Lee's adventures continue. His old life is careening out of his control, his new one coming at him head-on. Can he survive the clash of old and new and still keep his sanity. Will his mother's attempts at helping make matters better or worse. It's anyone's guess. For sure, Lee doesn't know.

I want to thank Maggie Finson and all the other authors for creating the Whateley Universe. This story is Fan-fiction and may not conform to Canon rules or timelines. I am only playing in their sandbox. I also want to thank Connected and my wife for all the editing work put in to turn my scratchings into a readable story.

Please note that all of the categories checked do not apply to all chapters.

I appreciate all the encouraging comments and Kudos, and I apologize for the delay in posting.

Tuesday
November 18th
Cantrip’s Workshop Back of her House

As he returned to consciousness, he saw Cantrip hovering over him.

“Lee, are you alright?” Cantrip was obviously agitated.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” He started to rise, but Cantrip pushed him back down.

“Stay there! That was very foolish. I assumed that you had actually read the books I gave you, and would know better than to draw so deeply on your life essence.”

“Is that what I did?”

“Yeah, how else do you think you made a lifeless block of wood grow? We can only cause something dead to live by taking life essence from something else, in this case you. Only God can create life, we can at most transfer it. You could have killed yourself or extinguished your ability to do magic, if you’d taken too much. Frankly, I’m astonished that you could use as much as you obviously did without more serious consequences. I thought when you began to fade out that you had used so much that you were dying, but then you snapped back.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Only a couple of minutes or so, but I was very worried.”

“No! It had to be longer than that. I must have talked to her for hours.”

“Talked to who?” She asked with the same look on her face that his Mom got when she thought he’d done something he shouldn’t have.

Lee gulped. He wasn’t sure he should or wanted to talk about having a conversation with a — god. They might lock him up in a looney bin. “Uhh, it was nothing, just a crazy dream.”

He started to get up again and this time Cantrip took his arm and helped him. As he rose to his feet, she looked at him in shock. Lee looked down at himself to see what was wrong, and got the same shock Cantrip had. Looking down he saw the same small but definite breasts from his vision sitting high on his chest.

He ran his hands down his torso. It also looked like he/she wouldn’t need that corset to look like a girl anymore. His waist was now narrow and his stomach flat and smooth. His hips flared into almost womanly curves. He also realized that he was once again at least a little taller than he’d been. His hair hung down below the bottom of his shoulder blades on his back and his new breasts in front. He grabbed a handful and pulled it up where he/she could see it. Not only was it longer, it seemed even fuller and more lustrous, if that was even possible.

“Oh, crap!” His shoulders slumped in resignation as he thought about how he was going to explain his appearance. This was going to be hard to explain. No! no, make that impossible to explain.

“Are you still dizzy?” Cantrip asked as she helped him maneuver to a day bed she had set up in her workshop for when she over-extended herself and needed to rest.

“No, I feel fine.” He did feel fine, just like the last time after he had visited the Lady. He remembered she had given him a list of names for herself. Since she had named him Tuath dé Danu, he guessed that was the name he would use for her, ‘Danu’. The next question was what would he call himself.

Cantrip picked up a large green crystal from her workbench and waved it around his body. The crystal glowed brightly, especially when it passed his head, his heart and his crotch.

That made him remember his manhood and embarrassing as it was in front of Cantrip, he grabbed at his crotch and sighed. Mr. Happy was still there, although he seemed decidedly smaller. Lee decided he would wait to make a more detailed examination both of himself and the two new appendages gracing his chest. For now at least, Lee guessed he could continue to use male pronouns for himself. He was afraid that wouldn’t be true very much longer.

Cantrip frowned and repeated her crystal examination, then switched to a blue crystal and repeated it again. It, too, glowed brightly as she waived it around his body.

“This isn’t possible!” She said with an air of frustration. “You’ve got more essence of both types (life and environmental) than you had before, but I watched you expend almost all your essence before you passed out. How is it you now have more than you did?” She clearly was waiting for an answer.

Lee gulped, and said nothing.

“Lee, I think you better tell me of this dream,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

When he said nothing, she sighed and said, “I guess we’d better call your mother. I can’t take the responsibility for continuing to teach you if you won’t let me know what’s happening.”

“No, wait, Amy! — I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t tell my parents; not yet, anyway. They wouldn’t understand and it would only frighten them. You promise not to tell them?” Even though he called her Cantrip almost all the time out of respect for her as his teacher, she had revealed a couple of weeks ago that her real name was Amy. He used it now to emphasis how serious this was to him.

“Lee, I can’t promise that. You have been entrusted into my care to learn magic and I have to be free to do what I think is best.” She truly sounded sorry.

“But you can’t! I’m not sure I should tell you, but I know I can’t tell them. They would never understand, especially my mom. She will think I’m possessed by evil or something. The next thing you know she would be asking our priest to exorcize me. Please?”

“Lee, I’ll you what. You tell me everything, and if I think that I safely can, I won’t tell anyone else, at least without discussing it with you first. That’s the best I can do, but if I’m going to go on teaching you, you must come clean, okay?”

He grimaced, but realized that this was the best he was going to get. He needed what she could teach him, now more than ever.

“Okay, but this is really important and it’s important that I go to Whateley, so please, please, don’t say or do anything that might interfere with that.”

She nodded. “I’m not about to interfere with that. If I had my way you’d be on your way now. So tell me!”

“I don’t think it was a dream. I mean I did, but now I think it was some kind of vision or visitation.” Then Lee proceeded to tell her about both his dreams in detail, even showing her the images Danu had showed him, using the same technique Danu had used. Cantrip gasped as the images started, grabbing his hand.

“How?? I didn’t teach you this. Hell, I don’t even know how to do this.” Cantrip was shaking.

“I don’t know exactly. Danu showed me the same images the same way, I just copied what I remembered her doing. It’s no big deal.”

“Lee! This is a very big deal for a magic user. Psychics, telepaths, and others like them can do this with a lot of effort, but not magic-users, and you just “remembered” what she did and then you did it? No, this is a very big deal.

Frankly, I’m not sure anymore if I’m even teaching you magic. I’m beginning to think I’m just showing you various magics and then you’re figuring it out on your own. I’m beginning think you’re not so much learning magic, as you are magic! Honestly, it’s a little frightening.”

He shrugged and went back to showing her the visions and gave his descriptions of what had happened. “So that’s about it. I seem to be at least the spiritual daughter of Gaea; maybe her actual daughter, I don’t know anymore. I guess I’m destined to be some kind of paladin for Gaea. If that wasn’t enough, I’m supposed to somehow save the earth and it’s life from the excesses of man and the forces of chaos. Whoever they are?

“Oh, in answer to your earlier question about the essence, whenever I go there, I come back charged with all this essence. I’m not sure but I think that Danu, Gaea, or whatever you want to call her, may be the source of it.” He could see the look of skepticism? confusion? on her face.

He grinned and said, “She also told me to change my codename from Mushroom, which she found funny and a little insulting, I think, to a new codename. She said she wasn’t having any child of hers being called Mushroom. She gave me one of her names to use. Since who am I to argue with a goddess, I guess my new codename is ‘Terra’.” Cantrip gasped softly.

“Now do you see why I can’t tell anyone? If they believed me, they would want to protect me from my fate, which they can’t do; or lock me away as a danger to everyone around me; or if they didn’t believe me, they’d lock me up in a padded cell.”

Cantrip stood there with her mouth open and moving like a landed fish, as she tried to comprehend what Lee’d told her. Finally, she sat down heavily on one of the stool in front of her workbench and stared at Lee for such a long time, he got really nervous.

