NOVEL WEB Chapter 114: 5
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DeadpoolUltra by BatRou-Dawg
Misc » Book X-overs Rated: M, English, Drama & Humor, Words: 70k+, Favs: 24, Follows: 27, Published: May 2, 2023 Updated: May 3, 2023
1Chapter 5
The hospital was running on overtime because of all the gang fights going on. I honestly hadn't expected it to be so busy.
I should have.
The first clue was the fact that they didn't even bother testing my ability before they took me to my first room.
My first patient was a woman with her tongue and ears carved out.
Who did this?... What ki d of Mo ster did this?!
I didn't even transfer the injuries into the cache, merely transferring them to my body immediately.
The description for the power didn't say anything about living through the experience from the point of view of the injured person. A crazed Nazi tearing out her tongue and ears. Nothing more than mere initiation. A regular Fucking rotual in this terrible town. Beating her nearly to death.
The Fucking joy.
What was wrong with these people?!
She gasped as her speech returned and the sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bone. I coughed up blood into a clenched fist and grunted as my flesh reformed. My missing ears allowed me to ignore the horrified screams from the nurse and doctor at my side.
I don't know if it was a side effect of Surgery, but we both instinctively knew what had happened, that I had taken her injuries from her and placed them upon myself. Her tears were apologetic. She did not wish that pain on anyone.
I swallowed.
Hot salty metal poured down my throat.
I smiled. Not just with my mouth, but my eyes. Doing my best to give off a feeling of comfort. Compassion. Acceptance.
"It's alright now.For I am here. I take upon your pain. Your suffering. And I have made you whole again."
She cried and I held her.
I've never liked seeing people cry.
Partly because I always saw tears as a primal sign of intimacy. I always believed that you should only have to cry when you have people who can comfort you. Or when something so amazing happened that tears were inevitable. No matter what, crying meant heightened emotions, and those were always the most intimate when shared.
Today, I comforted people crying tears of joy. Because they were suddenly able to see again. Because their child that was run over by a car during a car chase would be able to walk again. Because the wife who was near a state of brain death when she had her head bashed for trying to protect a child of color was made whole again. Because the young girl with terrible body scarring burns wouldn't need to suffer disfigurement for the rest of her life. Because a father with his legs cut off could walk again...
I gave them all of this and more at the cost of pain. It was fresh. It kept coming. New injuries to treat, new ailments to cure, more mistakes I had to atone for. Like small eddies coalescing into a crashing wave threatening to break past a dam.
While the doctors and nurses were concerned about hygiene, I was willing to reveal that I could clean myself perfectly (via Pocket Room) even though I didn't not WANT to reveal that. Panacea was working as well and a quick verification from her, that whatever I was doing WAS making me sterile and clean, I was allowed to keep working, although people were concerned about the injured patients seeing me suddenly look as haggard as they were.
I wasn't concerned.
My arrival in Brockton Bay had more effects than I was aware of. Far before canon, the city was filled with blood in the streets. Innocents caught up because I was stupid. Because I had made choices for the sake of benefits! It didn't Matter that I had simply thought it was just a fun character creator, because stupid me and my bad decisions had caused dozens of injury and harm.
This was my fault.
And if I wasn't able to DO anything to help rectify the mistake that I had made... I think I would have drowned in the guilt.
But maybe because I experienced the same terrors, I was able to empathize with them further. And they, being able to somehow feel the fact that I took away their injuries, hurting myself to heal them, created an unintended empathetic link.
A bond of trust. A bond of acceptance. A bond of faith.
Because even if the world abandoned them. Declared them untreatable. Beyond saving.
Gave up on them.
I could not forsake them.
Every embrace was a moment of understanding. Every whisper was sweet comfort. Every silence was sheer, undiluted acceptance.
Every time I healed someone who had been injured (because of me. STUPID STUPID ME) they felt everything about them return to a perfect state (described to be like having their whole body washed over by a spring breeze). I kept families together. Kept people in a state where they could keep working, keeping them from being forced onto the streets.
Some of the doctors argued that I shouldn't show the victims how me healing them was injuring me. I argued otherwise. These victims could find comfort in knowing that someone in this world shares the EXACT pain they suffered... and that was a level of emotional healing that they would not be able to find anywhere.
Some apologized. Some thanked me. Some cursed me.
I accepted it all.
That was my responsibility.
And mine alone.
POV: Panacea
This city was going to hell.
Really, I wasn't surprised. It always had been.
What did surprise me though, was just how much of a powderkeg Brockton Bay really could be.
