Marked Target ~ Chapter One ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: We meet "Lex" and get a window into his world. Something sinister is afoot, though. Can "The Animal" handle it?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. Pic credit goes to the amazingly talented Danni Shinya Luo.

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Chapter One:

CRACK! I could feel three vertebrae in my neck pop into place. I’d been meaning to get that adjusted. This guy had done me a favor. My body reeled back from the force of the blow and I could still feel the imprint of his fist on the left side of my jaw. This guy definitely had some skills. He was fighting in a style that I wasn’t familiar with. Usually in these arenas, you’d run into the same schmucks peddling some obscure form of Tae Kwon Do or Americanized Karate. This guy pulled something Mongolian on me, or something. It had to be from a region I wasn’t familiar with. Shifu had always taught me to “expect the unexpected”. Well, today was the epitome of that.

I shook the cloud from my brain, stepped into my stance, brought my guard up, and waited for the guy’s next move. The thing that was throwing me off was it seemed like the guy idolized Muhammad Ali, or something. He was bouncing around, hands to his sides, and bobbing all over the mat. His style was hard to pin down. Then, as he moved, time seemed to slow to a crawl. I was watching him very carefully. I might take another hit, but I was determined to decipher his technique. He bounced at me, coming within striking range. In the next split second, he dropped into a stance. It was obscure, no doubt about it. Just before he brought his right foot into the air for another power attack, I knew exactly what he was using. It wasn’t Mongolian. It was Cambodian--Pradal serey, a from of “free boxing”. I had him, now.

As he launched his leg into the air, I readied my body for an impact. Halfway through his kick, I leaned into it, grabbed his foot with my left, jabbed my right elbow into his thigh, followed through with another right elbow jab into his ribs, and just for effect I swung my left foot over my head to smack him in the face. Needless to say, he went down hard. I rolled with the momentum over his limp form, onto the mat, and was on my feet again just behind him in a matter of seconds. As a precaution, I fell into stance once more and waited for either the referee to intervene or the guy to get back up. Seconds ticked by that felt like minutes. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, the heaviness of my labored breathing, and the blood in my ears. In the background, there was a thunderous cheering that seemed so far away and an announcer’s voice amplified over the P.A. system that was barely audible to me. I was in my zone and time stood still.

The guy writhed on the ground for a few moments. He must have felt like he’d been hit by a train. My leg muscles were pretty strong and they had a tendency of making my arms feel a little weak by comparison. That’s what my opponents always tried to exploit, my upper body, but what I lacked in strength was made up with speed. Exploiting my weakness didn’t work for the guy on the mat, right now. As time began to catch up with me, the referee darted over to the guy and the crowd came to full volume. I just stood there breathing while my opponent was examined. It looked as though I’d connected with his nose, which knocked him out, and there was a little blood streaming out of his nostrils. A moment later, the referee looked up and shook his head. He pointed behind himself with his thumb out.

“It looks like we have a T-K-O, ladies and gentlemen!” The announcer yelled into his microphone. The referee strode over to me as they opened up the cage doors and the guy’s team rushed in to tend to him, followed closely by the league medic. Grabbing my wrist, the referee raised my arm as the announcer continued, “Your Round Three exhibition champion, Lawrence ‘The Animal’ McKinley!” He emphasized my nickname a bit too much, but it got the crowd to roar about as much as fifteen hundred people could. I hated how they used my full name, though. They were insistent. “He’ll now move on to Round Four of the tournament!”

The referee let my arm go and it swung limp to my side. I swear I could have collapsed right there. Sweat was dripping from nearly every pore in my body and there was a mild taste of blood in my mouth from when he’d hit me square in the face during the third round. I was going to feel that in the morning, among other things. Not to mention, I’d have to explain the fat lip to my boss. It was amazing that the both of us managed to stay on our feet for eight rounds. At the end, he was on the ground and I really felt like joining him. Instead, I lumbered out of the octagonal cage to meet with my trainer, who showered me with praise, while I continued lumbering toward the locker room. Having fought twice, I was done for the night.

If my parents could see me now, there would likely be several profanities between us. I was fully aware that they didn’t approve. Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, was not something one got into on a whim. It takes dedication, resolve, and a willingness to get your ass handed to you on occasion. Some would look at me strangely if I told them this was something I did for fun. I was an Amateur fighter. The paycheck was slim, but it bought me some pretty nice toys to have around the house. My real job was a lot less exciting. When you program lines of code all day, it’s nice to have a hobby.

“You did real good out there, kid.” The gruff voice of my trainer gushed. “No one knew he was going to pull that Cambodian crap on you, not even me.”

A chuckle escaped my swollen lip. “Yea, it was a doozy. I got him, though. That’s what counts.”

“Sure did.” We had arrived at the locker room door. “Are you gonna make it to the showers or should I fetch a cane?”

Another chuckle. “I’m good, Mad Dog.”

They called me “The Animal” and all the fighters called him “Mad Dog”. His real name was Robert “Bob” Strazinsky, but he’d been in the business so long that nobody but his own family remembered that. Rumor had it that he trained boxers before the rise of MMA, but they were mostly unfounded. I didn’t care one way or the other. He was damn good at what he did.

“Well, all right, then. Hit the showers and we’ll go over some things after you get off work on Monday. Enjoy the weekend. You’ve earned it.”

“Thanks.” I gave him a wink as I put my weight into opening the door. He wandered off down the hall, headed God only knows where.

Entering the locker room, all I could really hear was the sounds of guys being guys. A couple were showering and mocking each other for the losses they took tonight. A couple more were horsing around, having some towel fight. Most of the rest were talking about what wounds were going to cause scars that their girlfriends would enjoy in various stages of undress, save for one. Mike “Brickhouse” Deutsch looked up with a surprised expression.

“Damn, Lex! If I didn’t know better, I’d be offering to buy you dinner–no shower needed.” Yep, Mike was gay, but nobody cared. He could probably kick their ass, anyway. He was a heavy weight and earned his name. He was built “like a brick shithouse”.

“Even with my lip all puffy and bloodied? Aww, you’re too kind.” We shared a good laugh as I stumbled over to my locker and started stripping off my gloves. The good thing about there being only twenty-three of us: Key Arena had plenty of lockers.

Mike shook his head. “No way. It’s kind of like lipstick. That shade suits you.” He winked.

I threw a towel at him. Having to get a look at the damage, I trudged over to full-length mirror on the far wall. As I stepped forward and my reflection came back to me, I started turning different parts of my body toward it, inspecting the damage. Beyond bumps, bruises, and a couple of scrapes, I was perfectly fine. I’d be sore in the morning, but I’d live. It was always a little strange to me that my short brown hair nearly always looked black when it was wet. Tonight was no exception. Sweat had spread through it and I looked like I was back in high school with my hardcore Goth habit of dying my hair and wearing makeup. My gray eyes beheld the rest of my form. Earlier in the night, I had been measured at five feet, ten inches. My weight was one hundred and seventy-eight pounds, landing me firmly and comfortably in the welterweight division. Somebody had once compared me to Brendan Fraser when he did that George of the Jungle movie and I wanted to pound their face into the concrete. However, taking a look at myself now, that’s kinda who I looked like. My girlfriend liked it, so I didn’t care.

Mike came up behind me. “Well, pretty boy, checking out the battle scars?”

“Yea, gotta make sure the little woman isn’t going to freak out, too much.” I smirked at him.

He instantly rolled his eyes. “Oi, you guys and the women-folk. I don’t know how you straight boys can handle them.”

“We handle them about as well as you handle a dick in your ass!” One guy shouted from across the room.

Both Mike and I straightened up, turned to him, and looked as imposing as possible. He was a featherweight. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the two of us. I didn’t notice then, but half the locker room also stood up, coming to Mike’s defense. The kid backed down pretty quickly. He was a rookie. He’d learn.

“You wanna insult the Brickhouse, you gotta deal with all of us, pip-squeak. Learn your place, rookie!” The closest guy bellowed and threw a towel at the kid.

Male bravado at its finest.

Over the course of the next hour, I managed to get a shower in and dressed back into my street clothes. I couldn’t head back to my place smelling like a men’s locker room. There was a woman there and she wouldn’t approve.

Unlocking the door and stepping into my apartment with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, whatever sound there was immediately silenced. The lithe form of my girlfriend, Julia, slid itself off the couch. A smile crossed my face as I took in her auburn hair, milk chocolate eyes, her sleek frame, and her athletic form. She nearly purred until she got a good look at me. Then, she stopped dead in her tracks, a look of shock crossed her face, and her hands jumped to her mouth. Great, she was worried and I wasn’t going to hear the end of it.

Her face became stern and her hands moved to her hips. “Lawrence Alexander McKinley, what the hell have you done to yourself?!”

Great. All three names. I was screwed. ‘Better get this right, Lex.’ I told myself. “Hey, babe. I didn’t do it to myself. You should see the other guy.”

Was there a whimper that just escaped her lips? She rushed over and wrapped her arms around me. It was the best feeling all night. I winced when she hit a tender spot, though. “I don’t get why you have to do that fighting. What do you have to prove?”

The duffel bag dropped to the floor as I wrapped my arms around her, reciprocating the embrace. She stood high enough that all she had to do was turn her head to the side and it was on my chest. “It’s really not about proving anything, Jules. We’ve discussed this, remember?” Maybe there was something I had to prove, but I wasn’t going to tell her. I’d buried that part of myself several years ago.

She looked up and I could see the worry in her eyes. “Yes, but I’d like to have one Friday night where I’m not sitting around the house, waiting for my man to come home, only to find that he’s gone and gotten himself beaten to a pulp!”

A nod was the only movement my head would allow. “Okay, that’s fair. Good news, though: I made it to Round Four, the semi-finals. They’re about six weeks away.”

“So, we can actually get out to a club where you take me dancing?” Her eyes pleaded. I melted every time she looked at me like that.

A smirk creased my lips. “As long as you’re wearing that slinky dress you’ve got hidden in the back of the closet.”

She nearly purred and her eyes seemed to say ‘yes’. “Maybe.”

I kissed her forehead as we embraced once more. There wasn’t really anything that would make our relationship much better. We’d been dating for over a year, moved in together about six months ago, and are playing with the idea of getting married. Being a modern woman, she had some reservations about the idea. I’d like the better tax breaks, myself. I know, we’re so unromantic. After a few minutes, we released the embrace and moved over to the couch where she was watching a movie, apparently. I was happy to be able to relax, but she had other ideas. Running to the bathroom, gathering up some cotton balls and the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, she decided now was the time to play nursemaid. It stung like a bitch, but I was happy to know she cared.

The binoculars focused, bringing the flickering blue light in the apartment on the seventh floor into view. Zooming in brought a man and a woman into view. The man lounged on the couch while the woman straddled him and appeared to be tending a wound on his lip. The binoculars lowered and a man glanced over at his partner in the passenger seat. ‘Why do I always get stuck with the white guy,’ He thought to himself.

“What have we got?” His deep baritone voice asked the wiry white guy.

“Well, it’s confirmed to be ‘X’ 23, alright.” The tenor voice stated.

The black man in the leather trenchcoat sitting in the driver’s seat raised an eyebrow. “X-23?”

The white guy looked unsure of himself. “You know… ‘target’ number twenty-three? ‘X’ marks the spot?”

The black man rolled his eyes. “Don’t get cute. Just answer the question.”

The white guy sighed, seeming deflated. “Fine. He’s the one. We got the blip when he had his medical exam two days ago. Blood samples confirm it. He’s meta.”

Using the binoculars to glance up at the apartment once more, the black man pursed his lips. “He’s gonna be a hard one to take in.”

The white guy scoffed. “You think so? Did you see what he did to those guys, tonight? I’m just glad I’m not ‘the muscle’.”

“Yeah. Hang tight and keep an eye on him. I’m gonna call the boss.”

Two Weeks Later

Pivoting 90-degrees on my left foot and planting my right foot firmly right next to it, I bowed in deep respect to the man across from me with right fist encased in my left hand. He was in his mid to late 50’s, Asian, and pretty built for an older guy. Looking at him was like looking at Jackie Chan: you’d never know that the guy could physically own you in a matter of seconds, were you to actually fight him. To me, he was Shifu. To the world, he was Mr. Xiao Min, owner of a Shaolin-style Kung Fu academy in the International District–called “Hao Lai” academy, but I don’t know what that means. We had been practicing our taolu, or “form”, in a side-by-side matter for the past hour or so. He was always a stickler for getting the movements absolutely correct and had a habit of beating me with a gun, the Chinese version of a quarterstaff, if I moved incorrectly. I had been his student since I found the place during my sophomore year at the University of Washington, so he didn’t beat me with a stick as much anymore. He returned the bow and motioned for me to sit with him. Like an obedient student, I followed his request.

Once we were both sitting like our legs had become pretzels, he closed his eyes and began methodically breathing in and out. Following his example, I began to do the same thing. He was definitely a strange one, having grown up in Tibet, but I learned long ago that there was a method to his madness if you had the patience get him talking. We stayed like that for several minutes. In fact, I was still doing it when he stopped and looked at me.

“Why do you fight in those tournaments, Lewen?” He calmly asked me, using the name in Chinese he had given me. It always sounded like “luh-when?” to me. A little more than six years in his tutelage and I still didn’t speak much Chinese at all.

He had caught me by surprise. Immediately, all breath left me and my eyes fluttered open. He had never asked me this question before. “Many pardons, Shifu, but why do you ask?”

He smirked. “You always answer questions with another question or are you avoiding the question?”

A sigh escaped my lips. “No, Shifu, I am not dodging the question. It caught me by surprise, is all.”

He seemed to look down his nose at me. “Which is why you end up with so many scrapes, bruises, and contusions after battle. Do I not always stress that one must expect the unexpected, in battle as in life?”

“Yes, Shifu.” My head nodded on it’s own. “The truth is that I’m not really sure. For the glory? Not really. The fights don’t really mean that much to me. A test of skill? Maybe a little. In fact, my girlfriend asked me a couple of weeks ago about whether I’m trying to prove something. I told her ‘no’, but my heart is torn over that question.”

“Why do you think your heart is torn so?”

My shoulders shrugged. “I cannot tell you, Shifu, because I do not know, myself.”

He smiled. “Ah, and that is the heart of the matter. People are never at war with people. We do not wage battle with our opponents, Lewen. We battle with ourselves. To know battle is to know ourselves. If there is one thing you can take to your grave after I am long gone and your studies are finished, that is the one.” He stood once more. “That will be enough, for now, Lewen. Take the wisdom I have given you, meditate, and return to me when you have answered my question.”

I mirrored when he stood. Now, I was bowing again. “Yes, Shifu. I will do as you ask.”

“Yes, I’m outside the dojo,” The white guy stated into the phone with an annoyed tone. “Do they actually call them that in China?”

“No, 'dojo' is a Japanese word, you idiot!” The non-descript male voice on the other end chided him. “Has he come out, yet?”

“No, the guy’s been in there for a couple hours, I think. I’ve taken Karate and classes only last about 30 to 45 minutes. What the hell is he doing in two hours? Besides that, why does he have to do it so friggin’ early in the morning?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just follow him. You overheard him and his harlot talking about going out to some club, didn’t you?”

“Yea, the other night. You want us to get the team and take him then?”

“Why do you think I asked you about it?” There was a ‘bang’ on the other end and the man could be heard screaming, though barely audible and rather distant. “Why do you have me working with such ingrates?!”

A moment later, after shuffling came over the line, a female voice could be heard. “Yes, assemble the team and take him tonight. We’ve got a lot riding on this. Do not screw this up for me!”

There is nothing in this world, besides Julia, that I love more than my job. Back when I was a junior in college, they were trying to update the Havoc physics engine. If you’ve played any video game in the past seven years, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, they were going to do a broad-base upgrade to it and they had this little contest going. They were looking for one solution to some of the clipping issues that many of the models had–“clipping” is when supposedly ‘solid’ objects in three-dimensional spaces (games) pass right through other supposedly solid objects. I found out about it through Kotaku, a gaming news/blog site. If you don’t know about it, you’re not a gamer. Anyway, I set my mind on solving the problem. It took me about three months to come up with it, but when I finally had it I couldn’t have been more happy. Exactly sixty-three lines of code won me $2,500 and a quaint nod from one of the coolest developers in the industry. That’s how I got my job at Orion Software. They were local and looking for talent. They were willing to wait for me to graduate, too. I’ve been here ever since.

Most developers in the industry really take care of their employees and Orion is no different. I have my own little office, but most of us had at least a nice, decked out cubicle. They’re not like typical cubicles that corporate robots have. The things were spacious enough to lie down to sleep in and you could communicate with other people in your department with eye contact, but you had your own area. My office was pretty cool, though. I had a door with windows and the wall next to it was all glass, but the door was usually open. The back wall was a nicely sized window with a view of Redmond and Microsoft somewhere off in the distance. There was a nice L-shaped desk in the middle. One quirk about game developers, though? We’re all geeks. My office was decked out in posters of my favorite games (even if they were from other developers) and a couple of my new favorite soccer team (Football Club to Europeans), the Seattle Sounders. I played in high school, so it was nice to have a local team to cheer for. My desk was littered with action figures and statuettes, my favorite being the female Bounty Hunter, Shae Vizla, from BioWare’s upcoming massively multiplayer online game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. She was hot and it made a nice centerpiece, right beside my framed photograph of Julia.

Being the Junior Lead World Designer had its perks, but also some setbacks. I was second-in-command, directly under the Senior Lead World Designer. It was nice to have a little team under me, but the job still came with quite a few challenges. Have you ever tried plugging in code to tell the graphics engine how grass moves in the wind? Didn’t think so. Sometimes, it was pretty rewarding. Other times, you wanted to pull your hair out. We’d taken four games to release, so far, but they were minor little dungeon crawlers that we published through Xbox LIVE Arcade and Playstation Network. We don’t do Wii games. Nintendo hates third-party developers, for some odd reason. Now, though, we were working on our “Triple-A” big release. I won’t spoil the surprise.

Here I was, plugging away in my coding software so that individual blades moved independently, when a knock came to my door. I finished one more line, then glanced up to take in the visage of Rachel Maddingly, one of our most talented artists in the concept art department. She reminded me a lot of Julia. She had mouse brown hair, cool brown eyes, and a great figure she rarely showed off. One cool thing is that she had black plastic-framed glasses that looked like Lisa Lobe used to wear, back in the 90’s. Then, she was a fashion pioneer. Now, they were the style. Apparently, she was coming in to show me the latest designs for one of our final levels, but she stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me with shock.

I gave her a puzzled expression. “What? Do I have something hanging out of my nose?”

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Then, she shook her head. “Have you been working out? I mean, more than usual?”

Pausing to think for a moment, I let the air hang a bit. I had been doing more early morning sessions with Shifu and some late-night stamina building exorcises with “Mad Dog”, but not more than usual. I had semi-finals to worry about, after all. “Maybe a little, but not any weight lifting. Just more chi exorcises and some stamina stuff with ‘Mad Dog’. Why? I look different to you? My last fight didn’t rearrange my face too much, did it?”

She laughed at my sudden self-consciousness. “I dunno. You just look a little different, that’s all.” She brought the folder she was carrying to my desk and opened it up so I could see the work she’d been doing. Didn’t I mention the girl was seriously talented? She really blew me away. “Okay, so these need to go up to Barry, ASAP. But, don’t you do the pre-approvals?”

Taking in a waft of her perfume, I couldn’t help but smile. “Usually. I’ll take a more in-depth look at these. You know my initial impressions of your genius, already.”

Yes, she blushed nearly every time I mentioned that. “Thanks. I still think it’s funny, though.” She let out a giggle. “Barry and Larry.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “I’ve told you a million times: it’s Lex, not Larry. That name makes me sound like I’m forty, or something, but I’m only twenty-six.”

She continued her giggle. “I know, but I’ve gotta mess with you. It’s a prerequisite.”

Waving her off, I almost grumbled. “I’ll take a glance at these and get final approval from Barry. You go back to your desk and make more genius happen, okay?”

Another blush and she was walking out. “If you say so, boss.” I gotta say, I hated to see her go, but I loved watching her leave. Julia would kill me if she could read my lusty thoughts.

After letting a little sexual fantasy play out in my head, I glanced down over the designs. Rachel’s specialty was watercolors and it really showed. She’d painted several vistas that reminded me of the Norwegian Fjords and it was downright perfect for one of our final cinematics and much of the level that would be played. Saving my coding work, I carefully closed up Rachel’s portfolio and moved out of my office to go visit with Barry, the Senior Lead World Designer.

The night was starting to wane. Sure, the club was still packed, but that didn’t really mean anything. There were fewer on the dance floor than there had been earlier in the night. Of course, the DJ was trying his hardest to inspire someone, anyone. My arms were bent behind me, holding me up against the bar. Bringing the glass to my lips, I was nursing the last of a fantastic rendition of a Whiskey Sour. The bartender didn’t just have gorgeous breasts that she happy showed off in her corset, but she was amazingly talented with alcohol. It was almost frightening, frankly.

My eyes weren’t trained on her, though. They were trained on the dance floor. Julia was out there, working off the remainder of alcohol in her system. Her body had a movement to it that was absolutely entrancing. It helped that she was a dancer, by profession. Tonight, since we’d decided on one of my old haunting grounds at the nearby Goth club, she was dressed to the nines. She wore her amazing boots with a modest two-inch heel that reached up to her knees and had buckles all along her calves. Her legs were wrapped only in her fishnet stalkings. The modesty of her pelvic region was kept in check by a blood red skirt, with those wonderful cheerleader-style pleats in it. A black, studded belt held up the tempting garment. Her midriff was bare, displaying the tone and taught muscle structure of her abdomen while showing off her navel piercing with a ball on one end and a cute little pink flower on the other. Her top wasn’t much more than a black sports bra with metallic decorations on it. She had decided on fingerless gloves that reached toward her elbows, which was a nice touch. Her hair was free and loose. She’d done her makeup with dark eyeliner, lavender eyeshadow, and blood-red lips. My “little soldier” was already standing at attention before we left the apartment.

My outfit, however, was much less elaborate. I wore my black boots with buckles up the side, matching hers. My legs were covered in black leather pants and were likewise held up by a belt with a silver skull belt buckle. The one thing we both really liked was my black T-shirt with a Punisher logo screen-printed on it. It was my very favorite shirt. Over that, a long black trenchcoat finished it all off. I did do some touches with eyeliner and black lipstick. For all intents and purposes, I looked like Brandon Lee when he did The Crow, but without the white face. I thought I’d grown out of the look, but Julia seemed to approve.

Apparently finished dancing, Julia looked over at me and a sultry smile creased her lips. “Little Soldier” could not stand straighter if he tried; though, he was more than willing to try. Seductively, she sauntered over to me. Thankfully, I was standing with my legs apart because she slipped happily between them and leaned her body against mine. The smell of her perfume, her sweat, and something else I couldn’t really identify flooded my nostrils and I happy drank it in. An equally seductive smile creased my lips as she looked up at me.

“Having fun, dear?” I chuckled with my lips closed.

Her lips formed into a seductively cute pout. “Wasn’t having much fun without you there with me.”

I took another sip from my drink. “Well, can’t have this good booze going bad, you know that. Besides, I think I’m a little too far gone to be properly coordinated. You, on the other hand, do not seem to be having that problem.”

Smiling, she nibbled her lip. I loved it when she did that. Her head shook. “Nope, no problems at all. Are you saying you’re ready to go home, then?”

My head nodded, seemingly of its own volition. “I believe I am, Jules.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s just after 1 a.m. and I do have to work tomorrow.”

She sighed. “Yea, so do I. Being an adult really sucks, sometimes.”

Taking one last gulp to finish off the drink, I set the glass down at the bar. The gorgeous breasts of the bartender nodded to me along with her head. I returned my gaze the beautiful girl leaning on me. “That it does, honey. Shall we be off, then?”

Another shrug. “Yea, I guess.”

Kissing her on the forehead as she lifted off of me, I turned and began digging in my coat for a little cash. I kept a small wad in there for occasions like this. Pulling out a five, I waved to the bartender. “For you, Amy. Thanks for getting us good and drunk while enjoying the taste of it.”

She smiled as she filled a glass of draft beer. “No problem, Lex. See you next time.” She waved to Julia. “Later, Jules.”

Julia waved as I slipped my arm over her shoulders. My jacket would probably be laying over them before we got home. Seattle was chilly pretty much year round, but especially so in the middle of winter, like right now. As we sauntered across the floor towards the door, my earlier assessment of not having the where-with-all to actually dance was confirmed. I wobbled a little bit. Good thing we would be taking a cab home, tonight. We always planned for that while out drinking.

Stepping out into the night was something of a shock. The temperature difference between the interior of the club and the exterior of Seattle was rather large. Inside, it was bordering on 90-degrees. Outside, it couldn’t be more than 40-degrees. We were drunk, what did we care? I could feel her shiver slightly, but it wasn’t going to be a concern unless she mentioned it. The club was situated in an alley, which means the front door was more like a side door. I could hear the sounds of her heels hitting the asphalt reverberate off the wall of the building across the alley. We turned towards the nearest street.

What we beheld was very strange. There were four large men standing there, looking imposing. Something about the expression on their faces was telling me they were not there to exchange cookie recipes. My first thought: avoidance. Turning around, there were four more closing the distance from the other direction. Again, not here to sell Girl Scout cookies. I could hear Julia’s breath become labored and a small shriek leave her lips.

“Lex, what the hell is going on? I’m really scared!” She forcefully whispered.

Suddenly, I felt a lot more sober. “I don’t know. Stay behind me.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. McKinley.” Bellowed a baritone voice from the front group. “Come quietly and the girl leaves without a scratch. Make this difficult and she leaves less ‘intact’, if you catch my meaning.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I made myself clear, Mr. McKinley. Do as I ask or this is going to get messy.”

Julia looked up at me with panic in her eyes. With my eyes, I gestured to the trash bin across the way. She did as asked, bolting over and hiding near it. I lowered myself into a ready stance. If that’s what they wanted, they were going to get a fight.

The earlier speaker, a black man, shook his head. “Very well, then. We’ll do this the easy way.”

Out of nowhere, I felt as though a bee had stung my neck. It caught me off-guard and I cried out. My hand reached up to grab at it and found a small metallic device. I pulled it out of my neck and brought it forward. It was a dart. I didn’t know its purpose right off, but I’d seen enough movies that it eventually dawned on me that it was a tranquilizer dart. Shifu’s words echoed between my ears, again. While I’d been checking out the dart, the thugs had begun to advance on me. Again, I lowered into a stance and kept my attention on the ones flanking me as well as the ones in front. They closed on me quicker than anticipated.

Two of them dropped into a stance in front of me. Karate? Amateurs. One threw a kick, the other threw a punch. With my left hand, I caught the kick. With my right hand, I caught the punch. I don’t think they anticipated this because they looked pretty surprised when I brought my arms together and they slammed into each other. The third threw a punch that I ducked under. To gain the upper hand, as I lowered I swung a leg out and spun around. He fell flat on his face when his legs came out from under him. Tiny Asian-wannabes and their sorry excuse for martial arts really annoyed me.

Spinning around again, I settled into a stance, but now my vision was a little blurry. Before, I’d have blamed it on the alcohol. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I could hear the guy behind me start to get up again. So, my head jerked to the rear and I raised a foot. It had to hurt when my boot came into contact with his face because I could hear a small crack. Could be his nose or it could be his neck cracking. I didn’t care which. When I went to settle back into my ready stance and face forward, I wobbled a little. Suddenly, my body felt really heavy and my vision was blurrier.

“More physical exertion will only amplify the effects, Mr. McKinley. I suggest you cease your futile attempt at breaking free.” The man bellowed again.

Without even thinking, I belted out some obscure war cry and ran right at him. I could sense that my equilibrium and motor functions were beginning to become very impaired at that point. I didn’t care. If they wanted to harm Julia, they weren’t going to do it around me. Sadly, it ended in some of the worse results since my first MMA fight. I had gotten my cocky little ass handed to me, that night. Now, someone raised a cane and it contacted with my abdomen, knocking the wind out of me. Then, all I could hear was a crack as something hit me in the back of my head. Now, the world was swimming and my body would not obey my commands. I writhed on the ground like the guy I’d beaten two weeks ago to qualify for the semi-finals.

Two guys grabbed my arms and one more grabbed my legs. They didn’t have much trouble keeping ahold of me. I was being carried off and someone slipped a hood over my face. Everything happened so fast as I wavered between consciousness and unconsciousness. My ears registered that they were putting me in some kind of van. In vain, I still tried to writhe myself loose. All I could think about was getting to Julia and keeping her safe. Then, a shriek rang out into the air. It was a woman’s scream. It was Julia’s scream.

Suddenly, some semblance of vitality left in me shot to the forefront. My hands balled into fists and I began to thrash around the cabin. The three guys holding me down had their work cut out for them, now. Suddenly, I started feeling like the bones in my wrists and hands felt like they were separating. Something poked through between my index and middle finger as well as between my ring and pinkie finger on both hands. My feet straightened into a point and the same was happening between my “big” toe and my index toe. It hurt like a bitch! I didn’t care, I had to get free… to get to Julia.

“Son of a bitch! The fucker’s manifesting!” One shouted.

“Looks like we’re going to have to de-claw someone.” Another quipped.

Someone punched me in just the the right spot on my head. Everything went black.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Two ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Lex begins to discover that he is imprisoned. How long? Who is keeping him? Why are they doing this? Who is that looking back at him in the mirror?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you by the incredibly talented Billy Tan.

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Chapter Two:

There’s this little thing about artificial, drug-induced sleep: you never dream. Through biochemical processes, your body is allowed to rest, but your brain still believes it is awake. Therefore, it will continue with its business until the body sends the signal that it’s time for repairs. It’s during those repairs that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep engages and you dream. People can live on for days, weeks, months, and even years but never be aware of the passage of time. In short: I have no idea how long I was out. It was like what I assumed being in a coma would be like or surgery. I’d never had surgery, so you can nix that frame of reference.

Slowly, I could feel my eyes begin to open. The great thing was there was no pain, but my head was still swimming. My vision was blurry, but there was a bright light pointed in my direction. It hurt. So, my eyes closed again. Yet, I could feel my head slowly roll back and forth. No other body part responded to any commands. The signal was going out, but didn’t come back and nobody responded. Great, my body was numb from the neck down. An exhalation revealed that my voice was very hoarse and sounded like I hadn’t had any water in days. It made a sick hissing sound.

