With a flash of light I find myself in a bus station restroom in Poseidon City, Virginia. It's not exactly the most glamorous place to make my debut on Earth, but apparently it'll help with my cover story, they said. If anyone tries to trace back how I got to Liberty Stars HQ, they'll hopefully just assume they lost my trail when I got off a bus.
Before I step outside I take a moment to check myself again in the mirror. I'm wearing my human clothes this time, a t-shirt and jeans along with a heavy-duty backpack carrying my stuff. Fortunately my tail is positioned high enough so that I don't need custom-tailored jeans, so I'd say I look pretty good! The tail might still catch me a bit of attention, but Poseidon City has a pretty high population of superhumans comparatively, so seeing mutates around shouldn't be that uncommon.
As expected, when I go outside it's pretty dark and quiet so I don't need to worry about that just yet. Step one, arrival, complete! Step two is making it to Liberty Stars HQ in time for my appointment. The wide, squat tower with its large star is visible from here even though it's not the tallest building in the city, so at least I won't need to worry about finding it. It is a fair number of blocks away...but that just means I get to stretch my legs!
After checking to make sure no one's paying too much attention to me, I climb my way up the side of the bus station and onto the roof. With my sticky hands and greater-than-human strength it's a pretty easy trick, and my tail makes it easy to pull myself up over the edge as well. From there it's just a matter of taking a running start and...whoo!
Obviously, I'd tested my jumping length and height and all of that way before I got here. But doing it in a city, in the open air with all the smells and noise and nighttime chill? It kind of all hits me at once, way harder than I was expecting. I nearly slam into the side of the building I was jumping for, and I'm extra glad now I didn't have an audience. Granted, people running around on rooftops here apparently isn't that uncommon either, but you at least gotta look good doing it!
Once I give myself a minute to adapt though, I'm up and running! Dashing across rooftops, clinging to walls, treating the city as my playground. Sure, I may not have wings (yet? Mom says sometimes Darkhive grow them when they're older), but I'm definitely making better time than traffic. I think a few people do spot me, but it's almost surprising how unsurprised they are. Guess I won't need to worry that much about fitting in! I'm glad Mom sent me here to start and not some backwoods town where no one's seen a bug girl before.
Eventually I find myself in front of the Liberty Stars headquarters, the home base of this city's superheroes - or most of them, anyhow. I'm not too tired out, but I do take a moment to catch my breath before I go inside. Gotta make a good first impression! When I step inside I see a woman manning the front desk, even this late at night, and there's another young woman standing off to the side. Ignoring her for the moment I greet the receptionist.
"Hey! I'm a new signup, I should have an orientation appointment set up?"
The receptionist nods. "Name? It doesn't have to be your legal one, just whichever one you plan to use around here when you're not running around in a get-up. Though looking at you, maybe you won't need one of those..."
I turn around to show off my tail. "It's cool, right!? I do wanna use a costume though...but anyhow, the appointment should be under Tamara! Tamara Barnaby!"
"Yup, I have you here...you can wait with Marcy here, and Impact should be by to start your orientation in a minute or so."
"Thanks!" I give her a smile and step over towards the other woman. She has blonde hair, cut a little less than shoulder-length, with one stripe of purple running through the left side. She has a pretty pleasant face, with purple eyes to match the hair, so I take it the stripey bit isn't a dye job. Her build is maybe a little less athletic than I'd expect for a superhero, with a few extra curves...but I don't have any complaints about that! Her tight shirt and leggings don't leave much to the imagination, and she's got the kind of juicy buttcheeks you just want to spread open and pump full of eggs...
I manage not to drool as I introduce myself, I think. "Hi! I'm Tamara! You're signing up tonight too?"
The young woman nods. "Yup! I'm Marcy, Marcy Hopewell. Maybe we'll be working together, if we're starting at the same time?"
"Oooh, I sure hope so!" I give her a wide smile, and she actually looks a little bashful as she looks away. She sees something to point out as she does, though.
"Oh hey, it's Impact!" Sure enough one of the city's better-known heroes is making his way over, in full costume. Impact is a bit of a hybrid between a speedster and a tank, not really great at either, but apparently getting punched in the face with superspeed and superstrength still makes for a good combo. His bodysuit is mostly white, but with red gloves and visor - though the visor is missing now, at least. People joke that the red gloves are to hide the bloodstains, but mostly I'm just checking out his fine abs and the five o'clock shadow on his chin.
Oooh yeah, I'm definitely getting this guy to fertilize me ASAP.
