Medicine 104(Class/Open to Two)

Ishi looked good for once. He didn't look like complete garbage, had his tie on straight, and had his hair properly combed for once. Not sleeping on the floor tends to help things. Not sleeping on the floor, but on a bed, tends to correlate to good things when it comes to your spine. He looked in his mirror, took a second to make sure everything was right, and put on his winning smile. He had placed a note on the class door. Told them to come to this address.


He had simulators set up in a room that would really show what it was like to run out of time. To watch the fellow that you've been working on for the last four hours die right in front of you. Truly did suck when it happened, and if you hadn't felt the pain before, it hurt even more. He knew this feeling was something a lot of medics experienced on their first mission.

That's not where you want to experience it. You never want to experience it, but it's better if you do it in a closed zone.

Valerie looked at the scroll in her hand as she lowered it and read the address aloud. She looked up and confirmed the address as being identical to the address at the front gate of this manor. Manor? What? She questioned the financial implications of the educational profession for a short period of time, before pushing on the big metal gate and opening it with a metallic creak. It was September, so the trees lining the walkway were adorned by golden leaves here and there, despite Autumn not having officially come yet. She climbed a few steps, about 3 or 4, up to what she assumed to be the main doorway. Valerie looked for a doorbell... there is no doorbell. Why is there no doorbell? Instead of a doorbell, she noticed that the big metal loop on the door was movable and had some weight to it. She had never used one of these before, so when the massive banging noise came after she dropped it back onto the door, she let out a quiet "eep" in surprise. 'Why did it have to be so loud? That's way more attention than I like.' She thought to herself.

He heard knocks and figured that was the first student. He was going to teach these kids something, be it terrifying or not. He made haste towards the door and opened it to a girl about his size. That was certainly a surprise. Most women at this academy were shorter, and he had to admit, that made it easy to differentiate teachers and students.

"Heyo. Head straight down the hall behind me, end of the hall has a room full of helmets. There's chairs in there. We're going to use some fancy tech here."

He moved to the side to let the girl past. She was probably one of those people that had a lot of experience. That's one of the reasons why she was here despite him not seeing her before this. Once the girl was gone, he'd close the front door and meander over into the other room. Once inside, he took on a more somber not.

"Right. So. We're going to simulate something I hope never actually happens to you. A patient dying on the table and in the field."

Valerie walked down the hallway for a bit, noticeably distracted as she examined the bourgeois environment that she found herself it. She looked at a few of the antiquities and even stopped to examine the titles of one of the paintings on her way down. When she walked, the heels of her combat boots clicked and the noise remained for a bit afterwards, despite the thick carpet on the floor. The teacher wasn't lying either, helmets and chairs. She only assumed that she was meant to grab one of the helmets and sit in the chair, and did so to speed the process along. Upon sitting down she examined the helmet, rotating and flipping it, hoping to be able to fully take in every detail. She was roused from her examinations by the sound of Ishi speaking again, looking up toward him.

She looked back down at the helmet when he finished speaking. Valerie could only assume that whatever she was doing in there, she wouldn't know that it was a simulation, and that the experience would be fully accurate to the truth. She stared at her reflection in the helmet for a second before sitting straight up in the chair and nodding wordlessly to Ishi. She felt like the situation mostly spoke for itself, and it was best to play it out for now.

Ishi was in an odd position. Was he to wait until others arrived or start this terrible experience as soon as possible? He would have to ask this girl a few questions. Though they were to pass the time, they were questions none the less.

"Right. I'm not sure of your level of training. I'm sure your level of experience is somewhat high, but I should warn you. This simulations are quite realistic. I'm been in them once or twice to try and see how they are, and boy they are realistic. If it makes you feel any better, I'll even put my helmet on first."

He first grabbed a note he wrote and went back out to his front door to post it. It said, 'Walk down hall if a part of combat 104, if not, leave.'

He walked back in and wrote the instructions on how to wear the helmet and what they were doing on a piece of paper.

"Alright, it's time."

He shoved a helmet on and his body relaxed. He waited, within his own little zone, for her to start her simulation up so he could enter it as a completely inconspicuous individual.

