In the back room of the coffee shop, Jason stuck his name badge on and straightened his hair a little, his cat form's need to be consistently well groomed forcing him to ensure a presentable look. Smiling at the mirror for a moment, he made his way out to the front of the shop.
"Morning Carmen," He said, nodding politely to the girl, "Sorry I'm late." It only took him another moment to see that she was concerned with something. He picked up a conversation between some of the customers, something about a ‘condition’, and the fact that that person felt that she could help out two of the other customers somehow. A brave thing to say to New Yorkers, you could never be sure how they were going to react to such an assertion. Especially when the person behind it had admitted that there was something not quite right about her.
He lowered his voice, making himself look busy as he made up a coffee for himself in the brief lull in business, "What's going on?"
Peter Morgan
Subways were about as far from fun as things could get for Peter. He despised being stuck in a metal box full of smelly, disagreeable people, and the animal senses that now seemed fused to his just made things all the worse. Then there was the almost weekly mugging that he was forced to endure, some idiot hanging about in an alley somewhere deciding that it might be a good idea to take him on. Idiots.
His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, and he checked the caller ID before answering. Harper...that's work. He cancelled the call, getting off the train at the next stop and finding himself a more private place before calling his boss back.
"Mister Harper. How can I help you this morning?"
"Good morning, Peter. You're not being...disturbed, are you?"
"No sir. No one's in earshot." He murmured, glaring around at a few people and baring his teeth at a newsvendor who got too close. The man backed off immediately.
"Excellent," Harper drawled, "You've got work to do today. Two of our men have tracked an experiment to a coffee shop. I don't trust them to work any further on this case, though. The target's morph is a jaguar. I would like him brought in, Peter. Preferably alive."
Peter let out a low growl, "I can't guarantee that, sir."
There was a sigh on the other end, "I know, if you must kill him, though, try not to eat too much. We'd like an examinable subject, Peter. Not like the last two. Understand?"
"I'll get right on it, sir."
He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt. - Yossarian, Catch-22
Wide-eyed stupid.
If you're gonna rule the world, you've gotta get up early! - Joel S. Dickens
This whole conversation was getting wierd and very uncomfortable. I did my best to scoot to the door, but two of the people in the coffee shop were blocking it. I looked back to the conversation taking place and saw that the lady was making the guy who caught my coffee angry with every word.
Why were humans like that? Or maybe they weren't humans... No! No! The world is cruel if someone else has the same condition I do. This isn't possible.
He's very quiet (seriously, he rarely ever talks) but not exactly shy. He's very bitter due to his circumstances and doesn’t trust people easily.
History:
After he was experimented on, he was left in a small forest cottage. The man that owned the cottage, Mike Taylor—an older man of 63—l, came at nightfall and saw him. After going to the police, Mike decided that it was his job to adopt Damien because no one would come for him.
Damien grew up in the woods and Mike taught him how to hunt. They were doing this one day and Mike (Damien always called him Mike, never Dad) shot at a squirrel. He missed and, out of an effort to please Mike, he shifted and caught the squirrel.
Mike thought this was very interesting and was actually was proud that Damien could do something like that. He read up on falcons and found out what he shifted into. They then sought to control his unique gift. Damien was always glad to do these things for Mike because he adored him.
Mike took Damien into the city one day, when Damien was about seven, and Damien ran across the street carelessly, not really knowing how busy city traffic always was. Mike pushed him out of the way of a car and died in the process.
Blaming himself for Mike’s death, Damien ran deep into New York where he hid in a dark alley where he cried the rest of the night. Three drunken men found him there and tried to take him for ransom. Damien then shifted and ended up killing them with his razor sharp talons.
He’s lived in New York ever since, getting around as his animal form and stealing clothes whenever he grows out of the ones he has now.
Other:
~Up for almost anything
~Remember that he rarely talks.
"What are you doing?"
"I've got paint and rollers...water sking"~The Philanthropist
I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to look up. If I looked up, I would have to fly again. If I would fly...well, even New Yorkers couldn't see a person shift into a bird of prey and not freak out. As always, I was twitching. It was hard for me to be chained to the earth after being in my animal form for so long. Maybe I should stay that way permentently?
I shook my head, Mike wouldn't want that. Even though I killed him, I won't do anything that he wouldn't want me to do. The smell of coffee met me and I went into a shop.
I hated coffee but Mike had loved it and I was carrying on his tradition of drinking black coffee. I'd ordered my drink, trying not to gag, when everthing went to chaos.
"What are you doing?"
"I've got paint and rollers...water sking"~The Philanthropist
I didn't look over at Jason when I answered. I just kept wiping the counter, and whispered out of the side of my mouth, "I'm not really sure. I think there's something weird going on. I have a bad feeling about all of this..."
