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TRINITY

(Phreak)

Supported by my Patrons

It had once been said that for every particle of dust in the universe, the odds of them combining in such a sequence to produce life was an astronomical impossibility, let alone complex life. Yet, in the vastness of the universe there were so many particles of dust that they had formed stars, planets, nebulae and countless phenomena stranger and more absurd than life. The sky was full of trillions of stars, and below that sat a city glittering like jewels rising from the ocean. Some would have claimed there were nearly as many points of interest in Trinity as there were in the cosmos, though one of the crowning jewels had to be the Trinitron Industries campus on North End.

While Genetech had gone tall with its tower and Cellucore had gone deep into the city plates, Trinitron had claimed the most square footage. It had been a gamble at first, but the dividends had paid off time and time again. The company had rebranded itself from its former glory as they laid claim to Trinity and the symbiotic relationship had paid off. Even with the sun set far beneath the horizon and the glittering stars of the Milky Way above, Trinitron's B-Block had a faint greenish-gold glow that radiated out from the steel and glass ceiling toward the stars above.

The unceremoniously named B-block was built like a great atrium with vast panes of glass suspended by a spider-web of angled steel and titanium. In many ways it might have looked like a great arena or stadium from a distance, but what it housed was far more scientific in nature. Even B-block's floor was made of the same segmented metal and glass revealing an enormous mechanism beneath. Great rings spun within one another, some perfectly centered on one another in various sizes while others seemed to be on their own orbit. The atrium built over B-block had been a necessity. The machine it housed used components too large to be built on site, and if any of them ever needed to be replaced, they would have to be lowered into place by crane. The source of the gently pulsing greenish-gold light came from the center of the machine as if someone had captured the earliest light of dawn in a bottle.

It was a marvelous view from above - less so from ground level. One could certainly see the motion of the great machine through the floor when looking down, but there wasn't any way to take in the full scale or scope. The system had been working flawlessly since its first activation nine months earlier. It had been working so flawlessly that the day to day operation had gradually become mundane despite the far reaching potency of the experiment. All of that motion and movement, all of those systems working in tandem, bringing everything into a singular focus to open a window to other realms, other possibilities and other realities.

While additional thresholds could be deployed from the floor, only one was left active at the moment. A pair of crescent shaped metal emitters focused the energy from below into an aperture where a milky pearlescent containment field revealed glimpses of the great beyond. Sensor clusters recorded whatever they could safely register from the other side. That information was relayed to thousands of workers to dissect and study. The machine itself ran on the exotic particles generated by the universe itself, or in this case by the multiverse. All of that potential, all of that discovery, and it had fallen on a junior most intern to babysit the great machine on Halloween night. After all, even with the ability to peek into other dimensions, an artificial intelligence couldn't be trusted to determine if whatever they were looking at was actually interesting or dangerous. As far as Perseus Cantu was concerned, there hadn't been anything interesting in weeks.

The twenty year old sat in the chair at his desk, a pair of double monitors filled to the brim with the readings of the current reality displayed by the aperture; oxygen, nitrogen, electromagnetic flux, gravity, radio waves, ultraviolet light. The view appeared to be another version of the Trinitron Atrium. If it hadn't been for a slight difference in alignment or the fact that the light on the other side edged more into the blue spectrum, it could have passed for an empty archway rather than a portal.

Perseus' eyes were not on the portal, nor on his computer screen. His eyes were gazing down at the tablet in his lap as he swiped through pictures of elaborate halloween costumes and cosplays from around the world. Each breath he took was exhaled with a bit of a weary sigh. Halloween was his favorite time of the year, it always had been even as a child. He'd even brought in a small LED powered plastic Jack-O-Lantern and a glow in the dark plastic spider to try and feel the slightest bit more festive. The reason for the holiday's prominence in his heart wasn't so much about the candy, although that hadn't hurt, it was more about the opportunity to become someone or something else. Even this many years later, Perseus longed for that escape.

