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Author's Note: This is what happens from Kat's perspective from her activation to the end of Cat Stop Loving You, for all those who wanted to see it. :) ~Amethyst.
 

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Sirens were blaring and emergency lights flashing as the whole building seemed to shake. My mom, dressed in her signature red and white costume shouted, “Intruders?! Tom, what the hell’s going on?!”

“Someone used some sort of extra-planar travel to pass through our main defenses and right into the training room and someone’s overridden the Vault door,” the muscular blond man in the black and green bodysuit who went by the codename Sonic replied as his fingers flew across the instrument panels. “Cameras are down Laura, but from what I saw before they went down it looked like the Foul Four.”

“Shit!” my mom cursed. “Clarice, get Kevin to the safe room and come join us at the training room as soon as you can. Tom, where are Peter and Gina?”

“Pete was already in the training room, so I assume he’s engaged the enemy. Gina was in sickbay and she’s on her way there now. Let’s go give them a hand taking out the trash,” the speedster replied before moving out the door faster than I could blink. My mom shifted form into a cheetah and took off right on his heels.

“Come on Kevin, let’s get you to the safe room,” Clarice said, taking my hand in her own furry one and leading the way down the hall. As you can probably tell this was far from a normal afternoon for your typical fifteen year old high school kid. My buddy James would never believe this, even if I could tell him. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t share with him the fact that while he was working on cars after school that Wednesday, I was hanging out with the super hero set and learning my future trade. You see my mom is Makeshift and she’s the leader of the Sentries, Canada’s premiere super hero team, so my life has never been what anyone could call normal. With my mom and dad being Hypers and both my sister Tara and I having dormant H Chromosomes we had met some pretty interesting people in our short lives.

Take my mom’s teammates for instance. Tom was known as Sonic and had the power of super speed, Gina was some sort of mage who goes by the name Rune, and Peter, with his, strength, speed and big sword, was called Edge. Then there was Clarice, who I thought was the coolest of them all. She was known as Wildthing due to her unique appearance, that of a real live cat-girl with all the abilities of a cat. Clarice was the youngest of the Sentries at nineteen years old and to be honest I loved everything about her. She was beautiful in an exotic way, strong, really nice, and despite having a difficult past, she still did her best to help others, she was perfect.

Yes I knew that I was crushing on her big time, but I thought, and hoped, that I might someday have a chance with her. I may have only been fifteen but I had been told that I was pretty good looking, a lot like a young Samuel L. Jackson, and there were a few girls at my school that seemed to be interested in me. We were almost at the safe room when something huge and black came rushing toward us. It was like a twenty foot long centipede, boasting close to a hundred legs, each tipped with lethal looking talons and a gaping maw filled with razor sharp teeth.

If I doubted that the attackers were the Foul Four before, that doubt evaporated in the face of the hideous creature before us. The Foul Four consisted of Professor Panic, Alloy, Amazon, and Terror and that was definitely the work of Terror. I had read up on all of my Mom’s major enemies and each of the four was a major villain in their own right. Terror for example, feeds on fear and has the ability to summon nightmarish creatures. She nearly took over the city once with an army of the things before the Sentries stopped her. “Damn,” Clarice cursed. “I’ll take care of this thing Kevin; you get to the safe room.”

The creature spat something at us and while Clarice nimbly avoided it I backpedaled and fell on my ass, narrowly avoiding the acid that started to eat away at the floor with a hissing sound. It was times like this that I really wished I had powers of my own. Okay, so this kind of thing has never really happened before, but I was really wishing I had powers at the moment. I couldn’t conceive of what my own powers might one day be, but my mom and all of her teammates had awesome powers and right now I’d be glad to have even a copy of any of theirs. Clarice might not be extremely powerful, but even her speed and agility and such were useful in our current situation. I was distracted from that thought though, as more creatures began to move toward us.

I felt hot all of a sudden and there was some sort of pulling sensation coming from Clarice, a sort of presence that I couldn’t ignore. I could feel it coming from the general direction of the training room too, but it felt so far away and it seemed much stronger with Clarice. There was something there inside her, some kind of warm energy, and I instinctively latched on to it. The heat, the presence and the energy all took a back seat as pain enveloped my entire existence. I felt like my bones were being compressed in some places and stretched in others and my flesh felt like molten lead, heavy and burning with an unimaginable heat, as it flowed into a new form.

Then it was over and I lay there sprawled out on the floor gasping for air as I tried to move. Whatever just happened, I was pretty sure I never wanted to go through it again as I looked up in a daze at my surroundings. Another creature, this one all wings and teeth was flying toward me and I could make out Clarice yelling at me to move. Again, I reacted on instinct. I leaped back into the air and flipped back onto all fours, skidding back a bit as I hit the floor. What in the hell did I just do?

There was no time to think about it, or the fact that, judging from the weight on my chest and the black fur I saw covering my arms, I seemed to be a cheap copy of Wildthing. Regardless, I wondered briefly if I was some sort of metamorph like my mom, but able to come up with rough copies of other mutants forms and powers. I quickly shoved the thought aside as I used my current agility to dodge another attack from the flying creature. Clarice backed away from the creature she was fighting, after raking her claws across its eyes, to grab my arm. “Screw this, fighting these things isn’t going to do any good and they’ve cut us off from the safe room, we need to find Terror and knock her out. Let’s get to the training room.”

She pulled me along another hallway and we started moving toward the training room. My clothes were hanging awkwardly in places due to my tail and the fact that I probably lost about five inches in height and quite a bit of mass since I seemed a bit shorter than Clarice now with a nearly identical build. I figured there wasn’t much we could do about my clothes at the moment though, since there were more important matters to attend to. As we got closer to the training room the large pulling sensation became stronger before branching off into eight separate sources, each with a different feel to the energy. We paused as we entered the door to get an idea what the situation was while Clarice sniffed at the air.

Amazon and Edge were battering at one another with swords, but it looked like he was starting to overwhelm her, while my mom had turned into a grizzly bear and she and Sonic were doing their best to reach Terror through a small battalion of nightmare creatures. Meanwhile, Rune appeared to be throwing every spell she could think of at Alloy’s metal form, trying to at least keep him occupied. Now where was Professor Panic? That question was quickly answered when an energy beam erupted from behind a damaged control console outside the Vault, hit Clarice, and sent her flying.

He was dressed in his usual lab coat, some sort of goggles, and the metal gloves he was wearing seemed to be charging for another attack as Professor Panic gave me a cold smile. “I wasn’t aware that Wildthing had kittens, this is really why people should spay or neuter their pets. A black cat hmmm? Maybe I’ll adopt you, are you litter trained?”

To my surprise I hissed at him and I could feel my fur standing on end. “Very funny asshole, I’m one black cat that you are about to wish never crossed your path.”

“Unlikely,” he replied as he aimed his hand at me and fired another blast. Unlike Clarice I had time to react though, and I quickly leaped out of the way. He followed it up with a volley of his explosive darts and I was having a hell of a time avoiding the small explosions as I tried to get closer to him. The problem was solved for me though as Sonic seemed to appear from nowhere to deliver a blow to the back of the villain’s head.

“Wait, you’re not Wildthing… what the…” Sonic began to say.

I cut him off, “I’ll explain later, help mom take out Terror; she’s the biggest threat. I’ll try to help Rune with Alloy.” The hero gave me a confused look before dashing off to help my mom. I followed suit and made my way toward where Rune was still peppering the metal man with offensive spells. I could feel the energy inside them both as I got closer; Alloy’s felt cold and hard while Rune’s was warm and wildly chaotic. The chaos intimidated me a bit so I reached out with whatever sense I was using to sense this energy and latched on to Alloy’s.

To my complete surprise I didn’t have to go through another painful change, and as I looked down I realized why. I was still a cat-girl or at least a metallic statue of one. My fur, claws, and seemingly everything else had turned to the same silvery metal that Alloy himself was composed of. Was I copying both sets of powers at once? This might have some possibilities. I leaped at the villain from behind delivering a punch that staggered him and caused a massive *BONG* to ring out. It was like being inside of a church bell going off and had Rune, Alloy, and myself covering our ears.

When I uncovered my ears I became aware of two things: Mom and Sonic had apparently knocked out Terror, because all of the creatures around us had vanished, and Professor Panic had gotten back to his feet. The latter quickly shouted, “Alloy, get Terror and Amazon, we’ve got what we came for!” The metal behemoth turned and ran to scoop up the two women and the four villains disappeared from sight.

Every eye in the room suddenly turned to me and I felt very uncomfortable. These were my friends, an extended family of sorts and they were all looking at me suspiciously, especially my mom. “Who are you and what did you do with the real Wildthing?” she asked.

“I’m right here,” Clarice’s voice sounded from the doorway as she staggered into the room holding her head. “Ow my friggin’ head… That’s Kevin.”

I tried my best to look at my mother’s startled face as I added, “Hey Mom, a funny thing happened on the way to the safe room.”

It seemed like everyone was busy but me. Gina was treating Clarice’s injuries while the cat-girl rested, Tom was trying to get an assessment made of the damages done and do some basic repairs, Peter was in the Vault trying to find out what was stolen, and Mom was going over the security footage to try to figure out if I really was her son and not some figment of Clarice’s concussed imagination. “I should be helping with things too,” I complained as I watched Gina place a final healing spell on Clarice while I tried to get comfortable. Chairs are just not made to accommodate people with tails,

“You’re going to help kiddo,” Gina assured me as she took a seat beside me. “Now that Clarice is tended to, I can move on to item two on my now very busy schedule, which is figuring out your mutation, or at the very least why you take after Clarice so much. I’d like to take some blood samples, but that’s going to be a bit difficult in your current state, do you think you can lose the metal look?”

I had been wondering about that myself, I could still feel Alloy’s cold hard energy somewhere inside me and after a moment’s search I found it and tried to push it away from me. I grinned as I changed from metal back to the black furred form. Now if I could just find the cozy warmth of Wildthing’s energy and push that away too I would be in business. I looked around inside me but I couldn’t seem to find it. I could feel it coming from Clarice sleeping nearby but it just wasn’t there inside me anymore. I began to panic, “Oh shit! I can’t find it! It’s not there!”

Gina placed a hand on my shoulder and I could feel a sense of calm starting to take effect, “Calm down Kevin,” the mage encouraged me, “What’s not there? Explain to me what’s going on, so I can help you. Start from the beginning.”

The calmness settled over me completely and I nodded as I began to explain what had happened, the energy that everyone seemed to have, and how I could seem to latch on to it and hold it inside me or push it away like I just had. I finished by saying, “I can’t find Clarice’s power in me anymore, it’s like it’s vanished.”

