#empatheorem

He could comment on the irony of people wishing to be someone else in the middle of all this. He could make a personal speech about not wanting to change who he is, because of those who loved him. Or... 

Or, he could have some fun and spread some cheer. 

“Oh geez!” Steven ran down the sidewalk on his way home from the library, trying not to slid on the frozen sidewalk. The sleet was coming down fast, and Steven’s shield projected over his head was doing little to block the slush that blew in sideways against the back of his neck.

His cheeseburger backpack, now filled with more books than usual, was clutched against his chest to keep the already worn out burger from getting any more beat up.

“I guess that’s what I get for wanting to go old school for school!” Steven’s time at a normal kid student at the city’s high school was pretty fun, but of course he wanted to go above and beyond and get real books when they were assigned a research paper. No easy online references for him!

“Huh?” Steven gasped as he approached a frozen puddle on the sidewalk. Jumping up, Steven chuckled as he soared over it, only to then land and slide, falling right into the slush. “Oh geez, oh geez!”

Lapis did not find wallowing as rewarding as she had days prior. She was getting uncomfortable being so stagnant, and eating wasn’t any fun at all. Maybe she was…finally ready to get out and stretch her wings for a while.

Climbing out of bed, Lapis shed her sweatshirt and opened the window. Cold wind blew in from outside and Lapis winced as she spread her wings, frost coating the tips.

“Maybe I’ll find Pearl. She knows how to have fun…but not too much fun.” Lapis braced the wind, stepping out of the window and jumping into flight.

Being outside felt good, despite the weather. She didn’t feel the cold, only the frost on her wings and the need to bend to the wind as she flew. She went higher, breaking through grey clouds and turning loops through the air.

Ah, there it goes again. Just when she’d gotten used to her original body, she’s back into someone else’s. Again, there’s that dulled sensation in her senses, the feeling that someone’s draped a thin blanket over her head to prevent her from seeing the world as it really is, but more than that, she feels weak. Taller, maybe, but this is definitely just a regular human body. Lame.

“Dammit, I was just in the middle of Chopped,” she groans, rifling through her new pockets. The cellphone is there, and all it takes is a quick switch to the front camera to find-

“...Gimme a break. Why couldn’t it at least be a hot guy?”

Sighing, she opens the phone’s messaging app, trying her best to avoid snooping through the messages. She just needs to find her own name and get this sorted as quickly as she can.

To: Makoto N. From: Yomiel

Empatheorem Notes:

Rush is 5′6″, in his forties and underweight. Enjoy being small.

He has NO powers but a genius level intellect, particularly in math. He can calculate equations and process information at levels that almost don’t seem human. (but they are!)

Skilled in programming, engineering, physics and languages.

Rush has several surgical scars over his body from alien experimentation, including down the middle of his chest and over his stomach. He also has various scars on his back from being held captive by the Lucian Alliance.

These old injuries tend not to bother him but pain in his scars from cold can happen. 

He is a coffee drinker AND a smoker, so enjoy withdrawal symptoms if you don’t figure that out/opt out of having any of either. 

He has a weak immune system from being in space for a very long time.

Suffers from insomnia.

Memories:

Being held in a water tank by the Nakai (aliens) and being experimented on.

Several confrontations with someone named Colonel Everett Young.

A happy married life with a violinist named Gloria.

Time on the alien ship Destiny, gathering supplies and information on various planets. 

Being held captive by the Lucian Alliance (In someone else’s body hey!)

(Feel free to ask me more about any memories you might want to explore.)

Prolonged Body Use:

Irritability

Misanthropic tendencies 

Acerbic personality 

Need to keep motives and actions hidden

Profound sorrow hearing violin/classical music

Immense and sudden debilitating pain all over the body from a mental trigger when seeing people get attacked/tortured or hearing electric charges. (Not always, just sometimes.) (This is from Rush being attacked by and enduring a device that caused every pain receptor in the body to ignite for longer than most humans can even survive.)

Okay so this is less of an ad and more of like an info post to refer back to. A collection of information.

>Be Ammutseba Altashuuh

Body

You can now play the theremin and waterphone, even without memories. You’re a ghost now I don’t make the rules.

You’re a tall (6′2) curvy lady who can lift a car over her head.

You’ve got six extra limbs coming out of your back.

You really don’t like the cold. 

You can walk through mirrors! And come out of other mirrors.

You can also turn into spooky ghost mist. 

You’re not really hungry but boy can you eat a lot.

Mannerisms

Confidence! You exude it. 

You can say “Tens? An Eleven is speaking” and sincerely believe it.

Like really you believe you’re the hottest thing in the room. Any room. Every room.

Very suave and flirty. You know what you want and you’re not afraid to ask.

Some people might even think you're unflappable but oops you actually get angry super easily if you’ve been slighted or misspoken to.

Really angry.

You really don’t like being alone but you can never explicitly say that. Almost any company is better than none. 

Memories

Normal childhood until 8, loving family, pretty great actually.

The next five years you're stuck in the Distortion World, getting mentored for the first year then alone for the next four.

This fucks you up.

When you come out it’s like everyone everywhere knows who you are and you get a weird celebrity status just because of what you are.

This also fucks you up.

You have two pseudo siblings in avatars of time and space and they’re super annoying and act like they’re better than you because they went to school properly.

The shining swarm of butterflies suddenly converged again, shaping a mile-long rectangle high enough in the sky for all of snowy Radiale to see. A blinding flash of light, and the golden insects had transformed into a wide-screen TV display. Front-and-center of that display was Travis, dressed to the nines in a Christmas-color-coded suit and sitting all comfy behind a mahogany desk.

“Yo!” The assassin-turned-talk-show-host waved merrily to the camera, as thunderous and in no way manufactured applause broke out. “Thank you, thank you. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to take too much of your time. We’ve been at these body-switching shenanigans for almost two weeks, now. And boy... what a two weeks it’s been. Nothing says ‘Christmas spirit’ like being forced to share our lives with total strangers, am I right?” A pause for audience laughter, as Travis sighed. “Invasions of privacy, identity crises out the butthole, constant uprootings from whatever you had planned… fun.”

Cue a clap of the hands, and Travis’s smile and tone taking a sharp turn down the sardonic road.

“But hey, we all made the most of it, didn’t we? Experienced things we never would’ve otherwise! Forged new bonds! Gained a better understanding of one another! And wasn’t that the point of all this? Wasn’t K’horii being a genuine dude and not a total fucking cliche simply wanting another jerk-off to chaos? I like to think so, and that’s why I invited over the cool cat, himself, for a friendly bout of good-natured roasting. C’mon out, Mr. Mayhem!”

The camera panned to an empty seat, before cutting back to Travis looking more and more confused. Crickets started to chirp for comedic effect. Finally, a stage assistant- nondescript to the point of being a living mannequin- leaned into frame, speaking directly into the otaku’s ears.

“What’s that?” Travis repeated in-between whispers, feigning surprise. “He couldn’t make it?” More whispers. “He got spayed? Oh, that’s—” And now he was struggling to keep a straight face. Time to wrap it up. “That’s terrible. Looks like we’re gonna have to cut the show here, folks. Sorry ‘bout that, but don’t worry- I’ve got a substitute planned. Thanks for tuning in! This is Travis Touchdown, signing off! Merry Christmas!”

For the next ten minutes, the screen would display vaguely-insulting cat memes expertly/magically-edited to depict K’horii, followed by repeated found footage of the demonic feline’s humiliating judgement-by-lightning past June.