Babs Yerunkle / Jade / Jade 6 – Dreams and Awakening"

They’d been summoned to meet Thuban in his place of power.  Jade had no idea what Thuban was up to, but she wasn’t about to ignore the request.  He might have information from the secret surveillance on Don Sebastiano.  The Alphas had given them far too much grief already.  She couldn’t ignore a possible warning.

Or maybe it was a job offer.  Thuban was rich.  For a moment, Jade entertained fantasies of getting some high-paying errand job.  She wouldn’t turn her nose up at that.  It would be nice to earn enough to buy Christmas presents.  But the way her luck ran, she’d probably have to find some cheap but “creative” solution to the Christmas present problem.

What had worried her was the strict instruction that both she and Jinn were to come, and that they should make sure to keep the meeting secret.  That brought to mind countless bad murder mysteries.

She’d left a note of explanation under her covers.  She hoped that if Thuban tried to pull something wicked and kidnap her, her friends would find the note.  Meanwhile, she’d taken what other precautions she could.  She had her gun back, and it was clipped at the small of her back, covered by her school uniform’s blazer.  She had her kitty compact, barrettes, and other gear.  Jann-sensei was charged into her clothes and gizmos.  That meant that Jann could talk to her, or drop everything and take off in the compact, or whatever they needed.  She had maximum freedom of movement.  And with a subtle finger gesture, Jade could signal her spirit-sensei to initiate telepathic contact.  Jann would poke a spiritual “finger” into Jade’s head, and they could link minds.  That gave her twice as much thinking power, the warning that came from being able to see in every direction, and even an escape in case she was gassed or knocked unconscious – Jann could grab her clothes and fly her away.

It also helped to have Jinn, dressed as Shroud, floating beside her.  Shroud was ready for a fight, with her bear-trap face, Harry’s latest combat arm modules, and the sledge hammers and spikes ready to spin up.

Despite all these preparations, she still didn’t feel very safe.  Jade tried to control her anxiety as they finished the trek through the creepy cavern, lit by lights from deep under the cave pools.  In the center of the cavern was a grand silk pavilion tent.  The blue silk was patterned with Chinese ideograms and astrological signs.

She wondered whether to knock or call out as they approached the front, but the door smoothly pulled itself aside.  Inside, seated in the geometrical center of the tent, was the half-man, half-reptile, Thuban.  He was perched on top of a mass of gold and silver coins, stacked and welded into the shape of a crude throne.

“Excellent response time,” he began.  “I appreciate that.”

Jade hung back, letting her “sister” move forward to take the brunt of the conversation.

“We’re here,” Shroud said.  She’d left off the spooky effect, and spoke with Jinn’s normal seventeen-year-old voice.  “What do you want?”

“Indulge me for a moment,” Thuban requested.  He was dressed like a Mandarin, in deep red robes with gold embroidery.  He even wore a matching skullcap.  With his sleeves pressed together, he looked almost human.  He still had slitted eyes, pebbled skin, and a horse-shaped face, but his body seemed human.  When he raised a hand to gesture, it was disconcerting to see the scaled and taloned hand that was concealed inside the sleeve.

At his gesture, two chairs slid forward from the far corners of the tent.

Shroud shook her head, declining.  “Thank you, but I have no need for a chair.”  She folded her legs into a full lotus, and sat levitating in mid-air, her night-black cloak hanging down to just brush the ground.

Jade had no such excuse.  She would have preferred to stand – sitting made her more vulnerable.  It was harder to move or react from a seated position, and reaching for her gun would be slower.  She compromised by perching nervously on the edge of the seat, smoothing her skirt so that it wouldn’t bunch up and get in the way if she had to go for her gun.

Thuban began abruptly.  “Montana has been doing much better since the conclusion of the Tansy Walcutt affair.”

Jade shuddered at the memory.  Montana was a blond sasquatch, nearly twice her height and four times her weight.  Her most vivid images of Monty were from the fight with Toni, when Monty took a cheap shot at Toni’s back after the match ended.  It hadn’t helped that just as she herself had finally won free of Tansy’s possession (or should it have been vice-versa?), Thuban had used an underling to possess Tansy’s body, forcing the girl to fulfill all the sexual promises she’d once made to Monty.  Jade had barely escaped sharing that fate.

Jade had spoken to Monty once or twice since then, but he remained a giant hairy brute that she associated with backstabbing and sexual assault.

“He has yet to redeem his honor over the match against your friend, but I have faith that he will, in time, atone for that.  The important part is that the black despair that had claimed him has vanished.  The Tansy … incident … seems to have permanently broken the hold that her mistreatment left on him.  Although he’s far from recovered, he now shows the capacity to recover.  Every day he seems to be doing a bit better.  He’s truly a changed man.”

“I’m so thrilled,” Shroud said, flatly.

“I find it hard to believe you would sympathize with Tansy Walcutt, after the many ways she has done you wrong.”

“Hardly,” Shroud said.  “She was already pimping herself out to Sebastiano, and I’ll bet she spread herself for anyone else who could help her, long before your thing with Monty.  As for me – she wanted to drink my soul.  She wanted to kill me, and steal my powers.”

Jade was a bit shocked to hear herself speaking like that, but they had decided that sometimes her older self needed to use language that was a bit more appropriate for an angry teenager.

“Indeed,” the dragon-man agreed, sagely.  “I believe that Miss Walcutt could do with further lessons in respect.  However it seems that the world has decided her to offer her an appropriate payback.  Perhaps no action will be needed on my part.

“But let’s focus upon Montana.  As I watched his growth and recovery, I realized that he held a lesson for all of Faction Three—”

“I beg your pardon?” Shroud interrupted.  “Faction Three?”

“Yes, a name of my own devising.  I assume you know of the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  So much of Whateley focuses upon the epic battle between good and evil.  It’s the same in the wider world – look at that new game Good and Evil Online.  People see a face-off, two sides squaring off against one another in epic battle.  Lost in the drama is the plight of many victims: the weak, the different, and in fact, everyone who doesn’t fall directly into one of the two main camps.

“The ‘different’ ones are people like Montana.  People who, through no fault of their own, have been reduced to the status of mere things, or worse.  People whose minds and spirit are ignored, because they are seen as brutes, beasts, and monsters.  People who, perhaps, don’t fall into a simple slot like ‘good’ or ‘evil.’  Poor confused Monty is certainly a poster child for that.  Society will never accept him as being noble or heroic, and, without Miss Walcutt’s potent influence, he wouldn’t have been half so nasty.  Monty is hardly alone; there are more like him than you suspect.  They won’t be allowed to be good.  They might gain marginal acceptance as villains, or particularly the lackeys of villains.  Most end up as victims.  These are the people whom I have begun calling Faction Three.”

Jade tried to reconcile this with the “middle path” described by Robert Shih.  That middle path (as she saw it) was to do what was right and work for good, but to be ready to bend the rules of legality when necessary.  “Faction Three” seemed to be an entirely different idea.

“So, which side will Faction Three ultimately follow?” Shroud asked.  “The good guys?  You aren’t another faction of goons, are you?  I don’t want to hear that!”

Thuban shook his head sadly.  “It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people are unable to understand that the world might possibly hold more flavors than chocolate and vanilla.”

While Jade puzzled over that, he continued, speaking more plainly.  “Faction Three will not be part of either side.  We are an independent faction, primarily out for our own interests.  The criminal elements would callously use us and throw us away.  Conversely, your ‘good’ side legalizes most discrimination.  It institutionalizes rule by attractive leaders that appeal to the common masses.  As soon as someone pretty or popular got upset, the ‘good’ people happily condone an old-fashioned lynching.  That always seems to comfort the masses.  Meanwhile, the authorities and other forces for ‘good’ will discretely look the other way.”

“It… it isn’t really that bad, is it?”

Even to Jade, the comeback sounded weak.  She’d done enough research on the Day of Remembrance to know that the dragon-man was right.  It was a risk that every transgendered person had to live with.  Once a TG was exposed, it was impossible to predict how friends and companions would react.  Some were puzzled, or accepting, or supportive.  Others lashed out with a hatred that bordered on the psychotic.  And society had no interest in either protecting the innocent TG or punishing the guilty straight.  Society wanted the problem to go away.  If murder made the problem “go away,” that seemed acceptable to many people.

She wondered, How much worse is it for people that look like monsters?

Thuban’s voice was cold.  “It is as bad as you can possibly imagine.  If there was anyone out there with even an inkling of our situation, I would think it would be a student from Poe!  You should be a natural ally.”

Her apprehension increased.  Was he hinting that he knew about Poe?  Did he know about her?

He waved a hand in dismissal.  “You look so surprised.  ‘How could he possibly know the big secret of Poe?  Is it my fault?’  Please.  I’ve known about Poe since my first quarter here.  Far from exposing your deviant little cottage, I’ve done everything in my power to preserve and guard the secret.  There’s no reason why Faction Three shouldn’t be inclusive.  But we’re getting off the topic.  Or perhaps not, since we’ve wandered into the topic of sexuality.”

Thuban leaned forward, now speaking with a burning intensity.  His emotions flickered with repressed feelings as well, including longing and lust.  “High school is a crucial period for psychological development.  You finish adolescence, you learn social interaction.  Your place in society is established.  It determines who and what you are for the rest of your life.  Will you be a leader or a lackey?  Will you become a kind, helpful hero … or an abusive, manipulative tyrant?  Will you become a strapping example of manhood, and all that implies?”  He turned to stare directly at her.  “Or perhaps you would prefer to become a delicate flower, the soft and gentle epitome of all the feminine virtues?”

Jade’s teeth began to chatter so hard that she almost missed his next statement.

“That was Montana’s problem.  At this delicate stage in his development, Tansy Walcutt stepped in and destroyed his self-image.  She utterly shattered it when she publicly humiliated him.  And that was my realization.  The rest of Faction Three is in the same position!  We aren’t all challenged with a Tansy Walcutt, but the entire group suffers from a lack of opportunities, a lack of confidence, and ultimately, the fear of rejection.  All of us face public humiliation, just by going to class.  The situation is even worse here at Whateley, where so many of the students are physically perfect, Olympian ideals.  Can you imagine how hard it is to approach a girl, to risk making small talk with her, when you look like a giant hairy ape, or a human turtle, or something worse?

“This past month, I’ve paid for construction down in the underground.  I’ve had a theater put in – the Faction Three Theater.  It’s a lounge and media center all in one.  We meet every Tuesday and Thursday after dinner, and I’ve invited all of us, well, all of the appropriate members, from Whitmore, Hawthorne, and Twain.  But it hasn’t been enough.  I can’t get them to break out of their shells, to risk talking to other people.  All of them have been hurt too badly, too often.”

Shroud drifted up and down slightly in mid-air.  “What do you want of me?  You want me to invite Poe?”

Thin, reptilian lips drew back from Thuban’s pointed teeth.  “Not exactly.”

He withdrew a hand from his sleeve.  In his hand was a small white stuffed toy.  He tossed it to Jade.

“A small gift for you.  I had some difficulty constructing it:  bulletproof, fireproof, and resistant to corrosives and acids.  It’s doubly hard to do it in plush.  That’s got a Zylor-Titanium weave, with Nomex flocking for heat resistance.  It should stand up to the type of abuse you seem to run into.  It’s yours, provided that you bring it to life, here and now.  Make it run around the room.”

Jade had instinctively caught the throw.  The toy felt similar to her stuffed toy lion.  But this lion was white.  With round ears that had a black band at the top.  Not merely a white lion, it was the Kimba of Osamu Tezuka.  The Kimba, the Jungle Emperor.  The one created in Japan, nearly half a century earlier.  The icon that her team had taken for their mascot and name.  She couldn’t help petting the toy.  It was soft and plush and perfect. 

Having held it, she didn’t want to give it back.  And he wasn’t asking for much, was he?

She looked at Shroud plaintively.  “Please?”

Her “sister” sighed.  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.  Alright.  Give me a second.”

As Shroud drifted toward her, her body seemed to undergo convolutions.  A moment later, Shroud’s costume, skin, and cloak imploded inward, folding inside-out to vanish into a thick-walled metal safe contained in her torso.  As the last shred of fabric flew into the door, the safe clicked shut, and settled to the ground beside Jade.

Jinn flooded back into her mind, and she felt the resentment and irritation at breaking security for the sake of gaining this stupid toy.  But then, as she continued petting it, she considered both lines of thought.

It’s worth it, she decided.

A moment later, the toy in her hand stirred and came to life.  Kimba stood up on her palm and roared a squeaky roar.  Then he jumped nimbly to the ground, raced around the inside perimeter of the tent, and approached Thuban.

“Is this what you had in mind, oh mighty dragon?” the toy demanded.

Thuban’s eyes were wide, and through her link with Jann, Jade could see his emotions crest in need and vindication.

“Amazing!”  He practically whispered it.  “Just a toy, and yet, so lifelike.”

As Kimba trotted back to Jade, Thuban continued to speak.  “Now I begin to believe that my plan might actually work.”

“What plan?”

The toy lion jumped up onto the metal locker.  Jade touched toy and locker, recharging Shroud.  A moment later, the locker opened, exploding in a reverse transformation.  The toy vanished, safely locked away.  Clothes, hair, and chalk-white skin exploded outward, then condensed into Shroud once more.

Thuban smiled, but his eyes were tight with anxiety.  “Like the vaunted Dr. Frankenstein, I intend to make a bride.  Or rather, a girlfriend.  Not real, not genuine competition for any of the girls in Faction Three.  And at the same time, someone safe, whose very purpose is not to reject the clumsy and inexperienced, and especially, the unattractive.  Everybody’s sweetheart, if you will.  She will be an ice-breaker.  Relationship training wheels.  A striking and distinctive female, obviously appropriate to Faction Three, but presented as a ‘construct’ and a cunning fake from the very start.”

“You want me,” Shroud said, figuring it out.  “I don’t know how to break it to you, but I’m hardly the life of the party.  You want Toni.  Or maybe Nikki.”

“I need someone who won’t make the other girls in Faction Three feel like ugly freaks.  Someone who is as grotesque as they are, and yet, could be seen as attractive, even desirable, given the proper perspective.  Don’t you understand?  Faction Three is a refuge from you beauty queens and film stars.  It is a place where we can allow ourselves to be what we are, out of the spotlight.”  He shook his large head.  “Besides, I didn’t go to all this work to create a Team Kimba auxiliary branch.”

“There’s Sara,” Jade suggested.  “She’s not exactly normal.  And Tennyo…”

“As I may have hinted, I intend to assume leadership of Faction Three.  Albeit, from behind the scenes.  Placing your demon princess in a pivotal role would hardly be wise.  Nor do I wish to enter any direct conflicts with Kellith.  As for your roommate – anyone who wasn’t deeply intimidated by her would be quite the fool.  But perhaps you are unaware of some of her secrets.”

Jade glared at him.  How dare he taunt her with her friend’s secrets!  He was probably just lying, anyway.  How could he possibly know more about them than she did?

“They’re good people!” she insisted, loyally.  “I don’t care what fake secrets you pretend to know.”

He gave a cold smile.

“You’d be surprised at what I know.  Secrets that you’ve probably never even admitted to each other.”

The smile widened with the appreciation of a trap that has been sprung.

“For example, have your friends ever heard the name ‘Jared Reilley’ ?”

34: Heart’s desire

November 15, Wednesday evening, 4:43 PM

At the mention of her real name, it felt like the blood in her veins turned to ice water.  Jade found herself simultaneously icy cold and sweating.  Under Jann-sensei’s urgent prodding, she tried to control her face and body language, but she knew she’d given away her shock.

Thuban began to speak again, in his dry, whispery voice.  “The last time we met face-to-face, you rather surprised me.  I like to know who I’m dealing with.  I took the liberty of learning everything I could about you.  Everything.  My methods and sources are … extensive.  You’ll be pleased to know that the records on the Whateley end were quite secure.  I had to finally trace things backward from the Kansas end.  I took the liberty of ensuring that those records were permanently lost.”

“So,” Shroud’s voice was as cold as the grave, “you think you can blackmail my sister into doing your work?”

“No.  I engage in blackmail for punishment, not motivation.  Besides, with the gift I offer, you will do my work quite willingly.”  He gave a laugh that was surprisingly warm.  “And don’t think to lead me astray, either.  Your ‘sister’?  Please.  That whole tale about being the re-animated spirit of her dead sister, or even the backup tale about you being a Ghulah are just that – tales.  Cover stories that weren’t invented until you’d already been here a month.  We all know that you are simply a splinter-self, flaked off from the whole.  A temporary psyche that somehow telekinetically charges your body image template.”

Jade and Shroud were both silent, as they digested this.  Was there anything about them that he didn’t know?  And how could they get out of this without destroying everything they’d achieved at Whateley?

Jade realized that she had little to lose at this point.  “If you’re so smart,” she asked, in a subdued voice, “why am I stuck like this?”

Thuban’s lip curled slightly in triumph, as he relaxed back into his hard throne.  “I collect information.  That doesn’t mean I know everything.  Often, there are no final answers.  The best you can do is to search for a workable solution.  Sometimes I am able to suggest possibilities.  For a price.  After all, that is my specialty.”

“What are you talking about?” Shroud demanded.  “What price?”

“All in good time.  Perhaps you’d like to see the reward, first?”

The robed lizard-man gestured at the area ahead of him, and a holographic image snapped to life.  It showed two girls climbing into a strange device, while a trio of teenagers in lab coats bustled around them.

“You’re already familiar with Eleanor Ruskin, better known as Jello,” the reptilian man stated.  “Here she is, getting into the BIT-Shifter.”

The holographic image showed a figure who looked more like a half-melted wax mannequin, stepping up into a platform.  On the other side of the platform, another girl was stepping up.  The second girl was a stunning blonde that Jade recognized from the fight in Boston.

“The ‘donor’ is a girl named Heartbreaker.  One of Ruskin’s few friends.  Watch closely.”

With both girls strapped in, another girl, a technician, connected a maze of electrodes and wires all over their nearly naked bodies.  The technician stepped away, then the platform began to spin, faster and faster.  Finally, there was a strobe-like effect, and a blue corona became visible over most of the wires.  In the strobe’s flash, Jade saw first Jello, then the beautiful girl, then Jello again, as the machine spun round and round.  A blue corona began to surround the spinning stage.

“Now the process truly begins.”

The strobed images had seemed to be first one, then the other.  Now they blurred, so that the image presented was both girls, somehow melting together.

“The ‘slicer’ is measuring the fields that corresponds to Heartbreaker’s Body Image Template,” Thuban explained.  “It is forcing those same signals into Jello; actually superimposing them over Jello’s own template.  Watch.”

The blurred half-and-half image began to change.  While the half-seen image of Heartbreaker remained unchanged, there was also a superimposed image of another shape.  This other shape expanded, contracted, altered, and then seemed to slowly vanish.  Soon, the only visible image was that of Heartbreaker.  Now the operator pulled a switch and the blue fire faded; the spinning stage slowed.  Inside, there were two copies of Heartbreaker.  The technicians removed the probes and electrodes (some, it seemed from rather personal places).  One of the Heartbreakers stumbled forward, as if exhausted.  The other seemed enchanted by her own body.

“As you can see, Heartbreaker’s BIT was copied and successfully superimposed over Jello’s BIT.  Jello lost none of her mind or memories, but the tests we ran confirm that her body was a near-exact duplicate for Heartbreaker’s body.  The inventors were able to filter out several values.  Jello’s blood type wasn’t changed.  Nor were her fingerprints.  As I mentioned, her mind and memories were unchanged.  And – in theory, at least – her ova retained her original genetic code.  We weren’t able to test.”

Thuban leaned back on his throne, hiding his clawed hands within his sleeves once more.  “I commissioned and funded the development of the BIT-slicer.  I hoped that it might be a tool to assist members of Faction Three.”  He sighed.  “It may not be as promising as I had hoped.  It only works on exemplars and shapeshifters.  Furthermore, Ruskin – Jello – was unable to retain her shape.  It looked like a perfect success, but twenty minutes later, Ruskin began to melt.  Her BIT – whether her own or this newly imposed copy – is perpetually in flux.  We might imagine giving her a booster dose every twenty minutes, but that’s impractical until we can create a BIT recorder.  For now, her BIT is too fluid for this to be useful.”

“She had the same problem with self-hypnosis,” Jade mused.  “Too suggestible.  New ideas quickly replace any post-hypnotic suggestions.”

“I will continue development, of course, but I had cause to wonder: What would it do to someone whose BIT seemed to be stuck?”

Jade gulped, as a shiver ran down her spine.

“What if there was someone who wanted, more than anything, to be a real girl?  Could she, perhaps, find a ‘donor’ to supply a body template that could be imposed over her own stuck, male form?”

Jade couldn’t help herself.  “Whatever the price – I accept!”

35: Costs

November 15, Wednesday evening, 5:10 PM

“I accept!”

At that exact moment, she felt the telepathic contact of Jann, and heard Jinn’s voice ring out: “I do not accept!”

Jann and Jinn seemed to have been thinking along the same lines (not unexpectedly), for Jann’s thinking matched Jinn’s verbal conditions.

“First, I want proof that this isn’t some new attempt to mess with Team Kimba!”

Thuban rested his head against a taloned hand, gently massaging one temple.  “I could care less about your precious ‘Team Kimba.’  None of those perfect beauty queens hold the least interest for me.  And it’s not because of their ‘alternate sexuality’ – either the gay students or the gender-changers.  Don’t think that all the students in either of those categories live in Poe.  Only the pretty ones.”

He closed his eyes and said quietly, “To those of us in Faction Three, the ‘dilemma’ of being turned into an attractive and popular member of the opposite sex seems like a dream come true.  What you call a problem, we call wallowing in vanity and self-indulgence.”

“But proof of my good intentions?  That would be a challenge.  I’m not going to require you to do anything onerous.  You won’t be serving in a combat role.  If I need fighters, your acquaintance Montana is the least of my resources.  Lackeys and servants can also be obtained in abundance.  I won’t even require you to directly obey me.  You are merely to serve a role.  Provided that you do that to the best of your ability, I will consider our bargain well met.”

“Then explain,” Shroud insisted.  “What’s the nature of your ‘price’?”

Thuban’s slitted eyes glittered coldly.  “Interesting.  The body disagrees with the spirit.  How common in life, yet sublime to see played out in this fashion.  Naturally the passions,” he nodded to Jade “drive forward, while it seems the intellect” now he nodded to Jinn “pauses to consider.  But can the spirit also hold emotions and passion?  That is essential for my plan.”

Jade thought of a laughing cabbit toy.  She had an image of Jinn shaking with terror, as they left the far end of the sewer line, and she remembered the whiplash of emotions during the Tansy affair.  Jann, temporarily taking Jinn’s place, had been as emotional as she was.

“She can be plenty emotional,” Jade insisted.  “Shroud is supposed to be cold and spooky, but Jinn isn’t always like that!  She may not have hormones and stuff, but she still feels plenty!”  It still sometimes felt odd to speak of herself in the third person like that, but she was getting used to it.

“Good.  If there is one absolute requirement I have on this project, it is sincerity.”  He rose from his throne while gesturing negligently to Shroud.  “Fold yourself up or do whatever it is you do.  I have a new body for you to inhabit.”

With two strides, the Mandarin-robed lizard-man strode to the rear of his pavilion.  He jerked aside the curtain to display a body lying on a stone slab of a table.  A body that wasn’t so much corpse-like, but instead seemed to be a statue carved from semi-precious stone.

The figure was medium height, perhaps five-foot-six.  She was very definitely female, with the black leather halter and miniskirt emphasizing rather than concealing her figure.  Her skin was the deep blue of some precious stone, but veined throughout with purest gold.  The gold was repeated at her nails, lips, and hair.  Not a blonde-gold, but a metallic gold.  As Jade moved closer, she realized that the immobile figure didn’t have fingernails, she had talons.  The entire tip of each finger was a sparkling gold spike.  And she had horns!  Blue stone protuberances lengthened the plane of her face, giving her what seemed to be a widow’s peak.

“This is Lazuli.  Step inside,” Thuban urged, gesturing to the body on the slab.  “Try her on, see how she fits.  Bring her to life the way you brought the toy to life.”

Shroud floated over the body, passing her hand over it, and examining the form.  “If this is some kind of trick…”

“Spare me your empty threats.  Besides, I need a willing volunteer.”

Once again, Shroud collapsed down into the simple armored box that was her locker.  Jade felt the memories settle into place, and then stepped forward to touch the statue on the slab.  As always, there was no flash or visible effect.  But a moment later, the statue took a shuddering breath.

---

Jinn settled into her new body, examining it and feeling it, inside and out.

Oh, that’s a bit of a surprise.

She found herself breathing, or at least, mimicking the motions that a breathing person would make.  Likewise, she blinked, even though she didn’t actually see out of the glassy spheres that looked like eyes.  There was an electronic device in her throat.  It wasn’t exactly Bunny’s design, but she quickly recognized the intention.  The craftsman had even thoughtfully labeled the controls: speech, rumble, growl, purr.  Fortunately, she didn’t need light to read the raised markings.

She pressed the speech button and vibrated the film in the “microphone” end.  “How do I sound?”

“Lower,” Jade said, beside her.  “Sort of husky, or maybe throaty.”

Jinn didn’t really need that evaluation; she could hear herself just fine.  She wondered how to maneuver the thick tail.  Switching quickly to object mode, she moved the tail, then switched back to girl mode to coordinate the rest of her body.  In this fashion, she flicked the tail to the side to help her pivot around and then stand.

“You’ve got a tail!” Jade observed, a bit late.

“Obviously,” Jinn agreed, in her throaty voice.  She wondered how she should play her new persona.  “If I didn’t know better, I would think that scale-boy there modeled me after himself.  Well, parts of me.”  She stood on the ground balancing awkwardly on her ill-formed feet.

“Stand on your toes,” Thuban instructed.  “You should walk like a cat.  Your weight should never come down onto your heels.  You’ll need your tail for balance.”

Jinn noticed that his tone was level, but his skin positively glowed with a rich banquet of emotions.  There was joy and triumph, some greed, and a healthy dose of … lust?  She stood on her toes and tried to look like she was moving her tail appropriately.  It was difficult, since  she had to keep flipping over into object mode.

“And what’s with the black leather cape?  It’s a little heavy for cape material, isn’t it?  Even if she could be a Cape Squad type, which she isn’t.”

Jinn faced her more naïve younger self.  “It isn’t a cape, sister.  These are my wings.”  With that, she unhooked her wing ‘thumbs’ from where they clasped, at the hollow of her neck.  With one tremendous flap, she unfurled her large wings.  Fortunately, the wingspan was just inside her telekinetic reach.  She flapped again, pulling herself aloft.  Of course, it wasn’t actually the wing lift that raised her, it was all telekinesis.  But she could provide the illusion of flying.  She flapped out of the pavilion, flapping through a quick spin around the cavern.  It had been poorly lit when she’d looked at it in her body, but none of that mattered to her in this form, with her unique method of sight.  When she returned, she saw that she and Thuban had moved out of the tent to watch her.  She landed gracefully, moving close to Thuban.

“Like what you see?” she taunted.  She pressed the purr button at the end.

His face gave an even stronger flash of lust and need, but nothing in his expression revealed that.

“We’ll start with you just playing a part,” he said, calmly.  “We will admit up front that Lazuli isn’t real.  You’re a fake, an illusion, although the exact nature of that illusion won’t be revealed.  You are to give the men confidence, and give the women no genuine competition.”

“A bit conflicted, aren’t we?  Besides, if you want me not to scare off the other girls, why’d you burden me with the oversized chest?”  She tugged at her leather halter, as if peering down the front of her own top.  “This whole body’s just some huge stroke fantasy, isn’t it?”

For once, Thuban seemed to be fumbling with his words.  “Not at all!  Your measurements are appropriate for an exemplar three.  There are plenty of girls with more impressive figures.”

“Uh huh.  Stroke fantasy.  I guess it’s up to me to figure out how to make it up to the other girls.”

“You’ll want to practice before the meeting next Tuesday.  ”  He handed a DVD to Jade.  “Lazuli is based on a TV series.  Study the disk to learn how you should move, and the mannerisms to duplicate.”

“What about the BIT-slicer machine?” Jade demanded.

“Find a donor for the template you’ll copy,” Thuban advised.  “We may be able to manage a session as early as next Monday.”

36: Body shopping

November 15, Wednesday evening, 6:15 PM

Jade sat quietly through dinner.  Her mind seethed with turmoil from her meeting with Thuban.  She had accepted an acting role with a twist that was uniquely Whateley, but what occupied her mind with the stunning revelation of the BIT-slicer.  Find yourself a donor, Thuban had said.  Pointed questions had revealed that she could retain her own face, hair, and other details, but the majority of her body image would be derived from her ‘donor’ template.

But who?

Nikki caught the eye first.  She had long, graceful legs.  Her hands and feet were both dainty and delicate, which Jade appreciated.  Nikki had the largest bust at the table, being a C-cup even though she was only fourteen.  Jade wondered how big the poor girl would eventually get.  Her large bust combined with her tiny waist gave her easily the best figure at the table.  Her gorgeous, exotic face and wild red hair topped it off for a truly stunning package.  Jade stared at her in bemusement, imagining herself with that body.  She’d never even dared imagine herself as a C-cup.  That would make people notice her!  What would it be like to straining the seams of her blouse every time she inhaled, or to have all the boys staring at her?  Unless… would she prefer to have all the girls staring at her?

Either prospect was intriguing, and frightening.  It was nice to fantasize, but she figured that even after the change, she might bind herself down so that her changes weren’t so fast or so obvious.  That made her grin in goofy delight.  The idea of strapping herself down because her breasts were too big…!

But what if she also picked up Nikki’s allergies?  Jade certainly couldn’t afford Nikki’s wardrobe.  And then she remembered that Nikki wasn’t an exemplar.  In fact, she wasn’t an avatar either.  The doctors seemed a little puzzled by Nikki, which made plenty of sense given how she puzzled everyone else, too.  No, Nikki wouldn’t be able to provide a template for the BIT-slicer, so she was out.

Well then, how about Toni?  She was slimmer in the waist and hips than Nikki, which suited Jade fine.  Toni was a B-cup, which was also less frightening.  And Toni’s bust on her sleek body gave her a figure that was as dramatic as Nikki’s.  Best of all, Toni was definitely an exemplar, which the process required.

But… Toni wasn’t quite finished transitioning.  There was something about cracking her hips or something, Jinn was fuzzy on the details, but she thought she’d better not take the body of anyone who wasn’t ready for childbirth.  She thought that Toni was having periods, but Jinn wanted a body that could bear children, even if she decided to wait for quite a few years.

Her main problem was that Toni was black.  She thought they could probably “filter” for skin color (whatever that meant).  Heck, if they could leave her blood type unaltered, they could probably fix the skin.  But Jade realized with a bit of shame that she wasn’t as free of prejudice as she hoped.  She loved and respected her sempai, but she didn’t want to be black herself.  She wanted to change her gender, not her race.  And while she admired Toni’s figure, she didn’t want to stop being Japanese.  She wasn’t sure that race mattered, once you dropped below the surface of the skin, but that didn’t change her feelings.

She realized that, because of her own prejudice, she’d only be comfortable taking a template from one of the Asian girls.

Chou had a substantial figure that was also trim and athletic.  But Billie…!

She’d done her roommate’s laundry enough to know that Billie took a 32-B bra.  She was close enough to Jinn’s seventeen-year-old dimensions for them to share bras (she’d tried once, as a joke) – although Jinn was a small B, where as Billie was an ample B.  She knew what the other girl looked like, clothed and naked, happy, sad, sweaty, and freshly bathed.  And there was a connection there.  There was no one in the school she was closer to.  Come to that, there was no one in the world (still living) that she was closer to.

She thought of the countless times she had watched Billie in secret jealousy.  She’d never imagined that one day that body might be hers.  She tried to suppress a giggle, as she stared at Billie, imagining her naked.  That could be me!  I could walk like that, move like that!  I could have that flare in my skirt, those long, perfect legs.  That could be me, squeezed into a tight sweater and filling it so attractively.

She would never have Billie’s beautiful face or amazing eyes or devilish smile.  But she would have a womb.  A real womb nestled in the bowl of her hips.  She would have children one day, growing inside her body.  Billie had been having periods for months now, and her hips certainly seemed wide enough for easy childbirth.

“—I said, HELLO!” Toni yelled in her ear.

Riptide waxed poetic.  “Look at that vacant gaze, that goofy grin, the subtle line of drool – our little girl’s become a dyke.  I’m so proud!”

That partially snapped Jade out of her daze.  “Huh?  What?”

“So she was staring at me!” Billie yelled.  “Big deal!”

Trying to look inconspicuous, Jade focused her attention on her casserole.

“Naw, face it, Tennyo,” Rip said, “she wants your body.”

Jade almost swallowed her spoon.  “How did you—?”  Then she realized what the water-worker was talking about.  “WHAT?  Ewww, no way!  That’s like incest, isn’t it?”

“Uh, Jade, it’s only incest if we’re related,” Billie explained.  Then seeing everyone’s eyes on her, she began to panic, too.  “Wait, that came out wrong!  I didn’t mean it would be okay … Jade!  You know what I meant!  Help me!”

But Jade’s mind had already moved to imagining what it would be like to have a body that was a near copy of Billie’s.  Then they would be related, even closer than sisters.  More like half-twins or something.

Only… now that she had embarrassed the heck out of Billie, how was she going to ask for such a huge favor?

---

November 16, Thursday evening, 6:40 PM

“Come on!” Billie bellowed, “you guys aren’t going to miss the dance, are you?”

Nikki blushed.  It was a skill the redhead excelled at, and the girls watched as the pink tinge first coated the elven girl’s face, then traveled down her neck and well into her cleavage.  “I was going to help Bunny … study.”

Toni was looking heavenward.  “Thank you, God, for giving me a decent skin color.”

“How far down does that blush go?” Chou asked.

“Come on,” Toni protested.  “You must have noticed in the showers.”

“I’ve… uh… I’ve been trying not to ogle the other girls in the showers.”  The Asian teenager gave her own blush, which was partially concealed by a more forgiving skin tone.

“Christ almighty,” Ayla let out.  “This is Poe!  Every single one of those girls is either a lesbo checking you out, or a T-girl, peeking to see how far along your transition is.  Are you telling me that you never look?”

“Well,” the admission was almost a whisper, “I’ve been trying not to.”  Then Chou seemed to realize something about her roommate.  “Besides, who are you to make accusations like that?  It’s not like you’re studying the view either!  You zoom in and out like it’s some sort of race!”

“Yeah, well,” the punk girl defended, “you have any idea how hard it is to do anything in the girl’s bathroom without getting a raging hard-on?  It has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion that the compliment is not appreciated.”

“They aren’t really checking us all out like that, are they?” Jade asked with some trepidation.

“Don’t worry,” Billie comforted.  “It’s not like you’ve got any worries along that line.  I don’t think any of them care about kiddie porn, and even if you haven’t finished transitioning, it’s obvious you’re a girl.”

Ayla rolled her eyes.  “She’s saying that since you haven’t even got the first wisp of a bush, it’s pretty plain to everyone that your dingle doesn’t dangle.”  Everyone just stared at her.  “She’s got a slot, not a pole, okay?”

Privately, Jade was mortified.  They were checking her out!  If it wasn’t for her telekinetic tuck, they would have tagged her as a phony long ago.  Her “female” anatomy was achieved by taking the extra flesh of her boy-sack and then using her powers to tuck, pull, stretch, and fake what she should have looked like, if she hadn’t been born into this freakish male body.

But soon!  As soon as she could get up the nerve to ask Billie.  How would she do it?  Excuse me, Billie, but you’re my closest friend and I really love you and I was wondering if you’d let some people connect you up to some really gross machine so that I could steal your body and then we’d be just like twins and we could be like friends and sisters forever.

Hmmm, maybe that wasn’t quite right.  Besides, they wouldn’t be twins if she didn’t have Billie’s face.  And she doubted that she’d be getting any of Billie’s powers.  She didn’t think it worked that way for Jello.  So, maybe not twins, but a big-sister, little-sister thing?

She wondered if she’d pick up Billie’s scent.  The taller girl always smelled really good: a sort of peach and ozone, with just a hint of girl-musk.

“…I might show up later,” Toni was saying.  “It all depends.  I’ve got a hot date tonight, and he said he wanted to surprise me.”

Fortunately, Riptide wasn’t around to hear that comment.

“I’m definitely going,” Chou said.

Billie gave the Chinese girl a wide-toothed grin.  “Going to rendezvous with your little snuggle-bunny Molly?”

“No, she’s busy – HEY!  That’s none of your business!”

Jade knew she should practice with the equipment Thuban had given her.  “I need to do some studying, but I don’t want to miss the dance.  I think I’ll stay, but Jinn will go.”  And if she stuck close to Billie, maybe she’d get a chance to ask her.

“Let me shower and change and we’ll take off,” Billie decided.

Back in the room, Jade couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off her roommate.  Billie was odd.  Sometimes, she would get so overcome with modesty that she’d completely cover up.  But when she wasn’t thinking about it, she’d strut around in the nude as if she was the most confident person in the universe.  As if she, in the buff, was tough enough to take on any threat that might appear.  As if she was woman enough to out-vamp any other girl in the state.  Maybe any other girl in the world.  As if she was lover enough to … Jade wasn’t sure.  Lover enough to capture whoever or whatever she wanted, and make them hers forever.  The details were fuzzy for Jade, but the astounding confidence and utter magnetism of the taller girl were undeniable.  Even if she got the body, she’d never have the personality.  But that was okay, she was happy to be herself.  Besides, the world only needed one Tennyo.

Right now, Billie was fresh out of the shower, stark naked, and swaying and dancing as she moved around the room, impossibly light on her feet.  Her legs were long and athletic and smooth.  The stretch of muscle didn’t need heels to bring out the beauty in the lines of her calves and the back of her thighs.  Billie’s backside was an inverted heart, rounded but curving smoothly inward to a tight waist.  The girl’s back displayed trim muscles and the shifting outlines of ribs, spine, and shoulder blades, but it had enough flesh to soften the lines.  Her neck was long and slender, and that took you to Billie’s improbable head, with her peculiar out-jutting ears and the spiky cascade of silken hair that was unique to her.

Her naked roommate bent, searching through her panty drawer, flashing Jade just a hint of her feminine secrets.  Billie stepped into a lacy pair of sky blue high-cut panties and then pulled them up snugly.  She rooted through her brassieres for a moment, before snorting and abandoning the effort.  Instead, she slipped into a camisole, and put a satiny blue-green leotard over that.  She didn’t actually jiggle that much, but the two prominent points made it clear what she wasn’t wearing.

I wonder what that feels like? Jade wondered in awe.  Would I dare to go braless?  She loved wearing camisoles.  What would it feel like to wear one properly, with breasts of her own inside to give it a proper shape?  What would her cotton camisole feel like against the soft swell of her own breasts?  What if she bought a silk camisole, or satin?

“You okay, Jade?  You going to get ready?”

“Right!” the younger girl nodded eagerly.

Jade’s closet was much less interesting than her roommate’s.  It was hung with a bare half-dozen outfits (not including assorted sizes of school uniforms), and a grisly collection of flayed human skins.  Or that’s what they appeared to be.  They were actually rubbery plastic “pours” of false skin that she’d made in costuming workshop.  She picked out a full-body suit and charged herself into it.

---

As always, it was a thrill to come alive as Jinn.  She settled into her skin and then had a second thought.  She reached for the metal locker and then held it out to her kid-self.  “Better have the full package,” she advised herself.

Jade reached out and charged her again, incorporating the locker full of tools and weapons.

The full-body skin only had a few seams.  Her scalp pulled up from the back of her head where hair covered the seam.  After she “swallowed” her other supplies, the seam was sealed closed on the inside using a modern miracle binding known as Velcro.

Jinn picked out a black polyester halter, a miniskirt, and a matching set of cuffed gloves and ankle boots.

“The black two-piece outfit again?” her roommate chided.  “You always wear that.  Or something close.  And what’s with all the black?”

Jinn flicked her fingers up as she counted.  “First, I’m seventeen.  And while I have a certain fondness for Hello Kitty, you have all made it quite clear that it’s barely tolerable for an eleven-year-old, and completely unacceptable for an older teenager.”

“Yeah, unless you’re making an ironic statement, which you can’t carry off worth a damn.”

“Two, black coordinates well.  Three, it’s got a sort of ‘see, I’m Shroud, too’ thing going.  Lastly, I’m running out of ways to use the same five pieces of wardrobe.  You know, if it wasn’t for school uniforms, I wouldn’t have had anything to wear to class after the first week.”

---

Jade watched them getting dressed, herself and her roommate.  Billie looked so pretty as she finished her outfit.  The under layer was a teal body stocking, with a high collar and billowing sleeves.  The color complimented her hair perfectly.  Over that, she had a pink vest with a matching full skirt.  The vest served primarily to draw attention to her bust, while the skirt billowed and wrapped around her legs as she moved.  Finally, a high, wide, black belt cinched just under her chest, further emphasizing her ample bosom.  The high-waisted outfit would have been out of place on most girls, but Billie had longer legs and a shorter torso than most girls, and this outfit took advantage of that.

The older girl noticed her gaze and explained.  “I’ve been dying to wear this somewhere,” she admitted.  “I picked it up back in Boston, but I never had the nerve to put it on.  What do you think?”  She did a pirouette in mid-air, forgetting to drop back to the ground when she finished.

I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and I am so happy and so jealous and I wish I could be you, Jade thought.  Aloud, all she whispered was, “It’s really, really nice.  It’s … it’s beautiful!”  She blushed, realizing that she was going too far, so she quickly corrected with, “I’m a little surprised the colors work, but they do.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.  It’s perfect with your hair!  And I especially like the vest.  It’s like it hides the fact that you aren’t wearing… you know.  But if any of the boys peek in at the side, I’ll bet you’ll really tease them.”

Billie pulled out the fabric of her top.  “Is it bad?  Should I wear a bra?”

“That look is way sexy!  Is that what you want?  Or are bras really that bad?”  She had a personal reason for asking.

“Well, I guess they’re not so bad, it’s mostly just the principle of it.  And I admit, it sometimes feels like I’m getting rope burn or something when I slide around inside my blouse.  The camisole helps.”  She reached under her vest to rub the tip of one breast.  “But it’s a little more comfortable without a bra.  If I do a lot of dancing, I sometimes sweat in the band.  It’s much cooler to do without, so I think I’ll skip it.”

“How about me?” Jinn asked.  She launched into the air as well, spreading her arms wide in a spin.  She also neglected to return to the ground.

“You’re good,” Billie said, without much enthusiasm.

“But?”

“Well…” the admission reluctantly came “…polyester?  That same outfit would be really hot if you did it in black leather.  Or maybe even denim.  You can’t use the money argument all the time, because I know you’ve gotten some good paychecks recently.”

“True,” Jinn confessed.  “But it was either clothes or guns.  And… and…”

Jade remembered the other good news.  “And Bunny said she would finished my ‘egg-splosive’ missiles by the end of the week!”  It was exciting enough to get her mind – momentarily – off the prospect of achieving her dream.  “Once I buy the factory unit, I’ll only have to pay for raw materials.  Her ‘factory’ egg will hatch out as many missiles as I need!  Ha ha ha ha!”

Billie narrowed her eyes at the deranged child.  “You had the money for clothes and you used it to buy weapons instead?”

Jinn took up the conversation with a supercilious air.  “Look, I’m sure that mega-destructive plasma blasts are all very nice and all, but it’s not my fault that you can’t appreciate the beauty and elegance of multi-purpose ordinance with a self-guided missile delivery system.”

“What ‘self-guided missile’?  You told me you were just going to charge Jann into tiny bombs and fly them down your opponent’s throat!  What kind of—” her eyes narrowed in realization.  “Wait a minute… you haven’t been watching Project A-Ko again, have you?”

“Uh, well, it was playing in the lounge.  There isn’t very much lesbian comedy animé around, so the other girls keep putting it on.  And if I’m passing through, I maybe stop to watch a couple of minutes.”

“Uh huh.  Come on, Jinn.  Let’s see if Chou is ready.”

Before she left, Jade took her roommate’s hand.  “Uh… Billie?  Tennyo-san?”

“Yeah?  What’s wrong?”

“I…” she was suddenly too shy to ask.  “I just wanted you to have a good time.”

“Oh.  Thanks.”

---

The three of them were fairly cheerful as they made their way toward Emerson, but Jinn could see emotions.  There was no way for the other two girls to hide their apprehension.

“So, you’re feeling it too?” she asked, broaching the taboo subject.

“Pretty hard not to,” Chou said quietly.  “Halloween was supposed to be just a dance, like this.  Instead…”

Billie was typically gruff.  “I refuse to be traumatized, just because some bastards thought a dance would be a good time to catch us off guard.  I’m going to have a good time!  And if anyone tries anything this time…!”  She held up a fist that glowed with disturbing power.

Chou recoiled immediately.  Even to Jinn, the energies that swirled around Billie’s fist seemed almost like a blasphemy on the face of creation.  It was a feeling that was almost reminiscent of the terror she’d felt at the farthest end of the sewer tunnels.  And that had definitely fallen under the classification of “blasphemy.”  That had been like a gaping, pustulent wound in the fabric of reality.

“Stop that!” Chou shouted in desperation.

“Sorry.”  Billie’s hand went back to normal.

“Do you have any idea what that was?”

“Some idea, yeah.  If I hit someone with that, they’re dead.  I mean, really dead.”

“You hit them with that,” the Taoist girl pronounced, “and death with be the least of their worries.  I think I’d rather feed them to Sara.”

“Guys, guys!”  Jinn quickly floated in between the two girls.  “We’re here for the dance, remember?  Fun and good times!”

“Yeah,” Chou agreed.  “Maybe you’re right, Tennyo.  If anyone’s dumb enough to hit us twice in a row, they deserve some serious pain.”

“You know,” Jinn realized, “I think this is the first time that just the three of us have been out.”

“So?” Billie asked bluntly.

“Well, I mean, we’re the three Asian girls, right?  That’s got to be good for something.”

“I suppose,” Chou allowed.  “I guess I never quite thought of it, not originally being Chinese.  And people have certainly been treating me different, but it’s sometimes hard to tell whether it’s because I’m Chinese, or because I’m a girl.”  She considered it.  “I suppose we have a bit in common.  We all do martial arts.”

“Some of us better than others,” Jinn said with a touch of jealousy, looking at Chou.

“We all use swords,” Billie suggested.  “Though you’ll pardon me if I don’t bring mine out.  I still sometimes have trouble putting it back away again.”

“I’ve heard,” Chou said, dryly.  “Wait a minute.  Since when did you use a sword, Jinn?”

Billie smirked.  “Show her.”

Jinn sighed.  “On our way to the dance?  Well…”  She held her right hand out.  “You know Harry Wolfe, Billie’s friend?  He helped me with a little surprise.”  With a deadly sounding –CHANG– a foot-long blade shot forward out of her hand.

Chou’s eyes bugged out at the sudden appearance of the double-edged blade.  She couldn’t help giving a slight backwards leap and settling into a stance.  By the time she thought to look more closely, Jinn’s gloves had vanished away somewhere, so that now the girl appeared to have normal fleshy arms, black fabric wrist bands, and blades instead of hands.  They weren’t quite short swords, but they were a lot longer than daggers.

“Sorry,” Jinn said, chuckling.  “I only train with them when I’m up against an invulnerable sparring partner.  And you haven’t been around for sparring, not since you started all that sword training.”  As she spoke, the blades slowly withdrew back inside her arms.  A moment later, her gloves seemed to unfold from somewhere inside the wrist area.  The wrist bands rotated for a moment, then her gloved hands resumed their normal appearance.

“So anyway,” Jinn said, still amused, “I guess this applies to both of you.  How do you do it?  Sword combat, I mean.  Isn’t it pretty hard to fight someone without it turning really serious?  I mean, like deadly maiming lethal bloody serious?  How do you fight that way?”

“I haven’t used my sword on any people,” Billie admitted.  “Ugg.  There’d be nothing left but well-cooked chunks.”

“I’ve fought some against demons,” Chou said.  “That’s not the same thing.  I don’t feel any guilt over slicing one of them up.  People… so far I’ve fought mainly to disarm and pin.  That’s really more of a sword-versus-sword style.  You’re not fighting the person, so much as their sword.  I suppose I should watch for that, since I might overlook a crippling or lethal shot in a real fight.  Also, most of the time I leave Destiny’s Wave in her sheath.”

So, as girls are prone to do, the three Asian-looking girls bonded a little closer while discussing those topics that are closest to a young girl’s heart: proper slashing techniques, when to take a life, and how to clean bloodstains out of silk.

37: I want your body!

November 15, Wednesday evening, 6:35 PM

After making sure no one was up to anything in the hall outside, Jade opened her laptop and connected a set of headphones.  Sliding Thuban’s disk in, she selected “play.”  She was the only one of her that could do this, since she needed to be in her physical body to see a computer screen.  Fortunately, the laptop could double as a DVD player.

That same screen cleared a moment later, and as the show began, a logo appeared: “Gargoyles.”

From the headphones, a narration began.  “It was an age of darkness…”

---

The party became evident as they reached the stretch of parkway between Emerson and Twain.  Normally, the brick path that wound between the cottages was an empty trail with overhanging oaks, occasional clearings, and benches convenient for either picnicking or warm-weather study.  Now, that space was transformed.

As they passed Emerson, they noticed that nearly every window was open, and in every open window, there was a stereo speaker.  The wall of sound was impressive, but not as impressive as the speaker towers in the central clearing.

“It’s WARS,” Billie realized.

“What?” Chou sounded concerned.

“Whateley Academy Radio Station.  They must be doing DJ duty, so everyone can pick it up on FM.”

Jinn gave a humorless grin.  “I guess this means that we won’t be able to squash Greasy and Peeper if we see them at the dance.  Too many witnesses.”

“I’ll bet they volunteered,” Billie speculated. “Those guys must be desperate for a little support about now.”

The beat became more powerful as they approached the “stomp stage.”  Early in the school’s history it had been discovered that too many ultra-heavy types dancing in unison would create vibrations powerful enough to collapse any tunnel or building nearby.  The solution, used ever since, was the “stomp stage”: an elevated platform designed to damp the vibrations it transmitted down the support legs.  At the same time, the stage acted as a sort of giant tympanic surface, becoming the world’s largest drum.  When the heavies could get their act together, they made an unbelievable rhythm.  The girls were still several hundred feet away, and Jinn could already feel the waves of sound pulsing through her body.

“Wanna do some groupie dances around the stomp stage?” she asked them.

“No, I’m going to check out the kata dancers,” Chou said.  “I got an informal invite from a couple of the Dragons yesterday.  I think I might give them a chance.  Besides, I want to see if I recognize anyone’s moves.  How about you guys?  You’re both as good as any of the freshman Dragons.  Why not come on by?”

“I think I’ve got the urge to fly,” Billie confessed.  “How about you, Jinn?”

“Can we join the pattern around the Stomp Stage?”

Billie rolled her eyes.  “Do we have to?  I want to go wider.”

With a wave, the two of them split from Chou and headed toward the illumination stand.  When they got there, they saw a second booth set up next to it.  The second booth had a tall black boy (at least, Jinn assumed he was black, based on his dreadlocks, the sunglasses he hid behind, and the patter he spoke).  Next to him was a girl – Jinn got the mild impression she was white, with her hair in a thick braid.

“You, you flyer types, check it out.  Prototypes to show off your flyin’ skillz.  Free samples, you hear what I’m sayin?”

Billie sauntered up.  “What have you got?”

“Yo, the name’s ‘Dredz.’  Got somethin’ new for you sky dancers, hear?  Vital equipment.”

“Cut to the chase,” Billie advised him.

The boy sighed and let a bit of his accent lapse.  “Yeah, so there I was, working on my laser shield.  Piece o’ crap that don’t work worth shit.  Then along comes the Red Lensman here,” he gestured to the girl, “and she’s, like, all over me, offerin’ to help out.  When we’re done it still won’t stop spit, but it puts out one fine glow.  Leaves a little trail of sparkles, you know, that Tinker Bell shit.  Just the thing for a flyer to be wearin’ at a dance like this one.  Once we get the last bugs out, we’re goin’ to start renting ‘em out, maybe pick up a few Benjamins, hear?”

The girl next to him was apparently trying to massage away a migraine.  She translated, “Next dance we’ll be renting them out, but since these are prototypes, we’re just offering them as samples and to see if there’s anything we still need to adjust.  Hi, I’m Loophole, by the way.”

Billie nodded.  “Tennyo.  Pleased to meet you.”

“Whoa, hold up there, chika!”  Dredz snatched back the slim backpack.  “My homie told me all about this one!  No offense, Babezilla, but you attract a bit too much property damage for our expensive little prototype, hear me?”

Billie’s face started to cloud up, when Dredz put up his hand in protest.  “No, no, don’t get me wrong.  Got nothing but respect for you.  Deep respect.  You got the power, you got the moves, you the slayer.”

“Star Stalker, actually,” Billie muttered under her breath.

“Ain’t got nothing but respect.  But our poor little hardware isn’t quite ready for major damage.  You followin’ me?”

Billie made a rude noise.  “Let’s get some sparklers, Jinn.”

“Yo, don’t have to go away mad!  The ghost girl’s fine by me, I’d be happy to slide her my package, hear?”

“Uh, I’m with her,” Jinn said, following Billie.

Loophole slumped down, rubbing her head once more.  She glared at her partner.  “Word,” she muttered.  “Dirty word.”

---

Jade was engrossed in the show.  Thuban had sent her home with a cartoon!  It wasn’t any animé she’d seen before, though something about the style was reminiscent.  She understood why Thuban liked it, though.  It would be perfect for his Faction Three.  Each of the heroes were members of a race of monsters, called “gargoyles.”  No two of them looked alike, and they were shunned and feared by humans.  But each of them was a heroic warrior.  Each of them had their own personality and dreams and foibles.  Despite their hideous appearance, they were all wonderful people.

And they were totally loyal to each other.

She wondered whether this show had been chosen to help Faction Three, or whether the show had been the inspiration for Faction Three.

The big trick would be to convince mutated humans to behave with the nobility and confidence that the gargoyles in the cartoon had shown.  Thuban clearly wanted the members of Faction Three to look at each other the same way the gargoyles saw each other:  not as a bewildering array of monsters, but as members of a broader family – each different, but with their own strengths.

She snorted, as a realization came together.  With Lazuli’s blue-stone body, the form Thuban had given her was plainly intended to be a gargoyle.  That explained what he meant by, “playing a part” and “we’ll admit that you aren’t real.”  And she was certain that the dragon-man would be showing the cartoon series at his meetings – probably as a sort of episodic thing.  As the token gargoyle, she would represent all the values Thuban wanted to express through that show.

Or to put it in the harshest terms, if the school freaks were going to learn to accept each other, to love and trust their fellows, she would have to teach them.  She would have to become their example.

And she hadn’t even been able to accept Toni-sempai for her BIT-donor, because of her skin color.

Gosh, thanks so much, Thuban.

With a sigh, she started the next episode.

---

“Slow down!” Jinn called to Billie, as the Cyan-haired girl shot up in the sky.  Jinn was decent as a flier, but she sure couldn’t match her roommate.

They rose up to about 80 feet, then she noticed what Billie was looking at.  Ahead of them, soaring in an elegant glide, was the white-winged form of Mary Goodhope.  Mary carried a pair of flickering sparklers, one in each hand.

Billie already had hers out, and Jinn quickly grabbed two from her locker.

Billie called ahead.  “Hey Mary, got a light?”

As Mary spread her wings wide for a smooth glide, Billie flipped over on her back, then slid in under the winged girl.  They came together until they were face to face, close enough to kiss.  Mary held her arms straight ahead and Billie matched the pose, lighting her sparklers off of Mary’s.  Once Billie’s sparklers caught, she peeled off, doing a couple of quick loops around the winged girl, her sparklers blazing like twin comets.

Jinn flipped over on her back, and performed the same maneuver.

Unlike most light sources, Jinn could actually tell when her sparklers were lit since small flecks were ejected as it burned.  She couldn’t see the light, couldn’t feel the heat, but she could see the flecks as they sputtered off.  She could also hear the telltale hiss.

She was the slowest flier of the three, but she was more maneuverable than Angel.  Billie was both fast and maneuverable.  For the three of them to keep together, Angel had to slow down a bit, and allow the other girls to perform more complex maneuvers around her as she swooped and glided.  She and Billie tried a few sky dances, the spiral, the ring belt, but when the song ended they waved to Mary and went their own way.

“Billie?” Jinn asked tentatively.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t mind me following you, do you?”  It was uncharacteristically timid for her.  As Jinn, she was usually much more confident.

“Naw, I don’t mind.  It’s more fun to be in a group.  Although… if I see any cute guy fliers, I’m dumping you.”

Jinn laughed back, as they burned up their sparklers, racing across the sky, weaving in and around the other sky dancers.

After a few more dances, Billie swooped down for some of the punch.  Jinn followed, though she didn’t need a drink, and couldn’t consume it in any case.

Billie immediately began to attract a crowd, but she rocketed up to treetop level to drink her punch.

“This is what Halloween should have been like,” the spiky-haired girl decided.

“You going to try dancing with any of the guys?”

Billie took another sip to hide her face, even though Jade could see the color of embarrassment clearly lighting up her skin.  “Uh, guys.  Well, yeah, probably.  Maybe in another couple of dances.”  She sighed wistfully.  “You ever feel like you know what your body is telling you, but your spirit isn’t quite ready for it?”

She looked at Jinn then suddenly glowed with regret.  “Oops, sorry.  I didn’t mean it like that.”

“That’s okay—” Jinn began.

“No, I’m really sorry.  Anyway, I don’t mean to say that we’re in the same boat at all.  I … like … being a girl.  I mean, a lot.  But sometimes, I’m not sure that I’m ready for all the stuff that comes with it, you know?  Like how Toni is always kissing and stuff, and just how many people is she going out with, anyway?  I’m not sure I’m cut out for that, you know?”

Jinn nodded seriously.  She’d had similar thoughts herself.  Was this her opportunity to ask?

“And Nikki,” Billie continued, “I mean, for all her protests, she sure jumped in with both feet, didn’t she?”

“You’re always hanging off Hank,” Jinn pointed out.

“Well, sure.  Because he’s safe.  I mean, I know he’s not seriously interested in me, so I can play around with stuff, without worrying about it getting serious or hurting anyone.  That’s why I’m glad he’s seeing Wall Flower, although I’m not convinced the girl is good enough for him.”

“Billie?”  Jinn thought this might be her best chance to ask.

“After all, what do we really know about that girl?”

“Billie?”

“She comes out of nowhere.  Did you know that security arrested her on like her first day on campus?  Does that sound like the kind of girl Hank needs?”

“Can I ask a … favor?”

“And he’s part of Team Kimba, right?  Not some junior Star League or whatever.”  She humphed.  Then, “What kind of favor?”

Jinn took a metaphorical breath.  “Well, I’m doing a job for Thuban (and I can’t tell you what that is because it’s secret, but it doesn’t affect any of us) and the way he bribed me was by showing me this new devisor invention called a ‘BIT-slicer’ that copies the Body Image Template from one person and transfers it to another only they can adjust it so that my face would be the same and other stuff like fingerprints but if it works I could become, you know, my dream would finally come true and I really, really want that only I need someone to be the ‘donor’ for the body part of the template and I looked at everyone but you’re the person who’s closest to me and I was hoping that you felt like I did that we really getting close like if we’d been born sisters or something and I really like you and this isn’t just because you look so incredibly beautiful, although who would mind having your figure, you know? And I’m afraid you won’t because you have to be naked when they connect you up to the machine and it looked super embarrassing but I really need someone and more than anyone else I was hoping it would be you even though you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and I’ll understand, but if you would I’d be grateful forever.”  Having finally got it out, she just stared at Billie, waiting for the other girl’s reaction.

Billie blinked once.  “Uh, was there a question in there?”

Jinn nodded.  When she was Jinn and not Jade she tried so hard to act like she was really seventeen, but sometimes the mask slipped.  She thought that maybe it had just slipped pretty severely.  “Do you think… maybe… you could help me?”

Billie scratched behind one ear in embarrassment.  “Well, the thing is, my blood is kind of … different.  Remember the Boston Brawl?  I blew myself out of that ice cube by letting some blood out, and it’s sometimes kind of explosive.  I don’t think you’d survive.”

Jinn nodded, trying not to show how crushed she was.  “I understand.  Hey, how come you don’t blow up or whatever whenever you get cut?  You’ve taken some pretty bad wounds.”

“Has to be under special circumstances,” Billie explained.  “Normally my blood just sort of steams and evaporates.”

“But they said they had to filter out the blood changes anyway.  I think they normally do that.  Even a little thing like changing your blood type might kill you.”

Billie looked worried.  “What if I hurt you?  I couldn’t stand it, if it was my fault.”

Jinn smiled.  “It wouldn’t be you hurting me, it would be my responsibility.  And I’m more than willing to take the chance.”

The other girl frowned.  “I don’t know.  Hey, did you say ‘naked’?  And just how embarrassing are we talking, here?”

“Uh, it looked a little worse than a pelvic exam.”

“WORSE?” Billie thundered.  “Worse than a pelvic exam?”

Jinn nodded, cringing.

Billie floated in a sitting position, scowling sightlessly out at the dance below.  “I hope you know that I wouldn’t do this for ANYone else!”

Jinn looked up, barely able to believe what she was hearing.

“And they’d better do a DAMN good job of convincing me this will be safe for you!”

Jinn flung her arms around her roommate.  “Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!”

---

Two shows gave her an idea of what this person should act like.  Now she needed to try it on her own.  Jade charged up a Jamie (Jamie Bond, the SpySpeck), who circled the perimeter of the room, looking for peepers, observers, cameras, or anything else.

It’s too bad my spirit-form can’t see electronic signals, she thought.  That would make it a lot easier to check for bugs and stuff.

Instead, she activated Bunny’s “anti-nano” egg.  Several weeks back, a devisor down on the guy’s end of the hall had discovered nano-sized spies infesting the dorm.  Several of the girls had taken up the task of stopping the intrusions.  One of the guys had created a multi-purpose jamming device, with a signal strong enough to overpower any nano or micro transmitters that weren’t shielded.  Shielded nano-bugs were no longer microscopic, so they could be searched out the old-fashioned way.  Bunny had cranked out a few copies of the invention, which she called “anti-nano” eggs.

Satisfied with her precautions, Jade took Jamie back.  She pulled a small white box the size of a pack of cigarettes from her purse.  She charged it, and waited while the box floated in mid-air.  Abruptly, the box vanished.

“Cloaking’s good,” she told herself.  “It’s not quite invisible – I can still see the outline, but it’s pretty good.  Try doing some sort of stealthy sneaking along the floor or wall.”

The nearly invisible box complied, flying into a corner and then moving along the wall.  If she hadn’t been looking, she would have missed it completely.

“Great,” she said.  “Come on out.”

The box became plain-white visible again, then the top flipped open.  And then the impossible happened.  A hand reached out of the opening.  The hand was larger than the opening, larger than the entire box.  It was as if the mouth of the box contained some sort of magnifying glass, enlarging everything that passed through, making it nearly a dozen times larger.

First a hand and arm came out of the opening.  It wasn’t human, it was a deep blue veined with gold.  Then came a gold-haired horned head, followed by a black-winged body.  In moments, a tall, blue-skinned demon-girl stood in the room.  She grabbed the floating box and briskly slid it into a small pocket on the side of her leather miniskirt.

“Look?”  The demoness asked.  Jade tended to skip a lot of words when she talked to herself.  She was asking, How do I look?

“Fine,” Jade answered.  “Or as Toni-sempai would say, ‘fiiiine.’  How’s it feel?”

The demoness stretched her black, leathery wings wide.  She gave a few tentative flaps, then settled them around her shoulders like a black cape.  “Feels like our Shroud-cloak.  Needs some adapting.  Not too bad.”  She softly touched her ample bosom.  “I feel it here, when I flap.”

“Well, duh,” Jade agreed.  “That’s why birds have such a prominent breast bone.”

“Not like I’m using muscle,” the tall blue girl protested.  “Let’s try some tail exercises.”

Lazuli began to swing her tail from side to side, practicing her walk as she did so.

“Not quite natural.  You need to swing in sync with your gait.  And with hips that wide, you ought to have a bit more sway when you walk.  Heck, since you’re always standing on your toes, it’s practically like you’re in invisible high-heels, isn’t it?  Think high heels, and try the walk again.”

---

Jinn held the hips of the boy in front of her, as he walked up the side of the cottage.  Billie had finally taken off to try her courage dancing with some boys.  Jinn had gleefully waved her off, still buoyed by the joy and anticipation from Billie’s agreement.  So she joined the wall-crawler’s conga line as they danced up the side of Emerson, and across the peak of the roof.  Afterward, someone started a line dance, and the fliers started a second and then a third layer up in the air.  It was a lot like the Halloween party, but with less death and explosions.

Singing through her all the while was exultation at the knowledge that Billie would do it for her.  She would have her chance to be a real girl.

Truthfully, dancing was more fun when you had a physical body.  But she had never had a better time.

38: Bring back my body to me

November 18, Saturday afternoon, 2:23 PM

Toni munched a carrot stick as she sprawled over her bed.  “So what’s the problem?  You told her you’d do it, right?  You still worried about the danger?”

Billie crossed her arms under her chest and frowned.  It wasn’t a scowl, but she was obviously exasperated.  “The problem is that I want my life back!  Lately, Jade’s gotten really clingy.  Half the time she’s staring at me and you’ve seen that look of hers!  It’s practically drooling.”

Toni snorted.  “You mean, the one where she’s the rabbi and you’re the world’s last uncircumcised boy?”

Billie rolled her eyes.  “Where do you come up with these?  And can we skip the whole circumcision thing?  It’s a bit too close.”

“Okay, the look where she’s Mad Max, and you’re the last gas for 500 miles.”

“Better.”  Billie sighed.  “In a way, I guess it’s not so bad.  I’m glad to help her, and I’m really hoping that we can make this thing safe.  And I know how much she’s been wanting this.”

“I’m waiting for the ‘but…’.”

“Well, she’s started watching me and it’s getting sort of… possessive.  Like if she lets me out of her sight, she might lose the golden ticket or whatever.”

“Uh huh.”

“And even that wouldn’t be so bad – if it was just Jade.  But there’s like five of her!  And they’re all doing the same thing!  Circling like vultures!”

Toni had picked up a textbook.  The way a someone else might spin a basketball on their fingertip, Toni spun the textbook.  “Five?  That’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?”

“Well… only a little.  There’s Jade, there’s Jinn or Shroud, depending on whether she’s dressing like a ghost.  Lately, she’s been being Kimba the lion, just sort of hanging around my desk or watching me work.  Have you seen it?  Her new lion toy?”

“That’s still only three of her.”

“Feels like four, since Jinn is sometimes Shroud, or vice versa.  At night, it’s almost crowded.  Shroud’s getting ready to do something, visit Sara or whatever, her textbooks and homework are doing themselves, and half the time there’s a toy or compact or dirt speck or something zipping around the room doing something.”  She lowered her voice confidentially.  “It’s the toys that make me the most jumpy.  Last night, I thought I had the room to myself.  And you know I’ve got that toy cabbit?”

Toni nodded.  “Hard to forget chasing it around the cottage, our first day.”

“So I’m doing my algebra, sort of distracted, just thinking about stuff.  I’m zoning out, and suddenly the cabbit squeaks up and says, ‘You forgot to carry the one.’  I swear, I fell out of my seat!”

“Ow.” Toni winced sympathetically.  “Hard landing?”

Billie looked at her in puzzlement.  “On the floor, you mean?  No, I fell up.”  As she spoke, she seemed unaware of the fact that she was actually floating a few inches off the ground.  “It wasn’t the fall.  The problem was that I almost blew out the side of the room!  And now,” she looked around furtively, “I’m suddenly paranoid of all the toys.  And I’m afraid that if I tell anyone, they’ll just laugh at me.  I can just picture telling one of the counselors.  ‘Pardon me, but you know how stuffed animals have those beady little eyes?  I think they’re watching me!’  Oh, sure, that’ll go over well.  Half those headshrinkers already want to lock me up.”

Toni obliged, by laughing at her.  “Just look at it as a good opportunity for training!  Develop your ki senses or something.”

“I don’t have any ki senses.”

“Well you must have something.  Feel it out, try to figure out when she’s lurking in toy ambush.  Heck, maybe I should convince her to pull ambushes on all of us.  Nikki could use a couple of good wake up calls.  Have you seen that girl when she concentrates?  Talk about the ‘dead zone.’  You could stick a sword right through her and she’d probably never notice until she was done with her mystic philosophizing.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Billie agreed, without much enthusiasm.  “I’d fault you for realism if that same exact thing hadn’t happened to Sara.”

“Is Jade really getting on your nerves?  I though you liked her as your roommate.”

Billie frowned.  Her strange cat-eyes and small fangs gave her an alien-looking scowl that was quite intimidating.  “It’s not that.  I do like them.  A lot.  Particularly since she’s starting to treat me more like a big sister than a mother.”

Toni raised an eyebrow at that, but she’d made it a point not to poke too deeply into the strangely close relationship.  “Okay.  I’m definitely getting an odd vibe here.  What’s the real problem?”

Billie’s face and features could look angry, or dangerous, or sexy, or mischievous, or any combination of those.  They weren’t made for looking vulnerable.  But just for an instant, the mask cracked, and the sometimes insecure person inside peeked out.  It was only a moment, but Toni saw a look of heart-wrenching anguish.

“What if something goes wrong?” Billie whispered.  “She wants this so much!  What if I wreck it for her?  If she gets hurt, how could I ever forgive myself?”

There wasn’t a thing Toni could say to that.

---

There weren’t many places that Jade could practice without being spied on.  The maintenance workshop under the library was old, ugly, and had unpleasant aromas, but it was very private.  After pulling extra shifts to clean up after Halloween, Morrie and Stan were taking a few weekends off.  Which meant that Jade had the workshop to herself.  She had to stay clear of the armory locker.  Her TK could probably trick it open, but she knew it was wired to security.  There were a few other secured lockers, but most of the large space was set aside for clothing, fairly ordinary plumbing supplies, and similar boring equipment.  That made it the perfect place to experiment with Lazuli.

She charged the invisible cigarette box, then lost sight of it as it flew away from her.  After a moment, she linked with Jann-sensei, who had no problem tracking the invisible box.  Its camouflage only worked for the visible spectrum, it couldn’t hide from her spirit-vision.

Watching Lazuli come out of the box was definitely weird.  The movement was far quicker, this time, as if the gargoyle was stepping out of a hole in space.

“Pretty good,” Jade judged.  “The question is, can you do it inside the hollow stone shell?”

“The trick will be the wings,” her gargoyle self decided.

“We’ll practice.  Do the walk, first.”

“Slave driver,” Lazuli told herself.  But she folded up her wings and did the tip-toe catwalk from one end of the room to the other.  She’d been practicing.  It was similar to a high-heel strut, but not exactly the same.

“Not bad,” Jade decided, impartially.  “That tail flip is sexy.  And the little wing flutter is pretty good, too.  I wonder if he deliberately made your skirt match your wings?”

“You think anything Thuban does is accidental?” Lazuli asked.

“Good point.”

They both knew the practice list, and they worked through the movements, trying to get them natural.  Jade let her attention to threats and ambushes lapse.  For once, she delegated that entirely to Jann-sensei, while she concentrated totally on watching her gargoyle body move, trying to see it the way the guys and girls would when movie night finally arrived.

After an hour of hard coaching, Jade decided it was time for a break.  She’d practiced normal movements to death.  Even something as simple as sitting was a new discovery, once you had to contend with a tail.  There were a variety of gargoyle motions that were pretty unique, including work with her wings and a sort of four-legged panther gait.  But she’d practiced everything, critiqued it, and readjusted until it looked smooth and flowing.  She wasn’t learning to coordinate physical muscles, but to simulate what they looked like through her telekinesis.  But after practice, the movement seemed to “lock in” so that she could simply react naturally, without thinking of each little movement as “simulated” or “fake.”  It took work to reach that point, and while Lazuli might not get tired, she did.

“I’m starting to feel pretty good about this.  Even the wings and gliding are looking good,” Jade-physical decided.

“Then let’s break for a bit.  I want you to look at some stuff with real vision.”

Jade knew what was coming, but it was still a bit freaky to have the large blue gargoyle approach her, then lift up her halter.

