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Author's Note: This is the newest story of my Hyperverse. I'm re-posting after the hard drive issues. I hope you all enjoy. ~Amethyst.
 

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We were hidden away in the cover of the big spruce trees behind the chapel, kissing each other with everything we had, somewhat safe from both the snow and prying eyes, when suddenly I heard a voice calling out, “Glen! Sakura!” We stopped kissing and reluctantly left one another’s embrace as we listened carefully. Suddenly Sister Maria was looming over us and she didn’t look very happy. “I’ve been looking all over for the two of you. Mother Jane wants you both in her office right now.”

Suki and I both groaned at that, no good could come from Mother Jane wanting to see us. “Are you sure she meant us?” I asked hopefully. “Maybe she meant some other Glen and Sakura.” Mother Jane was Mother Superior of St. Michael’s Orphanage just outside the small town of Taylor, Manitoba. My mom died giving birth to me so when I lost my father to Cancer two years ago when I was thirteen I was sent to the orphanage. I didn’t really like it there much but it did have one good point. That was where Suki and I had met. Most people here called her Suki but her name was actually Sakura.

Suki had been at the orphanage since she was five and lost both of her parents in a car accident. Her parents had moved to Canada from Tokyo before she was born and since she had no other relatives here she was sent to St. Michael’s. She was smart, pretty and had a great sense of humor, in other words she was perfect. I often thought of the day I would leave St. Michael’s but I could never imagine doing it without her. Just thinking about her made me smile.

Suki looked like a typical fifteen year old Japanese girl. She was short at five foot two and slim with a very nice figure from what I could make out. We lived In a Catholic orphanage so I hadn’t exactly seen her in any stage of undress yet and her loose clothes didn’t give much hint either. She had cream colored skin with full kissable lips in a beautiful face with deep brown eyes, slender arched eyebrows, a petite nose and chin and high cheekbones. Thick wavy black hair, like the darkest night, framed that face and fall down to just past her shoulders. As beautiful as she was I wasn’t really sure why she was interested in me. I wasn’t much of a catch at five foot eight and while I was in decent shape I couldn’t be considered muscular. I was also paler than her with bright red hair, freckles, and grey eyes.

“Let me clarify for you,” Sister Maria said while crossing her arms impatiently, “Mother Jane wants Glen Phillips and Sakura Yoshida to report to her office immediately.”

I wondered what Suki and I had done this time as we made our way through the halls of the orphanage to Mother Jane’s office with Sister Maria. We hadn’t been caught making out yet and from the looks of it we had even narrowly avoided getting caught this time by Sister Maria. We both had been doing well enough in school and neither of us had been in any trouble for months, not since I had changed the computer password for the orphanage records when the Cardinal came to visit. “I don’t think we’ve done anything worthy of a summons lately,” Suki finally whispered, “Unless you did something without me?”

“I would never leave you out of a prank,” I quietly assured her. “Besides, I thought we were trying to behave ourselves so they would stop watching us so closely.”

“We were, and I thought we were doing a good job of it,” she admitted as we reached the office door. “I can’t think of any reason why Attila the Nun would want to see us both.” We both stood there nervously as Sister Maria knocked on the door.

“Come in,” came Mother Jane’s voice muffled by the door.

We both took a deep breath and I gave her tiny hand a good squeeze before letting go as I pushed the door open and we stepped inside while Sister Maria waited outside. “You wanted to see us Mother Jane?” I asked as I took a quick look around the office. To my surprise we weren’t the only ones there. Stephanie Lewis and two of the younger kids, I think their names were Jason and Karen, were already standing in front of the desk looking very uncomfortable. Stephanie was seventeen and the younger two were only about seven or eight years old and I found myself wondering what reason she might have for calling the five of us here. I figured that it probably had something to do with the man in an expensive-looking black suit who had watched us enter the room from beside the window.

“Now that you’re all here I’ll let Mr. Hayes here explain what’s going on,” Mother Jane said in a clipped tone. She did not look happy at all, and when her eyes finally did meet mine there was a sad and helpless look that I had never seen in that stern face before.

The man smiled at us all and it wasn’t a friendly smile at all, in fact if it had been any colder I think that the temperature in the room would have dropped. “Hello children, I’m Doctor Hayes,” He stressed the word ‘Doctor’ which only served to make me, and probably everyone else in the room, even more uncomfortable. “And the five of you are being placed in my custody.”

“How nice for us,” Stephanie spat out as Jason and Karen clung to her. “Now that you have the children good and scared, how about you tell us what’s going on.”

“Last month we had St. Michael’s and two other orphanages in the province perform routine health testing. The five of you and thirteen others were discovered to have dormant Hyper Chromosomes,” he said with that cold smile.

“Hypers are an urban legend,” I said with a roll of my eyes, “They don’t exist. Anyone could fake those videos you see on the internet.”

He sneered at me, “And here I was told that you were one of the smart ones. I assure you that Hypers are very real. You have the potential to be more than you are now and I’m going to see that you reach that potential, and that you use it for the right people.”

“Potential Hypers or not, you can’t just take us away, we have rights,” Suki argued. She gripped my hand tight in anger and probably a little fear too.

“You are all Crown Wards and I have some very influential backers. I have a court order placing all of you in my custody so gather your things and be out front in five minutes or I will have to send my associates to come and get you.” He slapped the legal document that he was holding on Mother Jane’s desk and strode out of the room without waiting to see if we would follow.

“There’s nothing I can do right now, but I will fight this,” the Mother Superior told us with a look of grim determination. “You three look after Karen and Jason.”

I took Jason to the boys’ dorm to gather our things. The poor kid was scared stiff as we packed what little we had. I tossed all of my clothes into a duffel bag and placed my science books and small telescope on top before zipping it up. My dad had been an Astronomer and before he died he had taught me to love science in general and astronomy in particular. He once told me that ‘stars are both the most beautiful and powerful things in the universe’ and from there I was hooked. I had been studying stars ever since. It wasn’t enough to just know all the constellations though; I wanted to know how stars formed and how they produced such power.

Jason finished packing his own things and looked up at me sadly, “Do we hafta go with him?”

“For now we do,” I said as I shouldered my bag. “Don’t you worry though, we’ll be back soon. You know that anybody who crosses Attila the Nun ends up regretting it. She won’t take this lying down.”

When we got outside I was in for a surprise. I had expected that with that court order Dr. Hayes would have had police officers with him but the men in fatigues who waited outside with the black SUV looked to be military. They even had a pair of Hummers in front of and behind the SUV. Jason seemed even more scared now and frankly I couldn’t blame him as we were ushered into the back seat of the SUV. The girls were just behind us and I was pretty sure from the looks on their faces that Stephanie and Suki had the same feeling of dread that I did as the doors slammed shut.

We had discovered two things about Dr. Hayes on the long drive to the Red River Research Institute. Thing one was that he liked to hear himself talk, mostly about himself. The second thing was that he thought of us as little more than specimens for his new project. The first seemed to override the second though and with a little stroking of his ego or outright challenging him we were able to get a better idea of what we were in for.

Red River Research Institute was a remote facility, at least an hour drive from anywhere. Currently it mostly ran on funding from a covert national security agency and they were being employed to see if the H Chromosomes could be influenced into activating with certain specific power sets which would be of interest to both that agency and the military. They weren’t trying to create super soldiers, that was too cliché. No, they were instead trying to create mutants who could shape shift, turn invisible, walk through walls, or blend into their surroundings. They wanted people who could impersonate important figures or get into places unseen and unchallenged, they wanted super spies. I might have actually been enthusiastic about that if it didn’t sound like brainwashing was going to be part of the program.

Suki and I held hands and silently formed a plan as we kept Dr. Oblivious talking about himself and how important his research was. We had learned Morse code from one of the older kids last year and often used it to talk during class or when we were supposed to be quiet for some other reason. At the moment though, we were rapidly tapping our fingers on each other’s hand to figure out a plan and when to implement it. It was starting to get dark and from the sounds of it we weren’t far away from our destination, if we were going to do it, it would have to be soon.

“Hey Dr. Monotone, I need to take a leak,” I said. “Can we stop somewhere? I bet these little ones have to go too and none of us has eaten anything since lunch. If we’re in your custody you are required to actually take care of us you know.”

