Form [Wormverse]

This is a story set in the Wormverse, but not featuring the established characters or settings, for the most part. Instead I have attempted to create something that could conceivably have happened in the background of Wildbow's story. Canon-compliant, ideally.

FORM

A WORMVERSE STORY

***
​

Shift 1.1
​

[David Ashton]

I grinned silently as my legs carried me faster than they ever had before. Largely because they weren't my legs. As the edge of the roof approached, I sprang across the gap to the next building’s roof about ten feet down, landing a bit harder than I had intended. I winced as pain shot through my ankles and knees, then resolved to practice my landings more. I paused for a moment, letting the ache die down somewhat before getting ready to try jumping to the next roof, which was raised five feet or so higher than the one I was currently occupying.

Before I could make the leap, though, my phone began buzzing in my pocket as the alarm I’d set went off. It was time to head home and tuck myself in so that my parents wouldn’t notice I was up all night. One more chance to practice landing, I guessed. I moved to the edge of the roof and hopped off, angling for the snow and not the sidewalk. This fall was a bit better than the last one, as I landed into an awkward stagger but managed to avoid injuring myself any further.

Feet now solidly on the ground, I ducked out of the streetlight’s radius and turned back into my normal self. My legs and arms shortened slightly and a few inches dropped off of my height, my pudge returning to me as the athletic clothing I was wearing turned back into a hoodie over a t-shirt and cargo pants. As the transformation reached its conclusion, I stepped back into the light, revealing a somewhat overweight teenager, rather than the gangly freerunner whose appearance I had been wearing.

It was now one week since I first gained my powers. I hadn’t even realized I’d triggered at first, not until a couple days after waking up. I’d been wishing to lose some weight, and then I suddenly did, slimming down in moments. Luckily I’d been alone at the time, so I was able to change myself back… minus a few pounds, nothing too noticeable. Over the last few days, I’d been experimenting with my power every chance I got, discovering that I could shapeshift into pretty much any human form I could think of. My next step was to reveal it to my parents and try to sign up with the Wards, but even though I had it all planned out, I still found myself resisting making the move. Some deep-seated instinct to keep it all a secret. But I resolved to break it to them today, after school.

***​

I trudged downhill through the thin layer of snow that had fallen during the day. Like most days since the incident, I’d arrived at school disguised and left the same way. I doubted that anything as major as last week would happen again, not with the school’s semi-watchful eye on the ones involved, but I hadn’t ruled out that one of the thugs might come after me after leaving school grounds. The thought of the whole thing made me grind my teeth in anger. After all of that, the worst punishment handed out to those bastards was a few days of in-school suspension?

When I reached my house, I made a beeline for my bedroom. Neither of my parents was home yet, so I had plenty of time to cool down and approach the reveal with a clear head. In order to distract myself, I turned my computer on and opened up Parahumans Online. Even before I got powers, I liked to stay informed on the local cape scene, but now it was especially important. If all went as planned, those people would be my coworkers and my enemies.

Lake City had a fairly large parahuman population for its size, though not to the degree of places like Detroit or Brockton Bay. The local Protectorate numbered five, with the same number of Wards and about as many known villains as both combined. There were probably a few rogues and minor villains around, but it seemed that nobody was interested enough to write them pages on the wiki.

As I was catching up on my subscribed threads, I heard the door open downstairs. A few moments later, my mom called out a greeting.

“Hi mom,” I yelled back absently.

It wasn’t long before someone else, almost certainly my dad, entered the house, and now I had to steel myself. With an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I closed down my browser and made for the stairs. Once I reached the ground floor, I rounded the corner and walked down the hall into the kitchen. Sure enough, my mom was working on supper and my dad was standing by the door.

“Hey, buddy,” said my dad when he noticed me.

“Hey,” I replied. I took a deep breath. “Mom, dad, I have… something to tell you.”

They both turned to look at me, with worried expressions on their faces. The bad feeling in my gut intensified. I was confused by that; I might tend to keep things to myself, but I shouldn’t be feeling that nauseated about it, these were my parents, for god’s sake.

“You remember what happened last week?” I asked, and they both nodded. “I- I had a trigger event. I’m a parahuman now.”

To emphasize my point, I activated my power. Fat melted away from my body, leaving behind muscles which grew to give me the sort of impressive appearance that I’d never worked out enough to get on my own. My hair paled to blond, then shifted to a bright red. When I noticed they were still staring, I became a perfect copy of my father, then a perfect copy of my mother. Finally, I returned to the more muscular version of my original form.

“So you’re some kind of… shapeshifter now?” my dad asked.

I nodded.

