Chimeric Consequences

“Cool, I won.” Kaneko said, having only half paid attention to the game of go fish that she just finished.

“Congratulations!” Automaton quickly gathered up all the cards and reshuffled them before putting them back in their holder. “Looks like those two are getting along.”

Turning around, Kaneko saw Minny looking uncomfortable with Cardinal grabbing her neck. “Really?”

“Oh yeah, Cardinal is pretty easy to get along with if you try. She might seem like a grouchy loner-type, but– Well, she’s not that grouchy.”

“Never would have guessed.”

“Yes, well, it's usually pretty easy to figure out if your roommates are nice or not. At least after a few months”

“Wait, you two live together?”

“Yeah, we almost never leave the ship unless it's to resupply or if we’re on a mission. I like to think we’ve made this ship pretty homely.”

Looking around at the ship yet again, Kaneko starts to understand why it’s so simultaneously chaotic and orderly. “You’re homeless?”

“No!... Well I suppose technically, but that’s mostly because we choose to be. The ship is more of a convenience than anything, really.”

Kaneko didn’t know how to respond. Instead, she thought “I mean, it’s not like they don’t have any money or anything, this ship has to be worth millions of dollars.”

"Enough about me though. Tell me, how'd 'Sukeban and Pastel Princess' come to be?"

Kaneko blushed again at the mention of her persona’s name.

"We uh… knew each other before I got my tape gun. I discovered her fighting a rabbit in her backyard."

Automaton raised his eyebrow in a look of exaggerated confusion.

"A possessed rabbit!” Kaneko countered “She wasn't just whacking a wild animal for no reason. Anyways, the same Goddess that granted her powers, also offered me some. And I took them. It really wasn’t a complex thing."

"Interesting. So you became a superhero to help your friend. Very good."

“I’m not a superhero.”

"Sorry. Didn’t mean to presume…" Automaton gave a smaller than usual smile, before continuing like nothing happened. “I was actually raised in an orphanage and one day this superhero told me to join him and make tech for him and stuff. Very cool guy… He taught me a lot about doing good and helping others…”

Kaneko stayed silent, feeling like this stranger just dropped like 10 different bombs on the conversation.

“He’s actually the reason I met Cardinal. When he went missing, I hired her to come help me find him.”

“What is this dude’s problem! Are all superheroes this weird? I feel like this guy is talking about too much trauma to still be justifiably upbeat.”

As Kaneko sat in thought, one stray thought came to her mind that she couldn’t help but slip out. “Wait, you’re not a robot–”

“We’re almost there.” Across the room, Cardinal was announcing her success. “Should touch down in less than a minute.”

〰

The ship landed in an abandoned parking lot for some dialect grocery store. The sun had set and twilight was rapidly fading. As Minny stepped off the jet, a blast of cool autumn air hit her face and froze her skin once again. “I should start bringing a jacket to these things.” Minny thought.

“It should be inside there.” To Minny’s left, Cardinal Conjury pointed toward the store.

Automaton spoke “So, how do you two usually deal with these things? What’s the right way?”

“We have to contain the animal, long enough for Pastel Princess to hit it on the head with her staff. Then it should be as simple as waiting for it to go back to normal.”

Automaton's face changed into a thinking mode, but he was quickly done. "Okay, I have this sticky gel that I can use to incapacitate whatever it is that's been possessed. I say Cardinal and I head in by the Easternmost entrance while you two go by the western.”

“Riiight…” Minny responded, totally knowing exactly which doors he was talking about.

“Cardinal and I will go on that side, and you two should go over there.” Despite having to repeat himself, Automaton was still acting very friendly. There wasn't a thread of condescension in his voice. "We'll search the entire floor from either side, until we meet in the middle. If either group finds the animal, we'll contact the other with these."

Automaton held out his hand to give something to Kaneko. Minny sidled up to her cousin's back, peering over her shoulder. In her open palm were 2 earpieces. “Oooh! Gadgets!” Minny thought.

"You should be able to just put these in your ear and they should be connected. You’ll have to tap them on the side to unmute yourself.." Automaton seemed proud of himself as he spoke. "Then, if we don’t find it in the front, we’ll all go to the back together! Should be relatively easy."

“You shouldn’t set off event flags like that!” Minny chided. “That’s like, rule #1 when you’re fighting something.”

Automaton gave a nervous chuckle before Cardinal stepped in front of him, gently knocking him on the shoulder as she stepped forward. "Look. Keep your nerves steeled. We don't know what's going to be in there, so be prepared. For anything. Obviously we all have expertise in different things, so we’re gonna need to work together to make it out of this."