“Hold it, we’ll be there in an hour and a half,” was his terse reply.

“I don’t think I can but whatever,” I replied as I made a show of squirming in my seat. “it’s your car… or is it a rental? These seats aren’t real leather are they?”

“Pull over,” he instructed the driver. I could feel the vehicle slowing and as it pulled to the side of the road I could see a light not far from the road, possibly a farmhouse. Dr. Hayes grumbled as he got out of the vehicle to come open the door since it had child locks on the back doors. As soon as he was outside I whispered, “I’ll distract him and the goons, you all run for that light as fast as you can.”

As soon as Dr. Bitch ‘N Moan lifted the door handle I kicked the door hard, slamming it into his face. I leaped out on top of him tackling him to the ground and yelled “Go!” I was vaguely aware of Suki trying to help Karen out of the SUV when the taser hit me. Then one of the goons grabbed Karen and she was kicking and screaming trying to get away. I was kicked in the ribs and fell to the ground as Dr. Hayes got to his feet and kicked me as well for good measure. Then Suki delivered a good swift kick of her own and he was back on the ground on all fours clutching his jewels.

“Get them… back in the… vehicle,” he groaned as he tried to get to his feet again. “These two just volunteered to be our next subjects for the metamorph project,” I heard as I blacked out.

I woke up with a splitting headache, sore shoulders, sore ribs, and a cramp in my neck. It took me several minutes to become conscious enough to realize that I was tied to a chair with my hands tied together behind me and that there was a table in front of me. The table was about six feet square and of a light colored wood, though there were large dark orangey-red splashes of color in front of me and at the other end where Suki sat in a similar position facing me. It looked like she was wearing only a hospital gown and a quick look down showed that I was similarly attired. When I looked back up she was looking at me in concern and I tried my best to give her a reassuring smile.

The rest of the room was pretty much just bare white walls, a large mirror that I was pretty sure was an observation window, and a security door. A television set and VCR on a rolling stand had been set up nearby but I couldn’t exactly get up to turn either on. “Are you okay?” Suki finally asked.

“Don’t worry about me; I have a pretty thick head. Did anyone manage to get away?” I asked in return.

She shook her head sadly, “No, they caught Karen before she could get very far and Steph and Jason didn’t even manage to get out of the car before the goons jumped us. We got here about an hour ago I think, they brought you and me straight in here and stripped us naked, the assholes. They said they were taking the others to the ‘guest quarters’.”

I groaned as I tried to get some of the stiffness out of my neck. “My, aren’t we the lucky ones. Is the Doc still a soprano?”

She gave me a weak smile. “I thought you might have missed that, you were looking pretty out of it. Sadly though, he was managing to walk upright again when we got here.”

“That’s a shame,” I said with a sigh. “I was kind of looking forward to hearing him monologue while sounding like Mickey Mouse.”

The television suddenly turned on and Dr. Hayes’ face appeared. “I’m glad to see you both awake. I decided that you two would be our next test subjects for the metamorph project. You’ll be the second pair in this project, the first didn’t manage to activate their H Chromosomes but I think that you can with the right motivation.”

“Well I am a little hungry,” I suggested, “How about you Sook?”

“Yeah I’m famished,” she replied without missing a beat. “And maybe you can get one of your goons to come in here to tell us to ‘be all that we can be’ and put a ‘hang in there kitty’ poster on the wall. I feel motivated just thinking about it.”

Dr Hayes frowned at us. “I was thinking more along the lines of a motivational video.” His face disappeared and was replaced with a view of the room we were in or one very similar. Two young women were tied to the chairs with a pair of goons pointing guns at them. They were instructed to think very hard about looking just like the person in the chair across from them and a digital timer was set on the table. They were then told that the timer was set for ten minutes and that whoever hadn’t changed before that time was up would be shot in the head.

Neither of them made it and we both now knew what those stains on the table were when Dr. Hayes’ face reappeared on the screen. “As you can see we didn’t provide them with enough motivation, so we’re going to try things differently with the two of you. We’ll give you a shot of adrenaline to help things along and you’ll have five minutes to change your appearance to that of the person across from you…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. If I don’t turn into her you shoot me in the head,” I said wishing he would shut up.

“No,” he corrected me, “If you don’t succeed we’ll shoot her in the head, and vice versa. In fact let’s move those chairs back to back so neither of you can see how the other is doing to make things more interesting. I’m sure you both know what the other looks like well enough.” The TV turned off and Dr. Nutjob came in with two of his goons. They moved our chairs back to back beside the table and our favorite mad scientist injected us with adrenaline before setting a digital timer for five minutes and placing it on the table beside us.

I was picturing Sakura in my mind trying to force myself to become her but I had no idea how. She was making frustrated sounds so I thought that she was having similar problems. We were down to a minute and a half and my heart was racing. I entwined my fingers around hers behind me when she laughed nervously and said, “I’m trying to make myself look like you but I keep thinking that you’re going to get us out of this by using some pocket lint, a paper clip, and a belt buckle to create a projectile weapon or something like that guy on those TV reruns, Mac…something. You’re smart like that.” Her hand squeezed my hand tightly and I could hear her starting to cry behind me.

“Stay with me Sook! I can do this! I…” I focused all my spare thoughts on looking like the beautiful girl behind me as I tried to reassure her. “I can’t lose you; you’re the light in my life. You’re my star.” I was only dimly aware of the gun to my head and the last seconds ticking down on the timer when my whole body started shaking and I felt a warmth spreading through me as behind me Sakura gripped my hand tightly as she too started to spasm. My last thought was, did I save her?

I awoke feeling tired and hungry to the sound of two men talking. “Damn she’s hot,” I heard one say. “We could have a little fun with her; I doubt the doc would mind.”

“She’s only fifteen, she’s just a kid,” the other growled. “She also used to be a guy and she’s glowing, so don’t even go there. The only things we’re in here to do is wake her up and make sure she eats something. The doc wants her and the other one tested for metamorphic abilities as soon as possible. Hey kid, wake up we brought you something to eat.” I could feel a boot prodding my ribs.

“Yay, room service,” I muttered. The voice that came from my lips didn’t sound like mine though, it sounded like Sakura’s. I gathered that this meant that the ‘she’ they were talking about was me and hoped that this meant that the real Sakura was still alive. I thought, hoped, and prayed that maybe she was ‘the other one’ that they had mentioned. I opened my eyes and looked around to see that I was in a ten by ten prison cell type room. A glance upward revealed two guys in some sort of bulky steel power armor and helmets with full faceplates. One was holding a tray while the other had a very big gun pointed at me. “Oooh, it looks like somebody is overcompensating,” I taunted with a smirk as I tried to sit up. “You guys are the weirdest looking bellboys I’ve ever seen. I hope the masseuse doesn’t dress like that, I’m her ten thirty appointment.”

Moving was a bit strange, my balance felt off and having breasts and long thick hair adding weight in unaccustomed places wasn’t helping. I was also noticing that I seemed to have this golden glow to my skin which was pretty distracting. Goon One seemed to get a good laugh out of my attempts to move as he said, “Having a little trouble freak?”

I managed to get myself to my feet and glared at the speaker. “I’m really going to have to have a word with the manager about the service here.” I tried to ignore all the strange feelings and sensations in my body as I went to sit on the army cot in the corner. “And the accommodations too, I specifically asked for a double bed.”

“This ain’t no hotel freak,” he growled. “You won’t be finding things so funny when we get you to Dr. Hayes’ lab.”

“Why? Are you going somewhere? And here we were just beginning to bond. Maybe if I could take a picture of you it will help me through those not-so-funny times,” I suggested as Goon Two placed a tray on the cot beside me.

“Listen Kid,” Goon Two said with a sigh. “I really recommend that you don’t piss off the guards here. I’m willing to cut you a little slack but the others aren’t so nice and I’d rather not see them hurting a kid.”

“How ironic, I’m a kid who’d rather not be hurt. Funny how that works, eh?” I turned my attention to the tray, which had a glass of water and a bowl of something beige and lumpy which I assumed was supposed to be oatmeal. I ate it as slowly as possible just to annoy them, occasionally washing the disgusting stuff down with some of the water. When I was finally finished I actually felt a lot better, or at least I had more energy. I gave them another smirk as I stood up and rubbed my tummy “Mmm, just like mom used to make.”

