Lacking Professionalism

Charlotte’s eyes blinked a couple of times, a bit surprised that she was going to receive care this quickly. “O-oh…it’s…it’s really alright? T-thank you so much I…I…I um…” Charlotte wasn’t entirely the best at conversation, she often struggled to find the right words to give her gratitude.

The small child gave a subtle little nod upon being asked to come with her, following the doctor’s lead, albeit with her steps pausing every so often so her eyes could briefly scan the room she was in, showing that she was ever so slightly hesitant. She hadn’t been in a medical wing before, thus some parts of her instincts were telling her to be cautious, even though she was aware that there truly wasn’t any danger here.

She did take notice of their words of comfort, giving a timid little nod as she stepped forwards into the room.

“…I’ve um. I’ve been trying to eat whenever the others give me stuff to eat. I’ve been trying to restrict myself because…w-well. Before I distorted, when i was a normal human, I could never get a chance to eat. And….and after I distorted, I could…hardly stop eating. Because…no matter how much I eat my body still feels like it’s…I still feel like I’m starving. So it’s…it’s hard to stop when I start… It’s like I’m…it’s like I’m in an endless cycle…I-I really wanna keep eating. But I’m…I’m scared I won’t be able to stop…”

She realizes that she was unintentionally avoiding the question, and tries to get back on track. “…I haven’t eaten since I’ve waken up, no…My body just…starts eating whatever I get my hands on. If it can fit in my mouth then I just…swallow it whole. But I still feel weak with hunger…”

When asked if she had hit her head, she tried to run through the scenario in her head a few times. “…I remember passing out after the pain got too much. I think…I think my vision faded before I hit the ground. It’s…it’s possible? I think it sounds like something that probably might have happened…but I um..I was knocked out before the….the…impact? …That’s the right word, right?”

Upon hearing that it would sting, she paused for a moment, before trying to give a small nod. “…Um…how bad will it sting? Will it hurt a lot? …I think I can…I think I can handle it…b-but um…how bad is the sting? Will I be crying in agony o-or…?”

The more that she listened to charlotte, the more that she couldn’t help but to feel so bad for her. It sounded like that she had gone through a lot, even before whatever this distortion was that changed her body into looking more like a spider. So, she was going to make sure that she got the absolute best care that she could muster, even if the amount of care that she could give was limited because of so many unknowns that made Charlotte different than normal. But that was just a challenge she was going to have to deal with.

“I won’t mince any words and say it will be very little pain. However, the pain will be brief, and you’ll be much better off after it alright?” Her voice and tone was soft as she got out the hydrogen peroxide and some cotton balls and put some of it on the cotton ball. She saw the wounds and would put the soaked cotton ball on one of the wounds. A sharp stinging sensation would be able to be felt and the stuff immediately started to bubble up.

She did the same for the rest of the wounds, watching as they were bubbling which meant that germs and other foreign stuff was being taken care of. Of course, it was going to hurt for a bit, bit was either that or having an infection which would make things a lot worse. Once she was done with that, she got out the bandages and started to put them on the wounds. “Keep these on here, alright? They’ll help the cuts heal.”

The burns would be helped with ointment, but now there was another question that was on her mind. “So, your eating thing. I admit that I don’t know much about your specific situation. Obviously, something such as a “distortion” does not exist where I come from. However, I must ask that you give me as much information that you can about it. Like, is the reason why you can eat like that because of your distortion? Or is it something else?

All things considered? Charlotte was handling the sting a lot better than she had originally assumed she would have. That's not to say she didn't emit several additional squeaks of pain each time she felt her wounds flare up with pain, but at the very least she was capable of staying relatively still to let the kind doctor do her job. Well, there were a couple of times near the beginning where she struggled to sit still admittedly, but for the most part considering her age and her flighty nature, she handled it better than she had expected.

Once the stinging was finally over, Charlotte could feel a breath of relief escape her lips, glad that the worst was over with. Her body would shiver a couple of times as Charlotte tried to keep still to allow Tae to apply the bandages onto her. When Charlotte was asked about the Distortion, she paused, trying to remember the details that she knows about it.

