Tiger & Bunny - Animal transformation
May. 3rd, 2013 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lirillithFandom: Tiger and Bunny
Characters: Barnaby, Kotetsu, brief appearances by Karina, Antonio, Nathan, and Yuri
Word count: ~3400 words
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nope
Summary: A rogue NEXT turns Kotetsu into a cat.
Notes: Written for the "animal transformation" square for Trope Bingo. Unexplored elements: How Barnaby’s going to react when he realizes Kotetsu can’t flush the toilet after himself as a cat; Kotetsu destroying Barnaby’s belongings because he’s bored; Barnaby holding ‘And then you got so into chasing the laser pointer that you ran at full-speed into the wall’ over Kotetsu’s head for the rest of their lives.
****
Life in the Second League of Hero TV was supposed to be uneventful. They typically handled crowd control and security at Hero TV events: concerts, ceremonies, parties, the sets where ads were being shot, sometimes. They chased small-time but flashy criminals, like the Girl’s Bike Bandit and the Pink Punisher; their collars were non-violent and typically unarmed.
Not that you could say that the suspect in this latest case was armed, precisely. Michael van Hassel hadn’t even pointed. He’d just glowed blue, and suddenly a large brown tabby cat, also glowing blue, erupted from the face plate of Kotetsu’s suit and flung itself at the criminal. Barnaby, lagging behind for once — he’d saved his powers, partly as a just-in-case and partly so Kotetsu could have the arrest — had been completely baffled, but he’d rounded the corner in time to see where the cat had come from, and connected the dots easily. He’d passed another cat, bristling and hissing inexplicably, as he followed his partner and the suspect into the alleyway; apparently van Hassel had one of the stranger NEXT abilities.
Strange but potentially horrifying; Barnaby powered up and reached past the yowling, spitting ball of fur that was apparently his partner to grab van Hassel by the collar. Kotetsu appeared to be clinging to the man’s shirt front by his claws and hissing right in his face. “Change him back!” he ordered, trying his best to sound calm and commanding.
“I can’t!”
Barnaby felt like he was the one being choked. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“He’ll go back on his own in like two days, I swear, but I can’t reverse it! Get him off me!”
“Two days? Forty-eight hours?”
“I swear!”
Kotetsu apparently let go, landing neatly on his feet. Barnaby thought that was unduly trusting, but further intimidating the man wasn’t likely to get them any more information at the moment and bordered on brutality, so he supposed it was the logical course of action. “All right. Come with me,” he said, brusquely. As he marched van Hassel toward the waiting police cars, he was trying, very hard, not to worry about Kotetsu.
Van Hassel might have reflexively told the truth, or he might have been lying in a desperate attempt to appease an arresting hero and an angry cat. Or he might not know, and he’d simply made up the time limit. But even assuming that it was true, and that Kotetsu would switch back on his own, Barnaby still had ample reason to worry. Kotetsu’s mind — thirty-seven years of memory, experience, and emotion — was now being maintained by a brain the size of… what, a walnut? An egg? Smaller than his human brain, anyway, and wired differently. Would he still be the same when he switched back? If not, how would he change?
As soon as he handed van Hassel over, he sent a message to Justice Petrov; he wanted to question van Hassel under better circumstances, with more knowledge of the man’s background. If he’d ever used this ability before, he might know if it resulted in brain damage, personality changes, or memory loss. With luck, he’d provide detailed information in exchange for a lenient sentence; with luck, the Justice Department would be willing to extend the offer.
Kotetsu — Cat-tetsu? That was exactly the kind of joke the old man would make if he could talk, and right now, Barnaby would welcome it — had followed him out of the alley, and was seated on the sidewalk, washing his face with a paw and looking surprisingly smug for someone who was stuck against his will as a non-verbal domestic pet.
Then again, he had just completed an arrest despite that. No wonder he seemed self-satisfied.
“Do you think I need a cat carrier?” Barnaby asked. Kotetsu laid his ears back.
“Looks like that’s a no,” Bison said, not doing very much to sound like he wasn’t amused. Barnaby sighed. He didn’t want to worry everyone else with his concerns about Kotetsu’s recovery when this was over, but he was growing frustrated with the fact that no one else seemed to have reached the same conclusions he had.
The fact that Kotetsu apparently still understood English was a good sign, at least. And he’d gotten extremely offended at the suggestion he’d need a litter box, so with any luck, he retained other human memories, like how to use a toilet. Cats could be toilet trained, Bomberman and Bison had both assured him, so a cat who had once been a human ought to be more than capable.
