Being An Assassin...And A Hero

The Makings of a Were-Cat Assassin

Everyone sees a hero as some big bad-ass guy or gal in a comic book. They typically have some kind of super power to back them up. Or the ones like Batman or Kick-Ass who don't have any powers, but are just as much a hero as the famous Super-Man or Spider-Man. Well...those are just comics. This is the real life. Where you can't be a billionaire play-boy by day, and a masked crusader by night. Or be bitten by a radioactive spider, or be an alien from another planet. We are just human. Or...are we?

But then again...why can't you still be a superhero?

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When I was growing up, my sister and I were spoiled rotten by our parents. We weren't "rich" per se, not like billionaire rich. We were well off. Our dad had made quite a bit of money, he was a multimillionaire. Not by choice, he was just that good. He was a tech junky and extremely good at it. He started a company at the age of sixteen making computer chips. When a huge name brand company found it, they bought it from him and he became a millionaire. He did it again, this time with designing programs. It wasn't because he wanted to sell it, he loved doing it. He loved making things.

Our parents invested the money, and had told my sister and I we wouldn't ever want for anything, because they grew up without everything. We were the sole heirs to their money, considering they didn't have any immediate family left.

One night they had a dinner date. I was fifteen at the time, my little sister only six. They went to some fancy restaurant, I don't remember the name of it. My dad had one too many drinks there and while driving home, ended wrapping their car around a tree. Our mom was flung from the vehicle, not wearing a seat belt like she should have been.

Dad didn't make it from the car alive. Died on impact the doctors say. Mom...she was in a coma. Police said he was drunk. I know my dad though, damn what the cops think. It took a lot for my dad to get drunk and if he was driving home, he would never drink more than one glass of wine, nothing more.

My sister and I were going to be placed in protective custody, but I refused. I said I could take care of her just fine. After a lot of legal battles, my dad's lawyer fighting on our behalf, it was settled that the lawyer would be our "legal guardian" and we would continue on as if nothing happened. I had made a deal with the lawyer, I would pay him twenty grand a year until I came of age, just so he would put up the facade that he was our guardian. He agreed, not that he needed the money, being a widely successful lawyer, but never one to turn down money so easily earned.

My sister and I continued as if nothing changed. I turned sixteen a month after their deaths, got a license and a car, and Sarah (my sister) and I continued on. On the day of my sixteen birthday something else happened...something I kept hidden because I knew it would get me locked up and dissected like a frog in science class. I shifted into a giant panther. Not huge, but bigger than a normal one. But I acted like nothing happened out of the norm. I put on a show, even though, now, my eyesight was better, I was stronger and faster. I didn't tell anyone, not even Sarah. So life went on for me and her.

I would drive her to school and drop her off at her private elementary school, before I headed to my own private school. I couldn't tell you when I really changed, but I can tell you that it was after I got the car. I started working out more, going to different defense classes. I trained in martial arts, all sorts of them. Eventually, I went to a dojo and learned how to use different weapons.

I still cared for my little sister. She went to therapy for the next two years after their deaths. She was so heartbroken over it. She didn't understand what was going on. While I became distant and angry at everyone, even my friends, I was always loving and caring to Sarah.