"...There's...a lot I don't know about it. But um...as much as it...complicates my life, it...it has some up sides? Like...it makes me a lot stronger. The usual...sicknesses I had felt a lot more...tolerable? ...My arms grew bac-"

She paused. Right. She had to provide context for that. 

"Um...Right before I distorted I was...kidnapped. C-cannibal chefs tried to eat me, y'see? Apparently they think stressed meat tastes...a lot better. So my arms were...chopped off. Shortly after that is...when it happened. When I transformed. My arms grew back...and there was six of em' too! Now that I was...distorted, my body was a lot....I was a lot stronger. I was able to actually...fight. It was like...all these instincts of just...wanting to survive all came full circle and I just..."

Her hands gestured a few times as she stuttered, trying to find the right words to say.

"...I went feral. It was like...I acted like a savage animal that could hardly see straight. Just...on instincts to consume and survive. U-um...Right after they were...."

She paused once again. Charlotte didn't want to exactly clarify 'how' she had disposed of the chefs, thus she had decided to not go into detail.

"...I was alone for...for long enough for...I just started hearing voices in my head. I think my conscience was just...so desperate for...for someone, anyone to comfort me that...w-well. I started to try and imagine someone's voice. Someone who could comfort me when I was acting...when I was acting savage. I tried to imagine someone who could...I guess...act as a parental figure at the time I needed it most and...w-well. I sort of just...made an imaginary friend named Carmen to help me...sort of just...reel back some sort of control...."

Charlotte paused, realizing that was off topic, trying to skip ahead once again. "...I um. I found out I can...I can turn stuff to string? I could make...I could make web-like materials and...I could make weave cloth together in...in a miraculously short amount of time. It's...it was so strange I...I tried to sew before but...all I could make before my distortion was a bunch of...t-they were practically tattered rags. It's...how I tried to make money on the streets. I....I started to work myself practically half to death in an effort to make something before...now I can just...make them with such such little effort.”

She realized that she hadn’t yet explained about the correlation between her hunger and her distortion as of yet. “....I’ve always been hungry for...for a large portion of my life. I’d eat...I’d eat anything I could get my hands on, even before my distortion. It...sort of just, turned into a habit of me trying to bite down on...whatever was small enough to fit into my mouth. To test if anything I could find was...edible. After I transformed I couldn’t...I couldn’t find anything that I couldn’t eat. My mouth just...started to grow larger when I opened it up, like...as if my entire jaw just unfurled to consume something. And...I’ve had a much easier time...accessing food at the mansion that...one of the first days here I just...well. I consumed the entire fridge...l-literally. All of it was...consumed. Metal and all. And...I still felt hunger. That’s...that’s when I realized something wasn’t right.”

She began to rub her head. There was definitely a lot of common themes with her past life and her distortion. "...I've seen...other distortions too. Um. Well. More so I’ve...heard about them from others. I-I mean I’ve seen some but...um. Well... Most distortions seem to just...lose their humanity entirely. Distortions are...I don't think they're ever the same. They all turn into entirely different...weird monsters. I heard one distortion had their head inflate like a balloon before literally popping! One really nasty one was....was a giant playing on a piano made of hundreds of it’s victim’s corpses, and...and..."

Charlotte began to feel her breath growing a little more shaky as she kept remembering how horrid these monstrosities could become. "...Some distortions can turn...really terrifying and really...really bad and...I'm scared that...that one day I'll turn into something worse. That one day I'll wake up and... and lose my mind. That I’ll... I'll end up like one of those giant city-consuming monsters that e-end up having to be put down..."

Charlotte didn't realize how loud her voice was getting as her mind began to race. Her head soon leaned into her hands the moment she felt a familiar warm liquid begin to form in the corner of her eyes.

Kazuya looked the girl over curiously but seemed completely unbothered. Although… the fleeting idea of trying to make this girl take a bath did cross his mind.

“It’s alright.” he shifts the weight of the kitten to one hand and gives Charlotte a pat on the head. “You don’t wanna hurt him so I’m sure it’ll be okay.. just be gentle since he’s pretty much a baby.” Shadow, the cat, would proceed to lean in a bit toward the stranger. To a little kitten like himself she was very new and interesting! A tiny paw would reach out and gently boop the side of her face in curiosity. ‘Mew…!’