“As far as I can tell, I can look like anyone I want, or invent an appearance completely,” I said.

“I know you, David, you must have been planning everything before telling us about this,” he said. "So, what's the next step in your grand plan?"

“I want to join the Wards,” I replied. My dad nodded, but my mom seemed nervous. I wasn’t surprised; she was a worrier, that was for sure. I looked her right in the eyes. “It’s the safest place for me now. I don’t want to get picked up by the bad guys, and being in the Wards will protect me from that. Plus, it lets me help people, too. It’s my best chance to do some real good for the world.”

“I’ll make the call after supper,” dad said.

My mom just hugged me.

***​

It made me feel a bit guilty, but I went out again that night. We had set up an appointment for after school tomorrow, where it would be confirmed that I did have powers and we could sign the paperwork to make me a Ward. Tomorrow was Friday, so I would have the full weekend ahead of me to get settled in if all went as planned.

I once again morphed into the guy from the freerunning videos. If I was going to be a Ward, that meant patrolling and, likely, fighting. And in both cases, getting the hang of moving through the city (and rough terrain in general) would be important. I walked downtown, not far from my house where the buildings were closest together and most varied in height. Lake City wasn’t very vertical; aside from a couple of government offices and apartment blocks downtown, it had mostly spread out horizontally.

A little while later, as I was perfecting my rolls, I heard the sound of screaming in the distance. I bit my lip. I had to check it out, right? But my power wasn’t exactly that good in a straight up fight. I might be able to take a mugger with a knife by making myself strong or fast, but I’d still be killed by a bullet or a power as easily as any normal human. Still, I’d be a pretty shit superhero if I didn’t take the chance to help.

My mind set, I started heading towards the noise, making decent time across the rooves thanks to the practice I’d had and the form’s instincts. It wasn’t amazing, but it was the best I could expect after just a couple nights of jumping around. A few rough landings and scraped shins later, I spotted the source of the problem.

A young couple were backed up against the wall of a store, each holding a crying toddler. Menacing them was an emaciated-looking Asian man in a crude costume. His scraggly moustache, horrible teeth, and jaundiced skin made him look like a negative stereotype come to life, and his outfit consisted of black jeans and a black shirt, a ski mask badly spraypainted silver, and a similarly-painted trenchcoat with some Chinese characters in purple on the back. I recognized him immediately: Sludge, a local villain with the ability to shoot blobs of sticky, caustic goo and a reputation for sadism.

Shit.

I had to do something. At least he didn’t have any enhanced strength or durability; there was no way I could take out a Brute with my ability. As it was, I might be able to knock him out, as long as I stayed close enough that he risked hitting himself with his power. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something. I considered just calling for help, but chances were that Sludge would be having his twisted fun with these people before they could arrive and I’d just blow my cover and get myself killed. Still, I dialed the PRT’s emergency number and left my phone on a snowless part of the roof. Hopefully they had some way of tracking the call’s origin.

Before I went in, there was still one thing left to consider: what to do for a costume? Sure, I was in no danger of exposing my identity, but I still wanted to look the part of a hero. Keeping a single outfit consistent across however many forms I would end up assuming would be a headache, so maybe a symbol or logo that I could apply to different clothing.
Inspiration came from an Earth Aleph cartoon I remembered from my younger days. I pictured the hourglass shape. I still had to modify it somehow… maybe something like an X-shape, like the shapeshifting alien from the Aleph comics. I started with a black circle with a white border. From the left and right sides, half-hexagons in green, flat side-in. From the top and bottom, green triangles. Outline all the green in white and… the picture in my mind was actually not half bad.
I shifted into the muscular version of myself, then altered my clothes. Black pants, black t-shirt with my new logo emblazoned on it. Green hoodie and a domino mask. Now I looked the part of a rookie cape.

“Hey scumbag!” I shouted, forcing as much confidence into my voice as I could muster up. Simultaneously, in an attempt to get as close to him as possible before he could start throwing his burning shit at me, I jumped off the store’s roof and landed face-to-face with the supervillain.

“Werr werr, rook at this, an amateur here to charrenge me!” said Sludge. He had to be putting this on; there was no way he actually did the Ls-into-Rs thing. Nobody could be this much of a stereotype in real life. I had to remind myself that this was not the time to get distracted by his ridiculous accent.

He looked like he was about to say something else, so I preempted him by punching him right in his leering face, sending him staggering a couple of steps backwards. I winced at the pain in my hand, hoping that his face was worse off. As the sadistic cape started to recover, I ran at him and shoulder-checked him into the alley wall. Thankfully, Sludge was not exactly a physical powerhouse, and my shapeshifted bulk was making my nonexistent technique irrelevant. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to rely on pure muscle for most of Lake City’s other known villains.

