Angel of Asclepius

"My lifestyle isn't exactly the most compatible with Alexius' needs any longer. While I'd hate for Poppy to get hospitalized and end up with yet another mouth to feed, I can also find no better candidate; There is no guarantee anyone else would ensure the two of you frequent enough contact, and your lifestyle is stationary enough that perhaps..."

Hm. Perhaps he was overexplaining a bit. Ah, well.

"Since Medousa... He's not wanted to battle. He's not wanted to speak. He needs quiet routine, familiarity, and that is not the sort of thing I can afford."

["Munmun is right, we have savings, don't worry."] Plus, now she had an anchor to the ZA-Royale. They could battle on the weekends for food money if it came down to that.

Poppy would say yes in a heartbeat if she were awake right now. And not really understand the biggest logistical headache. Which wasn't money.

Noir turned to Alexius. ["While I would love to have you live with us, I do need to point out that due to legal belt constraints and Poppy's hatred of the PC Storage System,"] Something Noir also loathed! ["Plus my need to sometimes be at her place of work on site, you won't get to be outside with a human as much every day. Would you be alright being at home alone sometimes?"]

It wouldn't be every day. Noir was sure they could find something for him to do at the clinic and let some other Pokemon stay home for a change. Or he could babysit one of the less responsible Pokemon - Regina or Felis.

["I expect you to visit more often then."] Noir turned to Volo. Then, to both of them...

["I'm sorry about Medousa."]

All right, all right, maybe they were laying it on a little too thick now. He shouldn't have said anything. Now it was just embarrassing...

Only one thing for it.

He was gonna have to go find Yveltal and fight it. One on one. If it really wanted to show him up so bad, then it had to learn a hard lesson; No so-called god was going to get in his way. Not if he had anything to say about it.

"It's not a problem at all, Porygon Porygon says, beaming with pride!" Obviously, nobody could see a smile on the duck's face, but they'd just have to take her word for it. "I'm really glad your trainer's okay, too, Porygon Porygon adds solemnly."

Then, after a beat, she added one more thing. "But I think I should thank you more. He doesn't really have friends and you guys have been really good ones so far, Porygon Porygon says."

"That's enough. We're leaving." The cane's tip tapped against the linoleum floor as he stood. "Call me if something happens-- Or... Whatever you'd do that for." Noir got a little slip of paper with his number on it. Now, he'd leave.

Odd young fellow. Bold, really.

Now, Volo could return to his own seat, mulling things over a bit. "If you feel you owe me any sort of favor," he noted, as soon as the teen was out of earshot, "I've a proposition for you."

#gravity-wall #skullz is here still so im giving him a Task

["Tell Kamijou he can come back if he wants."] Noir called after him, but she didn't expect him to pass on the message. Volo's comment was much more interesting anyway.

["Interesting. What are you suggesting?"] This didn't feel like a capital D deal, so she wasn't going to treat it like one, lest the Weird get ideas. They had enough meddling with cosmic forces for one day.

Skullz went looking through Poppy's stuff for a marker - for obvious, devious reasons - and came up empty. Bummer! This was the perfect opportunity and man if this scenario didn't need some lightening up. He did come across the berry pocket though...hmm. Running low on Leppa. Somehow he felt like Noir was the cause of that. He swiped Poppy's phone. Where to find more Leppa in Saffron on such short notice...

Probably not long. The average amount of time for a visit was maybe twenty to thirty minutes, and he'd already seen what he came to see. (He wasn't fully charged, either. It was only fine because he wasn't going to use powers while he was out this time, and... Maybe a kinder person would've thanked Last Order for covering for him.)

As her explanation went on, though, he started to wish he hadn't asked. More 'Gods' stuff. He wasn't going to tune that all the way out, but he was going to take all this stuff with an extra grain of salt.

His takeaway had nothing to do with any of their god-belief, anyway.

Thinking they needed 'divine' intervention, that they needed to make a pact with a powerful death bird... That hurt. He hadn't been enough. He'd never be enough again for the rest of his life. What was the point.

"It's all right. That isn't what they meant. They only wanted to reach out to every avenue they had available."

Whatever.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes toward the ceiling.

"So I coulda let go earlier and nothing woulda happened. What a waste of time."

"Hardly," Volo spoke up. "Legends and Myths are more inclined to perform as usual than they are to go against their domain. There must have been any number of reasons it chose to assist you, and perhaps one was even an assessment that... It did not matter if it gave her this boon?"

