I Hear America Slacking (Shane)

Shane looked over at Amber as she wiggled her mechanical pencil into a hole in the sofa. He smiled and shook his head a bit. Amber was one of the few things he actually liked about Hammel. She was friendly and a great listener for the most part, although she was a bit of a dreamer. That was alright though. They got along just fine for the most part, especially since they were both shapeshifters. Shane thought that shifting into non-human forms would be pretty cool, if he wasn't so sure that it would hurt twice as much as shifting into other people.

"Uh, no, I haven't done it yet. I was going to do that tonight."

He sat there for a bit in silence before asking: " Hey, does it hurt? When you, uh, y'know, turn into a spider?" He had never really bothered to question her powers before, but now he was curious.

Shane blinked as the lead in Amber's pencil broke. Was that his fault? Oh well, at least it was a mechanical pencil and not a number two. Or a pen."Sorry," he mumbled as Amber put the pencil back in her pocket.

He shook his head. He was kind of expecting that answer, considering how much it hurt just changing from one human being into another. He couldn't imagine how excruciatingly painful it must be

"That's disappointing. And hell yeah, turning into other people hurts. People are all different, they've got different bone sizes, different skin textures and it's all a mess, really. The hardest kind of person to change into is the opposite gender. I mean, it really is. You've got different organs and things. I've never done it successfully, to be honest, although that's probably more mental than anything. I almost did it this one time, but then I got distracted and it all collapsed." He chuckled at the comparison to a Harry Potter character before answering. "Yeah, I could do that. Hair isn't that painful thankfully. I hate my brown hair." He smiled brightly as his hair changed colors from brown to blonde. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Heh. Being a spy would be pretty cool. At least then I could actually use my power for something besides buying beer." He winked at Amber at that. Of course, he didn't actually buy beer illegally using his powers. That wouldn't be right or fair. Still, that might be a cool thing to try at some point.

"That would be pretty handy, actually. Having an intimidating rose garden. You could keep everyone out with that. I mean, have you ever tried picking a rose? Those things hurt!."

He stroked his chin thoughtfully and sat back on the worn brown sofa before answering.

"If I could have any other power? Hmm...maybe the power to heal people. That would be nice. Fixing people's problems. They seem to have a lot of them. I don't just mean physically, either. It would be nice to have such a positive impact on people. I wish I did. Sometimes it feels like I haven't done anything at all with my life yet. How about you?"