Chapter 15
It was an unspoken rule in "Mon House" that everyone knew how to apply sutures. Apparently, Zombina literally "going to pieces" happened enough times in her career that instead of shelling out for a surgeon every time she busted a ring of stitches, that Mon just decided it'd be cheaper to learn how to do it themselves.
There were of course a few brass tacks to it that made the word "everyone" come with a pair of quotation marks. For one, Manako was immediately disqualified due to her lack of depth perception; even if someone else was on hand to thread the needle for her, her mono-vision wasn't exactly suited for anything more clinical than slapping on a band-aid. Tio, unfortunately, had what Kuroko's old music teacher called "stupid fingers" when it came to a needle and thread, and due to her "plus-sized" body proportions, she wasn't exactly known for surgical dexterity. Zombina herself could apply sutures as long as she had at least one working hand -and someone to thread the needle for her in that circumstance-, but she lacked the flexibility to run the sutures across her back, the underside of her thighs, and the outsides of her arms if she weren't then-currently bisected.
So by the end of things, quote/unquote "everyone" extended only to Doppel who didn't mind the morbidity of stitching a dead body back together, and Kuroko who at the least could run triage in the event of an emergency.
"Only to", at least, until I came into the picture.
Once we'd gotten home, me carrying Zombina's lower half in one-half of a Princess Carry through the lobby surprising absolutely no-one, I got a crash-course in applying sutures since re-attaching her hand was an excellent "starting point" "for a beginner". With the way her [Zombie] Quirk worked, you didn't even have to be all that exacting with her; all you had to do was re-attach the skin, and all the fibrous materials inside from muscles to nerve, as well as bone would all "heal" themselves. Once that was done, the stitches acted as an extra binding, and while she could technically "go without", any significant jostling would have her come apart, literally, "at the seams", all over again.
Something else I learned was that Zombina wasn't limited to her own body parts; she could actually attach other peoples' limbs to her body in place of any she misplaced or were destroyed. The only real caveat was that they had to come from female "donors", were non-Heteromorphic in nature, and they had to be within a certain age and/or size bracket. And it also turned out that while her Quirk was rare, it wasn't "that rare", as there was actually a repository in Japan for the storage of cadaverous body parts for those that needed "after-market replacements".
The irony of course was not lost on me…
As for the suture work itself… back when I was a kid, I used to do a bit of cross-stitching, so I wasn't completely oblivious to how a needle and thread worked. The only major issue came when Zombina moaned lewdly while I worked on her, a response I knew she was phoning in because of the stupid grin on her face when my own actually heated up a little.
My stitch-work wasn't pretty, and I'd probably get sued if I were a doctor applying this to a living person, but surprisingly enough it met up to Kuroko's somewhat-exacting tolerances when it came to putting her teammate back together.
"Hey, has anyone seen my left can?"
I took that as my cue to excuse myself for the rest of the evening…
*AHA*
"Hey… Take-chan," Zombina hummed the following morning.
"Yeah?"
"What're you doing?"
"Just a little tai-chi," I replied, some oriental music playing while I watched a tai-chi routine on my phone.
"Okay let me reiterate. Why are you doing tai-chi?"
"You know how the Chinese look 30 until they're 60? This is why?" I replied, kinda feeling like an Avatar: The Last Airbender LARPer who was really hardcore into playing as a Waterbender. "Course, thenthey suddenly look a hundred, but, cross that bridge, you know?"
"This a Japanese thing?"
"No, Chinese. Japanese have a whooole other thing going on."
Holy shit, did I just pull a Family Guy in real life? Verbatim? In real life?!
God, I wish I'd been able to record this!
. . . Then again, no-one would get the joke unless I spelled it out for them; which in of itself kinda defeated the whole definition of "joke".
*AHA*
Meanwhile, a universe away at The Great Clock…
"HAAAA hahahahahahaha!" Sigmund cackled gleefully, rolling across the floor while Clank could only watch with a confused tilt of his head.
"I don't get it…" Clank hummed idly, which only caused Sigmund to holler louder, falling out of his chair in the process.
*AHA*
"Why're you even on break anyway?" I asked, seeing how Zombina and I were the only ones in the 'Mon House' at the moment.
"It's an insurance thing…" she sighed tiredly. "If I have more than two bodily separations simultaneously as the result of a fight, I'm expected to take a full 24 hours of 'sick leave'," she said making air quotes.
"But how do you get anything done if that's the case?"
"Well, that only really happens if something like a car or a motorcycle hits me. And most Quirk users with that same kind of stopping power tend to really hate getting shot," she said as she cleaned some of her firearms on the coffee table, the TV droning on lazily in the background. "You want I can take you to the gun range. That ninja old guy might've been a bit of a dick, but he wasn't wrong about you being a potential target for anyone the Mon Squad helped put away."
"Would I even be allowed to carry a firearm? I doubt modern gun control allows for something like hold-out pistols for elementary schoolers."
"Well… I mean it couldn't hurt to know how to use one; if you 'just-so-happened' to come across one in a time of crisis. They do this all the time in America."
"America; the home of frat parties, trans fats, and the KKK?" I asked dryly.
As a currently-Japanese person and seeing how little most of America had changed in 200 years, I was starting to see why other countries looked down upon America, despite it being a world power.
Then again there were only two of those since the near-total dissolution of Communist China… And Russia had been able to hold itself together, but only after becoming legitimately Democratic instead of the act it had used to put on for the international community.
"You're making that face again."
"What face?"
"The fact that says you're thinking some heavy shit no 11-year-old should have to think about," Zombina answered. "Come on, take a load off. We've got all day together," she hummed patting her thigh invitingly.
It did look rather soft…
"Your tit isn't going to fall out of your shirt and land on my face, is it?"
And boy was that was a sentence…
"Hey, don't worry about it. This sweater puppy ain't goin' anywhere~"
*AHA*
Zombina's promise of course held true… for about ten minutes. Though amazingly-enough, that actually had been completely accidental, due to shoddy stitch-work on Kuroko's part on another occasion. At first I thought she'd just been drunk at the time since her room was usually littered with beer cans… and Zombina did nothing to dissuade me of the notion.
That of course I would learn later. In the present, there wasn't anything to stop me from completely flipping my shit when one of her E-Cup breasts landed on my cheek like a plus-sized mochi. However, I decided to give her a pass since she had gone to pieces after Gran Torino double-kicked her, and her fingers running through my hair wasrather soothing…
*Tap*Tap*Tap*Tap-Tap-Tap*Tap-Tap*
"Oh? Looks like you've got another visitor."
Opening my eyes and looking up from my place on Zombina's plush thigh, pacing nervously on the aft balcony was a familiar blue-haired Heteromorph, her feet padding back-and-forth confusingly and tapping on the glass, which was just opaque-enough on the outside for the chicken-brain to not think it an open doorway.
