Here Comes the Troubleshooter! Part 2 - The Troubleshooter transforms.

Next morning I wake up to Carl cooking an omelet. He approaches cooking like he does his inventions, and more often than not the results are amazing. Which is a good thing because I have super-strong senses including taste, which can be a lot less fun than you might think.

While I’m waiting for breakfast, I put on the TV and they’re showing footage of the latest Superior. He looks like a teenager, maybe eighteen years old, and he’s pretty good. Apparently, some robbers took off with a bank truck full of money, and then this kid comes out of nowhere, doing better than sixty miles an hour, without a car. Then he makes this amazing leap and lands in front of the truck. He sticks out a hand like a policeman trying to control traffic, and the truck hits him dead on.

The truck breaks apart like he was made of solid steel, and shortly the robbers are in custody, and the kid takes off without talking to the press. Just as the talking heads were starting to chatter about him Carl called me to come eat, and I put the kid out of my head. I might be more than human, but I have no interest in joining Commander Ares on his Compound. Let him and his friends handle the super-villains out to take over the world, I’m carving out my own niche.

After we ate, Carl went down into his workshop to do his thing, and I went to have a bit of a workout. I get into that zone you can sometimes find when doing something really physical, and so I miss the warning signs that my curse is about to hit at full force again. It isnt until the pain starts that I remember why Carl didnt have me booked for any appointments today.

Trust me to be dumb enough to forget what day it was.

I must have cried out when the pain hit, because by the time I hit the floor Carl was with me, cradling my head.

Part of me wants to push him away, to not let him see me like this. The other part wants to hold on to him with everything in me.

The “hold me” part wins - this time.

By the time my transformation is done, I have fur, a tail and a face like a cat-human hybrid. I wept, and Carl soothed me until I gained control of myself.

“Come on Andi.” Carl said, and took my hand. He led me across the room, tossed aside a rug, and pulled on the ring beneath it.

He led me down into a cave below our house, and it was a wonder, and perfectly designed for my current form.

If I had been capable of speech, I would have thanked him a thousand times.

I kissed him instead.

Once we both got our breath back, he asked me, “Do you want me to stay down here with you? Or would you rather be alone?”

As much as I love him, I hate having him deal with me in this state. So I guided him back to the stairs and motioned that he should go.

I kept myself together until he was gone, and then I let go.

The next couple of days are a bit of a blur, because my thinking was not quite human. I was a creature of mostly instinct, and hardly aware of much else. Carl came down a couple of times a day to check on me and to leave me some food, which I probably would have refused if I had the choice. In the state I was in, I much preferred to catch my food while it was still alive ....

On the third day I returned to my normal state, and Carl helped me climb back up into the house.

“Thank you. For all of this. I’ve been dreading my change, but at least down there I’m safe.”

“My pleasure.”

“Carl, why are you so good to me?”

“You have to ask? I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.”

“I was a big strapping man then.”

“That was just the package. Its what’s inside you that makes you special. Like how you’re using your gifts to help regular people .”

“For a fee. I’m working for the cash. I’m no hero.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

I just glared at him.

“Listen, speaking of work, there’s an offer on the table that could help us a lot financially.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It means going back to the Middle East.”

“Just great. Back to where this crazy thing started.”

So I guess I should actually talk about how I ended up like this before any readers get so annoyed at me they quit reading.

For me, it started when I met Carl. I was an Army grunt, but I had dazzled my superiors with my skills as a sharpshooter, and they were trying to figure out how to best take advantage of me. They decided to pull me from the front lines and make me a guard inside one of our desert bases, so I wouldnt get blown up by an IED while they worked things out.

I wasnt broken up about not getting killed, but I found waiting for them to make up their minds about me frustrating. Then I bumped into a guy in almost the same exact position - Carl.

He had started life as a regular soldier, but the inventions he was banging out on his off-hours had gotten the attention of the powers that be, and so they dropped him into a desk job until they could figure out the best way to take advantage of his talent.

With not much to do but kill time together, we became close, a lot closer than I had wanted. He was gorgeous , and having a brain as well as body is pretty damn sexy, but I was interested in going places I wouldnt reach if I got kicked out of the army for being gay.

Which didnt dissuade him, and eventually, he got me in bed. And as hard as I was fighting against it, I was losing my heart to him.

Even as I told myself not to. I tried to remind myself that love is a mug’s game, that such a relationship couldnt last under the conditions we were under, that if anybody found out I’d lose everything, but I did it anyway.

And of course, we were found out. Our CO was turning a blind eye to us, but someone on base decided we were doing something horrible, and managed to get some film of us with our pants down.

The court-martials didnt take too long, and soon we were headed back to the States in disgrace. Carl invited me to stay with him, and I took him up on the offer, trying to kid myself that it was just because I had no other place to be.

Our little vacation lasted about six months.

Then Pitchriver, a company that did work in both the military and intelligence communities, got a hold of Carl’s record, and decided they had to have this wiz-bang inventor working for them.

Carl agreed, but only if it was a package deal - they wanted him, they had to take me too, and no more hiding our relationship.

To my utter astonishment, they said yes.

So we were off to the desert again. Carl was given a state-of-the-art lab to play with, and I was given a job as self-defense instructor, and life seemed pretty good.

Until a crazy lady showed up, claiming to have solved the riddle of the Superiors.

Ever since Commander Ares had made his debut, people have been trying to find or create their own superhero, and failing, but this lady had figured out the problem.

Apparently, you needed a god.

And just our luck, she knew where to find one.

Pitchriver took one look at its roster of employees, and decided I was the best candidate to be elevated to being a Superior, and since I was pretty much going stir-crazy without something meaningful to do, I said yes.

Carl thought I was crazy, but said he’d back me if its what I wanted, so I kissed him goodbye and went off with this woman to find ourselves a god.

In retrospect, I’m really glad Carl didnt come with us.

Because that’s where everything went to hell.