“Maybe something came up?” she offered in a soothing tone.

“Over the course of the twenty seconds it took me to talk to Tank? I doubt it.”

“It’s up to you to decide how to proceed. Do you want to trust her, and risk having your heart broken, or do you want to not trust her, and risk breaking hers?”

“What?” I asked, turning to look at her. She wasn’t there anymore. In her place was another black feather.

---

Author's Note:
Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. "Real life happened" is my only excuse, and it's not a very good one ;-) I didn't need to do as much work on revising this one as the next chapter requires, so I went ahead and made the necessary corrections.

~Zoe

---

I was correct in my suspicion that Volcaness / Jennifer had come to find us before even letting anyone else know she was alive. Perhaps all the more disturbing, her ‘old’ body still lay lifeless in the morgue. Banshee exhausted her with questions while we all sat at the big conference table. Tank, despite his amazing survivability, had to be taken to med bay for treatment, but we’d tell him the good news later.

Mother stood from her place at the head of the conference table, slowly paced around it to stop next to the now Polynesian girl. She bent down next to her, and I could hear her ask softly but sternly, “One final question. Only the real Volcaness can answer this truthfully. What was it Volcaness learned that got her into the situation that led to her death?”

Without hesitation, Jennifer reached out to pull Mother closer, whispering something in her ear. Mother’s eyes widened. For the first time in my life, I watched as her unshakable and immutable confident façade had not just cracked, but shattered. She took a shaky step back, speaking in a quivering tone.

“That will be all. Volca–JENNIFER,” she corrected herself, “I will personally take care of your affairs. Officially you’ll be listed as Volcaness’ daughter and successor because mundane authorities will never believe any of this, but unofficially, I have no doubt who you truly are.”

Jennifer smiled smugly. “The body is different. It’s going to take some getting used to the height change too.” She paused, frowning. “I guess this means I can’t drink anymore?”

“You most certainly may not!” Mother shot back protectively, but paused. “At least not until we have had time to run a full battery of tests to see just how deeply these changes run. For all we know you may be in puberty again.”

Jennifer groaned. “Dear God. Once was enough!” she whined, as the thought of a second puberty had apparently not crossed her mind until now. “I’m gonna strangle that little girl if I find her, just for that.” Despite her harsh words, her smile betrayed her.

She turned to me and reached for my hand. “I guess it’s what I deserve for giving you such a hard time all this time.” I took her hand as I stood, pulling her up into a friendly hug. At first, she flinched, but hesitantly she returned the gesture.

“The next few weeks are going to be rough on you; even if you don’t have to re-learn your gender or your powers, you still have to learn what it means to be a teenager again.” Rose gave us both a funny look when I said that. Maria, Volcaness, and especially Mother all knew, but Rose? Apparently she didn’t get the debriefing about me. “But we’ll help you get through it.”

“Thanks. This wasn’t exactly what I meant when I said you had a good heart, but I’m not going to complain either.” She glanced at Mother with a knowing smile. “Hey, um, since my finances are still in my ‘mother’s’ name and haven’t been transferred yet, can I borrow twenty bucks?”

Mother glowered at her at first, and I had to giggle, interrupting whatever she was about to say. “It’s okay. She promised to take us out for pizza, but she forgot about the financial situation.”

Accepting that answer with a neutral nod, she answered crisply, “Very well. Bill it to Alpine Industries and I’ll write it off as a business lunch. Dismissed. Jennifer, I want a word with you in private before you go.”

Maria, Rose and I quickly made ourselves scarce. Even Maria knew better than to eavesdrop on these private conversations, but that didn’t stop me from trying to listen at the door. I could only barely make out the muffled conversation, though, and that was before Rose blindsided me with the million dollar question.

“What was all that stuff about re-learning everything?” she asked innocently. I answered with another question.

“Do you trust psychics?”

“Do I what?”

“Psychics — telepaths, though people who can see the future are lumped into that category too.”

