Virtue is its Own Reward: 2.0

[Foxboy]

Complete restart of the concept, allowing some of our more prolific writers access to the "shinies."
ETA: Also, It seems that I am currently de facto editor-in-chief for this, so please accept that I can and may veto story points if they don't "fit" the mood we're trying for.
July 5, 2009, 10 pm Eastern Daylight Time -- City of Heroes MMORPG, Virtue Server
[The Legendary] Terrence Knight: Fox! Hurry up! ITF!
[The Legendary] Valles: Bring ninja.
[The Legendary] Kaeda: Yeah, we need Ninja Trio
[The Legendary] Foxboy: Iunno, I JUST got Misty able to Cim last week... and she hasn't been on an ITF yet...
[The Legendary] Sweno: Well, it might be nice to see if the new changes to Doms help any. We *have* plenty of support
[The Legendary] Foxboy: Right! Crosslogging
[The Legendary] Valles: I STILL can't believe how awful Dacia's luck is in Chrono Racer...
10:30 pm EDT
[Team] Sachie Hanagawa: [I can't believe how fast we got through those mishes]
[Team] Misty Hanover: [I can't believe I blew through 15 wakies already]
[Team] Terrence Knight: [Like we said, Smashcakes and Pancake lol]
[Team] Misty Hanover: Man that road is bright. *winces*
[Team] Misao Kagetsuki: [Crashy McCrashington : ]
[The Legendary] Foxboy: [WB, K! You're jsut in time for Lag Hill!]
[The Legendary] Valles: Hail!
[The Legendary] Valles: Hail!
[The Legendary] Valles: Hail!
[The Legendary] Foxboy: *grumbles and takes his crown... LAGSPIKE Gah!
[The Legendary] Dark Seraphim: this lags getting to bad for me im gonna log for now...
[The Legendary] Sweno: Bye
[The Legendary] Atlantea: Night, DS
[The Legendary] Foxboy: LAter DS
[The Legendary] Foxboy: Huh. That's weird.
[The Legendary] Valles: ?
[The Legendary] Foxboy: My graphics look a lot better after that spike. Weird..
[The Legendary] OpMegs: Don't knock it, free gfx upgrades rock.
10:37 pm EDT
Simultaneously, at the three thousand computers logged into the Virtue server, eldritch energies leapt from the various screens and bathed whoever was at the keyboard, changing their lives forever.
These are their stories.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Foxboy]

[EDITORIAL]

If you comment on the story in thread, please use [TAGS] like [COMMENT] or [QUESTION]

Also, for consistency's sake:

1. Transformations usually take about 30 seconds to 15 minutes, depending on the degree of change. A human of roughly the same mass and build will be on the fast end. Radical changes in any way take longer. The eldritch energy KOs the mundane at the keyboard pretty much instantly. Speed of regaining consciousness after the transformation again depends on what's dramatically necessary.

2. Posting chat from CoX should follow the format: "[Channel] *appropriate handle for channel*: Blah." Virtue is down immediately after the event, but every other server is still going until noon-ish EDT Monday, July 6. European Servers shut down at noon GMT.

3. Drunkard's walk posts in-text should go:

Drunkard's Walk Forums > Subforum > Thread Title

[bold]Handle[/bold] (Mo/Da/Yr HH:MM AM/PM) Reply Title if any

{Hard rule}

BLAH BLah Blah

{Hard rule}

4. Other media quotes are up to the specific site/outlet you're mimicking.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[firvulag]

The last thing I remember before it happened was waiting to zone and had swapped back from my web-browser. The next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor
feeling like I'd been put through a meat grinder.

My clothes and the chair I'd been sitting in weren't much better. They looked as though they'd been used for target practice by someone with a
fairly high caliber weapon. Strangely enough there were areas that looked as though they'd been melted or burnt as well, but I noticed all of this later as
I was somewhat distracted by the pain.

It had been the pain that had pulled me from the dark embrace of unconsciousness, and immediately after waking up it was all I could do to lie there on my
floor, screaming soundlessly. It hurt too much to even make a sound.

I don't know how long I lay there, curled around myself, until deep within my mind a fire started. I didn't know why I was hurting, but it didn't
matter, someone had done this to me and they... would... pay. The anger's flames licked through my mind, forcing the pain down and I was able to rise to my
feet.

I might have just gone smashing through my apartment door and on some rampage had my balance not been shot, and my shorts not fallen around my ankles. I
bounced off a bookcase and tangled with my bike, bringing it down on top of me. The anger flared white, obliterating my vision, but I was able to master it and
in time my breathing had returned to normal and the urge to kill faded.

I gingerly lifted the bicycle off of myself and got to my feet, again. This time being careful to step out of the shredded remains of my shorts. I was calm
enough now to notice that a number of things had changed, drastically. Not the least of which was my gender.

I lunged for the bathroom and stared into the mirror, not even bothering to turn on the light. Staring back at me was what had once been an attractive young
woman under the burn scars and skin grafts. Her hair, where it still grew, was cut short and close to her head, her eyes were dark and full of shock.

I'd never seen that face before, but I knew who it was. It was impossible. Without knowing exactly what I was doing, I concentrated, tensing a muscle I
shouldn't have had. From all over my body strange, bony spines erupted through the skin. I gasped in pain, clutching the edge of the sink, and looked back
up into the mirror.

I was a character from City of Heroes, the one I'd been playing when it happened. Naptha, a young woman who'd been trapped in a fire-bombed coffee shop
and... oh this was bad. As I looked into my new eyes in the mirror and silently panicked, I recalled something Fox and V had been talking about. Wondering what
it would be like if characters from our game existed in real life.

My anger returned, the desire to hunt down Foxboy and Valles, to punish them for this. It wouldn't be hard, I knew both of their mundane names and... I
remembered how Naptha had gotten her powers in game. She'd fallen prey to a spirit of vengeance trapped in a relic in her professor's office at Paragon
U.

It took a great deal of concentration but I fought down the voice at the back of my mind, the one calling for blood and punishment. The spines pulled back
into my body as I focused inwards. "No," I thought. "I don't know it was them. I don't know enough about what happened."

The anger and the half heard voice didn't care.

"It has to be the right people, the ones that actually did it. And I have to know why, so I can fight back the best way," I yelled into my own mind.

It was not easy, but I forced the anger back. Repeating those arguments to myself like a mantra, until I almost believed them. I would wait, I would learn, I
would hurt those responsible in the ways that pained them the most.

Sitting down on my bed, I began to think. The first thing I would have to do would be find a way to go out. I'd need clothes, some way to hide the scars on
my face and arms. It was then that I realized I was still wearing my watch, well a watch at least. Mine hadn't had a crystal of some kind embedded in it, a
familiar crystal I hadn't seen before, but one I knew how to use.

I stood and touched the crystal. There was a fuzzy feeling, sort of like a I was being tickled all over my body and then I was dressed. Looking down at myself
I could see Naptha's red outfit, feel her mask on my face. I could also feel the heat. A full body suit of nearly skintight leather is not the best of
things to be wearing in Ottawa in July.

