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Author's Note: Here's chapter 7 of Syryn's Song. Thank you as always to all my readers for the comments, kudos, and thinking that my work is worth reading. Also thanks to the Big Closet team who work tirelessly to give us all a wonderfully supportive venue to read and post TG fiction ~Amethyst.
 

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Chapter 7: Family Ties
 

The next week was a bit hectic. We started our mornings off with team practices, coming up with strategies and basically getting a feel for one another in combat. After that we would spend a half hour studying the files on various villains and organizations, followed by three hours of working on our individual training. Once training was complete though, we had the rest of our days to do whatever we wanted.

The team practices helped us to get used to not just cooperating and getting used to our new gadgets, but getting a better idea of each others’ full scope of abilities as well. First there was Twilight. She was starting to get better control on her speed and could indeed break the sound barrier now that her shoes weren’t constantly melting. That, combined with her enormous strength, healing factor and shadow-walking ability, made her a terrifying opponent at times.

Riff had been training his force field so much that he had to be reclassified as a solid Category four Energy Manipulator. He could summon and dismiss his force field at a moments notice and hold it for longer periods of time. With it on, he could easily hold his own in a fight for short periods of time against Liberty. I’m not just talking about taking damage either, since if he hit back or threw something fast enough he could dish out some serious damage too.

Starbright, now that she had lost some of her hesitation about using her powers for more than just light shows, was mastering illusions and the use of her variable solid light weapon. It also seemed that she had figured out how to bend light around herself for brief periods of near invisibility. She was quickly becoming very adept at combining those techniques with her knowledge of martial arts to take opponents down hard and fast.

Decibel’s sonar sense made him very difficult to ambush. Twilight could do it using her shadow walking and I had managed it once with a mix of Elven focussing techniques and telekinesis, but against anyone who made a sound, he could sense them coming from well over fifty feet in any direction. He had taken a few days to get used to how his mask could be used to widen and narrow his sonic blasts, which had amounted to more than a few migraines over those days. Now that he had a feel for it though, he was becoming a lot more adept at changing it up to suit various purposes and was experimenting with sonic shockwaves and various subsonic frequencies.

And then there was Rave. She was naturally quick and agile and had done very well learning to fight under Blackout’s tutelage for the past month. Her control over her portals though was frankly astounding. She could create them to any place or person she was familiar with, in various sizes, anywhere within her line of sight, create multiple portals at once with only a thought, and she had recently developed a technique of air hopping; leaping through the air from portal to portal to travel quickly and even standing in mid-air by connecting the other side of a portal along a wall, the ground or any other sufficiently large flat surface.

We were all really starting to get a good feel for each other in team practices by the end of the week and in my practices with Tessliy she was teaching me more advanced hand to hand and sword techniques and having me mix them up with telekinetic attacks, in addition to the mental focus exercises. After practice I had been getting into the habit of eating lunch with Tessily and spending part of the afternoons with her so that we could explore our new mother-daughter relationship outside of training time. She was even teaching me to cook Fae dishes and I really enjoyed spending that time with her and learning more about the Fae culture and language and about Tessily herself. Our relationship was just so natural to the both of us, in addition to being something that we both needed and wanted, that by the end of that week I was sometimes even calling her Mahar, which was the Fae equivalent to mother. She may not have been my birth mother, but she was quickly becoming my soul-mother.

Each day I felt our relationship growing, whether she was giving me some pointers on combat, we were making and eating lunch, or we were just spending the afternoon shopping and chatting together. She was the mother I had always wished that my biological mother could have been. First, she always had time for me and enjoyed spending that time together. She also didn’t constantly nag me to do what she felt I should do with my life and never told me specifically what to do in general, but rather guided me with her own experience. Lastly, while she did not share my interest in music or the style of music I liked, she encouraged and supported me without judgement because it was what I wanted to do and it made me happy. She even came to watch us practice if she had the time.

The couch in the music studio was actually getting a bit crowded during our nightly practices, and we had to set up a pair of comfortable chairs as well, as Tessily and Sasha had joined Blake, Amy, and Brianna. Sasha had been quick to take charge of our affairs, making suggestions and talking them over with us as she got to know us better during the evenings, and she was seeming to become more human by the day.

Sasha’s first idea was to start off by having us do one full practice in costume on her first official day as our manager, so she could take some photos and soundbites and set up various social media accounts and a website for RevolveR. She had even created limited bios for each of us, including our ‘roadie’ Rave, though thankfully they didn’t give much information other than our codenames, what our roles in the band were, the instruments we played, and other band related minutia, some of which she made up to suit the personas that Modiste had cooked up for us. I was worried that someone could trace our location from those accounts, but the android assured me that for all such activities she was using an encryption program and running it through over two hundred various websites and ISPs worldwide to make any data trail impossible to follow.

We were actually getting followers on both the website and social media accounts, especially once people started to recognize me as the ‘Blue Bombshell’. Most of the early comments were related to that or now knowing what to call me and my ‘sexy sidekick’ Riff. There were also some who were looking forward to checking us out in the Battle of the Bands, and of course the anti-mutant flamers. We were getting emails and messages too, though Sasha was careful to screen those for us. That was how my birth mother found me, or at least my online presence.

It was nearly a week after my birthday, two days before the opening day of the Battle of the Bands when Sasha approached us after practice. She had been practicing expressing emotions in her body language, facial expressions, and voice since we had met her and the frown she wore was extremely realistic, as were the concern and uncertainty in her voice when she spoke. “Candy, I do not wish to alarm you, but we received an email addressed to your Syryn email account and directed from our website for a ‘Kenny’. I have run a trace and the email address, ISP, and location match those of Karen Graham, your birth mother.”

