Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #43 (Patreon)

The Nightmares That Came To Manila, Part 1

As Tammy stripped off the clothes that Kuya Kim's sister Loretta had lent her, she was fairly certain they were all in over their heads.

In one day, the entire city had gone to hell in a way that… well, would probably be forgotten about in six months because they weren't a First World or Old-World European country anyone cared about, but one that was certainly unprecedented in at least the country's history, short of the Second World War, and maybe the war against the Americans. Unrelenting, constant rain that caused people to fall asleep on contact… all save for her very special, very brave cousin, who had apparently done what she could, the little cinnamon roll.

People who had been going on about their unsuspecting business were dead, drowned, run over by vehicles, or smashed by what had apparently been a cross of some kind of high-altitude kinetic weapon and a tsunami. Places were flooded, and people who might normally have resorted to climbing onto their roofs to get away from the rising water had been unable to, because they'd fallen asleep as the water had risen, or had actually managed to make their way up but had been unable to protect themselves from exposure and rolling off into the water below.

Even now, after Willy had gotten rid of the forced sleep effect be dealing with the monster that had caused it, the problem wouldn't have magically gotten fixed 'off-screen'. Older, poorer parts of the city were still flooded, except it would be worse than it usually was because the water would be full of unconscious people who had drowned. Whole families might have drowned in their home because they collapsed face-first into ankle-deep water. Or worse, people might have found themselves the only one's alive because they fell unconscious in a chair while everyone around them fell down…

Tammy shook her head, though that didn't really do anything on a physiological level to help banish the thoughts of elaborately horrific scenarios as she stepped out of the bathroom, the neatly refolded clothes over one stiff, towel rack-like arm. Shaking the orientation organs she'd adapted from roots to help her keep her balance didn't have the same effect of as if she'd done it to her inner ear, but the gesture was comforting. The gesture and habit let her move her thoughts away to another direction as she headed to where Kuya Kim and Ate Jas—Nightmare Magenta (It’s not pink!) and Nightmare Red—were waiting for her.

She stepped carefully on the old-fashioned marble, her footsteps stiff and heavy, as if she was wearing a stiff, constricting boot, or one of those plastic brace things for when your ankle was in a cast. Her wooden body, while pliable, wasn't in the same way a flesh and blood body was. Her ankle didn't swivel naturally so that her feet were flat on the floor. If anything, walking reminded her of having on roller blades or ice skates, and she had to constantly and consciously adjust her footing, especially since it was hard to feel the surface of her body compressing to under weight, so she had difficulty in telling where her feet was making contact. She'd been experimenting with a sort of tripod/high heel configuration for her feet, but she hadn't worked out of the bugs yet, like not having enough traction for rapid movement. So, flat feet and carefully walking like a robot it was!

It was kind of annoying how she had this problem. One would think that being made of a light material that was naturally easy to hollow out to reduce weight would make walking easy for her, compared to her two team mates two were made of various kinds of rock and her cousin who was made of ice, meaning she had occasional problems with friction to boot, ha ha. But no, somehow all three of them had a better sense of tactile pressure on their bodies, so that the near-autonomous adjustments a body made they instead did out of a casual habit that was almostbut not quite autonomous…

Tammy stepped into the living room where her teammates, and Kuya Kim's father and sister, were waiting for her. "Thank you for the clothes, Lori," she said, putting them next to a more neatly folded pile on the sofa that Ate Jas had been wearing.

Loretta paused just long enough to seem like she wasn't going to respond before she said, "You're welcome," before going back to browsing on her computer. On the table in front of her, atop a pink-ish magenta stone bowl, was a cube of the same color, and a cube of glassy obsidian. Willy's little ice drone was in the bowl next to them. Someone must have moved it, and Tammy quashed the sudden annoyance at someone moving Willy while she was out of her sight. It wasn't Willy, she reminded herself, it was just her drone, a little bit of water she controlled, and there was no malice involved…

"Willy," Tammy said, and the ice rippled slightly to show that Willy was paying attention. "Can you divide that drone? I need you to leave one part here so that we can use it to talk while I carry the other so you can tell me where you are."

"Yes, Tammy," Willy said, the bowl her drone was in vibrating lightly before the little done seemed to pinch in half, dividing into two domes of clear ice.

Tammy picked up one, thorns growing on her fingers and stiffening to allow her traction on the smooth ice. While she no longer had a problem with how cold her cousin could be—literally. Her cousin's ice could be well below zero sometimes—the lack of friction could be difficult. Cool, but difficult, ha ha.

Was it sad that even with new friends, she still kept her wordplay to herself?