Apparently despite not wanting to be a superhero, Cardinal was absolutely capable of filling the role.

“Alright, let's go.” Kaneko said. And both pairs separated.

Minny started to feel a little anxiety pooling in her stomach. She almost blew it earlier that night.

To get her mind off it, she asked “So, what do you think about those guys? The superheroes.”

She tried to get her eyes to sparkle, the way cartoon characters do when they are entranced by something. She thought she probably pulled it off, although she couldn’t prove it. They were the real deal! Straight out of the tv!

“They’re fine. The uh… Robot one was nice.”

“Oooohh, was he? Do you… like him?”

“What the– No! I just said he was nice!”

Minny snickered at her cousin’s reaction. Kaneko was embarrassed, and Minny had to find out exactly how much. She was in dangerous territory though, so she kept that in a safe, out-of-the-way drawer in her mind as she continued to search.

Distantly, from across the empty building, the pair heard Cardinal’s distinct voice. “Stop blushing, you’re supposed to be a professional!”

The timing was just too perfect. Minny was getting giddy, thinking of ways to force the two together. Maybe Cardinal could help stage something…

Minny kept thinking about all this, making sure to keep her thoughts from her face. A task she herself didn’t think she could accomplish, so she made sure to keep behind her cousin.

Before she knew it, the pair had reached the door to the back rooms. She could feel the animal, but they hadn’t run into it yet. Maybe they had scared the animal away while they were yelling, but Minny was pretty certain that they would have heard something. It had to be in the back, and although she didn’t know it consciously, she was relieved that they wouldn’t be going without the others.

“I guess we only have one more place to look.” Automaton said as he walked up to Kaneko and Minny from one of the empty aisles.

“This is where we corner it guys, hopefully it has just sealed its fate, but we really don’t know what’s going to be in there. Remember what I said before we got in.” Cardinal was back to the dull, almost utilitarian speech that suited her.

“Be prepared, right?” Minny answered with a lingering smirk. “We got this.”

The four stepped in through the wide swinging double doors, walking side by side. Minny got the feeling they’d look pretty cool all together like that. The room they entered was very large. At least 20 feet high, with empty shelves that were meant to hold extra stock for the floor. The room was probably 3 or 4 hundred square feet all together, with the walls on the side of the room being a bit less wide than the back wall. The back wall was a gargantuan vertical gate, meant for receiving trucks and in the right hand corner was a stack of some kind of boxes that were about Minny’s height, although it was too dark to really make out what kind, or if they were full.

The group stepped forward quietly, making sure to spread out to find their target quicker, but it didn’t take long for them to stop completely.

A voice had frozen everyone where they stood. It sounded like a gasoline engine, sputtering and stammering through its speech, as if it didn’t know quite how to talk. “I… I’ve been waiting for someone. I need to conquer! I- must… RULE!”

Automaton was able to turn some light onto where the voice seemed to originate. On top of the boxes in the back corner, was a bipedal creature. It stood at least 7 feet tall with a massive hunch. Although they were dimmer than the bird’s, tufts of blood red feathers grew out of several parts on the creature's body. Although calling it a creature seemed premature. It was human. At least it had been.

It was a violent symphony of human and bird parts, cobbled together to create something new and horrifying. Before anyone had the chance to even process it, the abomination jumped into the air, almost reaching the ceiling, before it dropped right in front of Kaneko and Cardinal. It swiped one of its large talon-ended arms at Cardinal, and a large bronze-golden arm emerged from Automaton’s backpack to pull her out of danger.

“It- It’s human!” Kaneko was able to say before she regained her motor functions and jumped away.

“Has that ever happened before!?” Automaton asked.

“No, of course not!” Minny exclaimed.

Automaton said something to Cardinal that Minny couldn’t quite make out, before they jumped up onto one of the high shelves, out of sight of Minny, and probably the monster too.

The monster was chaotically waving its arms, forcing Kaneko and Minny to keep their distance. It didn’t seem to be targeting either one of them though, it simply attacked whichever happened to be in its line of sight.

After only a few minutes of this back and forth, no progress had been made in actually capturing the monster. Kaneko had tried to throw out strands of tape, but the bird monster would either move out of the way or use its claws to cut off the ends before it was incapacitated. Minny attempted to draw its attention when she was able to bury her instinct to run away.

In her manic state, Minny had nearly forgotten about Automaton and Cardinal until a masculine whisper came from her earpiece. “I have a plan. I need you two to stay away on 3. I’m going to jump out and spray it with the gel stuff. I’m aiming for its arms, so I need Sukeban to trap its legs with her tape gun. Ok, 1, 2, 3!”