Most people would probably be freaking out pretty bad in my current situation but I didn’t have that luxury at the moment. I needed to think clearly and at the moment the humor was my only way of fighting our captors. It seemed that the wing I was being held in was being used to hold all the others too. Stephanie confirmed that when I saw her at the bars to her cell. She looked very relieved to see me. “Sakura, thank God you’re okay. You and Glen were out cold when they brought you down here, I was so worried. They took Glen back up a few minutes ago.”

“I’m fine Steph, in fact I feel radiant,” I joked. It would be too awkward and take too long to explain whatever had happened to me and Suki.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she replied with a nervous laugh.

“We’ll be back soon Steph,” I tried to reassure her before turning to my goons. “Well Tinman and Scarecrow let’s be off, we can’t keep the Wizard waiting. Oh! We’re off to see the Wizard…” I began to sing and give my best effort at skipping along merrily down the hallway. By the time we reached Dr. Hayes’ lab I was quite proud of myself. I had decided to call Goon One Scarecrow and Goon Two Tinman. The former was about ready to kill me and the latter was starting to get pretty annoyed too. My behavior and the combination of singing “We’re off to see the Wizard,” incessantly, interspersed with casual assurances that we would get a brain for Scarecrow and a heart for Tinman, had worked nicely. Scarecrow had bashed me in the back of the head a couple times with his rifle but it didn’t hurt at all, in fact I had barely felt it.

“It’s about time you got here,” Dr. Hayes snapped as we entered the lab and approached him. “What took you so long? This one’s been nothing but trouble while I was waiting for you.” He was sitting at a computer desk looking very irritated. I assume that that was Sakura’s doing since someone who looked an awful lot like me, Glen me, was sitting in a chair beside him looking very smug. My doppelganger was secured with a pair of handcuffs on each wrist fastened to the arms of the chair. There were also two guys in regular security uniforms standing guard over her. She… he was still wearing a hospital gown like mine and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she was still alive even if our natural positions seemed to be reversed for the time being.

“This crazy brat kept running off and looking around.” Tinman grumbled.

I put my hands on my hips and tried to look offended, not that it was hard in my current situation. “Hey! I’ll have you know that I was looking for the Cowardly Lion; I think it’s pretty unfair that you two are going to get a brain and a heart and he won’t get his courage. Frankly I would have tried going home on my own by now but I seem to have misplaced my ruby slippers, not to mention my clothes.”

“There seems to be a lot of that going around,” the other me said. “You’d think that they don’t trust us. Don’t mind me, I’d get up but I’m all tied up at the moment.”

“I’ll forgive your lack of manners this time,” I graciously offered. “You’re looking good, not as good as me mind you, but good. Have you been working out?” I meant it too, he was looking very good and I felt a little weird for being attracted to myself. He definitely looked more toned than I ever was though, muscular even, and though it was hard to tell in the chair I thought that he might be a bit taller too. Some of the facial features were slightly different from what I was used to seeing in the mirror as well, slightly more handsome. He also had the most beautiful silver eyes.

“How nice of you to notice,” he replied with a grin.

“Would somebody shut those two up!” Doctor Hayes snapped. He looked like he was ready to start pulling out his hair as he tapped away at the keyboard and clicked furiously at the mouse.

“Problems?” I asked sweetly, ignoring the blow to the back of my head. These people really needed to hire tougher guards.

“For us? No,” Suki-me answered. One of the guards behind Suki had given her slap to the back of the head too and, while she winced, she looked more annoyed than anything. “The Doc seems to be having computer issues though. He really should back up his files more often.”

“You deleted the back-ups you little bitch! I left you alone for less than five minutes with a password protected computer and when I got back years of research was gone!” He screamed, starting to turn red.

“Geez Doc, you really have to learn to watch your language in front of us impressionable youths,” I pointed out. “Plus, technically that term doesn’t really apply to Suki at the moment.” I grinned at Suki. “Did you really delete everything in less than five minutes?”

“Technically I only deleted the back-ups, the rest is still there under an encryption that only I can access at the moment. Though I did send certain incriminating documents and the video he made us watch to the proper authorities and certain media outlets before setting that up,” he said as he returned my grin. “I imagine that we’ll be hearing from them soon.”

Damn I loved her… me?... him. “Well then, I guess our work here is done.” At Suki’s announcement Dr. Hayes had hurriedly opened a safe by his desk and began shoving money and documents into a briefcase. “Going somewhere?” I inquired.

He just pointed at me and ordered his goons, “Kill them both, start with that one so the other one gets to watch it die first.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Scarecrow said. Even with the faceplate on him I could tell that he was probably grinning as he put the gun to my head and fired point blank.

I flinched and I heard Suki yell as it felt like a bee stung me in the side of the head. I think that I was more stunned than anyone by the sound of the bullet falling to the floor. I quickly raised a hand to my head to make sure that I wasn’t leaking blood, or worse brains, but there was nothing. I wondered briefly if the glow around me was some sort of force field. My grin was reflected in the metal of his faceplate as I said, “My turn,” and wound up and punched him.

I didn’t really expect it to do much, after all he was wearing power armor and, force field or not, my body was that of a smallish fifteen year old girl at the moment. I think the result surprised us both. If he didn’t have the wind knocked out of him from the punch itself, I figured that the dozen or so concrete walls he flew through on his way out of the building probably did the trick. Tinman raised some sort of pistol and aimed it at me and I shook my head at him. “Do you want to leave this building on your own two feet or would you rather follow your friend?”

It seemed that I was right; Tinman was the one with a brain. He took off running and I turned to see Dr. Hayes looking ready to run until I stepped between him and the exit. “Leaving so soon? Have a seat Doc, and order the rent-a-cops to un-cuff Suki, unless you’d all like to see what I can do to a person who’s not wearing power armor,” I bluffed.

None of them was going to risk it. He placed the briefcase back on the desk as the guards started to unlock the handcuffs on Sakura’s wrists. Once they had un-cuffed her… him (damn this gender thing was getting confusing), we removed their weapons and cuffed them to a heavy work table with a bunch of weird little gadgets on it that I assumed were scanners and other scientific equipment. I found an extension power cord and used it to tie the doc to the chair he was in while Suki started looking at the instruments and tools on the worktable.

“I can work with th…” Suki began to say with a grin when there was a loud crash from the direction of the lab’s new man-shaped doorway. A dozen goons in power armor had burst through what was left of the wall and had some really big guns that were making humming noises pointed at us. “Well damn,” I heard my voice curse. “Can you see if you can keep them occupied for a few minutes while I work? Oh and I’m just throwing this out there, but I’d love a better look at one of those guns if you can manage it.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied with a sigh, wondering when my girlfriend had become a technophile. I shrugged it off and walked toward the guards, “Hey guys, what seems to be the problem?” I asked, trying my best to look innocent.

“Put your hands on your head and surrender, we have you outgunned and outnumbered,” the one in the lead said.

It was hard to tell them apart in the identical armor but I recognized the voice of the speaker. “Aw come on Tinman, I thought you were the one with a brain.”

“I am, that’s why I brought reinforcements. I don’t know what freaky powers you have but you got in a lucky shot before. I’m willing to bet that you can’t take all of us at once. So surrender peacefully and return to your cells with us,” he ordered.

“Tempting, but no,” I replied coolly. “How about you surrender peacefully and let me have that big gun and I won’t destroy this whole building and kick all of your asses.” I had no idea if I could actually do that but my apparent strength and force field was giving me enough confidence to at least try if I needed to.

“Fine, you want to play it that way then, here I’ll let you have it alright.” He fired the weapon at me and I was engulfed in flames.

I was expecting it to burn, because fire is hot and this stuff was like white hot. The linoleum beneath my feet was actually melted and the concrete beneath it blackened and smoking. All I felt though was a slight warm tingling sensation. It actually caused me to giggle (another blow to my male ego that I would have to deal with when this was all over). “Hey, stop it; that tickles.”

