My Super-powered Diary Chapter 15 Transition 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?

“Wot? Tha’s jus’ like ma force field, but ‘ow are ya doin tha’?” I asked the tiny brunette fairy. I was absolutely sure that it wasn’t me putting the force field on her, I can sort of sense the fields I’ve created once they’re made, it’s like a presence in my mind that allows me to control and move them, and I wasn’t sensing it at all. Nor had I extended mine beyond the surface of my skin to cover her as well, I would have sensed that too. It was like she had her own force field, just like mine, and had merged them where they met so she could physically touch me.

“How am I doing what?” Fawn asked tilting her head slightly as she gave me a confused look.

“Ya ’ave a force field like mine Fawn, ‘ow did ya dae it?””

The fairy laughed. “Pssssh, don’t be silly Merida I’m an Animal Fairy, not a Force Field Fairy. I thought that you were doing this.” She seemed relieved, and not overly concerned about the red glow surrounding her as she smiled at me and hugged me one last time before taking a seat on my shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better Merida, I was really worried about you when you woke me up with that scream and I saw you crying and panicking. Did you have a nightmare?”

“Aye,” I agreed absently as I still wondered about the force field. “I ‘ave ‘em a lot since the… since I go’ ma powers.” I didn’t really want to talk about it, and Fawn didn’t seem the type to push it, which I was grateful for. Since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to figure out the predicament with Fawn so I took a deep breath and powered down my force field. As the red energy dissipated from around me it did so on Fawn as well, leaving me with more questions than answers as I looked at the alarm clock.

It wasn’t even o-four-thirty yet and I groaned as I quickly mumbled an apology to everyone gathered in my doorway. “Sorry e’eryone, maybe we should be thinkin’ aboot soundproofin’ ma room in the new place so ya kin all ge’ a decent night’s sleep wi’out me scarin’ ya awake.”

“We can probably manage tha’,” Mom agreed. “Don’t beat yuirself up about this though Merida, it’s no’ yuir fault. Now why don’t we let everyone else get a few hours more sleep while I take you an’ Fawn down to the lab?”

Once the rest of the family had shuffled sleepily back to their beds, Mom took Fawn and I down to the lab to run a battery of tests to see if we could figure out Fawn’s ability to mimic my force field. Despite having the exact same energy signature as my force field, the energy didn’t seem to be coming from me. It was definitely coming from the fairy herself, but she had no conscious control over it, nor could she create constructs or feed more energy into the field to make it unstable or superheated. It only seemed to activate when my own did, mimicking the nature of the energy that I was projecting at the time. Mom called it a symbiotic reactive defense and thought that it might be somehow related to a “quantum connection” that she had detected between me and Fawn.

Apparently Mei shared a connection to all of the fairies she had summoned, as well as any other summons she created, at the quantum level that was very similar to quantum entanglement. Fawn seemed to share that connection with me as well, which seemed just as strong, if not stronger, than the one between Fawn and Mei. She figured that Peri and Shu would have that connection too, and planned to test it later. She also said that if the quantum connection was responsible for Fawn’s force field, then Fawn could be on the other side of the planet and her field would still activate whenever mine did.

We had been going over it and testing the field on Fawn for nearly two hours when Mei awoke. As she sat up and yawned Mom quickly jotted down the elapsed time while Fawn kamikaze hugged my younger sister, her force field still in place. It was a good thing that I was keeping the energy of my field in its stable solid form at the moment or she could have blown Mei up. She hugged the fairy and as soon as Fawn had released her she looked over the fairy and grinned, “It worked!”

“Ya intended fer Fawn to mimic Merida’s force field?” Mom asked. “I thought that might be the case, it was one of the few possibilities that made sense.”

“Yeah, when I… uh brought Fawn here I was thinking that she and Merida would be spending a lot of time together. So I thought it would be nice if whenever Merida uses her force field that Fawn could have one just like it. That way if they were both in danger or Merida has a… ummm…. accident at night, then Fawn would be safe too.” Mei flushed a bit as she said the last. She had been afraid I would blow up my new fairy friend? And she would have been right. Did she really have to put it that way though? She made me sound like I had a problem wetting the bed. No, I had perfect bladder control thank you, I just blew my bed to smithereens.

“Um thanks Mei,” I said looking down at the floor ashamed, my face beet red. “Ya ken, fer thinkin’ o’ tha’. An’ fer… bringin’ Fawn ‘ere fer me. Tha’ was sweet o’ ya. I’m no’ shoor why ya think I needed an Animal Fairy though.”