"Tell her I'm not here."
The suggestion, and Papi probably, were just "stupid-enough" for that ploy to work.
"He's not here!" Zombina called out. "This is never going to work."
"Oh, okay, I'll come back later!" Papi said hopping onto the railing before spreading her wings and taking flight.
" . . . I literally cannot believe that just worked," she said after a moment.
"I can," I shrugged
"Heeeeyyy wait a minute…!" Papi said after landing back on our balcony. "I can see you in there!"
"This is not the apartment you're looking for," I said with a wave of my hand.
"This is not the apartment I'm looking for…" Papi replied dumbly.
If the police chief's kid wasn't a complete chicken-brain, I might've legitimately entertained the notion I'd just done a Jedi Mind Trick.
" . . . Did you just Jedi Mind Trick her?" Zombina asked incredulously, blue feathers falling onto the balcony.
"No. And that's what makes it even funnier~"
"Heeeeyyy wait another minute…!" Papi said after making a return trip.
"Bee-doo-beep. We're sorry. The number you are attempting to call cannot be completed as-dialed. Please hang up and try again."
"Wow. Comedy's Rule of Three much?" Zombina asked as Papi began to pace the balcony, looking for aforementioned 'phone' to 'hang up and try again'. " . . . I guess it's funny when it's played up for laughs, but when it isn't… it's kind of sad, honestly."
" . . . "
Was it wrong of me as a formerly-retarded person to take advantage of the failings of the brain of another retarded person?
" . . . "
Yeah, probably.
"Fine, let me get some shoes on," I sighed sitting up. "Hey Papi, sorry I couldn't get to the phone when I got your call. Meet me at the front steps in a few minutes, and I'll see you there," I narrated retroactively.
"Where did I put that phone…" Papi hummed confusedly as she looked around, a flip phone nestled in her back pocket.
*snrk*
" . . . Not. One. Word," I growl as Zombina put a hand to her mouth.
*AHA*
To my surprise, Papi actually was waiting for Zombina and I out front. That she hadn't completely forgotten about us in the interim, even though she'd been pacing by the time we'd gotten there, was proof she had some form of long-term memroy.
Though that did of course raise the question as to how she knew where I lived…
"Hey there…" I greeted slowly, wondering how mind-numbing this little outing would be.
"Onii-chan!" the bluette greeted excitedly wrapping me up in a feathery hug.
"Awwwwww~" Zombina cooed as Papi affectionately rubbed our cheeks together, taking a picture with her phone for posterity.
" . . . It's nice to see you too," I replied, returning the gesture since I recalled some experience being an older brother before I'd died.
Yet another thing that sucked about reincarnating -in my more-exacting case- was not being sure if I was actually a "good" older brother or not…
"Wanna go to the playground?" Papi asked excitedly.
"Sure. Why not," I shrugged.
*AHA*
Not so much the same park that Papi abducted me to before, where we wound up was more like a playground for small children. Swing set, jungle gym, slide, sandbox, the works. Kinda idyllic for a rural setting, actually. I think I was able to see the nearby school building in the distance, but I only assumed that was what it was since schools in anime tended to be the same general shape, color, and size…
"Wheeeeeeee!" Papi squealed as she ran toward the swing set.
"You're a good brother," Zombina smiled ruffling my hair.
"Yeah, tell me that in an hour if I haven't had a conniption yet," I hummed as I went over to the harpy's back and pushed.
While in the back of my mind I was worried about her feathers getting caught in the chain, something else I ruminated on was that the longer I 'lived' in this body, the less awkward it was for me to "act my age"; or in this case, the previous tenant's age. Maybe like with any sort of debilitating injury, there was an adjustment period to be had. And I didn't feel like I was "losing myself" or my original memories which I still had, if I'd even notice the evaporation of the latter, but maybe I'd sorted through the Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression stages of Grief without even realizing it, and now I was settling into Acceptance?
Maybe this was something all Isekai genre protagonists go through and it's simply a matter of the media it's in that stops those aspects of the narrative from being properly conveyed?
Thoughts for another day.
Thanks to Papi's short attention span, every bout on the playground equipment to her seemed like the first time, and honestly, there was something relaxing about being a spectator to another's child-like sense of wonder. Given her lack of fingers she couldn't actually do anything in the sandbox other than getting granules and shit stuck in her feathers, but other than that it was a relaxing, if not uneventful day out.
*AHA*
A while later…
"I'm gonna go around the corner and get drinks. You want anything?"
"Melon soda~!" Papi squealed happily.
"Any soda that isn't grape-flavored."
"One melon and one 'not-grape'. Got it," the zombie nodded with a grin, walking off leaving Papi and I to our own devices.
"Ooh look! A quarter!" the happy harpy said bending over.
"Who drops American quarters in Japan?"
*RIIIIIP!*
"Oh no! My pants!" Papi squealed, shooting up and covering her allegedly-exposed derriere with her wings.
"Um… Papi… That wasn't your pants," I hummed, blinking my eyes as I tried to process what had just manifested in our midst. One second there was nothing there, the next, it had appeared in all the time it took to blink.
At roughly the center of the playground, so completely abnormal and inherently "wrong" it was making my neck-hairs do corkscrews, was some kind of… fracture in space-time. Resembling a stilled shot of shattered glass, the shards hovered around some kind of… rift the size of a large door filled with fluorescent energy, humming in a tune that was just barely past the edge of human perceptibility. Colored a bright neon purple and possessing a sort of depth to it that escaped the bounds of three-dimensional physics, in my mind I immediately akinned it to other such gateways like I remember from Familiar of Zero, Bioshock Infinite, or Rick & Mordy.
Initially I was wary, pulling Papi away and positioning her behind me, my heart pounding in my chest as my brain debated whether I should flee or gird my loins for battle. Of course, as soon as I remembered that this world was basically X-Men on crack, my pulse slowed a tad.
"Alright… Who here's fucking around with their space-time Quirk?" I asked aloud, breaking the silence that had dominated the playground.
No verbal answer was immediately forthcoming. Instead of that, my eyebrows rose as a regulation-sized black-and-white soccer ball –or as the Japanese call it, a "football"— fell out of the breach and rolled to a stop a meter or so from the somewhat-ominous-looking gateway. A chill going through me a moment later as the "glass shards" snapped back into their original places and the rift closed, the humming veins of energy receded until all that was left to show for it was a completely ordinary space, and a discarded playground toy.
"Well…" I gasped, not only realizing I'd been holding my breath, but that Papi was nervously clutching the back of my jacket. "That was… something…"
"Onii-chan…" Papi whimpered, her little blue thumbs clutching tighter. "I'm scared…"
"Don't worry, Papi," I said soothingly, reaching back to ruffle her hair. "It's probably just some kid somewhere messing around with their Quirk, nothing to be scared of."
