The Lady and Tigress

by

Bek D Corbin

Author's Note: Despite the similarity of name, abilities, and costume, the 'Tigress' in this story has nothing to do with the character of the same name that appears in the "Of Masks and Marvels" serial. This story preceded OM&M, in unwritten form, by several years. This notice is strictly to avoid reader confusion.

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The wall exploded outwards. Tigress leaped from one alley wall to another, barely outpacing the blast. Powerblast stalked out of the chasm, his energy gauntlets glowing with barely restrained power.

Tigress skittered down the alley wall, trying to get into a wider arena, one where her agility and leaping ability would give her the edge over Powerblasts ranged assaults. Powerblast aimed two shots ahead of her, collapsing the walls, effectively trapping her.

The wide ugly face under the duralloy helmet smirked in vile satisfaction. "Yknow, Kitty-kat, when I heard dat the Thaumaturge had turned youze inta a gurl, I said 'No Way! Dere's no way dat Night Tiger, my old sparrin' partner, would let hisself become a broad! But Dere ya are, sweet cheeks! Man! Dis is gonna be Sweet!" He aimed carefully, picking his shots.

Tigress held up one hand in an ineffectual blocking gesture, awaiting the coming attack...

###############

Mandy finished inking the stripes that marked the border between Tigress' glove and her sleeve, and wiped the pen clean. The stripes were a nuisancey bit, but Leonard, her editor insisted that the old 'Night Tiger' costume be carried over as much as possible, in order to keep as many of the old readers as possible- what there were of them. She stepped back and took another look at the half-finished figure. The nib she was using was a little wider than she was used to, but it was giving her some interesting accent's on the character's face. Now if only she could figure out what she was gonna do with the character!

It was simply typical- she busted her hump finishing and inking other artists' books for five years, and when they finally gave her one of her own, they not only dumped a moribund creaker like Night Tiger on her, but gave her the whole writer-artist-inker job! Now they could scrap the title in a few months, and have fandom blame the 'new writer'. She irritably stripped off her latex inking gloves and went into the kitchenette for some coffee.

###############

As Mandy was pouring, the unfinished figure on her drawing board twitched. The character's hand flexed it's fingers, first two-dimensionally, then three dimensionally. The fingers lifted off the page, followed by the entire hand. The other hand followed the same procedure. Together, they gripped the sides of the panel and heaved. Straining mightily, the figure pulled itself out of the two-dimensional panel as if out of a three-dimensional hole. The feminine figure managed to completely free herself of the page, and began to walk off the drawing table. As she moved across the table, she grew, as if walking down a tunnel toward the viewer. Finally, she achieved a scale in keeping with the background.

She leaped off the table and did a graceful summersault in mid-air to land across the room in a feline crouch. She carefully scanned the low-rent surroundings. She was a trifle disappointed- one normally thought of God as living in celestial splendour, not a cheap one-bedroom apartment with attached kitchenette and rental furniture.

Mandy came back into the living room with her cup of coffee, ready to get back to work. The coffee went splatter when she saw the bizarre woman crouching catlike on the back of the couch. The woman was wearing a black bodystocking with a black-and-dark-orange-striped bodice over it, dull white gloves and boots with dark orange stripes blending the white into the black of the stocking. Her face was heart-shaped and feline, with large green eyes showing through a black half-mask. Her hair was red, with blonde streaks and fell to about her jawline. She looked exacty like a real-life version of the Tigress character. She was also snarling, the almond-shaped eyes afire with a rage that was directed straight at Mandy.

The woman leaped off the couch and pinned Mandy against the wall. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!", she screamed. "Look at me! I look ridiculous! How is anybody supposed to take me seriously? You had me being dissed by Powerblast!  Powerblast!  Kid Sidekicks kick Powerblast around!"

"What are you talking about? Who are you? If you're a model, I'm sorry, but I don't use live models- I understand that Mel Charnsek who draws the Skybolt book does, but then he actually gets paid a living wage-"

"Shut up! I am Night Tiger! I am the hero of the book you draw- or at least I was until you did this to me! Dammit, it's been five issues, already! When are you going to change me back into a guy, for the luvvamike!"

Okay, Mandy told herself, you're dealing with a psycho. A very fit psycho, from the look of what's under that leotard, but still definitely on a day pass in reality. Well, as the chicken used to say to the lion, 'You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.' Weird fans are all part of being in the comics industry- along with creative decisions made by marketing committees, editors that want you to work 48 hours a day for a 8-hour pay scale, and letter writers than double-check everything you do with a microscope and a 25-year detailed history of the character.

All right, if you want to stay out of fifteen different garbage bags, humor the nutjob and call the cops at the first opportunity. Remember reality is probably a foreign country to this woman- but, I wonder why she would identify with a marginal character like Night Tiger, and then get all bent out of shape when I changed him into a woman? "Okay, Tigr-"

"Night Tiger! It used  to be a name that commanded respect!"

"It used to be a name that sold thousands of copies a month! That was Then, This is Now."

