Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #28 (Patreon)

The Statement Of Jaselle Alhambra, Part 5

"I'm sorry," Jas said as soon as she was fully dressed. "I lost control."

They were back behind Ma–Kuya Kim's car, once more hidden by his power and Tammy's leaves.

"Don't worry about it," Tammy said cheerfully as she bent down to tie her shoes. She'd gone back to her cheerful self on the flight back, seemingly exulting in their killing the spider. It was disturbing, to see the seemingly normal girl so… bloodthirsty. "No one got hurt."

"You didn't hurt anyone, and when you felt yourself losing control, you did something to mitigate it," Ate Sanny said. Jas hadn't noticed before, but Ate Sanny had just slipped into her clothes, not even bothering with underwear, which seemed immodest, not to mention uncomfortable. Instead of bending down to put on her shoes, her foot was at the end of a tentacle that was raised to about chest height for her to tie her laces put as she stood on one leg.

Tammy glanced at her and looked down at her own shoes speculatively, but they were both already laced. She sighed, as if disappointed at not having a reason to try doing the same thing herself.

"You've had your powers for what, two weeks? We were all like you at two weeks. At least your loss of control wasn't trying to eat anyone." Ate Sanny frowned. "Actually, what did happen? Usually when we lose control its because we try to eat each other, but… that doesn't seem to be what happened. Not unless you could try and eat something from that far away…" Ate Sanny raised an eyebrow at her questioningly.

Jas squirmed uncomfortably, but she didn't want to compound her failure with lying or obfuscating. "I got excited and tried to shoot it with my plasma, but… my plasma's not safe to use and I had to divert it upwards."

Ate Sanny tilted her head. "You got… excited?" she said. "Why did you get excited? It was nowhere near you."

"I…" Jas trailed off flushing.

Tammy reached towards her, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The young girl smiled up encouragingly up at her. "Don't worry Ate Jas. We won't judge you. We're as in the dark about what we can do as you are. But if we know how it happened, we can watch out for it in ourselves and each other."

Ate Sanny nodded. "Jas, this is strictly me asking because we need to know. I won't do the passive-aggressive 'you should have handled it' thing, I won't accuse you of being lazy or needing to work harder, I won't hold to you some stupidly perfect standard and imply I meet that standard myself, all right? We're all in this together, and acting like a nagging parent isn't going to help with that."

"While very supportive and emotionally mature as this all is," Kuya Kim called out, making Tammy and Jas start in surprise, "are you girls done getting dressed yet?"

"You know it takes two hours for women to get ready," Ate Sanny called back, sounding amused. That was certainly how long it took grandmother to get ready for church. Sometimes even longer, if it was a special mass.

"Please don't take that long," Kuya Kim sighed.

Ate Sanny snickered, taking a quick look around at everyone before nodding. "Yeah, we're done," she said. "Tammy, can you…" She gestured at the leaves.

"Got it!" Tammy touched the leaves, she skin seeming to fuse with them before they once more unnervingly became absorbed back into Tammy's skin.

"Come on," Ate Sanny said. "As the gainfully employed adult, post-victory snacks are on me. We can talk about what happened then. Kim, you finished the fight for us, you pick where we go!"

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"Feeling better?" Tammy asked Jas as they found benches to sit at, eating post-victory snacks. Kim had picked a waffle sandwich stand, and Ate Kim had generously declared everyone could have two.

Jas nodded, holding the maple syrup waffle sandwich that had been suggested to her when she hadn't known what to order. The bite she'd taken from it had been deliciously, and she was chewing slowly to make it last as long as possible. She felt mildly embarrassed that the younger girl had to be so solicitous towards her. After all, she was the older one, she should be the one taking care of Tammy, not the other way around, but Jas supposed the younger girl was taking her leading responsibilities seriously.

"Do you feel like talking about it now?" Tammy said gently.

Jas hesitated, but… well, if they were lying about not judging her, best to know when she felt like she deserved to be judged.

"I… when it happened," Jas began slowly, trying to find the right words, "I felt excited."

"Excited how?" Tammy asked as Kuya Kim and Ate Sanny sat nearby and listened. Jas suspected he was doing something with his power to keep them from being overheard.

Jas struggled to put the feeling into words. She knew what it felt like but it seemed so… childish to put it that way. But struggle as she might, she couldn't think of any other way to accurately convey what it was like except…

"It felt like the excitement you feel when you're playing a fun game with your friends and you’ve got the ball," Jas finally said. "The excitement came and…"

"And you… got ready to shoot plasma to… score points?"  Tammy said hesitantly.

Jas blushed, though it probably wasn't obvious with her skin, and nodded.

Tammy looked… concerned. "I've never had that urge," she said, glancing towards the older members of their group.

