Ch 01

To anyone who didn’t know with what was going to take place, all the equipment and the man standing in the middle of the ominous-looking device in the middle of the room would probably look like the opening scene for a movie about a super-soldier experiment gone awry. Men and women wearing fairly typical lab-coats were walking around performing checks on the machinery and computers in the large room, making final preparations for the experiment. The machine in question consisted of a large column of steel housing for various components; a low humming noise indicating the phenomenal amounts of electricity running through the machinery. The column stopped suddenly to be replaced by five support beams that left an open space about three meters high before joining to another, much shorter section that was situated on the room’s floor. This lower section had a set of stairs at the front to allow people to easily climb up and walk into the test area.

The man in question that was standing here wasn’t an ordinary sight himself. His skin was very pale, his hair white as snow and long enough to reach slightly past the small of his back; he was far from elderly too, being only 24 years old. Unlike the scientists in the room, he was dressed casually and wearing dark clothes, making an unusual contrast between his clothing and his skin and hair. Of his attire however, the only truly oddity was the fact that he was wearing a pair of mirrored, multi-colored sunglasses despite being indoors; the lighting in this room was very bright, of course, but hardly to the point that a person would normally require sunglasses. Currently he was speaking to one of the scientists here who was standing at the edge of the stairs, apparently there to go over the procedures with him one more time before everything got started.

 

“Oh, quit worrying about it so much Katherine, nothing’s going to go wrong. We’ve all been over what we’re meant to do something like a million times already.”

“That’s what you said last time, Blaze. It took us all months to replace the circuitry you fried. This equipment isn’t cheap or easy to calibrate, you know.”

This drew an exasperated sigh from Blaze, ruffling his hair slightly with his palm, though he chuckled quietly afterwards. “None of you are going to let that go, are you? I told you, I got a little over-zealous last time. It’s not gonna happen again. Honest.”

Katherine’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at Blaze over the brim of her glasses. “You do realize adding ‘honest’ at the end makes you sound very childish, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly as he stood straight up once again. “But with you being as intelligent as you are you’d know better than to judge someone based only on how they speak, wouldn’t you?”

“True, but I’m not judging you based only on how you speak. You do very baffling things sometimes.”

“Katherine!” a second scientist called out, who had apparently been listening in on the exchange between Katherine and Blaze. He has a very cold expression on his face, though his voice betrayed the fear he was trying to hide. “The last thing we need to do is piss him off. Don’t you have other things you need to be doing?”

I know my reputation is far from glowing, but does he really need to say stuff like that...? “Relax. I can... sort of understand you not really liking me around, but I’m honestly not like a lot of the stories people have told.”

He didn’t get a response from the second man, James, as he had turned around and briskly walked over to one of the computer stations to continue his work, getting a second sigh from Blaze. He turned to Katherine again after a moment. “Anyway, you’ve got a point. Still, I can be serious when I want to be. Unless something unexpected happens, the experiment should go exactly as planned this time.”

“Just don’t go overboard again, alright?”

Blaze had started grinning slightly now. “No problem! Hell, I’d like this to work just as much as anyone else here. This is a big deal.”

This drew a faint smile from Katherine as she nodded.

 

“Alright, everything’s set up. All Delta team members get to your stations, we’re powering up Prometheus Razor II.” Another male voice called out through a PA system, and all the scientists that weren’t already at their stations moved there now; Katherine included as she turned around, passing a casual wave to Blaze as she did so. He had to admit, it was refreshing to find people who realized he wasn’t so bad after all when they were working with him for a while, Katherine being one of them. Still, human error always came into play somehow. Even here there were people who refused or found it very hard to let go of what they’d heard about him, like James, but he seemed to have grown a bit more tolerant to his presence too. It certainly helped that there hadn’t been anything to spark off his aggression while he was working with them.

“Alright, the system has been initialized.” The male voice called out again. “Blaze, you may begin when ready. No fireworks this time, ok?”

