My Super-powered Diary Chapter 7 Family Matters 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?

It was after midnight when the General’s plane arrived and Blair and I were the only ones still awake. Most of the girls were sleeping in cots and Vanessa was in the bathtub of one of the house’s two bathrooms. I was sitting on one of the other cots wrapped in Blair’s arms. She had removed her exoskeleton/power armor earlier and was now wearing some standard issue Air Force fatigues provided by the female Airman who had been assigned to see to our needs for the night as we stayed in one of the empty on-base houses. “Are ya feelin’ any better?” she asked after we had been sitting like that for a while.

The adrenaline rush during our escape and focusing on keeping the others safe had distracted me from the discomfort of my period, but once we had settled in to the small house that had been assigned for us to use for the night that discomfort had returned with a vengeance. Once Vanessa had informed Blair about my situation though, my sister had sent the airman for a bottle of Midol and the first dose was beginning to kick in. “Aye, a wee bit,” I admitted.

“You’ve had a rough couple o’ days,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry that I didn’t contact ya about tha’ mission for the HAA, and I’ll be here for ya through whatever happens next. I’ll miss the old you, but I always did want a sister.”

“Aye, I kinda figured tha’ from the nickname ya gave me an’ all the times ya used me as a dress-up doll when we were little. Now it’s real though,” I replied with a wry chuckle. “Well a’ least I dinnae feel like a guy trapped in a girl’s body, but the mental transition, an’ gettin’ used tae bein’ a kid is gonna be a right bitch.”

“You’ll have plenty of help with that, I’ll be with you every step o’ the way, and the girls will too,” Blair vowed, squeezing me tighter in her arms. “I meant it when I said I want ya all to come live wi’ me an’ Andy. I feel bad though, I had it so easy when I Activated; I was still me with no physical changes, school got easier, an’ no showy and destructive powers tae learn how tae control. Then I see you an’ Vanessa an’…”

“Nae Blair,” I told her firmly to end that train of thought. “This is no’ yuir fault, so dinnae e’en think it. None o’ us blame ya, especially me. Ya did yuir best to get those kids out o’ there afore somethin’ ‘appened, an’ ya did yuir best tae keep us ‘appy, safe, an’ prepared fer escape while we were in tha’ place. I dinnae blame ya fer any o’ this an’ neither dae the others.”

A knock at the door interrupted us and Blair got up to answer it to reveal General Nelson standing there. “Good evening, I’m General Aaron Nelson. You must be Miss Ainsley, with the HAA?”

“I am,” my sister admitted, “though technically I don’t work for them, I’m a free-lance contractor.”

The General nodded before speaking again. “And you’re Cpt. Ainsley’s sister as well, or so I’ve been told, your brother is a damn fine soldier and I’m glad he’s still alive. I wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to wait until oh-nine-hundred to debrief you. You could all probably use some rest and there are some complications that we’ll need to deal with before we’re ready for your reports. I was hoping to have a few words with Cpt. Ainsley though if he’s available.”

“Aye Sir!” I said stepping out from behind my sister and giving the General a crisp salute. “Ma apologies fer bein’ out o’ uniform Sir, but it was burnt tae ash an’ prob’ly would’nae fit well anyway.”

“At ease Captain,” he ordered while looking me over and then looking at my sister once again before turning his eyes back on me. Then he muttered something about “complications” that I couldn’t quite hear and sighed before giving me a sad look, “Follow me soldier, I have a promise to keep.” Blair looked uncertain, but he was quick to reassure her. “Don’t worry Miss Ainsley, I’ll have him… her back soon enough.”

He sat me in a jeep and drove me to the base’s office buildings where he had been set up with an office for while he was visiting. Once he had grabbed a brown paper bag from the glove compartment we headed inside and to the office that he was using. Despite the late hour there was someone sitting inside, a woman dressed in Army fatigues. I didn’t recognize her; she had a Mediterranean complexion, long dark green hair, and looked even shorter than I was. I briefly wondered about how she had made it through basic training, not to mention the green hair had me curious.

As the General and I stepped inside she quickly stood up, showing that she was indeed shorter than me, to snap a salute and call out, “Sir!”

