Amaranthine- Horny Heroes

CHAPTER 11

Nick rolled, literally, out of bed the next morning. That very act was enough to remind him it hadn't been a dream. He really was an Altered now, and a monstrous one at that. Given that he wasn't in his apartment, and the room he was in was about a million times nicer than the sty he called home, it looked like he also really had been recruited by AEGIS. 

Could have been a lot worse, he thought, remembering the ARMOR officer with the itchy trigger finger. If it weren't for Cait, I'd probably be a fine purple mist. Instead, I'm on my way to being a superhero. 

His tentacles burned with phantom pain, and he readjusted his view. 

Maybe once you've had an appendage burned off in the public defense by an inexplicable living shit monster, you can consider yourself more than on the way. 

He pulled open a dresser drawer, and found it was stocked with his clothes from back home. 

Man, they're really sure we'll stay, huh? 

He grabbed out a shirt, then realized he was grabbing it with a tentacle, which he currently had 13 of, and even if the shirt had that many holes it wasn't designed for a body with the general shape of 'rough sphere and horrible toothy maw'. He let out a gurgling approximation of a sigh, and put the shirt back. 

Looks like my fashion choices come down to hat, hat or hat all day every day. 

He shook himself. 

Don't let that melancholy set in. 

It sucked that his entire body being Altered didn't also seem to cure depression, but this change represented an opportunity to pull himself out of it in a way the meds had never been able to. He had a chance to do something now, follow dreams that had been dead since childhood. Just because he wasn't the chiseled, tall, lantern jawed hero he'd been in those dreams didn't mean he couldn't be the best damn Guardian Des Moines had ever had. 

Shit, not like the I-Cub didn't look like a monster, and he's the most beloved hero in area history. 

Considerably more chipper, he motored out of his room. He was startled by a sound like gravel pouring down a hill, but the frantic scamper that followed reminded him AEGIS had moved Cait's cat, complete with automated feeder and robot litter box, in before she'd arrived last night. The chubby tabby eyed him with suspicion, but his presence didn't stop it from tearing into breakfast with gusto. 

Nick let his senses wash over him, memorizing the scent and vibration signature of the cat so he wouldn't keep getting surprised. He liked cats. He hoped his appearance was strange enough the animal wouldn't even have a frame of reference to be scared, and that they could be friends. 

He caught Cait's scent, distinctive to him as one of the first he'd experienced with his new sensory suite, and 'saw' her brilliant golden glow seeping out from the room kitty corner to his own. 

Actually, that looks greener than I remember. Wait…. 

Rolling closer, he made out the vibrant sharp blue lines of Lira's aura at the same time he recognized her scent. 

Damn, new friend moves fast. 

Rustling sounded from the room, then he heard Cait let out a long groan. A second later she emerged, scratching at her back. She was also still naked. Her gaze swept over him then snapped back, and he braced himself. 

This will be the time she's afraid of you, no one expects a tentacle monster in the middle of their kitchen first thing in the morning. 

Instead, her glow brightened as her face split in a grin, and she walked over. She held a fist out at hip height for some low bones. Given his height, the gesture didn't hold up under scrutiny, but it meant more to him in the moment than a hug from a parent. He tapped a balled tentacle against her knuckles. 

GOOD NIGHT? He wiggled the bill of his hat like a saucy eyebrow. 

Cait's chuckle washed over his skin like a warm blanket. 

"Buddy," she said, shaking her head. "If you had told me this time yesterday that I'd be standing in a replica of the Palace of Versailles, with superpowers, and a girl like that in my bed..." 

She trailed off, looking thoughtful. 

"Too early to finish that gracefully. I would've told you it sounds fun to think about. You checked to see if they stocked this place with food yet?" 

CAT FOOD, AT LEAST 

She laughed again, and walked over to the fridge, opening it and looking inside. 

"Nothin'. Technically, I appreciate their priorities having Salad waiting for me, but weird as hell to bring my cat and nothing else." 

Nick gave a non committal gurgle, shrugged, and rolled towards the door. He noticed a note someone must have pushed under the door, along with two wafer thin pieces of metal he couldn't identify. Hissing excitedly, he extended a tentacle to each bringing them over to the kitchen island. He popped them on top, and pulled himself up to match. 

