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Team Argos

Book 1: The Unveiling

Chapter 1: Origins

Part 3 By Jear77

Mirror

Akhela Paris is an anthro fox/ cat hybrid who grew up being a star athlete, albeit only average in school. From a very young age she was involved in gymnastics, quickly becoming a master at tumbling, the horse, rings, bars, and more. From these base activities she mastered a martial art that combined Tai Chi's fluidity, Judo's throwing, JiuJitsu's redirection of force, Taekwondo's blocks, open-handed strikes, sweeps, joint locks, and Karate's pressure points into one nearly unbeatable combination. Using her flexibility, agility, and stamina she won many competitions.

After elementary school, ran away from home. Not that she wasn't cared for or loved - quite the contrary. Her parents were strict but fair, and doted over her, as she generally didn't misbehave. The problem is that despite this, she desired more. She read stories of adventure, and thought if she ran away, she and hired on with the circus, she'd get some.

When she first joined the circus, the owners were impressed with her abilities from the start. Audiences oohed and aahed at her athletic and martial art stunts. As time she learned something from everyone, expanding her repertoire. She became an expert at the high wire and trapeze act without safety nets. Through the aid of the fortunetellers, she learned how to read people's minds and cards - and how to see possible futures in a crystal ball. She also about learned her ability to fog people's minds so that they either didn't see her or forgot about her even if they were looking directly at her. She learned the skills of the juggler, knife thrower, and the contortionist. She learned mirror crafting, and, ultimately, of her powers to teleport through reflective surfaces. Finally, she learned the skill of the cape: how to use it to help her fall without injury, take things from a distance or entangle weapons in it, as a rope, distract her opponent to disappear from sight and more. During all this time she continued to work on her martial arts, constantly improving and refining her ability.

She worked with the circus' costume designer to make her costume out of a composite material that worked with her body to not only absorb shock but to increase her speed, flexibility and strengthen, in addition to aiding in the fact that enemies had a hard time grappling with her or even landing a solid blow on her, as the material was slick. She developed boots that could stick to any flat surface. Between her extensive training, the material, and perhaps more than a bit of help from nature she could leap and fall stories without harm.

When she turned eighteen, she hired herself on as a Magician's assistant learning: slight of hand, hypnosis, how various stage illusions and escapes worked, and how audience distraction worked in their favor. She soon became tired of being the beautiful showgirl everyone admired, but no one respected for her own ability, so she set out on her own.

Not wanting to have her identity revealed she adopted the identity of the "Masked Magician," wearing a revealing, highly reflective sequin outfit by day and by night wearing her old circus outfit and a reflective one-way mirrored globe on her head to protect her identity, she sets out to test her skills against street fighters who don't believe her to be a threat until she trounced them soundly.

This goes on until one day, when she hears an alarm at a nearby bank...

X-Zorb

Arthur "Art" Barrett was an ordinary anthro bear - in every sense of the word. He was average height, weight and coloring for his species. His moods were at even keel - not too high, and not too low, but it also meant he didn't get excited or angry or depressed. He got average grades in school, but he did pass. He was OK, but by no mean spectacular in sports and physical activities in general, but neither did he constantly trip over his feet. He was so ordinary looking that trying to find him in a crowd was nigh impossible, even looking at a photo, most people's eyes would just glide over him. His normalcy and even-keel was the reason why he never got a girlfriend. He never attended college because of his grades. He first job was flipping burgers at a locally owned MegaCorp fast food joint. He did all right, but it was just that: a job. He worked his way around the restaurant, doing odd jobs.

As time went on he got bored and decided to apply to the MegaCorp lab, where he got a job as a maintenance worker. As he had satisfactory marks at the fast food joint, he was allowed a transfer without difficulty. He soon found that he could be in an open space, cramped quarters, high up on a ladder or in the deepest basement and it didn't bother him. Eventually, he worked his way up to head custodian and was given keys and command authority for the entire place.

Art had been working at MegaCorp labs for several years when one night, he felt the building shake, as if there was an earthquake. Moments later he heard an explosion. He used his key and command code to get inside. As the doors opened, Art saw that the explosion had shattered the glass and filled the air with a noxious thick yellow gas. Coughing he went inside. He saw the explostion had thrown a wolf into a set of bookshelves, which had fallen on top of him. The explosion also brought an iron support beam on top of the bookshelves as well as a good chunk of the ceiling. Art knew if he didn't get the wolf out of here and soon, the wolf would die.

Art looked around for something to help him gain leverage on the bookshelves so he could pry them off the wolf. While he was doing so, the wolf came around and commanded, coughing "Computer, emergency force field and lockdown of bulkhead. Seal off chamber and redirect airflow from lab out of the building." The bulkhead doors started closing noisily and he blacked out again for a second. When the wolf came to, Art was standing over him trying to clear off the ceiling debris off the bookshelves. Coughing, he strained to lift the iron support beam, grunting and groaning, but in the end was finally able to do so. He then lifted the bookshelves off of the wolf and half supported, half carried him to the bulkhead doors. "Computer," the bear said "end lockdown and open doors. As soon as we're through re-institute lockdown until my say."

