My Super-powered Diary Chapter 5 Once upon a *BOOM* By Amethyst When Maddock Ainsley gets involved in a rescue operation with his unit things go horribly wrong and his life is forever changed. Can the newly minted Merida cope with being a girl and a teenage super hero?

*Cease fire Merida!* Tasha shouted into my mind as she teleported back toward Shu’s bed.

Over dinner that evening Blair warned us all that when the time to escape came, it would likely be with very little warning and we would have to be prepared to move quickly. By that time Mei’s pixie had vanished to wherever it had come from, but Blair had been able to see it before it did. The pixie had puzzled my sister a bit, because it was “very lifelike, and too independent to be a mere illusion or magical construct.” Regardless, she wanted us all to keep practicing with all our powers as much as we could so that when it was time to escape we’d be ready.

Blair was able to stay with us a few hours that time since her instructions from Quill and Phantom were to bond with us and start talking about their ‘noble cause’ while the drugs from our food were doing their job. Tasha had once again been able to tell what foods were drugged and they were quickly disposed of. After dinner Blair insisted that we each have a bath or a shower while we had the opportunity and then change into the nightgowns that she had bought for us when she had gotten our other clothes.

Vanessa had a bit of a problem trying to bathe since it became harder to keep her tail shifted into legs while she was even partially submerged. Blair assumed that it was instinctive for her to change while under water and felt that trying to keep shifted in water while using her hydrokinetic abilities would be good training for our resident mermaid. I was the last to clean up, mostly because it was an experience that I wasn’t looking forward to. Not only was I now in the body of a girl, and a kid at that, but I also had ankle-length hair that was going to be a bitch to wash and dry.

In the end Blair managed to coerce me into a shower, with the bathroom door firmly shut and her on the other side of the shower curtain to help me through it. I managed to get my clothes off, but that wasn’t much of a stretch since I had been naked for half the day already. Still, I was hesitant to step into the bath when the time came, I could feel the panic welling up inside my chest as I thought about touching the body of this strange young girl who looked like my sister. My first experience taking a leak in this body had been bad enough, I had felt like some sort of sick voyeur, and a shower was probably going to be a lot more intimate than that was.

“Nae, I cannae dae it,” I said, shaking my head wildly and refusing to move.

“Ya need to get used to this sooner or later. Does yuir body really feel that wrong to ya?” Blair asked watching me in concern.

“Nae,” I admitted after getting my breathing back under control. “Tha’s wot scares me. It should feel wrong and it… it feels like me, but up ‘ere in ma ‘ead there’s still the ole me thinking tha’ doin’ anythin’ like tha’ tae this girl’s body is wrong. It’s like all there is left of the ole me is mem’ries an’ everythin’ I was says this is wrong.”

Blair sighed and wrapped me in a hug. “Listen… Merida. This is you now, right down the genetic level if I’m right. Ya need to start acceptin’ that and stop thinkin’ of it as someone else’s body. Yuir not Maddock anymore. Ya still have his memories, and I’m glad that ya do, because that means yuir not gone, just different. Keep the memories, but ya can’t hold on to the same person ya used to be, it’ll only cause ya misery. Yuir Merida now and ya need to get to know her and figure out who she is, and the first step is admitting to yourself that this isn’t some other young girl’s body, it’s yours. Now grow a pair and take a shower.”

I hated to admit it, but she was right, I needed to be Merida, not Maddock thinking that he’s trapped in some girl’s body. It wasn’t going to be easy and I wasn’t sure that I could leave Maddock completely behind, but I guessed that I’d at least always have his memories. So, crying and sniffling a bit as I tried to put my life as Maddock behind me, I hugged Blair back tightly and took a step back toward the dreaded shower. Then I hefted my breasts and told Blair, “I already did grow a pair,” while firmly telling myself that they were mine, Merida’s, and I shouldn’t be scared of my own body.

It was quite a while later when I finally finished my very awkward shower, with Blair giving instructions on everything from proper feminine hygiene to hair and body care the whole time, and me trying to make myself be okay with the whole process. A majority of that time was spent on my hair; washing, rinsing, conditioning and then rinsing again, and then trying to get it somewhat dry. By the time I was done and Blair was taking a hairdryer to my insanely long copper tresses I was really missing Maddock’s old buzz cut.

“It took you long enough,” Vanessa teased as I came out of the bathroom in my nightgown, a terrible pink knee-length thing with sparkly lavender unicorns all over it.

“Screw you, I ‘ave a lot more ‘air now an’ it takes forever tae dae anythin’ with it. I should jus’ chop it all off,” I grumbled. That was met with a chorus of horrified gasps and expressions that looked like I just casually stated that I wanted to put my hand in a blender. “Wot?” I asked, wondering what I had said wrong.

