Kaiju Sized Cakes and Problems

CONTRARY TO WHAT HER SOON-TO-BE-ACQUAINTANCE might think, she was not the only occupant of the streets. The ex-Kamirex actress also trundled down the quiet streets, her taloned feet crushing snow beneath them. It was a habit she had, thanks to her, uh, less-than-legal avocation. Of course the neighbors saw Teruko trundling around and simply assumed that she was trying to maintain her girlish figure by walking, but her purpose... well, was a little more specific than that.

Mustafu was way quieter than Central Tokyo, if Teruko was being honest. Maybe it was even a bit boring, if one could go so far. No gang spats, the meagerest of drug deals... how was a girl supposed to have fun around here? The crocodilian snorted. This was what she'd wanted. A cute five-story building wherein she could live, work, and create the best community center possible. And the bakery was already almost in full-swing. She was scheduling the grand opening for the week of the Sports Festival, when throngs of people would be in-town. She had plans-- big plans.

But for now... with how quiet it was, perhaps the best course of action would be to give up and go home. Perhaps start a nice cup of tea, lay down on the the heated floor mat and get some rest.

It was then that a sputter of blue caught the kaiju's eye. From an alleyway, just ahead. Teruko raised a clawed hand to her eye and rubbed it, snorting in disbelief. Was she seeing things. Now, the glow came again, stronger now. The woman hummed and strode curiously across the street, her tail swaying behind her.

Soon, the woman would poke her meaty head around the corner to survey what trouble lay ahead. The light was low, sputtering from what appeared to be... a very elaborate suit of armor, straight out of a sci-fi movie. Whoever was in the suit seemed preoccupied with the state of their suit, looking down at their own body. They were in bad shape. Teruko's massive silhouette slipped through the mouth of the alley and filled it, stepping lightly.

"Excuse me-?" she asked, by way of greeting. The felled person snapped to attention, pointing what appeared to be a glowing... cannon... thing.

Teruko responded with a glow of her own, instinctively sensing danger. The spines along her back and tail bloomed into a pale blue light, and her eyes sputtered blue. When she opened her mouth to chastise the felled figure, this was also blue.

"Don't you take that damn tone with me," she berated the felled figure, baring her jagged, triangular teeth, "I'm checkin' on ya, you nitwit. Now I strongly suggest you put that goddamn cannon away before you hurt somebody."

Or before I incinerate that lovely suit of yours, the woman thought drolly. Already smoke was roiling from her mouth.

"You hurt?" Teruko demanded, leaving very little time for them to get a word in edgewise, "You called an ambulance?"

Teruko was reaching into her pocket, profferring what one would politely describe as "an archaic brick of a phone, if you could even call it a phone".

Meara O'Connor

523 WORDS

TL,DR: I imagine Teruko addressing Meara with this tone of voice

TERUKO FINALLY ALLOWED HERSELF TO RELAX as the apparent-cosplayer lowered their cannon and meagerly advised the kaiju that they were expecting someone else. This immediately raised the reptilian’s suspicions, but she kept her cards close to her chest-- it was about that time that the armor began to crumble unnaturally, and Teruko suspected a quirk to be at-play. She snorted dryly.

For as suspicious as she was, when the girl got unsteadily to her feet and insisted she was fine, Teruko’s maternal instincts propelled her forward. Her insistence fooled nobody-- from the meagerness of her voice to her total lack of stability as she tottered into motion.

Teruko snapped her phone shut and extended two taloned hands, suspecting the bullheaded young woman to pitch forward at any moment. Shrewdly, Teruko followed the woman with her eyes as she staggered by, never once allowing her arms to fall. There wasn’t much a place for the blondie to go, unless Teruko got her fat ass out of the way, so the kaiju began to back steadily out of the alley.

Thankfully, she had been watching the blonde woman-- no older than her early twenties, most likely, but at least a teen-- as the youngin’s legs gave-out beneath her and she toppled forward.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa,” the woman exclaimed, grabbing for the blondie’s arm. The girl fell without so much as an intervention, “Easy there, kid.”

