Jan's tale 3 - Party at Poe | BigCloset TopShelf

Jan’s Tale 3
Party at Poe

Jan is not a happy camper. As if his life didn't suck enough already, turning into a mutant was everything but an improvement. Jan didn't get real superpowers, Jan got to be girly. To make it worse his parents decided in their unimaginable wisdom that exile to America was the solution for his problems. He is not so sure though.

Thanks to djkauf for editing.
Thanks to my proofreaders Drawflow, landing, DAW, Wrayth and last but not least Sleethr for their help.

Picture Credit to mking2008

Disclaimer: This is fan fiction for the Whateley Academy series. It may or may not match the timeline, characters, and continuity, but since it's fan fiction, who cares? To see the canon Whateley Stories, check out www.crystalhall.org

3rd. September 2007:

Jan’s tale 3 - Party at Poe:

Mrs. Horton had assembled us in the meeting room on the ground floor to tell us about the introduction parties the next two days. It was mostly more introduction stuff, but we were also supposed to socialize with the other dorm members. It was nice even though I wasn’t really someone to make friends at parties. Hell, I wasn’t really a party person at all. Although, it wasn’t like I got many chances to go to parties, anyway.

A strange boy stepped forward when I exited the meeting. “Hi, you’re one of the new changelings, right?”

Changeling? That was Ayla’s term for transgendered student, right? Another politically correct term for freak. Being on this side of the equation it was kinda nice though. Well, as long as you didn’t get insulted. Anyway, what did he want from me? Considering that he hadn’t been in the room and I hadn’t seen him yesterday either, he had to be an upperclassman.

“Ähm... do I know you?” I began, eyeing him suspiciously. He could have asked if I was one of Ayla’s crowd, but why did he pick that particular term? “Why do you ask? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“We’re at Poe, duh. And the lights are green” The boy replied, pointing at some kind of stop light over the door. “Sorry for ambushing you like this. I’m a Poesian myself. Third floor, room 18.” He took a step back and leaned against the wall. “I’ve kind of heard Phase… Ayla Goodkind talk about you and figured you might be interested in our project.” He said, gesturing with his hands.

He had a project? With Ayla? Not that I cared much for extra schoolwork, but it would be the polite thing to listen. What was his name anyway?

“Ähm… I’m Jan,” I introduced myself. “Who are you?”

Okay, maybe that was a bit crude but what would you have done?

“Name’s Lara… or ‘Luke’ outside of Poe,” he replied. “I heard you’re like me – not happy with the way your little transformation turned out.” He raised his hand. “Wait, let’s go over in the library, we can talk there safely.”

I wasn’t sure what he wanted to be safe for, but followed him over into the library. I’d kind of forgotten that Poe had one… Thinking about it, Mrs. Horton had sort of mentioned it yesterday. It looked like someone was seriously unhappy with turning into a guy and that was a problem I could easily understand. Well, not really the turning into a guy part, but the turning into something that you didn’t want to be part. It wasn’t like the body change was the real problem... okay, it was scary... but the problem was that well, it sucked. Hell, I knew how he felt. Made me really wonder what this was about though.

Nobody was in the library so I began as soon as the door had closed behind us. “You mentioned a project with Ayla; so what about it?”

He shook his head. “No, no project with a Goodkind. But I’m part of a group of GSD students who want to change their bodies back to the human norm. I wanted to ask if you were interested.”

Interested? Hell yes! My only issue was that he seemed prejudiced against Ayla. She was nice and it was really small minded to judge her solely based on her last name. It wasn’t her fault after all. And it wasn’t her fault for mutating either. Behaving as if she was named Hitler in an Israeli University was just silly and sad. Not that I really cared. I needed help against my transformation and if they could their attitude towards Ayla wasn’t important. My only problem was that we were in America and Americans believed there was no such thing as a free meal. They wanted something and they didn’t do it for free, otherwise everyone would look like that redheaded girl in Ayla’s group.

“Yes, I’m interested,” I slowly nodded my head as I considered the possibility. “I’d rather not permanently turn into a girl, but what do you want from me?”

“We need help transporting stuff.” Some of the tension left Luke. He... she pulled over a chair and sat down like girls always did. Legs together and all proper.

Just help with transporting 'stuff'? It made me worry about the implications. “Seriously? Can’t you carry stuff yourselves?” I asked suspiciously. There was some stuff I definitely wasn’t willing to carry. Illegal drugs could get me busted and put in an American jail. I certainly didn’t intend to waste my life behind bars until I was fifty.

He waved with his hand. “The school frowns on people trying to tamper with their bodies,” Lara explained. “Well, except for those who’ve been authorized and seldom get results.” She shrugged. “I’m known for my stance on that issue... and I can’t afford to pay 50,000 dollars for a ride in such a gizmo.”

Excessive safety testing, a school administration that didn’t want to take any risks as well as high prices for the components, I could imagine the problems. They’d look thrice at him if he even ordered components that could be used for transformations. It was nice to know that there was hope though.

“I can’t afford those prices either.” I said, flopping down as usual. I certainly didn’t want to look girlish. I was still a boy where it counted, so I could sit like one. “So what do you plan to do?” I inquired, since I had a few reservations. Using experimental medical technology was... not risk free. Maybe mutant stuff was better... trust was good, control was better.

He looked around quickly, checking for any listeners. But there was nobody; we were sitting in a corner and otherwise the library was clear. Seemingly satisfied Lu… Lara said: “We plan to use a device for the actual transformation to avoid affecting our powers and magic to find the way to reconstruct our original body frame.”

“Okay... I’m not an expert but this sounds good,” I shrugged. “I’m happy as long as it works.” If it worked...

“Phew...” he exhaled with relief. “I’m glad you’re on board. I have something to show you.” He pointed onto the ground in front of him and suddenly a pentagram appeared.

"Whoa! Ahm, I'm not so sure about this..." I anxiously took a step back because I have only seen pentagrams in one place before, horror movies.

“Part of our security system,” He shrugged like it was not a big deal to have magical pentagram as a security system. “Step in, I activate it and you can enter the library and our lab whenever you want.”

His explanation sounded reasonable, but then I didn’t know shit about magic. Maybe they used pentagrams in the movies because they looked evil. Maybe pentagrams were like hydrogen; they could be used for both good and evil. Like rocket fuel and nuclear bombs.

The pentagrams apart, what he told me about their security system sounded impressive. “I gather you need to get into the library, find this pentagram and get it to accept you before you can actually find the lab?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Magic works better if it is more complicated. The same goes for security systems,” he... she said. “Our magic geeks got the stuff from Harry Potter. The Library is under a notice-me-not and our lab is hidden by a fidelius. We have to be careful though, I doubt whatever our wizards have cooked up is as good as the Harry Potter original.”

Okay, this really sounded difficult. Apparently this little conspiracy had been running for some time already. This kind of system couldn’t be set up from one day to the next. It seemed too complicated. Yet if they went that far, they were probably close to success; otherwise there would have been no need.

“Okay, step in here, I need to check something,” Lu... Lara said, pointing at the pentagram on the ground.” A pentagram... “Don’t worry,” he continued. “It won’t hurt you and I won’t summon a demon either. I just want to make sure of something.”

Whatever, I wasn’t all that convinced it would work anyway. Stepping into the pentagram I felt a shiver running over my skin. Next to me Luke mumbled something and suddenly the pentagram flared green.

“You can come out now,” Lara said, waving at me. “I’ve bound you into our wards. You can come in here without problems now...”

“Nifty,” I grinned, turning around as I stepped out of the pentagram. “You’ve really blocked the library for everyone else right?”

“Not really... some people are immune against the distraction spell,” Lara said. “I need to show you our lab next. Follow me please and remember the way..”

He led me out of the library and down the stairs into the cellar. There was some kind of airlock between the cottage and the access to the tunnels. Weird, why would they need a thing like that? It was something I would have expected in a spaceship, not a school... or did they build a spaceship under the school? Project Mutant Exodus... Mutants fleeing from earth and the prosecution by the MCO. Nah that was like a plot from a bad Hollywood movie.

After opening it and walking around underground for a while, I began to worry. Did he really just want to help me or was this something more sinister, a setup? Why did he need to show me their lab? Hell, who recruited people into a secret project when they didn’t know them? It did sound kind of shady after all. I really hoped I hadn’t outed myself when I agreed with this changeling stuff. I had no mobile with me and running into one setup was enough for a day. Even if the last one wasn’t targeted at me.

My worries turned out to be needless as soon as we stopped. We hadn’t walked all that far anyway. I didn’t exactly have the plan of the school in my mind, but something told me that we were somewhere in the middle between Hawthorne and Poe. I guess it made sense. It wasn’t like the beautiful would have been interested in this anyway. It was more like the last hope of the freaky.

“Okay, we’re here,” Luke stated, ripping me from my thoughts. “You see this door right?”

