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.

--------------------

The Highwayman stood atop the wreckage of a car that had been damaged during the fight, looking exactly as he had the last time I’d seen him. Though he wasn’t wearing a mask, his face was still obscured by both his tricornered hat and the collar of his long white overcoat. Each of his hands gripped an odd looking weapon that looked like some kind of ray gun.

“Stand and deliver,” Highwayman had called out a few seconds earlier, the same thing he’d said while helping to rescue me from the MCO. He looked to Jackie and commented, “Another rescue mission. I certainly hope this doesn’t get to be a habit.”

“Well, I do appreciate you coming,” Jackie responded with a chuckle. “Even with your rates.”

Highwayman chuckled at that, then looked at me. “I see that you’ve changed a great deal since last we met. You are quite the lovely young lady.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Jackie told him with a grin.

Then I looked to the other newcomers who’d arrived with Highwayman. There was a huge man in metal dark gray armor who looked like some kind of high tech knight. It was only the massive glowing red energy sword in his hand which identified him as Damocles. Of course, the fact that Salt and Pepper were standing behind him didn’t hurt either.

The last member of the group was a woman with dark gray skin and glowing green eyes. She wore a costume that was mostly black, though she had a dark green cloak on as well.

“Pinball,” the gray skinned woman said, her voice cold and raspy. “With this assistance, my debt to you is paid.”

“Agreed, Hexfire” Jackie responded.

“What is this?” Super Star demanded as she and the rest of the Liberty League stared at the newcomers with suspicion and obvious hostility.

“Just a little ace I had up my sleeve,” Jackie commented with a grin. “In case I ran into more trouble than Sphere and I could handle on our own.”

“This isn’t an ace up your sleeve,” I blurted out. “It’s a full house.”

“Retreat now,” Damocles ordered the heroes. “This doesn’t need to escalate any further than it already has.”

The gray skinned woman whom Jackie had called Hexfire snorted in distain. “Speak for yourself, engineer. I will not waste my time merely coming here to pose and preen.”

I wasn’t sure who made the first move, wither it was the Liberty League or these newcomers who’d suddenly appeared, but suddenly everyone was in motion. Jackie and I immediately called up our force fields, just to avoid getting caught in the crossfire if nothing else.

Salt and Pepper were both holding energy rifles of some sort and firing them while the Bronze Lady fired back with one of her own. The Gentleman pointed his cane at Hexfire and a ball of fire shot out towards the gray skinned woman, but then a disk of blackness appeared between them and blocked the fireball.

“A fellow practitioner,” Hexfire commented with a scary smile. “Yes, one to test my skill against. This venture may prove interesting after all.”

Force Majeure suddenly had a ghostly image around him that looked like a samurai, complete with full armor. Then as the samurai’s image vanished, a glowing katana appeared in his hands. The hero charged right at Damocles, who blocked his attack using his own massive sword.

Jackie flung herself at Super Star again, slamming into the hero and sending her flying back. Of course, Super Star was immediately back on her feet, then flying at Jackie and punching the force field to try breaking through.

Highwayman opened fire with his ray guns, firing blasts of red energy at Adonis from each of them. The blasts didn’t seem to hurt Adonis, who slowly moved closer and closer to the mercenary.

“We can’t have that,” Highwayman commented, dropping one of his ray guns and reaching onto a pocket. A moment later, he threw a gold metal ball at Adonis, which then stuck to the hero’s chest. When Adonis tried removing the ball, it exploded, severely damaging his costume but not seeming to have done much to him. “Well,” Highwayman added a moment later. “That was disappointing.”

Twist turned her attention back to me, and once again she teleported inside of my force field and delivered a series of punches that caused me to drop my force field. I swung at her, no longer feeling the least bit guilty about trying to hit a girl. Not only was I a girl now myself, but she was REALLY starting to piss me off.

“Go away,” I snarled at Twist, forming a bubble around her and sending her flying back. However, she teleported out of the bubble and reappeared a short distance away. From the look on her face, she was starting to get tired. I wondered if that teleporting thing took more effort than she was trying to let on.

