My Super-powered Diary Chapter 9 Brave 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?

“Merida, please you need to eat something,” Blair’s voice came through the locked bedroom door yet again.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re worried, but maybe you should give her some space,” Andy’s voice spoke in a quieter tone, as his slightly muffled footsteps approached.

“She’s been locked in there for two days! She only comes out to use the bathroom and then she locks herself right back in again! It’s bad enough that those boys said she attacked them and your bosses want to lock her up, but she hasn’t said a word to anyone since it happened. I’ve tried getting her to talk! The twins have tried, Tasha has tried, and Vanessa tries constantly!”

“They’re not my bosses anymore,” Andy clarified. “I resigned from the HAA this afternoon and I told them that if they still want to buy your infiltration suit that the price was doubled. I joined the agency to see justice done and the innocent protected, not to try and railroad kids because they happen to have powers. They have no case against her anyway. Smith and General Nelson vouched for her and we have sworn witness statements from Tasha, Vanessa, and two other people who saw the whole thing. Not to mention the security camera footage that shows that that boy assaulted and restrained her when she made it clear she wasn’t interested. We have the pictures you took of the bruises he left on her wrist too.”

I could hear the sigh of relief at his words before Blair said, “Thank God for that, but what can we do about Merida? She won’t talk, or eat, or even leave that room unless she absolutely has to.”

“Smith made some recommendations to me before I left,” Andy said softy, but still loud enough to carry through the door. “With this added to the trauma she’s already been through, she needs to talk to someone who understands. She needs to learn to control her powers better too, they all do. Smith is a field agent, not a glorified computer hacker like me, so he knows some people who aren’t connected to the HAA, they’re going to come after the funeral tomorrow.”

I just buried myself further under the blankets. After the incident Tasha had teleported Andy off to the scene while Vanessa explained what happened to Blair, who drove the rest of us home and gave me a short medical exam. After that I had gone straight to the room Blair had pointed out to me, put the shopping bags out of sight in the closet, tossed the clothes I had been wearing in the furthest corner, put back on the clothes I had worn as a prisoner, and I had stayed there since, only leaving to go to the bathroom or change my tampons when required. I was a freak, I couldn’t control myself, and I needed to be locked up for everyone’s safety, or at least that was what I had kept telling myself.

“Will she even be going to the funeral at this point?” Blair asked in a somber tone. “I’m worried Andy, she’s completely closing herself off from all of us and I have no idea what’s going on in her head. I can’t do anything for her like that.”

“Let me try sweetheart,” I heard Andy say. This was quickly followed by light clicking and scraping noises as he picked the lock. I heard the door open and just hid deeper under the blankets as I heard it close again and footsteps approach the bed. Someone sat on the side of the bed and Andy said, “Don’t you think you’ve been through enough without punishing yourself too? I said that I’d be there if you needed to talk, and I think that time has come Merida.”

I didn’t answer so he apparently decided to change tactics. “You know, your uncle Maddock and I never really had much in common, but I never once pegged him for a selfish piece of shit. Blair, Tasha and Vanessa are all blaming themselves for what you’re going through, and it looks like you’re blaming them too from the way you’re ignoring them. The twins look up to you and now they’re terrified that there’s something wrong with you. They’re all worried sick while you’re in here hiding from the world. I never thought that you or Maddock were the kind to hide in fear from anything, I guess I was wrong.”

His words hurt, probably because there was so much truth in them, and he wasn’t done yet. “Big military type men like your uncle Maddock never like to show weakness, they don’t open themselves up or show their feelings and they often suffer as a result, especially after a major trauma. Thirteen year old girls though, they can do that and not be judged, hell it’s expected. They can blather on and on about their problems, let all those emotions out, cry on a parent’s or a friend’s shoulder and feel better for it when they’re done. It’s a good thing that you’re not a big military man like your uncle isn’t it?”

I began sobbing, my breath coming in gasping hiccoughs between all the crying, sniffling, and snuffling from the flowing tears and the pained tightness in my throat and chest. Between crying jags I railed on about how conflicted my mind was over my situation, how my body had betrayed me by becoming female, and worse yet, how my mind had as well by being comfortable with it. Then I moved on to all of the huge changes in my life, my attraction to that boy, how sick I had felt when he looked at me and then the huge mess of emotions when he had grabbed me, my destructive powers that seemed a danger to everyone around me, and how I didn’t have control over any of it. Andy didn’t say anything more, he just sat there beside me gently rubbing my back as I let it all out.

When I was finally done he stood up and said, “Let’s go get something to eat, I’ll bet you’re pretty hungry.”

I was about to object as I sat up, but my stomach chose that moment to speak up for me. I could feel my cheeks flush as I nodded and replied, “Aye, maybe a wee bit… bu’ first… ‘ow much trouble am I in?”