I don't know if he's thinking the same, but he gives us both pleasant smiles as he approaches. "Marcy, Tamara? I'm Impact, I'll be walking you through things tonight. Do you two have identity names in mind you'd like to start using?"
Marcy swallows before nodding. "I'm planning to go by Tender Marcy, though you can just call me Marcy! Ahah!"
Impact nods. "Right, right, you're a healer-type, yeah? I can see that. And you, Tamara?"
I nod eagerly, having put a lot of thought into this. "I'm going to go by Super Stinger! But you can call me Tamara or Tammy or Hot Stuff, it's all good!"
The hero laughs. "Why not just Stinger? I can see how that fits, and it's a bit snappier, right?"
"Ahh, single-word names are boring! It's the extra adjective that really shows you mean business, and makes the villains take you more seriously!"
Marcy looks at me, then at Impact.
Impact raises an eyebrow.
"I mean, Impact is a good name, too! Very...impactful. Hahaha..." Crap! If I keep putting my foot in my mouth like this, I'm never going to get fertilized!
Fortunately it seems like he has a good sense of humor about it. "Ha, always fun to meet the newbies. So, come along, as we get to where we're going I'll start off by talking about the important part - the money."
Marcy seems a little surprised by that as we get moving. "The money, sir?"
"More importantly, why you don't need to worry about it. When you sign on with us, you'll be signing over your licensing and merchandising rights, and our people will handle all of that stuff. Whichever of our services you end up signing up for, the income from merch will go towards paying for it, and if you manage to bring in extra we'll cut you a check for the rest. Basically, as long as you follow the law and don't become impossible to merchandise for, you can't really get kicked out. Even better - if you're not bringing in enough to cover your expenses, you don't have to worry about it! We've got a couple of big-names who don't mind subsidizing the newbies."
"Very heroic of them!" Although I've already been briefed on how the organization works, I make sure to ask some questions to pull off the human newbie routine. "What services can we sign up for, though?"
Impact continues speaking as we get into an elevator. "At an absolute minimum level, everyone gets signed up for the insurance programs, legal advice, and a bare minimum level of PR management stuff - which you can mostly let them handle if you like. If I'm not mistaken, you two also requested residences here at HQ?"
I nod along, and notice Marcy does as well. Impact nods in return. "Then you're getting room and board as well - nothing fancy but the apartments are better than the average college apartment, and the cafeteria food's pretty decent. After that, there's all sorts of optionals - gym access, medical services, equipment repairs, special training sessions with the vets. We're actually swinging by the medbay first - aside from showing it off, we'll be getting your power sets officially registered."
I furrow my brow. "This late at night? It's a little late for a checkup, don't you think?"
"Liberty Stars HQ never sleeps - actually, we seem to get more work done at night than during the day. We won't be doing a big examination though, just a quick interview to make sure the medical team knows what they need to know, in case they ever need to treat you."
I'd expected that, but still breathe a sigh of relief. While mutation could explain a lot, there's still a lot about me that might look particularly concerning if a specialist looked too close - especially my whole alien reproductive system.
...You wanna know about my alien reproductive system, don't you? Just wanna get all up in that business? Yeah, I know you're a freak. I gotchu, though.
So yeah, Darkhive are nearly all female, but we don't have wombs. We do have pretty impressive ovaries though, apple-sized in my case, constantly churning out new eggs. There is something I call the cum balloon in between there - not the medical term - which can get filled from down below or up top. That's right, in my throat I've got an air pipe, a food pipe, and a cum pipe! Which hopefully I'll be testing out sooner rather than later...anyhow, once that reservoir gets filled, my girls will pump a few eggs through there to soak it in, and then into another pouch near the base of my tail to cook for a bit.
After about twelve hours they'll be ready to pump through my ovi into a nice, waiting incubator...but I'm sure we'll get to more detail on that later, hehe!
We make our way into the medical labs, and fortunately it doesn't look like anybody's being treated at the moment. A woman in a white coat comes over, looking pretty much like the standard middle-aged human doctor with her brown hair, glasses, and serious expression. Impact greets her and introduces us. "Doc Sands! I have the newbies here, Marcy and Tamara. Newbies, this is Doctor Helen Sands. She runs the night shift around here, which means she's likely the one you'll see the most."
The woman eyes us, especially me and my tail. "Some interesting ones tonight...suppose we'll start simple first. Marcy, yes? I was informed you have healing powers? Do you mind explaining how those work?"
