'The Raccoon'

They say that having read superhero comic books as a child makes you more likely to become a super as an adult, and that is certainly true in your case. You were an avid comic book fanboy in your youth, you convinced your parents to take you to comic-con, and invested your allowance in rare editions and other collectibles that would appreciate in value. You even met your wife at a comic book store in the suburbs of Baltimore.

But as the years passed the hobby lost it's appeal, as it often does, and you sold off your collectibles to buy a house when your wife told you she was pregnant with your first child at the age of 30. You didn't stop reading comics, but you moved on to more mature titles, Usagi Yojimbo, Ultra Verse, Sandman, and others. You raised a family, most of your comics in the format of collected 'graphic novel' editions, and worked at your 9-5 job at a software engineering company. You got a promotion, then another, then another, and realized you had reached your 'level of incompetence', so you performed a 'Peter Parry', and found a new better paying but lower level job at a different software company, an Indy video game design firm, who you worked for for five years, got asked to accept a promotion twice and refused: before they announced that they were relocating to Millennium City for better access to the new hub of the computer industry, and people could either accept severance packages or move with them.

You talked it over with your wife Samantha, then with Jenna and Michael, and though the kids didn't want to move they ultimately agreed when the whole situation was explained: how you were in your early 40s at this point and no one hires people as old as you in the computer industry if you don't know the architecture of some obscure old language which they need a programmer to keep their core process running: so you sold your house where the kids had lived their whole lives thus far and moved to a spacious but still smaller two floor condo in downtown 'Millennium'.

That was two years ago, and life has been good to you here. You kept your job as physics engine team lead for; 'High Axe Arts' the company is calling itself this month: even through two mergers and a hostile takeover. You have an 'Orochalcum' mini-van that was new last year, your old station wagon that you've had since college having finally died on you, in a way that was impossible to repair at any price, it's frame warped in an accident that you are just glad you survived,* and you thank Jesus every day that the airbags worked and you were alone in the car. Jenna and Michael are doing well in school, both in Junior High now, and are still exceeding expectations at their Karate, Judo, and Music lessons, though Jenna has abandoned the proper 'Violin' for an upright base cello, much to your frustration.
*(You will swear up, down, and sideways: that pickup ran the red light, not you! The accident was declared 'no fault', but your premiums went up anyway...)

The one real difficulty in your life since you moved to Millennium until a few days ago is a true tragedy, Samantha found a lump in her breast ten months ago, and the biopsy came back with what you all had feared, an aggressive Ductal Invasive Carcinoma, which by the time she found it it was already metastatic. The doctors said she had about five months to live, and advised you to empty your savings and take a vacation, make the last few months happy ones, the spread was too extensive for chemo therapy to be effective. You went home and started searching the internet for treatment options, and found-out that right here in the city there was a hospital doing experimental nano-mechanical therapy where microscopic machines were introduced into the blood stream and aggressively hunted and killed the cancerous tissue. The risks were grave, the machines had in some cases started attacking healthy cells, and in others had turned 'Gray Goo' and eaten the patient alive, but with the choice being between certain and a slim chance at life: Samantha chose life.

She has been in the hospital off and on for the past eight months, every time they think they have it licked it starts to come back, and this time they are keeping her in the hospital under intensive observation and constant Nano-therapy, for three solid months, just to make damn sure that they have BEATEN it.

You have been doing OK raising the kids by yourself, you always were the dominant parent, so they are obedient, but about 3 days ago, during the 'gibbous' moon, you woke up in the body of a raccoon! Eventually over the next two days you learned how to shift back and forth, and when you did it consciously it hurt like hell, but you discovered that you have 3 'intermediate' forms between 'Human' and 'Raccoon', one a six foot tall monstrous giant half-raccoon/half-man: one human like, slightly larger than your normal body, but with a raccoon's claws and senses: and one that is a raccoon the size of a Great Dane! You tested it, and after the full moon changing is slower and more difficult, but still possible, and that has you concerned. You have not told anyone about these new powers, but you know you are supposed to register with the 'Meta-Human Mobilization Department'. Thing is you don't know what will happen if you do: or if you DON'T. You like your job, you don't want to be a super hero, or villain, but there is that nagging voice in the back of your head from reading Spider-Man: 'with great power, comes great responsibility'...

Your name is Alexander James Hearthstone, and today will change your life forever...