Kombat Champion Part 1 free porn video

This is just the first half of the story. The second half has already been written and will be posted as soon as I get it back from my editor. Speaking of which, I would like to thank Milady for her work editing this story. Kombat Champion By Morpheus I stopped at the door to my apartment and let out a yawn, fumbling with my keys for a moment before opening the door. And the moment that I stepped inside, I called out, "Honey, I'm home..." just as I did nearly every day when returning home from work. As usual, there was no answer... nor had I expected one since I lived alone. After another yawn, I stepped inside, immediately feeling a little recharged. Spending all day at work selling computers and dealing with clueless customers could really drain your energy, but for some reason all it took to get it back was coming home. "Home sweet home," I muttered, hanging my coat on the hook by the door. As I walked past I caught sight of myself in the mirror that hung somewhat askew on the wall. The face that stared back from the mirror was of course familiar, being the very same face that I saw every time that I looked in the mirror. It was the face of Craig Belmont, a 6'1", 24-year-old computer salesman who worked in a nearby electronics store. I had dark hair that could have used a bit of a cut, and a goatee, which covered my chin. "A real ladies man." I grinned at the reflection, though it had definitely been awhile since I'd been out on a date. Since I sold computers for a living, some people might assume that I was a geek. But a friend of mine had once told me that a geek was someone who had no hobbies that did not somehow involve electronics. Then again, I guess that using that definition, I was a geek. With that I looked around the apartment, which was my sanctuary from the world as well as a convenient storage place for all of the electronic gizmos that my paychecks had gone into buying. I loved watching movies, evidenced by the 56 inch plasma screen High Definition TV that sat against one wall, attached to a great surround sound system. In fact, my neighbors thought that my sound system was too good as they complained just about every time I tried to listen to movies the way that they were meant to be listened to...with the sound effects blaring. However, as much as I enjoyed watching movies, I loved playing video games even more because they were interactive. In fact, I currently had four different game systems, though two of them were almost obsolete. And I also played a lot of games on my computer...which was of course a great system. Being a computer salesman, I couldn't very well have anything that was not up to par. Lately though, I'd really been caught up in a new little known online came called Kombat Champions. It was a wicked game, sort of like Everquest or City of Heroes in that you could create your own character, but also like Mortal Kombat or Street fighter in that it was based off of fantastic martial arts. Kombat Champions is a great online fighting game. Each player is a martial artist and you can have wicked martial arts fights, like in Mortal Kombat and Street fighter. You can go from village to village, challenging people to fight right on the street or even go and enter tournaments. And there are a lot of tournaments, some with special rules, such as black tournaments, which were basically the game's version of a fight to the death. But few people enter those, as there aren't a lot of people willing to risk their character actually being deleted from the game on the results of a single fight. But one of the coolest things about the game is just how much control you have over creating and customizing your character. You can not only create a detailed and individual appearance and clothing for your character, but choose their fighting styles, weapons and even their special moves. When you are done designing your character's appearance, you can choose their name and title...though you don't have to add a title. A lot of people do though, calling themselves things like Luke the Strong, Coleen the Fast Sword or Danny of the Iron Fist. But of course, those are mostly cosmetic and style type things. One of the most important things about making your character is choosing which school of martial arts they're from. There are nine schools which you can choose from, each one giving the basic set of abilities that you start the game with as well as setting what kind of abilities and special moves your character can learn in the future. Two of the most popular schools are the theme schools... One of these schools lets you design characters with animal themes...such as a cat, a wolf, or whatever. You can even get certain animal abilities. There's also an elemental themed school for people who want a character based off the elements like fire, water, electricity or ice...like Subzero of the Mortal Kombat games. The ice theme is fairly popular...and there's even one guy I've run across a couple times who dresses his character in yellow and customized the settings so that all of his ice attacks come out as yellow too. The smartass calls himself Pi...the Yellow Snow. But there are of course other schools as well, each with their own specialties and benefits. Another important part of designing your character is the points assignment. You start off with so many points that you assign to various character attributes such as strength, speed, agility and the like. These are also largely determined by the body type of your character and the school you selected for them. But you also get a bunch of other points to assign to your abilities...which determine how skilled and powerful your character is and consists of your hand to hand fighting, your weapon fighting and your chi abilities. Your chi level is how well you can do the super power type things that you see martial artists do in various anime, movies and video games, such as creating force fields around yourself and shooting energy blasts from your hands. This is what lets you do all of the really cool special moves in the game. Then once your character is finished, you can play the game, running around fighting other players and building up experience points. Of course, the game also has multiple ways of increasing your abilities and making your character more powerful. You can go to various schools, training grounds and hidden hermits for 'training' which will increase your abilities and power levels, giving you more points for things like strength and agility, or for weapons and chi skills. You can even learn completely new fighting moves, techniques and special attacks...as long as they're compatible with your character's school and levels and provided that you have the required number of experience points first. And then there is perhaps the coolest part of Kombat Champions. As you play the game, you keep building up your character's experience points, abilities and moves, which makes your character a better fighter, so that you can fight and beat tougher opponents. And when you finally reach a high enough level, you get to design a signature move. A signature move is a unique technique, usually a chi move which you design specifically for your character. You have to go through a few menus to find similar moves and graphics which can be adapted for it, and even write a good description of what the move is and what it does, then send all that in to the guys who made the game. They take a look at it all, judge whether that move is compatible with the game, your character level and your school...then deny it, or program it into the system for your character to use. All this usually takes only 24 hours, and they often give a signature move, which has been altered slightly from what you originally requested in order to make it more appropriate for the game. Basically, they don't want the signature moves to be too powerful or unbalanced...so you can't get a move that lets you just snap your fingers