AU where after some sort of bizarre event, magic is unleashed on the world.
Except, there’s no weird magical creatures or whatever.
Instead, a few new previously-harmless chemical compounds start to cause unusual effects on people exposed to them. Only about a quarter of the populace can even be affected, but those that are affected with usually develop sharp teeth and claws, get a point to their ears, and lose their memory. The vast majority of cases shift to a digitigrade stance or become able to comfortably walk and run on all fours. Most develop tails, horns, or wings; some even grow fur, feathers, or scales. The first few months are painful, and the transformees (known as ferals) will often lash out violently.
They become less intelligent and more aggressive, often to the point of feral nonsapience, and after the first few weeks of trying to deal with this wave of lashing-out, pained ferals, the government just drives people out of the worst affected areas, walls them off, and dumps the ferals in there with occasional food drops and some guards to make sure that people who want to pick out a feral who’s mellowed out a little do so legally and aren’t attacked.
Pick out, because legally speaking, ferals are animals.
Oh, and they get superpowers. Usually.
At 8 and 16, respectively, Hiro and Tadashi Hamada are accidentally exposed to the most prolific agent.
Within ten hours, Hiro is already forgetting. Tadashi’s unaffected, and has to watch as Hiro starts to transform.
Hiro’s dumped in the largest feral reserve before his transformation is even complete, as his steadily rising body temperature might be indicative of fire powers.
Tadashi throws himself into his studies, especially robotics and medicine, skips a few grades, and ends up finishing Baymax at 19. He does try to retrieve Hiro, especially after finding out that ferals will lose their violent urges after about the third year, but every time, the guard he’s with will just tranquillize the nearest feral that even vaguely matches the description.
After half an hour of searching, he has to give up, as all the transformees are terrified and have fled, or are trying to shoot or throw stuff at them. He tries again a few months later, and it becomes routine.
Days after he’s had his final grade given to him, he sneaks into a reserve that had gotten a large number of transfers from the large one about six months after Hiro was put in the large one.
By that point, Hiro’s intelligence is back, but the only things he remembers are how to talk, read, do maths, and his name. Also that he thinks his stomach didn’t use to hurt so much and he used to be darker skinned with more energy, but he's not quite sure if that’s just nostalgia or not.
He’s been teaching other ferals who forgot stuff like reading and writing and who’ve regained the mental facilities to do so. These ferals wear tattered clothes, made from the scraps of clothes they had on and what the nonsapients throw away. They hide away from the weird uniformed people with the sleeping guns who shoot any feral that gets too close, or who matches some arbitrary description. Sometimes it’s winged ones, sometimes it’s feathery ones without wings, sometimes horns, sometimes fur, sometimes certain powers or hair or skin colours, always unclothed. They are believed dead, and so the death toll is vastly inflated and the amount of food needed is underestimated.
He doesn’t recognize Tadashi.
But he knows that someone who knows his name on sight and who snuck into the reserve unarmed, after trying and trying to find ones that look like him for years and being furious with his guard for bringing out the sleeping stick, and who is offering him a warm safe place with a lot of food and clean water, probably can’t be too bad.
Tadashi is caught on the way out by a guard, who’s surprised that he’s holding a feral with no care as to just how close the skinny little ‘savage’ is to his neck. Hiro’s slit pupils and 40 degree body temperature seem to be the only non-standard changes, as far as Tadashi can tell.
Eventually Tadashi’s allowed to leave, although he has to take Hiro to a vet qualified in feral physiology for a check-up, which reveals that no, he’s not supposed to be that skinny, yes, he did pick up parasites, yes, he has eyeshine, yes, his metabolism is much faster than a normal human’s, and yes, he does have other changes-his bones and teeth incorporate something rather like naturally produced steel.
Oh, and he’s got iron-deficiency anaemia.
When Tadashi gets his certificate of ownership of a feral, he’s pretty happy. Okay, his brother’s sick, digitigrade, as comfortable on four limbs as two, has a tapetum lucidium, and is probably not sapient, but hey, he’s back and he still likes cuddles.
Then he sees Hiro reading, and oh.
He’s got all his intelligence back.
Ferals go back to being people after all.
Tadashi isn’t sure whether to be horrified that he is now technically a slave owner, or happy that his brother’s fully back (apart from the memories, but, well, he has a few vague fuzzy ones and the new clear ones to go on! ).
He settles for trying to re-bond with Hiro. They missed a lot of bonding time, after all.
Submitted by: Longpost Anon
(Bizzare accident? KREI *shakes fist at the sky*
But oh man, you scared me for a sec when you mentioned Hiro had fire powers. I was like ‘OOOOH NO I DON’T LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING FIRE + BH6 AUs = USUALLY SADNESS’ but then it was okay and so was I :D
But whoo-hoo cuddles! I approve of cuddles! Happy endings for all!)