"Oh hey, what do we got?" Cait lifted the note, and read aloud: 

Cait, Breastman, I hope you are finding AEGIS lodging to your liking. The rest of Miss Smith's belongings are outside the door. I've also had these two phones delivered. One is a normal albeit high end device you should have no trouble figuring out, Cait. Breastman, the other has been modified by Nanosmith, and should be compatible with your sensory modalities. Loaded onto each of these are a schedule for your first couple of days with us, please follow it to the best of your ability. Don't worry, there's nothing on there until this afternoon, that was a hell of a first night. 

-E.S. 

P.S. Breastman, I'm sorry to have to say this, but please stay around Cait, Lira, Gwyn or myself until we get people acclimated to you. I'd like to say our people would think first, punch second if they saw you wandering around, but I know that wouldn't be true for some of them. 

That post-script stung, but Nick was excited to see what the nice girl from yesterday had cooked up with this phone. He ran a tentacle around both, finding the on buttons and booting them up. One lit up, but as expected, he couldn't make anything out on the screen. Cait grabbed that one and started faffing about with it. The other though…. 

The air above the device began to swirl and vibrate, coalescing into a stylized NS, the letters separated by a vibrating lightning bolt. Nick realized he could actually smell ozone from the bolt, as the logo went through a quick start up animation. The scene resolved into a normal phone home screen, but rendered in vibrating molecules that hung in the air so they appeared clear as day to Nick. All the usual suspects were represented, time, weather, internet, a messaging app…. It looked like he actually already had some messages. 

Going with his…. gut? He extended the tip of a tentacle and touched the floating speech bubble icon. The screen swirled into a mostly empty display with one active conversation, labeled Gwyn(Nanosmith)<3. 

Cute, he thought and tapped it. 

G: Hey Breastman! Its Gwyn, from the hat >-< 

G: after we met yesterday I asked Metric to send over what she had on ur sensory data. Hope thats okay! 

G: n-e-way, using that, I whipped up this little beauty! 

G: Its actually nanobots all the way down, I just made it look like a phone for chuckles n dumps 

(like that monster yesterday ew) 

G:i knew u didn't have n-e-where to hold it, so try tapping it to ur hat! 

Nick did, and the phone dissolved, its constituent bots joining the dusting of them on his hat. Then he realized he hadn't read how to get it back, and panicked a bit. 

Phonephonephonephone he thought at his hat, holding a tentacle up to where the phone had dissolved. 

"Why does your hat say-, oooohhhhhh." Cait said as the phone swirled into existence in his tentacle. He waved the phone at her and waggled his bill. 

COOLER THAN U 

"Fuck you!" Cait laughed, swatting at his waving tentacle. 

G: u just checked didn't u? >-< 

G: pretty neat right!?!!? 

G: n-e-way DS said she wouldnt make u and cait do n-e-thing till this afternoon, so lmk if you want me to show you around! 

G: ik a bunch of the other nerds in the bunker are curious about u 

G: i wont even let them bite or poke if you dont want them to! >:] 

G: o right! Here's a pic if u need one for my contact >-< 

A selfie of the girl from yesterday swirled into existence, shaded with varying degrees of vibration. Nick realized the nanobots were also emitting a scent to flavor the image. He recognized Gwyn's bright clean scent, dominated by a sense of curiosity. He noticed an undertone this time that actually reminded him a lot of Lira though, which seemed odd as he'd rarely met two more different people. 

The selfie itself was cute, Gwyn scrunching her eyes closed and making a face approximating her weird little squinting emoji. 

"Damn, I guess I wasn't the only one busy last night." Cait was leaning over, looking at the floating selfie with interest. Good to know other people could see the constituent 'bots too. "She is stacked, my man." 

Nick returned his attention to the photo. He hadn't noticed, but Gwyn was wearing a soft looking pajama top. The thin fabric didn't do a lot to conceal the girl's impressive breasts. 

Not even a day ago I wouldn't have noticed she was making a face with those distracting me, Nick thought, shaking back and forth a bit. He felt a twinge of familiar excitement looking at the selfie, but it was a pale shadow of the legendary appreciation that had earned him his hat. 

"Also, she's flirting with you." Cait continued. "Not super subtly either, but idk how good you were at picking up on that before you became a tentacle monster, and I can't imagine the change has made people easier to read." 

