As before, this fanfiction story is set in the world of Becoming Monsters, written by Ai Loves. It is not canonical to the series, any continuity and mechanical errors are mine. There is a bit less focus on sex this time around (don't worry, it's still there) and more on what's happening.
--
Chapter 2: On The Hunt
The morning came fast, as we slept the sleep of those who passed out physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted. It was a very good thing that I had a backup alarm set fifteen minutes after my first one, because the first utterly failed to rouse me. With an unwilling groan, I dragged myself into a shower that stayed hot for almost exactly half of the amount of time it took to get decently clean, put on my business casual, applied makeup to remaining exposed skin, and went to grab something to eat from the kitchen. No matter the state of my Hunger, I still got hungry the normal way.
Lucy met me there, looking tousled in an alluring kind of way. Some cereal was what we had, but it was the company that made it good. She'd take her own shower once she gave the tank a chance to recharge. We had figured out a LONG time ago that showering together led to inevitable delays as we both obsessed over each others' bodies, which often led to me feeding upon her. Right now, she couldn't afford that.
Speaking of, I was at 2% on that particular meter. Enough for the day, but if I went to sleep tonight without feeding on SOMEONE it would be likely to end badly. I did not have the time today to rent a room again, especially since it was no guarantee I'd find someone who qualified. My wallet was not doing particularly much better, yesterday's gains going almost entirely towards obligations. Both were issues that would need solving. Thankfully, I was far enough ahead at my freelance coding that I'd be able to make it to the submission deadline the next day, even if I got almost nothing done today. My mana pool still recovered fast enough, so despite the fact that I had expended half of it yesterday, that was good to go.
*PING*
The person who set Wide Accessibility Phone's default text tone to be identical to Status bells deserved a place squarely inside a dragon's second stomach. So did the person who ensured that it kept resetting whenever updates pushed. I'd fix it later, though. This particular message was coming from the hospital's Curse annex, there was a particularly tenacious debuff that was keeping a patient down hard. They were sending a call out to anyone with relevant abilities publicized. The reward offered would make sure we made rent next month. I got typing immediately.
Confirm call, Jeremiah Kithkin, Mirror. ETA 20 minutes.
"You got a bounty? Need backup?" Lucy was already stretching out. Distractingly. She saw my expression and rapid typing and got the right conclusion immediately.
"Not this time, love. Someone needs a Cursebreaker for once, hopefully it's something I can actually attack." I was digging through drawers for my Delver ID and hospital worker card. Neither was useful all that often, but today was an exception. There was a tap on my shoulder. My wife, holding both cards and wearing a smirk in addition to her pajamas. "Thanks."
"Get going, love. You told them twenty minutes and you're not flying today."
Ugh. Forgot about that detail. Flying took energy that stemmed from the same well as my Aura... which just so happened to be what my Hunger drew from. Unless I wanted to be attacking people at a hospital (which was not how I wanted to spend my day, quite the opposite), the wings were off limits. Cars were an expense that was well out of reach, even if we had a reliable place to park them, so it meant I'd be either hoofing it five miles or getting on a bus. Bus it is.
Riding the city bus is always a bit of a menagerie. Everyone always has to be somewhere. Young headed to school, old headed to hangouts. On this particular route, there was a preponderance of folks who needed medical attention of some kind, which made sense given the most notable stop. People with bags under their eyes and face masks. One with a band on his wrist from the Emergency Room. Another, a harpy with a sling on her wing. We passed a small park, children playing on playground structures, and turned into the stop. This stretch, I'd take at a trot.
The main hospital was a bit of an imposing structure, a standout even in a city like this. Between sheer population density, monster attacks, and just the variety of things that could go wrong in any body, it took a lot of people and equipment to handle. It was also a notable research hospital. The Change had only happened five years ago, and new data was being gathered all the time. It took humanity thousands of years to understand its one form even obliquely, before the Change. Cataloging the third of it that was now wildly different was a vastly greater enterprise. The main hospital was not, however, the destination today.
Across the road was a smaller building, connected by a crosswalk to the main complex. The facade was designed to look the same, but the discerning eye... or someone who was familiar with things... would see that the walls were built significantly differently. Twice as thick, made of enchanted materials and running a Thaumium equivalent of a Faraday cage. It was designed not just to resist explosions, but to contain them. Them, and all manner of possessions, mystic maladies, transformations, and other such. This was the Curse Annex, and it was here that I badged in.
