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((Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! After nearly seven years, Capes and Cuisines is back and better than ever! I've been meaning to revisit and revise this concept for sometime, and after several recent, wonderful superhero stories in the community (shout-out to Batman76, especially), I'm bringing it back. In addition to more original characters and concepts, each installment will be told in four parts, one every Wednesday. This will NOT be taking the place of The Superheavyweight Champion--I have been working on this on the side and built up a backlog of material, so, barring outside circumstances, you will be seeing new chapters in both each week. ((Enough with the details though--I know what you're here for. Without any further ado, I give you the first new installment of Capes and Cuisines: REGIRTH!)) GUARDIANA, PART ONE This is the first of many tales from Earth-11, a world filled with brilliant superheroes, gruesome supervillains, and infinite possibilities; where a simple walk down the street could lead you to another dimension or a journey into space. Many are the mighty men and women who defend the world from destruction on a regular basis; who tirelessly fight to keep the streets safe from all manner of super-crimes. Most live among the common man in disguise, though there are some who use their status to live like superstars and shake hands with the cream of society’s crop. Regardless of their personal lives, their goal remains the same—to uphold the values of truth and justice, no matter what it takes. To cover the entire history of this universe would take an entire story unto itself, so let us focus our attention on one particular young woman. Catalina Diaz might seem like just another unassuming co-ed to the outside world, but behind her horn-rimmed glasses and mousy hair is Guardiana, a heroine in training under the auspicious wing of the strongest man on Earth, Defensor. Raised an orphan on the streets of Venezuela, she was abducted at an early age alongside her brother, Nico, and taken to a research facility in the city of Megalopolis. There, they were experimented on in an effort to replicate the powers of the world’s greatest heroes and villains, and were subject to terrible tests on a daily basis for seven years. All of that ended the day Justice United broke down the doors of the lab, Defensor leading the charge. During the ensuing brouhaha between the army of heroes and the hired guns, Catalina and Nico had been set free along with several other superhuman experiments. They demonstrated powers exactly like Defensor’s, and when the dust settled, he took them into his home so they might have a chance at a normal life. The Man of Might also trained them in using their abilities for good, and they soon joined him in protecting their fair city. In time, they became known as La Familia de Defensa—the most powerful family in the world! Our story, however, begins in less spectacular fashion. A quiet Saturday morning found Catalina lounging across the sofa in her apartment, eyes glued to the TV while she munched away on a donut—her fifth of the morning. She was still wearing her pajamas at the strike of 10, and she ignored her phone as it buzzed beside her. No doubt it was her brother or Defensor wanting her to come train with them, but there was no chance that was going to happen, not when there was a marathon of “Magician from Mars” to watch. That was becoming a trend for the young heroine: she would always find some excuse to skip out on training, whether it was too much homework, being tired from her internship, or feeling under the weather. All those rainchecks were adding up though, their toll taken out on her fit physique as Catalina plumped up over the last two months. Her face, already round, softened further as a double chin blossomed under chubby cheeks. The toned tummy Catalina was so proud of was on the fast track to becoming a potbelly, and it oozed over the waistband of her pajama pants like melted ice cream. Firm thighs that could carry her around the world in minutes had lost any trace of definition as they bloated and swelled with weak blubber. Not that they were needed any time soon, what with Catalina’s tubby tush making an indentation in the couch. The only things that had not grown were her breasts, which just barely filled out her A-cup bra, much to her chagrin. “Yeah, that’s right, Jane!” Catalina slothfully cheered as the Magician dispatched the shadow alien of the week. “You show that thing who’s the boss!” “Well, looks like you’ve been productive today,” a droll voice remarked outside her window. Catalina rolled her head around and spied her brother hovering in the air, four stories off the ground. Nico was a beanpole of a boy, easily as tall as a basketball player despite only being a senior in high school. His dark, shaggy hair was held back by a weighted headband, and his lean body was decked out in a tank-top and running shorts. Nowhere near as impressive as his suit when he went out as Escudar, the Shield of Megalopolis, but much more appropriate than his sister’s current attire. “I think I remember this one—the Magician gets stuck in a board game and has to win, or else she dies, right?” Nico asked with a smirk. “Pendejo!” Catalina squeaked in frustration as she rolled off the couch. “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times—use the door! What’re people going to think if they see a guy floating outside my window?” “I think most people would be surprised you have a guy over at all,” her brother teased before vanishing in the blink of an eye. Catalina had just tugged her shirt down over her jelly belly when Nico barged in the front door like a sitcom character. While her baby brother still lived at home with their foster parents, he still made a pest of himself