["Honestly, your help was what turned the tide. I didn't feel any official deal signing going on and that always accompanies a Fae Bargain. Her offer was kind of shit, too."] Noir loved Poppy to death but she wasn't going to sugarcoat her shortcomings.

["I mean it. We would not be where we are now without your help. Besides, Yveltal might have shown up to see what my mega evolution fuss was all about and felt obligated to do something when it turned out to not be special. Power attracts power."] Looking back on it, that made more sense. Traveling all the way out of your home region for a nothing burger was kind of embarrassing, right?

Skullz shrugged. ["I was watching towards the end there. Every second you spent keeping her heart pumping made her soul stick to her body more and more. You can't fool a shinigami with this stuff."]

Noir narrowed her eyes. ["You actually helped so much that I was genuinely worried you'd wear out your battery. And you didn't fully charge it, either. Thank you for what you did do by the way, Last Order."]

Had to be her, since it only took him two hours to get here.

["Maybe Yveltal showed up to get a look at you and tried to one up you. You still came out winning, in my book."]

Oh, the fey were good at pranking people without using anyone else as an excuse.

<I didn't mind.> Volo would translate that from sign as well, if need be, but perhaps Noir would get the gist. Otherwise, Alexius' trainer seemed to be somewhat embroiled in a lengthy discussion no one else could hear.

The room felt oddly quiet for a time, and for the most part, Alexius watched as Poppy's aura started to fill up with color again. The effects of the ordeal slowly dissipated, little by little, but that seemed to bring new problems to the surface...

Out came another Pokémon the second visitor didn't recognize. Not even a ghost of a clue, other than it maybe looked like a ghost. Though nobody translated for the class, he heard a word in there that he couldn't help but repeat in question form.

"So what's Yveltal?"

Volo snapped his gaze back across the room.

["If you're busy with Sabrina, I can explain."] Noir said. Filling the silence would be nice. Noir didn't know how long Accelerator was going to tolerate being here. Or Last Order. Hospitals were honestly pretty boring under these circumstances. There was a tv nobody had touched yet - it definitely wouldn't wake Poppy up, but it still felt weird to turn it on.

She held Alex's hands again.

["Yveltal,"] Noir conjured an illusory diagram, ["Is the Legendary in charge of Death. It's a partner of sorts to Xerneas, the Legendary in charge of Life - and one of Poppy's ancestors, the other being Uxie, the being of Knowledge."] Each named Pokemon got a new illusion added to the lineup.

If Volo was paying attention, this may be new information for him. Oops. It wasn't a secret, they just hadn't had a chance to tell you!

["Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde, together, form the Aura Trio. Zygarde is the Legend that holds the other two to be balanced so that one cosmic force never overtakes the other. They're Kalosian in origin. Uxie is one of the Lake Guardians, a trio Arceus created and are responsible for knowledge - Uxie, emotions - Mesprit, and willpower - Azelf. They're Sinnohan in origin. Of course, Legends are not bound to the regions they come from. When we were giving Poppy first aid out in the field over there, Yveltal was around, and she struck a deal."]

Noir made a face here. It wasn't...the best of deals...but it had been struck. ["It gave her a guaranteed week of no cell death, to figure out how to solve this problem on her own. But after that, if her energy gets mismanaged, she could still die. In theory. I don't think it will come to that. But nothing is ever 100% certain."]

She looked to Volo, who was probably eager to correct or add information. Skullz had been giving her a thumbs up this whole time.

"How old do you think I am!?" That one burst from his throat without even beginning to heed everyone else in the room. "I understand fine!" Really, if someone didn't get it at least a little bit by age 17, there had to be some kind of neglect involved-- And he wasn't going to pay any attention to the part where there had been until about a year ago.

Anyway.

He could see that look on Touma's face. The one that contemplated commenting on this whole circus, before he turned away and placed the sad little lopsided fruit on a nice, clear surface. Someone almost died today. Someone else then hurtled toward the brink of death just to make sure that wasn't going to happen.

Then the Munchlax in disguise that was his roommate and ward spent the next two hours taking all the good fruit from his haul until he was left with this one. So he couldn't even apologize right. But the Gardevoir wanted to do the same, even though she really didn't have to. So, he put on a goofy-looking smile and shook his head. "It's no big deal," he promised, tucking his hands into his pants pockets. "Half my team would've been just as mad."

