Sinless Days (1): Doctors Appointments and Disappointments

--- Mercer ---

“Finally…” He sighed in relief as his safe finally cracked open, the damaged safe having required him to use a power drill to undo the lock and hinges and then a crowbar to pry the whole door off.

Shoving the slab of metal to the side, he looked inside the safe before pulling out several lock boxes with little emblems stamped on them. The setup less to secure the contents that had been protected by his safe, (and more effectively myself), and more to keep everything at least semi-sorted in a way he could shift through with ease.

Without even bothering to open most of the boxes, he dropped them to the side to take back to the boarding house he was now based out of and only stopped when he found the box with a money symbol next to an exploding house. (And Jules thought I was paranoid setting this up.)

(Thinking of…) He grabbed a piece of something charred before going to a semi-clean wall and drawing a skateboard next to a house and drawing a bridge over both of them. (Now she can't be mad at me since I told her where I moved all our stuff.)

He stepped back into the absolutely destroyed remains of his old apartment, the one in which none of his stuff was actually intact and anything his wife hadn’t taken with her to visit her parents was pretty much torched.

(The stuff that survived anyway…)

He gave the wreckage another once over and counted his blessings that his wife kept most of her things at a backup apartment he wasn’t allowed to know the location of so she hadn’t lost anything of value. (So glad I respect her boundaries and let her think I don’t know where it is.)

--- Scarlet ---

Having woken up when Mercer snuck out to do… whatever he was doing, she felt like this was the best opportunity to stretch herself out without anyone watching. And so leaving Bell asleep in their bed she made her way to the otherside of the building.

Once alone and having stretched out her actual limbs she began figuring out how best to stretch out her powers without leaving any… notable damage.

(Guess I should just start with the usual lab tests…) She may’ve hated them but they were efficient in getting as much as they could out of her. (No matter how much it hurt…)

She shook her head, and reminded herself she was free now. (But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll have to fight for that freedom when they come for us again…)

Taking a deep breath she inhaled before exhaling and asking her other-self, (Ready for this?)

(Sharpen our claws, but don’t waste…) Her other-self warned her while giving the impression of a jungle cat lazing about and scratching at the tree branch they were resting upon.

Not wanting her powers to start eating her alive, she spiked her Malice but only in so much as it made her fingertips burn and her teeth itch. Signs that she’d grown her claws and that her fangs were out.

Unlike her sister, her transformations were always significantly more obvious as her body twisted and reshaped itself into something more… (predatory). Meaning there was little to no hiding when she was using her powers, as demonstrated by a pair of glowing eyes faintly reflecting in a nearby piece of glass. But what her transformation lacked in subtlety it easily made up for in raw power, speed, and reflexes.

(Amongst other things…) She thought flexing her fingers as she felt the shifting muscle and sinew beneath her skin, before frowning in thought. (But how do I test those here?)

Frowning, she briefly considered asking Bell for help given how her sister was the smarter of the two of them. Largely because of her other-selves clairvoyance but the point still stood.

She shook her head and dismissed the thought. (No it’s my job to protect her, I’ve got to figure this out on my own.)

Looking around for an idea or some kind of inspiration she eventually spotted a long nail rusted nail on the ground before her eyes drifted to a wall socket, and as a plan began to form in her mind some faint childhood memory told her she was explicitly warned not to do this by someone.

Not that stopped her from sticking the nail into the outlet.

Her hand briefly seized as she felt the electricity spark into her, nowhere near enough to hurt by her standards but more than enough to give her a faint buzz between her bones. At least until the outlet sparked and burned itself out catching fire.

“Oh, shit!” She cursed, pressing her hand against the flame and trying to smother it. Something that only didn’t burn her because the electrical buzz beneath her skin had replaced itself with a smooth warmth spreading out along her muscles.

Luckily, (both in being fire proof and her efforts) she succeeded in putting the little flame out before it could expand to be too much.

“Ah, maybe this wasn’t a good idea…” She admitted to herself as she collapsed back against a wall to stare at her failure.

Inhaling, she moved the heat to her throat before breathing out a small flame, barely larger than liter’s. Which was neither the effect nor the power she’d been aiming for.

“Well this was a bust…” She sighed, not wanting to risk burning their home down once more since she doubted Mercer’s hospitality extended to ‘being the reason he lost his house twice in one week’.

--- Bell ---

Stolen story; please report.

“Alright, you two be good for Betty. I'll be back to pick you up in a couple of hours.” Mercer told them as they stood in an alley behind the doctor’s clinic.

“Y-you’re not staying with us?” She frowned.

Mercer grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck before shaking his head. “No, with my old apartment being blown sky high I’ve got too much to take care of. You’ll both be safe with Betty though.”

She wasn’t sure about that, given how this Betty lady was a doctor and neither she nor Scarlet had had much luck with those.

Picking up on her mood Mercer tried to reassure her. “Right, look you’ll be fine with Betty. She’s the best doctor in the Way. Hell, she’s literally brought me back from the dead like… a few dozen times now.”

She blinked. “I… what?” (That had to be a joke right?)

