Becoming Monsters: in the Mirror

This story remains a noncanonical fanfiction of the Becoming Monsters series, by Ai Loves. She has been unbelievably patient with explanations and questions from me. I have endeavored to correct mechanical and continuity errors, all mistakes remain my own.

The Yarrb species is by @FelisRandomis, used here and through the rest of this story with her permission.

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Chapter 4: There and Back Again

Unlike the morning, riding the city bus in the evening is a lonely trip. Well, it would have been, if Lucy wasn't with me. It was a quiet ride, the streets mostly deserted as people with more regular schedules took care of themselves and settled in. Lucy, for her own part, was still feeling cuddly, and the evening chill was held at bay successfully by the fact that we were snuggled together on the bench seat the entire time.

A half-moon shone through broken cloud cover, illuminating the sidewalk as we came to the doors to the emergency room. There were few there, though it wasn't empty. We weren't there to wait, though, and as soon as the charge nurse saw us we were escorted back. The halls, like so many of their kind, were wide, sterile, and white. They were mostly quiet other than the occasional beep or sound of a cart or stand being rolled. Though I figured the other main victim of the attack, the person (other than me) who got struck by that lightning dance, would be here somewhere. No clue where, though, and we had a specific goal in mind.

In room 369 was our goal. The tape on the door said "Whitney Cunningham," which was more info than I had been able to get from her a few hours prior. As for the woman herself, she was sitting up. Her dark brown skin and black feathers stood out sharply from her light blue hospital gown, white linens, and the cream-colored monitors. My eyes went reflexively to those monitors, though she was externally calm the heart rate and blood pressure were showing higher than her fitness would otherwise indicate. Two more steps forward, and I could feel the bubbling mix of anxiety, fear, and anger simmering under the surface. Our escort peeled off to return to the desk, leaving us alone with her. At the same time, I could see a faint shimmer around her, the same one that had been highlighting my wife since I picked up my new abilities. I was seeing her demonic nature, directly.

When she spoke, the voice was a bit rough but higher than I expected. "You two were the ones who rescued me?"

Not one to waste words or time being indirect, I see. "Yes. I'm Jay, this is Lucy. You were pretty badly injured and not conscious by the time we went home. Glad you're alright." My wife nodded beside me.

Whitney laughed. It was a sound utterly lacking in mirth. "That is debatable. Last thing I recall is getting sick and going to bed. Then I wake up in a hospital a thousand miles away and the calendar jumped forward eight months. I want to go home, sir." My eyebrows attempted to climb up into my hairline, but I could ask other questions in a bit. She wasn't done, though. "I know we fought. Had to. My Hunger is full, completely. They're charting me wrong, I'm not a freaking bird, but the food is good so I'm not complaining."

Lucy chimed in with a bit of sensibility while I was trying to process all of that. "Um..." Okay, so the sensibility took a second. Still faster off the draw than me. "Can't all of that be solved by talking to the staff? Medical charting, and contacting your family to go home?"

"That will take time I don't have. There is almost no anger here, and I saw no sparring facilities in the building. I have two, maybe three days before I run out of my sin, and a wrath demon going feral in a hospital is going to end badly. I asked for you so that I could get out of here. Sponsor me."

My brain chose that moment to catch up. "Slow down. We have a couple of days on this clock, I need to make sure of who you are and what you claim. Nothing against you, but all I know is that you were cursed into full demonhood and we had to smack you into submission before I could purge it."

Her eyes got a bit misty. "That would explain why my tank was full to bursting earlier. Sad I had to miss it."

I couldn't help it. My palm came directly to my face. From my right, I heard my wife mirror the move. Alright, it was going to be like that. "Fine. Step one, I need you to voluntarily submit to a Scan. Step two, you give us contact information to let your family know you're safe. Step three, you stay here one more day for observation and healing. This means talking to the doctors, got it?" She nodded. "Only then do we get you out of here."

She spread her arms and wings wide, IV line clattering a bit as she did. "Do your worst."

