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Author's Note: This is the last of the introduction stories for the Hyperverse and it's where all the stories start to become tied together. Thanks as usual to my readers and of course the Big Closet team who work tirelessly to give us all a great place to post and read TG fiction. ~Amethyst.
 

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Have you ever wondered just what you are and what you’re supposed to be? Have you ever wondered what you were going to be when you become an adult? I guess most people have wondered about that one and some people know what they are going to be: A doctor, fireman, or lawyer, whatever profession calls out to them personally. I’m not really talking about that though, for me it’s never been about what profession I’m going to take on or what I want to do with my life, but actually what am I going to be. When this all started I wasn’t even sure what I was, and given my heritage, what I would be when I became an adult was, and in a way still is uncertain.

You see I always have been and always will be different; I grew up knowing this even if I didn’t know then just how different I would turn out once my H Chromosomes activated. Having a baby is kind of like playing Russian roulette with genetics, but with me I think my parents actually took the proverbial bullet. You probably think that my talk about my differences is about my appearance and whatever powers I got when I Activated, and while that is part of it, that is not the whole story. The truth of the matter is that I’ve been different from birth. You see, being born with H Chromosomes wasn’t my only genetic quirk.

When I was born I was kind of like a Frankenstein’s baby. I’m intersexed and at birth my genitals were ambiguous. My parents could have had the doctors assign me a gender at birth, but they wanted me to be free to discover my gender identity on my own and when I was four and made it very clear that I thought I was a girl, they got me a surgery to correct it. Surgery couldn’t really fix what caused the problem in the first place though; I had a medical condition they call mosaicism. Where Frankenstein was made up of different body parts I was the sort of same, but with my cells. My doctor once explained it to me and once I got him to translate it into English he said various different areas of my body had cells with different genotypes, sort of a mixed bag of genes. Some of those were male genotypes and some female, the only thing consistent about my genes was the presence of the dormant H Chromosomes. Mom and Dad hoped that if I got Activated my Archetype would straighten everything out genetically.

It’s not easy growing up different, but I suppose that it helped prepare me for what I would later become, though it often made me a target for bullying, especially when I started high school. I’ve always identified as female and wanted to be seen as one, but sometimes I would worry that I was forever meant to straddle the gender fence genetically, even if I could get people to see me as the girl I wanted to be. I had hoped that puberty would change that since I had ovaries, well sort of had them since they weren’t properly formed.

Sadly though, puberty was not the big change I had hoped it would be. At fifteen I was tall for my age, the tallest in my class, with long brown hair, olive skin, one green eye, and one brown eye. While I didn’t seem to be developing along male lines, I wasn’t developing along female lines either; I wasn’t even growing breasts yet, I had no figure to speak of, and was more androgynous than feminine. My height, lack of feminine development, and the fear that my situation would never change was causing me to go through periods of depression and withdrawal. The only one who could seem to make me feel better when I was in these moods was my best and only friend Christine Weber.

Chris and I had been friends since we were in diapers. She was of Algonquin ancestry with the black hair, brown eyes and reddish brown skin and where I was tall and skinny she was barely average height and a bit overweight. Despite our different appearances, we actually had a lot in common; we didn’t really fit in well at school, had dormant H Chromosomes, had relatives who were Activated Hypers, and couldn’t wait for our own H Chromosomes to Activate. Her father is telekinetic, while my mom has regenerative healing, my dad has dormant H Chromosomes, and his sister, my aunt Karen, is the former superhero Deep Blue. Our fathers were even best friends; hers has been a partner in my dad’s company, Morris Enterprises, since it was founded.

Yeah, so now you probably think that I’m one of those spoiled rich kids. I’m not, I mean we do alright and we have a nice house, but most of the money that the company makes goes back into the company or to funding AMPS and providing scholarships for less well-off kids who need to attend. AMPS stands for Aaron Morris Private School, and it’s named after my dad. It’s a private school somewhere in Hudson’s Bay that he and my Aunt Karen founded for mutant kids to get a good education and learn how to use their powers in relative safety. Chris and I were supposed to go there someday ourselves, if we ever Activated that is, there was always the possibility that we wouldn’t.

It was Christmas day and I was in one of my dark moods. Don’t get me wrong I love the whole spending time with family and friends, and I was currently waiting for us to leave for Chris’ place for Christmas dinner. The whole problem was that we usually dress up on these occasions and despite the gorgeous hunter green dress my mom had bought me for the occasion, I knew that the only reason for the curves it was displaying was that mom had had it especially padded in the appropriate areas. It was meant to make me feel feminine and beautiful and I appreciated the sentiment, but it only made me even more aware that I was just pretending to be a normal girl. Sometimes I just wished that I could go back to being a kid and grow up looking like the pretty girls I have always been so jealous of.

I was in the living room trying to cheer up by reading a book on exotic plants and barely paying attention to A Christmas Carol playing on the television. I was barely paying attention because I found several really interesting entries in the book and wanted to learn more. If I weren’t all dressed up I probably would have been in the greenhouse. I’ve always enjoyed gardening and I could kind of relate to plants, since it’s not often a person can tell their gender just by looking at the surface. I had been gardening with Mom since I was three and we had all sorts of interesting and exotic plants. And since I didn’t have much of a social life outside of school besides Chris I spent a lot of my spare time in our greenhouse or reading books on various plants from all over the world. I was just getting to an interesting part on how passionflowers could be used to induce sleep when Mom called out. “Jessie, could you get ready to leave please?”

“Yeah Mom,” I replied with a groan as I stood up and made my way to the door. I started putting on my boots and jacket and made sure that my pendant was tucked inside before I zipped it up. The pendant had been a gift from my Aunt Karen, a simple diamond shaped piece of copper with a green colored crystal set in the center. I usually keep it in my jewelry box, but I thought it would go really nice with the dress. Mom and Dad were ready to leave soon after and we all piled into the car and drove off in the direction of the Webers’ family home.

I usually love spending time at Chris’ house, it was like a second home for me and I’ve spent most of my summers staying there since with Chris, Aunt Allie, and Uncle Dan since Chris and I started elementary school. They lived in a semi-urban area in South Ottawa that was accessible to the rest of the city but didn’t have a lot of people living there. They had a small hobby farm and raised horses and chickens. I loved spending the summers there, being so close to nature, riding the horses, and I even had a summer job at one of the local nurseries just down the road, helping out in the greenhouses. Despite the interesting reading material and going there to spend Christmas dinner with Chris’ family though, I just couldn’t seem shake my dark mood.

Dammit, Jessie is in one of those moods again, I thought morosely as I answered the door and saw her distracted and dismal expression. Looks like I’m going to have to try to cheer her up again, it’s going to be a long night. Don’t get me wrong I love Jessie, but it can get emotionally draining helping her through these moods and navigating the minefield of potentially wrong things to say. She’s done the same for me though whenever I feel down about being so fat. That’s what best friends do; they stick together and help one another through the hard times. And despite her being so much taller than me, and the same age I often see her as a little sister, she even lives with us during the summers. Jessie can be so vulnerable at times and as much as I want to protect her from the bullies at school and rest of the world I can’t.

“Merry Christmas Uncle Aaron, Aunt Melanie,” I said as I ushered them all inside. Sometimes I just wished that one of us would Activate and be done with it. Either she would get powers and hopefully a more feminine form to go with them or I could have some sort of power to protect her. If it could only ever happen to one of us though, I would have wanted it for Jessie. She needed it so much more than me. As much as I wanted powers I would gladly give up the possibility if I would make her dreams come true. I wrapped my friend in a hug and said, “Merry Christmas Jess, did you get what you wanted for Christmas?”

She sighed and shrugged in my arms. “Well, since the only thing filling out this dress is padding, obviously not. Mom and Dad try, but what I want isn’t going to come in pretty wrapping.”

*Boom* And there was one of those emotional mines, that was stupid Chris. I held her tighter and whispered, “It will happen Jess, you’re going to Activate.”

“Dad still hasn’t,” she pointed out sourly, “So why should we think I will?”

“You will someday, and didn’t your parents say if you hadn’t by the time you turn sixteen they would see about hormones? That’s less than a year, so either way, this time next year things will be looking up. You just need to stop brooding about it so much.” I told her as I let her go so she could remove her scarf, gloves, jacket, and boots.

Dinner was delicious as usual, my mom always goes all out for these dinners, but as good as it was I made sure to keep my portions small and just savor each bite. I had enough problems losing weight without overeating. I could really sympathize with Jess sometimes; we may hate our bodies for different reasons, but neither of us was really comfortable with who we were and were hoping that being Activated might change it. Sure having powers would be awesome, but really we were both looking for some way to be comfortable in our own skins.

We were just relaxing and talking over dessert when there was a loud crash at the front of the house. Both of our fathers stood up and steak knives flew from the silverware drawer into my dad’s hands, while Jessie’s dad pressed something on his watch and a circle of light appeared, from which he pulled a very big gun. They were making their way toward the front when the wall behind us exploded and my mom was knocked to the ground by the debris. Oh shit, she wasn’t moving and through the massive hole in the wall I could see this huge man made out of metal.

A voice came from the entrance to the living room behind us, “Alloy, you fool. These people are supposed to be hostages; we need them alive if we’re going to get what we want.” I turned to see an older man in a lab coat, a pair of goggles, and bulky metallic gloves standing beside a tall muscular woman with a sword.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity; Dad telekinetically hurled the knives at the man in the lab coat, while Aunt Mel threw herself at the woman with the sword and Uncle Aaron started firing at the metal man and yelled, “Girls, get out of here!”

I grabbed Jessie by the hand and we ran for the stairs, but we were blocked by a pale woman with spiky black hair dressed all in black. She had some sort of creatures with her, a hideous, giant bloated fly and a Doberman on steroids with teeth that must have been four inches long. She gave us a chilling smile as she spoke, “Ssssuch fear. It is delicioussss.” Then she screamed as a steak knife lodged itself in her shoulder.

