ACL: 3. Be my guest~ Be my guest~ Get it? Because I’m a candle? (Patreon)

Chapter 3: Be my guest~ Be my guest~ Get it? Because I’m a candle?

Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Type: Fire

The clock struck twelve and my world flipped. The ball of aura I imagined my soul to be was always warm, a comforting proof that my memories were not the delusions of a lunatic. Now, now it burned. It burned with the radiance of the sun and I felt my soul shift.

My mind was forged into something new and I felt a form embed itself into my soul. I knew that I would be able to swap to this form no matter what, for this form was as much a part of me as my own body.

"But… But why a litwick?" I wondered.

It… It wasn't a bad pokemon, but it was one I'd never trained before. I'd personally have much preferred a larvesta. I knew how to train one of those. Grumbling, I decided I could test the form in the morning. Two all-nighters in a row probably wasn't a good idea.

X

I did some thinking last night. I wasn't the juiciest pecha on the tree, but damn it, I wasn't stupid. Way I figured it, I needed four things to get set up as a proper hero:

First, I needed a name. Easy. Menagerie. I thought about Monster Mash, it was a catchy song, but Menagerie just sounded more serious. More respectable. I didn't want to become a meme on PHO. At least, not this soon.

Second, I needed a costume. And a burner phone. To be fair, the costume wasn't as important for me as for other capes seeing how I expected to spend most of my time in public as a pokemon, but it'd be good to have something better than a bright orange helmet.

I didn't want to be as garishly flamboyant as Wallace, but I did understand that image was important. Thankfully, I had $4,000 sitting tight in my pocket.

Third, I needed credibility. I had a decent first step with Glory Girl and Panacea, but I'd need to keep up with those connections.

Lastly, I needed to get fit. I didn't want to get caught out while I was stuck as a human, but it was bound to happen. Ideally, I'd get back to the state where I could spar with Luca and not embarrass myself too badly, but that wasn't likely anytime soon.

Still, Marcus was right. Everything started with conditioning.

I woke up extra early and grabbed a quick breakfast of bland cereal and orange juice before forcing myself to jog to school. It was roughly three miles there and I realized about halfway through that I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

I arrived just as the bell rang, drenched in sweat and stinking to high heaven.

X

This… This was a terrible mistake. I was forced to sit in on a lecture about Thomas Jefferson and his "complex moral dilemmas of the age," -read, slavery- while drenched in sweat. I didn't see what was so fucking complex about it, but ehh, different era or whatever.

I didn't see the point in history so I workshopped different things I could do today. I had no vocational hours today so my time after school was my own. Did I want to patrol? Test my powers? Fuck with the Wards? Maybe scout the Merchants' territory some more?

There was so much to do…

I grabbed a quick shower at lunch so I could stop stinking up the classrooms. When I finally joined the cafeteria, it was during the last ten minutes. I grabbed an apple and some sort of chicken sandwich.

"Yeah, the new cape didn't even have a name. I mean, ballsy of him to introduce himself to Ames like that, but I guess if you want to make sure people know you're an indie, getting my sis to vouch for you would do it," I heard Victoria say to her admirers. Amy sat by her side, for once invested in the conversation.

"He was pretty interesting. Said he had a thousand forms. Probably bull, but who knows?" she shrugged.

"Nothing wrong with talking yourself up. Besides, admit it, you said he's cute."

"I said the blue baby elephant was cute. Don't twist my words, Vicky."

"Hehe yeah, it was. I wonder if he's got a baby bunny in there too."

"Probably. It'll probably be purple or whatever."

"Think he'll give me a call?"

"Hey, Blake, how's it going?" Dean interrupted. He waved me over.

I froze. I didn't realize I stopped moving to listen in to the conversation. I didn't mean to, but hearing them talk about me made my ears itch.

Too late to walk by now. "Hey, Dean. What's up?"

"Not much, man. Come on, sit with us. Vicky and Amy met a new cape apparently. Changer powers."

I grudgingly took a seat. Being so close, I could feel Vicky's aura pouring outward, proof of her shoddy control. I didn't feel some great need to profess my undying love for her, but it was still a noticeable pressure in the back of my mind.