From my peripheral vision, I saw the couple making a break for it with their kids. I sighed with relief internally, but my relief turned into pain as Sludge’s forehead made contact with my nose. I stumbled backwards with a cry of pain, my hands flying up to my face. Thankfully, there was no blood. Then I realized that I’d put myself outside of arm’s reach from the pissed-off Blaster. On instinct, I dove to the left, just in time for a viscous, reddish glob of liquid to fly through the space I’d just been occupying. The eponymous sludge hit the wall with a splat and began to hiss and eat away at the brickwork.

I scrambled to my feet and charged back towards the villain, grabbing his arms by the wrists and delivering a knee to the groin. Sludge doubled over with a squeak, but remained on his feet. I tried to do it again, but he managed to squirm away and pull his hands out of my grip. He kicked me in the stomach, sending me sprawling to the ground, and I noted with alarm that he’d managed to get me into an alley, with himself in between me and the exit. There was nothing to hide behind, and the reddish fluid was already oozing out of the sleeve of his trenchcoat and forming a ball in his hand. Things looked bad.

But then, something flew overhead, leaving behind a neon trail, ricocheted off of a lamppost on the other side of the street, and plowed into Sludge from behind. The villain toppled over onto his face and yelled a garbled swear, while the blur flew down the alley past me, ran up the wall, flipped, twisted, and finally landed to reveal the form of a teenage girl in a dark blue bodysuit covered in glowing, neon-coloured lines. Her brown hair was tied back in a short ponytail, and her face was obscured by a V-shaped mask across her eyes and nose.

“Looks like I got here just in time, eh?” she said, grinning. Her voice was pleasant, with just the faintest hint of a French accent. I recognized her immediately: the local Ward known as Parkour. She liked to show off for the cameras.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the offered hand and letting her help me to my feet. Before either of us could say anything else, a groan from Sludge reminded me of the situation. He was on his knees, cradling a bloody and obviously broken nose, and before he could stand back up, I ran over and planted a foot on the back of his coat, putting him back prone on the ground. Parkour followed me and pulled a set of zip cuffs from a utility belt, then restrained the defeated cape.

“Nice work,” said Parkour.

“Not that nice. I would have been screwed if you hadn’t showed up when you did,” I said, frowning.

“I’m sure you would have come up with something,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, is this your first time out?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I actually wasn’t planning on, uh, superhero-ing tonight, but I heard people screaming and, well, I couldn’t just ignore it.”

“Aww, very noble of you. Have you considered joining the Wards?” she asked.

“I actually have an appointment for after school,” I replied. Before she could respond, I faintly heard the sound of an alarm coming from my phone on the roof. “Oh, uh, that’s my cue to get back home. Uh, see you later I guess?”

“Before you go, what should I call you in my report?” asked Parkour.

“Uh…” I hadn’t actually thought about that before. I picked the first thing that I thought might not be taken. “Metamorph.”

I took a run-up and managed to scramble up the store’s wall, then retrieved my phone from where I’d left it and turned the alarm off. With one last look down at the Ward, I headed for home.

 

Shift 1.2

The Lake City PRT and Protectorate headquarters was a nice lakefront tower block, sitting just outside of downtown in one of the richer parts of the city. It was made of red sandstone and designed in a way that was meant to imitate some of the oldest buildings in town, even though it was only built in the nineties. I’d been inside before, taking the guided tour, but now I was actually going to be a superhero. I could hardly wrap my head around it.

When we told the receptionist about the appointment, we were ushered into a small room, empty except for a table and some chairs. My parents and I took seats, and a minute or so later, the door on the other side of the room opened and admitted a young man with a neat, dark beard and a large smile.

“Thanks for coming, folks,” he said, leaning over the table to shake our hands. “I’m Alex Larue, the local PRT director. My colleague should be joining us any minute, then we can begin.”

Director Larue took a chair and started making small talk with my parents, while I tuned it out and just went over my thoughts. Shortly thereafter, the door opened again and a man in steel power armour entered. He sat down at the table and removed his helmet, revealing the face of a South Asian man covered with a simple domino mask.

“Hello. I’m Ferric, second-in-command of the Lake City Protectorate. I see you’ve already met Director Larue,” he said, and I nodded.

“Well then, let’s get down to business,” said the Director. “We’re here to discuss an application for the Wards program. I suppose you’re David Ashton?”

“That’s me,” I confirmed.