The intern had grown from a skinny, pale, shy boy into a skinny, pale, shy man. His face was still angular with a pointed chin and fair cheeks, his hair a dark brownish-black. His white lab coat and slacks chafed his personal sensibilities and his shoulders were slumped as he once again thought about how he was missing out on the one night a year where he could pretend to be anyone or anything. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was out of sick time, he would have called in sick. He'd even called in sick recently without that lifeline, enough that he'd gotten the talk from his supervisor. No one would believe he was sick this time, and as much as he longed for freedom, he couldn't turn away from a job that paid so well.

The rings beneath the floor had been accelerating steadily, but now the increase in momentum was noticeable. The great machine continued to speed up, reaching its zenith as the aperture shimmered and shifted, the familiar view on the other side of the portal disappearing and being replaced by an inky blackness. If it hadn't been for the containment field, Perseus would have assumed that he'd been looking into the core of a black hole. There was no light, no motion, no depth or width, no particulate. Only the faint pearlescent glow around the aperture indicated the event horizon.

Having accomplished the transition to a new reality, the rings began slowing down again... but Perseus could feel something was different. As his computer screen began to fill with red and orange text as every readout came back negative, the intern could feel the rings beneath his feet slowing down too fast. The great machine worked in a constant ebb and flow, rising and falling, but maintaining an equilibrium. The universal constant provided enough energy for it to keep on its work, moving from one reality to the next, but this one was different. The computers were already confirming the lack of exotic particles, or any particles. The aperture had connected to a universe that had either reached a point of maximum entropy and heat death or a universe that had never started in the first place.

Perseus rose to his feet, moving away from his desk. He walked across the atrium, his feet echoing on the floor. He moved up to the edge of the barrier and looked beyond. The huge rings beneath his feet slowed down enough that each rotation sent a mild shudder through him. The vibrational dampers suppressed the actual sensation, of course, but Perseus felt it all the same. If the rings stopped entirely it would take an enormous fortune to start up again, perhaps even enough that the budget would have to be restructured. If that happened, the brand new intern that oversaw the cessation of Trinitron's most important experiment would be the first to get the axe. He had to do something...

How could a universe survive with nothing? No matter, no energy, absolutely nothing. The machine fed off of the surplus energy to keep going, to move onto new realities. Maybe all that nothingness just needed a little push, a little change. The intern spun around and jogged back to the desk of one of his coworkers, opening it up. He rummaged around, looking for one of the probe drones. He tried one drawer, then the next, grunting with frustration before he finally opened the bottom drawer and saw the little octagonal object loaded down with camera lenses and sensor clusters. It was a little larger than an apple and many times heavier.

There had been, at one point, a clear series of videos and paperwork documenting what any employee should do in the event that Trinitron's ability to peer into other realities appeared to be in jeopardy. At the moment Perseus couldn't remember what they had said because he'd been too focused on trying to prevent his trainer from calling him 'Percy' again. There had been something about optical risk assessment, the proper chain of command, an advisory panel. There had not been anything about chucking a probe into an absolute and complete void. Still, what was the worst thing that could happen? They could fire him... That was probably going to happen eventually anyway.

Perseus came to a stop in front of the aperture, looking into the nothingness on the other side. He held the weighty probe in his hands, breathing in and breathing out. The biggest ring beneath him was still turning but it looked as though it wasn't likely to make another complete rotation. With one last breath to steel himself, Perseus stepped forward and gave the probe an underhanded toss through the protective barrier. The object slipped through the field, immune to the other space time until its last atom passed all of the way through the barrier. The explosion was instant.

Despite the dampers and absorbers in the building, the floor shook enough that Perseus was knocked to the ground. The big ring had set off at breakneck pace, revitalizing the smaller rings. Some of the secondary systems were spinning so fast that they appeared to be translucent spheres of metal beneath the floor. The computer system that had been registering absolute nothingness now flashed and flooded with readouts of impractical, illogical and imaginary numbers. Light spilled out of the aperture like a lightpost, washing over Perseus.

Dazed and dizzy, Perseus felt as though he'd accomplished something. It was only in that moment that he started to realize the ramifications. If he had been wrong and that universe had not been empty, had he destroyed whatever was there? Even if it had actually been empty, what had he just taken on by creating a new universe? Had he taken such actions in an attempt to save a company that barely knew he existed money that they already had in abundance? Had it been some subconscious attempt to affect change in a life where he felt powerless?