“It’s pretty obvious that your power is to copy the power of other mutants,” Gina replied after a moment’s thought. “This sense of yours seems to tell you who has powers to copy and you should be able to use it to sense other mutants as well, that could be handy. How soon after you started sensing this energy did you copy Clarice’s abilities?”

“I don’t know, it was like I sensed her power and then instinctively grabbed on to it all in the same instant, everything was happening so fast,” I answered uncertainly.

“Well, shit,” she cursed.

“Shit? What do you mean shit? Shit is never a good thing.” I was starting to panic again.

I felt that calming energy again as she squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll need to run some tests to be sure, but you may be stuck like this. Clarice’s form is part of her powers so when you copied them your body may have tried to copy the form too. If your Archetype was still forming, it’s possible that it defaulted to her Archetype or one that’s very similar.”

“But why would it do that? I’m a guy, not a girl,” I insisted.

“Three reasons come to mind,” she explained as she began to prepare a needle to take blood samples. “One, is that it would be the path of least resistance. Copying the powers and form of someone so physiologically different would be very hard on your body and doing it in reverse would be just as hard so it tried to spare your body that stress. Reason number two, her Archetype was handy when you latched on to her powers one body template is as good as any other for an Archetype. By taking hers it didn’t have to spend time coming up with one custom suited to you while you were in mortal danger, allowing you the full scope of your abilities faster. And the last reason is your obvious crush on Clarice.”

“I don’t…” I tried to deny the fact but her arched eyebrow and the sting of the needle as she found a vein under my fur stopped that protest.

She began drawing blood and gave me a stern look. “It was obvious to anyone in the same room as you two, the way you’ve been making goo-goo eyes at her. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’re a teenage boy, it happens. The problem is that when we have a crush on someone we don’t tend to see their faults, we see them as perfect.”

“How can seeing only the good in someone be a problem?” I asked in confusion.

“In your case it was a big problem,” she pointed out. “Archetypes are formed from the conscious and unconscious mind to choose a compatible form. You saw Clarice as perfect and it didn’t matter to your H Chromosomes why you saw her that way. Perfect is perfect and therefore must be compatible, so that combined with those other reasons probably sealed the deal.”

“So I’m stuck like this?” I asked, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. I had wanted to be with Clarice, not be her.

“Not precisely,” she admitted with a sigh. “If your power really is to copy another mutant’s powers you should be able to copy your mother’s metamorphic abilities. We’ll need to find out what the limits of your powers are though and I advise you not to hold on to who you used to be. This is probably you now and you need to adjust to that, hiding in your old form will only make things harder.”

We were both quiet after that. Gina ran some quick tests, both magical and medical and then left to start working on the analysis of my blood. As soon as she left the room Clarice’s voice spoke out. “I thought she’d never leave.”

I turned to stare at the woman I was in love with, swallowing the sudden lump in my throat as I squeaked out, “How much did you…”

“I heard enough,” she responded as she turned her head on the pillow to look me over sadly. “I know this probably feels like the worst time in the world for me to say this, but I think you need to hear it now. I’m flattered Kevin, really I am, but things could never work out between us, especially now that you’re a girl. You have a lot you need to get used to now and it’ll be hard enough for you without holding on to something that will never happen. We can be close, just not in that way. I’ve always wanted a kid sister, so if you need to talk about anything I’ll always be there for you, if you can’t handle that then I’ll try to give you some space.”

It felt like my heart was being torn into little pieces. I was hurt so badly and yet, as bad as the kid sister comment rankled; I didn’t want to lose her. She seemed to see the emotions warring on my face. “I’m so sorry Kevin, I should have tried to let you down easy… I guess tact has never been my strong suit. She is right though, you are going to have to go through so many changes in your life, and you need to move forward, not be stuck in the past. I meant it though, I’ll be there for you if you need me, and you can ask me anything if it’ll help you to adjust.”

Clarice was usually so private about her past, usually not saying much other than she had been hurt a lot. I would have been a fool not to take the opportunity to learn more about her and my own current situation. I wanted to know more, but I was afraid to say anything, afraid that I might hurt one or both of us. I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure where to start. How does one ask, ‘so what’s it like being a cat-girl?’ without sounding like an ass?

Again I was saved from having to say anything as Clarice sighed. “You’re probably wondering what you’re in for, how things will change for you. I probably can’t help you much there, I’ve always been a girl and I barely remember a time when I wasn’t furry. You see, when I was little I had severe social anxiety. When I was four my parents were worried about it and thought that the solution was to get me to interact more with kids my age. One of those attempts was a Halloween costume party. My mom bought me a princess costume, but I had wanted to be a kitty. Being a four year old faced with something I really didn’t want to do, especially if I couldn’t even do it on my own terms, I had a meltdown. I kept screaming ‘I wanna be a kitty!’ as the fear of social interaction got worse. My H Chromosomes couldn’t take the emotional stress I was going through, so they granted my desire in an offhanded way.”

My own torment was momentarily forgotten as I stared at her. “You activated when you were four?!”

She propped herself up on an elbow and nodded. “Yup, so I grew up like this. The irony is that it cured my fear of social interaction, I wanted to go out and interact with people, but my parents locked me up tight. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house at all, they moved my bed into the basement, home schooled me, I had to stay downstairs when they had company over, and I wasn’t even allowed to use the internet without supervision for fear that I might bring too much attention to myself. If anyone asked about me they just told them that I couldn’t handle being around other people. When I was fifteen I got sick of it and ran away from home…”

“And that is when I ran into her and took her in,” Gina interrupted as she entered the room again with my mom. “You’re supposed to be resting Clarice.”

“Geeze Mom, I’m fine,” she complained. “I’m still in bed, I’m a big girl, and your healing spells are doing their work. So what’s the verdict with Kevin?”

“We’ll need to wait several hours on the genetic tests and the H Chromosome mapping so Laura and I want to try to get a better idea on what exactly Kevin’s powers are and any limits she might have,” Gina replied. “We figure we can put her to work helping to clean up the training room while we do that. You’re going to stay here and rest.”

The use of female pronouns was not lost on me and once again my heart fell as reality set in. Regardless I did have powers now and I was eager to learn more about them, maybe I could use them to change back to my old self.

Five hours later the training room looked less like a disaster area and we had a general idea on the scope of my change and my abilities. The younger copy of Clarice’s form seemed to be my permanent form now, but I had gained all of the same physical abilities that she had as a result including sharper senses, and eyes that pick up on any sort of movement to go along with my built in mutant tracking system. The latter was fairly accurate and I could track my Mom and her teammates as they moved from one room to another in the base by feeling for the pull of their powers.

My main power though was, as Gina had guessed earlier, the ability to copy another mutant’s powers. I could only copy one person’s abilities at a time though, and only for a maximum of three hours. If I wanted to use another mutant’s powers before that time was up, taking the new set would cause me to lose my ‘grip’ on the powers that I was already using. We also discovered that I didn’t need to be near an actual mutant to do it if I had a lock of hair or something similar that hadn’t been removed from the body for more than an hour or two. Gina removed a lock of my mom’s hair and placed a preservation spell on it to seal the energy inside before we left for home.

“I don’t know how well this is going to work,” the mage cautioned me. “Keep it with you and hopefully it will give you access to Laura’s abilities. If it doesn’t work I guess we’ll find out, but hopefully it will let you blend in in public. I am warning you though; do not use this to hold on to your old self. You need to adjust to who you are now, and you will only do that by being yourself as much as possible. You’re female now and you need to get used to that.”

We were driving home with Mom in civilian clothes and me wearing a spare set of Clarice’s exercise gear when Mom hesitantly spoke. ”I’m going to have to agree with Gina on this, you need to fully immerse yourself into your new life. You’re going to need a new name, how about Katrina?”

I glared at her, “Are you trying to rub my face in this?”

“Of course not!” she snapped. “It was what we were going to name you if you were a girl, and you need to be reminded of who and what you are now.”

“As if I could forget,” I muttered. “Fine, name me whatever you want, but I’ll need to go to school as Kevin, at least until I can transfer schools.”

“I can probably get you into AMPS,” she offered, “You can be around other mutants and learn how to use your powers.”

“I can learn to use my powers here until the end of the year,” I argued. “James is my only real friend outside the Sentries and I’m not going to just up and leave him with no notice or reason.”

“We can tell him you got a scholarship or something,” she suggested.

“I am not going to lie to my best friend. He’s stuck by me for years and he deserves to know the truth,” I said crossing my arms over my chest. At Mom’s insistence I had used her powers to take a form similar to the glamour that Gina cast on Clarice whenever they went out, in other words a girl form with similar dimensions so the clothes I was wearing would fit, My damn boobs kept getting in the way and only heightened my feelings of awkwardness at this conversation.

A look of concern settled across her features as she seemed to focus harder on the road ahead of us. “Sweetie, are you sure that’s a good idea? You yourself told me how his parents feel about mutants.”

“I also told you that he hates that attitude in anyone, especially his parents. If anyone is going to accept me as I am its James. Look, I’ll talk to him as Kevin to lead up to it and if it doesn’t look like he’ll react well I’ll abort and you can send me off to Hyper High or whatever the school is called.”

“You’re talking about spending the rest of the year as your old male self, do you realize how hard that is going to be? How are you going to adjust while doing that?” She was really resistant to this, I was going to have to make a promise that I was sure I was probably going to regret.

I bit my lip and sighed. “I know how hard this is going to be. I’m going to have to constantly re-copy your powers in the bathroom between classes, possibly come home for lunch, but I promise that outside of school I’ll spend every minute I can trying to get used to this.” I gestured wildly at my body. “I know you probably think it’s stupid holding on to him, but James is my best friend and the way you’re all talking I’m going to be giving up everything else familiar in my life to get used to this. I need something constant just to keep me sane.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand as we pulled into our driveway. “I just want you happy and for you to adjust to this. If this is what it takes for that to happen then fine, but you’ll tell him at our house and if he accepts this we’ll need to swear him to secrecy.”

We stepped out of the car and walked into the front door where I reluctantly let go of Mom’s powers. My dad’s voice called out, “Laura, Kevin? Is that you, we were starting to get worried, it’s almost eleven o’clock.”

“We had a bit of a long night Marcus,” Mom called back. “The base was attacked and Kevin got activated.”

“Kevin’s got powers?!” I could hear my fourteen year old sister Tara squeal from upstairs. “I want to see!” She came racing down the stairs and when she got to the bottom she stopped and stared, “Hollleeee shit…”

“Tara, watch your language,” Dad scolded her as he came in from the kitchen. Then he stared too. “Please tell me that Gina used a spell to change Clarice’s coloring and make her look younger.”

Mom shook her head, “Kevin has the ability to copy another mutant’s powers. He copied Clarice first and there were… complications.”

“Wow. Understatement of the year Mom,” Tara said as she gaped at me. “So uh… Kevin is this… permanent?”