“What the hell does that bitch want?” Leslie muttered in a glacial tone. She had been there through all the attempts to get in touch with my mother and had seen firsthand the emotional effect that her refusal to accept me and her eventual claims of my death had caused me. She had made no secret of the fact that since then she would very much like to teach my birth mother a very painful lesson. From the looks on their faces, my other bandmates were of a similar disposition. Still, I didn’t want to dismiss the email out of hand without looking at it first, so I took the printout that our agent and manager was holding and looked it over.

Kenny,

I am so glad that I’ve finally found you. I’ve missed you and I want you to come to New Haven for a visit so that we can put this horrible situation behind us. I know that I have no right to call myself your mother after how I treated you, but I hope that you will come visit. I forgive you and hope that you will forgive me as well since we have a lot to work out and I want to put our issues to rest.

“Oh yeah, that was a real heartwarming maternal letter,” Mai practically growled once I had finished reading it. “Like a batch of fresh-baked cookies, laced with arsenic.”

Amy snorted in agreement before snatching the printout and adding acidly, “Translation: I know who you are and could out you to the world any time I like. I’m so glad that I finally found you. I totally fucked up before while freaking out and now I want to correct my mistake. I need to use some leverage here so I’ll mention the whole mother thing, without actually admitting to it, just to get you here. I’m hoping that you’re stupid enough to fall for this, since I would really like to get you here so I can put you to rest properly this time.”

“Come on guys, it’s not that bad… is it?” I ventured uncertainly, torn between my own pessimism and the ever so slight hope that my mother might really be trying to reach out and accept me.

John shook his head, his expression warring between anger and sadness. “Candy, I know you really want this to be on the up and up, believe me we all get that, but this is bad news.”

“I concur,” Sasha put in, “That entire message was a crude psychological attempt to manipulate your feelings for the mother that you remember. It focusses on your feelings for her, while carefully avoiding any real connection that she had with you. She did not once admit to an actual relationship with you and in fact carefully avoided words like ‘home’ or anything that could show actual affection for you. The one time she used the word ‘mother’ was clearly intended as emotional manipulation, as was her use of the name Kenny. I calculate a ninety-six point eight percent chance that this is a trap, given what I know of the situation.”

I sank into the couch, biting my lip and trying to hold back the tears that threatened to come. Finally once I had some control I managed to get out, “Amy is right though, she could out me to the world at anytime.”

“That possibility is unlikely Candy,” Sasha pointed out. “Based on the psychological profile that I have extrapolated from all available information on Karen Anne Graham, there is an eighty-nine point four percent probability against her doing that. Exposing you would only reveal herself as your mother, exposing her as a possible H Chromosome carrier and endangering her as well as you. Her own indoctrination of hate toward mutants would make her extremely reluctant to do so. Still, we should probably begin considering strategies to negate that outcome, slight as it is. I anticipated this when I received the email and have already spoken with Lisa regarding this possibility. She and the other members of Aegis would like you all to join them in the situation room downstairs.”

With all of the members of both Aegis and Revolver plus Brianna, Blake and Sasha gathered, the situation room was a bit crowded when Lisa called the meeting to order. None of us were in costume but there was a very serious tone to the gathering, like a dark cloud hanging over us all. Lisa tapped away at one of the consoles for a moment once we were all settled in and a picture of my mother appeared on the main view screen. Lisa gestured to the screen and began to lay out the situation for those of us who didn’t know why we were gathered. “This is Karen Anne Graham, Candice’s birth mother. She is a known member of the Church of the Purity of Adam.”

Lisa tapped the console again, bringing up an image of the fight that Riff and I had had with the Right Hand. “Detective Serena MacArthur with the HCU has a very strong suspicion that the Church of the Purity of Adam has strong ties to, and may possibly be funding the Right Hand, who I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with by now. While Serena admits that she has no concrete proof of such a connection, I trust her intuition enough to be cautious when anyone is involved with either of these anti-mutant organizations.”

Sasha joined Lisa at the head of the large shield shaped table before speaking. “Earlier this evening I received this email directed to Syryn’s email account from Karen Graham.” She tapped the console and the email from my mother appeared on the screen, causing the members of Aegis who didn’t know why we were there to frown and grumble as they read the contents. “The psychological profile I have constructed on Karen Graham would indicate that this is a trap, meant to take advantage of Candy’s feelings for her birth mother and the fear of the possibility of her being exposed.”

Lisa gave me a sympathetic look as she spoke again. “I know that Candy probably wants to hope for the best here, but I believe that we need to take this as an active threat against Candy’s life and possibly the lives of the other members of RevolveR as well. We only have two choices here unfortunately, allow her to spring the trap if there is one, or ignore it and allow a possible threat to attack Candy at a later time of their choosing. We also have to assume that with her accessing RevolveR’s website that she knows that they will playing in the Battle of the Bands starting the day after tomorrow, giving her, and any allies she might have, opportunity to attack at a time and venue that we don’t have control over, endangering Candy, the members of her team, and civilians as well.”

“So we get Candy to respond and walk into the trap then?” Ian snapped, not sounding like he liked that idea at all.

“We can do that and have the time and place be one of our choosing, preferably tomorrow before the Battle of the Bands begins on Friday to negate the possibility of an attack beforehand. In that case we will be able to provide backup for her as well. The other option is to wait and limit the chances of a direct assault by having RevolveR withdraw from the Battle of the Bands,” Nick pointed out matter-of-factly.

