Hello there! I’m glad that you are here. This story is based on twenty some-odd years of playing, and eventually game-mastering, role-playing-games such as “Dungeons and Dragons”, just to mention the most widely known.
The characters and players mentioned here have had their names changed to protect the guilty and above all, for privacy. The story was not written for profit, but for fun and as therapy for the afflicted. I, the author, reserve all rights for posting and publishing this work, and will accept the credits due, as well as the blame.
If any of the players and friends from whom I have shamelessly stolen dialogue and great ideas read this, know that you are thanked for the great times we had while playing, and if your character has been changed or misrepresented here, it is all my fault!
This is a mosaic work, the result of ideas that fermented in my Id.
“Heroes of Justice” is NOT a game being published by anyone to the best of my knowledge. It and this world is a imaginary title to prevent anyone and/or company from being offended or God forbid, deciding it is copy-right infringement. Remember this is fiction! Violence, sex and trans-gendered themes are represented in this story, so if you are not an adult or would be offended by such material, do NOT read any further.
Any resemblance to characters living, dead, in hibernation or otherwise is pure speculation. I want to offer a big thanks to all of those TG authors who write of heroes and fantasy, and keep the rest of us walking-wounded up and about with their great stories. I am talking about Maggie Finson, EE Nalley, Bob Arnold and many others from the “Whateley Academy”, “Belle of the Ball”, “Masked Marvels-Lady Lightning”, “Zapped!” and other stories, that keep me up nights waiting for them to post. One last thanks to John in that place that begins with the “W”, that I can’t pronounce, who unknown to him, read my first clumsy story. Warning: As it leaves my hands, the following story has bad grammar and misspelled words and other unspeakable horrors. My faithful group of editors have worked tirelessly, not to mention for free, to correct my mistakes. Any remaining errors are mine. I hope that this will satisfy those, we in the gaming hobby call Rules-Lawyers! Now as they say, “On with the Show!”
Super-Hero Gaming Terms:
Brick: Very tough, very strong, but slow characters. For example, think of the big green or rocky orange guy.
Fast-Brick: Not as strong but still tough characters. These guys are faster than pure bricks, usually with some other power such as flight or web-swinging. For example, that’s right, the guy in the bug-eyed red and blue costume. or the half-machine guy from that teen-T something show.
Mentalist: Telepathy, mind control, illusions, and brain blasts are what these guys do. For example, you got it! The bald guy in the wheelchair or the red haired babe from the same movie!
Slasher: Tough and fast, normally with something sharp and pointy as weapons. For example, the vampire slayer guy with the sword and that poor fellow with the three razors in each of his hands.
Blaster: No matter if they use thorns, water, fire or glowing green bolts of energy, they blast stuff. For example, Yeah, that star-chick from that Teen-T something show and that guy with the red glasses/visor from those Whatever-MEN movies. (Hey the first two movies were good, it’s too bad about the third one. (Sigh)
Martial Artist: Kung-fu, karate, or akido, they are the masters of hand to hand mayhem. For example, the bat-guy and all of Jet-Li’s excellent movies show what these guys can do!
Gadgeteers: Where do they get all those nifty toys? No matter if it's a gun or boomerang, gadgeteers have the right tool for every job. From utility belts to custom hotrods, they have it all. For example: Oh come on! Do you really need an example for this one?
Heroes of Justice: The exciting origin!
Prologue: The call-around
Wednesday November 1, 2006
I was in the middle of a video game of 'Demon Slaughter' when the phone rang. It was cool though, because I was back in the town of Ishtar selling the accumulated treasure of all the baddies I’d killed and looted. I hate being interrupted while in combat, but while it was a drag to have to keep “Porting” to town to empty out my “Backpack”, it was always a good time to break for snacks.
I picked up the phone and headed for the fridge, “Hello?”
“Hey! What’s going on man? This is Mike.”
Mike was one the guys I played role-playing games with on the weekends, but we hadn’t gamed in a while because of ‘Real-Life’. “Hey, Mike! Every thing’s cool here! I just hit the tombs in 'Demon Slaughter!' Speaking of which, when are you running the next game?”
“Yo dude, that is a tough level,” Mike said, then, paused a second, “As for my next game, have you heard of 'Heroes of Justice'?”
'Heroes of Justice' was a newer super-hero role playing game that I’d seen at the ‘Cosmic Forge’, the local game and comic-book store, but seeing how it cost nearly a hundred bucks plus change, I hadn’t picked it up yet. It was on the “to buy” wish list though. “Yeah Mike, it looks pretty good, but I haven’t had a chance to buy it.”
“You don’t have to have the book to play, because you can build your character for free, on-line,” he said. “They even have a graphics program, so you can make and print a picture of what your character looks like. Can you make it to ‘Cosmic Forge’ Saturday at one PM?”
I juggled a glass of milk and some double-chocolate chip cookies, while reaching the pen and paper kept on the fridge. Hey, sue me! I’m a traditionalist. I like cookies and milk!
I wrote down the web site for ‘Heroes of Justice’ and the time for the game. “What kind of characters are you looking for on this one?” I asked him.
“You remember those characters you and Danny had for Morgan’s game, Mystery and Esper-anza? I want you to convert Mystery over to 'Heroes' and use her. I’ve already talked to Danny and he’s in. Are you still interested?” Mike asked.
Wow, boy was I in! Mystery was a female fast brick character that I had that I played in a game with Danny, one of my gamer buds, who was running another female named Esper-anza. She was a mentalist and telekinesis artist. Our characters’ concepts changed after we started play, and they became sort of “Pretty Woman” like strippers with the hearts of gold. I think Danny’s Esper-anza was inspired by that show, “Stripperella” that was on MTV a few years ago, but with mental powers.
Our characters had hit it off together, and we had a great time playing off each other. Chuck, who works at ‘Cosmic Forge’, had been watching us play. ‘Cosmic Forge’ is great because it has an open gaming area. Well, anyway, while Chuck was watching us, he put Cindy Lauper’s “Girls just want to have fun” on the Muzak. That just broke everyone up! Poor Morgan’s game was forever known as the “Girls just want to have fun” game. I don’t think he minded, for he was having just as much fun as we were.
“Sure thing, Mike, I’m in with bells on! Who else do you have playing?”
“Weelll,” he drawled teasingly, “Morgan’s gonna play Lady Diamond.”
“Noo!!?” I exclaimed in disbelief, “Morgan GM’s so much he hardly ever gets to play, but isn’t Lady Diamond that cross-dresser Blaster character of his? I know that he’d been saying that SHE would be an interesting addition to the girls, but we are playing at ‘Cosmic Forge’. You know Pete and Chuck want the gaming to stay PG rated, because of the kids and ’rents coming in. Can’t chase away customers, you know!”
“Not a problem, my friend,” Mike smoothed over, “Nothing is going to happen at the Forge that’s going to chase customers away. I also have Mark playing Wolfen, and Tom is going to be using Streeter. Lastly, Will’s going to bring Renegade out of retirement for this one. So, what do you think?”
“What do I think?” I my voice was edged with suspicion, “I think we’re going to be the only ones playing this weekend, because you’ve hi-jacked all of the GMs. Just how did you go about accomplishing that not so minor miracle?”
Wolfen was a were-wolf/Slasher character that fellow GM, Mark, played, and Streeter was a Martial Artist, speedster with some Mentalist powers somewhat like the old Shadow.
Renegade, was an American Indian tough, tough Brick character of Will’s that had been around for a long time. Will played him with such panache that GM’s couldn’t turn him down when he asked to play Renegade. Will finally had to retired the character, though not without some regret. He'd just accumulated so much experience it had become unfair to the rest of the players. You know you are just pretending, when you play RPG’s, but sometimes the characters you play resonate within yourself. It can be hard sometimes to put that character up, but at the same time, the game lets you vent things safely and have fun at the same time.
Every single one of the players that Mike had showing up Saturday were also Game-Masters. Yes, even me. I hadn’t GM’ed in a while because of Real-Life, so I was between gigs. Morgan, Mark, and Mike were the “Three M’s” we called them. Between them and Tom, they ran most of the games around here.
If there is one truth in the gaming hobby, it is that there are never enough good Game-Masters. No one enjoys a good game like a Game-Master does. Often the GM ends up running games that he would like very much to play in himself, and ends up doing a HUGE amount of unpaid work.
When you add up the research, developing the cast of NPCs (Non-Player-Characters), call-arounds to set up a meeting time/place and set-up/reserving of a playing area, you’ve done a lot of work. Players can come and go, but without a GM willing to put forth the work to set-up a good story, there isn’t a game.
Like anyone who works hard at something, there is no greater praise than what you get from your fellow GM’s. It is a challenge GM’ing for them, for they are the toughest audience, but well worth it because they really want to be there, and want to make the most of their playing time. Saturday was shaping up to be one heck of a good game day!
Mike playing modest filled me in on why so many GMs were available. “Mark and Tom had to postpone their games because most of their players have mid-terms coming up. Will’s Fantasy game ended two weeks ago, and he is still working on a Sci-Fi Pirates campaign, and Morgan killed off most of his player’s characters when one of them set off a nuke he was trying to disarm. No miracles just the draw of the cards. Their loss is our gain!
“I’ve got to go, because I have to call Chuck and make sure we have a table. Just make sure you keep your disadvantages for DNPC’s (dependent non-player characters) and hunteds low. You guys are going to have enough trouble without borrowing it from someone else. See ya’,” and Mike disconnected.
I put my snacks down and clicked my mouse to save my 'Demon Slaughter' game. I opened up the web site for ‘Heroes of Justice’, and was dazzled by the cool art work and well laid out web-site. There was a user agreement, and I actually read it. You had to agree with the terms to use the character builder. No problem.
I thought that it was a cute touch to end it with “Do you agree to use your powers in the cause of justice and to help others in the multi-verse fight evil and right wrongs?” Chuckling aloud, I clicked “YES, I agree” and started copying Mystery’s character statistics from her previous system to this new one.
Like other systems, ‘Heroes of Justice’ used a point system to build characters. You got extra points for taking disadvantages that limited your character in some way. DNPCs were people that your character cared for and were always rescuing for one reason or another, and hunteds were bad guys who were actively looking to hurt YOU!
Mike had said he wanted us to avoid use of DNPCs and hunteds. That was fine with me. It’s a lot more fun interacting with the other players, rather than the GM’s NPCs (non-player characters).
I was impressed. For a new game, there I didn’t spot any problems, and it was easy to convert Mystery. The graphics program was so easy to use it was almost like it was reading my mind. I got exactly what I thought Mystery looked like. WOW! Was she hot! I guessed they must have really sharp graphics programmers for ‘Heroes of Justice’.
Chapter 1: The Gathering!
Man, did the rest of the week drag! I was so eager to play that I actually arrived at Cosmic Forge early, rather than my usual ten minutes late. I wanted to pick up some new dice anyway, and browse the new game books.
None of recent game releases impressed me, except for the 'Heroes of Justice' book, but it was still a hundred bucks and I just couldn’t afford it. I did pick up some new dice, for you can’t have enough dice, Ooo Sparklies!
While, Chuck cheerfully rang up my purchase, I noticed the shop’s owner was giving me the evil eye again. Pete was a bit homophobic, and seemed to think my predilection for playing female characters was a sure sign I was gay.
I wasn’t going to bother trying to correct him, because he wouldn’t understand anyway. Not many understand the difference between transgender and homosexual. Yep, I was transgendered. Not so much that I wanted SRS to become a woman, but enough, that I needed the release I got from role-playing one.
It was generally okay to play a character with a different gender from the one you were born with. Role-players love to stretch themselves and playing a different gender was the ultimate test of your skill. Since so few women play RPG’s, it was more or less acceptable for me to play mostly female characters. Except for a few like Pete, no one raised an eyebrow. As long as everyone had a good time playing, ‘whatever floats your boat’ was the rule of thumb.
I got a Mountain Dew from the soda machine and went over to the open table gaming area known as our multidimensional refuge from Real Life and settled back to wait for everyone else to arrive. I knew as long as I was a paying customer, Pete wouldn’t say anything. No matter what he believed, he wouldn’t let it interfere with the profit margin. It wasn’t a long wait, because everyone showed early. This was definitely was going to be a good game day! There were a lot grins and Chuck got a big laugh when he waved his Cindy Lauper CD at us.
Mike set-up his GM screen and laptop while everyone else was catching up on old times. He was a big dark haired man who looked like a huge, hairy, teddy bear. With the big paws he had you would never guess he worked as an electronics technician.
Tom, a slight, blond guy, was talking animatedly to Mark, a stocky bald black man. Hyper-active Tom was an auto mechanic, while the very easy going Mark was an aircraft sheet-metal tech. I saw Will over across the store looking at the “Heroes of Justice” game book, obviously considering buying it. He was a short blond fireplug who worked as a forklift operator at a warehouse. He bought in pretty good money, so he could afford it.
Morgan and Danny were at the soda machine stocking up on caffeine. Morgan was a skinny, sandy haired paramedic, while tall African-Asian Danny was a male nurse at Regional Memorial Hospital. Danny was another one of those Pete didn’t care for, because of his prejudice. Danny, like me, played almost exclusively female characters.
I wasn’t sure if Danny was transgendered or not, but I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t gay, bi perhaps. He always had a beautiful nurse as a date after the game. For some it might have been camouflage, but not I think, for Danny. He caught so much flak because he was a male nurse that being gay wouldn’t faze him. He’d just say, ‘So?’
What can I say about Morgan? He was one of those scary, smart dudes you run into sometimes. You know, the sort with an eidetic memory, perfect pitch, and a very high IQ. His one failing was that without his glasses, he was nearly blind. Sometimes Morgan liked messing with people’s minds. He just couldn’t abide fools, and it sometimes got him into trouble.
“Hi Greg,” he greeted when I came up to him. “Still looking for work? One of the medical supply houses is looking for help.”
“Always, it seems,” I told Morgan as we did our secret handshake. The handshake was another of those in jokes we used, because we were both ex-soldiers. He’d been a medic and I had spent my time as an intelligence specialist. I high-fived Danny, saying, “If it’s Bells, I placed an application there Monday.”
Yep, that’s me, Greg, an auburn haired male built from good, sturdy Scottish peasant stock. My knuckles don’t quite drag the ground, just almost. I am going to school for my associate of arts degree, but the GI Bill doesn’t cover everything, so I have to work my way through school.
Mike called everyone over to the game area after he'd had a chance to look over our character sheets so we could begin. Armed with our new purchases of dice, game-books and elixir of the gods, caffeine, we all sat down and pulled out our character sheets. There was a round of congratulations over the character graphics from “Heroes of Justice” as they all looked really good.
There were a lot of ‘ooos and aaahs’ as we passed them around so everyone could see. They weren’t photo-realistic, but were pretty dog-gone good. Mike took out the CDROM that came with the game and inserted it in his laptop with a flourish. That was the hook of “Hero’s of Justice”.
It came with not just a computer gaming aid, but almost a play-along program. Prior to the game, the GM would select where the action would take place, and in what order. Then the program would provide visuals and maps that made game preparation much easier. It was an attempt to bridge the gap between paper and pencil games with the video and on-line games.
“I hope this works,” Mike told everyone. At everyone’s puzzled looks, he continued, “I wanted to see what the visuals looked like, so I tried to start the program last night, and it sorta messed with my mind. It kept giving the message “When your players are assembled, press enter” and when I did, it flashed red and said “No really, when your players are assembled, press enter!”
The group gave a chuckle, which Mike joined. We all liked the tongue in cheek humor, the better games had. Mike reached up to scratch his balding head with a ham sized hand, and after a bit of thought, said, “I don’t know how it knew that it was just me being curious, but I hope this works.”
Mike deftly clicked his way to his saved campaign files and reached the screen he had told us about: “When your players are assembled press enter.”
Mike said, “Well, the players are assembled, so here goes nothing,” and pressed the ‘enter’ key. He turned the screen around so we could all see, while we waited anxiously.
I and the rest of the guys relaxed, when the logo for 'Heroes of Justice' appeared and it read, “Welcome, Brave Heroes, to the fight for justice!” Then some cool animated sequences appeared of some bad type heavies causing mayhem in a city called New Riverside. A mysterious master-mind was organizing the super-villains into a crime syndicate, and any villain who didn’t want to join had the choice of leaving town or going to the morgue.
The local super-team, the Riverside Warders, were being overwhelmed by the violent combat between the syndicate and the super-villain holdouts. A cryptic figure known only as Horus tasked us with identifying the syndicate leader and stopping this criminal origination before it became unstoppable.
Our characters have come from different cities and are unknown here in New Riverside, so we could easily go undercover. We had a few days to get to know each other because most of us had never worked together before, but the situation is too desperate to have time to train together properly as a team.
We were all ginning at each other, because this was really sharp looking. Chuck and Pete had come over to watch. Even, some of the comic book only people were coming over to see what was up. The sequence ended and Mike hit a key to pause, while he got us ready for play.