"Cool, is the cape a hero?" I asked for the sake of playing the part.

"Yup, indie," Vicky chirped. How was someone so goddamn chipper all the time? She was like a happiny, but less cute. "He turned into this cute blue elephant. Amy couldn't stop feeling him up."

"Vicky!" Amy squealed, "Don't phrase it like that! He just had an interesting biology, alright?"

"Sure, sis, sure."

"Have you girls told the Protectorate yet?" I asked. "I mean, aren't they supposed to do the recruitment stuff?"

The brunette shrugged. "Not my business. Besides, he's probably Wards age from what I could tell. He didn't seem that old, maybe a year or two older than me at most. He didn't want to go to them because he wanted to avoid the recruitment speech. I think he should join, but I'm not going to hound him over it."

"Yeah, what Ames said. I'm thinking I can go on a few patrols with him. Introduce him to the hero life before I try to ease him into the idea of joining the Wards."

I raised my brow. "Oh? Not New Wave?"

"Ehh, I don't think he's the type to uncover his face. If he does, I wouldn't mind introducing him to Aunt Sarah."

"And if he decides he wants the Wards?"

"Then I introduce him to them. Gallant. Clock. Whoever," Vicky said with a sunny smile. "Who knows? Maybe our patrol can have a surprise guest or something."

I nibbled at my chicken sandwich. It was bone-dry, probably rehydrated from a plastic bag. I drowned it in barbeque sauce and hoped for the best.

Nope. Still fucking dry.

Still, I needed the protein so I scarfed it down and did my best to not choke in what little time I had left.

"You okay?" Dean asked. "You seem a bit out of it today, Blake."

"Yeah, man. I just decided to run from home to school. You know, get some steps in. Took a shower in the gym before lunch. Anyway, how big was the elephant? Are we talking person-sized? Or big enough to ride?"

Vicky laughed. "Heh, no. It was barely as high as my knee, baby-blue, and with these red crests or armor or something on its ears and trunk. It was super adorbs. I wish we took a picture."

"Cool, but is that really useful as a cape though?" I wondered aloud. "I mean, the point of being a hero is fighting bad guys, right?"

"Yup!"

Dean rolled his eyes goodnaturedly. "Stopping crime. The point of being a hero is stopping crime, not beating people up."

"Spoilsport," his girlfriend pouted.

I let their friendly bickering wash over me and faded into the background for the rest of lunch. If I ever took Vicky up on patrol, it was likely she'd spring the Wards on me as a surprise, probably to "see how we meshed" or something. It wasn't bad, just something to keep in mind.

X

Afterschool found myself dipping back to the orphanage. I didn't run, I didn't think my body could handle it, but I at least tried to power-walk. A little.

I grabbed my helmet, picked out a jacket I didn't wear often, and made my way to the Boat Graveyard.

I'd only been here once or twice, but looking at it depressed me. The Graveyard was literally that, the graveyard for the city's entire economy. I wondered how much better off the city would be if the dockworkers weren't blithering retards.

Seriously, they strike so they… remove all possibility of getting their jobs back by grounding a fucking oil tanker? Why???

The idiocy of that was fucking befuddling.

I glanced out into the bay and spotted the oil tanker. Whatever the stupidity of dockworkers, it made for the perfect place to practice. What better place to work out fire type moves than in the confines of a boat? It's not like the metal hull could burn.

Problem. How did I get there?

The liner was a ways over water. It wasn't like I could just walk there. The problem was, most fire types tended to be… rather flashy. They were some of the most beautiful pokemon out there, but they weren't exactly subtle.

All but one at any rate.

As tempting as it was to turn into a charizard, a bit of tact here would go a long way. I wasn't trying to draw attention to myself after all. I only wanted to test out what I could do as a litwick now that it was a part of me.

Fletchinder it was.

It was a small, red avian pokemon with a somewhat rare dual fire/flying typing. Because it was so small, its red plumage looked a lot like a robin in this world, nevermind that a real one would probably depopulate the city of all other birds if left alone.