Eventually, she looked up at him like he was a stranger. “I think I understand. I won’t tell anyone — for now. I doubt that anyone would believe me either. I’m not sure I believe it. Maybe it is just some kind of dream. I mean, Gaea? You’ve got to admit that’s pretty hard to swallow.”

“Tell me about it! Most of the time, I think I am crazy.”

As they sat there looking at each other, the air began to shimmer between them like heat waves on hot asphalt. Then a oval opening appeared between them and they quickly scrambled backwards. Lee was scooting on his behind as quickly as he could. Then the lovely spotted golden cat from his vision stepped through, walked to him, and began stropping its cheek on his leg, before looking up into his eyes and purring. It then laid her large head in his lap. He began stroking it, as if by reflex.

Cantrip’s eyes were wide as she stared at the 60 lb spotted cat. “What is it?” She asked in a subdued, awestruck voice.

“She is my familiar, — I think. At least that’s what came into my head when she looked at me. I think Danu sent her.” He shrugged as he stroked her . Mom and Dad would freak. I mean they wouldn’t even let us have a puppy. I felt like I was going to pass out again. How the heck was I going to explain this to my parents?

“How do you know?”

He shrugged, then said weakly, “I just know.”

The cat looked at him and this time he clearly heard: “I am Goldenclaw.” The words thrummed throughout his head, as he felt a bond form between them.

After recovering his equilibrium, he stroked the soft fur of her muzzle in awed silence. She was so beautiful. He knew she was physically powerful, quick and potentially quite dangerous, but that she represented no danger to him or anyone not threatening him.

“She says her name is Goldenclaw.”

“What am I going to do, Amy? I can’t walk around with a 60 pound leopard. Things are too strange for me now.”

“I don’t know Lee, but if she is your familiar, then you may have no choice. A witch or wizard can’t be separated from her familiar for long. The bond is too strong, a long separation will cause distress for you both. On the other hand, this may be at least a partial solution to your problem of how to gather and store essence. You should be able to channel excess essence to her and she can store it for you for when you need it; she can eventually even store spells and cast them for you as you become closer. As to your problem of having a large, potentially dangerous cat with you all the time, I just don’t know. Maybe, we can work on using your glamour to disguise or hide her.”

“There is no need for concern. Others will see me only if I wish it.” Her voice was deep and held overtones of purring in his head. He repeated what she had told him to Cantrip as he scratched behind her ears. Goldenclaw purred loudly, a rumbling and deeply comforting sound.

When he looked up at Cantrip, she was looking at him in a way that made him think she was contemplating going to go her knees before him. It was very disturbing. Then, as animation came back into her face, she stood up and leaned over, putting her arms around him and pulled him into an embrace. “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or pity you, Lee, but I suspect your life is likely to be the epitomization of the old Chinese curse about living in interesting times.”

————

November 21st

He was right about mom and dad’s reaction to his familiar. They freaked. Eve and Beth were delighted even though she was nearly as big as they were. Mom was terrified it would attack the girls until she watched it roll over and purr as they scratched her belly.
Eve and Beth immediately wanted to name her. They were throwing out typical cat names, Puss, Miss Meow, and other similar silly names.

“Beth! Eve! She’s already got a name. It’s Goldenclaw.” They looked at Lee like how dare he name her without consulting them.

“I didn’t name her. She told me her name.”

“What? How?”
“I can hear her in my head.” He said, and Goldenclaw nodded.

Realizing they couldn’t hear her, he sighed. “She can talk to me, since she’s my familiar, but only in my head. She ‘told me’ that her name is Goldenclaw.”

His family looked at him like he was crazy, but then how many boys bring home a 60 pound exotic cat only they can talk to. Lee sighed again, and knew that his sessions with both Cantrip and Dr. Bennet this week were going to be very interesting.

Then he had another thought. Where in the hades was he going to find a vet who would take care of her. Would she even need one? He rubbed his temples as his head began to hurt.

————

School was a nightmare that week. With his mom’s help, he had put a tight sports bra on and then wrapped a large Ace bandage around his new breasts. Between that and his old threadbare excuse with the drug, he thought he could continue to pass, — maybe, and then school could continue to be the same uneasy, anxiety-filled place that it is for most teenagers. He was ever the optimist.

He was growing stronger by the day, and if it hadn’t been for the sensei’s meditation techniques and training, it would have been so easy to slip up and show his true strength. As it was he had broken the doorknob off one of his classrooms. Fortunately, the teacher thought it must have already been defective.

Monday morning, some of his classmates were looking at him like they had never seen him before. His latest spurt of growth in height had made him taller than many of his peers, but his swelling hips, and other feminizing body changes, and longer hair, even camouflaged with baggy clothes, accentuated his changes, so that he now looked like a very tall tomboy. In fact, he now not only towered over most of the girls in his class, but most of the boys as well.

He had continued to leave his hair long so it would be somewhat shaggier and look less like he was going to the beauty parlor with his mom, and even though it now reached mid back, it wasn’t really working. No matter what he did, his hair looked beautiful; soft, glossy and full bodied, almost like something out of a shampoo commercial. It was beginning to be less curly and more wavy as it had quickly grown out. It was the type of hair he would have loved to run his hands through as a boy dating a girl with hair like this. When his sisters were vocally envious, he had snapped at them that they were welcome to it. He thought about cutting it, but the last time he had tried that, it grew back even longer in only three days. Coach thought that it might have something to do with his BIT.

Binding his breasts kept them from being a problem, but it made them hurt and itch. Worst of all, as the changes went on, more and more of his classmates were shunning him. Those that weren’t shunning him, made fun of him, or worse. Lee was beginning to feel he couldn’t win.

Really, the only friends he had left was Jim, Amanda, and strangely enough, Chuck, and Fred Neas. Lee was sure that Chuck would throw him over in a heartbeat if he knew Lee was a mutant. On the other hand, Lee was realizing that Fred was a strange bird, even though he was always seeing mutants around every corner, Lee had become convinced it was because he was envious of them. As far as Lee was concerned he could have it.

His and Amanda’s relationship was also a little strange. Even though he’d avoided her for weeks after finding out about his mutanthood, she had never given up on him. They had even gone out to the movies a couple of times, once since the party. Lee wasn’t sure but he was wondering if she didn’t suspect what was really going on. A couple of things she had said since the party certainly seemed to indicate that she knew or thought she knew something. She had even sort of tried to talk to him about things he would have considered to be ‘girl things’ a time or two.
He had even thought about trying to talk to her about it all, but was too afraid of the potential results. Coach was also adamantly against it.

Thank goodness, it was nearly time for the Thanksgiving holidays. He’d have a whole week without any of the annoying taunts or bullying. A week without trying to hide his new breasts which seemed to be growing daily. All he had to do was survive until Wednesday noon without killing that SOB Randy or one of the Bible-thumpers.

He walked into the lunchroom. He used to love lunch time, it meant not only that the day was half over, but it was also a time for shooting the breeze with his friends. Now, however, his circle of friends had shrunk dramatically. His buddies from the football team had pretty much drifted away over the last few weeks along with most of the rest of his friends. Only Jim, Chuck, Fred and Amanda had stuck with him. Regrettably, all of them ate during the second lunch period while he was in the first, so here he sat at a table for twelve all alone.

What was worse though was Randy and his sycophants ate during this period. Their taunts were becoming a daily ordeal. The more he tried to ignore them the more creative they became, finding new ways to get under his skin. It surprised him. He hadn’t thought all four of them together had enough brains to come up with an original idea.

Lunch period was almost over. Maybe they were going leave him alone today. Just a few more minutes and he could get out of here, then he looked up from the pile of crap on his plate to see four more walking piles of crap coming toward him. He groaned. He tried to find his center and control his emotions like Karoda Sensei had taught him.