“Okay boys and girls,” Mike announced, “You’ve been recruited to help save New Riverside from this new syndicate. Horus is the tall dark cowled man who has brought you all here. He hands you each an envelope with your cover identities. When you open it you find a driver’s license, a social security card, a cell phone and an ATM card. There is also a page describing where you can find a place to live and work. You’ll work in pairs, and use the cell phones to stay in contact. These phones have a secure encrypted link and you have wireless earphones so you can use them tactically.
Mike briefed everyone, “Here are your assignments. Wolfen, you and Streeter are going in as a new security firm moving into the area taking advantage of the unrest in the city. Streeter is the rich security consultant and Wolfen, you are the bodyguard. Renegade, you and Lady Diamond are set up as Channel 7’s newest airborne reporting team. Your helicopter will have some special features, such as a remote pilot function, and an AI computer to make it easier for you to be in two places at the same time.”
Mike, then looked to Danny and me, as we struck the feminine pose of resting our chins on our grasped hands. He did his best to ignore the burst of laughter from our peanut gallery of on-lookers.
I did see Pete give a snort of disgust at our performance, but our playing was just funny, not lewd, so he couldn’t say anything. Danny gave me a subtle look that meant he had seen Pete as well, but we were having far too much fun to really give a hoot.
“Right ...” Mike drawled, “You two have an audition at a local strip club named Twin Peaks, which Horus thinks is involved in the syndicate. All of the performers have some type of minor power, and rumor has it that it is a super-villain hang-out. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to reveal about yourselves and your powers to the management. Now, because you two are working at the same place and at the most risk, you are also rooming together.”
Mike turned the screen back around so we could all see, and pushed the ‘enter’ key. Then it got a little weird, because when the animated stuff started back up, it showed our characters in their secret identities! Understand, none of this information had been entered into Mike's laptop, so how in the blue blazes had the program known to include our character’s graphics?
Wolfen was in his human form in a chauffeur’s uniform driving Streeter in his playboy guise. Renegade was piloting a helicopter with Lady Diamond in HIS normal identity.
I could see that our spectators were enjoying the graphics, but all the players and Mike were wondering how the hell did that program do that. All of us used the on-line character generation and had made the cool pictures as well, but not in their civilian identities. There was just no way the computer could know what they looked like out of costume or that they were for Mike’s game.
The animation continued, and moved on to Mystery and Esper-anza. Pete’s eyebrows rose as it showed Mystery and Esper-anza performing their audition for that strip club. Several of the peanut gallery started hooting, but then grew quiet, as it became clear that, we were going to see everything, and boy, do I mean everything!
Pete starting choking, because ‘Cosmic Forge’ was a comic book shop that had underage customers in it, and he didn’t want to be sued or go to jail. Mike blushed red and pushed several keys trying to interrupt our impromptu porn session. Nothing he did made any difference, and then the audition footage ended.
Some smart-ass in the back, said, “Was it good for you too, Baby? “
A banner read, “Heroes, your adventure begins,” appeared on the screen and then …
Heroes of Justice: The adventure begins!
I don’t know what happened next. Some might call it a flash of light, and others, of suddenly falling down a long tunnel. All I knew was, I was cold. My eyes were closed, which was strange, because I didn’t remember closing them. I was half-afraid of what I would see when I opened them, because I didn’t hear the sounds of our noisy peanut-gallery of fans. I did hear some music in the background but somehow I didn't think Pete would be playing what I was hearing in Cosmic Forge.
Gathering my courage I opened my eyes. There was this gorgeous African-Hispanic woman wearing nothing but a smile staring right at me. She looked at my chest, and strangely, that was comforting because that meant I wasn’t looking in a mirror. That lasted less than a second, as I looked down to see what she was looking at, and saw nothing but cleavage! Boy, do I mean nothing but! My breasts obscured everything! I reached up to cup my newly acquired bosom, and saw that my hands were now slender and sporting long, red nails. It was also plain why I felt cold, because I wasn’t wearing ANYTHING! Well, almost, I don’t think the 4” heels counted.
I nearly screamed, when suddenly, starting at my feet a latex cat-suit flowed up my body, stopping at my neck. Raising my hands, I saw that although it looked like latex, it felt soft and silky, and looked if I had gloves on. It took a moment, for my shocked brain to stop trying to short-out, but I was beginning to sort out what had happened.
I looked into the dressing table mirror where I was seated and saw that naughty, beautiful face with long strawberry blond hair and knew that somehow, I had become Missy T. Reed, my character! I had wanted to become clothed and the symbiont my character had named Cape had obeyed, clothing me from neck to toe. It didn’t seem to matter to it that the cat-suit didn’t hide a damn thing.
I had a sneaking suspicion who that gorgeous chick was next to me was. I twisted on my stool, feeling my breasts sway and jiggle, towards my companion. At the erotic sensation of my nipples rubbing against the cat-suit, along with being nude with a woman as beautiful as a goddess, I was beginning to feel a dampness from below that I very deliberately put in the far back of my mind. My raven haired fellow dressing-table mate was looking into her mirror, touching her face in disbelief. Softy, as to not alarm her, I whispered, “Danny are you there?”
At the smoky, contralto voice that issued from my mouth, I damn near wet my self! We both jumped, and she nodded as I grasped my throat in alarm. Danny mouthed my name, and I nodded back making me aware of my long hair and dangling earrings.
Then, damn it, she giggled, saying “You sound like Jessica Rabbit!” in a musical voice that would’ve done Tina Turner proud. I tried to resist, but finally burst out in a fit of giggles of my own! It was a demented, joyful, sad, and happy madness, as what had happened collapsed in on us. For the first time in my life I felt a satisfied balance between mind, body and soul. That changed absolutely nothing about finding ourselves naked, in a strip club known for being a mob and mass-murder hang-out, giggling like a pair of fools.
After an eternity passed, we found ourselves hugging each other. Sometime during all of this, I got the sniffles. I lied to myself that I wasn’t crying, and neither was Danny. The full sexual impact of what we were doing hit us and we found ourselves looking into each other eyes full of a lovely powerful tension.
What happened next was one of those things there just aren’t words for. For the second time in less than five minutes my life changed, when I saw, felt, tasted, scented, and heard all of what made Danny, Danny. I somehow knew Danny was feeling and doing the same to me. I liked what I was feeling/seeing from her and somehow felt the same from Danny. We were somehow reaching for each other …
“Hey you two! Get a room,” rang a voice that I would quickly learn to hate. Danny and I broke apart, confused, and I could tell that my face was burning as furiously as hers was.
A blond, easy to identify as bleached, floated in as if she was in zero gravity. Her hair drifted around her, as she reached a stool. She had flesh toned booties on, with Velcro on the bottoms that fastened to the stool legs. After she had attached herself, she took a sitting position, and lit up a cigarette with a flick of an expensive lighter. This easy to hate woman then flicked the lighter and let it orbit around her like a space station or something.
I didn’t have a clue who she was, but we were being insulted, and neither Danny nor I cared much for it. It also hadn’t escaped us that, well Danny anyway, was nude, and I might as well be, in a women’s dressing room.
The gravity-less woman gave me a catty look and smirked, “No need to do another costume change, honey. You certainly shook that booty enough to get any man to want to pay for it. Oh, that came out wrong didn‘t it? I mean, hire you, darling.” By the tone of her voice, she meant exactly what she’d said the first time.
Danny caught my eye, and to my surprise I heard her voice without her saying a thing. I mean, Danny and I knew each other well enough that I could read his, I mean, her, meanings pretty well. I was a little hard of hearing too, so was used to figuring out things I couldn’t hear well.
Without moving her lips, she said, “Don’t pay that whore any mind. You’ll just encourage her”
Startled, I looked at Danny. I tried thinking at her as clearly and as focused as I could. “Danny, I think we have our character’s powers. You may have Esper-anza’s powers, be careful. We have to get out of here fast, without any problems, before we get into some serious trouble.”
I saw a surprised look, but relaxed when she gave one of her patented winks saying she understood. I knew that as Mystery, I’d had Cape, my symbiont, change form and make it look like I had simply changed clothes in the past. I took a breath and concentrated, as I mimed removing the cat-suit. To my relief, it worked fairly well. I could see where the illusion failed, but it looked pretty good. Turning around, I saw Danny staring at my much differently shaped rear, and damn, if we didn’t both blush again.
Our clothes were hanging nearby, and I was dismayed when I saw them. I had a black leather skirt, complete with 4” heeled knee boots and a satiny green top with a short black leather waistcoat. Danny’s choices were just as scanty. Hers was just like mine, except her skirt was in white and the top was red watered silk, which left her midriff bare. The underwear made it clear that Missy and Esperanza spent more time in “Frederick’s” than in “Victoria’s.”
It was nerve-wracking to try and dress with a real woman in the room, trying not to look if we hadn’t dressed ourselves before, because we hadn’t! I had crossed-dressed before I gave it up as a lost cause, so I had a vague clue to go on. Danny was doing just fine, and it’s my bet that he’d done this before too. We were going to have deal with whatever had happened between us sometime soon, but not now, I told my roller-coaster emotions.
I looked across the dressing-room to the door, and the term “a bridge too far” came to mind. Trying to walk that far in 4”heels was going to be beyond me! Danny had a questioning look on her beautiful face. ‘Damn it, down hormones, down, I say!’ I then remembered something I had read on one of the on-line TG story sites about a sexy heroine using her powers to fake walking in heels. Thinking hard at Danny, “Don’t try to walk. We’re both supposed to be able to fly. Try to float, and move yourself with just your toes.”
I stood up a little unsteadily, and willed myself to float. It wouldn’t get me into the Rockette’s, but I didn’t fall on my face. The mantra of take small steps, float, one foot in front of another, repeated over and over in my abused, over-clocked brain. Thank you, EE! I had made it almost all the way out and was relieved neither Danny nor I had fallen.
Everything was going well until that bitch floated over and put her face in mine. “Hey girls, just because you work here now, remember you are just the new meat.” she said as she blew smoke in my face. She then hovered out the door, apparently determined to make her exit before us.
Danny touched me on my shoulder, and calmly said, “Easy Greg, hum, GIRL.” She glanced down at my carry bag where I’d ripped the fabric straps, tearing nearly all the way though the fabric. Flipping her hair and with a wink, she added, “Let’s get outa’ here, girlfriend.”
I was embarrassed at having almost lost control and put that SO AND SO, in her place, most likely with Mystery’s strength, through several walls. I teetered for a moment on my stilts when I lost concentration. Not because of being angry, but at how turned-on I’d gotten when Danny touched my shoulder. ‘I SAID, Heel! Hormones!’
We ventured into the smoky club desperate to avoid attention knowing the way we were dressed, there was no way on God’s Green Earth that was going happen. The club was about half-empty, and it struck me that I had no idea t what time it was or even what day. In our world it was around 1pm on Saturday afternoon, here I hadn’t a clue.
There was a dancer on stage, and I found out that at least part of my brain was still mine, because there is nothing like a naked female body to distract you from a life or death situation. I was almost overwhelmed by the loud music, because in my old body, I was hard of hearing, while Mystery’s hearing was just fine.
When you add in raging hormones, being dressed, or rather mostly undressed, in women’s clothing and knowing that at least some of those guys sitting at the tables around me were likely to be a card carrying mobsters, mass murders or even worse, super-villains, who could tear me apart with their bare hands, I was becoming an nervous wreck!
“Girls, Girls, There you are!” announced a caricature of an Italian organized crime figure. He was square built, just starting to put on weight, with the required patrician nose, and thinning hair. “I liked what I saw, girls. What say you come by Monday, when my accountant gets here, and he can set ya up with all the mumbo-jumbo paperwork, and you can start work.” He said all of that and never once looked at our eyes, because his gaze was a little lower, if you know what I mean. His manners screamed that he was a lady-killer, or at least, thought he was, and I was feeling far too much like the meat that bi….witch called us.
He acted as if he was waiting for us to do something, and I’d had just about enough to push me over into panic and run out. Danny stepped forward and kissed the guy on the cheek, “Thanks Tony, me and Missy really need the work.”
Taking Danny’s clue, I leaned forward, perversely arching my back to giving him a good view of my cleavage, and kissed his cheek as well. “Yeah, thanks Tony.” I can’t tell you why I did that, because my thoughts were racing so fast, but I knew that keeping him distracted was a good thing. ‘Please, let’s us get out here in one piece,’ I was praying.
However Tony wasn’t finished with us yet, because he leered, “Why don’t you girls hang out with me and the boys tonight?”
Danny saved the day again, by replying, “Now, Tony you know that Missy and I don’t mix business and pleasure. We’re gonna’ be working for ya’ so that’s makes it business.”
I was beginning to shake by that point, thinking that we were so dead, but Tony surprised me by taking Danny’s refusal with good grace.
“I heard that from Joey, who runs that “Hip Hugger” joint you two were working, in Jersey. You can’t blame a guy for trying,” he shrugged philosophically. When he swatted us on the butts as he walked past, if it hadn’t been for Danny, I would’ve gone though the roof. I literally mean that, because all along I’d been hovering with my heels just touching the floor and Danny had to pull me down, when Tony popped me! I hope no one noticed!
The bouncer seemed strangely cool and gave us the high sign on our way out. Maybe being surrounded by nude women most of the day gave him no reason to undress us with his eyes. Well heck, he’d already seen everything anyway, if I remember that damn animated bit that started all of this.
It was a little cool and breezy outside which was about the same as at the ‘Cosmic Forge’. I was shaking pretty badly by this time, and it took an effort to check the sky to get an idea of the time. I didn’t have Morgan’s IQ or even that some of the other players, but I was very perceptive of things going on around me, and everything that had happened had me in overload! It looked about mid-afternoon, so it appeared we hadn’t suffered jet-lag - world-lag - transformation-lag, or whatever it was!
Danny started going though her purse and seeing that it was a good idea, I did the same. Yuk, the first thing, I found was an open pack of those long, thin cigarette’s women smoke. It seems that this Mystery was a smoker. I don’t smoke, and think it’s rude to go around with a toxic cloud billowing around you. ‘Let’s hope that I’m not addicted,’ I told myself.
Next was the usual make-up, tampons/pads, (Let’s not go there yet!), and a wallet. I checked the wallet and found I had several hundred dollars as well as an ID giving an address for Missy Reed. Checking the expiration date, it looked new, and I hoped the address was current. As Greg, I never carried more than a hundred on me, mostly because I never had more than that at one time. Placing the wallet back in the purse I found a cell phone in a side pocket and yes, a set of keys! Looking for car keys, I found a VW ignition key, with a security key bob.
“Missy, are you all right?” asked Danny.
I was still shaky, but a bit better than I was in Twin Peak Hell. I held up the key trying to smile and she matched me, holding up one of her own. A little of my own playfulness returned, when I asked her, “On three?” When she nodded, I counted, “One, Three!” and pressed the pager that flashed the lights of our car, I hoped. Of course, she pushed hers as well as we both sang out and giggled, “What happened to two!”
Across the small lot, I saw lights flash and tried to do my inspired floating tippy paws walk, over to it. Danny beat me over there and I knew for sure she’d worn heels before, because she definitely wasn’t floating, and was shaking it very nicely, indeed!
I had a difficult time walking across the lot, because of the breeze blowing me around like a balloon! I had to add enough weight to keep from blowing away, but fly enough to keep from falling over! By the time, I got to the car, Danny had already struck a pose like a model introducing it, and I gave a cry of exasperation, “Oh, give me a break!”
The car our key fobs had unlocked was hot pink with pastel flowers, a new style convertible VW Bug. Danny started giggling again and I shook my finger at her not to start THAT again! Do we get a set of cool superhero wheels? Nooo … We get the ultimate chick car! Alright, I admit that it fit our characters, but my mind at least was still geared to more masculine standards.
Hey, give me some slack here! Even the transgendered who go all the way, with SRS, have doctors and psychologists to aid them. They have that real life test where they live as a woman; I think it’s for one year. I’ve had less than thirty minutes! Hell, the first time I dressed as a woman in public was TEN minutes ago! Okay, maybe it was ‘undressed’ as a woman.
It was a lost cause. Once she started giggling, I got hit by the contagion too. That led to jiggling, and it was just a short trip to blushing again! ‘I told you NO! Get back ye spawn of hormones, back I say!’
Danny and I were back to the, 'looking deeply into each other’s eyes thing,' brimming over with sexual tension and maybe something else as well. My brain knew that Danny, my male friend, was inside that bombshell who made playboy bunnies look like plain Jane’s, but my libido was telling me huba, huba! Yeah, but everything was connected up differently now. My hard nipples made that very clear. All of these new sensations were giving me the shakes again.
Danny must have seen this, because that so beautiful voice told me, “Poor thing, Get in our flower-power-mobile, and let’s see if we can find somewhere to sort this out.”
My emotions were flaring up again, so I could do was nod. I managed to slide into the car without flashing anyone, and for the first time since all of this began, found a little peace. One of my gifts is an awareness of self. I can, for instance, feel where the “tightness” is when I hiccup or am bothered by the tickle reflex, and relax it voluntarily. Neat trick huh?
I’d always known that something was out tune when I was growing up, but didn’t know what. It wasn’t till later that I figured out the transgender angle. Once I had a name for my pain, other things started making sense about the way I felt. Men did nothing for me. It was women that did it for me, and not just sexually, but the way they dressed, acted, and everything feminine about them.
