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[b][u][center]The Start of a Hero's Life

for arrowquivershaft

by Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

The training session was over, and Lindsey was the only one still in the gym. Other attendees - some shifters, some low-level meta-humans - had already filed out of the room, leaving her alone with the various weight machines, barbells, and mirrors that lined the open space in the middle of the room. She sat on the edge of one of the machines, staring at the empty space for a few minutes before finally pulling herself upright.

"Nnngh..."

She felt the strain as soon as her spine straightened and leaned on the machine until the phantom spasm faded. The doctors told her that it would fade completely sooner or later, considering there was no damage left to cause it, but her mind remembered. Oh, it remembered everything -

[i]Mmmmph...don't want to go down that road right now. Not now, not now...[/i]

Lindsey shook her head again, waiting for the last of the spasm in her back muscles to pass before letting go of the weight machine. She walked around it, turning to face the mirror wall as she looked herself over.

"Well...at least I'm not out of shape..."

She forced a smile, hoping that a real one would eventually replace it. It didn't, but she kept smiling anyway, flexing one arm and then letting it fall to her side again when it didn't help.

It was hard to be happy. Even after all the work that she'd done in physical therapy and everything else, her body remembered what it had been put through while she'd fought the Shatterer, and how hard she'd been beaten by the other, far more powerful super.

Much as she tried to hold the memory at bay, it snuck up on her and pinned her down again. The explosions of the villain's shatter-points, the beatings from that powerful tail, the way that she had been manhandled as if she were nothing: it was all still there, all burned into her brain as a perpetual memory of what she had gone through. She could still feel the bruises that had long-since faded, could remember the strain and crack of her ribs breaking as she was thrown against one barrier and stand and bike-rack after another. Her body had been wrecked, and one blow had come damn close to putting her eye out, from what the doctors had told her.

She was lucky to be alive. And...

Lindsey slowly turned, pulling up the back of her workout shirt. Old marks were still there, cracked flesh and burn stains from some of the explosions in that fight. Just seeing them almost sent her heart pounding out of her chest, but she managed to pull it back by the skin of her teeth.

It was done. She wasn't on fire, she wasn't burning. She was alive, she was healthy, she was fine.

But the marks were still there. Despite shifting time and time again since getting out of the hospital, the marks were still there along the middle of her spine. She was starting to think that it would never completely go away.

[i]I could have died. And the only reason I didn't was because that phoenix stood up and got back in the fight for me.[/i]

She couldn't wait to get back to her old job tending to the animals at the wellness center and the various vet clinics around the city. Everything that she had gone through was more suitable for a [i]hero,[/i] not just a shifter. Once everything settled down, she'd feel better. That was what she told herself, at least.

She pulled the back of her shirt back down -

"Lindsey Stelzer?"

Only to jump at the new voice. She whipped around - her back aching as she did - and found herself face to face with a dark-skinned woman standing on the other side of the weight machine. Short, a bit stocky, the other woman wore a black leather coat and a pair of ripped jeans, with a white, sleeveless shirt underneath. A pair of sunglasses were pulled up and over her head, resting on her scalp as she looked over the weight stacks.

"Who are you?" Lindsey asked.

"Jumpy?"

"...A bit."

"Heh. Not a bad thing; keeps you alive in this kind of business."

"Business?" Lindsey asked.

"Heh, not buying it?"

It took a great deal of effort to keep her face as blank as it was. Meta-humans weren't necessarily 'secret,' per se, and she had hardly been circumspect during the city-wide fight with the Shatterer, but it was one thing to be unmasked during a fight and something else entirely to volunteer information to someone else. Particularly in a gym that was used regularly by other meta-humans with the expectation that they wouldn't be dealing with 'normal' people.

The other woman sighed. Pulling her sunglasses from her head, she folded them and tucked them into her jacket pocket. After taking that off and putting it on the seat of the machine, she cracked her knuckles and stretched her arms overhead -

[i]Shimmer.[/i]

And what followed was a fast-shift that put most anything Lindsey could do to shame. The other woman went from human to black-furred panther in the space of half a second, her fur shimmering down from her fingers to her shoulders and face, and then down the rest of her body. She stood taller as her feet cracked and her shoes stretched around paws, and her tail jetted out from under the tight shirt she wore.

