Unali, Senrali

They waited. Perhaps a concerningly long time even, and Raian knocked again. Mochi, on the other hand, didn’t have the patience of his handler, and with every ounce of strength he had in his body, he tugged at the door handle.

With what Mochi required his entire body weight to achieve, Raian did with a single hand. The doors opened with an attention-grabbing screech, and the two were met with a concerning rhythm of grunting.

The room was more of a pool than anything else, with a large body of water at the back of the room extending deep in all dimensions. Much like every room, and the one Raian was just in, a complex array of reinforcing steel accented the walls – at least this one was slightly less dull.

A single, almost blinding floodlight hung delicately a few feet above, most notably, the hulking Aberrant looking more like an angry reptile than a shark. Despite being hunched over, it was still well over twice the height of Raian and a bit more, and with a muscle density many times more than the man could ever achieve in his lifetime.

Its heavy, greyish-blue tail swayed slowly from side to side as it held out its right arm horizontally with a bemused look upon its face. One would assume that this Aberrant had better things to be doing right now, and they’d certainly be correct.

Meanwhile, a smaller entity chose to use this Aberrant’s arm as a means to get a few pull-ups in.

Rogue beads of sweat rolled from this person’s violet skin, with an unknown number more likely soaking into an array of clothing they had long resigned to being stained with all manner of fluids. It all came with the job, mostly.

“You know we have a gym, right?” Raian stepped forward.

Piercing, purple irises fixated upon the source of the sudden interruption.

“I mean, yeah,” they called back, dropping from the Aberrant’s arm as a spaded tail coiled about them, “but who in their right mind would want to be surrounded by a bunch of sweaty, old men?”

“It’s not that bad.” Raian crossed his arms.

“Uh-huh, and how many people have you caught staring at your ass?”

“Five, at least. Mostly men.”

Black sclera darted to Mochi’s position, with the squid having abandoned the conversation to saunter off to an array of tables in the corner of the room. He poked and prodded what most would assume is just a pile of metal scrap.

The individual ran their fingers through a damp mess of teal hair, doing their best to avoid a pair of segmented horns extending from just above their forehead, flowing backward to stop not far off from the back of their head.

They opened their mouth for a moment out of fear of Mochi touching something he shouldn’t again but found relief when he just went for the box of donuts.

This individual carried an air of curated androgyny about them. Now, gender is typically something a good handful must wrestle with at some point in their lifetime, but this horned menace was the kind of person who ran the concept of gender through an immersion blender into a fluid and obliterated it like a frat boy obliterates a six pack.

A genderfluid, if you will.

“So, how’d it go?” Unali inquired, approaching the man.

“About as well as you’d expect.”

“They tore into you a bit, didn’t they?”

“A little bit,” the man smiled, pinching his fingers together, “I fear what they’re going to do to you when it’s your turn.”

“Ah, I’ve got a few weeks to butter ‘em up.”

Unali is what is known as a Senrali, a race of demons having emigrated centuries ago from a little-explored plane of existence, and while potentially millions of species of demon exist, the Senrali are among the few that could truly integrate with society.

The Senrali went by names of ‘incubus’ or ‘succubus’ for a time, but such words have since been declared redundant after taking on a derogatory meaning.

Sparse as they are, the Senrali are an interesting sight to see nonetheless, coming in all shapes and sizes, with Unali being the only documented demon employed at the facility.

The squid skipped on by with the recognisable tap of bare feet upon the ground, turning to his handlers with a mouth half-full of donut, and carrying another six in his arms. The boy had enough politeness to extend a hand now coated in powdered sugar to the two before him.

Unali stuffed their face with one, potentially undoing almost all the effort they had put in minutes ago as they watched Mochi toss a donut into the awaiting maw of the towering bipedal shark. Mere seconds after, he spat it out with an impressive splat on the ground.

“Coconut.” The monster spoke in a voice of disapproval that sounded like two 10-ton slabs of granite grinding against each other.

“Ah, sorry!” Mochi threw another as an apology.

The creature likely had more teeth than braincells, spending a moment chewing before giving a clawed thumbs-up to the boy.

“Better.”

Raian displayed an air of unease, perhaps being the only one in the room to do so. It wasn’t exactly the Aberrant part he was afraid of, just that he had a slightly debilitating fear of sharks. Seeing one with legs and wearing skin-tight shorts didn’t help.

“Quite frankly, I’m still amazed you can stay around him for this long…” Raian’s self-preservation prevented him from getting too close, “how you haven’t lost a finger yet is beyond me.”

