Free 1.1

I flew on the wings of an eagle. Or maybe a falcon. I had wings, that's all I'm saying. The day was beautiful. Crisp air and a baby blue sky. Still too cold for thermals, I heard those were a blast and was looking forward to Spring to try them out. The cold also forced the thugs and drug dealers to bundle up, making it difficult for me to spot them without their tats.

Still, I made do, found one a couple days ago dealing white powder and I'd been following him ever since. Two thousand feet in the air, just doing lazy circles, hunting down creeps. It's a nice life. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Tough Guy Johnny (don't know his real name, don't really care) wasn't high up on the food chain. He just went out, peddled his disgusting wares, ate lunch at a fast food restaurant, peddled, and went home to masturbate... I fucking hate skylights.

On the third day he finally broke pattern. Abandoned warehouse down by the dock (doesn't really narrow it down much, does it?), he parked around the rear and went in. The windows were all boarded or blacked up and there were no identifying marks on the building. Suspicious.

I landed and let myself disintegrate. The world disappeared for a moment, my vision went black, a couple of beeps and a slight hum. 'Hate it, hate it, hate it.'

I reformed as my Ophillopholant, so-called because of the big, drapey ears. I like it, so, you know, shut up.

Took me a moment to catch my bearings, the sun just felt so good. It seeped into my skin's cracks and filled me up. But I had a job, had to concentrate on the job. Could sunbather later. There were only eleven cars parked around back, but it sounded like at least thirty people inside. And a lot of whining. Barking? Dogs.

The Empire also ran dog fighting rings. I could follow Tough Guy Johnny more and come back later for the dog fighting ring, but there was no telling if the ring would move in that time. Also, what if Tough Guy Johnny picked up his drugs at the ring? I would just waste a few days following him then. No, better to hit the ring now.

Authorities were out. The BBPD wouldn't act, this was the Empire so there was too high a chance of a cape being on premises. The Protectorate was also out. The chances of a cape being here was too low for it to be in their jurisdiction. Ideally the cops would call in the Protectorate, but the relationship between the BBPD and Protectorate ENE was infamous for its animosity.

Ridiculous.

It was a bit too big to hit solo though. Über and Leet avoided antagonizing the Empire, not that I could blame them. Playing in the little leagues was enough to boost their popularity and video ratings. No need for them to risk life and limb.

That left New Wave. Good old New Wave, always ready to scrap with the Empire. But that required me to call them and that required me to fly back to my phone and that required me to Change.

From super hearing to super sight (or vice versa) is always an interesting experience. Loss is always noticed before gain. The world is muted and then the world brightens as details jump into focus. That car over there has an expired registration. That tree has a squirrel in it, and then I try to listen to the squirrel and, of course, I can't.

According to Crystal—sorry, Laserdream—I have become a local celebrity amongst the local bird watchers. They know I'm a cape, but every time I go Sauron (the all-seeing eye ready to rain firey death down upon my enemies. Seriously though, fire breath takes up way too much space to force into a bird's body, but I'm working on it) it's slightly different. There are entire threads on PHO arguing about what birds influenced me on what days. I couldn't really say. Should really check it out though, might pick up some useful tricks.

Since the bird lovers kept a constant watch out for my beautiful plumage, I had taken to hiding my phone and spare batteries on top of roofs; it minimized the number of times I had to return to base. I changed the roof daily; today it was on top of the abandoned strip mall, tucked into a corner and placed in multiple ziploc bags.

I Changed again. Needed fingers to operate a phone after all. Best form with fingers I had managed so far was a monkey looking thing, except I added on an extra set of arms and a digestive system that turned wood pulp into glue. Still had to eat the wood pulp and wait around for an hour so it wasn't as useful as I thought it would be, but Spider-Monkey is still awesome.

Phone booted up. Checked messages. No new messages. Texted New Wave: 'Dog fight, E88, yes/no'. Waited.

New PM on PHO from PRT. Ignored. 'Not going back. Not ever.'

Ten minutes and finally a reply from New Wave. I gave directions and told them what roof to land on. Gathered the phone and batteries and Changed again. Nice thing about stake outs is that there's no Changing. I just get to float around watching the little people.

The phone and batteries came with me. I only had maybe two days worth of juice remaining and Crystal always did an impeccable job of charging the batteries for me. And now I got to wait on a different rooftop.

New Wave all had lives and jobs besides the most noble pursuit of liberty and justice for the common man in this ever darkening world. They tended to rally in a safe different spot and then fly down as a group. Safe, but slow.