Again, my eyes attempted to open. Thankfully, the light was much dimmer, now. Apparently, my head had sufficiently turned away from it. My vision was blurry and my eyelids were so heavy they felt as though they’d been closed for about a year. I tried to blink rapidly, but that wasn’t going to happen. I simply rolled my head to the right, away from the bright light, so that my eyes could slowly acclimate to my surroundings. This could take a while. Thankfully, I could hear soft, muffled footsteps that told me someone else was in the room with me. That gave me a little comfort, but not much.

The acclimation process seemed interminable. What should have taken minutes seemed to take hours. Though, when my visual clarity was enough to make out my surroundings, I felt like I had stepped out of my life and onto the set of Conspiracy Theory. You know, that great Mel Gibson movie where Patrick Stewart plays the bad guy? Yes, that one. The place looked like Alcatraz needed a new paint job and definitely needed the floors redone. It smelled like canned ass mixed with formaldehyde, too. Reminded me of the locker room. It may have been enough to induce vomiting, but there was nothing in my stomach to come back up.

My head rolled to the left, again. Though, this time I closed the left eye to further shield from the bright light. The sight my one eye beheld was something out of some episode of some obscure horror show on the Sci-Fi Channel. I was wearing something like a really long, white T-shirt that hung on me like some weird dress. There were leather straps everywhere, holding me to some strangely configured gurney. My arms and legs were separated from each other and my body. Honestly, the position my body was in gave the impression I had one of those glider suits on and had to spread wide to keep the air in the pieces between so I didn’t reach terminal velocity. It’s the only known way humans can “fly” without a machine propelling them. It also looked like that Leonardo Da Vinci painting with the guy all spread eagle, two arms, two legs, surrounded by a circle. What was it called again?

Still, odd position, but that wasn’t the worst part. There were electrodes hooked up to my forearms and calves that caused my feet to point outward and my hands to grip the ends of the “arm” tightly. There was some medical apparatus attached to the places between my index finger/middle finger and ring finger/pinkie finger areas. The same down between my big toe and index toe. It seemed to be some sort of medical clamp, but it was holding the skin open. Initially it looked like there was some kind of bony protrusion coming out from between my knuckles and there was something very red being clamped down around them.

So, I screamed. Or… at least I tried to. The only thing that came out was more like a frightened moan, if that makes any sense. Honestly, even now, I find myself wondering just what the fuck came out from my lips. I keep referencing the verbal exchange from The Princess Bride:

Westley: [inaudible]

Inigo Montoya: “’True Love’, you heard him? You could not ask for a more noble cause than that.”

Old man: “Yeah, True Love is the greatest thing in the world…. He distinctly said ‘To blave’ and as we all know, ‘to blave’ means ‘to bluff’, heh?”

Anyway, I was stuck in freak out central. What on the big, green, spherical Earth were they doing to me? I didn’t really have enough time to find out. The man with the shuffling feet quickly glared in my direction.

“Shit! He’s awake! Dose him again!”

There was another bee sting in my neck and about five seconds later, I was out like a light, again.

Cotton mouth. Hate that! It’s a well-known side effect of the medications anesthesiologists use to knock you out for surgery… or, so I’ve read. It’s also a rather common side effect of smoking Cannabis, but I’d never done that, either. Anyway, when I came back to the land of the living, I had one of the worst cases of “cotton mouth” that I’ve ever experienced. However, there was bright light waiting for me to open my eyes and I was not in the mood for any pain, just yet. My body still felt incredibly heavy, but at least I could feel everything from the neck down, now. That was mildly reassuring. Clumsily, I lifted my arms and brought them to my face. The good news: I wasn’t tied down to anything. The bad news: I didn’t like what I felt.

Again, not knowing how long I was out, I expected to find a little beard stubble on my cheeks, chin, and upper neck. Doesn’t every guy? Instead, what I found was smooth, soft skin–like, baby’s butt smooth. I jolted upright and my eyes shot wide open. That really hurt the eyes, which instinctively clamped shut again. However, I was awake, now… really awake.

Forcing my eyes to brave the light, I fluttered my eyelids a few hundred times. I was in a room, a really plain one at that. Strangely, this one had been repainted. As my tired eyes scanned it, they didn’t find much besides cinder block walls that were painted white, a gray cement floor, a cream-colored door, a stainless steel toilet in the corner with sink attached, and a big “mirror” on one wall. I had been laying on a hard surface with a small mat and sorry excuses for a pillow under my head and blanket draped over me. How did I end up in jail?

Gathering up whatever strength I had, I planted my feet firmly on the cold concrete and ignored it while I moved over to the big “mirror”. I’d seen enough of them. Just by looking at it, my eyes immediately recognized a two-way mirror. The first look at myself caught me a little off-guard. I could tell there were subtle changes in the reflection staring back at me. Again, I brought my hands to my face and felt the soft skin of it. To me, the reflection looked a little pale. That wasn’t what caught my eyes, though. I usually shaved my arm hair for tournaments, but that had been somewhere in the vicinity of two weeks ago. There should be hair on them, by now. However, there was none and the skin was the same pale color of my face. What the heck was going on?

The inspection continued. For the record, the shirt was technically a dress. It looked like a long, loose T-shirt, but it hung to about the middle of my thighs. Again, my legs were the same pale coloring of my face and arms. I was noticing a pattern. More puzzling was the fact that there was, actually, hair on my legs. However, they looked more like Julia’s did if she went about two months without shaving them, which only happened once. Yes, I pulled a “duh!” action in the next second. My hand shot straight towards my crotch. I am happy to report that, just like always, I had a good handful of penis and scrotum. I let out a relieved sigh. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea, though.

“Well, well… our subject awakens.” A not-so-easy-to-decipher male voice sounded from what seemed like a nearby speaker.

Though I expected something like this, it still startled me. My eyes darted around, scanning for the little speaker box. It hung just above the center of the “mirror”. My eyes fixed on the reflective glass and narrowed. “Who are you? What do you want with me? How long have I been here? Where’s Julia, you sick bastard?” My voice was a little hoarse. Chalk up another score for the drugs.

He made some kind of sound like “tsk, tsk, tsk” in response. “Now, now, Mr. McKinley. You mustn’t over-stimulate yourself, lest you suffer a quicker transformation.”

My puzzled expression reflected right back at me. “Transformation? What are you talking about?”

“I would assume that you have heard tell about a certain rise in what we call ‘metahumans’?”

My eyes lowered as if contemplating the lower part of the mirror. There had been news reports of some Jade girl who dressed in a tight green and black outfit who had made a very public statement about the existence of “metahumans”. Then, there was some Terra girl in Texas. After that, some chick went crazy in Japan. Not long after, somebody who looked for all the world like the personification of a God from Norse Mythology (the Thunder God, Thor) with the outfit and big ass hammer, but they had boobs and lived in Kansas. Finally, there was some weird chick that idolized Robin Hood, apparently, who’d managed to rescue a whole cruise liner in the Caribbean and was now gallivanting around San Francisco. The press was having a field day with it. It was a break from covering the rampant corruption in Congress and the nasty truth behind two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Limply, I shrugged. “I might have heard of a couple. Didn’t hear that word, though.”

Did he really just cackle? “Oh, you are such a simpleton. My boy, you are one of them. We’re going to see just how far this meta-gene can go. You’re going down a rabbit hole, my friend, and it’s not a request.” A faint hissing sound reached my ears. “For the record, you’ve only been here approximately three days. It’s hardly enough time to find anything conclusive. You’ll be our ‘guest’ for some time. Sleep well, my boy.”

My body started to get heavy and my head started swimming again. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as I lost my balance and fell over. At least I landed on the bed, but it just wasn’t soft enough.

Waking up this time was a lot less groggy. Again, there was the mystery of just how long I was out. This time, my tired eyes scanned the room and landed on a tray of food in the middle of the floor. Good thing, too, because if felt like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. I swung my legs over the side and hopped down. Wait. Hopped down? All I had to do before was slide off. My eyes darted over to the “mirror” again. Something was definitely happening to me and it was very obvious.

My face was smaller, rounder, and softer-looking. My eyes looked twice as big. My eyebrows weren’t caterpillars over my eyes, anymore. They were very much thinner. My hair looked a little bit off. Had I sweat or did it actually get darker? Beyond that, the T-shirt/dress looked a little bigger on me. At eye level, I could tell that I had actually gotten shorter by about two or three inches. How was any of this possible?

Now was not the time to think about such things. Now, my stomach was growling fiercely.

The changes were getting more obvious, seemingly by the hour. My hair was completely black, now, and I had shrunk a little more. At least, that had stopped, yesterday. All the skin on my body was now much softer than it had been since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. In truth, touching my own skin was like touching Julia and it creeped me out more than a little. After all that, my chest itched something fierce and no amount of scratching eased it.

I learned how to tell time, though. They brought me three square meals a day. First one was morning, second was about noon, and the third was about dinner. They usually gassed me to sleep shortly after dinner. Then, all back to square one. Each day, the removed all three trays. They’d done that eleven times, now, so about fourteen days had passed since I got here. Where the heck was “here”, anyway? Weren’t people looking for me?

I felt so small, now, and my muscles seemed to be dissolving. I didn’t have bulky ones to begin with, but they were firm, tone, and readily in sight. They were disappearing rather quickly. Sitting on the “bed”, I bent my knees and wrapped my arms around them. The gas should be coming any minute, now.

Fuck, my dick was small! I’d been watching it get smaller and smaller over the course of a week until it was at a point, now, where it looked like I was six! It was bad enough they had to take my freedom, but “Little Soldier Boy”? Where’s that get fun?

Adding insult to injury, little nubs had formed on my chest. At first, there was the itching. Next, my nipples looked puffy, even as my pecks shrank out of sight. Now, there was no denying that there were little nubs that poked into my shirt and tented the fabric ever so slightly. My skin got a whole lot softer, too. Touch my arms and it was like holding a baby. Same with my legs. I didn’t dare venture under the T-shirt/dress that now hung to my knees. Looking into the “mirror”, my face was getting much more round, soft, and, dare I say, “delicate”? My hair and nails were growing out, but that was just time. Anybody who would recognize me as the Brendan Fraser look-alike wouldn’t recognize me, now. I didn’t even look like a guy, anymore. I was now what they call “androgynous”.

This will only end in tears.

My life officially sucks. Another week gone by and there was a funeral at Arlington for my “little soldier”. He was buried two days ago. I played “Taps”. It was beautiful. In his place, a puffy slit had formed. I had seen enough to know what that was. I had no idea if there was anything going on inside, but I was now the owner of external vulva. There was no pride in this. There wasn’t enough time to really mourn my little buddy. As soon as he was buried, the changes in my body really accelerated. Yes, I got a visit from the “boob fairy”. Damn things had gone from little nubs to puffy little cones. They were still a bit small, but they made it known that they weren’t about to stay that way. Not to mention, there was this annoying pain in my lower back, almost as if my tailbone was going to split in half. I don’t recommend it.

My face? Yea, that had changed. It wasn’t my face, anymore. I didn’t know who the fuck that girl was in the “mirror”, but she sure as fuck couldn’t be me!

The bastards have no heart. I woke up one morning and my shirt had been changed. It wasn’t the oversized, white T-shirt/dress anymore. They’d replaced it. It hung on me about like the first one had when I had first woken up. Worse: it was fucking pink! When I attempted to protest, they gassed me. At least, I was sleeping well.

Cotton mouth. Again? This was, what, the third time this month? What the fuck were they doing to me? There were so many questions and very few answers.

My body protested when I tried to move. Again, everything felt really heavy, especially my upper arms and lower legs. When I grumbled in protest, I got the shock of my life. My voice wasn’t my voice. It was almost like some whiny little girl grumbling to her parents about not being able to sleep another five minutes before having to get ready for school. I sat up in a huff. A foreign weight tugged on my chest and my hair hit me in the face. Now, my eyes were wide open.

Looking down, I was staring right between a pair of fleshy mounds that hung off my chest. They looked huge! My now raven black hair fell on either side of my face. Feeling a bit of urgency, I leapt out of bed and spun to face the “mirror”. Who the fuck was that? How did a teenage girl get in my cell and why was she looking at me like that? Since when do I have green eyes? Several times, my eyes darted from my chest to the “mirror” and back again. Below the neck, there were two engorged orbs pushing out the top of my T-shirt/dress, it synched in at the waist, and two rounded hips pushed out the sides near the bottom. The hair on my head was now long enough that it reached my shoulders. How long was I out?

I didn’t have time to dwell on this. There was an urgent need that suddenly swelled up in my abdomen. I ran for the toilet. My cushioned rear landed rather hard on the stainless steel metal surface. It was cold. “Where’d the panties come from?! This isn’t funny anymore!” The girl’s voice yelled at no one in particular.

The woman in the skirt suit, suntan nylons, black pumps, and white lab coat entered the room, sipping a cup of coffee. Sitting down at the table, she set her mug on a coaster and laid out the portfolio that had been nestled under her arm. She opened it and began to review the medical data before her.

“How’s our girl, today?” She glanced up to the female guard across the room who was situated by the semi-transparent glass.

“Pissed about your choice in underwear, as I understand it. I turned off the sound a while ago. She snores and it’s a little annoying.”

The suited woman smiled. “Well, she’ll just have to adjust, as will we. Anything new?”

The guard shook her head. “She was checking herself out a minute ago before she had to pee. I don’t think she realizes that she was unconscious for three weeks.”

The suited woman took a sip of coffee and raised her eyebrows at the guard. “Discovered the ‘boob fairy’, did she?” The guard nodded. “A shame we had to cut the procedure short. Something happened. We had to cut her loose.”

The guard woman stood. “Oh? Can I ask what happened or is it top-level classified kind of stuff?”

The suited woman shook her head. “Oh, no. You’ll need to know about it. She heals. Fast!”

“How fast?”

“We put a scalpel to her skin, make a deep incision, and she’s healed it all in seconds. It doesn’t matter where we cut. It all closes up too fast to get anything done.”

“Really? So, what’s that mean?”

“It means the boss man doesn’t get his super soldier, that’s what. She got her nails done, but the rest will have to wait until we can develop a procedure that’ll work on her.”

The guard woman glanced over at the glass. “You might want to get her a bra. She’s tugging at her shirt.”

The suited woman smirked, taking another sip of coffee. “Already ahead of you. Be a dear and get our little darling some breakfast, would you? Then, you should go home and get some rest.”

The strangest thing happened last night. Well, this morning, too, but I’ll get to that in a minute. After I lazed through dinner, I sat up on my bed and hugged my legs. I was doing that a lot, now. Just sitting there, I could hear the all-too-familiar hiss of the gas entering the room. For the first time, I noticed that it had a very distinct smell. I couldn’t place it because I’d never smelled anything like it before in my life. Very strange, but that wasn’t the half of it. There’s really no telling how long I sat there, but the sleep didn’t come. It was surreal. There was no head swimming or limp body or even heavy eyes. I didn’t actually fall asleep until I was so tired that my body just gave in. That was weird.

Of course, then I woke up in the morning. I didn’t feel as groggy as I always had. I actually felt refreshed and energized, like sleeping in my own bed with Julia right next to me. It was amazing. Then, I stretched. The strangest sensation gripped me. Well, rather, gripped my chest. Pulling out the neckline, I found a plain white sports bra over top of my new fleshy mounds. They had even changed my panties to a pair of white “boy short” style. At the very least, it was comfortable and my nipples weren’t being rubbed raw by my shirt, anymore.

Breakfast and lunch were already waiting for me. Had I really been out that long? Wow, I must have stayed up really late last night. My stomach growled, telling me it was definitely time to eat something. I feasted hungrily on the meager morsels they fed me.

Six more weeks. I could faithfully count the days, now. They stopped trying to gas me. For a couple of weeks, they tried different gasses. I know because I could smell them all. They tried sixteen in total before finally giving up. I smiled a lot. They couldn’t control me, anymore. I could sleep when I wanted, be awake when I wanted, and… well, that was about it. It’s boring as hell in an eight-by-twelve-foot cell, okay?

Cabin fever was really beginning to set in, now that I knew how long I had been there, for sure. I was constantly glancing around at the walls, trying to find weak points in their security. They thought of everything, though. Pity.

On the plus side, everything that was going to change already had. I was shorter than before, but I didn’t know by how much. My hair was raven black and had grown down past my shoulders, now. For some reason, someone saw fit to trim my nails every once in a while. They looked okay, I guess. The “boob fairy” had finally pissed off and my chest was no longer inflating. My hips quit widening and my waist quit shrinking. I could somewhat understand the look. I mean, there was Native American, Sioux, in my family history. So, the black hair could be explained. But, what was with the green eyes? That baffled me. I think my mom had mentioned something about a cousin with green eyes, but I’d never met them. There was hope if I ever got out, though. I could hit up the Goth clubs, again, but this time as some freakish baby-Goth girl. My skin was definitely pale enough, but that was probably because I hadn’t been in the sun in some indeterminable amount of time.

There was a lot of time to reflect on things. Obvious, I know. However, there was a part of me that thought I’d buried certain things about myself from all those years ago. It was buried mostly because it was beaten out of me. My parents didn’t approve, least of which was my father. He said he was going to “pound the fag” out of me. I didn’t know what he was talking about because I liked girls well enough… I also liked their clothes. Before puberty really betrayed the idea, I thought for the longest time that I was going to grow into a woman. Seriously, I did. I could still scream like a girl until well past fourteen. I even kind of looked androgynous until I was nearly sixteen. I didn’t mind. It kept me sane. Then, BAM! The dude witch came hard and fast. I told myself that it was probably meant to be.

Now, look at me. Seeing my face, now, reminds me of a young girl preparing to become a young woman. I certainly wasn’t ready for it. Still, deep down, some part of me actually relished in the changes. My skin was softer, my hair was sleek and shiny, even my nose looked almost like a cute little button, now. My lips were full and somewhat pouty, like Julia’s were. My boobs were huge, but they were kind of nice. My legs could use a shave, though. It wasn’t quite so bad. As a very young child, I’d fantasized about growing up someday, settling down, having a baby, and all that “white picket fence” kind of stuff. Even as an adult, I would privately fantasize about going back into my teen years and doing everything “right” from the word “go”. Now, I guess that was my reality. Well, besides the being in jail part.

As the weeks rolled by, though, dispair set in. I was crying a lot and meekly pounding the cinder block with my fists. It was an exorcise in futility, but it let me vent. After a while, dispair turned into anger and frustration. How long did they really expect to keep me locked up like this?

One faithful day, I was kneeling on my “bed” and pounding angrily on the “mirror” for them to let me out or have some semblance of human interaction. I was going crazy, I think. Still didn’t matter. The more I pounded, the angrier I became. No one answered me, after all. Then, it all changed.

Snickt! “Fucking OW!” The girl’s voice, my voice, screamed. I felt four pains, two on each hand.

I immediately stopped and could see the surprised look on my face. Slowly, my head raised up my arms. There was a little blood dripping down the backs of my hands. Then, my eyes caught sight of my balled fists. Two shiny metal knives, about a foot long, protruded from my hand. One was between my pointer and middle finger; the other was between my ring finger and pinkie. They looked like flat-bladed bread knives, actually, but filed to a point on the end–like long claws, but metal. There was an open wound at the site where they had come out of my hands. I have no idea how long I stared at them in astonishment, but my eyes started to sting from over exposure to the air. Blinking quickly, my hand opened up.

Snickt! “Son of a bitch!” The girl’s voice, my voice, screamed again. The four pains returned.

After flinching, my eyes opened up again and I got another surprise. The blade-claws were gone. The wound they left behind closed up in mere seconds, right before my eyes! Afterward, the only evidence that the wound had even been there was the blood on the backs of my hands. Immediately, I started rubbing my hands at the spot where the things had come out of from my knuckles. There wasn’t even so much as a little bruise. My hands were fine, all things considered. It was exciting and quite frightening at the same time. It gave me an idea.

Turning from the “mirror”, I sat with my legs in a pretzel on my bed, looking down at my hands, and began to flex then relax my hands. Nothing. Taking a deep breath, I tried again. Several times, I balled my dainty little hands into a fist and then relaxed again. Still nothing. Come hell or high water, I was going to figure this out. So, I tried again and again for what seemed like hours to reproduce the effect. It wasn’t until I heard the little doggy door open and my dinner be dropped off that I hit a revelation. I was startled by the sudden “creak” of the little door and my hands flexed really tight.

Snickt! “Fuck!” I screamed again with my girly voice. The four pains were back.

Looking down at my hands, the blade-claws were back. How were they metal, anyway? I cleared my head of side thoughts and focused on how tightly I had balled my fist. Again, there was a little blood and the wound was there, but the blade-claws were jutting out from it. Confident that I’d taken in how tight my fists were, I released my grip.

Snickt! “Fucking hell!” I screamed. It was probably going to hurt every time, I deduced. Again, the wound healed up in mere seconds. No harm, no foul, right?

As it turns out, with a little bit of practice, I was able to call forth the blade-claws on command. As anticipated, it hurt pretty badly every time they came out. My training with Shifu started to take over. If there was pain, use it. And, I did. The anticipation of the pain alone gave my muscles the wherewithal to clench my fists hard enough to bring the claws out. With a little giggle, I finally hopped off the bed, washed my bloody hands, and settled down to dinner.

One downside to the whole revelation: my dinner was cold.

The woman in the skirt suit trudged across the smooth, carpeted floor of an office straight out of the 1940’s. The walls had mahogany wood paneling, there was a marble mantle in the center with a painting above it, Persian rugs adorned the floor, various animal specimens lined the walls, and a large, oak desk was set near the picturesque bay window. A bald man in a pin-stripped navy suit hung up from a cell phone call as she dropped a portfolio on his desk.

“Good morning, Miss…” The man began.

“Stuff it! We have a problem: the kitty has found her claws.” The woman stated in a huff as she planted her hands firmly on her hips.

“Surely, it isn’t as bad as you assume. She was bound to discover them sooner or later. Besides, I’d be hurt if she didn’t appreciate my gift.” He smiled reassuringly.

“Yes, but we anticipated being able to drug her to the point where we could have interaction with her in a safe manner. It was intended to begin the indoctrination. Now, we can’t even gas her to sleep! We’ve tried seventeen different chemical agents to induce sleep in humans and none of them phase her. Worse: you won’t be getting your super soldier. She heals too fast for the procedures to proceed.”

The man nodded. “Well, that is a mouthful, my dear.” He considered the news. “Have you considered brute force?”

The woman stammered. “Brute… f-force? Are you joking? You remember who she was when we brought her in here, don’t you? You’re insane if you think I’m going to sacrifice my staff members’ lives for this.”

The man shook his head. “Please, my dear, it’s been a little more than six months–give or take a few days–since she came to our humble abode. She hasn’t trained and she’s gone through a remarkable transformation since then. I have my doubts that she has what it takes to seriously injure your staff.”

The woman blinked. “Are you nuts? Did you forget about the metal claws you insisted on giving her?!”

The man’s eyes narrowed on the woman harshly. “Just do it or I will find a reason to make you do it. How’s that darling husband of yours, these days? We wouldn’t want any sort of terrible tragedy to befall him, would we?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

The man nodded, not straying his gaze. “Oh, believe me, my dear. I very much would.”

Marked Target ~ Chapter Three ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: The imprisonment continues and some insight is given to Lex about her captors and why she's in captivity. Is she ever going to get out? Will she ever get her life back under her own control?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you, again, by the incredibly talented Mike Choi.

WARNING: There is a scene of violence between a man and a woman. Naturally, being a woman myself, I do not condone such actions. The scene is present to make a point. That is all. If you are squeamish of such things, the scene is clearly marked and you can skip it, if you'd prefer.

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Chapter Three:

Why couldn’t I ever have a book? Violent criminals in prisons get books. There really wasn’t that much to do in the cell. Most days, I would meditate for hours on end. Sometimes, I would actually resort to checking myself out in the mirror. I kind of really liked my ass. My boobs still looked enormous to me, so it was hard to get “attached” to them, as much. Just saying. It probably garnered a laugh or some freakish pervert fantasy from some of the staff on the other side. I mean, why have a two-way mirror if I wasn’t being watched?

For the last couple of weeks, though, I had actually started to run through my taolu. It felt like it had been forever since I did. Not only that, my balance was all wrong. I now had first-hand experience that men and women did, indeed, have different centers of gravity. Not to mention, my boobs kept getting in the way. Not only that, I could really use something to tie my hair back. If I was going to be stuck like this for a while, I’d have to get used to the idea. My eyes would close and my body would maneuver through the movements, one by one, and when I got to the end, I’d bow and start all over again. Thankfully, with my reduced size, I could actually freely move within the confines of the eight-by-twelve-foot cell. That was good news, at least.

Under it all, there was still the multitudes of questions that I needed answers to. Why had they chosen me? Why had they locked me up? What did they want? Most importantly: What had happened to Julia? All of them plagued my mind day in and day out. Meditating was the only thing that helped me retain my sanity.

While reaching the tail end of movements for the taolu, that lovely little squakbox chirped to life for the first time in I don’t know how long.

“Hello, Miss McKinley. Aren’t you just the picture of grace?” The male voice inquired.

“Fuck off,” I ordered him with my teen girl voice. I didn’t even stop the taolu to do it. One of the punches was a little more forceful, but that was about it.

“Is that any way to treat your benefactor? You really ought to learn some manners.”

I scoffed, cutely. “I would hardly call you a ‘benefactor’.” Now, the taolu stopped. My body turned and I glared into the “mirror” angrily. “You want some manners? Open that fucking door and I’ll show you some manners!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such language really is unbecoming a young lady such as yourself.”

“Who are you?! What do you want from me?!” Anger was boiling within me and my words came out as shrieks that reverberated off the walls. It kinda hurt my ears.

“Now, that is the question, isn’t it? I am Dr. Zander Rice, vice-chairman of this facility and, for all intents and purposes, your primary physician. You may call me Dr. Rice.” He explained. “What I want is to see the potential that metahumans have. There are so many of you lately. Uncle Sam is paying a pretty penny to figure out your secrets.”

I rolled my eyes. It actually looked somewhat cute in the “mirror”. “Oh, great. Now, you’re telling me I’m an ‘honored guest’ of Uncle Sam? Well, that fucking figures. It’s pretty obvious you guys knew something well before I did. Nice touch with the goon squad. Totally original.” The sarcasm dribbled down my chin.

“No, my dear. You are my honored guest. Uncle Sam will pay top dollar for your secrets, but how will we get them if we don’t perform studies and find them out?”

My eyes narrowed. I tried not to pay attention to how utterly cute it looked as I approached the mirror. “Let me out of here or I swear you will be the first one I cut a new smile for… ear to ear.”

“Threats of violence will get you nowhere, Miss McKinley. After all, you wouldn’t want us to harm your dear, sweet Julia, would you?”

“Where is she?!”

“She is safe… for now… as long as you cooperate. You have been warned.”

“What the hell am I supposed to cooperate with when you keep me locked up in this cell all the time?!”

There was no answer.

“Hello?!”

Again, no answer. Now, I was mad. I stomped my foot and raised my arm up to punch the glass. SNIKT! My hand hit the glass, all right. However, my newfound claws went through it. I glanced up at my hand and got an idea. I could see the maniacal grin grow on my face as I flexed my other fist. SNIKT! Out came the other set and I started pounding on the glass for everything I was worth. I was getting out of here and that fucker was going to pay for keeping me locked up.

At first, I was only making small holes. Then, I experimented a little with long swipes. That proved more fruitful. In a few short minutes, the glass was in shambles and I was through. I stood in the window frame and glared at the dark room beyond. It was empty. Damn. I hopped down off the framing and landed on some glass shards. That was dumb.

SNIKT! Away went the claws and I was now digging glass out of my foot. Thankfully, the wounds were healing as I plucked the glass out. How was my body doing this? My head shook. In the midst of my musings, an alarm suddenly began to sound. I didn’t have time to mess with my feet. If I was going to get out of here, now was my best and only chance. I rushed up and checked the door. Locked. SNIKT! One swipe of my hand and the claws went right through the wood. Another swipe and I had created a little triangle around the nob. SNIKT! I put the claws away and moved to pull the door away from the handle. By jove, it worked. The handle, with the lock still engaged, fell out of its cradle and the door was open.

Carefully, I poked my head out into the corridor beyond. To the left, my cell plus two more, with wooden doors for the adjoining observation rooms, and an open door into what looked like a bathroom/shower area. To the right, one more cell and a metal bar door like they have in all the nice jails. Left it was, then. As I slipped out the door and into the hallway, the alarm got a bit louder and there were some flashing red lights. Glancing up the wall, I spotted one of those rotary lights they used to have on all the cop cars before moving to strobe LED’s. Beyond the door made out of bars, there was what looked like a guard station, but it was empty. Good. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, besides Dr. Rice, as I made my way out.

As I approached the door made of bars, I thought I could hear booted footsteps, moving in cadence. That was weird. Instinctively, I slammed my back against the wall, hoping to not be seen. Though, the footfalls were really distant and my eyes confirmed that there was no one in the immediate corridors. Thus, I tried the door. Locked. Just great.

Impulsively, I glanced down at my dainty little hands and balled one into a fist. I’d managed to bypass glass and wood, thus far. How do these things fare with metal? Once I got out, there would need to be some investigation done as to where the damn things came from. For now, they were too handy to complain about. My face making a grimace, I tightened my fist and out came the blades once more. In case you’re wondering: Yes, they still hurt like a bitch, just like the first time. Anyway, blades out, I contemplated the door for a good minute. Then, I took a swipe. There was indeed a great deal of resistance from the metal, which I almost expected. I didn’t break through, though. I did, however, make some nice scratch marks about a quarter of the way through the metal bars. So, the deduction was that I could, in fact, cut through the bars, as long as I had enough leverage and force behind the strike.

Taking a breath and closing my eyes, I focused on the door. My arm swung back with the claws extended. For all the marbles, I took one, long, powerful strike at the door, centered on the locking mechanism. You know that sound of nails on a chalkboard? Yea, this was worse. By the grace of some deity somewhere, it didn’t last but half a second and when my eyes opened again the door creaked as it slowly swung open. Its locking mechanism was in tatters, thanks to my new little friends. My eyes wide, I took one look at the blades. They didn’t have a single scratch blemishing their reflective silver surface. I was going to have to get to the bottom of this little mystery. However, now was not the time. Grimacing once more, the claws went away.

Again, I poked my head into the corridor. There were only two ways to go: directly in front, passing the guard station, or to the right. My ears picked up the footfalls coming from the right. In half a second, I calculated my next move. Since I didn’t know the layout of the place, getting some bearings might prove useful. Stepping over to the guard station, I reeled back and slammed my foot into the door. It swung open with a crack as the lock dislodged from the frame and bang as it hit the wall. Somebody heard that. They had to. Still, I darted inside to get a better look at the place.

