[Plot] A universe clothed in flesh.

[Colette Rosenhof]

I hadn't been too long since the news had gone out to the student body; those whose powers hadn't been returned found their health rapidly deteriorating. To say that the news had soured the atmosphere of the Rosenhoff household would have been an understatement. Now Colette was sitting on the examination table and awaiting her "treatment, and she looked like death warmed over. Whether it was from crying or how sick she'd gotten was hard to say, though it was likely a bit of both. What a piteous little thing.

So much for happy endings.

[Basil Benson]

Basil wasn't there.

He was of course physically present, draped around Colette in an attempt to ease her mind.

But his own was too troubled by the news to do much more than follow basic instructions up to this point.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin had been the one to distribute the first round of vials along with her dad. And when it started to become clearer that the hold-outs were getting sick she'd somehow gotten roped into helping talk to people, who tended to be ones with severe physical mutations. Not that she felt she was in a similar boat to them, she was lucky enough to escape her personal body issues by reclaiming her power. But she did have an air of positivity and a complete lack of judgement no matter how strange things got. And so she ends up stepping into Colette's room, wearing a white lab coat that is entirely undeserved.

"Oh jeez... having a rough time?" she asks, unaware of Basil's presence.

[Basil Benson]

Basil barely acknowledged Robin's entrance. Being that she looked way too young to be a doctor, he instead presumed her to be A friend of Colette's who had come to comfort her and slipped away quietly (though not technically invisible yet due to his still coming to terms with what needed to be done), to sit in a provided chair and stare off in thought.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette's eyes rose slowly to look at Robin after the spoke, with an expression reminiscent of a scolded basset hound. The conversations she had Basil had held after they received the news hadn't been pleasant for either of them. She felt bad that he had to be here with her for this, but she also knew that she would feel worse if she didn't have his support.

"... you could say zat." Any glimmer of her useful cheerfulness was completely absent fro her voice. She barely sounded strong enough to get the words out.

[Robin Stanton]

"Colette, right? Dunno if we ever officially met or anything, but I'm Robin. I'm just kinda going around, seeing if people need somebody to talk to."

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette nodded her head. "Yes, you are correct." There was a pause. "You are pink as well." Why that observation was bringing tears to her eyes probably wasn't immediately obvious.

[Robin Stanton]

"Yeah, though that's a bit more by choice. I can go for another color if it bothers you..." she says, fading to a soft blue hue.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette chuffed through her nose. "Zat... does, zank you." She swallowed heavily as she tried to recompose herself.

"Is zere... really no alternative?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Well, I'm not a doctor, I just play one on Stream, but from what they said, probably not. It's like having an extra muscle that's been so good at doing it's thing that all the other muscles went really out of shape. But now that muscle is gone and the whole load of keeping you alive is on those untrained wobbly noodle-arms. Except, you know, the muscles are your cells and your organs. They're not meant to work this way. It's especially bad for people like you and me because we've been this way all our lives, our bodies apparently can't really function without it for long." she says, putting a hand on Colette's shoulder.

"I know this sucks. We're all unique and beautiful in our own ways, but some mutations are just really harsh."

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette already knew the answer, but she had to ask it anyway. Of course part of her dreaded going back, she'd only gotten a taste of a normal life, something many other students took for granted. Hell, it was something many of them could still have, since their mutations weren't physically obvious. And at the same time she felt guilty over her depression - there were students with much more striking physical mutations than her own, at least she looked SOMEWHAT human. So she felt like garbage for multiple reasons, emotional and biological. The part about being "unique and beautiful" stung, because that was the kind of thing she'd have said to Basil months prior. She was such a hypocrite.

"Will it hurt?"

[Robin Stanton]

"I doubt it. It'll probably feel a little weird but I don't think there'll be any pain. And hey, chin up. I know people can still be pretty dumb in this universe but that's their loss. I think you're great. Maybe we'll hang out and be cool blobs together some time, yeah?"

[Colette Rosenhof]

The blob comment stung. She knew that's how others thought of her, but it wasn't a pleasant descriptor.

"Cool... blobs. Yes." She let out a deep sigh through her nose. "... I guess I should get zis over wiz."

[Robin Stanton]

"Hey, being a protomorph ain't all bad, you just didn't have anybody to show you the ways in which it's fun. Well, the non-naughty ones, am I right? Wink." she says out loud as she winks in Basil's general direction.

