Chapter 31
I came out of the portal and nearly fell on my face. Given that I'd materialized directly in front of my future instructor's desk — that would have been an awkward first impression.
Especially since the doctor-instructor running the SDS medical aid courses turned out to be yet another enormous green creature. Naturally.
I'd landed in a perfectly standard classroom, medical-themed, decorated with numerous posters encouraging supers to learn first aid so they could help people and teammates on-site.
For example: a beaming Phenomenomen, holding an enema kit and a roll of bandages, with the caption:
"Don't take the risk — save a life and dodge the lawyers!"
"Charming."
"You mus-s-st be Mis-s-ster Herman Herby?" A fascinating hiss punctuated the speech, with the tongue occasionally darting out the way lizards and snakes do. The enormous talking crocodile in a medical coat and name badge rose from behind his desk — an enormous desk, with a chair to match, built for a creature a full meter taller than me and visually four times my weight. "Pleas-s-sed to meet you. I'm Doctor Kurt Connors-s-s."
The familiar name hit my ear like a bell. I spent several seconds staring blankly at the outstretched clawed hand, processing another of this world's particular twists, before I noticed the slightly hurt, even dejected expression on the doctor's face.
"Oh — I'm sorry, it's not what you think." The sheepish head-scratch activated, engaging full dense-anime-protagonist mode — not something I could control, more of an automatic Herman inheritance. "The name just sounded familiar, that's all. S-s-sorry — I mean, sorry. That wasn't on purpose."
The elongated S had come out involuntarily, mimicking his speech pattern, which sent the blood rushing to my face even harder. Combined with the fact that my encounter with Mal had left me with a physiological situation that simply refused to resolve itself, the experience of making small talk with a giant bipedal reptile was reaching peak awkwardness.
"No harm done." His smile was, at the very least, genuinely crocodilian. The kind that made certain muscles clench involuntarily. "I'm glad you don't have an is-s-sue with it. Not many people can react calmly to my appearance."
"Oh, it's nothing." Following his open-palmed gesture toward the nearest desk, I sat down directly across from the teacher's station, against which the Lizard was now leaning with a protesting creak. "I have plenty of enormous green monsters among my acquaintances. Ah — I'm sorry. That just came out, and I—"
"I'm not offended, Mis-s-ster Herby." The words said one thing; the flash behind his eyes promised consequences for my loose tongue. The irritation actually cleaned up his speech — he only hissed every other sentence. "I'm used to it. Besides, my new wife finds my current form quite… stimulating. She's a furry enthusias-s-st. Or a furris-s-st? I'm not sure of the correct term."
"I think it's just 'furry,' Doctor." I'd heard of this, vaguely.
"Pos-s-sibly. My first wife, on the other hand, ran when she saw me. Went through the bathroom window — one of the small ones near the ceiling. I checked afterward. The physics of it were genuinely impressive. She must have had compelling motivation." He shrugged his broad shoulders and scratched his chin with one talon, striking a pose that reminded me of a very specific dinosaur meme. I had absolutely no idea what had prompted this confession, so I defaulted to the uncomfortable smile. "Well, none of that is-s-s particularly relevant. Shall we get to the main topic?"
"Please." I sat properly, earning an approving look that briefly triggered Herman's childhood memories — raised by Grandma with deep respect for authority figures, the boy had been a model student when he wasn't involuntarily flooding the room.
"Good." The Lizard dug through the papers on his desk and produced my personal file, reading carefully. "Miss Blazer wrote that you were extremely eager to attend my classes-s-s, despite already completing the mandatory basic first-aid course. Let's be frank, Herman. What's driving this? And was it worth bombarding an elite superhero with messages in the middle of the night? I need to understand."
"Oh." Right. Awkward. In my post-paradigm-shift delirium after things changed with Mal, I hadn't considered that Blond Blazer might have her own evening plans. Or that she might, conceivably, sleep. "Yes, I should probably apologize to her. Maybe send a fruit basket?"
"I wouldn't recommend that," the doctor said, averting his gaze with the body language of someone who was not going to elaborate.
"I'll think of something else later. As for wanting to study medicine — it's simple." Under the doctor's attentive gaze, I walked to his desk, borrowed an ordinary pair of scissors, and pressed the blade firmly into my open palm, leaving a small cut. "I recently learned something."
I focused. Blood surged from the wound — far more than the cut warranted, which made Connors's eyebrows climb — and then reversed direction, flowing back into the wound as if being recalled.
He grabbed my wrist instantly and leaned in, studying the wound as the blood reabsorbed.
