The socially awkward villain's furry superpower

Sienna knew that many people disliked hospitals. She could understand that feeling.

There's a strange smell in hospitals, like a mixture of diapers, disinfectant, and warm plastic.

Furthermore, she felt that most people's memories associated with hospitals weren't pleasant. After all, it's not a place for people to seek happiness.

Her feelings toward the hospital were mixed. She had never been injured before (her favorite pastime was lying in bed staring at her phone for long periods, which made it difficult to get hurt), and she always tried to avoid visiting others.

Now she is tasked with visiting someone and extracting information from them, and all she wants to do is leave as soon as possible, but this is not the hospital's fault.

When she asked the receptionist where she could find Yezebel, she was given a room number and told that visiting hours ended at 7 p.m.

Oh, and she also has to follow the floor's rules regarding wearing masks, gloves, and those weird, backwards-facing gowns that patients wear.

Fortunately, the floor where Jessbel was located did not have such restrictions.

Unfortunately, there were two men guarding the room corresponding to the ward number she was assigned. Both were dressed casually, but they stood on either side of the door in a very unseemly manner.

Sienna stopped at the end of the corridor and stared at them. Perhaps this was the excuse she needed to slip away?

Are they guards?

Does she need to talk to them?

Sienna considered pacing back and forth, but then thought that might make her seem suspicious. But then again, wasn't staring at people in the hallway just as suspicious?

One of the men looked at her, and Sienna was startled, quickly averting her gaze to the ground to avoid eye contact. Then, she mustered her courage and walked over.

“Yeah, hi,” she said.

“Hello,” one of the men replied.

“May I see Yezebel?” she asked, gesturing slightly towards the door.

"Are you a family member?" he asked.

"Um...no, I'm her classmate. I'm a little worried about her."

"What's your name?" he asked. "I'll go ask her if she wants to see a visitor."

She swallowed. “Sienna,” she said.

Then came an incredibly long pause, without any sound. She looked up and met the man's expectant gaze. "Sienna... what's your last name?"

“Isabella?” she asked tentatively.

"Hmm," he said, then opened the door, stepped inside, leaving her in the hallway. She secretly prayed that the ground would crack open and swallow her whole.

The other man simply crossed his arms and stared at her, while Sienna waited there.

Then the first man returned, and like boys often do, he nodded at her. Sienna squeezed past him and went into the ward.

As expected, Jezebel was in a room by himself. There was a bed in the middle of the room, a door on one side leading to the bathroom, and a window with a nice view of the parking lot next to the hospital.

Yezebel herself was lying in a hospital bed, next to several beeping machines connected to tubes and wires that went into her body.

Yezebel looked...not well. She wasn't wearing makeup, her eyes were sunken, she looked exhausted, her skin was pale, and she appeared sickly.

Sienna couldn't tell what illness she had. Her limbs, however, appeared to be intact.

"Hi."

Yezebel opened his eyes and blinked.

"Hey, sit down." She casually waved to a chair beside the bed, then reached for the remote control next to her. After pressing it for a while, the hospital bed hummed, and the headboard slowly rose, allowing her to sit up.

Sienna also sat down, on the edge of the old faux leather chair, which creaked uncomfortably beneath her.

"Um, I heard you ran into a villain?"

Yezebel gave a gloomy laugh. "Yeah, we've run into a villain. It's not fun at all."

Sienna frowned. "Yes, I can imagine. I... I'm quite worried."

“You don’t sound very confident about that,” Yezebel said. “Oh, are you worried you’ll run into him too?”

“A little, I’m a little worried about you,” Sienna said, skillfully avoiding the awkwardness of saying the wrong thing. “I want to see how you are. And I want to ask about the villain.”

Yezebel rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm just like everyone else. Uh, but at least you have a legitimate reason to want to know."

You can't imagine how many gossipy people come here, just for... you know, to talk about those kinds of things.

Sienna didn't know, and she didn't want to know. "Yes, definitely," she lied.