Still, I thought as I hurriedly stripped it off, it came with a sports bra, a mask and boots that fit. I could make this work. And as long as I was
concentrating on that and doing something, I wouldn't be thinking about other things that I really didn't want to think about.

--

"To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"

-- BSD fortune file

[Morganite]

It was sunday night, and I was playing City of Heroes. Not especially unusual or exiciting, but then I had been away for a while. There was some sort of task
force discussion going on in the Legendary channel, but I wasn't really paying attention, for I was in full-blown Scrapperlock.

And for once, it was actually on a scrapper. Most of the time these days, I found melee characters kind of boring to play, so I'd been focusing on more
strategy-oriented types like controllers. But tonight, I was just in this sort of mood. And while Alexis Morgan didn't feel like quite as much of an
invincible juggernaut as my main controller character (and isn't that a weird thing to contemplate), there was something deeply enjoyable about watching
the parade of "Missed!" messages as the mobs try and fail to hurt you.

It was getting pretty late though, and the Circle of Thorns weren't exactly an exciting experience to fight anymore, so I was looking forward to finishing
up this mission and going to bed.

Well, the mission finished soon enough, but not quite how I had planned. It was like I just blinked, and when I looked back at the screen, I'd been
disconnected. Not even a "Lost connection to mapserver" overlay to taunt you with the "Will you reconnnect in time, or won't you?" Just
pow, disconnected.

I considered logging back in, but my heart wasn't really in it. When I lose all my progress on a mission like that, it pretty much kills my mood for
playing the game at all, and it was already late enough. So I just closed the client, turned off the monitor, and went to bed.

***

Waking up a different gender than I went to sleep as wasn't that unusual for me, so I didn't pay any attention to it. It wasn't like there was
anyone in the house who was going to ogle my breasts (or, as it happened, anyone else in the house), so what was the problem?

It wasn't until after I'd eaten breakfast and went to brush my teeth that the sight of red hair in the mirror made me realize something.

Waking up a different gender *was* unusual for me. It was, in fact, something that had never happened before, except in my imagination.

What the hell was going on here?

[Morganite]

[COMMENT]

It always seemed to me like people had just lost interest in this setting, but I'll certainly support starting things up again. (I do hope we can not have an Arachnos 2.0 this time though. Pretty please with Sugarsugar on top?)

Also, "[The Legendary] My graphics look a lot better after that spike. Weird.. " is missing a player name.

-Morgan.

[ECSNorway]

Drunkard's Walk Forums > The Legendary > Total Gratuitous Connectivity Failure

ECSNorway (07/05/2009 22:49 PM)

---

Uhm.... Sacchan? In-chan? I... don't feel too good... can't get back online right now.

Gonna try again in a few minutes... need to clear my head.

---

--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Sweno]

[Comment]
Oh, I'm all for this, but I have to rework the stuff I already created to make it mesh with the new situation.
I just need time
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Dragonflight]

(Author's Note: Kara Tomlinson, aka Foxfire, was a character I made for Marvel Advanced in "Evil" Ken Roberts' Marvel game over a decade ago.
She was random-rolled, but had a really awesome collection of abilities, including shapeshifting. In CoX, this was referenced in her bio when I first started
playing the game as a way of making quick alt-characters that all looked like her but had different apparent powers.)

The funny thing about transformations? Even if you think you've got it made, there are always complications.

Take what happened to me for instance.

It was Sunday night. I was working on a new incarnation of an old character. I'd made Kara once before over on Protector server, but I'd never done
anything with her. So I made another on Virtue after getting my fire blaster to near 50. Seemed like a good server. Nice people, decent conversation, and more
Romans than you could shake a very large stick at. Seemed like a good deal. So I built her up as much as the game would allow, and filled the rest into her
bio. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Around midnight-ish, I got really tired. I mean bone-deep tired. I'd been feeling like that for several days now, and I always seemed to go through deep
mood swings in major lightning storms (there was one out the window that night, as I recall), so I didn't think much of it. I logged, staggered over to my
CPAP machine, filled the little humidifier with water, and strapped the business end of the air pressure machine over my face. Then it was lights out.

The funny thing about self-image is how much it shapes who you are, and how you perceive yourself. Normally we don't consider that enough. But when you
throw in an "X" factor, such as the ability to modify yourself based on that image, it gets interesting. Take the next morning for example:

I woke up feeling pretty much like I do most mornings. I staggered into the bathroom and started the shower. Pretty routine stuff. One roommate had already
left for work several hours ago, another was still asleep. I stepped into the shower and reached for the shampoo. While taking care of that, I recalled a post
I'd read involving some kind of lemon fic whose origin I couldn't recall. It had been a particularly tasteful lesbian story, and I ran that around in
my mind briefly while washing my hair. I reached back and worked the shampoo in.

Waitaminnit... My hair wasn't that long...

Sure enough, I could feel hair past the nape of my neck. Now while I might be excused for not getting my hair cut as regularly as I perhaps ought to, I don't have hair that long. I kept reaching down behind my back, trying to
make sense of the sensations. If my hands were to be believed, I had hair down to the small of my back. And a short tug and the brief feeling of pain that
accompanied that proved that yes, it really was my hair. Confused, and dreading the possiblity, I looked down.

Now, I'm not what people would call the model of physical fitness. In fact, it could be charitably said that I really wasn't expecting to see my feet
anyway. But the obstruction started a lot further up than it was supposed to, and I blinked a few times while I tried
to make sense of what my eyes were telling me. I looked up at the far wall, ignoring the warm water cascading down my back, remembering not more than ten
minutes ago. I'd walked into the bathroom: Check. I'd taken care of business, and it had not been as a girl:
Check. Confused, I stepped out of the shower and made my way over to the fog-shrouded mirror, picking up a towel.

I was still concentrating on my previous experience of waking up and getting stuff ready as a guy when I wiped the mirror clean, and saw my own, original face
looking back at me. A quick glance down revealed my usual state of overweightedness and the lack of really long hair behind my head. Really confused now, I
shut down the shower, dried myself off, and went back to the air pressure machine. Ten minutes of checking it later pronounced it fit for use, and I refilled
the humidifier and put the mask back on.

"That's it," I muttered to myself as I drew the curtains closed as much as I could. "Wake me when this makes sense." I rolled over and
went back to sleep, hoping that it would turn out to be a really blurry dream in the morning.

I was not that lucky.

But that was for later in the afternoon...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Dragonflight]

Dreams are funny things. You think you're really awake when you're not, sometimes. Psychiatrists will tell you that you can control your dreams, and in
that state, they're as impossible to tell as the real thing. Well, I've been there. I'm actually very familiar with the process, and I can say with
certainty that there's a level of "reality" to the real world that the dreams just can't fake. And I'm very aware of the difference
between the two.

