I wasn’t around when the first emergence hit and didn’t find out about it’s existence until the week after. A similar thing for the second.

In the weeks following all sorts of hero’s like Nightbinder and Vulptrix we’re out doing their own thing. Ever since I saw all these new superheroes emerging I was hooked on following their stories. My name was Dan Randal but that’s beside the point. I was unfortunate enough to be out during the 3rd emergence.

I used to be a stick basically, I was 6’2” with barely any muscle mass. My face had freckles across the bridge of my nose and cheeks, a medium sized nose and small-ish eyes holding a green iris. My hair was the Tik-Tok boy style in a deep brunette. I had been assigned to do a front cover picture of the latest government gala outside of Penrith when the 3rd emergence hit and this will be the story about how my life got flipped and turned upside down.

I’d been getting a few odd jobs here and there for the past few weeks but I really enjoyed the change that this would give me and the chance to work my way up in the photography world. God I hated this though. All of the politicians hated the emerged and it took everything out of me to not stick up for them but I managed. As the night started to draw to a close I had managed to take enough photos to get the most out of my pay check.

The gala I’d attended was a pretty stereotypical one that took place in a large hall and was draped in all sorts of red carpets, curtains and the lot. The food was awful too, that basic posh food that barely fills you at all. The politicians that attended were all mayors or whatever these people call them. The leaders of their town basically. And they had all joined together to come up with a method of dealing with the emerged. Heads of mega corporations like DNF arrived too and put forward their ideas. It was a shit show of different views and ideologies trying to make a plan that would benefit everyone.

As the night drew to a close and the halls started to thin out I was left talking to one of my friends I’d dragged along for moral support and company. She was a nice girl, around 5’4”, relatively thin but perky where it counts. Her face was cute but also kinda hot with a button nose, heart shaped face, quite large eyes and an aqua blue that was lighter than the sea itself.

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I’d say I was attracted to her but I’d be outright lying, we had a fling in year 10 through 11 but just wanted to stick as friends instead as it was too awkward sometimes. Either way we were just planning on leaving the hall and heading back to our apartment.

The night sky brought a nice chill to my face that I desperately needed to wake up and so did she “should we start heading home Izzy?” I asked looking down at her. She nodded giving me a massive smile that was so damn contagious that I couldn’t help myself giving her one back. We walked slowly home. After standing up for so long my ankles were really taking a toll.

The main road near where our house was had been closed so we had to take a back road and a few alleys to substitute and I swear they weren’t this small when we went through them the first time.

I head a dull thud from behind us as we spun around and what we saw could only be described as a neo-nazi was there with two others that looked exactly like him. Izzy has stepped in front of me as the sky began to light up. Shit. I knew what this meant. Emergence part 3.

I grabbed izzy in a desperate attempt to get her to safety as the light surrounding both of us and practically setting my body on fire as it enveloped us in a bright white light.

I came too on the cold hard ground as I felt the cold steel of a pipe brought to my face, the neo-nazi was towering over me. I turned to stand up but he knocked me back down. Fuck why did this hurt so much. I just lay there taking their kicks and punches until they had enough and ran off.

My body had never hurt like this before and as I rolled over to see if Izzy was ok, something felt off about my body. My chest felt heavy and there was something wrong with my body from the waist down. I sat up to see the damage with great effort and I didn’t like what I saw. For starters I now had tits. The more worrying fact was that I had a sort of cats legs, what was the word... DIGITIGRADE! My legs had become that of, what I had assumed to be now, fox legs from the looks of it and I had a tail. I reached up and touched my head to check and my suspicions were now confirmed. I had ears.

Trying to stand up was more of an issue than I had thought, my feet were less than a quarter the size of what they had been and my legs bent in ways I didn’t know possible. After what I assumed to be around half an hour I managed to stand very carefully. I walked over to Izzy as she stirred and I shit you not I don’t think I’ve ever heard her scream louder than in this moment. She quickly calmed down however when she realised who I was due to what I was wearing, mostly, my pants had fallen off and my shirt barely fit me.

Like me something had happened to her and it was worrying, despite me not being able to see it. She looked absolutely terrified and had gone to speak a few times before finally saying quietly “my powers are gone...” as she said this my hand suddenly burst into flames but it didn’t hurt? It felt kinda warm and that was about it... Izzy in the other hand looked a whole lot more worried than I was “you have my powers...” she breathed, wide eyed and scared.

To be continued