“Do you think you could demonstrate your powers here?” asked Ferric. “We get quite a few people who claim to be parahumans but turn out to be lying.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I focused on Director Larue’s appearance and used my power to shift into him. I noticed both the director and Ferric staring at me and morphed back into my new and improved base form. “I can, uh, look like anyone I want. I get stuff like physical strength, but if they have powers I don’t get them.”

“Great, I guess that answers that question,” said the Director cheerfully. He pulled out a black binder from somewhere under the table and pulled out a sheaf of papers which he handed to me, then another which he gave to my parents.

I looked the forms over. It all seemed pretty standard: some stuff that needed my personal information filled in, some waivers, some agreements to allow the Protectorate to manage my public image, and so forth. I finished looking through and went back to fill it in. After a couple of minutes, I signed the last page and pushed the pile of documents across to the Director. Larue perused them, nodded, and passed them to Ferric who did the same.

“Well,” said the Protectorate second-in-command, “If you two are okay with letting David join, I’d like to take him to meet the rest of the Protectorate and Wards while you finish filling out those forms.”

My dad looked at me and I nodded. Then he turned to Ferric.

“Alright. We’ll wait in the lobby when we’re done.”

Ferric put his helmet back on and stood up, leaning over to shake hands with my mom and dad, then opened the door he’d come in through and gestured for me to follow him. After the door was closed, he looked me up and down, or at least seemed to under his helmet.

“Let me be the first to welcome you to the Lake City Wards. I can provide a mask, if you’d like to keep your identity private.”

I shook my head.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, morphing my clothes into the same outfit I’d used when battling Sludge last night.

“I’m guessing you haven’t told your parents that you were fighting a supervillain, have you?” he asked.

I gave him a sideways look.

“I won’t tell them,” he said. “It’s not my business. So, ‘Metamorph,’ huh?”

“I had to think it up on the spot,” I mumbled.

“Don’t worry about it,” replied Ferric. “It’s a decent enough name, and the PR department will probably accept it. Let’s go.”

The professional superhero led me down the hallway to an elevator, which we got into, then pressed a button for one of the upper floors. As we slowly ascended, I took some time to revel in the fact that I was being shown around by Ferric himself. Finally, we reached our stop and the elevator doors dinged open. I stepped out and found myself in a large common room. There were couches, tables, and a TV scattered around. Tucked away in one corner was a modest kitchen area, and several doors led off from the main area.

Sitting around the room were five teenagers in their costumes, and in the kitchen area was a man drinking a cup of coffee.

“Over there is Timeline,” said Ferric, pointing to the coffee-drinker. “He’ll probably introduce himself later. Reactor is likely in her workshop, and Orbit and Vis Viva are on patrol. I’ll let the Wards introduce themselves.”

With that, the power-armoured hero made his way across the common room and entered one of the side rooms, closing the door behind him. Four of the five Wards got up from their positions around the room and came over to me, while the last stayed leaning against a wall with an obvious scowl on his face.

One of the four who came over was Parkour, who I recognized from last night. She obviously remembered me as well, as I saw a wolfish grin spread across her face when she saw me.

The next was a tall blond guy, whose costume simply consisted of a pair of baggy, stitched-up brown canvas pants, some heavy black boots, and a wide belt with a lightning bolt symbol on the buckle. He clearly worked out a lot, and a six-pack was easily visible under the simple gray t-shirt he was wearing.

Third was a very pale girl with short, dark hair. She was rail-thin, and seemed to hesitate before every move she made. She was wearing a costume styled after a classic witch, with a wide-brimmed, pointy hat and black robes. The upper part of her face was covered by a simple white half-mask with abstract designs in red on it. Curled around her shoulders was what looked like an oversized weasel combined with a constrictor snake and a millipede.

The last of the four was a short, tan-skinned girl. She wore an outfit that was primarily white, but covered in black outlines and designs in bright colours. Upon closer inspection, the colours were made up of dots of cyan, magenta, and yellow, like in old comic books. Slung around her hips was a satchel of some sort, with some of those old comics poking out.

“Hey,” said the comic girl, extending a hand that I shook. “I’m Animatrix, leader of this little group. Welcome aboard. It’s really good to see some new blood on the hero side. The others are Frankenstein, Familiar, and Parkour, and that’s Anaesthetic over there propping up the wall.”

As she spoke, she indicated the blond giant, the pale girl, Parkour, and the scowling guy in turn.

“Uh, hi,” I responded. “I’m Metamorph, I guess.”

I wasn’t used to meeting new people, especially not a bunch at once. At least most of them seemed friendly. Once again, I felt a nagging sensation discouraging me from telling them about myself. I ignored it as best I could.

