2012-11-30 Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

He'd never even stood in a room so regal, with such care and attention given to that which was little more than frivolous. It was as foreign to him as his home village might have been to so many countless others, what with its gold trim, fanciful draperies, and the most expensive, comfortable furniture he'd ever laid eyes upon.

He was from Ghana, a small village, not meant for such things.

It was a funny thing, to be there, standing in one of the wardrooms of Castle Von Doom. The view granted from his window was not entirely wasted upon Kwabena Odame, for from such a high and lofty vantage point, his eyes were blessed with such a grand visage of the castle and countryside beyond. Still, it felt foreign to him; as foreign as the expensive cloak, tunic, and epaulettes adorning his lithe, muscular frame, which had been provided by Lord Doom and his servants.

As foreign as the nanites now swimming throughout his body.

The passing of time no longer troubles the Ghanaian, for in his solitude, his mind and very soul has been bereft with dischord. His friends, those he knew best and had surprisingly come to trust, were gone; either dead, or having betrayed him. To those he'd left behind, he knew that should he ever see them again, he would be a shell of who he once was. It was a thought that troubled him more than anything else. He didn't want to be there, in Doomstadt... he didn't belong there.

But where else did he belong?

Nowhere.

His eyes peer down from the crest of the window. There were no ledges, no barricades, nothing to keep him from slipping out and taking the lethal plunge. However, what was a hundred feet to Odame, when he'd jumped from a commercial airliner with no parachute? Bullets never harmed him. Nothing lethal ever harmed him. The jump would be as pointless as he feared his existence was fast becoming.

There was no way out.

His final reminder of this fact came with the release of opiates from dozens of the many nanites that now swam in his blood stream. His prison, from the inside out, keeping him enslaved to the very narcotic he'd fought so hard to be free from. He staggers for a moment as the high hits him, eyes fluttering as the pain goes away. A soft breath of relief escapes his lips, but it's as short lived as the euphoria brought upon by the nanites' release. For in that moment, with his mind so stricken by such a vicious drug, his mutagene goes haywire. Hands phase in and out from solid to gas while he looks on with dogged confusion, before the manipulation takes him fully, shifting in and out of his gaseous state with no ability to control its changes.

When the bout finally passes and the regal clothes he was adorned with have fallen in a heap on the floor, he's left standing with the costume so adequately capable of shifting with him, the clothing procured to both mask his identity while permitting the exploration of his power with decency.

He's left not as Kwabena Odame, but as "Shift".

While he may have believed Doom's lies about betrayal and loss, he was also free to go, whenever he should please. A stark realization came over him then... he may not know where he belonged, but he certainly didn't belong there.

And so, he pulls the mask over his head, once again concealing his identity. His name is Shift, and he'll be damned if he's going to give up here.