Today it was the Pelhams and Glory Girl with Panacea tagging along. I loved it when Panacea tagged along. Meant I wouldn't have to be so gentle.

"Gryphon," Lady Photon greets me. She let Manpower down from the under-the-armpit carry she had. His costume actually had thicker padding for his armpits for just that maneuver. Sucks to be a guy. See, if he were a girl he could just be carried bridal style, like Glory Girl and Panacea had going, but instead he had to dangle.

I nod. Standard courtesy is to never wave at Blasters, tends to make them flinch. I'd Changed yet again into Spider-Monkey, needed those fingers. Gesturing at the abandoned warehouse I tapped out, '30 min plus dogs'.

"Any villains?"

'Dunno only heard'.

"Right. Shock and awe. I'll phone the PRT, when they're ten minutes out Glory Girl will break down the door. Gryphon, you'll follow. Make it big and scary. Shielder, you'll throw up protection for me and Laserdream, and Manpower will guard the rear."

It's a typical plan. We've done it a couple times before. Unstated is that Panacea will remain here until the fighting is finished at which point she'll take care of any boo-boos the Nazis might have.

We wait. Again. Shielder started playing some game on his phone while Lady Photon and Manpower had a conversation on one side and Glory Girl and Panacea claimed the other. Laserdream chose to sit by me.

"Still can't do vocal cords?" asked Laserdream.

I shook my head. Practice made perfect, eventually I'd be able to talk again.

"You could always have Panacea-"

I vehemently shook my head. Panacea could never touch me. If she touched me then she might know, and then I might have to go back. And I was never going back.

"Fine. Fine. Just don't see why not is all." But she let the matter drop.

Glory Girl and Panacea finished their little discussion over on the side and walked over to Laserdream and me. "Gallant was asking about you," Glory Girl started, blunt as always. Not that it was a bad thing, I liked knowing where I stood with people.

I motioned for her to go on.

"He wanted to know if you ever had memory loss," she continued.

I shook my head, bemused.

"Yeah, didn't think so. A lot of parahumans without a normal looking form-" I winced, but she didn't notice, either I couldn't do facial expressions in this form or she was just oblivious. I'd have to get a mirror and find out. "-have no memories. He was just wondering. So you do remember who you are?"

I just stared at her until Laserdream bopped her on top of the head. "Don't pry, Vicky."

"Sorry. Sorry. None of my business. Hey, have you ever thought about Panacea-"

Laserdream bopped her again. "She already said no."

'Not that I'm not grateful, Crystal, but you bring it up every time we meet too…'

The conversation changed to fashions, which I never wore; movies, which I hadn't seen; and boyfriends, at least Panacea was left out of that conversation too. Being a hero was not as exciting as I expected it to be. Finally Lady Photon gave the go ahead.

I went big. As big as I could manage. Six feet tall, ten feet long, three fire-breathing heads. Cerberus. I liked the thought, dog fighting ring meet dog fighting ring fighting dog.

Glory Girl swooped in shoulder first, smashing into the door. The door was blown off its hinges and she reached down and heaved one up to use as a combination shield and bludgeon. The room was stunned, everyone falling down to a crouch simultaneously.

That's where I came in. Theoretically the best fights are where the perps are too scared to fight back.

I roared. Still haven't gotten the hang of fine tuning the vocal cords, so I didn't even bother. I wanted deep and loud, I got deep and loud. Pants shitting, terrifying loud. The gouts of fire helped.

"Place your hands on your head and surrender," Glory Girl yelled in the subsequent silence. "You are outmatched. Surrender now and no one has to be hurt."

Glory Girl wouldn't admit it, but she didn't want that. An easy win was pointless and boring. I agreed, after three days of following Tough Guy Johnny—oh, there he is, hi there, Tough Guy Johnny—I wanted to break some faces.

Fortunately they didn't disappoint. There was a sound like nails on chalkboard. I turned my left most head. No make that the sound of a thousand metal blades rubbing against each other: Hookwolf.

The Dallons might have been able to keep him restrained, or perhaps Glory Girl could wrassle the little critter or perhaps… Hookwolf had a bounty of ten grand on his head. That would be a nice way to end the day. Definitely worth Changing for.

A moment of blackness. Beep. "Unusually acti-"

'Fucking hate that.'

I reformed almost instantly, sacrificing almost every advantage I had. Almost no speed, poor senses, no teeth, claws, or even fire breath. 'Beware my wrath for I am the cube, the gelatinous cube.'

I'd have to thank Leet for this later, if it worked. And then I'd have to redesign it to include a skeleton and musculature system.