“Turn yourself in, Sphere,” Twist ordered me. “If you do, we’ll go easy on you.”

“Yeah right,” I spat out. “That’s what the MCO said before they beat the crap out of me and tried to make me disappear.”

I was sore and getting tired, but I couldn’t quit now. I formed a small force field bubble in front of me and sent it flying at Twist. She jumped aside but I turned my bubble around in mid-air and had it come right at her back. Turnabout was fair play.

“I don’t think so,” Twist said as she jumped out of the way.

A moment later, Twist fired a blast of green energy at me, and though I could have called up my force field, I jumped aside instead. While I was doing that, I had my own bubble change direction and go at her again. The two of us spent a minute just dodging and redirecting our own attacks. She wasn’t teleporting very much now which reinforced my suspicion that she was running out of steam.

Twist and I both paused, taking a brief break by unspoken agreement. I watched her, wondering why my powers had behaved different when I’d copied hers. Then again, my force field had never been a perfect copy of Jackie’s either.

I may have gained a permanent copy of Jackie’s powers, but mine were definitely a little different from hers. For one thing, my force fields were golden rather than looking like soap bubbles, and for another, I could do a few more things than she could. And whenever I copied someone else’s powers, I usually kept my force field ability and only gained a weak version of the other person’s powers.

“Why would Twist be different?” I muttered to myself.

Then it dawned on me. Twist was an energizer as well, and until now, Jackie had been the only energizer I’d duplicated. My exemplar and regeneration abilities were almost a perfect match for Jackie’s, but my energizer powers weren’t. Maybe it had something to do with my own energizer abilities.

I suddenly had an idea, though I didn’t really have any evidence for it. What if my natural power wasn’t just being a power mimic? What if I’d actually had some energizer ability of my own as well, and when I copied Jackie’s powers, it interacted with what I would have been able to do already? After all, I’d been glowing with that golden energy before I’d ever imprinted on Jackie.

“That’s it,” I said, feeling excited and becoming sure that my guess was right.

If that was the case, when I copied Twist, my energizer powers were able to interact with hers, giving me energy blasts that were about as powerful as hers were rather than a much weaker version. Of course, that seemed to have diverted those energies away from the force fields, at least briefly.

However, I couldn’t think about this anymore because Twist had apparently decided that our momentary truce was over and suddenly launched herself at me again. I formed my force field and lifted myself up into the air above her. She responded by firing another blast of energy, which followed me as I attempted to dodge it, then slammed into me, sending me flying back. I was barely able to keep my force field up.

While my bubble was floating in the air, I looked around for Twist and any other threats. From a short distance away, I saw Super Star, who looked like she was about ready to dive bomb Jackie. I changed directions and flung my force field right into Super Star.

“I hate these stupid bubbles,” Super Star snarled, turning around and punching my force field with an immense amount of force. She knocked me back, then flew above me and slammed the top of my fore field with an even stronger hit, sending me smashing right into the ground. After my force field absorbed most of the impact, it vanished. Super Star landed beside me and picked me up. “I’ve got you now…”

“And I’ve got you,” I said, grabbing her face with my bare hand and trying to mimic her powers. But to my surprise, I didn’t feel anything. My powers weren’t working on her. Maybe it had something to do with her being a PK Supergirl, however that worked, but I wasn’t able to make contact enough to copy her abilities. “Oh shit…”

“Oh no you don’t,” Jackie exclaimed, running up and grabbing Super Star by the arm, then throwing her right into Adonis. “Don’t you dare touch her…”

“Thanks,” I said, shaking badly. I was sore, tired, and not sure how much longer I could do this.

“You have to get out of here,” Jackie told me firmly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“But I can’t leave you,” I protested, offended that she’d even ask me to do that. After everything she’d done for me, I couldn’t just leave her like this.

Jackie just smiled at that and gave me a hug. “Remember the plan. I’ll meet you at rendezvous C.”