"Oh, gimme a break! I still sell my fair share!"

"Oh, please! The Night Tiger book is more of an White Elephant! They only gave me this turkey because they can't justify putting me on the back burner anymore! So Now I gotta do something to blast this groaner out of the rut that it's been in since the mid-80's, and all I get for it is moans and groans from goddamn purists who want everything just the way that it's always been, no matter how dull and predictable that-"

As Mandy had thoughtlessly launched into her favorite rant about how she was getting shafted, the woman in the Tigress outfit struck an impatient 'I'm waiting for an opening that isn't coming' stance. Then she reached her hand in front of Mandy's face, snapped her fingers for attention-

-and leaped a good 15 feet straight up from a standing position. She twisted in mid-air to 'land' her feet on the roof, and stayed there. She adopted a seat remarkably like a cat sitting up, but looking upside down at Mandy.

A pussycat smile on her face, Tigress looked down at Mandy from the roof. "Still think I'm a psycho?"

Mandy dropped her coffee cup and backed against the wall, her face mirroring the fact that her reality check just bounced.

Tigress dropped to the floor with another mid-air twist to land gingerly on her feet. She stalked over to the utterly boggled Mandy, and got up in her face. "_I_ am _Night_Tiger_. _YOU_ are just another uninspired hack that I have been saddled with. _YOU_ are going to have me figure out how to break this stupid spell that you had the Thaumaturge place on me- _Or_ Else_."

A threat. Mandy could deal with threats. Cavalier abrogations of the Rules of Reality, no- threats, yes. "Or Else What? What are you gonna do?"

Tigress just smiled ferally, crossed one arm across her chest, and held the other upright. The tips of the fingers on that hand went from blunt to razor sharp.

If you even come near me with those things, I'll sic the Cops on you so fast-"

Tigress snickered. "The Cops? And what are you going to tell them? That a fictional character threatened you? It didn't work for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and it won't work for you."

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? You mean...Sherlock Holmes?"

"Sure! You think you're the only writer ever to be visited by their creation? When Conan Doyle wrote His Last Bow, Holmes was all over him! From what the Dean of Baker Street tells me, they never really did get along."

"You mean that you talk to Sherlock Holmes?"

"Well, we're not really that close- I mean, he's one of the most famous literary characters in history and I'm just a comic book hero, but we do chat every so often. After all, he does comic books himself every so often. Still, he and Batman are like that!" She crossed her fingers.

"But How?"

"Well, you try to get him when he's not busy, and you open with a leading question-"

"No! I mean, How- You- Him- Here- How?"

"Oh! Y'mean, how does a fictional character manage to visit a creator here in Objective Reality?"

"YES!"

"Y'know, for someone who works in Comics, you have a very closed mind."

"HOW?"

"Does the term 'Schroedigger's Cat' mean anything to you?"

"You mean that 'Is the cat dead or alive?' bullshit that first-year philosophy students are always nattering on about?"

"More or less. You see, everything and anything exists in undefined potential. You name it, it exists in undefined potential. I existed in undefined potential, until Joe and Stan created me, and brought me into defined- but unmanifested- potential. All fictional charcters exist in a state of defined but unmanifested potential."

"But how did you get here?"

"To be honest- I don't know." Mandy screamed in frustration. "Honestly! _I_ Don't_Know_! It just happened- my very existence was in jeopardy, you left me half-finished, I was alone without anyone to set any kind of consensual restraint on reality, there was this opening, and I took it!"

"You mean that you could do this any time you wanted?"

Tigress waggled a flat hand in a 'maybe, maybe not' gesture. "But enough of that. Now, How are you going to turn me back into a guy?"

In a small, choaked voice, Mandy said, "I can't."

"WHAT?"

"I Can't! I to kick up such a fuss about changing you into a woman, that I put all my credibility into making it work! There were discussions of Tigress posters and action figures and other licensing deals. If I turn you back into a guy, all that goes down the toilet, I lose all credibility, and they'll take the title away from me. And they probably won't bother giving the title to another writer or artist. I was- no, I AM your last hope. Without me, your book will simply close- it's cheaper that way."

Tigress looked like she had just bitten into an apple with half a worm in it. "So, we need each other."

Mandy gave a helpless 'stinks, don't it?' grimace, nodded, and said, "Kinda."

Tigress slumped, turned around and tottered dejectedly to the sofa. She sat down with a plop and buried her face in one hand. She rhythmically hit the sofa seat with the other fist.

With this unexpected reprieve, Mandy gingerly tried to get a handle on the situation. "Oh, come on, it isn't that bad! I'm sure that we can come to some kind of mutually beneficial understanding..." As she blithered on, Mandy went into the kitchen for some more coffee, under the media induced impression that consuming lots of caffeine somehow somehow improves communication.

As Mandy chattered to cover the obvious fact that she didn't have the slightest idea of what to do next, Tigress rubbed her face and looked around. Her eye fell on the drawing table and printed text for the script. It isn't every day that someone has the chance to look at the crucible from which they sprang.

