False Start (IC)

[Carces]

In the quiet little basement of a quiet little house in a quiet little neighborhood of western Grenville, Vance Malloy collapsed back in his chair with a tired sigh of contentment as he beheld his own handiwork. His television, which once served as a humble entertainment system, was now a towering masterpiece. For there was not one, but two televisions, painstakingly angled to be viewed both by sitting in his usual, frumpy green chair and from the small window, just under the basement's ceiling. It had certainly taken a while, checking and double-checking to make sure that the televisions could be seen from the widest angles, both outside the house and in the basement. It had taken longer to make sure the various books and boxes he used to elevate and angle the television tower were structurally sound. It was well into the evening hours before Vance had researched a method of repeating a tape from the VCR instructional manual, let alone setting up the second, unusual VCR device he had acquired from Video Head to his second television.

However, he was finished. The set up was great. Better than great. It was perfect.

"Now, I just need to give it a test run. I need to be careful about all of this." Vance spoke out loud to no one in particular.

Vance carefully pushed in the tape of the summer vacation he spent with his mother and father at the beach. He carefully studied the short film, where he spent most of his time trying to quietly build elaborate sand-castle cities He watched stoically when his father encouraged him to go out into the water while Vance reluctantly agreed, despite not being able to swim. The camera stayed on him, and he couldn't see who it was that had stomped his sand-castle city flat before he returned.

Vance sighed. The beach was an odd choice for a vacation when you can't swim.

Soon, the video ended and rewound itself automatically. Vance waited in anticipation until the video started itself again. It worked! The VCR was a sophisticated and highly useful piece of machinery indeed! When the video centered its attention back on Vance, he concentrated his efforts on the picture in the screen, letting himself be absorbed in the moment. It took a moment before a feeling of intense vertigo, deep inside himself, emerged again. Looking down, he was still his old self, and he was now wearing a bathing suit.

"Yes!" Vance leapt in the air for joy. Yesterday had almost seemed like a dream, leaving little but the strange VCR device as evidence that something amiss had happened. But it had worked, just like before, and he could change into himself using the video, just like before. But could he become a monster again?

Vance looked back at the video that had heralded the strangest part of this whole mess. The video, with the label "MONSTER - 3104" as the only clue that it was any different from a normal video of "Retaliation of the Mummy", had somehow forced him to access a night of bandages, and the horrible feeling of death and decay. It was a video best left alone.

Beside it, the video of "Revenge of Wolfguy" sat nicely in its box, rewound and ready for playing. A sneaky, athletic werewolf? Sounds like the perfect specimen for a test drive...

[Carces]

Vance opened the door and looked outside. The sun had almost set as night was starting to fall on the neighborhood. The days had been getting cooler as the summer days had begun to drift away.

With a hasty look about, Vance made his way to the backyard of his house, closing the flimsy white fence's gate behind him for as much privacy as he could muster.

Vance knelt down on his hands and needs and craned his neck to see the televisions. Sure enough, both televisions were playing: one with the vacation video and the other rolling the starting credits of "Revenge of the Wolfman." With patience, the young man waited until the end of the credits - a flashing image of the werewolf appeared to scare the audience.

Even the small flash of picture was enough when Vance knew what he was looking for. An intense energy built up inside of him, as if his blood were beginning to shift and boil - an uncomfortable sensation. His body exploded into its new shape with reckless abandon, structuring and re-structuring itself faster and faster, growing bit by bit and reshaping itself perfectly. Within seconds, the feeling of intense vertigo had come and gone. Vance shook his head and opened his eyes to get his bearings. Underneath him was the familiar, neatly-trimmed grass of his home, but in the grass where his hands should be, large, black-and-white claws remained.

"Whoa." Vance brought a claw up to his throat. His voice had changed from the higher-pitched tenor to the scruffy, muted tones of a monstrous wolf. Vance looked back at the window, where the light of the diminishing sun cast his reflection back at him. There was no trace of a teenage boy staring back at him, but the full embodiment of Wolfguy. The transformation was complete. Vance grinned, but stopped when he saw how goofy a smile on a werewolf looked.