“Run!” my dad shouted.

I looked back to where dad’s knives were just bouncing away before hitting the guy in the lab coat. Jessie’s parents weren’t having much luck either and were barely managing to keep the woman with the sword and the metal man occupied. “We gotta go Jess!” I gripped her arm firmly against her protests and ran for the back door. I yanked open the door only to discover that there were shadow creatures everywhere. “Oh shit…”

When Chris cursed I stared out at the yard and there were monsters everywhere. There was a bright light in the sky too, and it was getting closer. Wait, was that another Hyper? No there was two of them. The source of the light flared and lit up the night sky as a wave of flames descended upon the creatures in the yard. “What the hell?” I wondered and screamed as Chris and I started falling. We weren’t falling to the ground, but rather toward the pair of Hypers in the sky, a brown-haired man in a black and silver costume and a blonde woman in black and red, she was the one pouring the fire on the creatures below us.

We suddenly stopped in front of the man, who gave us a weak smile. “I’m Crash and my firey friend is Burn, we’re here to help. We’ll deal with the situation down there, you girls go find somewhere to hide, preferably somewhere warm. And I’m sorry about the discomfort ladies, changing and canceling a person’s relative gravity several times in a few minutes can be a little unsettling.” What was he talking about? How many times did he mess with our gravity? My questions were answered as we started falling again toward the ground below where the driveway met the main road and Chris and I both started to scream.

Less than three feet above the road we stopped falling, just floating about the road for a second before gravity reasserted itself and we landed on the snow bank at the end of the driveway. At least he gave us a soft landing, but it would have been better without falling in the snow in minus twenty degree weather with no jackets or boots. “Ugh I never want to do that again,” Chris groaned as we tried to get to our feet. “Let’s go, we need to find some place to hide.”

“But, mom and Dad and…” I began to argue.

“They told us to run, so that’s what we’re doing,” she insisted. “Hopefully those two Hypers can help them even the odds a bit. Let’s head to the nursery it’s not far and we can hide in one of the greenhouses, it’ll be warm there too.” Despite my uncertainty I nodded, and as we started running down the road I took one last worried look over my shoulder at Chris’ home and the chaos we were leaving behind. Neither of us noticed the black bird following high above us.

I felt horrible by the time we reached the greenhouse and managed to get inside. I was breathing heavily and perspiring from the run. That wasn’t what was making me feel horrible though, poor Jessie was freezing, probably scared, and she probably wouldn’t be so cold if she hadn’t been running slower so I could keep up. “Sorry Jess, we would’ve gotten here sooner if I weren’t so fat.”

“You’re not fat, you’re a little overweight and it’s through no fault of your own, you can’t help being what genetics made you,” she told me with a stern frown. “Besides, it’s warm in here, and there was no way I was leaving you behind. I feel bad enough leaving our parents like we did. “

I sighed and looked away. “I know, I just wish I could be more athletic sometimes, maybe I could have done something to help them instead of just running. They told us to run because they wanted us safe and having us there was a liability. Those people mentioned wanting us as hostages, do you think they wanted to hold us ransom for money?”

“Possibly,” she replied as we walked further into the dark greenhouse, “our dads are the President and Vice President of a major corporation. Aunt Karen made some enemies when she was with the Sentries though, so there could be more to it than just that. Remember when she came to visit in early November? She made a bunch of improvements to the house security system, that’s probably why they attacked when we were all away from home for the evening. They must have been monitoring us somehow, and waited for us all to be away from the house and relaxed with our guard down.”

“Maybe those monsters were watching you?” I suggested. “The ones in the yard were all ugly and downright creepy, but they came in various shapes and sizes. No two were the same. So maybe there were some smaller ones, or flying ones watching from outside the house or in the…air.” My eyes widened as I realized what that could mean, “Jessie find someplace to hide quick! And stay hidden no matter what!” I pushed her toward some potted cedars and gasped as glass rained down from the ceiling.

When I looked up I could see some sort of black dragon with glowing red eyes emerging from the hole in the shattered roof with the pale woman on its back. “Did you really think you could get away ssso easssily? Where isss the other one?”

Somehow I kept myself from breathing a sigh of relief, she didn’t see Jess. I needed to keep her attention on me to keep Jess safe, but what could I do? I wasn’t exactly fighting material. If only I’d been more alert, I could have at least grabbed a weapon of something. She lost patience after I stayed there silent with my arms crossed defiantly for several minutes. The dragon hovered above me and as it roared a burst of flame briefly lit the greenhouse around us. I was terrified that she was going to let that thing barbeque me right then and there. I could feel the heat of the flames even after they faded. My whole body felt like it was on fire and every inch of me seemed to be in incredible pain. This couldn’t be from the flames; they hadn’t even come close to me.

“Where issss she?” the woman repeated, though I could scarcely hear her through the fog of agony that had enveloped me. It seemed to last an eternity and I could hear the woman gasp, Even curled up on the floor I knew that the dragon’s large taloned foot was descending toward me. Wait… down the aisle to my right about ten feet away there was a stainless steel gardening trowel. I don’t know how I managed to fight through the pain, maybe it was fear that drove me, but I quickly rolled to the right, grabbed the small tool, and got to my feet as the dragon’s foot hit the ground. Without looking I hurled the trowel in where I thought the dragon’s head would be and I was about to take off running when the dragon roared again. It was about that time when the entire world seemed to rush in on me and everything went black.

When Chris pushed me into the cedars I was terrified and uncertain what I should, or even could, do. I just froze as that big black dragon shattered the roof and entered the greenhouse. I knew that Chris was trying to protect me, but who was going to protect her? They wanted hostages so they probably wouldn’t kill us, or even seriously hurt us if they could help it. I needed to stay out of sight and think of a plan. The dragon and the woman atop it were far too close for my comfort, but if I tried to move I was pretty sure they would see me. I tried to control my breathing, stay perfectly still among the cedars and other plants around me, and completely ignore the fact that I was scared to death.

Time ticked by as Chris refused to say a word or even move from where she was standing. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was just that brave or if she was as scared as I was. The dragon roared and my heart skipped a beat as its flames briefly lit the greenhouse. I feared that they would see me, but then their attention was on Chris as she curled up in a ball sounding like she was hurt. What did they do to her? No wait, the woman seemed as confused as I was. I think we both realized in the same instant what was happening, Chris was Activating.

It was hard to tell from my angle, but it looked like the dragon was about to step on Chris. I nearly ran from my hiding place then and there, but before I could Chris had rolled to the side, gotten to her feet and made a throwing motion. The darkness inside the greenhouse was making it difficult to see well enough to make out details, but something about Chris’s silhouette seemed different. I wanted so much to go and check on her and possibly help. She was right though, I needed to stay hidden, at least for the time being.

Once again the dragon roared as its head snapped back, shooting its fiery breath toward the greenhouse’s new skylight. The greenhouse was briefly lit once more and I wasn’t certain, but I thought I saw the glint of something metal protruding from the beast’s eye. It was thrashing around now and I was about to use the distraction to get further away when Chris’ hoarse scream and sudden collapse stopped me cold.

Oh my God! What happened? Was she hurt? The pale woman had apparently decided that the thrashing dragon wasn’t worth the effort and it vanished in a swirl of inky blackness that could be seen even in the near darkness of the greenhouse. I could see her shadowy form kneeling over my friend for a moment before she spoke again. “Come out girl. You friend isss not hurt. If you wish him to remain that way, you will show yourssself.”

Him? What the hell was she talking about? I didn’t have much time to think about it though, as another form appeared out of thin air. I squinted my eyes and the white lab coat gave me a pretty good idea who it was. “Is this one of them?” he asked his associate.

“Yesss Professsor,” she said as she kicked Chris’ probably unconscious form, “thisss one Activated and the other isss hiding.”

“Well find her then! This one isn’t going anywhere!” he snapped in return. “We need to hurry so we can at least take these two while Alloy and Amazon keep their parents distracted. I would like to salvage something out of this operation.”

I could see that black swirling energy again and what appeared to be a bunch of bugs the size of watermelons appeared and began to fan out. Ewww, I really hated bugs. I kept very still in my hiding spot repeating over and over again in my head, be one with the plants, think green thoughts. Holding still was starting to become difficult, it felt like my whole body was cramping up and even with the hole in the roof I was starting to feel uncomfortably warm, I was getting sticky with sweat too. The combination of those three things was really annoying, my dress was slipping and shifting whenever I moved even a little, and the whole situation seemed to be getting worse with each passing second. I gritted my teeth and tried to stay still but the cramps intensified and I spasmed as I fell to the floor and knocked over a flower pot.

“It came from over there! Check it out.” I was only vaguely aware out the voice belonging to the man in the lab coat as the greenhouse lights flared to life. That awareness was enough to make me try to get up though. I got to my knees, tried to ignore the pool of sticky and sweet-smelling liquid I had been half laying in, and went to make a run for it. Somehow I got tangled in my dress and fell to the ground again as the pale woman and several of her big bugs approached me. Shit! I mentally cursed.

“What do we have here?” She said as she stood over me and I could see a half crazy smile light up her face. “Aren’t you adorable? I HATE adorable,” she said with a sneer as she reached out to grab me.

“Eeep!” I squeaked as I tried to scramble backward in my sticky slippery, shifting dress and failed. It was like the dress was way too big for me, and was that my hair I kept getting tangled in? Full-fledged panic threatened to take over when I heard a faint *poof*.

“Wha did you doooooo….” She sputtered in confusion before falling to the ground in front of me fast asleep. The moment she hit the ground the bugs disappeared in a swirl of black smoke. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened, I had Activated, and lost quite a bit of mass if my over-sized clothes and that big pile of goop I had been laying I were any indication

“Incompetent fool,” the man muttered as he marched forward and grabbed me by the front of my dress. I promptly fell right out of the ill-fitting garment though, surprising us both. I didn’t stop to think about that, the fact that I was now naked except for my very loose panties, or the fact that my skin was green. Instead I made a run for it, holding up what was left of my modesty as I ran. I didn’t get far though and was grabbed roughly from behind by my hair. “What the…” I heard him mutter.

