My head feels foggy, and my body feels heavy as if it were made of lead. Everything hurts, it's like I fell off a cliff or something. What happened to me? The last thing that I remember was flying lazily above the crowd in the domed room, then seeing a bunch of shadows land on the top of the dome.
The shadows, what were they? Oh my gosh, the villains! What happened to them? All the memories of the fight I had with them flooded back to me like a rushing river, pounding against my brain, clearing the fog away.
I hear voices, faint in the distance. It sounds like they're talking about something important, but I can't hear what they're saying. I try to open my eyes, but they won't budge. It's almost as if they were glued shut. I realize with a shock that I can't move anything else either. Tranquilizers? No, I don't think they would feel like they needed to put me under any drugs after I passed out myself. Who saved me? Am I dead? I don't think so, what the hell happened?
I can hear the voices growing louder, and I can hear a few of the words now.
"Fight… Cyclone… Falling…" What are they talking about? I still can't tell, but I feel like I might be able to move, at least a little. I try to open my eyes, eyelids tightening then flying open. This situation is so similar to before when they first took me to the car, I could almost laugh! Almost.
"How could you kill such a promising recruit?!"
"It's not like she's dead or anything, so chill!"
"Well, she looks pretty dead to me!"
"Both of you shut up, she's-"
"You don't get to tell me to shut up, little miss animal."
"Is that supposed to be an insult? Whatever, just, be quiet. She's awake." Everyone in the room turns towards where I'm laying.
"How the hell-"
"Wow, do you kiss your God with that mouth?"
I'm in a square room with a comforting shade of brown painted on the walls. It looks like there's seven other people in the room with me, all of them pro heroes. There's equipment all around me, wherever I am. I'm laying down in a bed of some kind. It doesn't look like I'm restrained, where am I? Sitting next to me is a beautiful woman who looks like she's in her early twenties, with long blonde hair that seems to dazzle in the light, and pale skin that doesn't have a blemish on her. She's got blue eyes framed with long, luscious eyelashes. She really does look like an angel.
She's the only person that I can see from where I'm laying. I try to sit up, only to a burning pain in my side. Hissing through my teeth, I try to see what happened to me.
"No no no! You shouldn't sit up right now! I don't even know how you're awake yet, let alone even alive!" The angelic woman pushes me gently back onto the bed, scolding me as if she was my grandma. Who is she? Where am I? A million questions whirl through my brain, but I don't want to open up to this complete stranger.
"Ah, the miracle child's awake."
"Don't tease her Magician, she's been through so much."
"I'm not teasing her Anima, I'm just saying what we've all been thinking! She's a feat of nature, I'm telling you! Unrealistically fast healing rates, crazy power, even crazier personality, there's so much evidence! I mean-" his ranting was cut short by one of the other people in the room, appearing to have knocked him unconscious with a single blow.
"Thanks Cannord!" It was the girl arguing with Magician a second ago. What was her name? Anima? I can feel several pairs of eyes on me, making me uncomfortable. I mean, they can see me, but I can't see them.
I sit myself up again, much to the angelic woman's protest. I edge my way to the corner of the bed, where the two walls of the room meet. With my back pressed against the wall, I can see everything in the room while being a greater distance from the people standing in front of me.
I can see Eagle and Blackout sitting in chairs lined up against the wall next to my bed, both intently staring at me. I look around the room for Magician, but I don't see him. Slowly, I look down to the floor. He's laying on the ground facefirst, with a massive hulking man standing behind him. Yikes, he looks scary. I'm guessing he's Cannord. Standing next to him, there's a skinny chick standing. I'm assuming this is that Anima person. I heard one other person talking before I woke up, where are they? I don't see anyone else in the room. Curious…
"Oh sweetie, I'm so so so sorry that Eagle made you go through that!" I was knocked out of my trance by Anima pouncing towards the bed like a cat. She'd probably get along with that black haired chick I fought earlier if they were both on the same side. "I'm Anima!" I still said nothing, getting a kind of sad, confused look from Anima in return.
She had been leaning on the side of the bed, which I was fine with, but then she crossed the line. She started to come onto the bed closer to me, to see if there was something wrong with me I assume. I kicked her in the face, pushing her off the bed. I still don't want to be here, after all, I don't want them getting any wrong ideas.
"Woah!" she exclaimed as she fell off the bed. "Oww, that hurt Nova." she sent a pouty look towards me, to which I shot a nasty look back. She shied away, clearly intimidated.
"Heh, she's a feisty one after all. You were right Eagle." The large dude stepped closer to me, receiving a glare as well. He chuckled, unfazed by my look. "Ha, I like her. She's mine."
"Dammit, what's with all of you? You're the third person who's said that to me today, I'm sick of it! Nobody owns me, I'm my own person!" I say, quiet yet angrily. These were the first words that I had said after waking up.
"Ooh, so she can speak!" The big guy said with a little whistle. Ugh, I hate guys like that. "I'm Cannord."
"I don't care who you are!" I thought about fighting out of the room, then took one look at the people in it and decided against it. Apparently my thoughts were visible, written all over my face. Eagle sat up in his chair and tensed up, ready to leap at me and pin me down.
"Come on Cannord, don't scare her like that!" It was the blonde girl, still keeping a docile look on her face.
"Do you see a scared girl anywhere in here, Angel? Cause I sure don't. She looks as serious as ever, she'll be fine."
"Just, just don't antagonize my patient. She's still recovering. Can't you see it in her movements? She's clearly hurting, although she is an incredible actor to be able to hide her pain with such a neutral face." Damn, this chick can read me like a book, and I sure as hell don't like it. I shifted my weight away from the wall, and the pain flared through my abdomen again, more cruelly than before. I quietly gasped, my vision flashing white for a split second, but everyone was arguing so loudly that nobody seemed to notice. Man, this sucks. Why does it hurt so much?
I look down, and see bandages wrapped ferociously around almost every single spot of skin on my body. Slowly moving my arm, to not start another spasm of pain, I try to lift the bandage covering my abdomen, since it was the spot causing me the most pain.
"Don't even try it Nova. You don't want to do that." It was Angel, who's attention had previously seemed to be on Cannord.
"Why? What the hell happened to me?"
"Do you really not remember? The blonde person you were fighting blasted several holes straight through you. You did a good job though, you prevented the lasers from hitting any vital spots. You're a smart one, aren't you? I wouldn't mind taking you on myself…"
"Don't even think about it!" Cannord, Eagle, Blackout, Anima, and Magician (from the floor, might I add) all exclaimed at the same time.
"All of you want her now? Man, you're really something special." Arcane, all of these people are exhausting.