Art took the wolf to his apartment and laid him down on his couch, covering him up. The wolf tried to talk. Art went over to him and shushed him, but was too tired. The wolf closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Art stayed up all night, and had just fallen asleep when the wolf whose life he saved the night before started to move. He awoke with a start and found the book he had been reading tumbled from his hand onto the floor.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Art, and you are?"

"Tom." The wolf said, and then asked, "Where are we?"

"We're back at my place." Art said "Your injuries didn't seem life threatening at the moment and to take you to the medical center would have caused unnecessary headaches. You just seemed a bit bruised and shell shocked, but no worse for wear, that's why I brought you back here. As it is, there'll be enough questions regarding the explosion, the lab's lockdown and so on. Let's hope that by the time we get back there, that yellow haze has dissipated."

"How did you get into the lab? I had locked it down. What do you do that you were able to get in there?"

"You must have blacked out a moment before initiating it. I had been going through the area when I heard the explosion. I went to investigate and used my key. I'm maintenance, that's why I have all the keys, even to abandoned labs. Sometimes they tell me to open them to put a new scientist in there or get out equipment they might have stored there. You might not have seen me through the smoke that was present."

Tom tried moving and wincing said "Ow, I'm going to have to take it easy for a day or two." With some difficulty he sat up. Art said "no worries. I've already called off for you. I said 'whoever was occupying lab 1224'"

Tom tried to put his weight on his feet and said, "Art, I'm going to need some help. I can't support my weight on my feet. I need to go to the bathroom."

Art reached down and half supported, half carried Tom to the bathroom to take care of his business. Art couldn't help seeing from the corner of his eye the nice piece of meat Tom was packing as struggled with his zipper. He finally gave up and unbuttoned his pants and let them fall to his knees and pissed in the toilet. Hiking his pants back up and refastening them Tom said "Thank you."

Over the next few days Art helped Tom get his mobility back, helping him go to the bathroom and taking care of his hygiene showering. He was attracted to Tom, but didn't make a move on him because it would never work out. Art's blandness helped Tom feel comfortable naked in the bear's presence.

Art let Tom stay there until his room/ lab was fixed up again. When Tom left, he was a bit sad, but knew it was better that way.

After rescuing Tom, he felt stronger than he had before. What he did with difficulty he now found easy. What would normally hurt him, such as a wrench dropped on his foot, actually strengthened and made him tougher. He actually grew taller if he didn't think about getting tougher or stronger. Thankfully the growth was minor and after awhile he went back to normal size.

Once or twice he got too big and found that by jerking off he could go back to normal size. Since he had this amazing resiliency and fortitude, he considered becoming a part-time wrestler. He sewed himself a costume of the stretchiest material he could find with a giant X on it and donned a mask - just in case his "bland factor" worked in his detriment when in the ring to help conceal his identity. He started training in his spare time. He started to learn wrestling, boxing, and various martial arts from videos.

His training continued until one day he heard the bank's alarm...

Argos

A physically weak and sickly Minotaur named Matthew "Matt" Parthos grew up being picked on, beaten up by his peers, who were all larger, stronger, and more physically capable than he. Because he was smart, he was often forced to do others' homework, which he did grudgingly. He had a few friends, other "nerds" who escaped reality by role-playing. The more he escaped into this other world, the more he wanted to stay there. It was a place he could be who he wanted to be, do what he wanted to do, and not be constrained by the limits his physical body. His only limits were his imagination.

Matt found that when he went to sleep that he found out that he saw things that were happening all around the city, often in great detail. He could decide to focus in on one thing or see everything simultaneously. When he awoke, he found that what he dreamt actually happened- but it wasn't his dreams that caused them to happen; it was as if he was standing there being an observer of what was going on. He could also hear what was being said, and if he "zoomed in" close enough read their surface-level-thoughts. Then something odd happened: he found that while dreaming, if he reached out to pick up something in the scene, it appeared where he was. He learned he could teleport things through the Maze. As time went on he found that he could transport larger and larger things - and not always to him. He could pick something up in one location, and set it back down in another, miles away. Once he took a large empty safe weighing several tons, put it in the bottom of a nearby lake and back again within a few minutes. The owner never knew it was missing, but was baffled when they opened it later and found it full of water.

Matt loved the feeling of this quasi omniscience, and slept more and more. He took sleeping pills to get to stay asleep for longer and longer periods of time. He was rescued from having gone flat-lined more than once, but he couldn't help it - he loved the feeling too much.

Matt investigated conscious transfer machines for those whose bodies had been damaged beyond repair, but dismissed them due to cost and practicallity; dream machines to give him dreams; consciousness altering drugs, among other things, but upon experimenting with all of them, he found that none of them would work for what he wanted to do. He finally stumbled upon meditation, which, with practice, he could enter and exit with very little difficulty.

He got a job working with the computer division of MegaCorp doing computer programming. He found that he could pay half attention to what he was programming, as it was pretty routine material, and watch everything. In fact, the programming was so easy that he could do it in his sleep, if need be. At night he stayed in an abandoned basement of the MegaCorp building that he was working in that had been sealed off from the rest of the building. He found it by going through some routine building plans. He had to go down to the 3rd basement through a maze of corridors to the ladder that brings him up directly to his room, which was no problem seeing as he was a Minotaur.

He was meditating in his room one day when he saw the robbery begin to happen...