Yes, now that he mentioned it I saw it. Obviously they’d done more than just magic. They didn’t just trust the mystic mumbo jumbo, which was rather smart in my opinion. Especially with mutant powers around that could cancel out whole types of power. The door looked just too similar to the wall and was also hidden in the shadows. It was almost impossible to discern.

“You press this stone...,” she said, touching a stone in the center of the door. “And then it opens.” The wall vanished into the space behind.

I followed him into the room and found myself in a laboratory with several strange gizmos and runes at the floor and walls. If it hadn’t been so clean and white it could have been right out of a horror movie - like Doom 3 - okay that was a game, but you know what I mean. Actually the only thing missing was the blood smeared over everything. Not that I missed it. Thankfully Luke didn’t seem like the Demon summoning type, even if she was a bit desperate.

Maybe this was just the way a mad... mutant scientist’s lab would look in reality. Not like these weird things in cartoons where stupid villains tried to conquer the world. No, while this lab looked somewhat strange, I couldn’t deny its obvious professionalism. It definitely wasn’t a demon summoner’s den. Thanks god. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with something like that.

“Okay... this looks... interesting,” I said. “What does this do?” I pointed at the strange gizmo in the center with many different buttons, Tesla coils and overlapping rune bands.

“Oh this?” He asked. “Jan, this is our transmogrification machine. You see this over there?”

Lara was pointing at a strange cage like structure that was also painted with runes and had some rather techy looking devices bracing its bars.

“Yes, it looks like a cage.” Which didn’t exactly make me feel good about this. Transformation cages were something out of evil-mad-scientist fiction. Well and those super villain labs that’d been busted by superheroes or the police.

“It’s to prevent movement during the re-transformation,” Lara explained calmly with a shrug. “That’s a bad idea, you know?”

I didn’t know, but I could imagine. No... I didn’t want to imagine. It would probably make this lab really look like a Doom 3 science lab. Well, after the demon invasion.

Trying to distract myself I asked: “Okay this is interesting and you seem to know much about this. I’m curious, are you’re one of the engineers?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m just the recruiting officer and have a small talent for magic. Nothing special really. Except for this stupid turning into a boy part.” He sighed, looking down on the offending part of her anatomy. “I think we’re done here unless you have some questions. I’ll tell you if your help is needed. Just remember to keep secret about our group...”

I didn’t really have any questions and I didn’t want to miss the others again. I hadn’t seen them at lunch, but okay, I’d been really late and he’d caught me after the assembly before I could catch up with the rest of my group.

“Good,” I replied. “I need to go anyway. See ya.”

After leaving the lab, I quickly hurried back to Poe and went up to our floor. Looking into my dorm room it turned out that Lisa wasn’t there. Not sure what to do next I left my stuff in the room and went to the sunroom. Thankfully the rest of the changeling group was there. Lisa, Felicia, Ashley and Susan were sitting in front of the TV, watching some girl-TV-series. I didn’t know it and considering how the protagonists were bitching around I didn’t want to know either. Seriously, what was so great about stuff like that? My sister also liked the trash... but maybe that explained her behavior. Stuff like that could only teach girls to be total assholes.

“Hey Jan,” John shouted, waving me over to the three guys of our TG-group. Alan was in his boy-form once more, sitting next to Hunter, who lounged around on the couch.

“Yes?” I said, joining them. “What’s up?”

“Where have you been?” Hunter inquired. “We kinda lost you after breakfast.”

‘Well you guys ran away! Sheesh,’ I thought feeling a bit irritated.

“Schedule and stuff,” I replied shrugging. “Made a friend… I think and was distracted after Mrs. Horton’s little speech.”

“That’s interesting,” Alan said – his voice sounded really boyish, he’d probably missed voice change or something. “Anyway, we were talking about GEO.”

If he really thought it interesting he wouldn’t have instantly changed the topic. Seriously, if they weren’t interested they shouldn’t have asked. Not that I minded much, I didn’t really feel like recounting my adventures this morning. GEO was a good thing to talk about though.

“Good and Evil Online, right?” I asked. “The game really sounds interesting from what I’ve heard, but what about it?”

“We considered buying it,” John said, flopping down on the couch right next to me. “You see, everyone here plays it and we can buy it at the Campus Store. And it’s really the best MMORPG around. WoW can’t hold a candle to it.”

Seriously? Some of my friends had been totally addicted to the latter, but I wasn’t quite sure why it was supposed to be so awesome. On the other hand I hadn’t tried it so far, so I probably couldn’t judge. Even if GEO was supposed to be better, I still had one issue though.

“What about the payments?” I needed to know. “I get some pocket money from my parents, but that’s not the world.” I had to buy everything from it, so I couldn’t just throw it away on a mood.

“Well… the first month is free,” Alan explained, “if you buy the game and you can buy two-month prepaid cards for 32 Dollars.”

That would be even less in Euro… Well, it was actually affordable. Good thing the Dollar was so weak compared to the Euro. But seriously, it was no big surprise considering who was in power. My doubts about the competency of my host nation’s government aside, buying GEO sounded like a good idea. Surfing the net got really old after a while.

“Okay,” I said and nodded. “What are we waiting for?”

“Just for you,” Hunter laughed and shouted. “Hey girls, we’re going.”

“Go quietly,” Lisa yelled back, although I could tell she wasn’t angry.

Thankfully, the Campus Store wasn’t that far away. Only five minutes later we were there. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this. We found ourselves in a large hall, filled with things that looked like they were out of a superhero/villain Walmart. And while that probably was what it really was, we still found what we were looking for. Somewhere in the electronics corner, just behind the science-villain costumes, right next to the home build set for EMP-bombs and in front of the entrance to the gun section was the Games-stack.

They didn’t just sell GEO, but for some reason it was put prominently into the front. Someone here definitely had an interest selling the game. I wasn’t a big fan of giving credit card information to every company that wanted it, so I was rather grateful when I saw their stack of prepaid cards. Did they really need like 30 of those lying around? Strange... Apparently my cottage mates hadn’t lied about the Game’s popularity at this school.

Alan, Hunter and I went and bought one, while John only needed another prepaid card. I should have guessed he’d bought the game before, but then it was a bit of a surprise considering his history. With a mother like that... Or maybe not. She probably allowed it to him when he still was a her. MMORPGs were a men’s sport after all. And if her daughter wanted to conquer a territory of the patriarchy she’d probably be all for it. I didn’t ask John if my theory was true though.

Afterwards we went back to Poe and installed it on our laptops. When I logged into the school net they asked me for permission to register with them, I clicked one of those annoying Vista checks away and instantly got started. This was easier than establishing the W-Lan at home! No wasting hours reconfiguring IP-addresses until it was finally willing to work. This was almost too good to be true, but then they seemed to have a capable IT department.

Meanwhile I was quite happy with the laptop I’d gotten as a bribe. My parent’s gift turned out to be better than the school version. Even in a high tech school like this it was only to be expected, considering that they didn’t want us to use them as gaming stations. John also had his own, but Hunter had to use his school laptop and Alan had no PC at all.

“It’s okay, you can have my school laptop for now,” John offered, before I could do the same.

It wasn’t like MMORPG’s had limited installations or something. That would be silly... or too greedy for their own good.

Soon we found ourselves on two couches in the Sunroom with the laptops on the table in front. Thankfully installation didn’t take too long and we could begin with character creation. The process was really really really weird. I mean, it asked me questions about how I felt about my gender… it was as if it already knew about my problems and only wanted to test my reactions to the confrontation or something. I remarked on it and the others said it was the same for them. How could a bloody computer program ask so accurate questions?

The weirdness didn’t stop when I got to character creation. Or rather archetype selection. That’s the concept GEO has instead of classes.

“Jan, it’s so you’re not so limited by your class choice,” John explained. “In theory you can become an arch mage with a warrior archetype. The archetype only gives you your beginning skills and determines what gives you experience points.”

Cool! I’d played a few RPG’s before, but the limitations in character development were somewhat frustrating. Anyway, these archetypes were strange. The gender was determined from the beginning and I couldn’t choose everything. Some options were recommended, others not so much.

This meant I had mostly female characters to choose and my few male options were all archetypes I didn’t like. Seriously, what kind of person played rogue? ‘I have the bigger dagger than you have…’ or something. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, considering Alan’s angry mutters next to me. Something about guys in dresses… he ended up with a female Warrior. A real Amazon. John created a mage for himself, which somehow didn’t surprise me at all. Meanwhile Hunter… well, he picked a hunter. I thought it was rather funny.

Well, I had no really appealing male options. Rogue, Warrior and Archer. Meh. Or even worse, Soldier. Warriors were idiots, soldier’s cannon fodder. I wanted to be neither. They weren’t “easy” characters to role play anyway. Or so the interface told me. Considering I was an absolute noob at role playing, I figured it would be smarter to pick an easy Archetype. In my case that meant the Adventurer archetype. It was sort of in the center of my screen anyway. Going out to discover the world and slaying a few monsters on the way. That was what I wanted to do.