“No way are we withdrawing! We’ve worked too damn hard for this and we’re going to win! Candy deserves to get a little payback at Red Prophesy after what they did to her!” Mai shouted.

Everyone had turned to look at me expectantly. It was my call. I didn’t want to pull out of the contest and, whether my mother was being honest or really did intend to kill me, I just wanted this over with. Finally I sighed and said with a feeling of doom, “We do it tomorrow. I’ll email her and ask to meet her at her house when she gets off work.” I surprised myself by saying her house instead of our house or home, but I guess it wasn’t really home anymore. This was my home now and these people were my family, that was just the place where Ken Graham grew up, and Ken Graham was dead. Long live Syryn.

Lisa nodded and tried to give me an encouraging smile before speaking again. “Now, let’s decide how we’re going to do this. We’ll have to coordinate with local authorities to keep people out of the area in case things go as I fear they will, and both Aegis and RevolveR will be there for backup and to evacuate people in the neighbourhood, should it come to that, but we will remain in our respective ships and those ships will remain cloaked until we are needed. Candy, I would suggest that you go disguised as a normal human, but not your usual disguise, we don’t want to expose your normal civilian identity.”

“I shall accompany Candice,” Tessily broke in. “I shall cast a glamour over us both to appear as normal humans casually dressed, while allowing us to remain in our uniforms for safety. I will not be dissuaded from this Lisa,” she added, cutting off the redhead’s protest before she could make it. “Candice should not have to face this alone and my place is at her side. Should that Tyniehl attempt anything we shall be prepared.”

Lisa let out a sigh, but nodded. “Okay, I get where you’re coming from Tess, I’d probably be feeling the same way in your place. Just be careful, both of you, if she really does have ties to the Right Hand things could get intense and we won’t be able to act right away. Anything we do will need to be seen as a response to a threat. The anti-mutant extremists would just love it if it looked like we were starting a fight. At least if you’re both in uniform we’ll be able to monitor things over your built in microphones, warn you of any threats, and time our response properly. Just keep your lines open so we can be ready to back you up.”

With the general plan laid out we composed an email from me to my birth mother. I wanted to make sure that it was optimistic just in case she really was reaching out to me, but it made me sound a bit naïve as well, which I guess wasn’t too far from the truth when I had first heard about the message. The objective was to make her think that I really was eager to meet with her and work things out and had no idea that it could possibly be a trap. In other words, we were typecasting me as the blue-skinned, pink-haired bimbo. I would have been insulted if I hadn’t already admitted to myself that, from the way my birth mother’s email had been worded, that was how she probably saw me. I was an easy mark as Ken, and I guess she didn’t think that would change too much, even if my body did. Why then couldn’t she see me as the same person and accept me?

Hi Mom,

It is so good to finally hear from you. I’ve missed you so much and I’ve been like so lost trying to get used to this freaky new body and weird powers without you. I’m like so excited that my dream of becoming a rock star is looking like it’s finally going to come true though. I’d love to come home to see you, but I‘ll be busy Friday and most of the weekend, so would tomorrow after you get off work be okay? I could come to the house, and don’t worry I’ll wear a disguise so your Church friends don’t like freak out or something. I’d really love for us to talk this out as soon as possible and have you back in my life. Maybe you can come see me and my band play sometime, that would be like totally awesome and make me sooo happy. I really hope we can do this tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to seeing you now.

Love Kendra

The last part was to keep anyone else who read it on the wrong track while still looking naïve and eager enough to really want to patch things up. Hopefully she and anyone else who read it would simply believe that “Kendra” was a bit of an immature bimbo and a momma’s girl who was eager to have her mommy back in her life, and who was impulsive and reckless enough to just jump into it as soon as possible. With the email composed Sasha sent it from my Syryn account, once again doing her thing so that it couldn’t possibly be traced back to our location. Then all we had to do was wait.

We didn’t have to wait long. It looked like she was probably waiting for a response, or more likely she had an alert set up on her phone. The reply consisted of merely one line. Tomorrow after work would be perfect, I’ll see you at the house. That certainly confirmed a few things. First, she wasn’t the loving mother wanting to be reunited with her child. She hadn’t even attempted to convey that, and in terms of maternal warmth that message was somewhere in the range of hell freezing over. Secondly, she likely bought the whole “naïve and vapid boy-turned-girl who was desperate to be reunited with Mommy” persona that we had tried to make me sound like in the email. That or she just didn’t care what I was really like so long as I showed up for her trap like a good girl. I was leaning toward the latter at that point.

After training the next morning Tessily boarded the tour bus with me and the rest of my team while the other members of Aegis boarded the Ladybug and then we made our way to New Haven. We kept the tour bus cloaked, but the Ladybug was supposed to be seen in the area and Liberty had even scheduled herself a few last minute public appearances in the area to make it seem like she and her team just happened to be already in the area in case they had to get involved later.

We killed time out of costume by playing tourist as Leslie and I showed the other members of our team, and Tess, around New Haven, grabbing a late lunch and taking in some of the sights before returning to the ship and changing into our costumes. Since we still had an hour and half before my ‘meeting’ we landed the tour bus on one of the helipads of New Haven Children’s Hospital and took the elevator down for a visit with Dr. Park and the kids in the Hyper Ward. When Dr. Park answered the intercom at the security door she seemed surprised, but quickly opened it up to give us all a warm greeting. “It’s good to see you all, what brings you to New Haven?”