“How… how did you?” Tinman sputtered in shock beneath his faceplate. “That was superheated plasma, there should be nothing left of you.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, a bit stunned myself. I didn’t even have a sunburn and, aside from the fact that my hospital gown was now ashes and I was standing there naked, I was feeling pretty good. “But I think I like it,” I added with a grin as I yanked the gun out of his hands and tossed it aside. When I started to lay into them with punches and kicks I was suddenly really glad that they were wearing power armor. I was pulling my punches and they were still flying every which way. Their armor was cracked and dented in spots and I had completely shattered a few of their faceplates. In short I didn’t know how strong I actually was but I was having a hard time holding back enough to not turn the people inside the armor to jelly or something.

My apparent speed wasn’t helping matters either as I found that while I was easily avoiding their attempts to hit me I was actually moving too fast for them to keep up with even in power armor. Once I discovered that I tried to hold back on it too but I just wasn’t used to it and there were a few mishaps as a result that ended up with some broken bones for my adversaries. Having one of the two was bad enough, but having to hold back on both the speed and strength of my hits just wasn’t as easy as it sounds. If it weren’t for the power armor I was pretty sure my adversaries would be seriously injured, if not dead. I was beginning to wonder what country Scarecrow had landed in.

I managed to merely knock another opponent unconscious and turned to look for any other goons stupid enough to still be standing when I caught sight of one. He had his weapon charged and it was pointed at Suki. I ran at him as quick as I could and tackled him sending us both out of the room and through a number of walls. I wondered briefly if they had insurance but I decided I didn’t really care if they got gouged for repairs as I took a look around. We were outside the building now and a look down showed that we were roughly two stories up. “You guys can fly?” I asked the guy I had tackled, who was suddenly clinging to me for dear life.

He shook his head rapidly. “I guess it’s me then,” I said with a shrug. “I’m surprised that you’re still conscious. Those suits must be really impact resistant.” The goon nodded as he clung to my leg and I smiled at him, “Good, I don’t feel so bad about this then.” I finger flicked his helmet, denting it and snapping his head back, causing him to lose his grip and sending him falling to the ground below. I figured that if it could withstand the impact of me barreling into him and using him as a battering ram then a little two story fall should be nothing.

With that taken care of I tried to fly toward the new window we had made during our exit. The last thing I wanted was the police and media showing up and seeing my girlfriend’s naked body hovering two stories in the air. It was really hard to manage at first but after a bit of experimenting I found that I could sort of push against the air to move in the other direction. The whole equal and opposite reaction thing eventually gave me an idea how to move, and soon I was back inside and on solid ground again.

I made my way through what was left of the second floor and toward the lab. It was easy to find, I just followed the holes in the walls. Once in the lab I picked up one of the goons’ discarded plasma gun and joined Suki at the work bench. “Present for you Sook. Sorry I took so long, I had to take out the trash”

“Sweet, and it’s not even my birthday,” he said with a smile as he examined the weapon. “Hmm, this definitely gives me some ideas. Why don’t you put on one of those paper gowns over there while I find something to put my new toys in? Then we can go down and free the others. Do you know where they put our things?”

I nodded as I got into another one of the stupid paper gowns. “Yeah, I found our stuff in a storage room near the holding cells while I was ‘running off’ on Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb.”

“Great, I knew I could count on you,” he said beaming at me. He was stuffing a bunch of little gadgets in a plastic shopping bag he had found and once he was finished he shouldered the weapon. “Can you see what’s in that briefcase that was so important the doc felt he had to run off with it?”

“Sure thing,” I said as I opened the case and whistled at the contents. Though I mentally cursed as I snapped both latches while opening it. I had pretty much crushed the handle too when I grabbed it and I figured that if there was anything useful in there I would have to move it to another case or something soon. Inside were stacks of twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. There was also a passport for the doc, which I quickly tossed aside, and a flash drive. “Why thank you doc, your donation to the homeless Hypers fund is much appreciated.” We could still hear Dr. Dementia cursing us as we made the stairs and headed down with the briefcase in my hands.

We got to the storage room without incident and I managed to find my stuff and tossed Suki a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. “I think these should fit you okay, but I think you’re taller and more buff than I am… was.”

“Yeah but you didn’t exactly copy me perfectly either,” he pointed out. “I wasn’t that gorgeous before and my breasts were never that big. I think your whole body in general is nicer actually.” He tossed me a pair of panties, a bra, black pleated skirt and a pink top that he called a ‘cami’.

I shook my head, “No way am I wearing girl’s underwear and a skirt. I’m going to have a bad enough mental breakdown once we’re safe.”

“Glen, your clothes won’t fit and all I have is skirts, I have no idea what they did with the jeans I was wearing when we came in,” he pointed out. “And if you’re wearing a skirt you’ll need to wear panties.”

“Fine,” I grumbled as I took the clothes and put on the panties and the skirt. The skirt only reached mid-thigh so I could actually see why panties were a good idea. I had to get Suki’s help with the bra but even when we got it on we both knew it was a lost cause. I tossed it aside and put on the cami but even that was pretty tight around my chest. You could see my nipples and most of my midriff was bare.

“Damn, I figured as much,” Suki grumbled. “I had to stuff my A cup bra to fill it properly and you’re way too big for it. I think you’re probably a C cup at least. You’re slimmer and have a trimmer tummy too, I’m kinda jealous.” He took out a large sweater and had me put it on over the cami. “That’s probably the best we can do.”

I sighed and began to stuff the contents of the briefcase into my duffel bag while Sakura placed the contents of her shopping bag inside hers. Finally I said, “Wearing clothes is great and all but shouldn’t we be trying to change back to our own bodies.”

Sakura shook his head. “I think these are our bodies now, I overheard the doc talking to another scientist. That’s when I was deleting his files and such. It sounds like we didn’t turn out the way he wanted. If we were metamorphs we would have returned to our own forms when we passed out. The other scientist thinks that these are idealized forms. Since we were trying to look like each other when we got our powers, our forms changed to how we subconsciously see each other. I tried changing forms again but I can’t get it to work. But I seem to have some sort of super brain now and from the looks of it your powers don’t have anything to do with shape shifting either.”

“Shit, so we’re stuck like this then?”

“As far as I can figure, yes,” was his sad reply. “We can’t tell anybody about this, so from here on out you need to be Sakura Yoshida and I need to be Glen Phillips. We need to think of each other that way too.”

I flopped down on the floor and I felt like crying as the situation finally caught up with me but it just didn’t happen. This was going to be the end of us. I loved Sakura so much but could she even want me like this? Not only was I female but I was this idealized version of her that would only remind her of everything she had lost. “O.. okay… Glen,” I finally said. “Let’s help the others get free and then I guess we can go our separate ways.”

He looked like I had slapped him. “Is that what you want?”

I shook my head as I looked away. “No, but you probably don’t want me like this, you’re not into girls so…”

He cupped a hand under my chin and raised my face to look at him. “I’m into you. I love you, no matter what body you wear and nothing will ever change that. It’s weird but I’m even attracted to you now like you are, at first I thought I must be some kind of narcissist but maybe this is just something to help us through this. We both changed because we love one another so maybe we subconsciously tweaked our brains so we could still be attracted to one another like this as well. Tell me you don’t feel the same way and we’ll break it off.”

“Of course I love you,” I quickly objected. “I wouldn’t be like this now if I didn’t. I guess I have to admit that I’m finding you attractive like you are as well and it kind of scared me at first. I was sort of afraid that you or both of us would change back but that I suddenly liked guys. Between that and knowing you weren’t into girls I was afraid of losing you. So what do we do now?”

“Well, long term I think we need to start thinking of each other in terms of who we look like, help each other adjust to our new genders, and try to figure out our abilities and how to control them. For now though let’s worry about getting the others and escaping this hellhole,” he suggested.

“Right,” I agreed as I stood up and shouldered my bag. “Let’s do this.”

Suki… Glen had procured one of the goon’s head sets and had insisted on giving the head set a listen before we ventured out when he chuckled. He said that from the sounds of it the scientists had been evacuated outside the back of the building while the special security forces dealt with the ‘dangerous mutants’. “You would think there was a small army of us instead of just the two of us. They said that all the other kids have been returned to the cell block, we’re the only two still ‘at large’. There’s some sort of commotion out front though, I don’t know if it’s the police and media or something else, but whatever it is apparently it’s more important than the two of us.”

