Chapter 83: Stiff Awakening

I opened my eyes to a white roof that was covered in the same golden hexagon pattern as I had seen on the robes of the people that had gathered me up. I was in the air, and I was lying down, but not on anything.

My body was weightless, and I was floating in the air, but I couldn't move. Not that I wanted to, I was still hurting, and small tubes were coming out of me.

"How are you feeling?" I heard Miasma's familiar voice from my other side. 

I hadn't noticed her there, and I slowly willed my body to roll, and it did, surprisingly. What was even more surprising was finding all four of my wives standing very quietly red, puffy, and filled with tears.

"My nose only hurts a little; how is everyone else and the ship?" I asked, able to speak mostly fine if a bit strained.

"Pixie already fixed the walls, but whatever that Predator was, he was strong enough to break through the Gravity Bee Shield. Everyone else is fine and mostly recovered, except for you. If you hadn't called the boys to you as fast as you did, you would have… died," Messia said to me, having to pause at the end.

I would have to start working on a more robust defense or something; this was too much. Hilda, are you there?

*Poof!*

A wave of relief washed over me as I saw Hilda fly out of her cloud of smoke. I was momentarily worried that my getting injured so bad would affect Hilda somehow, so it was a great relief.

"Yes, but you are not looking so good. You have a broken upper left arm, wings, three ribs, a broken right rib, and a wrist. You also suffered internal bleeding, but that is all taken care of, and now that you are awake, we can have Serria come in and finally heal you," Hilda explained to me.

"Heal me? Can her spit do this much?" I asked, confused and having trouble keeping my thoughts together with the constant pain.

"Oh, yes, that's right, I will go get her right now," Messia said as she whipped her eyes.

I looked over at Xani and Miku, but Miku was hiding behind Xani. I tried to frown, but my face wouldn't respond.

"The Hollow-Bed holds your body in place, so you are not in excruciating amounts of pain now," Hilda explained, and I was more than thankful for the machine.

"Miku, please come here, and don't hide from me. What's wrong?" I asked her in confusion.

"I should have come out sooner and pushed you out of the way, but…." Miku said with tears pouring down her face.

I wished more than anything that I could take her into my arms right now, but I would just have to reassure her with my words.

"No, it would have killed me if you would have gotten seriously hurt and died, and I have just come to terms with having to use the other boys to save myself. What you did after was probably the only read we were able to feed off the Predator! The way you control…" I said excitedly but had to slow down from the pain, but then continued. "...That shadow was amazing, and even in my show and pain, I was still impressed! Only with you doing that was Leah able to land her devastating punch! You were amazing, and you protected me and everyone. I am proud of you."

Both Miku and Xani were crying like children, and Miasma smiled at me and came over to give me a light kiss. 

"I will take these two out of the room while Serria fixes you up, but I am thrilled to see you away again. I can't look good for you if my eyes are all puffy like this and the tears just make a mess of the charcoal I put on my eyes," Miasma said, and she took the two sobbing girls out of the room.

I wasn't sure what Xani was crying for, but it just must be a rub-off from Miku. After they left, Hilda flew over in front of me. 

"So you had a talk with her? I could see that your consciences were pulled out of your body for a while during the time while you were out and only returned when you awoke," Hilda explained.

"Yeah, she was just giving me shit for feeling bad about Tag and Sig. I get it, and I will try to get past that point, but at the moment, I had thought that I had sent them to their deaths, but I wasn't looking at things in the bigger picture of things," I told Hilda.

"Did she say anything else about what I have been talking to you about before this all happened?" Hilda asked me.

"No, we didn't have time, and she said that you would explain everything," I said.

"I will just cut to the chase then. When we died and ascended to become gods, our bodies were preserved at our temples. If we can collect all the Bee and Sky Eel Sage Stones, then we can restore each of us back to our bodies," Hilda explained.

"Okay, but that doesn't sound like it will be an easy task," I said, wondering how many of each there would be.

"No, but there will be ways to find them in the future, but these are things for the future, but I want you to know, so it didn't seem like I was trying to hide something from you," Hilda explained, and I understood, clarity was best.

That was about the time that Messia walked into the room with Serria following behind her. Serria looked worried, but I could already feel my body loosening up from her mere presence.

"I will leave you two alone while you are being healed, but after that, you should be able to come to meet with some people that are waiting to see you," Messia said, but Serria had already started purring, and nothing in the world was more important than that sound to my ears at this moment.