“At ease,” he ordered. “Ainsley, Roper, neither of you are military any more, much less under my command, so I think we can drop the formality.”

“Reaper?!” I exclaimed in shock. The Tabitha that I knew had been a tall and somewhat curvy woman with short-cropped brown hair, nothing like the petite woman who stood before me now.

“Mac?!” she half screamed back staring at me wide-eyed.

“You both Activated as a result of the zeta bomb,” the General explained as he pulled a bottle of Scotch and three plastic cups from the paper bag. “It seems that neither of you was able to escape its range. I lost ten good men and two of the best units I have ever commanded in that Omega fiasco; all six from DeMarco’s team and four from yours. I lost the two of you as well, but I’m glad that you’re both still alive. I promised drinks if you came back in one piece and you both did.”

“Yeah, but it looks like those pieces are different now,” Tabitha muttered. “Seriously though general, she’s just a kid, you can’t seriously be thinking about giving her alcohol.”

“Speak fer yerself tiny! I bet ya cannae e’en manage one drink afore passin’ out,” I snapped back playfully.

“One drink isn’t going to kill her,” the General said with a shrug. “We both know she’s an adult on the inside and this will probably be the last chance she gets until she looks twenty-one again. Besides, the dead deserve a toast and so do the two of you.” He half-filled each of the cups and placed one in front of each of us.

“Tae good men who died too soon, an’ mutant women,” I offered in toast. We tapped our cups together and I took a slow sip of the Scotch in mine. It was good stuff and wanted to savor it since I probably wouldn’t be able to drink again for a very long time. “Sooo I see tha’ I’m no’ the only one wit’ a new look,” I finally said after a long silence for our fallen comrades.

“Yeah it’s a bit weird to get used to,” Tabitha agreed with a shrug. “I can change my appearance, but unfortunately it only lasts a few hours and then I’m back to this. Plus I can’t seem to control what my new appearance is going to be… or what powers come with it. The expert on Hypers that they got to look at me thinks that my only real power is to temporarily reset my Archetype.”

“I got a force field an’ I kin fly an’ make energy constructs. If I put too much energy intae them they tend tae explode if they ‘it somethin’ though,” I told her before gesturing at my whole body and adding, “I coulda dun wi’out this, but its no’ tha’ bad I s’pose.”

“Just wait until you get your first period, assuming you can. Are you… y’know complete?” she asked.

“Aye I go’ tha’ full package, an’ I’m already havin’ tha’ time o’ the month. Why dae ya think I need a drink so fookin’ bad,” I muttered as I took another long sip of the Scotch, letting it rest on my taste buds before allowing it to slowly make its way down my throat.

“Ouch, you never do things by half measures do you Maddock?” Tabitha said with a wry chuckle.

“Seems no’,” I agreed bitterly. “Call me Merida though Tabby, it’s wot e’eryone else is callin’ me.”

Tabitha giggled and snorted, nearly wasting a good pull of Scotch. “Let me guess, a kid decided on that name. I watched that movie with my niece. I have to admit the resemblance is striking, especially with that accent of yours.”

“Twins, an’ they would no’ take nae fer an answer,” I replied with a shrug as I took another sip of my drink. “Tis as good a name as any I s’pose, an’ I’m gettin’ used tae it.”

General Nelson took a long pull of his own Scotch before pouring himself another. “We have someone coming in from DC to help establish a new identities for both of you tomorrow, so you should both be thinking about a new full name. Cpt. Maddock Ainsley and Lt. Tabitha Roper both died in the attack on Omega.”

“What?!” Tabitha and I both blurted out in unison.

“We should have discharged you both or offered you early retirement after the Liberty Accords, but we didn’t and now we need to cover this up before the wrong people start to get the wrong ideas and it becomes an even bigger mess. These orders come from the top and you’ll both be well compensated for going along with it and keeping silent. We’ll sort out the details after you’ve both been debriefed,” the General stated mater-of-factly.

“Shit,” Tabitha muttered and I could only nod in agreement as we both downed the rest of our Scotch.