The cell block where the ‘guestrooms’ were located was sealed by a thick steel security door and guarded by two power armored goons. “I guess this is up to me then,” I said with a sigh. “They might be assholes working for other assholes but I really don’t want to hurt them too bad. I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out how much strength and speed to use.”

Glen shrugged. “I’ll handle this and you get the door. While you were fighting those guys in the lab I was building us a few things. This should work nicely on that armor of theirs.” He pulled a round metallic object with a digital screen out of his duffle bag and pressed a button on the side causing the digital display to start counting down from five. Then he tossed it down the hall toward the guards.

The guards looked at the device that rolled to their feet for almost a full second before it let off a burst of energy and they both fell to the ground unmoving. Glen grinned at me. “That was a mini burst EMP device, it knocked out all their armor’s systems but there should be no lasting harm. You should pull off the face plates so they can breathe though.”

We approached the door and he stooped to pick up the device and put it back in his bag while I tore the face plates off the guards’ armor. I gave them a menacing look and said, “Don’t bother getting up, we’ll let ourselves in.” Then I hit the door with what I deemed a safe amount of strength. It flew off the hinges and crashed into the wall at the end of the cell block. Dammit, it seemed like I was still using too much power. The guards were very still after that though.

We didn’t have time to waste if we were going to take advantage of whatever was going on outside so I tore all the doors off the cells and put them aside before moving onto the next. All told there were sixteen kids besides us but most of them were younger than us with Stephanie being the oldest. The little ones were mostly unharmed but the guards had really roughed up Steph. She was huddled up in a corner and recoiled when I tore the door off of her cell until she realized it was me. “Suki?!”

“Ummm yeah… who else would I be,” I muttered. Then I noticed the black eye and the bruises on her face. “Are you okay? What did they do to you?”

“After you were taken upstairs some of the guards came in here. I tried to give as good as I got but there were four of them,” she explained as I helped her to her feet. “How did you...” she began to ask.

“It looks like they were right about us being Hypers, I have super powers. Bastards don’t even see us as human. There’s no time for any other explanation we need to get out of here while the guards are distracted,” I answered, helping her to her feet and guiding her out of the cell.

Once we had everyone out of their cells we made our way back upstairs and headed for what I thought might be the main entrance. There was almost nobody to be seen and those that were there were hiding. “What the hell are they hiding from?” Glen muttered beside me, “Surely you’re not that scary.” I wasn’t too sure about that so I didn’t reply; I merely led us to the exit. I peeked around a corner and saw a pair of glass doors with daylight beyond them and just stared for a long moment. Glen poked me in the ribs, “What’s wrong? Did we go the wrong way?”

I shook my head as I watched the scene outside. Two people in white togas with some sort of black bodysuits underneath were fighting four power armored goons and they were winning. This was apparent by close to a half dozen goons already lying on the ground with pools of blood around their armored forms. One had dark red skin and carried a massive sword that he was using to attack the goons. He wasn’t able to cut very deep but those cuts kept adding up and he kept going at it. It looked like every time they shot him or tore off one of his limbs he regenerated nearly instantly. One thought to use one of the plasma guns on him while he was occupied but the other one, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties with green hair and a bow, shot him with some sort of electric arrow and he fell to the ground spasming. There were two others but they seemed content to let the others do all the dirty work. “It looks like the lab has some uninvited guests making a scene out front.”

“Is it the media or the police?”

“Ummm… no,” I replied uncertainly. “I think I’m going to go with protesters… angry mutant protesters in togas.”

“What the hell? You’re joking right?” When I shook my head he asked, “How many dozens? Hundreds?”

“It looks like four and they’re carving the goon squad a new one, at least the two that are actually fighting are. I’m really not sure who to cheer for here,” I replied.

“How about the ones who didn’t kidnap, forcibly detain, and experiment on us?” Glen suggested.

I shook my head and gave him a determined look. “Oh, so I should applaud the one’s indiscriminately killing people then? Not going to happen.”

“I have to agree with you there my love. You’re about to do something crazy aren’t you?” At my nod he gripped my hand, “I’m with you. So do you have a plan or are we going to pull the crazy act again?”

I gave him a tired smile. “Well I have a plan, but the plan is crazy so I guess we’re doing both. You take the girl with the bow and I’ll take the guy with the sword. Steph you wait inside the entrance with the kids and if you see a chance you all make a break for it.” They both nodded and Glen and I made our way through the doors to the battle scene outside. There were only two power armored goons left standing and I was really hoping they wouldn’t attack us as well. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Glen took out a 4 inch steel disc and tapped a spot on it that caused it to expand to nearly two feet in diameter and hover off the ground. He hopped on top of it and fastened a blocky looking device around his right wrist and another that looked like a large silver bracer to his left. “Okay, let’s hit them hard and fast.”

I flew across the parking lot and almost missed my chance for a surprise attack by underestimating my speed. I stopped just short of him though and used a fraction of my strength to deliver an uppercut that I thought might take his head off. The sound of his neck breaking as his head snapped back made me cringe, but not as much as the sound when he reached back and pulled his head back into it’s proper place to glare at me. What the hell? Well at least I got his attention, I thought as I zipped backwards to avoid a swing of his sword.

Glen wasn’t faring much better. The bracer on his left arm had generated some sort of light shield that he was using to block the archer’s arrows. He was countering by firing these sparking pellets from the device on his right arm while flying around and trying to get a better angle of attack. The archer was dodging his attacks and seemed to be getting frustrated by his flying around and blocking her shots but she just kept firing though until one of them could break the standstill.

The swordsman took another swing, this time at my neck and I decided to see just how good my force field was. I grabbed the blade of the sword in mid-strike and pulled it out of his hands. I was done fooling around with him and to show it I crumpled the sword into a roughly ball-shaped hunk of useless metal. I had been hoping that this would show him just what he was dealing with but it only seemed to piss him off. He jumped at me and since my natural reaction was to step back and get out of range I did that and tripped over the power armored corpse behind me to fall on my butt.

I might have panicked a little then as he jumped on top of me raining blows down on me. None of them really hurt but I wasn’t sure how to take this guy down without killing him. There was also the last two goons sneaking up behind him with plasma guns to consider. It was then that I became aware of something odd. You know how it feels when you can feel a belch coming on but it just doesn’t want to happen and you’re stuck with that feeling until it does? It was like that but it felt like it was going through my whole body. Between that and my uncertainty, well the belch like feeling centered on my belly at that point and relief came in the form of a burst of white hot energy that incinerated the swordsman’s lower half and severely burned the upper half.

What was left of him rolled off of me howling in pain even as he started to regenerate. It was then that I noticed that the two goons had fallen to the ground and were screaming inside their smoking and completely unresponsive power armor. What did I just do? I tore the face plates off the helmets to allow them to breathe and turned my attention back on my opponent, whose legs were now beginning to grow back. “You going to stay down this time or do I need to do that again to the upper half of you? Somehow I don’t think you’ll heal from that,” I bluffed as I tried to cover my now naked body. Whatever it was that had erupted from me had turned the front of my clothes to ash.

He just stared at me, and he wasn’t alone. The goons were staring at me, Glen and the archer were staring at me and the two other toga clad mutants were staring at me. One of those was a Latino man not much older than Steph wearing goggles and the other was a pale woman in her mid-twenties with long brown hair who appeared to be semi-transparent. It was she who called out, “Enough! Cease this fighting my children! I don’t care what you do to the humans but we do not harm our brethren.”

The archer immediately shouldered her bow and joined the other pair who were now approaching me. Glen flew over to hover beside me ready to fight if we needed to but I just wanted all the killing to stop. “No more killing, these humans may be assholes but killing them only means we’re sinking to their level,” I said, crossing my arms over my naked chest. Glen took off his shirt and handed to me and it did a decent job of covering me up, falling to my upper thighs.

“Oh dear child, we cannot sink to their level, we are their betters in every way,” the brunette replied.

I snorted at that and rolled my eyes, “The fight is over and your guy lost. You may think you’re better but to me you’re just murderers. Now who are you and why the fuck are you here?”

