BC81: Red Herring (Heroes and Villains)--8

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Things were getting out of hand, but then some of the ship's medics stepped in and announced that they carried the vaccines for the Water Fever aboard--the crew had to take it periodically, obviously. They thought they had enough to cover any stragglers.

The Menagerie staff almost seemed disappointed that they wouldn't get a chance to keep humans from entering their island, but they begrudgingly said that they should just get those then.

Neo thought little of all this except that it was needless to complicate things this much. The Water Fever was deadly only in a minority of cases, but unfortunately a lot of those tended to be children. Still, they had qualified doctors around who could probably treat it. Big deal if a few people contracted it.

Water Fever was the Remnant version of what Shine would have called malaria in her world. Though it was not the same, since their bodies functioned differently because of Aura.

Neo only knew this because she'd read a pamphlet about Menagerie on the way here out of boredom.

Roman was watching impatiently, and Emerald and Mercury were with him.

So far no one had noticed the newcomers...at least they thought so, till Mercury saw one woman looking at him.

She was nearly as short as Rub, but with straw blonde hair and large, smokey, purple eyes similar to Yang's, but her expression was decidedly more hostile.

She was frowning at the three of them.

Next to her was a Faunus with bull horns who had a long raincoat on, though it wasn't currently raining.

It wasn't uncommon for Atlesians to wear coats all year around, of course, even though it was much hotter here than in Argus, so it might have been that, but Mercury wasn't betting on it.

"Hey, 10 o'clock," he said. "There's a Faunus with bull horns over there, and that lady next to him is giving us a dirty look."

"That's not evidence," Roman said. "But wasn't there a bull-horned Faunus who was suspect?"

"Mino," Emerald whispered. "No last name that we know of yet. Two animal traits. I only see horns."

"Might have his tail hitched up behind that coat," Mercury said

A bull tail wouldn't have been that long, and if his pants were loose enough, a man might hide it in his.

"If that's him, what is he doing here? I thought the water was your air pirates' new turf," Roman muttered.

"They could have snuck on at that stop," Ruby suggested, "if they were bandits... That's not one of the pirate women, is it?"

"No," Emerald said. "Cinder said one had bright red hair and the other's was brunette. That's not one of them, unless they picked up another woman."

"Well, standing here isn't doing anything for us," Mercury said.

"If we act like we know them, they might run," Emerald said. "It looks like they completed inspection already."

They were standing off from where the people who had already been processed were waiting to be escorted to their new lodgings.

In fact, the Menagerie guides were deciding right now to just take the ones who were ready now, at least in bunches.

They rounded up about 20 of the kids, with their guardians, and led them off the docks and towards the orphanage itself.

This didn't seem to concern either of the suspicious people, so Emerald and Mercury assumed they had no interest in those kids.

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