Which was why I awakened early afternoon and looked around. I'd slept for another four hours. "Wow," I mumbled through the air pressure mask.
"I must have really been out of it." I fumbled the mask off, reached over blindly and pressed the button
that turned the machine off.

I sat up, racked the mask to the side, and immediately noticed a difference. I could feel hair brushing against my back. Closing my eyes for a long moment, I
looked at my hands. Small, long-fingered. "Oh man, this isn't happening, it only thinks it's
happening!" The mantra from TRON not working, I got up and looked myself over.

Despite the total gender change thing, I had to admit I looked pretty good. I was maybe half a head shorter than I'd been, and the change in my perspective
was a little jarring, but I had to admit I liked how light I felt. No more overweight issues. The body moved smoothly,
and didn't ache first thing in the morning. That by itself was something to put in the plus column.

I had another problem of course. As a girl, I had nothing to wear. Well, no problem. If my faulty memory was to be believed, I'd apparently switched back
once before. It should be easy...

Ten minutes later I sort of figured it out and got dressed. The changes seemed to trigger on what gender I was picturing myself as. But other than that, there
seemed to be little conscious control. That actually scared me a bit, as scenes of switching randomly between myself and this alternate form played out in my
head. Oh, and yeah, I actually did switch a few times while playing out the horror stories, which rattled me further
as well.

I recognized the form, of course. I'd created Kara for a friend's Marvel game over a decade ago, and she'd always been my favorite. A relatively
normal girl with the power to wield the thunder itself. Total mastery over electricity, and the ability to generate it internally, coupled with thermal sight,
shapeshifting and advanced ability to recover injury. And I'd rolled her randomly, which still surprised me. But
that only gave me greater pause.

I mean, what do I do with this? Oh sure, the immediate thought is to go super-ing, but that opens a whole new can of
worms. I may have the power of lightning, but a single bullet will kill me deader than last week's mackerel. So it would be a very short career. And while
supers always seemed to find the expensive body armor in the movies, they always seemed to catch a break where the money issue came in. I didn't have that.
Not to mention the other little detail. As myself, I was a Canadian citizen. My character however in the real world was an unlicensed illegal immigrant with no
papers, no licenses, and no place of residence. I get caught romping around as Kara and I'm going to wind up deported or worse in no time. And heaven help
me if I revert while in the clink. There would go any chance at a secret identity, not to mention what would happen if people knew I could do stuff like that.

That's when I realized what my greatest power would have to be. The change. I would have to master that completely. So that it didn't happen unless I
specifically wanted it to.

It was a damn good thing I had a couple months off. I'd need them...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Foxboy]

10:42 pm EDT -- Private Residence in New Hampshire

The paramedic couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a fairly standard 911 call from the folks at this address, but it wasn't the father this time; it was the son. Kind of. The mother and father indicated that he'd been on a computer game and had just fallen out of his chair, unconscious, and that he'd been “twitching and melting” since then. The father had a shell-shocked expression as he worked the digital camera, documenting the incident.

The paramedic didn't blame him, the androgynous figure on the floor was twitching and each convulsion seemed to make it smaller. Facial hair had fallen out in dark clumps across the carpet and the head on the figure's hair was light brown with white streaks at the roots and along the hairline, but the most glaring signal that Something Was Wrong Here was the coruscating red electricity dancing across the skin, with no obvious connection to anything electrical.

Then, the paramedic's partner arrived with the insulated gloves for electrocution cases and they got to work loading their patient into the ambulance.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Terrenceknight]

[COMMENT]
Melting Fox?:EEEEEEEEWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwww! That was an unpleasent Mental image...Jerk

[WengFook]

[Question]

Exactly what has changed in the origins of VIIOR 2.0? It seems so far the only difference is that people are just keeling over and changing? :S
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Valles]

The distinction in why is simply that this time we're not going into why it happened - leaving it inexplicable rather than making the Antimatter tie-in. Mechanically, it seems to be about the same. Meta-ly, this gives people who weren't playing aroudn the time of the orignal start date a chance to get involved - although I'm given to understand that the most productive candidates aren't interested.

Ah, well.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Foxboy]

[Editorial/Response/etc]
Valles has it right, and there are some writers/players who have rolled toons that are more interesting for the concept than when we did it last time.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[OpMegs]

ZERO HOUR +30 MINUTES

She felt...cold.

This wasn't an odd feeling lately. Ever since that massive surge of interference while she'd been checking a few things, she'd been literally
unable to feel the sensation of warmth even as the summer heat outside made ice cubes melt as she watched. The sun's rays simply seemed to slide past her
without touching...or more appropriately, through her.

Her reflection was confusing, for a multitude of reasons. The black bodysuit with small bits of armor more decorative than functional, trailed by a long waist
cape that was currently pooled rather unflatteringly along the sides of her chair as she looked at herself in the mirror. To say she looked paler was a gross
understatement. Her skin was stark white, her hair the same shade, and more than that, her eyes stared back at her, blank white and reflective. And like the
heat in the room, light itself seemed to move through her in odd angles, rendering her translucent...ethereal.

She didn't have to think about what she looked like. She knew. She knew in a way that defied description, even as it denied easy explanation. One moment,
she'd been herself, and now...now she was Ghost Widow. Physically, at least. Mentally....mentally, she was a combination of combating extremes. One half of
her was frightened, no, terrified of the implications of this. Was she dead? Stuck somewhere between life and death? Was she somehow indelibly tainted by the
presence...the essence of what she'd become? The other half...the other half looked at her reflection, looked around at the little trappings of home, of
living, and felt nothing more than ecstatic happiness.

The little things, the socks hanging off the hamper where they'd been tossed, the half eaten microwave dinner off to the side, the handful of assorted
knick-knacks decorating the shelves...these were things normal people had. Sure, her job was hardly the most normal one in the world, but she remembered eating
cereal, drinking a chocolate shake she knew she'd be regretting while looking at her waistline a week later, and generally lounged on the couch watching
cheesy romantic comedies for no other reason than to laugh at the woeful attempts at depicting realistic romantic chemistry. She remembered being the tip of a
spearhead fighting her way through armed men and heavy artillery, sapping life and snapping bone with nothing more than a gesture. She remembers Mu'Rakir
and his misaimed thirst for vengeance against her for the murders she'd committed when newly undead and unbound. She remembers it all, from both sides of
the coin, and realizes that both are almost equally as real

But looking at her reflection, she felt an almost supernatural certainty about what she was going to....needed to do next. Something that the deepest part of
her soul clung to like a rock of shelter in the middle of a hurricane of uncertainty. A fundamental truth that was now at the very core of her being.