“But I thought you liked fireworks, Daniel!” Blaze called out after chuckling a little to himself, stopping abruptly as he noticed that everyone else had a distinct ‘not funny’ look in their faces. Shaking his head afterwards as he stretched his arms outwards, palms open and facing two of the ‘support’ pillars. From the inside of the gap it could be clearly seen that the inside of each of these smaller columns was actually lined with a number of semi-reflective panels, and beyond which it was possible to just about make out some very heavy electrical cables on the inside of each of the columns. “Starting!” He called out again to notify the personnel in the room to be ready. Shortly after this, the lights dimmed as he drew energy from the surrounding space and gathered it around him as a transparent, white, glowing sphere that replaced the actual electrical lighting as the main light source in the room. The computers and other special equipment in the room had to be specially shielded from this process. Normally he wouldn’t draw enough energy to affect devices around him, but he was currently drawing a massive amount of energy. Then again, what with Prometheus’ Razor being an experiment to see if alternate universes existed and if it were possible to send matter or energy between the two, that kind of energy was required even for a very small, temporary opening.

 

“You’re gathering the energy a lot faster than last time.” Daniel, who was in a control room overlooking the experiment, spoke through the PA system again. “Take it a bit more slowly; we don’t want things to get out of hand.”

“I’ve been practicing for the last few months on gathering energy. I didn’t have a whole lot else to do! Just let me know when it gets to around 90% and I’ll slow down then.”
“Roger. Just take it carefully.”

Throughout the process the sphere had grown to cover most of the area and had extended above and below inside the set of housing. Last time it was a much slower process since he never had to gather so much energy before; this time he’d been preparing for the event, so at the very least the scientists weren’t left with nothing to do for long periods of time and he wasn’t getting tired. Even so, the whole process had taken about five minutes, but the sphere was now very close to the columns surrounding him, and arcs of light energy were travelling between the panels and the outside of the sphere.

“Energy at 100%, all readings nominal. Hold it there, Blaze. We’ll begin the test momentarily.”

“Initializing pulse system now.” Announced Katherine as she began typing on the keyboard in front of her, bringing the pulse system online. Energy arcs to the columns surrounding Blaze became much more frequent, though the powering up was nothing like what many would imagine it to be; this wasn’t some movie after all. Apart from the constant humming of electrical components and the sounds of the scientists typing at their stations, the process was silent and without the kind of audio-visual fanfare that many imagined came with activating and using such an outlandish piece of technology.

 

It was only a little while longer before Daniel’s voice came over the PA system again. “I’m seeing that everything’s good to go here, the readings are all well within acceptable tolerances; time to activate the pulse. Get ready people. One way or another, we’re about to make history.”

“Firing the pulse.” Katherine spoke out as she made the final keystroke and the pulse activated just as everyone had planned. Once again the process was silent; though the diameter of the energy sphere Blaze had gathered around him contracted quickly when the pulse was fired, it grew back to its previous size almost as soon as it had shrunk. While waiting for the results, Blaze’s mind once again wandered; there was once a time long before his own that it was through technology and magic would never mix. Het here they all stood, with him acting as the heart of one of the most complicated and energy-thirsty pieces of magitec yet. When he was contacted about this job, he had asked ‘why me?’ It turned out that light magic energy was the easiest to use for this kind of experiment and it would take a good deal more years and several billion extra dollars to use any other magic energy. That coupled with the fact that he was the only Conduit spellcaster that could use light energy at the power required meant that he was the only person for the job. To be honest, though, he had his own reasons for accepting. He wanted to be remembered as someone who unambiguously helped humanity at one point; not as many of the stories surrounding him made him out to be, even if some were far less exaggerated than others.

 

He had to force his mind to stop wandering at this point; getting distracted when containing as much energy as he was doing around him now wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but he was acting as the power generator for a very sensitive piece of equipment; error tolerances were very tight, even with the numerous dampers that were installed as a failsafe against that. Besides, however things went here; it was to be an important event and it would be a shame if things started breaking at this late stage.

“Alright, we’re getting data back from the pulse test, wait one.” Daniel spoke out over the PA system again as everyone waited for the results. The atmosphere in the room had very quickly grown tense. The phrase ‘you could cut the air with a knife’ was a terribly overused one, but it was appropriate for this situation. Even Blaze felt a lump in his throat, and he could see from where he was standing that Katherine had started moving a finger through her dark brown hair; something he had come to understand was what she did whenever she was nervous. The heavy atmosphere then took a sharp change when the message “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got the data. We found an Alternate Universe.” Was announced; the vast majority of the people in the room began cheering. Even Blaze showed a visible grin, while others were content to just sit back in their chairs and breathe a relieved sigh.

