Metal Bat: MIA - mistakeandcheese - ワンパンマン (2024)

Chapter 1: M-I-S-S-I-

Chapter Text

“I am the mighty Disco Disaster and my story is that I did disco so much that I turned into a monster and now blind people with my shiny head and ultimate move, Funky Killer Hustle of Doom, and today I will show the--”

“And I am Ultimate DDR Man! With my lightning quick footwork I will destroy you and save the--”

Garou gazed blandly at the fight scene unfolding before him, wondering why in the f*cking world he was bothering to sit on this wall and watch in the first place. They’re both so stupid.

Sighing, he slid off his perch and landed lightly on his feet. Man, I’d really f*cking love to hunt down a hero right about now. But what’s the point in that anymore?

Jamming his hands into his pockets, he walked away, directionless, distance marked only by the monotonous punctuation of the city’s dullest telephone polls.

This sucks. They suck. Everything sucks.

He caught a glimpse of something small moving in the corner of his vision. He stopped; he took a couple steps back.

Garou co*cked his head to the side and made a loud pff sound. “That poster sucks.”

The kid hanging it quickly swiveled to face him, and suddenly Garou realized exactly who she was, and exactly who it was supposed to be on the poster, because they had the exact same death glare, and he had seen both of them shoot it at him at the exact same time in the past.

“That’s a bad word. And don’t you tell me anything about what my big bro looks like, because I know you two don’t get along.”

“Well yeah, the drawing’s not bad, I guess.” Garou drawled, following the edge of the character’s pompous hairdo with distaste. “You can tell what he looks like--sort of. But how you expect anyone to read that? You think people are gonna bother straining their eyes to squint at wimpy little print like that?”

“I have the best handwriting in my class!”

Oh God it was one of those kids. “I’m sure you do, princess. But if I’m a car driving by, or even some kiester taking their dog out to take a crap, I’m not gonna bother looking at something made in pencil.”

Her eyebrows went up as she started picking up what he was putting down. She shimmied her back pack from her shoulder and fished around to procure a pink pencil case that matched perfectly with her bag except for the musical notes and peeling “Great job!” “A+” “Wow!” stickers plastered across it.

“I have a blue pen.” She said, holding it up for him to see.

“Pen? C’mon.” Garou swiped the case from her and dug through about forty different colors of highlighters until he found a black sharpie. “This is what I’m talking about, genius.” He knelt down and began tracing over the letters so they were dark and bold. M-I-S-

He could feel those familiar, glaring eyes watching him over his shoulder. Leave it to a kid to shut up the one time I don’t feel like dealing with an awkward silence. S-I-N-

“So how long has he been missing, kid?”

It felt like there were two holes being burnt into the back of his head. But when he heard her voice, it sounded like the fire in her had been totally snuffed out.

“Three days,” she said quietly.

Chapter 2: Beef and Backstory

Chapter Text

“Three days?” Garou scoffed, standing up and tossing the kid her marker back. “When I still lived with people I used to ditch home way longer than that.”

The girl glared at him with an unprecedented amount of loathing. “Well, maybe you would do that, Mister Crazy-Hair Fight-Liking People-Leaver--

“Name’s Garou.”

“And I’m Zenko, nice to meet you. --But my big brother would never, ever ditch me. He loves me too much. And he knows someone has to handle the grownup stuff around here!”

The ‘grown up stuff’? Wait. Did this kid not have any parents looking after her? Not that Garou cared. It wasn’t any of his business. But now that he thought about it, the brat did look a bit less healthy than she had been a few months ago. Kinda mousy. Kinda sallow. Kinda like a kid who’s only been eating a real meal once a day, since it was already on his meal plan at the elementary school cafeteria and nobody at home gave enough sh*ts to cook something or tell him to eat it when he got home.

Er--she. When she got home.

Garou picked his ear boredly as the kid continued to squeak-squawk about her brother. “Hey listen, brat. This monologue about your precious perfect brother is getting annoying. I’m gonna need food to ward away the boredom if I keep listening to you.”

“Food?”

“Yeah. C’mon.”

Her Mary Jane clad feet remained firmly in place. “My big bro told me never to go off with strangers.”

Garou shrugged. “Sound advice. Bye.” He turned away. No use wasting his time convincing her different. He was basically a criminal--a criminal who still hadn't eaten lunch that day. He was getting food whether this brat decided to tag along or not. But he had a sneaking suspicion that she'd--

“Wait!”

“What?” He had just been ready to drop it and leave her to herself. He really was hungry, damnit.

It looked like the girl was trying to barter with herself. “You’re not a complete stranger, because I’ve met you before. But you might still be a creep.”

“Who you calling a creep? I’m not a creep! I’m a monster” Garou grinned, a shadow of his old jaggedness in his teeth.

“No you’re not, you’re a person, stupid.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Man this was getting tiring.

"Tell me your backstory."

Urg. Backstory? He sighed in agony. "Once upon a time a little girl asked me my backstory and I told her to shut up. The end."

She eyed him from across the single block of pavement between them. "Is there a sequel?"

"Nope. Because all I did was tell her to shut up."

"Okay, that's not so bad. My backstory is once upon a time I went to get food with a weird old guy who fought my brother once--"

"I'm only 18!!!"

"--and nothing bad happened. The end." By the end of the story something about her eyes had changed and something about that change shut Garou up completely.

"That's the best backstory I ever heard.” He said, eventually.

***

Clattering passerby, rickety bicyclists, and gassy busses all chimed into the conversation as the tall, lean, black-clad teen and his stout, deceivingly cherub-faced associate snaked their way down the crowded sidewalk in central S-City.

“Turn the next corner,” Garou told her.

“What?”

“Next corn--whatever.” He detached from the flow and found room to breathe at the mouth of a cluttered little alleyway. He leaned against a doorway, white hair lit pink by the loopy neon ‘Open’ sign hanging above.

Kid would figure it out eventually.

And oh boy, when she did:

“I can’t believe you would just ditch me like that! How you expect me to just find a place like this on my own, huh?”

“You found it, didn’t you?”

She scowled and prissily dusted off her skirt, as if walking on the sidewalk could possibly put a lick of substantial dust on it anyway. “Yeah, after being swallowed up by the tallest crowd of people in the universe.”

“Not my fault you’re a runt.”

“Some day…” she muttered under her breath.

“You’ll grow big and strong enough to obliterate me in a snap.” Garou drawled, turning his back on her and elbowing through the entrance. “And I’ll rue the day.”

Going in didn’t lead right to a lobby, but two sets of stairs, one going up and one going down.

“Restaurant we want is above,” he explained, using his long legs to take the stairs two at a time.
“Bathroom and a salon underneath.”

He got to the top, where a dim, soothingly low-key ambience of an empty restaurant was there to greet him. He leaned against the counter and waited.

“Bar’s over there.” the attendant said, nodding the direction.

“Nah. Table. Two of us. Just wait for it.” He said, inspecting his nails, just to look extra like a prick.

Right on schedule came the telltale huffing of an annoyed eight year old. “Ya coulda walked like a normal person.” She said, plopping her backpack on the ground for a moment.

“Think of it as strength training. For the inevitable day of my obliteration.”

Once they were seated, Garou slung himself across his end of the booth and watched as Zenko arranged herself neatly on her side and reached into her bag for a little drawstring purse.

“Don’t bother.” He grunted, taking a sip of the lukewarm water that had already materialized in front of him.

Zenko glanced up to him, and tucked the dinky little crumpled bill back inside. “Thank you."

"Eh."

The waiter came over and slid some menus in front of them, gave his stupid little speal on specials, and left them be.

“Waddya want?” Garou asked, flipping past the stupid looking appetizers and finding the fattest, meatiest slab of dead animal flesh on the menu. “Chicken fingers or something?”

“What’s the budget today?” Zenko returned matter of factly.

“No budget.” he grunted.

Her eyes lingered on him a second longer. "Really? Wow, you must be rich."

She commenced picking through the menu, holding each corner daintily, and scanning each page from top to bottom.

The waiter came back. “Now that you’ve had a moment to sit with the menu, can I interest you in any d--”

“More water. Put ice this time.”

“Can I also have another water after this one?”

“Certainly, waters for the table. And for foo--

“20 oz Porterhouse.”

“And how would you l--”

“Rare.”

“Alright, and for the lady?”

Zenko delicately plucked the corner of the menu closed. “A 20 oz porterhouse also. Medium rare.”

Garou felt a grin creeping up his place as the waiter blinked away his surprise, removed the menus and carried on. “Nice one, kid.”

“I’m not just copying.”

“I believe you.”

Two ice cold waters were clunked down in front of them and Garou look a long draught, ignoring how it dribbled a bit onto his chin and ignoring the little tut that he heard come from Zenko as she judged him and waited.

Good old ice water. He clunked his empty cup back down on the table with a satisfied sigh. “So, kid. Tell me a bit more about your brother and his disappearing act.”

Zenko exhaled with closed eyes, and then opened them and planted her hands firmly on the table, making her look like a miniature business tycoon.

"He has been missing for three days."

"Right, like you said."

"You see, every Monday and Wednesday, I have piano lessons at Mrs. Splintfingars’ After School Program for Gifted Elementary School Students."

"Okay Mozart."

"And every Monday and Wednesday, he comes to the middle school and picks me up at exactly 4:00."

Garou counted in his head three days. "So this Wednesday--"

"He didn't pick me up" Zenko nodded. Suddenly she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "And Mrs. Splintfingars scolded me for not having a way home prepared. It was so unfair!"

“Pff. What you expect, name like Splintfingars?”

“I know, but I’m usually her favorite!”

“And I was the Monster Association’s favorite for a while, big wup.”

“Okay, stop bragging. The thing was, I ended up walking home by myself. And he never has me walk home by myself! And then when I got home I waited for him to get back. And he never did.”

“And you’re for sure certain he didn’t just ditch ya, right?”

“I already told you! He would never--”

“Alright, alright, Jesus. You don’t have ro get all defensive about it. Because y’know, parents can do that. They leave you alone sometimes. It’s not super weird.”

“He’s not my parent.”

“Right, right” Garou sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. Christ, holding a conversation with this brat is tiring enough. She didn't even have to be the world's most snippy little pseudo princess. “So he’s definitely MIA. Injured. Kidnapped. Dead.”

She rolled her eyes at him, and sagged back against the dark green leather of the booth. "Duh."

Damn, this kid was pretty based. Annoying, but based. Garou leaned against his own side and crunched on an ice cube bemusedly.

"Tell me kid, and don't get all prissy at me for asking, but how do your actual parents factor into this equation? Am I right in guessing that they don't?" After all, everything the kid had said so far pointed to the idea that Metal Bat was her sole caretaker. Yeesh. Not a position Garou envied an ounce. And even if there was some parent figure around, they can't have been very involved, because here Garou was, getting this kid's dinner for her. And wouldn't the first person she'd go to for help be mom or dad?

Her shoulders tensed, and she flicked him a squint eyed stare. "What's it--" There was a heavy thunk as a glistening slab of mahogany steak slid in front of each of them. "--to ya?" Glancing after the waiter’s retreating back, she hissed the rest of the sentence through her teeth, glaring at Garou as if he were nosing his way into some atrocious secret.

He was getting real sick of this kid's intimidation tactics. "Well you see, I want to make sure I'm not getting swindled into buying a meal for some spoiled brat who's got doting parents waiting at home to dish her out a chicken dinner when she walks through the door."

He felt kind of bad after saying it--in the time span between her last sentence and his, the kid had already torn into the cow like it still needed to be beheaded and skinned. Now she was glaring up at him with a red sheen of embarrassment and food still stuffed in her mouth.

She swallowed down the monster bite and started to wipe the edge of her mouth on her sleeve, before catching herself and quickly reaching for a napkin instead. "No," she said shortly. "Parents do not factor into the equation."

"Have you talked to any of the adults around you? Like teachers, or uh...teachers?"

"I'm talking to you aren't I?"

This was getting tinto some dangerous territory. He leaned back in his chair and fixed her with a scrutinizing stare. He took a bite of his steak and chewed it slowly. "Yeah?" He drawled from the corner of his mouth. "And what good is talking to me?"

She blinked and swallowed down her second, slightly less monstrous bite. "Well, you stopped and helped me with my poster. You've helped me get food. You've already asked some questions about my brother. Obviously you are going to help me find him."

"You don't know that!"

"Plus, you're a hero hunter. It's what you do."

"Not anymore," Garou muttered under his breath. He wasn't anything anymore. He was just...existing. And now this kid expected him to track down her long lost beloved brother (who had once almost smashed his head in with a baseball bat)? Pff. Goes to show what happens when you do something nice for someone. Give an inch, they expect a mile.

"Listen kid, I'm not here under any obligation to help you with jack sh*t. I just noticed a crappy poster and one thing led to another. " He stared carefully at a table across the way, where an old guy in a suit was smoking a cigar and counting out big bills. He stared carefully at the bartender, who looked eternally bored as he wiped down an empty glass at the empty bar just to the left. He looked at a jet-black fly that was panging aggressively against the porthole-sized window with the same desperation as a sailor stuck in a sinking submarine. He looked carefully at everything in every direction except across the table, where there sat a little kid who had suddenly stopped eating her steak.

"Oh" she said, hollowly.

"But I suppose I can ask a few questions," he said quickly, taking a massive bite of his meal and slinging an arm over the back of his booth. "You know, to get you started."

"Okay."

He coughed a bit, clearing his throat of the piece of meat that for some reason felt dryer and tougher to swallow than the rest. “Right. Where was the last place you saw him?”

“Standing outside the school bus. Waving goodbye.”

Yeesh. What an annoyingly heart wrenching picture. "So he’d see you off then go straight to work?”

“I...think so.”

“You don’t know your own brother’s goddamn work schedule?”

“No! We don’t talk about his work, because it’s violent and violence is bad.”

Violence, bad? It was as if someone had insulted his religion. “Well then what the f*ck would you goddamn talk about? Between feeding you and smashing monster skulls this guy can’t have had much of a life. Sounds like a major loser to me.”

“Look who’s talking.” She responded coolly.

Touche.

“So what would you talk about?”

“Piano. School. Life.”

“Oh, so your life.”

She made a frustrated "URGH" sound and Garou couldn't help but laugh. "Alright alright. Where else would he go, if you know?"

"Well, based on how hard he had to try to be on time, I know that sometimes he would have to go to different cities, but for the most part he stayed in this one for patrol. Before he dropped out of high school it was because he needed to be close enough to go to class."

So Metal Bat was a high school drop out, just like him. Garou rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Any other places he used to go?"

“Well, he used to get into fights a lot and a bunch of times had to go to that big brick building in J-City--”

“The Juvenile Detention Center” Garou supplied reflexively.

“Yes, exactly, that one.”

“Hey, maybe he’s there now. Or in the adult slammer. Have you checked?”

“No, that’s ridiculous,” Zenko scoffed. “He wouldn’t end up in there.”

“Eh? But you just said he went there all the time!”

The brat crossed her arms resolutely. “After mom and dad were gone he promised he wouldn’t go there anymore. And a promise is a promise.”

“Yeah, well sometimes people break promises.”

“Maybe people like you. But not my big brother."

"Alright alright I get it. I am the scummiest of human garbage, meant to locate the shiniest of trash. Any other places we can think of?"

"Hm…"

Together, he and Zenko made a list of all the places they could think of that Metal Bat might go. As an ex hero hunter, Garou had a pretty good idea of the general area Metal Bat Patrolled on the regular. This was supplemented by Zenko’s memories of some of the news station’s reports on local battles, and Garou’s memory of major battles from the Monster Association days. The HA headquarters was on the list too. Then there were regular everyday places, like the bank, the supermarket, the drugstore.

“And don’t forget you have to consider the travel in between these places” Garou explained.
“Like the subways, buses, or any stops along the footpaths.”

“I’m pretty sure he walked most places,” Zenko said. “Because he liked being able to see everything and get the exercise. But sometimes he’d take the subway in a pinch.”

“Didn’t drive?”

“No car. He was saving up to get one, one day. He didn’t like taxis or Ubers either.”

Garou could understand that. There was something really grating about being stuck in a car and not being the one behind the wheel. Back when he was constantly prowling after heroes and being hunted by them (as well as the annoying monsters) he had known better than to put himself in a metal box with limited mobility in traffic and side streets. A fighter needs his fists, and room to move around, and cracks to slip into. Plus, it was so damn expensive. Not something a high school drop out with some pocket money stored up would want to rely on every day.

“Okay good. That’s good to know.”

Garou realized that this probably wasn’t the usual way people went about finding missing persons. The kid should have been talking to some kind of authority figure--not him. But then again, this wasn’t your usual missing person. If an S class hero was wrecked by something, what would the police be able to do about it? And the Hero Association? It seemed like the S class were the ones carrying the HA all the time. When the mule breaks, the rider walks on, as they say. He doesn’t carry a useless ass along with him. The police and the Hero Association each had their limitations.

Not that Garou had any particular faith in either institution to begin with.

But hey, this was a bit different from his own vendetta. This was a kid looking for her family. Maybe it would be good to put a few extra eyes on the lookout.

Zenko had replaced her knife and fork with a tricolor pen and a pink highlighter, and was religiously writing down every little detail on the back of one of her MISSING posters.

Garou finished up his steak and stared apprehensively at the map of S-City she had begun to sketch in glitter pen.

“I’ll start with here” she was saying determinedly, hands plastered to her project as she worked. “Since these places are all within walking distance. The other cities will come after.”

“Hey, brat. Have you thought about calling the cops or anything? I’m pretty sure it’s their goddamn job to actually handle sh*t like this. Maybe we should--”

“No!”

It wasn't the answer, but the vehemence with which it was delivered, which left Garou blinking stupidly at the girl who had just risen from her seat and pounded the table with both fists.

"Jesus, you have bigger beef with them than I do."

At that she seemed to reel herself back in, and sat back down, the perfect little lady--except of course for the angular scowl that molded her face into a near replica of her brother's ’I coulda killed ya’ face. She let out a huff. “It's not that. I just don’t want to talk to them.”

Garou grabbed the two prongs of hair at the top of his head and bent them into horns. "Moo."

"What are you doing?"

"Telling you you’ve got more beef with the poli than I have on my plate.”

Zenko rolled her eyes--as if he were the immature one!--and huffed out a breath. "Okay, yeah, the cops aren't my favorite. But it's not because I have beef with them. It's just--If they realize that we--that he’s the one taking care of me, they might--" she gritted her teeth and glared at him, as if willing him to just get it to save her the effort of explaining.

Garou decided to give her a break and put together the pieces. "They might take you into custody. And you don't want that."

"Right."

"Hey, how old is your brother again?" Garou remembered back from his hero hunting days some of the bio information he had gleaned from that hero booklet he borrowed from that dorky looking kid. He remembered that Metal Bat was a little younger than himself.

"He's seventeen."

Oh, wow. So even if he wasn't totally MIA, even if he wasn't caricatured as a street delinquent with a hot record at the juvie, and even if he wasn't a high school drop out with barely enough pocket money to afford a taxi...he still wasn't technically old enough to be Zenkos legal guardian.

Even if they did find him in one piece, if the authorities got involved, the family would be fractured.

Zenko had collected herself (and the pens that had clattered to the floor when she hit the table) and was sitting with an air of forced civility. She took a deep breath and clicked open her pen again.

Garou’s eyes slid to her comparatively ignored plate. "Hey, finish your steak." There was a single cube of meat left on the plate, and it really wasn't worth wasting a styrofoam box over.

"I'm still working on it." She said stubbornly. "Ask me another question."

“No. Finish your goddamn food first.”

“But--”

“If you think you’re going to wring more help out of me by making this dinner stretch out for an extra hour on a single cube of meat, you’ve got to reconsider your strategy, kid.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and waited for her to take a goddamn hint.

She sat for a minute, fuming. Then her eyebrows jumped up. “Do they have a dessert menu?”

“Yup.”

Chapter 3: The 100% Discount for Good Exercise Practices

Chapter Text

By the end of their ice cream sundaes, they had drawn up a relatively accurate map of S city on the back of a missing poster. The colorful pens actually had been really helpful. The streets and buildings were all done in blue, while the parks and greenways were etched in green, and all the places on their “list of places Badd likes to go” were marked in bright, bloody red.

Garou stretched back in his seat and groaned in full-bellied contentment. “Man, I haven’t eaten that well in a good while” he said, stretching out against the booth (Zenko hadn’t quite been able to finish a whole sundae, so Garou had helped with that too.) The waiter had already slid the bill in front of them and slinked away to wait for them to leave.

“Me too” Zenko said. “Thank you.”

Garou belched loudly, and waved away the cheesy gratitude. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen kid, I think I’m going to blow a gasket if I don’t go to the bathroom soon. Can you go to that guy who’s still standing at the reception and ask him for directions to the sh*tter?”

“Yeah, sure. But I'm not going to say the S word.”

The kid slid from her seat and started heading toward the reception. Garou watched her progress carefully, while also passing a side eye at the $80 bill poking out of the black leather booklet. Ha. Funny number. He stealthily cleared up Zenko's glitter pens and folded the map up, dumping them all into her little pink bookbag.

Glancing over to the exit, he noticed Zenko crossing her arms poutily as the receptionist shook his head. Garou got up quickly and sidled over.

“Excuse me, what seems to be the trouble here? Did my niece get lost trying to find the bathroom?”

“No, Sir, I was just telling her that nobody can use the bathroom downstairs, you see--”

“What?! How dare you deny my delightful niece access to a bathroom when there is a perfectly good one downstairs!”

Zenko looked at him with confusion. “No, he was just saying it’s out of--”

“I don’t care if it’s out of his way, if you need to go, you need to go. Come on, I’ll show you where it is. Honestly, the nerve of some people!” He ushered her toward the stairs, making sure she went down before him as he spoke loudly over her confused protests. “You best bet I’ll be back up to complain about this further!” He called, jabbing a finger in the receptionist’s direction.

They walked normally down the first flight, and then reached the street level. “Okay” Garou whispered urgently. “Now go go go go go!”

“Wait what?”

Garou cackled and slung the pink bag securely over one of his shoulders. “Run!”

He started jogging lightly down the street, laughing a bit as Zenko yelled in protest and quickly started sprinting to keep up.

“What are we doing!?” She screamed at him angrily as they ran.

“Taking advantage of the 100% discount for good exercise practices.”

“Oh my Gosh!” Zenko groaned. “”You just made us dine and dash!”

After they turned a corner, Garou figured it was safe to slow down. He turned around to flash the kid a crooked grin. “No need to scream about it, but yeah.”

Zenko panted for a moment, bracing her hands against her legs. Then she straightened up and glared daggers sharper than King Orochi’s head spikes. “Stealing is wrong.” She growled. "A crime in fact." Her eyes widened in horror. “And now I’m a criminal! What are the newpapers going to say?! You’ve just ruined my college career!”

"See, I knew you'd make a stink about it if you knew. Relax, I’m the responsible adult in this situation, and you're the dumb kid who had no idea that’s what we were doing.” He threw a skeptical glance back the way they’d come. “Plus, I’m pretty sure that place is a drug front. They don’t need our measly money to stay afloat, and they’re not going to call the cops on us for sh*t.” Honestly, in the name of feeding a pissy, underfed brat? If anything, he was taking the moral high ground here.

“I don’t care! That was bad” the pissy, underfed brat huffed. “Now give me my backpack back.”

“I can carry it for my punishment, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine” she pouted, taking it as he shrugged and slipped it off his shoulder. Then she frowned. “Wait, what do you mean, carry it? Aren’t you leaving?”

Garou glanced around at the surrounding environment. The street they were standing on was T shaped, a garbage alley level with them, and the straight way they had come down clumped with a few shadowy cars parked halfway on the curb. Across the street, there were a few small, hole-in-the-wall shops, 75% of which had their metal screens drawn down for the day. Garou stretched his arms behind his head and stared up at the night sky, which was stained gray by the pollution of the city light. “Well, it looks like it’s dark out, and I’m too full of food to come sprinting to your rescue when some monster comes to make a steak dinner out of you. So I’m going to walk you home and save everybody some time and indigestion.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She pointed the way to her house, and they walked and talked, chatting about the foot routes Metal Bat may have taken similarly as they went.

“And you remembered to put the map and my pens back in here, right?”

“Yeah, I’m not an idiot.”

“It’s probably all disorganized, though” she sighed.

“Yeah, I’m not a nerd either.”

“Shut yer trap, punk.”

Garou snorted down a laugh as they turned into a suburban neighborhood stuffed with little, but nice, houses, each traced by a few half standing chain link fences.

“Well, that’s me.” She said, pointing out a red one-story with white detail and a gray shingled roof.

“Alright,” Garou said. “In ya get.”

Garou waited on the lamplit sidewalk as she walked ahead and took the first of three squat gray steps. She turned to him. "I'll probably start looking around this weekend. You can join, if, y'know, you feel like it."

"Eh. We'll see." Garou crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at a little beetle bumping over and over again into the neighbor's buzzing porch light. "Don't count on it."

"Okay. That’s fine." She conceded. He heard the gritty clap of her shoes as she took the steps to the top. Then she stopped again. She didn't turn around, but stood facing the door. Garou tore his eyes from the beetle and saw the yellow lamplight slide shadows over her knuckles as she tightened her grip around the backpack's little pink shoulder straps. “Promise you’re not going to tell anyone though, okay?”

Man, this goodbye was taking forever. Garou sighed and shifted his weight to one hip. “Well, seeing as you’ll probably beat me to death with a pink highlighter if I do, I guess I’ll have to bite my tongue.”

“Good.”

She went inside, and shut the door behind her. Garou heard the lock click. He sighed in relief. Yeesh. Glad that was finally over. Big hassle, kids were.

He meandered back through the lamplit streets of S city. He passed the same telephone pole where the first new and improved poster was taped. The corner had come a bit undone and was fluttering in the faint night breeze, causing the picture to become half-obscured. He used his thumb to press it back into place.

Turning the corner of the stone dividing wall he had been sitting on earlier, he walked into the area he knew was marked in green hash on Zenko’s map. He walked on in the dark, listening to the crickets chirping in the brush.

It really was a hopeless sort of case, he thought, finding himself an empty bench. Metal Bat’s profession obviously came with a high amount of risk. Gone for three days? Guy was probably dead. Or near dead.

Well, no use stewing on it. Garou lay down sideways across the bench and rested his head on his arm. Might as well sleep.

He flipped over in an attempt to get comfortable. Poor kid though.

Chapter 4: Of Monsters and Morons

Chapter Text

“Justice man is here to save the day!”
Oh no, not this sh*tty game again….
“Hold Garo for me, guys...I’m hungry!”
Garou kicked out, and tried to shake the other kids off him, but it was no use. Damn it, he was just too weak, like always. And now Tatsu’s mouth had grown to an inordinate size, and he was about bite off Garou’s foot:
“Mmm, I love Tai Chi slippers,they taste the best"
"Leave my shoes alone, Tastu!" He screamed. His voice sounded squeaky and cracky, and his legs were tiny compared to Tatsu's big toothy mouth.
"Oh, you want me to spare your shoes? Okay then, I'll eat your leg instead!"
“AHH, it HURTS!”
And now there were a hundred tiny Metal Bats, dancing around him in circles as he tried to swat the stupid kid off his stupidly delicious leg…
“GET OFF ME!”

“Ge--Gerroff--muh--GAH!” Garou kicked out in his sleep, and the beach ball sized monster that had been chewing on his leg bounced across the walkway into a nearby bush. “Oh no you don’t!” He snarled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and lunging off the bench towards it.

But his chewed leg tripped him up, and with a snicker the little devil had scurried away into the undergrowth. And he really didn’t have the motivation to go chasing after what was essentially a toothy balloon rat at this hour of the morning.

Or, afternoon? Garou yawned and checked the sun. No, morning was right. Early morning too. He groaned and dropped back down onto the bench. Ever since the Monster Association had ended, there had been a pretty noticeable drop in huge, monster-induced events. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t still a butt-ton of creatures out there; this hadn’t been the first time Garou had encountered a little scavenger trying to take an unwelcome nibble. They liked to come out at night, and scuttled around the streets until just before the sun rose. He didn’t have anything inherently against the little sneaks--afterall, they were just following their nature. But he didn’t have anything against stomping them flat into the sidewalk either. Every monster for himself, right? They were weak, and he was stronger. And if they were smarter, they would have picked some other loser to chew on first.

He got up and decided to start meandering his way out of the park. He didn’t really feel like practicing martial arts or meditating right now, and there wasn’t much else to do here.

He sighed in annoyance, looking down at his leg. His pants had a big sticky tear in them, and now he had another wound to deal with. It wasn’t a big deal, but still, he didn’t want to get an infection, because that would be itchy as hell. He added washing out the bite marks to the big list of nothing that he’d had planned for today.

He exited the park and saw the same poster he had seen last night. Followed by another. And another. He blinked, getting a swoop of Deja Vu from the sensation that dozens of little Metal Bats were dancing circles around him again.

Every telephone pole from here and into the distance had a MISSING poster with that guy glaring out at him. Glaring with big, fat, sharpie-markered facial features.

Garou sighed and walked to the nearest one. He crossed his arms and glared back at the guy. “Man, your sister’s an idiot,” he said out loud. “A short idiot. Just like you.” Kneeling down, he untacked the poster. He stood back up, and put it at eye level instead, so people could actually have to look at it. “Ha. Now they have to feel the annoyance of noticing your ugly face too.” He moved over to the next telephone pole in line.

This was going to be a long morning.

The sun had moved to the middle of the sky by the time Garou got to the last poster in the trail that snaked across the city. It was pretty impressive artistry, to be honest. For an eight year old to draw out almost a hundred of the same thing in the course of a night? Either she was the fastest tracer in the world, or she couldn’t have slept much. Garou half expected to find an exhausted eight year old taking a nap at the end of the trail.

Due to this, he was half surprised when he didn’t. He looked around. He was on the other end of the city from where he knew Zenko’s house was. He had thought that she might be smart about it and do some sort of loop to get her back the way she came. But here he was in the middle of the seaport district and not a single mary-jane clad brat in sight. The trail stopped cold turkey.

Garou twisted around to look at the cobbled, fish-spit smelling way he had just come. Yeah, there was the last poster, glaring its eyes off at him from above that bin over there. Did she just stop when she reached the seaside? Probably. But you’d think if she were going straight back home she'd go the fastest and most direct route--which was back the way she came. And then he would’ve bumped into her, right? So was she continuing the circuit elsewhere?

He twisted back around and faced the splintery wooden warf that was casting shadows in the orange colored sunset. Well, maybe she had just decided to take a more scenic route. The wharf hugged the coastline, which was V shaped here, almost a peninsula. Garou shaded his eyes and squinted to the East. A tavern or two was the nicest bit. Then a cement loading dock, a docked freight boat, an industrial storage unit. Rough. He looked west. A few pretty shops, high end restaurants, apartment buildings, a white-painted, seashell stuccoed pier for S-City Yacht Club, and...a blocky building with a militant looking, blue and gold crest on it. Port Authority.

He walked East. There was one thing he and that kid had in common, and it wasn’t pink glitter pens.

On the other side of a bird poop splattered quay, some sailors were getting their ship tied up for the night. “Hey, you,” Garou drawled, sidling up to one of the guys, who was squatting on the cement, tying up the stern line.

“Yeah?” The guy finished tying the knot and then unfurled to a dummy tall height, probably 7 foot, tattoos rippling over his tanned forearms as he crossed them over his chest.

Garou scratched his ear, unconcerned. “You guys have been unloading for what, the last hour?”

“Yeah.”

“Seen a kid?”

The guy’s eyes scanned Garou up and down, before his face dipped into shadow. “What’s it to you if I seen a kid?”

Garou’s neck prickled. This guy had definitely seen a kid. But for some reason he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

He stood with his hairs on end, the sea breeze chilling his skin as he stared at the guy, wondering if this had been Zenko’s downfall.

For the first time in a long time, he began sweating, even though he felt perfectly cold.

What to say, what to do? Say the kid was in the boat. Or in the cargo. Obviously she wasn’t in this guy’s pocket, so beating him up wouldn’t turn her out, it would just let the rest of them know to jettison.

He had to feel out the situation. See if this guy reacted like a criminal first.

He clenched his fists and stood on his toes so he could hiss in the guy’s face. “How about we take a little walk over to the Port Authority over there and see if it’s anything to them that you’ve seen her?”

One of the guy’s eyebrows bounced up. “Oh, you know the kid?”

“Yeah, and if you’re about to tell me she’s ground up and sitting in that ship’s chum bucket, you can save your breath for trying not to drown, you goddamn child-predating sicko.”

The guy heaved a breath and put his hands up. “Whoa whoa, take it easy, man. I took a look at you and thought you were the child-predating sicko. What are you, her homeless grandpa or something?”

“Do I look that goddamn old?! I’m her uncle, you moron!”

“Okay man, okay. Take it easy. Yeah, you look that old. You look like a corpse, actually. And yeah, I saw a kid, about ye high, dressed in pink, about half an hour ago. I tried asking her if she was lost or needed help, but she turned her nose up, stomped her foot at me, and said, ‘I do not talk to strangers!’ and kept going.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the right kid.” Garou said, chuckling a little to himself as the tension in his chest dissipated.

“Looked like she was heading back into the city, probably Stern Street.”

Garou looked at the sky. Out to sea, he could see a freckling of stars on the horizon, which was now something between yellow, red, and indigo. “30 minutes ago, you said?”

“Yeah, about.”

“Great. Thanks man.” Garou turned around and was about to head that way, before he stopped and turned to the sailor again. “Hey, you wouldn’t’ve happened to see a guy too, have you? In the last week or so, I mean.” He held his hand up to be about level with his own nose. “About ye high? Black hair, angry eyes, angry...clothes?”

The guy laughed. “Nah, man. Every guy who passes through here is the model of inner peace.”

“Pff, right, okay. Thanks for only being halfway useless.”

“Ha. You’re welcome.”

Well, it had been worth asking. Garou turned back around and headed for Stern Street.

He was on the street after Stern Street, Port Street, when he saw a flash of pink turn the corner.

He hurried up and--yup. That was her.

For the next few hours, Garou ambled the same way, catching a little blip of pink every so often on the street ahead. It wasn’t that he was following the kid. No, that would have been way too creepy, even for a nightmare-inspiring monster such as himself. His park just happened to be in the same general direction she was heading.

Yeah, maybe the last few turns--the turns that took him until he could see that little neighborhood with the chain link fences, until he could see a flash of pink disappear into Metal Bat’s house--maybe those turns were a bit out of the way.

But it was dark, and monsters are always out in the dark.

Chapter 5: Nobody expects the Rabbit Inquisition

Chapter Text

He hadn’t accounted for waking up on the sidewalk.

“F…” His chapped lips cracked apart, as did his eyelids as he squinted up at the fuzzy silhouette eclipsing the sun above him.

“Stop being so dead!” The silhouette huffed. “And don’t say--”

Suddenly, the headache hit him. “Fuuuuck” he groaned, covering his eyes with one hand and scooching back from little Leonardo Davinci here, who was squatting next to him with rolls and rolls of fresh posters under her arms.

“And don’t say the ‘F word’” she finished flatly.

“Kid, what the hell, why am I..?” He sat up on the curb, and looked around, shielding his eyes from the midmorning sun as he checked the environment. He was sitting on the sidewalk, not even 100 meters from Zenko’s neighborhood. The streets weren’t busy, so rush hour was probably over. He put a hand to the back of his head and winced, feeling a tender bump swelling above his skull, and seeing a murky smear of red when he retracted his fingers.

“Don’t ask me,” Zenko snipped. “I was just going out to hang up some more posters, and here you were just laying on the sidewalk outside my neighborhood. What’s the deal with that? Oh and by the way, does that mean you followed me yesterday? That’s pretty creepy, you know. Except I can see that you were fixing the posters, because they’re at your eye level now, and not mine. Were you still trying to help? You could have stopped me to say hello, you know. Also what happened to your leg?”

“Oh my God-- too many questions, can’t you see I just woke up?” he hissed, cradling his face in his hands as the noise and the light began to get to him.

But seriously, what was the deal with that?

“It looks like you might have a little con-cushion” Zenko said matter of factly. “Badd gets those sometimes too. We should get you inside.”

Garou was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He had been walking, last night, about to go to the park, and then what? He remembered feeling a pain in his head. Probably when he fell, right? So what made him fall? Had he just…swooned? Like the way they always have the ladies do in those crazy soap operas? No, that was impossible. It was just too lame. He was the human monster, not some old woman on telemundo daytime.

“No, kid, really, I don’t need any help.” he said gruffly, waving away her helping hand and standing up on his own. (Ridiculous, she was a third his height anyways. Garou supposed it was the gesture that counted. And it was his denial of the gesture that counted too!). He was a grown ass man, and it was bad enough that he had been wacko enough to follow a kid he barely knew around the city all yesterday. He wasn’t creepy and pathetic enough to fall down and then get that same kid to help him with his booboos the very next day!

“Wow, you’re really cuckoo for cocoa puffs, aren’t you?” that same kid said, rolling her eyes. “You at least need to get out of the sun. And my house is closest, so I’ll allow you to step inside as my guest. Unless you want me to call you an ambulance?”

Garou’s blood froze. If he had to go to the hospital it wouldn’t just mean getting charged up the wooha. It would mean potentially getting recognized as a criminal. Was this a threat? He had thought he and this kid had some sort of understanding!

“You wouldn’t dare” he hissed, narrowing his eyes at her. After all, he had dirt on her. If he told the cops or the hospital workers or whoever that that kid was on her own, there was no way she’d stay out of foster care. He wasn’t so low to threaten something like that though, not unless he really, really needed to.

Zenko snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s right! You used to be the bad guy, so you’re probably afraid of the hospital. Well, if you want to stay out of it you’ll have to wash out your leg anyways. It’s looking really gross.”

Garou blinked and looked down at his leg, which was indeed beginning to look...pretty gross. Damnit, he had meant to find a sink yesterday, but completely forgotten about it, getting sidetracked by Metal Bat’s stupid kid. Who knows, maybe it was already infected, or was tainted by some sort of slow acting venom. Maybe that’s what had knocked him out last night.

Okay, he had messed up. That was on him though, and he had proven before that he didn’t need anyone else’s pity to clean up the consequences of his decision making. “Listen kid, I’ve recovered from worse than this by taking a nap in a shack in the middle of the woods--which his much preferable than holing up in some rockhead hero’s half abandoned house.”

“Okay. Listen, adult.” Uh Oh. She was annoyed. “My ‘rockhead’ brother always says that you gotta keep your scores even. To be honest, you look and smell like you’re ready to curl up under a rock and die, and what kind of Scorekeeper would I be if I let that happen? Especially now that I know you’re not going to go to the hospital for anything.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re a kid, so you shouldn’t have to keep a score for random adults you find on the street.”

Some old lady passing by gave him and Zenko a weird look. sh*t, this was so embarrassing. Normally he didn’t get embarrassed by stuff but that was because normally he could see everything coming. He felt like he had been yanked out of yesterday and plopped into today without any prior notice. He hunched his shoulders in on himself broodily, closing his eyes again, because the headache had just gotten worse. His face was feeling hot too. f*ck, propably fever from infection, or else heat exhaustion. Had he drank water yesterday? Oh yeah, no. f*ck, he really was stupid.

Zenko sighed. “Well, if you’re a kid on your own, then you do have to keep score, and that’s just the reality. Besides, I’m keeping score for Badd too. And look, we’re already here. I was tugging you and you didn’t even notice.”

Garou cracked open his eyes again and saw that the universe, or rather, this kid, had plopped him right back in front of the same house he’d stood in front of two nights before.

“It’s lunchtime” Zenko announced, taking the steps imperiously. “Come along.”

***

The luncheon menu today included a “wonderful assortment” of animal crackers and “tea,” which was actually water mixed with apple juice.

Garou helped, by being tall enough to reach the animal crackers.

“There’s ice too, if you look in the freezer,” Zenko told him before he sat down.

“Thanks” Garou grunted, going to get some. “Want any?”

“No, I’m all set.”

The table was a wooden one with a medium bench on either side. It looked like it had been made to accomodate exactly four people, and any more would be pushing it.

“Normally I would host a tea party at the little table in my room” Zenko explained, after she had them do a little thank you over the food and she was pouring their glasses. “But you smell really bad and I don’t want to ruin the furniture.”

Garou took a glug of his “tea”, and immediately sighed in relief. Man, it was like his very eyeballs were getting rejuvenated. He hadn’t realized how dehydrated he was.

“Is the tea to your liking, Mr. Crazy Hair?”

“Yeah, I guess, Princess Pocket Protector.”

“What’s a pocket protector?”

“You know, it goes on that front pocket nerds keep their pens in?”

“Ohhh, I see.” She took a chomp of an animal cracker. “You know, you are very anti-nerd for someone who borrowed a hero stats book from a second grader.”

“Wait, how do you know about that?”

“Oh come on. You didn’t exactly do a good job at staying off the news with all that ‘hero hunting’ stuff. And do you really think Tareo wouldn’t tell everybody at school about the adventure you two went on just before the monster association broke down?”

“Oh. Is that bowl cut kid in your class?”

“In my grade. He was really popular for a while, because of his stories. Everybody wanted to hear about the monsters and about the crazy hair guy on the news. He told us that the news was wrong and you were actually a hero in disguise. Of course, some kids accused him of lying about everything, but he stood up for himself pretty well.”

“Oh, he did? Good.”

“Yeah” she said, pouring them both more tea. “I always took him for a crybaby. Guess getting kidnapped by monsters really toughens you up.”

“Pff, maybe after the fact. But believe me, he was crying his eyes out when we were down there. Bet he left that part out of his story.”

“Actually he didn’t, and that’s why most of us were convinced.” She put a finger to her chin in thought. “And actually, I thought it made him seem tougher to admit it.”

“Hmph.”

“I wonder if Badd got kidnapped by monsters too.”

“Could've,” Garou said evenly. Though it was a lot less likely than before. Before, the strongest of monsters were living right in the heart of a nearby city, and more were being produced every day. Unless Badd was having a major off day, it was unlikely that even 10% of the straggling survivors would be strong enough to take him down single handed. Then again, there was always the possibility that a few of them had banded up in an effort to recreate what had been destroyed. That was actually highly plausible, as there were likely a few surviving monsters who were smart enough to organize, and all of them would be desperate for a route to survival. Then again, there was an equal chance that the abduction had been work done by humans. Humans could be strong, and humans could do pretty monstrous things too.

In fact, it kind of gave him the creeps more, thinking about what humans might do.

Not that he gave a sh*t about Metal Bat, of all people. What was he doing in this guy’s house again?

Zenko perked up and interrupted his thoughts with another snap of her fingers. “Oh! I forgot to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit.” She hopped off her seat, the thumps of her socked feet fading down the hall as she ran.

Garou sighed and plopped his chin on his palm. I’ve really reached a whole new level of pitiful, he mused, glancing around the neat, doily-accented kitchen he was intruding upon. The stovetop was small, clean, compact, a pink and blue pair of hotmits hanging neatly by the handle. The highest cupboards were organized and tidy, matching glassware stacked unnaturally even. The bottom cupboards were cluttered with plastic bowls and plates with cartoon characters and kiddie designs. The fridge was paneled with drawings that had been magnetic-stuck on with all the precision and care of a museum art procurer, which was way too cheesy for his taste. His elbows were resting on a red and yellow tablecloth that matched warmly with the kitchen’s farmy-color scheme, which was way too cozy for his taste. Hanging at exactly eye level above the other end of the table was framed photograph of a strong looking woman with rich black hair and a man with big bushy eyebrows and a warm smile--the two of them laughing about some joke that had happened behind the camera, while a boy about Zenko’s current age hugged his mother’s side and a bundled baby stuck her arm out towards her father’s nose.

Which was way too...something...for his taste.

The pit-pat of the sock feet thundered back down the hall.

Zenko had two toy rabbits, both with saggy, bean-filled bellies and floppy pastel ears dipping out from under their felt sun hats. “Garou, this is Mr. Rabbit and this is Mrs. Rabbit” she said, placing one next to her and one next to him, so that the table was filled. “Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit, this is Garou, but he prefers to be called Mr. Crazy Hair, which is his legal official name. He’s visiting so that he can get refreshed.” She cupped her hand around her mouth as if she were whispering a secret to them. “He likes getting in fights, like Badd does. But he’s no good at taking care of himself afterwards.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Garou said, taking a broody bite out of an animal cracker.

Zenko made a face at him. “Mrs. Rabbit would like to know why you eat the animal cracker’s head first.”

Garou swallowed, and pointed the giraffe’s decapitated body at Mrs. Rabbit. “If you eat the head first, it’s a quick and painless death, because they don’t have to think about it or feel themselves dying as you devour their body.”

“Oh, I see,” Mrs Rabbit said in a wobbly, higher-pitched version of Zenko’s voice. “Badd does the opposite and saves the head for last.”

“Really? What a psychopath.”

“He says he does it because decapitated bodies freak him out.” Mrs. Rabbit said. “He wants them to live as long as they can.”

“Really? Wouldn’t expect it for a guy that tried to take a headshot at me with a solid steel baseball bat.”

Zenko’s voice switched to a rumbly attempt at a deep voice as Mr. Rabbit spoke. “Oh, don’t hold it against the boy. He didn’t actually do it.”

“I don’t hold it against him!” Garou replied, bristling up at the audacious assumption of this Rabbit. “And I wouldn't, even if he did actually do it. I wanted him to fight me. He was doing exactly what I asked him to.”

“Oh, I see. Badd’s very lucky to have someone so forgiving over for tea. Sometimes he takes his own fights a bit personabusly.”

“Personally?”

“I said what I said.” Mr. Rabbit grumbled.

“So what are you trying to say? He hates me? Why should I care about that?”

“Violence is because somebody wants to hurt somebody else,” Mrs. Rabbit chimed in. “So if someone is violent it means they want to hurt you, which means they don’t have any respect for your health.”

“That’s not true! Some people like violence because it gets their blood pumping. It makes them stronger. And when you beat someone strong it means you’re strong. So if you try to beat up someone, it means you recognize they’re strong. If you refuse to fight--that’s when you’re being rude.”

“But if you pick a random fight with someone just to prove you’re strong, doesn’t that mean your own idea is the most important?” Mr. Rabbit asked. “Maybe they don’t want to fight because they have other people they need to take care of. You should at least ask.”

Garou groaned and put his face in his hands. “Can these freaking Rabbits shut the hell up?”

Zenko took a sip of her tea and nodded. “I agree, Mr. Rabbit. It’s not very polite to make a guest feel uncomfortable.”

Speaking of uncomfortable, his leg was starting to itch like hell. He stuffed the last of his animal crackers in his gullet and chugged down his tea. “Hey, Princess, I think my next move’s gotta be washing out this bite. If you have a garden hose or something, I’ll go do it in the backyard, and then be on my way.”

“A hose?” Zenko scoffed, wrinkling her nose. “No, use the shower. Like a real people.”

“I don’t need a full shower.”

Mrs. Rabbit’s wavering, high-pitched voice sounded up from the peanut gallery. “Oh. Honey. Yes you do.”

“She’s right kiddo. You smell like a rotting piece of meat,” Mr. Rabbit added dryly.

“I prefer to liken myself to a finely ripening fruit, thank you very much."

These rabbits were no nonsense though, so, eventually, Garou decided to listen. And, impervious as he was to the smell of BO, the look of caked dirt, and the feel of itchy clothes, stiff with dried blood...it was kind of an exciting luxury to be able to take a shower...not outside in the rain... under hot water...and with…ooh, soap.

And it wasn't even just a single bar to work with either. There were multiple kinds, with different scents, and different purposes...it was really stupid, logic told him, to believe in so many different kinds of soap. It was probably just a plot by the soap companies to sell more soap to doofuses...doofuses like Metal Bat. After all, why would you need that Shampoo for MEN that smelled like motor oil, sitting on the left corner of the tub, when there was a perfectly good Three in One, For Kids! that smelled like strawberries, sitting on the right? And why bother with the three in one if you were going to get the Conditioner, for Kids! that smelled like mangos, the Shampoo, for Kids! that smelled like coconut, and the Soap, for Anyone! that smelled like--the ocean, apparently? Now Garou understood where all of Metal Bat's hero wages went to: making him, Garou, smell like a fruit smoothie that had been mixed by a mechanic sitting on the beach.

After he was done, he put the clothes he had been wearing back on and slung the towel over his shoulder. He went back out to ask Zenko where to leave it. Immediately he was berated again.

"What are you doing?! You can't just put the same stinky clothes on again! Go back and borrow something from Badd.”

“What? No, I’m not--”

“And don’t forget to put ointment and a bandage on your leg. Germs don’t stay away just because you add water.”

“I don’t need--”

“Do it!”

Garou sighed harshly, and turned back the way he came. Back in the bathroom, he found the ointment, and slapped on a bandaid that covered the wound about as well as a thong over a grown man’s asscrack. He didn’t really feel like bumbling around in Metal Bat’s bedroom, and thankfully, he didn’t have to. The laundry machine was in a closet-sized room right across from the bathroom, and, due to its status of having a lone eight-year-old looking after it the past few days, it had plenty of laundry that hadn’t yet been put away.

He began rooting.

For some reason, there was some dumb thing in his mind that had been expecting every article of Metal Bat’s clothing to be thematically related to his hero costume. Of course he was wrong. The first thing he recovered from the hamper was a comfortable, oversized T-shirt and a pair of joggers. Holding the sweatpants in front of him, he tested the waistband and pondered whether it was weirder to wear another guy’s underwear, or to wear another guy's pants without wearing any underwear at all.

Okay, no, he wasn’t wearing Metal Bat’s underwear. Sorry, Metal Bat’s sweatpants.

He went back out and found Zenko sitting on the kitchen floor, having Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit doing some little dance together over the tiles.

“Oh, look, Garou is back!" She said, smiling happily as she looked up from whatever thing she was doing with the Rabbits. "And he's much less smelly."

"Yeah, thanks."

"I see you've found the Blue Saturday Shirt. Excellent choice. Very comfy. Even if it is a Sunday."

"Yeah" he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. He felt kind of...weird about taking this guy's clothes. And it wasn't even about the underwear thing. It just didn't feel like...he deserved it? Thief's dilemma, he supposed. The sooner he gave it back, the better. "I'll change back into my old stuff before I head off. Deal?"

"No, no, it's fine," she dismissed, giggling as she tossed Mr. Rabbit up in the air and caught him. "You can just give it back to Badd when I find him."

She sounded so sure of it, too.

Chapter 6: A Pro-Duckative Day

Chapter Text

The rest of Sunday passed...oddly. Garou hadn’t really spent a Sunday doing things with someone else in a while, so the fact that he and Zenko were now kneeling in front of the coffee table, a slew of crayons in front of them as they colored in the remaining missing posters while listening to quiet, classical music--it was strange, to say the least.

About half an hour ago, Zenko had asked him--“So, how’s your head? Do you need to do Quiet Time?”

“Quiet Time?”

“You know, a rest? I can get you an ice pack if you want, and we can do Quiet Time. When Badd has a head injury, we do Quiet Time, which means I will do something quiet, like coloring, and he will lie on the sofa with his arm over his eyes.”

“Ah, no, no,” Garou said, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. Yeah, it hurt, but it had hurt worse before. The whole eating, drinking, showering business had actually left him feeling the physically best he had felt in a while. Which was unsettling, because it made him wonder if he really had just collapsed out of frailty. “I can go out,” he asserted. “If you want I can help hang up more posters. You know, to pay for the crackers.”

“Hm, no, I think we should do something at least a little quiet. Come here.”

And so here they were. Coloring.

He was kind of getting into it.

“Where’s the black crayon?”

“I’m using it. There should be a second one though.”

“What, this little stubby thing?”

“Yes that little stubby thing. Do you want to trade? I don’t mind the stubby one. It’s good for detail work.”

“No, actually I want it.”

“Mr. Crazy Hair can’t make up his mind, Mr. Rabbit--’Oh well, he does have a con-cushion, Zenko, go easy on him.’”

“Yeah, Zenko. Thank you, Mr. Rabbit.”

It was better to distract himself, than stare into Metal Bat’s soulless eyes as he rubbed the crayon over the guy’s hairline.

The fact that they were doing this made the truth of the situation gratingly obvious. The kid didn’t have a plan! Was her strongest punch to the problem just making slightly more eye-catching posters? Posters that passerby could look at and say, “Oh yeah, I saw that guy a few months ago fighting a giant centipede,” and move on from? Even if they did get a few general location sightings out of people, they wouldn’t be relevant unless they were time sensitive. If anyone from exactly last Wednesday had seen Metal Bat that day, it could actually poke them in a promising direction. But other than that...man. Otherwise it was just another pinprick to the list of ‘places Badd might go.’ The map they had made on Sunday already looked like it had a bad case of acne, with all the red spots on it marking places Metal Bat might have been at the moment of abduction.

Abduction. Yeah, abduction. The word made Garou want to puke, but still, it was definitely the better of the two possibilities, because the other meant that the kid at his elbow didn’t have a living brother to speak of. Unless, you know, he really had just ditched her.

Metal Bat had black hair, black shiny hair--so if he wanted to make it look shiny, he could leave little white streaks across the ridge. White Streak White Streak, Black Shading, Black Shading, Streak-- Metal Bat probably used about a bucket of hair gel a day to get his hair that shiny. Poor Zenko, she was probably never able to go on school field trips, because whenever she asked Metal Bat for money and a forged signature of their dead parents on the permission slip, he would say, ‘No Zenko, we can’t spend extra money on field trips, we need that money for hair gel and shampoo!’ What a jerk, haha.

“Wow, you’re pretty good at this.” Zenko said, pointing out the way he had colored Metal Bat’s hair. “Maybe you could be an artist some day.”

“I am an artist. A martial artist.”

“Yeah, but I mean you could also be an arty farty artist.”

“Nuh uh,” Garou said, pointing to the even shading she had done on Metal Bat’s red turtleneck. “You're the one who’s gonna be a farty artist.”

“I already am an arty farty artist.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I play piano, so I am a music artist. The music we are listening to right now is actually a recording from one of my recitals.”

“sh*t, really?” The music that was playing in the background was soothing, moving, and damn well above what Garou would expect from a professional, let alone a kid.

“No bad words!” The kid snapped. “Yes, the song is from Le Carnaval des Animaux by Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. Badd transferred the audio from my last concert onto a CD.”

Wow, was that overkill or what? Garou laughed, feeling a little unsettled, but for no really good reason. “What, does he bring an audio recorder to every show?"

“Yes.”

Oh, haha. Garou reached for a brown and a peachy color and slowly started coloring in Metal Bat’s face.

“What was the song again? Convert it to something I’ll understand, big brain.”

“It’s called the Carnival of Animals. The whole thing is actually a bunch of songs put together, and each one is supposed to be about a different animal putting on a show. It’s one of my favorites, though it would be better if it included rabbits. But all the parts are really good anyways. This part is one of the best ones. It’s for imagining swans.”

Garou cackled at the smooth music tinkling through the living room. “Pf. Swans? You kidding? A song for swans would sound more like death metal. That’s what I think of when I imagine swans.”

“What do you mean? Swans are graceful and romantic creatures!”

“Have you ever seen a swan go into fight mode? They have teeth. They’re aggressive as hell. Nah, Swans are punks. Punk ass thugs.”

Zenko “hmph”ed stubbornly. “There’s no reason why a swan can’t be both.”

“Yeah, but the graceful stuff is just what we humans have projected on them,” Garou explained sagely. “Swans don’t necessarily see themselves as graceful, because the way a swan looks and acts is just standard swan protocall.”

Zenko picked up the peach color he’d just finished with. “Well, wouldn’t the same go for you saying swans are all aggressive and death-metal-ish? If you want a death metal swan song so bad, just learn music and make it yourself. Don’t just tell Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns that his swan idea won’t work.”

“Saint Saens can bite my ass.”

“No using the A-word.”

Garou sighed, and plopped his cheek on his knuckles. Being with a morally upright kid was like being with a word-police-officer.

