The “go to school” part went fine enough, though the principal gave her a devious look in the hallway. She wasn’t going to forget the Infection so quickly, apparently. At any rate, as Luca walked home, she thought she heard a peculiar noise, like many small children chattering at once. She ignored it at first; it was a nice day out, so why wouldn’t children be out to play? Then she realized that there didn’t seem to be any children around.
As she walked under a tree, something soft fell out of it and bounced off her head with a “buu.”
When she looked down, lo and behold, there was a familiar ball of tan fuzz with beady black eyes staring up at her. “Puu buu,” it said before scooting over to the tree and scooting up it. It was a bizarre sight indeed, seeing something with no arms or legs scoot up a tree like it wasn’t a big deal. When Luca looked a little further up, there was something even stranger: there were a bunch of puffskis on the tree’s branches, just puuing and buuing among themselves.
Actually, the weirdness didn’t stop there. Looking down the sidewalk, she could see that every tree on the side had puffskis on or around it. “What the hell…?” Luca couldn’t help herself. The first puffski she had met brought friends; did those friends tell all their friends who also told their friends, so on and so forth?
Feeling quite sure that there was a situation afoot, Luca tapped out a quick text message to tell her mother she would be home a bit late and then charged to Henshin Alley. A whole cluster of puffskis was waiting for her there, and she considered henshining somewhere else; but really, why would she have to protect her civilian identity from puffballs? So she transformed in front of them, and when she emerged from the henshin-egg as Megrez, all the puffskis turned to her. A chorus of “Mepuu!” rang out, and they all scurried to her feet.
The leader puffski jumped onto Megrez’s shoulder and gave the side of her neck a nudge. “Puu buu, Mepuu!”
“What did you do?” Megrez asked, taking the puffski off her shoulder and giving it a Very Serious Look.
“Very puu, much buu,” the puffski said, as though that explained everything. “Is puffy, is buu, is puffy, is you.”
“Uhhh… okay.” Megrez stared at the fluffy crowd in front of her. She couldn’t just tell them all to go home, could she? “I don’t even. I don’t even have any words for this.”
The puffski in her hand did something like a laugh. “Pupupupupu.”
“You’re laughing now, but this place is going to go nuts.” Megrez sighed and rubbed her face with one hand. “I guess you guys can stay around for a bit, but if people start capturing you or making trouble, you’re going to have to go. Okay?”
“Is puu,” the puffski said.
“I’m going home for a bit, but I’ll be back to see you guys a little later.” Megrez powered back down into Luca, confusing some of the puffskis (“puu?”), then left the alley for home.
When she walked in, her mother was watching the news. “Luca, take a look! Have you seen all these fluffy little things?”
Oh god, they’re on the NEWS. Luca swallowed nervously and said, “Uh-huh. I found a bunch of them on my way home from school.”
Luca’s mother said, “I found one and its baby while I was sitting in the backyard. I gave them some of my pudding, and I think they liked it.”
“That’s nice,” Luca said. “I’ll be heading out a bit later. I’ll try and get some interesting pictures for you.” She went upstairs, threw her face into a pillow, and let out a protracted grunt of frustration. There was going to be some serious damage control that needed to be done soon...
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