Inception

Chapter 57: Escape to Defense Force Mountain

"Huh...so, you'd be, like, the medical team?"

"Been a while since I've had a team, but yes."

"...So support, medical, how do you find the kaiju?"

"Much like the defense force. People come to us. We still have a bit of the old network in place to take care of the kaiju the defense force misses. They can be like cockroaches, you know, scuttling in little nooks and crannies."

Lena looked down at her fiddling fingers. Her nails kept turning long and black then back again. It felt no different than stretching out a muscle. She couldn't help but be fascinated and get sucked down the rabbit hole of theorizing how such a thing could be.

"Kaiju knowledge used to be something everyone had to know," continued Granny. "So a separate role for research wasn't so much a thing. But I'm certain you'd find a place with Tatsuhiro and his brood. They all specialize in support and maintaining the network. We all usually pick up a role with the Defense Force, but inevitably one grows tired of the beuracracy and returns to the family business, as Tatsuhiro and Soshiro's father have done." Granny paused. "My other two sons died fighting kaiju before they could have children...I'm a bit peeved with them. If they're going to leave me alone in this world, they might as well leave someone to keep me company. Brats."

"What about your husband?"

"Oh, he was a nerd," she said flippantly. "Had the perfect build and talents to be a swordsman but preferred making weapons and poisons to actually fighting kaiju. Was very into chemistry and metallurgy. He actually became head of family because of me, you know."

Lena's eyebrows went up. "How did that work?"

"Well, unlike other families, becoming the patriarch is more of a democratic thing. Whoever can make the best use of the talents and skills of the family gets the job. There's no such thing as a duel to the death or whoever kills the most kaiju. After all, it's a team effort. And, well," she gave a smirk that looked so much like the Vice Captain getting the upper hand that it made Lena's stomach squirm. "I'm very smart."

"So...you married in?"

"Yep."

"...And he became head because of—didn't that make you the head of the family?"

"Darling, the husband may be the head, but the wife is the neck. It's actually preferable not to be the face. The face is who everyone comes to complain to. Busy work. People work. The neck, however, is the one who can get things done."

"Huh..." Lena had never thought of it that way. Then again, she'd never thought about family dynamics in the first place. It had always been 'how do I survive?' and 'How can I have a family that will survive?'

But that had been Granny's thoughts as well, hadn't it?

Lena watched her toes. Each time she wiggled them, they would stretch into scales and a talon, then shrink back into a little human pink thing.

Out of the corner of her eye, the glowing smoke from the east undulated and thickened. It had lines of bright blue that blended in with the shrinking blue sky behind it.

Something tickled in her stomach. A twisting. A pull.

"There's this weird smoke I'm seeing," she said off handedly.

"Yeah, you're eyes are doing the thing."

"Thing?"

"They get all black," Granny scratched her chin, squinting at her. "It appears like the pupil of your eyes expands till it takes up the whole eye."

"Freaky."

"Extremely. And you start getting scales about them too."

Lena reached up to touch her face. Sure enough, scales lined her eyes.

The twisting in her stomach turned to a clench. Muscles along her spined tightened.

Run, whispered in her mind. Must run.

Lena looked around. Feathers prickled along her arms.

"Something's coming," she said.

"Oh?" asked Granny.

Lena felt her elongated ears lift off her head. She could hear the movement of the incoming storm. She could feel the increasing pressure of the atmosphere on her skin. She stretched out her tongue for more info and tasted the shivering electrons in the sky, beginning their jerk towards the earth.

But anything out of the storm was that light blue smoke, curling like a squirrels tail from the east and across the yard.

Run.

Lena didn't remember when she had shifted completely or when she had gotten to her feet. Her wings were filling the expanse of the porch, feathers stretched where her fingers once were. Her legs and feet had lengthened, becoming that of a raptor.

"Danger is coming." Lena's voice sounded warped to her ears, though a trace of her old voice still remained. The twisting tension had reached every corner of her body. "Where's somewhere safe?"

"Well, we have a bunker—"

An image of Kaiju No. 9 flickered across her mind and she suddenly remembered where she had seen that light blue glow of the smoke.

And she knew, down to her toes, that a bunker would be tissue paper to No. 9.

She couldn't let him find Soshiro's home. He had found her, somehow, was coming straight to her.

She turned her monstrous body to Granny. "Get on my back, quickly, we have to go to Soshiro."

The Granny's eyebrows went high. "Darling, they'll kill you."

"But they won't kill you, just hurry! Kaiju No. 9 is coming and the bunker won't mean anything to him! But Soshiro will!"

Granny must have heard the urgency to Lena's voice (that or trusted those huge eyes and ears to sense what she's talking about), for she stood and quickly shuffled to Lena's side. Lena crouched down as low as she could, feeling just like she had over a decade ago when she'd crouch down for her siblings to climb onto her back. The little old lady felt just like them, all small hands and comforting weight.

"Hold tight."

"All there is is feathers!"

"Then hold on tight to those. It's okay if you pull them out."

The smoke was getting thicker, brighter. She could smell that salty, skin-like mucous on the breeze.

She snatched up a hose from underneath the house, cut it easily with the beak-like tip of her mouth, and flung it back.

"Use this!"

No sooner had the hose gone around her shoulders then Lena was running westward, claws digging into the carefully kept pebbles and stones of the Hoshino yard.

Nothing felt more natural then spreading her wings and feeling the air currents through her feathers.

She flapped.

_______________________________________

Your mom flapped.