“You can’t chop it all off! It’s so long and beautiful, and I don’t think you have a single split-end,” Tasha objected. “Maybe get it trimmed it to a more manageable length once we’re out of here, but you should keep it long, some girls would die to have hair like yours.”

“They kin ‘ave it,” I muttered, “I keep gettin’ tangled in it. Blair did’ ya ‘appen tae bring any scissors?”

The twins each grabbed one of my arms, unleashing the full power of their puppy-dog eyes on me in stereo. “Pleeeeease don’t Merida,” they begged.

I folded like an origami crane, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Fine, I won’ chop it all off, but I need a way tae keep it out o’ ma way.” With that the twins started looking through the hair care products Blair had brought, coming up with a pair of brushes and some dark green hair ties. Then they sat me on my bed and began the arduous process of brushing and then braiding my hair. It would probably still be long and heavy when they were finished, but at least I wasn’t going to keep getting tangled in it. As they took care of my hair I decided to practice with my constructs by having Blair tell some of the stories that Mom used to tell us, while I tried to make the constructs look and move like Mom had when we were kids.

I wanted to start with my favorite of course, Princess Peony and the Amazing Egg. Peony had been the main character in all the stories our Mom told us, and the stories usually ended with her learning a valuable lesson and making an animal friend. So as Blair began telling the story, I began making tiny constructs of trees and Princess Peony walking through them. “Princess Peony was out in the forest one day, when she came upon a strange egg. It wasn’t a chicken egg, or a robin’s egg or any other kind o’ egg that she was familiar with. No, this egg was purple with pink spots an’ was too big to fit in her hand, in fact she had to cup both hands to hold it.”

I carefully created the tiny egg and had Peony bend over to pick it up with both hands. My constructs weren’t as good as Mom’s and they tended to become a little unstable and shaky if I put too much energy into them, but I was hoping that this would help me improve. “Peony searched all over the forest, carryin’ the egg and lookin’ fer whatever bird could have laid it, fer it must ‘ave been a great bird indeed to lay such a large and beautiful egg.”

The next scene took place in Peony’s castle and that was a bit difficult to create with the drawbridge, walls towers, and such, but I gave it my best shot. At least the only moving thing would be Peony carrying the egg. “Alas, Princess Peony could not find the great bird, so she decided that since she could no’ find the egg’s mother that she would try to get it to hatch and raise it ‘erself. So Peony carefully carried the egg back through the forest, down the road, over the drawbridge, an’ into ‘er castle, where she made a nest in her room from straw and covered the egg with warm blankets.”

I had peony sitting upon the egg in the nest, lying beside it, gently rubbing it, and then creating another construct for Peony’s mother as Blair continued the story. “Peony tried sitting on it, sleeping with it, an’ even talkin’ to it, but the egg just wouldn’t hatch. After three days she began to give up on it ever hatchin’ an’ was very sad. Peony’s mother asked, ‘why are ya so sad?’ When Peony explained, ‘er mother told ‘er, ‘Sometimes things take longer then we want to happen, but if you really want something, then ya need to be willin’ to wait for it, even if it’s a long time an’ ya have to work hard. Havin’ to wait an’ work hard for somethin’ makes it even more special when ya get it.’ So for weeks Peony tried to be patient as she continued to care for the egg, keepin’ it warm and talkin’ to it about all the fun they would have together when it finally hatched.”

I made the egg in the nest start to quiver and shake as Blair told about the egg hatching. The little Peony snoozing beside the egg jumped up and started to happily dance in response to my thoughts. “Then one fine mornin’ Peony awoke to see the egg movin’. It shuddered an’ shook. It bounced an’ jiggled. Peony danced happily as the egg cracked an’ then cracked again, finally fallin’ apart as her new friend appeared.” I made the egg quickly vanish leaving a tiny little dragon in its place. “It was no great bird that hatched as Peony had imagined, but instead a tiny pink dragon that thought Peony was ‘er mama. This was no’ what Peony had been expectin’, but Peony was patient an’ worked hard to care for it, an’ they became the very best of friends.”

By then the twins had finished brushing my hair and were ready to start braiding, but they stopped to applaud with Tasha and Vanessa as the story ended. I blushed a bit at that and muttered, “Mom coulda’ done better.”

“Yuir jus’ learning about your powers, Mom had hers for years before I was born,” Blair chastised before smiling at me. “Okay, we did yuir favorite story, now let’s do mine before I have to leave you girls to sleep.”