“We think so, except for me copying Mom’s powers to look more normal when I go out,” I said with a sigh. Now that things were starting to slow down and I wasn’t distracted by cool powers I was starting to feel really intimidated at the prospect of living life as a girl.

“So we all better start calling her Katrina, she needs to get used to this,” Mom pointed out.

I was still kind of wondering what Dad’s reaction to this would be, since up until now I was his only son, and when it came it was nothing like I was expecting. He simply sighed and said, “Damn, I am never going to get to use the bathroom in this house again. I might have to build that addition we were talking about after all.”

I gaped at him, and let me tell you, having your jaw drop when you have a muzzle feels pretty damn weird. “How can you be so calm about this Dad? I’m a fucking girl! With a tail and fur!”

He just arched an eyebrow behind his glasses and shrugged. “Oh please, we see Clarice and stranger looking mutants all the time. I’ve been married to your mother for eighteen years, we have super heroes over for dinner regularly, I’m a living null zone for dark magic, and we spent half our honeymoon in Hell… actual Hell. I think the bar for weird shit in this family has been raised pretty damn high. Nothing surprises me anymore.” He paused to put a hand on my shoulder before adding, “Besides, we knew that you and your sister might be going through changes when you got powers of your own and let’s face it, this is not the worst thing I could have imagined. You’re alive and healthy and that’s what’s important, anything else we can adapt to, just like we always have.”

“I… I’m going to go upstairs and get ready for bed… it’s been a long day,” I said with a sigh as I headed for the stairs.

“Okay sweetie, sleep well, I have to make a phone call.” I heard Mom say as I reached the top.

I really wanted to get clean before going to sleep because Mom and the others had worked me pretty hard testing my limits and being all sweaty when you have fur just feels gross. When I was given clothes to change into at the base I did my best to dress with my eyes closed, but that wasn’t going to work now. I stood there in the bathroom for several minutes at a complete loss for what to do. This wasn’t my body, it was a girl’s body, it was Clarice’s body. As much as I might have fantasized about her undressing, doing it myself in a copy of her body felt horribly wrong to me. It felt like I was being a pervert or a voyeur, like I was violating her by even thinking of looking at this body without her permission.

If just the thought of taking my clothes off instilled those kinds of feelings in me I wasn’t sure I wanted to even attempt to actually wash it or touch it. I contemplated the shower and the toilet but I couldn’t make myself move toward either. I could feel the panic well up in my chest. I couldn’t do this, I needed Mom’s powers. I could have reached out and borrowed them and she would have never known but I couldn’t think, I couldn’t even breathe so instead panic kicked in and I threw open the bathroom door and ran away from confronting reality.

I barely noticed Mom on the way to her own bedroom as I raced past her to my own, nearly knocking her over in the process. The moment I was in my room I didn’t even bother shutting the door behind me before I threw myself into my bed and curled up into a ball. Great heaving sobs hit me in waves and conspired with the panic attack to make it near impossible to breathe. I couldn’t stop crying though, and the self-doubt, uncertainty, fear, and the insistent thought that I was violating Clarice somehow just wouldn’t leave me be.

I didn’t even hear Mom come into the room before she was sitting on my bed and wrapping me up in her arms. She was stroking my hair, as she whispered softly, “it’s okay baby, we’ll get through this… it’ll be okay.”

“I…I… c-couldn’t… I can’t,” I tried to get out between sobs. “It’s not… me. It’s… all wrong.” I don’t know how long she stayed there holding me and telling me everything would be alright, but I eventually cried myself to sleep in her arms.

The smell of bacon conspired to get me to open my eyes and when I caught sight of my alarm clock I nearly had another panic attack. I bolted downstairs to the kitchen where my mom was cooking. “Mom! It’s almost ten o’clock! I’m late for school, why didn’t you wake me?!”

“Because you needed your rest and after last night there was no way I was sending you to school today,” was her stern reply. “I called your school and told them you’re sick and won’t be back until Monday.”

“But James and I were supposed to…” I started to argue.

“I used your cell phone to call James before school started. You told him you weren’t feeling yourself today but that he could come hang out after school to keep you company.” I wasn’t quite sure if my mom impersonating me on the phone was a good or bad thing, but she did seem to have everything covered.

“So… uh what do I do today then?” I asked, wondering just what else she may have planned.

“First you’re going to eat breakfast,” she replied as she handed me a plate loaded with bacon, eggs, and pancakes. “Then you’re going to go get cleaned up.” I could feel the anxiety start welling up again until she added, “You can use my powers to change to your old body this time, but you are not going to be making a habit of it.”

I let out a huge breath in relief, “Uh… thanks Mom.” I sat down at the table and yowled in pain as I sat on my tail. It was a good thing I put my plate on the table before sitting or my breakfast would have been all over the kitchen. Once I finally managed to find a way to sit without any more tail mishaps I looked at my breakfast dubiously. When we had taken a break from learning my limits at the base I had learned just how awkward eating with my new mouth, nose and jaw configuration was and I had almost bitten my tongue a number of times. I managed to do alright with the first mouthful though and just concentrated on eating slowly until I could get used to how it felt.

Mom nearly jumped at the sound I made when I sat on my tail and once I was settled she said. “Don’t thank me yet Katrina. At noon I’m taking you to go see Cerise. I called her last night and she freed up an hour this afternoon to see you.”

“You’re taking me to see a shrink?! I’m not crazy!” I complained instantly.

“No you’re not,” she replied coolly. “Cerise has been a good friend of our family for years and everyone on the team has seen her for some reason or another. You’ve been through a very traumatic change that will affect your whole life and you have new powers to deal with. You need to talk to someone about it and Cerise is not only familiar with us, but she has dealt with trauma associated with extreme physiological changes before.”

When I finished my breakfast I borrowed Mom’s powers to change into my old self so I could empty my bladder and get clean without freaking out again. Once I was dried off Mom had me change into female version of my old self with dimensions closer to my new body. We were going to be going out in public, but she didn’t want me using that as an excuse to hide as Kevin and she felt that this ‘transition form’ would help me get used to being a girl while still being somewhat like my old self. Then after she found some clothes that didn’t it me too horribly we piled in the car and headed downtown to Robson Street where Cerise’s office was located in a huge office building.

We were on the twenty seventh floor of the building and stopped in from of a door that said, ‘Dr. C Pepper, Psychologist.’ I swallowed nervously. “I don’t know about this Mom.”

“I don’t recall giving you a choice in the matter,” was her curt reply as she opened the door and pushed me inside and toward the receptionist. “Hi Leia, Katrina here has an appointment.”

“Hi Laura, Dr. P said to send her right in as soon as you got here. Can I get you a coffee or something while she’s in there? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you and I’m sure we have lots to catch up on.” I was vaguely aware of a coffee pot and two mugs floating toward the desk as the bubbly brunette gestured for me to go inside. “Go on in sweetie, Dr. P doesn’t bite.”

I nervously pushed the doors to the inner office as the coffee poured itself and my mom and the receptionist began to chat. Once I had closed the door behind me I stood there for a moment watching the petite blonde behind the desk. “Ummm… hi Dr. Pepper.”

“You’ve known me for how long? You know damn well you can call me Cerise,” she scolded me with a sour look.

“Oh thank God, I feel ridiculous calling someone that,” I said with a sigh of relief as I shuffled toward her desk. It looked like Mom had at least told her the basics so she knew I wasn’t a stranger.

“It gets a bit tiring hearing it after a while, especially since nobody can seem to say it with a straight face,” she replied with a smile. “Your mother gave me the gist of what happened, so before we start there is one rule I want you to follow whenever you’re in this room: You are not to actively use your powers or anyone else’s, so please turn the shape shifting off.”

I groaned as I reluctantly let go of Mom’s powers. Cerise smiled and gestured for me to sit, after making sure I wasn’t going to sit on my tail again, I did so. It wasn’t very comfortable though, chairs just aren’t made for people with tails. The psychologist gave me a good look over before she finally said, “So, this is you now. How does that make you feel?”

Oh great, we were going to talk about my feelings, just what I wanted to do today. “I’m trapped in a body that’s a copy of the girl I’m in love with, who now has no interest in me. How the hell do you think I feel?!” I snapped.

“Even if I weren’t an empath I would know you’re scared and confused about where your life will go from here. There is also the sense of loss. There’s a lot of guilt too, why don’t you tell me what’s brought that feeling on?” she replied, not blinking an eye at my outburst.

It is really hard to lie to or hide things from an empath, so after sitting for several minutes, uncomfortably trying not to think about it I finally muttered, “It feels wrong.” She didn’t say anything; she just sat there watching me, probably waiting for me to open up on my own. “Every time I undress or attempt to shower or anything like that I feel like I’m violating Clarice. This isn’t me, it’s her body, and that feels wrong.”

She shook her head. “As far as I know Clarice still has her body. That is you now, your body, and while it may be based on Clarice’s Archetype it’s still based on your genetics and because of that there are differences that set you apart from her. Her fur and hair are brown while yours are black, your eyes are green to her amber, and you’re shorter and younger as well. I think that you’re using that idea as a crutch, to make this seem less real but you need to realize that this is real, and that you have a lot of changes to adjust to.”

“This is not me! I’m a guy and I don’t want to adjust to this! I want to be who I really am!” I shouted as I felt tears coming to my eyes.

“Katrina, you of all people should know that the body we wear does not define us. Is your mother suddenly a different person just because she’s wearing that person’s form? When she changes into an animal is she still human?”

I shook my head, “But she’s just using her powers this is…”

“This is no different,” she insisted. “We’re always evolving as people, never exactly the same from one day to the next, not even from one moment to the next. Our experiences change us, it’s how we grow into the person we are. There are details about that person that change from the new experiences, but at the core, that person is always the same. You’ve changed because of your new form and powers, but getting powers would have changed you regardless of whether your form changed too. You’re still the same person inside, you still like the same things, have the same values, care for the same people, you’ve just had a growing experience and you’ll continue to grow as you adjust to this.”

“I told you I don’t want to adjust to this,” I grumbled as I thought about what she had said.

“No, you don’t want to face this,” she said giving me a stern look. “This is going to be hard on you so it’s natural to shy away from it, but you need to learn to be comfortable with who you are now.”

“Being all girly is not going to help me adjust.”

“Did I say you had to be girly?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow. “You need to get used to your new body and how people will treat you now, but you need to do it on your terms. You’re still you inside so don’t change that unless you want to, keep what old friends you can, pursue all your old interests, but don’t close your mind to anything new either just because it’s ‘girly’. This is a chance for you to broaden your horizons and yet still be true to yourself. Now I have an exercise I want you to try to help you start seeing this new body as your own, but first I would like to address another issue that you seem to be focused on. What is true love Katrina?”