Garou decided to change the topic as he stared down at his paper and tried to remember what color Metal Bat’s belt was. “So what is your next move for trying to find this guy?”

Zenko’s hand slowed a bit in its movement across her own paper. “Well,” She said slowly. “After this, I’ll finish hanging up my posters. And I’ll take a picture of the last one, in case I see a way to print copies or put it on the internet without the school nosing into my business. And by then people will have seen the posters...and I suppose I’ll get leads. And then I will go investigate myself.”

“And when are you going to find the time to do all of this?"

She put down the peach and switched to the brown, which she then used to get the belt. Ah, so the belt is brown. “Well, this weekend was pretty pro-duckative. And I’m thinking of skipping school tomorrow. Then I can hang up the posters."

Garou clicked his tongue lightly as he reached for the red. “That’s a bad idea.”

The kid jutted out her lip defensively. “I wouldn’t be doing it for fun like one of those bad kids." Her voice rose a pitch, imitating the same tone of a disgruntled office worker. "My attendance record is perfect, in fact, so of all the kids in the school I should think I deserve a day off the most--especially if I have a good reason!”

He scoffed, and started outlining the shirt’s inner edge. “What do I look like, a truancy officer? It’s not about what’s fair, or what you ‘deserve.’ It’s about strategy. So far your strategy involves drawing the general population’s attention to the fact that Metal Bat is missing, without drawing attention to the fact that he is your brother and that you are on your own without him. Think about it again. What would happen if a teacher who is used to your perfect attendance notices you’re missing?”

She sighed and slumped in her spot. "They would call home to ask where I am."

"What would happen if someone saw you wandering the streets on your own during school hours?"

She sighed again. "A real truancy officer would notice me."

He nodded along, still keeping his eyes on Metal Bat's red shirt. "Right. Exactly.” He wondered when the kid would realize that it was just better to bite the bullet and risk the whole ‘foster care separation thing’ in exchange for stronger eyes on the lookout. It was only a matter of time before the Hero Association at least noticed that Metal Bat wasn’t showing up for meetings (the Hero Association did do meetings, right? Most bureaucratic stinkholes did, he figured). And even if they didn’t care about an employee's wellbeing, they at least would be miffed about being blown off, right? Maybe even suspicious that an S Class hero had been taken down by something? Sure, Monsters weren’t really the forefront of public attention anymore, but it wasn’t like there was nothing to be concerned about. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a Hero Association still standing! And then, even if she managed to find her brother on her own, track down the wacko that had nabbed him...What was she gonna do? Lecture the culprit into submission? Talk Metal Bat out of being a dead piece of meat? Because that was what Garou was imagining. Kid needed to think ahead. Take a hint. Be realistic.

She didn’t bite though.

“Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out” she said resolutely. “I’m pretty good at doing things on my own.”

Ha! This kid was almost as co*cky as him! Admirable, really. Too bad it was at her dead or dying brother’s expense.

The sun was setting by the time they colored in the last of the posters.

“Alright,” Garou sighed, dropping his last crayon. “That’s the end of that.”

“Want to go on a walk?” Zenko asked. “We can stretch our legs, and hang up a few on the way.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Garou said. It was a bit past his original goal time for getting the hell out of here, but at least this way he could make sure his artistic talent didn’t go to waste. It’d probably be easier to ditch her too, if after the walk he could just say goodbye from outside the front door again.

They walked around, chatting about Saint Saens and swans and other animals with weird body parts. Zenko carried the posters and Garou carried some tape and a box of thumbtacks, and every time they reached a telephone pole or bus station stop that she deemed appropriate, she would point to it, hand him a poster, and he would pin it up.

Meanwhile he also got an exclusive tour of the neighborhood.

“That street corner is where my friend Siti and I set up a lemonade stand the summer before she moved to F-City. That dumpster is where my mom and dad found our first cat, who was named Tigger. That alleyway is where Badd’s friends from middle school teased me for not being good at handball, but then I practiced it with Badd and beat them all the next week. That empty field is where Badd used to play baseball with his friends in high school. That half pipe is where Badd got in trouble for tagging. That’s the convenience store we can’t go to because he vandalized the owner’s son’s car. That’s the convenience store we can’t go to because he got caught shoplifting. That’s the convenience store we sometimes get Ramune juice at. The parking lot outside it is where Badd threw up the color blue because he drank Ramune juice with skittles mixed in it and he didn’t realize he had the stomach bug. That’s the spot Badd picks me up from on the days I take the bus. That playground is where Badd takes me to go on the swings every Saturday afternoon, except yesterday. Ooh, let’s tape one on the picnic bench!”

Garou listened, feeling like he was slowly piecing together a screenshot of some G-rated family TV show. He still didn't have a clear picture though. It just didn’t add up. This just didn’t feel like the sort of story, the sort of neighborhood, where two parents would just drop out of the picture and nobody would notice. The way Zenko talked seemed like her and her brother’s lifestyle together was established well long enough to be within her realm of normal. And though it seemed that Metal Bat had led some some sort of juvenile, softcore delinquent lifestyle for much of his teenage years, Garou had the distinct impression that the actual dropping out had been for a reason no smaller than needing to turn his smashing talents to something that would make money for the household. And if he had started his career as a hero around the time his parents died, that would’ve placed their deaths somewhere around 3 to 4 years ago, based on the stats from the hero booklet. Sure, Metal Bat looked kind of mature for his age, but there was no way nobody would notice a thirteen-fourteen-year-old kid and a...how old was Zenko, now? Eight? Subtract four, so... a four-year-old... surviving off of skittles and Ramune for a third of a decade.

Garou fiddled clumsily with the piece of tape he’d just been handed, before unpeeling its stuck edge and smoothing it over the top of the poster. “So how is it that your brother and you have been able to live so long on your own anyways?”

“You know how some kids get bad grades, and will have to bring their report card home and get it signed to make the teacher sure their parents saw it?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.”

“Well,” she said evenly, guiding them back onto the beaten path of the lumpy suburban sidewalk. "That’s how a lot of things are, and it’s super easy to fake.”

“But like, your parents,” he rebutted, recalling the two smiling figures from the portrait above the table. “Obviously, you used to have them--both of them, a full set, even-- and now you don’t. But nobody seems to know about it.”

“They died during a monster attack.”

“But isn’t it the sort of thing a school, or...I dunno, the doctor's office, or the cops--wouldn’t they at least know about? Isn’t there a public record of that sort of thing?”

She shrugged her shoulders “I guess whoever’s in charge of keeping track of that sort of thing just got pooped out.”

Actually, that kind of made sense. Over the past few years, monster attacks had skyrocketed, to the point where it wasn’t odd for an entire city block to be wiped out each week. For example--Garou didn’t have an exact body count, but he’d heard that in D-City’s Demon level attack last spring, there’d been around 800 corpses recovered-- just from the crater of the guy’s first giant footprint.

Zenko carried on explaining it like it was the most casual topic in the world. “When they died all we really had to do was...nothing. Except pretend that everything was okay. We don’t have any other family members, so no one made a fuss. It was pretty easy.”

Yeah, pretty easy for you, the kid. Sounded like Metal Bat practically had to step into the shoes of mother and father overnight. Except his only marketable skill was smashing monster skulls and being able to take a hit to the head himself. All Zenko had to do was sit back and be taken care of! And Metal Bat wasn’t even doing a good job of it, disappearing like this--what a pair of brats! His mind was working fast to think up this stuff.

“Right here, actually.” Zenko had stopped. She turned and stood on the edge of the sidewalk, looking at a spot in the road somewhere on the line between the flaky telephone pole planted on their side, and the fire hydrant on the other. “They died in a monster attack right here.”

They had almost completed the circuit around the block, and were about 200 feet away from the house.

“I didn’t get to see the monster though. It was just a piece of shrapnel.”

Garou didn’t know what to say. His mind had slowed down. He definitely couldn’t deal with an emotional kid on his hands...but it didn’t even sound like she was too upset, so it was almost weirder. She was facing away from him, the orange sunset painting her back in shadow.

“Well that sucks,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” she said, turning back around. “Hey, don’t forget this one.” She patted the telephone pole and he pinned up a poster of Metal Bat, so he could glare out over the street here too.

“Alright, that’s the last from this stack,” he announced, even though she obviously already knew.

She clapped her hands together. “Very good! Let’s go home.”

So they did. Garou’s plan was coming to a perfect close as he slowed down and let her take the steps to the door.

“Alright, well, it’s been real, kid. Good luck with everything.” Is what he was about to say, before he realized he had forgotten his stuff inside and followed her up the steps.

“I suppose you’ve got to go home soon too,” Zenko said when they crossed the threshold. “Did you want to have a snack first?”

“Nah, nah.” He’d already stolen enough undeserved food from this place.

“Well, at least have some water--I can’t have you flopping over on the sidewalk out there a second time.”

“You still going on about that? That was ages ago,” he snarked, following her into the kitchen nonetheless.

She grabbed their cups from earlier off the counter and stood on a step stool to reach the sink. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“Cheers to a relaxing but pro-duckative day,” she said, clinking their cups. Garou snorted a bit on his drink. Yeah, there was no way he was correcting her on that word.

His eyes slid to the picture above the table, where the two parents stood watching. His hands felt anxious for something to do, so when he finished he washed and dried his cup and put it back where it came from. He drummed his fingers across the counter and twisted away from the sight of the table. “Okay. I’m going to grab my stuff, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Mm-hm,” Zenko nodded, eyes sliding to him over the rim of her cup. “Oh. Hey, before you leave can you reach that box of cereal up there?”

“Yeah,” he said. The dim evening light slid across his hand as he reached for the box of store-brand bran flakes sitting in the highest shelf. “Want a bowl too?”

“I got it,” she said, standing on her toes to reach the nearly empty drying rack beside the sink.

“How about we move a few more of these down for you,” he said, grabbing a few random things--a jar of olives, a pack of pudding snacks, oatmeal--and slapping them down on the counter.

“I don’t like olives,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

He left the olives there, and pulled down a jar of sweet pickles to sit beside them.

“Fridge?” He asked, nodding to it.

“No, a chair works fine for that,” she said, going about making a bowl of cereal for herself. “Did you want any flakes?”

“No, I’m all set,” he said. He went to the laundry room, where he had left his still dirty clothes. Stooping down, he collected them quickly and balled them up under his arm.

“Oh!” He heard Zenko say, accompanied by the sound of her administering a light palm slap to her forehead. She had followed him to the laundry room. “We forgot to wash your things! I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Garou said quickly. “I’ll wash them at my house.”

“Okay,” she said, relaxing, and then pointing to the washcloths on the shelf above his head. “Can you hand me one of those?”

“Yeah,” he said.

She took it, and they filed out of the laundry room and back down the hall.

They stood by the door.

"Alrighty. Bye bye!" She said, smiling at him.

"Yeah. Bye." He put his hand on the doorknob and twisted; the dry night air puffed freely against his face. Her socked footsteps faded back into the house. He glanced over his shoulder.

She had spilled milk on the floor. From the doorway, he viewed the image of the kid sopping up the accident as she hummed to herself, framed in the farmyard red of an empty kitchen.

Chapter 7: Some Garbage isn't even Garbage

Chapter Text

A leaf shivered in front of his lips as he let out a quiet exhale.

Just a few feet below him, his breakfast squawked and plucked its way over a patch of dead leaves, scaly toes crunching into the crispy brown. It was a small animal-type monster, looked like something between a raptor and a frog.

Garou’s muscles tensed. Time to pounce-- in 5, 4, 3, 2--

It let out a raspy squawk as he launched himself from the tree branch and landed on the ground, fingers and toes digging into the dirt and the creature pinned below. Its beak made a snap at his belly and he instinctively arched up to avoid it. He grabbed it by the head and slammed it back down, ready to break its neck, clean and fast--

And then it unsheathed a massive dewclaw and took a swipe at his chest. sh*t! He rolled off of it quickly and detangled the claw from where it caught the fabric; still holding it by the head (stupid bird, didn’t it realize this wasn’t his f*cking shirt to ruin?) the smell of dirt and leaves pressed against his face--laying on the ground sideways, the monster in a similar position, he held it out at arm's length as the thing craned its neck toward him, snapping at him, trying to chomp his face off with its slimy f*cking beak; he moved his head to dodge a spear-shaped, foot-long tongue--1, 2--and then he got his other hand back on its neck and was about to crack that thing when he heard--

“Riippeep!”
“Rrr-ipeep!”

His gaze slipped past his immediate opponent and into the dappled shade of the undergrowth a few feet away. There was a little tadpole with measly feathers and a pair of chick-sized chicken legs underneath its slimy, rotund little body.

His hand slipped off the slimy neck as the larger specimen contorted its body and wriggled its pinhead out of his hold. He got up and lunged again, but landed with his hands on the ground, empty. He made eye contact with his breakfast as it glared disdainfully at him once before disappearing into the forest.

Eh. It was probably mildly poisonous anyways. Kinda sucked to lose to a slimy old frog though. His hunting skills really were slipping.

Ha.

It was all for the better. What he really should be doing was setting up an ambush for those idiot monsters that always wanted to nibble at his feet nowadays. There had been another one! Yes, another one--two, actually--waiting at his favorite bench when he had gotten back from Zenko’s last night. He had just kicked them away--but decided it was probably better to relocate to a tree, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that bullcrap in his sleep. He had woken up to the sight of a convenient-looking breakfast, and here he was now.

Well, at least he didn’t have any stupid injuries to wash out. He wasn’t in the mood for raw meat either. Not after being treated to cooked steak and cooked crackers.

He tugged at the strings of the sweatpants he was wearing and tied a tighter knot. Zenko had said something about the shirt having no set return date, but she hadn't specified about the pants. It was probably best if he got his old stuff cleaned sooner rather than later.

He decided to make his way towards the laundromat.

But, first, he needed more change than he currently had on hand--which was nothing--so he ambled over to his usual money maker: located on a nondescript street on the outskirts of the shopping district, a payphone, which he happened to know had a hole punched in the bottom and a flexible piece of plastic fitted slyly across the hole, which he had happened to install after he had first happened to use his strength and a blunt knife to punch the hole that happened to be there.

He sidled casually into the open-fronted phone booth. Checking to make sure nobody had eyes on him, he reached underneath and slipped the piece of plastic out, so that he could nab a few coins from the metal box. Let’s see, he’d probably need at least a couple bucks for the laundromat... and then there was lunch, or uh, breakfast...that didn’t need to be anything fancy though…

He was just about to take off, when his eyes landed on the phone itself, and he hesitated.

He sighed and turned back into the booth. He dropped a quarter in and picked up the phone.

sh*t, what was it again? Was the last part 556, or 655?

He went with his gut and tried 556.

“Hello, you’ve reached J-City Juvenile Detention Center’s main desk. Officer Hardwick speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hi. I’m calling to see if someone I know is in there.”

“What is your relation to the person in question?”

“Uh, what?”

“Friend, family, state-appointed legal guardian, or spouse.”

People have spouses at that age? Weird.

“Friend.” He answered. “I noticed he wasn’t around, so I wanted to check if he was in there. He gets in trouble sometimes, so…”

Officer Hardwick cut in briskly. “For the protection and privacy of our minors, J-City Juvenile Detention Center’s policy guidelines prohibit us from giving out information about underage inmates to anyone who cannot be ID’d as a legal parent, guardian, or spouse.”

“Well, he’s seventeen--”

“If he’s a repeat offender over the age of sixteen with at least one offense categorized as a ‘violent crime,’ his case would automatically be referred to the adult system.”

Why were the Juvenile detention guidelines so f*cking useless?! Garou sighed and pressed his forehead against his forearm resting against the booth. Jesus. Even if he had been Metal Bat’s actual sibling, like Zenko, he wouldn’t be able to check in and get information on the guy. All he was getting was a regurgitation of the stupid policy guidelines, which said that--

Wait--

“Hey, is vandalism categorized as a violent crime?”

“It is.”

“Ah, okay, great. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, that’s it. Bye.”

The phone clattered as he hung up.

Okay, so that was one possible location crossed off. It didn’t seem like Zenko would have wasted her time trying to check the Juvie, but at least now he knew she wasn’t going to waste her time checking around everywhere else. Unless her brother was in the adult system, which Garou now knew was even stronger of a possibility.

He stretched his arms lazily above his head. Well, that had been enough work for one day. Based on the interaction he’d just had, checking the adult prison would be a huge pain in the ass anyways--calling would just be another wasted quarter.

Well, he could get the quarter back.

But it wasn’t like he had any reason to do it. It’s not like he owed Metal Bat any favors, not after coloring in all those god damn posters, anyways.

He glanced up and saw one of those goddamn posters on the other side of the street. Glaring at him.

Listen, he didn’t even know the guy’s last name.

Zenko would know it.

But Zenko also obviously had a clear idea that he wasn’t in prison. And if Metal Bat was in the slammer, it was all still his fault for not giving in and letting someone know that he had a sister to be taken care of.

The quarter clattered to the bottom of the box.

“Hello, this is J-City Federal Penitentiary automated directory. If you are calling to reach an inmate, please hang up and call back within the designated call hours, which are Saturdays and Sundays from 10 to 5, and Mondays through Fridays from 12 to 1. . If you are calling to speak to one of our HR representatives, please dial 5, now. If you are calling for any other inquiry, please state your name, the nature of your inquiry, and the best number to call you back at; or stay on the line. Note: all calls may be recorded for the purpose of--”

The was a harsh ding as Garou jammed the phone back down on the receiver.

No, he wasn’t intimidated. But there was no way in hell anybody was getting that amount of information out of him. Particularly not anybody that worked at the prison he broke out of a fresh few months ago.

Well, at least now he could walk away with his head held high. I gave it a shot, asshole he told the poster across the street.

Finally! The sweet freedom of no more moral obligation. He treated himself to a chair right next to the nice, warm drying machine as he used up some of his well earned-quarters and waited for his laundry to be done. Then he went to the dollar general and got himself a jar of peanut butter and a pack of beef jerky. Then he went back to the park, where he could sit on a bench, next to a drinking fountain, peacefully surrounded by pigeons (which could potentially be dinner, if he got sick of this peanut butter later).

Ah yes, this was the high life, wasn’t it? No bosses, teachers, martial arts masters, or correctional officers telling him what to do. Nobody to have to talk to, interact with, and push him around. He wouldn’t mind a fight though. After he was done with his peanut butter, of course. Too bad he wasn’t square enough to fit in at the dojo anymore. Before he’d gotten fed up with the social aspect of it, it had actually been pretty fun for him. Well, of course, it had been fun for him, look at what he set himself loose on a rampage for. All that bowing, and lecturing, and stupid, hoity-toity hippocracy though...all those dumb lessons on ‘knowing his place.’ Yeah, well, maybe my place is right f*cking here. With the pigeons. Of course, he hadn’t given up on martial arts--he would be training by himself later, after his peanut butter. It just wasn’t quite as entertaining though. That’s what heroes like Metal Bat were good for. Picking fights with, to keep him from getting bored.

Across from where he was sitting there was one of those tall, embellished, vaguely European looking clocks, with all the digits in Roman numerals and the face open to the public, who all probably didn’t look at it because they had cell phones, and could barely read analog clocks, let alone Roman numerals. Except for Garou, because he didn’t have a cell phone.

There was a low dong sound as the clock struck 2:00. Had Garou still been confined to the hellscape of secondary school, this would have been about when he’d be breaking loose, and trying to maneuver his way home without getting beaten up by any of those dicks who liked to pick on the kid with the crazy hair and antisocial tendencies.

The kids in my year all really sucked. He thought to himself, making a sour face as he tried to use his tongue to scrape the peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth. Sometimes he wondered if things would have turned out differently if he had just had a different assortment of peers at that age. Then again, it wasn't just them. The times the teachers were unfair were almost worse. It was times like that when he knew the system had to be rigged. It really did suck, realizing that those above you are just above you to keep you pushed down.

Man, sh*tty teachers were probably the worst.

It was now 2:30. The primary school kids would be getting out now. That would mean Zenko was getting out. Unless--no wait, today was Monday.

Garou finished up with his peanut butter, and tucked it into the plastic bag with the jerky so that he could carry it back to his special spot in the middle of the park and keep it there for later. He did that, and then some martial arts, as promised. Then, about an hour later, he left the park again. That peanut butter really had zazzed him up. He needed to go on a walk. Why not to the school?

It was probably around Four o’clock now, right? He glanced to the entrance of the primary school and stopped to observe the scene.

He was just able to make out the back of a skinny old woman with spiky hair, dyed black. She had on a dark gray trench coat, with spiky, padded shoulders, and a dark indigo purse strapped over one shoulder, like she was ready to get out of there. She had her arms half crossed, and using one finger to point harshly down at a small student with dark hair and a bright pink backpack, which was clutched tightly against her chest as she stared down at the floor, looking like she wanted to wilt into the shadows and die.

Okay, screw that.

The sound of the double doors preceded the witch’s screeching. “You know I told you to arrange your way home to be more punctual!” The teacher was lecturing. “Why did you not adhere to my instruction? I can’t have you walking home by yourself. Isn’t that brother of yours going to make any effort to fulfill his responsibility? If this carries on, I’ll have to contact your parents. This is simply--”

“Heyyyy!” Garou’s drawling voice echoed gratingly against the acoustics of the hall, cutting off the teacher’s complaint. He shoved his hands in his pockets and approached, slippered footsteps feeling out of place as he once again walked over a school’s linoleum tiles. “There’s Zenko, my crazy little niece! Future pianist of the century! How was school? Sorry I’m late, your parents didn’t tell me Badd couldn’t make it to pick you up until last minute.”

“Who is that?” The old woman turned to him with a shrewd expression that would have been downright terrifying, if not for the way the pointy shape of her glasses and the sharp outline of her dry, dark red lipstick fit so well that it was almost comical.

“Oh!” Garou said, reaching out and clasping her by the hand. “You must be Mrs. Splintfingars! Nice to meet you. Love the hair. Think I can get mine to do that? I’m Zenko's uncle. Well, second cousin, but it’s all the same to us. Badd’s been getting held up at work lately, so I’m here to help out. If you’d like any more details, please, by all means, I’d love to chat!”

Her hand retracted quickly. Her thin but still somehow jowly jowls quivered as she looked him up and down, a disgusted twitch to her nose. “Zenko, is this hooligan really a relative of yours? He seems like he just walked out of a garbage can.”

Zenko quickly closed her mouth, which was ajar in surprise. Clutching her backpack, she nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Splintfingars. Uncle Garou always smells like garbage, because he...works in a garbage truck! It’s okay though because the garbage business actually is pretty lucrative. Right, Uncle Garou?”

“Oh, yeah, you got that right. “Garou said, nodding earnestly. “You see Mrs Splintfingars, every kind of garbage has its perks. There’s compostables, recyclables, fermentables, edibles... Some garbage isn’t even garbage! You wouldn’t believe what some people throw away. Now if you’re ever interested in procuring any collectibles--”

“I am not, thank you very much. I’ll be going now. See you Wednesday, Zenko, and remember to practice the diminished scales this week.”

The door swung open, then shut, and the presence of Mrs. Splintfingars was no more.

“As soon as he had come, she had gone” Garou announced with a satisfied flair of dramatics. “What music to my ears.”

Zenko laughed, looking giddy. “You’re here! You’re picking me up!” She said, hopping in place. Gee, kids sure were excitable.

“I mean, yeah, sure. I don’t actually have a garbage truck to ride in, but I’ll walk with you, if you’re okay with me and my trash smell.” He held the door and laughed as Zenko pitched her nose and pretended to puke all over the school’s doorway. “Hey! Believe it or not, I actually did give my clothes a wash! I had to conserve my quarters though, so the stuff I’m still wearing from Badd is still--you know, bad. I figured since you have a machine it would be okay.”

“Quarters? I thought you said you could wash clothes at your house?”

Garou’s eyes widened as he stared ahead of him. sh*t, he had messed up. “Uh, I can, if I use the sink, but the laundromat is more convenient because I just ran out of soap.” Phew. Easy enough fix for a quick thinker like him. He couldn’t be so lax though. Zenko wasn’t dumb.

She skipped happily along beside him. “I can give you some soap from my house. Then you can take it home and if Mrs. Splintfingars sees you again, she'll think we’ve worked a miracle!”

Garou clicked his tongue skeptically. “I don’t know--our acting back there was pretty level pro. Now we’ve got the garbage man story going, I think we’ll have to stick with it. If anything, I should try extra hard to stink up on Wednesday.”

Zenko caught his eye and smiled warmly. Then she broke into another fit of cackles, saying, “I don’t think you’ll have to try very hard, Uncle Crazy Hair.”

“The snark of kids these days! To think my prodigy of a second-cousin-slash-niece would turn out to be so rude!”

And so they had reached an agreement, for every Monday and Wednesday.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

“And then his tupperware exploded all over the table! It was hilarious. I mean, I helped clean it up, but I also laughed. Do you think that’s bad?”

“Nah, if you helped he probably gets it. Did you get the cafeteria food again?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, that’s good.”

“Oh!” Zenko did a little skip across the sidewalk, clutching her backpack straps with two hands. “And in math today I got a 102 on a quiz!”

“Oh, did you now?”

“It would’ve been a hundred and three if the teacher didn’t decide to make the last bonus question based on Movie Trivia”

He sighed in exasperated solidarity. “Man, I used to hate that, when they made bonus questions that just gave an edge to whoever's into popular culture.”

Garou and Zenko were walking back from the school; it was the Wednesday of the following week and so far it seemed not much had changed about the Metal Bat situation, so Garou figured they might as well chat about the other things that were going on in Zenko’s orbit instead.

“I know, right?” She said, nodding irately. “Pop culture trivia is so dumb. It’s not like I have any reason to have watched some old Spruce Lee movie.”

“Whoa whoa wait a minute, you’ve never watched a movie by the legendary Spruce Lee ? Okay, maybe you did deserve a lowly one hundred and two .”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re a fighting geek, I almost forgot.”

“Uh, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘bad as--Or, uh, ‘bad bum.’ ” Ha! No way was she going to get a finger waggle in at him on this walk today.

She giggled at the fact that he had called himself a bum, probably blissfully unaware of how true it really was. He laughed along at the irony that being a garbage man would have actually been much more respectable than what he really was.

“Anything else going on at school?”

She snapped her fingers and gasped. “Ooh, hey! Yes there is! I almost forgot to tell you--there’s going to be a bake sale.”

At this, Garou’s attention perked. “Wait--Do you get to keep the money?” If so, this was Zenko’s opportunity to get some cash to support herself. Garou wasn’t worried, per say, but he was beginning to wonder how much mileage was on that box of cornflakes she’d been eating from last week. She’d have to go food shopping eventually. Over the past week, he’d started wondering about the eating situation, and had gathered that she was already enrolled in the school’s meal plan, but that only had her covered for one meal a day (and only school days, too). Adding to that, sometimes she skipped it, if she didn’t like the menu or if she wanted to go to the library or music room instead.

“No,” Zenko said, in response to his last question. “It’s to support the extracurricular program.”

“Ah, what? That’s a rip off. You’re not gonna waste your time on that, are you?”

Zenko clicked her tongue sharply. “Of course I will, it’s expected.”

Garou tsked and was tempted to go on an angry rant about that cheap ass school, before another thought began taking form in his mind and he went silent instead.

Over the weekend, he had been thinking about his time at the J City penitentiary. Just as a sort of--mental exercise. He had started drawing up a mental list of things about the place that would, in the case of breaking out or breaking into the place, be useful. Entrances, exits, floorplan, guard shifts, et. cetera. Not that he had any plans of breaking Metal Bat out of prison, if the sucker happened to be there. But if the sucker happened to be there, Zenko should be told about it, because she was still living in this floofy little fairytale world where there was absolutely no possibility of her fleabag brother being there. Garou didn’t like floofy fairytale worlds. But he knew it’d be a pain to try to talk to Zenko about it, so if he wanted to find out who was in the prison--well, the easiest way would be to get into the prison, right?

Easier than making another phone call to J-City Federal Penitentiary automated directory, anyway.

You, know, if he at any point in the next week felt bored enough to attempt something like that. But he was still missing a few important--

“Excuse me? Earth to Mr. Crazy Hair? Will you do it or not?”

“Uh, do what?”

“See? I knew you weren’t listening. I’m not allowed to use the oven by myself, so I was wondering if you’d like to come over and bake the brownies with me. Of course, you can eat some as compensation for your time.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. When?”

“Now. The bake sale is this Thursday.”

“Wait, you mean tomorrow? Jesus, they didn’t give us much prior notice.”

Zenko scratched her head, looking sheepish. “Well, they actually told us about it three weeks ago, but I kind of forgot about it.”

Well, that was understandable, considering her circ*mstances. “Do you have everything at home?” He asked.

“Oh yeah, mostly!” She said, nodding eagerly. “Everything except the brownie mix.”

“Kid, I’m no expert on cooking, but that sounds like a pretty important component to be missing.”

“Can we stop at one of the stores along the way?”

“Uh…” Garou calculated some quick logistics, trying to figure out if there were any payphones between where they were now (four blocks away from the restaurant they’d eaten steak at the other day) and the closest convenience store (the one where Metal Bat had vomited blue Skittles and Ramune Juice). To the best of his memory, there were none, which meant he was screwed. He couldn’t just walk into a store with some brat, go up to the counter, and have the clerk watching as she waited expectantly for him to turn out his pockets. If it was at the little neighborhood corner store they decided to stop at, whoever was working would probably notice the absence of Zenko's regular caretaker, and question the switch to a broke-ass grown-ass adult who, Garou was starting to realize, consistently came off to strangers as somebody’s misplaced, dumpster-diving grandpa, but creepier. Which could blow Zenko's cover, especially if anything else about the interaction came off as--off. Like the creepy grandpa also showing up totally broke.

He patted down his pockets for show. “Ah, man, I think I forgot my wallet at home. If you want I can drop you off and--”

“No, no,” Zenko interrupted. “I’ll buy it, it’s my bake sale, after all. I still have plenty from my last allowance.”

“Okay” Garou said tensely. They reached the convenience store in a few minute’s walking. He caught his reflection in the window and paused, eyes lingering a moment on his blurred image, before he sped up to catch up with Zenko before she went through the door. “Hey, do I look--like--really ratty today?” He asked, lowering his voice a bit.

She shrugged, giving him a quick appraisal before saying, “No more than usual. It’s okay though. Come on.”

“Wait, I think--”

She had already opened the door though, causing a crisp bell sound to ring across the store.

The person behind the register looked up, and Garou clearly saw their eyes go from Zenko, to him.

His pulse began to quicken, the same way it usually did right before a fight. Except he couldn’t fight, he could only sprint away. Except he couldn’t actually sprint away, so he just migrated to the back aisle, put his hands in his pockets, and hunched over, pretending to stare at the beef jerky, to buy time.

He could feel eyes on him. sh*t. This wasn’t a good situation.

He glanced between some paper towels and made eye contact with the clerk. Their eyes became narrow.

sh*t.

He dropped his gaze and stared down numbly at a beef jerky label, the black-on-yellow colors of the words Beef, Hydrogenated Vegetable Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy protein, Corn solids… all floating over his head as his mind raced.

Damnit, he shouldn’t have done it. He could’ve dropped Zenko off at her house, went off to find some coin, bought the mix by himself, and brought it back. Or he could have just said no, he was busy, and let her deal with this stupid bake sale sh*t on her own. It wasn’t like it was any of his business!

Okay, what was the worst case scenario? Clerk recognizes her. Clerk realizes her brother is gone. Clerk thinks it's strange that she’s with a crusty weirdo. Clerk calls cops to check in, cops realize her brother is missing, realize she’s hanging out with a wanted criminal instead, whisk her away to an orphanage and me to prison . Well, that’d be one way to get into J-City Penitentiary without much effort. But not the way I want. The words kept reeling by his eyes... corn solids, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, soy, sodium nitrate... He was starting to feel sick.

That’s when Zenko bounded up to him with a red box clasped victoriously over her head. “Look, I found it! It was right by the--” She lowered the box and frowned at him. “Hey, are you okay? You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“Yeah, no--I just…” He threw another glance to the register, where the clerk was waiting. Watching him.

He ducked down a bit lower.

“--I feel like they’re staring,” he whispered. Think, think... Before he’d learned martial arts, this was the feeling that he’d get before every fight. Frozen. He hated it.

Zenko co*cked her head at him for a moment, before making a soft “Oh” sound. Then, there was a metallic clink, and Garou felt some coins land in his pocket. And then, in the loudest, most obnoxious kid voice, Zenko said, “Come on Uncle Garou, we don’t have all day!” And grabbed him by the hand, pulling him briskly to the front of the shop.

No! No! What is she doing?!

“Hi! We want this!” She said, standing on her tiptoes and slamming the brownie mix down resolutely. “ I’m going to bake the best brownies in the entire world. If you or your loved ones are interested in my or other students’ wares, please visit S-City Public Elementary School, located on 260 Lorong street, tomorrow any time from 2:00 to 3:00. All proceeds go to S-City Public School’s extracurricular program! Thank you for your interest, tell all your friends.”

The clerk’s eyes went from Zenko, to Garou, and then back to Zenko. The eyes pinched into a smile. “Sounds like a great time,” they said warmly to her. They gave Garou a glance and said

“That’ll be two fifty” as Zenko continued to blabber on about the bake sale at around 80 miles per hour.

“Alright,” Garou responded casually, reaching into his pocket, praying to God he hadn’t hallucinated Zenko passing him money a minute ago.

“Ooh, Uncle Garou, Uncle Garou, can I have this too? Pleeease? ” She added, throwing some skittles onto the counter.

“Okay, okay, hold your horses,” Garou said, finding about 5 dollars worth of quarters, and signing in relief.

Upon his sigh, the clerk’s lip twitched upward. “Kids,” they said, shaking their head and giving him a look that, like magic, seemed to have reversed from its previous suspicion and now--if anything--was sympathetic.

“Kids,” Garou replied, rolling his eyes as if they were in on some joke together. “Hey Squirt, looks we have a little extra,” he said, realizing that there was about 2 dollars leftover. “Did you want to grab anything else? Apple? Milk?”

He didn’t want to boss her around with her own money, but if he was going to be carrying on with the responsible uncle charade, he may as well follow through and see if she’d like any real food. He didn’t know what exactly she had stashed at home, but...he doubted whatever was there would last much longer.

“Chocolate milk?” She asked, quirking an eyebrow up.

“Yeah, if you want.” Chocolate milk was...sort of healthy, right? Milk had protein.

She rushed to the refrigerated section and back. They bought their three things, waved the clerk goodbye, reminded once more about the bake sale, and got out of there.

When they were finally out of sight of the place, Garou could breathe a sigh of relief. “Here, thanks” he said, handing Zenko the change. “Good thinking, back there. For a second I thought that clerk was going to call the cops on me.”

Zenko’s eyes widened. “Oh, is that why you were so scared all of a sudden?”

Garou pointed a finger sternly. “I wasn’t scared. I was... heightened , because I thought he was going to recognize you without your brother and then figure I was the bad guy. Wait--” His pointer finger drooped in his confusion. “What did you think I was tensing up about?”

“I thought you were just embarrassed for forgetting your wallet,” she said, shrugging. “Oh, I almost forgot--here's your chocolate milk!” She reached into the bag and offered it to him.

“Oh no, that was for you. You picked it, remember?”

“Ohh,” she said again, before laughing. “I thought you were secretly trying to tell me you wanted it.”

“Nah,” he said, laughing himself. “I just figured you should eat something other than skittles today.”

“Oh, okay,” she said happily, opening up the carton and taking a sip. “Ah, the cool and refreshing taste of Pepsi.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. Kids.

Garou held the groceries and half-empty milk carton as Zenko stood on her steps and unlocked the front door. “Welcome, welcome” she said, holding the door open for him so he could get through with his hands full.

Metal Bat’s house was definitely messier than he had last seen it. Not, like, Secret Life of Hoarders bad--not even Garou’s own childhood home bad-- but, compared to what had appeared to be Badd’s standard of clean, probably at least a little bad. Considering Zenko was the only one here, it wasn’t that much worse than what he’d expect. Zenko was a pretty organized kid, right?

He set the things down on the counter and turned to her. “Okay, Chief. What’s our first move?”

“Read the directions on the box,” she said smartly.

She dispensed of her back back, and pulled two stools over to the counter so they could sit and she could reach. They hunched over the box and read the directions together.

“ Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix Betsy Kocker Instant Brownie Bowel Blowout Powdered Party Mix ™ with 3 tablespoons water, half a cup vegetable oil, and 2 eggs. Pour into greased pan and bake for 25-30 min.”

“Okay, that seems simple enough,” Garou said, getting up to preheat the oven. “As long as we don’t make any stupid mistakes, this should be pretty easy.”

Zenko nodded in agreement and went to fetch the eggs, oil, and measuring tools.

“Here. You’ll be in charge of the water, and I’ll be in charge of the oil. And then we’ll do the eggs.” She tore open the box and dumped the powder into the mixing bowl, causing a great cocoa colored puff to expel upwards. “It’s important to do the eggs last,” Zenko said matter-of-factly, as she started measuring out a half cup of vegetable oil.

Garou picked up the box again to reread the instructions and see if he’d missed anything. He didn’t remember it making any special indication as to the order. “Are you sure? It doesn’t say anything about it on the box.”

“It’s not about the box, it's about our responsibility as the chefs .” Zenko scoffed. She took a spoonful of her oily, chocolate mess and plopped it in her mouth. “Hmm” She said, moving the spoon from one cheek to the other, taking it out, and then grinning the messiest, most monstrous, chocolate coated smile on earth. “I think it’s missing something. Three tablespoons of water, perhaps?”

“Hey, hey, I was getting to it, I was getting to it!” He took the tablespoon and angled it under the sink. He turned on the water and instantly, an arc of liquid rode the curve of the spoon and sprayed the sink, his shirt, and even the floor.

“Ah, what?! You gotta be kidding me” He groaned.

“Don’t make a mess, Garou.”

“Uh, excuse me, I’m making a mess?” He scoffed, throwing a pointed glance to her hands, which were covered in chocolate and spit as she happily stuck her fingers in her mouth and tested the batter again.

“What do you mean?” She dropped one of her hands to the countertop and left a big brownish oil-and-spit handprint.

“I mean I’m afraid if I add these three teaspoons of water we’re gonna have a mud pie situation on our hands. And by our I mean yours. All over your hands.”

But seeing as this was Metal Bat’s kitchen to sully he didn’t really care too much and added the water anyways. She stirred it, and then tested it again, and said, “Mm. It’s good. Missing something though. Probably the two eggs.”

“Way ahead of you,” he said, picking one up and clutching its cool round surface in his palm.

It was a soothing texture--smooth, delicate but sturdy. A satisfying delay in the internal swish if you cared to shake it. There was one time during an overnight at the dojang...Bang had given them each an egg, and told them their task was to assume horse riding stance, dangle the egg out at chest height, and let go--before catching it with the fingertips of their other hand. Each person's egg had also constituted their dinner, to incentivize not making a mess of the place.

Yeah, martial arts culture was weird. He thought, scratching absentmindedly at the egg's matte shell. Probably for the best he wasn’t wasting his time with that anymore. (Not that he’d wasted his dinner. There’s been a few close calls, but he was able to catch the egg in his fingertips, every time.)

Suddenly, his egg-appreciation moment was cut short-- there was a calico flash, and out of nowhere an animal shot up from below to land on the counter at Zenko’s elbow. Another of those biters from the park?! Garou jolted from his place and shouted “watch out! ” as he whipped the egg in the animal’s direction. It smashed against the countertop next to it and the cat nearly flipped, before scrambling across the counter and knocking over the measuring cups, the oil, the used spoons, and--the carton of eggs--which Garou was thankfully able to catch.

“Garou!” Zenko scolded, getting down from her seat and picking up the oil before any more could glug onto the floor. “Don’t throw eggs at Tama!” The cat, Tama, gave him a huffy, fluffed-out glare, before jumping down to Zenko’s level to sniff curiously at the puddle.

“You have a cat?!” Garou exclaimed. “You should have just eaten that!”

“For the bake sale?”

Garou closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d said it over the half-joking, half-serious sentiment, ‘here I was worried you were going to run out of money and starve to death, but it turns out you have a bratty animal you could have skinned?’ But was now realizing it was probably not the nicest thing to say to an eight-year-old, and was kind of bratty to say, considering the eight-year-old had fed him the other day, and had tried to buy him a milk. Didn’t want the kid to think he was just helping out of...thinking she was going to starve, either. Why not? He didn’t know. It’d probably ruin the cooking, somehow. Not, the food itself, but, like, the process...or something.

Tama made a low growl sound, and glared at Garou in this way that reminded him of Metal Bat somehow even more than the times Zenko gave the evil eye.

Jesus, did every living thing in this house take after him?

“Here, I’ll grab a washcloth,” Garou said, heading to the laundry room where he remembered they were stored. The cat, Tama, followed him, and watched his every move with big angry eyes.

He glanced over his shoulder and glared back at it. “Lay off, would you? I’m not stealing any more clothes.”

The cat fluffed itself out again as he passed back through the doorway.

It didn’t cause any more disruptions as they finished cooking though, and soon he and Zenko had the brownies in the oven, and were relaxing proudly at the kitchen table, waiting for the timer to tell them when they were officially finished.

“Hey, do you want to play any kitchen games while we’re waiting?” Zenko asked him.

“Kitchen games?”

“Yeah! There’s this one kitchen game me and Badd like to play sometimes, called Fridge Donkey.”

“Fridge Donkey?”

“Yeah, this is how it works. First, we draw a donkey on a piece of paper. But we leave off the tail. And then we make a tail separately, and we tape the separate tail to a magnet, and we magnet the donkey to the fridge, and we take turns to close our eyes, spin around in a circle, and try to stick the tail on the Donkey’s butt.”

Garou felt a grin curl the corner of his mouth as his brain conjured the image of Metal Bat, the stoic and deadly Metal Bat, actually doing what Zenko had just described--Spinning around in the middle of his little farmyard red kitchen, scrunching his angry little eyes shut and floundering around trying to slap a magnet onto an ass’s ass. He began laughing, wishing dearly that the guy was here, purely so that he could laugh at him harder.

“What’s so funny?” Zenko asked.

Tama was glaring at him. Probably didn’t like the noise.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, still chuckling a bit as he wiped at his eye. “It sounds really cool. Let’s try it.”

Zenko got the paper supplies, as well as Mr. and Mrs Rabbit, who were apparently also regular competitors at this sport. Making quick work of the donkey, they named him Beatrice and pinned him to the refrigerator using a magnet shaped like an X, a magnet shaped like a 2, a magnet shaped like a Lady Bug, and magnet shaped like Tama.

“Okay, I'll refresh you on how it works,” Zenko said, scrunching her eyes shut and spinning around in a circle, arms out and socked toes patting against the floor rapidly.

“Okay, face me towards the fridge” she giggled, eyes still shut. He nudged her in the right direction and watched as she felt her way clumsily forward, laughing all the way, until she slapped the tail on the fridge, opened her eyes, and saw that it had ended up right on Beatrice’s nose. “Oh look, it’s on the paper--pretty good for a first try. Okay, Mr. Rabbit’s turn!”

“Oh no, Zenko, you should let Garou go next, he’s the guest,” Mr. Rabbit said in a slightly lower, grumblier version of Zenkos regular tone.

“Oh, no, I’d like to see Mr. Rabbit do it” Garou said, grinning at him. “I think it’ll help me perfect my strategy if I watch him go first.”

“Very well, very well,” Mr. Rabbit grumbled. Zenko covered his eyes with his ears, and then closed her own eyes again, spun around in a circle, and held Mr. Rabbit’s arm and the magnet together so he could pin it on the fridge.

“Wow, Mr. Rabbit, you did almost as good as Zenko,” Garou said, going to the fridge and pretending to scrutinize the tail-to-ear placement seriously.

“Well, I am an Olympic Athlete.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

“Mrs. Rabbit is too.”

“Naturally. I’m going to beat both of you though, because I’m the Human Monster.”

Mr. Rabbit's paws landed huffily on his chubby hips. “No human or monster powers can compare to the powers of Mrs. Rabbit.”

Garou let out an evil super villain laugh and took his spot in the center of the kitchen. “Okay, Zenko, Mr. Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit. Prepare to be blown away.” He closed his eyes, letting his concentration pool into his other senses as he rotated. He felt a thrill in his gut as he stopped--spinning was always fun for that--and then started walking forward, listening to Zenko giggling at him and knowing that meant he was almost to the fridge--Beatrice was at about elbow level, so if he reached at 90 degrees--

Rrring.

A loud bell sound interrupted his concentration. His eyes cracked open. “Was that the timer?” He said, turning to look at it.

It still read 18 minutes.

Rrring Rrring.

“No,” Zenko said. “It’s the phone.”

They both ran to the living room, where a red house phone sat on its receiver on the side table next to the sofa. Zenko clambered over the sofa's arm and swiped the phone off the hook. “Hello?”

Garou knelt on the ground, leaning closer himself to listen as the squiggly little voice replied from the other side. “Yes, hello? I saw this number on a poster the other day. Are you still searching for Metal Bat?”

“Yes” Zenko said, her dark eyes widening as she stared ahead and pressed the phone close to her ear with two hands “Have you seen him?”

There was a quick squiggly sound, and Zenko looked frantically all around her.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that, so I can write it down?” Her eyes turned urgently to Garou, nodding at him to get something. He leapt up hastily and sped to the kitchen, grabbed the paper they’d been playing with off the fridge, and sprinted back, ready to write.

Zenko put the phone on speaker.

“At 1 o'clock, on the corner of Renmin and Barren Street, I saw him. Four weeks ago today.”

Chapter 9: 7 Important Things about J-City Penitentiary

Chapter Text

There were 7 important things Garou knew about J-City Penitentiary. He’d learned them all from the perspective of someone who had been planning to break out, but never really had the chance to test them. Back when he’d escaped incarceration, it’d been pretty easy--he hadn’t actually had to escape the prison itself, because those pathetic Hero Association guys had dragged him and a bunch of other lowlifes over to their headquarters to beg for fresh meat to be their disposable front-line fighters.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t been prepared to claw his way out of that place before, though. Apart from the administrative buildings and cafeteria, the prison was basically a big brick cube with rows and rows of cells stacked from top to bottom. Simple enough, architecturally, and plenty of places where effectiveness had been traded off for efficiency or cheapness. The moment he had been sent to prison, he began scanning for weak points in the system, and had found several that were conducive to escape, or, infiltration.

But he’d already brooded over them enough for one night. Garou settled his elbows against his knees, and his head against his arms, in an attempt to rest. The wood he was leaning against creaked. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but damn, was he beat.

--

After he and Zenko had gotten the call earlier, Garou had walked over to the refrigerator and pinned up their very first note about a Metal Bat sighting. They’d both stood numbly in front of the fridge, staring at it, saying nothing…which was uncharacteristic for Zenko. Except Garou hadn’t really thinking about it, he’d been thinking about the first important thing he knew about J-City Penitentiary:

Number 1: The inside of the prison was lit primarily from the ceiling.

But then he’d heard a rustle of fabric and looked behind him, to see Zenko pulling on her jacket and shoes. “Okay, I’m going to Barren Street,” she said.

“Your brownies are going to burn if we leave them,” he told her.

“Can’t you watch them?”

“Not by myself.”

She let out a huffy sigh, and slapped her hands down on her thighs. “Well, can’t you try? This is kind of important.”

Okay, now the brat really was acting like a brat.

“No, I can’t, and I won’t,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

She blinked in disbelief, and then glared at him. “I know it might not be the same for you, Garou, but to me, the brownies aren’t as important as Badd. I need to check out the crime scene A-Essay-Peep--”

Does she mean ASAP?

“--Listen! Now is not the time for you to be immature. Either I give up and turn the brownies off now, or you watch them to make sure they don’t burn while I’m gone.”

Yikes, was the kid actually mad at him? Ah, well, it’s not like he had any reason to care about that. “Look, I don’t know the first thing about telling if brownies are done, and it’s only a measly 8 minutes left anyways. Let it finish, and then go. And I’ll tag along for the walk.”

She tilted her head up and groaned.

Sure, he could understand why she was impatient. It was the only lead they’d gotten in weeks. But it wasn’t like 8 minutes was going to make much of a difference for a scene where Metal Bat had been spotted nearly four weeks back. Four weeks back, Metal Bat hadn’t even been missing, so Zenko had actually sighted him more recently than that caller had. Garou didn’t want to boss her around with her own time, but he’d gone through all the trouble of today because she’d said she wasn’t supposed to use the oven without an adult, which implied that it was his call to figure out what to do about the oven and all the potentially flammable stuff that was sitting in it right now. And the brownies were important. Not missing-person-level important, but important enough not to give up on out of an unproductive impulse. It was a hazard to leave the oven on too long, it was a waste to turn it off too early, and even though he didn’t suspect they’d find much for grisly “crime scene” evidence on Barren Street…whatever entity had taken Metal Bat probably had a hunting ground. And Zenko would be walking right into it.

No, figuring out how to take brownies from the oven was much too confusing a task for him to do by himself.

And so, begrudgingly, Zenko had waited. And the brownies came out perfect.

--

Currently, Garou was feeling a bit sick to his stomach though, so food wasn’t exactly the first thing he wanted to reminisce about. Another slow roll of motion moved the floor below him, and there was a plasticy clunk as the tupperware holding his share of the dessert slid into the edge of a wooden pallet. His gut felt like it had flopped across the floor with it. Nah, best to think about something other than food. How about…

Number 2: At J City Penitentiary, the cameras only recorded 360 degrees at the entrance and exits. All internal cameras were rigid, with a scope that had to be 180 degrees or less.

--

He’d remembered Number 2 as he and Zenko were locking up the house, so that they could begin their walk towards Barren Street. The mood had definitely become more somber since the phone call. Zenko may have been a bit impulsive directly after it, but now her composure was renewed, and she stood with a straight back and a stiff jaw. All business.

“Did we remember to turn off the oven?” Garou said, just as she locked the house and slipped the key into her pocket.

“For the one billionth time, yes,” she said, turning around just in time for him to see a heavy eye roll. “And if you ask again I’m going to start believing you really are a crazy old grandpa. Stop being so antsy pantsy.”

“Hey,” he snapped, actually feeling kind of irritated. “It’s not my fault I’m not used to having a–”

“Having a what?” Her voice was challenging, aggressive, almost. She was staring at him with Metal Bat eyes, almost like she knew what he’d been about to say, and was daring him to cut the bullsh*t. But that couldn’t be the case--she had no reason to know anything about his bullsh*t. But still, the look was unsettling.

“--having a bake sale,” he mumbled, dropping his eyes to the sidewalk and jamming his hands into his pockets. Jesus, when would he learn how to just shut the hell up? It was stupid, anyways, the thing he’d been thinking about himself. His whole stupid, sh*tty situation was all his fault. Sure, if society wasn’t such a cluster f*ck to try to fit into, maybe things would’ve turned out differently for him--but it had been his choice to make a f*cking scene about it, and the consequences were on him. It was a stupid way of thinking, pathetic for a grown-ass adult. He wasn’t Zenko’s age, after all. He was eighteen friggin years old. Eighteen and three-quarters, actually. Much too old to have any hope.

He was seventeen-and-a-half, back when he’d first been sent to J-City Penitentiary. It was his first offense, and his age put him on the fence, but they’d taken one look at the scope of his case and bumped it from Juvenile to Adult court. Which he’d appreciated, at the time, because it meant they took him seriously. He remembered, just before he’d been sentenced, they announced that, unlike most others of his age, he was a hopeless case--little chance of ever being rehabilitated into a functioning member of their precious little society. And he’d grinned, feeling his chest turn hot on the inside--somehow wounded and delighted at the same time--as he wholeheartedly agreed with them: “That’s right, because I’m gonna be the first human monster. Just you wait and see.”

And so he’d learned about Number 3. Within the main prison, the primary cameras were located at each of the four corners of the ceiling. This left a blind spot underneath the shadow of the catwalk for every row of cells that wasn’t the very highest one.

But anyways--he thought, watching Zenko speed ahead of him, her neat, second-hand shoes clapping against the sidewalk as she hurried to the street sign that wedged together Lorong and Barren--He’d set out to prove those guys right, and he’d succeeded. Which was perfectly acceptable to be proud about, but not if he was going to go around whining that he hadn’t earned the end result…It was one hundred percent his fault that he wasn’t used to having an oven.

--

Okay, he was seriously getting sick to his stomach now. Garou pressed his lips against his forearm and groaned. Since when had he been prone to motion sickness? Was Zenko really right about the concussion thing? Maybe his gut was getting weak from all the cooked food lately. To his credit, he was used to outdoor conditions. The air was really stuffy, where he was sitting now. And there was a crate of Durians next to his head. Okay, yeah--that can’t have been helping. He buried his head and tried to direct his thoughts to just about anything else…

--

Earlier that day, at the corner of Larong and Barren, Garou had stood quietly by the street sign and watched as Zenko flitted about, scouring every inch of the sidewalk for clues.

He was only a little tense. Nothing about the place screamed crime scene. It was your basic street corner--there was an average-kept sidewalk, potholes. No smashed telephone poles, blood splatters, or particularly strategically positioned landmarks. Which certainly didn’t mean an abduction couldn’t happen here, but for someone like Metal Bat? Garou had his eyes out for something that would give any potential attackers an advantage. This place was empty.

It was past rush hour right now, and there weren’t even any cars. Further down Barren Street Garou could make out a few small apartment buildings, an eye-care center. Follow that road and you’d get further into the housing district. Go the other way, down Larong, and you’d touch the edge of shopping and food, but end up near the school district, eventually. Here, at the corner, there wasn’t much. Not even a bus stop. Nothing particularly--oh, Zenko was out in the street. Garou ambled over and stood beside her.

“Find anything?” He asked.

“No,” she said. “No blood, no hairs, no fabrics.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like there’s much for those,” he said. Blood, hairs, and fabrics probably wouldn’t have been there anyways though, if there had been some sort of struggle a few weeks ago. She’d probably learned about that sort of clue-collecting from TV.

She sighed, and slumped her shoulders. A lonely kid, standing directionless, in the middle of an empty intersection. Nothing in every direction.

“Hey,” Garou said, tapping her shoulder sharply. “I know it’s not really your thing, but imagine this: Someone wants to fight someone else.” He knelt down, and touched the asphalt with his fingertips, as if he could use it to feel the intentions of everybody who’d walked over it in the past. “Someone who likes to do things secretly, without anyone finding out, wants to fight someone big and strong and head-on like your brother. Anything here that they could use to give themself an edge?” Garou knew that Metal Bat was a head-on kind of guy. In fact, based on the one time Garou had fought him, it was the adrenaline that came with knowing he was stuck in the thick of a conflict that enabled Metal Bat to push himself to extremes. The longer he perceived himself to be in battle, the stronger and more focused he became. The moment he was out of fight mode, his endurance plummeted. Any prior injuries in the mix, and the buildup of shunted fatigue actually seemed to make him weaker than the average human.

So, an attacker who really wanted to beat him would be best served by avoiding engagement in direct combat--either by attacking him before he realized there was an enemy, or swooping in from the shadows, after he had already been engaged in a fight.There hadn’t been any reports of dazzling battle scenes in the past month, which gave good reason to suspect that whoever had grabbed the guy knew how to set up an ambush.

“I don’t know,” Zenko mumbled, voice small.

“Yeah you do. Is there anything tall, if I wanted to jump on him from above?”

She lifted her eyes, and scanned the area. “No. There’s nothing. Not even a tree.”

“Right. Good observation. Anything wide enough, if I wanted to hide behind it to jump him from the side?”

Looking a little more with it, Zenko turned on the spot, moving a slow 360 degrees. “No. But someone could put a car on the side, if they wanted.”

“That’s true.”

“Badd always said to watch out for those cars that sit on the side and pretend to be taxi drivers.”

“He’s right, that’s smart. So maybe he’d know to watch out for that. Or maybe he’d forget sometimes too--you never know. Hey, take a look at that manhole you're standing on.”

“Yeah?” She said, looking down by her feet. “Do you think someone could’ve popped out from there?”