He stepped back, giving the patient one last look, just to make sure she was fine. This place was gonna get crowded, and then everyone would get asked to leave, so... "You can let her know I came by." With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

In the meantime, it had certainly been a minute since Volo had someone directly in his head. He wasn't planning to leave Poppy's side and she wasn't going to crowd them any further, but if there really was a pressing psychic question in her city... Of course she could answer.

#gravity-wall #Sabrina could see this whole internal convo if she wanted

Noir couldn't help it - she laughed. A lot. Maybe Nightmare was on to something with pranks. Munmun sighed - the things you ended up doing when you shared a team with Ghosts and Dark Types...

["He could have stayed...but if more people show up, we should take turns."] Noir wanted at least one psychic in the room at all times, but other than that...

["I'll let the other team members swap with me in a second."] Munmun promised. ["I just wanna...fiddle...she's gonna run out of energy."]

But at least there was a steady flow again, unlike earlier when it all had disappeared.

Noir sighed. ["The logistics nightmare begins."] She let go of Alexius, suddenly aware that she was probably impeding his own communication. ["Sorry."] She whispered, Pokespeech only.

-

Right behind the main cockpit of the spaceship was captain's quarters. Poppy, clad in the quintessential fluffy white gothic heroine nightgown, sat up in the four poster bed, all canopy curtains drawn, thick heavy black velvet things with matching lace ribbon ties.

Munmun was right beside her, pleading her case.

"If I fall asleep, I'm going to have no control over what gets healed." Poppy pleaded. "And Accelerator can't waste his power on me again, that's not right." And would piss off Sabrina!

Munmun hummed. Poppy had a point. ["Yes. I get it. But the most efficient way to regain your energy is to sleep. For real. Everything right now is at least out of the danger zone. Vital systems are all fully functional. Noir will be around to direct things to where they need to go."]

Poppy whined. "You know she's just gonna burn herself out instead!"

["I won't let that happen."] Munmun promised. ["Neither will anybody else here. I'll grab a Chansey if I need to."]

"Agh, but then I'll get hit in the crossfire..." Poppy whined.

["Might be good for you."] Munmun soothed.

"Ugh...I hate when logic wins." She pouted. "Okay, okay... I'll get comfy..."

-

["Okay. She's good for the next eight hours at least. You can handle Dream Eating?"] Noir gave a thumbs up. ["Great, I'm tagging Skullz in."]

The tapir returned, out came the shinigami. His first words were, ["Wow, her soul is really anchored in there. Yveltal wasn't kidding."]

Last Order might have to share with the humanoid class.

Well, whatever. If they wanted him up here, then fine. Kamijou Touma. Now, with that answer out of his way, he could--

Huh. The Lucario-- presumably the empath's-- and Noir were getting really close. Hugging and all that. You don't have to make it that obvious he's your boyfriend.

Not that he really cared. They could do what they wanted. He was just giving them shit 'cause he thought it was funny.

"I don't think he's gonna get mad about it," he answered aloud.

Well, while their third visitor was on his way, he'd at least explain what the empath's problem was. Kind of awful they didn't have a place like Saffron in Unova, but maybe Sabrina called Poppy to this region because that whole family was fucked. (Were they family? That would make sense if they were.)

"You're pinging everyone with pure psychic energy in a 15-foot radius every two milliseconds," Accelerator pointed out, half-bored. "With the amount you're using, you'd probably end up maybe..." His left hand waved on its axis. "Second or third to me in terms of 'ability strength' if you could control it, but the problem is your subconscious is wasting it all."

Honestly kind of a shame. It might've been cool to see a strong Empath in action. Those typically didn't exist.

"Competitive, I see," Volo remarked. "And how do you suppose that changes? I simply put out the light on my own subconscious?"

"Obviously not. That'd be stupid." The teen leaned back in the chair, cane crossing over his torso. "But your brain's not set in stone, either; It's a pain in the ass to explain. Th--"

He stopped at the beginning of a sentence, head lifted as if he was listening to something in the distance. "Sabrina said you can talk to her about shifting your subconscious reflexes." Which made this no longer his problem.

Which was just in time for a certain dark-haired young man to manage to deliver his grapefruit without incident.

#gravity-wall #using san once and then it will be implied lol

["You'll understand when you're older, sport."] Noir could privately sass right back.