Jade reached out to the breasts, feeling them, hefting them, touching the nipples.  “How’s that feel?”

The gargoyle shrugged.  “You know me.  Pressure, not pleasure.”

“Then why is your nipple getting stiff?” Jade wanted to know.

“Don’t you get it?” Jinn asked.  “A few more days and we might be feeling this for real.”

“Mmmm.”  Jade did her own fantasizing.  “Right.  Got it.”

“Okay,” Jinn-as-Lazuli said.  “Here’s something else to check out.”  She spread her legs wide and reached behind her.

Jade had already guessed what she was talking about.  “How are you supposed to get the skirt off?”

“Uh… there’s snaps in back, on each side of my tail.”

The skirt-and-panties were a single unit that came off in one piece.  While Lazuli removed her skirt, Jade knelt down to look.  She felt no embarrassment, this was her own body she was looking at, after all.

“Uh huh,” Jade reported.  “Gold, almost metallic gold, same as our nipples.  Figures that Thuban would put gold there.  I guess I hadn’t expected this body to be so… accurate.”  Another thought hit her.  “Hey, do we have an inside, too?”  Without thinking, she stuck her finger forward to stroke her other self in a very intimate region.

“Hey!  If you weren’t me, I’d be tearing your face off right now!”

“Right,” Jade agreed absently.  She was surprised to notice that, despite the other girl’s stony skin, this part of her was quite soft.  Abruptly, as her finger slid backward along the other girl’s channel, her finger slid into a small depression.  “Hey, you’re wet!”

“Uh huh,” Lazuli agreed.

“And… slippery!”  Jade pulled her finger out and touched it to her tongue.  “Kind of musky, but not too bad.”  She returned her finger, trying to find out just how deep in she could feel.  She was surprised at how soft and warm it felt, and then was doubly surprised at her other self, when she felt the girl’s tunnel beginning to gently and rhythmically squeeze around her finger.

“Remember how we’re only supposed to drink pure water?  The stomach reservoir can pump it to the bladder, or down there where it mixes with some sort of lubricant powder.  You know… it’s definitely weird to feel you doing that.”

“I wish I could really feel it,” Jade muttered, more to herself than to the other girl.  “I’ll bet Bunny could teach me how to do this right.”

Lazuli’s tail had wrapped around Jade, pulling her in closer.  “Uh huh.  You know, this is kinda interesting the way it is.  I’m not sure if I could handle it, if we had real feeling.”

Jade gave in to her curiosity, bent forward, and carefully licked the other girl up the length of her cleft.

“Oh, okay.  THAT was definitely interesting.  How do we feel about licking girls?  ‘Cause I can tell you, it’s pretty interesting from up here!”

“I don’t know,” Jade admitted.  “I think I was more interested in testing that I really was a girl.  The sex stuff itself… I don’t know.  Playing around with myself is one thing.  I can’t really imagine doing something like that with someone else.”  She moved back and stood up.  “Hey, your nipples got all popped-out again.”

“That’s odd.  Must have been subconscious.”

“So how’s it like from that side?”

“Interesting,” Lazuli instantly answered.  “Like you said, it would be different if I wasn’t just touching myself.”  In the midst of pulling her skirt back on, she suddenly straightened.  “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Let me put it this way: Do you think that Thuban accidentally made this body so functional?”

“Nothing Thuban does is… Damn.  He’d better not expect…!”

“Agreed,” Lazuli said.

39: Bitches

November 18, Saturday evening, 5:12 PM

The walk back from the library was routine.  Shroud was out and in full defense mode.  Jann-sensei was using her senses to peer in every direction looking for life, movement, activity, or ambush.  Jade was seemingly absorbed in her thoughts, but as always, a part of her mind and attention was alert – spotting likely danger points, seeking out lines of defense or retreat.

This had become ordinary procedure.  Ever since Halloween, most of the group tried to be in pairs or trios when they had to go anywhere.  Jade and Nikki had upped their paranoia a month earlier, when the Alpha ambushes had occurred.  Fortunately for Jade, she could become her own trio, so the extra precautions were easier on her.

She’d also been acting as her own personal trainer for about six weeks now.  The coaching was beginning to pay off.  Even when her mind was busy with other topics, she retained a fair awareness of her surroundings.  When she was caught by surprise, her reactions were becoming both swift and useful.

That wasn’t as comforting as it might have been.  Aside from Jinn and her other selves, Jade had no powers of her own.  She was utterly human and completely normal.  Despite her training, she embodied the devastating threat potential of a normal strength eleven-year-old girl.

The Halloween attack, on the other hand, had been aimed at Sara.  Sara was so close to invulnerable that one time she hadn’t noticed being staked in the back.  In a different incident, she’d been decapitated and had only noticed later, when she came across the severed head during a cleaning binge.  Sara was setting the standards for the upper end of what “radical regeneration” meant.  Of course, Sara was a demon princess followed by a cult of thousands, with magic abilities that could be so terrifying that they threatened people’s sanity.  It was definitely better to have her as a friend than an enemy.

That hadn’t stopped the attackers.  Perhaps that was why they’d attacked.  Still, if they could come so close to neutralizing Sara (and a good chunk of campus, at the same time), even three of Jade would barely slow them down.

It was easier on Jade – she’d accepted how vulnerable she was.  She’d faced this crisis back when Tansy Walcutt had “killed” her.  Others on campus were having a tougher time.  Some of the bricks and “unbeatable” types were still going through counseling about the disaster.  Some of them had spent years learning how invulnerable they were, only to have their illusions stripped away in one brutal night.

When the attack did come, it was inside the front doors of Poe.  Jade was caught by surprise, both by the location, and by the fact that this threat was verbal.

Shroud had reconfigured into pink-skinned Jinn, and she and Jade came through the hall side-by-side.  That was when they found their path blocked.

“Oh, look, it’s the ghost girl and her stupid little boy-toy.”  The speaker was a slightly chubby black girl by the name of Sharisha Kincaid.

Jade quailed.  She knew it was a bad habit, but Jinn was there, Jinn dealt with this stuff better than she did, and Jinn was a real girl.  So she just cringed, and tried to slip unobtrusively in behind her taller and more confident other self.

“Oh, I think you scared him!”  The sneering sarcasm came from one of the two sophomores standing behind Sharisha.  Jade didn’t know the names of either of the two older girls, but she’d seen them around.

The first sophomore, with close-cropped curly black hair and a rather large nose, added her comments in.  “What’s a boy doing wearing skirts like that?  Are you a pervert or some sort of diaper sissy?”

“What are you talking about?” Jade almost yelled, peeking out from behind her “sister.”  “I’m as much a girl as you are!”

“You sure aren’t a proper lesbian,” the brown-haired sophomore shot back.  “And you’re always hanging around with the T-girls.  Which is such a bad name.  They should all be the T-boys.”

Jade calmed at that.  Guilt by association she could handle.  She was afraid that her secret had come out … again.

“Haven’t you heard?” Sharisha asked, in a mocking tone.  “He’s one of the ‘kimbos’.  All of them are boy-girls, who run around campus pretending to be real women.  Like Toni Chandler and her fairy roommate.  ‘Cept they have a bit too much testosterone.  Maybe they think that’s the only way they’ll be able to get near real girls.  The boy-ho and his fairy are already poaching the sisters on our floor.  Have they gotten up to your floor yet, Julia?”

The black-haired girl seemed to think for a moment.  “You know, I have seen this one bothering us.  She sometimes comes up to pester Mary or Juanita.  Haven’t you seen that, Naomi?”

The brown-haired sophomore nodded.  “Yeah, most of us are getting pretty sick of it.  Sick of little boys who wear diapers and skirts and think it makes them into girls.  Sick of all you boys pretending to be real girls.”

Jade had been read several times for now, and for real, not this false accusation.  It was beginning to lose its shock value.

“Back off girls,” Jinn ordered.  “This sort of talk isn’t what Poe is about.”

The black-haired girl gave Jinn a shove.  Jade was surprised to see her sister momentarily almost knocked aside, before halting in mid-air and returning.

“You back off!  You aren’t even an upperclassman – otherwise why would you be rooming with the freshmen?”

In less than a second, Jinn transformed into Shroud, her healthy skin tones replaced by chalk-white “flesh” in a grim hooded cloak.  Practice had made her transformation swift and flawless.

Shroud reached forward with a skeletally withered hand.  “As much as the outside world discriminates against alternate sexuality, did you ever consider that they discriminate even more against the dead?”

The brown-haired girl seemed to blur, and she was suddenly two feet farther away.  “Don’t touch me!”

“Are you going to get out of our way?”

“Make me, freak!”

“No,” Sharisha decided, maliciously.  “I’ve got a better idea.  Listen to this, pee-weenie: if you’re a real girl, prove it.  Then we’ll get out of your way and we won’t bother you ever again.”

“What?”  Jade was outraged.  “You expect me to drop my panties in the middle of the hallway?  You’re out of your mind!  As if I would, for the likes of you!”

“Whatcha got in mind, Shar?” the brunette, Naomi, asked.

Sharisha chuckled at her own idea.  “Don’t we have a hot tub special coming up next week?  Strictly in the buff, almost all the third floor girls, right?”  She turned to stare at Jade.  “If you’re a real girl, you won’t mind joining us, will you?”

“I—”

“It’s next Tuesday.  We’re sneaking out after curfew.  But I know you won’t show up, ‘cause you know everyone will see you for what you are, boy!”

“It’s third-floor girls only,” Jade protested weakly.

“Oh, no problem,” Sharisha concluded.  “You can be my guest.”

“Not a chance!” Jinn said.  “You’re obviously trying to make a move on my sister.  Look at her!  She’s too young for those games.  She hasn’t even started puberty yet!”

Jade ground her teeth.  That was the problem with being Jinn.  She got so hyped on the fact that she was a real girl, a mature and seventeen-year-old girl, that she sometimes slipped and forgot how sensitive the other her was about being stuck.  Then she realized that maybe this wouldn’t be a problem forever.  The BIT-slicer session was scheduled for Monday.  After that, she really would be a real girl.

The taller sophomore leaned in.  “You’re a freshman, Shar.  And I’m booked, cause I already invited you.  Naomi would have to invite her.  You should do it, Naomi, cause, look, she’s really afraid!  I think I’m starting to believe Shar!  The kid really is a boy in skirts.  That’s just too rich!  Wait till I tell everyone!”

“Alright, I’ll prove it!” Jade said, before she could finish thinking it through.  “But I’m sure not going as the guest of any of YOU creeps!  I’ll get Mary or someone else to invite me!”

“Sure you will,” Sharisha purred.  “But if you aren’t there, we’ll know why.  And we’ll tell everyone.”

“And no ghost chaperones,” Naomi commanded.  “None of your Kimbo friends to hide behind.  As if we’d want their shrinky-dicks at our party anyway.”

“And you,” Jinn continued the negotiations, “keep your hands off my sister.  Everyone keeps their hands off her.  No one’s going to take advantage of her until she’s at least old enough to know what her own feelings are.”

The other sophomore nodded sharply.  “Agreed.  Tuesday night, right before curfew.  Be there, or we’ll know why.  And we’ll tell everyone.”

---

Back up on the third floor, Naomi and Julia congratulated themselves on a good prank.

Julie grinned at the instigator.  “Well, Shar, not bad for a freshman.  ‘Kimbo’ – I’m going to have to remember that one.”

“Are you sure she’s a boy?” Naomi asked.  “She sure didn’t look like one.”

“Who really cares?” Sharisha answered.  “It’ll get Chandler hot under the collar.  That’s all I care about.  She’s always hanging around with the rug-rat.  And you remember when Chandler fought the sasquatch?  That was cause she was defending Tennyo!”

Julie gulped.  “Toni Chandler had to defend Tennyo?  That girl took out Hippie with one punch.  Almost killed her.  Now Hippie’s got this major ‘comrade in arms’ thing going for the girl.  I’m not sure I want to get involved with Tennyo.”

Sharisha waved a hand negligently.  “Don’t sweat it.  Tennyo won’t be involved.  My point is that if Chandler is so uptight that she has to go off on a crusade to rescue Tennyo, how’s she going to react to see people picking on the rug-rat?  It’ll send her over the edge!”

Naomi shrugged.  “I still don’t see what you’ve got against Toni Chandler.  I mean, you’re both black, right?  Isn’t there some sort of ‘sister’ thing going on there?”

“With that sex-changing wanna-be?  Get real!  She makes me sick!”

“Whatever,” Julie decided.  “I’m just looking forward to getting an eyeful of miss young-and-innocent.”

“You really are a pervert, Jool,” her roommate decided.

“I’d have to be, to room with you.  But tell me you aren’t turned on by little girls, just when their tits start growing in.  Gawd, I’ll bet she hasn’t even had her first period yet.”

“I prefer my girls with a bit more bounce,” Naomi said, reaching over to cup her roommate’s boob.

“Uh, guys?”  Sharisha interrupted her older friends before they could get too physical.  “She’s coming because we accused her of being a guy, remember?”

Julie grinned.  “And the ploy worked.  But really – as if.  Kelly’s in her gym class.  Showers with her every day.  Nothing but naked pubes.  Whatever made you think she was a guy?”

“Well…” Sharisha fumbled “she’s in Poe, isn’t she?  And you heard her sister, she doesn’t even have a preference yet, so she isn’t a lesbian.  So she’s got to be a T-girl, right?  And she’s hanging around those other T-girls.”

Naomi shrugged.  “Ayla I can understand.  It swings a dick that’s almost a foot long, I heard.  I think if I saw that, I’d probably lose my lunch.  But the rest of them – face it, they’re all girls.”

Julie spotted Sharisha’s growing scowl.  “She’s right.  Maybe they’re still growing inside or something, but they all bleed, just like the rest of us.  So long as I don’t have to think about what the used to be, who cares?”

Naomi nodded.  “Besides, some of the T-girls are the most radical lesbians.”

Sharisha goggled.  “You don’t mean Hippolyta?”

“No, but,” Naomi leaned close and confidential, “Zoe on the fourth floor.”

Sharisha couldn’t believe it.  “The fixer?  Zenith?  Miss Perfect?”

Naomi nodded, placing a hand over her heart.  “Swear to God.  That’s why she just about pukes at the thought of touching a man.  I heard she even had a teeny bit of a guy-thing left, up till the end of last year.”

Sharisha shook her head in denial.  “Zoe Nesmith, with the body to die for?  With a … thing?  That’s just sick!”

“All in the past.  Believe me, she’s nothing but pure girl, these days.  At least as far as a tongue or a finger can reach.”

Julie swatted her roommate.  “How would you know?”

“I heard.  Question is, are you going to be checking out the li'l bit, the same way?”

“Jade?”  Julie’s eyes seemed to lose their focus.  “Gawd, I wish.  But we promised…”

Naomi shrugged.  “Yeah.  But ghost-girl won’t be there, will she?  Or any of spunky’s other friends.”

“Hmmm…”

---

How could I let them talk me into this? Jade wondered.  She hated the way the older girls had plucked at her insecurities, playing her like a fiddle.  She was suddenly wondering what might go wrong with the BIT-slicer on Monday.  If she couldn’t become a real girl, she was going to be in a lot of trouble.  More than if she’d just refused the dare.  But she’d probably better get her invite now.  If she told Mary, there would be more chance to plan things out, no matter what happened.

She nervously trudged upstairs.  Mary’s room was directly above hers.  Once she reached the third floor, she tiptoed past the stretch where she thought the two obnoxious girls lived.  The doors were all closed, but there was raucous laughter coming out of one of the rooms.  Jade crept on, heading for room 302.  She knocked lightly on the door.

“Come in?”  The voice was faint.

Jade slipped through the door, closing it behind her.  “Mary?”

“Sorry, she’d not in right now.”  There was a thin girl doing homework at her desk.  She had glossy black hair pulled back in a high ponytail.  “Oh, hi, Jade.  What’s up?”

Jade knew Lily well enough by now.  She roomed with Mary, took classes with Billie, and was sometimes dating Hank.  She was in Jade’s martial arts class.  She was around a lot.  For all that, Jade had never really done anything with the slim girl.  “Uh… do you know when Mary’s going to be back?”

“Not until after Thanksgiving.  Juanita – you know Juanita?”

Jade nodded jerkily.

“Big friend of Mary’s.  Juanita’s great uncle passed away, and she went to the funeral.  I guess they were close.  Mary went along to keep her company.”

“Both of them?”  Jade couldn’t believe it.  “They won’t be back until after Thanksgiving?”  She sank to the floor, her back pressed against the door.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

Jade was devastated.  What was she going to do?  “But she was just here!  I saw her at the dance.  And now I need an invitation to the hot tub party next Tuesday.”

“What for?  You know those parties are just a big excuse to match girls up with each other.  Aren’t you a little young for that?”

Jade nodded.  “It was … a dare.  A couple of obnoxious girls down the hall from you.  Naomi and … Julia, I think.”

“Yeah, I know ‘em,” Lily muttered.

“They were with Sharisha, this jerk from my floor, and they were saying the most horrible stuff about me, and they dared me to prove I was a real girl…”

“You didn’t fall for it, did you?”

“Umm… yeah?”

Lily sighed again.  “You aren’t really that desperate, are you?  Besides, aren’t you too young for the hot tub?”

Jade tried to blink the tears out of her eyes.  Why couldn’t Lily understand?  “They said they were going to expose me!”

“Look, I’ve been here for a while now.  I see you almost every day in the showers.  The girls showers, after we do kung fu practice?  And while you’re even more underdeveloped than me, which is saying something, it’s pretty obvious that you’re a girl.  So what’s the big deal?”

Jade just sniffed, trying to hold back the choke in her throat.  She hated talking about her deformity.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”

“I’m faking it, alright!” Jade hissed out.  “I’m got this stupid boy’s body!  I use my telekinesis to – sort of pull and stretch and stuff, so you can’t tell in the showers.”

Lily shook her head, making her pony tail swing back and forth.  “No, no, no.  Even if I believed that, which is pretty farfetched, I’ve seen you touching Mary.  And we both know how she breaks out in hives, practically, whenever she touches a guy.”

Jade blew her nose.  “Mary reacts to the soul, not the body.  I’m a girl – Mary proves that!  But I’m stuck with this stupid boy’s body!”

“Really?  Hank never mentioned any of this.  Although… maybe a couple of things he said do make a little more sense.  But how is this even possible?”

“I guess I have to tell you my whole life story, huh?”

“Might as well,” Lily decided, “after what you’ve told me so far.”

“Well, I’ve been trying different treatments.  You know about exemplars, and the Body Image Template?”

Lily nodded.  “Yeah, I’ve been finding out about all that.”

“Well, they think I’m an exemplar one, which means I’ve got a BIT, but none of the real advantages…”

As she explained, Lily got paler and paler.

“Oh, God,” she exclaimed.  “THIS is what I have to look forward to?”

“What are you talking about?” Jade asked.

“That’s why I’m here in Poe.  Mom was an exemplar, and she did the male-to-female thing long before she married Dad.  Like some of your friends, I guess.  Lucky me, when I was born I got to have both sets of bits, you know?  They cut away the icky male parts.  I don’t know, some sort of surgery.  Only, Mom’s afraid that since I’m now an active exemplar, the … you know, the guy parts … might start growing back.”

Jade’s hands were clutching at her mouth.  “Oh, no!  And you’re a girl!  You’ve got to be, if you’re rooming with Angel.  What are you going to do?”

Lily shrugged, as if trying desperately to look nonchalant.  “Like I told Mom.  They cut it off once.  They can do it again.”

Jade cringed.  It wasn’t that she minded the thought of losing that ugly tag of flesh, it was the thought of someone cutting her in such a sensitive area.  “Wait, let me tell you about this experimental procedure that I’m going to be testing…”  And she began to tell Lily about the experimental BIT-slicer.  “…so if everything works out, I’ll be a real girl by Monday, and I could go to the party on Tuesday and Sharisha couldn’t say a thing!”

Lily shook her head.  “Ooookay.  Sounds like a lot of eggs in one basket to me.  Still, I’m obviously very interested in whether or not this gizmo works.  Who knows when I might need it?”  She thought about it some more.  “Look, I still think this hot tub party is a really bad idea.  I mean, REALLY bad.  Are you still insistent on it?”

“I promised!” Jade almost wailed.

“Like I want to be ogled by a bunch of lesbians,” Lily muttered.  “As if there was all that much to ogle.  Hmph.  Okay, here’s the deal.  I’ll go to the little strip-soak and take you as my guest—”

“Really?”

“—but you have to do me a major favor.  And I don’t mean keeping me informed on the BIT gizmo.  You’re a friend, right?  You’d do that anyway, now that we know each other’s deepest fears, right?”

Jade nodded vigorously.  “What do you want?  Personal servant?  Laundry duty?  Bathroom cleanup?”

“Oh, no.  Lots bigger than that.”  She had a glum expression.  “It’s just that you guys all seem to have some really cool trips.  Like Boston?  And I’m not exactly one of the Kimbettes, so I sort of missed out on all of that.  And I really like hanging with my own buds too, I sure don’t want to give any of that up, but I … I don’t know…” she trailed off.

Jade nodded, understanding perfectly.  She reached for Lily’s hand and softly took it in hers.  “You don’t want to be tied down to our team, but you want to be able to come along, if we have a cool trip or something, right?”

Lily was looking at the floor now.  “Well, it would probably be too much trouble.  I mean, I’m a sophomore and everything, and I’m not even sure if you guys want me…”

Jade hugged her hard.  “I’ll do my best!  I promise!  Of course we want you along!”

“You don’t think I’d be in the way, what with the super-models and all the beautiful girls?”

Jade held her at arm’s length and surveyed the other girl, who was barely three inches taller than her own diminutive four-foot-nine.  “Are you kidding?  You’ll be the cutest one there!”

Lily gave a glum half-smile.  “I guess I could live with cute.”

Jade hugged her again.  “Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!”

“Well, I guess it’s worth it.  So how did I get talked into skinny dipping with lesbians, when neither of us actually wants that?”

40: Preparations

November 18, Saturday evening, 11:32 PM

Jade lay in bed thinking, listening to Billie’s soft snores in the darkness.  At her desk, there were slight movements of book and pen, as Jann did her homework.  Jinn had already left to see if Sara was up for anything.  Jade lay in bed, occasionally linking with Jeanie as the two of them considered things.

Charging Jeanie no longer knocked her unconscious, but it did leave her about as weak as a noodle.  She could really only do it when she was in bed anyway.  She figured it was good practice, and the nearly constant exercise of her powers was building up her strength nicely.  She could conjure three selves, and be so weak that she could barely crawl, or she could even conjure four selves and be unconscious.

Their dorm room had never looked so clean, and she was actually ahead on homework and class reading, even with the second set of classes she took as Jinn.

And her powers – she was now getting just over 110 minutes per charge, and she was able to lift nearly 290 pounds – solidly into the TK-3 category.  She still hadn’t gotten around to filling out the paperwork to notify administration.

She was worried that she’d need more than two hours for the Faction Three meeting this Tuesday.  How was she going to manage that?  She still didn’t know.

The tough part was, who should she be?  Jade herself sometimes avoided conflicts that she knew she could win.  The whole boy-as-girl masquerade sometimes showed up as the weirdest insecurity.  For example, Sharisha – she should have just told her off.  Instead, she let her insecurities talk for her.

And Jinn didn’t have those insecurities.  She might not have a real body, but what she had was all girl.  As Jinn, or worse Shroud, she thought she maybe overcompensated for Jade’s insecurities.

Now she had a chance to be a new person, and to imagine a personality.  She could do it from scratch, too.  Her friends in Poe weren’t going to be showing up at Faction Three meetings, and the people from Faction Three wouldn’t be seeing her friends that often.  She could start with a clean slate, and make herself whoever she wanted to be.

So who did she want to be.

She was pretty happy with herself as Jinn, but there was just one thing.  She really wanted to strut her stuff.  Not like Sara … well, not exactly like Sara.  Not yet, at least.  But Jinn was a girl, and she couldn’t really go out with anyone, or hug, or kiss or do anything girlish.  Maybe as Lazuli she could do some of that.  People wouldn’t be seeing her as a ghoul.  In fact, they might see her as a sexy heroine.  That wouldn’t be too bad.

She had to make sure the other girls in Faction Three got drawn in, rather than being pushed away.  That would take some work, because Jade wasn’t very experienced with this stuff.  She was at best a novice flirt.

This might actually be fun.

---

November 20, Monday Lunch, 11:27 AM

She caught him in the hallway, on the way to lunch.  It was hardly surprising, they’d run into each other here before.  Jade was still cautious, never publicly exposing that she could charge more than one body.  But as with Jann-sensei, she didn’t restrict herself when she was working in secret, and no one could see.

She needed to perform as Lazuli.  She had the body, the practice moving, and she even thought her personality might work out.  There was just one huge problem remaining.  She could only hold a charge for a little less than two hours.  The “Faction Three” meeting would last much longer than that.  So…  Jade finally realized that there was only one answer.

And that was why she was here, being Jamie Bond, the SpySpeck.  Squeezing her entire soul an spirit into a single speck of sand was an oddly tight fit.  It also left her with blurry vision and poor hearing.  She knew her hearing came from telekinetically sensing the vibrations that passed through her “body.”  Her vision was more of a mystery, though it was clear that the larger she was, the better she saw.  Which explained her current fuzzy vision.

But she saw well enough to track one young boy, who walked with a distinctive slump.  It helped that everyone seemed to unconsciously avoid him, leaving a foot or two of space around him at all times.  Jamie the SpySpeck tracked him through the lunch line as he picked up same food and departed, clinging to a support strut in the crystalline dome over the boy’s head.  As he left the cafeteria, she wafted behind him, staying aloft, at least twenty feet up.  As expected, he headed out to the woods just like every other time she saw him leaving lunch.  He didn’t eat the food himself, but settled and began holding his hand out.

She had her location fix.  She knew where he’d be for at least the next ten minutes.  She vanished, before the kitten could arrive.  She did that on purpose.  There was something about that kitten.  There was nothing she could spot with her unusual esper senses – at least, nothing obvious.  But she knew there was something about that kitten.  So she vanished before it could spot her.

Unsupported now, a grain of sand fell to the ground.

---

Jinn looked as innocuous as possible.  She wore her human-appearing skin, and dressed in her Whateley skirt and blazer.  She walked confidently forward, quickly spotting him just inside the edge of the forest.

As she approached, his head rose and began turning from side to side as if in search of something.

“James.” When he jumped in surprise, she realized that she’d been walking silently. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The boy was still looking a bit panicked as he turned to face her, cradling the tortoiseshell cat protectively.

“Hi, cat,” Jinn said, waggling her fingers in the direction of the kitten, which was half-concealed inside James’ jacket.

“Her name is Whiskers,” the boy said, nervously.

“Look, you can calm down.”

He shifted nervously but, as always, he was an inexplicably blank slate to her aura vision.  Even his body had less detail than a normal person – it was like an opaque shell.

“I’m not angry,” she said, “I’m not going to do anything to you, and nothing’s wrong.  Fact is, I’ve come to ask a favor.”

James considered that for a moment.  Apparently deciding that there was no point in being coy, he withdrew the small kitten and began to stroke it.  Before her eyes, he seemed to calm further, drawing steady breaths.

“First,” she began, “I’ve kept your secret for a month now.  I haven’t told your secrets to anyone.  I don’t even understand what’s so important about them, but I haven’t mentioned anything about your powers, or your pet either, to anyone.  And I know you’ve kept my secrets, too.  I appreciate that.”

James nodded, but remained sitting on the forest floor, without saying a word.

Jinn forged on valiantly.  “I need you to… do your charging thing.  You know?  Where you suck me up and then blast me into something new.  I need to be able to keep going for at least three hours, preferably a little longer.  I need it tomorrow evening, but if things work out, I might need the ‘charge’ every Tuesday and Thursday.”

He didn’t say anything, but from the look in his eyes, she knew the young-appearing boy was thinking furiously.

“Why?” he finally asked.

Jinn ran her fingers combing back through her hair.  “It’s for Jade.  You know about that.  You ‘saw’ the hormone shots, last time we touched.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work worth a darn.  A side effect of that exemplar condition, we think.  Anyway, this time we have a chance at the real thing.  A machine that could change her body template to be what she needs to become.  Something to finally make her a real, true girl.”

James nodded glumly, then suddenly sat up in shock.  “What did you say?”

Jinn sighed and sat in the air.  She couldn’t sit cross-legged, not in this skirt, but she could fold her legs back under her – sort of a half seiza position.  “Look, if we’re going to do this for real, you’ll need to know a bit more about me.  You’ll probably see it, quick enough, once we connect.”  She sighed again.  “We made up a lot of stories to explain me: ghost-girl, stuff about being the spirit of her dead sister, stuff like that….”

For some reason, James was twitching as if physically struck, as she spoke.

“….but all of that is just cover.  Really, I’m … her.  I’m Jade.  Somehow, my body image template is not properly connected or something.  This is what I’m supposed to look like.  The body – I mean my physical body – it’s just stuck.  I guess you might have something like that, too, so maybe you can sympathize a little.  I’ve done a good job of hiding it.  Most people would be surprised to find out that Jade was actually a boy.  We’ve been trying everything we can think of to transition.  You’ll probably never understand what it’s like, but I’m a girl!”  She waved a hand at her body.  “This is what I’m supposed to look like!  Not some skinny eleven-year-old guy.  Well, I mean, no offense.”

James just goggled at her.

“Oh, don’t act so surprised.  You admitted a month ago that you saw us getting hormone shots.  It’s not like I’m telling you anything you don’t know.  Though if you hadn’t already known, I wouldn’t have dared tell you.  A secret like that – I hope you never have to live with something like that.  If I didn’t have the chance to be Jinn, to escape and live as a real girl some of the time, I don’t know how I’d cope.”

Finally, James pulled himself together enough to ask, “What … what does this have to do me?”

“Well, there’s a machine to help manipulate Jade’s BIT, her body image template.  The price to use it is a ‘favor.’  I need to act as a sort of hostess, every Tuesday and Thursday.  I’m in disguise; no one will know it’s me.  But the meetings are going to last longer than my regular time limit.  I figure that if you charge me up, I’ll be able to make it through the entire meeting, and no one will be the wiser.  Aside from you and me, of course.”

“You felt it last time,” he whispered.  “Don’t you know what it does to me… to touch people?”

“James,” she said with a fierce intensity, “I’ll do almost anything to become the girl I was supposed to be!  You understand me?  I don’t know what I can offer you to make this worth your while.  I know the contact is … disturbingly intimate.  But there must be something you want!  I’ll try to help you.  Well, assuming it isn’t illegal or unethical.”

Seeing that she’d pretty much blown his mind for the time being, she stood and prepared to walk away.

“Please – just tell me you’ll think it over?”

James nodded, shakily.

“I’ll contact you tomorrow, right after dinner, okay?”

Again, a shaky nod.

“James… please consider it.  I need your help.  I don’t know what I can do for you, but I’m willing to work hard.”

She could tell the boy was closing in on himself, and she’d get no further response.  With a bow, she turned and walked away.

She didn’t hear, when, nearly a minute later he whispered to himself.  Or perhaps he spoke to the kitten.

“I thought she was trying to turn into a boy.”

---

November 20, Monday, after class

Lily spotted several of the Team Kimba girls leaving class in a group.  The core group, Toni, Fey, Billie, Jade and Jinn, all seemed to be walking together, but they oddly subdued considering what that group was normally like.  She moved to join them, thinking that Hank was bound to show up soon enough.

Surprisingly, the girls pulled aside for minute and conferred.  Jade and Jinn seemed to be convincing them of something, then the girls agreed and beckoned her forward.

“You need to be there, too,” Jade said cryptically.

No one else said a word.

Hank joined them, soon enough, but he was also oddly quiet.  He took her hand, which she liked, but aside from a supportive and apologetic smile, he said nothing, which worried her.  Other girls slowly joined – Chou, Ayla, Jamie, and Erin.  As then entered Poe, everyone seemed to be on their way to a funeral or something.

In the cottage’s front hallway, they were met by Zoe Nesmith and Belle Forbes, both of whom wore black armbands, and carried slender white candles.

Lily looked about in confusion as the group around her accepted black armbands, then they all followed the two older girls into the basement.  Everyone donned armbands and accepted a taper, which they ceremoniously lit from Zoe’s candle.  Together, they filed into the exercise room, which had been redecorated as a black-draped memorial alter.

The black draped walls showed pictures of heroes and heroines, all with dates of birth and death.

The door closed behind them, and Zoe, as one of the eldest present, began to speak.

“Today is the Day of Remembrance.  It is the day we remember our dead, the transgendered who have fallen.  The list is longer, of course, but those pictured here were killed because they were transgendered.”

She paused, collecting herself, then continued.  “Each of us has had to go through the shock of learning that we are mutants.  There are some places in this world were being a mutant is a death sentence.  At the very least, it guarantees that a portion of the general public will hate and fear you.

“Those of us in this room bear an additional stigma.  We are transgendered.  Like the truth of our mutation, this is a fact that must often be hidden from our closest friends.  And like the presence of a power mutation, the sudden revelation of the truth can have unpredictable consequences.  Friends may turn to enemies, love may turn to hatred, and people you have trusted for years may suddenly lash out in hatred.

“Another danger is depression.  Three of the people pictured here took their own lives, as their despair became too great for them to deal with.

“Tonight we will try to remember them all, as well as remembering the many non-human transgendered who have been murdered for what they are.”

There was more.  Too much more.  Lily would have preferred not to know, never to know.  As much as she feared what might happen to her, she knew that this group, at least would support her.  And she knew that Hank, at least, wouldn’t hate her.

That made her wonder if she had been as open and accepting of his past as she might be.

She resolved to be better, in the future.

41: What are little girls made of?

November 20, Monday evening, 5:50 PM

Jade could barely contain herself through dinner.  Another hour, and it was possible that all her dreams would come true.

“Whoa,” Toni commented, “usually everyone’s accusing me of bouncing off the walls.”

Jade was eating so fast that she barely bothered to chew her food.

Hank was concerned.  “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

Jade nodded, without slowing her eating.

Fey had her own worries.  “Okay, I admit that my specialty is magic, not technology.  Although to be frank, some of this devisor stuff falls into a unique category of magic all its own.  But STILL, I’m not entirely comfortable about his.  Tell her, Toni.”

Jade glared at the black girl.

“Uh, I think I’ll hand this one back to you, Nikki.”

“Coward.  So tell me – how much do you know about this machine?”

Seeing that Billie was only on her second plate, Jade swallowed and talked.  “I talked to Jello yesterday.  She’s had no ill effects.  Her ‘donor’ – Heartbreaker – is also fine.  They said it feels pretty strange, but there haven’t been any problems so far.  Come on, guys, I’ve got to try this.  You know I do.”

Chou tried, “I distrust the ‘quick fix.’  The realignment exercises may be slow but—”

“Are they working?” Jade interrupted her.

“Well, sometimes these things take time.”

“Come on, Chou.  I’m really grateful that you’ve tried, and I appreciate all your hard work, but it’s another dead end.  So far as I can tell, it isn’t doing a thing.”

Chou hung her head, looking almost as if the failure was her fault.

“Hey, don’t be like that!” Jade said, trying to cheer the Chinese girl up.  “You did a great job!  It’s not your fault.  It’s just… something about me, I guess.”

“Aha!  That’s what I was worried about!” Fey realized.  “You’re building your hopes up too much.  We’ve all seen you, each time you go through one of these attempts.  Beforehand is wonderful, you’re so happy, and we all feel really hopeful for you.  But just like the earlier attempts, this might be a failure too.”

Jade’s grin faded at that.  “Yeah, I know.  But do you think I’m going to stop trying?  Do you think it’s even possible for me to stop trying?”

Toni shook her head at that.  “For anyone else, sure.  Everyone hits a point where they give up.  For you… I’m not so sure.”

---

Like many projects Thuban funded, this was underground.  They began in the main underground complex, but their guide quickly led them farther in, to tunnels roughly hewn from the underlying bedrock.  At last they arrived at a pair of thick steel doors, enamel-sprayed a pure, glossy blue.  The doors whisked aside with a gust of displaced air, admitting them to the stone chamber behind.

The center of the room was dominated by a complex, rotating stage.  Lights and projectors of all kinds surrounded the stage, focused upon it.  The walls of the room were hidden behind racks of customized electronics, patch panels, and bright computer displays of transient electronic conditions.  Their guide went to join the other two devisors.

“Hey, I know you two!  You’re second-floor freshmen!”  The deviser stepping forward had porcupine-like brown hair that stuck out to both sides.  “I’m Rafael Eagan, also from Poe.  Fourth floor.”  He held out a hand, which Jade numbly shook.

“Great, just great.”  Billie smacked her face into her palm.  “Hope you didn’t plan on keeping anything secret, Jade.”

“Actually,” Rafael said quietly, “this test run is being managed by one of our sponsors, a guy by the name of Thuban.  He’s kept everything hush-hush.  According to his cover story, you, Jade, are just looking to get something of a maturity boost.  So, Jade, provided that you let me help you with the outfitting, no one need be the wiser.”

Billie scowled at him.  “You sound like you’ve got it figured pretty well.”

Rafael grinned and shrugged.  “Folks in Poe keep track of their own.  You guys did make a big splash at the start of the semester, and then again at Halloween.  Word quickly got around that you’re all T-girls.  So what’s the real scoop?  Finishing out a transition?”

Jade was getting tired of telling her secret.  But it seemed like so many people knew now, that she wasn’t sure where to stop.  And this did seem legitimate.  “I haven’t started, actually,” she confessed.  “I’m stuck the same way I was when I was eleven.”

Rafael raised an eyebrow at that.  “Well, we’ll see what we can do.  I hope you understand, this is still very prototype.  I can’t guarantee that it’s completely safe, or that it will actually do what you want.

Billie jumped in on that.  “Yeah, about that.  I have some … differences … let’s call them.  If any of that stuff get transferred, it’s liable to blow up the whole lab.  At the very least.”

Rafael took the warning seriously.  “I’ll be careful.  First, both of you need to strip.  We’ll apply contact electrodes.  We have modesty garments for you.  Due to the electrical potential, those must be made of an insulating material.  Sorry if it’s hard to put on.”  He gestured Jade forward.  “Miss Sinclair, since I’m openly gay, the other staff members have accepted that I’ll help you prepare.  To be truthful Knick-knack couldn’t be bothered, and Kew will be helping Miss Wilson.  So, if you’ll follow me to the second changing room…”

---

Billie was long past second thoughts.  She was working on twentieth or thirtieth thoughts.  As she stepped out of her underwear, the short deviser girl approached her with a cart filled with what looked like masking tape dispensers.

“What’s that?”

“You’re one of those girls who took down the ninjas, on, like day one, aren’t you?  That was so cool!  I’m Kew, by the way.  I’ve got kind of a group of my own.  They call us the Spy Kids, but I think M-I-five-oh was a better name.  It just didn’t stick.”

As she spoke, she began to run strips of masking tape down Billie’s naked flanks.

“Anyway, these are electrode strips.  We pick up signals off what we’re calling meridian lines.  They aren’t exactly the acupuncture meridians, but pretty close in several places.  Okay, let me get the ear clips – uh, I guess I’ll attach to the tip.”

Billie got annoyed whenever anyone paid too much attention to her ears, which tended to stick out a bit.

“Our last step will be the finger and toe clips – those tend to pop off easiest.  But we need to get the chest sensors.”  She reached forward with a small paintbrush, tipped with something that looked like liquid metal.  “This may be a bit chilly.”  She reached toward Billie’s right nipple.

“HOLD ON!  What the HELL do you think you’re doing?”

“The tip of the breast is a natural energy pathway.  It’s essential for getting a good signal.  Just hold still, the conductive paint is a bit chilly, but it hardens quickly.”

Billie clenched her fists and gritted her teeth as the devisor girl painted first one nipple and then the other.

Paint hardening, my ass!  Billie fumed to herself.  If she says one word about anything else hardening, I swear I’m going to deck her!

But it was nearly impossible not to react, as the soft brush applied the metallic solution.  The solution solidified, freezing the evidence of her arousal in shiny silver.

“Now, we have four pairs of labial clips,” the girl began.  “Frankly, I’d rather let you apply them yourself, but most girls aren’t limber enough.”

“Grrr!  Gimme those!”  Billie snatched them out of the other girl’s hands.  “I’ll do it!  No way am I letting someone else… you know!”

“Whew.  Thanks.  That’s the part I like least.  And then this last probe you insert yourself.  It’s just like a tampon.”

Jade, Billie promised herself, if you survive this damned experiment, I am going to kill you!

---

At that moment, Jade was realizing roughly the same thing.  Billie is going to kill me!

“Keep those legs spread,” Rafael was saying.  “These scrotal clips will become labial inducers, when the process succeeds.  I’ve got to get them placed just right.”

“You’d better not be enjoying this,” she warned.

“What, feeling up underage boys?  Well, it is kind of a kick.  The idea that we’re trying to turn you into a girl puts a damper on it, though.  Okay, step into these rubber pants.”

Jade looked suspiciously at something that resembled a sensor-studded bikini bottom, except made out of black rubber.

“It has to be an insulator,” Rafael explained.  “Also, as your body begins to change, it needs to stretch to accommodate wider hips.  Rubber was the best choice.  Good, pull them up snug.  Now spread your legs.”

As Jade complied, Rafael fumbled with the exterior of the pants attaching a cylindrical contraption the size of a small flashlight directly under her, between her legs.

“What’s that?”

“Just a minute, let me engage the spring…”

“Whoa!”  Jade felt the contact of cold metal between her legs, just an inch or so forward from her rectum.

Raphael clarified, as he attached a thick coaxial cable to the assembly.  “In order to properly form your womb, we need to direct the signal from the closest point possible.  It will be a touch uncomfortable, but this probe will be resting just against your cervix, once you have one, that is.  That’s what the spring and gearing is for – to move the probe into place as your body accommodates.  Don’t worry, it’s lubed up pretty well.”

As Jade contemplated the meaning of that sentence, her knees went weak from glee.

“Okay, once I snap the bra into place, we’re done.”

Another strip of black rubber; this one wrapped around her chest.  Jade realized that it was constructed like a push-up bra.  It was open on the top.  It was also about at least an A cup, which meant that it didn’t quite reach her completely flat chest.

“Don’t worry about that air gap.  You’ll see some arcing of the fields, until you make contact with the inner surface of the sensor mesh there.  And, of course, the rubber will stretch to accommodate you, as you continue to grow.”

By the time Jade was “dressed”, Billie had already taken her place on the rotating stage, and was having sensors clipped onto her fingers and toes.  Billie’s attendant chattered non-stop.  “…so this is only possible because of the new ‘Variable Interface’ technology we got.  We’re able to interconnect devices in ways that were previously impossible.  Even relatively unrelated devices.  The data bandwidth is phenomenal!”

“Hey, Eagan!” Billie snapped, “get over here!  This is important.”

Two silvery robots came forward to finish connecting Jade up.  They directed her to stand on the stage, her back to Billie.  The stage had a small panel that would serve as a backrest for both her and Billie, as well as a connection point for her sensor probes.  Jade heard snatches of the conversation her roommate was having.

“—blood is not merely lethal, it’s explosive!  I mean, super un-fucking-believably explosive.  Exotic matter type explosive, you got me?”

“Right,” he agreed.  “None of this should affect you at all – we’re just doing a ‘read’ on you.  And I’ll filter for the blood, and filter for patterns that diverge too strongly from the baseline norm that we’re beginning to establish.”

“Good, ‘cause they tell me I have a couple of organs that you won’t find anywhere else.”

---

At last, all preparations were complete.  Jade watched as padded brackets were snapped shut over her arms and legs to hold her in place, as the platform rotated.  For the first time, she heard surprisingly deep voice of the third devisor, Knick-knack.

“Initiating rotation,” the older boy called out, flipping a switch.

The platform slowly began to spin.  Jade was up against the center, but that didn’t help as much as she’d like.  She knew that Billie wouldn’t be bothered at least.  Her roommate just ignored unpleasant things like gravity and rotation, moving and behaving as if those pesky physical forces weren’t actually present.

“Excitation current on.”

Jade felt a pinch of current.  It marched down her sides and in her fingertips.  It touched her in intimate locations.

“Gather template data and lock!”

Something new was happening now, only it wasn’t happening to her.  There was a blue glow forming.  It licked out like flames, or some sort of St. Elmo’s fire.  Gradually, it took on more definition, forming a cocoon, but it was only on one side of the stage, pinned in place by a large lighting projector.  As the stage spun, Jade passed into and through the ghostly object.

“Established and firm,” Raphael reported.

“Increasing resolution,” the girl, Kew, called out.

It was hard to see the energy cocoon.  It remained stationary, while Jade came spinning through it.  But abruptly, it began to take on the shape of a tall girl.  Jade thought she recognized Billie’s unique hair, as she swung around through the stationary blue image.

“Lock in!”  Knick-knack shouted.  Then, “Sensitize recipient!”

Now tiny sparks bit at her again, making her twitch and jerk as the pattern of stings traced up and down her sides, her neck, and her legs.

---

Raphael studied the waveforms that represented the body image templates of both subjects.  The technology was still quite crude; there was no way to identify individual characteristics or features.  But they could do blanket waveform mathematics, using baseline data gleaned from all the tests to date.  He studied the two screens, Tennyo on the left and Generator on the right.

“An odd pair,” Knick-knack rumbled.  “Based on these patterns, I wouldn’t even class Tennyo as human.”

“Can we get enough template data for our purposes?” Kew wondered.

“Maybe.  I’ll have to seriously filter the inputs.  Try masking based on the envelope derived from Heartbreaker.”

On the left screen, the displayed wave patterns became much simpler.

“We’ve got problems in the pattern from ‘Generator’ as well,” Raphael observed.  “The signal is filled with noise.  How is that possible?”

Knick-knack studied it.  “Another one that’s hardly human.”  Then he laughed.  “Wait, I get it.  Here, watch this.”

He fiddled with the controls for a second.  Suddenly, the signal broke into two, an upper and a lower signal, superimposed over each other.

Rafael considered the signals, musing aloud, “Could this be…?  But she didn’t say she was an avatar.”

Knick-knack shook his head, “The Signal is too clear, too definite.  I cleaned up the waveform we pulled during Trial Three and it was nothing like this, although…” He trailed off as if he had a flicker of inspiration.

Kew peered at the monitors as she finished her own preparations,  “Huh!  Now the signals look almost too normal.  Well, the lower one, at least.  That’s in the exact normal energy range, too.  The upper signal – what’s that?  It’s way out of band for a normal body image template.”

“We’ll have to ignore it,” Raphael decided.  “We don’t have to power to alter it, anyway.  Now without running a direct tap from the reactor.  Look at the power lock on that.”

“Right,” Knick-knack rumbled.  “Calibrate for the normal range signal, ignore the high band.  Let’s do this.”

---

Jade felt something in the air change.

“Prepare for superimposition!” the older deviser called.

A strobe began to flash.  It flashed once, each time her back was exactly to it.  It flashed again when she faced directly into it.  She realized that there were actually two different strobes.  It was as if one was a pull, somehow, and the other a push.  It was like a huge energy pump.  The platform spun.  Each time Billie faced the bank of projectors, the energy guns blasted her with a pull.  Then the platform turned.  When Jade reached the same position, the guns blasted with a push.  And suspended intangibly, immobile in space was the intangible blue image of Tennyo’s body.

“Initiate transfer sequence!”

The platform spun, faster and faster.  On the backside, a strobe now began operating, sucking something from Jade.  Her essence, her body.  On the front side, another strobe flashed, driving new life into her.  With every turn there was an out, in, and the sensations came faster and closer together.

An electric blue corona now surrounded her entire body.  In her dizziness and nausea, she could barely concentrate, but she suddenly noticed something happening inside the open cups of her bra.  An electric storm was taking place.  Hundreds of tiny lightning bolts formed a firestorm.  Her silver plated nipple was in the center, and the bolts arced to the inner surface of the hollow cup.  Jade felt the energy traveling like sharp jabs, straight through each breast.

A moment later, she felt a similar jab penetrating in between her legs.  The pain was excruciating.  The energy flowed into her, blossoming in a searing, burning orb in the center of her hips.

Now the energy was pulling at her from every appendage of her body – arms, legs, fingers, toes, ears, even her eyes.  The energy clawed at her everywhere.

---

Kew watched from the control stage.  She lowered the tracking goggles over her head.  The telescopic eyepieces were filtered to admit only strobe frequencies so that she could study the change.  A flip of a switch and she saw only the donor.  Everything seemed fine there.  In fact, the donor looked almost bored.  The switch flipped to the other position.  The recipient was writhing in the typical change-induction agony.  That was normal.  What wasn’t normal was that the recipient wasn’t showing much change.  In fact, Kew decided that she wasn’t changing at all.

“No traction,” she reported.  “No alteration of the recipient’s physiognomy.”

“We’re filtering the donor too heavily,” Knick-knack decided.  “Release the stage three filters.”

“Hold it!” Raphael said.  “Her body chemistry is listed as ‘exotic-extreme.’  She told me she has explosive blood – some sort exotic matter, she said.  It’s bad enough to not only blow up the recipient, but to blow up the entire lab, taking us with it.”

Knick-knack just grinned.  “That’s stage two.  Besides, we’re devisers!  We’re supposed to live on the edge.  Release the stage three filters.”

Raphael hesitated, but Kew nodded.  Reluctantly, he snapped of a sequence of switches.

---

If Jade’s throat hadn’t locked up on her, she would have screamed.  The energy jabbing into her increased by a factor of ten, clawing at her insides, stretching and pulling at every inch of her skin.

---

“Nothing.” Kew said.  “No visible changes at all.”

“Are you sure?” Knick-knack demanded.  “That should be impossible!”

“I’m sure.”

“Release the stage two filters.”

“If we do that,” Raphael protested, “she won’t even have her own face!  She’ll be a complete duplicate of the donor.”

“Do it!  Ask yourself, if she had a choice, would she chose this in preference to no results at all.”

Reluctantly, Raphael had to nod.  He’d gotten a fair understanding of Jade’s feelings.  “Releasing stage two filters.”

---

Now the lightning flickered like fire over her face, burning into her eyes, ripping her ears away from her skull.  Despite the agony, Jade could feel it.  She was taller, stronger, female!

---

“No reaction,” Kew reported in astonishment.

Knick-knack smiled, as if contemplating the last battle with a worthy foe.  “Release all filters.  Transmit the entire signal, unaltered.”

Again, Raphael had to protest.  “The exotic matter, the extra organs, that will be transmitting everything!  We’re even going to get some personality overlay, as the brain structures are re-aligned.  And if we lose control of the exotic matter component, even for a nanosecond, we’ll all be killed in the explosion!”

Knick-knack never even looked away from his board.  “Perfect.  This is where the rubber meets the road, my friends.  Ask yourselves – are you devisers?  Or are you just tinkerers, playing around with shiny toys.  Decide!  If you’re ready for the challenge, DO IT!”

With a shaking hand, Raphael turned off the last of the filters.  “Full transfer initiated,” he whispered.

---

She felt herself burning alive.  From somewhere, she heard a voice talking to her, commanding her: “You like her a lot don’t you?  Think about her.  I want to hear you talk like her.  How much can you be like her if you try?”

She tried.  She would be exactly like Billie.  Her… twin?  Her older sister?  Neither was quite right, though she reached for both.

The pain was so intense that she was beyond screaming.  She wanted to scream – anything to release the horrible pain and instability.  The world spun and fire rushed through her body and penetrated into her soul.  She had an image of her brother’s face, Thaddeus.  He was trying to talk to her, and shaking his head, but she couldn’t hear, as the world was overwhelmed in a blinding flare of pain and fire.

Then, there was a face in the fire.  So close she could touch it.  For the first time ever, the face noticed her.  Abruptly, the outside world vanished.  The pain and fire were still out there, but inside, she was far away from all of that.

“You are not the one!” The face seemed angry at first.  “I already have her!  I am her, and no one will take us from each other!”

---

“I’m getting a flare-up!” Kew shouted.  “It’s from the donor!  What the hell is going on?”

Knick-knack grinned.  “Increase power!”

---

Jade had no idea what was going on.  Not knowing how to respond, she just submitted herself and her needs.

“Ah, I see now.  The companion.  I never had need of such.  Go away.”

Jade wouldn’t leave.

“Hmph.  I see some tinge of loyalty.  You have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

Jade was unable to speak, but she could shake her head.  Honestly, she didn’t have any clue about what was going on.  It felt like she was talking to Billie … sort of.  Maybe Billie in one of her mega-grouchy moods.  And more than a little, it felt like she was talking to Sara.  Sara when she exposed her darkest aspects.

“Would you show ME the same loyalty you show HER?  We’re the same, you know.  She may not realize it yet, but we are.”

No, it only felt like Sara.  It was Billie.  She knew that for sure.  She would know that forever.  She tried to understand what was being asked.  Loyalty?  To Billie?  The question was absurd.  Of course.  If only Billie could help her…

But that wasn’t true loyalty, was it?  That was a conditional loyalty.  She was being asked for pure loyalty.  No conditions, no strings.  Even if she never changed, and never could change.  She thought about Billie, and all she had learned of her roommate, all that she owed to her.  All the love she had for her.  It certainly wasn’t sexual.  As stunning as Billie could be in that department, Jade felt only envy, not desire.  And, despite crawling in with Billie when she had nightmares, it wasn’t a mother-child thing.  Not quite.  But if Billie could have only been her sister, her big sister…

Yes, that was a relationship she would grab and hold onto forever.  Loyalty to her big sister forever, no matter what.  And if the scary face was part of Big Sis?  Well, sisters can be like that.  She might never understand everything her older sister did or was.  But she would love her forever, all the same.  Even the scary face.  If it was Billie, she loved the scary face, too.

“You don’t know…  you can’t know…”  But the face seemed taken aback, under the strength of her loyalty.

Jade wouldn’t budge in her feelings.

“Do you have the slightest idea of what I am, and what I demand of you?”

The tone reminded Jade of long discussions with Sara.  Sara had discussed her mark.  “My mark of ownership,” she’d called it.

At one time, Jade had offered to take that and more.  Her price had been a female body.  Her payment would have been her body, her children, and her soul.

Sara had refused, and it had led to a small fight between them.  She wondered if this would feel anything like that.  This time, the scary face had offered no payment at all.  And although Jade’s soul hadn’t been mentioned as part of the bargain, she wondered if it might come to that anyway.  What was she giving?  Her soul?  Her life?  Everything?

But that wasn’t the issue.  The question was, who was asking.  The scary face was doing the talking, but it was Billie.  She felt, and she suddenly saw how they were the same.  It didn’t matter what the face wanted.  This was Billie.

Jade smiled, and accepted completely.

Abruptly, the face smirked.  “I see.  Then I accept, too.”

---

Things were happening too fast at the control stage.

“We have a lock!” Raphael announced in shock.  “Total match, total merge, 100% identity!”

“Power surge in the transfer link!” Kew shouted.  “It’s enough – whoa! – enough to vaporize the cables!”

“Isolate the Modular Component Harness,” Knick-knack ordered.  “That’s the only piece we can’t duplicate!”

With a burst of sparks, an entire bank of electronics along the wall exploded.

The rotating stage gave a creaking groan, then began to spin down.

Miraculously, as the devisers jumped up to unstrap the two subjects, they saw that neither girl was harmed.  On the negative side, though, neither girl had been changed, either.

Billie slapped Kew’s hands away from the rubber bandeau around her chest.  “I can dress myself!  And I’ll do it in private, thank you very much.”

Jade looked in disappointment at her flat chest.  “I felt… I thought…”

“I’m sorry,” Rafael said.  “It failed.  It completely failed.”

“FAILED?”  Knick-knack roared in amusement.  “Hardly!  Look at this place!”  He gestured around at the smoking wreckage.  “We did something great here!”  In a quieter voice he admitted, “I’m not entirely sure what, but it was big, I’m sure of that.  And look!”  He help up a piece of something from the wreckage.  “The Modular Component Harness is completely intact!”

“That’s a relief,” Raphael admitted, speaking to Billie and Jade.  “That’s the only way we’re able to handle the bandwidth required.  The harness is incredible.  If we’d lost that…”

“As it is,” Knick-knack said, “everything else can be replaced.  What do you think?  Two days?”

“I’m sorry,” Jade began.

“Two days!”  Knick-knack insisted.  “I’ll need you both back then.  And this time, we’ll get it right!”

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

“Well,” he explained, “we’ll need to run the power tap from the reactor, first.  Our mistake was in trying to alter the normal-energy signal.  Clearly, her body image template has been shifted to the high energy band.  We’ll need to punch through the energy barrier, but it should work.  What do you say, everyone?  Same time, Wednesday?”

Jade looked toward Billie in growing hope.

“What?  You expect me to go through this— this— perversion again?”  She saw Jade’s face and scowled even harder.  “I want you to know that I wouldn’t do this for ANYone else!”

Jade suddenly recognized the scary face in Billie, and smiled wide.  “Thank you, oneesan!”

---

It was nearly lights-out, when the girls settled in.  Billie had been extravagant, as always, when describing the fiasco.  “Next time, just give me the pelvic exam, instead!”

“Gladly,” Sara purred.

Billie scowled at the demon princess.  “You know what I meant!”

Nikki was thoughtful.  “I’m surprised you’re not more upset, Jade.”

The smallest girl smiled.  “They’re going to try to get it right, on Wednesday.  Besides,” she bounced over to Billie, hugging her arm tightly, “I know my oneesan will be with me.”

“Hey!  Leggo!”

“Oneesan?” Toni asked.

“It means ‘sister,’” Jade informed them.

“Literally,” Sara expanded, “it’s the title used for ‘honored elder sister’.  Appropriate, perhaps.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you two seem a little closer, somehow.”

“You sense it too?” Nikki asked, quietly.

Sara just nodded.

“Hey, it’s almost lights-out,” Jade told them, needlessly.  “See you later tonight, right Sara?”

“Sure.”

The youngest girl bounced into her room, to dress for the night and prepare her other selves.

In her absence, the other girls were left looking at each other.

“So,” Chou asked into the sudden silence, “what really happened down in the lab?”

“I’m not sure,” Billie admitted.  “The machine, or something, felt like it was really getting to me.  I honestly thought it was working.  For just a bit, it was like I could really feel her, you know?  Not telepathic, but maybe deeper in some way.  I thought we were connecting.  I guess,” she looked down “I guess the whole ‘oneesan’ makes a little sense.  After feeling so close to her, even if it was just for a moment, I feel, I don’t know, some sort of relationship.”

Sara and Nikki shared a thoughtful glance.

The quiet was abruptly broken.

“Oneesan!  ONEESAN!”

Everyone thundered into room 202.  There was Jade, facing the cloaked white figure of Shroud.  As Shroud pulled back her hood, everyone suddenly understood.  Shroud’s skin was still chalk-white, her hair was still coal-black, but there was no mistaking that face, that figure, or the distinctive spiky hair.

The pale white duplicate of Tennyo stared at them, and said in Billie’s voice, “I think I know what they did wrong.”

42: The Truth about Jade

November 20, Monday evening, 8:15 PM

“Whoa, hold on here!” Billie said, eyeing her chalk-white duplicate.  “I think one of me is enough.”

Jinn-Tennyo threw back the hood of her cloak and announced in Billie’s voice, “That’s right!  One of us is enough, imposter!”

“Stop it, stop it, time out!” Toni shouted, moving up to Jinn.  “You don’t really believe you’re Billie, do you?  I mean, look at yourself!  You don’t even have a body!  Well, not for real.”

Scowling with Billie’s scowl and talking with Billie’s irritated rasp, Jinn said, “Way to spoil the classic mood, sempai!  Don’t you know that when this sort of thing happens, the unwitting duplicate always has to fight the original!  It’s in the rulebook or something.”

Billie pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Couldn’t we just arm wrestle?  I really don’t think we should trash the room.”

Jinn took up a matching stance, mimicking Billie’s floating position, body language, and movements with disturbing accuracy.  “Yer on, oneesan!  Uh, I mean, duplicate imposter!”

The two Tennyos clasped hands – one flesh and blood (even if it was exotic blood), the other a surface outlined in chalk dust.  With the first flex of her arms, the real Tennyo flipped her ghostly duplicate up and over, to splat against the wall.

“Ooookay,” Jinn admitted.  “I guess I didn’t get your strength.  How about the zap-stuff?  How do you make the sword?”

“Our room, remember?” Billie reminded her.  “Let’s forget about the sword.  Maybe just a little glow.”  She held up her hand, which was suddenly outlined in crimson, like St. Elmo’s Fire.  “Try this.  This should be relatively safe.”

“Right,” Jinn agreed eagerly.  “Uh, how?”

“You just… I don’t know.  Push some energy into your hand.  Not too much, just a teeny flicker.”

Jinn held out her hand and concentrated.  “Is it working?  Cause I’m not getting that weird ripple effect that you’re making.”

Jade smacked herself in the face, realizing that Jinn couldn’t see the light.  “Her hand is glowing,” she explained to her other self.

“Oh.  Am I glowing?”

“No.”

“Well, what other powers do you have, oneesan?”

Billie was obviously feeling a bit less worried now.  “Let’s see, I can fly…”

“Check,” Jinn responded in the same voice.

“…I can ignore gravity…”

“Check.”

“…walk on the ceiling and stuff…”

“Check.”

“…I’m stunningly attractive…”

“Check.”

The other girls gave a bit of a double take at this, but Billie continued blithely on.

“…I can see in the dark…”

“Check.”

“…I have mind control powers…”

“Che—What?  You don’t have mind control powers!”

“Just testing if you’re paying attention.  Hmm, what else?  I have caustic semi-explosive blood…”

“Nope.  No blood.”

“…and I can do energy blasts and the sword.”

“Nope.  That was a bust.”

Toni, at least, had been paying attention.  “Okay, so to summarize, nothing has changed!”

“How can you say that?” Jade demanded.  “Look at me!”  She gestured at Jinn while she said that.  “I look completely different!  I sound different!  How am I supposed to go to school tomorrow?”

Chou finally spoke up.  “Can you change back?”

Jinn paused.  “Good question.”  She closed her eyes, and after a moment, her entire body seemed to shake.  But there was no change.  She dropped off her black cloak and clothing, as her chalk body suddenly spun into a tornado-like vortex.  She compressed down to a small blot of compressed black and white dust, then expanded back into a person again.  But still, she looked like a ghostly duplicate of Tennyo.

“Do you mind?” Billie shouted.  “That’s my body!  I’d rather not be flashing my boobs to everyone who walks by.”

“What a grouch,” Jade complained.  “It’s not like you don’t waltz around the room in the buff yourself.”

Nikki took a quick look out the door, and upon spotting Hank, Jamie, and others drawn out by the commotion, she kicked the door closed.

“Okay, let’s think this out,” Sara suggested.  “I know that Jinn is supposed to be Jade’s Body Image Template.  If the machine copied Billie’s BIT over the top of Jinn, it should have overwritten her the BIT, making a Jinn a physical copy of Billie – or as close as you could manage.  Which is exactly what we’ve seen.  So what’s the problem, and why would you think you could change back?”

 

“But how am I going to show up for class tomorrow?”

Toni shrugged.  “Hey, it’s Whateley.”

“But you’ve changed your BIT before,” Billie reminded both her roommates.

“Of course,” Jinn and Jade responded together.  Jade continued alone, “I used self-hypnosis to convince myself I should look older.  That was part of what proved that Jinn was my BIT.”

“Give me a try.”  Floating in the air, Jinn folded her feet into a full lotus, and assumed a triangular meditation pose.

“Oh, geez,” Billie protested.  “Get a loincloth!”

“No good,” Jinn announced.  “You do it.”  She flew down to her clothes to retrieve a small, black velvet pouch.  Swirling into a miniature tornado again, her powder swirled back into the pouch.  The pouch then dropped into Jade’s hand as Jinn vanished.

Jade sat down on her bed, and seemed to nervously play with her hands while she concentrated and mumbled to herself.  After a minute, she summoned Jinn up again.  The velvet pouch rose into the air and then erupted into a fog of white and black dust which then coalesced into … Billie.  A naked Billie, once more.

“This is interesting,” Sara said.  “Maybe it was different for the rest of you, but I arrived late on the scene.  I accepted your whole explanation of Jinn at face value, and never considered it too closely.  Not until now.  But it doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?” Jade and Jinn both asked.  It was unexpected to hear Jade speaking in synch with Billie, which is what it sounded like now.

Sara walked to Jade’s bed and picked up the toy lion.  “Hey, didn’t this used to be tan?”

“That’s Kimba,” Jade explained.  “The real one.  Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba.”

“Oh.”  The pale Goth girl glanced at her own skin, the white lion, and the chalk-white figure of Jinn.  “I like it.”

Under her breath, Toni muttered that the place needed more color.

“The point is this,” Sara continued.  “If Jinn is just an animated BIT, how can she animate the toy lion?  How does she inhabit things like the blanket, or other objects?”

“Well I just—”  Jade stopped with her mouth open.  “—I just do it.”

Sara held out the lion toy.  “Okay.  Just do it.  Only take the chalk powder with you, when you charge the lion.”

 

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

A moment later, the toy Kimba was animated and standing on the bed, coated in a thick layer of chalk dust.  “How’s this?” he squeaked.

“Ah ha!”  Sara sounded vindicated.

“What?”

“Jinn, ‘drop’ the toy, but keep the chalk dust.”

“If you say so.”

The stuffed toy slumped to the bed, while the chalk outline slowly pulled away from it.  “How’s this?” it squeaked in repetition.

“Now that was weird,” Nikki said.  “It looked like astral projection for toys.”

“Oh,” Toni said in sudden realization.  “I get it.”

Sara smirked.  “Uh huh.  Now, you’re holding that shape entirely on your own.  Why do you look like Kimba?  Why don’t you look like Billie?”

The lion paused in consternation.  After a moment, it closed its eyes and contracted to a point.  An instant later, the chalk cloud expanded back outward, assuming Billie’s shape again.  “Bingo.”  Her voice was Billie’s as well.

“And can you go back?” Sara asked, casually.

‘Billie’ closed her eyes and contracted into a point.  This time the cloud expanded back into a small toy lion.  “It works,” the lion squeaked.

“And can you go back to being Jade?”

This time the cloud didn’t contract into a point, it just smoothly flowed.  It expanded and stretched until a naked white 17-year-old Jade stood in front of them.  “I did it!”  She spoke in her own voice, and seemed surprised at herself.

“But how did you know?” Jade asked.

Sara shrugged.  “Like I said, the whole ‘BIT projection’ explanation was interesting, but it didn’t quite fit the abilities you displayed.  You told me that when Jinn ‘grew up’ she ripped through the costume she was wearing at the time.  So why didn’t the lion toy get ripped?  And to be honest, it was mostly a lucky guess.”

Jinn was dressing again, but Jade continued to follow the thread of discussion.  “So I’m still not sure if I get it.  What does this mean?  That I’ve got Billie’s BIT, and mine, and a toy lion?  Toys don’t have BITs.”

“No, no, no,” Sara stated authoritatively.  “They’ve been telling you that you were some sort of repressed exemplar, and that Jinn was your BIT.  Don’t you see?  That theory was wrong.  You weren’t a repressed exemplar at all.”

“But the BIT-slicer worked – at least partly.”

Sara nodded.  “Of course it did.  Because you’re actually a repressed shapeshifter.”

43: UnderUnder wear

November 20, Monday evening, Midnight

One of Jade’s great advantages was that she had enough time.  Most people talked about how they never had enough hours in the day, but she had more than enough.  And there was always one of her that was free to just think about things.  It was starting to affect her behavior, since, as Jade (physical Jade), she often didn’t bother to think deeply about things.  Jade’s job was to be alert and react quickly and properly.  Jann could watch and think.

Right now she was Jamie the SpySpeck, but maybe she should think of herself as Jann, since she was busy thinking, and that was usually Jann’s job.

After curfew, the students were supposed to be asleep in their beds.  The cottage was locked down.  Those restrictions couldn’t contain a SpySpeck, though, and she drifted under doors and out a crack in the sunroom.  Moments later she was floating in the air, high above a quiet and sleepy campus.

Her self-image had taken a major shock, and she’d been holding off thinking about it.  It was time to face the issue.

She was a girl.  She wanted that.  She needed it to be true.

When she’d first come to Whateley, it had been greatly comforting to learn that she was an exemplar.  If her BIT was female, then she was meant to be female.  It was just something that was.  There was a mystery about why she didn’t change to match her bit, but that would be solved in time.  She knew what she wanted, and she knew what was meant to be, and they were the same.

But a shapeshifter?  She could be anything or nothing.  What did it matter?  Was that why she hadn’t aged, was it a shapeshifting power?  Had she subconsciously frozen her body shape?  And when she was fully trained, would she be able to change gender as easily as she could now shift between her own shapes and Billie’s form?

That was wrong.

She didn’t want to be a boy.  She didn’t mind that other people were boys, but for her own identity she needed to be a girl – always and forever.

Was that very freedom something that scared her?  Is that why she couldn’t use her powers?

It was something to think about, but fortunately, she had the time.

There was one other issue that she’d been avoiding.

When she’d accepted Sharisha’s dare and the invitation to the hot tub party, she’d been hoping the BIT-slicer would work and that she’d be going as a girl.  It sounded like the BIT-slicer might still work, but not in time for the party.  And she had every reason to believe that Sharisha and her friends would be scrutinizing her closely for any oddities.  Her “tuck” was good enough for the gym showers, but she was careful to keep herself covered whenever possible, and to keep in motion when she was in the showers.  The hot tub would be entirely different.

It was a shame that she couldn’t go as Jinn.  Experimenting with shapechanging had shown that she could shift between her seventeen year old body and her eleven year old body, or anything in between.  With the plastic skin from costume lab, she could recreate herself as Jade, only female.

But the girls in Poe knew her tricks.  They were sure to spot that, weren’t they?  And if they did, not only would it blow the cover she’d created for Jinn, it would make the questions about Jade a hundred times worse.

And then she got the idea…

---

The bell rang for the end of costume class, but Jinn didn’t leave.  She stayed into the lab room, pre-arranged and pre-reserved.  She attended the simmering pot of plastic flesh.

A moment later, Jade came into the room and cast Jann into the pot of plastic skin.

There wasn’t enough to do a whole-body casting, but she didn’t need that.  She watched as Jann pushed the material around to where they needed it.

Like a manikin, a set of hips formed in mid-air.  Just the first inch or two of thigh was visible.

“That spot right there has the pink tinting,” Jade said.  “See it?”

The material difference was barely visible to Jinn, but she saw the plastic shift and move and the material shifted itself around.  The floating hips spread their legs wide, giving plenty of exposure and air to the area they were concentrating on.

“You got the glue?” Jade asked.

“We’ve got the two-hour, twelve-hour, and permanent.”  She reminded herself.  “Which?”

“You think the collection tube will work?”

Jinn nodded to reassure herself.  Even if the tube failed, or the glue failed, she could hold everything with telekinesis.

“Permanent, then.”  Jade quickly locked the door and then, lifting her skirt, she stepped out of her panties.  “Let’s do it now!”

“The plastic’s still hot.  We could get burned.”

Jade rolled her eyes, but the glow of emotions on her face was even more evocative.  Impatience, desperation, need, anticipation.  They quickly assembled the needed pieces, which Jinn trimmed the plastic hip flesh carefully with scissors and threaded the urethral tube in place.  Then, Jade squatted with knees wide, Jann cast into the different parts, and Jinn supervised as everything came together.

Jinn watched the collection cuff as it wrapped and glued itself tight around her body’s boy-part.  Then the tuck, with more glue to hold everything in place, permanently.  Then the final cosmetic, as the plastic prosthetic smoothed itself into place over her now female-appearing crotch.  Jinn took a brush and painted still-liquid plastic over the joint between the prosthetic and her body’s flesh.  She couldn’t miss the red glows of pain coming from her body’s flesh, as she did so.

“Hurt?”

“A bit.  How do I look?”

“Stay like that for a second while you dry.”

Jade was in about the most obscene pose imaginable, squatting with her knees so far apart.

“Don’t know what it looks like in color,” Jinn admitted, “but you look perfect.”

“Really?  Hand me the mirror!” Jade demanded eagerly.

---

November 21, Tuesday evening, 6:30 PM

James was prompt for the rendezvous outside the cafeteria.  The dinner crowd was still flowing in and out.  They all avoided him, of course.  When Jade arrived, he mentally classed her attitude as something between proud and defiant.