That uncomfortable out of sync not-pain that I’d felt for so long was gone. It left only a wonderful, balanced sensation, but the problem now was everything else! As a male, my arousal was more of a physical thing. Sure, I’d felt love before, and preferred love and sex to just sex.
My short experience as a female had my emotions and sexual arousal tied intensely together. My natural perceptiveness made me supernaturally aware of all of this from the whisper of my hair on my cheeks to the urgent wetness of my new sex. It was pure sensory overload.
In desperation, I attempted the meditation trick of taking of what I was feeling and “breathing it all in.” You succeeded by not fighting it, but by accepting it. Get used to it? Not anytime soon, but it did help stop my mind from fighting what this body was telling it. To my relief, the stress and shaking eased.
When I opened my eyes, Danny was obviously worried about me, and I had to admit to myself, that although I didn’t have a clue how it happened, I had strong feelings for her. We were gaming buddies, but didn’t hang together except for role-playing together. Male conditioning was screaming red alert, that this was so wrong!
“I’m okay now, I think,” I tried to reassure her. “Too much has happened, too soon. How are you holding up?” I asked her as I softly touched her hand.
“This is wonderful,” she gushed out with her eyes shining. Danny gazed intently at me and questioned, “You haven’t done this before have you?”
I shook my head, “Not in public, anyway. You remember how I use to look. I couldn’t even vaguely pass, so I gave it up and stuck to role-playing. How about you?” I asked.
Danny smiled, “While, we’re revealing secrets, I’ll drive us away from this “wretched hive of scum and villainy.” She pulled out into traffic. “You remember that I always left with one of my girlfriends from work after the game? Well, I would change into ‘fem’, and we would go out! I’ve been preparing for my Real-Life test.
She giggled at my open mouth expression as I asked, “You were going to have SRS? Were you on HRT? You weren’t going to leave the gaming group, were you?”
“Whoa Girl! One thing at a time,” She giggled. “You know how much the whole process costs, and I was getting help from my hospital’s insurance plan” she said softy. As I nodded, she went on, “I haven’t started HRT yet, but was going though the screening. About gaming, you know Pete wouldn’t understand about this, but I hadn’t decided about it yet. I thought you were maybe TG, but you didn’t seem to want to talk about it so …” she gestured with one hand.
I did see, while we were talking, that our Flower-Power-Mobile had a GPS and Map Navigation system. I punched in the address on my Driver’s license and Danny started following the machine’s directions. “You weren’t interested in me there, were you?” I said, still feeling very confused at the strong feelings I had for her.
“More curious, than anything else,” Danny told me “I’ve had experiences with guys before, but it wasn’t anything I wanted to repeat until maybe after my surgery. Were you interest in me?”
“I’m afraid not, men don’t do anything for me,” I told her. Blushing again, I confessed, “I am feeling confused at just how I feel right now.”
“That’s good to know,” Danny teased, and tossed that wonderful mane of thick blue, black hair. Seeing me blush, she said, “Whoa, girl, stay with me, here. We’re going to need you. I was still figuring out that my Real-Life Test was starting right now, and you had already jumped ahead and sorted out we were in the game somehow. You even saw how we could fake walking in heels, not that I needed the help.”
She smiled. “You have a way of seeing things that most of us miss, and putting them together intuitively,” she reassured me.
“Don’t give me too much credit, Danny,” I snorted. “You’re the one that got us past Tony back there, and I’m the one shaking over here. You were the cool one.”
“Honey,” she said, “the first time I was dressed in public, I was frightened out of my mind. That was just at the mall, and not in a strip club with Tony the Tiger back there. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Hey, I think I know something that might help you. When I first started going en-fem, I would pretend I was role-playing, and that helped me ‘til I could relax and just be myself. That’s how I dealt with Tony. I just role-played Anza, just like back home at Cosmic Forge. Why don’t you try role-playing Missy, at least when we’re 'on-stage”? She asked me.
I thought about what Danny had said, and nodded to her. “I’ll try,” I told her.
“Okay, Let’s do this right. You call me Anza and I'll call you Missy, ‘kay?” Anza suggested.
Nodding, I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what Mystery would do right now in the game. It soon came to me. “Cape,” I asked my symbiont, “are we being followed?”
Cape flowed up my legs and over my clothes, where it merged with them. I could feel the difference in the texture like I had with the latex cat-suit earlier. It was much softer and comfortable. It continued to flow up until it circled my neck and formed part of itself into a scarf.
You’d think that with everything that had happened to me in the, had it been only an hour, this would’ve finished freaking me out. No such thing. The whole experience was oddly comforting in a way I can’t explain. It was like 'that warm, everything is okay and right with world feeling' you get from a hug by someone who really cares.
That wonderful warm feeling was completely spoiled by the object that dropped into my lap from cape as it flowed upwards. Picking it I saw it was a Classic style cigarette lighter that I had last seen orbiting around Miss Zero Gravity B-Witch like a golden satellite as she was blowing smoke into my face.
“Did you steal this?” I asked silently of Cape and got back only a, sad, *I'm sorry* kind of feeling. ‘Great! I have a kleptomaniac symbiont,’ I thought to myself and slipped it into my purse pointedly ignoring Danny's raised eyebrows.
Cape the scarf, paying no attention to my distress was waving in the breeze although the windows were up! I looked at where the end was blowing, and the tip of Cape the scarf, gave a finger-pointing motion at the red Caddie a car back from us. ‘Whata’ Ham!’
Danny, oops! Anza, looking over at my antics said, “Missy, do you know how unsettling that looks to watch it cover you like that? It’s like T-1000 gross! Hey, what’s up?” she asked when she saw my face.
Damn it, but I shouldn’t be surprised, because let’s face it Dan … Argh! ANZA might’ve been able to walk away from Twin Peaks without arousing suspicion, but I’d been waaay, out of character! We had to lose these guys, but without causing more of a stir. Finding out if the other guys had come with us, and talking to them, if they had, was a major item on the 'To Do List' thing, and we couldn’t do that with Uncles Guido and Fester tailing us.
My brain started racing again in that weird way of mine, and it smacked me in the face. I knew what to do. I turned to Anza and calmly said, “Take it easy, but you know, we were acting too strange for Tony not to start wondering what was up. He’s got two goons tailing us. But hey, I’ve got a plan!”
Anza’s eyebrows rose, but thankfully there wasn’t any panic. I think she might be enjoying all of this! “So what is this plan of yours, girlfriend?” she asked me. “I don’t think we’ll be outrunning them in Flower-Power-Mobile.”
I giggled again, but I couldn‘t help it! I wish I would stop that! “Oh no, nothing like that. I want to give them an explanation for our behavior, so they will lose interest, not have a car chase!” I watched her face to gage her reaction when I asked her, “How confident do you feel about using your powers?”
“I’m not sure … It depends on what you’re got in mind. I think I could manage something simple. Using them seems to be just a case of willing them to happen,” she said, while licking her full lips.
‘Please, hormones. Behave yourselves and BACK OFF!’ “I want you to find a place to park, like we’re trying for a bit of privacy and make it look like you’re shooting me up with some drug. Maybe a little bit of esper illusions to make it more believable,” I blushed as she started giggling at the privacy part.
“Please Anza! Keep your mind out of the gutter,” I chided her, and lightly slapped her shoulder.
“Hey, Don‘t blame me! You‘re the one who blushed,” she retorted. “I just took advantage of a straight line.”
She thought for a moment, “Let’s try it.” She pulled into a strip-mall parking lot that had the usual Food Tiger and SVC pharmacy in it, and parked in the back of the lot. “Where are they now?” she asked.
Cape, still emulating a scarf, twisted like a weather vane in the wind, and pointed at the car parked beside a Dodge Neon. Wow, they picked the perfect place to hide, as both the front and back of that long red Caddy were sticking out from behind the compact car! I looked at Anza and saw we were both fighting the giggles. This sure wasn’t the first draft, Tony’d sent after us.
Anza took a tube of lip-stick from her purse and made a show of treating it like a syringe. I could see a sorta odd glow in her eyes and knew that she was doing something with her powers. I hoped this worked. Then she removed a hair band and made a show of using it as a tourniquet.
“Okay Missy,” Anza said. “Show’s on!” She pretended to inject me with the lip-stick. I bit my lip and arched my back while rolling my eyes to the back of my head.
Anza leaned forward, whispered, “Don’t overdo it, you prima donna! Now go boneless limp, and kinda smile,” she ordered as she released her fake tourniquet.
“Nurse’s orders?” I whispered back, following her instructions.
“No Honey, you’ll get those when we get home,” she purred.
That caused me to blush even redder. “That’s it,” she said approvingly. “Nice and flush after a injection,” and held my arm as if she had just given me a shot.
“I think it worked,” Anza told me. “They even got a shot of you blushing with their picture phone.”
I got a little alarmed, but Anza said, “Please calm down, They didn’t see anything but your acting. With that beautiful flushed look and the rest, they’ll think you’re a druggie, and it should get us off the hook. Nice plan baby,” she cooed to me.
Naughty me, enjoyed every moment of her attention. I was losing the fight with the evil female hormones and could see nothing, but DOOM approaching.
When she leaned over and kissed me, I jumped, startled, but I never had a chance. I don’t know how many years that kiss lasted, but the sweet taste of lip-stick and Anza’s breath lingered for … it seemed like a piece of forever. Now, I really did feel if I truly had been shot up with some narcotic.
A little voice that had been collecting gaming trivia for years, reminded me the most potent drugs affect the same chemical receptor sites as natural occurring peptides and endocrines in the brain for pleasure and other effects, like chocolate mildly does for a natural aphrodisiac that is produced when in love. ‘Shut up’, I told it, as I sat there, savoring the aftereffects from those heavenly lips.
Eventually, I turned my head to watch my beautiful companion’s glowing eyes fade back to their normal deep chocolate brown. Anza, I saw, also looked a little disheveled, with our mutually smeared lip-stick.
“This was easy,” Anza, said, “It wasn’t hard at all to use my powers. Using the props helped, but I was just reading their minds, and Tony, who was talking to them on the phone, told them to take off. Your plan worked, but you know, if we’re going to be here a while, this could cause us problems with them thinking you're a user.”
“Don’t you mean, cause ME problems?” I replied, still trying to still my beating heart’s tattoo of pleasure.
Anza reached out and grasped my long nailed hand with hers, saying tenderly, “No, I meant, cause US problems, love.”
I gently squeezed her hand back and told Anza, “We’re going to have to have a long talk”.
Anza nodded, and we left the mall, continuing to follow the little GPS box’s instructions down this peculiar yellow brick road. I found myself being quiet as we traveled toward where we hoped was home, or as close as we were going to one get in this world.
Heroes of Justice: The Council of War!
We pulled up to a little run down looking house in a neighborhood that appeared to cater mostly to college students at the local university, judging by the banners we saw on the porches and windows. Anza and I parked our pink car, and walked up to the door of our home, at least, we hoped it was our home! Anza tried her house key first, and we both breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. At least we had a place to sleep tonight.
It was obvious that we’d just moved in, because of all of the still packed boxes and that most of the furniture was still in plastic wrapping. It appeared that the furniture had come from one of those rental-rip-off places, that let you make small weekly payments, which end up costing you sometimes five times what the stuff was worth. In other words, just what you would expect in a house of someone in OUR profession.
It’s one thing to pretend you’re a stripper or erotic dancer in a game. It was a COMICBOOK style story, and not real life. In real life, these dancers are often victims in one way or another. I’m not saying they all are, but enough are that I know, I DIDN’T want to do it for a living.
I moved boxes off of the couch so I could sit and take off those boots. When I touched them to unzip them, they flowed all the way down, becoming a sinfully, comfortable pair of pink fuzzy bunny slippers. I’d forgotten, about Cape being able to instantly change my attire. Wiggling my toes, I found I could make the bunny ears waggle. I don’t have a clue how long I sat there, zoned out, wiggling my slipper's bunny ears, because the next thing I knew Anza was sitting down next to me.
Anza gently took my face in her hands and tilted it to make me look at her. I didn’t want to meet her eyes, but knew that she deserved that courtesy. When I did, I could see tears in them, and I couldn’t help myself as I grabbed her and hugged her for all I was worth.
The sobs that broke from both of us were heartbreaking, a cleansing storm of tears we both needed. Sometimes it was like we were laughing, or sobbing, or both at the same time. For some reason it reminded me of the quote, “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times.” That perfectly summed up our situation and our feelings at the time.
I felt Anza becoming more intimate, and I gently tried to escape from our hug. Anza spoke, “If you think I’m going to let you go, then you’re on drugs, because it’s not going to happen, girl!”
When we settled down, I pleaded, “Anza, we can’t do this. We don’t know what is going on here, or if we’re stuck here. What happens if we go back to our world where we are both guys? I feel conflicted enough right now.”
“Missy, … uh, Greg, I know what I am feeling right now, and if we go back to our world, well, I was going to get SRS anyway. When I saw you back in the dressing room, it was as if I had finally found the part of myself, that I was missing,” With her eyes shining and red from tears, Anza continued, “I was finally a whole woman whose inner turmoil was finally gone, and there you were.
“I could feel in some way, you were a part of me too. A part that would help chase away pain and bring only strength and love with you. I can feel what you are feeling right now, and I KNOW you‘re feeling the same kind of things.” Still holding me she told me tenderly, “I’ve fallen for you Missy, and I love you.”
“Anza, that’s what I’m afraid of,” I begged. “We’ve been transformed, transported, Lord only knows where, and thrown into the deep end. Are our feelings real, or is all of this just part of someone’s nasty idea of fun? Think about it! Let’s throw the two TG guys who like girls into the gender spin-master and see what happens. Did this place’s Missy and Anza love each other, and we’re just feeling what they felt, or did we get sucked into that computer program somehow, and all this is just Matrix style programming?”
Anza firmly put a finger to my lips to silence me, “Whoa, girl, I can see why you were a spook in the service, but why are you complicating this?”
“A battlefield intelligence specialist is NOT a spook,” I said primly. “Besides, you’re right, I am feeling the same things that you are. I’ve never felt this way before and it is terrifyingly wonderful, but I’ve got to be sure it’s really me that’s feeling it. Please, just slow down a little, Anza,” I asked her.
Her eyes were looking right into mine, and for a moment I was concerned that maybe she would try to use her powers on ME. I took myself in hand (not that I could do that anymore!) and told myself, ‘This woman loves you and you think you’re in love with her. If you can’t trust her, we both have nothing but ashes.’
Her voice became husky, “Do you know how much I want to ravage you right now, Love? How can you say wait, when I can see that you want me as much as I want you?”
“I’m afraid, Anza, uh, Danny. Too many lonely nights, and now here, with along everything else that has happened, I don’t want to admit some things even to myself. You’ve found your dream and are going after it, but for me, the only way I could survive was to lie to myself and everyone around me. The game kept me from going completely crazy, and now it’s all out in the open.”
Something pinged in my back mind, a thought that hadn’t crystallized yet.
Anza said, “I know this isn’t easy for you, and I know girl, how much it hurts to be wearing the wrong skin. You can’t lock yourself away without hurting yourself worse inside.” Looking at me, she stopped talking, and after a moment asked, “What’s wrong now?”
“Well, while we’ve been wrapped up trying to sort out what we’ve feeling, I wonder if Will knows how to fly a helicopter?” I was thinking back to that dammed computer program that had something to do with our being here, and of it showing Will’s and Morgan’s characters flying in an helicopter I was fairly sure neither one of them knew how to fly.
I saw the alarm on her face, as she exclaimed, “Shit, you sure know how to throw ice water on a girl’s libido, don’t you.” Anza and I looked at each other for second wondering what to do next when at the same time we remembered the cell phones. We both grabbed for our purses, searching for them. Anza found hers first, but I found the phones had been turned off, before she did.
I found the phone-book function and bizarrely, our friends PLAYER’S names were listed. 'Stranger and stranger,' a girl named Alice once said, and I was beginning to wonder if what she’d found on the other side of the looking glass was any stranger than where we were. Anza, in the meanwhile, had gone to messages, and found that indeed they had been trying to get in touch with us. We split up the calls and I got Will and Morgan.
Butterflies were doing bombing runs in my nervous stomach as I waited for someone to pickup the phone as it rang. “Hello?” answered an unfamiliar male voice on the other end.
“Hi,” I said, “I’m looking for two friends of mine, WILL and MORGAN are they at this number?”
The voice incredulously asked, “Greg, Danny? Is that you?”
Relieved, I told the voice, “You got it right the first time. This is who?”
“Morgan,” he answered. “Are you guys okay? You scared us when we couldn’t reach you. We were able to get a hold of Mark and Tom, and aside from being a little shaken up they‘re fine. Tom is having some problems adapting, because of that screwed up metabolism of Streeter‘s”
I gave Anza a thumb’s up sign, letting her know that Morgan and Will were all right “Well, we’re okay right now. You can say Danny and I have had a difficult time adapting as well, if for different reasons. Sorry about the phones, but we found ourselves in a dressing room and just now found out our phones were turned off.” Really hoping Mike meant what he was talking about “these” phones being secure, I said, “We may have been followed. I think we gave them reason to think we were harmless and they left, but you never know.”