The question took me by surprise. “It’s when you find that perfect person who you want to spend the rest of your life with?” It was more of a question than an answer.

Cerise shook her head. ”There is a big difference between a crush and true love. A crush is when you are so blinded by hormones and genuine affection that you can’t see a person’s flaws so you see them as perfect. True love is when you love a person enough to see their flaws, but those flaws just don’t matter. A person can move on with their life after losing a crush, and you’re going to do that.” She made it quite clear that in her mind, my feelings for Clarice were the result of a crush and for the first time I was wondering if that might be the case. After giving me a few moments to think she smiled and said, “Now let’s play the ‘this is my body’ game.”

“You can’t be serious,” I grumbled.

“Very serious,” she affirmed. “Now stand up and I’m going to mention a part of your new body and you’re going to tell me something about it. For example you could say, ‘this is my fur, it’s soft and black.’ So let’s start with your tail, shall we?”

I rolled my eyes as I stood up and said with a frown, “This is my tail, it shouldn’t be there and it’s a pain in the ass.”

“We are trying to help you accept your body, not deny it Katrina. And let’s keep our comments to positive things to help with that process, shall we?” she stated firmly as she gave me a stern look. “Let’s try that again.”

I sighed. I knew she wanted to help me but this was stupid. Saying nice things about my new body wasn’t going to make me suddenly feel good about it. “This is my tail… it uhhh…” I couldn’t think of anything, at least not anything positive. What the hell did I have that thing for anyway? “This is no fair, what the hell are tails good for?”

She smiled at me. “I’m glad you asked. Tails are what give cats, and you and Clarice such an amazing sense of balance. Or have you forgotten that your new body gives you some pretty amazing abilities completely aside from your ability to copy other powers? That tail can help you to do things that would scare circus acrobats, and Clarice has learned to use hers to push buttons and switches and move some things, effectively giving her an extra useful limb. I’m sure you can do the same with time. Maybe now you can start thinking about the positives of this situation.”

We continued ‘playing the game’ for the next half hour until my time was up. When we were done Cerise made a standing appointment with her receptionist to see me every Wednesday after school until I was feeling better about my situation and Mom and I returned home so I could change back into Kevin and get dressed for when James would show up after school. Mom mentioned something about shopping for clothes after, but I really didn’t want to think about that as I sat down in front of the TV and waited.

It was three thirty and I nearly jumped off the couch when I heard the doorbell. I sat back down and prayed for my heart to stop beating like a jackhammer. Mom was going to get the door, she had this all planned. I heard the door open and my mom saying, “Good afternoon James, it’s nice to see you again. Come on in, Kevin is in the living room.”

“Hi Mrs. Lewis, Kevin said he was feeling sick this morning, is he feeling any better?” my friend replied. “I hope it’s not too serious.”

“As well as can be expected, he’s been feeling pretty bad today, but I’m hoping he’ll be feeling better soon.” she responded with a touch of sadness in her voice. “Can I get you a soda or anything?”

“That would be great Mrs. Lewis, thank you. Is there anything I can do to help him feel better?” I heard him ask.

“I think there is. Come to the kitchen and help me bring some snacks and sodas out to the living room. There’s something we should all talk about.” A few moments later Mom and James came into the room with a tray of cookies and three cans of Pepsi. “Please have a seat James.”

James sat down and smiled at me, “Feeling any better buddy?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, how much should I say, what if I was acting strange and he noticed? “Ummm yeah…. I…”

Mom shook her head and sighed. “James, Kevin is a bit self-conscious right now. He’s going through some big changes in his life right now and he’s a bit concerned about how you’ll handle it.”

“Dude, you’re my best friend. If you’re going through something, I’m here to support you, that’s what best friends do.” The look on his face was stern, but he seemed a bit confused and concerned as well.

“I know your parents aren’t too fond of them, but umm… how much do you know about Hypers?” I asked nervously.

He looked surprised as he replied, “There’s what we see in the news, but I think the press gives the Hypers a raw deal, a lot of those people are heroes or victims. I don’t know much more than that except that they are supposed to have forty-eight chromosomes instead of the usual forty-six and it gives them powers and stuff. Are you saying you’re…”

I nodded before he even finished the question. “Yeah, my powers activated for the first time yesterday.”

“So you got some sort of super power? That’s not going to make me suddenly hate you, you know me better than that. I hate that bigoted bullshit like what my parents pull.” Awww dammit now he was feeling insulted.

Mom put a hand on his shoulder as he tried to stand up. “James, please wait, there’s more to it than just that. You’re a good friend to Kevin so I know you’ll take this seriously, lives could be in danger if any of this gets out. We’ll tell you everything, but I need you to swear to us that what we tell you will not leave this room. Only you and those of us directly involved can know about this.”

He sat back down, “Of course I won’t tell anybody. You just have to watch the news or look at people like my parents to see how badly mutants get treated; the last thing I want to do is put my best friend in danger. I swear that I won’t tell anyone,” he vowed.

“Thank you James, you should know that I was going to send Kevin off to a special school for Hypers, but he insisted that you would be okay with it and he wanted to finish the school year with you. He may be a bit nervous now, but he hasn’t once wavered in wanting to bring you in on this secret, not even when I advised him against it,” Mom assured James before going on to explain things. “My husband and I are both Hypers, now Kevin is too and Tara has dormant H Chromosomes, it’s genetic of course. I’m also Makeshift the leader of the Sentries.”

James’ jaw dropped. “Holy crap, you’re a super hero.”

Mom nodded with a smile, “Yes, we try to help people. Kevin wanted to do the same when he’s older so we were letting him spend time after school with us at our headquarters learning all about what we do. Yesterday we were attacked while Kevin was there and in the excitement his ability to copy another mutant’s powers activated for the first time. Wildthing, the first mutant he copied has a different physiology that is part of her powers so when he copied her powers there were complications. He’s stuck in a similar form unless he uses my powers to take another form, like he’s doing right now to look like his old self.”

My best friend shrugged. “So he doesn’t look like he used to? That’s not going to change how I think of him and he can still look like himself right? So why is it a big deal?”

I sighed as I tried to explain. “I can only borrow powers for a few hours at a time, and only one set at a time, if I copied another person’s powers I’d lose the shape shifting and revert to my new body. The new form is permanent and everyone is saying that I need to get used to that. I’m going to try going to school as Kevin, but at all other times I’m going to have to be getting used to what I am now. Can you handle spending time with me like that? It’s a huge change for me and I’m worried it will be hard for you too.”

He crossed his arms and glared at me. “We won’t know unless you stop being such a pussy and show me.”

I hadn’t even noticed Tara had come home until I heard her giggle behind me. “Funny you should phrase it that way.”

I turned around to glare at her before taking a deep breath and letting go of Mom’s powers. I looked down at the floor as I said, “I guess this is me now.”

“Hollleeee shit…” I heard him say in a stunned tone.

“That’s exactly what I said!” Tara put in before adding, “Don’t you think Katrina is cute James?”

“Tara,” Mom said in her ‘warning’ voice.

I couldn’t look at him; he probably thought I was a freak or something. Maybe I should have tried to prepare him better? A big hand on my shoulder caused me to look up, right into his concerned face. “So it’s Katrina now right? I think that suits you Kat. I won’t lie, this is going to take some getting used to, but I would imagine that it’s a hundred times worse for you. We’re best friends and right now you look like you’re going to need one, so whatever happens I’ll be there and I’ll have your back.”

“Kat?” I asked.

“Like I said, it suits you. I’m… sorry about calling you a pussy.” He looked away guiltily as he said the last.

“Don’t be, I was being one, and it was kind of funny. I guess that when your life feels like a big joke you have to learn to laugh at the punch line.”

He nodded, “It’s going to be a change for us both, but inside you’re still my best friend and that won’t change. I’ll spend time with Kevin at school and when we’re not in school we can both get to know Kat better.”

“Hey, if James gets to call you Kat, does that mean I can call you Kitty?” Tara prodded.

“You’re going to whether I tell you that you can or not, aren’t you?” I responded with a sigh.

She shook her head as she pouted. “If you really don’t want me to I won’t, but I like it and I wanna bond with my new sister. We need to go shopping together and stuff.”

She was far too eager for that activity for my comfort so I shook my head. “You realize I’m not really a girl right?”

“Your boobs say otherwise,” she retorted.

“Tara!” Mom said, raising her voice.

“Oh c’mon Mom we all know she needs to adjust to reality and I’m trying to help,” my sister snapped back. “And she needs clothes that fit if she’s going to be spending time as herself. There’s no way mine will fit and yours are too big, not to mention they’re ‘Mom clothes’, and she needs to dress like a teenage girl. I can help her find stuff that looks good and will work for her tail and stuff.”

Mom sighed, “Your sister does have a point, you need clothes that fit and it’s not like we can’t afford it. I need to check in at the base though and help with the rest of the repairs.”

“I can handle it Mom and Kitty has powers in case there’s trouble,” Tara pressed.

“I‘ll go with them,” James suddenly offered. “I’ll make sure Tara doesn’t go too far and I’m a big guy so people shouldn’t bother them with me there.”

“Yeah! He can pretend to be Kitty’s boyfriend or something!” Tara agreed excitedly.

I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, her insistence on calling me Kitty or the fact that she was making James out to be my boyfriend. They were right about me needing clothes though, and it would give me an excuse to test a few things: Whether the preserved lock of Mom’s hair would allow me to copy her powers repeatedly and whether James really could adjust to being my friend like this. Finally I sighed and said, “Fine, but nothing too girly Tara, and only if the lock of hair that Gina enchanted actually works.”

Mom looked dubious about the whole idea but nodded. “Katrina, go get changed into something more suitable for shopping and test the lock of hair while I get my credit card out of my purse and give James one of our emergency locators in case you all get into trouble.”

“I’ll help Kitty,” Tara said, taking my hand and dragging me upstairs.

Once we were in my room I quickly found the loose slacks, belt and t-shirt Mom had me wearing earlier plus the running shoes that were a few sizes too big. “I don’t really need help with this Tara…”

I was surprised when she suddenly wrapped me in a hug. “I know I seemed like a bit of a bitch down there but I really am trying to help.” I was about to say something, but she shushed me. “I’m sorry, but you need to get used to this and I know you, you won’t do it unless someone pushes you. Mom won’t push as hard as she should because she’s afraid of hurting your fragile little male ego and Dad is just too laid back.”

“You just want a big sister,” I teased her, uncomfortable with where this might be heading.

“I have one whether I want it or not,” she replied with a pout. “I had a great big brother and I’m sure you’ll make a good big sister too eventually, but I want you to be happy. You’ve always looked out for me and now it’s my turn. So I’m going to keep pushing to help you through this even if it makes you hate me Katrina.”

I put my arms around her and squeezed, “I could never hate you Tara… and I thought you were calling me Kitty.”