The young man slowly put one hand down on the glass floor, then another and pushed himself up. As he raised his head to look through the portal, he saw a dizzying array of light and motion with colors beyond the spectrum that he had always known. There were spheres, waves, fractals and shapes that defied logic or understanding. The shapes spilled in on one another, growing more complex and intricate... and yet Perseus saw something in there, something that seemed oddly familiar.

While everything on the other side of the aperture was moving at incredible and blinding speeds, something was staying relatively near the center of the field of view. Whatever they were, there were several. Despite emitting light themselves, the dots seemed darker by comparison to the ambient glow. At first they floated in place, but as Perseus watched they reoriented themselves into a ring, then as he watched they closed in toward the center to create a bright point of light. As they passed through one another and expanded outward again, the center of the ring was filled with a complex sigil of glowing golden lines. The sigil shone on Perseus' eyes, growing brighter and brighter. His irises should have contracted to shield against the light, but instead they dilated until they were nearly solid black.

In that moment Perseus saw everything. His own life seemed to shrink back in the face of light and darkness, gravity and energy, planets and nebulae and evolution and life. It wasn't even just this new universe that filled Persesus' senses. He felt echoes of the other realities he had watched, even his own universe. It all hummed around him like an instrument being played, one prominent instrument amid an orchestra of others.

Perseus tried to find his way back to himself, to find his own body. It was like walking through a blinding snowstorm, but he tried to anchor himself. It had been Halloween, but as he thought of that moment he saw every Halloween he had lived. The young man focused harder, reaching through the blinding light for himself, finally finding his own hand. The bright light snapped off and the dizzying array of the multiverse suddenly contracted back in an instant to a single dimension. Perseus' eyes rolled into the back of his head before he promptly toppled forward again and felt his forehead smack against the hard glass.

It was too hard to think, too hard to process. He couldn't even keep his eyes open. At some point the light seemed to die back, becoming less intense.It was almost pleasant through Perseus' eyelids. The vibration of the machine was gone, though the pressure of a hard surface against his forehead remained. Perseus felt hot, and more than a little sweat soaked. He also heard music - not the music of the cosmos, but something with a loud, rowdy, high tempo. With every ounce of strength he had, Perseus slowly sat up and realized he wasn't in the Atrium anymore, he was in a bar...

The intern's eyes blinked as he looked around. There was no mistaking it. He was sitting on a stool at a u-shaped bar with a synthetic wood top. The wall behind the bar was loaded from floor to ceiling with exotic glass and plastic bottles of countless liquids, all of them backlit by a milky white partition.White Christmas lights were spread in webs across the ceiling to create an ambient golden white glow that wasn't too harsh, although numerous plastic jack-o'lanterns and ghost lanterns had been distributed through the bar to make it seem more festive. The orange and green LED lights flickered inside, pale imitations of the light that had spilled into Perseus.

The air smelled of liquor and smoke. The floor vibrated with the bass of the stereo system. There was the audible crack of pool balls impacting one another. People sat in booths, at the bar, a few stood and a few danced. It was energetic and lively, quite the opposite of how Perseus felt. There was a tiredness that had taken root between his ears, snaking from his sinus to his spine. It felt as if he was too tired to sleep, as if he didn't even have enough energy to do the things he loved doing. Had the creation of a universe aged him? Was it just the crash after a rush of adrenaline? Whatever had happened, no matter how Perseus felt, he was out of the lab, he was alive and it was Halloween. Whatever fate awaited him, there wasn't anything stopping him from taking in the scenery. Perseus reached for the bottle of beer on the counter before he hesitated, realizing his fingernails were painted blue... He hadn't painted them since he was in high school.

Perseus raised his hand, looking at it on one side and then the other. His nails weren't just blue, they were the most perfect shade. He couldn't see a single error, a single spot where he'd hit the skin or missed the nail. It was flawless. Perseus' glance shifted from his nails to his wall of bottles in front of him, seeing a hint of more blue in his reflection. He rose to his feet and turned around, looking quickly for anything that might be more reflective than a beer glass. In the end he opted for the bathroom. Zigging and zagging through the other patrons, some in costume and some not. Perseus made it through the bathroom door and shut it behind him, glancing around. Thankfully the bathroom seemed to be unoccupied. His shyness put at ease at the moment, he moved over in front of the mirror and froze.