and automatically defeat an opponent. I guess that one of the main reasons you can't start out with your signature move is that it takes personal attention from the people behind the game and that they don't want to waste their time customizing characters that will only be played a few times and then be abandoned. They probably want to make sure that a player has proven that they take the game fairly seriously and that they'll probably be around for while. Of course, it could just be that they use it as a lure to encourage people to keep playing the game...though personally, I believe that a signature move is a reward for serious play and something that needs to be earned. There is also one more cool way for your character to 'learn' new moves, which is by going to a Sensei. These are player characters who have gotten to a high enough level that they're able to 'teach' some of their moves and attacks to other characters, as long as that other character has a school and ability levels which are compatible with that technique. Some of the players who get their characters built up this high consider it something of a bragging right to become a Sensei and 'teach' their signature moves to one or two students, while a lot of others guard their signature moves jealously. However, because of this and the fact that there are so few player characters who have built up to that level, it make this a very difficult way of learning new moves and techniques. Finally, I turned on my computer and waited for the game to load up, smiling in anticipation. I was definitely addicted to the game and had been playing it for about two hours a day since I first signed on about six months earlier. After a few minutes, the game finished loading and a flash of purple lightning shot across the screen, followed by the game logo and a picture of an old man with a long white beard and red robes. This was the Kombat Master, the only main non-player character in the game. Basically, he was just the referee in all of the fighting arenas, and sort of the spokesman for the people who run the game whenever they want to give a message to the players. The game's slogan "BECOME A CHAMPION" flared across the screen, just as it did every time the game loaded up. I quickly typed in my name and password, then sat back and waited for my character profile to come up. I smiled, thinking about how far I had come since I first started playing the game. When I had first started playing Kombat Champions six months earlier, my first character had been a brute...which was a game term for a character that is highly focused on physical strength and power...to the neglect of other traits. I had thought that being such a big strong character, he could beat anyone...though I quickly learned otherwise. Several opponents beat him using various chi techniques, and he ended up getting killed off when I entered my first and only black tournament. After my first character had been killed off, I came up with a new character that didn't have the weaknesses of my first...though I overcompensated. My second character was a mage, which was gamespeak for a character that was heavily focused on chi power and abilities...to the neglect of just about all else. And like my first character, he got beat quite a few times until I ended up deleting him. It was then that I created my next character, the one that I am still playing. When I first started creating her, I had expected her to be something of a throwaway character...one that I could experiment with for a little but that I expected to either get killed off in a black tournament or would quickly get bored of. I never expected her to work nearly as well as she did or that I would end up getting pretty attached to her. I stared at my computer monitor, which had my character's profile on it, including a picture of her that covered half the screen. She was a very pretty young woman with blue hair that was pulled back into a long ponytail. And for her clothes, I had given her a purple outfit that had touches of white and blue in the trim. "Kestra the Jagged Wind," I said her name aloud. I did rather like that name, especially the title that I had given her a month or so earlier. Unlike a character's names, their titles could be deleted or changed at any time. When I first started creating Kestra, I had mostly just wanted to do something different than with my first two characters, which was why I had chosen to create a female character. Of course there was also the fact that I wasn't expecting to actually be playing with her for long. However, after designing Kestra's initial appearance, I couldn't help getting more serious with the rest of the character profile information. I wanted a character that was more balanced than either of my first two, and I was very careful to make sure that she was. In fact, I even made it so that a lot of her abilities complimented each other to make her even more efficient. To start with, I made Kestra part of the martial arts school that a lot of the ninja type characters came from. That school gave bonus points to a character's speed, agility and precision levels, which was perfect as I made Kestra to be an all around great fighter who relied a lot on speed and agility. I was amazed at just how many weapons the game had available for you to add to your characters arsenal. The top weapons menu had swords, daggers, spears, morning stars, and countless other options. When you select a basic weapon type, it takes you to another menu. If you chose swords, you find a menu that is just different types of swords. There are one-handed broadswords, two-handed broadswords, rapiers, katanas and others. Then, once you've selected one of those types, it brings up a bunch of options that you can choose a specific sword of that type from. It was all very cool, and there were so many choices that I had a hard time deciding on what weapons I should give Kestra. Of course, you didn't just get all the weapons you wanted for free. You start out with a certain amount of points that you could sort of spend to buy abilities with specific weapons. And since the school that I had chosen gave bonus points for small hand held throwing weapons such as shuriken, throwing darts, and throwing knives, I got to add throwing knives to my list of assets for almost free. Next I wanted to choose a primary weapon for her, and since swords were the most common weapons in the game, I wanted something a bit different. I spent a lot of time going through everything that was available and figuring out exactly what I wanted. Finally, I settled on the katar...or actually a pair of them. A katar is also known as a thrust dagger. You hold the katar in your hand like you would brass knuckles, and a sharp blade about the size of a long dagger sticks out the front. It doesn't have the range of a sword, but it does have a number of other things going for it. For one, it works very well with fast, close combat attacks, which was perfect for Kestra. And for another, the katar is very simple to use which made it very cheap to buy as far as the points went. To use a katar, all that you have to do is punch and slash, similar to how you might in hand to hand combat. It just adds a little lethal edge to it. The game even takes this into account, so that the higher your hand to hand combat abilities are...if they're of the right school, the higher your katar fighting abilities are. I really liked that idea since when I worked to improve Kestra's fighting abilities in hand to hand combat, it automatically improved her katar fighting abilities as well. But the throwing knives and two katars I used, one for each hand, weren't the only weapons that Kestra had. After I'd started playing the character, I spent quite a bit of time going to various training grounds and the like to build up all of her points and abilities, as well as gaining a whole bunch of new moves and techniques. One of the things that I'd gained during this training was