Journey of a Valkyrie: Hospital Visit

Part 4: Hospital Visit

*Beep*

*Beep*

I woke up to the steady beat of a heart rate monitor.

*Beep*

    I let out a groan and tried to shift around. A flare of pain raking across my chest immediately dissuade me from continuing that avenue of thought. I let out another, louder groan and tried to relax my tensed body. Thankfully I seemed to be on a soft mattress. Combines with the consistent beeping sound I assumed I was in a hospital of some sort.
    You know how stories always have the main character take a bit to remember what happened? That doesn’t apply when you have a perfect memory. From the second I woke up I could remember what had just happened, as if I had only blinked. I remember losing against The Villain and falling from the sky. I remember staring back up at Blanc and I could remember with enough clarity to recognise that Blanc. That was the Blanc from the other dimension, from the third game. I had somehow crossed dimensions and like so many other things in my life currently, I knew what to blame. Still, I was rather lucky that the first dimension I was sent to happened to be one I was familiar with… I hope.
    Moving as little as possible, I slowly looked around the room I was in. It looked just like the kinds of hospital rooms I saw in TV shows and the like. I almost expected to see JD or someone walk through the doors at that second. It wasn’t even that crazy an idea given everything else that was happening to me currently.
    I lay my head back down and closed my eyes. I still felt exhausted and felt like I could use a few more hours of rest. Unfortunately that was wont to be as only a minute after I closed them, they were forced open as someone bustled into the room. It was a doctor, who paused upon seeing me awake before plastering a smile on his face.
    “Hey there. Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?” He said coming around to my left side. I let out a small groan in response to which he nodded sympathetically.
    “That’s no surprise. You had taken quite a beating before you got here. Multiple lacerations as well as severe bruising around your ribs and arms. It looks like you also had several broken bones that had only healed recently. Although, given the story the young girl who brought you in told us, I’m surprised you aren’t hurt worse. You must be pretty high level.”
    Hah, I wish. I’m pretty sure I was only level 5 at this point at most. Not that I would tell him that currently. I could only assume my wounds were so light due to CPU physiology, and likewise for the healed bones.
    The doctor picked up the chart at the end of my bed and glanced down at whatever was written on it.
    “We were starting to think that we may need to call in a white mage, but it seems you have quite the impressive regeneration. The worst of your wounds healed by themselves for the most part. You currently have only mild bruising across your sternum.”
    He paused at this point, looking slightly hesitant to continue.
    “Ah... Er... I’m quite sure how best to say this,” he took a deep breath in, “when we brought you in it was brought to our attention that you had come in contact with a monsterisation disk. Luckily it didn’t appear to have a chance to fully activate, but for the brief time you were in contact with it managed to change you somewhat. Features of an avian based monster appear to have been created from your back. Put simply, you have grown wings.”
     I wasn’t sure how to react to all that, just staring dumbly at him. Monsterization disk? What the hell is that? I had never heard reference to anything like that in the games. And the hospital appeared to have attributed my wings to whatever the helm it was. The doctor mistook my silence for shock and hurried to reassure me.
    “Now it’s not all bad. Other than the wings, which look lovely by the way, there are no other visible changes, though your regeneration speed may also stem from the disk. The bad news is that there is no known way of reversing the effect”
    He sounded truly regretful about this fact. I felt rather bad that it was over a misunderstanding.