“You’re not,” he answered simply before deciding to elaborate. “This is Los Angeles, so the mall and the store were both insured against ‘Acts of Hyper’. It will cover their damages and nobody was seriously hurt, not even those boys. I talked to the store owner myself, and he’s pretty happy overall since nobody was hurt. He wasn’t getting much business before and you just gave him a bunch of free advertising and the chance to renovate into a more modern book store with a café.”

“Advertisin’?” I asked with a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach.

“It was a slow news day,” Andy muttered. “The incident made the eleven o’clock news and that Mike kid tried to milk every second that he could for his fifteen minutes of fame. He claimed that you attacked him and his friends unprovoked. Nobody knew who you were and the two women who witnessed the whole thing told them what really happened. A security video somehow managed to get leaked too; yours or the other girls’ faces were pretty blurry, but it was enough to show that you were walking away when he grabbed you and held you there. It caught the sound pretty well though.”

I didn’t have wonder very long about how such a convenient video could have been ‘leaked’. Andy’s job with the HAA had been cybersecurity and data retrieval “Thanks,” I quickly muttered.

He didn’t admit to being responsible for the blurriness and release of the video, but he didn’t deny it either. Instead he just shrugged. “Smith helped a bit too. He had a little talk with ‘Mike’ yesterday and convinced him that in court such evidence of assaulting a thirteen year old girl, in plain view of witnesses, could get someone who is due to turn eighteen in three months tried as an adult, should the case be pursued. He and his friends are under a gag order now. Now let’s go get something to eat.”

Once we had eaten supper, and I had apologized to everyone for shutting them out like I had, Blair took me to her lab to give me a full physical. The process wasn’t as invasive as I had been fearing and mostly consisted of having me stand or lay down in various scanners of Blair’s own design. Apparently I was a perfectly healthy thirteen year old girl, right down to my telomeres and double X chromosomes. Blair had been worried about possible physical issues from such an extreme and complete physical change, but we were both relieved that I had seemed to dodge that particular bullet. The others had gone through similar testing over the past two days, mostly so they had something to focus on besides trying to coax me out of my room, and all of them seemed to be healthy as well. Vanessa had a few quirks as a result of being a mermaid, but it was no worse than Blair had been expecting.

I was still feeling terrible for shutting everyone out and making them worry so much as we left Blair’s lab. “I’m sorry…” Blair said suddenly. “We shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. We were tryin’ to help ya adjust, but we may have gone too far.”

“Yuir right though, I dae need tae adjust,” I admitted with a sigh. “I wan’ the security o’ knowin’ who the ‘ell I am. Maddock’s gone bu’ I‘m holdin’ on ‘cause he’s what’s familiar. I dinnae ken who the fook Merida is, an’ I should be tryin’ tae find out, bu’ it’s all so overwhelmin’ an’ it all seems tae come a’ me sideways. I need tae ‘ave some sense o’ control o’er my life. It’s no’ jus’ bein’ a girl either. I could’nae control ma powers, an’ it’s no’ the first time. I let loose wi’ ma powers afore ‘cause it was life an’ death, we were tryin’ tae escape, an’ I ‘ad a mission tae complete. Those were bad guys an’ I was under orders tae dae whate’er it took tae get all o’ ya out alive. A’ the mall I could ‘ave killed innocent civilians though.”

“I’ll help ya learn to control yuir powers, I’ll figure something out,” Blair promised. “I think if ya really want to find out who Merida is though, yuir goin’ to need girl lessons. You need to explore your new gender so ya can find out what ya like and what ya don’t, an’ since ya have four new sisters an’ me as a mom, ya have plenty of teachers. Since we haven’t seen ya for two days and ya still seem depressed though, yuir first lesson is goin’ to be Girl’s Night.”

Girl’s night turned out to be me, Mom, and my new sisters curled up together watching movies and drowning our sorrows in ice cream, chocolate, and companionship. I let the twins pick the movies since they were being super clingy now that I was out of my room again and they decided on two of the movies that Mom had bought them during the shopping trip from hell. Then as we started the first movie I was sat down near one end of the couch with the twins to either side snuggling up against me, all of us wrapped in warm blankets. Mom was on the other side of the couch, and Tasha and Vanessa were reclining on pillows on the floor in front of us.

The first movie was called Brave and as we watched I could see the similarities between Merida and… me; the long bright red hair, the eyes, her tomboyish body language and mannerisms, and especially the accent. “Please tell me tha' I dinnae sound tha’ bad,” I groaned in complaint at one point.

“No, your accent is even worse,” Tasha teased helpfully.

“You should totally take up archery, then you’d have the total package,” Vanessa added.

