My Super-powered Diary Chapter 21 Going 4-Ward 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?

By the time we had gotten home there had been no point in going back to bed. It was nearly o’ six hundred and we were all hungry and still a bit excited from our battle. With that in mind, and the fact that we were all too tired to cook, or eat whatever Andy called cooking, Mom decided that we should all go out for breakfast. First we got out of our costumes and Mom put them in something she called a sonic cleanser that would clean them using powerful sonic blasts to remove dirt, grime, blood or anything else that had gotten on them. With our costumes taken care of, we all went for a shower and to get dressed before going out to eat.

While I knew that my force field had kept any of the creature’s blood and gore from getting on me, it had been on my costume and that was enough for me to really want to get clean. It felt good to take a shower and I luxuriated in the hot spray as it helped to get the kinks from the fight out of my muscles. Still, I tried to make it as quick as possible since my hair always took forever to deal with. Once I was properly cleaned and my hair had been washed, rinsed, conditioned, and rinsed again, I wrapped a towel around my chest and allowed Tasha to take her turn for a shower while I returned to my bedroom.

Sitting on my bed I found that Fawn had just finished her shower in her little house as well as she came to join me, so I started using my hairdryer to dry her hair and then mine. I had to use the lowest setting on hers so it wasn’t blowing too hot or powerful but it seemed to work okay and while she set about braiding her hair I started drying mine. It took almost twenty minutes to get it passably dry and brushed out and by the time I was finished I figured that I would have to hurry to not keep everyone else waiting. I was also starving by this point, but I made sure to do a proper job in applying the sweet smelling skin lotion that Mom had bought and insisted I use every day to keep my skin soft. This wasn’t because I particularly cared, but because Fawn was applying some to her skin too and it would take her just as long as it did me. Okay so maybe Fawn and I had become close enough friends and roommates that we liked to do our morning routine together, so sue me.

With our routine complete we both got into comfortable clothes for the day, Fawn in one of her orange and amber dresses and me adopting the punk look once again. I wore my tour shirt from the Offspring knotted in front to show off my navel and the dangly dragon that hung from it, one of my two plaid skirts that were a near match for my backpack purse over some artistically torn black nylons, my knee-high combat boots, my dog-tags and a pair of fingerless black gloves. I didn’t really have a lot of clothes and right now they were split between my dorm room and my room at our new house, and since I knew that my sisters were all in the same situation I figured that we were all going to have to do some clothes shopping soon.

We had had the time while waiting for Mom and Andy to find us a house, but my sisters and I had mostly stayed at the school because we had all been a little uncertain about exploring Costa Verde on our own. Most of that time had been spent just getting familiar with the school together, hanging out together, or doing physical training. I was even starting to get used to the idea of living in the dorm since the few people I had met who were living in Starfish while school wasn’t in session had seemed somewhat nice, even if I hadn’t really tried to get to know any of them yet.

Once Fawn and I were both ready to go out I tossed my backpack purse over my shoulders and we headed downstairs to join the others. We weren’t quite the last ones ready, Tasha had received that dubious honor, probably because she was waiting for me so long before taking her shower. As soon as she had joined us though we all headed out the door to pile into the SUV and head off in search of breakfast, my stomach making a loud protest as Andy started the vehicle.

“Hungry much Mer?” Vanessa teased.

“Wot could ‘ave possibly made ya think tha’?” I grumbled as we pulled out of the driveway.

“Just a feeling I got,” the mermaid poked back.

“Hey, that’s my thing,” Tasha said with a laugh.

Traffic was being diverted around the area of our earlier battle and the beach where the extradimensional creature had fallen, and there were people in orange vests redirecting traffic. This slowed us down, but thankfully not too much, as we stopped and waited for what little traffic was heading into the city from our stretch of beach. One of the orange-vested workers approached the vehicle and Andy rolled down his window in case he had any instructions. “Sorry about this,” the man said with an apologetic smile, “There was a big Hyper battle early this morning and Beachfront Drive will be closed for a while until the mess is cleaned up. You’ll have to go around the long way instead.”

