Red in the blood (Nimue/Saga)

Smiling a little sheepishly, clearly looking a little out of place in the clean hospital with all it’s fine, delicate equipment. And here was Mia, a bulking behemoth of a person just strolling past worktops of fragile glass and machinery that could break at the slightest knock in the wrong direction. The phrase bull in a china shop was apt, only the difference being she was a very nervous bull who didn’t wanna live up to the stereotypes, flinching back away when she brushed her arm against a counter top, worrying she’d nearly been about to knock something to the floor but relieved to find she hadn’t brushed up on any of the equipment.

“Er… yeah. Wasn’t too hard. Just got to the right floor then asked a nurse where I was going.” She commented idly, rubbing at the back of her neck as her eyes drifted over the technical, clean space around her, certainly not wanitng to brush against anything she might actually have the capacity to break before finding a relatively open space in the small lab and offering a sheepish smile as she ran her fingers through the hair on the back of her own head.

“So er… yeah er…” She felt a little awkward bringing this up, she liked to consider Nimue a friend, even if they’d never hung out, and the fact of the matter was they’d just never really hung out, so calling on her for a favour like this, especially one so… ‘technical’, was a little more than weird. She felt like she should make small talk before they got ‘down to business’ so to speak, and so Mia asked a pretty pertinent question on her mind before she divulged her own issues, her eyes trailing around the lab around her. “sooooo… what had you move your work over here? UA not really cutting it for you career wise or you got some other plans in the works?”

Mia held a mildly nervous smile as Nimue cleared up some space around her so she could feel a little more at ease. Between the horn and her general size she felt like a literal bull in a china shop so she appreciated the effort Nimue made to make her feel more comfortable, even if she felt oddly guilty that her friend even had to make the effort on her behalf to begin with, idly scratching at her cheek as she averted her gaze from the other woman, just letting them each take a moment to settle in and perhaps even catch up before getting… down to business, so to speak.

“Studying MARINE huh? Hope you ain’t onto the human testing phase… we saw what that shit could do afteral. Ehehe… “ She tried nervously to make a bit of a joke about that, a passing wonder in the back of her mind wondering if being around that stuff was what had set off her quirk’s sudden evolution but quickly dismissing the thought as she’d been too busy fighting Thunder and the Railgun to actually have been close to any of that shit, shaking the thought away even as she looked back up to her colleague Nimue. “Well you got a smart head on your shoulders and… hey if anything goes wrong your quirk should be able to… yeah.” She let out. Really she wanted to be supportive but this sciency shit was where people lost her. She didn’t even really have much of an idea as to what Nimue had been going through studying this.

“So… erm… “Wanting to push forward a little on her own issue, she rubbed a little nervously at the back of her neck, the large woman seeming oddly small as her nerves on the matter became a little more clear. “Speaking of er… weird quirk drugs… my own quirks not been the most. Stable. Lately. I was just erm… wondering if you could take a look at it? I’d ask one of the association doctors or whatever but… if there’s something wrong I don’t trust them to not just get me fired on the spot for being a liability or whatever.”

“…R-right.” Mia was actually kind of stunned that there’d been some form of human testing and she really felt bad for the poor sap who’d had to go through that. Briefly she considered asking if it was a volunteer, or a criminal maybe, but she wondered if either answer would even make her feel better about the idea. She’d watched that chameleon guy swell up like a fucking balloon and burst at the scene so… imagining that happening to someone who might have known what they were getting into. The terror they might have felt… she shuddered a little herself. She didn’t gross out, or scare easily but… with her nerves so high strung that definitely got under her skin a bit. “Yeah erm. Maybe spare me those details… yeah.” She had a hefty gulp from the base of her throat, nervously rubbing the back of her neck as she tried to find her breath again, not wanting to make things anymore awkward than this trip might already be.

Nimue seemed happy enough to move things along though and Mia was a little thankful in turn as she gave a still somewhat nervous smile, already starting to roll up her sleeves, the loose canvas shirt making that more than easy, though she’d remove it to reveal the short sleeved shirt underneath if asked. “Yeah my issues… oh wait!” She quickly let out, realizing that Nimue must be looking for some heavy duty equipment. “Nah nah I’m good er… gimme a sec.”