"Well then, let's get straight to the point. You know, if you ask the Heroes' Response Team, they might be able to tell you something too."

“I don’t know,” Sienna said.

"Yeah, that's true. After all, they were just messed up by that guy, and I didn't believe a single word of their embellished PR statements after that. So, what do you know so far?"

Sienna shrugged. “I don’t know much.” She admitted, “I only heard about it a few hours ago. All I know is that he’s a guy called ‘Rattlesnake.’ I don’t even know what his superpowers are.”

Yezebel scoffed, "What a stupid name."

Sienna decided to swallow her opinion on the name "Glamour Warrior".

"In any case, he has a kind of... vibration ability."

She made a shaking motion with her hand, "When I was playing against him, the ground under my feet kept shaking, and every time he hit someone with that baseball bat, that person would...shake uncontrollably."

I haven't seen the official report yet. It will definitely contain professional and reasonable speculations, but I can tell you how I felt at the time.

"Did he hit you?" Sienna asked.

Yezebel nodded. "My attack distracted him a little, but it wasn't very effective. So I moved closer to him."

"I'm pretty good in close combat, and he didn't seem to have any enhancements or anything like that. Then he just slapped me in the chest." She touched her chest. "It hit me just below the chest. What a jerk. It felt like... uh, have you ever ridden a school bus on a bumpy road?"

“I…I think I can imagine that feeling,” Sienna said.

"Yes, I was shaking violently. My clothes were torn quite badly, and then all I remember is waking up in the ambulance with a concussion and a bruise on my body that you've never seen before."

"Is the injury... serious?" Sienna asked. After all, she didn't really consider Yezebel a friend. After all, this woman was a hero, and if she found out about Sienna's villainous deeds, it would be troublesome. But she didn't dislike her either, even though she was both a hero and, worse, an extrovert.

"They treated me for blunt force trauma, although that doesn't seem quite accurate. It was more like... I don't think it was a single impact, but rather many tiny impacts? I'm not sure, but my internal organs were shaken quite a bit, which is obviously not good for my body."

“I can imagine it, indeed,” Sienna said.

“But hey, I’m still alive.” Yezebel shrugged. “I might be transferred to a big city to find a hero with healing abilities to take a look at me.”

This reminded Sienna of something. "Hmm...maybe I can try to help?" she asked.

"Help by catching the rattlesnake?" she asked.

Sienna shook her head. "I have healing abilities."

Yezebel stared at her for a moment. "Huh, really?"

"Its abilities are very weak. It's mostly used to treat...minor injuries and pains." After a while, she realized what she had said, and felt like dying again.

"Well, this isn't just a minor injury or pain, but anything that helps is better than nothing."

Sienna blushed, then walked over to Yezebel and gently patted her head. She focused on using her "Healing Slap" ability, releasing the power as she patted.

“Ha,” Jessbel said, “I think…it might have some effect…maybe.”

“It’s not very powerful,” Sienna said. This was already one of the more useful uses of the skill. Usually, she only used it to replenish her sisters’ health, just in case.

She had heard many stories about children catching colds frequently, and she had also seen Trinity stuff all sorts of strange things into her mouth.

“Well, thank you anyway,” she said. “Any help that will get me discharged sooner is welcome. But I think we should keep this a secret. You can’t imagine how rigid the Hero Response Team is. They make a big fuss every time you do something they haven’t tested countless times.”

“Ah, that would be best, that’s right.” Sienna agreed. “Thank you for telling me about ‘Rattlesnakes,’ I mean.”

"What are you planning to do now? Track him down and beat him up?"

Sienna frowned. "I hope it won't come to that."

“Hey, I hope so too,” she said. “You have to be careful dealing with that guy, okay? He doesn’t seem like a nobody. He seems to have some experience.”

Nobody goes out of their way to raid the headquarters of a hero response force for no reason, you know? There are plenty of easier, softer targets out there.”

“Okay.” Sienna agreed. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”