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Foreword

This year (2023) is the 30th anniversary of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. I might be dating myself by saying this, but I wanted to write my own version of what the Power Rangers could look like in tribute to a show I loved while growing up. There are definitely correlations to the show in this story, but this story is a standalone story. There are no Power Rangers in this story, and there are a lot of other elements that you may like if you don’t want to read a Power Rangers-like story.

All references and likenesses to the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers in this story are not my own and I claim no ownership over any of them. I just wanted to write a story in honor of the 30th anniversary. I plan to make no money off of this story and I did not intend to impede on the rights of the Power Rangers copyright holders in any way.

I hope you enjoy this tribute.

This story should be considered PG. There is no swearing. There is no sex. There are frank descriptions of body parts including primary and secondary sex characteristics.

—

Chapter 1

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I complained, wishing I had a flashlight. I could hardly see where I was putting my feet and I had already rolled my ankle twice by placing it down on a rock in the dark.

“Quit whining like a baby, Elli,” Terry said. Terry was our de facto leader, since we all listened to him and followed him most of the time.

“Don’t call me that!” I replied, irritated.

“Well you kind of are, Ellison,” Erin added. “You felt it just like the rest of us. We can’t go back now.”

“I’m starting to agree with El,” Daisy said. “We don’t even know what that was. Why are we even here? I want to go home too.”

“Come on, you two,” John spoke up. “Whatever that was back there, it was clear to all of us we needed to come in here.”

I sighed and reluctantly continued to follow the others. It was hard, though. Terry was leading us through a cave and he had the only flashlight. I was at the back of the line, and it was very hard to see in the dark. I tried not to step on another rock, but all I could really do was put my feet where Daisy put her feet in front of me.

My mind wandered back to when we had been sitting in John’s basement not 20 minutes earlier. It had just been a normal Tuesday night. We had been playing board games around the table, something we did pretty often. The five of us had been friends since elementary school. Now, as high school juniors, we were starting to realize we only had so much time left together before we ended up going our separate ways.

Erin had just won a hand of cards when we all suddenly felt…something. I didn’t know how to explain it. We were sitting there, and then suddenly every one of us had some kind of vision that showed us where this cave was and how to navigate it. Somewhere in this cave was a door, and we had to find it. We had to. The feeling that accompanied that vision was pretty clear. I’d never felt as certain to do something as I had felt during that vision.

And here we were, slogging through a dark tunnel on the outskirts of town with only one flashlight. None of us had been here before. The entrance had been so difficult to find that I doubted if anyone had been in here in years. Hopefully we would be able to find our way back out after we found what we were looking for. We weren’t prepared for this! The urge to come here had been so strong that we didn’t even take the time to do anything but grab the single flashlight that Terry was now holding.

“What’s that?” John asked, following closely behind Terry. He reached over Terry’s shoulder and pointed to something in the dark.

I tried to peer around my four friends who were in front of me to see what it was. Terry turned the beam of the flashlight in that direction; in between all of the bodies in front of me, I knew it was the door that I had seen in the vision! The gasps from the others as they saw the door told me that we truly had all seen the same image in our minds.

We were standing in a small cavern which had a door at the far end. Surprisingly, the closer we got to the door the more it looked like some kind of an airlock that was frequently shown in movies with space ships or submarines.

Terry was the first one to reach the door. As I expected, he placed his hand right on a rectangular impression adjacent to the door. The door was already opening before I made it to the door.

Nobody said anything as Terry continued forward. We’d all seen this in the vision. We all knew what to do because we all knew what was behind the door. I followed the others, and by the time I entered the door, there was only one left.

“What?” I asked, staring at the small necklace on the small dais at the center of the round room. The others had each picked one up. “Erin, I think you…”

“No way!” she shot back immediately. “You know I don’t do pink!”

“Daisy?” I asked, picking up the necklace. I knew it was a lost cause the moment I saw that the necklace in her hand had a purple gem on it. Daisy’s favorite color was purple, and there was no way she would trade it for the pink one in my hands.

“But it is so…girly!” I whined. The necklace in my hands had a pink gem on a very feminine chain.

“Suck it up, El!” Terry said. “It is the only one left. Live with it.”

I didn’t want to live with it! I looked around at the others, who were putting their necklaces on. Terry had a red gem on his necklace, maybe a sapphire. I certainly wasn’t a gem expert. I just knew sapphires were red. Wait, maybe it was rubies. I was so confused!

Terry had a red gem on a pretty masculine chain. John’s was blue on a fairly gender-neutral chain. Maybe John’s was a sapphire. Erin’s was green on a chain that matched Terry’s masculine chain, but with an emerald. That stone I knew for sure. Daisy’s was purple on a chain that looked identical to the feminine one in my hands. I had no idea what kind of a gem was purple, though. Are purple diamonds a thing?

I sighed. I looked over to Erin one more time, but she glared at me as she shook her head before I could again ask her to trade. Then she slipped the emerald necklace around her neck and clasped it like she had been doing it her entire life. Maybe she had. Girls wore necklaces all of the time. Of course they knew how to clasp it themselves, right?

I stared at the necklace in my hands. It felt correct, somehow but I knew it was wrong. I couldn’t explain it any better than that. I didn’t know what to do with it, though. I managed to unclasp the necklace, and then I put it around my neck the way Erin had, but I failed to get the two ends to meet behind my neck. After struggling with it I looked back up to see how she was doing it, but she was already done and was looking at me.

“Come here,” she said, beckoning me toward her while she stepped toward me. As I approached she made a circle with her hands indicating that I should turn around. As I did, she took the necklace from my hands, and then reached over my head and placed it against my neck, clasping it behind me. It was emasculating! I’d seen something like that in movies and TV shows for years, but it was always the guy doing it for the girl, not the other way around!

Once the necklace was clasped, I felt a tiny current of shock pass through my body. It was unexpected, but it was also comforting, somehow.

“Okay,” Terry said. “That wasn’t so hard.”

The others nodded.

“What now?” Erin asked. “What are these things for?”

We looked at each other, and it seemed like we all felt the same thing. Once that shock had passed through us, it felt like that compulsion, which we had all felt, had dissipated. Now what were we supposed to do? Previously we were compelled to push forward, even when I wanted to stop! We had just trekked into some cave we had never seen before, opened a locked door that shouldn’t have been there, and then casually put on jewelry. That was messed up!

“What time is it?” Daisy asked fearfully. “I was supposed to be home to watch my sister at 9!”

“Um,” John replied and then looked at his watch. “It’s only 8:30.”

Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. It had only been 25 minutes since we left John’s basement, but we suddenly felt like that was hours ago.

“We better go though, if we are going to get you home in time,” John continued.

Terry nodded, and then scanned the room with his flashlight. There was nothing else here, but this was definitely not a cave. It was some kind of circular room with solid, smooth walls made of the same type of material as the door - or airlock - was made of. It didn’t look normal, but it also didn’t seem bizarre, either. Once he was certain there was nothing else here, he turned toward the door and started leading us back through the cave.

It took less time to get out. While the cave twisted and turned, there were no side passages to lead us astray. The cave went directly from the outside world to the door. That didn’t seem natural either.

Once we were out, we all seemed to decide together, without words, that it was time to go home. That too wasn’t normal. Sometimes one of us would have to leave early, but usually we were together until at least 10 o’clock. Terry had driven like usual, so he dropped us all off at our homes.

It was strange as I walked into my house. It was clearly my house but it felt wrong. Everything was there. There were pictures on the walls showing me and my family, my brother and sister, and my parents. All of the furniture was the same. The piano was still in the sitting room. The kitchen light was on like it always was. My parents were on the couch, watching some show that didn’t look all that interesting to me.

“You’re home early,” my mom said, looking up for a moment before turning back to the show.

“Daisy had to babysit,” I told her, but that wasn’t really a good excuse for why I was home. She knew one of us being gone didn’t stop the rest of us from doing something together. She started laughing, and immediately I had to start thinking up some other reason why I was home. Then I realized she was laughing at the TV, not at my reply.

I just shrugged, and then went upstairs to my room. Bradford was in his bedroom doing something, but the door was closed. Only his light let me know somebody was in there. Amy was on her bed reading as usual.

Amethyst! That was a purple gem! I felt so stupid! My sister’s name was Amethyst, or Amy for short, and I couldn’t even remember that, when I was trying to remember what kind of gem was on Daisy’s necklace! What kind of a brother was I?!

She waved at me when I walked past her room, and I waved back, hoping she couldn’t see how embarrassed I felt. Then I walked into my own room.

The feeling I’d had that something was wrong grew the moment I entered my room. I was annoyed that I still didn’t know what it was. The walls were still the same stark white they’d always been. My bed was still covered in a blue comforter. All of my books were on the bookshelf. There were a couple of posters on the walls. A trophy from Little League sat on the shelf next to my desk. The trophy seemed like it was my only real achievement in life, but it was just a participation trophy.

Nothing was out of place. Nothing. Why did it feel so wrong? I couldn’t shake it off, and laid down on my bed. I hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but I did.

—

Chapter 2

When I awoke, things felt more normal. I sat up from where I had fallen asleep in my clothes. I hadn’t even taken my shoes off or gotten under the covers. I looked around the room. It all felt normal. I was lying on my pink comforter. All of my books were on the bookshelf. Paintings of sunsets on a beach hung on my walls. My dance trophies and medals were on the shelf next to my desk. But the walls…something was wrong with the walls! They were pink! Somehow, the walls of my room were pink! How could that happen?

I felt a jolt of fear as I looked around the room once more. But that was the only thing that had changed! Everything else was just as I remembered it, but not the walls! What was going on?

“It’s time to get up, Em,” I heard my mom’s voice from the other side of my door followed by a knock loud enough to wake me if I hadn’t already gotten up.

“I’m up,” I replied. At least that was normal. She always woke me up that way, though I was usually already up when she did.

I sighed, got undressed, and then walked into my bathroom. It, too, was unchanged. The pink towels were still hanging from the towel rod, the mermaid shower curtain was hanging above the bathtub. A curling iron was sitting next to the plug on the counter. Ok, ok, it was pretty girly. But I shared the bathroom with Amy, and I had let her decorate it the way she wanted it to be. Yes, it was girly, but it hadn’t changed. At least, not like my bedroom had. The walls were pink in there!

I looked into the mirror, and all that looked back at me was the same boy that I saw every morning. He was kind of scrawny, but at least physically fit. He had light brown hair, brown eyes, and a masculine jawline that I was really proud of. There wasn’t much facial hair, yet, but I was sure it was just taking its time growing in.

I showered and dried, went back into my room, cringed at the now somehow pink walls, and opened my closet to get dressed. I was half-afraid of what I would find in there, but it didn’t appear like anything had changed. All of my T-shirts and jeans were in the middle of the closet where they were supposed to be. To the left were a few dresses I hadn’t worn in a long time, and to the right was a set of drawers that held everything from underwear to socks and nylons to pajamas and night shirts. Below the clothes was a too large assortment of shoes ranging from sneakers and flats all the way to a couple of high heels. On the shelf above was a number of boxes that I knew held old papers from school, keepsakes I wanted but was too old to display, and a pink suitcase that only got used when we went on trips somewhere. Overall, it was a typical boy’s closet everywhere in the world.

After getting dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and wearing my favorite pair of sneakers, I went downstairs for some breakfast. Mom and Dad were already sitting around the table. Bradford, or Brad as he liked to be called, was pouring some cereal next to them. I could hear the shower start up on the floor above us and I knew Amy was now getting ready. My school started before hers did, which meant I got to use the bathroom first.

“Morning El,” Mom greeted me, handing me a bowl. It looked like cold cereal was on the menu this morning. Mom must have somewhere to go to, since usually she made a wonderful breakfast for all of us.

“Morning,” I replied while taking the bowl and sitting down. Brad looked at me oddly when I sat down next to him, but he didn’t say anything as we ate together. Once I was done I stood up, rinsed my bowl in the sink, and put it in the dishwasher. Then I wished my family goodbye, grabbed my backpack, and headed out to the bus stop that was only a few houses down the street. I kept getting some strange looks while I waited for the bus, and then while we were on the bus, but nobody said anything other than the typical chit-chat. John and Daisy lived on the same block as me, but they usually drove in together. I had hoped they would ask Erin and me to join them when John got a car, but since they had been getting closer and closer over the last year it was pretty obvious that the two of them wanted to spend some alone time together on the drive to and from the school. While I had my driver’s license and could drive myself, my family only had two cars and usually my parents needed them. Erin lived two houses away from me and usually rode the bus with me since she didn't have her own car either, but she wasn’t at the bus stop this morning. Alas, I had to ride the bus alone.

The school was the same that I had been going to for a few years. I walked in the doors with the other students who had ridden a bus and made my way to my locker. I continued to get a few strange looks, like people were seeing something that they didn’t expect, but still, nobody said anything to me other than saying hello or some small talk.

After exchanging the books in my backpack for the ones I would need today in my locker, I closed the door and almost jumped to see a face right on the other side.

“Morning,” Erin said to me. She had been purposely waiting to shock me! It was one of her favorite things to do in life, apparently. She did it often enough it must give her some thrill.

“Morning,” I replied, looking at her. She looked different than last night, but it took me a few moments to realize that she wasn’t wearing as much makeup as she normally did. She never wore a lot, but the times she wore even less really showed off how much of a difference makeup can make.

She looked at me oddly, too, though. I opened my mouth to ask her why, but she started talking before I had the chance.

“Did you dye your hair last night?” she asked.

That was a weird question. I had never dyed my hair before in my life, and I certainly hadn’t last night.

“No. Why?” I replied, curious why she would ask. She paused for a moment, trying to figure out whatever she planned to say next.

“It’s just…so red,” she finally said. That surprised me! I didn’t have red hair, I had brown hair! The only person in my family who had red hair had been Nana Delaney, my dad’s mom. At least in older photos. I had only ever known her with gray hair.

Erin reached into her bag and pulled out a compact, opened it, and then handed it to me. It contained a small mirror, and I used it to focus on my head. Sure enough, my hair was kind of red. Like…what the heck? I had never had red hair in my life! I had never even had close to red hair!

I just stared at it for a few moments before Erin took the compact from my hands and closed it, returning it to her bag.

“I guess that’s why I keep getting weird looks,” I mumbled, but I was distracted. I wanted to say something about how odd this was, but I didn’t know how to talk about it. First, the walls in my room were pink. Now, my hair is red? What was going on? It was just a little red-tinged brown. But still, it was different.

“I noticed a few odd things too,” Erin said. “I think it must have something to do with the necklaces. There is a lot more green in my life. The walls in my room are green now, for some reason!”

I was shocked and then I blurted, “My walls are pink!”

She started chuckling. That wasn’t very helpful. Yes, it must have been funny to her to hear such a manly, masculine guy as myself complain that the walls of my room were now pink. Har de har.

The bell rang before I could say anything else. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, anyway. This day was bizarre.

“Come on,” she said, lightly pulling on my hand. “Let’s get to class.”

—

After school we returned to John’s basement as usual. It was probably our most popular hangout spot. John was an only child and as such, was spoiled quite well by his parents. That, along with the lack of younger siblings to annoy us, meant that his basement was a fantastic place to spend time together.

But, this time the basement was different. There was a lot more blue down here than there had been the day before. Extra color in our lives seemed to be the norm now. Every single one of us had complained about the color of our necklaces showing up in more places in our lives today. All of them but Daisy laughed when I mentioned that the walls of my room were now pink. Most of them had new painted walls too. Only Daisy had been spared, but it was likely because her walls were already a light lilac color.

When people started talking about my redder hair, it started a whole conversation about some changes that people had seen. It made me take stock of my friends, to see if any changes had occurred to them.

Terry didn’t look much different. His head now sported a half inch of his afro hair he’d kept shaved for the last two years, but otherwise he looked the same. He was a bit of a gym enthusiast and had always been more buff than John or me, but he did seem like he had gained more muscle overnight. He had been boasting about how much he had to shave his face this morning too. If his mom hadn’t forbid him, he said he would have left the beard. He clearly had a 5 o’clock shadow right now that stood out way more on his light brown skin than it had at this time yesterday.

John had brown hair and brown eyes. That hadn’t changed at all. In fact, he looked the same as he always did. The only change he said he had noticed was that he now seemed to have abs, and we agreed when he pulled up his shirt. I pulled mine up right after that, and clearly I was not as lucky as John or Terry when it came to gaining a bit more muscle.

Erin now had abs though. That made me sad. She seemed excited at the fact that she was gaining more muscle. She had always been a bit of a tomboy, and was on the cross country team, which meant she was quite fit. Now, she was fit and very athletic-looking. She looked almost as if she worked out as much as Terry, but clearly girls wear muscle a bit differently. Her brown hair had actually gotten slightly darker, but not so much that it was as noticeable as my hair change. Her green eyes were also a bit bolder today.

Daisy hadn’t changed much, according to her. She seemed to be more fit, like the others, but she wasn’t putting on muscle; she was just more toned now. Her blonde hair and blue eyes hadn’t changed at all.

This conversation led me to take a more introspective look at myself in a mirror in the bathroom nearby. At first, I thought I looked pudgier. But Erin, who came into the bathroom with me, said that wasn’t true. I was more toned and more physically fit than I had ever been in my life, according to her. It took me a bit to see what she was talking about, because it looked like my skin had more padding under it. For whatever reason, it seemed like somebody had pulled up my carpeting (skin) and replaced the padding underneath with a luxury padding. Erin, unhelpfully, said it seemed a lot like what Daisy’s body now looked like.

When the two of us rejoined the others, they had agreed that both Erin and I seemed to have changed the most. I didn’t like the sound of that. When I sat down, Daisy grabbed my hand and stared at it for a moment.

“Did you paint Em’s nails while you were in there?” she asked Erin, rubbing a finger over one of my fingernails. That was weird. But when Daisy showed my finger to everyone, it was obvious that I was wearing a very light pink nail polish now!

I gasped and yanked my hand away from her! What was happening?! I panicked. I certainly didn’t want to wear nail polish! I was a boy! This was all wrong!

I felt tears starting to moisten my eyes, and just after the sobs started coming out of me, Erin was there, hugging me. Holding me. Comforting me. I’d never felt as protected as I did in her arms. Whatever was happening, it would be okay as long as Erin was there.

I cried on her shoulder for a few moments before I seemed to dry out. Once I did, she took my hand and examined my nails. There was no way to deny it, they looked like they had been painted. I almost wanted to start crying again.

“What is happening?!” I mewled.

“I don’t know,” she said, comfortingly. “I have some remover in my purse.”

That lifted my spirits, somewhat. She reached for her purse, and after rooting within it for a moment, she opened it wide and looked in. She looked confused while turning it over and dumping its contents on the table.

“I know I had some in here,” she said, questioningly. “I used it this morning to remove my own polish.”

She kept rooting around in the pile that had come out of her purse, but it was John that perked up and reached for something. It wasn’t nail polish remover, however. It was her wallet.

“Uh, Erin?” he said. “I think you should look at this.”

John handed the wallet to Erin, and when she took a look at it her eyes widened in surprise. She stared at it for a few moments before she sank down into her seat, pale as a ghost.

“What is it?” Daisy asked, reaching to take the wallet from her. When she did, her eyes went about as wide. “Oh, no!”

Curiosity piqued in the rest of us, and we all stared at her for a moment before she placed the wallet down on the table. A window on the outside of the wallet showed her driver’s license through it. And it had changed.

‘Aaron Emil Cromwell’, it read. ‘Male, 5’11” 185 lbs.’