***

Kicking back, feet clad in fuzzy slippers as she enjoyed the almost sinful comfort of the bathrobe tied around her recently showered form, Ghost Widow scooped
another bite of triple fudge ripple as the phone finally picked up. "Hey...yeah...Matt? Yeah, yeah it's me. Listen, I just had a bit of a..medical
problem come up, so I'm gonna have to take some unscheduled time off, okay? ....some kind of problems with the servers? Yeah, if you send me the data here,
I can try to do a little work on it when I can....thanks, Matt. Really, you're the best boss ever....no, no, really. Thank you.....right, I will. Seeya
later."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Logan Darklighter]

HA! Ghost Widow in fuzzy slippers enjoying ice cream! That's priceless. ^_^

[Valles]

I woke up with keyboard face. I was slumped over the desk, aching from the awkward andgle and with my limbs sprawled any which way - entirely consistent with an unexpected but nonviolent loss of conciousness. I'd been out long enough that the pattern of control and shift and enter keys was embossed gently into my cheek, but not long enough for my neck and back to start seriously aching and cramping - though the edge of the desk was starting to cut into my breasts something fierce.

At the time, that awareness seemed simply logical rather than something out of place; the alarm bells didn't start ringing until I tried to recall what I'd been doing when I went under, and even then, those instincts were concerned that some outside force had interfered with me when I hadn't felt particularly tired to speak of nor had any other 'natural' reason to lay my head down and ignore the game when the team needed-

And that was when I noticed.

My habit of referring to both Sachie and Nathan in the third person has nothing to do with my feeling seperate from them. In fact, it's a deliberate effort on my part to try to sort out the influence that, from the inside, feel essentially seamless. I have to deduce, conciously, whether an impulse derives from Sachie's trained paranoia or Nathan's idealism, and it's not always easy. Neither of them enjoyed contact with other people very much, nor was either immune to lonliness.

Something very strange had happened, mashing my two prototypes together into one person, though even without checking it was easy to feel in my ease of motion and weight distribution and choice of clothing and a thousand other tiny things that my body was based on only the more capable of the two.

Given their connection to each other, tenuous and unlikely as it was in real terms, the closest thing that I had to a plausible vector for whatever magic or other effect had afflicted me was my computer. Without more information to judge how or why this had happened, it was safest, wisest, to isolate myself from that vector... but I still needed information.

Piece of cake.

I lingered in my (fusty, cramped) basement apartment for exactly long enough to put Nathan's signature on a check for... well. Perhaps I shouldn't say, beyond that it was just short of the amount where a bank would consider it 'out of the ordinary' - where the US government had set its requirement for being informed of 'large' transactions. The payee, of course, was the most innocuous of the several spare IDs that Sachie had had in one of her coat's inside pockets. Unfortunately, the designs of the money in Nathan's wallet - sitting in a pile next to the keyboard with keys and cellular phone - and of several different samples from Sachie's considerable store of ready cash did not match to speak of, meaning that that would be the limit of my immediate starting resources.

Then, in a hurry and reasonably confident that any potential hunters would lack the skills to see through it, I settled into the modest henge that went with that ID - thirty centimeters shorter, somewhat pudgy, forgettable features, black hair - and went to find a bar.

Nathan had never been the sort to frequent that kind of establishment, and even Sachie had never particularly enjoyed them, but most bars in this modern day and age, certainly in the United States, offered one priceless advantage - they had a television, usually tuned to some sports news channel. If this change had only affected me, well and good and I could start trying to find other sources of information; if it were more common, everyone who had been playing City of Heroes or everyone who had been on a computer game of any sort, then the news services would have picked up the story and I could learn a great deal, quietly, simply by watching until they started to repeat themselves.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Matrix Dragon]

I woke up in my computer chair. That was the first clue something was wrong. I don't fall asleep there. I've fallen out of it once, but I've always
managed to make it to bed before my brain shut down entirely. So falling asleep here was WEIRD. Even more bizarre was the fact that when I nudged the mouse,
the screen saver vanished and the City of Heroes login screen appeared, informing me the game had lost connection with the server and crashed.

So, I'd been in game, probably in a mission, and I'd dozed off? That didn't make any sense at all. Something strange was going on, and experience
has taught me that when that happens, there's trouble. Okay, so maybe it was a little paranoid to freak out over falling asleep in an odd place, but when
that sort of thing happens to a hero, you wake up in chains over a tub of acid.

Pushing the chair back, I stood up and looked around, the power cosmic collecting in my hand. The room looked normal, Max was sitting on top of the couch
giving me strange looks, but when I thought about it, my apartment looked... bigger, like everything was further away from everything else then it should be.

As I was wondering about that, my pants fell down. With a girlish squeak, I glanced down at the tracksuit pants and underwear on the ground, grateful that the
shirt I was wearing was so large. Then I realized that the shirt shouldn't be over-sized, that it was meant to be tight around my annoyingly large stomach.
Letting the power fade from my fingers, I pulled my shirt up and over my head, tossing it in the direction of the couch before looking over my naked body.
Small breasts, a flat stomach and slowly widening hips... all familiar, but wrong. Especially what was located right below those hips.

With another, disturbingly feminine shriek, I pulled my eyes back up and looked at Max. The cat, entirely unconcerned, merely looked at me like I was an idiot,
even as my mind finally caught up with the fact that there was something really weird going on, and started putting the memories into two separate piles.
"Ohhh man!" I declared, darting through the kitchen towards the bathroom and the somewhat small mirror. Stopping in front of it, I rolled my eyes and
stood up on tiptoes.

Instead of a slightly flabby, unshaven face, topped off with bushy eyebrows and messy, brown-black hair, I saw a cute little pixie face, surrounded by properly
styled red hair, twin bangs resting on either side of my face. "You've gotta be kidding me!" I protested, even as my second set of memories
confirmed that I was indeed Tamara Reilly, also known as Major Starlight. Kheldian Peacebringer, youngest officer of the PPD, and the fictional creation of my
first set of memories.

"Okay, focus girl... or guy, or... Okay, I think I'm Chris. I mean, this is his place, that's his cat demanding to be fed. Shut up, I fed you
already, there's food in your damn bowl!" I paused, then nodded. That felt like a very Chris thing to do. Unless this was part of some evil scheme by
an evil telepath, but I don't think I've annoyed any telepaths. And what I knew of City of Heroes, and people that I knew as Tamara, suggested that
wasn't the case.

While as Chris, I had a habit of making plans and not following through due to... whatever reason I felt like blaming my laziness and spending habits on,
Tamara was a superhero and a police officer. She made plans and followed through on them because it was her duty.

Maybe it was the fact that I was a Kheldian, and a young one with only one (two?) previous hosts, but dealing with the mixing and melding of memories and
personality was happening without my really needing to think or worry about it. Instead, I was focusing on the much more important issue here. Survival.

Tamara Reilly didn't exist here. No birth certificate, no social security number (Which they don't even use down here). I had only what Chris had
access to, and while I was cute as Tamara, she could hardly walk into his work, or use his drivers license. Which led to my first requirement. Shapeshifting.

Worrying about anyone else could wait until I had my feet on the ground. Besides, I was on a different continent to most of the Legendary players. Until I
could find out if this happened to any of them as well, and until I could contact a teleporter capable of global range, I needed to worry about myself.