"Wha-" he began, leaning towards me to keep it quieter, but then all of a sudden the doors burst open and a jaguar landed on the tile crouched in the doorway. I flipped out and morphed into my other form. I crouched behind the counter and jumped behind a bucket of coffee beans. I glanced up at Jason, but I didn't see him anywhere. I heard a few screams and pushed myself further behind the bucket.
Sarah turned and swore. A bloody jaguar. She would have better chances in her other form. She stood and let her primal instincts take over, morphing into a immensly long python. She saw the guys and girl's eyes pop out and sighed to herself. She never could keep this particular secret for long.
Swiveling her head, she tasted the air. Her large emerald eyes, now slitted, locked onto the jaguar, and sarah waited to see what its intentions were, tensed for a fight.
It's not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache.
I shrank into a dark corner and watched the big cat and snake-thing. Every particle of my body wanted to go back into my more comfortable form, but I didn't know what a person like me was doing here.
The jaguar tensed and that sent me off the edge and I shifted. Everyone was looking at the fight (hopefully) so they didn't notice the fierce bird of prey on the table--they would notice me in a second.
I took off and rose as high as I could in that enclosed space. I could see, hear, and move better than I possibly could as a human. Flying as far aways as I could in the room, I made a sharp turn and dove at the jaguar, aiming at the space between it's ears.
Peregrine falcons can dive at a speed of 200 miles per hour, but I couldn't gain that much speed in this tiny place, but I could still go fast enough to do a LOT of damage and I did, raking my talons across the jaguar's head.
"What are you doing?"
"I've got paint and rollers...water sking"~The Philanthropist
Sarah sensed the morphing the second it happened. Morphing always consumed a lot of energy, sucking the heat from the environment. In her python form she could 'see' heat- a handy trait she always missed in her human form.
Sarah decided he was some type of falcon, judging by the size and shape. The falcon swooped, raking at the Jaguar's face, swooping up towards the roof.
Fool. Jaguars could jump that high easily. I guess I should help. Silently weaving among the table and chair legs, Sarah flanked the distracted jaguar, before striking and wrapping herself around him and squeezing.
It's not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache.
Good, I guessed right. That snake (I wonder what kind of snake it is?) just needed a distraction. I swooped and looked to where the jaguar was being strangled. It was really hard to menuver in the small room, but I was able to manage.
A lot of people were screaming but there were some that were just standing and gawking like the idiots the human race is made out of. Then their expressions changed...
"What are you doing?"
"I've got paint and rollers...water sking"~The Philanthropist
I heard another scream, but this time it was gargled and a human. I climbed the shelves and peeked over the counter. My tail twitched.
There was a man, half naked, being strangled by the viper. I imagined he was the one that had changed into the jaguar.
"Somebody get that snake off of him!" a human shouted. How stupid. He was just about to attack everyone as a jaguar, and now you want to save him? It's true that I didn't know for sure if he was going to hurt anyone, but walking around in his animal form was an immensely stupid move.
I ducked behind the counter and changed back into my human form, pretending that I'd just been crouching down behind the counter.
"Everybody calm down!" I shouted. The man was wrestling with the snake around his neck. The snake wasn't that tight around him anymore, but it didn't let go. I wondered what was going through its mind.
"Everyone just calm down before I call the police!" I shouted even louder, feeling my voice tremble. I missed the calm of fishing for clams all day...
The man glanced at me for only a spine shivering second before turning only his hand back into a paw, scratching the snake, who let go instantly and coiled away. He growled, letting the black fur slowly cover him again until he was completely changed. I'd never been able to do something so controlled... He must be really powerful.
Sarah hissed in fury. Her prey never got away.
The element of surprise was gone now, and Sarah watched the jaguar warily. His paw could deliver a mighty blow, and if he bit just below her head, it was goodnight snakey.
It's times like these I wish I was poisonous... Sarah thought, hissing loudly, seeking to intimidate him. She was long, once fully grown she would reach 32 feet in length*, but she was young yet, a mere 12 feet.
Tasting the air, she could detect adrenaline and blood. The jaguar growled low at her, advancing slowly. Sarah stared. What was she going to do now...?
I watched in both horror and bliss as the event unfolded. To see that I wasn't the only morpher pleased me.
It wasn;t until the Jaguar began to advance on the snake, newly uncoiled from his neck, that I decided to morph. Bending over into a cat-like position, I switched to my snow leopard form, letting out a loud roar. The jaguar turned his gaze away from the snake, and I pounced, landing right in front of him.
Hissing, I raised my hackles.
Anti-Peta.
"In Vabbi , I was ambushed by six of them! They wielded blunt wooden sticks and were hissing at me about overdue fines... Bandits? Oh, no. These were library envoys."
...