Animatrix nodded, then reached up and pulled back her costume’s cowl, revealing East Asian features.

“Lucy Nguyen,” she introduced herself.

“My name’s Hank, Hank Muhlfeld,” said Frankenstein. “It’s public information anyway.”

“I’m Lyra,” mumbled Familiar.

“And I,” announced Parkour bombastically, as she removed her mask, “am Maddy Bonfils. By the way, don’t bother asking about Anaesthetic’s real name. He’s never told any of us, and he only calls us by our cape names.”

I shrugged, then removed the domino mask from my own face and tucked it into a hoodie pocket where it dissolved and turned back into part of my other clothing. I could just re-form it if I needed it.

“I’m David Ashton,” I said. “So, what is Anaesthetic’s deal, anyway?”

“He really doesn’t want to be here,” replied Hank.

Lucy nodded.

“Yeah, from what I’ve managed to get out of him, he wishes he didn’t have powers so he could just be a regular guy,” she explained. “He follows the rules to the letter, does the bare minimum of Wards duty, and never comes in for anything optional.”

“Could be worse,” said Maddy. “At least he does everything he needs to and doesn’t complain. He’s still a bit of a dick though.”

Lyra nodded faintly, her eyes on the floor. I saw her take a deep breath, and the weasel-snake-millipede-thing uncoiled from its position around her shoulders and pushed itself against her hands. She started to pet it, and her gaze rose back up, although I noticed she was still avoiding eye contact.

“So, you’re the newbie, eh?” said a voice from behind me.

I turned to face it… and jumped backwards in surprise.

“Gah!” I yelped.

Right in my line of sight was a metallic gray mask with huge blank eyes, looking like a cross between a rabbit and a human skull.

I heard Lucy and Hank chuckling and Maddy laughing maniacally. Laughter came from behind the creepy mask as well.

“Timeline, you dink,” said Lucy, still giggling. “Stop trying to scare away the new recruit.”

“Heh, sorry,” said Timeline, straightening up. “I’m Timeline, as you’ve heard. Adrian out of costume.”

“Metamorph,” I said, grumbling a little. “Why do they even let you wear that creepy friggin’ mask?”

“Kid, I’m the most important parahuman in this city,” said Timeline, puffing out his chest.

“No you’re not,” interjected Hank.

“Okay, fine,” replied Timeline, deflating a little. “It’s a reference to an Aleph movie, and our last PR guy was stoned out of his gourd. I like it, though. Oh, and by the way, you’ll be meeting Reactor in a few seconds.”

I was about to ask what he meant when one of the doors leading off of the common room opened and a young woman walked out. She was in street clothes, with blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She staggered over to us looking half asleep, swiped the coffee cup from Timeline’s hand, and chugged the whole thing in one go. Timeline just sighed and walked back over to the kitchenette to make himself another cup.

“Who’s this?” she asked blearily, looking at me.

“This is Metamorph, he’s joining the Wards today,” said Lucy. “Metamorph, this is Reactor, the Protectorate’s resident Tinker.”

“Uh, hey,” I said with a little wave.

“Good stuff,” she said, then walked over to Timeline, stole his fresh coffee cup, and went back to the room she’d come from.

“Fuck!” yelled Timeline.

“So, uh, what’s her deal?” I asked, turning back to the Wards.

“Tinker Fugue,” said Hank. “She wasn’t able to do any Tinkering for a week or so, so now she’s mostly running on autopilot until she gets it all out of her system, basically.”

“So, enough about the capes we’ve already got,” said Maddy. “What’s your power, ‘Metamorph?’ Some kinda shapeshifting?”

“Some kind, yeah,” I replied. “I told Ferric and the Director about it. I can basically look like anyone I want. Copy off a picture or someone in front of me; even make up an appearance from scratch. I don’t get powers if they have them, and I can’t turn into a Case 53 or anything, so the best I can do for fighting is to be a strongman or something.”

“Hey, don’t get too down,” said Maddy cheerfully. “You beat the crap out of Sludge last night.”

“You helped,” I mumbled.

“That was you?” asked Lucy. “Thank you so goddamn much. I have been trying to get that bastard off of the streets since I joined the Wards. My only regret is that I didn’t get to do it myself.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Lucy hates him ‘cause he makes Asians look bad,” explained Maddy.

“There are, like, three Asian capes in town, and two of them are villains. But at least Polymorph has some class and doesn’t just maim people to get herself off,” ranted Lucy. “Sludge, on the other hand, is a filthy, sadistic pervert. And have you heard his accent? I refuse to believe that’s how he really talks, for the sake of my own sanity.”