My new form was only two feet tall, still several times larger than a robin, but I'd hopefully avoid any casual inquiries by flying high enough to look smaller.

I soared out on silent wings and made it to the tanker without drawing any attention. There, I turned back and headed inside until I found a wide open space, probably where they kept all the shipping containers before most of it got salvaged for scrap by opportunists.

There, I punched the air and called, "Shift, litwick!"

I felt my body shrink and mold itself like playdough. When I next opened my eyes, the ground was far, far closer than before. Being any pokemon was a strange experience, but being a litwick… It was indescribable, the sensation of at once possessing a soul yet not being an organic life form.

Was it possible to be a half-step into the afterlife?

I looked at myself through a reflective sheet of metal and paused. It was an almost unnoticeable urge, but I felt the need to find children, to let the warmth of their lives fuel my wick.

I remembered some superstitions about the candle-ghost. It was said sometimes that they were guides to the afterlife and that they focused on children because they could drain life force through their flames.

Strange. Perhaps I could through Pain Split? But the sensation of wanting to be near children was different from hunger. More of a desire for companionship perhaps?

What a strange pokemon to be…

X

Training was important, every good trainer knew this. The ones who thought "battle experience is everything," never made it far. They inevitably got their pokemon injured or ran headfirst into a wall they couldn’t surmount with bullheaded determination. It was just as important to know exactly what you should be training. To start, it had to do with what I wanted to accomplish.

I knew that a litwick could learn a bevy of both fire and ghost type moves, including the ever-impressive Overheat, but did I really need that kind of firepower? What kind of hero would I be if I cremated a shoplifter or something?

I had to keep in mind that my opponents weren't pokemon. As fantastical as capes could seem, they were human at the end of the day. That meant both nonlethal and impermanent harm.

That made my decision easy: Confuse Ray to distort their perception and overstimulate their senses, Minimize to make myself even harder to hit, and Ember to start training up my fire type skills.

The moves were all relatively low-level moves so imagining them wasn't too hard.

I faced one wall, imagined what I wanted, and let loose. "Confuse Ray!"

My eyes glowed and… nothing happened, because it was a move designed to make the opponent see illusions. High level pokemon could fabricate entire illusionary environments but most stuck to simple overstimulation of sight. Problem was, I had no idea if I was doing it right since I lacked a living target to see the results.

After a few tries, I decided to look at myself in the mirror. I could see my eyes glow an eerie blue. It… It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely the Confuse Ray I remembered seeing thousands of times before.

I practiced the move for an hour until I was sure I could call the move on command. No point in having a large movepool if I couldn't rely on it after all.

Ember was comparatively much easier. As a litwick, lighting my wick was as simple as wanting it. The fire was an eerie blue but I found it a comforting warmth. My desire to feel the emotions of children increased but I quashed it down.

I swung my wick around like I'd seen one of the school cheerleaders do with their braids. Aiming like this was… honestly kind of hard. Still, I got it after a while.

The last thing I needed to work on was Minimize. Litwick was not known for being a sturdy pokemon. For that matter, neither were chandelure. I remembered beating one with Luca despite the type disadvantage thanks to a quick rushdown combo of Extreme Speed and Crunch. Fire meant nothing if they didn't get the chance to use it.

So, if tanking hits wasn't an option, the best thing I could do was to simply not be there.

Problem: Wax didn't really want to… compress. It wasn't as rigid as stone, but nor was it a sponge. How was I supposed to shrink? I couldn't just want it. Normal type energy apparently didn't come naturally to a litwick as fire or ghost did.

I clenched and all I had to show for my trouble was feeling both tired and constipated.

After changing back and forth between my pokemon and human forms repeatedly, I was exhausted. I'd spent three hours in this sorry tub and I could use a shower.

I didn't even bother trying to cross the Docks again. The sun was setting, which meant all the ne'er-do-wells would be out and about. I caught my breath from training, turned back into a fletchinder, and zipped my ass out of the Docks and back to the orphanage.

Mrs. Wells wasn't too concerned with what us older kids did, but she did insist that we all ate at least one meal together.

I took a seat between Mark and Leah. "Sup, guys."

