In the confines of her bedroom where her laptop sat vigilant night and day, humming it's robotic tune throughout the hours, Chloe was an omnipotent goddess. She could crack the most clever codes, peek behind the curtain of a web camera, and riddle out passwords in no time at all. Knowledge was Chloe's means of trade and it paid very handsomely. Ordinarily, Chloe's services extended to nothing more than paranoid housewives wanting to confirm their suspicions about their wandering husbands. Every now and again though, there was something juicy enough to attract her own personal interest. These jobs were usually required her to become very involved with her subject which required her to wander out into the public. Unfortunately, the moment Chloe stepped outside of her building, she lost all power.
Chloe was a fairly mousy individual who clung to the shadows like a child to its mother's skirts to save herself the misery of being judged by the public eye. The perception of ill-intent was usually only in her mind, the majority of looks she received being of an admiring or curious nature, rather than malicious or critical. This affliction of public stage fright was a foreign concept to Chloe's large and proud family who thought she should be proud of her appearance and mundane abilities, especially considering that she was the heiress of a supernatural family tree that went back many, many generations. Being of such a lineage, her family looked upon their blood with great pleasure and exulted in their melting pot of genetics. No child in their history had ever turned out exactly the same. As a prime example, Chloe's brother had been born with the power of invisibility and had been sought out by the Central Intelligence Agency from a very early age. His added street smarts and confidence made it a comfortable fit for him and, last Chloe had heard, he had been doing very well for himself. As for herself, Chloe had been displaying for many years that she was of a less-than-extraordinary nature by displaying her ability to change her hair and eye color. A very minor and unproductive trait for any specific business in the eyes of her family, though they tried to be gentle about it. In truth though, Chloe was the epitome of a 'mixed bag' of abilities that only her family could possibly be thrilled about.
The color shifting was only a part of her body morphing ability that could alter her height, weight, features, coloration, hair length, and skin tone. She was even capable of protecting herself with her great-aunt's werecat features appearing partially in her niece. She was thankfully saved the agony of a lunar cycle transformation in exchange for only a portion of her legendary brute strength. However, her senses, reflexes, and strength were greater than the average human and she could extend her nails and teeth to become claws and fangs, her eyes turning to the cat-like slits to allow better vision in all degrees of light. And then, as an added bonus, she was her own energy source. The one fairly useless ability of the bunch but it had made Chloe's condition a little less intolerable when any power outage could be countered by putting her toes near the outlet and powering up her entire apartment. Unlike her family, Chloe resented her abnormality. It had never brought her anything but grief in her youth so she had hidden it with all of the intensity an introvert who desired peace could muster. And she had been very successful. Chloe did not doubt that this venture out into the world would bring her anything but discomfort, but it would also not reveal her secrets.
Marching down the tilted sidewalk with her head ducked down, she arrived at one of the city's many parks and finally lifted her head to examine her surroundings. There was a swing set, monkey bars, and a slide to her right with padding and wood chips underneath all to soften any potential falls. The one path that lead through the park moved like a snake, adjusting to the terrain's elevation as necessary rather than cutting through brutishly. Benches lined the edges with shrubs to define some of the edges of the cement but it was the forest to her left that most intrigued Chloe. It was a small island of trees in comparison to the real forest that loomed behind but she aimed for it directly, her heart beating faster at the thought of being in the safety of her darkness and solitude momentarily.