Whoever these guards were, they were slobs. There were Chinese takeout boxes littered everywhere and paperwork all over the workstation. There were three file cabinets, two by the door and one across the room in the far corner. Along the workstation, there were six monitors set up. Obviously, these were surveillance terminals. My eyes darted about the room, searching for something I could use. On the back wall was a framed map that read: “Level 2”. Grabbing the frame from the wall and tearing open the back, I grabbed the paper blueprints inside and gave them a quick look. I’d used blueprints for several games in the past, so I was familiar with the basic application of reading them.

The layout in the middle-left looked familiar. It had the four cells, labeled #22 through #26 including their own observation rooms, with the shower room at one end and the guard station I was standing in to the left of them. I followed along the “forward” corridor with my finger down a ways until it came to a large open room. If I were to take a right once reaching that room, there was a flight of stairs and then a straight run for an exit. I’d probably have to cut through one more jail door, but it was worth a shot. I had my plan.

Rolling up the blueprint map, the footfalls were getting louder. I wanted to avoid contact with any guards, if at all possible. There wasn’t much of a chance I could effectively defend myself without hurting any of them or myself, especially given my quite new “assets”. Darting out of the guard station, I bolted down the “forward” corridor in full run. Thankfully, I wasn’t wearing any shoes, so the “pitter-patter” of my little feet wasn’t too loud that it might give away my position. The trick was avoiding contact to happen between the bridge of my feet and the concrete flooring. I had learned long ago do run on the balls of my feet, anyway. It was quicker, quieter, and more efficient. Not to mention, it kept my boobs from bouncing too much, objecting to the confines of the sports bra.

Passing six more cells with adjoining observation rooms, the jail door was coming up fast. Way behind me, I could not only hear the booted footfalls but also a whole flock of male voices speaking through some sort of walkie-talkies. The problem was, I could hear more synthesized voices ahead of me, too. So much for avoiding the guards.

In transit, one more grimace and the claws extended with another snikt sound. There would probably never be any way around how much that hurt. It was likely something I would have to get used to. Sliding to a stop, I braced and let loose with one big swipe at the door. The claws sliced through as though the bars were made of butter and the door popped open. Another grimace and a snikt sound later, the claws were again put away. I stepped into the big open room and let my eyes scan the area.

Over an intercom somewhere, a voice suddenly began speaking. To my ears, it sounded droll and mechanical. In fact, the female voice reminded me of the computer’s voice on Star Trek. “Priority Alert: Subject 23 has escaped custody. Extreme caution advised. Subject to be considered well armed and extremely dangerous. Deadly force not authorized at this time.” The message began a repetitive loop. Well, at least they weren’t being given orders to kill me.

Quickly glancing to my right, I spotted two guards positioned down the catwalk that were not looking in my direction. Way at the far end of the room, through I don’t know how many guards, was the little green “Exit” sign, taunting me. This was going to take some finesse or it was going to get messy. For a moment, I contemplated going back the way I came and finding an alternative route.

“There!” A synthesized voice announced behind me. My eyes darted in that direction and about ten guards in full riot gear (including full helmets) were charging toward me. Well, nix the backtracking idea. “Stay where you are!”

Dropping the map, I tore into a full run straight for the stairs. I was never good at taking orders. There was never going to be a career in the military waiting for me.

This time, there was no concern to stay quiet at all. They’d already spotted me and were communicating my position to all their buddies. This was going to get bad, I could feel it. My body darted along the catwalk at full speed as the guards ahead of me turned around. They didn’t have enough time to train any weapons on me. I took the stairs two at a time until I reached a certain point. Then, I jumped. It was a good ten feet to the concrete floor below, but I knew how to fall correctly. Rolling with the impact, I was on my feet in less than a second and back to full run, again. All this was done while trying to ignore the breasts wildly bouncing all over my chest. Thankfully, the sports bra was keeping most of that in check, but it was somewhat distracting.

Now on “Level 1” and at full run, I realized just how big the place was. It was huge and seemed old with the paint peeling in several places. It was difficult to run across the flooring because there was paint debris and dust all over the place. While I contemplated that, more footfalls hit my eardrums. They were fast, though. As soon as I glanced to my right where they were coming from, I was greeted by the buttstock of their weapon of choice, in the face. As one would imagine, my momentum pretty much ceased and the inertia of their strike knocked me over to my left. I landed rather hard on the concrete surface. Serves me right for having a one-track mind at that point. My mind screamed, ‘Damn. The exit was right there!’

Shaking off the strike, I resolved to lift myself off the ground. Probably quicker than they anticipated, I was on my feet and lowering myself into a defensive stance, but seemed unfazed by the strike. They gathered around and resolved to surround me. I began a breathing exorcise to calm my mind, build my qi (life force energy, like Japanese “chi”), and focus on the task at hand.

“Put your weapons down and lie face-first on the ground!” The leader’s synthesized voice ordered.

In a calm, surreal voice, I answered him. “As you can plainly see, I don’t have any weapons. Also, I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request.” Never in my life did I ever see a practical application of that quote. I stand corrected.

“Excuse me?”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “That would be a ‘no’, gentlemen. Now, I do not want to harm any of you. My goal is that door under the exit sign. If you stand in my way, I will be forced to remove you from my path. If you insist on violence, I will be forced to defend myself. I would rather not, but the choice is yours.”

For a moment, they exchanged glances amongst themselves. Obviously, they had not been briefed on just whom it was they were dealing with. One of them even chuckled, remarking, “Yea? What’s a little girl like you gonna do?”

“Advance on me and you’ll find out.”

Idiot. What is it with the male bravado? He was fully warned but he raised his weapon and advanced anyway, clearly underestimating his opponent. Classic mistake. My perception was as if time had slowed dramatically. I could see my left hand grab what appeared to be the barrel of the weapon and pull it forward. His arms extended, as anticipated, and I reached between them with my right hand balled into a fist. The upper cut connected with the bottom of his chin and forced his head back. Letting go of the weapon, I shifted my weight onto the left leg and extended the right leg. My foot connected with his abdomen and he flew backwards a couple of feet before landing hard on the concrete, his weapon sliding across the floor. Time returned to normal, I brought my foot down, returned to my defensive stance, and focused on the others. One down, about eleven to go.

After quickly exchanging glances, they all advanced at once. That hadn’t been figured into my situation assessment. Suddenly, I was blocking and sending weapons flying off in all directions. Any time I felt a hand on my body, it was quickly knocked away. It was a little hard to keep up, though. Seven years under the instruction at Hao Lai Academy had taught me focus, balance, and muscle memory. Now, my brain had the memory but my muscles were acting like it was their first time out. I was essentially back to square one. The moves I knew. I just couldn’t perform them with the proficiency I had when this whole thing started. If I was catching a block, somebody hit me from behind. If I lowered for a sweep, someone kicked me and knocked me over. It was grueling work.

After several minutes of this, there were somehow four more unconscious bodies on the floor. Amazingly, though there was a lot of work going on, I wasn’t winded at all. Seven were still standing, half of them winded. For the life of me, I couldn’t really figure out how I was going to get out of this. They had much more experience than I did with their own bodies. They had the advantage, which was becoming obvious.

I narrowed my focus on the leader once more. “I’m not going to tell you again. Back off and let me pass. I don’t want to hurt any of you.”

He scoffed. He was winded, though. He reached across his body and pulled out a collapsible baton, flicked his wrist, and the baton extended. It seemed like a standard issue that police would have. There was one difference: electricity arced around the tip. “And I’m not going to tell you again: lay down your weapons and drop to the ground. We’re taking you one way or another, missy.”

He had just upped the ante. “Suit yourself.” Snikt-snikt. The blades came out of my fists and I grimaced once more.

Several of them jumped back. They were definitely not briefed about me. Off in the distance, I could hear the “click-clack” of a woman’s footsteps while wearing heels. That was new.

“Holy shit! I’m not getting paid enough for this!” One announced as he picked up his weapon and took off.

“Nobody told us she had that! You’re on your own, Steiner!” Another stated and followed his friend.

“Fine,” The leader nearly growled. “Leaves me the pleasure of taking down this freak bitch myself.”

He raised his baton to come at me.

“Captain! You are to stand down, immediately!” A woman shrieked.

Amazingly, he flinched and then stopped, turning to look at her. So did I. She seemed plain enough. She dressed plainly in two-inch black pumps, smoke-colored nylons, a navy blue skirt, a lavender blouse, and a white lab coat. Her dark brown hair was wrapped up in a messy bun. Her arms folded and she tapped one foot on the concrete floor.

“Dr. Kimura? What are you doing down here?” The leader asked, clearly confused.

“Plans change, Captain.” She glanced at the bodies on the ground. “Tend to your casualties and report back to your post.” Then, a stern glance met me. “You, come with me.” She turned on a heel and started walking.

For a moment, I just stood there, transfixed. What the hell is going on? First, they’re attacking me for trying to escape and now this woman was wanting to talk? Had to be a trick.

“You’d better go with the good doctor, missy. Otherwise, I have full authorization to take you out.” The leader advised.

Reluctantly, I lowered my guard and stepped over an unconscious man to follow the strange woman. Snikt-snikt. The claws were away again and I absent-mindedly rubbed my hands afterward. The woman led us down several corridors that all looked the same and into a door painted white with a little plaque displaying “Dr. Kimura” on the front. My mind played several questions on a repeat cycle, but I kept quiet the whole time. Thankfully, the alarm was no longer sounding and the warning computer voice wasn’t coming over the intercom any longer.

Once we were inside, she quickly closed the door. “You have to get out of here. I don’t know what they have planned, but it will probably kill you.”

I spun around with my eyes widened at her. “Beg your pardon?”

She didn’t immediately answer. My eyes followed her as she quickly crossed the room to one of the two leather chairs in front of an oak desk. She picked up a purple and black backpack. It looked full. “I packed some things for you. Some essentials, if you will. Inside this bag are two more bras, a package of underwear, several socks, and a fresh package of panty liners. You’ll need them in a day or two.”

I shook my head. “Come again?”

She looked angry, stomping her foot. “We don’t have time!” She turned and moved to a wooden closet behind her, tearing it open. Pulling out a brown paper bag and rifling through it for a moment, she tossed a bundle of dark blue denim at me. “I tried to approximate your size. It was a little difficult to do with any measure of discretion. If those don’t fit, I’m sorry.” I caught the bundle and looked at it quizzically. “They’re jeans! Put them on!”

Flinching, I opened the fly and started doing as instructed. Funny. They were shaped oddly for a pair of jeans. I had them pulled up to my thighs when another bundle of black fabric hit me and landed on the floor. “You can thank me later.”

Pulling up the jeans felt very strange indeed. Once the fly was done up, they hugged my butt and my hips while pressing against my crotch. They were women’s jeans. They didn’t fit my thighs well and they were a little too long in the legs, but they would protect my modesty. Groaning, I rolled my eyes and picked up the black fabric. A squeak of glee escaped my lips. It was my T-shirt with the Punisher logo. My very favorite shirt. Hurriedly tearing off the damnable pink thing, I opened up my shirt and slipped it on. Correction: it was now my very favorite dress. It fit me about the same way the pink thing did. There was a strange tug on my head. Unconsciously, I removed my hair from the back of the shirt.

She waved me closer. She’d been good to me, thus far, so I complied. She motioned for me to sit in the open leather chair and handed me a pair of socks. As she rifled through the bag again, I slipped them over my feet, noticing just how much smaller they were. “Thankfully, I could accurately measure your feet with a measure of discretion while you were on the examination table.” She plucked out what looked like purple and black “skater” shoes, then handed them over to me. “I hope you like them and they’re comfortable enough.”

Again, she was diving into the bag as I absentmindedly pulled the shoes on. They fit perfectly. Grabbing a dark brown leather bundle from the bag, she moved around the desk and tapped my shoulder. She was holding up a coat. I slipped my hands in as requested. It was a little big, but not by much. It hung to about the middle of my thighs, though. Girl’s coat. I rolled my eyes again as she moved to take up the backpack. “I also included a brown manila folder inside. It has exactly two thousand dollars in it. That should get you as far away from here as possible and put some food in your stomach.” She handed it to me and I slipped it over my shoulder. “There’s a trap door in the corner. Use it and follow the tunnel to the other side. Once you’re in the open air, don’t stop until you get to civilization due West. Even then, don’t stop until you feel safe.”

Turning to her desk, she picked up a business card, pulled open the coat, and slipped the card into the inside pocket. “You want answers? You get in touch with Dr. Henry McCoy.” Oddly enough, she kissed my forehead–which made me flinch. She looked right into my eyes. I could see tears forming in hers. “For my part in this, I’m sorry. What I have done should not be done to anyone. Get out of here, find Julia, get away, find Dr. McCoy, and you’ll get your answers. Now, go!”

She turned me facing the corner. I could see the hatch for the trap door. I moved over to it and pulled it open. Sliding down onto the ladder beneath, I took one last glance at my benefactor. She shook her head at me. “Go!”

I could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Men’s oxfords, I think. Time to go. “Thank you.” I dropped down and closed the lid behind me.

A sigh of relief left her lips the moment the trap door closed. Her prodigy, probably the best work of her life, was now gone. Safe.

Without too much time to think, Dr. Kimura spun around to her desk, grabbed the paper sack, and returned the thing from whence it came. Then, she closed the closet. Her heart was racing. It was only a matter of time before word would travel about her intervention. She glanced around her office, making sure nothing was out of place. In a moment of recollection, she touched the photograph of her husband, herself, and their two children. A single tear rolled down her cheek. What would happen to them, now?

With ferocity, her office door slammed open. A bald man in a navy pin-stripped suit burst in, followed by three guards. The slam startled her and she quickly wiped her eyes.

“Dr. S-sutter?! W-what a p-pleasant surprise…” She stammered.

The bald man glared and growled. “Stow it, bitch! Where is she?!”

“Why, whatever do you…”

“Don’t toy with me!” He crossed the room and delivered a backhand blow to her face that sent her flying across the floor. “Where is she?!”

Flushed and knocked off balance, she put her hand up to her warm cheek. Tears rolling down her face, she glared back at him. “Far away from you, by now!”

Again, he growled and quickly scanned the room. His eyes landed on the hatch, then returned to Dr. Kimura’s mostly limp form. “You let her use your escape tunnel, didn’t you! You little, insignificant, insubordinate bitch!”

He laid into the woman with several blows while she writhed and screamed. The guards didn’t move. When he was satisfied and she was whimpering through sobs, he stood up once more and glared at the guards. “Take Dr. Kimura to a nice, padded cell and throw away the key. In the meantime, I want that little bitch found!”

He stormed out of the office while the guards scrambled to pick up the limp form of the woman.

Running as far and as fast as my body could carry me, I was surprised to discover just how far I could run at full speed. Upon emerging from the tunnel, it was apparently sometime in the morning and late morning at that, based on the position of the sun. There was no other way to tell the time, so I had to resort to pure instinct. Thankfully, the forest surrounding me was at least recognizable. I was still in the Pacific Northwest, but whether I was anywhere near Seattle remained to be seen. Turning to the West, my legs pumped harder and I just kept running.

Not paying any attention to anything other than getting away to safety, the sun had traveled the sky. Had I really ran full speed all day and only just now needed to rest? The ramifications baffled me. It was the beginning of sunset before I finally reached a paved road. Vibrant oranges and reds were painted onto the clouds and nearby buildings. At least, it wasn’t raining. It seemed a little warm, though. Somewhere off in the distance, I could hear a siren sound off. Falling to my knees, tears streamed down my face. Civilization, at last.

Suddenly, I was awash with different senses. Mostly, smells. I can’t really describe most of them, but I could smell everything–especially the things you really don’t want to smell. I could hear people talking, but couldn’t see anybody around me. My eyes darted around the little suburban street I managed to find myself on, looking for any clues. Then, I caught it. The smell of potatoes dipped in searing hot oil and singed meat. My stomach grumbled in protest. Having no idea where the smell was coming from, it was time to do as Tucan Sam had always advised, just follow my nose.

Following the scent, I wandered for quite a few blocks. It was annoying when the wind changed directions for a moment and I’d loose the scent. Thankfully, it was back again shortly after. After several suburban blocks, I finally came to a main thoroughfare. So, my nose led me to a Burger King? Oh, happy day!

In my utter excitement, I nearly slammed the door into a 40-something woman, carrying out her child’s meal. I felt terrible because the little girl behind her was, frankly, adorable. She probably wouldn’t have been happy if I’d have put her mother in traction. They took their sweet time moving out of the way, though. As soon as they were past, I darted inside and took a big whiff of the place, taking it all in. Glancing at the menu board, I remember being tempted to order about half of what was up there. Instead, I sat in a booth and began to rifle through the backpack for the manila folder. With enough digging, all of Dr. Kimura’s claims were authenticated. There were bras, underwear (boy shorts), socks, the package of maxi pads, and finally the folder was buried near the bottom. Ignoring all else, I pulled out the folder. Inside, I found something that looked like a long, rectangular, plastic wallet with a purple and black argyle design on the outer shell. I learned later the term is “billfold”. Upon further inspection, it had a magnetic closure apparatus that was easy to decipher. Once opened, there were 18 $100 bills and 10 $20 bills. It was $2,000, exactly.

Beyond that, what was her whole deal with the color purple? The shoes, the backpack, now the billfold? I mean, I liked the color well enough, but she insisted on it being everywhere. It creeped me out more than a little. The need to eat quickly overcame the need to figure out the lady’s fascination with that particular spectrum of the rainbow. My stomach growled in protest, again. Taking a 20, I moved over to get in line. It didn’t matter what I ordered. I just needed food. Now.

The problem? It was “dinner rush” time and there was a line. Great, I break out of a top-secret unnamed facility, run all day, and then have to wait for the denizens to get their grub before I can actually order anything. Typical.

Finally up to the cashier, she immediately smiled at me. Not knowing what to make of that, I quickly made the order I’d devised down to the smallest detail while I was in line. The girl behind the counter had to be either a sophomore or junior at the local high school. Remembering my reflection, it could be said that she was in “my age group”, now. Not wanting to dwell, there was information I needed.

“I have a question, but it’s going to sound weird.” My words formulated as I handed her the $20 to pay for my meal. My voice still sounded very alien to me, but I did my best to emulate the lingo without “blowing my cover”.

“Sure, hon. What’s up?” She asked, almost in a mock cheerful tone.

“Where am I? I mean, what town am I in?”

Her eyes seemed to reflect the myriad of thoughts crossing through her mind. I deduced that she believed me to be a hitchhiking runaway. “Welcome to Chehalis, sweetie.”

Chehalis? How the heck did I get that far South? “Okay… is there, like, a Greyhound station nearby or anything like that?”

She nodded, knowingly. “Yea. It’s about 3 blocks down the road, next to the Safeway. You can’t miss it, really. Everything worth seeing in this town is right on this main road.”

“They make regular trips to Seattle and stuff like that, right?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t pay that much attention. I mean, I’ve seen some coming down the road headed to either Portland or Seattle, but I’ve never paid attention to what time that happens.”

I nodded back and offered a smile. “Thanks.” Then, I grabbed my meal and sat down to eat it. I was utterly famished!

After the awkward stares while eating, I slipped the billfold into the inner pocket of my jacket, slipped the backpack over my shoulders, cleaned up after myself, and followed the instructions given. Glancing around at my surroundings, it was very apparent that this was nothing more than a hole-in-the-wall small western town. They even had some storefronts that looked as though they’d come right out of the 19th Century. It didn’t take me very long to arrive at the little Greyhound station. The disappointment set in when I learned there wouldn’t be a bus until the next morning. Essentially, I was stuck in corn-fed hell for a while longer.

There was no identification included in the package Dr. Kimura had given me. That was quickly discovered when I tried to rent a room at the motel across the street. It was very strange to note that I could buy a Greyhound ticket, bound for anywhere I wanted, but couldn’t rent a motel room for the night without possessing identification. After that night, never in a million years would I ever advocate sleeping in a Greyhound station. Waking up the next morning was more than a little rough. Absently, I took a glance at my ticket. Was it really August 14th? Had I really been in that god-forsaken place for more than six months?

Having rested on the wooden surface of the bench, my body loudly protested. I had aches in places I’ve never had aches before. Shuffling onto the sardine can was easy enough. There, thankfully, weren’t too many people on board. I decided to catch a few more winks as the bus rumbled northward along Interstate 5. Awakening to the announcement that we would be arriving in Seattle shortly, I felt like I could really use a few more of those winks. Traveling sure is rough.

Knowing that we’d be arriving in the heart of Downtown Seattle was comforting. From there, I had formulated a plan pertaining to what my next move would be. As soon as we arrived and disembarked, I hit the ground running. Not literally, mind you. I had patience. Casually walking toward the Metro Bus Tunnel, I knew where I’d be headed. The problem was that my nostrils were clogged with all the nasty smells of the city; plus, non-stop sirens and traffic noise were hurting my ears. Had Seattle always been this loud and… smelly?

Hopping on a #11 bus, a grin crossed my face at getting away with paying the youth fare. Though, I noted that the standard fare had been hiked up, twice. A few things had changed. There was hope, deep within me, that other things hadn’t. Though I used to live on Capital Hill, my building required a magnetic keycard that was not in my possession. That wasn’t where I was headed, though. I needed to get my bearings and get a grip on things that had happened in my absence. There was only one place I knew to go. I just hoped somebody was home.

Having disembarked a second bus for the day, I wound my way through six blocks of residential buildings. Finally finding the one I was searching for, I happily approached the brick building that had apparently been built in the 1940’s. What luck! A man was exiting the building as I came up and was only too happy to hold the door open for me. I wouldn’t have to buzz in. That would have been awkward. Thanking him, I ascended the stairs until I reached the third floor. By now, the heart in my chest was beating furiously. Not from exertion, mind you, but from anticipation. Nervously, I glanced up at the fake brass numbers of 314, took a breath, and knocked on the door.

Inside, I could hear muffled conversation between two men. Then, there were some rather thunderous footsteps. My heart started beating faster, even as the locks were being disengaged. Interminably, the door slowly swung open. A young man in his mid-twenties was revealed. Gawd, he looked really tall and huge. He was wearing a simple pair of gray sweatpants and, apparently, nothing else. His muscles bulged out of his abdomen, chest, arms, and legs. Did he really shave his head?

“Um… can I help you, Miss? We really don’t buy Girl Scout cookies, here. Though, nice touch with your sister’s jeans and your brother’s T-shirt.” He stated plainly.

I could have melted the moment I saw him. Suddenly, my eyes felt hot and really wet. My voice seemed to squeak and my throat felt really small. “Brickhouse? Is that really you?”

His expression became very puzzled. He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met, honey. There’s a select few people who know me by that name and you’re really not the type.”

I stomped my foot. “Dammit, Brickhouse! It’s me!”

“Who… who are you?”

I tugged at my shirt, full out bawling at this point. “This is my very favorite shirt. Now, it’s a fucking dress. They took Julia and did God-knows-what with her. A lot has changed. I need you to understand that I’m Lex.” His eyes widened. “Yes, you know it! I’m the only one of us that uses that line from Jayne in reference to my shirt!”

His eyes widened even more. “Holy shit… Lex? Is that really you in there?”

Nodding, tears were cascading off my cheeks. I fell forward into him and felt his arms wrap around me.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Four ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Finally free of imprisonment, real life sets in. Lex learns who her real friends are. The new body takes a little getting used to. One visit may mean the difference between life and death. Real life ain't all peaches and cream, bub.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you, again, by the incredibly talented Mike Choi.

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Chapter Four:

“So, let me get this straight: You’ve been in that place this whole time?” Mike asked for clarification.

Feeling a little embarrassed, they had let me into the apartment. I settled onto the couch. Mike was sitting across with his chair turned the wrong way, straddling the back. Steven (don’t call him “Steve”) was standing next to Mike, leaning on another chair. Their apartment was a sparse one-bedroom with a bathroom, tiny kitchen, small dining area, and small living room area. If Mike was totally not the gay stereotype, Steven totally was the gay stereotype. He spoke like a drag queen (because he was one… on the weekends), which had a tendency of weighing on my nerves.

“Yes, unfortunately.” They had been taking turns grilling me. Up to this point, I had explained my perspective of the kidnapping, what had happened to me in the cell, the details of my escape, and the sojourn that brought me to their front door.

“No wonder you look a hot mess, honey. I wouldn’t take that bus if you paid me in penises.” Steven quipped.

I simply rolled my eyes.

Mike shifted a little. “I have to be honest, here. I’m still not convinced that you are actually Lex. Don’t take any offense, though. I mean, he’s a built guy in the Welterweight Division and stands at five-ten. You, sweetie, qualify for cheerleader, but that’s about it. People don’t shrink, age regress, or change sexes. That’s some kind of obscure internet story type of crazy.”

Sighing, my hand shot to my forehead and impacted for a good, old-fashioned facepalm. A moment later, my eyes were back on him. “If I hadn’t watched it happen in a two-way mirror, I’d be saying the same thing.”

“Okay, so you understand, then. Good. I’m gonna ask you a few questions. That cool?”

Again, my eyes rolled. “Fine.”

“Okay, where were you born?”

I took a breath. This would take a minute. “Well, I was supposed to be born at the Falls City Hospital. There were some complications. My mom’s heart started going out, her kidneys started failing, and I was apparently trying to strangle myself with the umbilical cord. It’s the reason why I’m an only child. So, then we were life-flighted to Lincoln. That’s in Nebraska.” I smirked like he should know this, already. “I was also born the same year that Back To The Future came out. Happy?”

Mike was doing his best impression of The Thinker.

“Okay, smart tits,” Steven quipped. “Did you play a sport in high school?”

“Yes. Soccer.”

“Were you any good?”

“Steven, that’s an objective question. From my perspective, I was only as good as my teammates. We won the state championships, went on to take the regional title, but we didn’t place in Nationals. I got a scholarship out of it, though, so I’m not complaining too much.”

“What’s your girlfriend’s full name?” Mike finally spoke.

“Julia Eleanor Langley, but don’t tell her I told you that.” My eyes widened, thinking she might be in the other room ready to pound me for revealing her middle name. Her mother idolized Eleanor Roosevelt, hence the name. “Speaking of which, have you guys heard from her at all?”

Steven reacted first, shaking his head. “Sorry, sugar. Not a peep.”

Mike’s face had much more remorse in it. “No, we haven’t. After Lex… well, you… and Julia went to the club, that night, both of you seemed to drop off the face of the Earth.”

Tears started welling up in my eyes again. What was with all this crying? “I’ve got to find her, Mike. Hell or high water. If I have to go to the ends of the Earth, itself, just to get her back, I will. I just have to know she’s okay.”

He smiled warmly. “We’ll help any way we can. Only the Lex I know would be that devoted to Julia.” He tapped my hand. “It’s good to have you back.”

Steven then did something very odd. His head and neck craned back, then forward again. I’d only ever seen black women and drag queens do it. “What? You mean, you think this little tart is actually telling the truth?”

Mike glared up at his partner. “Yes, dear, I do. She knows too much about him to not be him. Besides, what did they say about that Terra girl? Didn’t she change sex?”

Steven scoffed… very femininely. “What, that little tramp? That’s just a little teeny-bopper with some bad parents that let her go out dressed like that.”

“How about American Dream?”

“A cheerleader from the Fourth of July parade gone mental.”

“Blue Beetle?”

“Bad Power Rangers rerun.”

“Giganta?”

“Nice camera work.”

Mike chuckled. “Oh, so all those news reports are special effects?” He looked back at me. “He’s still a skeptic. No matter what, you can’t prove to him that these ‘metahumans’ exist.”

My right eyebrow raised suggestively. “Really… is that so?” Standing up from the couch, I slipped off my jacket. “Steven, I’d like to show you something.”

That skeptical look crossed his face again. “Yea? What?”

First grimacing, then balling my hand into a fist, SNIKT! Out came the claws. He screamed like a woman and his hand shot to his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. Mike even jumped back and carried an expression of shock. I wasn’t done with them, yet. I held out my arm, took the claws, and raked the metal against my own skin. The two cuts were deep and started bleeding immediately. It seriously hurt, but I had to make the point. Grimacing again, the claws were gone with another snikt.

“Jesus, Lex! What the fuck was that?” Mike wondered, his eyes nearly bulging out of his face.

“Steven,” I stated sweetly, “be a dear and hand me a paper towel over there?” Reluctantly, he passed me one, but he was shaking furiously. I took the towel and wiped my arm off. Once cleared, they both watched as the wounds healed themselves right before their eyes. There was no scar and no other evidence that I had hurt myself, save for the excess blood. “How about now, Steven? Do we exist, yet?”

“H-how d-did you d-do that?” He stuttered.

“I told you guys, I’m a meta. I came out of anesthesia on the table, looked at my hands, and there were these bony claws coming out of them.” I sighed, exhausted from explaining so much.

“But… how’d they get all shiny and metal and sharp like that?” Mike wondered.

All I could do was shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. They had me knocked out half the time, remember? I don’t even know what the things are made of.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “Does it hurt?”

“Fuck, yes, it hurts! Every time!” My voice was getting higher in pitch. I plopped down on the couch. “I don’t even know what all of this means. I heal really fast. I can run all day and not get tired until sunset. I can hear people from really far away. I can smell things you really don’t want to smell and pick up the scent from far away. It’s more than a little overwhelming, you know? I mean, besides being turned into a teenage girl. That was almost too much of a shock.”

“Well, can’t you see a doctor about it?” The flushed queen asked, hand still on his chest.

“Oh, and what are they supposed to do, Steven? Make it all go away?”

“Wait… hang on… didn’t you say that lady gave you a business card and told you to find some doctor?” Mike was paying attention.

Turning ever so slightly, I grabbed the coat, fished in the inner pocket, and pulled out the card Dr. Kimura had given me. Before handing it over, I glanced at it. It read simply:

Mike glanced over it when I handed it to him and a contemplative expression crossed his face. “Well, what are your thoughts on that?”

“I can’t make a trip to California!”

“Why not?”

“Because we have to find Julia.”

Mike shook his head. “You leave that to us, buddy. I have a few friends with a few skills. Let me talk to them. In the meantime, you should probably get some rest. It’s been a long day, already.”

As if on cue, my mouth formed a yawn and I stretched through it. “You’re probably right.” My eyes met his. “Thanks, Mike. For everything.” Then, the moved over to his partner. “Sorry for scaring the shit out of you, Steven. I had to prove a point, though.”

He gave me the stink eye. “You better know how to get blood out of the rug or find a way to buy me a new one. Also, before you get your nastiness all over my brand new sofa, get that chubby little tush in the shower and get it cleaned, would you?”

“I smell pretty bad, huh?”

“I’m surprised you can’t smell it–with your new abilities and all that.”

