“Ifrit, our city's newest defender! Welcome aboard, and we are all so grateful to have you joining the fight to protect our great city.” I muted the TV before the announcer could drone on any more, or worse, the new girl could start spouting sentimental fluff herself. Another year and, predictably, the announcement of another six foot beauty using abs, tits and a ridiculously toned arse in place of personality or a real message. Superheroes like her made me glad I’d never gone public with my own work.
“You seeing this, Naomi? Another one. Where do they find these people?” Naomi, being a cat, had strong opinions on the matter and glared, seethingly first at the starlet on screen and then at me.
“No. No, I'm not the same as her! I don’t do public appearances, and, because I have some self respect, I said no to spandex. Plus, I’m not blonde.” I crossed my arms, triumphantly, at my still doubtful furball.
“Okay, fine, I’m usually not blonde. Like, currently, only one of me is blonde, and that’s not even nearly a majority.” Naomi, however, wasn’t having any of it. “Fine, fine. She’s not technically blonde either, but having fire for hair is still the same thing in principle if that fire is largely golden.”
“Besides, the spirit of my complaint is valid. She’s obviously beautiful, but chose to wear tight spandex and make a big fancy public announcement that she’s joining the league. It doesn’t achieve anything or help anyone, it’s just vapid distractionary crap from someone clamouring for attention. The job is to stop crimes and that’s what she should be doing, y’know? Like I am!”
Before Naomi could argue further, the league transponder in my office went off, so I switched focus to my body there, leaving the original on the sofa, petting Naomi. If no news meant good news, then a call on the transponder meant either bad news or news I personally would dislike. “Hey, Cassie, how’s my favourite and most reliable employee getting on?” rang the voice of Mira, my league contact.
“I’m fine, just busy getting ready to start the new op, so please get it over with, what's gone wrong?” Tired dread built.
“Nope, nothing wrong with the op; in fact, good news for you, I’ve found you a colleague to help!” Please no.
“To help, huh? To help with what exactly?” I intentionally let my frustration seep into my voice.
“With the stakeouts, of course, surely some company won’t go amiss?”
“I am uniquely suited to doing stakeouts, in that I can literally be somewhere else while doing the mind-numbing chore we all hate; why would anyone volunteer for this? Why would you let them?” I did stakeouts alone for a good reason, not just that being able to have dozens of separate bodies under my control let me do forty at a time, but because I, quote, ‘have an unsuitable mentality for team missions’. I’d worked hard to get that reputation and eventually, they’d just started leaving me alone to do my thing.
“Hey, hey, I did try, but they insisted, said ‘It’s personal’ and ‘I have to do this’, you know the type. Honestly, I figured she’d go off crusading by herself and probably ruin the op if I didn’t give her something to do. This way, she can try a stakeout or two, realise she’s deathly bored and not cut out for it and then go back to promo jobs. So just a few nights, don’t worry about it.” Ugh, my nice quiet evenings, ruined.
“Who?”
“What do you mean? It’s obviously the one new girl in the league, not like anyone else is joining you for stakeouts.” Right, duh. Also, her, really?
“Must I?” I whined.
“Yup. It’ll be fine, she’s nice!”
“She said yes to the spandex.”
“Cass, they all say yes to the spandex.” I screamed internally, hung up and then screamed a little externally, just for good measure.
Screaming done, I switched focus back to the body arriving at my new job. I was going to need to pay a lot of attention, and furiously google things from the office, to pass as an engineer, but it wasn’t the stupidest cover I’d run and I was confident in my ability to pull it off.
“Hi, Matt, right? One of the new starters?” asked a chirpy secretary.
“That’s me,” I tried not to grumble. The voice I’d been born with was, frankly, suboptimal for infiltration. Going undercover worked best when you could ingratiate yourself to people, and a voice like gravel made that a lot harder.
“Okay, perfect, orientation is a hallway down on the left, then someone should take you from there, glad to have you!” Following the secretary's instructions, I found a meeting room full of my temporary new colleagues and, against my every instinct to find a quiet corner to sequester myself away in, I walked right up to the loudest group of men.
“Hey, name’s Matt, engineering.” Men, I had learned, were far easier to gain the trust of than women. And, if I’m honest, I always felt anxious and uncomfortable trying to become part of a group of women. Not that there were more than two in the room anyway. This was optimal. For the mission.
“Hey, I’m Darrell and you’ll be with me and Joe over there.” He pointed over his shoulder at a guy in the corner, anxiously checking his watch. “We’ll be glad to have you; the reactor can be a bit of a beast at times, you’ll see.” Right, the reactor I was pretending to be qualified to maintain, might be fine? “Anyway, these idiots,” he gestured at the other three guys with him, “are all on the floor below, in robotics, and wish they had half our brains.”
Well, Darrell didn’t take long to establish himself as an arse; perhaps I’d have better luck with the quieter one. It wouldn’t do to burn bridges though, just needed something slightly self-deprecating but still manly while also excusing myself. “You sure, mate? You’ve not seen me work yet, I might be an imbecile. Anyway, back in a few, gonna do a few more hellos.”