“Hey, faggot! I really like your hair. Maybe I can run my hands through it while you suck me.” Randy laughed and then his buddies followed suit as though he was waving cue cards.

“What do you want, Randy? What did I ever do to you, huh?”

“You’re breathing my air, you mutie-lovin’ scum.”

“Is that the best you can do, Randy? I mean here I am, being made to look like a girl by that damn drug, and I dressed as a girl for Halloween, and ‘I’m breathing your air’ is the best you can do! You’re pathetic.” Lee had been in a foul mood all day. When he got up this morning, during his daily inventory he’d discovered that his balls were for all intents and purposes gone and his little friend was getting littler and littler everyday.

But talking back to Randy and challenging his taunts was maybe not the brightest thing that Lee could have done. Randy was getting red in the face as he tried to decide if he’d just been insulted.

He decided he had. “Let’s see if we can’t mess up this pretty hair for you, faggot.” He grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes covered in greasy gravy off Lee’s plate and tried to smeared it into Lee’s hair.

Lee was as surprised as Randy when the greasy mass slid right off his hair and dropped to the floor, leaving it looking almost just like it did before. There were only a few traces caught in the strands. Lee reached up and ran his hand through his hair, pulling it back and looking at his practically clean hand in surprise.

“You _are_ a mutie,” Randy squeaked.

“No, it’s just another side effect of the drug,” Lee scrambled trying to cover this with his stock story.

“Bullcrap! You’re a g-ddamn mutie.” He and his buddies turned and all but ran from the room. Lee sighed, what was he going to do now? He decided he needed to talk to Coach, if he could catch him without a lot of people around.

————

Fifteen minutes later, Lee admitted defeat. Coach was nowhere to be found, so he decided to get to his algebra class before he was caught out in the hall without a pass. Going to his locker, he was gathering his books, when something hit him across the back of the head hard, slamming his face loudly into the metal locker. Lee staggered and turned in time to catch the next swing of the baseball bat Randy was wielding right across the side of his jaw. Two teeth went flying across the hall and blood sprayed from his mouth.

Three months earlier, those blows would have probably killed him, or at the very least put him in the hospital, now he was merely stunned, but not so stunned that he didn’t get his left arm up in Aikido blocking move before Randy could hit him in the face again. He heard and felt his ulna crack under the force of the blow. Randy was swinging the bat two handed as hard as he could. He drew back to swing again, but by this time Lee’s head was beginning to clear.

When the bat came around, Lee’s right hand flashed up in front of his face and caught the bat, yanking it from Randy’s astonished grip. Lee nearly hit Randy with the bat, but barely keeping his anger in check, he simply slung the bat across the hall hard against the cinderblock wall, breaking the handle off the bat and jamming the rest of the bat into the wall. He grabbed Randy by his shirt front and lifted him two feet into the air before lightly tossing him to the floor as he got control of himself.

By this time, the noise of the fight had brought teachers and students boiling out of the rooms on either side of the hall. A dozen students and Ms. Long looked daggers at him as he stood there with blood running from his mouth. The front of his shirt was covered in blood.

“What’s going on here?” Mr. Johnson yelled as he came out of the room.

Randy, of course, tried to put the blame on Lee. “This mutie scum attacked me with a baseball bat.” He pointed to the broken bat handle on the floor of the hall from the floor.

Mr. Johnson looked at both of them as blood ran down Lee’s chin and his jaw began swelling. “Is that so, Mr. Jenkins?

“Then how is it you don’t have a mark on you and Mr. Cook is covered in his own blood!” Lee broken jaw was swelling rapidly as was the arm he was cradling against his chest. Lee spat the remaining blood out of his mouth for dramatic effect. While the pain of his injuries was making him vaguely nauseous, his regen was kicking in. However, with bone injuries like these, it was going to take a while. The first blow to the back of his head was making him dizzy, and he was afraid he was going to pass out. He needed to get out of here before they decided to send him to the hospital.

“Mr. Cook, you need to get to the nurse’s office. Do you need help?”

Lee shook his head, causing his head to throb painfully. “I’d rather go to Coach, Mr. Johnson. He’s a certified EMT and has treated worse injuries than this for me at practice. I trust him.”

“I don’t know, Lee, that arm looks broken to me. I think you better sit down while I call for an ambulance.”

“No! I don’t want an ambulance. I want to go to Coach. Then if I need to go, he can send me.” He staggered a little as he tried to start down the hall.

Mr. Johnson looked skeptical as he grabbed Lee’s good arm to support him, looking into Lee’s eyes. He was afraid of the consequences if Lee was badly hurt. Finally, he relented, although if he had noticed the small amount of blood in Lee’s hair he might not have.

“Alright, but Coach was in the head office. You go to his office and I’ll have him sent there. Mr. Collins, and Mr. Leonard, would you two escort Mr. Cook to Coach’s office, and pick up those teeth, Mr. Collins,” pointing to the two teeth lying across the hall near the locker, “maybe they can be re-implanted. Ms. Jones, would you be so kind as to fetch Coach?”

————

Darn it, Lee didn’t want an escort. This day was just getting better and better. He sighed and started down the hall, staggering with dizziness from the blows to the head. Randy screamed after him, “You haven’t heard the end of this, Gene-scum!” He didn’t turn around.

I heard Mr. Johnson tear into Randy, “Mr. Jenkins, if you know what’s good for you, you will shut up and listen for a change. First off, Mr. Jenkins, we will not tolerate attacks on other students. You will be expelled! I am going to the principal, as well, and recommending that the school prefer charges of its own against you, no matter what charges Mr. Cook may decide to bring. I will recommend the school bring charges of assault with a deadly weapon. You will be lucky not to graduate high school in the Reformatory or prison.”

He raised his voice to the other students standing around. “We will not tolerate racial, ethnic or genetic slurs around this school, much less physical attacks. Do you understand me? I can promise you that this kind of bigotry will be dealt with most harshly.”

“Yeah, but that dudn’t apply to gene-scum like him.” Randy piped up and screamed at him. “My dad says you have to be human to have rights, and that mutie ain’t human!”

Mr. Johnson was getting red in the face as he replied “Under the law, Mr. Cook is every bit as human as you are and has the same rights as you even if he is a mutant. Which hasn’t been confirmed to my knowledge.”

“You people, who think you’re better than everyone else, make me sick and if I have anything to say about it, you will face criminal charges, and maybe civil rights violations.” Lee glanced back, but only saw a belligerent look on Randy’s face.

He heard “Do you know who my father is? He has the sheriff’s wrecker contract and they are good friends, and they both hate these mutie scum. So you call the f—in’ law, I’ll be out in time for dinner, and we know what to do to mutie-lover’s like you!”

“In that case, Mr. Jenkins, maybe I’ll just recommend that we call the state troopers, since you think that the local law enforcement may be prejudiced!” He heard this just as they turned a corner and the voices went out range, even of Lee’s hearing.

“You’re looking a little better than you did,” Collins said as they continued down the hall. “I thought you were dead for sure when he hit you with that bat. You sure you’re not a mutant?”

“I wish!” Lee replied, and laughed; that being the only thing he could think of to say.

“Except for the teeth, he didn’t really didn’t hurt me all that bad, although I have to say that my head and mouth hurt like a bitch,” Lee equivocated. “Randy’s an a-hole and a wimp. Bastard can’t even swing a bat right.” His words were slurred due to the missing teeth and the swelling in his jaw. Fortunately they were now just outside the gym.