Mei looked away awkwardly. “You know, in case you want a pet someday? Like a umm… dog or something?” She was hiding something from me and I knew it. From the glance Mom gave her she knew it too. Maybe she just thought I needed someone to be there for me and help soothe me after the nightmares or if I had an anxiety attack, like some the companion animals for the blind, deaf, or people with medical conditions. I thought there might even be some of those for people suffering from PTSD. Did she really see me as that broken?

My field bubbled and flared slightly from the hurt and disappointment at that thought, as did Fawn’s. I needed to get control over myself so I did it the only way I knew how, good old military discipline. “Well, since yuir up now, I’m goin’ tae go wake the others so we kin start our mornin’ trainin’ session.” I fled the room, fawn fluttering behind me as I focussed my mind on the new task and buried my emotions.

Not long later the others were awake, and we were all dressed in our exercise clothes. I increased the length of our morning run to a full half hour followed by an equally long exercise session consisting of exercises meant to tone our bodies, keep us limber, and build stamina. I planned to have us run every morning, but the exercises I would vary to avoid overworking muscle groups. To start off with I planned to alternate between exercises like this morning, hand to hand combat training and drills, resistance training, and swimming when we could. Once I was sure they all had a handle on the more basic combat training I would start adding in kickboxing and maybe some weapons combat training.

We were all exhausted by the time we had finished, even the fairies. Even though they had been excluded from the run, to avoid people seeing them, they had not been exempted from the training session afterwards since I figured that they should stay in shape too. I was thinking that Tasha or maybe the twins would complain with as hard as I had worked us, hell my own body was screaming at me to stop, but they just doggedly kept at it with determined expressions on their faces.

I didn’t want to drive them into the ground like a group of fresh-faced recruits, but they had asked for the training and I had told them how hard it was going to be. Now we all had to deal with it if I was going to help them when they eventually decided to go prancing around in costumes fighting crime. They would likely do it without me if I refused, so I would do it with them and train them properly, if only to keep them alive and as safe as possible while doing it. As nice as it would be to help people with my powers, I held no illusions about what could happen to any of us in a combat situation, or the fact that we were just kids. That last part made itself far too apparent every time I looked in a mirror.

When we had finished our workout session, we each took a turn in the shower and got dressed for the day. I was the first to shower, but the last to be finished since my long hair took so much work to clean, dry and brush, though Fawn seemed to have the same problem. Once we had finished we joined the others for a bowl of cereal with milk and a glass of juice for breakfast. The fairies each had a couple of Cheerios dipped in our milk and some careful tiny sips of our juice. “That’s another thing we’ll need for you girls,” Shu said as we finished our meal. “You need dishes and cups and stuff in your size, maybe some furniture for your houses too.”

“Maybe we could find some Barbie stuff, or stuff made for dollhouses that would work,” Tasha suggested.

“Those should be pretty close to the right size,” Vanessa agreed.

“I guess we’ll have to go look at the mall and see what we can find, we really should have thought of that yesterday,” Mei put in with a slight frown. “Sorry girls, I should have been better prepared for you before bringing you here.”

Tink reached out to hug Mei around the wrist. “Don’t worry about it Mei, we’re having so much fun here that we don’t mind waiting a bit, do we girls?”

“Those things are just extras anyway, and you made it so I can stay with my sister!” Peri put in excitedly. “The most important thing is that we all have one another.”

“Yup!” Fawn agreed as she proceeded to start braiding her hair in my lap. “I’m just happy to be here with Tink, Peri, and all of you Mei. And you helped me find my new best friend Merida.”

It was then that the doorbell rang and we heard Andy call out that he’d get it. “Dae ya think tha’s Kendra?” I asked.

“Kendra?” Nobody seemed to know who I was talking about.

“Kendra,” I repeated before clarifying, “Toxin? Tha’ counselor from our new school?”

“Oh right Toxin,” Vanessa finally said as she remembered who I was talking about. “Sorry, but we barely met her, we didn’t really get to know her as well as you did Mer.”

“Well there’s no time like the present is there?” Came a familiar voice from the doorway to the living room. “I’m Kendra Wilson girls and, once you’ve moved to Costa Verde, I’ll be the one you can come to talk to about any problems you’re having adjusting, any issues stemming from your Activation or the events surrounding it, or if you just need someone to talk to or get advice from. Merida will be coming to see me fairly often, and I hope you get to know you all in time, but right now I’d like to talk with you for a while Vanessa.”

