Author's Note: Finally, the transformation comes.

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Chapter 04
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Tatiana walked into the base and pressed her palms against her eyes now that the white dynamo mask she wore as Princess Undercut had been taken off. She had used a public restroom on the way here, torn between crying and vomiting. She did not know what caused the latter, but it didn’t matter now. Tatiana could hear the two men chatting in the meeting room.

They were no longer War Lagoon and Psi Wizard, but rather Jeff and Wyatt respectively. Jeff slid the bottle of whiskey across the table to the man sitting next to him. They were laughing for the stories they were telling, and solemn for the old friend they lost.

Wyatt saw Tatiana entering the room, and he said, “Hey, have a drink with us.”

“Maybe some other time,” she said. Tatiana rubbed her husband’s shoulders in passing before sitting on his other side.

“We were just sharing our favorite stories about David. I told him about the time Adamast dragged a crime boss to a rooftop and proceed to cut into the man with nothing more than his snark. When the police showed up to arrest the mob boss, he was mumbling about how much he’d done wrong. Like, ‘Yes, your actions are illegal, but here’s where you’ve really failed.’ And there, everyone was expecting Adamast to beat the mob boss up or drop him from the rooftop.”

Jeff said, “He sure did tell off criminals and villains for their stupidity far more than I did. He was only a kid back then, but no one outclassed Adamast Cross when it came to pointing out the flaws in everyone’s plan, even our fearless leader at one point.”

“What? No . . .” said Tatiana.

“Yeah! Walter didn’t want to pay to have water service added to the base, so he was going on about doing it himself, and having Warren develop a filtration system, so that we could bring in water directly from outside here. How they knew we’re next to a bunch of water, I don’t know, but Adamast said that it’s probably the ocean. A little hole is going to turn into a big problem before anyone could think to patch it up. Then everything Warren had built or improved upon would be submerged in water, our homely decorations would be ruined, and Walter would still be trying to make his little hole in the wall work.”

Wyatt said, “David didn’t always point things out like that, though.”

“Nope. I remember one time when there was talk of the old 50 level system being replaced with a smaller, and somehow more effective, scale he took a sign saying ‘You’re only a 1,’ and started wailing on some gang members who had vandalized the sign only moments earlier.”

“I thought that was a stop sign, and he pulled it out of the ground.”

“That might have been the case. Who knows for certain? But, the gang members spent the next few months directing traffic at that intersection because of the incident. The city asked Adamast to stop pulling cemented signs out of the ground. He proceeded to ask them about what he should do if the hero Signs got stuck in someone's garden again.”

“To this day, I still feel sorry for the villain who had to deal with Adamast and Shade. First he lost a fight to Shade, escaped jail, then ended up fighting and losing to Adamast, tried starting a riot in prison, and then came face-to-face with both of them in his holding cell. One was a cold, hard bastard still making a name for himself, and the other was made of ice. Neither one of them needed to say anything or stay long. The Bloody Falcon had a problem wetting his pants after that. Of course, Adamast went on to pretend it never happened, and I had no way of proving it did.”

“Shade and Adamast in the same room?”

“Chilly reception, right?” said Wyatt. Tatiana smacked him upside the head. “Ow. I had that one coming.” Wyatt smirked as Tatiana ran her hand through his hair and hugged him openly.

Jeff said, “It’s different now. The two of you were together a lot, but now . . . .” He paused when Tatiana slipped off her left glove, revealing a simple, yet beautiful, band on her ring finger. “No kidding. When did this happen?”

“What?” asked Wyatt. “You mean our wedding, or us being together?”

“Both, I guess. I’d have thought that a union between two heroes would be big news, and I would have heard something. For that matter, I would have loved to have been there.” Then again, Jeff supposed he had always suspected there was something between them.

Tatiana said, “We met a couple times before joining this supergroup, as you may remember. I thought he was both annoying and attractive as hell. The first time was when we both joined a team to take down some thieves. I thought at the time he begged to join because he was some newbie wanting more attention than he was worth. Not that I was much better.”

Chuckling, Wyatt said, “No, you were just as new and had to have things your way. Party girl mentality.”