As she came up, Jade stopped.  She didn’t come into his “uncomfortable zone.”  No one ever did, if they could help it.  James wanted to ask her about Jinn’s unbelievable comment of the previous day, but he didn’t know how to start.

In silent, mutual agreement, they stepped around the corner and out of sight.  After glancing around, Jade held out a small white plastic box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

“Okay, absorb her from this, then charge her back, okay.  For as long as you can, okay?  And whatever images you see – I don’t care!  You don’t know what it’s like, and I’m going to do whatever I have to become what I was meant to be!  I kept your secret, and you’ve kept mine until now, so I’m trusting you, okay?”

He wasn’t going to get a better opening than that.  “Is it true, then?  You’re not trying to turn into a boy?”

She suddenly looked utterly dumbfounded.  “Why would I want to stay a boy?  Wait, you thought I was a girl, trying to turn into—?”

He nodded.

For a moment, she didn’t seem to know how to react.  Her mouth squirmed around as if unsure whether to laugh or cry.  Then she thrust out the box.  “Here!  Do your thing, okay?”

James reached out to grab the box.  This was so unusual.  He usually tried so hard not to absorb things.  Now he was going to do it on purpose.  He touched the box and – it was different.  Very different.  Usually the spiritual contact with immediate, too close, too intimate.  This was close, yet far.  There was a barrier in the way, like the paper wall of an oriental house.  A barrier he could see and feel, but with the least pressure he had ripped through it and taken the spirit inside like a vicious brute takes a helpless maiden.  He hated that about himself.

But she came to him willingly, flowing into him and filling him in a complete reversal of his previous tone.  She filled him, and he accepted her within him.  And the images flowed fluidly between them –

– a monster with her wings wrapped tight around her shoulders lay in a box that was as large as a coffin and as small as a fist – a Whateley Academy business card, and on the back was written “Melodious Silvertongue, class of ‘87.” – a machine held her, sending jolts of power through her body as she spun – a glimpse of the Halloween attack, as a huge figure in powered armor raced toward her – a slightly plump black girl yelling terrible things into her face: “What’s a boy doing wearing skirts like that?  Are you a pervert or some sort of diaper sissy?” – a strange symbol at the end of a tunnel, associated with utter terror – having a fantasy about a slim girl named Lily – a hairy fist punched her face and she felt great satisfaction as her face snapped shut like a bear trap – a naked man sitting on the edge of the bed telling her, “you are without a doubt the best fuck I have ever had” – she reached with a paintbrush toward Jade’s utterly exposed privates, as if to apply some sort of cosmetic down there –

Reeling under the onslaught of images, James thrust the spirit back into the box, with all the force he could muster.

“You good?” Jade asked innocently, apparently unaware of the disturbingly powerful and personal images he’d just seen.  But apparently she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to the box, which lifted into the air and bobbed momentarily, before abruptly vanishing.

“Thank you so much!”  Jade swung open her arms to hug him, but James stepped back.

“Uh, yeah.”  He wasn’t sure he could stand another blast of images like the last one.  Not so soon.  “I … I hope things work out for you.”

As the girl practically bounced away, he was left more confused than ever.  He’d seen the images.  He’d felt the memories.  So how could she possibly think she was a boy?

---

Jinn … no, she was Lazuli in this body.  She maneuvered the small box through the network of old pneumatic tubes.  It was amazing, some of the stuff that riddled the underground.  The end of the tube exited in the base of the statue, exactly as promised.  She slid upward, through the sole of the foot, and traveled up the inside of the hollow leg.

She was inside a hollow stone shell.  Now came the tricky part.

Thuban’s tiny box was the key.  She didn’t know whether it was magic or technology or something even stranger.  Perhaps it didn’t matter.  The box worked, that was the important thing.  The outside was no larger than a pack of cigarettes, while the inside was as large as a small closet.  It wasn’t spacious, particularly for her gargoyle body, but fortunately she wasn’t subject to muscle cramps.

The magic (or whatever) happened at the opening to the box.  On the inside, things were small.  On the outside, they were large.  And just at the mouth of the “cigarette pack” was where the change happened.  There was a field there, a surface or something.  Matter passed though that zone like light went through a lens.  Stretching an arm up out of the closet caused that arm to return to its real size and weight, expanding like light through a magnifying glass.  The effect was perfectly smooth.  Looking from the inside only, she wouldn’t have even realized that she wasn’t floating up through a large hatch.  Looking from the outside, she saw the arm suddenly appearing, almost from nothing.  But looking from the inside and outside simultaneously, she could see the boundary layer, where the change occurred.

As she clambered out of her holding box, she looked around.  She was inside a small hollow cavern.  It was strangely contoured, and she heard the echo of explosions and shouting, although somewhat muffled.

Fortunately, she knew where she was.  This was a statue of her.  That is, a hollow status of Lazuli.  It was standing in the back of the theater, and the action scene that was currently playing should cover any noise she might make.  Her job was to slip into place inside the statue, and wait for her cue.

Even with the shrinkifying box, it was a trick.  Her wings were the main issue – slipping them into place required some genuine concentration.  Fortunately, she was able to switch to object mode, tugging at pulling at each corner of her body separately, until she just fit.

After that, she sit there and listened, awaiting her cue.

Her hearing was muffled inside her stony shell, but she heard the movie end, and shortly after that she heard Thuban as he came closer.

“…might appreciate a bit of a novelty.  As you will sssee, thisss work is obviously inspired by the ssshow we were just watching.  Of course, this is nothing but a prop.  This certainly isn’t a real gargoyle – if those even exist.  But perhapsss with the magic of hope, and Hollywood, and perhaps a bit of our own Whateley touch, we might imagine that this lifelessss ssstatue is just a bit more.  I present, for the adornment of the Faction Three Theater, our new mascot: Lazuli.”

She felt a slight vibration, and there was a sound, as if a cloth was being pulled off of a statue.

There was scattered applause.

“Do you all approve of our massscot?”

There were generally positive murmurs.

“Then letsss ask Lazuli to join usss.  Lazuli: awaken!”

And that was her cue.  She flexed her wings first, cracking the fake stony covering.  Flexing her shoulders and legs spread the cracks, and then one mighty heave broke the covering free, spraying bits of grit in a wide circle around her.  She stretched her arms and wings wide and pressed the “roar” effect button on her voice box, simulating that she had just awakened.  Then, belatedly looking around, she allowed herself to notice the debris-covered crowd around her.

“Oops,” she said.  “Sorry about that, but it serves you right, standing so close to someone who’s waking up.”

The emotions were mixed in the crowd around her.  Some were blasé, having expected something of the sort.  Most displayed a certain amount of surprise.  One even blazed with incandescent joy and hope.

She snapped wide her wings and fanned them for a moment, blowing loose the last of the debris, then used the loft to hop off the pedestal and drop to the ground.  Once her elongated feet were planted, she furled her wings and wrapped the wings around herself like a leathery cloak.

“Have I been gone long?  This doesn’t look like Salem.  Those uptight humans aren’t still running wild, are they?”

Thuban stepped up.  “Things have changed considerably.  But these people are the important and influential ones that you’ll need to meet.  Allow me to begin the introductions.”

“Wow,” she said appreciatively, “not a bad looking bunch, either!”

---

She was thankful for her fine memory.  She’d need it, to even have a hope of keeping the faces and names straight.  The wider variety of physical forms didn’t always help, either.  Some of the Faction Three kids had easy-to-remember code name, like Armadillo, but others preferred to use their real names.

She’d gathered an initial crowd after her entrance, and after that she had circulated around, doing her best to fulfill what she thought of as Thuban’s goal – getting the girls and guys to mix it up a bit.

At the moment, she had a trio of girls around her – Jana, Sted, and Tool.  The girls were apparently drawn together because they were all shapeshifters of a sort. The first two girls were both human-horse hybrids; Jana was a traditional centaur wearing an incongruously normal T-shirt on her upper human half, while Sted was a pony-girl, roughly humanoid but with equine legs, feet and hooves.  Sted’s halter, shorts, and hoof-boots seemed designed to emphasize her differences, rather than concealing them.  Tool was odder than either of her two companions.  She almost looked like a “Jawa” from Star Wars, hunched over within her hooded robe.  And whatever her body was like within the robe, it seemed to be in a fairly low level of shifting and alterations, since the robe’s few openings displayed hands, tentacles, or claws at various points, and the facial opening allowed the occasional glimpse of eyestalks.  Once, Jinn-Lazuli got a full glimpse into the hood, and saw her own face reflected within (or rather, the face of Lazuli).

“Okay, what’s really going on?”  Tool demanded.  “I know you didn’t go to sleep during the Salem witch trials.”

“Really?  How do you know that?”

“It’s just that Thuban was so cagey.  He hinted that you were… I don’t know…”

“What?”

“Well, a prop or something.  A fake.  Not real.”

Jinn-as-Lazuli did her best to laugh.  “Oh, come on.  Feel my hand!  It’s real, isn’t it?  I’m as real as any of the other gargoyles you’ve heard of.”  She let her voice get a bit more serious.  “But does it really matter?  What if I was a fake?  A moment ago I was talking to those two boys over there.  There were convinced that I was a ‘ro-bot,’ which I understand is some sort of clockwork soldier.  So?  What if I was?  What’s more important, what’s inside of me, or the way I look on the outside?”

“True,” nodded Jana.

She couldn’t see Tool’s face, to spot a smile, but there was a glow of pleasure from inside the hood.  Jinn assumed it was in reaction to her backward cliché.

She chatted with the trio a bit longer, interested that Jana claimed not to be a shifter, despite being a centaur.

“No, I’m not an exemplar or anything,” the girl said, confusing the issue further.  “I’m just a centaur today.”

“Okay…”  She wanted to follow up, but the Tool girl had been grilling her almost non-stop, so when another boy moved past them, she turned to him in relief.  The trio of girls backed off.

“Hi there!” she greeted enthusiastically.  “I’m Lazuli!”

“Skinner,” he mumbled back.

“Nice name,” she agreed.  “Does it mean anything?”

He stared back with distrust.  “You’re kidding, right?  You don’t need to mock me.”

“Uh… I don’t?”

She could see his emotions swirl down from anger to suspicious puzzlement.

“Are you serious?” he finally asked.  “You really don’t get it?”

“Sorry,” she confessed.

With a malicious tinge to his aura, he thrust a hand out.  “Okay, I forgive you.  Shake on it.”

She shrugged.  He didn’t seem to have the “feel” of an avatar.  Even if he was one, she thought she was solidly anchored to the gargoyle-body.  It would take an avatar Hercules as powerful as James to pull her out of this body.

“Okay.”

As soon as their hands touched, she felt something unusual.  Not the avatar-pull she’d been guarding against.  This was sort of a pressure in her hand, but different.  it was almost a burning sensation.  She realized that her spirit form didn’t have the reflexes to yank away, not like her real body had.

“Hey!  That’s pain!  I mean, I’m feeling real pain!”  Her voice was excited, rather than outraged.

The reaction seemed to confuse Skinner, who also seemed surprised that she hadn’t dropped her grip.  Abruptly, the pain faded.

“Awww,” she said, “I was actually feeling that!”

“Okay,” he admitted.  “You’re pretty different.  So, you have problems feeling things?”

She hadn’t spilled her secrets for Tool, she wasn’t going to do it for this guy, either.  “Uh, sort of.  Figures, doesn’t it?  Stone skin and all.  Is that why they call you Skinner?  You burn people’s skin?”

“Well, it’s mostly because of my transparent skin,” he admitted.  “That’s what freaks most people out.  I hardly ever get close enough to show off the touch power.”

“Oh.”  She suddenly understood.  Her spirit-vision gave her mostly shapes and densities.  She had no way of knowing that his skin was transparent to visual sight.  But it was a shame that she couldn’t get something out of his touch powers.  “Yeah, I guess most people wouldn’t be all that eager for it.  So what do you do?  My hand doesn’t look like it was harmed.”

“It goes with the clear skin,” he explained.  “Hyper-extended nerve endings.  I can connect to your peripheral nerves to feel whatever you feel, or reverse the effect, to force a sense of touch onto other people.”

“Interesting!  Can you do anything besides that burning feeling?”

He shrugged.  “I can’t do anything very complicated.  It’s not like I can really do tactile illusions, but I can do burning, simple pain, pressure, warmth, cold, stuff like that.”

Jinn nodded.  “Combined with some hand-to-hand skills, that might be pretty good for stunning or disabling someone.”  Her eyes widened.  “Hey, you can do pain, can you do … pleasure?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve gotten a chance to test that, is it?  Why, do you want to kiss me and find out?”

She’d wanted a chance to be more flirtatious, and she doubted that a better opportunity would ever come along.

“Sure!” she announced.

The actual doing of it proved more awkward, though.  As she approached and reached for the boy, her wings lifted out, making her larger and more intimidating.  Skinner backed away slightly.  Then, when Jinn put her hands (talons, really) on his shoulders, he didn’t seem to know what to do.  So she pulled him forward, and tried to press her mouth up to his.

She wasn’t an experienced kisser.  In fact, she’d only really kissed once before.  As their lips pressed together, she was briefly disappointed to feel only the pressure.  She would have felt as much kissing a statue.  Then, something tingled at the surface of her lips.  Like a spot of ink dropping into clear water, it began with a single point, then rapidly expanded across the surface of her body.  Her lips felt his.  The softness of his lips, the texture of them, the human warmth held within, the pulse of his heartbeat – and her own.  Like a wave it washed over her, bringing her entire body to life.

She never noticed his hand touching her bare midriff, but as it moved up to stroke the outside of her halter, she expected his magic not to work.  After all, there was leather between his hand and her delicate flesh.  But she felt the touch on her breast as if his skin was stroking hers directly.  Her nipple, both her nipples, tightened with painful urgency.  The skin of her belly tingled with the need of his strokes, the tip of her tail sparked with delight, the socket where her wings seated was stroked and massaged in just the right way, there was the strangest tightening (or was it a loosening?) from inside her hips, phantom goose bumps ran up her arms, and her hair seemed to be standing on end.

The symphony of unexpected sensations was completely overwhelming.  Not realizing that she’d let go, she toppled backward.  She would have fallen on her butt, if not for her tail providing an unanticipated support, and her wings unfurling to brake her fall.

“Oh … my … GOD.”

“What’d I do?”  Skinner cried miserably.  “Are you okay?”

Jinn looked up, still feeling after-tingles and touches in places that weren’t even real, like the skin of her leathery wings.  She noticed Skinner looking fearful, and Thuban turning in their direction with an angry and alarmed expression.

“Whoa, whoa, settle down!”  With a wing flap, she pulled herself back to her feet and placed her taloned hands (somewhat cautiously) on Skinner’s shoulders.  “Stay right here.  Don’t move, don’t do anything!”

Turning around, she saw Jana the centaur girl.  Jinn almost ran to her.

“Jana!  Come here!  I need you to test something out, right now!”  She grabbed the half-girl and pulled her close.  “I need you to kiss this boy to test something out.”

Jana pulled back, looking at her like she was crazy.  “Kiss him?  Are you serious?  What’s going on?”

“Just do it!  Just for a minute!  Please?”

The horse-girl reluctantly allowed herself to be dragged over to Skinner.  By now, Thuban had arrived, as well as a slowly gathering crowd.  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Just a little test,” Jinn explained.  “Everyone, please give us room.”  She turned to Skinner and spoke in a low, confidential whisper.  “Okay, this is my friend Jana.  I want you to kiss her, the way you did me.  Only maybe, not so much oomph.  At least, not to start with.  Work up to it.”

Skinner had a look of mixed terror and desperate hope, as he awkwardly approached the centaur girl.  “Uh, hi, I’m Skinner.  Is it … uh … okay if I, I don’t know, kiss you?”

Jana looked equally embarrassed by the growing crowd.  “I guess.”  She awkwardly held her arms halfway out, as if unsure what to do.

Skinner stepped forward and clumsily touched his lips to hers.  For a moment there was no reaction, then Jana began to wrap her arms more tightly around the boy, while his hands began to roam upward under the centaur’s t-shirt.  As everyone watched, shivers seemed to wrack Jana’s body, and then her hair stood up in a wave that started at the nape of her neck, jumped to her bare back and traveled down her horse-half spine, and ended in her tail which flicked straight out and then began flicking up and down in a spasmodic pattern.  Hooves clattering on the hard floor, the centaur stumbled backward before collapsing on her rump.

Jinn stuck her head in close to Jana’s.  She’d intended to be confidential, but hadn’t reckoned on a half-dozen busybody girls joining the impromptu conference.

“So was it good?”  Jinn-Lazuli demanded.

The centaur’s eyes were still dazed.  “Good doesn’t even begin…”

“Tingly everywhere?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Felt it in the chest?”

“I didn’t know nipples got that hard!”

“Moisture problems down below?”

“Is it that obvious?”

One of the other girls broke in at that.  “No way!  Skinner?”

“Don’t believe us?” Jinn challenged.  “Try him.”

The mass movement of girls to surround Skinner wasn’t quite a stampede, but it did effectively cut him off from being able to talk to any other males.  After a few minutes, and many stunned and helpless girls, Jinn gathered the wobbly survivors together in a quick huddle.

“You all felt it?” she asked, unnecessarily.

“God, yes!”

“What a power!”

“Almost makes up for the freaky looks.”

“You know,” one of the girls casually mentioned, “it would be a crime against womankind if that boy doesn’t get laid tonight.  Just as a scientific experiment, of course.”

Jinn watched the auras of all the girls in the circle bloom in embarrassment and intrigue, as they contemplated the implications.  If they’d experienced a short kiss, what would it be like to have his entire skin in contact with theirs – in the most intimate fashion?

“I think we need some rules, girls,” Jinn interrupted.  “Whoever does this better be doing it as the real thing.  I mean, boyfriend, real relationship, hand-in-hand in public on the way to classes, kissing in public, the whole bit.  Agreed?”

Around her, the girls all looked at one another, assessing the competition.

“What about you?” one of them asked.  “You were first.”

Jinn grinned back.  “Nice as he is, he’s a bit too ordinary for me.  I prefer my men to be a touch more exotic.”

“Girl, the touch don’t get any more exotic than what that boy’s got.”

“That’s for sure!”

“So are you really out of the running?”

Jinn sighed.  “You heard my introduction.  I’m not really … real.  Not like this.  I’m just the icebreaker, not competition.”

“Good enough for me!”  And in moments, the huddle vanished.

Jinn stood looking after them, with more than a touch of bemusement.  In truth, her mind was a wild whirl of thoughts.  Out of the blue, she’d found a boy who could make her a woman.  She might have a completely artificial body, but Skinner had just shown her that he could make it feel real.  And although it would have no chance of getting her pregnant, the experience would undoubtedly change her in a permanent way.

But… she was too young.  Even if the BIT slicer changed her real body, she didn’t see herself going all the way until… when?  Not for a few years, at least.  Of course, if she were a real girl, who knew how she might be tempted?  Skinner’s kiss had been very… interesting.  But she wanted a chance to treasure her virginity, before she finally gave it to someone.  And when she did give it up, it wasn’t going to be to some boy that was just a good kisser.  It was going to be to her True Love.  The person who would cherish her, curl with her in bed, hold her when she was scared and help hold her high when she was inspired.  The person who would put her children into her, and become a parent with her.   And she sure wasn’t ready for that yet!  No matter how good a kisser he was.

“Are you sure you’re only fourteen, Jade?  That thought is rather mature for such a young girl.”

Startled, she looked to the side to see an incongruously normal man, standing there in linen slacks, a smoking jacket, and wearing an ascot at his neck.  There was something else odd about him.  It took her a moment before she realized that he was in color, while everything else, aside from auras, was black and white.

“Pardon me.  I forgot about your vision.”  Immediately his image changed to match the rest of the world – a black and white image, with a colored aura appearing a moment later.

“How—?”

“Telepathic projection,” the man explained.  “None of the others is noticing us right now, and even if they did I’m projecting my words directly into your brain.  Well, your spirit, I suppose, in your case.”

“You’re a telepath?”  And behind that question was the immediate fear, Does he know my secret?

“Yes, and yes.  The whole ‘Jared’ thing in the past?  You shouldn’t worry about that too much.  I’m no precog, but this is Whateley.  I’m sure you’ll find a solution that works for you.”

Emotions in her spirit-form didn’t have quite the toxic spike that they sometimes held when she was in her physical body.  Even so, hearing someone casually taking in public about “the whole ‘Jared’ thing” was enough to brown out her vision in anxiety.

The man continued on as if she wasn’t in a total emotion meltdown.  “But I really wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself, and to give you a pat on the back for your little discovery and performance back there.  Up until a few minutes ago, Skinner was a perpetual blight on the emotional landscape.  Glance over at him and I think you’ll see how he’s lightening up.”

Jinn looked without turning her head, glancing at the complex aura of the boy.  There were strands of many different elements – wonder, anxiety, happiness.  It was difficult to pay full attention, in the throes of her anxiety.

“If what I see in the surface thoughts of you and the other girls is true, our depressed loner is about to become the most popular stud on campus.  Or at least, the most popular man in the Faction Three crowd.  I think we’re witnessing a classic Frog Prince moment.  You even triggered it with a kiss.”

“I thought telepaths kept themselves from reading other people’s minds.”  She tried to keep the resentment out of her voice.

The man beside her nodded.  “True, true.  And I do my best.  It’s just that my powers are several orders of magnitude above any other human, and even when I hold myself back it’s impossible not to hear the surface thoughts of nearly everyone around me.  Or around my projection.”

He looked at her again.  “You can calm down, you know.  I told you, no one can eavesdrop on what I’m saying to you, although they might hear your replies.  And although I may know your darkest secret, I’m not going to reveal it to anyone.  Besides, compared to the secrets that some people here are hiding, yours is innocent enough to be quite endearing.”

Jinn began to walk toward one of the more deserted corners, away from the crowd around Skinner, and steering clear of the small clusters of people.  “Look, I don’t even know your name!  Who are you, and what do you plan to do with this knowledge?”

He gave her a disarming smile.  “I’m sorry, I never really introduced myself.  They call me Fubar.  A rather rude acronym, and a bit too accurate.  ‘Gross structural deformity’ doesn’t begin to cover my case.  I couldn’t survive outside the sealed environment tank that’s installed in the Hawthorne sub-basement.  I haven’t physically moved from the site for nearly two decades.”

Jinn suddenly remembered.  “Oh, yeah!  Toni Sensei told me about you.  Twenty years, and you’re still a student?”

He gave a tolerant smile.  “Hardly.  I’m the senior instructor in telepathy and kinetics.  I also consult with several police and international intelligence agencies, although for anything other than a phone call, they need to travel up here.  I have a small office set up a bit outside of Berlin, just at the edge of my range.  But I didn’t come to talk about me.”

Jinn said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

Fubar sighed.  “The only reason I revealed my knowledge about your secret was so that you could relax and talk to me.”

“I’m perfectly happy playing the role I’ve chosen,” she informed him tightly.  “Bringing up a person’s greatest fear isn’t the best way to relax them.”

“Sometimes it is,” he said.  “For many of the Faction Three crowd, what they want is to be accepted despite their differences.  And let me add that the role that you’re comfortable in, Jinn, isn’t the role you’re playing now, is it Lazuli?”

She exhaled in resignation.  “What’s the use?  So many people know my secret now, I wonder if it’s even worth trying to keep it a secret?  Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I’d be better off just revealing the truth.”

Fubar suddenly took on an extremely concerned look.  “No, I wouldn’t go that far.  If I might show you a memory…?”  He held his hand out in offering.

Not sure what was going on, Jinn reached out her clawed gargoyle hand in acceptance.  The moment she touched his hand, reality vanished, and she was in the memory.

…

It was as if she was an insubstantial observer, and the scene was happening now, right in front of her.

Two heroic figures fought against a demonic monster.  They were in the center of campus, but some notable buildings were missing.  She realized that she must be seeing a memory from decades in the past.

The boy looked like a blond exemplar, wearing a skintight white costume with a black seven-pointed star on his chest.  The girl’s costume was stunning – a strapless silver leotard with matching silver choker, a black mini-vest that teased more than concealed, black elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots, and twin black belts that draped her hips in an X pattern.

Jinn suddenly knew exactly what she was seeing.  It was Jan Stilton, and the date was 1987.  It was an episode they’d discussed at length yesterday at the Day of Remembrance, and she didn’t want to see it in person.

“Greg – Force-bolt – we have to put this monster down now, before it reaches the gas truck!” the girl shouted.

Jinn looked up to see a toppled tanker truck, a few hundred feet away.  She knew from Stan and Morrie that even nowadays, fuel deliveries were major security events.

“I’m trying, Paragon!”  Shoving both hands forward, the boy shot out a crimson beam.  It hit the monster like a pile driver, but that only pushed the creature closer to the tanker.

“Greg, no!  I’ve got no choice, I have to use my frenzy attack!”

“Don’t do it, Jan!  You’ll be helpless afterward!”

But the girl didn’t listen to him.  She paused for a second, as if summoning all her power.  A blue glow seemed to coalesce around her, then she suddenly shot forward like a bullet.

Whatever power she had summoned, she now attacked like a speedster, striking with fists that hit like sledgehammers.  She moved so fast that it was almost as if there were a dozen of her, striking and kicking at the demon-thing, attacking it from every direction at once.  The monster was overwhelmed and toppled onto the ground, face first, unconscious.

The girl didn’t last much longer.  She collapsed onto the on top of the monster, only barely clinging to consciousness.  The blue field around her winked out, then another affect came over her.  Her skin rippled and moved, like a sack filled with fighting cats.  A moment later, the transformation finished, leaving an androgynous boy awkwardly dressed in a girl’s silver leotard.  He looked nervously up at the other fighter.

“Uh… Greg?  I meant to tell you.  The transformation isn’t quite permanent yet, but in a year, two at most—”

“You’re a GUY?”

“Not much, these days.  Soon even that will be gone.  Which was why I was so depressed when we first met…”

The blond exemplar still stared at him in shock.  “You’re a boy, and I kissed you?”

The exhausted boy in the silver leotard could barely move.  “I wanted to tell you, Greg…”

“You LIED to me!  How could you do this to me?”

“Greg, no, you have to listen to me—”

“Noooo!”

And with a look of hatred and disgust, the blond boy shoved both his hands forward, shooting out a crimson beam.  The other boy, exhausted and helpless, didn’t even try to resist, as a hole a foot in diameter was blown through the center of his chest.

…

Jinn blinked slowly, returning from the telepathically shared memory.

After a brief pause, Fubar said, “The lesson I took from that was to be as honest as possible in my relations with other people.  I try to be clear that the ‘me’ people are meeting is not the real me, it’s only a projection.  If I’m upfront about it, I hope that I cut down on later misunderstandings.”

Jinn shook her head.  “But you were just telling me not to reveal—”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Fubar began to pace around her, pensively.  “Yes, but there are secrets, and then there are secrets.  Everyone at Poe has a secret to conceal.  The system here has been designed to give you a community, Poe Cottage, that knows that secret and still supports you.  At the same time, most Poe residents choose, perhaps correctly, to keep the details of their sexuality a secret from the campus at large.  I’m not a big fan of life in the closet – living in a literal closet myself – but I recognize that sometimes accommodations must be made for an imperfect world.”

Jinn rubbed her temple in irritation.  “So… I don’t get it.  What are you trying to tell me?”

“Well, there are secrets, and then there are secrets, as I said.  You, in particular, seem to be burying yourself under a pile of secrets that grows ever deeper.  Your sexuality.  The fact that Jinn, Jann, et cetera, are all really you.  The fact that you’re not a devisor at all, and that you’re lying about your real powers.  The fact that Lazuli is not whom she appears to be, and is someone that much of Faction Three is already dimly aware of.  The fact that you’re not here as a real member of Faction Three, but as a paid escort, with a specific role to fill.”

That last line angered her, but it was hard to deny.  “Look, I owe—” she almost said Thuban’s name out loud, before remembering that her half of the conversation might be overheard “—I owe someone.  And I pay off my debts!”

Fubar nodded to that.  He turned to leave, but gave one last piece of advice first.  “I’m not saying that all secrets are bad.  Some are well accepted, particularly things like the ‘secret identity’ and exact details about your powers.  But try not to bury yourself too deep, alright?  Don’t lose track of who and what you really are.  That’s all I’m saying.”

With that, he turned and headed back toward the main crowd.

Jinn was left to consider the disturbing incident, and his odd advice.

44: In hot water

November 21, Tuesday evening, 6:30 PM

Jade told Billie, honestly enough, that she’d be doing some study with Lily and was meeting her up on the third floor.  She felt particularly bad deceiving her roommate, but Billie hadn’t even heard about the hot-tub party.  But then, Billie had a lot of interests outside the cottage and sometimes missed some of what was going on inside of Poe.

After asking the right people, Jade had discovered that the hot-tub excursion was a sophomore tradition.  There were plenty of other excursions to the ‘secret hot tub’, but the Tuesday before Thanksgiving was special.  Most of the sophomores came.  The girls all gathered together to get to know one another before the long weekend, and apparently many long-term relationships were sparked by the mid-term icebreaker.

Jade snuck up to the third floor, where girls were already bustling from room to room, whispering furtively.  She knocked on Lily’s door.

“Come in, I guess.”

Jade slipped inside, nervously.

Lily was wearing shoes and a robe.  The robe should have been fluffy white terrycloth, but it had been dyed black.

“I’m having real second thoughts about this,” Lily admitted.  “You know this thing is supposed to be lesbian only, right?”

“Uh, well…”

Lily rolled her eyes.  “Oh, right.  Lesbians or potential lesbians.  Half of it is a recruitment drive for the sophomore T-girls, to show them the true way, the other half is a mixer to connect up with partners.  So why they hell am I going?”

“To help me out,” Jade reminded her.

“Oh, yeah.  So why the hell are you going?  Just ‘cause some PMS freshman double-dared you?”

Jade’s eyes sank to the floor.  “Well, I’m kind of committed now.”

Lily gave a long suffering sigh and tossed over a robe.  “Here.  You might as well get ready.  You can leave your clothes on my bed.  Keep your shoes on.”

Jade was very self-conscious as she undressed under Lily’s scrutiny.  As always, she felt a little sad when she removed her bra.  Taking the panties off was better.  The “permanent” glue seemed to be holding up to its name, the plastic disguise was exactly in place, and the rest of her was still tucked and tight.  She felt as right as she could be, in this wrong body.

“Sure don’t look like a boy,” the other girl commented, further heightening her embarrassment.

“I, uh, took some precautions.”

“I don’t want to know.”  Then the thin girl seemed to realize something.  “Hey, this isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?  I mean, if you were like the only boy at a lesbian hot-tubbing party, and got accidentally exposed, they wouldn’t all be after you for shish kebab or anything, would they?”

Jade shuddered even more.  “Uh, you said it was for recruiting T-girls.  They have to have some tolerance, don’t they?”

Lily shrugged.  “Beats me.  What are most of these girls like?  Your ‘friend’ Sharisha?  Hippolyta?  Or are they more like Mary and Juanita?”

Jade gulped.  “I haven’t spent too much time with the sophomores.”

“Hmmm.  Can you fly, or float?”

Jade had Jann-sensei tightly cast, holding every hair, every dead cell in her skin, and of course, the plastic.  With a moment’s thought, they connected, and Jann lifted her off the ground.  “Yeah, if I need to.”

“Good.  Worse comes to worst, grab me.  I’ll make us both invisible, and try to fly us out of there.  It’s not much of a plan, but it’s something.”  She shook her head, sending ripples down her long, silky, black ponytail.  “Besides, at least that way people won’t be catching me in the buff.”

From her experience in the showers, Jade had adopted mannerisms that were typical of a shy girl.  Her hand tended to linger, casually draped over her crotch, hiding her private area.  She spent more time than normal scratching her opposite shoulder, just incidentally covering her breasts.  Or non-breasts, in her case.  It was a relief to slip into the large robe, which came down to her ankles.

“Okay,” Lily said, decisively.  “Let’s get this over with.  They’re meeting in the lounge.”

There were over a dozen girls in the lounge, all wearing shoes and fluffy black robes.  Jade and Lily were followed by a medium-tall girl who had silver steaks in her black hair.  It would have given her a Bride-of-Frankenstein look with the right hairdo.  Instead, with her hair loose and down, it was more reminiscent of the comic-book character “Lady Lightning.”

“Okay, that’s everyone,” called a girl with long, lush, raven’s black hair.  “You sophomores and others, follow me.”

Jade recognized the girl as ‘Blackrose’, the upper-class guide for the lesbian girls that she’d seen on her first night at Poe.

With furtive whispers, the group of just over a dozen girls snuck down the stairs and out the back door of the cottage.  The night was overcast and dark, as Blackrose led them along the path toward Hawthorne.  After scarcely a dozen yards, they turned off into the landscaped underbrush, following a far fainter trail.  This led about sixty yards deeper into the trees, until they came to the large stump of some ancient oak.  Everything was easily visible to Jade, as she joined with Jann frequently to take advantage of Jann’s spirit-vision.  Blackrose carefully pushed in a knothole, and suddenly a portion of the stump seemed to vanish as it swung inward.

Still maintaining their silence, the girls moved up to and into the stump.  Jade found the rungs of a wooden ladder, and climbed down.  She descended perhaps twenty feet, into a limestone grotto.

Obviously, previous generations had gone to considerable trouble to create this secret cavern.  Splashes of amber and golden light outlined the stalactites in stark relief.  Below, three separate pools were underlit with soft blue lights.  The water glowed and rippled like some luminescent creatures.  Steps and benches had been carved into the limestone formations of the grotto; each was softly illuminated by a faint green glow.  She was reminded of Thuban’s cavern, but this was more artistic and less intimidating.

“You can put your robes there,” Blackrose indicated, waving at a set of natural shelves beside a bench.

Jade became increasingly nervous as the girls ahead of her calmly removed their shoes, folded their robes, and then stepped naked into the misty pool.  Blackrose, in particular, moved with a natural grace that dared the rest of them to emulate her.  And well she might, with her slender build, trim but rounded posterior, and athletic legs.  The girl stepped gracefully into the hot water, then, as it was just lapping at mid-thigh, turned to face them.  Far from being self-conscious, she seemed proud of her firm breasts – despite being at least a C-cup, she didn’t have a trace of sag.  And her night-black pubic triangle had been trimmed with meticulous precision, showing a perfect triangle, but not obscuring the pink furrow of her labia.

“It’s warm and comfortable,” she purred.  “Come on in.”

“Oh puh-lease,” Lily muttered under her breath to Jade.  “Whatever you owe me, double it.”

Looking around, Jade saw that they weren’t the only reluctant skinny dippers.  Several of the girls had taken Blackrose’s less-than-subtle cue, and were slipping into the warm pool.  But at least half of them were still hanging back, too shy or reluctant to take that final step and expose themselves in front of the other girls.

“No way!” Sharisha called out.  “I’m not going in that water until I know Electrode is safe!  I don’t want to be bathing with no living toaster!”

Her sponsor, Julie, tried to shush the pudgy black girl, but everyone was a little embarrassed.

From her position in the water, Blackrose reached a hand out toward the nervous girl with black hair and silver streaks at each temple.  “I was actually hoping for a little electricity tonight.”

Electrode was blushing hard enough to die from, as she stepped carefully into the water, holding Blackrose’s slender hand.

“Well,” the older girl announced.  “That wasn’t too shocking, but I did feel a pleasant tingle.”  The last bit was said with a leer.

“Come on,” Lily said, in exasperation.  “No sense being last.  That gets you even more noticed, believe me.”

With her shoes carefully stowed out of the way, Lily folded her robe and placed it on top her shoes.  Jade tried not to look, but couldn’t help getting an eyeful of the slender girl.  Lily’s breasts weren’t large.  Given the abundance of top-heavy girls at Whateley, Lily might even be considered “small.”  But standing here naked, her figure was a young girl at perfection.  Her slight mounds were topped by proud nipples, and Jade tried not to watch the nipples that grew and firmed in the cool night air.  Lily stood with her legs apart, unconsciously adopting a fighting stance in preparation for action.  Unclad as she was, the stance also revealed her adolescent cleft, barely showing a hint of the pink inner flesh, and concealed only by downy wisps of pubic hair.

Once again, Jade wondered whether she was attracted to other girls, or simply jealous.

Jade herself was more circumspect.  She kept her legs tightly together at all times, walking into the pool as if she were wearing a kimono instead of stark naked.  The girls already lounging in the pool gave her a good once over, making her thankful that she’d taken precautions, but they quickly turned to one of the girls still waiting to disrobe.

Keeping close to Lily, Jade hunkered down in the steaming water, low enough that it nearly covered her shoulders.  Finally feeling secure enough, she risked looking around again.

Everyone was now watching the final entry, a busty blonde with a figure that looked too good to be true.  If she hadn’t known better, Jade would have thought the pinup girl was a high-level exemplar.  Instead, she was surprised to recognize the somewhat klutzy form of Mega-girl, or as she was also known in Poe, Marty O’Bryan.

“You might as well come in, Megs,” Blackrose purred.  “You’re just giving us a good view standing there like that.”

“Do we have to put up with this?” Sharisha called out.  “You know she isn’t real!  That bod is just some psychokinetic projection or something.  Haven’t you seen the shrimp inside?  Hey, Marty, if you drop the skin, I want the first punch when we beat you to a pulp!  Honestly, what the hell made you think that we wanted your kind here?”

“She thought that because I invited her,” Blackrose said.  “Now, much as I enjoy the view Megs, it’s time you came on in.”

The normally vivacious Mega-girl was trapped in indecision.  “But – I mean, she’s right!  Everyone knows it!”

Blackrose’s smile grew seductive.  “Come into the pool, Marty.  Let’s talk about it.”

Stumbling forward, Mega-girl slipped, but recovered by flying briefly.  She floated through the air until she hovered above the pool, then sank down into the water.

“Now,” Blackrose spoke intimately and seductively, “before we talk, let the water caress you.  Feel it buoy and support you, girls.  Some of you, like Sharisha, perhaps need to relax a little more.  Some of you, like Marty, may be feeling insecure in your femininity.  Feel the warm waters as they wrap around and under you, opening you to new ideas and experiences.”

“I just might relax too much.”  Judy Cooms, better known as Plastic Girl, began stretch and flatten out, like a balloon deflating.

“Hold on!” Sharisha suddenly said.  “The guys don’t know about this place, do they?  Tell me a bunch of fag boys haven’t been – you know – in this water!”

Plastic Girl instantly resumed her normal shape, looking perhaps even more rigid than normal.  The other girls sat up, similarly alarmed.

“Calm down,” Blackrose soothed.  “Yes, the boys use the grotto, too.  But like many of the underground features on campus, this grotto far from natural.  The water is filtered, purified, and more processed than a Twinkie.  It also cycles through a complete change every six hours.  The grotto is actually a legacy of the class of ’83.  They made it look as natural as they could, but it’s really ferrocrete with a limestone veneer, and the water comes from the same source as our drinking water.  That too-convenient stump has a locking door on it, and there are precautions against eavesdroppers, cameras, snoops, and a host of other unpleasantries.”

As the girls relaxed again, Blackrose continued.  “Some of you already may have been down here a couple of times, on private adventures.  Probably others of you have never heard of our little grotto.  But you’re sophomores now.  Half of you are already sixteen, most of the rest of you will shortly be turning sixteen.  That, combined with your placement in Poe, means that it’s time to take a more open look at who you are, who you might become, and who you want to be.”

Mega-girl spoke up again, sounding surprisingly grumpy.  “What is this, the lesbian recruitment drive?”

Blackrose just smiled.  “Among other things.  Why, do you object to that?”

Mega-girl scowled, then pointed at Sharisha.  “You heard her!  You all know what I look like… underneath this TK projection.  I’m just…” her voice grew uncharacteristically quiet.  “I’m just some shrimpy little boy.”

Jade hadn’t moved, but her eyes were as wide as they could get.

Blackrose’s voice was persuasive.  “But what do you want to be, Marty?  Do you like being Mega-girl?  Would you stay that way, if you could?”

Megs was obviously too ashamed to answer, as she sunk lower in the water.  But everyone saw the tiny nod that was the only answer Marty would give to the intently personal question.

“Girls,” Blackrose spoke up, “you should know that Mega-girl once went for over a month without dropping her so-called ‘shell.’  Not while she sleeps, not when she’d been knocked unconscious in a training session.  Don’t worry about waking up next to a boy, think about cuddling up to a beautiful blonde who is so strong, and at the same time, so vulnerable.”

Jann’s emotional vision suddenly dropped over her eyes, so she noticed the shivery ripples of interest that suddenly covered the auras of nearly a third of the girls there.

“And Marty, let me ask you this:  Do you like girls?  Do you like looking at them?”

“Well… of course.  But…”

“You’re thinking of Iron Star, aren’t you?  We’ve all seen how you moon over him.  But girl,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “you’ve got to know that he’s in the middle of the biggest romantic mess on campus!  Even if he wasn’t always giving the puppy dog eyes to Gloriana, he’s still stuck in a tug-of-war between Amy Tang and Steffi Zink.”

Megs just looked miserable.

“That’s what makes this the perfect time to find yourself!  Maybe you aren’t a lesbian.  Maybe you aren’t even bi.  But you owe it to yourself to find out!  Everyone here knows the truth about you, and if you showed the slightest bit of interest, I’m sure there’d be plenty of other girls that returned that interest.”

“Is this just going to be one giant heart-warming love-fest?” Julia Krets demanded, pushing in with the manner that had gained her the codename of Shove.  “I thought this was going to be a big steamy orgy or something!”

Blackrose gave her a wry smile.  “If we’d wanted an orgy, we would have invited the lust demon from the basement.”

“Amen to that,” Naomi said.  “She is so hot!”

Electrode poked a hand up.  “Uh, didn’t Hippolyta already claim her?”

“Other way around, I think,” Lily muttered.

Jade watched in rapt delight as the girls slowly unbent around her, revealing more and more of their inner thoughts.  Given the warm reception that Marty had received, she was briefly tempted to tell them her own truth.  But Sharisha was always in her line of sight, and Jade couldn’t forget the other girl’s taunts or anger.  She had enough dangers in her life right now without giving a possible enemy such a potent weapon as knowing her deepest secret.  On top of that, she was still absorbing what she’d learned from the Day of Remembrance, the day before.  That had been a TG event, not a Poe-wide ceremony.  There was no guarantee that the lesbians (and straights, like Lily) would feel sympathy.  Between Sharisha’s attitude and what she’d learned from the Day of Remembrance, that point had been very solidly proven.

Blackrose provided heavy encouragement, and the girls began to go around the circle, explaining themselves, their powers, and their own unique sexual situations.  Jade was surprised to learn about some of the sophomore girls also being transgender.  For some reason, she’d assumed that had been mostly been confined to her class.  But it turned out that Jackie Warrwick, Electrode, was also TG.  She declined to say how much she’d been influenced by the Lady Lightning comic.

Lily was forced to admit more than she wanted.  “Look, I got in under a legacy.  Mom, Tabby Cat, was in Poe, if you must know.  But I’m interested in guys, okay?  And nothing weird is happening to me, or going to happen to me, understand?”

Pulling down her aura vision, Jade saw the others weren’t having the reaction that Lily might have hoped for.  Some were sympathetic, perhaps reading between the lines to spot Lily’s fears.  Others were repulsed, extrapolating to imagine Lily changing into a guy.  She could imagine their thoughts – So that’s why her figure is so boyish.

When the questions then turned to Jade, she readily admitted that she was born a boy, but that she was a girl now.  She wouldn’t go into details, but when Sharisha pressed her, she revealed, “I know what a speculum feels like, okay?”  That quieted the suspicions.  As for her sexual preference, everyone sympathized with the eternally-delayed puberty.

“Maybe I’ll figure it out when I know myself.  I’m still puzzled by the whole ‘lust’ thing.  What’s that like, anyway?  Is that why everyone always acts so weird around Sara?”

That gathered some shaking heads and rolling eyes.

After the introductions, they passed through a round of man-bashing.  Julia and Naomi led.  Mega-girl and Electrode protested, but Blackrose sided with the angry girls, this time.

“It’s another face of the sisterhood,” she said with a shrug.  “Some of us find men fairly useless, others have lower opinions.  Even if you don’t fully agree, you have to admit that the girls raise some interesting points.”

Naomi and Julia had obviously worked this topic very thoroughly between themselves.  They kept away from the Poe boys, focusing instead on the hetero boys on campus, their lusts, and their Neanderthal attitudes toward women.  Although Jade had no reason to trust the two girls, she had to admit that the jokes about “beer and football”, “using a remote control”, and “redneck hunters” were pretty funny.  The climax, as it were, was Naomi’s “Tale of the Haunted Penis.”

“…so the rapist was convicted and then castrated by the same women he’d tormented.  But after they castrated him, they forgot about the penis!  They dragged him, bleeding and screaming, to the pyre.  He was burned alive, swearing with his dying breath that he would visit his revenge upon every one of them, and their daughters, and their daughter’s daughters for seven generations!  One of the women finally realized her mistake.  She ran to the chopping block, where the bloody axe still lay embedded in the wood, but the penis was gone!  And at the base of the chopping block was a small hole in the ground, like a snake’s hole.

“Some say that the penis was filled with the male power of lust and hatred for women, and that it burrowed away like an earthworm.  They say it still roams the earth, waiting for the time when it might find nubile and innocent girls to penetrate and ravage.  Others say that it’s only superstition, that the penis was burned along with the rapist.  All I can do is to warn you: Beware!  Whenever you find yourself outdoors, keep your legs together!  Otherwise, you never know what might suddenly try to defile you!  Beware!”

As she peered darkly around the circle, one girl after another began to scream and leap halfway into the air.  First it was a blonde freshman named Scramble, then Mega-girl, and then Jade felt Lily, beside her, stifling a scream as she turned suddenly invisible.  When Electrode jumped in alarm everyone felt the sparks, as the girl inadvertently released a bit of electricity into the pool.  Not enough to hurt, but definitely enough to startle everyone.

Beside Naomi, Julia practically doubled over in laughter.

“Julia!  Shove!  You did this!” Scramble accused.

Julie wiped away a tear.  “What?  You mean I gave you a TK shove that was maybe an inch-and-a-half wide, right where it counts?  You should have seen yourself jump!”

As she faded back into visibility, Lily muttered, “It wasn’t funny!  Well… except for Megs, maybe.”

They talked for a while longer, but the heat was definitely getting to them.  Jade was in a good enough mood that she was even feeling generous toward the obnoxious Sharisha, as she rose from the pool to put her robe back on.

She was relaxed, but her awareness training proved its worth.  Despite her languor, she knew when Julie reached out a finger to touch her on the butt.  She moved away easily, before Julie could lay a too-intimate touch on her.

“Excuse me?”

“Just admiring the birthmark,” the black-haired sophomore replied, moving to pick up her jacket.

Jade twisted, trying to get a look.  “I have a birthmark?”  She looked at Lily, who was already wrapped in her robe.  “Do I have a birthmark on my, uh, my behind?”  She twisted around.

“Oh, please!”  Lily groaned.  “As if the night hasn’t been bad enough, I don’t need girls shoving their butts in my face.”

“Oops.  Sorry.  Just tell me if I have a birthmark.”

Reluctantly, Lily took a quick glance.  “I guess.  Either that or you sat on a bumpy rock too long.”

Jade slipped into her own robe and slid her shoes on.  “What’s it look like?”

Lily shrugged.  “A blob.”  At Jade’s long face, she elaborated.  “Oh, okay.  Sort of a thin triangle, I guess, about the size of your pinky fingernail.  A thin triangle, kind of more tan than the rest of your skin, with a dark dot behind it.”

Jade followed Lily up the ladder.  “Huh!  You go through your whole life, and then, on your first lesbian skinny-dipping session, you learn something new about yourself.”

Above her, Lily said, “Yeah, strange, isn’t it?  And keep your eyes down until I get off the ladder!”

---

From the audio, Jinn-Lazuli could tell that the movie was reaching its conclusion.  Sitting through a film that she couldn’t see was not the most interesting thing she’d ever done, but it had given her time to watch and study the people around her.  It also gave her time to think.

She wondered, briefly, how she was doing at the hot tub party.  That was one of the most nerve-wracking things about being herself.  She was afraid there had been a total disaster, perhaps a life-destroying event like her secret coming out in front of all the other girls.  It was possible that she could “let go” and rejoin her body, only to discover that her life had been ruined in the meantime.

Lately, she’d been doing her best to re-meet herself face-to-face, so that she could brace herself more gently for any shocks.  One time she’d awoken to the sudden memory of Sara’s talking decapitated head.  She’d resolved to ease into those big shocks from now on.

At least things were going reasonably well here at the Faction Three party.

Reluctantly, she turned her thoughts back to Fubar’s statements.

Being at the party, and particularly being a center of attention, had been fun.  It was true that some of the kids had gone through some pretty horrible changes.  She had to privately admit that she still had problems accepting some of them, but her time working at Hawthorne had helped.  If she couldn’t accept everyone yet, she at least recognized the problem, and was working on fixing it.  She was doing her best to act like she accepted everyone, and she definitely wanted to come to the next get-together.

But the question was, did she want to come as Lazuli, or as herself?  Obviously, Jade would never fit in with this crowd.  She was far too normal looking.  Even Jinn looked too normal.  But as Shroud, she might be okay, particularly if she did something exotic, like coming as a set of animated bones.

That was an intriguing thought – exposing herself as she really was.  Perhaps a human face or just a hood, and the collection of metal parts that Harry Wolfe had helped create for her.  She dearly loved being Jinn, and being a girl, but the truth was that she wasn’t a real girl.  As Jinn, she never would be.  Maybe it might do her some good to explore that part of herself.

On the other hand, there was no denying that Lazuli was a sexy package.  She hadn’t missed the way the boys stared at her chest, or the way they watched her backside as she walked.  Having a tail certainly added a unique movement.  And having eyes in the back of her head made it easy to see the reactions of people behind her.

And to be honest, Lazuli had a massive advantage in Faction Three.  She had been designed to be a monster, but an attractive one.  She was the image of a cartoon heroine.  Non-human, yes.  Ugly, no.  As Lazuli, it was almost an effort not to become the life of the party.

The ending theme began playing, and the people around her began to stretch.  Beside her, Tool stretched and a host of tentacles burst out of each sleeve.

“That’s pretty cool,” Jinn commented.

“Thanks.  Very believably said,” the figure hidden within the deep cowl said.  “I’d trade it away in a second, if I could.”

“As shapeshifters go, you seem pretty incredible,” Jinn offered.

“I guess.  I’m not in Jello’s league, but I can do things she can’t.  Here, check this out.”

As the girl reached toward her, Jinn was briefly distracted by the girl’s bust line.  She seemed to swell, then shrink, then she seemed to grow a set of four or six breasts, before returning again to the normal pair.  Now a normal human hand reached out of the robe.

“Watch.”

Suddenly the hand morphed into a small, oblong piece of plastic, with a metallic center, and a plus symbol on the side.  After a moment’s confusion, Jinn realized that it was a Swiss Army knife, seemingly growing out from the end of the girl’s arm.  Suddenly the blades started to flick open and closed.

Jinn was amazed.  “That’s incredible!  And you’ve got control over it?”

“Pretty much.”

The girl’s hand flicked through a variety of shapes – needle-nose pliers, a screwdriver, a coffee mug.

“The only thing I can’t do is not shift.  Like when I see something good to eat, and all of a sudden my fingers turn into a fork.  I don’t do that on purpose, it just happens.  And I can’t make it stop.”

Jinn nodded sympathetically, but she really had no idea what that might really mean for a person trying to live under those conditions.  Did it ever hurt?  How long could she pass as normal, out in regular society?  What was she like in a fight?

Tool leaned forward, too casually.  “So let me ask you about your body.  Thuban said you were just a ‘prop.’  What’s that supposed to mean?  You aren’t some sort of robot, are you?  You seem a lot more lifelike than that.  Are you another shapeshifter?”

Jinn shook her head.  “Sorry, that’s part of my deal.  Professional secret.”

“So… just out of curiosity, how disastrous would it be if you lost that body?”

The girl’s aura was anything but casual.  She was so focused on the answer that it was almost painful to look at.

“What’s that mean, if I ‘lost my body?’  What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tool shrugged, still trying to look casual.  “I’m not sure.  It was a mystic, magic thing I heard once.  You know what it’s like trying to get a straight answer out of the wizard types.”

Jinn nodded.  Trying to get an explanation out of Fey was an experience.  It was either on the level of “all nature is interconnected” or it got so technical that it was like trying imagine a world that was ruled entirely by rhyme and meter instead of physics.  And whatever the rules were, they changed whenever you wanted them to.  Although Sara was even worse, since Pattern Theory delved into high level mathematics, and she claimed you couldn’t really begin to understand it unless you could do tensor calculus while visualizing at least seven dimensions simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Jinn agreed, uncomfortably.  “I’ve had that problem with wizards.  Hey, why haven’t I noticed you on campus?”

“Ha!” Tool pounced.  “I knew you were another student!”

Jinn groaned to herself, realizing that she’d given away too much.

“First off, on campus I wear a better robe – it’s in the school colors, with a Whateley crest,” Tool began.  “More importantly, I wear a mask and these sort of gauntlets for my hands.  They’re covered in kidskin, so they look like gloves.  I can shift all I want inside, but it doesn’t show through the gauntlets.  But for Faction Three, I figured I’d let people see more of the real me.”

The two different horse-girls had been listening, as well.  Now Sted, the pony-girl, exclaimed, “

“No.  This is the real me.  I figured, with Faction Three, I’d drop the suit and come as I really am.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m a centaur today,” Jana added unexpectedly.  Seeing the look everyone gave her, she explained.  “On campus I usually look either human or sort of a were-squirrel.”

Sted nodded.  “Multiple form shifter?  I’ve got four, but ponygirl and centaur are the most human, so that’s what I use on campus.”

“Not exactly,” Jana told them.  “I’m an avatar, but I ended up capturing a spirit that thinks he’s a trickster god.  I can go back to human for a couple of hours, but I mostly end up being half-and-half, in some way or another.”  She shrugged.  “It’s not too bad.  People don’t get too freaked out by the catgirl or squirrelgirl look.”

Tool’s aura was a mix of resentment and jealousy.  “Yeah, even in Faction Three, you get the cute girls, and the freaks.  I’m just getting tired of always being the freak.”

“So… is there anything you can do?” Jana asked.

“They’re talking about a sort of articulated armor – like a knight, but more modern.  I’d wear it, and then my shifting wouldn’t show, unless I stretched or flexed too hard.  I might be able to go out in public.  There are plenty of other kids who have to wear prosthetic faces or bodies.”

Jinn was mindful of her earlier conversation with Fubar.  “And you’d always be hiding your true face.  At least here in Faction Three you have one place where you can be your real self.”

“I wish.”  But Tool didn’t elaborate.

---

Much later, Jinn sat back to consider the night’s events.  She was Jamie the SpySpeck, and it was becoming something of a midnight ritual for her to waft up to the roof outside, while just thinking about what had happened during the day.  She knew that down below, her various selves were sleeping, or studying, or heading off to see if Sara was available.  But she got to just sit and contemplate.

Her selves had come together, quite surprised by their different experiences that evening.  Faction Three had been… imposing.  So many mutants, and so much hostility simmering under the surface.  Also, so many lonely people, just because they looked a little unusual.  If there was any group that could accept her in her normal form, it was Faction Three.

Except… what was her normal form?  She’d cautioned Tool against hiding behind an armored face, while she herself was hiding inside the gargoyle body.  As Jinn she wore a plastic face.  But she had a real face, too.  The plastic was just material that coated her spirit-self, making it visible for normal people.

She had an image of her “normal” self – it was a seventeen year old girl, naked, outlined by chalk dust.  But recent experience had shown that she might actually be a shapeshifter – at least in spirit form.  So what was “natural” for her?

She briefly imagined showing up to a Faction Three meeting as a ghost of Lazuli, outlined in chalk dust.  She’d never do it, of course.  Ever since Tansy, she’d felt naked if she allowed any hint of her unprotected spirit to be exposed in public.  And holding up a cloud of chalk dust was definitely in the “naked spirit” category.  She’d done it in front of her friends (and felt strangely naughty, doing so).  She would show off her bare face, as a screen of chalk dust, but at least the bear trap gave her some protection there.  That was as much vulnerability as she was willing to risk, since Tansy and Mongoose had both demonstrated that physical access to her spirit gave even the weakest avatar the ability to pretty much conduct spiritual rape.

And yet…

How could she think of being naked and exposed, without thinking of the hot tub party?  Was Marty, or rather, “Mega-girl”, all that much different than she was?  If Megs could find a lover, was it possible that she, as Jinn, might honestly and truly find a lover of her own?

If she made love to a boy, he should be able to find genuine enjoyment with her.  Dr. Traekham had demonstrated that she, as Jinn, was physically complete, and sufficiently real to allow a boy to make love to her.  And while she wouldn’t take any physical pleasure in the act, there would be the joy of the companionship, and the relationship, and the joy of her lover’s pleasure.

Or… could she take a girl lover, instead?  Even as a resident of Poe, she was a little more vague on the details of girl-girl sex than she was on the conventional method.  But what might she do for a female lover?  Coat the girl like a second skin, and stroke her lover across the length of her entire body?  What if she cast herself into something other than chalk.  Could she hold onto one of the many lubricant fluids that were so readily available around the girls’ restrooms in Poe?  What might she accomplish with that?

She felt confident that, given time and the liberty to experiment, she could become a rather stunning lover.

But who would love her?

Skinner could do it, but she didn’t really like him that much.  And she suspected that Fubar could do it, but that felt wrong, too.  He was so much older, and while he was interesting, she sure didn’t feel attracted to him in that way.

In fact, she didn’t feel attracted to anyone in that way.

So why was she so hung up with the idea of having a lover?

After winding the idea around and around in her head, she eventually thought that maybe it was because having a lover was a sort of proof that she was a girl.  Just like with Marty.  If Mega-girl had a lesbian relationship, then she was definitely a real girl, despite any complicated details about Marty and his powers.  The romance and crushing and tenderness and secret looks, and the act of making love – all of those would say to her that Marty was a real girl, in just about every way that counted.  And that must mean that if she herself achieved those things – a crush, that awkward dating, the first kiss, and all of that, culminating in a romantic session in which she lost her virginity – if she achieved that, then she would be a real girl.

And she desperately wanted to be a real girl.

The problem was, she didn’t want to lose her virginity.  Not yet, anyway.  Heck, she was barely up to the “crush” stage.  Well, okay, she was ready and eager for her first crush.

She let her mind drift, considering all the recent events.

Should she stay on as Lazuli, or follow Fubar’s advice?  She owed Thuban.  But what if she passed Lazuli on to someone?  And what was with Tool and her questions about “if you lost that body”?  She wondered if Tool had seen deeper than anyone had guessed, and spotted the suit that was Lazuli’s body.  Could Tool “wear” a suit like that, in effect becoming Lazuli?  Was that what she wanted?  If so, would Jade be doing her a favor, letting the shifter girl take on another identity at the expense of her own?

It would be a shame to lose the magic cigarette box, though.  She could use another one of those.  Perhaps hidden inside Ryo-oki.  Then she could follow Billie around, and serve as her secret closet, producing books and clothes just like they’d been beamed up to some secret hyperspatial starship, like in the anime.

Hmmm, if he could make a magic closet for Ryo-oki, what could he do to her purse?  It was every girl’s dream – a purse that was slim and fashionable on the outside, but absolutely huge on the inside!  She could carry her gun, and all her books, and her laptop, maybe even a change of clothes…

Oh, there were so many plans to make.  The only question was, how to convince Thuban?

45: We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

Whateley Academy, Shuster Hall

November 22, Wednesday morning, 8:03 AM

They’d all heard rumors about the Thanksgiving assembly.  The students who’d already attended it last year were tight-lipped, but a few dropped clues.

“Introduction to fascism.”

“No big deal, unless you have plans as a supervillain.”

“Amerika with a K.”

“Same old, same old.”

“You have the right to be strip-searched.”

So naturally, the crowd for this assembly was a bit more subdued than they’d been for any of the previous assemblies. 

Unlike the first assembly, Jade knew a lot more people this time around.  Her immediate circle of friends was sitting beside her.  Naturally, Nikki and Toni were in the center of that block.  Sara and a couple of her closer friends were in the row ahead of them.  The row behind them included several of the sophomore girls and guys, and oddly, a few from other cottages.  Mary and Juanita weren’t back yet, but Lily sat nearly behind her.  She also recognized the black guy, Dredz, from the dance the previous week.  Lily and Dredz were conversing in close whispers, but Jade seemed to catch a snatch of, “Oh, is that all?” from them.

The mutterings and whispers faded to near-inaudibility as Headmistress Carson took the stage, then died out completely as she dimmed the lights and projected the first slide.

On the screen behind her was the famous Brooklyn bridge, with both ends barricaded or smashed and a full load of commuters trapped in the middle.  In the air above, a titanic battle raged.  The image had become such an icon over the past decade and more that it no longer had a single, simple association.  Heroism?  Evil?  The plight of the normal man caught up in forces beyond his control?  A metaphor for the planet?  All that and more.

“I hope none of you have trouble recognizing the images of the terrible events of April 1, 1991.”  She clicked to another slide, showing Entropy, as he created the trap, blocking off the rush-hour traffic.  “The famous ‘Fools Fight.’  While Entropy’s minions threatened civilians, Entropy finally got his face-to-face battle with his eternal nemesis.”  Another famous slide clicked into place, showing the battered hero as he delivered the final blow to Entropy.  “Of course, Entropy perished, along with most of his minions.  As did Battery, and the First City Irregulars were never reformed as a team.”  The final slide showed the craters, along with the hundreds of bleeding, weeping civilians.

“We, rather, we mutants at Whateley, tend to focus on Battery and Entropy, and what happened with the various teams.  We examine the strategies and morality, we even re-run the battle in our simulators.  What we often fail to appreciate is the impact that battle had on normal humanity.

“Of course, that was just one battle.  There are hundreds of others, I dare say, that have had similar casualty levels.  But the Fools’ Fight was unique because of the still and video images it generated, because of the live news coverage, and because it has become such an icon, particularly among groups such as Humanity First.”

That generated mutterings and mild boos throughout the crowd.  Jade heard a mutter coming from Nikki’s direction, “They should have named themselves ‘Baboons First.’”

The Headmistress continued.  “What many of you have not realized until now was how those events, which took place before some of you were born, will affect your lives.  Mutants have always had a prominent position on the battlefield.  Terrorist mutants and even mass civilian casualties have been a fact of life since the Mystic Six first fought Gasman back in 1919.  But the Fools’ Fight brought mutants into a new and frightening prominence in the public eye.  It was a key issue in the United States presidential campaign of 1992, and led to promises to track and monitor mutants.  Initially this was restricted to foreign mutants entering American Soil, but the Frankfurt train derailment in 1993 and particularly the Indonesian tsunami in 1994 made this an international issue.”

The next slide was a publicity shot, showing the MCO’s Deputy Director Kenneth Loman, standing behind one of the MCO’s well-known “intervention squads” – overhead was the distinctive powder-blue dropship that also served as a mobile command center, while crouched in front of him were a half-dozen troops in powder-blue power armor, as well as the medics and observers that had such a welcome reputation with the non-mutant public.

“Most of that armor comes from Darpa research,” Nikki whispered.  “My dad worked on it for a while.”

Someone, Jade thought it was Chou, shushed the elf girl.

Headmistress Carson continued.  “Despite the superb reputation of many heroic mutants such as Champion, the events of the nineties changed the world.  The public was left with a renewed fear of rogue mutants.  This combined politically with a growing international need for mutant supervision.  It culminated more than a decade ago, in 1995, when the various national bodies ceded authority to the MCO, which incidentally stands for Mutant Commission Office, not Mutant Control, as so many of you have dubbed them.  In late 1996, it was made an international law that mutants must report themselves when crossing national boundaries.  Identification records became standardized, and the process has continued to evolve until the present day.”

There were mutterings among all the freshmen, as they began to figure out the implications.  The upperclassmen, who’d all heard this before, watched with grim satisfaction as their younger counterparts lost a bit of their innocence.

“Traditionally this talk is given shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday.  When you came to Whateley, you fell under a carefully crafted exemption.  But with the long holiday weekend ahead of us and the winter break approaching, many of you will be traveling by plane as you go home, or visit other destinations.”  Her voice turned suddenly grim.  “Let me be clear about this.  US law is rock-solid on this point: Any mutant must carry and present their identity card before boarding any commercial aircraft.  The Mutant ID card, or MID, must also be presented at any border crossing or customs station.  It’s something of a convenience, actually, since it’s better than a passport, and will get you expedited processing.”

“Yeah,” Toni muttered darkly, “no point in having an underground railroad, when the slave states are everywhere.”

In a lighter tone, Carson added, “Of course, Whateley maintains an aggressively neutral stance toward certain elements of social order.”  She paused, not getting the reaction she’d expected.  “We coddle lawbreakers,” she explained.  The students all laughed at that, although Jade suddenly noticed Adam Ironknife, in a back row far to her left.  He didn’t seem to find the situation at all humorous.

“I even sympathize with a bit of that,” Carson admitted.  “While I have no tolerance for killers or terrorists, society sometimes needs its rebels and iconoclasts.  I am sure that more than a few of you will be tempted to travel without a MID.  First, let me say that everyone who intends to stay at Whateley will be issued a MID.  That means that we will measure and record all your biometric parameters, staff members will negotiate with you to determine an official summary for your powers and abilities, we will condense certain other records, and obtain official clearances with both your own national governments and the MCO.”

Behind her, the screen switched into a live display, illustrating a wealth of measurements.  The headmistress herself was shown, along with displays of fingerprints, retinal prints, DNA identifiers, Kirilian signature, height, weight, age, bone structure, medical statistics, and a wealth of other data.  Just before the display changed, Jade noticed the “age” entry.  Seventy-five years old?  That can’t be right!

“None of this has been done yet!  The process begins this week, prioritized for those of you who will need to travel over the Thanksgiving weekend.  It is voluntary, but if you refuse, you will not be returning to Whateley.”  She held up her hand to forestall the murmurs.  “I understand your reluctance, but this is not a negotiable point.  That’s why we’re telling you now, to give you a chance to think this over.  Even if you plan an eventual career in world domination, I think the education you will get at Whateley will more than compensate for the downside of having a public record.

She gave an ironic smile.  “After saying all that I have to tell you, having a MID is not the same thing as using it.  Some of you will always stand out.  Changes due to your mutation will make it difficult or impossible to pass as one of the ordinary rabble.  For you, a MID will often be a godsend.  It is literally your passport to interact with mundane society.  Others, however, can pass as normal if they choose.  They could board a plane without showing their MID.  Of course, you’d need falsified ID documents, since the airline computers always cross-check with the MCO.  And often, they’ll take biometric scans and cross-check those with the MCO.  And it’s a felony in the US to board a plane or cross a border without showing your MID – you’d be looking at six months for a first offense, more once you reach your majority.  Any situation of ‘covert mutant activity’ is immediately relayed to the MCO, and you may be looking at a dropship on your head with no warning at all.”

The Headmistress spread her hands, as if in apology.  “So, you have a lot to think about over the break.  The first Thanksgiving at Whateley represents a significant rite of passage for every student.  You have many options.  You can drop out, hide from the MCO and the world, and keep a low profile.  This won’t protect you from the legal consequences – every one of you in this auditorium are legally required to carry a MID, whether you stay at Whateley or lay low.  If you’re spotted, you’ll still have to comply.  But you may choose to hide.

“You can follow the straight and narrow path.  In which case your MID will evolve into much more than just an ID and passport.  As your record of good activities grows, the MID will grant a variety of privileges – sky Marshall authority on even international plane flights, expedited border and custom privileges, connections with Interpol and other police organizations, and discounts at many restaurants and clothing outlets.”  There were laughs at that last.

“Finally, if you chose a life on the other side of the law, your MID will become the first entry in your case history.  This is why supervillains are so quickly tied to a codename – it’s the quickest reference to their MID file.  Don’t worry about that part too much, your first codename is only temporary; you have until spring to finalize that.  After that, it becomes a paperwork nightmare to change your codename.  As an example, the villain ‘Wrecking Ball’ changed his name twelve years ago, and he’s still being referenced under ‘Power Pork.’”

As the lights came up, the headmistress stepped away from the podium.  “That’s all.  You’ll all find information in your mailboxes, and counselors will be available to answer questions.  You have a lot to think over.  I know these are big decisions, but I hope to see all of you back here, following the break.”

---

Class was fairly anticlimactic after that.  Like many of the other freshmen, Jade was only about 50% aware of her lessons.  That still left her with two brainpower to consider things – counting both Jinn and Jann.

I wonder if that’s a measurement like horsepower? she wondered.

The biggest question was, should she claim to be “Jade Sinclair”, or would they need her real name?  And the whole “biometric” scan was a bit disturbing.  Could that discover her true gender?  Would she need to report her true gender?  If tonight worked, all her biometrics would change.  At least, she assumed they would.  Weren’t biometrics just measurements like height, weight, and so on?  If tonight succeeded, her measurements would certainly change.  She grinned at the thought.

She was reminded again of Robert Shih’s “third path.”  Nothing like Thuban’s “Faction Three.”  Robert had said, “You don’t join the establishment, and you don’t fall to the depths of a true villain.  You walk your own ground in the middle.  It’s the toughest path, since you receive none of the advantages of either side.  Even worse, you can never simply ‘declare’ for one side or the other.  You are always walking in ambiguity, defined more by what you are not.”

But the MID made that difficult.  It recorded your every official action, clearly dividing you into the “law breaker” or “straight arrow” camps.  It was worse, because she’d have to lie on her MID.  As much as it hurt to admit it, Jade was physically still an eleven-year-old boy.  A pure male eleven-year-old.  But she’d been passing as a girl for nearly three months now.  It was nothing next to the wonderful dream of actually being a true girl, but dressing and passing was the next best thing.  She would never go back to being a boy.

It was electrifying, to realize how solid her resolve was.  If the only choice was to list her physical gender on the MID, she would refuse.  She would drop out and make a go on her own.  She would find a way, somehow.  She would not be a boy.  Never again.

On the other hand… what if the MID allowed her to declare as a girl?  A high-level international passport that clearly identified her as female.  That would be a marvelous token.  It would simplify so much – her driver’s license, credit cards, bank accounts, jobs.

The next question was: Should Jinn get a MID?

Again, there was the same set of advantages and disadvantages, except that there would be no gender confusion there.  She thought that perhaps she would get one for Jinn, but not admit the presence of Jann.  What about Lazuli?  Would her gargoyle-self be sticking around long enough to need a separate identity?  If so, then she could cross that bridge later.  Certainly, Lazuli wasn’t going to class.  Until she needed any of the school services, it seemed like a question that could be put off.

---

She was hoping to discuss it all at lunch.  The whole crowd was there, with even some of the their more distant friends like Harry Wolfe dropping in to sit beside Billie.  They had to push three tables together, and made a fair-sized crowd, but it was a little too big for the intimate and serious discussion Jade had hoped for.  Everyone looked at each other too calmly, discussing trivia and silly campus events, rather than dealing with the looming issue that they all feared to broach.  Then Harry’s girlfriend arrived and plopped into the open seat next to him.

Harry gestured around the table.  “Samantha Everheart, allow me to introduce you to my friends.”  He then proceed to go around the table, introducing everyone.

Jade spared half a glance for the new girl, a medium tall blonde of about Billie’s age, or perhaps a year older.   Her face and body said sophomore, but there was a maturity to her attitude and body language that said “senior” or maybe even older.  The girl didn’t show the ultra-violet glow of an active mutant power, but sometimes the most powerful kids never showed a glimmer of power until the last moment.  Jade hoped that Billie wouldn’t be too upset.  She didn’t know whether Billie considered Harry as anything more than a friend, but they did share a dance class and Billie might be a little upset if Harry started spending all his time with the blonde centerfold girl.

Harry’s next announcement was decidedly odd.  “Samantha is moving into the tower in Kane Hall.  She’ll be a floor or two below the observatory.  She hired Fran and me to help turn the empty room into an apartment.”

Toni asked the question they were all suddenly wondering, “How is it you rate an apartment when all we have are dorm rooms?  You look like a senior to me.  Is one of your parents on the board to the school?”

The blonde brushed her hair back, as if she were unused to the way it drifted across her face.  “Actually, I’m going to be working here.”

“Teacher’s assistant?” Toni asked, with sudden interest.  “What do you have that got you a job here at Whateley?”