a spear. I liked the spear, as it was a pretty versatile backup weapon. It could be used offensively or defensively. It would give Kestra a bit more range in a fight than her katars, when I needed it and, of course, it could be thrown to get someone at a short distance with a bit more force and damage than the throwing knives could do. It wasn't a main weapon that I usually used in fights, but it was a nice addition. And then of course, Kestra had all of her chi moves and techniques as well. She hadn't been a slouch in that department when I'd first created her, but she had grown more powerful and gained some interesting new moves thanks to all of the time I gave her in various training locations. One of Kestra's chi techniques was called 'channel,' the most common chi technique used in the game. This let a person channel their chi energy into their weapons, making them more powerful for a time. Just about everyone who had a weapon used 'channel'. Then there was 'augment', a technique similar to 'channel' except that it temporarily augmented a character's physical abilities...basically making them a little stronger and faster for a short spurt. It was a useful ability to use in a fight. Kestra even had a special move where she could shoot energy blasts, as a lot of higher level characters did. However, I had been trying to save on points so that I could use them to augment her other abilities, and I was trying to make sure her abilities complimented each other, so I chose the option of making it so she could only fire her blasts by channeling them through her katars. It was a big limitation, but well worth it as it allowed me to improve her abilities in other ways. But one move that Kestra had which I was especially pleased with was one that was called 'reflection.' This was one that I'd learned from a Sensei...having talked him into 'teaching' Kestra his signature move when I found out that he was going to quit playing the game. As far as I knew, Kestra was only one of three characters that he'd shared that move with, and one of those others had stopped playing. Basically, 'reflection' was a sort of force field which stopped any direct chi attacks...energy blasts and the like, and sent them right back to their source. Finally, there was Kestra's signature move...which I called 'second wind.' Unlike most signature moves which usually seemed to consist of powerful energy attacks of some sort and were designed to do serious damage to the opponent, second wind was much more passive. It was a move that I usually used when Kestra was low on energy and about to be knocked out of a fight. When I activated second wind during a fight, Kestra's chi energy level bar would immediately drop to zero...no matter how full and charged it was before this. And at the same time, her health energy bar would immediately go back to full...even if it had been nearly empty. Then, if there had been a large enough amount of chi energy in that bar before activating this ability, Kestra would also get an effect sort of like 'augment', where her physical levels would get a temporary increase. I had won more than a few games thanks to a strategic use of second wind. When I got close to losing, all I had to do was use second wind... if I had enough chi to activate it, and I would be fully charged and ready to go, while my opponent's health bar would probably be somewhat less than full. Having Kestra come back from the edge of defeat to suddenly being at full health was a great trick, and really surprised most of my opponents. The only downside with this was that once I used second wind, my chi bar was empty and I couldn't use any other chi techniques for the rest of the fight. But, at the moment it wasn't the time to think about the rules of the game or about how I'd created my character. I looked at Kestra's profile on my screen and smiled. Right then, it was time to play. I clicked the enter button and a moment later, I was in the game and ready to play. Almost as soon as Kestra was on the street in one of the villages, another player challenged me to a fight. Unfortunately, one good look at the character revealed that he was probably a brute...and therefore a rookie since usually only beginners to the game played brutes. I was about to turn him down but decided that it might make for a fun warm-up. "I hope he doesn't mind being beaten up by a girl," I grinned, accepting the fight. As soon as I accepted the fight, our characters shifted to the fighting screen so we could fight. I grinned and Kestra launched into an immediate attack. My opponent threw a couple punches, which I knew would do a bit of damage to my health points if they connected. However, brutes were all about physical strength and power, not about speed. The fight was over pretty quickly, and when I finished my opponent I hadn't taken any damage at all to my health points. "Now to find some real opponents," I mused, knowing that you didn't get any experience points for beating characters who had power levels that were much lower than your own. A minute later, I was in one of my favorite arenas. A lot of other player characters were gathered around, and for the most part it was something of a chat room where you could talk to the other players. At first, I just sat back and scanned the screen to see what other characters were there and if there were any of them I recognized. There was one guy called Kuno the Blue Thunder, obviously a swordsman type of fighter, a red haired girl called Ranma Chan, a guy called Goku23, Vegita the Super Saiyan and about a half dozen others. A lot of players liked basing their characters off of their favorite characters from various anime and video games. However, there was one player that I immediately recognized. She was a tall character with long green hair and loose flowing clothes of green and purple. "Vypra," I said aloud, grinning to myself. Vypra...or at least her player and I were online friends, and we even both lived in the same city, though we'd never met in real life...at least not that I know of. After all, it would be kind of embarrassing since I was a guy playing a female character. On the other hand, I was also kind of afraid that 'she' might actually turn out to be a guy playing a female character as well. So, when we were online, we talked a bit...just not about our lives outside of the game. After talking for a minute, I challenged Vypra to a fight. And just a moment later, our characters shifted to a private screen with just the two of us so that we could have our fight. I grinned in anticipation. To start the fight off, Vypra immediately charged up her battle aura...a sign that she was going to use one of her chi attacks. The aura showed up on the screen as a ghostly image of a snake. Vypra was from the animal themed school and being able to use animal shaped battle auras was one of the benefits of that school. Then Vypra pulled out the two katanas, which were her primary weapons and suddenly leaped all the way across the screen. A ghostly image of a snake was imposed over her and spread out behind her, with her two katanas being that snake's fangs. I immediately responded by crossing my two katars and using a basic defensive shield. It blocked Vypra's attack, though my health bar menu still dropped back a bit as I took the some of the damage. I knew from previous experience that once Vypra had used that particular move, it left her completely open for a second or two. I didn't hesitate to use that opportunity to press my own attack, hitting her with several katar slashes. Vypra and Kestra jumped back and forth across the screen, each attacking and dodging in turn. Vypra performed one move where several snakes actually seemed to shoot out of her hands, and Kestra jumped out of the way to avoid it, then sent a few throwing knives back in her direction. This all continued for another minute or two. "Good fight," I grinned to myself, really getting into it. Then again, Vypra never failed to give me a