Bison was proving to be a surprising fount of information on cats. “They have to have a certain amount of meat,” Bison said. “So I’d, I dunno, bake some chicken and cut it up for him? Or fish? Something like that. Oh, hey, canned tuna, that’s probably easiest. Never known a cat to turn down canned tuna. Careful about seasonings, though. Garlic and onion are bad for cats.” Barnaby had started taking notes, then, leaving a blushing Blue Rose to rub Kotetsu’s ears. The old man was absolutely shameless, purring and shoving his face into her hand. Barnaby wasn’t sure whether to blame it all on a brain the size of a walnut or on the same level of cluelessness that he’d maintained as a human.
“I wonder if mayonnaise would be all right for him?” Barnaby wondered aloud.
“Don’t see why not. It’s, what, egg and oil? Good idea, Barnaby.” Then he shrieked, because Barnaby’s glance over his shoulder at Fire Emblem had been a bit too subtle of a warning, it seemed.
“At least he still remembers language,” Fire Emblem said, his voice low.
“Who, me?” Bison was trying, and failing, to sidle out of Fire Emblem’s grip.
“Tiger.”
“Oh.”
“You, ah…” Barnaby hesitated.
“You have to have thought of it too, right?”
“What, brain damage?” Bison asked. Fire Emblem laid a finger over his lips to shush him.
“It crossed my mind,” Barnaby admitted. He’d sustained his own fair share of brain damage, after all. And because of that, he’d done more reading than the average layman about the brain and the mind and theories about both, and had submitted to more than one study. He knew the brain could be resourceful and resilient, but could also malfunction in bizarre ways, even without the involvement of NEXT powers. He worried about how a cat’s brain could sustain Kotetsu’s mind, and how much of Kotetsu’s mind would make the trip back into his human brain. He wasn’t sure if it was comforting or precisely the opposite that he hadn’t been alone in his fears after all.
“Plans to interview the Pussycat Perp?”
“I’ve already spoken to Justice Petrov. We’ll be meeting at the jail in half an hour.”
“Good,” Fire Emblem said, somehow making it sound like he’d be joining them for a threesome. “Let’s hope you find out more then.”
“I should be going,” Barnaby said, sensing Fire Emblem preparing to pounce. “That’s why I brought Kotetsu here, though. I know he should be just as capable of taking care of himself as a cat as he was as a human, but…”
“Say no more,” Fire Emblem said with an entirely uncalled-for wink. “Go get him, Handsome. Tell us what you find out.”
What they found out was that, as a matter of fact, Michael van Hassel had used his powers before, in a robbery committed while he was a juvenile. “His records weren’t sealed,” Justice Petrov told him, “and if even if they had been, anonymized information relating to his NEXT powers is accessible for informational purposes. Not that NEXT powers are terribly anonymous.”
Unless more than one petty crook could turn people into cats. “Is there any follow-up?” Barnaby asked. “What became of the other, ah, victim? Target?”
“There’s no record of any adverse effects,” the Justice said, and Barnaby’s call band flashed briefly with the file the judge had sent to him. “In the follow-up interview he makes a reference to continuing to enjoy recreational use of catnip, but I believe that was a joke.” He sounded like he regarded this alien concept with some distrust.
Barnaby, on the other hand, could imagine Kotetsu making the very same joke, so his reaction to it was more like weary resignation. “I see. But no significant personality changes or cognitive impairment?”
“None. I can’t send you the medical evaluation, but that was its conclusion.”
Barnaby was no stranger to the sensation of weights lifting off shoulders, but he enjoyed it every time. “Thank you, your honor.”
“If you still need to question the suspect…”
“No, that’s not necessary. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Not at all. Our next task is finding the identity of the bystander who was also transformed.”
Barnaby didn’t envy him that, though it did raise the question of what had happened to Kotetsu’s undersuit and mask (transformed along with him?) if the other temporary cat had no belongings or identifying information. The pleasantries took altogether too long, especially since Judge Petrov always struck Barnaby as having nearly as little patience for such things as Barnaby himself did, but it was hard to feel too impatient when he was so busy being relieved. Kotetsu would be back to normal, effectively unchanged, in two days.
Back at the now-quiet training center, Kotetsu was curled up on a bench, and he flicked an ear as Barnaby approached. “Good news, Kotetsu,” Barnaby said. “The suspect wasn’t lying about his powers’ duration. You’ll be back to normal forty-eight hours after the change took place, with no adverse effects, going by the last time this happened.” Kotetsu — it was still so strange, the way the cat was recognizable — unwound himself from his circular sleeping position, got to his feet, and stretched. “What happened to everyone else?” Barnaby asked without thinking, then felt foolish. Kotetsu, apparently equally thoughtless, replied with a loud, raspy, high-pitched noise, something like a rrrrreow, then abruptly shot into the air, back arched, fur standing on end, and bounced a few times, never leaving that position. Barnaby jumped, startled by the reaction, then burst out laughing.