She casually walked over and looked at the pens, inks, paper and other cryptic equipment. Then she picked up the 'bible' for the strips next few months. After a cautious glance around to make sure that Mandy wasn't coming out of the kitchen just yet, Tigress opened the bound papers that dictated the next few months of her life.

###############

Tigress prowls along the rooftop carefully following Major Terror's trail. The signs of slight scorching are rare, but she manages to go from burn trace to burn trace. With all that had happened to her, all she really has left is her self-appointed war against scum like Major Terror.

Then she senses something off to her right. She spots something landing, and assumes an attack crouch. Then she recognizes the White-and Sky-Blue outfit. "Skybolt! What are You doing here? I thought that the Paladins had 'tried' me in absentia, and cut my walking papers! What, are you here to rub it in? You gonna tell me that I'm a disgrace to the name of the Paladins, or What?"

Skybolt says nothing, only looking at her through his mirrored visor with undisguised loathing and contempt. A bolt of Astral energy forms in his right hand and lashes out at her, knocking her back against a skylight.

Tigress shakes her head and looks groggily at Skybolt as he stalks closer. Her eyes widen in horror as she sees what he is about to do. "Skybolt! NO! You CAN'T!"

The two figures are in silhouette as Skybolt forces himself on top of Tigress, and she flails her limbs about in futile resistance.

###############

Tigress' eyes widened as she read of her approaching fate.

Mandy came in with a tray of coffee and danish. "Y'know, this is a  unique opportunity! How many-"

"YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU'RE GONNA RAPE ME!" Mandy stopped her chatter in mid-sentence. But then, accusations of Rape tend to be conversation-stoppers. Tigress threw the 'bible' at her "What did I ever _DO_ to you? What would ever make you think that Raping me is a good thing? Why do you want to rape me?"

"Aaahh, _I_ don't want to rape you, it's Skybolt-"

"Skybolt is my friend! He would never-"

"Hey, statistics show that over 35% of victims are attacked by-"

"Hey, I barely know you and you're trying to rape me!"

"Well, Rape is an important topic that has never been satisfactorily covered in comics..."

"So, you're trying to cross into bold, new territory over my broken and bleeding body! Why do you hate me so much?"

"Hey, Ray Stanton okayed the story..."

"It ain't Stanton, it ain't Skybolt, it You that's trying to rape me! You are both the writer and the artist! You not only decide that I'm gonna be raped, as Artist, you determine exactly how badly I'm gonna be battered when it happens!" Tigress pressed Mandy into a corner. "You are the one whose going to rape me; Stanton is just your back alley and Starbolt is only your dildo. You had the idea, you made the decision, you're the one who's gonna make it happen. I asked you once, now I want an answer- Why Do You Hate Me?"

Something snapped inside Mandy. She roused the rage that had been sleeping inside her and pointed it at Tigress. "WHY? Why am I doing all this to you? BECAUSE, this-" she shook the 'bible' at Tigress, "- is what being a Woman is ALL ABOUT! The Shame, the Doubt, the Fear, the constant humiliation-"

"BULL-SHIT! Maybe that's what YOUR life is about, but there are thousands of women out there who rise above all that crap! And, if I may say so, it ain't exactly unique to women! Do you think that men just sail through life perfectly confident, untouched by doubt or uncertainty?"

Mandy hissed, "And HOW would YOU know? You're just a fictional character!"

"Exactly! I'm a fictional character! Second cousin to the beings of Legend and Myth! I am born of your dreams, hopes and fears! I am made of the stuff of deeper truths! No, the reason that you hate me is that you can't Be me! You're too afraid to be on your best day what I am on an off day!"

 Mandy scowled into Tigress' face. "Men would never let me-"

"LET!? You don't sit around waiting for people to Allow you assume power over your life! You just do it! Women do it all the time!"

"Yeah, women that men hate and fear for being so powerful!"

"And women don't fear and hate powerful men? Besides, to be honest, men don't really get their shorts tied in a knot by powerful women- it's other women who really get weirded out by strong women. The women that men really can't stand are the ones that are so stressed out by their own fear of being powerful that they take it out on the men around them."

Mandy didn't like the direction that this was taking. "So, what are you saying? That I'm afraid?"

Tigress touched her nose with a grim smile. "You're afraid that you'll fail, and you're afraid that if you succeed, that you'll be forced to make very important decisions that you might not be up to. But you fought very hard to get to this point, and God knows You can't be at fault; So, you strap on Skybolt as a dildo, and rape somebody who can't fight back."

Mandy tried to scrunch down into herself. "So, Mister Big Shot Superhero, what do I do?"

"Do? You stop being afraid of being afraid!"

"What kind of psycho-babble is that? 'Stop being afraid of being afraid' ".<Yeeccchhh!>

"When you exercise power- any kind of power- you have to be a little afraid. But you think that being afraid means being wrong. It doesn't. Being afraid just means that you realize that things can go wrong. But you're afraid of being wrong, so you can't stand that fear of your own power. Just... accept... that it isn't going to be easy. That its going to take effort, and the occasional failure and a lot of uncertainty, to do anything worth the time."