“Man once worshiped beings of great power as Gods,” she said as if that would explain everything. “That golden age passed but it shall begin again. I am Gaia mother and teacher of the new Gods, the Titans. These are my chosen ones Hermes, Artemis and Ares. We came here because we heard that young children, our brethren were being held and tortured here. We came to free them and to take them to a safe place with others of their kind.”

“Well, we’ve managed to escape on our own, thanks for making the trip though. Send us a postcard when you get back to the Promised Land,” I shot back.

“Yes, you have done an admirable job,” she admitted. “You may come out children; we will not harm our own kind.” Then she seemed to look through Glen for a minute, her eyes glowing green, before doing the same with me. When she was finished her eyes were wide and she smiled. “I see you for what you are. You are a being of great beauty and power with a powerful desire for justice, you shall be my Astraea.” She turned that smile back to Glen and added, “And there is no one more deserving than you, with your quick mind and skill at forging weapons, to take the name Hephaestus. I offer you both a place among my Titans. Join us and leave these brutal and wicked humans behind.”

“Thanks but no thanks,” I said with a shake of my head. “Sure these humans who held us here are everything you say they are but not all humans are like that. And from the looks of things you people shouldn’t be throwing stones where brutality is concerned.”

Glen nodded in agreement, “You can’t judge an entire species by a few bad samples. Sure we’ve seen some bad ones here but we’ve seen some good ones too.”

“I’ll take that offer,” Stephanie’s voice said from behind me, causing me to curse. Sure it might be her decision to make and she was older than us so she had every right to make it, but I couldn’t help thinking that only bad things would come from it.

Gaia smiled at her and beckoned her forward. “You are a brave young woman, deserving of the gifts of your heritage. Come here and let us see what gifts your rebirth bestows upon you.”

“Steph, this is not a good idea,” I warned. “They had no qualms about killing those guards. They were people, with families and maybe to some it was just a job.”

Steph walked past me, “They didn’t think about us as people, maybe it’s time we start doing the same.”

Gaia began to glow with a pale green light as she placed her hand on Steph’s forehead and then Steph was glowing too. Her blond hair and pale skin both turned pitch black and seemed to absorb all light around her. Then she said, “Welcome to Godhood Nyx.”

“Holy shit,” Glen whispered beside me as there was a collective gasp from the children who had followed Steph outside. “She can activate H Chromosomes.”

Gaia turned back to us, “We will take these children to Olympus where they will be safe and well cared for until they are ready to embrace their own destinies as Nyx has. Will you not reconsider joining us?”

“No we won’t and you’re not taking those kids anywhere,” I snapped, still a bit shocked by what I had just seen.

Gaia shook her head. “Make no mistake we will rule the humans in time; nothing will stand in our way. And one day you will see the humans for what they really are Astraea, and when that happens you will leave them to join your brethren just as your namesake did. You and Hephaestus will always have a place in Olympus and I will give your names to no one else. Goodbye my children, we shall meet again.” Then she gestured to the Latino in the goggles, “Hermes, take us home.” There was a flash of light and Gaia, Stephanie, the other Titans, and all of the children were gone.

“Shit!” I cursed. “What the hell do we do now?”

“We get out of here and find a place to lay low for a bit while we figure things out,” Glen replied as we picked up our previously discarded duffel bags and a couple of the dropped plasma cannons. “I’ve left enough evidence for the police and media to look into what they were doing here but I don’t trust them to not blame us for what happened out here.”

“Yeah but how are we going to do that?” I wondered aloud. “We don’t know how to drive and I don’t have a handle on my strength or speed yet, let alone flying and whatever it was I used on Ares so while I’m up for laying low, the question is where and how to get there.”

There was a flash of light and a voice from behind us asked, “You need a lift mis amigos?” The world seemed to twist in on itself and suddenly the demolished parking lot of the lab was gone, replaced by a small farmhouse, barn, and acres of long-abandoned fields. I hadn’t even finished turning around to confront him before our location had changed. When I did turn around and he saw the look on my face, he held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, chill out chica! I ain’t here to hurt you and I didn’t bring you to Olympus. You said no and, while we hope you’ll change your minds, we respect that. But you’re one of us, Gaia named you and everything, and we take care of our own so I wasn’t about to leave you there for those humans to blame everything on you.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I muttered. “So where did you bring us?”

“Artemis grew up here on this farm,” he replied. “She inherited the deed from her parents but she hasn’t been back much since she joined the Titans. She said you can stay here as long as you like while you figure things out. Winnipeg is about a half hour north of here and she thinks Hephaestus can probably get the truck working.

“Why are you being so nice? We refused your invitation. And you seem like a decent guy so why join her in the first place?” I asked. “She condones murder and she as much as said she wants to rule the world.”

He shrugged as he considered my questions. Finally he said, “Like I said we take care of our own and whether you want to admit it or not, you’re Titans. Most of us have been through some pretty bad shit at the hands of humans, it changes a person. I’d rather live in a world where I’m feared and worshiped than feared and hated. The killing is regrettable and we try only to kill those who have committed crimes against our kind but have you stopped to think what a mess the world is now? Maybe once we’re in control we can make it a better place. Think about it and Gaia’s offer. Later mis amigos.”

Another flash of light and he was gone.

“What do you make of that?” I asked Glen.

“It sounds like he believes what he’s saying but I think they might be trying to turn us to their side by showing that they’re willing to help us,” he replied after a moment’s thought. “They are probably hoping that we’ll get our fill of being mistreated by humans and decide that we really should join their little family.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I figured too. So do we stay here? Or try to get somewhere else?” I hated feeling so uncertain about things but there was so much that we had to deal with that I wasn’t sure where to start.

“It can’t hurt to stay here for a while, at least while you figure out your powers, we help each other to pass as one another, and I build a few things we’ll need,” he answered. “I definitely want to build some devices to figure out where all of your power is coming from and why you’re glowing like that. Knowing those things might help you to get better control.”

Glen had managed to fix the truck that was in the barn and figured out how to drive it without too much trouble. He was so damn smart now and I wondered whether that was his only power as I went around the farmhouse trying to clean the thick layer of dust that seemed to be everywhere. He was going to drive to Winnipeg to get some groceries and hit the Radio Shack and a junkyard if he could find one. I warned him to spread his purchases around though as a fifteen or sixteen year old boy running around with that much money was sure to raise questions. To be safe he had only taken two stacks of twenties and one stack of fifties and left the rest with me..

Once I got the dust taken care of as best I could I took a break from cleaning to take care of some important business that I had been holding off on. I really had to pee and it was something that I hadn’t been looking forward to, especially after Glen had made his first attempt. He had been pale and looked so shaken when he came out of the bathroom. As I did my own business and wiped afterwards I got a pretty good idea of why he had looked like that. This intimate and personal act done in a way I had always assumed was reserved solely for the opposite sex made it quite clear that I now was the opposite sex. It sealed the deal and there was no going back.

I don’t know how long I sat there on the toilet crying but it was beginning to get dark outside as I stepped out into the living room. I was really hoping that Glen would get back soon and that he had found a generator to give us some power, I could really use some more light. The glow about me seemed to brighten then until the whole room was bathed in golden light. Since this wasn’t the first time that my new powers had surprised me I just shrugged it off and went upstairs to clean the dust from the last of the three bedrooms.

The bedroom had a large double bed and pictures of a man, a woman, and a child that went along with some I had seen in the living room. I assumed the child was Artemis and the pictures in both rooms ranged from her as a baby right up to her high school graduation photo. She had brown hair then and looked so happy in the photos. The room also had a floor length mirror and I couldn’t help but look at the girl reflected there. Glen was right, even in clothes my breasts were obviously much bigger than his had been while he was Suki and I was indeed much prettier as well, in fact I was beautiful. I still looked like her of course but there were a bunch of really subtle changes in the face and body that made me a knockout where she was simply very pretty.