by dropping by her apartment whenever he felt like it. Defensor had said it was because the unabashed boy was lonely, but how lonely could he be if he never left her alone? “You could have stopped home to shower before coming here,” Catalina huffed as Nico raided her fridge, same as usual. “You smell like a goat.” “Like a ‘Greatest of All Time’? You’re too kind,” the young man chuckled. He came out of her fridge with a bottle of Sunny Delight, which he drank straight from the bottle before his sister could zoom over and snatch it from him. “Did you seriously come here just to be gross?” the older girl snipped at Nico. Her question was answered with a lazy shrug of the shoulders. “Dad wanted me to come by and see how you were doing; he thought you might be feeling sick. I told him that he worries too much, and now I can tell him that I’m right.” Catalina pouted and crossed her arms over her petite chest. She did not mean to make Hector Ramirez, their adopted father, fret over her, but she had insisted time and again that she was not the same fragile girl he had rescued from a lab. No, she was an independent young woman who could make her own decisions—and if that decision was to pass on bench-pressing cars or doing laps around the entire city, so be it. “Look, I had a lousy week: I had to pull an all-nighter to finish my World Religion essay, my boss at the radio station is being a total bruja, and I’m still recovering from the Leech sapping my powers the other night,” the pajama-clad powerhouse whined. “I’m taking a ‘me day’, all right?” Nico smirked and stretched his arms over his head, popping his joints and showing a hint of the firm abs that made many a heart throb. “Yeah, but you’ve been taking a few too many, if you ask me. I don’t remember that shirt being so tight on you.” Catalina’s cheeks grew flush as she fiddled with her shirt, snagged as it was by her love handles. “It…it just shrunk in the wash!” she contested. “Uh-huh,” her unwanted visitor replied with a roll of his eyes, not buying the lame excuse for a second. “Or—and hear me out—it might also be that you sit on your bubble butt and eat Flaming Amy’s takeout every night.” “Not every night,” Catalina grumbled. It was a good thing that her trash can was hidden in the cupboard under the sink, otherwise her brother might have seen the trash from last night’s burrito run. How was it her fault that Flaming Amy’s was so damned good? “Look, if you’re just going to be a little prick, you can go do it somewhere else.” Nico threw up his hands and chuckled, “Fine, fine—I’ve got to meet my friends at the arcade anyway. Just remember what Hector always says: just because we have superpowers doesn’t mean we don’t need to exercise; it means we have to work out a little harder.” “Thank you so much for the lesson, Captain Fitness,” the young heroine huffed. “Now, beat it before I throw you out myself.” “Assuming you can catch me, Thunder Thighs,” her fellow sidekick rebutted like the little brother he was. Steaming mad, Catalina dashed at Nico with blinding speed, only for the nimble boy to leap over her like a gazelle. She chased him all over the apartment, both moving so fast that they seemed little more than blurs, but it was a futile effort. No matter how fast she went, her infuriating brother stayed one step ahead of her, like an obnoxious gingerbread man. They kept their cat and mouse game going for another few minutes before Catalina could take no more and had to stop to catch her breath. “Seriously? You really are getting out of shape, Petunia,” Nico scoffed as he zipped around his sister without breaking a sweat. “Remember when you used to beat me in our intercontinental races? You wouldn’t even make it past the Pacific now!” “Carajito,” the plump powerhouse growled. “Wait till I get my hands—eek!” Her threat was cut off by a swift slap to her doughy derriere, which quivered for a spell as Nico retreated to the window and laughed. “That would mean being faster than me, and unless you decide to actually lift a dumbbell instead of a fork, that ain’t going to happen.” Before he could make another taunt, the boy dodged away from a laser that melted through the glass behind him. Nico glanced over to Catalina, whose eyes glowed with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns as she prepared another burst of heat vision. “Get out, you little twerp!” the heroine hissed, steam bursting from her lips as a freezing breath lingered in her throat. “Now!” “Okay, okay—there’s no need to bring powers into it,” Nico winced. “God, you take the fun out of everything.” “Out!” The bratty boy did not need to be told twice, and he vanished out the front door before his sister could let loose another beam from her superheated eyes. Once Nico left, Catalina squeezed her eyes shut and counted quietly to herself as she came down from her infuriated high. Her extraneous powers had always been great—almost on par with Defensor’s—but she did not have the greatest control over them. Having her pesky brother bugging her and interrupting her TV time would have been stressful enough, but add in the taunts about her weight and Catalina felt like punching a meteor into dust. Once she finally cooled down, Catalina opened her eyes, literally and figuratively, and gazed down at her paunchy belly. She knew she had put on a few pounds, but she always told herself that it was not that bad and could easily be shed with a little exercise. Unfortunately, she lacked the willpower to actually do any exercise, and downplaying her gain only made it easier to ignore. While she was never muscular like Hector or lean as Nico, the mousy girl was still proud of her firm, shapely physique. That firmness was gone, and she felt soft as butter while gauging herself with exploratory pinches and prods. “Geez…guess I really have been overdoing,” she mumbled to herself. A sickly