Afterwards it went exactly as John had told us. We appeared in different regions of the game and had individual beginning quests. While I’d liked to play with my cottage mates from the beginning, this disappointment was soon forgotten. The game was totally captivating. I’d never expected an online game to have a better storyline than most single player games.

“Boys, boys!” Lisa suddenly shouted from behind me.

“What?” I asked annoyed. Did she really need to interrupt me? “Could you please shout more quietly?”

“No… I can’t,” she laughed. “Anyway, it’s dinner time so you might want to find a way to finish your game.” Seeing our incredulous looks she amended: “Or at least pause it.”

“She actually has a point,” John admitted, looking at his watch. “Um… just have your characters auto-walk to the capital, and then we can continue together, tomorrow.”

It was a good idea. I probably shouldn’t miss the Poe Party for gaming if I didn’t want to totally isolate myself once again. After using this auto-walk options – it was an awesome feature in my opinion – we deactivated our laptops and went down for dinner with the girls. We were totally talking about GEO and even the girls were curious. Considering my roommate’s questions maybe I could convince even her to join.

“Hey Jan, John, what do you guys use as character’s names?” Ashley inquired and grinned at us. “My brother named his WoW rogue Roxxormaster.”

“Seriously?” John laughed. “How old is he?”

“Older than me,” Ashley said shaking her head. “Sometimes it looks like guys never grow up.”

Whatever, it really was a stupid name. Who actually wanted to grow up though? I wouldn’t have minded to stay a kid forever.

“Theala, that’s how I named my character,” I said.

“T..T... Thayala... how the hell do you write that name?” Lisa asked. “I can’t even speak it. I mean it sounds cool.”

Seriously it wasn’t so hard, was it? “Wasn’t English supposed to be a Germanic dialect?”

“Yeah, but we’ve unlearned how to make these barbaric guttural sounds,” Felicia said, blowing me a raspberry.

An American calling someone else a barbarian... But well, I could enlighten these fools by using the English pronunciation. “You’d probably speak it ‘Theala’.”

“Okay...” Lisa said raising her eyebrows. “Interesting how you can make a simple word sound so complicated.”

Interesting my ass. I remembered my own problems learning English. Just trying to learn to speak ‘the’ was bad enough. Not to speak of the fact that every vowel sounds different depending on whatever letters come in front of it. Just think about the many different ways to pronounce ‘e’... Meanwhile my new friends didn’t care much about my inner musings and continued the conversation.

“Herkules,” Hunter exclaimed grinning as he played his considerable muscles. “That’s my name!”

“He’s full of shit,” Alana interjected. “His real character’s name is Pussyman.”

“Very funny Ranma-girl,” Hunter replied, rolling his eyes. “Although... No, not a topic for the cafeteria... My character’s named Sekulas. It didn’t accept the cooler names.”

“Yeah, Harry Potter didn’t work either,” John mock-sighed. “Mine is Arlinius. Why did you want to know anyway?”

“Just curious...” Ashley said. “You know we need to find code names, so I wanted to know if you had an idea.”

“Well I have one already,” Alana said. “Lupeine.... I got it after I had my Were-style transformation and beat those bastards up.” Seeing our confused looks she elaborated: “Oh didn’t I mention it during our introduction? Some assholes tried to bully me when I transformed for the first time. I beat them up, but it was on video so the MCO couldn’t abduct me for being a dangerous mutant or something.”

It sounded very similar to my own story, only that I didn’t beat the assholes up. And there was the MCO again. I was only a day at Whateley and I was already getting paranoid about them.

“Okay...” I said. “Lupeine? Does that have a meaning?”

She shrugged. “It kinda refers to my Werewolf like transformation. I’m just a were-girl... well, were-Amazon. And Lupine was already taken. Apparently by someone here at Whateley. Well anyway, my in-game Warrior is sort of called Brandhild... Jan kinda helped.”

“Yeah it sounds somewhat German,” Lisa agreed. “Anyway, everyone is done eating right?”

Well, my plate was clear and it had been that way for the last five minutes.

“I could have another bite,” Ashley said. “But on the other hand I’m pretty full and we really need to get going.”

Suddenly all the girls were standing, ready with the trays in their hands - well all except for Alana, but then she was really one of the boys. Even after we left the trays with the dishes on the conveyor the girls continued their rush. For some reason they were all in a hurry and only when we returned to our rooms at Poe I understood what it was about.

Unbelieving I was sitting on my bed, watching Lisa standing in front of her opened wardrobe. “Oh God, what should I wear?” she asked almost panicked, wringing her hair.

I began to snicker and then broke into outright laughter. She just couldn’t decide what to pick. God, it couldn’t really be that hard, could it? It was like a scene out of a movie. Why couldn’t she just grab a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and be done with it? Girls were just weird that way.

“What?!” Lisa glared at me. “It’s not funny.”

It only made me laugh harder. “Sorry,” I said through my snickers. “Sheesh, just pick something or stay the way you are... it’s just a welcoming party for god’s sake.”

She glared at me. “It’s easy for you to say, you don’t care about your looks.” Then she focused on her wardrobe again. “What should I pick? Formal, semi, casual? I kinda like the soft colors.”

God this was ridiculous. She was a bloody exemplar, she could go out in sportswear and she’d still look hot. She didn’t even need face paint to look good. And seriously, why would I care about my looks? I didn’t want to look like a girl and I didn’t have formal male clothing - which would have been my only chance to actually look somewhat male. Her behavior kind of annoyed me though.

“Heaven, just pick a short skirt in a color you like, something that allows all who might be interested to see your breasts and make sure it doesn’t clash too hard.”

“It’s not that easy okay? I don’t want to look like a slut,” Lisa retorted glaring at me, stemming her hands into her hips. “Try some skirts yourself if you want to criticize me.”

No way in hell. I knew how that would go... no no, not with me girlfriend. Simply no way.

It was an effective way to shut me up though. “Whatever,” I said shrugging and pulled my Harry Potter book from the nightstand. God, I so wanted to play GEO, but I knew I wouldn’t enjoy the party if I did. That would be too distracting. If I started I would only be annoyed if I had to stop. No, I had to distract myself with reading my book until the party began. Lisa wasn’t good for anything right now.

Trousers were a bit too warm in bed, and I didn’t want to sweat them all stinky, so I threw them into a corner before I snuck myself under the covers. Lying on my back, I watched her over the edge of my book. It was strange how much she needed to do... and scary that people would actually expect me to do the same. *shudder* Why did girls complicate their lives so much? Hours wasted for dressing! I didn’t understand.

*knock* *knock*

“Come in,” Lisa chirped before I could say anything.

The door opened and a rather tall blonde haired girl glided through gracefully, she was another one of these exemplar-beauty types. “Hi... I’m Zenith,” she introduced herself. “Considering what Ayla said, I figure you’re Jan,” she said, looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said and stood up from my bunk. “That’s me.” She was the Senior Ayla had mentioned. “Ayla said you could help me with this.” I pointed at my boxer shorts.”

“Yes... I’ve had some experiences with this problem myself,” she nodded as she grabbed herself a chair and sat down. “It seems rather flat though...”

“It’s her manifestor shell,” Lisa interjected, interrupting her efforts in applying war-paint.

Zenith shrugged. “So just deactivate it or I can’t really help you.”

Crap. “I can’t. It only deactivates when I fall asleep,” I said. “Is there really nothing you can do?”

“Well... I’m a telepath; I could knock you out or something.”

“No, that wouldn’t work,” Lisa said shaking her head. “I got up to go to the bathroom half an hour after you went to sleep and the shell was still active.”

“Okay... I guess we don’t have this option right now,” Zoe sighed. “Anyway...” I felt something strange before she looked at my roommate. “Lisa... do you still have your... balls left.”

Lisa shook her head. “No... Alan has though.”

“Ah she’s the Ranma of your year, right?” Zenith said. “No... It’s not really necessary and I doubt he’d like it very much if we experimented around with them.”

Experimented? That didn’t sound good. Experiments were always risky and I certainly didn’t want to risk my balls. Alan probably wouldn’t appreciate it either. The fact that Zoe was giggling didn’t make me feel safer at all. I wanted to hide my balls, not lose them!

“Okay, I don’t think you like to hear it, I didn’t either,” Zoe began as if she’d guessed my thoughts, making me fear the worst. “But you need to do it.”

“You don’t want to hack them off, right?,” I asked, instinctively retreating towards the wall. I really didn’t like the way they were talking about my precious balls.

They looked at me as if I’d grown wings. “What?” I said irritated. “Please tell me what you mean.”