“I was thinking the same thing when I heard him talking last night,” I added.

She was about to say something, maybe start ranting again, when the main entrance opened up and two people entered.
The first, Orbit, I recognized easily from the news as the leader of the Lake City protectorate. Along with Ferric, Orbit got the most media attention of the local heroes. She was tall and broad-shouldered, with straight, dark hair, and was currently accompanied by three bowling ball-sized spheres, lazily circling her at chest height. One of the spheres seemed to be made of asphalt and the other two looked like cement.

The other was Vis Viva, a relatively new addition to the team as far as I knew. She was willowy and olive-skinned, with a tranquil expression on the visible parts of her face. Her movement seemed both graceful and very deliberate.

“Hello,” said Orbit when she noticed us. “You’re our new recruit, I take it?”

“Yeah, Metamorph,” I replied.

“Nice to meet you, I look forward to working together,” she said. “Timeline, Anaesthetic, it’s time for your patrol.”

“Aye, captain,” said Timeline.

He then knocked back the rest of his coffee and pulled his creepy mask down over his face before making his way to the door. Anaesthetic detached himself from the wall he was brooding against and followed Timeline out the door in silence.

After they left, Vis Viva nodded politely at us, then made her way to one of the interior doors and carefully closed it behind her. Huh, that made two people here who hadn’t spoken a word since I’d first seen them. At least she wasn’t moping in a corner.

“Alright, Metamorph, I think your parents are waiting for you in the lobby, so you should probably wrap up here,” said Orbit.

Oh, right, I’d completely forgotten about them. It hadn’t been very long, but it probably wasn’t very exciting in the lobby.

“Before you go, though, one of the other Wards should show you your room here,” she said. “All of our Wards and Protectorate members have a room here that they can stay in if they need to. Feel free to customize it if you’d like. Otherwise, have a nice day.”

“I’ll show you,” announced Maddy.

The excitable Ward grabbed my arm and all but dragged me to one of the doors. It was pretty unremarkable, although now that I was closer, I noticed that some of the other doors had nameplates attached. Maddy opened the door, and I looked in. Against the back wall was a bed with simple white bedding - the type you might see in a mid-scale hotel - a nightstand with a lamp, and a desk with an office chair. On one wall was another door, presumably leading to a bathroom. It was all very bland.

“Not much to look at now, but give it time,” said Maddy. “I’ll see if I can’t convince Lucy or Lyra to make you a nameplate tonight.”

“Thanks,” I said as we made our way back to the rest of the Wards and the main door. “Uh, nice to meet all you guys. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

A chorus of ‘see you tomorrow’s sent me on my way.

 

Shift 1.3

[David]

On Saturday, I returned to the Protectorate HQ, without my parents this time. The receptionist directed me to an empty hallway, where I shifted into my ‘costume.’

“Good morning, Metamorph,” said a voice from behind me.

I turned to see Orbit standing in the hallway, now with three orbs of what looked like linen floating around her.

“Uh, morning,” I replied.

“Your appointment with PR isn’t for another hour, so feel free to go socialize with your teammates,” she said, gesturing towards an elevator down the hall. “Someone will come get you when it’s time.”

“Thanks, uh, ma’am,” I said, and walked past her to the elevator.

“Have a nice day,” she said, moving off in the other direction.

One elevator ride later, I found myself in the common room again. The lights were dimmer than last time, probably to be easier on the eyes for those just waking up.

Only one person was present in the common room, half-lying, half-sitting on a couch, wearing an oversized sweater with the hood up. On the ground next to them was a creature about the same size and shape as a German Shepherd, with an alligator-like mouth and an impressive rack of antlers, which meant that the person was probably Familiar – Lyra.

“Hello,” I said, announcing my presence.

The person on the couch froze for a moment before turning to face me and revealing that it was, in fact, Lyra. I took a moment to study her face, now that she wasn’t wearing her costume. She was ghostly pale, with dark bags under her eyes, and she looked almost emaciated. Her hair drooped into her face and she seemed to hide behind it. Her expression was sad, and she avoided my eyes.

“Um, hello,” she mumbled.

I wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation. Luckily, I was saved by one of the doors opening and Lucy poking her head out.

“Aha, I thought I heard someone talking audibly out here,” she said. “Morning David, morning Lyra. I’ll be out in a minute.”

After a minute of awkward silence, Lucy emerged from her room. She was dressed in street clothes, and made a beeline for the kitchenette.

“C’mon, Lyra,” she said. “Breakfast! You want anything, David?”

“Uh, no,” I responded. “I ate.”