With that, Jackie formed her force field and threw herself right through Super Star and into Adonis. She bounced right of Adonis and ran right through Force Majeure, who was still in the middle of a sword fight with Damocles.

“None shall defeat the mighty Damocles,” the armored man yelled out, no longer seeming like the calm and controlled man who’d done my power testing. Instead, he was more like he’d been the first time I met him, when he’d been ranting about not being a doctor. At the time, he’d said it was his Diedricks Syndrome acting up. “You will fall before my unbeatable sword.”

“Damocles,” Force Majeure exclaimed in realization. “I should have known…”

“Of course,” Damocles exclaimed with a laugh. “All should know the mighty Damocles…”

“I also know you used to be quite active in mercenary circles,” Force Majeure responded. “Before you disintegrated your own arm while trying to take out Champion… Or was that before you accidentally had a death ray blow up and nearly kill you?”

“I’ve heard of him,” Super Star added. “He used to have a real reputation for always getting away…”

“Of course,” The Bronze Lady exclaimed in an English accent. I was pretty sure her file said that she was actually born and raised in Oklahoma. “They say he used a teleportation device so whenever he was caught or defeated, he would automatically teleport away.”

“That explains how they got here,” I muttered, just in time to move out of the way from one of Twist’s attacks.

“According to what I’ve heard,” The Bronze Lady continued, “Damocles uses a beacon device to hold him at the location he is teleporting to. When the beacon is destroyed, he was automatically snapped back to his starting location…”

“Oh shit,” Jackie muttered as the heroes finally figured out what her secret weapon really was.

A moment later, Adonis grabbed the metal sphere from where it had been resting on the ground and crushed it between his hands. As soon as he did so, Damocles, the Highwayman, Salt, Pepper, and Hexfire all vanished. Once again, Jackie and I were alone against the Liberty League.

“RUN,” Jackie yelled at me in desperation, even as she began rolling at the heroes one after another, playing a game of pinball in the parking lot and trying to keep them occupied.

I was scared and desperate so did what Jackie instructed and started to fly off, though I felt guilty for leaving her like that. Suddenly, Twist was within my fore field again, hitting me in the solar plexus. I let out a grunt of pain and dropped my force field, leaving me and Twist to both fall to the ground.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Twist said, jumping on top of me and pinning me to the ground. I was strong enough that I could have thrown her off, but she held a hand to my face, warning, “One move and I blast you.”

“Just leave me alone,” I demanded, though I was afraid of this hero, who only seemed a few years older than me. I doubted that she was even twenty yet. “I didn’t do anything…”

“I know Pinball kidnapped a boy,” Twist snarled. “Where is he? What did she do with him?”

I was surprised by this sudden demand and gasped, “What?”

“David Michaels,” Twist demanded. “What did Pinball do with him? Where is he?”

I glared at Twist defiantly, but when her hand began to glow, I blurted out in anger and fear, “He’s right in front of you.”

Twist looked confused by that and I took advantage of her distraction to knock her off of me. I got to my feet but I was weak and unsteady, not to mention being an emotional mess.

“Pinball never kidnaped me,” I spat at Twist. “She saved me… When I manifested in the bank, she got me out of there so the MCO wouldn’t blame me. When my Mom gave me to the MCO for being a mutant, she was the one who rescued me from them.”

“YOU’RE David?” Twist gasped in surprise.

“I WAS,” I snarled at her. “Not anymore… And don’t you dare blame this on Pinball… She’s the one who took me in and protected me time and time again, not you so called heroes and your psychic roofies…”

As I stood there glaring at Twist, I knew that I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting back. First my period, then being attacked by the Liberty League, followed by Adonis’ psychic roofie and the disturbing things he’d made me feel, and now I was about to be arrested as an accomplice to kidnapping myself. Today absolutely SUCKED.

“At least it can’t get any worse,” I muttered bitterly.

Just then, a familiar voice called out, “This is Agent Owens with the MCO. You’re all under arrest.”