Tace looked over the bookstore, finely appraising the physical fitness section. He would describe himself as professional couch potato when he wasn’t working, and it was really only the fact that he ate pretty healthily for his lifestyle that made sure that he wasn’t overweight. He hadn’t been for a decent jog since high school, and had figured that something that he could sit down and feel better about himself for trying before forgetting about was the best way to go.
Right now, he was kind of tall and gangly, had somewhat pale skin from staying inside too much, his electronics retail job not helping, short, unkempt hair that required minimal maintenance, and not being fat was pretty much all he had going for him. Wide, flat nose, kind of round jaw, slightly squinty eyes… He wasn’t fit for the bar scene, anyway.
Of course, even his careful method of looking for an appropriate book required minimal effort, since he was actually on Amazon for an Ebook, seeing as it was a hell of a lot cheaper and more convenient. Suck it, anyone who said that E-books weren’t going to take off, he and his second-hand Kindle were part of the wave of the future.
After scrolling past about twelve yoga and get-fit-quick ripoffs, Tace, and yes, it was Tace, not Trace, or Tracey, as he had to remind half the people he met. It meant quiet or something, but honestly he didn’t care. Seriously, why couldn’t his parents pick a normal name? Tracey wasn’t very good name, but at least it had been used in the last two hundred years. Where was he? Right, books.
After scrolling past about twelve yoga and get-fit-quick-with-healthy-eating guides, he flicked past a book that caught his eye just on how out of place it was. Something simply titled “A Guide to Martial Arts”. It piqued his interest from the eleven-year-old wanting to learn karate in him, and also it made him wonder exactly what martial art. Still, it was only a dollar, so he added it to his cart, and went on his way.
A few minutes later, he hadn’t really found anything else that caught his eye, and checked out, quickly uploading the Guide to his Kindle. It only took a few seconds and he looked at its monochrome cover, which was just “A Guide to Martial Arts” in a really plain font. Nothing fancy? Must have been self-published, he thought. When he flicked through the pages with a few button presses he noticed that although it seemed quite in-depth and had a huge amount of exercises and techniques, it didn’t seem to have an author to credit itself to.
He quickly looked it up, although the vague title left him with no help. He went back to Amazon, and for some reason, no matter how much he looked, it didn’t seem to be there. Even when he went through his history it didn’t even say that it was sold out, it just gave him an error message and acted like it had never been there. That was… weird…
Well, he had it at least, he supposed. Maybe it was a plagiarised thing, what with its simple title without any credits, and they removed it right after he bought it. Perhaps the only copy of it was on his Kindle. That was a really lame thing to have the only copy of. Well, he thought to himself, might as well try it out.
He got up and read through the starter exercises, and propped the book up on a shelf, going through the initial poses. At first, he felt incredibly silly, but after a few minutes it felt surprisingly natural, and all the poses and swinging about felt less like the dumb karate moves he had initially thought of them as. One movement led straight into another, and he didn't need the book's instructions after the first couple of attempts.
Before he knew it, an hour had passed, and he had gotten through half of the first chapter. His shirt was drenched in sweat, and he was personally amazed at himself for going on with what weren't particularly straining on their own, but the constant repetition and his general unfit physique meant that he would have expected himself to keel over and give up ten minutes in. As it was, it was late and he figured that he should get to sleep, but he was looking forward to his next session. He never looked forward to hard exercise. He'd be fit before he knew it.
--
Tace loaded up the book to where he left off the previous night, deciding to launch right into it after arriving home from work, instead of lying around for ages like normal. He'd have more time to get through it today. He was just glad that he lived alone, and didn't have any apartment-neighbours or room-mates to distract him. He had a small but very comfortable home, with a couple of extra rooms he didn't use unless he had the rare honour of having guests over. It had been part of an inheritance from a great-uncle he barely knew, and it meant that he didn't have to worry about rent despite his low-paying job. One less thing to worry about, anyway. He had only been in for a couple of months, and still hadn't gotten around to searching through the whole place. There were a few wardrobes and closets that required a key to open, which he figured was around somewhere but couldn't be bothered to look for. He figured he'd take a look to see if anything was left in them if he found it someday.
He cleared his mind as he planned to clear the first chapter, and perhaps even get into the second chapter. He started up, and everything seemed to be distant as he went through the series of motions and exercises. After a solid hour he was still going strong, his motions fluid as he failed to notice his somewhat wide frame shrinking, his body growing more slender as excess fat was drained from his body, his face going from verging on round to thin as he lost an inch or so in height.
