After David is caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, his entire life changes in ways he never could have expected. This is a fan fiction taking place in the Whateley Universe.

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The diner where Jackie and I were having breakfast reminded me a great deal of the one my Dad owned. It was a little larger and better decorated, though the food wasn’t quite as good. Still, being here made me feel just a bit like I’d come home.

In spite of being in a comfortable place and having a full belly, I still felt out of sorts. I guessed all the stress from everything that was going on had finally caught up with me.

“Are you okay?” Jackie asked me with a look of concern.

“Yeah,” I responded, giving her a reassuring smile that was just a little forced. “I don’t know. I’m just…” I shrugged, not sure how to explain it.

“It’s been a pretty rough couple of days,” Jackie told me gently. “You aren’t used to this kind of thing.”

“How do you get used to it?” I asked her.

Jackie was silent for a moment before answering, “My time at Whateley helped me a lot. I learned most of the skills I need to survive and I gained a lot of…unconventional experience. After four years of that craziness, everything else seems almost tame in comparison.”

My eyes widened at that and I blurted out, “And that’s where you’re sending me?”

“Trust me,” she assured me with a laugh. “You’ll be fine there. It’s a bit strange at first, but well worth attending.”

I nodded at that, knowing that she and Emily both seemed to think that their time there had been worth it. Of course, that was where they’d first met up and I was sure that had something to do with it.

“Before we get going again,” I told Jackie with a sigh. “I need to go empty my bladder.”

“Don’t fall in,” she warned me with a smile as she pulled out the cash to pay our bill.

I got up and went to the bathroom, pausing at the two doors before going into the one marked for ‘ladies’. It said something that I still had to stop and think about it for a moment, but I suspected that it would be a long time before I automatically thought of myself as female. Fifteen years of being a guy couldn’t be forgotten that easily.

When I went into the bathroom, I still felt that faint awkwardness, that vague fear that someone would point out that I was walking into the wrong one or call me a pervert. Intellectually, I knew that was absolutely ridiculous because I definitely looked female, in fact, my entire body was undoubtedly female. However, telling that to my emotions and slowly fading sense of male identity was something else.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and absently ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it up a little. Then I stared at my very distinct eyes, knowing that they immediately gave away the fact that I was a mutant. A pair of sunglasses hid them when I was outside, but I couldn’t always do that while inside. I would just have to be careful to avoid eye contact with people.

A few seconds later, I went into one of the two stalls and dropped my pants. However, as I sat down, I suddenly realized that my panties were wet, and it wasn’t because I’d pissed myself.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, shocked by the sight of blood in my panties. There wasn’t a lot of it, but it was definitely there.

For a brief moment, I just sat on the toilet, feeling terrified as I thought about the fight with the MCO yesterday morning and thinking that I must have been hurt without even realizing it. But then my rational mind kicked in again and I realized that wasn’t it at all. Even if I had been injured, which I hadn’t been, my regeneration would have taken care of it by now. No, this was something far worse.

I tried to remain calm and practical as I emptied my bladder and then used a wad of toilet paper to line my panties. After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t known this was coming at some point. I was a woman now and had known that sooner or later I’d have to get my monthly visitor, though I’d actually avoided thinking about that fact quite well until now.

After a few more minutes, I left the bathroom and returned to the table where Jackie was waiting for me. I must have had a bad look on my face because she immediately gave me a worried look.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie asked me, her eyes darting around as though expecting the MCO to charge in at any moment.

“I think that depends on your perspective,” I responded, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice.

Jackie gave me a curious look. “Okay,” she encouraged me to explain.

“I think…I think we need to stop for some supplies,” I told her, blushing brightly and unable to meet her eyes. When she still didn’t get it, I stared at the floor and muttered, “I’m bleeding…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jackie told me. “Your regen will take care of it in no time. What happened?”

“Not that kind of bleeding,” I told her with a wince. Then I took a deep breath, feeling even more embarrassed as I added, “The monthly kind.”

Jackie’s eyes widened at that, and for a brief moment, I thought she was going to burst out laughing. However, she refrained from doing that, though I could tell it took a bit of effort. Instead, she gave me a sympathetic look.

“I should have expected that,” Jackie finally said, giving me a faint smile. “I’ve got some supplies in my bug out bad. Wait here and I’ll go get them.”

Jackie hurried out to the car, then came back with pads, tampons, and a pair of clean panties from my own bag. The two of us went back into the bathroom, then to my embarrassment, she proceeded to describe how to use them, as though I was too stupid to figure that out myself. Still, as long as she was helping me rather than teasing me, I could be patient and pay attention.