I tried to pull away but he had a secure hold on me, or at least I thought he did until I turned my head to see green tendrils with tiny leaves wrapping around his forearm. He frowned and as he made a slicing motion with his free hand the tendrils were severed and the pulling at my hair stopped. Another attempt to run failed as he pushed me to the ground and used his weight to hold me down and pin my left hand under his leg. I reached up and dug my fingernails into his shoulder, but he snarled as he pulled my hand away leaving my dark green nails embedded there.

He pinned down my free hand under his other knee, glaring at me. “I have had enough of you! If I didn’t need you I would…” His expression changed as he stared in confusion at my pendant. “That couldn’t possibly be… why would she entrust it to a mere child?” The psychotic scientist pulled a small device from his belt and pointed it at my pendant and it hummed for a second before emitting three beeps. “The Key!”

I glowered up at him as he tore my pendant off and let loose a maniacal laugh. “Hands off asshole, that’s mine,” I managed to get out. My voice sounded so different, higher and almost childlike to my ears.

He laughed again as he looked down at me. “But this, my dear, is exactly what I wanted for Christmas. I was going to force Blue to give it to me by holding your family hostage. All this time I thought she was keeping it in a secure location, but you had it all along! That devious bitch!” His laughing intensified at that before stopping suddenly as he gave me a cold smile. “That means you are no longer necessary.” He put my pendant in one of his belt pouches as he stood up and began walking toward the pale woman.

I got unsteadily to my feet. “What, so you’re just going to leave now? There’s no way I’m going to let you get away with all of this.”

“You already have,” he stated as he turned around and pointed at me. “You’re right though, it is Christmas and you have given me so much, so I should least give you a little something to remember me by.” His metal clad hand flared as a burst of light erupted from it. Then I screamed as what was left of my right arm redefined the word pain and I passed out.

When I awoke the first thing I was aware of was the pleasant warmth. It was so nice and cozy that I didn’t really want to move, but I did experimentally open my eyes. I was at home in the secure section of the basement; it was built like a fallout shelter and had even more security than the rest of the house. More specifically I was in one of the two bedrooms we had set up as four person dormitories in case we needed to keep ourselves or other people safe. The secure section was also the area of the house that my aunt had her lab set up in, well the one she used when she was visiting anyway. I was in one of the beds with large sunlamps set up on each corner and pointed toward me, no wonder I was so warm.

I turned to look to my right, carefully avoiding looking down where my right arm should be. It was weird, the last thing I remembered was that psychopath blowing it off, but it felt like it was still there. I figured it was probably that phantom limb thing I had heard happens with amputees. The cot to my right hosted what looked like an unconscious teenage boy who bore a strong resemblance to Christine. I knew that her form had changed, but her gender too? I knew it could happen, hell I had been hoping it would happen to me, but how would Chris handle that if it really was the case?

A look to my left revealed my mom half asleep in an armchair. “Mom,” I croaked out, my voice hoarse from a very dry throat.

Mom practically flew out of her chair. “Jessie! Oh sweetie I…” She didn’t finish that sentence though as she wrapped me up in a hug. She seemed so big now, I felt like I was a kid again and I had to wonder just how much mass I had lost, and why was I so small? She broke off the hug and pressed a glass of water from a small bedside table to my lips. “Here, drink some, you must be thirsty. Karen thinks water should be okay for you.”

I quickly gulped down the contents, and the water really hit the spot. I was still thirsty but at least I felt like I could try to speak again. “What happened? Is Chris alright?”

She frowned at that, obviously uncertain what to tell me. “Sh… he’s in some sort of coma sweetie. When Terror’s nightmare constructs vanished we managed to get the upper hand. Professor Panic must have used a recall signal to teleport them all away because Alloy and Amazon vanished and when we got to the nursery the two of you were the only ones there. We weren’t sure what was wrong with Chris, he didn’t have any physical injuries, and with your new biology and your arm we wanted to play it safe, so we placed you both in stasis fields until Karen could get here and run some tests and decided to bring you down here where it’s more secure. It’s the morning of the 27th now. Karen got here yesterday morning and began running scans right away. We took you out of stasis almost eight hours ago.”

“Where is everyone? Did anyone else get hurt?” I asked in concern.

Mom squeezed my hand gently and pointed to the bed across from Chris. “Allie has a concussion, some lacerations, and bruises. She’s resting now. We’ve been taking turns watching you and Chris. Dan and your father both suffered some minor injuries, but they’re otherwise fine. They’d be here pacing holes in the floor, but they had a board meeting and a few other things they couldn’t reschedule today, It’s better to have them both have something constructive to do to take their minds of worrying for a bit. Crash and Burn are staying close to them in civilian clothes, just in case. As for Karen, I had to get her assistant to drag her off a few hours ago so they could both eat something and get a bit of rest; they’ve been working non-stop since they got here.”

“So… what’s the damage?” I gave a frown of my own as I asked another in a long list of questions I wasn’t certain I wanted answers to.

“Maybe I should wait for Karen to explain things,” she said looking away, “science isn’t really my thing; all I really know for sure is what I can see.”

I let out an anxious groan. “Mom that’s exactly what I want to know, what you see… what other people will see. Am I really green? I feel so small too; do I look like some sort of Martian? I need to know if I even look remotely human anymore.”

“Sweetie,” she said taking my hand. “You need to stop focusing so much on how others see you; it’s what’s inside that matters most.” At the look on my face she sighed. “Fine, to answer your questions, you feel small because you look to be around 7 years old now; though Karen said with your physiology she can’t be certain. Other than that you seem healthy. You are green, but with make-up and a hat or wig you could still look perfectly human. There are some physiological differences, but you have no extra limbs or anything like that, unless you count your right arm growing back.”

“What?!” I squealed as I sat bolt upright. I lifted my arm and to my great confusion, joy, and awe I found that it was indeed there and looking perfectly normal, aside from being lime green. “How the…”

“You seem to be a Regen like me, though I don’t think I ever want to test whether I can completely regrow limbs,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “I heal fast, but you regrew that arm in less than an hour once we got you out of stasis and under these lamps. Karen thinks you might be more efficient at regeneration due to your mutation.”

“Did she mention what that is exactly?”

Mom nodded, “I’ll go upstairs and get her so she can explain things to you sweetie.”

While Mom ran upstairs to fetch my aunt I watched Chris in the bed beside me and worried. What happened to her that caused her to scream and pass out like that? Did she realize the extent of her change and react badly? Was it something to do with her powers? Or did that woman do something to cause the coma? My musings were cut short though as Mom returned with Aunt Karen and a woman I didn’t know.

My Aunt is pretty recognizable with her dark blue skin and white hair. She tends to get a lot of attention in any room she enters unless she’s disguised. The other woman though was in her early twenties and so average-looking as to be easily forgettable. She was on the short side of average height with brown hair and eyes, and though she was slender, she didn’t have that almost inhumanly fantastic figure that you see so often when working with Hypers. At first I thought that she came off as mousey, but I had to immediately dismiss that as she gave me a bright and confident smile.

Aunt Karen looked tired, but she too smiled at me. There was relief in her tone as she said, “It’s good to see you awake Jessie, you and Chris had us worried. This is Gwen Munroe, she’s a former student and now a consultant and one of our school counsellors at AMPS.”

“Hello Dr. Munroe,” I offered uncertainly.

She laughed at that, though it was a friendly musical laugh. “Oh, I’m not a doctor, or a scientist, or even a Tinker if that’s what you were thinking. It’s nice to meet you Jessie, though I wish it were under better circumstances. You can call me Gwen if you like, or you can call me Sympath like everyone else does.”

“Sympath?” I asked in confusion.

Her response was a grin. “I’m a Hyper, like you are; In fact if I want I can be just like you. Karen told me what happened here and since you were both unconscious when you were found and you were injured as well, she asked me to come with her and help out. With me here, even if you weren’t conscious to respond we could find out if your mutation was causing a problem. I’m a Shifter and my power is an extremely focused metamorphic ability that lets me temporarily apply another mutant’s Archetype and powers to myself when I touch them. It also gives me a brief glimpse into the person’s thoughts and emotions and an intuitive sense of their abilities.”

I blinked in awe. “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

“It sounds cooler than it is,” the other mutant replied with a shrug. “It’s fun at parties, but it only lasts about five to ten minutes so there’s not much practical use for it other than helping people figure out their mutations and powers and such. I used it on both of you when we took you out of stasis so Karen could run some tests and figure out what we could expect.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with Chris then?” The words spilled quickly from my mouth as I looked over to my unconscious best friend.

Sympath shivered slightly and gave Chris a sad look before turning to Aunt Karen, who sighed and nodded. “You might as well tell her.”

“Your friend is a Psychic, but his power is unlike anything I’ve ever sampled before,” she admitted with a sad look on her face. We’re calling it ultra-perception. Put simply, he is aware of all matter around him. It’s hard to be certain, but my guess would be his range extends somewhere between one to two kilometers in all directions, including up and down. He senses and can track every object, creature, stone, tree, building, drop of fluid, machines, and their individual components. Not a single speck of dust or grain of sand escapes his mind, he senses everything. I’ve only experienced it briefly, but it was enough to make me never want to again. I think when the full scope of his power hit him it was too much for his mind to take.”

“You… you can help him right?” I asked uncertainly with a teary glance over at Chris.

Aunt Karen nodded tiredly as she sat down and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I think so. I’ve seen similar cases before with powerful telepaths. I’m working on a device that will dampen his powers. I’m hoping that he’ll wake up if we bring his awareness back to normal human levels. If it works, then we can let him gradually get used to his ability by slowly weaning him off the device and until he doesn’t need it anymore.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned my attention back to Mom, Aunt Karen, and Gwen. If my aunt said she was working on something, then Chris was in good hands. When Aunt Karen puts her Tinker skills to work on a problem she usually solves it. “So uh… what did you discover about my mutation?” I asked as I contemplated my small green hand.