"Okay, that sounds just peachy- but how do I do that?"

"You played hardball to get control of my book didn't you? It was hard, wasn't it? You were scared, weren't you? But you did it! Concentrate on that! Put what you learned doing that into writing my stories- and maybe you could learn a little something about running your own life from those stories.

         “Y'know, when you turned me into a woman, you took away my manhood, my secret identity, my family, my friends, and my job- but the thing that really pissed me off is that you turned me into a victim! _I_ DON'T_ DO_ VICTIM_! A Victim says that it's all right to step all over them, because their pain somehow makes them special. They want somebody else to save them, and make everything all right. I don't do that. I'm a Hero- I save myself."

"Hey it's easy to be a superhero- you've got super-strength and claws and you can climb up walls-"

"You really don't get what being a superhero is all about, do you? You draw the pictures, but you just don't get it. Part of the reason of why I was so upset about being raped was who you had doing it. I admit, I still woudn't have been happy if it were, oh, say Darksword, or some other supervillain- but Skybolt? He isn't just my friend, he's a Hero. He's supposed to stand for something! By having him rape me, you made me a victim, and you made him a rapist. You demeaned us both. I mean, he not only has his own title, we were in the Paladins together! How is he supposed to keep on being a Hero in both those titles, if you turn him into a fucking rapist? He's better than that! That's the whole point of Heroes! There has to be somebody who rises to the greatest challenges! There has to be somebody who isn't afraid to dare-"

"You're not gonna start singing The Impossible Dream, are you?"

"I just want to be a Hero again, and not a victim. If it means being a superheroine, instead of a superhero, well, I'm willing to rise to the challenge. Are You?"

"Rise? What challenge?"

"The challenge of writing the best damn superheroine book on the market today. You keep bitching that they handed you a lemon- So, Make-"

"DON'T SAY IT! It's bad enough that I'm getting chewed out by a 2-dimensional character, but I gotta get lectured by Jiminy Cricket in a leotard?"

"Okay, You want 3 dimensional? Try this on for size: if you don't produce a turn-around for my book, we both get one-way tickets to Oblivion."

"Hey, I can get another job-"

"Hey I'm a professional Comic Book Character. You just do this for a living- I do it to exist! I've been in the industry for 25 years- it's very cut-throat. If you blow your chance, there are a hundred other novices out there who haven't, waiting for their chance. If you can't make it happen, then Stanton will just flush you- and, as you pointed out, he'll flush me as well."

Mandy looked at Tigress for a long hard while. "I don't believe that I'm doing this- but okay, I'll go along with it."

"Hey, if it means anything to you, Tarzan says that Edgar Rice Burroughs said pretty much the same thing when they first met face to face."

Mandy went into the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee and went to the drawing table. Tigress perched on a filing cabinet. Mandy took a long look at her. "Y'know, half the time you talk as if you live in the world as set in the comic books- y'know, with Skybolt, and the Paladins, and Margo McLeod, and Master Yoji, and Supervillains, and all that, and the other half, you talk like there's some kind of 'back stage' for all fiction. A world where all the characters of fiction stand around waiting for their cues, drinking coffee and gossiping."

"Oh, and your life is perfectly consistent?"

Mandy knew an evasion when she heard one, and decided not to pursue the subject. Maybe there were things that cartoonists were not meant to know. She looked at the unfinished page, with Powerblast about to cream Tigress. Tigress looked down at the page and curled a lip. Then a wistful look crept under her mask and she said in a plaintive voice, "So, no way I'm gonna go back to being a guy, hunh?"

"Nope. I'm sorry, but we both know the reasons why. If I'd known that you were more than a bunch of lines and a copyright, maybe I'd have thought of a different way of doing it. But it's too late now."

*sigh* "Damn. The thing is, I've spent so much time being a macho guy, that I don't have the slightest idea of how to be a woman. Your not gonna make me have periods and stuff like that, are you?"<yecchhh!>

Mandy froze, her pencil paused in mid-air, the light of inspiration in her eyes. "THAT'S IT! That's the thing!"

"Say What?"

"The thing that I've been scrambling around, trying to figure out ever since I got this turkey!"

"A-hem!"

"Sorry! But I've been going crazy these past few months, trying to figure out where I was gonna take this strip! But it's so obvious, that I completely overlooked it! A Man, learning to live as a woman! And the superhero element can only help, because there's this dichotomy between the male approach and the female approach-"

"Ying and Yang- hey, this was a pretty metaphysical title when we started back in the 70's. Y'know, Zen koans, and all that. But after Joe and Stan left the strip, Adam and Roy weren't really into that stuff, so they concentrated on the supervillains."

"Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes! You're a searcher, a mystic explorer, a seeker after deeper truths. But you've gotten bogged so down in your everyday life- your job, the dojo, your girlfriends, being a superhero- that you you stopped looking, you stopped asking the important questions! But now, you've been turned into a female and were knocked out of all of that- you have to look at everything in a new light! You have to start questioning your perceptions and  assumptions. As you learn how to live as a woman, you re-discover your desire to discover the reality underlying the appearance! It's perfect!"