The shower was heaven. When they say “cleanliness is next to godliness” and you don’t remember cleaning yourself for a few months, the feeling is indescribable. While I was locked up, there isn’t a single memory of taking a shower or bath or anything like that. My guess is that someone came in and gave me sponge baths every once in a while or actually set me in a tub while I was unconscious. Now, the feeling of falling warm water on my skin was breathtaking. Of course, with my new skin and sensitivities, it was an education. There was the strange sensation if the water hit my breasts or my empty crotch, but it wasn’t off-putting, for some strange reason. Then, there was the odd sensation of a mass of wet hair on my neck and shoulders. Oddly enough, I happened to prefer the floral scents of Steven’s shampoo, conditioner, and body wash versus using any of Mike’s Axe products. Also, I took it upon myself to shave my legs and armpits. It seemed appropriate.

When I got out, there was a warm towel waiting for me. Without much thought, I wrapped it around my waist like I usually would, but that no longer seemed appropriate. Thus, after some unwrapping, I lifted it up to chest level and stopped before wrapping it over my chest. Instead, I moved over to the mirror. It occurred to me that I hadn’t yet seen myself naked and there was some curiosity about that.

Upon moving in front of the reflective surface, an interesting sight bounced back at me. There she was again, that little black-haired and green-eyed teenage girl. My eyes slowly scanned over her form. The skin was pale as ever, but it didn’t look bad on her. Her skin was taught and had that extra glow of youth to it. Musculature was hidden beneath a layer of subcutaneous fat, but it was aesthetically pleasing. Her shoulders and ribs were rather narrow. Her hips flared out then flowed seamlessly into her thighs. She had a really cute little belly button. Her cute, perky breasts did seem a little large for her frame, but there was a hint that her body would catch up eventually. They weren’t really “huge”, like I had believed. Perspective can be the darnedest thing, sometimes. The more my eyes took in, the more they began to delight in what they saw.

The visual scan was interrupted by a knock on the door. Hurriedly, I wrapped the towel over my chest and bid the person to enter. Oddly enough, Steven came in with another towel in hand. At that moment, an odd scent hit my nose, but I didn’t think it was coming from him.

“Honey, there are a few things I’m going to teach you while you’re here. Namely, you gotta wrap up that mop before you get water all over my house. Bow down and flip your hair over your head.” He instructed.

I gave him a strange look for a moment, but complied. Bowing over, I forcefully moved my head in a manner that created some centrifugal force and flipped my hair over my head. He man-screeched for a second as he got pelted with water droplets, but let out a giggle as he gathered up loose strands that were determined to stick to the back of my neck and upper back. Then, he proceeded to wrap the towel around my head and tie it in a turban around my hair. I’d seen Julia use this technique but never thought my hair would ever be long enough to need it. He tucked some excess towel in the back of the turban and bade me to stand upright again.

“There you go, hon.” He actually smiled.

His smile was returned. “Thanks, Steven. I have a feeling that I’m going to get a crash course in a few subjects before this whole thing can be figured out.”

He sniffed the air. “Did you use my stuff?”

I meekly nodded. “Yea. You don’t really mind, do you? For some reason, I couldn’t justify using Mike’s stuff. I also borrowed a razor and cleaned up my legs.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter, hon. Mi casa es su casa, right?” His eyes traveled down to my legs, then his eyes got wide and a hand shot to his mouth. “Oh my god! Honey, you’re bleeding! I thought you healed?”

Startled, my eyes darted down to my legs to spot a little stream of blood on my damp inner thigh. Moving the towel, I traced the blood to its source. “Oh, fuck all!” I straightened up again and let out a whimper. “Steven, my backpack is in the living room. Could you grab it for me?”

He leaned in to whisper. “You got pads or tampons in there, sweetie?”

With a grimace, I nodded. He got a look on his face that said “Say no more!” and he shimmied out of the bathroom. I put my face in my hands in some measure of embarrassment. In moments, he had returned with the backpack in hand. I started digging through it.

“Let me guess: you don’t really have any idea what you’re doing, do you?” Again, he was whispering. I shook my head as I pulled out the package of maxi pads and the package of panties. “Leave it to me. Apparently, you can’t heal everything and Mother Nature, the fickle bitch, has to have her day.”

Well, at least I now knew what that smell was: blood and placenta. In all my life, if you had told me that I would eventually be having a period and then would immediately be taught how to use a maxi pad by a flaming gay guy, you would have been laughed out of my house because of your sick joke. Reality is so much stranger than fiction. Steven was really patient with me, though, and showed me exactly what he was doing, step-by-step. He had me clean up with a little toilet paper before slipping on the new pair of panties and pressing the maxi pad against my flat crotch. Interestingly enough, I was much more embarrassed than I was disgusted with the whole episode and kept apologizing for troubling him.

“Okay, I have to know: You don’t have the parts, so how did you know how to do this?” I wondered, shimmying into the panties.

He simply grinned and winked at me. “Fag hags, sweetie.”

The next three days weren’t much better than being in that cell. At least, this time there was television. It’s amazing how someone could miss having three hundred channels with nothing to watch. You never appreciate it until it’s not there, right? Most of the time, I was watching Discovery Channel or History Channel. No soap operas for me. Those things were for lonely housewives who needed some mental break from the monotony of their boring, routine lives. Occasionally, I’d flip over to the news stations, but it wasn’t much different from when I had been kidnapped. The only difference was the occasional story about some metahuman saving humanity somewhere, but that was about it.

Mike and Steven were really good to me, but I couldn’t help feeling that I was using them, somehow. Sure, they were good friends and I really needed that. However, I had worked my ass off for everything I had previously. Now, I had nothing and was sitting on the couch with a sports bra and panties with my Punisher T-shirt covering the whole thing while doing next to nothing. Steven even cooked for us all. I volunteered to clean up the kitchen, do the dishes, and clean up the bathroom, but was plotting what my next move was going to be the whole time. There was still ninety-five percent of the two grand left over. I thought about using it to hire a private investigator to help track down Julia because I didn’t have the slightest idea where to start. Mike quickly shot down that idea, telling me he had it handled.

At the very least, my period was over after those three days. I took another shower because I just felt disgusting, for some reason. It was still early morning. Steven had already left for work and Mike had the day off. I was hoping we could do something fun and maybe get me out of the house for a while. He shrugged me off, telling me he had something else planned. At the tail end of my shower, the doorbell rang. I heard footsteps and very muffled conversation, but couldn’t make out any of the words. When I got out, the conversation stopped. Patting myself dry and wrapping up my hair turban like Steven had shown me, I wondered about that. Then, once opening the door and stepping into the apartment, my eyes threatened to bulge out of my face.

“Oh, wow. You weren’t kidding, Mike. She’s adorable!” It was Rachel from work. Like an idiot, I just stood there staring. She spun around to Mike. “You didn’t tell her I was coming? You asshole!”

He chuckled as she smacked him. “Hey, she’s been talking about getting out of the house all day and I told her I had other plans. I thought it would be a surprise.”

My eyes rapidly blinked, bringing me out of my trance. “Uh, guys, still in the room, here. And, still a guy… current dilemma aside.”

Rachel blushed. “Sorry, Lex.” She stepped closer and started examining me. “Is it really still you in there?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for the love of Pete!”

Mike nodded. “I’m pretty damn sure it’s still Lex. Go ahead, ask a question only Lex would know.”

Rachel straightened up to ponder, wrinkling her nose as she did so. “Okay, what’s the one thing on your desk at Orion that stands out?”

Letting out a sigh, I played the game. “Would you mean my picture frame of Julia in the upper right corner or my twelve-inch, limited edition statuette of Shae Vizla right next to it?” One eyebrow stretched towards the sky. “Furthermore, I never told you how attractive I found you because it would feel like a betrayal to Julia, still does. Even given that, I’ve always liked how cute you look when you’re thinking and your nose is wrinkled like that. Besides those things, you’re a genius with watercolors and always will be, in my eyes.”

She staggered back a step or two. “Holy shit, she is Lex!”

“Told you. Why do people doubt me?” Mike quipped.

My response was a simple facepalm as I turned back into the bathroom to get dressed. They had a lively conversation in my absence, but included me as soon as I returned fully clothed. The whole story of abduction, imprisonment, manifestation, and escape was relayed again. Mike guided the conversation, mostly. I would add in a detail or two that he missed. Rachel listened attentively enough, but she kept looking at me strangely–so much so that I had to clarify something.

“Okay, seriously, why are you looking at me like that?”

She shrugged. “Oh, nothing really. Just making an observation.”

“And, that would be…?”

“Your voice might be that of a woman’s–well, a teenage girl’s, really–but you certainly don’t talk like one.”

Mike furrowed his brow in contemplation. “What do you mean by that?”

Rachel let out a sigh. She glanced at me with remorse in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lex, but I couldn’t really be totally sure it was you. I mean, the story is pretty fantastic and sounds like something out of a movie. Even with some of the other metas on TV and what not, it’s still a pretty fantastical notion for a guy, especially one as built as you were, to end up like you are, now.”

“Yea, and I can’t really explain how I know it’s him.” Mike admitted. “I just do.”

I was a little sullen. “Okay, so what changed your mind, Rachel?”

“Watching your movements and hearing you speak. You might have some pretty nice assets, but you don’t carry yourself like a woman would. Your speech is almost a dead give away. You don’t talk like a girl. Women have a habit of bouncing around different pitches when they talk. You stay pretty monotone, like a man. To express emotion, women raise their pitch. You just raise your volume, like a man would.” She approached and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry if this is making you feel like you’re being put on the spot, but it’s an observation.”

I had to scoff. “What? I should feel put off by the fact you’re pointing out that I really am a guy? Please, don’t feel sorry about that.”

She shook her head. “You know what? Forget about it. I was told there was something of an emergency in the clothing department that needed my expert insight?”

Mike nodded. “Yea, there is. All she has is that Punisher T-shirt that looks like she stole it from her brother. Other than that, she’s got one pair of jeans that are so ill fitting that they look like she stole them from her sister. She refuses mine or Steven’s help in that department, saying she’s got two grand on hand. I’d loan her some clothes, but they’d drape on her like a tent, worse than that shirt is now.”

Her glance darted between Mike and I. “So, we’re going shopping, then?”

My only response was a shrug. “I just want to go back to being me again and wearing my own clothes, thanks.”

“Well, like it or not, honey, you have a female body, now.” Rachel half-smirked. “Your old clothes aren’t going to fit you at all. People are going to have certain expectations when they see you, now, and it would be best if your clothes actually fit. Not to mention, what if those guys that took you come looking for you, again? From the story you told me, they seem like the type who wouldn’t want to loose their prize plaything. You’re going to be able to defend yourself with clothes tenting off of you? I’m no fighting expert, but I think that would put you at more of a disadvantage than you already have.”

Now, Mike stood. “You know, she’s got a real point, there. Remember those two guys who wanted to wear the flashy pants during their fights to show off for the cameras?”

Chuckling, I nodded. “Yea, they got their asses handed to them because the were impeded by all the extra fabric.”

Mike reciprocated the nod. “Exactly.” He glanced at Rachel. “You know, for a painter, you’ve got a fighter’s sense. You ever wanna get in the ring…”

She violently shook her head. “Oh, no! Not gonna happen! I like my job as a concept artist, thanks. I’m not quitting that day job to moonlight as a girl fighter.” Her glance landed on me. “Get dressed, hon. We’ve got a lot to do and we’re going to run out of daylight.”

Okay, so the mall towards the end of summer wasn’t bad. It was insane! There were people all around and hundreds of them. Teenagers ran around to different shops and had basically taken over the food court. The girls ran in packs, doing their prep work for the last part of summer. The guys seemed to follow them around like hungry wolves. The adult women seemed to be running around on a mission with several shopping bags in tow and their ears attached to their cell phones. If there were any adult men, they were in the arms of their wives/girlfriends and being led from store to store. I couldn’t help but think ‘Don’t any of these people have jobs or school?’

Thankfully, Rachel was pretty protective. When we first arrived, there was a flock of guys that looked right at me, then proceeded to immediately start wolf whistling and making catcalls. It was kind of humiliating. I made a mental note to apologize to every single woman that I ever could have done that to. It almost made me feel less than human–like more of a piece of meat. Like Mike had deduced, they called to me asking why I was wearing my brother’s shirt and my sister’s jeans.

Rachel leaned in and whispered in my ear. “See what I mean?”

In response, my eyes rolled and we decided it best to just keep moving. Okay, so she had a point. We kept moving through the crowd and she ducked into a store, dragging me along. As soon as I got a look at the place I froze. There was only one other time that I had ever stepped foot in Victoria’s Secret and that was only because I wanted to buy Julia a little negligée as a present. My mind began to formulate the real reason why Rachel had dragged me in here.

“Why are we in here?” I fiercely whispered.

“Don’t worry. It’s not what you think. Don’t you trust me?” She whispered back.

I started to respond, but she drug me further into the store. We headed into the back, near the dressing rooms. We were greeted by the smile of a rather pretty brunette sales girl.

“Hello, there, ladies. How can we help you, today?” She asked, her eyes darting from Rachel to me and back again.

Rachel returned the smile. “We have a little problem. You see, my niece, here, just went through a growth spurt. Her mom, single mother, dropped her off at my place this morning because she had to rush down to the hospital on an emergency–she’s a nurse. Worse part is, the poor dear doesn’t have anything to wear and I don’t have the slightest idea what her size is. Think you could help us out?”

The sales girl waved us toward the dressing rooms. “You guys go in there and I’ll be there in a minute.” Her gaze landed on me and she whispered. “Take everything off but your panties, hon, and we’ll work out all your measurements.” She actually winked at me?

To say I was a little nervous when Rachel started dragging me to the dressing room was an understatement. I hadn’t been mostly naked in front of anyone but myself since my escape. Though she was being a good friend, the thought of being almost completely nude in front of Rachel did fill me with a little trepidation. Once we were in the room, she saw the look on my face and smiled. She took my hand in hers.

“Don’t worry about it, Lex. They can’t take measurements with your clothes on and I’ve seen everything you’ve got a million times over. There’s no need to be nervous.” She smiled warmly.

“I have to take the bra off?” There was a whimper in my voice.

“What are you wearing?”

“A sports bra.”

She nodded. “Oh, yea. Those really squish everything in and she won’t be able to measure you accurately. I’m right here, though, okay?”

Smiling meekly, I began to disrobe. Probably longer than it should have taken, I was down to the requested garments and my cheeks were really warm. Rachel smiled supportively. The knock came to the door, the sales girl smiled, and then showed me her tape measure. She started to explain everything she was doing while she did it. I have to admit, a lot of it made perfect sense. She measured pretty quickly, too. She measured over the top of my breasts, just under them, my little natural waistline, my hips, and just at the tops of my thighs. Each time, she wrote the results on her little notepad. When she was finished, she turned to Rachel and handed her the little sheet she’d taken her notes on.

“Okay, so I’ve got everything. She’s about a 34 C in the bust, but her ribs will probably catch up and be an average 36 later. It all boiled down to 34-24-35. So, she could get away with medium tops and her dress size is about a 4 or a 5. Four is about the right fit, but five if she wants things a little loose.” She glanced at me with a sly grin. “If you wanted to get dangerous and show off a bit, you might be able to get away with a 2, but it’ll be pretty tight.”

My head shook violently. “Not gonna happen!”

She winked. “Good girl. You’re really too young, anyway.” Then, her gaze returned to Rachel. “I could go and grab a few bras so she can try them on, if you’d like?”

Rachel nodded, causing the sales girl to bounce out of the room. I just stood there and stared at her in abject horror. For the next hour or so, I can’t count how many bras I ended up putting on just to take off again. They were in all shapes and sizes, which only served to further my confusion. They lost me somewhere between “T-shirt” and “plunge”. There are a lot of names in women’s fashion and we hadn’t even gotten to the outer clothing, yet. Rachel even tutored me in the proper way to put a bra on and “adjust the girls” inside the cups. In the end, I bought the six bras that fit perfectly–Rachel advised me to buy four “T-shirt” and two “plunge”. I could barely contain my relief when we made to leave.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something from my college. Stopping and turning my head, it was confirmed. They had clothing here with University of Washington colors and mascots, the Huskies, all over them. They were tucked away in the “Love Pink” section. I still had some old school pride, so I glanced at a few things while Rachel advised me on sizes that might work. When we finally left, I had two new pairs of sweatpants, a hoodie, and a tank top decked out in my school colors. That made me feel pretty good after the bra torture.

Once we stepped outside, Rachel’s eyes darted from one way to another. Her nose was wrinkled. She was deep in thought, but I didn’t have the slightest clue what the subject matter could have been. Following her lead, I glanced up and down the corridor. There were many stores with many names I didn’t recognize. Save for one.

“Jackpot!” Grabbing Rachel’s hand, I made a beeline for my target.

“What? Where are you…?” Then, she saw the sign. “Hot Topic? Are you kidding me?”

Once inside, I spun around to face her. “Rachel, the whole Goth thing is kind of a defense mechanism. Given the circumstances, I think I could use a little slack on this. Besides, I’ve already got the black hair and the pale skin. Humor me?”

She shrugged. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this.”

Okay, so Hot Topic isn’t where real Goths shop. It used to be, then they went mainstream. A pity, really, because they used to be the best. However, I wasn’t going to let Rachel talk me into H&M or Forever 21 at a time like this. So, the decision was simple.

My eyes started darting about the display racks. Thankfully, this location was a lot bigger than the hole-in-the-wall locations at other malls I’d seen. It was about the same size as the Victoria’s Secret. So, I got right down to it. At first, I was thumbing through the clothes looking disinterested. With a little nudge from Rachel here and there, I starting to find things I actually liked. As we really got into the shopping, I was surprised at my choices. Some of them were downright girly and, I dare say, one or two squeaks of glee escaped my lips. In response, Rachel held up a skirt and I glared at her.

“I am so not there, yet.” My tone was telling enough. She looked deflated.

After getting loaded down with T-shirts, tank tops, a few pairs of jeans, and some “bondage” pants, I was about ready to pay for things and leave the place. Rachel presented a couple more hoodies and a messenger bag I actually liked. They were added to the pile. We made our way to the dressing rooms. Rachel insisted. When I finally got inside, Rachel darted off with an idea in her head.

“What’s your shoe size?”

Picking up one of the shoes Dr. Kimura had given me that fit perfectly and glancing at it, I was actually able to answer that question confidently. “Seven and a half?”

She tore back the curtain. Thankfully, I was not in a state of undress. “Your feet are smaller than mine? Bitch!”

I fell over onto the floor from laughing so hard. She joined in. It was the first good laugh I’d had in quite a while. She closed the curtain again and I began to try everything on. She told me she was taking off for a minute and would be right back. Not knowing what that meant, I continued with my work. Amazingly, everything I tried on fit me like a glove and was incredibly comfortable. On the way up to the counter, my eyes spotted some elbow-length fingerless gloves, which gave me an idea. I bought those, too. Finally arriving at shoes, I opted for the two pairs of “Don’t fuck with me!” boots in lieu of the “Please fuck me.” styles. At that point, Rachel was back and everything got paid for. She helped me carry all the different bags and we headed straight for the exit. Shopping done. I found out later that Rachel had hit Lady Footlocker and gifted me three yoga tops, two pairs of yoga pants, some sport socks, two pairs of tennis shoes, and a giant duffel bag.

When we got back to Mike and Steven’s apartment, I counted my money again. Everything totaled up, it astounded me to contemplate that $1,100 had been spent in one day. Never again.

Over the course of the next day or so, Mike and Steven wanted to see the whole haul. I was not about to do a fashion show, but they got the idea. They even gave me some plastic organizer containers to put away all the clothes so that they weren’t stuffed away in a bag or strewn all over the apartment. Rachel was now coming over after work just to hang out. For the life of me, the reason why I’d never really considered her one of my core friends escaped me. She was good people, after all–not to mention really helpful and incredibly supportive. Without meaning to, I was starting to get on Mike’s nerves, though. At every available opportunity, I would try to grill him on the status of the search for Julia. It was something of an obsession, now.

One morning when I woke up, he told me to get dressed in one of the yoga outfits that Rachel had given me. He had a surprise for me. Sensing ulterior motives, I was a little apprehensive, but compliant. Slipping the outfit on and donning the hoodie with Jack Skellington’s face on the back, I pulled my hair into a ponytail with a scrunchie Rachel had gifted to me then put my shoes on as he grabbed a jacket. We piled into his car and I tried to ask him where we were going for about half the trip. He was stoic and refused to answer. Then, I saw familiar surroundings of the International District and I began to wonder why I hadn’t thought of this first. Finding parking at nine in the morning was, thankfully, easy. Acting as escort, he walked me to the front doors of the Hao Lai Academy. He stopped and turned to me at the door.

“Okay, Lex. I’m coming inside with you to help out with your master, or whatever they’re called in Chinese. I think it’ll be good for you to get back into your martial studies. The guys who took you might be coming after you as we speak and you need to be prepared for that. Besides, it’ll give you something to occupy your mind while we find Julia.” He explained. “I’m your friend and I care. This isn’t a tactic to just get you out of my hair, okay?”

He made sense, so I nodded and gave him a smile. “Thanks, Mike.”

Reciprocating the nod, he opened the door and ushered me inside. From across the street, I could already hear that a class was being taught. Thus, when we entered, Mike and I sat in the spectator’s area and watched until the class was finished. They seemed to be a group of skilled young kids just at the apex between childhood and adolescence. It was good to see the young taking an interest in the humble arts of Kung Fu. Once the class was finished, they all bowed to their teacher, who was not my Shifu, and their parents cheered them on. Then, everyone began to shuffle about and move out the doors. Mike and I stayed seated. Our business would be discussed once the class was gone. However, a young Asian woman that looked to be in her early twenties approached us. Oddly enough, I didn’t recognize her and I’d been at the academy for seven years. She bore a cordial smile.

“Hello, there. You seem to be new. Is this your first time here?” She asked us.

“Yes.” Mike answered. “No.” I answered. It sounded a little jumbled since we responded simultaneously.

The confusion was apparent on the woman’s face for a moment, but she shook it off and moved on. “How nice to see a father bringing his daughter in for instruction.” Another smile.

Mike and I exchanged surprised expressions, then focused back on the woman.

“No,” Mike began first. “She’s not my daughter. She’s actually… a cousin.” He looked sheepish.

The woman nodded, anyway. “Oh, okay. Well, welcome to Hao Lai Academy. Is there anything we can help you with, today?”

I got straight to the point. A blank expression graced my face. “We need to see Shifu. Could you inform him that it’s very important?”

She blinked rapidly. “Oh, well, he is very busy…”

No change in my demeanor. “Please, just tell him. He will understand.”

She seemed very confused. Not many were awarded an audience with Shifu. Only his most advanced students had the honor of one-on-one instruction with him. I had been one of the lucky ones, once. Still, she stood and moved to honor the request. “I’ll be right back.”

When she had moved far enough away, I glanced accusingly at Mike. “Your cousin?”

He shrugged. We waited for what seemed like an hour or so. It was no secret that the man really had a tight schedule. From instructing his more advanced students to tending to the day-to-day business affairs, he didn’t have a lot of free time. Mike and I stood, walked out of the seating area, removed our shoes, and stepped onto the central mat. When Mr. Xiao Min appeared from somewhere in the back, Mike turned and nodded to him. I was much more respectful.

Bowing deeply with my feet together and my right fist encased in my left hand, I spoke to a man I’d not seen in more than six months. “Zhi yi [Greetings], Shifu.”

He stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. “Your Mandarin is sloppy and heavily laced with your American accent. If you wish to show proper respect, perhaps you should get a copy of Rosetta Stone.”

I straightened up again, but lowered my head after being shamed. “Apologies, Shifu.”

He shook his head and glanced over at Mike. “I am Mr. Xiao Min, the ‘Headmaster’ of this Academy, if you will. What can I do for you?”

Mike extended his hand to the man, who returned the gesture, and motioned to me with a jerk of his head. “Well, I’m Mike Deutsch, but I’m not the one that’s here to see you. She is.”

Shifu’s eyes glanced from me and back to Mike. “And, she would be whom?”

Mike looked sheepish. “Maybe you should let her explain it.”

I swallowed hard. This whole thing of explaining who I really was had to come to the point of getting really old. Taking a breath, I considered everything that had happened and the discussion he and I had before the kidnapping. There was only one way to proceed from here. “I have an answer to your question, Shifu.”

He appeared interested and folded his arms over his chest. “Oh? And what would that be?”

Another hard swallow. “Your wisdom has been considered. The reason I participated in those tournaments was to prove something. There was a need to prove that I truly was a man. From very young, I was not convinced. The tournaments were a way of convincing myself and toughening myself up. You always said to expect the unexpected. Well, the unexpected has happened, Shifu, and I’m not prepared for it. I have returned to you with my answer.”

His arms loosened. “So, a prodigal child had returned. What is your name, young one?”

My eyes met his. “You would call me ‘Lewen’, Shifu.”

A smirk creased his lips. “Well, given the sight before my eyes, I should think it more appropriate to call you Lei Wen, now.” It hit my ears as “lay-when”; it was a rather common Mandarin woman’s name. “May I ask how this happened?”

“I am a metahuman, Shifu. When my abilities manifested, this happened.” With my hands, I displayed my new body like some kind of Vanna White.

“Well, I should think this occasion would involve the telling of a tale.” He motioned to both Mike and I. “Please, sit.” Afterwards, he wasted no time in sitting on the mat.

Immediately following his request, I honored it by sitting. Mike took a minute longer, but obeyed. Oddly, Shifu objected to the way I was sitting. My position was with my legs folded in a pretzel, as always. However, he instructed me to kneel down and then sit on my feet. It stuck me as odd, but I followed his instructions. Later, I would come to find out that this is the manner in which women were expected to sit. It was proper female etiquette, apparently. Over the next hour or so, Mike and I took turns conveying the whole story from kidnap to escape. Through the whole thing, Shifu’s expression changed twice, but only briefly. When we were done, he had a contemplative look on his face that made me a little nervous.

After a few moments, he finally spoke. “So, I am led to believe that your mind knows what to do, but this new form does not have the muscle memory needed.” Pausing again, contemplation crossed his face again. “I could be persuaded to instruct you, one-on-one.”

My face lit up. “I would like that, Shifu, but I do not have the means to compensate you.”

“I do and it would be no trouble.” Mike offered.

Shifu shook his head. “No, I cannot allow someone to pay another’s debts.” His eyes met mine. “Lei Wen, you will work here at the academy when we are not training. This situation requires complete dedication and you would be expected to be here from sunrise to sunset, every day. If you cannot meet these requirements, then I cannot teach you.”

Mike and I exchanged glances before he chuckled, “Well, there goes your television habits.”

After glaring at him, my eyes returned to Shifu. “I would be willing to cooperate with those terms. These people are probably after me and it’s humiliating that all my time and dedication means nothing if I can’t defend myself. On top of that, I may need to rescue Julia and would make a fool of myself if I tried now.”

A grin crossed the man’s face. “Very astute observation. We will begin tomorrow. If you are not here when the sun rises, then you will forfeit this opportunity. Dong ma? [Understand?]”

Both Mike and I stood, then I bowed again. “Xie Xie, Shifu.” [“sheh-sheh” means “Thank you”]

He rolled his eyes. “Again, your Mandarin is terrible. Buy Rosetta Stone.” Then, he smiled. “But, you are welcome. See you tomorrow.”

Marked Target ~ Chapter Five ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Two months pass. Lex's training intensifies. There are two discoveries brought before her. She learns, the hard way, that not all surprises are good ones.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you, again, by the incredibly talented Mike Choi.

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Chapter Five:

When you’re not looking, two months can fly by like the blink of an eye. In a week, it would be Halloween. That kept getting updated to me whenever most people saw my wardrobe and disapproved of the whole Goth theme. I just rolled my eyes and kept moving on. At the very least, guys weren’t wolf whistling at me nor did they make catcalls like they did in the mall when I was with Rachel. The look was received as somewhat intimidating. That was a relief. Thankfully, they were nowhere to be seen when I made my morning journey to Hao Lai.

It gets cold really quickly in Seattle. One day, it was a comfortable seventy-eight degrees. The next day, it dropped to fifty-six and hadn’t gotten above that since. Not to mention, the wind that whips through the buildings in downtown can knock you over if you’re not careful and the rain will sometimes come in sideways, completely bypassing your umbrella. I had taken it upon myself to get a nice, warm coat made of polar fleece that “naturally” repels water (synthetic material). Since it was a trenchcoat, it reached to my knees and my boots covered the rest. Even with that, there was still the chill that might seep through. Rachel had made a suggestion that I immediately refuted the first time she mentioned it. However, circumstances as they were, there was finally some compromise. Yes, I was wearing tights under my jeans, along with a hoodie under my coat. You’d be surprised how warm they keep me. I don’t remember ever being this sensitive to the cold and often wondered why I was much more susceptible to it.

On the other hand, living in the progenitor and world headquarters of Starbucks had its advantages. Not only is the hot chocolate just heavenly when you’re chilled to the bone, but the wake up call from a triple shot of espresso is pretty nice. Having to wake up at what I have come to call as “Oh-God-thirty” in the morning to be at the academy by sunrise, I had started consuming mass quantities of coffee. Being too exhausted to think about a shower when I got back to Mike and Steven’s place after a full-day workout, the shower time had moved to the morning. In those days, I had to worry about allowing enough time to dry the mass of hair on my head before heading out the door.

In the beginning, the workouts were fairly simple. Shifu and I would run through the taolu over and over again. However, my lack of muscle memory had obviously made me sloppy. He broke out his gun again and I can’t count how many times he’d hit me with that stupid stick. After the first couple of days, he quickly learned that I did not tire as quickly as his other students would. Thus, he took things to the next level. For the next month, every time I missed a movement he would initiate a sparring match between the two of us after the obligatory smack with his gun. To say he pounded me into the ground would be an understatement. I used to be able to hold my own in a sparring match with the man. Now, he tossed me around like his favorite throw pillow. It encouraged me to get better much more quickly.

As if to add insult to injury, he formulated another plan within the first week. Finally, the unfamiliar young woman who had greeted Mike and I when we first came to the academy was introduced to me. She was Jing Wei, but she asked to be called Jenn, her English equivalent. She was a gymnast who had represented China in the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. She was there to teach me a few tricks, it seemed. At the beginning, she wanted me change out of my yoga gear and into what looked like a one-piece swimsuit, a standard leotard. She tried to explain that it was for better freedom of movement, but I wildly protested. It wasn’t until Shifu smacked me with his gun and berated my lack of dedication that I finally relented. At first, we did quite a lot of stretching exercises. Apparently, I wasn’t flexible enough for her to teach me what she had planned. Soon, I was able to do lateral splits with my feet out to either side of me, horizontal splits with one foot in front and the other behind, and could bend forward far enough to actually kiss my knees. Quickly though, it moved from that to cartwheels, hand springs, flips, balance beam practice, and finally all-out floor exercises. There was no way I was going to be winning any Olympic metals any time soon, but I had a few more options to incorporate into my fighting style. After the first month, I was allowed to put my yoga outfit on and run through a few floor routines with it. Then, Shifu tested me with another sparring match and, again, I became a throw pillow, but not as easily.