“It’s complicated,” my aunt responded after a moment of thought. “We’re classifying you as a Wildcard with Category four regenerative abilities because quite frankly you’re unique. Usually when H Chromosomes activate they incorporate the Archetype and powers into the existing DNA template, they just add a little here and there and replace what’s ‘not needed’ in small almost unnoticeable amounts. Your H Chromosomes have actually rewritten your DNA, I wasn’t even sure you were really you until I had a colleague in Toronto examine your H Chromosomes themselves and compare them to a sample from before your mutation kicked in. I believe it’s due to your mosaicism; it had to rewrite the information in all your cells to make it all consistent. It’s possible you regressed in age so your body could get rid of a large amount of mass and thus have to change less of you.”

It took several seconds before I could wrap my head around what she had said. “Wait, does this mean I’m cured?”

Aunt Karen sighed and looked away. That was not a good sign. Finally she said, “Of the mosaicism, yes. The genes in all of your cells are now consistent, but like I said earlier, you are unique.”

“Why do I not like the sound of that?” I muttered.

“Maybe we should take you to the lab and discuss it there,” my aunt offered before turning to Mom. “Mel, would you mind going into town? We’ll need some things for Jessie from the health food store. I’ll give you a porta-portal to take with you in case anything happens that you can’t handle.”

I was again struck by how much smaller I was now as Mom helped me out of bed and to the lab, everything seemed so big. They had put one of my old t-shirts on me when they took me out of stasis and the hem was down to my knees. At least I was covered, but I was really going to need some new clothes soon. Once Mom was sure I had gotten to the lab without collapsing or something she left on her errand and Aunt Karen guided me toward the spot where she had her computer and various scanners set up.

“I think we’d better start by letting you have a look at yourself,” my aunt said with a sigh. “It might answer some questions and help you think of any you would like to ask,” she clarified as she gestured to one of the large mirrors I recognized from one of the guest rooms.

My first reaction when she placed me in front of the mirror was a shriek. “OMG I am soooo cute!” Reflected in the glass was what appeared to be a seven year old girl with a cherubic face, lime green skin, big violet eyes, and dark green hair. The hair was unevenly lopped off just above the shoulders, but the flowers on both sides of the head, just in front of and above the ears, looked nice and made her already feminine face seem more so. The flowers were maybe two inches in diameter, ten petals the same light violet color as her eyes, and they seemed very familiar to me.

I stepped closer to the mirror for a better look. I really was green all over, I stuck out my tongue experimentally and that too was green. I wondered what colors would go best with my odd complexion and as I continued to ponder it while gazing in the mirror I thought that it was a shame my hair wasn’t longer. I jumped back in shock when it started growing before my eyes until it was down to my waist. I stepped right up to the mirror and that is when I saw the small pointed leaves in my thick hair. “What the…”

“That’s not hair Jessie, its vines. Your genetic structure isn’t really human anymore,” my aunt said with a sad look. “I can’t tell if you’re some sort of hybrid, or something else entirely; a good portion of your genes and physiology are similar to plants now, but you still retain human characteristics in those areas as well.”

“How similar to plants are we talking about?” I asked, seeing a frown reflected on my cute face.

Aunt Karen shrugged uncertainly. “Your new form possesses many properties similar to a variety of plants. I thought it might have been due to something in the greenhouse, but none of those plants were present there. I did a comparison between those flowers and the passionflowers that they resemble, but it appears to be only visual similarities, just like you appear human visually… for the most part. In actuality, the way that the nucleotides in your DNA are arranged is completely different from human or plant.”

I thought about what she said. Passionflowers were one of the plants I had been reading about before we left for Chris’ house. “Well at least whatever I am appears to be female,” I finally said with a smile as I looked in the mirror again. “I wonder what I’ll look like once I’m older again.”

“Gwen could you please show her?” Aunt Karen asked of the Shifter.

Sympath reached out to touch my hand and her form began to shift; she grew a few inches as her skin, hair, and eyes turned the same shade of my own. Soon she had a more typical figure for a Hyper as her waist contracted slightly, her hips became wider, and her chest grew by what looked like two cup sizes. Finally two flowers blossomed and it was like looking at an older version of me, and she was gorgeous. I gaped at her and she gave what sounded like a nervous laugh. “This is roughly what you should look like when you’re my age. It’s how we figured out that you regressed in age rather than just taking on a childlike appearance. My powers only copy an Archetype and powers not the age of the person.”

“This is awesome!” I squealed as I grinned at the pair. “I’m finally going to be like all the other girls, well the other unique Hyper girls, but you know what I mean.”

A pained look crossed my aunt’s face. “Jessie, there’s something we really need to talk about. Human and plants exhibit gender in completely different ways, you know that.”

“Yeah, so what are you driving at?” I asked, worried that I might not like the answer.

“By plant standards, you are definitively female, you only produce female flowers, we tested it each time Gwen used her ability on you. By human standards though… you appear female, and people will probably see you that way, but you don’t really have a gender.” She put her arms around me and wrapped me in a hug.

I pushed away and pointed at Sympath, shaking my head quickly as I tried to shut out what she was saying. “Look at her! How can you say that’s not female?!”

My aunt sighed, tugging absently at her white hair as she thought best how to explain it. “You lack any human primary and secondary sexual characteristics, with the possible exception of general body shape. The latter is likely only because your H Chromosomes generally provide an Archetype that gives you a form you will be comfortable with, or that finds ways to make you comfortable with the new form. You’ve always wanted to be seen as female so it’s provided that, but while you have the shape it is only a shape. You don’t have any of the normal human reproductive organs.”

“No… I…” I couldn’t get the words out, I didn’t want to believe it, so I did the only thing that made sense at the time, I ran. Normally when I was upset I would spend time in the greenhouse, but that just hit a little too close to home at the moment and with the basement in lock-down mode I wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway. Instead I ran for the bathroom and locked myself in. Aunt Karen usually knew her stuff, but she couldn’t be right about this, she just couldn’t.

I needed to know, to be certain. I turned on the light and began to lift the hem of my too-large shirt, but pulled it quickly back down again. I must have done that at least a dozen times before I finally worked up the nerve and in one swift motion pulled it up and over my head leaving myself naked. A look at my chest showed me nothing. I don’t mean that I didn’t see anything out of place, but rather that there was nothing but smooth lime green skin. I had no nipples, and an exploratory excursion down south with my tiny hand demonstrated a similar lack of female definition. No slit, no trace of anything I had had before, just an expanse of smooth skin between my legs, like the Barbie dolls Chris and I had played with when we were younger.

Sometime later I was crying as I sat against the bathroom door when there was a noise on the other side of the door as someone leaned against it and slid down toward the floor. Gwen’s calm voice spoke casually, “You know when people want to hide, the place they most often go to is a bathroom. It’s silly really. We usually hide because we want to be alone, but statistically speaking the bathroom is the room where we’re most likely to be disturbed. Even if it weren’t one of the first places people look, everyone needs to use the bathroom eventually.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I retorted as I looked sourly between my legs and wondered just how I would manage that particular task now.

“So you did look, I thought you would, I would have too,” the Shifter replied. “You’d have to have looked eventually so it was probably better sooner rather than later. Now you can work toward accepting this. Karen figures you’ve probably got a case of shoot the messenger syndrome right now so she’s working on the device for Chris to do something constructive while giving you some space.”

“So what are you doing here then,” I grumbled back at her.

Small rustling sounds came through the door and I thought maybe she was going to leave. Well good, I wanted to be alone didn’t I? Her voice sounded once again though as she made a dismissive sound. “I wouldn’t be much help to her with that; it’s what she does best and not really my forte. I figured I should do my thing instead so I decided to give you ten minutes and then see whether you needed help facing reality or coping with it. Congratulations, you saved us both a long talk and now we can get straight to how you cope with this.” She paused a moment before saying, “You know Jessie, I have a pretty good idea what you’re feeling right now.”

I rolled my eyes as I shot back bitterly, “What, because you looked like me for like five minutes?”

Gwen was still calm as she answered, “That’s part of it yes, but when I copy a template I get a sense of the person’s thoughts and feelings as well. The more I copy them, the more familiar with them I become and I must have copied you like twenty times once we got you out of stasis. That’s not the only reason though, you see I also know what it’s like for people to not see me as who I am on the inside, not just through you, but my own personal experience as well. When I copy an Archetype it usually is gender specific so I’ve copied my fair share of guys and spent time as them, but who I am inside never changes. Yeah it feels wrong to have people not see you for who you are, but that even happens to supposedly normal people. From that and what I’ve learned from you up until now, I have a pretty good idea that you feel cheated.”

“Whatever gives you that idea?” I snapped

“This was supposed to solve all your problems wasn’t it?” she prodded. “You could be seen as the girl you identify as and maybe feel normal for once. Now it looked like you got just what you wanted, but it turns out that you may look like a girl now but your real gender is even more confusing than before.”

“I…” I began to speak, but stopped uncertain what I should say.

She didn’t give me time to finish anyway. “There’s two things you need to realize Jessie. First, there is no normal, it’s a myth. Everyone is a different and unique person, even the regular humans who claim to be normal. And second, it doesn’t matter what you are, what matters most is who you are.”

I could understand the first point, everyone is different in some way or another, but the second point was of more concern to me and much more difficult to accept. “Aren’t they the same thing?”

“No, they’re not,” Gwen insisted through the door. “What we are can be easily defined by ourselves or others. There’s all these labels; male, female, human, Hyper, black, white, and so on. Those are outward things, things that other’s perceive and define you by. There is so much more to who we are than what’s on the outside though, most importantly what’s in your heart and your head. Nobody truly knows what’s in either of those but you, so that makes you the only person qualified to know who you are. “

“I guess you’re right,” I admitted morosely as I made a concentrated effort to stop crying. “Too bad other people don’t seem to see that though.”

