A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 9: No Pain, No Gain (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 9: No Pain, No Gain

-VB-

It was a nightmare. Quite literally. I was in a literal nightmare where I couldn’t save Amy. Almost in a loop, the images of Amy losing strength and falling down, the red blotch of her blood spreading on her clothes, and her shaky breaths slowing down repeated in my dream over and over again.

A nightmarish loop.

With each reset of the loop, I tried harder than the last loop to reach that bullet faster and faster. 

I was always slower than the bullet. 

Again, I tried. 

Again, I failed.

Failed and failed and failed and failed and -.

Somewhere in that nightmare, I snapped. Watching Amy die a hundred times made me snap.

I will not fail again.

And this time, in the last loop, I made it. I reached Amy before the bullet and took the bullet to my chest. I felt a bloom of … 

Strength?

I woke up.

My eyes slowly opened not to a calm white and bland hospital room but one of a silent shock of a single doctor and her cohort of nurses backed up to the walls and staring at me with wide eyes.

I didn’t feel groggy at all. I felt light. Strong. 

Raising myself up from the bed, I frowned. “What’s going … on?” I asked before I noticed that the hospital bed I was on was kind of sticky and wet. I looked down, and there were all of these gunk and stuff splattering the floor and the bed.

And the splatter pattern seemed to be center on me.

Slowly and unsurely, I slipped out of the bed and touched the floor with both of my feet.

And then I remembered that I’d busted my feet trying to get Amy to the hospital in time.

“Amy!” I blurted out. I whirled on the doctors, stepping towards her once and then stopping. “Is Panacea okay?!”

“She’s okay,” the doctor said as she regained her composure slowly but surely. “...But can you explain what just happened?”

“What happened?” I asked.

And then I remembered again that my feet were okay.

Why were they okay?

I looked down.

Yeah, not a single spot of blood on them. Or pain.

I looked back up. The doctor, now that she was completely composed, was unasmued.

I didn’t know what happened, either.

“Umm… I’m not a parahuman.”

“Sure, you’re not,” she agreed half-heartedly. “But I don’t care about that.” She then pointed down.

I looked down, and then blushed red when I realized that I was naked in front of half a dozen people.

I quietly and quickly made my way back to the gore-wet bed and sat down, and then pulled the ruined cover over myself.

“For the purpose of documenting a public show of power, I would like for you to explain what happened,” the doctor repeated, pulling out the pen from the clip of her clipboard and waiting for my explanation.

I licked my lips and grimaced. “Well, I might need a bit of help with that, because I only woke up after whatever happened.”

It took a minute for them to tell me their perspective. So what happened, as I have been told, was that I was waking up, but my skin began to darken and crack. Mere moments before I woke up fully, my skin ripped apart with the force of a bomb and sent all of my … stuff everywhere, including bits of skin and blood. This was the cause of my darkened blood getting everywhere and training everything in the room.

It had to be [Progression Renewal] from my cultivation choices, an additional power upgrade to my cultivation that lets me “reset” myself physically to perfect health. But it’s supposed to only happen when I broke into the next level of cultivation. So why did that happen now…?

‘… The only explanation is that  nightmare. While it isn’t real, my body had reacted to my desire - reacted to the near constant stress - to end that nightmare, and gave me the push needed to take a bullet for Amy. But that makes no sense! I’m not training; I was dreaming! Dreams can’t lead to cultivation breakthroughs… right?’

“You seem like you have an idea,” the she-doctor hummed.

I looked up and quickly schooled whatever tells I might have given off by composing myself.

“No, I don’t. It makes no sense to me. I also need to see Amy. I need to see how she’s doing.”

-VB-

They were unwilling to let me go, so I just told them that I was either going to walk around the hospital naked to find Amy, or they could just guide me to her after giving me my clothes back.

They chose to guide me.

After I wore a hospital gown. 

“Amy will be making a full recovery,” the doctor in charge of the local miracle maker told me. “I have already told the rest of New Wave this, and except for her, they all went to meet with the PRT.”

The person in question was Vicky, who was now sleeping in a chair pulled up right next to Amy’s bed. 

The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose. “I don’t know what you did to get her over here so quickly but thank you.”

I looked at him. “Of course, I did. She’s my girlfriend.”

He stopped and looked at me. “You do not look like a high schooler.”

“Because I am not?”

He frowned. “Are you saying that you are dating a minor?”

I thought about it. 

I shrugged.

“I will have to call the police about this.”

“Wow, wow, wow. What’s with the hostility?” I asked with a frown. “Hell, who are you even to question our relationship?”

