12) [ J series ] Raising a stink.

It has to be Jessica freaking Drew, the original Spider Woman, not one of the Gweny come Latelys, that’s who I ended up with as my body’s mother this time around.

A character made by Marvel for the express purpose of blocking anyone from another company from making their own character named Spider Woman to piggyback on Spider Man’s growing popularity just by switching the gender pronouns around, and then Stan Lee pretty much just threw random superpowers in as her power set.

So, she ended up being able to shoot electricity out of her fingertips, just like spiders are so well known for doing, and with her special costume, she could glide around in the air, you know, like a spider.

They also gave her pheromone powers that make everyone of the opposite gender get all googly eyed about her, which would have been great for me, as long as it did switch over to working on women instead of men.

It would be pretty awkward the other way around, although I think I could make it work for me.

To misquote Batman. Women are a jealous, competitive lot.

But I don’t know how it works because for some reason she also had the ability to put out pheromones that can make people terrified of her and it all seemed to be based entirely on her mood, and, lucky me, it turns out that I get nervous about going out and meeting people in my new body, my new male body, and that makes me nervous.

So there I am, with ‘Uncle Gomez’ my Life Model Decoy of an official legal guardian, moving into my new fully furnished seaside apartment in the city of Recife, the Brazilian Venice, all smiles and waves for the girls hanging out around the building’s pool in their tiny little swimsuits.

Only to get the same weirded out looks I knew all too well from trying to talk to hot girls back from my last life as a fat, ugly, lesbian.

It was only when I made eye contact with a little blond through a window pane in the cafe there and my boy band good looks, along with my head of accelerated growth curly black hair, well worth reprogramming my Creche unit for, that I got a smile.

Until I got inside and walked up to her to see the smile on her face slowly twist around into a look of fear. And I instantly knew there was something coming off of me that was passing through the air.

Pheromones, and not the ones I could have had, the ones that got people to be attracted to you, the ones that I would have killed to have in my last life.

No, I got the ‘Cold, dead, psychopath look in her eyes’ ones.

For now.

At some point, Spider Woman learned to be able to switch back and forth between the two mental influencing scents her body could produce, hell, she even learned to outright fly, you know, like a spider, at some point according to the information files Doom had left for me on every person of consequence in the Marvel Universe.

Which I had downloaded onto the ‘phone’ I had made. The files were five years out of date, but still useful as hell.

So if Jessica Drew could improve her powers, then I, with the genius level of intelligence that I had inherited, should as well.

Spider Woman had even gotten a hold of a sort of perfume that blocked her pheromones outright, which could serve as a short term solution for me until I had things under control.

Until then, it would be a matter of spraying on a nice, strong scent, perhaps sandalwood, avoiding going for a swim or a walk in the rain that would wash it off and relying on my own charms to talk to girls.

Hell, I would rather do that than use a superpower on them anyways. I want girlfriends dam it. Or lovers, or friends with benefits, or anyone who wanted to be with me, not some sort of mind controlled slave. If all I wanted was a bunch of sex dolls I could have just made more LMDs that could look and act like anyone I wanted them to.

For once in my life, this one at least, I wanted people to want me. Even if it’s only a matter of it being because I am now a hot guy who had lots of money that got their attention. I’ll take that deal, happily.

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It would still be their choice, and who cares if it's all either physical or financial, as long as it's consensual all around.

Self deceit is the first step to romance, after all, I’m sure someone impressive had to have said that at least once.

In the meanwhile a quick shopping trip bought me some equipment for detecting and measuring my pheromone production, and a host of various personal hygiene products to see if something commercial was going to get me out there flirting with pretty girls instead of sending them away fleeing in terror.

A few hours of work later, and a dozen or so showers in between showed me that even just a cheap cologne with a high alcohol content was enough to block most of my pheromones, at least while I was alone in my apartment.

How well that would hold up while trying to flirt with someone remained to be seen. Maybe if I started someplace with a lot of fans and air conditioning? Keeping the air moving had to do something, and it wasn’t like keeping myself cooled down would hurt.

Maybe just a little would give me an air of being a ‘bad boy?’ I could work with that.

Standing in the bedroom of my master suite, I heard Gomez call out, “Jase?” I had decided to stick with Jase, it fit somehow.