“Well, hope you’re not hurt too bad, but we’d better get back to class.” Jeff said handing Lee his own teeth. Fred looked at him for a moment and smiled. That smile worried Lee.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright, but my folks are going to be pissed about the dental bill.” Lee deliberately slurred his words even more though he could feel the swelling on his jaw easing.

Jeff waved as he went into the gym. Fred suddenly came back, and followed Lee into the the gym.

“It’s okay, you know. Being mutant, I mean. My cousin in Houston can do all sorts of cool stuff.” He said with a smile.

“But I’m not …”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s the drug. I understand. I’m just saying if you were to be a mutant, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. If you ever, you know, just want to talk, I won’t tell anyone. Anyway, good luck.” He stuck out his hand and when Lee shook it with his good right arm, he grinned again and left the gym whistling. Lee groaned both from the pain and from the weight of having another person suspecting his secrets. At this rate, he might as well take out an ad in the local paper.

Coach showed up a couple of minutes later. After Lee told him the whole sorry story, Coach sprayed his jaw and arm with an athletic cryo-spray to ease the pain, then wrapped his arm with a splint to keep the bone from moving until it began healing. They decided that he needed to quickly go home before anyone else saw how fast he was healing. Mom showed up about fifteen minutes later parking just outside the gym door.

To say she was upset was a gross understatement, but agreed with the coach that Lee needed to get out of there quickly before someone from the principal’s office or the police showed up to take a statement from him or worse yet pictures. Between them, they decided that Lee wouldn’t come back to school until after Thanksgiving break by which time he could reasonably be mostly healed. Coach said he thought Lee’s broken bones and teeth would regenerate in two or three days. His head was still throbbing when he got home, and he went straight up to bed. Goldenclaw leaped onto the bed and laid against his back and began purring. The pain almost instantly eased and Lee fell asleep.

When he woke, Goldenclaw was sitting with her front paws on his chest, looking down at him. I should have been with you. I could have stopped him!

Lee hugged her to him and gently slipped those heavy feet to the mattress. “I know you could, but it would just have made matters worse. When we get to Whateley it will be different.” Lee hoped that would be true. Here was getting very uncomfortable.

————

The long break was just what he needed. The last few weeks had been so stressful that he was glad for a chance not to have to pretend for a while. Jim came over after school that afternoon and marvelled at how fast Lee was healing.

He about had kittens himself when Lee told Goldenclaw to show herself. The three of them played in the backyard for almost an hour. Goldenclaw was incredibly playful and thought Lee’s laser pointer was the greatest thing ever. Then they played video games until dinnertime. She was greatly put out that pouncing the screen did not yield the desired results.

After dinner, they had sat in Lee’s room just talking for an hour. Cussing Randy, who did get expelled, but as of the end of the day still hadn’t been charged. Apparently, since it was his word against Lee’s and Lee wasn’t there to give a statement, he had created enough doubt to prevent charges at least for now.

Lee noticed that Jim was sitting kinda close on the bed, but didn’t think much of it, although it made him feel a little —shy? It was strange, but he didn’t move away from him either.

The good news was Lee wasn’t the only one going to Whateley. Jim was enrolled in spring semester. That made Lee very excited, and happy. He would know someone when Jim got there. Deep down though there was more to it than that, but Lee wasn’t ready to look at that too close just yet.

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Lee made a quick last trip to Doc’s lab. Coach was afraid that someone who saw the fight; or worse Randy or his dad would call the MCO, so they wanted to get his MID finalized. Doc had his friend from the DPA back there again to provide oversight and to countersign his MID.

The only changes were altering his codename to Terra, and adding a Familiar under techniques. Coach and Cantrip thought he should wait about adding Paladin to his list of powers.

Both of his sisters were there and tested positive for the full set of meta-genes, but Doc said it was anybody’s guess as to whether or not they would manifest. His parents were naturally stressed by the possibility after Lee’s experiences.

————

Grandpa and Mamaw came for Thanksgiving and they all had a great time, although after seeing how much Lee’d changed after the last session with Cantrip, Mamaw and Mom decided it was time to go to Cookeville to take advantage of the Black Friday sales to get him clothes that fit. Of course, they also took Beth and Eve along, saying they needed clothes too.

It was a long drive to Cookeville, but in spite of his misgivings and the mortifying process of getting sized for a bra (a 34A! Amanda only wore a 34B!), Lee actually found himself enjoying shopping, at least most of it.

Eve got entirely too much pleasure helping him select lingerie. Lee wanted to stick with boy’s underwear since he told them he still hadn’t completed his change. His mother then proceeded to humiliate him beyond words as she took him into the change room to examine the extent of this change. After seeing that his penis was barely larger than a toddler’s and his scrotum was essentially non-existent, she determined that it was time to switch to women’s lingerie, much to Eve’s delight and Lee’s utter humiliation.

What was worse was none of them would let him get away with just the very plain ones he wanted to buy. Eve and Beth selected several sets of frilly bras and panties in a variety of colors and manufacturers. Eve went with him into the dressing room in spite of his protests, and a few misgivings on his mother’s part. After seeing Lee was near to tears, Eve sent the others away.

“Lee, I know this is difficult for you. Heck, it was difficult for me the first time and I’ve always been a girl, I can only imagine what it must be like for you.” She reached up and rubbed Lee’s cheek. “There’s an old Chinese proverb I don’t remember very well, but the gist is about reeds bending in the wind rather than breaking like the tree that tries to fight it. You have to learn to bend. You think this is hard now because you think you are still a boy, but you’re not, not really. You are like a caterpillar in a cocoon, hiding from the world as you change. Soon you will be a butterfly, but if you don’t learn to bend now, it won’t be easier then, it will be harder, because you won’t be able to hide behind the excuse that you are still a boy. If that happens, you might break. You’re my — sister, — Leah, who I love just as much as I did my brother Lee and I don’t want to lose you.”

Eve grabbed Lee in a hug and held on until she felt him relax in her arms. She could hear him softly crying as she held him for what seemed like forever, then he sniffed a couple of times and straightened up, smiling through his tear-stained face. Eve took a tissue from her purse and wiped his face.

Lee hugged her again. “You know I can’t get through this without you; you, Beth, Mom and Dad. I don’t know who I am anymore in here,” pointing at his head and heart, “but then you guys show me that I’m still a part of ‘us’. You have no idea how important that is to me right now!”

“You will always be a part of us.” She reached out and stroked his smooth cheek.

Now,” she said, with an slightly evil grin, “Try this one on for size,” handing me a bright red lacy bra.

Lee grimaced, but struggled into it. He had to admit to himself that it actually felt pretty good, and while his boobs were small, they were starting to jiggle a bit, But the best thing about it, was it eased the confounded itching of his nipples when he put his shirt back on over to see how it looked. Having found one that fit, he didn’t understand why he needed to try on all the other 25 or 30 they had brought. Eve just laughed and said he would see. See he did, as most of them, although they were supposedly all the same size, didn’t fit.

He ended up with five sets, two white, one red (Eve insisted on that one), a black one and one that was called nude. Even after they explained it, Lee still didn’t understand why women’s clothes couldn’t be like men’s where you found the right size and then just bought that size. Bend like the reed, he thought after trying on the fifteenth or twentieth bra. After the fitting ordeal, the others relented and let him get a dozen pairs of cotton boy-cut panties.

The rest of the day went by a little easier with him balking from time to time as they buried him in blouses, crop tops, halter tops, women’s slacks, capri pants, skirts, dresses, 50 kinds of shoes, 20 kinds of socks, stockings, and pantyhose, and all of the other myriad accouterments of feminine attire. He spent a lot of that day reminding himself to bend, when what he wanted to do was scream.

