SAINTE-LUMIÈRE HOSPITAL – MEDICAL QUARTER – AFTERNOON
The white neon light illuminated the immaculate corridors. A nurse pushed a medication cart. A child cried softly in a room. A machine beeped in rhythm.
Mercy Turner walked through the main hall, her white lab coat floating around her. She stopped in front of a door, smiling at a young boy sitting on the examination bed.
"So, big guy, what brings you here?"
The boy, maybe eight years old, showed his arm covered in bruises.
"I fell while running."
Mercy stepped closer, her fingers brushing the bruises. A soft green glow enveloped her hand.
"You fell, huh? Or were you running too fast after your friends?"
The boy blushed.
Mercy smiled. A green bubble formed around his arm. The bruises faded in seconds. The pain disappeared.
"There. Good as new."
The boy looked at his arm, wide-eyed.
"Thank you, doctor!"
"You're welcome. Now, watch where you're running."
She stepped out of the room, passing a nurse.
"Doctor Turner, are you having your coffee?"
"In ten minutes. I have to finish my rounds first."
She continued on her way, greeting her colleagues, checking files, stopping in front of a waiting room to talk to a family.
Routine. A normal day.
She was about to head out for her coffee break when her gaze fell on the television hanging on the wall.
The images flickered in a loop.
Collapsed buildings. Gutted streets. People running and screaming. And in the middle of the chaos, brown, muscular creatures emerging from the ground like insects.
A journalist spoke, his voice tense.
"...catastrophic situation in City B. The heroes on-site are overwhelmed. Civilian casualties are reported to be in the hundreds..."
Mercy stopped dead. Her fingers tightened on her file.
Hundreds.
Her phone vibrated.
She looked at the screen. The name appeared in clear letters: LION.
She picked up.
"Mercy."
Lion's voice was grave, no frills.
"I need you. City B is burning. The giants are coming. The heroes are down."
She didn't answer right away.
"Mercy, do you hear me?"
"...I hear you."
"Then get your costume and come. We need your bubbles."
The silence stretched on.
"Mercy?"
"...The orange bubbles. That's what you want."
"If the situation demands it, yes."
She closed her eyes.
Flashback.
———
TEN YEARS AGO – CITY Z – EVACUATION ZONE
The smoke was thick, black, heavy with ash. Collapsed buildings. Cars in flames. People running and screaming.
And at the center of the chaos, a massive Daemon with a square head smashed everything in its path.
Heroes had fallen. One after the other. Attacks bounced off its steel skin. Nothing stopped it.
Mercy was there, young, terrified, her green hands trembling. She only had her healing bubbles. Nothing to attack. Nothing to defend.
She treated the wounded. Put them in safety. But the wounded kept coming.
A hero fell beside her, his face covered in blood.
"Run... everyone run..."
She looked at him, looked at the others, looked at the monster advancing toward them.
And something snapped inside her.
Her hand rose. Green. Then orange. A different bubble. A bubble she had never seen, never created.
It grew. Slowly. Inexorably.
The Daemon saw it. He tried to touch it.
The bubble exploded.
The shockwave leveled the neighborhood. Buildings, cars, trees—everything disappeared in a blinding flash. The survivors, those she had placed in her green bubbles, were thrown back but spared.
The Daemon was pulverized.
Half the city along with it.
When the light faded, Mercy was on her knees, breathless, her hair turned white, her face marked with new wrinkles.
She had aged forty years in a single second.
Around her, nothing was left. Just a massive crater. Debris. And the stares of the survivors. Stares of horror. Of admiration. Of fear.
She had saved lives. But how many had she sacrificed?
———
END OF FLASHBACK
Mercy reopened her eyes. The television was still showing images of City B.
All those innocents...
She put her phone away.
"I'm coming."
She walked through the hospital with a determined step. In her office, she opened a cupboard. Behind the white coats, her heroine costume was waiting for her. Purple and yellow, she put her lab coat over it as proof that she exists to help—like her bubbles. Like her hope.
She put it on.
On her way out, she crossed paths with the nurse who had spoken to her earlier.
"Doctor Turner? Are you leaving?"
Mercy smiled, but her eyes were elsewhere.
"I have a patient to go see."
She stepped out into the street, the wind whipping her white hair.
The S-Class Number 9 was heading out.
———
TO BE CONTINUED…