a mess, flowing lossly down to the base of his neck he reached around and tied his hair into a high ponytail before turning to face Myrae, the far side scared with a series of lines from above his eye to his lip.
His eyes were warn and kind, a brilliant storm grey looked at her as a warm smile stretched across his face as he spoke;
"Ah, so your Bleeddr Myrse aye? I heard you might be coming today, sorry got the delay, the previous patient required some... additional attention on my part ya see."
Chucking to himself he continued
"Please come in and lay down will you, any one of the beds are fine, I'll get to you shortly."
He hurried along to the other side where he started to deaech through some drawers.
Myrae chose the closest bed to her and sat on the edge, it had been quite a while since she'd last been in a hospital room, the last time...
Shaking her head to be rid of any un-needed thoughts she simply sat there and unconsciously hummed, now that he was standing Myrae could tell the Doctor was about as tall as she was, maybe a little taller but not by much. Seeing that there was over a foots difference between him and the amazonian made her chuckle a little.
After a few minutes he walked over and placed a number of different tools on a nearby stand.
"Okay all ready, just a quick physical look over and an implant procedure and you'll be good to go, shouldn't take more than an hour or so."
Myraes eyes went wide as she heard the second part and an expression of concern painted her face,
"I'm sorry, but did you say something about an implant?"
"Well of course, it seems Miss Director forgot to mention it again, ya see each Bleeder is given an implant to help both them by providing real time updates to their abilities and allowing for the identification of growth types and level of resonance from them."
"As well as providng that data to people like me you see, to make sure any unatural changes are recorded and looked into as soon as they return from the field."
"No threat though, I've done this countless times, now let's start these tests shall we."
The whole procedure took only about an hour and a half itself. The doctor stood back with a metal tablet in hand and began to read off her notes,
"Everything appears to be in order, the main areaz are all in healthy ranges, ya blood has come back clean, AB- not the least common but at least worth a mention by my standards, height was between 5ft 10"-5ft 11", and I know better than to mention the weight."
A awkward smile appeared across his face,
"Also please be careful ya hear, the implant takes some time to settle so it won't be functional straight away so take it easy, your now free to leave whenever you wish."
She didn't stay for much longer, she rubbed the back of her neck where her implant had been placed.
She walked down the sterile halls of the complex, trying her best to create some kind of mental map of the place but she was't even sure how to begin, there was just so much, too much, and she had more important matters go be attending too at the moment anyway.
Finding the right room wasn't so hard, not because she finally figured out how to navigate, no, but because it was the only one that could be heard from two hallways away, she sighed inwardly as she opened the large metalic door infront of her.
The sight infront of her was not what she was expecting, there were a few human and non humanoid figures in the room already, two stood near the front with their backs, to the door whilst the other five duos formed a crude semicircle, behind them each shouting at the person seemingly in charge.
Myrae recognised the lone person standing as the women she saw hurriedly leaving the medical bay she visited earlier. With the only difference being the coloured bands wrapped around both her wrists and head, and the large bloodied panther sitting by her side.
Both of her arms where fitted with yellow bands, each with cloth dangling further down, around her, whilst a navy blue headband was fitted comfortably across her head.
The other five humans were still shouting at their commander, failing to recognise Myraes presence as they continued,
"..you said you would be back quickly Samara! We we've waiting for over an hour!"
"We were all meant to be here ready for the new arrival, and you barely show up yourself!"
"You weren't gone so long because you were spending time with Doctor Gehry again were you?
The comments continued for a few more minutes before Samara shouted out,
"Okay Okay I get it, I fucked up, now let's quiet down and at least try to look professional, we wouldn't want to scare of another new recruite now would we."
Turning quickly she continued to speak,
"They could be here any minute now so let's try to make a good first impre..."
The words died on her lips as she saw Myrae standing behind the rest of her team, trying her best at holding back a laugh.
Samara's eyes twitched as she saw the young women standing there,
*How long has she been standing there? How much did she hear....well shit, there's goes a good first impression.*
Watching their commander with confused looks the members of the squad slowly turned to look behind them.
Their eyes landing on the young women with a weird bat like creature clinging tightly around one of her legs.