She was less than enthused when we told her what was going on. She had been the one contacting my birth mother to try and get her support and it wasn’t hard to see that she hadn’t liked her at all. “Anyway, we thought we’d come to visit the kids since we’re here.”

Dr. Park hugged all of us in turn before turning to Twilight and me. “Well most of the kids from your time here were cleared to go home, Marcus is the only one still here, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you both, and we have some new patients that I’m sure would love to meet you. Marcus has been following your exploits in New York and your new website and the girls don’t believe that he knows you.”

“Let’s see what we can do about that then,” I replied with a grin toward Twilight.

It brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad as we walked past the patient rooms and into the common dining area. Marcus was sitting at the table playing monopoly with a pair of girls who looked around fourteen or fifteen. One was a fairly average-looking brunette who was tapping silvery nails impatiently on the table with a noticeable metallic clicking sound. The other girl bore a passing resemblance to me, if I were only fifteen and she seemed to have a pale silver aura around her that made my clan mark tingle. “Whoa… holy doppelganger… and some kind of magic going on there.” I barely managed to get out as I spotted her.

“Yes that girl is definitely magical in nature, and a familiar magic too,” Tessliy agreed.

Dr. Park stifled a laugh and whispered, “That’s Allison, she’s… complicated. I think she’s a Shifter of some sort, I guess it could be a magical ability and it would make sense given the issues involved, but she’s having problems controlling it consciously. She may have a small hero complex about you since Marcus started showing them the news footage and your website yesterday. It’s probably best you let them introduce themselves though Candy.”

“Right Dr. Park, Leslie and I know the drill,” I responded with a wink before striding over to the table with the others behind me and calling out, “Smog! How’s it going?”

Twilight took that as her cue and called out, “Are you ever going to get out of here? I see that Taser, and Armor got set loose.”

Marcus looked up in a mix of shock and euphoria. “Syryn! Twilight!” Then in an aside to the girls he said, “See, I told you I knew them.”

I giggled a bit at that before standing behind Marcus and giving him a friendly slap on the back. “Know you? Twilight and I were patients in here with Smog, he’s like a kid brother to us. Anyone in this ward, is family. So why don’t you get our new sisters to introduce themselves Smog, and then I’ll introduce my friends.”

Smog gave the brunette a quick elbow to the ribs, spurring her to speak up. “Ummm…. hi… I’m Jennifer, but Smog says I should call myself Savage. My bones are made of iron and so are my finger and toenails, except they don’t seem to grow anymore and they’re really sharp. I’m also really agile and I can make myself heal really fast for short periods, but it tires me out a lot. I guess I’m in here because we’re trying to get me on a proper diet to fix my increased need for iron, and I have a bit of a temper and some impulse control issues since my change.”

My clone didn’t really look exactly like me, the face and body were obviously different, and all that was really similar was the pointed ears and the color of the skin, eyes, and hair. She wrung her hands nervously, and her coloring began to shift, while her general facial features and body type stayed the same. She cleared her throat twice before speaking up and by the time that she had she now possessed pale white skin and mouse brown hair and eyes. “I’m Allison… though most people call me Allie… I haven’t really chosen a codename yet. I change my appearance… obviously, and I guess how I look is based on… strong emotions so I can’t really control it. I seem to have a different form for each emotion and my abilities with each form seem to be different.”

“She only Activated two days ago so I think that she’s still developing her new forms as she encounters strong emotional states and mentally connects them to people or concepts that she associates with them. Each time she goes back to a strong emotion she’s already felt since her change the form seems to be the same as before,” Dr. Park quickly explained. “The form you saw when you came in was Confidence and this one seems to be Shyness.”

“Your abilities seem very much like the Changelings among my own people and are almost certainly magical in nature Allison,” Tessily offered while kneeling beside the girl. “The magic itself feels very similar to a Changeling’s as well. Perhaps you have some of their blood far back in your family line.”

“This is my adoptive mother Tessily,” I quickly explained. “She’s a Fae princess, she knows more about magic than anyone else I know, and she’s been training me to use my psychic abilities. So she knows what she’s talking about.”

“So how do these Changelings control their power?” Allie asked eagerly.

“They do not,” Tessily replied simply before elaborating, “or rather they do not need to. Among my people what a person looks like is unimportant, it’s who a person is inside that counts and we are used to Changelings not looking the same from one moment to another. Your appearance may not be set in stone, but it reflects who you are inside; your values, emotions, and sometimes the people you admire. Be proud of who you are and do not be afraid to show how you feel.”

It looked like she was hoping for more, but she seemed to at least consider the advice. “Ummm… would you be offended if I chose the name Changeling?”

“Not at all Allison, I think it would suit you well, Please, use the name with pride,” my adoptive mother told her while smiling warmly. Allison beamed back at her and her features began to shift again, her ears becoming pointed, her hair silver, and her eyes the same amber with slit pupils as Tessily’s own.

“Well, I’ll be damned, I think Allie just associated you with happiness Tessily. That’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since she came in here two days ago,” Dr. Park said with a smile of her own and a shake of her head.

I put a hand on Allie’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “If you find that you really can’t control it and need to blend in then Dr. Park knows how to contact us, and we have a friend who can probably help you. If he can help me and Rave look normal, he can probably help you too, and I’m sure he’d love the challenge of coming up with something that shows a single appearance for someone who’s often changing shape. You can also email me through our website if you ever need to talk or get into some sort of trouble, and I’m sure Twilight and the others feel the same too, just remember that none of the information shared in this ward goes beyond the people here now, for all of our safety.”