"Hey, dude, 'sup?" Mark greeted me with a fist bump.

Leah scrunched her nose. "You smell. Like sweat. What, you got chased by some dickheads?"

"Nah, I went out for a run then wandered the Boardwalk for a while. I probably smell a bit like salt too, see?" I lied, before shoving my pit into her face.

"Eww! Blake!"

And that's all I needed to keep her from digging deeper.

I thought about getting some more exercise. Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, the whole deal. Just the thought made me feel sore. I already ran three miles in the morning followed by several more miles of walking in the afternoon. I'd see about checking some time out for myself at the school gym later, but I felt I'd done enough tonight.

With physical conditioning out of the picture for the moment, I decided to focus on the more spiritual aspects of aura. It… wasn't what I was best at. Back when I was wandering around with Luca and the rest, I excelled at physical reinforcement.

For some people and pokemon, meditation was an inward thing. Titania was like this. She could sit still for hours, thinking back on every decision she made that week, only to merge with some grand revelation about her own fighting style. As much as I wanted to claim that my lovely gardevoir became the terrifying Faerie Queen she was through my help, she mostly trained herself.

That wasn't me. For me, introspection was something you did by broadening your horizons, by experiencing more of the world. It was probably why I never settled down. By seeing every region and meeting so many of the legendary pokemon in their dominions, I learned more about who I was. The greater the obstacle I overcame, the more I learned about my character.

To me, it was experience that was the crux of meditation. I defined my place in the world relative to what I experienced. Anything else felt… not wrong per se, but incomplete.

Well, I sure as hell couldn't travel now. This world lacked pokemon and legends for me to test myself against. For a moment, the humorous idea of me chasing down powerful capes to challenge them to duels came to mind, but I dismissed the notion. Perhaps when I was stronger.

Besides, there were plenty of challenges here, plenty of people to help within this very city.

So, despite my distaste for it, meditation it was.

I waited until Mark fell asleep and sat still. I tried to quiet my breath and allowed myself to sink into the recesses of my mind. Bit by bit, I felt my aura stir.

I reached out to take hold of my aura, but it slipped my metaphysical fingers like smoke. The harder I tried, the more elusive it seemed. All I managed to do was frustrate myself. After half an hour of this, I became fed up with the exercise and tumbled back into bed.

X

Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Type: Normal

Running to school in the morning was hell. It was worse than yesterday because my soreness only compounded. I knew from experience that it would proceed to get worse until I finally developed some muscles, but that didn't mean I had to like it.

I did make sure to take it somewhat easy on myself though, mostly because I knew PE was in the morning. Arcadia had an overly complicated scheduling system in my opinion. Because school ended at 1:00 PM, there weren't enough hours in the day for students to get an hour in each subject.

Their solution was to teach three classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour each, 9:00 AM until noon, and two classes on Tuesday and Thursday for an hour and a half each, averaging out to three hours per class per week.

For me, that meant Tuesdays and Thursdays were PE and physics.

Our PE teacher was new, a rough sort, the kind who retired from the rangers and decided yelling at children who'd just gotten their first pokemon was a great way to spend their downtime. Except in this world I supposed it was a retired PRT field officer.

He had some pretty cool stories about the "bad old days" when the Marquis ruled the city. Pity most of them ended with someone getting horrifically injured. Or dead.

Grim fellow, knew what he was talking about.

Sometimes, I wondered just how retired he actually was. If this was the "Wards school" as everyone seemed to point out to me, the PRT would likely go out of their way to make sure the Wards were kept safe. He supposedly took an injury recently that forced a career change, but he still had the eyes I associated with elite rangers or Team admins.

Suffice to say I respected the man a fair bit.

He was also the sort to not take shit from us students, which meant as far as he was concerned, physical education meant good nutrition and exercise, not a chance to pretend to play soccer while you really chatted the period away.

Stretches. Three laps around the track. More stretches. Twenty five push-ups for boys, fifteen for girls. Then idle sports if we wanted. Vaguely pretending to roll a ball around wasn't exercise according to him.

I'd taken to running at the back of the pack the previous semester, not seeing much of a reason to really put in the effort without Luca to motivate me or aura to help shape my progress.