Munmun's gaze darted between Accelerator and Volo. Please don't start a fight here... ["Talking to Sabrina might actually be helpful."] Munmun suggested. ["If she knows you're here,"] Meaning Accelerator, ["She knows we're here. As much as Poppy is going to be embarrassed about that."]

Oh, grapefruit kid! Sorry, Kamijou-san.

["I have to apologize for lashing out at you."] Noir said, not shifting from her spot. Annoying Accelerator was kind of funny. ["I'd like to say it's just my nature as a Gardevoir but that doesn't make it right."]

["Oh, her digestive system's well enough to muddle along now."] Munmun interrupted. ["Those drugs are going to be on their way out soon."]

And the first sense to come back was always hearing.

["Not enough to abandon the support just yet, but enough to get out of the danger zone, it looks like."] Noir said, looking at monitors and confirming.

Poppy tried to blink but lacked the energy to open her eyes to begin with. Speech was obviously also a no-go. Trickles of magic aura were coming back, searching and yearning to fix everything at once and just coming up short.

Munmun mentally bapped her. Prioritize! Okay, okay... she shifted her focus towards digestion and excretory. You know, things that still needed peripherals. Then she could focus on the nonessentials...

Noir, Munmun, Alexius, and Accelerator were probably the only ones who could notice anything was changing at all, aside from slightly fluctuating but still normal numbers.

Everybody turned back to Kamijou Touma, sheepish.

["Sorry to interrupt. We'll take the grapefruit. She's going to want to eat it soon..."]

"He was really, really worried the whole time, so I helped, Porygon Porygon says proudly." As she ventured further into the room with all these machines, perhaps she could find herself relieved she was visiting someone else for once. At least a little bit. The frequent flier she dragged into the room could probably appreciate sitting in a visitor's chair, too, maybe?

"Can it, you dumb duck. No, I wasn't." Though he did still take the offered chair, he found himself overcome with the need to point out the obvious; "They wouldn't even have let me in if she wasn't stable, so don't look at me like that. She's fine."

His chair now, though. If Noir wanted to stay close to her trainer, she had to get another one.

"You were pacing in circles in the waiting room, and fidgeting a lot at Sabrina's, Porygon Porygon protests!"

"That's cause I didn't get my coffee!" The entire reason he'd gone out in the first place! Foiled by the single unluckiest person in the world! And speaking of which: "He's in the waiting room with a lopsided grapefruit. The guy who ran into her. Whaddaya wanna do about him?"

Where Volo was concerned, it seemed Poppy had made friends with a comedy duo. He couldn't parse the Porygon all too well, stepping closer to the group as a whole, but the child? A textbook example of bravado-laced embarrassment. One who looked right at him, furrowed those colorless brows, and let out a low growl...

Right before apparently making sure Volo couldn't sense his emotions anymore.

"Keep your empath shit to yourself," the teen huffed. "Weirdo." How utterly strange. He could still get readings from everyone else in the room, now that he'd closed the gap. The only void spot in his reach was the young man... Almost as if he'd been faced with a dark-type all of a sudden. (But that couldn't have been possible.)

"Apologies. That doesn't 'shut off', as it were." Ah, well. He turned his attention to the team again. "Liability or no, it does mean that... Hm. I suppose I could convince the staff that she won't react well if she wakes up without anyone she knows nearby. Perhaps I can keep us here past visiting hours?"

#gravity-wall #oooh i guess all empaths can be vectors #i can't imagine how else it would work anyway

If they were keeping the cousin cover, it made since that Volo would be equally as untrained as Poppy was, fumbling along to manage by themselves. Passives inherently couldn't be turned off anyway. You just politely learned not to look.

["I just want as many opinions as possible."] He could keep the chair, Noir was going to drape over Alexius anyway, hand reaching for his. ["I'll tell him he can come up. What's his name?"] As she said that, she pinged the kid's brain with the room number. Come in.

["So...we are Unovan."] Obvious. ["Is it a cultural faux pas if that grapefruit ends up being eaten? Because Poppy is going to want to eat it as soon as she's able."]

As for the other dilemma -

["I'm prepared to fight every single Blissey, Chansey, and even Happiny in this hospital to stay near her. It's a fact that she'll react poorly if nobody she knows is around."]

Munmun sighed. ["You'd lose."]

Alexius turned to Noir, the look in his eyes softening as he shook his head and signed the word, <Sleeping.> Her aura didn't have the amount of power it ought to-- It hardly had a sliver of psychic energy in it at all, and the magic that normally flowed through it was absent.