Lucy busied herself around the kitchen, pouring two bowls of cereal and setting the coffee maker brewing. A couple minutes later, she walked back into the main area and handed one of the bowls to Lyra. She accepted the bowl, but I saw her staring at it like the Cheerios might at any moment spring to life and attack her. Lucy wandered over to a chair, plopped down, and started to work her way through her own cereal.

“Eat up, Lyra,” she said in a pause between spoonfuls of Cheerios.

The other girl still looked apprehensive, but she began slowly eating the breakfast. Eventually, I decided to break the silence.

“So, you guys stayed overnight?” I asked.

“Mhm,” said Lucy around a mouthful of cereal, before swallowing it. “Yeah, we’re the night crew, so to speak. I think Reactor’s still in her lab from last night, too.”

“Ah,” I said. “Everyone else went home, then?”

“Yep,” replied Lucy. “Maddy usually comes here right after she wakes up, but that could be past noon. Hank will be around whenever he feels like. Anaesthetic only comes in when he’s scheduled for a patrol or for monitor duty.”

We lapsed back into silence. Lucy finished her breakfast and put the bowl back in the kitchen, returned with a cup of coffee, and turned on the news. Lyra just slowly picked away at her own cereal. And I started thinking.

I was a Ward now, and that was exactly the sort of thing that I’d been fantasizing about forever. Everyone idolized heroes as a kid, and even after learning enough about Capes to realize how romanticized that view was, I still imagined what life would be like as a hero sometimes. The universe had apparently granted my wish, but now that I actually had powers I felt underwhelmed. Sure, being able to be someone else had its charms, but I just felt useless, because I was no better in a fight than any other guy off the street who spent some time in a gym. If only I’d had an actually useful power, like an Alexandria package…

“Hey, David,” said Lucy, shaking me out of my thoughts. “You’ve, uh, gone all Alexandria.”

I looked down at myself, and sure enough, I’d inadvertently assumed the form of the renowned heroine, complete with the gray-and-black costume emblazoned with a tower.

“Uh, whoops,” I said, focusing my power to return to my regular self.

“What was that all about?” she prompted.

“I was just wishing I had a better power,” I replied with a frown.

“What? Dude!” she exclaimed, her eyebrows shooting up. “You’re like a better version of Mystique! That is not a weak power!”

I recognized the name Mystique as being a comic book character, but I wasn’t exactly a big comic reader. I dipped into Aleph stuff occasionally, but nothing too in-depth.

“You’re going to need to fill me in here,” I admitted.

“Mystique is- actually, hold on, I’ll show you,” said Lucy.

She got up from her seat and all but sprinted to her room. A minute or so later, she emerged with a comic book in her hand. Instead of bringing it to where I could see it, however, she took up a position in an empty part of the room, flipped it open, and put it on the ground.

I was about to ask what she was doing when the comic began to twitch and shake on the floor. Then, a blue-skinned arm emerged from the pages of the book, followed by the rest of a body. It was a bit disturbing, like watching a contortionist emerging from a space too small to hold a normal person. Finally, the figure straightened out, revealing it to be a young-looking woman with blue skin, golden eyes, and red hair.

“That’s Mystique,” said Lucy. “She’s a villain from the X-Men books. Her powers are a lot like yours, except she doesn’t even get the physical strength of whoever she turns into. And there’s a load of stuff she does with it, which means there’s probably even more stuff that you can do.”

I looked hesitantly at ‘Mystique.’ She was standing still, like a mannequin, staring straight ahead.

“So she’s part of your power?” I said.

“Yeah, my power lets me bring cartoons and comics and stuff like that into the real world,” explained Lucy. “They’re like, weird semi-autonomous puppet things, and they have copies of the characters’ powers up to about a three or four on the PRT rating scale. They last about five minutes and I can only have one out at a time.”

“Huh. Neat,” I said.

“You’re the only one here can do stealth or infiltration properly, though,” she said. “Some of them might have shapeshifting, but they can’t talk and they move like robots outside of combat. So don’t worry about not having a place on the team.”

Well, that was something at least.

“Alright, I guess,” I said.

I didn’t have anything to say after that. Luckily, I was saved the trouble of coming up with something when the elevator dinged and Ferric stepped out.

“Ah, Metamorph, I believe it’s time for your appointment with Mr. Markowitz,” he said.

“Oh, thanks sir,” I replied, and walked over to the elevator
.
“Second floor,” said Ferric.

I nodded and stepped into the elevator, making my escape.

***​

“Good morning Metamorph, take a seat,” said the PR manager. “I’m Derick Markowitz.”

He was an older man, bony, with white hair and extremely bushy eyebrows. It looked like the weasel-snake that Familiar’s pet had been yesterday had died on his forehead. He extended a hand over his desk.