“I guess? I’ve never met one before today, but if you’re talking about Maria--”

Maria cleared her throat. “Guys? I’m right here. I think what she’s getting at is it’d be easier to show you. I knew Aria Blade, if briefly, before she became Aria Blade. I’m going to give you an imprint of a memory of what she was like before and after as well as the emotions tied to the memory. This won’t hurt at all, but it’s going to itch like crazy,” she teased and winked playfully.

She removed her purple gloves and offered them to me to hold, and turning back to face Rose, she reached out, placing two fingers gently against her temples. She slowly settled her palms against Rose’s cheeks. “Don’t fight it,” she whispered. Rose seemed to relax a little, and within a few seconds, Maria stepped back again, reclaiming her gloves.

Rose slowly opened her eyes and turned to look at me, confusion etched on her face. “I don’t get it. You were a tomboy or something?”

Maria and I both giggled. “Something like that.” Before I could continue, the doors opened abruptly, causing me to jump. Mother stared at me a moment and chuckled, turning to continue down the hall. Jennifer emerged next.

“What was that about?” I asked, as I’m sure the other two were wondering the same thing. Jennifer laughed.

“I’m free. Remember that thing I told you this morning, about how I didn’t work for Banshee by choice? She felt guilty about me giving my life to save one of you, and she figured since I’m a teenager now, not only is our contract no longer binding, but she thinks it would be better if I joined as a full member. Tank turned in his resignation this morning right before the giant robot fiasco so it would just be the four of us.”

“Wait, Tank what? I thought he was just joking about leaving?” I felt hurt. Tank was an ass sometimes, but he went above and beyond to put himself between me and whatever threat we faced, usually Raven Wing, in the past at least. Speaking of Raven Wing…

Jennifer rolled her shoulders. “Banshee wouldn’t give me the full story. I think my little ‘accident’ shook her up. C’mon, let’s go see the big guy.”

I only managed to get a few feet down the hall before I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder. Where I stopped, I could already see Raven Wing’s reflection in the plate glass and metal fixtures. Rather than the new armor I’d seen her wearing earlier, she stood dressed in a simple black tank top and jeans, and the stiletto-heeled combat boots I’d seen her wearing when we met in the park. That day felt like an eternity ago. The others turned around, Rose stating the obvious. “Uhh, guys? Where’s Aria?”

Maria frowned. “She’s still here. I can feel her presence, as well as…” she trailed off, her eyes widening. “Let’s go check on Tank. Aria’s a big girl. She’ll be fine.” She raced off without another word. Raven Wing giggled as I turned to face her.

“What did you do to her?” I asked bluntly. She smiled as she rolled her shoulders.

“Not a thing this time, I swear.” Her tone shifted to a more somber and serious edge. “I wanted to apologize for what happened to Volcaness. I told you once that I only ever killed one person, and that was an accident.”

She hesitated. For a moment she looked like she would cry so I pulled her into a hug. She smiled and rested her head against my shoulder, closing her eyes. “Now I feel like this is my fault because the brat was feeling mischievous.” She turned to the wall, edging away from my embrace and slowly tilting her head forward to rest her forehead against it. She breathed a long, depressed sigh.

“Raven, it’s okay. I don’t know what the little girl did, but… Well, that girl you just saw — the Hawaiian girl that ran off with Maria and Rose? That WAS Volcaness.”

“You mean that was her successor?” She turned to stare at me, utterly confused.

“No, I mean the powers that be, whoever or whatever it was that gave her her powers to start with, gave her a second chance at life. They made her our age. Your little ‘friend’ bargained with them and got her that second chance as repayment for her part in her death.”

“So that’s why… She kept saying things like ‘Go talk to her. You know she’ll understand.’ or ‘she doesn’t hate you.’ so I finally came, just to shut her up.” She laughed. “I guess I should go though, before Banshee finds out. I can evade the human mind, but as soon as someone actually looks at security cameras they’ll see me as plainly as they would you.”

“Wait!” I begged her. She paused, staring into my eyes. I stared back, perhaps a little longingly. I threw my arms around her and I kissed her cheek. “Please… Please stay.”

“W-what?” she stammered.