Mamaw paid for everything. Lee knew Grandpa was loaded, but he was just beginning to realize just how loaded he was. Lee knew he had operated his own high tech retail chain and had sold it a few years ago. It took the store clerk, where they bought most of their haul, three trips to carry it all to the SUV.

The strangest thing was he couldn’t believe he had actually enjoyed shopping and trying on clothes. They had even strong-armed him into a couple of simple knee-length dresses and skirts, that Mom said he would need for church and other dress up occasions. But to tell the truth he liked how they looked and felt. He felt sort of light and free in them. Lee was definitely going to have to talk to his shrink about that.

The new bra felt strange but oddly comforting under his shirt, which he was informed he now should call a blouse. ‘I guess I’ve officially gone over to the dark side’, he thought, even though he was not yet completely a girl.

Once they got back, the grandparents decided they needed to get home to take care of a few things, but assured him they would be back the first of the week. Eve and Beth were going home with them for the weekend. Later he would be glad they went, otherwise, they would probably have been with Mom and him on Saturday.

————

His Mom and Lee were going back to Cookeville to return some things on Saturday that they decided either didn’t fit properly or were things that she was afraid he would grow out of too quickly to be worth keeping. It was kinda cool spending some quality time with just him and his Mom.

Things were becoming more awkward around his Dad. Lee knew he still loved him, but didn’t think his Dad was quite ready to cope with the new Leah. He tried, but it wasn’t the same, even if (or maybe because) of how strong he was now. It created a dichotomy that his dad was having a hard time reconciling. He had been stunned as Lee lifted the front of the car effortlessly, so Tom could change a tire, yet this was the child who was becoming his daughter.

Unfortunately, the trip also gave his mom the opportunity to give him _The Dreaded Talk_ for girls. He had already had the one for boy’s from dad, and he was expecting something similar, but the one for girls was quite a bit different and more than a little scary. Lee had never had to think about periods except as a way to tease his sister, (uh oh! Payback could be hell!) and had never even thought about the possibility of pregnancy. Suddenly, he realized when he became Leah, the health classes would take on a whole new meaning.

He was very quiet after that as he considered the possibility of actually having a baby inside him (her). It changed Lee’s entire outlook on becoming a girl.

Even with this, he and his mom still were still having fun. He hadn’t spent any real quality time with Mom in years; a lot of time with Dad, but not Mom.

They were winding their way up the side of the Cumberland Plateau on steep twisting Highway 70. Mom preferred it to the interstate. Most of the fall leaves were gone, but it was still pretty.

His mom was explaining woman to woman social relations. Boy, talk about complex, Lee thought it a wonder that any woman spoke to another one. Things a guy wouldn’t give a second thought to, are big deals between women. He was learning that he would have to learn to watch what he said, if he wanted to have any ‘girl’ friends. He also learned that girls are not necessarily the delicate creatures that boys thought they were. Their conversations, even with his mom, got quite raw by guy standards.

Girls seem to be much more emotionally oriented creatures than boys, that much was obvious. Partially that was due to the hormonal soup that flows through their veins as he was already learning from experience, and partially, Mom said, she thought it was because most men were not by nature monogamous, and therefore, women tended to be more emotionally protective of their boyfriends, husbands and families.

They also talked about how much more difficult and important female hygiene was. Wow, he had never known that female plumbing was so complicated and prone to infections. Fortunately, his regen powers would protect him from a lot of the problems most girls had to deal with routinely. His mom emphasized that he would still need to be careful, if he didn’t want embarrassing odors. Unfortunately, having a period was probably not one of the things his regen would prevent. After his mom’s descriptions of the process and what he would need to do, he shuddered at the thought of that coming initiation into womanhood.

————

Lee and his mother were so busy talking as they neared the top of the plateau, neither of them paid any attention to the heavy older model wrecker truck idling, half hidden in one of the brushy turnouts just east of where Highway 70 began its descent down the steep eastern slope of the Cumberland Plateau. Across from it was a place to park at a scenic overlook. As they came abreast of it, the truck suddenly accelerated out of the underbrush and rammed them right in the passenger side door. The air bags blew into their chests and faces. The last thing Lee remembered clearly was the sound of crumpling metal and being showered with glass from the window beside him.

Lee suddenly found himself back in Avalon, but this time it was different. Rain fell in sheets and violent winds whipped the trees and bushes. Thunder and lightning crashed overhead.The small waterfalls were now raging torrents and storm clouds roiled overhead. All the animals and birds were scurrying about as if in some demented flight from who-knows-what horrors.

Lee started toward the great Henge, but was surprised to see Danu running toward him, her countenance terrible to behold. “What’s wron….”

“Lee,” she interrupted, her voice like the rumbling of an avalanche, “You must return to your world. You have been attacked and both you and your mother are or will be badly hurt. You will live and heal, but your mother will not survive without your help, and you will need her and her guidance now more than ever.”

“How can I help her?” He was really frightened. “Wait, I thought I was too tough to be hurt bad!”

“Lee, you will become much tougher as you develop, but for now, you can be hurt.

“As you grow in power and experience, I can show you new ways to use your power. You have developed much in the last few weeks, enough that I can show you how to use your power to heal others.” She grabbed his forearm tightly, under the palm of her hand, it burned like a red hot poker pressed against his skin. When she removed her hand a small strange neon green caduceus shaped tattoo about an inch long glowed on the inside of Lee’s arm where she had touched him. He realized at the same time that knowledge of how to use it had been imprinted in his mind.

“You now know how to use your power to heal others besides yourself, but you must it use cautiously. Much of the essence you will use to heal others will necessarily include some of your own life essence to shape and transform it. You can easily cause yourself great injury, possibly irreparable damage, if you use too much. It will also slow your own ability to regenerate.

“One day you will command enough essence to heal a army of soldiers and not notice it or to heal great environmental wrongs in the world, but for now your reserve of essence is very limited, use it wisely and know when to stop.” She took Lee by the hands and stared into his/her emerald eyes. “Use your own essence only when you must, and draw on the essence of the world as much as you can. Do you understand? Know too, that using any magic, especially personal magic, comes with a cost. Use it sparingly and with knowledge of the price to be paid.”

Lee shook his head numbly, and mumbled a promise be careful. Lee had questions, but before he could ask, Danu took him by the shoulders and shoved.

“Now go!” She thundered as she mentally, as much as physically shoved him back into his world. “and from now on, keep Goldenclaw with you at all times!”

————

The tumult of the disturbed Avalon faded and was replaced by the sounds of breaking glass and tearing of metal of the wreck which was still in progress.

He knew he could use some the essence around him to accelerate his body to move much faster and dodge some of the flying debris of the crash. But even as the magic flowed and time was just beginning to slow for Lee, he watched as shards of shattered window glass floated into his face and bounced off his toughened skin. His eyes were not as tough though, and he watched helpless as one relatively small shard of glass came straight at his right eye. The vision in that eye became blurred and red with blood as the shard pierced his eye before he could move. His body finally accelerated to full speed. He moved instinctively to dodge the larger pieces of flying metal and glass, but even as he turned to dodge a foot-long jagged shard of the doorframe, he saw that by avoiding it, it continued on to pierce his mother just below her breast. Blood stained her blouse and fountained in slow motion from her mouth, and nose as the shard pierced her lung and liver.

His fear, which had caused him to dodge that that particular piece of debris, made him realize too late that he could see every probability and the outcome of every event going on around him and every action he could make to alter them. For most events, any actions he could take would not affect the outcome, some made the results worse, but a few improved things - especially for his mother. Truthfully, after seeing that injury to his mom, he was more interested in preventing more injury to her so that he ignored most events concerning himself, counting on the toughness of his skin and body to minimize the damage.