“It’s possible. I’m also wondering if you can see any dents or scuff marks on it.”

She squatted down and squinted closely. “Hm. Nothing that I can see. Why? Do you think someone would smash it open from underneath to get out?”

“They could, although I’m betting someone sneaky and clever wouldn’t want to. But someone like your brother…well, I remember one time he whacked one of these things at me like we were playing a game of death metal frisbee. If there aren’t any smash marks, here or anywhere else in the area, we can probably rule out a fight like that. And remember, the caller said that they saw him walking here, which means that the evidence we see lines up. Nobody fought him here. Maybe, when he was a bit further down the street, something could’ve happened. Want to walk a few hundred feet out in each direction?”

“Okay.”

So they did. It didn’t lead to any groundbreaking discoveries, but Garou noticed Zenko checking for things she hadn’t been before, so at least it seemed to give her a bit of practice for feeling out the environment. By the time they were walking home, Garou felt almost like he was having a conversation with a mini version of himself:

“That underpass near the ramp would have been a good place to surprise someone from above.”

“Yeah, but not as good as that spot with the apartment complex--there were so many different window ledges.”

“Yeah, but that was kind of out of the way. What reason would he have to go down there if he wasn’t already on the alert for a monster?”

“True. And someone definitely would have noticed if there was an outright fight in that spot. What did you think about the alley on Blaire street?”

“Definitely a bit squeezed-- easy to hide, and probably would have been a difficult spot for him to swing his bat fully.”

“Maybe we should check it again when it’s less dark out.”

“Yeah, especially if we get any calls about him going anywhere in the area.”

“Next time someone calls, we should clarify what direction he was walking in, so we can narrow down which street to explore better.”

“Good idea.”

The part of his brain that liked to strategize felt like it was waking up from a long, sleepy spell. Which got him back to thinking about J-City Penitentiary, where he knew that:

(Number 4) The cameras meant to keep an eye on each lateral cluster of cells were positioned one on the end of each row, leaving a blind spot at the edge of the first cell, and recording low resolution in the wedge of darkness that was cast from the top of the catwalk above, and a point about a foot out from the edge of each cell.

And as he and Zenko unlocked her house and went back into the kitchen so they could start wrapping up the brownies from earlier, he’d thought about:

Number 5: The cafeteria and kitchen were located between the administrative offices and prisoners' quarters. Below the cafeteria and the kitchen, there was a storage room, and between the storage room and the outside world was a loading dock, which received bulk shipments of food, packaged in crates that were large enough for an adult human monster to hide amongst.

He and Zenko individually packed 30 brownies into their own little cellophane bags. She had the bags already because of the last baking project (music-note shaped sugar cookies, which Badd had apparently helped her make for the reception at a school concert). When about half of the goods were wrapped up, Zenko clapped her hands together and said, “and the rest goes to the chefs!”

“Oh, nice,” Garou said. “I was hoping you’d let me take home some of the extras. My kitchen is kind of a mess so I don’t really bake too much.”

Zenko’s eyes flicked briefly to the baggy folds of the shirt he was wearing. “Yeah, you should take half, since we made them together.”

“Nah, a fourth is fine.”

“Half is fair. I’ll put them in a box for you, so you can carry them home.” Which reminded him of:

Number six: A truck carrying these food crates, which were always stamped for export by the J-City Port Authority, arrived at the Prison’s loading dock every Thursday afternoon.

“Alright, kid, good luck with the bake sale. See you later.”

“Thanks, enjoy your brownies! Bye bye!”

Number 7: Which was perfect, because Zenko didn’t have piano lessons, and could therefore take the bus home on Thursday afternoons.

They hit a wave. Garou grabbed his little box of brownies before it could slide further across the floor. Changing to a half-lotus sitting position, he clutched them in his lap and closed his eyes, taking a few steady, meditative breaths to ease his jumpy insides. It helped. The sound of the sea sloshing against the metal sides of the cargo ship became a smooth element of ambience, rather than a sickening reminder of his squirrely stomach, and the impending task awaiting him in the morning.

He needed to rest. After all, when the sunlight hit him and these boxes, he’d have to be ready for action…Ay-Essay-Peep.

He relaxed. There was no need to be nervous. He knew exactly what he was doing:

He was breaking into J-City Penitentiary.

--

It was blurred, but he could see it.

The door.

His breath shivered as he looked away from it and let his focus slip to the sight of the smudged and rusted hand quivering at arms length to his face. Its fingernails were bent, bloodied, rubbed to a porous looking fuzz, as if someone had repeatedly ground them against a hard granite wall.

The thought crossed his mind to make a fist. The fingertips of the hand twitched weakly.

His eyesight was beginning to fade again so his consciousness switched to auditory. He could hear water, trickling through the pipes in the walls. Ringing, in his ears…but that was always there-his tinnitus.

And then, faint, but getting louder…footsteps. His pulse picked up. The hand and arm attached to it started squirming, joints popping, veins and muscles pulsing like drugged slugs squirming under his skin, wanting to push himself up and scramble away. But his face stayed pressed against the floor. He was tired.

But that heavy drum sound--dun, dun, dun--was getting louder and louder against the inside of his skull, his chest, his arteries--he could hear it through the cold cement, getting closer and closer. There were fleas jumping around in his heart, trying to get out, causing his skin to crawl and his breaths to go quick and sharp.

The footsteps stopped outside, and his pupils dilated at the two black stripes standing against the white crack of light that underscored the door.

Then the crack became whole again. There were another few footfalls, and the sound of steps faded until there was nothing to listen to but ringing in his ears, and the dampered drip of the cell walls.

His bump of adrenaline fell, bringing his energy down with it. Black hair slipped in front of his eyes, followed by a darkness that was all encompassing.

As if his entire world had been shaded in with a little black crayon.

Chapter 10: Frozen Fruit

Chapter Text

There were two ways this could’ve gone.

Garou stared at the sheet of metal that extended from toe ceiling of the R-V sized, industrial steel shipping container he was standing in with all the other produce crates.

The crack at the edge of the door mocked him.

He slammed his shoulder into it again, for, you know, fun.

Just to see, for fun, if he could get it to budge another millimeter open.

When it came to maritime transport, it was important for boxes such as these to be sturdy. He knew that.

There was probably some importance to the variety of colors they came in too. He’d guessed that, but it wasn’t really important; when he’d looked at the shipping vessel from a distance, with all its colorful boxes stacked together into a compact block on the deck of the ship, the first genius thought that had popped into his head was that they looked like the little lego blocks he used to play with as a kid, and it sure was a good thing that he was selecting a box to sneak into after they had already been loaded on, because that way, he could choose one at the top of the Lego block, and avoid being boxed in by the surrounding Legos.

He had figured, when he’d eyeballed this particular boat, that its big colorful lego block was pretty maxed out in height. Surely, it wouldn’t be making any additional stops between here and J city to pick up more boxes. Once he’d slipped inside, getting stealthily into J-City would be as easy as slipping out of this particular box, taking a leisurely stroll over the city distribution warehouse, and waiting for the prison’s transport truck to come and pick up their food order so he could slip into the back. No fights, no fuss, no noise.

That had been the hypothetical “Easy Way.”

And now, he had a considerably dumb problem on his hands.

He kicked the door and it rattled against the surface of the other shipping container that had been packed in front of it.

He had destroyed and discouraged an entire generation of a historically recognised clan of martial artists.
He had sparred nearly every pro hero in the S-Class of the Hero Association.
He had fought the King of Monsters.

And right now, he was being defeated by a box of fruit.

They had ganged up on him, okay? Look, they were nearly ten tons each (he’d checked, the weight capacity was printed on the outside) and they had him surrounded. He was an ant stuck inside a lego stuck inside a block of legos. And if he didn’t get out of this box soon, he was an ant at the mercy of chance. What if the goods in here weren't unpacked from their boxes until the next day, and he was stuck in this gridlock overnight? Or, since apparently this boat made a happy little chain of stops along the coast, what about if this box wasn’t even meant for here, and the boat moved along to the next city’s port before he was able to get out?

Threw the whole point of affordable transportation out the window, that’s what.

He was fairly certain he was in the right place. He could feel that the boat wasn’t moving, so it had to be in port right now. And sure, he couldn’t see anything, but earlier in the week he had developed a foolproof method for making sure he was in the right city:

“Hey Zenko, you said you got an A on your last math test, right?”
“Yes, a one hundred and four, as a matter of fact”
“You think you’re so smart, huh? I bet I can make up a problem you can’t solve.”
“Hah! Try me, Crazy Hair!”
“Okay, so if a modern cargo ship moves at about 40 knots from point A, and point B is--”
“Knot? What’s that? A way of saying how fast something goes? What is that in kilometers?”
“That’s your job to figure out, big brain.”

He was banking on her calculation that if he caught a boat scheduled to leave port about 16 hours before morning, 16 hours later he could be reasonably assured that the boat’s nearest stop was J City. Though he’d had to tack an extra hour onto that estimate (thanks to that stupid little stop earlier) he was fairly certain that right now he was exactly where he needed to be.

Geographically speaking. The boxes were still an issue.

Okay. Okay, this was okay, he could handle this. He just needed to find a weak point. The crack in the door was the obvious one, so he decided to start there.

He had already tried pushing it, slamming it, and punching it while swearing. So, what about kicking it? Innovative.

He didn’t have enough room for anything fancy, so he figured a standard sidekick was the best bet–no flashy arcs, good for distributing a blunt pushing force, and its use of the foot’s blade put his toes at lesser risk of injury.

Shifting his right foot behind him, he narrowed his eyes at the door, raised his fists in front of face, and in one quick motion uncoiled his body and jabbed the blade of his foot into the door, causing a huge BANG to cascade through each atom of metal in this box, the box in front of this box, probably the next box over…
He brushed his fingertips over the spot he'd kicked to examine his work.

Some chipped paint and a teeny tiny dent. Millimeter deep, at best.

Okay, no this wasn’t worth it, especially not with the noise it made. It did show him that he could work with this metal though. He just needed to find somewhere that didn't involve another box to batter against. Were any of the other sides unblocked? He pressed his ear against the blocked door and knocked on it, lightly. A deep, thick sound. Squeezing past the stupid food crates in his way, he knocked on the left side. Same sound. Edging his way through the dark, he made his way to each end of the box and tested the sound to determine if there was metal pressed against it on the other side.

The answer was yes, very much so. There had to be another box underneath him, so that left…

He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Alright, maybe he wasn't so mad about these durian crates after all.

Feeling the sweat start to dapple his forehead, he rearranged the crates to give him a slightly more convenient climb, and he hefted himself to the top of his structure. Kneeling there, he twisted to press his ear against the metal and--

Ting ting.

Haha, yes!

Garou pumped the air with his fist and hissed a private cheer.

Alright, now what?

He didn't just want to hit it and hit it and hit it until it just wasn’t bendy enough--the fact that he had successfully put a dent in it earlier meant that it was malleable, and that meant–well, it was like that proverb the old man used to tell them during stretch warm ups. “The grass that bends flexibly in the wind survives the storm, while the elm tree…" or, the oak tree? The pine tree? Whatever, all the trees– lose their branches or...get blown over...or something. Eh, he'd never really liked that saying; the passivism, the trees--he'd always figured it was a load of hippie sh*t.

The point was, right now, he needed something like that blunt knife he'd used to set up that payphone scam. That way he could concentrate the force into one point, punch a hole and make his own weak spot, instead of waiting for this malleable metal lid to decide it was done responding to his hits by just bending a little bit more.

He hopped down from where he was perched and positioned himself in front of one of the crates he'd shoved to the side earlier.

He slid his back foot into stance, raised his fists, and grinned.

This kick was going to be satisfying.

With a woody CRACK the crate collapsed upon itself, causing splinters to fly and durian fruits to thunk and roll heavily across the floor. Feeling unreasonably happy with himself, Garou knelt down and sifted his fingers through the wreckage, until he found a piece of wood with an exposed nail poking out. Grabbing an extra little slab, he climbed back onto his stack of crates. He layered the extra wood against his palm and the wood with the nail on top of that, so that he could make a fist around them and have the nail stick out where his knuckles were. Positioning himself as best as he could, he picked a spot on the ceiling, drew his fist back, and punched.

The nail squeaked against the shredded metal as he pulled it out of his proudest achievement of the year: a little pinprick of light twinkling with the orange haze of the early morning sunlight.

From there it was just a few well placed strikes before he had a pinprick nearly the size of his head. Which wasn't saying too much, considering he was kind of a pinhead, but it was certainly better. He popped his head out like a chipmunk checking the view outside its burrow.

Oh, hell yeah.

Being at the top of the Lego block, He was at the very highest point he could be on this boat, which was securely at port, waiting for its Legos to be unloaded by the the nearest crane station, and sitting in the inky blue ocean with about five other large craft that were waiting to do the exact same thing. Way down below him, he could see a few crewmates moving around on the deck. From a distance, he could see the J City Port authority building, its little blue and gold flag fluttering in the salty morning breeze.

Nice. Nice nice nice.

Now he just had to bent a bit more metal out of the way, poke his head out again, lift with his legs, put his right arm over the top, pull his shoulder through–
Pull his shoulder through–
Pull his shoulder through–

and

He was stuck.

With his right arm jabbed awkwardly into the sky, his head and neck pressed flat against the outside surface, and his left shoulder and half his ribcage still submerged in the metal of the shipping container, it was as if someone had a watch that could stop time, and they used it to get a freeze frame at what it looks if when a really, really lazy whale gives a go at breaching the water, but only bothers to bob out with one flipper up before twisting back into the sea with a half gram of bullsh*tting satisfaction in itself.

Except for he was not satisfied, and this was some real bullsh*t.

Letting out a light screech of frustration, he cursed his freakishly wide ribcage and felt the metal slice shallowly into the skin below his armpit as he tried to wriggle himself into a less slanted position by adjusting his legs on the crates he was squatting on.

There was a thump as the stack gave out, the crate tumbled to the floor, and suddenly he was treading thin air–before gravity did its thing and

THUNK

He was yanked back to the bottom of his terrarium, swearing profusely because his entire side and underarm had nicked some sharp metal going down, and yeah the bleeding wasn’t great but holy sh*t he’d just gotten a rip that went all the way up the side of the Blue Saturday Shirt, and the only way Badd wasn’t going to kill him was if Zenko did it first.

His breath was shaking, his fingertips too, probably from the adrenaline of the surprise fall, he figured–as he lifted the shirt above his head and folded it into a square that he could stuff into his pocket instead. Dust and broken wood and durian and sea smell swirled around this box, along with the scent of his blood, and his chest rose and fell heavily as he breathed this air and set about the task of stacking his crates back up again. Making sure to widen the escape hole a bit more, he clawed himself out and into the world–sweaty, shirtless, and smeared in blood–and rolled onto his side to suck a fresh breath of air into his lungs and rest for a moment, closing his eyes to the distant caws of seagulls, the muted echo of sailors voices calling each other across the water, and the water itself, washing its waves softly across everything it could touch.

Then he rose up, placed his hands on his hips, and, standing tall, prepared himself to face the next leg of this journey, and never see the inside of this shipping container ever again…

…before then he realized he’d left the brownies behind, and so hopped back into the box to grab them.

Chapter 11: Down to a Gamble

Chapter Text

Getting off the boat was easy enough: climb down the lego block, wait for the sailors to turn their backs (which, as the crane operator was doing most of the heavy lifting, they did quite a lot) and slip into the big old shipping yard of boxes, pallets, and mile high machines - which was just begging to give the gift of cluttered, unmonitored vastness to a slippery good-for-nothing such as himself.

As the biggest, plainest, most metallic and boxy building within a 200 foot radius of the docks, the distribution warehouse was easy to find. And if buildings were people, this building would be the gentle giant who has no idea how to fight and doesn’t even bother to lift his fists in front of his face when you throw a punch at his gaping mouth. His five, gaping mouths, actually. There were five loading docks: five five-ish meter entrances where trucks were supposed to back up so that they could open the door and get the load they needed shoved in the backside…Or, uh...the items they had requested placed professionally in the trailer located at the far end of the vehicle.

Yeah. That was the better way to put it.

Put simply, he probably could've tap danced his way into this joint and nobody would give a sh*t.

Garou was on guard, nonetheless. He didn't want to ruin his chances with a careless mistake. He circled around the side building, the early morning haze of the orange-tinted daylight providing cover to his lanky silhouette as he stalked his way through a wasteland of rusty shipping containers with paint peeling off their rippled panels, discarded crates with nails sticking out the edges, and soggy, cardboard boxes sitting in puddles dappled with cigarette
butts.

His breath came out as a chill puff in front of his face as he reached the edge of the building and pressed himself into its shadow. He spanned the length of the building and peered around the corner, now able to get an up-close angle on the row of loading docks. Maybe from here he could just sit and watch for –

He jolted back into the shadows, fists lunging up to cover his face as a piercing sound blared out, not more than 20 feet from his hiding spot.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Phew. Okay. He crept forward again, determinedly not embarrassed by the fact that he’d been spooked - not spooked, made vigilant - by a truck’s backing up noise.

Some early riser was lining up with Dock 5 to pick up their order for the day. Which was really freakin great for blocking Garou’s view of all four of the other entrances.

Sighing, he waited for the truck to be done reversing, and then watched as the cab door opened and the driver hopped out, worn looking sneakers hitting the ground with a light clap before the gray, rumpled rest of him stretched out and he plodded tiredly over to the door, where a warehouse worker squatted down to be closer to eye-level as she greeted him from the raised cement floor she was standing on. With a clipboard held in hand, she briefly confirmed his company and order number.

Garou observed the process of this truck being loaded. While the driver chose to hover idly nearby, stretching his legs (in an exercise that looked suspiciously like Tai Chi), the warehouse worker (Garou couldn’t get a super clear visual, but he was fairly certain it was just the one) used a small, two-pronged forklift machine to move the majority of the load (which was a two layer stack of crates on pallets) before manually placing a few odd boxes that either weren’t heavy enough or weren’t numerous enough to warrant using the forklift. Then the warehouse worker and the driver waved eachother off, the truck departed, and the warehouse worker disappeared back into her boxy habitat.

Bent at the waste, Garou slipped quickly over to Dock 5 and peered over the edge of the raised floor. He didn’t see anybody nearby, so, swiftly, he placed his hands on the edge and lifted himself into the warehouse.

The first thing he saw was the forklift. His eyebrows bounced up in surprise when he noticed that the clipboard and paper were sitting on the driver’s seat. Glancing around, he saw nobody immediately near him, so went right over to flip through the list of companies and order numbers, which were ordered by time of arrival for the entire day.

JCity F.Pen was on the second page, projected to arrive somewhere between 11:30 and noon.

Well, that was a beautiful f*cking break. He’d figured he’d have to find a spot and keep his eyes peeled to scrutinize every single truck, every single work uniform, that passed through here all day. Now he had a nice little window of time that he knew his target was going to be arriving at. Wow. Sometimes good things do happen to sh*t people. Suck it, Karma.

Slipping around the side of the forklift, he crouched down for some temporary cover so he could wait for his brain to formulate the next few steps of his plan.

The inside of the warehouse prompted him to imagine that he was back inside his shipping container, but with the perspective of an ant. Rippled metal made walls that unfurled more than 10 meters upwards, completing a huge, steely gray interior. Similarly to J-City Penitentiary, the lighting came from the ceiling, and interior use of vertical and horizontal surfaces created a mishmash of places where the light was either in harsh relief or shrouded in the faded gray of shadows filtering through a jagged cascade of other surfaces.

Those other surfaces were goods. Perhaps most impressive about this place was the goods. Garou felt his mouth fall open slightly as he ogled the hundred foot shelf of bananas - just bananas, every single item on that shelf, a crate of bananas - that extended upwards to the ceiling and backwards into the shadows, standing proudly in the center of the numerous rows of other monoliths devoted to just one type of thing. Of course, it couldn’t be all the same thing - there were only about 15 rows, so there had to be a place somewhere along these lines where apples turned into oranges, where cereals turned into soup…where peanuts turned into peanut butter, and jerky turned into steak – wait, did there exist refrigerated boxes? Could there be an entire shelf of meat here?

Okay, no, wait, that wasn’t important.

What was important was that he had found the best vantage point.

Who were his adversaries?

On shift now, there appeared six or so warehouse workers; through the opening of Dock 3, he could see a glimpse of the outside, where one of them was talking to a shipyard worker; another one was between inside and outside, occupied with a customer at Dock 1, and the rest of them of them were buzzing around in the floorspace between the docks and the shelves, some apparently busy with unpacking a delivery to the warehouse, and the rest occupied with packing up an order for one of the customers.

Garou could guess that the unpackers put the newest stuff in the back, while the packers took the stuff that was ready to go sooner at the front. Since most of the boats were still waiting to be unloaded over at the dock, that meant the best place for him to be was at the back of the warehouse.

BEEP

He jolted out of his skin again as another truck pulled loudly into Dock 5.

Okay, he had to hurry, a worker was coming over.

His hand was in something wet.

Garou's eyes fell briefly to his hands, which were pressed against the cement floor. He lifted and replaced his right hand, noticing a smudgy red print left after its dip in the blood splatter that was on the floor, courtesy of the giant scrape on his side.

His eyes darted to the corner nearest Dock 5, where there was a pile of cardboard boxes, some heavy duty packing tape, and a stapler gun.

"That's gonna be order 9, right Jen?"

"Yep! Clipboard's on the forklift if ya need it, Lao!"

Lao's head peered over the edge of the forklift.

By then, Garou was at the other end of the warehouse, the shadow of a thousand jars of peanut butter hiding him successfully amongst the labyrinth of food.

Taking a moment to quietly catch his breath, he slid down to the floor and sat. He had some time before he needed to be where he needed to see.

Upon the floor he laid his three items of inventory. The tupperware of brownies went first. The blue Saturday shirt was next to join. And then his newest item, a roll of tape.

Twisting slightly, he raised his arm and peered downward to examine the cut. It stretched all the way from his armpit to his pelvis, following the concavity of his already scarred side and making him weirdly aware of how pale he was under there. Was he normally this color, or was it blood loss?

Eh, a little blood loss had never stopped him before. Besides, it looked like the red line was starting to have a bit of success with coagulation. No, the issue here was that he was apparently fingerpainting a map of his DNA across the entirety of his route. All the way from farm fresh to a prison near you!

Of course, he figured if he did this right he could get away without arousing suspicion on any leg of the journey, and a little stain on the floor of some warehouse wouldn't ever be looked into further than Jen or Lao wondering which one of their coworkers got nicked on a nail and didn't bother to clean it up properly.

But doing things right did not start with leaving a trail of blood all the way into the prison he was about to break into.

I'll wash this for you later he thought as he picked up Badd's shirt and used it to dab his skin dry. Dropping it again, he picked up the tape and pulled out a long ream. Ripping it with his teeth, he lined it up carefully with the cut, and poked it into place.

There, good as new!

Hey, this tape had a surprisingly good hold - he twisted his torso a bit, satisfied with the adhesive strength. With another stroke of genius, he picked up the tupperware of brownies.
Why carry something in your hands when you could carry it on your body?

He pulled out another line of tape, a little longer than the first one, and wrapped it around his waist. He used a bit of extra tape to secure the lid of the tupperware and then wrapped the tape around it to make a handy little loop, which he taped to his waist tape and then added a little extra tape to to make it secure.

He was about to pull his shirt on again.

When his eyes fell to one of the many jars of peanut butter.

When everything was tucked in and taped where it needed to be, he slipped swiftly along the back wall of the warehouse and selected one of the center shelves. Reaching for the edge of the third highest shelf, he stepped onto one of the lower ones and hauled himself up. Easy peasy. In a matter of seconds, he had scaled the shelf and was at the very top, enjoying a relatively spacious and empty perch that afforded him a view of the warehouse from wall to wall.
Now to migrate to the front so he could watch the loading docks.

Scuttling across the shelf was easy at first, though it got a bit clunkier as it became more populated with items. It started with a few crates, which he easily weaved around. And then a few turned into a lot, and then a lot turned into a solid block with no gaps. There was about two feet of space from the top of the block to the ceiling.

Good thing he’d lost some weight.

Slinking onto the tops of the crates, he slithered over them on his belly, stumping along on his forearms and twisting his thighs outward so his knees could help propel him along. When he neared the front of the shelf, he peered over the top of the last crate and observed the beetle-sized workers flitting around below.

His eyes went to the clock that hung on the wall above Dock 3.

10:03 AM.

Okay, now all he had to do was wait here.

For an hour and a half.

On his belly.

On a stack of splintery wooden crates.

With the ceiling bearing down on him like he was wearing a blanket made of sheet metal.

Okay, no thank you. He squiggled backwards a bit so his arms could have access to the second and third crates from the front. Veins popping against the skin of his hands, he pulled apart the wood as quietly as he could and spread all the splintery pieces and newly freed bananas onto the crates behind him, leaving him with a nice little gap to sit in and watch the docks, hassle free.

He sighed and, with his legs only needing to be loosely curled up, reclined against the wall of his cubicle. This hidey hole wasn’t so bad, given the adjustments. A sweet fruity smell, comparably delightful to the durians from earlier, wafted up all around him, and something about the spot - maybe the height? - made it way less claustrophobic than the shipping container. Gave the same sort of security you’d get as a kid, hiding in the rafters and being able to see, but knowing that you were safe because nobody else would be able to find you. Plus, there was food.

Eventually, activity picked up because of the deliveries coming in from the shipyard. There was nothing much else to do, so Garou watched the warehouse workers do their job with a detached sort of interest. It felt odd when the thought crossed his mind that, if he hadn’t dropped out of school to become humanity's worst nightmare, maybe he would’ve worked a job like this instead. After all, he was pretty strong, right? He could lift boxes and sh*t. And the directions they were following didn’t look too hard to figure out. Customers probably got annoying sometimes. But that forklift would’ve been fun to drive. Maybe in an alternate universe, he had a job like this, and on the side worked his way up to become an official martial arts master. He probably wouldn’t have gotten as good as he was now though. This alternate universe him would probably be a wimp. But maybe it would pay off because he would’ve made money off of martial arts on the side, doing competitions sometimes, instructing on the weekends. If the alternate universe him decided to pool the money from both things together, maybe he even would’ve had enough to live in an apartment. Maybe he would have an apartment, and a cell phone, friends from work - maybe alternate universe him ended up getting old enough to drink, and went out with Jen and Lao after work – Jen could be a bit of a wildcard when she was drunk, but it was nothing Alternate Universe Garou couldn’t deal with, because Lao was a light drinker - unless he got his hands on some malibu, then there might be an issue. But if things got sticky, Alternate Universe Garou could always use his handy, 100% paid for cell phone to call his -

“Jesus!” one of the worker’s voices echoed across the floor. “Looks like there was some sort of animal or something stuck in here.”

Garou recognized his shipping container in a heartbeat.

“sh*t, you mean you think it escaped into the shipping yard? We better watch our backs.”

“Well, I dunno, maybe it’s not that bad.” One of the other workers nervously toed the pulpified shell of a durian that must have been cracked open at some point between when Garou had smashed through a crate with his foot and smashed through the crates with his entire falling body. “Maybe it likes fruit.”

Squatting in his nest, Garou took a chomp out of the banana he had swiped from the bunch next to his head and continued to observe the scene impassively.

When 11:30 rolled around, Garou was ready to go. Poised tensely above the scene, he was acutely aware that this - this step right here, had no room for mistakes. His observations had shown him that the average load up took ten minutes, maybe less. Ten minutes (maybe less) to identify the correct vehicle, get to the floor, find an opening, and slide through.

The bridges of his feet were beginning to get stiff.

Currently, it was 11:40, and there were three trucks picking up deliveries - two of which were clearly marked with much too flashy commercial colors, and one which was plain enough to be the prison’s transport vehicle, but who’s driver was wearing much too flashy colors of their own. Garou was pretty sure (if he remembered correctly) that the prison had a good behavior program that awarded some of the lower tier criminals jobs around the prison - with the food service branch being one of the more popularly requested ones (a step above janitorial duties, anyways). He wasn’t sure the extent of the program or if driving positions were part of it…but either way, the person driving the prison truck would either be dressed as a federal employee or a prisoner. Was he exactly sure what a federal employee of the prison would look like other than a guard? No. But he was fairly certain there would be a whole lot less sequins on the sleeves than whatever the person from that truck was wearing.

Garou’s eyes jumped from the gray truck he had been observing pulling into Dock 1, to the empty spot where the sequined trucker had just pulled out of, and a new truck, white, was pulling in at Dock 3.

It was currently 11:54.

The driver from the gray truck blipped into view for a moment.

He was wearing a gray work uniform.

As this was happening the driver from the white truck came out of his car and circled round the back to talk to the warehouse worker at dock 3.

He was wearing a blue work uniform.

It had come down to a gamble.

Without waiting, Garou slipped from his hiding spot, traveled a few meters closer to the back of the row, then slid silently down one of the shelf’s support poles. He sprinted to the front of the row. Crouching low, he lingered in the shadow of shelf 7.

He was close enough to see the license plates now. The license plates were going to be the third distinguishing feature between commercial truck and government-owned vehicle.

They were both federal license plates.

Crap.

His feet tingled with a strange, fueled-up sort of anxiety. It was time to go. He had to go.

But he had no idea where to go.

Right now, 11:59.

He needed something - a clue, a conversation, an opening - some sort of hint that he wasn’t throwing everything away by getting into the back of the wrong truck.

He needed more time to think.

So, he kicked shelf 8.

The sound of it all falling came long after everyone in this building lifted their eyes to gaze up, slack jawed. To gaze up, slack jawed, as over a thousand pounds of oranges crashed into a thousand pounds of apples into a thousand pounds of corn into a thousand pounds of rice into a thousand pounds of cereals into a thousand pounds of canned goods into a thousand pounds of peanut butter.

And the floor.

And by then, Garou had dived through the gaps of shelves 7 through 1, sprinted up the side of the warehouse opposite to the side he’d started at, and slipped into the back of the truck at Dock 1, because the truck at Dock 3 had a crate of durians in the order, and not ever, not once, in Garou’s time at J-City Federal Penitentiary, had he been forced to eat something so distasteful to him as a durian.

The truck was dark, and rattled all around him as he sat crouched in the very furthest corner, hugging his knees to conserve space.

Man, he actually felt kind of bad about that.

Okay listen. Sure, he had a lot of stuff checked off on the bad guy bucket list – but up until today, his record had been totally and one hundred percent clean when it came to wasting food. When he was a kid, that’s another thing he appreciated about the monsters in the movies: even the dumber ones didn’t just kill for the heck of it - they at least ate the casualties of the chaos they sewed.

Hopefully Jen and Lao weren’t gonna lose their jobs over this.

Gotta compartmentalize that sh*t.

When the back of the truck opened again, he was at least rewarded with the assurance that his strategy had worked. He recognized that brick and mortar, that fencing, that grungy area between the yard and the kitchen dumpsters. A guard with a black uniform and fat belt of weaponry was standing boredly near the entrance.

The door slammed. The same guy who had driven the truck came around the back and entered. Garou pulled the points of his hair down just in time to keep them from giving away his spot behind the corner crate. As the guy started unloading the crates in front, Garou quickly assessed the situation.

He noticed a prisoner’s number - 1 8 9 3 8 - on the breast pocket of the work shirt the guy was wearing, indicating that he was indeed part of the good behavior program. He looked like a good choice for it: tubby, sweaty, with shoulder length hair occasionally falling in his eyes to obstruct his view. Garou didn’t want to type-profile anyone, but if he was in charge of running a prison, and had to choose someone who looked like he wouldn’t be running away or attempting and daring feats of rebellion - he would’ve chosen this guy too. That could always be an underestimation though. Sometimes, the plainest looking people were actually the strongest. The guy did appear pretty strained in his work though–a little grunt with each box he had to lift, an occasional break to put his hands on his hips and wilt - if it wasn’t so good for Garou’s chances of actually breaking in here, he might’ve felt bad for the guy, having to do this work all on his own with apparently no other prisoners to help him out - he even struggled to pull the load once he’d gotten it onto the pushcart dolly he was using to wheel the stuff up the cement ramp and into the building.

As harmless as he looked, he was still a potential witness. And if he alerted the guard - well, then Garou’s plan would be entirely ruined, and given the giant brick wall that surrounded the entire property, it would be one hell of an obstacle getting out of this place while under gunfire…Like, shipping container level hard, at least. it’d been a while since he’d deflected a bullet with his fingers. Though it’d be fun to see if he could do it again, this clearly wasn’t the time or place.

Garou pressed himself down lower as the sweaty prisoner got another box, chipping his way closer to the back of the truck.

The prisoner had his back turned and his guard down plenty of times over. The problem was, the guard was standing right there.

There was just no helping it.

Prisoner 18938 edged closer to the back of the truck, unaware of the silent creature crouching in the shadows of the corner to his left.

It pounced.

“If you don’t want me to snap your neck, don’t make a sound, and do exactly what I’m about to tell you.” Garou breathed against the prisoner's ear. The prisoner’s head was locked in his arms, mouth covered and head twisted to stare in terror at the empty wall of the truck. “Drag one box to the edge of the truck so I can advance behind it. Load the next boxes into the front of the dolly. Then stand in front to block the guard’s view until I slip onto the center of the dolly. Then pack the last boxes around me so I’m hidden from behind. Close the truck, wheel the dolly into the prison, leave it inside the storage room, and walk away like nothing happened. Rat me out and I’ll kill you. Follow directions and you’ll never see me again. Nod if you understand.”

Breathing hard out his nose, the prisoner nodded as vigorously as he could with his head restrained.

They did it exactly how Garou described, and just like that, he had broken into prison.

Time for another waiting game.

The soonest he was getting out of this storage room was 9:00. That was when prisoners were sent back to their cells and locked up for the night. He would probably want to wait another hour or so for things to settle down. Typically the guards got lazier later in the night, and were more likely to put their trust in the cameras they could watch from the comfort of the administrative office, or else sit up in the little window box where the cell door controls, light switches, and cell block intercom were located.

After 4 hours of meditation, 3 hours of dozing off, 2 cans of pineapple, and 10 rounds of “can I flick this grain of rice into that can from this distance” later, the time had arrived. From the room above him, he could hear the last clangs of dishes and trickles of drain water of the workers cleaning up in the kitchen. He waited a bit longer, played a few more rounds of rice flick, and then slipped out of the storage room.

A grungy set of cement stairs, no cameras, lead up to the kitchen. He wasn’t sure if there were any cameras here, but it was dark, so that was good. Keeping low, he used the edges of the counters and table tops to make his way through the kitchen and cafeteria. It was neat. Same feeling you’d get sneaking through a school after hours.

From underneath the last table in the cafeteria, he observed the main hallway, which was lit well, and had a camera right smack in the middle of it.

As soon as he crossed that hallway, it was a roll of the dice. It all depended on if right now the guards were watching it or not. Hopefully, they’d be keeping their focus on the cameras pointed at the block of prisoners in the next room over. Hopefully they didn’t spend their free time rewinding hallway footage they’d ignored. Hopefully they didn’t bother to look at footage like that unless there was some sort of ruckus they needed to investigate. Hopefully what he was about to do wasn’t going to stir up any sort of ruckus.

His feet hit the linoleum with muffled slaps as he bolted across the hallway and slipped into the next room.

To Garou, the sound of the double door clicking shut was a humongous sound that echoed the announcement of his arrival across this warehouse-sized cube for all to hear.

Thankfully, nobody else seemed to view it that way, and he was able to slip into the blindspot at the end of the first row.

Well, somebody had noticed him.

"Hey. Hey whoa. What the sh*t?"

The prisoner in the first cell was immediately at the bars, gawking through and staring at him like he was an astounding exhibit at a reverse zoo. "What the hell are you doing out there, buddy? You sneaking out or something? How'd you get out of 9:00 lockdown?"

Garou moved closer to the bars and spoke in a low voice. "I'm not a prisoner here. I broke in from the outside."

"Woo, hooooly sh*t, kid!"

"I'm here because I'm looking for someone. I can't help anyone break out or anything, but I have goods here, and I’m willing to share them with anyone who’s able to turn up a useful piece of information. You know the S Class hero, Metal Bat?” Reaching deep into the sweatpants pocket, he handed the guy a picture he had cut out of one of Zenko’s missing posters. “I’m looking for him. I wanna know if he’s in the building. Or, if there’s anyone here who’s fought him, been taken in by him - seen him in the past month.”

The guy lifted an eyebrow. “Goods, you say?”

Expressionlessly, Garou fished underneath his shirt, undid some tape, and took out the package. “Brownies, chocolate chip. Home baked, fudgy. Best thing you’ll ever eat.” Yeah, he’d had his fair share of prison. In places like these, chocolate was a high demand entity. “Anyone who gives me a useful piece of information gets the flavor sensation of a lifetime. Anyone who wastes my time gets a sh*tty one with loads of baking soda. Anyone who makes noise about me being here is responsible for them all going in the trash." Even if someone didn't give a f*ck about baked goods, nobody wanted to be the guy that got everybody else's chances for sweets thrown out the window. This was a basic tenet of human psychology.

The guy leaned forward in interest. "Anything.... special baked in?"

Garou raised an eyebrow. "Other than the tender love and care of the world's greatest chef? Yes. Loads of drugs. Pass it on."

The prisoner crossed his cell and reached out so he could snap his fingers near the edge of his next door cell. “Hey. Hey Snorty.”

“I told you not to call me that, man.”

“Yeah, okay, I got a message to pass on. Listen.”

Soon the whispering of the prisoners made it up the lines; Like a slow wisp of the wind creeping through the upper branches of the treeline, the sound went up, and then, it shivered back down in their direction.

The prisoner came back over to Garou. “Hey, got a few bites. Cells 8, 84, and 499.”

“Alright” Garou said, handing the guy his payment. “Enjoy.”

“Sweet.”

Garou toed carefully down the first line, making sure to stay in the shadow cast by the catwalk above. Pressing his back to the wall adjacent, he stopped outside cell 8.

Inside was a stringy, middle-aged looking guy with a patchwork of tattoos winding up his entire torso and neck.

“Hey. I’m the guy with the brownies," Garou whispered. "You got some info for me?”

The guy ambled up to the bars. “C’mere,” he beckoned. He looked shiftily on either side of him. “Come closer. Put your hand out.”

Of course Garou didn’t trust him, but he figured he could react fast enough if he needed to. The guy extended his fist, and dropped something small and papery into Garou’s hand.

It was an origami bat, folded out of an aluminum gum wrapper.

“I made it,” the guy whispered. “Didn’t go to art school for nothin’ you know.”

“This isn’t what I’m looking for,” Garou hissed back. “I’m looking for Metal, Bat. Metal Bat. You know, the guy? The S Class hero?”

The prisoner stared at him blankly. “I learned this in art class, not S Class.”

Okay, maybe this guy had been incarcerated for a little too long.

“So. You want it or not?”

Garou sighed. He didn't want to deal with an unpredictable player throwing a tantrum over a misunderstanding. He put the bat in his pocket and handed a brownie through the bars. "Thanks for the art."

He needed to get up to the next catwalk. Rather than cruising forward and taking advantage of the stairs at the end, he backtracked to the beginning of the row, and, doing his best to stay in the intersection between blind spot and catwalk shadow, he jumped. His fingertips curled into the wickery metal above. He used his shoulder and arm muscles to pull his torso up so his elbows, arms and chest were all parallel to the bottom of the catwalk. Straightening his back to join, he curled his legs up like he was about to press his knees to his chest; instead they met the railing at the edge of the catwalk, turning his body into a 90 degree wedge. He laced his feet through one of the bars, wedging his calves into the railing. Then he let go and hung upside down momentarily, before using his obliques to curl up sideways - like a snake curving up the side of its terrarium - until he could get a grip on the railing with his hands, unlace his legs, and slither over the side and into the blind spot of the next level up.

A couple more of these, and he was on level with cell 84.

The guy in this cell looked closer to Garou’s age, maybe a bit older. He approached with an expression of appraisal. He stopped about a foot from the bars, arms crossed in front of his chest. "Loads of drugs, huh? Let’s see the goods."

Garou showed him what he had.

The guy threw his hands up in frustration. “Ah, what? Pot brownies? Man, what happened to the ‘baking soda’?”

Garou exhaled, realizing that the message must have gotten screwed up by this point in the line. “No, it’s not that kind of baking soda. They’re f*cking brownies, man.”

“You mean pot brownies?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The prisoner pulled a pained impression, held tilting back like he’d just been dealt a blow to the face. “Man, that’s mellow as f*ck. What the hell.”

“Do you have info for me or not?”

“No,” the guy sighed, plopping back down onto his cot. “Just go away.”

"I guess it's easier for me to do that than for you."

“Haha, have a nice f*cking night, jerknuts.”

Garou moved on to his next appointment.

He was almost at the top of the cell block now. He didn’t like it, because it meant he was closer to the box window where a guard may or may not be sitting. The shadow of the catwalk was also getting tighter. His footsteps echoed annoyingly as he made his way to the very end of the row.

This cell was different from the others. It was bigger. Darker. The bars were thicker - so thick, and so abnormally spaced apart, in fact, that Garou could probably actually slip through them if he wanted. Whoever was in there must’ve been big and strong. And whoever it was was doing a great job of staying hidden in the shadows.

“Hey,” Garou said, sidling casually to the bars. ”I heard you might have info for me.”

There was a bubbly chuckle from out of sight. "So you're bargaining with some tender love and care, are ya?

Garou pinched between his eyebrows in exasperation. “No, it isn’t that kind of transaction.”

God, what had he been expecting? For people to be able to talk and to be able to listen? Wow, what a tall order. People just couldn’t pass on a message nowadays. He made to walk away, not wanting to waste any more of his time here than necessary.

“Wait. I can still help you.” Whoever it was had a soft voice, but with an underlying insistence.

“I seriously doubt I need any of that kind of help, buddy.”

"Stop." Suddenly, the voice dropped, and the airy, flirtatious tone was replaced by a deep, gravely baritone. “You’re looking for Metal Bat, right?” There was a shifting in the shadows, and the prisoner stepped into view. Garou tipped his head back to look at a face nearly two feet higher than his - square, stubble lined jaw, glossy colored lips and carefully mascaraed lashes.

“He’s one of my coworkers.” The Prisoner said, narrowing his eyes. “But you already know about that, Hero Hunter.”

Chapter 12: And They Were Sparring Partners

Chapter Text

Garou took an instinctive step back to place himself into a loose fighting stance.

“Careful, now,” Puri Puri Prisoner said softly. “Your heel’s out of the shadow. If you wanted to get caught so bad I could always just call the guards over.”

Garou quickly shifted forward. He was aware he was in grabbing distance of the cell bars - he wasn’t entirely worried about that though, seeing as Puri Puri was standing, arms crossed, a full meter away from the bars, trained eyes and tense posture giving every indication that he was just as (if not more) wary of Garou as Garou was of him.

Garou was vaguely aware that he had a fighting history with this hero - but he barely remembered anything about it. Though he had done the research before, and had had Puri Puri Prisoner on the hit list, he’d wrecked the guy at some point when he was deep in the Monster Association, conscious dulled, powers heightened, and body reacting to everything on pure instinct.

That glare bore through him like ice. And the most he knew about this guy came from the rumors back when he’d been in prison himself, and whatever random sh*t he’d picked up from Tareo’s hero booklet.

“You’re looking different than the last time I saw you,” the hero remarked, eyes skating briefly across Garou’s frame. “Little more twink than twunk.”

“New diet.” Garou replied, somewhere on the line between even and testy. It didn’t serve his current purpose to come off as an adversary, but his fingers were already curling into mantis hand. After all, it had never served his purposes to look weak.

Everything about this was tense.

“Don’t worry,” Puri Puri rumbled, keeping his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest. “I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating you a second time. You’re a dangerous man.”

That sentiment didn’t bode well for his purposes either.

The air felt cold.

Garou forced himself to forge ahead. “Your co-worker’s been MIA for the past four weeks,” he said. “I’m trying to track him down.”

Puri’s eyebrows arched and his expression blipped open, for a moment. “Metal Bat's gone missing?"

"Yes. And I need all the information on him I can get.”

Puri’s eyes narrowed again. "How do I know you don't just want to hunt him down and hurt him?" He asked. "Just like you did to the others, and just like you did to him before?"

At this, Garou felt an instant, queasy jolt, and a weird, niggling sort of pressure to quickly provide an explanation. "I'm looking for him because–well, I'm with–” His words stumbled out, like they had some sort of point they needed to jump on. But what was the point? That he owed the guy a pair of sweatpants? That he owed his kid sister something for that apple juice the other day? “He…I mean, I…his–” (Come to think of it, he probably shouldn’t even say anything about the kid sister – what if it gave their family status away?) “--Look, the reason isn't important, okay?! I wouldn't be bribing criminals with baked goods if I was still trying to make a name as a mo-” And then, on top of it all, his voice cracked, like he was f*cking 14 years old. He coughed. “-Monster.” He coughed again, feeling his weird, uncharacteristic self consciousness edging back in as he struggled to meet eyes with a dude he's unabashedly beaten the crap out of less than a year ago. It was f*cked up. It sucked. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a kid, sitting in front of the principal’s desk, getting tripped up on the order to explain himself.

His face was red. He was getting seriously pathetic. And in front of a hero.

Suddenly, the hero gasped. "Oh, I understand!" In an instant, the message his body language conveyed totally changed: dropped arms, body draped forward against the bars of his cell.

"Oh," Garou blinked, taken aback by the shift. "You - You do?"

Puri clasped his hands to his cheek and moaned, a blissful smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Yes.Yes. Oh, how romantic!"

"How...how what now?"

"Garou," Puri said warmly. "No need to explain anything to me. It's classic. Combatants to companions. Enemies to lovers. Sparring partners to spanking partners. Two boys in love."

Garou felt a great big doomful flop in his gut, as if he had missed a step going down the stairs. "What? No no, that's not it–" he said, mild horror crawling across his brain as Puri started spouting off about the beauty of young love. "Look, we just – we're just – I just got involved in his life, but it's temporary, it's not like – like that. Look, we haven't even talked since–"

“Dazzling. Perfection. Oh, it gives me so much joy. Of course I'll help you. I'll tell you everything I know."

Garou froze his protests. "You will?"

"Yes, sweetheart. Pop a squat and let's talk."

*

Puri Puri turned around and plopped himself down on the floor of his cell, looking at Garou expectantly.

“In there?” Garou asked, raising his eyebrows. He was still trying to recover from the cognitive whiplash of the previous turn in the conversation. And that sudden tone shift – was it genuine?

“You bet. Come on in.”

Garou’s brain kicked back up to assess. He glanced back behind him. The window box jutted out ominously from the adjacent wall, nearly eye level; the sides of his slippers were both pressed flush against the edge of the cell bars, and the light where the shadow ended bit into the floor less than an inch from his narrow feet. The invitation was…considerate. Too considerate? No, sitting on the floor, Puri Puri had no offensive or defensive advantage. He wouldn’t sit like that if he was planning to break the peace - unless, of course, he thought he already had some sort of advantage.

But he had beaten him in a fight before, so obviously, Garou had the advantage regardless. Right?

Taking up the offer, Garou turned sideways and slid through, glancing down and to witness as his chest passed by one of the bars, a whole centimeter of wiggle room to testify to how much brawn he’d lost in the past months. His eyes darted swiftly back to the cell inhabitant - no bars between them now - as his senses all seemed to instinctively heighten to accommodate the new decrease in security. His vision adapted quickly to the darkness. The cell was about 4 meters deep - potential weapons: bed, toilet, handles or pipes from the sink, pillow, pillow case, blanket. He noticed a few pictures taped to the walls, cutouts from magazines, mostly.

“Have a seat, have a seat,” Puri Puri insisted, gesturing across from him. Though he didn’t really feel like getting all cozy, Garou obliged, figuring it was best to match the body language than stand there looking tense or threatening. Puri’s perception of him as a potential threat seemed to have evaporated, and it was probably better to keep it that way. Right? Right. Puri’s eyes followed him as he toed the edge of the cell and folded into a lotus position across from his host.

Puri Puri Prisoner sighed. “Oh, if only I had some tea to offer you,” he lamented, reaching under his bunk and pulling out a jar of unidentifiable liquid. “But all I have is this moonshine. Care for a cup?”

“Uh, no thanks,” Garou said, awkwardly shifting. “Not really my thing…yet. Uh…brownie?”

“Oh, that’s just charming,” Puri replied, taking one graciously. “Now, let’s get started right away - you’re in a hurry, but I most certainly want to make sure there’s enough time to gab about the fun stuff at the end. What sort of information do you need on Metal Bat? I can tell you right now that he isn’t in this building.”

That was kind of obvious at this point. The follow up question could still be useful though. “Anyone around here been taken in by him in the last month?" Garou asked.

Puri pressed his hands together and shook his head. "That's unlikely. Heroes aren't supposed to go up against humans, Garou."

"Oh. They aren't?"

"No. When you enter the Hero Association, you sign a contract that states you'll avoid using your powers against civilians, and avoid entering conflicts with regular people, even-" he clicked his tongue and gestured vaguely around his environment, "-criminals. That's the police's job, and they don't want us encroaching on their territory."

"Wait, really? So if you're watching some old grandpa getting mugged in the street, or like, a kid being grabbed – you can't even do anything about it?"

"There is a clause, you can jump in if the government law enforcement calls for support, or if you can prove that a situation was dire enough to justify it later. If you can somehow prove you'd restrained yourself to a civilian level of power, you might get off the hook. But generally, no. The Hero Association was created to deal with supernatural beings - not serve as some extra, privately owned vigilante law enforcement. The lower classes, C, B, they can get away with it - most of their powers are civilian level to start. But an S-Class? Ooh! I wouldn't want to know what they'd say if one of us was caught breaking that rule. I mean, it's a little different in here where the criminals are already caught, but…" he trailed off. Garou supposed that meant Puri was allowed to do his own sort of policing within the walls of the prison - which was sort of consistent with the stuff Garou heard through the grapevine during his time in here. It sounded like the rule was kind of mushy though, even amongst the S-Class. If someone needed to find some wiggle room, they probably could. Was Metal Bat the kind of person who would look to find it, or stick to the books? Come to think of it, what even was the motivation to stick to the books? Despite his rule preaching, the hero hadn't listed one repercussion to rule breaking, and Garou was feeling skeptical.

"I thought the S Class could do whatever they wanted. You guys seriously let the association push you around like that?"

Puri shrugged. "I don't know about the others, but I need my paycheck to come from somewhere, Garou. And I had to fight to get to this rank. I'm proud of what it stands for. But I'm not powerful at all compared to my colleagues, and I'm not going out of my way to get in a fight that I could lose my contract over. No ma'am, no thank you."

Okay, so it was a money issue. If you wanted to keep your paycheck safe, you had to keep up appearances. Wow– what a sucky deal. Imagine, not being able to pick a fight whenever you wanted - or not being allowed to fight when you saw some schmuck pulling a dirty move on another civilian. The idea left a sour taste in Garou's mouth.

"I can see you puckering up over there," Puri said, flashing a knowing look in his direction. "I think you're forgetting, Garou, most of the S-Class are quite prideful. One of my colleagues - Atomic Samurai, maybe you've heard? He won't even shake hands with someone he doesn't see as his equal! Can you imagine that? Anyways, can you see someone with that mindset thinking it was worth their time to solve a petty crime? No, it's silly. And few of the S Class are going to go about seeking extra work - they don't have quotas to fill."

Damn, that Samurai guy sounded like a high end snob. Did Metal bat have that kind of mindset? Garou didn't think so. The guy had been goaded easily enough into fighting him, after all. Zenko had mentioned he used to get in street fights a lot too. But then again, there was the whole 'promise not to get in trouble' thing, and the paycheck so…no, he was definitely overthinking it. Unless it was some sort of special occasion (like me, Garou thought smugly to himself) Metal Bat wouldn't be risking interaction with human criminals - which meant Garou probably wouldn't be finding any additional leads in this prison, but that he could probably rule out something like, say, gang violence as a potential reason for Metal Bat's disappearance.

"So what do you know about Metal Bat's hero activity?" He posed. It was the next logical step.

Puri tapped his chin in thought. "Well, he liked to keep his hours up, so he usually kept a regular patrol routine in S-City...but I never got the impression that he found it very thrilling. He loved the big jobs, didn't care if it was demon or dragon level. The last big threat I remember fighting with him--ooh, he was great. It was this huge, gooey monster, more heads than you could keep straight, and regenerated like nothing! He was the one who figured out that you needed to break the little…marble…brain-thingy on the inside, and after that it was a snap." He took a moment to sigh in nostalgic appreciation. "Ah, the way he pounded that plasma head out of existence – breathtaking! You should have been there to see him."

"What city was that, exactly?"

"A City."

"Isn't the Hero Association Headquarters over there too?"

"Yes Sir. That's where we go to get briefed for missions, attend quality assessment meetings, and file any human resource issues."

Quality assessment blah blah blah. A lot of what Puri was saying lined up with what Garou already knew from Zenko: S-City and A-City were Metal Bat’s two most frequented locations for work. Garou wanted to know how what the hero was describing translated into hours. "So what does all that stuff mean for how often you guys get called into A-City?"

"Well," Puri replied thoughtfully. "The HR stuff usually is only if there's some sort of interpersonal conflict, or a paycheck dispute - really, it's only for if something goes wrong, which – most of the time – people usually try to settle it on their own first, in their own…unique ways. Quality assessment meetings are bi-anual, and mission briefings…well, that's the flip floppy one. Half a year ago I was getting called in just about every week, but now?" Letting out a puff, he plunked his chin down on his hand and pouted. "I haven't been called out in more than two months! So boring."

"Anywhere else the guy might go?"

"Hmm…oh!" Puri perked up and snapped his fingers. "That's right, the Hero Hospital!"

"Hero Hospital?"

"Yup! It's where we go if we get injured during battle. Oh, poor Metal Bat, I remember just a few months ago he was stuck in there, battered up terribly after his fight with–” His eyes slid to Garou. Then he waved his hand and chuckled lightly. “Oh, well, the past is in the past - who am I to judge if you two play a bit rough? Aw, look at you blushing, pink as a chicken leg. Just precious!”

“I'm not–”

“Before you ask,” Puri said, returning to his serious tone, “No, I can’t tell you the hospital’s location. The one time I went there I was transported to and from.”

Garou wondered if it was specific to Puri’s experience (being a criminal and all), or if there was some sort of secret behind the hospital’s location. Some sort of effort to protect heroes when they were vulnerable. Could Metal Bat be there? He could just imagine - the guy’s knocked out, comatose, lying in those stiff, sterile-white bedsheets, hooked up to machines - and totally unable to make a call. That was certainly a possibility. He pinned the idea to the back of his mind for later. If Metal Bat had been in there before, maybe Zenko would have some sort of knowledge about the place.

“S-City, A-City, Hospital…” Puri Puri Prisoner was busy counting locations off on his fingers. “You know, there was also that one time they brought us all to that vacation at the hot spring spa.”

“Vacation at the hot spring spa?” Is that what heroes were paid to do nowadays? Sit around and get their nails painted? (Seriously, Garou had never been to a spa, he didn’t know what people did there). But more importantly, what was Metal Bat doing there? Was he into that sort of stuff? Wait, that was beside the point - what was he doing there, when he had a sister to take care of? Letting her starve? Garou scowled and flopped his cheek against his hand.

Unnoticing, Puri Puri hugged himself, closed his eyes, and sighed like he were breathing in a breath of fresh mountain air. “Mm, yes, it was such a nice little trip, even if it was just one night–”

Okay, one night, not as bad.

“ –as a thank you to the heroes after the alien attack on the headquarters. Such a relaxing place, and the perfect opportunity to admire the strength and beauty of the human–"

“Wait, so what was Metal Bat doing there? Roasting his fat ass in the sauna all day?”

Puri rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Ugh, I wish. No, he came to the main events, but spent the rest of his time in his room on videocall with his sister or something.”