“Did it have anything to do with that loud shrieking this morning?” Andy asked, as if he didn’t already know.

“Yeah some huge monster came out from the ocean and started causing damage but a bunch of Hypers took it down,” the man in the vest replied with a casual shrug. “I don’t even want to think about how long it’s going to take to clean up the mess. I heard most of them were kids, probably students from the Academy, but hey there’s so many costumed Hypers here it’s getting hard to keep track, you know what I mean?”

“Well we’re kind o' new here, we jus' moved to Costa Verde. Does this kind o' thing happen often aroun' here? Mom asked as she leaned toward the window.

The man laughed. “There’s always some sort of super-battle or something weird going on here. Not usually as big as this morning, but it seems like there’s always something. At least it’s never boring. You’ll get used to it once you’ve been here a while Ma’am. Are you heading into the city proper or down the coastline?”

“The city,” Andy informed him. “We thought we’d take the kids out for a nice breakfast since none of us got much sleep with all that noise.”

“I hear ya,” the other man agreed with a grin. “Since you’re new around here I’d suggest Paul Bunyan’s Pancake House on third. They have good prices, great food, and some of the biggest portion sizes in town if you’re hungry. When you turn onto Redwood Drive ahead just keep going until you reach Third Avenue then turn right and about four blocks down you’ll find Paul’s, you can’t miss it.”

Andy nodded and grinned at the man. “Great, thanks for the help.”

“My pleasure, welcome to Costa Verde,” he replied as he waved us onward and Andy put the vehicle in gear once again.

The man had been right, you couldn’t miss Paul Bunyan’s Pancake House if you tried. It was a two and a half story building that from the outside looked like a massive log cabin, and there in the parking lot stood a twenty foot tall statue of a lumberjack holding up a gigantic plate of pancakes. The parking lot was mostly empty, which would have been surprising for a pancake house at eight in the morning, if not for the fact that it was right on the edge of the cordoned off area from last night’s battle. The creature hadn’t quite made it his far on its trek into town, but the building that Shell had been thrown through was on the next street over so it had been close. Since just looking at the statue was making me drool and my stomach had once again let me know that it was not happy with me I was eager to get inside and eat.

On the inside the place had a rustic feel, an almost homey atmosphere that I liked right away. High ceilings, large plank tables with checkered tablecloths and padded chairs, some cozy booths along one wall, and smells that had me in heaven. There was a podium just inside the door with a sign that said, “Please wait to be seated,” so we waited, but not for long. A huge dark-haired man, a shade over eight feet tall and dressed in Jeans, a plaid shirt, a toque, and hiking boots approached us with a big grin on his face. “Welcome! I’m Paul, the owner. Party of seven?”

“Twelve actually, bu’ don’ worry about the Fairies. They’ don’ really eat enough to bother with a full order,” Mom said with a smile as all five fairies made their presence known, fluttering around the large man and staring at him in awe.

“Merida on the other hand…” Vanessa started to say before I gave her a light elbow to the ribs and stuck out my tongue at her.

“That is the biggest person I’ve ever seen,” Iridessa said in awe.

“Are you a giant?” Silvermist asked.

The large man laughed. “Fairies huh? And I thought I’d seen everything in this city. I suppose you could call me a giant, but no I’m a mutant.”

“Well that makes sense,” Andy said with a laugh. “For a minute there I was looking for a big blue ox.”

“When you’re as big and strong as I am and your name is Paul, you have two choices become a hermit or embrace it. I decided that if I can’t laugh at myself who can I laugh at?” He promptly demonstrated this with another big belly laugh. “Now let’s get you all to a table and get you fed.”