The face looking back at Perseus was as startled as he felt, but it wasn't quite the face he remembered. His feathered hair was no longer a boring shade of brownish-black. It was a bright topaz blue. More than that, the way the light slipped through the strands almost translucently, it wasn't just a dye job either. Perseus reached up and pulled his hair back to expose the roots. They, too, were blue. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a song about a boy that woke up with blue hair and how he had reacted to it. There was a faint glint of light from across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose as if he had freckles made of glitter. His pronounced bottom lip was now framed with two rings of metal on either side of the center line and larger earrings glinted from his ears - his pointed ears. The breath caught in Perseus' lungs.

He turned one way, then the other, then back. They weren't just pointed like an elf's ear, they had a sort of flare off the back edge kind of like a bat wing. He pinched the very tip of his ear and then winced as a shiver ran down his spine. It was most certainly his. He tried to recompose himself, trying to process everything analytically. This wasn't a memory for obvious reasons. Was it a fantasy? Was it a hallucination? Did it really matter? That last thought had been the most surprising, but Perseus settled into it with remarkable ease. Whatever this was, why fight it? He had to admit, he looked cute with blue hair and pointed ears. He was cute and he was in a bar on Halloween. It was everything he could have hoped for. Even if he was a bit tired, maybe it was time to have a little fun.

When the door to the bathroom finally swung open, Perseus emerged a new man. His surprise and anxiety had faded. There was a bit of bounce in his step, a little sway to his hips, a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. It hadn't taken long for a few smiles to be cast back in his direction. The fact that it was Halloween no doubt helped him blend in with the crowd - a decidedly male crowd. There were a few women, but the majority were men. To Perseus' delight, a majority were also dressed in costume.

There were many classics, from werewolves and vampires to witch boys and zombies. One of the men had tried to cultivate his already long hair and long beard into a bigfoot aesthetic. Perseus let his eyes scan the crowd, passing over the men playing pool to those talking in the corner before settling on a young man over by the jukebox. He'd gone without a shirt, something the bar seemed to be tolerating when it came to costumes. His pants seemed to be hand made out of brown faux-fur, his black shoes given a bit of polish. He had a natural dusting of hair across his chest and arms and a stubble beard pushing its way from five o'clock shadow to something more. The naturally dark hair clashed with the bleached tuft of hair rising up above his forehead.

The most distinct qualities, though, were his costume elements. A nose ring the size of a door knocker hung from his nostrils, a metal ball sliding back and forth on the bottom of the curve. White plastic horns had been glued to his temples and another pair of golden rings hung from his ears. It was a modest costume, one that wouldn't have impeded one very much. It also allowed him to show off his natural attributes in a way that Perseus found quite appealing. Perseus stood there for several moments, watching the other young man sway to the music, eyes scanning the song queue on the display. Enough time passed without anyone else approaching that Perseus decided to try his luck.

"Waiting for someone?" Perseus asked as he swept over, his blue hair nearly shining in the glow of the lights spread across the ceiling. His freckles glittered as well as he smiled. The minotaur turned, a small smile crossing his lips as he took in the elfin looking young man standing next to him. He raised his thick eyebrows invitingly.

"Just for some cute young warrior to wander into my labyrinth." he said before grinning more. Perseus pursed his lips.

"You are good." he grinned. The minotaur looked wounded.

"I was going for bad boy monster, thank you very much." he countered. Perseus nodded and reached up, caressing one of the horns. As his fingers brushed the plastic, he felt a strange charge, something like an electrical current or magnetic pull that ran from the horns into the young man himself. Perseus' eyes slipped halfway shut, feeling the intoxicating connection. He pressed into it, feeling the young man's life, his history, his potential. Perseus licked his lips before he gave into the power. The light plastic horn grew heavier as it turned into bone. The light shone off the surface differently as it became real, transforming from tip to base before it suddenly fused into the young man's skull, sinking into his skin and connecting to his skull.