"Remarkable! I studied your file thoroughly and I s-s-suspected something like this!" Enthusiasm erupted from the reptilian doctor, and without releasing my hand he began leading me deeper into his domain, waving off any objection. "So you can control any fluid that exits your body? What about s-s-saliva? Tears? Sweat? Urine? S-s-semen?"
The questions continued without pause as we arrived at what could only be described as the classic laboratory of a mad scientist. I had no idea how the Lizard had ended up at the SDS, but their HR department was clearly earning their salaries in a purely decorative capacity if they'd missed this. Jars with animals. Glowing stones. Assorted rodents and insects in terrariums. All of it in dim lighting that sent a disciplined column of goosebumps marching up my spine.
"We'll need to run a s-s-series of experiments!" He deposited me in a chair that belonged in a Clockwork Orange set and began hauling equipment onto the neighboring table. Scalpels, syringes of various descriptions, a pair of rubber gloves, and a magazine from the early 2000s that did not belong in a medical context. "We'll determine which fluids respond bes-s-st to your control. I can obtain most of the samples myself, but for the semen you'll need to handle that personally—"
"Excuse me?"
"Don't worry, I'll be very bus-s-sy with my own work, so please proceed at your leisure. No one will disturb you—"
"Doctor! First of all — absolutely not. Not while you're sitting right there." The surprised, almost wounded look from the Lizard nearly made me feel guilty. "Second — I came here to learn wound treatment. I was told you were a field medic—"
"Wounds? Learning?" He scratched his chin for about ten seconds, staring into space, before slapping his forehead with his palm. "Right, I completely forgot about that. But don't worry — I'll teach you everything. Consider it payment for such a fas-s-scinating research subject. Abilities like yours aren't unheard of, but they certainly don't grow on trees!"
Before I could insert a word, Connors pinched my palm hard, then sprayed something into my eyes that immediately produced tears — which the lunatic caught deftly in a small vial.
"No time to was-s-ste, Herman! We have so much to do!" The mad scientist had already drawn blood from my still-open wound while I watched with the tired resignation of a man who has stopped being surprised. "We'll begin the first lesson simultaneously — practical application will have to wait. My as-s-sistants… volunteers are all currently on leave or medical absence. Now then — fundamental principles of field medical care, hemorrhage control for knife and gunshot wounds, and fracture immobilization—"
What in the hell have I gotten myself into?
That was my last coherent thought before I was submerged entirely in the medical world.
---
Crossing one leg over the other, drawing the passing waiter's gaze to her thighs with the reliability of a physics demonstration, Alice Cooper — known to the world as the former villainess and current superhero Prizm — noted with satisfaction as the poor man walked directly into a neighboring table.
That's how it's supposed to work.
A satisfied click of the tongue, and she redirected from the room to the women seated around her — colleagues and friends, out tonight in an all-female configuration. Not that it had been the plan.
Ginger was somewhere attending courses that, according to Blond Blazer, he'd signed up for voluntarily, and was now clearly suffering, showing up to work every other day looking like he'd served a decade at Guantanamo.
Golem had been refused entry to the establishment and was sitting dejectedly in the parking lot, drinking a beer keg wrapped in a trash bag.
Colm was still on an SDS job, monitoring some underground fighting ring.
Flambé had dodged and deflected all invitations before disappearing into the evening — though she knew perfectly well that the new Bridget Jones film had premiered today, and the man who loved tight outfits had absolutely gone to see it.
Sonar had been an option, but by collective decision the group had elected not to invite the perverted, drug-addled bat to what had spontaneously become a girls' night.
Even the demoness, who usually dragged the werebat everywhere, hadn't objected — clearly absorbed in her own thoughts.
Speaking of the demoness. All evening, Malevola had barely touched her drink, spending most of her time on her phone. The horned woman occasionally smiled at incoming messages in a way that was genuinely unsettling, and sometimes laughed quietly — a low, chest-deep sound that did things to the room's collective knee stability. If she hadn't also been periodically running her tongue across her lips in anticipation, it might have been possible to mistake the texting for threats or blackmail.
"Can we at least get in a fight with somebody? We're sitting here like old hens drinking in silence." Invidiva broke the quiet first. Feet up on an empty chair, arms behind her head, cigarette balanced expertly between her lips, ash managed with small movements of her mouth. "Or rob someone."
"Or kill someone." Alice genuinely wanted to believe the bright red liquid in Coupé's glass was tomato juice and not actual blood, but with Coupé you could never be certain. Not even fractionally. "Should've waited for the guys. Without them the evening is complete garbage."