I'll give her credit, NOBODY just submits to magic information gathering that easily. I looked at my wife. She nodded back. Looks like I painted myself into a corner, there, so I initiated the Scan. Whitney Cunningham was the name, alright. Vrock Race, confirmed to be a wrath demon. Berserker, registering very high Strength and Health, 21 years of age. Additional class ability score of Agility, that was a new factoid, along with Regeneration showing highlighted on her abilities. Explained why her HP and SP were nearly full despite having duked it out until unconsciousness earlier. Not much else was showing.

I released it, shaking my head a bit. Not enough time since what I had been doing earlier, the back of my head was not enjoying this. "Okay, that was straightforward. Strong one, huh?"

"I was trying to breach thirty and hit a plateau before all of this happened. Actually pass it while I am in a Berserker Rage, did some shallow Delving with folks that needed a striker to pay for college."

Good grief. Might explain why we found a dozen Gold, if she'd laid her hands on me I would likely not have survived. "Okay. Well. Now I need contact information, as much as you can give me. If you aren't making calls, I will. Tomorrow morning, first thing. Remember the other thing I told you."

"Yes, I'll talk to them. You don't need to worry about healing, though."

"Yeah, I saw. We can talk mechanics later. Do you need anything else for now?"

"Not from here. I will have to get new cards, identification, and a phone once I'm out of here. Wherever they were when I went under, they weren't on me when I woke up."

Reasonable. "Those should be easy enough if everything is on the up and up. I'll ask for some time off work to help get you set back up, see you again tomorrow? After dinner should be plenty of time." She nodded and settled down. The conversation was brief after that, Lucy stepping out as we wrapped up. I left the room a few moments later and overheard the tail end of a different conversation.

"... she should be more talkative now, but do me a favor? Make sure whichever doctor, nurse, or orderly is helping her is the most ornery, angry, fighty cuss you have on shift. The one you can't usually put with conscious patients." Lucy was talking to a Beastfolk, a Wolverine in scrubs. His nose was twitching a bit, whether it was because of my wife or the news was unknown.

The trip back home was just as quiet as the way out, though much darker. It had gone from evening to fully night. Lucy and I snuggled in when we got back, it had been a remarkably full day and much better than the one before. Had it really only been one day? A curse, a rescue, incredible sex... twice..., and a hospital visit. More than I did most weeks, and I wasn't even counting...

Oh, crap. My actual job. The one that is expecting a fairly large block of code from me by lunch. One which was only about three fourths done. Oy.

She heard the sigh, not hard given that her head was right under my chin. "What's wrong?"

"Life. I've overcommitted for all of tomorrow morning, so I'm going to need to lean on you for a lot of what needs doing with Whitney." I felt her nod, and wordlessly snuggle harder into my chest. Got the hint, we both fell asleep quickly afterwards.

We woke up refreshed, a nice change. After breakfast and one of those showers where we flirted mercilessly until the water went cold, we both got started. Lucy took the paper where she wrote phone numbers, emails, and addresses and got to work looking for people to give good news to.

Me? Well, capitalism is a pain. Here's the thing, small studios love to personally hand-craft all of their own code. Bigger ventures and businesses? They outsource. The last five years had been harsh to India and China, so freelance coding took off as a homegrown industry. Works great for people who have the skillset but can't come in to physical work because they leave slime trails... or have an aura that makes people horny. Ahem. Anyway, they'll have some obfuscation so that freelancers don't know exactly what the product looks like, and a couple local guys on staff to integrate things.

All this to say: I sat down and coded, for four hours that really should have been eight or twelve spaced over the last two days. Oops. Wasn't my best work ever, but it was acceptable and worked. Input A became Output B. It would get a check signed, and let me get more work through the same brokers. I came up for air and stretched, my back popping, and went to make some sandwiches for lunch.

Lucy was still on the phone, looking frustrated. That was something I was used to seeing when she was calling the bank or licensing agency, not when finding people. She flopped into her chair and grabbed the ham and cheese. "Nothing. Lines disconnected, no replies to emails, and too many people by that name to narrow things down further. I'm stumped."

I thought for a bit. "Computer's open again, run a search for Missing Persons? She said it's been eight months if I remember right."

Lucy's face paled to pink. "I was hoping I heard that wrong, love. Tell me, how long can a demon go above ground without eating?"