As he finished the second hour of his training, having breezed through the rest of the chapter and just finished the second, he realised just how much time he had spent on it, and decided to call it a day. If he had noticed what had happened he might have described his frame as somewhat girly, but he remained oblivious as he decided to take a shower. You know what, he might not have fast food for dinner tonight, he wouldn't want to waste tonight's workout. He wondered if it wasn't too late to go to the grocery store, he had heard about this nice stir-fry he wanted to at least try out...
--
Tace arrived home, sinking onto the couch. He was particularly bored with his job today, just standing around not doing anything interesting was really getting to him. A few of his co-workers asked if there was something different about him today, although he hadn't noticed anything. He had only put a few hours into those exercises, it wasn't like he was going to get much fitter just swinging his fists around and doing a lot of high-kicks. He dragged himself off the couch after a few minutes, and set up his Kindle again. He immediately launched into the exercises, and time passed in a blur from then on.
He didn't even notice that an hour had passed until he paused to adjust the position of the Kindle. He had set it up at head-height, but it was a little too high for him now for some reason. He didn't even notice the sweat glistening down his hairless arms. His shirt was a bit baggy, he decided. Probably needed to get a new one. "A bit baggy" was an understatement when it was starting to hang past his hips, but he paid it no mind as he launched into his exercises again. He did a series of high-kicks, each getting slightly higher every time as his thighs became more flexible, as well as slimmer and lighter. His shoulders slid slowly together between every swing of his arms, losing a few inches over the course of the session.
A few beads of sweat dropped from a shrinking noise, with slender eyebrows furled in concentration. With thin and slightly pursed lips complimenting his thinned jaw, he looked surprisingly feminine, something reinforced by the hair that was threatening to brush past his nose before he broke his rhythm momentarily to push out of the way. Underneath the sweaty, baggy shirt his waist was becoming slimmer, making his hips seem wider when accompanied by his narrow shoulders and somewhat dainty upper torso.
By the time he finished he was drenched in sweat, suddenly longer hair clinging to the back of his neck. He was blazing through this, he decided, and if he spent much longer on this thing each night he'd probably finish it before the end of the week. He went for a shower, leaving his oversized clothes behind. He skipped shaving this time. He'd been noticing that it wasn't growing back as fast as it normally did the last couple of days, and might as well save the effort. He failed to notice the lack of body hair as well...
--
Shortly after his shower, Tace was about to go sit down for a while when he noticed that on his desk, next to his keys was a much older looking key, and went over to go see what it was. He picked it up, interested in how it got there when he didn't remember picking it up. It was old-fashioned, and he was wondering what it would fit suddenly he remembered the keyholes on the desk in the guest room, formerly a study before he had moved in and shaken the room layout a bit.
Well, he didn't have anything better to do, and went to go try it out, hoping that the brief diversion would make her feel a little less bored. She entered the former study, and took a moment to admire the dust floating around. While he liked to call it a guest room, it didn't even have any furniture other than the desk that he had decided was too heavy to move. He didn't have enough stuff to warrant using the extra room, and as such it had fallen into disrepair. He thanked his own health for not having any sort of lung condition and approached the desk, inserting the key into the first drawer's keyhole. He had a vague memory of the desk being unlocked when he had moved in, and he hadn't found anything in there. But he had to be misremembering things, since the desk was clearly locked now. He drew it out, and was taken quite by surprise at what he saw.
A sword. A Japanese sword. A katana, to be even more precise. What the hell was a sword doing in his dead great-uncle's desk? And a katana? Given the man he barely knew's age, he was more likely to have fought the Japanese than admire their weaponry. A war-trophy, maybe? Was he even in the army? He really needed to have some context for this. Actually, was it a katana? It was quite short, only about as wide as he was. Really a short sword or a very long dagger. Still, it was kept in a scabbard and in surprisingly good condition. Well, it was probably cleaned every now and then until his great-uncle died a few months ago, so it hadn't had much time to succumb to rust and the ages. The drawer was pretty free of dust, too. Something to show off at parties. He put the sword back in, figuring it'd be more protected from the elements in there than out there. He couldn't think of a good reason to hold onto the sword other than cool factor or for being an amateur ninja, anyway.