“I may have gone a bit too far with that, I’m sorry,” she said as she squeezed me back.

“It’s okay coming from you, little sisters are supposed to be annoying.” I needed to change the topic before one of us started crying or something. “I guess I should try that hair and see if it works. I reached out with my new inner sense looking for that familiar sense of power and there it was. I latched onto it and I could feel it inside myself, but it was still present in the preserved hair as well. “It actually worked; I guess there’s no excuse for not going now.”

Shopping was boring, though with James with us people pretty much left us alone, so for the most part we were able to shop in peace. Tara had me try everything on like I was her own personal Cat-girl Barbie and it got old fast. James managed to keep her from going too far, but I think she was the only one of us having any fun. Eventually she saw that I just wasn’t getting into it and she had us get the essentials: Bras and panties, various tops, a good water resistant jacket, sneakers, and such. She wanted to get me in skirts, but James thought that was going too far for my first day as a girl so a compromise was made. We got one skirt for me to try wearing whenever I felt more comfortable with the idea and a bunch of low rise jeans that wouldn’t get in the way of my tail when I switched back to my true form.

There were two other things Tara wanted to get that we had to compromise on as well. She wanted me to wear makeup, but it would be stupid because I was covered with fur and when I change shape I can make it look like I’m wearing makeup, so we just got some lip gloss for when I’m in a normal girl form for long periods of time. She also wanted me to get a pair of high heels. She had noticed that I seem to walk on the balls of my feet when in my true form and she thought that heels would be more comfortable on me and that I would have the balance to easily get used to walking in them. I wasn’t certain I was ready for the girly shoes she was suggesting though, so we got a pair of ankle boots with a two inch heel that I could use to get used to the idea.

After dinner at the food court James escorted us both home with the promise to come hang out the next evening after school. For the next two weeks I started going to school as Kevin, changing form in the bathroom between classes and at the end of lunch and after school I would head straight home. James would come with me when we left school or come over when he was finished work and we would spend most of those evenings and the weekends hanging out together at my house and doing homework. If I ever got down or needed someone to just listen and not judge me, James was always there ready to lend an ear. Occasionally Tara would be there as well, pushing me to try new things as I tried to adjust to my new self. There was a lot to adjust to.

My body still felt wrong to me and uncomfortable, though I was slowly coming to think of it as my body since I had to look at it in the mirror every day. The package of identification and documentation that had arrived in the mail for ‘Katrina Lewis’ from Mom’s contact in the government kind of made things official too, which was another blow to my ego. Adjusting to being female was hard enough though without being feline as well to complicate things: Long hair is hard to take care of, but having fur too makes getting clean take twice as long. Getting used to wiping after taking a leak was annoying enough without having claws to make things even more awkward. Thank God I found out later that my claws are retractable. There was the whole learning to use my tail and having it get constantly in the way too. James put up with all my bitching though without any complaint. During those first few weeks I was doing a lot of complaining and not a lot of adjusting.

It was a late Saturday morning in late November, two and a half weeks after my activation, when the cold water of reality got thrown in my face. I had been feeling a little under the weather and was worried I might be coming down with something. James wasn’t supposed to be coming over until later so I decided the night before to sleep in. The first thing I was aware of when I awoke was the horrible cramps and while I didn’t want to get out of that warm bed I figured that I should check the medicine cabinet for some flu medicine or something. Whatever was going on must have been effecting my nose too because something smelled off.

When I threw off the blankets and sat up I was in for the biggest shock of my life. My panties and sheets were soaked with blood, probably my thighs to from the sticky warm feeling of my fur. Did I somehow cut myself with my claws? I couldn’t move, I was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what was going on, all I could do was scream. A moment later I was vaguely aware of my door flying open and Tara’s voice but I couldn’t focus on what she was saying.

*SLAP*

I looked up at my sister, rubbing my tender right cheek. “You slapped me…”

“You were freaking out, I had to do something to snap you out of it,” she replied with a frown.

I was freaking out? Then my mind focussed again on the blood. “Oh my God I’m bleeding!”

*SLAP*

“Are you going to stop freaking out or do I have to do it again?” Tara asked, her hand still held high.

“”But I’m…”

She cut me off. “You’re bleeding, I got it. Calm down will you? It’s just your ‘monthly visitor’. I know it sucks, but you’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it! I don’t want it period!” I screamed. To my surprise she laughed. “What’s so fucking funny?!”

“You said period, and you were referring to your time of the month,“ she said while still snickering. When she calmed down she took one look at the expression on my face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop being such a baby; I’ve been having mine since I was twelve.”

“But you’re a girl!” I snapped.

“In case you haven’t noticed, you have been for the past few weeks too!” she yelled back. “And this proves that that isn’t going to change any time soon! You make being a girl sound like the worst thing in the world, but you’re not even giving it a chance! You always wear the same things, you don’t leave the house except as Kevin, and you hide behind James or Mom whenever I push you to try to get comfortable with your new body! Well Mom and Dad are out shopping and I doubt you want James to know about this, so there’s nobody here to baby you. Now get your ass out of bed and into the bathroom so we can throw that stuff in the hamper and get you cleaned up!”

I had never seen my sister this upset with me before and I began to wonder if she might be right. She took me to the bathroom and ran a warm bath for me as I got out of my bloodied sleeping clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Then as I sat there in the warm water and the cramping eased she phoned James to tell him I was sick and then gave me a long lecture on all the finer points of being a girl. There was so much there I needed to know, things I was hiding from up until that point. Those four days I stayed home and Tara spent every minute she could with me, taking on the role of the big sister. It was a turning point for me and I began to relax as I held on to who I was, but opened myself up to new things as well.

By the second week of February I had made a lot of progress between the help from Cerise and the support of James and my family and I was starting to get comfortable with my new self, I even liked being me and could take my change in good humour. I was only seeing Cerise once every few weeks now, I was hanging out at the Sentries base again while James was at work, and I had even gotten over my crush sufficiently to rebuild a friendship with Clarice, we did after all have a lot in common. I was also starting to get better with my abilities, I could sense not only other mutants but their power levels as well and I was getting very good at using the ability to track others. There was one problem that had cropped up in my life though, and his name was James.

My best friend had begun to act strangely around me the past month. He would watch me when he didn’t think I was looking and I’d catch him stopping himself from saying things sometimes. I was pretty sure he had developed a crush on me from all the time we had been spending together. The worst part was that the feeling was mutual. He was the person that I could see his flaws but I loved him anyway, the problem was that I wasn’t attracted to him in the slightest. I could only get physically attracted to girls and even thinking of being intimate with any guy, even James, made me want to throw up. I knew that I had to do something about it, and soon, or it could ruin the relationship that we did have.

It was the night of February 11th and I was sitting at the airport waiting with my Mom for a helicopter to show up while I was talking to James on the phone. There had been an avalanche near Whistler the day before and the Sentries were helping with the search. Two of the family members of those missing had mentioned that they had what were termed ‘nuisance level’ mutant powers, so Mom had thought of bringing me in to help. “So anyway I’ll be out of town for a few days and I’ll see you when we get back.” I told my friend.

“I can’t believe you’re going to miss the next few days of school,” James said with a sigh. “I’m going to be so bored with you gone.”

I gave a sigh of my own. I didn’t want to be away for that long, but at the same time it would give me some time to sort out how to deal with the problem with James. “I know, but it will be nice to be able to be myself for a while. Mom normally wouldn’t let me do this, but a group of hikers went missing during that avalanche near Whistler and two of them are mutants. Normal tracking methods won’t work and looking normally will be like finding a needle in a haystack, so she’s hoping that if I can detect the two mutants then we’ll have a better chance of finding the whole group, or at least narrow down the search area. The search and rescue helicopter should be here soon to pick us up.”

“Good luck finding them, if anyone can do it it’s you. So if you’re back in time do you still want to do something for Singles Awareness Day?” We had a tradition that on Valentine’s Day we would do something together if we were single, usually go to the Metropolis Mall in Burnaby by sky train and make fun of all the couples. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that this year, but it was something to do and maybe I could use the opportunity to have a serious talk with James.

“Sure,” I said, forcing a laugh as I spotted the search and rescue helicopter touching down on the tarmac outside. “I need to get a few things at the mall anyway. If I’m back by then I’ll meet you at the usual spot at five o’clock. If I don’t think I’m going to make it I’ll call or text you. I gotta get going, our ride is here.”

“Sounds good Kat, I lo… I’ll see you when you get back.” he quickly disconnected the call and I sighed, hoping that he hadn’t been about to let slip what I thought he had.

The ride to Whistler was mercifully short and when we landed I was glad I had brought warm clothes, I was even more glad that I had fur under those clothes. It was late and the search wouldn’t be resuming until the morning so Mom took me straight to the hotel where we would be staying while the search was being conducted. It was kind of cool because she was letting me have my own room, mostly because I was considered ‘outside help’ and she didn’t want people suspecting that we might be related. Despite the joys of independence, room service, and a comfortable bed I couldn’t sleep well. I was very worried that we wouldn’t get to the hikers in time, and the situation with James was weighing heavily on my mind as well.

The first day I helped with the search we didn’t find anything. Mom suggested having me search in a different sector than them so I wouldn’t have to filter out their powers while trying to sense someone else’s. All I could do all day was ride in the helicopter at low altitude, keep my eyes and other senses peeled, and try to sense the pull of another mutant’s powers. This unfortunately gave me a lot of time to think, and to worry.

On the thirteenth I sensed something around mid-morning at the eastern edge or our search area, a faint pulling sensation. It was weak, but it was definitely there. I rushed to the cockpit and tapped the pilot on the shoulder, “Over there!” I shouted to be heard over the propeller as I pointed to the east. The pilot turned toward where I had indicated and as we got closer I could feel two distinct, but very faint sets of powers pulling at me. “Set us down over there!” I shouted again as I pointed to a spot near the first signal.

Before we even touched the ground I leaped out the door and ran for the spot where I was sensing someone and began digging through the snow with my hands. Soon other rescuers showed up and began to dig as well and we found two people holding tightly on to one another. I let the others finish digging them out as I headed for the second spot and started digging there. By two in the afternoon we had found all six hikers and they were all being flown to Vancouver General Hospital to be treated for injuries, hypothermia, and frostbite.

I was really tired when we got back to the hotel that evening. Mom planned for us to stay the night and get some well-earned rest before heading back home in the morning and I was too tired to argue the point. I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room after a reporter from CTV tried very hard to get an interview with me. They were calling me some kind of hero and completely ignoring the Sentries and all of the other rescue workers that helped with the operation. In the end I declined the interview and told him quite clearly that it was a team effort and I was just glad they were still alive when we found them.