Morgan replied, “Yeah, I know no guarantees. You know you sound a lot like Kathleen Turner?”
Remembering that Kathleen had done the voice for Jessica Rabbit, I sighed, “I’ve been told that, yes. Danny’s is a lot like Tina Turner’s.”
“We haven’t been thinking about trying to keep cover, but trying to figure out what happened. I was going to have everyone meet at the Black Bull steak house, so we can talk it out,” he told me.
I wasn’t too thrilled with that idea, because that would mean going back out into public immediately. Bluntly, I didn’t feel ready yet, but I knew that I would have to, and soon. Covering the phone, I told Anza what was up with a mixture of lip-reading, and mind-reading on her part. She relayed back to me, using her own special combination miming and hand waving, that she was talking to Mark and he’d told her about the same thing.
We both halted, and looked at each-other realizing, what we had just done. I mean, Anza has ESP and I’ve always been good at reading body-language, but this went beyond that. It was more like long term partners who knew each other minds so well they didn’t need superpowers to read each other’s thoughts.
“Greg, are you still there?” Morgan wanted to know.
“Yeah, Morgan, I’m still here. I was passing the information on to Danny. Hmmm, I don’t think we’re up to going back out right now. Danny’s handling it pretty well, but the CHANGE has thrown me for a loop. Can you guys get over here and not be seen, in case we’re still being watched?” I asked him.
“Mark, Will and I could, but Tom is having almost as much trouble as you two. To him, everyone is moving in slow motion, and he talks so fast no one can understand him, so Mark, medicated him with some Jim Beam. I was concerned about what it would do to his weird physiology, but it seemed to work. The problem is, he is not up to sneaking anywhere. Steak house, yes, sneaking around in the dark, no.”
Morgan paused, “I need to see you guys, hmmm girls, tonight. Let me and the other guys keep the steak-house meeting, and I’ll come over afterward in disguise, and catch you up on what happened.”
Anza and I did our mind-reading thing again and we agreed that was the best way before we turned back to our phone conversations.
“Morgan that’s a plan,” I told him. Then thinking about something about him seemed kinda off to me, I asked him, “Oh, Morgan are you really okay? Is there something about you that’s out of sync?”
I heard a sigh on the other end, and Morgan said, “I should’ve known you would pick-up on it, and the answer is yes. I don’t want to go into it here, but I really need to see you two without the other guys around.”
“Done and done, my friend.” I gave him the address, and he gave me the addresses where he and the others were.
“Anza, I think Morgan is having a problem like ours. He was just a cross-dresser character, right?” I asked her as we hung up our phones.
“I know his hero ID is a diamond hard crystal that can charge with light and shoot it like a laser. He is male in his secret identity and shape-changes to crystal form. Let me see, once in crystal form he can alter the shape into female, and other shapes, too,” she said.
“Anza, I’ve had a thought. He said he was a cross-dresser, but did he ever say which way? We just assumed that he was a male pretending to be female, but knowing how Morgan likes to screw with people’s heads, SHE might be pretending to be male, and the crystal form is her REAL one. For that matter we don’t have any proof to how close to our characters we are right now. Our characters didn’t have this relationship and this mind reading thing going on,” I lectured. “This could all be just a program overlaying our real personalities.”
Anza shook her head and took my hand, “I think we are here in bodies based on our Hero’s of Justice characters. I believe that when you and I materialized in that dressing room, we were both able for the first time to see parts of each other that we weren’t able to before. With my powers, I really saw YOU, and I think your bond with your Cape, lets you see ME.”
She was convincing, because she was at least partially right. I do have a mental link with my symbiont, and Cape does have an empathic sense that lets it know when someone is considering harm to me.
She went on, “In our other world, we liked each other, and got along well together. Here, we are so beautiful, super-models and movie-stars would kill to look like us, and we both like girls. I think with all of that, we saw each other, liked it and we are alike enough to mesh somehow because of our powers. Call it love at first sight or true love, but now that we know, I don’t think even if we went back home, that it would change anything.”
I wasn’t real happy with what Anza was saying, but it did make sense. I could feel her love for me and knew that love was returned. Not admitting it didn’t make it go away! I didn’t know what life would be like back home, knowing the love I felt for, it would be Danny there, gulp!
“Anza, I wish I could prove you wrong, but I can’t,” I told her sadly, “I do feel you are right about this part anyway. If we to back, I’m going to be a guy again, and you said that you preferred the ladies like I do. You were going to have SRS, but I wasn’t and I still don’t feel comfortable with that, for me, at least. This just can’t work.” I was working myself up into tears again.
She held me tightly, and said comfortingly, “If you can live with me after the SRS, I can live with you as a guy. I might prefer girls, but I’ve seen the good inside you, and you are the one I choose. Besides,” she said mischievously, “I can always dress you up en-femme sometimes.”
“Okay there, Luke. Take it easy with the force!” I giggled. “ ‘Seen the good inside you,’ indeed. You can steal all of the movie lines you want, but I’m still not ready for you to have your way with me yet.”
Anza stoked my hair, and I was content to let her. I was certain if I let myself, I would fall so hard for her that there wouldn’t be any redemption. A small voice was saying that it was already too late. I had admitted what I felt for her was love. All I was doing now was refusing to act on it.
That was all made harder by not knowing what was going on. Why were some of our new powers so easy to use, and other things so difficult? I still wasn’t sure about how much I could trust what I was feeling, and what I could do.
As I turned and gazed at her, I realized not only how beautiful I found her, but how much it felt right. That’s despite the running mascara and stage make-up we’d kept on because we weren’t sure if we could put it back on. Now, after the crying and emotional storms of the last two hours, I giggled, saying, “Do I look as raccoon-eyed as you do right now?”
Anza touched her face and looked at her mascara smeared fingers, and wiped it on my nose! We had a little wrestling match, and I was careful, because I knew how strong Mystery was. Yet that turned out to be the most peculiar thing. At first, I was concerned that I would be pulling doors from their hinges and breaking things left and right, and hurting Anza without meaning to, but it wasn’t like that.
For normal actions I just automatically used normal force. But when I wanted a lot of power, the upper limits of which I was capable were much, much higher. So when we wrestled I could tell I had the upper hand, but was aware of just how much strength I was using.
I had Anza pinned beneath me, then realized I fallen for the oldest feminine trap in the book. Next thing I knew, I was kissing her and both of her hands were on me. When I came up for air, the raw passion in Anza’s eyes, made me tingle madly in places I didn’t even have just a couple of hours before. Her hands came up and unbuttoned my blouse, freeing my breasts. I shuddered when she found places I didn’t know I had and the pleasure she gave me almost made me pass out.
Lovingly, I returned the favor. I discovered feeling your lovers emotions helps you know what you’re doing wrong and how to do it right. Anza’s cry of pleasure was proof it worked. Love is such a simple word for what I received and gave to her, my lover. It didn’t seem adequate enough.
Afterwards, cuddling on the still plastic covered couch, we just lay there in each others arms. ignoring the need to get ready for Morgan’s visit. I did my best to put my doubts behind me, but I feared the worst. The odds of a happy ending here were looking like a long shot.
When Anza propped herself up on one arm, to my delight, her breasts swung gently with the movement. There was no way Morgan wasn’t going to know what we’d done, because I could not only feel her contentment, I could see it. More, I was pretty sure I was glowing with the same contented pleasure as well.
After shamelessly displaying her charms, Anza asked, “Do you want to shower first, or do I?”
Seeing how she had seduced me, when she knew I wanted more time, I was more than willing to get a little revenge, so I purred back, “Why don’t you join me, and I can do your back?“ I raised an eyebrow and made what I hoped was a seductive pout.
My naughtiness was rewarded by her blush this time, and it was a good feeling. Following a good-hearted pillow fight, with the pillows still in the factory bags, we found the bathroom. Hygienic stuff was there, but it was clear that this room hadn’t been used yet.
Just another piece of the puzzle of this strange journey of ours. We unpacked and found shampoos, soap, conditioners and other supplies that our bodies now needed. I’m going to pass on describing my first experience using the potty. I’ll only say it was a little unnerving, regardless of my already finding the pleasant uses of my new plumbing.
Anza kept me from making mistakes like toweling off my hair and the fact that patting dry was more than just a good idea now, although I’ve read enough TG stories on-line to know some of it.
Cape, I found, was best thing since sliced bread. We couldn’t find towels but Cape could change into a nice fluffy thick one. I have no idea what Cape did with the water it absorbed, but it was dry when it clothed me in a comfortable robe. Anza had to streak though the house looking for clothes, and that almost led us to needing another shower.
We had come at our relationship backwards, and were still learning how to communicate and get along, AFTER we had fallen in love and lust with each other. I soon found when I was the instigator, she was the one who had to go on the defensive. Plus, it was fun, too! My male conditioning had been quiet, and I was content to bask in Anza’ attentions. Who wouldn’t? Ignorance is bliss after all.
We found our rooms by the contents. Anza’s had loads of clothes and shoes, while mine had only enough to act as a cover for having Cape. That’s right separate, bedrooms, which would argue against our relationship and closeness having been planned. There were other things that showed which was hers and mine, such as the different shades of make-up, for Anza was much darker than my pale skin, and shoe size.
The odd thing was, everything was new! Yep, still in the shopping bags. Even the clothes and shoes in the closets, although not in wrappings, had clearly never been worn. Additionally, there weren’t any personal effects, such as pictures or memento’s of times past. That made me wonder about Tony the Tiger's remark about talking with someone named Joey. Was that just a part of our cover, or had our characters really worked at this Hip Hugger place?
Anza was getting ready and putting her face on. Part of that was easy for me, I just told Cape to dress me! I was learning about Cape, because it would always dress me as sexily as it could if I didn’t specifically tell it differently. Morgan was still a guy, we think, and I was still uncomfortable in my role of a woman in the presence of guys. I told Cape I wanted jeans, and a t-shirt. Cape put me in a pair of skin-tight low rider designer blue jeans with a midriff showing pink t-shirt and 3” sandals. “Very funny,” I said aloud to Cape, and I swear it felt as if I hurt its feelings!
‘Here I am worrying about something controlling me, and here is Cape, tied right into my central nervous system.’ Sitting down in front of my vanity, I considered what I knew about Cape and my character’s origin. Cape had been inspired by the Shadow-Capes used by a member of the comic book superhero team “The Offenders”. Hellkitty could use her cloak to teleport, and could pull weapons from it, but what I liked best, was that the cape was able to act as if it was alive, by touching and grabbing things. You know the comic cliché of the cape blowing and flowing even when there wasn’t a wind blowing, and it should by the laws of physics hang limp.
I took that and the villain Zootoxin idea from Bug-Eye-Man and came up with, Cape. A symbiont that was alive and aided Mystery with some cool abilities like flight, and self-contained breathing apparatus among other things. Cape was intended to be loyal and with many of the abilities of a computer, though with only the emotional level of a smart dog. In many ways, Cape was meant to be both loyal guard dog and a friend that could shape itself into almost any form of clothing, as long as it was attached to her. So, Cape’s origin is fuzzy.
Gamers love to come up with original ideas for their characters, but with comic books having been around over 50 years, it’s a challenge. Some gamers just go with thinly disguised popular comic characters. If I had a dollar for every Wolfy claw-wielding knock-off I’ve seen, I could buy dinner for a large family. With Mystery, I’d tried to come up with parts from other origins, put together in a way which was unique, if not original.
Abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, with only a blanket, no one knew who her parents were or where they came from. When the priests found her, one said, “We have a little mystery here, and that is what the other priest wrote down,” Mercedes T. Reed.
The nuns noticed that baby Misty always had the same blanket, and no matter if they replaced it or took it away, the blanket always ended back up with the baby. One older nun saw the blanket stayed cleaned, and philosophically decided nothing was harmed, and it was God’s will. Misty, sometimes called Missy, had no trouble being adopted because it was obvious that she was going to be a beauty.
Missy’s new family had wanted her because of their problems in conceiving, and when science gave them the chance to have children of their own blood, Missy was more and more ignored. Missy knew Cape was the blanket she had been delivered to the orphanage in, and that she should keep Cape, her not so invisible friend, a secret.
It was no secret she had been adopted and with Cape’s help, she found the Misty T. Reed identity and decided she liked it. Growing up, she’d always had her powers, but Cape had helped her hide them. Several years later, after her beauty began making it tough on her in high school, she overdid the discouragement on a jock and put him in the hospital. Running away she took the name Misty T. Reed, Mystery!
She ran to the big city and took to life on the street. It was a comic book bit, because rather than be exploited and/or killed, she picked up good hearted, but down on their luck mentors, and became a streetwise heroine.
That’s where Mystery was when I started playing with Morgan, and Danny’s Esperanza. It was like a mixture of Super-Jock and the sexy streetwise version of Kitten-Woman. Unlike him, Mystery didn’t know if she was an alien or not, and didn’t turn to burglary to support herself like she did. I couldn’t say crime because, well, attacking drug dealers and other criminals and stealing from them is still a crime.
Since I never specified where Cape, or for that matter, Mystery came from, I didn’t know for sure if Cape was really friendly or not. Another part of the mystery, pardon the pun, was that Cape had seemed to accept me as Misty even though it was the guard dog protector.
Did that mean that we hadn’t stolen Missy’s and the others identities, and the real us had been transformed into our characters? Insufficient data, the pointy eared man would say. I did know having Cape with me felt, I don’t know, ‘nice’ is the only word that comes to mind. It didn’t feel as if Cape was mentally influencing me. I only felt the clear emotion Cape passed-on from others and Cape’s own feelings and affection, like the feeling of hurt when I reprimanded it for dressing me so sexily.
I tore open the things still in their packages, such as make-up, and found that having enough strength to defeat the mortal enemies of mankind paled besides being able to easily rip open sealed plastic coated merchandise. Self-satisfied I threw the normally impossible to open packaging away with a sense of a job well done.
I did my best to apply the cosmetics lightly in an as un-clown a manner as I could, but didn’t do so hot. Feeling Cape’s flicker of amusement, I cleaned my face with cold cream. Hey, I knew that much okay? *Right,* I told Cape, *you do it.* Remembering my still bare midriff, I amended, 'lightly, just for a friend coming over.'
I first felt surprise, as if it had never been asked this before, and then pleasure, as Cape was eager to show me what it could do. In the vanity mirror, I saw Cape the scarf, lengthen and form three separate ends of the same silk-like fabric. It then picked up the various cosmetics and went to work. It didn’t take long for Cape to complete its work, and it did look much better than my effort, professional even! There was a theme here, sexier than I wanted, but it did look good.
“Thank you Cape,” I said, “you did well.” I was a little unprepared for its mental purr of contentment at the compliment, and wondered if I needed to pet it?
I met Anza, who was searching for food, in the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, nothing had been put away, and besides a few canned goods there wasn’t anything to eat, although now that I had admitted my feelings for her, ‘she’ looked good enough to eat.
Wearing short shorts and a low-cut, cream colored top, she had on flat sandals, and with my heels, I was almost as tall as she. Making a mental note that figuring just how tall I was now was on the ‘to do’ list, I gave her a hug. We spared an admiring look at each other and repeated that telepathy thing when we both in sync said, “I’m hungry,” followed by the usual giggles!
Our mirth was interrupted by the door-bell, and we both hurried to the door. Anza peered through the spy hole, while I looked out the as-yet curtain-less window. Outside, I saw a taxi pulling away, and standing next to the door was a curvaceous auburn haired woman. I silently mouthed to Anza, “Morgan?”
Anza shrugged, an ‘I don’t know’, gesture. Hey, she really is supposed to be psychic.
I motioned her to open the door and saw that the rest of our guest’s appearance matched my brief glance. She was holding several bags marked with the Black Bull steak house logo. That made Anza’s and my stomach’s rumble at the enticing smell. The woman looked surprised when she saw us as we opened the door.
I reached forward with my slim hand as to shake hers and made the first gesture in Morgan’s and mine secret handshake. We both started smiling at each other as our hand’s moved in our old ritual, and I led her inside. Anza gave me that eyes rolling, 'boys will be boys' look as Morgan and I completed our handshake.
Morgan stood there for a moment looking at us, before saying, “Wow, the sight of both of you together is something else! I knew that like us, you had transformed into your characters, but seeing is believing!”
Morgan’s voice was a soft soprano, but even though I was curious as to what kind change she’d had, I was hungry. Using my southern accent to my advantage, I lisped, “Is that for little ole me?” pointing at the bags.
Morgan looked startled, then handed them to us, saying, “I thought maybe you would appreciate the grub.”
She didn’t have time to finish before we rushed off to the kitchen to unpack our goodies. Anza shouted over our shoulders, “Thank you!”
By the time, she had followed us in, we’d made a good start on putting it all on plates, and offered one to her.
Morgan waved her hand no, but watched us finish getting ready to eat.
I knew that some more of that peculiar telepathy, that Anza and I shared, was doing its stuff as we worked together, and I must say it was a pleasure, of a sorts, just to feel her presence there with me.