It must be said: I don’t think the academy had looked quite so clean before I came along as part-time janitor. When I wasn’t getting smacked with a stick, thrown around in a sparring match, or bouncing around in a leotard, the Hao Lai Academy got some tender loving care from yours truly. The floors were swept, mopped, and polished to shine. The walls, moldings, and lighting fixtures were all dusted. There were towels and multi-surface cleaners wiped on walls, counters, benches, and lockers. Everything was clean, sparkling, and smelling like a fresh spring rain. Then, another day would pass and it would have to be done all over again. Tiring though it was, the work carried its own reward and sense of pride.

It quickly became apparent that my new healing ability came in very handy. After a day with Shifu, there were no welts left over from his gun like there had been before. There were no bruises left over from tumbles I had taken when I failed to correctly execute the moves Jenn was trying to teach me. Upon waking up in the morning, there was no soreness from residual effects of hard workouts performed the day prior. Each new day was a clean slate to get pummeled again by either sparring matches or gymnastics exercises or both. There was also very clear evidence in my tone musculature that I was developing somewhere between a dancer and a gymnast’s physique. There was a little part of me that wished my boobs would shrink in size. One can only hope, but it didn’t happen.

As the second month progressed, Shifu and Jenn joined forces. He would watch as she instructed me, but would jump in at a moment’s notice if I messed up. If he and I were sparring, she’d be yelling out different movements to use for evasion. Distracting at first, it soon became its own blessing. They also developed their own independent instruction. Jenn had me don the curséd leotard, again, but started to teach me some things on the parallel bars, the pommel horse, the vault horse, and the hanging rings. Taking my enhanced senses into account, Shifu had started having me run through my taolu blindfolded. Occasionally, we would also spar that way, sometimes. He even taught me how to use my hair as a combat device for distraction and misdirection. Who knew it had such advantageous applications?! To say that Shifu was a genius in his own right was just not hyperbolic enough.

When my muscles were apparently cooperating, both Shifu and Jenn began to notice a latent natural agility. Somewhere hidden in the clumsiness of new body structure was a dexterity and grace that Shifu knew I didn’t possess before. His initial hypothesis was the lithe female form, but Jenn quickly disputed that sexist claim. My body was able to execute certain moves through intensive practice that most people shouldn’t be able to pull off after only two months. Even while sparring, my reaction times to many situations had decreased exponentially over a short period of time. There were theories bounced between the two of them, but there was no explanation to be found. Apparently, I’d found another ability my meta gene had gifted me with. If there were going to be any other ones, I really wished they’d write up a memo.

Over the past couple of weeks, Shifu decided it was finally time to address the issue of my claws. They were there, so I might as well use them to my advantage. However, he brought in a covering for the mat that I would have to roll out and roll back up after our practice, for sanitary reasons. Of course, I’d have to clean it, too.

On command, the two blade claws in my fists would emerge quite easily. It took some convincing and creative positioning to get the ones in my feet to cooperate at the same level. They were also a bit shorter, only about eight inches long. Though, it should be noted that the ones in my feet hurt just as much as the ones in my fists. Shifu taught me a standing meditation technique that helped me forget how much they hurt and another to keep them from emerging involuntarily. For obvious reasons, we would never spar when my claws were out. Instead, he had me roll up the sanitary mat and carry it to a different room with a bunch of sandbags hanging from the ceiling. Initially, he had me simply run through the taolu. For the past couple of days, he’d jab at me with his gun from a safe distance while I reacted with the claws. Needless to say, he had to replace a few of his precious sticks. He tried a couple of swords, but they met the same fate: sliced to pieces. Long wooden sticks were much cheaper than full metal blades.

As much as things were moving forward in that aspect, they were stagnant on the financial side of things. Not having any forms of identification, I was stuck in a rut. Even if I wanted to, there was no way to get a job without an ID card and a social security card. Neither of which was in my possession. Mike may have known a few people who were conducting some investigation, but neither of us had any connections that could create a whole new identity out of thin air. I believed that would require knowing somebody in the FBI, US Marshals Service, or equally higher up on the food chain of the government than we were. If we tried to hack our way into it, that would probably bring the attention of the NSA or Homeland Security down on us. That was a hornet’s nest we were, understandably, very reluctant to kick.

Also, I looked into a way to get my money out of the bank. There was a substantial amount that I could pay Mike and Steven several months’ worth of rent with. If I felt it necessary, I could probably even buy a little scooter to get to and from the academy with. However, no matter which way I looked at it, getting to my money would create a paper trail that any and all pursuers would be able to exploit to find me. The idea was quickly scrubbed, much to my chagrin. Mike and Steven have been giving me a weekly allowance to make up for it.

Life really sucks when you’re trying to hide from people who would likely enjoy killing you.

A bald man in a charcoal, pin-stripped suit gazed out into the rainy day through the bay window in his elaborate office. He puffed on a half-finished cigar and let the smoke billow out in front of him. He held a cellular phone up to his ear, but wore a dissatisfied expression.

“Two months have passed, now. Why haven’t you apprehended her?” His baritone voice seemed to dip further in pitch as he spoke.

“Sir, without causing a scene, the academy is a no-go. Every time the men are sent in there, they’re sent to the hospital and we have to abort the mission. They’ve got staff in there that’s got years more experience than my boys.” The man’s voice on the phone responded.

“I don’t want excuses! I want results!” The bald man growled. “What about where she lives?!”

“We don’t know that, sir. We’ve tried a tail, but the public transit authorities are a nuisance. Local authorities are on to our vehicles. We’ve had to abort. There’s no paper trail leading to anyone, sir. She’s like a ghost. She vanishes after leaving the academy and climbing aboard a local transit bus.”

The man spun around and slammed his fist on his desk. “I don’t have time for your incompetence!”

The door to his office opened and a built man entered. He wore at tight, black T-shirt that displayed his upper body musculature, black fatigues on his legs, and black combat boots on his feet. His brown hair was not a typical military “high and tight”, but styled more in a way that he could blend in with average people more easily. Over his shoulders, a fabric holster housed a gun in his left armpit. He raised an eyebrow at the emotional outburst of the man in the suit. The bald man simply grinned.

“I’m sending you some backup. You had better not fail me.” He hissed at the man on the phone, then hung up on him. His gaze met the man in the fatigues.

“Problems, sir?” The man in fatigues asked.

“Yes, I have sent boys to do a man’s job.” Taking a photograph from atop his desk, he gave said photograph to the man in fatigues. It was a still picture from the surveillance camera that had been in the adjoining room to the cell Lex had occupied. “That is your target. Desmond, bring our little girl home, would you?”

A smirk grew on Desmond’s face. “Certainly, Dr. Sutter. We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to such a pretty girl all alone in the big city, would we?”

Dr. Sutter mirrored the smirk. “No, we certainly would not.”

The scent of tomato sauce, basil, parsley, oregano, and thyme reached my nose about half a block down the road from Mike and Steven’s. We were having spaghetti, tonight. Nobody else was making dinner at nearly nine o’clock in the evening, so it had to be our place. It annoyed Steven so much that no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t keep what we were having for dinner a secret from me. It made me giggle. I didn’t quicken my pace, though. It had been a long, rough day and I was not in the mood to rush. Instead, I kept my leisurely pace, routinely punched the code into the door downstairs, and let myself into the building.

Underneath the myriad of smells I’d become accustomed to in the building, there was a waft of an unusual scent: Old Spice cologne. That was new. Most of the men in the building either wore Aqua Velva, Tag, or Axe. They were men of a new age and steered clear of the more conservative fragrances of Stetson or Old Spice. Living with Steven was definitely giving me an education.

Cautiously making my way up the stairs to the third floor, the scent of the cologne was still in the air. My eyes darted around the familiar surroundings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or out of place. I could hear other tenants talking in their apartments, even Mike and Steven, but nothing else. It struck me as odd and out of place, but I couldn’t explain why. Then, I saw it. On Mike and Steven’s door was a small dagger and a note attached to it.

Rushing to the door, my eyes scanned over the note. It read simply: Hello, there, Princess. If you don’t want your friends to get hurt, you should come home. Daddy misses you.

‘What kind of sick joke is this?!’ I thought. Then, it hit me. ‘They’ve found me.’

Not pausing, I shoved my keys in the door and opened it. Mike was playing on the newest Call of Duty map pack and Steven was pulling the garlic bread out of the oven. There was no time to enjoy the scent. Steven glanced over first and saw the fright in my eyes.

“Hey, there… jeezus, girlfriend! You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Did something happen on the way home?” He started doting on me.

“Mike!” I screeched.

He dropped the controller without even saying anything to the clan members he was playing with and moved toward me. “What? What’s the matter?”

Frozen, I simply pointed at the note.

Mike grew closer, spotting the knife. Momentarily ignoring it, he read the note. A look of disappointment, then anger crossed his face. “Dammit. I had good news for you, too.” He grabbed the knife and yanked it out of the door.

“Wha… what are you doing? There could be fingerprints on that the cops could…” I protested.

“The cops could what, Lex? See who belongs to the criminal organization that wants to kidnap you again? How about when they come to the door and want to know who you are?” He scoffed. “I’m sorry, Lex, but they’d probably take you in as a runaway, then take Steven and I in for aiding and abetting. We’re on our own to figure this out.”

The look of concern lingered on Steven’s face. “He’s right, sweetie. They’re not gonna help us, too much. Besides, word on the street says that Seattle Police aren’t big fans of gays, anyway. What do you think they’d do to someone like you?”

Dropping my duffel bag, I started going into hysterics. “Well, this is just great!” Tears started to well up in my eyes. It had become common place whenever my emotions went awry. “What am I supposed to do, now?” Tears started streaming down my face as I moved into the living room.

“Dude, Brickhouse, who’s the chick?” A voice came over the speakers, obviously a clan mate on Xbox LIVE.

“Yea, man, I thought you were gay? She sounds hot, though.” Another observed.

Angrily, I picked up Mike’s headset. “Oh, fuck off!” The headset dropped to the table.

“Wow, somebody needs a Midol!” A third quipped.

Mike casually picked up the headset. “Not now, guys. Family emergency.” Setting down the headset, he pressed the power button on the Xbox and it immediately fell silent.

Lovely. Mike and Steven. My two gay dads. I shook my head.

Mike’s gaze fell on Steven. “Honey, call the guys. We’re gonna need some backup.”

Steven nodded. “On it, babe.” Then, he disappeared into the bedroom.

Mike’s gaze returned to me. “Lex, we can’t worry about this note, yet. It’ll get handled. Did you notice anything when you came in? This had to happen within the last half hour because Steven had just run down to the store to pick up some French bread.”

Sniffling, there were still tears rolling down my cheeks. “Old Spice.”

“You wanna spell that out for me?”

My glare was telling. “You know, the cologne?”

His brow furrowed in ignorance. Unlike Steven, he didn’t pay too much attention to such things. Speak of the Devil, Steven appeared from the bedroom.

“Okay, Jacob and Daniel are on their way over. What’d I miss?”

My eyes slowly moved over and met his. “Old Spice,” I repeated.

“Who’s that tacky? Nobody in this building, I’ll tell you that. Why?”

“Apparently, it was something she smelled.” Mike answered for me and shrugged.

Steven gave him a look that seemed to say, ‘Oh my god, you’re kidding me.’ “Honey, it’s a cologne that only old men, cowboy wannabes, and military boys from Hickville would be caught dead wearing anymore.” He chided his partner, then looked at me. “Where’d you smell it?”

“In the building, when I came up.” My voice meekly stated.

“In this building? Must have been when I was making the garlic bread because, honey, I would have smelt that from a mile away.”

“So, we’re looking for an old guy, a wannabe cowboy, or a military guy?” Mike attempted to clarify.

“Sounds like it, sweetheart.” Steven shrugged. He moved over to the couch where I had just plopped down and settled. Wrapping me in a hug, he was trying to cajole me. “It’ll be okay, hon. We can handle this, right?”

Sniffling again, I wiped the tears from my face. “Okay, so that’s the bad news. What was the good news you were talking about?”

Mike’s face suddenly lit up. “We found her, Lex!”

“Found who?”

He looked at me, dumbfounded. “Julia! We found Julia!”

Rachel can be pretty insistent when she wants to be. About a week ago, she had a discussion with Mike while I barely listened before eating and then crashing on the couch, my “bed”. She had been very assertive. She even went so far as to talk to Shifu, personally, when I was off somewhere doing my janitor thing. She needed me to have a day off for something and was relatively cryptic as to why. Conveniently, the events of last night seemed to coincide with her plans rather well. The stars aligned and she got me a day off.

So, here we were sitting in her car. There were a few things plaguing my mind, so I was staring out the window for the whole trip. She kept passing glances my way, but my attention didn’t deviate from the scene of downtown playing out on the other side of the glass. The multitude of occurrences and their possible implications danced about between my ears. Somebody from that place was after me. Mike’s contacts had actually managed to find Julia. My training was coming along, but I still had a ways to go. I was stuck in this body and there was probably no way I was ever going to get my life back. A heavy sigh escaped my lips and all hope seemed to go with it.

Before I knew it, the car slowed to a stop and Rachel began shutting it down. I glanced over to watch her unbuckle her seatbelt. Then, my eyes darted around. When they read the sign out in front of the building, they shot open as wide as dinner plates.

“Planned Parenthood? What the heck are we doing here?” There was no filter between my brain and my mouth. Subconsciously, I slowly unbuckled my own seatbelt.

She sighed and shook her head. “We have an appointment.”

“Are you pregnant?”

My brashness startled her. “No, I’m not!” She started rubbing her temple.

I merely blinked. “Then, what are we doing here?”

“How can I put this bluntly?” She shook an errant thought from her brain. “There are certain needs that body has that Mike, Steven, and even your Kung Fu master couldn’t begin to comprehend. I’m concerned about your health, so I scheduled an appointment for you. This is the only place that I could get you into without too many questions being asked or requests for records you don’t have being made.”

“Okay, your concern is noted. But, isn’t this a place for that ‘girl doctor’ stuff?”

She reached over, grabbed the sun visor, flipped it down, and then opened the vanity mirror. “Here on Earth, we call this thing a mirror. Have you looked in one, lately?”

She exited the car in a huff. At this point, it was probably best to comply and avoid confrontation. Reluctantly, I climbed out of the car followed behind her. I stuffed my hands inside the pockets of the hoodie I was wearing and kept my head low. The place made me heavily uncomfortable. Sure, it was decorated in a calming fashion with its recycled or reclaimed maple, birch, and pine wood finish all over the place. The walls were all some shade reminiscent of cream or soft beige. The carpets were all drab gray and the upholstery on the chairs was somewhere close to navy blue. Rachel briefly spoke to the receptionist then moved to the chairs in the waiting room. Automatically, my body followed her lead and slumped in the seat. Thankfully, the waiting room was mostly barren.

After what seemed an eternity, a female voice reverberated off the walls. “Alexis McKinley?”

Rachel started standing and I looked at her strangely. She waved me up and whispered. “C’mon. That’s us.”

Slowly, I rose and whispered back. “Alexis?”

“It’s the closest female equivalent I could think of and still call you ‘Lex’, okay?”

I rolled my eyes as we followed behind the nurse to the back clinic area. Weaving through the corridor, the nurse gestured to a numbered exam room.

“Ms. Maddingly, if you’ll just wait in there, I’ll take Alexis to do some measurements and be with you in a moment.” The nurse plainly stated.

Rachel nodded, moving into the exam room. Nervously, my lower lip found its way between my teeth and I nibbled on it for a moment. The nurse gently placed a hand on my back and led me over to a scale. She instructed me to take off my shoes and step onto it, so they could get an accurate weight. With a sigh, I complied. She fiddled with a few of the measuring devices and wrote some notes on her sheet. Now, I finally knew my ending height. I stood at a meager five feet, five inches. Beyond that, my weight was a non-scale-topping one hundred twenty-six pounds. From men’s Welterweight Division to women’s Bantamweight Division, not that I would be fighting any time soon.

“Seems you’re a healthy, growing young lady.” The nurse smirked. “Grab your shoes. Let’s get you back to your aunt and we can check your vitals.”

Numb from the brain down, my body simply followed instructions. I have never been very fond of doctor’s offices. All that poking, prodding and measuring is enough to make your head spin. As I had done with checkups at the fights, I just tuned it all out and let them do their thing. After the nurse left, it was an agonizing wait for the doctor. Rachel sat patiently, playing with her hair. I sat nervously fidgeting on their little exam table. Finally, a blonde woman who didn’t look anywhere near hitting thirty, yet, entered the room wearing her white lab coat. She offered a smile as she closed the door.

“Good morning, ladies. I’m Dr. Weylan.” She greeted. A sigh escaped my lips, but I would imagine she interpreted the meaning of the sigh to be much different than I actually meant it to be. She placed a computer pad she’d carried under her arm on its docking station, then turned to us. “How can we help you, today?”

Rachel spoke first and I was more than happy to let her take the lead. “Well, my niece is staying with me for a couple of weeks while her mother is away on business. She had an appointment back home, but her mother’s business trip came out of nowhere. She’s never had a ‘guy-no’ exam, so I figured sixteen was old enough for a girl to make sure she was healthy.”

The doctor nodded as she took in the information. In an instant, she glared at Rachel. “Cut the bullshit.” Her eyes darted between the two of us. “What’s really going on here?”

Rachel’s mouth opened as though she wanted to say something but the words just refused to cooperate.

My turn. “Rachel is just trying to help me out and the situation calls for a little secrecy. She was telling the truth about this being my first ‘guy-no’ visit, though.”

The doctor nodded. “So, is there a reason why a sixteen-year-old girl hasn’t seen a gynecologist since starting her menstrual cycle? Most first-timers I see are, at least, twelve.” She grabbed her tablet. “When was your last period?”

My face burned and went flush. I had to think about that question. “Um… I missed this month?”

The doctor sneered. “I see. So, are you in here for a pregnancy exam or contraception? Have you been sexually active?”

I shook my head violently. “Absolutely not! No, nothing like that!”

Her eyebrow raised at my outburst. “Rigorous physical activity?”

Expecting another probing question into my personal life, my face contorted into a strange angry expression but then relaxed as I realized the situation didn’t call for it. “Yea, actually. I’ve been training a lot in gymnastics and martial arts, lately.”

The doctor smirked. “That’s better. A little honesty.” She let out a sigh. “The absence of a menstrual flow during periods of excessive physical activity is more common than you think. So, I’ll ask again: What can we do for you, today?”

Rachel broke her silence. “Right now, she’s living with guys. I’m her friend. I was worried that she wasn’t getting the medical care she needs, so I brought her in.”

The doctor consulted her pad again. “Well, the vitals look fine. They’re exceptional, in fact. So, I’ll go ahead and take some blood. Then, I’m going to need you to strip down to nothing below the waist and I’ll check you out. Okay?”

My eyes popped wide open. “Naked below the waist?”

The doctor smiled. “It’s called a pelvic exam and a Pap Smear, honey. It’s all routine and I’ll do my best to make it as comfortable as possible.” She set the pad back into the docking station. “Take off your hoodie, hon.” She grabbed some gloves and started slipping those on as I complied with her request. Then, she grabbed a butterfly needle, a tourniquet, and some vials. This was going to get weird.

She sat down in front of me and eyeballed my arm. Then, she propped it up a little and slipped the tourniquet around my bicep. Taking my forearm, she made like she was turning my arm to get a better vantage point, but stopped suddenly. With her thumb, she applied pressure along the underside of my arm. I could feel her hit the bone, then she hit something else and my eyes bulged. Seeming to mirror my surprise, her head jolted up to look at me.

“There’s going to be an explanation, isn’t there?” She almost demanded. I nodded in response as she grabbed the needle. “For this, it’s just a little prick and it’s all over.” She chuckled. “Well, that came out wrong.”

She and Rachel giggled, but I didn’t get the joke. The needle stabbed into my arm, but I was too dumbfounded to notice. In moments, two vials were filled and she was working on the third. She released the tourniquet, let the blood flow a bit, then pulled out the needle. Placing a cotton ball on the wound, she applied pressure to it.

“Okay, sweetie, hold this in place for me.” She instructed.

“No need.” Came my response.

“You’ll have blood all down your arm if you don’t.”

“No, I won’t. Watch.” Taking the cotton ball, she watched the wound close very quickly.

Now, she stood up. “Is this the reason for the secrecy? You’re meta, aren’t you? Nobody heals that fast. What was that I felt in your forearms?”

Rachel hung her head. “Dr. Weylan, please calm down and we’ll explain.”

Over the course of half an hour, Rachel and I delivered the condensed version of the story. We didn’t give her all the details, but there were enough given that she didn’t freak out on us, again. It was becoming very tiresome to have to explain all of it to people. After we calmed her down, she saw the same need to perform her examination that Rachel apparently felt. There is no way I’m divulging all of the details about what happened next to anyone–or any details, for that matter. It was strange, felt funny, and was embarrassing. Use your imagination and try to keep the science fiction Hentai out of the equation.

I barely spoke a word on the ride back to Mike and Steven’s after that. Mike asked me how it all went and I just huffed at him. The rest of the day was fairly laid back and not much got accomplished.

Now, Mike had called in the reinforcements who had been watching the house and accompanied us to where we were. He didn’t give me many details, though. We were standing in the hall outside an apartment in Queen Anne and I was nibbling my lip like I had done back at the doctor’s office. I guess it’s my new nervous twitch. He glanced over at me, trying to be supportive. Taking a deep breath, he rang the doorbell. Being about ten feet away, I heard small footsteps and then the door being opened. I could see Mike’s smile, though.

“Mike? What are you doing here?” The woman’s velveteen voice carried into the hallway.

My eyes closed on their own and a small smile creased my lips. I knew that voice very well. My eyes felt hot and I could sense tears building up. It was a happy moment, though.

“Well, figured I’d stop by and see how you were doing. You had us worried, you know.” Mike stated plainly.

“I’m fine, Mike. How’d you find me, anyway?”

Why did her voice carry such malice? The moment she saw Mike, it seemed like she was on the defensive. It didn’t feel right, somehow.

“I have my methods. Say, can we come in for a few minutes? I brought somebody who’d really like to see you.” Mike almost pleaded.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I guess. Just a few minutes, though. I’ve got somewhere I need to be, tonight.”

Small footsteps hit wood laminate flooring. She seemed to be annoyed. Mike followed her into the apartment and waved for me to follow him. Without encouragement, I obliged and found myself standing in the open doorway. I could smell her perfume. It was a little stronger than I remember her wearing it, though. It didn’t matter. After all this time, I was mere feet from her.

“So, who is this mystery person and what do they want with me?” She asked in a huff.

“Well, Julia, I found somebody else that’s been missing for a while.” He stepped to the side, bringing she and I into line of sight with one another.

A smile formed on my lips and tears welled up in my eyes. The dam was about to break, but I didn’t care. She was right in front of me, now. Her auburn hair was just as perfect as I always remembered it. Her arms were folded across her chest. Her chocolate eyes carried a great deal of questions within them. The first of which, she spoke aloud.

“Who’s the runt?” She pointed her question at Mike.

With one hand, he motioned toward me. “It may be a little different, but this is Lex.”

She gave him eye daggers. “That’s not even fucking funny, Brickhouse!”

“It’s confusing, but it’s very true… mon petite.” It’s something I used to call her after we… well, you get the idea.

Her eyes widened in what looked like rage. “Don’t you dare call me that, you little bitch!”

I jumped back, never expecting an outburst like that. “Julia, what the hell?”

“Look, you little tramp, I dunno who the hell you are, but I want you out of my house, right this second!” The daggers then got aimed at Mike. “This is a really sick joke, Brickhouse! I’m not laughing! Lex is dead! It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to come to terms with what happened that night!” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

I found they were rolling down mine, too. “Julia Eleanor Langley, what the hell is the matter with you? Give us a minute to explain!”

The way her head rolled toward me almost reminded me of The Exorcist. “I don’t know how you know that name, little girl…”

“Julia! Jesus Christ… I! Am! Lex!” My voice would probably piss off dogs down the street.

She screamed right back. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!”

The waterworks were running at full capacity as I spun around and ran out of the apartment building. Not even stopping at Mike’s car, I just kept running whichever direction I was pointed and kept going.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Six ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: The time is at hand. How will she handle the return of her captors? Lex falls into a bit of despair following the encounter with Julia. There is only one option on the table for making discoveries: moving to San Francisco. Lex falls in with some otherwise unlikely compatriots.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you, once again, by the amazingly talented Danni Shinya Luo (except she put the claws in the wrong place).

WARNING :: The following contains depictions of graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Author's Note :: I'd like to thank all the readers up to this point, first and foremost. You guys are my bread and butter. Thanks are also well-deserved for EnemyOfFun for beta-reading and allowing me to have guest stars to make the world feel more living and dynamic. Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to thank Lilith for allowing me to play in this lovely little sandbox and for putting up with my occasional neuroticism. Hope you all have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.

OH! Bonus points and a chance to beta read Chapter Seven to whomever can cite my obscure reference! xD

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Chapter Six:

The door seemed to fly open. Steven shrieked so loud that it seemed he would suffer a heart attack. Through the fog of tears rolling down my face, I stormed into the living room. One look at me and Steven forgot that I’d interrupted the good kiss scene in Brokeback Mountain. Ignoring him, the drawers containing my things flew open one after another. Clothes found themselves roughly stuffed into the duffel bag Rachel had given me what seemed like eons ago. Every so often, a sob would escape my lips, but I wasn’t paying that much attention.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Steven inquired softly.

I forced another pair of jeans into the bag and grabbed a handful of panties before forcefully shoving them in, too. “She wouldn’t listen! She blew me off like I was nothing to her!”

“I find it hard to believe she’d ever be that cold-hearted.”

Immediately halting, I turned and he saw the immense pain in my expression. “So did I!” Another sob and a river started falling from my eyes. “You should have seen it, Steven. She looked right through me… like I wasn’t even there, but I was this little invader with boobs she couldn’t stand. A stab through the heart with a spoon wouldn’t hurt this bad!”

My legs gave out and I fell into his arms. Without hesitation, he wrapped them around me and I sobbed loudly into his chest. The emotional wound bled freely. The last time I could ever remember crying like that was when my dog had been run over by a car, spent three days with the vet, and then succumbed to his injuries. At my father’s protest and my mother’s behest, we buried him in the back yard. The crying didn’t stop for days. I was six years old, then.

The sobs slowed, but showed no signs of stopping. I pulled away from Steven and the bag continued to get packed. I still don’t know how I got everything to fit in that moment of disorganization, but it did.

“Where are you going to go?” Steven finally questioned me.

“I don’t know that. I just know that I can’t stay here, anymore. There are madmen chasing me and it will put the two of you in danger. I don’t think I could live with myself if something bad happened to you or Mike.” Another sob. “The only thing keeping me here was the hope of finding Julia. Well, I found her and she doesn’t want me.” The flow came on harder again. “My whole life is in shambles, Steven. My body isn’t really my own, there are abilities I know nothing about, I’ve lost the job that I loved, and, worst of all, the love of my life wants nothing to do with me. I have to find answers and a way to fix all this to put it all right again.”

“San Francisco?”

My only response was a nod. My eyes met his. “I love you guys. Mike, you, Rachel… would you tell them for me?” He nodded. “I have to do this for myself, Steven. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see you guys again.”

“I understand.” He really didn’t, but he was being kind.

With a quick breath and another river of tears, I stormed toward the door of the apartment once more, slipping on my coat as I made my way out. He didn’t move to stop me.

Rain. It always seems to happen when you feel at your worst. Granted, this part of the country is a temperate rainforest, so it rains nine months out of the year. Regardless, I wish it weren’t raining, right now. It only served to add insult to my injuries. It was cold. As the rain beat down on me, it was even colder. It’s a strange sensation to have a warm river of tears mix with cold rain.

My feet patted the pavement in rhythmic fashion as I moved swiftly through the urban jungle. Tonight, I didn’t feel like taking a bus downtown. The walk was much needed, but I could have done without the rain. Would you believe that even if you live in Seattle you sometimes don’t expect it to rain? This was my problem. I didn’t expect the rain, so I didn’t prepare for it. My umbrella was probably still sitting by the door at Mike and Steven’s apartment. There was no way I was going back now and potentially placing them in grave danger.

Many questions without answers percolated in my mind as my body moved aimlessly through the city. It wasn’t an incredibly long walk, just a mile or so, to the Greyhound station. Crossing the bridge on Pike Street, I took a moment to glance down at the travelers on Interstate 5 for a moment. They were like little bees that went about their daily routine without so much as a care in the world. None of them had to worry about people following them to either imprison or kill them. Very few of them would probably ever know what it feels like to have their lives snatched up from under their feet like a cheap throw rug. There was a very scarce possibility that one or two of them had to potential to experience a change like I had. More tears streamed down my face as I realized just how lonely my existence now was.

My pace resumed until I passed under the sky bridge at the Washington State Convention Center. They held big conventions every year, like Emerald City Comic Con, Sakura-Con, and Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Now, the place was as dark and much more silent than the streets around it. Spotting a bench, I made a brash decision. My rear end impacted the cement, the tears flowed, and the sobs began. My face simply fell into my hands. The wound was bleeding again.

“Are you all right, miss?” The cool, calm, deep male voice startled me.

Immediately, the wound stopped bleeding. My eyes darted up to meet the speaker. He was taller than even I was, once. He was fairly broad, too. His clothing was all black from his boots to his overcoat. Deceptively, his hair was dark but styled in an average fashion. Only half a smile graced his face. He almost appeared to be an off-duty police officer. Driven by impulse, my body rose to its feet. Then, the wind direction changed.

Old Spice.

“Who… who are you?” I began to backpedal and would have gotten further were it not for the concrete bench behind me.

The half smile became a smirk. “Why, your transport back, of course. Daddy misses you.”

I violently shook my head. “Not gonna happen!”

Turning quickly, I broke into full run away from him. They were not going to take me again. Reaching the end of the street, I turned to the right and found myself beneath the convention floor. Save for the small rivers of water flowing toward the storm drains, the ground was as dry as it possibly could be. The heart in my chest was beating frantically and the sound of my boots hitting the concrete echoed all around me. At the other end of this little tunnel, four men fanned out from either side and closed in the center, evenly spaced across the street. They looked just like the guards that I had taken on during my escape, full helmets and everything. This time, they appeared to be carrying some kind of assault rifle.