I called James to leave a message that I would be able to meet the next day as planned and vegged out for the rest of the day, just lying in bed, eating room service, and watching television. Again, that gave me plenty of time to think and I came to a decision. I knew that I wasn’t attracted to and wasn’t likely to ever be attracted to James as much as I might love him. Not having that attraction would only sour any attempt we did make at a serious relationship and probably cause resentment on both sides. I needed to tell him I wasn’t interested in him that way, and I needed to do it gently and as soon as possible.

It was as I came to that decision that the eleven o’clock news came on. The music cued and the camera focused on the Anchorwoman, who said, “Tonight’s top story: A young Hyper went into a burning school today and saved the lives of nine people. Annie Kwan was on the scene earlier today.”

I could feel my eyebrows rise. Hypers hardly ever get good press; this must have really been something. Intrigued I continued to watch only to be shocked when the scene switched to my school, where an Asian reporter was standing beside one of my classmates Nick Wallace who was looking very nervous in his wheelchair. “Nick Wallace was the first student to be pulled from a room on the second floor where eight students and a teacher were trapped by the fire. Please tell us how you escaped from the flaming death trap?”

I could actually see Nick swallow the lump in his throat. “We were all sure we were going to die in there and suddenly I was outside at the meeting area. I asked who she was, but I think she might be new in the hero business and hadn’t chosen a name yet because she looked confused. She wasn’t even in costume, just some big black dress or something. Then as soon as she was sure I was safe she disappeared in a puff of smoke like some kind of ninja and came back out with all the others from the room. She even took my lab partner to a doctor.” Wait a minute… Nick was James’ lab partner. What the hell happened? Was James hurt? I was suddenly very worried for my best friend.

“Could you describe her for our viewers?” the reporter asked.

Nick nodded and said, “She was maybe five foot four, slender and she looked like she was Asian, but she was really pale and had these light blue eyes and this white hair that sort of stood right up.” Well at least this girl would be easy to recognize if I ever saw her.

They went through some other interviews of people I didn’t recognize or barely knew and then the reporter was back on the screen. “Nobody knows who this mystery hero is or where she came from but the people she saved are calling her Wisp. Whoever or wherever she is, we’re glad to have people like her out there. The cause of the fire is still under investigation and the school will be closed for the next week while officials assess the damage.”

“Great the school burns down and a new Hyper appears and I’m not even there to see it,” I grumbled, still a bit worried about James.

The Anchorwoman was soon back on the screen with a picture of the Whistler avalanche. “In related news a hiking group missing for nearly two days since the Avalanche near Whistler was found today thanks to the abilities of another young local Hyper who worked with search and rescue to locate two of the group. The others in the group were found nearby and while some are suffering from frostbite and hypothermia, all are alive and in good spirits since being found earlier this evening. The young hero Copycat declined our request for an interview, saying only that it was a team effort and that she was glad they were all still alive.”

“Well at least they mentioned the search and rescue people. They could have given the Sentries some credit though,” I grumbled as I turned off the news and prepared for bed. Mom called on the room phone and asked if I had seen the news. She thought that the girl at the school might be someone we knew and she activated in the heat of the moment. That got me thinking that maybe she was scared and needed help. It was, as I was thinking about that, that I received a text from James.

I read the screen of my phone and said, “I gotta go Mom, James sent me a text and I want to ask him what happened. I’m a bit worried.”

“Okay Kat, I’m sure he’s fine, but see if you can find out more about what happened.” She hung up and I tapped the text message and read the contents. -I heard things went well in Whistler.-

-Yeah, spending the night here but should be back tomorrow morning. I heard things were exciting at school today too,- I responded, hoping he would give me more details, or at least tell me he was okay.

-No school for a week is pretty exciting :)- was his reply. Stupid idiot, didn’t he know I was worried?

I grumbled and rapid texted back. I couldn’t tell him I was worried sick because that would send the wrong message, so I tried to make it like I was just curious about the new Hyper. -I was talking about the fire and the Hyper that showed up. Did u c her?-

-I think I got a better look at her than anyone,- I guessed that meant that she really did take him to a doctor or something.

-My mom thinks she just activated, maybe because of the fire. Probably one of our classmates, did u recognize her?- I asked, hoping the direct approach would help.

-I never saw her before today. Maybe she doesn’t look like she used to,- he sent back.

I thought about it, given how I had changed it was possible that the person’s appearance changed dramatically. -Possible. Maybe we’ll see her around. We still on for tomorrow? I was thinking we could meet at lunch since there’s no school,- I suggested, hoping to get our ‘talk’ out of the way as soon as possible.

-Sure, I need to ask u something anyway,- he replied. Awww damn he was going to ask me out, I just knew it.

-Ask me now,- I texted. It was probably best to get this over with now.

-I don’t want to go into too much detail over text, it would take too long.- Details? What details? Maybe he wasn’t talking about what I thought he was after all.

-Sum up then- I prodded him.

-Mom is on the warpath and I need a place to stay. She came home early and found a naked white girl in my room.- I nearly dropped my phone.

What the hell was going on there? His Mom hates white people and James would never be stupid enough to have one in his house, let alone naked and in his room. She would kill him. Did this have something to do with that Hyper from the school? I quickly sent, -Do u have a death wish? First thing u r going to do when we meet tomorrow is tell me the whole story. R u in a safe place?-

There was a lengthy pause before his reply. -There’s plenty to tell, I’m in a hotel tonight. Going to sleep now. It’s been a long day. Good night.-

-Good night,- I sent back before putting my phone on the bedside table. Maybe he wasn’t interested in me at all; maybe this white girl he mentioned was his girlfriend after all. I wasn’t really sure if I should be relieved or upset about it and honestly it was tearing me up inside. It was a long time before I got to sleep.

We headed back into Vancouver the next morning and it was a little before lunchtime when I arrived at the Metrotown sky train station and headed into Metropolis mall. I was using one of the normal girl shapes I usually go shopping in, basically all the same measurements without the fur and tail and such with dark skin, brown eyes, and long black hair in Caribbean style braids. It was just inside the mall that I felt the pulling sensation of an unfamiliar mutant. Curious I looked around until my eyes settled on a slim girl my own age clutching a backpack like she was afraid it was going to run away or something. She was dressed in a pair of black leggings, sneakers and a long t-shirt with a grey windbreaker over top and a pink and white Vancouver Canucks ball cap.

I concentrated on her for a moment; yes the feeling was definitely coming from her. Suddenly she turned and ran off as fast as her legs could carry her. What was she scared of? Was she a new Hyper? I took off after her and though I lost her in the crowd a few times, my power made it easy to keep tabs on where she was going. Finally she dashed into a ladies room and I followed her inside. As luck would have it there didn’t seem to be anyone inside but the two of us. “Hey, are you okay in there?” I asked her.

She didn’t answer so after a few minutes I said, “I’m Kat, do you need to talk about whatever you’re crying about? Is it about a boy or is because you’re a mutant? Did you just activate? Look, there’s nobody else in here and I’m a mutant too, so maybe I can help you.” I really hoped that revealing that I was a mutant too would give us some common ground and maybe calm the poor girl down a bit, but she just started sobbing. “Calm down okay?” I told her in a calm tone. “Like I said, my name is Kat and I’m a Hyper too. What’s your name?”

There was another long pause and I figured she was probably unsure whether I could be trusted “Ehmmm… ahhh…” she said slowly and uncertainly. The poor girl seemed nervous as hell, had someone hurt her?

“It’ll be okay Emma, getting powers and such is really scary at first, but I know some people who can help. Come on out so we can talk, I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for lunch, but I’ll call him and tell him I’ll be late.” I felt bad about delaying my meeting with James, but I wasn’t looking forward to the talk I had to have with him and this was more important. This girl needed help and James would understand that. I pulled out my phone and looked through my contact list, selecting James’ number and pressed send.

Then I heard Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat” playing in the stall. That was James’ ringtone for me… what the hell was going on? It continued to ring for several long seconds and I switched back to my normal form as the door to the stall opened. I wanted some damn answers. The girl came out of the stall sniffling and rubbing tears from her eyes as I sniffed the air. James’ scent was all over that backpack and she was definitely holding his phone. I glared at her and asked very slowly, “Who are you and why do you have James’ phone and backpack? His scent is all over it.”

She wasn’t answering, just sniffling and rubbing her blue eyes. Light blue eyes, pale skin, white eyebrows, and she definitely looks Asian. I stared at her as I realized, “You’re the one from our school, Wisp… and you must be the naked girl from James’ room too. Has he been helping you or something?” I gave the girl a good once over with my eyes. What did she have that I didn’t? Well except for letting James see her naked of course.

Emma shook her head as she looked down at the floor. “I… wanted to tell you last night, but it’s awkward enough like this… I just couldn’t do it over text, not when you told me about your change in person.”

I had just met this girl a few minutes ago, what the hell was she going on about? The only one who I had ever told about my change outside family or Mom’s team was… “James?” I asked, barely able to get the name out.

She was still looking at the floor but she nodded her head. “Not anymore… I guess you can keep calling me Emma when we’re in public; it’s as good a name as any.”

What are the odds that this could happen to both of us? If this really was James, she had gone through the ringer. She looked nothing like James, she was shorter than me now and James had almost a foot in height over me. Her own mother wouldn’t… Oh crap, this is not a good situation. I sighed and muttered, “Damn, if it hadn’t have happened to me too I wouldn’t have believed it.” Then I grabbed her hand and started shifting into a normal looking form again as I started pulling her toward the door. “Come on, let’s go to the food court so we can talk and I can call my mom. We really need to figure out what to do about this.”

We went to the food court where we ordered from one of the Chinese places. The woman at the counter was giving ‘Emma’ strange looks, but she seemed content to mind her own business, so I tried not to let it bother me. While my friend started eating I phoned my mom. “Hey Mom, do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure sweetie, you sound like you need to talk, how is James?” she asked.

“She’s not… I mean he’s not… I mean he’s a she.” I was stumbling over my words.

“Whoa, slow down, and tell me what’s going on,” she ordered me.

“You know that girl on the news yesterday? The Hyper we were talking about who saved the people in the fire at our school?” I asked before giving her the answer. “It was James.”

“Shit, this is not good, his parents…” She let out a sigh. “If he activated yesterday and hasn’t been home since it’s only a matter of time before they call us asking about him.”

“He was home yesterday after he changed into the amazing Asian/Caucasian Hyper girl,” I told her with a groan. “He was finding clothes that would fit his new body and his mom walked in on him in his room… naked.”

I could hear her slapping her forehead on the other end. “This just gets better and better. We’re going to have to sit her down with her parents at some point. If they react as badly as I fear, she can come stay with us. We had better prepare for that eventuality. Use the credit card I gave you if you have to and get James some clothes and other necessities. Get her some workout clothes too. When you’re done bring her here so we can see what powers she may have and have Gina take a look at her. Oh and you’d better discuss a girl’s name with her so I can get my contact to work up a new identity for her.”