“Congratulations all around! Blaze; sorry about this we need you to hold the energy like that for a while. If you simply remove power from Prometheus’ Razor now we won’t be able to power it up again. It should just take a few minutes, so sit tight.”

“I’m standing, not sitting!” Blaze couldn’t help but jab back, though the tone of his voice made it apparent that what he said shouldn’t be taken as an attempt to be rude. “Anyway, it’s no problem. I’m wondering ‘what now’ since we’ve just proved alternate universes exist.”

“We’ll need to submit our findings to the rest of the scientific community and the government, but I don’t see any reason right now why we won’t be able to continue the tests.”

“Well holy shit, looks like I just might have a real job in the sorta-near future.”

To Blaze’s surprise, this actually gave rise to a few chuckles from some people across the room, as Daniel responded “Just maybe.”

 

However, amidst the little celebration that the scientists had going here, no-one noticed one of the personnel attaching a small USB flash-drive to his workstation and activating the specially written program it was carrying. No-one realized what the man, Jason, was doing until it was already far too late to change the course events would take. A warning tone began sounding from multiple workstations, including up in the control room. Everyone stopped what they were doing in unison and hurried back to their computers to try and find out what was going on. Blaze, unable to move from his current position, looked around with a worried look on his face.

“What’s going on? What’s that warning signal about?”

“We’re looking into it, energy is being gathered for the pulse again; in much larger quantities this time. Hold one.” Katherine replied, making a number of keystrokes in an attempt to abort the second pulse. How well things were going became clear when her demeanor became increasingly frantic before finally slamming her hands down either side of the keyboard in front of her.

“It won’t abort! My controls are non-responsive!”

“Mission Control, what the fuck’s going on!?”

“I don’t know Blaze, I’m trying to find the origin point of the problem now...” Daniel responded to Blaze’s question, pausing for a moment before continuing. “Jason, I’m getting error reports from your workstation, what’s going on?”

Upon hearing Daniel say that the problem was originating on Jason’s end, Blaze turned his head and began to ask what was going on. He froze in the middle of saying Jason’s name however, noticing the dark, satisfied smirk that had spread across his lips as the man was seemingly staring Blaze in the eyes through the sunglasses he was wearing.

“What did you do!?”

 

Unsure why Blaze’s voice had suddenly taken a threatening growl, the other scientists turned to face Jason again, only to themselves momentarily freeze as they saw Jason’s expression. The first to act was James of all people; the person who made no secret of wanting to avoid Blaze whenever possible, forcefully pushing Jason out of the way and onto the floor to inspect the workstation.

“He’s run a foreign program; it’s locked down all the workstations and set P.R. on an automatic function.” He began, trailing off towards the end as he tried to figure out what was happening as Katherine moved in beside him afterwards to look at the computer screen, while others grabbed Jason to make sure he couldn’t run away.

“Oh my God... Blaze, he’s trying to force the system to open a matter stream to the alternate universe we just contacted!”

 

Blaze remained silent. A very obvious scowl was currently being directed at Jason while Katherine turned around and slapped the man across the face hard enough for the sound to echo through the whole room, leaving an angry mark on Jason’s left cheek.

“Jason, what the fuck is wrong with you!?” he just chuckled in response, motioning to Blaze.

“He is ‘what’s wrong with me’.”

This time it was James who turned around to face the man who had just subverted the whole experiment for his own purposes. “Do you realize what you’ve done!?”

“I’ve rid the world of him.” Jason responded, calm to the point where it was almost sickening.

“No you fool, you risk ruining all our hard work! And what did he do to you exactly!?”

“It isn’t what he did to me. It’s what he did to everyone. He’s not only frighteningly powerful; he’s also mentally unstable. Allowing him to remain is an invitation for disaster. Many have tried to kill him and failed so a third option was necessary; an option that was unavailable. Until now, at least.”

