Chapter 5: Between A Shock And A Briefcase
"…So I told him, 'Yeah, that's not how it works,' and he was like, 'Hmph! I wouldn't expect a freak to know anything.' Now, I don't normally let snide remarks like that get to me - like I said before, I'm used to being judged for what my pride bracelet represents, but this guy had just been so rude to me even before he noticed my bracelet, so I slammed my brush down on the counter, knowing full well that my boss was watching, and told the dude, 'If you want your work boots polished, then you can do it yourself, because I quit,' and that's exactly what I did. My Aunt Sharon wasn't too thrilled that I had forfeited my part-time job over a personal gripe, but…"
"Uh-huh," Garnet said automatically, only half-listening to what Neil was saying as she sat there, her chin resting on her furry palm. She glanced up at the digital display above the adjacent passenger seats, seeing that the train still had two more stops to make before they arrived in the outer sector of the West District, and suppressed the heavy sigh that threatened to escape her lips. Neil had been talking her ear off nonstop for the last fifteen minutes, the boy seeming to enjoy having lengthy and largely one-sided conversations with people whom he had just met. Man, this kid could talk! But why did he have to be talking to her? Did he assume that she and him were best friends now or something, just because they had happened to know each other (sort of) in another reality? Garnet had only agreed to 'go together' with Neil to be polite; she hadn't actually intended to spend the day hanging out with him or anything!
"Oh, give it a rest already!" one of the nearby passengers suddenly snapped at Neil. Garnet jumped slightly at the sudden outburst. She directed her gaze to the seat directly opposite her own to see a tall human man sitting there with a grumpy expression on his face. He was dressed in a smart business suit, a fancy-looking black briefcase resting closed on his lap. "Bah! Mutants, gender benders… This used to be a respectable light rail network," the man went on irritably.
"Oh?" Neil said, cocking an eyebrow at the man, the boy's expression turning sardonic. "Respectable, you say? Hmm. That's interesting," the young Cortex went on as he reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a small, black wallet with a skull insignia that matched the one on his t-shirt, soon producing something from the wallet and holding it up for the man to see. "Tell me, what is this? What might it be, good sir?" he asked jeeringly.
The man scowled at the sight of the white, rectangular card that Neil was holding up. "Your travel ID, if I'm not mistaken," he answered bitterly, as though the very idea of owning such a thing was distasteful.
"Exactly. I applied for it legally and legitimately at the appropriate venue, just like you, good sir," Neil said, jeering out the phrase 'good sir' mockingly. "I'd say that makes me every bit as respectable a citizen as you. Certainly respectable enough to mind my own goddamn business when I see a kid with a bracelet and a young woman with fur and bat wings on the train while on my way to wherever I might be going," he finished snidely.
The man said nothing, just averting his eyes and pretending to be very interested in the clips of his briefcase.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Neil said quietly, turning his attention back to Garnet. "Don't let people like that give you crap, Barista. It's your life - don't feel ashamed to live it."
'And suddenly, I don't mind this kid as much,' Garnet immediately found herself thinking. She chuckled at that thought, finding herself grinning at Neil. He grinned back, an open-mouthed, toothy smile that showcased his perfectly straight, whitened teeth; none of alternate 2008 Nina's buck-teeth to be seen. He held up his hand before Garnet, palm flat. It took the bat girl a moment to realise that the boy was awaiting a high five. She indulged him, noticing as Neil retracted his hand that his fingernails were coated with black nail polish. She glanced down at her own fingernails, suddenly feeling self-conscious about how plain they looked compared to the goth boy's.
"Hey, c'mon, don't be jelly," Neil said suddenly, his tone teasing.
Garnet blinked. "Jelly?" she repeated, not getting it.
"Short for jealous," the boy explained. "I saw you glance at my nails just now, right before you started staring at your own with clear disappointment in your eyes."
Garnet wasn't sure how to respond to that. She hadn't expected Neil to be so perceptive; kids really were smarter than most adults gave them credit for. Seeing the startled amazement on Garnet's face, Neil laughed.
"Hey, it's no big deal," he assured her. "If you like, I could do your nails for you later. After I quit my part-time job at the shoe store, I worked at a nail salon for a bit and picked up a few tricks of the trade. Did you know that the base of the fingernail is called a 'cuticle'?"
Garnet shook her head, having not known that. This boy really was full of surprises.
"Yeah, I was the only guy at my school to work part-time at a nail salon," Neil said. "The other kids made fun of me for it, of course, but while they were sitting there calling me Neil The Nail File, I was making a cool twenty-five Wumpa Coins a day, five afternoons a week. Oh, and get this: One of the girls from my class - one who regularly teased me, no less - showed up at the salon one afternoon, not knowing that I worked at that particular salon, and was absolutely dumbfounded when she found out that I'd be the one administering her manicure! Man, you should've seen the look on her face! But I was nice - I didn't chew her out for having teased me, I didn't deliberately make a mess of her nails… I just went about my work, treating her like any other customer. I even asked her if she'd like a free bottle of nail polish to take home with her - free in the sense that it would come out of my pay and cost her nothing - just to show her that there were no hard feelings about how she'd made fun of me previously."