Without warning, a possible event separated itself from all the multiple possibilities he was seeing, and he knew that his mom’s head was about to hit the door post as the SUV rolled over, and when it did her skull would be shattered. With right hand moving at blinding speed, Lee used his strength to tear the seatbelt restraining him from its moorings, and leaned over to cup his left hand around his mother’s head to cushion it in the milliseconds before it hit the metal post. A part of his mind saw the crushing blows that would come to him as a result of his action, but he didn’t hesitate. The impact of her head mashed Lee’s fingers between it and the metal post, breaking several bones, but the shattering blow to her skull was avoided. There was still a series of a sickening cracks as her left shoulder and upper arm impacted the door frame and the scapula was driven into the side of her spine, where there was a final sickening crack as one of her vertebrae was fractured by the displaced scapula.

As the SUV continued to roll, the now unsecured Lee was thrown around the front seat. Then the dash broke loose and came crashing down on his extended leg. Tough as his body was now, he wouldn’t escape injury. He felt and heard his left leg break in two places and his knee dislocated when the dash collapsed onto it. His left wrist was fractured by the momentum of his body as the dash drove him into the post of the door as he tried to keep his body from impacting against his mother’s. He was thrown back to the front of the cab where his face where his head hit the still intact windshield breaking the nose and flattening his face. Both maxillary sinuses were also smashed and the window exploded outward. The SUV continued its roll throwing him back into the door on his side. More bones cracked like rifle shots, this time in his ribs.

When the vehicle came to rest, miraculously upright, it was entangled with the mutilated guardrail separating them from the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. That was not to last.

Lee’s mother was bleeding profusely from her mouth, nose and chest, caused by the metal splinter which had severed several major blood vessels. Lee discovered that with his new power to heal came new senses showing him the damage to both his and his mother’s body. Her spinal cord was partially severed by a broken vertebrae. He knew that she was paralyzed from the chest down. That, at least, was sparing her temporarily some of the pain that would be undoubtably sending her more quickly into shock. A steady spurt of blood shot out of her left arm from a compound fracture of her humerus. Blood ran from several other cuts on her stomach and legs. Miraculously, she was still conscious.

———

Kathleen dazedly looked toward Lee and beyond him saw the wrecker that had hit them as the driver threw it into low and slowly began to shove them through the mangled guardrail and over the edge of the precipice. As Kathleen felt the SUV begin to tip over the edge, the wrecker was suddenly thrown into reverse, turned and sped off down the deserted road, but not before she saw the Jenkins Wrecker Service logo on its door. It was the last thing she saw before the loss of blood, and the injuries to her head, robbed her of consciousness.

———

The battered vehicle bounced and rolled for about a hundred feet down the critically steep slope before coming to rest on its side against a buckeye tree growing out of a crevice in the rock, where it teetered perilously. Only the shallowly rooted ten inch tree separated them from a drop of several hundred feet down the side of the plateau.

Lee was in a misshapen pile half under the dash, incredibly still mostly conscious. He took stock of his injuries as much to take his mind off his pain as anything else at this point. His left leg was bent in at least two impossible places. Every breath was a new experience in pain as his broken ribs grated against each other. Blood covered his face from his right eye which was a mangled pulp. He could feel the shards of glass grinding together as his eyelid worked futilely to rid his eye of the foreign matter. When he coughed, blood filled his mouth, and he knew at least one of the ribs had pieced the lung.

The wrist and fingers of his left hand were bent at unnatural angles and swelling rapidly. Suddenly he heard gurgling as his mother tried to breath with at least one punctured lung. This forced Lee try to pull his consciousness together. His mother needed his help.

It took several moments for Lee to return to full consciousness. He knew he had at least a concussion. He couldn’t see out of his right eye, and what he could see out of his left wasn’t good.

He could see his mother and the obvious injuries she had and knew that if he couldn’t help her in the next few minutes, she would die. But before he could help her, he had to improvise some repairs to himself.

With a skill he didn’t know he had he used his magic to move the penetrating rib and stop the bleeding. The most immediate threat dealt with, as he steeled himself against the pain, Lee began straightening his twisted limbs with his miraculously unbroken right arm. Screaming in pain, he pulled and straightened the ruin of his left wrist and hand.

Reaching out of the shattered window, Lee grabbed a torn corner of the thin sheet metal on the door and peeled a foot long, eight inch wide strip from the side of the car door with his uninjured right hand. His strength peeled it off like it was aluminum foil. Gritting his teeth until chips were flaked from the edges, he carefully folded the metal around his arm and hand splinting the wrist and fingers. The sharp edges should have sliced him to ribbons, but only one particularly keen point pierced his toughened skin and brought a single drop of blood.

Straightening and splinting the leg was much more difficult and painful, making him dizzy with pain as he manipulated his leg. His right eye was an oozing bloody mess, but there was nothing he could do about it. He also knew he had other serious injuries, but they would have to wait. Wiping the splattered blood from his good eye with his uninjured forearm, Lee used a small amount of his essence to dull his pain. He knew he could not spare much more essence, and still save his mother’s life.

Twisting in his seat, he placed his back against the center console, and using his good leg, he kicked the door. The force ripped it from its hinges and sent it flying a couple of hundred feet into the woods. The car rocked precariously, but he didn’t have time to be delicate about it. Turning and bracing his splinted leg against the console base, he stood on the side of the console. Gritting his teeth again against the pain, he was only able to stand on his broken leg by means of his improvised splint, the grating ends of the bones sent waves of nausea through him.

He bent over, gasping again in new pain caused by his broken ribs, and gently disengaged his mom’s seatbelt. Extending his new senses, he probed his mother’s broken body and gasped in horror. Her organs were shutting down from blood loss. She would be dead in minutes.

She had lost at least a third of her blood volume, and even though it was slowing as her blood pressure dropped, the on-going blood loss was critical. Only partially conscious and not knowing for sure what he was doing, he began to work by instinct and intuition.

Lee knew the internal loss of blood was the most critical thing. He grasped the metal splinter protruding from her side and pulled it out, even as he drew on his own life essence and blended it with the ambient essence to knit her savaged tissues as he withdrew it. It was both easier and infinitely more difficult than he had expected.

Probing with his new senses at the cellular level, he realized that he could encourage her own body to direct a lot of the work, if he provided the energy. That would make his job much easier. Reaching deep, he could feel triggers in her genetic code that when activated would enable her to use his energy as he sent it to her to rebuild her ravaged tissues and blood vessels. Without considering the potential consequences, he activated the genes.

This made it unnecessary for him to fix the smaller structures and blood vessels, especially, since he had only the most rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. They began healing as he poured bio-essence into her and her body did the work.

As soon as the bleeding in her critical organs stopped, he turned to the compound fracture of the arm and the weakening arterial spray. Plunging his fingers into the wound, he pulled the bones back into place. Drawing still more energy from himself, he blended it with what he could gather, and guided it to where it was needed. Her body immediately sealed the edges of the ruptured artery. It was getting easier as her own body took the energies he provided and used them with minimal direction. But when it started to heal the broken bones, he cut off the flow of essence realizing he had no more to spare, not now!

Sensing his own impending loss of consciousness, Lee leaned against the twisted steering wheel and rested, gathering and renewing what energies he could muster. He knew he had two more critical tasks that had to be done, if his mother was to ever be whole again.