The picture was the same girl I had known my entire life, but the stats were a far cry from the Erin Emily Cromwell I was familiar with! For one, she was definitely female. I knew that from first-hand experience when we got caught in a dressing room together. Two, she was 5 and a half feet tall at best, and couldn’t have weighed more than 130 lbs., if that!

There was a scramble that led to everyone trying to get to their own driver’s licenses. Well, everyone except for me. I was terrified to look after everything I had experienced today!

Terry’s weight was listed slightly higher and his height was an inch taller. Neither John’s nor Daisy’s license was any different. After each had confirmed that nothing as significant as what Erin had seen had occurred to their licenses, they all turned toward me.

“I don’t want to!” I practically cried. They kept staring at me, except Erin as she was still lost in her own emotions.

With much trepidation, I reached around to my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. It didn’t look any different, but I did not have a window for my license like Erin had. I had to grab it and pull it out.

I took a moment and tried to remember what I knew was on it: ‘Ellison Ray Delaney, Male, 5’9” 172 lbs. Brown hair, brown eyes, no driving restrictions’.

I hoped and I pleaded and I prayed and I yearned and I begged anybody, anything, that would listen to me that when I pulled it out, none of that had changed. I’d be okay if it said I had red hair now.

I pulled the card out of its sleeve with my eyes closed. I didn’t want to look, but I knew I had to. I peeked, and my world tumbled. ‘Ember Rae Delaney, it read. Female, 5’2” 115lbs. Red hair, Green eyes, no driving restrictions.’

For a moment, I was relieved that I didn’t have to wear corrective lenses now. Then the inevitable feeling of dread that had led to Erin’s ghostly appearance welled up inside of me as I slumped into my own chair.

My worst fear was coming true! Ever since the first time someone had shortened my name and called me Elli, I had been scared that somehow I would turn into a girl. It was years later that I realized how stupid that thought was. But clearly, I was wrong now! Here I was turning into a girl and I couldn’t deny it anymore! Nothing had really changed, but everything had! The walls of my room were pink. My hair was turning red. Nail polish had appeared on my hands. And I didn’t have any abs even though girls can have abs. But clearly that wasn’t in the cards for me. I was definitely more toned than I was yesterday, but that layer of padding they put under the carpet that’s called skin? Well, health class had taught me that women have a thicker layer of fat just under their skin. It was biological. And now, I seemed to have it too. How long until the rest of me is just as female?

“So that’s why you called him ‘Em’, Daisy,” John said, breaking my funk for at least a little bit. What was he talking about?

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Daisy echoed my thoughts.

“When he came out of the bathroom and you grabbed his hands, you asked if Erin had painted Em’s nails.” John told her. “I thought you had just made a mistake, but now I wonder.”

I replayed that moment in my mind, and sure enough she had. And she wasn’t the only one. I now distinctly remembered my mother doing the same thing when she woke me up this morning, though not when we were at the breakfast table. The same thing had also happened a few times at school when I was greeted by others. I had never noticed it until now.

I started crying. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

—

Chapter 3

I don’t really remember what happened next. I only remember somebody splashing water from a water bottle on me sometime later.

“What was that for?!” I yelled, and started looking around to figure out where I was. I was in John’s car!

“You weren’t moving!” Erin retorted while sitting next to me. It was clear she had been the one to splash me based on the stance she had over me in the back seat of John’s car. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

I looked past her and out the window of the car and noticed that we were outside of my house. I had no memory of getting in the car, let alone the drive over here.

Erin reached out for me, and helped me slide over the back seat and out the door opposite of where I had been sitting. It seemed like it would have been easier to go out the door I had been closest to, but she was apparently determined to “help” me. Once I was out she put her arm around my waist to support me, and started to walk me toward the front door. At first, I was disgusted by it because it seemed like another act of a girl acting as the guy and treating me as the girl. But, after one step, I was grateful for the support. It took a few more steps before I felt like I could do it on my own, but she held on to me, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she said when we were half way up the walk. “You were right. I should have taken the pink necklace.”

I had been fretting about what was happening to me, but I had almost forgotten that she was going through it too, just the other way. I looked up at her. She was smiling, but I could see the pain and worry on her own face. This clearly wasn’t what she had been expecting from the necklaces, either.

I merely nodded. I was still in shock. Erin let go once I was on the steps; I almost wavered, but was able to remain standing. She was staring at me, and I became worried. Erin and I had been friends forever, but I’d never seen her like this. She looked awkward, almost like…No! That couldn’t be it! She looked almost like she wanted to kiss me!

“My dad is out of town on a business trip,” she said instead. “Mom said I can use his car tomorrow. I’ll pick you up for school and check in on you, okay?”

I nodded. Both of us knew that things could be very different tomorrow after what we had gone through today. She smiled a forced smile, and then opened the door for me. Once I was through the doorway, she closed it behind me, and I felt a bit safer. I was home. If nothing else, my family was here.

“Em?” I heard from the kitchen. Before I could even respond my mom came around the corner, and the questioning tone in her voice turned into worry as she hurried over to me. “Ellison? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” was my reply. “I don’t feel good. I’m just going to go up to my room and lie down for a while.”

Sleep would get me away from what was happening, at least. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Are you sick?” she continued, placing her hand on my head. “No temperature.”

“I just,” I replied. “It’s just been a bad day. I just want it over.”

She looked worried, but nodded.

“Please let me know if you need anything,” she said. “I’ll check in on you in a little while, then.”

I nodded again, and she stepped back to let me pass. I slowly made my way up the stairs and to my room.

While I was gone, my room had changed some more. It seemed like the changes were everywhere now. The walls were still pink, but now the comforter on my bed was also pink. The books on my bookshelf seemed unchanged, but there were a few paintings of beaches on my walls, with the brilliant pinks and oranges of sunsets. And on the shelf next to my desk, instead of my Little League participation trophy, there were now a number of trophies and medals that indicated I had been taking dance classes for a long time, and I had possibly even won a few contests!

Worriedly, I opened my closet, and I was dismayed to see that it now contained dresses, high heels, and other feminine shoes. When I opened the drawers I found panties and bras, nylons, nightgowns, and a whole host of feminine items that shouldn’t be there. Even my black suitcase that I’d had since I was 12 was now pink!

Stepping into the bathroom, I was worried about what else could have changed, but it was, thankfully, the same. Pink towels, mermaid shower curtain, curling iron on the counter. That wasn’t new. But when I started opening my drawers, my heart was crestfallen. I found powders and lotions, makeup and nail polish. In the last drawer, there were…there were…tampons and pads! I hadn’t even thought about that! I just wanted to scream!

I fell to my knees and sobbed on the floor of the bathroom. My life was over!

I had no idea how long I had been kneeling there and sobbing, before someone came into the bathroom. It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. But Amy came in through the door to her room with a worried look that only intensified when she saw me. I didn’t remember if she had ever even seen me cry, and now here I was bawling my eyes out in front of her.

“El, are you okay?” she asked worriedly. She came over and knelt down beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“No!” I replied through the tears. “I’m never going to be okay again!”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I didn’t know what came over me, but in that instant, I couldn’t hide it from her. I was the oldest in the family and Amy was the youngest, but there were only 3 years between us. I was 17, and she was about to turn 14. We’d always had a good relationship, which was proven by the fact I shared a bathroom with her and not Brad. Admittedly, my room was the biggest yet shared the bathroom with the adjoining room. If I had wanted my own bathroom, I would have had to take Brad’s smaller room when my parents offered it to me. But at the time, despite wanting the bigger room, I knew that Brad and Amy would never get along if they had to share. But I knew I could get along with her just fine.

“I’m turning into a girl, Amy!” I blurted out. “And I don’t want to!”

She stared back at me blankly. She probably had no idea what I was talking about, and it certainly made no sense.

“Are you transgender?” she asked, trying to make some sense of what I had said. “Is that why you dyed your hair?”

“I didn’t dye my hair!” I said with more anger than she deserved. I was so grateful that she didn’t pull away from me at that moment, and after calming down, I repeated what I had said. “I didn’t dye my hair, and I’m not transgender. I don’t want to be a girl!”

She was quiet again, trying to piece something else together.

“Then what…” she started, but never finished her question.

I just gestured at the drawer that was still open next to me. A box of tampons and pads was clearly visible, with other female items that I didn’t recognize at first glance behind them. She took in the sight for a moment. We had divided the drawers in the bathroom between us. The left-side drawers were hers, and the right side was mine. What she was seeing was clearly in my drawer. I knew she had started having periods herself, so it wasn’t like these were some kind of mystical items to her, yet she stared at them like she didn’t understand what they were.

“Why do you have…” she started, but trailed off again.

“I didn’t buy them and I didn’t put them there!” I blurted between more sobs. “They just appeared there! Just like everything else in those drawers! And, and…and my room is changing too! The walls are pink! There are dresses and bras in my closet! And apparently I have been taking dance classes since I was a little kid!”

She looked totally confused again, and stared at the drawer for a moment before pushing it closed, and then opening each of the other two drawers one at a time. I didn’t know if she ever got into my drawers for any reason, but what she found in the ones she opened certainly wasn’t what she was expecting.

“Are you okay?” she asked again. I wasn’t getting through to her what was happening to me. What I had said would be hard for anyone to believe. I just shook my head, tears running down my cheeks some more.

“Come on,” she said, and made an attempt to lift me, but I was too big for her to move. It shook me out of my slump, however. If I took her into my room, she’d understand.

I stood up, and then turned to go back to my room. When we entered, I heard a small gasp from behind me.

“When did you do this?!” she asked, surprise in her voice.

“I didn’t do anything!” I wailed. “The walls were pink when I woke up, and everything else changed sometime during the day! I don’t want to be a girl, Amy!”

“Ok, ok,” she said. “But what makes you think you are turning into a girl? Having your room change like this is one thing, but you look the same to me.”

“But I’m not,” I told her. “I haven’t changed much, but the signs are there. It’s happening!”

“How?” she asked. She still looked incredulous. Admittedly, it wasn’t every day that someone you know spontaneously starts changing sex.

I reached into the collar of my shirt, and pulled the necklace out. It was such a beautiful thing, but I had no doubt that it was causing this.

“This,” I told her. “My friends and I…well, something happened. Now, we all have one of these, and it is making changes to us. Erin is turning into a boy!”

Now she looked even more confused. Maybe she thought I was going insane. Maybe I was!

“I think maybe you just need some sleep,” she finally said. She didn’t seem to be processing this as quickly as I hoped she would. I realized that I needed her. I wasn’t going to get through this without her. But she wasn’t at a place where she could help me yet.

I nodded. Sleep sounded good. Hopefully things would just go away while I slept.

I wasn’t dumb enough to truly believe what I had thought, but it was all I had to cling to as I fell into the bed and left the world for dreamland.

—

When my eyes next opened, my whole body filled with dread, and I shot up in bed. What I felt from my body only exacerbated the fear that was overcoming me.

A gasp came from the door to my bathroom, and I immediately looked over to see Amy, but I quickly turned my attention to my now exposed torso. What I found was far from what I was hoping to find.

I had breasts! They were very small – way smaller than anything I had ever seen on the Internet. They were also much smaller than what I had seen when I’d shared the changing room with Erin, and we got “curious” about each other’s bodies. We didn’t do anything more than look at each other, but it had given me the best view I’d ever had about what a female body looked like naked. What I saw when I looked down was clearly the same type of body, though I had never seen it when looking at myself before!

I looked back up at Amy, hoping that she would tell me I was just seeing things. But her expression dashed any hope I might have still had. She was staring at me like she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. I was also having difficulty comprehending.

There were a lot of things I expected her to say, but she surprised me when she spoke.

“You sleep in the nude?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, pulling the sheets off of me and standing up. “I wear boxers to bed.” Then I looked down.

I wasn’t wearing boxers now! Both of us stared down at the pink panties that now covered my nether regions! Even worse, they fit me perfectly! There was nothing about them that indicated I was really a teenage boy! They were flat and tight! I was so shocked that I felt tears falling down my cheeks before I even knew that I was crying!

To her credit, Amy rushed over to me immediately and wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t know I needed it, but her hug buoyed my spirits more than any other hug I’d ever had.

A knock came from my door before anything else could happen.

“Time to get up, Em,” my mom said. Amy let go of me and took a step back.

“I’m up!” I called back, like I always did.

“Are you alright?” came her reply through the door. Clearly something alarmed her.

“Yes?” I replied, but nobody would have missed the question that it was instead of the answer I had meant to give.

A moment later, the door opened, and my mom caught a glimpse of the new me. She stood there in shock for a moment before coming into my room and closing the door behind her.

“What…” she started, but clearly was having her own difficulty in trying to understand what was happening.

“I’m turning into a girl!” I blurted as even more tears started breaking out of the jail my male body had been for years. I had never cried this much before in my life!

I didn’t know how my mom took that news. How does anyone take the news that someone they loved was spontaneously changing sex? But she came over to me and hugged me even more deeply than Amy had. If I thought Amy’s hug had been what I needed, then my mom’s was something beyond. I loved my sister, but there is a bond between mother and child that does not exist between other people.

We stayed in that hug for a while. When she finally let go of me, the tears had stopped. I didn’t feel any better about my situation, but I also no longer felt like I needed to keep crying about it. At least, not right then.

“You better hurry and shower,” she said. “We’ll help you get dressed and ready before you have to catch the bus.”

I just stared at her, aghast! I was literally changing sex right in front of her, but she wasn’t going to let me skip school today! I was stunned!

“Can’t I just…” I started.

“No,” she interrupted. “You are going to have to get through this.”

My mom had been the valedictorian at her high school. I was nowhere close to achieving that, but that didn’t stop her from treating me like I was. She rarely ever let any of us miss school for any reason, and it always had to come with an appropriate reason. Clearly, becoming somebody new, changing sex beyond anything in the realm of possibility, and having a major identity crisis, were not appropriate reasons. She didn’t even seem to be too worried that this was happening!

“But…” I tried again.

“No,” she stopped me. “We can worry about this after school, but you need a good education.”

I sighed. Her rationalization seemed ridiculous given the circumstances, but clearly I wasn’t going to win this argument, based on years of precedent.

“Go shower,” Mom ordered and then gestured toward Amy. “Tell me what you know while Elli gets showered. Then we can do her hair and makeup.”

“Mom!” I complained instinctually at that specific shortening of my name, even if it did describe me better than my full name now.

The two of them were talking, and I had no choice but to go into the bathroom. I stood in front of the full-length mirror inside.

Once again the tears started to well up at the sight of the pretty young woman who looked back at me. I looked shorter than I had been yesterday, but I certainly didn’t look like the 5’2” that my driver’s license had stated. Tomorrow then, I supposed bitterly. My body was clearly female. The curves were in the right places. I was skinny but very physically fit. I didn’t have any abs, but there was clear muscle definition across my entire body. Whatever this body did on a regular basis, I clearly stayed in shape. My boobs were small. I guessed that they weren’t fully developed, but I had absolutely no idea of the difference between a fully developed breast versus a growing breast. The pink necklace looked even daintier as it sat above where I now had a small amount of cleavage.

My face was completely changed, yet at the same time it was clearly still me. Everything seemed a bit smaller, or at least delicate. My nose had changed a lot. It hadn’t been large, but it was now dainty and pert. My eyes were now green. But what really caught my attention were the freckles on my cheeks, below my eyes, and on my nose! There weren’t many, but I hadn’t had any spots on my face before, and those freckles stood out!

My hair was red! It had started to go that way yesterday, but today it was clear that I had been born with red hair. The green eyes, freckles, and the natural red hair color certainly indicated some type of ancestry I hadn’t seen in myself before today. My hair had been straight yesterday, but it was wavy now, and it hung to where the tips of the strands would brush my shoulders every once in a while. It did a good job of framing my face. It almost looked like a red sun surrounding my face with wavy strands. I loved it at the same time that I hated that it was now mine! I was sure there was some name that described my new hair style better than my feeble attempts. ‘Lob’ came to mind for some reason, but I was new to this whole “girl thing” and I didn’t know if that was it! In fact, why was I even thinking about the name of the hairstyle?!

I sighed. For better or worse, this nightmare was happening. I didn’t want it to, that was for sure, but it was. It was likely to get worse, too, as there were clear indications that I wasn’t complete. I knew that I was not an expert on the female body before this morning, but I’d seen enough to know that my body looked somewhat immature. I couldn’t really describe why it seemed that way to me, it just did.

Knowing that I’d better start getting ready so I could get the help I needed before Erin came to pick me up, I turned toward the hamper next to the door that led back into my room. I pulled off the panties, put them inside, and then stood in front of the mirror once again.

I let out a sigh of relief to see that I still had a penis. It was tiny tiny tiny, but it was clearly a penis. It was probably no bigger than the now smaller thumbnail I sported, but there was no mistaking what it was. The shape was the same, but it was just really really tiny. Tiny enough it didn’t even bulge the panties I had been wearing. My testicles were missing, however. The penis was alone in a great expanse of skin that led back between my legs. There was no sign of a vagina or anything else that would make me think I was female down there, but it was easy to see where it would soon be. My now red pubic hair did not cover the whole area; instead there was a bare patch of skin where I could almost imagine a pair of lips – which I did not want - would soon form.

I stepped over to the toilet to do my morning business. I wanted to pee standing up since it was likely to be one of the last times I would ever get the chance, but my penis was so small I wasn’t sure I would be able to direct the stream properly. Begrudgingly, I turned and sat down. I had known that I would have to do this eventually, and it looked like it would start now.

When I let go and felt the stream begin, however, I yelped in surprise! There were a few things that happened that I clearly didn’t expect. I had fully expected the stream to come out of the end of my small penis, but it wasn’t. Health class had taught me the difference between male and female genitals, and apparently my urethra was now somewhere back behind my penis. I couldn’t see it, but I clearly saw the stream coming from it. With my very limited knowledge, I had always imagined that pee just trickled out of women, but it looked and felt like I now had a fire hose back there instead of the garden hose that I was used to! Without any lips or other structures down there to impede its progress, my urine stream almost looked like a laser as it shot out of me and into the toilet bowl with a loud hiss that was alien to my ears.

When I finally finished, I wondered if I needed to wipe down there. I knew that the urethra location on women led to pee going in all sorts of directions, but without being complete, and with it clearly coming out unimpeded, was it required? Ultimately, I decided I didn’t want to risk having to clean up a mess so I grabbed a wad of toilet paper. Then, oddly, I started wiping from the front of my penis to the back of my crotch like I knew what I was doing. I hadn’t thought about it, but I did what seemed natural. It felt like the action had been some type of “learned” behavior. I dropped the toilet paper between my legs, stood up, lowered the toilet seat cover, and flushed. Peeing for the first time had sadly confirmed that I was becoming female. There was no way to correlate being male with what I had just experienced. I looked into the mirror once more. Even though there was a miniscule penis between my legs, it certainly didn’t act like one anymore.

I stepped over to the bathtub and pulled the shower curtains closed and then reached in and turned the shower on. Then, while the water warmed up, I walked over to the towel rack and selected a clean pink towel. It felt softer than normal against my skin. I’d heard that women had more sensitive skin. I didn’t know if that was true, and it certainly didn’t feel any more sensitive, but it felt different.

Surprisingly, showering as a girl wasn’t much different than showering as a boy. It was weird gliding my hands over the new bumps of my breasts while lathering up my chest, but it seemed more like a novelty. I was sure that in time I wouldn’t even notice a difference. When I got down, um, there, it was odd to feel my tiny penis where I was used to one that was bigger. I was also able to feel the hole beneath it. There was nothing else down there, however. I half expected maybe there was the beginning of an indent where I would soon have a new set of lips or something, but there wasn’t. There was just the tiny penis and a hole. I tried to be careful down there, though. I lived with two females who had complained about UTI’s, and I knew that women had a greater chance of developing a UTI. I didn’t know if that included me yet. I really hadn’t ever learned what caused them, but didn’t want to have it happen accidently because I was exploring things down there that weren’t complete. I definitely had some learning to do.

