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She was just an ordinary girl. That was what she told herself every morning when she woke up, and again every night when she went to sleep. Just an ordinary, normal, plain nineteen year old girl…with a not so normal addition.
Sure, she had seen all that stuff about super powers and costumes and heroes fighting villains and all that, but she could care less about saving the world and fighting crime and whatever else those do-gooders spent their time doing. Though, she did think a certain super hero in black and crimson looked awfully cute on television.
You see, like every nineteen year old girl, she spent most of her time thinking about one thing…herself.
Still, she must have had at least an inkling of what was to come, for she even had come up with her very own superhero name.
This is the story of Buff.

Sabrina Tibbs woke up that morning just like she always had. She studied herself in the mirror, admiring her red hair and slightly pale skin. She was of Irish descent, but it didn’t show nearly as bad as a certain late night talk show host. Her name didn’t even sound Irish, much to her dismay. She thought McGilly or O’Toole sounded much better than Tibbs. Okay, well, maybe not O’Toole, as that very easily lent itself to any number of jokes, but anything was better than Tibbs.
Her friends had plans to do some shopping at the mall, and Sabrina rushed to get ready. Well, about as rushed as a teenaged girl gets when preparing herself for public viewing.
She finally finished making herself up, so she called her friend Beth to come pick her up.
“And bring your dad’s SUV,” she added. “I’ve got this great idea for what we can do after the mall.”
Sabrina had been working on a little trick, and she wanted to try it out on a much larger scale.
You see, she had discovered that she could make people do whatever she wanted, just by thinking about it. She had used it at the grocery store a couple of times, even causing a couple of the employees to brawl over her in lust.

A little while later, the doorbell rang. Sabrina ran to open the door, finding her friend Beth waiting for her. She greeted her friend with a smile.
“So, what’s this big surprise?” Beth asked.
“You’ll find out,” Sabrina teased as she bounded down the steps of her apartment, her red hair shining brilliantly in the sun.
“How can you afford this place?” Beth asked as they walked to her dad’s SUV.
“Oh, you know, the land lord just loves anyone with boobs,” she replied. And she had a great pair, she knew, thought she also knew that wasn’t the real reason.

Shopping at the mall was going as expected, though Beth kept pleading with Sabrina to reveal the big, great idea that the red-haired girl had.
“Tell you what,” Sabrina relented. “I’ll give you a hint.”
They walked into a clothing store and Sabrina picked out an expensive top and a pair of jeans and took it up to the counter.
“I want this,” she said as she concentrated on getting her way, “for ten dollars.”
“Certainly,” the cashier smiled as she rang up Sabrina’s purchase and pushed some buttons on the register.
Beth had a look of, “oh my God” on her face as her friend pranced out of the store in triumph.
“How did you do that?” the raven-haired teen asked.
“I don’t know,” Sabrina shrugged. “Just something I can do, I guess.”