Both girls nodded solemnly and I turned to smile at the other girl. “Now as for you Savage, Tessily has been teaching me some mental focussing techniques that I think I can adapt to help you control that temper. I’ll send them along to Dr. Park and hopefully they’ll help, but like I told Changeling, feel free to email me if you need help with anything. We Ward kids look out for one another, whether we’re still in the ward or not.”

After that I introduced the other members of my team and we chatted with the three of them for a few minutes before saying our goodbyes and heading back to the ship, though Dr. Park asked Twilight and me to talk to her in her office for a few minutes. As we went inside and each of us took a seat, Dr. Park shut the door before giving us both a big hug. “Thanks for stopping in to visit girls, I think that meant a lot to all three of them. Marcus misses you and the others and I think he’s been afraid to bother you unless it’s important, but maybe you’ll hear from him more now. Those two girls said they didn’t believe him about knowing you when he told them yesterday, but they were really hoping he was telling the truth.”

“Yeah, I think Allie’s ‘Confidence’ form looking like me kinda gave that away,” I retorted with a giggle.

“Those two really remind me of the pair of you since Allie showed up the other day.” Dr. Park began with a sigh. “Allie Activated here in the hospital too and her first form was Fear which is as frightening as it is inhuman. When her foster parents reacted much like your mother did she turned to Anger, think of it as one of your early telekinetic tantrums, but with fire. Since she got here Jenny has been trying to take her under her wing and become friends, but she has her own issues, her parents were exposed as mutants and since they only had nuisance level powers they couldn’t fight back and her whole family died in the attack that followed. She was out with friends at the time, but when she got home and the police told her what had happened the trauma and anger caused her to Activate. She passed out from the strain on her body and was brought here. In truth neither of them needs to be here, Allie has no real medical conditions and Jenny’s increased need for iron is easily treatable now through a proper diet and vitamin regimen, but they have nowhere to go and they’ll both be dangerous if not properly trained and emotionally supported, especially Allie.”

“So basically they’re a lot like us back then, in the same boat we were, but they’re screwed because they’re not even close to eighteen yet,” Twilight muttered. “So what do you want us to do? It’s not like we could qualify as foster parents or anything. Could we?”

“I was considering having Lisa become Jenny’s foster parent, but you would make a good mentor and sister figure for her Leslie, you have a lot in common. As for Allie, I was concerned by some of the blood and DNA tests I ran when she first came in and I compared them to a former patient. Allie was in foster care for most her life, but by comparing the samples I discovered that she does have one living blood relative, who could legally care for her if she wished to…” Dr. Park trailed off uncertainly.

“So call this woman then and ask her,” I said with a frown.

“I’m trying to,” she replied with a sigh. “It was hard to find the paper trail, but Allie was born out of wedlock and orphaned soon after birth in a car accident when her mother and father died. She only barely survived and was placed in foster care. Her birth was registered to a Lara Nichols, who was herself an orphan and an only child, but the father’s name was also on the birth certificate. It was Cameron Graham, and the only reason that Allie didn’t have his last name is because she was the result of an extra-marital affair.”

“Are you saying… that she…” I sputtered as I tried to wrap my head around it.

“Yes,” she replied reaching out to squeeze my hand in her own. “Allison is your half-sister. I double checked the blood and DNA tests and the paperwork to be certain.”

“Holy shit…” Twilight gasped, staring at me.

I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than that to say at the moment so I just kept staring at her slack-jawed. Finally I managed, “That was Dad’s name. Mom said he died in a car accident, while driving drunk, when I was three. I guess the time fits.”

Dr. Park shook her head. “I looked at the accident, medical, and police reports myself, there were no signs of alcohol in his system, but there were signs of foul play. The brake line of the vehicle had been tampered with, but there was no evidence pointing to any specific suspects so the case wasn’t pursued.”

I stood up and had to tightly reign in both my empathy and telekinesis. “Don’t let Allie leave here, I’ll be back to figure this all out once I finished talking to my mother, and she damn well better have some good answers.”

I stormed back up to the tour bus, more furious than I had ever been in my life, even when my mother had abandoned me or when Alex had come into my hospital room to gloat. Twilight actually had to use a bit of her speed to keep up with me. Once we were aboard I headed to the pilot’s compartment to tell Sasha, “We’re ready, let’s go do this.”

“Syryn… Candy, what’s wrong? What happened? You don’t need to be giving off empathy for us to see that you’re really pissed off right now,” Riff ventured, placing a hand on my shoulder as I returned to the dining area.

“She lied to me my whole fucking life! She told me my dad was a drunk! What else did she know that she lied to me about?! Did she know I had a fucking sister?!”

Tessily wrapped me up in a tight hug. “Candice, I do not know what has upset you so much, but you must calm down, we need to adhere to the plan. Focus your mind, control your power, and remember your task, all other things we will face together as they come.

I had managed to calm down somewhat and regain my focus by the time of the meeting. I was still furious, but I was keeping a very tight leash on my emotions and my powers. Tessily was right, being angry and confrontational would only make things worse. As much as I wanted to get some answers out of her, going about it while angry would only be a bad idea. So as my Mahar worked her magic on us I tried to focus on the task ahead.