Skidding against the concrete, I spun around and began to run the opposite direction back toward Pike Street. This was really getting ridiculous. At the other end of the tunnel, the man I had encountered stepped into the street, followed by two more guards. They had closed off all my exits. For a moment, I just stopped and stood there, glancing from one group to the other. It seemed a little odd that there was no traffic on the streets nearby. No one would be coming to the rescue. I was on my own.

“Now, Princess, you have two options.” The man’s voice echoed through the quasi tunnel. “You can come peacefully and quietly. Therefore, no one gets hurt. Either that or we can do this the hard way. The choice is entirely up to you.”

What was with these guys and their false pretense of choice? Either way, they were going to try to take me back to that place. There comes a time in everyone’s life where they make a decision that shapes the rest of their lives. Yes, I know that sounds like a movie quote and somewhat cliché. That doesn’t make it any less true.

“As far as you people are concerned, there is no choice!” I yelled back. “What do you want from me? You’ve taken everything! You’ve taken my job, my home, my life! You’ve even taken the woman I love! If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened in the first place! I could have gone on with my life, totally oblivious to this meta gene and been perfectly fine! No nuisance to anyone! What could you possibly have to offer to make up for any of that?!”

“The chance to be a part of history, my dear.” Came his cold response. “Never in the history of the world have we had the knowledge, the technology, or so many manifestations to study this phenomenon. You think you’re the only one or the first in all of written history? For all we know, Heracles could have been a living, breathing man in ancient Greece, so could Achilles, Ulysses, Perseus, and even Joan of Arc could have been one of you freaks!”

“So, you want to make me some kind of twisted lab rat? I do not consent.”

He belted out a laugh. I guess Bad Horse was about to receive this guy’s application. “Do you really think we need your consent? Lawrence McKinley disappeared and was found dead in the Cascades six weeks later. You should have seen the funeral. It was rather pretty and elaborate. Julia cried right alongside your mother.”

The tears started flowing again. “You bastard!”

He ignored the insult and continued. “You, though, have no family, no identification, and no history. You, my dear, effectively don’t exist. We could do anything we want.”

Dispair suddenly disappeared and was quickly replaced by nothing but rage. Sliding the strap of the duffel bag off my shoulders and removing my coat, I set both down on the sidewalk then moved to the street. Watery eyes and tear-stained face, there was a determination that had bubbled up to the surface.

“You want me?” My glare met his figure. SNIKT! The blades emerged from my fists in unison. “Come and get me!”

He made one simple hand gesture and the six men sprang into action. In anticipation, I lowered myself into a ready stance that Shifu had shown me. It kept the blades at the ready at all times. The thunder of their boots echoing off the walls was in perfect time with my already rapid heartbeat. One of them fired two warning shots that whizzed by my ear, but I didn’t flinch. This was going to end here and now, whether they liked it or not.

The first was upon me and actually raised his foot to try and impact with my chest, trying to knock me over. Rookie move. I turned my left arm slightly and swiped at his leg. The blades impacted and sliced right through. There was a little resistance when they hit bone, but not much. His calf was now sliced in thirds as a piece fell away along with his foot. The follow through was a punch to the chest. The claws sank deep and passed through his flesh like nothing. When my fist impacted, it finally sent him backwards and the blade emerged from his form once more. He fell to the ground, coughing up blood and more pooling on his chest from the wound. They wanted deadly force? They got it.

Dropping back into my ready stance, I watched as the others stopped to quickly examine their fallen comrade. Behind me, four gunshots rang out and echoed in the tunnel. It would have really hurt my ears if I wasn’t already feeling pain elsewhere. Four projectiles bit into my flesh: two into the backs of my knees, one through my thigh, and a final one in my back. The last had an odd trajectory from my spine, through my liver, and out the front of my stomach. Screaming, I fell to my knees. I’d never been shot before, so there was quite a bit of shock. If it were anyone else, that would have been the end of it. I should have been dead. Instead, I was still breathing and the strangest sensation crossed over me. The wounds had started healing themselves.

Breathing came with a great deal of pain, though. As the wounds healed, the pain subsided. The whole time, none of the guards advanced on me. I assumed it was because they were watching in awe at the miraculous sight before them. Now, the element of surprise was on my side. There was one more guard in front of me. As I raised my eyes to him, he seemed to jerk back, stunned that I could accomplish such a feat. Taking my chance, I leapt to my feet. In one simple move of the taolu, the backs of the left claws impacted his weapon and I punched at his torso. There was resistance, but it wasn’t getting cut. So, the backs of the blades were dull? I could use that. On the other hand, the right claws sunk into the guard’s chest. Again, when my fist impacted, he fell backwards and I could hear him coughing and gagging. Blood began to pool at the site where my two claws had impacted. There wasn’t time to focus on that.

Spinning around brought the other four into view. Leaping into action once more, thinking quickly would be to my benefit. Running at the closest one, I quickly dropped into a frontal stance, deflected his assault rifle from me, and then struck three bladed blows to his chest in rapid succession. The other three responded by opening fire. I have no idea how many bullets hit me, but I felt the sting of each one. Letting out a scream, I was on the ground again, writhing in agony. I could hear their footfalls as they closed in around me. My eyes had closed, trying to focus. There were several holes in me. Again, miraculously, they began healing themselves even as the bullets had torn through my flesh. Seeing that it hurt too much to move, I took the time to calculate my next move.

There was no denying it: I was crazy and in way over my head. Here I was, some little teenage girl trying to take on six guards armed with assault rifles. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best idea ever to hatch from my brain. Even still, it was this or let them kill me. Immediately or eventually, I knew that basic fact to be true. If they recaptured me, they would likely dispose of me once I had outlived my usefulness. Today, it was them or me.

Opening my eyes again, two were positioned near my shoulders and one was near my feet. For a moment, I just lay there and let them examine me. In my head, a countdown went from five to one. Upon reaching zero, I pulled my legs to my chest and flipped them under me. I was standing again in a squat. Tensing the muscles in my legs, I sprang upwards. Using my left leg to begin the spin, I prepared my right leg. When I’d spun to the required revolution, I extended my right leg and pointed my feet. The single blade burst through my boot and sliced into the two guards’ throats. It didn’t go clean through, but it was enough that they wouldn’t be breathing in a minute. The blade retracted from whence it came as my feet impacted the ground again.

When I landed, I got a buttstock to the face. Rolling with the hit, my body went into a back handspring. First, my left leg lifted and impacted with the muzzle of the weapon. Then, my right foot hit the grip handle and knocked the weapon from the guard’s hand. Back on my feet, I hopped forward and sunk all four claws into his chest. The punch was powerful enough to knock him back several feet. I came up again, breathing heavily. The claws went away.

My eyes landed on the mystery man who had been arrogantly smoking a cigar the whole time. Now, he was clapping. “Very good. The kitty learned how to fight.”

“Do you always send others to do your dirty work?” My voice echoed through the tunnel. “I told you that if you wanted me, you had to come and get me. I’m still waiting.”

He merely smirked at me and began to slowly remove his coat. Next, he cracked his neck and appeared to be limbering himself up. A prime example of male bravado, if ever I’d seen it. A smirk grew on my lips. ‘Let him have his pride, for now…’ I thought.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate staring contests? No? Well, must have slipped my mind…

There he stood, fifty feet away and flexing about every muscle he could. He certainly was full of himself. I simply stood there and gave him a raised eyebrow. For all the world, he appeared to be nothing more than an arrogant silverback gorilla that had begun beating his chest and throwing grass around to assert his dominance. It was pitiful and primitive, but it gave me no indication of any fighting style that I could work with. At the same time he belted out a war cry, he was in motion and headed straight toward me. All I did was shrug and broke out into a run. After several steps, I dropped into an adapted floor routine by executing a round off and then several successive back handsprings. If I timed it correctly, this could get fun.

As it turned out, I hadn’t timed it the way I wanted to. When we finally met, my feet hit his shoulders. If he hadn’t been leaning forward into his run, that would never have happened. I tried wrapping my feet around his neck but it was not to be. It was like hitting a brick wall because it halted my forward momentum entirely. I bounced off and my body collided with the asphalt. It wasn’t very graceful. That hurt.

Without hesitation, he was on me. His big hand grabbed a tuft of my hair and he lifted me to my feet, screaming the whole way. I felt his other fist jab me in the ribs twice as I struggled to get free. SNIKT! The claws on my left hand extended and I raked them against the flesh of his forearm. He grunted in pain, but let me go. Quickly, I hopped into a ready stance and then leapt into the air again. My left leg provided the force for the spin as my right leg bent until the precise moment I intended to release the kick. Inches from his chest, I extended the leg and it impacted with enough force to not only knock the wind out of him, but also caused him to stumble backward a few feet.

Back in my ready stance, a look of absolute rage crossed his face. He let out another war cry and came at me once more. He telegraphed badly. His right arm reeled back for a powerful right hook. SNIKT! The right claws extended. When he threw the punch, it was easy to swipe my left arm and deflect it. My right thrust forward into his stomach. The follow through with my left jabbed him square in the ribs. Finally, the right dislodged from his stomach and I reached up to his face. Each claw sunk into an eye socket. The force of the blow knocked his head backward. He fell to the ground in a lump. I flicked his eyeballs off my claws with the flick of my wrist.

SNIKT! Both sets of claws retracted in unison. The only sounds remaining were my labored breathing, the soft breeze blowing through the quasi tunnel, and the rain impacting with the pavement.

I had won my freedom, but at what cost?

A generic man with gray hair appeared on the television screen. “Breaking news tonight from Downtown Seattle. Just in to our news desk, we have some staggering reports. Here is Diane Fujikawa with more. Diane?”

The screen shifted to a generic Asian woman in a navy blue pantsuit carrying a microphone in one hand and an umbrella in another. “Well, John, within the span of the last half hour, KOMO 4 News received reports of a chilling scene. At this hour, police are not surrendering many details. However, we do know that a total of seven men were brutally killed with some kind of sharp object just under the convention floor of the Washington State Convention Center, right in the heart of Downtown Seattle. At this time the police have barricaded the surrounding area–on Pike Street from Seventh to Ninth Avenue and on Eighth Avenue from Pine to Union Street. They are not allowing anyone access until the coroner has surveyed the scene.

“What we do know is that sometime between eight and nine P-M, there was quite the battle going on here. Police are searching for clues as to whether it was some sort of gang violence. However, the victims seemed to be heavily armed. Six of them carried some sort of assault rifle and one other carried a semi-automatic handgun. As I’m told, there are shell casings and the remains of bullets that have yet to be identified. There is no word, yet, on who or what walked out of here, tonight.”

The screen shifted to become a split-screen of the two. The man spoke first. “Seems like Seattle Police have their work cut out for them. Were there any witnesses?”

The woman shook her head. “No eyewitnesses, John. Local residents reported several gunshots, presumably from the assault rifles, and a young woman's scream.”

The man cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. “Any thing out of the ordinary in this case?”

The woman nodded. “Yes, a few facts that don’t stack up, here. First, six of the men were wearing full body armor, including full helmets. Whatever blade the attacker used seemed to pass right through the armor. Other than that, the police cannot identify the assault rifles. They are all of unknown manufacture.”

“That is very puzzling, indeed. Perhaps, there is just one question hanging on our viewers’ minds: is there a new metahuman working in Seattle? It certainly fits with what we’ve all been hearing out of Chicago.”

“Well, John, as you well know, there are no known metahumans currently operating in the Seattle area. None of the currently known metahuman heroes are known to kill their opponents. Neither the FBI nor the Department of Metahuman Affairs have made an appearance on the scene. It can be assumed that until they do the possibility of any metahuman involvement is still up in the air. Police may gain some insight from blood evidence at the scene, but with the rains it could be difficult to get much more than trace evidence.”

“Thanks, Diane.” The screen shifted to just showing the man, again. “We will keep you fully informed on this latest development as news comes in. In other news, tonight…”

The rain did me a favor by washing all the blood off of me. However, it couldn’t possibly mend the holes torn in my shirt, jeans, and hoodie from where the bullets had passed through. Upon arriving at the Greyhound station, I sought out the restroom. Thankfully, the upstairs women’s restroom was barren, save for myself. Having grown accustomed to using the ladies’ room with Rachel around, I didn’t pay it much thought. Stripping out of the rags, I was pleased to find no such holes in my underwear. How they missed those spots, I’ll never know. The rain had soaked into my boots after my foot blades had cut a hole in them. I threw away the socks along with the rest of the clothes, but kept the boots–darn things were expensive enough. Pulling warm, dry, less “sanctified” clothes out of the duffel bag, I hurried dressing and ran down to catch my bus.

There is more than plenty of time for one to get lost in their own mind over the course of a two-day bus trip from Seattle, Washington, to San Francisco, California. For the most part, I sank into the seat and kept mostly to myself. Trying to focus on the scenery wasn’t helping too much. There wasn’t an intelligent conversation to be had amongst the other travelers. I had escaped custody and kept my friends safe. I had escaped Seattle, so they wouldn’t be looking for me there. I had escaped the torment of my heart by leaving surroundings that might remind me of what Julia and I had once. What I couldn’t escape was the fact that I had killed seven men. Before that confrontation, the only killing I had done was the occasional spider when Julia freaked out about it. Never had I killed a human being, then I had ended seven lives. The burden was almost too much to bear.

Upon arriving in “Star City”, as the locals call it, the surroundings were incredibly foreign. Immediately, the only real way to tell directions was to look down Market Street. If I saw the Ferry Building, I was looking “East”. If I didn’t, I was looking “West”. For the first couple of weeks, that was the only way for me to tell directions. At the same time as trying to make heads or tails of directions, there was food and shelter to consider. I quickly learned, though, that staying at a hotel wasn’t going to be an option. It was much too expensive and my funds were very limited. So, money went to food and I had to find an unused nook somewhere to hide from the elements, police, and other homeless vultures that would rob me blind.

Most nights, my eyes would open and my body would jolt upright with a scream echoing in the distance. All I could see was blood. I perpetually had this sense that I needed to wash it off of my hands or my clothes. I kept seeing the faces of those seven men.

Thankfully, in my meandering, I managed to run across some “street kids”. They were kids about the age that I looked, but they were runaways or had been disowned by their parents–for one reason or another. They warmed up to me rather quickly, no matter how hard I tried to discourage such. However, they began to show me places to get shelter, food, free clothes, and a whole smattering of services I had never known to exist before. They were useful, so I tolerated their presence. One odd thing was that I would occasionally catch one girl staring at me. She appeared only sporadically, but I could always sense her eyes on me when she did–even though she was always wearing some kind of sunglasses.

Finally, after a little more than a month, the situation had come to a head. My patience had worn thin with the constant staring, so I did the unexpected. We were at something called a “teen feed” at a city park in the Mission District. She was sitting across the park in her sorry excuse for a black and white “Gothic Lolita” dress. Standing swiftly, I trudged right over to her with agitation written all over my face. She glanced up at me with a little apprehension.

“Look, I don’t know who the hell you are, but the staring is getting really old.” I nearly growled. “Why are you staring at me? What do you want?”

She spoke softly as she poked at her mashed potatoes. “You’re not like the rest of them. You know it. I know it.”

Bewilderment crossed my face. “What are you talking about?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. Her face and body language seemed to telegraph that I should definitely know what she was saying. “There are others like you out here.” Her eyes met mine, again. “I should know. I’m one of them.”

I scoffed and groaned. “Will you quit with the cryptic shit, already?”

Her brow furrowed. “You know all too well that we can’t talk about this here.” Her head nudged toward a few buildings nearby. “Meet me in the alley over there in about half an hour. You’ll get your answers, okay? We can’t talk freely here.”

I walked away, shaking my head. “Whatever.”

Her eyes were still on me while I made my way back to my food. One of the guys told a joke that made a couple of people laugh, but my focus wasn’t on the conversation. My brain was still wrestling with what “Lolita Girl” was trying to say to me. Others like me? The leader of the group of guards in Seattle had called me a “meta”. There were reports of people popping up all over the place. So many, in fact, that “meta” had become a household name. I had yet to meet another one like me. Is that what she meant?

Determined to get to the bottom of this new development, I told the group I was with that I’d meet up with them later. I knew all their haunts, anyway. So, off they went to go smoke some weed in the Haight-Ashbury District. Cautiously, my feet carried me across the street from the park to the jumble of buildings and the alley sandwiched between them. With the sun high in the sky, visibility was very good. Passing some big fat guy inhaling a cheeseburger, I made my way through the alley, not knowing the precise location that weird Lolita Girl with the sunglasses wanted me to meet her. Suddenly, a scent hit my nose and I could hear another set of footsteps, besides my own. They were a ways down the alley, but they were coming closer.

“You should really take a shower before you try to sneak up on someone.” I yelled to the unidentified presence.

Immediately afterward, there were footsteps behind me. Big ones. And, I could smell the cheeseburger. A smirk graced my face. In one motion, the duffel bag was off my shoulders and thrown to the side. Whoever these people were, they were trying to box me in. That didn’t feel comfortable. So, I spun around and flexed my fists. Both sets of blades emerged in unison with yet another snikt sound. The big guy stopped advancing and looked a little scared.

“You wanna dance, Tiny?!” I yelled at him.

“Whoa, chica! Chill out!” A male voice rang out behind me. “We ain’t here to hurt you.”

Glancing behind me, a black man seemed to appear out of thin air. He was wearing some wife-beater tank top, baggy brown cargo pants, work boots, and a big brown overcoat. All his clothes looked like they had seen better days. The big fat guy had about the same, but he wore a big flannel shirt with the typical lumberjack red plaid pattern and jeans. My attention bounced between the black guy and the fat guy. The fat guy hadn’t moved an inch, but the other guy was walking straight toward me like it was nothing but a casual Sunday stroll. Hidden behind a trash dumpster down the way, the weird girl with the sunglasses and Lolita dress emerged and followed behind the black guy.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I yelled again, not lowering my defenses.

The black man motioned to the girl behind him. “Well, you’ve already met Probe.” Then, he pointed behind me. “That big guy behind you is Scour. They call me Damper.” His eyes traveled up and down my body in a way that almost made my skin crawl. He was checking me out and I think I could almost smell the lust. “Is there a name to go with that fine ass of yours?”

“Damper! What would Bonita say?” Probe protested.

He spun around to glare at her. “She ain’t here and I’m only checking out the desert menu! It’s not like I’m gonna order anything!” He turned back to me. “Anyway, what’s your name, chica?”

My eyes narrowed in a glare. “Nunya. Nunya Damn Business.”

He chuckled. “Cute. You’ve got spunk, I’ll give you that. You can cut the bullshit, though. Like I said, we ain’t here to hurt you.” He stopped about fifteen feet in front of me and folded his arms. “How long you been in Star City? Probe’s been tailin’ you for a month. You wander around like somebody shot your cat, you eat the shit they peddle as food, and you sleep where some asshole ain’t pissed, yet. You’re not like the rest of them, we both know that. We’re like you, chica, ‘cept we ain’t got them bitchin’ claws. You wanna place to crash where you ain’t gotta fight someone for it? We can give you that. You want real food? Scour just finished off some damn good burgers. You want a beer? Hell, we can do that, too. Us poor ass metas gotta look out for one another, you dig?”

“Yea, we’re not all Olivia Queen.” Probe quipped.

“Wait… she’s a meta?” My confused voice was almost shrill.

“Nope, don’t think so, but she sure is a rich bitch.” Scour chuckled behind me.

They made a good point. Olivia Queen was set to be the President and CEO of Queen Industries, following the tragic death of her grandfather and once she reached a certain age. She was now the world’s richest teenager. So, yes, she was really rolling in the dough. I didn’t really know all the details, though. If what they were saying was true, then all of us–including me–were the exact opposite of her: probably some of the poorest teenagers in the world.

“So, what do you say about joinin’ the crew? We’re Posse, by the way.” Damper propositioned.

“You want me in your group?” The question wasn’t really for them. Mostly, it was for me. I was still mulling over the proposition in my head.

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Relinquishing my fighting stance, the claws went away. He seemed to wince. “Doesn’t that shit hurt?”

“Yes. It hurts like a bitch. Ya get used to it, after a while.” I shrugged. “So, I get my own room, there’s good food, and there’s beer? Do I have to sign anything?”

Damper laughed. “Nah, it ain’t like that. C’mon, chica. We’ll show you our place.”

Walking over and grabbing my duffel bag, I started to follow Damper’s lead. Scour started to follow and Probe stuck around somewhere behind us. Damper seemed to prattle on about how much I was going to like the place and how the others were going to like me. Apparently, there were three others: Bonita, Damper’s “other half”; Thumper, the muscle of the group; and Esteban, the one without a nickname. It was almost like I was hanging out with the costumed weirdoes, but without the dumb costumes. Seriously, who thought fighting crime in a red, white, and blue Jane-Fonda-esque exercise outfit was a good idea?

“You know what?” Damper asked after about a mile’s worth of walking. “I think I just found you a name. What’s your take on ‘Talon’?” He shrugged. “Y’know, ‘cause you got them bitchin’ claws and all that.”

I shrugged, unimpressed. “It works, I guess.”

I could smell the dust before we even reached the place. Posse was using some old warehouse or factory for their hideout. There was a faint smell of bearing grease in the air, but it was really old. The place looked like it was built in the 1940s or something like that. It was an old, rusting out, metal structure with sheet metal walls and about three-quarters of the roof was glass panels. After looking up at it, I noticed that several of them had been busted out. Given Posse’s finances, I don’t think they had the money to replace the broken panels. There was dust everywhere. It was overwhelming, at first.

Over by what looked to be the old foreman’s office, they had something that looked like a living room. They’d laid out a section of carpet with two couches and a chair facing a really old television. It was so old, it still had the “rabbit ears” antenna. They had it on a little stand with a VHS player ducked into a cubbyhole beneath the TV. There was a mini-fridge in the corner and I could hear a generator rumbling somewhere in the background.

Damper turned to me and walked backwards into the building, throwing up his hands. “Welcome to the Posse Hacienda.” He even smiled. Turning around, he pointed at the blonde girl sitting in the chair, holding an infant. “Right there is mi novia, Bonita, and my baby girl, Alina.” He pointed at a muscled Hispanic guy who stood from the couch. “That’s our muscle, Thumper.” Another Hispanic guy on the couch turned his head. “And, that, there, is Esteban.”

Thumper’s face contorted into a sly grin. “Who’s the caliente seá±orita?” He heavily emphasized the rolled “R”. I rolled my eyes.

“Watch yourself, Thumper. She ain’t no mujer normal. Comprende?” Scour informed him.

Thumper looked at him quizzically. “ ¿De qué está¡s hablando?”

Damper smacked him in the back of his head. “Dude! English! We have a guest!”

I raised an eyebrow at Thumper. “Je parle français. Et vous?” I had to take a step back and blink. Having not really spoken French since high school and never with my new female voice, it came as something of a shock. I sounded really good. Almost sexy, even. It was a little scary.

He just blinked. “I got no idea what you just said, but I think I’m in love.”

Bonita kicked the back of his calf, he yelped. “Put a leash on the testosterone monster, would you?” Being slightly jolted, the baby cried in protest. “See, now? You woke the baby!”

He spun in protest. “I did not, you did…”

Damper smacked him again. “Don’t you talk to my woman like that!”

Their back and forth banter was more than mildly amusing. They seemed to act more like a family than some freakish meta gang. A sigh escaped my lips. Bonita stood and moved away from the “living room”. Some sort of compulsion had me and I moved to intercept. One look at the baby and something stirred inside me.

“Oh, my gawd, she’s so cute and tiny.” I gushed. Did I just act like Julia had when she saw her best friend's baby? The two had been friends since high school and the girl had just given birth to the baby about a month before Julia and I visited. One thing I couldn’t deny was the fact that, for the first time in a month, I was actually wearing a genuine smile.

Upon hearing my gushing voice, the baby stopped crying and glanced over at me with that questioning look all babies get. Bonita smiled. “Well, the new girl certainly has a way with kids. Guess I know who’s gonna be the babysitter when momma needs a break.”

My face bore a mixture of bewilderment, shock, and abject horror. Everybody joined in on the rolling laughter.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Seven ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: The pace slows down a bit as Lex tries to find where she fits in the world. She gets a little advice from the fellow Posse members. Valentine's Day, however, takes its toll on her. Although, she catches the eye of a certain hero. Is it good news or bad news for our "juvenile" delinquent?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Posse and all associated members are trademarks of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, this time, has been brought to you by the lovely talents of Alina Urusov.

Author's Note :: This one's a little slower paced, but I'm really happy with the character development in it. Thanks to my beta readers, Lilith, and EnemyofFun for our lovely guest star in this chapter.

Congratulations -- Donjo and Misty Meenor are the two that caught my obscure little reference to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in Chapter Six and won the chance to beta-read this chapter. Their input has been invaluable. This little Whedonista thanks you kindly. ;)

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Chapter Seven:

The next month seemed to fly by like the world was standing still. Damper, obviously the leader of the band, got the other guys in gear and sectioned off a room for me. They used some metal crates that were almost everywhere in the place. They used a piece of ruffled sheet metal as the roof, given that some of the glass roof had been broken out. It still rains during a San Francisco winter, but not nearly as much as one in Seattle. It’s mostly just cold and really foggy. So, I had my own little six-by-eight-foot “room” with an old army cot inside I used for a bed. My duffel bag got thrown into a corner and I pretty much lived out of it. Probe gave me some blankets without saying a word and Bonita saw fit to give me a teddy bear. I have to admit, snuggling that thing in my sleep actually kept me from having any nightmares. Weird, isn’t it?

Over time, the whole group warmed up to me and I began to feel like I belonged. I hadn’t felt that in a long time. Bonita was the most girly of the three candidates. She tried giving me advice on clothes, how to do my hair, and even tried to pressure me into the whole makeup thing. I wasn’t having it, but I had to admire her tenacity. Probe was the quiet one. She didn’t say much more than two sentences in any given day. Esteban was kind of the stoic older brother. Like Probe, he was very laconic, but he was one hell of a good cook. Scour was always passing jokes and trying to get somebody to join him in an old school SNL marathon on VHS. He and I had good laughs at the expense of young versions of Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Steve Martin. Thumper was always tenacious in his attempt to get into my pants. I even had to pull the claws out on him, once. He nearly wet himself, but he kept trying. Damper kept everyone in line and was always hatching some grand scheme or another to get us food, booze, money, or any combination thereof.

Given what happened to me, I couldn’t help trying to fathom what they all looked like before they got their powers. The thought was fleeting, though. Not even an overactive imagination could envision them as anything other than what they were, now. That was something of a revelation for me.

There was one hitch in the works that I found out pretty early: It’s almost impossible for me to get drunk, now. That became apparent when I had drunk all of them “under the table” and still didn’t even feel buzzed, yet. It had to be something like the gas when I had been held captive. I began to conjecture that it must somehow be tied to my healing ability, but I didn’t really know how that all worked. Suffice to say, it would take about as much alcohol as we could pull from a single liquor store heist to maybe get me at least buzzed. That was kind of a bummer.

As gangs go, Posse was pretty low-key and small potatoes. We didn’t rustle too many feathers, didn’t engage in gang wars, and didn’t do much more than petty theft. Sure, we knocked over a liquor store now and then or defended our territory once in a while, but we were content to stay in the shadows. It kept us pretty much away from the attention of the police, for the most part. None of us really used our powers all that much, either. I mean, Damper would use his invisibility to help us run off with a lot of liquor, Thumper would be the one that carried most of it, and I used my claws as leverage in turf disputes, but that was about it. We were all aware that each of us could do a little more than we used most often, but it was never a necessity.

You know what I missed the most? Regular showers and clean laundry. Living in an old warehouse had more than a few setbacks. It wasn’t like living in a bed of roses, either. Bonita, Probe, and I would go down to the free clothing boxes, occasionally, or Bonita would offer to do my laundry at any number of drop-in centers across town. However, I began to familiarize myself with the raw scent difference between males and females. My biology professor would have chalked it up to differentiating pH levels and pheromones, but I wasn’t really sure. I just knew there was a very real difference between a woman who needed a shower and a man who needed one. After a while, I didn’t even have to open my eyes and I could tell you who was who by scent alone. That was a little creepy, but an education, nonetheless.

They were all in awe when I would step out into the big open space of the Hacienda and begin running through my taolu. I made it a point to do that every morning. There was no way I was going to allow myself to get rusty, at all. Thumper, Esteban, and Damper asked me to teach it to them so they could really bust some heads. However, their motivations were not where they should be, so I flat out refused. Study of the martial arts is about discipline, dedication, and self-defense–not who can beat the other guy up in a cooler-looking way. Regardless, there were many mornings where I had an audience. Most of the time, it was just Thumper, but other times all of them would just sit by and watch me. My conjecture was that they had seen one too many Kung Fu movies and had never actually seen anyone perform the real thing before. That likely explained their fascination.

One morning, I woke up in my little hovel of a room and felt like a train wreck. Even without a clock or a calendar, I knew exactly what day it was: Valentine’s Day. I could hear Damper and Bonita whispering sweet nothings to each other up in their room, the former foreman’s office, while the baby made her cute little noises in her crib. I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes, but fought them back. Slipping out from underneath the blankets, I knew I was never going to get used to the effect the cold February air was having on my nipples. The things were so erect that they could probably cut glass. Annoying as it was, I ripped off my Punisher T-shirt, standing in just my panties as I glanced at where my yoga gear had gotten off to. Searching through the pile of clothes next to my duffel bag with all that exposed skin sent a shiver through my entire body. Needless to say, I dressed quickly and added these slipper-sock things that Bonita had given me to wear in lieu of shoes.

Trudging out into the warehouse gave me another shiver, but I knew that once I got into the taolu the cold wouldn’t phase me any longer. Strangely, nobody else was around this morning. Setting my body into the beginning stance, I closed my eyes and focused my breathing. In moments, the world disappeared around me. Nothing else mattered besides putting my body in the exact movements of the taolu. After about an hour, those were all finished. So, I bowed to no one in particular and began running through the stretches that Jenn had taught me. Bending forward and kissing my knees, I could hear someone approaching from the “living room”. One sniff of the air and I knew exactly who it was.

“Buenos dá­as, Talon.” He quietly greeted.

“Good morning, Esteban.” Came my somewhat muffled reply.

“You’re up early. Already done with your moves?”

Lifting up, I nodded. “Yea.” My eyes met his. “You’re talkative, this morning. What’s up?”

He thumbed behind him toward the Damper and Bonita’s room. “They get loud, sometimes.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Really? You, the chica who hears everything? No way.”