Valerie listened attentively as Ishi spoke, and watched him as he left for a moment. She looked down at the helmet again and sighed as she continued to view her reflection in the helmet. She did question the safety of being essentially unconscious within the home of this man, but she figured that his if his credibility as a professor was worth much, that she was at least objectively safe here. Eventually, he did return and put on the helmet, completely zoning out and being rendered unconscious. She looked back toward the helmet and undid the bow in her ponytail, letting her hair fall freely and placing the helmet on her head, activating it in the process.

In a blink, the void was all that existed. Then through the void pierced some text, floating in the air about 2 feet in front of her. 2 words were displayed. "Doctor" over top of the word "Medic" and she assumed that this was a choice of which to do first. Reluctantly, she reached her hand forward, temporarily surrendering her memory of the given situation as she tapped the word "Doctor" and was plunged into a scenario with her in the OR, fully prepped for surgery and surrounded by assistants as she stood before an unconscious patient, still adjusting to a new reality.

He saw her session appear, and pressed on it himself. He had various choices of who to be, but he chose to be one of the young assistants helping this girl. He assumed the form of a young, brown-haired boy who was just there to help the doctor. He had to pretend he didn't have a bucket-load more experience then the lady. He was going to put himself in the mindset of what he should've been instead of his weird method of becoming a doctor.

He dismissed those thoughts as he saw a life-sized image of the woman appear where the doctor should be. He was to stay silent as the other people who were meant to help here were briefing her on the situation. He knew how this situation was to end. She also knew how this situation was to end. Even those with healing semblances sometimes had to face the fact that it wasn't always enough. That sometimes, people die. Sometimes you have no control over that.

While that was sad, Ishi had faced this fact a long time ago. He wasn't sure this gal had, but he hoped she would by the end of this simulation.

One of the first things Valerie noticed was a clipboard on one of the service trays. She read through it, giving it a brief once over. That's right, she'd been briefed and was just refreshing her memory. 'Deathstalker. Large gash on chest from right trapezius to left serratus anterior. Nasty bit, unknown if caused by claw or tail. Several ribs fractured. Blood loss unknown.' Anesthesia had been administered long ago, and transfusion was active and in progress. She began to work swiftly grasping for a pair of forceps and ordering the assistants to peel back the most anterior portion of the torn epidermis. The fracture had turned out to be worse than previously thought, just as Val's gut had told her when she was prepping and she was being forced to pick out bits and pieces of  the rib cage from the internal systems. She squinted however when she noticed something on the lungs themselves. They were both well adorned with several black stripes running in the same direction as the gash. Valerie worked to ease out the bone fragments faster, and ordered one of the assistants to gather penicillin and as much antivenom as she could fit on a single surgical tray, shortly after recognizing the signs of Deathstalker venom.

Ishi stayed silent. He was watching the student progressively do the work she was given, and without a single complaint. It was obvious to him this wasn't the students first rodeo. Far from it. Most kids would likely panic in this situation, but she was on point with her forceps and general commands. He had to admit, she'd make a good doctor when she were done with this.

He was impressed, in all honesty. She made him look like a scrub at half his age. He'd at least show some level of stress in a case as bad as this. She was just being a doctor at the finest manner of meaning. He watched one of the NPC gather the said drugs, and place them where they were easily reachable for the doctor. He knew that things were going to go bad, but not when. That was the question of the day. When were things going to go south?

The tray of supplies did come eventually, and she glanced at it after picking the last bone fragment that she could find free from the internal organs. When she looked down she grabbed a lone bottle of antivenom only to realize that it was only half-full. A case like this needed at least 3 bottles, instead she found less than a third of one. "Are you kidding me? This is all that was left?" Val said to the assistant that gathered the supplies.

"I'm sorry ma'am, this was a big attack." The assistant looked down at the patient on the table "He's not the only one that needed it."