"Oh. Oh no..." The answer, of course, was significantly shorter. Especially when you added a Hunger for fighting and destruction. Both of us dropped our sandwiches and went to do the search. Sure enough, got a hit almost instantly. Whitney Cunningham, reported missing in Los Angeles seven months prior. The only listed point of contact was the local police department. Not a good sign, but we narrowed down the city.

And immediately wished we hadn't. It was her, alright, but the news wasn't good. The Cunningham family wasn't answering because they weren't there to do so anymore. There was a public obituary dated several months prior, describing how they had been attacked in their home by a dungeon monster. Noncombatants, their oldest daughter mysteriously absent, they didn't stand a chance. Father, mother, and two siblings, gone. The home was essentially demolished in the attack. Oldest daughter had not been seen since, but was not a suspect due to lightning damage at the attack site.

It was Lucy who broke the grim silence. "You were right when you told me we were all she had. More than you knew. I'll get the cot ready, it's all we can do for now in this tiny place. We have to help her."

I agreed. "I'll head out to get her, then. Let me grab my sandwich, I have enough energy to go by wing and this can't really wait."

I stepped out in front of the building and prepared to take off, but was interrupted by an odd animal sound behind me and to my right. Looking over, I spotted the source. A yarrb. Odd things, yarrbs. Nobody really knew where they came from, but most figured a bio-Alchemist or something of the kind made the first one and they just got out. They weren't true monsters, anyway. Mostly found around the Rockies, they were surprisingly intelligent dog-sized carnivores. Big eyes, soft fur everywhere but the underside and paws, and a back full of spines that almost never actually stabbed things they didn't need to. They came in all kinds of colors, this one was mottled gray, green, and brown with startlingly blue slitted eyes. Four ears, too, a smaller pair in front of its larger main ones, that was rare. Really, if it hadn't been for the eyes and it making that "yarrb" sound at me, I would have likely missed it. The poor thing looked hungry, looking at my sandwich with some intensity.

I sighed. Lunch would be a bit smaller than anticipated. I took the ham out of my sandwich and brushed it off, getting some of the bread crumbs off it. The yarrb chirped excitedly, and when I tossed the deli meat it caught the slices out of the air expertly. That mouth could open disturbingly wide, and it was full of razor sharp teeth than many have described as "nothing but fangs."

I took off as it was eating, though it followed my path with its eyes as it chewed. Almost forgot what the wind rushing by felt like when it wasn't a combat sprint, and despite the fact that I could only go 30 seconds at a stretch it meant I could go as the crow flies from rooftop to rooftop, and significantly quicker than the trundling city bus. I got there in a quarter of the time, and wasn't even breathing hard by the time I landed at my destination. My Hunger probably wouldn't support the return trip if I wanted to be wise with it, but such was life.

There was a bit of a commotion as I approached. Thought I heard a crash, but the human doctor who emerged, limping on a cane, had one of the biggest smiles I'd ever seen on his face. The nurse with him? Not so much. I flagged them down. "If the patient you just saw is ready to go, I'm here to pick her up. I was on the team that rescued her from the attack."

The doctor looked at me, his nametag now visible and reading "Dr. Abode." Scratched at his stubble, I assume he'd been on shift for a while. "Are you a relative or guardian? Can't just sign her out to random passers-by, even if you're both similar Races."

I blinked. The Avian Beastfolk her chart said was almost nothing like the Gargoyle I usually presented, which meant this guy saw straight through us both without trying. "Doctor, if we may speak in private? I have additional information you need." The nurse took us to an unoccupied room at his nod. She left immediately when he pointedly stared at the door. He turned back to me, taking a PEZ dispenser out of his pocket and eating one. I took it as a cue to continue. "Whitney has no next-of-kin remaining, I spent the morning checking. Grandparents all deceased, and the event that led to her being here killed her family and destroyed her home. My wife and I don't have much, but we can at least give her a place to stay to get her on her wings."

Dr. Abode nodded. "Thank you for keeping it short. I read the report on what you did over in the Curse Annex. Tell me, is this the same kind of thing? Dungeon delving victim turning into a monster as a result of a Status curse?"

I blinked again, harder. "How did you..."