“Okay Mom, we’ll be as quick as possible. As for the name we’re going with Emma I think,” I replied. “We’ll see you soon.” I hung up and let out a sigh.

“So, what’s the verdict?” James/Emma asked.

“Mom says we’re going to need to talk to your parents at some point and explain things. If things don’t go well you can stay with us. Right now she wants us to get you some necessities and meet her at home so we can go have Rune take a look at you, she’s a doctor and she also has some spells that might help figure out the nature of your abilities. Have you noticed anything so far?” I asked the last hoping we might save some time later.

She sipped at her Pepsi and shrugged. “Aside from being in the best shape of my life and the whole teleporting thing, no I haven’t. But maybe this Rune can tell me why my hair insists on defying gravity, and why I look like this.”

I thought about it and suggested, “Archetypes are usually related to powers or what you’re thinking at the time, so what were you thinking about? Has your parents’ intolerance been getting to you again? That might explain the whole white/Asian thing. You’ve been rebelling against it for as long as I’ve known you, so maybe this is a reflection of that.” Knowing James as I did he was probably thinking about it a lot, as he tended to do with no distraction.

“Yeah that has been on my mind a lot lately,” she admitted.

“Okay, then what about when your change began? What were you thinking about then?” I prodded hoping to come up with some ideas for what her power type might be. Teleportation could be related to dimensional travel or magic, or simple air displacement and good physical fitness could come from anything.

She sighed sadly before answering and I felt so terrible for her, if anyone knew how she felt it was me. “I just wanted to get myself and the others out of there, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I fell asleep in class and I was having trouble shaking the dreams I had.”

“Do you remember what you were dreaming about?” I prodded as I started to wolf down my cooling lunch.

She rolled her blue eyes theatrically and I was struck by how pretty they were, how pretty she was. “Nick was going to start another discussion on sexy girl ninjas. I used the tired excuse to get out of it, but the thought must have gotten stuck in my mind, so of course I had to dream about them. That’s probably why I’m stuck as a girl and in such good shape.”

I nodded in agreement as I tried to stop myself from thinking of her as pretty. She was going through a lot and she didn’t need me finally showing an interest in her now of all times after crushing on me for a month. “It’s pretty likely. At least that gives us some ideas of what to look for.” I sighed once again, feeling sad and confused. “This is so not the conversation I was preparing myself for today.”

“What conversation were you planning on having?” she asked.

It was better to do this, to tell her nothing could happen between us. This was for her own good; she needed to adjust to being a girl and having me show an interest now would only make things worse for her. I reached out and took her hand, it was so soft and warm, her pale skin standing out against my current dark skin. “I feel kind of horrible about it given what happened to me with Wildthing, especially after how supportive you’ve been since my change. You’re my best friend, other than my family you’re the only person who really gets me, and you’ve stuck by me through the worst time in my life. I spent half my time in Whistler dreading today. You’ve been acting kind of weird the past month though, kind of like I did with Wildthing, so I thought you might have a crush on me. I wanted to talk about it before things between us got out of hand.”

“I…” she started to speak, but I motioned for her to stop, this had to be done.

“I care for you a lot,” I continued. “I might even love you, hell for the past few weeks I even tried to make myself attracted to you, but guys just don’t do it for me. I know I shouldn’t be doing this to you now. I know how hard the adjustment you have to make is, but because I care for you I needed to be honest about it. I… think I understand why Wildthing told me how she did. You need to move on and adjust to your new life not hold on to who you used to be. I’ll be here to support you because you’ve done the same for me, but things are going to be complicated enough for you without throwing our feelings into it.” Oh shit, I said ’our feelings’ not ‘your feelings’.

“Our feelings?” she asked, wringing her hands nervously.

“Your new form is really pretty and I’m attracted to girls… and it’s you in there,” I admitted sadly. “But you need to adjust to the new you and being a mutant, and it would be selfish of me to try to pursue anything while you’re going through that. You didn’t want to burden me with your feelings so I need to give you the same space. I’m not saying nothing can happen between us, but I think we need to give you time to figure out who you want to be first.”

She nodded sadly and I felt like my heart was going to shatter again. “I guess you’re right, maybe it’s best to wait.”

I just nodded in return and shoved my feelings away as best I could. “So for now I’ll be your supportive best friend, just like you were for me. So the first thing on the agenda is to get you some more clothes and some gear to exercise in, Mom and the others will want to try and figure out your physical abilities.”

After lunch I took Emma to Belle Boutique to get properly measured and so we could buy her proper fitting undergarments. She hadn’t been wearing a bra and knowing James she probably just guessed at her panty size. I fought the urge to ‘help her’ as she tried things on and merely stayed outside the change room, she didn’t need me ogling her right now, she probably felt awkward enough already. I made sure she got matching panty and bra sets after we bought her some tops and jeans that would fit properly. Remembering Tara’s advice I also insisted on one skirt to get Emma used to the idea.

I didn’t want to have to return anything or waste money so I made sure she tried all of it on to make sure it fit properly. It’s a pain in the ass how not all clothing companies seem to use the same measurement system. Once we finished that, we headed to the department store for some socks, yoga pants, a sports bra, and a form fitting sleeveless top, for her to wear while we were testing her, as well as some ladies deodorant, a toothbrush, and some other necessities in case she needed to stay with us for a while. When I announced that we were finished Emma pulled me aside, waited until nobody was looking, and teleported us to my bedroom.

Holy crap I had to copy that power someday, it felt amazing being whooshed away like that and it was so convenient. “Sweet! We are going to save so much money on public transit that way,” I said with a grin. “Just leave the bags on my bed and you can get changed into the exercise gear.” Emma nodded and did as I had asked before she started looking through the bags. She took off her hat and her white hair suddenly popped straight up causing me to laugh. She just continued looking through the bags, seemingly unbothered, and had her shirt half off before I could even think to leave the room. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried not to stare but it was pretty hard with those black tattoos. I let out a low whistle and said, “Damn that’s some nice tats you’ve got, the black really stands out against your pale skin.”

“Tats? What tats?” she asked looking at me and appearing very confused.

“The ones on your back, didn’t you notice them?” I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes at me and gave me a dirty look. “Of course I didn’t, how often do I see my own back? You’re not pulling my leg are you?”

I shook her head. “Nope, there are tats there and they cover over half of your back. They’re all black and they’re kind of hard to miss. They’re going to get noticed if you’re in the locker room or the beach or something. The biggest one is a girl who kinda looks like you in some sort of skimpy ninja outfit, but there’s smaller ones too, of ninja-like weapons in a circle around her. There’s a pair of crossed katana below her, some sais crossed above her and a pattern of throwing stars and kunai to either side. Look in the mirror if you don’t believe me,” I said testily, a little upset that she thought I would tease her at a time like this.

She walked over to the vanity across from my bed and turned her back to it while looking over her shoulder. “Damn, like I don’t look weird enough already,” she grumbled as she snatched up the exercise clothes and left the room. Oh damn, had I made her self-conscious?

I followed her out, but she was in the bathroom by the time I got out into the hallway and Tara was in the hall staring at the door. She turned her gaze to me, “Umm Kitty… why did some girl who resembles the girl talked about on the news last night just walk out of your room and into the bathroom half naked?”

I walked down the hall, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into her room. “That was James,” I told her in a hushed tone. “She activated yesterday and has had a really bad couple of days so please don’t push her. Mom and I are taking her to the base to see what Rune can find out.”

“That was James?” she said while gaping at me. “Hollleeee shit… Her parents are gonna freak.”

“Her Mom already did, we’ll tell you what happened later, so try not to do anything to push her yet, until I give the okay.” I said, giving her a pleading look.

“I’ll try to keep my big mouth shut,” she promised with a hug.

As soon as we got to the base, Rune took Emma into the medical bay and examined her thoroughly. She determined that Emma was a very healthy fifteen year old girl, right down to the double X chromosomes. The mage was very interested in Emma’s floaty hair and the tattoos and ran all sorts of magical scans on them. It seemed that my best friend was an energy manipulator and the gateway for some form of energy source from another dimension. Rune said that the energy had similarities to magic, and she felt that the floaty hair was a side effect of channeling that energy and that when Emma teleported she was using the energy to pull herself and any passengers through the dimension the energy comes from as a shortcut from place to place.

The tattoos were a physical manifestation of the energy that Emma channels, like using a physical object or runes or such as a focus for a spell. All of the weapon tattoos summoned a weapon of the same type as the tattoo that she was using, and the weapons were made of some sort of black metal that Rune couldn’t identify. She thought it might be Emma’s energy emulating solid matter. It looked like black metal, felt cold to the touch like metal, and the weapons were all really sharp. Rune wanted to know more though, because she said it was like nothing she had ever seen before, even in magically created objects.

When Emma thought on the ninja girl tattoo her clothes vanished and were replaced with some sort of costume resembling what the girl in the tattoo wore. There was a black one piece strapless bathing suit that made her boobs look amazing and was very distracting to me and a dark silver sash wrapped tightly around her waist with the ends tied in a big bow at her back. There were also fingerless elbow length fishnet gloves and matching thigh high stockings with combat boots and a ninja mask covering the lower part of her face. I thought that it looked pretty cool.

Rune couldn’t determine what the costume was made of either and figured that it was energy pretending to be matter again, but Rune was having trouble sensing anything about it. She couldn’t even sense Emma while she was wearing it. She finally tried other high tech forms of energy and motion detection, but they couldn’t see Emma at all and Rune decided that the costume must be a stealth spell or something. I couldn’t even sense her when she was using it, not with any of my heightened senses or even my mutant detection power, it was really weird. Even her voice seemed effected, and came out as this creepy whisper, even when she yelled.

After two hours of Rune trying to figure Emma out she passed her on to my mom, Wildthing, and Edge who spent until dinnertime testing her physical abilities. Emma seemed to be able to use both hands equally well, had good hand-eye coordination and learned physical skills fast. She was also in probably the best shape a person could be without being in the enhanced category, and was freakishly flexible. I was stunned. She may not have any martial arts training, but on those natural abilities and teleportation alone she was able to hold her own against Edge. She didn’t have the skills to mount a good offense, but Edge was having trouble breaking her defense and that was saying something.

When we returned home I noticed that Emma seemed very upset and sinking into a depression. She had every reason to of course, but it pained me to see her that way. Thankfully Tara kept her distance once she saw the mood my friend was in and let us be as we went to my bedroom and Emma changed out of her workout clothes and into a t-shirt and jeans. I needed to do something to cheer Emma up, but I wasn’t sure what. I thought maybe we could sit in and watch a movie and talk, but then I remembered that we had forgotten to get Emma something to wear to bed. Since Mom and Dad were taking Tara to ballet practice I copied Mom’s powers and let them all know I would be taking Emma back to the mall and that we would have dinner there.

