Shift-Work: The Card Collector

Managed to get home and finish off a (almost) forgotten caption before it got too late! A bit of a darker Shifters/Shift-Work one this time around.

TEXT

"Right. So one week for a hundred grand? Nothing too flashy, just arm and bed candy? Sounds perfect. How much time do I have? An hour? To change AND get there? Yeesh. No don't worry, I'll make it work! Just make sure to have a car waiting for me downstairs okay?" Click.

"Ugh. Every time. They expect miracles at the last second. Oh well..." Todd grumbled as he set aside his work phone and rose from his office chair, walking over to the shelf that contained large metal containers, one labeled 'Basics' and the other one labeled 'Edits'. He reached up and grabbed the one labeled 'Basics' and set it down on his desk. He flipped open the latch lock and let the lid clatter noisily as he began thumbing through the hundreds of trading cards within. He pulled out several and laid them on the desk before sitting back down in his chair. He looked up at the box labeled 'Edits' and almost considered swapping put these normal women for those he'd 'improved' using Photoshop and other editing tools. But no, the request was for nothing too flashy. Basic it was.

"So much easier when I have time to actually study the client's profile..." Todd muttered as he stared at the cards in his hand, and at the women who stared back at him. They had been people, once upon a time, but now they were just cards, their existence nothing more than colored and compressed card stock, the only thing special about them were their souls that had had, using his powers, trapped within. And like any truly good Shifter, he used their bodies to make a ton of money by being whatever kind of woman a client wanted him to be. His more than modest collection was up to about three thousand now, all swiped at various points in his unnaturally long life, all transients, delinquents, runaways, the hopeless, and sometimes just an unsolved 'murder'. Todd had grown, over the last hundred and fifty years, exceedingly efficient at picking new cards. And it was hard to track someone who could change their body on a whim, much less steal the body of another when the current one got sick or dying. But that was enough, he had a job to do.

The first card was Jessica, a fairly standard blonde American girl in her early 20s. Nice, but her boobs were only an A cup. He'd look like a stick wearing her, plus her mental imprint would be too...sporty and extroverted.  The idea was to draw the eye to his client, not overshadow. She had been a fun one to entrap, though. The woman's eyes flashed with fear as she was set aside. Next up was Emily, from Great Britain. She was averagely with a decent sized chest, but she was a little on the older side of her 30s and her accent was grating. Not to mention decidedly early 2000s style wise, with annoying political views. The point was to be entertaining, so again, Todd flicked the card to the side, Emily's eyes watering with phantom tears as she was relegated to the container once more. Next up was Sarah, but she was small, flat, and a little too young for arm candy (she would look more like the client's daughter). Plus there was that permanent ganja smell that wouldn't go over well. The 19 year old, barely even worth keeping. But she had amazing hips, and her Jamaican accent was sexy as hell, she was fun for certain clientele (namely the high school senior and early college ones). But discarded she was, leaving only the last card. Ashlyn. Another American girl, but she was more on the exotic side. Creamy skin and short, dark curly hair, and just the right amount of curvy with her age landing at 27. Definitely mature looking without containing any flaws of age. Not too small, not too tall, with D cup breasts that complimented her butt perfectly...And thankfully her mental template was middle of the road, and she was more reserved personality wise. Her more geeky hobbies would be a problem if he had no issue simply suppressing them through shyness. Plus if he was doing night duty for a week...

"Looks like you're it, mon cherie" Todd said with a grin. He set Ashlyn's card aside and gathered up the discarded women, their expressions forever locked in their fateful smiles save for the depressed looks in their eyes. Within a moment they were lost in the shuffle, their brief moment out of the dark isolation that was their lives. Todd barely remembered some of them, not that he could use a lady from 1911 for anything other than a historical reenactment. He turned his attention back to Ashlyn, who simply stared up at him through her fashionable haircut with eyes that seemed both excited and terrified, as if pleading with him. They all had that look at first, so she must have been a more recent capture, still thinking that the nightmare would end and she'd be human again. Well in a minute she would, but not in the driver's seat.

Todd took the card and held it in his fingers, closing his eyes as he channeled his power into it...and then recalling it. He opened his eyes to watch Ashlyn's photo and stats fade away as he absorbed ber essence into his body, feeling the tingling changes as he began to shift into a new form. His male appearance flowed onto the card, ready for him to return any time if he so desired. If he so desired. The first major change was losing several inches as his bones compacted painlessly into themselves, bringing him down to Ashlyn's 5'6 height. Todd's scalp tingled as black hair curled out of his follicles, styling itself automatically as his blonde hair turned dark. The next thing to change was his skin color as dark brown injected itself across his skin, swirling and mixing to create the creamy colored exotic look that had his eye. The next changes were the reduction of his male muscle mass as said muscles almost comically deflated all at once, before he began reinflating in drastically different areas. His torso shot outwards as two breasts, smooth and hairless with large areolas swelled up through the shirt Todd was wearing, while expanding hips and rear painfully pushed against his pants. His hands became small and dainty, aquamarine nails sprouting off of needle-like fingers as his feet outgrew his shoes to the point where Todd simply stepped out of them with a shrug of his rounded shoulders. He looked in the mirror for the final changes; he always liked to see the final moments of a transformation himself. His face cracked and popped as his cheekbones rose and flared, the feeling as his lips puffed outwards beneath a large, but cute, nose. The bulge in his pants vanished with another comical deflation as Todd felt a warmth bloom inside him as Ashlyn's feminine organs took the place of his male one...and the final change was his eyes. This was his favorite part. There was a shimmer as his blue eyes began to change, a spark of yellow pouring in as the two colors mixed to a hazel green that seemed flecked with gold. But that wasn't what he was waiting for. With a shocked gasp, as if he hadn't breathed in years, Todd's new body moved on its own. A hand clasped at his throat while another grabbed at his head, and the woman stumbled around the office for a moment as if she had forgotten how to walk. She grabbed the desk and stared into the mirror.

"O-oh g-god!" She croaked, as if she hadn't used her voice in years. Ashlyn gripped the table as she fought off the dizziness that threatened to overtake her, staring at herself in the mirror. A phone. She needed to find a phone and call the-But then her body went rigid, and she felt herself being pulled back into the corners of her mind as something...as someone else took over."N-nooo...she whimpered, her last act before Todd claimed control once more. Soon Ashlyn was simply locked inside her own body, Todd able to see and know every part of her about her mind. Her thoughts, desires, disgusts, but HE was in control, using her like a meat puppet as he smiled smugly at his new face in the mirror, doing a twirl in his ill-fitting clothing.

"Sorry girly, but you belong to me. Mind and body, heart and soul" Todd purred in Ashlyn's voice as he pushed away from the mirror and went to change. Ashlyn could do nothing more but scream in silence as her body was worn. She waited for the little voice in her head to tell her it would be okay, but nothing came. She WAS the little voice whispering to the mad man who had done this to her, telling him how to move and act and sound like her. Her brief moment of freedom, a glimpse at what it was to be alive and not just some...card, a plaything. It was getting...hard to...form...thoughts...

"There you go. Back to sleep. Silly card, thinking you're a human. Now, time to make some money!" Todd giggled in his stolen voice, and minced out the apartment in the former Ashlyn's body and to the waiting car. Soon SHE would be having a great night, finish off with a happy ending, and make a ton of cash! And people said that card collecting was a dead hobby!