“Please don’t leave. Jennifer’s taking us out for pizza. Mother’s footing the bill even. Please come with us. It’ll just be five normal, average, everyday teenagers going out for pizza. I haven’t had a normal, average, everyday teenage girl moment in my entire life. Please?” I begged. I needed this so badly right now.

She slowly rested her forehead against mine as she closed her eyes. “I guess that makes two of us. It would be kind of nice just to see what it feels like to be ‘normal’ … to have normal friends and just be a normal girl. I guess you’ve had your powers hanging over you all that time too?”

“Not … exactly. I’m not ready to talk about that yet.”

“Hey, kid!” Tank bellowed from further down the hall. “I thought I told you to quit flirtin’ with the enemy!”

I felt my cheeks burn. “I thought you said no one could see us?”

She giggled. “You asked me to stay, so I stayed. We can’t very well go out for pizza if your friends can’t see us.”

Grabbing Raven Wing’s hand, I gently led her along, approaching Tank. He grinned down at me, and as I let go of Raven’s hand, placing his massive meat-hooks on my shoulders surprisingly gently. “Listen, I gotta take off for awhile. I got some news that’s gotta be dealt with.”

“You’re not going to stay gone are you?”

He laughed. “Maybe, maybe not. You’ll be fine without me. Now that Volc’s been turned into a kid though stuff’s just gettin’ too weird around here. Besides, what I gotta take care of, it’s real personal stuff. Gotta visit an old friend I thought died a long time ago.”

He turned to slowly plod down the hallway. I glanced back to find Raven Wing suddenly gone. It wasn’t as though she faded from view, or that she’d run off. She simply was no longer there. I spotted, as I sank to my knees, a single black feather where she had stood. I knelt and picked it up and stared at it, turning it over in my hands.

“You okay, chica?” Maria asked as she stepped closer, offering her hand. She’d had time to change, now wearing a pink t-shirt and jeans, and her trademark and ever-stylish hand wraps. It wasn’t that Maria was incapable of physical human contact, but whenever she made contact with someone, it opened a door.

Sometimes it gave her more information from a simple handshake than she honestly wanted to know, but if the subject had a strong will, it could backlash and hurt her, so she wrapped her hands, mainly her palms, to prevent intrusive contact. She continued to hold out her hand until I accepted it, pulling myself up again.
“Yeah … Raven…” I mumbled almost incoherently and sighed, leaving the feather in her hand. “Nothing, never mind,” I said sadly as I walked past them. “You guys go on without me.”

“Hey, if this is about what Tank said-” Volcaness started, but when I glanced back to see why she stopped, I saw Maria’s hand on her shoulder. She smiled weakly at me. Apparently Maria saw something in the feather, or in my touch. I learned on a subconscious level not to fight her some time ago. It was just easier to avoid contact when I didn’t want to be ‘read’ than to risk hurting her accidentally.

I left them standing there, wondering, as I walked down that long and lonely hall. After changing into my civilian clothes, I sat for some time in the locker and shower area, just thinking, wondering. Why did she act so interested, only to just run off the second I turned my back? Why did life have to be so complicated?

As I stood to leave, a gentle knock at the door caught my attention: so gently that I thought the little mischievous brat calling itself Raven Wing’s inner child might be on the other side. “Come,” I barked, sitting again. “But no games. I’m not in the mood-” I abruptly stopped, seeing Aunt Sil standing in the doorway, sans power armor. She smiled a little.

“Everything okay?” She stepped further inside, and as I bit my lip she sat down beside me, wrapping me in a much-needed hug. “I’m so sorry about today. I don’t know what happened. It was like someone was actively trying to keep me from interfering.”

“It’s not about that, Aunt Sil.” I rested my head on her shoulder. “Jennifer’s okay and she even got a second chance out of it, so it all worked out.”

“So what is it? You know you can tell me or your Mom anything.”

“That’s just it. I can’t tell her because she wouldn’t understand. She’s always looking for some angle to use against others, or she’s looking for the strings others are trying to use against her. She can’t accept that Raven Wing and I are…”

“Are… together?”