Without thinking I began washing my hair, something I hadn’t meant to do. When I was done showering, I turned off the shower, grabbed my towel, and started drying off. Once I was dry I wrapped it around myself, pulled back the shower curtain, and stepped out. I glanced over at the mirror again. It was so hard not to look. Immediately I was surprised to see that I had wrapped the towel around my entire chest and under my arms, instead of around my waist! Clearly, I had instincts in this body I had never had in my life. I silently prayed that these instincts would continue to help me adjust as this unwanted intrusion kept asserting itself into my life.

They did! I found that out right after brushing my teeth, when I instinctively reached for the hair dryer. I turned it on, grabbed a brush I had never seen before, and started doing my hair. By the time I was done, it looked fantastic! It looked like I had done this many times before. Then, I opened the drawer I had seen last night that held all of my new makeup and went to work. Not long after, I looked just like any other teenage girl I saw walking around my school. To be more specific, it was clear my body knew what to do even if I had no idea what I was doing.

When I returned to my room, my mom and Amy were still there, and they had been busy. Laying on my bed were a pretty pink dress, a bra, panties, and a dainty pair of sandals that were made to look better than they probably felt to wear.

“What?! No!” I exclaimed immediately. They both turned to me and their eyes widened again. They had been waiting to do my hair and makeup and they clearly hadn’t been ready for me to appear as made up as I already was.

“You did your makeup?!” Amy asked sadly. She probably had been looking forward to making me a living doll.

I nodded. “Whatever is happening has apparently given me the skills I need. But I’m not wearing a dress to school!”

“Now Elli,” my mom said. “We’ve been talking, and we think this will be the best thing for you. One, it will make you feel more feminine and that will help you get used to this until we can figure out what is happening and how to change you back. Two, it will show everyone else that you are now a girl, and that they should treat you that way.”

I rolled my eyes.

“One,” I retorted. “Stop calling me Elli. If you can’t use my real name then you should probably call me Ember. That is what is on my driver’s license now. Two, I don’t want to “feel more feminine”. Three, I don’t want to be treated as a girl. And four, I don’t think there is a way back.”

Mom was silent for a moment as she contemplated what I had said.

“Ember? I really like that. I had thought about it as a name that I might use if you had been born a girl, but you weren’t. With your hair and complexion, that really fits. I like it.”

She smiled widely, which caused me to roll my eyes again. The last thing I needed was my mom taking this in stride! Then again, everyone was. Even me, somewhat. I clearly didn’t want this, but whatever was doing this to me was also making everyone okay with it somehow. I kind of, sort of, hoped that was the case if my mom was going to force me to go to school today.

I sighed, again. Maybe they were right. I was worried about what my schoolmates would think, and this would be a strong message about my future. I couldn’t describe how I knew, but I knew that this was my future. There was no going back now. Whatever the necklace was doing to me, it wasn’t going to undo it.

“Ok,” I replied reluctantly, feeling like I had caved in despite the reasons that made it a good idea. “But I’m not quite female, um, down there. Let me get dressed alone.”

A perplexed expression crossed both of their faces for a moment as they no doubt tried to imagine what I had no desire to show them. Then, my mom nodded.

“Amy, you go and get ready. I’ll go finish breakfast,” she said. After Amy left, my mom turned toward me and hugged me again before exiting the door to the hallway.

I unwrapped my towel, laid it on my bed and started to get dressed.The experience was strange, but it was also normal at the same time. Pulling a fresh pair of panties up my legs was no different than my boxers. They just sat differently on my body when they were all the way up. It was actually kind of comforting the way they hugged the new curves I seemed to have.

Putting on the bra was definitely one of the stranger parts. It once again had no correlating experience with my male life to give me context to how it would feel. But as I lowered my breasts into the cups and then reached behind me to snap it closed, it felt normal. Or at least as normal as doing something totally weird - that I had never done before but also seemed like I did every day - could feel normal. I had looked at the tag attached to the bra and found out that I now had an A cup. I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I knew it meant my breasts were small. They still seemed quite big when I thought about how I didn’t have any boobs yesterday, however.

Putting on the dress wasn’t much different than pulling on a T-shirt, except there were some new bumps on my chest that I had to get it over and it fell down my body much further than a shirt. Once it was on it was kind of odd how the hem swayed and brushed against my legs as I moved, but it too felt a bit like a novelty. A few days wearing a dress and I probably wouldn’t even notice it just like all of the sensations we had each day that we ignore because it is just “normal” to feel that way.

I grabbed the sandals next and slipped them on my feet. They turned out to be more comfortable than I thought they would. It was a bit peculiar since they had a very small wedge heel at the back, but it didn’t really feel any different than the cowboy boots I had worn to a western dance we’d had at school a few months ago.

Once I was dressed, I looked into the smaller mirror above my desk. The mirror hadn’t been there two days ago. My hair and makeup hadn’t been harmed by putting on the dress. I picked up the towel from my bed and dropped it in the hamper just inside the bathroom door. Amy would have screamed at me yesterday if I’d opened the door while she was in the shower, and I usually dropped the towel in the hamper before coming into my room to get dressed. But today, she just kept showering like she didn’t even notice.

I then walked back over to my desk and picked up my now pink backpack that was sitting on top of it, picked up my tote bag from beside my bed, and then left the room.

I said the feeling of the dress swirling around me was a bit of a novelty, but the more I moved, the more it felt unique. There was a unique sensation I hadn’t ever felt before and I couldn’t relate it to anything I had experienced. It was kind of exciting in that uniqueness.

When I had made it down the stairs I dropped my backpack and tote bag next to the door before I turned toward the kitchen. There was more noise than usual coming from the room. At first I thought it might be because my mom was telling my dad and Brad about what had happened to me, but it quickly became clear that somebody had the TV on in the living room, which could be seen from the dining room table. That was something Mom usually didn’t allow.

As I stepped into the kitchen I fully expected Dad and Brad to stare at me, but instead Mom, Dad and Brad were looking at the TV and hadn’t even realized I had come in. That was fine with me! While they were engrossed with the TV I grabbed a plate and loaded it with some pancakes and bacon, then sat down at the table. They still hadn’t even looked up at me so I looked over at the TV.

“...not sure where they came from, or who they are, but it is clearly some kind of terrorist attack,” a woman’s voice came from the TV. The pictures showed an area of the state capital, which was about 20 minutes north of us, that looked like a bomb had exploded outside of a bank. The storefronts around the bank were shattered, and a few of the buildings had collapsed. There didn’t seem to be anybody nearby.

I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I needed to eat. I grabbed the syrup and spread it across my pancakes, then grabbed my fork and started eating.

“Oh, no,” the TV newscaster said. “They’re back.”

I looked up from my plate toward the TV and I watched something come out of the bank, followed by three more. I didn’t know what they were. They didn’t look human, only humanoid. They had gray skin, two arms, two legs, and a head, but they didn’t seem to be wearing any clothes and had a large bulbous head that was grotesque. We couldn’t discern the eyes and mouth amongst the many bumps of what almost looked like clay caked across their entire heads. Their bodies looked much the same, though they were smoother. I morosely thought that they were kind of like what I was going through, because they didn’t appear to have any genitalia whatsoever. All three of them were carrying bags of money, and they ran out of the camera frame. Soon a helicopter camera showed them getting into some kind of vehicle. The vehicle rumbled to life and then started driving down the road. The helicopter moved to follow them, but shortly after something shot out of the car toward the helicopter, and the picture went black.

I lost my appetite.

“It appears we have lost the feed,” the newscaster said, but that seemed like a kind way to say that the helicopter had likely just been shot down.

My family started looking around to see each other's reactions. They all had wide eyes, and when my dad and brother saw me, they got even wider.

“Who are you?” my brother blurted but then recognized me a moment later. Dad just stared. Apparently Mom had told Dad about what was happening to me, but clearly not my brother.

“Ember,” I replied. I’d better get used to it. They had better get used to it too.

Brad stared at me like I was just as bad as what he had just seen on TV. I knew he had more to ask, but he wasn’t sure where to start.

Fortunately, there was a knock on our front door before he could continue. I looked down at my left wrist where there was a pink smart watch wrapped around it along with a few bracelets, none of which I had remembered putting on before leaving my room. The watch informed me that there was a very good chance it was Erin at the door, based on the time. I grabbed my napkin and dabbed my lips carefully before I stood up.

“Erin is giving me a ride to school,” I informed my mom. She nodded and then grabbed my plate to let me know she would clean it up, then hugged me.

“Be safe, and enjoy it,” she said. “I promise you, this can be a good thing.”

I nodded. I didn’t agree with her, but it seemed like the right thing to do. With both my brother and my father staring at me, I walked out of the room and to the front door. There, I grabbed my backpack and put it on, and then lifted my tote bag and then opened the door.

The expression that covered my face as the person at the door came into view mirrored what my family’s expressions had been all morning. It also probably mirrored the expression on the young man who was staring back at me: shock.

—

Chapter 4

I couldn’t stop staring in shock at the boy in front of me. “Boy” was the wrong word just as “girl” didn’t accurately describe me, yet. This boy, or rather, young man, was very well built. He was taller than me and was definitely more muscular. It looked like he worked out and lifted weights like Terry. He was wearing blue jeans and a tight green T-shirt that showed off his well-defined muscles. He also had dark brown hair, green eyes, and a face that was very very handsome. It was also Erin’s face at the same time that it wasn’t. Just like mine.

He managed to recover first.

“El?” he asked. I nodded, but there was no way he could have thought I was somebody else.

“We better go,” I said, not wanting to get into a discussion about what was going on with members of my family.

This perfect specimen of manhood nodded, and then reached out and took my tote bag before he stepped back to let me out of the house. I exited, closed the door behind me, and followed him to Erin’s father’s car that was parked on the street. We didn’t say anything until we were both sitting in the car.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said while handing me the tote bag and then starting the car. “At least, not after the changes I’ve experienced this morning.”

I nodded again, still afraid to speak. His voice was deeper, and somehow soothing. Had my voice changed and I hadn’t noticed it?

“Are you, all done?” I asked as he pulled out and started driving toward the school. I knew the answer was no, and that wasn’t quite what I was trying to ask, but it got the job done.

“No,” he said with a large smile. “I have a bit more to go. My, um, well, my penis is really small still, but the rest of me is pretty much what you would expect from a teenage boy. You?”

“I’m pretty much the same,” I told him. “My, um, penis is really, really small too.”

“You still have a penis?” he asked. This was a very weird conversation to have with the girl friend I knew best in life. “It isn’t a clitoris now or anything?”

“Well, yes, maybe,” I said. “I don’t really know what a clitoris looks like, but what is down there looks almost exactly like my, um, old, penis, but it’s just really, really small. I also don’t pee out of it anymore.”

He started chuckling. It only took a moment for me to join him. This was definitely one of the more frank discussions we had ever had before. We’d both seen each other naked, and had let each other examine our bodies in an effort to understand the other sex better. We’d been able to ask each other questions after that. But this conversation was still weird and approached “bizarre”.

“Mine works now,” he finally said. “It’s only about the size of my thumb, but it seems to be fully functional. It can even get kind of hard, like it is right now.”

I felt myself blushing profusely at his words. I knew what could cause that type of reaction first-hand. Was I doing that to him?

“It looks like you’re growing up top, though,” he said, changing the subject slightly.

“My bra said it was an A cup,” I said. “They are really small.”

“These pecs are still more like boobs,” he said. “I might look like I have well-defined pecs, but they look more like they did when they started growing when I was 11, than what they will probably look like tomorrow.”

I looked over at his shirt. The bulge at the area where his, her, boobs used to be was definitely smaller than mine, and if he hadn’t said anything I wouldn’t have known they weren’t just well-muscled pecs. I was sure they were anyway, based on the rest of his muscles.

He took his eyes off of the road for a moment and looked over at me, and saw me staring at him. That caused me to blush more. He looked back at the road, and then glanced my way again.

“Are you going to be okay, Ellison?” she asked, more worry in his new voice than I had heard from her in a long time.

That was an interesting question. Was I going to be okay? Well, yeah, I was. I didn’t want this. I would do anything to reverse it. But I also knew reversal was unlikely. The necklaces had some plan for us. We had been able to feel it since we first put them on. For whatever reason they – whoever “they” was - had chosen us, and were now remaking our bodies, I knew that it was going to be permanent. It had made me cry last night, on more than one occasion. But today? It didn’t feel as bad. I still didn’t want it. I still felt the same emotions. But for some reason, I was more okay with it. The fact that everyone around me had felt the same way seemed to indicate that magic or something else was affecting our minds and the minds of those around us too.

“I think I am,” I finally told him. “I definitely don’t want this, but something also seems to be helping me accept it somehow.”

He exhaled his breath in a sigh of relief. I hadn’t even realized that he had been holding his breath.

“I have a confession,” he said. He looked over at me for a moment before returning his eyes to the road. “I’ve wanted something like this to happen my entire life.”

Shock encompassed my entire body at his words! I had never known! He, she, had never done anything that made me think that! She had always been a tomboy, and I thought her interest in more masculine things had something to do with whatever caused that. I had absolutely no idea!

“I didn’t know the necklaces would do this to us,” he added quickly. “I didn’t purposely grab this necklace knowing I would get my wish at the cost of your masculinity. But, now that it is happening, I’m not really sorry.”

He glanced over at me again to gauge my reaction. I was dumbstruck! I knew he was serious and that he wasn’t sorry about our changes. He was clearly happy with what was happening to him while I was just getting by. But I also felt a sense of relief I hadn’t been expecting. Erin, though I had never told her, had been one of the most beautiful girls I had ever known. And I had known her for a long time. She had been my longest friend, maybe even my best friend. She had been living only two houses away from me since before we had started kindergarten. That day in that changing room with her had been one of the best days of my life, even though all we practically did was stare at each other. I didn’t want to tell her, but seeing her like that again had been one of my most frequent fantasies. That would never happen again now, but there were some new, foreign feelings when I thought about the chance of seeing the new her, him, naked in front of me again. My nipples were doing really strange things!

“I had no idea,” I finally said. “I know you like masculine things. I never knew why.”

“That is why I grabbed the green necklace,” he said. “It was so masculine. It was the type of necklace I would want. And you know how much I avoid pink. Pink feels like caving in to who I was born, not who I am.”

I nodded but I didn’t quite understand it. Even now, halfway to becoming a girl, I doubted I felt the same way. I had always been scared of anything feminine in my life. I didn’t want it to be there. I never wanted to be a girl. I knew that with all of my heart. But now, with the reactions that I was having to what was happening to me, I was starting to wonder why I was so afraid. Now that this was happening, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

“You’d better call me Ember,” I said, not sure how to continue responding to what he had told me.

He nodded, realizing this was hard for me to talk about. I wasn’t mad at him, and it seemed like he knew it, but we were going to have to wait to talk about this more. I wasn’t ready yet.

“You can still call me Aaron,” he said. “Though it is spelled differently.”

It was my turn to nod while remembering what I had seen on his driver’s license.

“Aaron,” I said. It was no different than the many times I had used her, his, name. But it felt different on my tongue. “Aaron.”

“Em,” he said very slowly. “‘Ber.”

“Quit mocking me,” I laughed and punched him in the shoulder. Erin, well, Aaron, had always had a great sense of humor and knew how to make me laugh. There had always been more than her looks that had caused me to like her the way I did.

“Oww!” he mock cried while shrugging his shoulder like it had hurt. But that was the weakest punch I had ever thrown in my life, and not because I had been trying to hold back!

We continued to drive on for a few moments, both of us laughing at each other when our eyes met, and giggling when we looked away.

“You look good in a dress,” he said once we had managed to stop laughing at each other. “Is that a bad thing to say?”

My voice caught in my throat. Nobody had ever said anything like that to me! I had never worn a dress before today. I wanted to feel hurt and mad at him for insinuating that I made a good girl. That is what I would have done before this. But I didn’t feel that way. I oddly felt a sense of pride at his words. If somebody else had said it, I might have been upset. But to hear it from Aaron truly made me feel happy.

“You make a pretty good looking slab of meat,” I replied. My desired outcome came to pass when he guffawed and the car swerved slightly before he caught himself and we continued forward.

I adjusted the tote bag that was sitting on my lap to allow me to move my legs a bit as we laughed together.

Aaron pointed at my lap questioningly.

“What’s in the bag, anyway?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to reply, only to realize that I didn’t know. I hadn’t even thought about the tote bag all morning and had just grabbed it by instinct.

“I don’t know,” I told him truthfully and then unzipped the bag.

What I found was actually unexpected. Inside the pink tote bag were a black leotard, pink tights, pink pointe shoes, a sheer small skirt, leg warmers, tape, toe separators, a large water bottle, a towel, and a few other things that I was going to need.

“Oh!” I said, remembering what I had never known before now. “I have dance after school!”

“Dance?” Aaron asked. “I didn’t know you did dance.”

“I didn’t before today,” I told him. “Yesterday a whole bunch of trophies and medals showed up in my room. I have been dancing since I was a kid, apparently. And I do ballet based on what is in here.”

“I guess that's why you walk so gracefully now,” he said.

He just stared at the tote bag for a moment before he had to look back at the road. I kept pondering what he had said. Was I graceful now? I didn’t feel any more graceful.

“I’m sorry,” he said, like this was horrible news.

“Why?” I asked, feeling a rush of excitement I had never felt about dancing before. “I guess you never had the opportunity to feel how wonderful it is to dance, did you?”

He turned and stared at me for a moment, not sure if I had been brainwashed somehow, based on the look he gave me.

“It’s probably like how baseball makes me feel now,” he finally said.

“Ew, baseball,” I said before I could think about what I was saying.

Aaron laughed again.

“Yep, that has to be the same thing then,” he told me. “My mom wanted me to take dance classes when I was younger. I think she always felt like I had let her down when I kept saying no.”

“But you’ve played baseball before,” I told him. I had played it with Erin. “I don’t even know how to dance. How am I supposed to go to what is clearly an advanced class, if I have pointe shoes?”

“What are pointe shoes?” he asked.

I pulled the shoes out of the bag to show him.

“I thought those were ballet flats,” he said.

“No,” I said, laughing at his naivety towards ballet and women’s shoes in general. It seemed like he should have known these things after spending 17 years as a female. “Ballet flats are a type of shoe that resemble the slippers that ballet dancers dance with. You don’t actually dance in them. Ballet slippers are what you use when you start dancing. Pointe shoes are what you use when you start dancing on your toes. But you can’t do that until you are older. I didn’t start until I was 14.”

“When you were 14, huh?” he asked, a bit incredulous.

“Yes,” I told him. “You have to wait until both the bones in the foot and the strength in your legs can support it.”

“You know a lot about this for somebody who has never danced before,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, laughing at the conversation. This information was now a part of me, but yesterday I would have known as little as he did. “Maybe I haven’t ever danced before, but my body has. I keep doing things I’ve never done before but I have clearly been doing for a while. Make sense?”

“Absolutely,” he said, looking over at me with a grin. “I’ve been doing the same thing all morning.”

We laughed together again. I was super glad that Aaron was my best friend. Even in our friend group, nobody else would be able to understand what was happening to me the way he did.

Aaron pulled the car into the school parking lot shortly after that, and he parked the car. As I opened the door to get out, my anxiety started to spike. I wasn’t sure I could do this. I wasn’t sure I could face the school as a girl.