Morgan watched as we acted like a team getting the meal together and I felt he already suspected that something had happened between Anza and me. He said, “I didn’t know whether to get you guys salads or steaks, so I got both, considering what has happened.”
Anza and I cleared off a portion of our table so we could begin to eat. Morgan watched us with an amused look on her face and remarked, “I can see you two still have some guy left in you, the way you are devouring that poor cow.”
I was curious if Anza was going to take exception to this, because she had been preparing for her real life test, but she just waved a hand in a 'so-so' gesture.
Between mouthfuls I said, “Why don’t you tell us what happened with you and the others while we finish here? Then we’ll catch you up on our doings.”
Morgan nodded, and started, “Well the good news is Will and I found ourselves on the helipad, and not flying. Some news director rushed up to me wanting the tape we’d shot and once he got that, we were left alone. I did get a copy of it before we left, and truthfully, I don’t even know when I’m supposed to be back at ’work’,” she said, making quotation marks with her fingers, as she reached in her purse and revealed a video camera.
“I know that you two have already found out we have “powers” here, but here is some proof that superheroes and villains are real here.” She rotated the small video screen to face us.
I passed the ranch dressing to Anza without her asking, just as she reached out for it. I wasn’t even aware of it until I noticed Morgan staring at us. She raised an eyebrow and I shrugged, which caused my breasts to jiggle. She turned red and Anza popped me on the shoulder in reproach.
I giggled, “It was an accident!” Rubbing my shoulder softly I watched the tiny screen of the camera.
Morgan said, “That’s Question, the local brick, and leader of the Riverside Warders,” pointing to a large red costume man with a large white question mark on his chest. He was hanging half out of what looked liked a V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. The V-22 was about hundred feet up when he swung himself out like one of those cliff-divers, feet together, but there wasn’t any water nearby just concrete! The camera panned down at the ground to focus on a gray clad over muscled guy that had an armored car door in one hand that he’d just ripped off of the truck.
Now we’ve all marveled at the computer generated images (CGI) from the Super-jock to Bug-man movies, but seeing that this wasn’t enhanced, just raw footage, impressed me a LOT.
She froze the picture for a moment, then continued the narration, “That’s Man-Mountain, a loner bad guy.” The camera view pulled back just as a red and white blur played pile-driver, driving him into the pavement. I could see the shockwave of the collision ripple away into the distance.
The Question rolled, after he impacted, and was quickly back on his feet a couple of feet away from the large instant pot-hole. Incredibly, Man-Mountain was still moving, and staggered to his feet, climbing from the debris on the street. Somehow he was still holding onto that door, and threw at the Question. Rather than dodge the missile, he spiked it volleyball like into the street. Question then looked as if he was making a demand. Because we didn’t have any sound, we had to guess what was happening.
Man-Mountain didn’t look happy and looked even less so as the camera zoomed off to the distance to show another costumed figure on the way. From what we could see, Question had this guy totally out-matched and his opponent knew it. Man-Mountain then leaped into the Question created pot-hole from hell, and just melted into the ground! The footage ended with a close-up of Question shaking his head in disgust.
I met Anza’s and Morgan’s eyes, and moaned, “We are so screwed aren’t we?”
Morgan looked at a graceful, red painted nail and became thoughtful, “Well, that depends on Horus, doesn’t it?
Anza motioned him to go on, and she said, “According to Mike, our mission was to help the Warders stop this new syndicate, and it might be a necessary requirement for us to go home. Horus was the one who gave us this mission, and it occurs to me that most of our characters come from different game worlds. It might be a cross-over situation.
What Morgan meant by this was that sometimes a group of GM’s will agree that what happens in one GM’s game will happen in theirs as well. This is a shared 'World', but many times a player with a character from a closed world, that’s one where only one GM controls a world’s events, will want to play in another GM’s game. To manage this, the plot devise of a crossover is used. The crossover is much used among the major comic companies, by taking their popular characters and teaming them with those of another company.
What this meant for us, was it was possible that aside from our covers from this Horus, that our characters had literally had not been born here, but were from different worlds, brought here by Horus for his mission.
We just might have to try and complete Horus’s mission, because we’d have no choice. Digesting this and our meal, I had an unpleasant idea, as Anza was saying to Morgan, “So you don’t think we’re in some type of computer simulation?”
“No I don’t,” Morgan replied, “Do you remember when were we creating our character drawings, how well they turned out? It was as if it was reading my mind though my Internet connection. For that to happen, it would need more band-width than even a DSL cable could carry, just to physically pass the information back and forth. I could be wrong, but I think someone, or some ‘thing’ was recruiting, using that computer program as a front.
“In a truly infinite universe, all things are possible,” I misquoted. “You know that in a demented quantum physics sense, conceiving an idea makes it real. To something that can sense and move across alternate worlds, it might have problems telling what is fiction and what is not.”
Seeing Morgan and Anza’s blank faces, I went on, “I mean, whoever or whatever did this might not be able to tell the difference between us and our creations. Look how it got us by using a fictional game and asking our help and …” I trailed off and slapped myself on the forehead, when I remembered the end-user agreement.
Morgan had that look on her face that said deep thoughts were in progress.
Anza looked at both of us as if we’d just grown horns. She put both hands on her prominent hips, “That’s it! You two fess up right now. Don’t you dare keep me in the dark!”
Morgan began, “There’ve been several novels out about wizards summoning people from our world on purpose, or by accident, because the spells weren’t specific enough or just didn’t fit our paradigm. This could all just be a screw up with a spell, or some sort of not so smart servant, who bungled the job.” Morgan made as if to push up glasses that were no longer there, then looked a little annoyed that she had forgotten about her improved eyesight and gotten caught.
I understood the feeling, because I was still getting used to hearing the sounds of paper moving, utensils scrapping on the plates and so forth again. Right now, I was more concerned about something I’d read, not heard. “Did you guii... girls read the user agreement at the 'Hero’s of Justice' website?” I asked. Almost no one ever reads those things. I had, but then I was strange.
Anza shook her head, sending her long dark hair, not to mention her other assets, bouncing. That definitely distracted me, which, of course, set her to giggling and me to blushing.
Morgan, who had her eyes closed in concentration, opened one to see what was up, gave us a disgusted look, and complained, “I’m trying to think here. Can you keep it down please?”
All that did was cause Anza and I to almost explode, holding in our compulsive giggling. I admit it, I failed first, and ended up rolling off my chair onto the floor, I was laughing so hard. Anza at least kept her seat, and Morgan joined in with a chuckle.
Looking at Anza, Morgan asked her, “I take it, she’s ticklish?”
Anza, grinning, replied, “Yes”, and blushed when she realized what she’d implied.
That didn’t help me at all, but just made me laugh more, till I began having problems breathing! Red faced, I finally was able to get back to my chair, and I felt full of good feelings for these two.
Dryly, Morgan said, “If you’re finished?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and enjoying the warmth of their friendship.
She said, “I didn’t read it, but I did look at it and I have a good memory. I take it you’re referring to the agreement, that ended with 'Do you agree to use your powers in the cause of justice and to help others in the multi-verse, fight evil and right wrongs?”
“That’s the one,” I said, “Right next to the, “I attest to this being a legally binding agreement.”
Anza was gaping at us, “You’re kidding, Right?”
“Nope,” Morgan said, “That’s what all of us who created our characters on that website agreed to. Which brings up another question. Like what happened to Mike? I’m sure there was some sort of similar agreement for him, since he was the one who bought the actual software and game.”
“There’s a chance that Mike might have become this Horus character,” I said. “I don’t recall Horus saying anything about a way of reaching him on these phones, do you?” I looked at Anza and Morgan.
They shook their heads, but Anza said, “Esperanza does have a mind-sweep power that I could try, but if I do, everyone in the area who is PSI sensitive will know that someone with PSI powers is about.”
Seeing that neither Anza nor I liked that idea very much, Morgan said, “We might have the powers of our characters, but none of us have the right mind-set for this. From our reactions today, we are still us, just in the bodies of our characters. We seem to have access to their powers, and maybe some of their skills as well. But before we start revealing ourselves to others, we need a lot more information.”
I added, “Mike knew where our characters were going to be, and a lot of other details, we didn’t know. For now, I think we have to trust that if he is here, he’ll find us. If he is Horus, he might have a number to get in contact with us, and be unable to do so right now. We had the phones, but were so disoriented, it was well over an hour before we got our act together. I think we need to wait, for now.”
Anza said, “Well that’s one more thing to add to our list of things to do. We need to find out what we can and can’t do. In two days,” she said, pointing to herself and me, “we are supposed to 'dance' in a topless erotic club, and she can barely walk in those,” pointing at the heels I was wearing.
“Not to mention Will is supposed to be able to fly a ‘copter, with you in it,” I said to Morgan.
“Add that to Tom, running a company when the most he’s done is operate a one man repair shop,” Morgan replied.
Anza giggled, “Or the ace reporter who knows a lot about taking vital signs, but not so much about interviews. At least all Mark needs to do is drive the limo and look tough.”
“We need to buy some time to figure out what we can really do, and find out if Mike is Horus, in the short term,” stated Morgan
“Finding out if we are here for the long term, and whether or not we displaced anyone from these bodies is also a priority,” I added.
We need to know if we have a choice about being superheroes, or if we can walk away, and what the consequences of that might be,” Anza added.
Anza and I looked at Morgan, “Now that the plan of action is on the table, why did you need to see us without the guys?”
Morgan looked uncomfortable, and looked as if s/he didn’t know where to start. Anza reached over and softly held a hand. “This is us, the oddballs. We are here for you if you let us.”
I reached over and placed my hand on top of theirs, “We have all had secret desires and hopes revealed today. Take courage, and we will be with you.”
I took Anza’s other hand in mine, and told them, “I found my fondest dream, and I am scared silly that it will turn out just to be a dream.
Looking Anza in the eyes, “With Morgan as my witness, I don’t know how or why I feel the way I do, but I love you, Anza.”
Her eyes was shining bright with tears, she reached over and kissed me softly. She looked over at Morgan, “That’s our secret, and now you can tell us yours.”
Morgan looked a little shocked, “I thought that maybe you fooled around a little, because the two of you look so hot, but not this. This just started today?”
I nodded, “Yes, at first I thought it was just lust like you said, but both of us are empathic.”
Anza said, “We think that, helped along by how attractive we found each other, may have caused a “bonding” effect.”
“I am still resisting a bit, but it’s hard when you KNOW how the object of your affections feels. It’s somewhat like having all of the emotional depth of a long term intimate relationship, without the real-life lessons learned reaching there,” I said.
“I don’t know why you have to complicate things! It was just love at first sight!” Anza giggled as she pointedly looked at my breasts, causing me to blush again as I remembered.
Changing the subject I told Morgan, “See? What can you tell the guys that will cause a worse reaction than this? ‘So give, girlfriend!’ as Anza would say.”
Morgan’s green eyes and auburn hair danced as, she said, “Well, back home I had some medical problems growing up. Are you familiar with the term intersexed?”
Anza and I nodded. Like many of the transgender community, we had an interest in sexual differences from the norm. Intersexed meant having characteristics of both sexes.
Morgan continued, “I had a testicle and an ovary. The doctors decided that physically I had more male parts then female ones and removed the ovary. I haven’t had the problems some others have had, but I’ve always been curious about what would’ve happen if I’d been left alone.”
“When you two started playing your 'Girls Want to Have Fun' characters I felt that I had a chance to harmlessly explore that. I never wrote it on the character sheet, but it’s like that program read my mind for what I intended,” Morgan said.
Anza, still holding Morgan’s hand gestured at her to go on.
Morgan took a deep breath, “When you said girlfriend, you were only half right. It seems I’m a fully functioning hermaphrodite. I can shift my appearance from fully feminine to all male. I have both sexes in what you could call my third form or the ‘at rest‘ one. I never intended on doing this to myself, I was just curious. The problem is. I don’t know any more about being female, than Greg here does, aside from some theater work in college.
Anza asked, “Are you sure about the functioning part? You would have a strange body chemistry, if so.”
Morgan blushed, “I’m sure. It felt weird but I had to know how far the change went.”
“We’re not trying to embarrass you.” Anza comforted Morgan getting up and hugging her.
“Morgan, what’s your character’s origin? Maybe that will help us figure this out,” I asked
“Well, my character's Mom was a geologist who was exploring a deep cave network, when she got separated from the rest of her group. Trying to find them she ran across these really unusual crystal formations. These crystals were sentient, and were able to communicate with my mother. They wanted to see the outside world and worked a deal with her so she would carry a crystal with her and they would see though it.
“They also wanted to know what it was like being mobile, so they implanted a crystal into her unborn child so it would send back to them as well, but send all its sensations, not just sight. In my unofficial history, it was twins and they merged, creating a hermaphrodite. As I grew older, the crystals became able to turn me into crystal, as well as control my gender aspects,” Morgan explained.
“So it’s the crystal that lets you control your body change functions? It might also be able to keep you from getting pregnant. Do you have any communications from the crystal implant or from the ‘Mother’ crystals?” I asked.
Morgan shook her auburn curls. “I’d intended for the crystals to just be just ‘watchers,’ and for the implant to become a part of the whole when it integrated.”
I could see she need more support so I move closer to her too. It was strange seeing this unfamiliar face, but I could see Morgan’s mannerisms in her. The empathy from Cape helped too I think. The feelings of confusion and just plain being hit with too much at one time, was a feeling I understood all too well!
“Morgan, are you dealing with this alright?” asked Anza
She nodded, “The guys have been deferring to me as a de-facto leader for now. Of course I was male then. They haven’t seen me like this yet. So I’ve kept too busy to really think about it except for a little experimentation.”
“Morgan,” Anza warned, “I want to know how YOU are feeling with this. I can’t help but feel something of what you’re feeling because of my powers. It does act like another sense that I can’t turn off. I’ll not violate your privacy, but you are all but screaming in my face, in an empathic way. You are a friend, too. We…,” Anza gestured at me, “want to help. You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”
“If you’re talking suicide, no. Wanting to get blind drunk to push some of these feeling away for a while, yes!”
“What about you, Anza? I’m not feeling anything alarming, but how are you coping with your powers? I didn’t know you were feeling them like that.” I turned to her.
“It’s kinda weird, but I can feel what’s going on with you two, and I know it’s not me feeling it. I think I could look deeper, but that would invade you guys’ privacy,” she said. “I’ve read some of the same things you guys have about telepaths going crazy with all the 'voices' in their heads, but all I really feel inside is satisfaction that I’m a real girl!”
“Speaking about going crazy,” I asked, “how is Tom doing?”
“I think he’s beginning to get a handle on that hyperactivity of Streeter’s,” Morgan said. “Mark and Will, being so buff, are enjoying themselves quite a bit, I think. They wanted to go clubbing, but I talked them into staying with Tom for tonight. You’ve got to see him to how big Will is now. He’s built like a tank, and Mark is almost as bad.”
Anza, looked at Morgan, “And us?” she asked.
“Well you two are coping pretty well, all things considered. Danny, you’re enjoying your change and Greg’s still bouncing around emotionally, but you two are helping each other. Me? This caught me unprepared, but it is nice to be able shift back and forth from male to female,” Morgan said introspectively.
Anza took a deep breath, which made me catch mine. Then she asked, “But do you want to go back home?”
Morgan blinked a couple of times as she dealt with the implications. “I take it that means you don’t?”
Shaking her head, “The best I could hope for there, would be for the finances to work out so I could have surgery. Here, I’m a real girl with all the options.” She took my hand, before she continued, “Missy has brought up some moral issues and there’s this whole superhero business.” Looking as emotional as I’d seen her so far, she went on, “My family has disowned me. So if I can stay here with Missy without hurting anyone? No, I don’t want to go back.”
Holding Anza’s hand, I nodded, too, “Subject to qualifiers, me too. I’m not close to my family, and they don’t understand me at all.” I squeezed her hand softly, “All of my wildest dreams are true here, but I need to know what’s expected of us.”
Morgan tried to push up hir non-existent glasses again, looking at Danny and me, “Anza and Missy?”
We both nodded as I felt my eyes mist up again. “We never had the chance to be the people we really were inside. Anza and Missy will work for us until we learn more about who we are,” I told her.
She held our hands, “I don’t know if I want to stay this way. It’s nice for a visit, but I don’t think I would like not seeing my folks again. I understand why you feel the way you do, though. Like I said before, we might have to fight this syndicate to get home, and we’re not fighters. We have a nurse, one paramedic, ex-military spook, an auto-mechanic, a fork-lift operator, and a sheet-metal worker.”
Sighing she went on, “I don’t know about the guys. Back in our world, Mark is seeing someone, and Tom’s engaged. Will works such crazy hours and stays out in his parent’s garage. He might want to stay, but I don’t know for sure.” Looking pensive, Morgan said, “You know, it might be an all or nothing deal? We all go or we all stay?” she said quietly.
Anza replied, “I won’t keep anyone from going home. I’ll go with everyone else, but I would like to stay.”
I said, “That’s we, and us, and goes for me as well. Besides, we’re jumping the gun here. There’s too much that we don’t know yet, about everything! We do need to meet up with everyone so we can see them and they can see us. That said, we need some more time to work through what’s going on.