    “If it makes you feel any better the disk cracked when you landed on it. We think that contributed to why you didn’t fully change.”
    Having said so, he pulled up an image of the disk on the small TV screen opposite my bed. I recognised it immediately and all the little pieces of the puzzle fell into place. That was a CPU disk, something that would turn a select few in millions into a CPU. Anyone else would be transformed into a monster like appearance. There was still one piece of the puzzle missing though. They should know about the CPU aspect of the disk. If they didn’t have any CPU’s then it would be understandable, but I had definitely seen Ultra dimension Blanc. So either I wasn’t in the Ultra dimension like I had thought or I was much further back in time than canon.
    ‘Actually, didn’t the flow of time between dimensions vary a ton?’ I realised. Option two became much more possible with that fact in mind. From a narrative standpoint it made sense to go somewhere familiar but different instead of somewhere completely new this early on. This was the chance for the protagonist to use their knowledge to gain allies and...
    ‘Oh god, I’ve already started to think like Neptune! Quick, find a distraction!’
    “What did you do with the disk?” I rasped out, my throat relatively dry. I struggled to sit up, wincing as my chest flared again, and reached for the glass of water next to my bed. He glanced back at the chart.
    “A team of mages were called in to analyse it. Other than a strange energy they can’t make heads or tails of, though appears to be harmless, they have identified it as missing the usual indicators of a monsterisation disk. As such, as is your right given you ‘looted’ it, it was deemed that when you were released you could take it if you wished.” He explained. I only needed a few seconds thought before I nodded decisively at him. He gave a nod back and made a mark on the chart before tucking it under his arm.
    “In even more good news, at the rate you are healing, you should be able to leave in only a few days in full health. You could theoretically leave later today, but we want to run some more tests on your wings and the like to be safe, with your permission of course.”
    I nodded my assent. It would be weirder if I refused; they likely expected me to be wary, or at the very least curious, of my wings as well. At that moment the doctor’s pager went off, creating a break in the conversation.
    Evidently it was something urgent as he started to swiftly walk towards the door, bidding farewell and giving one last parting comment to call if I needed any help with anything.
    I lay back down, left with nothing but my own thoughts. Naturally they took a dark turn, to what I had experienced only a few minutes ago from my perspective. The defeat of the CPU’s and myself. No, defeat was too weak a word. We were crushed, barely able to do anything against the antagonist. My only solace was that it was probably required for the ‘game story’, yet part of me struggled to believe we could get strong enough to defeat her, the part of me who was still stuck in the mind frame from my mundane world. How could silly little me ever defeat a monster like her? Her speed and strength were inhuman, her skills were devastating. I was at the fastest and strongest I’d ever been and combined with four other goddesses we still could barely touch her. Speaking of the other goddesses, I would have to meet up with them when I got back.
    ‘When I get back… When, not if. I guess I’m committed to this train ride.’
Somehow, that thought solidified my conviction. I would go back. I would meet up with the other goddesses, and we would defeat this antagonist.
    “But step one is going to be the greatest hurdle Valky” I muttered to myself, laying my arm up on my forehead. I don’t know how or why, but I knew that when I was next transported across dimensions, it would be back to the original one. That meant all I could do for now was wait and prepare, in a world where I had no history or ID. I couldn’t even stay off of the radar since I was already in a hospital. My eyes slowly drifted closed. I would cross that bridge when I there.

