I was sleeping one morning when my carefully crafted door was kicked off its equally carefully crafted hinges- "KNOCK KNOCK RISE AND SHINE!" for a second I'd started panicking thinking I was getting raided by the police, seeing it was just Rumi I calmed back down but still lamented my destroyed door- "Door hard to make"- she of course ignored me.
"Why are you looking so mopey? Guess who's moving in with you!" she said while resting an arm on my head (I'm eye to faceplate with her while sitting so she was on her tippy toes). "You want live here?" I mean I wouldn't (and couldn't) stop her but I assumed she'd prefer having basic things like showers, running water and toilets available.
"Yep, I was gonna move into the area in future but seeing as there's a perfectly good place already I figured I'd just crash here!" She said this while shrugging off her backpack… damn thing was nearly as big as me! She started rooting through the bag-"I also brought you some stuff like a toothbrush (industrial grade), a scrubbing brush for hard to reach areas and some clothes". I skeptically picked up a shirt; it was my size but I'm not sure it'd survive being worn.
"Don't let the shirt fool you, it was pretty damn expensive and they even have an advert of it being thrown in a blender and coming out just fine" Hearing her reassurance I tried putting on my new clothes. I couldn't wear long pants or shirts because of my knee and shoulder spikes but other than that I did succeed… even if it did look really strange.
"Thanks, how look?" I asked while pulling a bodybuilder pose. Before she could answer, my back spikes ripped right through the fabric, now it wasn't completely destroyed but it did have a bunch of holes all over the back.
"…Looks like next time I'll need to get some chainmail" I'm just glad she didn't seem annoyed… at me at least. She brought out the rest of the items from her bag… surprisingly few personal items… is that a pvc pipe?
I kept watching in amazement as she brought out pipes, tiles, paint and cement bags; after which she turned to me- "Ya ready for some arts and crafts?" I grinned back at her- "Show me what do!".
That day we didn't do much other than knocking down some walls and mixing the concrete and turning it into a solid base… we ended up using a tile each to flatten it. Day after day we worked on creating a big house… cave…thing?
We eventually used the pipes to connect a nearby stream and get running water, which I then hooked up to an old sink to make it work… Rumi nearly had an aneurysm when I told her it came from the tip but relented once I told her I'd bleached the entire thing… Oh yeah on that note she'd also given me bleach to clean myself since regular soap just wasn't strong enough.
She'd also started her hero career and was rising real quick. She seemed really happy with the job but always either came home disappointed that she didn't get a good fight or was covered in blood and absolutely exhausted… there really wasn't much in-between.
Seeing as I had a lot of time on my hands I mastered *cough* adequately learned Japanese in only half a year, while I wouldn't say Rumi homeschooled me, she did teach me quite a bit about the world, other heroes (about their lack of skill mainly) and helped me set up a routine to practice.
After chatting together we'd pretty easily discovered that adaptation didn't always have to be accompanied by blood and pain. Though pain may have been preferable since now if I wanted something major to change I had to sit and basically meditate on it like how I got the x-ray vision.
Rumi had bluntly told me that unless I wanted her to call child protective services I'd better refrain from anything too bloody. This meant I couldn't just continue occasionally exposing myself to dangerous things… though I'd still bagged decent resistance to electricity, fire and acid.
I was slowly becoming less… monsterish? My legs were still not exactly human-like but I did manage to change them enough to where whenever I crouched I didn't look like I was laying an egg.
My bone prison was also slowly detracting from around my body, now I was under no illusion all of it would go but I was hoping I'd be able to get my face some sunlight. I'd already freed my joints (courtesy of it being the easiest area with my changes a while ago) and crotch… which was kinda annoying cos clothes were no longer optional.
Other changes included my hair being freed from the back of my head and obscuring the dreads… that took a while to get used to since it constantly felt like someone tickling the back of my neck since they were so sensitive. I'd also made some spikier area's retractable or flattened… still plenty spiky but some of the more unnecessary ones like on my knuckles and near my armpits were just overkill.
I'd only had 1 major change during all this time, I mean I was trying to get a new ability but this is a bit strange… I may have turned myself into a reactor. Rumi and I usually end up cooking our food which either needs gas or dry kindling. I'd thought it would be a great idea to be able to breathe fire since it'd save me some trouble… and not just because I thought it'd look cool (...ok maybe just a bit).
Short story shorter I'd meditated on it and instead of just being able to breathe fire I'd ended up looking way more villainous than before… every breath I took saw small embers leaving my demonically illuminated mouth… cool.
Rumi had agreed with me in thinking it looked badass and once again she'd surprised me by not immediately prompting a sparring match… Still, I nearly blew us both up trying to start a bonfire, it seems instead of fire I had napalm or something… still cool but aside from pranking someone while eating something spicy I didn't think I'd use it for a while.
It also reminded me of… her. Every time she popped into my head I'd shove the thought away, I had my new life now and didn't have to dwell on my past one… but the thought never left me, I'd go days without thinking about it… just for the question to pop up again and promptly be ignored.
I lay next to our campfire with the question which had haunted me since my rebirth tormenting me. I didn't want to think of the implications that the answer I was thinking of held… just the thought of it brought tightness to my chest.
Why… Why did she sound like my mother?
The night remained still and silent, I once again avoided answering as I fell back to sleep. I didn't notice when I drifted off as Rumi glanced over with a worried look on her face.