It was with more than a little discomfort and disgust that I stuffed the tampon up my yoo hoo. The very act of doing so felt completely unnatural and wrong, but I reminded myself that I was just going to have to suck it up and get used to it.

“Man up and deal with it,” I quietly told myself. “Or is that woman up?”

Once I’d finished up and left the bathroom, Jackie gave me a gentle smile and said, “I guess this explains why you’ve been so moody.”

“Bite me,” I responded, which seemed to amuse her.

“Dana,” Jackie said, putting her arm around my shoulder. “Trust me, I know that you’re not exactly happy about this, but it is part of being a woman. In fact, having your first period is a rite of passage for women, so I think this calls for a celebration.”

“I don’t exactly feel like celebrating,” I admitted self-consciously.

“Most of us don’t,” she agreed.

A minute later, Jackie and I left the diner and returned to the car, but just as we reached it, I suddenly felt the now familiar pressure in my head. I paused to look around for the source, then realized that there was more than one source. I could feel the pressure coming from several different directions at once.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, looking to Jackie and exclaiming, “I think we’re in trouble.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly looking alert.

Just then, a voice called out, “Halt evildoers.”

Jackie and I both looked up at Super Star, who was floating in the air a short distance away. Jackie glared at her in annoyance and asked, “Evildoers? Really?”

The other mutants I’d sensed appeared as well. One was a man in some sort very old fashioned green suit that included a long coat and wide brimmed hat. He leaned on a gold metal cane, looking distinguished and very confident.

“The Gentleman,” I muttered, recognizing him from the files that Jackie had given me on the Liberty League before we’d left. She said it would be a good idea to know who we might run into and what they were capable of. From what the file said, he was some kind of magic user.

Standing a short distance away from the Gentleman was an auburn haired woman in a long purple dress, which looked like it might have come right out of the Victorian era. However, there were odd bits of bronze metal all over her outfit and she held a very odd looking bronze rifle in her hands. Her file said that she was called the Bronze Lady and was a divisor with a steampunk obsession. It also mentioned that she was married to the Gentleman.

The next member of the Liberty League was Adonis, a six and a half foot tall man with bulging muscles and the square jawed good looks that you’d expect of someone with that name. Jackie’s file said that he was a brick, an exemplar six who was very strong and tough. The file also said something else about him, but I couldn’t remember quite what.

Force Majeure was a black man in a black and gray costume with silver metallic trim. His file said he was some sort of avatar…whatever that was, and that he was the strategist of the team.

And according to the files that Jackie had shown me, the Liberty League should have had one more member on their team, a size warper called Ginormous. I didn’t see her, but there was a petite Asian girl in a black and gold costume instead. Since the files didn’t mention this girl, it was obvious that they weren’t completely up to date.

”My common sense is tingling,” I told Jackie as I nervously looked at the super heroes who surrounded us. “It says we should get our butts out of here.”

“I agree,” she responded grimly.

“So you’re Pinball,” Force Majeure stated. “Super Star has told us all about you.”

“And I’m sure she was completely unbiased,” Jackie responded sarcastically.

“We’ve got you now, Pinhead,” Super Star exclaimed smugly. “It’s just like you to steal a car that the owner had LoJacked.”

Jackie glanced to the car and scowled, obviously cursing her pick in stolen cars. I was just cursing my general luck, especially my luck today.

“Surrender now and this won’t have to get difficult,” Force Majeure told us.

“Please do surrender,” the Gentleman commented pleasantly. “I really dislike having to fight ladies such as yourselves, but I will if my hands are forced.”

Jackie snarled, then glanced to me. “Only if you let my sister go. She has nothing to do with my activities.”

“You don’t have a sister,” Super Star blurted out accusingly.

At the same time, Force Majeure responded, “That isn’t for us to decide. We’re taking you both into custody.”

“You know what to do if we get separated,” Jackie told me, obviously not about to surrender. I nodded in understanding and a moment later, both of us formed our force field bubbles.

Jackie rolled right through where the Gentleman and Bronze Lady were standing, removing her civilian clothes in the process and revealing the costume she wore beneath them. In just seconds, she was fully costumed up and in full Pinball mode.

The Bronze Lady and Gentleman both dove to the side to avoid being smashed by a giant force field sphere. The Bronze Lady opened fire with her odd looking bronze rifle, firing energy blasts at Jackie to no effect.

Super Star flew straight at Jackie, punching at her force field, though Jackie didn’t stay still long enough to make this easy. Jackie rolled through the parking lot while Super Star chased after her.