"I still get to be a Hero, don't I?"

"Of Course! A Hero that Joseph Campbell would approve of!"

Tigress was getting into it as well. "Oh, this is good! You're going in a new direction and returning to my essential roots at the same time. You think my strip is moribund? Check out Daredevil or Wonder Woman before Frank Miller or George Perez got ahold of them! Talk about stale! Even having a TV show couldn't knock WW out of the cellar! Though being a feminist icon and a darling of the psychobabble set helped keep her afloat until George came along."

"Actually, I was hoping for something more along the lines of what happened to the X-Men or Batman in the mid-70's."

A look of hopeful glee pixied up Tigress' face. "Oohh.... Batman...." She squirmed on her seat in anticipation.

"Alright, will this change in mentality affect your powers?"

"Of course! My powers are supposed to be 'Chi' based, not faux-natural, so any change- let alone advance in mind-state will affect them."

Mandy smiled at Tigress' use of 'advance' as regards her new state, but tactfully said nothing. "Well, then, if they're not actually based on your physical senses, right? So why do Steve and Tim have you sniffing around in these old issues?"

Tigress wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, it is a little too... Wolverine... isn't it? But then, Steve was always bitching about not working for Marvel, and Tim had the imagination of a Xerox machine."

"What say we give you an ability to see- in glimpses- past the veil of illusions, into a deeper reality-"

"The Akasha- the Hindus and Buddhists say that the world you know is an illusion, called the Maya, which conceals the Akasha, or deeper reality."

"And being fictional, you'd know more about that than I would, wouldn't you? So, thanks to your change in sex- and resultant change in perceptions, you can now partially pierce the Maya to see the Akasha. Not all the time, just when it helps the story along. We can say at some point that all that 'seeing in the dark' and 'super sense of smell' jazz was just your way of building up to this greater awareness. Yeah, it works.

“But now we've got something else to talk about- your look. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you look like a guy in drag."

"Hey, for all practical purposes, I am a guy in drag! This is how you conceptualized me, this is how you drew me, and so this is how I manifested in objective reality And now, you say that you don't like it! <pfauuggh!> Writers!" Tigress crossed her arms, stuck out her lower lip and sulked.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, it's my fault! Mea Culpa, already! But we still gotta do something about how you look- the entire point of this new direction is that you're a guy in a female body. Just having you look like a skinny guy with falsies and a wig ain't gonna cut the mustard!"

"So?"

"So, I can't work on you on paper, if you're sitting there on the filing cabinet!"

Tigress looked at her askance. "You're not gonna just pick up where you started, with Powerblast kicking the shinola out of me, and a Rape a few months down the line, are you?"

"What am I, Suicidal? This is great stuff we've come up with! But, can you go back in, and still give me feedback?"

Tigress gave her another askance glance, sighed and swung her legs over to the drawing board. She lowered herself into the two dimensions of the paper as if she were trying to get used to a very cold swimming pool, inch by inch. Finally, she was a black & white line drawing looking up at Mandy. "Well?"

Mandy looked down nonplussed at the moving figure. "And I thought that it was weird before", she muttered.

"So, where do we start? C'mon, this is my first collaboration, give me a hint, at least!"

Mandy started kneading an artist's eraser. "At least you have a context to deal with- Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, like that. Hmmm... The problem is that I don't really have any idea of what you should really look like. So far, I've just been adapting what you were before."

"So, start with the elements! Think Tiger!"

"Think Feline-"

"No, not Feline- Tiger! Please, I get enough grief from Catwoman as it is! Tiger! Powerful, dynamic, regal!"

"Don't give yourself airs. I was thinking more of a real person, a celebrity or something like that- someone whose likeness and personality I could draw on."

"Well, how about Emma Peel from the old Avengers TV show? I mean, there's a classic Tiger personality if there ever was one!"

"Doesn't your old friend Catwoman kind of have that one sewn up?" Mandy said with a smile.

"Not really. She's too dismissive. Step back and think about it- Emma Peel's enduring appeal isn't tied that much to her physical looks. I mean Diana Rigg was nice looking, but no more so than a few thousand other starlet types. I think her real charm is the fact that she projects an image that she is so comfortable with herself, and so confident in her abilities, that she doesn't need to bolster her ego with invidious comparisons. She kind of says, 'I'm HOT, and y'know, you're a bit of all right yourself'. Sort of what those 'I'm Okay, Your Okay' people were trying to sell back in the 70's, but only bred a generation of attitude artists. She's kind of like that really cool girl in High School, the one you always though whose cool would somehow rub off on you, if she let you hang out with her. Only she doesn't mind hanging out."

Mandy chewed on this for a while. "So, we start with Diana Rigg."

