Chapter 5
Recovery

Brandon awoke with a groan as his eyelids fluttered open and closed again to the harsh light coming from a window somewhere. He tried to move his body and got his forelegs to move a bit before they were forced to stop by something. He opened his eyes more slowly to let them adjust to the light so he could see. Once he could he saw that he was in a small, white room that smelled of disinfectant and seemed sterile to him. Wincing in pain, he looked around the room a bit more. He saw a row of medical cabinets on the wall to his right at the end of the room above a small desk for someone to sit at. There were no pictures that he could see and he was on a white hospital bed with an iv drip in his right leg.

He looked down at himself to asses the condition of his body and saw that his sides and stomach were wrapped in a swath of bandages. He groaned in pain again as he saw his shoulder was also wrapped up in bandages. He felt up along his neck and felt more bandages along it and his head just behind one of his ears. His groans of pain must have alerted someone outside because his ears twitched as he heard hoof steps coming closer.

A small wooden door to his room opened admitting a white mare with a reddish mane all done up in a bun with a small hat looking thing on top of her head. The hat bore a red cross sign and he could see she that the mark on her flanks was that of a red cross as well. The nurse smiled warmly at him as she set a clipboard she had been carrying down on the desk in the room.

Walking over to him she kindly asked,"How are you feeling sir? You seem much more alert then you were the last time you woke up."

Putting a hoof up to his head along the bandages, he winced,"Well things have been better. I feel like I've been run over by a truck or something."

The nurse gave him a confused look,"A truck sir? What is that?"

He silently cursed himself and replied,"Oh did I say that. I meant wagon mam."

Nodding with understanding she examined him,"Well that does make more sense. And you appear to be healing very nicely for now sir. You had to undergo extensive surgery but you'll be right as rain in a couple of weeks to a month. And do you have a name?"

He sighed internally as he gave her a small polite smile,"Yes mam. My name is Shattered Souls."

She nodded and picked up the clipboard again quickly writing the name he gave her down on it,"Thank you Mr. Souls."

"Your welcome mam. Now if you don't mind what is the condition of my body and why did I need surgery in the first place,"he asked confused.

She gave him a puzzled look as she answered,"Well you had a torn up and chewed shoulder with a lot of claw marks running down the side of your head and neck. And more claw marks that went deep into your side. You also had several broken ribs that were close to several major organs so we need to do surgery to get them back into their correct places. So your saying you don't remember why you had to come in here in the first place?"

He nodded,"Yes miss...."

She blushed,"Oh excuse me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Nurse Redheart."

"Its quite alright Nurse Redheart. And no I don't remember. The last thing I remember is miss Twilight standing over me before I passed out completely. I do remember a lot of pain but that's about it."

She gave a light smile,"I see. Well Miss Sparkle was able to get you here quickly so we were able to take care of you before anything truly permanent happened. Once your fully healed you'll probably have some nasty scars on your side and shoulder but other that you'll be fine."

Brandon nodded,"Thank you."

Smiling she turned to go,"No problem. I have other patients to check up on but either I or the other nurse will check up on you from time to time. You've had a couple of anxious ponies come by trying to see you so maybe they'll show up later."

He nodded,"Ok. I'll keep an eye out then." With that Nurse Redheart nodded and then slipped out of the room. The door closed behind her with a soft click leaving him in peace once again.

Grumbling to himself he looked around the room with a bored expression again hoping to find something new. His eyes widened a bit as he saw his satchel sitting by the side of his bed along with his favorite green hoodie. He thought that his hoodie had disappeared the first time he'd been unconscious from his first fight. That purple pony must have brought it by to return it.

He sighed as he realized that he wouldn't be able to put his hoodie on right now due to all the bandages he had on. So he moved his hoof towards his satchel and managed to hook the strap with his hoof. He lifted the satchel up onto the bed as he carefully nosed the flap open. He stopped before moving the flap open as he realized that the satchel had been at the castle the last he could remember of it. The purple pony must have brought this by as well deeming that it wasn't a threat along with the contents.

He finished opening the flap with his muzzle, looking inside to determine if anything was missing. To his relief all of the blank chips were there along with the ones that bore the images of characters he liked. He frowned as he noticed that the one with keldeo's image had changed. He looked more closely at it as it lay on top of the pile of chips. The image had grayed out and it looked shattered and broken all over.

A sudden beep from the device on his forleg caught his attention causing him to snap his head to look at it. Looking at it curiously, he saw the screen was lit up with some sort of message. Reading it, the words made out the message,"Keldeo Soul Unison unavailble at this time. Soul is shattered. Time for soul to reform completely.....2 days."