Mia closed her eyes once she rolled her sleeves up, she rested one of her arms over a nearby counter, and started taking slow, deep breaths as she tensed and unclenched her fist in time with her breaths. Slowly, but surely, her beefy form seemed to almost be deflating. The brutish features of her face becoming honestly more feminine, bordering on ‘pretty’ almost, and the raging muscular figure of the beast turned to something far more slender but still quite clearly toned. Like a woman who took up body building rather than the roid monster Mia tended to be. “I… need a sec and… to be really calm to pull this off but I should be good… this is honestly how I used to look most of the time before her work became a full time gig.” She let out a light chuckle. Nimue may have seen her like this once before during the lead up to Shinagawa. They were in sooooo many meetings that Mia had basically been bored out to the point she took on her more deflated state. She was still just as tall, almost as broad, but her clothes hung off of her now to the point Mia had to adjust her belt a little. She didn’t plan on standing up soon, but an easy precaution to make.

“Yeah er… like this my skin ain’t so tough and you got less muscle to get through… should be easy to get whatever you need. Just gimme a count down or something so I don’t tense up or nuttin’. Don’t want a needle snapping midway huh?~” She held a smirk, trying to make a joke to lighten the mood… but ultimately she did have to talk about her issues, just easing slow breaths as Nimue did her work.

“So er… for a long time with my quirk, when I start hitting my limit my skin goes… Red. Like a deep red. It feels different where it happens too… more leathery. Kinda dry and really tough. It used to just mean I was hitting my limit, or pushing past it. Like if I needed one hell of a punch to get through an enemies attacks or something or… if I needed to roughen up to handle something they threw at me too. Lately though it’s… setting off when someone really gets me going. Whether it’s a drawn out fight or they just… get under my skin.” She rubbed idly at the side of her neck, a patch of her skin, while peach in color, was still dry and… kinda itchy from the last time she was set off. “That wouldn’t be too bad.. I mean I get tougher to handle a tough criminal but… I start to lose control. It used to just go Red where I needed it but… now it’s spreading. Like an infection or something. And the more my skin goes red the harder it is to calm down and…yeah…”

She let Nimue take that in… considering if she should be open about what happened when she went ‘full red’ with that criminal in the warehouse district.

“hahhah!~” She let out a bellowing little chuckle and a shake of her head with a content little sigh as Nimue called her ‘whimping out’, as Mia had dubbed that little talent, fascinating. Really Mia didn’t think it was a cool thing, it was basically her… levelling out. Not turning her quirk off, she could never do that, but whatever her quirk even did to make her more muscular and more intimidating felt like it oozed out of her veins as she forced herself to relax. It almost felt unnatural though. Her normal beefy state was just how she was, energetic, ready to go at a moments notice… when she was whimped out she either had to force it or, like the shinagawa meetings… be very, very, VERY drained, more so mentally than physically. If only criminals knew her biggest weakness was being bored out of her mind… “Well that’s one thing to call it I guess… suppose this might be what I’d look like if I didn’t have a quirk huh?”

‘Possibly better than what happens when you get too much of your quirk-‘ Her brain would parrot back to her with some annoyance.

She’d take slow breaths as Nimue took vials of her blood. When she examined them late they’d seem pretty normal under most circumstances but… aggravating the blood cells would indeed provoke a reaction. The blood would generate some heat, mild but definitely abnormal for blood to do on it’s own, the cells becoming more aggravated, and seeming to produce growth and adrenaline hormones on their own.

Of course, that was for Nimue to find out later when she was running her tests.

As Mia explained her situation more personally, she waved off Nimue’s apology. “Hey you’re taking this seriously. I appreciate it. Don’t worry about takin’ notes or crap just… maybe er, make sure you don’t leave ‘em lying about for a co-worker to spot is all I ask. Ehehe…” She let out a nervous chuckle but… it was serious, her livelihood. Heck, her way of life itself was kind of on the line with how her quirk had been acting up. She knew she could trust Nimue but still her nerves left her feeling tense. Slowly her muscles were returning to normal size, and Mia was mildly stretching out her top again under her loose shirt as she settled back to normal, hissing a little when her re-growing tusks boked her top lip. “Shit forgot they do that…”

At the question of what it felt like… “I dunno… its hard to tell. My horn grows further so I can’t tell if I’ve got a fever or the pressure of it growing is just bugging me or I’m actually heating up… I think from what I remember my skin definitely gets hot though. Less like a fever but… yeah.” She felt a bit useless here… she knew shit happened to her but the one time she’d let it go all the way she’d practically blacked out. She was watching herself rage out like a passanger in her own head. “Sorry I… I’m not much use her am I?”

