The helipad at the Upper South Facet Hospital consisted of a smooth glass disc, with a large frosted "H" in the center, encircled by glowing crystals in every color that acted as landing lights, fading in and out. Below the helipad was a glass "stem" holding it up. The stem encased multiple helical tubes of glass, and glitter was embedded all throughout the entire thing.
Tara and Rachel were glued to the glowing pink windows of the helicopter for the entire trip, doing nothing but admiring the wonderful view of the most beautiful city they'd ever seen. Kat hadn't oversold it with her description; in fact, it was even more amazing than the two of them were picturing. Everything was made of glass or some kind of crystal, and they could even see an entire lower level to the city far below.
Alyssa started to step out of the helicopter, but hesitated when she saw the glass floor and everything below it. "Whoa, is this...this looks dangerous."
"Nothing's gonna break," Kat reassured, her voice echoing throughout the inside of the helicopter coming from no particular source. "It's far too important to everyone."
Still a bit hesitantly, as well as a tad unsure what Kat meant by that, Alyssa stepped out and onto the helipad. "...I'll try not to look down."
Lily stepped outside of the helicopter, followed by Tara and Rachel. Kat stepped out of the helicopter made of her own energy as well, in a duplicate body made of her energy, pushing Stacy's stretcher, also made from the starry material formed and shaped by Kat's creative mind.
"Helipad, down," said Kat. A motor whirred to life, and the platform gradually began to lower inside the hospital. In a flash of violet, Kat turned back into a normal-looking human being.
"Wait, Kat?" Tara questioned. "You can..."
"Isn't that Lily's thing?" asked Rachel. "Where she tells stuff to do things?"
"Ha!" Lily chuckled.
"It's voice-activated," Kat clarified. "Funny though!"
"You think my powers are funny?" smirked Lily. "Watch."
Lily held her hand out to her side, with a nonchalant look. Just as the helipad-turned-elevator reached the end of its descent, she clicked her fingers, and three of the many assorted glass sculptures lining the hallway instantly shattered into pieces. "Better be nice to me," she joked, tapping the glass floor with the tip of her foot.
Alyssa, Tara, and Rachel automatically braced themselves against what sounded like an explosion of glass, and exchanged concerned expressions after, until Lily's snickering reassured them she was only joking. Except for the fact that the sculptures were really broken.
"Can you fix those sculptures, Lily?" asked Alyssa.
"Probably." Lily smirked. She twirled her index finger in the direction of the glass shards, and moved her finger upwards as they started to swirl around. All by themselves the shards reassembled to form the sculptures, and even stayed in place by Lily's desire, but it was still clearly in pieces, even if the pieces were back together.
"Hold on, let me see what I can do." Alyssa placed her hand on one of the sculptures and focused.
"Let's just go," urged Kat. "Stacy needs help."
"This'll just take a second," said Alyssa. "We're already at the hospital."
Careful not to break the glass, Alyssa willed the shards to fuse back together. Eventually, with enough concentration, the sculpture was good as new.
"Wow, nice!" complimented Kat. "What are your powers anyway?"
"She can do a lot," laughed Tara. "That's what I've gathered."
"Yeah," Alyssa smiled, just as she finished mending the second one. Proud of herself, she tried something new with the last one, merely holding her outstretched hand toward the sculpture with a focused intent. "I'm getting it I think...whoa!" Mentally gripping the sculpture a bit too hard, Alyssa found herself physically launching toward the sculpture, and the next thing she knew, she was the sculpture. "Oops!" she laughed. The abstract spirals of the sculpture rearranged to form an abstract caricature of Alyssa. "Well, I got it fixed at least." The sculpture exuded Alyssa back onto the floor. She could imprint on things from a distance now too apparently?
Alyssa looked around. "Kat?"
Kat was already at the end of the hall with Stacy. Upon noticing she walked off, everyone ran after her.
"Wait, what about the stretcher?" Alyssa shouted to Kat. "Are there any real materials that look like that?"
"Huh," Kat paused. "Well, not that would be normal here! One sec, let me see if..." Kat looked toward the stretcher, then closed her eyes, visibly focused. Before long, the starry darkness of Kat's construct changed. One instant it had its usual celestial look, and the next it had a somewhat more normal appearance, as if the image of a normal texture was visible inside it instead.
"Cool!" Tara smiled.
"Make it colorful and sparkly!" Rachel pleaded.
"Later, we need to...actually, at this hospital that would make more sense," Kat realized. She closed her eyes again, focusing on an image, and eventually, just as quickly, her energy changed again, becoming transparent, filled with multicolored sparkles and swirls of color. A bit more focus, and crystals in every color sprouted from the sides of the stretcher all at once.
"Pretty!" Tara beamed.
Kat resumed pushing the stretcher down the hallway.
"I'm really excited to see what hospitals are like here," said Alyssa. "Remember those paramedics from back home? What was her name...Sandra? She was talking about how people with disabilities could imprint on stuff, and..."
"Yeah, of course," said Lily. "Like the artificial bodies with cameras for the blind?"
They turned the corner and found themselves at the entrance to the emergency room, where a holographic computer screen floated. Kat touched the button labeled "New Patient".
"Patient name?" a computerized voice prompted.
"Anist—" Kat started, before remembering that wasn't her real name. "Wait, should I use her real name?" she whispered. "Think she'd be okay with that?"
Thankfully, a nurse approached. "Uh oh, is she unconscious?"
Kat sighed in relief that Stacy was finally in good hands. "Yeah," she nodded. "Can you please have someone look at her as soon as possible? I'm her biggest fan and—"
The nurse took the stretcher and motioned for everyone to follow. "Of course, we have—wait, biggest fan? Is this actually Anistasia Lynn?" Without delaying the more important task at hand, she took out her phone and held it in Stacy's direction, and it chimed. "Oh my god! What on Earth happened???"
