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Author's Note: Now its time to give those bastards what they deserve. We also get to learn a little more about Khaji Da and what makes him tick. I'd like to thank djkauf for the wonderful editing and DC Comics for creating such great characters.

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Chapter Four:

“What does all that mean?”

The Voice didn’t have time to explain. It seems that whatever shock my three assailants were suffering from was gone. The one with the knife was the first to move. Instead of moving toward me, he slid along the wall, trying to make a quick exit. An overwhelming urge to punish the bastard severely swelled inside me. That’s when my body seemed to react on its own. I swung my arm out, smacking the guy crouched in front of me out of the way as I sprang to my feet. I went right after the knife guy, moving at a speed I didn’t even think was humanly possible. I was on him in a split second, slamming him against the brick. He gasped for air as my hand closed around his throat. I slammed into him so hard that I think some of his ribs actually broke. He dropped his knife and tried to pry my fingers from his neck but it was no use.

Anger flooded my body, an anger that I’d never felt before in my entire life. I liked it, I liked it a lot. I clamped down on his throat, squeezing the air out of him. Though I didn’t seem to be in control of my actions, my emotions were all over the place. He must die, this bastard must be punished. I squeezed tighter, watching as his eyes turned blood shot and bugged out of his head. His mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. He was dying in my hands and I loved it. At least a small part of me did. There was another part of me screaming in the back of my head. I could feel it pounding on my brain, pushing to get free. But the homicidal part was stronger and seemed to be pushing my other part back. The homicidal part had a laugh, cackling as if tempting the docile part of me to try and stop it. My mind shifted. The homicidal part lost ground, the cackling stopped. The docile part pushed through and my grip on the bastard’s throat lessened. What the hell was I doing?

My mind focused and a fog seemed to lift.

I let go of the son of a bitch’s throat. He slid to the ground, gasping and spurting for air.

“We had him,” said the Voice, Khaji Da. “Why did you let him go?”

“I’m no murderer.”

“Not yet but you will be soon.”

I ignored him and heard a rustle behind me. I snapped around. The other two jackasses were getting weapons. There was some garbage at the end of the alley. One of the guys got a rusty metal pipe; the other grabbed a wooden board with a few nails. I groaned. Why couldn’t they be scared little pricks and try to run like their friend? I left the guy with the knife gasping on the ground and turned to his friends. They started slowly down the alley, moving as two, trying to get some kind of position on me to attack.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. The voice that came out of my mouth was both feminine and mechanical at the same time.

“You fucked up Jose, you Robo Bitch” said the one with the pipe.

Clearly, trying to talk sense into them wasn’t going to work.

Suddenly the little display from before snapped up and both their bodies seemed to go transparent. Their vitals hopped up onto my displays a second later. Then my vision shifted to their weapons, seeming to scan them as well. More strange words scrolled across my display, telling me the odds of those two things being effective on me. Apparently, neither was really good in their favor. I looked around the alley, scanning that as well. How did I know that’s what I was doing? I’m not sure but somehow everything made sense to me. It was like I was connected to this armor somehow and I knew everything about it.

“We’re symbiotic now, you and I are One.”

“You keep saying that, but what does that mean, exactly.”

“I do not have to explain anything to you, human.”

I groaned. I didn’t have time to argue with whatever it was inside my head. The two jerks chose that time to attack, too. They came at me together, which was their first mistake. Though I now had semi-control over my body, my actions were hardly the work of me alone. I lashed out at the closest assailant first, which happened to be the one with the metal pipe. He tried to bring it down on my head but I now seemed to possess lightning fast reflexes. I threw my arm up, blocking the blow. When the pipe hit my arm, I didn’t even feel it. I swung forward with my free hand, balling it into a fist and hitting the bastard dead center, slamming full force into his solar plexus. What’s a solar plexus; I have no idea. But whatever it was, the blow I gave him knocked the wind out of him. He stumbled back, dropping the pipe.

His friend came at me with the board. I lashed out with a foot, catching him in the gut. When he stumbled back, I spun around, punching him in the face. There were a lot of bones that cracked when my fist collided. He fell backwards too but he didn’t let go of his weapon. He ended up on his butt in a daze. It was enough time for the pipe wielder to recover and grab his weapon. He swung it at me again. I snapped in that direction and went on the defensive again. I grabbed the pipe. I know it was rusty but what happened next was inhumanly possible. I squeezed the pipe, the metal actually crumbled in my hand. It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.

