Fluff

Chapter Four - Hospital Visit

Emily knew that a lot of people disliked hospitals. She could get it.

They all had this smell to them, like a weird mix of diapers and antiseptics and warm plastic. And she imagined that most people's hospital-related memories weren't the best. It wasn't somewhere people went for fun, after all.

She was a little more ambivalent about them. She'd never been hurt or injured before (hard to get injured when your favourite pastimes all involved strenuous amounts of laying in bed and staring at a phone) and she had always gone out of her way to avoid having to visit people.

Now she was on a mission to visit someone and grill them for information, and she wanted nothing more than to leave, but it wasn't the hospital's fault.

When she'd asked the secretary lady by the front desk where she could find Jezebelle, she'd been given a room number and was informed that visiting hours ended at seven. Oh, and she had to follow any floor-specific instructions with regards to wearing masks, gloves, and those weird backwards scrubs that patients wore.

Fortunately, Jezebelle's floor wasn't under any sort of restrictions like that.

Less fortunately, there were people next to the room with the number she'd been given. Two people, both men in casual clothes standing on either side of the door in a very un-casual way.

Emily paused at the end of the corridor and stared at them. Maybe that was the excuse she needed to leave? Were they guards? Would she have to talk to them? Emily wanted to pace, but then maybe that would make her look suspicious. But then, wasn't standing in the corridor and staring not also suspicious.

One of the men looked at her, and Emily jumped, eyes darting to the floor so she wouldn't have to meet his gaze. Then she shored up her bravery and walked over. "Um, hi," she said.

"Hello," one of them said.

"Can I see Jezebelle?" she asked with a faint gesture towards the door.

"Are you family?" he asked.

"Um... no? I'm a classmate. I was worried?"

"What's your name," he asked. "I'll see if she wants visitors."

She swallowed. "Emily," she said.

There was a very, very long pause where nothing happened and she looked up, meeting the man's expecting gaze. "Emily... what?"

"Wright?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," he said. Then he opened the door and slipped in, leaving her in the corridor to pray that the floor would open up and swallow her whole. The other guy just crossed his arms and stared while Emily waited.

Then the first guy returned, and he gave Emily one of those sidenods boys did. She squeezed past him and into the room.

Unsurprisingly, Jezebelle had a room all to herself, with a hospital bed in the middle, a bathroom to one side behind a door and a window with a nice view of the parking lot next to the hospital. The woman herself was, obviously, in the bed, with a few beepy machines standing next to her that had tubes and wires trailing to Jezebelle.

Jezebelle herself looked... not great. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and her eyes looked sunken and tired, her skin pallid and sickly. Emily couldn't tell what was wrong with her exactly. It looked like she still had the usual number of arms and legs. "Hi," she said.

Jezebelle's eyes opened, and then she blinked. "Hey," she said. "Grab a seat." She waved vaguely to a chair next to the bed, then she reached for a remote next to her. A long press later and her bed hummed as the back rose, letting her sit up.

Emily sat too, on the edge of this old pleather seat that squeaked uncomfortably beneath her. "So, uh, I heard you met a villain?"

Jezebelle chuckled darkly. "Yeah, I met a villain. It wasn't all that fun."

Emily winced. "Yeah, uh, I can imagine. I was... worried?"

"You don't sound so certain," Jezebelle said. "Ah, were you worried that you'd run into him too?"

"A bit of that, and a bit of worry for you," Emily said, expertly parrying the foot on its way into her mouth. "I wanted to see if you were okay. And I guess, uh, ask about the villain."

Jezebelle rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you and everyone else. Urgh, but at least you have good reasons to want to know. You can't believe how many gossips came here just to... you know, do gossip things."

Emily didn't know. She didn't want to. "Yeah, sure," she lied.

"So, right to business? You know, the HRF would probably tell you a bit if you asked them."

"I don't know," Emily said.

"Eh, yeah, fair, they did just get messed up by the guy, and I wouldn't trust whatever sanitised crap PR says after that. What do you know so far?"

Emily shrugged. "Not very much," she admitted. "I only found out about everything a few hours ago. All I really know is that he's a man called Rattles. I don't even know what his power is."

Jezebelle hummed. "That's such a stupid name."

Emily decided to keep her opinion about the name 'Glamazon' to herself.

"Anyway, he has some sort of... shaker power." She made a wobbly gesture with her hand. "When I fought him, the ground shook under me the entire time, and whenever he hit someone with that bat of his they'd... shake a bunch. I haven't seen the official reports on it, they'll have proper, professional speculation, but I can tell you what it felt like."

"Did he hit you?" Emily asked.

Jezebelle nodded. "My attacks were distracting him a bit, but they weren't working on him very well. So I got in close. I'm pretty good in a scrap, and it didn't look like he was enhanced or anything. Then he slapped me in the chest." She touched her chest. "Right under a breast too. What a jerkwad. It felt like... urgh, you ever ride on a school bus down a bumpy road?"

"I... I think I know the feeling," Emily said.

"Yeah, everything shook a lot. My costume got torn up pretty badly, and next thing I know I'm waking up in an ambulance with a concussion and the biggest bruise you've ever seen."

"Is it... bad?" Emily asked. She didn't exactly consider Jezebelle a friend, after all the woman was a hero and if she discovered Emily's villainy, they'd have problems, but she didn't dislike her either, even if she was both a hero--and worse, an extrovert.

"They're treating me for blunt force trauma, even if that's not quite the right thing to call it. More like... I guess it wasn't one single hit? More like lots of tiny ones? I don't know, exactly, but my insides got shaken up, and that's apparently not healthy."

"I can imagine, yeah," Emily said.

"But hey, I lived." Jezebelle shrugged. "Might be transferred to a bigger city to see a hero who has healing powers."

That reminded Emily of something. "Um... maybe I can try to help?" she asked.

"By capturing Rattles?" she asked.

Emily shook her head. "I have a healing power."

Jezebelle stared for a moment. "Huh. Really?"

"It's very weak. More for, uh, boos boos." She realized what she'd said a moment later and wanted to die all over again.

"Well, I've got more than a boo-boo to deal with, but I'll take whatever help I can get."

Emily flushed, then walked over to Jezebelle and patted her on the head. She focused on her Healpats ability, and fired it off between pats.

"Huh," Jezebelle said. "I think that... might have worked... maybe?"

"It's not very strong," Emily said. It was a better use of the skill than most. Usually she just used it to top up her sisters' health, just in case. She'd heard a lot of stories about how often kids caught colds, and she'd seen how many weird things ended up in Trinity's mouth.

"Well, thanks in any case," she said. "Anything that gets me out of here sooner helps. But I think we should keep this between us? You wouldn't imagine how pedantic the HRF gets whenever you do something they haven't tested a million times."

"Ah, that would be for the best, yeah," Emily agreed. "Thank you for the information, about Rattles, I mean."

"What are you planning on doing now? Track him down to beat him up?"

Emily frowned. "I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Hey, me too," she said. "Be careful with that guy, okay? He doesn't feel like some two-bit nobody. It feels like he's got some experience under his belt. No one just decides to attack the headquarters of something like the HRF just for fun, you know? There are easier, softer targets out there."

"Yeah," Emily agreed. "I'll be careful, I promise."

***