“Want to leave the tote in the trunk?” Aaron asked as he exited the car.

I nodded. If nothing else, it kept me from having to enter the school for a few more moments. I walked to the back of the car, where he had the trunk opened by the time I got there. I placed the bag in the trunk, and then looked up at him.

“I’ll drive you to dance after school,” he told me while closing the trunk. “And I’ll stay and drive you home. You won’t have to do this alone. And I am here now. We share classes together the entire morning. I will be there for you.”

Relief expanded across my entire body. Being with Aaron, having him there, made this whole adventure seem manageable. I felt so relieved I found myself wrapping my arms around his broad chest and giving him a hug.

He stood there for a moment. It seemed like he was shocked by my actions, since he tensed up, but after a moment he relaxed and wrapped his arms around me too. A moment later, I let go of him. We had to get to class.

He held his arm out for me, and with a smile I wrapped my arm through his and we walked toward the school together.

“This is new,” he said as we approached. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’ve never told you this,” I said. “But I’ve always liked you. Like “liked” you.”

Aaron was silent for a moment.

“I know,” he said. “But…”

He trailed off, and it was obvious he didn’t know how to tell me something. But now, as we walked arm-in-arm, I finally understood.

“But you couldn’t be the girl,” I finished for him. He nodded, and I leaned my head against his shoulder for a moment as we walked. Finally having Aaron, even if he was completely different, I definitely felt that giving up my manhood was worth it, at least at the moment.

“Did we just become a couple?” he asked, confused.

“Beats me!” I responded truthfully. “I’ve never been in a relationship before. I don’t know how this works. I’m okay with it if you are.”

“I am,” he replied, and then leaned his head against mine for a moment before we both lifted them to walk into the school.

—

We received some very strange looks as we walked down the hallway toward our lockers. We were easily recognizable by our peers, but we also looked nothing like we had yesterday. It had to be strange to see somebody, or even worse, a couple, come down the hall toward you and then realize that they were members of the wrong sex! I had been in locker rooms with some of the guys who were now staring at me. Aaron had been in locker rooms with some of the girls who were now staring at him. Some of them were staring at us in disgust, and some of them were staring at us in lust. None of them said anything to us. I ignored them and held onto Aaron’s arm.

After getting our books out of our lockers we walked to our history class and entered the classroom. There were no assigned seats, so we sat down next to each other. We made small talk for a few moments.

“What happened to you two?!” came a very excited yet confused voice from behind us. Both of us smiled at the same time and turned toward her.

“Hi, Daisy,” I said, greeting her. Aaron just waved. Like everyone else we had encountered today, she was staring at us wide-eyed.

She quickly sat down in the seat behind me, ready for more information.

I shrugged. “You saw our licenses yesterday. We woke up this way.”

“Are you like…you know,” she said, blushing as she asked.

Her words were kind of vague, but paired with her reaction, I knew what she was asking. I was also cognizant that there were a number of other students listening in.

“Not completely,” I replied carefully. “But way more than not.”

“So…,” she started, trying to word something carefully. “What locker room are you going to use today for P.E.?”

“I don’t have P.E. anymore,” I told her, surprising myself with more knowledge I didn’t know that I had. “I get credit for my dance classes. Aaron will undoubtedly be in with the other boys.”

Aaron just grinned and made a face that caused her, and me, to laugh.

“Did you guys see that attack in the city?” she asked, veering the conversation away, at least until it was more private.

“Yeah, what was that?” Aaron asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that, especially around here.”

“Those things were pretty ugly,” I added. “What were they?”

“John thinks they are some kind of alien,” Daisy answered.

“Why would aliens rob a bank?” Aaron asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. They had to be thieves in costumes.”

“Whatever they were, I heard they got away from the cops who were chasing them as they got outside of the city,” Daisy told us. “Nobody can explain what happened. One minute they were driving down the road, the next they were flying through the air.”

Aaron and I looked at each other. Neither of us had heard or seen that part.

“Terry wants us to go into the city and see how we can help,” she continued.

“What are we going to do?!” Aaron shot back.

Daisy nodded her head in agreement.

“I think that sounds like a stupid plan, but John agrees with Terry,” she said. “I think they must have death wishes.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Aaron stated. “Why does he think we can do something about it?”

“Because of, you know,” she said, and then lowered her voice to a level only the two of us could hear. “What we found.”

She said it like it was an obvious reason, but I didn’t understand why. Aaron and I locked eyes for a moment, and it was clear he was as confused as I was. When we looked back at Daisy, she looked surprised.

“You haven’t…felt it?” she asked.

“Felt what?” I asked her.

She opened her mouth to say something more, but the bell rang at that moment, and the teacher called the class to order. Whatever it was, we wouldn’t find out until later.

—

At lunch, Aaron and I sat at a table with the rest of our friends group, like usual. Today, however, the discussion quickly turned toward taking a trip into the city to help battle these terrorists.

Aaron and I had no desire to battle terrorists. But the same was not true for Terry, John, and Daisy. Daisy still thought it was a bad idea, but at the same time she did feel like there was something we needed to do to help.

After a long discussion, we decided that this “feeling” that Terry, John, and Daisy had been having all morning was definitely from the necklaces, but since Aaron and I hadn’t felt the same thing yet, it probably wasn’t the right time to get involved. The consensus was that we were likely too busy changing to be ready for the next step of whatever the necklaces wanted us to do.

Even then, after the bell had rung and we were heading to our afternoon classes, I was afraid that the three of them were going to take a road trip this afternoon without us.

—

I sighed when I climbed into Aaron’s car after school. We only shared one class in the afternoon, and I had greatly missed spending time with him. Not only did he make the day go faster, I felt better and safer facing the new world that I was embarking on today with him around.

“Tough afternoon?” he asked, smiling too happily for my taste as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Long,” I told him. “People wanted to talk to me when you weren’t around.”

“Oh?” he asked, slightly surprised.

“Well, I don’t know if they wanted to talk to me or if they just wanted me to spill the tea,” I told him. “I’d be just as curious about why two of my classmates were changing sex if it wasn’t me who was doing it.”

He laughed, but was grinning. I couldn’t help smiling too. I brushed my hair behind my ear and then punched him in the shoulder again.

“I can understand that,” he finally said. “I didn’t know I intimidated them that much that they didn’t want to talk to me about it.”

I squirmed in my seat, which didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Something else you want to add?” he said with another smile. I was finding that his smile was hard to say no to.

“I don’t think they are necessarily scared of you,” I told him. “But it was mostly other girls who were asking, and I got the impression that you were too much of a guy for them to get the truth from.”

That left a very pensive expression on Aaron’s face. I knew that she had been friendly with pretty much everyone at school. She was too lovable not to be. Nobody cared if she wasn’t in their circle, they just liked her. But now, he looked like a jock, and that clearly turned some of those people off.

“They don’t like me anymore?” he finally asked, and I could hear the hurt in his voice.

“I think you are right, and they are intimidated by you,” I confirmed for him. “I don’t think they realize that you are still the same person. You just have a new shell, so to speak.”

Aaron still looked put out. He clearly didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“I hate to break it to you,” I told him. “But guys just aren’t as approachable as girls. Now that you’re a guy, there are certain benefits you were used to that you aren’t going to have anymore.”

He started pondering on that thought, but I could tell that it was still eating him inside.

“You wanted all of the benefits of being a man with none of the downsides?” I finally asked him. “I mean, it was awesome to be able to talk to some of those girls who never would have said a word to me yesterday! But in order to gain that ability, I’m going to have to have a period someday and for every month thereafter. That is a big downside to being able to increase the size of my social circle.”

I knew I was being overly dramatic, but it seemed to get my point across. He laughed at my joke, but he didn’t look any happier. I watched him reevaluate in his mind what it meant to be male as we silently drove the rest of the way to the dance studio. I pulled some supplies that vaguely looked like they were used for hair out of the bag, pulled down the visor so I could see myself in the mirror, and then proceeded to do all kinds of weird moves with my hands and my hair that I couldn’t describe. The end result was that I now had ballet hair. Technically, it was a tight bun that also used some hair clips to gather up any stray strands, but my hair looked like any ballet dancer I had ever seen after I was done.

Aaron pulled into the parking lot outside of the dance studio and found a spot, then he followed me inside. I directed him to the right observation window for my class. Then I walked into the “Hers” changing room and started getting ready.

Getting ready was a very odd experience. I had never gotten ready for a dance class in my life. But I knew exactly what I needed to do even though I didn’t know what that was. I started by changing into my tights, leotard, and the sheer skirt. Then I began taping the toes of my right foot for some reason, put a toe spacer between my big toe and my second toe, and a small amount of cotton or something similar between my pinky and the next toe that seemed to do the same thing, but kept those toes touching. Then I put some kind of wool in a funky padded sock-like thing that only fit over my toes which I then proceeded to pull on over all of them, I then stretched a part of my tights over the whole mess. Only when that was all done did I place my foot in the pointe shoe and start tying up the ribbon. Then I did the same thing with my left foot. I had no idea why I did all of that. But the other girls in the room were all doing something similar and wearing the same thing, which meant I was probably doing it right.

Once I was finished, I slowly walked into the studio and started my warm-up before class started. When the instructor came in, she stared right at me for a minute before coming over. She didn’t look very happy. This seemed like a very advanced ballet class, and I was sure that she didn’t get new students very often. I had probably been in this class for years, but in reality, this was my first time.

“Who are you?” she asked sternly.

“Ember Delaney, miss,” I replied.

“I think you are in the wrong class, Ember,” she told me.

“I’m not, Miss Leigh,” I said using her name, even though I hadn’t known it until now. “The universe is going crazy, and now I’m supposed to be here.”

That was probably a bad way to describe what was happening, but I didn’t know how else to describe it. At least at school I’d had the same classes, minus a study period instead of P.E. The teachers knew me, even if I was now different. This lady had never met me before.

It looked like she was going to argue, but then something in her changed. It was probably the same thing that was happening all around me that made people accept what was happening. Instead, she walked over to a small table next to the room’s controls and picked up some papers. There must have been a list of students in there, because she looked astonished for a moment before looking back up at me. She watched me continue my warmup for a short time before she walked back over.

“You appear to know what you are doing,” she said. “And apparently, at least on paper, you have been in this class for almost two years. I will let you stay for now, but if you cannot keep up with the others I will ask you to leave.”

“Yes, Miss Leigh,” I replied, and continued my warmup. The other girls in the studio and the ones coming in all stared at me in the same way. I didn’t recognize any of them, which meant it was unlikely they knew I had been a guy up until this morning. That was a pleasant thought after spending all day at a school where everyone knew I was changing into a girl.

“How have you been in this class for two years if I’ve never seen you before?” asked a blonde warming up next to me.

I looked over at her. “I’ve been asking myself that question all day,” I told her. “I woke up this morning, and almost everything about my life had changed. I can’t explain it, but clearly this is who I am now.”

“Have you even danced before?” she asked, worried.

“Not really, Jenny,” I told her. “But whatever is causing this has also given me the skills and memories I should have in this new life.”

She looked shocked when I called her by name. Then she furrowed her brow at something that confused her.

“I think,” she started, but paused for a moment. “I think I remember you.”

“You do?” I asked, astonished! Nobody else had remembered me that way! Then again, she was the first person I’d met and talked to for a while who hadn’t known me, other than my short interaction with Miss Leigh.

“I,” she began again, then looked confused before smiling. “I saw your boyfriend out there again. He seems to come quite often now.”

I reeled for a moment at her change in topic. Her whole demeanor had shifted, and her tone had gone from confused and slightly accusing to happy and friendly. That was very weird!

“He drove me today,” I replied, and then I smiled at the thought of Aaron watching. The window into the room was mirrored, and I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there. I looked around the room, and nobody was staring at me anymore! It was almost as if they all remembered me now. I didn’t know if that was a relief or scary.

When Miss Leigh started the class and we all lined up at the barre to start our barre work, I was more amazed than ever at whatever was changing me. I was able to follow Miss Leigh’s instructions, and I clearly knew what I was doing. I was just as good as the other girls in the class and perhaps even better, based on Miss Leigh’s constant recognition of my skills throughout the class. She didn’t praise any of the other students nearly as much.

That praise continued into our center work and beyond. Miss Leigh kept praising me almost any chance she got. There were a few times she asked me to demonstrate combinations for the other girls in the class, yet she never asked anyone else to do the same. I got the feeling that I was one of the most advanced dancers in her class. They all seemed to think the same thing, even though at the beginning of the class none of them even knew who I was!

As we were all leaving the studio and heading back to the changing room, I realized two things. First, it was now clear to me how this body maintained such a toned physique. That had been hard work and I was now as sweaty as if I had just run a marathon! Second, if I needed any other indication that what was happening to me was giving me new skills and abilities, then the ballet class was a perfect example. I knew ballet was technical, but it wasn’t until I was doing it myself that I realized how complex it really was. Between all of the barre and center work we did, some of the combinations and traveling sequences Miss Leigh had us doing and some of the jumps we had been practicing, I had moved my body in ways I never even knew the human body could move!

Entering the changing room, I felt very fortunate to be dancing at a studio that had a full set of showers available to us. I had no desire to walk out to see Aaron in my current state. I smelled, I was sweaty, and I was sure that seeing me like this would turn him off.

I walked over to the locker where I had put my things, but as I approached, a massive headache overcame me, and I stumbled and fell to the ground. I screamed in agony for a moment before the pain went away, and I noticed the other girls standing over me in worry.

“Are you okay?” Jenny asked, worried.

“I think so,” I replied, as she helped me back up. “I just got this splitting headache all of a sudden, and now it’s gone.”

Jenny stared at me, a worried look still on her face. She started to say something, but was interrupted by one of the other girls.

“I have a sister who gets a huge massive headache every time she starts her period,” she said as if it would explain everything.

Was that a thing? I’d never heard any woman I knew say anything about a momentary headache like that during that time of the month. But I had heard them complain about all kinds of things around their periods and PMS. Maybe it was a thing. Regardless if it was true or not, I didn’t even have a vagina and probably didn’t have any internal organs, so that wasn’t likely the cause. I nodded, however, and that seemed to ease the girls' worries for a moment.

I sat down on the bench in front of my locker. I was doing well enough that the other dancers started removing their dancewear and began getting ready to leave the studio for the day. I felt no aftereffects from whatever had just happened, but that pain had been excruciating! I have no idea what it was!

I decided I better get cleaned up and quickly undressed. Then I pulled out my towel and some body wash and went and took a short shower in one of the private cubicles the studio offered. I didn’t wash my hair, but the rest of me was clean by the time I got out and dressed in my regular clothes. I left my hair in the bun, and then left the changing room, saying goodbye to the few dancers still changing.

Aaron looked worried when I found him in the waiting lounge near the entrance to the studio. Had I taken too long? He motioned for me to follow him, and we headed out to his car without a word.

“The others went into the city,” he said, starting the car, but not putting it into gear to move. “They apparently found some of those creatures, and Terry decided to fight one of them alone, since the others decided they didn’t want to fight them. He was injured pretty badly, but seems to be healing fast.”

“I felt something…” I said.

“I did too,” he replied. “It was like a massive headache, right?”

I nodded. I felt better knowing that there probably wasn’t anything wrong with me, if he had felt the same thing.

“I think that was when Terry got injured, or something. Daisy and John felt it too at the same time, and they said that was when Terry was fighting it.”

“Is he okay?” I asked, worried.

“Yes,” Aaron responded. “Daisy said that he was almost fully healed. Somehow.”

I was shocked at his words, but I didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway, they are on their way home,” he said. “They want us to meet them at John’s house.”

I nodded, and he put the car in reverse and started to drive to John’s.

“Not to be crass,” he said. “But I thought I had learned what having a boner was like during the day today, but watching you dance in there, it was as hard as a rock!”

I felt disgusted and embarrassed because of his comment!

“Aaron!” I complained while glaring at him.

“What?” he said. “It’s true! Do you have any idea how sexy you are now? Do you have any idea of how graceful and amazing you are when you dance? I couldn’t take my eyes off of you! You were spectacular!”

While still disgusted and embarrassed, I also felt proud at hearing him describe the way I was dancing. I enjoyed the experience. Dance was now a part of me. I couldn’t imagine not having dance in my life anymore. And the adrenaline rush it brought was off the charts! I had no idea dancing could make somebody feel that way, and I couldn’t wait for more!

But having Aaron take all of what I had felt and describe it - in terms of what his new penis was doing - felt dirty. It felt like he was demeaning me and my dancing. I knew that was not his intention, but being a ballet dancer was hard work, and I wasn’t doing it to give him his jollies.

Thankfully, he seemed to understand he might have crossed a line. It was strange to realize that he had. I’d certainly been in locker rooms as a guy where talk was more explicit than that, but something was different this time. Perhaps it was because I was becoming a girl, or maybe it had to do with him denigrating one of my most-prized life experiences. But I did not like it.

“I’m sorry,” he said a few minutes later. “I guess that’s an inappropriate way to talk to a lady.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, and I tried to figure out why I now felt the way I did.

“We talked about that kind of stuff this morning,” I told him. “But this seemed different. It felt like you were debasing all of the hard work I’ve put into ballet my whole life. It felt like all that mattered to you was that it made me a sexual object.”

We were silent until he pulled up in front of John’s house. John’s car was in the driveway, but they had likely taken Terry’s van and it hadn’t arrived yet.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said again. “That isn’t what I meant. It is odd how defensive you are about ballet dancing now. It really does seem like you have been doing it your whole life. I know and you know that isn’t true, but I honestly don’t think that matters. We are who we are now, and you are a beautiful young woman who has been dancing since she was a little girl, and you are an amazing, exceptional, and spectacular ballet dancer. I’m no expert, but I believe you would have the ability to do this for a living if you so choose, based on the comments from some of the others who were watching your class.

“Being a guy is new to me,” he continued. “This was a feeling I’ve never had before, and it had been great to share it with you this morning. We know what each other is going through. I guess you haven’t had the chance to experience the female way yet, but I’m sure you will tomorrow. I can’t really talk to anyone else about this and thought it would be funny with you, but I understand why it hurt you instead. I am so sorry.”

He was staring at me, and I could feel his love for me that was similar to what I had felt for Erin for many years. I hadn’t even been aware I had been that attracted to her until I stared at him right now.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “Maybe the way I think about that stuff is changing, or has changed throughout the day. But I think it was in the context of the dancing that really hurt. I’m glad you have the opportunity to experience what you have probably only been able to daydream about your whole life. I just…”

“When I was a girl, I always got mad when men put women, or the things women liked, down, like they weren’t as important,” he said when I had trailed off. “Men always seemed to feel more superior than us, than women, at the time. I guess I must have done the same thing to you. The look on your face - it reminded me of that feeling. A feeling I haven’t felt since we put on the necklaces. I can’t tell you how much it hurt me to see you feel that same way just now. That is one of the worst things about being a woman, and I just caused it to happen to you. I can’t believe I did that so easily.”

“I don’t think you did it on purpose,” I told him.

“That’s just it! There are probably some men who get off on demeaning women,” he replied, animatedly. “But I think most men don’t even realize what they are doing! I certainly didn’t realize I was doing it, but I did it just the same!”

We sat in silence for a few more moments. Soon Terry’s van pulled into the driveway with John driving. They got out, waved to us, and headed for the basement door.

“I understand,” I told him. “It’s not an excuse, but a man’s desires drive him to do all sorts of things that he shouldn’t do. I know that. I’ve lived that. But it–”

“Has to be better,” he interrupted me. “As a former woman who has experienced being put down by men more times than I can count, I am sorry. I should be better than that. All men should be better than that.”