He frowned and looked back at the chip with Keldeo's image and muttered,"Poor guy. Must have had it rough fighting whatever dragon showed up to terrorize the poor villagers." He searched his satchel again and blinked in surprise to see the chip with BlackWarGreymon's image was once again in the satchel laying further away from the Keldeo chip but still on top of the pile.

He sighed,"it would be great if I could get some sort of explanation for all the crazy stuff that's been happening lately. Just why have I been blacking out so much lately? And why do I keep waking up completely exhausted or injured?" He closed his eyes knowing he wouldn't get an answer of any kind.

Once he had closed his eyes a deep voice rumbled out,"You should have just asked if you wanted an explanation kid."

Snapping open his eyes he looked around wildly as he spoke up fearfully,"Who just said that?"

"I did kid. Down here in the bag,"the voice responded gruffly.

He slowly slid his eyes down to the bag, seeing the chip of BlackWarGreymon was glowing with a soft black aura as it floated above the pile of chips. "Wha.....What's going on?"

The chip slowly floated up out of the bag in front of his face as the voice responded,"I'm talking to you obviously. You had some questions and I'm here to answer them."

Brandon's eye twitched as he looked at the chip,"I see. Just who are you? And what has been happening to me lately?"

The voice from the chips grumbled irritably,"Who do you think is talking to you kid! You can see my picture right on the blasted chip." The now revealed BlackWarGreymon moved his chip away from the bed as it glowed brighter. Then with a flash a transparent version of him appeared with the chip disappearing.

Brandon's eyes bugged out completely as he looked at the being before him. Here was one of his favorite characters standing next to his bed looking fierce and intimidating just like in the show. How could it be possible that BlackWarGreymon was even real. Then he shook his head as he remembered it shouldn't even be possible for him to be here as a pony. He looked back up at the quietly watching Digimon.

BlackWarGreymon relaxed his stance a bit although he kept his arms folded as he watched the pony on the bed. "You asked what's been going on lately. So I'll tell you what. Me and Keldeo ended up borrowing your body for a bit to fight foes that were threatening you before. Well one of them was threatening you at any rate. Keldeo just wanted to save all the pathetic villagers that were in trouble."

Brandon remained silently but dipped his head slightly in reply,"And why did you take control of my body?"

BlackWarGreymon snorted,"Because you were being hunted down by that wooden beast and would have been mauled had I not stepped in. In your case it was all about survival and for some reason I couldn't just let a weak pathetic creature like you die. I still don't understand why I did it but I did and now I'm bound to that device on your foreleg and the stupid chip.

Looking puzzled Brandon asked,"What? What do you mean bound to this thing?" He shook the foreleg with the device on it.

BlackWarGreymon rolled his eyes,"I mean by appearing and saving your but it bound my soul to that chip so that you could call upon me in the future. It basically ripped my soul from the afterlife and stuffed it in the stupid chip. I can't get back to my peaceful afterlife anymore but frankly it was way to boring. And that device has a name. Its called the Soul Archiver. It catalogs souls and binds them to chips so the user can call upon them for battle when needed."

Brandon looked down at the device,"Huh. Well that's interesting. But why do I have it anyway and why have those other chips appeared with images?"

Shaking his head BlackWarGreymon grunted,"Because they willingly came from the afterlife in order to help you out here. You don't know it yet but the dimensional barriers of this world are weakening letting enemies through that don't belong here. It has also awoken something that dwells in the shadows. What that is I can't tell you as I don't rightly know what it is."

He sighed,"Ok. But just why is it I have this device in the first place? And why are these dimensional barriers weakening?"

The digimon shifted a bit,"You have the device because you've been chosen to be the first Soul Warrior. And the dimensional barriers are weakening due to all the wonky time and space magic that has been cast around here within the past year. The barriers weren't meant to take that kind of damage and as a result they are breaking down. They are slowly healing but it will be years before things are fixed. Its because of their weakness you were able to come here in the first place."

Brandon blinked and looked back at the digimon one of his unanswered questions now being answered. "Ok then just what is a soul warrior?"

The digimon sighed,"Its obvious from the name right? You fight enemies that threaten this world with the help of warrior souls that have come from the afterlife to help again. Guess that means I have to help protect this place to. Your supposed to just be the start of this whole thing. There should be others in time too."

He nodded and said,"Well that's certainly interesting. But how am I supposed to transform without you guys doing it for me and exhausting me?"

BlackWarGreymon started to answer when his transparent image flickered and he looked at himself,"Hmm. Sorry kid i can't answer anymore questions right now. I'm about out of energy and I'll need to rest. One last thing. Keldeo took a majority of the damage that had been inflicted on your body onto himself and his vary soul. In essence it shattered his soul and its being put back together piece by piece thanks to the Archiver." With that his image flashed out and the chip reappeared with the image grayed out to show the being within was resting now.