I realized now that that was a horrible mistake. Lazy. And I was paying for it now.

I finished my routine and collapsed onto the football green, barely cognizant of the approving nod Coach Mooton sent my way.

I'd take it.

X

After that came an hour and a half of physics, my absolute least favorite course in the school. It wasn't that the teacher was bad necessarily, but that so many things were different from the world I knew. Or rather, I wasn't quite sure where aura ended and hard science began.

For example, everyone knew that electricity could be propagated through air. That was how electric types existed after all. Air was a decent insulator, but it could be overcome with a strong enough amperage.

Nope.

I didn't know the reason, nor did I particularly care enough to investigate, but air was a far better insulator on earth than in the pokemon world. Moves like Thunderbolt wouldn't really work. Or at least, my physics textbook suggested to me that this was so since most pokemon fell short of being able to output true lightning. I hadn't gotten the chance to become an electric type yet to try to disprove this theory.

I really hoped that wasn't the case. The last thing I needed was to turn into a magnezone only to find my attacks not even crossing a foot of airspace.

I took a seat next to some boy named Kyle Schmidt, an unfortunate last name given the Empire. He routinely got shit over being Empire from kids who didn't realize that no one hated the Nazis more than decent Germans. Except the Jews, but…

We worked mostly in silence, speaking only when we needed something from the other. I preferred it that way. It wasn't as though we had much in common.

X

Afterschool found me at the animal shelter on the nice side of town. It was one of those high-end places attached to a vet's office. It even had a small yard where people, mostly kids, could play with animals. Honestly? It reminded me of a pokemon daycare, but in miniature and without the superpowered tenants.

"Blake, welcome," I heard as I stepped in the door.

I gave Stacy a wave. "Hey, Stacy, how's the day been?"

Stacy Camacho was a vet in-training currently finishing up her program. A short-ish, pretty brunette from Honduras who wanted to take over the family business. As a former pokemon trainer, I could always get behind the idea.

"Not too bad." She slid over a clipboard. "Here's what needs to get done today. Go out back and get changed, alright? Oh, and we still have some extra tamales from New Year's if you want one."

I licked my lips. My first taste of that gooey goodness was in the orphanage. Then, it was just corn mash and dry chicken shaped into a log and I thought it tasted like shit. I told Stacy that last year and she took it as a personal insult. She somehow roped her abuela into making a few for me and I was hooked.

"Fantastic. Love you!"

I headed into the staff room and sure enough, there was a foil-wrapped packet waiting for me. I scarfed it down, put on the Camacho Clinic & Shelter jacket, and got to work.

"Let's see… First up, change the bedding in the rabbit cages…"

X

I made it back to the orphanage in plenty of time for dinner before heading out again. First stop, a prepaid phone. It didn't need to be fancy. $70 seemed like a lot. I was probably getting fleeced somehow, but I had money to burn for the moment.

I decided to give Panacea a call.

"Hello? Who's this?" came the grouchy voice.

"Hello, Panacea. I'm the cape you met two days ago. I was the floating clay jar and then the blue elephant."

"Oh, right. Hello again. Do you have a name now?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking of going by Menagerie."

"Suit yourself. So what's this about?"

"I did say I can heal and I'd like your help confirming that. Do you have any time this evening?"

I heard her suck in a breath. "Okay, we can do that. I'm already at Brockton General. When are you going to drop by?"

I found an isolated corner and shifted, catching the phone on a deft claw.

"Three minutes? I'm in the area already."

"Okay. I'll let the nurses know to expect you."

A noctowl was far from the largest flying creature in my arsenal, but it was still an easy five feet tall with a six-foot wingspan. Silent hunter it may be, but it was not subtle.

I drew more than one eye as I swooped into the hospital parking lot. Shifting back, I settled into a jogging landing as my feet touched the ground.

I jogged into the ER and waved over the first nurse I saw. "Hello, the name's Menagerie. I was told that Panacea told you I was coming?"

The nurse who greeted me looked exhausted, but no more than anyone else working in the ER. She looked at my beat up old helmet and frowned. "She did, though she didn't mention precisely what you would be doing."