"A-ah! He's so tiny and sweet!!"

“N-no, I didn’t. I um…I just…I just started eating…t-then became obsessed when my mindset got…it got focused on it…then wanted to snack some more…then…I was scared to stop. So I kept…eating every crumb I could find and then…then I started chewing on the metal and…after that I realized I could… eat the whole thing.”

She paused awkwardly as she mentioned this, frowning as she realized how bizarre it must have been to explain how she quite literally ‘ate’ a fridge. Distortion abilities were weird…

Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be angry or agitated about what she had done, and seemed…more understanding than she first assumed they’d be.

“…My name’s Charlotte. I um….you can set it down anywhere really. I uh…I can properly set it up a bit later.”

The mention of food made her noticeably start to drool slightly, yet she shook her head for a moment to try and shake herself out of the mindset of eating once again.

“It’s…it’s nice to meet you, Monsieur…. or um…  or… Mademoiselle. Um…whichever… whichever you prefer. Or um…if you’d prefer a gender neutral term. I um…don’t know what the gender neutral term in French is.”

Friendliness turned to consternation as the girl continued to speak, the man suddenly self-conscious about his hairstyle. Flynn didn’t quite understand what she was saying at first, but if he inferred correctly, Charlotte was saying she couldn’t tell if he was a man or woman — was that it? He couldn’t think of why she’d be confused over how to address him like that.

Well, at least she didn’t take it a step further and call him a child, like the demons who mocked him so many times before. Either way, this was just a small hiccup in the conversation, nothing to dwell on too much.

“I hope you won’t feel hungry enough to do that again,” Flynn said as he looked for a suitable spot to set down the fridge. “If you need to stock up on food, just call me on your phone. I’ll get something from the kitchen. You don’t have to worry over not having enough to eat here.”

Flynn could empathise with Charlotte’s fears, though he wouldn’t go as far as to become obsessed with eating every last scrap of food he could find. In times of poor harvests and hard winters, he knew taking more for himself meant less for others. Selfishness would only lead to more suffering, it was better to share even the little one had — every child of Kiccigiorgi knew this.

She fiddled with her hands anxiously, fiddling with the hem of her rugged skirt a few times.

"...I'm actually from a place known as 'The City'. It's...a very upsetting place, but the technological wonders there can benefit those that are fortunate. Um. But...there aren't any laws against killing others in the backstreets. So I try to give as much respect as I can to others...t-that way I won't risk getting my fingers chopped off by passing thugs. People will....people will happily chop apart your limbs if you don't respect them. So um...w-well. Better safe than sorry, you know?"

Slowly descending into view from the ceiling was the small child known as Charlotte. Despite her rants that she’s gone on in the chatroom, she wasn’t quite as terrifying as she made herself sound in the text chat, albeit her body was definitely abnormal.

She fiddled with some of her hands once she had managed to land on the floor. Her body was still horridly thin despite managing to get to the chance to eat more. She still had various wounds, albeit most of the most fresh wounds and burns were presumably from the Lovers fight.

Charlotte had fallen unconscious near the end of the fight from her wounds, thus she couldn’t afford putting off this doctor’s appointment any longer than she already had.

“…I think so. I fell…I fell unconscious at the end. I um. I wanted to um. I wanted to find out if my body was…y'know. I wanted to see if it was possible to find out more about how my body worked. Being a distortion is…confusing. But um. There’s also the um. The injuries from the fight. I um…I wanted to check if you were…busy right now with…with all the people that were injured…”

The child had a faint French accent to her voice, and she twitched every so often as one of her fingers picked at her wounds. A sudden series of violent coughs began to escape her lips, with her body shaking a couple of times afterwards.

“…S-so sorry. The cough is nothing new, it’s…it’s probably fine. If…i-if now is a bad time however I can…I can wait….“ 

Despite Charlotte’s words, her body did appear to be in quite a bit of pain given her injuries.