In second drawer he found what appeared to be either very fancy darts or throwing knives, further cementing that his great-uncle was very well prepared for burglars, and a lot of them. Throwing knives seemed like an impractical thing to Tace in this day and age. Where were you supposed to get more of them once you threw them? Surely somebody would notice the guy buying twenty knives every now and then. It was kind of cool, anyway. He had briefly considered selling them, but he was kind of nervous about the idea of selling a pile of weapons on Ebay, even though it was probably legal.
He opened the second to last drawer up, and he found some little glass vials of clear liquid with little tabs on them to tell them apart, and an old piece of paper that looked like a list for something. He pulled them out, deciding that the list was more interesting than the ambiguous liquids, and his eyes widened slightly as he read the yellowed paper. It was a list for poison, and a very helpful one at that, with ingredients that he could probably get from any supermarket and prepare at home with the right tools. There were a few different times, but the most harmless thing in it was a little recipe guaranteed to keep somebody unconscious for at least two hours, and one hour depending on how much physical stimuli the afflicted person got from somebody attempting to rouse them. That one went straight back into the drawer. He didn't exactly need to carry around poison, and he figured he'd get arrested if anybody found out it was there.
He tried the final drawer, finding a large coil of metal wire that seemed to be some sort of rope, and a second coil of it that appeared to have a grappling hook on the end and a large box of little round balls. Ok, what was his great-uncle's job again? Who kept a grappling hook and a sword in their desk, other than the very paranoid and very well-prepared? He was almost expecting the little round balls to be smoke pellets or something, and threw one with some force, since it didn't seem to be made of metal or anything that would damage the wall. This turned out to be an incredibly stupid idea as the ball was indeed a pellet, and smoke burst from it as it hit the floor, causing a considerable amount of expletives to be uttered as the room filled with smoke, Tace driven from the not-study in a fit of coughing and flailing. OK, that was enough excitement for one night, he thought, as he nearly smacked into a wall as he searched for a window to open.
--
Tace wasn't particularly happy when he came home. High shelves. Why was he stuck on high shelves today? The manager knew he wasn't tall enough to help people with that kind of thing, why not give it to Matthew, the guy a head or so taller than him who had arms like steel girders and wouldn't shut up about it? He got enough cracks about looking kind of feminine from the guy recently, anyway. Well, at least until he had flipped him on his ass when the manager wasn't looking, in the store camera's blind spots. It was a good flip, too. That guide must have been paying off. But back to the point, when Tace's manager had assigned the job he had been acting like he was tall! The manager certainly hadn't been happy about how she had managed to climb up one of the shelves to reach a product, and in his defence, it was a hell of a lot less boring than going and getting a step-ladder for the sixty-two year old woman she was serving.
He sighed, and threw his keys onto the first table he saw. He was really getting bored with his job, honestly. He had to find something that was a little more physically intensive to stop him from getting bored, and didn't involve dealing with annoying customers. He wondered if he should go check on his great-uncle's ninja stuff. The fumes had probably cleared out by now. But he decided not to bother, it wasn't really going anywhere and he didn't want to accidentally smoke the place out again. He walked into the living room and sank into his sofa He noticed his Kindle next to him, and wondered if he should do some more exercises tonight. He had actually jogged home tonight, something he never would have considered doing a week ago. For some reason his interests had gotten a lot more physically-inclined recently, and he was thinking about trying out some free-running or Parkour or something. It seemed really fun all of a sudden. His TV hadn't gotten much love recently either.
He decided , and decided that he might as well start up his daily home-exercise regimen again. At this point it was less for exercise and more for the technique. He wondered why he had classified it as part of getting fitter. He was pretty fit now, wasn't he? He only started on the guide at the start of the week, after all... Well, it was a pretty generic guide, he decided. Easy to classify under exercise. It wasn't like he was treating it as the centre of his physical activity. You'd have to be pretty lazy to to make something like that the only thing you did to keep fit. But, he was getting away from the point, and the point was to learn martial arts from a random generic guide he found on Amazon.
Tace put the Kindle upright on the shelf he normally kept it on, about eye-level. He'd probably finish it tonight, he realised. It was pretty fun, so maybe he'd have to invest in something else after this. At this point though the moves felt surprisingly familiar, like he already knew how to do this and was just going through the motions. He must have just been a fast learner. He turned the Kindle on, finding the page he had left off at waiting for him. The sight of it was all he needed to start up, as he stepped back to avoid hitting it. He thought people were supposed to work out like this to music or something, but he did his in total silence. It felt right, and it almost annoyed him whenever he panted too loudly or made the occasional heavy step.