"Okay, everyone ready to go?" she asked as she fitted Willy's drone into a hollow in her arm and reminded herself not to sink roots into it as thorns grew to bracket the drone, locking it in place. It still felt weird to be the one in charge. She was green, not red! Also, she was the youngest one in the group! That was just wrong! Shouldn't they say she wasn't mature enough, or didn't know what she was doing, and she should leave things to older, more experienced people? Kuya Kim and Ate Jas were in college! Ate Sanny was an adult with a job, whatever it was. but they all deferred to her, as if it was weird she wasn't  leader…

Ate Jas and Kuya Kim both nodded. "Ready as we can be," Kuya Kim said, a note of nervousness in his voice.

Tammy reached out and patted his arm. It felt nothing like patting an arm should be, his arm staying stiff and unmoving, her thorn-like fingers scraping on stone as they, but she hoped he understood the sentiment. "It's going to be okay, Kuya. We're going in to help. Just do what you can."

"What if we make things worse?" Ate Jas said quietly.

"Then stop and call us, and we'll help you," Tammy said. "We're a team. We're only splitting up because we have multiple priorities, and the things we're going to do is something we're all specifically suited for. If it gets more complicated than that, you don't need to force yourself to do it alone. Fall back and call for backup, and do what you can until the rest of us get there. Remember, you're just going out and getting your portal network up, that's all. Trying to use it to redirect the flooding is optional and only if you can manage it. Once you have your portal network back up and running, or have at least confirmed the parts that you can, call it in and we can figure out what's the next step."

She turned to Ate Jas, aware of her issues when it came to not being active and involved. "Ate Jas, while you're up there, why don't you practice with drones? You'll be high up and far away, so as long as you control your heat, it should be safe for you to practice with plasma, and maybe make a little more light. And while you're up there, maybe keep an eye out for Ate Sanny? We'll need her."

Because she was the one who should be leading this team. Ate Sanny was the oldest, she was a quick thinker, she had great insight into the minds of how people thought and how their own powers' urges worked, and she was always totally cool and collected like a leader should be! It didn't seem fair that she could call 'not it' by saying she didn't want to be, when Tammy couldn't do the same thing!

But if that's how it was going to be, then Tammy just had to roll with it. So, when they finally found Ate Sanny, she would, as leader, order the older woman to tell them what to do! No, it wasn't foisting off her leadership on someone else, it was delegation and taking advantage of your teammate's skills when it exceeded one's own! They made her leader, after all. Well, this was how she led.

She turned to Kuya Kim's sister. "Lori, anything new come up?"

Loretta waved a hand dismissively. "Power is down in a lot of places, and it's affecting cellphone coverage, so we're not getting a lot of photos posted online. It's mostly from well-off dry areas like Makati, Taguig, and Ortigas, places like that. Marikina is almost a complete social media deadzone, but the news is saying that emergency boats have put out to see if people can be helped. However, the implicit assumption in heavily flooded areas seems to be that if there's no one moving around in front of a house, the people inside are dead. I've found footage of Willy in Pasig before the weird magic tsunami, though. I think I can narrow down the street for you."

Tammy nodded, holding up a hand. After so many times, having to grow the specialized mish-mash of plant parts she needed to make a communications drone was simple. A leathery sack for pumping out air, a tube with a special, vibrating flap to reproduce vocal chords, a mouth-like opening that can open and close to replicate a mouth, and inside a tough, light, bamboo-like shell to protect it all and not look disgusting, with the black blotches that she used to see. In the back of her mind, she felt the almost constant, relentless urge to stop moving, to settle down and root, to just… be. It was a constant, low level noise, like a ringing in her ears that had been going on so long she'd stopped really noticing, only to sound all too clear suddenly when she was in the middle of using her powers. Or at least, the powers she had…

She put down the speaking drone next to Loretta, testing its functions, making sure she could see and hear through it. Despite the lack of roots and water, the chlorophyll on the green coating of the drone began to metabolize, mugging passing carbon-dioxide for its carbon content as it tried to pull what little water vapor it could and bash all that together to form sugar. "Here. I can see though this. When I'm close to Pasig, I'll talk to you through this so you can help guide me closer to Willy." Tammy would have Willy herself to talk to, through her drone, but she'd never been good with directions. She all but literally needed to have her hand held when going to new places.

Loretta glanced at it, poking it experimentally. "Understood. I'll keep trying to find Ate Sanny, but I think people are still keeping out of the rain, and if she's flying she might be hard to get footage of."