It didn’t take a doctor to note that Charlotte was not in good shape. She could just tell from looks alone that the injuries were pretty bad and she was not in good shape, being pretty skinny. Of course, there was no way that Tae of all people was just going to ignore this. No matter what the person was, whether they were human or not, the fact of the matter was that they all deserved quality of care. She had a chart in her hand but opted to put it away for now. This young girl was her top priority.

“No, I’m going to take care of you now. In fact, you may have to spend some time here to really get some proper care and attention.” She did let off a sigh though. Yet another individual who was skinny and malnourished. This wasn’t gonna be fun. “Please, come this way.” She told Charlotte and they were gonna go to a place that was a little more remote and isolated. “I promise that I’m not going to do anything to hurt you.” She had to preface that just in case they were scared.

Plus there was still the looming thing of her being charmed over her head that she couldn’t get herself away from fully. “I’m going to look over you and take care of your wounds the best I can. Have you eaten recently?” She asked to address the skinniness. “I can get you something to eat after this if you want. Whatever you want. But first, let’s take a look at those wounds.” Fresh cuts and bruises were all over the spider girl and burns as well. That was part of the common trend of injuries.

The small child gave a subtle little nod upon being asked to come with her, following the doctor's lead, albeit with her steps pausing every so often so her eyes could briefly scan the room she was in, showing that she was ever so slightly hesitant. She hadn't been in a medical wing before, thus some parts of her instincts were telling her to be cautious, even though she was aware that there truly wasn't any danger here.

She did take notice of their words of comfort, giving a timid little nod as she stepped forwards into the room.

"...I've um. I've been trying to eat whenever the others give me stuff to eat. I've been trying to restrict myself because...w-well. Before I distorted, when i was a normal human, I could never get a chance to eat. And....and after I distorted, I could...hardly stop eating. Because...no matter how much I eat my body still feels like it's...I still feel like I'm starving. So it's...it's hard to stop when I start... It's like I'm...it's like I'm in an endless cycle...I-I really wanna keep eating. But I'm...I'm scared I won't be able to stop..."

She realizes that she was unintentionally avoiding the question, and tries to get back on track. "...I haven't eaten since I've waken up, no...My body just...starts eating whatever I get my hands on. If it can fit in my mouth then I just...swallow it whole. But I still feel weak with hunger..."

When asked if she had hit her head, she tried to run through the scenario in her head a few times. "...I remember passing out after the pain got too much. I think...I think my vision faded before I hit the ground. It's...it's possible? I think it sounds like something that probably might have happened...but I um..I was knocked out before the....the...impact? …That's the right word, right?"

As she was taking care of patients in the Medbay, an all too familiar pattern was emerging. It was lots and lots of burns and some physical injuries. Considering that most weren’t too severe, what she had them do was make sure the effected areas were covered up in bandages with aloe vera underneath, to keep the burns wet and to allow them to heal, and once it had been about a week or so, unrwrap them and let the old skin come off naturally, and to not pick at the skin, no matter what.

Telling a patient that they were alright and to take some time off to relax under doctor’s orders, she was surprised to see a young girl come in who definitely did not look human. Was this that Charlotte spider girl that was mentioned? Well, she was certainly unique looking, and if she hadn’t dealt with all the persona stuff, she would probably be freaking out, but with everything that had happened with her, this was just another day in the office. “Ah, hello there. You’re Charlotte correct? You said you wanted to meet me at some point. Did you get injured heavily during the fight?”

She fiddled with some of her hands once she had managed to land on the floor. Her body was still horridly thin despite managing to get to the chance to eat more. She still had various wounds, albeit most of the most fresh wounds and burns were presumably from the Lovers fight.

Charlotte had fallen unconscious near the end of the fight from her wounds, thus she couldn't afford putting off this doctor's appointment any longer than she already had.

"...I think so. I fell...I fell unconscious at the end. I um. I wanted to um. I wanted to find out if my body was...y'know. I wanted to see if it was possible to find out more about how my body worked. Being a distortion is...confusing. But um. There's also the um. The injuries from the fight. I um...I wanted to check if you were...busy right now with...with all the people that were injured..."

The child had a faint French accent to her voice, and she twitched every so often as one of her fingers picked at her wounds. A sudden series of violent coughs began to escape her lips, with her body shaking a couple of times afterwards.