One guy. Just one ABB member that the media was calling Suicide Panda (Whoever named him that should be fired, Vicky said) was enough to set this all off. He killed Hookwolf's nephew and shot Skidmark (in the testicles, ewww) before disappearing like smoke. Apparently ABB was claiming that they weren't responsible for the whole thing, but nobody believed them when they were the most ready to be attacked.
Then Skidmark got arrested by some new cape calling himself All Might (although his name sounded a bit pretentious, his PHO posts were apparently rather humble and a tad naive, Vicky said) and the Merchants became an injured beast.
In the span of a day the balance of the city was upturned not once, but twice.
I suppose in the end, nothing changes for little old Amy... Always healing... The perfect Panacea to the Brockton Bay medical problem.
...Except there were too many injured this time around. Lines had been redrawn, but everything stayed mostly the same in the end. Apparently Mush had gotten real creative and actually CLAIMED more ground than they lost in this whole affair. Luckily all of the ABB and Nazis weren't being carted off to regular public hospitals because of how OBVIOUS their afflictions were. Poisoning and infections via sewage. Gross.
Good news is that there weren't tensions at the hospital due to victims having to share rooms with their tormentors.
And that's when I heard the screams.
I rushed over to the source, hand ready to draw my pepper spray...
There was a hero I didn't recognize. The suit looked tailor made. Maybe professional. All dark blue with white and red styling and some yellow-gold accents over impressive musculature.
It was so... masculine that I found myself a little flushed before I noticed just what was wrong with this scene.
HIS EARS WERE GONE. And torn cartilage and blood remained.
He coughed into his fist, blood splattering onto the skin. Quickly I began reaching out... only for my words to die on my lips as I began to realize that his ears were already growing back. In mere seconds he had regrown what was missing. A regeneration cape?
There was nothing wrong with the woman in the bed (vaguely latin) but her eyes were moist with tears, staring up at the bloodied hero. Maybe it was the bloodied ears, but I didn't notice how OUT THERE his hair was. There were two long locks of hair pointed upwards like a V.
Then he spoke.
"It's alright now.For I am here. I have taken upon your pain. Your suffering. And I have made you whole again."
The woman, now sobbing, sat up, reaching for him. He let her hold him like a sobbing child seeking a father's comfort and care. And he embraced her like she was his own.
A power that TOOK injuries from others... to harm oneself... what kind of twisted hell did he go through for a Trigger to manifest like that?...
The sharp sting of bile awoke in the back of my throat.
And yet he whispered soothing words to this crying woman likeshe was his own. Although it must have been beyond painful and so easy to hate his patient for forcing him to shoulder such inhumane burdens...He smiled at her.
My heart itched. There was something at the back of my mind. A niggling memory that I couldn't my breath. Feeling like choking from the fear. A man, so comforting, warm, beaten and bloody on the ground. I was ?I don't remember... A closet? No,a wardrobe. My little Narnia...although I don't recall any place like that at home...
Begging. That's right he wasbegging... What was he begging for?Who was he begging to prote-
"Sir, we appreciate what you did for this woman, but your power..." a doctor nervously said, "...it has a problem. We can't... you can't heal people while covered in blood. It's a biohazard sir, I'm sorry, but-"
His eyes were like galaxies. (When had he turned around?) Somehow I had never seen a pair of eyes convey so much emotion. Had he smiled with sheer body language earlier? I had been so sure that I must have seen a face, but... his lower face was covered up to the nose with a mask... And the look his eyes had (like a galaxy contained in perfect orbs) that look could only be an upset frown.
He waved his hand over himself and the blood was gone. Perfectly clean. Too clean.
They asked me to check if he was sterilized from that action. And he was. Oddly so. (How?!)
"There, Panacea gave me the ok, right? Where are the rest of the injured?" the V-haired hero spoke. "I will save them."
The doctor in charge stared at him and readjusted his glasses. "Naturally, but first I need to know what you can and can't-"
"All of them." the new hero spoke, interrupting the staff, "I will heal them all. Because they have no more need to cry. Because today will bring I am here."
And for the first time I was both inexplicably excited and scared.
He took any and all injuries upon himself. Even brain trauma and missing brain matter was recovered in seconds. Let alone regular bodily injury and missing limbs.
Hesaved them all... and I could no longer feel like I was one of the best healers in the world.
Because even though I still was...He was now Here...
It was almost dinner time once I was done.
Giving a construction worker his arm back and after the resulting bro-hug I had to chuckle awkwardly as I reattached my arm and my stomach growled like a hungry bear. I shook my head when the thankful victim offered me a meal.