The doctors and clerics wasted no time, a nurse with a name tag reading "Johnson, Emily" leading me directly to one of the central rooms. She was cute, the view from behind one I could appreciate, East Asian with an almost vulpine cast to her features despite her name. We arrived at the room. There, alone in the bed, was a young blonde man wasting away. He looked like he would have been a large and well-built fellow if he were not in his current state. Emaciated, pale, and clammy. Covered in scars both old and new. He looked like the pictures of people liberated from torture camps, completely unconscious on the bed. To his left, a well-dressed older woman was sitting exhausted in a chair. To his right, a middle-aged man stood in scrubs, wearing a pin in the shape of a goat that had a red headband.
A Scapegoat. Someone who either volunteered or was paid to stand in and accept a transferral of a Status condition if needed. He looked healthy, this was not someone volunteering the end of their life. Not him, the salt in his hair stood opposed to a lightly-lined face and alert eyes, a build that looked more powerful than most of his peers might otherwise be. Either he had an ability somewhere that granted resistance, or he was being paid exceedingly well for this. You never could tell which, and this man was human. "What do you know?"
The nurse pulled up the poor man's chart. "Subject is a human male, 24 years old, and has been an official Delver since registration first opened. He is not coherent enough to give us Status information. He emerged from a shallow Dungeon Delve at 5 PM this past Friday, and has been slowly deteriorating since then. Nutrients not being properly absorbed by his body, and Thaumian energies are reacting oddly, preventing all healing and causing significant tissue breakdown."
Potentially Dungeon-sourced, and four days under the condition. Not a typical wear-out time, which meant either permanent or an unusual close out criteria. "Sir, Ma'am, I need you to take a few steps away. I am about to analyze him, and I do not want to accidentally catch your information."
They both moved with alacrity. Everyone has secrets, simple as that, and nobody wants a random magical spell revealing them. Mine was subtle, others not so much, but the usage of them in public was tightly controlled. Technically, if anyone had noticed what I was doing yesterday, I would have had to justify myself in court. Wasn't precisely worried about it at the time.
The Scan pulled up his information successfully, but none of it made sense. I was looking at him, and his Status summary, but they didn't match. It wasn't formatted right, looking like a dungeon monster. His Health, Stamina, and Magic were all near-zero. There was a Condition showing, a "Curse of Reversion." There was also one other detail.
"Nurse Johnson, I need to speak to you, the doctor assigned to this man, and the Scapegoat. Privately. We do not have much time."
The well-dressed woman flew into a rage. "I will NOT be separated from my son! Not when he is like this! How DARE you!" To be honest, understandable. However, treatment protocols that I had been taught when I registered the ability could not be broken that easily. The nurse silenced her with a shake of her head. Something more was going on. Had to be. You just don't calm that kind of emotion with a brief gesture.
The woman left. A doctor entered, a woman much shorter than me with light brown hair pulled back in a severe bun. She was also in scrubs, but these were reinforced. There was a mesh of some kind of lightweight metal under them, extending all the way to her hands. It seemed likely that it went to her feet, as well, but I could not directly see that. Her name tag read "Dr. Amar." She was nervous, the emotion pressing against me as clearly as my own could when projected. Nervous doctors make me nervous. She nodded at me.
"Doctor, I believe I have a chance at being able to attack this curse. However, there are severe abnormalities on his scan. Most importantly, he is registering as a Dungeon monster, and Giantkin." All three of my listeners reacted, in significantly different ways. The Scapegoat, who I still had not gotten a name from, collapsed into the chair in the corner. Nurse Johnson looked with utter horror at the various foods and medicines that they had been trying on the victim, a terrible understanding behind her eyes as their failure to sustain him suddenly made sense. The doctor looked at me with some suspicion.
"Are you sure? That does not seem plausible, even for this facility."
"My Scan has never yet returned false information. It can be vague on occasion, it can refuse to give, but it has never once been false. He is registering a condition that might account for it, something called Reversion. It is a curse, I might be able to remove it, though I do not know what effect it will have on your patient if successful." I looked at the Scapegoat. "Informed consent requires me to tell you that, as soon as I begin to attempt to break the curse so noted, I have no guarantee of your safety and cannot predict its effects on you, or even if it will need to transfer to you."
He nodded at me, shakily. "I signed the contract knowing that we couldn't know any of that. Do your worst." THAT was an interesting tidbit, and an oddity even in the relatively rare niche.
I nodded. "Doctor, with your permission." She thought for a moment. It did not take long. There were not particularly many options remaining.