Val stared at the assistant and then looked at the bottle shaking it again. She set it onto the tray with the penicillin as the patient began seizing ever so mildly on the table. "Take it back to the storage room." The convulsions got progressively worse, and some of the assistants were looking at Valerie to do something. There was literally nothing to do in this situation that she knew of, this patient was going to die. She took off the glove from her left hand and dropped it into the bio-hazard bin, eliciting some gasps from the others around the table. She reached for the anesthetic nozzle and cranked it up much higher and grabbed the patients hand. Her golden aura flooded over him and the gash in the chest seemed to knit itself closed over time. She held his hand tight and quietly shushed him every time he moved until eventually his breathing slowed and eventually stopped with a smile on his face.

Valerie twisted the nozzle in the other direction and removed the mask from the man's face as she combed his hair back with her hand. "You'd better get back to the prepping room everyone. This won't be the last patient of the night." She looked at each of the assistants and nodded before stepping away to remove her other glove and wash her hands in a sink near the door. Valerie took of her surgical mask as she reached for the door handle, and when she twisted, she was immediately sent back to the expansive void with the menu from before.

Well, she handled this well. He wasn't quite sure if she was the type of surgeon to cry later once they lose a paitent, or if they were just an emotionless type of person. Both happen in the medical business, him being a mix of the two. She even made sure that the man went out happy, and not in terrible pain. Integrity at her age at such a level was impressive. Ishi had to admit.

Though, Ishi couldn't ignore the fact that she was young and once the menu appeared for him as well, he forced a chat to open on her end. He then typed the words;

"You handled that with spectacular tact and integrity. Are you feeling okay enough to continue?"

Ishi might be able to come to respect this girl, even without knowing her name. That was the impressive part to Ishi, who didn't respect anyone or anywho because he had no reason to.

When Valerie had returned to this little void of hers, the memories had start to come back and everything started to make sense again. She remembered that operating room. That was where she was completing a portion of her training, but she hadn't been the doctor there, no. In fact, she recognized one of the assistants as being the actual doctor, the one that was running out to gather supplies. That had been her back then, and the outcome had been largely the same. Of course, the doctor hadn't had her semblance, but he had given the patient lots of meds to ease the pain and asked the assistants to be discreet, as well as telling them to prepare for the next set of patients. That night was long and included many cases just like that one without the supply to help them, and every time the doctor acted the same way. He was empathetic, yet objective, much the way a parent is. That doctor has been everything she is inspired to be in the medical profession.

Valerie had actually found herself focusing on that thought when the text popped up, surprising her and knocking her over as it had only been a few inches in front of her. She rubbed the back of her head as she read it and questioned how she was meant to send her response to him, so she tapped it experimentally opening the keys. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Thank you for your concern." She swiped the words away to send her response and tapped the 'Medic' platform, sending her back into a new world.

She was walking out a doorway into an alley, with her shield tilted and her handgun leveled on top of it to brace it more effectively. She was Valerie Marceline Fenix, a fourth year EMR trainee. This was a mission that all the first years had to take part in. A real scenario to give them a taste of what they'd be dealing with, and she was being evaluated on her leadership capabilities so she could move on to her final training. The problem was that she was supposed to have her other fourth years here with her and she had gotten separated and was left to take care of the first years in an area placed under faux martial law by members of an unknown militia. They were just supposed to get the civilians out safe, but her gut said that it wasn't going to be that easy.

Valerie gestured her trainees forward as she stacked up on the door to a warehouse of some sort. She pointed at a dark haired boy and gestured toward the door they needed to go through.

He was utterly impressed with this girl. He had to admit, that this girl had impeccable objectivity, and overall, accepted the fact that not everyone was going to make it. Most doctors, if they had a night like that was implied in that simulation, he knew they'd quit the day after. He wasn't sure about this one. This girl was a terrifying force of medical prowess with the perfect personality to handle loss.

He decided. He wouldn't insert himself into this next one, just watch. He figured if there were a thing to do, that'd be the thing. He was swiftly placed in a sort of bubble, that while walking around, he wasn't to be seen or heard in the slightest. He saw the woman, armed with shield or pistol. She made for an intimidating sight, and he had to admit, that she was probably the most competent woman he'd seen in the longest time.

He'd wait to see what she'd continue to do.