“Uh why me? I’m fine,” Vanessa said with a shrug.

Kendra pointed to the mermaid’s tail, partially visible beneath the kitchen table. “Well that for one. Like Merida, you had a fairly extreme change under traumatic circumstances so I would like to ensure that you aren’t suffering from any long-term physical or psychological issues as a result. And while we’re doing that we can get to know one another better.”

“You’re going to make me take the same tests Mer did?” the mermaid asked with a sigh as she shifted her tail back into legs

Kendra shook her head, but as always it was tough to tell what she was thinking with that black and purple full-bodysuit covering her entire face. “Similar tests, but not exactly the same, your circumstances are a bit different than Merida’s. It might be best if we have this talk privately though, so your mother has graciously allowed us to use her lab for this.”

The pair left the kitchen and Mom and Andy entered with the information packets about the city of Costa Verde and Pacific Seaside Academy. Costa Verde was apparently a coastal city of over two hundred thousand people in northern California, north of Santa Rosa and west of Redding. In recent years, due to the beaches and a long history of strange occurrences in the area dating back to even before white people had settled in the area, it has become a bit of a tourist destination, coming close to doubling its population in the peak seasons. It has also recently become host to Pacific Seaside Academy and there was a new Disney theme park being built there as well, set to open its doors early next year.

The pamphlets for Pacific Seaside Academy were fairly tame, since they didn’t want to advertise being a school for mutants any more than they had to. There were basically just a few pictures of normal looking kids and a lot of talk about the seaside campus and the wide variety of non-standard academic and physical classes. Most prospective students and staff were given personal tours to see if it was the right fit for them, once they had been confirmed as mutants, though there was a personal note from the headmistress letting us know a few details about the school that weren’t in the pamphlet.

For one thing, PSA was a bit of an open secret as far as Costa Verde was concerned. Most of the locals knew that it was a school for Hypers, but that information wasn’t shared with the tourists and to most people PSA was simply a super-elite private school on the waterfront catering to the obscenely wealthy. Since the school was only entering its second official school year, there had only been limited word of mouth about it through the Hyper community, but the headmistress Dr. Edwards (or Mystech if she’s in costume) seemed to have contacts everywhere from the sounds of it. As a result there was a wide variety of students consisting of those from wealthy Hyper families that made sizable donations, family members of employees, local mutant kids from Costa Verde, and those referred by government agencies such as the HAA, the HPP, or homeless shelters for Hypers. Most of the latter ones were runaways and Dr. Edwards would do her best to get them enrolled, offering scholarships if they couldn’t afford the school fees.

It was just after Mom and Andy started filling in the paperwork for both their employment and our schooling that the doorbell rang once again. By that time Fawn had finished braiding her hair so I stood up and offered, “I’ll ge’ the door.” Fawn hid herself in my hair and I made my way toward front door, opening it to see a pair of large men dressed in military fatigues. Quelling the brief surge of grief and jealousy to keep my powers under control, I looked way up at them, feeling far too tiny as I asked, “Kin I ‘elp ya?”

“We’re looking for a Miss Merida Ainsley,” said the slightly smaller of the two with a smile. He was probably trying not to scare me.

“Tha’s me,” I said with a shrug. “I s’pose yuir ‘ere wi’ ma… Uncle Maddock’s stuff?”

“Yes Miss Ainsley, Captain Ainsley’s will named you as his sole beneficiary. We will need your parent or guardian to sign for your uncles possessions, but General Nelson asked that we give this to you directly,” he said offering me a large manila envelope. “It contains a copy of the will and some personal items I believe.”

“Thanks,” I managed as I took the envelope. Then I called out “Mom!”

While Mom signed for the stuff, and had the men unload it in the unused half of the two-door garage, I opened the envelope and looked at the contents. There was indeed a copy of the will, with a very convincing forgery of my old signature, plus a note from the General and a set of newly minted dog tags identical to my old ones. I was a bit teary-eyed as I plopped down on the couch and looked at the note.

Merida,

General Nelson

I bit back the tears that were forming and clutched the tags, and the chain they were on, so tightly that they were digging painfully into the flesh of my palm. The General had obviously worded his note that way in case someone without proper clearance managed to read it before me, but I was pretty sure that I got the message loud and clear. I may have been crying a bit, and trying to keep my powers under wraps, when Fawn asked, “Are you okay Merida?”