"You mean it…?" Papi blinked, still trembling but looking hopeful.
"Yeah, I do," I replied as one of the more-energetic of the nearby children ran forward. Before the child could kick it however, triangular eyes glowing like firelight suddenly opened, followed by a fanged mouth like a beartrap.
The thing scarfing up the kid's leg up to the hip like a breadstick with a sickening *SNAP*CRACKLE*POP*, Papi and I could only stare in horror as the kid's body was folded in half, the thing continuing to devour its prey spattering blood and viscera in every direction. A body several times its own size vanishing in moments without a trace, nothing was left behind but an artistic blood spatter across the ground and a discarded child's sneaker, the thing licking its face with an off-purple prehensile tongue longer than its body.
"That is messed… UP!" I recoiled in horror, Papi's legs giving out from underneath her.
And that's when the screaming started.
I don't rightly recall who screamed first, or how many seconds it took for these people's illusion of a world completely at peace to shatter completely and utterly; but when it did, it shattered hard. The playground erupting into a cacophony of screaming, some ran, some hurled, and some did a combination of all three in no particular order while others completely locked up, frozen in fear.
The nearest "deer in the headlights" went first; in fact it was the mother of the very same victim who moments before had been ready to eagerly play some "football" after a dab of weirdness trickled into his life. So-traumatized by her child's death, blood spattering her face, she didn't even fight back as the thing lunged at her, devouring her headfirst like some sort of creepypasta Pac Man. The sounds of bones crunching and muscle tearing, was a sound I'd never forget, along with the sight of a whole person being devoured…
Its second meal sufficiently devoured, it took a mere moment to lick some of the fresh blood from its face before bounding across the field like the thing whose shape it was imitating, lunging toward those that froze in place. Its third victim had their arm eaten up to the elbow, and that's when panicked civies started throwing their Quirks around, projectiles of every shape, size, element, and material flying every which way. A few of them grazed the Soccer Ball from Hell, some even battered it away from its prey, but most flew wide from inexperienced arms and struck other humans instead, whereas the thing simply found new morsels to take bear trap-sized bites out of.
My brain doing a soft reboot as I attempted to process what I was seeing, when I noticed a peculiar odor, I looked down to see if I had soiled myself. Seeing that my pants were dry, I realized the scent came from the harpy collapsed behind me, the color completely drained from her face, tears trickling down her face while the ground below her moistened. And that's when I felt it…
My eyes panning forward, those firelight-colored eyes fell on Papi as the thing stilled, looking through me and toward its next meal. Prehensile tongue lapping up at blood smeared upon its "football-like" hide, the next moment it lunged.
At that moment I was scared. Terrified. Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought in fact! And yet…! Compared to the little old man who kicked my ass the other day, this thing, whatever it was, may as well have been lunging toward us in slow motion…!
"It's time to let out… a WILD ROAR!"
Okay maybe not the best "final words" to say as I chose which hill to die on, but certainly not the worst…!
The edges of my vision tinting blue as everything slowed down, with my [Tactical Time Dilation] at full bore, I received plenty of forewarning when the thing was mid-leap, and where I'd have to be to intercept since it couldn't change direction in mid-air.
"HRAAAAAH!" I roared as time resumed, my adrenaline-fueled thumbs hooking the corners of its mouth and holding it at bay, the thing's attention soon turning solely onto me for the interruption. "What the… What are you?!" I demanded, more for my own benefit as the thing snapped at me, the adrenaline coursing through my veins the only thing stopping me from painting the harpy cowering behind me a very disgusting color.
"Oi! Handball! That's a foul, ya wanker!"
Ignoring the fact this thing could talk and had a British accent for some reason…
"HEY!" I growled as the thing's tongue whipped across my face leaving a trail of saliva. "No tongue until the third date!"
Rearing back an arm and striking it in the "face" with an adrenaline-fueled punch, in my terror-addled state I actually found it feasible to reach into its gullet and haul out its tongue at-length. Wrapping the thing up with it, constricting it into the shape of an American football, I then threw that sonovabitch into the middle distance as hard as I could.
*KABOOOOOOOM!*
" . . . Why the hell did it just explode?" I blinked as a plume of fire and smoke erupted from the park's edge.
"What… What was that thing…?" Papi said blinking tears in her eyes, her expression incredibly sober as the original blood spatter held her undivided attention, a single discarded shoe all that remained to tell it had come from a person.
"I… I don't know…" I panted, collapsing as the surge of adrenaline died out.
Those who hadn't already left still too shocked to move, moments later police sirens sounded. Police cruisers stopping nose to nose at all the entrances, hemmed us all in, though none of them seemed interested on doing anything else.
My ears burning as a familiar sound like turbines echoed through the hushed air a few minutes later, turning my eyes upward, I beheld a trio of large hovercraft like from Sternbild approaching. Two were sized like SWAT trucks and the third the size of a tour bus, all of them blocky like APCs and sporting all-yellow paintjobs with the letters R.D.A. plastered on the sides.
"Oh, what now?" I asked as the sides of the SWAT truck-like hovercraft opened, humans both in standard and Heteromorphic shapes alike rappelling to the ground. Clad in all-yellow form-fitting rubber hazmat suits with black visors and retro-futuristic equipment in tow, I was definitely getting some Monsters, Inc. vibes off of them.
Some of the hazmat-clad figures began approaching the children and adults still in the park, assessing for injuries or running triage on those who'd only had bites taken out of them. Others went over to the smoking crater I'd thrown the British-speaking football into, containing its remains into some sort of pre-fab cage. Two other pairings crossed strips of police tape across the playground entrances with a practiced ease, and that no-one seemed overly alarmed by their presence had me thinking they were a common fixture in this world; even if their hovercraft, the first I'd ever seen outside the old Hero TV Live recordings, were not.
"Takehiko Tokei," my name was called out from the tour bus-sized hovercraft, a number of yellow-clad figures loaded down with equipment approaching me. "Please remain motionless. Prepare for decontamination."
"Aw crud," I muttered as they dropped a large metal ring over my head and onto the ground with a heavy *THUMP*
A shower curtain an offensive shade of yellow shooting up around me and practically blinding me a moment later, the next moment my clothing was ripped away, the saliva on my face was slurped up with a vacuum cleaner, and I was assailed by deluges of soap and hot water, scrubbing brushes assaulting me from all sides with ruthless, yet surgical precision. When the assault on my person had ended and an offensively-yellow poncho was thrown over my head, my soggy, unhappy self was revealed for all to see.
"Takehiko Tokei, remain where you are. Everything is going to be okay," one of the nearby suit-clad figures told me reassuringly.