The young man nodded and kicked in the door with his rifle forward and the team of four flooded into the room, they checked corners and covered blindspots. The warehouse was pitch black, save for a small light shining through a doorway on the far end of the building, what Valerie could only assume to be a fire of some sort. The trainees all clicked on their flashlights and started scanning the room.

Valerie clicked the laser on her pistol off and lowered her shield down to her side. "Okay, look for survivors and stick together. The three of you know the protocol on room to room search, just stay safe." She spoke in a hushed voice that wasn't quite a whisper. "Radio me when the building is completely clear." After she finished, she started to walk off and toward the doorway that the light was shining through. She figured she should see i anyone was staying close to the fire in here, and if not she could at least put it out so no damage was done when the situation was resolved. Up reaching the door, she slowed her pacing a bit so that her shield would make less noise as she moved.

She placed her ear on the door, and did in fact hear some sounds of burning on the inside, but not much else. She rose her shield up and pushed through the door all at once. There was a gunshot and then the sound of a bullet dinking off of her shield. She clicked the laser on her pistol and aimed in the direction of the shot, spotting a blonde haired boy lying in the corner of the room. It was one of her teammates, grievously bleeding.
"Ormu!" she shouted, folding her shield and rushing to his side.

Efficient commands, she knew what she was doing. Eerily so. It reminded him of some of the assassins he used to work with. A hint of caring with that stern tone. She was all business, and he could respect that. She seemed an awful lot like a soldier. That's something that connected a lot of pieces for him. Even if it was just in personality, that meant a lot for a person to act like she did. He knew it first hand.

He couldn't think about acting like that these days. he had been softened up by too much. However, it seemed like she didn't. That was...mildly concerning actually.

Not that he cared of course.

Right?

He didn't care.

This woman was going to be a huntswoman, and that's what they had to be, impartial. That's how things were. He knew this. That was how things were. They had to impartial to not attract grimm. Negative emotion attracted grimm, and Huntsman and women couldn't have that.

In a flash Val had ripped open his shirt, not hearing a single word that her teammate and friend was saying to her. Her ears were ringing, no, not her ears. She could hear the words, but she wasn't processing them, racing along to examine Ormu's injuries. It was a lot to say the least, Ormu was riddled with rounds, too many to distinguish how many were individual right now. How he was still alive was a mystery, how he had gotten here even more so. How many of them had been there that his aura was broken like that? Without being able to radio for help too?

She saw a radio thrown to the side of the room, intensively damaged. How was she supposed to heal this? Way out here there were no medical supplies and her semblance could only do so much. Her ears were ringing. The world was in slow motion, there was only one sound that pierced through the silent loudness of her own thoughts. There was a single breath, and Ormu was gone. She looked down only to realize that he had been clutching her arm as his grip loosened, and the grim reality set in that not only had her friend just died in her grasp, but that she had not even heard his last words.

Her ears were ringing, dull piercing echoes of that last breath repeated over and over again. There had been two doors to this room, and the other one had just flung open with one of the insurgents holding a rifle, shouting something at her. How asinine... She gritted her teeth and with one shout of pure hatred she drew her pistol, as her hair and the air around her turned jet black. Her hair straightened, and she whipped the sidearm level with the man aiming the rifle. When she finally pulled the trigger, wispy black smoked trailed down her arm and followed the round out. The bullet smacked into her target with a concussive blast of that smoke and he went flying out through the doorway.

She dropped her arm, hand still on the gun and looked back to Ormu. There were tears on her face, but she didn't make a sound. She simply stared at him until her haze was split by the crackle of the radio.

"Ma'am, we have survivors upstairs in the offices. How copy?" One of her team spoke through it.

She wiped her face, and when she looked at her hand and saw that the black wisp had turned back into gold again. She grabbed the radio and stood up.

"Roger that. Check their vitals and look for injury, I'm on my way." She slid her handgun into the holster and glared at the man she had just shot for a moment before stepping out of the flame-lit room and into the pitch blackness of the warehouse, only to find herself back in the void, regaining her memories.

He understood the idea behind a sort of on and off switch that he had just seen. He understood how useful that was to a person of her, now obvious, profession. That was what made a person efficient, a field medic efficient. He almost wanted to laugh if he weren't so concerned. He knew the idea behind the on and off switch because he used to have it. It was something the mind did to adjust for certain things.