James couldn’t even formulate a verbal response. He didn’t trust Blaze very much, it was true, but he knew better than to let that kind of distrust cloud his judgment; let alone to the point where he would be driven to this kind of extreme action. He simply turned and walked away from Jason a few paces. Coincidentally this gave a clear line of sight between Jason and Blaze once again. A lesson Jason learned too late to put into use; never cross a Conduit that has a massive amount of energy gathered around them. Moments later, the left side and a considerable portion of the right side of Jason’s head had been reduced to reddish mist and gory shrapnel by a concentrated beam of light energy. Blaze had siphoned off a small fraction of the energy he currently had gathered around for the immediately lethal strike.

 

“I feel better now.” Was what Blaze said a few seconds later after exhaling and his expression of anger had melted away to something closer to his usual self; Jason was correct in saying Blaze was unstable. The only person to not know exactly what happened was Daniel, up in the control room. Everyone else was busy trying to contain, or busy loosing, the contents of their collective stomachs or were simply frozen in shock.

“Uh... I just read a massive energy discharge in there. What happened?”
“Jason’s dead.” Replied Blaze; before he could say anything else, though, an internal discharge of energy occurred within the sphere, striking him on his right hand, causing him to scream in pain as a small amount of blood sprayed off from his hand into the sphere and very obvious burn marks were left over his hand. “What’s going on!?” he called out in a strained voice; the response came quickly from Daniel as some of the scientists had managed to just barely gather themselves enough to function for the immediate time.

“If you did what I think you did, you just destabilized the energy within the machine by discharging some of the energy you had gathered around you. If you discharged much more, you would have detonated the whole sphere. What were you thinking, Blaze!?”

 

Blaze didn’t answer, instead trying unsuccessfully to block out the pain in his right hand. That and he was quite aware that sometimes the things that went on inside his head were far from healthy or normal. The task of trying to block out the pain was made all the harder when a second discharge struck him in his left leg, leaving another serious burn on his flesh as well as tearing away the fabric of his cargos where they were struck. Katherine had managed to gather herself at this point, albeit temporarily, and was monitoring what was going on in Prometheus’ Razor. In spite of her efforts to calm herself however, her voice still had a noticeable quiver to it. “Jason was trying to do something this machine wasn’t meant for yet. There’s at least a one-in-three chance that the entire system will be destroyed as well as result in an explosion that will take out everything within a few kilometers of here.”

“I’ll send out an evacuation order in case that happens. That goes the same for the rest of you; get out of there! Katherine, is there any way to get Blaze out of there?”

Most of the scientists already made their way out before Daniel’s question finished. “It would take at least an hour.”

“That’s time we don’t have... guess I’m kinda screwed, huh?” Blaze said quietly, before picking up his voice. “Daniel, if you’re still there; what the hell are you waiting for? Get going!”

“Roger. Blaze... I’m sorry.”

At that, Daniel made his way out of the control room too and started heading for the nearest exit. Katherine was still here; Blaze was about to tell her to get going too, but she managed to start before he could.

“You were far too rash, Blaze.” She said, turning to him. It was apparent that she was trying to pretend she didn’t just see half a man’s head reduced to a gory mist. Undoubtedly she and most of the others here would need counseling after that display, or at least some time off; they weren’t used to seeing things like that by any means. “We were sending a data stream to an off-site data bank, so whatever happens, the results should be safe, but I’ve made another backup of the results here just in case.” She continued, holding up a different USB drive.

“Well, that’s something at least.”

Katherine was silent for a few moments before she spoke. She knew there was something weighing on Blaze’s mind, but there wasn’t much time. “In the event the machinery doesn’t overload; you may actually be sent to the universe we just contacted, but whether or not you’ll make it there in one piece, I’m not sure. If things go very well, we may actually be able to come get you again; or the whole process could fail and nothing will happen, but that possibility is remote.”

“Heh... well, looks like there’s room for hope in the end after all.” He responded, smiling faintly regardless of how much the places where he was hit by energy discharges hurt. “Thanks, Katherine. Now get going, and take care of yourself, got it?”

 

With that, she nodded to him and hurried out of the room too, heading for the nearest teleporter station out of here. It took less than a minute afterwards for things to reach their final stages. Blaze couldn’t leave; trying to do so would guarantee a sizeable explosion and he’d just end up killing himself anyway. Besides, if nothing else, he had a duty at this point to give everyone else a chance to get out. Looking up to see the various parts of the Prometheus’ Razor come to life in the final stages of what would either be him sent off to who-knows-where or his death. There were a number of things that he would later come to realize, but right now, as the Razor above him came to life and he felt an odd sensation pass through him from his extremities inwards, there was only one thing his mind could really think about right now.

