["AVENGERS... Attendence"]
You can read early chapters on my [P].[A].[T].[R].[E].[O].[N].
Link: [email protected]/Arson09
____________________________________
Two hours later:
M Health Fairview Hospital:
"Oh... yes, that's the spot..." A voice drifted into Lucy's consciousness. She didn't recognize the high-pitched, feminine tone, but it sounded breathless.
"Here?" This voice she knew instantly. It was Ethan Park—there was no doubt about it.
"Hiyaaa! Yes, yes... keep going... keep going, Ethan!" the woman shouted. Lucy's eyes snapped open immediately.
Her hospital room was swallowed by suggestive noises echoing from beyond the curtain, clashing with the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the nearby heart monitor.
She lay in one of the two beds occupying the small room, partitioned only by a thick white curtain dangling from a silver ceiling track.
The fabric was heavy and slightly yellowed at the edges, creating a flimsy wall of privacy that did absolutely nothing to dampen the sound. She checked her abdomen; it was completely healed, without even a scar remaining.
Lucy turned to her left, looking through the large window that offered a view of the Fairview skyline.
The glass was cold to the touch and streaked with the remnants of the recent snowfall. The morning sun, still tinged with a faint, ghostly red, bled into the room.
Now completely awake, she heard it again: "A little to the right... YES! You hit the spot!"
Lucy couldn't take it anymore. She bolted upright and shouted, "Get a room, you perverts!"
"Lucy, you're awake..." Ethan's voice answered calmly from the other side of the curtain. "Come join us."
What!? What did he just say!? Lucy thought, her eyes darting frantically around the room.
"Yes, dear... come join us. His fingers... hmm, hmm... they are magical," the female voice reassured her.
But I don't even know you guys! Lucy thought, her mouth going dry. She swallowed as she slowly stood up from her bed and approached the partition.
Thud... thud... thud.
The heart monitor she was still attached to spiked. Her face felt completely red and warm as she finally gripped and pulled the curtain aside.
There stood Ethan, positioned behind a nurse in a pink uniform who was sitting on the edge of the bed. His hands were firmly on her shoulders... massaging them?
"I will massage you after this," Ethan said with a genuine, innocent smile. He looked at Lucy briefly before his focus returned to the nurse, his fingers continuing their work on her tense muscles.
"Oh... no, dear. You've done quite enough. Thanks, I needed that more than I knew..." the nurse spoke as she stood up.
"I will send a doctor in for you," she added, looking at Chen. "You'll need plenty of electrolytes and a couple of days of rest... but you're going to be alright."
Lucy just stood there, deadpanning for a few seconds as the nurse exited the room.
"Haha... what was that?" Lucy questioned, a bitter, disbelieving laugh slipping out.
"What was what?" Ethan fired back instantly.
"You know what! 'Yes, Ethan... that's the spot.' 'Keep going, Ethan!'" Lucy mimicked the nurse's high-pitched voice. "I thought you guys were... you know, doing it! Like a couple of perverts!"
"Oh... so you thought we were having sex? But doesn't that technically make you the pervert?" Ethan asked, resting a hand thoughtfully on his chin.
"What!?" Lucy muttered, stunned.
"Yes... you labeling us as perverts is simply you projecting your own negative connotations onto those phrases," Ethan explained logically.
"Hence... the pervert." He finished by pointing a finger directly at her.
"Ah?" Lucy blurted out, her brain stalling.
"Ah," Ethan responded firmly.
Just then, Ethan's shadow shifted. From within the darkness, Tora emerged, his massive form compressed into his default state to fit the confines of the small hospital room. Tora looked down toward Lucy and sighed.
"Don't even start with him... he is weirdly competitive when it comes to useless arguments." As he finished speaking, glowing Eldritch circles began to manifest around his hands.
