Body Swap Blues: Port Regal

[Kaede Kimura]

GM

 

Morning of the 30th of November 2024

 

The sun rose over Freedom City, same as it always had. The night prior had seen a small event, magical energies were being channeled to two locations for an unknown purpose. Two teams of heroes investigated, and it seemed the situation was resolved. Yet none of the heroes seemed to remember much of what occurred, or how they got back to their home.

 

The Atomic Tower, Midtown

 

Rev awoke with a start, to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm. The offending object was quickly found and silenced, revealing that whoever set it must be some kind of sadist to set alarms at such an hour. Or one of those exercise freaks. One could never be too sure. But this morning exertion revealed a new issue. The arms that passed through her vision to turn off the alarm were not hers, evinced by both the different skin tone and the sensation of normal muscles moving beneath her ordinary skin. She looked around what seemed to be some high-tech small apartment, an Atom logo on the door. Where was she?

 

Blackstaff Investigations

 

Devon was no stranger to uncomfortable beds. He had spent a long time training to be an EMT and it had featured many uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, but since moving to Freedom City it had been some time since he had slept on such a lumpy mattress. He could feel a pressure behind his eyes, like the feeling of knowing there was a predator outside the tent but turned within. Perhaps it was a result of whatever transformation that had yet to lapse that he could feel. The springs in the mattress creaked as he rolled over, opening his eyes upon an unfamiliar room. The floor was old wood, a spattering of furniture around. Light filtered in from a window that was being cleaned by small creatures. Did that mean his teammate Adrianna was nearby? As he shifted he caught sight of his arm, feminine, unfamiliar, and missing the Encyclopedia Eternita.

 

Bayview, Claremont Academy, Michael's Room

 

Gookgak awoke slowly, peacefully. His body hummed with unknown power. In his dozing state he initially imagined this was how a bear or other great beast might slumber. Powerful, self-assured, safe. It was a nice feeling. But that blissful glow could not go on forever, his sleep rudely interrupted by the sound of an alarm. So motivated, the Gobbelyn opened his eyes upon a room that he had broken into on more than one occasion. He flailed indignantly at the fiendish noisemaker, crushing it with a migthy swing of his arm. Michael's arm? Sitting up in the bed he bore witness to a human room he had only seen while standing on tables and bookshelves. The stature of a man.

 

The Fens, Armstrong Residence, Alice's Room

 

Carmen had sensed something was off quickly. Her body felt inordinately heavy, but simultaneously seemed to be barely pressing into the bed she could feel beneath her. It was similar to the feeling of floating upon the surface of a pool, but the sensation was all around. The greatest downwards force upon her body felt like the blanket above her, pressing her down onto the bed gently. She felt like there was a knot of tension in her center of gravity, like a muscle she had never been aware of was engaged at a low degree. The air brushed over her skin but failed to rustle her hair, Some instinct deep inside her was telling her that she was in the wrong place, and upon opening her eyes Carmen found this was confirmed. She was in a small, cozy room. A bookshelf contained an eclectic mix of books and old toys, a couple of unfamiliar pictures staring at her. A girl with black hair smiling out from the center of the nearest, hugging what looked to be her family. Carmen rubbed her eyes to center herself, the sensation differing from what she was accustomed to in an initially unknowable way. After moments it hit her though. She had no claws, no fur, her tail and ears no longer twitching in agitation from her confusion. What had happened? Had something broken her curse? Did this strange room she found herself in have something to do with it?

 

 

The four heroes quickly started to come to the conclusion that they had swapped bodies with other people. But how and why eluded them. The last thing they remembered was responding to a disturbance near Lake Mackenzie. Perhaps that might hold the answers, but first they need to find out where- and who- they are.

[Supercape]

Rev

 

"Damn the alarm," said Rev, tempted to smash the offending item with a chrome and steel fist. 

 

And yet her fist was neither chrome, nor steel. It moved like a snake, needing no oil. Had the mechaphage gone? Had her limbs regrown? She patted down her body, feeling flesh whence there should be metal. Everything felt wrong, alien. 

 

She rushed to the nearest mirror in the unfamiliar territory. Had she been kidnapped? Teleported?

 

She blinked twice at the unfamiliar face in the mirror. 

 

"I must be dreaming," she muttered, quite aware that she was not. 

 

She was in a human body. Perhaps that might have been good news, if it was her own, but it was not. A quite unfamiliar body, unfamiliar face, and - what a bad haircut!!!