“That’s actually no’ a bad idea,” Mom put in. It was hard, and really weird, thinking of Blair that way, but we both needed to get used to it and I figured that girl’s night would be as good a place to start as any. “It would give ya more range for projectiles in combat once ya can control yuir powers better, an’ ya could just whip up some arrow constructs as ya need them instead of carrying a quiver.”

She actually had me considering the idea as we watched the rest of the movie. I’d need to start figuring out some hobbies for Merida anyway, so why not archery? As the movie went on I found myself really enjoying it. Vanessa teased me quite a bit, but it was all in good fun. It was a good movie and I found myself both liking and connecting with the main character. She just wanted to be free to be herself and have some sort of control over her own life and, while she could be stubborn and a bit shortsighted she was willing to stand up for herself and fight for what she believed was right, or to protect her family when she needed to. The character resonated with me, and at times during the movie I found myself laughing or crying along with the others as I held the twins close.

“So wot’s the next movie?” I asked as Shu hopped off the couch to eject one disc and put in another.

Mei giggled as she pointed from me to Vanessa. “Well, we just watched your movie, so now we’re gonna watch hers.”

“Yup, we’ve been wanting to have a movie night like this since that day we were all put in that room together,” Shu added. She too was giggling as she started the movie and then pounced back onto the couch beside me and under her blanket to snuggle again.

Vanessa’s movie was of course The Little Mermaid. I thought that this might be my chance to get in a little friendly ribbing of my own after her own jokes during Brave, but she beat me to the punch. Once the movie had started, and she had gotten a good look at Ariel, Vanessa allowed herself to shift back into mermaid form and went about changing the color of her hair and the scales on her tail to match the mermaid on the screen. She spent the whole movie like that and even sang along with the songs, depriving me of any chance for a counter-teasing, she wasn’t a bad singer either.

The twins of course were both in heaven, having two Disney princesses, or convincing copies thereof, sitting with them, three if you counted the pixie that Mei had summoned who bore a striking resemblance to Tinkerbell. “Yuir pretty convincin’ an’ ya seem tae ken all the words tae the songs,” I managed to tease as the movie neared its conclusion. “Why one could almos’ think tha’ ya ‘ad it mem’rized or sumthin’.”

“Well… I… ummm…” the mermaid began awkwardly before letting out a long sigh. “Okay, you got me Merida. When I was growing up, before I lost my family, we spent a lot of time at the beach or sailing. I’ve always felt this connection with water and the ocean in particular, it’s why I love surfing so much, so that was my favorite movie.”

“I envy ya tha’,” I admitted with a sigh of my own. “Ya all ken who ya are an’ wot ya like. I need tae figure all o’ tha’ out. I think I still want tae keep in shape and keep up wit’ ma combat trainin’, bu’ I need other interests. I might jus’ take up archery like Mom was sayin’, bu’ dae ya think tha’ ya could maybe teach me tae surf?”

“I’d love to, it would be fun,” she replied, turning around to grin at me. “I could teach all of you if you’re interested.” The others were quick to agree, though the twins admitted that they’d need to learn to swim first. After that the conversation turned to what other things we could try out together to help me learn who exactly Merida was in the next few weeks before school started. Tasha offered to teach me about all the different types of clothes and colors that were available for girls so that next time we went shopping I could choose what appealed to me, Vanessa was going to start teaching me about makeup before the funeral tomorrow, and Mom and the twins had a lot of ideas for movies, books and other potential hobbies that I should have at least a general knowledge about as a girl. It was going to be a sort of girl boot camp, but Mom told me sternly to talk to them if I was starting to feel overwhelmed and that we would do it at my pace and try to keep it fun. I would be the one in control, and that was something that I really needed to hear after everything that had happened since I went on that doomed rescue mission.

“It’s time for bed girls, we have the funeral to go to in the morning,” Blair… err Mom said after a while. I was half asleep on the couch by then and the twins were curled up to either side of me snoozing with their heads on my lap. I felt a pang of guilt as I looked at them and thought about how absorbed I had been on how hard things were on me the past two days. The other girls had been through big changes and a lack of control over things too. Sure we were a family now, but things were still uncertain and probably a bit frightening for all of us, not just me. We had been one another’s constant while we were held captive and while on the Air Force base. We had counted on one another for support and the twins were looking to me be their big sister and help them through this, and I had been feeling so sorry for myself that I had abandoned them to the uncertainty of this new living situation and made them all worry about me too. I felt like a heel.

“Aye, maybe we should’nae wake the twins though,” I offered hesitantly as I reached down to brush a lock of hair away from Shu’s face and adjust the blanket that was slipping off of Mei. “I’ll be fine ‘ere wi’ them, I think I’ve spen’ enough time alone anyway.”