Jade wondered if Toni was considering the same option.  Toni was her sensei, but Jade had more hours of old-fashioned training with martial arts.  She knew when to listen to Toni’s advice on the higher arts and deeper truths – and when to ignore her sensei’s fumblings as she struggled with simple movements and dealing with beginners.  In Jade’s opinion, Toni sensei wasn’t yet ready to become a general instructor.

But Samantha’s reply was unexpected.  “I have a lot of military experience.  I start working in security Monday.”

Toni turned to the rest of the table and gave a stage whisper, “Oh man!  It’s the cops!”

Jade wondered if the blonde was serious.  Sometimes the other girls pulled jokes on her for being the youngest and most naïve.  Was this something like that?  But then Jamie joined them, and spotting Samantha, burst out with, “Oh, don’t tell me… look, that bully thing happened a couple weeks ago, and none of those guys have dared to come near me since then.  Really!  You can tell Ms. G that I’m fine and I really, REALLY, don’t need a babysitter at school!”

Samantha was as puzzled as Jade was, but apparently Jamie had recognized the blonde right off as a bodyguard type.

“Oh, you’re not here for me?” Jamie belatedly realized.

Nikki shook her head, “No, Jamie, this is Sam.  She’s working for security.”

Jamie gave a suspicious look at Billie and Sara. “What happened?”

Billie scowled back.  “Nothing happened!  Harry’s just helping her move in!”

“Oh.”

“So I know it’s not something asked in mixed company, Samantha,” Nikki probed, “but how old are you?”

The blonde gave a wry smile as she unscrewed the lid off a mason jar.  The harsh reek of raw alcohol was immediately apparent.  The blonde chugged down half the jar, wiped her mouth, and smiled innocently at them.  “I’m forty-seven years old.”

That was a bit weird, but then, they’d seen worse.  Jade herself was older than she looked – so was that loner kid James.  And one of the teachers, Circe, was rumored to actually be a couple of thousand years old.  Jade wasn’t sure she believed that, but a forty-seven year old teenager – that was possible.  It would certainly explain why Samantha conveyed adult attitudes and body language.

“I guess it is origin time,” the blonde conceded.  “Up until about a week ago, I was working at a research lab in Washington State.  There was an attack.  After I had taken care of some of the guards, I went into the lab to check on a doctor friend of mine.  She had died.  I started coughing and went home feeling sick.  Later I woke up looking like this.  After some things happened, I ended up here with a job to work in security and a chance to work on some personal issues. “

Jade nodded to herself.  She’d heard a couple of other stories about nanotech accidents.  There were a couple of victims that suddenly found themselves reverted to their prime, like Samantha.  The girl was lucky that she hadn’t ended up with new limbs or mechanical borg parts growing out of her, like some of the accidents.

“Any of you interested in earning some extra cash?” the girl continued.

“Most of us have already gotten jobs through student services or are on a scholarship with living allowances,” Toni said.

Jade wasn’t going to miss an opportunity – not when she was so far in debt.  “I’ll be busy today, but can my sister help?”  School let out early today, so Jinn would only miss one class.  It was the Powers Theory lab, and she was always afraid that Mrs. Bohn would insist on retesting her, and moving her classification up to TK-3.  She could afford to miss that, especially if it meant more money.

“I’ll take all the help I can get.  When will she be available?”

“She could skip Powers Theory Lab,” Jade offered.  “Since school lets out early, she’d only miss one class.  So she could start right away, and work as late as you like."

Samantha didn’t sound that enthusiastic.  “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble for skipping classes…”

“Fran and I are skipping a couple of classes,” Harry pointed out.  “And Jinn might be pretty useful.  She floats, so she could help with the ceiling work.  And she might be good if we need to fish any cable through the ceiling or floor.”

Samantha nodded.  “Sounds good.  Tell her to meet me at my place in Kane Hall after lunch.”

---

She only had one more class that day, civics.  She missed Word Processing (which was no great loss) and martial arts (which she did regret).  Ito Sensei seemed pleased with her in both forms.  In her physical body, he consistently complimented her on her dedication and drive.  She wasn’t anywhere near providing a challenge for the tougher students, but her movements were starting to reach that magical state where they just came, without conscious direction.  She was just beginning to master the basics enough that she could tell that she was on the edge of being able to act and react, without stumbling over having to think through all her movements.  And even better, she’d been taught for years to center herself, channel her breathing, and focus her energy into her ki.  But now, Toni Sensei (who was assisting Ito Sensei, more and more often), said that there was actually something happening there.  She was beginning to show the first sparks of a genuinely focused ki.  So far, the most she was able to do was to make surprisingly solid punches and kicks (and even that wasn’t reliable), but it was real progress!

Martial arts had gotten just as fun for her as Jinn.  Ever since her breakthrough with the punching bag, a month ago, she’d been coming up with more and more tricks and techniques.  As Jinn, she’d stopped even trying to master her ki, or to maintain proper forms or movements.  Instead, she and Ito Sensei seemed to have come to an understanding.  What she did wasn’t the art – not as he knew it – but it was mayhem.  Jinn had been happily handed off to Tolman Sensei, who was using her as a foil for all the tougher students in class.  She couldn’t be hurt, so she made an excellent sparring partner.  In turn, many of them couldn’t be hurt by her, which was an open invitation to become ever more devious and creative in her effort to use every dirty trick, surprise gadget, and underhanded ploy that she could devise.  Her strength wasn’t enough to overpower any of them, but she was learning to compensate.  They, in turn, were learning to respect her, and to be prepared for “unfair” surprises.

As she trudged up to the second floor, her mind was split between the missed martial arts class, the thought of her MID, and the dread/anticipation of tonight’s session with the BIT-slicer.  That’s why Bunny caught her by surprise, with a tackle from behind.

You could have warned me!  She mentally sent to Jann.

The point of these exercises is to make YOU more alert, not to make ME into your permanent watchdog, the enveloping sprit answered back.

Jade grumbled, knowing that it was pointless to argue with herself.  “Hi, Bunny, what’s up?”

Bunny was hopping with excitement.  “That line needs a ‘Doc’ and a carrot to come off properly.  Oh, never mind!  I’m done!  I’m done!  You gotta come test it!”

It took Jade a moment to switch gears and realize what the bouncy girl was talking about.  When the message finally penetrated, her eyes lit up.  “The missiles?  I thought you wouldn’t be done until Friday!”  But her glee was tempered.  “Buuuny… you know how far behind I am on my payments.  Jinn’s off right now helping this new security girl, Samantha, but still…”

“Yeah, yeah, forget about that!  I finally got you some real STOPPING POWER.  Just step into my lab.”

“Jeez, talk about straight lines.”

They closed the door behind them as Bunny moved to her desk.  On it, a large egg, about three feet high, was putt-putting away.  There were sections of the shell popped open, and it was slowly delivering small baby eggs out one side.  Each baby egg was the size and general appearance of an olive.  Overhead, Sniffer Egg was patrolling around like a round helicopter, looking for unwanted eavesdroppers.

Bunny put on her “Professor Bunny” glasses, and Jade knew she was in for a lecture.  Bunny didn’t need the glasses, but somehow she got the idea that they made her look like a professor.  As if professors wore rhinestone-studded glasses.

Bunny touched an egg and it projected an image on the wall.  That section of the wall now looked like a whiteboard.

“Eh-hem.  This,” she drew an almost-oval “is a classic egg shape.  As we have discussed before, the finest, strongest, most secure shape in nature.”  She scribbled, coloring in the inside.  “Now we fill it with high explosives!  But, this is still completely safe, because the explosive mix is not complete!  It still needs a catalyst.  This catalyst will trigger a violent exothermic reaction, to wit, an explosion.”

Professor Bunny pulled out a small pen and extended it into a three-foot long pointer, which she used to tap the board.  “Und where would ve put zis catalyst?”

“Uh…”

“Think EGG.”

“The yolk?”

“Bingo!”  She drew another oval in the center.  “This is actually another egg shape, held in the exact center by shock-absorbent standoffs, and it contains a variety of creamy fillings.  In this case, the catalyst.  In other cases, a small explosive charge.  Finally, at the pointy end of this ‘yolk’ is the primer.  A set of tiny disks separated from one another by an inert gel.  Pressed together (which requires about a pound of force), they make a small bang, either cracking the yolk or igniting it, as the case may be.  Now, because of the shape, and the strength of the egg, and the shock-absorbers and cushioning fluid, these won’t ignite on impact.  I’ve tested, and it takes in excess of 500 Gs to trigger these accidentally.”  She picked up a ‘olive’ and threw it to the ground, as hard as she could.  “See?  Nothing.  But imagine if a TK was to squeeze these parts together – BANG.”

“So, they’re tiny little grenades?”  Jade was impressed.  This was exactly what she’d been hoping for!

“Grenades?  Pffft.  I haven’t even STARTED describing my brilliance yet.  I promised you missiles, you get missiles!”  She went back to her drawing and sketched in a small cuff around the equator.  “Remember those old fashioned paper swords?  A little spiral of paper, so when you flicked it forward, it telescoped out like a lightsaber?  This is sort of the same thing.  It telescopes backward, making a tube.  There’s little fins at the bottom, but you’ll have to hold them in place with TK.  The best part is the dust that I’ve put in around the paper.  On contact with air, it exhibits a temporary but significant expansion, resulting in a grayish cloud.”  She tossed the ‘olive’ to Jade.  “Try it out.  This one’s just a red color-cloud, not an explosive.”

Jade looked at the tiny black egg, still not quite understanding.  “Is it… a rocket?”

Bunny leaned forward.  “Technically, I supposed you’d call it an RPG – that’s Rocket Propelled Grenade, not role playing game.  But I prefer to call it a mini-missile!  The best part is, it’s a complete FAKE.  Look, you cast Jann into it.  She takes an olive and flies off.  At the same time, she unfolds the paper cuff and pops up the fins.  At the same time, she slowly leaks out some of the powder.  This makes it LOOK like you’ve just shot off a missile, which is zooming around on some sort of super-advanced targeting system, and leaving a trail of exhaust behind it.  And when the missile approaches its target, BOOM!  All the evidence is destroyed.  Meanwhile, Jann is instantly back in your head, and you can cast her into another missile.  Since these things are tiny, you can carry hundreds of them!  Who needs a gun when you can shoot off self-guided missiles?  Try it out!”

Jade opened the door and stepped into the hallway.  “Uh, not that I don’t trust you, but…”  She held out the ‘olive’ and dropped it on the floor, cringing back.  There was no reaction.

“Don’t drop it, throw it!  As hard as you can!”

Jade did.  There was still no reaction.  Then she held it in her hand and charged Jann into it.  On impulse, she gave a voice command for effect.  “Missile: fire!”

The olive seemed to launch off of her palm.  Before she could blink, there was a five-inch long flat-black missile with a slightly bulbous nose cone.  She could see the tail fins, and it seemed to be propelled along by a powerful propellant which left smoke in its wake.  The mini-missile zoomed down to the girls’ end of the hall, at the sunroom past Ayla’s room.  At the last second, it made a right-angle turn and vanished from sight.  They heard a voice yelling from the opposite hallway.

“What the hell?  Hey, no missiles indoors!”

Knowing what was coming, Jade turned to look behind her.  A moment later, the missile made a right-angle turn and came barreling toward them.  It seemed to fly erratically, spiraling and twisting unpredictably.  It shot toward them surprisingly quickly, then flew past them and exploded, two doors down.  The explosion sounded like a loud cap pistol, and produced an opaque red cloud that expanded to fill the hallway.

Bunny turned to her with a hopeful expression.  “So, whaddya think?”

“FanTASTIC!  Oh, and flying it was pretty damn cool, too!  So what kind of loads do you have?”

“Well, I was going to talk to you about that.”  Bunny led the way back into her room, to the large egg on her desk.  “This is ‘Betty Boom’, my latest egg.  She’s the reloader.  Well, ‘constructor’ would be more accurate.  Once I get her set up, each egg should be pretty cheap to make.  We’re only talking about fifty cents worth of materials for each one.”

“Hey, can I make a request?”

“Sure.”

“Well…” Jade fidgeted for a moment.  “The black ‘olives’ are cool, but it’s really more of Shroud’s style than mine.  If I’m going to use these, could you make them more colorful?  I’m thinking, some bright yellow, and orange –“

“How about stripes and spots?  Or stars?  I could color-code the loads.”

“Solid colors would be okay,” Jade decided, “just so long as they’re pretty.  And don’t worry about matching them to loads – I’ll be able to figure that out by ‘feel’.  I think I’ll probably cast Jann into the whole batch at once, and she’ll drop everything but the load we want.”

“I like it!  Now, we’ll have to test the real loads at one of the underground test ranges.  For fillers, I was thinking…”

And although there was no martial arts class that afternoon, it still turned out to be delightfully destructive.

46: If at first you don’t succeed…

Whateley Academy, secret underground lab

November 22, Wednesday evening, 7:13 PM

Removing the permanently glued-on appliance had been difficult, but nowhere near the challenge of dragging Billie back into the underground lab.  Jade could almost feel the other girl’s morbid shiver at the thought of the vulgar pawing they would both receive.  Billie had protested, with that flay-the-nerve-ends vulgarity that never actually descended to swearing or true obscenity.  It was one of Billie’s more unique talents.  But in the same way that Jade could sense the other girl’s fear and dread about the procedure itself, she could also feel Billie’s absolute determination to help her roommate.  It helped her, as she literally dragged Billie forward, knowing somehow that the taller girl needed the excuse of being physically coerced.  As if Jade could have pulled Tennyo against her will!

So once again, they had entered the rock-walled underground laboratory.  Once again, electrode contact points were painted on intimate areas of her body, and once again, she was strapped into the strange, insulated rubbery outfit.

The new machinery on the wall indicated how hard the devisors had been working, in preparation for this second trial.

This time, Rafael Eagan strapped a new box over her abdomen.

“What’s that?”

“Instrument package.  It’ll tell us if we’re on the right track.”

Behind her back, she heard Billie cussing up a storm.  Jade ignored the words, and reached for the feel of the emotions behind the cursing.  Form and expectations aside, how annoyed was Billie?  From what she sensed, the answer was, quite a bit.  And still, her roommate went through this for her.  Not once, but twice.

Against her back, she felt the thud of a final clamp being snapped into place.  Then Eagan and Kew stepped down from the revolving platform.

“Okay, Knick-knack.  They’re both locked up tight here.”  Both the devisors moved back behind a screen that looked like armored plate from the hull of a battleship.

“Hold on, girls,” Knick-knack called out in his deep voice.  “We’re going to need to up the power a bit on this one.  It may sting a little.”  Then, “Initiating rotation.”

As with Monday’s session, the platform began to spin and the lights shining on her began to flick on and off, like strobes.  Although she knew she was spinning, the strobe effect gave her a glimpse of the room beyond, always frozen in the same spot.

“Excitation current on.”

The bite of tiny electric shocks began dancing up and down her sides.  They traced down the back of her legs, as if following the seam on an old-style stocking.  Her fingers and toes tingled, and she could feel her earlobes.

“Commence template collection.”

Again, the blue glow began to form.  It was strobe-frozen the way the rest of the room was.  At first, it was just a fuzzy fog that surrounded her body, but it quickly solidified into a shell around her.  She could see transparent blue breasts forming in front of her, and felt as much as saw that outline that was both more mature and more feminine than her own.

---

In the control both, all three devisors studied newly improved readouts.

“We have a physical mis-alignment,” Knick knack noted.

“I can correct,” Eagan announced.

Kew adjusted a readout.  “I have template resolution at maximum.  Stage three filtration: all exotic elements masked.”

“Lock it in.”

“Done!”

“Sensitize recipient!”

Knick-knack pointed to his own readout.  “There.  The lower waveform is her energy body.  See?  They tell me our tests helped prove that the energy-body is a shapeshifter.  The physical template has been pushed way up in potential to here.”

“What would cause that?” Eagan wondered, scratching at his sideways-jutting hair.

Knick-knack shrugged.  “You’ve got me.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  But with that direct power tap from the reactor…”

“That’s an awful lot of power,” Kew cautioned.  “Is it safe?”

Knick-knack gave a demented laugh.  “Safe?  Since when is being a devisor… safe?”  He reached over and snapped closed the master switch.

“Initiate transfer!”

---

The stage was spinning fast enough that she was barely clinging to the edge of consciousness.  A motor started in the back plate she was strapped to, raising her up until her feet dangled above the floor.  The transparent energy-breasts were now superimposed precisely above her own flat chest.

“Sensitize recipient!”

Now actual arcs of electricity began to play over her body.  Looking down, she saw the hollow inside of the oversized pushup bra-strap they’d wrapped around her.  Her own flat chest didn’t come close to filling the pre-shaped cups.  Along the inside of the rubber device, a host of electrical contacts stood, removed by inches from her own skin, and the liquid metal painted onto her skin.  But now those contacts emitted arcs of current – arcs that played like lightning across her flat chest, piercing like needles through her tiny nipples.

Jade clenched her teeth and refused to scream.

“Initiate transfer!”

The strobe flashes changed, becoming more powerful.  Each time she spun into position, it pumped energy into her.  The blue energy body was being crudely forced into her physical body.

Now the pain arrived.  On the rack, that medieval torture device, a victim was stretched until their bones were pulled apart at the joints.  In contrast, Jade was being pulled apart molecule by molecule, as her bones were stretched longer.  She felt her leg bones being pulled longer, forced to become longer.  Her arms pulled out.  Not from their sockets, it was as if ever single part of her arm was being exploded larger.

She screamed aloud, but had the strength of will to add a shout at the end, “KEEP GOING!”

This time, she could tell, something was happening.

---

Billie nearly jumped out of her skin at the scream.  Sure, the damn shocks were hardly comfortable.  She didn’t mind the spinning, of course, but the flickering lights were irritating.  Then she heard Jade scream, and nearly pulled out of the cuffs and clamps.  But the scream was followed by a “KEEP GOING!”

Reluctantly, she held her place.

---

“Sounds painful,” Eagan commented.

Knick-knack grinned.  “Can’t make an omelet…”

“Trouble,” Kew said.  “Still not getting signal penetration through sigma band.”

“More power,” Knick-knack decided.

Eagan winced, as the screams increased.

---

Now her back was being broken.  She could feel it.  Someone had their knee in the small of her back, and they were shoving her spine through her belly.  At the same time, they were choking her to death around that same belly.  Giant hands were squeezing her like a toothpaste tube, and she could feel herself squirting out into longer arms and legs.  At the same time, her legs were being pulled out – sideways, as if a giant had grabbed her on each side of her hips, and was pulling her legs out of their sockets.

She screamed again, even louder, but as her head thrashed in agony her eyes looked down.

Her chest was… larger.  Her nipples had grown to double their original size, and were still growing.  And her chest itself was swelling, rising like bread in an oven, her breasts swelling as they struggled to fill the cups of her bandeau.

Her screams continued, but changed in tone.  Her throat and voice were changing, slightly, even as her emotions changed from pain to exultation.

The electricity continued to torture her nipples, to the point where they began to swell in reaction.  From their tiny, wart-like beginnings, they began to grow and expand, swelling like popcorn kernels about to explode.  She turned her head down, staring at her chest, and saw with her own eyes how her nipples were changing.  As they had when she’d first tried hormones, the small ring of flesh immediately surrounding each nipple, her areola, had darkened and thickened.  As she watched, the areola grew, increasing in diameter, thickening, and becoming darker.  Now a collection of fine bumps began to show, in a random ring through the disk of her thickening areola.  Each of those small bumps was as exquisitely sensitive as her boy-nipple had been.  As for the nipples themselves – they had size and structure.  She’d always thought they would be round little lumps.  But her nipples weren’t quite round in profile.  They were more squared-off.  The center was dimpled, pushed in almost, as if there was a duct there that would release its fluid.

Milk, she realized.  That’s where the milk comes out!  And that was why girl-nipples were larger, and shaped differently than boy-nipples.  They had to be functional.

But milk production required more than a large, functional nipple.  As she continue to watch, her neck straining painfully forward, she saw her chest beginning to develop.  Her nipples and areola were already quite large, now the flesh underneath became slightly puffy.  Already, she was losing the strict outline of her ribcage.  Now, her chest visibly swelled.  Like molehills growing into mountains, her nipples rose atop peaks of her own flesh, as Jade watched her breasts form and grow.

She was alarmed by her initial shape – far too narrow and pointy.  Then she began to fill in from the sides, and she began to take on a more conical shape.

The inside of the rubber “cups” over her chest was supposed to be the size of an A-cup.  Although she certainly didn’t fill the cup yet, as she grew her nipple finally brushed the inside surface, directly touching the electrode there.

It was like a icicle stab which turned into a soothing warmth.  With direct contact, the transforming energies poured into her like a flood.  Quickly now, her breasts continued their growth.  She filled the A-cup, and then more.  Her soft, tender new flesh began to strain at the rubbery bindings, stretching the rubber as her chest expanded.  She had no idea what she would look like unrestrained, but she could feel the soft warmth of her flesh straining at the rubbery cups, and her contours now were lush and rounded.

---

Kew reported her visual inspection.  “Morphing in progress!  I’m seeing changes in the arms and legs, height coming into alignment.  Waist and hips, yes, all secondary sexual characteristics are aligning.  We’re approaching match.”

“Let that be a lesson to you,” Knick-knack instructed.  “If at first you don’t succeed, crank up the power.”

“Hit it with a bigger hammer?” Eagan queried, in amusement.

“If you like.”  Knick-knack activated another monitor.  “I’m beginning the ultrasound.  I think we’re ready for the primary sexual characteristics.”

Eagan studied the ultrasound monitor.  “Nothing yet.  Just intestines.  I’m getting a good readout on the kidneys.”

“Primary sexual characteristics… now!”

---

The change energies were jabbing through her everywhere, like tiny knives of energy.  It felt like every cell in her body was being touched by the blue energy.  But she could see the glowing outline of Billie’s body.  More and more, her own body seemed to be matching that outline.  Then something changed.  She felt the pain begin to ebb, before it gathered together in a single point, seeming to settle within the center of her hips.  It was in the middle of her abdomen, perhaps five inches below her belly button, but inside.  The pain swelled into an orb of agony, as large as an orange.  Tendrils of energy reached out from the orb, traveling to her penis and reaching down the length of it.  Tendrils like tiny filaments stretched out and over and through her boy-sack, wrapping around the small balls inside.

Then, with an abrupt yank, the tendrils tightened.  She felt her testicles yanked up into her body, as if pulled by piano wires.  The electrical fire filled her penis and burned.  She couldn’t tell whether it was being pulled in or simply burned away.  Either way, she didn’t care.  It was so painful that she could no longer even scream, but this was it!  She was becoming a true, genuine girl!

---

“What do we have on ultrasound?”

“Nothing yet – wait.  Two small bodies… they might be ovaries.  They aren’t forming in place, they seem to be traveling upward.”

“Interesting.  Anything else?”

“Something stating to form.  It might be the beginning of a uterus.”

---

The orb of fire was now blazing, pulling all of her mind and all of her attention into the sphere inside the cage of her hips.  Her penis was gone, burned away, and a line of fire flickered back and forth along the length of her crotch.  Abruptly, there was a coldness.  A cold, hard metal rod pressed against her, at her very undermost region.  Electrical fire flickered at the tip of the rod, changing her, burning away the flesh that obstructed it, until it abruptly slipped forward and the cool hard shaft was suddenly inside her.  It was only an inch, but it was actually inside her!

She reveled in the violation.  The was proof!  She was becoming a real girl.  Her screams transitioned abruptly into hysterical laugher, as she imagined Pinocchio.  Only she was becoming a real girl.  And she couldn’t help imagining the puppet’s nose, there beneath her, growing longer and longer as it penetrated into her.  “Lie, puppet, lie!” she shouted feverishly.

Without warning, it felt like she wet her pants.  She suddenly felt moisture down there, and the cold, hard rod slid into her even farther.  All along the length of the rod, electrical fire sparked outward, filling her with sensation.  She was supremely aware of her own flesh and how that flesh had been shaped into a moist tunnel to contain the rod, now thrust nearly six inches deep into her body.

In time with the pulsations of the strobe gun, the rod began to emit pulsating waves of energy from its tip, from the deepest point within her.  Those waves washed over the burning orb within the cage of her hips, until the orb and rod seemed to be performing some type of searing duet between them, where flesh was first burned away and then reformed in a miraculous new configuration.

---

“Yes, there we go.  That’s all major structures!  If those are the fallopian tubes, that must be the uterus.  There’s the vaginal barrel, with our probe pressed right up against the cervix.”

Kew winced.  “That can’t be comfortable.”

Knick-knack chuckled.  “Not unless high voltage turns you on.”

“Not there it doesn’t.”

---

And then the fire’s work was done, and it receded.  The electricity was still there, playing over her sensitized skin, caressing her entire body from delicate ankles up her long legs, past curved hip and slender waist, up to feminine shoulder and graceful neck.

The first time she’d been so sure she was changed.  This time, she had three sources of proof to guarantee that she truly had.  First, she could look down, and see the mounds of her own bosom, pressed tight into the rubber brassier.  Second, she could feel her waist.  With every breath, with every small movement, she was keenly aware that her middle was smaller around than it had ever been.  Lastly, there was a stiff, cold, metal rod inside her.  It was a sensation utterly unlike anything she’d felt before.

As the stage spun down, the current diminished and then finally stopped entirely.  Two silvery robots drifted forward and began disconnecting the straps that held her tight to the rotating stage.  With the last cuff removed, she pulled her hands and feet free of the gloves and boots and dropped to the stage, clad in only a rubbery black bikini.

She was wobbly, and had to put her hand out to steady herself.  She’d grown vastly taller, from her own diminutive four-foot-nine to Billie’s towering five-foot-three.  She stood, feeling how her longer legs were also set wider apart in her larger hips.

Billie came floating around from the opposite side, gliding in to stand in front of her, giving her a quick once-over.

Jade was amazed to be looking her roommate in the eye.  She had always been so much shorter than Billie.  Then her eye drifted down.

Their figures were the same.  Their curves were the same.  She didn’t know about her face, but Billie seemed to be nodding at her in satisfaction.  Jade tried to smile at her roommate, but for some reason her mouth was already stretched as wide as it would go.

“Looking good, Jade.  I guess you’ve finally grown up, huh?”

She nodded manically.  “Is it real?  Tell me I’m not just imagining it!”

Billie smirked.  “Nope, that’s the real deal.  In fact, they must have amplified my figure or something, because I’m sure I don’t have that many curves.”

Jade charged herself into a speck, then flew away to get perspective, a look back at her face, and a third-person view that compared them.  After a fast look, she popped back.

“You’re too modest, oneesan.  You’ve just never seen yourself from this perspective.  We’re exactly the same.”

“You’ve still got your face and hair, except maybe a touch more grown up, and your ears don’t stick out like this.”

Before Jade’s eyes got too watery, she hugged her oneesan as hard as she could.  “Thank you!  Thank you, oneesan!  I’ll never forget this, never!”

“Yeah, I guess.  C’mon.  Unless rubber panties turn you on, let’s get into some real clothes.

Before they could reach the changing room, Knick-knack intercepted them.

“Superb!” he boomed.  “It looks like a complete success!  However, I need to caution you…”

Jade suddenly felt the smile slip from her face.

“…since this procedure is so new, we still don’t know what the long-term implications are.  If you really are a shifter, you might lose this shape in as little as twenty minutes.  More likely, you’d lose it when you sleep.  If you last the night, I’d think you’d be stable, particularly considering the solidity of your template.  Whatever happens, keep us informed.”

Jade was briefly sobered, as she returned to the dressing room.  The thought that she might lose her dream, so soon after achieving it, was too much to contemplate.  So she didn’t.  She just concentrated on getting dressed.

Her panties barely fit.  They were tight, but for the first time ever, there was no extra “junk” down below.  Once she had the panties on, she couldn’t help running a hand over her smooth contours.  Smooth and flat down the front, between her legs, and all the way back!  Well, not exactly “flat.”  Her flesh swelled slightly, with puffy, fatty lips to each side protecting and hiding the feminine gap between.  She had felt these contours before.  She wore clothes as Jinn, and she’d dressed herself often enough, even feeling her curves and contours.  But not like this!  Each bit of flesh had some new sensation to it.  And the sensations weren’t restricted to just the private bits, either.  It was the swell of a hip, the narrow dip of her waist, the play and movement of her longer and more graceful fingers.

Her old bra didn’t fit at all.  The band measurement wasn’t that different – her ribs were perhaps an inch larger around – but she’d added at least two inches of bust.  Which was to say that she’d had none before, and she was a solid B cup now – if she matched Billie.  She finally decided that it was pointless for a substantial B-cup like herself (she posed for herself once or twice, just to enjoy the effect) there was no way that she could wear a teeny old triple-A bra.  So she discarded it, and reached for her blouse.

That was the wrong size, too.  Buttoning up left her loose around the waist, and overstraining her top.  The buttons were tight, in danger of being pulled loose.

“I guess that’s why they give us a blazer,” she said to herself.  She put that off until she was finished dressing.

Despite her wider hips, her pleated skirt was loose around the waist.  She spent a moment readjusting the elastic waistband, then slipped the skirt back on.  It had far more flare than she’d ever managed with her boy-body.

It’s a shame I didn’t have this body for yesterday’s hot tub party, she thought.  But then the girls would have been definitely checking her out.  Now that she was a genuine-for-sure girl, she paused to consider, trying to determine her feelings on that matter.  The answer was… she still didn’t know.

Her socks fit, but her shoes didn’t.  She decided to leave them both off and carry herself home.  She couldn’t afford to ruin a pair of socks.

The jacket caused more problem than she expected.  Rather than concealing her new breasts, it seemed to squeeze and push them into greater prominence.  Jade shrugged and cast Jann-sensei into her clothes.  She was gently lifted until her weight was only a few pounds.  She’d done this before, but she immediately noticed a few differences that she’d never noticed before.  First, a lot of the lift necessarily came at her hips and crotch.  Even with Jann’s gentle touch, the lift was now much more comfortable than when she’d been “tucked”.  Second, she seemed to be getting extra lift at her boobs.  While she had to admit that they did provide substantial handles, it felt very odd, and she wasn’t sure she needed quite that much support.

Lofted like that, she didn’t need shoes.  It also helped as she virtually skipped over to her roommate.

“Oneesan!”  She waved, manically.  “Let’s go!  We need to get back to Poe!”

Billie turned around and almost choked when she saw Jade.  “Urk.  You aren’t going out like that, are you?”

Jade shrugged, scrunching her shoulders in together.  It was a feminine gesture that she’s used often enough in the past.  She hadn’t fully appreciated how it needed to be modified once you had boobs.

“Whoa!” Jade muttered.  “Another reason to wear a bra, or slip, or something.  To keep you from sliding against your shirt like that.  Weird.  It is always like this?”

Billie gritted her teeth as she dragged her roommate away from the devisors, who were now watching them closely.  “We’ll talk about it back in the room, okay?”

“Okay!”

The older girl didn’t waste any time, as she dragged Jade out of the underground complex and back through campus toward Poe.  Some girls might have worried about being alone on campus after dark, but no one with more than half a brain was going to bother Tennyo.  Jade was gleeful and buoyant (in more ways than one) as her roommate pulled her along like a balloon.

All the while, Billie maintained her own constant stream of disgruntled muttering.  “I don’t see how they can sell you a skirt like that!  It’s indecent, that’s what it is!  Which is just the word I’d use for the way you’re wearing that jacket – no, don’t take it off!  Gah!  It’s like you give a kid their fondest wish and they go all loopy on you!”

“It’s because I’m so happy, oneesan!  I’ve seen the best, prettiest girl on campus, and now I practically get to be her!  Who wouldn’t be happy?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, kiddo, but we’ve both seen Nikki.  In the buff and dressed to the nines, both.  And Sara was drawing the eyes of everything out there equipped with a Y chromosome, and more than a few without, even before she shifted into her new ‘more fully packed’ stackage.  There’s no way on earth I can even compete with those big guns swinging around.”

Jade spontaneous grab-hugged her roommate, releasing again almost immediately.  Another advantage! she realized.  Boobs make hugs so much more squeezably nicer!  Out loud, she said, “If you say so, oneesan.  But you know they’ve both got magic, which makes it kind of unfair, doesn’t it?  And even if I now have your wonderful, fabulous curves, there’s no way I could compete either, because most of what makes you so super-great is just you.  The person you are and the way you move and the way you talk and everything about you!”

Billie snorted.  “Geez, you ought to get an award for the sincere delivery.  Maybe I should keep you around all the time.  You do wonders for my self-confidence, you know that?”

Jade grabbed Billie’s arm like a leech.  With telekinetic lift, she only weighed a couple of pounds, so at this point anyone could have waved her around like a signal flag.  In a normal town she would have left bugged-out eyes and fainting pedestrians in her wake.  Here at Whateley, everyone that saw them just chalked it up to Tennyo’s strength, and ignored it.

Jade, in her new role as over-sized bracelet, said, “You don’t really have any problems with self-confidence, do you oneesan?”

Billie carefully settled her roommate back to the ground, before replying.  “I don’t know.  Maybe sometimes, I guess.”  They’d reached the front door of Poe, and Billie paused, waiting until they were inside before continuing.  “Maybe that’s part of being a girl – thinking that you can always be just a little prettier, or built a little better, you know?  Sometimes it’s really hard to compete here in Whateley.”

“What is it really, oneesan?”

Billie paused, looking around the downstairs kitchen.  For the moment, no one was inside.  She pulled Jade in for a quick explanation.

“Look, I’ve only been a girl for about six months now.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Toni and Nikki and Sara, and it seems like practically everybody, I mean, they all have relationships.  Boyfriends, girlfriends, Toni’s got both.  And they’re already kissing and who knows what?  And I know that Sara and at least three others have gone lots farther…

Jade beamed at her, the radiant confidence never even wavering.  “So?  What does any of that have to do with how fabulous YOU are?”

“Well… I’m not sure I’m ready for that.  I’m not sure I’ll every be ready for it.  Is there something wrong with me?”

Jade’s smile got even brighter.  “Billie’s got a secret!” she whispered.

“What?”

“I know your secret!”

“What are you talking about?”

Jade drifted up to her ear and whispered it.  “Oneesan’s a romantic!”

“What?  What does that have to do with anything?”

“Admit it!”  Jade shook a finger at her.  “You want someone who’s going to love you and appreciate you and think gooey thoughts and get stars in their eyes whenever they look at you.”

“Huh?”  Billie thought about it.

“Wow!  Imagine that!  The dread space pirate, the most feared girl in all the galaxy, and all she wants is for someone to bring her flowers and chocolates!  If I told anyone, your reputation would be RUINED!  Ha ha ha ha!”  With a gleam in her eye, she raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their floor.

Billie came right behind, shaking her fist.  “Oh, don’t you dare!  You’re going to be in so much trouble!”

But by the time they reached the “gurlzone” end of the hallway, they’d run into the entire crew, in the hallway.

“Jade?” Nikki asked, her jaw hanging open.

Jade bounced around like she only weighed two pounds.  “Yep yep yeppers!”

“Is that you?”  Toni traced an hourglass shape in the air.

Jade did a front flip followed by a back flip, bounding off the ceiling both times.  That was easy to do, since she was telekinetically weightless.  “Me, me, all me, in the fabulous FLESH!”

“Dragons and immortals,” Chou swore, “she actually did it!  It worked!”

“It worked!  It worked!” the hyper girl sang.  “And now I need more money than ever, so I can buy new clothes!  I mean, look at how this blouse fits!”  She yanked open her blazer.

Bunny had come into the hall now, and got a goofy grin on her face.

Toni just looked blank.  “Yeah… I see your problems, there.”

Jade suddenly had a manic gleam.  “I’ve got to go try on some clothes!  Oneesan, can I borrow one of your bras?  After all, we’re the exact same size now…”

Billie looked back with a look of terror on her face, before she was pulled into the room.

After the door slammed, the other girls were left staring at each other in stupefaction.

“…well…” Chou finally said, “she seemed pleased.”

Toni nodded.  “I never thought it would happen quite that quickly.  One moment she’s little and … uh … not so feminine.  Then an hour later, BOOM.”

“They should package that and sell it in salons,” Nikki suggested.  “They’d make a billion.”

Hank wandered up to them, with Sara following not too far behind.

“Hey, did you see the new girl?” he asked.  “Must be another mid-term transfer.  I only caught a glimpse of her, but she looked typically stacked.  Not that you ladies have anything to fear.”

Nikki scowled at him.  “Your transition seems just about complete.  You’re acquiring the classic pig behavior, right on schedule.”

“I like to be surrounded by beautiful women.  Sue me.  So who’s the new girl, and where’s she staying?  Aren’t we just about full up?”

Sara quietly joined them, leaning forward to hear the answer.

“That was Jade,” Chou said calmly.  “She seems to have… how to put it?”

 

“Blown away her little problem?” Toni suggested.

“Undergone some new ‘developments’?” Nikki offered.

“Grown herself a huge pair of hooters!” Ayla said, from behind them.

“Oh, delicately put,” Toni moaned.

Ayla shrugged.  “It’s an art.”

Oddly, Sara seemed less pleased.  “Are you sure about this?  From my research…”

Whatever doubts she might have expressed were silenced as Jade burst back into the hallway.

“Arg!  What am I supposed to wear to bed now?”  She was dressed in her old “Hello Kitty” nightgown.  Not only had she grown six inches taller, but her expanded measurements at chest and hip also used extra fabric.  So where the nightgown had formerly reached nearly to her knees, it was now within an inch of being completely indecent.  “See?  And if I have to reach for anything overhead—”

“Don’t look, Hank!”  Toni moved to cover his eye, while Hank moved to avoid Toni.

“Oops,” Jade said, suddenly dropping her arms.

“Well, that answers that little question,” Bunny decided, smugly.

Jade ducked back into her room, emerging a minute later wearing one of Jinn’s outfits – a black halter and extremely abbreviated black miniskirt.

“Did you know that  I have almost no clothes of my own that I can fit into?”

The crowd just stared at her.

“Funny, I’ve worn this outfit as Jinn, plenty of times, but I guess I never realized how … exposed … it was.  I mean, when I’m Jinn I don’t actually have any skin, and it’s not like I could feel the air on me anyway.”

“Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” Nikki asked, sympathetically.

“Yeah.  Even the halter.  I never used to have anything to halt, you know?”

Toni nodded.  “Been there, done that.  It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, it is a touch drafty.  The weather’s definitely getting too cold for an outfit like this – Oh!  You mean the whole…”  Jade’s grin, which had never entirely vanished, blossomed again into full force.  She suddenly threw her arms around the black girl to hug her.  “Why didn’t you tell me how great it was!  And hugs are so much better, with boobs to squish!  It’s like you’re putting an extra bit of yourself into the hug, isn’t it?”

Toni tried to pull the enthusiastic arms off her neck.  “Uh, yeah, sure.  It’s not something we talk about very much.”

“Congratulations, Jade,” Sara said it quietly, but there was a note of regret in her voice.

Jade looked at the pale white sex symbol and blew a raspberry.  “See?  I did it, and I didn’t even need to carry your child.”  She grinned.  “Not to say that I don’t plan to have babies someday.”  She moved forward and embraced the surprised demoness.  “Do you forgive me?”

Sara was dumbfounded.  “Forgive you?”

“For being mad at you.  For saying… really horrible things that I never meant.  I didn’t mean them, you know, not even when I was saying them.  It was just…”

Sara patted the back of the new girl.  “It was just that sometimes your needs are so strong that you’ll do almost anything.”

The Japanese girl nodded silently, while squeezing harder.

“Believe me, I always understood.  There’s nothing to forgive.”

“In any case,” Nikki decided, “welcome to puberty, even if it was on fast forward.  And now that your body is simmering with the good old feminine hormones, you’ll be as vulnerable to her as everyone else.”

Jade let go with one arm and leaned back, to get a better look at Sara.  “The whole sex thing?”

“Exactly,” Nikki confirmed.  “That’ll definitely perk you up, once li’l miss wet dream sends her lust rays your way.”

Sara scowled.  “That’s under control now!  It’s been weeks since I leaked any of that stuff.  Has anyone here met me in a wet dream in the past three weeks?”

Several hands went up, and Sara gasped.  “No, I swear, it’s under control.”

“Uh, I don’t think it was due to psychic powers or anything,” Ayla offered.  “Cause it didn’t feel that different from the dreams with any of the other girls in them.”

Billie looked up in alarm.  “What?”  Then she shook her head.  “No.  I don’t want to know.  It’s times like this that I’m glad I’m not a telepath.”

“I have to admit being curious about that,” Jade admitted, one arm still around the pale demon princess.  “Everyone gets so wigged out by that whole lust thing.  What’s with that?”

Sara winced.  “Well, like Nikki said, now that you’ve zoomed past puberty, you’re bound to begin finding out.”

“Aw, give me a clue!  I know you can do it.”  Jade gave her friend a pouty smirk.

“You can find out the natural way.”

“Aw, come on!  Just a little zap.”  She squeezed her breasts together like a porn star.  “Does it fill my bosom with sensual heat?”

Billie winced, and covered her ears.  “I do not know this person!  She’s just a stranger!”

“I don’t think I should…” Sara said.

“Dare you!  Just a little zap.”

Sara sighed.  “Just a little.”

Jade leaned forward eagerly.  “Okay, give it to me.”

Behind her, Toni moaned.  “So many straight lines!”

Sara paused, as if expecting a reaction, then frowned, as she saw Jade was still waiting.  “Maybe I’m shielding too tightly.  Well then…”

Behind, Jade, Toni wobbled for a moment and then slammed her knees together.  “Woo!”

Nikki just waved a hand in front of her face and scowled.

Ayla was showing prominent points beneath her blouse, and now the front of her pants began to strain, as well.  “I just remembered that I hadn’t had my cold shower yet this morning…evening…whatever.”  She raced off.

Jade shrugged.  “Maybe it’s too subtle for me.”  She gave Sara another innocent squeeze.  “Still friends?”

“Always.”

As Jade turned away to join her roommate, she missed the perplexed glances that passed between the demon princess and fairy queen.

47: The real thing

Whateley Academy, Poe Cottage

November 22, Wednesday evening, 10:45 PM

Jade’s night was restless and filled with dreams.  She would fall into a deep sleep and dream that she’d achieved her deepest, fondest, greatest wish.  She’d actually become a girl!  But then she’d “wake up” and realize that it had only been a dream, and she was actually back in her despised boy-body.  In the midst of the nightmare, she didn’t realize that “waking up” was itself a part of the dream.

But she’d been training herself into an unusual sleep pattern.  She woke up naturally (and for real) every two hours, more or less.  She’d recharge Jinn and Jann, perhaps go to the bathroom and have a glass of water, and then go back to sleep.

Tonight, for the first time ever, she had the unfamiliar experience of waking from a nightmare of being a boy, to experience the dream-come-true of being a girl.  There were certainly plenty of differences, as she tried to go back to sleep.  She could no longer sleep face-down.  Even on her side, things were different.  Her hips and waist made the sideways position quite different, and a little hard to get used to.  When she lay on her back, her boobs splayed out to the side.  Also, the slight pressure of the blankets on her breasts was noticeable.  So she got as comfortable as she could then charged up Jeanie, which left her groggy, but didn’t quite knock her out.  Charging Jamie used enough energy that she was immediately unconscious.

---

The four of her spirits were surprised at the change in their moods, as well.  She’d expected little change, as Jinn.  After all, she’d been a girl since her very first appearance.  She’d always been the “lucky one”, since she got to be a real girl, unlike her poor physical self, trapped in its inappropriate body.

Now that feeling was almost reversed.  Her physical self had the body and the sensations for real.  Jade was the “lucky one”, and Jinn was a girl, but not a complete girl, since she didn’t share the sensations and reality of a physical body.

She was pleased to discover that the reversal didn’t make her bitter or even sad.  It was as if she were a mountain climber, reaching a peak that she had struggled for so long to climb.  Now, achieving her goal and standing upon the summit, she saw an even greater mountain beyond.  Perhaps some would have felt bitter or betrayed that their goal was shown as worthless.  But Jinn felt only exultation.  She had achieved her dream and discovered a new goal beyond that – to achieve that same reality, true girlhood, for her spirit selves as well.

As of yet, she had no idea what that might mean or imply, but it was a good goal to pursue.

The four of her had learned that they could communicate silently, telepathically.  The naked “flesh” of her spirit-self was both vulnerable and sensitive.  All she had to do was reach out an exposed finger and penetrate through the flesh of another self, and they were in mind-to-mind contact.  It was just as she’d learned to do as Jann, speaking mind-to-mind with her physical self.  When the two spirits overlapped, they joined.  The main difference was that as pure spirits, she had to resist the pull to combine.  If they didn’t brace, two of her touching would merge together like drops of water touching, becoming a single spirit-self.

There were experiments to perform there, to see if that had any interesting side-effects.  But for tonight, the four of her spent their time trying to stick to their usual routine.  Jann studied and did her homework, animating books, paper, and pen.  Jinn roamed about as Shroud, a black-cloaked ghost.  Jeanie could read, and Jamie, the new member of the team, roamed about as a SpySpeck, thinking deep thoughts or simply seeing what there was to see.

Tonight, Jamie roamed over and around her sleeping physical body, studying again and again her new contours, marveling at the joy of finally looking like a real girl.

Sara had again given clues that she would be “busy” tonight, so visiting her was out.  Instead, Jinn roamed through her clothes, trying to pick out her outfit for the next day.

And Jeanie hovered in thought, contemplating the meaning of what they’d accomplished.

They would occasionally come together again to share a “can you believe it?” moment, before separating and returning to their individual tasks.

Jeanie made note of all the people she needed to thank.  First on the list was her oneesan, of course.  Thuban, followed by the three devisors.  She reminded Jinn that whatever they wore needed to be appropriate for visiting Thuban, tomorrow.

---

Jade woke early, at five AM, her mind filled with her plans for the day.  It was Thanksgiving, and for the first time in her life, she was filled to the brim with thanks.  She wanted to begin dispensing those thanks as soon as she was able.  So she dispatched Jinn to the cafeteria, leaving Jann on guard in the room, while she showered.

The shower was delightful.  A little of it was the knowledge that she no longer had to hide, tucking away her shame.  Some of it was the stimulus of the water pouring over every inch of skin.  Much of the delight was feeling her skin in its new shape.  She had drips where she’d never had drips before.  Her new body washed up a little differently, too.  The regular soap felt a little harsh when she washed “down below.”  So she just rinsed, trying to make sure she got clean with just water and hand scrubbing.  It was pure delight to consider a delicate questioning session with the other girls, finding out how they recommended cleaning up down there.

She kept getting distracted by her skin.  She’d been expecting to feel super-sensitive, as if girl-skin was inherently more sensitive than child-skin.  That didn’t seem to be the case.  But her skin tones were just a little off.  She was just a touch lighter than she’d been, just as Tennyo had skin that was a shade lighter than Jade’s.  It was her hands that threw her, more than anything else.  Her hands were longer, but more slender than they’d been yesterday.  Even the nails and cuticles were different.  And… she double checked to make sure… there was a spot on the back of her hand where she’d been burned, a month ago, in what she privately dubbed her “worst day.”  Today the shiny-smooth patch of scar tissue had vanished.  Which made sense as she thought about it, since this body had come from Billie’s template, and Billie didn’t have a scar across her hand.  Jade spent a moment looking over her new self, trying to see if she’d picked up any new scars.  So far as she could tell, her skin and complexion were both perfect.

For the first time, toweling off was a fun experience.  Her hair hadn’t gotten any longer, so she didn’t need a towel-turban for her head.  But when she did the classic “girl wrap” around her torso, this time she had something up top to hold the towel in place.  And she didn’t even bother to slip on panties.  First, she wanted to make sure she air-dried down there, but more important, she was no longer afraid of revealing any dreadful anatomical shame.  From now on, if she accidentally flashed one of the other girls, she’d only be flashing what was right and proper for a girl to have.

Another early-morning girl entered as Jade finished wrapping up.  It was Vox, one of the other black girls on the floor.  She gave a suspicious look, a sort of “who the hell are you?” glance, before her eyes opened wide.

“Jade?”

Jade just nodded back in delight.

“What the hell happened to you, girl?”

“I grew up.  With a little help from some devisor friends.”  She looked away shyly.  “Like it?”

“Dayum!  You’re growing into one fine woman!

“Thanks, Vanessa.”  Yes, she’d be giving a lot of thanks today.

Back in the room, she finished getting dressed before Billie woke.  Billie was normally up before anyone (except occasionally a lingering Jinn), since she had early-morning flying classes every day.  This time, she had everything spread out when her roommate first woke up.

While Jade quietly dressed, Jinn stood waiting in seiza, holding the tray of food like an offering.  It may have been that aroma that roused Billie.  The girl yawned, rolling over.  As her blanket slipped down, one perfect breast was nearly exposed through the top of her twisted nightgown.  Still not opening her eyes, Billie reached up and rather crudely scratched at the underside of her right breast, unaware of how that caused her nipple to dance about, nearly popping loose from its clinging concealment.  Billie’s nose twitched, as she sniffed again.  Apparently not believing the scents being delivered to her, her eyes popped open to verify the information.

Only to see Jinn, kneeling in the seiza position, offering up a breakfast tray with cool orange juice, bacon, jellied toast, slices of melon, and a very large cheese omelet.

“Huh?  Whazzat?” she mumbled.

“It’s Thanksgiving, oneesan.  I have so much to be thankful for, and I thought I’d start by doing something nice for my most favorite person in the world, my big sister.  I know this isn’t much, but maybe it will hold you over until you can get a real breakfast.”

Billie sat up, scratching now behind one of her protruding ears.  “You didn’t have to do that.”

Jinn smiled modestly.  “You know by now that it’s no trouble for me.”

“Well…”  Billie reached for a strip of crispy bacon.  “Maybe on Thanksgiving, I guess.”

Jade had finally resorted to casting Jann into her shorts.  They’d been loose on her boy-body, but they barely stretched around her newly enhanced hips.  She’d recycled an old pair of jeans, cutting off the legs completely.  The challenge now was to zip the zipper and button the top button.  Jann had to nearly apply two hundred pounds of pull before she could fasten the snug shorts into place.

“There.”

Jade turned around, showing her scavenged outfit.  Her top was a green blouse with a torn sleeve.  She’d removed both sleeves, and tied the bottom up in a knot under her breasts, making it into a Daisy Duke style halter that left her midriff exposed.  The tight, ultra-short shorts added to the image, emphasizing the length and shape of her legs.

Billie almost choked on her bacon.

“You’re not going out like that, are you?”

Jade’s new-found confidence wasn’t shaken.  “Why, do I look bad?”

“That’s not the point!  Do you want all the horn dogs on campus to be getting off on you?”

Jade just smiled serenely.  “I’m so happy with how I look now!  Is there anything wrong with sharing that?”

“You don’t mind the thought that they’ll be undressing you in their minds, and imagining all sorts of sick fantasies?”

Jade shrugged, not losing her smile.  “It’s kind of a compliment, isn’t it?  Anyway, it’s not like it’s really an issue.  I’ll be with friends for most of the day.  Nikki and Sara will be there for breakfast.  Between them and you, oneesan, it’s not like I’d be noticed that much.”

Billie was eating some toast now.  “’s not the point.  But, hell, I guess you can figure it out on your own.”  She looked down at Jinn, still kneeling as she held the tray.  “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“I need to show you how thankful I am, oneesan,” Jinn said with quiet conviction.  “You know that this is no inconvenience for me.  If I could show my thanks by bringing you some early breakfast, or being your servant for a day, a month, or forever, I gladly would.”

“Uh… yeah.  Look, I don’t really need a servant.  The whole idea makes me just a little uncomfortable.  And, much as I like the idea, we aren’t really sisters.”

“Aren’t we?” Jade asked.  “We didn’t share the same parents, much to my regret, but look at my body.  How much have I inherited from you?  Would ‘mother’ be a more appropriate relationship?”

“No, no!”  Billie waved her hands frantically.  “Sisters is fine!  I’m definitely not ready for motherhood yet!  It’s just…”

Jade stepped up and took Billie’s hand, clutching it to her chest between her breasts.  Billie looked a bit befuddled to be touching another girl so intimately, but Jade didn’t seem to notice.

“Oneesan, I will never forget what you have given me.  Not just the body of my dreams, but the sacrifice you’ve made for me, the support and love you give me every day, and your friendship.  I know you’d probably be happier if I backed off a little, but I promise you I will find a way to express my gratitude.  Something that you’re more comfortable with.  But you need to understand how I feel right now.”  She stared into Billie’s eyes with a look of total devotion.  “If you needed it or asked for it, I would give you anything I have.  My body, my life, my soul, anything.”

Billie snatched back her hand as if burned.  “O—okay.  Um, you aren’t suddenly into other girls, are you?  I mean, this is Poe.”

Jade looked puzzled.  “I don’t think so.  I’m not sure what I’m into yet.”

“It’s just that you were offering your body.  It sounded sort of like a come on.  You aren’t looking for a girlfriend or anything?”

“No.  I just wanted you to know how I feel.”  She suddenly seemed to get it.  “Oh, you mean, ‘here’s my body’ like I wanted to sleep with you!”  The idea made her grimace.  “With my sister?  Uh… for anyone else but you… but if you wanted, I guess.”

Billie waved her hands again, emphatically.  “No!  Definitely not!”

“Oh.  Okay.  Good.”  Jade looked down at the empty plate.  “I’ll take care of that while you shower, okay oneesan?”

“Yeah.  Right.”

“And happy Thanksgiving!”

Tennyo was so befuddled on her way to the shower that she never noticed that she still had one breast hanging out in the open.  The other girls definitely noticed, but this being Poe, no one complained about the early morning treat.

---

The gathering clouds did nothing to dampen Jade’s euphoric mood.  Choosing to sleep in a little over the holiday, most of the gang was fairly slow to climb out of bed and gather for the trek to Crystal Hall.  Apparently unaffected by the weather, Jade practically skipped her way there, showing an appalling amount of flesh in her Daisy Duke outfit.  The most covering she had was a pair of black leather cuffs that covered each forearm.  “Oops, can’t forget my purse!  ‘Cause I sure don’t have any room in my pockets!”

“Give me a break!” Nikki complained.  “You must have something you can wear!”

Practically glowing and obviously unaffected by the chill, Jade snapped back with a “Nope!  No money, either, since I gave it all to Bunny yesterday.”

“Huh?”  The elf-girl’s puzzlement vanished like a bubble popping.  “Oh, ‘the project’!”

“Yeppers!”  Jade held up one arm, displaying the martial-arts-style bracer.  “So now I’ve got no clothes that fit, and nothing to buy them with, and you know what?  I don’t care!”

“Waitaminute!” Toni cut in.  “What project?  And what’s with the bracers?  And why hasn’t anyone loaned our poor friend some clothes?  And why the hell aren’t you freezing your tits off, girl?”

“The answer,” Chou pronounced, “lies not in protecting one’s self from the elements, but in accepting nature and coming to a personal accommodation with it.  Besides, she never asked to borrow anything.”

“Well it’s not like I’ve got any panties to lend out!” Toni raged.  “Not after someone’s monkey friend did his little raid.”

“Uh, if it’s all the same to you,” Nikki said, “I won’t be loaning any of my panties out.  Not loaning them and wanting them back.  Ick.”

“Double-ick,” Jamie said from the back of the crowd.

“Not that anyone would want to borrow your panties, Spooky,” Ayla teased.  “Aren’t you always shedding in them?  Fur, or scales, or feathers, or who knows what?”

“Do you even wear panties?” the Amerind shot back.

“Sure,” Ayla drawled.  “But it’s purely a comfort thing.  Nothing sexual about it at all.”

“Enough!” Toni roared.  “Why is it that every single conversation we have inevitably degenerates into either lingerie or hygiene products?  I want to hear about this secret project!”

Unfortunately, Bunny was absent, so all eyes turned to Nikki.

“Nope,” the future elf queen insisted, “not my business.”

“I remember!” Billie suddenly hollered.  “Is this that whole … Project A-Ko business?”

“Bingo!”  Jade did a couple of cheerleader-style hops, waving her arms in celebration.

Sara had silently drifted forward, and now observed, “Well, the wrist bands are sort of A-Ko, but you’re a long way from the ripped schoolgirl uniform look.  And your hair’s all wrong.”

With a suddenly furtive look, Jade gave a stage whisper and said, “Follow me at the next corner and I’ll show you!”

So, still out of sight of Melville, the gang of girls (plus Hank) stepped a few feet off the trail into one of the “picnic glens”.  Jade waited until there were no other students passing by, then leveled her arm dramatically at the gray granite boulder, a hundred feet deeper into the woods.  “See that rock?”

“Yeah?” Toni answered, “what about—”

Before Toni could finish her quip, Jade thrust her arm forward and said, “Fire!”  Immediately a tiny missile, less than six inches long, shot out of her wrist band and streaked toward the rock.  The path was a twisting, spiraling scramble.  An instant later, the face of the rock erupted in violent orange flame as the missile exploded against it.

“Holy crap,” Ayla burst out.  “You’re packing missiles now?”

“That’s so sweet!” Billie sighed.  “Now I won’t have to worry about you so much.”

“How’d you do that?” Jamie wondered.

“Well, duh,” Jade told her playfully, “I am a devisor, after all.  You guys are acting like you never met a girl who carried high explosives.”

“Uh, how many rounds are you carrying?” Toni asked.

“Well, the bracers are actually a titanium shell, with cavities for the mini missiles, but I’ve got fifty missiles on each arm.  Only about half of those are explosives, though, ‘cause I’ve put together a real general-purpose mix…”

And with thoughts of clothes and indecency forgotten, the girls headed on toward breakfast, their heads dancing with girlish thoughts of ordinance, delivery methods, and various payload combinations.

---

“And a happy Thanksgiving morning to everyone on campus!  WARS, the Whateley Academy Radio Station is coming to you live, as always, and we’re here in the cafeteria on this fine holiday morning interviewing people to find out what they’re truly thankful for.  Let me ask my faithful minion, Greasy.  Hey Greasy, what are you thankful for?”

“Peeper, as I look around this fine cafeteria on this cold, dreary, overcast morning, I can’t help but feel the warmth, and smell the veritable feast cooking inside.”

“Unusually eloquent, my oily friend.  Some might say, uncharacteristically eloquent.  I ask again, what are you most thankful for?”

“Well Peeper…”

“Yes?”

“I’d have to say… tits.”

“Now that’s more like it!  Give us some details here.  What exactly are you most thankful for, about tits?”

“Well, Peeper, if I may continue to wax eloquent—”

“Wax being the operative word in your case.”

“—uh, yeah.  Anyway, I could talk about tits all day.  The shape, the size, the way you can sometimes see nipples barely hidden under a shirt.  I love ‘em all.  Big tits, little tits, tiny little girl tits that have just started growing in, to thunderous melons that bounce and strain inside their tight fabric containment.”

“Let’s not wax too much, Greasy.  My bruises haven’t all healed yet.  But, as ever, my eyes can’t help but enjoy the visual banquet spread before me as I survey the female flesh that we are treated to, here at the nation’s premier school for ultra-super-babes.  Do I see the Cape Squad, over against the far wall?”

“Hey Peeper, how do you think Mega-girl got her name?”

“Tempting as it is, my slimy little friend, let’s not go there.  Instead, how about we check out the Goths?”

“How about we don’t?”

 

“Motion passed!  Perhaps you’d prefer the Literary Club?”

“Hey, isn’t that Team Kimba?”

Peeper’s voice suddenly perked up.  “What, you mean the Bathrobe Babes?  The Bouncing Buxom Beauties, the Pretty Princesses of Poe, our own Negligee Nightingales?”

“Uh, yeah.  Over behind the planter.”

“Greasy, my friend, I think in honor of Thanksgiving, we owe it to our audience to answer the question that I think is burning on everyone’s mind today:  Who’s got better boobs – Tennyo or Fey?”

“Gee, that’s a tough one.  Are we considering everything, I mean, size and shape?  And how about clothing, cause a lot of times Fey wears that lace, and you can, like, barely tell where her nipples are, but Tennyo, it’s like half the time she forgets to even wear a bra—”

“Boys, I’m shutting this whole conversation down.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, before Peeper quickly found his voice again.  “For those of you who aren’t receiving our non-existent visual feed, we’ve just been joined by Whateley’s own lead model, Poise, the head of the school fashion club and elite clique associated with it, Venus, Incorporated.”

“Hello to my fans out there, and if there are any of you actually listening to this broadcast, I want you to know that I’m deeply disappointed in you.”

“Miss Poise—”

“It’s just ‘Poise.’”

“Well, who do you think has a better rack – Fey or Tennyo?”

In a weary voice she answered, “Boys, is it possible to raise the level of discourse just a trifle?  Before the united mass of womankind joins forces to wipe you from the backside of existence?”

“We’re willing to talk about personality,” Greasy offered.  “And figure.  But I’ll only trust measurements that I get myself.  And face, of course.  Can’t overlook the fact that a few of the girls here are definitely coyote ugly.”

“You know,” Poise informed him coldly, “that sort of talk is never going to win either of you a girlfriend.  I mean, ever.”

“You aren’t feeling threatened, are you?” Peeper asked, as if sensing a weakness.

“Peeper, Greasy, it’s possible to talk about fashion and beauty and grace without degenerating into sewer talk.  You might gain a larger audience, and it’s even remotely possible that some girls would find your show, and perhaps even the two of you, appealing.”

There was a moment of silence before Greasy thoughtfully wondered, “You’re jealous aren’t you, ‘cause Fey’s got a bigger rack.”

“What?!  Look, I’m trying to help you here!”

Peeper sounded thoughtful.  “She’s got a point, Greasy.  Maybe if the school’s modeling team would cooperate, we could talk a lot more about fashion and style and modeling poses, and stuff like that.”

Greasy was puzzled.  “Are you serious, man?”

“Well, I’m thinking of a Whateley version of the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

“That’s it,” Poise announced.  “I give up.  I’m out of here.”

“She’s afraid to show it off, like the Negligee Nightingales.  Told you they were bigger.”

That was the day when Poise lost hers.  “Look you stupid little worm!  I’m a senior!  They’re freshman!  Of course I’ve got a bigger cup size, if that’s the only thing on your pin-sized little mind!”

“Whoa!  Gauntlet thrown!” Greasy observed.

“You heard it here, folks!” Peeper intoned.  “And I think, on behalf of WARS’ own official mascots and dedicated targets, the Negligee Nightingales, we are forced to accept this challenge!  We’ll need some impartial judges.  The ninjas?  Naw, bad blood there.  Not the Dragons or Tigers either, ‘cause there’s that whole martial arts rivalry.  Definitely not the Alphas!”

“How about the Leet Phreaks?” Greasy offered.

“Perfect!  The only guys who get even less than we do!  We’ll recruit them for a hands-on, live boob feel-off!”

Wearily, Poise asked, “You two haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“Nope!” Greasy cheerfully answered.

“Alright you morons, I’ll short circuit your stupid little game right now.  You’re comparing the school’s models against Team Kimba?”

“Exactly,” Peeper eagerly agreed.  “And no doing Fey vs. Fey, because how would you choose?  Left vs. Right?  I mean, fun to judge, but is it fair?”

“Well then, let’s do me, the lead model—”

“Hey, this is sounding real,” Peeper interrupted.

“—against that little oriental girl that hasn’t even entered puberty yet!  She’s flat as a board.”

“What?  NO FAIR!”

“Idiots.”

---

“I’m just saying that it’s not as simple as that,” Sara mentioned.  She carefully placed the now-empty cage behind her seat.

“What is there to debate?”  Toni wondered.  “No MID means no Whateley, no plane trips, and the government hunting you down like a bunch of clanners.  Doesn’t seem like a big source of debate.”

“Maybe not for most people,” Sara agreed, “but the government is already hunting me down, with orders to kill—”

“That was the syndicate, not the government,” Chou interjected.

Sara’s jaw firmed and her eyes went hard.  “There are things that I can’t tell you about the CIA, and what they’ve done…”

“Well if you can’t tell us, we can’t discuss it very well, can we?” Fey said, sounding quite reasonable.  “For me it’s easy.  No MID and I effectively cut off any further relations with my family.”

“Which is why it’s different for me,” Sara continued patiently.  “My ‘family’ doesn’t even inhabit this dimension.  As for plane trips, there are a dozen ways around that, including both teleportation and extra-dimensional excursions.  For that matter, I might even get an exemption on religious freedom grounds.”

Jamie sighed.  “It must be nice, being the head of your own religion.”  Under her breath she continued, “Rather than being at their mercy.”

Erin nodded silently at that but said nothing, inscrutable behind her ever-present sunglasses.

“What about Whateley, and your friends here?” Jade continued, looking at Sara.

“Well, the science department has already banned me, and the library is still holding a grudge.  Since I’ll be learning my own style of magic and working mostly on my own—”

“Thank God,” Fey muttered.

“—I wonder if I might do better learning the attack/defense stuff over at ARC.  The offer has been made often enough, and I’ll bet they’d overlook the MID angle, if I transferred.”

“So.”  Chou’s words were a statement, not a question.  “You’d leave your friends.”

“If you all accepted my mark,” the demoness mused, “it wouldn’t matter where I was physically.  We’d always be together.”

Billie was typically blunt.  “Sorry.  No way in hell.”

Toni snickered.  “Very appropriate phrasing.”

Chou wouldn’t let it go.  “Do you want friends, or servants and slaves?”

“Friends, of course.”

“Of course,” Chou echoed.

Sara’s eyes narrowed, and the shadows seemed to briefly gather around her.  “You could ease off my case, Balance Keeper.  I’m trying to be honest here.”

“You don’t want to mark us,” Jade announced.  “Or I mean, some of us you shouldn’t mark.”

Chou turned her gimlet eye on the newly-grown girl.  “Weren’t you the one begging for a mark, and begging to host her spawn, not so long ago?”

“Yeah, well.”  Jade shrugged.  “Sara was right about that.  I guess I’ve moved past that.  And I admit I said a few things I regret.  Can we forget about that?  But this is important, Sara!  Remember when those assassins got you, and injected you with,” her eyes flicked over to Nikki “that stuff?”

Sara gave an ironic smile.  “No, it slipped clean out of my memory.”

“Oh, be serious.  Anyway, you were completely out of it, at least for a while.  So maybe you didn’t notice it, but we think that everyone else … connected … to you, they were all pretty gone, too.  Meaning, if you were counting on them to help defend you, fat chance.”

Sara looked startled, as if she hadn’t considered this.

The younger girl continued.  “And sometimes, when you get a little, um,” she blushed “emotional?  I think those connected to you get kind of a little wobbly, you know?”

“No, I didn’t know, although I should have.  It’s one of those things that become instantly obvious in retrospect.  So, you sound like you have a solution already in mind.”

“Well…” the younger girl nibbled on the tip of a finger “I was thinking that I hang around you a lot already, at least at night.  What if I didn’t do it as Shroud, but did it as your bodyguard?”

Sara rolled her eyes.  “Were you there for Halloween?  Sorry, but the idea of you being my bodyguard is just a little... silly.  No offense.”

Jade winced but continued gamely on.  “Oh, come on!  You don’t need a bodyguard who can throw you to the mat each and every time.  Sometimes you just need someone who can be alert while you relax.  Sometimes you just need an extra set of eyes.  And sometimes, a little help doesn’t hurt, when you’re incapacitated, or distracted, or whatever.”

Sara smiled fondly.  “And you’re nominating yourself for this position?”

Jade looked a bit embarrassed.  “Well, I was thinking it would be cool to do a ‘Men In Black’ thing.  You know, snazzy black suit, dark black shades.  I don’t say much, but I’m there ahead of you or behind you, just to sort of intimidate the minor nuisances out of the way, or give you a head’s up when something major comes down.”

“You don’t even own a black suit, much less an expensive one,” Sara pointed out.

Jade nodded eagerly.  “I figure, as my employer, you’d be providing that.  OH, and some really freaking huge rifle!  Maybe you could offer to fund some devisor, I know you’ve got the cash.”

Sara groaned and rolled her eyes, but she had a look of amusement on her face.

“No, think about it!” Jade insisted.  “I’m there carrying this whopper cannon, but it’s mostly just for show.  I mean, sure, the canon’s real and everything, but I’m mostly there to give you some style.  You’re a real princess, after all!  You need someone to push ahead of you in the crowd, or stand behind you and watching your back.  Just to keep the minor pests away.  And for the big guys, they’ll blow me away first, which gives you some excellent advance warning!”

Sara shook her head in amusement.  “You’re setting yourself up as a target to get ‘blown away’?  Sometimes, just sometimes, I love this place.”

Jade shrugged.  “Well, you play to your strengths, you know?”

“I’ll consider it.  I was afraid that you were thinking more of a valet role, which would certainly make Siffy mad.  But if you were deferential to her, too… she might actually get into that.  And it might be better than having her just rip people’s heads off.  It might be fun, but you realize that it would be occasional moments of mortal terror, interspersed with lots of play acting.”

Jade glared at her.  “Play acting?  OF COURSE it’s play acting!  What’s wrong with you?  That’s the whole point of this place sometimes!”

Even Billie stared at her.

“Oh, come on, people!” Jade hollered.  “We’re talking about getting MIDs – double-secret ID cards – and picking out hero names, and maybe costumes.  What’s the point, if we aren’t doing it to have some fun?”

“I was told that I should play more,” Sara admitted.  “And, no offense, but I’d much rather watch Jinn going down in a hail of gunfire than see the same thing happen to Siffy.”

Jade smirked.  “I’d give a better death scene too, so long as I’m allowed to overact a bit.”

Billie looked toward Jade, a little too casually.  “So… you’re definitely getting your MID?  You’re going to stay?”

Jade looked back.  “You’re staying?”

Billie nodded.  “Yeah, I kind of have to.”

“Then me too.” 

And that was that.

48: Suspicions

Whateley Academy, Crystal Hall

November 23, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day morning

After breakfast, the crew scattered.  Most of the girls headed back to the cottage, a few headed in other directions.  Nikki, however, lingered at the table.  As Sara rose to leave, Nikki reached out for her arm.

The demon princess was a study in contrasts.  Many people wouldn’t dare touch her skin – they knew enough about her to recognize the mortal danger, the terrifying thing concealed beneath the pleasantly-shaped surface.  Others saw only the surface, or felt the ever-present background radiation of sexual energy.  Those desperately wanted to touch the girl’s skin, but refrained, either out of politeness or knowledge of the pale girl’s reputation.  The elven princess was one of the few who would touch, even grab Sara with neither lust nor fear topmost in her mind.

“What?” Sara asked.

“We need to talk,” Nikki coolly informed her.

Sara looked around in disbelief at the crowded cafeteria.  “Here?”

Nikki picked up a glass salt shaker and unscrewed the lid.  The lid was simple sheet metal, not cold iron, but even so she only touched the metal while using a napkin as insulation.  Her unconscious habits were slowly but surely becoming more cautious.  Nikki muttered a few guttural syllables under her breath – words in no language currently spoken on Earth, words that were snatched away by the air before they could travel farther than Sara’s ears.  In response, an unseen knot of mystic forces took shape from the air, and took hold of the now opened salt shaker.  The tiny spirit dance joyfully along, pouring out a small amount of salt in a circle on the ground, around the table and the two girls sitting there.

“A sylph?” Sara asked, one eyebrow raised.  “What--?”

Nikki held up a hand, signaling to wait.  She didn’t speak this time, but made a subtle gesture with her left hand as if tying a knot, then she sang a single pure note.  Instantly a bubble formed in the air around the two girls, briefly distorting the outside world and suddenly reducing the volume to a whisper.

“You’ve gotten a lot better,” Sara complimented.

Nikki shrugged.  “A handful of spells, only.  Those I know, I’ve got cold.  Still mostly cantrips, though.”

The demon gave a glance at the circle and the air around them.  “I like that it will distort lip-reading, and provides a false murmur of sound from us.”

Nikki looked at her companion curiously.  “You can tell that just by looking at it?”

The demon-girl shrugged.  “Doesn’t do anything to stop telepaths.”

“I figured you could handle that part,” Nikki admitted.  “I’m working on something much better, but I need a few more hours to complete the inscribing.”

“Consider the telepathy handled.  Now, what did you want to talk about?  And why here?”

“It’s as good a spot as any, and it isn’t Poe, where we might be interrupted by the well-intentioned,” Nikki explained.  At Sara’s acknowledging nod, she continued.  “It’s about … Jade.  I’m happy for her, but worried.  I mean, really worried.  And looking at you, I got the idea that you felt some reservations of your own.”

