Out of the Bag (A.S, NES, Open on Request)

[ThePopcornFairy]

Geez, and Natalie thought she had received a rude awakening yesterday...

The apartment had been nearly empty that morning, everyone else having vanished except for Elsa. Needless to say, it left Natalie in a sort of awkward spot, not just because she was a morning person and it was weird to see everyone out and about before her, but because this was only her second day on the island after her first night in an unfamiliar apartment. What was she supposed to do about it?

Well, fortunately, Swift had been considerate enough to leave a note informing the two remaining girls of the present situation. It seemed Evan was trapped beneath a frozen lake and Patrick had gone missing, forcing the others to spread out to rescue the former and hunt for the latter. Natalie's first instinct was to go help them, especially knowing that Patrick could've been anywhere by that point, but Swift had ordered her and Elsa to go forward with their original plan to visit the hospitalized catboy they rescued the night before.

And so there they were...

Admittedly, even though Natalie understood Swift's mindset, she felt kind of bad about leaving the others to their missions while she and Elsa set off on a comparatively easier task. But she was wiling to comply regardless. After all, between Patrick running around while possessed by the dust and the mystery still surrounding the wyrms and the creatures they were metamorphosing into, they needed information as soon as possible.

Here's to hoping their new friend was awake to provide it.

With a deep breath, Natalie stepped into the hospital and approached the front desk, hands in her pockets, Elsa by her side. After awkwardly clearing her throat, she smiled at the receptionist and greeted her with a somewhat uncertain tone, "Um... Hello. We're... here to see Koeham? We dropped him off last night? The, uh... The catboy with the spinal cord injury?"

[ParamountKeymaster]

Elsa stood off to the side in relative silence, lips pursed, hands in her pockets, waiting for the receptionist to go through all the necessary precautions to ensure she wasn't about to let two total strangers into one of the patient's rooms. Once they were on their way, Elsa finally spoke up. "How is he?"

"He's still recovering from the surgery..." the woman despondently replied. "On top of the flesh wounds and bruised ribs, he suffered severe trauma to his T9, 10 and 11. Given our present resources, there's very little we can do to repair them. It's... unlikely that he'll have any significant function from the waist down."

With gritted teeth and a hand rubbing her neck, Elsa shot Natalie an awkward look out of the corner of her eye. Sounded like they wouldn't be discharging Koeham for quite some time, and even if they did, just how useful could he be in this crisis?

Well... for now, they might as well stick with simply trying to get information out of him. The sooner the better, too; Elsa was itching to get out there, fight these things and save her friend.

The aide approached one of the doors and gave it a quick knock before sticking her head inside. "Mr. Koeham? You have company."

[Pink Moon Wolf]

The black-and-white-haired, cat-eared boy was lying prone in the bed inside, dressed in a typical hospital gown, blanketed from the chest down, clearly very drowsy but awake, his little pet dragon curled up at his hip. From beneath his lowered eyelids, his bright green eyes stared up at the women in the doorway, silently scrutinizing the two standing behind the nurse. Then he took a deep breath and mumbled, "Oh yeah... you two."

Koeham weakly raised a hand in a gesture that vaguely motioned for Natalie and Elsa to come inside, then he plopped his arm back on the bed. Once the girls had pulled up some chairs and sat down next to him, he stared at the ceiling, took another breath and continued, "Gonna be honest. I... don't really remember your names."

[ThePopcornFairy]

Natalie was hesitant to approach. Sure, Koeham was awake and looking significantly better than he was the night before, but it was still unsettling to see him like this. Weak, weary... undoubtedly in a great deal of pain and/or utterly numb. On top of that, given how little she knew about the catboy, there was no telling how he would react to the miserable situation he had wound up in. Still, after taking a deep breath and mustering what little gumption she could, Natalie followed Elsa into the room and sat down in a chair next to the bed.

Once she was certain the patient was familiar with his visitors, the nurse left the group alone. Shortly thereafter, Koeham's dragonfly lifted his head with a curious squeak, looking between the girls, then gazing up at his master with a sad trill.

With a small, empathetic smile, Natalie looked the catboy over, eventually speaking up in a soft, nervous voice, "Hey, Koeham... Good to... see you're awake. I-It's Natalie. And that's Elsa."

She took another deep breath, deciding it best not to bombard the guy with the especially heavy subject matter right out of the gate. It felt wrong to practically interrogate someone she barely even knew, let alone someone so badly injured. As such, Natalie opted to start slow and ask him a simple question out of genuine concern, even if she did already have a feeling what his answer would be. "H-How are you holding up...?"

[ParamountKeymaster]

"Hey, bucko." Elsa had very nearly referred to Koeham as "kitty," but wisely decided against that for the sake of not offending the injured young man. Might as well save the more endearing/infuriating nicknames for later, depending on how their relationship bloomed. For now, with her usual bravado, she strolled inside and sat down by his head, shooting a cutesy wave to the little dragon when it turned her way.

"Glad you're up. Boy, has a lot been going on in the past twenty-four hours." She snickered a little. Withheld nicknames aside, Elsa was clearly not as concerned about jumping the gun as Natalie was. "We're gonna need caught up just as much as you, it seems. I mean, based on your ramblings last night, it seemed like you know something about whatever's happened to our humble island."