His eyes were as wide as mine. He let go of the pipe and I tossed it aside. He stumbled backwards but I lashed forward again, grabbing his shirtfront. I raised him a good foot off the ground, holding him with one hand.

‘You ready to give up this foolish endeavor?”

He nodded his head. I held onto him for a few seconds longer then I spun around and threw him into his friend. Both of them went crashing to the ground. I made my way over to them, trying to see if there was something in my arsenal that could subdue them when I heard the sirens. Sure, the police come when I’m no longer in trouble. The sirens were close, too close for my comfort. I turned and saw a police car pull up in front of the alley. Shit, they were a lot closer than I thought. Two cops got out and drew their guns as soon as they saw me. I didn’t even know what I looked like but judging by the reactions I was getting so far, I was probably not a looker.

“Freeze” shouted one of them as they made their way down the alley. “Put your hands over your head and get on the ground.”

“We need to immobilize those gentlemen if we wish to escape.”

“They’re cops, they’re the good guys.”

“They are pointing primitive projectile weapons at us. I cannot allow that.”

“I’m not hurting cops.”

“You won’t have to.”

I lost control of my body again. I found myself slowing, walking toward the police officers, a slave to my own movements. I tried to fight it but Khaji Da was in control again. The stupid bastard hijacked me and now he was going to turn me into something I wasn’t. I screamed in my head but the laughing was back. My docile pounding began again and this time it wasn’t nearly as strong. I can’t do this, I can’t hurt them. I tried to force this thought at Khaji but it was ignoring me. So I tried something else. This is my body and that meant that this was my suit as well. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. It didn’t take long to figure things out.

Though Khaji was in control at the moment, he seemed to be able to only control one function at a time. Which left the others at my disposal? There were so many to choose from, most of them way over my head. But there was one that jumped out above all the others: flight. I centered everything I had on it, trying to bring it up. I opened my eyes and a new screen appeared, showing a little schematic of a figure with what appeared to be metallic bug wings springing from its back. You’ve got to be kidding me. I groaned and concentrated as hard as I could on the little figure.

I felt something behind me. There was a whooshing sound, which I knew to be my wings unfolding behind me. I concentrated even harder, willing my mind: Up.

“What are you doing, human?”

“Changing the game.”

The police officers stepped back slightly. I stepped forward, bent at the knees and jumped into the air. As soon as I got about ten feet off the ground, the wings did the rest. I skyrocketed out of the alley, up over all the buildings on the street and zipped off toward the direction of home, hoping I’d get back in time before my family got home from church.

____________________________________

I landed on a roof a few blocks over, still quite a distance from my house. I could actually see my block, with all the houses lined in a row. There were twelve houses on my street, six on each side. There were only four blocks in this part of town that had houses at all and most of them were in worse shape than mine. Our street was the best one of the lot, because of my neighbors. We didn’t live next to drug dealers or rapists. There was a guy a couple of houses down from Paco who might have been a thief but he was eighty and long since retired.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention away from my street. What I needed to find was the church. It was easy to spot because of the tall steeple on top. It was the only Catholic church for a couple of miles. On the rooftop, I saw the spires of the others; the closest one looked like a toy. Then there were the buildings of San Francisco and the famous bridge off in the distance. It was kind of funny; I’d lived here for seven months now and had yet to drive across it once. My father said it was nothing important but I still wanted to do it. Paco and Brenda said it was the coolest thing in the world, which only made me more jealous. I forgot about the bridge for a moment though and continued to look at our little church. It was called St. Patrick’s, I’m sure there are a lot of those around. I scanned the parking lot, amazed that my new blue vision seemed to be able to zoom in. I searched the cars, looking for my mother’s Prius. They didn’t drive the truck to church because there wasn’t enough room for everyone. It didn’t take me long to find the car, it was parked farther from the building than the rest. My father had this thing about not parking near other cars, I’m not sure why.

I wonder what time it is. As soon as the thought left my head, a small digital clock appeared to the left of my vision. The glowing numbers told me it was about eleven fifteen, which meant I had some time before I needed to get home. I sighed, dropping down to sit on the edge of the building. It gave me ample time to figure everything out. The first question was probably the biggest: What the hell was happening to me. The others were just as important but the first one was the one I really wanted answered.

“So start talking.”

“You are under the impression that I would willingly give you information?”