Mostly, everything Munmun had already described.

<No magic aura.> The gesture for magic was especially pronounced, bigger and longer than it ought to be.

Volo could translate if he needed, but otherwise, he felt it best to allow them their talk.

A certain young man caught sight of the visitors already there, stepping back while a certain Porygon overtook him. Later's fine, he thought to himself-- And, once again, also Sabrina. Never getting a moment of peace again for as long as he lived--

"What? Hey! You can't just leave now, Porygon Porygon exclaims as she pulls you back to the room!" If it wasn't for the scene she was making, maybe he would've gotten away... Her little levitating foot didn't have anything close to the grip it needed to pull him anywhere if he didn't move his own feet on purpose...

Fine. Whatever. He could go in, ask what they wanted him to tell the loiterer in the waiting room, and then leave. One step in. Second step in, with the cane. She looked... Not great, from where he stood. Not dead, either.

#gravity-wall #lol but shes such a cute duck

Noir had the internet to the rescue and whatever she didn't understand, she politely poked Volo about via pictionary until she got the gist. Once this was all over, she was locking in on learning Unovan Sign Language.

["I knew she had magic in her. It's nice to have it finally confirmed."] A brief glance in Poppy's direction...the numbers on the monitor still rose, just at what felt like a snail's pace. Same with brain activity. Was it stupid to hope she'd wake up soon just so she could go and get some real sleep?

["I think her power will come back."] Noir said. ["Just...I don't know how long that will take. Hopefully by the end of the week."]

Agh. That would be a lot of...shit, and Volo signed the paperwork, too? Fuck. ["...I think being her cousin might have signed you up for more liability than you realize."]

["We have savings, it's fine~. The Royale was very good to us."] Oh, Munmun noticed him first. Well, noticed him trying to sneak away.

["Hello! You charge quicker than I thought."] Noir slipped out of her chair at Munmun's mental tug, offering Accelerator her seat. Mostly so he could see all the vectors in Poppy's body better and give them his opinion.

"Psychics... really are especially strange here in Saffron, aren't they?" Volo muttered to himself, wearing a guarded smile above his growing trepidation. If someone had asked only a few years back, he might have balked at such a power even being possible; How could a psychic remove psychic influence? Would such a thing not cancel itself out and leave a perfectly ordinary child behind?

"In any case, what she wants me to repay is hardly relevant. Nor will this drop in the bucket suffice." Then, after a little pause, he plucked a ball from his belt. "Although I admit it isn't all altruism that brings me here, at least not for all of your sakes. There is someone else whose needs I had to consider."

Without further ado, he pressed the button.

The Lucario didn't wait before he rushed to Noir's side and peeped at Poppy's aura alongside her.

["Dang, I think we forgot to pass along the message to Alekto."] Munmun complained, while Noir tried really hard not to turn red as she grabbed Alexius' paw.

["You're lucky she can't hear you say that."] Alas, Pokemon ears could. ["She'd think you're insulting Gym Leader Sabrina."]

Noir had her own questions about Poppy's aura, actually. Psychic energy wise, everything was slowly rising but otherwise quiet. There was the barest wisp of brain activity that signified a functioning nervous system. She also never asked him what Poppy's aura looked like on a normal day, either, and now she felt very stupid for just thinking of it, when this data would be extremely useful.

It'd liven up when the drugs wore off, and maybe her aura would follow suit? Was there an aura difference between sleep and unconsciousness? A difference between drug-induced and other causes? Did Alex even have the life experience to be able to tell these differences?

["Is it bad?"] Noir asked, dreading the answer.

Volo found a seat at a decent distance, giving the pair enough room to feel without him probing into obvious sensations. The vast majority of her body was struggling, because of... What? A simple suppressant field? Was it internal and they were waiting for it to pass?

No. Noir would have felt the effects if Poppy had somehow swallowed such a device. Was there a version that could have been called a sort of 'medication'?

"I find my attention rather fixed," he countered. "You forget how much I yet owe her far too easily."

["She's never going to want you to pay her back for that. Helping people is just what she does."]

Munmun couldn't help but skim his brain.

["So. What really happened is she bumped into a guy that sort of acts like a living suppressant. He has the power to temporarily nullify all Type Energy. It really was an accident and the poor kid feels horrible. But we need to wait for her powers to come back in order to fix everything. This isn't information you can tell everybody, either."] Munmun half explained, half warned.