Looking at the menus the prices were good and I was pleased to see that they even had Hyper-sized meals. I ordered the Hyper-sized Blue Ox Special and I was not disappointed. There was a stack of pancakes a foot high with real maple syrup on the side, a chilled pitcher of orange juice, and a large platter overloaded with scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, bacon, and thick slices of ham. I almost couldn’t eat it all and I probably wouldn’t have if I had only been hungry instead of starving. It wasn’t just filling though, it was delicious and Fawn seemed to enjoy it as much as I was. While it may have cost as much as three of my sisters’ meals put together, for the amount of food and the taste it was well worth it. I vowed that I would definitely be having breakfast at Paul’s again sometime.

Paul himself had served us, since the place was fairly quiet, and he had even sat and chatted with us for a bit while we ate, getting to know us all by name as he did. As I finished the last of my meal he looked at me with a grin. “It’s nice to see a girl with a healthy appetite Merida. Are you girls going to the Academy? My son Hiro goes there, he’s a freshman this year.”

I looked at Mom and she smiled and nodded so I repeated her action before saying. “Yeah, we jus’ moved ‘ere so we could all go there. Mom and Andy will be workin’ there and I’ll be startin’ as a freshman too.”

“Good, I think you’ll like it, he offered with another grin. “Hiro loves it since he started going to junior high there when they opened last year. You’ll probably have him in some of your classes, he goes by the codename Megaman.” Then he turned to Mom and Andy, “You’re going to be teaching there?”

“I think we may ‘ave me’ ‘im already,” I said, trying to hold back a laugh as I thought about the battle earlier that morning.

Mom did laugh, but for a different reason as she replied, “I don’t think I have the patience to teach. I’ve taken a job as chief of medicine fer the school’s clinic so I’ll be seein’ to the kids’ medical needs. Andy will be workin’ in IT and cyber security.”

“That’s good to hear, my wife Kasumi teaches archery and martial arts there, she mentioned that they were having trouble finding a good doctor to fill that spot last year. She said they really wanted someone who specialized in mutants, but it wasn’t looking hopeful for this upcoming year either,” the large man said.

“The headmistress said tha’ my name had come up a few times in her search, bu’ I wasn’t available until recently,” Mom replied. “This is exactly what I wanted to be focusin’ on, so when my girls needed to come here anyway I was more than happy to take the job.”

“Kasumi was the same way when Alana approached her while she was trying to get the school off the ground, not long after Hiro Activated. We moved here so he could go to school and she could teach, and I decided that I would open up the restaurant. We actually have a 10% discount for anyone attending or working at the school, you just need to show your student or staff IDs when you come in,” he offered with a smile. Then he seemed to come to a decision and spoke again. “Since you probably don’t know much of anyone here yet, why don’t you all come over for Labor Day? We live upstairs and were planning on having a barbeque, and I’m sure that Kasumi would love to meet you all before school starts. Some of Hiro’s freshman friends from here in town will be coming, so it’ll give the girls a chance to meet some other kids too, if they haven’t met them already.”

“That sounds great, you’re sure we wouldn’t be imposing?” Andy replied.

“Not at all,” Paul said with a grin and a laugh. “Kasumi and I haven’t really made a lot of close friends since moving here last year, we’ve been too busy with work, and you all seem like good people. And if you having met Hiro has anything to do with him mentioning pixies and rookie girls when he came home a few hours ago, well that’s just more reason to get to know you all. He said that the girls handled themselves well out there and that we would have probably had to rebuild this place if they hadn’t gotten involved.”

All of us except Andy looked at one another uncertainly, causing Paul to laugh again. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with us. I may have never done the hero thing myself, but Kasumi, Hiro, and I all know the value of keeping secret identities secret. Most of the kids at the academy will probably get to know you by your codenames, but outside those walls your identities are fairly safe.”

After paying for our meal, and Paul scribbling down his cellphone number for Andy, we said our goodbyes and promised to see him on Labor Day, if not before. Since we still didn’t have much for clothes or personal items Mom decided that we would need to do a major shopping spree, but since we had to meet Dr. Edwards at lunch that was tabled for the next day which was Sunday. So instead we just drove around the city for a while, getting a feel for where things were and seeing the sights until it was time to go to the school for lunch.