He waved the question off, irritably. "I do research, too. Home destroyed by rot and lightning, you fight a Vrock at the playground, and suddenly we have a Demonic here with black feathers who is invested in pretending she's a bird?"

"So you know she's a wrath demon Berserker with Strength nearing thirty, and needs to not be in a hospital more than another 24 hours or so? You're obviously observant, Doctor, but I don't clock you for a Delver, nor someone with significant combatant class levels."

I didn't know the man could be caught off guard, but he paled. Much better at it than my wife, given his skin tone. "I'll make a few calls."

"She will need clothing and a temporary ID. Circumstances prevented us from having them ready, as you can imagine."

"Ask for the clothes at the duty station.You'll have to fight the line at a government office for that ID, the demon was a good warmup for that." He limped out of the room without another word. Blunt kind of guy, wasn't he?

I steeled myself Whitney's reaction as I entered her room, but it proved to be for nothing. She took one look at me and spotted the bad news from a mile away. "They're dead, aren't they? That's why the doctors couldn't contact them." The IV lines were no longer connected to her, the remains of her own lunch still on a tray next to her. Couldn't see what made the crash earlier.

I sighed. "Along with the house. Rot and lightning."

"I don't have any other relatives, sir." her gaze was rather intense. "Don't have all that much in the way of friends, either. Couple of guilds I helped, some classmates who may or may not realize I'm gone."

"Lucy and I are going to put you up in our home until you can get sorted out. It's a cot in the living room, unfortunately, the couch can't fit you sideways. That doctor is already making the calls to get you discharged."

"You must have been convincing. He seems stubborn."

"You could say that. Let's go."

The process was surprisingly quick. Or, perhaps, not too surprising. All things considered, when one is sitting on a threat like that, one wants to not be doing that. The hospital-issued clothes were obviously cheap, meant to be temporary for people whose relatives might be bringing them more. The only ID she got from the place was her wrist band, which thankfully had a few of the important details on it. Still, she was quiet and looking intensely everywhere on the ride home. Not terribly much needed to be said, especially in public, so I let it lie.

I had the time to actually observe her, now, so I took in the details. She was my height, well over six feet, and her showing skin was a very dark brown color. Her hair had been replaced with long, black feathers, the same that adorned her wings (which she kept folded behind her back) and a few other places at her side and legs. Most of all, she was rippling in hard muscle. Her arms were built, her shoulders even stronger than most people with wings, and her thighs threatened to burst from the flimsy pants she had been given. The one glance I'd had of her abs was more of the same, they looked like cobblestones under her skin. Modestly proportioned otherwise, at least relative to her height, but nobody would be fool enough to try to take liberties.

We made it back without incident, thankfully. The yarrb was still there by the front step, and walked up to sniff at me as we were about to go in. It looked at me, then at Whitney, and gave a quizzical chirp. "She's a guest." I have no idea why I felt I needed to explain myself, but it felt right. The yarrb seemed to accept the explanation and walked off. Whitney, for her part, looked at us a bit oddly but did not comment. We took the stairs.

"Alright, Whitney, this is going to be home for a bit." Lucy wasn't home when we walked in, probably getting supplies, so I took it on myself to give the tour. Not much of one, but still. Kitchen (-ish), one bedroom, bathroom, living room (now with a cot set up as well). Done. Only extra we had was the bonus closet for our equipment and reagents. Meant it only cost an arm and half a leg to maintain, given it was Seattle, and it was in a zone that was discounted for Delvers to encourage public safety by giving them rapid response times to important sites. "Go ahead and get comfortable."

Her voice from behind me came "way ahead of you." I turned back to face into the living room, and saw her there. The hospital-issued clothes were gone, nothing had replaced them. She stood tall and hard, every muscle of her body looking carved from dark chocolate, hairless, her feathers fanned backwards. I could see the shimmer in the air around her strongly, the signs of lust in her. Before I could react, she took two long steps forward, picked me up with one arm like I weighed nothing, and began removing my pants with her other hand. I started to say something, and she shushed me with a wingtip. "Don't talk. I owe you, just accept it as a down payment." By the time she finished saying this, my pants were fully off. Her wings came to my underarms and lifted me until my head was almost hitting the ceiling, her hands holding my legs to the sides, as she kissed my rising manhood.