H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis Read online

The doorbell rang. Rael hopped up and jogged to the door. Lance watched him and said to Stephanie, “He's faster than he used to be. A lot faster.”

  Rael opened the door to find Tina Raddatz standing there. She was one of the other serious workout partners at the gym, that happened to have a similar schedule, so Rael, Stephanie and Lance had gotten to know her well the last few years.

  She was a petite 5’4” woman, 22 years old, with dark brown eyes and shoulder length curly black hair. She was very toned from all the workouts, though not overly muscled. She was always very bouncy and full of energy. She did mortgages for a living, and went out clubbing with them at night on occasion. They were all good friends with her.

  She was momentarily distracted by his lack of clothing. When she finally looked up at his face her eyes showed her surprise. Her mouth hung open while she stared at his eyes.

  Rael slowly grinned, “Morning, Tina.”

  Her gaze was bound by his unusual eyes as she said, “Uh, hiya Rael. You guys didn't work out this morning. Then I noticed Lance in the paper, and just had to stop by and see him….”

  “Do the eyes bother you?”

  “No, actually they remind me of Leemon, my pet crested gecko. Odd though. I take it that Lance isn't the only one changed?”

  He mocked at pouting. “Lance? You came to see Lance? I’m hurt. But no, I'm pretty obvious.”

  She laughed, “You weren’t in the paper. Do you feel all right?”

  “I feel great. Want in?”

  “Sure, thanks.” She smiled at him.

  Stephanie undraped herself from Lance when Tina came in and said, “Hey Tina, whatch'ya doing here?”

  Tina stopped for a moment with a look of confusion. “Do you guys all live here?”

  Stephanie said, “No, I don't.” Already Tina's mental voice had begun 'talking' near Stephanie, and when she got close her mindview joined that of the others. Three mindviews took up nearly half of her visual space.

  Tina stared at Stephanie a moment, “Your hair looks great. Did you get it colored yesterday?”

  Stephanie walked over and hugged Tina. “No, my hair changed when I did.”

  “I like it. Eyes changed too then, that's a pretty exotic color. And what's your perfume? I love it.”

  Stephanie could see it was true in her thoughts. I like my new lie detector. She smiled. “I'm not wearing any perfume. Actually, I don't have any of my own stuff here, so I don't even have deodorant on.” Oh, my god, I hope I smell good. I need to start keeping amenities here or something. Her skin tingled in a wave down her body. That's odd.

  Tina looked befuddled for a moment, and then her face cleared. “Yeah, you smell really good.” She stepped in close to Stephanie again and inhaled. “You're lying … you've got some kind of perfume on. God, it smells awesome.”

  She abruptly hugged Stephanie again, driving her face down into Stephanie's neck, then up by her ear and through her hair. “I just want to inhale you.” She pulled back slightly to look Stephanie in the eye.

  Stephanie blinked at Tina's odd behavior and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Even your breath smells great.” She kissed Stephanie, who stood there in shock for a moment.

  Stephanie didn't respond to the kiss until the dual feedback began to affect her again, as it did with Rael last night. She felt Tina's soft lips and tone body, and Tina's hands starting to run across her back and side. Tina was getting very excited by the kiss, the smell and the touching. Every touch had double the effect on Stephanie. The kiss was unbelievably stimulating.

  Lance had seen Stephanie kiss girls in the dance clubs before. He thought she did it to tease the guys. But this was different. She didn't just kiss Tina, she ... made out with her.

  Rael quietly said, “Holy crap. Wow.”

  Lance said, “Yeah, I've never seen her do that to another girl.”

  “No, can't you smell her? I'm drooling, and not with hunger.”

  Lance said, “Yeah, yeah I can. She's got great perfume on.”

  “Dude, she's not wearing any perfume. She was hanging over you before; did she smell like that?”

  “Of course, she smelled great before. Hold on a second.” Lance stood up and walked over to the girls. As he closed the distance he could smell just how wonderful her aroma was. It was unreal. Something's up. She didn't smell like this before. Wow.

  He hated to break up such an exotic scene, but he thought it best to stop them before they got too far. He touched each of their shoulders.

  “Hey, are you two all right?”

  Tina stopped the kiss long enough to see who was touching her. She dropped her hand away from Stephanie's chest out of embarrassment and stepped back. Stephanie moved to close the distance, but Lance gently held her back.

  Lance said, “Hey, are you all right?”

  Stephanie stood in a stupor for a minute. She was caught up in both her own and Tina’s emotions; it was hard not to continue with Tina. Lance led them to the table and gently pushed them down onto chairs.

  Rael said, “I didn't realize you liked girls so much.”

  Stephanie said, “No, I….” She flushed bright red. I can't exactly bring up this double sensation thing. “She kissed me.”

  Rael replied, “Oh, well, I guess that explains everything. Soooo, Tina. I didn't realize that you liked girls so much.”