Following the gesture, various types of "get well soon" bouquets were transmuted into the room. Tora looked at his creation, admiring his handiwork. "You survived by the skin of your teeth, Miss Chen. If you hadn't shouted at the exact moment you did, I wouldn't have been able to locate you. I hope you recover quickly," he finished.
"I think you went a little overboard, buddy," Ethan commented, reaching for a fresh apple from one of the baskets. It was immediately snatched away into the shadows.
"Oh... come on," he muttered. "You seriously can't be angry over something like that," he added, looking pointedly at his own shadow.
Lucy looked confused as she directed her gaze at Tora. "It's the dogs... they think Ethan's been neglecting them—which I agree with, for the record," Tora added, glancing at shadow beneth Ethan. "Especially after their sister helped defeat that cursed spirit yesterday. It's not like you have anyone else who can perform high-level illusion magic and happens to have more battlefield experience."
Lucy looked down at the mention of the cursed spirit; she turned and walked slowly back toward her bed. Ethan was about to respond to Tora's snark, but the mention of the spirit seemed to have dampened Lucy's mood. He and Tora exchanged wary glances.
"Phobetor..." Lucy spoke in a whisper.
"What?" Ethan asked, as Tora transmuted a metal chair for him and moved to stand behind him like a guardian.
"Cough... He wanted me to know his name. Phobetor," Lucy said, a little louder this time.
"Oh..." Ethan nodded. "I don't usually ask for names." He didn't know what else to say to that.
Then, as if remembering something, Lucy's head snapped in Ethan's direction. "The boy, Justin... what—" She stopped herself, seeing the grim set of Ethan's face.
"He was dead before you guys even got there," Ethan clarified. "You couldn't have saved him."
Lucy tried to speak but only managed a choked gasp. "Thank you for..." Sniff... sniff. "Thank you for saving me. What about the others?"
"Ah... no casualties on the Masters' side. Though some are still shaken from what they experienced. " Ethan informed,
"Civilians on the other hand, We are still counting the numbers, but it doesn't look good, Hundreds are dead, Lucy." He added clinching his fist.
"Hundreds."
Lucy gulped, the weight of the previous night finally settling in.
"Is he dead then... the cursed spirit, I mean?" Lucy asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"Yeah... after I swapped places with you, we were able to take it down," Ethan explained, and Tora nodded in silent confirmation.
"How did you guys even defeat someone like that?" Lucy questioned, clearly bewildered. "I thought he could change reality."
To that question, Ethan and Tora answered at the exact same time: "We cheated," and "He cheated," respectively.
They both looked at each other for a beat before Ethan turned back toward Lucy. "Let's just say, a sorcerer is nothing but a high-stakes con artist." He spoke as Tora dissolved back in his shadow.
"On a serious note," Ethan spoke, his voice dropping an octave as he stood up. "Wong has been trying to tell you this subtly for the past month. Luckily for you, subtlety isn't really my thing. So here goes nothing: you have no innate talent for the Mystic Arts. If you continue on this path, you will only find yourself in a shallow grave, Lucy Chen."
As Ethan finished, he stood over Lucy while she looked down, the morning sun illuminating the quiet hospital room.
"I know... sob... I know, Damn it" droplets of tears began falling from Lucy's face. "I just didn't want to be so helpless ever again."
Her admission made Ethan pause as he lowered himself to her eye level.
He sighed.
"There is nothing I can say to you; anything I offer will feel like a form of violence," Ethan spoke with genuine sincerity. "After all, I am blessed. Though I have seen stronger men break under barely one-tenth of the trauma you've experienced, yet you kept moving forward. Don't lose that, Lucy. Never lose that."
"Haha..." Lucy laughed, though the underlying bitterness was still audible. "What do I do then? If I can't exorcise curses, how else am I supposed to help people?"
Help people, huh?, Ethan thought.
"Well, If you want to go into public service, there are certainly many other options," Ethan said, as Tora transmuted various recruitment templates from different states in front of Lucy.
Seeing the templates before her, Lucy's hands drifted toward a blue-and-red one with the letters LAPD printed boldly across it.