"Can… Can I get clean too…?" Papi asked pitiably from off to the side, her shorts visibly soaked from terror.
The yellow-clad figures turning toward one another, seeming to deliberate something on their own private channel, a few seconds later Papi was ushed into the ring alongside me and the curtain rose up again. The tearing-away of Papi's clothing prompting me to slap my wet hands over my face, from right beside me she cried, sqeualed, and/or giggled as water, soap, and brushes assailed her petite frame as well.
*AHA*
What happened next reminded me of that episode of psychwhere there was the biological weapons scare at the coffee shop.
Everyone on the playground who hadn't already bled out from the bites taken out of them were similarly cycled through decontamination, albeit, less abrasive and intrusive onto their respective persons. Yellow-clad figures with scanners combing every inch of the park for what I assumed to be pathogens, any rubberneckers who tried to get too close with their camera phones were actually shot; albeit, with rubber bullets.
Whatever the hell had just transpired here apparently warranted such an exacerbated response, the men and women in the yellow suits exerting legitimate pressure on the civilian populous, whereas most Hero v Villain fights on the news were treated like spectator sports. Those at the edge of the police barricade, Zombina too, looked legitimately scared, but unable to tear their eyes away from the carnage, like from the aftermath of a train crash or some other natural disaster.
While the civilians caught inside the park were allowed to leave, or were taken away on stretchers, I'll assume since I had come into extended physical contact with the "cryptid" or whatever people were going to call it, that Papi and I were receiving special treatment, the two of us ushered into the rear-most compartment of the tour bus-sized hovercraft.
At first, I assumed the whole thing was just the result of some Villain with an access to BOWs and a sick sense of humor. Now however… I wasn't so sure…
*AHA*
A half-hour into my incarceration later…
"Hey there, kiddo. How're you holding up?" Kuroko asked with an intercom on the opposite side of the glass partition separating us, Papi and I segregated to some kind of self-contained containment cell, the two of us clad in yellow coveralls after we'd dried off and been allowed to change.
"Oh, you know, just… processing…" I said as I rocked Papi back and forth in my arms. She wasn't bawling or anything, but what had happened had clearly shaken her, because ever since that little dust-up, she hadn't said anything stupid even once. And it reminded me that even though she had ADHD out the wazoo, she was no-different than any other child who'd seen something completely traumatizing.
If I hadn't already been completely traumatized by that one mad scientist trying to strip me for parts, I'd probably have checked out too…
"Takehiko… Takei…" she amended, trying to put me at ease. "Do you… Do you remember who these people are… or did your brush with that Villain at the orphanage make you forget this too?"
"No, can't say I do…"
"Kid… You're gonna wanna sit down for this…"
Chapter 16
Since the only sort of furniture to be had in mine and Papi's containment cell were a futuristic-looking toilet and a padded bunk, there wasn't much to do but sit as Kuroko "refreshed my memory" as to who these R.D.A. guys were.
It would've been more appropriate for her to tell me to hold onto my head, because what she told me next just… blew my mind, completely upending me of the notion that there was nothing new for this world of Heroes, Villains, quote/unquote "Heroes", and quote/unquote "Villains" to throw at me.
Boy was I mistaken…
In this world, not only were the Meta Abilities colloquially known as "Quirks" an everyday part of life. Something else that ran rampant, albeit to a lesser extent and had been around for so-long that people took them completely for granted, were the existence of trans-dimensional "Tears", "Portals", "Gates", "Rifts", and countless other colloquialisms for aforementioned-manifestations in space-time that would manifest spontaneously.
Initially manifesting a little under two-hundred years ago and initially mistaken as the exertions of Meta Ability users gone rampant, it was soon revealed that these "Rifts", my preferred title, were in fact natural fissures between our three-dimensional space and others. For the most-part self-contained, these "Rifts" would lead into either Pocket Dimensions –spaces with defined limits in three-dimensional space- or Other Dimensions –entire other worlds— whose laws of physics were either identical to, or radically different from those of our own world.
Some Rifts, like the one I encountered today, had extremely short half-lives; just long-enough for something to "come through", but too-short for any sort of fact-finding mission therein to occur. Others were calculated to have extremely long half-lives, long-enough that trans-dimensional explorers, colloquially known as "Adventurers", "Treasure Hunters", or other less-flattering titles like "World Thieves" and so-on, could mount full-on "expedition parties" like something out of Star Gate; assuming at least, that they didn't breathe in a poisonous atmosphere and/or die from a lack thereof. Some Rifts in fact were so-rich in raw materials, that whatever countries were able to properly make use of them in the time allowed, were able to remain competitive on a global scale; even when they couldn't produce Heroes anywhere near All Might's own caliber.
On the inverse side of things… certain Rifts, due to where they led and/or what lived on the other side, were so-dangerous that the rare individuals in the world whose space-time Quirks could tangibly interact with the Rifts, were brought in to close them as soon as any significantly-dangerous breach was discovered; that or extend the time for which they remained open. Because of that aforementioned rarity, these "Gatekeepers" as they were colloquially known, were not only national assets to their respective countries of origin, but were also able to charge exorbitant fees for their expertise when operating abroad.
In the past, the United Nations had attempted to standardize overhead for services rendered of "Gatekeepers". However, the repeated outbreak of "Mavericks" among their membership, a term officially coined after Albert Maverick -the President and CEO of Apollon Media in America- was revealed to have been using his Quirk [Memory Implantation] to rule Sternbild City and its criminal underworld from behind the scenes for decades by manipulating its Heroes and Villains both… Simply put, because of repeated scandals of a similar nature by authority figures in high standing, the institution's power had continued to wane over the centuries, whereas organizations like Japan's HPSC were able to amass political power with little oversight.
It was also for this exact reason that Quirks which could alter a person's state of mind were so-massively stigmatized in current polite society even when they could be directed toward life-saving applications; but that was a story for another day.
And of course, like in any half-decent science fiction movie where a little-understood scientific phenomena could threaten human existence and/or turn up a massive profit, a new triskelion of globe-spanning organizations came into being from amidst the chaos.
*AHA*
"The organization that you and Papi are currently in the custody of is the R.D.A., the 'Rift Detection Agency'. Like their name bluntly implies, they use ongoing advancements in Rift-detection technology to detect, sometimes predict, where if not when a new breach in space-time will occur,"Kuroko continued to explain.
"So wait, is 'Rift' the official term for space-time breaches, or just the most-popular?" I inquired.
"A little of both? Honestly, as these things tend to go, no-one can really agree on which 'one thing' is correct; like religion, or politics," Kuroko hummed. "Anyway, when a short-lived Rift is on the verge of manifesting, with our current technology, they only have enough forewarning for what direction the RDA has to mobilize in to mitigate most of the collateral damage in the event something dangerous comes out. On the inverse, the longer-lived, more 'stable' Rifts, are able to be detected well in advance so that way proper containment measures can be prepared beforehand."