Tammy nodded. "Thanks. Just do what you can." She turned back to the others. "All right. From this point on, as long as we're not flesh and blood, we will refer to ourselves by our superhero names." Wow. That was something she'd never have thought she'd get to say completely seriously. "This will be to protect our identities. Got it, Nightmare Red, Nightmare Magenta?"

"Got it, T—I mean, boss," Kuya Kim said.

"Okay, just to clarify, I'm Nightmare Green," Tammy said. "Not boss. That feels weird."

"Right… Nightmare Green," Kuya Kim nodded.

Kuya Kim's father patted him on the shoulder, his touch very tentative as he gave his son a reassuring smile. Kuya Kim's rock wasn't uniformly smooth. "You'll get used to it. Using call signs is just good practice, though yes, they do feel weird when you're just starting out." Mang Milo's smile widened. "My son, the superhero."

"In the interest of avoiding the trope of all of you being safe in your secret identities, but all of you referring to me by name and thus having a name that can be traced," Loretta said, not looking up from her laptop, "I am pre-emptively assigning myself the call-sign of 'Ops'. If you need to refer to me, use that name."

Tammy nodded in agreement, a small flicker of enthusiasm flickering inside her. "Superhero names for everyone," she chirped. She did the whole genki-girl fist thrust in the air and everything.

She wanted to take a deep break, but couldn't. Still, she mimed it as best as she could. "In all seriousness though… there's a lot of people out there who need help. If you think you can provide it, do so. We're not likely to find a lot of collapsed walls that have people buried under them, or big heavy things that need to be lifted to get people free, but if there are, and if you think can do it without hurting anyone, do what you can." Another mimed breath. "And if you run into any monsters that are too close to people… call it in first, all right? There's no reason to have to do it alone. Got it?"

They both nodded.

Tammy looked outside. Though the rain had stopped, the clouds still gather thick and dark, and with the setting sun, gloom had fallen. The streets were strangely quiet, with no cars passing by. She had called Manang Zeny and told her that she and Willy were staying overnight at their friends’ because they couldn't get home, which was probably right. The woman had reminded her to call her parents to let them know she was all right.

Tammy had sent a text, then deliberately turned off her phone so it couldn't be contacted. Her parents were still abroad on a business strip, and wouldn't be back until the end of the month at her earliest. Hopefully they'd blame it on bad cell service or towers going down after she'd sent her text.

"All right," she said, realizing they were only procrastinating now. "Magenta, get us away from the house so that we're not obviously coming from here. After that, Red, get into the air and light up. Then get me as close to Pasig as you can." They nodded. "Then we'd better get going."

"Good luck, you three," Mang Milo said.

"You'll need it," Loretta said.

The three of them headed out the door, into the dark, cold night that had only just begun. Tammy stepped into the still-flooded front yard, feeling her les extrude subtle roots that started drawing in the water. Off to the side, she could hear the water sizzling as it lapped around Red's glowing hot legs. The night was dark, almost completely black to her 'eyes'. The plant cells she had adapted to make visual organs had never really evolved to react to subtle lighting, having come into being to point pants in the direction of blazing bright sunlight.

"Damn it…" she heard Kuy—Nightmare Magenta vibrate. It almost sounded like a sigh. "This is going to take a lot of work to clean up afterwards."

Tammy winced internally, looking at the big tree next to the bath to the front door and the piles of fruits that had fallen around it. "Sorry. I'll help." She gestured towards the tree, willing it to shrink, to devour itself, to regress its growth. It was unnatural, but so what? "The tree should be gone by morning, and I can probably fix any plants the flooding ruined."

Magenta turned towards her. His face was blank, save for the pale-streaked, visor-like band across his face he'd put in so that everyone else would have somewhere to look him in the eyes to make conversation easier. "Would you? Please?"

"Sure. We'll call it a team bonding thing. It’s the least we can do since we meet up here a lot."

Another vibration that sounded like a sigh. "Thanks. I know it's stupid, being worried about that when there are people worse off, but—"

"It's your home," Red said quietly. "You want it to look presentable. We understand."

Magenta raised a hand and sand began to flow down from his palm. In the darkness, the sand clearly glowed pink. Definitely pink, there was no way to excuse it as magenta. "Well… let's get a move on, then. I've got rocks and sand nearby that didn't get away so I can get us to EDSA. Red, you can fly up from there." The air above the water where the sand had fallen began to twist. "All right, I've got a path open."

Tammy wanted to take a deep breath and couldn't. She wanted to swallow, but she had no throat that could swallow. "All right Nightmærangers. Let's be heroic!"

If she were a better leader, she might have had something more catchphrase-worthy ready. But then, most catch phrases sucked anyway.