“If we are going to have to … to dance … topless? … I’m going to need more girl-time before I can even think about doing something like that without wetting myself! Not to mention, we need to put some exercise togs on and see how close these bodies match the character sheets.”
Anza and Morgan were nodding in agreement as she switched to her male mode, pulled out his phone, and called the guys. I had seen morphing in movies before, but it happened so fast with Morgan you couldn't see any details. One eye blink there's this woman there and the next, this guy!
While she was doing that, Anza and I cleaned-up from our dinner, and started looking for curtains or drapes. With all that had happened, we needed some privacy, and that meant covering up those windows!
We learned that unpacking and putting up stuff is a lot easier with super-powers! Puttering around, and straightening up this and that, kept us busy. I learned a little more about walking in heels and carrying things at the same time, and Anza found out that she could levitate several objects at once.
Morgan asked, “Is it cool to meet with the whole gang at the mall tomorrow?”
In our own ways, we signaled yes, and carried on with the task of trying to find the floor of this place. It didn’t take long to get the front room clear enough to hang out in. Anza had connected up the TV and some other entertainment stuff. I looked for a computer or laptop, but didn’t find one. I was curious, since our real names were listed on our phones, to find out what would happen if I checked my old email. That was one more thing for tomorrow’s list.
I had Morgan make herself comfortable on the sofa while I went to grab some refreshments, but found Anza had beaten me to it by bringing in some wine glasses and a bottle of wine. We didn’t reach that blinding drunk Morgan had said she wanted, but we were all pleasantly floating, despite whatever super-enhancements govern such things.
Anza put Morgan in my room after she went to sleep, while I found blankets for us all. She could use her telekinesis to move Morgan more comfortably than I could. Then we went to her room and went to bed.
Morgan drowsily cocked open an eye, hearing her hosts enthusiastic cries, but couldn’t find it in herself to feel ill towards them. There was a bit of wistfulness, but her happiness for her friends was more important. Morgan snuggled deeper into the covers and returned to sleep.
Heroes of Justice: Discoveries
I found the morning full of discoveries. Anza was not a morning person, and wasn’t civilized until that second cup of coffee. Morgan, horrors, was a morning person and far worse, was cheerful. In our old world, I hadn’t been all that old, but had already picked up some of those lasting aches that waking up in the morning makes you all too aware of first thing. This morning I woke feeling wonderful! Get your mind out of the gutter! Waking up next to Anza was very nice, too.
Morgan had made some instant coffee and it had the magical effect of pulling Anza, half asleep, into the kitchen to get some. All three of us were hungry, but there wasn’t much left of Morgan’s gift from the night before, so it was decided we needed to go out to eat before meeting the guys.
We found some casual stuff in my closet to fit Morgan’s female form, and Cape dressed me, SEXILY casual, of course. Anza pouted when she saw how we were dressed, and went back to her room to change from the dress and heels to something more casual. Another discovery of the morning, it really does take women longer to get ready!
Thinking ahead, I got my keys and started the flower-power-car while Anza was still fussing over her make-up. Having Cape do mine for me was a delicious cheat! It was also good to know that I wasn’t an open book to her mind-reading thing! She was wondering how I got my make-up looking so good, but hadn’t connected it with Cape yet. Morgan, no surprise, managed the dressing and make-up quite well. Was there anything, she didn’t do well?
Not knowing New Riverside at all, we set the GPS/Map gadget for the mall and stopped at the first breakfast place we saw on the way, an International House of Waffles. It was embarrassingly funny, that Anza warned Morgan and I that we had to watch our figures now, and she’s the one that kept eying everyone else’s plate. I ordered the most chocolate filled breakfast I could get away with. Now I’ve always been a chocoholic, but I couldn’t get enough now. For three young women trying to watch their figures, we had far too many plates on our table! When Morgan gave an apoplectic look at us and ordered dessert, I couldn’t let her get away with that, so I got one too.
Besides, eating let me ignore all the looks we were getting, and they weren’t peeking at what we eating, either, unless they were looking to see if we had spilled food on ourselves, if you know what I mean. I’m not trying to be a prima-donna, but I was the best endowed of the three of us. Anza had the best posterior and legs, but Morgan, with her auburn hair and emerald green eyes, had the face that launched a thousand ships. At least some of the stories I’ve read on-line help me grasp what was going on, but it still made me uncomfortable.
We made sure to tip our server well, and headed towards the mall. Together we had a couple hundred dollars in cash, but didn’t have anything else. There were those ATM cards, but I wasn’t sure what the PINs would be. It looked like on our first full day as girls, that the shopping trip would have to wait. Besides, if I remember right, all I needed to do was find an outfit I liked, and Cape would memorize it. Isn’t having super-powers grand?
Turning on to Clairmont Dr., I could see the signs for the mall. Almost simultaneously I felt Cape’s alarm and Anza squeaked a warning, “Watch out!”
The entire pack of cars in front of us slammed on their brakes, some fishtailing madly. I guess I still have some guy inside still, because I was assuring my passengers that I had everything under control.
Anza squeaking still, “Not them, that!” pointing at a falling dot on the windshield.
A dot that was growing as it fell towards us. “Aw Crap!” I looked for some way to avoid the, yep, it was a Camry, and it was falling right at us. We were blocked in front and back, and couldn’t even turn.
Lights exploded in my face as instead, something rammed us from the side, and the airbags deployed! Deployed, what kind word is that for being slapped in the face by a bag of compressed air? I could feel though Cape that Anza and Morgan were okay, but I was feeling really weird.
It’s a cliché, but everything slowed downed and seem to take on a hard-edged pinkish tint. Looking to my right, I found that a large man in a red and white costume had slammed into us, pushing us out of the way of that pinwheeling flying Camry. In amazement I watched as, NO, it wasn’t Santa, did something like judo to redirect the impact of the car. Wrecked? Yes beyond any doubt. Crushed, with the people within dead? No.
When I saw the large white question mark on his chest, I realized that this was the Question. He still had parts of the Camry hanging off of him. He was checking the driver of the Camry, and he then looked over at us, I think. He was wearing some sort of solid face mask that was fashioned like a human face, but didn’t have openings I could see, so it was hard to tell.
He looked over the car, and then at me. I heard a deep male voice say, “Nice car” and he then tensed up and leaped 20 or 30 feet into air, heading in the direction from which the flying Camry had come.
Still in shock I crammed my head out the window to see what he’d been looking at. WOW! Despite being rammed in the side, Flower-power-car didn’t even have the paint chipped! Maybe there was more to it than I had first thought.
Back inside the car, Morgan was pointing out to a sheepish Anza that she could’ve used her Telekinesis to stop that Camry, instead of yelling at me to do something. She was climbing out and heading for the wreck, being paramedic trained. Anza grabbed the small first aid kit from Flower-Power and hurried over behind her.
Following Morgan’s directions I removed what was left of the door, so she and Anza could reach the driver. Professionally, the two of them checked the driver for injuries and eased him out of the wrecked Camry. They might have superhero powers, but their training and personalities were that of a paramedic and an ER nurse.
I looked around and saw that no one had noticed our good Samaritan-ship yet, but this was the age of camera phones. I tapped Anza on the shoulder and our telepathy tripped on again. It was a lot faster than talking, and she did some sort of TK thing that caused a mask to appear.
Morgan glanced up, and sighed. “I hate to admit it but you two are right, ‘hero time’ it is.” She shimmered and became that living crystal form s/he had told us about. If you thought that a diamond the size of a marble was dazzling, you have no idea what it is to see one the size and shape of a beautiful woman!
Cape changed me into our costume, and I kind of wish it had just provided me with a disguise. It could prove to be hazardous to my health to look like an obvious heroine.
Anza used her TK to lift the guy out of the Camry, and thankfully he was the only casualty so far. Morgan had discovered that diamond sharp fingernails were useful to cut away clothing from wounds. I unclipped the blue-tooth style headset that had an easy to find walkie-talkie selector switch. 911 was the first call I made and they told me that rescue vehicles were already on the way.
We could hear the battle taking place somewhere up ahead, and while my friends were busy aiding their patient, I let them know about the phones. “I’m going closer, to see if anyone else is trapped.
At Anza’s projected worried thought, I said, “Don’t worry! I’ll be careful and won’t get involved in the fight. You two are useful here, but I’m not. I can scout, and try to get some of these people out harm’s way.” I saw Morgan make the old 'keep your head down' hand signal. I shot her a 'thumbs up' and headed to the sound of the guns, as Kipling would say.
I saw some heads bobbing out of windows as drivers craned to see what was happening. Now my costume is stylistic medieval armor, red tinted mail, with pauldrons, gorget, and other solid parts a metallic blue. The boots and greaves are red with metallic blue metal inserts. My identity is kept safe by a combination of make-up and a domino mask. Top all of this off with a Royal Blue flowing Cape and I made an imposing figure. Did I mention the 3 inch heels on the boots?
It was all smoke and mirrors, courtesy of Cape. All of this had the appearance of armor but not the mass and weight. I don’t think Cape knew anything about the laws of conservation of mass and energy, because it sure did ignore it a lot!
Urging people to leave their cars for the hopeful safety of a nearby strip mall, I walked forward, keeping calm to prevent panic, at least I hoped I was. Cape was feeling a little impatient, but hey, I wasn’t wanting to get into a fight here! I radioed back to the girls that I was sending people to the strip mall out of harms way, but hadn’t seen anyone one else hurt.
Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. Up ahead I found a Ford mini-van that looked as if someone had hit with it an anti-tank gun. The entire front end, including the motor, was crushed. The driver was a young mother who was unconscious and had been wedged in tight when the front collapsed. There was a baby in the back crying, and thankfully, it looked all right.
Calling Morgan, she said, “Get the baby out, but remove the entire baby seat carefully, don’t rock it around. If there are injuries, the seat should help support it.”
I could hear the crashing of the battle going on and we felt that there was less chance of death if I got everyone out now! They were moving up now, having found someone to watch their first patient. Thank God, Morgan had battlefield medical training!
I had to force the non-sliding passenger door open, and with Cape’s help, I got the baby out. I was beginning to notice that there were times when I asked it to do things that apparently it hadn’t been asked to do before, because I could “feel” the surprise and delight. Cape was like an overeager child or dog wanting to help. This time I asked for a “sharp edge” to cut the seatbelt securing the child seat.
Sure enough, Cape was surprised, but produced a blade from one of my gauntlets that did the job just fine. Not too far away was one of those low brick walls used as a sign for a bank next to the strip mall, and after letting the girls know where it was, I put the baby-seat behind it. Stuff was beginning to fly my way again. I couldn’t even see what was causing it to come my way, but it must be one hell of a fight!
I was determined that this kid would still have a mother when this was finished and stayed next to the poor woman trapped within, praying for Morgan and Anza to hurry. Cape started deflecting some of the smaller flying debris and taking its cue, I started trying to do so myself. This was not a lark. These things were whizzing around like bullets!
A fragment or two spranged off of my armor (Cape?), but I was getting the hang of it! True to form, the pieces got bigger and head sized missiles were zooming all over! Cape was kind of acting like a ‘combat information center’ on a Navy ship. CIC would provide information on what was coming in from where and how dangerous it was, so the best decision on how to deal with it could be made.
This was the first time that I’d had a chance to experience just how different I was now. The speed and agility I had now was exhilarating! Part of the strangeness for all of this was that while I was now a woman, I was much stronger than before.
I got a glimpse of the author of all of this when I saw the over-muscled lump of Man Mountain careen into a tractor trailer so violently that it exploded! He passed all the way though it like a bullet though Jell-O â„¢ and vanished out of sight. A tall woman carrying a huge two handed mallet leaped over a row of cars after him.
Being busy keeping one of those tractor’s tires from smashing into my charge, I didn’t see what happened to them next. I was concerned about the baby, too, but it looked okay behind that sign. Cape started warning me about a threat coming my way, but wasn’t screaming red alert. I decided to keep on playing Missile Commander for Mom.
The flood of missiles had almost stopped when a foot slapped me in the face. I say slapped, because it didn’t really hurt just kinda stung a bit. The foot belonged to a Hispanic woman dressed all in black leather who landed rather arrogantly next to the mini-van.
“Hey chica! We came for Man O’muscles, but we’ll take two for the price of one,” She had more than a little accent. She was just begging for me to hit her, but I didn’t want to fight. It’d just been a few seconds since I’d talked to the girls, but I was wishing they would hurry!
“When I scented your power, I knew that this was going to be a good day. I want that bonus, so why don’t you come along with me and join up with the syndicate like a good little chica?” she threatened.
‘This just gets better and better. She is some sort of telepath able to sniff out superpowers or something, but might be much more, since she is trying to goad me into attacking first.’ The only hand to hand training I’d ever had was a bit in boot camp, and some Hapkido from being stationed in Korea some years back. Hell, I was still trying to walk comfortably in these 3 inch stilts.
“I’m not interested in your syndicate or in being a criminal, and I don’t want to fight anyone, so please, just go away,” I said to her.
“So you’re just Mary Poppin’s looking out for Snow White over there,” she answered scornfully. She turned and struck the van!
“Hey, don’t do that, she’s hurt!” I warned her.
“Or you’re going to do what, chica?” she smiled nastily.
Trying to think of some way to get rid of this Bi---witch without a fight, and failing, I fell back on an old Nuke Cnorris line, “I’ll hit you with so many lefts you’ll beg for right,” I boasted.
With an ugly little laugh the Bi--witch kicked the van again, harder, “Oh I’m so scared! Is Mary Poppins going to hit me now?”
Hoping that Anza was doing her telepathy thing with me, I sent, “I've got a witch threatening the mom over here, and I’m going to try and lure her away. Sorry about not keeping my promise not to fight.”
I threw a punch at her, expecting her to dodge or block, which she did with ease. Hitting her wasn’t what I wanted to do. I just wanted her to stop striking the van. She skipped backwards, throwing a kick at me.
We danced awhile and I was getting the feel of this, like with the missiles. My reflexes were much faster now. Add in Cape’s ability to predict her attacks, and it was easy. What made it hard was that I was still learning how to move with these “hips” and the longer legs. It was weird, being awkward and superior all at once.
The whole thing reminded me of an issue of ‘Bug-Eyed’-Man where he was facing some kung-fu guys, and although they had training, his speed was just so much faster he could fake everything they could do and was a lot stronger.
She was figuring that out, too. Apparently she expected me to be a compete neophyte at this, because of my attitude and clumsiness, but I had the abilities and powers of a very experienced roughhouser. To my faster senses it was if I had all the time in the world to figure what my next move would be.
Frankly, as long as we were moving away from the Mom, I was doing my job. The witch had decided to try something new, but Cape gave me warning as her hand sparkled red. When I dodged her blow, it smashed into a window shattering the safety glass.
Morgan radioed me that they had the baby and were moving the Mom. I acknowledged, when she said, “Since it’s no use pretending that we’re going to able to not fight, just take that bimbo out and stop playing with your food.”
The witch had decided that I was too much for her, and was making a break for it. What the hey, I used my flight to leap over her and engulf her in Cape to suffocate her. Caught by surprise, she did struggle, but was soon unconscious. I avoided doing any permanent damage by using Cape to sense when she was out.
A short distance away in the wreckage of the Mall’s parking lot I could see Question was battling a clawed snake-man with wings. It gave a whole new meaning to going at someone tooth and nail, because that was exactly what ‘Scaly’ was doing. The Question looked if he was having a tough time fighting him, as the snake was wrapped around him like a boa constrictor.
I didn’t think I could help, besides I wasn’t here to fight! Still carrying the witch wrapped in Cape, I went back to the trapped mom and her minivan. Morgan and Anza had gotten her free and were working on her. Trying to think of a way to restrain my Hispanic sparring partner, I looked down at my costume and got an idea.
*Cape, can you alter her clothes to bind her so she can’t move?* I asked.
What I got back was another feeling somewhat like, *Oboy, Oboy, yeah, yeah, I do good, (pant, pant)!”
A second or two passed, and this time I definitely felt a drain, so at least of some the energy Cape used, came from ME. Then it released the witch and immediately my face turned very red!
The sniffer was still dressed in black leather, but now it covered her from neck to toe, with the pants becoming a hobble skirt down to her ankles, with black boots locked together with small chains. Her top wasn’t much better, with a skin tight corset and her arms bound together with black straps and buckles. She gave the appearance of just coming from a bondage flick. No, I don’t want to know where Cape had learned about that “outfit”!
Morgan and Anza were looking at me in speculation, and all I could do was stand there in opened mouthed denial. I had not intended something as provocative as that. Meanwhile, they had gotten the mom free of the wreckage. Anza, using her TK moved her out of street. Morgan was carrying the baby and I had the witch.
I felt Cape’s warning a split second before Anza’s TK force screen sprang to life. “We have company coming,” I told Morgan. “It might be some of her friends,” I pointed at the witch.
Morgan a little exasperatedly, “Then drop her, we’ve got our hands full.”
I really didn’t want to, because I was afraid that she might be able to find us now that she had a ‘scent’ to follow. I sighed, for Morgan did have a point. It was a question of short term advantage versus long term problem. I didn’t drop her on the payment. I placed her there thank you very much. Please, no charges of brutality!