["Yveltal gave us some buffer room."] Noir added. ["A guaranteed week of no cell death. So if it wears off soon, it should be fine. In theory."]

That was supposed to be comforting news and yet it still didn't feel like it.

Volo signed in a messy scrawl, as one was wont to do in the midst of such a bold faced lie.

Not long after, the doctor would arrive, and... The longer this doctor went on, the blanker (and perhaps even less focused) his stare became. Even a native speaker might've had a little trouble with this if they weren't familiar with medical jargon, but as it were?

"Apologies," he said. "Kantonian is not my first language. But I am certain Noir understands. If she has no questions, neither will I."

With that, he'd follow her lead.

Noir sent him easy to understand clip art: Brain, heart, lungs, big green circle. Stomach, muscles, kidneys, bones, etc. Yellow triangle. Nothing was really big red X anymore. Good!

So why was she still so concerned? Now she just felt stupid.

It was down the hallway, into a room behind a red curtain, within clear view of the nursing station. Noir assumed Volo wouldn't recognize much of the machinery, but Noir was more relieved by what she didn't see.

No oxygen, no ventilation, no heart and lung machine. Just a catheter tube peeking out from the bottom of the blanket, a bedpan that the average person wouldn't even notice, and the only two drips on the IV stand were nutrition and saline. No machinery for anything else. No pain management either, which did raise her eyebrow for a second, but a shared look with Munmun confirmed that she wasn't feeling much of anything at the moment.

Of course - with everything else limping along right now, the drugs from earlier were probably still in her system. Sorry, Poppy.

["Those numbers and those monitors making noises might seem scary, but I can promise you that they are good numbers."]

Noir moved to read her chart, as soon as the Chansey showing them the way had left. Her bloodwork wasn't perfect, but it wasn't dying, either.

Finally, she plopped into the closest chair, scooting it closer with telekinesis. ["I...expected it to be worse than this and now I don't know what to do with myself."] Noir sighed. ["It's going to be pretty boring for you here. Sorry. But thank you for coming so quickly."]

Munmun hummed. ["I could let you peek inside her mind, but it's not much more entertaining in there, either."]

It was... difficult to talk about how much they knew of the situation. How big of a hand they might have had in it. How 'unlucky accident' didn't even begin to describe it.

While the rest of Noir's contact list simmered down, Olympus could feel themselves start to rile up... Yet, they couldn't even give her a reason as to why.

[Disrupting balance is a matter of consequence, not of authority. I would never recognize them as having such a position in the first place, if it were.]

Hmm. They shouldn't have sent that.

[Regardless. I will accept your response as forgiveness.]

---

Volo hardly made it there a few moments later than he said he would, and what a sight he'd come across!

Noir, in Volo's view, should have at least lied to the staff a little bit. Told them one would be here any minute now. Especially as he approached the conversation, waving his hand to get the worker's attention.

"This is about Poppy Somma, yes?" he interjected. "I'm her cousin. I do recall saying I'd reach you around this time; Did my message refuse to send?"

#gravity-wall #hope he knows who caitlin is lol

Should she have lied? Yeah. Alas, she was frazzled with everything that was going on, up to and including checking messages, that it had slipped her mind. Thank you for that save, Volo. She owed you one. With that in mind, it was easy to spoof a did not send result.

["That's not her natural hair color."] Munmun added, while Noir made a show of looking through texts. ["It's actually closer to Caitlin's."]

The social worker and Blissey both looked at Volo a little closer and nodded. Made sense. "Okay, you just need to sign the paperwork here..."

Once all that was finished, it was more waiting for a doctor. Which didn't take long, one popping up with her own Chansey in tow before Noir had a chance to even thank Volo for coming on such short notice.

"She's regained all of her vital functioning. We're still going to keep her in the ICU for now, just in case, but she doesn't need to be intubated or anything else anymore. Things like the digestive system and excretory system are still recovering, though, so it might be a day or two before we can wean her off of those." The doctor explained. Noir gave Volo a glance. Sorry, she understood all those words...you probably didn't.

"She's not awake at the moment, but you can still go and see her if you like."

Noir didn't need to be told twice.

Volo's reply came first.

[I will be upon your location in two hours.]

Alexius hadn't been saying much of late, but it was clear enough that he wanted to go and support Noir from the way he stared at her message. They'd start packing up and moving south posthaste.

There wasn't much Akari could do from Unova but send a string of hugging emojis in return.