“What happened?” Origami asked, unexpectedly.
It took Barnaby a moment to compose himself. He hadn’t realized Origami, one bench over, was even there. Kotetsu was now sitting primly in the spot he’d bounced to, tail wrapped around the three paws on the bench, using the fourth to wash his face. Pretending nothing had happened. The old man was exactly the same as a cat, if considerably more dainty. “He forgot he couldn’t talk, and scared himself with his own voice,” Barnaby said. Kotetsu laid his ears back. Maybe his little cat-brain couldn’t remember Barnaby’s stance on tact. “I didn’t see you there, Origami. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. It was a measure of his improved spirits that he was audible immediately and that he didn’t add anything along the lines of I’m used to it. He had a laptop open; probably blogging. Origami had a far better-developed web presence than any of the other heroes. “I didn’t have much to do this afternoon, so I volunteered to cat-sit.”
“Thank you,” Barnaby said. “I’m sure he’d be fine on his own, but I wouldn’t want to lose track of him.”
“Want me to let the other heroes know he’ll be okay?” Origami asked. “I know they were worried.”
Barnaby pulled up their afternoon schedule; cleared, thanks to the fact that a cat would be no help on a game show. He’d need to buy some food for Kotetsu, contend with rush-hour traffic… but of course that left plenty of time to speak on the phone. “That’s not necessary, but thank you for the offer. I’ll make the calls as I drive. We should probably be going, Kotetsu.”
Kotetsu reacted to that by jumping down from the bench and, for no apparent reason, rubbing first one side of his face, then the other, against Barnaby’s boots. Origami met his eye, and shrugged. With any luck, Kotetsu would be able to explain himself when he was a human, Barnaby thought, and gingerly began moving towards the door. He didn’t want to step on his partner, no matter how strange Kotetsu acted or how determined he seemed to be to get underfoot.
Shopping was a minor challenge: Barnaby vaguely remembered that it was a bad idea to leave a dog in a closed car, and he didn’t want to risk learning that it also applied to cats, so he shooed Kotetsu out and left his partner sniffing his car’s tires with intense interest while he went inside to buy canned tuna, frozen shrimp, and a jar of mayonnaise. He knew it could be made at home, and he also knew that Kotetsu swore by a particular Japanese brand Barnaby couldn’t remember, but considering that cats normally ate cat food, their taste buds couldn’t be that refined. When he exited the store, he found Kotetsu stretched out on the hood of his car, writhing around strangely with his front paws in the air and his hind legs stretched out; apparently a cat on a hot tin roof was slightly eccentric but very comfortable, at least this cat.
Inside the car, it became apparent that there were dusty paw-prints all over the windshield. “Thank you, Kotetsu,” he said, and Kotetsu, seeming altogether too pleased with himself, shot a leg into the air and began licking his hindquarters with disturbing thoroughness, relish, and focus on his genitals. To aid in pointedly ignoring that, Barnaby began his series of calls to the other heroes. Fire Emblem, a suit collar and tie visible on the screen, had dropped the nonsensical innuendo and thanked Barnaby briskly; Blue Rose answered on voice-only and sounded distracted, possibly because of the young female voices he could hear in the background; Bomberman had a few more helpful tips, including the fact that milk wasn’t very good for adult cats; and so on.
At his apartment, Kotetsu raced to get ahead of him, then slowed his pace to a leisurely stroll, tail held high. No modesty whatsoever. Barnaby sighed. “Pick up the pace, old man,” he said. Kotetsu looked over his shoulder, switched his tail irritably, and sat down to wash his face yet again. "Your fur can't possibly taste that good," Barnaby said, then stepped around him and went indoors, leaving Kotetsu to catch up. There was no one else in the lobby, so the odd image of the cat accompanying him purposefully into the elevator was only entertaining to Barnaby.
In the apartment, Barnaby finally felt comfortable talking to him again. “Kotetsu,” he said. “Would you mind not licking yourself in front of me? At least not... intimately? It’s creepy. I’d prefer we both just forget sex exists until you’re back to normal. I’m not attracted to cats.” Barnaby’s worry was that Kotetsu’s human mind still found humans attractive despite being housed in a cat’s brain and body; he was pretty sure the display in the car had been grooming, but he did not want to watch feline auto-fellatio. Kotetsu ignored him, instead sticking his head into the grocery bag. “You aren’t even listening to me, are you.” He knelt down, experimentally rubbing Kotetsu’s ears the way Blue Rose had been doing; he’d barely touched Kotetsu since the transformation, and he was surprised at the way Kotetsu reacted, first shoving his head into Barnaby’s hand, then flopping over on his side, purring loudly.
