(Comm) Shapeshifters: Split Personality (P3)

Summary: Taking place after the events of Clara the Shapeshifter, two women wake up in different places with severe cases of amnesia, and potent shapeshifting abilities. While their attitudes towards their abilities are vastly different, both go searching for the truth of their situations. Commissioned by Moneris.

[Story Listing]

[FIRST PART]

[PREVIOUS PART]

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Part 3

Bruce had no idea what he just witnessed. He had stumbled in on this woman, being hacked to bits by a drunken assailant, practically beheaded, but as she pulled herself together, shivering out of terror, there wasn't a speck of blood staining the ground.

He turned to the homeless man who had been in the alley with her. "...Just to be clear, us guys saw the same thing happen, right?" Bruce wanted to hear it from him, in case the whiskey had hit him a little too. "...I don't know your name, mister..."

"Chuck," The homeless man uttered, turning to the woman. "Gee, I... I reckon it'd be a miracle for anyone to survive an attack like that..."

"...mm..." The woman muttered, rubbing her neck. There was no sign of it ever having been torn open. "It was shocking, to be sure..."

Chuck glanced to the unconscious body of her aggressor, clicking his tongue. "We oughta flag a cop and put him away. He tried to stick a knife in me and her, after all."

"N-no, wait-" The woman spoke up. She grimaced, struggling to peel herself up from the ground. She examined her borrowed garments, now all torn up by the blade. She took a deep breath.

"Please don't involve the police, they... they might ask questions about me, and I..." She stirred, trying to come up with a reason. She wished she could come up with a halfway convincing fib, but she didn't have a reason that came to mind. Just a nebulous, icy black feeling, deeply seeded to avoid any entanglement with the law.

The men stared, expecting an answer; she settled on a muted shake of her head. "Can we go...?" She murmured. Bruce grimaced, turning to Chuck.

"What do you think?" Bruce asked. "He took a swing at you too?"

"Yeah, but... I think you banged him up pretty good." Chuck scoffed. "Maybe a cold night in the alley'll sobre him up just fine. Then I'll give him a tongue-lashin', heh!~"

Despite his situation, Chuck seemed the upbeat sort. Bruce figured he'd be the right man to leave the situation to; he turned his attention to the woman.

"How about you?" He nodded. "What's your name?"

The woman shook her head. "I can't recall." Bruce grumbled to himself.

"You from around here?" He questioned further. Again, she shook her head; these were softball questions, but the doe-eyed look she was giving seemed genuine.

"You got a place to stay?" Bruce's eyebrow perked up. This got a reaction out of her; her back stiffened as she flinched, her eyes drifting to the side.

"...A-are you asking to take me home...?" She murmured, prodding her fingers together. That got a reaction out of Bruce: his cheeks flushed a scarlet red.

"What?? No! I mean, i-it's just a background check thing!" Bruce sputtered.

"I caught her sleeping in that dumpster there. Butt-naked at that." Chuck gestured to the back of the alley. Bruce turned and gawked, before turning to the woman. His mouth flattened as he reconsidered his statement.

"...Maybe it would be better if I took you somewhere safer..." He muttered. "You wanna come to my office? It ain't much, but you can crash on my couch for the night. If you got nowhere else you need to be..."

"Ah... I'd like that. I just..." The woman trailed off as she considered her options. It was dreadfully chilly at this time of night. But she didn't want to leave Chuck to his own devices. She turned to look over to him, silently urging him for an answer. It took a moment for Chuck to process, and he ended up laughing it off in his typical, easy-going manner.

"Ah, don't worry about me," Chuck waved his hand. "Someone needs to watch this joker here. I'll be fine."

Bruce studied Chuck silently, before reaching for his wallet. He thumbed through it for several paper bills, before presenting them to Chuck. "Get something warm to eat when you're done." Chuck's eyes lowered to the paper bills, counting it up—must've been at least a hundred bucks. He took the money, nodding gratefully.

Bruce turned to the mysterious woman. "You ready to go?" He asked. She nodded, trying to get up... she stumbled slightly, as if struggling to find strength in her legs. Bruce leaned forward to catch her, supporting her with one arm. She was very light, and as his hands and arms brushed against her skin, he marvelled at its softness. Her arm seemed to have extra give, as if squeezing clay...

"...Let's go." Ever the gentleman, he stopped himself from gawking too much, eager to hit the road.

---

His office was on the third floor in a business complex. It was a bit of a cramped space compared to the other office suites, which is how he liked it. He reckoned the place used to be a storage closet before he took up a lease. The stench of tobacco hung heavy in the place, with a small window providing the only ventilation; the acrid smell assaulted the woman's nostrils.

He lowered her onto a small leather couch to the side of the room, stepping behind his office to get his desk sorted. Files were strewn about in a haphazard organization system that only Bruce seemed to be able to fully parse. Filing cabinets lined the back of his desk.

He kneeled down to a miniature cooler resting at the base of one of the cabinets, reaching inside for a bottle of water. He wordlessly passed it to the woman; nodding appreciatively, she twisted the cap off... and began to drink thirstily from it, her throat gently undulating as cool water passed through it.

As Bruce turned his back to the woman, she casually deposited the bottle into a bright blue recycle bin next to his desk, her arm casually doubling in length to close the distance. When she realized what she had done, she gasped silently, her arm zipping back. Bruce didn't seem to notice the odd display of her superpowers, as his attention turned to the files on his desk.

"I was planning on cleaning up at the end of the week. Sorry about the mess." Bruce apologized gruffly. "I've been going through old case files by the truckload, chasing some cases that went cold..."