He used to be capable of it. He, however, got old and soft. This gal was neither old nor actually soft. This gal was the optimum hunter in his opinion.  Soft where they needed to be, but still ruthless in every combat endeavor. He didn't often get about doing things. The simulation shortly after ended, and he went into the little chat thing again.

"You're something scary. You're also the optimum hunter. I'm thoroughly impressed. Do you wish to see something from another perspective, it might help you in the long run. Either way, I'm heading in."

He dove into the simulator himself, diving into the doctors office. He sighed. He saw a man, with bleeding that made a grimm attack seem tame. He was a fanus. This wasn't normal, run of the mill, fanus rasicm. It was that violent stuff that made him disgusted. Not particularly then, but these days? God, it was terrible.

"I need to stabilize him. If I don't, there's not a chance."

This wasn't a grimm attack. This was an attack made by something for more sentient. Something fare more sentient. That's what was terrifying. Grimm attacks weren't quite as precise as these wounds. These are something that he'd make if he were told to kill a person but send a message. Yikes. That's...rough. Really rough.

"I'll use my semblance. I'll try my hardest to stabilize him but I have a bad feeling.”

He was working, using a lot of his aura to try to stabilize the man.

It was obvious to anyone with any experience, it was futile, but Ishi didn’t want to give up.

The boy was pale, and generally in terrible conditions. Even minus the holes in his skin, and the obvious pain he was in. The problem was, even with the nature of his semblance, it was not going well. It wasn’t going well.

This was bad and Ishi knew it, but was still moving about to try to clean various wounds and such.

He knew why this was even worse.

They could spare no one to assist him.

He had to do this, all alone.

That's right. That was her last mission before she had come here to Syne. Yeah, they had gotten out of there with the civilians alive and intact and with minimum casualties despite one of the team being left behind. Somehow nobody else had gotten hurt, and Valerie was happy about that, but...

Valerie still thought about Ormu before she went on any mission, or went to any of her classes. Of course, she had never had any feelings for Ormu, but that didn't change the fact that he was an incredibly good friend of hers. He set the example for her, and she would make sure that not a single person got left behind ever again under her charge. She clenched her fist and gritted her teeth, honestly a little bit angry with herself that she made it this far and somebody like Ormu didn't. She released her fist and exhaled, knowing full and well how much of a monster she really was. That was what drove her to be the best person that she could possibly be.

She placed her hand on the screen next as she watched Ishi working through his own simulation. For a moment, she forgot that none of this was real and she wished that she were with him then and there to help him work. He looked so alone down there, and from her perspective... he almost looked sad?

He kept moving, his movements becoming a blur. He was skilled, talented even in this part of the doctoring. He wasn’t making any progress was the problem. He moved and moved, the man wasn’t waking up. In fact, he was getting worse as time went on. His pluse was barely going. He didn’t even know the boys name. He needed to fix the boy without knowing anything about him.

He couldn’t just wait and ask about his illnesses after, because the death by a billion cuts was his problem. Not really a billion cuts, but this was a nasty piece of work. He looked around and saw no one, there was still no one to be spared, and boy was that depressing. He didn’t look defeated though. He refused to look defeated, as if the boy woke up and saw that, he’d be in 30 types of pain, not all physical.

He was, slowly, making zero progress. He refused to admit this. His pride was a mix of too many patients who came back from this, and his general pride as a doctor. It was now that he realized what was wrong. It was the wrong problem he was going after. This man was utterly doomed. Not only was he, y’know, vigerously bleeding. He was poisoned. Ishi had figured this out since this was one of the poisons he used to use.

It didn’t allow blood to clot. This was a doomed venture. Anyone watching could just tell an immediate change in demeanour. He was defeated. He remembered this.

He watched the simulation end as the time fully came back to him.

He sat there for a few moments, contemplating if he wanted to get back in and remember another probably terrible incident.