“Definitely.  But since you started this…”

The elven girl sighed, and slowly blinked her impossibly large eyes.  “Okay.  I’ve been working on the ‘Jade problem’ for a couple of months now – pretty much ever since I met her.  While I’m still a beginner in the arcane arts, I have certain … advantages.  I’ve even tried a few tentative investigations – nothing Jade knew about, just initial probes to check the possibilities.  And every single time I’ve been blocked.  I mean, blocked solid, like running face-first into a granite cliff.  So I’ve … reached … I guess that’s the word I’d use, I’ve reached through Aunghadhail.”  She smiled.  “I’ve gotten some good practice with you-know-who.  Anyway, each time I tried reaching for Jade, when Aunghadhail was there, it was almost as if the wall was even harder.  Which doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Maybe it does.”  The pale teenager (that’s what she appeared to be) steepled her fingers and gazed through hooded eyes.  “I’ve been doing my own investigations.  I’ve used my own knowledge, the Tablets of Gothmog, even the Waite Collection.”  If she noticed the elf-girl flinching at some of the names, she paid it no mind.  “And although I don’t have a solution yet, I have definitely detected a magical influence over the girl.  It’s extremely elusive – unless I work at it, it’s very hard to spot.”

Nikki’s large eyes narrowed.  “You have trouble detecting it?”

Sara nodded.

“What does that mean?”

“It could be any of a dozen things,” the Goth offered.  “A slow but subtle spell, worked over years.  It could be something carefully being layered onto her, by a trusted friend that is physically or emotionally close.  It could be an inherited curse, growing more refined with each generation.  Along the same line, the possessor might be possessed herself, but it would have to be a very old and cunning spirit.  It might be the work of some brilliant master, or the type of unlikely accident that occasionally crops up at this school.  There are certain spiritual entities…  In any case, my research continues.”

“And that’s why you didn’t take her up on it,” Nikki realized, “when she practially begged you to turn her into a brood mother.”

“No ‘practically’ about it,” Sara said.  “That’s exactly what she offered.  Whatever I would have of her, so long as I could make her female.  And I’m sure that I could do that to her body as easily as a child reshapes clay.  But I know a little something about souls, and I suspect that the magic we’ve both sensed is attached firmly to Jade’s soul.”

“So you reshape the body, only at the risk of damaging the soul.”

“That’s one possibility.  Another possibility is that the soul would simply be ejected.”

“Meaning?”

Sara shrugged her shoulders.

Nikki continued her musing.  “But the devisor creation worked.  My best magic – such as it is – bounced, while some stupid mad scientist lash-up worked.”

Sara nodded.  “And Jade’s soul is both present and healthy.  I checked that rather extensively during the night.  There are some advantages to never needing sleep.”

“So we both failed, while the gizmo crowd succeeded.  Maybe the day of magic really has passed.”

“Or perhaps,” Sara suggested, “we both failed precisely because we’re using older methods.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m not sure yet.  It’s an intuition.  You know how those can be.”

Nikki nodded, with a wry smile.  “Old curse vs. old-style magics, results in failure.  Old curse vs. new techniques, results in success?”

“Perhaps.”

They sat silently thinking for a moment.  Sara sat like a patient predator, while Nikki wondered if she should mention something that might be no more than a case of nerves.  Finally, the elf-girl admitted, “There is one other thing.”

“Two things, by my count.  I wondered if you had noticed the same things I had.”

Nikki scowled across at her sometimes-friend.  She wasn’t sure she liked it when Sara slipped into her Elder God persona.  Admittedly, when she slipped into her Aunghadhail aspect she could be a bit of a stuck-up know-it-all herself, but at least she didn’t project this whole “I’m infinitely superior and all-knowing” attitude.  Did she?  “Well, it’s just that, in the last couple of days, something about Jade changed.  It was before the physical change.  A couple of days earlier than that, I’m sure.”

“Definitely.  The magic around her – at times, I might almost think it was watching me.”

Nikki laughed.  “Nice to know you Class X entities can be as paranoid as the rest of us.”

“I’m serious.  It’s very well hidden, but try to pin down the spell.  It almost feels like there’s an intelligence there.  A soul of some kind, directing it.”

“Whoa, hold on there.  A soul-powered spell?  If so, you’re talking the blackest of black magics.”

Sara gave a truly evil smile.  “That’s from where you sit.  My family just thinks of it as a reasonable engineering compromise.  But, no, if true, this pushes the possibilities more toward the ‘powerful entity’ options.”

Nikki couldn’t help shuddering.  “Remind me to stay far away from your relatives.  And from you too, if you even think of something like that!”

“I’m not exactly tempted toward that direction.  But in all honesty, I’d have to say that it depends on the soul, and the situation.  I won’t promise never to do that, no matter what.  The universe is too large, the possibilities too endless for that promise to be meaningful.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be comforting me, and convincing me that you aren’t evil?” Nikki grumped.

“I’m trying to convince you that I’m honest.”

“Hmph.  Okay, so we both agree that the magic or whatever has changed.  What was your other thing?  You said there were two things you’d noticed.”

Sara didn’t answer for a moment.  Instead, she looked around furtively, in a way that was quite unlike her normal attitude.  “This time, maybe I am being paranoid.  Maybe it’s my own suspicions and fears…”

“But?”

“Jade again, of course.  We just finished deciding whether to get MIDs.  What did Jade decide?”

“Hello?  Weren’t you listening?”  Nikki flicked the tip of her own pointed ear.  “She decided to get one.  It was almost a non issue.”

“My hearing is fine.  How is your memory?  I ask again, what did Jade decide?”

Nikki thought back.  “She decided that … since Billie was staying, she would too.”

“Exactly.  Tennyo is staying, therefore, she is staying.  Is she staying because she truly decided to, or is she following Tennyo, no matter what?”

Nikki rolled her eyes, an effect that she was exceedingly good at.  “Oh, come on, Jade’s been pretty fiercely loyal to her roommate ever since day one.  Long before you got here, I might point out.”

Sara merely looked back at her, silently.

“Get real!  You sound like you suspect Billie of being up to something!  That’s absurd!  She’s almost as naïve as Jade is!”

Finally, Sara said, “You saw Tennyo’s strike against Hippolyta.  And weren’t you just complaining about the blackest of black magics?  Didn’t you understand what you saw?  You thought it was a death blow.  That would be bad enough, but it barely scratches the surface – a rather apt analogy in this case.  There are mages and martial artists who can rupture the ka, and cause a hemorrhage in the life force.  But Tennyo’s strike – you had to be able to look at it in the higher dimensions.  She cut across the inter-dimensional pattern.  She ruptured the essence of the physical object.  It – it’s hard to explain, even to a mage, but if you hadn’t restored her, Hippolyta’s body would have eventually just disintegrated.  Even the atoms would have corroded into nothingness.  Tennyo’s strike worked through higher dimensions to disrupt the very pattern of her target, leading to its inevitable collapse and vanishing from three-dimensional reality.  With a slight twist, she could have just as easily shredded and destroyed the soul of her target!  That’s a power that even the Old Ones seldom employ.  But Tennyo had no black-cursed item to hold the spell, she performed no incantations or rituals.  She just used her warper powers!  As if I could say ‘just’ in a statement like that!  She merely used her ability to instinctively operate on a higher dimensional plane to destroy a foe by puncturing them inside their multi-dimensional pattern essence.  And Tennyo did this with nothing more than an idle thought.  She called on that power in anger and accident.  And you think she’s innocent?  I honestly don’t know what she is, but it certainly isn’t innocent.”

The elven girl felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach.  “No, you can’t be serious!  This is Billie!  She’s my oldest friend here.  I met her the same time I met Toni, or Jade for that matter!  And you saw how guilty she felt when she realized what she was doing.  That’s why she’s here, after all, because her mutant powers were too strong and she needs to learn control.”

Sara slowly shook her head.  “Whatever she is, she’s not a mutant.  No more than you are.”

“Now you’re just being absurd!  She’s got family, her origin is very well documented.”

“You know a student called ‘Negator’?”  The demon asked, far too calmly.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.”

“He shuts down mutant powers.  All of them.  Putting it in terms of pattern theory, his meta-pattern jams the n-dimensional locus in his vicinity.  The strongest mutants can get a hint of signal through, the barest edge of their power.  Everyone else, even exemplars, they’re simply shut down.  Of course, that still leaves plenty of room for other possibilities.  You’ll be pleased to know that he has no effect on magic.  Devisor gadgets still work.  Avatars are unaffected.  But mutant powers are stopped cold.”

“So?”

“So remember back when you first fought the Alphas?  They got their revenge.  You fought the former ninja ‘Nex’.  Billie fought two foes, a brick, and Negator.  So what do you think happened?”

“The way Billie told it, Negator was only good enough to remove the control she had over her power.  The result was pretty ugly.”

“That’s not the way Negator or the brick saw it.  Negator was good enough to completely eliminate the mutant powers.  And once those were stripped away, along with Billie’s persona by the way, what was left was non-human, angry, and very powerful.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to this.  All of us, every single mutant, has had her ‘over the top’ moments.  Need I remind you of what happened at Halloween?”

Sara shook her head, slowly and intently serious.  “I’ve been trying to investigate Tennyo – to find out just what she is.”

“Uh huh.”

Sara glared, her eyes beginning to glow.  “Listen, you stupid faerie!  I’ve been using my full resources!  Everything at my disposal!  Nothing overt, nothing obvious, but I’ve been as thorough as I could be without tipping her off!”

Nikki felt a more than a bit of apprehension.  “And?”

Sara threw her hands in the air.  “And … I don’t know!”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know.  There are some mutant powers, but that’s just the surface.  Underneath … there’s more.  I don’t know how much more.  I have the Tablets of Gothmog, I have spells, I have divination, I’ve even been carefully sounding out some … contacts.  And with all of that, I just don’t know.  She’s not like anything else.  Anywhere!  And at the same time, she’s just a little bit like me, and a little bit like you, and a little bit like things that were dead before your race or your planet ever existed!”

Nikki didn’t know how to react.  She’d been growing acquainted with magic and the ancient world for over a year now, and practically every day she came up against things that she didn’t understand and hadn’t seen before.  In a way, it felt rather amusing that someone who might become one of the Old Ones was getting freaked out by the thought of something new under the sun.  And yet, Sara did seem very upset by this.  “Well, maybe she’s the first, but not the last.  And maybe we’ll just have to learn to take her on her own terms, the way Jade seems to be doing it.”

“No, you still don’t get it!  The girl has antimatter blood!  Don’t you understand?  Her blood is made of liquid antimatter!”

Nikki waved a hand.  “That old joke?  You didn’t really fall for that, did you?”

“I not only believe it, I tested it and proved it.  Of course, that was before I was banned from the science department.  It’s antimatter all right.  Except, it’s only antimatter some of the time.”

“That’s impossible!  And it doesn’t even make sense!”

Sara laughed at that.  “You’re an elven princess, I’m a demon princess, we both do magic – of radically different types I might add – and you say that this doesn’t make sense?”

“Okay, okay, ‘there are more things under heaven and earth’ and all that.  So Billie’s weird.  I mean, weird even for Whateley.  That doesn’t mean that she’s not a good person.  Jade certainly stands by her.”

Sara suddenly bore a look satisfaction.  “Exactly.  And what is their relationship?  Just friends?  No.  Lovers?  Hardly.  Mother and child?  Closer, but not quite.”

“Older and younger sisters seems to come closest,” Nikki decided.

“How about: Lord and Servant?  Or Master and Slave?”

“Now you’ve definitely gone off the deep end.”

“Have I?  When has Jade ever gone against Tennyo?”

“Well…”

“Watch them both.  Think about it.  And then come back and tell me if I’m still imagining things.”

---

Although Jade still wore her shorts and halter, she’d added a hooded black cloak that hung down to her ankles.  The wind was picking up on this overcast day, and she was definitely noticing the cold.  It was fascinating to feel how much difference her proper gender made.  As a boy, she had sometimes noticed the cold in her boy parts, particularly in her balls.  Worse than the cold had been the annoying reminder of flesh that didn’t belong, as her sack tensed and tightened in reaction to the cold.

As a girl, though, there were no dangling bits to expose below.  The cushioned, padded lips of her privacy kept her feminine secrets safe, hidden, and warm.  And the too-tight shorts she wore reminded her of that with every step, with the taut fabric snug to her skin in a way that was impossible to duplicate with a boy’s anatomy.  Conversely, the reverse was true up top.  Instead of a boy’s flat and insensitive chest, she felt a bouncing weight with every step.  And at the tip of each mound, her too-sensitive nipples seemed to shout sensation at her from nearly every stimulus: the biting cold, the abrasive rub of the inside of her bra cup, the accidental brush of her arm across a newly-formed breast.  By all rights, it should have been irritating, perhaps even excruciating.  But nothing could be farther from the truth.  This body – she had never felt so pure and good and right in her life.  This was what she was meant for.  Now, more than ever, she knew that she was meant to be a girl, and she wanted to celebrate that in every way possible.

Instead of feeling annoyance at the rhythmic movement of her breasts as she walked, she felt exultation.  Perhaps even more than the new width of her hips or the trim contours of her waist, her breasts gave her an awareness of her femininity that was impossible to ignore.  Her breasts were her – the softest, most vulnerable, and most obvious heralds of the girl she had become.  To look down and see the swell of her chest, to feel herself move as she walked – these experiences filled her with such joy that she felt like singing.

Granted, her current outfit could use some improvements.  Her thighs felt drafty, and that draft traveled straight up her legs.  Her midriff was bare, and the breeze whipped frigidly over the rounded swell of her breasts, where her new cleavage was exposed.  To compensate, her black cloak wrapped tightly about her as if it had a mind of its own.  That did nothing to conceal her figure, but it did cover her bare skin as she strode through the windy weather toward Twain Cottage.

She brushed briefly past the boys in Twain’s common room.  None of them seemed to recognize her, and she was able to use her charms to bypass Thuban’s usual gatekeepers.

“Where is the big lug?” she demanded of the turtle-boy, who looked more like a kappa to her eye.

“Uh, he isn’t in his cavern right now, he’s up in his dorm room.”

“That’s okay,” she nearly sang, enraptured by her buoyant mood, “I just need to give him a big thank you!”

“Well, I guess you could see him in his room…”

“Lead on!”

Twain was easily as strange as Poe, with residents who were silvery, several who were covered in fur, and one who wore a large monk’s robe that barely concealed the fact that the boy had a multitude of different limbs concealed beneath the robe.  Turtle-boy knocked on a door, and was rewarded with a gruff, “What is it?”

“Uh, Thuban?  There’s a … a girl here to see you?”

“I’m busy, Carapace.  Tell her to come back later.”

“Oh, tell him I don’t need any more favors,” Jade bubbled, “I just want to thank him!”

There was the swift patter of feet across the floor, and the door was yanked open.  The lizard-faced boy wore something like a silk bathrobe, as he stared at his visitor.

“Who the hell?”  It only took a moment before his eyes widened in recognition.  “Jade?”

“In the flesh!”  She pirouetted, her cloak flying out artistically.  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“We … aren’t ssupposed to have girlss alone in our roomss.”  For once, Thuban sounded less than sure of himself.

“Well I won’t be alone, will I?  I’ll be with you!”  With that, she waltzed in past the stunned reptilian, pulling the door shut with her.  Leaving a surprised Thuban standing just inside his own room, she flounced down on his bed.

“Nice place,” she said, bouncing on the bed a little.  “Looks a lot like everyone else’s room, though.  Somehow I expect your room to be… I don’t know… different.”

Almost visibly wiping away the signs of his humanity, Thuban folded his hands together within the wide sleeves of his robe.  “That is why I only take requestss in one of my placess of power.  If one sseekss sstatuss and influence, the trappingss of power can become more important than the reality.”

Jade stared at him, trying to be as open and honest as she could be.  “I have no requests, Thuban.  You’ve given me everything I wanted, everything I’ve dreamed of.  And having achieved my deepest wish, I’ve learned that the reality is even better than I had hoped.”

He seemed startled by that.  “Sso ssoon?  You’ve already…?”

She was puzzled.  “Already what?”

“…ssslept…”

She nodded in delight.  “Yes!  A whole night’s sleep!  Knick-knack warned me that I might lose this during the night, but I didn’t!  I’m still… right.”  She wrapped her arms around herself for lack of anything nearby to hug.  “I’m still me!”

Thuban blinked at that, then seemed to calm for some reason.  “And you came here because?”

“Because I needed to thank you!”  Unable to contain herself any longer, she leapt off the bed, wrapping her arms tightly around the lizard man.  “Thank you so much!”  Her face was pressed so tightly into his chest that her voice was muffled, but the words were still clear.

“uh…”

Jade released him and hopped back to the bed.  “I just… I don’t know, I just had to do something to thank you.  And it’s not like I have anything great to give you, or money.”  She gestured wryly at her wardrobe.  “Heck, I can’t even afford the new clothes I’ll need to buy.  And, yeah, the devisors came up with the actual gizmo, but I know full well why they were working on the gizmo in the first place, and who was paying for it all.”

She looked him straight in the face, trying to let him see the gratitude she had.  “I know it wasn’t for me – I’ve worked with Jello, over in Hawthorne.  I don’t know how many other people you’re trying to help.  Well, if I can do anything to improve those plans– serve as a template or something, just ask.  I’ll be there.”

“That’ss … more than generousss.”

She tried again to transmit her emotions through her eyes.  “If I can help anyone else to feel even half as great as I do now … well, I owe it to them!”

Thuban was silent, watching her with his unblinking eyes.

She stood, wondering if it had been worth it, if any of her feeling had penetrated.  “Well, I guess that’s all.”

“I underssstand.”

“I wish I could think of some other way to thank you.”  Jann touched her and shared a thought.  “Oh!  Maybe I could take you out to dinner?”

Thuban’s eyes seemed to widen, and since she was still in contact with Jann, she saw a glow of total surprise shining through Thuban’s face.

“Uh, I mean, not that I could afford to actually take you any place, so it would have to be at the cafeteria, but I … thought … maybe like a date would be a nice thank you.”  Her voice got quieter and quieter as her mind caught up with what she was actually saying.  “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

She was stunned to see his surprise blossom into sudden anger.  “I don’t need a sssympathy date from the likes of you!”

It figured.  The first time in her life she’d ever spoken to a boy like that – it wasn’t like she’d gotten much chance to practice yet – and she’d totally blown it.  The humiliation was like a knife in her chest.  She kept herself from crying, but only barely.  “I don’t know why in Hell you’d ever think that you would be a candidate for a sympathy date!” she ground out.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.  I was only trying to thank you!  I’ll go now.”

As she reached for the doorknob, a scaled, clawed hand closed around her wrist.

“Tomorrow.”  The word came out in a hiss.  “Be ready at five.”

And with that, he allowed her to flee both his room and Twain Cottage.

49: Peeper reaches new heights

Whateley Academy, Crystal Hall

November 23, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day afternoon

Jade ran into them just before she got back to Poe.  The ever-obnoxious duo of Peeper and Greasy, accompanied by (unbelievably), the school’s lead model, Poise.  Jade quickly ducked back out of sight.

Damn! she thought.  And I’m out here alone, without Jinn!

She was wearing her Jinn cloak.  Maybe she could animate that.  But there wasn’t much she could do as just a cloak.  She finally decided that she was being paranoid.  There was no reason that Peeper and Greasy would be looking for her, out of all the girls in Poe.  She checked her equipment – her barrettes, her missile cuffs, the kitty compact.  Inspiration struck, and she grabbed her latest gizmos from her purse.  She’d been taking lessons from Bunny, and was up to creating her own gizmos.  So far she had achieved basic competence with creating buttons, flashing lights, buzzing sounds, and molded plastic cases.  It wasn’t much, but when you added an invisible, intelligent, telekinetic puppeteer, you could create some fairly impressive devices.

Preparing herself, she decided to march through them and head back to Poe.  She set her jaw and marched forward.

The unusual trio spotted her immediately.

“Hey Peeper!” the oily one said, “Look!  It’s the ghost girl.  Maybe she knows where her sister is.”

Peeper called toward her, “You’re Jinn, right?  Where’s your sister?”

“I’m Jade, you jerk!”  She held out her hand, holding an item that looked like a pink plastic centipede, with blinking blue “eyes” on both ends.  “Now back off, or I’ll let you have it!”

Greasy squinted at her.  “She’s right, Peeper.  The ghost girl has longer hair.”

“But…”  Peeper was confused.  “Isn’t Jade the little one?”  He waved a hand in the air at the four-foot height.  “And she wasn’t nearly so … big?”  This time, he clutched his hands arthritically in front of his chest.

She didn’t quite understand what Peeper was implying, but she didn’t think it was nice.  Besides, the duo was bad news.  After some of the trash they’d done to Sara, she wasn’t going to give them even an inch of leeway.  “I grew up, okay?  This is Whateley.  Weirder things have happened.”  She turned to the senior next to the two jerks.  “You’re Poise, aren’t you?  Nikki talks about you all the time!  Do you need rescue from these two idiots?”

The tall, stately brunette smiled down at her benignly.  “Why thank you, that’s a very polite offer.  I’m afraid that in a moment of anger and weakness, I agreed to let them engage in a radio contest, comparing the two of us in – I’m extremely sorry about this – bust size.”

As the two girls shook hands, Peeper was rapidly speaking into his microphone.  “All listeners, get your ears on right now!  The battle of the busts is about to commence!  And, in a shocking and surprising turn, it seems that tiny, underage ‘Jade’ – the youngest and let’s be frank, least developed of our beautiful Negligee Nightingales – has given us a stunning development!  And what developments they are!  Sometime in the past week, the petite girl has gone from being a mere child to a taller and much more bountiful teenager!  When asked about this sudden blossoming into the very flower of womanhood, the scantily dressed girl would only comment that this is Whateley, and that stranger things have happened!  Indeed they have, but seldom are such sudden developments so welcome!  Let’s join our two contestants now, who find themselves, er, face-to-face!”

“—wouldn’t believe how rude they’ve been!” Jade was explaining to the older girl.  “Is it our fault the cottage was attacked in the middle of the night?  What would you be wearing?  But instead, they act like it’s an invitation to – to – to do all sorts of stuff!  Like harassing us all the time!”

The taller girl nodded in sympathy.  “Yes, I’ve gotten complaints from several of our models.  But they aren’t technically breaking school rules.”

Peeper had switched to using a headset microphone, while Greasy, standing slightly back, focused a parabolic mike on the two girls.

“Now, Jade, if you’ll just let me confirm your measurements, we can begin!”  Peeper reached forward, holding a fabric tape measure stretched between his two hands.

“Don’t you dare touch me!”

“This will only take a second—”

Jade kept a vicious smile to herself, as she prepared the hand with her “devise” in it.  This would prove that years of martial arts training hadn’t been for nothing!  She waited until the last possible moment, then allowed him to actually touch her – just for an instant.  His stupid tape measure actually pressed against her breast, in a very unwelcome bit of forced intimacy.

It was also the moment she’d been waiting for.  She gave a high-pitched scream of pure outrage, charged Jinn into the plastic centipede, and spun, dropping the item into the back of Peeper’s pants.

“EEEEE!  Pervert!  Get your hands off of me!  I’ll show you!”

Rather than pursuing her, Peeper was suddenly jumping around in panic.  “Hey!  What?  Something’s in my pants!  Get it off me!  Get it off!”

---

Jinn had very limited control and vision, in her hard plastic body.  She swept her left and right sets of centipede legs back and forth, as if she were actually some sort of crawling bug, but she actually just propelled herself with telekinesis.  Hers was a loathsome task.  She scurried down the back of Peepers pants, moving around the tucked-in shirt, and arriving finally at her destination – the waistband of his underwear.  Immediately, she clamped her left and right sets of legs together, locking them like claws suddenly snipping shut.  She was now firmly attached to the rear waistband of the underwear.

---

Jade had quickly retrieved her other recent creation – the Universal Remote.  She was particularly proud of it, since it featured illuminated rhinestone buttons, wonderfully clicky dials, and an antenna that pulsed with flashes of coherent ruby-red light.  She pressed the first button, which produced a sound like an old-fashioned radio being tuned into its station.

“Centi-grab: Attach!”

Peeper had dropped the measuring tape, and was swatting at the small of his back.  “What’s going on?  Look, if this isn’t a good time, I can come back!”

She mashed a lavender-rhinestone button, and the controller began emitting a beep-beep-beep something like a movie bomb, ticking down to its explosive release.  “Centi-grab:  Super wedgie mode!”

Peeper’s eyes popped wide in alarm.  “You wouldn’t!”

Gleefully, she twisted the large knob on the side of the controller.  Instantly, a sound like the old Star Trek transporter issued forth, ratcheting up in pitch.  “Centi-grab:  Degravitate!”

Peeper set himself to launch into a getaway sprint, but suddenly, the rear waistband of his “tighty whities” was yanked out of his pants, and two feet up into the air.  As the pitch of sound emitted from the Universal Remote slowly rose, so did Peeper.  Suspended now entirely by his over-stretched undies, he was lifted into the air, higher and higher, until he plateaued off at the height of thirty feet, where he hung, helpless in the grip of an excruciating wedgie.

“Owwww!  You can’t do this to me!  I’m the press!  I have rights!”

“Shall I release you?” Jade called up.  “It isn’t that big a drop.  You might break a leg or two, but that’s probably all.  I think.”

“No!  No!  Let me down slowly!”

Jade twisted the knob again, and the transporter sound issued again, once more rising in pitch.  Peeper was raised another ten feet in the air.

“No!  No!”  He was screaming like a girl now.  “I said down!”

“Oops!” Jade apologized.  “Well, you know how these prototypes are.  I’ll try to fix that on the next version.”

The girls apparently didn’t realize that they were still being covered (and broadcast) by Greasy, with his parabolic microphone.  Greaser wisely decided not to approach any closer to the dangerous females.

“Just out of curiosity,” Poise asked, trying to hold back a chuckle, “why did you raise him up again?”

“Well, we could still hear him, couldn’t we?”

“Good point.”

“So… as long as you’re here anyway,” Jade asked, shyly, “do you … do you have any tips for other girls, who, like wish they could be as graceful as you?”

“Oh, you are a darling, aren’t you?  Well, you know, nothing really beats the basics.  I’d start with some of the exercises they used back in the fifties – working on your posture, walking about with a book on your head, that sort of thing.  They’re pretty basic exercises, but good places to start.  And make sure to practice walking in heels.  So many girls just clump along.  A graceful-looking stride in heels is difficult, but worth the effort.”

“Okay, I’ll work on that.  I was kind of hoping that martial arts might help me move more gracefully.”

“Oh it does,” Poise agreed.  “But once you’ve mastered the basics – are you with Ito Sensei right now? – try taking some classes with Lillian Dennon.  She has some excellent exercises for grace.  Her final exercise was to do an entire combat in high-heels and a skirt while holding a full cup of hot tea!  Even worse, I was only allowed to hold onto the saucer!  You have to disable your opponent without breaking a heel, marring your makeup, spilling the tea, or being immodest with your skirt.  Well, let me tell you, after that even the worst modeling catwalk in the world is a piece of cake.”

“Wow!”  Which was about the only thing Jade could say.  “No wonder all the other girls look up to you!”

The taller girl smiled down pleasantly.  “It’s just part of the job, being a senior and a spokesperson for the Academy.  Um… if you don’t mind my asking, is that the way you normally dress?”

Jade shrugged apologetically.  “Like I told the losers, I had a rather extreme growth spurt.  None of my old clothes still fit – not even my school uniform.”

“Oh.  Didn’t they mention an older sister?  I’m sure she’d be willing to loan you something.”

Jade slapped her head.  “Jeez!  I can’t believe how stupid I am sometimes.”

“It comes with being a freshman.  Don’t worry, you’ll grow out of it.”

Jade turned to suddenly face Greasy.  “Are you still recording us?  Well, that last bit ought to finish any idea of ‘competition’ between the two of us!  What’s the matter with you?  She’s the head model, and a senior!  I’m just a freshman!  As if I could compete with her!  Why don’t you guys get a life or something?”

So while Peeper continued to scream for help, dangling from his wedgie forty feet in the air, Greasy kept his distance and faithfully recorded what he could, as the two girls pleasantly chatted while strolling away.

“So you recommend Dennon Sensei?”

“Oh, she prefers to be called ‘Ms. Dennon.’  She does most of her work with bricks and some of the ultra-dense types.  Grace and control are particularly important, you see…”

---

Thuban spun his chair around to contemplate his roommate, Dai Kaiju, or Carapace to use his code name, was frequently dismissed by the other students as the “turtle boy.”  A twist of fate had paired the two of them as roommates in their freshman year.  Thuban suspected that some well-meaning administrator had decided to team up the pair of “reptilian GSD cases,” not knowing that they had shared other connections and interests.  While Thuban’s background had included Hong Kong and London, Dai’s background had included Tokyo and Los Angeles.  Furthermore, both of them were actually exemplars, with additional talents.  Most people thought they were GSD cases, but both he and Dai were both apparently changing to match their own subconscious ideals.

Despite their similarities, the ancient Chinese-Japanese rivalry had been a big issue during their first year.  Manchuria might have been sixty years and three generations back, but it was difficult for anyone in China to forget the horrors of Manchuria.  It had taken Thuban half a year to overcome his anti-Japanese prejudice.  Apparently the effort had served him well, though.  He’d just been hugged by an extremely happy, shapely young girl, and he was only now considering the fact that she wasn’t actually Chinese.  He was almost surprised to realize that her ancestry didn’t bother him in the least.

Across the room, Dai was listening to something on his headphones and laughing.

Thuban decided it might be an acceptable time for an interruption.  “Dai, a strange thing just happened…”

His roommate spun in his specially-built chair, pulling off the headphones.  “The visit from that Jade girl?”

Thuban nodded.  While he and Dai kept up a formal relationship in the outer world, here in the privacy of their room things were different.  “She … she asked me out on a date.  As a thank-you.”

“A thank you?  For what?”  The hard shelled student put down the headphones and tapped a few keys on his computer.

“Her BIT was stuck.  Among other things, she was trapped at eleven years old.”

“Eh, I’ve heard worse.”

“Yes, no doubt.  I was able to help her ‘grow up’ to the form you saw outside, and she’s quite grateful.”

“So she’s taking you out somewhere?”

“The cafeteria,” Thuban admitted.  “She’s rather destitute.”

“Oh, come on,” Dai said, “You’re so rich it makes me sick.  Why don’t you spring for things?  Take her someplace nice.  Make an impression on her.”

“Perhaps.  But she doesn’t have any clothes for a nice restaurant.”

Dai grinned, waving his headphones.  “Got an update on that, dude.  It’s the podcast from WARS.  They just finished a little interview/harassment piece with your girlfriend.  Want me to shoot it over to you?”

Thuban didn’t even hear the “girlfriend” comment as his sea-green eyes narrowed in anger.  “Harassment?”

“Listen to the ‘cast, first.  Peeper’s in a world of hurt.  Three words: ‘Super wedgie mode.’”

Thuban suddenly lost his glower.  “Really?”

“You gotta hear this one.  Lord knows, Peeper’s going to be catching flack for the next month!”

Thuban looked back as his laptop as the podcast arrived in an email from his roommate.  Should he upgrade the date?  Would that make him look too desperate, or too controlling?  And what about her lack of wardrobe?  He’d just buy her a dress, if he knew her size.

It occurred to him that he did know her size, or rather, he knew someone who did.  His taloned fingers flew over the keyboard, calling up database files.

Yes… Billie Wilson, several commissions from Cecelia Rogers, and her “boutique” in Dunwich.  He himself had found Miss Rogers’ talents enormously useful, as had Dai and several other students who couldn’t use a normal tailor.  And if the devisors were correct, Jade’s height and figure should be a nearly perfect match for her roommate’s body.

Grabbing the phone, he dialed a number that he’d long since learned by heart.  “Cecelia?  This is Stephen, over at Whateley.  …  Excellent.  …  Yes, I hope you’re having a pleasant holiday as well.  …  Listen, could you do a quick commission for me?  As usual, price isn’t an issue.  I need a dress by tomorrow evening.  Billie Wilson’s measurements – you have those on file, don’t you?  It’s actually for her roommate.  …   No, believe me, their measurements are exactly the same.  …  Yes, it’s a Whateley thing.  The girl’s name is Jade Sinclair.  …  Really?  Excellent.  Here’s what I’d like…”

---

Meanwhile, Jade was meeting with another boy from Twain.  Poise had been right – Jinn’s clothes fit her well enough.  She liked the regular uniform best, but since this job would be a bit grimy she was wearing a jeans and T-shirt combo, where the T-shirt had a few too many holes for Jinn to use.  With the overcast and wind, she also had Jinn’s cloak wrapped around her, as she waited outside Shuster Hall.

Harry Wolfe strode up, waving one furred werewolf arm.  “Hi Jinn.  Don’t we need your sister for this, too?”

“I’m Jade,” she told him.  “But Jinn’s here, too.”

The cloak rose off her and the empty hood nodded in greeting, before settling back down again.

“Uh, okay.  I thought you were smaller.  And younger.”

Jade grinned at him.  “I was being kept artificially young, but this is my real age.  I finally had a breakthrough!”

“Oh.  You know, you look a lot like your sister … uh, when she’s being human, that is.  A couple of years younger, I guess.”

“Well, we’re really quite a bit alike.  Aside from me being physical and everything.”

As they talked, Harry used his electronic access pass to open the elevator, drop them into the Underground, and let them into one of the many devisor workshops.  They passed the impressive labs – the huge Robot Hanger and Vehicle Pit.  Continuing further, they passed a sequence of oddly named labs:

Prosthetics and Bionics, the Alien Autopsy Lab, and a large vault-like door that proclaimed, “The Interdimensional Gateway is permanently closed.  Press the alarm in case of any admissions or departures.”

“Is that real?” Jade asked, with a little alarm.

“The rumor is,” Harry confided, “that somebody made that room into their personal vault, and the sign is just another security measure.  I’m not sure, I never tried to go in.”

“Oh.”

They continued on until they came to the “small mechanics bay.”  Inside was welding gear, casting equipment, grinders, metal lathes, and other metalworking equipment.  Jade and Harry both grabbed lab coats and goggles at the door, then Harry dialed the combination on his work locker.  Around the entry, various posters helped remind the students to keep safety in mind:

“This is not the nano lab.  No self-assembling or self-replicating systems allowed!”

“All implants and devices intended for use inside a body must be sterilized in the autoclave.”

There was even a poster of a forlorn looking student complaining, “I thought they’d never miss a little gold dust.  I never expected to face a MIND PROBE!”

Ignoring all that, Harry proceeded to lay a collection of parts out on his workbench.  “So did I hear you’re a devisor Jade?”

“I’m just starting out,” she admitted.  “I’m not taking any classes yet.  But I’ve got a project that I want to work on while we’re here.”

Harry gave her a wolf-grin, which involved showing a lot of teeth and letting his tongue loll out.  “Sounds like you can’t keep away from the place.  Typical devisor.”  He began pointing to the machine parts on the bench.  “Got to machine some custom pieces for Samantha’s apartment.  The odd angles a giving me just a bit of trouble, and I thought, why not do it right.  Deluxe, custom, all the way right.”

The empty cloak rose into the air again.  “What do I do?”

Harry flicked on a small kiln and loaded a crucible up with pieces of scrap steel.  Using tongs, he slipped it into the crucible and shut the door.  With that done, he turned to the empty cloak.

“You said once that you might be able to use your ‘poltergeist powers’ on a small scale?”

“Maybe,” the cloak said.  “I need to test it out.”

“Then this is the perfect opportunity.  I’m going to cast some steel cylinders, and I need to get them machined out on the inside.  They’ll be sealed, except for a small opening, and I’ve been pulling my hair out, trying to figure out how to work through the tiny hole.  If you can help me, I’d certainly be happy to count it against what you owe me for the arms and other stuff.”

Jade broke in at that.  “Harry, you only ever charged us for materials on that.  The least we can do is give you some free labor in return.”

The six-foot-eight boy looked embarrassed.  “Well, I didn’t want to take advantage of a friend…”

“Harry!”

“Okay.  Thanks.”

So Jade recast Jinn into tiny drill bits and grinding wheels, then Jinn followed Harry’s instructions on how to turn molten metal into castings, and then grind, polish, and assemble the parts.

Jade, meanwhile, was working on her moonsilver ring.  She actually had two rings.  A while back, Bunny had drilled out her moonsilver ring and added an activation button for her barrettes.  But Jade had a second ring that acted as a sort of safety for her gun.  You couldn’t fire the gun unless you were wearing the ring.  Her job was to combine the two rings into one.

This was mostly a challenge in micro-machining.  She used the a stereoscopic microscope to let her physical body watch, while she cast herself into “trigger ring” and the tools on the workbench.  It left her feeling vulnerable, having her naked spirit body spread through the air like this, but with Harry and Jinn around she felt safe enough to go ahead with it.

She was cast into objects over a wide area, including the workbench table.  That usually gave her a better resolution, but her spirit-vision wasn’t as good at extremely fine detail, even spread over a large viewing area.  Part of her was also in contact with her physical body, so the two of her were looking and thinking together.  Her view of the ring was better through the microscope, but as she relaxed a bit she found that she could “feel” her way around the problem.  She was cast into every component of the ring, and she could feel the size, shape, and relative position of her various parts.  Between the way her spirit-vision gave her a sort of radar and texture mapping, and the way her magnified human vision gave her a crisp visual picture, she had enough detail to work with.

Shortly after that, she had the trigger ring disassembled and laid out on the workbench.  Her body kept grabbing tools and moving around, so that Harry would think she was using conventional methods to carry out her project.  Although Harry had helped her immensely, she wasn’t ready to tell him all the details of her powers and life.  Knowing wouldn’t make any practical difference to him, so for now, she preferred to maintain at least some control over her secrets.

Working with the moonsilver ring was more difficult.  She couldn’t cast herself into it.  It was already unique in her spirit-vision, since it provided a perfect reflection of spirit energies.  In a world made up of grays and textures, the ring was a unique silvery reflector.

It also seemed immune to spirit energies.  Not only couldn’t she cast into it, her immaterial spirit-body couldn’t even pass through it.  The thought brought up the alarming image of a moonsilver box.  Could she be trapped inside?  What would happen?  Perhaps she should test things out, before she was forced into it during a crisis.

Carefully, she looked over the ring.  Moonsilver?  Mithril?  There were a half-dozen names for the magical metal.  Bunny had drilled three small holes in lower side, the portion that curved in toward her palm.  Bunny had actually drilled plugs out, so that there were tiny mithril pegs that filled the holes.

Why three?  Jade wondered.  Was she planning for future functionality?

The pegs were inserted with a press and twist, to screw them in and lock them in place.  It was work as fine as old-fashioned watch making.

Jade couldn’t cast herself into the mithril, but perhaps she could cast in past the edge of the pins to the hollow center of the ring.  She tried, and failed.  The nearly microscopic gaps weren’t large enough for her to “aim” through.  Or was it that she wasn’t actually touching the material on the inside?  She picked up the silver ring and thought about it, then decided to use a pair of jeweler’s pliers to remove the pins.

The discovery to come, like so many unexpected breakthroughs, was a complete accident.  While holding the ring in her left hand, she absently reached through the ring with her right index finger to touch the pliers and charge them.

The charging worked.  She felt the energy flow out of her, she felt that almost subliminal instant of “I exist in both places at once.”  Only this time, that moment didn’t end.  She was charged into the pliers, and she was present in her body, and she was still connected, even when she pulled her finger away.  There was a thread of spirit stretching out between the two of her like a cobweb.

In an effort to break that thread loose, she pushed through the energy of another charge.  That succeeded as well, but she was still “stuck” together.

What’s going on? she wondered.

With Jinn taking one charge, and two cast into the stupid pliers, another charge would have knocked her out.  Still they were stuck together.  Finally, she deliberately let go of herself, “dropping” the hold as she would drop her hold on any other object in her telekinetic grip.  That did it.  Jade in her body felt the connection snap, and she wondered what had happened.  She was too weak to even stand up.  Was her spirit-self okay?

Abruptly, the energy flowed back into her, as Jann released her grip on the pliers.  A moment later, Jade felt as good as she normally did.  Apparently, there hadn’t been any strange side effects.

She tested again, this time trying to figure out what had happened.

A little testing gave a few clues.  For any “casting” done through the ring, even if she cast through her ring finger while she wore the ring, that casting was … sticky.  She and her spirit form were stuck together.  She could stretch the connection out to six feet, in which case it would abruptly “snap.”  About half the time her spirit snapped back into her body, the other half the time she snapped entirely into the charged object.  Also, during the “sticky” period, she could cast extra charging energy into the spirit-self.  The extra energy didn’t seem to serve any purpose, aside from making her feel physically more exhausted.

Her curiosity raised, she tried “multi-charging” her spirit self without using the ring.  To her surprise, that worked too.  She could cast two, even three instances of herself into an object.  Of course, that many charges knocked her physical body out.  The spirits merged like drops of water joining together, her memories and separate selves joining seamlessly into just a single spirit.  It didn’t seem like the extra energy made a difference there, either, until she discovered that her telekinetic strength was multiplied by however many charges she’d used.  Instead of her current weight limit of 290 pounds, she’d be able to lift 580, 870, or an incredible 1160 pounds, when she had a full four charges!  The entire range was still inside the TK 3 ability scale, but 1100 pounds, 500 kilos – that was half a ton!  That was serious power!

On the other hand, it left open the question of the “sticky” charges, when cast through the center of the ring.  That extra energy didn’t seem to accomplish anything.  She’d need to conduct more experiments later.

Re-invigorated by her new discoveries, she set to work with a will on the mithril ring.  The pins were difficult to remove, but Bunny had told her the trick.  A hard push, half twist, release, then unscrew, and the three pins came out.  Then, casting herself along a fine wire, she was able to cast herself into the center of the ring.

Jade’s mithril ring had been a typical campus “amusing incident”.  Rip had given Toni a friendship ring, which was proving to be a copper core plated with brass, with a coat of lacquer over it.  Then Toni had met “Silver”, a girl whose mutant ability coated her entire body with a thin skin of the absurdly valuable and rare mithril alloy.  Silver’s film coated Toni’s ring, until the coating made the ring too tight for Toni to wear.  Toni gave it to Jade, and now Jade was now busy using micro tools to excavate out the original friendship ring that had been left at the core of the mithril ring.

The job was easy for her spirit-self.  The scale was too small to see well, but she could work by feel.  The senses were a little different from what they would have been in her physical body, but she was able to adapt.  Casting herself into a tiny grinding wheel, she spun as fast as she could.  The soft copper inside was eroded away, but the mithril wasn’t even scratched.  Then, with the mithril ring completely excavated, she had enough room inside the hollow core to move in the triggering circuitry, her barrette activators, a micro battery, and other components.

It was also an interesting place to inhabit.  Her spirit body could compress itself into the tiniest spec of sand.  She could fit herself entirely inside the hollowed-out ring.  And inside, it was dark and quiet.  There were no other spirits or emotions.  She wasn’t sure she’d want to be trapped in here, but it was an interesting refuge.

Outside, Jade was beginning to worry.  She cast Jann-sensei into her skin, so that she could use her spirit-vision.  Jinn had vanished into the ring, and was gone!  Completely vanished, even to her spirit sight.  Until… a moment later, a charged spec of sand came floating back out of the tiny hole drilled into the hollow ring, and Jinn reunited with her, sharing the experience of the dark and silent space, inside the ring.

“Can you move Jinn over into these tools?”

Jade sat up so abruptly she almost hurt herself.  She’d been so engrossed in her work that she’d completely forgotten that she was sharing the lab with someone else.

“Sorry!  What were you saying?”

Harry snuffled in amusement.  “Yeah, you’re definitely a devisor.  The total absorption in your work is a sure sign.  I was saying that I’ve got another part for Jinn to work on.  Having her go inside to polish and assemble things is really working out!  This is great!  I’m starting to come up with all sorts of ways I could use this, if you’re willing to take on some more jobs, Jinn.”

The cloak suddenly lifted up.  “Maybe.  I need my sister to help me ‘possess’ different objects, though.  I’m not sure how often we’ll both be available.”

“Although we’re really using the stuff we’re learning from you,” Jade added.  “The techniques you’re teaching Jinn are a huge help as I work on this ring.”

Harry nodded.  “Glad I can help.  So Jinn, this time, I need you to fit this spring in place around a gear…”

50: Celebrations

Whateley Academy, Crystal Hall

November 23, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, 6:37 PM

The grand group of girls headed toward Crystal Hall, for the Thanksgiving dinner.

“I am going to eat so much food you won’t believe it!” Billie said.

“More than your usual five or six plates?” Nikki asked.  “Aren’t you afraid of losing your girlish figure?”

“Ha!  I burn that much energy in one sparing match.”

Sara seemed quiet, for once, holding hands with Erin.  Neither of them spoke, apparently content to walk hand-in-hand at the rear of the group.

Jamie, the Native American sometimes-boy, sometimes-girl was trying to discuss details of an esoteric higher mystical realm with Nikki.

Toni, at the head of the group, was walking in wooden sandals that seemed precariously constructed so that each foot was balanced atop a single four-inch slab of wood.

“Sensei?” Jade asked.  “Why are you wearing geta?”

“You recognize them?” Toni asked.  “So do you know anything about these Japanese clogs?  I thought they were supposed to have a couple of ridges or whatever-you-call-it wood pieces underneath.  Don’t tell me that everyone balances on top of these things.”

“Only in samurai movies, sensei,” Jade answered.  “Most geta have two ‘teeth.’  I never understood the one-tooth geta.”

“Yeah,” the black girl agreed, “they’re kind of freaky-weird.  Ito sensei assigned them to me until I could do back flips,” she demonstrated, “front flips, and all my fighting in them, as comfortably as I would fight barefoot.”

“Wearing those things to dinner is just an invitation for ridicule,” Ayla pointed out.

“A duel might not be so bad,” Toni considered.  “You would not believe how nasty a kick is while I’m wearing these things.”

“One who seeks conflict almost always finds it,” Chou intoned.  “Particularly in the Whateley cafeteria.”

Toni looked sideways at her.  “That reminds me, do you think they’re going to have fortune cookies for desert today?”

“Mocking wisdom does not make it any less wise.”

“I’ll bet you’ve got a million of them, don’t you?”

Chou presented her best inscrutable look in return.  “Consider that on Thanksgiving, the greatest loser is… the turkey.”

Toni nodded at that.  “Good point.  Hey, that better not be intended to have a double meaning!”

“If the same words mean different things to different people, do you blame the speaker, or the audience?”

“Come on, cut it out already!”

“When the enthusiasm of youth tired, maturity endures.”

“I mean it!  Cut it out!  I’m warning you, I’ve got clogs and I’m not afraid to use them!”

“It’s important to know when to stop speaking, lest one find a foot in one’s mouth.”

Even Nikki looked over at that one.  “Where do you come up with these?”

As the banter escalated, Billie glanced over to her roommate.  “You missed the volleyball game.  Having fun on your first full day since growing up?”

Jade laced her fingers behind her head and leaned back nonchalantly.  “Oh, it’s been okay.  Let’s see, I found out how to triple either Jinn’s life span, or her strength.  I gave Peeper the reward he so richly deserves – on the air!  I set up a date for tomorrow night, and I made some cool new modifications on my equipment.  So, yeah, it’s been pretty good.”

The sudden silence flowed out across the little group like the shock wave from an atomic bomb.  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Erin, of all people, said, “You’ve got a date?”

---

“Are you out of your freakin’ mind?” Billie yelled, across the table.  They’d had to push two tables together to make room for the “Team Kimba, plus” crowd.

“Aw, come on, mom!” Jade called back, unfazed by her roommate’s outburst.

“I think I agree with Billie,” Nikki offered.  “Thuban is bad news.  He’s into so much stuff around campus that it’s not even funny.  You know that he’s done jobs for The Don?  And taken contracts from Tansy Walcutt.”

“Um, hello?” Jade piped in.  “I’m the one who told you about the whole Tansy thing, remember?  I was there.  Besides, it’s not like Tansy’s going to be going anywhere near Thuban for a while.”  She snickered.  “Not voluntarily.”

“Yeah, about that…”  Toni paused to organize her argument, absently flicking her spoon across her fingers in a display of dexterity that would make a professional magician weep with envy.  “When you think about it, Thuban pretty much arranged a day-long rape session.  I mean, that’s what it was, right?”  The girls around her all shifted uncomfortably, but no one denied it.  “Is that the kind of guy you want to be going out with?”

“It’s not like that!” Jade protested.  “Remember, I was there at the beginning and end of that little incident.  Tansy put herself in that position.  And she definitely deserved it!  Between what she did to Montana, and selling her body to The Don, and trying to turn me into her personal slave.”  She met Toni’s eyes.  “I understand what you’re saying, sensei, but it wasn’t an arranged rape.  It was Tansy selling her body – again – and getting more than she bargained for.  And it served her right!”

Sara turned away from her furry and cuddly dinner companion to join the conversation.  “I’ve met with Thuban a couple of times on my own.  He’s definitely interested in our little group here.  More than I like.  And he had a special interest in you in particular, Jade.  Now I’m wondering whether this was his plan all along, or whether this is a ploy to gain a stronger hold in our group.”

Nikki nodded, gesturing emphatically with her fork.  “I noticed that!  He was definitely hung up on Jade.  The question is, why?”

Jade knew exactly why he’d been interested in her.  The body of Lazuli had taken a lot of work; Thuban had obviously been planning things for a while.  Lazuli was needed to kick-start the socially awkward crowd from Faction Three, and Thuban had foreseen that even before Faction Three had started.  It was possible that he’d been trying to come up with a use for Jinn’s powers since he’d figured them out.  Telekinetic powers were common, but the ability to animate objects and make them “come alive”, and do it realistically, was extremely rare.

She thought that was probably all there was to it.  It was distantly possible that he’d created the BIT-slicer with her in mind, as a bribe to do Lazuli.  But it was more likely that he’d been honest there, he’d created the BIT-slicer for people like Jello, and had seen more than one way to exploit the technology.

She could explain all that, but Faction Three was still a secret, and Thuban had definitely not wanted her discussing Lazuli or any of those details with her friends.  And this sure wasn’t a secret that her friends needed to know, either.

“…tried to convince me that it would be better for everyone if I just left Whateley,” Sara was saying.

“When was this?” Billie asked.  “And why didn’t you tell anyone?”

The Goth teenager shrugged.  “About a month ago.  Didn’t seem like anyone really needed to know.”

“Like hell!”  Nikki was passionate about that.  “What affects one of us, affects all of us!  That’s true in both psychology and magic!”

“It’s nice to know you care,” Sara said dryly.

That broke through Jade’s musings.  “Sara!  How can you say that?  Haven’t we proven we care about you?  All of us?”

The Goth thought about it, then shrugged.  “Yeah, I suppose you have.  A girl still likes to hear it, though.”

Chou added her own view.  “Still, it is more evidence that he’s both manipulative and ruthless.”

“Well of course he is,” Jade agreed.  “I thought you were saying he was a bad guy!”

As one, the entire table slowly blinked at her, as they all wondered what their naïve junior member could possibly be thinking.

“Honestly!” she continued, “you guys remind me of Adam Ironknife!”

Toni jumped in at that.  “Pardon me, I have to interrupt before our brains melt.  How does Thuban being a paid assassin have to do with us being Stormwolf clones?”

“Simple,” Jade replied.  “Remember Adam Ironknife’s little pep-talk, where he told us, ‘Fall in line, be true-blue troopers, or else you’ll get marked as a villain and forever be seen as villains’ ?  Remember that?  And that’s what you’re doing to Thuban.  That’s exactly what you’re doing to Thuban!”

Toni pulled her fingers through her tightly kinked hair.  “But look at what he’s done to us!  To Sara, in particular.  You remember back in the middle of October, when Peeper and Greasy ambushed Sara on stage with the Darlings?  They blamed Sara for their son’s death, in front of the entire campus, and started a riot that nearly ended with Sara being stoned!  Thuban set that all up.  He admitted it to us!”

“Yeah, well…”  Jade looked down at her plate, where she was using her spoon to draw circles in her mashed potatoes and gravy.  “Well, I can’t explain that.  Not entirely.  Look, I know how Thuban thinks, pretty much.  He probably figured that Sara could take care of herself, and she can, can’t she?  But for the people he protects, he’s rock-solid.  Have you been over to Twain?  It’s like they worship him over there.  Hawthorne and Whitman, too.”

“Setting yourself up as a god isn’t always a good thing,” Sara pointed out.  “I have some expertise in this.”

“No, it’s not like that, it’s just… oh, forget it.”

“What?” Billie asked, sensing her roommate’s frustration.

“Look,” Jade finally said.  “You remember Adam Ironknife’s talk?  You remember what Robert Shih said?”

“That stuff about the ‘third path’?” Billie asked.  “You talk about that a lot.”

“Well I’ve thought about it a lot.  You aren’t a bad guy, but sometimes you can’t follow all the rules.  So you have your own honor, and you try to do the best you can.  Well, Thuban is like that.  I’m not sure what happened, but he really doesn’t trust any of the regular police, or security, or ‘good guy’ teams.  And he thinks that it’s his responsibility to protect everyone out there that looks different.  So maybe he comes down a little hard on the ‘beautiful people,’ as he calls them.  And Sara definitely falls into that camp.  But he’s not a bad guy!  He’s doing some really good stuff.”

Jade was passionate in her defense, but the other girls weren’t convinced.  Billie, Toni, Nikki, and Sara all looked up, meeting each other’s eyes as they surveyed the table.  They all shared a look of resignation that said, “Maybe she’ll have to find out on her own.”  Privately, though, each girl resolved that anyone who took advantage of their friend would pay a heavy price.  Chou, though, defended her.

“The Third Path is difficult,” she said.  “It is a constant test, neither giving in to your base nature, nor to society’s demands.  It is a journey for neither sheep nor scoundrels, and to walk it is to be forever searching and questioning.”

In an effort to break away from the uncomfortable stalemate, Nikki changed the topic.  “Didn’t you have some unbelievable story about doubling or tripling Jinn’s power?”

“Oh yeah!”  Jade held her hand up, displaying her mithril ring.  “Remember the moonsilver ring that Toni sensei gave me?  It turns out that if I charge up Jinn, and send the power through the ring, using my ring finger, that the charge is sort of ‘sticky’.  I can do a multiple zap, and Jinn has energy for multiple-times as long.”

“So you can keep her around, without ever seeing you, for what, two or three hours?” Toni wondered.

“Over three and a half hours on two charges,” Jade said proudly.  “Five and a half hours on three charges!”

Billie looked concerned.  “Doesn’t that make you kind of… useless in the meantime?”

“Yeah,” Jade admitted.  “I’m exhausted, and don’t really have any, you know, extra resources.  But five and a half hours – wow!  And that’s not all.  If I stack up the charges, just normally, then the lifespan doesn’t change, but the strength doubles or triples!”

So with the uncomfortable topic out of the way (even if unresolved), the girls chatted happily about their own powers, recent training or discoveries, and the looming question of getting a MID.

---

Jade met James outside the cafeteria.  Her euphoria at achieving her dreams had put her into a huggy mood for the entire day.  With James, of course, it was different.  He wasn’t the kind of guy that you touched.  He just wasn’t.  Still, she almost did.

He looked at her suspiciously.  “Are you…?”

She wished she could share even a little of the joy she was feeling.  “It’s me – Jade!  Thanks partially to your help, I did it!  This is ME now!  I’ve achieved exactly what I’d been dreaming of for so long!  Thank you, James!”

He said nothing, just looking slowly up and down her body.  “That’s really you?”

“In the flesh!  Quite a change, isn’t it?”

Finally, he asked, “Do you still need me to do the supercharging thing?”

“No, I found a way around that.  But thank you so much for what you did!  It really made the difference!”

“So you don’t need me anymore?”

“Nope!  But I still owe you one tremendous, super-huge favor!  If you think of anything, I’m ready and waiting.  Just let me know!  Thanks again!”

And with that, she skipped off, leaving a very bemused boy in her wake.

---

Jinn, or rather, “Lazuli” relaxed and sat back as she listened to the movie.  She couldn’t watch the movie, of course, which made the experience significantly less interesting that it might have been.  She’d decided that three and a half hours would be plenty of time for the Faction Three meeting and anything that might happen afterward, so she’d taken a double-charge.  That meant that her physical body would be tired, but not exhausted.  She could have taken a triple-charge, but that would leave her physical body almost too weak to walk, and unable to spare a charge for the kitty compact, or the missiles, or a blanket-bed, or half the other things she did for herself.  She’d hadn’t even considered a quadruple-charge, which would knock out her physical body.  Now that she had the body of her dreams, she needed to start taking better care of herself.

The end theme song began playing and the audience stretched and began to rise.  Jinn rose as well, and began to circulate.  She was surprised to be approached by a huge furred man.  She recognize the sasquatch, but knew that he wouldn’t recognize her.

“How do you do, Miss Lazuli.”  Monty bowed low, apparently trying to charm her.  “I’m ‘Montana’, a devisor of some small skill.”

She decided to pick a path that was halfway between curiosity and being too direct.  “A devisor?  I would have guessed that your skills were more in physical combat.”

“Well, I have been known to break a few heads—”

Hearing this cavalier reference to his backstabbing blow against Toni, Jinn felt her temper spark into life.

“—but I’m trying to move past that.  I know I look like a ‘big hairy carpet.’  I’ve heard plenty of that going around.  But I my best stuff is really miniature electronics.”

“When he’s not making cheating, illegal moves against girls that are half his size!”  This came from a tall, shiny silver boy, who looked as if reflective foil that had been painted onto him.  He walked up and glared at the sasquatch.

Jinn wasn’t normally a troublemaker, but she’d never forgiven Monty for his attack on her sensei.  Using his temper to get him banned from the Faction Three meetings seemed more than fair.  So she naively turned to him and asked, “Are you just going to take that sort of slander?”

The sasquatch’s shoulders slumped together.  Surprisingly, he glowed of disappointment, not anger.  “Whacking him wouldn’t do any good.  He reflects kinetic energy as well as he reflects any other energy attack.  Besides… it’s kinda true.”

She glared at him.  “I think you’d better explain.”

The silver boy reached a hand forward.  Jinn was fascinated to note that, like mithril, he was silvery and reflective even to her spirit vision.  And the silver effect seemed to follow the outside surface of his clothes.  “I’m Mirror,” he said, “an involuntary warper.  I’ll let Monty tell the story – it’s part of his penance.  I’ll just be here to correct any details that come out wrong.”

Monty gave a glare that to Jinn’s empathic senses had no real anger behind it.  “Well, I used to have a thing about pretty girls.  Not a good thing, like you’re thinking, but a real anger thing.  I think I’ve mostly gotten over it, that’s part of why I was forcing myself to come up and talk to you—”

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said, abruptly realizing that it was a compliment.

“Uh, sure.  Anyway, I guess it started with Tennyo.  It really started during school last year, but I don’t want to talk about that part.  Let’s just say that last year left me with a ‘thing’ about pretty girls, and so this year I was I kind of trying to keep them out of our cottage.  Just to protect people, you know?  I mean, none of us need any extra humiliation, right?  So this Tennyo girl came over to see her ‘friend’ she claimed.”

“Which was completely legit, it turned out,” Mirror added in.

“Yeah.  Well, I kind of tried to intimidate her a little, to get rid of her,” Monty said.

Mirror couldn’t help adding in again.  “Of course, that was before anyone knew that Tennyo was death on two legs.  A month later in Boston, she took out an actual demon.  Took its best hit, and then beat it over the head with a couple of tons of concrete, the way I heard it.”

“Um, but no one knew that right then,” Monty continued.  “I just thought she was this pretty girl, come to lord it over us like all the rest of ‘em.  So I … kinda … tried to throw her out.”

Jinn nodded, interested in hearing the story from his side.  “I’m guessing that didn’t work too well?”

Quietly, “No.  Not real well.  So later on, when I spotted her pulling a clean-up shift in the cafeteria, I sort of… took some pot shots at her with my trash.”

The more Monty talked about what he had done to Billie, the more Jinn felt her anger rising.  There was more than a little heat in her voice when she said, “And that’s when she barbecued you, right?  That’s when she rammed a pole through your gut and roasted you over a slow fire.”  She couldn’t help pressing the control button that made her eyes glow red.

Montana, despite being taller than her, cringed back a little in fear.  “Uh, not exactly.  She dodged, and the scraps hit some girls behind her, and it sort of turned into a food fight.  I got out, and she got fired.”

Jinn pressed the “red eye” button again.  “And is that the end of it?”

Monty was reluctant, but Mirror poked him, saying , “Penance!”  Reluctantly, the sasquatch continued.

“So a little later, this young little black girl comes marching into the cottage.  My turf!  Well, our turf.  And she’s calling me names up one side and down the other.  And I figure that Tennyo is too scared to face me herself.”

“Whoo boy,” Mirror said.  “Wrong call.  We think she was actually afraid that she might accidentally rip an arm off or something.”

“Um, yeah.  So anyway, this little black girl is cussing me out, and she finally up and challenges me.  And she was so small, I thought I was actually doing a pretty good job by just giving her some lip and walking away.”

“You have to understand,” Mirror said, “it’s been a cottage project to ‘tenderize’ Montana here.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Anyway, this little girl up and calls me a coward, in front of my whole cottage!  She forces me into a duel with her.  A little freshman!”

Jinn nodded.  “Let me guess: she won.”

Monty nodded, his aura tingeing down into the colors of shame and humiliation.  “She did it in the worst way, too.  She fought smart.  She had some real skill and grace there.  Made me look like a total loser.  A big, stupid, ugly, loser, who looked like nothing better than a big dumb animal.”

He paused, but Mirror poked him again.

“So, when the match was over, and walked over to the ref, she turned her back to me.”

Jinn knew what was coming, she’d been there, but she had to say it.  “You didn’t!”

Montana nodded, miserably.  “Right in the back of her head.  In front of pretty much everyone.  She was in the hospital wing for a couple of days.”

Jinn wondered how she should deal with this.  Based on the confession, Monty was obviously trying to change his ways.  But she’d been there with her friends as he caused them no end of pain and suffering.  Hearing what he’d done to Billie brought out the nastiest desire for vengeance.  Toni sensei, too.  Silently, she thought about everything.

“Did you ever apologize to either of them?” she finally asked.

The admission was quiet, and very reluctant.  “No.”

“I think you should.  As formally and politely as you can.  And try not to say anything that would make this Tennyo girl vaporize you on the spot.”

Montana ducked his head and nodded, while beside him, Mirror smiled in satisfaction.

She had to ask.  “Obviously, you’ve changed since then, or you wouldn’t be making this confession.  Finally learn your lesson?”

“Uh, the guys in the cottage kind of let me know they weren’t happy with me.”  He gave a strange look over toward Mirror.  “And then Thuban – you know him, right?  Oh, yeah, of course you know him.  Thuban … he did something that gave me a little of my self-respect back.  He was still pissed at me, everyone was, but he showed me that they were willing to understand, and maybe even forgive me.  If I shaped up.  My confessions are part of that.”

Jinn nodded coldly.  “You’ve come a long way,” she finally decided.  “But you’ve got a ways to go, still.  Keep working on it.”  And with that, she turned her back and walked away from him.

As she left the two boys, Tool came gliding up to her.  The dress-like robe concealed the lower half of Tool’s body, but from the smooth glide the girl moved with, whatever was down below at the moment wasn’t human.  But then, that was to be expected from the uncontrollable shifter.

“That was a little abrupt, wasn’t it?” the shifter girl asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you listen to his confession, tell him to face up to his crimes, and walk out on him.  You might try giving him a bit more support.”

Jinn had to make deliberate effort to be more casual.  She knew everyone here would be a bit more sympathetic of Monty, exactly the way that she was secretly siding with Billie and Toni.  “You’ve heard his story.  What he did was pretty inexcusable.”

Tool shrugged.  “No harm, no foul, right?  I just think that there are deeper feelings that drove Montana to do what he did.  It’s a lot better to ease those insecurities and support him.”

Jinn snorted.  “You’re a better person than I am.”

Tool said nothing, but her aura glowed with embarrassment and guilt.  “Well, it’s just that, as a gargoyle, shouldn’t you be looking to support and strengthen your clan, before all else?”

“Maybe.  But is Montana part of my clan?”

Tool looked over the milling crowd.  “He should be.  This entire group, and those that didn’t come, should be part of your clan.  And don’t think I haven’t seen what you’re doing – getting the boys talking to the girls, getting different groups to talk at least.  I think it’s having an effect.”

“If you see that,” Jinn acknowledged, “then you could be doing the same thing.”

“Oh, no.”

The verbal response had been mild, but Jinn couldn’t help but see the massive spike of sheer terror in the other girl’s aura.  “What’s wrong?”

The robed girl began gliding to one side of the room, away from most of the people.  “It’s… personal.”

“Your powers?”

The hooded head gave a single jerky nod.

“You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“Yes I do.  I need to explain ahead of time, so you’ll understand if – I mean, when – something freaky happens.”

Jinn said nothing, but studied the girl as her aura glowed with conflicting colors for depression and hope.  The depression she understood fine, it was the hope that puzzled her.

“See, I’m an involuntary shifter.  My body reacts to whatever I’m thinking about, or seeing, or whatever is happening around me.”

Jinn nodded, sympathetically.  “Okay.”

“Well, if I see a person I like, even if it’s just a friendly thing, my body’s liable to react.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if I’m feeling sympathetic, I might find myself turning into whatever I think it is they want, whether I want to or not.”

Jinn felt more than a little sympathy for the girl.  “But that might not be so bad, on a date.”

“Forget dates!  I’m just talking about being in the same room.  Do you know how hard that makes it to have friends of my own sex?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.  Even worse is that when I get interested in a person, I sometimes take on whatever physical traits they have that are the most attractive.”

“But isn’t that the opposite of what you just said?”

“Yes!”  Tool almost shouted it in her frustration.  “So I’m changing all the while.  And it gets worse!”

Jinn was wondering how it possibly could.

“If I feel threatened or anxious, my body defends me.  Razor-sharp edges, spines sharper than any needle, mouths and teeth and fangs and claws growing where none of those things should exist.”  She held out her hands, which at the moment were exact matches for Lazuli’s gargoyle talons.  “I have the perfect powers for someone who wants to be a hermit.  But the worst powers for anyone who wants to live around other people.”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

Tool gave a snort that was filled with a world-weary sadness that should have been far beyond her years.  “Are you kidding?  Sex and danger, terrifying erotic imagery.  A hint of tentacle sex.  I was one of the major gossip stories last year.  Until I learned to keep to myself.  Entirely to myself.”

“There must be something you can do,” Jinn encouraged.  “Better training, or some sort of technical advance.  Isn’t Thuban working on some stuff?”

Tool nodded sadly.  “Yeah, he’s got something that’s showing some promise called a ‘BIT-shifter.’  It’s supposed to have had one or two successes.  But I’m a Shifter-5.  I’m in Whitman, not Hawthorne because I have superb control.  Except for in a couple of ways, of course.  I’ve tried training, but that only served to increase my power and control.”  She held out a hand, which quickly morphed between garden shears, a tire iron, a large Swiss Army knife that flicked through a combination of blades, and a massive rock-skinned fist.  “I can quintuple my strength, harden my skin, or make razor-sharp claws.  I can liquefy or turn nearly steel-hard.  The only things I can’t do is look really human for more than a minute, or remain warm flesh when it really counts.”

“Surely there must be something.”

The girl shook her head.  “There are a couple of guys who can suppress powers, but they’re creeps.  And there are some on campus that would be safe, if they were interested in me.  And I almost finalized an agreement with a witch, last year.  She had a magic spell that could freeze me in a final form, but I would need to match the form of a ‘donor’ who would then lose their own body.  You can imagine how well that would go over.”  As she said this, her emotions focused into a laser-pure blaze of need and want.

“Lose your body?  What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t know.  I did some research.  A lot of research.  It’s possible that we might switch forms, or that they’d gain my situation while I gained theirs, or perhaps something more cosmically symbolic.  It’s hard to tell sometimes with magic.  Anyway, it’s not like I’ve been swamped with volunteers.”

They talked for a few more minutes, then parted awkwardly.  Jinn definitely felt sorry for the girl, but wasn’t quite ready to give her what she so desperately wanted.  And the fact that she wanted Lazuli to volunteer was more than obvious.

Still, if this body were destroyed, would it be catastrophic?  She had no idea how much it cost.  Beyond that, she owed Thuban.  He’d gone to great lengths to construct the body and arrange for her to bring it to life.

She briefly considered the unnamed witch and her spell.  This whole idea about one body’s image being transmitted to another person was awfully familiar.  Was that what had inspired Thuban with the BIT-shifter?  The BIT-shifter imposed a donor’s BIT over the recipient, as she well knew.  The donor never suffered (aside from some discomfort as they were strapped in), and they certainly never lost anything, or had their BIT damaged.  All she could imagine was that the witch would cause the BIT to be sucked right out of the donor.  And what would happen if they had no BIT?  Or was it more like a simple possession?

She snorted to herself, thinking that only at Whateley could you use the dismissive phrase, “a simple possession.”

Jinn mingled widely that evening, talking, listening, and helping to bring people past that uncomfortable “I don’t feel comfortable talking to you yet” stage.  She didn’t consider herself any sort of social mastermind, but much of the work was merely forcing herself into uncomfortable situations.  As herself, on her own, she probably never would have been so socially aggressive or worked so hard at playing the room.  But she had a job to do, and she was immensely indebted to Thuban for what he’d done for her.  Her persona helped a bit.  Everyone knew that she wasn’t “real”.  They didn’t quite know whether she was some sort of actress (which she figured was closest to the truth), a clever robotic construct, or something else.  It had been suggested to her that she was one of Fubar’s telepathic illusions.  Someone accused her of being an ectoplasmic entity, and several people thought she was a shapeshifter (though they couldn’t agree on which one).  The mystery helped her when there was no other topic of conversation.  And being an actress, rather than herself, helped give her the drive and courage to keep pushing at her role.

She also stopped and listened to groups that had gathered on their own.  More than a few times, she found that Tool had been there ahead of her, seeding the group with some idea to really fire them up.  “Should Faction Three have its own school?”  “How do we really feel about the other kids at the Academy?” and the always popular “If you could magically be normal – would you want to be?”

At one point, she came across Sted and Jana.  Sted looked the same as she had before – a pony-girl with a human top, but horse legs and feet.  This time, Jinn noticed that the girl sported a thick, equine tail, that swished or flicked in accordance with the girl’s mood.  Jana looked completely different, and it took a moment before Jinn realized that this was Jana in a different guise.  Instead of being a centaur, the girl had gray-brown fur covering her unclothed body, with thick paws, powerful rabbit-like legs, and a bushy tail that curled up as tall as her head.

“Jana?”

The girl nodded.  “Hi, Lazuli.  Oh, this?”  She gestured at her body.  “Didn’t I tell you I did a squirrel-girl?  You should see my catgirl.  They’re actually my two most common forms – I tend to take the forms of nearby animals, and I refuse to do rat.”

Jinn-Lazuli nodded.  “Hey, you’re both shifters, right?  Is Tool a friend of yours?”

Sted shrugged.  “We’ve talked to her a couple of times – only at the Faction Three meetings, really.  But there’s a camaraderie among shifters.  A lot of us have similar issues.  I mean, look at the two of us.  Both animal shifters – the most common set.  Weren’t we both horses, the last time you saw us?  That’s what first drew me to Jana – we were both centaurs the first time we met.”

Jana picked it up from there, her voice colored with a mild, exotic Latino accent that Jade didn’t recognize.  “Tool is one of the extreme cases.  We learn about them in the ‘shifter classes.  Tool is one of the most controlled omnimorphs out there.  Jello’s another extreme – she can be anything, heal anything, but only for as long as she maintains concentration.  Tool shifts her limbs more than anything else, but they can be completely functional.  Have you seen her do the ‘Swiss Army knife’?  Impressive.  Same color and hardness as steel, same edge, she even has hinges and traces of lubricant on her moving parts.”

“But what’s she like as a person?”

“Why so curious?” Sted wondered.

“Just that we were talking a while ago, and I started wondering.”

“Well…” Jana began, “there was this incident last year.  She got kind of a crush on one of the other Whitman girls, named Ally.  They got up to holding hands, but when Ally tried to give her a kiss she suddenly noticed that Tool had grown a … you know.”