challenge. It was then that Vypra used her signature move...something which she called the 'snake fist strike'. Her arm glowed green as she charged at Kestra, hitting her with a quick strike. My health points took a bit of a hit, though certainly not a bad one at all. But, I knew from previous fights that this wasn't the purpose of the 'snake fist strike'. The true threat of that attack was my health bar would continue to slowly go down. All that Vypra had to do was hit her opponent with that move and then switch to running away and playing defense, and she could eventually beat her opponent without having to actually hit them again. "Damn," I muttered, knowing that I was going to have to get the fight over with soon. Of course, when my health bar got too low, I could always pull out 'second wind,' though I was sure Vypra was counting on that. After all, once I did that I'd be unable to use my chi moves while she could cut loose with hers. So, I decided to surprise her with a different move. I sent a few throwing knives at Vypra, and when she jumped over them like I had expected, Kestra was already in motion, hitting her in mid- air. I even got her with a few more hits before she knocked me back, then charged forward with her swords. My health bar was getting pretty low and I knew I was either going to have to use 'second wind' or finish the fight very quickly. I decided to go with the latter, using 'channel' on my katars and jumping straight at her, hitting with a fast series of hits. It was a little more than Vypra could block so her health bar started to quickly go down. And when the 'channel' effect wore down, I jumped back, sent a barrage of daggers at her and then used the last of my chi energy to fire a burst of energy at her. That last burst did the trick and knocked her health bar down to zero. "Gotcha," I exclaimed in delight. "Great fight," Vypra's player typed to me. I responded, "Definitely..." "I'm afraid that I've got to get going," she told me. "I've got to get offline and get dinner made..." "Talk to you later," I told her, just before she logged off. With Vypra gone, I turned my attention to other opponents. After fighting two more players, I switched my primary weapon over from katar to spear, just to get more experience points for that weapon, then went and tried a few more fights. I lost one of those, but you can't win every fight, even if I do try. Eventually, though, I shifted back to my katars, beat one more opponent and then left the arena. "Let's see," I mused to myself, already deciding to go to one of the training grounds that would give me the points to improve my endurance levels. My endurance level was already pretty good, but it wouldn't hurt to add a few extra points to it. In fact, constantly improving Kestra's points and levels was one of the things I enjoyed most about the game. "She'll be the toughest bitch around..." Just then I heard the rumbling sound of thunder from outside my window. I was a little startled at that since the weather had been fairly clear when I'd come home from work and there hadn't been any sign of a coming storm. And when I glanced to the side and looked out my window, I was even more confused because there still didn't seem to be any storm out there. "Must have been a jet or something," I thought aloud, shrugging it off as I knew that there were a lot of things in a big city that could create loud noises. For all I knew, it could have just been the sound from someone's stereo. I was just turning my attention back to the game when I heard the sound of rumbling thunder again. My eyes quickly darted back to the window, more out of reflex than for any suspicion that the weather might have suddenly changed. But as soon as I looked back to the window, a purple flash of light flooded my vision... An instant later, my ears were filled with the rumbling sound of thunder while my body was flooded with a burning, surging pain. I screamed...or at least thought I did, though I couldn't be sure as everything went dark a moment later. *** I awoke to the sound of a phone ringing... Or at least I regained the first glimpse of awareness, though I remained in that indeterminate place between wakefulness and sleep. I had no idea how long I was floating in that limbo, only that I heard the phone ring yet again some time later. Slowly I came out of this state. At first, it was just a bit more awareness, followed by being able to blink my eyes. And then, sensation...real sensation began to return to my body. At first, I was only being able to open and close my fingers, or moving my feet around a little. But then, almost as if a switch had been flipped, I could suddenly move everything again. For a moment, even after I regained the ability to move, I remained where I was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as I had been doing for who knew how long. I took several deep breaths, feeling scared, nervous and relieved all at the same time. I was definitely relieved that I could move again and that I didn't feel any pain. But I was scared as hell since I had no idea what had just happened to me. Finally I took another deep breath and slowly sat up, trying to brace myself in case I suddenly discovered some pain or injury that I had missed so far. But fortunately I didn't feel any aches or pains at all. Instead I felt fine. No, I felt better than fine. I felt...fantastic. I was just about to marvel at how great I felt, when I noticed my computer. My eyes went wide as I saw the wreckage. The monitor was completely shattered and blackened, while the tower looked...destroyed. That was the only word I could think of to describe it. The tower looked like someone had taken a couple of whacks at it with a sledge hammer and then set it on fire. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed in shock. Then I remembered the flash of light that I'd seen before everything had happened and turned to look at the window. It had been shattered and there was a spider web of cracks over the entire surface, except for one spot near the middle where there was a hole about the size of a hand. "No way!" I blurted out, realizing that I'd been struck by lightning. From the look of my computer, it had been struck too. With the flash of light that I'd seen before blanking out, the hole in my window, and way that my computer was melted, I thought that this was the only thing that it could be. I stood there,a bit shaken at the realization. Then I gulped, absently reaching down to pick up the chair that I had been knocked out of. But, my eyes remained locked on what was left of my computer, making me realize how lucky I was to survive that. But then I couldn't help suddenly wondering if I might have been hurt more than I realized. I didn't FEEL hurt, but I sure as hell felt... weird. I'd just been too stunned to really give it much thought until the moment. With that I took a deep breath and looked down at myself, gasping in shock and confusion as I did so. My first realization was that I was wearing some sort of violet or purple clothes that I'd never seen before in my life. There were even bits of blue and white trim running through them. However, that was almost immediately followed by the realization that my chest was pushing out a bit more than was proper. "What the hell?" I gasped, only then realizing that my voice sounded wrong to my ears. I froze for a moment, feeling confused as hell and wondering if that lightning strike had scrambled my brains along with my computer. Trying to prove to myself that I was imagining things, I poked at where my chest pushed out and let out another gasp. That was actually ME pushing out. It was a part of me. Then I noticed my hand and held it up in front of my face, staring at it in silent disbelief. My hand WASN'T my hand. It was still a hand...just not MY hand. It looked a little smoother, a little more delicate... without any of the hairs which had covered the back of it. My fingers seemed just a little bit longer, perhaps