Valerie swallowed a bit of her own feelings as the screen closed out signalling that the subject had passed away. She looked around in the void looking for a way to communicate with her teacher, with no clear answer to it. She'd had enough of seeing people die for one day in her formative life. She sat staring for a moment with her tongue in her cheek before she simply thought to think about a keyboard as she swiped her hand through the air, and sure enough she had a keyboard to type on. She put her hands forward and typed out onto it.

"I think I've seen enough. If there's nothing else you need to see from me, I'll be logging out now."

She sent the message down the line and managed to manifest herself a way to desync from the program. She removed the helmet and set it off to the side as she stood up and started stretching before Ishi logged out. She flipped her wrist and checked the time out, she had gotten here at around noon and it was already dusk. She walked toward a wall and leaded against it, briefly inspecting her sidearm to ensure that it had not been tampered with before slipping it back into the holster and waiting for Ishi to get back.

He came out of the simulation shortly after Valerie. He knew, for a fact, that he felt something deep inside. It was sad. It was gosh darn depressing. Like it or not, though, he had been through such simulations and situations many times before. It didn't effect him as much as it could some. It's not that he didn't care. It's that he couldn't afford to care. All the money in the world can't make you afford to care. That was just the fact of the matter.

It was a depressing fact of the matter, sure, but it was a fact nonetheless.

"It's a rough matter, isn't it? You, as a doctor and field medic, stare down the barrel of a gun called death a lot. I've become well acquainted with it throughout my various adventures and life experiences. It's not something you point or anything. If that were so, I'd have taken to wielding it a long, long time ago. That is simply how it is. I couldn't be clearer about this, I don't think."

He pondered something, rubbing his chin.

"I've taken up your time for something depressing. How much does dinner cost around here, I'll compensate you for your time. Class went on way longer than I thought it would."

A gun huh? Valerie thought on his words for a moment, closing her eyes and tilting her head, not just once but a few times, as if there were words physically bouncing around in her head. When she opened her eyes again, she straightened up her posture again and smiled, before shaking her head.

"Nope. I don't accept that symbolism. A gun has to have a wielder, someone directing it at a target. Death can't be a gun because a gun by itself is useless without a wielder." she paused for a moment before tilting her head a bit and tapping her fingers on the side of her chin, still smiling. "No... No, I don't think anything can accurately describe the way that death works. Death is death. Things just happen sometimes, people just happen sometimes. That doesn't change the fact that we are the people whose job it is to do all we can to prevent it, but when things just happen, it's not our fault that they did. It's either nobody's fault, or the person that caused it's fault. We aren't obligated to feel guilty, but..." she paused for yet another moment.

"We are obligated to carry their spirit with us until the end, living as much as we can for their sake and helping anybody else along the way."

Still smiling, she placed her hands behind her back. "Don't worry about dinner either, the city of Bellmuse covers my living expenses as part of my training. I'm Valerie, by the way. Valerie Fenix, a first year student to be exact."

She had no idea where all that had come from to be honest, but she wholeheartedly believed all of it. Maybe this was the real her after all?

"Anyway, thank you for taking this time with me professor, I appreciate it." Suddenly, Valerie stepped forward and hugged Ishi, remembering how sad he had looked in the simulation. Stepping back, she chimed "I hope to see you soon for the next class."

She nodded before walking down the hall, and out the front door.

He listened to the girl talk, and pondered. Was his symbolism wrong? No, no. She just misinterpreted it. Someone did hold the gun. Someone often made to look to be a skeletal figure. Someone who, by all meanings, is a terrifying entity. Death doesn't wield a scythe. He wields a gun. He wields a gun and is a terrifying entity that should never be messed with. Ever.

His pondering was interrupted by a hug. Ishi didn't actually have a reaction for that. It wasn't something he expected to have to react to. Ishi was a man who expected anything ranging from literal murder, to a tea party. Hugs, however, were not in the expected dynamic. They were not in the expected dynamic because most children wouldn't think about hugging a man like Ishi.

Especially with the current running engagement between the two.  They had seen each other face death and that's certainly not something you do in any class, much less one that took all day.

As she left, he spoke a few words.

"Man. Students are scary."

What he really meant was, and what he didn't say, was this:

"Man, I'm feeling respect and I don't know how to process this."