"Next time we get everyone together. We could even invite Robert—"
"That uptight loser? God, girl — if you want to sleep with him, just do it already." Alice wagged her index finger at face height and rolled her eyes, blowing a strand of multicolored hair off her forehead.
"That's not fun," Invidiva muttered, turning away with visible embarrassment — which, for anyone who knew her personality, was a significant data point.
"And what is fun? Texting like a hormonal teenager?" Alice leaned on the table, propping herself with elbows and the considerable shelf above them. She nodded toward the demoness, then immediately realized she'd chosen the wrong example. The horned woman currently looked less like someone flirting and more like a contestant on that Chris Hansen show about catching predators.
"Hmm, I definitely couldn't pull that off," Invidiva said, following Alice's glance and smirking in unison with her. "Where do you even find such a 'defenseless' innocent little bun—"
"Okay, okay." Malevola set the phone down, tired of being discussed in the third person, and drained a beer bottle in one pull. She exhaled with satisfaction and sprawled in her chair, the muscular, toned body on full display. "But honestly, there is something to it—"
She rolled her hand vaguely in the air, searching for the right word, then gave up after emptying two more bottles without finding it.
"Uh, you mean the courtship phase?" Coupé unexpectedly provided the assist, dabbing red from the corners of her mouth. "Good times. Pain, blood, adrenaline — the mix in your veins. The longer you hold before crossing the line, the better—"
"You and the leprechaun had sex within the first five minutes of meeting," Alice said, rolling her eyes at another of the former assassin's elaborate origin stories, and silently reordered for the whole table, concluding that more alcohol would genuinely improve the conversation.
"True, but nobody said we couldn't do the rest of it afterward." A knife had materialized in Coupé's hands. She spun the double-edged blade between her fingertips, slowly inhaled through her nose, and held the breath. "Many excellent memories. I recommend it."
"Knowing you, there's going to be something horrifying in there," Invidiva correctly predicted, also beginning to drink at a rate usually reserved for water.
"What's interesting to me is that I've never done the romance thing before." The row of empty bottles beside Malevola was growing at a visible pace. "Everything before was always spontaneous — pure desire. This time I want to take it slow—"
"Exactly. A quick hookup isn't it." Coupé cut in with authority. A mischievous smile spread across her lips, and she drifted into memory, her voice and body language conveying sensations from another time. "When the pull is there but you deliberately hold back — teasing, provoking, hiding the relentless desire to get into the other person's clothes behind courtship—"
"I think you're confusing a few things," Invidiva commented, to no visible effect. "And what 'opponent?'"
"—Touching in public places. Photos taken in his bathroom. Gifts left in his bed while he sleeps and doesn't know you're there. Surprise attacks from the shadows. Joint appearances in underground fighting rings—"
"Would you stop. That's sexual harassment, not courtship." Alice waved a hand. The response to her correction was a vague shrug. She removed her glasses and spent a few seconds formulating. "Ignore all of that. Just go on a normal date and figure out what you both actually enjoy—"
"And then have sex. Hard." The assassin contributed again, ignoring the exhausted, hostile looks from the advisor.
"Not immediately—"
"Why not?" Genuine surprise from the demoness. "I'm up for it, and Herman is very—"
"No, you should draw it out." Alice nodded with importance and added vodka to her beer, creating a crude cocktail designed to accelerate the process of not having to feel the secondhand embarrassment of this conversation anymore. "Trust me. You'll thank me later."
"What if he were terminally ill? Would she be allowed to sleep with him then?"
"What? Is Herman terminally ill?" Invidiva and Mal said it together, staring at the unexpectedly conversational assassin.
"I mean a condition that isn't sexually transmitted—" Coupé continued as though the question were entirely reasonable.
"That's not even what we're talking about!" Invidiva protested, while Alice, having reached full acceptance, simply focused on her drink.
"Ill, you say?" Malevola stroked her chin thoughtfully for a few seconds. "Like, a spear in the head, for example?"
"Exactly."
"No! Nobody is ill!" Attempting to arrest the circus, Invidiva raised her voice briefly before deflating — concluding, as Alice had, that the remaining evening was best dedicated entirely to alcohol. "God. Do whatever you want."
She waved at the pair now deep in their own conversation, hit the inhaler twice, and vanished without saying goodbye. Prizm had been right at the beginning — they needed the full group for outings like this. At minimum, more people meant more listeners willing to absorb whatever unhinged material Coupé was going to produce.
If You Like The Story Drop a Review
~Read Advanced Chapters on: p@treon/Amiii_
~Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]