"Had an accident in a cave," said Rachel.
Lily facepalmed.
"A cave?" came the expected reply. "What was she doing?"
Great, now how are we going to explain this? thought Lily.
It's fine, don't worry, Kat replied.
"I don't know how much she's okay with us telling, but long story short there was a cave-in," Kat recounted. "We all went inside the walls where it's safe, but she was meditating and couldn't react in time, so she got knocked out."
"O...kay..." the nurse said, figuring their idea of a "cave-in" was just a few heavy falling rocks, nothing like an entire cavern collapsing. "And how do you know the patient? You said you were a fan of hers?" The nurse looked at Kat.
"Yeah. I'm Kat, this is my sister Lily," (Lily waved) "and these are my friends Alyssa, Tara, and Rachel."
"Why were you...oh yeah, never mind." She remembered Stacy's unique reputation for openness with her fans, how she tends to get to know them as personal friends.
"We'll see to her right away," said the nurse. "You've been quite responsible bringing her here."
"Please keep me up to date on her condition!" begged Kat.
"Sure, I'll do that." They exchanged phone numbers. "My name's Alexandra. I'll text you if we notice anything."
Kat spelled out the name out loud as she entered it into her phone along with the number.
"You got it," Alexandra confirmed. "You can call me Xandra though."
"You wanna come back to our apartment and stay the night?" asked Lily.
"In Circuit City??" laughed Kat. "You know, maybe I probably could get us there and back pretty quickly, but I don't know..."
Tara, Rachel, and Alyssa traded confused looks.
"Actually we have a deal with the hotel just below us," said Alexandra, pointing downwards. "You bring someone to the hospital, they'll give you a place to stay if you need one, on them."
"Cool!" said Rachel.
Alexandra beckoned for everyone to come with her, and led the way to Stacy's hospital bed. "So, this stretcher belong to one of you?" she asked as she pushed it. "Is it...heated or something? I've never seen one quite like this."
Kat nodded. "Yeah, I...brought it from home."
"Interesting material, I like it."
Kat smiled. "Me too!"
After Stacy was situated in her hospital bed, Alexandra grabbed a machine mounted on a metal arm, resembling some type of antenna, and aimed it at Stacy's head, then pushed some buttons on a machine.
"What's that?" asked Tara.
"What's what? The healing ray?" asked the nurse. "Pretty standard at hospitals."
"They don't have those in our dimension," Rachel said in a joking tone.
"Oh, well that must be a shame for them," Alexandra played along. "It's still nowhere near perfect, but this thing can heal a lot of illnesses in just a day or two tops."
Everyone giggled.
"How does it work?" asked Alyssa.
"You know, I have no idea," said Alexandra. "Probably a trade secret or something, I don't know."
Alexandra got out her phone and sent a message to Kat. "Here, show this to the receptionist at the hotel. Take the conduit right down and go north at the second junction."
Alyssa, Tara, and Rachel looked puzzled for a second, but figured they'd find out soon enough from Kat and Lily what the conduit was. And sure enough, they did: it was a thin structure, naturally a colorful glass tube filled with glitter, branching all throughout Facet, acting as a convenient mode of transport similar to the poles they used in place of stairs. Getting from point A to point B was as easy as becoming a small section of the conduit, moving yourself wherever you need to go, and then jumping out.
"You coming?" Lily asked Kat after everyone else had already entered the conduit.
"Yeah just..." Kat turned to Stacy. "Please get better for me!" Kat shed a tear, which grew and expanded into the shape of a hand, touching Stacy's cheek.
The hotel had enough vacancies at the moment that they were able to spare three rooms, allowing everyone to have privacy with those with whom they were closest. Tara and Rachel obviously shared one room. Alyssa wanted to sleep next to Kat of course, but Lily wanted to spend the night with Kat as one person like they sometimes did, and Kat liked that idea as well, so she wasn't sure. Until...
"I know!" said Kat. Cheekily holding out one finger in front of her, she let her energy pour out of it like liquid, filling a nonexistent mold in the shape of Kat's body in the space of a few seconds. Once her double was completely full, she came to life.
"Hi, I'm you!" said energy-Kat.
"Hi, me!" regular Kat laughed, well aware she was controlling both herself and her double.
"I can keep you warm, Lyssi," Kat's energy form smiled.
"Wow, that's amazing!" said Alyssa. Kat's energy double, being just as much Kat's body at the moment as her regular one, felt to Alyssa just like she was actually with Kat, which she was. "This'll be fun!"
"Ready, Lily?" asked the original Kat.
"I can't wait to see what our powers are like together," said Lily, running towards Kat and literally jumping inside her, her body being visibly pulled in as she did. Just like that, they were no longer Kat and Lily, but Kaly, who excitedly unlocked her room and got in bed, eager to explore the vast depths of her powers.
"I should practice mine some more too," Alyssa added. "Still haven't figured out everything I can do!" On a whim, she held out her hand and summoned a cloud, which floated above her fingers. "Ooh, Kat, look!"
Kat looked. "Cool! Your powers are gonna be fun."
"Whoa, whoops!" said Alyssa, as she accidentally made her cloud start raining. A tiny lightning bolt, only the size of a somewhat large static spark, zapped Alyssa's hand, making a loud click but nowhere near the sound of thunder. "Ow!"
"Come on Lyss!" Kat invited, phasing her energy body straight through the closed door and getting in bed. See what it's like to sleep with an energy being, Kat thought to Alyssa.