“The two of us were at odds, but we took down those thieves as if trying to one-up each other the whole time. The rest of our team had trouble keeping up even though they ranked higher than we did on that old system. When the night was over, we said some harsh things to one another, and walked away thinking that would be the last encounter.”

“The next day, I went to my day job at the clinic when I saw a young man in scrubs hand a stuffed animal to a patient from pediatrics. I recognized the stuffed animal from the night before, and also his posture when he kneeled down to her.”

“I still don’t know what came first," said Wyatt, "the random kiss or the icy green tea to the face, but I remember her being very confused and storming off without a word.”

“I talked to my father to let me work another coffee cart in the city, and three months passed before I received an open invitation to try out for a supergroup that was looking for members. You remember that day.”

Jeff said, “I do. So then what? I remember the two of you bickering one moment and being inseparable the next, yet still bickering from time to time.”

Tatiana continued. “That about summarizes our time in the Dallevan League. When we disbanded, Wyatt and I were the only contacts the other had left for three years before my mom found out about him and smacked him upside the head.”

“Yeah,” said Wyatt, “Imagine my confusion seeing a Tatiana lookalike hitting me up the head for something other than my bad puns. I think it confused the hospital staff even more. Then she pulled me aside and asked me why I hadn’t proposed yet. I told her I already had plans to do so that night, but also now the family kind of scares me.”

“Did you really tell her that?” She laughed.

“I did. Then she kissed me on both cheeks and said she liked that. A month later, we had a civilian wedding. We swore in public to stay by one another’s side for the rest of our lives.”

“And on a rooftop to die together if it ever came to that.”

“It looks like Adamast and Ohm Wire beat us there. They were too young to go, as was someone else we knew and loved.” Wyatt refilled and raised his glass. Tatiana raised an empty one, and Jeff another full one, to meet his. “To David and Kyra.”

“Salud.”

The men drank while Tatiana set down her glass. She was still not feeling quite well enough to drink. She would have to schedule a doctor’s appointment, though preferably on a day no one in her family was running those carts. She did not need them asking her again when she was planning to have children.

Then Jeff shot a laugh. He said, “I just remembered one time David gave Warren a hard time after he hit on Toyenna.”

“Mortar did what?” the married couple said.

“The two of them, Adamast and Mortar, went to investigate a group of carnies about some mystical weapons that had gone missing. This was in our final weeks as a group. They were seconds from the man who stole and hid the weapons, and the idiot carnie tried to fend them off with a pair of normal handguns. Toyenna flew in and landed on the man, stomping him to the ground. Apparently, it was a bad day for her, because she broke a few bones with her natural weight. But, good ol’ Mortar! He wasted no time flirting with Toyenna in his own, awkward manner, totally unaware of the fact that she was a highly advanced android. One with a growing conscience, sure, but still an android. When she left, and Mortar began to realize his mistake, Adamast said to him, ‘Damn, man, I know you’re a bit of a technophile, but how desperate do you have to be?’ Well, then Mortar chose to defy all reason and eventually tried sending flowers to Toyenna’s only known address.”

Wyatt asked, “Where did the flowers end up?”

“No one knows. By this point it was right in the middle of a gang war that had broken out, and all of the androids akin to Toyenna disappeared. So about a year after we disbanded. I don’t think I ever saw Mortar so upset. We never talked much after that.” A distorted chime echoed through the base just then. It was the sound of someone entering through one of the portals strewn across the city. “Speaking of which.”

Mortar Mage raised his voice from the entrance, “Is anybody home?”

Tatiana shouted back, “We’re in here, Warren!”

Mortar walked toward the meeting room. He was still covered in a few scorch marks. “Sorry I’m late. My girlfriend didn’t expect me, she said, so we made the most of today in Siren’s. What have you guys been up to?” He got to the big room, and saw everyone bunched in one area of the round table with some whiskey and a few somber expressions buried in their faces as they laughed. “OK, a little more seriously now, what happened?”

“We miss you, Warren.” Tatiana managed a smile.

“Right. So, where’s David?”

***

In an estate overlooking the sea, she stirred. Memories of her old life were faint, but present. Then she awoke with a start. The pain in her chest was different. The bed was different. Where was Kyra? Who was Kyra?

David—was sort of name is that?—shook her head. With whatever was left of her memories, she said only a few words:

“What the fuck?”