(He’s not…) Her other-selves informed her, bringing up more questions than they answered. (He’s… in love with death… Isn’t afraid to… dance with her…)

That left her with far more questions than answers, and she couldn’t tell whether her other-selves did it to mess with her or if they were actually trying to help her on this. Largely, because they always seemed to get weird around Mercer. (Maybe I could figure that out if I-)

“Bell?” Scarlet asked, drawing her attention to her concerned sister and the fact that Mercer had disappeared.

(-nevermind.) She sighed, before giving her sister a sympathetic grimace. “You want to go ahead and get this over with?”

Scarlet matched her grimace before knocking on the door to the clinic.

They both stood there waiting for a moment before a young woman opened the door, one that definitely hadn’t been there last night.

“Um, can I help you?”

Scarlet met her gaze and shrugged, signaling it was up to her to deal with this.

“We, uh, we’re here to see… Betty?” She tried, unable to hide her nerves.

The woman gave them a cautious frown. “And you are?”

“Um… we’re… uh…” It occurred to her that spending half of her life in a lab had done very little for her social skills.

(Mercer…) Her other-selves prodded her, less to bring her attention to him and more to remind her of something.

“Oh, we’re with Mercer!” She blurted out, getting what her other-selves were telling her.

“Uh-huh, and where is he?” The young woman asked, crossing her arms.

“He left us here and said he’d be back to pick us up later.” Scarlet growled, her eyes flashing red as she got frustrated with whatever this was.

The woman gave her sister an unimpressed look, before sighing as she took a step back. “Fine. I’ll ask Betty if she was expecting you two, if she was then you can come in.”

“What a bitch.” Scarlet spat, once the door was closed.

She wasn’t so sure about that, since she felt a lot of the problems there were because neither her nor her sister were all that good in ‘social’ situations. (This would’ve been so much easier if Mercer had stayed…)

After a moment the back door opened with an irritated Betty standing in the doorway. The doctor leaned out of the door and looked to the right, and then the left, before looking to the sky, her face growing more annoyed as she failed to find what she was looking for.

Betty scoffed and muttered something along the lines of, “Like father, like fucking son…” before looking at both of them and letting out a sigh. “Come on you two, let's get you sorted.”

--- Bell ---

“Alright, everything is looking good.” Betty told her as she wrote something in a little notebook. “From the looks of it, your passive rate of genetic corruption is low enough that as long as you don’t go too far beyond whatever you’ve been doing these last few days then you should be able to survive off of just these blood bags for a fair while.”

The doctor slid a small cooler to her. “I should warn you though, that all things considered I’m not going to be able to give you much more beyond this each week. So if you use your powers you’re going to need to find another… source to keep yourself stable.”

“R-right.” She nodded, accepting the cooler while still trying to decide how she felt about this whole thing.

For the most part the whole experience was significantly better than anything she’d ever experienced in the lab, from having Scarlet in the room with her, to the lack of restraints, electrocutions, and a single blood withdrawal -Which got her a cookie!- instead of dozens of injections and extractions.

On the other hand no matter how much better it was, there was still some underlying factor that made the whole thing uncomfortable if solely from the memory of how it could be.

(The girl and the wolf…) Her other-selves whispered, drawing her attention to a nearby door where she saw DeWolf and his daughter talking with someone, the latter looking significantly more lively than she had the day prior.

“You managed to cure the kids?” She found herself asking.

“Hmm?” Betty blinked before following her gaze. “Oh, yeah. Had to bring in all of the magic users we’ve got, and pull a favor Covenant owed me, but we figured out how to fix what that idiot Romulus broke and get the solution to the local hospitals.”

“That’s good.” She smiled, watching the younger DeWolf go on about something in exaggerated motions.

Betty’s eyes drifted between her and the father daughter duo for a moment before the older woman told her, “You can go talk to them if you want.”

“W-what?” She asked.

Betty gestured towards the DeWolfs. “We’re just about done here so if you want to talk to them you can. All that’s left is for me to go over your sister’s results.”

She glanced at Scarlet who was watching her with a curious tilt to her head before shrugging. “If you want to talk to them you can.”

“R-right.” She nodded and swallowed, before doing as they said and starting towards the DeWolfs.

Only to pause after stepping through the doorway as she remembered her run in with the other woman in the clinic alley earlier, a painful reminder of just how inept she really was when dealing with new people and strangers.

She continued to stare at the DeWolfs as she stood there trying to work up some nerve to talk to them, but finding herself unable. After all, what reason did she actually have to talk to them about anything?

They’d helped rescue the younger DeWolf but with the younger one’s mind having been messed with she doubted the girl remembered her, and in complete honesty she hadn’t said much to either of them outside of a couple of nervous questions about Mercer.

And so she continued to debate with herself about whether or not it was her place to interrupt them especially when they were looking so happy without her bringing up the night before. At least until the pair eventually left without even noticing her standing there.

(You missed your chance…) Her other-selves derided her, only choosing now to speak up rather than when she was figuring out what to do.

(I know…) She sighed before turning around just as Scarlet started opening it.

Her sister blinked at her before shaking her head. “You done?”

“Uh, y-yeah…” She nodded, trying to hide her discomfort.

Scarlet watched her for a moment, probably picking up on her mood but her sister thankfully decided not to press it. “Well, Betty said we can wait for Mercer in their break room… They’ve got a… TV?”

“That sounds good.” She nodded, deciding to ignore the last few minutes while wishing Mercer would hurry up so they could leave.