[From: AMANE] [Subject: Hospital]

[I will be there as soon as I can. Something has come up at the CDA and I cannot leave my post, but know I will endeavor to solve this as quickly as possible and see her. May I know how this happened?]

[From: NAOYA] [Subject: About your request.]

[Sigyn is indisposed, but I've passed your message along. I'll have an opening to visit tomorrow.]

[From: KAZUYA] [Subject: Get well soon!]

[What happened? Is Poppy okay? Give me a little bit and I'll see what I can do.]

[From: ICHIYA] [Subject: What happened?]

[Poppy's hard to hurt, isn't she? That's really worrying.

Did a battle go poorly for her?]

Then came one final message, which Noir may not have been expecting, in a newly opened DM with Olympus themself.

[I am sorry.]

#gravity-wall #tw medical

Noir didn't really expect this much of a response. This was more of a status update than anything. The other clinic staff sent their well wishes and Akari's reply was appreciated. Noir would bring her here if she wanted, but unless she asked...there was still so much to do. Too many tasks littering her mind.

Okay. A mass email, copied and pasted to all parties. Sorry if it sounded form letter.

[From what I can tell you, she had an accidental run-in with a power suppressant.] That wording would sound off to the clinic staff. They would just have to deal with it. Chalk it up to nerves. Noir didn't know if that was more or less embarrassing than a fight. [She's got a week of guaranteed survival. Success beyond that depends on how fast the suppressants wear off for her. I foresee some logistical issues we're going to need to solve to make this work. She is starting to recover. I just don't know if it's fast enough to matter. Too fast is just as much of a problem as too slow here.]

And then, to Olympus alone -

[Don't be. You can't upset Zygarde's balance any more than Yveltal and Xerneas can.]

-

Two hours had passed. Two hours of emergency critical care medicine, sorting through machinery and bio-powers and testing and trying different combinations of life support, judging and predicting and tweaking how fast what would recover. Where to put her, where did they have space, how fast were her numbers going up, was her functioning matching the numbers. All things Noir wasn't privy to, stuck in this waiting room with Munmun by her side. It wasn't much comfort.

It also shouldn't have taken two hours and this much deliberation, in Noir's opinion. The solution was painfully simple - ventilation, parental nutrition, catheterization, ECMO, medically induced coma - until she regained enough strength to rebuild those systems herself. From there, everything else would follow.

But Kanto loved their bureaucracy. Case in point. A social worker with a Blissey at his side was looking at Noir, questioningly.

"Have her next of kin contacted you?"

Noir shook her head. The social worker grimaced.

"Well, do you know of any other way to get in touch with them? Because we need somebody on the paperwork to move beyond life support. We also need somebody to take care of you and the rest of her Pokemon in the meantime...otherwise, we'll have to put you in the PC Storage System."

He didn't really have much choice here. This wasn't exactly going out in a blaze of glory if he didn't make it, anyway. "Yeah." Sabrina was going to regret letting him out of her sight again... He'd never get a moment alone for the rest of his life. What a pain in the ass.

As for the Qwilfish-head, he was gonna end up walking for sure.

#gravity-wall #they end up putting her in ICU anyway for equipment reasons rip

One delivery to Sabrina's doorstep, coming right up.

After that, it was a pretty tense ambulance ride, all things considered. Noir told the EMTs that she was contacting relatives, just to get them out of her hair about that, while Munmun tried to glean and feed her bits of Poppy's ongoing status from what she overheard them talking about.

Mobile life support procedures had begun - fellow psychics taking the CPR and other burdens from them. Poppy had no choice but to submit to the drugs that came with intubation and the like, and Munmun wished she could scrub that dirty look from her mind. Sorry! They had no choice!

Noir opened Poppy's phone. Who first?

She poked the clinic work chat, for all employees.

[Poppy's going to be in the hospital for a bit. Saffron General. I'll give you more answers as I get them.]

"Oh...her blood pressure is stabilizing? Maybe we don't need to go straight to the ICU after all?"

Then she moved to text messages, bringing up Volo.

[Poppy's in the hospital. ICU is likely. It's Saffron General. I'll tell you more when I have time.]

"Ah, her type energy is returning! That was a really important detail, thanks Musharna. What? You're worried she'll..."

Finally, Noir brought out the COMP, scribbling a mass email.