  Tina blushed. “I normally don't do that sort of thing. I'm not even sure why I did.”

  Lance said, “Well, assuming you two don't want to borrow the couch or something for a while, how are you today, Tina?”

  Tina looked all too happy to switch to another topic. Her face was still bright red. She coughed and said, “Ah, I see you have the paper. You guys weren't in to work out this morning, and when jogging I noticed Lance's picture in the paper. I thought I'd come over to see what's up. So ... what's it like?” She watched Lance as she spoke.

  Lance asked, “Is this staying in this room? I would never have talked with that Debbie from the blog if I'd known it'd get spread around.”

  Tina looked deep in thought for a moment and said, “Okay.” Stephanie saw that she intended to keep the promise, but was depressed about not being able to gossip about it.

  Lance said, “Which part?”

  “What's it like being super? You're sitting around half nekkid, I can see the difference from yesterday's workout. You look hot, by the way.” She smiled at him.

  Lance smiled. She's obviously been paying close enough attention to notice, interesting. “No, I’m not hot, cold either, more like it’s just pleasant in the room. It's a mix of exhilarating and painful. Painful from the change, and being clawed and stabbed repeatedly in one night. Exhilarating to be able to lift those 30 lb. concrete blocks for buildings like they weigh nothing, and jump for miles ... literally. Painful in that I've already destroyed my mustang.” He looked sad at that.

  “Wow, that part sucks. Your car is destroyed? I'm sorry to hear that. So, you like, have more muscle now. How much are you up to?”

  “I have no idea. How can I really test it? The gym could handle perhaps one thousand pounds on the best bar, but it has to be much more than that.”

  “Have you tried to lift a car?”

  “I can drive my foot directly through the floor of one. My fingers can bend the metal on the roof of an SUV. Trying to pick one up would do severe damage, I’d think. Though I could get mine and mess around with it, considering the damage.”

  “Hmm. Okay, they called you a brick, what's that mean?”

  “It means I'm a large, strong and armored super.

  “Armored?”

  “Yeah, bullets don't hurt me, or at least that one didn't. Not sure about most things, though the claws on those mutant guys cut me, not sure why. Part of the building collapsed on me and it didn't hurt. The dust was annoying though.”

  “Can I touch your skin?”

  R
ael said, “You can touch mine.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  “You're armored too?”

  “I don't appear to be.”

  “You've got more muscle too. For that matter, you do too, Stephanie, I could feel how solid you are when we, uh, hugged.”

  Tina headed around the table to Lance and touched his shoulder. “Wow, your skin is soft. I thought it'd be, like, hard. The muscles underneath feel extremely hard though." She proceeded to run her hands over his arms and torso. "They don't move even when I press on them. My god, your muscles feel like they’re made of metal. What's this scar from?” She touched his left shoulder where the blade had sliced into him.

  “Mutant had a big blade for one of his hands, he chopped down into me. It healed a lot since, what, 2 or 3 AM?”

  Tina sat back down and looked at Stephanie. “So can you do anything cool too?”

  “I can apparently cause fear in people. And float in the air. I'm hoping I can fly, I was thinking we'd go out and test ourselves a little today.”

  “Wow, that'd be awesome if you could really fly!”

  “Oh, and the fast healing. Not sure how to test that. I'm not into masochism.”

  Rael piped up, “Not that you know of yet.” He grinned.

  Stephanie rolled her eyes.

  Tina asked, “So, like, what can you do, Rael?”

  “I'm stronger, but don't know by how much. I can see well in the dark. Sharper hearing and smell. Heal fast, and I'm not sure I need to test mine. I was shot I think six times last night within a few minutes time, plus punched, stabbed and clawed. Everything healed up in a few minutes, perhaps ten tops. Oh, and my fingers can turn into claws. The claws can dig through concrete without a problem.”

  Lance said, “If yours can turn back, I wonder why the others with claws and blades don't do it?”

  Rael said, “Mine only went away when I really, really wanted to be able to, umm, carry Steph without hurting her.” Well, that and touch her while I carried her.

  Stephanie smiled as she watched his mental flashback of the memory.

  He continued, “Oh, and Kim mentioned that many of the 'mutants' kind of go crazy when they change. They get this bloodlust and actually attack or eat people. That type of craziness may push them far enough over the edge to not be able to control it.”

  Stephanie saw in his mindview just how close he'd gotten to biting Kim as he replayed the scene in his mind. He was worried that he might bite someone unintentionally one day too. Oh, my, is that why he keeps nuzzling my neck, he wants to bite me? She focused for a minute on sorting through his memory of last night. It relieved her that he didn't appear to have the urge to bite her.

  Lance asked what Stephanie had been thinking, “So ... you haven't had this urge?”

  Rael looked at him. “Actually, I have. I nearly bit Kim when I was testing, ah, yeah, well, I nearly bit her.”