I shot her my best winning smile. "My name is Menagerie because I'm a changer with many forms. Some of these forms have healing abilities."

That made her do a one-eighty. "Oh, why didn't you say so? So Panacea will be confirming your abilities?"

"That's right. Did she tell you where she'd be?"

"Here," the grumpy brunette said as she turned the corner. "Menagerie? Let's get this over with. You're going to have to sign a few forms."

I sighed. Annoying, but expected. One more reason to never join the feds. "Sure, let's do this."

"Okay. I need your cape name, date active, affiliation if you have any, and exactly what you think your healing can do…"

Fifteen minutes later, I was finally finished. "Okay, where do you want me?"

"Where do you think you can do the most good? You can go to the burn ward, poisons, inpatients coming out of surgery, trauma, or whatever you want. I'm going to shadow you and make sure you're not accidentally making anyone worse."

"Let's head to the trauma ward," I told her. "I don't know if I can regrow limbs or anything, but I know I can radically speed up a person's natural regeneration."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. Come on, this way."

The first room she took me to contained three beds. She knocked sharply and I saw her entire persona shift as she walked into the room. "Hello everyone, my name is Panacea."

I looked at that plastic smile and wondered which miracle worker taught the grumpy girl bedside manners. Whoever it was, they deserved a raise. Several.

I walked inside and introduced myself. "Hi, my name is Menagerie. I'm another healer like Panacea. To confirm my abilities, she's going to shadow me for a bit and ensure that everything is fine."

"As with everything I do, you may reject parahuman healing if you wish. I have it here that you all agreed to be healed by me, yes?"

One of the patients, a man in a cast, looked at me. "Yeah, but not by him. How do I know he's not going to make things worse?"

"That's why I'm here, sir. He's going to heal you while I monitor your body for any abnormalities. If you don't want to, I can heal you now, but volunteering would help us get another healer on staff," she explained patiently.

Seriously. Where the fuck was grumpy-Pan???

Eventually, she got them to agree. I learned that one had come out of surgery, another was the victim of racially motivated assault, and a third came in from a traffic accident.

"Okay, do your thing," she gestured.

I smiled. "Shift, audino!"

I felt myself shrink again as soft, downy fur covered my newly plump body. Two sets of lop-ears were paired with feelers that sat curled up into a spiral.

The biggest change was my newly expanded hearing. Though audino were recognized as the medical pokemon in Unova, they were also known for their incredible hearing. So good in fact that they could pinpoint a pebble rolling a mile away.

A man who had that kind of hearing would find themselves catatonic from overstimulation in short order. As it was, even as a pokemon, I found the new sensation to be a bit overwhelming.

"Is… Is that a rabbit?" I heard one of the patients whisper.

"Yes," I said. My voice hadn't changed so I still sounded masculine despite the cream and bubblegum-pink coating. It was an unnerving contrast. "Do you have allergies to fur?"

"No, I just… this wasn't what I was expecting."

I had six minutes. Not much time, but enough to get to work. I gestured to Panacea. "Come on, let's get on with it. I can't maintain this form for extended periods of time."

We both reached out and touched the nearest patient, the one who'd come out of surgery yesterday. Something about a broken hip.

I extended my feelers down and wrapped it around his wrist. I could feel his pulse quicken in anticipation. It told me so much about him, every vibration of his heart coursing through his blood and telling me in real time every malady, every feeling, every ache.

I didn't feel my Healer ability go off. Perhaps I didn't know enough about him or my own mastery of this form was lacking. Either way, I'd rely on something else then.

"Heal Pulse," I whispered. An orb of pink light gathered in my hands and I laid it gently on his chest.

My feelers told me absolutely everything about his body. The strain of surgery, every pulled muscle and damaged blood vessels from age, all of it was restored.

I heard Panacea gasp before she collected herself. I wondered what she saw through her power.

"Mr. Owens, you're completely healed. As far as I could see, he even took care of that old torn ACL that didn't heal quite right," she told him.