I smiled at him. I had no idea what to say. This was new territory. I hoped I had never made a lady feel the way I had felt at his comments. But it seemed likely I had, even if inadvertently.

I reached over, grabbed his hand and squeezed it lovingly. Yes, he had made me feel bad in a way I had never felt before. It was something I never wanted to feel again. But I knew Aaron hadn’t meant to hurt me. I still loved Aaron anyway. And I knew what I was feeling was definitely love. I had never really been in a relationship before, but today had been something else. I could not imagine my life without Aaron in it. I’d heard my parents saying that kind of thing about each other on more than one occasion, and now I was feeling the same thing. The thought of marrying Aaron and pushing out his babies still made me want to puke, and I wasn’t completely ready to cave into this new life of womanhood that had been forced on me. But it was clear to me now that those things could be in my future. Even though they still made me sick, they also brought a warmth to me that I couldn’t ignore. I had been in love with Erin without even realizing that I was. The only way I was going to have the chance to be with this person was as Aaron’s significant other, and that meant becoming the woman whom I was becoming. I had no real desire to be a woman. But today was starting to show me that it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be. There were definitely things I was not looking forward to and surely would love to do without. Periods and pregnancy and even motherhood were top of the list! I wanted children, but I had always assumed I would be the father, and that seemed less involved somehow. I didn’t think my dad was uninvolved, and he certainly was a very active participant in raising us. But like this morning’s hug from my mom, there was something more between a mother and her child.

Overall, however, I was starting to feel that even though I didn’t ask for this, I could do this. I could be just as happy as this young woman I was becoming as I was as a young man. That felt like a better description of what was happening. I didn’t want to be a girl, but I knew I could do it. I knew being one wasn’t going to kill me or that I would have a desire to kill myself. Erin’s description of her life before the change did not match what I was feeling, and that made me sad. I was learning, however, that I could be happy as the woman in the relationship, and make him happy at the same time. I was more than capable of being either the man I had been born, or this young woman I was becoming. It was liberating to realize that.

After a moment of staring into each other’s eyes, in which I was quite certain he had realized the same thing I had, we let go of each other, exited the car, and followed the others.

—

“I told him not to do it,” Daisy said once we were all seated around his basement. “I could feel that desire, that drive to attack them. Whatever these necklaces are, I think they were made to defend against those things. But I also had a strong realization that we were missing something.

“One, we were missing both of you,” she continued, gesturing to Aaron and me. “But it was more than that. There is some kind of power that we need to be able to face them. I know that somehow. I just don’t know what it is. And we all need to be there.”

“I feel the same thing,” John said, nodding. “Whatever is missing, we need to find it before we engage them again.”

“You’re thinking of doing it again?!” I asked incredulously.

“We have to,” Terry said. “You haven’t felt it yet. But we have to.”

“He’s right,” Daisy said. “I don’t want to fight those things. I don’t want to fight at all. But we have to. Whatever these necklaces are, they chose us to help protect the city. I know that with all of my being.”

“Daisy’s right,” John added his own support. “I can’t explain it, and I assume if you guys are done changing tomorrow you will start to feel it too, but this is something we have to do now. We just need to find whatever we are missing.”

“I don’t think it is missing,” Daisy told him. “I think we need to unlock it.”

“Unlock it?” Terry questioned. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” Daisy replied. “But that is what it feels like to me.”

There was silence for a moment as everyone tried to digest her explanation. I didn’t choose to join some kind of attack force like they were describing. I had no desire to get into any kind of a fight. Yet I had never asked to become a woman either, and that was certainly happening. I looked over at Aaron, and his expression seemed to mirror my own, but there was also some kind of excitement on his face. I didn’t like the look of that. Testosterone kills. I’d heard some older people, especially women, say something like that, and Aaron was likely now, or would very soon be, flooded by a lot of it.

“I think she is right,” John eventually spoke up, breaking the silence. “When I think about that piece that is missing, it does feel like it is locked. I think we need all five of us to unlock it.”

“How?” Terry asked, annoyed. He obviously was determined to get back into the fight that he had lost. Apparently he had broken his arm, but now it seemed to be as healed as if he had never even entered the fight! Yet he was ready to drive back up there and do it all again.

“I think we need to wait until tomorrow,” John told him before pointing at Aaron and me. “The “missing” portion of what we have been feeling, I think, is the two of them. They need to be complete before we can move on to whatever is next.”

Terry grunted, not happy with that explanation. But then he winced and grabbed his arm. Maybe it wasn’t completely healed yet.

“I suggest we call it a night and go our separate ways,” John continued. “Being together right now, I can feel what Terry is feeling. I want to unlock whatever is missing and go back up to the capital. That feeling is stronger now than it was in the van on the way home. But we can’t do that right now. I think we need to get away from each other until tomorrow.”

“What if we aren’t finished tomorrow?” I asked. Aaron had a penis now, and looked almost complete. But I showed no signs of the complex reproductive system that women had. Was I going to get all of that in one night? Was it still going to take us a few days to “finish” this change?

“I’m sorry, Em,” Daisy said. “I know you don’t want to be a girl. But I am pretty sure you will be one when you wake up.”

“I think I will be too,” I told her. “But what if we are wrong? Are you guys going to go off on your own and try to get yourselves killed again?”

Terry sneered at me. Clearly, he had taken exception to what I had said. To my surprise, Aaron glared at Terry and leaned forward, which put himself between Terry and me. That seemed to surprise Terry, too. He stared at Aaron for a moment before shock crossed his face and he sat back.

“You two are a thing now?” he asked incredulously. “Never would have guessed that. Looks like little Ellison really is a fairy.”

“What the heck is wrong with you?!” I retorted. “You are acting like an idiot! Where is the Terry I knew?! And my name is Ember! Yes, Aaron and I are a thing now! I can’t explain it, but we are! You are going to have to live with that!”

Terry sneered back at me for a moment, and then collapsed backward in sadness. It was Daisy who saw the problem first.

“Ohhh!!,” she said in understanding. Then she looked over at me. “Terry likes you!”

“What?!” I exclaimed.

“He has always liked redheads,” John contributed, unhelpfully.

Terry’s face had turned red. At first I thought it was anger at what Daisy and John were saying. But it wasn’t and my mouth dropped open at the realization that Daisy was right! Terry was attracted to me!

“Um,” I started, not quite sure how to say what was rolling around inside my head. “I’m sorry, Terry. I really am. But…”

“I get it,” he said. “I can’t help who I find attractive, and I certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it. You aren’t even done changing yet, and I wouldn’t want to start making out with some guy if it happened to me.”

“Which is why you were so surprised by her and Aaron,” Daisy piped in.

Terry nodded. I had always liked Terry, but never in that way. Not before, and not now.

“It took most of the day,” I explained. “But I finally realized that I have been in love with Erin for a while now. But I never wanted to hurt our relationship, and she never seemed interested. Today, that kind of changed. I never expected to fall in love with a guy and in fact, that still makes me very squeamish. But it’s Aaron. He’s the same person whom I have been in love with for years. I never truly realized I was in love with. And now…”

I trailed off, realizing I almost said something that wasn’t mine to say.

“I couldn’t be the female in the relationship,” Aaron said. “I think I was in love with Ellison too. But I always kept him at a distance in that regard. Because, well because…”

She trailed off. I knew it would be very difficult to tell our friends what she had told me earlier. If we weren’t going through what we are going through, then I doubted she would have ever told me.

“I always wanted to be a guy,” Aaron finally blurted out. “My whole life, I felt wrong. It took me a long time to realize why, but when I did, I knew I couldn’t be in that type of relationship with Ellison, so I made him think I wasn’t interested. Now though…”

He trailed off again, and looked over at me. It was my turn now.

“I never wanted to be a girl,” I told them, and almost all of them nodded in agreement. “I think I made that clear.”

There was laughter all around. I certainly avoided anything that led people to treat me female in any way, even if unintended, like shortening my name.

“But today, I also learned that while I don’t want to be a girl, I’m okay with it,” I told them. “That sounds weird. I just mean that becoming a girl isn’t like the end of my life or anything. And if it means that my love for Aaron can be reciprocated, then why would I fight this?”

Everyone was shocked and I understood why. I had been fighting and resisting any reference, even minor, about me showing any kind of femininity. Coming out and saying I was okay with it must have been a surprise. Granted, they all still seemed to be in shock about Aaron’s revelation too.

“Who are you two?” Daisy finally asked, causing us all to devolve into laughter.

When we finally calmed down, I knew I had to mention the other half of what was going on.

“These changes,” I told them. “They aren’t just physical. Everyone accepts them, for one, even if they knew us before. Those who didn’t know us, seem to know us now too, if we are supposed to know them in this new existence. I just came from ballet class. When I walked in, the teacher and the other dancers had no idea who I was. Yet in almost no time they were treating me like I had been in the class for two years. By the end of class, they didn’t remember that they didn’t know who I was. We aren’t just changing physically, the whole universe is changing to accept us the way we are now.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Aaron added. “I was in the observation area for her class. At first, the people who were in there kept talking about the new girl and wondering who she was. Not long after, they kept talking about how nice it was to have such an acclaimed dancer at the studio to help their own family members or friends become better dancers. They all knew her even though it was her first day ever dancing. And I might add, she is amazing!”

I promptly blushed.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” Daisy said. “I always wanted to take dance classes, but my mom wanted me to learn piano.”

“I didn’t dance before today,” I told her. “But it certainly feels like I have been dancing since I was a little girl.”

They all just stared at me, trying to absorb this new information. Clearly none of them had taken on new abilities quite like I had.

“I think I understand what you are talking about. When I was fighting that clay dude, it was a lot like that,” Terry eventually said. “I went in ready to punch that big noggin of his, and instead I started doing some kind of karate or other martial arts that I have never done before. And Aaron, I’m sorry we never realized you weren’t who we thought you were. You should have told us. We are here for you. You are our brother now. Ember, I’m not going to lie, you are hot already, and I can’t wait to see how you turn out tomorrow. But if you’re Aaron’s, then that is fine too.”

“I am not Aaron’s,” I told him, my eyes narrowing. “I don’t belong to him.”

Terry looked abashed at my words.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said. “I meant that you are my friend, and Aaron is my friend, and if you two are going to start dating, I am okay with that.”

He had definitely used the wrong words, but I think his heart was in the right place. I just nodded at him. I didn’t want to start a fight between us.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me, Aaron?” Daisy asked. “I thought we were best friends?”

“That just made it harder,” he replied. “I knew you didn't feel that way. It would be hard for you to understand.”

“Well, yeah!” she said back. “I don’t need to understand it to be there for you! I don’t want to be a guy, but you were still my friend!”

Aaron nodded at her, and smiled. It was easy to say now, but at the time it must have been really hard for him to navigate a world he didn’t feel he fit in. Even I, after becoming a girl myself when I didn’t want to be one, didn’t feel the same way that he did. I was ok with what was happening to me. He had been trapped in the wrong body.

I looked over at John, wondering how he felt about these revelations. He looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t look like he was mad or upset or anything. He stayed quiet, though.

“It would make sense that we get new fighting abilities if we are meant to fight those things,” Aaron said, steering the discussion away from the awkward conversation we had delved into. “Are you sure that is what the necklaces are for?”

“Pretty sure,” Terry replied. “For the record, I thought it was pretty stupid to take on that claybake alone, but felt like I had to. I had to.”

“I was really, really close to joining him,” John added. “If Daisy hadn’t pulled me back, I would have broken my own arm, probably.”

“Do you know what those things are?” I asked. I’d only seen them once on the TV.

“Not really,” Terry said. “But while they look like clay, they hit like cement.”

“I’m going to stop you guys right there,” John said. “Just starting to talk about them makes me want to go find them. We can’t do that until tomorrow. We need to stay apart until then.”

“What is going to happen tomorrow, then?” I asked. I still had no desire to drive 20 minutes into the city just to fight clay monsters.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We can meet here after school and see what happens. Maybe we unlock whatever is missing, or we stay away from each other another day. But we should all head home right now.”

Although everyone agreed, I didn’t really want to go home. It was still early in the evening, but going home meant I was closer to going to bed. And that meant I would probably wake up female. As nice as it was to have Aaron as a boyfriend, the thought of waking up with a vagina was still a scary one!

Nevertheless, we dispersed. John didn’t live far from Aaron or me, but Aaron still gave me a ride home. The others went their separate ways.

Once we were in front of my house, Aaron turned off the car and looked over at me. He smiled, and I became worried for a moment. I might have agreed to be in a relationship with him, but I wasn’t quite ready to start making out with him yet. Fortunately that wasn’t what he was thinking .

“Tonight is the night!” he said excitedly. “I can feel it!”

“I can too,” I agreed, though with considerably less enthusiasm. I could feel it, too. Somehow I knew that I was going to wake up tomorrow morning as Ember Delaney for the first time. Fully Ember Delaney. I had gone through a lot up until this point, and the end of these changes were approaching fast. I thought that I would be more scared than I felt at the moment. I didn’t want to be female but I wasn’t as afraid. I was happy with how my life was going, yet, I was okay with where it had veered off too.

Aaron reached over and took my hand. I didn’t think he was quite ready to kiss me, but he held my hand in a way that meant much the same. That might be hard to understand, but that is what it felt like.

“My dad got back home tonight,” he said. “I won’t have a car in the morning. See you at the bus stop?’

I nodded. Part of me didn’t want to leave, but I knew it was time. Like the last two days, I seemed to be getting tired well before bedtime. I didn’t want to go in and fall asleep immediately, but it probably wouldn’t be much longer.

Without another word, but with much understanding between us, I got out of the car, grabbed my tote bag and backpack, and walked up to my front door. Once there, I turned around to wave at him, and he started forward. I watched his car until he pulled into his own driveway, and then turned and went inside.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful. Mom and Amy wanted to talk, and they followed me up to my bedroom and then into the bathroom where I proceeded to wash all of my dancewear and hang it up on the drying rack. The drying rack hadn’t been there this morning. But I had to take off another identical set of dancewear from the drying rack to make room for the new ones, and I placed the dry ones into the tote for Saturday morning. I was beginning to realize that dance took a lot of time, since I had class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and a longer one on Saturday mornings. But I could only smile as I relayed to my mom and sister what had happened that day. They were now interested in meeting the new Aaron, since I had let it slip we were “kind of” seeing each other now.

After that was done I followed my mom down to the kitchen where she made me a grilled cheese sandwich, since I hadn’t had any dinner yet. I could have done it myself, but it was nice of her to make one. They grilled me about more than I wanted to talk about, and I tried to keep it somewhat vague.

By the time I finished eating, I was starting to become very sleepy, and excused myself for bed. After brushing my teeth, removing my makeup, and doing some other self-maintenance I didn’t normally do but must be normal now, I put on a nightgown I found in my closet and slipped under the covers.

I was asleep quickly afterward.

—

Chapter 5

I felt nervous when my eyes opened. I was lying on one side, and without moving, nothing felt any different. But I rolled onto my back, and I knew immediately without looking that things had changed. Yesterday it had been a weird experience to feel and see breasts on my chest. This morning, they made sure I knew they were there. I didn’t need to look to know they were much bigger than yesterday. I hoped they weren’t too big!

With a sigh, I rolled the covers off of me and looked down. My nightgown was loose enough to hide a lot of detail, but they clearly stuck out further than they had the night before. I sat up on the side of my bed, and they swung. They didn’t swing yesterday, they gently shook. Today, they had some weight to go with their movement.

I did not want to take my nightgown off for fear of what I would see. But my curiosity outweighed my fear. I pulled my nightgown over my head. What felt like great huge mounds of breast flesh as I moved looked more like well-proportioned boobs when I could see my chest. They weren’t as huge as I feared. In fact, they actually looked a lot smaller than I thought they would be based on their movement. However, there was definitely more heft to them. Yesterday, I didn’t know the difference between a growing breast and a mature breast, but this morning it was quite obvious.

I stood up, but never had it felt the way it did between my legs. What I felt was subtle, but there was movement that I had never felt before. I couldn’t really describe it, but two days ago I had a penis that took up all feeling in the area. Yesterday, there wasn’t really anything down there and all I could feel was fabric rubbing across skin. Today, it felt like things moved and slid against each other as I stood up. It wasn’t much of a sensation, but it was completely different from every day of my life up until now. I had no doubt that I would find a vagina under the panties I was wearing, and my new lips were probably moving around as they parted or something. I moved my legs up and down experimentally, but the feeling was so subtle that I hardly felt it. Then I realized that what had been a completely new feeling a moment ago now already seemed normal. As I continued my walk toward the bathroom, the sensation all but disappeared until I couldn’t tell there was a difference down there from yesterday.

I stepped into the bathroom, immediately took off my panties and threw them in the hamper, and then I stood in front of the mirror to take a look. The beginning of a grand canyon started between my legs and disappeared from view around the curve of my body as it wrapped around my crotch.

That was definitely a vagina. I had seen plenty of them on the Internet, and Erin had shown me hers that day in the changing room. Health class even had textbooks with accurate illustrations depicting what I was seeing now. I knew what was down there, even if I couldn’t see it.

My vagina was nestled between my red pubic hair, right where the skin had been bare yesterday. Standing the way I was, it was a line that ran from the front of my crotch and down until it went out of sight. I pushed my pelvis forward to bring more of it into view, but I still couldn’t see all of it. Experimentally I pulled the lips apart and opened up a world that included an inner set of lips that seemed to surround more things. But I couldn’t stand that way for long and ended up letting go of everything while standing back up straight. I was going to need a hand mirror or something to see things better.

With a sigh of resignation, I looked at the rest of my body. There was no doubt that I was done changing now. I was definitely shorter. I had noticed a slight perspective change, but it wasn’t really a noticeable thing until I was standing next to something that was now higher than I remembered it, like the mirror or the shower curtain. My hips were slightly wider than they had been yesterday and my waist was slightly narrower, but overall, not much else had changed. I just looked more mature, somehow. That feeling I’d had yesterday - that I was not done - was no longer there when I looked at my body now.

My boobs were my second biggest change. Yesterday they were very small and my bra had said that they were an A cup. But as I looked at them now, I knew that wasn’t right anymore. The tiny things that had been on my chest had been very conical yesterday. Today, they had a more teardrop shape, mostly caused by the extra tissue and weight that appeared to be a part of them now. My breasts didn’t seem much larger than yesterday considering their circumference and where they sat on my chest, but the extra mass that they now encompassed really made the difference. These were clearly boobs, while what I’d had yesterday I now recognized had to have been an earlier stage of development. I didn’t know how to describe it better than that. My nipples were also larger and more erect, and the areolae around them seemed to have grown in size and darkened slightly, too.

My hair hadn’t changed at all. It was much messier than yesterday, because I didn’t take it out of the bun until right before bed. But it was the same color and the same length, and once I finished brushing it, it would be the same as it had been yesterday.

My face was only slightly changed. Like the rest of my body, the best way to describe it was that it now seemed more mature, more developed. Everything had a slight tweak to it that just pushed it to look slightly more female than it had yesterday, but overall it didn’t really look substantially different. It was probably like comparing the photo of a pre-teen girl’s face with what she looked like when she was a few years older.

I looked more mature. Other than the addition of a vagina, that was about the best way I could describe the differences.