  Tina asked, “It's not like a vampire thing is it? You bite someone and they change into a mutant too?”

  “I doubt it. I'm guessing that most mutants don't exactly bite people and let them live.”

  Tina said, “Of course, I guess I'd rather Stephanie bite me if it did work that way. Flying would be like, awesome.”

  Stephanie said, “And the mind control thing the master vampires have over their slave vampires would rock. You wouldn't be able to stop next time.” She wickedly grinned at Tina.

  Her joke triggered a hailstorm of thoughts from the three. She laughed as she heard all three of their thoughts debate on if Stephanie was into girls, would she have done it, etc. Rael wondered if he could push her into it with his power.

  Lance said, “Well, regardless of Steph's vampiric leanings, I'd like to test out some of what I can do today.”

  Stephanie replied, “I agree. I want to see if I can fly, or just float.”

  “And I'd like to see if I can pop my claws and put them away on demand.”

  Tina joined in, “And I'd like to watch. Can I come with?”

  Lance said, “Sure. First I need to get some eggs in me.”

  Lance's phone beeped with new emails. He gently pushed the buttons, and found that he'd received the contact information for the costume maker, Dr. Turnquist, from his mother. She also mentioned that she hadn't needed to work out in 20 years. Her body maintained its muscle mass on its own, though moving objects weighing a few tons was common for her at work.

  He said, “Good news guys, mom says that she hasn't had to work out to maintain her muscle mass or form.”

  Stephanie said, “Wow, for how built she is, that's impressive.”

  Tina said, “I'm jealous. Umm, assuming mom is well muscled, or has a great form?”

  Stephanie said, “His mom's a brick, like Lance, but not so thick ... in body or head. She loves superheroes, but never fit into that mold herself. But, she can hang on the edge of a twenty story building, and lift 3 ton massive steel girders by herself with ease. Think of a six foot tall body building amazon.”

  Tina asked, “How big is your dad?”

  Lance shrugged, “No idea. He got freaked out by mom's power before I was born and split.”

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up a sore spot.”

  “It's not. My mom's always been great. She's got to be pretty excited right now. She's been hoping I'd go super my entire life. I couldn't have asked for better preparation. Or friends for that matter.”

  Rael said, “Suck up.”

  Stephanie said, “Okay, now to decide where to test this stuff. I don't think they'd appreciate us jumping off buildings downtown, for example.”

  Rael said, “A rock quarry would be nice to see how big of rocks we can lift.”

  Stephanie said, “Not very accurate though. However, a junk yard might be more useful for real items that we might encounter out in the city. Cars and such.”

  Rael said, “Yeah, you and I can find out roughly how much we can lift too then. And Lance can throw a car up in the air so it lands on himself to see if he can take it.”

  Lance said, “Don't need to. Police car ran into me at probably 20 to 30 miles per hour or more and it only knocked me back.”

  “Fine, you can do it to test catching one then. You never know when a car will be lobbed at you.”

  Stephanie said, “You know, thinking about your mom made me realize, she still looks very young. We might age slower too.”

  Tina said, “Bite me now, please!”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes, “Give me a break.”

  Tina said, “No, seriously. If this can spread, I want in. Come on, come on!”

  Lance said, “You really think scientists haven't already determined if this could spread? That would have been huge news.”

  Stephanie said, “He's right, or at least one drug company would have tested a super to find some cure for cancer or heal tissue and made mongo bucks off it.”

  Tina said, “But what if it did? Lance, I'll do anything you want.”

  Lance looked surprised. “What?”

  “Anything. Don't make me beg.”

  Rael jumped in, “I'd bite you, but how would you react if you turned into a mutant? Many of those seem to be pretty fugly. Tell you what, do anything I want, and I'll make Stephanie bite you.”

  Stephanie sighed. “Transferral of powers hasn’t worked in the studies done so far. I’m in the genetics program, remember? I looked that up a long time ago. But, I haven’t looked recently, and I don’t recall the trials being by bite. So I’ll look again. That might tell us some results. I can ask a few of my professors about it as well. Hell, some of my study buddies might have dug into it recently. Some of them are really into comic books and such, I'll bet that they've dug into it in the hopes they could be changed too.”

  Tina pouted. “If some reasonable checking doesn't show people turning into zombies, you'll try?”

  Stephanie said, “Fine, if nothing bad turns up I'll bite you a few ti
mes.”

  Rael grinned wickedly, “She still has to sleep with me though.”

  Both of the women gave him a dirty look. Stephanie's mindview of Rael said he'd do it, too. Tina would as well if she thought it might work.

  Rael said, “If Stephanie would check the phone book for places to train at, I'll cook. Are you hungry, Tina?”

  “Sure, I'd have something healthy.”

  “Like we cook hardly anything but around here, look at us. Wait, think about what we looked like before changing.”

  Chapter 21 – Vehicle Graveyard

  Third Person Perspective