because my nails were now a little longer as well. In fact, my hand looked like a woman's hand. "This can't be..." I started, then paused, a thought suddenly coming to me. I had no idea where the thought had come from, but I gulped and poked at my chest again. It seemed sort of soft and... And it pushed out on both sides, like two round globes... Like two... "Oh shit..." I stared down at my body again, this time a little more closely, noticing a few more details...such as the specific shape of my body beneath the clothes. My eyes went wide and my heart started to race. I was imagining things. I knew I was. Nothing else made any form of sense whatsoever. But as my eyes drifted back to my chest, I turned and rushed to the bathroom. I froze as soon as I could stare into the mirror. So intense was the shock of what I saw that I was half afraid that even my heart had stopped. "Impossible..." I whispered. Staring back from the mirror was not my reflection, but that of a very attractive young woman. Her ethnicity was somewhat indeterminate, looking mostly Caucasian, but hinting at something else. Her eyes seemed just a tiny bit too large, with the suggestion of an Asian slant to the corner of her eyes. As I stared at the woman in the mirror, she stared back at me with a pair of intense blue eyes. After a minute, I allowed my attention to turn away from her face and to take in everything else. I could see the strange looking violet or purple clothes that I was wearing in a bit more detail, as well as the white and blue trim. The woman's...my figure was hidden beneath the fairly loose clothes, but I could see enough to know that she...that I had a nice body. And then my eyes went to the blue hair, which I hadn't been able to help but notice the moment that I'd stared into the mirror. The hair was about to her...my mid-back and tied up in a pony tail with a purple ribbon. My hands reached for the hair, almost of their own accord, giving it a slight tug and proving that it was indeed my own hair...or at least connected to my scalp. As strange as it was to see a woman staring out of the mirror, it was even stranger to recognize her. But how could I not recognize her when it was the same face and body that I'd been staring at every night when I played Kombat Champion? How could I fail to instantly recognize my own creation? "I..." I gulped the words in quiet shock, "I've turned into Kestra..." There was absolutely no denying that the woman staring back at me from the mirror was Kestra, my very own video game character. I'd played her far too often not to know her in detail. But, that didn't explain how I could possibly look like a character out of a video game, whether it was one that I'd designed myself or not. "The lightning," I whispered, my female voice shaking. My mind raced as I thought about it, realizing there were two options. The first was that it was all in my mind...that I was delusional, hallucinating the entire experience. Perhaps I was even laying comatose in some hospital, recovering from being lightning struck. The other option was a little more unlikely...or just plain impossible. The other option was that the entire experience might actually be real...that all of the weirdness might actually be happening. Maybe... just maybe the lightning striking the computer and myself at the same time had somehow caused me to become what was on my computer at that moment... Perhaps, the lightning really had somehow transformed me into a real life video game character. "Impossible." I shook my head, feeling my hair brushing my shoulders. Even if this was some sort of dream or hallucination, it was without a doubt the most detailed and realistic one that I'd ever had. Hell, everything felt so real... And honestly, I didn't think that my imagination was up to the task of coming up with something quite that detailed or original. I knew that this kind of thing just wasn't possible... It was against the laws of physics, the laws of reality and just about every other damn law that I knew of. People didn't just transform into video game characters... let alone girls just by being struck by lighting. It didn't happen. It was impossible. But then, how come everything felt so God damn REAL. As weird...as IMPOSSIBLE as the whole thing was, all of my senses screamed that it was indeed real. Then, several thoughts drifted through my mind. "If it looks like a duck, feels like a duck and quacks like a duck...then it must be a duck." And to paraphrase Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "If you remove the possible, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable...or even impossible, must therefore be the truth." I was sure that he hadn't said it in quite those words, but that was the general idea. "Okay," I took a deep breath, deciding for the moment to treat this as though it were real. After all, if I was in some sort of coma it couldn't really hurt anything. I closed my eyes and took several more deep breaths to calm myself, and at least try to get some kind of grip on reality. Then I gave myself one more look in the mirror, more than half hoping that it would be my own normal reflection staring back, but kind of doubting it. Of course, my reflection hadn't changed since the last time I'd looked it just seconds earlier. I still looked like Kestra. Just then I suddenly noticed something else. I'd noticed it a little bit already, at least subconsciously, though now my conscious mind grabbed the realization as well. There were several things on the wall...a chip in the mirror... All of them seemed somewhat higher on the wall than before, just as the sink seemed a bit closer. "Oh," I whispered as realization dawned. When I had turned into this Kestra look-alike, I had also become a good bit shorter. In fact, if I really had been turned into Kestra, then I would have to be 5 foot 8 according to her profile in the game. "I'm short..." That might not be completely accurate, but it did seem as though I had just shrunk 5 inches. I hesitated a moment longer and then rushed out of the bathroom to find my tape measure. Then I stood against the wall and carefully measured myself, finding that my guess had been correct. My current height was 5 foot 8, a full 5 inches shorter than I had been the day before. But again, I guess a few inches of height difference was pretty minor compared to all of the other changes to my body. "How in the world can lightning do THIS?" I grimaced, looking down at myself. Then I let out a sigh, absently looking around my living room and then pausing as I noticed that my answering machine light was blinking. I had a message... That just reminded me of the way that the phone had been ringing when I had been collapsed on the floor. I hesitated a moment then pushed the play button, listening as the message started off as a bunch of static but quickly went clear again. It turned out to be from my boss, wondering where I was and why I hadn't shown up for work. "Oh shit," I exclaimed, glancing to the clock and gasping as I realized how late I was for work. Hell, it was already noon and my shift was half over. I'd been out of it since the night before...much longer than I'd realized. "Oh shit..." As soon as I realized how late it was, I immediately reached for the phone to call and apologize as well as tell them that I wouldn't be able to come in. But then I froze, realizing that this might be rather difficult as I didn't sound anything like myself at the moment. I would have a hell of a time trying to convince anyone at work of who I was. "Just great," I grimaced. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, suddenly realizing that I had no idea how to fix this...how to change back to normal. And I couldn't very well go back to work until I did. Hell, I couldn't very well have anything to do with anyone that I knew until I got back to normal. "But can I go back to normal?" I asked myself quietly. I had no idea how I had changed or how long I would remain that way. For all I knew, I might change back at any moment... And then again, I might end up stuck that way for the rest of my life, with no way to ever change back. "Oh God..." It was then that I realized I was going to need some help. I was going to need some serious help. There was no way that I was going to be able to deal with this...this world shaking event alone. I was going to need someone to talk to...if for no other reason than to prove that I wasn't just imagining things. At first, I thought about calling someone for help...but realized that I didn't really have anyone that I could call. I couldn't think of anyone I could trust enough to tell about THIS. There was no one at work that I could go to, because even though I had some friendly co-workers, they weren't really friends. I had never hung with any of them away from work, and I was pretty sure that no one there even knew where I lived. My neighbors weren't an option either as I doubt that I'd spoken more than two or three words to any of them since I'd moved into the apartment. Of course there was my family, but I only considered going to them for the briefest of moments. My mom had always been fairly religious, but after she and my dad divorced, she had gone a little overboard. She was one of those nearly obsessive 'born again' types who had more than their fare share of self-righteousness. No matter what the situation was, she seemed to think that she had the moral high ground and that she was always right. And there was little doubt in my mind that if I did go to her, that if I did tell her about my change, she would assume that this was some sort of punishment from God and then demand that I spend the rest of my life as a nun or praying for forgiveness of my wicked sins...whatever those were supposed to be. My dad on the other hand was almost the exact opposite of my mom, though not in a good way. He was an alcoholic and compulsive gambler. If I told him about what was going on, about how I had suddenly turned into a video game character and a woman, I could just imagine him getting drunk and blabbing about it to all of his friends at the bar. And I could just as easily imagine him either trying to find some way of using me and my unique situation to pay off some gambling debt or to help him make some money in a get rich quick scheme. And then there was my younger brother Gary, whom I hadn't seen in over a year and a half. The last time that I'd seen him had been shortly before he'd gotten his underage girlfriend pregnant and had then up and disappeared. He wasn't exactly the responsible sort, or the type of person that I would willingly trust with this. Obviously my family wasn't extremely close...which was one of the reasons that I'd gone out of my way to keep away from them as of late. I loved them...at least as much as anyone could, but I knew that hanging around any of them wasn't exactly good for me. And I didn't really have any close friends either...certainly not someone that I could talk to about this. Then it suddenly hit me...the realization of just how few friends I really had. I didn't really have anyone in my life that I was close to...not friends...and not even family. There I was in deep trouble, and I had no one that I could turn to...no one that I could even talk to. And the fact was, that was pretty damn depressing. "Just great," I grimaced, "I'm a short...weak girl." Strangely though, I didn't really feel either short or weak. In fact, I felt pretty damn good... I felt stronger and healthier than I'd ever felt before in my life...and I seemed to be growing even more so with every minute. It was almost as though I had still been a bit physically dazed, even after I'd regained the ability to move, but even that was slowly wearing off. "Damn it," I spat out, suddenly wondering which was worse...that I had suddenly and inexplicably transformed into a video game girl...or that I didn't feel even worse about it. I should have been completely off balance, on the verge of panic...yet I wasn't. Perhaps it was just shock. Still, making a brief show of being angry seemed to help my masculine self-image. With that I snapped around and punched the wall. My fist left a nice hole in the plaster and I gasped a little at my outburst...and how little it hurt my fist to make a hole like that. But at the same time, I somehow knew that when I'd thrown the punch, I had instinctively done so in such a manner as to maximize the force from my fist, while at the same time preventing any damage to myself. "What the...?" I blinked, stepping back and staring down at my fist in amazement. Then, partly out of curiosity and some instinctive understanding, I threw a punch into the empty air. My fist was fast and powerful, snapping with a sharp clear focus. I instinctively knew that it was a perfect punch... done in perfect form. And I followed that up by throwing a series of punches in mid-air, doing so with a nearly blinding speed... "Wow," I whispered in amazement. I continued with the punches, shifting into a series of other martial arts moves. They all flowed smoothly...gracefully, as if coming from long practice and experience. I went into an elbow strike, a block and a roundhouse kick, then ended my leg snapping into a high, powerful kick. I froze with that kick half finished, standing on one leg with my other one still extended in the air. "My God," I gasped, slowly lowing my foot from the kick, stunned at the realization that I had just kicked high enough to get someone right in their face. And it had been so easy... "It looks like I actually have Kestra's martial arts skills too..." For a moment, I just stood there, marveling at what I had just done and wondering what else I could do. The way that I had been able to do that last kick... That would have to require incredible flexibility... And with that thought, I dropped to the floor and spread my legs, slowly shifting position until I was doing the splits. Normally something like that would have completely killed me, but now it didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. I was able to stretch my legs like that without any difficulty at all... Then I stood up and touching first one toe and then the other, marveling again at just how flexible I had become. A few seconds later, I shifted position again, dropping forward and pulling my feet closed, then lifting myself up into the starting push-up position. I could feel the strength in my body and tested it with a few push-ups. They were easy...effortless even, and I felt like I could do them all day. But I was curious about what else this body could do and was determined to find out more. I shifted all of my weight to my arms and lifted my feet right off the ground, leaving me doing a hand stand in the middle of my living room floor. I remained in that position for over half a minute before I started to walk across the floor on my hands, my feet sticking almost straight up in the air. And as if that wasn't enough, I shifted my balance and removed one of my hands so that I was doing a hand stand with only one hand. And somehow, I was still able to retain my balance without much effort. After I had gone back to using both hands, I lowered my legs back to the ground while keeping my hands on the floor. I was now bent over backwards... Finally though, I snapped back, curled into a ball and rolled across the floor before snapping back to my feet. "Unbelievable," I exclaimed, staring down at myself in amazement...and admiration. The things that my altered body could do were absolutely incredible. And the way I felt... I mean, I felt utterly fantastic. I felt stronger... healthier and more alive than ever before in my life. And though I knew that I should be completely freaking out over the situation, right then I was far too excited for that. It was also rather odd that I had only been in that body for fifteen minutes, or at least up and moving about in it for fifteen minutes, and I didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable or off balance as I would have imagined. Perhaps it was due, at least in part, to my obviously improved sense of balance. And then again, perhaps the fact that my new body felt so good and healthy just made it a little easier to accept on some level. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, becoming more aware of the fact that I could feel the new power of my body. There was no doubt in my mind that I had to be stronger than I looked. I could feel that strength and power, flowing just under the surface. It was like a coiled spring...just waiting to be released. "My God," I whispered, unable to help but being a little impressed with myself, "What else did I get from Kestra?" Of course the whole thing made no sense whatsoever. How in the world could I possibly have gained those kinds of skills and powers from a video game character, just by being struck by lightning. Then again, how could I have been turned into a girl or had these strange new clothes suddenly appear on me? Obviously the laws of physics...or at least every one that I knew of, had just been thrown out the window. Suddenly had another idea. The realization that I had somehow gained so much from Kestra and the curiosity about what else I might have gained drove me to my next experiment. And perhaps there was even a bit of instinctive knowledge as well. I barely gave any conscious thought at all to my actions as I reached behind my back with both hands, found two handles and smoothly pulled out two katars. The handles fit perfectly into my hands, as if designed just for me. The blades themselves stuck out about nine inches from my fist, from the base by my knuckles where they were each just a little wider than my fist, all the way to where they tapered off into sharp points. They were deadly, vicious little blades which I somehow instinctively knew how to use. "Weird," I muttered after a moment, suddenly realizing that I'd pulled the blades out of their sheathes on my lower back...when there hadn't been any blades there before. When I had been moving around, I would have noticed if I'd had two sharp blades like that strapped to my back, and I had noticed no such thing. There was absolutely no way that I could have possibly missed noticing those things on my back. "Summoning," I blurted out in sudden realization. Summoning was not an official technique that you could learn in the game, nor one that was even listed. However, it was a term that many of the players used to refer to what many thought of as a glitch in the game's realism. Most people who played the game had selected weapons for their characters, even if some didn't use those weapons in most of their fights. You had the option to 'sheath' most of your weapons, putting them in the background so you couldn't use them in a fight...or so that you could switch to a different weapon. And when you 'sheathed' your weapons, you could sometimes still see it on your character... You might see a character's sheathed axe strapped across their back, or their sword in a scabbard at their side. However, there were also a lot of times where you couldn't see any sign of their weapon. A huge sword, spear or axe might disappear without any trace...but could be just as quickly recalled when you were between fights. That ability to have a weapon disappear without a trace when sheathed and then just as easily return was called 'summoning'. There was really no clear explanation as to why some of the game characters were able to summon their weapons and others weren't. However, the main theory was that it depended on both the specific weapons involved and the character's school. Kestra was one of those whose weapons did indeed vanish when sheathed until I summoned them again, and as impossible as it was, I now seemed to have inherited that ability along with everything else. I made several experimental slashes with my katars, then slipped them back into their sheathes. Strangely, once they were in their sheathes, they seemed to vanish almost entirely. But as soon as I reached back for them, I could feel the handles present...as if they were there only as long as I wanted them to be there. "Can this possibly get any weirder?" I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief. Then I reached into my sleeve and pulled out one of my throwing knives, of which there had been absolutely no trace of until then...just like my katars. I held the throwing knife out in front of me, taking a close look. It was definitely a throwing knife, being almost all blade, but with a ring at the base to grab onto and throw with. And after a moment, I slipped the blade back into my sleeve where it once again conveniently vanished. And after seeing all that had already happened to me, all that I could already do, I couldn't help wondering if I had the ability to do any of Kestra's chi abilities as well... I hesitated a moment, deciding that I probably didn't want to know about that just yet. Things were far too weird for my taste as it was. I stood there for a few more minutes, just taking everything in and trying to make sense of it all. But it didn't make any sense and I was beginning to doubt that it ever would. All that I could do was take things one minute at a time and see where it led me. Finally, I decided that it was all just too much and I needed to take my mind off of it all for a little while...or at least try to. Maybe then I'd be able to get my mind around my changes just a little bit better. And if I wanted a distraction, I had learned long ago that there was one thing to provide a distraction like no other...video games on my computer. But since my computer was completely trashed, I would have to make due with my TV. But when I reached for my TV remote, I was more than a little annoyed to find that it wasn't working. I kept clicking the power button but nothing happened. So I went to the TV and pushed the power button on that. It seemed to stay dead for a few seconds longer than it should, but it did turn on. "At least that works," I muttered, absently putting my hand on top of my TV. Suddenly the TV picture began to blur and crackle with a lot of static. As soon as I yanked my hand back, it snapped back to its normal crystal clarity. I stared at the TV for a moment, then hesitantly put my hand to the screen, only to see it turn into static again. I slowly moved away from the TV, feeling both curious and worried about this latest oddity. When I went to my clock radio and turned it on, it reacted much like the TV had, turning to static as long as I was touching it, but then working again when I wasn't. That only got me even more curious, and I wandered from room to room, touching my electronic devices and finding that most of them seemed to react like that to my touch. "Just great," I groaned, wondering if that lighting strike had somehow magnetized me along with everything else. Since my very touch now seemed to disrupt electronic devices, I decided to test something and set my TV remote on the coffee table, pointed at the TV, then used a pencil to change the channel. It worked. I couldn't use my remote control in my hand, but it still worked as long as I wasn't touching it directly when I used it. "Just great," repeated, not feeling all that proud of my discovery. It was downright annoying to realize that along with everything else that was happening to me, I couldn't even use my TV properly anymore. "No remote control... It's like I'm some kind of primitive or something..." Still, the TV was on so I sat down on my couch and leaned back, trying to distract myself from all the changes which had occurred in my body and life. Of course, it didn't work in the least as every breath reminded me that my body was not my own, but I was too stubborn to give up on the idea just yet. After I had been sitting on my couch for a good twenty minutes or so, trying just a little too hard not to think about my transformed body, I finally decided that I couldn't take it anymore. I