"Or we could go with Lauren Bacall, Jane Russell, or any of the other 'Stand Up Broads' of the 40's & 50's movies. They were smart, confident, sexy, savvy, and they could take a punch without making a big deal about it. I mean, Bogie could go down a dark alley without worrying, if he knew that Betty had his back! Think about To Have and To Have Not. That scene with the whiskey bottle is one of the sexiest in Hollywood history, and they never dropped a stitch! If I gotta be a woman, I wanna be a woman like that!"

Mandy thought about it for a bit, and began to erase bits of Tigress' figure. Tigress squealed. Mandy looked down in concern. "Is that hurting you?"

"No, but you try having your physical reality reconfigured, and see how you like it!"

Many adjustments and corrections later, Mandy looked at what she had. "Mmmm... I dunno- you look confident and tough, but you also look a little hard, y'know? Like you don't really care about people."

Tigress paced across the page a couple of times. "Lessee... who do I know who's female, powerful, confident, but friendly... Of Course! The She-Hulk! Trot out your copies of the John Byrne Sensational She-Hulk!"

Knowing a good idea when it was yelled up at her from a sheet of paper, Mandy ran to the closet and pulled out her Mylar-bagged copies. Starting with the classic 'Buy this comic, or I'll tear up your X-Men' cover of Sensational She-Hulk #1, she studied how Byrne had made a 7' tall, emerald green bombshell accessible. Then it hit her.

She got up off the floor and carried the comic to the drawing table. "Humor. You can't have a sense of humor and be too hard. Besides, it fits in perfectly with the 'mystic explorer' concept!"

"Somehow, I have a hard time seeing Dr. Strange as a stand-up comedian."

"No, think about it! There are all kinds of 'Sacred Clowns' in ancient traditions, and both the Sufi and Zen traditions have Masters who use Absurdities to break out of conventional ways of thinking!"

"Sort of a 'when you start really looking at the world, you can't help but laugh' kind of thing?"

"Exactly."

"All right, but make it blend over into my everyday life, okay? After all, when he's in costume, Spiderman is a wisecracking fool, but when he's just Peter Parker, he has a whine that could drive Fran Drescher up the wall! And I speak as one who's heard it up close."

An hour and several more corrections later, Mandy looked down at her creation. The figure was lithe and powerful, but relaxed and centered. The face showed confidence and focus, but there was a lightness to the eyes, and the corner of the mouth showed that a laugh at the absurdities of life was just under the surface. So far, so Great. She lowered the eraser in the area of the figure's chest.

"Whoa! Waitaminnit! Leave the boobs!"

Mandy pulled back and almost laughed. "Gee, I thought that you'd welcome a chance to get rid of those whoppers!"

"That was when I was gonna go back to being a guy! If I'm gonna be a girl, I don't wanna be the one with the flattest chest in class! You know what that's like!"

Mandy crossed her arms in front of her. "I don't know what you are talking about." Tigress snorted with amusement. "Besides, why is it that all superheroines have to look like they could be scouted for a Russ Meyer movie, anyway?"

"You want the real reason, or the reason that works?"

Mandy looked uncertainly down at the paper. "Both."

"Okay, the real reason is that comics are a fantasy, for both sexes - 'Nuff Said. The reason that works is that superheroines use breast protectors, like female fencers wear, that give the illusion of a fuller cup while providing protection against blows to those oh-so-sensitive breasts." Tigress demonstrated by rapping her left breast with a knuckle. A minute hard tapping sound resulted.

Mand blinked. "That actually makes sense! A female crime-fighter would no more go out with her breasts unprotected than a male one would go out without a cup! Which would also explain why those stupid trunks don't show more of a bulge! It's strapped down by the cup!"

Tigress grinned up. "AND it's more Politically Correct than the real reason!"

The impressive chest stayed.

###############

Work proceeded quickly. Mandy faxed her story and basic character revisions into the editorial office. Then the office faxed back a form document, that Mandy promptly filed in the 'get around to whenever' file.

A few days later. Mandy and Tigress were arguing whether or not to drag Night Tiger's sex life as Marshall Tyler into the new version of the strip. Mandy said that Night Tiger's promiscuity in the 70's couldn't just be forgotten; Tigress said that old girl-friends were one thing, STDs were another. Then the phone rang. Since Tigress was 2-dimensional at the time, Mandy answered.

"Gilchrist!" the angry voice on the other end snapped, "Why haven't you filled out that WFH-1351 form? We can't start printing until it's notarized!"

"Mr. Stanton, exactly what is a WFH-1351 form?"

"None of your business! Just sign it, and have it messengered over here ASAP!"

"Whooo! There is a lot of fine print here, and the smudging from the fax doesn't make it any better!"

"Just get it here by 3 o'clock, or you'll be looking for a new job!" Stanton hung up.

Tigress rose up off of the page. "Did you say a WFH-1351 form?"

"Yeah, you know what it is?"