Cait was wrong, but she couldn't know that. He could literally smell emotions now, he had more insight into people than ever before. However, she was also right to help him out, since before the change he had been truly awful at reading people, to the point it had often gotten him in trouble. That was why all his friends were guildmates online. There were rules, defined goals, and no body language to parse but exaggerated emotes. 

Wait, did she say Gwyn is flirting with me? 

He made a series of question marks flow across his hat as he waved his tentacles confusedly. 

"Yeah buddy," Cait nodded. "She's going about it like a middle schooler, but she likes you. I know you probably think that sounds impossible with the change, but I think you're gonna find that whatever you look like, someone's gonna have a fetish for it. I mean, there's a tiny island nation you might be familiar with that made an entire genre of porn starring, essentially, you."

Nick felt the area around his mouth heating up in a blush. He was…. familiar with the subject matter, but since being Altered had tanked his sex drive he hadn't even made the connection. 

Just my luck. An adorable girl starts showing interest in me just after that stops mattering. 

DONT KNOW 

NOT REALLY HORNY ANYMORE 

:( 

Cait patted his center mass in sympathy. 

"Hey man," she said, trying to console him. "To be honest, I'm the weird one for being horny to the max after such a major life change. If you're not right now, or hell, if you never are again, that's fine! You already got a good buddy here. That said, I think you should give that girl a chance, even if things don't proceed in the way she wants. Probably not a bad thing to make friends with the folks what don't have an immediate negative reaction to tentacle monsters." 

She's right. That's been a rare reaction so far. Hell, even if that's all she wants, I can probably make something happen. I have reference material, after all. 

He'd made up his mind to set up a tour with Gwyn when Lira finally made her way out of Cait's room. 

"No breakfast in bed?" She said, stretching as she yawned. She moved over to lean on the island, running her eyes over Cait's body. "Hmmm. 5/10 overall then. Holy shit, is that Gwyn?" 

Quicker than Nick could react, she grabbed the phone out of his tentacle, which he waved weakly after it. 

"Wow." Lira said, admiring the selfie. "What'd you say to her? That girl even wears a sweater to the gym, when I can convince her to come for a session." 

BREAST MAN 

"Hah! Noted, so she likes funny dudes." 

Nick could tell that the fear in Lira's scent had faded somewhat, but there was still an underlying note of unease in her oeuvre. It only reinforced that he should value the people that didn't have that knee jerk reaction. 

"Fuck, is it really 10:30?" Lira continued, punching Cait in the arm, who acted like she felt it. "I was supposed to be starting my shift at the gym, like, half an hour ago! Breastman, on me, you're not getting out of that agility assessment. Come on, text and move!" 

She grabbed Cait by the waistband and pulled her into a greedy kiss before, hesitantly, grabbing one of Nick's tentacles and pulling him towards the door. 

"No, it's cool, I'll move in all by myself!" Cait called after them. Lira turned back to stick her tongue out at Cait as she exited the door, and promptly tripped over a stack of boxes. Nick caught her, but felt her tense up as his tentacles wrapped her waist, and quickly let her go after setting her up straight. 

"Heh, thanks!" She said sheepishly, and led him down and out the door. The AEGIS campus was a lot more active during the day. All shapes and sizes of human were represented, and while Nick was probably the oddest body plan in attendance, it wasn't by that much. A big fluffy owl with human arms boggled at him as Lira pulled him past, although Nick wasn't certain if that was due to her eyes just always being enormous or not. 

One of the benefits of his new form was an ability to multitask on a level that was previously impossible. Just as he could independently direct his tentacles, it was like he had multiple streams of focus. He was still getting the hang of that, but for now he let following Lira slide into the background while he brought up Gwyn's conversation. 

B: Hi Gwyn! Thank you for the phone, it is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. 

It stings a little bit that that's probably true 

B: I'd love to meet up for a tour, but Lira has hijacked me to finish up some testing. 

He took a second to pull up the schedule Director Swan had included for the day. 

1 pm: Orientation presentation- Auditorium 1 PAN 

2:30 pm: Official intake- report to PAN reception 

pm: Baseline Medical- BUN 102 pm: Image consultation (costume/name, etc.)-201 FLAT pm: Welcome dinner!- Dining Hall PV 

He tapped Lira on the shoulder, pointing at his hat. 