"...S-so sorry. The cough is nothing new, it's...it's probably fine. If...i-if now is a bad time however I can...I can wait...." 

She blinked a few times. She’s never really received  a greeting that formal in the past, so it took her off guard for a moment. Before she knew it, Morgana was up on the top shelf next to her, she wasn’t expecting to meet someone as small and agile as herself in truth.

“It’s…it’s nice to meet you, monsieur Morgana!” She chimed with her subtle smile returning to her face. Upon having the popsicle offered, her eyes seemed to metaphorically sparkle ever so slightly at the offer of food, happily accepting the gift.

“A-ah! Thank you, thank you so much monsieur!” Before Morgana’s eyes, her mouth stretched open, as her teeth seemed to grow more crooked with her jaw seeming to almost displace itself, enough for her to consume the popsicle half offered to her in a single bite with each tooth enlarging.

Shortly afterwards, each tooth returned to it’s normal size with her jaw stretching back to it’s normal place…before quickly realizing she forgot to give a warning. “O-oh! I’m so sorry ! um…I have…that’s one of m-my…my…my drawbacks. I can’t really…I can’t really…I get really…impulsive? When it comes to food, y'know? …I start…consuming things and…when I do that, my mouth grows really big and I um…S-sorry if that freaked you out.”

She paused, deciding perhaps it was better to try and shift topics. Perhaps…perhaps it’d be better to talk about the fact they went to school? That’s a more…normal, topic, right?

“O-oh! You…you go to school! I’ve um…I’ve never really gone to school. I could never really afford it. I’ve always been curious a-about it. I um…guess I’d…I’d probably startle everyone if I went though given…given it’s…well, me.”

She stuttered a bit, worrying if she shifted topics too quickly.

The change in her mouth was surprising, but it didn’t bother him. He summoned a demon and used to be a cat. It didn’t matter to him if someone was a little different. He just smiled and kept eating his own half of the popsicle. 

“No worries, It doesn’t bother me at all,” He smiled brightly at the girl. 

“I do. School is okay, I didn’t want to go, but Sojiro, my guardian said that I had to,” Morgana swung his feet a bit. “Kids are kind of mean in general. I mean they can’t see these,” Morgana twitched his ears. “But even I get teased sometimes. Mostly because they say I have no parents. Which is true but I don’t care,”

"Oh...the kids are mean? Do they...do they threaten to stab you too? Threaten to chop you up and eat you or...or pummel you to the ground so they can steal from you? O-or threaten to turn you into a human popcorn machine!?" Charlotte is making a lot of overdramatic assumptions right now. "I...I can understand that. People can be horrifically cruel."

"O-oh...you don't...you don't have parents either? I um...I don't have them either. I...I had to live in the streets. I mean...I had a mom but...she...she died before I could...get to really know her that well." She grimaced at the memory of struggling to get by on the streets.

Clinging to the ceiling, Charlotte had taken notice of the cat…no, not catboy, the boy with cat ears. Honestly? She was quite interested to speak to someone that’s near her own age for a change, as she couldn’t remember the last time she’s done so. Thus when Charlotte saw Morgana, she decided perhaps it would be nice to speak to them, even if just for a brief moment. The child rose up her voice, albeit it sounded a little sickly in tone.

“…B-bonjour. You’re the….” She paused, not wanting to call him a catboy or cat, as she remembered how much offense he took in the chatroom. “The boy from the chatroom, right? Um… It’s uh…it’s nice to meet you. I…I haven’t…I haven’t really talked to anyone my age in…in a long time. Um…my name is….my name is Charlotte.”

She tries to offer an anxious little smile, albeit her expression was a bit hard to make out with her being so high up.

Morgana’s ear twitched softly at the sound of the little voice. Luckily his cat ears were still senstive and not just for show. It took a moment for him to turn and locate the girl on the roof. He beamed back up at the girl giving a soft wave.