Okay, that was more like it. For some reason it made Garou feel a bit less on edge. All the other heroes might have been a lazy bunch of bullies, but at least Metal Bat was... No, no, okay, you know what? Maybe he was just relieved because now he knew that Zenko's existence wasn't a total secret he had to keep. It sounded like Metal Bat talked about her enough for the others to know about her – he probably just made sure to keep quiet about the other family stuff. Garou just had to make sure to do the same.

“Mmhm! Oh, it was such a nice memory!" Puri Puri continued, still looking rapturous in his nostalgia. "Well, except for the whole murder case fiasco–”

If Garou had been drinking Puri's preoffered moonshine, he would've spit it out just then. “Wait, murder case fiasco? What the hell were you guys doing over there?”

“Oh, yeah, well, it really sounds worse than it was. Tatsumaki got drunk and hurled Atomic Samurai’s sword into Zombiman, but he’s alright, you know how he is. Strong boy.”

“Do you guys…you heroes…hang out like that often?” Garou shouldn’t be surprised. He shouldn't. The heroes were the elites of society, the cool kids with the special lunch table all to themselves. The S Class sounded like it fit every stereotype of hothead frat house, just with extra super charged powers involved. He wondered how well Metal Bat fit in with that crowd. Well, probably not too well, if he spends half the day at these social events hanging out with his sister. Come to think of it, if he didn't get along well with anyone…that was actually worth investigating.

"How are his relationships with his coworkers?" Garou asked.

"Oh, don't worry, nothing you have to be jealous about, honey."

"No–I mean–does he not get along with them?"

Puri Puri chuckled and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh, you know how he is. I mean, a lot of us S Class are impulsive, so it's not like he's out of place but – he is particularly well known for being…emotional. It's not often he'll hide what's on his mind."

Not as far as you know. Garou thought in silent retort. "Anyone in particular he didn't get along with?" He asked aloud.

"He never really seemed to like Flashy Flash. Blew a fuse at him, Watchdog Man, and Pig God at the hot spring."

"Over what?"

"Oh, well, they didn't really help with the rescue mission at all, so he felt it was unfair that they were awarded for it. I didn't see the issue with them being there, but…you know how he is. "

Fair is fair, promises are promises, a fight is a fight, f*ck reasons. Yeah, he had the idea.

"Oh, and Amai Mask, he didn't like Amai Mask," Puri added. "They actually almost got in a serious fight once!"

Okay, that was noteworthy. Did Metal Bat have an enemy amongst the heros? Garou leaned in a little. "Almost a fight?" He prompted.

Puri Puri giggled to himself and pressed his fingers to his mouth. "Oh, that's some tea…"

"Any information could be useful to the goal," Garou replied evenly.

"But, Metal Bat would be so annoyed." Puri started laughing to himself, stifling his chuckles with his hand.

Metal Bat, annoyed? Okay, now he just had to know, y'know? Garou pressed his hands against the floor and slanted forward on his haunches. "C'mon, you gotta tell me, c'mon."

"Okay, okay," Puri giggled. "So one day, Metal Bat and Amai Sweet Mask were squaring up to fight. It was right after a battle and we had just been trying our best, you know? But then Amai started getting uppity…probably complaining something about us didn't fit the look well enough…"

Urgh. Amai Mask sounded just like the narrow minded, popularity-priotitizing asshat that would look down on people like Puri, people like Metal Bat, for not fitting into his stupid little cookie cutter image. That sounded like just the kind of hero Garou would love to bury his fist into. "Really? what a jerk," he supplied vehemently.

Puri gave a mild wave of his hand. "Well, Amai has his reasons for his perspective…but anyways, Metal Bat told him...what was it? Oh yeah, 'I ain't gonna care if you're an idol or something, I'm still gonna smack you into the sky' and then Amai retorted with something like 'weak garbage' and…

"Holy sh*t…"

"I know! I mean, my motto's love, not war, especially when it comes to us on the same team, but…I can't really say I was surprised by Metal Bat's reaction. Until…" He trailed off again, lips twitching into a smile as he shaded his eyes with his fingers and shook his head.

"Until? Until what?"

"Well, just when they were about to fight, they both got a cellphone call. Amai's was from his manager, so he immediately hung up, but Metal Bat's was from–"

Garou held up a hand and gave Puri Puri a look. "Wait, don't tell me– his sister, right?"

Puri let out a peel of laughter and swatted himself mirthfully on the knee. "You know it! And she started going on– Metal bat was nearly crying, apparently he missed her piano recital –was apologizing here and there and nearly falling over himself trying to make amends–and then Amai comes up in the conversation somehow and…boom! Next thing, Metal Bat's forgot totally about the argument–apparently the sister's a fan of Sweet Mask– so the minute he hangs up, he goes over and begs Amai for his autograph instead!"

Garou felt a grin curl the corner of his lip, and then, a "pff" slipped out his mouth, and then, before he knew it, he was laughing along with Puri Puri Prisoner, trying to stifle the sound with his hand so that the world outside their cell wouldn't take notice. "Oh my God, that's too good," he croaked.

"We teased him about being a fanboy for weeks…"

From above his hand, he turned his eyes to Puri, checking for sure for sure that this gem was for real.

Puri's face was red as he muffled his laughter, dark lashes pressed tight together like someone trying to resist the power of a tickle attack.

Holy sh*t. It totally was. Dead. Ass. Real. "Oh man, I'm definitely throwing that in his face later," Garou choked out. "Once I find him, I swear…"

"Don't tell him I told you," Puri wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "I don't need him coming for my head next - my autograph doesn't mean anything to anyone!"

"Okay, okay," Garou breathed, trying to stabilize himself again. "Okay. So this thing with Amai Mask –something that he could go missing over or nah?"

"Oh, I don't think Amai was very impressed," Puri told him. "Got an eye roll from him, at most."

"Damn."

"Damn?"

"You don't know how much I would've enjoyed hunting down that guy."

Puri snorted. "You don't know how much Metal Bat would have enjoyed letting you."

They talked a bit more about Metal Bat's past battles, working relationships, and habits. He learned that Metal Bat typically got along better with the more laid-back heros, that Metal Bat's primary method of transportation between cities was rail, that he didn't typically eat pizza unless it was dumped with a sh*tload of olives, that he had difficulty telling left from right, and he was terrible, and I mean absolutely awful, at carrying a tune. Which was kind of funny, Garou thought, considering Zenko and all.

"Well, that's about everything I know," Puri Puri said, when they were starting to exhaust their topics. "Some of the other heroes might be a bit more up to date than I am though, so if you get the chance to talk to them it may help."

Garou's eyes shot to the side as he rubbed the back of his neck tensely. "Yeah, I don't know about that. I think I'll be okay just starting off with the stuff you've told me."

Puri's eyes traced Garou's posture for a moment. His expression softened. "'It's okay to ask for help' that's--"

Garou's eyebrows crinkled together. "It's not--"

Puri Puri held up a finger to shush. "'It's okay to ask for help'...that's what I want to tell you," he said. "But I know it's not that easy. Things are a little different in your case."

Garou rolled his eyes and scowled. "No sh*t." He was a wanted criminal, an ex-hero hunter, and on top of it all, a downright f*cked up unlikable nobody. The only thing he'd ever been near good at being was a monster, and even that had fallen through. No one had any reason to trust him or help him. To put it lightly…well, he should just count himself lucky that of all the heros, the one he had stumbled across today was only one who also happened to be a convicted felon.

Straightening his back, he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his chin. "But it's fine. I wasn't planning on relying on heros to get this done anyways."

The image popped into his mind of Zenko, sitting at her crayon table, coloring in a picture of her brother in vehement determination. Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty good at doing things on my own.

Wait. He wasn't…? No. He couldn't…? He wasn't acting like an eight-year-old, was he? No, no, he had good reason. He was being appropriately cautious.

And then he thought of Zenko standing alone on the street corner: no leads, nothing in every direction.

His arms loosened as his spine drooped. "But…I mean…if you have any pointers, I guess I could keep them in mind." Just for a little extra information. Just in case.

"Well, first of all, the ones I mentioned before, Flashy Flash, Amai…don't fool around with them. They aren't particularly forgiving"

"I'm not afraid of those guys."

"You see, that's the thing," Puri Puri said, with the same tone as someone delicately pointing out a fascinating little peculiarity about the weather. "If you need to approach a hero, you're better off with the ones that you are afraid of. Because that means they won't be afraid of you."

Two people immediately popped into Garou’s head. He immediately pushed them out. Annoyance took their place.

Why was Puri Puri telling him this? What was the point? To give him some sort of cause to soul search his awkward lineup of social mishaps and failures? To get him to walk into a room with lethal enemies? To help? Probably to help. Whatever the case, he didn’t need it. Sure, sure, he’d keep it in mind, like he’d said. But as far as he was concerned, sagely crypticism was annoying at best, dangerous at worst. He'd stick to his own instincts any day.

He rolled his shoulders back and cracked his neck. “Alright. Well. Thanks for the information and stuff. I should get going.” If the best advice he was going to get at this point was unsolicited social therapy, it was time to go. It was real nice, real surprising, of Puri to have invested the time in this meeting – and seeing as it was in Garou’s best interest to blow this popsicle joint as soon as possible, it was probably best for him to avoid overstaying his welcome in any regard. He made to get up.

There was an eerie giggle. “Garou, aren’t you forgetting something?” A grin curled the corner of the prisoner’s lip, as a shadow fell across his face. “There’s a price for information.”

“Hey look,” Garou growled, hackles rising as he pressed his back against the cell. “I already told you--I’m in a committed relationship."

“I know!" Puri interjected joyously. "And you have to give me some of the juicy details! How did you meet? What do you like to do together? What’s your favorite part about the relationship?”

The relief hit him. And then, the dread. Oh God, did he really have to make up a ton of sh*t just for this? Garou let out a short huff, and plopped back to the floor. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he slung an elbow over one knee and began a cursory telling of something that sounded like the intro to some sort of stupid action romance manga. “We met the day I tried to beat him to a pulp. I was impressed that I couldn’t beat him to a pulp. In fact--” As he said it, the memory of the soft air, the swift woosh of the bat, the way it ruffled his hair and made the back of his neck prickle with metallic static, just before it almost cracked his skull open, bubbled suddenly into his mind. “--In fact,” he continued, crinkling his brow a bit as the order of events fell fuzzily into place, “He almost beat me to a pulp, but he didn’t. His sister stopped him. But he doesn’t like taking headshots, so sometimes I wonder if that slowed him down at all either.”

Puri let out a soft sigh. “Oh, so sweet, so mysterious. So you’ve been in a passionate and fiery secret relationship with him since then?’

“Uh, no, no, definitely not,” Garou said, the blood under his face prinkling a bit. Geez, the embarrassment of this. At least he only had to make up lies, right? “It was slow. He and his relatives helped me out of a tight spot, and I guess it made me feel like sticking around.”

Puri was nodding, savoring the story like he was a zealot listening along to a juicy gospel sermon. “That’s how you know it’s meant to last. Uh, huh, yes you do. Gorgeous.” He pressed his knuckles against his chin and beamed at Garou as if a gallon of renewed life had just been poured directly into his soul. “So, what’s your favorite part?” He prompted eagerly. “What do you love the most?”

Oh, f*cking Christ. Just what sort of answer was this guy looking for? “Well,” Garou started, deciding to roll with the first thing that popped into his brain. “Sometimes I like to make fun of him, and steal his stuff.” He plucked at the cloth on his chest. “Like, this shirt, or…his shampoo. He smells pretty good, because he uses, like, 800 different shampoos. It's pretty ridiculous, and a waste of money, but it's okay because he budgets everything else that's important pretty well. But uh…I guess…" He rubbed the back of his head and rested his chin on his knee as he scrutinized the cement wall across the way. "But I guess…the best part about him is that he’s given me…a purpose. Yeah. Oh--! And his family. His family’s been great.”

“Oh, poor dears, I’m sure they must be absolutely distraught, with him missing.”

“No.” Garou shook his head defiantly, and stared Puri straight in the eye. “His family is strong, just like him. Not the kind to give up easy, you know?”

"Oh, well that just touches my--"

The hero was mid-sentence when a noise, the lovechild of a police siren and a fire alarm, kindled to life and crescendoed into a deafening drone that made the air molecules vibrate against Garou's skin.

w o o O O OOOOOOO P w o o O O OOOOO P w o o O O OOOOO P

Garou jolted to his feet, as a distant thunder of boots became amplified by the architecture and a voice drifted up from the base of the building: "--Something in the footage. We gotta screen the cell block."

"Yes Sir!"

There was a smooth cascade of electric sound as, across the cell block, each cell lit up like a string of cube-shaped Christmas lights spiraling into the night. Within seconds their cell had joined, and a harsh white light switched on overhead, throwing him, Puri Puri Prisoner, the bed, the sink, the toilet, the wall clippings - all of it, out of grayscale into sharp, colorful relief.

Without a second thought Garou bolted for the bars. He was yanked back by a tug on his shoulder.

"Wait, Garou–"

A cool, electronic voice meshed with the roar of the alarm: Attention, this is an emergency lockdown. No person is permitted to enter or exit the premises. All prisoners are to line up at the front of their cell. Any sudden movements or movements outside of cells may be met with gunfire. Attention, this is an emergency lockdown. No person…"

Puri had flipped him away from the bars and stationed himself at the front instead. Was he trying to block the only escape? Garou fell back and immediately pressed himself to the back corner of Puri's cell, where there used to be a shadow. "The only way out is for me to fight,” he growled. “I had already accepted it as a possibility. Let me through and I won't attack you." He didn’t want to fight Puri - if they did it now, his location was given and he was as good as cornered. It didn’t matter what part of the cell he stood in, how quickly he dodged, or small or low he tried to make himself - there was no shadow to hide in and nowhere to move.

Puri faced him, the harsh light from above lining his frame in white. "No, there's another way. "

Garou twitched to the back corner’s adjacent wall as Puri sped into the spot he was standing. “Stand behind me,” Puri said, planting his thick, muscled legs sturdily parallel with the wall. Garou moved quickly away from the wall, his pulse banging against his throat as he faced the hall, where he could hear footsteps rattling up the metal stairs.

Seconds from gunfire.

He assumed fighting stance.

He sensed movement behind him.

His eyes darted back.

There was a moment where Puri’s back swelled with a dappled roll of solid muscle, his arms drew back and –

BOOM

A cold gust of air and chalky debris swallowed Garou’s vision.

“--happening in cell 499, fire!”

“--can’t get a visual–”

A bullet bit into the cement beside his head. Garou dropped to the floor, his fingertips meeting powdered brick and rubble as he scrambled toward the source of cold.

He heard Puri’s voice - a heroic bellow, somewhere in front of him: “Don’t worry, boys, I’ll catch him!”

A hand extended through the dust and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him through the cloud and bringing him to the edge of a jagged precipice, where floodlights crisscrossed his vision, blinding him as his toes curled on the edge of a 14 story drop–he was about to fight back, tear this traitor limb from limb–when the knuckles against the back of his neck disappeared, his vision adjusted… and there was a second where it almost looked scenic. Peaceful…the indigo and orange of the lightly dappled sky giving a chill light to the prisoner’s pale blue eyes as they scanned the land below, his heavy top of thick black hair pulling at the wind that whistled around the newly carved exit at the very top of J-City Penitentiary.

At eye level was the top edge of the barbed brick wall that Garou knew circled the entire perimeter of the prison. Once he got over that, he was free.

Thing was, it was over a hundred meters away.

He met eyes with the hero. “I’ll cover you,” Puri said.

They jumped. The sky pulled against Garou’s clothing and hair as he hurtled toward the ground, aware of Puri Puri Prisoner falling beside him and keeping that in mind as he narrowed his eyes, trying to determine the best spot to hit the earth.

He made sure to keep his feet close, his knees bent. Pressure shot up his legs as his slippers slammed the ground, so he ducked his shoulder down and rolled, the dusty dirt and sparse grass giving a dry, green scent to the skid he dragged across his back before launching to his feet and kicking off into a sprint.

White filled his surroundings as a spotlight landed against his back, following him as his legs pistoned him towards the perimeter. The rapid pur of gunfire echoed down from the building they’d just come from–the guards standing at the hole they’d just jumped out of–and a bullet whizzed past his ear. The dirt exploded upward into little compact clouds as metal peppered the ground by his heels. Was it time to turn around and deflect?

Puri Puri Prisoner was shouting something over his shoulder: “I'll get him I’ll get him!” Garou side eyed him as they ran, to check, once again, what Puri meant by it. After all, it didn’t seem like the guards cared very much that Puri Puri Prisoner was at potential risk of being shot - was Puri changing his mind on helping Garou to get a better chance of survival?

The hero winked. “Angel Bristle!” The sound of Puri Puri Prisoner’s voice bent to the doppler effect as he let himself fall behind. From the guard’s perspective, it would look like Puri was chasing him, Garou realized. Did Puri think the guards would ease up if they thought someone else would do the job for them? It made some sense, but then again, if they’d noticed Puri next to Garou before the spot light had turned on they would think Puri was losing the chase anyways. The sound of gunfire tapered off, momentarily, as Garou neared the wall. They probably thought he was cornered.

A jagged scoff caught in Garou’s throat as he leapt into the air and pummeled the blunt corner of his middle finger knuckle into the brick, creating a divet to dig into and hang off of until he could make another and –

The gunfire started up again. He was a fly on a wall, he realized - a fly with a giant spotlight on him. He launched himself away from the brick just in time to avoid being converted to swiss cheese. His feet completed an arc above his body and he landed back on the ground, before he jumped up at the wall again, this time using the newly created bullet holes to claw himself skyward.

The light was harsh, and it kept up with him easily, which meant the bullets would too. He was only a few seconds into his climb when he heard the distant pop of the rifle again, and something in his brain processed this split second as the one that could potentially kill him. Letting go with one hand, he twisted toward the noise. Enough flight, it was deflection, now or never.

He experienced a moment of panic in which he processed the realization that he couldn’t see. The light was blinding. And then, it was nonexistent. A shadow passed over him, carving a patch out of the spotlight - it was cast by the sillhouetted figure of an angel, poised mid air, it seemed. Then Puri Puri Prisoner’s body hurtled towards him. His eyes widened as he realized the incoming impact. Two massive forearms slammed into the brick on either side of Garou, and he was momentarily shielded from the outside world. On the other side of the human shield, sharp PLINK sounds meshed with that of the prisoner’s breathing, as if he were wearing some sort of metallic armor on his skin. Hard, wiry hair scratched against Garou’s skin where his back met his guardian’s torso. His own breath was ragged, shivering. He...had just almost died, hadn't he? Then a hand was on Garou’s shoulder, peeling him from the wall; the world pivoted, and they were both falling backwards.

Oof - Garou could feel the wind get knocked out of Puri’s chest as it slammed upwards against his own back. They were both back on their feet in seconds though. They faced each other and Garou watched as Puri knuckled away a streak of lip blood and raised his fists in front of his face - icey eyes staring out from a jagged face that cast cubic shadows across itself.

“Playful like,” Puri said, gently.

Garou understood. Raising his hands, he assumed a fighting stance, and lunged toward the hero. Puri side stepped, and threw a punch at his head. Garou ducked backwards and aimed a kick at his abdomen. Puri blocked it and grabbed his ankle.

“You good at jumping?” Puri asked him, as he threw Garou back.

Garou felt a rough "hah" grate his throat as he threw out his leg to add some reverse torque to his path, and landed with his feet on the ground, his waist bent forward. “I’m okay.” He wasn’t as good as he used to be, but he was probably still somewhat above average.

He rushed toward Puri again, threw himself into the air, turned a 540, and slammed his foot into Puri’s chest, letting his knee crumple upon impact to lessen the power.

Puri’s heels dragged a line in the dirt as he sailed backwards. His hands flew to the ground to catch himself, before he raised his head and nodded. “If that was as small a fraction of power that I think it was, I think we'll be okay.”

“What are you thinking?” Garou asked, sliding back into close range throwing a consecutive series of jabs towards Puri's jaw.

Puri caught his fist like a baseball with each attack. Garou kept pummeling, his torso twisting with each hit and Puri’s movement’s complementing his like a mirror image. With each hit he readjusted his stance; his shifts were paralleled, causing him and Puri to rotate in a steady anticlockwise direction. The blurring of their arms created the illusion of a curtain of privacy as Puri replied. “If you try to scale the wall again, you’re screwed.”

“Seems so,” Garou said. He could tell the only reason the guards had let up was because he and Puri were engaged in battle. The second they stopped fighting the barrage would go from zero to one hundred. This fight was essentially just firing squad procrastination.

“When my back is to the guards, rush me again and jump. I’ll give you a boost.” Breaking their rotation, Puri threw Garou’s fist at a hard angle, which caused Garou’s arm to cross his body, and gave Puri an opportunity to throw himself backwards, land one knee, and weave his hands into a basket shape level with his waist. “Cheerleader style.”

Hey. A way out was a way out.

“Okay, let’s do it.” Garou said.

“Two test runs first,” Puri grunted, sprinting forward, throwing his palm out and almost landing a bone buster on Garou’s cheek, if not for Garou dropping swiftly out of the way and turning a leg sweep to take him down. Puri continued talking as he ducked his shoulder into the fall. “To make sure the aim is okay.”

The moment Puri’s back hit the ground from the roll, Garou shot up like a piece of popcorn springing off a hot skillet. Kicking off the wall, his feet arced over his head again and he turned his chin to keep his eyes trained on the palm Puri had thrown into the air as if to shield his face. The ball of his foot impacted Puri’s palm and his stomach fluttered as he got another boost of air. That was a pretty good shot, he contemplated, as he catapulted to a point about 20 meters upward, felt a butterfly moment of zero velocity, and then raced toward the earth again. If Puri had used both hands and hadn’t been on his back (and thus only able to channel power from the elbow) it could’ve almost worked.

He landed on the ground and immediately almost got clocked in the head by another of Puri’s fistthrows. He laughed, as his nose sailed past it. This was almost like a game of tag. Or dance. It was like being back in the dojang. Puri was rushing toward him again, hand out as if to jab him in in the navel, but Garou knew it was the sign for target practice, so the second his feet hit the ground from his last dodge he raised his toe above his head in a picturesque ax kick, his leg casting a dainty linear shadow across the spotlight before he cleaved it downward, and hit Puri’s palm like it was the invisible step at the bottom of the staircase. He let his body scissor upward to join his heel, and Puri’s steady pressure flung him into the air. It was far, but the angle was bad, Garou realized, as he traveled about 40 meters diagonally but only got half as much height. The fact that his heel hit the hand first meant the driving force of his ankle had sent him off kilter. Puri’s upright position had optimized his push, since he could draw power from the shoulder now, but they could do better -- they needed to consolidate: Garou's footwork from the last one, Puri's push from this one. Garou skidded against the ground as he landed, a huge dust cloud kicking up as his foot folded out beneath him and his hip shot across the dirt. The ground rattled with muffled thumps. He coughed and blinked away some of the dust, jabbing his fingertips into the earth and squinting to make out the gigantic bristled form of the prisoner barreling towards him like a charging wooly rhino. The spot light was in Garou’s eyes again, which meant Puri’s back was to the guards, which meant this was the moment. His slippers slid against the grit as he began sprinting.

They were on a collision course. 30 meters, 10, 2. Puri’s eyes and teeth glinted with one last streak of electric white-blue, and Garou’s stomach glowed as his body filed one last request for weightlessness. His legs soared above the ground. Puri’s hands created a perfect cup, right at chest level, and his body coiled with energy as Garou’s toes touched his palm. Garou saw the grin, the words “good job!” on the face below, and then he was flying. The sky smeared past him. His body flipped, and even though it was fast it felt slow. He did what he could to twist himself facing forward, focus on the edge of that wall and

FOOH–

His stomach hit the edge and his elbows clapped against the horizontal top. Barbed wire snagged his skin. His heels scratched against the wall face as he clawed himself over, hooked his leg, rolled, and there he was. It was messy, but it was the top. Coughing away the bellyache, he scrambled to the edge and looked down upon the warzone he’d just escaped, to see if Puri Puri was still there, still okay, still safe after this daring feat to help the human monster.

Puri Puri was a small, action-figure sized shape below. His head was tilted up. He was smiling.

Garou cupped his hands against his mouth. “Good fight!” he shouted toward the ground. He began to turn away.

“Wait, Garou!” Puri Puri’s voice echoed faintly from below. “There’s one last question I needed to ask about you and Metal Bat!”

As long as he made it quick.

“Yeah?” Garou called down.

“How’s your sex life?”

Garou’s felt a spitty, lopsided grin curl the corner of his mouth. The wind at the top of the wall lifted the sound of his laughter and something – maybe the lingering adrenaline, maybe his newfound freedom, maybe the fact that it had been almost two years since he had gotten the chance to smile back at a sparring partner, made him feel 100% okay with giving the people 100% what they were asking for. Or at least like…maybe it wasn't the end of the world, if he did a little pandering for once.

“Oh, super kinky,” he shouted back. “He’s a biter.”

Metal Bat could get his revenge later.

Cackling with the delight of a fully fledged villain, Garou jumped, and disappeared into the leafy darkness of the other side.

Chapter 13: Flavor sensation of a lifeline

Chapter Text

Dewy leaves plapped against his grinning face as he tore through the woods. He had gotten away with it! He had really gotten away with it! Sure, he hadn't found Metal Bat or anything, but he had successfully snuck into J-City Penitentiary, talked to another person there, collected information, and made it out alive!

God, he loved chaos. This had been the most fun he'd had in a good while. His calves sloshed through swampy black twig water, tore on brambles. The woods was a buggy tunnel of shrubbery. The sound of the prison alarm was getting more and more faded though, and that meant he was going in the right direction: away.

Once he found a highway, he was able to follow that into the city, a jog that was an hour and a half, at most. He kept his pace up, even after he'd met the urban area– best to get through the streets and back to the docks before dawn broke. No one really noticed him, save one homeless woman who retreated warily into a subway stairwell as he bolted past. He supposed he must have looked pretty suspicious, sprinting through the city streets in the dead of night, muddy and scuffed up, probably looking like he’d just been in a fight. He wasn't tired though, no way was he gonna get tired.

He got to the docks. His chest heaved up and down as he pressed himself flat against one of the administrative buildings and scoped out the landscape. It seemed to be empty, but he kept to what walls he could regardless. Within minutes he was immersed in the forest of shipping container stacks that stood, giant columns grouped in front of each crane station, waiting to be loaded in the morning.

There was a metallic squeal as he heaved on the handle of one of the containers.

His shadow weaved its way onto wood as he took a shallow step inside and quickly checked the label on the nearest crate. E City. He scratched his chin as he tried to visualize a map of the continent, so he could recall the configuration of all the cities that had coastline. S, R, Q, P, M, L, J, G, F, E, D, Z, X, W, U, T, and…back to S. That was one complete lap. He didn’t want to fall victim to the same chainlike series of stops that had messed him up on his way to J City, and had had plenty of time to think about this conundrum on his way here: Because of the multiple stops thing, it was perfectly possible that a ship that was packing E-City boxes was also heading toward S. But because this crate was at the bottom of the stack now, that meant that it would be at the top of the stack once the boat was loaded - and that meant that E city was one of the earliest stops the boat was gonna make (minus any stops to pick up more cargo to send toward E-city). And if E-City was one of the earlier stops, that meant that the boat was heading farther up North, rather than pointing South and then taking a turn to the West. South and West was what he he wanted, because that was the was the shortest way to get back to S.

He backed out of the container, and shut the door as quietly as he could behind him. He moved silently to the end of this container block, checked to make sure the world was still vacant, and sprinted to the next block in line. One of its bottom boxes was marked for W-City. That was promising. So, he shut the door, and climbed his way to the top of the stack, using the long vertical handles for climbing poles. He heaved open one of the containers at the top and found a crate marked for U-City.

And that meant this shipment was a dud, because if the boat was scheduled to stop at W before U, that meant it was also taking the long way round, and had no guarantee that S-City would even be en route.

He repeated this process 4 more times, and then, finally, he found a block that had a bottom shipping container with crates marked for S-City itself, and a top container with crates marked for D, which which meant that the boat had to be heading the direction he wanted, and S city was likely to be one of the earliest stops. The only thing he’d need to worry about was scuttling out of sight of the cranes if the boat made any additional stops to pick up cargo on its way to S.

Scuttling out of sight, because no way was he closing himself inside one of these things again. Nuh-uh. He was riding the top, he didn’t care if it meant a little extra legwork to get on board.

He found a nearby hiding spot to wait it out until the ship arrived to be loaded.

Within an hour or so, the early morning sun bled across the sky like a red paint spill. When his ship arrived, he did what he needed to to avoid being seen and slip aboard via the gangway. The entrance was a rectangular hole in the side of the boat, that led to a hallway below deck, which was narrow, and a bit nerve-wracking to go through, but once he took the stairs to the top and got outside it meant there was a nice rectangular vestibule on deck, and squatting behind it offered good enough cover to keep him unnoticed until he was fully sure the containers were all packed up and the crew was mostly below deck.

Then he climbed the containers, and had the whole big top of that block all to himself. Just him, the surface under his feet, and the entire ocean and sky spread in front of him. The boat began to move, and he was on his way to S-City.

He sat back, and watched the sky go by.

It was sunny at first. The sky was pink, the rising sun glowing like rose gold on the clouds that stacked themselves up on the horizon. It was the sort of color Zenko would probably like, he thought.

It wasn’t long before the weather took a turn though. The wind picked up first. Then the waves started becoming bigger. Each length the boat took forward felt like a wide step, the kind where the footfall catches the tilting body from falling. The wind picked up a bit more. The color of the sky soured to dark gray, and the air around him thickened. It began raining, and once it started, it only got harder.

It was a bit chilly, up here. That’d been one of the benefits to his plan on the way up to J-City: no weather to worry about. Don’t get it wrong, he’d rather be cold and free to move around than stuck in another box – but still.

The rain came down on him, making a white-gray haze of splashback against his skin. Not his top pick for showering temperature. The wind didn’t help with making it comfortable either.

He figured it might warm him up to move around a bit more, so he pushed himself to his feet and practiced martial arts stances for a while, enjoying the way the sway of the boat added some extra challenge to maintaining the poses. It got a bit more challenging as the waves grew, and the rain came down harder. He moved on to practicing agility– jumps and kicks and midair twists like he'd practiced with Puri Prisoner. Low key, he had noticed during that fight that his technique was getting rusty, and it was probably because he hadn't been motivated enough to practice as much lately. No problem though, he just needed to get in the groove of things again, right? Easy. He was just in the middle of a reversed 540 when the boat tossed, and the entire cube he was standing on rotated into an entirely different plane. His feet totally missed the metal, his hip slammed into it instead, and next thing he was rolling – all the way right until his arm hooked around the slippery edge of a shipping container (the last shipping container on the edge actually) and he was able to pull himself to his hands and knees. He panted, fresh rainwater slipping around his facial features like they were rocks in a stream. Then a huge roar of water exploded to his left and a spray of ocean brine blasted him from the side, forceful enough to actually knock him onto his hip and elbows again.

Oh, no way. No way was he gonna lose to a measly ocean.

His lungs were searing with salt. He was just about to push himself back up when, in the distance, he saw a flash of light crackle along the underbelly of the clouds.

Okay. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be jumping around on top of a giant metal block in the middle of the ocean right now. He peered over the edge below, as the thought crossed his mind that maybe he should climb down and just risk a crew member coming out on the load deck, if only so he could get a bit of shelter by huddling at the base of the shipping containers.

His face was sprayed again as gray ocean foam burst up the side of the boat and dragged across the deck, before the hull tilted back in the opposite direction and the remaining water spilled over the side.

Na, he didn't really feel like swimming right now. So, he stayed on his knees and elbows and crawled back to the spot in the center of the block instead.

He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on top.

He'd just be still here, for a little bit.

The rain remained constant.

The sway of the boat was too, and each wave caused his body to rock to the side like he was a weighted boxing dummy. Eventually he realized it'd be a lot less work to just let gravity place him where it wanted, so the next time it pushed him over, he let himself slide onto his side, and he stayed that way.

He curled into a ball and closed his eyes. His hair was so wet it was actually pooling flat against the metal of the shipping container he was laying on. The sound of rainwater thrumming against steel felt like it was pressed right against his eardrum. His other ear was completely filled up. Shivering, he pulled his arms into the sleeves of Badd’s t-shirt, ducking his face down into the neck so his breath could warm up the inside.

The inside didn’t smell nice, like it did before. Before it had smelled like clean laundry, and Metal Bat’s and Zenko’s house. Now it smelled like sweat with a hint of stale blood, a dash of durian, and an additional something which was undeniably in the same family as wet dog.

Imagine what Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit would say.

15 hours he told himself. Just 15 more hours.

20 hours later, the boat came into port at S-City.

His jaw shivered as he pushed himself to his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the block to watch as the boat pulled into its spot by one of the crane stations.

Despite the darkness, columns of the rain were intermittently illuminated by the lights from the docks, the boat, the other boats, the cranes. He raised a hand to give his eyes a visor so he could see exactly what was happening and when he would need to act.

He needed to get off of this container block before the cranes started unloading, but it was too soon now, as the crew mates were only just tossing the stern lines ashore to the dock workers, and the gangway hadn't come down yet. Once the gangway came down, it was on him to find a moment when no one was looking, climb down the container block, travel across to the entrance that went below deck, make it to the gangway, and take the stairs down to the docks.

It was either that, climb the stern lines like a koala, or swan dive into the ocean, and honestly, those all sounded a bit dramatic, even to him. Probably more conspicuous too.

And I mean, there were stairs. Like, right there.

If anything, the most exposed moment during it all was going to be the climb down from the container block, as his way down had to be the front of the cube, where the handles of the shipping containers faced outwards, but he was also in plain sight of anyone who happened to be on deck.

When the crew was done with the lines and had dispersed from the deck, he started the climb down. His fingers and toes were a bit numb from his night of cloud gazing, but as long as he kept his eyes on his hands it would be okay. The rain made it slippery, but it turned out to be to his advantage as he used the long vertical handles of the containers like dual firefighter poles, and controlled the speed of his slide by wedging his feet against the horizontal grooves that striped the front of each container.

He was about 3/4ths of the way down when he heard a voice. It was on the port side, from that thin walkway that stretched between the side of the boat and the containers. Someone was about to come around the corner – Damnit, why was he so slow?! A crack of lighting slapped his eardrums. In his haste, his numb foot missed the next groove, his hands shot down the slippery lengths of the shipping container handles, his pinkie fingers cracked against the connectors that joined the bottom of the handles to the box, his grip broke, and gravity took him.

There was a crunchy snap as he hit the rain soaked deck elbow first and a yelp jumped out of his throat. Luckily, another crack of lightning happened at the same time, so it wasn't noticed. He quickly silenced himself and rolled to all fours – ow – or, uh, all threes – so he could scramble around the corner to the opposite side, and hide in the narrow gap between the containers and the starboard side of the boat. He leaned back against one of the shipping containers and took a moment to get his sh*t together.

His chest rose and fell shallowly as he tipped his head back and tried to gulp down the nausea piling in his chest. Okay…okay…what was the problem? Blinking the rain out of his eyes, he looked down at his right arm, which was balanced gingerly atop his stomach. His elbow was jutting out in this weird way that gave him the notion that it was most definitely dislocated. He was pretty sure he could finagle it back into the right spot if he could flex the muscles in his upper arm – but when he tried to flex, nothing happened. Well, nothing except for a throbbing, hot wire, exploding bubble wrap, pain, right in his shoulder. He used the hand of his good arm to pull back the shirt sleeve, and was immediately able to diagnose a second dislocated joint, from the way his shoulder seemed to have bulged out and sunk down from its regular configuration.

He had to fix the shoulder first. Ugh, what an annoyance. This would have been way easier to deal with if he had a table or something. He propped his knee up in front of him, and used his left hand to grasp his right arm by the bicep and guide it onto his knee. His elbow started folding in a weird way – his back slipped down the metal he was leaning against as he quickly raised his calf to support his forearm, contorting his body into a macaroni shape. Holding his bicep, he gave his arm a swift tug forward, and hissed as he felt his shoulder pop back into place. Then he used his regained range of motion to flex his right arm as he used his left hand to support the elbow until it clicked back to where it needed to be.

Then he rolled onto his knees, and vomited all over the side of the boat.

Alrighty, glad that was done with. Time to keep moving.

He peered around the edge of his corner and checked out the deck.

He retreated back behind to avoid being seen by another crew member.

He edged back out again, and saw the coast was clear. Slipping on the wet deck, he sprinted towards that door. He was about to fling it open and shoot down it when it opened from the inside so he slapped himself to the small bit of wall on the outside of the vestibule instead. A crewmate came through and began to turn the corner. Eyes widened in alert apprehension, he held his arm gingerly, and let his back drag down the wall so he could lower himself further out of sight.

Thankfully the rain and darkness worked in his favor, and the crewmate walked right past him. He didn’t know if the guy was gonna be back soon though, so he had to go–now.

Touching his left arm down to push off, he scrambled back up and turned fast around the corner and through the door. He took the steps down to get below deck and into the narrow hallway. It was dark, mostly, a lightbulb on the ceiling every 2 meters or so–they flashed by him, one after the other, only three, two, one left before the exit, marked above by a dim red glow–this was almost done, he was almost free, he was almost to the door and then–

It swung open, a person stepped through, and they both stopped. Face to face, front to front, of each other. Right. Exactly. There.

The brief sound of whistling that Garou should have noticed approaching from the other side of the door before it opened immediately cut short. The guy’s lips were still in an O shape.

It was stupid. It was so stupid. It was so, frustratingly, universe-shatteringly stupid that Garou didn’t even assume fighting stance. He just stood there, dripping wet, clutching his arm and tipping his head to stare up at the same guy he’d threatened to call the port authority on for being a potential criminal the other day.

You know. The guy with the tattoos.

It was so stupid, his throat was beginning to burn.

The wind and the rain whistled and flecked around the edge of the open door he’d just been about to pass through.

For five whole seconds, that was the only sound.

Then, the man's melody kindled up again. Taking his eyes pointedly off of Garou, the guy stepped around, and continued on down the hall. Whistling.

He even left the door open behind him.

Garou didn’t think twice. He hurried down the steps, and sprinted out into the storm.

Man, that was sloppy. Everything about that was sloppy. He tried not to think about it too hard as he ran through the streets, trying his best to put as much distance between himself and the seaport district, in case anyone decided to change their mind about letting a sketchy stowaway walk free.

Thankfully, nothing happened. No alarms, no sirens, no chases, nothing. He was almost to the park, when he allowed himself to stop sprinting, to slow to a jog, then a walk. It was okay now. He was back in his own territory. It was okay, okay?!

He stood on an empty street corner, thinking about what to do next.

Considering the past 36 hours or so, it had been a while since he'd gotten a proper bathroom break - he hadn’t eaten or drunk much though, so it wasn’t like he really felt anything. He should probably try though, right? Especially if he wanted toilet paper – with this rain, the stuff he kept stashed in the forest had probably dissolved.

The splashy echoes of his footfalls made an uneven rhythm as he wandered down the cement stairs to a mildewy subway terminal.

A person came up to him.

“Sir, are you alright?”

“I’m alri” he grunted.

He kept moving, stepped over the turnstyle –whup, tripped backward actually, try that one again–stepped over the turnstyle, and used his left shoulder to nudge the door open and plunge into the empty bathroom.

Sparing a tired glance to the urinals, he beelined past them, locked himself in the nearest stall, and immediately sunk down onto the toilet. Resting the length of his arm against the toilet paper dispenser, his head bumped against the side of the stall as his spine caved to the side and he wilted against the inside of the cubicle.

He’d just sit here and breathe for a bit. Yeah. That was what he was gonna do. Breath.

Musky bathroom air moved shallowly in and out of his mouth. His nose felt kind of drippy. His fingers spidered across the bottom of the dispenser as he felt for the tissue and yanked a wad out so he could roll it into a ball and bury his face into it for a moment.

The sound of his teeth chattering was magnified by the underground walls. Huh. You’d think all that exercise would’ve really warmed him up by now. Could chalk that up to his wet clothes, he figured. They were dripping a steadily growing puddle, almost enough to dilute the grime on the cement floor, haha.

A dull, throbbing pain pulsed unrelentingly from his right arm.

Urgh, you know what was gonna be a real hassle? Standing up, pulling his pants down, and sitting back down again. All just to try to take a nonexistent piss and sh*t? Screw that. Inefficient use of power. On the other hand…sitting still and doing nothing for another 10 minutes or so? Golden.

He should probably get out of here before commuter hour though.

Scooping his arm off of the dispenser, he heaved himself up, unlocked the stall, and headed for the sink. That would be a treat, a sink, with potentially warm water coming from it.

Disappointingly, all the taps were out of order, and warm water was out of the question.

He was just about to leave, when his attention caught on the grubby, film-coated, spit speckled mirror.

His eyes widened.

Holy sh*t.

Holy sh*t.

Holy sh*t – He hadn’t realized he’d f*cked it up that bad.

Along the side it was sliced up so much you could almost mistake it for a hospital smock. Even after being pressure washed with rain for the past 20 hours, it was dirty. Wasn’t it blue before? Reddish brownish blood stains bloomed across it like rust water, and grass stains and dirt were caked into the threads right down to the molecular level.

He really needed to fix this. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put its threads at the mercy of a machine washer, so the laundromat was out of the question.

He jackhammered his hand against the lever of the soap dispenser, desperate to collect as much of the runny, acid blue stuff as he could. Smearing his hands over his chest, he managed to create a layer of goopy teal on the front of the shirt.

He swore continuously under his breath as he rushed back out of the subway bathroom, up the stairs, and into the street. Despite the start of morning, the heavy cloud cover made the sky a dim, twilight gray, while the water pouring from above smeared the look of the city scenery like it was all one big post impressionist oil painting.

Thank God it was still raining!

The scream of a car wizzed in front of him and he dodged backwards, and then began running again, across the street and in the direction of his park.

The sound of birds cawing to each other and rain patting against the leaves competed with his internal dialogue -sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t–okay, no, don’t worry, you can fix it– as he hurried through the forest and get to his spot by the brook, where he usually went when he needed a whole lot of water all at once for something.

Some days, this stream was weak and good for nothing more than a muddy face scrub. Today, the water was roaring and weaving through the trees, way beyond overflowing.

He kicked his shoes off and waded in, peeling the Blue Saturday Shirt over his head as he went. He stopped at about knee height, and then let his legs fold out from underneath him so he could sit.

Dipping the shirt in the water, he rubbed the fabric against itself furiously, creating a feeble, sudsy film from the hand soap he'd smeared on it before.

Then he dunked that thing back down like he was waterboarding it.

Hope swelled in his chest as some of the dirt dissolved off, a clay colored cloud that drifted above his legs for a moment, before whisking away with the current. But when he lifted the shirt out of the water again there were still stains – his stupid blood was still there – so he redoubled his efforts, dunking and scrubbing repetitively as the rain hammered down around him, pelting the surface of the water almost like those bullets had hit the dirt earlier. Each time he brought it up feeling a spark of hope, but each time, the spark was extinguished, resulting in a compounding dread at the realization that it still looked like sh*t, which caused his scrubbing to become more frantic, more frantic, as fast and frantic as he could without making the rip any–

–crap.

He let out a tight, frustrated sound as his hands and the shirt he was scrubbing dropped haplessly into his waterlogged lap. There was no way he was getting this thing back to its pre-borrowed state.

Here he was, at it again, screwing everything up.

What was he gonna do?! He couldn’t just show up to Zenko with her brothers’ stuff all f*cked up!

He didn't know. But if he kept doing this, he'd probably just make everything worse. Trying his best not to lose his footing on the rocks and faceplant into the water, he waded back to the shore and stumped onto the bank. He'd have to get his hands on some sewing gear tomorrow – maybe if he caught a fish he could use a bone as the needle and tear some thread out if his own shirt, which was still hanging on the same tree where he'd left it after the third time that he'd assured Zenko that he would use the laundry machine at his house to clean it.

Damn it! He should’ve returned the clothing as soon as he'd finished using it the first time! But each of the times he suggested it the kid had said that he should just keep holding onto it, and he had listened to the dumb kid. And he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he did kind of like having the extra change of clothes. sh*t! He should've pushed back harder! Or at the very least, he should've taken it off, not been stupid enough to bring borrowed gear to a prison break.

A prison break that hadn't even gotten her brother back.

The feeling of defeat was waterlogged and heavy. His bones ached as he raised his arms and hung the Blue-brown-red Saturday Shirt up on the tree branch next to his own.

Okay. Well. At least it was safe now. Not subject to being on his stupid body. Maybe the rain berating it through the branches above would help clean it while he waited.

His eyelids were getting heavy. He wished more than anything that he could rest, but it was probably a wise decision to do some home maintenance first.

He twisted a bit to get a look at that scape on his side, the one he’d fixed up with the clear packing tape earlier.

He could see blood squishing around underneath like the liquid that rests underneath the plastic of vacuum-packed meat.

Cute.

Welp - time to deal with it. He picked at the corner of the tape and began peeling – he could see it opening up his skin, though, pulling the left flap away from the right flap and causing a raw red crack of meat to yawn at him wetly.

Eh…Maybe he’d just figure that out later.

What else stung? He turned his hand over to view the scrapes on his knuckles.

Huh. He could see his bones a little bit.

You know what would fix that problem real quick? Not looking at it.

Closing his eyes for a little while would certainly expedite that course of action. His eyelids were friggin lead, dude. The body knows what’s best for it, right? And right now, his body was telling him to just lay down, close his eyes, and iron out the other issues later.

It would probably be a good idea for him to climb this tree, make sure he was out of reach of the little monster guys…the wild animals…Yeah, that’s a good idea, he thought, pressing his hand to the tree and sliding down, slowly, to the ground. He’d definitely get on that idea.

The rain was almost soothing now. The sound was pleasant. Steady. A nice little lullaby from mother nature. He’d adjusted to the temperature, too, and couldn’t really feel the cold anymore, at least not in his hands and feet. So that was good. The only thing that really still felt hot…was his shoulder, but…that would end soon…once he…relaxed a bit…

He used the time to think about Metal Bat, and analyze what he’d learned from his prison break. He’s not involved much with criminals. He’s not involved much with other heroes. He’s not in prison. He could’ve been in S-City when he was taken. Or he could’ve been in A-City. He thought of the boats, and how far he himself had traveled in the course of a few days. Then again, he could have been moved to any other city after that. sh*t. The world is a really big place, isn’t it…

He nodded off at some point. He was only asleep for a few hours though. Or at least, he figured that was the case, because it was still dark out. Obviously, the day hadn’t happened yet. Unless it had already gone by?

It was still raining, so either way, not much had changed.

Water flecked off from the bridge of his lip as he let out a long exhale. Things went darker as his eyes slipped closed again. It was just so he could meditate, focus on his breathing and whatnot.

Hm. Speaking of breathing…his chest felt kind of…heavy. His lips fell apart as he inhaled, and he felt water touch his tongue.

Cool. Dinner was sorted then.

He could be at the hospital…But odds are Zenko would know about that anyway. He could be at the spa…No, that’s stupid. No way is he at the spa…if he was at a spa right now I’d kill him anyways…for making me…do all this thinking…when I could be…asleep…

He rested his eyes for a bit longer, and then woke up for breakfast.

Breakfast dripped down the wrong pipe though. He coughed it back up, and when he coughed, every muscle in his body cramped in protest.

Jeez, everything felt…kind of…not great.

Breathing through his mouth, he let his eyelids stay at half mast to keep the rain out as he forced his focus to travel down the rest of his body.

Closest to his line of sight was his chest, which rose and fell, faintly. Then his belly, which had his arm draped across it. His legs stretched out limply in front of him, looking pale and bedraggled like the way tattered worms lay stretched across the steaming sidewalk after making the mistake to come out in the rain. His head felt hot. But his core felt cold. And everything else felt like…nothing. How was it that you could feel so hot and so cold, and so much like nothing, all at the exact same time? Funny stuff, biology.

Look. He wasn’t stupid, okay? He knew he wasn’t doing well.

But listen.

The last time he'd felt this sick, and shacked up in the middle of the woods after patching himself up, it'd led to him getting stronger – in hindsight, an almost metaphorical, metaphysical rebirth kind of thing – and a necessary step in his process of becoming a monster.

Surely, if he waited it out, the same thing would happen again? If I just close my eyes for a bit, in the morning I'll wake up feeling stronger.

Maybe he'd even get his old powers back. And then he could actually be useful to Zenko…and Metal Bat…and their cat…and the rabbits….

His eyes opened again and he noticed it was sunny now. Picture memories of the dream he’d just been having were floating away from his grasp. Ah well. He thought they might have been about school, so it couldn’t have been anything great.

His hand felt weird. Kinda itchy. His eyes slid to his fingers. There were a bunch of tiny, shiny black dots moving around on them. Moving dirt? Oh. No, that was ants.

His eyes slipped closed again.

"I should've known you were going to be an awful student…"

"I got a one hundred and two on the test, sir, can't we just look at that?"

"I'm afraid you have terrible discipline, and you flunked your jumping scores. I'll need to call your parents."

"No, I don't want you to phone home, Mr. Bang. They might kick me out if they find out."

"Well, then you'll just have to go into holding until we figure out what to do with you. Hall monitor!"

"Yes sir!"

"Take Garou to his cell, please."

"I'm taking you to your cell."

"My arm hurts."

"Well, that's too bad, because I can't let go of it. You know you shouldn't've been looking at those magazine clippings."

"Your cat is tickling me."

"She's used to eating monster fingers."

"I don't like it, it's itchy."

"Well, do you want to be punched instead? We can call the baldy."

"No, can you just like me?"

"I can't, because my cat is hungry."

"Oh. You know, I have a banana taped to me. I could make her a sandwich."

"No, the banana got squashed."

"It did? I'm sorry."

"Not sorry enough. You need to go to time out.”

"There he is!"

"You found him?!"

"Yeah, over by this tree…oh boy…he doesn't look too good…"

"Move over–Garou!”

Someone was shaking his arm.

“Garou!”

He scowled. “Stop..it..m…arm sti hurts…”

"Oh man, he got a lot littler since the last time I saw him..."

"Sh--he was just trying to say something!"

The chatter was kind of annoying. Didn't they know it was still naptime? He cracked open an eye and instead of the sun saw two children's faces gawking at him from above. “Oh, hey, Zenko. Hey Tareo. Wait, what's my brat doing here?”

He was a little surprised, but it wasn't really necessary to keep his eyes open as he listened for an explanation so he closed them again.

“Mister, you’re really sick, we need to – hey–did he fall asleep again?”

Damn it, he'd just been starting to relax again, and now the urgent shaking was back. "Garou, wake up!"

"I am 'wake" he reminded them, closing his eyes tighter, because screw being told what to do by 8-year-olds, and screw the sun, it didn't belong right now with this headache.

"Zenko, there’s–” He heard a cough and the sound of a kid spitting. “I just got a bug in my mouth!”

“Stop being a baby, Tareo, there’s bugs everywhere.”

“But why are there fruit flies?”

“I don’t care about the fruit flies, we need to get him away from the big flies that are trying to get on him and eat him!”

“Oh man…do you see that cut on his side?"

"Yes, of course I do!"

“It looks like he got stuck at a tape factory.”

“No, it’s because he was trying to use it as a bandaid, see?”

“But there's more down here." Crinkling plastic. "Hey–what’s that funny sweet smell?”

“I don’t know, Tareo, maybe he’s got some weird sickness.”

“Zenko…there’s something weird taped to him. Should I poke it?”

“Don’t poke it!”

“Wah! It’s really mushy.”

Garou could tell Tareo was on his left side so he tipped his head that way to explain. “Got a banana from the warehouse. Don’t tell her I stole it.”

“Did he just whisper something to you?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Got peanut butter too,” he mumbled, a bit louder. “Can make a sandwich if you want. One for everyone.”

She sounded tense. “He’s not making any sense. Let me see what it…Wait, is that…a mashed up banana?”

"Oh, gee, that's pretty gross…"

"Don't call him gross!"

Ah man, had the banana gone bad? Oh well. Garou groaned and felt the back of his head scrape tree bark as he shifted himself to try to get in a better sleeping position.

"Lemme alone, guys. Bugs don't bother me, they can have the banana. I'll just…take a minute….and…"

A shrill voice cut the air. "Get up, get up, you shouldn't close your eyes! Get up and open your eyes!"

"Ah–ah--ow, don't pull on that--"

"Zenko, I think he maybe probably broke his arm or something, look, it's all puffy and stuff."

"Tareo, help me pull him up, I don't think he can do it on his own."

"What're you talkin bout, I can do everything on m'own…”

"He's lying, don't listen."

He growled under his breath and waved his left arm to shoo off the little hands that were closing in on him, getting in his space. "I don't like being pulled around, stop it." Bracing his left arm against the tree behind him, he got himself to a standing position. There. Maybe now they'd let him close his eyes for a bit.

"He's sliding down it, catch him!"

Okay, these kids were trying to get way too involved. They really had no reason to be clinging all over him like this. Didn't they realize he was handling it? Didn't they realize this place wasn't safe for children? co*cky immortality complex, that's what these kids had. He'd have to talk some sense into them.

"Guys, there's monsters in these woods …and animals…you shouldn't be here like this…just go home."

"That's what I'm trying to do, Garou, so use your feet and work with me!”

"Wait...but…all my stuff is here…"

"Zenko, I think he's…"

"Tareo, sh!” Her voice was sharp. And then it turned softer. “Don't worry," she said. He felt a pat on his arm. "We’ll come back for it later."

The journey through the woods was honestly something he couldn’t fully remember.

His eyes slipped open once when they were passing by a loud bird, twice when they were trying to navigate around a thick patch of brambles, and then once again when they stepped out of the brush and onto the path of the main park.

He was just really busy meditating, y'know?

Time skipped forward for him, and the next time his eyes lolled open, he squinted down, and saw Zenko on his left side, holding his wrist tightly in one hand and applying an upward pressure to his forearm with the other, and Tareo behind him, pushing on his back like he needed an extra motor to make it down down the little cement walkway.

“Tareo, get the door.”

“Okay.”

Someone took his left hand and placed it on the railing of the steps to Metal Bat’s house.

“I’ll help you but you have to try to balance, okay?”

He nodded and did what she said.

"Zenko, did you notice his hands are cold?" He heard Tareo whisper as the door creaked shut behind them.

Cold? Cold? What the hell was the kid talking about, every hole in Garou's face felt like it was being blasted with desert air. He could tell he was sweating like a pig too. Probably his five star metabolism, you know, people with a lot of muscles get warm easier. Kids aren't like that because they don't have any muscles. Nope, not any. He knew that fact of life from his own experience. Ah man, Zenko was probably freezing to death, because Metal Bat hadn't paid the oil bill. Stupid Metal Bat, he'd really have to give him a piece of his mind later.

He couldn't really feel his hands that well though, so maybe there was more to this than meets the eye. Micro-low pressure zone. Weather had been pretty crazy lately.

Fwump.

Whoa, now there was a sofa or something underneath him. Mm, soft. He was relieved that he was sitting again. He wasn't sure how much they'd noticed, but he actually was pretty tired today. He kind of just wanted to lay down again, finish sleeping off the injuries, but before he could he was hit from behind by an electric blanket and he nearly fell off onto the floor instead.

"Oh, darn it–" Zenko's voice sounded up behind him.

He flinched as he felt a push on his shoulder from Tareo trying to pin him back to the sofa. "Hey, I said I don't wanna get pushed around," he reminded the brat.

"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry!"

"Don't apologize," he grumbled, as someone started pulling blankets around him, tugging and tucking until he was wrapped up like a giant human dumpling – hands and face alone free from dumpling prison.

Oh, but that was warm. That was good. Maybe he actually was feeling cold before. Maybe dumpling prison wasn't such a bad place to be after all.

He hadn't been expecting this. What an odd turn the day had taken. His eyes fluttered open again so he could watch to see what these crazy kids did next.

"Drink!"

A sippy cup was shoved into his hands.