 

The Atom Academy sign was a clue - surely? Maybe they had messed up with some telepathic projector device, or something? And maybe they could reverse the madness?

 

Still getting used to a new body, she stumbled out of the door, trying to find some super scientist, or maybe some super science. Hopefully both...

[FlyingFresh]

Gookgak

 

Michael's face cracked into a dementedly massive grin. "Heh. This is good dream! Me is Michael now!"

 

Gookgak-in-Michael's-body (GIMB) scurried to the mirror, and with all the gravity and reverence due the situation, began to display his massive muscles in an exhaustive series of flex poses. "Heh. Me is sexy now!"

 

Hmm, Michael has cute cat lady girlfriend. Me wonder . . . .

 

GIMB burst out of Michael's room, humming a merry gobbelyn melody to himself. A contemplative hero might have taken the opportunity to pop in on his own room to check the status of his own body.

 

GIMB made a beeline straight for Carmen's room.

 

If only he had remembered to put on clothes first.

 

"Knock knock. Anyone home?"

[Poncho]

(Devon 51)

 

Deep breaths. Something was inside him. He was inside someone else. The Encylopedia was gone. He straightened up and kept himself calm. A little meditation to calm his nerves. It was harder than it was supposed to be, with the thing behind his eyes. It reminded him of Cry Wolf, one of the aliens he hadn't fully mastered yet. 

 

He got up from his meditation and did several pushups, then sit ups. He grabbed the phone mesrby, intending to call his own number, but then he realized he couldn't; he didn't know the passcode for this phone, he knew the passcode for his own phone. He could call himself if he found a landline, or a cordless, but he wasn't sure he could find one.

 

He was strenuously not looking at the body he had found himself in; he wanted to respect her privacy as best as possible. Was the woman whose body he was in also transferred into his body? They would have no idea hiw dangerous the Encylopedia was. Had the Encylopedia done this? Some sort of new Alien that could swap conciousness? Concerning.

 

Once he was dressed, he took his first few steps into a new world. The plan was simple. Find a Landline or usable cellphone, call his own number. Inform them of the dangers of the Encylopedia. 

 

Make his way to Lake Mackenzie. Once he knew who he was, where he was, and he was certain the individual with the Encylopedia could use it at least somewhat, then go to Mackenzie. If this was a super villain plot, Dwayne's body wasn't suited for combat without an alien form.

 

"I don't know what happened, but if it's Adrianne or Rex's fault I'm really gonna bend their ear over this." He said to himself. It took him a moment to realize after that the voice was his own, so different from his. "...I should check in on Madame Raven too....Man this is going to be a confusing day." He sighed. He already felt a headache coming on. 

[MoonSimply]

Carmen (???????)

 

Dreams, restful sleep. A luxury if anything for Carmen due to her feline like proclivities, rarely ever entering into that O' so sought REM sleep that most people desired to have. Instead, she had known of quick naps, defensive like in nature, or at the least always on guard just as her feline namesake was. The alleged curse that she had developed in her early youth had become her life and yet, eye's flickering slowly open as the daylight broke through the window. It was flying. Not like it was with her and Michael where he'd take her in his arms travel quickly across the city but by herself, through and endless blue sea of cloudy blue yonder. It was then that she knew that something wasn't right. The feeling in the back of her mind that such a dream went along with a sensation, like floating on a pool of water and yet dragged down like weight of a sinner in one of the head priest's sermons back in the orphanage. 

 

This wasn't her bed and blankets, nor her home for that matter either. This body was not her own for better or worse, and as she woke up, clutching the covers to feel security knowing that she wouldn't float away to the ceiling and yet as she sat on the bed, felt the weight come down upon her, as if she was lifting a motorcycle or some other heavy form or weight. It was then she saw the photos, the pictures, and then finally came the realization whom she actually was, or sort of believed to know whom she was.

 

"Star?" Carmen spoke in this strange and weird body, taller and less agile than she was, a fuller body that was allowed to be seen and not hid away by fur. A body that also felt so clumsy and weird, weighed down but not as she walked sloppily around with a partial loss of balance. Carmen needed clothes, something of the sort. There was enough common sense there to know that going around in a unitard most of the day wasn't going to cut it in whatever in this body, nearly falling over as she went to look for whatever she kept underwear and pants in. A curse in Spanish would be called out softly from untrained lips and throat. Her mind was still there, unnaturally focused, but everything else was definitely not there.

 

"Damn lake, it had to be that... but why can't I remember?"