“Most people tend to be so absorbed in their own wants and needs that they don’t take the effort to give anything or anyone else more than a cursory glance,” the Shifter agreed. “That’s why people we don’t know tend to treat us based on how we look, but if they don’t take the time to get to know the real you, then should how they see you, as they briefly pass through your life, really matter to you? The people whose opinions matter are those who look beyond the surface, who don’t care about your differences, who see you as a person first, and who know, or want to get to know, that person. My friends know about my ability and it doesn’t matter to them if I’m in my form, their form, or somebody else’s. They still see me and love me for who I am.”

I sighed as I thought about Chris, unconscious in that bed and the tears started again. What if he didn’t wake up? “Chris is the only friend like that I have…” I bit my lip as I tried to stop myself thinking along those lines and admitted, “You’re probably right, but this…” I trailed off as I looked down at my body again.

“Will take some getting used to,” she finished for me. “All Hypers go through an adjustment phase, it’s natural with such a big change, but you need to try to embrace the positives of your situation. You may have gotten what you wished for in a different way than you expected, but you still did get it. You’re technically female now, you look like it, and pretty much everyone will see you as such. You have some pretty cool abilities to go with that body too. Also,” she added, “things might not seem so bad once we get you to AMPS and all settled in Dorm Seven.”

I had to admit to myself that she was right, there were positives. Things could definitely be worse. Realistically I was no worse off gender-wise than I was before. At least now I looked like a girl. I sniffled and wiped at my teary eyes as the last part caught my attention and I asked tentatively, “What’s Dorm Seven?”

“Dorm Seven is where we keep the complicated students who require special needs or who have major adjustments to make. Unlike the other dorms Dorm Seven is coed, because each student gets a private dorm room. Each room is outfitted to cater to the occupant’s specific needs and a lot of the students there have mutations that make it hard for them to fit in. Some have it as bad if not worse than you, so you’ll be around others who have some idea what you’re going through. You might make some friends and see that things aren’t as bad as they seem right now.”

It was near lunchtime when Gwen finally managed to coax me out of the bathroom and back to the lab, and when we stepped into the room Aunt Karen was at a workbench using a soldering iron. She looked up at our approach, turned off the iron and gestured at the device she was working on. “The psionic inhibitor is nearly finished, how are you feeling Jessie?” She tried to play it casual but there was worry in her eyes when she looked at me.

I decided that the best way to reassure her that everything was okay was to hug her tightly. “I was pretty upset, but I’m a bit better now. Gwen is pretty good at helping put things in perspective; you should give her a raise.”

The blue-skinned Tinker hugged me back and kissed me on the forehead like she used to when I was little. “I’ll take that under advisement kiddo. Now come over to my computer so I can explain what we’ve learned about your body so far.”

What followed was a show and tell of all the various scans and photos they had taken of me and of Gwen when in my adult form. Some things appeared to be mostly human in design and purpose. My brain, nervous system and muscles were pretty much standard for a human with a few minor adaptations as were my heart and circulatory system, though my blood was a bluish-green color and thicker, somewhere between normal blood and tree sap. As for my skeletal structure, it looked perfectly human, but my bones were actually composed of a dense wood-like substance.

My digestive system was another matter entirely though. While I could eat and drink and have it all go down my throat to my stomach, after that human plumbing no longer applied. My stomach was actually similar to the digestive system of a venus flytrap. I got most of my energy through photosynthesis now and when I don’t need the energy it’s reserved for later use, but since I don’t have roots my digestive system was needed to supply vitamins, minerals, proteins and other things that my body needs and can’t get through sunlight. While I would need plenty of water and good sources of vitamins and minerals every day I wouldn’t need to eat as much or as often as other people. As for the waste, everything was broken down in my stomach acids, traveled along some sort of vein system and was excreted as a sweet smelling liquid through what Aunt Karen had originally thought were sweat glands.

As I was told earlier, I didn’t really have human reproductive organs anymore, but there was a mystery organ that vaguely resembled a set of ovaries if I squinted really hard. A biometric scan of the organ showed that it was producing massive amounts of chlorophyll for photosynthesis. Ironically a scan of the same organ while Gwen was in my form showed it producing a form of estrogen as well.

When Aunt Karen finally stopped telling me more about my insides than I really wanted to know she had Gwen tell me what she had learned about my abilities. The regenerative ability was pretty self-explanatory. My fingernails and toenails looked almost normal but Gwen said they were extremely hard and sharp, and as I had proven with Professor Panic they dig mercilessly and painfully into flesh and stay there. Aunt Karen said they were actually prickles, like those found on roses and some other plants. They also regenerated nearly instantly if they came off.

My hair vines were a bit thicker than normal human hair with a smattering of those tiny pointed leaves. They were surprisingly strong and durable and I could pretty much grow them any length I liked, and when Gwen had been experimenting she discovered that she had enough control over them to make them climb or crawl along surfaces, and wrap themselves around things. She was also able to make more flowers like those on my head sprout along the vines. This super growth was probably related to my regeneration and the energy I store from photosynthesis, or at least that was my aunt’s theory. Once they were separated from me though, the vines dried up and crumbled within a few hours, as they discovered with the samples they had taken when I was still unconscious Finally there were those pretty purple flowers, the pollen in those can be ejected and induce sleep if someone breathes in too much. Overall, my abilities seemed to be mostly defensive in nature, not that I minded. The way I see it, the best offense is a good defense, you could be the strongest person in the world and still get your ass handed to you if you have a glass jaw.

By the time I was as familiar with my new body as the pair could make me, Mom had returned with the things Aunt Karen had requested and lunch for five. We all returned to the room where Chris and I had been placed and while mom went to the bed Aunt Allie was in to wake her Aunt Karen guided me back to bed I had awoken in. “I want you here under the lamps for a bit while we eat and talk,” she explained, “I’m not sure yet how much light you require for everyday activities and the lighting in the lab isn’t very good.”

Suddenly I was wrapped up in a bone crushing hug. “You and Christine had us so scared,” Aunt Allie said as she pulled away. Her eyes drifted to Chris’ bed and Aunt Karen placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m almost finished the psionic inhibitor Allie,” the Tinker offered to try to reassure her. “Hopefully once it’s activated and his mind has come to terms with all that information he got hit with he’ll wake up.”

“Can a person’s mind really handle all of that?” she asked uncertainly. She was the only non-Hyper among us and, while she usually handled this stuff pretty well, she couldn’t really understand or accept a lot of it as easily as the rest of us. Even Hypers who aren’t Activated just try to accept that one day genetics will throw us a curve ball. We can either hit it and adapt or miss and keep swinging until we do hit what’s being thrown at us.

“Mine did,” Gwen reminded her as she and mom finished pulling enough chairs for everyone around my bed. “This kind of thing happens fairly often with the more powerful receptive Psychics. I’ve copied Psychics before so I was mentally prepared, but I passed out the first time my brain had to handle it too. He’ll wake up; he just needs time to process and sort out all the information.”

“How long…” she began to reply as Mom encouraged her to sit.

“That depends on him,” Aunt Karen replied from her own seat. “It could be minutes or it could be weeks. All we can do is wait and see. If he hasn’t woken by the time I take Jessie to AMPS we’ll move him to the hospital in Morristown. He’ll get the best possible care there and you can stay with me so you can be close to him.”

With another worried sidelong glance toward her former daughter and now son Aunt Allie nodded. With that decided we settled down to eat lunch and discuss other matters. I quickly devoured my roast chicken sandwich and downed four bottles of water and when I was finally satisfied Aunt Karen had me tell them exactly what had happened on Christmas from the time the Foul Four showed up until I lost consciousness. When I got to the part about him taking the pendant she had given me her brow furrowed and she cursed. “Shit. Now they have the lock and the key.”

“The asshole in the lab coat called it a key too,” I mumbled. I had no idea what either of them meant though.

I wasn’t alone, since Gwen looked just as confused as I was. “What lock and key?”

Aunt Karen looked pensive for a moment before she finally spoke. “This story begins thirteen years ago. You both would have both been too young to have remembered hearing it on the news, even if it hadn’t all been covered up. It was about a year after Makeshift, Mesmer, Edge, Sonic, and I founded the Sentries.”

Aunt Karen never really talked about her super hero days much so I leaned forward in sudden interest as her story continued. “It all occurred on Trane Island in Hudson’s Bay, where AMPS is now. Back then there was a naval base where the school is now and the small town of Trane where the officers lived with their families. We were monitoring emergency frequencies as part of our standard procedure when we happened upon the S.O.S in Morse code originating from the base.“

She shivered as she recalled something she clearly hadn’t wanted to. “When we got there, the base and the town were mostly destroyed and everyone in the base was dead, in some case their bodies were literally torn apart. Mesmer located a few people in town who had managed to find good hiding places, but most of the town’s inhabitants were dead as well. Almost two thousand people dead in a matter of hours. Then she found him, the most powerful threat that we have ever faced, before or since.”

“He called himself Aindreas,” she continued. “He claimed to be a Fomorian and told us he’d spare us if we served him. At first we figured he was the result of experimentation on a Hyper of just someone who had Activated and gotten delusions of grandeur. But I managed to find a DNA sample after the fight and it was so complex that we still can’t make heads or tails of it. He definitely isn’t human though. I did some research later and found out that Fomorians were the wild Gods that pre-dated the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish mythology. Basically they lived for death, destruction, and chaos.”

“You fought a God and won?” I asked in stunned disbelief.

She shook her head and there was a haunted look in her eyes. “I wouldn’t call it a win. We lost Mesmer that day, and even with the help of Paragon, who showed up in the middle of the fight, we couldn’t truly defeat him. He possessed strength and invulnerability like I had never seen before and he was shrugging off everything we threw at him. So we decided that if we couldn’t take him down we would have to somehow contain him.”

“I’m guessing that this is where the lock and key come in?” Gwen queried.