HOW LONG??? 

"Idk, depends a bit on how well you do. Probably no more than 30 minutes?" She shrugged. 

B: She says it shouldn't take too long, and I don't have anything until 1 after that. Are you free at 11:15? 

He didn't get a response until Lira was pushing through the doors to the Coliseum. 

G: i totally can be! They are pretty flexible about working hours here. 

G: us Meta-nerds tend to work best in fits of inspiration>-< 

G:ill pick you up at the coliseum? 

B:That sounds great! Look forward to seeing you again. 

G: image 

She sent another selfie, same silly expression but this time garbed as she was yesterday. Comfy hoodie, safety glasses and lab coat. Still, looking for it now, she was definitely puffing her chest out.

Fuck, I think Cait and Lira might be right. 

As they entered the gym, it felt like Lira was a visiting celebrity. Everyone who saw her had their face light up at least a little, and she greeted them each by name. She threw out compliments, corrections and high fives in equal measure, with the occasional slap on the ass for someone who deserved particular recognition for their efforts. 

Christ, she might as well be an alien compared to me.

Nick noticed plenty of stares coming his way, ranging the gamut from curious to horrified. That being said, it seemed like his proximity to Lira was softening people's reactions somewhat as the balance seemed to be heavier on the curious side. Eventually Lira noticed that a lot of the looks in their direction were not directed at her. 

"Hey, you mind if I do a general introduction? This is a pretty good sized group, will go a long way towards helping you move freely." 

Double thumbs up.

PRESENT ME 

"Heh, alright." She scooped him up and jumped up onto the reception desk. She held him aloft like Simba and he couldn't help but wiggle his tentacles wildly. "Yo! Everyone!" 

She kept shouting until everyone was looking at the beautiful redhead holding an eldritch horror above her head. 

"This ball of betentacled ass-beat is BREAST MAN!" She yelled. "Some of you probably saw footage of him shredding the literal shit out of that monster on Grand last night, and getting melted for his trouble. He's our newest Guardian! Step to him and consider yourself on notice from myself, or worse, Director Swan! If you didn't see what he can do, he's going to be running the aerial mobility course in about a minute! That said, please come to the welcome shindig tonight, introduce yourself, and meet his friend the Bulletproof Bimbo!" 

There was a light smattering of applause and a couple whoops, but mostly people just smiled and went back to their workouts. A few came over however, and followed as Lira led the group into a testing chamber. One of the onlookers, a tall wiry Asian man with a sharp goatee, walked over and introduced himself. 

"Hey," he said with a nice smile. Like Lira, Nick could sense his unease but he masked it well. "I'm Jonas, a.k.a. Counterweight. I'm also the trainer Lira was supposed to relieve 45 minutes ago." 

He glared at Lira with that, who pretended she couldn't hear him as she talked to a woman with distinct ape-like features. 

"I actually did see the footage from last night, you and your friend were all over the news this morning." He blushed a bit. "Admittedly, they played a lot more of your friend naked at the end there than they did you, but what I saw was impressive! I think you were doing about as much damage as Dustdevil and Sonder combined, and that's saying something. Sandblasting is no joke, and Sonder can be nearly as strong as the person she links to. I'm excited to see what you can do on the course." 

NO PRESSURE 

"Hah! I like that." He grinned. "Really though, I can control the balance of myself and things I touch perfectly, and even I fell the first time going through those hoops. Don't worry about it and do your best, we have trainers on staff like myself to help you improve on whatever baseline you set." 

Lira finished up with the ape woman, and walked over to mess with a display on the wall. After a few affirmative beeps, the walls and ceiling started to unfold. A warping maze of bars, hoops and swings formed into existence above their heads, moving quickly in dizzying patterns. 

"Okay!" Lira clapped her hands together. "Breastman, this is the aerial mobility course. Don't worry, I'll slow it down for you to do a couple test runs. The general idea is for you to either use or avoid the maze elements in order to pass through those hoops as they light up. Again, don't worry, they will also sound a buzz as they light so you shouldn't have trouble identifying them." 

As she spoke, a series of buzzes sounded, and Nick could faintly sense the light from the moving hoops above. She tapped a few times on the display, and the dizzying speed of the maze slowed to the point Nick didn't have much trouble tracking the movements. Still, he felt sweat break out on his skin. In front of him, a platform raised out of the floor, and a podium with a button shot out of that. 