“You can’t have got the job without being pretty sharp, so I’m not too worried. Anyway, there’s welcome drinks tomorrow; I’ll ping you the details later, should be a good blast.” That's what I wanted to hear. Drunk lips were looser, and who didn’t trust someone they were getting drunk with?
“Sure thing, bro, can’t wait.” Ugh, one conversation with Darrell was quite enough. I don’t think I had the capacity to say ‘bro’ more than once a day without throwing up a little. I was sure he’d leak information like a sponge, but that was only if I could face spending time with him. I’d pursue other avenues first and come back to Darrell only if I had to.
Walking up to Joe, I gleefully abandoned the macho bravado I’d affected for Darrell. “Hey, there.”
With a startled and adorable ‘eep’ and a little jump of shock, he replied. “Wh-what? I – Hi?”
“Joe, right? I gather you’re sorta my new boss? I’m Matt.”
“Oh, gotcha. Emphasis on sorta. We technically have the same job, but I’ll be showing you the ropes till you know your way around. I’d ask Darrell to, but I’m hoping to end up with at least one other competent person in the office.” A better undercover agent probably wouldn’t pick sides here, but I also found that authenticity went a long way in these things.
“Thank you; I uh, spoke to Darrell briefly, and no thank you. You seem like you’ll offer more than a pat on the shoulder and a ‘bro, you got this’.” That got a laugh from Joe.
“I’ll have you know that we’ll be having one beer -- wait, no, one brewski -- per guideline and protocol I explain to you. Something something lads lads lads? Did that work for you?” I nodded, letting slip half a giggle, before stifling it into a slightly strangled chortle. Laughing wrong meant I’d gotten too used to other bodies, a remarkable feat given the nineteen years I’d been stuck in just this one, but an issue nonetheless.
“Sounds dreamy, though I’m more of a wine guy myself. Though it might’ve been too long since my college days to slam glasses of that back anymore.”
“Pfft. Better you than me, I’m partial to gin. Sometimes with tonic.”
His face lit up at that, rather cutely. “Oh, like the song! I uh, recognise it… from the radio?” He scratched his head nervously, clearly as mortified as I was at having his taste in music laid quite so bare. Which, okay, my gut instinct was ‘panic, deflect and run’, but I needed to get close to people and an embarrassing shared music taste was a good way to start. Just gotta get over the embarrassment.
“Oh yeah? And what radio station has played anything by The Sips in the last decade?” While I personally rather enjoyed sappy love songs about drunk lesbian crushes, they hadn’t released an album in almost fifteen years and hadn’t exactly made a big splash even when they were active.
“I uh… I don’t remember?” His blushing really was very adorable.
“I’m not gonna judge you for liking music, y’know? Especially not for liking music that I also love.” His shoulders visibly relaxed. “Plus, ‘Sometimes with Tonic’ sure does go hard.” I was going to have to have a listen and maybe a singalong once I got home to a body with a nice voice.
“Right? Honestly, that whole final album is so good! Oh and you know the girl from ‘By the Bar’? She’s real and the drummer married her.”
“Wait, really? Awesome. No idea why that makes it better, but it definitely does.” With my body in the office, I quickly googled it and found some adorable wedding photos. Getting close with Joe, it seems, was going to be far easier than I thought -- well, provided I could blag my way through being an engineer.
After a short intro talk that sounded the same as every other I’d heard, I broke off the group to follow Joe and Darrell around my new workspace: a dusty office I apparently would never need to visit, a tech and supply room that was both enormously large and enormously disorganised, a grotty break room with a broken coffee machine as well as a control room whose walls of warning lights were ‘probably fine’ according to Darrell and ‘largely non-problematic’ according to Joe. It was largely standard corpo villain stuff, nothing strictly, obviously illegal, not out in the open. Like usual, that would require either snooping or breaking into some inner, more trusted, circle.
—
Getting on so well with Joe had been a wonderful surprise; I mean, the guy voluntarily worked for a known supervillain and yet I was genuinely looking forward to hanging out with the guy. That should have given me hope to get on well with my other new coworker, given that she was keen to be a superhero and risk herself for others, qualities I rated very highly, but I couldn’t help but be doubtful; she had opted in to spandex, afterall. Still, at least she wouldn’t be wearing it to… “Oh, for god’s sake. Are you serious? Surely you didn’t think that… this,” I gestured at her, “was appropriate.” I seethed openly.
“Hello to you too, rude stranger.” Nope, no no no, I would not work with someone this stupid.
“Must I point out the obvious fact that a bright red and orange suit is inappropriate for covert surveillance! And please, please god, tell me you can put your damn hair out.” Mercifully, the flames in her hair did then fade away to, aha, blonde! Not that I engaged with derogatory stereotypes, of course.