"I'll say I do! Joe and Stan used to talk about it like it was a contract with the devil! It's a Work For Hire form; basically it says that because they pay you a salary, that you agree that they have the complete rights to every-thing that you create while you work for them- even the stuff that you create on your own time. That thing let Stanton take me away from Joe and Stan, and hand me over to a string of the most ham-handed hacks you ever saw!"

"Oh, thank you so very much."

"That's NOT what I meant! But do you realize what this means? It means that I'm not Night Tiger anymore! I really am Tigress! The stuff we've been doing must be so materially different from the Night Tiger strip, that their lawyers must want your name on that form, so that they can copyright my distinctive likeness!"

"So?"

"SO? So, if you sign that, they'll own me all over again! In a couple of years, you'll want so much more money or perks that they'll take me away from you, and it's Hack City, all over again, and eventually, I'm back on the waiting line for Oblivion again."

"But if I don't sign this, Stanton will fire me!"

"And if you do, he'll just keep walking all over you, because he can! _Don't_ Let_ Him_! for both our sakes!"

"But what can I do?"

Tigress paced across the page a bit. "Beat him to the punch. If they haven't copyrighted me yet, then _YOU_ can! They have contractual commitments to keep, and you will be able to tell them to go fuck themselves!"

"But I need money to keep going! My bank account looks like the Box Office receipts for an Ed Woods movie!"

"So, sell the option to lease the rights to me to one of the competition! You'd be amazed at the money that publishers will pay for a stupid option! Stanton will still have first refusal, but if he starts talking about firing you, you'll have a ready berth just waiting for you. And, the option will put Stanton over a barrel, especially with those commitments that he must be sweating over right now!"

"How do you know so much about these things?"

"Hey, all the X-Men talk about these days is merchandising and marketing. Mandy, this is what being a Hero is all about- doing the stuff that has to be done, no matter how hard or scary it is. Stanton is never going to just give you the dues you have coming- y'gotta take them."

Tigress looked pleadingly up at Mandy. "Please! Be My Hero! Save Me!"

Mandy took a long, hard look at the blurry legal document.

Two hours later, thanks to the miracle of internet document filing, Mandy Gilchrist was the acknowledged creator and legal owner of the Tigress title, character, and all attendant distinctive likenesses.

###############

Marsha Tyler shouldered the athletic bag and took a long last look at the dojo that had been a second home to Marshall Tyler for so many years. *sigh* Ah, well, all things must pass, sic transit gloria mundi, and a-ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong.

There was a scrape of wood against wood, and a door-panel opened, revealing three figures that had loomed so large in her life before now- Master Yoji, her sensei, his daughter Taniko and First Disciple Ikeda Keiji. Keiji stalked a few steps forward, "So, you finally admit defeat and leave."

Marsha refused to rise to Keiji's prodding. Keiji had been on Marshall's back from Day One, and she for one was sick of it. She turned to Master Yoji. "Yoji-sensei. I thank you for your teachings and the use of your dojo. Now I must find my own way in the world. But I will always carry your words of wisdom with me." Yeah, if she ever needed to write a fortune cookie in a hurry, they'd be invaluable. Master Yoji said nothing, his face as unreadable as a set of Polish stereo instructions. In all the years that Marshall Tyler had studied under Master Yoji, he had never gotten any clues from Yoji-sensei's face, or the slightest hint of encouragement.

Taniko came forward, concern and conflict on her exquisite face. "Tyler-san, I don't know what to say. You leave under such a cloud! This---condition-"

There had always been a serious element of attraction between Taniko and  Marshall- not that Keiji needed any prompting to be an asshole. Marsha looked in Taniko's face and cupped her cheek in one hand. "For years, I racked my brain trying to figure out what it is that you want, Taniko. Now I realize that you don't know what you want. In the words of my people, Tani-chan, 'take out a loan, and buy a clue'!" Taniko pulled back in confusion.

Keiji surged forward. "You have no right to speak to Taniko-sama in that way! I challenge you! And since you are no longer a student in this dojo, when I beat you, I will claim the Torakami medallion!" Keiji had had a woodie a foot long to get his hands on the jade tiger amulet, that supposedly gave Marshall his powers as the Night Tiger, for years. In all those years, Marshall had never beaten Keiji in any of their hundreds of matches. And using the Night Tiger powers that the Torakami amulet gave Marshall was strictly forbidden. Only the fact that Marshall had been a student in the same dojo had kept Keiji from demanding the amulet as the prize of one of their bouts. But Marsha was not a student at Master Yoji's dojo.

Marsha sighed, dropped her athletic bag, and stepped out of her cross-trainers onto the mat. Keiji, his face aglow with anticipation, assumed a kata. Six seconds later, he was upside down, flat against the far wall.

He looked up at her, stunned in confusion, then betrayal, then anger. "You used the power of the Torakami amulet! You cheated!"

Master Yoji finally spoke, his voice calm and clear. "No, Ikeda-kohei, Tyler-sama did not use the Torakami amulet. She threw you because she is a Master, while you are still a student."

Marsha smiled and said, "But, tell you what Keiji, since it means so much to you..." She pulled the green nephrite talisman out of her athletic bag and threw it to the young man.

