[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/krev7SC.png[/img][/center][center][b]Aubrey Adkins[/b][/center]
	I have no clue why I’m doing this? Maybe a little part of my conscience just could not stand allowing someone else get hurt because of my negative opinion of Christopher Arthur (and that’s putting it nicely). Although Maya was making her way onto my ‘hate’ list, I’m supposed to be a superhero. I guess it would be kind of hypocritical if I were selective on whether I would save someone. At least that’s what I tell myself.

	Spider-Man does make the whole traversing across a city way easier than it really is. Pacific Point does not have quite the skyline that New York City has. You obviously need some tall buildings that you can use as tether points; you cannot swing on empty air. Plus, my drideresque physique would also give me issues with ‘web swinging.’ While I have tried it before with my drider appearance and I can [i]technically[/i] do it, I just don’t look that gracefully swinging in the air with a giant spider’s body attached to my waist. Therefore, I’m pretty much stuck with leaping from roof to roof or crawling on a webline that I had tethered onto both sides of the building if the distance is too far for me to jump to the other side. 

	At least I had one thing going for me: this Newton guy only has regular human speed and he also has to drag along a hostage, although he’s probably using his gravity control powers make that process a little bit easier on himself. Therefore, he could not out run me, unless he somehow shook me from his trail.

	I had followed him for a block or so before he realized that I was hot on his trail. Newton had been using his gravity control powers to allow himself and his hostage to cross the gaps between the buildings without risking falling from the roof. However, instead of trying to outrun me, Newton stopped and turned to face me.

	[color=b22222]“Let the girl go and nobody gets hurt,”[/color] I demanded when I finally landed on the same roof where Newton had stopped. The man had a stern and serious expression on his face, or at least as far as I could from how much his mask covered his face. Like most supervillains, I knew that he probably would say no. You just never know when someone might save you from some bruises and surrender before a fight would break out.

	“You do realize that I could send you flying off this planet into the cold vastness of space,” Newton threatened. “But that would be [b]too[/b] easy.”

	Suddenly, I felt as if someone had piled weights that would become progressively heavier onto my entire body. I struggled to keep myself standing, but the strain of this invisible weight caused my legs to give out, slamming me down to the floor of the roof. I tried to at least keep my human-half off the ground by using my arms to hold me up, almost as if I were doing a push-up. Despite my best efforts, I could not even do this simple task. Newton must be using the reverse of his powers: instead of removing gravity, he’s increasing it.

	“The irony that you probably could bench press a passenger bus with ease, yet gravity itself has immobilized you.” Newton walked over to me and crotched down beside me. He reached out and grasped the back of my mask. Since I could not lift up my arms to hold down my mask, I tried to bite down onto the material with my teeth. But he was still able to yank off my mask, pulling off the band that was holding my ponytail together. Some of my blonde hair fortunately fell in front of my face, shrouding it from both Newton and Maya. I’m not quite sure who I would rather hide my identity from: this supervillain or Chris’ girlfriend.

	“Show me your face, blondie,” Newton threatened me, placing the barrel of his glock to the back of my head. “I want to watch the light leave your eyes.”

	I did the opposite. I tried to turn my head away and tilt it towards the floor of the roof to maximize how much of my long locks of blonde hair would cover my face. Am I going to die? How is this going to work, anyways? I have a healing factor that does its job quite well, but I’ve never lost any limbs before, let alone getting my brains blown out. Will I just bounce back from this or is this my one weakness? Even if I do survive, what effects will it have on me? Will my body be able to repair the damage?

	My body began to shake out of fear. I don’t want to die. I know it is kind of cliché to say that young people sometimes believe that they are invincible when they’re really not, but in my case I would say it would not be too much of a stretch. I have a healing factor that keeps me healthy. I have superhuman strength, despite what my scrawny arms would make you believe. Even though being a superhero is a dangerous hobby, I guess I never considered dying before. I mean, where the hell is Athena? She usually bails me out of situations like these.

	I then heard the click coming from Newton’s gun, signaling that he had turned off the safety. Still shaking, I closed my eyes, unsure how I could alter my fate. I just waited for the gun to go off. Those were some excruciating moments since I did not know when the bang would sound.

	A crack of a firing gun resounded from behind me. I would have jumped when it went off, but Newton’s gravity control abilities stopped me from getting an inch off the ground. After the first round blasted, everything went silent. My eardrums must have burst and were in the process of healing themselves, since I could feel my vocal cords vibrate even though I could not hear myself scream. 

	When I pealed up my eyes, I discovered that I was still on the roof. I was obviously not dead. St. Peter hopefully would have greeted me otherwise. I could hear the faint noise of the nearby traffic. Guess my hearing was coming back. I also thought I was hearing a woman’s voice speaking, but it was so faint that I could not make out what she was saying. I then felt something poke my shoulder. When I turned my head to see what had poke me, I saw that something was holding up my mask in front of me.

	“I believe this belongs to you.” I heard Maya’s familiar voice (or at least as familiar as it can be for just meeting Maya an hour or two ago) in my ears. What shocked me was, when I pulled my mask off whatever was holding it up from underneath, discovering that the tip of a large, red snake tail had been balancing the mask on its tip. After I made this realization, I traced the snake tail with my eyes back to its source, which was beneath Maya’s dress, where her human legs should have been. Although everything between her waist (I’m guessing here) to her neck appeared one-hundred percent human, I saw that her [url=http://i.imgur.com/qwvSITY.jpg]face[/url] did not look the same as it did a few moments ago.