“Hello! It’s nice to meet you Lady Charlotte,” Morgana gave her a soft bow. “That looks fun, hold on,” 

It barely took him a moment to scale a bookcase, so he could be up high like her. It was fun to be up high, in places he shouldn’t be. It took him a moment sit and settle on the top on the shelf. Morgana broke the popsicle in half and held it out to her. “Here!”

"It's...it's nice to meet you, monsieur Morgana!" She chimed with her subtle smile returning to her face. Upon having the popsicle offered, her eyes seemed to metaphorically sparkle ever so slightly at the offer of food, happily accepting the gift.

"A-ah! Thank you, thank you so much monsieur!" Before Morgana's eyes, her mouth stretched open, as her teeth seemed to grow more crooked with her jaw seeming to almost displace itself, enough for her to consume the popsicle half offered to her in a single bite with each tooth enlarging.

Shortly afterwards, each tooth returned to it's normal size with her jaw stretching back to it's normal place...before quickly realizing she forgot to give a warning. "O-oh! I'm so sorry ! um...I have...that's one of m-my...my...my drawbacks. I can't really...I can't really...I get really...impulsive? When it comes to food, y'know? ...I start...consuming things and...when I do that, my mouth grows really big and I um...S-sorry if that freaked you out."

She paused, deciding perhaps it was better to try and shift topics. Perhaps...perhaps it'd be better to talk about the fact they went to school? That's a more...normal, topic, right?

"O-oh! You...you go to school! I've um...I've never really gone to school. I could never really afford it. I've always been curious a-about it. I um...guess I'd...I'd probably startle everyone if I went though given...given it's...well, me."

He knows he shouldn’t be creeping around the facility, everyone seems so tense and stressed. He doesn’t really want to bother them too much. Morgana is gleaming what he can from the group chats, but he’s okay with flying in by the seat of his pants. He knows enough that and the situation. 

He can’t help but be curious though. It’s very much in Morgana’s nature. And he wants to know where everything is in the building. The best places to hide, places to read and play. He wants to know where his team mates rooms are so he can find them. Also the best place to have a nap in the sun. He already knows the best way to sneak in and out of the kitchen when the scary guy is there.

"...B-bonjour. You're the...." She paused, not wanting to call him a catboy or cat, as she remembered how much offense he took in the chatroom. "The boy from the chatroom, right? Um... It's uh...it's nice to meet you. I...I haven't...I haven't really talked to anyone my age in...in a long time. Um...my name is....my name is Charlotte."

“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t mean to eat the fridge, didn’t you?”

Flynn tilted his head at the spiderlike girl. While her appearance would no doubt seem monstrous to an ordinary person, Flynn was no stranger to allying with creatures with far more odious appearances. As far as the young man was concerned, if it could think and talk like a (fairly) reasonable individual, then he saw no harm in trying to converse with it, at the very least.

Besides, he wasn’t about to ignore the plight of a child who seemed so scared of expressing herself. 

She paused awkwardly as she mentioned this, frowning as she realized how bizarre it must have been to explain how she quite literally 'ate' a fridge. Distortion abilities were weird...

Thankfully, they didn't seem to be angry or agitated about what she had done, and seemed...more understanding than she first assumed they'd be.

"...My name's Charlotte. I um....you can set it down anywhere really. I uh...I can properly set it up a bit later."

The mention of food made her noticeably start to drool slightly, yet she shook her head for a moment to try and shake herself out of the mindset of eating once again.

“I hope that plan of theirs works… or else I’m going to have a hard time finding someway to help keep him fed.”

...How was that pronounced exactly? She's not exactly the best at pronouncing names. Upon seeing the woman in question, she perked up a little bit.

"O-oh...your um...you're miss...Ker...um.... coorehgo.. Cehrehgo? Is that...is that how you say it? Um...they said a tall lady with red hair I should ask f...for..."

Getting distracted from her speech, she suddenly let out a violent set of coughs. Her body seemed...relatively shaky after these coughs, and the look in her eyes seemed a bit sickly. Even after getting some good rest, and good meals...the spider-like girl's sickly features didn't seem to die down as much as Charlotte originally had hoped.

"...I um...wanted to ask...what doctors were available? Like...which ones you'd....that you'd recommend that I see. Um...if it's...if you're not...if you're not busy...."