“I was talking about panties,” Zoe said, shaking her head. An amused smile was playing over her lips. “You really go to the worst side of things, don’t you?”

“Sorry,” I said but didn’t mean it. “I’m so used to the worst that assuming it from the beginning seems like the safest bet.”

Zenith was just staring at me. Crap... I said too much again. They probably didn’t care about my past anyway and who wanted to associate to a depressive freak? Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut once in awhile? She’d said something about panties and I went off about my issues.

“Ähm... sorry, forget it,” I said, definitely meaning it this time. “Anyway, what about panties?”

“Okayyyy,” Zoe replied, raising her eyebrows. “You mind if I touch you?”

I shrugged. Being touched by a hot blonde wasn’t something I minded very much. Thinking about it made my nipples feel strange - my dick was kind of deactivated at the moment. Which was probably for the better, or this could have become very awkward.

“Alright,” she said stepping closer and suddenly pulled at my boxers. “You see how far I can stretch this? It doesn’t press your genitals against your body at all.”

“Yes...” I saw it. “But wouldn’t further pressing hurt even worse?”

Zenith shook her head. “No, not if it’s done right. If you’re lucky you can just kinda shove your groin up into your body cavity. Otherwise you might need to wear a gaff, a protection pad and another pair of panties, or maybe a panty girdle above it.”

For some strange reason - well probably my mysterious real power - I actually knew what a gaff was. Essentially it was a front panty. One used it to hold one’s junk after one tucked it back.

“That’s nice to know, but I still have no idea how to do it... and I have no panty girdle...”

“For god’s sake, Jan get a grip! It’s really not that bad,” Lisa groaned. “A panty girdle is a freaking pair of girl-boxer-shorts!”

Crossing my arms under my chest, I glared at her. “I wasn’t complaining about it. I simply have none! That was my condition to actually come here. I mean I’m forced to run around in girl clothes so I demanded that they’d leave my underwear alone!”

“Perfect deal for your mom,” Zenith said grinning. “She tricked you Jan.”

Mom... dad... I still needed to write them a message. “Ah crap... I totally forgot about them.” I shook my head. “Anyway, where do I get this stuff from?”

“Campus store,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes. “Um... Lisa,” she said hesitantly. “Would you mind to lend Jan a pair of yours? Just for tomorrow?”

Um... what the hell was that about? It was just underwear and Zoe was behaving as if she’d just asked Lisa to give me her brand-new car or something.

“Isn’t that supposed to be unhealthy?” Lisa asked reluctantly.

“Only for two girls. It’s Vagina on Penis contamination...” Zenith rolled her eyes. “If that was too dangerous humanity would have died out by now. Anyway, you’re only going to do it for a day.”

I decided to say nothing about this. Not that I ever switched boxer shorts with my friends or something, but I didn’t get their problem. God, would I become like that? Worry about pointless crap, waste hours in front of my wardrobe and mirror?

“If it’s that bad I can wear boxer shorts tomorrow or something,” I shook my head. “Seriously, it’s not like I’m too fond of that idea anyway.”

“No Jan... you won’t get away like that,” Zenith laughed. “Seriously though, I’ll bring some gaffs tomorrow and show you how to do this without hurting yourself, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. She had to know better how it worked.

“Hey don’t look so glum,” Zenith said. “Maybe you’ll even like how it feels.”

No. Way. In. Hell. And even if it was true I wouldn’t admit it. Or I could kiss my male card goodbye.

Sitting down on my bed, I tried to distract from our previous topic: “Zoe, say, when does the party begin?”

“Um...” she looked onto her watch. “Good that you mention it. It begins in ten minute... I need to go.”

Zenith left and Lisa finished whatever she needed to do to get ready for the party. Meanwhile I started up my Laptop and sent Mom and Dad a message. They really needed to know I arrived well. Even though they probably deserved it, I didn’t want to make them worry too much. Well, and dear Svenja had some serious snark coming, stupid cow she was. It wasn’t all niceness though, I asked some pointed questions. They really needed to tell me why they’d really send me here and if they’d been threatened by someone. My dorm mates’ reports scared the shit out of me.

After Lisa had forced me to don a new blouse - a t-shirt was enough sheesh - we went to join the rest of the party. I didn’t give a shit about career options, hell I was only a freshman, it wasn’t like that affected me anyway? The alternative sexuality at Campus was my first destination, but I realized this wasn’t something I cared for. It was mostly about homosexual relationships anyway and they only wanted to say something about changeling stuff in the end. Considering that I didn’t feel ready for relationships anyway, I just backed out as soon as I saw their program.

Introduction to Whateley turned out to be more of the same stuff that I’d already learned from Ayla and Mrs. Bell. And I really knew enough about Campus Security. If I never saw that Delarose dude again it would still be too early.

“Sorry, Ashley,” I said. “I don’t think this is something for me. My student counselor already told me about making my schedule and stuff.”

“Okay,” she whispered back. “I guess I can tell you tomorrow what you missed.”

I shrugged. “Sure, I’ll go down to the party. See you later.”

The party on the first floor turned out to be fun. Almost all of our group was there and John introduced me to the two guys that had started off the whole playing GEO thing in the boy’s shower this morning. They were both gay and had already hit it off in the train to Whateley. Apparently the game had made them admit their feelings about their sexuality. It was rather weird, really.

“Hey, Jan,” a female voice said from behind, catching my attention. “Are you game for some fun?”

I turned around and saw the lesbian girl from the showers this morning. Julia something or other. She was kinda nice though. “Hi,” I said. “You have an idea?”

She nodded. “Yeah, over there in the meeting room they’ve sort of created a Karaoke bar.”

Karaoke... It sounded kind of cool, but I’d never tried it before. And I also wasn’t confident about my singing abilities - I’d lost them during my first voice-change and I hadn’t tested it since my first transformation.

“If you want,” I said. “I might sound like a drunken sailor though.”

“I doubt it,” Julia laughed. “Or you’d be the highest pitched Sailor I’ve ever seen.”

I was kinda trying to speak low... but apparently I was failing. Why did I have to inherit that annoyingly high voice of the German voice actor? It was like I couldn’t go deeper! On the other hand I could actually sing before my first voice change...

“Good, lead the way,” I said and smiled at her. She was kinda cute, but she wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. I was just too freakish... and everyone knew lesbians hate penises.

Soon we found ourselves in the crowd, dancing and waiting for our chance to sing. Right now a beautiful black girl was singing on the stage and she was better than most super-stars. By all right she should be one of these teen stars!

“Ouch! Jan, be careful,” Julia reminded me. “You kinda dance like a lumberjack.”

“Well, tell me how to do it better,” I replied a bit miffed. “I don’t exactly have much experience.” I really didn’t. How would I? People didn’t want to be associated with a freak… fag like me. And I stopped caring anyway.

“Guys...” she rolled her eyes. “Just copy my motions.”

It wasn’t a guy problem, but a lesbian probably wouldn’t know.

“Okay…” I said. “Hey look, I think it’s our turn.”

It was. Julia had picked some Rihanna song – of all artists – and we were singing it in duet. Considering the ovations, we probably did a good job. It felt like I actually hit the right notes. Curious, but really neat. During our second time on stage I tried to mimic one of those dances in the music videos.

“It looks cute when girls do weird stuff,” was Julia’s opinion. “If guys can’t do it right it just looks totally gay.”

Right, the infamous double standard… At least it was on my side this time. Yeah... looking gay was exactly what it was. It also was the reason why I never was on parties before. I couldn’t do it right and I didn’t need to invite the derision I already got for existing and not being like everyone else. Teenagers were like fascists in that regard. You were either part of the group, or you were an unworthy Untermensch, breathing air reserved for your betters.

“Um... I didn’t mean it like that,” Julia said, ripping me from my depressing thoughts.

“Ähm? What do you mean?” I asked confused. “What do you not mean like what?”

She sighed and her shoulder slumped. “I’m a lesbian and I go and say stuff like ‘guys doing weird stuff look totally gay’.”

Yeah that was a bit stupid, but still. “It’s just the way it’s used.” I just didn’t like if it was used on me. Especially since I was a heterosexual guy and not gay. Sheesh.

“But it’s not supposed to be used that way,” Julia explained. “It’s supposed to be a term to empower us. The happy ones. Not the awkward, stupid, freaky, weird ones.”

I didn’t get that. “Ähm... why happy ones? I thought gay was just another term for homosexual. Like ‘schwul’ in German.”

Julia shrugged. “Homosexual used to be the term when gayness was considered a mental illness. The first gay-activist took a term for happy... gay... and used it as a term for us.”

So gay used to mean happy, but nowadays it just meant homosexual. No big surprise, considering that the majority of people still considered homosexuals weird freaks. Even if it got better. Most didn’t want to see them dead anymore, just didn’t want to be ‘infected’ by their queerness. Bigoted, ignorant assholes. Inventing new politically correct terms didn’t help at all with these people. They’d either continue to use the old term or turn the new one into an insult anyway.