Once we arrived at the school Andy headed for the server room in the underground to get to know some of the people that he would be working with while the rest of us headed for the Grotto and our appointment with Dr. Edwards. We were a bit early, and she wasn’t there yet, but we did spot a familiar looking black-furred werewolf and girl with long raven black hair and scaly brown skin, sitting with a somewhat muscular half Japanese guy who looked a little older than me and a pretty blonde girl. It didn’t take much deduction to figure out that they were the heroes we had worked with early that morning so we all grabbed trays from the buffet table and selected what we wanted for lunch before going to join them at their table.

Introductions were a bit awkward since we all had already met in costume and every one of us knew it. They had been fairly easy to recognize with Shell’s and Lupin’s distinctive appearances and we had the fairies and probably my accent giving us away. Mom quickly introduced us and then they followed suit. As we ate they all took my massive tray full of food in stride and hardly said anything about it, even when I went for seconds. There was just a brief knowing look between them as they all shrugged and said, “Energy Manipulators.” As we ate we got to know one another better and I discovered that not only were they all going to be freshmen with me, but they were all in Starfish Dorm with me and Vanessa as well.

Lupin’s real name turned out to be Garret Jackson. He was a Category three Shifter with cat 2 strength and speed. It seemed that he was Activated while watching a horror movie, when his little brother snuck up behind him and scared him. Like Vanessa, his werewolf form had become his default and while he could change back to human or even to a full wolf for short periods, it was hard to maintain. He and Vanessa seemed to hit it off right away talking about the annoyances that came with their forms, her about having to constantly concentrate just to have legs instead of a tail and him about wearing a thick black fur coat almost all the time in California.

Jinx, or Lindsey Masterson, had Activated late in the school year last year so she only had a month at PSA under her belt, making her almost as new as we were. She had been a local and as soon as she had met the others in Starfish they had clicked and decided to form a team. Lindsey was a Category three mystic. She could sense magic and was looking forward to learning to use it as well this year since up until now her only real offensive ability was to focus on a person and cause seemingly random mishaps to happen to them at the worst possible time. It wasn’t something she had much control over, but that explained why she hadn’t taken her eyes off the monster last night, she was trying to increase our chances of getting a lucky shot in.

Shell, whose real name was Michelle Weekes, couldn’t really keep a secret identity well with her scaly skin and that explained why she was in Starfish. Her powers were almost as random as Lindsey’s though and she had no conscious control over them at all. Dr. Edwards had classified her as a Category four reactive biomorph, though she could be loosely categorized as a Shifter. When an attack is directed at her, or she feels that she is in danger, her body shifts its physical composition to whatever benefits her most at the time. She doesn’t get any new powers, it’s just a form shift, although her physical abilities can increase depending on what form she’s taken. After a few hours she sort of sheds her skin to revert to her true form, sometimes that process was messier than others, but she showed us a shard of diamond from her last shedding.

The half Japanese boy who had introduced himself as Hiro Forrester was Megaman of course. He was classified as a Category three Enhanced with cat three flight and invulnerability and mid-superhuman ranged physical abilities, which meant that he was a cat three in strength, speed, agility and all of his other physical attributes. He looked normal enough and seemed to have pretty good control over his abilities though so, after a quick look around to make sure that nobody was paying too much attention to us, I asked, “Why are ya in Starfish? Ya seem tae ‘ave a good handle on yiur powers an’ ya look normal enough.”

“My name used to be Hana,” he said with a resigned look.

“Same with me, I used to be Lincoln before I Activated,” Lindsey pointed out a bit self-consciously. “I’m still getting used to this whole girl thing, but Hiro and Michelle have been a huge help.”

Suddenly I didn’t feel so alone, or such a freak even among other mutants. “I was… uhh… a guy too until we all Activated a few weeks ago. I’m still tryin’ tae adjus’ tae all o’ this.”

