The Beacon Inn- a four-star hotel detached a little from downtown. Ritzy and fancy, but not to the point of anything special. A great big V-shaped building made of steel and glass, with a bit of a postmodern streak in its architecture.

The entrance of the hotel is large, with a large road leading up to it. The lobby is spacious, with a heavy emphasis on blue and gold colors. The carpeting is a deep navy blue, and the almost gold-like floor tiling reflects almost like a mirror. Chandeliers hang from the high ceiling.

Alex, dressed in vest uniform, wanders the empty lobby. It's a slow night, which is simultaneously good and bad for her. Less things to do. Even the lady at the front desk was on her break and didn't have a need to fill in yet. She strolls around, making sure a table didn't miraculously get itself dirty, but keeps the front doors in the corner of her eyes, just in case.

Alex hears the front doors slide open, and sees movement out of the corner of her eye. Only when she looks, there isn't anyone there.

A second time once she's presumably written it off as someone walking past, and this time it's accompanied by a sort of halfway skittering, halfway meat hitting the golden sheened flooring. Being able to see a familiar canine-snake mixture head peeking around from behind one of the potted plants in the lobby. Taking in the opulence while its mouth slowly moved as if whispering.

Alex perks up and faces the doors, only to find them vacant. Odd.

There's confusion, until she spots the head- then there's a moment of recognition.

"What are you doing here!?" Alex whisper-shouts at the head from across the lobby. She very much didn't want to case a scene and bring the concierge around to investigate and find the cape in her lobby.

The head focuses on her, and four more plus the main head join it in looking at her.

''We wanted to see you.'' ''Talk about stuff.'' ''Hang out.'' ''Hug you.'' ''You were lonely before.'' The lot of Hydra answers, partially over one another.

''Things went bad too.'' They hang their heads. ''We don't know what we did wrong, and you're smart.''

"You-" Alex sputters a little, plainly caught off-guard. Girls hug each other all the time that's not weird at all she mentally reassures herself.

"Well... you should've come in through the back entrance. You're just lucky it's a slow night."

At least this was a distraction.

"I was close to clocking out anyways... Just... c'mon." She turns to lead the mutant, then pauses. "Don't touch anything on the way cause I'm gonna have to be the one to clean it." And she continues walking again, leading them through the lobby and towards the back entrance out to the fenced-up pool area, also vacant.

''We saw you here, and there was a person smoking there when we looked.'' One of the heads replies.

A few nods at her directions. And now that the mutated cape wasn't trying to be fast, it's almost eerie how quiet she moves after her. Their heads not even bobbing a little. That ends when the two enter the pool area. And after a bit of investigation reveals nobody else there, she's suddenly hugged. The stalks holding Hydra's additional heads also wrapping around her while they cling to Alex.

Alex is caught off-guard, arms raised a little, and she stands in place awkwardly.

Hesitantly, uncertainly, Alex lightly pats the cape on the back.

"You... okay?"

''We died.'' One of the heads whispers. ''A hero killed us.'' Another joined in. ''There was another us, yelling in our heads.'' ''They stole another us too... We can't hear them.'' ''It hurt.''

''We were hired to be somewhere, just be in public.'' ''She attacked us for looking different.'' ''Wanted to arrest like we were doing something wrong.'' ''We hate her.'' The actual serpentine hissing coming from each head at once is only partially suppressed as the memories come back.

Alex frowns a little, feeling a pang of sympathy and uncomfortable familiarity.

"They're bastards," she grumbles, a hint of anger bubbling in her voice, patting the 'hair' of the main head. "Fuck 'em. Whoever this woman was she can go die in a ditch, entáxei."

The 'hair' feels very warm, even with how long Hydra must've been outside prior to coming in for her. A less give to the flesh than a usual person's skin would have.

''We tried to fight back, but out fangs scraped off.'' ''Even when we grew big and squid.'' ''She kept coming. We had to run...'' But above all of that, one thought reigned. ''We were helpless. It kept hurting and hurting and the sixth's screaming...'' The grip on Alex grows tight. ''We hate that feeling.'' ''Don't know what to do.'' ''You know lots of stuff.'' ''Please...'' The plea at the end sounds genuinely pitiful. Not belonging to someone who could seemingly shrug off anything.

Alex sighs. "Look, Rapunzel, I..."

How the fuck do you fix this?

"You can stay at my place tonight, if you'd like. We can order pizza, or something. Or we can go for a swim here. Or both. I dunno..." She rubs the back of her head awkwardly.

A long pause. ''Both sounds nice.'' One of her whispers. With the others soon following suit onto the newly offered topic. Still sounding a little shaky. ''You feel safe... And we can't swim anywhere normally.'' ''It's always contaminated.'' ''Dirty.''