Lindsey stared, waiting for the hiss of pain that she would have let out at a fast-shift at that speed, but there was none. This woman was good...and more to the point, with that sheen to her dark fur, Lindsey knew who she was.

"Shade-Sight," she muttered.

"Call me Harriett," the other meta-human said as she shifted back to her human self. "Still, at least you know I'm not pulling your leg here."

Indeed. Shade-Sight was one of the meta-human heroes that didn't hit the papers very often, but was still one of those names that got around. Mostly because she was an information-gatherer and 'scout' for some of the other meta-humans in the city. If Shade-Sight was interested in you, then something big was coming down the pipe in your direction, usually something that was going to up-end your life in a huge way.

Which was not something that Lindsey wanted right at that point.

"What do you want with me?" she asked as Harriett pulled her jacket back on.

"Nothing big," the other woman said. "Well, not 'big' to me, I guess. Probably would be to you."

"Great."

"Heh, trust me, most people would love to be in your shoes. They'd be idiots, but they'd love it."

"Just...hit me with it," Lindsey said, shaking her head. "What is it?"

"An official invitation to be a hero."

"..."

"Yeah, figured you'd be one of the stunned ones," Harriett said, sitting down on the machine. "I'll give you a minute."

She needed one. Heroes were the next step up from meta-humans. Shifters and low-level metas existed, but they didn't tend to do a lot of 'crime-solving' or super-things. They met together to keep an eye on each other's powers, offer advice, and figure out the best way to live as something that was more than human. It was more like a support group than anything else, keeping other 'normal' humans out that wouldn't understand the unique issues.

And now, she was being offered the chance to step forward and do something else, something more, something incredibly dangerous. And she already knew why. She groaned, rubbing her forehead.

"This is about the whole thing with the Shatterer, isn't it?"

"'Fraid so, girl," Harriett said, shaking her head.

"Fuck."

"Heh. You have the right way of looking at this. Ain't a promotion, is it?"

"I just wanted to get back to a normal life."

"Now [i]that[/i] is never going to happen. Not even if you say no."

"...That was an option?"

"Always is, but lemme tell you. It's not a good one. The fact that we noticed you enough to make the offer just means that we're the first ones doing it; you're going to get more, and not necessarily from better people. [i]Normal[/i] isn't going to be an option; it's just what kind of [i]different[/i] you're going to be."

"But I'm not..."

"A hero?"

"I'm a shifter. At [i]best.[/i]"

"Not everyone that becomes a hero has a big power. Hell, most of us don't. We just have the urge."

"What do you mean?"

"The urge to stand," Harriett said, shaking her head. "And you already felt that one. If you'd laid down with the Shatterer -"

"That's different."

"Not really. Yeah, it was a bigger thing, but you coulda laid down and just stopped. You could have avoided challenging the Shatterer in the first place. You could have done all kinds of things. But you didn't. You stood up, you held the line, and you did the right thing for as long as you could. And that's all we need."

"..."

"Like I said, you can say no, but...well, you'll get other visitors. And I can't promise they'll be good people."

Not good people. That was putting it mildly, she was sure. Someone like Shade-Sight didn't beat around the bush, she was sure of that, too. Leaning against the mirrors, she looked down at the floor, lost in her thoughts.

A hero. It wasn't something she ever wanted to be. Her life revolved around animals more than people, and she often preferred them. They were soft, simple, and often, kind. She could do so many things to help them with her powers, and she wanted to get back to that.

But from what Shade-Sight was saying -

"Do you guys have part-time positions?" Lindsey asked.

"Sure do."

"...I'd like that, if you don't mind."

"Good call." Shade-Sight nodded, getting back to her feet. "I'll call that in. You got a name in mind?"

"I...never thought of one, honestly."

"Now's the time to start, heh."

"...Anyone have 'Metamorph' yet?"

"Oddly enough, no. Huh. You'd think that one would have been taken already, but no. You want it, it's yours."

She nodded. Harriett smiled, patted her shoulder, and walked out without another word. Lindsey sat down again, shaking her head. Funnily enough, her back hadn't ached once during that whole talk.

She wondered if that meant anything.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: A shapeshifting woman is approached for more heroic work.

Tags: No Sex, Human, Shifter, Anthro, Transformation, Panther, Gym, Introspection, Personal Thoughts, Figuring Out Your Future,