While Jackie was doing that, I tried to fly away, but I hadn’t escaped the attention of the Liberty League. The Asian woman gestured and suddenly a blast of green energy shot straight towards me. I saw it coming in time to dodge aside. But to my surprise, her energy blast actually changed direction in mid-air and slammed right into me, or at least into my force field.

“I’m called Twist,” the Asian woman introduced herself, firing another green energy blast.

“Sphere,” I responded in order to be polite.

I avoided Twist’s energy blast again, but it changed direction in the air and continued coming at me. I flew away from it, dodging it several more times but it continued to change course and follow me until it hit me again, knocking me back. And while I was trying to think about what I was going to do, another blast of hers hit me, this time from above. It actually forced me back down towards the ground.

“I’ve got you, pretty lady,” Adonis exclaimed, jumping up and actually catching my force field sphere…and then spiking it straight into the ground with me inside.

My force field absorbed the impact and kept me from taking some serious damage, but I lost concentration after the impact and it vanished. Adonis stood over me with a confident grin, looking quite pleased with himself.

“I really don’t like having to fight with such a pretty young thing,” Adonis said, reaching out with his hand to help me up. “Instead, why don’t we just…talk.”

I just stared at Adonis, suddenly feeling very warm, flushed, and excited. He was so big, and strong, and handsome, and…perfect. In fact, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen and I wanted him. I wanted him to kiss me…to make love to me. I wanted him to make me into a real woman. Without even thinking about it, I reached out and accepted his hand and let him help me to my feet.

As soon as I touched Adonis’ bare skin, I felt the tingle that told me that I’d just copied his powers. That sparked something in the back of my mind, reminding me of exactly what his powers were. Not only was Adonis an exemplar six, he also had some kind of psychic power that only worked on women.

I was suddenly filled with anger and disgust at what I was feeling…and the fact that he was doing that to me. I wasn’t sure if it was just the knowledge that this was his power affecting me or if copying his powers had given me some degree of resistance to them, but I was no longer under his influence. Instead, I was PISSED.

I screamed in rage, which seemed to surprise Adonis, but not nearly as much as when I kicked him between the legs as hard as I could. He was a lot stronger and tougher than me, but I was still pretty strong and my kick was enough to immediately drop him to the ground. However, that wasn’t enough and I gave him another swift kick as well.

“You fucking bastard,” I screamed, feeling completely violated.

I was about to kick Adonis for a third time but Force Majeure came charging towards me. For a brief moment, there was the ghostly image of a cougar around him, then he suddenly leapt at me with his hands extended like claws. I barely got my force field up in time to block his attack.

“Surrender villain,” Force Majeure demanded.

“VILLAIN?” I screamed in anger. “I haven’t done anything wrong, but your buddy there just gave me a psychic roofie. What kind of sick bastards are you?”

While this was going on, I finally noticed that Jackie was still dealing with her own opponents. The Gentleman did something, and her force field vanished, much to Jackie’s obvious surprise.

“I’ve got you now,” Super Star exclaimed, flying straight at Jackie. “And I remember full well Pinball, that if I’m close enough to you, you can’t keep me away with your force field.”

As soon as Super Star grabbed Jackie, Jackie grabbed her arm and twisted, sending the hero straight into the pavement. Super Star immediately jumped back to her feet, apparently unharmed. However, Jackie suddenly lashed out with her foot, kicking Super Star in the stomach and knocking her back.

Jackie’s force field popped back up and she exclaimed, “It’s times like this that I’m actually grateful for everything that evil midget put me through in class.”

I didn’t have time to continue watching Jackie’s fight though as I still had my own to deal with. Force Majeure lunged at me again, moving with incredible speed and agility. He kept trying to slash at my force field with his hands, though it wasn’t doing much good.

Suddenly, Force Majeure had the ghostly image of a grizzly bear surrounding him, though it faded after only a moment. Still, the hero was now standing with different body language than he’d had before. He suddenly lashed out at my force field again, but instead of trying to claw through it, he hit it with an immense amount of force, enough to knock me back and slam me into the side of a car.

“Oh shit,” I exclaimed, dropping my force field and forming a small bubble in front of me, then sending it flying straight at Force Majeure.

“I think not,” Force Majeure stated, jumping to the side and avoiding my attack.

For a brief moment, I was afraid of what he was going to do to me, but then I realized something. I grinned and decided to learn from Twist’s previous tactic, willing my sphere to change direction and come right back at him, hitting him from behind.

“You little bitch,” Adonis snarled as he got back to his feet, looking pissed.

Without saying a word, I formed a bubble around Adonis, then sent him flying straight up as high as I could until my bubble was out of reach and vanished. As he plummeted back towards the ground, I reformed my own bubble, just in time to avoid being blasted by Twist.