''Do they let you? After work.'' They look at the pool, then up at her. Silently hoping she'd say yes. ''Don't want to cause you trouble because people hate us...''

"Yeah I do it all the time, I even swim with my coworkers after work every now and again. So long as I don't do it on the clock, which I'm not, I'm golden. Employee perks and all that. I even keep spare sets of clothes in the break room for it."

She tries to pull out of the cape's grasp. "I do need to change though, if you could just... let go."

A nod, and they disentangle from her. A nervous smile on their 'main' head.

''Okay...'' ''We'll wait for you.'' ''Find a spot to hide until you're back.'' A pause. ''And sorry for being so sudden...'' ''We've been a mess since...''

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it Rapunzel."

She pats Hydra on the top of the head, and turns to leave back inside.

Not too longer after, she comes back out wearing a hoodie over swimming trunks. She pauses, scanning the area for signs of the squidgirl.

Hydra emerges from beneath one of the sun chairs. Happy to see her back... And minus the revealing clothes she'd been wearing earlier. Bouncing on their feet in excitement.

Thankfully for Alex's sanity, the cape also had a serious case of barbie doll physique. Giving her a more normalish hug this time. ''You're back!'' The five of her exclaim happily in unison.

Alex averts her gaze anyways; it doesn't help her sanity at all in the abstract. "Hey, Rapunzel," she says, keeping her composure.

She wrestles off her hoodie, with all her wearing underneath being a bikini top. She has various occult and miscellaneous tattoos running up her forearms and forelegs, with some scattered around her torso and back. She rolls up the hoodie into a loose ball.

Her many eyes light up upon seeing the tattoos and just more of her in general once letting Alex go again. Various mutterings about how the tattoos were cool and she was pretty while the main body moves to take her hand and lead Alex to the pool.

Then she stops. ''Oh umm... We should probably ask, but are you okay with it if we do something weird? Swimming like this is kind of awkward because we're pretty heavy.''

Alex lets her lead her to the pools edge, purposefully not paying attention to the muttering. Girls called each other cute all the time it's not weird.

"Uh, sure. Go for it. But... heavy? You look practically malnourished. I don't think anyone would call you heavy."

''We are like, really, really heavy. It's why we aren't that strong despite all the stuff. We're all muscle-y bits everywhere. Like how snakes are, but instead of bones and organs we have more muscle. And moving all that without bones takes up a lot when we're like this.'' She explains, a faint purple tinge on the main head's cheeks from the embarassment.

''And well... This is what we look like when we don't keep ourselves looking like a person.'' A deep breath, then Hydra seems to collapse into almost some kind of pale and purple flesh goop. Though the four serpentine heads remain. A fifth coming back out as tentacles form out of the main mass. Looking like a very large eldritch squid.

''Being a person is more comfortable, but this is better for moving and swimming.''

"Oh..."

Alex blinks, shocked at first.

"That's... really metal. I did something similar in London."

A set of blinks in sync.

''You did?'' They ask in sheer confusion. ''How?''

"Eh, sometimes you become a kaiju of almost every element on the table and just chill." She grins, clearly deflecting. "I'm just super cool like that."

The collection of heads looks to one another, then nods in agreement after a moment.

''Fair enough!'' ''You are really cool.'' ''And pretty.'' ''Wish we could've seen that.''

Hydra reaches out with a tentacle. Stretching towards her hand. ''Could you show us sometime later? When we're not about to go swimming?''

Girls call each other cute all the time. It's normal.

"No," she says bluntly. "I can't really recreate it. When I did it I-" She trails off, eyeing the water. "Just forget it."

She steps off the ledge and splashes into the pool, but notably keeps her head above the water.

''Ah.'' A look of what probably meant understanding comes over the assorted heads. Joining her in the pool.

The squidlike cape is apparantly very fast in the water, making a circle around her beneath the surface to bleed off speed, then coming up to speak. Offering a hug with their many arms now they've had a moment to remember how much force to use. ''We'd like to apologise regardless.''

Alex freezes a little once ensnared in the embrace. She carefully pats the large squid-thing. "It's fine. You didn't know nothin'."

''We didn't.'' They agree. ''Don't like seeing you upset though.'' ''You've helped us.'' ''We like you.'' Hydra adds earnestly.

''So we hope that a hug will help you feel better.'' ''We liked them before.'' ''We have more arms for hugs, too!''

"Well, I'm not much of a hugger, really. But I'm glad you get a kick out of 'em." She just sort of accepts her hugging fate at this point.

''We'll get you around to liking them some day.'' Hydra replies alongside a series of chuckles. Glad to at least have distracted her somewhat. ''You're nice to hug and be close to.''

The tentacles start letting go of her then. The mutated cape swimming lazily by Alex's side.