Chương 4: R&R Ch. 4 — Hospital Hospitality

Nicholas was shocked that he had woken up without pain. When he fell unconscious, everything had been hurting, so that nothing hurt now was suspicious. The ceiling wasn't one he recognized, but Nicholas recognized the smell along with the feeling of wires attached to him. He was in a hospital. That made a certain amount of sense considering what had happened to him, but he still wasn't thrilled. With a groan, he sat up, surprised to see Jasmine in the chair near his bed, drinking what looked like hot chocolate.

Did hospitals serve hot chocolate?

"What are you doing here?" Nicholas asked, his voice strained. It wasn't a massive surprise his power all channeled through his voice of course it would suffer from usage. Jasmine blinked slowly, looking at Nicholas as if trying to will her brain to catch up.

"Oh, yeah, um…" Jasmine trailed off as if every word was a knife.

"Called me because my name and number is on your hand?" That actually made some sense to Nicholas, but it didn't explain why Jasmine was acting so weird.

"You okay?" Jasmine nodded before sighing and shaking her head to the negative.

"That obvious?"

"You look how I feel," Nicholas whispered.

"Like death warmed over?"

"Something like that." Nicholas agreed.

"I know we said we would work together and be teammates, but is there a reason you actually showed up?"

"I was waiting for you to call with powers since I had gotten mine."

"You met a hero?"

"Nothing as impressive as you. I got it because I'm a nepo baby from a hero family; you are the impressive one." Jasmine said, sulking.

"But are they the one who's walking with me?" Nicholas asked, feeling bad for the somber girl. Whatever light she had was gone.

"You don't care?"

"Why would I care? Are you going to hold it over me that you're more special or stronger?" Nicholas asked quietly. His voice wasn't fully healed from what he had done earlier, and it was showing.

"Uh, no, I'm holding it over on me."

"That's ridiculous."

"Was your advancement as painful as mine?" Nicholas asked, wanting to know.

"We probably shouldn't talk about that right now," Jasmine said, looking away from Nicholas despite obvious interest in the topic of herself.

"Why not?"

"Because we are in danger." Nicholas tilted his head to the side trying to figure out just what that was supposed to mean.

"What do you mean?" Jasmine downed the rest of her hot coco before sighing.

"Basically we are babies, so we're not safe, which means all older supers are going to be fussing over us in minutes once they know we're both here." Nicholas could follow that logic easily enough, and more than that, he was pretty sure he could make something that would solve that problem. Jasmine watched as Nicholas worked over the problem in his head.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying something new," Nicholas rasped, as he firmed his will, pooling his power as he tried to shape reality. Jasmine quirked an eyebrow, grinning.

"The problem is that we aren't safe, so all we need is to be that and then you'll feel safe," Nicholas said, theorizing aloud. It was clear that Jasmine was feeling off right now, and her feeling unsafe because of horror stories that her family had told her made perfect sense to Nicholas when he thought about it. So, he just needed to make them safe. He had an idea of what word would work. Making them safe was probably impossible. How about hiding them?"

Conceal" The world rippled as Nicholas's words became reality, concealing them from the world, and that was the same moment that he passed out again. Jasmine stared at her hopeful future friend for a moment before laughing. It probably wasn't what she wanted out of hanging out with him, but it was certainly something that brought her joy and made her soul feel just a tad bit lighter.

Twenty minutes later, Nicholas awoke once more to Jasmine looking down at him smiling and a man that definitely wasn't here before that glared at him in the disapproving fatherly way.

"It would have been a lot easier for me to give you your invitations if you hadn't done that, Nicholas," he said, sounding annoyed.

"Did what?" Nicholas croaked.

"You hid this room from the world; people walked by the door not realizing it was here; the signal from the machines checking on if you were alive stopped working and more."

"You didn't seem to struggle to find it," Jasmine said, pointing out a fact that had been sticking to Nicholas as well.

"I have a perception ability and am two tiers up. You would hope I could notice the first working of a stealth type." The man scoffed. Nicholas was going to correct him but decided against it after Jasmine gave him a look. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Sorry." The man sighed.

"It's not a wrong idea; you two are in danger, but it is annoying when one of you would know that we were coming to protect you," he said, glaring at Jasmine, who whistled innocently.

"So who are you?"

"Observer is the name, and ferrying young supers to safety is the game," Observer said, pulling out a business card and handing one to each of them. Nicholas was pretty sure this guy was a dick. He wasn't going to say it yet, but he was thinking it nearly as loudly as he could.

"So we're just going to follow you with no choice?" Nicholas asked, not looking at the business card. Jasmine looked at him scandalized as Observer laughed.

"Oh, I love the spiteful and clueless ones. Whatever you got that gave you your power must have been a riot to be this dumb." Observer chuckled. Nicholas wanted to correct him — that he had done it all on his own and not with one of the various items people had made to make it easier. He researched little, but he knew naturals like him were rare, though it wasn't always a good thing. Rare didn't mean good, just unlikely. His ability was an example of that too.

None of the pinnacles had an ability like his, though it wasn't unheard of for strong heroes.

"Sorry, I was just lucky, I guess," Nicholas said with a shrug. He would not hide the circumstances of his ascension at least forever, but right now in a hospital with no idea what was going on? That wasn't in the cards.

"But yes, something she will know," Observer said, nodding to Jasmine.

"Next level, you'll be able to sense other supers. Right now you can't, nor do you have the skill to veil yourself. Meaning you're a walking beacon." Nicholas didn't like the sound of him just broadcasting his presence to everyone. There had to be a way to fix that since Observer said skill to veil, not ability to. That meant he could learn. Though he guessed that was the point of this guy. To get him to go to a school that would make him feel indebted to everyone.