“Well, shit happens,” I said. “I’m certainly not angry at you or something.”

“Phew,” she exclaimed with a smile and we changed the topic of our conversation.

Talking with Julia was kinda interesting. She totally over-shared and told me stuff I’d never tell someone I’d just met that day. It just wasn’t done among guys. On the other hand it was neat, this way I wasn’t stuck with a lack of topics. I just let her tell stuff and added a few cents of my own. I mean seriously, someone called her ‘Nigger’ to her face. What assholes.

Still, the reactions of the others around us surprised me a bit. I mean it wasn’t nice, but they were like it was the end of the world. Turned out that it was how they used to call their slaves… a term to make blacks feel they were lesser people. I could actually understand why they reacted like that. Not like the hubbub about the German term ‘Neger’ at all, which was just the Latin word for black.^{^[1]} It was probably the same as making Jew-jokes in Germany.

Political correctness was complicated and a minefield riddled with pitfalls and fall strings. I was glad to leave this awkward and dangerous conversation behind and do another duet with Julia. This time we’d chosen to do a random song and were surprised with a punk song. “I’m just a kid” from Simple Plan. I didn’t know the song before, but thankfully they showed the notes of the melody. This way I had at least some idea what to sing.

“I think I've got a lot of friends but I don't hear from them

What's another night all alone?

When you're spending everyday on your own”^{^[2]}

Not that I ever had that many friends, but even the few I had didn’t really care.

“I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare

I'm just a kid; I know that it's not fair

Nobody cares, cause I'm alone and the world is

Having more fun than me tonight”^{^[3]}

Well, not this night, thankfully. My first real Party since fifth grade. Five years alone, but no longer. Fuck you, world;’ and thanks Julia and Lisa and Susan and John and all the other people here. The lyrics were so depressing, but deeply resonated with me. It was like the hymn of my life before Whateley. I couldn’t help myself, my rage and frustration poured into the song. Considering the applause afterwards it was well liked though.

“Heaven,” Susan told me, catching up with me as we left the stage. “Jan, this was impressive. You really felt this song, didn’t you?”

I only nodded. I didn’t feel like talking about it right now. It brought up too many miserable memories. Sure, it fired me up, but I didn’t like the reason for it.

“Well it was great,” she repeated. “Anyway, you mentioned you didn’t understand girl stuff at all, right?”

“Yes…” I admitted reluctantly – I had a bad feeling about the avenue of this conversation.

“Okay…then this is the perfect opportunity for you,” Susan decided. “Just follow me.”

“Ähm… wait a second!” I protested. “Why do I get the feeling I won’t like this very much?”

A smirk played over Susan’s lips. “You might be a precog.”

That didn’t sound good at all. “You can’t just abduct me.” I was having fun with Julia; hopefully she would stop my abductress.

It wasn’t to be. Crushing my hopes, Julia just laughed. “It’s alright. See you later or something.” Crap.

“Okay, let’s go and do your makeup,” Susan said, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the exit.

“What?” I said, too stunned to resist her.

“Ha-ha,” Susan laughed. “You should see your face. Juuust kidding.”

I kinda wanted to hit her. Sure, she was a girl and guys weren’t supposed to hit girls, but she really deserved it... and I had a good excuse with not totally being a guy anymore. On the other hand I was just glad she wasn’t serious. If she’d gotten one of the other boys to join... I couldn’t be the one left out again. I’d do almost everything to avoid being the loner freak again.

“Um... sorry,” she said and quickly hugged me, “I didn’t think you’d take this seriously.”

Great, now I felt like crying. What was wrong with these female hormones? First the rage and now my eyes were growing moist, making me blink. It was like I was a kid again, breaking into tears whenever someone said something unfortunate. It sucked! Why did I have to be like this? I felt like I was on drugs.

“It’s okay,” I sniffed, suppressing the need to wipe my eyes. I really didn’t want to have tear stains on my cheeks. “So what did you really want?”

“Just have some fun as a group,” Susan shrugged. “We thought you were kinda missing and Ayla and her friends wanted to talk to us.”

“Okaay...” Well, Ayla had been helpful so far, so it couldn’t hurt to talk to her. I could only hope that the rest of her friends weren’t like creepy-sword-girl, but I probably didn’t need to worry. From what I’d seen so far, they seemed more like the wacky kind and not the murderous kind.

“Just follow me, Jan,” Susan said. “Apparently they’ve got the common room in the new wing for our instruction, but Mrs. Horton forgot to tell us or something.”

“Or something...” I echoed, walking behind her up the stairs into the new wing of Poe.

“Well, I don’t know,” Susan said shrugging, “I didn’t ask. We figured it would be smarter to see what they had to say.”

Whatever, the room they’d reserved for us was also on the end of a corridor, but the design was decidedly different from the Sunroom on our floor. The front was all glass, with some heavy blinds - they were probably a good idea in summer - and the equipment was newer. While I wouldn’t call the couches in the sunroom ratty, these were brand new.

“Hola,” Felicia greeted us as we stepped into the room. “Finally managed to find Jan?”

Seriously I wasn’t that hard to find. Was it that inconceivable that I was having fun with Julia on the dance floor? Felicia wasn’t alone though. There was the rest of our group, as well as Ayla and her friends. At least those that I saw at breakfast.

“Okay, now that everyone is here, I guess it’s time to formally introduce ourselves,” the redheaded beauty began. “I’m Nicky Reilley, Codename’s Fey. You all know Ayla here already and these three are my quirky roommate Tony,” Nicky said, motioning at an athletic looking beautiful Afro American girl. “Billie’s the blue haired anime escapee, this is Jade”, she pointed at the kid of the group, “and here we have our token guy Hank.” She went from left to right. Meanwhile Hank just rolled his eyes - I probably would too if I’d been called token guy.

Hank resumed: “Tony also goes by her Codename Chaka and many people call Billie Tennyo. Jade’s also known as Generator, but us two usually use our real names.”

Seriously, they really called people by their codenames?! It had been bad when my ‘friends’ called me by my gaming pseudonym Nadjed, but it had only been them. I certainly hadn’t introduced myself that way. It was obviously handled differently here. Another thing I needed to consider... If they actually used it as an alternative first name I couldn’t take some random shit that popped into my head.

“So what’s your Codename,” Hunter inquired grinning. “Superman?”

“No, Ayla won’t give it,” Hank mock complained. “Until I manage to convince her I’m stuck with Lancer.”

“Lancer?” I echoed, and asked: “Does that have a meaning?”

Meanwhile Ayla rolled her eyes: “You know I have no influence with DC Comics.”

“Yeah, like the cool second in the team,” Lancer explained, ignoring his Teammate, while he grinned at me. “You know, like Han Solo to Anakin Skywalker, or Lancelot... or Ron Weasley, although he kinda fails on the cool.”

Another person who thought Ron sucked... Seriously, why did they all need to bash the Harry Potter character I could identify with most... well, except maybe Hermione... No, bad thought. Just because I liked her character that didn’t mean I wanted to be a girl. Really!

“Ähm... I don’t want to be rude or something,” I began, interrupting the building conversation, “but it would be rather nice if you could tell me what this is about, since you pulled me rather... abruptly from the party.”

“We just wanted to get to know Ayla’s cute protégés,” Tony, the Afro-American girl said grinning.

“She used protégé!” Ayla stated as if that was a miracle. “My gift proves its worth once again.” She sniffed, before she started to chuckle. “Heaven, your theatrics are contagious.”

“Very funny Ayles,” Tony said, rolling her eyes. “No-fun-guy at her best. Anyway, I didn’t get it from your magazine, I actually read other stuff, you know?”

“Really?” The kid, Jade, asked, looking at Tony with overly theatrical surprise.

Chaka just raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. I figured it was for the better. While the quirky act was probably somewhat funny, I didn’t really appreciate it right now. I was full of adrenaline, wanted to move and not just standing around to watch two hobby comedians snipe at each other.

“Ignore these jokers,” Fey interjected, looking at me. “When Mrs. Horton heard of your run-in with security she decided it would be better if we’d inform you about the pitfalls at Whateley.”

“Jan?” Lisa said. “Did we miss something?”

“Ähm...” I blushed. “Well, I kinda ran into some assholes who were bullying Leonard, and then I kinda tried to convince them not to and they took offense. The bitch of the trio attacked me... but then security was there. And then chief Delarose got on my nerves and I kinda ranted at him.”

He just shouldn’t have implied the situation was my fault! Bullies were bullies and bullied. It was not my fault if they decided to get violent. It wasn’t like I’d provoked them or anything.

“Chief?” John asked. “Chief Delarose as in boss of campus security?”

“Who’s Leonard?” Lisa inquired at the same time.

I decided to hold my tongue; I really didn’t want that conversation. Ayla, Fey and Hank nodded though.