Artlessly, the kid swore and and tried to get up again, propping herself up on a dumpster.

Teruko huffed. The kid was in no condition to walk, and watching her try was, quite frankly, absolutely pathetic. She wasn’t about to leave the girl there, either. Especially if people were looking for her.

“Anything broken?” Teruko grunted, “Sharp, stabbing pains that shoot-up or down when you try to move certain ways? Hm?”

Assuming she said “no”, the reptilian would announce, “If you ain’t calling an ambulance, I’m gonna haul your ass to my place and patch you up.”

The proclamation left little room for protest.

“Teruko Serizawa, I own a bakery that’s opening in Mustafu’s commercial district,” she said briefly, “Kaiju Cakery. It’s gonna be cute. Anyways~ I’m telling you this so you know I won’t try anything weird. I’ve got a bakery to open and stuff, you know? Can’t soil my reputation? And I’m not leaving your dumb-ass in an alleyway when you can barely walk. Capisce?”

Even if the girl outright refused to come quietly, the reptilian woman’s response would remain the same.

“Okay, kiddo,” she said, “Arms up. I’m picking you up and we’re getting the fuck outta here before your friends join us.”

The word “friends” was spoken with drollness. The reptilian woman stooped low, extending her taloned hands and tucking them beneath the teen’s arms. With as much effort as one might use to lift a housecat, Teruko scooped the teen into arms, settling for a hold that was popularly described as “bridal style”.

“It ain’t too far from here,” Teruko said simply, “Almost two kilometers, I think.”

Her coat swished as she walked, her breath coming-out in tiny puffs. While Teruko, as a vigilante, valued a certain degree of privacy (keeping her personal and professional lives separate and distinct), she had to be sure that the person she was whisking away to the bakery wasn’t some sort of villain. The last thing she needed was for some hooligan to trash her nearly-open establishment.

“So, uh,” Teruko trailed, “Whatcha doin’ parading the streets in a super-suit, kid? You do know the authorities don’t look too kindly upon that, don’t you?”

Meara O'Connor

TL,DR:

THE GIRL REPORTED THAT HER LEFT SIDE HURT, especially when she tried to move. That sounded like a broken, or perhaps bruised rib… but that required x-rays to ascertain. And Teruko didn’t have access to x-ray’s. But, the kid wasn’t coughing-up blood so… that meant her lung wasn’t punctured… right?

Honestly, it was all guesswork. She’d do what she could and then strongly recommend that the little lady get her ass to a hospital. Unless she went unconscious, in which case the kaiju would just whisk her off to the hospital against her will.

The kid was a sweetheart, for sure. When Teruko was fully transparent about who she was and her intentions, Blondie brightly insisted that she “wouldn’t cause trouble”. Oh, my sweet summer child—teenagers thought they were so invincible. That the kindness of strangers could be trusted without irrefutable proof. It was kind-of cute, honestly.

Teruko hoisted the girl up, as delicately as she was able, but the girl still let out this cry like a stuck pig. The kaiju gritted her teeth, wincing apologetically. She needed a real medical professional. Not some well-meaning crocodilian. Teruko maneuvered her hands so that they were nowhere near the girl’s ribs—one around her shoulders, the other behind her knees.

“You absolutely sure you don’t want to see a doctor, kid?” she grunted, her voice thick with worry.

The girl dismissed the kaiju’s attempt at getting to the root of her unusual get-up, but the kaiju was stubborn.

“We’ve got at least two kilometers and however much time it takes for me to tend to ya,” Teruko persisted, huffing in amusement, “Definitely enough time for a long story, eh?”

There was a smirk at the corner of her lipless, shark-toothed mouth.

“Not that it takes too much imagination to concoct a story for ya,” she continued on, “I can write ya a story right now, here…”

She tilted her head towards the twilight sky, inhaling deeply.

“Let’s see.”

Ah, there was—she seemed to snatch the story from the air, and she fixed blondie with another look.