I got through four more patients before my timer ran out. During that time, I got to really test the limits of Heal Pulse. It couldn't regenerate lost limbs, but I had the feeling that'd be the case anyway so I wasn't too disappointed.

Broken bones, torn muscles, and damaged organs were all fair game. I was somewhat disappointed to find that I wouldn't heal any genetic disorders. Cancer? Great. Underlying causes of cancer? Beyond my abilities.

It was a weird distinction, but that still made me the second greatest healer alive so I'd take it.

"How long do you need to recover?" Panacea asked.

"A minute. Just think of it as running a sprint."

"Alright. I'm going to take care of the next room. You can come in whenever you want."

I waved her along and bought myself a drink from the vending machine.

My timer meant it wasn't exactly fast, but spending time with Amy in an environment outside of school was honestly pretty nice.

"Woah, has anyone told you you're super soft?" I heard a patient say. She was bold, reaching out to rub between my ears. I felt my eyes droop and my feelers begin to uncurl.

The headpats… too much…

"Menagerie? You going to heal her spine?" I heard Panacea say.

I shook my head. "Sorry, that just felt… surprising."

"You should feel his fur, Panacea. It's super soft!"

I began to heal her. Somewhere along the way, Panacea's hand came to rest against my paw. If she was paying more attention to my biology than the patient's, I didn't comment. We'd more or less established my abilities at this point anyway.

When we left that room, I reached out and wrapped a feeler around her wrist. The girl could use some cheer and if that meant being her emotional support audino, that didn't seem like a bad way to spend my evening either.

After a few hours, the two of us finished our tour of the trauma ward and settled down in a private lounge. I grabbed a seat next to her on the couch.

"So, is every night this busy?"

"Pretty much. This city never runs out of unlucky or stupid people," she grumbled.

"Hey, you're doing good. At this point, the entire city owes you their lives, or someone they know. It's good to be needed, you know?"

"Yeah, well, I could do with being a bit less vital. Want some advice?"

"Shoot."

"Don't commit," she told me. "The director of the hospital is probably going to try to catch you when you leave. Get you to come back every day. Don't commit. Do what you can, but don't try to take ownership for everyone's problems, you know?"

I nodded slowly. "I get that. Thanks. Shift, audino."

"Huh?"

I extended my feelers and took her hands in mine. They told me so much. She had the bags in her eyes, as always, and she slouched like a deflated balloon animal, but it wasn't until I really looked that I realized just how tired she was.

There was a bone-deep weariness in her posture, the kind I'd only ever associated with Caitlin of the Unova Elite Four. Shauntal was a neet and shut-in. Marshal was a training-nut who barely even acknowledged his duties as an administrator. Grimsley was a sadistic ass who caused more problems than he solved. And Alder… he was great, but he was also a man full of wanderlust who rarely ever stuck around League HQ.

Caitlin wasn't just a narcoleptic, she was also a heavily overworked woman who only just resisted the impulse to teleport her paperwork into the ocean on a daily basis.

A girl Amy's age shouldn't have those eyes.

"I remember you like interesting biology," I told her softly. "Go on, have fun without any patients to distract you."

"I… thanks…"

"Would you like me to heal you?"

"I'm perfectly healthy. I can't get sick."

"Maybe not, but I can also heal tiredness to a point. How 'bout it?"

"It… It won't be too much?"

"Of course not. You of all people deserve it."

She gave me a shaky nod and a watery smile.

We talked a bit more like that. Or really, she got over her introversion and began to grill me on just what I could turn into. I showed off some of the cooler forms like persian before transitioning back to an audino.

Headpats really did feel nice.

Then I noticed something. "Panacea? When's the last time you ate?"

"Umm… lunch at school?"

"Well you're going to eat."

"I should get back home. I want to go to bed."

I shoved her back down into the couch. As cute as an audino looked, it was still a pokemon, one capable of some vicious physical moves like Throat Chop or Double Edge. A teenage girl had zero chance of overpowering me.

"Sit."

"But-"

"Sit. I'm going to get you food and watch you until you stuff your face. Then you can call your sister to take you home if you want. Or hell, I can fly you."

"Y-You wouldn't mind?"

That was how the two of us ended up on the roof. I grinned, not that she could tell through the helmet.