The costumed man gasped but Perseus just reached up with his other hand, doing the same to the other horn. Perseus inhaled sharply, feeling thoughts and memories bubbling and churning inside his partner. Miles... his name was Miles... And as fun of a flirt as he had been, if he had wanted to be a true monster boy, Perseus knew he could help. He held onto those horns and pressed in, starting to hump and grind against Miles, feeling the heat radiating off of the other. He felt so alive, so fresh, so energetic and virile.

Miles moaned as the fake nose ring suddenly closed the loop and pierced through his nose for real, hanging heavier as the quality of the metal increased. His normal ears began to grow tapered points and the already ample dusting of hair was getting thicker under his arms. Miles' legs began to tingle and buzz as if they had woken up from being asleep, but it wasn't his circulation causing the sensation. Every strand of faux fur was taking root, piercing through the mesh of his pants and sinking into his actual legs. The fur developed follicles and the synthetic materials were replaced by real fur.

Perseus kept holding on, feeling both thrilled and drained. Whatever he was doing was taking his own energy, but he didn't care. He held on, moaning as he felt Miles get so impossibly erect against him. The minotaur's shoes creaked and groaned, the polished leather stretching out wider and wider, contorting before it tore, split and collapsed around the engorging feet beneath. His socks split out moments later. Miles' toes had been webbed together with spongy flesh that anchored them and held them in place as his toenails darkened and spread, momentarily softened like half-cured glue. It coated his feet, evening out and solidifying into hooves.

"Fuck..." Miles moaned, snorting as his nostrils grew a bit wider, then taller, his face contorting slightly. The nose ring only seemed to grow wider and heavier, keeping just as much a place of prominence even as Miles gained the nose of a cow. Perseus nearly drooled as he started to tug and pull on the minotaur's horns, forcing them to grow out longer and wider, stretching out from the handsome man's skull. Miles humped against Perseus helplessly, grinding and moaning as a wispy cheesecloth like material sloughed off from his furry legs, the last vestiges of his costume pants.

Unrestrained and unencumbered, it didn't take Perseus long to feel something hot, hard and huge brushing against his lap, then his stomach. Miles' cock had grown rock hard, angling upwards, tracing a slimy trail of precum across Perseus' pants, then his stomach before butting against his navel. Perseus slipped one hand from the minotaur's powerful horns, eliciting a snort from his partner. The hand slipped down, blue nails brushing the thick meat trapped between them. Perseus' fingers coiled around the shaft, giving it a squeeze, then a tug before sliding up and down with absolutely no care for those around them.

Miles let out a blast from his cow nostrils, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. It was as if his entire essence was focused entirely on the power of getting bigger, stronger and more manly. His cock stretched under Perseus' hand, surging past ten inches, thirteen, fifteen and then longer. Perseus leaned down, his lips slipping open before he plunged his hot mouth around the immense cow cock. He sucked and slurped, bobbing up and down even as his hand worked furiously on the shaft.

Faint pops echoed through Miles' chest as his back lengthened, his ribs pushed apart and his torso expanded. Pectorals that had been flat pushed forward. Biceps and triceps emerged like islands rising from a placid sea. The hair beneath his arms grew thick and untamed and the hair at the center of his chest began to brighten, taking on a blond streak just like the tuft of hair rising up at the front of his head. A clatter came from behind Miles as a newly formed tail whipped at some of the plastic pumpkins on the table behind them, sending them rolling to the floor.

Perseus' eyes were shut as he sucked and slurped, but he wasn't just lost in the physical pleasure of the moment or even the kinky thrill of sucking someone off in a public place too crowded for anyone to notice what they were doing. He could feel how his own energy was pouring into Miles, catalyzing and transforming him. He could feel the heat and light and energy inside of him growing stronger and stronger until the minotaur threw his head back and let out a moan sure to draw attention as Perseus' mouth suddenly filled with bull spunk. To his credit, the blue haired elfin boy gulped and swallowed, letting the hot goo coat and soothe his throat as it ran down and filled his modest stomach.