He screamed again in pain as he wrapped his broken arm around her waist and then grabbing her neck in his good hand, he gently used his great strength to stretch her spine until he sensed the bones slip back into place. He once again drew on his rapidly dwindling store of life essence. Probing his own undamaged spine for a pattern, then he used gentle tendrils of magical force to begin to realign the nerve fibers with a delicacy no surgeon could match. He watched then as her internal blueprint joined outraged nerves back together on a sub-cellular level. Once the critical neural damage was repaired, he caused microscopic nodules of calcium phosphate to precipitate from her blood and fuse into the gap in the broken vertebrae. Still more nodules filtered into and reinforced smaller cracks in that and other damaged spinal bones, and finally a last wave stabilized the fractured arm, at least temporarily. With his dwindling reserve of energy, he mentally and physically nudged her scapula, and other shattered bones in the shoulder back into approximately the correct place. He had no energy to spare to stabilize them. Finally, he used what he sensed was the last energy he could spare to stimulate the blood-forming stem cells in the undamaged areas of her bone marrow to begin rapidly rebuilding her red blood count.

He knew that there was much more that needed to be done, but he also knew he had no more to give. Sliding his phone from his jacket pocket, he punched the first number on the speed dial. When Jim answered, he heard weakly “Help! — Pushed. Over. Cliff. — Get. Daaaaddd.”, as Lee slid into unconsciousness, an unconsciousness so deep that he couldn’t even project into Avalon to regenerate his essence.

————

From Avalon, Danu smiled with satisfaction and then frowned with concern. Through her connection to the planet and through Lee to every living creature that walked or crawled on it, she had watched as Lee sacrificed so much of his life force to save his mother.

He could have used some of that essence to heal himself and saved himself much pain, and for all he knew death. But his only thought was for healing her and thought he would have been unable to heal much of the damage to his mother, if he used it for himself. He had thought, at the very least, she would have been paralyzed.

Danu wondered if Lee knew that by stimulating those genes in her body, he had done far more than heal her. She doubted it. She also wondered if he knew the consequences for himself.

She knew of sacrifice from first-hand experience and was pleased with her newest child’s selflessness. She also knew he had depleted himself much too far, and she would not allow one with such promise to be damaged beyond repair by that courage. She reached out and drew a deer from the forest near to the teetering wreckage. Exerting her meager free forces, she drew forth the life essence of the deer and used it to replenish a small portion of Lee’s, then blessing the spirit of deer she drew it to her to cherish.

————

Jim stared at his phone. He knew it was Lee, but Lee had not responded when Jim tried to find out what was wrong. Thinking quickly, Jim did not hang up his phone. He and Lee had jokingly put a GPS tracking app on each other’s phone some months before. As long as there was an active link between the phones, they could track each other. Right now, it showed Lee on state Highway 70 near Rockwood. Hopefully, Lee’s phone was fully charged.

Jim called Lee’s father and then Coach. Lee had told Jim that Coach knew about his mutation and would help. His new senses were telling him that he needed all the help he could get. By stretching his psychic link with Lee to its limit, he could feel that Lee was in bad trouble, maybe dying. It was hard to tell. The only thing he knew for sure was that Lee’s life force was very, very weak.

Jim called 911 giving them the GPS coordinates from the phone. The emergency response people said they had no reports of an accident in that area, but they would dispatch a police car to check that area as soon as one was available.

Tom was rummaging through the piles of gear in his garage by the time Coach and Jim arrived, tossing out bights of rope, other rock climbing gear, picks, axes and anything else he thought they might have a use for. Jim and Coach quickly started loading the gear into Coach’s 4x4.

Within minutes, they were traveling as swiftly as they dared out I-40 toward Rockwood. From the GPS location on Jim’s phone, they knew that Lee and his mother were not on I-40, which was not surprising given that Lee’s mother hated driving on the interstate. As near at they could figure, Lee and his mother were just west of Rockwood somewhere near the Mount Roosevelt escarpment on or near US Highway 70.

They passed the scene of the wreck twice before Jim noticed the scrapes in the gravel at the edge of the road and the twisted gap in the guardrail. Standing at the edge of the overlook, they could see the blue SUV balanced precariously against the slender tree which was slowly bending even as they watched.

Coach threw open the rear door of the SUV and started tossing the bights of rope and other rock-climbing gear out. Tom and Jim began to put on their climbing harnesses. Coach, meanwhile was on the phone to emergency services, describing the accident scene and location. He was told that the state trooper was less than 10 minutes away on a different road.

As soon as he was finished Coach turned to them and asked, “What can I do? I’m not much use rock-climbing. I’m acrophobic, but I can do anything else.”

Tom, his face torn with worry, began unwrapping one of the bights of rope and after tying off one end to a guardrail post, tossed the rest down the mountain. Jim was doing the same on the other side.

“Don’t worry about it. I used to take Lee, Jim and Chuck rock-climbing all the time. Don’t know why we stopped really. You can belay us and watch for emergency support.”

Tom and Jim stood near the edge adjusting their gear and looking at the wreck below them. “I don’t like the way they’re balanced. One wrong move and they could go over the cliff. We better take the hand winches to tie it off,” Tom said. Jim nodded in agreement. Strapping the winches to their backpacks, they began backing down the very steep slope. A shower of small rocks and gravel rained onto the vehicle below. One head-sized rock struck the front of the vehicle causing it to rock alarmingly. They could see the occupants were both obviously unconscious or worse.

Keeping to a deliberate pace that was nerve wracking slow, they stopped about fifteen feet above the teetering vehicle. Looking around, Tom indicated that Jim should anchor his winch to a small but strong Maple tree to his left, while Tom did the same to an oak on his right. The winches now secured, they carefully made their way to the vehicle. The shallow roots of tree the vehicle was resting against were slowly giving way. They could hear them popping and cracking. The slightest touch now was enough to cause the finely balanced SUV to sway perilously. Dislodged rocks clattered down the steep bare slope below to drop over the edge of the cliff, clattering faintly long seconds later. Dangling almost upside-down, Tom reached under the SUV and secured the hook around the front axle, while Jim did the same to a convenient towing hitch at the rear of the vehicle.

“Alright easy.” Tom said as he began carefully worked the cranking levers. “Take the strain evenly between them. Easy, easy.” Finally, the cables were taut and the roots of the tree stopped cracking and things began to stabilize. “There, that’s good. Lock it off.”

About the time the car was secured, they could hear a police siren in the distance coming up the plateau. Reaching in through the missing door, Tom felt for a pulse on Lee’s neck. To his relief, he found one. “He’s alive. His pulse is weak and thready, but it’s there.”

“There’s an awful lot blood on Lee, and somehow some of the metal has gotten twisted around Lee’s arm and leg.” Jim nearly vomited at the sight of Lee’s ruined right eye. “It looks like Lee’s right eye may be gone. I can’t tell. There’s so much blood on his face.”

He couldn’t know that most of the blood on Lee was his mother’s. He was just glad Lee was alive. They had always been friends, but in the last few weeks that relationship was deepening. Into what, Jim didn’t know, but he did know that Lee was becoming much more than a friend, maybe, a brother? Sister? Maybe something more. It was all so confusing. For now, his sense of relief was beyond description.

Tom, too, was sickened at the sight of Lee’s injuries. “It doesn’t matter now, Lee’s alive. We can worry about fixing things later.” Tom looked across Lee at his wife and gasped. She was even more soaked in blood, with some still seeping from wounds in her chest and arm. There was evidence of half- healed wounds all over her body. He looked hard at her chest. It moved! She was still breathing. He breathed his own sigh of relief. “She’s alive. At least for now, but it looks like she’s hurt real bad, maybe even worse than Lee.”

————

It was among the worst accident scenes that rookie State Trooper Fred Stanley had ever investigated. It was immediately obvious that more than one vehicle had been involved, but there was only one still at the scene, and it was demolished. There weren’t even many fragments from the other vehicle, but he immediately recognized an odd light among the debris on the highway. He had seen those lights at many accident scenes, - attached to the bumpers of tow trucks. He quickly photographed the light where it lay with his phone and slipped it into an evidence bag. There would be time to complete the documentation of the scene later, but he wanted to make sure he got that piece before it could get moved. Something wasn’t right.

