Scott finds the office empty of his friends, and he's not going to risk public thought-speech.

He whines slightly to Silver, but of course he doesn't expect any commiseration. Wolves are different.

He demorphs soon enough.

"You can come out now. Everyone who wants to avoid you is gone."

He comes out. "Sorry about dropping all this on you - and upsetting your friends."

"No problem. You're probably going to save the world, so I can't complain about the method. I'll just make a quick food run before I go home."

He heads behind the desk out front and comes out with a sticky note pad. He scribbles something on one and hands it to Nereus.

It reads: New friend. Ask him about his powers.

"You can sleep in one of the exam rooms. Dr. Deaton will find this, and when I come in for work we'll hash out the rest. Do you like dogs?"

"Thanks. And dogs are fine."

"There's always a few in the back. Our town doesn't really have a separate shelter or anything, and the nearest one is too far for some people."

Scott makes a mental list of everything he's going to need (food, blankets, clothes...)

"I think we can get you a house to stay in, but you might have to rough it here for a few days. Is that okay?"

"Yeah. I've been in worse situations."

"Sorry to hear that."

He shouldn't pry. He should get the guy some food.

"I'll be back soon, promise."

And he leaves Nereus to himself.

Nereus nods, settles in, and sort of awkwardly not-stares at the wolf (who has their head on their paws and isn't attempting to communicate with him).

There's not a lot of options for a clinic with no fridge.

Scott returns with a pizza and a few junk food options for snacking.

"I wasn't sure what toppings you'd like. Hope cheese is okay."

"Cheese is great! And I like weird niche toppings, so, tend to default to cheese."

"Are they weirder where you're from? I don't really know what to expect when it comes to interdimensional stuff. It sounds like something out of a comic book."

The paper plates go onto the counter, as does the box. He opens it to reveal six slices remaining.

"I had to give some to my friend so she would cover for me."

"That's fine! And not really? There's, like, Tinker-made plants I guess, but I don't think any of them got cleared by whoever says what food's safe to eat. And we probably have weird international influence on stuff, actually, the Endbringers kind of damaged trade but also increased the flow of refugees?"

"I'd love to hear about tinker-made plants, although maybe not as much as Callie. What are 'the Endbringers'? Another kind of cape?"

Scott takes one, although after morphing he's always a little hungrier. Three should be enough.

Nereus doesn't have weird energy needs, so will limit himself to two. "Endbringers are - we don't even know. They might've been capes, once. Now they're - like Godzilla, I guess. Show up every few months to destroy a city or something. Sometimes whole islands."

"That's awful. Every few months? No wonder you guys need capes."

"Yeah. I - saw a thing once that our world's not got long left with civilization and all. And there's not just heroes, there's villains, too - warlords and criminals, pretty much, though there've been a few super-powered serial killers."

"I guess we're lucky. We weren't hand-picked or anything, but Stiles and Callie aren't the type to become warlords."

He's aware that's a bit of an overstatement, but he quashes the thought. They're fighting to save the world; his judgment of their characters isn't relevant.

"That's good. Most capes don't, just, it doesn't take many?"

"We don't have the Endbringers, but we do have the Yeerks. And unlike capes, we've just go the five of us. Maybe the Andalites will show up if we're lucky, but it's not looking good."

"Well, you've got me, now. And hopefully I can get Yeerks, or my allies will find me and be able to help."

With the mood soured by thoughts of the Yeerks, Scott decides to distract!

He wants to compare comic books, movies, and television; how different is it, really?

Distraction's good!

Identical up to when Scion showed, and then dramatically different. Superheroes saw a rise in popularity, then - the genre didn't really go away, but it experienced a kind of dramatic genre shift as it became more real. Like, escapism dropped the theme. There aren't even many similar ideas after about five to ten years after Scion's appearance - and the stuff between that gets more and more different over time.

(Nereus knows a lot about comic books! He probably would've been into even fictional superheroes as a kid. He liked the magic-focused comic books, and the older pre-Scion stuff, and the official Protectorate tie-ins.)

Scott proves less of an expert on comic books than one might hope for the guy who brought it up. He exhausts his Batman and Spiderman knowledge (mostly based on movies and cartoons) fairly quickly. He ends up asking questions more than sharing.

"Did they start doing superhero sitcoms? Mysteries? There must be a lot more you can do if superheroes are just in the background."

"Yeah. Not my field, but there's dramatic superhero and villain romances. There's a kind of popular romcom where the hero and villain are dating in their normal identities and don't know the other's cape identities."