"Leading back to the whole… dungeon-crawling thing…" I say aloud, since a number of Isekai-type manga -usually manhwa- I'd read before followed this formula, some variations being science-based, others on magic in the case of 'Reverse Isekai'. The aspects that focus on the Capitalism of the whole thing always fascinated me, same as with the 'Corporate Era' of heroism shown in Tiger & Bunny.
"If you want to put it in broad strokes…" Kuroko admitted. "In the cases of the long-lived Rifts, usually the 'Adventurers' that go in there are Hero hopefuls who couldn't 'make the cut', or Hero Course washouts who don't want to change course and get regular day jobs in an office somewhere. Since the objective is usually to loot anything and everything not 'bolted down', the vetting process for trans-dimensional explorers is less-stringent than what is required to become a Hero."
Somehow, I imagine that's a rather low bar to set, though I won't say so aloud. What I instead decide to ask is-
"And… do people ever wander into the short-lived Rifts like the one from today?"
I only asked this question half-seriously because I knew for a fact that people did stupid, self-destructive, sometimes suicidal nonsense, well before space-time rends in space-time began to open up offering a coin toss between great riches and a lifetime of luxury, or a slow painful death far from home.
"In those cases, as we learned more about the Rifts, a new form of wanderlust colloquially known as 'Isekaitis' began to spread through the populous. It has a more 'scientific' designation, but 'Isekaitis' is what stuck the most," she answered with a sigh. "In some cases, people would throw themselves into the short-lived, usually 'one-way' Rifts, for the chance of getting to live in 'another world'; basically individuals with Chuunibyou tendencies who think their niche talent and/or obsession would allow them to 'slay the Demon King'. Some that try this are clinically-depressed individuals, usually the Quirkless, who believe any kind of life on the other side of a Rift, no matter how short-lived, is a preferable alternative to the stigmatized life they'll find here. Others do so in desperation to escape a criminal past, or an attempt at suicide in the case of crippling debt."
That she said 'usually the Quirkless', means that those with Quirks do so too, and I can imagine many kinds of Quirks that would be stigmatized just-as-bad-as if not worse than having no Quirk at all.
Which, in of itself, was also completely hypocritical…
"Because no-one really knows what's on the other side of a Rift until an exploratory party is sent. In the case of their short-lived cousins, its usually a tossup between 'some form of earthly paradise' no-one wants to come back from, or… any number of infinite possibilities."
"So basically, a superposition of both states until you go in and collapse the Wave Function."
Though there wasn't any steam coming out of her ears, I could just tell that Kuroko was as-confused by that statement as Papi; who really did have steam coming out of her ears.
That, or it was just a stress-induced hallucination my brain was cooking up for laughs.
"Um… Run that by me again…?" Kuroko said half-statement, half-question.
"Did I ever tell you the one about the box with the cat, poison, and a cesium atom?" I asked rhetorically.
*AHA*
Kuroko decided to shelve the cat-thing for later, since one of the RDA staff was telling her to wrap things up. Apparently, they were nearing completion of their operations in the area and their main vessel would be lifting off soon.
The next item on the refresher course was the S.T.M.O., the "Space-Time Management Organization". Sister company to the RDA, the STMO comprised of the infrastructure which manages the "imports" from other universes/pocket dimensions.
As more and more Quirks began to manifest, some of which could either create or alter matter on a permanent basis, the fiscal value of certain materials began to fluctuate, sometimes wildly. And while Creation-Class Quirks such as these were a rarity, one such person getting their hands on a Quirk-enhancing neo-steroid, or pairing up with someone with a Copy-Type ability, could play hell on the global economy. By the same metric, "Rare Matter", which originated from Rifts specifically and could be just about anything from Periodic to "Extraterrestrial" elements, could also radically impact the value of goods in the "real world". If too much gold got pulled from a Rift, it was the STMO's responsibility to report that influx of gold, which over the centuries has resulted in a slight decrease of gold's fiscal value overall.
Not enough to completely devalue it as the backing for promissory notes the world over, but definitely enough that over the centuries, this decrease was noticeable on a flow chart.
And as Kuroko had said before, Hero hopefuls and Hero Course drop-outs were often recruited by the STMO and held on retainer for certain trans-dimensional expeditionary forces. At times, combatting "native lifeforms" was more inevitability than possibility on the other side of a Rift, so those whose Quirks had a higher level of "lethality" and were "unable to become" proper Heroes, would often become "Adventurers" instead. While the money was good, there was obviously the inherent occupational hazard of leaping through throbbing sphincters of space-time; sometimes the scouts could "drop the ball" and misleading intelligence would get an entire expeditionary force "Party wiped"; at others, if a Rift closed ahead-of-schedule, anyone trapped within would "never be heard from again".
Which of course brought up another quote/unquote "hypothetical" use of the STMO's resources; the disposal of hazardous materials. Since it was theoretically impossible to find a Rift leading to the same place twice, it was generally accepted that if large sums of radioactive waste were to "disappear" into one of the Rifts before it closed…
This tangent kinda reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Lisa had a "pet" Black Hole and everyone would toss their garbage into it.
The third sister in the "triskelion" of organizations that came about following the repeated manifestation of space-time anomalies was the T.S.A.R.O., the "Time-Space Analysis and Repair Organization".
While the RDA kept track of when and where Rifts would appear as well as acting as first-responders for anything spontaneous, and the STMO used the Rifts to generate income as well as managing who was actually allowed to explore them and contain anything that tried to get out, the TSARO were the researchers and scientists.
Put in charge of actually studying the Rifts, how they appeared, why they manifested, how they functioned, asking the questions that needed asking as well as creating the technologies which allowed for their detection, measurement, and possible manipulation of the Rifts… Without them, none of the Rift-detecting technologies would ever have been made. This meant the RDA would be deaf, blind and dumb, which of course means the STMO would have no means to bring in capital, which in turn would leave the RDA without a substantial source of its overhead funding.
The three organizations, similar to the Separation of Powers in the United States, kept one another in line through a series of checks and balances; quite similar in fact to how the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches operated. That, or, like the game of Janken, known as "Rock Paper Scissors" in the west, no oneorganization could surmount the others in terms of influence, a symbiosis where they "rotated" resources between one another. Though initially they were NGOs separated from the UN due to incompetencies in management which continued to this very day, they have since evolved into world powers. Though not quite to the point that they could outright rival the power of more-powerful countries with strong Heroes, like the "Mega Corporations" in dystopian futures.