Jinn could think of a couple of possibilities that might be “you know.”  She decided to just ask.  “What?”

“A dick,” Sted said, bluntly.  “A guy thing.  And it was sticking up.  Ally could see it through the robe.”

“Tool’s tool, everyone called it,” Jana added with a snicker.

“What happened with Ally?”

“She totally panicked,” Sted recounted.  “Wouldn’t come anywhere near Tool for the rest of the year.”

“After that,” Jana added sadly, “Tool closed up a lot.  She started wearing these molded plastic gauntlets over her hands, and a molded face piece and stuff.  It’s still underneath that robe of hers, and the quality is getting better, but it’s kind of sad, you know?  She seemed like an okay person.”

“So that was all last year?  Are they still talking about Tool’s tool?”

Sted nodded.  “Yeah, a little.  Never while Tool’s around, but a little.”

“What’s her real name?” Jinn wondered.

Both girls shrugged.  “I’ve never heard anyone who knew,” Sted admitted.

They talked until the movie came up, then Jinn settled down to listen to the show.  The movie was an account of a set of fictional heroes called The Fantastic Four.  The four-person team featured a single GSD victim, who became the focus character for the entire audience.  When the credits finally rolled, one of the audience roared and rose to his feet.

“That’s so STUPID!  It’s not like that!”

She recognized “Igneous” from her morning costuming class.  He was about six and a half feet tall, and looked like a bodybuilder statue that had been roughly chiseled out of stone.

“You want to know what’s real?  I’ll tell you what’s real!  The jokes, and the laughter, and the constant humiliation!  THAT’S WHAT’S REAL!”

The interesting thing was, Tool was the first person to head toward the angry student.  She tried to speak quietly to him, but the boy was too upset for that.

“You want to talk about patience, and plans?  Well I don’t want to be patient anymore!  How do you feel about that?”

Tool flowed forward, and for the first time Jinn got a glimpse of what the girl could really do.  Her arms and legs took on the appearance of ropes, which lashed out, wrapping around each of Igneous’ limbs.  His left arm was close to his body, and the ropes on that side flowed and melted, binding the arm to the body, then changing to take the appearance of steel.  But although she had Igneous’ other limbs entwined, he was so much stronger than Tool that he simply ignored her.

“Oh, you want to fight?”  With that, Igneous lashed out and slammed a fist into Tool’s jaw.  Instantly, Tool fell limp to the ground, her limbs reverting to normal human shape.

At the other side of the room, Thuban rose, and clapped exactly twice, quickly and sharply.  A moment later, he had everyone’s attention.  “You know the ruless.  No fighting outssside a designated match, in the arena next door.  Ssstand down.”

“Yeah?  Or else what, snake boy?”

Thuban snapped his fingers, and Igneous collapsed limply to the ground, falling beside the unconscious Tool.

“Doess that sssufice?  Now, if sssomeone could tosss him outside, I believe we have some new refreshmentsss.”

That was quickly taken care of, and the meeting was back on track, slightly more lively than before.  Jinn was left to wonder about the boy that she had asked on a date, and to think about the girl named Tool.

---

Coincidentally, Jade had been worrying about Thuban.  The whole “date” idea had been a complete impulse, but the girls brought up some good points.  She was particularly bothered that Billie was down on the idea.  Billie had finally relented with, “Go ahead!  It’s your life!” which wasn’t quite the satisfying bit of support Jade had hoped for, but at least Billie wasn’t completely against it.

Still, Thuban was kind of creepy.  If she had to spend a whole date looking him in that lizard face of his… could she handle it?  She was honestly trying to overcome her prejudice, and the Faction Three meetings were helping.  She thought that she was doing a good job of acting like she wasn’t weirded out by some of the stranger mutations.  But some support or help would be nice.

And then she had an idea.

Billie was off on some project of her own, so Jade lay down in her bed and inserted a pair of earplugs, with Jann charged into them.

“We’re going to create a new self-hypnosis spell,” Jann begin.  “This will help you be friendly and sympathetic to anyone, no matter what they look like.  We’ll call the spell ‘acceptance’, and it will be present on the ring-finger knuckle of your right hand.  Now, let’s start the session….”

---

The Faction Three crowd slowly dispersed as Jinn approached Tool.  Without a word, the two of them headed off into a corner.

Tool was positively glowing with hope and need.  “Yeah?” was all she said aloud.

Jinn felt a momentary pang for her poor physical self.  Her physical body might have the flesh, but there was much to be said for the rich and beautiful world of emotions.  She would have missed so much without her spirit form.

Facing Tool, she said, “I’ll think about it.”

The shapeshifter virtually exploded in the colors of joy and hope and need.  Her body exploded in its own way, erupting in tentacles and odd shapes under the robe.

“Don’t get your hopes up too far,” Jinn warned.  “I’ve been burned by opportunities like this myself.  And I’m not saying I’ll do it, but I’ll look into it.  I have commitments I have to double-check; I’ve made promises.”

“I understand.”  The other girl spoke quietly, but the spoken words were at complete odds with her emotions.

“I might be able to let you know tomorrow,” Jinn said, thinking of her upcoming date.  “Maybe late tomorrow evening.”

“Thank you!  You don’t know what this means to me!”

Jinn gave a quirky smile in return.  “Oh, I think maybe I do.”  With that, she turned and walked away.

Yes, she knew very well what this meant.  And whatever the letter of her deal with Thuban, the spirit of that arrangement was to help those in Faction Three.  She couldn’t think of anything that would do more toward that end.  Her mind still wasn’t totally decided, but in her heart she knew that she’d be working very hard to make this happen.

---

Tool was beyond ecstatic.  She had to contact the witch right away.  Without even leaving the Underground, she slipped into an empty room and grabbed a phone.  She’d only dialed the number twice before, but she had long since memorized it for a just such a circumstance.

“Hello, Hekate?”

51: Dress up

Whateley Academy, Poe Cottage

November 24, Friday, 6:25 AM

Her second full day as a girl had arrived, and with it, the perennial curse of womankind.  Waking up that morning, Jade ran her hand down her side in secret delight, marveling at the way she curved where she had never curved before.  And then, her hand touched something new.  Something as unexpected as it was unpleasant.  Leg hair.

She was as quiet as she could be, so as not to wake Billie up.  The other girl usually had an extremely early schedule, so when she got a chance to sleep in Jade made sure it didn’t get ruined.  She’d purchased shaving supplies a couple of months back, but quickly realized that it would hurt her disguise more than it would help it.  The girls here weren’t shy when they shaved and Jade simply couldn’t have survived a shaving encounter – not with her disguise intact.  But those days were gone for good.  She could shave in public.  She was actually looking forward to it.  Grabbing her kit, she quickly charged up Shroud.  She needed to do a little research, and it felt wrong to abandon a sleeping Billie with no guard.  It wasn’t like Billie couldn’t take care of herself, but still…

Her shower was quick.  She washed her hair, wishing it was longer.  She’d been growing it out for months now, but she wouldn’t be really happy until it was down to her thighs at least.  That meant she needed a towel for her head.  Nearly three months of practice had made her an expert at the hair-twist trick.  With her too-short hair she didn’t really need it, but it looked so blatantly female that she couldn’t resist.  Next there was the towel “modesty wrap”, which covered her from breasts down to mid-thigh.  She’d been doing this for three months, too, but there were new tricks to learn once you actually had a figure.  Finally, she was ready for the benches that faced each other across the entrance to the showers.  Jade seated herself, then raised one leg on a stool and began to cover her leg with the foaming gel.

She’d done this once before, as Tansy.  Actually she’d only watched, as Tansy shaved herself.  Tansy had figured out a trick for using the TK powers to pull the skin tight and flat when she was shaving.  Jade concentrated on duplicating what Tansy had done, as she began her very-first-ever leg shave.

With her left foot flat on the ground, she placed her right foot up on the stool and applied her razor to the leg.  As she drew the razor up her calf, she felt it scraping away at both the hair and the foam.  Quickly enough, she gave herself a nasty nick, and then another one.

“Ow!”

There was a tiny bit of blood, but it scabbed over quickly.  She wiped the spot of blood off and continued.  This was harder than it looked.  Her main worry wasn’t the cuts and scabs themselves, it was that they’d make her legs look ugly.  That was the whole point behind shaving – to make her legs look smooth and soft.

She’d only been paying half attention, but one of the showers shut off and a girl came out and sat on the opposite bench.  Duplicating Jade’s pose, the girl raised one leg up on a stool, to better reach it for shaving.  Jade looked up and spotted Bunny’s roommate and Toni’s girlfriend.  Riptide was impossible to miss.  Her hair was jet black with a strip of scarlet down the center.  Now, as Rip raised her leg for shaving, Jade gulped, as she realized that Rip shared that same color scheme with her hair down below.  As it was with Jade, Rip’s towel hung down to mid-thigh when she was standing.  Seated and bent forward, the towel provided a clean seat, but pulled back to conceal very little from a girl who was sitting directly across from her.  Rip’s knee was raised unusually high in the air, exposing the girl completely to Jade’s eye.

Jade gulped and tried to look away, but her eye was drawn almost magnetically to the other girl’s private area.  Jade had certainly seen herself, both as Jade looking at Jinn’s chalk outline, and as Jinn looking at Jade’s real body.  There was the girls’ locker room in PE class, but that was nowhere near this blatant.  The thoughts ran through her mind in a total jumble.  She’s so different from how a boy looks – so strange, but pretty, too.  Do I look like that?  I want to look like that.  I’m a girl now, too, so is it wrong for me to look?

The two girls shaved in silence for a minute, then Rip came out with the most embarrassing question.  “Like what you see?”

Jade was mortified, and knew that her aura had just flared the intense orange of total embarrassment.  “Um… I’m sorry.  It’s just that…”

“So, like what you see?”

“You’re really pretty, Rip,” Jade admitted in a near whisper.

“Thanks.”  The other girl smiled easily back.  “No harm in looking, is there?  Especially in Poe, there’s no harm in looking and admiring.  That’s one of the things I love about this place.”

Jade gulped again.  “You’re looking … at me?”  For a moment she moved her knee, hiding herself, before she thought better of it.  She had to force herself to relax and allow her leg to move back to its normal position, exposing herself to Rip’s frank gaze once again.

“Yeah.  You’re pretty cute, especially in that, ‘Just bloomed, ready to be plucked’ sort of way.”

That statement warmed her face, and other places that she couldn’t think about at the moment.  Rip was looking directly at her most private feminine areas, and telling her what a cute girl she was.  It made her want to … something.  She wasn’t sure what, but it was an interesting feeling.

Rip snorted.  “Man, you’re a shy one, aren’t you?  Bet you’ve never even kissed a girl, have you?”

Jade ducked her head down, pretending to look at her leg.  She kept glancing through her bangs at both Rip’s face and at her exposed underside.  “I, uh, I’ve been kissed once.  By a girl.  You saw the disk, didn’t you?  When I was possessing Tansy’s body?”

“Oh yeah!  Hot little scene.  I meant, you’ve never been kissed on your true lips.”

“You mean?”  Jade raised a nervous hand to her mouth.

Rip chuckled again.  “No, no, no.  Although that’s sweet, too.  I mean, you’ve never been kissed … down here.”  So saying, she moved her hand down and used her middle finger to ever-so-gently stroke over the exposed swell of her labia.  “You know?  Kissed.”

By now, Jade’s heart was pounding so hard that she thought she was about ready to die.  “Wait a minute!  You mean, you and Toni sensei have… done that?”

Rip smirked back at her.  “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“uh…”  Her mind conjured all sorts of images of Rip and Toni sensei in bed, sliding over each other, one girl moving to the other to kiss her there.  She suddenly wondered if she were hyperventilating.  Trying to move the conversation to something less physically disturbing, she tried, “So are there any tricks to this shaving thing?  This is my first time.”

Rip grinned, but followed the offered lead.  “It helps to go against the grain, if you can figure that out.  Most girls shave bottom-to-top, they way you’re doing.  You might want to do your pits first, while your razor’s sharpest.  And it takes special care if you’re going to trim your muff or more sensitive areas.”

Jade just blinked at that.  “Excuse me?”

“You know?”  With her left hand, Rip fluffed her pubic hair.  “You know, hedging the ol’ bush, shaping the muff.  You don’t want to wear a bikini or leotard without giving yourself a good bikini trim.  I’d be tempted to take it all off, but I’ve been told the whole red stripe thing is kinda cool.  What do you think?”

Jade nodded vigorously.  “Definitely cool.  It’s natural, right?”

Rip ran her fingers through the curly hair again.  “Sure is.  This happened when my powers manifested.  Anyway, if you need to take care of hair in the more sensitive areas, I recommend a waxing, ‘cause it’s almost impossible to do the shaving yourself.  Besides, a waxing can last almost two months.  I wouldn’t be shaving at all right now, but I’m a little overdue and I can’t get out to Berlin.  That’s where the nearest waxing place is.  Well, there’s a salon in Dunwich.  They claim to do waxing, but no one’s very happy with them.  Way more painful than it needs to be, and then they toss the wax and hair onto this big brazier, and it’s just sort of creepy.  Anyway, that’s what I got, right before the school year started.  I got a ‘Brazilian’ wax job.  That’s the absolute best of the bikini trims – takes off all the hair, except for the little ‘landing strip’ patch here.  The ‘explanation point,’ as I like to think of it.”

“I see,” Jade replied weakly.

“Some girls like to take it all off.  That’s a ‘Hollywood’ style.  Some salons call it a ‘Sphinx.’  Maybe someday I’ll try it.  The trick is to get rid of the hair down you-know-where.  It’s much better for … kissing … and lord is it better when you’re having your period.”

The conversation continued for some time, with Jade’s face glowing an almost incandescent red throughout.  Other girls wandered through, giving their own frank opinions.  Nikki, at one point, came through and gave some advice on shaving, but it turned out to be useless unless you could cast the appropriate spells.  All in all, Jade spent nearly forty-five minutes shaving.  She didn’t go higher than the top of her thighs – nothing had started growing in yet.  The experience was simultaneously embarrassing, informative, and deeply satisfying to those parts of her that most needed to be a girl.  So she missed the start of breakfast, but didn’t regret it a bit.

And that day, she wore her Whateley uniform.  The short skirt and knee-highs she wore left her thighs bare.  Every time the cold wind hit her legs; every time she crossed her legs or her inner thighs brushed against each other; she thought of that morning and all its intimate secrets.  She felt intensely feminine all day.

---

She panicked during breakfast.

“Oh my god!  I’m wearing my uniform!”  It was a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

The rather small breakfast crew looked at her blearily.  Nikki managed to pry one of her almond-shaped eyes all the way open.  “What’s the problem?”  Except that it actually came out sounding like, “Whazza prob’em?”

“I’ve got a date tonight!  And I’m wearing my uniform!”

“You can change ahead of time,” Toni drawled.  “In fact, it’s recommended.  Heck, knock yourself out and take a shower.”

“What for?” Ayla wondered.  “Have you seen Thuban?  The lizard king?  He won’t be smelling her unless he runs his tongue over her body.”

Everyone understood why Jade blushed at that, but they didn’t understand why she looked quickly at Toni before she blushed.  “You take that back, Ayla!  I mean it!”

The punker girl waved her hand dismissively.  “Yeah, whatever.  He won’t be running his lizard tongue all over your body.”

“I’m serious Ayla!  You take that back or… or… you’ll regret it!”

The punk girl ruffled her hand through her spiky Halle Berry shag, as if she was pleased to get some irritation out of the former kid of the group.  “Give it your best shot.”

Jade glowered at the other girl, held up a fist and leaned over close to Ayla.  When they were only a foot apart, Jade flicked out a single finger and touched Ayla’s sleeve.  “Check.”

Ayla looked puzzled for a fraction of a second, then began gasping, “Ukk – can’t breathe!”

Jade leaned back, looking smug.  “Of course, you could phase out of your clothes before they choke you to death, but we’re in public, and you might be intangible, but you sure aren’t invisible.  You could turn your body and clothes intangible, but I’m betting that once I’ve got a grip on them, I can maintain my hold.”

Ayla relaxed and took a deep breath.  “Yeah, or I could go dense on you.  Makes my clothes stronger, too, but it doesn’t make you any stronger, does it?”

Jade scowled.  “Darn it!”  She felt it as Jinn let go and flowed back into her.

“Now,” Ayla continued, leaning toward Jade.  “Let me show you a trick I’ve been working on.”

Attaining the slightly blue tinge that was a clue to her intangible state she reached a finger toward Jade.  At the last second, her finger darted down, to and through Jade’s skirt.  Before Jade realized what was going on, Ayla pulled her hand back, holding a pair of panties.

Nikki was shocked awake.  “Oh my God!”  She looked again.  “Sailor Moon panties?  Jade, how could you?”

“Give me those!”  Jade snatched the undergarments away from an unresisting Ayla.  She stuffed them in her purse.

“That’s not really where those belong,” Toni remarked.

“Well I can’t put them on in the middle of the cafeteria,” Jade whispered back.

“Hi, guys!”  Billie only brought one tray, but she had three plates on it and every plate had generous portions.  “Did I miss anything?”

“Well…” Nikki began, “Ayla was teasing Jade about her sweetie being a lizard, and Jade tried to crush her until she passed out – subtly of course – and when that didn’t work Ayla retaliated by stealing Jade’s panties, which are now stuffed in Jade’s purse so as far as I can tell she’s bare to the world right now.”

“A proper lady sits with her legs together!”  Jade told them primly.  “But I’m suddenly realizing that our uniform skirts are really short.”

“Huh.”  Billie responded.  “Sleep in one day and it hits the fan.  Any other news?”

“No word from Hank or Lily on the little ‘meet the parents’ adventure,” Nikki said.

“Jinn spent most of yesterday helping that new girl from security—”

“Samantha?”

“—yeah.  Helping her build an apartment up in Kane tower.  Harry was there too, Billie.”

Toni picked up the news recitation.  “And last we saw of Sara and the furball—”

“Erin?”

Toni nodded.  “Yeah.  Last we saw of them, they were going into Sara’s room to ‘study.’”

“Probably doing the wild thing again,” Ayla interjected.  “Damn I’m glad that girl has a soundproofed room.  Why do I feel like everyone’s getting some but me?”

“Because you’re a sick degenerate,” Nikki muttered.

“That’s rich,” Ayla countered.  “You know, you’d be the most powerful mage on the planet, if you could just harness the energy generated by all the horny boys flogging the dolphin to that poster of yours.”

“What is going on with everyone today?” Billie wondered.  “I haven’t seen a mood like this in weeks.”

“Ayla must be on her period,” Jade grumbled.

“Hey, I’m a guy!” the girl in question protested.  “Unlike you poor ladies, Aunt Flo’s never going to be dropping by to visit me.”  She nodded decisively.  “So stuff that in your … pipe.”

“Ouch,” Toni admitted in admiration.

“Yeah,” Billie agreed.  “I think that one left a burn.”

---

Back in the room, she charged Jinn and sent her off to do more construction work.  With luck, she might be able to start paying off Bunny.  After that, she went looking through her school uniforms.  Fortunately, she still had one fresh uniforms.  She selected the best and laid it aside for that night.  Then she started wondering about jewelry.  Once she got more money, she was going to buy some things.  She had a set of Jade studs that she sometimes wore.  In Boston she’d seen several earrings that she’d really liked, but her money mostly went to pay for food on that trip.

How would those jade studs look now, with her school uniform and proper body?  She moved to put the stud in her left ear – and stopped in consternation.  Where was the hole?  Moving to the mirror, she looked carefully.

Her ears were no longer pierced.

“Wow!” Billie said, slamming through the door, “another whole day free.  I am so going to enjoy this.”

“Oneesan?  Do you have pierced ears?”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“Oh,” Jade said with a little disappointment.  “I used to.  I guess when I got your body image, it must have closed up my piercings.”  She thought about it some more.  “You know, I think I got a couple of things fixed up during the transfer.  I had a scar on the back of my hand, and that went away, too.”

Billie came over and gently pulled at Jade’s ear.  “Well if you had piercings, they’re gone now.  Sorry about that.”

Jade hugged her friend, noticing again how different it was with them the same height, and her having breasts.  “No problem.  I can always get them re-pierced.  Hey!  You don’t have pierced ears, but I thought I saw you wearing earrings a couple of times.”

“Not very often.”

“But they weren’t clip-ons!”

“Look,” Billie explained, “when you get your ears pierced, they just jab the needle through, right?  And you wait for it to heal, and then wear the earrings, right?”

Jade nodded agreement.

“Well, I regenerate.  And it’s gotten pretty fast, too.  So pierced ears is no big deal, I just had Harry sharpen all the posts on my earrings.  I jab them through, and it heals a couple of seconds later.  No problem.  Then when I take the earring out, the hole heals up.”

Jade winced.  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“A little.”  Billie shrugged.  “I’ll bet that high heels are worse.  At least according to what most girls say.  I don’t know, they never seem to bother me.  Anyway, us girls have to put up with a lot.”

Jade had done high heels a couple of times.  She was still learning to walk smoothly in them, but Nikki and Toni occasionally gave her tips.  “You’d have more problems with heels if you had to obey gravity, like everyone else.”

“Hey, you know what?” Billie decided, “Let’s get your ears pierced again.  Right now!”

“Really?  How?”

“You know that green-skinned girl down the hall?”

It took Jade a moment.  “Oh, you mean ‘Verdant.’  Her real name is Pilar something, but everyone always just calls her Verdant.”

“That’s the one.  She pierces ears – she’d done if for a lot of the guys on the floor.  Couple of girls, too.”

So they headed down the hall, and within a couple of minutes, Verdant had Jade sitting in a chair, while she sterilized her needle over a candle flame and prepared some alcohol swabs.

“Hokay, this will sting a little,” the green girl warned.  “The ear lobe isn’t so sensitive, but still.”

“I know,” Jade said.  “I had them pierced a couple of months ago.  The just got unpierced – I think when I suddenly grew up.”

“You’d be surprised at the number of re-piercings I do,” the girl confided.  “It’s what I get, being around so many mutants.”

“Hey,” Jade suddenly wondered, “do you know a girl named Jana?  She’s over in Whitman, I think.  She had an accent that sounds a lot like yours.”  She refrained from mentioning that the girl was half animal most of the time.

“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Verdant admitted.  “I’m from Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.  It’s a big country, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find a couple more Brazilians here at Whateley.”

Jade felt a sharp pain through her right ear, then Verdant handed her a pair of cotton balls soaked in disinfectant.

“There.  Hold that for a second, while I get your other ear.”

There was a matching pain in her left ear, and she got another pair of cotton balls.

“How soon can I look at them?” Jade asked.

“We need to make sure they’re done bleeding, but you can take a quick look.”  She pulled Jade’s hand away from her right ear.  “Aw, Dios!  You could have told me you were a regenerator.”

“But I’m not!”

Verdant looked at Jade’s left ear, now.  “Well, that was useless.”

Billie had to look, too.  “She’s right.  No holes.  Nothing at all.  Give me a second, and let’s try it again.”  She slipped out the door and went running up the hall.  A minute later she was back.  “Here’s your studs, Jade.  You should be able to put these in right after the piercing.”

Verdant pierced her left ear again, and Billie immediately slipped in the small jade stud.  “There,” Billie told her.  “Almost no blood, and I think it’s just about healed.”

Jade reached up and rubbed her earlobe, fastening the back onto the exposed post.  “It doesn’t hurt any more.  You mean, I can’t take these out?”

“Not unless you want them to heal closed again,” Billie told her.  “That’s the way I am.”

So a minute later, the two girls returned to their room.  Jade’s ears had small green orbs adorning them, but she was trying to figure out this new complication.  “I must have picked this up from you, with the BIT transfer.”

“Seems likely,” Billie agreed.  “You didn’t pick up anything else from me, did you?”

“No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t,” Jade admitted, guiltily.  “That first night I tried floating and energy stuff and whatever else I could think of.  Nothing.  Besides, I think I’d notice if all of a sudden gravity stopped being important.”

“I guess you’ll have to get Harry or someone to sharpen all your earrings.  It’s not that bad, poking them through, but it takes a little practice.”

Suddenly thinking of something, Jade bent over and ran a hand down her shin.  “Hey, and you can’t tell where I nicked myself, shaving.”

Billie nodded.  “Yeah, regeneration is handy that way.  Just don’t expect it to make your period any easier.”

“Actually,” Jade quietly confessed, “I’m looking forward to that.”

Billie rolled her eyes.  “From you, I can believe it.  I’ll bet the first time is enough though.  Trust me, it gets old real quick.”

---

Still in her uniform from breakfast, she and Billie headed down to Shuster Hall to get their pictures taken for their MIDs.  Even with the appointments they’d made, there was already a line of about twenty freshmen.  They quickly double-checked their makeup before joining the line.  Nikki had helped both of them, so the effect was very subtle, but you wanted to look as good as you could for a permanent ID.  They were just coming out when Jinn arrived.

“Better switch to normal,” Jade suggested.

Jinn agreed, then performed her regular transformation, with her skin and clothes imploding inward, leaving her as a metal box with black metallic arm and leg bones.  A moment later, the process reverse, and Jinn exploded back outward with plastic skin and a school uniform.  When things finally settled in place, she looked like an ordinary girl, a near twin of Jade, with a slightly slimmer figure, four inches taller, and looking a year or two older.

“How do I look?”  Jinn asked.

“I think you could use just a touch of blush,” Jade decided, examining herself critically.

That settled, the three girls rejoined the line and waited for their turn.

---

Jade wasn’t sure what “biometrics” meant exactly, but she expected it would be like a dress fitting or something, with a girl going over her with a tape measure, getting all her vital dimensions.  She was glad she hadn’t rushed to get her MID on Wednesday afternoon.  Now she’d be photographed and measured as a real girl, and there would be no issue on lying about her gender.

When she was finally let in, the biometrics room was a fifteen foot wide cube, with tall assemblies of equipment in each corner.  In the last corner, an older woman sat typing at a control station.

“Please stand in the center of the turntable and state your name,” the woman instructed.

Jade noticed a gray metallic disk inset into the floor.  She stood on it and looked back at the woman.  “Jade Sinclair.”

“Right.  Age?”

“Fourteen.”

“Hold your arms straight out sideways.”

The turntable began to slowly rotate, and Jade saw the three equipment stacks lighting up.  Some played patterns of laser light over her as she rotated.  She noticed other beams, and felt vibrations in her bones.  It half reminded her of a very slowly turning version of the BIT-slicer, and half felt like she was standing in a giant microwave oven.

“Arms at your sides now.”

Again she turned, and was scanned.

“Excellent.  Step off, place each hand on this plate.”  As Jade did so, a more detailed scan was made of each hand.

“Is there any reason why I should not take a sample of your blood?”

“Noooo, I guess not.”  That procedure was quickly taken care of, and the woman carefully labeled the vial of red fluid.

“This completes your biometric scan.  Administration will handle the rest of your dossier.  Next!”

---

Jinn’s experience was a bit different.  She stood on the turntable and said, “Jinn Sinclair,” but as the first scan completed, the woman looked up with a scowl.

“There’s nothing there.  Just empty space and some parts.”

“I’m deceased,” Jinn explained.  “Sort of a poltergeist.  You can’t see me, except when I possess inanimate objects.”

“I see,” the woman replied in a bored deadpan.  “Arms at your sides now.”  After that scan, the woman asked, “Is this your normal appearance?”

“I look a little different when I’m in costume,” Jinn admitted.

“Can you change and come back?”

“Sure, I can change right now.”  Jinn did so, and a second later was wearing her chalk-white skin and her Shroud costume.  “See?”

“One more scan,” the woman insisted.  “Can you do that intermediate form, where there’s just the floating metal?  I need you to hold that for both scans.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

After that had finished, the woman asked, “Any other forms or shapes?”

“Well,” Jinn admitted, “I’m like a poltergeist.  I can possess almost anything, so I’d look like whatever I was possessing.  You know?  Mop and bucket, blanket, whatever.”

“You posses other people?”

“Uh, only in special circumstances.  They have to be avatars.”  Jinn decided that would be a good answer, since it was both true, and made it sound as if avatars were vulnerable to her rather than the other way around.

“Do you have any bodily fluids?”

“Just whatever I’m possessing.  If I possessed a bicycle, I’d have some oil and grease, I guess.”

The woman made a few more notes on her console.  “This completes your biometric scan.  Administration will handle the rest of your dossier.  Next!”

---

Walking toward the cafeteria, Jade asked, “So what did you think of that lady at the scan room?  What was her problem?”

“I think she was sent over from the MCO,” Billie suggested.  “If she’s any clue, they aren’t that fond of us mutants.”

“Did you get the ‘bodily fluid’ draw?”

Billie nodded.  “She asked, but I told her that I had highly explosive blood and referred her to some guys in the science department.  Did you get your questionnaire from admin?”

“Yeah,” Jade admitted.  “I think I’ll want to talk to some people about it before I turn it in, though.”

“I’m definitely not telling them about my past.”  Billie was firm on that.  “If I can keep my parents, or even my stupid brother, from being linked to these records, so much the better.”

Jade thought some more as they walked.  “Maybe we should run this by Zoe.  She’s our fixer; she must have dealt with all of this before.  And you know what?  I’m going to see what Thuban has to say, too.  It’s not like he doesn’t already know all my secrets.”

“Well, be careful.  I still don’t trust that guy.”

---

At lunch, she and Billie told about signing up for their MIDs.  The other girls listened eagerly, but Sara had a guarded look in her eye as Jade and Billie described their interactions with the dour scanner woman.

“I heard she was an MCO operative,” Billie volunteered.  “I understand why you’d be nervous, Sara.  Did they do this sort of scan for you at ARC?  Maybe you can use that.”

“We’ll see,” the Goth teen said, ominously.

Harry joined them after that and eagerly began to narrate for Billie the pitfalls and excitement of putting in a new apartment.  Jade was a bit amused that, at a table filled with good-looking girls, Harry seemed to focus all his attention on Billie.  Of course, they shared a dance class, but still.  Then things got stranger.  Samantha arrived, spotted Harry, and seemed to home in on him.  Jade had never been disturbed by the wolf-man’s appearance, but it was odd to see him with a beautiful girl hanging off each arm.

“Before I forget,” Samantha said, “Sunday, I’m going to throw a little house warming for the apartment.  Since I don’t know many people here, I thought I would invite those I know.  What do y’all say?”

Everyone at the table nodded eagerly.  After Harry’s description, the others were eager to see the place.  Sara seemed particularly interested.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she carefully told Samantha, licking her lips.

Samantha seemed confused by that, but said, “Anyway, I have a few finial things I need to get set up and it will be ready.”

“Shall I tell Jinn to meet you there?” Jade asked.

The blonde considered.  “I have to stop by admin.  Tell her to give me a couple of hours.  There might be some minor moving and arrangement left, but that’s all.”

---

They checked the mail on the way up to the room, and Jade was surprised to see a large, flat box waiting for her.  Although her name was on the front, there was no return address.

Billie’s eyes narrowed.  “Soak it in water, first.  Then get Bunny to scan it.”

“Oh, don’t be so paranoid.  We haven’t had a really major attack since Halloween.”  Jade reached forward and touched the box with a finger.  The box floated into the air and announced, “Unless I’m coated with contact poison, it’s probably safe.  It’s from Thuban.”

“All the more reason to soak it in water,” Billie growled in her gruff voice.  “What is it?”

“I’m a surprise,” the floating box replied.

Billie wasn’t done grumbling.  “And if it really has been a month, then we’re due, aren’t we?”

“You’re cute like that,” Jade popped out, unexpectedly.

“WHAT?”  Billie’s eyes almost bugged out as she stared at her roommate.  “Now that you’re growing up, you aren’t going all Poe on me, are you?”

“Ewww!  With my body-twin sister?  No way!  It’s just … sometimes, you really look like her, you know?  I mean, I can see why you had her poster in your room, ‘cause you’re so cool.  Like mega-tough and also cute, all at the same time.”

“Uh…” to cover her incipient blush, Billie changed the subject.  “Maybe we have been attacked more recently.  There was that stupid Monkey King and his dumb panty raid.  That was only a couple of weeks ago.  And don’t even remind me of Parents’ Day!”

They bantered up the stairs and down the hallway, the box floating along ahead of them.  Once inside, the box settled down on Jade’s bed.

“Okay, open up!” Billie ordered the box.

Compliantly, the lid lifted slightly and a card floated out to Jade’s hand.  “If it pleases you to wear this, I would pick you up in Poe’s front hall promptly at four PM.  Thuban.”

With that, the lid lifted off and moved aside, exposing the elegant dress, which lifted itself gently out to display itself for her.  It considerately inflated, molding itself as if an invisible girl were modeling it.

“Oh my God!” Jade breathed.  “It’s beautiful!”

The dress was a traditional cheongsam with a high neck and closed collar, but sleeveless.  The fabric was a deep, forest green, with yellow-green and gold embroidery tracing out a floral design.  At the bottom of the box lay a matching clutch purse and high heels.

“How’s he know it’s going to fit, though?” Billie wondered.  Then she spotted a card in the bottom.  “Rogers’ Fabric Boutique?  Hey, I’ll bet that slug had this made to my measurements!”

“I’ve got to try it on!”

Jade shucked off her blazer and blouse, and shimmied out of the pleated skirt.  And wearing her knee socks and flats would have been just silly with the elegant dress, so a moment later she was in bra and panties.  She carefully undid the buttons on the side and slipped the dress over her head.  It was snug around her waist, and once she did up the buttons on the right, it was snug but not tight around her chest.

“I can see your bra line,” Billie pointed out.

“I think maybe the dress has enough support that I could go without a bra,” Jade guessed.  She pulled it off and removed her bra.  For a moment, she stood there in nothing more than panties, contemplating the beautiful dress and her new body.

“Well?” Billie demanded.  “Hey, are you crying?  What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jade whispered.  “Nothing at all!  Thanks to you, and Thuban, and a bunch of other people, nothing at all is wrong!  I’m so happy!  Thank you!”  The nearly naked girl flung her arms around Billie and hugged her as hard as she could.

Billie stood there in stunned surprise.  It hadn’t been all that long ago that she’d been a guy herself.  Now she was seeing naked girls every day – heck, she was a girl.  But sometimes, like right now, the strangeness of it all washed over her.  It didn’t seem right to be turned on by the topless girl hugging her.  Heck, that was her body, when you came down to it.  It was one of those moments when the wonder and absurdity of her new life suddenly crashed over her, leaving her awed and speechless.

There was a rapid knock on the door and then Toni flung it open.  “Hey have you two seen—”  The black girl stared at them for just an instant, then quickly closed the door.  “Sorry.  ‘Private moment.’  Got it.  Be back later.”

“What?”  Billie slowly snapped out of her daze.  “Wait!  It’s not what you think!  I’m not like that!” she yelled.

Jade started shaking, as she continued to hold Billie.  It slowly developed into a laugh.  “Sorry, oneesan.”  Before Billie could react, Jade quickly kissed her on the cheek.  “And thank you.”

“Ooooh!”  Billie roughly scratched her hands through her spiky mane of hair.  “How am I ever going to explain this?”

52: First Date

At a quarter to four, Jade was dressed, made up, and waiting in Poe’s common room.  Nikki and Ayla had both advised her to be just a few minutes late, out of principle.  Jade had been too nervous.  Her shower had been two hours ago, so she took another, dressed, then undressed, then redressed.  From Ayla (of all people) she’d borrowed a pair of those panty hose with the panty built in.  And since she was wearing no bra, she knew there would be no seams at all to spoil the lines of the magnificent dress.  Nikki had helped her with a subtle eye shadow that had just a mild hint of green, to match the dress.  She’d played with putting her hair up.  It might look good once she had more hair, but right now it didn’t quite work.  So she sat there, trying not to sweat out of nervousness, and simultaneously dreading and anticipating what was to come as the clock ticked toward four.

She was all over the board emotionally, as she fretted about Thuban.  Was he a nice guy?  Was he a jerk?  Evidence pointed to the second, even if he had given her the greatest gift ever.  What would he think of her?  Was Billie right to be leery of him?  Should she call this off right now?

Several people gave her a thorough look over, as they passed through the common room.  Most all of them had an approving glance, or comment.

Then came Sharisha.  “Oh, Christ.  I’d heard you’d grown a proper set of ‘em, but look at you now!”  Her words might have been complimentary in some rude sense, but her tone turned the sentence into an assault.  “All dressed up?  Who’s the lucky bitch?”

Jade smiled smugly.  “He will be picking me up in five minutes, and his name is Thuban.”

“Sounds like a dope, whoever he is.  Sure would be a shame if that pretty dress got a tear or anything.”

Sharisha narrowed her eyes and Jade felt a small tug near her collar.  Jade instantly cast Jinn into her dress, purse, shoes, and hair.  Sharisha was a telekinetic, but she was nowhere near being a TK-3.  With her dress protected, Jade raised her left arm and pointed her closed fist at the overweight black girl.  She was extremely glad that she’d worn her new bracers.

“Go ahead,” Jade almost purred the phrase.  “Try anything.  I’ll slap you down so hard you won’t wake up till Christmas!”

Sharisha stared at her, then looked at the bracers, obviously trying to figure out whether Jade was bluffing.  Finally, “Oh, get real.  Like I even care about you anyway.”  And with that, she turned and walked off.

Jade just stood there, blinking.  Had she won?  Was it that easy?  Had the obnoxious girl just walked off, without them getting into a fight or ruining the dress or anything?

Of course, she left Jinn charged into the dress, and watching in every direction for threats.

Slowly, Jade began to smile, and then she actually beamed.  She really had done it!  She’d out-toughed someone!  And not only that, she sure wasn’t nervous about the date anymore.  She felt great!

Which is when someone knocked at the cottage front door.  One of the residents opened the door, and Thuban came striding in.  He was his regular lizard-man self, dressed in deep blue mandarin robes that complimented her dress.  With his sleeves held together, he approached her and bowed deeply.

“If you are ready?”

Jade’s nervousness returned like a ton of bricks.  She was torn between an equally cool return nod, and a relieved skipping forward to plant a big wet kiss on him.  Thuban’s sheer presence and rather frightening appearance put a stop to that.  Surreptitiously, Jade pressed the ring-finger knuckle on her right hand, thinking, I want to accept him, to appreciate and enjoy his appearance.  But a moment later, that seemed stupid.  After all, what was the problem, anyway?  Admittedly, Thuban was a bit “lizardy”, but in a different-and-interesting way.  She almost kissed him on the cheek, but stopped herself.  Nope, she thought, not on the first date.  I’m not that kind of girl.  But she smiled as she said it.

“Let us be off.”

“Let me get my coat,” Jade said.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s freezing out there.”

“I’ve noticed,” Thuban agreed, hissing slightly.  “Come, you only have a few feet to walk.”

Trusting his words, Jade merely wrapped the coat around her shoulders, as they headed out into clear and icy dusk.  The coat kept her arms warm, but the icy wind whistled up her dress.  Even with pantyhose on, her legs were cold.  Thuban led the way, traveling not toward the center of campus, but around toward the back of the cottage and the access road there.  Jade was astonished to see a black limousine waiting for them, with a normal human (appearing) chauffer waiting to hold their door for them.

“Uh… what’s this?”

“You may not have any money to pay, but I have no lack of funding.  If you don’t object, I’ll upgrade our date slightly.  Berlin has some excellent Chinese restaurants.”

“Oh.  Yeah, I guess.  That would be nice.”

She didn’t want to wait outside while they discussed it.  Beside, the chauffer was standing there silently holding the door open and letting all the heat out of the car.  So Jade offered her hand to Thuban, since it was hard to get into a car in heels, and gave the step and half-turn that’s necessary to sit properly without ruining your dress.  Thuban stepped in immediately afterward, sitting in the opposite seat facing her, with his back to the driver.  The chauffeur closed the door and came around front to start the car.

Thuban pressed a small button to raise a partition, sealing them off from the front of the car.

Jade was realizing that she could have gotten in herself, particularly with Jinn’s help to levitate/slide in and to keep her dress neat.  Still, she didn’t regret letting Thuban help her.

The lizard-man nodded at the bracers on her forearms.  “An interesting addition to your ensemble.  Not entirely expected, but I think it works.”

“Thanks.  A girl’s got to have some protection, you know.”

He raised his eyebrows at that.  She was surprised to realize that he even had eyebrow.  Or brow ridges, or something.  “I’m almost sorry that there was no room for your gun.”

“I know!  I feel practically naked without it!  Uh… I mean, not ‘naked’ naked.  You know what I mean.”

He merely smiled back at her, in a way that was a little unsettling.

“You didn’t bring it in your purse?”

“I tried,” she admitted, “but it was too bulky.  So I chose between fashion and firepower, and fashion won.  This time.”

She didn’t mention her other precautions.  She had her kitty compact tucked into her purse, she was wearing her missile cuffs, Jann sensei was currently cast into her clothes and the cuffs, and Jamie the SpySpeck was silently shadowing the car as a flying speck of dust, fifty feet above them.  If there were any threats inside the car, Jann would deal with them.  Any threats outside, and Jamie would spot them and return to her instantly.  It still left her a little worried, since the Halloween attack had proven that you couldn’t always rely on your powers.  A powerful enemy might have ways of stripping them away.  But without her powers, all she had was her gun and her martial arts moves.  And sometimes you had to draw the line somewhere.  She’d just have to gamble that she wouldn’t have to face a major power-stealing attack while out on her first date.

“Why four o’clock?” she asked.  “Isn’t that a little early, even if we’re driving to Berlin?”

“Look to your right,” he commanded.  “The weather is crystal clear, and we’re just starting to see it.  This time of year the sun sets at 4:14 PM.  Anticipating a departure at four, we’re off campus grounds by 4:10, and just seeing the sunset as we crest the hill.”

Jade looked, and had to admit that it was pretty nice.  “Wow.  You really have a thing about controlling every last detail, don’t you?”

“Er…”

She smiled.  “I’m not complaining, it’s really pretty.  Just promise me you won’t get too stressed out if things don’t go absolutely perfect.”

As Jann touched her, she watched as Thuban’s emotions pulled back into guarded caution.

“Are you anticipating some sort of trouble?”

“Not really,” she said.  “But you know how it goes.  Last time I got out, we went to Boston.  We were sitting there eating lunch, and all of a sudden all these sirens went by.  And then… kaboom!  Big fight with supervillains!  You know?”

“Actually,” Thuban admitted, “I can’t say I’ve had all that many fights outside of Whateley.  I see myself more behind the scenes, putting others in position to do the fighting.”

Jade shrugged.  “Yeah, we need people like that, too.  But combat’s such a rush, don’t you think?”

“Not really.  I’ve done well in the martial arts, but I primarily enjoy it for the exercise and the ability to master my own body and movements.  I’ve found that I derive no particular enjoyment from the sparring or combat, though.”

“You’re kidding!  That’s the best part.”

“Obviously for some,” he agreed.  “I find that I prefer the role of bookie, or odds maker, or even being the event organizer.”

She grinned at him.  “Yeah, I guess that would fit.”

They both paused to watch, as the limousine crossed the threshold of the academy, passing through the gargoyle-adorned brickwork of the front gate to head through the town of Dunwich and out toward the main highway.  Jade felt oddly vulnerable, leaving the campus.  It was as if those gates and the simple stone walls circling campus provided some sort of magical protection, and that by leaving she was making herself vulnerable.  Of course, a dozen events ranging from the first day’s ninja attack to the disaster of Halloween proved that the old-fashioned border really didn’t protect them from modern threats, but the feelings remained.

Perhaps that feeling was enhanced by Dunwich.  Jade was, literally, of two minds on the sleepy old town.  As Jade, in her physical body, she saw a run-down old village that was slowly being gentrified by the influx of powerful and well-paid professionals.  But as any of her spirit forms, she had an impression of something else.  It wasn’t anything she could really see or identify.  There was just a feeling about the town, of dark secrets hidden behind rotting boards.  It was if the town were built on top of some ancient landfill of decay and malignancy, and despite all the shiny new houses built on top, someday the evil would come bubbling up out of the ground to consume everything.

“Uggg.”

“Something wrong?” Thuban inquired politely.

“Do you ever feel anything … creepy … when you pass through Dunwich?”

“No, not in the least.  I appear to be insensitive to its malign influence.”

“Beg pardon?”

Thuban turned to look at her, blinking a transparent lid over his reptile-slitted see green eyes.  Jade hadn’t realized that he could do that – that he had a secondary set of eyelids.  She gazed at his eyes in wonder.  A cat’s eyes were slit vertically, with a crisp point at the top and bottom of the pupil.  In contrast, Thuban’s pupils were slightly oval.  And his irises were somehow flatter seeming than a mammalian iris.  A cat’s eye had strands and striations, while this reptilian iris had a disturbingly alien texture to it.  Then, as he blinked, a transparent inner eyelid slid across his eyes from front to back, making them appear briefly filmy, as if he had some odd sickness.

He appeared not to notice her stare as he spoke.  “Why do you think this site was chosen for a training ground for dangerous young mutants?  Partially because of its isolation, but also because this land has always been ‘cursed.’  There have been creatures and nightmares in this area since before Columbus arrived in this hemisphere.  The school’s defenders do double duty.  They protect the students, and serve as the first line of defense should anything appear.  And the student body would be the second line of defense.”

“Appear?  You make it sound like they’ll just ooze through the dimensions and plop out in Dunwich.”

Thuban regarded her calmly.  “I would not presume to tell a nightmare how it can and cannot enter our world.  But your description may be more apt than you know.  While I have neither skills nor sensitivities in these areas, my research and contracts give me reason for caution.”

Trying desperately not to think about a sealed tunnel, deep in the sewers, Jade tried to change the subject.  “Oh, stop it.  You’ve gone all serious and stiff on me again.  This is supposed to be a date.  Tell me about your eyes.”

Thuban’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped.  “My… eyes?”

“Yeah, you do this really cool blink – is that a second eyelid?”

Obligingly, he blinked slowly.  He held the eyelid closed, while he looked through the transparent film at her.  “Most people are repulsed by my eyes, and especially by my nictitating membranes.”

“I can see why,” she said honestly.  “They really are the most alien thing about you, and that always bothers people.  I mean, I was noticing this.  They really aren’t mammal eyes, are they?  And the inner eyelid isn’t quite transparent, it’s sort of filmy, like if you were sick or something.  But the weirdest part is when you blink like that.  People expect a blink to go from top to bottom, not from front to back.”

“Are you through,” he said at last.

“No, not hardly.”  She moved off her seat to sit next to him.  “Do it again!  Blink, I mean.”

“I am not a museum exhibit for your amusement.”

“Please?”

Thuban blinked, while Jade stared deep into his eyes.  “That’s so cool.  Hey, you were a normal kid before you hit puberty, weren’t you?  So is your vision better now, or different?”

“My vision is sharper.  I can see into the near ultraviolet range.  I have extremely good night vision, and with my nictitating membrane closed I can see well in snow, harsh light, or strong wind.  Talking to my counselors, I seem to be becoming a combination of the best features of human and some types of reptiles.”

“That’s really cool,” she said again.  “My roommate, Billie, has oval pupils a bit like yours.  Everyone calls them cat eyes, but they’re really more oval.  Mutants are supposed to have all these great eye colors.  Toni’s eyes are amber.  Nikki’s are violet.  Even Chou has jade-green eyes.  What did I get?  Brown.  Stupid old brown.”

“You shouldn’t complain about being normal.  You can go anywhere in the world.  You have the best of both worlds – mutant powers, and the ability to live and interact with normal people.”

“If I cared about normal people,” she grumped.  “I’d rather have a few really good friends, and spend time with them, no matter what they look like.”

Thuban reared back his oversized head and stared at her.  “Are you … flirting with me?”

She looked down, hiding her face behind her bangs.  “…maybe,” she admitted.  “You don’t exactly make it easy.  And I’m not very good at it.  This is only my first date, ever.”  She looked back up with a fiery expression.  “But don’t get any ideas, buster!  I’m not ‘easy.’  And even if I was trying to be nice, I don’t mean to be a flirt.  Or a tease.  Or… a million other things that I don’t have experience with yet.  But maybe thanks to you, I’ll have the chance to gain that experience.”

He snorted, then turned away from her to look out the window at the passing woods.  “That’s exactly what I’m trying for with Faction Three, you know.  A way to give people at chance at those experiences.”

“Uh huh.  And maybe create a little empire while you’re at it?”

He turned back to her, with a mild look of surprise.  “If it comes, am I wrong to accept it?”

“Hmph.  So you admit it.  And it isn’t exactly ‘accepting it’, is it?  You’re working hard for this.”  When he didn’t dispute that, she continued.  “Well, maybe that’s part of what I find interesting about you.  I mean, I was really influenced by a talk that Adam Ironknife gave to us – the Kimba crew.”

Thuban uttered a weary sigh.  “Give me strength.”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly.  He was so straight-arrow that it was like if you didn’t cling to his narrow view of the world, then you automatically became one of the ‘bad guys’ by default.”

Thuban nodded agreement.

“On the other side, you’ve got people like The Don and Tansy Walcutt.  You’d probably classify them as ‘pretty but evil,’ or some such.”

Thuban corrected her.  “Society sees the beauty and wealth, and deliberately ignores the evil and darkness beneath their pretty surface.  Should I hate them or should I hate society?  I choose to hate both.”

“Well, I don’t know about the ‘hate’ part.  I prefer to focus on the positive stuff.  See, while Adam was almost frightening in his … I guess it was like a crusade.  Anyway, Robert Shih talked about a third path, where you make your own way.  Not being deliberately bad, but doing your best to hold to your own honor, even when that means going against the rules or even the law.  And from everyone I’ve talked to, you have a very solid sense of honor.  I mean, I know some of the stuff you’ve pulled.  Heck, you arranged to have Tansy raped.  But… the reasons seemed to be honorable.  And the more I see of that particular incident, the more your actions look right.”

Thuban said nothing and made no move, but through her link with Jann she saw a storm of emotions raging through him: Gratification, intense satisfaction, a spike of lust, happiness, regret.  It took almost a minute for his emotional chaos to calm down.  When it did, he finally turned to her again.

“Pretty heavy stuff for a first date,” he said, lightly.

“I told you, I don’t know how to do this yet.”

There was another surge of emotions from him at that.  Now that she was sitting beside him, Jade reached over and took his arm, pulling his hand over to hers, where she held it.  For a moment, she marveled at the hand, studying it as she had studied his eyes.  Scales covered his skin.  They were warm, not cold, and they felt smooth, like hairless skin.  In retrospect, she thought that made sense.  Alligator shoes and purses had been popular, and she imagined people must have enjoyed the feel of those.  Why should she be surprised at the feel of his skin?

His fingers had no fingernails, but tapered instead to hard, sharp points.  The last half-inch or so of each finger was entirely claw.  Or was it a talon, in this case?

“They are as sensitive as human hands,” he told her, “but I’ll never need gloves.  And while I type perfectly well, I’m a bit hard on keyboards.  If I don’t use a special keyboard, I tend to scratch through a plastic one in a couple of weeks.”

She held his hand in her lap, and stroked it gently.  “Tell me about yourself.  Who are you?  Where did you come from?”

Abruptly, Thuban pulled his hand back.  He moved away from her, shifting to the seat opposite, facing her.  “It’s too much – you’re pushing too fast!”  He was almost angry.  “Are you just toying with me?  What are you trying to do?”

Perhaps Jade should have felt rejected or afraid, but instead there was only a growing aura of wonder within her.  She couldn’t keep her joy from shining through on her face, nor did she try.

“I apologize,” Thuban said stiffly.  “But the way you were touching – stroking – my hand, I hadn’t expected you to be so intimate.  I don’t always react well when I’m not in control.  And I certainly hadn’t pictured you as the aggressor—”  He finally noticed her face.  “What is it?  You look almost happy.”

She nodded madly.  “More than happy.  It’s real, isn’t it?  I’m a girl!  Just as I’ve always dreamed of being.  And you’re showing me the power I have as a girl, to touch, to show affection, to be feminine…”  She looked down shyly, but couldn’t stifle a giggle.  “To think that such a powerful and awe-inspiring man such as yourself should be afraid of little old me.”

“I wasn’t afraid!  You were just being disturbingly intimate.”

Jade snickered again.

“…Did you say awe-inspiring?”

“Come on, now you’re just fishing for compliments.  You know that you completely dominate a room when you enter it.”

He looked surprised at that.  “Well, yes, but I had assumed it was more from shock and fear, and the persona I’ve deliberately created.”

“Maybe a little,” she agreed.  “But you do dominate the room.  Even with people who have known you long enough to get over their surprise.”

“Hmmm.  I find that most people are actually repulsed by a reptilian nature.  Most people have an aversion to lizards and snakes.  About the only things worse are the few mutants with insectile traits.”

Jade held her hand out and waggled it in a “so so” gesture.  “Snakes, maybe.  Can’t say that I’m a huge fan of snakes.  I’m not afraid, but I consider kittens to be more cuddly.  Lizards – heck, every kid loves lizards.  Maybe not to pet and snuggle with, but they’re fascinated by them.  But dragons… dragons are cool.  Everyone thinks so, don’t they?  They’re the coolest thing ever.  And let’s be honest, you aren’t a snake or a lizard, are you?  No more than I’m a bat or a rat.  You’re a dragon.  Or at least, you’re becoming one.”

“Not really,” he admitted, reluctantly.  “However much I might wish it.  There are real dragons, you know.  Deep in the interior of China.  In the hills, or the rivers, or in Himalayan caves.  I don’t know, but I’ve heard stories.  I believe they are out there somewhere.  And I sometimes wonder what they’d think of me.  Would they believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?  Or would they see me as the most presumptuous thief, robbing their form and reputation?”

“That thought bothers you, doesn’t it?  You want their approval.”

Thuban said nothing.

They sat for a while, as the car rolled on.  For Jade, this body was still a very novel experience.  She’d only been a real girl for a day and a half, so something as simple as a deep breath was still an adventure.  It was interesting how the dress pulled and shifted, as she inhaled and exhaled.  Impulsively, she took advantage of the long slit up the side of her cheongsam and crossed her legs tightly, as only a girl can really do.  The capability, she realized, was due to more than just the absence of guy parts where they would be squished.  It was also the fact that her hips were different, and her legs were both wider apart and positioned differently.  She hoped that her leg was displayed to achieve a properly attractive view.  She looked up and saw Thuban, and realized that his eyes were focused on her chest.  Breathing deeply enough to strain the fabric, she asked throatily, “Admiring your handiwork?”

“Huh?”  Thuban was startled away from his fascination.

“This body.  All of me.  I owe it all to you.  Well, to Billie, and the devisors.  And to you.  I wish I could show you how grateful I am.”

“Was that an offer of sexual favors?”

She snorted.  “Like I’m even ready to think about that yet.  I still haven’t figured out whether I like girls or boys.  And when I do, you better believe that I’ll be saving myself for someone that I really love.  Someone who loves me.  It’s weird, because four days ago, the idea of sharing my body with someone was just weird.  Now… I don’t know.  It makes me feel sort of squirmy.  Maybe uncomfortable, but maybe not.”

“You really are an outrageous flirt, aren’t you?”

“Tell me if I go too far,” she said, in all seriousness.  “Like I said, I’m just learning.  But… I have to confess.  This is really fun.  Being sort of playful about sex and love and boys and girls.  At least, it’s fun now that I’m the girl.”

“Shouldn’t you be concerned?” Thuban asked.  “You’re locked in here, miles from your friends, with a monster that could rape you.  You know that I’ve already been involved with one such situation – you know about the Tansy thing.  Don’t you fear for your virtue?”

She laughed.  “From you?  Hardly!”  Seeing Thuban’s growing anger she quickly added, “Not that I’m sure you couldn’t overpower me physically.  But mentally – I’ve seen what your honor is like.  I trust you.  That’s part of why this is so fun.  Maybe it’s that control thing you were talking about.”

Thuban loosened his collar.  “Perhaps I’m more warm-blooded than I thought.”

Jade leaned back, languidly.  “Yeah?  Tell me about yourself.”

“You first, I think.”

She thought about it, then nodded.  “Okay, that’s fair.  Well, since you already know, I was born Jared Reilley.  My mother was Japanese first generation.  My father was Irish, oh, probably fifth or sixth generation.  He didn’t talk about his parents or family much.  This is really embarrassing, you know?  I think… if I wasn’t living my dream right this moment, it would be too hard to talk about.  Anyway, Mom died in an auto accident when I was eleven.  Dad had been drinking, and was all concerned with some big deal at the bank where he worked.  I learned to not ask too many questions.  Anyway, it wasn’t that bad an accident.  Dad and I both got banged and scraped up, and Mom had a mild concussion.  But brain hemorrhages can be like that.  She never got any better, and day by day we watched her fade away, and then she was gone.”

She couldn’t talk for a minute, as the memory choked her up.

“So it was just me and Dad after that.  He split his time between his bank job and the track.  I mostly worked on aikido or dreamed my dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?” Thuban pressed.

“Oh, adventure.  You know.  I watched a lot of animé.  Ranma ½.  Anything Miyazki, of course.  Sailor Moon.  And shoujo manga, whenever I could find it.  The girls were so pretty, and everybody loved them.  I wanted everybody to love me, and I wanted to have adventures like that.  I dreamed of romance, and wearing beautiful clothes.  I’m surprised I never guessed the truth about myself.”

“When did you learn the truth?” Thuban asked, gently.

“It was when my powers came out.  When Jinn first appeared, although I didn’t call me Jinn then, I just called me ‘me.’  All of a sudden, there I was, a spirit, and a girl, and everything was right.  And I suddenly knew what I was supposed to be, and why I’d felt so wrong for so many years.”  She gave a bitter laugh.  “I had this problem – no matter how much I exercised, I’d never get stronger or bulk up.  Not like pre-pubescent boys are going to get washboard abs.  But secretly, I was glad in a way.  I wanted my body to stay softer.  In a way, I wonder if I haven’t been holding myself back all along.

“Anyway, my father used to get pretty frustrated, and he’d take it out on me sometimes.  And one day –snap– there I was, a spirit girl, holding these two boxing gloves.  So I decked dad.  He never understood what happened.  I called the cops, and when they found my physical body beaten up like that I got moved into foster care.  But I knew the truth by then.  I started dressing like a girl.  Jinn could do it for real – she really was a girl.  ‘Course, she wasn’t real.  That took some practice, to be convincing.  And then in the mall, there was this mutant, robbing a bank.  His powers didn’t affect me – Jinn that is – so he gave me his card and referred me to Whateley.  And the rest is history.  Your turn.”

Thuban sat silently for a moment, then began.  “My real name is, or was, Stephen Cheng Lee.  My mother was a member of a British merchant family that made their fortune in Hong Kong, right around the turn of the century.  The 1900’s, I mean.  Years later I put that history together with a little event called ‘The Boxer Rebellion’ here in the west.  It was devastating to learn that my family had profited from such genocide.

“My father was Chinese, educated in Hong Kong and later at Oxford.  He was very ambitious, and made a killing in the world of international trade and commerce.  He did even better once Hong Kong was reunited with China.  I split my time between Hong Kong, London, and Boston.  I saw a lot of boarding schools, and even occasionally saw my parents.  I think my fascination with dragon began in Hong Kong, when there was yet another expedition to trace down a rumored sighting.  It was a hot summer, and I admired the way that reptiles could turn that heat into a boost.  They thrived in the heat, turning it into a strength.  In climates like that, it seemed to me that mammals were the weaker type.  I dreamed of the wise and ancient dragon, secure in his hidden lair with his treasure around him, watching with amusement the new set of explorers as the struggled through the jungle.  With the merest twitch of his body, he was lord of the air.  Diving into the waters, he controlled the sea.  And should he choose to walk the earth, who could stand against him?  But, being wiser than the men, he merely watched from afar and laughed at them.

“It wasn’t so amusing, though, when my eyes changed.  I could hide that behind sunglasses, but my teeth came next.  Then my fingernails.

“My parents reacted … neutrally, I’d have to say.  They were proud that I was a mutant, particularly when they learned that I was an exemplar four, and would be capable of feats that dwarfed the finest human athlete.  On the other hand, I looked like a monster.  Overall, they decided that there was good and bad in even measure, and shipped me off to another boarding school.”

Jade’s heart trembled at the cavalier way he tossed off life-shattering events.  “Exemplar four?” she wondered.

Thuban nodded.  “Ambidextrous, I can lift about a half ton, reflexes and agility that would match your friend Toni.  Enhanced senses, I speak about, oh, ten languages fluently.  A true photographic memory, lightning calculator, high genius mentality, even the fabled ‘danger sense.’  But I’m the textbook example of what they teach you in theory classes.”

Jade nodded, hanging on his words.

“I am far beyond the human range of ability, but as they say, ‘the further you stray from the baseline human mean, the higher the likelihood that you will develop gross physical deformities.’  And that’s me.  When I go out in public, children scream.”

“How can you call yourself a ‘deformity’?” she asked, with more than a little heat.  “Particularly when your body is moving toward your own subconscious ideal?  So your body doesn’t match the mundane masses!  Is that your problem, or theirs?  What if your real problem is that you’re just better than they are?”

“Perhaps that is an even greater crime, to the average man.”

“I think your problem is that won’t let yourself go far enough!” she said, emphatically.  “You dream of being a dragon?  Then do it!  Be a dragon.  Long, twisty, sinuous.  Not a western dragon, of course.  Those are stupid.  You and I both know what we’re talking about here.”

“You don’t know what you’re suggesting,” he protested.

“Look, is that your dream?”

He lay back in his seat and gazed at the ceiling.  “In my pride, I named myself Thuban.  It’s a star.  ‘The basilisk’ in its original Arabic, but ‘Alpha Draconis’ in the western catalogs.  It was once the pole star.  Before 1900 BC, it guided the world.  As the globe spins and precession takes its course, Thuban will once again return to its proper position in the north, guiding the world anew in the future world of 21,000 AD.  In my pride, I saw myself in that guiding role, brightest of my constellation.  But it’s an illusion.  Alpha Draconis is not actually the brightest star in the constellation, Thuban guides no one today, and I am nothing like a true dragon.”

“You could be,” she urged.  “Look at me!  Nothing is impossible.”

“What little I have accomplished would be destroyed.  As I lost my humanity, I would cease to be welcome to other humans, even here at Whateley.”

“Do you really believe that?” she asked.  “What about Faction Three?  Do you think they’re all so shallow that they would abandon you?”

Thuban said nothing, he merely considered.

By now, the limo had arrived in the outskirts of the city Berlin.  Winding its way from stoplight to stoplight, it headed for the restaurant where Thuban had made his reservations.

“I can look human, you know,” he said.  “Maybe it’s because of the stories of dragons being able to take on human form.  They tested me in Powers Theory Lab – they say it isn’t true shapeshifting.  I didn’t learn how to do it until nearly the end of the year, last year.  And two hours seems to be my limit for how long I can hold this form.”

As Jade watched, Thuban’s form melted and shifted.  He grew hair – which included a prominent widow’s peak.  His ears had distinctive points to them, and his eyes still had a slant that was closer to elven than human.  But he could pass for human, and with his hair covering his ears and glasses over his eyes, few would even notice the differences.

He waited for Jade’s reaction.

“Interesting,” was her non-committal comment.  “I mean, you look good.  Frankly, I like the exotic touches more than the humanness.  Maybe I’m getting warped.  I can see where this would be useful when you need to deal with regular society.  Does it feel right to you?  Do you like yourself like this?”

“It’s like … like my clothes fit wrong, or they’re too tight.”

And then there wasn’t time to say more, because the car stopped in front of the restaurant, and the chauffeur came around to let them out.

---

As always, Hekate was forced to meet with her mentor in the woods, almost a mile beyond the school border.  Although surrounded by towering pines and desiccated, dead looking oak, the clearing itself was dead of all life and vegetation.  You didn’t need to be mystically sensitive to feel the way the circle sucked at the life force of all that crossed its obvious boundary.  In the exact center of the barren ground, a rough and weathered slab like a fallen piece of Stonehenge lay half-buried in the dirt.  Had it served as a table for ancient beings?  Or was it an alter for dark gods that had pre-dated man?

Hekate didn’t know and didn’t care.  Bad as this area was normally, it was even worse now as the sun set.  The place scared her spitless, but she came just the same.  It wasn’t easy to find tutors in the blackest of magics.  She’d tried.  This one had found her, shaping and guiding her since shortly after her powers had first appeared.  He had always terrified and fascinated her, even though she’d never even seen his face.  Many times, she had searched for a new tutor, or tried to break away on her own.  She hadn’t succeeded yet, but someday…

“You’re late.”  The voice came from behind her.  He always appeared behind her, no matter how she tried to watch her back.

“It would be easier if you didn’t force me to hike all the way out here into the woods!” she yelled back.

“Quiet.  I don’t think you want to wake what sleeps here.  Not without some … offering … to appease it.”

“Whatever.  Did you get what I need?”

The hooded, black-cloaked man strode forward.  “You will speak to me with respect!”  Grabbing her face, holding her jaw, he forced her to turn and stare into the empty hood.  “Is that understood?”

“Yes… Master.”

“Good.  Now explain why you need this.”

Rubbing her jaw, Hekate walked the perimeter of the barren circle.  Her master had long ago explained that nothing of this world could spy on them when they were within the circle – not technology, nor psychic senses, nor magical scrying.  To even attempt it was to risk madness or worse.  So despite the creepy feelings, Hekate remained inside the dead ground.

“There’s this shapeshifter.  A real freak.  Completely spastic, only with shapeshifting, changing all the time into all sorts of junk.  Forks, knives, socket wrench, sword, wheels.  And she can’t even hold still, it’s like she’s always squirming.  Her body changes too.  There’s this story – well, never mind, but trust me, she’s a freak job.  So about a month ago she comes to me and says that she heard about the job I did on Succubus.”

“I thought that was a failure,” the cloaked man said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t exactly advertise that fact.  The girl messed with me, so I used your little spell to tweak her body image.  So now she’s got red skin, horns, batwings, and a tail.  You and I both know that I was actually trying to turn her into a giant, grotesque bat-thing.  Maybe my exact design bounced, but she still got changed.  It’s been eight months now, so I’m guessing it’s permanent.  The people who know, the people who matter, all they know is that she dissed me and now she looks like a freak devil girl.  Word’s getting around.”

“And it reached this shapeshifter?”

“Yeah, like I said, she heard about a month ago.  She’s tired of being a freak.  I did the research, like you said.  Said I could ‘help’ her, if she got a ‘donor’ body.”

The dark man radiated a deep satisfaction  “So you’ve finally pushed her over the edge?”

Hekate shook her head, sending her raven-black ponytail swinging.  “Get this, she thinks she might have a line on a volunteer.”

“Does she understand what’s in store for the ‘volunteer’?”

Hekate a smile so innocent that simply looking at her you knew that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.  “I must have missed that part.  I did tell her that the donor ‘would probably lose their own body,’ but I said it was probably symbolic or allegorical or something.  I told her that it was her responsibility to figure out what that meant.”

“You didn’t give her access to the spell?”

“Do I look stupid?  Anyway, get this, she thinks she’ll be able to convince the donor, so I need the final incantation.”

“Very well.  Remember that your power over this new tool of yours must follow the rule of three.  You’ll need three ties to bind her – I leave the mechanisms up to you.”

“Interesting that you should call her that,” Hekate mentioned, “since that’s her name – Tool.  Kinda appropriate, isn’t it?”

53: Black Magic

Jade was stuffed.  Thuban had ordered enough food to feed Billie.  She may have gotten her roommate’s perfect figure, but fortunately she hadn’t also acquired Billie’s substantial appetite.

“More cashew chicken?” Thuban asked, lazily.  He had reserved a private room, and after the door had slid shut, he’d allowed his human guise to lapse.

“Couldn’t eat another bite,” Jade admitted.  “You really don’t like holding your human shape, do you?”

Thuban shrugged.  “It’s not really uncomfortable, but I don’t enjoy it.”

“Maybe it’s time to head back to our own kind,” Jade mused.  “When did I start thinking like that?  Us and them?”

“I’ve seen it happening in Faction Three,” Thuban noted.  “I believe it comes from two simple things – a group that accepts you, and a second group that doesn’t.  It wasn’t such an issue before the Faction Three meetings began.  Hawthorne has always had their own identity, but Twain and Whitman have been mixtures of normal-appearing students and the Faction Three crowd.  But with my creation of F3, we’ve all been brought into a large group that accepts all of us.  At least, I think they’re starting to believe that F3 will accept them.  The next step is proving that F3 can actually help them.”

Jade nodded, agreeably.  They’d been over this ground several times in the dinner.  “That’s part of why it hurts for me to live a lie.  I’ve tried to be Lazuli, but I’m really not her.  F3 should be about being open and honest about who we are.”

“Like you’re honest about who Jinn is?”

“That’s different.  Everyone protects their powers.  I mean, there are lots of exemplars who have other powers too.  Do you?”

Thuban shrugged.  “Well, I have some modest talents in my own particular brand of wizardry.”  He reached a hand into his oversized sleeve and pulled out a four foot long sword.  A sword that obviously could not have fit back into the sleeve.  “You see?”

Jade clapped like a little child.  “Hidden weapons!  Just like Mousse, in Ranma ½!”

“Perhaps I should start showing that after Gargoyles finishes.  A series about people who are transformed into animals, and curses that change you into something you’re not, something you hate.  Mixed in with martial arts and constant combat.  Would it be a natural for our crowd?”

“It might be more natural for the T-girls over in Poe,” Jade speculated.  “Still, it’s worth trying.  You might check out Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, too.  I’m all in favor of more animé.  Hey, I’ll bet you did that hidden weapons trick with something like the super-shrinky closet box, that the gargoyle body fits inside.  Am I right?”

Thuban’s jovial mood vanished instantly.  “Have you discussed that box with anyone?”

“No, of course not.”

Thuban relaxed again.  He took a shred of beef on his chopstick, before speaking again.  “Sometimes you are too perceptive for my comfort.  Like you, I prefer to have my true abilities remain private and concealed, to whatever extent is possible.”

“Okay, I understand.  I guess this isn’t the time to ask about where I can get a magic ‘purse of holding’ is it?”

“No, not really.”  Thuban snorted.  “Women are bad enough with the junk they dump in a purse.  Imagine if you had one, like that clutch purse there, only it was really closet-sized on the inside.”

“Well,” Jade admitted, “I did kinda dream about that.  Imagine what I could carry around!  Not just my gun, but a real bazooka or something like that.  Climbing gear, maybe a sword, a couple of changes of clothes…”

He snorted some more, choking for a moment on a piece of meat before snorting again.  “I can just imagine you boarding a plane.  ‘Excuse me, sir?  Where can I check my bazooka?’  And then you pull it out of a clutch purse.  Poor stupid norms.”

“Eww,” she decided, “giving away my guns?  Maybe my MID will let me carry stuff like that on a plane.”

Thuban shook his head.  “Afraid not.  And I’m afraid that such a purse would be pretty expensive.  To make the effect permanent, I need to embed the magic into a mithril tracery around the distorted space.  It gets very expensive, very quickly.”

“Then… Lazuli and all her gear must have cost you a small fortune.”

Thuban nodded.  “Having a gargoyle was very important to me.”

“And I can see how much good I’m doing,” Jade admitted, “but she just isn’t me.  I want to be honest with people.  I want to be the real me.”

“You, my dear, cut an excellent figure of a woman now, but alas you are not suitable for Faction Three.  I’m afraid you’re just a bit too normal.  That would arouse both envy and resentment.”

“Yeah, but what if I came as Shroud?  Her face is nothing more than a mask.  If I do away with that, she’s plenty weird.”

“You’re probably right, but I want my gargoyle, and you can’t do both, can you?”

And that’s when Jade saw her opening.  “What if I could?”

Thuban thumped a clawed hand down on the table.  “Ha!  I knew it!  Back when you were possessed by Tansy, your spirit was in Tansy, but ‘Jinn’ still attended classes.  And when she talked to security, she said her name as ‘Jann’, not ‘Jinn.’  I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Uh…” she quickly consulted with Jann-sensei in her head.  How much did they really trust Thuban with their secrets?

“Okay,” she finally decided.  “But just like you have your secrets…”

“Yes, I get it.”

“Yeah.  I can conjure more.”

“Fascinating!  How many?  And how much are they like you?  I mean, really?”

She took a deep breath and swallowed a last sip of lukewarm green tea.  “Do you act different in your dorm room, in your cave, and in the F3 meetings?  Do you put on a different persona when you shift into human form?”

“In some of those cases I have a certain role to assume.  Although it’s interesting to see that if you play the role for long enough, in a way it becomes part of you, doesn’t it?”