Two hours later, after tossing Max outside on the grounds he needs to stop whinging about being fed, I was wearing my work overalls and fitting them in all the
familar places. My hair, my face, my build and height (Regaining a foot in height is nice, by the way), even my voice and, um, gender were as I remembered
Chris being.

Looking down at myself, I frowned. "I feel a hundred pounds heavier," I grumbled to myself. Remembering the training I got about undercover work, I
didn't get too ambitious just yet. I was finishing up annual leave, so clearly I'd been exercising. A few centimeters off the waist, a little bit off
the chin... better.

After a bit of practice, making sure I moved and talked like Chris (Given the other template for my behavior was a teenage girl, getting them mixed up could be
bad), I was finally satisfied with my current circumstances enough to return to the computer and head online, intent on finding out if I was alone in the
strangest day of one of my lives.

[Sofaspud]

If I've told the other folks living here once, I've told them a thousand times: turn everything off before using the microwave!

Do they listen? Of course! ... not.

To be fair, it had been behaving lately. And the big-screen TV had been off for most of the week, its status light blinking desultorily at us in warning that
something inside it was wrong. I knew what it was (stupid convergence chips!); I also knew that I couldn't afford to fix it just yet, so when it
misbehaved like that we just power-cycled it and let it come back online. Except I hadn't done that until today. Why? I dunno. I'm lazy, I guess.
And with my son away and wife at work, who was around to watch TV? For me it was usually background noise at best, I got my media fix the way nature intended:
through the internet.

So, really, Dom (that's my roommate) might just have forgotten that the TV was actually on for a change. I certainly had. I wasn't out there, after
all, I was in my little nook trying to decide if Rhea's costume needed tweaking. And resigning myself to another night of being the odd man out, having
pulled a Spud and logged on after everyone else had started an ITF.

Dom finished stirring his chili and popped it back in the cooker, licking off the spoon as he pressed buttons. He closed the door, punched the start button,
turned to me, opened his mouth to speak--

Thunk.

"Dammit, Dom!" I snarled as the lights went out. From upstairs I heard a faint outcry as Ben was plunged into darkness as well. Fortunately for
him, his computer was on a UPS; he had a few minutes. Fortunately for me, my computer was on a different circuit -- as were the DSL router and my file server,
so we didn't vanish off the face of the 'net or anything drastic like that.

My monitor, however, was on the same circuit as the rest of the house. With a clunk and a buzz, it shut down.

"Sorry!" my roommate protested, a vaguely human-shaped blob of darkness in the shadowy reaches of the kitchen. "I'll go hit the
breaker."

"Yeah," I muttered, leaning back in my chair. "Turn off the TV and the lights first, remember?"

"I forgot!" he protested as he found the basement door and started down the steps -- I could hear the creaks and groans of the old house tracing his
every movement.

I grumbled under my breath as he stumbled down the steps to the breaker box, and waited for the lights to come back on. My headphones dinged as a tell
arrived; I sighed.

"Third one down on the right?" Dom's voice floated up the stairs and echoed through the kitchen to reach me by the back door.

"Fourth," I called back. "Third one is the garage."

"It's not working," he said.

"The fourth one," I yelled again, my irritation coming through in my tone. I glanced through the window to
the front yard, where the dusk shadows were edging into true twilight, and waited for Dom to stop flicking the power to the garage off and on again and find
the right breaker. I wondered briefly if my neighbors enjoyed the impromptu Morse lightshow as the security lamp over the garage door came on... went off...
came on... went off... came on...

Click.

The lights in the rest of the house came back on. I reached up to the switch next to me, an old-fashioned metal-plate type, and turned on the single covered
bulb over my head as the monitor flickered into life again.

I had a glimpse of Rhea's face on the screen and marveled anew at the clarity and sharpness of the sweet Nvidia graphics card before my fingers tingled and
Rhea's face took on a startled expression.

The last thing I remember was Dom's voice drifting through the kitchen again. "It's still not working!"

Thunk.

---

I consider myself a reasonable man. Which is why, upon awakening with a tingly arm and face, and seeing traces of soot around the light switch, I thought
about killing my roommate.

Thought about, but did not act on. I said I'm a reasonable man.

I flexed my fingers carefully and scowled. I've been working on electronics and appliances since I was old enough to hold a screwdriver; electricity and I
were old friends. I knew what mains voltage felt like and could tell that nothing was seriously wrong with me. Or so I hoped, at any rate. Let's face
it, I'm not in the best of shape and that tingly feeling was spreading, not going away.

"Remind me to kick your ass," I growled at Dom as he came around the corner. I glanced at the clock and rolled my eyes at the blinking 12:00; my
computer was off, so no help there.

I didn't remember turning it off, so that second jolt must have been enough to knock it out. I hoped the beast was undamaged; I had only had it back for
my use for a couple days at this point (Ben having been the one using it for the past THREE MONTHS), and would REALLY have to kill Dom if his bungling had
fried my gaming rig before I got any serious use out of it.

"You okay?" he asked as he removed his chili. "You don't look so good."

"What do you expect?" I grumbled, feeling gingerly at my chin. "How would you feel after 110 volts across the nipples?"

"Whoa," Dom said, staring at the bowl in his hand and completely missing my snide remark. "What the hell?"

I followed his glance and frowned.

The microwave had been off -- hell, the whole house had been off! -- and the chili had still been cold when he put it back in. So it was surprising to both of
us to see a burned, congealed mass of dehydrated brown matter in the bowl. It had been chili, before; now it was what you got when you forgot the chili was in
the oven and left it there all day.

"Dude," I said, forgetting momentarily my odd physical sensations. "Overcook it much?"

He shrugged at me. "Hey, it was in there for, like, five minutes, tops!" he said. "I found the right breaker -- it's the fourth one, by
the way -- and went to the bathroom while the chili finished. It doesn't take me THAT long to read Captain America."

"All that on and off action must've fried something in the microwave," I sighed. "Great. Just what I need, another piece of crap to fix
around here."

"Sorry?"

I waved a hand. "Don't worry about it, it's probably just a blown cap or something. I'll figure it out."

He scratched his head. "Guess I'll have to make something else for dinner. What time is it, anyway?"

I glanced at the clock, then at him, raising my eyebrows pointedly. He stared back at me for a moment. I glanced at the watch on his wrist. He followed my
glance.

"... seven forty-five," he said, answering his own question. I nodded.

"Don't you have to be at the show in fifteen minutes?"

"... crap," he replied. "I'll grab McDonalds on the way or something. See ya!"

I sighed wearily as he spritzed himself with Axe bodyspray -- as usual, using three times the legal dose -- and trotted out the door. As the car tires
crunched through the gravel of the driveway, I shook my head and rose. Despite the weird prickling sensation, I felt fine; certainly better than a man my age
had any right to feel after eating a dose of Our Friend The Electron.