The RDA's central headquarters was in Japan, which was both fitting and ironic since Japan was the birthplace of the Isekai sub-genre and allegedly had it "the worst". The STMO central headquarters was located in America, due to having the largest, most-diverse pool of potential Quirks to draw upon for their "Adventurers" as well as the strongest military in the present world to help "contain" anything that managed to pass through the Rifts on their end. The TSARO, descended of CERN and originally located in Geneva, had long since been relocated to I-Island, an artificial island I immediately compared to the "Traction Cities" of the Mortal Engines series after learning about it.
"So, did that many any sense?" Kuroko asked before chugging some water from all the talking she'd done.
"No, not a bit," I replied, Papi having fallen completely asleep after steam wafted off her head for five minutes.
"Well, if you need any clarification, just call someone with the intercom. It's time for me to go," she said rising to her feet as one of the RDA staff arrived to escort her out.
"WAIT!" I called out stopping them short, and also waking Papi from her slumber. "How long will they keep us in here?"
I did not like the idea of being caged like a lab rat again.
Also, gerbils would require way too much paperwork…
"The RDA already ran the numbers on the saliva sample they slurped off your face."
"Please don't say 'slurped'," the RDA scientist whimpered.
"There weren't any non-terrestrial elements in there, so right now they speculate whatever that thing was, it used a form of mimicry to assume the color of a soccer ball, instead of being an actual sentient soccer ball. That there were no outright foreign pathogens we don't already have here, has them thinking it came from a Parallel Earth instead of a completely Alternate one."
"Okay… But that doesn't answer how long they'll keep us in here…!"
"Er, well…" Kuroko said as the scientist tugged at her jacket insistently. "Usually they want to observe people for a full 24 hours after any significant exposure to a trans-dimensional entity, in the event something mutates after crossing the species barrier. Your exposure was the longest and most-direct, so you'll be going to the nearest RDA forward operating base, while the others will be given triage at the nearby hospital."
"And then we'll be allowed to leave? They won't strip me for parts or anything?"
By the way her lip twitched, clearly she got the message.
"Don't worry, Zombina got some great footage of them abducting you, so if you go 'missing' after 24 hours, that byte's going straight to social media," she said reassuringly. "Don't worry, this isn't the first time they've had to keep children overnight. Once they're back at base, there'll be video games and lots of yummy food waiting for you," she said putting down two cans of soda on the nearby counter.
In all the havoc, I'd completely forgotten about those…
"Well…" I hum as I look towards Papi, the little harpy girl tucking her legs up to her chest and hiding her face. "I guess there are worse people I could be rooming with."
"Good to hear. I'll let Papi's dad know she's in good hands, and we'll see you in about a day," Kuroko said waving me off.
"Yeah, see you soon," I replied, hoping that was really the case and I wouldn't just up and vanish into Japan's equivalent of Area 51…
*End OST*
When the hovercraft Papi and I were on lifted off, it was about as jarring as one would expect from something that moved like a VTOL and was the size of a tour bus. When it began to move however, it was smooth like what I imagine travelling on a rigid airship would be like. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional rattle of the soda cans on the nearby desk, I wouldn't think we were moving at all.
Given the containment unit we were in was lacking in any amenities, the most I could do was lay the distraught Heteromorph's head on my lap, stroking her hair as-soothingly as I was able while I was lost in my own thoughts.
With all that I'd been told, it suddenly made a lot of sense for extraterrestrial endeavors to have stagnated almost completely over the last 200 years.
Not only did exploring these "Rifts" offer a wealth of possibilities and resources at a fraction of the cost of conventional space travel, like with that Kree Monolith in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but on the short end of the stick, with all the random shit that could come rolling out of those Rifts that needed to be secured, contained, and an indolent populace to protect, in addition to all the Villains that cropped up like they were being rolled off of an assembly line every five minutes… This world simply had too much going on to worry about anything outside our own atmosphere; let alone whatever was around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own at 4.246 light years.
I mean… if the "Football from Hell" was one of the minor incursions from beyond the Rifts, just what the hell happened when something bigger than a breadbox appeared?
What practically damned the version of Earth where Pacific Rim took place, was they had no means of closing "The Breach" all the "Kaiju" were coming out of until the last possible moment; and even then it hadn't been a permanent fix. So, if some living weapon or bioroid or whatever of any comparable size were to come wriggling into our reality from some far-off place and time, well… Even an alleged demi-god like All Might would be forced onto the back foot.
The only thing giving me any hope that this world wouldn't immediately resort to nukes if something like that happened, was that the laser rifles wielded by Maverick's H-Series combat androids in Sternbild could easily be "Miniature Death Star"-comparable if they were up-scaled enough times.
On the inverse however, given how self-centered and dickhole-ish people were to one another on the regular, from the highest levels of government all the way to the working stiffs, I sincerely doubted that any "common enemy" would rally the present mankind together. Metas might not've been in the minority anymore, but the one thing that remained the same was that people by and large were still major dickholes to one another…
On another note, while I very briefly entertained the notion of possibly going home again, I quickly cast that notion aside. Not only were the number of Earths in "Infinite Earths", well, infinite… but even if by some miracle I did manage to make it back to my original world, what the hell would I actually say to my friends and family? Assuming time-dilation or something didn't time-warp me decades if not whole centuries into the future, I'd sound like a crazy person if I tried to assert I was who I "thought" I was.
Because god forbid I "reincarnated" like in World Customize Creator where only a copy carried over and not the "Real McCoy"…
All things considered, now that I was "living the dream", I guess it made sense why so many Isekai protagonists up and "gave up hope" on ever getting home again. If one "alternate world" exists, then by the same metric, infinite"alternate worlds" would also exist…
"This world just keeps getting weirder and weirder…"
*AHA*
There weren't any windows in this cell, so I had no real means of telling how-far we had traveled or in what direction. All I really had to go on telling me we were about to land, was the stomach-rising sensation pressing against my diaphragm, and the flight attendant-style announcement that we were landing.
I had expected that the next step would be to be escorted into a holding cell by more men in yellow haz-mat suits. What I did not expect, was for our entire holding cell to be removed from the back of the hovercraft like a Lego block, lowered onto a rail system, and shot off into the heart of whatever facility we were in before docking with an even larger holding cell.
Resembling a one-bedroom apartment with either opaque or one-way walls, Papi and I were let out into a small foyer connected to a spacious living room with lots of seating and an entertainment system, a kitchenette and dining room off to the side, a bathroom in the other direction, as well as a bedroom with a large bed. The place smelled a bit of antiseptic, but at least if Papi and I were going to be imprisoned, it would be in some modicum of comfort. Everything may've been a bleached-white once upon a time, but clearly the room had been retrofitted over and over again, until something indistinguishable from affordable housing came to be. Apart from the security cameras and video intercoms scattered about as well as the other airlocks, the place looked perfectly alright to spend a day or two in.