“Exactly,” she concurred.  “If you astrally projected – You’ve heard the term? – If you astrally projected, and had your full memories during the projection and even remembered it when you returned to your body, how much is that astral spirit ‘you’?”

“It’s completely me.  It’s my spirit, or soul, or whatever.  I haven’t taken the metaphysics classes yet, but I know that much.”

“Exactly,” she said again.  “So how much is Jinn ‘me’?  Totally.  She is me and I am her.  I may act a slightly different role, depending on my ‘costume’ if you will.  But I am always me.”

“So you’re in perfect telepathic communication with yourself?  What’s the range?  How do you manage to coordinate through so many eyeballs and so many bodies?”

“No, no, no,” Jade corrected.  “When I charge myself into something, that’s a separate ‘me’.  We’re completely disconnected.  During the Tansy possession, I thought one of me had died.  It’s only when the charge is dropped, or lapses, that the memories join together.  And then I was both of me, but now I’m just the single me again.”

Thuban looked puzzled.  “I’m not sure if that makes sense.  That is, I understand what you just said, but the implications are very strange.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Jade reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of dimes and a speaker disk.  Then, reaching for the table, she charged a random collection of junk.  Immediately, a humanoid figure rose to stand on the table.  It was about a foot tall, with a rice-ball head and two dimes for eyes, and a round dime speaker-disk for a mouth.  It had chopstick arms and legs, a green cloth napkin as a cape, and its body was composed of a collection of chicken and broccoli.

“I’m a spirit,” the thing said.  “My body is just matter that anchors me in the world, keeping me from slipping back into the head of my physical body.  It also gives me a way to interact with the world.  I can ‘hold’ and manipulate the matter of my ‘body’, but it isn’t me.”

Jade took another set of chopsticks and reached in to the creature’s body, then pulled out a broccoli floret which she proceeded to eat.

“I can release parts of my body, or keep hold of them.  ‘Course, even if I kept hold of the broccoli, it’s not like being chewed up and swallowed would hurt me.”

Jade swallowed, and then the two of her spoke in unison.  “But I’m still just ‘me’ in both places.  We have slightly different viewpoints, and we’re separated for the moment, but we’ll be back together soon.”

“You see?” Jade-physical asked.

The small creature floated over the table, and bits of it began to flow back to where the belonged.  The chopsticks settled down in their places, the food floated into its proper dish, the napkin settled in Jade’s lap, and the coins returned to her hand.

“You see?”  She said again.  “Now I have both memories.  You should know that you look completely gigantic when I’m only a foot tall.”

“But…”  Thuban was still trying to cope with the concept.  “You and your sister are taking different classes.”

“Yeah.  I think I’m gaining experience about four times as fast as a normal person.  So I’ve been at Whateley nearly three months, but if you figure a normal person gets sixteen real hours of experience a day, it’s like I’ve been attending and learning here for nearly a year.  Believe me, I really need that time to even try to keep up with you exemplars and other super-brains.”

Thuban did his front-to-back nictitating blink upon hearing that.  “How many of you can you create?”

“One’s easy.  Two is hard.  Three leaves my physical body exhausted.  I can read or watch TV, but I wouldn’t try fighting.”  She realized that with the numbers she’d given, Thuban would figure out the rest.  “Four knocks me out.  I’ve been pushing it, so it’s been a while since I fell asleep normally.”

“You’re a one-girl army.”

“It’s more limiting than you might think.  But I started all this to explain that Jinn is me.  Lazuli the gargoyle isn’t, not really.  I want to be part of Faction Three, but I want to be a real part of it.  I want to be there honestly, as me.  The things I would tell people, the advice I’d give, they’d be better if I could be honest.  I could form real relationships with those people that could still be there in class, or on campus.”

Thuban raised his hands.  “Fine, fine!  You can come as Shroud.  Don’t wear a normal face.  But I’d better see a gargoyle there, too!”  More quietly, he added, “It’s just a dream of mine.  I saw that show before I ever began to change.  There were times when … it helped.  If there were real, live gargoyles I’d do anything to have them join.  Barring that, I want Lazuli.  Understand?”

Jade understood very well.  She just hoped that Thuban would still understand, if things went badly with Tool, because she was determined to help the girl if she could.

---

On the way out of the restaurant, Jade paused to touch a payphone.  Jinn-phone waited until no one was nearby, then lifted the handset just enough to turn the phone on and generate a dial tone.  Had anyone been watching, they would have seen buttons pushing in of their own accord, as the number for Whateley campus was dialed.

“Welcome to Whateley!”  The phone began to spew the classic recorded intro, duplicated almost word-for-word from the academy’s innocuous-seeming website.  “Nestled in the verdant, scenic hills of New England, Whateley Academy brings a premier education—”

“Whitman Cottage, please,” Jinn said, ignoring the recorded message.  With all the devisors on campus, a voice-activated mail system had been a regular part of the campus since the late seventies.

“Certainly!  To whom is this call directed?”

“Code name: Tool.”

“Connecting…”  A moment later, she heard dialing again.

Jinn was directly vibrating the microphone in the phone handset, and directly sensing the speaker.  She hoped that no one would even notice that the phone was in use.  The handset was lifted, but it should appear to be hung up.

“Yeah, this is Tool.  Whaddya want?”

Jinn simulated her Lazuli voice.  “This is Laz.”

“Have you been thinking about it?  ‘Cause I’ve talked to my source.  The witch says she could do it.  I mean, really do it, if we’re ready to take the chance.  She could do it as early as tonight or tomorrow night.”

“I needed to get permission from Thuban,” Jinn-Lazuli said.  It was close enough to the truth.  “Yeah.  I’m game.  What time, and where do we meet?”

Tool sucked in her breath.  It was audible, even over the phone.  “Really?  You’re sure you want to go through with this?  Wow, I can’t believe this – it’s like everything I’ve dreamed of, coming all at once.  But, are you really, really sure?  You’ll be taking most of the risks.  ‘Cause I’m starting to get a creepy feeling about the whole magic thing.”

“I’m pretty hard to hurt,” Jinn  told her, confidently.

“If you’re sure…   Wow.  Well, the ritual has to be at midnight, in a prepared magical location.  Meet me at the back door to Whitman.  Uh, maybe quarter to twelve?”

“I’ll be there,” Jinn promised.

---

Billie was still out dancing or something by the time Jade was ready for bed.  With the shades drawn and the door locked, she prepared to take off the beautiful Chinese dress that Thuban had bought her.  But then she caught her reflection in the full-length mirror hung on the back of their door, and she couldn’t help posing.

She’d done it!  She was a girl!  And admiring her own reflection, she thought she wasn’t just a girl, she was a pretty girl.  The cheongsam definitely emphasized the length of her legs.  She moved one leg forward, so hose-covered length of her leg was displayed through the slit that ran up to almost her hip.  And the way the dress clung tightly to her midriff emphasized both the width of her hips and the swell of her chest, while the high collar drew the eyes up to her face and eyes.

Those were her weakest points, really.  She wished her eyes were more special.  Maybe she’d get Nikki to help her get better with makeup.  If she didn’t have the natural equipment, perhaps she could use enhancements to make her eyes seem more interesting.  After all, women had been doing that for thousands of years.

The thought sent a shiver of glee through her.  Women.  Women just like her.

She carefully unbuttoned the dress and slipped out of it, before folding it up.  And stepping out of the pantyhose, she was pleased to see that they hadn’t ripped or torn.  Ayla had said to keep them, so she could wash them and get another use out of them.  She quickly shimmied into her oversized Hello Kitty nightshirt.  Glancing back into the mirror, she gleefully examined her curves once again.

Without a bra or anything on you could easily see her nipples.  She’d heard that boys (and Poe girls) liked that.  She just didn’t think she wanted to expose herself that much.  She ran a hand down her side, reveling in the way her hand dipped and swerved as it passed over her curves.  She really liked her butt.  Both the wide hips and the shape of her behind.  Simply walking was so much different now.  She felt like a model walking the runway, everywhere she went.

Impishly, she faced the mirror head-on, then gradually lifted the hem of her shirt.  While it had more or less reached her knees before, now it barely preserved her modesty.  Now, clutching the nightshirt at her belly, she pulled it up ever so slightly while watching her reflection.

Without a mirror, just looking down at her own nude body, she couldn’t really see anything beside the dark wisps of pubic hair that were beginning to show.  After being a boy, it was so strange to have the private bits suddenly missing from sight.  But a girl was just arranged so much better, with her delicates hidden away below.  Jade looked into the mirror, studying closely as she edged the shirt up.  There were the top of her thighs, there was that interesting gap between her thighs.  In her stupid boy-body, the thighs had pressed against each other all the way up.  But now that she was proper, her legs didn’t quite touch as she got to the top.  And then, with another inch exposed, her most private area began to show.  The first hints of curly dark hair in front, the swell of fleshy lips to each side, and that mysterious cleft down the center.  A cleft with the a fringe, the merest hint, of darker secret flesh peeking through those lips.

Would Thuban like to see me like this? she wondered.  Would he want to have sex with me?  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that idea.  Well, she knew how she felt right now – no way!  She’d barely even touched herself there.  Letting a boy touch her there, letting him stick his penis into her – that idea was still kind of creepy.  Of course, she’d let Rip see her.  She and Rip had practically given each other shows.

Holding her gathered shirt in her left hand, her right reached down tentatively to touch the very top of her slit.  It was so different!  A boy’s parts were right there, you just grabbed them.  But her slit was much farther down.  And to feel the full extent of her new parts, she’d have to squat and flex her legs open, reaching down to grope herself.  Perhaps later she’d engage in more vulgar explorations of her new body, but for now it was a wonderment to feel the smooth contours of her underside, unencumbered by a boy’s protrusions and dangling bits.  Everything about her body felt so right and so perfect now.

It was quite literally her dream come true.

Her hand continued its happy glide across her skin – the trim inward curve of her waist, the hard bones of her ribcage.  She slipped the nightshirt off to examine her breasts.

It wasn’t proper to say such things, but she absolutely loved having breasts.  Somehow, they made her feel feminine and confident and beautiful and shy and proud, all at the same time.  She liked the weight of them, and the way they shifted or bounced when she walked or ran.  She liked binding herself up tight in a bra, or just letting herself hang free, like now.  It seemed to her that a lot of people talked about nipples.  But nipples were almost too sensitive to touch.  That was one of the best reasons to use a bra – so that her nipples didn’t get all scratched up by rubbing against the inside of a blouse.  At least, it felt like they were getting all scratched up.

Keeping her hands away from the too-sensitive nipples, instead she felt the flesh of her breasts, feeling their weight, squeezing herself gently, stroking the sides and undersides of her breasts, stroking that curious little gap that was her cleavage.

She’d secretly listened to a lot of bathroom talk.  From what she’d overheard, she was convinced that breasts were the main argument in favor of being a lesbian.  Guys were always groping and grabbing and squeezing.  They’d pinch a nipple or even bite!  (Some of them.)  But another girl would know how to use gentle strokes and the deliciously subtle sensations of breath, or stroking fingertips, or perhaps something like a feather.

Thinking these thoughts while gently stroking the skin of her own breasts, she was surprised to see her nipples swell and harden until they were almost painfully tight.

How about that?  I didn’t even touch them, and they’re still too sensitive!

She slid the nightshirt back on, acutely aware of how the soft cotton scratched past her swollen nipples on the way down.

She couldn’t believe how lucky and happy she was.

---

The arrangements with Tool were no big deal.  Jade herself would be asleep at midnight, but her other selves were almost always up and about at that time.  She considered precautions, then considered them again.  She really did want to help Tool out.  Besides, if Tool could take over the gargoyle duties, so much the better.  But there was no sense taking chances with Thuban’s box.  So she used three charges, getting ready for the mystic ceremony.

The first, “Lazuli” would actually be an old cloak from costuming.  Jade had used her pestle and powdered some blue chalk and mixed it until she had the right consistency and color.  With a body of opaque black coal dust and a skin of blue chalk over that, she made a decent duplicate of Lazuli.  It was a matter of thought to form the body, but once she’d shifted to take Lazuli’s shape, she was pleased to note that moving her wings and tail was almost second nature.  Her practice had paid off.

Her second spirit-self charged the actual puppet-suit.  As Lazuli for real, she stripped off her clothes and stood naked beside chalk-powder-Lazuli.  Jade-physical came over and supervised, until she had the material patterns for golden veins and white eyes, white teeth and gold claws, everything looking nearly perfect.  Then chalk-Lazuli put on the clothes, making a very good likeness for the puppet-suit-gargoyle.

Suit-Lazuli grabbed a white sheet and wound it around herself as a simple toga.

Finally, she cast Jamie the SpySpeck.  This time, Jamie was cast into more than a speck.  Jamie held the invisible closet-box, and a pair of shot-filled gloves inside.  Jamie would hide invisibly near-by and observe.  If chalk-Lazuli wasn’t working, or somehow wasn’t good enough for the spell, then suit-Lazuli would appear, and Jamie would still keep watching.  If there was a fight, an extra pair of hands might be useful.  And if she needed to pick something up to stuff away in the box, she had hands for that, too.

Operating at night was no problem.  Her spirits didn’t see by light, so the only way she could tell whether it was day or night was by looking at a clock.

If all went well, she would sacrifice a “body” made of chalk dust and coal powder, and gain another gargoyle.  With two of them, Lazuli could ease off the meetings and give Shroud and Tool the opportunity to move in and make a position for themselves.

Or, so her theory went.

---

Chalk-Lazuli slipped out of her dorm windows long after everyone had fallen asleep.  Billie had long since gotten used to her comings and goings.  She slipped down the hall to the sunroom, and cracked open a window.  Then, in classic gargoyle fashion, she used her claws against the rough exterior of the building to claw her way up the outside wall to the roof of Poe Cottage.  Acting quickly before security or the house mother could arrive, she launched herself off into the air, snapping her wings wide to catch the breeze.  Flapping only occasionally, she glided off, on her way to Whitman.  She couldn’t fly directly, that would take her across the center of campus.  Security would definitely spot her.  As it was, security might spot her anyway, but perhaps between speed and avoidance, she might get to the back door of Whitman before they caught up with her.

Of course, she wasn’t really gliding.  She was moving and flying through brute telekinetic force.  But an interesting thing had happened over the months she’d been using her spirit-bodies and animating various figures.  Somehow, her brain had made connections, adjustments, or something.  It was different when she was in “object mode”, where she individually controlled each item.  But in “girl mode” or “body mode” or whatever she wanted to call it, the feelings and sensations continued to grow more natural and real.  Oh, she’d never mistake her animated TK body for a real one.  The lack of pain, pleasure, heat, or cold, the different sensations in her “skin”, the difference in her sight, all these made the distinction quite apparent.  But each of her “bodies” was coming to feel and move more like the illusion it appeared to be.  Right now, she felt like a flying gargoyle, and the subtle push and flow of air along her “skin” felt like real currents of air.  Her tail, wings, arms, and legs moved as if they actually had mass and inertia, despite being an empty film of chalk.  The illusion was cruelly shattered under some circumstances.  When she tried to punch, she struck with all the force of a relentless, insistent film of chalk.  On the other hand, that sometimes worked to her advantage.  As Shroud, with her metallic arms, she felt like a normal girl, moving and punching with all the effort and mass of a normal arm.  In that case, the arms were actually heavier and harder than normal arms, and her strikes did correspondingly more damage.

There were many things about her powers that she still didn’t understand.  For now, she resolved to enjoy what she could, and accept what came.  Her life was good, and she wanted to spread the good cheer wherever she could.

With that cue, she saw Whitman cottage ahead of her, with the unmistakably shifting form of Tool waiting, one hand holding the back door open.

Flaring her wings wide, chalk-Lazuli pulled back in a stall, then dropped lightly to the ground next to Tool.

The girl seemed to have no trouble seeing in the darkness – perhaps because of her oversized eyeballs.  Fortunately, she didn’t seem to spot the invisible cigarette box hovering twenty feet up and back.  The box was plain to Lazuli’s vision, but she knew that it was invisible to most human sight.

“You still want to do this?” Tool asked.  “I mean, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this whole thing.”

“You changed your mind?”

“Well, no, not that,” Tool admitted.  “I mean, I dreamed about being a gargoyle long before I ever became a mutant.  Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to have that sort of impossible dream.  So, yeah, I still want it.  But…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I asked around a bit more on the reputation of this witch.  Hekate’s got a pretty nasty rep, and I’m starting to have second thoughts.”

“Hekate?”

“You know her?”

“Not really,” Lazuli-Jinn admitted.  “But I know of her.  She’s one of the top Alphas, and that’s not exactly a great recommendation.”

“Ha!  I knew it!  You are a student here!”

“Uh…”  Jinn couldn’t think of a good answer to that.  “I might not be.  Maybe I just hang around campus.  And hear things.”

“Right.  Of course.  Come on, we need to get downstairs.”

Tool seemed to flow through the door.  Jinn as a gargoyle, furled her wings like a cloak over her shoulders.  She held the door open long enough to allow the invisible box to slip through, then strode after Tool.

As they headed down the stairs, Jinn tried to remember what she knew of Hekate.  She recalled that the girl had been extremely upset with Tansy, and more than a little vindictive.  She’d used some sort of mind blast, and something that might have been minor telekinesis.  And Tansy had gotten a dossier on Hekate from Nex, back when the wannabe-ninja could still do his invisibility trick.  What had that said?  Hekate was supposed to be level three in several different areas – exemplar, psi, and wizard.  There’d been rumors that she was a warper, but nothing solid.  And her magical abilities, her wizard skills, were supposed to be mostly jinxes and hexes.  Did the girl have capabilities that Nex hadn’t managed to pick up?  There was a rumor that she’d done something to the girl who was now known as “Succubus.”  One rumor said that she’d taken an attractive exemplar girl and spell-cursed her to turn into becoming a demon.

Jinn reached forward for Tool’s shoulder.  “Look, I don’t trust Hekate at all.  Maybe I’m starting to have second thoughts about this, too.  But… I do want to help you.  I feel like I raised your hopes, and I don’t want to back out on that.  The same thing has happened too many times to me.  Is this really what you want?  To permanently become a monster?  To look like this?”  She held out her blue, clawed hand.

Tool stared at her, and the glow of utter longing was clear in her face.  “Since I first saw the TV show, it’s all I ever wanted,” she said, honestly.  “A monster?  Perhaps.  But a monster made to look beautiful.  You have no idea how sexy you are, or how erotic your every moment is, do you?  That’s what I want to be!  I want to move with that raw animal power.  I want people to stare at me, in a good way.”

Jinn tried one last time.  “I won’t renege on what I offered, but do you really want Hekate to be in control of you?  If she’s casting the spell…”

“I’ve done some research of my own,” Tool replied.  “Not just because of this past day, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.  I may not have the talent, but I’ve been taking magic classes for a year and a half with only one goal in mind.  I’ve prepared incantations of my own.  If you know anything about magic, you’ll know that the will and drive and intentions of the target can also guide a spell.  When the magic is forming, you can often bend it, deflect it, particularly if you aren’t trying to simply oppose it, but you’re trying to alter it just the tiniest amount.  There are so many factors – training, skill, willpower, magical power.  But it’s a bit like hypnosis.  You know, the part about hypnosis not being able to overcome a firmly opposed will.  It’s not exactly the same, but…”

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.  “I had expert help drawing up my own spell words, to help focus my intentions.  I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I’ve been obsessing about gargoyles like Demona and Goliath for so long, for so many years, that everything about them is fixed in my mind –voices, movements, appearance, everything.  That’s what I want.  I’m willing to pay almost any price to get that, do you understand?  You want a slave for life?  Is that what you want?”

Jinn shook her head.  Did she sound like that to other people?  “Okay, okay, I’m convinced.  And no, I’m not interested in the slave-for-life business.  If you can become your true self and be happy, then I’ll be satisfied.  No.  You want a price?  How’s this – help the kids in Faction Three, and help Thuban.  That’s my price.  And I’m trusting that you won’t be the villain that Demona turned into.  From what I heard, this spell is supposed to give you a body that’s a duplicate of mine, not Demona’s.”

“Yeah… we’ll see.  If my plan works, there will be no concern at all about my turning into a ‘villain like Demona.’”

“So what are you offering Hekate?”

Tool looked away, burning with sudden shame.  “Three favors.  Any time, anything at all, anything less than maiming or murder.  No questions, no refusal.”

“That’s uncomfortably close to a blank check.”

“If I could only make you understand…”

Jinn waved her off.  “I understand better than you’d think.  That’s why I’m helping you, despite my better judgment.  Unless – maybe Thuban’s BIT-slicer?”

Tool peered at her suspiciously.  “You know about that?  Anyway, it didn’t work for me.  Lasted all of ten seconds, until I needed a pair of pliers to unstrap myself.”

“Maybe another mage could do it better, with less risk.”  She wondered about both Sara and Nikki.

“I don’t understand why you’d do this willingly,” Tool said, “but I doubt if any other mage would go along with it.”

Because, Jinn thought, I’m perfectly willing to abandon this body of chalk and coal, particularly if it gives you my shape in the process.  And I don’t have a real body of my own to lose.  But aloud, she said, “Then… I guess we go ahead with this.”

Tool lead them down a dark hallway.  One of the farthest rooms was padlocked shut, but Tool put a hand to the padlock.  A moment later, it was open.

They moved inside, closing the door behind them.  Hekate and two other girls were already there, concealed beneath hooded cloaks.  To Jinn’s eyes, the girls literally glowed against a black-and-white background.  Hekate glowed with the laser-red color of true magic.  It was strongest around her hands and eyes, but a softer glow surrounded her body.

“How’d you get here?” Tool demanded.

Hekate gave an indulgent chuckle as she waved a hand at a brazier, which burst into flames.  “I wouldn’t be much of a wizard if I couldn’t even sneak into a cellar, would I?”

Jinn took stock of the room they were in.  It was square, without any windows.  A large circle was carved into the bare concrete floor.  Three smaller circles touched the periphery of the large one.  Braziers were set in all four corners of the claustrophobic room, and the air above them had the shimmer that indicated to her that they were lit, giving off heat and light for those that could perceive it.  A few pieces of folding furniture were stacked against the near wall.

Hekate peered at Jinn suspiciously.  “You, I’ve never seen before.  Who are you?  Do you understand what you’ve volunteered for?”

Jinn moved to stand beside Tool.  “I understand that I am giving up this body, so that Tool can become locked in this shape.  Who I am doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm.  Shifter?  TK shell?  Ectoplasmic shell?  Or maybe an alternate form manifestor?  I’m guessing that you’re hoping to ‘donate’ this shape, while keeping your normal shape, right?”

Jinn shrugged.  “Perhaps.”

One of the companions tossed a hood back, revealing a short girl that Jinn had never met.  “I have to warn you – I’m not able to read any omens around this working.  It might go well, it might go poorly, but I can’t tell.”

Jinn glanced at Tool, who was practically glowing with eagerness.

“I’m already committed,” Jinn said.

“Okay then,” Hekate ordered, “places, everyone.  Step one – dump the clothes.”

With that, Hekate removed her cloak and draped it over a folding chair.  She stepped out of a pair of sandals.  Now she was nude.   Hekate’s two companions did likewise, with the omen girl taking a small bracelet and placing it down carefully.  Jinn caught a single glimmer of red from the bracelet, but then it looked normal again.  Hekate reached into a small wicker basket at her feet, and withdrew two white candles, while the girls set up the folding table in the center of the inscribed circle.

“It’s called ‘skyclad’,” Hekate explained.  “It’s best for workings done under an open sky, but it will help even in this enclosed cellar.

Jinn and Tool were disrobing.  Tool was evidently very emotionally involved, because each time she glanced at Jinn, her breasts swelled slightly, matching Jinn’s more ample bust.  As Tool turned around, Jinn notices that small wings and a thick tail would begin to form on the uncontrollable shifter, before melting away again.

Hekate stepped inside the circle, then motioned for Jinn to enter.  “Hold these candles.  Later I will tell you to hand them, one by one, to the shifter girl, so pay attention.  Now, I think it will work best if you lie down on your back, on top of this table.”  She gave a wicked smile.  “I hope it isn’t too uncomfortable!”

Not saying a word, Jinn lay on her back on the table, spreading her wings wide.

“Now, Tool, you lie on top of her, face down, like you were making love.”

Tool looked up in surprise.

“Oh come on!  She’s giving you her body!  It doesn’t get more intimate than that, does it?”

The other girl took her position awkwardly, holding herself up as if she was doing a pushup.  The problem was where their breasts came together.

“It’s okay,” Jinn said.  “Let yourself on down.  And you might scoot down a bit, too.”

Now the problem was their legs.  Would Tool take the outside, the inside, or straddle half-and-half?

“I didn’t mean – I don’t want you to think I—”  Tool was utterly tongue-tied by the situation.

“Do I look turned on?” Jinn shot back.  Though in truth, it would have been much more interesting if she’d been wearing a body that could feel things.

Once they were settled in, Jinn pulled in her wings and wrapped them around the other girl, helping to hold them both in place on top of the table.

“Thanks,” Tool whispered back.  “Boy, you sure don’t put out much body heat, do you?”

“Spread your legs more, both of you,” Hekate ordered.  “Now, Gargoyle, hold your arms out to the sides.  Straight out!”  The witch placed a candle in each of her outstretched hands.  “Hold on to those until I tell you to hand them to Tool.”

“What do we do?” Tool asked awkwardly, from her position atop Jinn.

“Nothing, just accept it.”  Hekate looked to her two assistants.  “Ready?”

The girls nodded, one after the other.

“Then let’s begin!”

Hekate returned to her own circle, then flung her arms out, and the braziers flared with distortion ripples of increased heat.  Hekate began to chant in Latin, then an assistant would take up the chant, while Hekate moved onto a new line.  By the time the third assistant came in, Jinn realized, It’s like a round, in music!

At the same time, contrary to instructions, Tool was doing something.  She was chanting her own rhyme:

“A woven spell to fix the form

Divergent wild from mankind’s norm

By night I’m stone and wing and claw

And with the sun’s rise magic’s law

Transforms to flesh and human guise

Both young and strong to cause a rise

In any mate was ever born

And locked thus be till Gabriel’s horn!”

A flicker of laser-red over the tip of the candle in her right hand, and Jinn suddenly saw the heat distortions that indicated the candle had been lit.  A moment later, the candle in her left hand had also come alive.  She noticed that the three chanting girls each stood in their own circles, the smaller ones that touched the periphery of the large magic circle.

Now the red light began to spark and glow around each of the three witches, spilling out like luminescent red fog to coat the floor.  The crimson fog followed along the inscribed depressions, becoming lines of glowing red alien script.  Still the chanting continued.

Now red fog began to well up near the side of the table.  Tracings sparkled through the fog, forming an ever-more-intricate pattern.  A moment later, a creature hovered there, composed of pure magic.  It wasn’t a humanoid creature.  The closest she could come to describing it was that it was a trident, balanced on its handle and standing points-upward.  The pointed head was the central tine, and the two upraised arms formed the other two tines.  It reminded her somewhat of an eel, but it had no smooth surface or skin.  Instead, it was just a tangle of magical thread, twisted and knotted into this grotesque form.  As the chanting continued, the thing began to absorb red fog like a child sucking up cotton candy.  It quickly thickened to the point of appearing to be a demonic and hateful-looking viper with smooth red skin.  Looking hungrily over the two girls lying face to face on the table, it launched itself up in the air and came down like a pitchfork on Tool’s back.  The immaterial being pierced through the shapeshifter and continued on through Jinn’s telekinetic body.

It felt like a bowling ball had been shoved into her gut, then a similar-sized piece was ripped away.  The demon shot up and down through them like a sewing needle, going first down, then back up.  On the down stroke, Jinn saw Tool’s face erupt in pain.  Then she felt something shoved into her body.  On the upstroke, it was the reverse – some part of her was ripped away, sent upward into Tool.

“Transfer the right candle, NOW!”

She soon realized what was happening.  Her stomach was ripped away from her, replaced by Tool’s stomach.  Or perhaps, it was the pattern of their respective stomachs.  With each piercing, she felt a piece of her body torn from her, to be replaced by the corresponding piece from Tool’s body.  For the first time, she actually believed herself a shapeshifter.  Her mind was forced to realize, to envision, to create her gargoyle body in its full intricacy, and for sharp, pain-edged moments she knew.  This was how lungs must change to support the greater demands of the body, this was how the skin altered to stone-like strength.  The insights were useless to her – she had neither a body nor a cellular structure to manipulate, only lifeless specs of dust.  But as each insight came, it was as quickly ripped away from her mind, never to reappear.  It wasn’t a rape, but it was closer than she ever wanted to come.  Before her mind’s eye, her intangible gargoyle’s body was rendered real.  For the first time on the planet, this creature born of imagination was rendered into flesh, bone, and sinew, and then her brilliance and design was stolen not even a moment later.  Stolen in such a way that she knew that she would never get it back.  In some manner, the magic stole the very concepts from her soul.  She might make new creations, but this creation, her first true realization, would be forever denied to her.

Sheets and lines of magical force began to spark between their bodies.  Laser-red energy arced between them – at eyes, lips, nipples and navel.  A thick red tracery flashed between their open loins like some hideous insemination.

Above her, she watched as Tool writhed and changed.  The girl was in agony, but she never ceased her personal chant, “…with the sun’s rise magic’s law, Transforms to flesh and human guise…”  The girl was one moment an over endowed woman with a shaggy mane of hair, then in the next moment her face and body warped, growing fangs, talons, and tail, then she twisted back again as the cycle continued.  The pain and transformation reached a crescendo, with both Jinn and Tool screaming.  Jinn saw a multitude of people in the being above her.  First was the male gargoyle Goliath, then what he might look like in human form, followed by what she might look like in human form, and finally, the red-haired blue skin form of—

“Demona,” Jinn whispered, in between agonies.

Tool looked up at that very moment.  “Demona?”  And as she said it, the form solidified upon her.

“Transfer the left candle, NOW!”

With the last of her strength, Jinn handed this across to Tool’s grasping talon.  With it, she felt the final portions transfer between then, the final patterns changing place.  Tool’s forms had been reduced to only two, a red-haired human, and a crimson-maned gargoyle.  The arcs of red energy snapped between them like red-hot bars of force, linking every single joint to its opposite member in the other.  With an agonizing tear, the wings were ripped from Jinn’s back, to erupt and unfurl from Tool’s back.  She felt the deepest parts of her body ripped loose, the way you’d gut a turkey, only to be stuffed back a moment later with new material that was unrecognized and unwanted.  Her entire vision was swamped with red and she screamed in agony.

54: Disaster strikes

Whateley Academy, Poe Cottage

November 25, Saturday morning, 12:07 AM

It was just past midnight in Poe when Billie was jolted awake by her roommate’s scream.  She didn’t sit bolt upright in bed – she rose straight up three feet in the air, hands clawing for energy to launch against her foes.

Jade still slept.  In the center of the room, Shroud floated cross-legged in mid-air, holding a book.  “You felt that?”

“What’s going on?” Billie demanded.  “Why isn’t anyone else coming?  They’re usually here in a second when Jade screams.  For that matter, why is she still asleep?”

“She can’t wake,” Shroud explained.  “Not while all four of us are out.  She doesn’t have enough energy to wake.  As for the scream – it wasn’t out loud.”

Billie scowled.  “Why aren’t you doing something?  Wait, you weren’t expecting this, were you?”

“I wasn’t sure…” Shroud began.  “But I promised to keep it secret.”

“Tell me!” Billie demanded.  “All of it!”

And Shroud began to tell all of her secrets.

---

They both collapsed, utterly exhausted.

Jinn didn’t know how she could be exhausted.  She had no lungs, blood, or muscle.  Moving things never took “effort”, nor did the work tire her.  But at the moment, she was exhausted.  The two of them fell off the table.

Instinctively, she stretched herself wide, spreading the impact over a wider area.  Her human form splashed against the ground, then reformed almost as quickly.

On the other side of the table, a naked gargoyle female shakily rose to her feet.  It wasn’t the body of Lazuli, it was Demona from the cartoon.  An extremely female Demona with the exaggerated proportions of a cartoon character.  To Jinn she looked more than a little overblown, but she thought males would appreciate the effect.  The gargoyle was staring at her hands, then groping for her wings and tail, suddenly frantic to see every part of her body.

But the red trident wasn’t done.  The transformation complete, it launched itself at and into Jinn’s chest.  It passed through her skin, twining around her heart.  For a moment, the carbon dust of her body was formed into the outline and structure of a fully realized human body, outlining organs, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and bone.  The glowing trident began to unravel, spreading like a woven cage around her immaterial heart.  And then, with a familiar spike of agony, that matter was ripped free of her control.  The heart was possessed by the magical thing, the creature.

It’s a class two entity!  Jinn realized.  It’s alive!

Alive, and apparently it wanted her.  It was eating her!  As the coal-black shape of a human heart vanished from her control, she saw it slump into useless dust that began sifting down through her body to fall to the ground.

She hadn’t had formal magical training, but she’d had acute cause to research items related to spirits and avatars.  She knew what was going on here.

It’s not just a knot of magical energy, it’s a class two spirit, non-corporeal.  But aren’t those usually responsible for possessions?

In addition to the red glow of pure magic, she saw rudimentary emotions coming from the thing.  They were far fainter than an animal would produce, but now that she knew what to look for, she could see its emotions.  It had moved from greed to frustration, and was now edging into anger.  From the heart, the untangling thread of it snapped out to engulf the coal-black shape of her lungs.  Again there was the agonizing rip of a part of her being pulled away, but this time she fought back.  With a skill that surpassed any she’d had before, her form fluidly shifted.  It hadn’t required shifting to “object mode”.  Instead, her body flowed like water, melting away from the tangle of magic that still surrounded the disintegrating lungs.  Like a curl of smoke, she speared out to escape the circle, and the room.  But as she reached the edge of the circle of magic, it was like she’d hit an invisible wall.  Again she splashed, like water from a hose when sprayed against a brick wall.  Instantly, the red threads were upon her, wrapping around bits of her, stealing them away.  And each time a part of her dissolved into powder, it seemed to get all the more furious.  Using her new-found agility, she writhed around it, flowing around or between the threads as they tried to wrap around her.  If they could form loops, they could slice off bits of her, but if she flowed away first, then there was nothing to grasp.

“What’s happening to her?” the gargoyle demanded.

“I believe we’re seeing your true shifting potential unleashed,” Hekate said, with smug satisfaction in her voice.  “Magic always comes with a cost.  My spell was a summoning, calling forth an ancient and skilled demonic entity.  As I warned you, the ‘donor’ loses their body.  The price of this piece of magic is that the demon gains that body.”

The gargoyle was seriously troubled now.  “But… without a body, what happens to her?”

“Not my business,” Hekate informed them all.  “She would be a naked soul at that point.  I would imagine that the demon would then … consume her.”

“You have to stop it!”

“Why?” Hekate wondered.  “Once it has finished, the demon will owe me three favors, exactly as you do.  And that’s my price.”

But Jinn was growing more agile.  How much was this like possession by an avatar?  If she had something solid and material, like one of her metal arms, could the demon reach in for her and take it from her?  She didn’t know, but that hardly mattered now.  In her arrogance, she had come here as nothing but animated powder, and her naked spirit was stretched like film between the particles of her being.  An avatar only needed to touch her once.  Avatars were sticky, they were magnetic.  With a single hold, they sucked you in.  This demon, in contrast, had to engulf her, surrounding and pinching off the pieces of her.  Stories and sparring with Toni-sensei helped her now.  It was a matter of flow and intent, always staying just ahead of the enemy.  This demon might be ancient, but it was slow compared to her.  And if it could hurt her, was the reverse true?

There was no time to find out.  The tangle of glowing red magic abruptly stop, radiating rage and frustration.  It reformed into its trident shape, then launched itself straight at the gargoyle, Tool.

There was no time to think, only to react.  She shot forward, instinctively assuming a naked human form and holding her hands out in a martial arts block.  She knew that Tool had none of her defenses against this thing.  She hadn’t gone to all this trouble just to see the girl’s soul get eaten!

But the move was a lethal mistake.  At the last second, the trident unraveled into a net of magical lines that engulfed her completely.  It instantly tightened, capturing both her dusty body and the soul that controlled it.

---

The unconscious body of Jade arched in silent agony on her bed.

“Does she have to scream like that?” Billie shouted frantically.  “What do I do?”

“I don’t know!  Give her energy or something?  How should I know?”

Billie grabbed Jade to shake her awake, and felt it.  It was like a tunnel, leading from Jade … out there somewhere.  And at the far end was a malevolent red net, sucking away at her soul, hungering for her dark essence.  Squeezing Jade hard enough to bruise, Tennyo felt the creature squeezing in.  Shroud didn’t have vision in the conventional sense, so she never noticed when Tennyo’s eyes took on a green tinge, and the shadows began to form around her hands.

“You want hunger?  I’ll show you hunger!”

---

Hekate watched the one-sided battle with smug amusement.  Her two assistants cowered in their protective circles.  Neither of them had the ability to sense magic like she did.  She’d never bothered to share the Cantrip of Perception.  Magic was always a deeply personal thing, where objective reality was overruled by subjective perception.  The blue-black shape of the shifter moved and flowed like animated water, as it evaded the naked muscular form of the horned, goat-legged being.  She knew what was coming.  The gigantic demon would put her on like a suit, slipping in through the orifices of her body until the coal-red evil glow of it was could only be seen through mouth, nose, and eyes.  And even then, only to those with the Cantrip of Perception.  But the bare-chested half-man form grew too frustrated fighting the evasive fluid form and turned toward the newly-minted gargoyle.  Hekate debated trying to stop it.  If she lost the gargoyle, she lost half her payment.  But demons were always tricky, and her interventions might not work.  Caution was best – she’d stay safe and uninvolved.

The demon flung its clawed hand to pierce the newly-made gargoyle through the chest.  The stupid girl only stood there, she couldn’t even see it.  Suddenly, the water shape of the shifter – who obviously could see it – was there in the way.  In an eye blink, she took the form of a naked girl, flinging her arms up in a block.  But it did no good.  The clawed hand pierced her through the heart, and the demon roared in triumph, and then in terror.

Even the gargoyle, even her stupid assistants looked up at the sound.  They could all hear it, as the demon screamed in absolute terror.  The fluid shifter girl vanished, as if sucked through a drain.  Where she had stood, a fine powder rained down.  And the demon – it held something it couldn’t let go of.  Screaming again, it was sucked into the mystic pinhole that had swallowed the shifter.  The demon frantically clawed and bit at its own arm, trying to cut the appendage free, but the suction increased and it was abruptly gone, with a scream that began in the bass range, and spiked octaves upward through soprano before being abruptly snipped off.

The backlash left them all trembling in fear, and Hekate suddenly noticed that the circle of protection was down.  Something had destroyed it, shattered it so suddenly that she’d never noticed.

“Wh-what happened?” the idiotic gargoyle girl asked.

Hekate gathered herself.  One of her prime principles was never to be caught at a loss.  “What do you think?” she asked, contemptuously.  “I warned you that she’d lose her body.  And so she has.”  She decided to top that with a bluff.  “And unless you want the same fate for breaking your contract, you will deliver your three promises to me.  Wait for my call, because I promise to collect.”

The threat worked perfectly – the shifter who had deliberately made herself into a monster was visibly cowed.

---

To say that Tennyo was enraged would be overstating the case.  She’d barely had enough time to work up a mild anger, but all of that feeling had been focused on the red thing at the end of the tunnel.  Now that she’d pulled it through and into her clawed hand, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.  She felt Jinn come through, too, like a rabbit rushing for its hole.  There was a feeling that spun around and around in her chest, like a pet racing around in happy reunion.

Billie realized that she was clutching her roommate hard enough to draw blood.  She released the unconscious girl, watching her cuts and bruises heal, even as she fell back to the bed.  She still held one hand clutched, as if holding an invisible ball.  A tangle of – something – stormed and raged inside an invisible sphere.

“What the heck is that?” Shroud asked in wonder, apparently staring at Billie’s clutching hand.

“What does it look like?”  Billie wasn’t sure herself.

“Like – like a ball of yarn, only made out of red laser light.  And it’s all spinning and twisting.  Isn’t that what you see?”

“Not exactly.”  Billie saw sparks and patterns, tracings and designs.  If she looked closely, there were more than three dimensions to it, vastly more, and the sight of it hurt her head.  For a moment, she thought she saw a way to reach down those dimensions to where it really lay.  Instead, she decided to squeeze away the part that were close to her.  There was a way to do it – her hand crushed closed, and it was gone.  The residue wasn’t physical, or even more than partially visible, but as she absently licked her fingers off, she felt as filled as she’d been after Thanksgiving dinner.

“I think it’s time we had a little talk.”

She didn’t have the slightest idea what she was doing, but she knew instinctively that it was right.  Putting a hand on the comatose Jade’s shoulder, she took the happy silver spark of energy that had curled up inside her, and pushed it out, back down her arm.  The spark was reluctant, but she pushed it back into the unconscious girl.  A moment later, Jade blinked, and looked into her roommate’s face.  “Uh oh.”

“We are going to talk,” Billie said seriously.  “About Faction Three, and Thuban, and gargoyles, and invisible boxes.”

As Shroud’s body collapsed onto the bed, the memories suddenly flowed into Jade’s head.  “Oh, shit.”

---

Saturday breakfast was subdued.  Toni looked tired, but satisfied.  “Man, I am getting some major workouts over the holiday.  Have you seen what some of the juniors can do?  Not to mention the seniors!”

Nikki was smug, but didn’t say anything just yet.

Chou stared over at the pale form of Sara.  “You look satisfied.”

Sara shrugged.  “Been getting some decent sack time.”

The sunglass-shrouded form of Erin pulled away from where she’d been glued to Sara’s side to swat the demon princess.  “Be nice, or I’ll tell on you to Hippy.”

The quiet girl often surprised visitors to their group.  They assumed that quiet meant shy.  Erin frequently was quiet, but it wasn’t a shy quiet.  It was the natural and automatic quiet of a lioness, sitting comfortably above a game path.

Not that any of that mattered to Sara.  “Tell her to bring it on.”  She looked across at the weary form of Jade, contrasted with the energetic form of Tennyo, who incongruously only had a single plate of breakfast in front of her.  “Okay, give.  There’s got to be a story here.”

Tennyo took only a small bite of her eggs and shook her head.  “Not here.  Not where we can be overheard.”

“In that case,” Nikki announced smugly, “it’s time for me to try out a little something I’ve been working on.”

Reaching behind her neck, the elven beauty unfastened a silvery necklace.  She pulled it out from where it nestled in her cleavage, and hung the chain over the condiment rack in the center of the table.

“You finally done?” Toni chided.  “You’ve only been working on it for the whole vacation.”

“What is it?”

“Where’d you get the amethyst?”

Nikki reached forward a single finger and touched the stone.  “Tyranefthiél.”  As she spoke the word, the amethyst stone turned ruby red.  Nikki spoke innocuously, spewing mindless chatter like, “I swear, if I get any more homework this week I’m going to throw an absolute fit!”  But she reached forward and took each of them by the hand.  As she forced each person to touch the stone, it turned from ruby red to emerald green.  And suddenly, Nikki wasn’t speaking mindless chatter any more.

“There, now that everyone has been linked, we can talk.”

Sara beamed.  “And everyone outside will hear only that pointless and inane chatter.”

“Exactly,” Nikki confirmed.  “It was Peeper and Greasy that drove me to it.  Do you know how many times they’ve tried to spy on me?  Anyway, this prevents eavesdropping.  All eavesdropping.”

Jade had been hanging around with too many devisors.  “Wait a minute, what about little microscopic microphones, or recorders?  And I’ve heard about this guy that created a telephoto lip reader—”

“All eavesdroppers,” Nikki insisted.  “The crystal detects the movements of our lips, the vibration of our voices, the wave function of our thoughts.  And through the principle of similarity, it then destroys them – everywhere.  Spatial distance doesn’t really come into it.  The spell swaps those patterns with some fluff stuff that Bunny recorded for me, from Beret Mafia’s table.  The only exceptions are those of us who have been linked to the crystal.  So whether you’re just eavesdropping, or recording, or doing a mind-spy thing, or whatever, we’re immune.  Green means it’s working.”

Toni frowned.  “Are you sure about this?  I mean, I know magic is your thing and all, but—”

Sara stood up and yelled at the top of her lungs.  “I’m so horny that I’ll fuck the first person who asks me!”  Then she sat down again, as if nothing had happened.

After the girls recovered from their respective coughing fits, they realized that no one was even looking at them.  No one had noticed.  Well, aside from Erin, who was whispering furiously in Sara’s ear.

“Okay,” Toni conceded.  “That was pretty convincing.”

“I saw the spell,” Sara revealed.  “It was good.”  She turned to Tennyo.  “So give!  What’s the story?”

Jade grimaced.  “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” her roommate insisted.

“Uh… any of you guys heard anything about Faction Three?”

Sara nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“It’s like a GSD support group,” Nikki said.

“No, it’s Hawthorne’s social circle,” Toni insisted.

“It is the first movement of a revolution,” Chou said quietly.  “The beginning of a new society and a nation without geographic boundaries.”

Jade stared suspiciously at the other Asian.  “I’m going to have to find out where you get your information.”

“Simple observation.”

“Sometimes, you’re a little too inscrutable for someone who was born Caucasian.  Anyway, it was Thuban’s idea.  And it really starts with the BIT-slicer, and a sort of puppet-thing, and a show called Gargoyles….”

So she told them everything.  Well, nearly everything.  She only hit the highlights, and she left out any mention of Thuban’s invisible box.  When Billie had insisted that she tell the other girls, she’d literally begged Billie to keep that part secret.  Her roommate was still upset with her, but relented.

“One moment,” Chou interrupted at the end.  “If you traveled back down the ‘tunnel’ to your real body, how do you know what the witch said after you left?”

“Well…” Jade didn’t want to reveal anything about the box, but an incomplete truth would be enough here.  “I sent along a spy.  I do that sometimes.”  She touched a grain of salt on the table.  It rose up and hovered.  “When I’m like this, I call myself Jamie the SpySpeck.”

“Jamie?”

“You know, like Jamie Bond, girl spy?”

A moment later the grain of salt dropped back to the table.

“Oh!” Jade announced, “I couldn’t hear us!  I mean, as a SpySpeck, it sounded like we were all discussing which hairdos go with which outfits.  Sara, you were wondering if wearing hot pants might make some of the boys notice you.”

“Okay, maybe the spell needs some work,” Nikki admitted.

“Perhaps,” Sara agreed.

“Girls!” Toni called.  “Let’s not stray from the topic!  Jade, I hope you realize how completely and utterly idiotic that was!”

Jade cringed.

“You voluntarily walked into a spell that Hekate was casting?” Nikki asked in disbelief.  “Do you have any idea— any concept of how mind-bendingly dangerous it is to let someone cast unknown magic on you?  Someone – Sara!  Give me a worst-case scenario here!”

The demon princess moved a now-empty cage to place it behind her chair.  “Worst case?  It’s not just an eternity of torture.  And I do mean eternity.  No, the worst case it being twisted and manipulated until you break, betray all your friends, destroy everything you cherish or believe in, and then suffer an eternity of torture.  But that’s not too likely.  Much more likely is that the amateur mage will simply bumble things.  Such as, say… Bloodworm.  Remember him?”

Jade hadn’t forgotten the hell pit, the demon summoning, or being hit in the chest with a lightning bolt.  She also remember Bloodworm’s slip, just before he fell down the bottomless pit to places that she never wanted to know about.  Wisely, she kept silent, and kept her eyes properly downcast.

“It might not be so bad, though,” Nikki admitted.  “Heck, it sounds like you didn’t sign anything or agree to much, so Hekate probably hasn’t linked your soul to any contracts.  Probably not.  And if you’re right about what she intended to do with your body, she probably didn’t bother linking any curses or jinxes to you.”

“Okay, okay!  I get it!” Jade finally yelled.

“I just don’t want you to make this mistake again,” Sara insisted.  “And I’m hoping that everyone else is going to remember the danger.  The same threat applies to almost all of us.”

“Almost?” Toni asked.

“Well,” Sara said, “I’m in kind of a special situation here.  I almost feel sorry for the idiot that tries to take magical advantage of me.  I think we’ve already mentioned Bloodworm.”

“And while I’m not a super-powerful elder god like some of us,” Nikki put a heaping spoonful of sarcasm in the phrase, “I do know enough to protect myself.  I’m not going to muff it by accident, at least.  I admit that Nex got the drop on me.  Any of us,” she glanced sideways at Sara, “almost any of us, can be ambushed, but I won’t go down without a fight.”

Sara stretched, too casually, and asked, “So, Jade, have you seen any side-effects from last night’s spell.”

Billie fielded that one.  “I’ve seen the ‘puppet’ that Thuban made for her to animate.  The pervert!”

 

Jade had left Lazuli’s clothes on the floor of the summoning room, so when she finally showed Lazuli to her roommate, the gargoyle was unclothed.

“And here’s the weird thing,” Billie continued, “Jade can’t charge into it any more.  She can’t get into it at all.  And you know how she does the chalk-form?  She did me, on Monday or Tuesday?  Well, she used to be able to do a gargoyle (at least, so she claims), but now that’s gone.  She can’t even come close to that shape.”

“That’s what magic does,” Sara said.  “It rewrites the rules of the universe.  It’s in a limited way, of course.  In this case, maybe for you only.  But you don’t want to mess with something like that on a casual basis.  Other things like psi powers or even Beltane’s ectoplasm are tons safer.”

“I guess that explains it,” Jade said glumly.  “I think I got some stuff from Tool in the swap.  Doing a gargoyle is just flat-out impossible for me now, no matter how I try.  And it doesn’t make any sense!  I should be able to at least possess it, in object mode.”

Nikki shook her head.  “Magic doesn’t have to make sense.  At least, not normal, conventional sense.”

“But I gained stuff, too.  I’m just not sure that it’s good.  I mean, I can shift really fast.  Well, Jinn can shift.  I’ve got a ton more speed, and coordination, too.  It’s like I’ve partially integrated everything I used to do in object mode.  But… I’ve got a little bit of Tool’s problem.  If I don’t concentrate on stuff, I sometimes start to melt.  It’s not when I’m cast into something, like a toy.  I’m fine, then.  But a pure chalk figure – if my concentration lapses, I sometimes start to change without realizing it.”

“I’ve got a book that can help,” Sara offered.  “Have you seen, ‘Staying in Shape, Exercises for Shapeshifters’?”

Jade shook her head.

“I’ll loan it to you.  And if you know any kind of meditation, visualization, or self-hypnosis, that can help, too.”

“And,” Jade said this very reluctantly, “I’m a little more… I don’t know, tired.  Casting Jinn is harder.”

Sara reached out.  “Let me have your hand.”

Reluctantly, Jade placed her hand in Sara’s.

The demon princess felt and judged for a moment.  “Yeah, I think you’ve lost just a little of your soul.  Probably from that fight with that Class Two.”

Jade was horrified.  “My… soul?”

Sara’s response was blasé.  “Yeah, it happens.  It’s actually a lot more complicated than I have time to explain.  There’s the true-soul, what the Egyptians called the ba, and the life-spirit-energy part, which they called the ka.  Hard to tell what you lost.  You can lose some of the ba without really taking serious damage.  It’s holographic, only more so.  And the ka—”

“Any relation to ki?” Toni asked.

“Wouldn’t be surprised.  Adepts can harness the energy of the ka and deliberately use it, or project it, or cast powerful magic with it.  It regenerates fairly quickly.”

Jade was shivering.  “My soul?”

“Keep on the lookout for the next few days,” Nikki advised.  “In case there are other side effects.  It may be too late to stop them, but you still want to know what they are.”

---

On the way back to the cottage, everyone deliberately kept themselves from discussing the upheavals in Jade’s life.  Instead, they all wanted to know about Nikki’s anti-eavesdropping  spell.  Jade hung back with her roommate.

“You made a deal,” Tennyo reminded her.  “You’re going to have to tell Thuban that you can’t be his cartoon puppet any more.”

Jade squirmed, but counterattacked.  “You sure you aren’t down on him because he has a think for cute cartoon girls?  I mean, I can’t imagine who else might fall into that camp.”

“That’s different!”  Tennyo growled.  “I – I was no worse than someone who has a poster of a rock idol or movie star.  He’s going a bit too far, don’t you think?”

Jade shrugged.  “Do I have to tell him?  He’s not going to be happy.”

Her roommate was firm.  “Yeah.  You gotta.”

“Okay, but maybe a little later, okay?  I want to ask Nikki about the magic fight and Jinn.”

“Hmmm.  Well don’t wait too long.  You need to tell him today.”

---

Nikki had the shades drawn, and her crystal going again (she was wearing it as a pendant, this time).  “Okay, so let’s see you now.”

Jade took her pouch of white chalk dust and charged Jinn into it.  In the classic “I Dream of Jeanie” effect, Jinn puffed out of the bag and coalesced into naked human form.  She looked the same as she had the week before – a seventeen-year-old copy of Jinn, albeit with chalk-white skin and coal-black hair, pupils, lipstick, and nails.

“I don’t remember the black lipstick and nails,” Nikki said.

“Goth lessons, from Sara.”

“Oh, right.”

While they’d been talking, Jinn reached for the table to grab a pencil, but before she could finish, her first two fingers morphed into a pencil with a hard graphite tip.

“See?”  Jinn said.  “It’s sort of compressed coal dust, so I can even write with it.  What I have to concentrate on is keeping my hand normal, and just picking up a pencil.”

“So let’s see how you fought this magic creature thing.”

Jade pulled out a small red pouch.  “This is dust from some kind of red metal they were shaping, down with the metal lathes.”  She charged that up, and Jann came out, then formed into the twisty-string trident shape.  “This is what the thing looked like, to my own type of vision.”

While Nikki watched and commented, Jade directed Jinn and Jann into recreating the battle and activities.  “There are a couple of bits here where she should look like a gargoyle, with a tail and wings.  But I can’t do that anymore.  Can’t even do anything close, like a devil-girl.”

“Interesting,” the elf said, gesturing at the intertwining shapes.  “This isn’t the way I see magic at all, although some parts are similar.  For example, I see threads sometimes, while you—”  She suddenly went silent.

“What?”

“Holy CRAP!  Did you feel that?”  The elf’s violet eyes were even wider than usual.  “Just like a sound that’s too high pitched, where you can’t tell where it’s coming from.  Man that’s powerful!  And now it’s fading… into something subtle, but too small to hear.  Gone.”

Jann stopped and asked, “Could it have anything to do with my recreating the shapes and patterns of the thing from last night?”

“No, I don’t see how.  Let me feel that metal you’re using.”  Obligingly, Jann drifted closer, allowing Nikki to rub a pinch of her dusty red body.  “No, it doesn’t seem to have any special magical potential.  And it isn’t iron, thank goodness.”

They spent a couple more minutes analyzing the strange Class Two entity, and the magic that Hekate had cast.  There was useful information there, but figuring out what to do with it was a challenge.  Somehow, without words, they both decided that they’d had enough for now.  Jinn and Jann both sifted back into their respective pouches, and Nikki got up to stretch.  Even Jade was feeling a little tired, which was unusual considering that both spirits had just returned to her.

“I’ll think on it,” Nikki promised, “and see what I can figure out.  I wouldn’t mind learning a bit more about Hekate, anyway.  Forewarned and forearmed, you know?”

Jade nodded, wondering what seemed to be off all of a sudden.

“You know, it’s odd,” Nikki commented.  “Since you got Tennyo’s body, I figured you’d be a little taller than me, like Tennyo is.  But you’re really closer to my height, aren’t you?”

“No.”  Jade was confused.  “Tennyo and I are exactly the same height.”  But if that was true, why was she looking straight across at Nikki’s eyes?

In a moment of dark and terrible realization, she understood why things had seemed off a moment ago.  It was because her breasts had shifted as she stretched, because her bra had loosened up.  But she was still borrowing one of Billie’s bras, and although her oneesan complained about them, they were perfectly adjusted.  In fact, since she and her oneesan had identical figures, the bra was perfectly adjusted for both of them.  So either the bra had somehow loosened, or else … she couldn’t bring herself to complete the thought.

Her face turned ashen gray, and she mumbled her departure to Nikki.  “Got to go.  Thanks.”  And she rushed out, without even waiting for an acknowledgement.

She rushed across the hall to her room, but Billie wasn’t there.  Jade was riding the edge of panic, unsure where to go or what to do.  Hekate!  Maybe Tool.  Were the devisors there?  Could they give her another dose on the BIT-slicer?  She rushed down the hall, down the steps, and out of the cottage, still jumbled about what she should do.

Find Billie?  Or Thuban!  Maybe he can…?

She had enough presence of mind to cast Jann out, to help her think.  Jann scared, too, but more rational.  They both quickly agreed that seeing Hekate, or asking her for help, was a stupid idea.  Instead, she broke into a run and headed for Shuster Hall and the entrance to the Underground, where she could check the devisor lab of the BIT-slicer.

---

Nikki had the door open when Toni got back.  “You finished up with Jade?”

“Yeah.  I got distracted.  Someone cast something very nasty, and I’m trying to pin down details, based on what I felt.”

“Right.  More Crystal Wave folks?”

Nikki shook her head.  “No, this wasn’t directed at me, I’m pretty sure.  It was huge.  I mean, huge like the ocean.  And – how can I describe it?  It was like a gong, sort of, signaling ‘IT BEGINS.’  And then the ocean started moving.  The sound and feel faded away, but it wasn’t gone, it was just starting.  And then you look down at your feet and notice the water is rising.”

“Thanks for the New Orleans image,” Toni commented dryly.  “Could it have been one of the other wizards in the cottage?  Beltane?  And how come with all of those magic types in our cottage, it’s always you and Sara consulting together?”

Nikki shrugged fetchingly, and a spaghetti strap from her top fell down over a shoulder as she did so.  “Well, Sara and I got a kind of … connection … you know?”

Toni snickered.  “Blood sisters.”

“Well, yeah.”  Nikki pulled the strap back in place.  “Jeez, remember back when we dreamed of going out with girls that were maybe a tenth as sexy as any of the girls in this cottage?  Was it all that long ago?”

“Yeah, and now we IS them,” Toni said, making a goofy face.  “Remember, my own dreams might have been a teeny touch different from yours.”

“I still find it hard to work with Sara, sometimes.  She’s like every dream you had come boiling up at once.  But she’s got a perspective I can’t get anywhere else, especially not from Sir Wallace.  That’s all modern.  Most everyone around here teaches modern magic.  Some of it might be a thousand years old, but from Aungdhadhail’s perspective, it’s all ‘new stuff.’  And don’t get me wrong, there have been some really great unifying principles and simplifications that have been discovered, but for real rattle-your-teeth power, or for just grabbing the elements and forcing them to do your will, sometimes the old stuff is best.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment.  Then, “That’s what I felt!”

“What?  Sara grabbing your elements?”

“No, be serious.  It was old magic.  Powerful and unstoppable, then fading to subtle and indetectable.”

Toni flopped down on her bed.  “So will Sara be tearing up here any minute?  If your idea is correct, she should have felt it too, right?”

Nikki shook her head.  “Not if she was in her room.  The shielding protects all of us from feeling the magic she does when her door’s closed.  Likewise, it would have prevented her from feeling this.  Besides, this spell was tight.  I wouldn’t have felt it if I hadn’t been close.”

Toni nodded.  “So are you positive it wasn’t another magical attack on you?”

“No, it didn’t even touch me, it—”

They both realized it at the same time.

“Jade!”

Despite her position laying down on the bed, Toni made it to the door first.  She was across the hall and pounding on the door to room 202.  With no reply, she yanked the door open, but the room was empty.

55: Any price

Whateley Academy, The “Underground”

November 25, Saturday morning, 10:32 AM

Jade stumbled out of the devisors’ lab.  Knick-knack’s diagnostic sequence has been quite emphatic.

“Your physical pattern was always up in a higher energy band,” he told her.  “We still don’t know why.  But it’s moved even higher.  Frankly, this shouldn’t be possible – I’ve never seen anyone with readings like these.  But none of this equipment could even make a dent in your pattern now, not even if we used the full output of the reactor.  Even if we could pour that much power into you, it would burn you up like a Christmas tree with hot lights.”

Which meant that the BIT-slicer was useless to her.

Already, she knew she’d lost several inches.  Her bra, her underwear, all her clothes were loose.  It was an outfit she’d borrowed from Billie, and she no longer shared Billie’s figure.

Even Jann, in her head, couldn’t think of any suggestions.  Almost blindly, she stumbled out of the lab, staggering through the maze of tunnels in the Underground.

Was it because of the spell last night?  The demon had been there to steal her body, hadn’t he?  Had he, somehow, affected not only Jinn, but Jade’s physical body, as well?  In which case, the question was, would she revert to her hated male body, or would she just dissolve away completely?

At the moment, it didn’t seem to matter much.  Either one felt just as bad.  At least if she was dead she’d be done with this soul-wrenching despair.

There had to be something she could do!

She passed the entrance to the Devisor Labs and paused for a moment.  Should she throw herself in front of one of the cars?  Have one of the robots step on her?  But she shook her head.  Was she that much of a coward?  She refused to kill herself so callously and pointlessly.

She walked on, and then came to a sudden stop.

She wouldn’t kill herself on purpose, but on the other hand, what was she willing to risk to stop this from happening?

Hurrying back, she tried to open the Alien Autopsy door.  It was locked, but the lock was a collection of rather ordinary items.  There was a pin-tumbler lock, as well as a set of solenoid pins controlled by a palm plate.  Charging Jinn into the door made quick work of all of those mechanisms, and the door swung open.

Inside was exactly what you’d expect from the sign outside.  A lab table with binding straps, shiny tile on walls and floor, bright medical-grade lights overhead, and a collection of empty sample bottles.  But there was no other equipment.

She felt herself changing even more.  There was a yank in her lower abdomen, like someone pulling a cable that attached deep in her gut.  First was a pull on the left side, then on her right.  The pain doubled her over.

A sudden, intently painful spike struck her in the crotch.  It felt like someone had grabbed her down there with a set of pliers and pulled hard.  A moment later, there was a bulge, where girls shouldn’t bulge.

Her ovaries had dropped, and they were probably turning into testicles this very second.  Soon they’d be pumping her full of hated male hormones and then she’d begin to make the final changes back.  Testosterone poisoning, indeed.  She remembered Hank describing it, so long ago.  “It just felt so right.”  But this didn’t feel right.  It was everything wrong in the world.  She was turning back into a boy, and she didn’t want to.  She’d do anything to prevent it.  A half-hysterical laugh escaped her lips as she remembered the girls in the hot tub, and their tale of the demonic, haunted penis.

I can’t escape it, can I? she thought wildly.  Just like the story – “filled with the male power”.

There was the germ of an idea there.  Could that be it?  The male organs, and the male power?  She didn’t mind male organs, she just didn’t want them growing out of her body!  Could she release that power to go free, like the haunted penis?  What was it that Lily had said, the week before?

“They cut away the icky male parts … some sort of surgery.  Only, Mom’s afraid the guy parts might start growing back.”

But they hadn’t.  Lily was a beautiful girl – slim and feminine and so incredibly cute.  She might not have Billie’s figure, but she was every inch a beautiful and perfect girl.  The hot tub had made that obvious.  Lily had a problem, but they’d fixed it.  Fixed it forever!

“They cut it off once.  They can do it again.”

It was absolutely insane.  But her mind was so terrified and so desperate that at the moment, it was the only thing that seemed to make sense.  The only hope she had.

There were no instruments in the autopsy room, but just around was the small mechanics bay.  With the flick of a switch, the small furnace turned on and began heating.  She grabbed the small crucible, and filled it with scrap steel.  She didn’t have any molds, but she didn’t need them.  As the metal turned red, then molten, then liquefied in the ceramic crucible, Jade cast Jinn into the entire small oven.

She stepped back as the oven flicked itself off, and the door opened.  The crucible floated out, then set itself on the bench.  For a moment, the glowing red molten metal swirled, then bubbled, then lifted out of the small cup.  It hung in mid-air for a moment, a molten red sphere, before separating into two, three, then four pieces, and each piece quickly assumed the shape of a different knife.

Jade felt a small bolt of triumph through her despair.  If Tool could do it, then by God, I can do it too!

She ran lukewarm water into the quenching barrel, and the still-molten knives flashed down into the water, which turned to steam almost instantly.  It was the crudest of temperings, and she’d never make a real knife this way.  But it would suit her purposes now.

Followed by a levitating collection of brand-new razor sharp knives, she strode purposely back to the autopsy lab.

All she needed was just a little bit of time, and some determination.  The testicles would go.  There would be no boy hormones in her body!  She’d get rid of every bit of boy flesh that tried to grow back.  She wouldn’t give up this body without a fight!

---

Sara and Erin had joined the other two girls, and the more they talked, the more worried they became.

They’d barely come upstairs when Erin frowned behind her sunglasses.  She dropped to the floor, her clothes seeming to melt into the rough gray fur of a timber wolf.  She barely set nose to floor before rising again in human form.

“What’s wrong with you people?  Come on!”

“You’re sure it’s Jade?” Nikki asked.  “You’ll be able to follow her trail?”

“Follow it?”  Erin shook her head.  “The reek of terror is so strong I won’t be able to avoid it!”

She toppled forward again, hitting the floor with paws.  The wolf lowered her nose and headed for the stairs at a lope.

With a brief look at one another, the other three girls followed after her.

“Useful girl,” Toni mentioned.

“Yeah,” Sara agreed smugly.  “And she’s an animal in the sack!”

---

She quickly pulled off Billie’s clothes.  She never wanted to ruin her roommate’s clothes.  Naked, the changes were obvious.  Her labia was grotesquely swollen, bulging inside with the small lumps that had once been ovaries, and were now becoming testicles.  At the front of her cleft, a penis was bulging out, already an inch long.  The transformation wasn’t done yet, but it was in progress.  She hoped there was still time.

She set the knives down and charged a pair of latex gloves.  They helped to strap her onto the table.  Jinn brought her two more pair of gloves, and she cast Jinn into all six gloves.  Before, she might have had trouble coordinating six hands at once.  Now it seemed easy.  She triple charged them – that should make Jinn strong enough.  With three spirits gone, she was glad she was already lying down.  She felt the gloves grabbing her around the arms, legs, head, and waist, reinforcing the grip of the straps.  One glove lifted the four knives, and laid them on her naked belly.  With the last bit of her strength, she put a charge back into the knives.

That was enough to knock her out.  She never saw the knives lift up and move down toward one of the most sensitive areas of her body.

---

They ran into Tennyo on the edge of campus.  The floating girl had been rushing back anyway, and it only took a moment to her up to speed.

“But what’s this spell doing to her?” Tennyo demanded.

“We can’t be sure,” Nikki cautioned.

“But think,” Toni said.  “She was terrified.  What would she fear more than anything else?”

“Changing back?” Tennyo said, with mounting alarm.

Ahead of them, Erin entered Shuster, then turned back into girl-shape, pressing an elevator button.

“She took the elevator!”

The crowd piled into the open elevator.  Once it dropped to the Underground, Erin was off again like a shot, racing into and through the maze of tunnels.  Several turns later, she paused, shifting back into girl-shape.

“The trail splits – left and right.  I can’t tell which is more recent.”

Tennyo’s eyes swung to look at both destinations.  “Right!” she yelled, with total conviction.

Erin shifted back, and they raced on, passing several devisor labs, until they arrived at a door labeled, “Alien Autopsy Lab.”

Tennyo banged on the door, but there was no knob, only a palm plate and a key lock.

“Jade!  I know you’re in there!  Answer me!”

For a moment, there was no response, then a quiet voice could be heard through the door.  “I hear you, oneesan.  I’ll be done in just a minute.”

Erin shifted back.  “I smell blood!  Lots of blood!”

“No…”  Sara’s tone was regretful.

“Jade!” Tennyo shouted, hammering with her fists.  “Open this door RIGHT NOW!”  The door was showing dents now.

Abruptly, the door slid open.  On the other side was nothing but a set of six gloves, liberally coated with blood.

“I’m done now,” came Jade’s voice from the gloves.  “You can come in.”

Sara entered first, having seen things far more horrible in her brief span.  For her, it was not a scene of fear, but of regret.

Tennyo was an instant behind her, sliding through the air toward the table that was now caked with blood and small bits of flesh.

Erin moved in as well.  Since her change, she’d taken many forms, but they were all predators.  She felt some sorrow and regret – she had known the girl.  The fact that the place also smelled like food was a dirty little secret that she would only reveal to Sara.

Toni and Nikki came in last, unconsciously holding hands in mutual emotional support.

Jade’s body was still strapped down on the table.  Poised over her in silent contemplation was a set of four bloody knives, ranging from small scalpel-sized instruments to larger filleting and boning knives.  Below them, the girl’s legs were spread wide, and her crotch was a bloody ruin.  There was nothing feminine about it, only a hideous wound that stretch from anus and halfway up to her belly button.

The girl’s eyes were closed, but blood still welled out from her mouth to spatter onto the table.  Between her mouth and the much larger wound at her crotch, enough blood had come out to cover the table and splatter over much of the floor.

“I had to do it,” the gloves explained.  “I had to cut away all the boy parts.  They kept trying to grow back.”

Nikki gave a sob and fell to her knees, ruining the expensive fabric of her slacks as they soaked in the blood.

Toni just stood there in shock, unable to comprehend it.

Tennyo stared, breathing deeper and faster, beginning to hyperventilate.  Her hands began to glow with a crimson radiance that flickers around her like St. Elmo’s Fire.  “Everyone … get out!”  She said, in a voice that trembled with fury.

Sara took one quick step forward and slapped Tennyo across the face, hard.  “Stop it!”

Tennyo turned toward Sara, and as her eyes also took on the same crimson glow as her hands, her face blossomed in a cruel and inhuman smile.  She drew a hand back in preparation for the combat to come.  A creature with antimatter blood stared at the only elder god currently resident on the planet, and there was a moment of anticipation before beginning a battle which might destroy a school, a state, or an entire continent.

“If you do that,” Sara said calmly, “you’ll kill Jade.”

The shock of the statement snuffed the witchfire around Tennyo’s body as easily as a candle is blown out.  The fury vanished and Billie looked out at them, confused and lost.  “What?”

Sara pointed at Jade.  “Even if you can’t feel her, look!  There’s a pulse in her neck.  The wound – it’s healing.”

The girls crowded forward to see for themselves, ignoring the fact that they’d been on the brink of annihilation a moment before.

“From the way it spurts,” Nikki said, clutching her stomach, “you can tell she’s still got some blood in her.”

 

“And a heartbeat,” Toni observed.  “And – it’s happening just fast enough that you can see a change.  Look, the blood vessels are closing off.  Sara’s right!  Those muscles are regrowing!”

Before them, the knives moved.  Gloves floated in to grasp the girl again. 

“I didn’t get all the boy out,” the gloves said.  “I need to finish!”

“NO!” Billie shouted.  “Don’t you dare!  No more cutting yourself, do you hear!  We’ve got to get you to the hospital!”

“Someone give me a clean cloth,” Sara demanded.  “We need pressure on the wound.  Where’s a phone?  We need to call medical.”

“I’ll fly her there!” Billie said, leaving no room for doubt.  “Get that door open!  Move it!”

56: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?

Whateley Academy, Crystal Hall cafeteria

November 25, 12:20 PM

Lunch was almost over by the time the quintet had showered and changed and finally stumbled out for lunch.  Those who would have normally stopped by to wish the girls well or perhaps try their luck with Nikki or Sara, steered away as soon as they saw the grim expressions on the girls’ faces.

They sat, arranged their trays, and Nikki set out her crystal pendant before anyone even tried to speak about it.

“So… she’s stable?” Erin asked tentatively.

“Stable?” Billie had a powerful edge of anger, even now.  “Hell, she’s on her way toward being fully healed.  The doc said they’d be discharging her this afternoon, if she progressed at her current rate.”

“Did she ever wake up?” Erin asked quietly.

“Turns out that was just because she’d cast all of her charges off,” Billie explained.  “She can charge up three versions of Jinn – she had some whacky naming scheme that I don’t really try to follow – three copies and she’s pretty woozy on her feet.  Four copies and she passes out.  That’s the way she goes to sleep almost every night, and I get to go to sleep with a whole herd of her rummaging around the room!”

“You should tell her, if it bugs you so much,” Sara said, quietly.  She took a sip of some herb tea.  She didn’t need it for nutrition, but sometimes liked it for flavor.