"That's not gonna cut it! Wolfguy's gotta be scary!" Vance picked himself up off the ground, stumbling about on his powerful, but somewhat awkward double-jointed legs. When he managed to find his balance, he walked off to the house's ground-floor kitchen window to have a better look at his full reflection. To his amazement, he even had to crouch down to see his face in the full kitchen window.

Vance practiced shifting his mouth for a while to get a better look at his frightening teeth. He tapped on a tooth with one of his claws, noting how hard the teeth were. This was certainly not a costume or cosmetic effect - the teeth were just as real as they looked. Satisfied, he struck a pose and snarled in the most terrifying way he could manage.

This was far better than any movie! Surely Vance looked as frightening and dangerous as anything Freedom City could dish out! With a scary look in his arsenal, he was ready to take on whatever crooks or thieves might still be lingering near the Video Head. It was time to be Creature Feature!

Still keeping his face in the same snarl, in order to try and commit the scary face to his new form's muscle memory, Vance turned around, looking for an inconspicuous way to leave. Instead, in the lot beside him, he saw a seven-year-old little girl poking her head out over the fence. There was a single instance of silence before the little girl screamed and ran into the house.

"Aw geeze..."

[Carces]

The werewolf quickly unhinged the gate, doing his best on his new legs out of the backyard. While the sheer size of the new form was an obstacle in itself, the remarkable agility helped quite a bit. Between concentrating on how to run and imagining sirens in the distance that were not yet there, Vance had trouble noticing the humble mail van coming down the street he ran out to.

*SCREEEEEECH*

The van came to a sudden stop as the driver looked for the black figure he had almost hit. The van hadn't struck anything, nor were there any signs of movement on the left or the right. A brief second later, the back of the van's roof sunk in as Vance landed on a knee.

"Holy smokes!" Vance looked down to see how high he had jumped. He had easily cleared not only the van, but the roofs of the second story houses as well. More than that, he had managed to avoid becoming roadkill. The euphoria of the moment wore off quickly, however, when Vance remembered the poor driver inside.

"Gee. I'm real sorry, mister. Are you okay?"

"MONSTER!" The mailman screamed as he forced upon the van's door. Vance held out his hand as the mailman ran as quickly as he could. The young shapeshifter did not get off the van, however, when he noticed the increasing number of people watching him through windows and doors, due to the previous ruckus he made.

In the distance, the imaginary sounds of sirens running through Vance's head had become real. Super powers or not, today was not Vance's day.

[Carces]

"This is all a big misunderstanding. I'm a superhero! A new one!"

The large wolf-creature standing on a beaten up mail van with a frantically fleeing mail man yelling hysterically for help. Vance rubbed the back of his head, furrowing his brow while fumbling for the right words to win the hearts of the public. Not surprisingly, the words didn't come up.

This crowd-winning thing is hard. How do other superheroes do it? Vance wondered to himself. As he did, a lone police car zoomed to the scene, spinning around to create a barrier on the road. Two police officers, a young, shaky looking fellow and the larger, older driver stepped out of the vehicle. Immediately, the younger officer used his door as cover and threw out his gun at Vance, who held up his hands as high as he could.

"FREEZE!" the younger one spewed out, his gun-hand quivering as he drew a bead on Vance.

The older one scratched his head as he calmly exited the vehicle. "Huh. I don't think think the "large dog" description dispatch gave us was too accurate on this one."

Vance breathed a sigh of relief when he did not recognize either of the officers. At least his father wasn't here to witness this fiasco. His relief soon faded when the shorter officer started yelling again.

"It ain't no dog, for sure! And it better COME DOWN QUIETLY and stop its MURDEROUS RAMPAGE on top of that there mail car!"

The older one sighed. "Calm down, Carl. You're gonna scare the animal and then we might have real trouble on our hands."

"I'm coming down." Vance yelled, trying to disguise his already-changed voice. The result was a mess of gruff tones. "Just don't shoot!"