It slowly floated back into the bag as Brandon grumbled still having so many quetions to ask but now having no one else to answer him. Well at least he knew the name of the device now. He figured he would just call it the Archiver rather then the full name. Seemed a lot cooler that way and less tedious. He set the bag back on the ground as he looked up at the ceiling. He might as well rest anyway. The road to his recovery would be a long one.

He had fallen asleep some time ago and was just now waking up again because of some knocking on the door to his room. He sleepily called out,"Come on in."

The door opened softly and Twilight came on into the room,"Um hi."

He looked at her blankly for a moment mechanicaly saying,"Hello." They stared at each other in awkward silence for over 5 minutes before Twilight started to speak agian.

"Um. Look I'm sorry about all the hostility I showed back at my castle. That wasn't right of me. I was just really scared that you were dangerous or were going to do something to hurt other ponies."

He nodded wincing and turning his head,"Um yeah. I can understand that. To be honest I really don't understand what's been going on with me lately. I also don't know what's up with this device on my foreleg." He lied through his teeth on that last part as he did not feel like parting with the new information he had just received. He didn't trust Twilight yet because of the hostility she had showed.

She sighed and looked at him sadly,"Yeah. You just showed up out of nowhere from the Everfree forest and changed into that weird black armor. I thought you would attack me and my friend had you not fallen unconscious. But at the same time I couldn't just let you die. But that's not what I came here for. I came here to apologize for what I did and ask for your forgiveness."

Brandon took a deep breath and then with a small smile on his face replied,"I accept your apology. Now please let bygones be bygones. I'd rather us be on each other's good sides rather than bad sides."

She nodded happily,"I couldn't agree more." Her face shifted to a thoughtful look,"So if you don't know anything about that device or what's been happening to you then how did you get here in the first place."

He frowned and lowered his head from her eyes,"I don't know. I don't really remember anything beyond waking up in that forest with the device on my foreleg and the satchel full of those small machines. Oh and my hoodie." He was lying through his teeth of course about remembering anything from before.

She nodded but continued to look thoughtful,"So you have amnesia. Your lucky that you remembered your name at all if that's the case. I've read that longterm amnesia patients can take years to regain their memories if at all. And even then its only usually bits and pieces."

He nodded his head looking uncomfortable,"Um yeah. Moving on. I was told by the nurse that you brought me here. Thanks for that. I don't remember how I got so injured but thanks for getting me here."

Twilight muttered lowly to herself,"Must have been the head trauma that caused his blackout this time." She looked up at him with a polite smile,"It was no problem. I would do that for anypony. You were injured because you fought the dragon that came to threaten the town."

Brandon's eyebrow raised,"I did? Funny I thought I'd remember something like that. The last thing I remember is talking to you back in that room in your castle."

Twilight wrote what he said onto a notepad she had levitated out of her bags as she said,"I see. So you don't remember confronting the dragon and leading it away from the village before defeating it?"

He shook his head,"No. I literally don't remember anything from the time I black out there to waking up here."

She nodded and put her pad away,"Well you fought off the dragon but sustained heavy injuries. At one point I had to step in and heal you a bit before you could continue fighting. You used some kind of stylizized blue armor and had a blue sword. That in itself was strange. So what did the nurse say about your condition?"

Replying tiredly Brandon said,"The nurse said I have a couple of broken ribs and a lot of deep cuts. They'll need to keep me here for the next couple weeks to a month to keep watch over me and my injuries."

She nodded,"Well I'd always be happy to let you borrow books from my castle's library. I know they have books here at the hosital but its not a very big collection."

He nodded,"Thanks that would help a lot." His eyes started to droop,"If you don't mind I'd like to sleep."

She gasped a bit,"Oh yes. Sorry. I'll just go now so that you can get some rest. I'll be back later with a couple of my friends to check up on you."

"Ok. Thank you for stopping by,"He replied even more tiredly. His head drooped back against the pillows behind him.

Twilight quietly walked out of the room and closed the door behind her as she heard the poor stallion nod off into dreamland. It would be a very long and painful road to recovery and she'd be there to help him along. She hoped they could be friends in the future if they already weren't.

Author's Note

Hello Everyone. Here is my next chapter. I revealed a bit more information through BlackWarGreymon. And I of course had Twilight show up to have a conversation with Souls. Its been nice to know that several people at least like this story and come back to read it each time I put up a chapter. Feel free to leave a comment with constructive criticism or comment on what you liked about the chapter.