The cup was heavy, but he managed to do what she said. The stuff inside was warm water with a faintly apple-ey taste to it. He took one sip. Then another. And then he tipped it upside down and drained it. Some went down the wrong pipe and he coughed. It woke up another itch in his chest, and as a result, the coughing kept going for about two minutes. Gross – he must not have been done with sleeping off his cold.

Man, now the kids were looking at him like they’d seen a ghost. “I like this drink,” he said, to break the ice. “You could be a mixologist.”

Zenko and Tareo looked at eachother apprehensively. Mixologist was a pretty big word. Maybe they didn't know what he meant.

“Tareo, make more of this–the juice is on the counter. I’m going to get him the stuff Badd gives me when I have a fever.”

“Okay.”

"Tareo," he groaned, plopping his head backwards on the sofa cushion. "You got to fight back, don't just let people order you around like that!"

"Garou, stop trying to distract him, he's busy!" He heard Zenko call from the bathroom.

"Okay, sorry."

Tareo came back.

"Here's your juice, Mister Garou."

Zenko came back too.

"Garou, can you open this bottle? The cap is being difficult.”

He took it. “I’m in charge of this” he asserted, cracking past the child proofing. Okay, yeah, on the fourth try. Whatever. Same narrative.

Tareo clapped.

“Thank you, Mister Tareo.” He said, before the coughs seized his chest and cut him off again.

Zenko took the bottle back from him to prevent a spill.

Each cough was chunky and low and violent. Each inhale was rattley and high pitched and not quite enough. Jesus! This cold was annoying. His tongue pressed stiffly against his bottom teeth as he gasped for a breath and blinked the fuzz from his vision. Man, and now his head was hurting all over again.

"Drink this much," Zenko told him when he was done. Her voice was kind of shaky. She handed him the cap, which apparently doubled as a measuring cup, and held about two tablespoons of syrupy orange liquid.

Medicine? When was the last time he'd taken medicine? Was this really necessary?

"Take it or you're not allowed to sleep!" Zenko ordered.

Okay - whatever the streak, he was breaking it today. He shut his eyes tight to swallow.

"It's allowed now?" He asked, taking a medium sized breath.

She confirmed it with a tight nod, and he did exactly that.

*

When he woke up, the room was dark. He could see his hands, thinner than he remembered, gray-white in the darkness, curled up in front of his face. The other white things–the doily trim of the tablecloth on the coffee table a few feet away, the cloth lampshade of the ceramic piece on top, the edge of the window frame, the cotton curtain draped half blocking it–they looked gray too.

He thought he was alone at first. And then he saw someone –a small figure with black hair and a gray looking sweater, sitting with its back to him, as something gray moved slowly across a plane of other little gray things on the other side.

His first thought was creepy ghost kid. And then he realized it was Zenko, sitting on the piano bench across the room, her back to him as her fingers moved slowly over the keys, not pressing them so there wouldn't be noise.

His throat ached, raw and sore like it had been scratched with toothpicks and punched. It was a little easier to breath than before though. And he could feel his fingers again. They felt stiff, because there were bandaids on them.

They really shouldn't have.

The blanket sunk down and pooled around his shoulders as he shifted into a sitting position. Something damp slipped off his forehead and landed on the floor with a faint slap. He looked down and saw a gray washcloth.

On the other side of the room, her hand stopped moving. She turned around, and immediately met his eyes, despite the darkness.

He swallowed dryly. He knew that look by now.

The room filled with butter colored light as she slid off the piano bench and yanked the chord under the lampshade.

And the very first thing she said was:

"You're not allowed to sleep outside anymore!"

“But I was just–”

“No.” She stamped her foot, and glared at him with a red, upset looking face. "I'm not letting you. "

He fell silent, feeling an awful, sticky tension in his chest. It'd be best to keep his head down until she wasn't angry. Best to keep it down until he could open his eyes again and face it. His fingers fisted on the part of the blanket near his feet as his chin settled somewhere near his aching right shoulder.

Yesterday, there had been two things in this world that were entirely his - not borrowed, not stolen, not part of a uniform, not anyone else's to control.

And that had been his black shirt, and his secret.

Now he had neither of them.

How small he was, compared to this little girl who had a house, and a brother, and a cat.

A silence stretched out between them. Until he coughed, and because he coughed once he coughed again, and then it kept going for about a minute. Then it stopped. Then the silence kept going.

It broke when she crossed her arms and turned away from him. "How were your brownies?" She asked, stiffly.

"They were awesome," he said. His voice sounded faint and strained and scratchy. A whisper pressing through a filtered tube. "Best thing I ever ate."

She left him, and crossed into the other room. "Are they all gone?" She called. "Did you eat them all up?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Then here," she said, returning to him. In her hands was a box of tupperware. She pulled out the last one: a single little square, lumpy with chocolate chips. She gave it to him. "You can eat the extra."

He stared at it, feeling a strange sort of instability in his chest. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, and went back into the kitchen. “Would you like anything to drink?”

“No, that’s fine, I don’t need–"

“I’m getting you water.”

He swallowed, throat raw as he stared down at the brownie sitting in his cupped hands.

“Can it be in a regular cup?” He asked. His voice was quiet, because he didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to ask such a question, make any demands, request that this kid do anything more for him than she had already done. But the sippy cup someone had peeled out of his hand and left on the coffee table table was staring back at him.

She came back and handed him a glass of water with two hands. He took it from her with two hands. He drank it and it felt really good.

Then he picked up the brownie again and ate that.

Turned out, the hype was real.
Was 100% the best thing he ever ate.
Flavor sensation of a lifetime.

Chapter 14: It's Complinsated.

Chapter Text

He woke up to see Metal Bat’s eyes staring at him.

“f*cking f*ck!” He shouted, kicking backwards, ineffectively struggling against the sweaty cave of blankets he was trapped in as he tried to scramble to the other end of the sofa.

Tama fluffed out and hissed as she jumped down from the coffee table which she’d been observing him from.

The cat. Right. The cat looks like him. He clutched his head in his hand and watched warily as the animal snaked out of the living room and through the flap on the back door.

Jesus, that had got him. That had really got him.

“Garou? Are you awake?"

Zenko came down the hall, dressed in ruffly kiddie pajamas that had shooting stars all over them and the words "you shine" printed across the front in rainbow letters.

When he opened his mouth to answer he gagged on the skunky taste of his own air dried throat and hurled his face into his elbow to cough rawly until a smear of mildly bloody phlegm was splattered across his inner arm.

A glass of water clunked down in front of him. "I think you might have a case of Moon-ownya," Zenko said. "Amongst other issues. But it’s good to see you up!”

Garou breathed through his mouth and watched as she went and took a seat across the room on the piano bench, just like the night before.

"Do you still have your voice?" She asked.

He nodded because he was quite certain he did, he just needed to find it because that shout he'd ripped out a second ago had chased it away along with the cat.

"That's okay, don't strain yourself."

"It's fine," he reacted, pushing the words out to prove it. "Just a little sore."

Zenko eyed him skeptically.

He stared back.

"I don't–"

"Can you–?"

Their voices overlapped as they accidentally each spoke at the same time.

Garou snapped his mouth shut and nodded her way.

"Can you eat almonds?" She asked.

He nodded again.

"Oh good, let's have lunch!" She slipped off the bench and trooped into the kitchen.

"Wait–Zenko–"

Her head popped around the corner. "Are you too sick to eat?"

"No! No, I just–not too much, got it?"

She made her voice lower, like she was imitating someone: “You’re the boss, applesauce." The sound of plastic dishes clattering came from the other side, then the hum of a freezer opened, then the suctiony silence of it getting shut. She came back with two bowls that had small, rubber tipped spoons poking out of them. The scuffed bowl with the faded fire trucks along the outside had one scoop of Rocky Road ice cream, and the bowl with bright pink race cars had two.

She handed him the one with the fire trucks.

“Now,” she said, settling down on the cushion beside him. “You may take a bite, and then you may take your turn.”

He took a bite. The cold did make his throat feel a bit better. He kept his eyes focused downward as he thought about his turn.

“I don’t get it.” He said finally. “What the hel–” He shut his mouth, shut his eyes, and started again. “What the heck happened?”

Zenko crunched on an almond and swallowed before speaking. “When I didn’t see you on Monday I thought you might’ve been in trouble. So the next day I decided to look.”

“Wait…Mon..? What…what day is it?”

“Thursday,” she said, taking a big spoonful, dropping some, and digging in to try again.

“But–what happened to Wednesday?” Honestly, the last day he could incisively declare he had known where in the week he was would’ve been Saturday. Saturday? Yeah, Saturday. But, assuming the patchy memory he had of a couple of brats dragging him cross country and onto the couch wasn’t some sort of weird fever dream, that meant it must've happened on Tuesday, which meant that…

“You slept through Wednesday,” she answered, successfully scooping up the escaped scoop from before. “Well, most of it. You woke up enough to take the medicine and water I gave you. And then you fell back asleep. Don’t you remember that?”

His head traced a vaguely circular path as he gestured something in between a Maybe and an Absolutely f*cking not.

She paused. And then asked – "Do you remember the last time we talked to each other?"

His eyes swiveled to her. Her ankles were crossed primly over the edge of the sofa cushion. Eyebrows strained upward, lips pursed. Her focus stayed carefully on the spoon, now resting in the bowl on her lap.

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his eyes down to his own scoop.

“Good,” she said curtly. She picked up the spoon and resumed eating.

“But I still don’t get it, '' he said, voice straining. His grip tightened on the bowl between his hands. “How did you guys even find me?” In his entire time living in the park, he’d never once had to deal with any people stumbling across him in his sleep, not when he slept in the forested part. Even if Zenko had known he’d been living there, it wasn’t like she’d have had a reason to know where any of his preferred campsites were, let alone where he’d been on this one particular occasion. It wasn’t like he had ever told her anything.

It wasn’t like he had ever wanted to.

The kid started speaking like it was the easiest little story in the world. "Well, I knew from his stories that Tareo knew a lot about the places you go. I found him during recess and told him I needed help finding you. He said we should check the woods in the park, because of a shed you used to go to there. He knew the way to the shed, so we went together after school to find it, but when we got there we saw that it was ruined. But then we checked around and noticed there was a stream nearby." She shrugged her shoulders and swung her feet as she finished off her first scoop. "I figured our best chance was to follow it, because everybody drinks water. You especially, you always seem to want it."

The entire time she’d been talking the muscles in his jaw had slowly gotten tighter.

So yeah. On one hand, he was actually kind of impressed. It sounded like the practice they'd done thinking about potholes and street corners and stuff had paid off. It was pretty intuitive stuff, but, like, considering they were eight-year-olds…it almost made him wonder if Zenko might've actually had a chance at recovering her missing brother.

But on the other hand…

Her eyes meandered up from the spoonful of ice cream in front of her mouth and she paused. “Are you angry?”

“No.” His voice came out rough. The way she stared made some murky wave rise up in his chest, and he wished he could swat it away, and by “it” he meant both things, the wave and the stupid look that was causing it. He wanted to tell her that she had no right to look at him that close when she was wrong, when it was stupid, when the truth was that she was just a stupid kid who had wasted her time and energy butting into his business, where she wasn’t needed, she wasnt invited, and most importantly, she didn’t belong.

Because, even after the wave had crashed through him, crested, broken, and dragged its foam quietly back down to where it had come from, a prickly, obtrusive discomfort sat in his chest like an unbudgeable sea urchin. Two kids had been stumbling through the deep woods for hours. He supposed it was a good thing that Zenko hadn't been doing that alone, but at the same time…the list of people he'd been shoving his pathetic little existence upon was growing. And now Tareo was back on it.

But if he went and said all that, it would just open the floodgates to a whole bunch of rebuttals about just how "not needed" all that they'd done really was.

And that was not a discussion that he was going to let her have with him. Not because he was necessarily right or wrong about whether he'd have been able to pick himself up and carry on without any intervention, or that she was necessarily right or wrong for having come and intervened, but because …

Well, the way he saw it, it'd been a fifty fifty shot. And those were odds that were perfectly acceptable– that he was perfectly fine with facing on his own. Which was a standpoint that was too much to explain, and none of her business, and useless to change the situation now, and…and made his head hurt.

His head hurt and he didn't want to think about it anymore.

So what he ended up blurting out was: "The stream is useful. Don't ever drink that water though. Pollution."

"Oh." She said, looking genuinely surprised. "That's different from how I imagined. What did you do then?"

"I…" it felt weird to talk about this. It was weird to him, having this stuff out in the open. Too weird to think about how weird it was any further. His body felt heavy as a wave of exhaustion washed over him instead. The soft fleece of the blanket around him made static on the bottom of his hair as some invisible weight pressed his shoulders back against the sofa cushion...and he realized that...between the two of them...there was really no point in avoiding the questions, anymore.

"I had an empty 2 liter soda bottle I'd refill any time I hit a sink." He said blandly.

Hey, maybe it'd be useful for her. Y'know, if Metal Bat never came back to pay the bills, or something.

It was time to change the topic.

“Tareo went home, right?” He asked, gaining some energy back and twisting to glance down the hall to check if the kid might’ve been hiding around the corner, despite himself.

“Yes. He had to leave that night.”

Night?

“So he got home?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m assuming so. That’s where he said he was going.”

“Wait, but–” His chest went tight and his body stiffened. “--but Zenko, did he call you to say so? Or text? How far away is his house from here?” He tried to lift himself and his back slipped further down the cushion instead, which made his nerves jolt higher. He'd been out of commission for the last few days and now he–if something happened he couldn’t…

Damnit. sh*t! He’d normally not be so helicoptery, but holy sh*t– the last thing he needed was for that kid to get hurt because of all this, because of him, his weakness, his inability to…to...to get those two to back the f*ck off! His eyes were wide as he turned them to Zenko. Dread pooled in his gut as he watched her shake her head.` Before he'd even had the chance to remember that his esophagus was literally a sandpaper food chute at the moment, his voice rose. “You have to check these things, Zenko! What if something happened to him and no one knew?!” In his agitation, a new round of coughing started up. "What" cough "if" cough "monster" cough "people" cough "take" cough "like" cough "B–"

Her eyes widened with comprehension as he hacked. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s fine!” She said quickly, raising her voice over the noise. “And I have his phone number, so we can check right now.”

Dropping everything, she ran to the fridge and came back with a little scrap of paper. “Here it is,” she said. Garou’s chest shuddered as he finally got a handle on himself and was able to pull some air in. His head felt hot, everything felt hot, the room was hot and big, way too big.

She picked up the phone on the side table and dialed.

And–

It picked up on the first ring.

“Hey Zenko! Is Mister Garou feeling okay?”

Garou let out a groan of relief, and let his head fall back against the cushion. The world and its temperature all fell back into proportion.

Zenko smiled at him and pointed to the phone, eyebrows bouncing in a happy ‘I told ya so’ kind of way. “Yeah” She said, playing with the chord in her free hand. “He’s doing better than before. He was really worried about you and wanted to call to make sure you made it home.”

Tareo’s voice picked up in excitement. “Really? Is he there right now?”

Garou clicked his tongue at Zenko’s wording, and raised his voice to explain. “Yeah, Tareo, just wanted to check in. There’s been some annoying monsters around so…yeah. Use your head.” He coughed, annoyingly, and shoved the receiver away from his mouth until he was done. He cleared his throat. “No going fishing through the woods for creeps like me again. Got it? That goes for the both of you.”

Zenko rolled her eyes.

“Okay!” Tareo said brightly. “Just don’t get lost in the woods again!”

“Hey, since when did you give out the orders, short stuff?”

The kids both giggled. “I'm sorry,” Tareo said humbly. “I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better, Mister Garou. Zenko, let me know if you want any help with finding Metal Bat next, okay?”

“Okay,” Zenko said happily. “Thanks, Tareo. Bye bye!”

“Bye!”

She hung up the phone, settled back into her seat, and picked up her ice cream again, swinging her feet cheerfully off the couch cushion as she started in her second scoop.

Garou's back was stiff again. "I don't want to get him involved.” he said sharply. “Kid’s a trouble magnet. He’s been through enough from hanging around me.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, come on, you can’t just say that! He really likes you, so he wants to hang around you. And if he wants to help me, I’m the only one who's got the right to turn him down. He’s already saved you once–”

Twice.

“--so don’t take his use for granted.”

Something about the wording made his skin crawl. “And you shouldn’t take him for granted for the sake of his use,” he snapped back. Wouldn't that be rich, if the kid he was around now acted all friendly to the one he had before, and then threw that kid in the dirt to continue being friendless– or worse, dead– after she was done playing rescue mission with him.

Obviously, this was more than just play for Zenko. He knew that, but–still. He didn't want…well, he didn't know what he didn't want exactly, but…she didn't seem like that kind of kid, and he wasn't about to watch her turn into one.

She was staring at him, head co*cked. He dropped his eyes, a sudden twisted feeling knotting up his stomach as he sat there, on her sofa, under her blankets, in her house. He wondered if he could force himself to puke up the ice cream she’d fed him, so he could feel less weirdly twisted.

Zenko had opened her mouth and was about to say something, but before she could, his coughing kicked up again. Tossing his bowl onto the table, he slanted himself into the corner of the sofa and hacked his lungs out for a bit, before emerging, eyes slipping into blurry focus on Zenko, who looked…pale. His eyes clenched shut again as he belted out one more set. Inside of the blankets, he clutched his belly.

“I’m going to get you some more medicine,” Zenko announced, pattering off toward the bathroom.

“No…” He groaned after her. “Don’t… waste your…” he began coughing again, and she was back before he got the sentence out.

He didn’t know how much had been in the bottle before or how much of this stuff she’d fed him when he’d been delirious all through yesterday, but currently, there was only about an inch of medicine left, and he was fairly certain the dumb kid hadn't considered that if he was infected with some sort of “moon-ownya” at the moment, the person it would jump to next was her. Ergo, she shouldn’t waste all her medicine on a dipsh*t who had literally slept off a shattered rib cage, in a past life.

"I don't need any more of that garbage," he choked out. "Save it, because you're gonna be hacking next."

"If it's so garbage, why should I save it for myself?" She replied coolly.

"Oh-k–" He coughed and winced his eyes shut as he swallowed down a mouthful of blood phlegm. "-kay not garage, but st–" oh gross, there was a bloody, phlegmy air bubble in his throat now– "you haven't consid–" oh jeez the bubble popped and there wasn't even air in it, it was just more blood phlegm –"I don't want so don't make me so quit bossing–"

Her eyebrows went up.

He ended up bartering down to a half dose, in exchange for finishing his ice cream.

They took a moment to meditate away the blood phlegm, before eating.

When the moment was up, Zenko left the medicine bottle on the coffee table, as if he was gonna change his mind or something, and picked up her bowl so she could resume the scraping-the-inside phase. She was quiet.

They were taking a break from talking to each other, he supposed.

He braced his hand on the cushion so he could keep his back straight as he leaned forward to grab the bowl again.

His ice cream was more cream than ice at this point. He knew–okay he knew–he was being painfully slow about eating it. It didn't taste bad or anything like that. He just…liked having something to keep his eyes on. He stirred it slowly, pushing around an almond that he was saving for later.

The clock on the mantle above the piano ticked quietly. Garou glanced to it and saw 1:50.

1:50…Thursday…Pajamas…the pieces came together in his mind and he realized that Zenko must’ve skipped school for this. Unless there was some weird holiday he didn't know about. Take Your Crazy Fake Uncle to House Day.

Wednesday and Thursday. Two day f*cking holiday, right there.

He wondered how Monday had been.

You know, with Mrs. Splintfingars and everything.

Some topics just weren't as good for thinking about as others.

God, his throat really, really wasn't feeling like normal today.

His finger traced the tire of one of the little faded fire trucks.

"Is this his favorite?" He asked, picking passively at a frothy-skinned marshmallow.

“Badd’s?” Zenko teethed on her spoon for a moment, before popping it out and humming in a negatory sort of way. “Mm, no, he likes it, but this is more my favorite.”

“Pretty good favorite,” he said, deciding to go for the marshmallow after all.

“I agree,” Zenko said, agreeably. “My favorite is the best favorite. Badd is way too picky about his favorite. He over complinsates it much too much.”

Garou felt the corner of his lip twitch. This kid. “What’s his big over complinsated favorite?” He asked, scraping some of the melted stuff off the inside.

“Strawberry.”

“That sounds pretty cut and dry to me.”

“Let me finish! Strawberry, but only if it’s three scoops mixed with–” raising her spoon in the air like a conductor’s baton, she began swinging it back and forth, one stroke for every ingredient: “half a cup of cream soda, half a cup of milk, three inches or more of whipped cream, and two maraschino cherries.”

Garou grinned around the spoon in his mouth. “What a looney.”

“Totally. And there isn't even any chocolate in the recipe!”

“And he won’t eat it if it’s not exactly like that?”

“Oh, no, he’ll eat whatever. But that’s what it has to be to qualify as his favorite. Because–” she dropped her voice again and waggled her finger at him “‘-a man’s gotta have standards, Zenko.’”

Garou cackled. “Good thing for me I’m a monster then.”

Zenko grinned. “Why, what’s your favorite? Pistachio?”

“Aren’t you listening? I don’t have one.”

“That’s silly, you can’t 'not have one.' You can have a bunch that switch, but you can’t not have one. Saying you have none is the easy way out!”

He shrugged. “Well–I mean–how would I know?”

Zenko looked at him like he had sprouted horns all over again. “How would you not know? Garou, this is a very basic building block for having a personality. You gotta figure it out.”

Well, sh*t. Garou looked down at his hands and thought about figuring it out.

“Any ideas?” Zenko prompted.

He shrugged again, but smaller.

Zenko crossed her hands primly over her lap. “I think you would like peanut butter cup.”

“I haven’t had that kind before."

“That’s okay, it can be a stand in until you do.”

“Oh…” Garou said, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat. “That reminds me, I had a jar of peanut butter, did you guys see it?”

“The one that was stuck to you with the banana inside the masking tape?”

"Yeah."

“We threw it out. There was blood all over the jar.”

"Oh. Did the trash truck already come?" He leaned a bit to see if he could see the bin in the next room over.

Zenko’s eyes followed him. "Yes. Yes it did."

Man, that was a bummer. That peanut butter could've gotten him through the whole week, maybe even two. Ah well. He supposed he'd be okay for a few days.

"And that reminds me," Zenko said, calling his attention back her way. “Tareo and I were able to cut off the tape that was on your waist but we didn't do anything to the rest of it. For the cut on your side I thought it might be safer for you to get it off yourself in the bathtub."

"Oh...Good call." Garou said, glancing downward, even though his body was still entirely covered with blankets at the moment.

"It looked like you also had some bandages from something older," she said, eyes hovering to his chest for a second. "I left those too. There’s a bunch of that same kind of tape in the bathroom, if you want to replace it.”

When they finished their lunch then, it was apparent that the next thing he was expected to do was head to the bathroom.

"Do you need help?" Zenko said, getting up and closing in as he pushed himself to standing.

"No," he said, hand tightening on the headrest of the sofa.

He crossed his arms over his chest and shivered as he headed down the hall. Using his left arm to reach, he grabbed a towel from the laundry room and then went across to the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and sank down to kneel on the floor for a moment. It was actually by choice. It was way more convenient to reach the bath handle this way. He scooched a bit closer and turned on the water.

He didn’t really want to waste too much hot water this time around, so he filled the bath about a fourth of the way, just enough to submerge his belly if he laid down.

His left knuckles went white as he gripped the towel bar and got himself back to his feet. He kept hold of the bar and used his stiff right arm to begin picking at the waistline of the pants he was wearing. When he bent over to try to get them past the knees, though, he immediately straightened back up again. His abdomen hurt in this weird, stiff kind of way, and his vision was doing things that made him think it might be a bad idea to push it right now. There was no way he was gonna let anything happen to make it sound like he couldn’t handle this.

Everything ached. Sitting around getting fed medicine and stuff was really doing a number on him.

No, really! That was the truth. Getting over an injury was kind of like being a ball of clay. The ball gets smushed. Punched. Pounded. Flattened. If you keep playing with it, it stays warm in your fingers, stays flexible, and because of that it can still get punched, pounded, flattened, right back into a ball again. But if you smash it and then put it down, leave it to sit in the open air, it dries out. Ossifies. The longer it sits still, the harder it gets to squish back into new shapes, and more likely it is to break when you try.

He had to be careful not to let himself sit around and ossify for too long.

But… you know what… if he decided to do this whole getting undressed thing sitting down, he could kill two birds with one stone.

He sat on Metal Bat's toilet and peed for the first time in a while. Unless…he buried his face into his hands as the thought crossed his mind that that was probably wrong. He had probably pissed himself at some point when he'd been laying against that tree.

Sorry, Metal Bat's sweatpants.

The pants were perfectly dry, though! And he remembered them being okay when the kids had dragged him in, even though they would've gotten soaked from the brook and the rain. They had to have air dried after the rain stopped so, whatever had happened–piss or no piss–there was no evidence to prove it. Praise the sun.

A gloomy, resigned sort of frustration with himself sunk in as he began doing the work to get the clothes the rest of the way off, which meant he actually had to look at what he was doing. Yeah, it wasn't as bad a move as tattering up the Blue Saturday Shirt, but it wasn't like these sweats had escaped being battered either. The dirt from outside of J-City Penitentiary was ingrained nearly enough to plant a vegetable patch in these pants. On the left hip area the fabric had been worn down to a fuzzy rim. Before he even got the pants off he could see through the hole that his skin was doing something funky under there. Crusty, oozy, corn-flaky scab kind of situation.

His stomach was doing the thing again. Still sitting, keeping his back straight, he kicked his feet, gaining one singular crumb of satisfaction when he finally freed his ankles from the legs of the sweats.

He got in the tub and began a haphazard wash.

After a bit of that he decided it was better to not be doing that but rather to lay back so the water could lap at the tape on his torso on its own. He let his shoulders slide down.

The slow, steady drip of water beading off his hair gave him something to listen to, as he lay there, just…keeping still. His gaze traveled down to his belly. A huge line of bruising ran across it, right in line with where he’d smacked the edge of that brick wall. Underneath the skin, that bruising looked. His belly looked kind of puffy around the area too. Enough to make a little black and blue island that bobbed above the water. He poked at it and winced.

Maybe he could fix that with some ice, later.

The hot water did seem to help with the adhesive. Slowly, he loosened the tape that was stuck to the scrape on his side. A murky smear of reddish brown puffed out into the water with each inch he peeled off, and it wasn’t great, but it wasn't like…shark week bad.

His vision clouded and he closed his eyes, vaguely registering a sharp clunk sound at the same time that the cold edge of the tub touched the back of his head.

Okay? Is? Thing? Every? Okay? Is?

"--rything okay in there?"

He blinked the fog out his eyes as the sound of his skin squeaking against the tub came from him shifting himself back to sitting, and meshed with the knocking on the other side of the bathroom door, and Zenko's voice.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he called back. Damn, the water had gotten a lot colder. Time to get out of here, he decided.

He used what was in the bathroom to take care of everything that needed to be bandaged up, and then slipped the sweatpants back on.

He pressed his ear against the door. He couldn't hear anything in the hallway. He cracked open the door and peered out.

All clear.

He sped down the hallway. The corners went black for a second, and then his palm hit something and his arm was folded against the wall. His forehead pressed against it and he gritted his teeth. His hand balled into a fist, and he panted heavily.

He heard a muffled voice from some room further down the hall. "Garou?"

He pushed off and kept going, fingertips dragging along the wall just in case.

"Garou?" The voice wasn't muffled anymore, but it was fine, because he tossed the blankets over himself and had his head ducked down, so by the time the voice was right beside him, it didn't matter, because as far as she could tell he was back in hibernation, which meant that he'd successfully avoided a repeat of the last time he'd been caught for trying to recycle dirty clothing.

It was getting stuffy in here though. Hard to breathe. But she was still standing there. He could sense it.

Fabric tickled his nose. Brushed his forehead. His covering was being displaced. sh*t, she had found him out and now she was gonna get mad, she was gonna–

He kept his eyelids shut as the light hit them, and the blanket was dragged gently off his face, and tucked under his chin.

Just so he could breathe a little easier.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

The morning light fell in a very soft, bright way through the white cloth curtain on the window. Garou’s eyes traced the slight glimmer of dust that was suspended like peaceful ocean plankton in the air above the piano across the room.

He coughed and pulled the blanket over his head to try to mute the sound. Kid was probably trying to f*cking sleep, and if he could avoid any morning confrontations with a bossy kid who was trying to f*cking sleep, he would.

When he uncovered his face again, his eyes fell to the fresh glass of water left on the coffee table, and that was the first hint that he was wrong about the kid trying to sleep.

The next hint was the note, which he saw underneath the glass when he sat up to drink.

Went to school. STAY HERE.

A relieved breath passed through his lips. Okay, cool. The kid was at school, which meant he had plenty of time to wander around outside the house, away from here.

He pushed the blankets off himself, got up, and went around the little half-wall room divider that separated the living room from the area where the front door and the hook with jackets and the little plastic tray of shoes was. He pawed at the door knob and felt a stiff resistance. Locked.

Okay fine. Be that way. He moved away from the front area and passed through to the kitchen so he could test the back door, the one with the little rectangular windows, and the lacy white curtain blocking them, and the little gray cat flap that Tama had slid through the other day.

It was unlocked. Alrighty then. He could leave, come back, not get locked out, and no ornery little eight year olds would be any the wiser.

After all, she wouldn’t notice if he just went out while she was gone, right?

His fingertips tingled with a muted sort of anticipation as he opened the door and stepped outside.

The warm breeze brushed the bare skin of his shoulders and made him shudder. Oh, Jesus hallelujah holy f*cking hell, had he missed the outdoor air. He stretched his arms out, not even hardly caring when the right shoulder spasmed from going up too high. He inhaled, the deepest breath he'd managed to breathe since being on top of the ocean.

He wasn't quite out of the woods yet though. He dropped his arms to his sides and glanced around Metal Bat’s backyard.

Metal Bat’s backyard started with a small brick patio. There were some abandoned flowerpots scattered about it. He nudged one with his toe, and a cricket jumped out.

The next part was little garden patch with dry dirt and bamboo sticks poking out at odd angles, the dregs of fossilized tomato vines spiraling partially up them, and some alive plants too-–bushy and wild looking though, like they'd sprouted on their own from seeds dropped by their tomato plant forefathers.

Kind of like, somebody who liked gardening had lived here, a few years ago.

Apart from that there was some grass, a plastic shed with a lawnmower peaking out, one tree, and some more grass, before you hit the chain link fence and the neighboring properties. Which you could only really see if you squinted through the wall of red-leafed bushes that had been strategically planted and left untrimmed, as if to keep any outside eyes from turning toward the otherwise well-groomed little house, and looking at it too closely.

He swung his own eyes away from the view and beelined for the small strip of grass that separated the side of the house from the chain link fence. Up the strip, through the gate, past the walkway, and ah, there you go.

He was back out on the open street.

At last.

He started walking.

A few heads turned his way as he began his journey. Since it was the middle of the day-morning, there weren't many, just a granny or two and a driver to a mostly empty shuttle bus.

He crossed his arms over his chest. Not gonna lie, he kinda wished he had more clothing for this. That was sort of the point of going in the first place though.

The pavement was hot on his feet – he hadn’t had any shoes on when the kids had found him, apparently. He vaguely remembered kicking them off before he went in the stream, so they were probably still there, unless the current had dragged them away, which would really suck.

When he got to the park, he glanced at the fancy Roman numeral clock and saw that it was nearly noon already. He really needed to get his head in the game, if he wanted to get everything done in time.

He went to the edge of the path and checked around. His only observer was one juicy pigeon, sitting and sh*tting on a nearby memorial statue.

He could attend to that juicy pigeon witness later.

He slipped into the woods and began the hike.

And oof, was it a hike.

Don't get it wrong, he liked being in the woods. When he was a kid, if he wasn't reading, he'd be outside, climbing trees, turning over rocks, or pretending to be some sort of animal-hybrid non-human entity. If anything, he belonged in places like this.

But it kinda just got suckier as it went. His breathing came and went raggedly through his mouth as he walked. It was kind of freaky, the way his eyes clouded over, when he had to push himself back up after tripping on something.

He could see a patch of sun through the green scattered puzzle pieces of the leaves ahead. When he sped up, the light started getting eaten by the edges of his vision. The sound of a trickling stream greeted his ears just before he batted his way into a clearing, and gripped onto the closest tree, coughing stupidly. He ducked his head against the bark for a moment and waited for the black clouds to go away. He could feel the skin on his cheek still tingling from where he'd hit the ground after tripping on another rock back there. His throat tasted raw. But he could smell the scent of algae and leaf decay; he could hear the sound of water, now unmuffled by any brush. When his vision cleared, he looked up, and the corner of his lip gave to a slight twinge of victory

They were still there: a blueish t-shirt and a black long sleeve–-both beaten up, tattered, stiff from rain and sun-–but there, hanging side by side off the tree branch where they'd been left to dry.

He'd reached his first destination. He sighed and closed his eyes again for a second, enjoying the rough, barky comfort of having a strong tree trunk to lean against. Hm...he could lean against it for a bit longer. Keep his eyes closed…sit down, maybe…

Okay, no, no, he wasn’t gonna get lured in by the siren song of this tree again. He pushed off the trunk and followed along the branch till he was in reach of the clothes. He grabbed his shirt first, so he could pull it on. Metal Bat's he folded into a square and stuffed into the pocket of the sweats. Strewn across the ground, near where the shirts had been, he found his own pants and underwear, which apparently hadn't quite held their ground against the storm. He contemplated putting them on so he could carry them that way, but it seemed like a hassle, so in the end he decided to lace the leg of the pants thought the underwear and the tie it all around his waist, which served the double duty of helping secure the Saturday Shirt from slipping out of the pocket.

He turned to face the riverbank.

To be fair, it wasn't much of a "river" bank any more. The flooding seemed to have stopped days ago, and a full five foot strip of what used to be water was now just cakey mud. He walked a bit along the mud, eyes combing the earth for any sign of– wait, hold on–yes.

Poking out from the silt was the white rubber heel of a black canvas shoe. He pulled it out from the muck and shook off some rotting leaves and pond scum.

Now he just had to do that a second time.

…

He was not able to do that a second time.

He only had so much time to work with, you see, and after about 40 minutes of crawling around the clearing, mucking downstream, picking through the slimy brambles that overhung the water–- he decided that he'd have to consider Lieutenant Left Shoe a fallen soldier.

He sat on a rock so he could pull on Rightie without bending too much at the waist.

Then he started toward destination number two, which meant leaving the clearing by the stream and hiking due west for about 20 minutes, until he reached the spot with the tree he'd been napping in the day he'd jumped that frog chicken. Ten or so feet from the tree was a scraggle of woody bushes growing from a cracked rock surface. He went to these, knelt down, and rooted through the dead vegetation underneath.

There was a crackle of plastic as his fingers reached what they were seeking. Patches of wet leaves flaked off as he pulled the plastic bag out from the earth. He shook some of the extra dirt off; then picked at the knot in the handles until he could open it without ripping, and looked inside to see some toilet paper, a toothbrush, a nearly flattened tube of paste, and a half finished roll of KT tape.

Exactly how he’d left them.

Well, the toilet paper was looking a bit liquified. But that was beside the point. He scooped out the paper muck and put the bag beside him. He leaned forward on his knees so he could get further into the bush and pull out the next item, a plastic 2 liter soda bottle with a ripped tag and dirt clinging to the patches of glue that had been used to secure it.

There was still a fair amount of water in here from the last time he’d filled it. He took a sip and contemplated what to do with it. He could take it with him and refill it somewhere. But that would kind of be a waste of what was in there already, wouldn’t it? It’d be nice to be able to drink it along the way, but then he’d have to carry it. Not that it was heavy or anything, he could carry it, easy. Just annoying, that was all. Maybe it'd be better to leave it. He didn’t like the idea of someone taking it though. A faint chord of tension pulled in his chest when he thought about how easily those brats had tracked him down a few days ago. Apparently, his hiding spots weren’t as secure as he’d thought they’d been. He supposed if something happened to this it wouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. It was more the principal of the thing, though. But then again, it was kind of unlikely anyone would be looking too hard, and if he brought it with him, that would mean that he’d brought every last thing over to Zenko’s house. And what kind of message was that? A stupid one. He cringed and shook his head as if to ward off a biting fly.

He decided to leave it where it was. Probably be using it again soon, anyways.

Deciding not to waste time getting up twice, he crawled on all fours around to the other side of the bush, and squatted for a quick piss in his favorite patch of ferns, which grew out of the rock surface on the other side of the bush. Then he went back around, grabbed his stuff and got up. He looped the handles of the plastic bag over his wrist so he could have his hands free as he walked. And caught himself against another tree. And fell tripping on that rock again. And adjusted his shoe. And pushed himself back to standing so that he could finally make it out of the woods, out of the park, down the street, into the neighborhood with the little red house, through the gate to the back yard, past the garden and the flowerpots and the patio, through the back door, and back where he was expected to be when Zenko came home.

In approximately 35 minutes.

He dropped his shoe onto the tray by the front door. Then he went to the kitchen to wash some of the mud off his hands before he started his next activity:

Searching the house for what he needed.

He started with the kitchen.

Silverware rattled as he pulled at each drawer along the base of the first countertop and looked through, eyes raking over forks, spoons, chopsticks, knives, a knife sharpener; then mail, blank envelopes, stamps; then a recipe book, a couple takeout menus, meat thermometer; batteries, earbuds, phone chargers, a tablet.

The second countertop, the one with the oven and the sink installed into it, had a stash of cleaning chemicals underneath, some rubber gloves. The cabinets above were just for dishes, so he bounced back to the other side and went for the overhead cabinets there. No, no, no, no, nothing–

He closed the last one at the end and was left staring at a calendar which was hanging on an adhesive hook. There were pictures of cats on it, and some of the days circled or noted or crossed off in red marker; said red marker was tied to a piece of yarn that was tied to the same hook the calendar was on. He examined the yarn for a moment. Not exactly what he was looking for, but in the same family as.

His eyes fell to the countertop underneath, to take a closer look at the stuff on the plastic food tray that had been converted into a stationary section. There was a mason jar that had been repurposed into a pen and pencil cup, with everything that belonged in it plus some pink paper clips that looked like they'd been thrown in for not having a better spot. Then there was a dispenser of cello tape, a pair of scissors, and a pad of sticky notes, the top of which had a memo with sprawled handwriting that, at first glance, he thought might've been Zenko's; before he remembered that she had the best handwriting in her class.

Slowing down a bit, he reached for it, without really thinking too much.

Pay electrcety, buy milk, pick up Zen @ 2:00, thaw chicken

He'd spelled "electricity" wrong.

Garou stared at it, his fingernail tracing absentmindedly over the indent where the pen had pressed into the paper, not too long ago.

Wait.

Could it–?

No.

It couldn't have been his last day.

He was supposed to have picked up Zenko at four o’ clock, on that day.

Didn't really make much sense to Garou though. Zenko seemed pretty independent; apart from the days with the sh*tty piano teacher, she seemed to get home easily enough on her own. Where did she need picking up from at 2:00?

Hm. He supposed Metal Bat just...liked to walk her from the bus stop, too.

His chest was feeling weird again.

He put the note down, and went to check what drawers he could find in the living room. It turned up nothing, so he went down the hall, checking the doors as they came: laundry room, nothing; closet, nothing; cross to the other side, bathroom, nothing.

He stopped at the end of the hall, where he was faced with three doors.

The one to his left was obvious. Like every other door in the house, it had white paint, but the surface was covered in wood safe wall stickers of butterflies, flowers, clouds. Didn't even need the taped up sign with glittery, swirly letters spelling out the kid’s name to know who this bedroom belonged to.

The door to his right was white too, but without any decoration.

The door in front of him, on the other hand, was black. Different door knob style even, like some angsty 13-year-old had wanted to stylize it so badly he’d somehow convinced his parents to go down to the home appliance store and buy a bucket of paint and finisher and a completely different lockset and redo the whole thing for him.

Or like, maybe he’d done it himself when they, you know, weren’t around to stop him.

His attention went back to the door on the right. Maybe it was like, a storage room or something?

He put his hand on the door and began to crack it open.

He caught a glimpse of a dusty, queen sized bed next to a small table with two framed photographs, an unlit candle, an unopened can of soda, a half dried lily and a small bundle of wildflowers that looked like they’d been plucked straight from the back yard approximately a month ago, before he abruptly shut the door, leaving the hallway empty except for himself, and an escaped waft of old incense.

He decided to go back to the kitchen.

He stood in the middle of it, feeling dumb and stuck. He thought for a moment.

Then he grabbed one of the drawers again and pulled out a kitchen knife and sharpener. He dunked his hand into the mason jar of stationary next to the sticky notes and picked out one of the pink paper clips from the bottom. He bent it into a straighter shape, and used the knife sharpener to give the end a better point. Then, with his nose about an inch away from the countertop, he used his index and middle fingers to press the clip in place as he used the kitchen knife to slice a notch in the rubbery paint. He took his creation and plopped himself onto the floor between the sofa and the coffee table. He tugged a string from the frayed edge of his own sleeve and tied it around the notch in the paperclip needle. He spread Metal Bat's shirt out on the table, and began sewing.

The clock on the mantle ticked quietly as he worked.

He was actually pretty good at sewing, since there were days where he’d have to deal with the aftermath of school right when he got back. Sitting on the living room floor, the house all to himself, quietly patching his things up before anyone else came home to see them…it was almost nostalgic, and he felt calm. Especially when he saw that his stitchwork was successfully closing up the gash in the Blue Saturday Shirt. See? You said you were gonna fix it, and you're fixing it. It wasn’t better than having it new, but at least its shape constituted publicly acceptable clothing again. It should be able to survive the washing machine now, and that would help with the stains too.

He was almost finished, when he heard the chunky crunch of the front door getting unlocked, opened, and shut.

"I'm home."

"Hi," he called back.

"How are you feeling tod–" The shuffling and clunking of a half-balanced kid pulling off her shoes and dropping them in the tray stopped suddenly, as if she were frozen in place.

"Garou."

She came around the dividing wall. Her eyes darted from the shirt he was wearing to the one in his hands. She gestured frustratedly in the direction of the coffee table.

"Garou, you didn't listen to my note! I left it exactly where I knew you would see it!"

Ohhh…right. The sudden increase in stuff kind of gave it away, didn't it? She'd probably seen the shoe by the door too, huh. Guess he hadn't really thought this through to the end, had he.

He really had to get better at that sort of thing.

Honestly though, he didn't see what the big deal was, considering he'd made it back before she'd had to start scratching her head about it. Guess somewhere in the back of his mind he'd sort of figured as long as he was on time, the two extremes didn't matter. If he made it back before her, she'd have nothing to complain about. And if he never made it back at all, he wouldn't have to listen to her complaining anyways. Not that he wouldn't make it back. No! He may not have been peak performance right now, but it wasn't like he was weak.

He shouldn't have let Zenko see him all sick and stuff.

"Kid, it's fine. I can handle myself, alright?" Urgh, obviously! He'd made it back in one piece hadn't he?

"Garou, I told you to stay here," She said, voice rising as if she was totally in disbelief that he would dare defy her. "You should have listened! You can't go out like that–you have no idea how dumb that was!"

"Okay look, just because you found me a certain way doesn't mean you can just make decisions for me like that! You found me at a bad moment, you stuffed some medicine in my throat, but that doesn't mean you get to be the judge of my limits. I can go wherever I want. I'm not some sort of–stray dog you can just–bring inside and expect to sit around your house all day! It was your choice to act all nice to me, so don't pretend like I asked to be here!"

He took in a breath and replaced the oxygen he'd used up to get that out.

The end of his rebuttal was met by silence.

He exhaled and waited for her response. She stayed quiet. Maybe he'd…won the argument?

He watched as her lip twitched into a different shape. And it looked exactly like the way Metal Bat's lips had looked just before he'd told Garou he was gonna smash his head in.

His muscles tensed.

But she didn't smash his head in. Her demeanor went cool, and she turned away from him, and said:

"So. How was your day?"

"It…" wait, what was going on? Was this like, some sort of attempt to restart the conversation on a better foot? He stared at her turned back.

"It was fine," he said, cautiously. "How…was yours?"

"It went well. I got a 100 on my spelling quiz."

"That's good."

“How did the prison break go?”

“It was–”

Wait a minute.

I didn’t tell her anything about a prison break.

Clicking her tongue, Zenko went into the kitchen. He heard one of the drawers slide open, and she came back with that tablet he'd seen earlier. His shoulders tensed and his back pressed into the corner of the sofa as she walked up to him. "I was going to wait until you were feeling a bit better to show this to you. But–" She pulled up a saved video, gave the device to him, and pressed play.

Garou’s mouth went dry.

“--And in other news, a break in at J-City Federal Penitentiary has prison security measures under scrutiny and city authorities on alert. Though low in resolution, the following footage –” a flash of his shape dashing through the short hallway, an aerial view of him, twisting through the air to dodge on of Puri’s blows– “captured by internal and outdoor cameras, have lead the prime suspect to be a former inmate of the prison who escaped almost a year ago and became colloquially known as the Hero Hunter, Garou Vo–”

Garou hurried to stop the video, just in time to see a picture of his old mugshot – 5’8’’ age 17, snarky grin and all – fill up the screen. He knew it was dumb to think exiting the video would stop Zenko from seeing it too, but he did anyways, before handing the device back to her.

You ever have one of those moments, where it all becomes crystal, gut-punchingly clear, just how hard you f*cked yourself?

He’d been living on a blessing, up until now. The blessing of having been forgotten about. Free to wander, an anonymous bum, who nobody gave a sh*t about and nobody was ever going to give a sh*t about ever again, as long as he kept his head down.

Down.

Down, right.

Amongst the flood of dread-induced thoughts running through his brain, one caused him to clench the edge of the sofa with a monster-worthy grip. “Does Mrs. Splintfingars watch the news?” He croaked.

“Luckily for us,” Zenko said, smoothing out her skirt and sitting on the sofa primly, “she only listens to classical radio. And she hates TV.”

Garou let out a puff of air, and dropped his head backward as he uttered a prayer to the heavens: “Dear God, thank you for the massive stick up Mrs. Splintfingars’ stuffy butt.”

Zenko pressed her hands together and closed her eyes. “Amen.”

Chapter 16: It's Wasting Time

Chapter Text

Over the next couple days, the feeling that he was stuck under house arrest really started creeping in on him.

The warden was out for most of the day, but she came back in the afternoons to make sure he was staying in line.

Which he was doing! After the whole making the news thing, he had actually tried (and failed) to explain the stellar reasoning behind his theatrics at the prison.

It had looked a little something like this:

“I went there for a reason, you know."

"What, to check if Badd was in there? I already told you, he wouldn't be."

"Okay fine, you were right about that. But look, I found out some other stuff too. I talked to people, and learned things. Nothing like, major though, okay?" He added it hastily, when he saw her attention perk up. He then gave her a brief synopsis of the things he’d learned from Purdy Prisoner.

As he did, he could see her initial spike of energy cooling down to a calm, collected baseline.

“Yeah, that all sounds about right. Was that everything?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay! Well, I’ll add the stuff about meetings and schedules and people to the list of ideas.” She reached out and patted him on the top of the hand. “Good job trying.”

He tried his very best not to feel royally insulted.

There was more information to sort through, he knew it. And he was going to get something out of what he'd found whether that brat thought he could do it or not! He didn't need her getting all involved with it anyways.

Problem was, he'd been having a bit of trouble concentrating lately.

Currently, a piece of paper rested on the coffee table in front of the sofa. He wasn't writing on it though, he was busy dealing with a fat, chunky cough clawing up his throat and filling the empty house with the sound of him gacking. He pounded his fist against his chest to clear it–which didn't really work this one time, and now his chest was sore. Cool.

She was probably glad he had relapsed–despite his increasing sense of small walls syndrome, and the fact that he could probably risk a nighttime excursion without running into trouble, he hadn't bothered going outside again, because the last time he'd done it, it had apparently not done his health any great favors.

The pain in his abdomen was ever present, his shoulder ached, and his “moon onia,” according to the local health authority, doctor rabbit, was "in the orange zone," whatever that meant.

A few months ago this stuff would've been like nothing to him! What the hell was so different, huh? He had been expecting to get over something like this in a blink. What had it been now, five days? Ten?

Time was getting more slippery than the bloody mucus he coughed up each morning.

And all of those five to ten days he'd laying around doing—

Well, not much.

For example, back to that paper mentioned. the first two hours of the day he'd spent with his head in his hands, staring down at the mission debrief he'd written down approximately two days ago.

Which consisted of approximately two bullets.

-HA HQ (A City)
-Hero Hospital (?)

And the next three hours, up until approximately…right now he had spent…sitting by the window in the living room, wrapped in an electric blanket, eyes glued on the spot on the sidewalk where Zenko would come into view when she walked from the bus stop today.

At two o'clock.

Over the weekend he had come across the kid managing the situation with the whole schedule thing.

"What are you doing?" He'd rasped out, upon waking up to see her sitting at the coffee table, filling up a piece of paper with way more words than he'd written in the past two years, let alone week.

"I'm writing my excuse letters. "

"Oh. Nice. Why two?"

"The first one is for my homeroom teacher. The other one is for Mrs. Splintfingars."

Garou braced his arms around his stomach as he sat up, then slipped to the floor so he could scoot over and see what they said.

Dear. Mr. Watanabe,
Please excuse Zenko for being out of class. A terrible chest infection ran through our household last week and we all fell terribly ill. Zenko is all better now, and no longer contagious, despite my husband and I still feeling under the weather.
Thank you for your understanding,
Mrs. Bat

Dear Mrs Splintfingars,
Please excuse Zenko from her after school activities in the upcoming weeks. My son and nephew-in-law are still getting over a bad lung infection that ran through our householdl last week, and neither of them will be able to pick her up at 4:00 from her lesson, so she has to take the bus home on Monday and Wednesday.
Don't worry, we'll make sure she practices every day and comes back ready to go for the upcoming recital. Very excited!
All the best,
Mr. Bat

"I thought I was your uncle" he said, pointing to the second letter.

"No, you told Mrs. Splintfingars you were a cousin."

Oh, right. "Second cousin," he corrected.

"Isn't that the same as a cousin in law?"

"No that's not a–nobody says 'cousin in law.' How would I even be a cousin in law? How does that even work?"

"I don't know. Maybe we law sued you into being our cousin?"

"No that's–that doesn't make sense."

"Garou, this is in ink, if i want to fix it then i have to rewrite the entire thing! Mrs. Splint fingers doesn't like you enough to care what you are."

Apparently, it was so, because there hadn't been any issue. Zenko had been going to school and coming back at 2:00 each day on the dot.

Well, technically 2:07 on the dot. Factoring in the walk from the bus stop.

Oh–wait–there she was now

He straightened up when he saw her coming. Then he got up and moved away from the window and slung himself back across the sofa.

"I'm back!"

"Hey," he said casually.

"Did you have a good day at home?"

"Oh, yeah. Fantastic."

She disappeared into the kitchen, and the house became a little bit louder from the sound of washing hands, drawers opening and closing, utensils clinking on plastic dishes.

Which was good–it was good to hear a little something more than the tick of the clock and the occasional lung burger. Getting up languidly, he stretched his arms above his head before sidling into the kitchen to join her.

Afterschool snacktime was probably the least boring part of each day.

"Hey Garou, I can't reach that can up there."

"Grow taller," he said, grabbing it and tossing it to her.
She caught it, peeled it open and offered him some pickled bamboo shoots.

This had been happening more lately. The bottom shelves were getting emptier. The top was slowly going down with it.

"So, how was, you know, school and stuff."

"Good." She said, eyes down on the contents of the can.

"Perfect little day for little miss perfect?"

"I said 'good,' not 'perfect,' so no. Just 'good.'"

He raised an eyebrow as he chowed down on the strip of vegetable she'd handed him.

She sighed in exasperation. "If you must know, I got a 94 on my vocabulary quiz."

"Oof. You're slipping."

“I am not!”

“Slippery like a chicken frog.”

"What about your day? Was it perfect?"

"Pff. I've never had an imperfect day of my life. Can't you tell?'

She laughed and the room lightened up a bit. The sort of weighted pendulum that sat still in his chest swayed off for a moment before settling back into place.

This was the dumb, irrelevant sort of stuff they talked about nowadays.

If he didn't have anything new to add to the missing brother situation, she sure as hell didn't, so what was the freaking point? Might as well make small talk about stupid kid stuff. Crack jokes about chicken frogs.

They finished off the can of bamboo shoots, and went their separate ways for the evening. Zenko went back to her room to do homework or whatever, and he went back to the sofa to do…whatever. He stared at his paper a while longer. After a while he was getting all coughy again and Zenko reappeared to shove meds in his face and tell him to get back under the electric blanket.

The rest of the week crawled on like that. Cough, eat, sleep, vaguely acknowledge the fact that he and time had one thing in common (being meaningless), repeat.

Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.

On Friday morning, as per usual, he got up, hacked his lungs out, and decided to get some water from the kitchen. Sipping idly, he wandered halfheartedly around the space to see if there was any friggen…clues, or whatever, that he might have missed.

Wasn't much new to see. Zenko had left a bit of a mess that morning. Cabinets open, bowl of soggy cereal milk on the table and an unsealed bag of Cheerios laying sideways on the counter.

Whatever. He was bored as sh*t anyways. Might as well rifle through Metal Bat's stuff, right?

Fridge first.

Half eaten can of tuna?

That was breakfast, baby

Tuna pate. Jesus, what was that, French? Metal Bat sure liked his sh*t fancy.

Even the label on the can said it: "Fancy Feast"

Pff.

He got a metal spoon, just to feel extra fancy. (Plus, he and Zenko had already burned through all the disposable utensils that week.)

Tama jumped up in the counter and stared at him ruefully.

"Go away," he told her, waving his hand.

She hissed.

"Doesn't that kid give you kibble or some sh*t?" He groaned, pushing himself from the counter so he could take a look at the bowl, which indeed had the crumbled dregs of some dried out mush sitting in it.

"What are you complaining about huh?"

It was then that he heard something slap the floor.

From outside of this room.

Right by the front door.

He froze, mid scoop of tuna pate.

Zenko wasn't home. Tama was right there.

It couldn't be…?

He put the can down soundlessly.

His fingers curled into mantis hand as he edged to the corner of the room divider, and possibilities flashed through his mind like a stack of cards being shuffled, some colored hopeful, and others dark with apprehension.

If it was an intruder, he was going to get in a fight.

And if it wasn't an intruder–if it was the person who truly belonged here in the kitchen with the cat and the tuna pate and the blankets then–

Well, then he, Garou, would be the intruder. And he was probably going to get in a fight. The thought was exciting, almost. With the pneumonia and the rib thing and the arm thing he had going on maybe it would actually be a fair fight, haha!

Yeah, exciting. That's why he felt like he was gonna upchuck some tuna chunks as he quietly stalked to the end of the divider and prepared to face whoever was around the corner.

What the hell am I going to tell him?

He breathed in to try to get a better sense of focus.

Why the hell was he wasting time that could've been used for striking first?

Quit stalling, you piece of sh*t.

He hurtled out from around the corner, ready to unleash a package of pain on whatever adversary met him there.

He was met by–

–a pile of mail, sitting underneath the mail slot, exactly where it would make sense for a pile of mail to be.

His shoulders sagged and he felt kind of stupid, but also weirdly relieved, as he went to go pick it up. Hey, maybe he'd find something from Metal Bat saying something like: "dear Zenko and Tama, I've decided to ditch this place forever and go be a regular old sh*tty f*cking guy for once. Have fun with the abandonment issues and don't bother me or anyone else about trying to find me."

Ha, yeah, right.

Of course he didn't find anything like that. He took the stack back to the kitchen, grabbing a fistful of Cheerios as he flipped boredly through a mundane stack of mail as any: mostly ads or corporate looking junk that wasn't worth wiping your ass with on a good day.

He was about to go and toss it back on the foyer floor when he remembered that he did know where the f*ck this sh*t went, and he yanked open the fourth drawer in the kitchen counter that he knew had envelopes and stuff in it; and that's when he froze, because he saw something actually interesting:

An old piece mail at the top of the pile that was already in there.