I felt like crying again as I looked in that mirror but I knew that it wouldn’t change anything. We were stuck as we were now and the only thing that we could do was to pick up the pieces of our lives, stick together and try to move forward. I was having trouble coming to grips with the fact that my girlfriend and I had changed roles, at least I was in my mind, and I think that’s what bothered me most. Shouldn’t my body feel wrong to me? I mean sure my balance and movements were all off because physically I felt different, and mentally I knew that this was not the body I had been born with, but that was all conflicted by the feeling that I looked so feminine and beautiful and that made me feel good, it made me feel proud and comfortable in my own skin. Was this something to help me adjust? Like the fact that I was still attracted to Glen in my old body.

The sound of a honking horn shook me from those thoughts and I made my way outside to where Glen was waiting with the truck. He immediately shielded his eyes, “Whoa! Turn down the lights, you’re blinding me here.” I thought about how the light had responded to my thoughts and willed it to dim and it did so. I wondered if I could turn it completely off and tried to do that too but it didn’t seem to work as my light just went back to the level it had been a when I first woke up after getting my powers. “Nice trick, can you turn it completely off?”

I shook my head, “I just tried and this seems to be the lowest setting.”

“Maybe I can figure out some way to turn it off long enough for you to go out in public. We’ll need to get you regular clothes to wear and I’ll need to figure out something that won’t incinerate whenever you do whatever it as you did to Ares.”

I shuddered at that, “Don’t remind me. I don’t think I ever want to do that to a living person again.”

“I wouldn’t either,” he agreed, “But we need to be prepared for the possibility. I have some theories that I would like to test out but I’ll need to build some equipment first to get an idea of why exactly you have such power. I’ve got a bunch of stuff from Radio Shack and other electronics stores, a bunch of old scrap metal and other useful stuff from a junkyard that I can use to make things, a laptop with a wifi stick, some groceries, and both gas and solar powered generators to run the house on.

“Sounds like you were productive,” I said with a smile. “I was too, I managed to get rid of most of the dust and set up what looked like a guest bedroom so we can sleep tonight.” I stood up on my toes to kiss him but I stopped myself, worried that it would just be too weird for both of us. He seemed to see the uncertainty on my face but he didn’t stop, he kissed me full on the lips and put his arms around me. It felt good, better and much less awkward than I had been anticipating. I quickly reciprocated and we stayed there locked in a passionate kiss and embrace for several minutes before he had to come up for air.

“Not that that wasn’t amazing but I need air. You’re really warm sweetie,” he said looking at me in concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel fine,” I said as I nodded in reply. In fact I felt better than fine, that kiss had been incredible. ”Maybe my force field or whatever it is is generating heat as well as light,” I suggested.

He seemed thoughtful for a moment but nodded, “It’s possible, let’s get these groceries inside and eat. I brought us some pizza and sodas for tonight since I don’t have much experience cooking.”

“That’s okay, I used to have to cook for myself all the time when my dad was at work,” I told him. “It’s probably best that I handle the cooking anyway since you’ll be busy with inventing while we’re here.”

Over the next five days while Glen was busy inventing things I was busy learning to control my strength and speed and getting the hang of flying. The latter was the easiest and soon I began to enjoy the freedom of taking to the skies. The former though was taking a lot of practice just so I wouldn’t crush anything I happened to be holding or using but by the fifth day I was starting to get the hang of it as well. I had yet to discover an upper limit for my strength yet though and I gave up figuring out how fast I was going somewhere after the first sonic boom.

We also spent some time that first evening monitoring the news online. Several news networks were covering the story of the mutant kids escaping from Red River Research Center following inhumane testing on them and outright murder of previous test subjects. Reports mentioned that the escapees were aided in their escape by an attack on the lab by Hyper extremists and that a terrorist group calling themselves the Titans had claimed responsibility and abducted the children following their escape from the lab. That made for one less problem to worry about. We wouldn’t be implicated in the killings, but Dr. Hayes knew the truth about our escape and would likely tell his employers. In related news a cornfield roughly three kilometers from the facility was ravaged when a man in power armor crash landed. I got a good giggle out of that.

When we weren’t busy with doing our mutant things or keeping up with the news we were doing research online or teaching one another about our lives. We drilled one another incessantly about our childhoods and how to walk, move, speak and act like our new genders. Both of us had some issues with that but we were coming along slowly. Glen was hoping to go clothes shopping, once we figured out a way for me to stop being the human glow-stick, so we could teach each other about how fashion related to our new genders.

Finally on the morning of that fifth day Glen led me out into the barn that he had converted into a lab. There were strange instruments all over the place and he had me lay down in one while he ran scans of my body. Once that was done a concerned look passed over his face and he used a few hand held devices to take even more readings. Finally he sighed, “I think I have you figured out Sook but it’s really complicated. I had trouble getting proper readings at first due to all the energy”

“What? Was my force field interfering?” I asked, slightly confused.

“He shook his head, “That’s not a force field Suki, its sunlight. It’s basically just heat and light that you give off naturally, I think that’s the highest amount you can emit without it getting too much attention and you need to get rid of at least some excess energy when not actively using your powers. You’re basically a low-mass star. You have a core somewhere in your chest and it’s producing insane amounts of energy by nulcleosynthesis.”

“You’re saying I’m nuclear!?” I half-shouted.

“No I said that you’re a low-mass star,” he reiterated. “But yes your entire body has been adapted to run off the nuclear energy you’re producing. Your organs, circulatory system, muscles, everything has adapted to use that energy and to be able to withstand that. In fact your body is looking for other ways to use the excess energy so it is using it to fuel your strength and speed. Some of that excess is being given off as sunlight as well and you’re using bursts of that energy to give thrust in flight and remain unaffected by Earth’s gravity.”

“What about my invulnerability then?” I asked, more than a little freaked out.

“That isn’t so much a power as a side effect,” Glen said with a sigh. “In order to withstand the magnitude of the energy that your core is producing, not to mention the heat, all of your organs, bones, muscles, nervous system, veins and arteries, and skin all need to be invulnerable to the might of a star. They also need to be shielded against radiation and heat, which is why you’re not giving off large amounts of radiation or burning up; your body is keeping it inside of you so your invulnerability protects not only you but those around you. What you did to Ares was essentially a solar flare, you constantly need to release excess energy anyway so when you panicked your body reacted by giving off some of that energy as plasma and radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum which were directed at your adversaries.”

I stared at him for a long time before speaking again. “I guess that does explain a lot, but how the hell does my body manage to run like that? Low-mass stars exist by converting hydrogen to helium via nuclear fusion. I can’t have that much hydrogen in me and they usually gather it from gas clouds.”

“You’re getting some from the air, 0.00005 percent of Earth’s air is hydrogen,” he explained. “You don’t even seem to need to breathe, your lungs just adapted to gather gasses for your core. You’re getting some hydrogen from food and liquids too. Water, high protein foods like meat and poultry, fruits, grains, and other carbohydrates all have hydrogen in them. You’re not getting enough from the air to do much more than keep you alive, you really need to get hydrogen from food or water to keep producing that kind of energy needed to fuel your powers and give you energy for day to day activities. Your digestive system is breaking those down and extracting the hydrogen atoms to send to your core while the rest is delegated to liquid and solid wastes. I think you must have some natural ability to filter those, probably something to do with your body being naturally shielded against radiation, because the urine sample I had you give me shows no sign of radioactivity.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, “Well at least I’m not radioactive. So if I constantly need to give off at least a little energy how do we make it so I’m not a walking nightlight?”

He considered the problem and a moment later I could see the eureka moment written all over his face. “I think I can create a device that will draw in that excess energy and store it in small batteries. We’re talking about a lot of energy though so you might have to change the batteries out if you want to keep up a normal appearance for any more than six hours.”

“What do we do with that stored energy though? Could you use it for anything?” I asked.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to solve the power requirements for something I’m working on and I think this might do the trick…”

An hour later Glen placed a silver choker around my neck. It looked like a regular choker and fit snugly but it had a bunch of micro-devices inside that would siphon off any excess electromagnetic, solar and thermal energy that I needed to release and store it in the battery. The battery itself was a small quartz crystal on a silver base that plugged easily into the choker and locked in place until released by a small switch on the underside. “I wish I had a better type of crystal for energy storage but quartz should do until I find something better,” he said.

The glow around me had faded to nothing and while he may have been disappointed, I was not. “Did you need so many of the batteries,” I asked? He had made nearly two dozen of them and as interesting as I found his new skills with creating new tech, watching him make the same thing so many times was boring.