“Crap, dude,” Alan said as he shook his head. “You really have a way to get in trouble.”

What? This was my first time I ever got into trouble since that stupid event during my manifestation. Where did he get that idea?

“And that’s why we’re here,” Chaka said. “Mrs. Horton decided that we need to teach our cute underclassmen how to stay out of trouble.”

“Which is rather strange, all things considered,” the kid said, poking her stuffed animal lion. “I don’t know why she asked us of all people.”

“Yeah!” The lion agreed, jumping up from her lap. “We always get into trouble.

“Could you please stop your comedy routine,” Ayla ordered, glaring at her teammates. “We can entertain them with our exploits later.” She shook her head and looked back at us. “There is something I need to warn you about. Some people are seriously interested in you, Jan. My contacts informed me about suspicious inquiries.” She looked at the rest of our group. “That rarely is a good thing. I hope you’ll support each other.”

Great, just great. Like it wasn’t enough to be banished to America – for my own good – no I needed to be pulled right into a mystery or adventure novel. Maybe I could find a secret tunnel and this would be a story right out of a famous five book. I guess I was George and Lisa was Anne…

I sighed. “Can it get any more mysterious? Maybe a prophecy?” I shook my head and declaimed: “She who was once a boy, and is made in the image of a fictional hero, will come to the school in the forest. She will save the world… or end it. SHE WILL COME!”

“Since when do you call yourself a she?” Lisa inquired, raising her eyebrows.

Shit, I did. What people always ‘she-ing’ me did to my self-image.

Meanwhile Chaka clapped her hands. “Decent mysterious oracle impression, there is some room for improvement. Like less irony in ya voice, sista.”

Oh well, what could I do? As if I could take myself seriously when claiming outrageous crap like that. Superheroing wasn’t my thing and seriously, ending the world? Why the hell would I ever want to do something like that?

“Can we get to the point,” Felicia raised her voice. “So someone is interested in Jan, so how is that my problem?”

Great, thanks for the empathy. But what was to be expected of an avatar of a Diva?

“You’re living in the same dorm as her,” Fey stated coolly. “It might behoove you to take some interest in your fellow changelings’ lives. Or it’ll come back to bite you in your ass.”

Felicia threw a glance at the door. “Is this a threat?”

“No, just a warning,” Nicki shrugged. “The wrong sort of people has shown… interest in avatars lately. So Jan might not be the only one of you who’s got problems.”

Well, her attitude was like she was begging for problems. Diva’s were only great as long as they were famous. Afterwards they were just glorified aged whores. Okay, maybe I was a bit mean, but honestly, even my old asshole classmates wouldn’t have been so open about it. At least not if they weren’t assured of a cheering audience.

If she wanted to be that way I didn’t care. I couldn’t have everyone for a friend and I had bigger problems anyway. “Did you find out who was interested in me? I’d like to know whom I should avoid.”

“Not really,” Ayla shook her head. “That’s why it raised red flags with my informers. They couldn’t find out who was behind it.”

“So we won’t know anything until they approach Jan or one of us directly,” Ashley said. “I had enough of this secret conspiracy crap before I even arrived at school.”

Yeah, the pervert-villain incident, I remembered. I certainly felt the same way. Ayla and the rest of TK couldn’t tell us more, but told us we should be careful. And ask them for help if something happened. Apparently they’d sort of trained as a superhero team for fun – or so I thought when they mentioned it in the beginning. This changed when they properly introduced themselves and told more about their last year at Whateley. Seriously, three fights with a real A- list super villain! Everyone would try to improve their teamwork after something like that.

“Someone invaded Whateley?!” Lisa shouted. “I thought this was supposed to be a safe haven for mutants.”

“Yeah, but we kicked their ass,” Chaka said, pumping her fist. “You should have seen Billie blasting their dropships.”

“I could have done without,” Tennyo said. “The attackers got a bloody nose and none of the students died.”

It only got worse when they continued their story. Apparently there used to be a campus elite group and they got into one fight with the Kimba’s after another. It only ended when one of them tried to mind control Nicki, or bind her soul or something – I hadn’t even known something like that was possible. It was stuff from a bad Hollywood movie, stuff that happened when the horror regisseur thought gore and dismembering wasn’t enough anymore.

Thankfully this story had a happy end, since Jade and her kicked their asses, blew up a syndicate base and freed some other mind control victims. The boss of that elite group was sort of involved and they fell apart afterwards. Jade gleefully described how that bastard was anally raped with a bedside lamp. I wasn’t someone to approve rape normally, but it kinda felt like he got off easy for me. That elite group, the campus “alphas”... apparently they’d somehow reformed. Why someone would want to be involved with them, I certainly didn’t understand.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said. “It’s good to know what to look out for.”

“Probably won’t help you much if they’re really out for you,” Hank sighed. “If someone is making trouble, try administration. If they won’t help you ask us. We’ve got some rep to throw around.”

Which was no surprise after their adventures. Ayla had fought a real demon in Los Angeles, which she tried to play down, but apparently was a major thing according to the others. She’d also been abducted by the MCO afterwards, which was why she really felt bad about them. Knowing that they really did shit like that and also knowing that you had been their fourth biggest financer had to hurt. On the other hand the MCO obviously were good at putting up a false front, considering that they even managed to deceive their biggest sponsors.

We had a discussion about how they got away with it, which was really worrisome, since something like that should have been impossible. Apparently things got better though because the MCO had stepped on the wrong people’s toes. Afterwards we somehow talked about Ayla’s attempts at curing her condition. Right now she wasn’t very hopeful, but certain that she wanted to learn more about it. I wondered if I should mention Lara and his project, but decided against it.

“Um... something is still bugging me,” John said. “How the fuck did you manage to have to fight all this crap? There are professional Superheroes, right?”

“Adults are useless,” Tony laughed. “Either the Superheroes got their asses kicked or they simply weren’t there.”

“Not really,” Ayla interjected. “But I couldn’t let some crazed Demon or Villain kill my family, before some Hero could be bothered to show up.”

I nodded. “Yeah that makes sense; if I had powers I wouldn’t let my family die either. Even Svenja.”

“So… what now?” Susan inquired. “I mean this was totally interesting and stuff, but over there a party is raging.”

“Good idea,” Chaka quickly agreed. “I‘m getting restless.”

“Did you have sugar again?” Nicki asked, rolling her eyes, before she shrugged. “She’s got sort of an allergy.”

We went down afterwards and had a singing contest. A team competition to decide who sang better or worse. Hank was bellowing like a Lumberjack and Hunter wasn’t much better - even if he still had a rather feminine voice. We tried to get the two of them on stage for a joke, but the organizers didn’t feel like this was a good idea. There had to be songs even they could sing. Ballermann-party-hits couldn’t be just a German phenomenon, it just couldn’t. That would be too embarrassing.

Meanwhile I had fun singing with Chaka. That girl was almost as good at that Superstar... Siren, who had sung a while ago. She’d left when we came in. It kinda sucked, because she was the best singer by far. Against her pure talent and maybe skill the rest of us were all hopeless. Well, it made the competition fairer, I guess.

I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I could actually sing myself. That was an ability I’d lost with puberty. Bellowing with the rhythm, sure, but real singing? I felt like singing that Britney spears song... “Delight in my eyes...” that had been on air before my voice change. Just because I could again, not because I thought it particularly awesome...

“Hey Jan,” Lisa said, stepping closer with two paper cups in her hands. “You should drink something. Singing without drinking is bad for your voice.” She held out one of the coke bottles.

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing it and taking a sip. “Ah crap, it’s my turn again. Thanks, I’ll just take this with me.”

“No biggie,” she said, “have fun.”

And then I went to the stage again. Hank had somehow managed to convince Ayla to join him on the stage, but before they went they’d also signed me, Chaka and John up - yes John could sing... somewhat. The rest didn’t seem to be the big fans of Karaoke, or they didn’t want to embarrass themselves. Well, I could understand. With those Sirens and Exemplars around a person who was tone-deaf wouldn’t dare try. I wouldn’t have either with my old voice.

Anyway, dancing to other’s efforts was fun enough. Lisa came back from the bathroom and joined the rest of the group. Well, she probably had something important to do if she missed our song. I took another sip. It was an awesome idea of hers to organize a drink for me. She really was a good friend.

I didn’t get to sing the next song and neither did anyone from our groups, so I returned to the kids who’d hopefully become my friends. Dancing was fun, too, I realized. Apparently shaking one’s limbs along awesome music activated something primal in my mind… with my clan… ähm friends. Considering how the others behaved it was probably just another mating game, but not for me. I didn’t feel like impressing girls… or guys, but it was fun nonetheless.