It was about then a big red boot caught me in the face. I had just enough time to throw up a hand before I went flying away to crash into a car. “The insurance companies sure aren’t going to like this’, the silly thought came to me as I crunched into a Honda.
Blinking away stars, I saw I wasn’t hurt, but I’d sure felt that! The owner of that boot was dressed in a red costume and moved in a way that told me we had trouble. He was a big fellow, somewhere near seven feet, and moved in that flowing way hard trained fighters have.
I had just enough training to know a few key secrets. When skill and reflexes are equal, size does matter. Yeah a little guy can sometimes take down a much larger man, but that’s when he has the skill and the bigger one doesn’t. The third leg of the secret of fighting is intent. If you are intent on hurting your opponent and don’t care how much you have to get hurt to do it, you have an advantage. That’s why suicide bombers are so damn dangerous. They are willing to die to hurt YOU!
Big Red looked to have two of the three on his side. Unfortunately, for him, it was my lover he was going after. Morgan had just turned, when he round-house kicked her, and the baby went flying! I threw myself forward, tying to reach it when the baby slowed and stopped as Anza’s TK dragged it behind her force screen.
I used my new speed and strength to try to make up the difference in skill, but he was a much better fighter than the witch had been. The yellow belt I’d earned wasn’t enough, as Big Red blocked my every strike. My only advantage was Cape being able to give me enough warning to at least partially block his return blows. Too much like that old Baffey Buck cartoon quote “Ha! Ho ha! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! (*sproinggggg!*!),” I missed a block, and flew spinning away, giving another insurance appraiser a job as I smacked into yet another car.
Big Red then spun around and threw a kick at Anza! She’d been steadily moving away, but damn didn't he move fast! The good news was her screen held, but the bad news was that she was carrying the baby and the mom, as well as keeping the screen up. He wound up to strike her again, and missed seeing the line of burning asphalt that was heading for him.
I turned and saw Morgan guiding a beam of light onto Big Red. He jerked around when it connected and that was when she cut loose! She was still in crystal form and was kinda glowing, sparkling-like. The light was coming from her hand. When she had it on target, all of that light concentrated itself into a single beam that left afterimages in my eyes.
Up to then he hadn’t said a thing. He sure screamed now, and I’m not even going to talk about the smell.
I ran over to Anza, yelling “I’m going to carry you, hang on!” Cape wrapped around her like a harness and I took off flying as fast as I could. She was still TK carrying mom and the baby so I couldn’t fly too high. My character sheet said that Mystery could fly about 45 mph. All I know is that by the time we got to where the EMS was, I heard one hell of a big crash from where I’d left Morgan. Crap!
Leaving Anza behind, I took off, heading back to my friend. She was laying unconscious, half in half out of a seriously totaled Chevy and Big Red was studying how to get the witch loose from her new clothes. I flipped in the air and changed my flight into a drop kick aimed for his damn head. I felt the impact from my feet clean to my teeth, and saw lights flashing in my eyes for a moment.
I had finally knocked him down, but he was still moving. I wasn’t about to give him the chance to recover and ran over just in time to eat that damn boot again. Does sucker mean anything to you?
Pulling myself to my feet, I could see he had a really nasty looking burnt looking wound from Morgan. What I didn’t like was the look in his eye, which told me that he was starting to get pissed. He didn’t walk toward me so much as he slid smoothly.
I glanced over in Morgan’s direction hoping that she had come to. That was a mistake. I never saw the boot that smashed me in the face.
Up till now I guess that Cape and my natural toughness had kept me from feeling any real pain from this fracas. I sure as hell felt it now. Cape was gently tapping my face, trying to get me moving when I was able to shake the daze away.
Lying in the wreckage of a Dodge, covered in broken safety glass, I moaned. Considering that Big Red had trashed a car with my flying body, a split lip and a bleeding nose wasn’t doing too badly.
Now try to understand that I’m not a violent person, but being able to fly, and the other superhuman stuff was fun! Power-tripping was a word I had never really understood until now! Unfortunately, it was also short lived.
Snaking out of the broken glass and twisted metal, I froze. Looking behind me I saw a broken body that had taken my crash a lot harder than I had. I think it was a guy, but with all of the blood, it was hard to tell. If it hadn’t been for Anza’s mental voice shouting at me though our bond, I don’t think I would have been able to do anything at all.
She had felt my shock and we merged for a moment. I felt her concern, because she had been terrified that something BAD had happened to me. Seeing a man so mangled he couldn’t be recognized was a new experience for me, and not a nice one. Seeing one that was that way because of me, was beyond shocking.
Anza got me moving, and with the still new and strange bond we shared, she 'told' me what to do. The weird thing was Cape, acting as if Anza was talking to it to as we stopped the bleeding and Cape merged and transformed the wounded man’s clothes into bandages and pressure-dressings.
The remainder of my shock was wiped away, when a large red gloved hand grabbed Cape and yanked us from the car! I could feel Cape’s shock and shame that it had let someone sneak up on us, but it was a measure of the depth of our merge with Anza.
“At first I thought you were just a piece of fluff, pretty, but beneath my notice. I see now that perhaps there is more to you in spite of your misplaced compassion for inferiors. Once I saw how you had redecorated my Hispanic companion, I could see that you have potential.” Big Red’s arrogant and cultured voice poured like syrup.
You might be laughing out there, but I could 'feel' the charisma coming from him like a furnace. Those were damn lousy pick-up lines, but I’d been a real girl for less than two days. Never having been the object of such before, I was a little confused. Oh yeah, covered in blood and still in a daze from Anza’s rapport might had something to do with it, too.
“Come with me. Stop your useless fighting and I’ll be merciful to your companions. You may call me Persuader,” the big man in red finished with a flourish.
The way the charm came off of him was overpowering, in a too much aftershave kinda way. As powerful as it was he had a few things working against him. I was bonded to a very powerful telepath who was still in rapport with me, and the blood of the person I had crashed into because of him was still wet on my hands. All in all, he didn’t have a chance in hell.
Kicking my legs up with Cape to support me, I kicked Persuader in the face as hard, and as fast as I could. It made me think of the 'Matrix' movie and the “I know Kung Fu” scene. My anger sort of used it as a template for my fury as I executed an impossible forward flip over Persuader, while continuing to kick him in the head.
The 'Matrix' had used wire work and CGI effects to fake all of those outrageous fighting moves. With Cape, and my new strength, I didn’t need any stinking wires. Spinning around using Cape to defy gravity, I pounded his kidneys as hard as I could.
I was letting my temper drive me, but was still a bit in control. Big Red reeled under my onslaught and I gave him all of the frustration and anger that had been bottled up for a long time. Don’t let this fool you about me being a great fighter, NOT! Surprise, and just opening the plain old proverbial can of “Whoop-Ass” had him back on his heels, but certainly not out of the game.
It didn’t take long to prove that point, as he struck me with what I think was a one-two combination. Hard to tell which, with the lights in my head blinking off and on. This time I knew that letting myself hit a car was a BAD thing, and Cape, following my wishes acted like a drag-chute on a top fuel dragster.
Ouch, my poor face! I could feel it hurting, but really didn’t care. He had such a dumb-founded look on his face as I regained my senses and landed lightly. Cape must be a part attack-dog, because I felt its “Let’s kick his Ass” response.
Getting set to make Cape happy, I heard a male growl on my headset that had somehow stayed with me, “Heads up!” Cape gave me a warning to duck, as three hundred pounds of snarling were-wolf went bulleting over my head! Shit, it was Wolfen! The guys are here.
If I’d thought the look on Persuader’s face was priceless when Cape stopped me from crashing, the look when Wolfen hit him was a work of art! Still being too angry to sit this out, I leaped at Big Red and got passed by the gold suited Streeter, rocketing by whirling his side handled police baton like tonfas.
With Wolfen drooling all over the top of Persuader, Streeter smacked his right knee with his clubs. Taking a clue from this, I had Cape alter my leap into a flying kick at the other kneecap!
It might have worked, too, but for one little problem. Mark was a sheet metal worker, and he was trying to intimidate this guy into, well, giving up. The guy, however, was a harden criminal at best, and perhaps even a murderer. Startled by the were-wolf in his face? Yes. Ready to give up? No!
Big Red grabbed a handful of fur and with a yip, Wolfen went flying away. He then protected his knee from Tom, using the meaty part of his thigh like a Thai Kick-boxer. What happened to me you ask? That damn red boot in the face again, of course!
This time was it was different, because with Cape’s predictive help, I got my hands on him! I was ready to do what Wham Wham used to do on the old Stoneflints cartoon, and use his foot to slam him into the pavement a few times. Until that is, Cape bought to my attention a rather large American Indian falling towards us, Will!
OK, just how strong am I now? Well, Mystery’s character sheet said she could lift about three and half tons. That’s oh, lets say, large cars, small trucks, and other things a woman isn’t supposed to be to even be able to move, much less pick up. Just remember that Persuader had been taking blows from me, and who it was who kept eating that damn red boot!
Judging where Renegade was going land, I threw him to the ground right, there still keeping control of his foot like a professional wrestler. If a second wrestler the size of a full grown Kodiak Bear could start from forty feet up instead of the top rope, you might have some idea of what happened when the madly grinning Will landed.
The impact bounced me high into the air as if the asphalt was a trampoline. Cape retarded my fall and I got a ring side seat of ten feet and one ton of muscled superhero smacking the living daylights out of Persuader. Morgan wasn't exaggerating when she said Will was huge. Looking around I saw that Question had put Scaly out for the count, but now was toe to toe with that woman with the mallet I had seen beating the snot out of Man-Mountain earlier.
That wonderful burst of anger induced energy had passed, and now I was panting hard. I let Cape drift us back down to the ground. It was then that my boot-abused face started to throb, along with my other battle injuries.
Tom, in his Streeter costume, bounded up to me, “Heyareyoualright” in rapid-fire Streeter-speak.
Trying not to talk because my face was hurting, I pointed over at the still unconscious Morgan.
Streeter gave a quick nod and flashed over to her, while I looked to see what had happened to Big Red. Renegade held him unconscious in one huge hand, and with some grunting, I got his attention.
Looking where I was pointing, he gave a nod and wind up and threw Big Red like a baseball at where Miss Mallet and Question were squared off.
Taken by surprise she was knocked flying when he struck her. Question gave us a nod and then leapt out of sight after her.
The only good news about this was at least no one was attacking us right now. I could see in the distance some others flying ,and the sounds of property damage in progress. Thankfully not near us. Anza had moved up and was helping the poor man I had landed on. I felt her dismay when she saw my face and her flash of temper that went with it.
Depending on what I was beginning to think was our soul bond, I sent to her, “I’m fine, please help that guy and Morgan.”
Her answer was little unwillingly, but her professionalism won. She gave her assent, but not before her expression made it clear to me I would be hearing about this later.
I could see Scaly had recovered enough to stand now, or was that, rearing up on its tail? He was counting the odds, and must not have liked them. He gave a hop over to Big Red and scooped him up, then keeping an eye on us, he slid backwards a couple feet and dove into the same hole he must have attacked Question from.
Soon the reason for his decision came clear as Wolfen and Renegade came up beside me. Damn but, Will was huge! I know that his Hero-form was bigger than human normal when he channeled that bear spirit of his, but he was larger than our flower-power car!
Streeter had joined the three of us and they were looking at me a bit uneasily. The last time they’d seen me, I had been a heavyset guy, and not a woman with a heels and a bleeding lip. Yeah, that's right, it was my other assets they were looking at, and not my split lip. I guess I couldn't blame them but being 'checked out' by a group of guys who were my friends was unsettling as all get out. For that matter being ogled by any group of guys just wasn't on my to do list. It wasn’t even lunch time yet, so I wondered what new surprises were waiting for me.
A bit self-consciously, I mumbled pass my split lip, “Maybe we need to get out of here before someone else shows up? If you guys can get transport, Anza and I can take these folks to the Medics.
Not knowing what to make of me, Mark asked in disbelief, “Greg is that really YOU?”
“Hey!” Anza interjected, “I have a person here who is in critical condition here. Morgan is coming to and seems just a bit rattled, so can we please finish introductions later?”
That’s when all three guys gave Anza a double take, realizing she had to be Danny.
Grimacing at the smile that came to my bruised mouth, I suggested, “Shall we, gentlemen?”
Nodding, the three guys helped Morgan, now in male mode, as they hurried off. I wrapped Anza like I had before in Cape to fly with her so she could concentrate on her patient. As I flew towards the sea of flashing emergency lights, I sighed wondering what would happen next. Feeling Anza's presence with me gave me hope it would all work out for the best.
Needless to say there was a little consternation among the emergency crews when we landed. We weren't recognized Superheroes and with all the mayhem in the Clairmont Mall parking lot, they had a real concern that the combat was spreading to them.
That didn't last long, for the second her feet hit the ground Anza was barking orders like the experienced Emergency Room Nurse she was. Everyone gave me a wide berth and I can't say I blame them. Maybe I was being hard on myself, but I had nearly crushed that poor guys to death. OK it was inadvertent, but still, you know.
Cape waving in the breeze tapped me on the shoulder yanking me back to reality and pointed out the all too official looking SWAT like team moving purposely towards us. They had blue futuristic armor and weapons and looked as if they meant business. Oh yeah, the pair of hovering heavily armed Attack Helicopter-like things with them didn't look any too peaceful, either.
I quick stepped to Anza and with a helpful flash from our growing bond made her aware of our impending trouble. She gave me a annoyed look I knew it wasn't for me, but for our incoming welcoming committee.
Shrugging, I let her make the decision to bug out or not. Although I wasn't happy with staying around and confronting the oncoming officials, I'm not about to give a professional orders in a life or death situation, especially when I'm the one who put the said sap there to start with. It was clear that they had seen me become aware of them and were hustling to reach us. Well at least those nasty flying Helicopter things with all the guns and rockets hanging off of them were holding off because of us being in the middle of the treatment area.
It was clear that Anza felt needed here, but I think she saw the danger we were bringing to these people just by being here. She sighed, “Misty you fly and I'll hide us?”
I gave a silent prayer of relief and smiled, for it was an old tactic we had used before in games. Both of us could fly, and she was even the much faster flier. The thing was, Cape was ignorant of all kinds of laws like the conservation of motion and momentum. This made me agile as all get out in the air. With me carrying her, leaving her free to use her considerable mental abilities to confuse things, we were a hard act to follow.
Scooping her up I flew upwards and started jinking like a starfighter with a DoomStar after at it. Looking down I could see our committee was very disappointed at our sudden departure. Tough luck boys! If they wanted to play there were still enough fireworks going on at the Mall to keep anyone busy. I think they were picking on us because like the old joke about the speeder and the Highway patrolman, we were the only ones they could catch!
Those Helicopter things did roar after us, but with Anza's mental illusions and my evasive maneuvers it wasn't hard to lose them. The only problem that came up was I was enjoying myself a little too much. Yep, I'm one of those people with their arms flying wild on the roller coasters, screaming their fool heads off!
“Missy! You're making me sick! Stop!” she yelled though our link and my ear!
Red faced I leveled out from the roll I’d just made, “I'm sorry about that.” I made sure it was safe and started flying a little more sensibly but oh my, I was flying! Whee! You would think after what happened in that fight I would have learned my lesson, but I was finding out power-tripping was more addictive than any drug I could think of.
Using her phone's headset, she found where the others were and with a few false starts we were on our way. Give us some slack here. It's hard reading street signs from the air. We found ourselves at what could only be called a mini-mansion with, I hope, Tom's and Mark's limo parked in front. Anza was getting tired from the effort keeping us invisible and so we set down in the privacy of the backyard.
I steadied her and she gave me a grateful smile that took my breath away. Hearing a door open we looked up and saw our fellow dimensional castaways coming to greet us. She reached down and took my hand. No matter what we were in this together, and damning the torpedoes and prejudice we went to meet the guys we hoped still were our friends.
End of Part One.
Comments
Heroes of Justice
Hello everyone! This is what I've been busy with and this is just Part I and is right 27K words. The Next part is under construction and looks to be about the same. My warning to the community that this is still uncompleted as it stands. It does involve magic, sci-fi and other fantastic plot devices so if not your cup of tea no problemo! If I can get it finished in time it will be my entry into "What's so novel" Wish me luck! As always comments are welcome!
Hey Erin, hmmm... my paragraph indents disappeared. I pasted using rich text format. How do I fix this?
Hugs!
grover
Paragraph indents
As long as you have blank lines between paras, you don;t need paragraph indents which is good because there's no easy way to do them in HTML.
The simplest way is to start each para with several non-breaking spaces:
The problem with that method is being careful to do it right and get the same number of spaces on each para.
Looks fine the way it is. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Or...
...assuming you typed in word (or similar) do a search/replace of the tab mark (word is ^t) and replaces with
Or create a style <p style="text-indent:1em">My paragraph here...</p> which I think will work...
Or turn each chapter into an independent .html page and create a link to it from here. Similar to how Tuck is/used to be posted.