Tessily usually only used magic on her arrows because it was more practical for her in combat, but she was actually an accomplished mage and by the time we stepped through Rave’s portal to a quiet alley a few blocks away from my former home she had woven a very convincing glamour over us both. From what the others had said I looked like a busty and bubbly redhead coed clad in a pair of denim cut-offs, a green halter top, green sandals that went well with the top, and carrying a denim purse. Tessily herself was a slender blonde clad in a white tunic style top, jeans and sneakers.

Don’t freak out, just stay in character, at least until you’re inside, I admonished myself as I rang the doorbell. As soon as she opened the door I gave her a big hug and gave a fake little giggle to stay in character. “Mom! It’s so good to see you!”

She looked confused for a moment, but that was good I wanted her off balance. “It’s me… Ken…dra,” I said, playing at being suddenly shy and uncertain. “I told you I was coming in disguise right? What were you expecting a trench coat and hat?” From the expression on her face I figured that she was expecting just that, or something very similar. “This is my friend Lily, she’s like me and she’s like totally awesome with disguises and stuff, so she offered to help.”

“Please, come in,” she said a bit awkwardly as she looked both of us over and then as she opened the door for us her eyes seemed to dart nervously around the neighbourhood. The moment we were all inside and the door was closed she plastered a fake smile on her face and suggested, “Why don’t we all go into the kitchen and talk over some coffee?”

“That would be great Mom!” I fake-enthused, giving a vapid little giggle for good measure. I felt like an idiot, but I couldn’t make the first move if this really was a trap, and since I couldn’t trust anything my mother had ever told me now, I had to believe that it was.

We followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she prepared some coffee, except that I knew for a fact that the drawer she reached for to “get the spoons” was not where she usually put them. That was the drawer she kept emergency supplies in, like candles, flashlights and such. The instant she pulled out the gun I reached out with my mind and tore it apart at the seams. It was a plastic and ceramic weapon of a very familiar design. It was the same kind that Smith and the other members of the Right Hand had had when they tried to kidnap Rave.

“Well, I guess it looks like we can both drop the act now,” I told her conversationally, while making certain she could hear the anger in my voice. So that was your whole plan? Invite me home and then kill me over coffee? That doesn’t sound like something the Right Hand would normally cook up though, they’re all about overkill and I know that those weapons are non-lethal. Do they really want me that bad after Coney Island?”

“My comrades and the Cardinal don’t know anything about this… they can’t… or I would have called my squad in when I set this up.” she spat as she watched both Tessily and me carefully and her hand reached into the drawer for something else, but her hand then withdrew still empty. “Do you really think that I would tell them that my own child was a monster? Kenny died in the hospital, and I tried to just let you go on to whatever miserable death awaited you. Then you showed up on the news killing my brothers-in-arms and started popping up all over the internet. I couldn’t let anyone connect you to me so I was planning on handling this myself, it would have been self defense when a mutant freak attacked me in my home, but you just had to bring a friend. I should have killed you as soon as I found out what you were. All your life I tried to keep you safe, teach you God’s path, and protect you from becoming like your father, but you became an abomination, just like he was.”

“Keep her talking Syryn, we’re recording all of this. If she’s a member of the Right Hand and not being monitored at the moment she could give us some valuable information,” Liberty said in my ear.

“We may not have time for that,” Sasha interjected, “I just picked up an omnidirectional signal coming from your general location Syryn, possibly a tracker or some kind of long range distress signal.”

“She probably called in backup,” Nick muttered. “Everyone get ready in case we need to engage hostiles and evacuate civilians. Keep her talking Syryn.”

The signal was probably from whatever she had touched in the emergency drawer. They wanted me to keep her talking, fine I had questions I wanted answered anyway. “So I’m guessing that your ‘job’ wasn’t really religious counselling. Do you work for the Church or the Right Hand? And what about my father?”

“I’ve been doing God’s work! The Right Hand is the right hand of God. We are the most dedicated of our church, the most committed to doing Gods work and cleansing the world of the mutant abominations. Your father was an abomination too, not a visible freak like you, but one nonetheless. He said that he wasn’t dangerous, that they were just little magic tricks, but things would start to fly around the room whenever we argued.”

Trying to contain my anger I prodded, “He wasn’t a drunk was he? His ‘accident’, was that you? What about thou shalt not kill? Or is that only for people who fit into your limited view of what the world should be?”

“I was a good wife! A good mother! Then I found out about him and that Nichols woman, and their child! He said I was the dangerous one! He was going to leave me for her and he wanted to take you! I did it for you!” Dishes and appliances on the counter started to shake and I was pretty sure it wasn’t me doing it. I had a very firm grip on my anger.

“We’ve got incoming,” Sasha’s voice noted. “Four Right Hand VTOL’s are inbound and moving in fast, I calculate two minutes before they are in range to deploy.”

“That’s bullshit,” I responded to my birth mother as calmly as I could manage. “You killed my father and almost killed my sister too. You’ve lied to me my whole life and tried to control me. How was that for me? That was for you, so you could keep your delusions about yourself and so you couldn’t be connected to people like us. You see those things shaking on the counter? That’s not me, I’m holding my powers in check. You killed Dad, so it can’t be him either.” I pointed to Tessily who had been remaining quiet and concentrating on keeping our glamour up. “She doesn’t have abilities like that and if she was going to try to harm you you’d already be unconscious on the floor. So guess who’s causing that.”

She stood there with a look of horror on her face until I could hear the sounds of the VTOL’s outside. That was when she snapped. “No! I’m a good girl! I’m one of God’s chosen! I am not a monster!”