He frowned. “You may not know it but Amy is very respected in this hospital, and I am the doctor who’s been helping her the longest,” the doctor began. “I don’t know what put her in a relationship with you - and I know that you’re a parahuman if that shitshow I heard about is real- so I swear if-”

“I tore my feet apart and threw away my civilian identity to get her to treatment in time. I think that’s more than what most boyfriends would do, ten years apart or not.”

The doctor shutted up after that. Then he nodded. “I can’t say much after that. I expect you to continue to keep her safe.”

I didn’t reply for a moment, just staring at the two sleeping sisters. “So how is she? Really.”

The doctor sighed. “I can’t tell you, legally speaking. You aren’t her spouse or her immediate family or her guardian.”

I grunted in annoyance. “Fine.”

“But I will tell you that it was close. Too close.”

I grimaced. “I’ll be faster next time.”

“You’d better.” Then he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “On another note, the PRT, specifically Director Piggot, wants to see you once you were conscious and coherent, which you are.”

I knew that she disliked parahumans because of my canon knowledge. I believed that she would be antagonistic towards me. Hell, I didn’t want to meet her.

Communication, unfortunately, needed to be had. 

“Alright. I guess that’s where I am going soon.”

“Of course, as a doctor, I will not allow you to leave the hospital without an overnight observation to see how you are doing. While you seem okay externally, we have no idea about your internal problems, nevermind whatever mess you made that had four different nurses contaminated with blood. So no need to stress about meeting Director Piggot today. As the majority owner of Brockton General, I can assure you that I can and will keep you overnight. I will be telling Director Piggot to fuck off if need be for Amy’s friend.” He paused as he turned away. “Sleep well tonight, because it’ll be stressful for you tomorrow.”

The doctor left after those words. I continued to stare down at Amy and Vicky before leaning down and planting a kiss on Amy’s sweating forehead. 

“Get well soon.”

-VB-

After I had returned to my room and had experienced the litany of medical examinations for hours on end, I was left to myself to think about my most recent discovery: cultivation breakthrough.

First off, my body was better than it had ever been. I just felt like I could lift a hospital bed without any issue. 

Second, the energy reserve inside me felt larger than before. Whereas I felt it and knew that I had it but couldn’t use it beyond very minor at the moment boosts to specific portions of my body (this may be why I was so tired and so busted when I reached the hospital; I’d provided too much for my legs and feet to handle), I could now provide continuous “enhancements” to my body. 

I tested this enhancing my fingers and twisting the unfortunate doorknob into a scrunched up ball without hurting my skin.

With these two facts, I knew that I could no longer deny myself the mantle of “cape.” I did promise Amy that I would go out as a hero for her anyways.

I tucked in for the night and dreamt of peaceful days with Amy.

-VB-

The next day, the doctor who had been taking care of Amy - General Physician and Owner of Brockton General Michael Enesstan - released me after scolding me for breaking the doorknob. As soon as I left the hospital’s front doors, the PRT was there to ask me politely to come with them. 

The fact that they didn’t send a Protectorate cape to further “persuade” me spoke well of my situation.

I allowed myself to be escorted, entering the back of their truck. 

Ten minutes of leisurely driving later, I was in front of the Parahuman Response Team East-North-East Headquarters. 

It was an ostentatious building like many government buildings were: colorfully loud with its bright white and blue scheme in the middle of the city where limestone beige and concrete/steel grey ruled, visually outstanding with its tall glass building in a city where most buildings were four stories tall and made with bricks and mortar, and guarded visibly by many PRT troopers in full riot gear as if the USA was some kind of a police state (Oh wait, it was).

I was more concerned for the guards than the tax money wasted to build a showpiece of a building rather than a proper bunker against possible parahuman attack. Do they even have climate control in those riot gears? They had to be hot and heavy.

It was April for crying out loud, not December.

The escorts led me into the building and through its lobby, where I was given a guest pass, and then escorted me deeper into the building. 

Finally, after what seemed like half an hour of checks, I was more or less pushed into a meeting room.

Sitting in this room were Armsmaster, Assault, blonde diabetic patient who had to be Director Piggot, and Lady Photon.

“Ah, Mr. Marris. Please, have a seat.”

The set-up of the room was very close to an interview with their tables and chairs close together and mine apart and facing them. I sat down in the prepared seat and rested my arms on the table, crossing my fingers together while hunching forward just a tad bit. 

Armsmaster wore his full set of powered armor suit, so I couldn’t tell what he was looking or doing. Assault tried to look cool, but his eyes were analyzing me. Lady Photon looked upset in general. Director Piggot was… well, she was glaring at me.

Emily Piggot started the “meeting.”

“Mr. Alan Marris, Panacea’s current condition and the powderkeg that’s about to explode this city are your fault.”

I wanted to punch the bitch.

-VB-

A/N: And that's the end of this chapter.