“No!” I shot back, a little more defensively than I intended. She chuckled to herself. “No, that we’re innocent. At least, I thought we were. I thought she was.”

“Sweetheart, what happened?” she asked as she turned to face me.

“I … Raven stood me up,” I finally stated. “One second she was there, and we were talking about going to lunch together and ... and for once in both our lives just being normal teenagers. Tank even saw her this time. But when I turned around after he left, she was gone!” I sniffed, burying my face in my hands as I tried not to lose it.

“Maybe something came up?” she offered in a soothing tone.

“Over the course of the twenty seconds it took me to talk to Tank? I doubt it.”

“It’s up to you to decide how to proceed. Do you want to trust her, and risk having your heart broken, or do you want to not trust her, and risk breaking hers?”

“What?” I asked, turning to look at her. She wasn’t there anymore. In her place was another black feather. I scowled, storming out of the room. I could see Aunt Sil approaching, still in her power armor. She smiled and waved, but I stomped right past her. I wouldn’t be fooled twice.

With her following behind, asking me repeatedly what was going on, or what was wrong, I threw the front doors open and raced out. She didn’t follow me, and before long I found myself in that old, familiar park again. Something felt different though. The place was silent as the grave itself. No people passed by, no birds sang. I could no longer hear the traffic on the street. It was as though everything had just stopped: everything, but the sound of sobbing.

I slowly, cautiously approached the fountain where even the water seemed frozen, suspended silently, not so much in mid-air, but like someone had simply shut it off. As I drew closer, the sound grew louder. I peeked cautiously around the edge to see a familiar mop of disheveled, black hair cascading over obsidian-like body armor on the other side. I took the feather left behind in the locker room, and I held it out, letting it drop into her lap.

She jumped, looking from side to side, then up at me. She scrambled to her feet, backing up slowly. “How did you… How can you… What are you doing here?!”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I snapped back, even as I tried in vain to contain my anger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking … about…” she trailed off, pointing a slender finger behind me as she took a step back. “Aria… Wh-what the hell is that?” I turned, and jumped when I came face-to-face with the ‘Raven Wing’ I met in the hall earlier, the one that stood me up for lunch. This Raven Wing giggled, smiling sweetly.

“Relax, child of fate,” she spoke in Raven Wing’s voice. I backed away, bumping into the apparent real Raven Wing in the process. “I could not bring her to you, but I knew if I pushed the right buttons, that you would inevitably come here, to her.” The figure shrank down to the size and form of the little girl, still smiling creepily at us both. “What is it about this place that fascinates you both so, I wonder?” She tilted her head slightly to one side as if to emphasize her own curiosity. She shook her head. “No matter.”

The armored Raven Wing glowered at the shapeshifter. “What do you want from me? At first I thought you were some kind of miracle, but the longer you’re here, the more of a curse you become!”

“If you want, I can return your pain to you, let you become the madwoman who seeks to destroy her,” she nodded toward me with a positively impish, dark smile.

“No! No…” she responded, shaking her head vigorously.

“Then we’ll continue to play this game to its final end. For now, I believe you both have something to say to each other. Don’t be shy. I’ll give you some privacy.” The little girl giggled, turning to skip away. I turned back to Raven Wing.

“There’s something you have to know about Volcaness, but first, I need to know if this is the real you and not another illusion.”

Raven Wing turned back to me, and leaning over, she very, very lightly kissed me. “What do you think?”

I stared, dumbfounded, but smiled a little. “Volcaness is alive.”

“What? How?!”

“Your little friend claims to have bargained for her to have a second chance. She was reborn our age, but she has all the memories of the real Volcaness, including things only she and Mother knew.”

“Like what?” she asked, still looking as dumbstruck as I felt when I heard the news myself.

“I’m not sure. It has something to do with the deal they struck for her to become my bodyguard after I became Aria Blade.”

“Ah that’s right. She doesn’t know that yet,” the little girl giggled, reappearing standing on the fountain behind us: so much for privacy. “She doesn’t know how you became Aria. So do you trust her, and risk getting your heart broken, or do you not trust her, and risk breaking her heart?”