Actually it made me strangely happy. I’d been kind of depressed ever since... well, ever. It wasn’t just my manifesting as a mutant, the bullying before... I just got into a rut and didn’t find the way to leave it. Computer games were just the way to distract myself from my problems. A drug... medicating myself with artificial excitement. Still, now I felt a strange clarity. Maybe it was because I felt like I could trust these cottage mates of mine. I’d never felt like people could actually understand me before, but Ayla and Alan were going through something similar and Lisa was like the nicest person ever. Just dancing with them, it activated a primal sense of belonging and made me sad when we had to stop.

“Kids, it’s enough,” Mrs. Horton announced. “You can still party tomorrow... today”

I didn’t like it very much, but as soon as the music was out tiredness caught up with me. I quickly brushed my teeth and moved into bed. Thankfully I’d chosen the lower bunk, my limbs were so heavy, I doubted I would have managed to reach the top. After throwing my clothes into a corner, I barely managed to pull on my pajamas. Afterwards I dropped down on my bed and was pretty much asleep before I hit the sheets.

***

“So did it work?” the boy asked, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk.

“My operative reported success,” the woman stated. “She drank it.”

“So the problem should be solved...” the boy said, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t think your sisterhood could do it, but apparently even the blind hen finds a corn once in awhile.”

***

“…shaking all the time and hot as hell,” Lisa’s voice penetrated my haze as I woke up from a nightmare. I remembered something was clawing at me, devouring me.

A freezing cold hand touched my forehead, making shivers run down my spine. It was as if the hand had been immersed in ice water before. Like a snowball on my forehead. I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn’t motivate myself. I just wanted to sleep. My muscles ached, and even moving my mouth took all the strength I had. Why did they need to wake me? Not that I minded to get out of that nightmare, but I was tired. Couldn’t they stop this ruckus?

“Shit, she’s burning up!” another female voice exclaimed. Groaning I turned my head towards the voice.

God, I was tired and felt hot. My head hurt and they made this ruckus. What was going on anyway? I slowly forced an eyelid open and it took an effort like lifting a car with my bare hands. I didn’t like very much what I saw. Lisa was pacing in front of my bed, wringing her hands. Next to her was Mrs. Horton who looked really worried herself.

“Was… Was ist los?” I asked, only garnering strange looks.

“She’s talking German,” Lisa said clearly agitated, “is her condition getting worse?” Meanwhile Mrs. Horton pulled a mobile phone from her poach.

Oh… I was. Didn’t realize it. What were the correct English words again? What did she mean with condition? The fact I was feeling hot and tired and my head felt strange?

“What… What is… going on?” I asked again. Somehow my mysterious super-language ability had left me, making me stammer and search for the right words.

“You’re ill,” Lisa replied, taking my hand, “Mrs. Horton is calling for help.”

I was ill… I guess that was to be expected considering how hot my head felt. I didn’t have headache or something, but that would explain why my limbs were too tired to move. I’m not quite sure what happened next, Lisa was gone and then she was there again.It wasn’t quite unconscious but certainly spaced out and thinking about nothing specific.

Staring into the room, I watched the world pass in front of my eyes. The next thing I registered was when I was levitated by John and put onto a stretcher - no idea where he and the stretcher came from. I learned later that Lisa had alarmed the other changelings. Susan, Hunter, Alan and the rest of our group were all in my room. They looked really worried! I hadn’t expected they’d care. This was so nice... tears were rolling from my eyes.

Mrs. Horton put a cool, wet washcloth on my forehead. It felt nice, like the hotness was draining out of my head,allowing me to focus better. The wooden panels at the ceiling looked neat.

“Ashley, Hunter, grab the stretcher and move towards the hospital,” the housemother ordered, “the emergency crew should meet you on your way. Hurry, Burnout is nothing to trifle with.”

First I thought it was strange that she chose Ashley of all people, but then I saw her lifting one end of the stretcher as if it was a feather. I remembered she was an energizer and apparently that meant she could increase her own strengths or something. But I wasn’t an expert on mutant powers. On the other hand our muscle guyrl Hunter was an obvious choice.

God... what was I thinking about? Burnout! I had bigger problems than pondering about how Ashley was able to lift me. Here I was, my new friends carried me down the stairs on a stretcher and I was thinking about their capabilities. Maybe it was just the fact that my mind didn’t work correctly at the m... or the fact that the Poe bust was super interesting.

“Hunter,” I said, raising my arm to point at my target. “Kann ich die Büste haben?”

Why were they looking so confused? Oops... I’d been talking German again. “Can I have the bust?” I repeated the question, “I kind of want to keep it... It’s important for our mission.”

“What mission?” Hunter asked, looking at me as if I’d grown a second head as they carried me towards the exit.

What mission? Sheesh, it was The Mission. We needed the bust to graduate. Was he stupid or something? That was why we were here after all. Sensei had ordered us to get it. We had to regain our honor after last year’s class had failed. But now it was right in front of us and we only had to grab it and make a run back to the dojo... the Yama-dojo in Nippon.

What the hell was I thinking about? I wasn’t from Japan, I was from Germany. Where did these thoughts come from?

“She’s deluded from her fever,” Ashley said, continuing on her way. “It gets worse, we need to hurry.”

No... I wasn’t deluded. I just knew what they wanted and I wasn’t one of them. What the ninjas wanted. One was directly above me, sticking at the wall like a spider. It was them who wanted to steal the bust. While I didn’t particularly care about it, it felt wrong to let thieves get away with it. Maybe they were pedophiles like Orochimaru.

“Ninjas, above!” I rasped - shouting didn’t work, my voice was too weak.

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked, she’d suddenly appeared somehow. “I don’t see Ninjas.”

Well duh, they were Ninjas after all. That didn’t change the fact they were there and hiding in the shadows. We were nearing the door and just as I wanted to correct her, they attacked. First I could see nothing but another shade at the ceiling and then suddenly, a girl clad in black jumped towards me, carrying a strange knife in her hands. I wanted to scream, but my voice failed me.

Attacking me turned out to be a bad decision for the girl. One moment I thought she’d spear me with her knifes, the next Ashley was above me, crackling with electricity as she kicked the ninja girl into the solar plexus. It was like a scene from an anime. The Ninja crashed into the wall while Ashley stood ready for further opponents. She smelled like ozone.

The stretcher was falling for a second, but then Hunter reacted. Now a scream finally escaped me, but it was already over before I’d really started. Hunter caught me almost instantly, stabilizing the stretcher before I could hit the ground.

“Attack on Poe!” Hunter shouted with his strangely female voice. It was as loud as if he’d used a megaphone point blank. “Lisa, Ashley, keep them away, I’ll run to the hospital.” Hunter suddenly took a step back and I only saw something flying by in front of my eyes. An arrow was clattering on the floor.

Why they attacked were attacking me was beyond my understanding, but Hunter decided enough was enough and simply picked me up from the stretcher. Carrying me away bridal style, he quickly passed the doors. Any other time I’d been mortified and would have protested the treatment, but right now I was glad he cared and to get away. I always thought I was rather heavy, even after my partial transformation into a girl, yet it seemed like I was a toy balloon to Hunter. He was running, seemingly not impaired by holding me. Looking back I realized nobody was following us. The cottage was distancing rapidly though. God, how fast was he moving? It was almost like he was a car.

*bang*

A lance of fire shot out of a window in Poe, enlightening a black ninja sticking at the wall. Next moment Ashley rushed out through the door. She was so fast I almost couldn’t see her, but the lightning in her wake was a pretty good indication. Another black clad figure tried to hit Lisa with something that looked like a freeze ray, but it was blocked by a flying table. Then a hill got into my view and I lost sight of the combat.

“Okay, we’re here,” Hunter stated, not even panting from the effort. “Bloody emergency doors. I wished this thing was automatic!” Then he turned around and hit the doors with his back to open it.

It was all too fast for me. My vision was smearing in front of my eyes and my head was growing hot again. Why couldn’t he move a bit slower? All this swinging made me want to puke. I managed to hold it though; I didn’t want to soil my friend. Only when he stopped moving I managed to focus. We were in front of a reception desk, manned by a young man.

“Burnout case!” Hunter almost shouted, kind of pushing me forward. “Where do I need to go?”

Jumping up from his chair, the young man told us to follow. What happened afterwards was a blur. White shapes put cold stuff on my body and shoved painful things into my limbs. I think I threshed around, tried to get away, but after some time I simply passed out.

***

^{^[1]} The German term for ‘nigger’ is actually Bimbo. And it means black-slave and not vain, stupid woman.

^{^[2]} Quote of the Lyrics from Simple Plan’s I’m just a kid. I obviously don’t own those.

^{^[3]} Quote of the Lyrics from Simple Plan’s I’m just a kid. I obviously don’t own those.

Authors Note: Sorry for the delay, but it took me some time to get this chapter right. Or rather to get my ass up and finish editing. Like most authors I'm greateful for feedback. Comments are welcome, just try to keep your critic constructive. Anyway, thank you for reading this story, I hope you enjoyed it.