He put the stuff in his hand down absentmindedly on the counter, and reached for the old envelope instead.

It was interesting, because It was dated for the day before Metal Bat went missing.

Hey. Wasn't it like, a felony, to open someone's else's mail?

Eh, wouldn't be his first.

Rrrrip.

He looked it over and saw that it was an electric bill for 120 bucks.

Oh. His throat felt kind of dry as he swallowed down the lump of chewed up cereal in his cheek.

He put the mail down and felt his eyes wander to the one underneath it.

Rrrrip.

It was a water bill for 50 bucks.

Payment due: 10/30

Wait, what happened if you didn't pay a water bill? Did the water shut off, like electricity or heat? Garou didn't know. He had never been in charge of that kind of thing before.

Ow. He'd punctured his lip with his tooth.

He set the bill aside and reached for the first envelope on the new stack with a kind of tense feeling in his chest

It was a trash bill for 20 bucks

Trash?

What kind of trash was Metal Bat buying, aside from buckets of hair goop?

Oh wait

Trash removal.

Hold up. You had to pay a bill for trash removal? Why have trash then?! Just keep the trash, eat it, roll around in it, even–but pay for it, just to be taken away

Metal Bat must've made pretty good money playing hero, if these were the kind of costs he consistently maintained each month.

Jerk.

Ow, f*ck, He really had to stop chewing on his lip. That was a habit he'd kicked what, like, in highschool?

Garou didn't see anything like a paycheck in the new pile or the old one–though he supposed that was the sort of thing that someone would cash right away, if they didn't have some sort of electronic method of getting it delivered. A lot of heroes traveled around a lot, so maybe electronic was the best method anyways.

He ended up stowing away the mail back where it belonged.

The Cheerios too.

***

"I'm home!"

"Zenko, you need to tell me about the Hero Hospital again."

Zenko finished putting her stuff away and came around the side of the room divider. "Okay, well, hello to you too. We can talk about it. But I already told you I don't know where it is, and I don't think Badd will be in there." She raised her eyebrows and titled her head in a lightly judgemental manner. "Maybe a little someone should start listening to me when I say that I don't think Badd will be somewhere?"

"Hey, watch your–"

She interrupted him to retrieve something from her backpack. "Hey, do you want an after school snack? I got an extra jello cup from the cafeteria."

"Get that failed excuse of a chocolate pudding out of my face."

She sighed, and moved to the dinner table to plop the jello down. "Facts."

Garou raised his voice to continue talking as she disappeared into the kitchen to go about doing her usual after school routine. “The two most important points from the prison info are the HA headquarters in A-City and the Hero Hospital. Those are our two biggest leads. If we want to get anywhere we need to figure out where they are and go there myself.” It was a solution that stank of desperation. Yeah, I have no idea where your brother is. How about I go cross country to personally visit the two places that we’re fairly certain he’d be perfectly taken care of if he was really stuck there! But you know what? f*ck it. He was done with sitting still. “I know exactly where the headquarters is–Middle of A City–because I was there less than a year ago. And you're the one who’s been to the hospital.” They had discussed it briefly after the original prison break conversation, and Zenko had been dismissive of the thought. He hadn’t questioned it at the time because he’d already felt stupid and tired enough as it was.

Zenko had been just as dismissive of the idea then as she was being now. She came back around the corner with a fistful of goldfish crackers in her cheek and a furrowed expression on her brow.

She swallowed her crackers as she perched herself on the arm of the sofa. "I really don't know where it is."

"But you said you were there before? How does that work?”

Her fingers fidgeted lightly on her lap as she spoke. “After Badd fought the centipede and you I kinda hit him on the head too hard and he passed out, so I used his cellphone to call his Hero Association contact and they sent a helicopter out to bring us. I wasn’t in charge of knowing how to get there, or knowing where to call them.”

“And what makes you think he couldn’t be there now?”

“They would have said something. He was in there one time before that too, and I was at home at the time."
Her toe began tapping in a somewhat gentle, but still vaguely restless manner. "I was sitting on this sofa and the phone rang, but Badd told me never to pick up for strange numbers if I’m home alone, and so they left a message and I listened to it. Then they called again the next day to leave a message that he was being released, and Badd came home a few hours later.”

“So they’re pretty phone happy, huh.”

She nodded, and pointed to the phone sitting on the end table. "And I double and triple checked all the phone messages the night he didn’t come home, and every day since. Nothing.”

Garou glanced to the phone skeptically. “Well, we should still check with the hospital itself. You never know, they could always have a newer, lazier secretary. Just because a big corporate system was conscientious in the past doesn’t mean you can trust them to follow through every time. What if your brother’s been there the whole time and the only reason you don’t know is because some paper pusher forgot to make a phone call? Or what if they were the last ones to see him because something happened immediately after he was released?”

Zenko blinked.

Ha, how does it feel to be the silly one, now?!

“Do you have their number down?” Garou wasn’t really a talk on the phone to people kind of person, but he’d be damned if he didn’t get something useful out of this prison break intel, and the satisfaction he’d get if he was right about this was well worth it. Maybe he could…like…plan the conversation out ahead of time. Disguise his voice or something. Have a go plan in case they used some sort of dickhe*d answering service like the penitentiary did.

Zenko’s shoulders drooped. “Oh. No, I don’t. And the messages from that hospital visit were erased two years ago.”

“Can we look it up?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!”

“See, I’m full of them.”

She ran to go grab the tablet from her bag. She came back and flung herself onto the seat beside him so they could both see.

"Let's see…heee…rooo…hoss…pit…al…phone." She said, sounding out each syllabull as she typed. Garou watched as the search page turned up a list of results. The very first one was the website for the closest hospital to them, S-City General Care Facility. Then T-City Memorial Hospital. Then Q-City General Health Center. Then some article about how some rich old giezer was a "hero" for leaving a fraction of his money to F-City Children's hospital. Then “C-City General Care Facility.” They scrolled through the first 8 pages of search results and found nothing but bullcrap like that. They even visited the Hero Association website to see if there were any links, but that turned up nothing too.

“Don’t they ever update their website? Jesus!” Garou griped.

“It said it was last updated six months ago,” Zenko said, shrugging.

This was getting frustrating. Was this hospital really so much a secret that it didn’t have a website? Sure, he wasn't exactly a techy guy, so maybe there was some sort of search tactic he was missing. But Zenko was here, and she seemed to know what she was doing. Even if “Hero Hospital” was just a colloquial name, you’d think there’d be at least some sort of information leaked about it on the web. Its secrecy policies must have actually been pretty strict. Then again, maybe it actually was one of these normal hospitals that kept popping up, and it stayed under the radar by being labeled mundanely, like any other any other “Whatever-City General Care Facility.”

He voiced the idea and then asked: "Do you remember anything about where it was? Like what other city it was near?"

Zenko shook her head. "No."

"It was in a city though, right?"

"I think so. It looked that way from out his bedroom window."

“Window? Okay. Did you see any landmarks, street names, or businesses from the window?”

“I don’t–know–No–I mean, I don’t remember.”

"Do you remember how long it took to get there?"

"I… don't know. A while."

"More than an hour?"

"Yeah."

"More than two?"

"Maybe?"

"Did you notice any landmarks from any of the cities along the way?"

"No."

"Did you get a glimpse outside the chopper at all?" Garou asked, feeling his tone flare upwards.

"A little bit, but only when we were flying over the middle of nowhere." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him from below a reddened forehead. "I was kind of distracted, ya know."

"The middle of nowhere? What do you mean by that?"

"Just trees."

"What kind of trees?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Just tell me. Where are they light green? Dark green? Deciduous? Coniferous?"

"Um…I think…mostly…pine trees?"

“Okay. That means it’s north of here. Get it? ‘Cause we don’t have a lot of pine trees at this latitude."

Zenko perked up, the moodiness gone, when she apparently realized he wasn't just throwing stupid questions at her to be an asshole.

"Yeah! That makes sense! I'm going to add it to our notes." She dropped the tablet on the table and ran to grab more things from her backpack.

Garou glanced to the tablet. Thing seemed like it should’ve been a useful tool. But ha! Look, even his own sense of logic worked better than that!

Sort of.

Zenko came back, carrying a folder from which she withdrew all the papers they’d been working on way back in the restaurant. She spread them across the coffee table and began writing her new notes.

Garou took a look at everything they had. He recognized their map of S City they’d drawn on the back of a missing poster, the notes she’d been writing on a different one for the info he'd requested before the prison break.

He squinted at the list of cities they'd written up. Was that G City before E City? There was definitely something else that was supposed to come first. Did his original memorization of the continent have a mistake in it?

He noticed papers he didn’t recognize too. Things she must’ve been collecting without telling him: Newspaper clippings. Stuff that had probably been printed up from online.

He picked one of the papers off the table and raised his eyebrows.

"What's this?"

It looked like some sort of spreadsheet. The first column was headed "mo. ID" the next headed "moniker(s)" "threat level" "termination date" "agent(s)"

She added the notes to the paper, and then glanced over at what he had picked up.

"That's a list me and Tareo found during computer hour. Apparently the hero association website has links to extra files about monsters. That one goes back 10 months."

"You guys have been working together on this stuff at school?"

"Yeah. What else would we be doing during computer hour?”

His eyes returned to the sheet and traced down the columns.

He found one that looked familiar.

Mo. ID: 12000122059 Moniker(s): Human Monster, Hero Hunter, Garou. Threat level: tiger termination date: 14JAN05 Termination agent(s): king(primary), caped baldy (support)

"Tiger?! Threat Level Tiger is all I got?!"

"I think for this list they base the threat level off of kill count."

A sharp sense of something unpleasant wedged into his chest. He'd f*cked up so much sh*t, and that was the most anyone had to say about it?

He didn't care what a stupid f*cking list said about jack sh*t, but that was the sort of misrepresentation of facts that made his blood boil.

"That's sh*tty and stupid."

"Hey! I told you not to say that word anymore!"

Crab Queen. Ratling Cub. Mother of Slugs. So many of these friggin monsters were probably just mutated animals trying to defend their sh*tty biohazard living spaces, the rest of this stupid list pissed him off even more!

"Oh, right sorry–that's stupid as sh*t."

"Making it into a noun is not better!"

"According to who, the kid who got a shrimpy 94 on her grammar test?"

"Garou!"

Deciding to bite his tongue, he rolled his eyes and then let them fall to the tablet.

"Hey, can I use this?"

Zenko was already buried back into her own stuff. "Yeah." She said without even looking up. "The passcode is 'HelloKitty' with no spaces."

Seriously? You're just going to give it to me?
Dumb kid.

Amongst the neverending grid of ap logos that meant absolutely nothing to him, it took him a good f*cking 60 seconds to actually find the one for an internet search bar. When he did he quickly googled a map of the continent, so he could stare at it for another sixty seconds, before shutting the tablet down again and tossing it back on the sofa cushion next to Zenko.

"Okay, that's everything." Zenko said, putting down her pen and flourishing the paper. "Look, a whole new paragraph for the idea folder!"

"Whoop de frikken doo."

She lowered the paper and frowned at him. "It's better than nothing."

He plucked the piece of paper from her hand and read it over. Badd might be at the hero hospital. We don't know where it is and the internet doesn't say. The phone number is a mystery too. But we know it's north of here because I saw pine trees when they brought us that one time.

"It's certainly something."

Zenko clicked her tongue and slid off the sofa.

An itchy feeling mixed with a sort of dull sense of confirmation that talking through your problems really was mostly useless as he put the paper back in its folder.

There was noise coming from the kitchen now. It seemed Zenko was ready for dinner. “Have some cereal” she said, crossing back into view and putting an extra bowl out on the table.

A tense feeling–frustration?-- twisted his gut. Didn't the kid realize she had to conserve her resources? What was her deal, forcing him to spell out all the important lessons here?

"You shouldn't share your things so easily" he retorted, pressing himself obstinately into his corner of the sofa.
She raised an eyebrow.

Uh oh.

"You shouldn't tell me what to do with my own things. Stop beng a grouch, get over here, and put some food in your tummy."

"Oh yeah? Ha! Look, your argument undoes itself. If i can't tell you what to do with your own things, Why should you get to tell me what to do with my own tummy?"

She gave him a look.

He stopped arguing.

He went to the table, plopped into the chair beside her, and poured some in the bowl.

Is that all you're having?" Zenko asked.

"The stomach needs time to adjust after a dry spell." He asserted, picking up a corn flake and biting off the edge.

Hey, it wasn't wrong. If he ate like he did at that restaurant shy of a month ago he'd probably puke. Sure, he could handle a bit more than a couple tablespoons of corn flakes, but…it didn't matter. This was enough, because he had decided.

***

It was Saturday now and that was good because Zenko and her backpack were at home and that meant he had access to the folder of information she’d been hogging to herself all week.

She was still asleep at the moment. He’d woken up to a new cramp in his stomach and a restless mind so he figured he might as well get a head start with things.

Stupid Metal Bat.

He spread out everything he had on the coffee table.

Haha, time for his favorite game! Staring contest against paper.

3, 2, 1, begin.

Hm.

What the f*ck was he supposed to be doing right now.

He’d had an idea yesterday, hadn’t he?

Oh yeah.

He supposed he could start with fixing up another map.

What had it been, G-City switched with F-City?

Yeah…yeah, that was it.

He dug a sheet of blank paper from Zenko’s backpack and got to work.

Urg. Here they were back at map drawing.

Tell me you're back at square one without telling me you're back at square one.

Well. Not like he had anything better to do.

His map turned out pretty basic. He compared it to Zenko’s relatively detailed rendition of S-City. His eyebrows twitched up into a faintly surprised arc when he noticed that there were a few new points added, now with dates on them, that looked like they were written in the same format as…

He plucked the corner of the packet of pages he’d gotten annoyed at yesterday.

He started scanning through the list so that he could find one of the dates Zenko had written down. When he got to a section of entries from that date, he searched for the first one to list Metal Bat as the “termination agent.” Reading the line in reverse, he caught one: Termination Agent(s): Metal Bat. Termination Date: 20DEC04 Threat level: Demon. Moniker(s): Senior Centipede.

This wasn’t the one he’d been fighting when Garou had first challenged him, had it?

Oh, wait, no. That was the one that Metal Bat had been pissed at him for because it’d gotten away.

All these centipedes just kind of blurred together sometimes. Actually, according to this table, it looked like there was a little clusterf*ck of monsters associated with that date and Metal Bat– Junior Centipede included–and something called “Raffesidon” too (man, was that that like a monster version of the stinky carnivorous plant species? Garou had read about those before, he would've really liked to have seen that monster. Stupid Metal Bat, killing it before he’d got the chance…).

Garou went back to the map and found a dated dot for each one, and, now that he looked closer, right next to the date he could even see a little initial that matched up with the name of the monster.

Huh. Maybe he should do that for his map too. He scanned through and found a different date that had Metal Bat's name on it. Oh look, another centipede–go figure.

Moniker: Sage Centipede. Termination date: 03JAN05. Termination Agents: Metal Bat, One Shotter, Unknown Hero (Blast?)

Blast, huh?

And just like that, flashes of something that had happened back in January rammed themselves into his brain: The feeling of his knees hitting the ground, a pressure that he couldn’t escape from clinching around his arms and waist and hips, before a loud BANG and just enough distraction for him to rip out of the monster’s hold; then the metal of the chopper ringing against his hands and feet as he landed, his aim to tear everyone free–only to catch a glimpse of a giant mandible at the nape of his neck the second before he’d heard Metal Bat’s voice “-t outta the w-” and the guy had shot back into the scene, every crease of muscle splitting and spitting blood bursts through his shredded up turtleneck.

The paper was shivering, clutched tightly between his fingers. The memories had made Garou tense up–Not like he was scared or anything, but kind of like his heart rate thought it needed to pick up the pace in case he needed to fight again.

Aside from a few vivid pause points, It was all really fuzzy; a lot of his fights were, especially since that final defeat back in…oh, right, 14JAN05, according to this list. Trippy, how you can kind of forget about stuff like that. It was that way with stuff from his childhood too. Pieces that only came back in flashes, usually when he didn’t really want to think about them anyways, and usually lacking details except for the unwanted ones. That’s just how his memory worked, he supposed.

But it was hard to forget someone who seemed to stubbornly remain exactly the same kind of guy every time they’d happened to find eachother.

Heh. And we were arguing the whole time. The corner of Garou’s mouth twitched.

It was funny, he was smirking because in retrospect it really was funny how Metal Bat had immediately started started squawking at him– when most people couldn’t even recognize him in his monster form–and there Metal Bat was, complaining about the last time they’d met like it was only yesterday.

That had been what…in Z city? Somewhere like that. His grip on the paper had relaxed. He went to his map and added a little dot with a date and initial next to it.

There. That there was progress.

He went down the rest of the list and found more of Metal Bat’s battles. For some of them he knew where they had happened, due to his own studies on monsters and heroes. For others he caved, and used Zenko’s tablet to google search where the battle had occurred. Using this method he was able to add a smattering of pinpoints to the larger map depicting Metal Bat's activities across the entire continent.

He kept his eye out for unusual patterns. A lot of what he saw made sense. Most of the hero’s kills were in his home town, S-City. A notable amount were in Z-City, but they were all clustered around the same month, which aligned sensibly with when the monster association was starting to go big and release an influx of predators from their hideout in that area. Then there was a fair spread in A city, which made sense given that the big cheeses of the Hero Association seemed to do personnel recalls whenever their base was threatened. And then there were a couple odd jobs in far off locations, but those were few and far between. And after the date of the monster association’s defeat, there were no more points to be added at all.

Basically, an artistic representation of exactly the same information Purdy Purdy Prisoner had given him.

The realization made him feel—

Tired.

He put his head down, and when picked it back up again it was Sunday.

Okay, let’s think.

He examined his map again to see if he would find some new pattern in it.

Like a…Magical eyeball poster.

“Hey Mr. Crazy Hair! Good morning-slash-afternoon. Would you like a piece of–”

“No I’m busy.”

sh*t, he hadn’t even finished outlining all of the cities on this. What kind of crack had he been on yesterday?

He got to work on that, trying to think through all the bullsh*t as he went. Every useless thought just lead him back to those two sole places, one if which was thousands of miles away (landlocked, not that he was going on any boats again any time soon), and the other of which was a complete and utter mystery.

Urg, he needed to stretch his legs. He got up to get some water. Just a sip, he didn’t need to go crazy with it.

He used his hand to scoop the water because there weren’t any dishes left. What was Zenko going to eat out of, huh?

He paced back and forth for a minute, before he decided to conserve energy instead and sunk to the edge of the bench by the kitchen table wearily.

His knee bounced up and down regardless.

He knew where A city was. Maybe he should just go there first and forget about the hospital.

Maybe I should just run to A city. Right now. Sprint it out. That’s how I traveled before, no reason I can’t do it again, huh? I should do it. I should go outside now and just take off.

Yeah. It’d be easy. He could do it. He should do it.

He got back up again and returned to the kitchen. He glanced around. He was alone right now. Zenko was probably in her room. He peered out the window at the back yard, which was totally enclosed with bushes.

Hidden.

He cracked open the back door and slipped outside.

He stepped off the brick patio and down past the old looking garden patch to the grass, where he put himself in line with the oak tree with the swing on the other side of the yard.

He lowered himself into a pre-sprint position, eyes focused dead ahead on the tree. The distance was roughly 20 feet.

Based on the speed and distances I've traveled in the past, in one second I should be able to do around….2 billion laps.

That would make it possible to travel to A City before Zenko had a chance to blink twice, let alone get back from school.

He didn't move.

Why was he hesitating?

Probably because if he did move that fast the kickback and heat generated would probably destroy the neighborhood. Not the best for keeping a low profile.

Okay, different goal then.

10 laps in 1 second. That seemed reasonable.

Why did his chest feel so heavy right now?

Whatever. Just go.

He lurched forward, and within a second, lurched to a stop.

His first step had been clumsy, formless, he could see it.

I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this right now. No.

Why not, huh? What are you afraid of, asshole?

Nothing. No one. I just don't feel like it.

It felt like he had a waxy ball of twine tangled in his chest, weighing him down, as he straightened up where he stood, about 15 feet away from that oak tree.

I don't need a reason, I'm just not doing this. It's stupid.

He went back inside, trying to push away the fluttery, unsettled sensation in his chest.

I should probably wait to do that sort of thing at night anyways. If i got noticed for this Zenko would decapitate me.

His mind felt itchy.

I need to go to A City later. Do something else now.

After a few paces back and forth he returned to the living room so he could plop down on the sofa and continue analyzing the map.

He felt like he needed to be doing something–after all, the recapture of Metal Bat was easily linked to his own freedom from this house. Because once they found him then it wouldn't matter if he went out or got caught or got or got in trouble or got killed. Zenko would have no reason to nag him because by then it'd be none of her business.

Yeah. That made sense.

That was why he was doing this.

Anyways. Yeah. Focusing.

He noticed he was missing a few city labels, so he added them from memory.

Then he stared at it.

For about an hour.

Okay, so I know where the Headquarters is. But I don’t know where the Hospital is. Let’s think about this logically.

The place it made the most sense to put the hospital, if it was some sort of single, centralized building, was in A-City, too, since it was basically at the center of the map. Accessible to most places around it, and close to the HQ barracks where a lot of heroes were already homed.

But he'd been to A City before–he'd walked right out of the HA headquarters after pummeling everyone at the assembly for criminals, and he hadn't noticed anything that looked like a hospital. He hadn't noticed anything that looked like the city view Zenko had mentioned seeing from outside the window. A City–it wasn't even really a city– it was basically just a razed patch of land with a big ugly HA fortress rooted to it like a plantar wart.

He supposed the HA headquarters did have a history for being sort of a target for attacks–stationing its emergency medical facility too close would pose something of a strategical liability.

So was it in one of the adjacent cities? B? C? N? Hell, if you decided to guess based on what shared borders with A, it could’ve been Q City, for all he knew.

And even if he knew the city, he still had no way of knowing exactly where the hospital was.

Stupid, stupid Hero Hospital! Stupid Hero Association, stupid heros, stupid–

Hey–what if–

No, that was a bad idea.

Beating up a hero and then scampering off to watch for when the helicopter showed up.

What would he do, jump and cling onto the landing foot? Without getting noticed? Ha, yeah, right.

Stupid.

Besides, he wasn't really sure if he—

No, f*ck that, that was quitter talk, of course he was strong enough to hold on. But yeah, no. No HA pilot would put up with a monster on the wing. Probably self destruct first.

He put his head in his hands and gripped the side of his hair tightly as he stared down at the map.

His head was dizzy. His stomach was so empty it felt like the acid was eating itself.

"Do you need help? You look stuck."

He jolted a bit because he hadn't heard her come in. f*ck, even his senses of perception were getting weaker.

"No, I don't need help," he snapped.

He felt more than saw or heard the kid ignoring him, and putting her hands behind her back to amble closer look over his shoulder at what he was doing.

More like, what I'm not anywhere close to doing.

He slapped his forearms down to cover up the paper.

"Don't you have homework to do or something?"

"I already did my homework."

"Well, do it again!"

There was a thump as she slammed her foot on the floor. "You take a bath again! Stink head!"

She balled her hands into fists and stomped over to the opposite side of the room, where she slammed herself and down into a crouch sit, facing away from him.

He glanced up from his work and scowled.

Fine. Be that way! He didn't care about what a stupid brat thought about his stupid anti-progress. Once the brother was back she could kick him out and never have to deal with his stupid, stinky presence ever again!

If the brother ever comes back.

His chest felt like there were a bunch of grubs worming around in it.

Stupid moon ownya.

He tried to put it into a word problem, like he was in some sort of basic algebra class.

If a helicopter travels at…some speed between a car and an airplane…and it travels for however long it took for Zenko and Metal Bat to get to the Hero Hospital after I beat the sh*t out of him and he almost smashed my head in with a baseball bat…then…what distance is it between where I beat the sh*t out of him, and the stupid Hero Association's stupid secret Hero Hospital?

Urgh.

There was a reason he'd had Zenko do the annoying part of it the last time.

Math was just–okay, he knew it could be used to describe everything. He knew that it was even important from a fighting perspective– it went into every calculation of motion that the human body could make. Timing, motion, physics–all that. thing was, those were all things that you just kind of…sensed. Right? Like, from experience, you could figure out how much time you'd get between someone pulling the trigger and you moving your hand at exactly the right moment and exactly the fast enough speed in exactly the right arc so that the path of the bullet would bend toward the air vacuum created by your moving hand.

It was intuitive.

In every instance except on paper.

Plus, back in highschool, a lot of the kids in his math class were asshats.

Wasn't like he had any good reason to sit in the same room with them.

He was still no closer to finding the guy. Who the f*ck's stupid idea was it to rely on him to find the guy?
He looked up again from what he was doing to Zenko, who was occupied with something–presumably not her homework–over in her own little corner of the room.

Okay, you know what? Maybe if he could see what he was doing physically, it would all come together.

He pushed himself up and slouched into the kitchen. He went to the basket with the recycling and began making an obnoxious amount of noise as he rooted through empty things–empty juice box, empty pickle jar, empty fruit cup, empty tuna can, empty egg carton, empty milk container–until he got to empty cereal box, from which he ripped off a tab of cardboard, before he returned to his spot in the corner.

Okay, so. This piece of cardboard was whatever distance could be achieved in 2 hours of helicopter travel.

He put one end on the spot in S City about where he'd fought Metal Bat and witnessed that first big ass centipede.

He pointed the rest of the cardboard up, and traced a line which landed somewhere in Y City.

That made sense, right? Why would a rescue helicopter travel in anything other than the most direct route? He didn’t know for a fact that helicopter had gone directly North though. Just because it was North of S City, didn’t mean it was a straight shot to Z.

Then he shifted the cardboard at an angle of about 15 degrees clockwise and traced a line there. He repeated 4 times, because after four, things were starting look too horizontal. He contemplated the picture for a moment, and then put a dot at the end of each line. He swept his pencil in an arc to connect the dots, and boom.

Pizza slice depicting the most likely area within which the stupid Hero Association's stupid Hero Hospital might be located.

He added dots to the middle of each line to get an idea of the one hour range too. Then a line through where he figured things started to get cold enough to be mostly pine trees.

Then he realized there was a problem.

The pizza slice didn’t even reach anywhere close to where it was cold enough to be mostly pine trees.
So which part of it was wrong?

The line?

Or the pizza slice?

Mm. Pizza.

Pizza with meat.

A big piece of pizza with no cheese, just meat, the crust is made of meat, but there's toppings that are vegetables, so much there's practically a salad on it too. A salad on a plate made of pizza made out of meat. And the meat is made out of map. Map that shows where Metal Bat is and then I swoop in and rescue him and he says 'oh wow, you really saved my ass, guess I'm a real dumbass compared to you, guess heroes are stupid and useless, here, why don't you have some peanut butter as a reward for proving your point, you're such a good–'

There was a bang, and woke up swiftly, a bruise on his head where it had hit the coffee table. He looked down and saw big patch of drool on his map.

His eyes shot to where Zenko had been sitting before and he saw her spot empty.

Was she still around?

It wasn't totally dark out yet, so she probably wasn't sleeping.

He heaved himself up and glanced around the corner to the kitchen.

Empty.

He went down the hallway and knocked on her door.

"Zenko."

He waited.

"Hey, Zenko."

He waited a bit more.

"Zenko."

Persistence was his only virtue.

"Zenko."

"What?" She called from the other side.

"I have another math problem for you to do. You'll need to look some stuff up."

"Doing homework!" She sang back.

He stared at the door for a brief, silent moment. He swallowed the tight feeling in his throat and then turned around to head back towards the living room.

He sat down in the corner of the sofa wrapped his arms around his knees, to help conserve body heat.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his math problem. But he couldn't, his head felt like it was empty other than clouds. And his chest felt the same.

f*cking useless.

At some point Zenko came back out to make herself a cup of instant ramen.

She didn't offer him anything, which was good, maybe she was finally learning a thing or two.

That cold feeling was getting stronger though.

His body temp was probably low from the calorie deficit.

He pressed his face into his knees to help warm up.

He heard her steps passing by as she headed back toward her room. Partway down the hall, she paused. She clicked her tongue.

"If you don't want to be cold you have to keep this plugged in." She said, voice louder and from right nearby as she stooped to put the electric blanket socket in the wall.

She left before he had the chance to say anything.

The night marched on with the painful speed of an army of soldiers all sporting broken left legs.

He tried to fall asleep, but the longer it was left alone, the longer his brain wouldn't stop leaving him alone.

He was really a piece of work, wasn’t he? Sitting here on this little couch with his little blanket, getting his little self pampered by a little kid.

An itchy feeling was prickling under his skin. He squeezed his hands together and wrung them slowly for a moment.
He reached over the edge of the sofa and unplugged the blanket. No need to waste electricity on that.

It made him feel a bit less itchy, but not enough.

He slid off the sofa and tread down the hall until he got to the white door that, despite the indigo shading of nighttime, clearly had a little sign with twirly pink letters spelling out Zenko’s name.

He knocked. “Zenko?” He called.

“Yeah?” He heard her call back.

“Is it okay if the pillow touches the floor? Or if the blanket does?”

“I don't care.”

Well that didn’t exactly give him the information he needed.

"Would your brother care?"

"No. We make forts all the time."

"Okay."

He began to head back down the hall, but then the door opened and light spilled across the floor.

“Why, did your things fall?” Zenko asked, standing in the doorway in her ruffly pink kiddie pajamas because obviously she'd just been trying to get some sleep and he'd interrupted that hadn't he? “I can get you a new pillow case if they got dusty.”

“No, no,” Garou asserted. “They’re fine. I was just thinking of relocating.”

“Oh,” Zenko said, coming fully out of her room now. “Is the sofa not comfy? You don’t have to sleep there. We can find you somewhere else.”

Jesus, he hadn’t meant for this to make a bigger headache! His shoulders tensed. He waved his hand nonchalantly. “Nah, sofa’s great. I just found a spot on the floor that’s better.”

“The floor?” She repeated, wrinkling her nose. "Why don't you just use Badd's bed?"

Use Badd's bed? No way, uh uh. Nope. No f*cking way.
"No, I'd rather sleep on the floor." He said baldly.

"You're weird." Zenko remarked.

I know.

“Let me at least get you some extra pillows then,” she said, and before he could talk her down she had opened the hallway closet and pushed another two cushions into his arms.

“Thanks” he said swiftly. They said their goodnights, she went back to her room, and he walked stiffly back down the hall.

With his little extra pillows for his little extra self and his little…

Urgh, he didn't know why he was like this.

He had never really stayed over other people’s houses much when he was a kid, but the few times he did, he always felt incredibly uncomfortable about it. Like the moment he sat down someone would snap at him and for having the audacity to sully their furniture, and chase him out with a newspaper. He'd sort of gotten over it as a teenager, the cure being the decision that nobody in the world had an opinion that mattered to him, so what did he care if he touched furniture the wrong way? Wouldn't matter anyway, if he never went places.

Now it was f*cking back again. But--he was justified this time though! After all, he was in friggen Metal Bat’s house. Why couldn’t he just go live out in an abandoned shed again?!

Friggen Zenko, and her friggen living standards.

There was a 3 foot by 3 foot corner of space between the sofa and the wall. He stepped into it, knelt down, and tucked the pillows Zenko had provided against the wall edge. It always made him feel better to have the pillows around than underneath. He remembered when he was around Zenko's age having a few stuffed animals he liked to do that with.

Hm. What ever happened to those?

Leaving the electric blanket on the sofa, he took the comforter and laid it so part of it was underneath him, and the rest folded over to enclose him like a big soft tortilla. When he curled up he was able to fit his entire self under here. He let out a slow exhale, and felt some of the tension dissipate from his chest. This darkness was nice. Warm, soothing, and enclosed. His own pocket of space, almost. He supposed that was kind of an advantage to not being quite as 100% grass fed angus beef ripped, like he'd been about a year ago. Way easier to fit under blankets.

Silver lining.

It was kind of annoying to keep only laying on one side like this though. He decided it was time to stop being a wimp and just power through laying on his right arm again.

He flipped over.

Okay. Well. This was the opposite of relaxing.
He needed to power through though. He sucked in a breath and held it tight as sweat began beading on his forehead.

Hm. You know, this was probably not the most efficient style for sleep strategy.

Maybe breaking human limits and not being a wimp would work better later if he actually slept tonight.

So he rolled back to his other side, and at some point, succeeded.

***

“Good morning.”

He woke up to see Zenko leaning over the arm of the sofa, watching him with a faint air of amusem*nt. "You look like a squirrel in a squirrel nest," she said, giggling slightly.

He rubbed the morning crust out of his eyes and sat up, groaning as he unfurled from whatever contortion he’d been sleeping in so he could stretch his arms out above his head and retort: "No way – I'm a wolf in a wolf cave."

"Ah. I remember going through a wolf phase too. Don’t worry, it’ll go away in a couple of months. Then it’ll be horses."

Horses. Horses…Oh sh*t, he’d been meaning to sprint to A-City last night, and he’d totally forgotten. f*cking stupid, f*cking useless–

"So you're sure you don't wanna sleep somewhere normal?"

No, he liked the way he could press himself into the corner of the room, and be semi hidden, and shake his head, no, no, I don’t f*cking want to sleep somewhere normal, stop asking.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at school right now?” he asked her.

“I already went to school. This is a late good morning.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like a pudding cup? Fresh from the cafeteria!”

He shook his head and got up to go to the bathroom.

“Does your tummy hurt?” Zenko asked, following him down the hall, eyes on him and fingers twisting together slightly, kind of like she was unsure about something.

“No, I’m just trying to take a piss, would you leave me alone?”

He shut the door behind him and stopped in his tracks, because there Tama was drinking out of the toilet.

"Move over," he said, nudging her off with his toe, before sitting down swiftly and wrapping his arms around his stomach.

It wasn't exactly his stomach that hurt. Something in the vicinity. Though his stomach didn't feel too hot either.

And everything felt cold.

"Shut up, Eyeballs," he grunted, throwing the cat an equal and opposite glare. "You're constipating my piss."

For the hell of it he went into the kitchen after he was done in the bathroom.

He glanced at the cat's food dish.

Looked like Zenko had poured the last of the goldfish crackers in there.

At least it was…something.

It looked like the kid had taken him up on his former request, because the living room was empty. He returned to his corner and sunk to the blanket softened floor so he could clasp his arms around his knees and sit.

Metal Bat, Metal Bat, Metal Bat.

Urg, he couldn't stand the thought of the guy.

Of the guy smirking at him

Of the guy swinging at him.

Of the guy slashed up, and lying in a ditch somewhere.

Dead.

Garou's hand shot out like a pale viper as he reached for the closest thing to distract himself with.

Which happened to be Zenko's tablet.

He smashed Hello Kitty with no spaces into the password box and opened the first random app icon that he saw, which too late he realized was Google Photos, and the very first thing he saw was–

–a picture of Metal Bat.

Garou froze and stared at him.

His eyes were staring straight back through the screen to Garou. He had a his classic stick-up-his-ass look on his face and it looked like the picture had been taken at some sort of work function, because there were other heroes in the photo and no one particularly looked like they were excited to be there either. Garou scoffed under his breath and was about to exit out to get rid of the sight of it.

His finger wavered, and then, on a whim, he swiped instead.

The next photo was of Metal Bat in the Blue Saturday Shirt, looking delighted at the fact that Tama seemed to be resting long enough on his arm to participate in a photo with him. His other arm extended from behind the camera and his chin was tucked down as he grinned at the cat cradled against his chest.

For some reason it calmed Garou down to see it. It was better than imagining the guy dead, after all.

After a moment of staring at it he swiped to the next picture.

In this one he wasn’t wasn't wearing his hero costume, nor anything of the Saturday shirt category. Instead it was a black blazer over crisp white dress shirt–formal looking, except that he hadn't buttoned it all the way up, which seemed to be a stylistic choice to add a flair of rebellion to the otherwise business (or perhaps piano concert?) worthy outfit. His hair was perfect–even the single strand that was out of place looked like it was meant to be. His eyes were slightly off center, kind of like he’d been checking out his look in the camera.

Garou could feel his face growing warm in vicarious embarrassment for this guy. He himself didn't get the whole taking selfies thing. Back when he was in highschool he'd always rolled his eyes when he saw other students posing and taking snapshots of themselves for whatever dumb social media thing was popular.

What was the point? What was there to enjoy about it? He supposed if he looked like this it'd be kind of easier. If he looked like this maybe he actually would enjoy looking at himself.

He swiped again.

Unlike the last two photos, this one obviously hadn't been taken by Metal Bat himself. The perspective wasn't close enough, there was no arm tracing back from behind screen, and he was sitting on the sofa with his head back, his ungelled hair looking long and straight but frizzy in some places as it swept sloppily behind his ear and spilled over the backrest of the sofa, where he laid in a droopy, semi upright position. Underneath the hoodie he wore, his chest caved downward like his spine was trying to find the path of least resistance to the sofa cushion. His eyes were closed and he had a red spot that looked like a popped pimple on his jaw.

The next photo featured him sloppily jolting awake, a blurred faceful of Mrs. Rabbit obscuring part of his head, as Zenko's throwing arm just barely cut into the frame of the lopsided photo.

Garou laid back and held the tablet out as he continued staring up at the screen. He swiped back and forth between the two pictures. He tilted it and squinted as he thought.

Y’know, maybe this sort of thing would make a better missing poster than Zenko’s drawing of the guy. For one thing, they were actual photos. And If Metal Bat was kidnapped or something he'd probably not have his hair all stylized like he normally did. He wouldn't look like a fierce, formidable, slick-backed hero who was about to smash your head in with a baseball bat.

He'd just look like a floppy-haired, tired-ass teenager who'd been caught on camera when he wasn't expecting it.

“Watcha looking at?”

“F–!” Garou winced as he fumbled the tablet and it landed smack on the center of his face.

Zenko had entered the room almost as quietly as Tama would’ve and Garou’s pulse was fast as he sat up and put the tablet aside.

“Don’t sneak up on people like that,” he told her, and she ignored him. She circled around to the other side of the coffee table, pulled something from behind her back, and all but slammed it onto the surface in front of him.

It was a small cardboard carton.

"Garou, this is a protein shake of Badd's. I think protein shakes are yucky and I refuse to drink it. It expires today."

“Expiration dates are corporate lies.”

She gave him a concerned look. “Okay, well, in this house we listen to the corporate lies and Badd’s gonna be upset if he sees it got wasted.” She put her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels. “He may even ground me."

“Seriously?! What a–” he was about to go off about how power had corrupted Metal Bat, how he’d taken this older-brother-slash-parent thing one step too far, when he stopped. And he thought about it. And he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Wait. No he wouldn’t.”

Zenko let out an exasperated sound. “Okay, yeah. But come on! There’s no reason for you not to have it, so have it! We shouldn’t have to play this game. You’re a grownup and grownups need to eat so they don’t die on me.”

What the freaking f*ck–

Garou felt the blood drain from his face as he stared at this little kid who was talking like she hadn’t got the memo that this wasn’t a subject they were going to breach through conversation.

Grown up. Garou’s stomach twisted, and not because of the hunger. We shouldn’t have to play this game. He hadn’t…he hadn’t thought of it like that. The gears started whirring, a ghost of that feeling he used to get whenever he’d pick up a new martial art technique in the fastest instant of a fight. His brain felt like it was turning, rotating around an object that he had thought was a square but was actually a cube. And he realized…

…To her, it was a game. A bad game, apparently. To her, him cutting back on the food was a thing she had to navigate around, a problem that she had to put extra effort into solving.

Because she was a stupid kid! I know my limits, I know I won’t kick the bucket from a few measly days of dieting! I’m totally fine! Totally fine. But she doesn’t know that, and for some reason I’m not convincing her. He picked at the neck of the shirt he was wearing, adjusting it so it wasn't drooping off his shoulder. And now she's investing her energy unnecessarily into me. Into trying to trick me.

The skin on his face was starting to burn, to burn entirely red–it wasn’t even embarrassment, it was something worse, because…by the time his brain had rotated around all three hundred and sixty degrees of that path around the cube, he had come to the conclusion that she was right, she shouldn’t have to play at this! Not with a grown ass adult!

The path around the cube stopped, and started working in a different direction. Really, she should just drop it and let him face his own consequences. The memory popped into his mind of Tareo, tears and snot falling out his face as he whimpered, “Stop pretending...Before they kill you!" Tch, all these kids, trying to tell him what to do with his own life. It was frustrating, it was unfair, Zenko should just let him starve as he pleased, take the pressure off to figure out how to exist. That's how the grownup world worked. That's what he was trying to tell her! But…she was a kid, so that was like…jeez…some sort of emotional maturity thing that she just couldn’t do. Because…kids are copiers. They just…learn from copying whatever they see on TV or from their family. Whoever they look up to, whoever they think is cool, whoever they think is their hero, they try to copy. No matter how much he didn’t care, telling her wasn’t enough to get her to realize it wasn’t important, that it wasn’t her problem, what went on with him. As long as he continued on unable to get his own food and unwilling to eat hers, she would continue to try to help him. To be the hero.

Because if Badd were here, it would be his job to tell her she had to eat.

And just like that he had two clashing ideas warring for moral dominance in his mind. What was worse? To eat this orphaned brat out of house and home, or make her be the adult who takes it upon herself to try to fool me into eating every day?

Seriously, what would you do?!

He had to think of a third option.

And in the meantime, he had to drink the expired muscle milk.

He swiped the protein shake off the counter, cracked it open, and began glugging.

Strawberry banana.

Halfway through he set it down and gasped. “Wow,” he said. He could already feel it filling his belly, and the sensation of having every inside dimension of his stomach touching food was…wow. It was just, wow.

Zenko grinned, an excited victory sparkling in her eyes. “You like it!"

“It’s good” he said, taking another sip. He slowed down a bit after that, taking his sips gradually and carefully until it was all gone. Wouldn't want to puke it up.

He put the bottle in the recycling bin and then went to his blanketed spot in the corner.

He sighed and flopped onto his back. He felt so full he was almost lightheaded.

“This is probably what it feels like to be drunk,” he said, grinning sloppily up at the ceiling. The totally zen feeling of not being hungry rippled across his brain in soothing waves. His entire body felt relaxed, like he’d eaten a giant turkey dinner. His stomach was like a tight balloon, filled with liquid life.

Thanks for the expired smoothie, Badd.

Zenko popped over the arm of the sofa and laughed at him. "You look like you're gonna have a baby."

"Maybe someday," he mumbled, patting his belly sleepily. His eyes dropped shut and he rolled onto his left side. "Mind if I turn in early?"

"Okay, good night,'' she said. "If I don't see you before the school bus tomorrow, late good morning in advance."

"Late good morning in advance," he murmured back.

***

At 3 AM he woke up ready to get moving.

He only had a short window of opportunity here, so he wasted no time in getting up, putting his one shoe, and slipping out into the night.

He stopped by his payphone first, though he wasn't expecting much, and his expectations were confirmed and thensome by the total emptiness of the box when he slid out the piece of plastic to check.

That was fine because he liked plan B better anyways, as it involved heading the other way so he could stray once again off the path and slip into the forest of the city park.

Under dim moonlight and light pollution he stalked through the woods until he got to his hidden spot where he'd left his 2 liter water jug so he could down it and keep going. He traveled until he got to a particular spot in the brook where the bank dipped out and created a small amber pool where he knew that deer liked to stop and drink.

It only took a few gradients of shift from night-black to pre-dawn-blue before he saw a pair of antlers emerge, followed by a tawny neck. Fuzzy gray lips dipped into the water, and Garou lunged out of his hiding spot.

The deer bucked out of his path, began running, and the hunt was on.

Green and brown wiped by his peripheral vision as Garou sprinted through the woods. His feet soared over one log. Two. A grin curled up his face as the feeling that he was flying through an obstacle course compounded in his gut.

His feet were blurs as they tore through ferns and kept over stones. He was moving fast. He was enjoying this. He was close to a kill and he could feel it. He was–

He was chasing after nothing. When he looked up from his feet there was no more brown deer. No more charging antlers or flash of white tail.

He'd lost the kill.

He stopped and stared out into the leafy wall.

Well.

Guess that's just what happens if you don't pay attention.

To be fair, his brain was pretty tired out from stuff. And it'd been the first time he'd got to run in a while, so it made sense his focus had drifted.

Maybe if it hadn't gone far he could track it and sneak quietly–

A swarm of birds rose up from the canopy as the sound of his coughing traveled across the woods.

He pounded in his chest and squatted down for a moment, holding his stomach and clenching his eyes shut as he waited for the drama to pass.

Okay. Good. Fine. It had passed.

It was then that he heard a faint, croaky squawk, accompanied by a fitful scratching at dead leaves not far away from him.

He snapped his head up and through still watery eyes saw a familiar looking beak not even ten feet away from him.

That thing! That! If he acted fast, he'd still have meat tonight!

He clawed through the brush and got to his feet so he could swing a hook kick into the creature's trachea. Must've been slow today though– the creature dodged him; he caught a glimpse of a horizontally banded pupil contracting to focus on him, just before a massive claw slashed upward toward his neck. He bent backward just in time and the claws caught on his collarbone just enough to leave a scrape. His dodge didn't end gracefully; his ass hit the ground and the moment his eyes opened they widened as the shadow of the creature's raised talon drifted over his face. And he realized…

If he came back with another injury, Zenko would be pissed. He scrambled back, back, back, until his shoulder blades hit some sort of mossy boulder. sh*t, he was cornered!

Pulling his knees out of immediate biting range, he guarded his face with his forearms–which, admittedly, was a more clever and strategic sounding way to think about it. It wasn't clever or strategic. What's anyone's first instinct when backed into a rock in a hard place? Assume ball.

Better his arms get slashed than his eyes.

Nothing happened though. He peered through his guard and saw that the monster had stopped. Its head co*cked to the side for a moment, observing him in all his fetal positioned glory. And then it turned around and scratched and clucked its way through the brush.

Maybe…it was motion sensitive?

He unfurled from his ball shape and slipped his arms down to wrap his belly as the weird f*cked up belly sensation caught up to him. Into the silence of the woods around him, the sound of a faint groan passed his lips.

He’d just wait a bit for that to go away, huh?

His eyes slipped closed as he let his head drop against the rock. He wasn’t sure what was making him more lightheaded right now, the injury or the calorie deficit. He’d kind of been banking on that meal from yesterday charging him up for everything he needed to get done today. Looked like he’d overestimated his power.

Again.

His eyes snapped open again when he heard another rustling. Quiet. Small. Caused by something Just about the size of a…

Chipmunk.

He.

Didn't.

Blink.

He pounced.

The animal squeaked one last squeak against his fingers before its neck snapped.

He uncupped his hands, to check that it was dead.

Yep.

He looked down at the chipmunk body in his hands and felt low. He didn't like hunting animals that were too small to put up a fight. And, now that he thought about it, this chipmunk probably wasn't even enough for him.

Have to start somewhere. He pulled a leg off. Dislodged fur clung to the viscous strings of blood-goo dangling from the raw pink twig-bones as he raised it to his mouth.

His lips peel back from his teeth, quivering as he fought the acidic feeling rising up in his throat.

He let out a tight breath, and dropped his hand.

He didn’t want to eat this.

He didn't want to taste the muscles dripping on his tongue, he didn't want to chew it until the bones and flesh were one lump, he didn't want to feel the fur dragging down his throat, he didn't want to have it dissolving inside his stomach, he didn't want it, he didn't want it, he didn't want it. Man, He was such a brat. He’d killed the thing, and now he was too picky to even make use of it.

He couldn’t just leave it though. He wrapped the chipmunk in some leaves and dragged himself out of the forest. It was broad daylight by now so before he left the last barrier of brush he made sure to grab a discarded beer bottle off the ground, smash it against a rock, and use one of the sharp bits as he took a fistful of his stupid hair prongs and sawed a straight chop right at the base of his fist. The tension in his fist slackened and his hand came away with the strands of white-gray that feathered to the ground.

Some disguise was better than none. He didn't feel like…He was going to be going very fast this morning.

He recollected the chipmunk and trudged down the sidewalk defeatedly, back in the direction of Zenko's house. He was a few blocks away, right in view of that playground Zenko had said she and her brother used to go to every Saturday, when he stopped one more time.

There was a weathered poster stapled on a nearby telephone pole:

HELP WANTED! STRONG WORKERS

and some clipart of a guy with a lemon wedge smile lifting a piece of furniture or something.

He swallowed, feeling almost like he was toeing into a stranger's house, as he stood there and stared at this battered little piece of paper. Then he stepped a bit closer and the words "submit all tax form, identification, and employment paperwork to–" jumped out at him.

Well, you know what, that job looked stupid, anyways.

He turned away. He went back to the house and skipped the front door, instead going along the strip of yard between the wall and the fence until he ended up on the little brick patio in the back by the flowerpots and unkempt garden patch.

He found Tama, who was sunning there.

"Hey. Cat. Get over here."

He squatted down and dropped the dead rodent in front of her.

The cat fluffed out at first, staring at him in this affronted way, before approaching slowly, little nose flaring as it sniffed the gift. He watched, a tight ball of…something…sitting in his chest. Come on, just take it. I know you’re hungry too.

The cat began consuming it greedily. Garou sighed and dropped his ass to the ground so he could sit on the sidelines. Rubbing some of the chipmunk blood off on the brick, he rested an elbow against his knee and dropped his cheek against his palm.

He sat for a while, eyes glazing over as he tried not to think about chipmunks.

Man. Looked like he'd have to think of some other plan. Maybe if I sleep on the bench again, something will come to me, and I can try to kill it back.

Rather just eat nothing. With his stomach doing whatever weird thing it was doing lately, maybe he was better off anyways.

His posture wilted as he sat.

Then, something soft brushed against his leg. He lifted his face from his hand to watch as the cat's back rolled past his knee like a little furry shark fin dipping above the waves

Tama nudged her way into his lap, and curled up there. He felt a soft rumble begin buzzing against him.

The corner of his lip lifted a little as he scratched behind her ears.

At least something good had come from this.

***

He and Tama sat for a while longer, watching an off-gray moth that was spiraling in circles near the half dead tomato patch.

It was kind of a good time.

He had never really been a cat person or anything. Not like Metal Bat was, apparently. He could sort of see the appeal though. When the cat wasn’t offended by your existence, it was actually sort of pleasant to be around.

"Garou?"

With the sudden sound of the back door opening, Tama bolted again, and he let the hand that had been resting on her fall into his empty lap. His eyes dropped off from the moth and landed on his hands as Zenko came out onto the back porch instead.

"Did you leave again?" He heard her say, voice tilted downward in disappointment

He nodded, the cladding on the side of the house providing a hard, uneven surface for the back of his skull to use as a fulcrum. He didn't have the energy to explain why he was outside right now. Nothing had really gone to plan, and he didn't have anything to show for himself except the faint stain of chipmunk blood that was still sticking to his palms.

He curled his hands into a laced ball so she wouldn't have to notice it.

Two little legs wearing pink polka dot tights walked over and planted themselves next to him. He tilted his chin down and stared at the brick underneath his own legs.

She knelt down and took a seat on the bricks too.

"It's not your fault. I think you're just like Tama. When she was a kitten she got outside once long enough to explore and ever since then you can't get her to stay inside, like, ever. She just has to go. And that's why there's a cat flap."

He turned his head the other way as he nodded.

"Hey." There was a tug on the tattered shoulder of his black shirt. "Come inside."

He didn't’ make eye contact with her, just heaved himself up and followed her into the house, avoiding looking at that picture of her mom and dad and brother and self that was hung above the dinner table.

“Sit with me here.”

He sat on the bench of the dinner table stared at the table cloth as he heard her skootch in across from him. He saw a small hand reach out and land on his own.

“Listen up” he heard its owner say. "I'm giving you a makeover."

That got his attention back on her. He stared at her face, which was cast with pure determination, and the hint of a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

I am about to be hit with a baseball bat.

"I can't have you being caught and brought to prison!" Zenko exclaimed. "If you’re going to keep going outside no matter what, then we have to change up your look, at least a little bit." She hopped off the bench and pattered off down the hall.

"Wait-" He stood up "Zenko - "

He heard a door open, a moment passed, and then it shut again and she came storming back down the hall, with a new piece of clothing in hand. “First thing’s first is your clothes.”

“What’s wrong with—okay don’t answer that–look, Zenko, no—”

“--Yes, Garou, yes. You're like a cartoon character! You always wear the same thing. Plus you always look cold! You wear this now.”

A hoodie that was a color somewhere between orange and pink was tossed into his face and flopped into his arms.

"And take the yellow flip flops by the door, they're spares and we literally got them from the dollar store."

“Zenko, I’m not taking anymore of his clothes, I don't–"

"He doesn't wear this sweatshirt! He doesn't even like it, he says it's too tight on his shoulders."

"If it's too tight on his shoulders then it'll definitely be too tight on mine."

"Just try it."

He pulled it over his head.

Huh. It was actually pretty roomy in here.

“How is it?"

Garou shrugged. "I don't see what he's complaining about. Fits fine. Kinda loose, actually."

Zenko pursed her lips together and like she was trying to avoid calling him out on some sort of bullsh*t.

He appreciated that she didn’t.

She did it rather in a slightly worse way by looking him over head to toe and announcing, "You do look a lot different than how you did back when you were hunting heroes. Your hair still stands out though."

He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head resolutely. "I'm not shaving my head. I have a pin head, it won't look good."

"Is that why you have it all long and crazy all the time?"

"No! Long and crazy just suits me. I don't care about how I look."

"Obviously you do, if you think you have to keep it long and crazy to prove you don’t care about how you look.”

"Okay, listen."

"Yuh huh?"

"Shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up!"

"Okay okay, Jeez…

Next thing he knew he was sitting in a chair in front of the bathroom mirror with a towel around his shoulders and an eight year old girl hovering behind him with all the creative mania of a renaissance sculpter.

"Hmm…" she said, putting her fists around the two halves of his hair mass and bunching and un-bunching them thoughtfully. "Where to start…"

"Perhaps with a legal waiver ?"

How had it gotten this far? Well, he was reacting to this whole development the same way a concussed pigeon may view its reflection after diving into the window a few times beforehand. Inert and disoriented. And speaking of his reflection… Zenko did kind of have a point. His hair was stubbornly…him-like. Despite his jagged attack at it in the forest earlier, his hair was still long and vaguely double lobed. Just more patchy and f*cked looking. Maybe she was onto something with the whole makeover thing. Honestly, even if she wasn't, he was kind of just glad that she wasn't doing that upset-dissapointed, arms-folded-over-chest thing at him right now.

Somehow, crazy-excited and holding-scissors-near-his-face was indeed exponentially better.

“Remember, not too short,” he warned her.

“Don’t worry, there are other things I can do,” she said, putting the scissors down and reaching for a comb and something that looked vaguely like a cattle prod.

She began to get to work, which started with combing, burr removal, and the occasional use of scissors for the ectomy of matted hair balls, 3 of which had twigs stuck in them, and were given the names Toby, Brody, and Stink, before all at once being swept into the trash can and forgotten forever.

It wasn’t the best feeling to be reminded of what he looked like. He avoided thinking about it by making small talk. “If I start going bald it would be here and here” Garou said, pointing to the two apexes of his hairline. “With this middle part standing as like a weird thinning coif. And I’d look even more like Mickey Mouse.”

Zenko clicked her tongue as she finished doing whatever she had done with the cattle prod and interrupting his view of the reflection. He heard a snap of an elastic as she put something in his hair. “You don’t look like Mickey Mouse.” She said with a tone of solace.

“Wow kid, that’s probably the nicest thing I've ever--”

“You look like Goofy!”

“And I stand corrected.”

“Sit,” she corrected. “You sit corrected.” Snickering, she hopped behind him so he could see himself in the mirror. Garou’s mouth fell open. Never in a million, zillion years would he have envisioned himself with glittery bobbles, pink bows, and stick on sequins dotting a mantle of two massive, iron curled pigtails.

And yet here he sat. Corrected.