“Well, this is gonna suck.”

 

 

After his vision had faded, the next thing he remembered was pain and soreness slowly and dimly working itself into his awareness. Were he a different sort of person, he’d be wondering if he was really either dead or dying back in the test chamber right now. Of course, since he wasn’t that kind of person, he was quietly glad to still be alive. There was also the possibility nothing happened and he’d just collapsed, but he wasn’t really counting on that; unlike movies, ‘one in a million’ actually meant ‘one in a million’ and did not, in fact, mean ‘guaranteed success’... was that a door opening?

Feeling his neck resist the movement, he turned his head to the side he heard the sound from and strained to open his eyes; only to close them again shortly afterward and groan. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses any more, and now his eyes hurt too.

“Are you awake, sir?” he heard a female voice speak to him; he guessed it was the person he’d tried to look at earlier and had his eyes filled with blur and pain for.

“Yeah, unless I gained the ability to talk and respond to people’s questions in my sleep. That’d be kinda cool actually, but I don’t think it’s possible.”

“Ah! Please wait there for a moment, Sir. I’ll get Dr. Clarke.”

Blaze was about to ask her if they had his things, but she’d already left to get the doctor before he could. Regardless, either this was some delusional dream in his last moments, or he’d survived in the face of death yet again. He was left alone for a few minutes, so he took the opportunity to see if he was still more or less intact. Turned out that everything was there, but with how much it hurt to move anything right now, he was definitely not in a hurry to go back and double-check. Admittedly he had been worse off than this before, but not my much.

 

“Ah, so our mystery-man is awake!” called a male voice that entered the room; Blaze heard two sets of footsteps. He guessed that the woman from earlier had accompanied him.

“Uh... why’d you call me ‘mystery-man’?”

“Ah, well, we didn’t find any records of you in the League. You were unconscious for long enough that we even got results back from the other Leagues; you’re not a registered citizen anywhere. Who are you?”

“My name’s Blaze... Blaze Fenrir.”

“Alright, Blaze. We’re going to need you to stay here for observation for a while; you were in a state when you were brought in here last month. Finding out where you’re from can wait for a little while. Are you feeling alright?”

“Not really. Everything hurts, especially when I try and move... oh, when I was brought in here, did I have my things with me?”

“Sophia, see to the pain the patient’s experiencing.”
“Yes, sir.” Replied the female voice, confirming that it was the same girl that he’d had a brief exchange with before. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he was feeling the pain fading away. Dr. Clarke spoke again while Sophia was working; “As for your things, your clothes weren’t in good condition, but we’ve had them fixed up for you. You can open your eyes, you know.” He ended with a bemused tone, to which Blaze grimaced slightly at.

“Tried to earlier, and brought more pain on myself for my trouble. Then again, I have a knack for getting myself hurt as I’m sure you noticed.” He said, making a jab at himself as he did. “I’m photosensitive; even if I wasn’t, I can’t see well in bright light, everything gets kinda blurry. Was a pair of sunglasses among what I was wearing when I was brought in?”

“Yes, actually it was one of the only things that weren’t damaged. Sophia, when you’re done with that, bring Mr. Fenrir his sunglasses.”

“I’m almost done, Sir.” Came a cheerful response from Sophia. Blaze hadn’t noticed until now, but the constant dull pain he felt everywhere had already faded away. A few moments later, he heard footsteps moving across the room, stopping, and coming back after a few seconds. Not being able to see what was going on around him went against everything he had been taught and learned through experience, but fortunately it seemed he wasn’t among people who wished him harm... at least, for the moment. He had to suppress the reflex action to grab her when he felt her putting the sunglasses on for him.

“Here you are, Sir.”

