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
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