Another shrug. “I was focused. Sometimes, if you’re focused enough on the task at hand, the world around you suddenly doesn’t exist, anymore. It’s like meditation, but you’re moving.”

He nodded. “I think I get it.” He seemed a little somber.

Heck, so was I. A sigh escaped my lips. “Too bad I can’t sleep through until tomorrow.”

He sighed, too, his eyebrows raised. “Me too. For some, it’s a good day. For others…”

“It’s torture.” I finished his sentence. Seemingly of their own volition, my legs bent and brought my knees to my chest. I wrapped my arms around them and lay my chin on my knees. A little water built up in my eyes.

Noticing this, he moved and sat down in front of me. “Something you wanna talk about?”

There was no barrier between my mind and my mouth. The words just poured from me. I spoke as though I were eighty years old and talking about “the good ol’ days”. “You know, before all this, I had a pretty good life. I made video games for a living. It brought in good money. I had a nice apartment.” I choked back a sob. “Best of all, I had the best woman in the world.”

He nodded. “We all get like that, I think.”

Tears and all, I looked him right in the eyes. “I haven’t told anybody this, but… you know who I was before? I was ‘The Animal’ McKinley.”

His eyes got really big. “Wait… you was that big, buff fighter guy? I think I saw you on the TV, when it still worked! You were amazing in ‘the Octagon’!”

More tears built up and one rolled down my cheek. Sniffling, I continued. “I had just about everything I could ever ask for. Then, one night, it all got snatched away.” A sob I couldn’t stop erupted. “My girl, Julia, wouldn’t have anything to do with me when I finally saw her, again.”

He slid over and wrapped an arm over my shoulders, trying to be comforting. “Okay. You told me yours. It’s only fair that I tell, right?” I’m sure he could feel me shrug. “I didn’t have everything I wanted. Actually, I had nothing I wanted. When I was a kid, my dad… mi Papá¡… with him, I could do no wrong.” With him not facing me, I didn’t see the smirk. “I was his ‘la niá±a del papá¡’.”

Understanding the similarities between Spanish and French, my head shot up with my eyes as big as dinner plates. “Wait… you mean…?”

He nodded. “Sá­, I was ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’. I was the only girl born to our family. Mamá¡ had two boys before me and two after. For my First Communion, they were so proud. I looked like a little bride.” He winked at me. “You should have seen my quincenera dress! I put Princess Diana to shame!” He actually laughed. “Abuelita, my grandmother, spent two months sewing it and getting it sized right.” For the first time ever, he looked down my top. “I was bigger than you, Talon.”

I blushed, covering any visible cleavage with one dainty hand. “I dunno. These puppies seem huge to me.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Average, I think. The women in mi familia were all bigger in the chest and the hips. Think about those gringas Betty Paige and Marilyn Monroe. That’s what all the girls in my family looked like. My booty would have made J-Lo jealous.” He let out a sigh. “So, I got into all that ‘girly’ stuff, y’know? I did the dresses, the cooking, the dances, the makeup, and all that. I was even a cheerleader and on the dance team in high school. Abuelita would always drag me into the kitchen, telling me ‘You can’t catch a man if you can’t cook, chica!’. She taught me everything I know.”

My heart sank for him. So, this whole change thing worked both ways? That was a pretty jagged pill to swallow. “Remind me to thank your Abuelita if I ever meet her. I’ve never had real Mexican food, before. You’re really good with it.”

“Gracias. You won’t meet her, though. One bad thing to being a woman: the men in your life take advantage of your love to do terrible things.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I was in college. Mamá¡ was so proud because I was the first in college and a woman. I fell for this cholo ‘bad boy’ and he got me mixed in with the wrong people. We went to parties, we drank a lot, we did drugs, and he had me dressing like a slut. When we ran out of money for things, I dropped out of college and became a puta, a hooker. He and two friends ganged up on me one night. I said ‘no’, but they wouldn’t stop. Then…”

“Then, you changed.” Finishing his sentence, I sighed.

He slowly nodded. “Sá­, I started growing and getting big. Something filled in my panties and I got hairy. They stood back and watched. I hated watching my breasts disappear. Those were my pride. I looked like a bad cross-dresser, y’know? Then, they beat me so bad that I had to go to the hospital. When I was there, my family came in and disowned me right there. Papá¡ told them he had four sons and shouted ‘ ¿Dá³nde está¡ mi hija? — Where is my daughter?’. Mamá¡ sat in the corner and repeated ‘Quiero que mi niá±a volviá³ a má­. — I want my little girl back’ a few times. It was the worst night of my life.” I could see a single tear fall down his cheek.

Several tears fell down my own face. It was difficult listening to such an account. “That’s why you’re so quiet?” He nodded. “Esteban, I’d trade places with you, if we could.”

He chuckled. “You can keep the periods, though. Those, I don’t miss so much.”

We shared a really good laugh–therapeutic, even.

Sniffling, I wiped tears from my eyes and off my face. “Thanks for sharing, Esteban.”

“De nada, Talon. All of us got bad breaks. That’s why we gotta stick together, y’know?”

“Yea, I get it.” A realization came to my mind. “You know, I haven’t even seen my family or called them since this all happened.” A shiver traveled the length of my spine. “I know my father wouldn’t like it. He’s an asshole. He used to call me ‘fag’ when I was a kid. I dunno about my mom, though. She’s a hard one to read.”

“You might be better off not knowing.”

“You’re probably right.” I started moving to stand.

He was on his feet before I realized it and held his hands out to me. At first, I looked at him quizzically, but his smile reassured me. I gave him my hands and he helped me to my feet. The inertia created by the action kept my body moving, even after I stood up. My body gently collided with his, sending a sensation through me that was incredibly foreign. A tingling sensation spread all over the surface of my skin and it seemed like my body rose in temperature a degree or two. I could feel my face flush. He was a little taller than I used to be, so I had to look up at him. My expression was one of confusion and something else I couldn’t describe. As my eyes met his, my nipples stiffened.

He leaned forward and gently kissed my forehead. “We’ll talk again, soon, chica.” Then, he simply walked away.

What the hell was wrong with me?

A couple hours later, I was fully dressed in a black-and-white “convict” stripe tank top, my trusty bondage pants, the hoodie with Jack Skellington’s face on the back, and my boots that didn’t have blade-claw holes in them. Esteban made some delicious breakfast burritos and we all ate like we hadn’t done so in weeks. Almost embarrassingly, I had finished mine first, so I was conscripted into feeding Alina a bottle of stored breast milk while Bonita ate her breakfast. In the past month, helping her take care of the baby didn’t bother me so much. It was weird that I was something of a natural, though. Maybe, it was my new body’s instincts? Honestly, it frightened me if I thought about it for more than half a second.

Maybe it was a bit of the “old me” bubbling up to the surface? I mean, there were certainly fantasies about motherhood and babies during my childhood. Unfortunately, a mountain of denial and reality had squashed them. Males lack the ability to incubate a fetus and deliver the baby in any imaginable way. The same fate lay waiting even for transsexual women. Hormones and surgery can do wonders to the body, but they can’t give you a uterus. The technology just wasn’t there. So, even if I had any inclination towards transition, I still wouldn’t be able to bear my own children. Now, I had all the equipment necessary for fetal incubation, vaginally delivered birth, and nurture of the child, once born–made evident by the fact I now required a steady supply of maxi pads and even tampons (which I have yet to use) while sporting a pair of mammary glands that the male of the species tended to stare at.

That train of thought left the station as soon as my eyes landed on Bonita and Damper on the couch. They’d finished breakfast and were checking each other’s tonsils for infection, with their tongues. As I watched them, the memory of that night after winning the chance at the semi-finals bounced around in my brain pan. Julia had straddled me to dab hydrogen peroxide on my cut lip. Soon, it evolved into a make out session right there on our living room couch. My lip stung like a needle was being driven through it every time our lips touched, but the taste of her lips alleviated the pain effectively. I remember caressing the soft flesh of her supple thighs with my big hands and the sensation of her gently rocking hips across the tops of my own thighs.

The strangest sensation came over me. That same tingling sensation danced over every inch of my skin, again, and my nipples stiffened against the fabric of my bra. My entire body seemed to rise a couple of degrees in temperature. Beyond that, I firmly held my legs together and flexed my quadriceps. Out of nowhere, there was this… hunger… in my groin for something I just couldn’t describe. It threw me through a loop because this was an experience I’d not had, yet. At that moment, I couldn’t begin to tell you what it was. I know now, but I was in the dark then.

Without realizing it, my eyes picked a spot in the distance and just stayed there while thoughts played out in my head. What brought me back to reality was an odd squeezing sensation on my left breast. A wave of pleasure shot through my body and ran down my spine. Letting out a yelp, I looked down. My right arm had gone limp, dislodging the bottle from Alina’s mouth. Being a resourceful baby, she had turned her head and went for the next best thing: straight to the source. First of all, she wasn’t going to get anything with my tank top and bra in the way. That didn’t stop her from nipping at my breast and making a really good pursuit of the milk she wanted. I arched my back in a way that pulled my chest away from her mouth.

“Hey, baby girl! Sorry, but you’re gonna be disappointed if you go there. I’ve got nothing for ya.” I cooed at the little darling.

Bonita and Damper stopped trying to suck each other’s faces off. Bonita’s eyes shot directly at her daughter. There was a second’s pause before the whole room burst into laughter and I blushed in embarrassment. The blonde girl stood, crossed over to me, and relieved me of baby duty.

“Sorry, Bonita. My brain just went somewhere and Alina decided she’d try her luck with me.” Still blushing.

Bonita giggled. “Babies are like that, I guess. I’ve got her, now, Talon. You’re free.”

Thumper scoffed. “Now, that ain’t right! I been tryin’ for a month and the baby gets to second base? That shit is whack!”

It didn’t take much to ignore him. I was getting pretty good at it. The others joined in laughing at his expense. As I stood up, my brain reminded me of what day it was.

Last year, I was locked up as some freak show experiment and was drugged into unconsciousness, so I don’t even remember the day. The year before that, Julia and I had dinner at the Space Needle. The reservation had been booked while I was dating another girl over the summer, but it seemed perfect when I met Julia. She was dressed to the nines in her gorgeous blue evening gown and these silver heels that made her legs look amazing. As if by miracle, she had gotten me to wear a three-piece suit. Dinner was a very romantic candle-lit affair and afterwards I surprised her with the fact that I knew how to waltz. My mother insisted on teaching me before I went into high school. Our lovemaking that night was the icing on the cake. The passion was so amazing that we actually fogged up the windows in my bedroom. Six months later, it became our bedroom.

The memory of that night and our relationship together brought tears to my eyes, now. Wonderful, I was crying again. Had it really been two years? There was a gentle tug on my right arm and I followed the request without much thought. Once rounding the corner and away from the others, my chin was lifted to look up at Damper. There was understanding in his eyes and a warm smile on his face.

“Looks like you could use a break.” He stated, softly.

Sniffling, I pulled away from him. “No, I’m fine.”

“I’d be a shitty ass leader if I believe that bullshit. I can tell when my people are hurting. Talon, you got a wound that ain’t healed and today ain’t gonna make it better. What’re you gonna do when Bonita and me are all up in each other’s shit all day?” He shook his head and sighed. “Take a break, Talon.” His head nudged toward the door. “Go out there and do what you gotta do, then come back when you’re ready.”

“What are you saying?”

He scoffed. “Look, I don’t give a fuck what you do. Go get high! Go get drunk! Dance a motha-fuckin’ jig on the Golden Gate! It don’t matter!” Another sigh. “We ain’t doin’ nothin’ today. Besides, I can’t use you when you’re like this.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out some money. “Here’s five bucks to get you started. Just a warning: you’re alone so don’t do nothin’ stupid, a-right? We cool with Blue Beetle. She’s our girl. We ain’t cool with Green Arrow, though. Even with your shit, that girl will chew you up and spit you out. Dig?”

As he placed the wadded up cash in my palm and closed my fingers around it, I gave him a nod. “Thanks, Damper.”

“Now, get the fuck outta here. You crampin’ my style.” He smirked.

“Fuck you, too.” I returned his sarcasm.

Okay, so I knocked over a liquor store by myself. Sue me? The place wasn’t going to be open, officially, for another two hours. Impatience got the better of me. Using my claws, the flimsy iron gate was no match for a good swipe. After that, I put my fist through the glass door. It only hurt for a moment and I wouldn’t have to worry about the glass cuts very long. The alarm started blaring in my ears the moment the glass shattered. I only had a few minutes. Grabbing a reusable grocery bag, I made my way further into the store. Into the bag went two quarts of vodka, a bottle of Buttershots, some Crown Royal, and some rum for good measure. Finished “shopping”, I dropped the five-dollar bill on the counter before heading back out the door again. At least, I tried to pay for all that liquor.

I zigged and zagged my way through the city and away from the store. The police would be on the scene very soon and I really didn’t want to spend the day in a jail cell. With my luck and the way I looked, they’d probably feel more inclined to stick me in Juvenile Hall rather than actual jail. The prospect was a little insulting. After another hour, I felt safe enough to duck into an alley and begin my libations. If anyone came along and decided to scold me that it was too early in the day to start drinking, they’d find themselves in the hospital.

For the most part, the sounds of the city didn’t even register. My resolve was to lose myself in my own little world and drown my troubles. I was going to get drunk. Beginning with what I determined to be the bottle with the lowest alcohol content, I would move through each bottle up to the highest perceived alcohol content. In the first half-hour, gone were the rum, the Buttershots, and the Crown Royal. For good or ill, I wasn’t feeling a thing. With a frown, I opened the first bottle of vodka. By now, I’d gotten used to the harsh burn in my throat as the liquid washed down my esophagus. About halfway through the bottle, I heard a sound of boots on the rooftop across from me. Normally, this would have struck me as odd, but I chose to ignore it and take another big swig of the vodka.

“It's awfully early in the day for a girl your age to be drinking so much. Bad day?” A female voice echoed through the alleyway.

My eyes darted up and down the alley. There was no one else around. Must be talking to me. “Downright shitty, actually. Why do you care?”

“You’re a girl my age and that's a lot of booze.”

“I’ll be twenty-eight in a few months. Look, can I just attempt to get drunk in peace?”

“Attempt? I’m surprised you’re not unconscious!”

“Long story. Now, if you don’t mind…” I lifted the bottle to my lips and took another large gulp. I had to wince through the burn, though. Something impacted the bottle and it burst, spilling its contents into my lap. “Hey, now that’s alcohol abuse!”

Glancing over at the offending object, the only thing my eyes caught sight of was a green shafted, metal-tipped arrow. Needless to say, that really didn’t bode well. As my wide eyes focused on the arrow, there was an impact of a pair of boots onto the cement of the alley. My head slowly turned toward the sound. First, my eyes came upon a pair of green, flat-heeled boots that reached up to her knees. Then, the full-body black suit that hugged her every curve and muscle form. On her chest, it seemed an upward-pointing green arrow had been screen-printed onto the bodysuit. Metallic green armguards adorned her wrists. Over her shoulders, there was a green cloak that reached to the level of her knees and had a hood she wore over her head. She wore a black, double triangle mask over her eyes and a single tuft of blond hair blew in the wind beyond the confines of her hood. With the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to her back, there’s really only one personage that could be standing before me.

“Oh crap…” My voice surrendered. Standing ten feet in front of me was Green Arrow, herself.

She smirked at me. “Guilty conscience?”

“Um… well…” I stammered.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Well, under age drinking and the fact you’re not in school can have that effect on a girl. Care to explain?”

Being star-struck has major disadvantages. For me, my words and voice were failing me. Also, considering that I’d just knocked over a liquor store, my nerves were on edge. No matter how hard I tried, a response just wouldn’t come. Strangely, she tilted her head to the side.

“You sure, Speedy?” She seemed to be listening, then glanced back at me. “Got it.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “So, how long have you been here drinking?”

My brain had the answer immediately. It took a few moments for the rest of me to catch up. “Um… about an hour or so?”

“So, is it coincidence that someone matching your description broke into and robbed a liquor store in that timeframe?” She cocked her head to the side, slightly. “Did you leave five bucks on the counter?”

Admittedly, it probably wasn’t the best plan to get annoyed with the superhero right in front of me. “Well, we can’t all be Miss Olivia Queen, now can we? With uncontrollable inflation for the past twenty-odd years, that’s probably all the stuff is really worth.” I spun around. “Just cuff me and get it over with.”

“What’s your name?”

“Talon.”

“No, I mean your real name.”

“That is my real name. I don’t have another one.”

“And why not?”

I took a deep breath. “Because I, technically, don’t exist. Are you going to cuff me, now?”

“You don’t have parents?”

“That’s a long story I really don’t feel like going into, right now. Suffice to say, I’m dead to them, okay?”

“So, you’re a runaway? Homeless?”

With a sarcastic expression on my face, I finally turned to face her, again. “How can I be a runaway when I’m fully emancipated because I reached the legal age of adulthood almost a decade ago?” I shrugged. “That last part… you pegged me. Though, can’t complain too much. At least, I have my own room.”

She balked at that. “You do?”

“Yea… I’m with Posse.” It was dumb to reveal that. Her eyes narrowed on me and she nocked an arrow faster than I’d seen anyone accomplish the task. I threw my hands up in surrender. “Whoa! Whoa! It’s not like that! It’s the only safe place I could get!”

“There’s plenty of shelters in this city.”

“You remember that part where I technically don’t exist? No identification… of any kind.”

“So, you run with Posse? They only admit Metas into their ranks.”

It was my turn to smirk. “Yea, I know that.”

“You’re meta?”

My head lowered. “Yes, I am.”

She lowered her bow. “There are ways for Metas to get identification.”

I scoffed. “And deal with the government? No thanks. It’s better for me to stay under the radar. There are some powerful people that are after me. Not only that… there was… a situation… back home.” Not really trusting her, there was no way I was going to reveal what happened back in Seattle. I’d spent six months in a jail cell and really wasn’t looking forward to going back.

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. It made me more than a little nervous. Then, a half smile graced her face. “I’ve got some friends in high places. We can double-check your story. If you’re lying to me, I’ll hand you over to SFPD. Deal?”

My mind reviewed her proposal. Did I need help? Probably. Did I trust her? Absolutely not. For all intents and purposes, I was a criminal and she was the caped crusader. This would not go well for me. However, half of my problem was because I didn’t exist. I needed help. I needed answers. Then, it clicked. Automatically, my hand reached into my back pocket and pulled out a small three-by-five-inch card and held it out for her to take.

“Someone who helped me, against all odds, gave me this. I trust her judgment.”

After returning her arrow to the quiver and switching which hand she held the bow in, she took the card, reading it over. An expression of surprise graced her face. “Professor McCoy? Why would she give you his card from the university?”

“She told me that if I wanted answers then I should go see him.”

She spun around and started walking down the alley, still focused on the card. “Come with me.”

For a few moments, I didn’t honor the request. Instead, I just stood there, dumfounded. I had no idea what she was asking me to do, really.

She spun back to me. “Are you coming, or what?” She went to take a step, then turned back to me. “Leave the booze.” Then, she continued on her way.

Slowly, I started following this superhero with the odd requests.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Eight ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Lex gets led around by the hand. Questions get answered. Will Dr. Hank McCoy have good news? Is getting the DMA involved going to be a good idea?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Green Arrow and Agent Helen Helligan are trademarks of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, once again, has been brought to you by the amazingly talented Mike Choi.

Author's Note :: Honestly, I wrestled with this chapter over the last couple of days. There were a couple of issues that needed to be worked out. Thanks to Lilith, Donjo, and EnemyofFun for being my betas and putting up with me through this. Special thanks to EnemyofFun for Olivia and Hank. The reward goes to the readers: the longest Marked Target chapter to date. Hope you enjoy my little labor of love.

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Chapter Eight:

You’d think that a big, green, high-performance motorcycle with two riders would turn a few heads. Coincidentally, I think the denizens of San Francisco might be a little too accustomed to seeing the Green Arrow around town. Either that or they’re so self-absorbed that they don’t notice much else.

My captor was as stoic as ever. She kept her swift pace as we exited the alleyway. We wound through the streets for a few blocks. I didn’t stray more than five steps behind her. It would have been a nice view, if the cape of her cloak weren’t in the way. There was some commotion from the people on the sidewalks once they caught sight of their local superhero. Several of them snapped pictures, but most seemed to dart out of her way. Like the Red Sea, the crowd parted as she walked along. I couldn’t see the expression on her face. However, the denizens seemed to regard me with some kind of malice. There was chatter on either side from people wanting to know what I’d done wrong. Then, they smelt the vodka that had spilt on me and covered their noses. Perhaps, they put two and two together.

Why didn’t I try to run and save myself this massive embarrassment?

When we finally reached her mode of transportation, I had to take a step back. Never in my life would I ever believe that I would see a Suzuki Hayabusa up close and personal. Yet, it was sitting in front of me and Green Arrow just swung her leg over the motorcycle. Most of the body and fiberglass was covered in black or kelly green, the same colors of her outfit. Amazingly, this was the two-seat model. I wonder if she thought ahead? What wasn’t painted was shimmering with chrome. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn that someone laced one of my libations with Absynthe. This just had to be a dream given form.

Once she stuffed her quiver in a fiberglass compartment and grabbed her helmet, she glanced over my way. Raising an eyebrow, she finally spoke. “Are you going to get on or stand there staring all day?”

My wide eyes met hers. “Me? With you? On the GSX1300R?”

She shrugged. “Unless your power is incredible running speed, that’s the plan. Hop on.”

Still awestruck, I moved toward the bike rather slowly. She handed me a helmet with an annoyed look on her face. Mine was silver and hers followed the green/black color scheme. After slipping on the helmet, I slid onto and straddled the motorcycle, as well. If it wasn’t apparent by now, this experience only confirmed just how flat my crotch had become. Sitting on the bike, the slope of the body forced me forward into her so that I was, in a way, straddling her as well as the machine. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I could feel her moving and starting the bike. It roared to life as I confirmed that, yes, Green Arrow was an actual human being. She put off body heat and everything!

“You may want to hang on tight,” she yelled to me through her helmet over the purr of the engine, “I tend to get a little crazy on this thing.”

With that, the engine roared and we jolted into traffic.

During the whole ride, I could feel her breathing and talking due to the vibrations running through her torso that weren’t associated with the motorcycle. She was doing quite a lot of talking, too. My ears never picked up anything with the noise of the motorcycle’s engine, traffic noise, the sounds of the city, and the wind rushing all around us. Of course, her helmet could have been soundproofed and I’d never know it. Our course seemed to weave through side streets and main thoroughfares in random succession. I got lost, after a while.

Finally, we turned down a side street and she slowed to a stop. She shut the bike down and removed her helmet, turning to me.

“Okay, we’re here.” She yelled so I could hear through the helmet. Once I took off my helmet, she continued. “I called in a favor.” She pointed to the house before us. “This place belongs to a friend of mine, but she’s agreed to house you while I figure out what to do with you.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I expect you to be on your best behavior or SFPD will learn of your location. Agreed?”

Not wanting to upset her, I meekly nodded. I wasn’t exactly in a position for negotiation of any kind. She slid off the bike and I handed the helmet back to her. Finally, I glanced over at the house.

From the sidewalk, there wasn’t much to it. Heck, there wasn’t much to most houses in San Francisco if you just look at the front visage. Still, this place looked almost like two houses. There was a small garage on either side of the front door that seemed to be able to fit a vehicle the size of a Toyota Prius, each. The siding was all stained wooden shingles in a dark chocolate brown color. There were several windows facing the street that promised at least three floors in the house. Contrary to most other houses, the front visage wasn’t two-dimensional, either. The lower floor was all uniplanar. The second floor had one window that jutted outward, one on a thirty-degree slant, and two that jutted outward again. The third floor became uniplanar again. It was an odd look, but it had me somewhat captivated. The front door appeared to be carved maple or something similar. It was sunken into an entrance cavity with a nice Victorian lantern hanging above it.

She turned me to face her again. “I have to go, now. There are more criminals out there than just you. There’s a woman inside who will help you.” Then, she caught the alcohol sent and scrunched her nose. “And, for the love… take a shower and clean those clothes.”

“Um… thanks?” I stated, breathlessly.

She nodded. “I’ll be by tomorrow and we’ll head over to Berkeley. In the meantime, I’ll be checking into your story. Be ready, bright and early.”

Giving her a nod, I watched as she slipped her helmet back on, started the bike, revved it for a moment, and then took off down the road. I watched her leave with the cape of her cloak flapping in the wind. Why did nobody ever notice that? It was a pretty cool effect.

Turning toward the house, I reluctantly stepped into the entryway. Taking a breath, my eyes caught sight of a doorbell and my right thumb pressed it. From my perspective, the thing sounded like the chiming of Big Ben in Parliament Square of London. It sounded like some really big bells suddenly sounded three times and seemed to echo through the whole house. It was pretty intimidating, actually. Yea, as if I weren’t intimidated enough already?

After a few moments, the door silently swung open. Behind it was a pretty blonde, probably in her mid-twenties–like I was, once. She wore sensible black pumps, tanned nylons, a charcoal A-line skirt, blouse tucked into the skirt with the top two buttons undone, a charcoal vest, black plastic-framed glasses, and her hair in a bun. Oh, yeah. This girl was all business. Her smile even looked like some fake corporate tool. Lovely.

“You must be my new ward.” She greeted with that fake smile. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

My eyes rolled. Here we go, again. “Talon.”

She shrugged it off. “Okay, well, I’m Rebecca. You can call me ‘Becky’, if you like. Do come in, won’t you?”

Slowly, I crossed the threshold. The whole house smelled like “renovation”. Everything inside was new. The carpets, furniture, electronics, appliances, and everything else. It all had that “new house” smell that assaulted my olfactory nerves. That, and the woman’s expensive Chanel perfume. She could have eased up on the spritz, though. I almost felt like gagging.

Leading me by the hand, she proceeded to give the grand tour. As she spoke, I wondered if she once moonlighted as some kind of overly cheerful museum tour guide. She had the squeaky voice, fake corporate smile, and even a fake giddy giggle. It was very annoying.

The house was huge, though. The front visage gave it no justice, at all. To the right and up a few half steps was a gaming/hang out room with a big pool table in the middle of it. Nothing could hide my huge smile at that. To the left, the door to garage #1. There was a hallway that led into the back area of the house. Following that, she showed me the huge parlor/dining room with a nicely sized kitchen tucked into a corner. The thing had vaulted ceilings, two skylights, a fireplace in the back, and French doors that opened out to the back patio. Everything looked amazing and probably incredibly expensive.

Back through the pool table room, there was a few more half steps to the door to garage #2. I’ve heard of two-car garages, but two actual garages? That was odd. Still heading toward the back of the house, there were the stairs to the second floor and situated in the exact middle of the house was the coolest TV room I’d ever seen. It had a sectional couch that looked extra comfortable and stretched two-thirds of the way around the perimeter of the room. In the center, a snack table. There was over-head lighting like in the theaters. The big kahuna? The television was the biggest one I’d ever seen. According to “call me Becky”, it was currently the largest production model at a whopping 108 inches. To think, I used to fantasize about having a 60-inch. I must have been aiming too low.

On the second floor was the “master suite” with its own bathroom and walk-in closet. It even had a fireplace! There was another bedroom with it’s own unconnected bathroom. The closet was huge, but it wasn’t a walk-in model. Though, interestingly, it had been converted into an office/study rather than used strictly as a bedroom. The master suite, with its bathroom, was easily twice the size of my old apartment. There were two other bedrooms on the third floor along with a little corridor that led to a verandah. From that verandah, one had a pretty nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge, most of the bay, and even Alcatraz.

The best part? It was all for me. Don’t ask me how one person really needs that much space, but that’s what I was told. Of course, as soon as she said that I claimed the master bedroom as mine.

As soon as the tour was over, she discussed some particulars. Namely, I was to immediately march into my bathroom and take a shower, bath, or whatever I preferred. Strangely, she asked what all my sizes were. I mean, it’s pretty invasive to ask someone their dress size, jean size, or shoe size. It gets worse when someone you just met starts asking what size panties you wear and what your bra size is. She informed me everything that I could possibly need was already in the bathroom and had been in case the real owner ever planned to occupy the home. She never told me who the owner was. I was inclined to thank my mysterious benefactor, but she refused to reveal their identity, stating something like “I just do what my boss tells me.”

The bath was amazing. Did I mention I’ve got a Jacuzzi tub? Well, I do now. All those months of sleeping on the ground or on an old army cot seemed to melt away as the water jets gently massaged my muscles. Time seemed to stand still and my perception of the passage of time was lost. Looking at my fingers, I noticed they were quite pruny. So, I hurried in shampooing and conditioning my hair. Both bottles had a really nice floral sent that my nose seemed to like. After that, I found this puffy ball thing that I found out was called a “lather ball”. All I knew at the time is that you put in a little body wash (which also smelled very nice) and it makes a whole lot of suds. There simply aren’t words to describe just how clean I felt after that.

After stepping out and draining the tub, I slipped a terry cloth towel around me, tying it at the chest. Also, the lessons in “hair turban” from Steven really came in handy. Coming out of the bathroom, I spotted several shopping bags on my new bed. Curious, I crossed over to them. On the bed, a silk chemise nightgown and matching panties was already laid out. It looked pink, to me, but I learned later the color is called “lavender” which is a bright purple. Inside the bags were some extra panties, a couple bras, some assorted shoes, a couple pairs of jeans, and some tops I probably wouldn’t wear in my grave. It was all super girlish. I wasn’t happy.

There was a note, though: Talon — Since your clothes are now in the wash, I took the liberty of running down to the local boutiques to get you some provisional clothing. I hope you like them. Wear them if you like, don’t if you’d rather not. Though, you can’t expect to run around the city naked, can you? --Becky

Yep, this woman was an odd one. Letting out a weighted sigh, I glanced over at the nightgown. It can’t be too bad, can it?

Big Ben interrupted my jaunt in slumber land. In that moment, I resolved that no matter what it took I was going to replace that doorbell tone.

The bed was one of those top-of-the-line memory foam things. The minute I put on the nightgown and panties then crawled into bed, I was sleeping like a baby. It had been a really long time since I remember sleeping that well. It was nice, warm, and comfortable where I was. I didn’t want to leave it.

Big Ben beckoned again.

Rolling my eyes and letting out a very effeminate grumble, I slid out of bed and began marching downstairs. Whoever was at the door was going to get an ear full. Marching through the house reminded me of just how big the thing was. Also, it was quite chilly in the morning. I resolved to either turn on one of the fireplaces at night or invest in a nice, thick, warm bathrobe. Getting to the door, I didn’t even check who it was. The door swung open and just before I began to berate them for waking me at this hour my voice froze. There she was, again. Green Arrow, herself.