 

Opening his eyes slowly behind the mirrored shades to confirm he could see properly now, his attention was immediately caught by the girl who was currently leaning over him. If this wasn’t a hospital he’d think she had her hair dyed and that she was wearing colored contact lenses, but he doubted medical practice was that different here than what it was back in his universe considering that this universe was undoubtedly relatively close to his own as far as events that took place was concerned; that and her hair color was just too vivid to be dyed. She was wearing a fairly standard nurse’s uniform, but her hair was a bright pink; straight for the most part, but curly towards the ends and a little past shoulder-length. Her eyes were the same shade of bright pink; He couldn’t have known at this point in time, but she was a Nursejoy">Nursejoy. Looking over to Dr. Clarke, he seemed far more ‘normal’ wearing a doctor’s coat, short brown hair and lightest-brown eyes. He also had a fairly short, well-kept goatee.

“Sir? Is something wrong?” Sophia, the girl leaning over him, asked as she curiously tilted her head to the side slightly, letting some of her hair slip forward slightly under gravity.

“Uh... no, I’m fine.” He said, sitting upright slowly; it turned out that caution in moving wasn’t necessary. The pain he was feeling had all but disappeared. Only a mild discomfort remained when he moved now, and it was something he could deal with pretty easily. “Huh. Well, I’m not really sure what you did, but you did a good job. I feel fine now. Thanks.” He said to her, passing a slight smile her way as she seemed to perk up at the compliment.

“Thank you, Sir! I’ve been practicing my healing abilities for a while.”

“Well, I have other patients to attend to, Mr. Fenrir. Sophia will stay outside your room’s door in case you need something. I’ll be back later on to get some information about you, so sit tight for a while.”

 

After this, both Dr. Clarke and Sophia turned around and left the room, Sophia staying outside the room as the doctor said. After a few moments, Blaze shifted himself around on the bed he was laid on and tentatively tested his legs to see if he could still walk fine; to his surprise, he was able to get up just fine in spite of being unconscious for a little over a month, if what the good doctor said was true. Looking around and taking in his surroundings, he found himself in a fairly typical hospital room, including the less-than-pleasant smell of disinfectant that came with hospitals.

Walking over to the window in his room to get a view of the new world, as far as he could tell it seemed that he was in a fairly large town right now; immediately out from the window he saw a green park not terribly far away, and a lot of houses and other buildings could be seen beyond that. The sky was mostly clear, though it had a few wispy clouds randomly dotted about. Only looking out of this window, though, meant it was pretty much impossible to get much detail about where he was. He could make out a number of people walking around in the park, but he couldn’t get any more detail because of the distance. Things actually didn’t look a hell of a lot different from back ‘home’ to be honest. Not yet at least.

Backing away from the window after a while taking in the new but oddly familiar sights, his first thought was to get changed out of the hospital gown he was currently wearing and getting back into his familiar clothes. This didn’t take long; they were folded on a neat pile on a chair against a wall, opposite the bed he was laid on not long ago. If his clothes really were badly damaged, he had to admit they did a good job of fixing his attire up; he couldn’t see any visible signs of damage. Even the case for his sunglasses was in one of the inside pockets of his jacket; something he was actually kind of relieved to see in one piece. He’d had that jacket for a little over a decade at this point, and he’d gotten fairly attached to it.

 

After getting dressed in familiar clothes and pulling his hair out from underneath his jacket, there was another thing he needed to check. Even if the people here helped him make a full recovery, if his injuries were really extensive, it’d put his magic abilities out of action for a while. Holding his arms out in front of him a little, palms facing upwards, he concentrated and tried to draw in the energy he felt around him. To an onlooker it would seem he did alright; a dark purple – almost black - sphere forming above his left hand, while a gently glowing white sphere formed in his right. Blaze himself knew better though.

“Well, shit. Hope I don’t land myself in hot water any time soon.” He mumbled to himself as he let the energy disperse and move back into the world around him, walking over and lying back on the bed again to try and relax while he waited for the doctor to return.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

He had dosed off for a while before Dr. Clarke came back into the room, once again accompanied by Sophia, though he was now carrying a clipboard with a few documents attached to it as well as a pen, presumably to take notes if they were needed.

“Mr. Fenrir? I’m ready to ask you a few questions now.”

Being a very light sleeper by nature, Blaze woke up fairly quickly, though he still groaned as he pulled himself up into a sitting position.

“Okay, okay. Although, do you mind if I ask you something first?”

This got a raised eyebrow from Dr Clarke, but he nodded in acceptance anyway.

