The Bleeding Tower

Chapter Twenty Four Part Two: These Are My People

Feveral hated the city, and he also hated the main office building of the Black Hats. The work wasn't the problem, but the company was. He was the only one who actively refused to do his job with any other partner, and it nearly got him court marshalled several times. "Meeba."

Jean-Pierre Feveral grunted and pushed the elevator button. "I know. Sorry to drag you in too."

Meeba was a literal cat girl. Not a mutant, nothing as recognizable as that. No, she had feline features all over. Her hands had claws, she had cat ears atop her head instead of ovalular human ears on the sides, and her feet were paws. She wore boots to hide this fact, at least he certainly thought so. It was never clarified. Her tail, which was just as purple as the rest of her, swayed irritably. She squinted at him and hissed, mouth open and all. Feveral sighed. "Come on, I can't just brush off a summons from the big man."

"Meeba."

"I am not a turkey!"

Feveral was very much a mutant, with the head of a bird that doesn't exist on Pominko at all: called a Cassowary. Blue skin with red wattles at the throat and a dark bone fin crowning his head. He watched with those gold ringed eyes as she flicked her tongue at him, a neener neener gesture. "Meeba," this time in a more childish tone of voice.

"No I'm not. I just don't wanna get killed. Remember Ross? Huh? Big black guy with the hammers? Remember how he died?"

"Meeba."

"Okay, hammer," he corrected. "It doesn't matter. He was killed, for not answering a summons. We're in the big game now, Meeba."

"Meeba?"

The elevator was reaching upwards of the eighth floor. If Feveral could frown, he would. "It means that the goddess can't help us now. Everything we do is for keeps."

Meeba, who was neither human nor mutant but something else entirely, did frown as her ears flattened and those pear green eyes left him. She sighed and groaned. "Meebaaaaa."

"Quit it," he groaned back, indulgently. Or at least trying to, his voice sounded a combination of Adam's Apple deep and territorial rumbling of the throat. "There's a reason I drag you out of bed like this. You're my buddy."

Meeba resumed eye contact with her partner and smiled slowly. A beak didn't give Feveral the privilege of returning the smile, but with these two, visuals aren't necessary. "Meeba."

They reached the seventeenth floor, and instead of opening doors, the pair were greeted by an electronic woman's voice saying in the most customer service practiced, tea time mannered tone, "Please scan your badges for identification."

Beneath the elevator's control panel was a flat, rectangular scanning pad. Both Feveral and Meeba were wearing laminated badges on string clips, so they took turns scanning the barcode of their cards for entry. Unlike standard Earth stuff, barcodes in Pominko's Industrial Triumvirate were both vertical and horizontal. They punched in with little beeps and the elevator's golden doors opened. "Welcome, Sir Miracle. Welcome, Mrs. Green. Mister Crawford is expecting you. I will let him know you've arrived."

"Thank you, B.E.T.H." Feveral replied as both of them walked down the long white walled hallway to a more grandiose set of deep brown polished wooden doors.

"You're welcome." came from the speakers before their entrance closed behind them.

Meeba pouted and walked with her hands pocketed. "Meeba."

"You can't blame her, you wear green all the time."

Both of them wore dinner suits. Feveral's was a tuxedo, while Meeba had a minimal tailored coat and form fitting pants. While Jean-Pierre sported the standard issue black, his partner's was a parakeet green. She crossed her arms and walked a bit ahead of him, giving him an obvious cold shoulder. "Meeba."