Miles slammed a hand down on the jukebox, the music jumping to the next song abruptly. In another few moments, Perseus slipped off of Miles' cock, a string of cum dripping down his chin as he stood up and pulled the minotaur close, pretending to dance with him. He pressed tight against the other to obscure the immense erection Miles now sported. A few people had looked over as the music changed but most went back to what they were doing, a few more looking at Miles a bit longer, deciding they might have under-rated his costume when he first came in. It certainly seemed quite authentic now.

"This... is amazing..." Miles moaned, feeling the warm, humid air across his huge, hair covered pecs. He flexed his arms, clenched and unclenched his furry ass, flicked his tail and nearly came again as he felt it all. Perseus just smiled, leaning his head against the minotaur's chest. It was nice and cozy, but it also had become a bit of a necessity. There were no words to describe how good it had felt to transform Miles, but it had taken a toll. What he had given was not free and Perseus was starting to feel so tired he was nearly sick. Even breathing was a bit difficult at the moment, but as Perseus recovered slightly, he looked up at the much taller Minotaur.

"Do you come here often?" he asked before blushing faintly, "I mean, will I find you here again?" he asked. The minotaur looked down with surprised eyes.

"You name the time and I'll be here..." he said softly. Perseus smiled weakly.

"Next Saturday, same time... But I gotta go..." Perseus whispered. The minotaur looked almost alarmed.

"You could go with me? I want to thank you for all this..." he whispered. Perseus smiled again, although there was even more tiredness around the corners of his eyes.

"You can, next Saturday. I just... I gotta go." Perseus said, standing up on his tip toes to kiss the minotaur's lips, feeling the nose ring brush against the kiss. Miles melted into the embrace for a moment, but when he opened his eyes again, the blue haired boy was gone. The minotaur's eyes widened suddenly.

"I didn't even get your name!" he said in shock, but there was no answer. Miles slowly backed up against the wall of the bar, trying to figure out what had just happened, realizing that he was going to have to explain his new body to everyone at work... but somehow that didn't seem like it was going to be a bad thing. A smile crept back across Miles' lips as he reached up, one hand playing with one of his fat nipples, the other sliding appreciatively across his horn.

****

The door to the bar swung open as Perseus moved out, staggering a little when he miscalculated the force required with his exhaustion. The air was a stark contrast to the atmosphere inside; it was cold and the smell of sea salt carried on the wind. Normally Perseus would have found it invigorating but it chilled him to the bone after everything had been so heated moments earlier. Still, it had been an amazing night. There were still so many questions left, so many things he needed to figure out, but the night had been a hell of a lot more interesting than finishing his shift at Trinitron.

"I saw what you did in there, freak." the voice cut through the night, catching up to Perseus from behind. He turned, eyes cautiously seeking out the source of the statement, spotting one of the jocks that had been playing pool inside. His brownish blond hair was longer on top and shaved on the sides. His polo shirt only seemed to accentuate how much wider his shoulders were than his waist. Perseus weighed the situation for a moment before he turned and kept walking in hopes of extricating himself from the situation. It seemed that being ignored was not an acceptable response as the jock took long strides to cut off his escape route and then slam an open faced hand into Perseus' chest, sending him shuddering back a step.

"What's the problem?" Perseus snapped. The jock gave a sad, angry smile.

"The problem is freaks like you. This used to be a nice place to live, but now you can't go out at night or the vampires might get you, you can't go in the park or that plant guy will get you. There's S&M perverts and rubber suited soldiers brainwashing people. That Meta guy can't be everywhere at once, he can't stop all these freaks, but maybe I can. Maybe this is where I take a stand." the jock said, his chest rising and falling rapidly as adrenaline coursed through his system.

He smelled of alcohol, clearly emboldened by liquid courage. Perseus was clearly no match for the jock. Even with his changes, he was only five foot nine. His shoulders were narrow, his arms thin. If anyone had ever considered him a twink, it would have been both a compliment and an upgrade. As if on a mental delay, the jock's resolve finally set as he sent both hands jutting forward, impacting Perseus' chest. It was likely that both of them had expected Perseus to fall, but the jock's hands came to an immediate and abrupt stop like hitting cement. It was as if the impact had flipped a switch and Perseus was no longer the same. Vibrant, hauntingly purple eyes lifted from that elfin face, framed by a halo of lime green. It wasn't eyeshadow, it was pigment. The freckles across his cheeks and nose had lost their luster, turning black against pale skin. The rich topaz blue drained away from his hair, leaving it a deep, inky dark black.