“Might be an odd thing to ask, but how banged up was I when I was brought in here? Actually, how did I get here?”
“You were brought in by a boy called Keith. I know him, he’s actually quite nice. He said he found you a little outside the town; there was a bright pillar of light close by and he was the first to get there. He found you among the charred plant-life. I’m assuming you were attacked due to the extent of your injuries; a number of broken ribs, right shoulder dislocated, various other fractures along your skeletal structure, severe burns over your legs and right hand, a collapsed lung, and your skull was fractured from what appeared blunt-force trauma. You’re very fortunate to be alive, actually! A mere minute or two’s delay and you wouldn’t have made it. I’m wondering how you managed to avoid damage to your nervous system, actually; your spinal column was in bad shape too.”

Yeah, that sounds about right, actually... guess I can forget about using my magic for anything heavy for a few weeks. “Somehow, I’m kinda glad I wasn’t conscious to feel all that. How’d you manage to treat me for those injuries? I’m guessing I was pretty close to death by the time I got here.”

“That would be Sophia’s doing; she’s the most skilled we have with healing magic. She managed to stabilize you. After that, seeing to your injuries was fairly simple.”

Though they might not have been able to tell, Blaze at this point glanced towards Sophia. “Okay, I’d say a ‘thank you’ was in order, but that would be a massive understatement. I owe you big-time.”

“Th-Thank you, Sir.”

At this point, Blaze was confused for a couple of reasons; one being how much what he said seemed to affect Sophia, who now had a visible blush on her face and had to turn away slightly. The other being how Dr. Clarke was currently throwing a fairly odd look his way. He couldn’t quite place it, but it seemed like the doctor just witnessed something he was definitely not used to seeing. Not that he explicitly didn’t agree with whatever it was; just that it was far from the normal. What exactly it was, he couldn’t begin to guess.

“We seem to have gotten side-tracked from the point of me meeting with you; I came to ask who you really were, where you come from.”

Shaking his head a little, Blaze wasn’t entirely sure how to answer the question. He had a strange way of viewing things sometimes, but even he knew that ‘I’m from an alternate universe’ would be exceptionally hard to swallow at the best of times.

“Well... I’m not totally sure how to answer that. It’s not because I don’t know the answer, I just don’t think you’d listen.”

The doctor had a distinct ‘oh, here we go’ look on his face at this point as he rolled his eyes. “Well, try me and we’ll see, hm?”

“Okay...” Replied Blaze, sighing as he hung his head momentarily. “We were doing an experiment and things went bad when one of the scientists decided it’d be a great chance to get rid of me. I was sent to this universe from my own, and-“
“Actually, that would explain a few things.”

“...Eh?”

Dr. Clarke had began smiling slightly again, though it wasn’t sure whether it was satisfaction from getting an answer that made sense, or seeing the dumbfounded look on Blaze’s face. “Believe it or not, you aren’t the first case of someone from another universe coming here. It’s far from an everyday event, of course, but it has happened. It also explains a few very odd things that came back in your blood-work; you have albinism, which extremely rare here and that alone should have made it easy to find you out of the mere handful of individuals who have it. Second, you are a pureblood human, and those too are extremely rare now.”

“Oh, don’t worry Mr. Fenrir.” Spoke the doctor upon seeing the troubled expression spreading across Blaze’s face. “We’ll make the information you’ll need available to you. We don’t really have a set-in-stone procedure for things like this, but it should help you get on the right track.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

It never occurred to him that being truthful about where he was from, while it would certainly stop him getting tangled in a web of lies, had the possibility of being the biggest mistake he ever made if the wrong people took the news the wrong way.

“Oh, and Mr. Fenrir;” the doctor said when he got to the door “I believe I said so earlier, but we would like you to remain in the hospital for a little while for observation to make sure everything’s alright. I’m sure you understand?”

“Yeah, but am I allowed to leave the room and take a walk around for a while? I’d like a little fresh air.”

The doctor seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding his head in response. “I don’t see any problems with that. “You’ve been very reasonable so far.”

“Alright. Thanks, doc.”

“Please, just call me Robert.” He said, smiling warmly towards Blaze before heading out of the hospital room; Blaze himself following a little while afterwards. Even if he wasn’t conscious for most of it, getting outside for a little while would be a nice change from being stuck in a hospital bed for over a month.