“You’re the bad ass thing that got me into this mess, so yes, you’re going to start answering some of my questions.”

“And if I refuse?”

He called my bluff. I had no idea what I was going to do. If he was right and we really were one then there wasn’t much I could do. I didn’t really want to do anything to harm him because it would harm me too. God that’s annoying. Not that I actually knew who or what he really was. I didn’t even know where he came from.

“Well, that one is rather obvious”. He actually laughed. “Do you remember that blue, scarab shaped stone you found in the trash?”

Oh my God, how was that even possible? “You’re the stone?”

“It's not really a stone. I am a Blue Scarab, created by the Reach as an Infiltrator, sent to your world to infiltrate your society and prepare you for conquest.”

“You’re an alien?”

He sighed. “I am an artificial construct.”

“But you were created by aliens?”

“The Reach are far beyond your description of an alien. I have studied your world for centuries; I have seen your modern societies rise and fall. This one that you are so proud of is not that different from the others. For eons I have watched your pitiful race and when the Reach arrives, you will all be destroyed in a matter of seconds.”

“You’ve been here for eons?” This time I laughed. “Dude, you’ve been hosed. They sent you on a bogus mission. If you’ve been here so long, how come these great space invaders haven’t arrived yet?”

I don’t think he liked being laughed at. One of my hands flew up and smacked me in the face. This time he laughed.
“The Reach will come and when they do you will be the first to bow down to them.”

“I’m not bowing to anyone.”

“You are an Agent of the Reach now; you will not be able to refuse.”

“You wait and see.”

I think I pissed him off. I felt my hand beginning to move again but this time I stopped it. I screamed as loud as I could in my head, forcing my arm back under my control. I groaned. This was getting really tedious. I couldn’t live like this, having this guy in control whenever he damn well pleased. I knew to do something; I need to find a way to override this bastard.

“There is no way. We are One; you do not control this body anymore. It is mine to do with as I please."

I smirked. “If that’s the case then why haven’t you taken complete control of it yet?”

He was silent for a few seconds. His silence was enough. When he finally answered, I knew I had him beat. “I am not accustomed to such a young form. My former hosts were much older than you; you are difficult to get a grasp on.”

I laughed. “In other words, you can’t.”

“There is no can’t in the Reach vocabulary. I will take control of this body and when I do, you will be a slave to my power.”

“Why can’t you just admit that I’ve got you beat and move on?”

“The Reach cannot be defeated.”

“You’re not of the Reach anymore. They abandoned you years ago. If you’re attached to me than you are of the humans. Does that compute?”

Khaji Da said nothing. I sat and waited for his response but it never came. Finally some peace and quiet. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, my blue vision continued to scan the area. Damn, I forgot to ask about this stupid suit thingy. I grabbed the back of my head, where I knew I probably looked like some dork in a Halloween mask. I tried to find a seam, anything that might be able to help me pull this stupid thing off my head. But there was nothing. In fact, when I started to tug back there it started to hurt. You’ve got to be kidding me. I switched targets and tried to pull what I thought were gloves from my fingers. But as soon as I started tugging on them, it was like trying to rip skin from my body. Is this thing a part of me? How the hell do I get it off? As soon as I thought about it, a display screen popped up in front of my eyes and words scrolled across it. I sighed; it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

I took a deep breath and spoke the words: “Defensive armor, deactivate.”

It felt like a giant band-aid being torn from my body. I screamed out as the armor began to liquefy on my skin, crawling away from my body. I looked at my hands and watched as he blue and black armor turned into ooze and slowly started seeping up my arms. I looked at my chest and it was doing the same, moving away from my body. All of it seemed to be crawling toward my back as if there was a point of origin there. I noticed something else too. As soon as the armor pulled away from parts of my skin, my clothes were nowhere to be seen. I gasped when I saw my thin hairless legs. Then when I looked at my bellybutton, there was a girl’s navel staring back at me. It wasn’t until I saw down below and my naked breasts that I knew my life was over.

Oh, God, I’m a girl. Before I just looked like one but now, it was everything.

The armor finished oozing off the rest of my body. There was a sharp pain in the middle of my back and then nothing. I fell to my knees, burying my head in my hands. I started to sob for my lost manhood. How was this even possible? I cried for the longest time, the tears wouldn’t stop coming. After a while, I wasn’t even sure what I was crying for anymore.

“There is no turning back. You can mourn what you have lost but you can never get it back.”