"Just assume a position on the platform, and hit the button to start the program. Remember, go through the lit hoops." She smiled, and gestured for him to go on. Like a striking snake, he shot out two tentacles, grabbing the podium and pulling himself up to the platform, eliciting a few gasps of surprise. He studied the swirling maze of metal above him, then, steeling himself, he hit the button. 

Immediately, a hoop on the far side of the room buzzed as it lit. Nick immediately shot out a tentacle to a swinging bar moving in that direction, using it to slingshot himself towards the hoop. He immediately regretted that, as another bar swung down in his path, and he had to use more tentacles to frantically redirect. Moving more carefully and keeping multiple points of contact, he essentially crawled through the air towards the hoop, until it was within his reach. Whipping himself through it, he heard another buzz, and started the process again. 

It went well when he was careful, but if he got a little too careless or overconfident, it was easy for his tentacles to get tangled in the spinning maze of metal. The worst was when one got trapped between two bars, and another swinging the other way neatly severed the soft flesh of the limb. He howled in pain, but a new nub was growing from the wound before the severed portion had even hit the floor. He also lost a couple teeth when he failed to dodge bars that appeared in front of his central mass when he'd gotten ahead of his ability to easily redirect. Bodily harm aside, by the time the buzzer sounded three times and he intuited the course had finished, he felt like he had a decent handle on things. 

Lira was clapping excitedly as he swung back down to the platform. 

"I know it probably didn't, uh, feel like it," she said, gesturing towards where his severed tentacle lay in a pool of black blood, "but that was actually super good once you got going!" 

"I agree," said Jonas, looking impressed. "You've got excellent straight line speed when you do that slingshot thing, and your 3-D maneuvering when you have all your tentacles displayed is some of the best I've seen on the course." 

"All in all, I think you might be able to set some records on this course eventually." Lira continued. "You'll need practice of course, but it seems to me the thing that would help you the most is some work on situational awareness. Forgive me, but my readings on you say you should have pretty decent 360 degree perception, don't you?" 

She was right. He could, technically, feel the whole room right now. What he could not do, yet, was parse all that information at once. While his new brain seemed to have built in pathways to control each of his tentacles, this felt more like he had really really good peripheral vision. His focus was still more or less on a cone in front of him, and even trying to split it, it was difficult to do that and actively process everything. To sum all that up, he held up a tentacle and waggled it like a see-saw. 

NOT YET 

"Yeah, it does seem like it'd be overwhelming." Lira said, nodding. "Only thing for it is practice! You want to run it slowed down again or go full speed?" 

In the end, he did another practice run, this time avoiding all the damage he'd taken before. His full speed run went roughly as well as his first half-speed one. He requested another go, and on that run made it through having only taken one bar to the face. He bounced excitedly in front of Lira. 

LEADERBOARD??? 

"Heh, ambitious huh? It's on this display here, I'll read it off to you." 

Freeflow 00.09.56 Samsara 00.11.15 Warhawk 01.01.43 Zephyr 01.12.12 Aerial 01.14.25 Barrelroll 01.37.29 Black Swan 01.38.32 Bullwhip 01.40.01 Counterweight 01.52.59 BREAST MAN 01.59.22 

"Hey! Top ten!" She held her hand out for a high five. "That's amazing! To be honest it's more like top 8, since Freeflow and Samsara aren't fair, and you're fourth among Altereds who can't actually fly. Great work!" 

The other onlookers seemed suitably impressed. Some, like the ape lady, even seemed a little miffed. He doubted she was any of the names that Lira had read off, and assumed he must have beaten her score. He noticed a familiar scent in the crowd, and then the rest of his senses picked up on Gwyn near the door, her clarion green aura pulsing through the mess of light and sound. 

Confirming with Lira they were finished for now, he rolled over to his prospective friend. As he approached, she smiled, and he took in her scent again, warm, with no trace of fear. There was also that strange undercurrent, which he'd attributed to Lira. That said, he noticed the gym girl didn't smell that way today. He also admitted to himself that that same scent excited him a little, in a way he had thought he wasn't able to feel anymore. 

HOWDY PRETTY LADY 

Christ, I didn't know how to talk to girls even before I became a monster.