Knives flew from the rack on the counter toward me and Tessily and I quickly put up a TK shield to intercept them. “It looks like I’m not the only one you’ve been lying to all these years. Oh, by the way, your friends are here, but so are mine.”

That was the cue that the others had been waiting for. Liberty snapped into leader-mode immediately. “Okay let’s go visible. Take these guys out hard and fast. We have groups to both the front and rear of the house. Silver, take out the self destruct on those VTOLs, we’re in a residential area and I don’t want any collateral damage here if possible. All other Aegis members get on taking down enemy combatants and evacuating civilians to the police cordon.”

“Rave, you’re on evacuation duty, and everyone outside activate ‘shades’ mode.” I said into my own mic as Tessily dropped our glamour. “Decibal and Starbright target those coming at us from the rear, take out their eyes and ears and then disarm them and disable those chips. Riff work the perimeter, take out any stragglers, and cover any civilians that Rave hasn’t evacuated yet. Twilight, make them fear the shadows; hit and run tactics, but limit your speed and strength to try to disable or injure, we don’t want any casualties attributed to us.”

One of the knives that had clattered to the floor flew into Psycho-mom’s hand and she lunged at me with a crazed look in her eyes. I had a TK shield up and ready to counter her but Tessily moved faster than I had expected and decked her hard enough to send her flying to the floor, the knife skittering away harmlessly. The Fae stood over her, somehow remaining cool and calm despite the fire of anger in her eyes. “You shall never harm my daughter again! You dared to call yourself her mother. A mother loves unconditionally and does things for their child’s sake, not their own. Unatri Tyniehl! You are a disgrace.”

“Star and I are about to do our thing, you two might want to cover your eyes and ears in there,” Decibel’s voice warned.

“Engage shades,” I said. The slim visor retracted from my circlet to cover my eyes and took on a dark tint as I covered my ears and Tessily did the same, closing her eyes as well. I kept a close eye on the woman on the floor in case she tried anything else and once the all clear was given I disengaged the visor, quickly drew my stun sword to temporarily disable her legs and prevent her from getting up or trying to run off. The sounds of fighting outside were starting to get loud as I extracted the scanner and one of the mini-EMP devices that Blake had given us from my utility belt. “Now let’s see about disabling that death-chip in your shoulder. I’m sure the police are going to have a lot of questions for you about your church and its activities and I wouldn’t want you dying on them first.”

I sat her up and waved the handheld device over her shoulder and, once I received the triple beep confirmation that the chip was indeed there, I slapped the small disk on her blouse over the spot where the implant had been detected. Then I hit the button to engage the device and stepped back a few feet. After several seconds the device beeped once more and then sparked and died. “It looks like you’ll live.”

To my surprise she started laughing. “You’re not saving me. I’d be better off dead if I’m a freak like you, but I’m not, I’m one of God’s chosen and I’ll die as one.” She bit down hard and started frothing at the mouth and choking as her eyes rolled back in her head and then she collapsed to the floor in a dead heap.

“Shit! Everyone be advised; our adversaries have cyanide capsules or something in addition to the chips so feel free to knock some teeth loose or find a way to keep them from biting down on them.” I looked down at the body on the floor and sighed. “We never really knew one another at all did we?”

Tessily wrapped me up in a hug, but I didn’t have any more tears in me for that woman. I had already shed them all in the hospital when she had made it clear that I wasn’t her child and she didn’t want to be my mother. All I really knew about her was that she was a crazy and deluded religious fanatic, that she had killed my father and the family that should have been mine, and that she had gone out of her way to try to kill me too. My real mother, the one that mattered, was holding me in her arms. I just let her hold me a minute longer and then I said, “Let’s go help the others finish things up.”

We had managed to disable all of the self-destructs on the VTOLs and capture three of our adversaries alive, two men and one woman, after disabling the chips on most of them. One of them had three teeth knocked out by Twilight during the fight and one just happened to be the booby-trapped one, while the others we had gagged with something large enough that they couldn’t bite down and they would be drugged and have the cyanide capsules removed at the hospital, where they would be kept on suicide watch until they could be properly questioned and charged. The rest of them had been taken out by the chips or eagerly taken the tooth.

Between those three captives, what I had learned during the conversation in the kitchen of Ken’s home, some things we had found in the master bedroom of the house, and the VTOLs we had plenty of evidence connecting the Right Hand to the Church of the Purity of Adam. Federal organizations like the HAA and the FBI were now able to get involved to freeze their assets and perform raids on their properties across the country. The world wasn’t saved or anything, but I think that we took a small step toward making it a better place.

Best of all, no civilians had been harmed at all, Rave had evacuated a lot of them and the other members of both teams had done a good job in covering the escape of others while taking down the bad guys. Overall it was a good mission, despite having been a bit an emotional rollercoaster for me. I knew that Tessily and my friends were all concerned about me, but really I was fine, I had been angry when I learned about my father’s murder and emotionally blindsided by the existence of my sister, but I was over the other stuff before this even happened.

It was nearly seven thirty by the time the police got things sorted out and the federal agencies had gotten involved. Our job was over and Liberty had said that while all physical evidence would be turned over to the proper agencies, the conversation in the kitchen would only be kept for our own records since my past was none of anyone else’s business. In fact, it seemed that all of her correspondence with our website and my email address had mysteriously vanished from Karen Graham’s computer and email account. I would have to remember to thank Sasha and Phil for that later.