“I’ve got it,” I heard Jackie yell out, drawing my attention to her.

To my surprise, Jackie was at our stolen car with her backpack in hand. She pulled something out that was a metal sphere about the size of a volleyball.

“I’ve got my secret weapon,” Jackie exclaimed. “The ace I’ve been keeping up my sleeve just in case of such an event…”

Jackie’s opponents all hesitated for a moment, looking momentarily worried. But when nothing happened, they started coming at her again. Jackie quickly rolled away, or at least tried to because the Bronze Lady threw some sort of bronze colored sphere which exploded and formed a metal net that pinned Jackie down, though only for a few seconds.

“I don’t think so,” Jackie said, scowling in concentration until her bubble tore loose from the net.

“That was a marvelous idea, my dear,” the Gentleman told his wife before pointing his cane at Jackie. “But I believe I may be able to improve upon it.”

Suddenly, tendrils of energy burst out of the ground and wrapped around Jackie’s bubble. She was obviously trying to escape these bonds the same way she had the Bronze Lady’s net, but she wasn’t having nearly the success.

I was worried for Jackie, and as I was about to try helping her, Twist fired another blast of energy at me. Then she stood outside my bubble, grinning at me almost evilly. Suddenly, there was a swirl of green light next me, and then Twist was standing right beside me inside of my sphere.

“Surprise,” she exclaimed as she punched me. “I’m a teleporter.”

Twist hit pretty hard, but I was stronger and tougher than I used to be and she didn’t seem to be any stronger than a normal person. I punched her back, saying, “Surprise, I’m an exemplar.”

Twist blocked my punch and hit me back several times in rapid succession. I might stronger and a bit tougher than her, but her punches still hurt and were going to leave bruises, at least until my regeneration could take care of them. I tried punching her a few more times, but it quickly became obvious that I was outmatched. I might be stronger, but she was definitely a better fighter.

My fight against Twist was definitely not going well, and after several minutes I was hurting pretty good. I suspected that she was taking it easy on me at this point, at least a little. I also suspected that she was just showing off and trying to make me see just how outmatched I was.

Then I grinned, feeling the powers I’d gained from Adonis wear of, not that they’d done me much good. I couldn’t copy his exemplar powers at a strong enough level to overwrite the ones I already had, so I hadn’t even gotten his exemplar abilities. And though I’d probably gotten a weak version of his psychic power, the idea of using that on Twist just made me feel dirty.

“Surprise,” I exclaimed, suddenly teleporting a short distance away, courtesy of the powers I’d copied while punching her. “I’m a power mimic.”

With that, I tried using Twist’s other power and fired a blast of gold energy in her general direction, though it would have missed her even if she hadn’t teleported in a swirl of green energy. I willed the blast to change direction the way I did my sphere, and it cooperated hitting Adonis just as he was starting to get back to his feet again.

“And stay down,” I called out to him.

I was a bit surprised by how powerful that energy blast had been since when I copied someone else’s powers, or at least anyone beside Jackie, I got a much weaker version of them. Damocles had told me that I’d only get a level 1 or 2 version of their power, but that blast had seemed about as powerful as the ones Twist had fired.

Force Majeure charged straight at me again, but when I tried to summon my force field, it didn’t come. I gasped in surprise as he hit me, sending me flying back to where I hit the pavement.

My whole body felt bruised and I was scared, almost as scared of these so called heroes as I was of the MCO. I didn’t want them to kill me while thinking I was some kind of villain, or nearly as bad, sending me to prison for the rest of my life.

I struggled to get back to my feet desperate to get away. But then I glanced to Jackie, knowing that I couldn’t just run away and leave her. She’d saved me too many times for me to abandon her to these people.

With that, I willed my force field bubble to form again, but there was a heavy resistance for a moment, then it suddenly popped back into place. I let out a sigh of relief at that, then realized that Twist’s powers were gone. This was the first time I’d ever lost my own powers when I’d copied someone else’s, and the first time I’d ever been able to end that copy early.

Just then, the metal ball that Jackie was holding began to beep. I stared at her, seeing a look of intense relief on her face. Then, she dropped her force field and jumped out from the cage of energy tendrils that the Gentleman had been using to keep her locked in place.

“It’s gonna blow,” Jackie called out, throwing the sphere and then ducking for cover. I followed her example and ducked down while inside my sphere.

When nothing seemed to happen after several seconds, I hesitantly raised my head and looked around. Then I cautiously asked, “Where’s the Earth shattering kaboom?”

I didn’t know what Jackie was up to with that secret weapon, but there hadn’t been any sign of an explosion or much of anything else. However, a moment later a familiar voice called out, “Stand and deliver.”