My aunt nodded slowly as she leaned forward in her chair. “I had begun working on some technology to warp space and reality and I used that to cobble together a pair of devices which, when connected, would create a portal to a self-contained pocket dimension that would serve as a prison. Once we got him inside, with Paragon’s help, I separated the lock and key to seal him in. After that we thought it would be best to keep the two separate. The key I moved from place to place and eventually gave it to Jessie as a pendant, hoping to hide it in plain sight. The lock was stored in the vault at the Sentries’ headquarters in Vancouver until two months ago when the Foul Four managed to get in and steal it.”

Well that explained why she came and upgraded the house’s security at the beginning of November. “So I just basically handed them what they need to release this guy? I’m sorry, if I knew how important it was I wouldn’t have worn it.” I felt so stupid.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Aunt Karen scolded me as she reached out to squeeze my hand. “That was the whole point of hiding it in plain sight, so nobody would know how important it was. It was just bad luck that he tried to take you hostage while you were wearing it. Besides, there’s still the fail-safe they’ll have to figure out so we have some time.”

“Of course you put in a fail-safe,” my mom put in with a chuckle, “you never leave things to chance do you?”

She nodded as she replied, “That’s why you’re all still relatively safe and sound. I wasn’t sure the security measures would be enough, that’s why I had Crash and Burn keeping an eye on things from a discreet distance, put the homing beacon in Aaron’s watch, and set it to go off if he used it to teleport that emergency ion gun. As for the fail-safe on the lock and key, I set it so that once they were separated they couldn’t be activated again and the portal opened except from a specific longitude, latitude and altitude and since I generated those coordinates randomly, not even I know where that is.”

“Why didn’t you just destroy them if he’s so dangerous,” Aunt Allie asked in confusion.

“Because if I did that the pocket dimension would slowly degrade and eventually he would get out,” my biological aunt explained. “Professor Panic might think of that, but I don’t think he’ll try it. If he knows what the lock and key are for then he wants to be there when Aindreas is released. It would be faster and he’ll ensure that’s the case if he just finds the proper coordinates. If he destroys them then he has no idea when or where Aindreas would be released. This should give us time to try to track them down and retrieve both pieces.”

“So…” I began uncertainly, “How did you end up having the school on the island were all that happened?”

“Not long after the navy finished the cleanup operation there the higher-ups decided it wasn’t worth the money they’d have to spend to rebuild the damaged parts of the base,” she explained with a shrug. “There were a lot of military cutbacks at the time and they were going to have to sell off some properties anyway so they decided to just get rid of it. Once I heard it was up for sale Aaron and I bought it through the company, ostensibly for some of our research labs. There really are labs there and they make a good cover for the government, but my goal was always the school. I wanted a remote place where young Hypers could feel safe and train their abilities. The incident with Aindreas taught me that there are threats out there that we aren’t prepared to handle, we need to ensure that there are people ready in case this happens again.”

An hour later Aunt Karen had finished the psionic inhibitor, it was sort of like a metal headband with little lights on it. I had intended to spend until dinner sitting on my bed watching with Aunt Allie for any sign that Chris might wake up, but around late afternoon Dad and Uncle Dan came into the room and nearly crushed the life out of me with relieved hugs. After a few minutes though Mom announced that since the lock-down didn’t seem necessary anymore she was going to go upstairs and get started on dinner. Dad took me by the hand and practically dragged me out of the room. Once we were at the lab he quickly explained, “I think we should let Allie and Dan watch over Chris on their own for a bit. I know you want to be there for him, and them. They know that too, but you being in there is a reminder that you’re awake and he’s not.”

I know it wasn’t his intention to make me feel bad, but I did feel bad and it was probably written all over my face. He picked me up and sat me on one of the work benches, giving me the stern father look he hadn’t used on me since I was ten. “No. Don’t you even let your thoughts go there. Pumpkin, we all know that if you had a choice in the matter it would be you in the bed and Chris awake and healthy. Let’s just give them some time and we’ll hang out in here with Gwen and Karen and you can tell me how you’re handling all of this.”

“I kinda freaked out a bit earlier when I found out about the gender stuff,” I admitted sheepishly. “Gwen’s really nice though, and she helped me through it. Some things are kind of weird, like being so small, but it could be worse…” I thought again of Chris lying in that bed.

“I said ‘don’t go there’ young lady,” he admonished me again. “You’ve been through enough without adding misplaced guilt to it all.” He picked me back up and actually carried me to the table where Gwen was nursing a coffee and my aunt was reading something on her tablet. It was a bit weird having him carry me like that, but it kind of made me feel safe and secure too. He placed me in a chair and asked, “Who’s up for a game of Monopoly while we wait for dinner?”

“That’s no fun, you always w…” I started to complain when I was distracted by the sound of Aunt Karen’s tablet falling to the table. She had a look of shock on her face and her blue skin had gone at least two shades paler.

“Whoa, what’s up boss?” Gwen asked in concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just got some very disturbing lab results from Dr. Jennings at Morristown General,” she answered with a frown.

“Is it regarding whatever she called about earlier today?” Gwen was obviously curious, but didn’t want to press too hard.

Another frown painted her face as my aunt nodded. “You know Dan O’Brien right?”

“The good looking computer tech with the really nice ass?” She blushed slightly as she realized what she had just said and added sheepishly, “Yeah, I’ve seen him around. I was thinking of asking him out actually.”

Aunt Karen let out a sigh as she replied, “I doubt he’s your type now, unless you’re developed a taste for teenage girls with wings.”

The Shifter blinked in confusion before she managed to put two and two together. “He Activated? When did this happen?”

“Early this morning, he was trying to fix a problem with one of the PDEs and there was an accident,” she replied crisply.

A girl with wings? Now that sounded pretty cool, but it probably sucked royally if the person really was a guy before though. “I wonder what her powers would be,” I pondered out loud.

“Her powers are why I had Dr. Jennings run the genome tests,” my aunt responded with another frown. “She used several powerful spells in her sleep, while in a room specifically designed to prevent magic use. Dr. Jennings thinks she’s actually producing magic energy as part of her metabolism.”

If my dad’s jaw had dropped any further it would have hit the floor. He just stared for a moment before sputtering, “That isn’t…”

“Well it seems it is possible for her, which is why I requested the genome analysis,” she responded. Then she added barely audibly, “I’ve only ever seen one DNA sample that even comes close to being this complex.”

It was Gwen’s turn to stare now. “You don’t think Dan is... do you think she’s a threat?”

“Whatever Dan is now, she is no longer human, Hyper or otherwise. As for her being a threat, I don’t believe so. The Dan I know wouldn’t hurt a fly and Dr. Jennings has looked at his previous psychiatric reviews and noted no changes in her personality other than gender identity. She said that she is understandably upset and confused, but seems to be taking it well all things considered. I’m having her keep her at the hospital for now and told her not to reveal the results of those tests to anyone, especially Dan, she has enough to deal with right now.”

“So, what now? Do you need me to go to Morristown and help Dan through this?” Gwen asked.

“No, we’ll let Dr. Jennings take care of Dan for now,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I refuse to believe that it’s a coincidence that this happened, at my school of all places, less than two full days after the Foul Four get the key to release Aindreas. I need you here to keep an eye on things and help Jessie start practicing with her powers. I have to go to Toronto and talk to Eugene and Mervin. I want Eugene’s input on Dan’s test results and we need someone at the school to properly train Dan and the other Mystics to use magic. After that I’II have to go to Morristown to make preparations for Dan, Chris and Jessie to attend and stay in Dorm Seven. Then I’ll go visit Dan in the hospital and make her an offer she can’t refuse.”

Even the void was no safe haven from the constant assault of information. I was aware of it all, at least on some level, even in my unconscious state. Not just of every little thing around me, but also where they were relative to me, whether they were moving or stationary, and, if they were moving, in which direction and how fast. I even found myself plotting possible trajectories based on this information. There was just too much though and it was all so distracting that I wasn’t sure what I should devote the most attention to.

So of course I was aware of Jessie’s Activation and her confrontation with the two villains, or at least a part of me was. I was also aware of the outcome of that confrontation, the loss of her arm, and the fact that it had nearly instantly started healing. Our parents arriving with Crash and Burn and putting us into stasis of course halted that healing, until they took us out. The unknown Hyper copying my powers almost garnered enough attention to wake me up, but I was trying to start to filter out the unimportant things. Dust motes for instance were particularly annoying. Such tiny things plodding around, settling to the ground or on an object only to be disturbed and be carried away again, there were so damn many of them too.

My parent’s, Uncle Aaron, and Aunt Melanie kept constant vigil over us, until Dad and Uncle Aaron left and eventually were out of my sphere of awareness. From the direction they had been travelling in though, toward Morris Tower, I assumed they had things at work they couldn’t avoid. Not long after that Jessie awoke and while I was vaguely aware of all the events that followed from a mental standpoint it was kind of like watching a silent movie without the speech text displayed. I was aware of all the people playing their parts, but I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying and my attention was still mostly on trying to filter out the things that wouldn’t really affect me: worms and bugs beneath us, other bugs and birds In the sky… there was just so much of it all, and each time a new object came into my sphere I became aware of that too.

Then, as Jessie’s aunt placed something on my head, it was all gone. There was suddenly nothing but darkness. I had gotten so into the pattern of trying to sort out all that information that, with it gone, I suddenly wasn’t sure what to do with myself in the emptiness of my mind and spent several minutes trying to figure that out. “Oh, this is interesting,” spoke a voice from the darkness, a voice I didn’t recognize. “They’ve canceled out your Awareness. This probably isn’t quite the effect they were going for, but it should help speed things along nonetheless.”

“Where are we? And who, or what, are you?” I demanded, looking around, trying to find the voice in the darkness.

“We are in the deepest recesses of your mind. We can get into what I am later, right now there is something far more important that you need to deal with,” the voice said in a gentle tone. I decided that the voice was definitely female.