They both shook their heads. "Not me," Kuya Kim said.

"I'm pretty sure every time I've felt that, it was me," Ate Sanny said. "My urges are more of the eating variety, and some body preferences. I've never had an urge to… basically play."

"That wasn't playing, that was a deathray," Kuya Kim said. Jas winced.

"Her power is fire and lava," Ate Sanny said. "That's literally a death-everything. And be nice. At least she was able to point her murderous urges at something safe, like the sky."

Kuya Kim looked chastised. "All right point, I'm sorry if I sounded accusing. But that I still don’t see how playing equates to a deathray."

"Her urges are certainly different," Ate Sanny said, nodding. "But it not like we've all sat down and carefully noted catalogued and related all theurges we've and under what circumstances we got them. The only real commonalities we know we have for sure are that we have them, and that they make us want to devour."

Jas, Tammy and Kuya Kim all shook. There was something about the way Ate Sanny said it that told Jas what she was talking about, a hidden tone that she felt in the same place she felt the urges within. The felt the fire, burning but banked, suddenly flare a little as if someone had blown on it…

"You know, for someone claiming the 'edgy loner' position, you sure sound like the smart guy of the team a lot of the time," Tammy said.

"They're not mutually exclusive," Ate Sanny said. "Usually you have to be some kind of traumatized billionaire to pull it off though. Maybe this means I'm going to get rich soon as the universe aligns to make this right."

"Doubtful. This is real life, Ate," Kuya Kim said.

Ate Sanny sighed. "Real life sucks. Wait, you got that reference?"

"Yeah, rich traumatized billionaire superheroes, they both had a trilogy and a team, I've seen it. Of course I understood that reference."

Jas thought of her uncle, of his money, made with sinful means. That was what grandmother always said, that instead of earning money honestly with hard work, he'd used lazy and slothful and therefore sinful means, and the more money he made, the more sinfully he lived…

"Do you think you can recognize the urge again if it comes back?" Tammy asked.

Jas hesitated uncertainly, but nodded. "I… think so."

"Then until it comes up again, I don't think there's anything you can do," the younger girl said. "If it helps, whenever I get urges, I remind myself I'm a person and not a plant and I don't do plant things." That last was said with vehement emphasis.

"I don't think what I do will be very helpful for you," Ate Sanny said. "It barely helps me."

"What do you do?" Kuya Kim asked.

For a moment, Ate Sanny was silent. Finally, she said, "Remind myself that pack predators can take down more prey than lone predators,"

Kuya Kim gave her a flat look. "You're right, that doesn't help at all."

A shrug. "I told you, didn’t I?"

"You did, but I thought that was just an excuse not to explain."

"It was, but because the explanation wouldn't have helped. What do you do when you have urges?"

"I direct it towards constructive avenues," Kuya Kim said loftily.

Ate Sanny starred at him. "That's why you've been laying out sand and warping everywhere, isn't it?" she said. "You've been giving the urges an outlet?"

"A useful, constructive outlet," Kuya Kim said. "It's helped, and I get practice on in."

Ate Sanny nodded slowly. "Well, I hope you're being careful. You have a family after all."

Kuya Kim pursed his lips. "I know," he said quietly.

"Be careful tonight, by the way," Ate Sanny said. "Devouring something tends to make your power act weird the first time you sleep afterwards."

"I'll be careful," Kuya Kim said. "Maybe I'll camp out in the yard, so if I start growing weird, at least it won't mess up the house."

"You do you. Call me if you catch dengue or something, I think I can get it out of your system if you don't try to push me out."

Kuya Kim paused. "You can do that?"

"Illness is just your body's cells not working the way they usually do because of a foreign factor or disturbed equilibrium. I can control any body enough to fix that. Hence, healing. Provided you let me. I suspect that your power will resist me trying to alter your cells unless you actively repress it, which is why I couldn't just body-jack that spider."

Jas listened to this, taking in what was being said, slowly eating her waffle sandwich. It was… comforting, to no longer be the center of attention. And the adults were talking, so it wasn't her place to interrupt. Especially since what they were talking about might be helpful to her situation. It couldn't hurt to try, in any case. Tammy's advice might be helpful as well.

"Ooh, does that mean you can…" Tammy interrupted, before trailing off as she glanced at Kuya Kim.

"Probably," Ate Sanny said, sounding amused. "Whatever it was you just edited out, the answer is most likely 'probably'."

"I have a sister, a girlfriend, and several female cousins, I can guess a long list of things that might have been edited out," Kuya Kim said. "Want me to leave so that you girls can talk about it?"

"Please no," Tammy said, blushing. Perhaps it was God chastising her for interrupting the adults. But then, she was the leader of their group, so maybe she had the right to interrupt the adults…

Jas finished her waffle sandwich and diligently began wiping her mouth to make herself presentable.