[Basil Benson]

Basil didn't respond. He didn't seem to be deliberately ignoring Robin and Colette. More like he couldn't hear what they were talking about at all. The conversation between the two amorphous ladies barely pinged to his mind as making a sound at all, and he continued to look at seemingly nothing in the corner of the room with his full attention.

[Robin Stanton]

"Is he... okay?"

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette looked over at Basil, her cheeks flushed from the innuendo. "No, I do not suppose zat he is." Basil was naturally pretty melancholy, but it'd be rude to flatout say it. "He is not looking forward to his turn, eizer. But I suppose zat zere is nozing else to be done. Let us get zis over wiz, yes?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Right. Well, hang in there you two." Robin says before heading out, returning after a couple of minutes with one of the doctors and a syringe full of Colette's power.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette looked to Basil during Robin's absence. Poor boy. But just being in the room with her was a big help, a favor she'd gladly return when it was his turn. When Robin returned with the doctor she rolled her sleeve up and turned her head to look away - baby's first needle.

[Basil Benson]

When a new person shuffled in with Robin, Basil did seem to notice their arrival, but he said nothing. Just another medical attendant so far as he could tell.

And Colette appeared to be taking things well. So he returned to his thought castle without further attention paid.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin gives Colette a perhaps slightly too optimistic thumbs-up as the doctor injects her with her extracted power.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette let out a little yelp as the needle pricked her skin, kicking her feet and gripping the edge of the examination table. Basil had a whole childhood to get used to this, she's had about 30 seconds, so her whining could be excused. When it was all finished she started breathing again in an attempt to calm herself down. Her skin felt itchy and clammy, her stomach queasy, but all of those things could be due to nervousness and stress. The wait was so nerve-wracking.

"How long does it take before ze shot takes effect and ze changes be-"

And then Colette exploded.

There hadn't been any warning, her skin hadn't even begun to change colour. One moment there was the mousey little French girl in her flower-pattern dress and the next there was a big jet-black splatter-in-progress. Only it didn't hit the walls, or even the others in the room for that matter. Before it could get that far it slowed to a stop, like a freeze-frame shot of some paint splatter.

[Robin Stanton]

"Holy frakking bananas!" Robin shouts and jumps back to avoid Colette-splatter, arms raised and head turned away. When she doesn't get showered in French-Girl she slowly peels open an eye to look at the frozen string of splorch stopping a couple inches away. And then she does what you do when something strange and inexplicable happens. She pokes it with her finger.

[Basil Benson]

Well, that shook him out of his doldrums.

Basil immediately bolted upright from his seat, and unsurprisingly went into a panic. But his girlfriend was now a suspended spill, so maybe this time it could be forgiven.

"Madame?! Madame?!?" He cried out, reaching out to the mess held mid air where Colette was moments ago.

He wasn't sure if he should touch, his hands frozen out in front of him.

Needlessly to say, Robin prodding her wasn't helping.

"Stop it! She could be dead!" His panic immediately turned to anger at the medical professional. "What did you do to her?!" He barked, well past courteous inquiry and right into flagrantly demanding an answer.

[Colette Rosenhof]

The goo was slightly warm to the touch; not quite body temperature, but certainly more than room temperature - probably due to it having been a body just moments before. It also was surprisingly dry. Those who'd experienced Colette's presence might have described her as being damp on occasion, even in her "bubblegum" mode her hair was always wet to the touch. But this was strangely smooth and dry, like a thick coat of freshly-dried paint, or rubber, or latex. If it was aware of the world around it, it showed no signs of it, remaining rigid for several seconds as Basil panicked. Then a subtle quivering and swaying, almost unnoticeable. And then everything snapped back together again as though time was being rapidly rewound to the moment of detonation.

The woman who stood in front of those in attendance was not the same one who'd been sitting there moments before, nor was she the cheerful pink blob of the week prior. The form was definitely feminine, but lacked most defining features of a human - it looked more like a store mannequin in shape, and actually very much like that which had stepped forward to defend Basil during the fight between students months prior. Only instead of pink was an inky blackness that looked as though it should have been reflective but seemed to absorb the light instead. But to say she was a black hole would have been the furthest thing from the truth, as the subtly shifting masses of gaseous-like colours within her shone out, illuminating what subtle features she held.

It looked with unseen eyes to Robin, and then to Basil, in apparent silent contemplation.

[Robin Stanton]

"That... is... so cool!" Robin cheers. "Is that a power breakthrough? Secondary mutation? Can you hear us? Are you okay? Can you talk? Bob your head once if you're okay!"

