Story 4 Hero Within, Monster Without Chapter 8

Days passed by. In the relative comfort of my definitely rat-infested home I worked on fully exploring my powers and I came to many realizations about how my powers worked, and the rules that seemingly governed my abilties.

While also doing the hard and very frustrating training to learn how to walk on four legs along with flying with natural wings.

First of all, regardless of the monster form I took. All their special abilities would use my own internal energy stores/stamina rather than some nebulous mana, magic, aura or whatever. Secondly I found out a major rule of my transformations.

That being the more 'bestial and monstrous' the easier the transformation would be. Even with the hard rule of a monster form requiring myself to integrate my mind into it's form and view myself in that form to take said form. There seemed to be some kind of leeway in the more bestial of forms that I didn't truly understand but could still take their forms.

And lastly the more I indulged within a form and took upon their mindset and powers for myself. The more my mindset changed as the way I in my Gengar form literally traumatized those people into partial insanity wasn't who I truly was honestly...

So... No jumping straight into monstrous forms like werewolves even if I could easily do so. As I could easily feel my morals slipping as I intrusive thoughts had entirely too much weight in said forms. But a good work around were powerful forms that all though had an alien mindset, they still had a benevolent outlook upon others.

Hence my current situation...

In the large form of a Alpha/Kings Gene Tropius I had been utterly waylaid on the BoardWalk by a hoard of gremlins who were screaming with manic joy at having a real-life dinosaur to play upon. And even with the haze of the Alpha gene of Tropius making my mind more 'territorial' At Tropius's core the Pokemon absolutely adored children to the point that it literally evolved to grow highly nutritious sugar-filled fruits on it's tree-covered form.

"Uhhh, Menagerie is that you?" A younger male voice called out and I carefully moved my long neck to the side and saw a couple of the Wards from the local PRT... And I knew one of them was Vista the spatial manipulator due to her very young age.

"Help me please!" I asked pitifully and the teenage boy face palmed as he swore under his breath or something but I continued. "The parents won't get their evil brats off of me! And just keep taking pictures!"

Vista who had actually taken out her own phone slowly put it down as my eyes glared at her and she nervously laughed as the older teenage boy coughed and spoke up. "Hey kids why don't you get off so you guys can get pictures with us!"

And the brat who was riding atop my neck where it met my shoulders yelled out snarkily. "I already got fifteen signatures from you Dauntless, and I have seven signatures from Vista, you guys are boring! This guy can turn into dinosaurs so go away!"

Dauntless just stood there in silence fucking awkward as hell as Vista fumed as they seemingly realized that getting pictures with them were no where near as entertaining as messing with me so I decided to throw the kids a bone.

"Hey kids, how about I transform into a dragon or something?" 

But a girl shouted out. "No! Dragons are bad, turn into a horse... No turn into a unicorn!" 

And as her voice hit me I realized that turning into a dragon in the middle of people would probably be a bad idea so I sheepishly called out. "Alright kids gimmie a bit of space." 

As soon as the kids climbed off my Tropius form I was torn on what kind of horse form to take. A pegasus form? A standard unicorn? Go full girly mode and go a Galarian Rapidash? Then after a moment of thought I shrugged and my form shimmered as my body contorted and within a couple moments, fire bloomed from my equine form as I stood proud as a Rapidash with powerful flames billowing from my frame.

"So... Beyond the flames, what else can this form do?" I heard Vista ask breaking my proud posing as I took a couple clipping steps forward and I spoke out with supreme confidence that came from the pokemon form I took.

As honestly dealing with children and people I wasn't trying to greatly harm in Pokemon forms just seemed like the smartest idea due to how disarming they looked normally. "I am obviously very... Very fast, I could probably run across all of America in a day if I wanted to." 

Then the younger girl who wanted a unicorn pointed at me with her mother behind her. "Hey menagieeerr. We can't pet you anymore!" She yelled pouting and I saw a number of kids were looking at me in 'resentment' at the fact that I was covered in flames.

So I just chuckled and spoke out. "These flames are harmless unless I truly want to harm people. Here why doesn't your mother come closer, she won't feel any heat from all the flames." 

After some people came a bit closer one of the kids broke free of their parents grasp and grabbed onto my leg and shouted happily. "Give us a ride please!" But after a moment of thought I realized that would be too much so I looked to Vista and Dauntless.

And yelled out. "Whelp I need to go now, have fun Vista and Dauntless, I am out of here!"

With a quick shimmy I got free of the grabby hands of the child without knocking her over or anything and with a couple steps I was already breaking the speed limit and as I hit a hundred miles per hour with my flaming mane growing with the speed I going I felt a weight fall on my back with arms going my neck as Vista yelled into my ears. "Oh no you don't! You are wanted for power testing at the RIG!"

But at the point she finished her sentence I had reached my top speed of around two hundred miles per hour and was charging at a breakneck pace down the beaches of Brockton Bay south towards Boston.

It took me a couple seconds to process her words and I obviously slowed down hearing that and after slowing down to speeds that Vista could actually hear me through the winds past my fiery mane that previously protected her from the couple mile and hour plus winds. "I don't want to join the PRT... You jumping on me could be considered assault you know?" I finished with a frown.

To which Vista snarked back. "Yeah, and your antics as a ghost led to several people going to a psych hospital, your protection as an independent hero registered with the PRT won't go far if the PRT doesn't protect you from getting warrants out for your arrest if you keep hurting people."

That... That was a fair point. So I took a breath and shifted slightly so Vista was more comfortably place with her legs around my sides firmly. "Alright, I get it... Let me just drop you off back in Brockton Bay." I said with a huff and I heard a beep as Vista lowered her voice and said more gently.

"Uhm Menagerie... Can you go just as fast back to the PRT? Clockblocker has a bet that you won't give me a ride back and you will just make me walk back with my own powers." 

I paused and then mentally said screw it as I obviously didn't have my phone on myself to ask the PRT if that was fine so I just charged back towards the RIG which was military base for the PRT out over the ocean.

As Rapidash could run so fast that he could easily run over water especially when he reached max speed and the amount of flames I output made myself lighter somehow.