He began the first motion, easing quickly into the exercise, and as a result quickly into his changes. Although there wasn't much left to change. His face softened again, losing the last few traces of masculinity as beads of sweat made their way down the locks of his hair, which brushed against the sides of his chin, Tace making a mental note to find a bandana or something to keep his hair out of his face and keep the sweat off his brow. Underneath his shirt his nipples began to grow puffy, coming to a firm point as they pressed gently against the fabric of his t-shirt. Slowly, his pectorals began to get softer as small amounts of fat built up, pushing outwards into the small bump of breasts, growing round and swelling up to a small but noticeable A-cup size. His vocal chords were finely tweaked, his gentle panting growing higher pitched by the second. His mental voice shifted accordingly, Tace not noticing that the voice running him through each of his motions was that of a young woman's. Finally, there was a stirring in his groin, as his final change began...
Tace froze up for a second. Something was wrong. But what was it? Had she forgotten to do something? What was it? She knew something was quite wrong, but she just couldn't figure out what. Her eyes turned to the environment around her, searching for an answer to her question. Her eyes turned towards herself, and she wondered if it was the fact that she was exercising without a bra on for some reason. Sure she was at home alone, but she should at least remember to put a sports bra on or something. That was probably it. Maybe. She relaxed, before realising that she had stopped on the final exercise. She had completed it! But, she now suddenly pondered, why was she doing a beginners guide to martial arts? She knew all of this already, years ago! What was the point in doing such simple exercises that wouldn't even really teach her anything? Well, she had enjoyed herself, so maybe it was fun to go back to basics. She closed out of the E-book, deleting it from her Kindle. It had been fun while it lasted, but she really didn't need it taking up any space there.
She decided to go take a shower, pulling off her old t-shirt. She really had to buy some new clothes, she decided, walking under the quickly heating water, enjoying the brief coldness of it after excercising before it became a more comfortable warmth. That and quit her job. Retail really wasn't working out for her. Also, she saw this cool building on the way home, plenty of piping and exposed windows, it'd be great for climbing up. It'd even have a good view once she got up there, and it wasn't much of a jump to the other buildings...
--
Tace took in the cool night air, looking down over the neighborhood. Well, not her neighborhood, she had been out for a while. It was a couple of weeks later, and quitting her job had gone surprisingly smoothly. She got to tell her old boss to shove it, punch Andrew in the gut when he tried to hit on her while making comments on how much extra free time she'd have now, and even managed to pick up a job as a courier a couple of days later. The pay was better than her old job, and she certainly got the physical activity she wanted, using a bike for deliveries. She particularly enjoyed delivering to clients on higher story building. They always wondered how she managed to get back to her bike so quickly when there were all those stairs...
She looked down at what she had taken to calling her ninja outfit that she wore for her nights out. It was a dark-grey ensemble of a tight shirt, long, slightly baggy pants with some extra padding on the knees that she had tightly wrapped at the ankles as to not get caught on anything, some very soft but tough heeled sneakers, a headband to make sure that she could could see at all times without having to get a haircut, and some good old finger-less gloves so she couldn't skin her hands all the time. Well, there was a little extra tonight. Having taken to calling it her ninja suit, she had found that the belt she had found fit her surprisingly well, and thought it'd be funny if she went out while carrying all of the gear. She was glad it was a small sword she kept horizontally across her back like a very long dagger, since it didn't get caught on anything, was lighter than a proper sword, and was less likely to be seen by a cop and get her arrested. She just had to avoid turning around, after all. Or be faster than said cop. Or use those handy-dandy smoke bombs.
The grappling hook had been quite useful for some of the higher buildings, anyway. She was a proper little ninja, wasn't she now? It was a silly idea, but a fun one. She wondered where a ninja would even get work this day and age. Actual ninjas didn't exactly run around in black anyway. Still, going out in the middle of the night to jump across buildings was quite fun and becoming a staple for her. It was time to get going, anyway. She decided it was time to get moving, and start to get down from here. The jump to the building across wasn't that far, anyway. She took a run-up, and jumped the gap, landing, rolling, and keeping moving.
The people below her didn't even hear her footsteps on the roof of the four-story apartment building's roof.