“What the fuck do you know about it?”

“More than you think.”

I got to my feet, angry at this thing. It did this to me and yet it seemed to think comforting me would help. I didn’t want Its pity, I wanted my old life back. I took a step forward, my new assets swaying with me as I did. I looked down and groaned. Why were they so big? Ok, maybe they weren’t ginormous but they were a lot bigger than I wanted them to be. Hell, I wanted them to be as flat as a board and nonexistent. But these puppies had to be at least a C. I reached up and clasped them, disgusted by them. Yet there was something else too. They were a lot heavier than I thought and they were so warm. I never thought in a million years that the first pair of breasts I held would be my own. They were even bigger than Brenda’s.

I smiled at that. Then I groaned. You’re not supposed to be smiling about those things.

“Your mind will adjust to your new form. You may not accept the change but very soon it will not feel foreign to you.”

“Why the hell did you do this to me?”

“As I said before, it is what you wanted.”

“I don’t want to be a girl.”

“Are we to have this conversation again? I have recorded the previous one; do you wish me to replay it back so you can compare your answers?”

“Go to hell.”

“That is metaphysically impossible, for such a place needs to…”

I ignored him, droning him out by humming as loud as I could in my head. It seemed to work because his annoying voice disappeared from my thoughts. I needed time to think on my own. I let go of my breasts, trying not to dwell on them and took a look at my surroundings. I was on a roof; the building was one of the older ones, a couple of stories. I walked to the edge and looked below. There was an alley between it and the one next to it. I looked across and the gap wasn’t too bad. There was no way I was going to jump it, though. I looked around the rest of the roof, looking for a way down. Most places had a roof access stairwell or a hatch or something. This one didn’t have any of those things. How could they not have a hatch or something?

The only thing I saw that might look like a way down was a skylight. I groaned and walked over. When I looked through the dirty glass, I saw a lot of wooden crates below. I must be on top of a storage warehouse of some kind. My eyes suddenly stung and my vision went blue. It scared me at first but I got accustomed quickly. It was a bit of a shock though. Suddenly the blue went into zoom mode and I was able to see everything in the warehouse below. A bunch of statistics started scrolling across my vision. Most of it was a bunch of crap. The boxes contained medical supplies, nothing really important. It was kind of freaky that my eyes changed like this though. I looked around the rest of the roof, trying to see if there was something I missed.

I spotted the top of a metal ladder. I walked over slowly and looked down. It led down the back of the building, to another alley, this one bigger than the others. I took a deep breath and the blue vision disappeared. How cool was it that I was able to do that? I started walking toward the ladder but stopped as soon as I reached it. I guess I was in such awe that I forgot one very important little thing. I looked down and blushed. I was naked. There was no way I was walking around the streets with absolutely nothing on.

“You should have taken those clothes that nice lady picked out for you.”

“Shut up. This is all your fault you know.”

“I hardly see how that is the case.”

“You’re the one who did this to me.”

“You’re the one who wanted it.”

“So you say.”

I groaned. There was no point in arguing with him. I took a deep breath and tried to think of options. But there were no options. It was either walk home naked or walk home naked. I sighed; clearly, whoever designed that suit didn’t factor clothes into the equation. How the hell was I supposed to get home now?

“Perhaps I can help,” said Khaji.

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I can synthesize apparel for you. It will not be the same as your normal garments but it will be enough to fool those you might be embarrassed about seeing you in the nude.”

“You can make clothes?”

“Indeed.”

Cool. Of all the Alien devices, I found the Swiss army knife. “Ok, make me some clothes. But nothing too girly or I’ll jump off this building.”

“That would be counterproductive to both our well beings.”

“Just make me some clothes.”

My whole body started tingle. Then the ooze started to rise again. I could feel it seeping out my back this time. It slowly started to crawl across my skin again, like little ants. I closed my eyes; I didn’t want to see what it was doing. It didn’t take long this time. When I opened my eyes again I was shocked, I was fully clothed. Khaji took my suggestion and went with it, which made me sigh. I looked down. I was wearing a pair of tight girly jeans, white sneakers and light blue top. I lifted the top and peered inside; I was even wearing a bra. I touched the clothes, surprised that they felt real. It was the most amazing thing in the world.

“You are satisfied?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I made my way to the ladder and started down it as fast as I could. If I could time things right, I might be able to double back, get my bike and make it home before them. Then I had some serious explaining to do.