[To: Amane, Naoya, Kazuya, Ichiya] [Poppy's in the hospital. It's in Kanto, so it's your time zone. It's Saffron General. I don't expect you to drop everything and come here, but if you want to visit, I'd appreciate it. If you could let Sigyn know, maybe she can help?]

"Yeah, her power seems to be coming back over time, not all at once. She's still going to need life support until it all comes back. Yeah, we're probably going to need to keep her sedated for a bit. Okay, we're pulling into the trauma center now..."

Noir still had Tina's number memorized. She had never changed it...

Noir closed the phone. They had reached the hospital. From that moment on, everything went in a blur and not much sunk into her memory until she got to the part of the ward that wouldn't let her go much further.

["But-"]

"No unauthorized personnel beyond those doors. I'm sorry. I'm sure your trainer will be fine!"

The doors slammed shut and Noir stood in the hallway clutching Poppy's belt like an idiot. Munmun floated next to her, hovering over Poppy's stuff. It took all Noir's concentration to not lash out at the Chansey ushering them into the waiting room.

"Neither am I." The 'Shadow' part was doing a lot of work there for him in that regard, even if the process never fully took. As for that thing... Imagine Breaker. The way Kamijou described it, it was more like deactivating something's Type for a while; Useful against psychics, worthless against mundanes, weird against Pokémon. That information, he tried to share through any mental link Noir or the Musharna might have decided to hold with him.

"Power came back for me," he described. Of course, given that he was a sample size of one, he couldn't say exactly how long it was going to take for Poppy. Even if he gave them a ballpark, that could've been way off base. "Just don't let him touch you."

Touma, for his part, had started pacing in circles, staying on the line with emergency services while they all waited for the ambulance to get here. If he started to complain about how the day could not get worse, it would find a way, and at this point, why tempt fate?

He hadn't missed the glowing feather on its journey down, open cell phone shifting to his left hand while he reached up toward the violent dark aura with the other. Clasping it in his hand, he snuffed out the dark-type energy, leaving only a black and red feather behind. What was this thing?

For right now, it was just going to have to be a strange feather in his pocket. The sirens were coming. The ambulance was pulling in. Accelerator could finally have his phone back-- With one little remark at the end to cap things. "That was pretty heroic, you know. Jumping to somebody's rescue like that."

The pale boy yanked his phone back and hissed, "Get lost." It wasn't going to happen. This idiot was going to catch up at the hospital and bide his time in the waiting room until he knew she was okay. Because he was a good guy and all that.

Whatever. At that point, it wasn't his problem anymore.

He only got away from Poppy when they got the stretcher out for her. He'd be okay for a minute, but...

"...'m tired," he muttered. "But I... Told you I'd..." His grip on his phone was starting to weaken. "Make it."

Shit.

The ghosts went back in their balls as soon as emergency services got here. No sense getting in the way of, and potentially spooking EMTs and Chanseys. Nightmare didn't see much in the way of anxiety to eat...but he'd be out as soon as he found a meal on the horizon. Before he left, he spat out the best blessing he could - a very temporary HP bonus.

Directed at Accelerator, who wasn't looking so great. Noir was too busy chatting rapidfire with the EMTs, bottlenecked by the speed at which her tablet could spit out audio. Yveltal had been sincere - Poppy's vitals hadn't sunk beyond the bare minimum to sustain life, even with everybody easing up on the psychic life support and handing it over to the professionals.

Well. Fellow professionals.

Internally, Poppy was a mess. But she didn't have the resources to spare for the mother of all panic attacks. Noir's Mega form finally dissipated, but Poppy still clung to consciousness tooth and nail. How was she supposed to direct the last dregs of Infinity Energy in the most efficient way possible if she wasn't awake to do it?

This left Munmun as the only spare party. ["Hey."] She floated up to Accelerator. ["You need to get to a charger STAT. Do you want Noir to drop you off at Sabrina's right before we go?"]

You had a split second to decide, because they were about to leave.

There was no world in which that boy was just going to leave somebody to die, especially not because of his own fuck up. He was busy telling the operator where to find them-- Where to send the ambulance from, ideally; Saffron General Hospital had never done anyone here wrong, and it was the closest anyway.

If they had the other parts covered, then fine, he'd focus on the blood. Like carefully threading a million needles. Still taxing, but splitting this work bought him time. "I'm not sacrificing myself for you," Accelerator snapped. "I can make it until the ambulance gets here. That's no problem for me."

He didn't know that for sure.

"They're used to psychics here. They'll keep her safe until her powers come back."