	The first thing I noticed were her pupils. Instead of being round, as they had been, they were slitted. Her ears were different, too, since they were almost leaf-shaped like the goblins in the [i]Harry Potter[/i] movies, while their color tone matched the red scales on her snake tail. Finally, there were a patch of scales (still the same as those on her tail) that were located on the back of her cheeks, right under her ears.

	“It is such a relief to meet another liminal.” Maya told me. As she talked, I could also tell that her tongue was also forked, just like a snake’s. However, when she got a better look at my face, her eyes immediately grew wide. “Wait, you’re that pornstar that hates Chris!”

	I was still too dazed from seeing what Maya’s true form presumably looked like to quite register what she just said. I should not have been this shell-shocked by her appearance, since Chris’ sister looked similar to Maya. Minus the ears, of course.  I guess I was just not expecting her actually to be a snake-person. After a moment to take in all of this new information, I finally realized what Maya just called me.

	[color=b22222]“Wait. What did you just call me?”[/color] I grumbled while giving Maya a glare.

	“Um…a liminal?” Maya muttered, unsure whether that was the answer I was expecting.

	[color=b22222]“No! Well, yes, you did call me that, too. But you also called me a pornstar!”[/color]

	“I mean, you do have huge boobs,” Maya defended herself. However, while she was looking at me, she squinted her eyes, placed her thumb and index finger on her chin, and tilted her head to one side. “Although, now that I’ve seen you again, they do seem significantly smaller.”

	[color=b22222]“That still does not make me a pornstar,”[/color] I told Maya, while I was throwing my hair back into a ponytail, as it was before Newton pulled my mask off. It only took me a moment to realize that, by reaching my arms back to tie my hair into a ponytail, I was inadvertently jutting my chest out, making it look more prominent. I quickly fixed my hair and then immediately threw my arms over my chest.

	“But don’t you work for [i]Viera[/i] or whatever it’s called? Don’t they make you pose nude?”

	[color=b22222]“They don’t require it.”[/color]

	“But you [b]did[/b] do it, right?”

	[color=b22222]“It wasn’t really my choice.”[/color]

	“I thought you just said it wasn’t required?”

	[color=b22222]“It’s…complicated.”[/color] I sighed as I spoke to her. [color=b22222]“Like, shapeshifter and ‘you cannot clear this up without outing yourself as a superhero’ complicated.”[/color]

	I then took my mask and pulled it down over my face, with my ponytail sliding through a slit in the back of it.

	[color=b22222]“Before I get you back to the charity event, what’s a liminal?”[/color]

	“Woah.” Maya spoke, not really answering my question. “How did you change your voice?”

	[color=b22222]“Um…I’m not really sure. Something to do with this mask. Anyways, liminals?”[/color]

	“You know,” Maya stated to me, although I still gave her an expression showing that I had no idea what she was talking about. “Someone like you and me. A humanlike species that can interbred with humans.”

	[color=b22222]“Wait, you’re not human?”[/color]

	“No, I’m a Nagi.” Maya tried to explain to me, although she interjected some more when she still saw a confused expression on my face. “A snake-person species. But you asked that as if you’re not a liminal.”

	[color=b22222]“I guess I’m technically a metahuman.”[/color] Now, it was my turn to be on the receiving side of a puzzled look. [color=b22222]“Basically, it is a human with special powers. I just have the misfortune to possess an ability that gives me this appearance.”[/color]

	I then gestured at the spider-half of my body.

	[color=b22222]“But have you told Chris about your…um…species?”[/color]

	“Please don’t tell him,” Maya begged me. Her leaf-shaped ears began to droop, while tears began to form in her eyes. “He really means a lot to me. I, well, love him. But ever since I found out about one of his exes turned out to be an android, I didn’t know how to break it to him. But I don’t want him to learn about it from anyone except for me. Will you promise to keep this secret?”

	[color=b22222]“Sure,”[/color] I told her. I was not sure whether I made that promise as a favor for Maya or out of spite for Chris. I kind of find it humorous that Chris is unknowingly banging a snake-girl. However, at the same time, I understand what she is feeling. I know how much it hurts to lie to the people you love. It breaks my heart every time I must lie about something to hide my metahuman status from my parents. I just hope I’m doing this more out of sympathy of Maya’s situation rather than my hatred of Chris.

	“Thank you!” Maya rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me in an embrace.

	[color=b22222]“Don’t get too sentimental on me.”[/color] I patted her on the back while I tried to pull myself out of her grip. [color=b22222]“We better get you back to the convention center. It would be a [b]really[/b] awkward conversation if Chris would happen to fly in on us while you still look like [i]that[/i].”[/color]

	Maya nodded in agreement. She immediately reached up and rubbed her the ruby gem on her necklace, which began to glow. After this happened, all of her serpentine attributes dissolved away, leaving Maya with an entirely human-only appearance.

	“Please tell me you have seen magic before.” Maya asked me after her transformation concluded.

	[color=b22222]“Unfortunately yes. That would have to be a story for next time. It also is complicated.[/color]