____________________________________

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I was standing at the end of the street, trying as I might to get to Mario’s and my bike. But unfortunately for me there was a huge crowd filling most of the street. I tried to see over a lot of the heads but I was still too short. Apparently, changing genders didn’t mean growing any taller. Which kind of sucked especially seeing as there seemed to be something crazy going on up ahead. There were police cars and at least two news vans. I groaned because I had a pretty good idea. There was an Asian reporter interviewing a familiar looking police officer. I say familiar looking because he was one of the ones who tried to apprehend me in the alley. I took a deep breath and started pushing my way through the crowd. Being short was only good for one thing and that was shoving my way into small places. I was able to push and weave my way to the front of the action.

There was a yellow tape border, cutting off the rest of the road from exactly where I needed to go. The tape was actually attached to the bike rack and stretched across the road to the bike rack on the other side of the street. There were five officers pulling crowd control. The reporter and the officer were talking about ten feet from me. I ignored them for a second and looked at my bike. It was still there, thank God. I looked past it to an ambulance that I couldn’t see from the back of the group. Two paramedics were coming out of the alley carrying a stretcher. Strapped to it was another familiar face, it was the goon with the knife. I didn’t mess him up that much, did I?

“We fractured four of his ribs, broke his wrist and gave him a concussion. He will survive his injuries.”

I ignored the annoyance and looked for the others. They were already in the back of a squad car; they were bandaged but looked OK otherwise. One of them caught sight of me, his eyes widened and then there was a severe look of fear on his face. I slipped into the crowd and moved a few people over, coming up closer to the reporter and the cop. Apparently, I came on in the beginning of their conversation, which was good because I was curious to what they had to say.

“This is Tana Moon, reporting live from the scene” She had a big smile. She turned to the officer. “Now Officer Harris, can you tell me in your own words what exactly happened?”

“My partner and I responded to a disturbance at Mario’s. When we got there, we saw this Blue Bug Girl, like a giant beetle, attacking these three punks. We tried to apprehend her but she flew away.”

“Two of the three attacked by this Blue Beetle person suffered minor injuries while the third is being taken to Star City General in serious condition. The whereabouts of this Blue Beetle are still unknown.”

“ But, this reporter will stop at nothing to find out the truth, this is Tana Moon, for KGBS, signing off.”

She gave the signal to her cameraman and her broadcast was over.

I didn’t wait around to see what she planned to do next. I slipped back into the crowd and pushed my way to the back of it. I hated to think that my bike was lost but there was no way I was getting it in this media frenzy. Besides, I didn’t want to stick around long enough for one of those goons to see me again and point me out to the crowd. I slumped my shoulders and started walking away. I got about ten feet when I heard someone shout at me. At first, I was ready to bolt but then I recognized Mario’s voice.

“It is you, Principessa” He came huffing over. “You leave without your bike.”

I smiled at him. “I don’t see how I’ll be able to get it with that circus.”

“Tell you what. I get it for you and keep in my shop. You come back tomorrow and pick it up.”

I smiled and nodded. I think that made him happy. He turned and went back into the crowd. I let out a deep sigh. That was too close.

“You should be more careful.”

“You should mind your own business."

I continued to walk away. I was now going to be late but I suppose that didn’t matter now anyway. I still had no idea how I was going to explain to my parents that their son was now their daughter. I’m so screwed. I groaned and started for the corner. I got about ten feet away when a cold chill went down my spine. I stopped and snapped around, my eyes narrowing. I’m not sure what it was but it felt like someone was watching me. My blue vision snapped up and I scanned the crowd. Everyone suddenly went infrared which was the coolest thing in the world. Most of the people seemed harmless until I got to a weird girl in black. She had pale skin and wore dark sunglasses. She came up the same heat signature as the others but there was something off about her.

Our eyes locked and then she seemed to vanish into the crowd.

“We must go now. There will be more soon.”

“More what?”

“I am not sure but I do not like the feel of her. She is not human.”

“What is she?”

“You let me worry about that.”

I stared into the crowd but the girl was long gone. My blue vision faded away but I continued to stare for a few seconds anyway. When I was finally satisfied that no one was watching me, I turned and went around the corner. I looked at my wrist, groaning because I wasn’t wearing a watch. Suddenly one appeared and I looked at the time. It was ten to twelve, I was so dead. I took a deep breath and started running as fast as I could toward home.