“I was doing something important,” I replied acidly. “I was trying to get used to all this and filter out things I don’t need to be aware of.”

“And that was an excellent use of your time,” she agreed, “you’re adapting quite well actually. The problem is that all this time you’ve been trying to filter out the unimportant things; you’ve been refusing to see the most important thing. And now that you don’t have that distraction as an excuse you’re hiding here. That is the reason you’re in here with me instead of awake.”

I rolled my eyes in disdain. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me what this most important thing is?”

“No I’m not,” the voice told me in a sad tone. “There are some things it’s best for us to discover on our own.”

“Look, if you’re going to pull this psychology shit on me, then I’m going to just wake myself up now,” I snapped.

“I just told you that you can’t wake up. Not until you let yourself become aware of that one important thing. The truth you so badly do not want to face that you’re hiding from it by immersing yourself in dust specks, bugs, and the darkest shadows of your mind.”

“So if you’re not going to tell me what it is, and I’m not aware of it, how the hell am I supposed to become aware of it?!” Truth my ass, she was obviously just screwing with me.

“I won’t tell you, but I will try to lead you to it,” she offered. “You just need to be willing to see the truth. This is your mind; if you weren’t intent on hiding you’d be just as aware of everything in here as you are everything out there, but I don’t want you focusing on any of that. Calm yourself, just concentrate on my voice, and follow it to the truth.”

Since I was stuck there with her and had nothing else to do I decided to play along. If she was right this would work, if she wasn’t I would get to say ‘I told you so’… to the voice in my head. Damn, I thought, maybe I really do need professional help. I forced myself to calm down and focused all my attention on the voice.

“That’s right, it’s only you and me,” the voice encouraged as I followed the sound “and I’m over here. You’re getting closer. Yes, I’m right in front of you. Now take my hand and see the truth.” I hesitated. If she was right, this was something I really didn’t want to see, probably for good reason. “Take. My. Hand.” The steel in that voice made me reach out, and then I was hit with the truth.

“I’m… a guy,” I could barely get the words out.

I felt a pair of arms wrap gently around me as the voice spoke again softly. “I’m sorry Chris. You needed to face this, you needed to know and accept it in here before you could face the reality out there. If I could have spared you this I would have. Would you like to wake up now?”

I shook my head, “Ummm… not quite yet. I need some time to process this. You… uhhh… said we could talk about what you are after I faced the truth. Could we do that now? Given what I just found out, I’d really like know if I’ve lost my mind. No offence, but voices in one’s head usually isn’t a good sign.”

The voice giggled. “No offense taken, and no you’re not crazy. Gwen, the Hyper who copied your power and Archetype earlier, is called Sympath. Each time she copies a person she knows a bit more about them and that’s because the first time she uses her power on a person she leaves a faint echo of her own mind in the mind of that person. These echoes learn about the person by seeing and sensing everything they do and relay what they’ve learned the next time Sympath copies the person. She sort of literally gets in the person’s head. I’m one of those echoes. Gwen doesn’t even know we exist and you probably wouldn’t either if her inherent compassion wasn’t part of me. It was that which prompted me to act.”

“So this Sympath leaves little independent versions of herself in other people’s heads without realizing it and that’s why you’re here?” I asked, to clarify it.

The young woman’s voice answered, “Well we’re not really independent versions of her. Like I said, we’re just echoes. Our only task is to learn about the person we’re connected to, we’re not really capable of independent thought or action.”

“Wait a minute,” I pointed out in confusion. “If you’re not capable of independent thought and action, how could you choose to help me?”

“I’ve been wondering about that myself,” the echo admitted. “I have a theory about it though. When they cancelled out your awareness you were lost and needing help. I was supposed to learn and see everything you do to learn about you, so I learned that you were lost and needing help. With nobody but us here, you wouldn’t get help, since you didn’t know about me. Knowing you needed help I made you see me and you made me see myself. I’ve become self-aware and it’s made me much more than what originally was.”

“So what are you now, then?” I wondered.

“I guess I’m a sort of symbiotic sentience. My mind is independent from yours but I experience everything you do. Don’t worry though, I’m not a stowaway, I’ll try to earn my keep.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied dubiously, “and just how are you going to do that?”

“Think about it for a minute,” she encouraged. “Two independent minds can figure out problems faster than one. I can offer advice, we can compare ideas, and with us both monitoring your awareness we can divide our attention on two different things at once.”

Since I was probably stuck with her anyway, and she seemed to want to help, I agreed. “Okay, you’re hired. So what should I call you? Gwen? Echo?”

“No thanks,” she replied disdainfully, “I’d rather try to forget what I was. I’m not an echo anymore and I never really was Gwen, though she is part of me. We both need to move past what we were and focus on what we are. Call me Whisper.”

“Okay, Whisper it is,” I agreed. I paused a moment before bringing up what I thought might be a sensitive subject. “Umm… I don’t really plan on telling anyone, except maybe Jessie about you since they might get the wrong idea. Should we be telling Sympath about this though?”

“No,” she said with seemingly no uncertainty whatsoever. “If Gwen knew about this part of her powers she would feel really bad about it, she might stop using them altogether. The echoes are harmless anyway, and they help Gwen to better understand and help other Hypers.”

“I won’t tell her then. Will we still be able to communicate once I’m awake?” I inquired.

“I don’t see why not, now that you’re aware of me. So wake up already,” she prodded me with a laugh. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Thanks Whisper, you’ve been great,” I told her. I needed to get it out now, just in case she was wrong.

I opened my eyes and took a quick look around the room. Mom and Dad were the only ones present and they both looked tired and worried as they talked in hushed tones while seated in chairs at the foot of my bed. Mom was the first to notice. “Chris!?!” She practically flew across the bed to smother me in a hug, an impressive feat for someone with no H Chromosomes. She just held me for what must have been ten minutes. “We were so worried about you honey.” Then she suddenly backed off looking sad and uncertain as she tentatively tried to break the news to me. ”Chris, there’s something you should know, you…”

“I know Mom,” I quickly interrupted her. “I figured it out; I just needed to face it.”

Now that Mom had let go I was able to sit up, only to have my Dad envelope me in one of his big man-hugs. “Are you going to be okay with this?” he asked in concern.

“Right now, I’m not sure,” I replied honestly as he let go and I could breathe again. “I’m going to try my best to get used to it though. I don’t know anything about being a dude so I’ll need to learn a lot of things, but I have a pretty awesome Dad that can probably help me with that. How’s Jessie holding up?”

*Dude? Really, who uses that word anymore?* Whisper’s voice teased.

*I’m bringing it back,* I retorted, smiling in relief.

“Jessie Activated too and her changes were pretty severe,” my mom cautioned me and I didn’t have the heart to tell he I already knew that too. “She’s been worried about you and if I know Jessie she’s probably blaming herself, so I think seeing you awake will help a lot. She’s doing surprisingly well though aside from that.” She kissed me on the forehead and took my dad by the hand. Let’s go let the others know Chris is awake so Karen can look him over.”

They left the room and less than a minute later the door was thrown open again. Jessie ran inside and across the room to hurl herself onto my bed and into my arms. She buried her head into my chest and I could feel warm tears on her cheeks. “Don’t you ever worry me like that again you jerk. I thought I was going to lose you.”

I hugged her back tightly. “I had some very good reasons to wake up. You’re my best friend Jess, my sister. Who’d look out for you if I wasn’t around?”

She pulled away, frowning. “Don’t you pull this big sister/brother shit with me. I may not look it, but mentally we’re still the same age. And best friends look out for each other. I know I haven’t really been doing my share of that much lately, but like a lot of things in our lives that’s going to change.” She was trying to give me this stern chastising look and it just looked so out of place on that sweet little childlike face that I burst out laughing. She waited until it had downgraded to merely chortling before she rolled her eyes and asked, “Are you finished?”

“Yeah I think so, thanks Jess I needed a good laugh.” I knew she had been trying to get that reaction from me, but I also knew she was serious about what she said. “Okay, you’re right, things are going to change and from now on we look out for one another.”

*And I’ll look out for both of you,* Whisper promised.

*Thanks Whisper, you’re okay, for a stowaway,* I teased, though I really was grateful, but then she’d know that. I grinned at Jessie and said, “Though once I get used to being a dude, I’m totally going to pull the big brother shit, as often as I can get away with it, your future boyfriends are going to get so much grief.”

Whisper giggled in my mind, *Dude, stop saying dude.*

*I told you, I’m bringing it back,* I told her, still grinning.

Once I had been given the seal of approval by Jessie’s aunt and she had extracted all the IVs and other stuff connected to me, she handed me a pair of shorts and lavender bathrobe that I thought might belong to Jessie. Then she sent me to freshen up while she and the others went to the dining room for dinner. The clothes actually fit okay because I was roughly the same height Jessie had been. I was also a pretty good looking guy, not like a model or anything, but with my long black hair, brown eyes and nice complexion I thought I was kind of cute, kind of like an athletic male version of my old self.

Relieving myself as a guy fir the first time was… not exactly the greatest moment of my life. It felt weird and gross handling that new equipment. I was glad when it was over and I could wash my hands. I shuddered as I made my way to the dining room, *That was disgusting, how do guys manage these things anyway? That swinging and bobbing while I’m walking is so distracting.*

*Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue either,* Whisper replied. *I guess that’s what briefs are for. Let’s hope you can get used it in time. It’s bad enough experiencing it second hand, but knowing you’re not handling it well makes it even worse.*

*Don’t feel bad Whisper,* I quickly said to try and reassure her. *I’m not going to give up after just one thing. I said I would try to learn to live with this and I will. It just may take some time like you said. Now I had better put my game face on for dinner.*

When Chris came to dinner he was smiling, but I was pretty sure he was just trying not to worry us. I figured that once we had time and a bit of privacy we would have a serious talk about the changes we were going through and how we could support each other. Our parents were all smiles. I think they were just happy that we were both conscious. They knew that we’d have to get used to things, but for now we were all healthy and together and that was what mattered.