I woke up around oh-six-hundred hours feeling absolutely horrible. I had only had the one glass of Scotch the night before and I was a bit disgusted that I had become such a lightweight. As I rushed to the unoccupied bathroom to worship the porcelain goddess I silently promised myself that I would never drink again in this body, well at least not until I was twenty-one again. Once I had finished throwing up I flushed the toilet and sat down to take care of a few other pressing needs. First there was the pressing weight in my bladder, followed by changing my tampon and panty-liner, which set me off throwing up again. Once I had finished dry heaving I got to my feet again and cleaned up, suddenly very glad that my hair had been re-braided the night before.

I wanted to go for a run to try and shake off how lousy I was feeling, but sadly my lack of clothing options, not to mention running shoes, would have made that difficult. Instead I popped a couple Midol and ran through my old morning fitness routine, minus the run. I had just finished when the alarm that Blair had set off for seven thirty went off. I quickly helped her to wake the others and once we were all dressed and ready for the day, she had Shu put away our sleepwear and other supplies from wherever she was keeping them and retrieve the small purse that she had been using as Jade.

The new Airman posted outside the house drove us to one of the on-base fast food places so that Blair could buy us all breakfast. It was nothing fancy, just some McDonald’s hotcakes and such, but we all enjoyed it, especially the twins. They had been in an orphanage since they were three and never had many opportunities to eat fast food or junk food before, until the pizza that Blair had brought us during our first day of captivity together. We were all in a better mood as we headed to our debriefing, even me since I had managed to keep my breakfast in my stomach.

The debriefing with General Nelson and Agent Smith was long and arduous. First they wanted to get the complete story from Blair, Tabitha and me. At least we wouldn’t have to write any reports since Tabby and I were both officially dead and the HAA wasn’t going to admit to using a Hyper for the infiltration. Another agent would ghostwrite a report based on Blair’s interview and say that a freelance contractor had accomplished the mission without naming names and Blair would be paid the fee that she had originally been offered for the mission with a bonus.

That was when Blair had insisted on being able to formally adopt the girls. I had thought that Agent Smith would have objected, but he eagerly agreed to that concession. It seemed that the four mutant girls were a complication that nobody was sure how to deal with, since they couldn’t really be sent back to their orphanages. My sister was saving them the headaches, so after a brief phone call the HAA were willing to pay out her bonus as small trust funds for Tasha, Vanessa, and the twins, not huge, but enough for a good start on a college education. They were probably being so agreeable because they really wanted to buy the plans for the infiltration suit that Blair had worn for the mission. They couldn’t be allowed to buy the exoskeleton/power armor that she had worn beneath it, but the infiltration suit was not a weapon in any sense of the word, had been proven effective during her mission, and would be very useful to the HAA in similar missions.

It was after that when the more tricky matters came up, namely me and Tabitha. That’s when the person from DC joined us and Tasha and Vanessa took the twins to wait outside. The new woman was introduced as Tara Miller with the Hyper Protection Program and she immediately got to work. Tabitha would be issued a new identity and set loose with a generous hush-money payment, new identification, a high school diploma, and a well-documented history. She had decided on the name Tanika Jane Weston and planned on going back home to Chicago. She had a sister and niece there that she wanted to see, but she wasn’t sure how she could manage it yet, except maybe at her own funeral as one of Tabitha’s friends.

I was the real problem though, and everyone knew it. My being a minor with absolutely no history would make things easier, but more complicated as well. I would need a name, a guardian, a believable background, and a reason for suddenly being in that new guardian’s life. The name and guardian were easy enough, Blair would be my guardian and I would go by the name Merida Maidie Ainsley, but working out the details was proving frustrating. “You could be Maddock’s daughter, it would explain your military knowledge and lingo,” Agent Smith suggested at one point.

“Nae, she would ‘ave been conceived when I was fifteen or sixteen an’ it’d be easy tae poke holes in the story by speakin’ wit’ anyone I went tae school wit’,” I said shaking my head. “An’ I cannae be ma own younger sister, the age gap is too big ’tween Blair an’ the new me. I dinnae look like Blair’s sister, I look like ‘er bloody daughter.” I grumbled in frustration and looked up too see that everyone else’s faces had lit up like Christmas trees.

“That’s perfect, since she’s going to be your guardian anyway,” Tara said with a grin.

“Ya cannae be serious,” I sputtered, staring at them.