Mia hung her head, rubbing the back of her neck… the one thing she could always trust to get the job done. Her own body… and she couldn’t even manage to figure out the fuck was wrong with her.

Mia definitely smiled when the notes were presented to her. For a sec she didn’t know what she was meant to be looking at, but being told her name wasn’t even on them was definitely a relief. Of course if they ever leaned towards ‘super strong quirker with rage problems’ she doubted it’d take long for people to connect the dots… luckily even then Nimue put her at ease, the Oni heroine nodding slowly as she rubbed deeply into the back of her neck. “I really appreciate it. Truly. I… know I’m putting a bit on your plate here. Especially when you’re already so busy.” She took a slow breath and exhaled just as slowly. She kinda just felt… defeated. By this whole thing. Even on the path to getting it sorted potentially, with someone she trusted to handle it discretely… it wasn’t a pleasant sensation knowing you weren’t fully in control of your own body. No matter what steps you might be taking to correct it. Mia’s body had always been one of the few things she could always trust to pull through. It was a dumb mentality but… there was never a problem she couldn’t fix with her strength on some level and now… now her strength was the problem itself.

“Hm? Oh er-“ Caught from her self defeating thoughts by the next question, she thought for a second and shook her head. “It used to be just over-exerting but lately it’s been more… rage induced. I guess.” She let out a weak scoff at herself and shook her head more slowly. “Like, it used to just be a sign I was hitting my limits, I’d go red in my arm when I pushed my limits on a punch, but now… if I can’t calm myself down it stays there and it spreads further. Or heck if a bad guy just pisses me off anyway I can feel it start to form somewhere on my skin, even when I don’t need to push myself at all. The angrier I get the harder it is to calm down.. pretty nasty cycle really. Eheh…” She let out another defeated little laugh, not really sure what else to say there. It wasn’t a pleasant situation, no sugar coating it.

When asked for a swap Mia would open her mouth and take a long, slow breath while it was still agape. Her muscles that had been returning calmed down a bit again, and more notably her tusks, about double the size of the rest of her teeth, shrank down a bit, receding into her jaw to make it easier for Nimue to swap about without getting a spikey tusk poking her hand. She’d make a few lip smacking sounds when she was done, flicking her tongue against the now dry inside of her cheek. It wasn’t something she hadn’t had before, they were a natural part of some check ups she had when becoming a pro hero in Japan, didn’t mean she found it pleasant though.

When asked if there was anything else Mia wanted to mention, she couldn’t think of much but… as she rose up out of her seat, fixing her shirt sleeves, she’d tip her eyes back in thought before looking back to Nimue. “Not… to do with my tests but…” She’d rest her hands in her pockets, another heavy breath. “Just… look out for me, if something happens aye? I mean, you’re about to know more about my quirk than even I do likely so… if it erm… if it becomes an issue, I’m just… trusting you to make sure I don’t become a BIG issue… okay?”

Nimue’s reassurance on both fronts was just… nice. Not really any other way she could easily put it. She felt calmed and put at ease, a slow breath flowing through her and a quiet nod to confirm her words. “Yeah. Thanks…” It still wasn’t a pleasant thing to think about, putting this one nImue’s shoulders cause she couldn’t handle it on her own. Mia wasn’t opposed to relying on other necessarily, but usually she managed to pull her own weight as part of the deal. Having something she just couldn’t even play a part in really resolving was… defeating, to say the least. Still, before she left, she’d take a deep breath and try to hold her head high.

“For calming down I… have a few solutions, but nothing that I can easily pull off mid-fight, but I’ll keep an eye on myself. If things are taking a turn I’ll pull back and wait for another hero to get on the scene. Least, when that’s an option ya know…” She tried for a bit of dark humor but it probably didn’t come off the best in the current atmosphere, Mia turning to leave. “Anyway… you have work to get to, for me or for your own stuff so… good luck aye? I’ll see ya around.” She pulled a hand up, making a phone sign next to her head. “And call me too if you need anything else from me aye?”