“Nae, no’ really,” I admitted, “bu’ I think tha’ I will be… someday.”

Fawn and I spent a few minutes just sitting there in silent companionship until Vanessa plopped down beside us with a sigh. “Well it’s official Mer, you’re not the only one in the house with issues. Kendra says that I have Transformative Stereotype Disorder.”

“Aye, tha’s kinda wot I ‘ave, bu’ I guess PCEDS is a common enough variant o’ TSD tae ‘ave its own name,” I told her with a shrug. “I guess I feel things more intensely, I cannae control ma emotions very well either, an’ it’s makin’ me ‘ave trouble controllin’ ma powers.”

“It’s not as bad as what you have, mostly physical stuff for me. I get uncomfortable when spending too much time away from the water and it seems to be why I need to get my skin and tail damp so often. I guess I should have expected it, what with my other mermaid issues.” She sighed deeply before adding, “Kendra wants me to see her regularly once we’re settled in to see how I’m adjusting to… stuff. She’s talking to Tasha now and then she’s going to get to know the twins a bit too. She seems nice enough I guess, and she seems to care.”

“Aye, she’s a nice woman, an’ if anyone can understand’ us, I think it’d be ‘er,” I agreed.

The mermaid shook her head morosely. “Yeah, I can’t imagine what that would be like for her, not only having her dream of becoming a doctor taken away, but having to wear that suit all the time and not being able to touch other people… or be touched without killing them. It makes my issues seem kinda pale in comparison.”

“What issues?” Fawn asked, her caring nature shining through as she looked at my sister in concern.

Vanessa looked away for a moment before reaching out to hug me. “Mer, I know I’ve never really thanked you properly for that first day we met. I’d… be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for you talking me down, acting like a friend, and making me feel like I wasn’t alone in what I was going through. I had lost my whole family less than a month before, I hadn’t even been at the orphanage two weeks before being kidnapped, and then the whole being held captive and drugged thing, followed by waking up in a bathtub with a tail instead of legs… you made it all seem bearable and now I have a family again. I guess what I’m saying is that, with all of that and my weird mermaid biology throwing me curveballs, I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by things. You’re my sister now and probably my best friend so, if you ever need me, I’m here for you.”

“Me too! That’s what best friends do for one another!” Fawn quickly agreed.

I reached out to hug both the mermaid and the fairy as Mom came back inside and motioned toward the garage. “Thanks, both o’ ya. Now maybe ma two bes’ friends kin ‘elp me star’ sortin’ through all tha’ stuff in the garage?”

We spent until lunch going through the boxes of my old stuff, most of it would be going to Goodwill since the only personal things I would be keeping were a pair of nice combat knives and some practice swords, Maddock’s dress uniform, the dog tags, my motorbike, and the mostly restored Mustang. I had never really added any personal touches to my place on the base and all the clothes were way too big, though I did keep three camo t-shirts and another three gray “ARMY” t-shirts that were in good condition. They would probably be like a dress on me, but I figured that I could use them for sleepwear and at least be comfortable in bed. Everything else I needed to get rid of. Stuff from Maddock’s childhood seemed out of place to me now, kitchen wares could be replaced when I eventually was old enough to be on my own again, and the only thing that my stack of porn mags had made me feel was discomfort and embarrassment. Luckily it was me who found that box instead of one of the others.

My other sisters had joined us, along with Tink and Periwinkle, once they were finished their introductory talk with Kendra, and soon we had all that I wanted to keep set aside. Tink was of course interested in my bike and the Mustang and Fawn seemed interested as well, or at the very least was being supportive of our interest in it. As we headed inside to put away the small things that I was keeping, and to see about lunch, I promised that anyone who wanted to could have a better look at the ‘stang later and maybe help me tinker a bit.

When we got to the kitchen Kendra was helping Mom and Andy with the last of the forms and the trio smiled up at us. “All done in the garage?” Andy asked.

“Aye, we took e’erythin’ I’m keepin’ up tae ma room, all the other boxes kin be taken tae Goodwill,” I said with a shrug, trying to not be bothered by how little there had been and how pathetic that made my former life seem.

“Good Merida, we can do tha’ after lunch,” Mom said with a curt nod. “We’ll need to take the will to the bank to arrange fer Maddock’s bank accounts to be transferred to one for you as well. We’ll want all o’ tha’ done before we leave for Costa Verde tomorrow.”