“No need to yell. Yes, obviously, I’m aware that this isn’t exactly a stealthy suit, but I’m fairly limited on clothes that both fit and won’t be incinerated by my unleashed form. They’ve not gotten around to making a quieter version for me yet.”
“And you didn’t think to wait for one, before engaging in stealth work?”
“Of course I considered it; I also considered not waiting on my arse, and found that to be more palatable.” Ugh, technically a reasonable response, but the snide way she’d put it set me on edge.
“And you were told that this was a surveillance mission? Something which your skillset is ill-suited for, while mine is ideal?” I managed, just about, to keep any edge from my voice. I genuinely was acting in everyone’s interest by doing these myself.
“Oh yeah? And what exactly is your skillset again?” Well, that explained a lot; if she didn’t know, then insisting she’d help did kinda make sense.
“I can be in multiple places at once. Did they not tell you?”
“What? Of course they told me, I was being sarcastic.” Oh. I probably should have realised that. “But given your skillset, surely you’re useless when a villain shows up?”
“If a villain shows up, which they almost certainly won’t. And even if they do, I’m well equipped to discreetly follow them and gather intel, which is the goal of these missions. And sure, maybe you’re better than me at one stakeout, but given that I’m at forty, and that action might occur at any of them, then it’d be better for you to be somewhere central, ready to respond. And consequently, well rested for tomorrow when nothing happens tonight.” Something there had clearly shocked her.
“You’re at forty of these? Right now?” I nodded, not too condescendingly.
“I’m also at home watching TV and cuddling my cat. It’s why I’m happy to waste my time here all evening at a stakeout where, most likely, nothing will happen.”
“That’s insane. Why… Why haven’t people heard of you? And why are you doing this, rather than, like, driving ambulances?” Really? Her first thought, fame. Of course.
“People haven’t heard of me because I feel no need to pretentiously announce my existence or every coming and going to the world. And I am also doing other things, but driving without my full focus is really dangerous, so it’s largely firefighting and first responders with my other bodies.” I mean really, I’d be an arse not to contribute more.
Visibly fuming, she went on. “You – ugh. So, to be clear, you’re the most altruistic giving person I’ve ever heard of and you didn’t think ‘Gee, sharing my example might also do some god damn good in the world.’”
“A good example of what? A toned arse in tight spandex? No, thank you. There’s more than enough vapid eye candy with flight. We don’t need to sexualise the perception of women any further… I think.” I had probably overstepped there; unlike me, she was a woman. If we started talking in any detail about women's issues, I was going to be way out of my depth.
“Your bodies aren’t all the same, are they.” That hadn’t been a question.
I shook my head. “No, why?”
“Thought not. Was just wondering, then, why your current one is stacked to the high heavens if you find the sexualisation of women to be such a big issue.” A quick look down confirmed that yes, this body was a few standard deviations curvier than the norm. Which, if I was honest, probably had been intentional, albeit subconscious; it was the easiest way to feel confident around beautiful women.
“I’m, uh, not doing it in public, though?” That sounded weak, even to me.
“The principle is the same, so screw you. And setting a good example matters, just by numbers alone; you can inspire millions to be better far easier than you can physically protect a dozen. And you could be doing both. At the same time, apparently.” Right, like being under the spotlight would change anything; just intangible, unsubstantiated rubbish to make her feel like she had some moral high ground. I did consider explaining that to her, but I’d learned long ago that people with enough moral high ground struggle to hear all the pragmatists so very far beneath them. And besides, cuddling Naomi deserved far more attention than Ifrit and what I presumed would be eight hours of boredom and brooding stony silence. Plus, if she got bored enough, then she’d give up on spoiling my evenings sooner, just like the rest.
Friends while boymodeing, at odds while girlmodeing... we all know where this is going..... (they are going to kiss)
I mean sure, the end result may or may not be predictable and snuggly, but if anyone successfully predicts the route we take to get there then I will find and eat a hat
I have a feeling that Cassie and Ifrit will become best friends. Or - gasp! - roommates even!
Hmm, it sure seems like it... lets just hope ridiculous egg lunacy doesn't get in the way
Okay, I am definitely liking how Ifrit and - I'm guessing Cascade if the chapter titles convention applies properly - interact. Cascade is like a perfect role model, and it's precisely due to the way she embodies that that she has not made use of the opportunity to be a role model for the people.
So we've got a fresh outside perspective and a seasoned hero, with both bouncing off of the other as they stand to help each other grow into something more.
Consider me invested, dear wordsmith!
This about nails it, I wanted them to have some core disagreement that wasn't an action either had taken but that they still really cared about. So that they could have some genuine antagonism neither was in the wrong for or needed to apologise about. Clashing superhero ethos worked really nicely (I hope) for that!
Thanks for the chapter ! The oc can control two bodies that's cool. Also can you explain all his powers that he has like a bio sheet.
Their powers will be shown more and more as the story progresses, the extent of what they can do is however intentionally not yet revealed, glad you're enjoying though!
Tftc