Raven Wing slowly looked between the both of us. “What IS she talking about?”

I heaved a slow sigh, turning to walk the short distance between the fountain and one of its many matched, poured cement benches. “You may want to sit down. What I’m about to tell you is one of Banshee’s best-kept secrets.”

She sat beside me, and as I took her hand, I explained to her how I ‘became’ Aria Blade. I told her everything, how I bargained with an entity I summoned because I wanted to be a superhuman like mother. I emphasized the ‘like mother’ part especially.

“I-I used to be a boy.”

“You’re … you’re joking right? This is a joke?”

I shook my head slowly. “I tampered with mystical powers, and I got what I wished for. I became ‘like Mother’.”

“That’s no-ot the whole-truth!” the little girl responded in a sing-song tone. “But you can’t HANDLE the truth,” she cackled fiendishly, bounding off the fountain and running off.

“I think I need to talk to Mother,” I sighed. “There’s something, some big secret I’m missing here. I think Jennifer — Volcaness, knows it, that little brat knows it. I’m sorry I blamed you for all this. When ‘she’ you appeared to me, I opened up to her. I-” I flinched, shifting my gaze right to the ground. I felt so humiliated trusting that little brat.

“You what?” she asked, leaning forward. She reached a hand out, cupping my chin lightly and turning my gaze back toward her.

“I begged her to stay … asked her to come eat lunch with us because I’d never had a normal teen-aged girl moment like going out for pizza with friends, and this is why. Up until a few months ago I was a quiet, abnormal teen-aged boy who, well, wished he was a teen-aged girl. I thought maybe if I were a hero, a real ‘man’s man’, that my feelings would change. I thought maybe I wouldn’t feel so… out of place anymore.”

Without giving her the chance to respond to all that, I stood to leave. I felt her hand sharply grab mine, keeping me from moving away from her. She stood, spinning me around to face her. “You asked my doppelganger on a date.” She giggled, causing me to blush.

“Yeah, kind of. It would’ve been the five of us though.”

“But still! That’s so sweet. And under different, better circumstances I would have said yes. But right now-”

“No, please don’t’ say it. I’ve already been toyed with twice today. I don’t think I can handle another rejection,” I pleaded.

“Let me finish. Right now, we need to find out what’s going on with this entity, and how we can win its game. If it’s powerful enough to resurrect Volcaness, then I don’t want to think about what happens if we … if I lose.”

“We. We’re in this together,” I offered softly. Her eyes lit up for a moment as I continued. “It seems to be obsessed with truth. Honestly it’s like a deific version of my mother.”

“Don’t even joke,” she laughed, squeezing my hand. “But we should talk to her. Whether it likes it or not, it tied itself to me, and that link works both ways.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I can shut it out for short periods. I’ve done it before, and it didn’t react, so I think it’s one of the rules of the ‘game’.”

As if on cue, all sound, movement, time itself seemed to return to normal at once. We could hear a girlish giggle echoing on the breeze, but nothing more. Raven Wing smiled a reserved smile. I squeezed her hand, leading her out of the park. As we drew closer to our headquarters, she spoke softly.

“Thanks for trusting me. I know I put you through a lot these last several months, and I’m the last person to deserve that kind of faith. I could very well still turn on you, and this could all just be one huge, elaborate plot.”

I stopped, turning back to face her. “That’s the risk I have to take. It’s the risk that someone should have taken ten years ago. Nobody ever stopped to ask you why you tormented others. They simply assumed you were too far gone because of the source of your power. Whatever’s going on here, I feel like we have a chance to … to save you.”

“That’s what this is all about? You’re trying to save me?”

“Well… yeah. I want to help you.”

“Thanks,” she responded softly. It almost seemed there was a twinge of pain in her voice.

“Raven, I-”

“No. We can talk about it when this is all over.”

“I think I love you,” I blurted. Again the world seemed to stop, though this time through no magical effects or the interference of a sneaky little girl. She stared silently, leaned forward to give me a simple hug then kept walking. I moved to catch up, continuing the rest of the way in silence.