My cursory inspection of my body completed, I walked over to the toilet and sat down. I adjusted myself to be able to watch the best I could. When I let go, I was ready for the fire hose I’d become familiar with yesterday, but I was not prepared for the obstructions that were now in its way. Almost immediately I felt my urine hitting things that were now between my urethra and the outside world. For a moment I could feel the pee going every which way and landing all over the place down there, but once the stream was consistent, the laser I’d had yesterday took over as it fell into the bowl. It stayed that way until the stream started winding down again, and as the pressure slowed, my urine went all over the place again since it no longer had the strength to push everything apart. While it pretty much felt the same to pee as it had yesterday, it certainly was different at the beginning and end of the process. I had absolutely no question that I needed to wipe now. I could both feel and see urine dripping from all over the place.

I retrieved some toilet paper from the roll next to the toilet, and proceeded to wipe front to back like I had yesterday, but it felt way different as the toilet paper slid between these new folds I had. Once at the back I dropped the toilet paper into the toilet and experimentally stood up. I half-expected to feel urine running down my thighs, but fortunately that did not happen.

I closed the toilet seat lid, flushed, and then stepped over to the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain closed. Then I started to shower.

Washing this body was different than it was yesterday, but not by much. Yesterday I had bumps on my chest that I had to run my hands over. Today, I had mountains, comparatively, and had to not only go over them but around them to get everywhere. Down below was also a different experience. I might not have been able to see everything in the mirror, but my hands could get in there with no problem. I tried to at least explore by feel to understand what was now attached to my body. I started at the top, but had to quickly move lower at the jolt touching the hood of my new clitoris had caused and that I was nowhere near ready to experience yet. Below that I found my urethra right where it had been yesterday, but now encased inside my labia. I continued further back until I found the start of my new passage, but I had no desire to go further than a cursory touch. Even those light touches felt alien to my previous male experiences, since everything I touched was inside of the new lips I had down there. I had no doubt that in the future I would want to know how it felt more, but for now, it scared me too much to do anything else.

I finished washing up, turned off the shower, dried myself off, and wrapped the towel around me. Then I exited the shower and continued getting ready for the day. The experience was very similar to yesterday as I brushed my teeth, styled my hair, and applied my makeup. It was only different when I pulled a package out of one of the drawers and took a small pill before I realized I was now on birth control! The implications of that were scary as I returned the package to the drawer, right next to the box of tampons that had scared me to death two days ago.

I unwrapped the towel and dropped it in the hamper, and then proceeded into my room naked.

The movement of my body was different from yesterday as I made my way over to my closet. Mostly, the sway of my boobs was much, much greater. As I mentioned earlier, they only jiggled yesterday, but they definitely moved around as I walked today. It was definitely a different experience.

Neither my room nor the inside of my closet hadn’t changed at all. Everything I remembered seeing yesterday was still there. The only difference I noticed was that my bra now had a B on the tag where it had just been an A yesterday. I half-expected a C or D based on how heavy they felt compared to yesterday, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

I gathered up all of the clothes I needed from my closet, placed them on my bed and began getting dressed. When I was done, I looked into the small mirror above my desk to see the beautiful young woman I’d become: resplendent in a white sundress with a pink sash around my tiny new waist. I’d opted for a pair of pink ballet flats and some appropriate jewelry to complement the outfit.

Once I was ready, I grabbed my backpack from my desk and went downstairs to get some breakfast.

Mom was alone in the kitchen. Dad was not around, and Brad was gone too. Amy, like usual, was still getting ready. I rarely saw her in the mornings as I usually left for school before she came down for breakfast.

Mom smiled at me when I came in from where she was making more French toast.

“Hi, honey,” she said before coming over and giving me a hug. “How are you doing?”

“I’m officially your daughter now,” I told her when she let go and stepped back to look at me.

She looked concerned for a moment, until she realized I seemed to be okay with the news.

“Where is Dad?” I asked. He usually didn’t go to the office until after Amy had left for school.

“He took Brad into the city,” she told me. “He outgrew his pads for lacrosse, and he needs new ones for practice today.”

“Oh,” I said. That worried me though. There had been more news reports about the clay things attacking the city. ”What about those creatures?”

“They’ll be fine,” she said, turning back to the grill and flipping the bread in the pan. “There have only been a few attacks, and why would they attack a sports store?”

Mentioning the clay monsters had an odd effect on me, however. As I sat down at the table to eat my breakfast. I started to feel an urge to go into the city myself. It felt almost identical to the urge we'd all had after the vision Tuesday night that led us to the cave. It seemed likely that this was the feeling that Terry, John, and Daisy had been talking about yesterday. I had to concentrate on eating my food to force the urge to go away.

“It looks like you are a bit bigger up top,” my mom said, as she placed two new slices of French toast on the tray in the middle of the table. I nearly choked on the bite of food in my mouth! Talking to my mom about boobs wasn’t something I thought I’d ever discuss with her! Finally, after getting the food down and then taking a drink, I was able to respond.

“I’m a B cup now,” I told her. “Whatever I had yesterday wasn’t real.”

“It was definitely real,” she said. “They were just growing. At this rate you might end up rather big.”

“I am done changing,” I told her. “It’s hard to explain, but I know I am done.”

She nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced as she sat down and watched me eat. I certainly wasn’t ready to tell her about any of the other changes the necklace seemed to be causing, so I let her believe what she wanted.

We engaged in more small talk after that. She wanted more details on how I was doing with the changes. I tried to answer her questions as best I could. Eventually, though, I had to go to the bus stop before the bus arrived.

I kissed Mom goodbye, grabbed my backpack near the front door, and walked down the street to the bus stop. As I got closer, my smile grew wider when I recognized Aaron waiting for me. He looked even better than yesterday. He didn’t look much different, just like I didn’t, but he did look more mature, like I did. That maturity suited him well, too.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said as I approached.

I laughed at the cheesy joke, but it was nice to see him again. His voice was just a tad deeper, and it was mesmerizing! He motioned to the side, and we stepped away from the throng of students to where we could talk more privately.

“All done then?” I asked him.

“Most definitely,” he said. It looked like he wanted to say something else, but he appeared to be worried about saying it in front of me.

“It’s okay,” I told him. I knew he didn’t want to discuss the changes after the conversation we’d had last night, but the downside of that conversation had been the inclusion of ballet, not changing body parts.

He grinned, and I rolled my eyes at him for a second realizing how much he was going to start boasting. I didn’t know how I knew he was going to, but it was very obvious to me.

“It’s so big, Ember!” he said. “I don’t know how guys walk around with these things between their legs!”

“Well you better find out fast,” I joked. “The others might look at you funny otherwise!”

He started chuckling, and I smiled in return.

“I also understand why guys hate being kicked in the balls, too,” he said. “I was, um, feeling around down there in the shower, and I squeezed my new balls way too hard. It dropped me to the shower floor!”

I outright laughed at that! Of the many things I gave up in my journey into womanhood, testicular pain was not something that I was going to miss.

“What about you?” he asked. “All done too?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I can be your girl now.”

He smiled broadly, then he reached out and hugged me. Being enveloped in his warmth made me feel very comfortable, and it took me a second to realize that I had peed my pants!

I pulled away from him, worried as I looked down to see if it was visible on my dress. I couldn’t see anything however. Aaron just grinned when he realized what I was doing.

“First time?” he asked.

“First time for what?” I asked back.

“You didn’t do anything in the shower?” he asked incredulously.

“No,” I replied, uncomfortable with where this was going. “I wasn’t ready.”

His question, however, made me realize what was going on. I hadn’t peed my pants, but it certainly felt wetter down there than it should. The slight flush I felt and the tingling in my now harder nipples let me know that Aaron was arousing me!

Now that I knew what it was, it was easy to tell that there wasn’t enough liquid down there to have peed myself, and it was coming from a different part of my anatomy. But the feelings I was having in that area were much different than how I had imagined them yesterday, when I had wondered about what having a vagina would feel like.

I looked at Aaron who was laughing at me, but I immediately noticed that he had a very large bulge in the front of his jeans. I looked down at it, and when he realized I was looking, he stopped laughing and looked embarrassed.

“I see you have the same problem,” I told him. Unlike me, however, it was clear what was happening to him.

It was actually liberating to realize that while I was aroused, there was a good chance that those around me wouldn’t know or that I might be able to hide it. Aaron didn’t have that luxury anymore. That bulge was much larger than the one I’d had to try to hide on a number of occasions, and it had been difficult for me. It was clearly one of the female perks I was now going to have, and I certainly appreciated it.

The bus arrived right then, and I laughed at his concern when he realized he was going to have to get on and walk past everyone on the bus to a seat, and it would be very difficult to hide his engorged penis. I chuckled again, and then turned to walk to the bus.

Aaron followed behind me, and as we climbed on the bus, he stayed really close to me as we walked down the aisle. I knew he was trying to hide it from the others, but I couldn’t stop giggling, which caused him to keep complaining. Eventually we reached an empty seat and I slipped in as he sat down beside me.

“What do I do?” he asked. “How do you deal with this?’

He looked genuinely concerned, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I knew that I wasn’t helping though. He seemed to deflate before the humor had worn off, and by the time I could speak, it was much harder to see.

“There isn’t much you can do,” I told him. “They kind of have a mind of their own.”

He looked very worried. If he was as excited to be a guy as he said he was, I would have thought he would have been more aware of this issue. But apparently not. Or maybe it was just harder to deal with now that it was a reality.

I tried to make small talk with him after that. It seemed to work, and he definitely tried to stay away from topics that would embarrass him again.

“Do you have any desire to go fight the claydough?” he asked, bringing up something more serious after he, or more specifically his thing, had finally calmed down.

“Claydough?” I asked. I knew what he meant, but that was actually a clever name for them, unlike how most people were referring to them.

“They used it on the news this morning,” he said. “I think it is catching on.”

I nodded. I certainly liked it.

“My dad and my brother went into the city,” I told him. “When my mom and I were talking about it at breakfast, it felt like I needed to go into the city too.”

“I felt the same way while watching the news,” he said. “I understand the others now. I think they are right about the necklaces.”

While there hadn’t been anything specific to make me think about the necklaces this morning, now that we were having this discussion, I completely agreed.

“I can’t wait until after school,” he said.

“I can,” I told him. “I still don’t want to go fight claydough.”

“We are going to have to,” he stated. He was right too. I knew it. But that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

—

Surprisingly, the school day was very, very long. It took very little time for the feeling and need - that Daisy, John and Terry had described yesterday - to hit me full force. By the end of second period I was ready to find the others and drive into the city.

After school, we were at Terry’s van within five minutes of the last bell ringing. Normally, some of us had things to do after school and we didn’t meet up until later, but this time it was obvious that we all had been feeling the drive to head for the city throughout the day.

Five minutes later, we were on the road.

None of us felt confident about what we were doing. Despite what we had been feeling all day, nobody wanted to fight the things that the news reports kept calling ‘terrorists’. Yet at the same time, we knew that we had to fight them. How were we supposed to do something about it? None of us knew. All we knew is that the necklaces wanted us to do it, and the necklaces had something that would help us.

The conversation during our drive into the city was filled with ideas to “unlock” whatever this power was. Aaron and I could now feel what the others had felt yesterday in terms of there being more that the necklaces had to offer us. But the necklaces didn’t speak in plain words. We were guided only by thoughts, urges, and intentions.

“I think we need to stop somewhere and get something to hide our identities,” John said when we were approaching the city limits. “With all of the TV coverage around the claydough, we don’t need to be broadcasting who we are to the entire world, especially if somebody is backing them.”

His words rang true, and there were nods of assent all around, but the decision only opened the door to arguments about how to protect our identities. Ultimately, we decided that we would stop at one of the big box nationwide department stores in the city and find something to accomplish the task. Then we would drive to a nearby park to wait for news about where the claydough were attacking today. There was a risk that the claydough wouldn’t make an appearance in the city and our trip would be wasted, but since they had first been seen Wednesday morning, they had shown up at least once each day, and usually multiple times.

A half hour later, we stood in a quiet part of Stanley Park. Each of us was wearing a sweatsuit in the colors we now seemed to represent. The hoods on the sweatshirts were pulled up around our heads, and we each wore a black face mask that covered our noses and mouths.

Looking at the others, I thought that I looked just as ridiculous in my pink suit as they did in theirs. We looked like budget ninjas, or wannabe superheroes. We certainly did not look like a team that could deal with the claydough in any way, shape, or form.

“Let’s just try it,” Terry said. “It worked for me; it has to work for you too.”

The rest of us were skeptical, even though we agreed with him. Terry wanted us to try sparring with each other. He was sure that we would be able to unlock the martial arts that he had started doing the other day. This felt like the first step in actually fighting the claydough, and the closer we got to that eventuality the greater our stress and worry became.

Without warning, Aaron swiped at Terry’s leg and then chopped with his hand toward his chest. It definitely seemed like some kind of martial arts. The two of them then melded into what appeared to be a choreographed fight sequence, even though we knew it wasn’t. It was mesmerizing to watch them spar with each other! They looked like they knew what they were doing!

As I was watching them, I almost missed the arm that was swinging my way! Somehow, I managed to dodge it, and at the same time I swept my legs around and through Daisy’s. She fell to the ground, as stunned as I was, at the short interaction.

“Ow!” she complained as I helped her back up.

“That came out of nowhere!” I exclaimed to her.

“You’re telling me!” she said. “I thought I had you! I don’t know how you bent like that! I should have been ready for your counterattack!”

“Bent?” I asked. I didn’t remember bending. I just tried to avoid her attack.

“Well, dodging, or whatever,” she clarified. “I should have hit you, but you moved out of my way.”

I shrugged. Everything had been by instinct.

Something slammed into my back, and I cried out as I was pushed forward, but I curled into a roll that, when finished, had turned me toward my attacker as I regained my feet at the end. John was coming toward me. He swung at me, then kicked at me, then swung once more. Each time I was able to dodge his blow. When the last one flew by me I lifted my own leg and brought it to meet his chest. There was a large cracking sound, and then he fell to his knees, clutching his torso where my leg had made contact.

When he cried out in pain, my combat stance eased as I ran to aid him. I hadn’t meant to hurt him.

“Are you okay?” Daisy asked, worried as she knelt down next to her boyfriend.

“Yeah,” he replied, but he was still grimacing in pain. “I think I broke a rib.”

He looked up at me. I thought he was going to be mad, but there was a look of respect in his eyes that surprised me. He sat that way for a moment with Daisy hugging him before he made an attempt to stand. Daisy reluctantly let go and helped him up.

“I think it’s better now,” he said.

How does a broken rib get better that fast? But he let go of his torso and experimentally twisted it without grunting in pain.

“What was that?” he said while looking at me. “It felt like you hit me with a concrete block!”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just fought back.”

“No worries,” he said, trying to defuse the situation. “I’m not mad. I mean, I just ambushed you. But I certainly did not expect your leg to be made from iron.”

I looked down at my leg, and then experimentally squeezed it. It was still as pliable as always. It certainly wasn’t made of iron.

John laughed, causing me to look back up at him.

“I didn’t mean it literally,” he told me. “But it felt like your leg was made of stone when you kicked me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he said again, still trying to placate me. I felt bad about hurting him, but at least he seemed to be alright.

From there, we continued to spar with each other. As we continued fighting, we started to learn a few things about each other.

To start, I hit like a brick, as Terry put it. Despite my tiny size (I was the smallest of all of us now), I seemed to be able to bring a lot of power to my attacks. I was also very agile and could move and bend my body in unnatural ways, according to John. Aaron described it as ballet fighting. He said that a lot my movements looked like they were inspired by the dancing he had watched me do yesterday. The same thing that made my attacks hit so hard also seemed to protect me. More than one of them complained that it hurt just as badly to hit me as it did to get hit by me.

Terry was strong. He could easily overpower any of us, even Aaron. He was fast, too. Many times he was able to mount a counterattack before one of us saw it coming while we were attacking him.

Aaron was strong too, though not quite as strong as Terry. He also seemed to be able to bring more power to his attacks than Terry did, but not quite as much as me. He seemed to be nearly as fast as Terry, and almost as durable as me.

Daisy was faster than Terry. She was the only one who could beat him when it came to commencing an attack. Her attacks were relatively light, but she was nearly as agile as I was.

John’s abilities were kind of in the middle of all of us. He hit pretty hard and he was pretty quick. He was more agile than I was though, and it was significantly difficult to hit him once we really started to understand what we were doing. He was also landing the most intelligent blows of all of us. He had always been really smart, but now that intelligence had been boosted and he always seemed to know the best place to attack to really hurt his opponent.

As we sat down on the grass at the end of the impromptu sparring session, it was clear that we all knew how to fight. None of us had any doubts that the necklaces wanted us to defend against the claydough. We had been prepared to fight, and we were really, really good at it.

We sat for a few minutes before John made a profound realization.

“I think we unlocked that power,” he said. “It’s clear we know how to fight now, and each of us definitely has different advantages that are perhaps not natural.”

He was looking at me, and I merely shrugged. I definitely hit harder than a young lady my size should. Strength definitely wasn’t the right way to describe those hits, though. I was the weakest of all of us. But there was definitely some type of power that not only protected me, but also gave me a wallop to include with my attacks.

When I thought about it, I no longer felt that “lock” we had all felt before, and I knew that he was right. We had unlocked the power of the necklaces during our sparring. Maybe all we needed to do was use the power. Maybe the act of fighting had done something. Either way, I suddenly felt that facing the claydough was now something I could do. I wasn’t afraid about fighting them anymore.

As I looked at my friends, I saw that they had come to the same conclusion. We were now some kind of superhero squad, or at the very least, we were a bunch of teenagers who now had “gifts” to help us fight the claydough. There was no longer any doubt about what we needed to do. Which was very apropos, because it was at that moment that John’s phone alarm went off. He had set it to alert him if any news of the claydough was mentioned on the local new sites or social media.

The claydough were back.

—

According to the news, the claydough were robbing a small hardware and electronics store about 10 minutes from the park. We quickly climbed into the van and headed that way. If we really were superheroes now, we really should have something more stylish than Terry’s old, used van to get around in.

The area around the hardware store was already cordoned off by the police by the time we arrived, and they were doing their best to get people out of the area while preventing others from wandering in. Terry pulled the car into a parking spot down the street, and we all exited the car.

“How are we going to get past the police?” Daisy asked.

“I don’t know,” John replied. “I think we should just try walking past them. There isn’t any reason to hide what we are doing; it is going to be captured by the news cameras anyway.”

He pointed to a news van that was already parked closer than we were, and there was also the sound of a helicopter above us, though we couldn’t see it.

“I doubt they are going to let us pass,” Aaron said. “They are actively trying to get people out.”

“Then let’s run past them!” Terry said, and then started running.

With no other recourse, the rest of us followed after him. Most of the people we saw were running the other way, and the cops were not looking this way as much as they tried to help people out of the area. Terry’s idea seemed to work as we ran past the blockade of police cars without even a word from the cops. It wasn’t until we were well past them that they started yelling at us to come back. But when we didn’t stop, they didn’t have a great desire to pursue us into the fray.

Soon we reached the entrance of the hardware store. Handyman’s Corner, the sign above the door read. It looked like a small ‘mom and pop’ type of shop.

As if on cue, a claydough walked out of the door carrying a box of tools and other items that it clearly had picked out. It was followed by a second one that was carrying some electronics, and a third that had a large case that was closed, preventing us from seeing what was inside. It appeared that the items weren’t just randomly grabbed, but that they had purposely picked up what they were carrying.

They looked surprised to see us waiting outside the door. But if they were worried at all, they didn’t show it as they set down what they were carrying and then rushed at us.

Without talking, we split off to intercept them. Daisy and I approached the one that had been carrying the electronics, Aaron and John went for the one with the tools, and Terry took on the last one.