He grabbed it, flush with unexpected triumph. "At last! Now I am the Night Tiger!" He cried. He forced his chi through the green stone.

Nothing happened. He looked at his sensei in utter confusion.

Marsha grinned ferally, "You just don't get it, do you, Keiji? The Tiger isn't in the amulet; the Tiger isn't even in Me- I AM the Tiger!" And for a moment, she was the Tiger, in all its power and majesty.

The moment passed. Marsha put her shoes back on, picked up her bag and bowed to MasterYoji. Master Yoji smiled as one who has finally finished a long and demanding task to his satisfaction, and bowed as one Master to another. Marsha left.

Keiji threw himself at his sensei's feet, and begged to be allowed to redeem himself. As Keiji groveled, Master Yoji sighed and looked upwards to any passing Ministers of Grace for strength.

###############

"I'm still having a hard time believing that it's you, Marsh." Margo said over her cup of coffee. "I mean, even with the weird news in the paper about the disappearance of Night Tiger, and his apparent replacement by 'Tigress'..."

Tracy Townsend looked hard at Marsha. "Now, exactly why did this Thaumaturge guy turn you into a girl anyway, Marsh?"

Marsha felt a sudden surge of gladness that as Marshall, she had managed to remain on good terms with her old girl-friends. Except one- there was no way that she was telling that psycho-bitch Clarisse about this. "At first, I thought that he was doing it to humiliate me, or something-" The three former girlfriends shifted warningly, as if to say 'And what is so humiliating about being a woman?' "-But now I think that it wasn't actually what he had in mind."

"Oh, what was he trying to turn you into?" asked Dahlia Dearborne.

         "A Corpse. No, I thought at first that this was just a temporary condition, that it would somehow run its course. Now I think that the Thaumaturge accidentally triggered the next step in my spiritual development. I can't go back to being a guy without turning my back on the mystic journey that I've neglected for so long. I either keep going forward... or I just stop."

         Dahlia harumfed. "Yeah, well, mystic journeys are all very nice, but y'gotta eat. How are you gonna pay the rent on this apartment, if you lost your job 'cause of your new gender status?" Trust the dusky beauty to remember the practical matters.

         "Oh, Master Yoji wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation, and I managed to get a job teaching self-defense at the local Y. Between that and the odd reward for wanted criminals, I should be able to keep this roof over my head."

         "Oh, Pooh!", said Tracy. "And here I thought that you were going to be a solitary wanderer, traveling the backroads of America with a bedroll over your arm, seeking mystic truths in the little everyday things you come across..."

"You've been renting old Kung Fu videos again, haven't you, Trace?"

The perky blonde just stuck her tongue out.

"Oh, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! It's always Marsha!" Margo cried in a 'troubled Jan Brady' voice. "I've always wanted to say that! But seriously, Marsh, you didn't ask us here just for Girl Talk..."

"Right as always, Margo- there is a deep, impenetrable mystery that has confronted me, and I turn to you three as my only allies in this vexing matter." Marsha pulled out a box of feminine hygene product, with a look of bafflement on her face. "Exactly How do you Use this stuff?"

###############

Tigress prowls along the rooftop carefully following Major Terror's trail. The signs of slight scorching are rare, but she manages to go from burn trace to burn trace. Even with all that has happened to her, she still can't call off her self-appointed war against scum like Major Terror.

Then she senses something off to her right. She spots something landing, and assumes an attack crouch. Then she recognizes the White-and Sky-Blue outfit. "Skybolt! What are You doing here?" Tigress straightens up and relaxes, a hand on her hip. "I thought that the Paladins were still sucking their collective thumb over my new, ah,  status. Are you here to tell me that they've decided to postpone making a decision about it- AGAIN?"

Skybolt's blush showed through his half-mask. "Uh, well, Marshall..."

"Marsha. If I can get used to this, Tony, so can you."

"Ah, Marsha, um, I'm not here on behalf of the other Paladins."

"Oh?" Tigress came a little closer.

"I just- oh jeez- I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry about the way that it's turning out. I mean, this happens to you, and you get over it, and you're back on the beat, kicking ass like never before! I just want to tell you that I'm damn proud of you! Most people would be sulking in their rooms, feeling sorry for themselves, But you- if anything, you're more alive than you were before. The other Paladins- especially Speedstar... and I don't know what has gotten into Ladyhawk's craw- well, let's just say that this hasn't been our finest hour. But maybe it has been yours."

Tigress gave him a goofy grin. "Oh, Tony! That's so sweet!" She gave him a fierce hug.

Skybolt returned the hug, and then, spontaneously kissed her.

They broke the embrace and looked at each other, stunned.

Skybolt reddened, stammered something and flew off.

Tigress leaned back against a skylight, and slid down to a sitting position on the roof with a thump, the stunned look never leaving her face.

###############

Margo looked smugly down at the stunned expression that she'd finished inking on Tigress' face. "Okay, Hero, let's see you karate kick your way outta THAT!"

FINIS