Emma didn’t say a word as we ate and she was only picking at her pizza, she usually loved meat lovers. Why wouldn’t she let me in? Finally I had enough and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling overwhelmed by being a girl now?”

She shook my head sadly as she replied, “I kind of wish that was the problem. I know in my head that this should feel wrong to me, but it’s my body and it feels like my body, even though I know it wasn’t a few days ago. I think the change might have messed with my mind.”

Wait, did this mean she was okay with being a girl? What the hell could be wrong then? I just nodded and repeated her. “And I kind of wish I had that problem when I first changed. I’ve been trying to see this all as a big joke, but it’s only been recently that I could actually look in the mirror and realize that it’s me there. I’m even starting to like what I see there and feel comfortable with it. It was really hard for those first two months though. I tried not bothering you with it, but I had a bit of a mental breakdown when I had my first ‘monthly visitor’.”

“Let me guess,” she replied, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand, “That was when you were sick with the flu for four days. I was wondering if it was somehow related to your change.”

“Yeah, that was it,” I reluctantly admitted. “You were already there for me for everything else so I didn’t want to bother you with my ‘girl problems’. But if being a girl isn’t what’s bothering you so much, what is?”

“All my powers and abilities seem to be geared toward killing, harming, or moving without detection. I’m just wondering what kind of person that makes me,” she said after a moment and I could see that it was really bothering her a lot.

“A ninja?” I suggested, trying to feed her a clue. “Seriously, you were dreaming about ninjas, what other kinds of powers could you expect to get? Our powers don’t define who we are as people, our actions do, and you went into a fire to save people once you got those powers. You could have just stayed there outside, nice and safe, but you didn’t, you went back. That took courage and a lot of caring.” I tried to put all of my respect and care for her into those words; I needed her to see that she was a good person no matter what her powers were.

She didn’t seem to want to hear it. “It was the right thing to do. And I’m a coward; I couldn’t even tell you how I felt about you.”

“Why couldn’t you tell me?” I prodded her. I had a pretty good idea why, but I needed to hear it from her.

“I wasn’t sure how you’d react, I was afraid it would hurt you, or reopen old wounds,” she admitted as she looked down at her barely touched pizza with a sigh.

“You were thinking of me. That’s my whole point, you’re always thinking of others. And you could have just given in to your parent’s bigotry, but you stood by me when you found out I was a Hyper and supported me through the worst time of my life. You’re always trying to be a better person, that’s the kind of person you are, and it’s one of the things I really love about you.” Oh shit, I just told her I loved her. I shoved more pizza in my mouth to keep it from saying anything else stupid.

We were both quiet for a time. We quickly finished our meals; since apparently we both wanted to keep our mouths busy to avoid anything really stupid being said, and headed toward the department store that we had gone to earlier. Emma wanted to stop by the bank first though and that was when we heard the gunshots. Emma turned to me, her eyes wide. “Did those come from inside the bank?”

I quickly shook my head and pointed to where the sound had come from. “No I think they came from around the corner.”

We rounded the corner in a rush and nearly ran into the people running from a jewellery store. We edged our way along the wall and stopped to peek through the windows of the store. Inside were four men wearing ski masks and holding guns pointed at a pair of customers and two saleswomen. I could feel the pull from the fifth man in a silver costume and mask before I even saw him. He felt like a Category three, but I couldn’t be sure what his powers were, I hadn’t felt anything similar before. “That one is a mutant, Category three I think,” I said as I pointed to him.

“Yeah the costume kind of makes it obvious,” she retorted. “Any clue what his powers are?”

I shook my head, wishing I were more useful in this situation “My powers don’t work like that I can only detect mutants and make a ballpark guess on their power levels. I could copy his powers, but I would need to know what they are to use them and I’d have to give up the shape shifting. I can only copy one mutant’s powers at a time.”

“Any ideas on how to handle this?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what to say, all of my knowledge was second hand, I had only known what to do against the Foul Four because I had read the files the Sentries had on them. Finally I asked, “Do you think you can teleport the hostages out quick enough so that none of them get hurt? Once they’re out of the way we can take on the robbers without worrying about them.”

She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “I could take out maybe two before they noticed something was up. Maybe if you copied my powers we could get them all out.”

“That might work,” I admitted. “Is there anything I need to know about how your powers work?” I would rather not get pulled into another dimension accidentally and make things worse and with our luck I wouldn’t put the possibility out of reach.

“Just think of where you want to be or what you want to summon and it happens,” she responded before adding, “I think that the location has to be somewhere nearby, that I can see, or a place I’ve been before though.”

I nodded as I thought about that, it sounded simple enough. “Let’s assume the same limits work for me then. I’ll get the two saleswomen and you grab the customers and we’ll leave them by the bank around the corner.” She nodded and I focused on pulling her power into me. She was suddenly trying to hide a laugh when all my fur and hair stood straight up. I was about to give her shit over it when she summoned her costume, probably to hide the smile better. “Yes, I’m sure I look hilarious,” I grouched before I looked into those amazing blue eyes and muttered, “Let’s get this over with.”

I thought about the spot beside the first saleswoman and before I could blink I was there. I grinned and thought about the outside of the bank. After dropping her off, I thought about the other saleswoman and repeated the process. I would have to borrow Emma’s powers more often if I could find a way to negate my fur standing on end. Emma had gotten the customers out as well and we cautioned the people we saved to remain where it was safe while we handled the thieves. We poofed back inside where Emma appeared behind one of the gunmen who were all looking around in a panic, saying in that creepy whisper, “You boys lose something?”

Everyone’s attention turned to Emma and I knew that this would be my chance. She could handle the gunmen easy enough, but someone had to keep the Hyper busy. That would be me. I hurled myself at the man in the silver costume, causing the jewellery he had been levitating into a bag to drop as I caught him off guard. I hauled off and punched him hard in the face a few times, but I had to back off when the metal of the costume changed into spikes that damn near impaled me. I was vaguely aware of Emma summoning a katana, slicing guns in half, teleporting and generally beating the crap out of the four gunmen, but I was a little preoccupied by the sharp metal projectiles that the man in silver was hurling at me.

I wanted to try to copy his powers so we would at least be at a stalemate, but he wasn’t giving me any time to focus on copying him and I needed at least a second to do that. I had to resort to using my own innate agility and cat like reflexes to avoid what he was throwing at me. I had done a number on him already, but I needed to somehow get closer for a knockout blow and I had let go of Emma’s powers when I had tried to copy his and he has done his spiky thing. I leaped into the air to avoid a trio of metal blades, but I didn’t have time to dodge the fourth and I screamed in pain as it hit me in the shoulder and I fell to the floor.

I tried to move as he formed another group of projectiles, but damn my shoulder hurt, it was bleeding pretty badly too. I was saved as Emma teleported in, punched him right in the jaw, and teleported ten feet behind him. “You forgot all about me, I feel so insulted,” she taunted him, causing him to turn in blind rage to throw the projectiles at her. Whenever he fired projectiles at her she just kept teleporting and he couldn’t seem to keep up with her movements.

Finally, his face red with anger, he screamed, “Stop that!”

“You shouldn’t throw sharp pointy things at people; maybe I should show you how it feels,” she taunted again as her right hand filled with throwing stars.

“You fool, I am Lodestone, the master of metal!” he sneered as he looked at the black stars.

“These aren’t exactly metal,” Emma retorted as she threw one at him. He seemed to realize that he couldn’t control it as she threw and quickly formed a shield from the metal of his costume. The star sank deep into the metal with a ringing sound as I gritted my teeth and pulled myself to my feet. I walked up behind him and his attention was so focused on Emma that he didn’t even notice me until I hit him as hard as I could in the jaw with my uninjured arm. The impact sent him flying five feet through the air before he hit the ground out cold.

Why the hell is it that the cops always show up after the villain is dealt with? Maybe something to do with their union. Anyway they showed up just after ‘the master of metal’ went down for his nap. Emma and I left them to deal with the aftermath, well I wasn’t really given a choice since the moment Emma put her weapons away I was whisked away to the medical bay at the Sentries’ base. I wasn’t going to argue the point since my shoulder hurt like hell.

Gina, or Rune as Emma knew her, had already sent Clarice home for the night and was about to go join her when we showed up and Emma explained what happened. Gina had my concerned friend wait in her office while she made sure there was no metal stuck in the wound, stitched me up, and used one of her more powerful healing spells to make sure I would be okay. She told me to rest at home for a few days and she would come see how I was progressing and then left to tell Emma that I was okay and to send her in. Before she left she said, “I think you have a good one there Kat, she really cares for you and you make a cute couple. If you are going to let her down, be gentle.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that so she was gone before I could reply. It seemed like only a breath later that Emma was there in her place. God, she looked so worried, I thought that maybe she may have been crying. I gave her a weak smile. “Don’t look so worried, I’ve been through worse than this.”

“I… was worried I might lose you,” she stammered with teary eyes as she came over and sat on the bed beside me. “I’ve been worried about it ever since you left for Whistler. First I thought I’d lose you if I tried telling you how I felt, then when I was changed I was worried I’d lose you because of it. And today I was worried I’d lose you because of who I might become. I can handle losing my parents if it comes to that and I can handle being a girl since there’s no other choice. The only thing I’ve been worried about this whole time is losing you. You said I need time to figure out who I am now, and I know a lot has changed for me, but there is one thing that hasn’t changed and will never change no matter who I decide I am. I love you.” She rifled through her backpack and came up with a shopping bag, which she placed in my lap.

I could feel the tears coming to my eyes. Oh God I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, how amazingly beautiful she was, but would that make her feel better or would it crush her that I could only desire her now that she was a girl too? Would that destroy what we already had? I looked up at her but I couldn’t face her like this so I looked at the bag as I tried to let her down easy. “Oh Ja… Emma… I can’t… I…” I let my curiosity get the better of me as I tried to find the words and I opened the bag. There was something white and fluffy inside and I pulled it out to reveal a stuffed kitty holding a heart that said, ‘You are purrrfect, please be my Valentine’. I stared at it for the longest time and the words just wouldn’t come to me. The tears that had been welling up began to run down my cheeks with wild abandon.

“There’s some cat shaped truffles too, and I wanted to get you flowers but things got kind of crazy…” she said nervously when the silence became difficult to bear. When I looked up she was looking away.

I took a deep breath. I did love her and had for some time and I felt that maybe, just maybe, what she felt for me was more than just a crush. More than that, I wanted to see where this journey together would take us, so I finally said “I love you too,” as I took her hand in mine. She turned her teary face toward my own and the pain in my shoulder was well worth it as I pulled her toward me and kissed her.