The cop aimed his shaking gun at the werewolf as it did its best to climb down the van gracefully. The senior officer took out some handcuffs. "It talks too? We're gonna have to take this one down to the station."

"Y'hear THAT?" the excitable officer yelled. "You're goin' DOWNTOWN! Put your hands... uh... paws on the van and don't make any sudden moves!"

"But I didn't DO anything!" Vance pleaded. Despite the protest, Vance did as he was told and put his hands on the Van and leaned forward, waiting for the police to handcuff him. "First day as a super hero and I'm already gonna get arrested. This sucks."

The idea of getting arrested was quickly replaced in his mind when the van wheeled forward from Vance's touch. He realized, in horror, that the mailman had not placed the van in park in his haste to leave the vehicle. Worst yet, ahead of the van were a series of downhill ramps, where the van could pick up a dangerous amount of speed.

"Oh no..."

[Carces]

The crowd and the police watched in horror as the van turned down the declining road. Vance was stunned and speechless, still holding up his arms, and caught between the impending accident rolling away from him and the arresting officer behind him.

The van started to change course as the uncontrolled wheels swayed in whatever path the road dictated. The van was heading straight for a little girl, playing with a flower in a front yard.

With no time to lose, Vance ran and leapt in the air, prompting another "I said FREEZE!" from Carl the policeman. As the senior officer insisted Carl put down the gun, Vance had cleared the van, and braced himself to receive the impact.

*Clunk*

Despite Vance's best efforts, the van wasn't stopping. Vance's feet slid forward as the van kept pushing forward. Behind him, a mother came out to shield her daughter, as there was no time to get her out of the way.

"*Urrrgh*. What's being delivered today? Lead bars?" With all of his might, Vance pushed against the van.

And then Vance tripped.

He was simply too unused to the new form. As his foot hit the curb, Vance flipped backwards and under the tires of the van, still clinging on to the bumper in any amount of effort to slow the vehicle down.

Vance shut his eyes tight, ignoring the pain of having a van on top of him. Pleeeeeeease...

The van stopped! In front of the van, an unpowered mother pushed against the van, with the help of the curb and a roadkill-esque werewolf. The little girl gripped her mother's leg as tightly as she could, with tears running down her face.

Vance breathed a sigh of relief. Even having been dragged along the street and the curb while having a van on top of him, Vance was in surprisingly good condition. While he was a bit clumsy, despite the form's inherent agility, it was pretty hard to injure.

With a groan, Vance pushed up on the van to get himself out. Only lifting half the van, the werewolf's strength was more than enough to unpin himself from the tire. Rolling out from under the van. Vance stayed down on the sidewalk, tired from the excessive and surprising amount of effort needed to stop a runaway vehicle.

Concerned members of the crowd and the police officers ran down the declining road to ensure the shocked mother and little girl were alright. Vance opened his eyes to see the older officer above him, holding out his hand.

"My name's Bruce. Are you okay?" Bruce gave a kindly smile as he used both arms to hoist Vance up to his feet as Vance nodded. "Do you have a name?"

"Yeah, I'm Va... Creature Feature." Vance blurted out. Mental note: Watch the secret identity-thing.

"Well, 'Creature Feature', even if you are a giant wolf-thing, that was a mighty brave thing to do." Bruce nodded in approval, shaking Vance's large, clawed hand as he did.

"Thank you!" Vance grinned an awkward, bizarre looking grin on the wolf face. It quickly faded as he asked, "Are you still gonna arrest me?"

Bruce chuckled and shook his head. "I think we can let you off with a warning this time. Try not to scare too many folks, you hear?"

Vance's eyes lit up. "Thank you, Bruce!"

As Vance parted ways with Bruce, he could still hear police officer Carl's loud protests in the background. His first disaster, admittedly caused by him, had been boldly stopped! Admittedly, he needed a mom's help, the curb, and all the strength he could muster, but a runaway van was no laughing matter! It was time to fight crime and be a real hero. And that started with rescuing Ms. Lights!