Orca

The light faded quickly, leaving Jason back on the dark East End roof. Immediately, however, he knew things were not the same. The pipes and guardrails among him somehow got shorter. And the smell… Gotham always reeked like an open sewer, but the stench doubled in just a couple of seconds.

“What happened?” he muttered. Then his eyes flew wide open. That wasn’t his voice. Then he looked down to find that this wasn’t his body, either.

The first things he noticed were two white mounds sticking out from his chest. They were… well, he didn’t know cup sizes, but pretty damn big. His black arms and legs rippled with more muscle than ever before, and his fingers and toes ended in razor-sharp claws. Jason rushed over to a puddle of rainwater to see his face, heavy footfalls thudding along. Though he really didn’t want to, he needed to bite the bullet. Superheroes took risks every day. Even so, this was the part that almost made him faint.

His face projected out into a slight muzzle, and his mouth was filled to the brim with pointy teeth. A curved dorsal fin sat atop his head instead of hair. Finally, two fearful, black eyes embedded in white eyespots stared back at him. The shiny, rubbery texture of his new flesh made it even more bizarre. Only then did he realize that he wasn’t wearing a shred of clothing. Technically, he supposed he wasn’t indecent, since these tits didn’t possess nipples.

Speaking of which, he reached out to grab one, hoping it’d be like pinching himself to wake up from a nightmare. The alien sensation of pleasure was enough to mostly convince him that this was reality, though part of him though that he had been **** by Scarecrow.

“It appears the dial has altered your physiology,” Brother Eye stated in response to his earlier query. Must have taken a second for the robot to process this fucking madness. His clothes were gone, but the earpiece that connected him to the AI remained – though his ears were now merely holes in the sides of his head.

“No shit!” he shouted, though he tried to keep quiet so nobody on the streets heard him. Couldn’t disguise the terror in his voice, though. His whole body seemed to shake… which was rather unnerving in the case of his new breasts. Jason may have died, but turning into an eight-foot tall whale woman wasn’t something Bruce ever trained him for!

“Any other info?!”

“At a genetic level, you are Orca.”

Jason paused, befuddled.

“Orca?” he repeated. His voice, though husky, had an undeniable womanly edge to it.

“A minor enemy of Batman’s. In recent months, she has also battled Nightwing in Blüdhaven,” Brother Eye explained, not at all perturbed by this metamorphosis. “Her abilities include increased swimming capabilities, as well as superhuman durability, stamina, strength and sense of smell.” That last one explained the stench.

Jason tried to think back to all the case files he read through, and he did vaguely recall hearing about her before. Brother Eye filled in the gaps. Orca had been a marine biologist who was paralyzed in an accident. She tried to heal herself with orca DNA, which turned her into a human/killer whale hybrid. Also able to turn back into her human form at will. Sounded like a crazy comic book story, but that was just the kind of world they lived in.

He paced the roof, trying to keep his steps from rattling the building. Pretty sure this was an apartment complex, after all. Took deep breaths, trying to adjust to the situation. This may not have been the night he planned for – in fact, it may have been the weirdest night of his life – yet he couldn’t lose focus.

The dial was gone. Didn’t know where or how, but he may have been stuck like this until he found the trinket again. He needed to talk to somebody back at the Batcave about this; maybe he’d have Brother Eye pass a message along, but this was the kind of news he’d rather deliver in-person. Alternatively, he may have been able to transform back into plain old Red Hood if he concentrated hard enough. It’d be easier to get back to his base on the other side of Gotham that way.

“It’s worth a shot,” he muttered. Jason closed his eyes and envisioned his human form.