[Pink Moon Wolf]

Koeham sighed and turned towards Natalie, his expression calm, weary and a little deadpan, but still gentle and clearly accepting of her concern. On some level, anyway. Despite his obvious frustrations, he seemed to understand where she was coming from at least. "Sore. That's- That's about the best way to describe how I am."

He scowled at the ceiling. "If you're wondering, no, I can't feel anything beneath the waist other than a very dull ache, let alone move anything. I'm still coming to that sobering realization myself. That's not me being angry with you; you did basically save my life and I certainly owe you for that. That's just general anger at the knowledge that my life is now even more f***ed than it already was."

Then he shot a hard frown at Elsa, much less appreciative of her bluntness than he was Natalie's gentle questioning. "You know, I'm just as concerned about this invasion as you are, but for one, I barely know either of you and you have the nerve to barge in here with intent to interrogate me? Two, and somewhat more pressingly, you think maybe I don't wanna talk about this until after I've come to grips with the potential paraplegia?!"

Rather quickly after shouting that, however, Koeham let out a breath and covered his face with his hand. "But... you're... probably right. The ale need to take precedent. This is what I came here for, after all..."

[ThePopcornFairy]

Natalie could only somberly nod at Koeham's response, having anticipated something along those exact lines well in advance and looking utterly crestfallen because of them. How else could she possibly respond? This poor guy was in pain and forever altered by this accident and she had no idea how to help him. All she could do for him was express her sympathy... then cringe at her friend's intrusiveness. "El..."

Well, at least Koeham's anger at the situation seemed to subside for the time being. If anything, he seemed to understand the gravity of the situation taking place outside. He even seemed to have a name for it, if Natalie understood correctly. What else could "ale" be in this case?

Nodding slightly and scooting a little closer, Natalie warily looked the catboy in the face and gently asked, "Well... i-if you're willing to help us in light of... well... this, we really would appreciate it. Any sort of information is helpful."

She looked back at Elsa, then back at Koeham. "That red cloud... the snake creatures... you know what they are?"

[ParamountKeymaster]

Sure, Elsa was eager to get on with the info dump so they could return to the action with a firmer understanding of their enemy, but that didn't mean she wasn't sympathetic to Koeham's injuries. If the sharp hiss through her teeth was any indication, at least. Still, when he finally said the name of the island's newfound pests, she had to tilt her head at the catboy. "'Ale?' Is that what they're called? Kinda unimpressive, if ya ask me, unless you consider fermented beverages to be especially terrifying."

After mulling that letdown over for a good four seconds, Elsa shrugged and moved on to more pressing matters. "Yeah, sorry dude. Didn't mean to be rude. Just kinda anxious since... y'know... there are monsters swarming the place. Really wanna do something about that. So here's what we know so far. The cloud arrived yesterday morning. There are snakes all over the island. Some of them have cocooned themselves; no idea if any have hatched since then. One of our friends got infected with red dust, one acquired some sort of elemental powers, and one got turned into a living blob. What say you on all that?"

[Pink Moon Wolf]

"Yeah... Yeah, I know what they are." For the most part, Koeham simply nodded along as Elsa rattled off a very quick list of the events leading up to today, hardly surprised by any of her bullet points. He did seem to raise an eyebrow when she mentioned a friend acquiring elemental powers, more so with confusion than intrigue.

Then his eyes widened and his ears shot up when Elsa mentioned another friend being turned into a blob.

"YOU MEAN SOMEBODY ALREADY ABSORBED THE LIMUS- OW!!!" Koeham tried to sit up to fully face the girls. For his efforts, he earned a sharp, stabbing pain in his lower spine and a clear amount of resistance from his limp legs, forcing him to lie down flat again and rub his side. Once the pain had subdued at least a little, he looked up at the girls out of the corner of his eye, desperate and frustrated. "At least tell me this friend of yours has some combat experience..."

[ThePopcornFairy]

"The limus..." So Natalie had heard that right last night. And the conclusion she and Evan came to seemed to be correct on top of it. "Yeah... apparently our friend Evan came across the tail end of your ship and found something inside that turned him into slime. I'm guessing this 'limus' is some sort of substance that can beat these creatures?"

She bit her lip and adjusted her glasses, casting an awkward glance at the floor. "You don't have to worry about Evan being combat trained. We're all pretty well adjusted when it comes to fighting giant monsters, believe it or not. But in his defense, he is very uncomfortable in his present form. Not sure if it's possible to remove these new powers of his and give them to someone else?"

[ParamountKeymaster]

"Hell yeah!" Elsa chuckled in agreement. "We've already put a massive dent in this invasion force, and Evan's one of the best fighters we've got! Having him be your bioweapon or whatever he is will just make things that much easier! Once he gets the hang of his new powers, anyway."

She thoughtfully tapped her chin. "Not sure if I'd wanna volunteer for this, but why depend on just Evan for this? Is he really the only one who gets slime powers? Seems like we could make quick work of them if we had more acid people."