Chapter Four: Growth Spurt

Chapter 6

The University campus was exactly as he remembered it, which annoyed him. It should've changed in some way after all things months, still old and grand and stuffy. After all, he'd changed so much, he wasn't even Reginald anymore.

"Sorry, no Monsters on campus without a visitor pass." A very familiar voice said as he walked past the door. "Too many dangerous experiments that react badly to certain sorts of magic, you know?"

"Oh, shut up, Gary." He shouldn't have said that outloud, but he honestly didn't care. That was a perfectly reasonable rule, of course, but they both knew Gary and Larson only bothered enforcing it because they were freaked out by his kind.

"How do you-" Dr Larson, beside Gary, squinted his eyes. "... Reggie? That you?"

"What?" Dr Gary took a closer look himself. "Hey, you're right? Woah, what happened to you, Reg?"

"I-I-I had an acci-accident." He hadn't stuttered around his plants, but these two speak five words and he's right back to it. He'd never been this pathetic before. "I'm sor-sorta p-p-part plant, n-now."

"I knew you were obsessed with plants," Dr Larson laughed, "but turning yourself into a vegetable's a bjt much, no?"

"Hey, Reggie's a Veggie." Dr Gary grinned, and both started stupidly chanting. "Reggie's a Veggie, Reggie the Veggie!"

How had he ever been intimidated by these morons? He should've gotten a real revenge a long time ago, instead of just not hiding his Monster side. He should've poisoned them, or punched them, or-

He shook his head roughly, trying to get rid of such thoughts. He growled, making the others pause. He was too angry to stutter. "Would you guys listen for once in your miserably insignificant lives?! This is important! Rho- Dr Dendron is working with FOWL, they're running off with a machine I made, planning to make a super army. I need a phone, so I can call SHUSH and get authorities here before they get too far away."

"Rhoda? Working with FOWL?" Dr Larson shook his head. "You must've fried your brain when you turned yourself green, Bushroot."

"But don't worry -- if it's one of your projects, it'll probably just explode before they can use it!" Dr Gary guffawed, clapping him on the shoulder, right next to his neck.

It was the final straw. The Monster was loose, and he didn't try to hold back, colors changing and thorns growing and fangs expanding. He saw only red, barely registering Spike jumping into action as his roots shot out, colored like blood.

He held Dr Gary against the wall, roots tightening around the other bird's neck. He growled and hissed, more menacing than he'd ever sounded before. "How many times. Must I tell you. Not to. Touch. My. Neck?!"

"I-I'm sorry..." The other choked out. Dr Larson was only barely being held back by Spike.

"You're sorry?" He asked. He laughed. "All these years, and you've finally said you're sorry, after I've become the bully. You pushed me, and pushed me, and everyone pushed me! The worst I ever did was not act like a Normal! But now you're sorry. Well guess what? I don't give a cluck!" He sing-songed. "Not a cluck-cluck heeeere. Not a cluck-cluck theeeere. Not a clucking cluck anywhere!"

You try acting sane after being tortured and left for dead. I dare you.

The man continued to choke and gasp, while his partner had started begging, and... He couldn't do it. He was a Monster, he was bitter and angry and very much done -- but he wasn't cruel. Or, Reginald hadn't been cruel, and a little bit of that man still existed in him. The roots loosened, thorns retracting, just as sirens sounded in the distance.

Cluck.

"Where are your car keys?" He demanded, thinking quickly. He wouldn't find help here, he had to get away and clear his head.

"W-what?"

"Your car keys for your life, seems a fair deal if you ask me." He growled again, already searching with his other roots. He knew he'd hid it somewhere...

"Here, take them." Larson handed over his keys, still crying. "Just don't hurt him, please."

One good thing he could say of them? They really did love each other. He pushed Gary into Larson's arms, finally finding the small vial taped to the inside of a banister.

"This is a healing potion, to be applied to the skin." He calmly explained, putting it in Larson's. He eyed the wounds along Gary's neck, ignoring a pang of guilt. "I started hiding vials of it here after the third time one of you morons blew up my experiments. Drink a lot of water afterwards, or you'll pass out. Have a nice day. Come, Spike."

It was easy to find the car, a white-grey thing that thankfully wouldn't draw much attention. He took a few minutes fitting his body inside and figuring out how to drive with his new body shape. But he did it, getting out of the area without running into any cops.

He wondered if someone had seen him attack Dr Gary and called, or if some sign of what had happened in the greenhouse made it to the authorities, or if it was something entirely unrelated. It didn't matter, they wouldn't help him anyways. No one ever helped him, no one ever cared about him, except his plants

Making it to the highway, Spike slobbering happily in the back, he felt strangely calm. Not peaceful, just more numb. His thin leaves gripped the wheel hard as he thought.

Reginald wouldn't have hurt them. Scared them? Definitely. He loved showing his Monster side.

But the Monster wouldn't have spared them. He would've at least maimed them, left them drained of energy and forever traumatized. It was a Vampyr's instinct.

He wasn't either. He was someone -- something? -- new. He was... He'd have to think about that.

He thought for a long while, until the sun had long set and he'd abandoned the car. He thought as he sought shelter, thought as he curled up with Spike in a dirty cave. He thought until he was almost asleep, before he remembered the poor flower who'd lost her life to turn him into what he was. The Hybrid Nightshade, a beautiful rarity created by scientists who just wanted to see if they could.

So he would be Nightshade, in remembrance and in promise. He had been created by scientists . Dr Reginald had helped create him, and so Nightshade had spared his tormentors, did what Reginald would have wanted. But he'd as well been created by FOWL, by Rhoda and her minions.

And they wouldn't be so lucky.