"It was my duty to serve" I said (It was my fault).
"I'm just glad to have helped him recover." I said (Because it was my fault).
Although I wanted to heal more, between Panacea and I... we were somehow miraculously done. I was feeling a bit light-headed from all the regeneration. From the hunger, rather than poor bodily condition. Regeneration seemed to bend the laws of physics some, but I sure wasn't complaining.
Although brain injuries hurt more than anything, in the end it was just my own fear that was holding me back and once I began healing, I hadn't even noticed I had begun helping patients with brain injuries.
I hadn't needed to bother with buying mice to transfer brain trauma to.
Apparently the hospital was already getting documents ready to apply for an honorary medical licence for me, as I normally could not heal without one. Apparently the media (journalists and reporters with cameras had been recording at some point, although when and how they started recording and snooping around was beyond me) attention had gotten the PRT to contact them to get the paperwork started as well as getting a basic contract ensuring payment for my healing based off of the parahuman laws dealing with healers (although I had to put up with the one for minors).
There was an option where I could donate half of my income to recovery efforts and medical bills for patients of villain and gang-related accidents (which was only told to me after I dug insistently for SOMETHING to help soothe my guilt) that I opted for.
And while the pay was less than standard for how effective my healing was, apparently healer capes were exempt from taxes... for medical practitioning, at least.
The hospital cafeteria was actually better than the one I had become used to from my original Earth (A hospital in San Jose called O'Connor that had entered bankruptcy recently before I arrived on Earth Bet). Probably funded more considering that it was the biggest in the bay, Panacea was known to work here regularly (read: volunteer as she apparently donated her earnings into charity) and was the only hospital with enough space and staff to even TRY to deal with large scale gang wars and disasters. Heck, it was pretty much it's own building, although connected to the main hospital complex.
There was a few choices, but I gravitated to the BBQ ribs and garlic potato wedges. My body definitely craved something high caloric.
...Shit.
How do I eat with a Kakashi mask?
...
..
FUCKING SHIT OF ALL THE DAMN-
Wait. Schrodinger. HOW MANY FRAGMENTS DID GET FROM PANACEA?!
3 left over after buying Surgery... 9 total?
PANACEA WAS WORTH 6 FUCKING FRAGMENTS?!
She self imposed restrictions AND wasn't at her full potential and she was at 6?!
WTF are the other Heroes even doing?!
Hello? Wildbow? Can I just get, like, 6 Panaceas to go? Thank you~
Five Entropy Fragments collapsed before becoming one galaxy of flame and light.
Ignoring the people in the cafeteria staring intensely at me sit down with my plate of food, some even pulling out their cameras.
I activated Schrodinger (and thus was both wearing, yet not wearing a mask) and began eating.
I politely ignored the gaping mouths and flashing camera lights.
But in reality? Laughing so hard that I felt better about today than before.
Because I WAS yet WAS NOT laughing my ass off at the same time.
The best part was that on the outside I didn't even look phased at the attention or the fact that I massively trolled everyone without planning on it in the first place.
"Uh, excuse me?"
I turned my head to see Panacea (still in costume) standing awkwardly with a plate of food.
All she had was some lavender herb chicken, a piece of cornbread, and a cup of blueberry yogurt.
"Do you... mind if I join you?"
Her lightly freckled face was the picture of insecurity.
"Not at all," I said with a smile, not caring that she couldn't see it, "Actually, it would be my pleasure. It is nice to properly make your acquaintance, Miss Panacea. Rather, I must apologize for my curtness earlier today. There were people who needed saving and-"
She shook her head, sitting down quickly, "It's more than alright... Rather I'm a little worried about you. It must have been toughest on you. Because you took away all their pain and bore it yourself."
She bit her lip.
"Sorry. I don't mean to sound pretentious or anything... it's just... how are..." She shook her head, "Let me start over. I'm Panacea. I'm a hero from New Wave..." She paused, seemingly thinking of something. As if she had something to ask, "And I became a hero partly because I wanted to help people, and partly because it was expected of me, I guess."
I nodded. I suppose she didn't feel right about asking it directly. That was fine with me.
"My name is All Might." She blinked, seeming to recognize the name. Odd. "I am currently an Independent Hero. I became a hero because I wish to save people. Because I want people to be able to hold on to hope. That they could feel safe, no, so that they couldknowthat they are I am here."
She nodded, but seemed distant. As if she was recalling a distant memory.
Then there was rumbling and the whole building shook.
I moved.
And once again, I felt pain.
END
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