I scraped Dom's dehydrated chili du jour into the trash and opened the fridge.

"... what the hell?" I said to myself. Everything in the fridge was ruined. The tub of butter was misshapen and deformed, congealed runny rivulets
leaking down its sides; the milk jug had split and the smell of curdled milk was potent indeed. A package of hamburger looked to be somewhere between medium
and well, with crispy edges. And the ham was bone-dry and stringy, no longer fit for even sandwiches.

It was as though something had cooked everything in the fridge. I reached in and waved my hand around; it was warm, though I could feel cold air coming from
the vents.

I closed the door and went into the living room, a puzzled frown creasing my face. Little Buddy, our very own Long-Haired Social Chihuahua, glanced at me from
where he lay sprawled on the cool tile of the entryway -- then scrambled to his feet, growling and barking.

"Knock it off!" I snapped at him. Something fuggin' weird was going on. I prowled around, looking for
something that would explain it all, and nearly tripped over one of my wife's collection of stuffed pandas.

"Mr. Whiskers!" I cried, scooping up the toy and hugging it to my chest.

I blinked.

"... the hell?"

---

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Terrenceknight]

Spud as Rhea?...Kekekekekeekekeke, the amusement..she is vast

[dark seraph]

my attemped at this, hope it meet's your aproval

---

Sera sat on the edge of the hospital bed, swinging her feet back and forward. 3 hours ago she was… in Cimoria, no he was sitting at his computer playing City
of Heroes… then something happened to the screen. When he… or should it be she now? Yeah, it be less confusing that
way. Had passed out, her family had tried to bring her around then called for an ambulance. When she awoke, she was surrounded by doctors, a quick sweep
of their minds, How had I even done that? Allowing her to figure out the best way to answer their questions.

Her head still hurt a bit, but then having over two thousand years worth of memory's crammed in was bound to do that. Okay, lest thin about this. She thought. I am Joshua… but I'm also Sera… wait….
If I have Sera's body… do I have her powers?



Carefully she looked around to make sure no one was watching and held out her hand.

Slowly, a blade of ice formed in it. Gods that took some effort,
it's almost as if there's no magic here. She let the blade dissipate and decided to try something else.

Slowly she hoped of the bed, wobbling as she got used to her new sense of balance.

Okay, let's try this. Holding her hands out to either side,
she rose a foot off the ground. Holy shit… I can fly. She giggled as she started making laps of the room.

After a while she collapsed on to the bed, a massive grin plastering her face, she went over the negatives of her new body… it was a surprisingly short list
compared to the positives, she no longer needed glasses, she could use magic and she could fly, that was a big one. Sure, she would need new ID and gods only
knew how much paper work she would have to fill out, but hell, it be fun.

She decided to flip on the TV and see what was on the news, she was immediately surprised to see that she wasn't an isolated case, apparently what ever had
happened, it was world wide. Wow, more people like me… wait… what about Chris? She blinked, wasn't he on the
same time she was? If so… did he change too? And what about the guys in America and that?

Well, that can all wait, for now I'm gonna enjoy this. She could feel the mind of a nurse coming to her room
with food. Yeah, this can all wait till after I've had something to eat.

[Sofaspud]

I pride myself on being rational and reasonable. I know I have a temper, so I control it; I've spent my whole life learning various methods of
keeping it in check, from shuri-ryu karate, to tai chi, to meditation, to counting to ten in any of the three languages I can count in (but not speak), to
beating on socially-acceptable inanimate objects such as punching bags and rope-wrapped boards. I don't kick puppies or break things, I don't yell
much and when I do I try to make sure it's directed at the person responsible and not some innocent bystander, and I don't hit people.

So imagine, if you will, the bemusement I was feeling as I tore through the garage in alternating bits of rage and pathetic weeping. I remembered wandering
out here, looking for something. Someone. I didn't know who. It was like my body was on autopilot, and I was a passenger. One that was staring at the
driver in mute shock as they ran every red light, sideswiped a school bus, and put the hammer down when the car was pointed at a pedestrian. My garage was
getting thrashed. Tables, knocked over; cabinet doors with fist-sized holes in them -- from my fist, no less! -- and a spelling bee trophy embedded
in the wall like some strange impromptu throwing star. All the while I was panicking and repeating, "Where is she? Where IS SHE?" over and over
again.

I could feel the hopeless terror coursing through my veins, and it was not mine.

And that was the most terrifying thing of all.

At least, until the first blast of green energy swirled out of my hand -- my hand! -- and blasted the punching bag into oblivion. Fabric flew in all
directions as the beans inside sprayed around like shrapnel, trailing smoke and the acrid stench of melted plastic. Several of them bounced off me, including
my face, and I didn't feel a thing. Literally; they hit with tiny 'thwack!' sounds and bounced away, without touching me. At the same time, the
irreverent ever-present 13-year-old boy in my head perked up at the display of honest-to-goodness energy blasts. I squashed the little snot impatiently; no
matter how cool they were -- and I had to admit, it sure looked awesome -- I had to get a grip on myself before I destroyed too much more of my house.

"Okay, calm down," I said -- feeling like I was trying to talk my body down from a precipice without quite knowing how it had taken us there in the
first place.

"WHERE AM I?!" I screamed in response.

This, I noted clinically, is where the guys with the straightjackets are supposed to show up, isn't it?

As that rolled through my mind, I cradled the stuffed panda protectively and slumped to the floor, scooting backwards to sit with my back to the wall and my
knees drawn up.

I never sit like that. It's not very comfortable, for one, and while I'm flexible, I'm not that flexible. Simple physiology for a guy my
size; we don't fold well.

Cautiously, I tried moving a hand... and found it as easy as ever. Whatever impulse had kept me from stopping myself earlier was apparently gone... but I
could feel the alien presence, now that I realized it was there. That tingling sensation that had been with me since the electricity injection was not injury,
but... a presence.

And I felt a horrible sinking sensation in my gut as the pieces clicked. I'm a pattern person; I see them without trying to. It's helped me in my
career, letting me spot underlying problems in the reams of data I have to analyze; it's failed me miserably in social situations, because individuals
don't all follow the same pattern and you get yourself in trouble assuming they will.

The pattern here was easy. My brain put it together unconsciously and held it up like a child showing off their schoolwork. "See?" it said, waving
the data points around frantically. "Green energy blasts, Mr. Whiskers, you were playing City of Heroes, you're not behaving like yourself, and
electricity. Simple."

Yeah, simple. Unexplicable, impossible, and disquieting... but simple.

I knew who was invading my body, and the smoldering bits of my punching bag lying around were clear evidence that her abilities -- some of them, at
least -- were along for the ride. I knew her better than anyone, and why shouldn't I? I created her.

And she was completely, entirely, and thoroughly insane.

I'd told people this time and time again. It had seemed like a fun quirk at the time -- Rheabeth Samuels, former combat medic turned superhero after a
mysterious incident, oh, and, by the way, she thinks her stuffed cat is really some sort of alien superpowered cat-creature from beyond space and time, sent
here to rescue humanity from itself.

