Fortress

[Deel]

From the Waycross Journal-Herald, July 5 2010 -

Independence Day festivities on the east side were marred when one teenager had to be hospitalized due to an unknown illness.  Witnesses say the young lady collapsed after watching the first of several fireworks displays and demonstrated symptoms that caused many onlookers to run away, leaving the victim unattended for nearly an hour until paramedics arrived.  The victim, whose name will not be released due to her age, was transported to the Satilla Regional Medical Center whose emergency personnel report that there is no sign that the unidentified illness is contagious.

From the Waycross Journal-Herald, July 7 2010-

Reports on the victim of a July 4 collapse now state that the girl, not identified due to her young age, has been transported to an out of town facility due to the peculiar nature of her illness.  Officials have repeated that the illness is not contagious, and representatives from the Centers for Disease Control have despite the sudden onset the condition is probably genetic in origin.  The victim's parents declined to comment. 

From a report from Doctor Erin Tach, Freedom Medical Center, to Phillip Chang of the Albright Institute, as forwarded to [redacted] of AEGIS-

I don't think she meant to damage the plane's interior.  If it was malicious, it would have been much worse.  Superhuman strength is definitely one of her traits.  It's simply that she was in great distress for some days - it was only after we got her here that we found something to use as anesthetic.  And even then we had to supplement the effects with a telepathic sedative effect. 

We're running as many of those tests you suggested as we dare.  You were right - this young lady is teaching us a few things about the nature of mutation, mainly because hers is going very badly.  Apparently mutations that cause rapid metamorphosis typically include certain high energy safety features that permit the changeover to the new metabolism to occur without serious distress and with fairly easy adaptation to altered features and abilities.  We know this through observing the exception - Ms Jones appears to be lacking those safety features.

So far, we gather that the final form her metagene selected for includes great strength and endurance.  She is already manifesting those traits.  Unfortunately our best guess ends there.  We can tell that her metabolism is assimilating and fixing a number of elements and compounds into her body that humans don't usually include and survive.  In particular, unless we use force-effect needles, anything we try to introduce intravenously has an excellent chance of being melted away by her bloodstream once it penetrates her skin.  We aren't sure where this might end, and we don't really have the luxury of testing anything.  Quite aside from the danger to our patient, her skin is rapidly becoming hard enough that force-effect needles are almost the only thing that will penetrate it now.

We know the outward metamorphosis began July four with her body resculpting her bones.  It's been five days, and we're fairly certain the skeletal changes are complete - Ms Jones is now much taller and more heavily built than she was.  The changes have been happening in distinct stages over the last five days, but every now and then after one stage is complete the metagene will 'redo' something that we thought was finished.  The digestive system in particular seems to be in a state of ongoing modification, but then that's really just something we can observe most directly.  What we're observing is that it's getting smaller - the entire digestive tract is shrinking, becoming vastly more efficient with each revision.  Someone suggested that it might end up disappearing altogether, which is not as crazy as it sounds.  At least some of her vital organs are decentralizing in function.  Her heart is down to 20 bpm.  At first we thought it was deteriorating, but then realized that the rest of her cardiovascular system is becoming more complex to compensate.  At the endpoint, we suspect she won't technically need a heart.

One ongoing theory of mutant and stimulative superpower transformations has been that the metagene functions like a genie - it reshapes a person in accordance with psychological or behavioral traits without regard to the explicit desires of the patient, so impulsive people are more statistically likely to develop super speed or fire power, intellectually inclined people are more inclined to develop hyper intelligence and so on.  If this comparison holds, then Ms Jones unfortunately got an idiot genie.  Or perhaps just a feeble one.  It's bestowing a bulk transformation, but only one bit at a time.  

Her integument in particular is puzzling in its latest development, and some of us suspect that her final appearance will not be particularly human.  This makes the situation with her parents particularly troubling, as they returned to their hometown immediately we informed them that their daughter was mutating.  From some parting comments, we gather their beliefs include a suspicion of metahumans, and having one for a daughter has provoked a strong rejection.  We can't be completely certain whether Ms Jones shares those beliefs.  It's a good thing our various organizations have lots of therapists on staff.

[Deel]

Here is an image, not a great one but detailed enough, of Fortress as built in Champions Online.   It's good enough to show proportions, although I must add the CO generator has certain limitations (In particular, women in CO *must* have certain proportions.)