had to satisfy the rest of my curiosity... With that I gave a gentle tug on my long pony tail, then pulled the hair in front of me enough so that I could see the blue coloring. I shook my head, tugged it again, then let it fall back behind me as I stood up. I looked down at myself, taking in all of my body's curves, then slowly running my hand over them. It felt extremely strange to be doing that especially as I didn't even have any of those curves the day before. Hell, I hadn't really even seen any of those curves yet. I could see quite a bit of them through my clothes, but that wasn't exactly the same thing. A minute later, I was back in the bathroom and staring at my reflection in the mirror again. It was still extremely hard to believe that this reflection actually belonged to me. I mean, I wasn't exactly used to seeing a very pretty young woman staring back at me...and I hoped that I wouldn't be in this body long enough to. "Okay," I said, trying to get my courage up as I began to undo my clothes. "If I'm going to be stuck looking like this for now, I might at least get a good look at myself..." I'd already known that I would HAVE to take a real good look at my body since I had first seen it staring back at me from the mirror. It was inevitable, though I had been trying to avoid thinking about that since a part of me thought that as soon as I saw myself naked like that it would somehow make it all the more real. As soon as I had taken off my clothes and dropped them onto the floor, I stared into the mirror again, silently taking in every detail of my new body. There was absolutely no doubt that it was indeed a female body...as if I'd had any doubts before. But now I could see it without any clothing obscuring my view or getting in the way. My body was every bit as nice as I had imagined, with curves in all the right places. But it was the body of an athlete as well, being almost solid muscle. It wasn't bulky muscle like a bodybuilder might have, but more like that of a gymnast. Then again, I knew that most female gymnasts weren't as tall as I was...or as curvy. I guessed that my breasts had to be a B...maybe even C cup...though it was only a rough guess since I wasn't very experienced. "Wow," I finally said after a minute of silent examination. Then I turned my full attention to the space between my legs, noting the fact that my blue hair seemed to be 'natural'. And not only that but the little patch of hair down there was also neat and trimmed. But I didn't waste much attention on my body hair, focusing instead on the treasure spot. A quick examination of my new soft spot proved that I was one hundred percent physically female. I wasn't a gynecologist or anything, but as far as I could tell, it was a perfectly normal female vagina. I couldn't say I was particularly thrilled by that though. "Just great," I sighed, running my finger over the sensitive skin of my new genitals. I couldn't help but gasping at the sensation. "Kind of... sensitive..." After this, I continued to explore my body, running my hands over nearly every inch of my skin as I tried to take it all in. However, I avoided giving much more attention to my new genitals as the whole thing seemed just a little too personal for my comfort. And once I was finished with my self-examination, I went through some of those new stretches that I was now capable of again, though without my clothes they seemed a whole lot kinkier. But somehow, without my clothes to obscure my view of myself, I could appreciate just how...intense my feminine new body was all the better. But when I was done with my self-explorations and my naked cartwheels across my living room floor, at least for the moment, I settled back down in front of the TV, not really watching the screen at all...but just thinking. And there was no doubt that I had a whole lot to think about. *** When I awoke in the morning, I remained where I was, silent and motionless. All that I did for some time was breath in and breath out, listening to the sound of my own heart. I didn't need to sit up and feel myself up to KNOW that the events of the day before had not been a dream... and that I was still in the body of my video game character Kestra. I finally sat up and looked down at myself, not the least bit surprised to see my female body. There had been no need to see myself since I had been able to feel it from the moment I awoke. I had been able to feel it with nearly every fiber of my being. Then I climbed out of bed, finding it just a little odd that I felt so alert and ready to go. I'd never been a morning person, though I hadn't been the type to be dead to the world until noon either. Still, there I was, having just woken up and I was already feeling fully charged and ready to go. In fact, I felt ready to take on the world. "Another advantage," I thought aloud, silently added that to the growing list of advantages to my altered state of being. There were definitely quite a few of them, though there were serious serious downsides as well. I let out a long sigh at that having spent quite a bit of time the day before doing nothing but thinking about my situation and all of the problems it created. When I had gone to bed, it had been with the hopes that I would wake up back to normal, or that I would have awoken to discover that it had all been a dream. But as it was morning and I was still Kestra, that was obviously not the case. "Damn," I grimaced, knowing that this had just gotten more serious. For a moment, I stood there scowling in dismay, not wanting to deal with the ramifications of my transformation. But I knew that it wasn't like I exactly had a choice. I decided to try dealing with things one step at a time, and that meant taking care of my morning business. First was a trip to the bathroom to relieve myself. I'd had my first experience doing that the day before, and it had felt a bit odd then too. But thankfully, the biological process of getting rid of bodily waste was actually pretty similar for both men and women. A few minutes later, I was in the shower and carefully washing my body. Of course a bath might have been a nice and relaxing to both clean up and get used to my new body at the same time, but at the moment I was more interested in just getting clean. Still, it was pretty difficult to focus on cleaning myself without getting distracted, and I have to admit that I lost my focus more than once. Once I was done with my shower, I had so much energy that I just had to burn some of it off. I almost felt like I was hyperactive, though I knew that it wasn't quite that bad. But to take care of some of this energy, I did some stretching, then did around a hundred push-ups, followed by as many sit-ups. When I finally stopped, it was more because I was bored than because I was feeling tired. "Incredible," I muttered, feeling even more impressed with my new body, in spite of myself. However, once I was done with my morning distractions, my thoughts returned to all of the problems that my situation was going to cause me. Since I was still Kestra, I had a growing suspicion that I was going to remain that way for quite some time to come. In fact, I was even beginning to suspect that I might be stuck like that for the rest of my life. "Lightning doesn't strike twice," I told myself grimly, silently adding that even if by some miracle it did, it could never do anything as weird as my transformation a second time. If it didn't wear off on its own...which I had no reason to believe that it would, then I would have to get used to remaining as I was. "Not a pleasant prospect..." I let out a sigh as I sat down, thinking about my future. As hard as it was, I tried to distance myself from the problem and think about it objectively. Of course, I'd already thought most of this through the day before while sitting around the apartment. Since it was the first day of my weekend, I wouldn't have to worry about the people at work asking about me for several more days. But if I was still