"I... I see..." The woman clasped her hands in her lap. "Are you... working a case?"

"Yes, actually." Bruce said, leafing through some of the folders on his desk. "I was in the area when I spotted the big explosion at the Ritz-Payton Hotel. Hard to miss. Took out power for blocks."

The woman made a discontented sound. She didn't know of any explosion, she thought. Though now that Bruce had mentioned it, she did recall those awful wailing sirens echoing through the streets. Maybe something terrible did happen.

"It's strange, I... can't recall the explosion." She massaged her head, her skull squashing with the maneuver. "My memory is really foggy... I can't even remember my own name."

"That's strange, but... stress-induced amnesia isn't all that uncommon an occurrence." Bruce conceded. "But it doesn't take a genius to see that you're not normal. And I guess you're as much in the dark about that as I am."

"...I must've been stabbed a dozen times, but I'm all patched up again." She prodded at her own skin, feeling for any signs of her injuries, but there was nothing, not even scars. "I don't understand it at all. And that's not all..."

She focused on her body, her perception of sensation trickling across it like currents of energy. It seemed to flow inside of her, as if her skin was a thin membrane for so much formless ooze. She held her fingers in front of her, watching her hands bulge, growing in size until they were twice the size of her head. She wiggled her fingertips, as if to confirm to herself that she was experiencing what she was seeing.

Bruce stopped what he was doing to watch the woman's display. Her skin seemed to bubble, producing peach-hued fleshy tendrils that poked through the holes of her outfit. She allowed her hands to shrink, feeling biomass sinking into her arms and travelling to her core. She outstretched her arms in front of her, wincing and shuddering with the strange, alien sensations coming over her; her arms stretched taut, creaking like elastic as they stretched before her, coiling around each other like snakes.

"Jeez, that's nutty..." Bruce muttered under his breath. The sight of her hacked to bits was well enough that witnessing the woman turn into a tentacled rubber band seemed... well, obvious. The woman followed the sensations of her body, allowing her body to stretch, her neck to elongate, her legs to spool into piles on the floor.

"It's just so... curious to me." The woman explained, her eyes drifting down from her heightened vantage point to marvel at her abilities. "I don't comprehend this body at all, why I'm capable of such things, surviving such terrors, but the possibilities... intrigue me. I wish to explore them..."

The woman whispered in astonishment as she took in the natural splendor of her supple skin, the sensations of her stretched out body rubbing against itself. Her body, soft to a fault, seemed to shift, forming to the contours of the sofa, and even to the divots in the rug. As her head swiveled along a snake-like neck, she caught a glimpse as to how Bruce was examining her...

She grimaced bashfully and, with a mental nod, urged herself to stop, to return to a sense of normalcy; her body acquiesced and, as effortlessly as she began, she morphed back into shape, her disparate limbs returning to their regular proportions. She settled her hands into her lap.

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me there..." The woman admitted sheepishly.

"You looked like you were having fun." Bruce's eyebrow perked up. The woman's mouth flattened, her eyes darting to the side.

"I-I'm not sure what that was, but... well, I suppose the best way I can describe it is..." She tried to find the right words. "I wanted to investigate this body. Find the truth, and... see it revealed through to the end."

"Really. Then maybe we aren't that different after all." Bruce cocked his head to the side. "I'm lookin' for answers too. My brother went and disappeared in a bad part of town... actually, the part of town I found you in."

"...Wh-what? Really??" She gasped, covering her mouth. "Was he... he didn't..."

"I can't say for sure, but... I don't think we're gonna stumble into him." Bruce shook his head. 'He was a good man. The only one with the guts to try and get in with the Verducci mafia. He wanted to uncover their secrets, then destroy 'em from the inside, but... they got their hands in everything. They probably got wise to him, and..."

Bruce trailed off, lowering the folder to the table. The woman's expression fell, an anxious pang hitting her chest.

"You... you're looking for him, aren't you?" The woman asked carefully.

"I'm looking for answers. Even if they're answers I don't want to hear." He rubbed the back of his head, glancing at her. "But I ran into you, and now I don't know what to think. You're an enigma all to yourself..."

"...Let me help." The woman straightened her back, a determined look rising to her face. "I want to know where I came from. You want to know where your brother went. There's no logical connection between these two threads, but... maybe we can help each other find the answers we're looking for."

"..." Bruce thought about it quietly. He was surprised by this woman's chutzpah. "This is usually the part where I tell you to stay out of dangerous mafia business, but... well, you'd stand a helluva better shot in a gunfight than me, heh."

...While Bruce chuckled coarsely at his own joke, the woman didn't find it very funny herself. She didn't want to think about this man getting hurt. Bruce trailed off again, clearing his throat.

"Maybe I do need a partner..." Bruce admitted. "I hit a couple dead ends already. And besides, you seem pretty sharp. Maybe you'll take to being a junior investigator."

"...Junior investigator..." The woman muttered to herself. She hoped to be equal partners, and some part of her recoiled at the sense of inferiority. But she thought better of it, and nodded. "I hope I'll be an asset to you, Mr. Finnigan."

"Y'know, if we're gonna enter a partnership, I'm gonna need to call you something. Been dodging the issue." Bruce shrugged. "You recall anything like that yet?"

"..." She thought carefully. No matter how hard she tried, she was drawing a blank. She shook her head.

"Hm... well, let's hope it comes back to you eventually." Bruce folded his arms. "How about Isabelle for now?"

"Isabelle? ...Isabelle..." The woman considered it. It was a very pretty name. Her cheeks blushed slightly. She warmed up to it quickly, and nodded in turn.

[NEXT PART]