“What, are you… is that why you’ve been acting so strange all afternoon? I still love you, you idiot. I just don’t know how to react to this.” Kotetsu’s front paws were pedaling at the air, then he abruptly twisted around, got back onto his feet, and climbed onto Barnaby’s knees, headbutting Barnaby’s chest. “And I don’t really know what all this is about,” he added. “I gather you’re happy, anyway?” He shifted to a sitting position, cross-legged on the floor, and Kotetsu climbed further onto his lap, paws on Barnaby’s chest, and head-butted his chin. “No kissing,” he added, preemptively, just in case. “No attempts at it, that is. You may have forgotten, but you don’t even have the right kind of lips, and I don’t want you putting your nose on me.”
Kotetsu just purred, rubbing both sides of his face in turn against Barnaby’s chin, then turned around in Barnaby’s lap and curled up in a circle within it. His chin, throat, and belly were all a light tan, compared to the darker brown background of the rest of his body and the black tiger stripes; underneath his chin were two patches of a darker brown. “You still have your beard,” he said, scratching Kotetsu under the chin. Kotetsu purred, and shifted his weight a little. More happy writhing. He was starting to get the hang of Kotetsu’s new means of communication.
“It’s not that I blame you for… acting like a cat,” Barnaby said. “It’s unavoidable, and I’m sure some reflexes and instincts are translated over to their cat equivalents. And I suppose if I could lick my own genitals I’d find it hard to resist, too. But I’ve never really had pets.” Kotetsu ceased purring. “Not that you’re a pet!” he added hastily. The purring resumed. “I just mean that I’m not used to cat behavior. So when you do things that are more cat than Kotetsu, it’s hard to know what to make of them. Like the face-rubbing. What is that?”
Another rreew noise. “Yes, I know,” Barnaby said. “It was rhetorical. Tell me when you’re human.” Kotetsu had never really stopped purring, but he seemed to increase its volume just then. “It’s not that this isn’t nice,” he said. “But I need you to move. The frozen shrimp really ought to remain frozen.”
Grudgingly, Kotetsu got up, stretched, and stepped off of Barnaby’s lap. “Are you hungry?” Barnaby asked. “And if so, any preference?” Kotetsu marched over to stick his head in the bag again. Barnaby followed him, extracting a bag of shrimp and a can of tuna and holding them out, one in each hand. The round of enthusiastic head-butting, face-rubbing, and purring that ensued made Kotetsu’s choice of shrimp very clear. It might just be the fact that Kotetsu could smell it better than the sealed can of tuna, but he’d made his request; and Barnaby might not be much of a cook, but he could at least sautee some shrimp in butter.
With Kotetsu’s close, intense supervision. Barnaby ordered, scolded, cajoled, and finally shoved him off the counter, and Kotetsu simply ignored everything Barnaby said and jumped back up every time he was dislodged. Nothing would keep him from watching the pan so closely he was at risk of being burned if the oil popped. Barnaby gave up and kept his attention on the pan. He could disinfect the counter later, and it wasn’t like Kotetsu was going to be a resident pet who needed to be broken of bad habits. If he did get burned, he’d have no one to blame but himself. Or so Barnaby told himself, but he still didn’t want to risk leaving Kotetsu alone with the pan.
Kotetsu’s excitement when Barnaby served up his dish of shrimp was obviously genuine, which was more than could be said for his enthusiasm for Barnaby’s fried rice. It probably had more to do with hunger and cat instincts than any special skill at frozen shrimp selection or sauteeing, but it still felt nice to be able to provide something Kotetsu enjoyed so vocally. He purred audibly the entire time he ate, which was puzzling. How did purring work, exactly?
As he ate his own meal, he looked that up online. Kotetsu was thoroughly sniffing every single item in the apartment, including Barnaby’s shoes. The mechanism by which cats purr is ambiguous. This is partly because the cat has no unique anatomical feature that is clearly responsible for the sound. “That’s helpful,” he said out loud. Kotetsu was being equally helpful, demonstrating his purr as he rubbed his face against a boot, again, and then leaped up onto Barnaby’s lap. Barnaby rubbed his ears absently. “Purring suits you,” he said. “It’s a shame you can’t do it as a human.”
At least so far, having a pet wasn’t so bad. He didn’t want one as a replacement for his boyfriend, but maybe, possibly, he could consider Kotetsu’s arguments that his apartment was too empty and creepy.
But he was not getting a pet rabbit, not even if Kaede voted with her father.