Or as Erin says leave it as it is as its fine. :D
JC
The Legendary Lost Ninja
That's a relief!
I had the horrible thought that I would need to manually replace everything! At first I thought it was all your fault for not feeding Sully the BigCloset's cute cuddly monster (every closet has one don't you know!) and it got hungry and ate the indents. I'm pleased to find out differently! :)
Hugs!
grover
Paragraph Indents
There's a marvelous way to do paragraph indents in what they call Cascading Stylesheets, but to do it easily requires either that the site owner make a general author stylesheet available, which would allow a certain consistency in appearance, or allow authors to include a reference to a stylesheet in a header. They look like this:
Styleshhet:
authorstyle.css file contents
-------------------------------
P { text-indent: 5em }
-------------------------------
Reference in HTML Header:
<head>
title="Stylesheet Example"
<link
rel="stylesheet"
type="text/css"
href="authorstyle.css" />
</head>
This will indent every first line of every paragraph by five em spaces, the width of five uppercase "M" characters.
A more difficult alternative is to use "inline" style attributes like this:
<p style=text-indent: 5em;"">Stuff to be indented on the first line/</p>
This requires one to insert the inline text on every paragraph, which is a drag, and the use of inline style attributes is frowned upon by the HTML powers-that-be. Officially, they use the term "deprecated."
I don't actually think the site allows inline style, since if it worked you'd have seen the following text indented and coloured red on a white background, which it isn't.
<p style="text-indent: 5em; color: red; background: white ">Stuff to be indented on the first line Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donec porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros.</p> **
** I showed the code, since it gives one an idea of what one can do, and the html display just looks rather bland and uninteresting...
If you poke the above code into a file named test.htm or whatever, you can experiment with stylesheets on your own.
Here's a simple tutorial:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/style-html.html
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/properties.html
Here's an example of what one can do with stylesheets:
http://www.w3.org/
Everything you see is done with stylesheets. No tables, frames, or other kludges are used. If you view source on the page you can see how elegant the code is. This is understandable, as W3 is the organisation in charge of web standards and they're very good at it.
They're pretty simple in principle, although the incredibly buggy implementations by Microsoft in particular and most other browser manufacturers to a lesser degree have made some tasks more problematic than they should be.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
More on Indentation
You might also try using em spaces, which are wider than regular spaces, so one doesn't have to count quite as carefully. They do break, but at the beginning of a paragraph that ought not to be a problem. The site filters, however, might be.
One should be able to use them like this: & #8195; = Em Space but the site filters them out for some reason if you eliminate the space between the & and the #8195; --- Go figure.
Cheers...
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Hmmm
I am a long time player of City of Heroes, I started with the EU launch and have been playing on and off until now. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I like the Whateley stories so much. My first character was killed off about three weeks into the game as I had no experience planning a super hero, she sucked badly. (DM/DA Scrapper BTW)
My next character became my main and is still the avatar I use in most situations even though Azeroth and EVE command my soul now ;). Lost Ninja is still a Dark Melee scrapper however she took her regenerative powers from a semi autonomous intelligent entity that in its first incarnation took the form of sticky black tar (It ate my first character (RP)).
What is more I mainly play female characters to make up for a lack IRL. And while in an ideal world I'd have the operation tomorrow it isn't an ideal world so I'll stick with being big, hairy and ugly :'(
In short: How did Grover know all this?
Brilliant start to my biography there Grover I eagerly await events/more to see what will happen next. :D
JC aka Lost Ninja
PS I like Lost Ninja in part due to the abbreviated from LN is pronounced Ellen :D
PPS Lost Ninja's real name is Hilary Campion
The Legendary Lost Ninja
Lost Ninja & Heroes
I have just found Ranma 1/2 and the name Lost Ninja reminds me of Ryoga with his absolutely terrible sense of direction. :) Sorry just poking a little fun! Actually I'm just returning the favor given to me over the past year or so. Since I stumbled into Erin's endlessly big closet around June of last year do you have any idea how many times I've stopped reading in shock thinking "Oh My Goodness, That's ME!" Okay maybe it's both of us but I have got a feeling that we are not alone Lost Ninja. ^_^ ! Believe it or not I've never play either of the City of _____ series. They have that monthly fee so I've avoided that choosing Guild Wars because they don't have a fee. There is more on the way just remember I type slow. With fingers crossed hopefully by Oct with the deadline for what's so novel! Thanks for commenting JC!
grover
As a rule...
I don't watch TV or Video (or DVD) much. Last thing I saw would have been a rugby international earlier this year. And I have yet to have the enjoyment of watching any Ranma though for obvious reasons I have been attracted to it. ;)
Lost Ninja actually got her name due to me not actually having a clue as to what I would name her (the back story came later), however for a long while I was a fan of qwed.org which archives C64 game music remixes, one of my favorite remixes is for an old C64 game called The Last Ninja, I happened to hear this whilst stumped for a name... The rest as they say is history. :)
JC (Lost Ninja)
The Legendary Lost Ninja
Heroes
Hi grover. Thought I'd take a sec here and comment. I have never been into gaming, never even tried. Guess I have no imagination at all, since I am lost when it comes to this stuff. To go further, I was over 50 before I ever tried to play a video game outside some wasted quarters at an arcade. Still don't really get it. Maybe I am from the wrong generation. After all that. I have read a few stories in the gaming tradition. I thought one was a total waste, a couple were okay and two were very good. I have to rate this one up there with the very good, at least so far. Everything is explained and laid out to make it understandable for the ignorant like me, but still seems to move quick enough to keep interest. This is one that I will wait on for the followup. IMHO......good job!
Illustrative Writing
Grover,
Wow I am totally blow away.
When I first started reading this, I started reading it as a normal story here.
I had to stop and start again reading it as it is a
'Super Hero Comic'
I could see the visuals, feel the textures and smell the smells, I found myself cringing with each blow.
Wow is all I can say.
I can't wait for the next chapter or 3.
Superfabulous job!
Jamie
Is life really a dream or is the dream reality?
Is life really a dream or is the dream reality?
Oh what a feeling!
Hi Grover,
I wanted to tell you what a wonderful story this is for me. I am enjoying every minute.
I personally didnt get into RPG until after transtion but the group of guys that you describe are very like the ones with which I played. I love your style of writing. I look forward to more of your story.
All my hopes,
Sasha
All my hopes
Ariel Montine Strickland
Is grover going to be my first ?
This story is perhaps the 5th or 6th I've seen that uses the "stuck in computergame" idea.
So far I've enjoyed that kind of stories (with my first price going to 'Foxglove' by Bek D. Corbin) but...
/start crying
none of those authors ever went on to FINISH their stories
/switch to sniffing, grab hanky
Let's hope grover isn't going to leave us hot and bothered halfway, but manages to bring things to a satisfying climax
/stop sniffing, force weak smile
(Sorry for all the wordplay, I couldn't resist)
Hugs,
Kimby
Hugs,
Kimby
Heroes
Thanks again for the comments. Oh my, being compared to Bek's Foxglove? You are not alone hoping one day she will finish up! I fell into RPG games while in the Army and they have given me over the years a lot of fond memories as well as opportunities to enjoy being feminine in plain sight so to speak. A much welcome relief during the times in my life privacy was non-existent. The biggest compliant I've seen is many have problems with the lingo in the Gamer sub-culture. Part of my goal was to try and write a story anyone could enjoy not just those with a gamer background. I'm glad this has gotten a good reception for it was the hardest piece I've written so far. Many area's has been rewritten more than once and the ending was a real B--witch! I do have a ending I am writing towards and hope to finish in the next couple of months. The estimated total words is around 80K. Thanks for everyone's kind words
"They like me they really like me!" (Sally Fields)
Hugs!
grover
Congrads oh worthy wordsmith
I am so lucky.
In the span of a few days two people who have helped me with my work and I with their's each post top notch stories. Karen_J and her bittersweet tragedy, with a touch of dark humor -- the like Blonde thing -- and you with this mostly light but dark clouds looming comicbook universe romp.
And don't say your original draft of Miki stunk. Even with all the techincal flaws I and Itinerant found it a tearjerker with a heart of mongoose gold and a touch of fun.
Your symbiont -- Cape -- reminded me of the sybionts in the Xora series by Brandy Dewinter and the story that inspired them. In those stories the symbiont was equally as intelegent as the human, here it is a cross between an attention seeking puppy and a precocious child.
Lots of nods to online TG writers and to comic book universes, suitably disguised to keep the copywrite laywers at bey.
Oh, if you can say 'do waw diddy' you are well on the way to pronouncing Wauwatosa.
It is wha! wha! -- like a baby crying -- toe -- like on your feet if you haven't been too carless with the gas lawn mower -- sa -- like the Egyptian god Ra but with an s instead of r. Easy, As to Weyagega, Oconomowoc and Poniatowski, you are on your own.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Dear Grover...
I like progress, and this story for reasons I need not say here. It needed some editing but all of mine do too. :) I did not get it at first, but maybe I do now. Keep working on this, I think it is taking people someplace. You keep writing and being you, please?
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Well,. I've delayed long enough.....
I gotta tell you Grover, I had more fun reading this story than I've had in a long time! Having been a gamer (D&D) since about 1980, I completely understand the concept and you captured the feeling of it very well.
Great action, believable characters, good dialog and a thoroughly enjoyable experience. One I was sorry to see come to a (temporary) close, at the end of this chapter.
I'm really looking forward to the next installment, Grover. I gotta feeling you are gonna be one of the really good ones in this genre. If I send you my address and a piece of paper, will you give me your autograph so I can sell it on ebay when you get rich and famous? *giggle*
Seriously, Grover. One hell of a job. Oh, and your Miki fanfic? Really cute and humorous, not to mention well done.
You've got a new fan....ME!
Huggles from Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Gamer Stories Rule
Oh Grover. Please finish this story. You can do it. I can feel it in my bones. Other gamer stories have greatly entertained me (Foxglove and Waiting on the Wind) but sadly, they haven't been finished.
I love Cape. Cape is cute and naughty at the same time - a perfect combination. I can't wait to see Cape unleashed. I sense we have yet to see its full potential. :)
Thanks Grover. I owe ya one.
Hugs
- Terry
Intersting picture
When did you add the graphic, Grover?
Which gal is it? It's been a while since I read the whole story. Please do contine as so many of these gamer based stories have all paused for various reasons.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Thanks
Thanks Terry for your comment! Heroes is being worked on despite Real Life and labor disputes with my gaggle of muses. Hopefully it will be finished by the middle of Oct.
As the the graphic John that is a pic of Mystery. It was intended to be added when the rest posted but I kept messing with it. Thats the problem with even using a simple program like paint. Being able to adjust almost every pixel doesn't mean you should! I'm not an artist only stubborn enough to keep at it till it's more or less close to what I envisioned. This is comic book inspired and although I can't illustrate this entire piece I will try and provide some basic pictures of the gang.
Again thanks for the feedback! It does help!
Hugs!
grover
Girl Gamers
Early on in chapter one (before the transformation scene) you said, "Since so few women play RPG’s..." and that's something I have to argue with. Girls make up the MAJORITY of gamers, actually. A 2004 Nationwide (U.S.) Sociology study had these approximate numbers for the amounts of Girl Gamers:- 67% of Online Gamers (MMORPGs)
- 48% of Computer Gamers
- 39% of Console Gamers (Playstation, XBox, etc)
- 87% of LARP Gamers
- 54% of RP Gamers
- 57% of Overall Gamers
That was 3 and a half years ago. For source verification, PM me privately and I'll give you the personal email of the doctor of sociology who conducted the study. Women are not only a great part of roleplayers, but Gamers in general. We're the majority, at least in the United States. Why are we still considered a rarity?
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Wasn't it Jim Henson who said, "Without faith, I am nothing," after all? Wait, no, that was God. Sorry, common mistake...
Rarity of Women Gamers
My personal experience after 45 years of gaming is those numbers are whacked. :)
I've been the only woman in so many gaming groups it isn't funny. I've only once been in a group that had more than 50% women. At gaming cons, women are usually less than 1/3 of attendees, less than 1/4 of players.
Yes, I've observed that LARP groups are sometimes more balanced but the only way I can see any of those numbers as being truthful is if "gamer" is defined as anyone who has ever gamed. Habitual and frequent gamers are nearly always male, by a proportion exceeding 2 to 1, in my experience.
Why are girl gamers considered rare? Because we're are hard to find. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
29 years Gaming
I've been gaming since December 25th, 1978. So not as much as you, but certainly enough that my own experiences are just as valid -- and in most groups I've been in over the years -- especially age 19-30 -- the majority is always girls and women. Always. Women aren't as into the Con experience as a whole (in my opinion) because we prefer to game with people we already know we can 'meld' with in party dynamics. Those numbers (except the LARP one) seemed LOW to me. All of the games I've been in for the past 15 years that were ongoing biweekly/weekly/semiweekly were driven by female GMs and female core players. Every time. There are male core players in some instances, but in addition to, not in place of, women gamers.
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Wasn't it Jim Henson who said, "Without faith, I am nothing," after all? Wait, no, that was God. Sorry, common mistake...
5-1 at least...
A similar post was made to the EU City of Heroes forum some time ago (2003+ I forget exactly when), and after much discussion no-one really had an answer, however one poster mentioned a study done several years before that indicated similar results to the above (it omitted some of the categories and added others as it was aimed at a different idea). However it was pointed out for that study that the sample wasn't actually representative of all the people playing games. Thus while the results were interesting they were also wrong.
I have no idea what that sample size of the above posted results was or where the sample comes from. And I was only born in '75 so don't have the long period of gaming behind me. Plus I'm not really into RP/G of any variety. However my own experience in Online/Offline PC gaming is that males outweigh females at least by 5-1 in most games.
While I know a lot of females that play MMOs especially don't advertise the fact that they are female, due to the various types of nastiness that can result (I have several confirmed female friends who play a variety of MMOs, FPS, etc). And that some games obviously will attract a larger female audience than others, The Sims for instance is well known to be a game that is actively marketed toward women and girls.
If anyone can look at those figures and honestly tell me that 67% of World of Warcraft Players are female or that nearly 50% of the player base of Counter Strike is female then I would have to ask them to get their head examined or to do their survey from a wider sample.
I belong to a large World of Warcraft guild, we have about 150 members of which approximately 10 are female, as in they actually have come out and said they are girl gamers. Or have spoken on TS ;)
I also belong to a large industrial corp in EVE, we have 1 female player. City of Heroes SG/VG we had four or five and I knew of a few others on the forums, but again the facts were that more of the players were male than female.
How this all applies to RP/LARP/etc I couldn't comment not being a member or player of any of them. Consoles I would think, bearing in mind for a long while I sold them and the games, the figure listed is IMO far too low, especially if you include hand-held consoles like the GameboyDS which is again actively marketed for girls, and I know several who own them.
Bah too long based on personal feelings and experience, I'm avoiding bed and bad dreams, and can't be bothered to write my stories at the moment. :(
JC
The Legendary Lost Ninja
I can be a Screen Monkey...
Maybe we should get a game going from the subset of us here who are gamer girls?
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Wasn't it Jim Henson who said, "Without faith, I am nothing," after all? Wait, no, that was God. Sorry, common mistake...
Playing a game?
That could be fun, although it wouldn't be fair to just limit it to gamer girls, guys might be just as interested.
In the wrong place
Wow, I've been in the wrong places all this time! If I made an erroneous statement please forgive me. I haven't been as active a gamer these last two years so when I wrote female gamers were rare it was based on past experiences with pen and paper games. I played my first D&D game in June of 1980 and most of the times since then it was just guys playing. Occasionally the girlfriend or wife would drop in for a session or two more out curiosity than any other reason. Of the multitude of game groups I've been in only 5 of them had any of the gentler persuasion as regular players at all and only two of those had more than one. I really enjoyed a rare series of games I ran as Game Master where the all six of the players were ladies in a fantasy game based on Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. I got to be one of the girls so to speak without outing myself. The romantic subject matter had a lot to do with that game as well. It was also at a college campus which gives weight to Edeyn's figures. Again nothing ill was intended. As for the composition of the group I've portrayed here, they are composites of folks I'd known and gamed with over the years. Thanks for the comments and the information!
Hugs!
grover
Gaming...
I play D&D and have 7 different avatars @ the moment. ;-)
Wow... this story is great,
Wow... this story is great, how did I miss it before?
This story seems to have a bit of a TG pileup, but it's fine :) I wonder what the guys will do next. They don't seem like bigots or they'd have said anything about Greg and Daniel playing always girls.
Thank you for writing this captivating story,
Beyogi
Playing Girls
I seriously doubt most guys would say anything about it, as guys playing girls in RPGs/MMORPGs is VERY common, in fact, of the "females" in most games, online or not, I would say 80% or higher are played by actual males.
I started playing original D&D back in the fall of '81, played fairly steadily for most of the next seventeen years, and rarely after that. I preferred versions 1 and 2, 3 was meh, 3.5 was a bit better, never really tried anything later than that.
It's been over ten years since I've sat down to an RPG with others, so I don't have any recent experience with games like that.
I do play a few MMORPGs, but eventually I get bored by them and stop playing, as too many of them nowadays are darn near clones.