We found both Mother and Aunt Sil in her office. Both seemed surprised to see me back so soon, and more so that I had Raven Wing with me. I approached Aunt Sil, having changed out of her power armor by now, and immediately leaned down to hug her tightly. “I’m sorry. There’s something going on, and I thought you were someone else. It’s a long story.”

“Aria, if you’re in trouble,” Mother began, staring at my companion as she spoke, “you know you can ask us for help.”

I straightened up again, turning to Mother. “We’re both in trouble, and we both need your help. Momma,” I emphasized that word. I normally called her ‘Banshee’ or ‘Mother’. “I need to ask you something. What was it Volcaness found out that upset you so?” She hesitated, again staring at Raven Wing. I shook my head.

“No, this concerns her too. I already told her the truth about me, about who I used to be. Look, there’s a powerful entity moving, playing with both of us. It leaves raven feathers in its wake, and it told us that unless we play the game, it would return Raven Wing’s pain to her, returning her to the psychopath she was a few short months ago.

I hesitated before biting my lip. I put an arm around Raven Wing's waist. I needed Mother to see for herself that I trusted her. “We think that its obsession with exposing secrets is the key to beating it, so whatever’s going on, I need to know. I can’t have anymore secrets being turned against us.”

Mother breathed a long, slow sigh as she paced around the desk, stopping in front of me. “I always knew this day would come, but I had hoped I’d have more time.” She leaned back, sitting on the edge of her desk. Sil stood, wrapping her in a supportive, sisterly hug, which caused Mother to smile, returning the gesture.

“Aria, up until the transformation that made you who you are now, you … weren’t my child, biologically.”

“What?” I gasped. I couldn’t believe my ears!

“I loved you like my own. I raised you, cared for you, but the story about your father was a lie. There was a man I loved once, but he left me when I learned I could never have children of my own. So I adopted a child. I never dreamed that you would one day continue the thousand year old prophecy and become my daughter, but there is no question that you are indeed, my daughter.” She smiled as she stepped closer, wrapping me in a hug and kissing my forehead.

Raven Wing, still standing off to the side, lowered her head. She whispered in a broken tone, “I told you Aria, you’re lucky to have her.” She stepped closer, putting an arm around my waist as she stood before Banshee.

“I know what you think of me, which is why it’s so hard for me to even be here. But Aria’s life is in danger, and not from me. As I told her, we need to figure out what this creature is so we can beat its game. If it has the power to resurrect someone, we don’t want to know what will happen if we should lose.” Mother wrinkled her nose slightly. As she thought quietly, it was aunt Sil who spoke up.

“I seem to remember something about a raven in lore. One of the Norse gods used them as messengers I believe.”

Maria spoke up from the entrance. “Not just in Norse lore. In the traditions of many Native American tribes, Raven is a Creator and Trickster god.” She smiled, waving. “We decided to wait until Aria could join us for lunch. What did I miss?”

Raven Wing turned back to Maria, which caused the psychic to jump slightly. “Trickster god? So I have a trickster god living in me? So how do I beat it?”

Maria stepped closer, staring the raven-haired girl in the face for several seconds before responding. “I had to be sure it was really you this time. In stories, Raven is sometimes seen as benevolent, but always, a trickster. What did he say to you?”

Raven Wing shifted her gaze to her armored boots. “She said that if we didn’t play the game, she would return my pain to me, and return me to my madness.” She glanced up again. “I’ve found one of the rules of the game is that I can temporarily block her out without any repercussions, but I’m running out of time. Do what you can to learn more. I’ll keep her occupied as much as I can.”

She turned back to the rest of us. “I’m trusting you all because I have no one else to turn to. Ironically my arch foe is the closest thing I have to a friend right now.”

As she turned to leave, I shifted back to Mother’s side, burying myself in her embrace. “So all this time… All this over-protectiveness you’ve shown me since becoming Aria…”

“It’s because I love you. I have always loved you, but I know how scary the world can be for a girl, especially one who doesn’t know the first thing about being a girl.”

“About that,” I began more softly, “There’s still more we need to talk about, and then we can get to this trickster god business.”