Oh, this was going to be wonderful.

I set aside the sarcasm and cleared my throat. This next bit could well be tricky. Rhea would take careful handling, if I were to keep her from --

"I'm not deaf, you know," I said into my knees, my voice choked by a sob but conveying indignation all the same -- and female.

"Sorry!" I replied automatically -- and blinked. My snark-to-mouth filter failed to make the catch, and I opened my big yap again. "Great.
Both of us are talking to ourself. Does that make me as nuts as you are?"

Oooh, bad move, Brian.

"I'm not crazy," Rhea said -- using my vocal cords but in her own voice.

"One of us is," I replied. What can I say? I like playing Rhea, I don't want to be her.

"Hmph," she replied, and buried our face in our knees again.

Gah.

"Okay, um, sorry, I'm not at my best when someone invades my mind without warning. Y'know, 'cause usually folks call ahead before
taking up residence in my skull." I shook our head.

"I want to go home," Rhea replied, ignoring my sarcasm.

"You and me both, crazy lady," I muttered under my breath -- and winced in agony as a headache blossomed in my skull.

"Don't call me crazy," Rhea hissed. "I'm not. I'm sorry you can't hear Mr. Whiskers -- he
doesn't like you very much, by the way -- but just because you can't hear him doesn't mean he doesn't talk... you jerk!"

I held up the panda. "Look, Rhea, see? Panda. Not cat. Panda. This isn't Mr. Whiskers -- god, what am I doing? I'm talking to
myself in my garage. I'm the crazy one!"

She sighed. "He's in disguise, hello?"

Right. Okay then. Disguise. Yyeaaaah.

We sat in silence for a bit.

"So... nice weather, huh?" I said lamely.

She tensed our shoulders and squeezed Mr. Whiskers -- the panda, gah, the panda! -- tighter, but didn't reply.

"Okay, well, here goes nothing," I said at last. "I'm the blunt type, so I'm going to just get it over with. Are you Rheabeth
Samuels?"

"How'd you know my name?"

"That's a 'yes'. Next question: how'd you get in my head?"

She raised our head and looked around. "I... don't know."

"Great," I sighed.

"You're a guy," Rhea said, staring at our hand in shock.

"Yes, and?" I replied. "Hey, wait a second!"

My words went unheeded as we scrambled to our feet and ran for the full-length mirror in its stand, out here in storage. Rhea swiped some dust away from the
surface and stared at our reflection. I somewhat irritatedly reached out and adjusted it to a better angle. We regarded ourself thoughtfully. I noted that
my eyes had changed color, from my normal dull brown to Rhea's vibrant green, peeking out from under dark brown, almost black eyebrows and hair. That
appeared to be the extent of any physical change, though the ease with which I moved suggested somthing not visible was subtly altering me as well. But
visibly, there I stood in all my (hah!) glory -- six-plus feet of overweight, middle-aged, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, with glasses. And a ponytail.

"... you're, um, out of shape."

"Oh, you noticed?" I replied sourly. "I thought I hid it better than that."

"Really out of shape."

"Yes, thank you, I get the point." I tossed a nearby dropcloth over the mirror and scowled.

"What's going on here?" It was so odd hearing Rhea's voice -- just as I'd always imagined it, sultry yet chipper, with a very faint
Southern accent -- coming out of my throat.

"I wish to hell I knew," I replied... and my brain poked me again. Patterns, y'see. "Wait a sec," I said, and hurried back into the
house. Little Buddy growled and barked at me again as I entered, and I shushed him absently. I intended to get to my computer and see if this was widespread
or if I was the only one who'd gone nuts -- ow, stop it, Rhea! -- but the thump of footsteps overhead gave me pause.

I wasn't sure I was up to facing Ben just now. Or anybody, for that matter.

I spun away from my computer nook and passed back through the living room, scooping up my work laptop and my old gaming laptop as I went. Out of sight, out of
mind... and the garage was as far out of sight as one could get at my house. It wasn't attached to the house proper, the door could lock, and the windows
were painted black. I could hide there until I figured out how to get the crazy lady -- OW! -- out of my head!

"Knock it off with the migraines and I'll forget the word crazy," I muttered at Rhea as I struggled through the garage door, burdened by two
laptop cases and a stuffed panda. "Deal?"

"Fine," she replied in a huff. I sighed and set about setting up the computers. God bless wi-fi, that's all I have to say. In moments they
should be up ... and... why were they not booting?

"Your computers are broken," Rhea observed helpfully.

"Not broken," I growled as I perused the systems. "Wiped clean. What the hell?"

Rhea was very suddenly and carefully silent. I attempted to turn and glare at her, realized that that would be the equivalent of chasing my own tail, and
sighed. "Okay, Rhea, what did you do?"

"Mr. Whiskers says he's sorry, but EMP does nasty things to computers?"

I whimpered.

"Um... sorry?"

I shook my head. "Y'know, people call me paranoid." I rose and went to the cabinet at the far end of the garage, opening it and scrounging
within for the object I knew to be in there. "I figure it's just good sense, mostly." I returned to the workbench where the laptops sat and
opened the heavy metal safety case. "But until you came along, I never would have figured on my backup images being used to recover from a
fucking EMP burst."

I hoped they'd survived. I didn't know the range or limits on Rhea's powers here in the real world, and the case was rated against fire damage,
not nuclear weapons.

Ignoring the odd sensations in my mind as Rhea did the mental equivalent of poking around looking for a place to sit, I set to work restoring the laptops.

Damn, I hope the wi-fi still worked...

---

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Unicorna]

Tap Tap Tap

Spud glared at the
door. Even though the person was knocking at the front door, he could
hear it clearly. After the night he'd been having, he didn't really
want to answer.

Tap Tap TapTapTapTap!
Whoever was out there was
getting more insistent on being let in.  Well, he was over here in the
garage and not the house, maybe they'd think nobody was home.
"Dammit Spud! Let me in, we need to talk!"

He gasped and sat up as she recognized the voice. Jumping up
to open the side door to the garage, he looked at the familiar woman
standing in the yard.
"Uni!"
*ZOT*
******
I
blinked when the door opened. I heard his voice, but that was followed
immediately by a bright green blast hitting me in the chest. It felt
like being hit with a wet water balloon, and the light bounced off my
chest leaving it slightly warm but nothing else. I'm sure that wouldn't
have been the case... before. I looked up at Brian and he seemed to be going between looking concerned and
glaring at, well, it wasn't me, but I couldn't tell what.

"Ohmigod, Amy, are you okay? I didn't mean- Dammit Rhea, we don't go around shooting friends!"
"I have no idea who this person is! It was just a reflex."
"Well stop that! I don't want to be throwing around radiation in my own HOME."