“It doesn’t bother me!” Billie yelled.  “What’s your problem?!”

Toni reached an arm around the shorter girl and gave her a comforting squeeze.  “Is she going to be okay?  For real?”

Billie sniffed, and stared at her plate of food.  “Yeah,” she finally admitted.  “No physical damage at all, it looks like.  ‘Perfect regeneration.’  They’re debating the classification, but it looks like reg-4.”  She sniffed.  “She got that from me, you know.  She wasn’t like that before the BIT-slicer.  At least she got something from the whole mess.”

“So she’s… back to normal?” Nikki asked delicately.

“Four-foot-nine, eighty-three pounds, cute little girl with something to hide,” Billie confirmed.  “God, I yelled at her so bad.  She probably hates me now.”

“Oh, sure,” Toni drawled out.  “Like that’s going to happen.”

“She made me feel like I’d given her the most special, precious gift.”  Billie seemed to lose her voice for a second.  “And then it got taken away.  Just stolen from her.”

Something cleared in Toni’s face, as she moved past sorrow and into problem solving mode.  “So, it was magic.  Are you sure about that, Nikki?  And was it the demon fight last night, or has this been part of her problem all along?”

“Jade said it was the spell from last night,” Billie said.  “That was supposed to ‘steal her body’ and it did, didn’t it?”

Nikki snorted, showing a first trace of her normal self.  “Pardon me, but what Jade knows about magic could fill a thimble, but only halfway.  The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that what I felt today was connected to Jade.  And if Hekate cast that, then God help us all.”

“It might have been a summoning,” Sara mentioned.  “Any idiot can manage that, if they’re willing to provide the proper price.”

“Well this felt real old,” Nikki insisted.  “Like… Five Fold Court, old.”

“Some mystic thing?” Toni asked.

“I … I’m fuzzy on the details.  It’s an Aunghadhail thing.  Like from back when she was alive.”

“Correct,” Sara confirmed.  “The court banished my kind from this world, then fell in turn to the fallout from that war.  And there are definitely survivors from that era.  For example, Fey here.  And you all know Molly, Chou’s girlfriend.”

Erin almost choked.  “She’s from this Five-fold Court thing?”

Sara shrugged.  “It’s hard to tell for certain.  Have you seen the shadowcat she summons?  Sixteen feet long, about a half ton, winged, night-black, goes by the name Rythax, and is a surprisingly good conversationalist?”

“Hmmm.”  Erin had an intrigued look.  “I’d like to meet him.”

“I only saw it once,” Toni admitted.  “I was hoping that was a bad dream.”

Tennyo rolled her eyes.  “And you hang out with this thing, shooting the breeze?  Why am I not surprised?”

Sara sipped her tea again.  “Yes, well, Rythax is definitely a member of the Five-Fold Court.  He seems reluctant to admit that the court has lapsed, but considers such a situation strictly temporary and to be remedied as soon as possible.  All this despite the fact that the Court was dead and buried so long ago that not even the elves remember the legends of it.  And if Rythax survived…”

“Other things may have, as well,” Nikki completed.

“What about the Old Ones,” Tennyo asked, ominously.

“Please,” Nikki begged.  “Let’s not go there.  Especially in this place, or anywhere near Dunwich or where the Miskatonic flows.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a question of whether the Old Ones or their trappings surviving,” Sara informed them.  “Time doesn’t affect them.  But as I just said, the Old Ones, their servants and possessions were sealed away during the time of the Court.  Of course, there are always leftovers and loopholes.  I probably count as a ‘loophole.’  And Dunwich and this area are pretty heavy in other leftovers.  But it’s best not to go borrowing trouble when we don’t need to.”

“How do you know all this?” Tennyo asked, suspiciously.

Sara pointed at Nikki.  “I had cause to do some research on my blood relation over there.  Daddy was kind enough to provide some history books and even a couple of novels.”

“The Old Ones wrote novels?” Toni boggled at the idea.

Sara smiled.  “I doubt you’d appreciate them.  Even if you learned the language and the writing didn’t drive you insane, they’re … well, they’re for a select audience.”

“Uh huh.”

Tennyo finally noticed there was food in front of her, and began to eat.  Slowly at first, then with increasing speed.  “Look,” she said around a mouthful, “love the ancient history lesson, really, but can we get back to Jade?”

Nikki nodded.  “I think step one is to confirm whether or not there really is a spell on her.  If so, then if it feels anything like what I felt, I’m sure that’s the answer.  At that point, the genuine work begins.  What is the spell?  Who cast it, and why?  What powers it?  What does it do?  Is it a curse, compulsion, geas, or even a blessing?  Or is it something stranger?  Breaking it might be as simple as finding conditions for her to fulfill.”  She considered.  “I might be able to tie this into some of my class work.  I’ll have to talk to Sir Wallace….”

“I never felt it in my earlier research,” Sara said, “so if it’s real, it’s very subtle.  But with these clues, I should be able to look closer.”

“So what do I tell Jade?” Billie wondered.

“Tell her enough to give her some vague hope,” Toni pronounced, “but not enough to be specific.  Don’t give her anything that’s going to push her over the edge again, if it doesn’t pan out.  What the hell is wrong with her?  I knew she wanted to be a girl, but that was WAY over the top, wasn’t it?”

“Weren’t you listening, at the Day of Remembrance talk?” Erin said.  “The girls who committed suicide because they couldn’t live with themselves?”

“Yeah, but… Jade?”

“She wants it bad,” Billie admitted.

Nikki looked down at herself, as if truly seeing her clothes, her body, for the first time in months.  “We’ve all been through a change in gender,” she realized.  “I never wanted to be a girl.  I never asked for it, but now that I am one, I guess I’m adapting.  I even … I like it, you know?  I guess I figured that everyone was adapting.”

“I guess I’m different from the rest of you,” Toni observed.  “I actually wanted this.  But we need to know if anyone’s having trouble adapting, hear?  Any trouble at all.  Talk to me, or talk to someone.”  She stared hard at Erin, while she said it.

The girl smiled behind her sunglasses.  “Yeah, it still weirds me out.  But I’m enjoying the compensations.”  She rubbed her cheek against Sara’s arm.

---

When they finally let her go at four PM, Jade had been healed for about an hour.  She’d sent Shroud out along with two other sets of herself to clean up the autopsy lab.  The fourth spirit she’d left on guard in her own room.  It was easier to heal when you were passed out and unaware of the pain.  Her mouth had hurt almost more than the damage between her legs.  She’d bitten the first half-inch of her tongue clean off.  She might have been unconscious at the time, but she’s still reacted.  She even remembered that part, sort of.  She’d woken up choking on a mouthful of blood.

She’d never seen Billie so angry.  It almost made her feel worse than what had pushed her into this mess.  She needed to apologize to her roommate as soon as possible.  Which reminded her that she still needed to bring Thuban up to date, and apologize to him.  And she should probably apologize to Nikki and Toni and Sara and Erin, for the scare she’d given them.

She thought that healing sure built up an appetite.  She felt like she could compete with Billie tonight, during dinner.

The thought was like a dagger in her heart.  Billie had been so very angry.  Jade was half expecting that Billie would let her in long enough to pack, then send her walking.  And if that happened…  She didn’t know what she’d do.  Billie had told her in no uncertain terms that she was NEVER to hurt herself like that again.  And even if Billie kicked her out, she wouldn’t resist her oneesan.

The way she saw it, Billie was the only family she had left.  Her mother had died years ago.  Her father was alive, but Jade never wanted to see him again.  She had no brothers or sisters.  But she did have an oneesan.  Not by birth perhaps, but by choice.  By generosity and gift and exchange and caring.  For a while, she’d been actually genetically related, if she understood the way the BIT-slicer worked.  Since she still seemed to have the regeneration, maybe she kept a little bit of Billie’s genes.  If so, then it was a gift to treasure, even if it had caused a few undesirable features to grow back.

She trudged up the hill to Melville and then Poe, after that.  Soon enough, she’d be facing the music.  She tried to keep her lip from shaking and her eyes from watering.  She’d be a boy, if only Billie wouldn’t be mad at her.

The time passed faster than she wanted, and before she knew it she was walking up the old wooden staircase, and walking past Boy’s Town toward her room at the far end.  It felt like walking to an execution, and it was all she could do to hold back the tears.

She couldn’t just open the door, even though it used to be her room.  She knocked.  And when Billie opened the door the girl just stood there staring at her, her face a mixture of anger and sorrow and too many other emotions for Jade to understand.  Her resolve melted away and she flung her arms around her oneesan, sobbing and begging her, “Please don’t throw me out!  Please don’t make me leave!  I promise I won’t do it again, but don’t make me leave!”

Billie’s arms wrapped around her and the other girl said, “Throw you out?  What are you talking about?  I wouldn’t through you out.  What made you think that?”

And then everything was okay again.  Jade held her roommate, sobbing and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again.

And Billie held her, the way a perfect older sisters always does.  The sisters who are taller and smarter and prettier, but they’re always there to listen to you and protect you, and talk to you about sisterly secrets as you grow up.  And that’s the way that Billie held her right then.  So although Jade was crying, and everyone in the entire hall was staring at her like she was a freak, all was right with the world as Billie held her.

---

With three plates of chicken casserole inside her, Jade was definitely feeling a bit bloated.  She hadn’t come close to matching Billie’s consumption, but as dinner came to an end things were beginning to feel like they might go back to normal.  Nikki and Toni and Erin all looked at her a bit cautiously.  Sara seemed fine with everything.  Jade had probed her about it, but the Goth princess had replied.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’ve seen people who were really messed up in the head, and you don’t even come close.”

The comment, oddly enough, made her feel better.  Maybe because everyone stopped giving her looks, to focus their outrage back on Sara.  That was the way things were supposed to be, so it was okay.

She’d dressed in a long sleeve turtleneck and an ankle-length skirt, to protect against the cold weather.  It was one of her favorite outfits, but it wasn’t working its magic today.  No matter what she did, she felt like a boy dressing up in skirts.  She fussed with her hair a bit, and put on a touch of light pink lip gloss, but the illusion still wasn’t working for her.

After facing down Billie, she thought Thuban would be a piece of cake.  She decided to take Shroud along for moral support, and to carry her home if she got too weak.  Between the food and the drain of healing, she was a bit woozy.  Shroud was dressed in the “empty cape” look, because she was having problems holding the shape on her face and limbs.  It was particularly noticeable when she used the chalk skin, but even with the plastic skin it sometimes looked like gophers were chasing each other around inside her body.  Shroud had a black leotard to hide her metal skeleton and other equipment, but the black leotard was silhouetted against a black cape, so no one noticed if it ballooned out a little.

The two of them (her and herself) headed across campus and made their way to Twain.

“Hey, it’s Ghost Girl and the kid.  You guys looking for Thuban again?”

Jade nodded.

“Hey, Carapace – visitors for Thuban.  I swear, first the redhead and now this.  Dude gets more girl action…”

The turtle-boy stepped out of the common room.  “Hi Jade, Shroud.”

“Hi, Dai,” she returned.

“Uh, the boss was looking a bit pissed.  You sure you want to see him now?”

She gulped and nodded.  “I’d better face the music.”

Again, the turtle-boy led them up to the regular rooms rather down into Thuban’s normal cavern.  Jade wondered if there was some difference on who got to meet the Dragon in his room, rather than at his throne.

Dai took a quick peek through the door, then waved Jade and Shroud in, before quickly closing the door behind them.  Thuban sat in his desk chair as if it were a throne, and regarded them coldly.

“Sso…” he hissed “you engaged in an absolutely idiotic adventure with Hekate, endangering my plan and the comittmentsss you previously made to me.  Is that what you’ve come to tell me?”

“You’ve already heard?”  She shook her head.  Of course he’d heard.  He was Thuban.  “Tool told you, didn’t she?”

“Tool is no more!  She insists that her daytime name is now Dominique Destine.”

Jade was puzzled, so Thuban explained.  “You haven’t sseen those episodes of the sseriess yet.  In the day, Demona transformss into an ordinary human and takess that name as an aliass.  At ssunset she transformss back into her true form of Demona.  That happened to Tool, and if it’s reversed at sunset, it would appear that the she now does the ssame, although apparently that’s the only shapechanging ability she still retainss.  That and an accelerated healing that happens during her shift.  She sseemed to think you had been killed.  So explain yourself.”

Jade told about their agreement, and the spell, then held out the invisible cigarette box.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t know why, but I’m unable to animate Lazuli.  That body is now one of the few things I can’t charge into.  Jinn is unable to take gargoyle shape at all, even in her powder form.  It’s like that shape is just forbidden to me now.  Of course, she’s having trouble maintaining her shape as well.  Not as bad as Tool used to be, but bad.”

She reached forward to hand the box to Thuban.  He made no move to take it, so she placed it on the desk.

“I thought you’d be happy,” she said.  “Someone in Faction Three has achieved their lifelong dream, you have another person in the group who will be pushing your ideals, and there’s now a real, live gargoyle there full time.”

“Then you thought wrong!” Thuban roared.  “The money and effort I sspent constructing Lazuli, my perfect creation – wasted, all of it!  My agent within the group has been replaced by another, who has her own goals and ambitions, believe me!  It’s possible that the change has unhinged Tool’s mind.  She sees my Faction Three as her clan, to be controlled and protected from humanity.  Half the time she thinkss she is Demona, and actss like it.  The other half the time she sspends telling me that even if she can’t be my ‘Angel of the Night’, we can ssstill join together to assume absolute control over Faction Three!  And you think I should be pleased?”

Jade deliberately kept a lid on her temper.  It sounded like he was mad because Tool was threatening to run for club president against him.  Admittedly, Tool was sounding a bit megalomaniacal, but that was fairly common for mutants, particularly during their first few years.

“Look, I’ve said I’m sorry.  I was trying to help, and Tool sounds like she’s a lot happier.  This was her dream!” 

“And what about my dreams?” the dragon-man asked.  “My own agent, obedient to my guidance.  Lazuli was the perfect girl, and the perfect backup inside F3.  Do you have any idea how much time and effort went into the construction of Lazuli?  Do you?  And now she’s useless; nothing but a pile of scrap.”

“Wait a minute,” Shroud noticed.  “Lazuli had already been constructed before I even agreed to the deal.”

“You say that as if you had a choice,” Thuban coldly stated.  “The truth is, there wasn’t a chance that you’d refuse, was there?  I gave you exactly what you wanted.  I had the information, the ssolution, and I even kept your sso-called friends from ssticking their noses too far in.  There was never a chance that you’d disagree.  I paid for Lazuli with my money and sweat.  I created her, I shaped her, I owned her.”

Jade was stunned at what he was saying, but Shroud, more resistant to the emotional onslaught, counterattacked.  “Great!  You want to own Lazuli?  Well congratulations, you do!  You crafted the illusion, but whatever there was about Lazuli that was real – that belonged to me!  I made her live!  But now I understand why it wasn’t working out.  You made me be Lazuli, but it was your script, your setup, and you probably would have dictated my emotions, if you could.  I was Lazuli, but she wasn’t ever me!  You wouldn’t let that happen.  Well you know what?  I’m glad that I can’t be her any more!  But don’t worry, I’ll keep my promise.  I’ll be there at the meetings to support and encourage and lend a helping hand, even if I have to do it as Shroud.”

“Why bother?” he shot back.  “You sseem to do a good enough job of thwarting me, entirely by accident.  I’m not ssure I should let you anywhere near Faction Three.”

Jade gasped at the fury in his voice, but again, Shroud took up the argument.  “That accident occurred directly in the line of fire, trying to do the job that you first set.  I was not only supporting someone from F3, I was helping to grant her dream.  Now she’ll be a better, tighter member than ever, and she’ll probably support the faction until the day she dies!  And by the way,” she gestured toward Jade, “my little act of charity seems to have cost me my own dream!”

“Oh, boo hoo,” Thuban said sarcastically.  “One of the beautiful people before, gone back to being just an ordinary beautiful person.  Ssspare me your tearsss.  You don’t even know what ssuffering is.  All I see is that my processs came with a price.  Succeed or fail, the price was for you to be Lazuli.  My Lazuli, the way she was meant to be.  And now you’re unable to pay.”

Jade hated that she couldn’t stop her tears.  “At dinner last night, I thought you were special!  We were sharing our dreams, talking about acceptance, and goals.  I shared my secrets with you!”  She raised up her little eleven-year-old fist and shook it impotently at him.  “I’ll be at that meeting whether you want me or not!  For them!  For the price that I’ve paid.  For the friends I’m starting to know.  But not for you!”  She took a gasping breath.  “Last night, I thought you were… were… something you’re not, obviously!”  She turned on her heel to storm out.

Thuban had one last dig to get in.  “And the pot calls the kettle black, doesn’t it … Jared?”

Jade’s face went completely white.  “I hate you!” she yelled, wrenching his door open and then slamming it behind her.

Still in the room, Shroud considered, then withdrew a sealed jar from inside her chest cavity.  The jar was half full of blood and chunks of flesh, cleaned from the autopsy lab.  She carefully placed the jar on Thuban’s desk, before she, too, turned to leave.

“It’s too bad your dreams didn’t go precisely as planned.  But don’t presume to judge my pain or suffering, or the strength of my dreams,” she said.  Then she closed the door behind her, quietly.

---

Thuban, who had once been an ordinary boy named Stephen Cheng Lee, sat back in emotional exhaustion.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  He was supposed to be in control, cold and logical and ruthless.  Had his fantasies of a gargoyle lover affected him that deeply?

Jade was right in some ways.  He had his own Demona now, a perfect image from the cartoon, and between bouts of severe personality confusion, she even seemed to have the hots for him.  Impossibly for any place other than Whateley, she was the Demona from the shows, and simultaneously she was a real person with flesh, blood, and hopes and fears of her own.  The conquest would be both challenging and intently satisfying, and would fulfill his fantasy utterly.

So why was he so upset?

Idly, he looked at the jar of brownish-red gunk that the ghost had inexplicably placed on his desk.  A glance was enough to identify blood.  The other shapes were harder, but once identification had been made, it was impossible to un-see it.  The flesh within was obviously an immature and half-formed penis and testicles, literally sawed away from a body.  Whose body was immediately obvious, and the ghost’s words made perfect sense now.

He closed his eyes completely, unable to forget his own hateful words.

She’d been walking.  She didn’t look hurt.  This had to be less than twenty-four hours old, but she was up and walking around.  Was she a high-level regenerator, or did one of her mage friends have some powerful healing spell?  Or, in Whateley tradition, was there an even stranger explanation?

He thought about a girl that no longer existed.  A fun girl, that accepted him, and discussed things that were and might someday be, and laughed and smiled at him.  A girl who no longer existed, and would never again smile at him, even if she did.

---

Jade wandered aimlessly, heading randomly in the direction of Poe, but staggering through the campus grounds.  Behind her, Shroud drifted silently, now morphed into a new form that seemed to be half-seen cables and rusty chains and black skeletal arms, barely concealed within a cloak.  Shroud seemed to slip seamlessly between a human shape under the cloak and writhing mechanical tentacles, as the balance changed moment-by-moment.

Jade wanted Bloodwolf and his goons to attack her again.  She felt her bracers.  She was wearing enough explosives to blow the lycanthropes sky high.  Or maybe she’d let them attack her, shredding her stupid face and stupider body.  Violence or punishment, she wandered the campus in search of it.  But whether it was merely a quiet day or Shroud scared them off, no one came forward to serve as a target for her fury.

She considered looking up Tool’s room, in Whitman.  It was past sunset.  Had the girl shifted again, into the gargoyle form she so loved?  She should go and introduce herself, and explain how she hadn’t died, last night.  But in her current mood, she’d be just as likely to start attacking Tool, and they’d end up as enemies for life.  She realized that a part of her wanted that.  She wanted to go to Whitman and find Tool’s room, and fill it with every single one of her missiles, blowing up the girl that had stolen her body.

She knew it was stupid, but she wanted to.

After an hour of wandering, she found herself at the back door to Poe.  She slipped inside, and down the stairs to the basement.  Through the soles of her feet as much as her ears, she heard the “clank – clank – clank” of the weight machine being used at some absurd setting.  She headed in that direction.  As expected, Hippolyta was inside.  Alone.

Jade walked forward, knowing that Shroud would close the door behind her.  Lately, Hippolyta hadn’t been her normal angry self.  She seemed to have a surprisingly happy glow.  It was time to change that.

“Hey, kid.  What’s up?  Your roommate ready for that rematch?  Hmm, maybe I’ll have to rethink some of that stuff.”  The bodybuilder didn’t pause in her reps, as she spoke.

“I’ve been making fools out of all of you,” Jade said, looking straight into the huge girl’s eyes.  “I’ve been in the girl’s bathroom.  I’ve been in the locker rooms during gym.  I wormed my way into all sorts of stuff.  The sacred hot tub party.  But I’ve been a boy all along.”

Hippolyta wasn’t so much angered as puzzled.  “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not a girl!  I never was!  I’m a boy.  I always was a boy, and I’ll always be a boy!”

Finally sensing the seriousness, Hippolyta lowered the weights and stood up, rising to her full six-and-a-half foot height.  “What’s this about?”

“Don’t you hear me?  I’m not a girl.  I never was, never will be.  I’m a boy!  I’ve been fooling everyone.  Making fools of you.  La-laughing at you.”

The weightlifter’s eyes narrowed.  “That isn’t something you should joke about.  You could get hurt.”

“Yeah?” Jade challenged.  “Who’s going to do it?  You?”  She rushed forward, aiming to punch the much larger girl right in the breasts.  She now knew how sensitive those were.

Instead, the larger girl caught her easily by both forearms.  She lifted Jade up to eye level.  “Stop this, before I have to hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Jade practically spit the words.  “You’re afraid of Tennyo.  You wouldn’t dare hurt me … you … you coward!”  With that, she used her elevated position to kick Hippolyta as hard as she could in the gut.

That brought an instant reaction.  The muscular girl released her and back handed her as she fell, knocking Jade halfway across the room where she collapsed unconscious.

Hippolyta felt her stomach cautiously, then turned to stare at Shroud.

“What the hell is this about?” she ground out, the anger rising in her voice.  “What’s with the boy story?”

“It’s true,” Shroud said, calmly.  “She’s actually a boy.”

“Like Hell.  This morning, she was stacked.  That wasn’t a boy.”

“The process failed.  She reverted.  This is her normal body.”

“Then she has been fooling us all!”

“Yes.”

“And who’s going to stop me from ripping her – him to shreds?  You?  I don’t think so.”

Shroud made no move.

“Well?” Hippolyta demanded.

“After what happened earlier, Billie made us promise not to commit suicide.  This doesn’t seem like suicide – not exactly.”

Hippolyta’s anger abruptly vanished.  “Oh.  And what exactly happened earlier.”

Shroud shrugged, though it was hard to tell, with the way she was squirming and writhing under the cloak.  “We tried to cut all the boy out of her.  It didn’t work.  She’s a regenerator, and the boy parts grew back.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Shroud said nothing.

“Get out of here,” Hippolyta ordered.  “Take her with you.  Take her back to that roommate of yours, and tell her exactly what happened here.  ‘Cause if you don’t, I sure will.”

---

She decided to sleep in, Sunday morning.  Shroud went out to pick up breakfast for her, while Jade pulled the covers back over her head.  When that didn’t work, she zapped out a trio of charges to do some clean-up, and homework, and stuff.  Billie frowned at it, knowing full well what she was doing, but didn’t openly object.

Jade let herself wake long enough to eat breakfast, then knocked herself out again.

Roaming the room to do the dusting and cleaning that was too noisy to do at night, she let her spirit assume its full, natural shape.  She wasn’t troubled by the creeping shifties problem that Shroud and Jinn had.  It was like her spirit knew that she couldn’t affect anything anyway, when she was just an invisible ghost, so it didn’t bother to do the whole overcompensating-shifting thing.

But she could see herself, and she could see the other versions of her spirit, moving about the room.  They were all naked, and while their spirit bodies were a little fuzzy, they were all definitely female.  The way she’d always been.  The way she believe herself to be.  The way she wanted to be.

It had been so simple and so right, back when she was an exemplar.  Back when she thought she was an exemplar.  Her Body Image Template was female.  That was the way she was supposed to be, and why her physical body was male was an unexplained mystery, but she knew who and what she was meant to be.  But now she had to accept the classic “shifter’s dilemma,” which in its simplest form was, “If you can be anyone, who are you, really?”  Any shifter that could change their face, or make long-term alterations in their body eventually had to face this.  There was even a class in it, limited to shifters, of course.  Maybe next semester Shroud would have to take it.  But in the meantime, her mind was melting from the paradoxes.  Was she meant to be a girl?  Is that what this spirit-body represented?  Or was she meant to be a boy, with this spirit-body being just an extension of her own perverse desires?

All she knew was that it hurt.  It hurt bad.  Like this, in spirit form, as a girl, she could be happy.  She could go about her life and do things.  Trapped in her physical body – that was hard.

She admitted to herself that she’d gone way over the edge, the day before.  The whole “cut the boy out” stuff was nuts.  She’d known it at the time.  If she’d been serious, she would have gone to a legitimate SRS surgeon.  As if she could afford one.  But she knew it wouldn’t work.  Stuff like that never worked for her.  So she’d taken out all her frustrations on the source of her trouble.  And if she died, at least she wouldn’t have to wake up as a boy again.

Billie watched the three of her.  Probably all she was were the gloves.

“Jade – Jinn, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered, her voice coming out from a small plate on the glove.

“Don’t just say that!  I want the truth!” Billie ordered.  “Tell me for real – how are you feeling?”

“I want to die,” she admitted.  “But I’m thinking that living as a spirit isn’t so bad.  I’m still a girl like this – not that anyone can tell.”

Another of her answered, “I’m thinking about the great training I could do as a regenerator with a death wish.”

The third said, “I’m thinking of loopholes in the promises I gave you.”

“No!  No loopholes!” Billie said.  “I don’t want you trying to kill yourself in ANY way, got it?  No loopholes, no picking fights, no daredevil training, no stupidly heroic self-sacrifice.  I want you to LIVE, okay?”

The three of her nodded, even if Billie couldn’t see.

“I want you to promise me.”

She took it on herself.  “We promise,” she said.  “We’ll try to live, not die.  We won’t try to break the earlier promises, or find loopholes, fights, or other ways to get killed.”

“Okay,” Billie agreed.  “Don’t you get it?  If you killed yourself – I’d be really messed up over it.  Don’t do that to me, okay?  Please?  Besides, this is Whateley.  I’m sure we’ll find some way to fix your problem.”

She nodded again, and unconsciously moved to hug Billie – momentarily forgetting that she wasn’t wearing a body.  Her arms were supposed to wrap around Billie, but they went through her, instead.

And it happened.  Ever since Tansy, she’d been careful to keep her naked spirit from touching other living people.  This accident had only really happened because she trusted Billie completely.  Her naked spirit passed through Billie’s body, directly contacting Billie’s own spirit.  And just like when Jann stuck a finger or part of her body into Jade, the two of them were in contact and communication.  It wasn’t a merging of minds, but it was a sharing of thoughts and feelings.  She could sense the terrifying and dazzling depth that made up her roommate, and it overwhelmed her.  How could she not love Billie?

Jade?  Jinn?

Sorry, oneesan.  I talk to myself this way all the time.  I just never thought to do it with anyone else.

Is this telepathy?

Not quite, she replied.  I felt some real telepathy when Tansy was possessing me.  This is just – two spirits, directly connected.  Is it any surprise if we can share some thoughts or feelings?

 

Jade, Jinn, I don’t want to see you hurt, Billie sent.  There was no doubt as to the utter sincerity.

But it hurts NOW.  Why do I have to be a boy?  It’s not fair!

Give it time.  I’m sure we’ll come up with something.  You just have to keep trying.  You will become a girl, for real. 

And along with the words came a host of feelings.  Billie had been both – male and female, boy and girl.  And while Billie was now undeniably, very thoroughly female, she hadn’t completely adjusted to it.  Jade’s attitude – female or nothing – was a bit mysterious to her.  Although she concealed it, Billie had her own issues with adjusting.  She had enjoyed being male, once upon a time.  Why couldn’t Jade accept that gender?  Was it so bad being male?

And Jinn answered the wordless thoughts by opening herself completely – exposing everything she was to her roommate, her big sister, the person she trusted utterly without reservation.  The part of her that always wanted to be smaller, and protected, and loved, and tender.  There was an element of the female, of accepting within her, that found total and perfect resonance within her.  Of wanting to hold so much inside her, not just lovers, but children.  Nurturing, supporting, being behind and out of the way, but ready to rush in to help or support.  Of offering her love in a way that left her open to be pierced through the heart.  She couldn’t not open her vulnerable inner self to her loves – who she was demanded that she give that up.  She even that inexplicable change of mood that would turn her into an enraged killer were it necessary to protect her children or loves.  The enraged mother or remorseless lover that would not be satisfied until the threat was exposed and destroyed, root and branch.  There was the side of her that longed to be pretty, and the part of her that melted whenever she got near a child, or especially a baby.  There was …

Billie stepped back, out of those immaterial arms.  She bowed her head.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I shouldn’t have doubted.  You’re so much a girl – I don’t know how you stand it.”

“It hurts so much – even outside my body,” Jinn admitted.

“Whateley is an incredible place,” Billie told her.  “You’ve been here, what, three months.  Look how close you came to an answer already.  We have four years here.  Never stop working at it, but you have to give it time, too.  We’ll find a solution.  You have to believe that!”

“Really?” Jinn asked.  “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Billie stated.

“I’ll try to be patient,” Jinn said.  “But it’s hard.”

“The things that are worthwhile often are.  Now get back in your real body so I can hug you the proper way.”

57: Improvements

Sunday, November 27, 10:15 AM

It was good that she finally got up to take a shower.  She wasn’t sure how much longer she could have slept without peeing.  That was something she might have to watch out for, if she continued to knock herself out through excessive charging.

After Billie’s pep-talk she felt better.  Not completely recovered, but better.  She didn’t feel like leaving her room, though, so she started reading Sara’s book, Staying in Shape, Exercises for Shapeshifters.  She didn’t need much physical energy for that, so she had three of her charges busy with cleaning and studying.  The room was probably cleaner than it had been since it was first constructed.  But after everything Billie had done for her, she had decided that it was just wrong for her roommate to have to do menial work, so she was making sure that Billie wasn’t bothered by such details.  It had sometimes bothered Billie, so Jade tried to take care of such chores when Billie wasn’t actually around to see, like now.

There didn’t seem to be much point to putting on her training bra.  It wasn’t like she had anything to train (or ever would).  Likewise, she didn’t bother much with her appearance.  A t-shirt and jeans was good enough.  She refused to even think about wearing boy’s underwear, though.

There was a knock on her door.

“Yeah?”

Billie’s voice came through, which was odd.  Why didn’t she just walk in?

“You decent?  There’s someone here that I think you should see.”

She sat up, dropping the book.  A moment later, her energy picked up as the charges put themselves away and returned to her.  The instant the energy was available, she charged Shroud, and then Jann-sensei, so she was back to operating in enhanced mode, with more options for dealing with potential threats.  “Who is it?”

“Can I come in?” Billie asked.

“Okay,” she answered cautiously.

The door opened and Billie eyed Shroud, hovering there in cloak-of-menace mode.  She nodded approvingly.  “It’s Thuban.”

“What?  Tell him to get the hell out of here!  If I see that jerk before graduation, it’ll be too soon!”

“I had a little … conversation … with him,” Billie informed her.  “No, I didn’t go to Twain.  He came here on his own.  I’d planned to lean on him a little, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.  I think he’s come,” Billie’s voice dropped to a whisper, “to apologize.”

“Thuban?  Yeah, get real.”

“Just hear him out, okay?”

Jade growled.  “The instant he steps out of line, I’m throwing him out the window.  I mean it, too!  Exemplar or not, I’m chucking him straight through the glass.”

Billie grinned.  “That must be why we get along so well – because of your sensible attitude.”

A moment later the door opened, and Thuban stepped through, wearing lizard skin, white slacks, and a light blue polo shirt.  As soon as the door closed behind him, Thuban dropped to one knee.

“This… isn’t easy for me,” he began.

“Oh, you think I like being in here with you?” she shot back.  “Last time we talked, you made it pretty clear that you’d be happier if I were in Hell, which couldn’t have been much worse than I was feeling at the time.”

Thanks to Jann-sensei, she could see his emotions flitting between shame, humiliation, and regret.

“I’m sorry.”  He bowed his head even lower, then raised it again to look her straight in the eye.  “I’m sorry, Jade.”

“You aren’t going to call me … that other name?”

“Never,” he promised.

“Like it even matters.”

Thuban showed a hint of his normal self as he bloomed with the crimson aura of anger.  “This isn’t easy for me, you know!”

Jade allowed herself a slight smile.  That was the dragon she knew of old.  “Then why are you forcing yourself to do it?  Didn’t you tell me there was some beautiful redhead throwing herself at you?”

 “Well, yes.  But there was another girl I knew, before that.  Intelligent, witty, interested in many of the same things I was.  She was enchanting, and I found myself missing her smile, her laugh, and her presence.  She accepted me, when at times I despair of being able to accept myself.  Accepted me and more – made me believe I could actually be something and someone great.”

The words were flattering, but, “Sorry.  That girl is dead and gone.  You won’t be seeing her again.”

“I’m here because I hope that I might.”

Jade felt a moment’s hope.  Had there been another breakthrough?  But she crushed that out ruthlessly.  “Sorry.  She’s gone.”

“Look, can I get up now?  This is hard enough without being on my knees.”

“Suit yourself.”

She turned to look out the window, as if bored by him.  Of course, she kept close attention on him through Jann-sensei.  There were major advantages to being able to see in directions other than where your eyes were looking.  Right now Thuban was glowing with a fetching mix of shame and hope.

“That girl isn’t gone at all,” he insisted.  “Somehow, she saw past my skin.  And to my shame, I was unable to see past hers.  It was a momentary lapse, I promise.”  He drew a breath and began to explain.  “As you’ve no doubt noticed, I have a … thing … about being in control.  It’s a fault, but then, you were the one who told me that I wasn’t going far enough.  It’s a dragon trait.  And you’re right, it’s part of me.

“And that evening, I was dealing with several blows.  Tool arrived, or Dominique, as she’s calling herself now.  She’d suddenly gone halfway around the bend, and stating her intentions to take over Faction Three, as well as coming after me that I can only describe as predatory.  And she was claiming that you were dead, and that Hekate was casting spells on my people, and then you arrived, suddenly having lost your new body image.  And I… simply wasn’t able to cope with so much going out of control so fast.  I said terrible things to you, but it was my frustration speaking.”

She still wasn’t ready to forgive him.  “I’m a boy,” she said, bluntly.  “The girl – I’m not sure if there will ever be a girl.”  She couldn’t stop her voice from quavering over that last bit.

“Believe me,” he said, “the girl is here.  Even in a boy’s body, the girl is here.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Billie forced you to say this, didn’t she?”

He shook his large head.  “Not at all.  If anything, she tried to stop me.”

“So what do you want?  Forgiveness.  Yeah, sure, granted.  Is that all?”

Thuban’s form melted, turning human as his muzzle shrunk into a normal mouth and face.  He reached out for her hand, and gently pulled her up off the bed.  “Jade…”

“I’m not Jade!” she yelled.  “Don’t’ you get it?  I can’t be Jade!  No matter how much I want to be!  I promised Billie that I’d be patient, and I said I’d keep hoping, but it’s too hard!”

Thuban’s face bent down to her and he kissed her gently on the lips.  As she stood there in stunned surprise, his arms gently wrapped around her and he continued to press his lips against hers.  Unconsciously, she couldn’t help pressing against him, as he held her so gently, and so firmly.  A wonder grew in her that a boy was actually kissing her.  Her!  She felt faint, and exhilarated, and exited, all at the same time.

As their lips parted, she stared into his sea-green eyes.  The color of Jade, she thought, incongruously.  He had human eyes and pupils like this, but she liked his normal eyes, too.  But she was sure that this form kissed better, since he didn’t really have lips in his normal shape.

“Uhhh…” she said, articulately.

“There,” he stated.  “I have given you my first kiss.  Will that help my apology?”

“Uhhh… it’s my first kiss too.  Unless you count the time when I was possessing Tansy.  But it wasn’t really my body.  And anyway, I was kissing another girl.”  She half giggled, half snickered.  “That doesn’t count, does it?  Anyway, she didn’t kiss nearly as well as you do, so this must be my first time, too.”

Thuban gently stroked her cheek.  “You see?  I told you that girl was still around.”

“I— but—”

“Let me take you out to dinner tonight?” he asked.  “Berlin again.  Perhaps a steak house.”

She gulped.  “But… what will I wear?  I can’t go on a date looking like … you know.”

Thuban gently let her go, then stepped back and bowed.  “If you’ll permit, perhaps as part of my apology, there is a rather unique dress shop in Dunwich.  I’ve phoned ahead for an appointment.  And they have a salon that’s acceptable, I’m told.  The salon also had an appointment available.  Perhaps a few trappings will assist you in looking and feeling more to your liking.”

Her heart was racing, her mind was whirling, and Jann wasn’t giving her any help at all.  “I couldn’t accept that!”

“Why not?  Don’t I owe you that and more, for the way I treated you?  Isn’t it a girl’s right to be treated, on a date?”

She gulped.  “But…”

 

“Please?  For me?  To help demonstrate my remorse?”

“I…  What should I say?”

Jann and Thuban both spoke to her.  “Say yes.”

“…yes…” she whispered.

“Meet me downstairs in one hour.”  And with a final bow, he was gone.

---

She was still standing in that exact position when Billie came in, followed by Chou, Nikki, and Toni.

“Are you okay?” Billie demanded.  “He better not have hurt you again!  He said he was going to try to make it up to you, but I’ve always wondered about that guy.”

She still hadn’t moved.  She brought a hand up and touched her lips, not entirely believing what had happened.

“He didn’t hit you, did he?  Oh, when I get done with him you won’t be able to find the pieces!  I’ll rip him into such tiny bits—”

“He kissed me,” she said, in wonder.

The other three girls stopped and stared at her.  “WHAT?”

“He knows all about me,” she said.  “I never told you what my old name was, did it?  It was Jared.  Thuban knew.  He knew everything.  But he kissed me.  He said I was a girl, even if…”

“Then why’d he go tearing out of here?” Toni wondered.

“Date.  Tonight.  He offered to pay for a salon in Dunwich, and some special dress shop.”

Chou laughed.  “Now that sounds like an apology.”

“Oh my God!” Jade suddenly shouted.  “I’ve got to meet him in an hour!  I have to take a shower!  And get ready!  Quick, Jinn, clothes!”  She reached out to charge some gloves.  She needed to re-apply the plastic gaff that kept her looking like a girl, not a boy.  And what kind of makeup did you wear, if you were about to go to a salon?

“See?” Billie said, confidently.  “Told you there was nothing to worry about.  Honestly.  You’re such a girl.”

“Yep.”  “Got that right.”  Chou and Toni agreed.

---

With no nice outfits, she wore her school uniform AGAIN.

Again the limo pulled up on the access road, just behind Poe.  In Dunwich, their first destination was Rogers’ Fabric Boutique.  It was nothing special on the outside, but inside were racks of plastic-wrapped outfits, all of them custom tailored, with names on little tags attached to each outfit.  There were bolts of cloth stacked along two walls to such a height that it seemed like you’d need a forklift to get access to the fabric on the bottom.

The door had set a small bell tinkling, and a young woman in perhaps her mid-twenties came out.  Dressed in a smart blue knit dress, with an elegant silver necklace, she looked like a model who was temporarily assisting the owner.

“Stephen!  You know I always appreciate your business.”  She cast a grin toward Jade.  “Expensive tastes and a thick wallet – that’s a combination any girl can appreciate, eh?”

“Um,” Jade just shuffled her feet and blushed.

“Jade needs something appropriate for a date tonight.  Something flattering,” he stressed.  “I’d also like you to keep her measurements on file.”

“Of course.  If you’ll follow me, young lady,” and the woman set off toward the back of the shop.

In the back, out of sight of the front room, a large changing room was set against the back wall.

“In there, dear.  Follow the directions.”

Puzzled, Jade stepped inside the booth, then closed the door.  Instantly, a laser flashed on, shining a grid of laser light over her.

“Please disrobe completely,” a mechanical voice stated.  At the same time, a small drawer slid out from the back wall.  “Clothes in the container, please.”  The instructions were then repeated in Spanish.

In addition to a small stool for sitting on, there was a turntable in the center of the floor.  Completely naked, Jade was glad that she’d re-attached the plastic piece that gave her the appearance of being female down below.  She could wear it for several days.  Perhaps with practice she’d be able to wear it perpetually.  If she couldn’t get rid of the boy parts, at least she could hide them.

She stood at attention while the laser grid flashed over her, and the turntable spun her about in a circle.  Then the voice instructed her to take the stool and sit naturally.  She assumed other positions – stretching her arms out sideways or overhead, touching her toes.  Prompted for poses that she might use, she gave some kicks nearly straight overhead, demonstrating her flexibility.  They weren’t modest, but there was no one to see.  Finally, the drawer opened again and Jade retrieved her clothes.

Only, they weren’t the same.  The shoes and panties were the same.  But the bra was sheer, seamless, and ever so slightly padded.  Surprised, Jade quickly slipped into it, then looked at herself in the mirror that lined one wall.

She had a bust!  About triple-A, she thought, but it was better than nothing.  The bra was a front hook, with a small plastic clasp between the two cups.  There was no way to adjust the band or straps, but it fit her perfectly.  And with no loops or adjustments and fabric that seemed to thin at the edges, the bra had no lines that might show under a blouse.  It was flesh tone, and a good match for her skin tone.  It was the most perfect and beautiful bra she’d ever owned.

She tried on the blouse next.  It was also new.  It was the same cut and style as her standard uniform blouse, but this was of a much higher quality.  The fabric felt more sheer, but stronger and sturdier at the same time.  The stitching was nearly microscopic, and the fit was absolutely perfect!  It was snug enough to hug her torso, and yet it didn’t restrict her freedom of movement.

The vest, pleated skirt, knee socks, and blazer were similarly upgraded.  And somehow, the items all emphasized her feminine curves.  Curves that she didn’t actually have.  Fully dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror, not quite believing what she saw.

There was a young girl there.

She almost stumbled, on her way out of the booth, she was so distracted.

“It’s time for your salon appointment,” Thuban told her.  “Miss Rogers will have your dress done by the time you get back.  I’ll drop you off at the salon, then I have other affairs that need tending.  The car will be back for you before your appointment is finished, then you can pick up the dress and we’ll head to Berlin.  Does that sound acceptable?”

Jade nodded dumbly.

“Excellent.  I’ll see you this afternoon, then.”

The chauffer escorted Jade out of the car and into “Macy’s Makeovers.”  Inside, the girls looked her over.

“Teresa?” the older blonde asked.

“Teresa,” the younger blonde agreed.  “She’s, like, so good with Asian hair.”

A Hispanic girl in her early twenties arrived and looked over Jade.  She was chewing gum and had a punk look to her, but was very striking with the contrast between her dark hair and lighter skin.  “Hey, first timer, right?  Looks like your boyfriend is springing for the works, huh?  Lucky kid.”

She led Jade over to some books.  “We’ve got some good Asian styles in this one.  If you want, we could give you a bleach or dye job, but if this is your first time, you might want to start slow, if you know what I mean.”

Jade nodded, slowly looking through a book filled with beautiful Japanese and Chinese models.  She supposed that some of them might be Korean.  Sometimes it was easy to spot, other times it was very hard to tell.  She felt out of place; envious of the models and sad that she’d never look so good.

“Kind of intimidating, isn’t it?” Teresa asks, as if she could see moods as easily as Jade could.  “Want some advice?”

Jade nodded.  “Yes, please.”

“With your face and that skinny Tinker Bell build, you’d do great with a pixie cut.  I’d shag it out a bit – a lot of Japanese girls do that.  You’re Japanese, right?”

Jade nodded again.

“That’s what the guy said when he made the reservation.  I thought ‘Jade Sinclair’ sounded more Hong Kong.  Shows what I know, huh?  Anyway, that would do really nice for you, and it’s pretty easy to care for.  A little work in the morning to add some body, that’s about it.  Then if you want some fun, we could color it.”

Jade thought about it.  “Maybe a little.  Could I get a streak that was really green?”

“Yeah, we could do that.  Maybe off on one side or the other, kind of an asymmetric thing.  That would be cool.  We can do your nails, and hands and feet.  You got a color you want, or should I match the hair?”

“Yeah, match it.”

“Right.  Good choice.  We’ll give you a bottle for touch-ups, of course.  We’ve got you in for a facial, maybe some shaping on the eyebrows.  You need any waxing?  Whatever you want, it’s part of the full package.”

“No,” Jade admitted.  “I haven’t really started to grow any hair yet.  I’ve been like this for three years, just stuck, waiting for puberty to start.”

“Hmm, poor kid.  Hey, you’re from Whateley, aren’t you?  The uniform’s kind of a tip-off.  As if we get any other out-of-town kids coming through an armpit like Dunwich.  So, you got any cool, freaky powers?”

“I’m learning how to build things.  Little machines and stuff, but I’m not very good yet.”

And so they chatted on.  It seemed that Teresa was a local.  Her parents had moved into the area in the early seventies, when Whateley was just starting up.  Teresa had gone to school with the local kids, which was really tough.  The school wasn’t that large, and the kids were either wannabe mall-rats who were dozens of miles from the nearest mall, or old-time locals, who (according to Teresa) were a surly and inbred lot.  Meanwhile, just a couple of miles down the street was the absolutely coolest high school in the country, and none of them were allowed into it.

“It does have its problems,” Jade admitted.  “I’m just a freshman; so I’ve only been here three months.  But in that time, let’s see.  Someone opened an actual portal to hell and summoned a demon, trying to sacrifice my friend.”

Teresa shrugged.  “Yeah, we get that at our school.  It’s always the old-family kids.”

Jade was a bit taken aback by that, and thought the joke was in poor taste.  She’d been serious!  “What else?  I’ve had one kidnapping, a couple of assaults, and an assassination attempt.  And I’m flat broke and have to work in the sewers for a couple of hours every day.”

“Ew, the sewers?  Harsh!”

Jade was surprised how nice it was to just engage in girl talk with a local girl who aspired to nothing greater than being on the cutting edge of the latest grooming fashions.  There were no plans to dominate the world, or change society, or even to create a giant engine of destruction.  Just discussions of how some girl named Janice thought she was hot stuff because she bought from Sax, or what a bitch Carol was when she was on her period, or how all the boys were after Sue because they thought she was easy.

And when the makeover and discussion were both done, Jade saw herself for the first time.  The person looking back from the mirror wasn’t just a girl, she was a pretty girl.  The eyebrow plucking had been painful, but well worth it.  The effect was subtle, but looking at her face, she looked like a girl.  You knew that right away about her – she was a girl.  Her eyes looked just a bit more intense and appealing, her lips looked softer and more vulnerable.  The shaggy puff-ball of her hair showed her innocence, while the bold green streak said that she might try something wild, just to see if she liked it.

“You like?”

Jade could scarcely believe it.  “That’s me?”

“I do pretty good work, don’t I?”

“How did you do the outlining, around the eyes?”

“The trick is to be super-subtle.  Don’t want to be a Tammy-Fay, which I guess was like this old lady who made her name by putting on a hundred times too much mascara.  But just the lightest touch, especially here, and here.”

Then the car arrived to take her back to the boutique, as if she couldn’t walk through a small town like Dunwich.

Miss Rogers was ready in back with several choices.  The store was empty, and Miss Rogers spoke frankly.

“You look beautiful.  And with any of these outfits, I think you’ll make a wonderful impression on your young man tonight.  I’ve paid particular attention to his suggesting for emphasizing a female figure.”

Jade must have let the shock show on her face, because Miss Rogers patted her hand.  “I’m an instructor at the academy, dear.  I’ve got access to your full record.  Don’t worry, no one would guess, particularly after I’m done dressing you.  I’ve certainly helped many other young girls, who needed far more help than you do.  I had particular trouble with a young Zoe Nesmith, back when she was a freshman.  She’s still in Poe, too, isn’t she?”

Jade nodded blankly.  “She’s a junior.  She’s our cottage’s ‘fixer.’  She’s helped me a couple of times.”

Miss Rogers nodded.  “And it’ll be up to you to help the girls who follow after you, as well.  Understand?”

Jade nodded again, feeling overwhelmed.

“Now, we have several choices.  Young Stephen paid enough for a couple of outfits, and I thought you might be able to use the variety.  He certainly went all out, paying for the deluxe package.  First, all the garments I’ve made for you today are interwoven with Zylor.  That’s used—”

“In bulletproof vests?”

“That’s the stuff.  They use Kevlar and Dyneema in the cheaper vests, since Zylor is so expensive.  But it’s nearly twice the strength of Kevlar, and more resistant to fire and UV.  I recommend it for all my Whateley customers; you kids just seem to put such wear on clothes.”

“So these clothes are all like bulletproof vests?” Jade asked.

“Hardly.  They might spread the blow out a bit, depending on the padding you’ve got underneath.  And they’ll help a little against stabbing or slashing attacks, unlike Kevlar.  Mostly I add the Zylor for durability.  Which is another point – these outfits all come with the extended warranty.  I’ll provide you with mailer boxes you can use from your cottage.  Just mail the torn or ripped items back, and I’ll fix them to be as good as new.  It’s expensive, but considering where you go to school, I think it’s worth it in the long run.  Oh, and everything’s been treated with Hydrospell, to repel moisture, spills, and stains.  It also makes them much easier to clean.  Grass stains, dirt, ink, even blood – they all come right out.

“I left off some of the other options – some kids want clothes that are weighted or stiff, to give them a constant workout.  And you don’t want the wiring or antenna-grid, or color shifting, or other options.  But I think these should do nicely for you.”

Since Jade had been living mostly on items she found in a discard bin, this was a major change for her.  She tried to imagine having fine clothes that felt good, made her look good, and actually lasted longer than the cheap stuff.  If this was what a life of crime bought for you, she began to understand the appeal.

The decision was tough, but she finally decided on a western outfit.  Black leather calf boots with three inch heels gave her some much-needed height.  A denim miniskirt with a green metallic belt that hung diagonally across her hip like an old-fashioned gun belt brought attention to her hips, and showed a flattering amount of leg.  It wouldn’t be inappropriate, if anyone pegged her as being eleven, but it suggested that she was both older and better built than she actually was.  Her top was a simple white long-sleeved blouse, tailored to cling tightly to her midriff, while being looser in the bustline.  A fleece vest over that provided warmth in November’s cool weather, and also emphasized her “figure” if she buttoned up the bottom while leaving the top open.

 “That should knock him dead,” Miss Rogers insisted.  “I’ll have the rest sent to your cottage.”

When the limo arrived, a few minutes later, Thuban (in human guise) was indeed impressed.  Jade got the warmest feeling, as Thuban’s eyes roamed up and down her body.  She’d heard girls complain about the “meat market.”  But this wasn’t like that.  It was more like he was taking the time to fully appreciate her, and enjoy her femininity.  Which was all the more impressive, since he knew the truth.

Thuban offered his hand, and she was delighted to be helped into the limo.  This time, she didn’t sit across from him, but sat beside him.  Close beside him.  As the limo headed off through the covered bridge that led out of town, he stroked her face, letting his human guise slip away.

Jade stared into his lizard eyes, with their alien-looking iris, and thread-thin vertically slit pupil.  “Can I call you Stephen?” she asked.  “When we’re in private, I mean?”

The elongated head nodded.  “What are you thinking?”

“I – I can’t say.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No, it’s not that.”  It took her a moment to gather her courage, then she said, “I was wondering how to kiss you, when you’re in your real form.  And whether I should kiss you.  I mean, this is only our second date.  Should I kiss on the second date?  And then there was this morning, when you kissed me.”

“Did that bother you?”  His voice sounded the slightest bit worried, and his aura showed apprehension.

She shook her head quickly.  “No, it didn’t bother me.”  More quietly, “I liked it.”  And almost whispering, she admitted, “A lot.”

“But, I was wondering if you liked it,” she continued.  “If you liked kissing me.  And how it would be kissing you like this, in your real shape.  And what kind of relationship we might have, if I was just going to be thinking about kissing you all the time.”

His aura had moved over into amusement now.  “Are you thinking about that?  All the time?”

“Well, only since this morning.  But, uh, yeah, quite a bit since then.”

“Why don’t you try it then?”

So she did.  The limo was roomy enough that she slid over to sit on his lap, facing him, with her legs spread on either side of him.  A miniskirt was good for that position, and if it was less than modest, she made sure that his eyes were focused on her face, not her panties.  So she took his long muzzled face and kissed him lightly on the front of his closed mouth.  That didn’t do much for either of them, so she tried more kisses along the length of his closed mouth.  And then she waited for him to do the front-to-back blink he did with his nictitating membrane, and kissed him gently over his closed eye.  That was better.  Then she just settled into a pattern of giving him little kisses along the velvet-soft scales of his face, while stroking his eye ridges, and muzzle, and neck.  And in the meantime, he was stroking her back and kneading the flesh over her shoulder blades, and back, and occasionally his hand would stray down to her behind.

His two large hands gently cradled her head and his thumbs brushed over her cheeks.

“Are you crying?” he asked fearfully.

Jade tried to shake her head, but that only scattered the tears, so she leaned forward and grabbed him around the body, pressing herself tight against him so that he couldn’t see her face while she tried to sob silently.

“What is it?  What’s wrong?  Is it something I did?  Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head again, but couldn’t speak.

“Jade, answer me!  What’s wrong?”

She tried to speak but couldn’t.  So she just clung to him and cried, trying hard to keep it silent, but she knew he could feel it every time she gasped, or hiccupped or shuddered.  So she just clung to him.

After a while, Thuban gave up trying to do anything, and he just held her, his arms wrapping around her and holding her as if she were the child she appeared to be.

Finally she began to relax, and the fear began to ebb.  She slid off him to merely sit beside the much taller boy, pressed tight against his side so that he couldn’t see her face.  With her new haircut, it was harder to hide behind her hair.

“Can you talk to me now?”

She admitted, “I’m sorry, I probably ruined my makeup.  I can touch it up when we get to the restaurant, but it won’t be as good.  You spent so much money to help me look like a girl, and I ruined it.”

“I didn’t help you look like a girl,” he said somewhat testily, “you are a girl.  I merely paid for a salon visit.  And you can do your touch-up work here, while I wait outside.  There’s no reason you should appear in Berlin looking like I’ve broken your heart.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.  She knew she’d hurt his feelings, but didn’t know how to deal with this, on top of everything else.  Instead, she admitted to part of what she’d been thinking about.

“I was so wrong about Monty.  I need to apologize to him, at the next meeting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That bitch Tansy must have really done a number of him.  For the rest of his life, whenever he meets a girl, he’ll be wondering if someday it will all suddenly twist, and she’ll call him an ugly monster and start hating him or making fun of him or something.  How long does it take before you lose the fear that one day they’ll wake up and see you for what you are?  Something… something disgusting.”

Thuban said nothing, so she just clung to him, her face pressed against his side.

After a minute, though, he suddenly jerked.  “Wait a minute.  Are you talking about me rejecting you?”

“Of course,” she said in quiet misery.  “It’ll probably happen again, as soon as you really think about it.  I’m probably the most deliberately twisted person on campus, hiding in with the girls, pretending I’m one of them.  You know the truth, and pretty soon you’re going to think about me, and that’s when you’ll start to hate me.  Sharisha was right.  She was right all along.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said.  “So long as you don’t see me as a monster or an animal, I promise to see you as the girl you really are.”

“That’s different,” she told him.  “You’re Thuban, the dragon in the cave, the fixer and info-hoarder and puppet master, and once people learn of it, the power behind all of Faction Three.  How could anyone see you as an animal?  And as for being a monster?  They’d have to be an idiot not to be intimidated and impressed by you, but everyone knows about your honor, don’t they?”

“Maybe I should let you attend the Faction Three meetings as Jade,” he mused.

“Now I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

“We have the same problem, don’t you see?”

She sighed.  “No.  We don’t.  You’re becoming something better than a poor normal human.  It’s easy to see why they’re threatened by that.  But me – I’m not changing at all.  And I’m pretending and wishing, but it’s all just a sick little perversion, isn’t it?  I’m less than a normal person, and I’ll never get any better.”

“I think you’re just looking for sympathy,” he told her gently.  “You are so much a girl that you’re a girl even in a boy’s body.  Yes, I know the truth, and I tell you that you’re still a girl.  You can’t be anything else.”

“I might never have breasts for you to touch,” she lamented.

“Why?  Do you want me to touch you like that?”  His voice had a definite note of surprise to it.

“I wouldn’t let you.  Not yet.  But I’d want you to, even if I wouldn’t let you.  Eventually…”  She was silent for a moment.  “Before I got in the car, you looked at me, and I felt so good.  It’s just… I’m afraid that some day you’ll look at me, and you’ll see the real me.”

“I do see the real you.”

“You were so angry yesterday,” she whispered.  “What if that happens again?  If you called me a boy again—”

“I won’t.  I promise.  I promise you on my honor.”

“I have to make sure this is the real you,” she continued, still in a whisper.  “I like this person a lot.”  Louder, “And not because you buy me stuff.  That’s sweet, but…”

“Yes?”

“Thuban?  Stephen?”  This was her quietest whisper yet.

“What is it?”

“Could you make me feel like a girl again?”

So he picked her up and held her in his lap, and while she cried, he stroked her face, and touched her hair, and changed to a human form and admired her, and then he leaned forward and kissed her, and while their lips touched, she wished so much that she could be a girl, if only to do proper honor to him.

“Utterly amazing,” he admitted, at one point.  “A year and a half here, making myself more powerful and feared and knowing all the while that no girl would ever have me.  And then two at once.”

Jade looked up, puzzled.  “Two?  You mean me and Jinn?”

“You and Demona.”

That made her lip start to quiver again.  “You mean… I have to compete against her?  That’s not fair!”

Thuban spoke much more calmly than she was feeling.  “You’re the one who made her.  It was only after your whole transformation spell that she came to me.  I told you that yesterday.  Besides, I’m taking you on a date first.”

She didn’t know what to make of that, but it hadn’t sent her into tears yet.

Thuban continued, slipping back to draconic form.  “Let’s see, would that make you Betty, or Veronica?”

She sputtered for a moment.  Then she realized that she was indignant, but she felt feminine indignant.  “So here I am, sharing my soul with you, and you’re talking about dating another girl?”

He gave a smug lizard-smile.  “The emotions and stuff – it was getting a bit too girly for me.  Sorry, it’s just a guy thing, I guess, which is why you would never understand.  But you know, I really can’t picture a Betty-gargoyle.  And you’ve got the pure-and-innocent bit down, so I’m thinking that you’d have to be Betty to her Veronica.”

She had, of course, read Archie comics for years, and naturally she’d always taken the side of the generous and innocent girl over the vain, manipulative, and selfish one.  She didn’t want to admit that it gave her a tiny thrill to be identified as Betty.

“Doesn’t work,” she said aloud.  “Betty and Veronica looked identical, except for hair.  And whatever else you might say about me and Demona – we don’t look anything alike.  Besides, I’m not sure I like the idea of you two-timing me.”

“Do you want her to be unhappy?  After all you’ve given her?”

Jade thought about Tool’s bitterness, and how it had changed as she achieved her dream.  Jade knew exactly what that was like.  She couldn’t deny the other girl her chance at happiness.

“Well,” she weakened, “there is that.  But it still isn’t fair!  She’s a real girl, and I’m just—”

“If you strive for greatness, you must take your own strengths and build on them.  Don’t envy others for their strengths, rather reinforce your own.”  He placed a hand under her chin and tilted her head up so that she was forced to look him in the face.  “Jade, don’t sell your own advantages short.  And don’t envy others without knowing the prices they have paid and will pay.”

“Yeah, but…”

“You’re young, beautiful, intelligent, and powerful.  Let that be enough for the moment.”

They touched and talked and kissed for the rest of the evening.  Each time, it was apparent in Thuban’s eyes, in his hands, in everything about him that he saw her as a girl.  She saw his emotions, so she knew he wasn’t lying.  Gradually, she began to believe as well.

The odd thing was, he seemed to take similar comfort from her regard, which honestly puzzled her.

At one point, she demanded, “Tell me why you were so angry, yesterday.  What drove you over the edge?  And will it happen again?”

“I admit to being something of a control freak,” he began.  “I think I always will be.  Today, tonight, my plans are going perfectly, and I’m happy.  Yesterday I had some great plans, and they completely fell apart.”

“Was yesterday better than today?” she asked him.

“The plans, or the reality?  Ah, you mean, what I had planned for.  Yesterday, you were my agent, serving both to steer and control Faction Three, and to serve as the living symbol of my lust.  I admit it, I designed Lazuli as my absolutely perfect fantasy girl.”  He turned to stare at her, and she felt the cold reptilian truth rolling off of him in a way that she hadn’t felt yet today.  It was more than a little disturbing to feel the glacial currents flowing off a boy that she had been kissing, less than a minute before.

“I didn’t know if I’d ever have a chance for a romantic – or physical – relationship with Lazuli, but the possibility was there.  And I had the belief that since I created Lazuli, that I had perfect control over her.  She was not merely my tool, I owned every thought and gesture.  Losing that was the worst part.  I never really had it, but sometimes losing a fantasy can be worse than the harshest blow reality can give.

“Then there was Dominique – a strange human girl with a stranger story.  I’d never even seen her before, but she knew me, and Faction Three, and you, and claimed you were dead, and things pretty much went to hell at that point.  I’d been planning and arranging for both Faction Three and Lazuli for almost two months, at that point.”

Jade crawled up into his lap again, and stroked one hand along his long muzzle.  “Your future plans are going to fail sometimes, too.”

“I know that.  Intellectually, I know that.”

“Try not to blow up at me, even when I am responsible for wreaking them, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Hey, you haven’t done any hissing at all today.”

“I never used to speak like that,” he admitted.  “I practiced the affectation, because it helped reinforce my image.  Now it slips in when I’m angry.”

She lay her head against his chest and listened to the sound of the powerful heart beating within his chest.  “Lazuli was your ultimate dream girl?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to feel the same way about Demona, and then what will happen to me?”

Thuban didn’t reply to that.

She tried to shore up her sudden insecurities, and said, “At least… if you do your best to keep your control-freak side under control, and you don’t go nasty on me, I’ll try not to turn into a sadistic psycho-bitch when Tool moves in on my boyfriend.”

Thuban laughed at that, which made an interesting sound if you listened to his chest.  “Jade, it’s pretty hard to imagine you as a sadistic psycho-bitch.”

“You’d be surprised sometimes.  Talk to Bloodwolf.  And I did a fair job of haunting Tansy, toward the end.”

“Did you say ‘boyfriend’?”

“Do you want to be?”  She asked it so quietly that she barely heard the words herself.

“Do you want me?”

She hugged him as hard as she could.  “How can you ask that?  After what we’ve been doing?”

“Officially?”

She hugged him again.  “Yeah.  I want to brag to everyone that I am officially your girlfriend.”

He sighed.  “I want that.  But Demona…”

Jade growled.  “I am getting real tired of her, and I’ve never even seen her yet!  Not in her new form.  That girl is going to cause me so much trouble!  Okay, I’ll talk to her during the next F3 meeting.  But in return, you are officially going out with me.  And with Shroud.  And, if you have to, with Demona.”

“I have two girlfriends, at the same time?  Three girlfriends?”  Then he had an even worse thought.  “And two of them are sisters?”

“If people really need to know, you can tell them that we share experiences when she comes back inside my head.”  She stroked her hand on his solid chest.  “I imagine you know how to get proper value from a revelation, or any piece of information.”  She returned to selling her case.  “But you’ll like me as Jinn.  For one thing, I can go to the F3 meetings.  Although I can’t actually see any of the movies, which makes them less interesting than they’d normally be.”  She thought.  “As Jinn, or Shroud depending on the costume, I’m a shapeshifter.  It’s gone a little crazy lately, but I think I can get things under control.  I can become anything or anyone you want – except for gargoyles.  I don’t really feel anything, which is a bummer for me, but to anyone touching me I can I feel completely like a real girl, which is a positive for you.”

“I should remind you that I’m the control freak.  I’m used to arranging my own life.  If I’d known that getting a girlfriend meant that she’d try to take over my life—”

She was suddenly worried that she’d pushed too hard.  “Yeah?”

“…I guess I’d still do it,” he finished, glumly.

She was so relieved that she kissed his snout.  “Don’t worry.  I’m only trying to take over part of your life.  The relationship part.  Everything else is yours.”  She hugged him in her relief.  “It’ll be good for Faction Three,” she promised.  “I can be my real self, and I can talk to girls about hot guys like you – without letting them think they have a chance at you, of course – and we can start scheming about other boys there.  It’ll be great!”

“Why am I suddenly filled with grave doubts?”

“Tell you what!” she said.  “I’ll let you decide our position on public affection, okay?”

“It’s hard to be the cold, ruthless leader, when your girlfriend is snogging you.”

“Well, that’s your business, isn’t it?  Why don’t we … er … run through some scenarios, right now?”  She wrapped her arms around his neck and gazed deep into his eyes.

“If you insist.”  His lizard tongue flicked out of his mouth and licked across the length of her neck.

“Oh my God!  No showing that to the other girls!”

And they continued from there.

58: Future dreams

Sunday, November 27, 9:07 PM

Jade drifted into her room well before curfew.  It was only about nine in the evening.  She’d picked up the boxes from the mailroom downstairs – she could only think that Miss Rogers had a special courier service, since there was obviously no mail service on Sunday.  She was humming as she skipped up the stairs with her many boxes of loot.  She was whistling as she skipped down the hall to her room, her hips starting to swing to the rhythm in her head.

And by the time she opened the door to her room, she’d was swaying to her internal music and had actually broken into song:

          “I wandered a-lone, in the rain, oh once upon a time.

          And it was so cold, ‘till you came, and made it so-oh fine.”

Billie looked up, and then did a double-take.  “Jade?  You look—”

Ayla poked her head in.  “Whoa, the kid got all dolled up.  Hey, you look pretty good.”

Jade smile at them, swaying back and forth as she hung up her new uniform, but continued singing.

          “And baby baby, you, you changed my life, oh babe.

          Can you feel it too, it’s getting better ev-er-y daaaaaay!”

Chou followed Ayla, and Nikki and Toni wandered over, attracted by the commotion.

“What happened to her?” Toni asked Billie, hooking a finger toward the youngest member of the group.

Nikki looked suspicious.  “If I didn’t know better…”

At that point, Jade had danced past both beds, briefly touching a stuffed white lion on her bed, and a stuffed cabbit on Billie’s bed.

“…I’d almost think she had just…”

Now Jade and the two toys both rose into the air.

“…fallen in—”

A girl and two toys belted out the chorus in unison:

          “Ev-ery day I fall in love!

          In love again with you!

          Ev-ery day you fill me up,

          With dreams you make come true!”

“Didn’t know better, eh?” Toni asked her roommate.

“It could just be a song she likes,” Nikki protested.

          “Ev-ery day you bring the sun,

          And chase the night away!

          Ev-ery day my precious one,

          I pray you’re gonna stay!”

The toys spun through the air acrobatically and Jade spun down to settle on the ground, as she finished the chorus alone:

          “I need you every day!”

“Spill the beans!” Toni ordered.  “Right now!”

Jade inhaled as deep as she could and gave a sigh of total infatuation.  “He is soooo dreamy!”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Billie complained.

Jade laughed.  “Sorry!  Just wanted to see your reaction.  But he really is great.  For an obsessed, reptilian control freak, I mean.”

“Oh my God, I’m going to be sick!” Nikki said.  “You’re talking about Thuban!”

“Mmmm,” Jade agreed happily.  “He kisses really nice, too.  In human form, I mean.  Lizard lips don’t kiss so well, but they’re really soft when I’m kissing him.”

“But…”  Billie was clearly at a loss.  “But I thought yesterday, he was the biggest jerk in the universe.”

“Uh huh,” Jade agreed.  “And he probably will be again.  I may need to give him some negative reinforcement from time to time.”  She gave a gleefully evil smile.  “But in between…”  She sighed.

“Nope, no diversions,” Toni decided.  “We need details, stat!”

Jade touched her blanket, which rose up to cushion her as she toppled over artistically.  She reclined, drifting lazily about the room.  “See, you’ve got to know what your boyfriend’s kinks are.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this!” Billie yelled, slamming her hands over her long ears.

“Boyfriend?” Chou asked, in surprise.

“Let her finish!” Toni told everyone.

“See, he really likes gargoyles.  I mean, from the TV series.  The cartoon, you know?  But there was this shapeshifter girl who was even more obsessed than he was.  And therein lies the tale…”

And while she didn’t give them the secret details, she told them what everyone in Faction Three would be learning, soon enough.  Of cliques and outcasts, girls and gargoyles, Hekate, and nasty spells, and control freak boys who react badly upon losing their dream.  And she told them of a young girl they knew, trapped in the wrong body, but accepted for what she was as well as for what she thought she should be.

And while the girls in Team Kimba were puzzled, and in some cases alarmed by her choice, they hung on every word.

---

A blue-skinned gargoyle lay in bed, preparing for sleep.  How had the real Demona done it, she wondered.  Gargoyles slept in the day as stone statues.  But Demona had been stone-flesh by night and human-flesh by day.  She must have slept the old-fashioned way.  But when?  How?

Demona-nouveau tossed a bit on her bed.  Wings and a tail definitely took some getting used to, but it was worth it.  Despite everything that had gone wrong, it was still worth it.

The transformation had worked, exactly as she’d always dreamed.  Well, almost exactly the way she’d dreamed.  She had become the cartoon gargoyle, made real.  At the first light of dawn she transformed into human, perhaps slightly stronger and tougher than your average mundane – though no great shakes by Whateley standards.

Her mind focused again on an image of Goliath.

That was what she’d been trying for.  But just as it happened on her first day on campus, she’d seen breasts, and before she knew it, her body reacted.  Because of her own strange power, she’d spent a year and a half living in the girl’s dorm, and no one had ever figured it out.

Being Goliath would have been perfect.  After tearfully accepting the “accident”, she would have moved into the boy’s dorm, her gender problems fixed forever.

She hadn’t counted on them all being naked during the spell.  How could she not react to so many naked women around her?  And the naked gargoyle under her – was it any surprise that her mind slipped, at the last second, envisioning the female Demona, instead of the embodiment of manly nobility, Goliath?

Whatever the cause, apparently her gender problems were fixed, permanently, just the wrong way around.  She had to admit it – she was a Class A knockout in either form.  Not that she wanted to be.  She could hardly even talk to Thuban without enduring his look, as he undressed her with his eyes.  Not that she was much better.  She tried not to flirt, not to exploit his obvious attraction to her.  But it was so hard.  And she didn’t understand that, either.  She was a guy!

At least, she used to be.

Even more frightening was her own reaction.  She’d actually enjoyed the attention.

She had resisted temptation for a year and a half, living intimately with the girls of Whitman.  But then again, she wasn’t a boy any more, was she?  The spell was permanent.

She had achieved all her dreams, just… not quite the way she had imagined them.

---

Jade fell asleep easily, but only because she knocked herself out through over-charging selves.  Two of her had to slip out to spend the evening talking with each other about how excited they were.

She may not have achieved her dream, not in the flesh.  But in every other way – socially, relationships, emotions, and perhaps most importantly, in terms of how she viewed herself – she was one hundred percent girl.

Her physical body slept with a wide smile, and her spirit selves chatted, or danced, or hummed happy tunes.

---

As they prepared for bed, Dai Kaiju glanced at his roommate’s desk, and the jar of brownish red fluid and floating chunks.  “What the heck is that?”

“That, my good friend, is an epiphany.  A lesson that not all of life’s problems show on the surface, nor can our destiny be plotted with precision.”

“Oh, gross!  Do you know what’s in there?”

“Well indeed do I know that.  I know both victim and perpetrator.”

The turtle-shelled Dai looked into the jar.  “I’m guessing the victim will show up in school tomorrow, with no one the wiser, since he’s obviously a high-level regenerator.”

“True,” Thuban confirmed, his mind solidly elsewhere.  “But how did you know?”

“Easy.  Those ‘parts’ are still alive.  And they’re healing.”

Thuban blinked once, and was out of his bed in a flash.  He stared intently into the closed jar.

It was true.

The end Jade 6  – Dreams and Awakenings