"You ready for this?"

She gave me an eager smile. That last Heal Pulse really put a bit more pep in her step. "Yeah, you're not going to turn into a floating jar again, are you?"

I scoffed. "Of course not. The lady deserves a proper mount."

I laughed and skipped a foot back. I toned down the theatrics in the hospital, but there was no need for quiet here. I circled my hands like I'd seen old heroes in the Sentai Elite do before punching towards the sky. "SHIFT, PIDGEOT!"

The pidgeot line was one of my favorite flying types. There was a reason they were the most commonly raised flying types in the world: They were fucking gorgeous.

With a wingspan of over ten feet long, a top speed that laughed at the sound barrier, and talons and beak that could shred metal, a pidgeot was the lord of whatever sky it flew in.

I let out an ear-splitting screech and summoned a gust of wind to make my red and gold crest flutter majestically.

"Holy shit!" Panacea yelled.

I hovered in the air and stared down at her imperiously before landing softly.

"Well? Hop on. Or would you prefer I carry you like a rat?" I mused.

Grumbling, she smoothed down her hair and came closer. "You're like eight feet tall! How am I supposed to get on, genius?"

In the end, I laid flat on the ground and let her step on my tailfeathers to settle on my back. I felt a twinge of annoyance at her ruffling my feathers, the vanity of an apex predator, but quashed it down. I offered after all.

"Hang tight, okay?"

She mumbled something that got lost as I threw myself from the roof with a titanic flap of my wings. I even had to use a bit of Gust to press her to my back and shield her from the wind, but that was no trouble.

I circled the city proper to give her a good look before letting her direct me to her house in short order.

X

"Amy? What the hell?" I heard her sister call as she flew up towards me.

"Hello, Glory Girl. I am Menagerie, the new cape you met the other day. I spent the evening healing people in the hospital with your sister and decided to give her a lift."

"Wait, seriously? Sweet!"

"Yeah, well, can you pick her off my back? She's mussing up my feathers," I grouched.

Once she was off my back, I shifted and hung out for a minute before jogging home. I did meet Brandish briefly, but something told me she wasn't as amicable as her daughters.

When I arrived back at the orphanage, it was nearing ten. I thanked Arceus that Mrs. Wells didn't care much about us high schoolers beyond knowing that we were alive. Ten wasn't the latest I'd ever been out, but I didn't make a habit of this either so I drew some strange looks.

I spent a few hours before bed reading up on the cape scene. I of course knew the basics, like anyone else with a modicum of self-preservation instincts in the Bay. There was the Empire, who hated everyone not white, the ABB who hated everyone not Asian, and the Merchants who hated everyone they couldn't sell drugs to. I'd always thought that those three were the trifecta of idiots in our city, but there were at least three more I didn't know about until I did a deeper dive into our current affairs.

Apparently, there were a group of thieves called the Undersiders that specialized in breaking and entering. They became active this past July and started robbing jewelry stores, supermarkets, and tech stores. They also had a few run-ins with the other gangs, but always managed to get away thanks to some guy who could use Smokescreen and three rhino-lizard mounts.

I was honestly more interested in the mounts than the actual criminals. They reminded me a bit of rhyhorn, but with more agility and scaled instead of plated. I wondered if I could train one of those things for myself. PHO seemed to be divided on whether they were biotinkered creations or projections.

The other group I didn't know about was a band of mercenaries led by a man called Coil. There were only two mentions of him, and even then never anything that hinted at powers, so as far as I knew, he might not even be a cape. He held a small section of the commercial district and did… nothing…?

Honestly? Besides a few ominous threats here and there and some demands for protection money that were very minor in comparison to the ABB or Empire, Coil's mercs seemed intent on maintaining the status quo. He was really a villain on a technicality.

Lastly, there was Faultline's Crew. They were also mercs, though with a far more public profile than Coil. Their leader, Faultline, had seen fit to open a nightclub of her own, right off the Boardwalk.

That… That was ballsy. It was like she was spreading out her arms and saying, "Come at me."

I wondered what kind of woman decided that was the best way to run an operation.