"I guess… we go home now?" Tammy said hesitantly.

"Not ready to go back to your normal life yet?" Ate Sanny said.

"I don't know… it's just… I feel like the world should feel… different now."

"Why? It doesn't revolve around us and what we do. Why should it be any different?"

Tammy sighed. "I guess." She looked at the time on her phone. "Yeah, Willy and I should start heading home. It's getting late and, my parents don't like us commuting after dark."

"I should probably go too," Kuya Kim sighed. "Traffic is going to be horrible. Can I drop anyone off anywhere?"

"Nah, Willy and I will go down to the terminal. That way we can be sure to get seats."

"I can call my Uncle Carlos to pick me up," Jas said. He'd said to call him when she was done, and she would.

"I'll stay with you," Ate Sanny said. "I don't need to be anywhere any time soon."

Jas hesitated, but nodded. Company didn't sound like a bad idea. Everyone knew that the city was full of thieves, snatchers, scammers, kidnappers and drug dealers who walked up to you, injected you full of drugs and got you addicted so you became dependent on them. She was sure that they wouldn't be able to harm her, but she didn't want to risk drawing the attention of the police, who were dishonest and would put you in jail even if you were innocent unless you paid them bribes. She hadn't encountered any yet, but she supposed that was because she wasn't alone and therefore an easy-looking victim.

The three walked off, Kuya Kim back to the parking lot, the two younger girls outside to the terminal.

"Come on," Ate Sanny said, gesturing to Jas to follow her. "You still have another waffle sandwich to your name."

Jas thought of the sweetness and licked her limbs. She'd already had one, two would be indulgent… On the other hand, it would be ingratitude to spit on Ate Sanny's generosity… "Can I have maple syrup again?"

"Sure," Ate Sanny said, leading the way back to the waffle sandwich store.

Jas waited patiently as Ate Sanny bought her another waffle sandwich—another waffle sandwich!—as well as buying one for herself. The benches they had used already had people sitting on it since they had left, so they just found a wall to lean against.

"So…" Ate Sanny asked after a while, half of her waffle sandwich already consumed, "how do you feel about your first foray in fighting monsters as part of a hero team?"

For a moment, Jas continued to take small bites to give herself time to think. Inside, the burned, weak and warm and almost comfortable, like coals lying in ashes. With each bite, she felt a quiet pleasure that echoed her own.

"It was… confusing," she eventually said. "Did we do any good?"

"We took a monster out of the world," Ate Sanny said. "That spider was a carnivore. How long before it started eating people? It's not like there were any giant flies it could eat."

"But it was just curled up in its nest. I don't think I've ever heard of it going out to eat. How did it survive?"

Ate Jas shrugged. "As the one with meat cell-based powers, I have two guesses. The first is something called Kleiber's Law. Are you familiar with it?"

Jas shook her head.

"Well, it basically says that the bigger an animal gets, the more efficient its metabolism, and the less it needs to eat proportional to its bodyweight. Since the Gagambuhala was so large, it had to eat far less than a spider a thousand times smaller than it."

Jas frowned. "But it didn't eat anything."

"Sure it did," Ate Sanny said. "It ate us. At least three of my drones, rich in proteins and stuff, and three of Tammy's drones, full of plant fats and fiber."

She couldn't help it. Jas stared.

Ate Sanny shrugged. "It didn't hurt once we stopped connecting to it."

Jas nodded. "What's the second option?"

"That it's like me, and it doesn't need to eat or drink," Ate Sanny said. "In which case, it could have stayed holed up in its nest indefinitely."

"But… isn't that good? That way it wasn't hurting anyone."

Ate Sanny raised an eyebrow at her. "What makes you think it wasn't hurting anyone by being there? Because of its presence, active or not, a lot of people have lost their jobs, and finding work is always hard. It caused millions, probably billions of pesos in property damage, which could cause businesses to close up or fail, costing even more people jobs. At least hundreds of people not being able to support their family isn't enough harm?"

That was…"I… suppose you're right," Jas said. The words seemed insufficient to complete convey the horror of it. Families, not earning, starving for food, needing to beg to eat, unable to support themselves… She'd been only thinking of direct physical harm, but Ate Sanny was right, all that disruption of a family's earning capacity would have been deadly. "Put that way, I suppose it needed to die. Now people can rebuild and recover."

"Rebuild and recover," Ate Sanny mused. "Sounds like a super typhoon when you put it that way. A force of nature that mankind can't really fight, only endure and survive."

"But we fought it."

"Yes. So are we still human?"

Inside her, Jaselle felt the fire, burning with no sign of going out, filled with glee at every bite of her waffle sandwich…