I lost track of the others except Daisy, when the claydough in front of us started throwing punches. The thrill of the adrenaline that washed over me was only matched by the anxiety of getting into a real fight. The claydough swung at Daisy, who ducked, while I went for a kick to its back. When the kick landed, it felt a bit like I had kicked a stone wall, yet it didn’t hurt quite the same. The claydough’s body was more unyielding than a human body, but it wasn’t actually rock.

Daisy and I alternated our attacks with the claydough. She’d strike at it and I’d distract, then I’d strike and she’d dodge the claydough’s attack.

A few moments later there was a crash that sounded like a ceramic plate shattering on a floor. I glanced over to where the sound came from, and I saw Aaron and John looking down at the shards of a claydough that were sitting on the ground in front of them.

I almost didn’t see the swing that my claydough took at me, but dodged it at the last moment and brought my hand around to strike it in the chest. To my surprise, my hand crashed through its chest, which broke open with the same cracking sound I’d just heard. The impact sent the claydough flying backward, and as it hit the ground, it splintered and cracked just like a dinner plate. There were shards everywhere, but none of them continued to move.

So they were made of clay or fired clay.

The four of us turned to the last claydough that Terry was still fighting, but before any of us could reach him, he landed a blow with the same effect, and his claydough shattered in front of him.

We did it! Somehow, we had stopped the terrorist claydough that had been ravaging the city for the last three days that nobody else had been able to stop.

“Come on!” John yelled, and started running away. I was confused for a moment until I saw police running toward us. I turned and followed John away from them. We easily outran them, and it seemed like we had more energy and stamina than we’d had before. Once we’d lost sight of the police following us we backtracked back to the van, got in, and got out of there as quickly as we could.

The whole interaction took less than five minutes. We were all breathing deeply as Terry continued to drive, but the smiles on everybody’s faces was enough to understand that what we had just done had been as intense and amazing to each of us.

—

Sitting on the couch in John’s basement half an hour later, we were all watching the news special alerts that had interrupted the regular programming. They had apparently been live when we fought them, and they were still replaying the events of our short fight.

Apparently, the newscasts were more excited about the five unknown defenders who took out the claydough and then disappeared, than they were about the claydough. We were “new” news, though. They’d been talking about the unstoppable claydough for three days now. But we came along and stopped them! They kept replaying the fight, captured from a few different angles, and it was mesmerizing to watch ourselves take them down as quickly as we had. There was no doubt in my mind that the necklaces had a purpose, and we had just used the powers to accomplish it.

What would happen now? If the claydough were gone, would we have to give up the necklaces and take them back into the cave? None of us felt any desire or impressions of the next step to take. I hoped we got to keep them. There were likely other threats out there that we could deal with, and I sure wanted to do that again. The adrenaline rush it provoked was on par with some of the ballet competitions and recitals I had been a part of!

“We need better disguises,” John told us. “There are a couple of times where it seems like we were almost unmasked by the claydough. Daisy’s hood almost came off, and even if they didn’t know who she was, they would have at least narrowed it down to a blonde teenage girl.”

We all agreed. The sweatsuits weren’t the best things to fight in either, and they were very hot once we climbed into Terry’s van.

“Are we doing this, then?” Daisy asked us. “Are we going to be superheroes for the rest of our lives now?”

“What else is there to even fight?” Aaron asked instead. “We defeated the claydough. When was the last time you saw something like that?”

”Never” I thought in my mind. I didn’t say it out loud though. Nobody needed to. What we had done was definitely not a common occurrence. Even if we were to stay superheroes, there wasn’t anything to fight unless we became some kind of elite force for the army or something.

“We’ll worry about it later,” Terry told us, holding up a very familiar box. “For now, let’s celebrate.”

Smiles were all around the room as we got up from where we had been watching the news reports and moved over to the table. A relaxing night of board games was what I needed after the adrenaline rush of the fight.

—

Chapter 6

When my alarm woke me up the next morning, my first thought was: “Why is an alarm waking me up on a Saturday morning?” It took a few minutes for my brain to kick in to remind me that I had ballet and needed to get up.

Getting ready to leave the house was definitely quicker and easier, since I had taken a shower after getting home the night before. I’d need another after class.

Most of my family were still asleep when I went downstairs and into the kitchen. Mom was already there, and she had made my smoothie. She didn’t always make it, and I had fully expected to make my own this morning, but she just smiled at me while handing me the bottle it was in, and her car keys.

“Thanks, Mom,” I told her, shifting the tote on my shoulder so I could kiss her on the cheek.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked, concern evident in her voice.

“Yeah!” I told her truthfully. “Whatever caused this made sure of that!”

“What does that mean?” she asked, frowning now.

“I thought maybe you had noticed,” I replied. “I am what I am supposed to be, now. I feel it. Everyone around me feels it. In this new reality, I am the girl I now am.”

She looked at me oddly. My description was lacking, but I didn’t know how else to say it. But then I had a thought.

“Why did you make me a smoothie?” I asked her.

“Because you always have one before class on Saturday morning,” she replied without thought. “And I wanted to see how you are doing.”

“Why do I have one every Saturday morning?” I asked her next.

“The nutritionist said it was the best thing for you since you don’t have time for a full meal before class starts,” she replied.

I nodded. That was the correct answer.

“When was the last time you made one for me?” I continued probing.

“Last Saturday,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d make one for you.”

She looked at me like I was asking her stupid questions. In reality, she wasn't seeing what was happening.

“Mom,” I told her. “I’ve never had one of those smoothies before.”

She paused for a moment, taking in my words. Then, her eyes opened wider and she started nodding. Finally, she was starting to understand.

“I guess you are right,” she replied. “I’ve never made one of those smoothies before, either. But I didn’t even have to think about it.”

“Everything is like that now,” I told her. “I am the girl I have been my whole life. I know how to be a girl. I know how to do my makeup. I am an excellent ballet dancer. I didn’t know any of those things before, but they are second nature to me now. Surprisingly, I am okay with that.”

She stared at me for a moment, trying to absorb all of it. This was something that she clearly had not thought about before now. But she was a very smart woman and I knew that it was obvious to her now. She had missed it, but it had been right in front of her.

“What could do something like this?” she finally asked.

That was a question I wish I truly knew the answer to. Obviously, it was the necklace, but that was only partially correct. I wasn't ready to tell her about it yet either. There was more to what was happening other than just turning me into a girl, however. If all the necklace needed me to be was female, then it could have done that and left me, and the universe, dealing with the consequences. But that wasn’t what had happened. It changed everything around me to support this new young woman I had become. It didn’t just change me, it gave me the kind of life I needed in order to support its own goals. What that really meant, however, I still did not fully know.

“I don’t really know the answer,” I finally told her. “I’m starting to make some guesses, but it is what it is now, and I am happy about it.”

I surprised myself almost as much as I surprised her with that answer. I had already come to the conclusion that I was okay being female now. But this was the first time I had actually felt happy about it. And I did feel happy. Standing there with my mother, I seriously wondered if I would take the opportunity to turn back if it presented itself.

But that wasn’t going to happen, and I did not want to dwell on what I was starting to feel. I grinned at my mom and raised the bottle the smoothie was in.

“I have to get to the studio,” I told her. “Thank you for the smoothie. I’ll see you after class.”

Mom nodded, still lost in thought, and I walked through the kitchen to the garage, got in her car, and drove to the studio.

—

Saturday was partnering. Right now it was the only class we had with the guys, which made it awkward. I had danced with some of these guys in early ballet classes before we were separated to focus on our sex-specific disciplines. Others I had only met from this class.

What surprised me the most, however, was that my normal partner was Fred Valentine. Fred went to my school and was the first person at the studio that I had known from my previous life. When I had walked into the larger studio we practiced partnering in, I went over to him and set my stuff down next to his without thought. I was used to doing this, but the look he was giving me reminded me that not everybody was as used to these changes as I was.

“Hi, Fred,” I broke the silence as I started my warmup. “I didn’t know you danced ballet.”

He had been warming up, but had stopped to look at me strangely when I placed my stuff down next to him. It took a few more moments before he gathered himself back together and continued his warmup.

“Hi, Ember,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I chuckled. That much was obvious from his reaction.

“The universe has made me quite the dancer, apparently,” I said.

He nodded, but he really didn’t believe it.

“Who did you dance with before?” I asked.

“Before?” he replied, confused.

“Before me?” I elaborated.

He looked confused for a moment.

“Nobody,” he said. “They paired us up not long after we both started this class.”

“I know,” I told him. “I remember. But I meant before the universe changed me.”

He really had to think about it for a moment, based on the expressions that crossed his face, before he realized what I was actually asking. That only made him look confused again, however.

“Anna?” he asked, rather than telling me. I didn’t know the answer to my question, but I looked at at the blonde girl who was now partnered with another guy. I did not know him but I knew his name was Alan. I was fairly certain they had danced together last week based on his response.

Fred was quiet as we finished our warmups, and didn’t say much as Miss Leigh and Mister Thomas led us through class. Fred was struggling, uncharacteristically. I’d never seen him dance. I’d never danced with him before. But I knew from experience and memory that he was better than what he was doing. The problem, however, became significantly worse when we started working on lift combinations.

We began the combination fine. When we reached the lift I jumped, and he got a hold of me slightly late but well enough, and up I went with his help. When I reached the apogee of the lift, however, things turned. His fingers started to dig into my thigh and I realized that his grip was off. Before it became too painful, however, I was on my way down, but it was uncontrolled.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been dropped. Technically it was the first time, but I had unfortunately gotten used to it. It had been a long time since Fred had dropped me, however. As one of the rising stars for the studio, they had paired me with their best prospective male dancer, and we had clicked almost immediately.

I hit the floor hard, since I’d been above his head at the time. Fortunately, it wasn’t an especially bad fall. It had happened enough that I was able to protect myself the best I could. It hurt, but I knew I was okay. Fred’s pride appeared to have taken the worst of it, based on the horror on his face when I was able to look up at him.

I smiled to try to ease what he was feeling as I stood back up, but he kept staring at me like he had just failed completely. He hadn’t though.

“Are you okay, Ember?” Miss Leigh asked from nearby.

“Yes,” I said and looked over at her. She looked concerned, but I smiled back to let her know I was fine.

“Fred, are you okay?” she turned her ire on him.

“Yes…” he said, but trailed off. “I…”

“He was a little late,” I told Miss Leigh. “But I tried to correct it. It’s my fault.”

Miss Leigh didn’t believe me, but it was the truth. Fred was late, but he was doing fine. When I realized his grip was slightly off I knew I wasn’t balanced properly, and I tried to compensate. But like a beginner, I had totally brought the fall on myself. The best thing I could do was rely on my core to keep myself steady and let him make the adjustment, but I didn’t. I tried to adjust myself and that compounded the entire problem as he no longer knew where my weight was, and I fell.

Speaking of my core, once again I found it odd I didn’t have abs. I had a flat stomach, but I must have had the most developed core of my entire friends group. If ballet class the other night hadn’t been enough to show me that, engaging my core to strengthen myself for the lift certainly had. That’s hard work!

“Again!” Miss Leigh said, loud enough for the entire class.

—

Fred was waiting for me as I left the changing room. He followed me out the door and started talking while we approached our vehicles.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He had been apologizing for the rest of class.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I told him again. I liked Fred even though I hadn’t interacted with him much before this morning. But the constant apologizing was becoming annoying.

“It was,” he shot back. “If I’d been on top of my game, then you wouldn’t have tried to adjust. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing!” I growled at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and then winced when he realized that he was apologizing for his apology.

“The truth is,” he continued. “When you came in and sat down next to me, I got extremely nervous. Everyone has watched what you have gone through this week. I didn’t know how to interact with you. I was half-afraid that…well, that…”

He sheepishly looked at me like I would know what he was getting at, but I didn’t know for sure. Honestly, I was tired. I wanted to go home, have a good meal, rest up to recuperate from class, and then meet up with my friends. There was a shop in the city that Aaron had found that might be able to create us some better disguises, and they wanted to go up there this afternoon.

“I thought you might not be a girl!” he blurted out.

I started laughing before I could catch myself. The last thing I needed to do was make him feel bad or alienate him. He was a fantastic partner and I wanted to keep dancing with him. But that was the stupidest thing anyone had ever said to me since this whole thing had started. He had been closer to me and touched me in ways no other guy had since I’d become female. If anyone was going to doubt what I had become, I did not think it would be him.

He looked crestfallen when I turned and looked over at him. Clearly, he hadn’t wanted to be that direct, but he had certainly gotten to the point, and I was actually happy about that. I did not want to spend all day standing outside the studio.

“I can tell you with utmost confidence that I am 100% female now,” I told him. “I’m sorry I made you feel awkward, then.”

I thought my words might be comforting, but they only made him look worse.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he spoke quietly. “It’s just that you are pretty hot, and there are a lot of guys at the school who envy Aaron now. I just meant that it was scary to be that close to you. Everyone sees you as female, and I was worried that you didn’t see yourself as one. I thought maybe it would affect our dancing.”

He certainly left me pondering his words after that statement. I had definitely been getting the type of looks that I would expect any beautiful woman receives from the men around her, but I had no idea I was considered prime dateable material by the guys at my high school. Based on how easily everything else in my life had transitioned, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

I had also clearly misunderstood what he had blurted earlier. I thought that he had been worried I still had a penis or something down there based on the way he said it and how he had been acting, but apparently there was no question that I was female with my peers. He was worried that I wasn’t mentally female.

“Whatever happened to me,” I told him. “It has made me female, inside and out. I was affected the same way everyone else was. This is me now, and I’m happy with it.”

He didn’t need, nor did he deserve, any more explanation than that. This was my life, not his, and I didn’t really care what he felt. As long as he kept dancing with me.

Fred nodded. I had definitely eased his worries, apparently.

“I’ll see you next week then,” he said and turned toward his car. It seemed like he was as anxious to get out of that conversation as I was.

—

“But won’t these guys know who we are?” Daisy asked worriedly as we drove toward the city in Terry’s van a few hours later. “They would be able to identify us!”

“Yes,” John said. “But I checked their website, and discretion is part of the contract. They won’t say anything, or we can sue them.”

“That won’t make it any better if the people who make our new outfits tell everyone who we are!” Daisy shot back.

There had definitely been some worries about having to be there in person, but there was no way they would be able to measure us and create appropriate outfits otherwise.

John opened his mouth to say something more, but his phone alarm went off. We all stared at it for a moment before he opened his phone to see what was happening. The rest of us reached for our own phones, except Terry, who was driving.

According to a breaking news bulletin, nearly 25 claydough were attacking a park near downtown! Nobody had seen more than three at a time, and we had assumed that they had always been the same three! We were sure that we had taken care of the problem, but clearly we were wrong!

The worst part was that they were no longer robbing local stores like they had every time before this. The claydough were terrorizing the park’s visitors and were clearly trying to cause mayhem instead. It was almost like they were trying to—

“They are trying to draw us out,” John stated, finishing my thought.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. “We didn’t bring the sweatsuits.”

Everybody looked around at the others, worried. We weren’t prepared for this. We had easily handled three of the claydough, but 25 was a whole lot more. How could we defeat them without being overwhelmed? If we did, if we even attempted it, then we would be blowing our cover. We had nothing in the car to disguise ourselves with. None of us had expected to see more of these things.

“I know what to do!” Aaron stated. There was no questioning him, as he said it with such confidence that we didn’t feel like we could dissent.

A moment later, it was clear. We all knew what to do too. We all had felt it. There was a call from the necklaces. It was as strong as the call we’d felt to go to the cave. It was also as clear about what we needed to do.

“Hurry!” Aaron told Terry. “We need to get to that park.”

—

When we finally arrived at the park an agonizing 15 minutes later, Terry pulled the car into a parking lot nearby.

“Let’s go,” he said, and exited the van. The rest of us followed and he led us into an alley nearby. We didn’t want anybody to see us.

Once we were out of view, we spread out until we were in a line. Were we insane? Admittedly, what we had gone through until this point had been fantastical, but that was nothing like what the necklaces were telling us to do now.

“Are you guys ready?” Terry asked. We all nodded in agreement.

“It’s Vanguard Time!” Terry yelled. “Ruby Power!”

“Sapphire Power!” John yelled next.

“Amethyst Power!” Daisy continued.

“Emerald Power!” Aaron shouted.

“Pink Diamond Power!” I finished.

A surge of power shot through me as I finished, and I felt more than saw some kind of armor encase me. It felt like it was hugging me and holding me tight, but once it settled there, I could move around as easily as if I was wearing regular clothes.

I looked down, not sure what I was going to find, and was amazed at what I was now wearing! I appeared to be wearing some kind of black-weaved armor undersuit. On top of that, in strategic places around my body to protect me, were thick, heavier composite armor pieces on top of the undersuit that were pink and white. The ensemble was finished off with gold trimming and a set of gold shoulder pads.

All of the armor had appeared out of nowhere. I couldn’t explain where it had come from or how it had gotten there, but I was clearly inside of it!

I looked over at the others, and was surprised to see that each of them were also wearing a helmet. It took me a moment to realize that I was also! The helmet felt like a second skin, and I hadn’t even realized I had one on! Now that I knew it was there, I also noticed that there were a number of AR displays in my vision now. As I looked at the others, I saw some information about them. I wasn’t entirely sure what the displays were showing me, other than there appeared to be a small map in the lower right corner of my vision that showed where I was, where my friends were, and a number of red dots nearby that must have been the claydough. The other information seemed like gibberish to me at the moment.

Terry ran out of the alley almost immediately and we followed. As we ran toward the park and the claydough, I was surprised at how much energy I seemed to have now. This transformation had also boosted us in ways I was not sure of yet. For one, I wasn’t getting winded from running as hard as we were.

As we entered the park we all split up without speaking to each other and we each intercepted a nearby claydough. Last night, it had been an easy fight, in part because I was fighting with Daisy. Now, I started attacking a claydough alone, yet it seemed much easier. My first strike at the claydough, who hadn’t seen me yet, landed a heavy blow on his neck. I expected the resilience that I had encountered last night, but instead, my arm went right through it and the creature shattered into shards! I definitely hit harder now than I had then.

I continued working around the park, taking out what claydough I found. The others were doing the same. Sometimes it took a few hits to shatter them, and sometimes I was able to land a killing blow the first time. Either way, it was significantly easier than it had been the night before.

Eventually, there were no more red dots on the map in my helmet, and I gathered with the others. I’d definitely had to exert myself during the fight, but I apparently had even more stamina now than the boost I’d received last night when we first unlocked the power of the necklaces.

“Oh!” John shouted when it was clear we were alone now. “A pink diamond! No wonder it hurts so much to hit you!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked him. I hadn’t been able to determine what kind of gem was on my necklace, but I hadn’t thought that it was a diamond. I didn’t even know that there were pink diamonds, until I yelled “Pink Diamond Power” before we fought the claydough.

“Diamonds are super, super hard,” he told me. “You don’t hit with a lot of strength, you are just very hard!”

I just shrugged at him. I wasn’t a gemologist. I had no real idea what the properties of our gems really were.

“That was insane!” Terry exclaimed. “I can’t believe this is happening!”

There were agreements all around. None of us had expected any of that! Blue dots started to appear at the edge of the small map, and I looked up worried there were more claydough. Instead there were people with cameras watching us. Fortunately we were disguised now.

A rumbling sound pierced the air above us, and we looked up to see some kind of aircraft fly over the park at very low altitude. It looked vaguely like a plane, but was clearly far more advanced. A door opened on the side, and somebody jumped out.

It seemed like suicide to jump from a plane, even that low, but we all just stared in wonder as the person fell to the ground. There was a large smack and the ground shook heavily. I was able to keep my balance, but I was surprised at how agilely I was able to move to keep from falling.