Though something like that worked best when he wasn't aware of that.

"So where are you going to take us?" Jasmine asked since Nicholas wasn't saying anything.

"Well, we have a resort for young supers. Young as in new, not as in young, though it works for both you. And you guys are lucky the cycle for training courses is just about to start, so you can start being trained instantly." Observer nodded.

"And would we stay here or go somewhere else?" Jasmine asked, sounding way more eager than Nicholas would have thought.

"Well, if you two are both trying to grow stronger, we'll ship you off. If you want to be normal people with powers, you'll stay here," Observer said, looking between them.

"I want to grow," Nicholas said quietly.

"I can't stay here." Nicholas wasn't sure about that reasoning, and he suspected it was something deeper than what the words themselves indicated.

"Then within the week you all will be traveling across the world to rescue other people. Me, I'm happy to stay in my line, but respect to you all for trying it, I suppose," Observer said with a shrug. Nicholas instantly lost his liking for this guy, though it wasn't high in the first place. But the idea of just wanting to stagnate was like nails on a chalkboard to him. What was the point? If Nicholas got powers, he would never stop learning. Though he had powers now.

So now he had to grow to put his money where his mouth was. At least with his power, he could learn infinitely. He could get a vague sensation from his power that each word could be pushed. There was nearly endless growth. All he had to do was learn a new word. Would other languages work? Probably, he couldn't see why they wouldn't.

"So when do we leave?" Jasmine asked, having continued the conversation while Nicholas pondered.

"Well, with Nicholas like that, we're waiting for a healer," Observer said with a sigh.

"Could you give us some space for a bit and protect the area from listeners?" Jasmine asked hopefully. Observer nodded before stepping out of the room. Jasmine sagged in relief.

"Such a dick, right?"

"Should you really be saying that right now?" Jasmine waved a hand away.

"He won't be listening."

"How are you sure?"

"Because he doesn't know who my family is, which means he's going to be really careful not to do anything to piss them off." Jasmine shrugged.

"Benefits of having a scary family?"

"Yeah, but soon we will be out of their hair, right?" Jasmine said hopefully.

"Do you want to be?"

"I want nothing more than to not be around them." Jasmine said darkly.

"I want to prove I am more than just the result of my family's hard work and genetics."

"You will," Nicholas said.

"How bad is your voice?" Jasmine asked, sounding genuinely concerned despite how clearly abysmal she feels. Nicholas thought about the question while he rubbed his throat. Genuinely, it was awful, but he didn't know why it was his power. It shouldn't be physical, should it?

"It hurts a lot," Nicholas admitted.

"That's not uncommon, Observer," Jasmine said, jerking her head towards the door where the super had left.

"Said that powers with a physical activation tax your body as you mess with the world."

"Does he know anything about my ability?"

"He shouldn't?" Jasmine shrugged.

"He knows you disguised yourself and the room, but beyond that? The only thing he knows is you knocked yourself out from overuse."

"What about you? What happened?"

"Kind of the same as you," Jasmine said, refusing to meet Nicholas's eyes.

"My power has a cost to use, and I wanted to use it for something, and now I'm suffering."

"Will it happen every time we fight? Both of us?" Nicholas asked quietly.

"No, my power is more of a prep-work kind of thing. It won't be a problem, at least initially. There's some stuff I can do later, but yeah." Jasmine said nonchalantly, shrugging.

"Anything I can do to help?" Nicholas asked, not wanting a stranger to be in pain if there's something he can do to help.

"Just hang out with me; soul damage is best solved by hanging out with your friends," Jasmine said, winking.

"But we aren't friends yet?" Nicholas said. He had no intention of being rude, but it wasn't like the two of them actually knew each other.

"That's why I winked. You and I are going to become besties for resties."

"Uh, okay?" Nicholas wasn't against making friends; he just wasn't sure what was going on with Jasmine.

"Great, now we're hitched together like a horse and a wagon."

"Falling off a cliff?" Jasmine burst out laughing, her cup tipping over, and thankfully it was empty; otherwise, hot chocolate would have gone everywhere.

"Well, I am hoping that we do a little bit better than falling off a cliff, but you know I'm sure we will do it at least once as superheroes, right?" Jasmine asked, life returning to her eyes as the conversation continued.

"I would rather fly up a cliff." Jasmine laughed at that.

"So we're going to crash at a hotel for a week and then be teleported across the world to get training?" Nicholas asked, making sure he understood everything he needed to for the context.

"More or less, yeah, we'll have to talk to your family about this since mine are already all in the know," Jasmine said much to Nicholas's annoyance. Mostly because he knew she was right. He just didn't want to talk to his family.

"Could we say that my voice is still thrashed and that you have to do the talking?" Nicholas asked, desperately seeking the easy way out. Jasmine peered at him for a second before grinning evilly.

"If you're willing to owe me one, then I am happy to do it for you." Nicholas was no longer sure that this was the best course of action. She probably wouldn't be that bad to him, right? They were supposed to be teammates, but she was clearly feeling abysmal about something, and here he was pawning off more work on her.

"How about we say I owe you two instead?"

"Deal!" Instead of a handshake, Jasmine hugged him, squeezing tight enough that he had to wonder if she had enhanced strength. He just hoped he wouldn't regret this. Observer poked his head in.

"You two ready to get moving, we can get Nicholas discharged?" Nicholas was already regretting this.