“Yes, I want to run some tests on how quick you charge them and how much energy they hold. So I want you to increase your energy output so we can fully charge half of them. The others you’ll need for spares in case we’re out and you fully charge one,” he said with a smile.

I concentrated on increasing the amount of energy I was giving off and over the next few hours we fully charged half of the devices. Then I lowered my output to the lowest possible and we put in a fresh battery to charge while Glen drove us into town to do some shopping. I was wearing a long green wool sweater dress, winter jacket, and some boots that I had found in one of the closets of the farmhouse. Glen had found some jeans that fit okay with a belt, a t-shirt, and a pair of cowboy boots and a winter jacket. None of the clothes fit us particularly well but we would be getting clothes that would soon enough. I also had a purse that I had found in Artemis’ old bedroom that now had a large chunk of our money and replacement batteries for charging in it.

We arrived at a mall in Winnipeg around lunch time and stopped for a bite to eat before doing any actual shopping. Clothes shopping like this was a new experience for both of us when we got down to it. When my dad and I used to shop for clothes it was a get in and out as quick as possible affair. As long as everything fit, how it looked was pretty unimportant to me. Glen though had grown up in the orphanage as Sakura and hadn’t had much chance to go clothes shopping; most of her clothes were second hand or donated by charity. So he couldn’t really coach me on shopping that much and we were both pretty much left to our own devices.

One thing Glen did know was that I should be fitted before we bought anything so that my clothes would fit comfortably. So while he was off looking for clothes of his own I was left in the women’s section of a department store unsure of where to even start. It was while I was standing there utterly confused that a pair of girls around my age stopped with concerned looks on their faces. “Hey, are you okay?” asked the one who looked to be of Native ancestry.

“Umm yeah, I’m just not sure where to start here; I’ve never really been clothes shopping before,” I admitted.

“Never been shopping? Where did you grow up? Outer space?” asked the blonde, blue eyed girl.

I blushed at that and looked at the floor as I reminded myself to use Sakura’s past and not Glen’s. “I grew up in an orphanage actually. I only recently got out and I just got a bunch of money to spend on clothes but I know absolutely nothing.” I tentatively introduced myself, “I’m Sakura Yoshida.”

“I’m Natalia, but everyone calls me Talia, and this is Gwen,” the blonde girl said. “It’s nice to meet you Sakura. You know we could probably help you pick out what you need. Part of the whole shopping experience is the social aspect anyway; it’s more fun with other girls.”

“It’s nice to meet you both, you can call me Suki if you like, everyone else does. I’d really appreciate your help and I don’t really need to buy a lot just enough for a week or so, I’ll be doing more shopping later I just need enough clothes to last until then.”

For the next few hours Gwen and Talia coached me on the finer points of shopping and fashion and to my surprise I actually enjoyed myself. First they took me to get measured so we could get a better idea what sizes I would need. It turned out that I took a 28C bra, had a twenty three inch waist and was thirty one inches around the hips. Apparently this was enough to make my new shopping compatriots jealous but at least their teasing was in good spirits.

We focused on underwear first but where I would have opted for plain cotton bras and panties they insisted that part of being sexy was feeling sexy so I would have to dress the part even in my underclothes. So my matching panty and bra sets were lacy and sexy and ranged from white to black with pink, red, and blue between. I was told that color was important so they didn’t clash with what I was wearing over top. I wasn’t planning on letting anyone except maybe Glen see my underwear but they were the experts.

With underwear bought we focused on outer clothes next. I got three pairs of really tight low rise jeans three miniskirts in different colors and styles, one red mini dress and ten different tops of varying styles and colors, several of which left my midriff bare. We also bought a pair of sneakers, a pair of ballet flats, and a pair of black leather ankle boots with a two inch heel that had a matching purse, and a leather jacket to go with them. Once we had bought more clothes than a girl should be able to reasonably carry they took me to the cosmetics counter to introduce me to make-up (not that I needed any) and ended up buying some lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow for times when I wanted to look my best. They even taught me the basics of how to use it.

Gwen and Talia seemed like great girls and I was almost sorry to say goodbye when I explained that I had to go meet my boyfriend and head home. They had been trying to convince me to get my ears pierced but I was pretty sure that that wouldn’t go so well with my invulnerability so I used meeting Glen as an excuse to get out of it. I did need to meet him anyway and when we were back in the truck and heading back to the farm I told him how things had gone. He had just gone in and a salesgirl pounced on him and told him what he would look good in, and once he’d figured out his size he merely bought five outfits that she had suggested.

That night Glen had a surprise for me in his workshop/lab. “You know how I said I needed the energy to power something? Well I think these batteries you’re charging will work nicely. The energy storage is stable and you pumped a lot of energy into these suckers. Four of them should be enough to run the systems for at least a full day of continual use.” He pulled a tarp off of what looked like some sort of power armor. It was bigger than what the people at the lab used though and was a dark blue and grey in color with greenish yellow glowing highlights.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

He grinned at me and nodded. “Yup, though I vastly improved upon their designs. This responds to my brainwaves rather than muscle movement like theirs do and uses less power. And having such small batteries makes it lighter. It’s also made of a lighter alloy with the same impact resistance and seals well enough for use in space or under water. It can fly at supersonic speeds using plasma thrusters, uses miniaturized hydraulics to increase strength and I’ve equipped it with energy cannons, vi-blades, paralysis darts, remote minicams, mini missiles, screamers, taser pellets, and photon shields. It’s even resistant to EMPs. Oh and this is the best part,” he finished, tapping a button on his watch.

The armor disappeared from where it was standing and suddenly Glen was wearing it. “I can use space-time displacement to summon it when I need it or to send it to wherever I program its default location.”

“Holy crap Glen, that’s awesome!” I exclaimed.

“When I’m like this you should call me Chassis,” he replied. “I have something for you too.” He showed me a choker like the one I was currently wearing. “Put this one on. It’s an upgraded unit and there’s a button next to the clasp that turns off energy storage mode and activates the secondary purpose.”

I put it on in place of the other one and pressed the button by the clasp. In an instant the choker was gone and so were my clothes, replaced by a black one piece bathing suit with a gold colored sun emblazoned on the chest and matching opera gloves, thigh high boots, and I thought I could feel a mask over my eyes as well. “What the… where’d my clothes go?”

“Your clothes are stored in a pocket dimension until you return the choker to energy storage mode and then they will return to your body when the costume goes back to that dimension in their place. The choker is still there it’s just invisible. The outfit you’re wearing is only partially in this dimension which should prevent it from being damaged in a fight or by your own solar flares. I’ll probably end up making my armor’s default location in a pocket dimension as well to save on space now that I know it works. So what do you think?” he asked.

“I think this is great,” I replied enthusiastically, “But what to we call me when I’m like this? There is no way I’m giving in and going by Astraea. How about Sol?”

He shook his head. “Sounds too spiritual, how about Fusion? Or Flare?”

I didn’t really care for the sound of either of those. “How about Stellar?”

“I like it,” he agreed. “So now what do we do? We can’t stay here long and we’ve made some enemies.” Our research over the past five days had shown that the agency funding Red River Research wasn’t a government agency at all, in fact the flash drive in the briefcase showed that they had planned on replacing many key government and military officials with metamorphs if they had managed to successfully create any. They were bound to be very displeased with us following our trouncing of their men in the lab, our escape with their test subjects, and revealing them to the media.

There was also the Titans to consider, they might not consider us enemies but they had to be stopped. “We need to find allies,” I finally answered. “We need a team of our own if we’re going to be taking on shadow organizations and wannabe Gods.”

“That’s a good idea Sook, but where do we start? It’s not like we can hold open auditions to recruit people,” he pointed out.

I loaded up a news page on the laptop, typed in some keywords, and hit search. When I opened the first page I smiled. “We’ll start here,” I said pointing to the news story in question. The title of the article was ‘New and Old Heroes Save Christmas’. It was about a pair of new mutant heroes called Slush and Crystal, who saved Toronto and the hero Stonewall from a crazy sorceress named Arcana, with the help of a sorceress named Cantrip and three retired heroes called the Thrilling Threesome. “I think these two might be a good pair to start with.”