I advanced. The surface of the cube was light sensitive so I had 360 degree vision. I just couldn't focus, so I could barely make out human shaped blobs. Reminded me of the time my glasses broke. Not a fun day. Of course it could have been worse, as-

'Not going there. I'm here now. I'm never going back. Never going back.'

I was shot… maybe, it tickled and made my sides quiver and shake. There was a lot of loud noises—booms mainly, those would have been the gunshots—but I couldn't understand any of them. This really wasn't a good idea. Mostly blind, almost deaf, and I had no mouth so I could scream.

Hookwolf was shiny though. I could pick him out. Big, shiny, dog shaped blur. I attacked as quickly as I could which involved scrunching and unscrunching my bottom. I had this,he was trapped by a cement wall to his back.

'Nowhere to run, now let me give you a hug,' I mentally trilled.

Something poked me in my midsection. Hookwolf had extended a blade into me. I tightened my folds around it and secreted a bit of myself onto him… okay, that sounded nasty. I held him inside… fuck no. I immobilized him using my form's special ability. Three more blades thrust forward. And I repeated the process. He tried to retract the blades, but I held on and it only pulled me toward him.

As soon as I reached him I could encompass him. Knock him out from lack of air. We had Panacea and she could, wait a minute, suffocation affects the brain first and Panacea couldn't do brains. I really didn't think this out. Lady Photon was so going to chew me out later.

Hookwolf tried extending his blades again to push me back. I simply let them penetrate farther into me. He started running side to side, attempting to loosen the blades. Every time the blades seemed to have any give I just covered them in more adhesive.

I didn't feel any more tickling so New Wave must have dealt with the rest of the Empire. I couldn't check though. Seriously, what was I thinking trying out an untested form in the middle of a battle?

Hookwolf extended more blades to his side and then swung them into me, trying to hack me apart. That did quite a bit more damage. If this body could feel pain it would probably be in agony right now. Too bad for Hookwolf that it couldn't. I captured each blade as it cut into me, holding them fast. Hookwolf simply created more. There were too many blades biting into me to continue advancing. Each blade had to be held and the accumulated damage was making me lose the ability for fine control.

Just how many blades could Hookwolf make? I held over fifty of them and he kept creating more. I'd have to abandon this form soon. I could already feel it stiffening, my connection fading. I didn't want to die here like this. They couldn't know.

A white blur fell down and I felt Hookwolf's blades cut through me towards the floor. Hookwolf skittered back a few steps, free, and swiped at the white blur. Glory Girl. She broke his blades for me. I could kiss her.

I Changed again. Just a few beeps and the hum. The blades embedded in the Cube fell to my feet as I went back to Cerberus.

The fight was over. The the mooks were ziptied and either groaning in pain or cussing us out. Hookwolf was pacing behind Shielder and Laserdream's forcefields, pinning him to the wall.

"Back with us, Gryphon?" asked Lady Photon.

I nodded one head, keeping the other two focused on Hookwolf. Physically I couldn't match him, but perhaps my fire breath could injure him.

"We'll talk about that later. The PRT was diverted, the Empire will send reinforcements before they get here."

I breathed a small flame at Hookwolf in protest. Ten grand gone! Ten goddamn grand!

"There'll be another day. The bookie had seventeen hundred on him and there were fifteen fire arms."

I did the math. 1700 plus 1500 hundred split five ways minus taxes and fees came out to about 300. Not too bad for three days work. Still, I'd miss that jackpot.

"Manpower will be done in a few more minutes, then we'll pull back." He was going around the room bagging and labeling the firearms, taking a picture of the guns' respective owners for the police. Standard stuff. Would have dug out their IDs too, but we were on a time limit.

Goods confiscated and receipts handed out, we left Laserdream and Shielder in the warehouse. Glory Girl immediately moved to evac Panacea while Lady Photon grabbed Manpower who held on to the cash and goods. Finally Laserdream and Shielder flew out holding a shield between them and Hookwolf. They needn't have bothered; Hookwolf didn't attack, he simply started cutting his subordinates loose. Bastard.

I Changed into my bird self and grabbed my phone off the roof while New Wave flew off to the PRT to turn in the evidence and money. I'd receive my cut in a month or two when it cleared the courts, unless the Empire successfully argued against the civil forfeiture. Like they'd even try, let alone succeed.

I'd probably go after the Merchants next. They had the sloppiest security and I'd last hit them almost two weeks ago, so they'd have relaxed again by now.

But right now, there was a crisp, clear sky to enjoy. I wouldn't trade it for the world.