Garnet raised an eyebrow at that. "No hard feelings?" she repeated knowingly, not buying it. Neil blushed slightly, an embarrassed smirk on his features.
"Okay, fine, you got me - it was just to make her feel guilty," the boy admitted. "I thought I'd get back at her by means of the old 'kill them with kindness' trick. I may not be an evil Cortex, but I know how to play dirty."
Garnet laughed at that. "Well, I'll bet she never teased you about your work again after that," she guessed.
"You got that right," Neil said, smirking smugly, resting his hands behind his head. "In fact, she actually recommended the nail salon to her girlfriends, told them that there was, and I quote, 'a really nice, sweet boy who works there'. Imagine their surprise when they found out firsthand that I was that boy!" The young Cortex let out a hearty laugh that was peppered with a few decidedly animalistic snorts. "After that, whenever one of the boys at high school called me Neil The Nail File, they'd get some right nasty looks from the girls, let me tell you!"
"Oh, man!" Garnet exclaimed, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "That's just… I don't even have the words! You're really something, you know that, Neil?"
Neil beamed, his cheeks reddening once more. "Heh. Yeah, I guess I have my moments," he said modestly, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
"Next stop, Outskirt Station, West District," the robotic voice of the train's automated PA system announced. "Passengers, please remember to take your belongings with you and mind the gap when departing the transport."
"This is our stop," Neil stated, getting to his feet, stretching his arms upward casually. "Just stick with me, Barista; I know this district like the back of my hand." He then glanced down at the back of his left hand, an expression of mock wonder forming on his face. "Hmm. Never noticed that before…"
Garnet utterly guffawed at Neil's display of wit. He really was something special.
The train slowed to a halt at Outskirt Station, the automatic doors sliding open without a sound. Neil and Garnet stepped out onto the platform amidst a small crowd of people, but as they made their way towards the station's exit, Garnet suddenly cried out in pain. The tall man in the business suit had just walked past her, making sure to clip her shoulder hard with his briefcase as he went by. "H-Hey!" she called after him angrily, rubbing her now aching shoulder as she spoke, but the man ignored her and kept walking as though nothing had happened.
"Let him go, Barista," Neil told her, shaking his head at the retreating man's back in disgust. "My Aunt Sharon says that people like him always get what's coming to them sooner or later. Come on. Let's go find that smoothie place and Dingo's Diner. If I remember right, they're not far from here."
"If you remember right?" Garnet repeated, raising an eyebrow somewhat skeptically. "What happened to 'knowing this district like the back of your hand'?"
"Hey, pobody's nerfect," Neil responded without missing a beat. Garnet rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smirking all the same. Man, this kid had wit!
The two made their way off of the bustling platform and were just about to leave the station, stepping across the large, circular metallic pad that automatically scanned travel IDs when an alarm suddenly rang out and Garnet and Neil stopped, the former startled and the latter suddenly alert. Right then, a cylindrical glass casing began to slide up out of the floor around the edge of the pad and Garnet gasped, her blue eyes widening fearfully as she realised that she and Neil were being encapsulated inside a glass tube, and not of the transport variety. No, this one was too big.
This was more akin to Dr. Neo Cortex's cloning chamber.
"Wh-What's happening?!" the bat girl cried shrilly, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.
"Ah, damn it. They must've picked it up on their scanners," Neil mused, talking more to himself than Garnet. "Ever since that little outbreak in the South District, they've been so paranoid! Sheesh!" He seemed more annoyed than worried, but Garnet was bordering on terrified, and what happened next certainly didn't make her feel any calmer:
"Please stand by for basic decontamination," a cool, mechanical female voice not unlike that of the AI in Megumi's shower system said. On that note, a vent in the top of the newly formed tube opened and a thick, gaseous mist of deep blue began to seep in with a continuous hissing sound. Garnet could only whimper fearfully as she and her young cohort were surrounded by the unnatural fog.
"You might wanna close your eyes," Neil told Garnet, but she had already done so purely out of fear. No sooner had the boy calmly closed his own eyes when the gas completely enveloped them both.
The blue mist swirled around Garnet and Neil for several long seconds, obscuring them completely from anyone outside of the tube. It made the bat girl's now bristled fur tingle faintly and filled her sinuses with an unwelcome but mercifully odourless sense of unnatural warmth. She coughed and spluttered, her eyes watering (though that was more from pure panic than anything). She then felt Neil's hand gently squeeze her own.
"Relax," he told her calmly, giving the young woman's hand another gentle, reassuring squeeze as he spoke. Garnet nodded automatically, even though she knew the boy couldn't see it. Tears were positively flowing down her cheeks and she suddenly, instinctively wrapped herself around her younger cohort in a vice-like hug, holding on to him for dear life.
Finally, after a long moment, the blue substance subsided and the glass casing began to descend into the ground once more with a light whirring sound, freeing the unlikely duo. Neil opened his eyes, only to raise one eyebrow knowingly at the sight of Garnet, who was still clinging to him for dear life, eyes screwed shut and her entire being shaking like a leaf. He smiled compassionately and gave her hand another quick squeeze. "You can open your eyes now, Barista. We're good to go now."