After tying off, he rappelled his way down the steep slope, to where Tom and Jim were working to further secure the vehicle. A third winch had been secured around the door post. Officer Stanley was impressed at the professional way the vehicle had been stabilized. Without it, emergency personnel would probably not have been able to get to the victims until a wrecker arrived.

Officer Stanley worked his way carefully down. From a glance at the two victims and the amount of blood, he assumed they were most likely dead, but the man who said he was husband of one of the victims and the father of the other assured him that they were alive. Conscientious public servant that he was, he risked crawling onto the SUV and fought losing his lunch to confirm the life signs for the two victims. To his everlasting surprise, the two mangled bodies were both not only alive, but the woman was beginning to show signs of consciousness. Getting on this lapel mike, he called for additional backup and an emergency medical air ambulance. He then went back to see if he could help either of them.

It wasn’t until he started looking beyond whether they were alive or dead that Officer Stanley realized Lee’s limbs were crudely but effectively splinted, though in a very odd manner. The woman’s wounds showed signs of healing, although they were obviously fresh wounds. These were no ordinary accident victims. One or both must be mutants, he thought. Either that or one of these people claiming to be friends and family were. Given that fact, he was even more sure that this was no accident. He had seen enough mutant hate crimes to have few illusions.

Most of his fellow officers would have immediately called the MCO, but Fred had called them on another “accident” case a few months before. The MCO agents were very polite and seemed to be very concerned about the victim. Saying that they needed to take her for specialized care, they had loaded her into a convenient MCO dropship and whisked her away.

Officer Stanley had tried to follow up with the MCO on the victim the next day, but was told that the MCO had treated the mutant and released her. Needing more information for his report, Fred had tried to track her down to no avail. No one had seen the girl since she had been loaded into the dropship.

He had put out an All Points Bulletin on the missing girl, only to have his Captain call him into his office when he returned to his station and tell him that he had withdrawn the APB. When Fred asked if she had been found, the Captain had gotten red in the face and told him if he wanted to continue as a Tennessee State Trooper, he would do as he was told and stop asking questions.

Ten days later, a corpse had shown up in the morgue matching the description of Fred’s missing mutant. The girl’s body was mutilated and the cause of death was listed as an animal attack, but Fred knew of no animals that left burn marks like those of a cattle prod, or knife wounds in their victims. Now cautious, Fred tried the next day to get some information from a friend of his that worked in the Coroner’s office, only to be told that the body had been cremated and the files on the case were “lost”. His friend did give him one piece of friendly information, Fred’s Captain was a member in the local chapter of Humanity First.

So this time, he didn’t call the MCO, instead talking into his personal cellphone, ‘a burn phone’, he called air traffic control and asked to be patched through to the incoming air ambulance.

“AirGuard Flight 201, this is Officer Fred Stanley of the State Highway Patrol. I’ve got two severely injured accident victims. I’m afraid they might not survive if taken ANYWHERE else so I need them air lifted direct to UT Hospital, ASAP, regardless of any other orders. Do you read me? Over.”

The pilot of the air ambulance was a drinking buddy. He had a cousin who was ‘disappeared’ by the MCO and he understand immediately.

“Roger that. Will get them there ASAP with no other stops. Over and out, good buddy.”

Fred then called the DPA headquarters in Nashville and gave them a quick rundown. “I suspect that H-1 may have been involved in this, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the MCO is not inbound. Can you assist?”

“Roger. We have a small drop ship getting ready to lift off any minute. Will divert them to your 20. Any other assistance needed?”

“Negative. Just get here ahead of those MCO bastards.”

“Will do our best. Over and out.”

Fred next called ahead and alerted an ER trauma doctor at UT Hospital that he knew was not bigoted against mutants that they were inbound so he would be in the ER.

The DPA drop ship arrived four minutes ahead of the MCO.

MCO agent McAllister was annoyed at the presence of the DPA. After demanding to see Lee’s MID, Agent McAllister said that since his MID was just issued, and since a civilian had been injured in the accident, they felt it was imperative that they take Lee for further testing at their center, after treating his injuries, of course.

Agent Landers of the DPA told him that wouldn’t be necessary since the MID in question was issued by one of their testing agents, the DPA would be able to follow up on any additional required testing that might be needed. It was also pointed out that Lee’s powers had no bearing on the accident. The MCO agent then tried to say it was possible that his powers had caused the accident, since no other car was evident.

When Agent Landers asked the MCO how they had even heard of this accident, their answer had been a tip from a concerned citizen. Officer Stanley immediately broke in, “as the duly appointed law enforcement officer investigating this accident, I have to insist that you turn over the identity of this concerned citizen, as ‘this concerned citizen’ is at least a potential witness and/or possibly the prime suspect in a hit and run accident. As no other vehicles stopped or even called in the accident until the victims’ family arrived, they are at least material witnesses.”

At this point, the MCO agent began arrogantly citing various treaty clauses that (in most countries) allowed them to maintain confidentiality of their informants. They also allowed them to take dangerous mutants who had been involved in the injury of a civilian in for further evaluation.

At this point, the DPA agent pulled out his copy of the treaty. “Your treaty in the United States limits the MCO’s jurisdiction to detain mutants. It was amended three months ago to restrict it to those cases involving imminent danger or when requested to do so by the local, state, or Federal authorities. Can you give me the name of the authority who authorized the detention? Just for my report, you understand.”

The MCO agents face turned a bright shade of puce. “We were called by a member of a local mutant watchdog group, which in my opinion constitutes such a request.”

“I understand. I assume that this member, under the terms of your treaty, was a sheriff’s deputy then or a member of some other law enforcement agency? In which case, they are required by law to present their testimony regarding the incident.”

The MCO muttered something.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“I don’t know,” he all but shouted.

“In that case, I can’t see that you have any authority to take anyone,” Agent Landers replied. “You should be well aware that the Federal government does not recognize any of the so-called watchdog groups as having authority to request such assistance. In fact, the only locally active groups of that nature in the area are Humanity First and a local extremist religious group, both of whom are, in fact, under investigation by Homeland Security as domestic terrorist groups. The MCO wouldn’t be supporting a terrorist group, now would they? Therefore, per section 1127.54c of your treaty, you will want to cooperate with State Trooper Stanley by giving him the name of your informant.”

“I don’t think I actually got a name,” Agent McAllister prevaricated. After a heated discussion, involving more citations of treaty clauses about jurisdiction and rights under the MCO treaty to maintain confidentiality of informants, the angry MCO agents loaded up in their drop ship and left without providing any of the requested information, not even the names of their other agents.

Once the air ambulance arrived and the EMTs extracted Lee and his mother, the DPA drop ship decided to accompany them to ensure that no attempts were made to remove Lee from the Ambulance upon arrival or during registry in the hospital. A DPA agent was assigned to remain at the hospital until after Lee’s release, as MCO agents had in the past intimidated hospital staff to turn over people to which they had no rights or jurisdiction.

When Officer Stanley got back to the office, he was immediately called into his superior’s office. His captain was furious. When Fred pointed out that under Tennessee State Code calling the DPA was Tennessee State policy, he thought that the Captain would burst a blood vessel, but couldn’t do more than yell at him - officially anyway. Fred knew he was in for all the crap details for the next couple of months, but at least he would be able to live with himself, and more importantly, so would his victims. He secretly wished the victims well, and promised himself that he would follow up with them to see if they knew who had done this, even if it cost him his job.

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