Routine

The next few days are a blur. The ring trains you for a few hours of real time (a day or so of personal time…), you take a nap, have weird dreams, wake up way more refreshed than the time frame would suggest, and get a patrol in. Most days aren't nearly so exciting as that first patrol.

Your hero gear comes in over the course of a few days: The ball bearings come first, a crate hand-delivered to your house by a red-headed amazonian woman in a rented truck. She's not wearing a uniform, does not carry a clipboard, and has no name badge… and doesn't bother with any kind of a forklift, simply lifting the crate like it's weightless, and asking where you want it. You have her put it in the garage, and your teacher directs you to thank Alice for helping out on his behalf, which you do. You figure out how he knows her personally when you pop open the lid and find the packing list: There's three thousand, three hundred seventy-five of those three inch ball bearings in the cubic crate, four feet on a side. That woman was casually carrying almost six tons. A few days later, the same woman delivers the bean bags the same way… and in similar quantities. The fanny pack arrives last, in a re-used box from one of the major online sales companies by way of the US postal service… and when you open it, there's ten of the fanny packs present.

As you load up one in preparation for a patrol, you ask your sponsor, “Why so many?”

“Oh, that's easy,” your benefactor begins, “the ball bearings and ballistic bean bags are disposable: I don't really expect you to gather them back up after, not that they'll generally survive. The specific quantities are so I could contract with the factories directly: Anything less than full a day's production, and you need to go through a middle man. The fanny packs will get wrecked eventually, so you need some spares. They're highly custom jobs, so I had a simple seamstress sew them together locally.”

You consider that, “They weren't delivered by the factory…”

“Nope, they went to HQ,” the dragon chuckles, “I didn't figure you'd want your home address connected to the supplies in any official records. Anvil delivered the heavy stuff as a favor to me, while for the fanny packs I just had a secretary take ‘em to the post office in a used box and ship ‘em via a cash transaction with a fake return address. Any and all traceable records simply lead to The Gibborim's HQ.”

You consider that, “...and as they're a known superhero group, any odd purchases are simply normal business.” You nod, “Thank you.”

“Happy to help,” he chuckles, “and as they're disposable supplies…” you groan and pack a bag full of them for training, and head out to ‘the range’ with them….

The days pass swiftly enough with the routine, and you start getting some very vivid sex dreams, and waking up in a really good mood… it's all fine until your mother… father… lover… whatever… brings something up over breakfast.

“Umm…” Mark mutters, “...so… you're a little young for beer…”

You frown, “Yeah, I haven't had any. What's this about?”

“Well… with your ‘paycheck’, I haven't had a pressing need to find a job quickly,” he beats around the bush, “so I've been doing your laundry. Getting nice clothes makes perfect sense, but there were some beer stains on one, and…” he trails off.

The dragon answers in your head, “Oh, that's my fault. I've been visiting a few different clubs while you're sleeping. No drinking - you're not of age for that in this country - but a couple of my dates have gotten plastered, and yes, one spilled a beer on you a few nights ago.”

You put your hand to your head to let Mom know you're talking to the ring, “So you're dating in my body?”

“It was explicitly on the list when we agreed to this,” the ring reminds you.

“Yeah, it was,” you consider, “Is that why my dreams have been a bit…” you consider, “...spicy?”

“About half of it, yes,” the man in your head chuckles, “the other half being that the hormone load in your body makes for *quite* the ride.”

You consider that, “That's also why I've been waking up feeling satisfied, I imagine?”

“Oh yes,” your body guest agrees, “I've been doing this for a very long time, and getting laid in a body like yours isn't exactly hard to begin with. You get to enjoy some of the fading afterglow.”

You consider that, “So… how much of a slut am I known to be?”

“You? Not at all,” he chuckles. “But the completely fictitious African American woman Amelia Anderson is quite prolific: A simple pigment change. Also, as we're not taking any alcohol it's a very simple matter to avoid anyone checking our ID.”

You consider that, “You can use my shapeshifting power?”

“Yes and no,” the ring answers, “I've studied how your shapeshifting works enough that I can duplicate it via an item… but I haven't done so. For my general purposes, there's better options.”

“Oh?” you inquire, holding your hand to your head still.

“Yeah… I want ‘expensive’, but I don't actually want ‘wasteful’,” he chuckles, “so I'm going with a skin-tight power suit that has a variable amount of ‘give’ before it does a hard stop, full tactile feedback, muscle reinforcement… which I can turn off when I want to exercise your body… plus some filtering for the usual toxins, CO2 recycling, and such. Flight, speed, light bending, and mass sense for travel…” he pauses, “OK, I don't really need to bore you with the details.”

You consider that… “Just how strong are you? Do I need to start a cult of you or something?”