Garnet timidly, cautiously opened one eye. Seeing that the glass casing was gone, she visibly relaxed, letting go of Neil, but her trembling persisted, albeit a little less violently.
"Yikes. I'm guessing you're the claustrophobic type, huh?" Neil mused, placing a hand on Garnet's shoulder - her uninjured one - and guiding her off the metal pad, taking the process one step at a time - literally. He then guided the bat girl over to a nearby bench just outside the train station and had her sit down, taking a seat beside her, being completely attentive. "You gonna be okay?" he asked, looking the still traumatised bat in the eye, his voice soft and his tone so very caring.
"Y-Yeah, I… I think so," Garnet managed after a brief moment with a miserable sniff, reaching up to wipe her eyes, "And it's not claustrophobia - it's just…" She swallowed. "I was birthed from a tube like that, cloned from bat DNA and the Mojo essence itself. It was the first thing I ever saw. I was zapped into being, completely naked, that glass casing closing in all around me, that awful scientist leering at me through the glass…" She let out a noise between a sob and a hiccough. "When that decontamination thing started, I just… It was like I was back there, in that cloning chamber, and I…" The bat girl screwed her eyes shut and gave a little whimper, sounding very much like the animal species that she was a mutation of.
Neil turned away from her, looking almost as miserable as she felt. "It was my fault," he said quietly. "A few months back, there was a pandemic in the South District; an outbreak of a highly contagious virus. It was stamped out relatively quickly, but the authorities obviously didn't want it happening again, lest it should infect the whole city and then spread further from there. They set up automated decontamination stations like the one we just went through to detect any common contagions in people and neutralise them before they can spread to other people. I had a bad cold last week. I'm better now, but the scanners back there must've picked up some small trace of lingering bacteria and, well, decided to hose us down as a precaution. You just got caught in the fallout because you happened to be standing next to me." He turned back to Garnet, looking deeply remorseful. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into that and get you all freaked out."
"It's okay," Garnet assured him, her words still a little shaky. She wiped her eyes again and put on a brave smile. "At least I know I've been properly sterilised now. Don't take that out of context," she added warningly, and Neil chuckled, the implication not lost on him.
"Well, as long as you can joke about it…" the boy said, managing a smile. Garnet smiled back before suddenly wincing, clutching at her injured shoulder again, giving a light hiss of pain.
"I think that disinfecting gas agitated my shoulder," she grunted before adding woefully, "Which means that our 'friend' with the briefcase did more damage than I initially thought."
"Let me see," Neil said, getting up and walking around to view Garnet's other shoulder. She slid her shirt down partially to reveal a large purple bruise, making Neil scowl in outrage. "That jerk! He only did that to you because I called him out for his slandering!" The boy's eyes then widened. "He… only did that to you because of me. Your shoulder took a beating and your nerves are now shot because of me!"
"Hey, don't say that. It's not like you planned for this to…" Garnet started, only for her expression to grow worried at the increasing alarm present on Neil's face. The boy suddenly turned and bolted, taking off down the street. "Neil!" Garnet exclaimed, bewildered. "Come back! What's gotten into you?!"
"I can't let myself be friends with people if I'll only end up getting them hurt!" the boy cried, glancing back at her with a sad look. "I've already lost one friend that way!"
"Neil, wait! Neil…!" Garnet called pleadingly, holding up a hand as though to reach out to him, but even as she watched, the boy rounded the side of a high-tech building and disappeared from view. Garnet lowered her hand slowly, saddened by the turn of events. Her eyes then noticed something on the ground before the bench. Something with pink, blue and white stripes.
Neil's transgender pride bracelet.
"Neil, you forgot your…!" Garnet started, leaping to her feet, reaching down and snatching up the multi-coloured band, holding it up as though she expected Neil to somehow hear her, to come back and get it, but he was already long gone. The bat girl sighed sadly and, not knowing what else to do with it, slid the pride bracelet onto her left wrist, where it sat covering her Mojo tattoo. With this done, Garnet did the only thing she could: She straightened up her shirt, turned and started walking in the direction opposite to where Neil had gone, following the direction that the glowing red arrow on the nearby neon sign was pointing.
The neon sign which read:
Dingo's Diner - Rated 'D' For Delicious!
Next Right.
Ask About Our Midday Special!
A sombre note to end the chapter on, for sure.
Also, yes, I included the mention of a 'pandemic' because I just HAD to be topical! Oy…
In all seriousness, the decontamination tube was inspired by an incident that happened to me when I was a kid: I was in an elevator and it suddenly got stuck partway up to the next floor and I… kinda freaked out. Like, worse than Garnet did. Not a fun time, let me tell you.
Anyway, stay tuned for more of my little coffee bat's adventures in the next chapter, and remember: When you're out there breaking crates, the real gem you ought to be looking for is called hope, so find that hope and keep it in your heart.
Hope that Crash will make it into Smash Ultimate, that is. Woo! (Oh, boy, this didn't age well...)