His eyes slid to the kid and he saw her laughing at him. And for a moment the blood prickled to his face, and he felt a flash of red, hot anger; A flash of a memory of himself as a child, getting laughed at by the others as they kicked him, held him down, pulled his hair, called him a monster...and later, called him other names, sticking notes on him, pulling at his clothes, shoving him in the locker room, punching…

“You shut your--” He twisted around in the chair, a snarl on his lips, fury and fight ready to unfurl from him like a coiled cobra.

“Look, we’re twins,” she giggled, fixated on the mirror as she put her own hair in the same sort of arrangement. “Now all we have to do is find Badd, and then we can be triplets. Usually he only lets me do this on a special occasion, like a holiday, or on report card day--but I think the day we find him will be special enough. Ooh--” She held up a bottle of Badd’s gel. “Want me to spike your curls?”

Garou’s hands unclenched from the arms of the chair, and he turned back around to face the mirror. His neck was red, his face white. He exhaled, masking the shake in his breath by pretending to put his hand over his mouth in thought. He closed his eyes and counted down from seven. He opened them again. “Yes, but only if I can have more glitter,” he said, batting at one of his pigtails fretfully. “It doesn’t look quite crazy enough to suit me yet.”

It was weird. Kid never threw a single hit. But thinking about how he had just almost reacted, and thinking about what she meant by all this... left him feeling like he’d just been punched straight through the chest.

"Hey, Garou"

"Uh--yeah." His throat felt dry as he reeled himself mentally back into the room.

She frowned down at him.

"Yeah?" He prompted, feeling...you know, a bit nervous.

"I think you are a perfect canned-date for a Total Princess Overhaul Makeover."

A feeling of relief unknotted his chest. "Okay, yeah sure. Wait. What?"

A grin spread across her face, somewhere in the overlap between delight and deviancy. “I’ll go get The Toolbox.”

She ran off and he was left to sit in front of the mirror and contemplate his life choices for a minute.

She came back hauling something that did indeed look like a toolbox, but for the image of Minnie Mouse plastered across its surface, along about five dozen cartoony lipstick kisses.

She grinned at him through the mirror. “Get excited Garou. When I’m through you won’t even be able to recognize yourself.”

“Oh, I believe it.”

She pulled her stool around to face him and got to work. “First is the primer. Then the foundation. That’s because ‘prime’ means first. Like Opti Miss Prime. Get it? Okay close your eyes.”

So began the process of smearing whatever goop she had all over his face.Then came something like a pencil, then a soft paintbrush… He kind of got lost in the narration.

It was actually surprisingly relaxing. Aside from being poked in the eye with something a few times, the sensory experience was pretty clutch–He almost could’ve fallen asleep.

The scar on your face looks a bit like Tareo's.” He heard her say at a certain point. “Are you guys actually related?"

He opened his eyes again and found her face about a handwidth away from him as she focused on applying whatever was going on his eyebrows.

"No,” he replied. “That's not how scars work."

"Well if it was actually a birthmark maybe it would."

"Well then why did you call it a scar?"

She shrugged. "Because I'm right that's it's not a birthmark. They do look very matching though."

"Well, we got them from the same creep, so guess it makes sense."

"The Ripple Roller?"

"Yeah, some stupid name like that."

A bit more was done to the around the eye zone before she announced that it was time for “the finishing touches.” He watched her rummage around in the Tool Box for a minute, before she procured a silver tube smudged with maroon fingerprints.

"It's your lucky day! you get to have the tail end of the red lipstick. That's a fan favorite."

"A fan favorite?"

"Well, it's Badd's favorite, but he also lets me give him black. Or brown."

His eyes went down to the oily stub hovering at the corner of his mouth.

"Wait, so this was on his mouth too?"

"Yeah. Oh wait–do you mind? He's not germy, I promise."

"When I wake up with cooties infesting my mouth I guess I'll know why."

"Boys can't give other boys cooties."

"Oh, yes they can. And I'm not a boy, I'm a monster."

"Are you a boy monster?"

"Uh…Yeah, kind of."

“Well then I’m still kind of right. So, are you okay with this lipstick?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

With laser-sharp focus, she put it on him, then met his eyes and gave one final instruction. "Go like this," she said, pursing her lips and smudging them back and forth a bit.

He went like that and looked to her for the final okay.

A delighted smile spread across her face. "You look lovely!" she trilled, "like a Disney princess!"

"Like one of the badass ones, right?"

"Right. But no A-word."

"One of the bad butt ones, right?"

"Right!"

She stepped out of the way of the mirror and he grinned at his blood-red smear of lopsided lipstick. “Looks feral. I like it.”

“What does 'feral' mean?”

“Pretty.”

“Well then, here we have the most feral Disney princess in the land! Oh, wait, I forgot the touch of magic.”

A fistful of glitter hit him in the face.

“Perfect” he said, blinking away the excess. “Finally, I look as feral on the outside as I feel on the inside”

Honestly, the look wasn’t that badly done. The eyeliner and eyebrow pencil wasn't upsetting him. Having pale hair with pale skin always kinda made his facial features mush into a pasty blob. Old looking, too. He did always get annoyed when Tareo called him ojisan. Hah. If only that kid could get a load of this!

“Splendid!” Zenko clapped her hands, and ushered him up from the chair so that she could plop herself into it instead. “So, did you listen to my tutorial enough to understand how to do it for me?”

“Oh yeah. I’m a quick learner.”

“Perfect! Make me look feral too!”

He picked up the primer. “You got it, kid.”

After some nail polish, they were both finished getting gussied up, and Zenko announced that it was time for a tea party. She settled him down in her room with the rabbit furniture, two glasses of water, and the tail end of the last bag of animal crackers in the house.

The thought flitted across Garou’s mind to deny the crackers, but he realized it would likely bring more wrath than the frugality benefit anyways.

He was feeling a bit less uptight than before too. Kind of like he could actually sit down with Zenko and enjoy this sort of thing again. Guess makeup really does do wonders on a person’s self esteem.

They talked a bit about school, and music, and Zenko’s favorite TV show, and other things from Zenko’s life, for a while. Which Garou liked. It was nice to think about this kind of stuff, sometimes. When Zenko finished up her tea and crackers, she “mm”ed in contentment and used her newly freed hands to pick up her two felt-eared guests.

“So how are you doing, Mr. Lovely-Hair?”

Garou sighed. “Not too bad, Mr, Rabbit. Better than usual, I guess.”

“You certainly look more fancy than usual,” Mrs Rabbit told him.

“Yeah, Zenko did a good job, didn’t she?”

(From behind the rabbits, Zenko went “heeeeehee” in complete delight)

Garou laughed lightly and shook his head, feeling the ribbons on the pigtails swing around his ears as he did so.

Then one of the rabbits said: “Why does ‘usual’ not usually feel ‘not bad,’ Mr. Lovely-Hair?”

Garou glanced from Mr Rabbit and Mrs Rabbit. And then past them to Zenko. “I’m not able to do as much as I thought I could. I wish I could do better. But I keep losing. “

From behind the rabbits, Zenko tilted her head and smiled in a kind of sad, but also kind of determined way. “'You can lose a whole lot, but you’re not a loser until you give up trying.' That’s a quote said to us from Caped Baldy.’”

“Wait.” Garou wrinkled his brow and leaned back as much as he could in such a tiny chair. “Caped Baldy? When did you talk to that guy?”

The rabbits took their seats on Zenko’s lap as she spoke. “When me and Badd were at the Hero Hospital. He was passing by on his way to share bananas with another hero, I think.”

"Hey Zenko, do you remember who else there?"

"There were a bunch of other heroes. I remember Stinger was there…and Tank Top Master was there…oh, and Mumen Rider! They all stopped by Badd's room to say hello. He pretended to be asleep though because he didn't feel like chit chatting. But I thought they were all nice–especially Mumen Rider!"

Tank Top Master and Mumen Rider, huh…Well, based on the timing, Garou could be fairly certain of the reason they'd been in there.

Me. Yeah. That was ‘cause of me.

Zenko was still talking. "There were some others there who I didn't know. One had hair that looked like swirly ice cream. And another was really serious looking with spiky black hair. Oh! and there was also this big guy with a really–” She scrunched up her nose and slapped her hands to her cheeks so she could squish her face into a crumpled, wrinkly shape. “--sour looking face.”

Garou blinked as another memory suddenly came back to him. “Wait, Sour Face?”

“Oh yeah! That was his name!”

“Hold on– Sour Face was at the Hero Hospital? Why? That guy’s no hero. He’s just some jerk from my old dojo.”

“So you know him?”

"Yeah. I mean, not friendly or anything–heh–he probably hates me, actually. But wait– you talked to him?"

Zenko tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I didn’t talk to him very much–but I overheard what he was saying to someone else when I went to the vending machine for a snack. He was talking to some orange-headed guy about some big martial arts contest everyone needed to be ambulanced from because of the monster attack."

"C-City!" Garou said suddenly.

"C-City?"

This time, it was Garou’s turn to spring up from his seat, and sprint into another room. Skidding slightly on the hardwood, regained his balance and snatched his map and a marker off the coffee table so he could run it back to Zenko’s room and slap it onto the little teaparty table instead.

"You say Sour Face was there because of a martial arts tournament? Well, I know exactly where that tournament was–"

He took the marker out with a flourish and put a big blue X inside the boarder of C City.

"C-City Super Stadium. That's where they hold that competition every year. Including–" he grinned devilishly as he capped the marker again. "The year I snuck in and won it."

Zenko's eyes widened as she jumped up from her own piece of rabbit furniture in excitement. "So if non-heroes ended up in the Hero Hospital, it could be because the hospital is already close to the C-City Super Stadium!"

"It could be the case that the HA picks up civilians caught in the crossfire of monster on hero action.” Garou said, ribbons swinging as he began pacing back and forth across the pink carpeted floor. “In which case proximity isn't the deciding factor–they could have been flown in from anywhere, just like your brother was, and Puri Puri Prisoner was and…Stinger's some A Class who operates in J sometimes, right? He was probably flown in too. But you used the word 'ambulence' right? If that's the case, he and everybody else at the stadium had to be close. That's two solid reasons."

“Ooh, guess what!” Zenko was doing the same, pacing back and forth, but up the opposite direction so they would have enough room to both do it. "Earlier I was thinking about your idea that it could just be a regular hospital so I researched and started making a list of all the regular hospitals in each city– it's not finished but I started with B and got all the way to Q so C is already all done! I already have the addresses all written down! I can use Google Earth to check them out!"

"Perfect! There's only so many hospitals one city can hold, right? We know it's above ground, because you were by a window when you were there, so it probably is on the list because it does look just like any other hospital!"

"Oh oh!" Zenko made an excited noise as she snatched up her tablet again. "Except that–not every hospital lands helicopters–so this one should have a landing pad!”

“Holy cr–ab queen–I didn’t even think of that, I didn’t even–you must be a genius, Zenko!”

She jumped up and down as she somehow typed into her tablet too–pulled up google Earth, and zoomed in on C City.

“Hold on, hold on, I want to see what you’re doing” Garou interjected, kneeling on the floor next to her as she finally settled enough to plop down on the rug.

He watched her type in the address to each of the hospitals she had listed on a separate document. With each one, the map reoriented itself to give her a different skyview picture.

Until the fourth and final hospital in the C-City lineup.

Which, just as they predicted, had, however pixelated, the clear image of two white rectangles painted on its roof.

He and Zenko met eyes, and stared at eachother with an equal sense of hushed excitement.

The reverie broke when Zenko asked “How will we get there?”

Garou dropped his eyes to the image on the tablet.

“I don’t know.”

She copied the address of the hospital and pasted it into maps, which pulled up a couple different methods, the least expensive of which appeared to be commuter rail:

Adult–60 dollars, round trip.
Child–20 dollars, round trip.

“We need 80 dollars” she announced. “80 dollars, and we can both go.”

“Or 60, for just me”

“Well, if it’s just one of us then it should be me! 20 dollars for just me!”

“Do you have 20 dollars?”

“No, but I won’t give up on him!” As she spoke her voice got louder and faster. “I won’t let him sit there just because I don’t have it–I’ll walk there if I need to, I’ll run, I’ll–”

“Listen.” Garou interrupted. “We’ll find it.”

Zenko met his eyes.

“If we can find out this much, we can find 80 dollars,” He said.

She stared at him for a minute longer, as if searching for a crack in his expression. “Yeah, okay.” She said, looking away.

They continued with their day in the strange place between celebrating what felt like a big step forward and being painfully aware that they were 80 dollars short of actually taking it.

Zenko was showered and changed out, PJ's on and towel around her hair, when she came out into the living room to wish him goodnight.

He was curled up in the corner, full face of makeup still intact.

"You know, you can wash that off if you want."

He snorted from his spot on the floor. "And give up looking like a princess? No way, Princess."

“You’re weird,” she said, smiling a little bit. She turned and headed down the hall, saying “Just make sure to wash it off in the morning– if you leave it too long you could get pimples like Badd does.”

“I’m on it.”

Several hours after Zenko had gone to bed, Garou shrugged his blankets off and emerged from his nest. Toeing carefully around the coffee table, he moved quietly over to the front door, slipped in his shoes, and went outside, shutting the door slowly so that it made only a small click.

He did some walking. Past the houses, the playgrounds, the businesses, the quiet restaurants. In time he got to the part of the city where buildings were clustered, sooty, and still alive.

Through the thin soles of the yellow sandals, he could feel the vibrations of a heavy base from a nightclub with green lighting leaking out the windows.

A cluster of people who were probably college students bumbled drunkenly down the sidewalk, and he weaved around them.

A bouncer's head followed him as he walked passed the nightclub and kept going down the sidewalk.

He passed one building that spilled warm light and the sound of bar goers shouting excitedly about sports onto the sidewalk.

He passed a building that had dark windows, a curvey neon depiction of a woman dancing above the entrance, and a couple of old guys smoking outside on the steps.

He passed a building that's vibe was something of a mix between the two previous, and he stopped, he leaned against the edge of the alley next to it, and waited.

It was nearly 3 AM.

That was fine with him though.

It was better to make this sort of money at night.

Over the course of the next hour, four or five people passed through the doorway of the bar, 3 of which noticed him and threw a funny look as they went by him, and he leaned against the wall and waited.

His wait ended when the bar door opened a fourth time, and a drunk man stumbled out. He made eye contact with the man. The man kept walking and he dropped his eyes again, thinking it was going to be another dud. But then, a few steps away from him, the guy stopped, and turned around, and pointed at him angrily.

"Hey, you."

"Yeah?" Garou took a step back into the alley behind him.

The guy took a wobbly step closer to him and looked him up and down, lip turned harshly. "f*cking fa*ggot. You trying to make some sort of statement?"

Garou lowered his eyelids haughtily and examined his neon pink nail polish. "Maybe I am. Like what you see?" He took another step back.

The guy let out a ragged peel of laughter and smacked the brick next to Garou's face. "Discussing. You're kinda people are the reason this world's gone downhill."

He continued stepping back.

"Ooh, that's some big talk. You're a feisty guy aren't you?" Garou's teeth cemented into a toothy grin as the shadow of a fire escape dipped across his face "I like that."

man's bloodshot eyes nearly bulged out of his head. A finger jabbed into Garou's chest as sour breath puffed against his face. "You trying to flirt with me?"

His retreat ended. They were both in the alley now. "Oh, no, you don't have to worry about that." Garou reassured him. He kissed his knuckles and winked. “If I was flirting with you, you’d already be dead.”

“The f*ck? Is that a f*cking threat?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Am I threatening to you with all this glitter? Ha! Ha ha ha–" he bent backwards for a minute, cackling into the sky, before slouching forward and sneering into the guy's face. "I bet a hundred bucks you fight like a little girl.”

"Oh yeah? I'll show you who's the–"

Moments later, Garou was squatting down beside an unconscious bar goer who was one tooth fewer.

He went into the guy's pocket and fished out a wallet. He took out five 20's, stood up, and then tossed the wallet onto the guy's back as he walked away

The next day, when Zenko came out of her bedroom, there was a grocery bag with a box of corn flakes, a new jar of peanut butter, bread, bananas, and skittles waiting for her in the kitchen.

"What the–Garou?"

"There's milk and eggs too." Garou grunted from the corner. "In the fridge."

He tore another bite out of the beef jerky he was eating.

Zenko's voice lifted in disbelief. "What did you–? Wait, you didn't shoplift this did you?"

"No!" He exclaimed, hefting his arms over the edge of the sofa so he could converse with her eye to eye. "I bought it with my own money, see?" He took out the extra green and tossed it her way. She caught it and looked down.

"There's even enough leftover for two train tickets to C City," He said.

Her eyes widened and she lifted her face to stare at him with temporarily unbridled excitement. "Really? That's amazing! That–" Before she reigned herself back and pursed her lips together. "Wait a minute. You didn't do anything illegal to get this, did you?"

"Nope."

Hey. It wasn't technically robbing if, you know, the guy agreed to the bet.

It was gambling at worst.

"And nothing violent, right?"

"Pf. No. This cash is clean as candy." He lied, without a second thought.

Because if there was one fight he didn't have the balls to pick, it was one with this little girl.

***

A dark pile of shaved hair lay on a plastic tarp underneath the shadow of a metal table. The tool that had been used to do it was an electric razor, which was laying in a tray next to a scalpel and a small electric saw, both of which were already used.

The surgical assistant bobbed their head to the music streaming from their phone as they made a sleek incision along the lines where the scalp had been marked in sharpie.

Chunks of hair clung to the red stains on their nitrile gloves as they reached for the saw, and then switched back to the scalpel.

They apparently didn’t notice their supervisor leaning in the shadow of the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he watched their progress.

They jumped when the man walked in saying “If you were a medical student I would have flunked, fired, and flayed you alive at least four months ago.”

“Doctor, you can’t sneak up on me like that!”

The doctor glanced down to the jagged nick that had accidentally been carved into the pale folds of the subject’s gray matter. “Apparently.”

The assistant looked down at their mistake and puffed out a disappointed breath as they shook their head. “sh*t. Ah well.”

The doctor’s jaw twitched as they approached the operating station. “As much as it may feel that it is so, this is not a Mcdonald's drive through, and we are not paid to produce ground hamburger and shove it out the window into some moron’s greasy, ever-gorging mouth!”

“Okay, okay, sorry! Look, it’s not dead yet, I was going to take out some of that section anyways.”

“Then do it. And shut this up, how are you supposed to hear the heart monitor?” The doctor snatched the phone off the table, stomped on the foot lever of the trash can, and threw the phone inside.

The assistant’s eyes lingered furtively on their supervisor, before they returned to their work, the only sound, other than very trash muffled music, being the monotone beep that accompanied each spike on the small digital screen mounted on the nearest wall.

A few more minutes of work passed before the assistant swore again.

Blood was weeping out from where they had been working. It streaked down the patient’s scalp and onto the tabletop underneath his hairless head.

Beeeeeeeeeep.

The assistant looked up sheepishly from their bloody hands.

“Uh, Doctor….”

“You struck a craneal artery.”

“Oh.”

The doctor was quiet. The sound of the flatline droned on, until the assistant swiveled in their chair and silenced it on the monitor screen.

“Hey Doc? Sorry I suck at this. Next time I’ll get it, for sure.”

The doctor ignored them. He had put on a nitrile glove; His back was to his assistant and head was tilted down as he brushed his finger through the still-warm liquid that was steadily pooling onto the cold metal table.

He raised his hand to eyelevel and examined the color on his fingertips.

“Look.” He murmured, not quite to the assistant. “This one was close.”

The assistant waited a moment, And then said, “Uh, Doc, I think this one might be dead.”

The man’s eyes dragged through a heavy roll as he dropped his hand and put his attention back on the assistant. “How very astute of you to notice.” And with that he peeled off the glove and turned his back on the operating table. “Handle cleanup. If you can manage.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?”

“I am. It’s past five. And I’m annoyed. Handle him.”

“Wait–but–should I do the waiting period thing?”

“My God, obviously you are supposed to do everything the same way we’ve done every time we’ve done anything like this.” The surgeon grabbed his coat from the hook by the door, “They don’t pay me enough for this” he grumbled as he buttoned it violently. “And remember to shut off the lights before you leave!” He snapped from the doorway. “This place isn’t made of money, you know!"

The assistant lingered in the room a minute or so after the doctor left, head co*cked and eyes to the side as if they were listening for their unhappy supervisor to come clomping back down the hall once more. Upon a few moment's steady quiet, they got up and went to the trash can, which they opened up and rummaged inside until they emerged with their phone, which was still emitting some peppy pop song.

They glanced at the time on it and then to their only company, the dead subject still laying on the operating table, with cranial blood still sitting underneath its half-shaved head.

“The cleanup guys will take care of it,” they muttered reassuringly to themself. They pulled the blanket up over the hero’s face, and they left the room.

The lights shut off as they went.

Chapter 17: Well Trained

Chapter Text

They had made all the necessary preparations for getting underway via train travel: route planned, tickets ordered, snacks packed, clothing selected —they had even dyed Garou's hair to help him stay hidden. They didn’t exactly have hair dye, but apparently kool aid packets worked as a close second option, and lemon plus fruit punch flavor had been enough to get him to a strawberry blond kind of look that, according to Zenko, was going to last approximately 3 weeks, and, was, according to Zenko, "very berry stylish."

They had it all written down too. 8:00 AM catch #30224 intercity rail from S-City to C-City South Station. Two way tickets already purchased online. Walk 20 minutes to C-City Memorial Hospital, located on 101 Narinki Street in Downtown C-City. Take no less than 1, but no more than 3 hours, to investigate the hospital. Walk 18 minutes to get from C-City Memorial Hospital to C-City West Station. Purchase commuter rail tickets for travel from C-City to A-City. Cost, 8 dollars combined, (which they had managed to scrounge up through scouring the house for change, and cashing in some empty cans at the bottle return). Projected time for travel, 50 minutes. Investigate the Hero Association Headquarters for 1-3 hours, get back to West Station, return to C-City South Station, and take #30229 back to home base.

Unlike Garou’s usual style, it felt like the sort of thing where either everything would go completely wrong, or, everything was absolutely foolproof, due precisely to the intense amount of preparation. Admittedly, he was feeling sort of assured about it–taking part in the process with Zenko and having both of their brains to figure out how to make an itinerary like this actually really helped.

Altogether, it seemed they had everything planned out. Airtight. They were both completely on the same page. It felt good.

And then, the morning they were going to leave, Zenko went and threw a completely unplanned, unexpected, unagreed upon factor into their equation.

"Tareo said he wanted to come too, so I invited him."

“Hi Mister Garou–wow, your hair makes me think of an old, washed out version of Ronald MacDonald!”

They were standing on the cement steps, morning dew glimmering on the grass and the front door freshly locked behind them. Garou had just slung the pink backpack over his shoulder, turned around, and found himself with two times as many children facing him as he’d been planning for.

“What?! Tare–no–what are you–?–no. What? Zenko. Zenko,no.”

Zenko made a disgruntled “aww” sound and Tareo instantly turned red and started stuttering. “"P-please Mister Garou? I saved up all the money I had for this, and I really want to go!”

“We only have two–”

“He already bought his own train ticket.” Zenko cut in.

Garou squinted at her disdainfully. Premeditated.Definitely premeditated.

“Don’t you have some mom–dad–legal guardian who’s gonna wonder–?”

“I already told my mom and my grandma that Zenko’s family invited me to the C-City Art Museum.” Tareo added quickly.

“But there’s no reason to inv–”

“Mister Garou, I really want to go! I want to help you and Zenko rescue Metal Bat!”

“Why? It’s not gonna be some glamor trip, we don’t even know if–” he glanced at Zenko and finished his sentence with a frustrated groan instead. “Why, Tareo, why?”

“Because–because we’re all–" Tareo glanced to Zenko and Garou and then away to the ground. His hands tightened on the straps of his little knock off power ranger backpack, and he gulped.

“We’re all friends!” Zenko cut in. “And friends help eachother and go on trips.”

“No F word. You guys are kids and the more kids I have on my hands the more liabilities.”

Tareo and Zenko both stared at him with big, sad, shiny kid eyes.

f*cking sh*t.

“Okay fine you can come!” He snapped, feeling his face turn red from how embarrassingly easy they had won this battle. “But you have to promise to listen to everything I tell you–including if I tell you to shut up and stop whining! Got it?”

“Got it.” They said in a completely determined, yet still somehow completely unconvincing way.

***

“Are we there yet?”

Garous' forehead smushed against the glass of the train window, with its view of the countryside blurring past it, as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, before righting himself again. "You know what? Yeah sure. Go ahead, guys, time to drop and roll the frick out of here. Mind the moving train."

Across the table on the seat facing Garou, Tareo stood up, a determined, somber set in his lip, like he was just about ready to go and do it.

"No, no," Garou interjected quickly. "No no no. We are not there yet."

Tareo sat down again, Garou relaxed, and then Zenko said, "well…are we almost there yet?"

"Look, I have as much control over this ride as you do, if you're bored, find something to entertain yourself with, okay?"

They were only about twenty minutes into their ride to C-City, which meant they still had nearly an hour left in front of them. (Luckily, the train was mostly empty–with a whole car to themselves, they had laid quick claim to the seats with the large window placed over a table with two large seats on either side of it. Mostly empty, however, did not equate to quiet, when one is seated directly across the two loudest children on the ride.)

Garou put his feet up on the end of his own seat and angled himself against the window again so he could wait out the train trip from hell in some semblance of lounging comfort, as Zenko went into her pink backpack and pulled out something crafted out of origami paper.

"Hey Tareo, want me to read your future?" She said, putting her fingers into the pocket folds in the paper.

"Is that a cootie catcher?" Tareo asked, looking interested. "Did you make it?"

"Yes times two!" Zenko said proudly. "I made it on the bus yesterday. It really works, yesterday I asked it if I would be going on a trip and it said yes! Try asking it a question."

Garou watched detachedly as the kids talked.

"Will I ever be strong enough to be a hero?" Tareo asked the cootie catcher.

Gee kid. Really putting yourself out there.

Zenko pinched the paper one way then the other. "Pick a number"

"Two." Tareo said.

She pinch it again.

"Pick another number."

"Three.”

She pulled open the tab on the inside. "Maybe!"

"Just 'maybe'?" Tareo said, sounding put out.

"Maybe isn't a bad thing, that means it's up to you." Zenko replied. "Right Garou?"

Garou answered in a toneless voice. "You being strong is up to you. But you being a hero is up to everyone else. You can't rely on everyone else."

The kids stared at him. And then Tareo turned back to the cootie catcher and asked, "Will I ever have a pet dog?"

Zenko's eyes lingered on Garou for a moment longer before jumping back to the cootie catcher and getting excited again. She did the thing with the numbers and then announced "yes!"

"How many dogs?" Tareo asked.

Zenko did the cootie catcher again. "Two."

"Cool." Tareo said, looking satisfied.

"Your turn Garou! Your turn to pick a question to ask the cootie catcher!" Zenko said.

sh*t. Shouldn’t have been making eye contact. "I don't have any questions."

"Not any? Come on, I bet you can think of at least one!"

"Fine. What's the point of playing the stupid cootie catcher game."

"That is not a playable question." Zenko interjected. " It can be a yes or no question or a question with an answer that's a number. Here, I'll do one for you.

"Dear cootie catcher. In the future, will Garou try a different haircut?"

She had him pick a number on the outside, and then used her fingers to make the cootie catcher open and close a few times then had him pick another number, from the inside layer, open close, and then pulled open a tab and announced "Yes!"

"Ooh maybe it can be slicked back, like Metal Bat's" Tareo suggested.

"Unlikely," Garou said, crossing his arms over his chest and pushing his back obstantantly against the corner of his seat.

Zenko was at it again. "Dear cootie catcher, How many mansions will Garou have?

“Zero. Sorry Garou."

Garou could feel his eyebrows sinking into a flatter and flatter line with each question posed.

"Dear cootie catcher, how many swimming pools will Garou have?

“Zero. Sorry Garou.

"Dear cootie catcher, how many kids will Garou have?

Ten! Congratulations Garou!"

Garou jolted. "Ten?! No way Zenko, I can't handle that!”

“Sorry Garou, it's written in the stars."

"No, it's written on the piece of paper you wrote it on!"

She was back at it. "Dear cootie catcher, will Garou ever find true l–"

"Okay no, stop this, do something else with the paper."

Zenko thankfully acquiesced. Digging around in the smaller flap of her backpack again, she pulled out a tiny piece of paper folded into something that vaguely resembled a frog. "Look at this, guys," she set it on the table and pinched down one end of it and let go so it sprung a couple millimeters off the table. "It can jump!"

“Did you make that too?” Tareo asked.

“Yeah, see?” She procured a pad of sticky notes so she could peel off a square to work on. "You fold it like this. And then this. And then this. And then…here you go–one for you! You wanna name him? This one of mine is named Ume."

"Wait–I get to keep it?"

"Yeah. If you promise to take good care of him."

"Okay! Hm…let me think about his name…"

Garou's eyes drifted back to the window, where he watched the scenery roll by with a glazed sense of focus.

Despite all the planning that had gone into this trip, the thought had occurred to him before that this was, yet again, another example of something he hadn't quite thought through fully. Like, grand scheme, kind of thinking.

What was he gonna do, once they were in A-City? March into the headquarters and find someone to barrage with more questions about Metal Bat? Ha, that’d be one easy way to get the sh*t beat out of him and lose everything he and Zenko had been trying to preserve for the last couple weeks. And then Zenko and Tareo would be out one adult escort back home.

But maybe…that wouldn’t actually be a bad thing. The people at the association would be officially notified that Metal Bat was missing, some of the other heroes might take an interest in finding him, and whatever adults were at the association would be able to figure out what to do with Zenko. Maybe they’d give her to some other hero. Maybe she’d get to live at the headquarters. Maybe they had, like, a daycare program for hero’s family members.

Or… maybe they’d send her to the state.

But that wouldn’t be his problem. And if that happened, it wouldn’t be his fault, because he hadn’t went and squealed on her.

He had simply failed to remind her that nobody in their right mind would ever look at him and think that it made sense for him to be in charge of a pet rock, let alone two small children; that in fact, the second they saw him, he was dead meat, because even if they had all somehow forgiven him for the monster thing, he had opened up his criminal record again and was ripe for a second arrest for who knows what on top of breaking and entering into a federal prison.

And what if Metal Bat wasn't even there, huh? Garou wasn't expecting him to be there. The headquarters was just one of the few places they absolutely could not ignore investigating.

He put his forehead against the window again and watched broodily as the countryside whipped by them.

If nothing else, at least visiting the HA headquarters would allow him to wash his hands clean of…this.

And hey. Maybe Tareo would get the chance to meet one of his heroes.

The world outside looked gray. He peeled his eyes away from the window and watched from far away as Zenko and Tareo babbled excitedly about some imaginary scenario they were inventing with the origami animals.

"And then she saves him by growing enough crops to feed Frogville and calm down the riot!"

"Hooray!"

His chest hurt. Must've been the moononya.

Zenko’s eyes turned up from what they were doing, and they folded at the corners as she smiled at Garou. “Do you want an animal too, Garou? I can make one for you to play with.”

He felt a slight twist in his chest but at the same time something lighter and kind of the opposite.

"Okay."

Hey, might as well. It wasn't like he wasn't bored too.

"Excellent! Now–"

"Oh–" he interrupted her and straightened up as he remembered. “Wait, I already got something,” he said, reaching into his pocket. His fingers touched foil, and he pulled out the origami bat he’d nearly forgotten about. He pinched the wings back into shape and set it next to the two frogs.

"Oh, that's good! I didn't know you could make origami," Zenko said.

"How long has that been in your pocket?" Tareo asked.

"Bout three weeks. I didn't make it though. Someone gave it to me."

"Really?" Zenko asked, furrowing her brow. "Who gave it to you? You've only been at my house."

"Do you have a secret girlfriend?" Tareo asked in a hushed voice.

"Pf, yeah. Her name is 'old geezer I met in prison and tried to bribe into giving me information about this kid's brother'" he said, nudging his head the kid's way.

"She sounds delightful." Zenko said, folding her hands primly atop the table.

"So you don't have a secret girlfriend, " Tareo clarified.

"No way."

"Wait, Mister Garou, have you ever had a girlfriend before?"

“Ooh! Garou, do you have any crushes? Garou?"

Oh for the love of–Garou prickled with a warm sense of outrage. "Crushes? Who would I have a crush on? I don't go to school. I don't like people. Why's it gotta be a requirement?"

"So you've never had a girlfriend?"

"I don't want a girlfriend! Why are you obsessed with girlfriends Tareo, you're like, two years old!"

"Hm. That's right." Zenko said in a thoughtful voice. "He doesn't have any other teenagers to hang out with so he probably doesn't think about it."

Garou swiped up his metal bat from the table and spoke with a low, raspy voice from the corner of his mouth. "Stop harassing Garou about girlfriends." He had the bat say. "He doesn't like it."

Zenko's eyes went big and excited as she picked up her frog and had it talk back in a croaky voice of her own. "Oh, Okay! We won't harass Garou. Hear that, froggy number two?"

"Okay, but my name isn't froggy number two," The other frog said in a croaky version of Tareo’s voice. "It's Bob."

"Nice to meet you Bob, congratulations on choosing a name! Hey, wrapper bat, did Garou give you a name yet?"

"Not yet," Garou's bat said.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"I don't know."

"It can be anything you want!"

Garou held his metal bat and looked out the window for a solid minute, thinking. A field of grazing cattle passed by the window as he watched.

"Cow." The bat said finally. "I am named Cow."

Tareo wrinkled his nose and started to say something, but Zenko's frog Ume jumped in too quick. "I love that name!" Ume said. "It really suits you, because it's very new-neek!"

Garou put his hand on his chest as he laughed, totally breaking Cow’s character.

"I guess it makes sense then," Bob admitted. "I like it too."

"Thank you." Cow said, when Garou had caught his breath again. "I am glad that you like it."

The train ride passed by a bit quicker after that, and soon enough they were pulling into South Station.

They exited though the closest door and went out onto the streets of C-City, which were overcast, brisk, and walled by neat cement and steel buildings, path marked with the occasional mural or green space (though currently, most of the greenspaces, if not evergreen, were a dull shade of leave-lost brown.)

“Wow, I’ve never seen trees this bald.” Tareo was saying.

“That’s because they’re decigalicious trees” Zenko was explaining sagely. “Which means when they feel winter coming they lose their leaves, and up here winter comes on stronger.”

Man, Garou had nearly forgotten about how much colder the later months got up north. He was kind of glad Zenko had convinced him to steal Metal Bat’s sweatshirt, even though it hardly felt like it was doing anything. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself as he walked on the edge of the curb astride the two sightseeing children. Being homeless is way better in S-City he thought, feeling a grim streak of sympathy for an elderly couple napping underneath a stained comforter outside of a drugstore.

There weren’t many others, he noticed. Maybe it was hard to survive long.

Or maybe they have more shelters for the colder months! A chirpy voice in his head said, making him think of what Zenko would say, had she been in on the conversation he was having with himself, rather than talking to Tareo about–

“Isn’t that his old master?”

“Oh yeah, it is!”

Garou’s pulse scittered up the walls of his throat. “What-where?!”

“Silverfang!” Tareo cheered, voice echoing against the walls as he ran eagerly across the street to the other side of the underpass they were currently transiting through, all so that he could press his pudgy hands to the cement of a giant portrait of Master Bang, which depicted him backdropped by a pack of gray wolves and bright blue fireworks, as he posed with his hands angled in the same version of mantis hand that Garou found himself returning to when ever reflex took over.

Except for today, where he had he had reflexively yanked the hoodie part of his ensemble over his head and pulled the strings tight to swallow all the edges of his hairline.

Zenko was patting him on the back. "Don't worry, it's just a big picture, see?"

He took out his embarrassment on the other kid. "Tareo, don't just run across the street like that!" He snapped. “Unless you also wanna be two dimensional, because the cars won’t care if there’s a pretty picture on the other side.”

Luckily, the street had been empty, and still was. Tareo looked both ways before shuffling sheepishly back to their side of the sidewalk. “Sorry, I just thought it looked cool.”

Garou’s shoulders untensed themselves; He didn’t really like that mopey look on that kid’s face so he let his voice ease up a bit too. “Yeah, the spray paint job’s not bad. But look–they got the concept all wrong! That guy doesn’t make me think of a wolf, he’s more like a…a lobster or a…”

“Ooh, a mantis shrimp!” Said Zenko, revving back into stride with a little skip as they continued on their journey. “They can move really fast and are even smart enough to have their own special fighting rituals! They know when they want to protect another shrimp or when they want to beat them up!”

“Ha! That sounds about right. A bitter, hunched old mantis shrimp with too many fighting rituals,” Garou said, grinning as they exited the underpass.

“Ooh, this could be like a new talking game!” Zenko announced excitedly. “Do any other heroes remind you guys of animals?”

“Oh, yeah,” Garou answered immediately. “Tank Top Tiger. Gives me big ostrich vibes.”

Zenko and Tareo both started laughing at that, which Garou was glad for, because Tareo wasn’t looking mopey anymore.

And, more good news, that underpass had been the last portion of their journey before the intersection with the street that had the hospital on it. An easy three minutes of walking and there they were, directly in front of–

“Is this the right place?” Tareo asked.

The three of them were standing at the edge of the parking lot, staring up at the large brick building that stood before them, with a sign next to its entrance that read:

Shamwhoa inc. Bibber’s Dentistry Associates. Pindicos LLC. With a bunch of empty spaces underneath, and another line below that, which read:

Office space available.

“No way,” Garou said.

Zenko was already rummaging in her backpack for the folder with all the maps and foot directions she had printed. She frowned as she examined her intel. “This is the right building” she said.

“Let’s walk around.” Garou said, pointing out the portion of the parking lot that curved around the far side of the building. Around the back, they found an overhang, above a wide bit of pavement that was outlined like a road, as well as giant, sliding glass doors that had all the quality of an emergency room entrance.

There were no ambulances though.

“I don’t get it.” Zenko said. “When I looked up where all the hospitals were in C-City, this was one of them. It even had a name.”

“Maybe it’s so secret that it still hides,” Tareo said. “Maybe the idea that there’s a hospital here is leaked information.”

“Let’s go in,” Garou said. “Find out for ourselves.”

Circling back around to the front entrance, they devised a quick plan to kick off their investigation: the first step involved visiting one of the businesses listed, to check if it was actually legit (and, to have a reason to be inside the building to begin with, if anyone asked what they were doing there.)

The lobby was a carpeted space with an empty front desk, a stairwell on either side, and an elevator. There was a sign next to the elevator with little white block letters that stated which business was on what floor.

Floor 2–Bibber’s Dentistry Associates (Suite 210)

“Alright guys” Garou said, having selected their first prey. “Let’s see if this dentist is really a dentist.”

The structure of the building on the inside hardly resembled a hospital, Garou observed, as they moved down the hall of floor two. More space, less carpeting is what he would’ve expected. Though he supposed a few extra walls, and a few interior design changes could’ve done the trick, if the building really had been sold off and converted to office space–or, if it was trying to hide something with an innocuous disguise. Tareo’s suggestion about the leaked information may have sounded a little conspiratorial–but it certainly wouldn’tve been the craziest thing Garou had seen come true in life. Nope. Certainly not.

Every possibility was worth investigating. And the investigation started with Suite 210.

“Okay. Just like you practiced in the elevator. Ready? Three, two, one, action.”

Garou pushed open the door and walked in. “Hello” he said, as he approached the front desk, scanning with his periphery vision: (--waiting area with magazines and an etch-a-sketch on the table, one person sitting, a fishtank in the corner, a poster showing the inside of a tooth, certificate on the wall–) “Do you guys do pediatric appointments? I’ve been looking everywhere for a place that’ll take these two.” He gestured over his shoulder, where Zenko and Tareo were already scattered about exploring with all the look of two children ready to wield chaos upon the office in the name of boredom.

The secretary smiled brightly. “Yes, we do!” She said, pulling out a clipboard. “I’ll just need you to fill out a little paperwork on them.” She eyed the kids warmly as she went about setting the papers up on the clipboard. “What ages?”

“Eight and eight” Garou answered, leaning his arm against the edge of the window as he glanced back to the kids to make sure they were properly nosing around the place, investigating for clues of anything amiss.

He looked back to the secretary to find her eyeing him with a kind of warm way too.

“Oh, twins! Daddy must have his hands full!”

Maybe if Daddy were around more often…wait–no–

"Uh, no.” He coughed. “I mean, no, they're not twins. They got a sort of step sibling situation going on, but the other half isn’t around anymore, so....” Man, maybe he should’ve rehearsed some lines in the elevator himself. He figured he was better at improvisation, but the whole ‘yes and’ thing felt weird with the word ‘daddy’ being thrown around. This secretary was too friendly.

“Oh…” The secretary looked thoughtful for a moment, and then leaned closer as she spoke softly. “That’s very sweet, that you still take care of them both. A lot of step parents would pull away, after something like that. You’re a real superhero."

Pff, kinda sh*tty that he was getting credit for being some sort of good person over this. He laughed it off. “Hero? Nah, I’m just some schmuck who’s here to make sure we don’t burn the house down when there’s a bake sale to be dealt with.”

Brushing her hair out of her face, she laughed and said that was really funny, even though Garou thought it was just mediocre funny. He was just about running out of ideas to stall when he felt a tug on his sleeve which meant the kids were done investigating and were ready to execute their royal exit.

“I need to go to the bathroom!” Zenko announced loudly.

“Yeah, me too!” Tareo all but yelled. “I’m gonna explode if I don’t go to the bathroom!”

“Okay, I hear you!” He looked back to the secretary and pulled off something adjacent to an apologetic smile. “Do you guys got a bathroom anywhere around here? It was a long drive for them.”

“Oh, yes of course! There’s a men's and a women’s toilet across from this office. But a family bathroom one floor up if it’s more convenient.”

“Perfect,” Garou said, counting it a win that they had a ready made excuse to go poking around on another floor.

“Garou” Zenko loud-whispered as they made their way to the next floor. “That dentist lady liked you! She was totally flirting with you!”

“What? No she wasn’t. And she wasn’t the dentist”

Tareo gasped. “Mister Garou, you should go back and ask the dentist if she’ll be your first girlfriend!”

“No! Guys! Please tell me you weren’t wasting your time listening to all that when you were supposed to be checking the room!”

“There was nothing weird in the room.”

“Except that funny drawing someone left on the etch-a-sketch.”

“And the smell of true love in the springtime air!”

“No. No smell, no love. No springtime air."

"But the flirting!"

"She wasn’t flirting! She was just trying to get through her crappy day by making a little conversation, all right? That’s not even how flirting works, you guys are too–”

“How does flirting work, Mister Garou?”

"I don't know! It's–It's like–" He imagined it would be like fighting, but softer. "Look, I’m not answering that.”

"Why not?"

"Yeah, why noo-ooo-ooot?"

"Hey!" He barked, snapping them quiet. He took a breath to steady himself. Then he lowered his voice to a croak to channel the spirit of Cow. “What did we say about harassing Garou?”

The kids looked at each other guiltily.

"Okay," Ume relented. "Sorry for the harassing."

"Yeah," Said Bob. "Sorry Mist–I mean–sorry, Cow."

They explored both the second and third floor, going from empty office space to empty office space to see if there was anything amiss. Any unmarked passageways, or evidence of any kind. They were questioned once:

“Uh, Sir? There’s nothing in that office space. Can I help you find your way somewhere?”

“Oh, oops, our bad. We were just looking for the family bathroom.”

“Before I explode!” Tareo added imploringly.

There wasn't, so they moved to the fourth, where they did the same thing, with the addition of cracking open the door to Pindicos LLC to do a more cursory check of the place.

A tired looking man behind a desk looked up from across the room. "Can I help you?"

Zenko and Tareo peeped their heads around the corner.

Garou spoke quickly. "Yeah, hey, do you know if there's a family bathroom on this floor?"

"Floor 3," the man grunted.

The same happened for the one other business on this floor, and then again when they were questioned by a businesswoman walking down the hall on floor five. Each time they were given direction and then left reasonably well alone. In the course of 30 minutes they smoked through 6 floors, experiencing nothing more remarkable than Garou needing to pull the kids away from a couple of rat traps they were poking at.

"We were trying to snap them ahead of time to save the mouses!" Zenko argued with outrage.

"Then use a stick, friggin amateurs!"

"Oh, I have one of those," Tareo said, pulling one out of his power ranger backpack.

"Why do you have–? Y'know what, never mind. Cool. Gimme that, so I can do it and we can move along faster.”

The elevator didn't go up to the seventh floor, so after clearing the sixth, they entered the stairwell. Just as they started going up, there was an echoey scrape of a door opening above, followed by equally echoey footfalls. A man stopped a few steps above them.

“Excuse me, do you kids need any help with something? You’re not supposed to be up here.”

“Oh, we were just looking for the family bathroom,” Garou said, looking up at the man innocently.

“Before I explode,” added Tareo.

“The lady at the dentist office said it was on one of the upper floors,” Zenko explained.

“Ah, well, you’re too high up. It’s four floors down from here. You can’t go up this way because they’re in the middle of remodeling. There’s a men's and women's on the sixth, if you would like.”

“Oh, okay," Garou said.

"Thank you!" Zenko added cheerfully.

“No problem.”

As the guy left them, they feigned the start of a lazy traipse back down the stairs. Then they heard one of the metal doors open and close, its clangy echo announcing that they had the stairwell to themselves again.

Garou turned around on the step he was on, and he, Tareo and Zenko all looked at eachother.

Then Tareo jutted his lip out and squinted, pretending to stroke an imaginary beard at the end of his chin as he said, "'Remodeling', huh?”

“I knew it was weird that the elevator only would take us to six!” Zenko hissed, bringing her fist down on the flat of her other hand.

Is there seriously going to be a hospital hiding up here? Garou wondered as they climbed back up. Or was it going to be something else? For some reason, there was always a little part of Garou’s brain that thought things could be something else. Something worse. “Me first,” he announced, as they approached the top of the staircase. Best to proceed with caution.

Thing was, the door was way lighter than it looked. Little did he know, (at the time), that Zenko and Tareo were both leaning eagerly against it, “helping” from waist height. The effect was that, rather than the subtle check and slip through he was planning, the metal door swung open and slammed against the wall– the sound echoing down and up the stair way they had just came through as he and two children all stumbled into each other and burst out into the hall of mysterious floor seven.

A bunch of carpenters, sitting in a loose circle, had been eating lunch. They froze, sandwiches and bentos and forks and chopsticks all in hand, and stared at their unexpected visitors in complete, nonplussed silence, surrounded by the plastic-sheet-covered, tool-scattered, sawdusty, painter tape hall of floor seven.

“Heyyy,” Garou said, hearing his own voice echo back into the stairwell. “Is there a family bathroom on this floor?”

There was another beat of silent hesitation.

“Before I explode” Tareo whispered forebodingly.

“Floor three.”

“Yeah, floor three.”

“I thought it was floor four?”

“Nah Jochi, it’s a hundred percent floor three.”

“Yeah, I took a dump in there yesterday. S’ floor three.”

“Floor three.”

“Floor three, and hurry,” the first carpenter told Garou, raising his voice above the chatter of his lunchmates. “Before that kid explodes.”

Garou promptly took their advice, and they made their leave.

“Looked pretty construction-y,” Zenko remarked as they clomped their way down the stairwell.

“Yeah,” Garou said. “I don’t think that guy was lying about the remodeling.”

“Did you see the floor though?” Zenko asked, looking at him earnestly.

“No, what about it?”

“It was old looking squares of white lin–lino-what is that word, Garou?”

“Linoleum?”

“Yeah!”

“Very hospital-ly.” Garou agreed.

They reached the conclusion that this building had, at some point in its life, been a hospital, probably the Hero Hospital. For some reason, the location had been deemed unsuitable, and sold off for renovation as office space. What was the reason?

“Maybe the rats!” Tareo said, lighting up. “Once, me and my mom had to move out of our apartment because the building had rats and other stuff like that. Then when I went past it one day I saw it had been torn down and replaced with a totally new building. I think it’s got a Pizza Hut in it now.”

“Huh,” Garou said. He hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it was just this simple. They still had time to finish off the rest of their check of this place though. So once they got back to the ground floor, they did a swift investigation, taking care to check for any basem*nt type entrances. They found none.

This building was boring as bricks.

Looked like they were just about ready to leave. As they finished their sweep of one last understocked janitor's closet, Garou stretched his arms boredly over his head, wincing a little at the right shoulder, before dropping his hands to his sides. “Okay guys. Looks like this place is a bit of a dud. Let’s get out of here.”

It was then that he felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down. “Mister Garou,” Tareo said, shuffling his feet abashedly. “Now I think I really am gonna explode.”

“Me too.” Said Zenko.

“Well. Good thing we know where every single bathroom exists in this Godforsaken place. Choose your pick.”

As he and Zenko leaned against a beige wall, waiting for Tareo to finish his turn, one of the building employees passed by them, and smiled.

"Oh good" she said, apparently relieved. "You guys found it."

As he and the kids exited the building and began walking towards the next train station, the question crossed Garou’s mind if it was worth checking any of the other hospitals in C-City, in case the Hero Association had switched location to one of them before selling off their old building.

His mind’s answer was–yeah, maybe it would've been good to cover all their bases that way, if they had limitless time and travel money. Thing was, the next closest hospital was miles away, and they still needed to inspect the Hero Association Headquarters, all the way over in A-City. No, it wasn’t worth breaking his and Zenko’s plan. The headquarters was a surely tangible location, whereas a wild and obsessive inspection of every remotely medical building was likely to be a waste. They needed to find something real, because so far this trip had been discombobulatingly empty.

And when they got to West Station, it only got more confusing.

On the wall was a screen with all the scheduled trains for the day: arrival, departure, destination, and track number.

Not a single one went to A-City.

“Mister Garou? Zenko? Are you sure this is the right train station?” Tareo asked. “Could it be a different one?”

Zenko stared up at the sign in utter betrayal. “No! I promise, I looked this all up really carefully!” She looked up at Garou with something almost like desperation. “I’m not just messing up everything, I promise I–”

“Hey, hey–I know you’re not, I know you’re not. I was there, remember? And I’m the smartest monster on the planet.” He had both witnessed and helped with the production of their travel plans. He knew Zenko hadn’t slacked off on anything, and even if the eight year old had made some sort of mistake, his eyes had seen all the exact information that hers had. If there was a piece missing, they had both missed it. “Can you take out that schedule we printed?” He asked.

She was already digging through her backpack. She pulled out the train schedule and handed it over. Garou kelt down so all three of them could examine it.

It was just as she said.

|Track# 4 |Departure: C-City West Sta. 2:30| Dest. A-City Ground Terminal 3:20|Stops: 0|

And that was just one of them. There was also a morning, early afternoon, and night train for the same route, present on this printed schedule, but missing from the one posted on the sign. Garou’s eyes slid to the heading for the season on their printed version, which showed him they were within the correct time range:

SCHEDULE EFFECTIVE 21JUN06 to 21DEC06

And led him to suspect that either there was a misprint on the screen, that there was an update needed on the website, or that there was something going wrong today. Train crash, maybe?

He shook his head and cursed under his breath. Maybe this was all just because he was here, and the universe hated him.

“We should ask for help,” Zenko said. “Let’s find someone who works here.”

Urgh. “Fine. but you can be the one to do the talking this time.”

There was a guy seated behind the glass window of the ticket kiosk, reading a magazine.

Zenko stood on her tip toes and spoke into the little array of airhole-looking things in the glass. "Excuse me.”

The guy didn't say anything.

"Excuse me, sir?" She tapped on the glass to get his attention.

The guy continued ignoring her.

What the hell? Was he not able to hear or something? Garou stepped forward and knocked sharply on the glass. “Hey. That kid has a question for you.”

The guy heaved a huge sigh and put his magazine down, staring dead at Garou as if he were the only one there, and even then, as if he wasn’t anything more alive than a telephone pole.

Zenko gave Garou a perplexed glance, and he raised his eyebrows expectantly.

She cleared her throat and re-established her tippy toes. “There’s supposed to be a train to A-City that goes on track four, but it isn’t on the schedule all day. What’s going on?”

“The rail into A City is shut down to all travel and transportation.”

Garou frowned. “What?”

“I said it’s closed.”

“Whaddyou mean closed? Like, the whole thing?”

“Closed.”

"Well, is there another way? Like a…taxi or something?" Like I even have enough money for a taxi.

"Pf. Good luck finding a taxi that'll go that way."

"Why?" Zenko cut in.

The guy didn't even acknowledge Zenko's existence. He fluffed out his magazine and disappeared behind it again.

Garou was starting to get really freaking sick of this guy. "Hey, answer the question."

"Control your f*cking brat."

"I am not a–!"

"She is not a–!"

"--Brat!"

Tareo ended up tugging them both away from the source of their agitation, which was probably best, as a security guard was standing nearby, looking wary of their rising voices. Garou's arm was stiff and tense under the kid's hand as they went; his mind was racing--

--Okay let’s f*ckING go–I’m gonna put that guy in a body cast so airtight he won't even remember what the daylight feels like–

No, no, not today, he couldn't do that right now, and it wasn't like this guy was a threat, he was just a jerk ass bitch ass bully who thought he could push people around for being–what? Was it because Zenko was a kid? A girl? Or because the guy could tell something about Garou? Was it just ‘cause his scummy magazine was that good?

f*cking dick. f*cking asshole. Garou seethed silently as they put some distance between themself and the kiosk. See Zenko? See what happens when you try to ask for help? See what happens when you expect people to care?! SEE WHAT HAPPENS–”

He exhaled. “That dude’s a freaking butt face, Zenko. Let’s just figure this out ourselves,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath herself.

They headed back to the platform by the tracks and stood in dumbfounded contemplation.

“Maybe we could hitchhike, like in the movies.” Tareo suggested eventually.

“No.” Garou said, vetoing it immediately.

“Maybe there’s a subway?” Tareo asked.

“There isn't. We checked earlier.” Zenko said.

“A…motorcycle?”

“Where would we get a motorcycle?!”

“Maybe we could go back to the fields and find a…” Just say it kid, say horse, I dare you– “...cow?” Oh.

"What are we gonna do?" Zenko moaned.

Garou’s eyes traveled steadily across his surroundings.

Above the platform, the station had a huge overhead ceiling of muggy cement. Below the platform, where the train tracks themselves were grounded, dirty puddles of city grime made shallow pools on a plane of stained gravel. Each train track led to its own notch in the platform, so they all converged in around the same place. But the further you looked out, you could see where the ceiling ended and sunlight bit into the ground, turning the gravel chalky and dry looking, and highlighting how the tracks began diverging and winding off into the distance, which was lined by tall chain link fence for the first hundred meters or so of sunlight.

Garou glanced back to the updated schedule on the screen behind them.

Looked like there wouldn't be any new trains pulling in for the next 25 minutes.

In other words, for 25 minutes, that area was perfectly safe to exist in.

Garou's eyes moved to the rest of the station. Behind them was the help desk and the security people they'd left behind. A few steps forward and the big cement piling on this half of the platform offered a convenient blind spot.

He went that way.

“Hey Zenko,” he asked, when the kids caught up to him. "Remember how you said you'd walk there if you had to?"

Zenko held a steady gaze. "Yes."

"Welp." Garou seated himself on the edge of the yellow line that had the words stenciled in bold black spray paint: DO NOT CROSS. His thin frame slipped easily underneath the guard railing; he dropped himself, and his feet landed with scrunch on the gravel below. "Time to prove it."

***

With about ten minutes if walking they had cleared the area where all the tracks were cluster f*cked together, and the out-of-use one they were following diverged from the rest to begin wending its way into an increasingly more wooded landscape.

After another forty minutes, they were well into a fully rural area, pine trees rising tall except for where they'd been splintered and razed to make way for the tracks; or where they gave way to patches of yellow, winter-stricken marshland.

He could've steamed down this route if he was on his own, but with Zenko and Tareo here it didn't even make sense to be the fastest of the three. He had let himself fall a little bit behind the kids, so he could keep an eye on them as they walked.