[Basil Benson]

The fact that Basil immediately stopped yelling at people was perhaps an indicator that Colette was fine.

He had no reason to yell now. This Madame he recognized, he'd seen her before..

"Madame Rosenhof, you frightened me." He playfully admonished, choking back tears and hugging his arms to his chest.

[Colette Rosenhof]

There was a pause before the answer came.

"Yes, I can hear you. What is the matter?" Her voice wasn't quite right, it was mostly familiar but lacked certain qualities that made it... Colette. She wasn't moving her head much, only tilting it down slightly as she held out her hands and turned them over. Without a word of warning she "leaped" over the pair like a jumping jet fountain, the stream of black goo forming back into a humanoid shape as it landed in front of the full-length mirror. She examined herself for a moment with her back toward them before it simply wasn't her back anymore, her features changing shape and orientation rather than her turning around to face them.

"This is... unexpected. Are all of the students experiencing... 'breakthroughs' like this?"

[Robin Stanton]

"No, but I think some did. It's... ah shoot, my Mum had a whole lecture about this once and Lippincott was villain-speeching about it too. Something about stress and heightened states of... something. Secondary Mutations' one of the old terms for it."

[Basil Benson]

Ever skittish, Basil himself jumped back to clear space for Colette's new, eradic way of moving about. It would take some getting used to.

[Colette Rosenhof]

"Wait. Does that mean that I am stuck this way?" There was a note of concern in her voice. It was bad enough trying to go out into public when she was pink, at least then she had eyes. Well, sort of.

[Robin Stanton]

"Maybe, maybe not. You might have to do some experimenting."

[Colette Rosenhof]

"Experimenting..." Colette mused softly before she "collapsed" and slid across the floor, rapidly reforming into her somewhat humanoid shape in front of Basil. Small slits of white appears on her face that opened into portals whose white contrasted her light-absorbing blackness, making them appear as if they glowed. They softened in appearance, like kind eyes.

"Matou. Remind me of what flesh feels like." She asked of him, holding out her hands with palms raised.

[Basil Benson]

Without questioning he did as he was told and folded out his slender fingered hands, palms facing Colette's own intending to touch them together.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette took Basil's hands in her own, those vague lips curling into a subtle smile as she stared down at him... yeah, down. She was a little tall like this. As Robin had experienced earlier her surface wasn't wet at all; despite her liquid sheen it was glossy smooth and almost rubbery to the touch. She didn't give Basil much time to get used to the feeling, because before he knew it she had leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Well she probably didn't need more contact that this with Robin around. Right?

[Robin Stanton]

"And that's my cue to leave. I'll see you around. We'll hang later." Robin says as she slowly rolls backwards out the door on rollerskates she definitely wasn't wearing earlier.

[Basil Benson]

Basil let himself be kissed by the larger entity, though whether it was his funny demeanor today or the audience that kept him from turning it into more was up in the air.

"... Are you feeling better now?"

[Colette Rosenhof]

As Robin was rolling away and Basil spoke, the white slits slowly opened. "Yes. I do believe that I am feeling..."

It was a funny thing to see. All of that blackness and variety of colours rabidly began to draw and collect into her head as though they were being sucked into a black hole, or an explosion played in reverse once more. One would half expect to hear it from how quickly and vividly it appeared. No sooner had the "nucleus" formed than it disappeared behind a familiar pink face - familiar, but different. It wasn't the face of human Colette, but it also wasn't the gooey one Basil'd gotten used to. It was something in-between. A much more highly-detailed facade complete with subtle colour variations and pores, her entire form opaque except for the semi-transparent and glittery hair and irises. She was looking less like slime trying to be a person, and more like a person who just happened to be the same colour as a stick of unchewed bubblegum. Her nostrils even subtly flared as her dress flitted and fell around her, her garments having been swallowed up by the black goop and redeposited on her frame... even if her shoes were on the wrong feet.

"... like my old self."

[Basil Benson]

First, he gave her space to change and reform herself again into yet another identity, though this one closer to the previous one.

Basil appraised her with his reddened, slightly swollen eyes, and noticed her backwards shoes.

He stooped down to help her correct them.

"Shall I take you home Madame?" He asked as he undid the latches and attempted to swap out the shoes, offering his shoulder to lean into as he did so.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette could have swapped her shoes without even bending over, but little things like this made Basil happy, so she was happy to let him serve her. Even if to outsiders it might've seen like he was doting on her like she was a child.

"Oh? Are you not going to get your shot as well?" She asked as her weight pressed down on him.