We were near the end of Princess Peony, Periwinkle Pony, and the Pirates when I began to feel the strain of using and controlling so many constructs. Still I felt that I wasn’t doing badly for a first timer. The story needed a lot of constructs with the tiny dragon Peaches, Peony, Periwinkle the pony, the pirate ship, and the pirates, not to mention the tiny little cannonballs. Periwinkle wasn’t so much a pony as a small Pegasus of sorts; pony-sized with little wings and a horn on her forehead, so I was working with a lot of fairly elaborate constructs. I blame that for my mistake.

There was this big scene with Peony riding Periwinkle through the air while they and Peaches dodged cannonballs fired from the pirate ship. I was so focused on moving all the constructs and quickly creating and moving the cannonballs that I started pushing too much energy into the pinball-sized cannonballs. At first I wasn’t too concerned about them being a bit unstable and seeming to vibrate to whatever sense let me control my constructs, but then they started actually exploding when they hit the floor and leaving scorch marks roughly six inches in diameter on the carpet.

“Whoa incoming!” Vanessa half-shrieked as she scrambled backward and away from the area I had been constructing the story in.

*Cease fire Merida!* Tasha shouted into my mind as she teleported back toward Shu’s bed.

The twins, who had been braiding my hair and trying to watch the story at the same time had also jumped back a bit, yanking on my hair in the process and causing me to yelp and lose all concentration. The constructs vanished, leaving us all staring at the scorch marks on the floor. “Wot the hell was tha’?”

“You’re asking us?! Those were your cannonballs!” Tasha snapped, gesturing wildly at the scorch marks.

“I think that Merida is just tired,” Blair suggested, “this power is still new to her and she was trying to control a lot there. We were also going for close to an hour non-stop so it’s understandable.”

“But those things actually exploded!” Tasha pressed.

I swallowed the lump in my throat trying not to think about what would have happened if it had been a larger construct as I offered an explanation. “I think I might ‘ave pushed too much energy intae them an’ they became unstable.” What if I had hurt one of them, or worse killed one? I had killed before of course, plenty of times, but they were always people who deserved it, never innocent kids, and I had always been in control of myself at the time. I hadn’t really been in control then though had I? I’d been trying to show off and do too much and had ignored something important. What if I did it again in a more serious situation? What if I couldn’t fully control these powers? I wanted to crawl into a deep hole, as far as I could from the others.

“I’ll say they were unstable!”

“You’re not helping Tasha,” Vanessa snapped, glowering at the older girl. “Can’t you see that she feels bad enough already?”

“I… I’m sorry, if you hadn’t noticed I tend to freak out easily,” Tasha mumbled looking away guiltily.

“We’ve noticed, but you’re going to have to get used to weird shit happening around us, because weird shit is our life now. We all need to stick together, not start snapping at each other whenever we get surprised,” Vanessa told her as she came and took my hand in hers. “It’s okay Mer, we’re all fine, nobody’s hurt and we know you didn’t mean it. You were doing fine until then, it’s like Blair said, you’re just tired and you were trying to do too much.”

“Just think of this as another aspect of your powers that you need to learn to control, I think yuir doin’ fine so far, Mom would be proud,” my sister assured me as she reached over to hug me. Then she hugged the others as well before saying, “I should be headin’ off to ‘report’ and search for the source of that energy field though, you girls finish braidin’ her hair and then ya should all get some sleep.” Then she left the room with the food cart, leaving us to ourselves.

I didn’t say much other than, “Good night” as Blair left and I was left deep in my own dark thoughts, barely managing a “Thanks” for the twins with a sad sigh once they had finished braiding my hair and tied it off. The braid was really heavy, but at least it was mostly out of my way. I still kind of wanted to find a hole to hide in, far away from the others, but maybe just hiding under my blankets once the lights were out would do.

“Awwww, I wanted to know what happened with Periwinkle Pony,” Shu said as she returned to her bed.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Mei replied with a giggle. “She went to Princess Peony’s for a sleepover and they all became bestest friends.” The gold aura from earlier appeared around her and a life-sized Periwinkle, looking just like my construct, with the colors that Blair had described in the story, and very much alive appeared beside her own bed as she climbed in and under the covers.

I climbed under my own covers as Vanessa snatched up a bikini top that Blair had thought would be useful for her while in the bathtub and headed to the bathroom to get comfortable in her own ‘bed’. Tasha turned out the lights and the room dropped into near total darkness until my eyes adjusted. I watched the others until well after they had fallen asleep, making a mental note that Periwinkle had vanished almost as soon as Mei had drifted off. I thought I was the only one awake when I heard Tasha in the bed beside mine say, “I’m sorry Merida… I shouldn’t have overreacted, I just… panic sometimes. I’m actually a little jealous of you, you always seem so in control and sure of yourself despite everything happening and I’m not sure how you manage it, since I have a feeling that you have the most to adjust to of any of us. Please don’t let what I said bother you, it wasn’t really your fault and we need you too much.”