Minny didn’t have time to process what she heard, only backing off as he said to. In the next instant, Automaton used his mechanical arms to soar above our duo, spraying precise streams of sticky goo onto the monster's arms. A moment later, Kaneko was wrapping the length of it with her tape.

And then things were still. The monster was struggling to move and it gave everyone time to breathe. Automaton landed gracefully on his robot arms while Minny was finally able to think. She saw Cardinal stand up over by the wall, as she walked straight towards the thing. Minny didn’t know why but her staff was shaking in her hands.

Then, when Minny was only a few feet away, the chimera ripped straight through the tape. The abrupt shock knocked Minny on her butt. And then she heard the other’s reactions.

To Minny’s left, she could hear Kaneko’s ,“Argh!”

“Drat! Okay, what now?” Automaton exclaimed.

Cardinal spoke into her earpiece. “New plan guys! We’re hitting it with all our might.”

“Woah, woah, woah! That’s not a plan!” Automaton protested in vain.

Cardinal was already in the air above the monster. The same dull green flame sprang from her fists as before, but this time they looked much hotter and more focused, like a torch. It reached about a forearm’s length from her, forming a kind of blade that ran from her arm.

As she descended Minny saw Automaton give a small shrug with his head before he too jumped towards the monster with his mechanical arms. Kaneko also charged in, creating some lattice of tape to both shield herself and possibly to encumber the creature in some way.

Minny was stuck to the floor.

It happened quickly. The monster saw Cardinal and leaped up to attack her. Automaton was able to keep it down with two of his arms grabbing it like the start of a suplex, while his third dug into the ground behind him. It was enough to keep the monster in place. Kaneko tackled its legs, sending it spinning horizontally. She was carried up on its legs as Cardinal stabbed it straight in the stomach with both flames. It gurgled a cry in its last moments airborne.

When it fell, it let out a fractured groan and seemed to pass out. It didn’t flail or swing its limbs. Its only movement was the shallow rise and fall of its breath. Cardinal shuffled off of it quickly, making sure to keep up her defense. Kaneko tried to wrap it’s legs as she got off of it, making good use of the unlimited tape from the tape gun. Automaton had to use his back arm to drag himself out from under it, and then immediately attempted to check its vitals with one of his suit’s instruments.

Minny’s butt was still planted in the ground. Something had kept her there, but she needed to get up. Using all of her will, she was able to stand. She had a hard time walking closer, but she steeled her resolve. She needed to do this. And she would.

A gentle rap on the chimera’s forehead from Minny’s staff began its restoration to its original self. Minny collapsed on the floor next to its slowly shrinking but still massive head, as the tension in her hands and legs blew out of her mouth. Its tufts of deep red grew smaller as pale white skin spread over its whole body. Ever slowly, a feminine figure emerged from the terrible withering growth.

A familiar face was uncovered, with bright blonde hair.

“Sylvia?” Kaneko jumped when she realized who it was.

Automaton looked up from his scans, “What. Do you know her?”

“Yeah… I guess you could call her our one and only fan…” Kaneko said carefully.

Minny was too exhausted to add anything to the exchange, instead looking at her bully’s sleeping calm. Minny had been shocked too much today for anything else to bother her. She just couldn’t exert the energy to think about it right now, so she watched Sylvia’s calm face.

Slowly, Sylvia’s eyes opened, like she had just awoken from a peaceful slumber.

〰

“We’ll probably be in the area for a few months, so if you ever need help, just put in the earpiece and ask.”

Automaton and Cardinal Conjury stayed until they were satisfied that they weren’t needed any longer. Automaton in particular asked a plethora of follow-up questions to Sylvia, answered all her questions about where she was and who they were and whether or not she was dreaming or dead. He even brought out some hot cocoa and blankets from the ship so they could all take a breather, sitting out in the cool Autumn night. Sylvia seemed a little overwhelmed and only spoke when it seemed it was necessary.

“Gosh. That really happened! An adventure straight out of a comic book!” Minny thought, shaking with giddiness as she sipped the last of her hot cocoa out of the disposable coffee cup that Cardinal had handed her.

Sitting on the curb behind Minny, Sylvia spoke, still meek from the recent encounter. “Uh, who were those guys?”

Kaneko answered, not taking her eyes off of the superjet’s shrinking exhaust. Her voice was slightly melancholic, “Those were superheroes.” She looked down for a moment before turning back to face both Pastel Princess and Sylvia. “Come on, we’ll walk you home.”

Although that night was scary and nerve racking and exhausting and so many other things that Minny didn’t want to think about, she thought it might be nice to have more like it.