"So…" I hummed as Papi and I took everything in. "What do you wanna do first?"
"Do you think they have spare panties in here? It's kinda drafty in here," the harpy-like Heteromorph said flaring out her poncho.
"God, I hope they have clothes waiting for us," I hum, feeling a similar draft myself…
*AHA*
Thankfully, the walk-in closet and bureau did have changes of clothes for us to wear. The wardrobe wasn't very inspired, just barely a step up from hospital scrubs, but it was perfectly adequate for loungewear, which all things considered was all we'd really need while we were here.
While I wasn't exactly jazzed about being in quarantine again, my mind harkening back to the long self-imposed exile America's citizens had to endure in my original world following what I still believe was the result of a hilariously-botched Biological Weapons Attack from Communist China, I at the least understood the necessity of it.
Which reminds me, did this world also have a COVID epidemic in the 2020s?
Question for another time… Just like the question of why China was no longer a world power.
My money was on a Communist-funded "Super-Functionary" institution backfiring horribly and/or hilariously.
"Well, we don't have to worry about drafts anymore," I said after helping Papi get her wings in through the non-sleeves of her tank top. "What do you wanna do now?"
"Games!"
"Yeah that's fair," I said, since there weren't exactly any books in here…
*AHA*
It went without saying that major companies like Nintendo, Playstation, and Microsoft as well as countless Indie companies didn't stop churning out games even after real-life superpowers started to appear. While VRMMOs were a major part of the world's video entertainment industry, it didn't mean that video game console technology had been completely outmoded. I guess like me, who preferred having manga in paperback in my hands to read instead of going all-digital, that there was still a demand for physical consoles, discs, and controllers.
The technology for gaming consoles hadn't really changed all that much from the early 21st century beyond things like image fidelity, how much could be stored on a disc, cross-compatibility for multiplayer, and so-on. Or at least that's the only explanation I could come up with for why the current analogues for Nintendo, Playstation, and Microsoft's flagship consoles were hardly distinguishable from what I had played before reincarnating.
Thankfully, the entertainment system the RDA were providing us with came with motion controllers, otherwise Papi would never have been able to play with only her weird little bird-thumbs. When it came to what games we had at our disposal, they were all digital, and Papi immediately navigated us towards a game called Mario Kart: Double Century, which I would later learn commemorated the start of the 23rd century. Seeing a familiar title waiting for me "two-hundred years later", it only reinforced how completely and utterly dwarfed I felt to basically "time travel" into the future.
A part of me was idly curious what other franchises withstood the test of time… while the other more rational part told me I might not enjoy learning what franchises had not endured this long...
"Hey, you gonna play?" Papi blinked at me with her wide, innocent eyes.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" I chuckled, the little harpy's good mood infectious.
*AHA*
Miraculously, Papi's short attention span did not extent to video games, and as a matter of fact, the two of us spent who knows how-long playing countless tournaments, races, and mini-games in Mario Kart: Double Century. The two of us likely would've played well into the night if it hadn't been for one of our minders calling us over the intercom to remind us that it was lunchtime.
"Geez, where does the time go?" I wondered as I made my way to the kitchenette. There was a fridge, a sink, and a cabinet, but strangely enough, very few foodstuffs in there and the empty fridge. "Okay I'm just going to come out and say this. What the actual hell is wrong with this picture?" I said into the nearby camera.
A few seconds later I got an answer.
"Sorry about that, but it's more cost-effective not to stock the pantry of the… er… holding cell?" our minder hummed. "A-Anyway, the times we actually use this area is irregular, so there's a console off to the side where you can order food, and our staff will have it sent in through the airlock."
"If that's the case, why is there a kitchen at all?"
"Um, well, the two of you are under-aged, and we don't want anyone hurting themselves with knives or anything like that. Also, even though the kitchen is mostly kept empty, its presence does a great deal at putting those in quarantine 'at ease'. We only really stock it when we know in advance that someone will be put in quarantine long-term."
" . . . Okay fine, that makes sense, I guess," I sigh. "Papi! Kitchen's empty, so we're ordering takeout! What do you want?"
"Fried chicken!"
Well. I guess that answers whether or not Heteromorphs view eating animals similar to their meta-traits as "cannibalism" or not.
Although… the only alternative, is considerably less-flattering…
*AHA*
While we ate, I chose to ignore the fact that Papi had the dexterity to handle fried chicken, but not an ice cream cone. And since we couldn't exactly play games while we ate, I channel-surfed for the both of us instead amidst the various streaming services available to us. The big names like Netflix, Disney+, Crunchyroll, Paramount+, and others I was familiar with but never used had survived into the 23rd century, although if I wanted to watch anything explicitly from the 21st century, I'd have to use one of the "Archive" or "Vault" sub-streaming services; the latter of which were actually free-to-stream thanks to Public Domain.
To my pleasant surprise, I found a streaming service dedicated to archived Hero TV Live episodes, known as "Hero TV+". Not just Sternbild, but all the major population centers had equivalents of this show during the Corporate Age of Heroes, and while the Quirks they used were as varied as the themes and cultures the different Heroes derived from, the majority's costumes still resembled "Human Nascar", so I only really cared about Hero TV Live: Sternbild City.
"That's gotta hurt her butt!" Papi yelped as Karina Lyle, aka "Blue Rose", used her "Cutie Slide" during one of the early episodes in her career.
"Yeah… Back then she was a bit of a corporate shill."
"Like a lobster?"
"No, that's a shellfish."
"Ohhhhh…" she hummed with an 'O'. "Heroes were way different back then."
"Oh, if only that were true…" I muttered to myself as the Hero TV broadcast went to its then-current commercial roster.
*AHA*
After Papi and I finished our fried chicken and sides, we went back to playing games on Nintendo's more-recent gaming console. The little Harpy couldn't get enough of MK:DC, doubly-so since every bathroom break did a "soft reboot" that let her enjoy the same courses and Grand Prixes over and over again ad infinitum. Eventually however, I noticed the time from the clock and the wall and decided it was time for the two of us to go to bed; old habits insisted I go to bed early so I could wake up early.
Papi however needed a little more convincing since there weren't any windows to tell her when the sun went down, so I racked my brain for a persuasion method before I realized I was dealing with someone who had Autism and ADHD.
"Sun's getting real low~" I sung in a low voice as I toggled the slider on the wall, the lights in the room starting to dim. Papi's eyelids fluttering, head bobbing, after a couple seconds she let out an adorable yawn, and would've keeled over if I hadn't caught her.
"Huh. Light as a feather. Who knew," I shrugged.
Carrying her over to the plus-sized bed, after I'd tucked her in, before I could tip-toe out of the room, one of her talons hooked around the back of my shirt, yanking me back.
"Oh, you're still awake?"