    The next few days passed by at a crawl. The doctor occasionally popped in to check up on me, accompanied by what looked to be a mage for some of them. He quite kindly got me a book to read while I was stuck in bed; ‘A practical guide to wing maintance’ by Sephiroth Jr. I tried not thinking too hard about the author. The mage-wizard-whatever cast a few spells on my wings each time she was there. It was on the third visit that she reassured both me and the doctor that the changes would not spread any further and that my wings would be perfectly functional. I once again felt slightly bad about all the fuss being made about my wings but still refrained from telling them about them. I had no clue how they would react and I was perfectly fine with them assuming it was from the disk.
    Speaking of the disk, on the second day of my stay, it was brought to me along with my lunch. They had put it in a small transparent box, suspended in mid air by magic or technology, though I was not sure which. From this close, the crack running through part of the disk was glaringly obvious. The jagged edges had a faint yellow luster to it and occasionally gave off a few rainbow coloured sparks. It actually felt weird being near it, and I don’t mean psychologically weird. I could feel a kind of energy contained within the disk, which felt extremely similar to the energy that was flowing through me while I was in HDD form. It called out to me, begging to be taken in, to be used. I had tried pulling it into me at one point, and while I could feel it strain towards me, there was some kind of barrier that prevented it from reaching me.
    It was actually on the third day that something interesting happened. On the third day I received a visitor.
    ‘Knock knock’ came from the direction of the door. I looked up from the book I was reading to face the open door. In the doorway was one of the nurses that had frequented my room. She smiled kindly at me.
    “You have a visitor,” she said, before stepping to the side and ushering in a young girl. It was immediately apparent who had come. Dressed in a red japanese esque clothes, the girl whose face was framed with brown hair walked over to my bed. Her hands were clasped together in front of her legs and her eyes showed clear concern for all to see.
    Appearance wise, minus the clothes, she was slightly different from the Hyperdimension Blanc I had met previously. She lacked that slight perfection of her features that would set her apart from the normal crowd. She didn’t emit that aura that made you feel like you were in the presence of the divine. Her hair was, while clean, not luscious. She had a small smudge of dirt near her left ear and her clothes weren’t in perfect condition. She wasn’t ugly by any means, but she was still notably lacking when compared to the Blanc I knew.
    I raised my hand in greeting, which she reached out and grabbed with both hands as she drew next to my bed. Looking into my eyes as she brought my hand close to her heart, she spoke softly.
    “How are you feeling? You were so badly hurt when I first saw you.”
    I tried to reassure her with a smile.
    “I’m fine, don’t worry. The boys and girls here have been taking good care of me”
    “That’s good, I’m glad.” She gave a small smile and relaxed her grip on my hand. I flexed it slightly as I regained circulation. CPU it seemed she may not be, but she definitely was still Blanc. That was one hell of a grip.
    After that we started to make a bit of small talk. She wanted to know how I ended up falling from the sky among other things, to which I explained how I had appeared there because of some magical mishap. A few minutes into the conversation, she brought up a certain question that I had been avoiding thinking about.
    “I was talking to the doctor on the way here and he mentioned that you had not had any other visitors, nor requested for any. Do you not have relatives or friends nearby?” she asked with concern. She had sat down on the chair next to my bed near the beginning of the conversation.
    “No, I don’t even really know where here is. As said, I was transported here by some kind of magic.” Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. It was disturbingly familiar, even if on a different face. It was akin to the look Neptune had given me all those days ago when I had first woken up.
    “Then… Do you not have anywhere to stay either?” I shifted uncomfortably.
    “I’m sure I can work something out.” I could maybe do a job or two for the guild, if they had that here. I know they do in the future, so I suspect they have it in some form now. Blanc was silent for a bit at that response, head drooped down causing her hair to cover her eyes. She suddenly looked up with resolve.
    “You can come stay with me then!” I was startled slightly by the forcefulness of the statement.
    “Are you sure? Don’t you need to discuss that with family or roommates?” I questioned tentatively. While it would be nice, I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
    “No,” she denied, shaking her head, “I live by myself. Don’t worry though, my house had got plenty of room.”
    “I mean, if you are sure…” I said hesitantly.
    “I’m sure.” And she certainly sounded it. Her voice was louder and clearer than it had been for most the rest of the talk. It occurred to me at that moment that she looked slightly lonely.
    From that point on, there was little I could do to dissuade her. Not that I tried very hard admittedly. Our talk ended soon after and she left while saying her goodbyes. As she left, the doctor told both of us that I would be free to go by tomorrow evening. Blanc gave a solid nod and waved goodbye to me one last time before leaving the room.
    The next day saw me walking down a stone path alongside her, in the middle of a wood. Apparently she lived just at the edge of town. When her cottage came into view through the dense trees I paused in my steps. I was dimly aware of Blanc stopping to give me a curious look as I did so. It was a nice house. Quaint would be a good word to describe it. A lone dogoo hopped by a bush off to the side. Colourful birds tweeted in the autumn trees. This was where I would stay for the foreseeable future. Despite it’s peaceful appearance, I knew I wouldn’t be admiring it too much. I had to prepare for my return. There was a lot of work I needed to do, stuff I needed sorted. I started walking again.
    My first order of business? Seeing if I could access my god damn warehouse, that I was sure I should have. After that? Well, it was training time.