"You know, before my parents and I went on that camping trip, I wanted to perform an act of rebellion—to forge a path completely different from what my mother thought I should take. I thought they didn't understand me, but now, looking back, all I remember are the good things. Does that make any sense?" Lucy asked, her eyes glassy.
"Yeah... yeah, it makes complete sense," Ethan replied softly.
"This," she said, clutching the LAPD recruitment template. "This gives me a way to become a person who cares and serves the public—to become the person my parents would be proud of."
Ethan smiled as he added, "Well, I for one would certainly feel much safer with you patrolling the streets of Los Angeles, Officer Chen."
"Officer? Hold your horses, I am not even a candidate yet. Wait a second, You live in LA? I didn't know that," Lucy noted, wiping away her remaining tears.
"Not surprising. I usually just port inside. Not many people are aware of it," Ethan clarified.
A heavy silence stretched between them as Ethan remained lowered to her eye level in front of Lucy's bed. They looked into each other's eyes, then shifted their gaze to each other's lips; the moment elongated, thick with unspoken tension, until Lucy broke it with a sharp gasp.
"I asked... Wong and Master Kevas this question... but I wanted to know your thoughts. Who is stronger—you or the Ancient One?" she finished in a rush, as if trying to fill the quiet with as many words as possible.
'Weird, Where did that come from?' Ethan thought.
"Ah... the strongest, huh?" Ethan seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Yao is the one cursed with that title," he answered simply. Then, his expression turned solemn. "And she will bear it until the very day of her death."
Ethan sat back on the metal chair and leaned his head toward the ceiling. "You know what they don't tell you? The stronger you get, the lonelier it becomes. People idolize you, or they fear you... but they don't understand you. They can't feel the weight you carry." He sat upright, locking eyes with Lucy as he delivered the final line.
"Because when you are the strongest, you are not allowed to fail. And she has been bearing that burden for most of her adult life."
"Heh... I think I have socialized enough for a whole year," Ethan finally spoke after a brief pause, making a move to stand up. But Lucy interrupted him.
"Wait," she spoke quickly, looking genuinely concerned. "I am sorry. I was so focused on myself... I didn't even ask how you were doing."
"How I am doing? Well, I am great—never better," Ethan answered immediately, though he was clearly confused as to where this conversation was heading.
"Great? Really?" Lucy countered. "That's actually mildly concerning."
"I mean, I'm not great great. I couldn't save everyone; I know that. I've accepted much worse outcomes before," Ethan clarified.
"Do you talk to anyone about what you deal with on the job? It helps, you know... talking to a professional," Lucy added, producing a business card from her clothes.
At that, Ethan understood where this was going. "Talk to a therapist? Lucy, no offense to the psychological branch of science, but I don't think therapy is for me—or for sorcerers in general. The things we deal with on a daily basis... normal humans simply wouldn't know what to make of it," he finished as he stood up.
Lucy stood up as well. She approached Ethan and tucked the card into his shirt pocket. "She is the best there is. She knew my mother and father... helped me through the tough times, and she's still helping me. If you ever feel like talking to a professional, look her up. I'm sure she can help you."
They were standing just inches from each other. Lucy looked up. "I am going to kiss you now." She rose onto her tiptoes and planted a firm kiss on his lips.
"That was for saving my life," Lucy declared. "Now, go."
Ethan and Lucy locked eyes for a momentary beat until he finally nodded, dipping backward into his shifting shadow.
On the distant skyline of Fairview, Ethan could be seen perched on the edge of a towering skyscraper, his feet dangling over the drop.
With his right hand, he absentmindedly touched his lips and in his left, he held the card Lucy had given him.
"Doctor Linda Martin, hmm..."
He studied the card for a few seconds longer, then loosened his grip, watching as the paper was caught by the wind and drifted away into the cold city air.
-------------------------------------------------------
A/N: So how was the chapter?