Now though I wanted to focus on other things, like getting back to the hospital and the Hyper Ward before visiting hours were over and Dr. Park left for the night. I needed to deal with that tonight or I would be a distracted mess tomorrow when the Battle of the Bands started. Twilight and I spoke about it with the others as we flew toward the hospital and they were as shocked as I had been about the existence of my sister. They all thought that we should do it. It may mean a bit of a change as Twilight would share an apartment with her new protégé and I would do the same with my sister, but it would be better for all of us.

It was Mai who said it best though. “You both need to do this, especially you Candy. You’ve kinda come full circle and these kids need us as much as you needed Aegis when you got out of that hospital. You have a sister Candy. If it were me, and I found my cousin Sakura, I wouldn’t hesitate to take her in. She’s family and we can work out the details later, the important thing is that she knows that she’s not alone and that you, and all of us, are there to look out for her. Now let’s go get them, we could use the extra fans in the stands tomorrow.”

I pressed the buzzer to the security door a bit nervously, but with my best friend right beside it gave me the confidence I needed to do this. Mahar had offered to come as well, but this was something that Twilight and I needed to do ourselves. Dr. Park’s voice came over the crackling speaker sounding a bit tired. “Hello.”

“Hi Dr. Park, its Syryn and Twilight, we’re here to pick up the girls,” I told her.

The door swung open to reveal a somewhat surprised Dr. Park. “Really? You’ve thought about this right?”

I nodded and tried to give her a confident smile. “I’d like to get to know my sister and I won’t abandon her when I’ve just found her. She needs me, and I think Tess… Mahar and I can help her learn some control.”

“I’ve been having fun being Liberty’s protégé, so maybe it’ll be fun to start working with one of my own,” Twilight put in. “Besides, we’re going to be rock stars soon and I still have a large portion of the insurance money, so what’s an extra mouth or two to feed when they’re family.”

Dr. Park hugged us both, “You girls have grown up a lot since you left here. I’m proud of both of you. And you’re adults now and not patients here, so you should start calling me Maddie, or Madison. How did things go with your meeting by the way?”

I hugged her back tightly. She was like family too. When I came in here broken and scared, she fixed me and helped me want to live again. “I got the answers I was looking for, even if they weren’t the answers I wanted. Ken Graham is truly dead and buried now, and I think it’s time to put the past behind me and look toward the future. I was thinking yesterday that that future would start tomorrow with the Battle of the Bands, but I think it began right here when I first came into this ward as Candy and met you. You helped us both get off to a good start on our futures so let’s go help those two girls in there do the same.”

“I really miss you girls sometimes,” she said with a chuckle as we both let go of one another.

“Good, then maybe you’ll come visit more often.” I replied with a grin. “We’ll try to come visit sometimes too.”

We walked to the dining area and Dr. Park called out, “Jenny! Allie! You both need to go get packed.”

“What?!” they both gasped in unison as Allie switched to Shy mode.

“Hurry up, your ride is already here,” Madison insisted. “Neither of you really needs to be here, so we’ve made arrangements for you. Jenny, I’m going to go print out your dietary needs and vitamin regimen, so maybe Twilight can help you get packed. Allie, I found out that you have a half-sister, and she’s offered to take you in rather than risk sending you back into foster care. Syryn will help you pack.”

Just to make sure that Marcus wasn’t feeling left out, I called out, “And as for you Smog! Keep in contact and shoot us a damn email once in a while. It’s not going to bother us, you’re one of us and we’ll always be happy to talk to you, besides who else is going to keep us up to date on all the kids who come through here?”

He looked about ready to jump out of his chair, but he smiled and gave me a quick salute, “You got it Syryn.”

With that out of the way I guided Allie to her room to gather her things. “You look a little shocked,” I said conversationally as we started putting her things in the large duffel bag I’d brought.

“Well duh, I just found out I have a sister that I didn’t know about and I’m going to be living with her, you’d probably be pretty freaked out too,” she ventured. “I’m a bit scared, but really excited too. Do you know anything about her? Where does she live? What does she do? What’s her name?”

I had to hold back a giggle at her prompt switch in moods and the physical change that came with it, now her hair and eyes were a bright neon blue and she was talking and moving so fast that she seemed to blur. So, excitement comes with super-speed that’s good to know, I thought to myself before answering her. “Well your sister is feeling the same way you are, she never knew about you until today, but you’re her only blood relative left and family is important, so she wants to give this a try. I think I know her better than anyone, though not even I was sure who she was at first. She lives in New York City and she’s just starting out as a superhero and close to achieving her dream of becoming a rock star. Her name is Candy Graham, but she also goes by Syryn.”

She stopped speeding around the room and filling the duffel bag to stare at me. “You’re my sister?!”

"Yeah, Dr. Park discovered that we have the same father. His name was Cameron Graham, I don’t really know much about him, but we’re his kids and he wanted us to be together with him and your mom before they died, so he couldn’t have been too bad.”

I barely managed to brace myself in time for the super-speed hug that followed. It didn’t take us long to pack after that, she didn’t really have much, and soon we were waiting for Twilight and Jenny while saying our farewells to Smog. The other pair joined us and soon we were on the roof and introducing them to the tour bus. It was funny seeing them as excited as we must have been that first day when we had boarded the Ladybug. As we flew back to New York and we laid out the rules I was feeling pretty optimistic about things. I had a sister and I had discovered the truth about my life as Ken and was able to put it behind me, well most of it anyway. I planned on dealing with Alex and the rest of Red Prophesy starting tomorrow at the Battle of the Bands.