"I said I was sorry..." The feminine voice coming from Spud's mouth
mumbled as he walked out to the yard long enough to grab me by the arm
and pull me into the garage, closing the door behind him. Inside the
garage it looked like a war zone, stuff was *everywhere*.

"Look, Uni,  I'm really sorry. It's just, some weird stuff has happened... why are you laughing?"
I
couldn't help it, I'd started giggling. Hearing two completely
different voices coming from Spud's mouth and the neutrino bolt and
everything had finally piled up to the point of ridiculous. I leaned
against the wall, laughing hard enough to have tears in my eyes.

"It's not funny." The feminine voice said which only sent me
further into hysteria. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor,
unable to even support myself anymore. He glared down at me, and it was
even funnier when I saw two different expressions warring on his face,
both trying to win but neither quite making it.

I closed my eyes, I had to pull myself together. This wasn't
helping. "Okay okay, I'm sorry I laughed! Gimme a minute here."  I took
a few deep breaths and got myself calmed down. I finally could breathe
normally and opened my eyes to look back at him... and the expressions
were still warring. I looked away quickly before I would start laughing
again. I came up here for a reason anyways. "Okay, what the hell is
going on?"

Spud just sighed and buried his head in his hands. "I have no clue.
The circuit blew again and when Dom got the power back on I was
electrocuted and when I came to I had Multiple Personality Disorder."

While he was talking I saw the laptop laying to the side, open but not
on. My hand brushed against it and in a moment the screen flickered on
and began pulling up Firefox, the CoH launcher, and Trillian
simultaneously. It hadn't even booted, it was just working. It was processing information and I knew what was
happening without even having to see the screen.  Not to mention the
laptop was flying at speeds that previously would have had it venting
smoke. That got Spud's attention as he looked over at the screen,
fascinated and a little bit freaked out at the same time.
"Uni... how are you doing that?

"Well, that's part of
the reason I came up here." I shifted, my body literally shrunk to
nearly half it's height as I returned to the form I had woken up in
nearly three hours ago. Spud's shocked face looked almost funny in the
pink glow my eyes were now putting off. "You aren't the only one who
was affected by whatever happened tonight."

"Wait, I know you..." The woman's voice came from Spud's body
again. His eyes squinted, and I noted with surprise that they were green now. "You're that tank, the one from Riot..."

I nodded. "That's right. Quick-"
"SILVER!" Apparently Spud
had against lost control of their body again as he pounced at my diminutive body in a patented Rhea tackle-hug. "Silver! What are you doing here, do you
know how we got here? What's happening?"

I held him(her?) for a moment as my mind raced, I had to convince
her I was Silver. The body and the nannites were Silver, but the brain
was completely Amy. "I'm not sure Rhea. That's what we're going to have
to figure out." I held her out at arms length and looked up (way up...
geez I'm short like this) into her eyes. "We're going to have to work
together to figure this one out. You, Me, and Spud. And speaking of,
let him have control of the body for a bit, alright?"

"Okay. I'm just glad someone I know is here too. Promise me you won't leave?"
"Don't
worry, I'll be here. I may go back to looking like Uni for simplicity
sake, but I'm still Quicksilver inside, just like you're you inside of
him, ok?"

She nodded. "Alright." Spud shook his head slightly as his
mannerisms changed to what I was used to seeing from him. "So...
Silver. Is Amy still in there?"  Guess I have to fool him too. Anything
he knows I'd bet Rhea knows also.

"Yeah, give me a second here." My body quickly shifted back to my
normal look, for which I was secretly relieved. At least I was back to
my normal six foot height. I hate being short. "There. Now, I'm keeping
a figurative eye on the laptop for now, but don't you think we should
probably start cleaning this place up? It looks like a tornado blew
through here."

Spud surveyed the room as a quiet "oops" came from his lips in
Rhea's voice. Together we began putting the garage back together as
much as possible.

[dark seraph]

quick somthing i drew after reading OM's VIIOR...... she to damn cute

Edit: inked it so it look a little better

[Matrix Dragon]

***

First place to check was the Legendary forums. That involved people I know. I suppose it would make more sense to check the games official forums, but
they're buried in flames and chaos anyway. Any 'oh my god, I turned into my characters' would be buried under complaints that more people became
their heroes then their villains, and that the devs clearly favor blueside.

It looked like a quiet day in the forums though, meaning that it either didn't happen to anyone else, or they weren't sure how to ask 'did anyone
else get turned into their game characters too?'. Which made sense really. I mean, I had no idea how to ask that without looking crazy.

I was about to load up City of Heroes and check in there, when Gtalk informed me there were people online. Given everyone I spoke to in Gtalk classed as damn
good friends who I played City of Heroes with, it was the perfect chance.

Chris: Hey Spud.

Brian: Yo.

Chris: Um, Listen. There's a question I need to ask you, and it's probably going to sound really really weird.

...

Even for us.

Brian: Yes, we've been turned into our characters too. Who'd you get?

For a moment, I paused. "Well, that saves the hassle of asking weird questions," I said to myself.

Chris: Uh, Major Starlight. You guys?

Brian: Well, Amy got turned into Silver, and I'm Rhea.

Sort of. She's in my head

... Okay, she hijacks the controls at will and it's really annoying!

Hi Tam! Did you end up in a really out of shape body too? I did. It's a guy, he's old, he's big and now he's being all grumpy at me for saying
it!

And he's telling me I'm crazy! Just because I got put in his body by some evil supervillian and he can't hear Mr Whiskers who's wearing a
disguise by the way, he looks like a panda now so that the bad guy that did this to us doesn't see him!

I gave the chat window a worried look. Okay, I needed to get over there somehow and help Amy keep Rhea from making Spud try and strangle himself. Of course,
I'm in Australia, they're in America. Flying over there wasn't really an option. For starters, it'd be a long, madness inducing flight, two,
the USAF might notice me heading their way and I'd rather not test my cosmic shielding against a missile or four.

And I'd need a way to get back here, and fast. Leaving my life behind was not an option really. I needed money, a roof over my head, a functional identidy,
and we'd only lost my brother six months ago, like hell I was putting mum through that again.

I frowned, nibbling on a chocolate bar I'd gotten from a nice candy store not too far from the Steel Canyon base portal, then paused and looked down at it.
Where'd I get that from? I certainly didn't have it a moment ago. In fact, thinking back, it seemed to appear... out... of... nowhere.

Moving back from the computer desk, I stood up and concentrated, reaching into an odd little pocket reality, pulling out a large shotgun loaded with blessed
shotgun rounds. "Well well," I said with a grin. It seems that despite whatever else may be going on, I still had my little 'hammerspace'.
Smile widening, I pulled out my mission teleporter. It's screen was currently blank, no mission input. Grinning, I punched in a simple mission, grabbed my
keys and fired it up... And a few seconds later, my perspective of reality shifted as I appeared at my front door.

"Mission: take out out the trash is accepted," I grinned, going back inside and sitting down.

Chris: Spud, I've got an idea...

***