At the center of the park, however, was a large cloud of dust where the person had hit. As the cloud dissipated there was a large crater in the middle, and inside was not a person, but some kind of metal monster. It started moving, and a moment later it had climbed out of the crater and was staring at us.

“It is true,” a masculine but very robotic voice emanated from the monster. “The Vanguards are back. No matter, my construct will take care of you.”

Without pausing, the metal monster ran toward us at a much faster speed than I thought it would be capable of. Moments later, it was swinging at Terry, and we immediately began fighting this new monster.

Terry managed to dodge the blow, and Aaron landed a kick on his back, but cried out in pain. Terry then struck back, hitting the monster in the chest, but he too cried out.

I followed him in and kicked at the monster's legs, trying to sweep them out from under him. When I made contact with its right leg, however, it hurt! And the monster didn’t move! The monster was made of metal, and clearly we were at a disadvantage fighting it.

We managed to retreat a few moments later, putting some distance between us and it. The monster stood back, but on its unmoving metal face it almost seemed like it was gloating. For all of the power we’d received, it did little to help us flesh-and-bone warriors fight a metal construct. We needed something more.

“Ruby Sword!” Terry yelled, surprising me. What was he doing?

“Sapphire Staff!” John continued. Clearly they knew something that I didn’t.

“Amethyst Bow!” Daisy shouted, and suddenly I realized what I needed to do.

“Emerald Shield and Blaster!” Aaron yelled a mouthful.

“Pink Diamond Daggers!” I completed the call.

Immediately, two daggers materialized in my hands. They matched the suit I was wearing perfectly, and had pink diamonds embedded in the hilts. I looked over at the others. Terry was now holding a rather impressive looking sword. John had a staff that had a blade on one end. Daisy was holding a bow and was notching an arrow, Aaron was holding some type of blaster in his right hand, and had some type of energy shield in his left.

It seemed the metal construct didn’t like our new weapons, and it charged forward. Aaron went right at it while the rest of us spread out. The monster swung at him, but he used his shield to block the blow and then he fired the blaster into its side. The monster roared, and there was now a large hole where it had been hit.

I came from the other side and dug one of my daggers into the top of the monster’s leg. It went in almost like butter! What had been an impenetrable skin of metal moments before was now an inconvenience to these new weapons. I stabbed my other dagger into its side and some type of fluid started spurting out.

John had circled around to the back and shoved the blade end of his staff into the monster’s back. The metal construct roared, throwing its head back in pain.

When it came forward again, an arrow, shot by Daisy, landed straight into the area where its eyes would have been if it was human.

It roared a second time, and it sounded as if it was in pain, but that didn’t last long as Terry jumped in front of it and swung his sword at the neck, severing the metal head from the metal body.

The roaring stopped abruptly, the head landed on the ground in front of the body, and then the body fell over backward. Nothing moved.

I sighed in relief. Odd crap kept getting thrown at us, but we seemed to have the tools to prevail.

We all stepped back, away from the now dead construct. Whoever had sent the construct had known we were Vanguards, and our enemy was still out there somewhere. But nothing else was in the vicinity.

There was a distant roar. I turned, fearing we had missed something, but it was a crowd that had gathered at the edge of the park. They were cheering for us!

With another sigh of relief, I let my worry drop, and the two daggers in my hands disappeared back to wherever they had come from. I had no doubt I could call them again if they were needed, but right now it looked like we were safe.

“What the heck was that?” Daisy asked, staring at the unmoving thing now in front of us.

“It looks like some kind of robot,” John replied. “If you look here, you can see some of its components. This was made by someone.”

John was pointing at the slash I had made in the side of the, well, robot. It did look like some kind of electronics and motors. I was no expert, but I felt confident enough he was right.

“The voice?” I asked. “I assume that was who made it? He was talking through it?”

“That would make sense,” John replied. “And he knew who we were. We called upon Vanguard power, and he knew who we were.”

That was a scary thought. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but that voice seemed to know quite a bit about us.

“Guys,” Aaron said, pointing at where the crowd had been.

I looked up, worried again that there was another surprise. But he was pointing at an advancing crowd of what appeared to be reporters. There were people carrying microphones and holding TV cameras who were quickly approaching us.

“I don’t think we want to stay here,” Terry said.

All of us nodded and turned to go the other way, but a loud roar stopped us and the reporters.

Looking up, I watched as the plane we had seen earlier flew over once more. I expected a door to open and another one of those metal constructs to come out, but instead it turned up into a long loop. As it reached the top of the loop high above us, it started changing. It was too far away to properly see what was happening, but my helmet had it targeted as an enemy. A small representation of the plane was in the top right of my vision. I realized that there had always been a picture of an enemy there, and it must be some kind of display of my current “target” that I was fighting.

The small display was changing almost like a Transformer as it continued on its downward arc toward us. The wings had moved and the tail looked different, but it was hard to understand what was happening. A moment later, however, the small display no longer showed a plane, but something that vaguely resembled the metal construct we had just fought. As it approached us, it was easier to see the changes. The wings appeared to now be legs. Where the tail had been was clearly a head. Two arms seemed to have extended from the fuselage.

The plane or construct or “conplane” as my mind unhelpfully named it, continued approaching the ground. The conplane’s engines now appeared to be pointing vertically, and it was slowing as it approached. We all stood there like idiots watching it come toward us until it came to rest on two new feet that had appeared at the end of the wing legs.

It was huge! It was bigger than a regular passenger plane! It looked bigger than a jumbo jet! There was absolutely no way we could battle that thing! All it had to do was step on us and it would accomplish its goal!

Fortunately all of the reporters who had been coming our way were now running back the way they had come. The conplane had landed on the opposite side of the park from them, which was a minor blessing. The last thing we needed was the reporters getting in our way or even worse, dying.

“What do we do now?” I asked worriedly. It didn’t matter what kind of power we seemed to unlock, there was a worse monster out there to battle.

“I think we should run,” Aaron said. I agreed, and started to turn back toward the reporters, before noticing that Terry actually took a step toward the conplane.

“Terry, what are you–” Aaron called to him, but was interrupted by Terry.

“Red Lion Titan Power!” Terry yelled, gesturing in some sort of martial arts move at the same time.

I immediately stopped and turned around. There was more to unlock?

Terry jumped forward with more power than I expected anyone to be able to have, and then out of nowhere, Terry was encased by a huge red mechanical lion! It was far enough away not to step on us, but I still instinctively took a step backward.

“Blue Eagle Titan Power!” John exclaimed, and he made a similar technique to what Terry had. A moment later, he jumped up into the sky toward the left of where we were standing, and a large blue eagle appeared surrounding him!

I just stared in awe for a moment. What was this?!

“Green Dragon Titan Power!” Aaron called out next. He then jumped into the sky toward the right and a large green dragon appeared around him.

“Purple Unicorn Titan Power!” Daisy cried, before jumping toward Terry’s lion and having a large metal unicorn appear around her.

I was nervous, but felt myself start doing some kind of martial arts technique that I did not know, but was clearly what I was supposed to do.

“Pink Phoenix Titan Power!” I yelled impulsively, and then jumped straight up.

I continued to rise higher and higher. Higher than I had ever been in my life without something under my feet! Then, the most peculiar feeling coursed through me as a pink energy seemed to surround me. Moments later I appeared to be sitting in some type of cockpit as the phoenix I was sure had formed around me had now become some type of flying vehicle I was controlling. The controls were very instinctive, and I began flying around the park without much thought. Once I knew what I was doing, I turned back toward the conplane. Terry was slashing at one of the wing legs with his claws, and Daisy had her hind legs kicking into the other.

The conplane stumbled backward, but didn’t seem harmed. A moment later John’s eagle swooped down and clawed at the head of the construct and Aaron’s dragon swung its tail at the midsection. Neither seemed to have much effect.

I flew toward the conplane, pressed a button on one of my joysticks, and a large pink ball of energy flew toward it. The energy hit the conplane on the right side of its torso and tore a small hole into it.

“Yes!” I rejoiced as I flew past it and turned to line up for another shot.

Out of the side window of my cockpit I saw Terry’s lion open its mouth and a stream of fire bellowed out at the leg of the conplane, causing a large searing gash to be displayed once it stopped.

John’s eagle made another dive toward the conplane, and a blast of ice exited its open mouth, freezing the right arm of the conplane in place. There was a large block of ice keeping the arm from moving. He then started his own turn to attack again.

Aaron’s dragon opened its mouth and a large ray of green energy shot out, slamming into the torso of the conplane, bisecting it and leaving a large gash across the torso.

Daisy’s unicorn put her horn into the ground, and a section of the park shot up at the conplane, knocking it to the side, where it stumbled and landed on a knee.

As I came around to line up a second shot, the conplane roared and slammed its still useful arm into the red lion, throwing it across the park. Terry landed where the crowd of reporters had been moments earlier, and I hoped that they had all retreated.

I fired a second shot, and the energy ball sped toward the conplane, striking its back near the shoulder of the arm that had just thrown Terry. I banked immediately to turn away from it, but I wasn’t fast enough as its arm came around and slashed at me, connecting with the right side of my titan. There was a large bang, and a groaning sound, but then I was away from it and corrected my flight to stabilize it from the blow. A number of red warning lights were blinking at me.

The conplane stood up, and immediately kicked Daisy’s unicorn, sending it flying across the park to land near Terry’s lion. I thought we were a match for it, but it clearly still had an advantage with how easily it was throwing us around.

“This isn’t working,” Aaron said, his voice coming through my helmet as if I was next to him. “We need more power.”

“Initiate MegaTitan sequence now!” Terry called out.

“What?!” Daisy screeched, but my hands were already moving, doing something with the controls in my titan, and out the window I saw Daisy’s titan getting up and moving toward the red lion.

A moment later, both the red lion and the purple unicorn started transforming, until they looked like legs. I felt my own titan turn on its own until I seemed to be right above them, and then I heard sounds like it was transforming too. Next thing I knew I seemed to be settling on top of the two legs. Not long after the titan came to a stop there was a loud noise as something hit me from behind, and then two green arms, which appeared to be both ends of Aaron’s dragon, came out in front of me. Another clang came from above, and I had to imagine that John’s eagle was now sitting on top of my phoenix like a head.

Suddenly my chair started to move! There was a rush of air around me as I was plunged into darkness, and then almost immediately my chair came into a new cockpit where I found the other Vanguards in their own chairs, surrounding Terry!

“MegaTitan online!” Terry said too loudly in the small space. “Everyone okay?”

I looked around, trying to figure out what had just happened. Apparently, all of our titans had just combined themselves into a single large titan. They were all connected as some type of mega robot that we were now controlling from inside of it. I had a number of controls in front of me, but I didn’t know what they did.

“Set and ready,” Aaron replied.

“Let’s give it to him,” John said.

“Locked and loaded,” Daisy continued.

“I have no idea what is going on,” I added. “But let’s do it!”

There was laughter around the cockpit, but then everyone started moving and manipulating the controls in front of them. That might sound like we were being mind-controlled, but it wasn’t. We instinctively knew what we needed to do. I did not know what I was controlling as I manipulated the controls in front of me, but it was clear this new MegaTitan was moving forward.

The conplane looked on, waiting for us to approach. I sensed that it wasn’t worried.

I watched nervously as we approached the construct that was now waiting for us. I looked around, and it didn’t seem like the others knew any more than I did, but we all kept doing what felt appropriate.

Out of the window or screen in front of us (I couldn’t tell which it was), I watched as the right arm of the MegaTitan swung at the conplane. The right arm appeared to be the head of Aaron’s dragon, and it connected with the side of the conplane. The construct staggered backward. That gave me hope, but we’d had a momentary advantage with the titans before the construct started fighting back.

Next, the purple foot came flying into view and connected with the opposite side of the conplane, and it staggered again, falling to the side and landing on its knees. We took a step back, and then we began twirling around. Just before the conplane came back into view, the red foot entered from the right side, and it connected with the head of the conplane, knocking it backward onto its back.

“Yes!” Terry cried out as the conplane lay there, unmoving. We did it! I heard and felt a sigh of relief from me and the other Vanguards in the cockpit.

A whirring sound started from outside the cockpit, and it took a moment for me to realize that it was coming from the conplane that was laying before us. A moment later, the whirring turned into a sound that made me think some kind of power generator was spooling up. A second later, the right hand of the conplane turned into some kind of energy gun, and it pointed it right at us.

Horrified, I didn’t know what to do! For the first time since we had ended up in our titans, I didn’t have a move to make! There was no instinct that came to me.

But Aaron did.

“Green Dragon Shield!” he yelled and manipulated his controls, and a green energy shield appeared in the left hand of the MegaTitan. Almost immediately he brought the shield up and the whole MegaTitan rumbled and we started getting pushed back by the white energy beam that lanced out of the conplane, hitting the shield square on.

The shield held! There didn’t seem to be any red lights anywhere I could see, and it appeared to be dissipating the energy being shot at us by the construct. It continued for a few seconds before the beam stopped. Through the green tint of the energy shield, we could now see the conplane standing before us once more. The energy weapon was still pointed at us, but it wasn’t firing.

“Red Lion Sword!” Terry called out. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew that a sword had appeared in the right hand of the green dragon. I could picture it in my mind being held by the mouth of the dragon, which now made up the actual hand.

Then, we were charging forward. The tip of the conplane’s energy gun started to glow, and the shield came up in front of us to block the blast once more. Instead of being pushed back like the first time, our momentum kept us moving forward. As we approached I saw the right hand and the sword come into view as it slashed down at the right hand of the conplane, and severed both the bottom half of the arm, and the entire energy weapon, from the conplane. The green shield then slammed into the conplane, pushing it backward enough while the right arm came around again and decapitated the head from the rest of the plane construct. It fell to the ground a moment before the rest of the conplane fell backward.

This time, it did not move. We stood there, ready for any indication that it would recover, but after five minutes, nothing had happened.

“Cut off all of its limbs,” John said. “And move them apart. Let’s make sure this thing is dead.”

I watched as we directed the MegaTitan to dismember the conplane, severing it into smaller sections. I suspected that people might start exiting the plane, but the more and more we cut, the more obvious it was that the entire thing was one big robot. There was nobody on board. It had a small cargo area, which the metal monster had come from earlier, but there was no sign of anyone or anything else inside.

“I think we destroyed it,” John finally said. There were nods all around the cockpit.

“But whoever was controlling it is still out there,” I added.

The nods continued. There had been a distinct intelligence that talked to us earlier, and it was not in the wreckage. All of us knew that this wasn’t the last we’d hear of whatever had created these things.

“It’s time to go,” Aaron said, pointing over to the side of the screen farthest from me. There was a new presence that appeared to be some military vehicles.

“Absolutely,” Terry said, and we all reached over to a specific control that we all had on our control panels. We pressed them in unison, and the MegaTitan around us faded away the same way the titans had appeared, and we were all falling toward the ground.

Somehow I managed to keep myself from screaming at the long drop. The others did the same. As we reached the ground we all seemed to slow, somehow, and land lightly on our feet. Without a word, we all turned away from the military presence and began to run.

It took time, but we eventually made it out of the park and out of the prying eyes of any onlookers and we quickly ducked into an alley.

“Power down!” we all said together, and the Vanguard suits faded away the same way as everything else, and then it was just my friends and me standing there.

“Don’t talk to anyone until we get far away from here,” John said, and started toward the other end of the alley. “They won’t know who we are and we don’t want to give it away.”

We agreed and we started following him. It was a fairly long walk around the park, passing all of the onlookers who were still watching raptly. The few glimpses we got through the crowd showed that the military vehicles had now surrounded the remains of the conplane and were keeping people back.

Eventually we made it back to Terry’s van, and we all climbed in wordlessly and started the drive home.

—

The necklaces had certainly changed our lives, some more than others. I looked over at Aaron who was sitting beside me in the van. He was looking out the window. I reached over and grabbed his hand on the seat between us. He turned and looked at me, and smiled.

Today had been way, way crazier than any of us had been expecting, but I felt an adrenaline rush like I’d never had before! These powers, these weapons, the Titans, it was almost too much to even think about. Who in their right mind would even listen to us if we told them what we had gone through today!

But despite all of that, despite all of the amazing things I had experienced today, I was able to experience them with Aaron.

“I’m ready for bed,” Terry told us. “I’m going to drop you guys off at home.”

All of us agreed. The ride home had been quiet. Everybody other than Terry had started to doze off at one point or another, and we never really had a good chance to talk about what we had gone through. Clearly, the Vanguard power was taxing, however. I too was ready for bed.

Terry stopped at my house first, and Aaron and I both got out and Terry drove away. Aaron looked as tired as I felt, but I didn’t want him to leave.

“Want to come in and meet my family?” I asked him.

He looked toward his house for a moment. I knew he didn’t want to leave me either. Eventually, he nodded.

We started up the walk to my house, then I opened the front door. It was quiet inside, other than the sound of a TV nearby.

“Hi, Ember,” my mom said as we entered the room. All of my family were sitting on the couches around the room and had clearly been watching the TV. “Who is this?”

I smiled at her, and she smiled back. She already knew.

“Everybody, this is Aaron,” I told my family. “Aaron, this is my family.”

There was a bit of chuckling from Aaron and from around the room. He was easily recognizable, just as I was to those who had known me before.

“It’s nice to meet you again, Aaron,” my mom said and came over and gave him a hug. “Ember has such nice things to say about you.”

There was more laughter among all of us.

“Come sit over here!” Amy said, and cleared room on the couch she had been sitting on for us.

I was tired enough, and Aaron seemed to agree, so we walked over and sat down next to Amy. It felt almost too nice to sink down into the comfortable cushions of the couch. I didn’t want to fall asleep while Aaron was still here.

“What are you guys watching?” I asked as we settled in. I was sitting closer to Aaron than I ever had before, but I liked it, and he seemed to as well.

“There was an alien attack in the city!” Brad almost yelled. “Big monsters and everything! And there were even some Power Rangers that came in and destroyed them!”

“Power Rangers?” I asked, incredulously. I knew it was true, but I didn’t want to make it sound like I knew what was going on.

The TV didn’t lie, however. They seemed to be watching some kind of special report or breaking news on the TV. It clearly was not regular programming. They were showing a replay of what had happened from the angle of the reporters who had been on the ground. It was certainly different to see it from that perspective after having lived through it.

Everyone’s attention was focused on the television. I looked at Aaron to see what he thought about what we were watching. He had a silly smile, but was looking at me rather than the TV. I smiled back.

Before I even knew what I was doing I reached my head up, and our lips met. I had never kissed anyone before, and had no other experience to compare this to, but it felt like magic. It was a quick peck, since my whole family was in the room, but it was one of the most important events in my life. I will never forget that moment.

I smiled up at him as we parted, and then placed my head on his shoulder. He then leaned his head against mine. I watched as the Vanguard Force battled the metal monster on the screen for a moment, but almost immediately I fell into a needed sleep.

—

Afterword

Now that you have finished the story, you may be saying to yourself: “Those fight sequences were too short! They should have been longer! I am left wanting more!”

If so, then I properly captured the way I always felt watching Power Rangers when I was younger. It took me a while to realize that the fights in the show were so short because they were reusing footage from a Japanese show. It was also only a 30 minute program (20 without the commercials). There was always lots of story and little fighting. I always wanted more. When I set out to write this story I had originally intended to make the fight sequences more in depth. The first one came out like what is in the story, however, and it felt so right to the tribute I was trying to write that I continued writing them that way. I’m sorry if you want more, but this felt like a Power Rangers episode to me, even if it is about Vanguard Force.

Thank you for reading this story. I hope you liked it. I hope it was Morphinomenal!

Once a Ranger, always a Ranger.