The children were chattering away like always. Garou listened quietly, feeling kind of tense for whatever reason. He supposed his thoughts of A-City and what was gonna happen once they got there were winding him up again. Watching the two kids walking together, happy and oblivious and separated from him by about a meter in front, gave him that same pang from before.

Stop thinking. Just stop.

He could've jumped into the conversation if he wanted to distract himself, like earlier, but for some reason that gave him a different kind of squeezed feeling in his chest. Was it because he was still wound up from that asshole at the kiosk? Maybe. No. Sort of. The two kids walking in front of him weren't like that. These kids were okay. They probably wouldn't get mad at him for trying to socialize with them but what if they did and he was just an annoying little Garou the poop monster, haha! Freak, stupid, fa*ggot, bitch, crazy weirdo gross ugly weak loser piece of sh*t–

He twitched his slightly crooked nose, and stuffed the memories back into the “do not touch” box of his brain. He had more important things to get wound up about.

Like seeing Tareo fall flat onto his face when his foot caught on one of the bolts of a track junction.

"Watch where you put your feet." He said, flashing Tareo a look as the kid picked himself up from the tracks with new scrapes on his hands.

The advice was relevant, as they were coming up on a bridge that overhung a 40 or so foot drop into a muddy river.

"Wow, look at how high up we are!" Zenko said as they started making their way over it.

Tareo briefly covered his eyes with his hands."I don't wanna look at how high up we are. And that water is dirty looking."

"It's polluted." Garou said, glancing down to the sludgy water moving slowly below.

Zenko did a little hop of excitement. "But look, there's swans! Just like we were talking about a few weeks ago," she pointed towards the pair of gray-stained birds floating on the edge below. "They don't mind it."

"They probably have each consumed half their body mass in heavy metals by now," Garou said flatly. "Just ‘cause they haven't given up existing doesn't mean they don't mind it."

Zenko slapped her hands frustratedly to her sides and whipped her head toward Tareo. "Tareo, is Garou always this emo?"

Oh, where ever could she have picked up that word? Garou thought, thinking back to Metal Bat's bedroom door. Garou glanced to Tareo and could practically see the sweat drop as his eyes went between him and Zenko.

"Uh, I don't know, I mean–"

It was actually kind of funny. A slight laugh slipped from Garou's mouth. "Choose your words wisely, kid."

Tareo bumbled for a second longer, before seeming to come to a conclusion. "No!" He said, putting his foot down heavier as he stepped. "You're not always emo. When I met you on the bench and in the shack you seemed cheerful."

Cheerful? Ugh, no wonder the monster thing didn't work out.

Garou rolled his eyes. "That's just ‘cause you're not a jerky presence," he rebutted, giving Tareo a light karate chop on the top of the head. "If you were, I would have been the scariest, emo-est guy in the world."

Tareo turned around to grin at him. "More emo than Death Gatling?"

"Oh no way, that guy's got issues." Garou laughed.

"Wait, so are you saying that I'm a jerky presence?!" Zenko cut in indignantly.

"Haha, maybe you are." Garou teased.

"No I'm not!" Zenko puffed, turning red in the face. "I try really hard not to be mean to anyone! I don't want anyone to think I'm mean, and I'm not like–"

"No, you're not, you're not mean." Garou said quickly. He wasn't here to give any kids a weird emotional complex over sh*t. "You're a non-jerky presence."

"Zenko," Tareo said in a sagely voice, "you're not mean or jerky, just sometimes you're bossy."

Tareo. Why.

Zenko's mouth fell open. "Tareo!" She whipped around to Garou and said "Garou, tell him I'm not bossy!"

"I'm not a part of this argument!"

"You were just bossing him right…now." Tareo said, voice starting to falter nervously at the end, probably because he was just starting to realize that he was upsetting his new friend, and friends will leave you and hit you and kick you and scream at you if you dare–

Stop.

Zenko crossed her arms and glowered in the direction of the swans. Her voice was low. "Badd says that it's a good thing for me to stand up for myself and what I want. He says it's one of the most important things I can do."

Garou watched as her eyes took on that set look that was so similar to her older brother’s. He remembered how they held that same look on the day when Zenko had thrown herself between him and Badd, glaring up with rock solid defiance. No. No more fighting!

Guess her brother had made a smart investment. She had kind of saved his ass that day.

Or maybe mine.

"I mean yeah." Garou rubbed the back of his head, absentmindedly tousling up the blond-pink hair he had up there. "It ain't bad to have a backbone. And it's cool that you get it to work for you. When I was a kid, if I tried standing up for myself I'd end up with my face kicked in and just have to cry about it in the bathroom.”

His eyes slid back and he saw Zenko watching him quietly, and Tareo fidgeting, eyes dropped.

He looked down at his feet and cleared his throat, realizing he had accidentally said more than he intended.

And that’s when he noticed it.

The rail was vibrating.

Garou whipped around and saw the very last thing he would've expected on a train track that he'd been informed just an hour ago was no longer open to any form of travel or transportation.

His mind went entirely white

“Get off the tracks!” Garou shouted.

He didn't wait. He hooked an arm around each kid and sprinted, mind processing nothing except some point ahead that he needed to get to where the bridge ended and he could leap off. Gravel hit his shoulder and he kept the frame of his elbows square to buffer the kids from the ground as they all rolled together, down the mound of gravelly stones that rose the tracks above the rest of the earth. The shriek of rusty rails tore through the woods and the vacuum sensation of the air pulling along with the train tried suck everything around it into the tracks.

He crunched his body tight and kept the children ducked against the rattling ground to make sure nobody did something stupid, like wriggle out and run off in a bad-consequences kind of direction.

When the roaring of the train whipped off into the forest, he uncrunched himself and let his grip loosen.

Tareo and Zenko emerged looking ruffled and wide eyed. Then they each wrinkled their noses and whined in disgust.

“Eww, what’s that smell?”

“Did one of us poop?”

“That’s not a poop smell.”

“Maybe a really bad poop though–”

Garou could smell it too.

A sharp sense of unease rose up in his gut as he tuned out the kid’s bickering and turned his head to stare down the track that twisted off into the dark evergreen forest ahead.

“Garou, are you okay?”

“Maybe he’s the one who pooped himself.”

“We’re going back,” Garou said, rising to his feet.

“What? We can’t go back now, we're almost–”

“It’s okay if you did, we won’t bully you for a natural–”

“Back.” he repeated, pulling each brat up by the scruff.

***

"Okay you two. Your job is to sit–" he pulled out two plastic chairs and plopped the kids into them "--read–" he slapped a random book out on the table "and keep watch over our tickets back home" he pulled the train tickets from his pocket and handed one to Tareo and two to Zenko.

If he was rich, he'd be stuffing these two into a hotel room with the roomkey and telling them to sit tight and not open the door for a single breathing entity while he went away.

But he wasn't rich, and the only other thing he could think of was to plop them in the kids’ section of the public library down the street from the train station, and hope that they were smart enough to keep quiet and manage themselves on their own for a couple hours.

Ugh, they were already whining about it.

"Wait, Garou–"

"Aw, c'mon Mist–

"Sh!" He knelt down and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. "Stick together, keep your noses out of trouble, and if you need to leave this building for some wild reason–and it better be a reason that's demon level or higher– the backup spot to meet up at is the train station."

"But–"

"And if anything crazy crazy crazy happens, and we all get separated, Zenko's house phone is where you leave a message to tell where you are. Zenko, make sure Tareo has it memorized within the next ten minutes.

"If anyone asks where your parents are, I give you full permission to make up whatever story you want about your crazy uncle having a crazy case of diarrhea and needing to run to the drugstore across the street. I won't be there though. I'll be back in…however long it takes to get to A-City and back."

"Why do you got to go to A-City alone?"

"Why don't you want us to come with you?"

He ignored the question. "This place closes at seven thirty. If I'm not back by then, you guys hop on the next train home without me. No lingering outside in the streets. And like I said. No getting into trouble. No going off by yourself. No doing anything stupid."

Zenko goggled him in disbelief. "You are such a Hippochrist."

Okay, it broke him, a little bit. He snorted and dropped his head for a moment before straightening up. Hey, he didn't even have to fake a grin at the two of them. "Alight. Peace out."

There was a scrape of plastic as one of the kid chairs pushed out. “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this,” Tareo said in a hushed voice. He solemnly presented his power ranger backpack.

Garou rolled his eyes. “Fine, If it’ll get you off my b–” having expected a lighter load, Garou’s arm sunk down at the unexpectedly hefty weight. “-ack. Jesus, what's in here? Firewood?”

“Only a little.”

Tareo.

“...Okay.”

He turned around.

"Wait, Garou–" There was a louder scrape of chair on floor, and a sharp tug on the hem of his shirt.

This time it was Zenko.

"Why don't you keep your own ticket?" She said, holding it up to him. "Then if you're late you won't get stranded."

It made sense, what the kid said. But since when had he listened to sense?

He ruffled her hair and grinned. "Kid, I can't keep my stuff from ripping up for s-h-i-t.. You know that."

It was a deflection and she knew it. She stared up at him with this look that conveyed she was not convinced of his reasoning and 100% not on board with this idea.

Then she pulled out a book from her backpack. "I'm going to leave it as a bookmark in here. It doesn't have a scan code so nobody will be able to check it out. If you end up being late, you can wait for the library to open again in the morning. And you can bring me back my book."

He stared down at her for a moment.

"Fine."

She stared up at him in a stern, tense kind of way. "I will get my book back."

"Okay."

He turned away from the Metal Bat eyes and made his way out of the library.

He went back to the tracks, and began jogging.

Chapter 18: A-City

Chapter Text

If you were a traveler, entering A-City from the outside, you’d stop about a mile away and say ‘ew. What a fricken eyesore’. But begrudgingly admit it did look kind of cool, in a sci-fi-ey sort of way.

There was a waterless, cement moat. And over the moat from all directions, highways and train tunnels and bridges stretched across the divide and disappeared into openings carved out of the big, rounded cement base that constituted about half the volume of the city. The other half was a vaguely pyramid shaped stack of shiny, tinted buildings that glinted in the sun like blocks of blackened pyrite.

Like if a beehive was mixed with Megatron.

And with, like, a 20 armed octopus.

Yeah, that was it, Garou thought, satisfied with the comparison. Meg-octa-hive-pus. Would've been a cool monster.

A half hour or so back in his journey, he had needed to clear off the tracks again, opting to hide amongst the trees as he watched the same train from before pass by, going back the way it had come. So, when the track he was on took him underground, he was only minimally concerned with the prospect of that particular train causing him any trouble.

This train tunnel reminded him of his time in the sweaty, underground bowels of the Monster Association. You could almost imagine a giant worm had eaten its way through hills, and here he was following its hungry path. Or here he was, a tiny little germ invading the veins of a stony, underground giant–on guard for the white blood cells to recognize him as an enemy. Or! Here he was, drifting slowly down a coppery riverbed into the dusty underworld.

Pff. Stupid. His imagination was probably acting up because he’d been hanging around the kids too much.

Or maybe he was just trying to distract himself.

Whatever the case, the feeling that he was flowing through a giant vascular system, or a body of water, increased when he noticed the tunnel widening by about the width of a school bus, as the mouth of another tunnel –and then another–and then another–joined up with this one.

It seemed all train tracks–east, west, north, south–were meant to converge here, to make delivery into the city easier. The tunnel was now about four school busses wide, and judging by the tiny white semicircle waiting dead ahead, the four parallel tracks he was following now were the four that were going to end up constituting the train bridge across the moat thing.

He was correct. (Naturally)

Stepping out of the dark and into the rail bridge once it emerged from underground, it reminded him of what it felt like to be at the top of the world, surrounded by rubble, or what it would feel like to be on the surface if the moon, surrounded by nothing but chalky rock and solar wind. He didn't really like thinking about that stuff though, and it was best to be quick as there there was also a risk he could get noticed if anyone were traveling via car on any of the road bridges overhead. Not that it seemed to be particularly bustling today. Before he booked it, he took a moment to stand in the mouth of the tunnel and stare up at the underside of a higher bridge, one that must've had a highway on it.

Pretty quiet, for evening rush hour.

He jogged across the rail bridge and pressed himself into the shadowy side of the thick edge of the opening.

The entryway, edgewise, was about 20 hims long. If tasked to translate that phraseology out of Zenko Style, he’d put it this way: if he were to lay flat on the ground, straight as a board, and flip head over heels forward, it would take at least twenty miserable flops to span the thickness of just the edge of this doorway.

And he was what, 6 foot?

Okay fine, five nine.

Well. Five eight and a half.

Same difference.

Despite the likelihood that he basically had the noticeability of an ant in a castle kitchen, he crouched warily, toeing the edge like a burglar as he passed through. And then–

He was in. Ha! This had been even easier than last time!

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, it became pretty apparent why.

He was standing inside a massive train station. The four tracks of the rail bridge extended about 800 yards forward, and stopped where they notched into a huge platform much like the one at C city. Except that:

The platform was empty.

The ticket kiosk was unmanned.

The lights were out.

On the far wall he could make out two big screens that were shut down, as if the eyes of this place had been put into a permanent sleep.

And faintly, he could smell that smell again.

He couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from. It was faint, and it was everywhere.

Because of the train fiasco before, he knew this place wasn't totally inoperable. It may have looked empty, but looks could be deceiving, especially when put up by assholes. So, as he walked out of the chalky sunlight and into the dark, cathedral-sized space, he proceeded cautiously, keeping low in case there were any hidden cameras.

Afterall, he wasn't stupid.

Well–

Look, he had learned his lesson! He did not want this to end up the same way as that prison break.

It was easy to hide once he had reached the long strips of the platform that extended out to create the train notch. Rather than solid cement, like in C City, the platform here was made of metal and supported by I beams underneath it–probably more weight conservative than a thick chunk of concrete–Garou figured. The design meant there was a big, dark gap left underneath the platform. Useful for keeping hidden, but it provided no immediately visible handholds to get up. He realized this once he got to the end of the train track, and it dawned on him that he had seen not a single foothold, ladder, or panel to sink his fists into the entire length of the notch. The platform was pretty high up–more than shipping container height–and the top edge was out of reach.

Pff, wait, what was he thinking? Out of reach . Yeah, maybe for a weaker dirtbag, but not him. He’d jumped way higher than that before, right?

He jumped and–

He did not make it.

His fingertips swished a full foot underneath the metal, he came back down and –

WOAH–his foot slipped on something round that rolled when he landed. He caught himself in a sort of extended lunge position, his right leg stretched out into the darkness under the main platform. Swearing, he dragged it back quickly, feeling his heel roll against more round things as he did.

What the f*ck? First of all–

He hadn’t made that jump?!

And second of all–

Squatting underneath the edge, he squinted suspiciously into the darkness underneath. There were a bunch of steel cylindrical rollers on the ground, set at a shallow incline that extended forward and out of view under the platform.

Who the f*ck had put those there?!

Was it supposed to be a trap for people who snuck in and tried to jump? His nose twitched into a snarl at the idea: that is something those f*ckers would do– But you'd think it’d be a bit steeper of an incline if it was for that. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions a bit. He thought of the loading docks at the warehouse in J-City. Based on the height of the platform and the dimensions of the rollers, it might've been that this track was actually meant for shipping containers. The trains were probably meant to drop cargo through here so it could roll right into some sort of freight transportation system.

Maybe. He eyed the rolly tunnel distrustfully, contemplating whether or not to crawl into it and investigate.

Maybe after he’d gotten to see a bit more of this place, he decided. He did have a time limit, remember. And he wasn't about to be defeated by the stupid “platform is too tall for me to jump” problem.

Because it wasn't! It really wasn't! He just hadn't been on his A game lately, we all knew that. If he took care to avoid the weird tunnel thing and just kept jumping–

Kept–

Jump–

ing–

f*ck!

Garou slouched over and braced his hands against his knees, panting interspersed with annoying little coughs. He clutched his chest over the weird rib thing, which was starting to hurt again like it had a few weeks ago.

f*ck .

A pang of that same unsettling, sinking-but-also-fluttery chest feeling he’d gotten when he’d tested his running speed in the backyard shot through him, before he shook his head and unfolded back to standing, still panting angrily.

Well, you know what? This place wasn't designed to be good for jumping. Stupid Hero Association with its dumb design and its weird freight tunnels with the rolling pins–it was time to exercise his other strongest muscle, his big fat brain , losers.

He noticed the foot of a metal railing along the edge of the platform above him.

If he could just rope something around that…

He shrugged Tareo’s backpack from his shoulders and pulled the orange hoodie off.

He stared at it in his hands, getting another weird and unwelcome, tight, flurryful, sensation in his chest.

She said he doesn't wear it. She said he doesn't wear it.

Tch. What did he care about Metal Bat’s stuff? He just didn't want to mess up the only warm piece of clothing in the arsenal. He had to try something though!

Holding on to one sleeve, he jumped again, and whipped it forward and up to see if he could get the other sleeve to loop around the metal pole.

Big flop.

A few tries of the same thing and he was starting to get kind of fed up with this sh*t.

He stood at the end of the train track, huffing in annoyance ( not the exercise) as he thought about the problem.

If only I was like…two feet taller.

Or, if only, the sweatshirt was a few feet longer.

What other tools , what other items could he possibly have on hand that could–

Wait a minute.

He glanced at Tareo’s backpack.

Hold on.

Pf, yeah, he knew the odds of Tareo packing anything more useful than a stale Uncrustable were slim to none. But it was worth checking. He couldn't really see too much detail in this lighting so he squatted down, unzipped the top flap, and dove his hand in with the mentality that this was basically a game of chewed-gum-snotty-tissue-potentially-useful-item-roulette.

And the first thing he found was–

A sticky ziplock bag with a cookie monster themed toothbrush, a crinkled, bled-dry tube of bubblegum-flavored toothpaste, and a little plastic container of dental floss.

Okay, yeah, like he was saying.

Wrinkling his nose, he wiped some of the stickiness off on his pants and made to put the bag away, before he stopped, because an idea had popped suddenly into his mind.

The floss. If he just–wait a minute–yeah–

He snapped the ziplock open, grabbed the little container and stretched out a length of minty string. He tied the end off to the sleeve of the sweatshirt. Then he stood up and returned to his target.

He looped a bit of slack into his hand, and then tossed the little plastic box up. The loop of floss he was holding unraveled, and the plastic bit completed an arc over the base of the pole, before falling back down and dangling perfectly within his reach. Then he snatched the dangling end, pulled it in, and slowly but surely, the sweatshirt followed along, lacing itself evenly over the base of the pole. Closing up the backpack, Garou slung it over his shoulder, and jumped, so that he could grab onto each sweatshirt sleeve, and finally , claw his way into reach of the metal pole and the edge of the platform.

Jesus he thought as he rolled underneath the railing and coughed like he was a kid having an asthma attack in the middle of a dodgeball tournament (which had totally never happened before in his real life. Never. No way.) That had taken way too much effort.

At least he was a motherf*cking genius!

He pulled the sweatshirt back on and reeled up the floss so that he could bundle it up and put it back inside the bag, feeling relatively satisfied with how that had gone. Okay Tareo. He slung that backpack back over his shoulders.

Onto his next challenge: figuring out where the frick frack paddywack to go from here.

Wrapping his hands around the straps of the backpack, he wandered deeper in, toward the wall with the dead screens.

The last time Garou had been in this place, he’d kept his visit short and sweet. The criminals and prospective thugs had been freighted here by bus for the big “oh help us fight the whatever” pitch. Herded into an elevator. He’d basically come in with the crowd, pulled off a sneaky lag behind at a bathroom so that he could snoop, and then made a grand re-entry into the assembly hall. As a result, much of the inside of this place was a mystery to him, despite having been here before.

A map would be f*cking nice.

He thought he saw something that looked like one on the wall under the screens. It was pretty big, he realized, as he approached it and turned his head up to stare at the pale rectangle mounted in front of him.

He squinted. It was kind of hard to read in this lighting.

He went back into Tareo’s backpack to see if he could find anything. He felt something hard and plastic; next his thumb brushed over something like a button.

He pressed it.

Within the dark, cavernous space of the base of A-City, there appeared a small but monumental glow of scarlet.

Garou blinked. A deep red light illuminated the inside of the backpack and shone outward onto his face, casting a devil shaped shadow gently on the cement behind him. He withdrew a reading light, which had a wiry neck and a clip at the base to put it on a book.

That’d do.

It was kind of perfect actually. Red light was better for maintaining night vision, right? He was pretty sure he’d read that somewhere. And the clip made it so he could put it on the neck of his sweatshirt, go hands free if he wanted.

Okay, Tareo, okay.

Garou’s breath puffed out in a cold chill cloud that lit up with tiny red crystals as he examined the map on the wall.

You are here. He almost couldn't see the dot, because it was shaded in red paint. And tiny.

Oh Jesus.

This place was freaking huge .

You know how you could tell? The dot wasn't just a point on a two dimensional map of a floor plan. It was a speck within an upright perspective depicting each layer of the city like a cutout from some crazy intricate wedding cake, with an arrow pointing from the red dot on one of the layers and connecting it to a different map, which was a two dimensional floor plan of just this one particular floor. Which looked to Garou like a picture he had seen once of what a computer chip looks like when you zoom in on it.

So, yeah. This place had layers. 7 of them, to be exact. Garou’s eyes widened as his reading light traveled across the map and he read it all, top to bottom.

Level 7

Executive offices

Level 6

Operations office

Research center

Assembly hall A

Assembly hall B

VIP Accommodations

Upper generator room

Level 5

Training Arena I

Training Arena II

Library

Pool

Gym I

Gym II

Medical

Exchange (ATM AVAILABLE)

Gift shop

Level 4

Day care

Work life office

Chaplain

Civilian employee resources

Facilities manager office

Barracks (hero)

Level 3

Shipping and receiving

Parking garage

Train station

Level 2

Industrial Processing Facility

Lower Generator room

Level 1

Sewage processor

Water treatment plant

Public park

Park.

Wait.

This place has a fricken PARK?!

He supposed it made sense. Everything may have been within walls, but it was still a city-sized place where people worked and lived. Damn. The f*ckin budget that went into this thing . He couldn't even imagine how much that would translate to, in jars of peanut butter.

And he had been to space, once.

Speaking of space, it looked like there was a whole nother one on the other side of this wall. On the second map, the one of just this floor, it was a relatively slim, rectangular strip sandwiched between the half of the level taken up by this train station, and the half which, according to the map, was a giant parking garage. Must've been the “shipping and receiving” department. Maybe…

He thought back to the shipping container sized tunnel that he’d discovered underneath the train platform. He went right up close to the map as he jabbed his finger onto about where that’d be, in line with the end of the train tracks. He traced a line forward and past the wall and into the shipping receiving section represented on the map. His finger landed right on a little rectangle with a tiny little up and down arrow inside it, which he could guess meant there must've been some sort of freight elevator on the other side of this wall. There was three more elevators here on the train side of the shipping receiving wall, as well as four connecting the shipping and receiving area to the car side with the garage.

A little spike of tension he didn't even realize had sprouted in his chest earlier disappeared. At least that tunnel thing he’d discovered hadn't actually been some sort of death trap. Like, even if it had been, Metal Bat probably wouldn't have had any reason to be f*cking around underneath the train track platform like Garou had been a second ago, so there wasn't really any reason to worry about him in that regard but it was still nice to know–

It was nice to have crossed one possibility off the list. Yeah. Out of all the possible ways that Badd was dead right now, it was nice to know it wasn't something stupid like a slip and fall into a trash chute.

Garou gave his head a slight shake and returned his attention back to the map.

He traced his finger along the edge of the wall between the train station and shipping and receiving. As he reached the end, his finger passed by a smaller box with an up down arrow, and then one with a little staircase symbol.

Keeping his finger on the map, looked up and let his eyes run along the length of the wal he was facing. The wall went on, until it disappeared into fuzzy darkness. He turned the light that way and still couldn’t see much so he turned it off to conserve the battery, dropped his hand from the map, and started walking.

His footsteps echoed against the otherwise silent train station as he went. He tried to keep it down, but given that he was wearing those flip flops Zenko had lent him (oh–yeah–he was wearing those freaking flip flops Zenko had lent him! Another reason that jumping hadn’t worked out, for sure!) –his stealth was definitely lower than usual. After about three minutes of walking, he clicked the reading light on again. about 500 yards away he saw the metal bar of a doorway glint in faint silvery pink. He turned the light off and, squeezing his toes around the rubber Y of the sandals, ran the rest of the way there.

The stairwell with the double doors and an out of power Exit sign above it met him at the end of his jog. There were a few passenger elevators nearby along the wall he’d been following, but no way in hell was he about to trust something like that. So he pushed his weight against the metal bar of the stairwell door. The bar clacked loudly and the door gave a low groan as it opened. He stepped into dark silence. Then the sound of the door closing behind him banged apart the quiet and echoed up a column of space that sounded like it stretched about a mile or more over his head.

He turned the reading light on again and a red ball of illumination blew up onto the surfaces surrounding him: understair above and the wall next to and the steps below him.

Hm. Up or down?

He decided to go down. He was already this close to the base, he might as well take a bottom to top approach to his investigation.

The metal tipped cement stairs sparkled with red as he descended down them. When he got to the bottom of the stairs he was met with a little wooden plaque that read:

Welcome to Agoni Public Park

He opened the door, and stepped inside.

Or rather…outside.

It was dark. He couldn’t see much. But he knew the feeling of being outside, and this was it.

Or the closest you could get to the real thing. His lips parted, letting out another puff of cold, frosty air as he whispered “ whoa” and lifted the reading light to see how far he could get it to shine into the giant terrarium he was inside.

The cement walls that curved into the distance behind him were lined with a cagey, wickery material that gave a boost to a layer of ivy and dark woody vines that crept upward and out of sight. He could see grass then brush and trees on either side of himself. He could smell an earthy, decaying scent of a forest. His biggest critique would’ve been that there wasn’t any wind. There was a slight hum of insects though.

Ahead of him, the red light landed on a dusty path coated with wood chips that cast tiny jagged shadows that got longer and toothier the farther from the light they were. Up ahead was a wooden bulletin board with a wood shingle roof over it, like you'd see at the start of a hiking trail.

The wood chips crunched underfoot as he went over to it.

Oh boy. Another you are here dot.

Apparently he’d taken the “North Entrance” which was the furthest away from the sewage and water treatment plant.

It looked like there was supposed to be some sort of playground not far along down this path. And if you kept going you’d hit a walking trail that went through something called the “Greenway” and lead you into the center of the park.

He started walking. After a minute or so the red light landed against a grid of chain link fencing, casting a net-like shadow into a bed of sand and into the edge of a down turned seesaw.

Yup. There was the playground.

f*ck ing hell, it was dark in here. He used the light to scan the rest of the enclosure–monkey bars, climbing tunnels, swingset–Jesus, if there had been someone sitting on that swingset, he wouldn't have seen them until he’d hit it directly with this light just now.

He shined the light up and thought he caught a faint gimmer of glass on the mile high ceiling. There were probably supposed to be sunlight-replacement bulbs up there. With a timer so that the environment mimicked natural daylight.

Not anymore.

As he started walking, and the path started to gain coverage from increasing amounts surrounding trees and brush, he realized the place was probably supposed to be climate controlled too. He recognized some foliage that looked a lot closer to what you’d find in S City.

A lot of that stuff was dead now.

He wondered how long the lights had been left off in here.

Eventually the wood chips had disappeared, giving way to a dirt path that was increasingly overgrown, like an unkept hiking trail. The leaves brushed like dry fingertips against his cheeks, and he began needing to use his forearms to push branches aside as he went. Flossy spiderwebs with the occasional crunchy, sucked-dry fly exoskeleton snapped dryly against his face.

It didn't matter that he was inside. It felt like he was in an actual forest.

Just darker.

This really was crazy man. It really was crazy that the entire time he’d been hunting heroes there'd been a giant f*cking park just sitting here under the Hero Association. He was still trying to figure out if he thought it was cool or if he hated it. Like, think about how expensive it must’ve been to get all this sh*t here! Some of these f*ckers–I mean, those were big trees right there– that old one with the four foot diameter trunk and the moss sagging off it like extra skin, that thing must've been at least two centuries older than this entire building! They must've had to freight it here and dig a giant ass hole with a backhoe or some sh*t. Unless they’d, like, built the base on top of it, somehow. So, yeah, okay, if he’d had to live here, like some needy A Class, B Class hero, he’d have been glad to have some place like this to escape to, but the thing was he didn't live here, he lived f*cking–f*cking–

Heh. I live in the S-City equivalent.

Okay, that was kind of funny.

To be honest though? He’d rather live in the S City equivalent. Because when you thought about it…it was kind of eerie, how you could get lost in this place and feel like you were roaming freely outside, when you were actually inside some rich motherf*cker’s giant, cement cage…

He brushed a tick off his arm and climbed over a blackened tree trunk popping with mushrooms. Ticks? he thought to himself, Really? Like, yeah, they were an interesting animal in their own right, but if you're going to fabricate an outside environment with all stuff you import you'd think you could be a bit more selective about–

He stopped.

He’d heard something.

Or, he thought he did.

Garou stood still in the middle of the barely existent path and listened intently for something other than his own breathing.

His eyes went down to the light in his hand.

Giant target.

He turned it off and listened.

Just the quiet hum of night insects in a chill, windless forest.

He decided to pick up the pace a bit.

The overgrown path whispered under his feet, dehydrated grass and dead leaves giving temporary place to stay to the red light as it sailed jerkily over his path.

He didn’t want to keep it on like this, using up battery life and making him the most conspicuous living thing in the entire damn city park, but he seriously couldn't see without it. Normally his night vision would get him by in the woods, but here there was zero ambient light.

He paused and shined the light up for a moment, to check if he could see the ceiling still.

He couldn't. There were too many dead tree branches now.

Guess he was into the woods. He started–

CRASH. A raspy crackle of dead leaves broke the silence– as something hurtled over the bush RIGHT TOWARDS HIM–

He let out a low outcry as he whipped around and the red light landed on–

–an emaciated deer, with jagged cheekbones cupping its buggy eyes. Its stare glowed unblinkingly for about two frozen seconds, and Garou stared back at it, his heart hammering against his chest as if this thing were a jumpscare from some sort of horror-based RPG.

Then there was another crash of leaves and hooves as it dove back into the forest and disappeared in the dark.

Garou let out another cold breath, and tried not to feel unnerved by the concept of…that.

Man, that must really suck, being stuck in this place. He thought, as he started moving again.

Wonder what else lives in here .

As Garou continued walking, the smell he’d caught from the train earlier crept into the air. Despite his aversion to it, he followed his nose, pushing through brambles and making his own path once the one he was following ended. It got to the point where the air felt like it was trying to suffocate him with the stench. The insects were getting louder too. He kicked his way through one last wall of brambles and–

He found it.

The source.

It was a field. He was standing on the edge of a crispy, dead grass meadow in the middle of the indoor forest.

It was tough telling colors with just this light. But the dark stain that crept across the grass, leaching into the environment as if the ground thirsted for it, was blue, he knew it.

Because the dark mound sitting in the center of it all was monster bodies.

There were some, smaller ones mostly, that must have rolled, scattered, or been knocked in at some different angle.

But they were most highly concentrated, piled up and rotting at the base of what looked like four metal pillars.

Little flecks of black flies buzzed and zipped across the red light, casting needle-thin streaks of shadow as he came up on the big pile under the pillars. The mound glimmered with red and rot and the little reflective flecks of lifeless eyeballs as the reading light traveled up it. The shiver of flies and pulse of maggots caught his eye before he shifted his focus upward to the pillar things.

They were the remnants of the elevator. It looked like the frame of the elevator shafts had been left in place, but the panels between them busted away, and the elevators removed, so that the gaping rectangular openings that must've been right in that juncture between the train platform and the shipping receiving wall could be used to make a quick, haphazard ditch and drop into the lower level.

His shoulders stiffened as he thought of the rollers underneath the train platform.

Oh f*ck. Goddamn it. It was actually hitting him now. That smell, the smell of decaying bodies, decaying monster cells, had given him a hunch before. But he still couldn't help feeling sickened. And dumbfounded.

Was this like…where the Hero Association dumped the monsters they'd defeated? Maybe…with the fall of the Monster Association, they'd decided to convert the place into a…a mass grave site for whatever stragglers they caught?

Garou looked down at a body that looked vaguely similar to one of those chicken frogs.

It had rotting, speckled, ambitious skin that was falling away enough that the pores where the feathers poked out sagged around the quill tips with the same texture as oozy, expanded pizza dough with toothpicks stuck in it.

Disgusting. This kind of monster was basically just an animal. It wasn't even the kind that actively went after people. He thought of the little baby chicken frog going “ rippeep!” From the undergrowth.

f*ck this. f*ck.

Garou’s jaw was tight as he shined the reading light across the landscape, seeing even more land scattered with monster bodies, and other large, dark piles.

Were these people just so dead set on erasing the world of everything vaguely monster-esque? Anything that was just a little bit different from them? God. Despite his hunch with the rotten smell from the train, he’d still walked into this thinking that…well he'd known that…this was a place where, like, heroes lived.

So far it seemed more like an abandoned catacomb.

His skin prickled with a sense of unease. On the other hand, the place was pretty big. There could've been other people still here, and if there were they were probably the ones that were complacent with, or helping to run this f*cking hellshow.

Garou covered his nose with the neck of Metal Bat’s sweatshirt, trying to breath in as much of its smell as he could instead of the surrounding air as he went around the edge of this meadow and in the direction of the sewage facility. If there was anyone working down here, they'd probably be there, and he could go ahead with his renewed desire to beat the sh*t out of some Hero Association asshole. Though supposed anyone sad enough to be working in a sewage facility next to an open mass grave site couldn't’ve been very high up on the pecking order in this place. Maybe he’d go easy on them if they were miserable enough. Then again, a gentle death threat could get him some answers about what else to expect from this sh*t hole.

Didn't f*cking matter. He didn't find anyone. The sewage facility and water treatment was just as lifeless as the rest of this place. f*cking creepy though, all giant holding tanks, metal pipes and an empty f*cking camper next to the control station.

He was at the other end of the park now. The cement wall behind the sewage facility had a doorway that looked a lot like the one he came through, except there was a little sign next to it that said “Thank you for visiting Agoni Public Park. South Exit.”

Garou yanked open the door, ready to get the hell off this level, then paused for a second, a tight, cold feeling in his chest as he looked back into the leafy darkness across beyond the sewage tank.

He let go of the door and went back to the sewage facility. He picked up a cinder block from in front of the camper, carried it back to the exit, and jammed it in the corner of the doorframe, to wedge it open.

Give that deer a fighting chance.

It would suck to be f*cking stuck in here.

The south exit stairwell led him up to the second level, the one with the industrial processing facility. Giving a wide berth the freight elevator shafts, he crossed a space dominated by half finished projects–a helicopter rotor with a giant, scorched dent suspended next to one of the work benches, a shiny, block-shaped welder’s mask sitting on the same table as a huge, spiked mace, a rusty bin filled with spare bits of metal piping, an open closet stacked with fire hoses and metal couplings, a clunky metal hook with a suit of body armor mounted on it, a tank tread dangling not far away.

When he reached the other side, he found a protruding metal wall with something that looked like one of the watertight doors he’d seen on the cargo ship he’d stowed away on. It had a steel, circular handle instead of a doorknob, and lengths of metal that extended across it to press the edge tight against the doorframe.

There wouldn't be…water or something on the other side of that, would there? The Tareo in his brain immediately conjured the image of himself opening the door and a giant dump of shark infested waters gushing out onto him like it was some sort of James Bond supervillain hideout fishtank room. Surprise, motherf*cker!

No, that was too stupid to be true, right? Besides, if whoever was in charge of this place was as good as maintaining fishtanks as they were at keeping a city park, anything in f*cking A-City seaworld would surely be floating belly up.

Nevertheless, he shined the light across the wall to check for any…shark warnings? Whatever. He knew it was dumb, okay?

He didn’t see anything like that, but there was a sign with a jagged black lightning bolt, and the words “DANGER, RISK OF ELECTRICAL SHOCK.” Underneath that, mounted on the wall, there were three handheld fire extinguishers. The red light reached the end of the metal wall and landed on the main cement one again. On the floor there was something long and semi-coiled–and for a second he double taked, thinking he was seeing a giant worm or some sh*t. He relaxed when he realized it was just a messily stowed firehose, sitting unraveled on the floor beside a circular valve and fat spigot that must've been connected to the firemain system.

He knocked on the door sharply, pressing his ear to it to listen for anything on the other side. It sounded hollow enough, so He grabbed the door by the handle and jerked the wheel down so it unlatched. No water blew it open. He opened it fully and stepped inside.

He didn’t have to worry about sharks or anything when he went in there. The room was emptier than the one he’d just passed through–metal walls, cement floor, and just two things inside:

1)a big fat breaker panel across far wall

2) a huge gray-painted machine that was vaguely cylindrical, with some wires and chunky parts and other stuff that, altogether, he could assume (based on the brand logo slapped onto the front of it– McCoy electric™) was an industrial scale electrical generator.

He had never actually seen one of these up close before. f*ck if he knew anything about how they worked. The thing looked pretty darn off though, pretty sure the thing was off though, so he probably didn’t have to worry about getting hit by any big fat lighting bolts like from the sign, right? He tread carefully over to it, kind of fascinated but also on guard.

Garou felt his toe hit something and there was a clatter of metal links. He shined the reading light down and saw a loose chain on the floor. Following it with the light, he saw that it looped around the back of the generator. Frowning, he gave the chain another kick, and walked around to look behind.

There wasn’t much to see. The gap between the wall with the breaker panel and this half of the generator was only a half foot or so of space. He squatted down and shined his light into the space to look closer, but there was nothing. The chain just connected to itself, laying innocuous on the floor on the other side. The only thing he could see that looked somewhat amiss was a broken wire–maybe green? Again, it was kind of tough to tell colors with this thing–tucked under the bottom edge near the floor.

He checked the breaker panel next. It was a big wiry box loaded up with switches, meant to decide which parts of the building were allotted power. Obviously the generator was off, so there was no power going anywhere. But since not all the switches were in the on position, it meant that some parts of the city had been shut off before others. He was just about ready to put money (ha, money) on the idea that this city was fully lights out. Unless the “backup generator” he’d seen listed on one of the higher floors was still in service.

Doubt it.

Ready to test his growing hypothesis of the city’s complete abandonment, he left the generator room and found the nearest set of stairs. It brought him back up to the level he’d started at–number three. Since the train station was old news, he took the passage to the left of the landing, which lead to a door that had another one of those metal bar handles that clacked too loudly underneath his shoulder as he pushed it and was lead directly into–

–The door smashed shut behind him, and the sound echoed like, fifteen times around the inside of a giant parking garage. He kept his back pressed against the door for a second as he scanned carefully for anything amiss.

It was exactly what a parking garage is supposed to look like inside. Cement walls, gray pilings spaced out in rows, and parking spots marked in white paint.

Not a single car in any of them.

Yup. Just what it’s… supposed to look like. Sure.

His footsteps echoed loudly, like the sound were a pinball smacking against six or seven snare drums before it ricocheted back home to the source. It was the kind of parking garage with shallow inclines that zig zag upwards to make multiple levels. Hm. If there were anyone on any of the upper levels, they probably would’ve already heard him enter.

He stopped for a second, to listen for any responding footsteps.

So far so nothing.

The visibility here was better than the park, but worse than the train station, because rather than an empty space for train tracks between him and the entryways, there were multiple overhead levels, with the pilings throughout and a wall along the centerline and outer perimeter to uphold the structure. The entryways in the base (which mirrored where he’d come in on the train side) were on the other side of a road tunnel that ran adjacent and behind the parking garage–which Garou knew because:

1. It was the road the prison busses had driven over that one other time he’d been here and
2. It was from this road tunnel that a faint, grayish daylight was able to get through and tinge the space just enough for him to be able to see without the reading light.

So he clicked it off. As he walked across the first level, toward the bend with the incline that would lead him to the next, he kept his eyes steady on the space beyond the pilings, which created the illusion that a copy of the same background was pasted behind itself, shifting slowly at the same rate at which he walked. When reached the dividing wall and took the inclined path that turned around the bend, he perceived a slight but immediate difference in lighting–everything was a little bit darker a level up. He could still see shapes though, and made the decision that it was still more advantageous to explore without the reading light and compensate for any lack of perception with his other senses and heightened caution.

He continued, keeping his steps quiet as he moved past a dark cylindrical piling, and then another, all blending into the blackness, before he approached the next bend around the wall and he–

–Saw his own feet as he toed carefully through a dark, stoney tunnel–a cement wall to his left–and then…screaming. A kid’s voice–the high pitched, ragged scream of a child about to be torn to shreds on the other side of that wall–his blood frosted over just before it when lava hot and he looked at that wall, he remembered so clearly the wall, the grainy cement of it, and the screaming, the way it came through muffled on the other side, the way it sounds when someone’s getting beaten in the next room over so you can’t really hear it properly but also you can because it’s also you –

Garou sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head to clear it. There was no point thinking thoughts like that now. Why did his memory do this kind of sh*t to him? That kid voice hadn’t been him, it had been Tareo. And that wasn’t here and now, that had been in the monster association, almost a year ago.

Must've been cause He was looking at a gray wall now.

His muscles tensed, like he could hear screaming on the other side of it, now.

There wasn’t any screaming though, his instincts were just–heightened, he supposed. He had left the kids at the library, he reminded himself, they weren’t here now , nobody was here now . He couldn’t actually hear anything. It was just so dark, and so quiet, that his thoughts were that much louder.

I don’t hear screaming, I don’t hear anything.

It didn;t even make sense, why he was remembering this. Yes, he supposed he’d gotten Tareo out of that situation back when the kid had been kidnapped by the monster association and yes it was when Garou was escaping the same situation himself–but it’s not like it really had anything to do with him or Tareo it had just–happened that way. Nothing that had ever happened to him had really had to do with him, right? It was just sh*t that had happened to a person that he supposed was himself. Why of all things the wall stuck out to him, and he could barely remember the monster he’d defeated on the other side of it, he didn’t understand.

It’s because there’s a wall here. It looks the same. That’s why.

Yes, here there was a wall, and a bend, and he was walking around it now. He was walking around it now and there was no screaming. There was no screaming, because he had left the kids at the library. The wall was not screaming. There wasn’t a kid. But there was–

A car.

Garou’s hand scrambled for the reading light and he quickly switched it on, casting a beam of red over the vehicle and causing every ridge and bump of its outline to spread across the floor in the shadow.

It wasn’t in drive.(he breathed out a little) It wasn’t on.(he breathed out a little more) It was parked. (he breathed) It was empty.

Probably. The light was glaring and glinting off the windows, making them look slick and black and red as he approached it. If there was anyone–or anything–in there it was going to see him long before he saw it. If there was anything in there it had already seen him and was waiting for him to get close enough before it unfurled from the window and grabbed him. There was no sound around him. But his hairs were starting to stand on end as he approached the car. Like the nonexistent screaming was getting closer.

He shielded his brow with his hand and pressed his face up against the driver’s side window so he could see inside.

Empty seats. He pulled at the door handle, but it was locked. He stepped back and did a slow circle around the vehicle, appraising it for anything that could give him more information.

It looked like it had been sitting there a while. There was a sheen of dust over the paint and the windshield. The tires were starting to flatspot.

When he got back round to the driver's window, he held his left forearm in his right hand. Then he clubbed his left elbow down and through the glass, causing a spiderweb or cracks to frost across the window–he did it a second time and smashed a hole through it, causing shards of glass to fall from the rubber lining like broken teeth from a person’s gums.

The sound of the car getting vandalized was still echoing across the parking garage as he reached in and unlocked the door. He opened it and crawled inside the car, standing on his knees on the driver's seat and drooping over the consul so he could check the back passenger seats and floor for anything–just a forgotten straw wrapper–then he walked his torso back in the direction of the front seats, where there was a crumpled receipt in the cupholder. He opened up the glove compartment, and found a leather bound folder that contained the vehicle registration.

He sat back into the driver's seat and put the reading light on it.

So, listen. Garou had never actually owned a car. He didn’t actually know too much about what was in the registration, he had only ever seen his mom pull it out of her glove compartment when she got pulled over for speeding or some sh*t.

Turns out, it said a lot.

T CITY CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION

LICENSE NUMBER: TP0824H

VEHICLE DESCRIPTION: BLUE TOYT

OWNER NAME: FUCHSIA NASO

OWNER MAILING ADDRESS: 295 PEYADA ST, T CITY APARTMENT 4A

“Yes!” He hissed to himself, grinning as he snapped the booklet shut. He put it in Tareo’s backpack, along with the receipt. He didn’t know who this was or why their car had been left here or how exactly he was going to use all this information to find out more, but this was definitely something he and Zenko could sort through together later.

Next he popped the trunk, went around the back to make sure there were no dead bodies or anything.

All clear. He gave a quick look to the license plate to verify it matched what he’d seen in the registration, which it did. And then he closed up the car and decided to keep moving.

As he'd predicted, each level of the parking garage got sequentially darker the higher he got. By the time he got to the top, visibility was nearly as blacked out as the park. Garou hadn’t found any other cars on the levels leading up to this,so he was just about ready to turn around and call it, but you know if you're gonna do something fully like this you might as well do it right, so he turned on the light.

On the other side of the garage, in the far corner, something glinted back at him. It was another abandoned car, he realized, as he approached it with the light raised. And a fancy one too. An arc of red light slid down a sleek, aerodynamic windshield and a hood with a perfect paint job.

He rattled the door handle.

Locked. Figured. There was no gas cap, so he could assume it was electric. Who the hell owned this thing? And why the f*ck would anyone leave it here?

Because they just really want someone to break into it Garou supposed. Nice knowing you, Tesla window.

Garou cupped his forearm, cleaved his elbow down and–

“OW, f*ck!” His own voice echoed on blast through the building, and he retracted back in on himself as he squeezed his elbow and waited for the spear of bone tingling pain to disappear from his joint.

When it was done he unfurled and stared at the tinted window with affrontement. What the hell was this, some sort of reinforced glass? Must’ve been. He gave it a kick. Then a punch. He tried the other windows in case any were weaker than the others. He even reached into Tareo’s backpack to find the heaviest object (which happened to be… a brick? Seriously?) and threw it against the window.

Nothing worked. Musta been monster-proof, he figured. Deciding not to waste any more time (or…bricks? Seriously, there were two in here?) he circled to the back and shined the reading light on the license plate. Clipping the light on his shirt, He rummaged through the backpack until he found a marker and the crumpled receipt, which he unfurled against the flat of his palm and wrote the number down on.

Parking garage cleared. After he’d gotten back down to the main floor of level three, he found the entryway to shipping and receiving and did a quick check through of the relatively much smaller space, but found nothing of note. Just the stupid elevator holes with, y’know, the death fields underneath them, but that was nothing new.

He exited and took the stairs up to level four.

This level had a different feel than the ones before it. Less industrial. People were meant to live up here. The floors were linoleum, instead of metal or cement. The walls were painted something that was…probably beige. He raised the light and made a beam of red that sparkled with dust particles all the way down the empty hallway, until it hit a firedoor, but he had the feeling the door wasn’t there the light would’ve kept shining, all the way down this hall until it hit the other side of the city or ran out of stamina.

He walked a bit down the hall, and reached for the first door he met. He stepped inside, and almost immediately could tell what kind of room he had walked into.

It was all there: A bin of cardboard building blocks meant to look like colorful bricks, kid-sized plastic chairs stacked in the far corner, a grid of little square cubbies along the wall…that thin foam matting that fit together like jigsaw pieces on the floor. All of it gave Garou an unwelcome shiver of nostalgia about his own preschool days. Oh yeah. He was pretty sure he remembered hiding underneath a small plastic slide, just like the one in that corner, back in his day.

Across the wall, over what he could assume was the cleared out teacher’s desk, was an arc of colorful, cut out letters that spelled W E L C O M E T O A C I T Y D A Y C A R E C E N T E R !

There was light enough to see in here, because the room actually had windows. Wow! Way to shake things up, A-City Day Care! Don’t get too excited though; you couldn’t actually see outside. All the places where there was glass were covered. Rather than blinds, the windows were coated with blue paper that had childishly drawn fish and bubbles and seaweed, and like, one crab on it. As if the teachers had decided to make a classroom activity out of figuring out a fun theme for blocking out the sun. It gave the room a sort of cool, blue-tinged glow that wasn’t crazy bright, but was better than most of the building so far. He clicked the reading light off, relieved that he was finally getting a prolonged chance to rest the battery.

He did a quick sweep of the room. The place was mostly cleared out. Must've been in a hurry though, because there were still little things left behind. Art supplies, a bin of legos. On the wall there was a clock with little pieces of paper taped to it that wrote out the times in words. It must’ve run out of battery at some point after everyone had left, because the hands were frozen somewhere around “two o’clock”

There was a paper in one of the kids' cubby holes. He knew it probably wasn't much of a clue but he picked it up anyway and went to the window so he could hold it underneath the faint blue glow of the fishtank paper.

It was written in crayon, the words:

ME aNd mY PapA

With a clumsy drawing of a little circle-headed person with a big smile, holding the stick arm of a taller circle headed-person who seemed to be wearing…a pineapple?...on his head.

On a whim he stuffed it in the backpack. He slid it quietly back into its cubby hole. He completed one last sweep of the room and decided he was done with it. He was just about to open the door and walk out when he stepped on something hard.

He picked it up.

It was a knock off He-man action figure with the head popped off.

The blueish light from the daycare room clipped off as the door shut and he was surrounded by the pitch black of the hallway again. He turned on the reading light and a circle of red landed on a noticeboard on the wall directly across from him.

There were several identical papers pinned to it, each with a big fat bold capital title that read NOTICE at the top

He stepped closer and plucked one off to read the rest of it.

NOTICE

ALL NONESSENTIAL POWER AND WATER SUPPLY WILL BE CUT OFF ON 01JUL

Members are advised to vacate before 01JUL

Garou turned around and aimed the reading light down the length of the entire halfway, a couple more taped up before that first fire door. He passed all of them on his walk to the end of the hallway. When he got on the other side of the fire door and shined the reading light ahead, he saw a repeat of the same stretch he had just walked through before. Another fire door waiting at the end of it. Same exact hallway. Just, more flyers.

He passed through, feeling almost unnerved by the increasing consistency of flyers taped to the wall. It was worse than the way Zenko hung up her missing posters. The further down the hallway he went, the stronger the feeling like he was being slowly closed in by an army of eviction notices. It was almost as if someone had photocopied the one from the notice board and hung up the extras just to rub salt in the wound.

He found a couple doors to try out along the way. They lead to nothing more than an empty office space he supposed must have been the work life, a laundry room with those same NOTICEs taped onto the lid of each machine, and a computer room with sh*tty box-shaped desktops that wouldn’t’ve sold for squat on the tech market even if they did manage to turn on, which they didn’t, he tried.

Garou went for the next firedoor, and found a repeat of the same hallway.

Okay this was getting weird. The flyers taped up nearly covered the entire wall. Their peeling corners made sharp, warped shadows across each other and what little of the wallpaper was visible. It made him think of the pictures he’d seen of migrating monarch butterflies, the way they all converge on one particular tree in one particular place and cover it, their shivering wings making an entirely new layer of flaky skin on top of the bark. NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE MEMBERS ARE ADVISED TO VACATE MEMBERS ARE ADVISED TO VACATE 01JUL 01JUL MEMBERS ARE ADVISED TO VACATE…

The sound of his footsteps blended together because he was moving faster. That with the posters everywhere almost made him miss the door to his left. He opened it swiftly and slipped inside, letting out a relieved puff of air at the fact that he didn’t see any VACATE notices. flyers.

In fact–he shined the reading light around the room he was in–compared to the hallway, this place was a peaceful oasis.

In the center of the room, there was a couch, and a coffee table, across from a wooden rocking chair with a quilt draped on it. Behind that, There was a desk with a lamp, a small Buddha statue, a miniature Shinto-style rock garden, and a glass bowl with a nest of wooden beads inside it and a handwritten label that said Free rosaries :)

Garou stepped back outside into the hallway. He peeled back one of the flyers and read the plaque on the door. Chaplain's Office.

Okay, I get it. He went back inside.

He swept the reading light across the room, watching as it crept over a fat, dusty bookshelf packed with religious looking titles, a storage closet, a filing cabinet against the wall behind the chaplain’s desk. There was a closet with robes hanging loosely, looking smooth and pale against the dark, like if you stumbled across a beached beluga whale at night. There were framed paintings on the walls, and at the very back, a plain wooden door.

It felt like the room that–despite being abandoned, wasn’t quite dead yet. Like if he sat down on the sofa behind the coffee table, the rocking chair would start creaking back and forth on the other side.

Of all the spaces he’d been in so far, this room was also by far the most intact, and the most jammed packed with readable things. The coffee table he’d noticed first was closest, with multiple stacks of different pamphlets on it. Garou picked up one of each and flipped through them, skimming the titles:

Spiritual Wellness–journey of healing for both religious and non-religious people

Speaking up about sexual assault and harassment–confidential and nonconfidential reporting and resources

Understanding love–benefits of relationship counseling

Last Rites–how to request them on the battlefield

Boots on! Combating PTSD

Navigating Medicinal and non-medicinal options for anxiety and depression

Hah, hah hah, what kind of person would pick up a pamphlet like this? What a dumb concept, why the hell would someone read about–any of this stuff? Garou glanced over his shoulder, getting a weird, squirmy feeling in his chest even though the only person watching him was the smiling Buddha statue on the chaplain’s desk.

He tossed the pamphlets back unceremoniously and moved to the bookshelf along the wall behind the desk.

Some of the books were old looking, gilded in gold leaf and dusty–others were just coffee stained paperbacks. As he’d expected, there were a whole bunch of religious titles here–Kojiki, Torah, Tripitaka, Q’Ran, the Tao Te Ching, a few different Bibles written in various languages–there was even a book on paganism. Garou flipped through each of them swiftly, in case there were any notes, and signatures, any “this book is dedicated to my good friend x, sincerely y.” The next shelf had books on translation, self help, spiritual wellness…how to deal with grief…self hatred...anger…lone…loneliness…

…how to find inner happiness…

You know, crap like that. There were kid’s books too. Huh, who’da thought! He snapped closed a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and decided to move on to the storage closet. Oh, boy, there was a lot of different stuff in here. A pack of fuzzy incense sticks that looked like tiny cattails, and rubbed a distinctly citrus-y scent on his fingers as he rummaged past them, another pack that smelled of sandalwood. A plastic tray with assorted pieces of jewelry. A menora bundled in plastic. Bulk orders of different types of candles wrapped in twine. A camo bag with a sharpie marker title that read “FIELD KIT, CHRISTIAN,” and unzipped to show a metal cross, some strips of cloth, a laminated script, and a small plastic vial that, according to its label, was holy water. A soccer ball. The section at the very bottom had a big plastic bin filled with these vaguely brick shaped things that were vacuum packed in khaki brown plastic–like the little freeze dried food kits you’d expect a soldier to carry into the desert–with different labels stamped across them: MRE HALAL 1 SERVING, MRE KOSHER 1 SERVING, MRE VEGETARIAN 1 SERVING. Which he grabbed a few of to stuff in the backpack for later.

He checked the clothing closet, some of the robes had pockets, so he checked them, but didn’t find anything. He turned to the other half of the room now, and knelt down beside the filing cabinet. There was a label on it he noticed–

CONFIDENTIAL

Garou gave it a sharp tug, expecting just about the same frustration as the locked car from before. His hand banged back quickly, however, and the drawer opened right up.

The smell of ash wafted into his face as a puff of gray exploded upward. Coughing, he rubbed his wrist against his eyes and accidentally smeared ash across his face. Blinking, he shined the reading light inside and it hit a black scorch mark that coated the bottom and speared up the sides. Other than a little pile of crispy, cremated paper, there was nothing to see.

Garou closed the cabinet slowly, checking over his shoulder as he unfolded from his crouch and assessed the room one more time, a little more carefully.

There was a lighter on the Chaplain’s desk.