“David Ashton,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“Right, let’s get straight to business, shall we?” he said. “As a member of the Wards, the PRT has the final say on your public image, but I’d like to know what you think about it. Particularly your costume, as that will be the most visible aspect of your identity.”

“Well,” I began, pausing to get my thoughts in order. “When I stepped in to fight Sludge a couple of nights ago, I thought about it a little. I’m a shapeshifter, right? And that means I’m going to be looking like a lot of different people. So instead of trying to come up with a single costume that would look good on anyone, I decided to just pick a logo and a colour scheme to stick with. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“The idea does have merit,” agreed Derick. “You can shapeshift your clothing, then?”

“Yeah, I guess it counts as part of ‘me’ for my power or something,” I said. “I’ve tried to make body armour and stuff though, and it doesn’t work. It just makes something that looks like body armour but doesn’t give any real protection.”

“We’ll have to look into that,” mused Derick, typing something into his computer. “Perhaps if we give you real body armour, you can incorporate it into your outfits.”

I shrugged.

“We’ll come back to costumes in a moment,” he said, “but first I want to know something: what kind of hero do you want to be?”

I raised an eyebrow at the strange question.

“The kind that helps people?” I said.

Derick chuckled.

“That’s good, but not exactly what I mean,” he explained. “It’s more about the sort of attitude you want to present. Inspirational? Funny? Scary? There are a lot of ways to be heroic. Mouse Protector is a very different sort of hero than Legend is, and they’re both quite different to your colleague Frankenstein, but they’re all heroes nonetheless.”

“That’s… a good question, actually,” I admitted. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, we’ll call that your homework, then,” said Derick. “We’ve got the whole week before you make your debut, so feel free to set up another appointment once you’ve considered it.”

***​

[???]

I couldn’t sleep again.

I couldn’t remember the last time I could sleep.

The dream used to be so pretty, but they didn’t like that. I had to make the dream scary. I didn’t want to, but if I didn’t, I’d be punished. It was the same when they told me to make the dream hurt people. I didn’t want to do it. But they made me.

I just let the thorns hurt me, instead of trying to sleep. When I hurt it made me feel better for hurting other people.

I couldn’t tell how much later it was when a man came into the dream. He was big, and he was trying to look scary. But he just looked scared. They always did, ever since they brought me here.

“Hey, kid, the bosses wanna talk to you,” he said.

I didn’t want to talk to them, but they would make me if I tried to stay here. I got off of the bed, and stepped out from the shadow of a creepy tree, right beside the man. He jumped, and I smiled a little. They couldn’t punish me for scaring the people who worked for them, ‘cause they did the same thing.

But then I remembered that it was bad to be happy about hurting people, even if they were bad people. I squeezed the rose that I was holding, and the thorns hurt me. Mommy and daddy taught me that hurting people was bad. It was so long ago. I could barely remember what they looked like. I couldn’t even dream about them. Not the dream around me, a sleeping dream. I couldn’t sleep.

The man led me out of my room, out of the dream, into the hallways. He was still trying to look scary, but I knew he was scared of me. All the other people in the halls were scared of me too. I wished I could just make the dream eat them all, even if I would have to hurt myself for enjoying it. But I couldn’t. They would punish me. They didn’t know I could do that. I didn’t show them, ‘cause if I did, they’d make me do it to people. Good people. I didn’t want to hurt them.

We got to the big room. I couldn’t tell how long it took, or how we got there. They were there, like they usually were, sitting on their big fancy chairs, with their creepy masks and their creepy faces. The other people who saw me were scared, but they weren’t. The other people tried to be scary, but they were the only ones who really were.

“I brought the girl,” said the man who led me here. I could tell he was even more scared now.

“We can see that,” said one of them.

“We do have eyes, you know,” said the other.

The man nodded and walked away. He was still trying to act like he wasn’t scared.

“Now, girl, we’ve got a job for you to do,” said the first one.

“You see, one of our chess pieces has gone and been captured,” said the second.

“Normally we wouldn’t bother with that incompetent,” said the first.

“But apparently there’s someone new in town,” said the second.

“We want to know what they can do, and you’re going to help,” said the first.

“You know what will happen if you don’t,” said the second.

I squeezed the rose again. I let the thorns hurt me. The rose was dying. The dream in my room was fading now that I was outside. I wanted to call the dream up again and let the dream eat them. But I wasn’t strong enough. They were gonna make me hurt good people again. I was so sad, and scared, and angry. Tears fell down my face. Someday I was gonna be strong enough.

Someday.