Ultimate 4

Mira was going to start her superhero career as ignominiously as possible. It was intentional. Thanks to pop culture, the average layman would immediately get what was going on and probably be grateful for it. The thing to worry about was the envious and incredibly wealthy... or the media making her life difficult.

It was why her initial superheroine outfit was a fairly old work shirt and a pair of shpants from her host. According to her escort on earth, nobody could possibly be intimidated by shpants. Mira felt embarrassed even having to say the word, so that seemed to check out. Really, her escort, Aria, was clearly having a lot of fun with her assistant role in general.

She supposed she shouldn't expect less, given that Aria had apparently been chosen to be her companion in power, and -was- a fairly decent roommate all things considered. But the enthusiasm with which the foxgirl dressed her up and bought her gadgets was rather... impressive. She had even apparently setup a superhero website to actually find things to do.

That was at first. They'd been living together for an entire month now and Mira figured she was starting to 'get' things.

Mira -was- a little surprised that Aria didn't seem to want to join her in heroics. The foxgirl just chuckled and said that this was Mira's shot. The world needed their first superhero to fall out of the blue, to resonate with the legends of a perfect alien ideal... rather than be some rather mediocre therapist who somehow got her hands on entirely too much power. Besides, it wasn't impossible that Mira would need secret backup someday.

Well it might have been a little impossible.

It was otherwise pretty fair logic. Mira just felt like there might have been SOME ulterior motives going on. Especially once a whole bunch of mail order stuff started arriving at their apartment. Massive amounts of chocolate, cosmetics, reasonable clothing in Mira's sizes... and unreasonably skimpy clothing in Aria's.

It was especially difficult to pretend there wasn't something going on when Aria stopped wearing clothes at home altogether, eating 3 pizzas a day, and doing absolutely fuck-all dawn to dusk except for the occasional five minute break to clean at superspeed.

Mira got it to a tiny degree. She'd had to watch her diet like a hawk to maintain her looks back home, and they had far more advanced medicine. Hell, she could ruin her back for a week by skipping a bra for a day because she was a DD-cup; and Aria had twice as many Ds as her (even if her brand used 'G'.) Given that the only thing to eat in the house had been protein shakes, she was probably feeling pretty relieved.

It was just a little embarrassing to see a girl who could make supermodels blush drop a bon bon, roll languidly off the sofa and onto the floor, grab the sofa one handed and lift it over her head, then shake the sofa until the bonbon fell directly into her mouth.

Then not bother getting off the floor.

“SO, I see things are going well for you,” Mira said, looking down at her roommate.

“I mean, better than for anybody else who has ever existed, yeah,” Aria said back.

“Ya wanna maybe spread that around?”

“Oh but Mira I have to watch home base, today is your big day and I'm recording everything, remember?” Aria fished a notebook from... somewhere (the entire living room typically looked like a pile of trash between noon and six, when she actually bothered cleaning)... holding it up and miming the click of a pen.

Mira swiped the notebook with enough speed that the wind from it knocked over a distant bookshelf. “I'll handle that myself, thank you, YOU go outside and do something useful. Hell, being in public somewhere I'm not when I make my debut can only help.”

“Curse your logic or something,” Aria mumbled.

“You know, you actually seemed kinda admirable when we met,” Mira noted.

“Yeah first impressions count. Something something public persona. But I'll go, it's not like it won't be fun,” Aria said.

Mira briefly wondered if her roommate was pulling some 4d chess horseshit. The powers they both got included improved mental function. Mira had gone from a white wolf bimbo with all the beauty and none of the brains to a smart, sexy hero. Aria had already been pretty smart so who knew at this point. If the fox's goal -was- to motivate her to be a better hero and never rest on her laurels, it was working.

It's not like she didn't want to let it.

Five minutes later, Aria had been shoved into a sarong and dragged out of the house by Mira, taking to the sky and scanning the city with the foxgirl. It was a little nostalgic for their first flight... for about five minutes until the lazybones got too annoying and Mira threw her in the ocean.

She'd be fine of course, and Mira had different worries.

Namely, the fact that they -would- be fine from a 1000 foot drop. And just -how- strong she was getting.

Mira fished out a journal she had kept since arriving here, refusing to use the phrase 'utility shpants' even if they contained quite a lot of crimefighting accessories today. The journal was a little thing Aria recommended to organize her thoughts, but every time Mira looked at it she had the same question by the end.

Day 3:

Aria handed me a journal and told me to start organizing my thoughts rather than frequently freaking out. The 'act as though everything's fine' route kept me together for a bit, but now she says she apparently has to actually help me. I'd be annoyed, but her flippancy in the face of the most significant thing that has ever happened is weirdly comforting... though I should really talk more about myself...

Day 5:

I don't actually know myself. I used to, back when I was the skinny heiress everybody just saw as ditzy and fun loving, but now I'm an alien monster on a new world... and I'm not even that skinny. My body keeps changing in strange ways. I noticed this morning that my fur was longer, more luxurious than it had ever been, even with thousand dollar treatments applied by the day, back when. It keeps staying wavy and elegant. It's a good thing – hell, the extra butt cushion actually made sitting more comfortable the other day – but it feels weird to have something so... inconsequential... change.

Day 7:

Consequential things changing feels much weirder. Today I noticed that Aria's outfits stopped being quite so loose on me. Looking closely, I noticed why.

I've got muscles.

Never in my life have I tried to bulk up, especially not now, but there it is, when I flex, I get a peak that's closer to something I'd expect on a guy. I was already supernaturally strong even when I remained skinny, so this change is... strange. And alarming.

Day 8:

Broke Aria's fridge today. Tore the door off its hinges. I was trying to touch it lightly and it just came off. I broke three pens before writing this down as well.

Day 9:

Woke up floating...

It's all gone, isn't it? My entire world, everything from it. It's all gone. Even I'm gone, replaced by some monster.

Day 15:

Aria talked to me for a while. It helped. Even if I was a little uncomfortable with some of it. Even if I do have six pack abs, now, it doesn't feel appropriate to rub them quite that much. I'm still getting bigger by the day, though, so she says she's just keeping track of it.

Day 17:

Went out to run errands today. Even though I'm not famous in this world, I'd never really been generally out before. The people of this world seem... nice. Not MUCH less horrible than back home, but there's still this idea that their doom is worth despairing over rather than laughing off. It means if somebody fixes things, they'll really be fixed.

Day 18:

Flexed through a shirt today. Told Aria that it was time, I was going to make my superhero debut soon. She seemed proud and showed off some work she'd already done. I don't know when, though, I haven't seen her working once.

Day 20:

With my shirt bunched up around my chest and arms, I got an interesting catcall today. Apparently somebody liked tough chicks in charge and tried to call me goddess. I like that. It's what monsters were when they were still nice. I just have to stay good and it'll work.

Day 21:

Exploded that shirt too... it was a little fun.

...

Mira didn't finish her journal again. She wrote very little and she wanted to stay in that last position. Liking it, and remembering to be good. That would be appropriate.

With every idea she could find of benevolence ringing in her mind... her eyes caught a fire a few hours away. She took a deep breath, and took off towards it, a high rise in rising flames. A sonic boom followed behind her, ringing in the new hero that shot towards the building, standing straight as she descended.

Looking back still made her ask again, though.

How strong was she going to get?