The rest of the experience at the mall was more of the same, with Sabrina demanding free or discounted merchandise.
Beth was driving them home when Sabrina explained, “Turn here!”
Beth quickly pulled her dad’s SUV into the parking lot her friend had pointed to, which belonged to a big box electronics’ store.
“Oh no…” Beth grinned. “Don’t tell me…”
“The mall was just a sample,” Sabrina replied. “Now we’ll see what I can really do.”
The girls strutted into the store with all eyes following their every movement. Sabrina and Beth immediately made their way to the TV department, and Sabrina perched herself in front of the most expensive set in the store. She waited while Beth went in search of a salesman.
She was giddy with anticipation by the time her friend brought back one of the managers.
“I’d like this one,” Sabrina commanded. The manager, whose nametag read Jeff, looked at her incredulously.
“Ma’am, please don’t waste my time,” Jeff started.
“I want this one,” she insisted, “for ninety percent off.”
Jeff’s eyes glazed over as she spoke, and Sabrina knew that she had him. Beth just stood off to the side, watching in amazement.
“Right away.”
The manager said something into his radio as he led the girls to the checkout, relaying Sabrina’s request to the cashier.
The cashier frowned, but a moment later had the same glossed over look of lust as Jeff and just did as she was told. While she was being run up, Sabrina took the time to look over the other customers in line, including a cute looking young man in a black jacket with a black hooded sweatshirt underneath. She smiled at him and he pretended not to notice her.
The TV was brought up, and Sabrina told Beth to bring around the sports utility vehicle.
Sabrina smiled and thanked the employees for their help and she started for the door. She couldn’t believe it, her plan had actually worked…and then the door alarm went off.
The man at the door instructed her to take a step back, then snatched her purse while she just stood there, dumbfounded.
Sabrina looked out the door to see Beth and the men who were loading the TV watching her, her friend with a concerned look on her face.
The guard pulled what looked like a DVD from her purse and asked if it was her.
“Uh…n-no…” was all she could manage.
“Do you have a receipt?”
“No…”
“Come with me, ma’am.”
The security guard, who was large and pretty much a perpetual walking stereotype, led Sabrina to an office off of the sales floor.
“Wait here…”
Sabrina just sat and waited, wondering why there was no one else in the office with her. By the time the police officers showed up she was already crying, asking herself how anything like this could have happened.
The cops did their best to calm her down and began asking the stereotypical police things like, “What did you think you were doing?” and “that was just a poor decision, but you’re a good girl, right?” She responded as best she could, keeping her head down, as she couldn’t bring herself to meet the officers’ gazes.
Halfway through the “interrogation” there was a sudden knock at the door. Startled, one of the police officers went to see what the commotion was.
Sabrina, not wanting to look up, just listened in.
There was a quiet argument, which she couldn’t decipher, and she started to get worried that she was going to get in trouble for the TV, too.
Then she heard,” I’ll take it from here…” and she caught the flash of a badge out of the corner of her eye.
The cop grumbled, then called to his partner, explaining the situation. One of the officers looked back at her as they walked out of the office.
“Didn’t know they were picking up shoplifters now…”
All was quiet for a moment, as she glanced over to find a pair of jeans and white and black Adidas shoes at the door. She looked up further to find that the pants and shoes belonged to the cute guy in the checkout line. The one that she had been trying to flirt with while the girl cashier rang up the TV.
“Ms. Sabrina Tibbs,” the man spoke after a moment. “That’s quite a neat trick you’ve got going there.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sabrina asked, with a sudden hint of seduction in her voice. This guy was about her age, and she knew how to play with that. “You’re going to let me go, right?”
She had sat up and stretched, causing her chest to be pushed out for added effect. The man looked at her with disinterest, but she could tell she had him by the growing…appreciation the man had.
He looked down at himself and then back up at her.
“How grossly inappropriate,” he said succinctly.
Sabrina was disappointed and worried that the young man before her wasn’t bending to her every whim, as the store employees had.
“As I was going to say, Ms. Tibbs,” the young man spoke. He had short ash blond/brownish hair and a young face, though with growing circles under his eyes. Still, Sabrina thought he was cute. “You have the ability to change the chemical balances in a target at will using your body’s own pheromones, but there is a limit to the range.”
What was this guy talking about? She wondered.
“You can increase adrenaline, making people faster, stronger, etc. over a period of time, or even make individuals fall in love with you, essentially hypnotizing them.”
“I want to be called ‘Buff’.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s where you were going with this right. I got caught using my thingy and now you want to steal me away for your little group of super thugs, right?”
“Uh…yeah. But I wasn’t done with my overtly long and mostly pointless expository dialogue.”
“Whatever, you can keep going if you want.”
“No…I’m good.”
“But I still want to be ‘Buff’.”
“Why?”
“My boyfriend, he’s, er, well, kind of a nerd. And that’s what he called what I can do. It’s like making negative or positive buffs in some stupid game he plays. At least, that’s what he says.”
“Okay…Buff it is. And you’re really willing to just join up? Just like that?”
“I don’t have much of a choice do I?”
“We all have a choice. Though, you were caught shoplifting, and that is a crime. So I suppose if you refused you’d be in trouble for that.”
“So I’m in, then. Though I’m not much of a fighter…”
“That’s all right. Neither am I…”
That’s when Sabrina recognized the man.
“But aren’t you…?”
“Yep. Are you sure about this? You’ll have to actually pay for stuff, you know.”
She hadn’t thought about that, but from what she heard about these government super geeks, money wasn’t going to be much of a problem.
“I’m sure.”
“Then welcome to the team…Buff,” he said as he offered her his hand. She accepted, noting how strong the man was, and let him pull her onto her feet. “Now go on. Your friend is still waiting for you. And don’t tell her what happened in here, okay?”
“You got it,” she smiled. She was almost out of the office before the man spoke again.
“Oh, and Sabrina? Can I have my movie back…”