Blair was already doing the math though. “If we say that yuir twelve goin’ on thirteen in late august, it could work. That would put me at just under 20 when you were born. That would have ya born at the end of the year I took off to backpack through Europe after gettin’ my undergraduate degrees and before I started pushin’ for my doctorates. I did all o’ my schooling through the University of Washington so we could easily say that Mom and Da’ helped me care for ya while I was finishin’ school an’ doin’ my residency, since I was livin’ with them an’ commutin’ that whole time.”

“I kin get ‘ow yer gonna explain the adoptions, but ‘ow in hell are ya plannin’ on explainin’ havin’ a biological daughter suddenly showin’ up tae yuir neighbors?” I argued.

“Andy and I only moved to California a few months ago and I’ve been gone most of that time. We’re only renting the place we’re in now until we had time to actually look at houses, so we were planning on moving anyway at some point. We don’t even know any of the neighbors yet and I haven’t had time to set up a medical practice yet either with all o’ the government tech contracts I’ve had in the past year. I’ve practically been a recluse, so people could have easily overlooked the fact that I have a daughter. If anyone does ask, then we were just enjoying the first half of the summer together while the adoptions went through and I decided where I wanted to set up my practice.”

“We could arrange to have Maddock’s Will found, leaving everything to his niece Merida and give your ‘incentive’ to your sister to put into a trust fund for Merida as well,” the General put in.

“Okay, I have late August for her birthday, perhaps the 29th? She’ll be turning thirteen, but I’ll make sure that the school records and transcripts from Tacoma show her to be gifted enough to have skipped a grade so she can start fresh in high school instead of junior high. Things will probably be easier on her that way,” Tara said as she started speed typing on her laptop.

“Wot d’ya mean ‘igh school?” I asked looking around at everyone else in the room, all of them but Tabitha looking surprised at my question.

“Well obviously you’re going to have to go to school like your new sisters to blend in, it would look out of place otherwise,” Agent Smith said with a shrug.

“You’ll do fine, ya got good grades in school the first time, so ya could do even better now,” Blair added. “And we still have three weeks before it starts, so we can help ya adjust a bit.”

“I also despised it the first time, I dinnae think this time is gonna be any different, even if ma gender is,” I grumbled.

“Look at it as a second chance and maybe this time you can go to a good university afterwards, you’ll have the money for it,” Tabitha, or rather Tanika, suggested.

An hour later it was all set up and Blair was signing adoption papers and various documents from Merida’s past which would be backdated and filed in the appropriate schools and government archives. All of the new documents, birth certificates, medical cards, and other necessities were spat out from some special printer in Tara’s briefcase for both Merida and Tanika, and she even printed out official copies of Tasha’s Vanessa’s, and the twins’ birth certificates as well to make things easier for Blair. Arrangements had also been made for military funerals for both Tabitha and Maddock within the next few days and to have their things packed and sent to our new identities. With many thanks and one final salute to the General, we left the office and headed for our new lives. Tanika was getting a lift to Chicago from here on the base and me and my new sisters would be going for lunch and then to our new home.

“Dae I really have tae call ya ‘Mom’?” I grumbled in protest as we approached the girls.

“It’s goin’ to be weird for me too,” Blair complained with a sigh, “but we need to keep up appearances and make sure there are no slip ups, so that means that we both need to get used to doing it all the time. So from now on I’m ‘Mom’ and yuir ‘Merida’. I was planning on havin’ kids someday, but goin’ from none to five is going to take some gettin’ used to.”

“I ken, an’ I understand the reasonin’, but I’m still no’ sure I like it, or havin’ tae go tae ‘igh school ‘Mom’.”

By this time we had approached conversation distance with the girls and Vanessa grinned as she inquired, “Mom? And what’s this about high school?”

“Aye, I’m legally ‘er biological daughter now, ‘an I ‘ave tae start ‘igh school wit’ ya next month,” I replied with a groan. “Ya should all get used to callin ‘er ‘Mom’ too, ‘cause the adoptions are official an’ we’re all sisters now it seems.”

That news was met with excited squealing and group hugs and once everyone had settled down Blair said, “Okay girls let’s go get some lunch, an’ then we have a busy afternoon ahead o’ us.”