“You live… an unsatisfying life… and you crime-fight by night for a thrill,” the woman declared. That was her story, an entire, singular sentence.

“How’d I do?”

Meara O'Connor

TL,DR:

TERUKO'S STORY WAS TOTALLY HALF-ASSED, but it served its purpose—Teruko wanted to get more of a context to make sure the girl wasn’t some sort of villain (heaven forbid). The last thing the kaiju needed was to bring riffraff into her building. Although… the girl was polite enough, which already was a tick in the “probably not a villain” box.

“Nice to meet you, O’Connor-san,” Teruko replied. That was a start. A name. A blatantly foreign name—had the girl not explained that she was from U.A., Teruko would have assumed her to be either a student or businessperson visiting Japan for the usual reasons.

As the girl explained her quandary, the kaiju began to slow her gait—talk about vigilante bias showing through, assuming the girl was fighting crime. Perhaps Teruko was projecting herself a bit.

“A mugging,” she reiterated, “Well… shit. I should be calling the cops, not hauling you to my place.”

She paused, following the kid’s gaze skywards. Gathering clouds. Possible rain, soon. If they waited for police, they’d be waiting in the rain—which would be miserable—and Meara still had injuries to tend to.

“… we’ll call them from my place,” the woman said decisively, adjusting her hold on the youth. The girl continued to regale the woman with the story of her encounter, how she’d defended herself with her quirk—perhaps from a bullet wound, even—and Teruko had arrived in just a nick of time.

“I’m glad I was out for my walk too, then,” Teruko agreed amicably, “Last thing we need is more quirkers on the news—alright kid—“

They had arrived at her building. It was a corner-building, primarily brick-face. The first floor had a chrome awning that covered part of the sidewalk and wrapped around an apparent restaurant done-up in 1950’s-era swag. In the din, you could only really see the glint of formica tables close to the windows, and the gaudily-colored (albeit matching) leather benches near the window. Above the main entrance, a neon sign that read “Kaiju Cakery”.

“Home sweet home,” Teruko announced. She started to set the girl down, keeping a steading hand on her back. “Lemme unlock the door.”

The entrance she was keying-in the code for was clearly not a part of the restaurant—lit in yellow light, with mailboxes just inside the door, the door to a stairwell, and an elevator.

“I own the building,” Teruko explained, “Makes the commute to work very nice.”

The door buzzed, allowing the two to cross the threshold.

“Wanna try walking, or would you prefer being carried? I’m good either way,” Teruko offered, “I’m in the penthouse.”

In other words, lots of stairs, or a long elevator trip. She’d act accordingly, pending the girl’s response.

The elevator was, unsurprisingly, an industrial-grade elevator. It had to be, given the building owner’s incredible girth. Teruko did her best to tuck herself into the corner, but it was still, admittedly, a very cozy fit.

“This was the first upgrade I made on the building,” she explained, “There used to be two elevators here, but I had them demolish the old ones and replace it with one giant one. For… obvious reasons.”

The remark was muttered sheepishly.

The elevator labored up four stories before sliding open onto a lounge, furnished with sofas, tables and chairs, snack machines, and a single pair of doors on the opposite side of the room. Teruko crossed between the two rings of sofas, towards the double doors.

“Alright.”

And after a brief fussing with keys, the door to the penthouse was opened. It was one of those sparsely-decorated but also-glamorous places. Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams, brick walls, windows overlooking downtown Musutafu. The appliances were stainless steel and clearly new, and the furniture looked as though it had been peeled from an interior décor magazine.

“Welcome to Casa de Serizawa,” she said regally, “Sit wherever. Food in the fridge, too, if you want a snack. I’ll go grab my first-aid kit.”

There were bar stools along an island in the kitchen, chairs at a formal dining table, or a big, plush sofa to choose from. Having deposited her guest, Teruko went to turn on a few more lights, casting the room into a warm, yellow glow, before disappearing down the hall.

ft. meara o'connor

quirk: e-rank durability, strength, range; f-rank wealth, culinary arts