"Onii-chan…"
"I'm not your-"
"I know… you aren't really my onii-chan," she hummed, "but… when you saved me from the toothy football… it made me… really happy~" she smiled prettily.
" . . . I'm just glad I was there," I sighed patting her hair, the little harpy girl wrapping me up in a downy embrace before pulling me onto the bed with deceptive strength.
"Papi likes to think of us as a brother and sister. If Papi had a big brother, she'd want him to be like you."
"Like me?" I blinked.
"Well, you play with Papi, you buy her ice cream, when she does something bad, you don't yell, and you say nice things to her~" she listed off merrily. "Mommy's always wandering around on tour, so Papi never got to know what it's like to have a big brother… But she's always wanted one, so she's real happy now~!"
A look of pure, unadulterated happiness radiating off of her face like a megawatt bulb, there was only really one response to give to that.
" . . . Alright. I guess I don't mind being a big brother-"
Oof, almost slapped an "again" on there.
"Yayyyy!" she cheered, rubbing her cheek against mine.
"Yes, there, there. Good-feels all around," I hummed, patting her head.
*AHA*
Papi was sawing logs within minutes like an adorable, petite lumberjack in short pants, but for me, sleep eluded me.
Shimmying out of her grasp once it had gotten lax, stroking her hair when she let out a small whine, once I was sure she was content, I tiptoed out of the room through the open doorframe, and went over to the opposite side of the holding cell to one of the intercoms. I assume whoever responded to me was on the graveyard shift, because while I felt groggy but unable to sleep, they were wide-eyed and bushy-tailed; maybe even literally.
No, wait, this was a video intercom, so it was-in-fact, literal on their end.
That aside, I turned down the volume so I wouldn't wake my roommate.
"Yes, do you need something?"
"There's something that's been bugging me. Are you able to answer a couple of questions?"
"Depends on what those questions are."
" . . . Are the Rifts distributed randomly, or do they congregate in one part of the world more than others?" I asked after collecting my words.
"Oh… That…" the man said rubbing at his hair. "Well… This is kind of an open secret after one too many leaks and whistle-blowers, but Japan, fortunately and/or unfortunately, is home to the majority of space-time anomalies at 65% yearly. Excluding Japan, the greater Asia, what used to be China in particular because of its surface area, contains another 20% globally. The rest of the world contains the remaining 15%. It's a bit of a running gag that the reason for this is because Japan is the birthplace of the Isekai sub-genre."
Huh. Neat. Someone else who considers it a "sub-genre" as well.
"Mind you, these numbers only count those that appear on dry land. There are numerous space-time events that happen on the high seas as well, though never underwater as far as we know, and rarely in the upper atmosphere. Given the history of 'gremlins', we can't exactly trust what people see thirty-thousand feet up."
"So Japan has more than half yearly… And how many dohappen on a yearly basis?"
"Oh, don't misunderstand, what happened today in Asaka is a comparative rarity," the man said waving his hands. "Only 1% of all Rifts in Japan are 'Major Rifts'; Rifts that stay open for a measurable amount of time, where 'Adventurers' are able to go in and out for profit. 10% are 'Flash Rifts', small tears only open for fractions of a second to under a full minute. Most that observe them mistake them for optical illusions or hallucinations, if not some random person's Quirk going off, and anyone caught in them would be lucky not to lose a limb with how fast they close."
"So a 'Portal Cut' kinda thing?"
"In as many words," the man nodded, an appreciative look on his face. "The one you encountered counts was a 'Flash Rift'. As for the remaining 89% of all anomalous space-time activity in Japan, those are 'Micro-Rifts', microscopic tears between dimensions smaller than human cells. There have been an estimated 22,500 'Micro-Rifts' in the last decade and are functionally harmless."
"So… Any idea how many 'Major Rifts' there are?"
"Sorry, that's above my pay grade," the man answered. "You potentially could make estimates based on changes in Gross Domestic Product, but when you throw Hero-related income into the mix, and suddenly it becomes very easy for a country to hide how many Major Rifts they're actually profiting from. And sometimes the other side of a Major Rift is completely inhospitable or doesn't have any resources worth 'mining' for."
"Right… And Kuroko told me about how the ones with a long half-life you can basically pull gold out of…" I hummed before something else occurred to me to ask. "One more thing. Something I have to know."
"What?"
"How many people got hurt today?" I asked before looking at the clock. "Make that yesterday."
"Oh, well… Since you're going to be able to find out on the news later today anyway," the sound of papers shuffling sounded. "In total… around twenty casualties. Five of those were fatal; the two eaten alive who died relatively instantly, and three who died shortly after from massive blood loss. Four were dismembered but survived their wounds, and government subsidies should get them some prostheses from Detnerat. Nine were from Quirk-related injuries, while around eighteen or so were unhurt."
"I see…" I hummed, thinking back to the mind-numbing terror, and how-many people might need therapy after this… "One more question before I let you go."
"Yes?"
"Why did that evil football explode?"
" . . . That's to-be-determined."
Yeah, that figures…
"And you're sure Papi and I will be able to leave tomorrow?"
"After the full 24 hours, yes. Our biometric scanners are pretty advanced compared to when the Rifts first started getting investigated, and so-far you two don't have anything infectious or parasitic."
"That's good to know. Not exactly fond of the idea of getting stripped for parts."
"To be fair, only countries like America or Russia could get away with that nowadays."
Not technically an untrue statement…
"Thanks for telling me, that'd been weighing on my mind."
"You're welcome. Now, you rest up. Soon as you get back, you're probably going to find a media circus waiting for you."
Ah, shit, I forgot about that...
*AHA*
After getting those nagging questions answered, it was actually pretty easy to get back to sleep; even if I did get a tad overheated when Papi rolled over to my half of the bed and draped her wings over me.
Breakfast to follow was an ordinary affair too, more a buffet actually, and Papi went full-on carnivore while I attempted to get a modicum of a balanced breakfast and not drench everything in syrup. The breakfast was also a little more American than I would've expected, but maybe it was just a budgetary thing, since there wasn't anything overtly fancy in the menu of the holding cell. And honestly, it felt kinda good to have an American-style breakfast again.
I guess you don't really know what you're missing until you don't have it anymore.
After that, Papi and I played more MK:DC until one of the walls opened up, admitting a few RDA techs in lab coats.
"Alright, you two, it's been a full 24 hours and you've got a clean bill of health," the one in the lead replied, his eyes drifting to the TV. "As soon as you're done with your little game, we'll have someone take you on home."
"Oh good, so you aren't stripping me for parts"
"Geez, you are really dark for a ten-year-old."
"Eleven."
"Hmmm."
"Come on, Papi. Let's finish this up and go home."
Hopefully the squirrel man was joking about the 'media circus'.