grimace spread across her lips when she discovered she really could pinch an inch of flab at her waist. Catalina glanced to the nearly-empty box of donuts on the coffee table and balked at how many calories she had mindlessly consumed that morning. And that was just one instance; there must have been dozens of moments when she lost track of time eating. It was no wonder her clothes were fitting so poorly these days—she had gobbled her way up the size chart without realizing it. “I’ve got to do something about this,” Catalina decided. “It’s time for me to cut back on the snacks, get off my butt, and work out until I’m back at the top of my game!” There was an unspoken caveat in that declaration though—if she was going to slim down again, it was going to be on her own. The young heroine needed support as she worked her way back to a Size 6, and there was no way she could get that from training around her aggravating brother. That also meant she would need to go without her mentor’s instruction and guidance, but she had trained with Hector for so long that she must have retained some of his expertise. Catalina clapped her hands together and grit her teeth as determination filled every fiber of her being. She looked to the TV as a commercial for a home treadmill played—a sign from beyond if ever there was. With a quick nod, she hummed, “That clinches it—I’m getting started right now! No time like the present!” It took normally took her an instant to change clothes, but when she dashed into her room for a quick change, it was not as easy as she remembered. Catalina struggled to get her favorite yoga pants up her thickened thighs, and the elastic waistband bit into her soft hips like a vise. She tried chucking on a Megalopolis University t-shirt, but what was once baggy and oversized was now tight around her middle and left a thin strip of underbelly exposed. Unfortunately, the only place she had any room was in her petite chest, but the frustrated heroine would take any comfort she could as she realized that she was almost too fat for her go-to exercise gear. Next came the task of lacing her sneakers, which was no easy feat, as her stomach bunched up into thick, flabby rolls that kept her from leaning over too fat. Eventually, she managed to tie her shoes, but that was a workout in of itself, and she had to catch her breath when she finished. Catalina grimaced and pinched a glob of pliable pudge at her waist, still surprised that all of this could be her. “When you try to work out and find out you can’t fit into your workout clothes—that’s when you know you’re pretty fat,” the heroine grumbled as she rose to her feet. “But no more excuses: I’m going to do some laps around the city, head out to the mountains to lift some boulders, and go take a swim across the Atlantic. And after I’m done warming up, I’ll—ooh, I haven’t seen this episode in ages!” And just like that, Catalina was distracted by the glow of her television and her favorite show once more. Her motivation went right out the window as she plopped back down to watch more ‘Magician from Mars’, any thoughts of exercise and getting back into shape buried as Jane Gem did battle with her nefarious aunt. She could always head out after this episode was over; the Atlantic Ocean was not going anywhere, after all. “No, Theera, you damn fool! You had one job—guard the crystal from The Hood,” Catalina barked at the TV as she plucked the last donut from the box. “Por eso no puedes tener cosas bonitas!” *** While Catalina was neglecting her fitness, there was another, less noble woman having a lazy Saturday, though not by choice. Madeline Smoot, better known as the notorious prankster, Reb Rascal, was lounging on her couch and mindlessly flipping through channels while slothfully munching from a bowl of dry cereal atop her stomach. Her latest prank, which had seen her start a massive flash mob as a distraction for a series of robberies, had flopped online, which was far worse than any sentence they could throw at her. After seeing her subscriber count take a plunge, she had thrown a diva-like tantrum and spent the following day sobbing and binging on ice cream. Despair had given way to malaise, and Madeline was left adrift as she wracked her brain for a new job. “I’m so bored, Alejandro,” Madeline groaned to the AI that controlled her penthouse. “I need an idea for a new prank, but I’ve got nothing! I’ve got to put on something that will get my numbers back up—do you have any suggestions?” “Might I suggest looking at someone from La Familia de Defensa? I know how much you despise them,” the computer program helpfully suggested. Madeline rolled a Cheerio around her mouth as she pondered that. Defensor and his bratty sidekicks were always ruining her fun, but he and Escudar had gotten wise to her tricks over the years. The same could not be said for Guardiana, who was so sweet and naïve that she fell for anything Reb Rascal threw at her. Maybe pranking her would be exactly what she needed to get out of her current rut. “I could always try something with Guardiana, but what could I do to that ditzy do-gooder that I haven’t done before?” the prankster mused. “Alejandro, wasn’t there an article on TMZ about how she’d been putting on weight lately?” “I believe so, Miss Smoot. I’ll send it to your tablet at once.” While Madeline waited for the article to download, she pondered how she could weaponize Guardiana’s recent gains. Thankfully, her questions were answered as her channel surfing led her to an infomercial about the latest weight loss product. The prankster watched as lie after lie flashed on-screen: eat their special food, use their branded clothes, and watch the pounds melt away! It was the perfect con—and just the thing Reb Rascal needed to get back into the game…

Ohhh, it's the first post! Whats up? Im so fucking hype for this. Shameless self drop!