The jock seemed alarmed. He had many reasons to be. Perseus had not fallen, nor did he show any sign of fear. The green around his eyes made him look less like an elf or a fairy and more like a goblin. His pierced, puffy bottom lip looked suddenly parched, his dry hair ruffling in the slight breeze, his skin almost ashy. Perseus looked up at the jock before he reached out, placing his own hand on the center of the bully's chest between his pecs. The jock gasped, feeling as if he'd just been grabbed by the scruff and pinned into place.

"Your problems are not my responsibility." Perseus whispered, feeling something hot and fast swirling beneath the surface of the jock's chest. He'd felt exhausted since he had looked through the portal at Trinitron, a feeling that had only grown more intense as he changed Miles into the beast he was meant to be. Now every ounce of energy, every bit of vitality he was missing was right beneath his fingers. Perseus thought about the empty universe he'd come across, how entropy and decay had reigned. He thought about the old adage that energy could not be destroyed, merely transformed... and he thought of the bitterness, the violence, the indignant rage that this jock had shown him on the first night of his rebirth. Perseus shook his head. "No, I'm wrong. Your problems are my responsibility..." he said softly as if he'd answered some unspoken puzzle. The jock's face scrunched up at that despite his fear.

"What?" he asked. Perseus' response came as he suddenly pushed his hand into the jock's chest, his skin phasing in between the molecules and the atoms. The jock's eyes went wide as he tried to gasp but could not. His lungs didn't function and soon his heart didn't either. The purple in Perseus' eyes began to glow, pulsing with light. All at once he started to feel life coming back to him. The weary fatigue faded as strength returned to his muscles. His bones stopped aching, his skin stopped stinging. His lips grew soft and moist and his hair regained its shine. Perseus felt as if he had just woken up from a short nap, but that wasn't enough to satiate the fatigue. Perseus looked at the jock, watching as his skin got pale and his hair looked waxy. His nails grew cloudy and his clothes started to look baggier as his muscle tone diminished. The jock tried to grab at Perseus' wrist but his fingers had lost all their strength and dexterity.

"I think you've been looking at this place all wrong." Perseus whispered, "If Trinity really is changing, if it's getting over-run by the freaks, maybe you're the one that doesn't belong anymore." Perseus said, starting to smile menacingly, "You've gotten your way your whole life and the first time things start to go a little different, you're angry. I had to stay quiet in school because of guys like you. I couldn't date anyone because of guys like you. I watched as guys like you leap frogged my accomplishments and got prestigious jobs where you do nothing and get paid three times as much for it. This was the first night I've gone out in ages. I'm tired of guys like you... I'm tired of being tired." Perseus whispered. The jock met eyes with him one last time, but the look faded as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body slumped. It was as if Perseus' thoughts had been made manifest. The jock would have fallen to his knees, but before he could hit his body collapsed into a cloud of glowing particles. Swirls of red and orange and gold swept along Perseus' arm before sinking into his skin and his soul.

Perseus tipped his head back, relishing in the influx of life and vitality, feeling his weariness wholly and completely sated - at least for the moment. His purple eyes were half lidded as the otherworldly sigil throbbed in his pupils. The glow of the life he had taken lingered for a few moments across his skin before it finally faded away. Once more Perseus' skin faded back to the pale ivory everywhere other than the green around his eyes. His lungs rose and fell, his slight frame seeming so innocuous in the night. It took several more moments of the intern running everything through his mind again before he started to put it all together. He replayed the jock's last words in his mind before another perverse smile crossed his pierced lips.

"Phreak..." he whispered to himself. Maybe that's what he was now. He certainly fit the bill with his pointed ears and his unusual powers. Maybe the bully had been right. Maybe Trinity was being taken over by the freaks.... But then again, life was certainly a lot more interesting recently. Perseus licked his lips as he sunk his hands into his pockets and began walking. He wasn't sure where he was headed, but he was sure that wherever he went, his future was finally going to be in his own hands.