Kudos

Comments

I wonder if Jan had some

power/ability if she would not mind being a girl, or if she was her male self and had some neat ability.

Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Thanks for your comment

Well, Jan seems to be in a double bind. She neither has an awesome power and she gets all the trouble of being a mutant and slowly turning into a girl on top of it. He would probably still didn't like turning into a girl even if he had a power. If he had somekind of shifter thing going on he might not mind that his base form was shifting, but then he wouldn't really have the problem of being stuck as a girl.

Thank you for your comment,
Beyogi

New powers

A burnout often changes the mutant. This is BC so probably Jan is going to be a complete girl. With new powers?

Well, you have to see. I

Well, you have to see. I don't want to spoiler :)

Thank you for your comment,
Beyogi

Powers

Some variation on a theme of mind reading seems possible, given her brief experience of one of the Yama Dojo's PoV. Meanwhile, a karaoke contest with Vox warming up the crowd, meeting the Kimbas (nit pick: Toni, not Tony! Although they sound identical, the former's the feminine form, the latter's the masculine form), and discovering there's a plot against her (although the who / what / why are still unknown, only that they have co-conspirators on campus).

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

school laptops

It's against school rules to install games on school laptops.

Also, you keep writing "Ã„hm". I suspect that's what is written in English as "Um"

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Jan has a computer he got

Jan has a computer he got from his parents.

Well Jan is German so it makes sense for him to use Ã„hm rather than Um, they don't sound exactly the same as each other either.

Thanks for your comment

Yeah... Ã„hm is German for um.

It is against school rules to install games on school laptops, but I guess that's kinda like having sex on campus. Sure, it is verboten, but nobody cares. I certainly wouldn't have in Jan's situation. The first Assembly says they'll delete the game and confiscate the CD if they catch you. Not really a very scary thing for someone playing an MMORPG. Just annoying. If they get you multiple times simply install it on an external hard drive. Or try some better way to hide it.
I really doubt that's a rule they enforce as long as they don't catch the student playing in class.

Thank you for your comment,
Beyogi

ok, who..

poisoned her. I don't think Lisa was actively involved.
it does seem a little early to recruit for body shifting experimentation, well see.
lots of stuff so far. what can I say, MORE please.
thanks

Well, I can't tell you yet

Well, I can't tell you yet :)
It is, if they really needed her as a major project member. But then Jan threw a few waves :) The reason they recruited her is [redacted] :P

I'm glad you like it. Chapter four still needs some serious editing and I need to get through my current plotbunnies to really get to work with c5 again.

I'm glad you liked my story. Thank you for your review,
Beyogi

Jan

I really enjoy Jan's critical view of Whateley. His attitude is so guy, his point is made that he's not happy with his changes. I'm very suspicious of Lara and her groups motives. However, like Ayla, Jan is willing to take chances to get back to 'normal.'

AND you just had to cliffhanger us! Curses I say! :)

hugs
Grover

Yeah, he wouldn't think it's

Yeah, he wouldn't think it's awesome by definition, Whateley is strange and his changes are even stranger. Why would he care to learn another new bunch of annoying gender rituals? There are some good points, sure, but it's really not worth the trouble.

About Lara, well, you've got to wait. It would be boring if Jan didn't get herself into trouble once in a while...

Those are the best curses. I'm glad you liked my story.

Thanks for your review,
Beyogi

Jan

Is in deep trouble right now. The really troubling thing in that is the fact that someone induced burnout in him/her.

Maggie

Heaven

Seems like your oath/invective/expletive of choice is "Heaven" ... but that's pretty uncommon, especially in the US. It's more likely to get odd looks than me saying 'gods' instead of god, which gets plenty. Jan saying it would probably get an odd look or two but people would assume its a translation thing. Someone who has been around him a bit might adopt it to tease him or make him feel more comfortable... but others using it too? Unlikely. So Ayla using it is probably out of character. There's plenty of Ayla dialogue available to serve as a reference, if you're looking for the words he'd be more likely to use.

Not a big deal maybe, but since Diane has done so much to define Ayla's speech patterns and personality; something like this can be pretty obvious. Though to be fair, I noticed it in another character before seeing the Ayla use and it struck me as wrong then too... as an 'author usage' as opposed to something the character would say.

Mea Culpa... thanks for

Mea Culpa... thanks for pointing this out. Once more I simply didn't think about what oaths I used. Is there some sort of list for what would be appropriate for American Highschool students to use? I had Ayla use it because it seemed more formal that a simple "God" to me. You're right though, I probably should have checked some Dialogue of Ayla's.

I simply changed it to "God" for now. I'll be more careful in my future usage though.

Thank you for your review,
Beyogi

Yes, someone has issues with

Yes, someone has issues with Jan and the poor kid doesn't even know.

Thank you for your review,
Beyogi

That was fun and crazy all at

That was fun and crazy all at the same time. Poor Jan. Induced burnout is a world of suck. And to know that this plot includes the nice girl he has been hanging out with... sigh. Well, at least his friends came through in his time of need.

I also liked the bit with Zenith. That was a cute scene. Looking forward to more.

Heather

We are the change that will save the world.

Yeah, Burnout is nasty... and

Yeah, Burnout is nasty... and a discrete way to get rid of your enemies...
I figured Zenith would be a good mentor for someone who's getting girled, doesn't like it, but also doesn't have the money or mutant powers to do something about it.

I'm glad you like my story, thank you for your comment,
Beyogi

Cue scary music.

To many years of playing D&D has left me suspicious of drinks at parties. Or my exceptional ESP " not". But something got the fur on the back of my neck standing straight up when that evil soft drink made its showing.
The story is wonderful , enjoyable and has that certain something, as the French would say , that keeps pulling me into the story. Thanks for the great read.

Huggles
Your local Wolf Girl

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

That almost sounds as if

That almost sounds as if something happened... Jan doesn't have that many experiences with Parties so far, so I guess it's understandable that he's not suspicious. And the drink came from his roomie ;)

I'm glad you like my story, thank you for your review,
Beyogi

Roomie?

Or somebody that looked like her? Jan did mention that (s)he was surprised that Lisa didn't stick around to listen to the song. (S)he saw Lisa come in from somewhere, as I recall.

So, Beyogi, anymore of this coming soon?

"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Maybe :) Yeah, more should

Maybe :)

Yeah, more should come soon. I'm reading through my beta version of the next chapter right now. The whole thing got more problematic than I planned since there is no good video on youtube that actually shows how to "tug" instead they only have people showing strange things with their fingers. I mean sheesh, a guide to crossdressing is no porn. Either I'm to stupid to do it for myself or it simply doesn't work for me. So the describing it was a bit more complicated than planned.

Anyway, does anyone know good last names for Americans of Italian descent?

Thanks for your comment,
Beyogi

Critic - Unnecessary - But OK, you talked me into it.

Darn good story so far. Thank you.

More please.

So much to read, so little time and only one of me :)

The English Teacher

I'm glad you like it. I got

I'm glad you like it. I got myself distracted with some plotbunnies for fanfics and playing sword of the stars 2, but I'm working at it again.

Thank you for your comment,
Beyogi

loving it

looking foward to more.

I'm a bibliophile, a nerd, a gamer, a MMA, and a girl

message me

Continuity problem

I'm liking the story so far. But there is an apparent problem in the suspected poisoning scene:

â€œHey Jan,â€ Lisa said, stepping closer with two paper cups in her hands. â€œYou should drink something. Singing without drinking is bad for your voice.â€ She held out one of the coke bottles.

Unless the paper cups changed into bottles (a power thing?), or she was holding cups and bottles (awkward, and not mentioned), that would seem to be a continuity error.

Jorey
.

Ah... thanks for pointing it

Ah... thanks for pointing it out. I probably got distracted when writing that or something. I'll fix it.

Thanks, I'm glad you like my story,
Beyogi

Getting interesting..are the

Getting interesting..are the new foshes going to be their own force to be reckoned with?or; going to team up with kimber?..glad to see jan's getting a case of burn out.. might be a little easier to live with
when she starts manifesting more female.

alissa

Jan's tale 3 - Party at Poe

Comments

I wonder if Jan had some

Thanks for your comment

New powers

Well, you have to see. I

Powers

school laptops

Jan has a computer he got

Thanks for your comment

ok, who..

Well, I can't tell you yet

Jan

Yeah, he wouldn't think it's

Jan

Heaven

Mea Culpa... thanks for

Yes, someone has issues with

That was fun and crazy all at

Yeah, Burnout is nasty... and

Cue scary music.

That almost sounds as if

Roomie?

Maybe :) Yeah, more should

Critic - Unnecessary - But OK, you talked me into it.

I'm glad you like it. I got

loving it

Continuity problem

Ah... thanks for pointing it

Getting interesting..are the

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