The young woman nods. "Ah, basically I can super-enhance the regeneration of anyone I'm touching, er, including myself. I'm...apparently almost impossible to kill?" For some reason she seems a bit embarrassed about that? Weird. "Aside from that though I don't have much combat ability. I was thinking maybe I could find a team or a partner?"
Helen makes a note of that. "If nothing else you could be a great help down here. Any side-effects or limits to this healing effect? Consumption of energy, body mass, life force?"
Marcy nods. "Well, healing a lost limb or something takes a while, more like, multiple...sessions. It doesn't have any side effects on me, but on other people it can really tire them out. For big injuries it can knock them out entirely! It's never been dangerous, though."
Impact rubs his chin at that. "A knock-out touch could be an interesting application, even if it does mean healing the person you're fighting. Regardless, I'm sure anyone around here would love to have you on their team once you get a bit of training."
"Indeed." Dr. Sands turns to me next. "Obviously, I'm seeing a heavy insectoid mutation here. I'm not going to ask you to strip for an examination as much as I'd love to, I know a lot of heroes guard their privacy. Still, can you give me a basic rundown of your changes?"
I give her a smile. "Well, the chitin part of my skin's really tough - probably not bulletproof, definitely knifeproof, though. I can climb on walls and ceilings, and scratch people up pretty good. Think I'm decently strong and fast, and, uh...maybe better-than-average nightvision? Oh, and of course, can't leave out my venomous stinger!" I let the pointy end of my stinger pop out and back in to show off, but Impact and Dr. Sands both look more alarmed at that than I was expecting.
"Venomous stinger, you say?" Dr. Sands grimaces. "Can you explain the effects of the venom?"
"Uh...paralytic? Keeps people awake. I mean. Animals. Cause I've never used it on people! Seems to keep them down for a couple of hours. No long-term side effects, I think?"
"Well, I'll definitely be needing a sample of that venom as soon as possible." Impact nods in agreement.
"Nothing personal, but you have no idea how many newbies come in here with a sleeping gas, or tranq gun, or something like that, only to find out that their 'non-lethal' takedown triggers allergic reactions and ends up killing people. A couple of years ago a newbie in Boston tried helping out in a hostage situation and killed four hostages that way."
"Oh, yeah, that makes total sense! I can do that for you now, if you need!" I breathe a sigh of relief that none of my body's Embrace toxins come out of my stinger. Those are handled by my hidden mandibles and my lungs, and I think I'll be keeping those tidbits to myself...
Dr. Sands is quick to bring out a sample jar, and it's easy enough to squeeze a good dollop of venom from my stinger into it - I've done it often enough for Jef's tests, after all. It's a little embarrassing to do in front of the humans, but I think they're actually kind of impressed by the level of control I have over my tail.
Once I've given the doctor her sample, Impact moves us along and we see more of the building. Cafeteria, training rooms, armory, and all of that. We're given appointments with our media specialists, but not anytime soon, at least. Eventually Impact returns us to the elevators and hands us both keys.
"And there's your room keys, both for Floor Nine, Apartment C. Roommates, I'm afraid, we don't have enough residences to give everyone their own apartments, especially not the newbies. But like I said, it's a lot better than your average college student gets."
Marcy seems fine enough with this. "Oh, I don't mind having a roommate! I was kind of looking forward to the experience of it, actually. Shall we go see our room, roomie?"
She gives me a smile, but I have to disappoint her this time. "I'll be there in a bit - but I was wondering if I could talk to Impact about something private for a bit first?"
They both seem surprised, but she nods. "Oh, alright? I'll be claiming the best bedroom, though!"
We laugh, and as the elevator closes behind her, Impact turns back to me. "So, let me guess - is this about the bug mutate thing? Trust me, you don't need to have any worries about anti-mutate prejudice here, we - "
I quickly interrupt him. "Actually, no, I'm not worried about that! I just really liked the tour, and your costume, and...maybe I could pay you back for your nice welcome with a blowjob?"
I can almost see his brain short-circuit before it recovers enough to scan me up and down. "...How old are you again, Tamara?"
"Approximately twenty!"
"Jesus Christ." He licks his lips and swallows before speaking again. "Just so you know, there's no need to feel like you have any sort of, uh, obligation or pressure, or anything like that, to do - oh Jesus those tits." I grin as my quick flash manages to short-circuit him again - my human outfit tonight had not included a bra. "This is...this is a public space, and..."
"So...how about a tour of the nearest storage closet, then?" I flash my eyelashes at him, and then my tits one more time for good measure.
"...Yeah, I think I know of one not far from here..."