~Antarctic Hydra Base~
March, 2006
"You are meeting your new teacher today. Get up." Phaedra ordered from the doorway, before leaving as abruptly as she'd come.
The girl groaned, but did as she was told. She hoped this new teacher would at least try to make the lessons more interesting than the last few had. Maybe then she wouldn't have to force them to quit. The last one had had it with her after she locked her in the freezer in the kitchens for the seventh time in a week.
"Sir." Phaedra greeted, steering the girl into the empty room she always had her lessons in. "This is the Asset."
"Thank you, Agent. You can leave us now." The old man responded.
"But-"
"I'd like to teach the Asset alone. Without her handler around." He said firmly. "Cognitively speaking, the Asset will learn better without any other distractions."
"Yes, sir." Phaedra gave in. She eyed the girl one last time, as if to warn her against stepping out of line, then left. The door slammed shut behind her.
"Hello, child. You may call me Professor." The man introduced, kneeling down in front of her. "And what may I call you?"
"I don't care." She said warily. "Handler says I have no name. They just call me Asset."
"Surely, you must have given yourself a name?" He pushed. She just shrugged. "In this room, and this room only, you can be whoever you want, child."
"I am the Mirage, an asset of Hydra." The girl knew better than to trust anyone working under Hydra. None of them cared about her. They would sooner deceive and manipulate her than give a child hope.
"Whatever you wish, child." Professor said. "Now. For our first lesson, we will begin with world geography. Name every country you know on this map."
Two Weeks Later
"Welsh. I am here to find my target and dispose of him."
"Rwyf yma i ddod o hyd i'm targed a chael gwared arno." The girl recited.
"Good. German, now. My assignment is to recover foreign intelligence from the military." Professor instructed.
"Meine Aufgabe ist es, ausländische Geheimdienste vom Militär zurückzugewinnen."
"Italian. I am a weapon of Hydra."
"Sono un'arma di Hydra."
"You are doing well with your studies, child. Your pronunciations are near flawless, and you can speak as a native when necessary. Next lesson, we will continue working on Arabic and Spanish."
"Yes, Professor." The girl said.
"Off to your room, now, Elise." She inclined her head toward the man and scurried out of the room.
One Month Later
April, 2006
"Good form, but your details are off. Any trained person would know immediately that something was wrong." Professor said, inspecting her form closely as he knelt there on the ground. "The scales need to be larger, and the tail needs to be longer. The eyes are too many shades of color off."
The girl, currently in the form of a knight anole lizard, just jumped from her teacher's hands to the floor.
"Try a red-winged blackbird." Professor said.
The girl closed her eyes, felt the transformation wash over her. When she opened them, she was slightly higher off the ground than she was in the body of a lizard, though not by too much. The professor held out a hand, and she hopped over, gripping his finger with her claws.
He lifted a wing gently with one finger. "The bones, they are all crooked and misplaced here." He told her. "And that is not the beak of a red-winged blackbird. It is the beak of a canary."
The girl fluttered to the floor and shifted again. Going back to some semblance of herself was the only thing she did well, and even that was never perfect. She never looked entirely the same after a shift, and she had to wonder whether she would ever be good at this.
"I can't do this, Professor." She said, disheartened. "What good is a canary-beaked blackbird? Hydra would be better off taking me out back and shooting me like they do the prisoners."
"Don't you ever say anything like that about yourself again, child." Professor ordered. "Now. Try me."
"I can't get a small bird, and you want me to do a human, who has so many more, larger details for me to mess up?" She asked incredulously.
"You are trying too hard. You can't force something such as this." He told her. "Let your power wash over you, rather than reigning it in. Don't focus so much on details, because that is when you lose other parts. Focus on the whole, and let the shift happen as it will."
"Alright." She sighed.
The girl closed her eyes for the millionth time that day, and pictured the professor's short gray hair, wrinkled skin, and twinkling brown eyes. She pictured the lab coat he always wore, paired with matching olive green scrubs. She pictured all of him, the big picture instead of just the details. She imagined his kind words, his gentle manner as he taught her. He was the only one who'd ever shown her any sort of kindness. No one else bothered. Why would they, when she was meant to be nothing more than a weapon, a machine of war?
"You can open your eyes, Elise." Professor said gently. She did, and she found herself face to face with her teacher.
"Did I do it?" She asked hesitantly.
"You did, child." He responded. "Let the shift happen as it will. As long as you know your target well enough, your power will fill in the rest. You've done it just now. As you train yourself, you will get even better at it."
"What's your last name, Professor?" The girl asked curiously, letting the old man's body melt away into her own.
"Why do you ask?" He responded.
"I want a last name. I want a name that came from a family." She said, then frowned. "I don't have a family, though."
"You can be mine, then." Professor said. "I have no one to pass it on to, my name, and all my family is long gone."
"Really?" She asked hopefully. "You would be my family? What would that make me?"
"That would make you whoever you want to be in this world, Elise Shay."
Took forever, but I got another chapter up! I think it'll be easier for me to get back into the swing of doing things like writing more regularly now that I've got a job, because that'll give me more structure in the rest of my summer. Hope y'all like this one, I've got the next one somewhat started, so we'll see when that goes up.
~Writing Desk's Raven