“You’ll get through it Merida, you look like you’re doing pretty well so far,” Lindsey said with an encouraging smile. “That’s kind of the good thing about being in Starfish, we all know that there are others who can understand what we’re going through. Plus, maybe we’ll have some classes together, you look a bit young to be a freshman though.”

“I… uhh… skipped a grade,” I told her, sticking to the cover story. I didn’t like hiding the truth from them, but my real past was classified and needed to stay that way.

That was when Dr. Edwards showed up. “Sorry I’m late everyone, but I was arranging for some of our Tinkers to build something to dispose of our large friend from this morning. Blair, I’d like you to work with us on that as well if you can manage the time today. The city has cordoned off the area as I requested, but we’d like to return the body to the dimension it came from as soon as possible for safety’s sake.”

“Build a giant dimensional gate?” Mom said with a grin as her face lit up. “I’ll be there, bu’ I ‘ave plans with the girls tomorrow.”

After that was decided Dr. Edwards told us why she had gathered us. The monster had been a distraction to keep mages and any well-meaning superheroes busy while a tracker summon was sent to search for the location of the Chaos Gate, buried far beneath the city in a secret chamber. The Chaos Gate is dimensional tear where our dimension touches another, one so filled with magic energy that it was spilling out into ours, despite the fact that it had been sealed centuries ago. The seal had slowed the magic energy spilling into our world down to a trickle, but that energy was wildly chaotic and impossible to fully control, which was why it had been sealed in the first place, and why the area of Costa Verde had a long history of strange and tragic occurrences.

“The presence of the Chaos Gate is not common knowledge, nor should it ever be,” Dr. Edwards told us all with a serious expression. “I am only telling you because you needed to know why that creature was sent and how important it is that nobody ever be allowed to find it. Most mages use ley lines or forces of nature to use magic. These things can be powerful, but they also have a natural flow and order to them. The magic energy from the Chaos Gate is wildly chaotic and dark, almost evil in itself. I don’t want to even think about what would happen if someone should try to harness it, or worse break the seal. Whoever did this, it’s just their first attempt, and I expect they’ll make others. I want you all to keep your eyes open for trouble. If any of you feel or sense anything out of place in Costa Verde at any time I want to know about it immediately.”

“I’ll keep my senses peeled, all of them,” Tasha promised. The rest of us quickly nodded in agreement.

“Good, now before Blair and I go to help the team working on the dimensional gate, there is the small matter of those of you working last night without a license.” Dr. Edwards looked pointedly at Mom and the rest of our family, including the Fairies. “If you take a look at your ID bracelets you will find that they have all been updated with your team affiliation. I told the police last night that I had deputized you for temporary work so don’t worry about any legal repercussions, but you will all need to go to City Hall by closing on Monday evening to fill out the proper forms and pay license fees.”

“Why the ‘ell dae we e’en need licenses tae ‘elp people?” I grumbled.

“Licensing superheroes makes sense in Costa Verde,” Dr. Edwards said with a shrug. “There are a lot of Hypers here. The license fees, and fines for non-licensed Hypers, help the city to pay for damages. They also ensure that only those who are serious about hero work start taking it up, and generally that helps prevent serious damage or civilian casualties. Also, when licensed heroes assist local law enforcement in situations that the regular police can’t handle they can be paid for their efforts from funds that the city has set aside for that purpose. The amount depends on the situation of course and it’s generally not a lot, but it shows that they do appreciate those who choose to get a license and use their powers to help others.”

I could grudgingly see the sense in that so I let the matter drop. “So what are we gonna do while Mom’s having fun?” Mei asked pointedly.

“You should all go to the tailor’s to get your school uniforms, and you’ll need to register for your classes soon as well. You can do that through Kendra since I’ve set her up as your guidance counsellor,” Dr. Edwards advised before turning to the members of 4-Ward sitting with us at the end of the table. “Perhaps the four of you can show them the way and then show them the sights from a local’s perspective?” And with that she and Mom left the Grotto, leaving us with our new schoolmates.