After dinner Chris and I went to my bedroom to find some clothes that would fit him decently and we found some sweatpants and a few gender neutral t-shirts that should do the trick until we could get more. Clothes for me would have to wait until we could go shopping, but Mom had promised to go try to find something roughly my size the next day so that we could get more as soon as possible. Mostly we used that time to talk though; about our situations, how we were feeling about the change, and what we could do to help each other adjust quicker.

I also used that time to update Chris on everything he had missed while he was unconscious and what Aunt Karen had told us earlier. He in turn told me about how he had known he was male pretty much as soon as his awareness had kicked in and it was that that had caused him to not wake up sooner. When Aunt Karen had put the psionic inhibitor on him he had actually retreated further into his mind, until he had some help. I was a little worried about him once he started telling me about the voice in his head, but since he claimed she helped him to wake up I decided to withhold judgment until he finished his story.

Finally I just shook my head unsure whether to believe all of it. “So you’re telling me that Gwen leaves these little data-mining drones based on her own mind in our heads when she first uses her powers on us and the one in your head somehow became sentient?” I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was about that, but it did explain the seemingly more telepathic/empathic aspects of her powers, and Gwen had only so far ever used her powers to help others, in fact she seemed driven to do so. Finally when he nodded nervously I just shrugged it off. Chris wouldn’t kid me about something like this after what we’d both been through. “So what do I call this echo? You said she senses everything you do right?”

Chris stared at me blinking. “Wait, you believe me? Just like that?”

I tossed another shirt at him as I replied candidly, “Of course I do, you’re my best friend and it does explain some things. Besides, it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard, hell it’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve heard today. I wouldn’t mention it to anyone else though,” I cautioned him.

“Her name is Whisper,” he told me, breathing a sigh of relief, “and yeah anything I sense, she does too. She says hello, and agrees with you by the way. Not only would most people not believe me and probably lock me up, but its better Gwen doesn’t know about this.”

Aunt Karen used one of her porta-portals the next morning to leave for Toronto and take care of all the things she needed to get done, leaving Gwen to watch over us all. For the next four days whenever I wasn’t in my room sunbathing or trying on all the clothes Mom was buying me since getting my new measurements, I was hanging out downstairs with Gwen, and sometimes Chris, trying to develop to my powers. Mom had really wanted to take me shopping with her, but we decided that wasn’t the best idea for two reasons. First, we had no way to disguise me in pubic yet, and little green girls tend to get attention and secondly, Ottawa was currently experiencing a cold snap and we had discovered that I don’t really do well in extreme cold.

Chris spent his days either with us, or shopping with his mom for guy clothes. He was also trying to wean himself off the psionic inhibitor and get both himself and Whisper used to sorting through and prioritizing all the information in his sphere of awareness. During breaks, Gwen would tell us about what we could expect at AMPs and Dorm Seven and a bit about Morristown as well. During the evenings though, we both spent a lot of time with our respective parents while Gwen took some time for herself. I think we both wanted to spend as much time as possible with them before being sent to AMPS and Chris was getting lessons from his dad on ‘being a dude’.

Aunt Karen got back in the late afternoon on January second and updated us at dinner. From the sounds of it her trip had been largely successful. While in Toronto she had spoken with not only Mervin and Eugene, but with a sorceress called Cantrip who would be coming to Morristown with her family to teach at the school. She had a daughter who had recently Activated as well so she would be attending AMPS too. At least Chris and I weren’t going to be the only new students there.

While in Morristown she had made all the arrangements for the three of us, and ‘Dana’ ,the winged girl, to attend the school and prepared dorm rooms customized for each of our individual needs. Dana had accepted her offer, so it looked like there would be at least four students new to the school. She had also purchased all the supplies that Chris and I would need and placed them in our respective dorm rooms, so all we would need to pack would be our clothes and any personal items we wanted to bring.

After dinner she brought us all downstairs to her lab. “Since I was at the school anyway I decided to use the facilities there to make Jessie and Chris a late Christmas present.” She handed us each a large carefully wrapped package and after a moment of me staring at it she encouraged, “You first Jessie.”

“Thank God the box is too big for it to be a pendant,” I half-joked as I tore open the wrapping. Inside was a bundle of cloth in shades of green. There was actually several items and the first was some sort of plain body suit in the same shade of green as my skin.

“I specifically designed that body suit for you to use during the winter,” she explained as I looked it over. It was meant to cover my whole body, even my hands and feet. “It’s a self-repairing nanite body sheath that I designed to allow sunlight to get through to your skin as well as act as a thermal suit to keep you warm in extreme cold. It matches your skin tone so you can even wear it under everyday clothes without people noticing. Just run your fingertip along the fabric to create an opening to put it on. The opening will seal up automatically after two minutes.”

I practically jumped up and down in delight. “Thanks Aunt Karen! I was worried about moving to the school in the middle of winter; Gwen told me that Morristown gets pretty cold this time of year. What’s the rest of this though?”

“Well, I got a bit carried away when I was creating that,” my aunt explained with a chuckle. “The rest of it is made of a similar material, but without the thermal feature so you can wear it by itself during the summer or over the body sheath in the winter.” The other items were mostly made of a darker green material with a leaf pattern. There was a pair of form fitting knee high boots, elbow length gloves, a one-piece bathing suit type garment with a belt of violet flowers that looked similar to my own, and a knee-length skirt made of panels that resembled large leaves.

“OMG! This is a costume isn’t it?!” I squealed “I’m gonna be a super hero!”

“Maybe someday,” my Mom cautioned. “But right now you’re just going to school to train for it. A lot of the kids at AMPS use costumes and code names, and Karen thought it might boost your confidence a bit if you could too.

I was still giggling and clutching my new bodysuit when Chris opened his gift. His was a costume too, except his covered is whole body, even his entire head and face, apparently to protect his identity and stuff since he wasn’t an obvious mutant like me. It was mostly dark red with the boots, gloves, a strip running down the center, and the insides of the legs being black. The full face mask was really interesting. There was sort of a black cross shape with each point ending in an arrow that went down the center of his face from the top of his head to his chin and across his eyes, which were shielded by red tinted lenses. I figured that the fabric must be meant to breathe through, because there was not even a hole for the mouth. The whole thing would actually make him look pretty intimidating.

“The material is similar to what I used on Jessie’s costume,” Aunt Karen explained, “and there’s a thermal body sheath you can wear underneath as well if you need to be in really cold temperatures. I tried to make yours as impact and bullet resistant as I could, since you don’t possess Jessie’s regeneration, and I’ll give you some weapon or utility belts once we figure out what other aptitudes you may have. Have the two of you considered what you’d like to call yourselves?”

“I was thinking of Pinpoint actually,” Chris replied with a shrug, “How about you Jess?”

I hadn’t really thought about it, and for a moment I just sat there confused. “I don’t know. I’ve been so busy trying to get used to my new body and powers that I hadn’t thought beyond that. Do you have any suggestions?”

“How about Flower Child?” Chris offered with a smirk.

“Haha, very funny” I retorted with a roll of my eyes. “Do you have any good suggestions?”

“Growth?” Aunt Allie asked.

“Hell no, that makes me sound like a tumor or something.” I said, wrinkling my nose and sticking out my tongue in disgust. Other suggestions were made: Hybrid, Ivy, Bloom, and Perennial, but I didn’t really like any of them, I didn’t think they really suited my new feminine form, though Ivy came close. Finally my Mom suggested Flora. It was feminine, suited me, and yet it wouldn’t really give too much away about my power set. “I think I like that one Mom, I’m gonna go with that.”

Three days later it was Sunday and we had arrived in Morristown to start school the next day. Our bags had already been sent to the school and Aunt Karen and Gwen had given us a quick tour of the town. I didn’t get half the strange looks I thought I was going to. I think most of those were only because I was new in town and looked so young for an Activated Hyper. I’d even seen other mutants with strange appearances walking around and people just kept going about their business. Now it was the moment of truth and we were crossing through those big wrought iron gates to our new school, our new home.

Just inside the gates the walkway split in two to form a large circle that divided outward in branches that led to the dorms and school buildings. The inside of that circle looked like sort of a park, even with all the snow on the ground. There were some picnic tables and park benches to relax and study at and at the very center was a large stone statue of a woman with long hair wearing a costume. Instead of leading us to one of the buildings as I had expected she led us to the statue.

She stood silently for a moment before saying, “The students call this area of the school Mesmer Park, the statue is of her. When we built the school we named it after your father for legal reasons and so the scholarships and other ‘donations’ Morris Enterprises makes to the school wouldn’t draw suspicion. Your dad though insisted we have this statue built at the entrance, Erica was like a sister to both of us.” I looked at the statue and wondered what the woman was like. I noticed a bronze plaque at the base of the statue and leaned forward to read it.

In loving Memory of Mesmer
Erica Jane Dafoe
June 14th, 1978 - April 3rd, 2001

Do not mourn me when I am fallen,
For I now embrace the light.
I always knew death might come calling,
But still I chose to fight.
You are my sisters and my brothers,
I want you to laugh and love and live.
If my death ensures that for you and others,
Then it's a gift I gladly give.
So I hope that you can move on,
And take the time to savor.
Each laugh, each tear, each dusk and dawn,
I just ask one small favor.
Please keep me in your memory,
As long as you draw breath.
And as long as you remember me,
I'll still live on in death.

We stood there for several minutes, each of us looking at the statue and lost in thought. The words were beautiful to me, painful, but more than that, filled with truth. Chris and I both felt pain and loss when we realized how we had changed, but pain and loss are part of life and we grow from them. We need to remember what we’ve lost, the pain we’ve been through, but also look at what was gained, to move on with our lives and not let it rule us. I was different now, in bad and good ways, and I still might not have been sure exactly what I am, but knowing who I am was far more important. Besides, I finally knew what I was going to be when I grow up. I’m going to be a superhero.