A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 74 (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay

Chapter 74

-VB-

I stood guard over Amy while she went about healing people as fast as she could. 

In an emergency situation like this, the need to get permission for parahuman healing was waived because, well, it was an emergency situation. 

Also, this was Iran. They apparently didn’t have that kind of law in the first place. 

And because it was Iran, I found myself a little tense. Even if they had come over to help deal with the aftermath of the an Endbringer fight, Iran was not a kind country and would definitely abduct Amy if they think they can get away with it. 

But then again, what else could I call a country who sponsored terrorists? 

… Oh, right. A stupid one playing stupid games. 

“Alan.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Amy flagging. I frowned. 

“You should have stuck to your power, Amy,” I whispered as I walked over to her. I placed a hand on her back and pushed a dose of my most neutral-aligned ki into her. 

Her back straightened and she let out a sigh of relief as she rejuvenated. “Thank you.”

“Uh huh. Stick to your power, please. You don’t know when we need that here.”

She nodded and went back to work healing people. 

I straightened back up and looked around. 

The medical hospital we were at was one that was at the inland outskirt of the city. It had been, thankfully, spared Behemoth’s radioactive attacks, but with the city and the surrounding landscape ruined as they were, the hospital would soon shut down. 

In the mean time, it was being served as a temporary hub for all of the wounded collected from the Endbringer battle until such a time that they can be transported back to their home countries. 

A terrorist-sponsiring state, Iran may be, but it was not an ungrateful or unthankful country to those who came to defend it. 

Unless you were Jew. 

The problem for us was the fact that all of the wounded present in this hospital - and thus being treated by my wife, doctors, and nurses - had radiation posioning on one level or another. This wasn’t something Amy’s Shard-based power could wave away unlike many genetic diseases. 

Amy being Amy had opted to use everything she had to remove radiation poisoning but healing people of their radiaction sickness and poisoning that her normal power couldn’t handle ate at her ki reserves to do. 

And unlike me, her ki reserve was not great. Part of the reason why she enthusiastically focused on creating familiars like the jaguars was because it was easier for her to make them with her smaller reserve, and they would remain small until she decided to give martial arts and cultivation a higher dedication than the dabbling she did now. 

Which meant that even if I was telling her not to use her ki, she was going to use her ki to save these people and I was her glorified battery. Yeah, I was going to bitch about it but I was going to be here supporting and protecting her. 

“Okay, I’m done with this floor,” Amy said as sweat dripped down from her forehead. “Let’s go to the next.”

“Are you sure you don’t need a bit of rest?” I asked her. “You are soaked.”

Amy stared at me and then stared down at herself. She let out a sudden sigh, and looked surprised to have sighed. 

“Okay, maybe, I am a little tired,” she muttered. “Where’s the lounge?”

“I think it’s over there,” I said as I waited for her to get up.

She stood up from the chair she’d been sitting in while taking care of this particularly injured patient.

But when she stood up, she stumbled.

I moved in quietly and quickly, getting and arm around her waist and holding her steady as she grabbed onto the rail of the bed. 

“Yeah, you’re taking that rest.”

She looked up at me defiantly. “If I rest now, then someone might die.”

“People die all of the time. Both of us know we can’t save everyone,” I replied. “But if you get so tired that you collapse, then more people will definitely die. You know that you won’t get up before we have to leave. And you collapsing might be enough of a reason for a reason to have the locals to ask us to leave.”

Amy huffed. “Fine. Carry me there.”

I chuckled as I picked her up bridal carry, and allowed her to rest her head against my chest. 

As I carried her, I found myself glancing around the hospital corridors and medical personnel rushing past in a hurry. 

The emergency disaster may be over, but the work of the healthcare system only truly began once it the disaster ended. Every second they spent was a second something could have been done to save someone. So people rushed around in a haste but there was a nature of precision and accuracy that everyone tried to adhere to. After all, they needed to be both precise and accurate in their actions lest someone suffer more than they need to.

But I also noticed that there were people here who shouldn’t be. Capes and normies alike who were moving through the hospital in some kind of Stranger effect that prevented people from even seeing them. I couldn’t see them either, but their presences in the air and the vibrations across the ground were hard to miss. 

They haven’t done anything so far. For all I knew, they could be the Iranian version of cape-CIA keeping an eye out for any of the Endbringer volunteers who might have come to Iran to spy on them or something. 

As long as they left me and Amy alone, I wouldn’t act out. There was no need for me to.

But as Amy’s eyes drifted close in my arms as I entered a small employee’s lounge and greeted the other occupants with nods and smiles, I kept an eye out for anything untoward that might be aimed at Amy. 

I sat down in the corner with her still in my arms and waited. 

If she didn’t wake up after two hours, then I was just going to take us back home. 

-VB-

We ended up coming back home because Amy was too tired to help after sixteen straight hours of healing, using both her power and her ki. 

I expected that to be the end of it. 

I expected but it wasn’t. 

I looked at Amy. Vicky looked at Amy. 

“You want to actually cultivate?” I asked her in surprise. 

She nodded with determination. “I was too weak back in Iran,” she replied. “If I was half as strong as you, then I would have been to help everyone without tiring myself out. But I wasn’t and we had to come back because I couldn’t keep going.”

I stared at her. 

All three of us sat in a triangle at the center of the underground training room’s matted floor and dressed in kickboxing attire; today wasn’t the herbal bath day.

“Are you sure?” I asked her. 

“I am.”

I smiled.

I kind of expected Vicky to be the one to start cultivating in earnest. Instead, it turned out to be Amy did it first. 

“Great! How does twelve hour long meditation sound?”

The way she cringed and grimaced spoke volumes about how serious she was. 

She didn’t say no immediately.