Wandering out into my bedroom I found my ‘Uncle’ looking out towards the window to the balcony, “I’m afraid a unit of the Brazilian Navy assigned to collecting Metahumans for mandatory enlistment in the military and under the command of one Captain Paragon has just arrived at the building. I estimate they will be arriving at your front door in four minutes.”

I froze up for a moment, panicking, which completely overwhelmed my Hatchet body spray.

Which is why one of the two people dressed up in what looked like short sleeved and legged wet suits that popped up on my balcony nearly went right back over the railing as she flinched and went tumbling back, both of her hands pulling sharp edged bone spikes from the flesh of her hips leaving slowly sealing holes in her sides as she brandished the blades of the bone daggers that had been sheathed inside of her body.

Oh, her.

Marrow, a mutant body horror themed psycho girl was getting a full blast of my freaked out, scary, scary odor, while her friend, in green and black to Marrow’s red and black suit, seemed unaffected, and more concerned about her friend than the gun Gomez had produced and was aiming at her even after it unfolded from a tablet computer into to a full length pistol and began humming.

What can I say, I loved Transformers. Which was incensed to Marvel, I should check if they are part of this universe.

Later. Right now I’m guessing that her being a nearly seven foot tall humanoid shark meant that my pheromones weren’t affecting her...

But it was the ‘her’ part that had my interest, since even as a nearly seven foot tall humanoid shark girl she still had a nice set of breasts.

Very… proportional ones.

“Hello! What a lovely set... of young ladies who have come all the way up here just to see me, do forgive my lack of clothes, I only just got out of the shower.”

While the Shark girl, who was not in Doom’s files but probably had an amazingly original code name, ignored me as she turned to question Marrow, asking if she was all right, Gomez cleared his throat.

“Jase. The Navy unit? Captain Paragon. Two point twelve minutes?”

Ah right, turning to the bathroom I grabbed the bottle of the particularly nasty but effective cologne and began liberally spraying it all over myself.

The Shark girl appeared at the bathroom door and stumbled back waving her hand in front of her face.

“Merda! What are you doing?”

I smiled and nodded at her, “Sorry my lovely, but I give off a scent which can frighten people away when I’m startled or worried. But you seem to be immune.” I wiggled my towel around. “But unless you wish to see more of me then we should start our first meeting with, perhaps you could give me a moment to get dressed.”

Did you know sharks can blush? I guess it’s because she is halfway between shark and human some things like blushing still work. Which makes me wonder what else works for her like a human.

I licked my upper lip at the thought and pulled my pants back on along with my shirt as my lovely called out from the apartment. “Unless you want to serve in the military for the rest of your life, you might want to hurry up in there.”

My Uncle gave me the countdown as he appeared at the door to the bathroom to hand me my billfold and phone. “Forty seconds sir.”

Pocketing my things I walked out to see my girl looking unsure of herself while Marrow lurked outside on the balcony. She waved her hands around nervously. “We’re going to have to go down the outside of the building, I’m going to have to carry you.”

I waved her away, “I love going down, but there is no need for you to do all the work my lovely. Gomez, battle mode.”

The LMDs transformation unfortunately destroyed his outer lifelike appearance, it was the cost of combining two entirely different functions together with limited manufacturing time. But while I wearing his combat suit form he would still serve to let me fight a few steps above the level of my untrained metahuman powers.

Not that I was going to stick around and fight Paragon, who was a dependent of the Nazi super Warrior Woman, someone who had regularly fought toe to toe with Steve Rogers and who seemed to have inherited all of his grandmother’s powers.

No, I’m a lover or would like to be, not a fighter.

Walking past my would be savior and an angry looking Marrow, I took a leap off my balcony.

“Last one on the ground owes me a kiss.”

So much for my plans, but as you have seen. I like having contingencies.

Such as the artificial old man skin suit left behind crumpled up on the floor of my apartment which should confuse the pursuit for a moment if nothing else.

Especially after it blows up.

I hope the girls don’t linger. Even if the mutants now have group resurrections according to my media scanners I had bringing me up to date on recent events.

But it’s a pity about the deposit, I highly doubted I was going to get any of it back.