“Oh, come on! He’s harmless!”

Unali made a rather strange demonstration by sticking their arm elbow-deep past the countless rows of teeth to rapidly thwack the Aberrant’s tongue with their palm.

Ducking with an alarming amount of finesse, the demon dodged a playful swat from the sea monster with a maniacal cackle. God’s Wound’s lack of amusement showcased perfectly by the immediate munching of a chocolate donut.

“Besides,” Unali strolled past Raian, wiping a slobbered hand on his coat in passing, “you’ve gotten yourself bitten plenty times more than I have.”

“Mobohy meebth tho mnow thah!” Mochi shrieked with at least two donuts in his mouth.

“It’s just us here, you’re fine.” The violet demon watched Raian tug at the sleeve about his arm, “Plus, I’ve bitten him more than a few times anyhow.”

“It’s true.” Raian admitted defeatedly.

“What? Why?”

“They don’t like losing.”

“It’s true!” Unali rang whilst chest-deep in a crate, their tail being the only thing keeping them balanced.

After a few more moments of the demon’s legs helplessly swinging in the air, they soon resurfaced with a perfectly ripe watermelon, promptly rolling it across the plated floor to knock and settle against the Aberrant’s legs.

God’s Wound fell to the floor with a great thud, sitting cross-legged with his back facing the pool. His tail dipped into the shadowy waters as he took the watermelon upon his palm, grasping the entirety of it with a single clawed hand.

Unali chose a similar pose, climbing up onto a vacant table to sit upon as Raian paced about them.

“So, what actually happened? Give me the details.” Unali asked, keeping their voice low.

Raian stood in silence for a moment.

“Do any of the higher-ups give you flak for how you act around some of the Aberrants?”

“Once or twice, yeah,” they hummed, “mostly from being given piggybacks by God’s Wound. Apparently it’s ‘not in practice with safety regulations’, as if we don’t have enough of a hazard just being around them to begin with. It’s not like they have to know everything that goes on behind closed doors.”

“Well, aside from Faloux being helpful and… probably sober for once, Miss Evans had some reservations when I called Mochi a ‘friend’.”

“Right.” Unali snorted.

“What? I’m not wrong.” Raian snapped, leaning up against Unali’s table.

“Whatever, just ignore her, she’s just pissy ‘cause she got caught with her boytoy,” they declared, rolling up their sleeves, “what was the name again?”

“Grimsby?”

“That’s the one.”

“I can’t say I get what she sees in him – he looks like he’d fall over from a rogue breeze.”

“Coming from someone who has his own boytoy.”

Unali felt a sudden force that they’d only feel from the likes of an Aberrant as they found themselves shoved off the table and into the crate of watermelons.

“What was that for?!” Unali howled.

“Sorry. Reflex.”

As God’s Wound cracked into the second watermelon, Mochi stood silently next to him, giving the shark man a blank stare, occasionally flickering his golden eyes to the redness of the fruit.

In silent acknowledgement, the larger Aberrant snapped off a chunk for the little one, handing it to him with a sense of tenderness you wouldn’t expect from a living weapon. The next time the handlers looked their way, Mochi was sitting on the floor enjoying some fresh fruits with their fellow Aberrant.

“Aberrant to Aberrant communication is… certainly interesting.” Raian grumbled, turning his gaze to his companion struggling to climb out of the crate.

While they were already splotched with stains of dubious origin, the now-cracked watermelons only added an array of red streaks across their back as they did their best to scrape off as much as they could.

“Right!” Unali gave a solid smack with their palm dead centre of Raian’s chest, “I need something more substantial than donuts, you coming?”

“What’ve they got today? I didn’t have time to eat this morning.”

“Haddock, I think.”

A grimace drew across Raian’s face, standing upright as he paced past Unali.

“Let’s just… go ransack the break room again.” The man hung his head low, wrapping his fingers about the handle of the door, with the demon in tow, “Mochi! Still hungry?”

The squid gave a few light pats on the towering Aberrant’s leg, standing up to rush on over to his handler. With a shockingly quiet splash, the boy turned around to see God’s Wound having vanished, disappearing into the waters below. The doors screeched open as Mochi finally joined the two researchers.

“What’ve you got planned for tomorrow’s excursion by the way?” Unali asked, their eyes scanning the passing crowd as they all looked for an opening.

“That’s tomorrow?!” the squid and his handler cried at the same time.

Both Mochi and Raian had a completely opposite expression about them, with the former baring his fangs in a grin of pure joy.