“Good morning, sleepy head. Cute nightgown. Though, you should have asked for a robe.” She smirked and winked at me. Then, she strode into the house like she owned the place.

“Oh, do come in, won’t you?” My groggy voice uttered facetiously. With a quick motion of my wrist, the door swung closed.

She handed me an unassuming box that I didn’t even notice she had been carrying. “Here. Check these out. Wear what you like. I’ve got a surprise.”

I snubbed my nose at the box. “More clothes? These aren’t the same super girly crap that blonde woman bought for me yesterday, are they?”

She slowly shook her head. “No… they serve a purpose, which you’ll find out once you’re decently dressed. Now, hop to! We’ve got things to do.”

Letting out a scoff, my legs carried me back upstairs while my arms carried the box. Plopping it onto the bed, I opened it up and scanned the contents. Inside was simply a pair of dark blue bootcut jeans, a nice black T-shirt, some feminine biker boots, riding gloves, a Cortech Magnum ladies’ black leather jacket, a pair of sunglasses and a black-and-silver helmet. This girl, whoever she was, definitely knew her biker gear. In an excited rush, I slipped on the jeans. Next, I grabbed some dark purple socks Becky had gathered and slipped on the boots, keeping the cuffs of the jeans over the boots. After slipping out of the nightgown and strapping into a comfortable bra, I slipped on the T-shirt and jacket. Amazingly, everything fit like a glove. Though, I decided to put a brush through my hair before putting the sunglasses and gloves in the helmet. I was back downstairs in about ten minutes.

Green Arrow smiled. “You look comfy.”

“Yea, you know your biker gear. How’d you know my sizes?”

She shrugged. “Lucky guess. Now, do you know how to ride a motorcycle?”

I quickly nodded. “Yes. I’ve had my endorsement in Washington for the last six years. Never got around to getting my own bike, though. They only gave me one parking space, it rained too much to be safe, Washington drivers are blind imbeciles, and Julia was terrified of the things. So, I never bought my own.”

Her smile grew wider. “Good.” She opened the door to Garage #1 and beckoned me to look. Inside sat a brand new Triumph Thunderbird Storm. I could have died happy right then and there. “This baby’s for you. I don’t really like carrying riders. It’s a good thing I know people that can pull off an overnight delivery.”

With a happy squeal, I jumped on her and wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you!”

Grunting from the impact, she nodded. “You’re welcome. Now, do you know the way to U-C Berkeley?”

Releasing her, I shook my head. “I’d probably get lost in most parts of San Francisco. I haven’t been here long enough to really get familiar with the place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. There’s a microphone near your mouth and speakers over your ears in the helmet. Follow me and I’ll give you directions as we go. Sound good enough?”

I nodded. “Yep. Sounds like it should work fine. I can follow directions.”

She smiled. “Good.” When she opened her hand, a set of keys dangled from it. “This has keys to the bike and a key for the house. The fob has the remote for the garage door. Try to keep up?”

Grinning, I accepted the bundle. “Got it.”

She strode out of the house and I locked up behind her. Heading straight for the garage, I closed the door behind me and pressed the button on the key fob to open the garage door. It seemed like a typical, chilly, foggy San Francisco morning. It’s a good thing I was dressed fairly warmly. My excitement was barely contained as I slipped the sunglasses into the waist pocket of the jacket, slipped on the gloves, and pulled the helmet over my head. As I was fastening the chinstrap, a voice rang out in the helmet.

“Don’t forget to tuck your hair into the jacket or it’ll be a tangled mess when we get there. From what you’ve told me, it’s been a while since you’ve ridden a bike and you probably didn’t have hair that long when you did.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I replied before following her advice.

Then, I slid the key into the ignition and started up the bike. With the walls all around me, the initial roar was that much more intense. Inside, I was grinning from ear to ear. Feeling the power as the engine rumbled and purred between my legs and hearing the sound from the exhaust, I almost felt like a man again. This bike was a bad ass and she wanted you to know it. Pulling the clutch, I pedaled the bike into first gear. It slowly rolled forward until I was on the sidewalk. I pulled the brakes just long enough to press the button that closed the garage and glance around for Green Arrow. She was straddling her crotch rocket in the middle of the street. She revved her engine once and then took off. I eased out of the drive and followed behind her.

She bobbed and weaved through the streets, again, but she at least let me know the street names through our helmet communications. In almost no time at all, we’d gotten to the 101, then the “Central Freeway”, and finally onto I-80 to cross the Bay Bridge into the eastern Bay Area. We didn’t have too much trouble. California drivers may be a little crazy, but most of them knew what they were doing. A few minutes later, we were in Berkeley and headed down College Ave. Hanging a left onto Bancroft Way, she guided me to the university’s central offices. Thankfully, there were two open motorcycle-specific parking spaces right in front. I shut down my bike, but she didn’t.

“Talon, I won’t be coming with you.” Her voice came over the helmet speakers. “There are some things I need to take care of and I believe this is something you need to do on your own. From here on, I’ll see you when I see you.”

I let out a sigh. I’d really never see her again? “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?” I held out a gloved hand to her. “For what it’s worth, thanks for everything.”

She nodded and shook my hand, which is when she slipped Dr. McCoy’s card back to my possession. “If you need help getting back, call me.” She started walking her bike backward. Then, she revved the engine once and was off like a shot.

The trek across campus seemed interminable, even with a map. The drive required navigating a few side roads that were a little difficult to understand. Thankfully, I found the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory offices. Having a big sign out front and armed federal guards for security helped the process along. Getting through the metal detectors was a little difficult. That wasn’t easy to explain away. However, my excuse about a motorcycle accident requiring a few screws and rods in my arm seemed to work okay. I swear I could feel the eyes of the guards on my swishing posterior as I made my getaway. Perverts.

Arriving at his office, Dr. McCoy was nowhere to be found. An aid pointed me in the direction of the biochemical labs where he would most likely be. My palms were sweating when I knocked on the door. The answer came almost immediately.

“Please, do come in,” erupted a rough man’s voice from inside.

Taking a preparatory breath, I swung the door open. “Dr. McCoy?” I asked the man inside. Then, glanced down at the card. “Dr. Henry McCoy?”

The lab seemed like your average chemistry lab with a few devices for several experimentation implements littered about. There were some hi-tech gadgets around that I made a mental note to avoid entirely. The whole concept of “you break it, you bought it” had been instilled in me since early childhood.

The man, himself, had been studying something on his computer screen. Now, he turned to face me and removed the reading glasses from his face. A smile appeared on his weathered face. He must have been in his forties, at least. His soft dark brown hair had a couple of gray streaks starting near his temples. His chocolate eyes hinted at a certain youthful playfulness about him. His smile was genuine and almost paternal. The rest of him? Well, he would put Mike to shame. The man was huge. He was a veritable mountain of a man, once he stood at his full six-foot-two. His muscles had muscles. He was built like a professional linebacker in the prime of his career. The duality of the situation baffled me. Typically, jocks don’t do science or anything else that requires critical thinking, for that matter.

“Please, call me ‘Hank’. It is my preferred nom de guerre, even with my students here. However, you do not appear to be such. Have you gotten separated from your tour group? You should be able to rendezvous with them in the main lobby.” He spoke, but I couldn’t. Seeing how wide my eyes were, he gave himself a glance and chuckled. “Oh, my dear, you’ve nothing to fear from me. I am the epitome of the advice ‘never judge a book by its cover’. My bark cannot be worse than my bite because I don’t even possess a bark.”

That one got me. I let out a giggle. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

Smiling, he nodded. “Yes, I understand perfectly. Now then, what can I help you with?”

Nervous, I stumbled in the search of what to say. “Well, Dr. McCoy…”

“Hank. We’ve covered this.” He winked.

I gave him a nervous smile. “Hank… well, I’m Talon…”

“Enchanté Madamoiselle.”

“Enchanté Monsieur.”

“Ah, vous parlez français?” His eyebrows raised, intrigued.

“Oui, monsieur. J'ai depuis de nombreuses années aprá¨s avoir appris au lycée.” I smiled, proud of my ability to recall French.

He bore a quizzical expression. “In high school? My dear, unless you are an advanced student, you appear to be not much more than a sophomore. Your aptitude, pronunciation, and diction of the French language are nearly perfect and above curriculum standards for someone in your age group. I realize that I previously stated to not judge a book by its cover, but I am human and susceptible to the same assumptions. You have me at something of a disadvantage.”

The proud smile remained. “That’s kinda what I’m here to talk with you about… Hank.” My brain had to stop before saying “Dr. McCoy” and replace it with “Hank”.

“Well, Talon…” he began. “That is a pseudonym, as well, yes?” I nodded. “Right, then. I do not know what required you to travel here and enlist my aid, but I will assist where I can.”

“Thank you.” I glanced down at the card again. “You see this card?” He nodded. “I’ve carried it with me for months. It was given to me by a Dr. Kimura…”

He straightened himself. “Dr. Michelle Kimura? The surname is familiar, I admit.”

“I don’t know her first name. She never gave that to me. But, I met her in a facility with some rather unsavory people. I was held captive there as some sort of experiment. All she told me was to find you and I would get the answers to my hundreds of questions.”

His eyes darted to and fro as though he were trying to remember something. “The last time that we corresponded was approximately the span of a human gestation period.” He smiled at my questioning look. “A pregnancy at nine months, give or take a week or so. That would place the correspondence during May of last year.”

I mouthed the word “Oh” rather animatedly.

“Right, then. At our previous correspondence, she was employed for Hex Industrial Laboratories. The name seemed like a facade. I’m not aware of who their parent company might be. You were held captive, you say?”

“Yes, for a little more than six months in some facility that reminded me of an older jail or penitentiary. The paint was peeling and the bars were made of iron.”

He reached over, grabbed a stool, set it a couple feet in front of him, and invited me over. “Please, have a seat. I gather you have quite the tale to unfold for me.”

He had an aura about him that made me quite comfortable. So, starting at the fight that won me a chance at the local semi-finals, I told him everything. I told him about the kidnapping, elaborated on my time in captivity, described the events of my escape, lamented about my time with Mike and Steven, relayed the tragic events where I killed seven men, explained my life with Posse, and finally told him about running into Green Arrow. He patiently listened through the whole thing. A time or two, he nodded but let me continue speaking. Not once did he try to interrupt the tale. Upon its completion, we both let out a weighted sigh.

“That is quite a weight for a young person, such as yourself, to be confronted with. It is quite the fantastical tale, but it is possibly not a unique tale in these times, unfortunately.” He smiled, reassuringly. “However, do not dispair. There are several contingencies in place that you may not be aware of. I am willing to conduct a few tests, provided that you are comfortable with the prospect. You see, there is a company out there called Science and Technology Advanced Research Laboratories, or simply referred to as STAR Labs. They have been working hand-in-hand with the federal government since the Metahuman Classification and Protection Act of 2011 established the Department of Metahuman Affairs, or simply DMA. STAR Labs keeps a database of known metahumans and what their abilities are. The more mundane tasks such as identity shifts, document alterations, and hardship compensation are all handled by the DMA.”

“All that happened in one year?” I inquired.

“Is it truly so unbelievable? The Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act were created in the span of eight months following the unfortunate events of September Eleventh.” He let out a sigh. “Thankfully, the MCPA was passed because of Democratic strategy. Thanks to some sympathetic advocates taking part in congressional hearings and Myka Carter preserving President Obama’s life, the legislation passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support. Without those influences, I have my doubts that it would have passed so favorably for the metahuman population.”

“I don’t really follow politics, that much. I see it as nothing more than an elaborate soap opera that you can watch on C-Span.” I grimaced.

He let out a chuckle. “The exact same metaphor has escaped my own lips, more than once.” He took a quick breath. “Well, then, shall we get started? I believe it appropriate to take a few swab samples near your salivary ducts, perhaps an MRI, and scrape a few shavings from these claws you speak so much of. You see, my equipment is more advanced than you would see at STAR Labs. I should know because I designed most of their equipment nearly a decade ago. So, my dear, you are in good hands.” He patted my knee in reassurance, much like a father or pediatrician would a young child.

He started with the cotton swabs, all sixteen of them. The samples were taken from under my tongue, on top of my tongue, the insides of my cheeks, and the roof of my mouth. Afterward, he was gracious enough to hand me a cup of water to soothe my dry mouth. I could taste cotton for about another hour. Immediately following, he led me to their imaging suite where a female technician helped me disrobe and don a hospital gown. For the next two hours, I laid on a slab and did my best not to move a single muscle. That was hard. Happily back in my biker gear, the technician led me back to Hank’s lab where he wearing his reading glasses again and reading from a bundle of paperwork. He smiled back at me.

“Ah! There you are. Not too fatigued, I hope? The experience in an MRI machine can be a little taxing, I know. It will assist our little investigation.” He explained. “I have been reviewing some preliminary results from your genome. Would you like to hear about them?”

Sitting back in the stool and helping myself to another large cup of water, I shrugged. “Sure.”

“It is painfully obvious that you’re not quite as enthusiastic as I am. However, I am the biochemist and geneticist whilst you are the laymen. You have also been lying still for the past handful of hours. No matter.” He smiled. “What was your age when this all began?”

“Well, I’ll be 28, soon. When all this…” I motioned to my body. “…happened I was only 26.”

“According to my preliminary findings, your genetic markers insist that you are merely two months older than sixteen years of age. I cannot comment on your aging process because I have not conducted the proper tests and that would require a longer-term commitment to study.” He let out a sigh. “I digress. According to your genetics, you are a sixteen-year-old female with an active meta gene. You’ll be pleased to know that I have not found any predisposition to any known genetic maladies, such as Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Autism, Diabetes, or anything nasty like that. Beyond that, I have not conducted enough procedures to elaborate my full findings.”

“Well, that’s pretty much all good news.”

With a smile and a nod, he set the papers down on his desk. “Precisely. Now, about those claws.” He picked up a very shiny rock and presented it to me. “This, my dear, is an uncut diamond. Arguably, it is the single hardest substance on Earth. If your claims are to be believed, then this will enable me to scrape a few samples. For the sake of argument, that is not an implication that I believe you to be lying to me. May I proceed?”

Nodding my head, I lifted my foot up. After removing the boot and sock from my right foot, I extended it out toward him. Making sure it was not pointed at anything, I grimaced then flexed my calf muscles, causing the claw to emerge with a snikt sound. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

“My stars and garters… That is extraordinary.” He breathed. “Is it painful?”

I nodded. “Yes. There’s one that comes out of each foot and two that come out of each hand when I make a fist tight enough. They all hurt pretty badly, but I’ve gotten used to it.”

“I will be as gentle as I possibly can. Also, I will scrape in such a manner as to not upset the smooth surface and cause you further discomfort from microscopic lacerations.” He took a breath. “Here we go.”

He positioned a big magnifying glass over my foot and the claw. Then, he grabbed a petri dish, maneuvered it near the claw, positioned the diamond, and I could feel some kind of scraping as it translated through the metal and into my foot. Though, it wasn’t much different than the sensation of smoothing out your fingernails with an emery board. I watched as several little shavings were collected in the dish, then, he did his best to smooth the surface again. There wasn’t any visible difference in the blade, itself. When he was finished, he threw up his arms and I relaxed. The blade swiftly returned from whence it came with another snikt. He kept his gaze on my foot as the wound healed before his very eyes.

“My word… that is a modern medical miracle, my dear.” I could feel him touching my foot. “Other than a few drops of blood, there is no visual evidence to suggest your flesh had been torn just now. No wound remains and there is absolutely no evidence of scar tissue. Fascinating.”

“Glad you’re so intrigued, Doc. Can I have my foot back? This position is kind of uncomfortable.”

He nodded, clearing his mind. “Yes, yes, of course. My apologies. You can understand my fascination as a scientist, correct?”

Rolling my eyes, I half-heartedly nodded. “Yea, I guess so.” I pulled my foot back and began to encase it in the sock and boot once more.

Dr. McCoy added some sort of solution to the petri dish, scraped it around, and then poured it into a small vial. He put it in some machine that spun it around at high speeds. Then, he finally deposited it into another machine. He explained that it was a mineral spectrometer and was about to explain its function when a sheet of paper started spitting out of it. His eyes widened again when he read over the results.

“By jove…” He breathed. “That is… how did they pull this off without a proper forge?”

“What? What is it?”

His smile grew as he looked at me. Then, he pointed at the diamond. “That, my dear, is about the only thing that can harm those blades. According to the spectroscopy I just performed, the mineral composition in the metal alloy is simply astounding. They may have taken you against your will, but, my dear, they have given you a rare gift. The alloy of those blades is seventy-percent platinum, twenty-percent iridium, and ten-percent osmium. They are some of the hardest, most dense, and most durable single metal elements on this planet. Presumably, some theories suggest that iridium and osmium don’t even naturally occur through the geological processes of our planet. They are incredibly rare and for you to be carrying a metal alloy with them in the composition is truly a thing to behold.”

With a quizzical expression, I attempted to explain his Greek into laymen’s terms. “So… basically you’re saying they’re really fucking hard, really fucking dense, there really isn’t much that can harm them, and they can cut through just about anything. Did I miss anything?”

He seemed to frown. “In more simplistic terminology: no. To be frank, Masamune couldn’t forge a tachi blade that would accomplish what your blades can.”

“The Masamune? Wow… I’m honored.”

“That is the point I am attempting to convey! You may be frightened of them. With their capabilities, you very well should be. They are quite lethal, as you are well aware. However, you are quite literally worth multiple millions of dollars with just how much of those three metals you are carrying with you at all times.”

Now, it was my turn to frown. “No wonder they were after me so intently. With me gone, they’ve lost an investment.”

“Precisely. Now, you are aware of the stakes, yes?”

“Painfully aware.”

“Good.” He let out a quick sigh. “Well, my dear, the hour is late and all this excitement has me quite fatigued. I am reasonably certain you are suffering similar symptoms. That will be quite enough for today. I will continue to analyze your genetic results. Say, perhaps, you return in approximately five or six days? I should have everything by then.”

“I think I can handle that.”

“Very well, then. It has been a rare honor and a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Talon. For both our sakes, I hope we have some enlightening results in the coming days. You should return to your domicile and get some rest.”

I released a yawn. “You don’t have to ask me twice.” Giving him a smile and a hug, I made my way to the door. Just before taking my leave, I turned around and smiled at him again. “Thanks, Hank, for everything.”

He winked back. “You are quite welcome. Inform me when you have something other than a pseudonym. I shall enjoy future correspondence.”

Nodding, I turned again and left the lab.

Amazingly, I managed to find my way back to the house without too much trouble. There was a turn I had missed, but managing to get back on course didn’t take very long. The sun had already set and the colors of twilight painted the city in red and gold light. Dr. McCoy had been right about one thing: I was pretty exhausted when I returned. There was another handwritten note from “call me Becky” on top of another shopping bag by the front door. Rolling my eyes, I picked it up and read it. Basically, the contents of the bag were something nice to wear when the federal agents would be showing up at exactly ten o’clock the next morning. Grumbling, I took the bag upstairs to my room where I stripped out of my biker gear and collapsed on the bed in just my bra and panties.

Thankfully, the sun woke me up the next morning. Electing to take a shower, this time, my hygiene duties didn’t take very long at all. Coming out of the bathroom, my eyes caught sight of the aftermath of the previous night. The little shopping bag was fortified by a mountain of black and blue clothing. Snatching it up, I decided to take a look inside. First, I pulled out a puffed, three-quarter sleeve black jacket. Next, a package of black tights. After that, a pair of black, ballet-slipper shoes with a little purple ribbon bow near the toes. Finally, out came a purple dress. It didn’t have any sleeves, it had a closed nehru collar, and it looked like it would reach halfway down my thighs. If it were silk and embroidered, I would have mistaken it for a short qipao (traditional Chinese dress). What was with this woman and her insatiable need to put me in something incredibly girlish?

There again, I did have guests coming over with some measure of importance. Grabbing some underwear, I resolved to slip on the outfit. I was going to wear it, but I didn’t have to like it. If it made “call me Becky” stop buying me clothes, then that’s what it would take. The tights sat lower on my hips than I anticipated and stopped at my ankles. ‘Must be what’s in fashion, these days,’ I deduced. After putting a brush through my hair, I looked like any teenage girl who enjoyed going to the mall with all her “bestest besties”. The groan I emitted at that realization came from deep within my very soul.

There wasn’t time to dwell on it, though. Big Ben was beckoning, again. I slipped on the shoes that were, surprisingly, incredibly comfortable and ran down to greet my guests. Most of the outfit was comfortable, actually–even the tights.

The door swung open and the first thing I noticed was the badge being shoved in my face. Only having a short amount of time, I glanced at the badge and ID right next to it. Then, it was pulled back and I finally saw the people on the doorstep.

“Good morning, Miss. I am Special Agent Helen Helligan with the Department of Metahuman Affairs. I’m the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Bay Area branch office, to be exact.” The short woman before me introduced herself.

She stood a little shorter than me, but only about two inches. She was fit, too, with a very nice little figure. The black, curly hair on her head was cut rather short, though. It looked like a feminine style out of the 1980’s. She appeared to be half African-American with olive complexion, black hair, and brown eyes. Did she have to wear the all-black suit of a federal agent, though?

Behind her was a blonde girl just an inch taller than me and an amazing physique. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume she was some kind of professional athlete. She wore a pair of skinny jeans, one-inch pumps, a plain gray T-shirt, and a thick denim jacket. Behind the blonde, two burly men stood like brick walls. They wore black suits and had little earbuds in their right ears. Yep, they were feds. At least, that’s what they appeared to be.

“Um… hi?” I greeted all of them.

“You are the one who calls herself ‘Talon’, I presume?” Agent Helligan asked.

Letting out a sigh, I crossed my arms across my chest. “I might be.” My eyes narrowed on her. “Who’s asking?”

She rolled her eyes. “I have already identified myself, young lady. Are you the one who calls herself ‘Talon’ or not?”

“You flashed a badge in my face. For all I know, it could be a fake.”

“I resent that accusation.”

“I bet you do.” My stance shifted to one of some aggression. I didn’t know this woman and, even if she was government, there was no trust between the two of us. Standing in the doorway, I attempted to cut off their entry to the house. My glare fell on the short woman and I clenched my fists. SNIKT! Out came the claws. Throwing my right fist forward, I placed the blades just below her chin–just enough to let her know I meant business.

The goons reacted by jolting for their sidearms. Glancing up at them, I almost laughed. I didn’t want to, but I’d taken out twice this many goons before. The short woman held up a hand and the goons remained tense with their hands lingering on their sidearms. Apparently, it was some non-verbal order to stand down, but they weren’t ready to completely do so.

“I can see there’s a measure of distrust…” She started.

“You’ve got that right. Who do you work for? Why are you here? What do you want with me?” The words seemed to hiss out from my clenched teeth.

She let out a sigh. “I already told you that I’m from the DMA. I work for the United States government. My chain of command is as follows: My immediate superior would be the Director of the DMA, Donald Harkin. Above him would be the Secretary of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. Then, the Vice President, Joseph R. Biden. Finally, the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.” She raised her eyebrows. “We don’t want anything from you, besides answering a few questions. Contrary to your belief, we are not the bad guys, here. We don’t intend any harm.”

“What sort of questions?”

“Merely routine questions aimed at eventually confirming your identity. I’m told you don’t have identification and haven’t for some time. We can establish your identity and even give you some kind of life back. Would you like that or would you rather I went back to my office and pretended this never happened?”

SNIKT. The blades went away. “I’m willing to provisionally cooperate.” A facetious smile jumped onto my face. “Do come in, won’t you? The parlor’s just down the hall.” I even held the door for them.

Without changing her expression, Agent Helligan entered the house. “Thank you.” She strode down the hallway scanning every nook and cranny with her eyes.

The blonde stopped in front of me and gave me a warm smile. She presented her hand for me to shake. “Hi, there. I’m Olivia Queen. I know it was a little rude of me to not approach you sooner, but I’ve been a little busy, lately. This is technically my house that you’re staying in.”

My jaw dropped to the floor. I was a guest of the Olivia Queen? Wow… when Green Arrow told me she had friends in high places, she really meant it. I stammered over myself for a moment, then shook her hand. “Um… well… uh… thanks a lot! The place is gorgeous, really.”

“Cute outfit, by the way. Becky hasn’t been too pushy, has she? She has a habit of really taking her work seriously.” Olivia lamented.

I shrugged. “She’s hardly been here, actually. I keep finding little gift bags either in the master suite or at the front door with little notes on them.” I looked down at myself, then back up to her. “I really don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I really am, but the stuff she gets is just not my style, at all.”

Now, she shrugged. “It’s no big deal, really. Between us, it’s not really mine, either. She should have the receipts on file and if there’s anything you don’t want we can return it, no problem. I just wanted you to be comfortable, is all.”

“Thanks, again. You’ve been so good to me and I don’t even know you.”

Another shrug. “Don’t worry about it. I do things like this more often than you’d think. You should hear how much my CPA keeps nagging me about it. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was my mother in a past life or something.” She glanced down the hall. “We shouldn’t really keep Agent Helligan waiting.”

I glanced at the two strong, silent types. Only one moved into the house and trudged down the hallway. “Goon squad not coming?”

“Unless there’s some monster assassin cutlery in the kitchen, I think we’re good without them.” Olivia snickered.

As she continued down the hall and I closed the door, my nose caught the slightest whiff of a familiar scent. I stopped for a moment to decipher it, but it was gone. Once the door was closed, I met with the federal agent and Olivia in the parlor room with the skylights. Agent Helligan was sitting straight in the chair with her legs crossed at the ankles and reviewed some kind of file folder. Olivia sat in the opposite chair and seemed to sink into it in a relaxed posture. This left me with the couch between them. Nervous as hell, I sat with my knees firmly together and my hands wrapped together on my lap. I’m not fond of government types, as one can tell. Setting the folder down, Agent Helligan fished a pen and small pad of paper out of the inner pocket of her jacket.

“Now, down to business.” Agent Helligan wasted no time at all. “Miss Queen, here, tells me that a certain acquaintance of hers contacted her two days ago for help with your situation. As it turns out, I am far from concerned about the report of your petty larceny in regards to a local liquor store, your public intoxication, or your illegal consumption of a controlled substance by a minor. I could frankly care less. What does concern me is the fact that you claim to be a metahuman, which places you firmly within my jurisdiction. Also, you do not possess identification of any kind, so we do not know your identity other than a professed pseudonym.” She let out a sigh. Man, this woman was long winded. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions that will help us determine your identity and metahuman status. Is that understandable?”

I merely nodded. “I told you I’m willing to provisionally cooperate. Get on with it. Ask your questions so we can get this over with.”

She smirked. “Good. Now, what was the name you were given at birth?”

“Lawrence Alexander McKinley.” I even spelt it for her.

“Thank you, Lawrence…”

“Lex, if you don’t mind. I really don’t like my full name.”

“Very well. Lex, what is your date of birth?”

“June 14th, 1985.” Olivia raised her eyebrow at that answer.

Agent Helligan didn’t flinch. “Place of birth?”

“Lincoln, Nebraska.”

“Mother’s name?”

“Sarah Jane McKinley.”

“Mother’s maiden name?”

“Kinney.”

“Father’s name?”

“Randall Elijah McKinley.”

“Parents’ city and state of residence?”

“Falls City, Nebraska.”

“Your former place of residence?”

“Seattle, Washington.”

“Former employer and job title?”

For a moment, I stopped and wondered why she needed to know that. There again, I really did miss my old job. “I was the Junior Lead World Designer at Orion Software in Redmond, Washington. I made video games for multiple platforms.” A reminiscent sigh escaped my lips. “I also did some moonlighting as an amateur mixed martial arts fighter, the nickname they gave me was ‘The Animal’.”

The goon raised his eyebrow. Now, he probably knew I could take him without breaking a sweat. Either that or he glanced at the package I was now encased in and underestimated me.

“Date of manifestation?” Agent Helligan continued.

I had to think about that one. “Um… the week before Valentine’s Day, last year, is when it started, I think?”

“Started?”

“Yes. It took a while. I don’t know why.”

Agent Helligan, switched to making notes in the file. “So, why did you leave Seattle and come to San Francisco, Miss McKinley? On top of that, why do you not have identification?”

Another sigh came from me. “I guess you have to know all of this. I hope you’re comfortable.”

Then, I elaborated the entire tale. I was getting pretty good at it, I guess. Goodness knows, it’s come out of my mouth enough times to have the whole spiel completely memorized. There wasn’t really much reaction from Agent Helligan, except maybe a nod or two. She even took notes of pertinent events. The goon stayed pretty stoic the whole time. Olivia, however, reacted as though she were watching a movie. She even cried in parts, especially once I told about my ill-fated reunion with Julia. I tried to make the point that I really didn’t want to kill those men and the memory still haunts my nightmares. I think Agent Helligan understood and wouldn’t hold it against me. That was a relief. When it was all finished, my own cheeks were tear-stained and I really had to blow my nose.

“Well, Miss McKinley, I think that’s about everything we’ll need.” She stood up, Olivia and I followed her lead. “I will cross-reference the date of the kidnapping and the assault with the Seattle Police Department and their local DMA office. Immediately after that phone call, I will get with my contacts and see if we can’t get some satellite surveillance on that facility you mentioned, if it’s still there. From here, we will proceed with genetics testing and a battery of tests to determine your abilities through STAR Labs. Are you familiar with them, at all?”

I quickly nodded. “Yes, I am. Though, you won’t need to go through with the genetics testing. Dr. Henry McCoy of UC Berkeley is already handling that and should have results soon.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? How does Dr. McCoy have that information?”

“I went to see him yesterday, as suggested by Dr. Kimura. I told you that part.”

“Well, he does have the proper security clearances. We’ll have to tighten up that situation, though. Thank you for informing me.” She turned to Olivia. “Miss Queen, since this is legally your home, how do we proceed with contacting Miss McKinley in the future? Short of showing up at the door, I don’t see many options.”

Olivia pulled a small electronic device out of her jacket. “I was about to give her this phone. It’s already been activated. I can give you the number.” She handed the phone to me. Encased in a purple plastic shell was a brand new QPhone. She looked a little sheepish. “Surprise?”

Taking the phone, I smiled. The thing was pretty nice, being a direct competitor of the ever-famous iPhone. “Thanks.”

Agent Helligan smirked. “Well, then, we have much to do. It should only take a few days to confirm your identity. We will be contacting your parents and performing DNA batteries to determine that they are, indeed, your parents. Once everything is confirmed, we will be back with some papers for you to fill out. Good day, Miss McKinley.”

I furrowed my brow. “Now, hang on a minute. The only reason I told you all of that was to cooperate. Who’s to say that you punch all that into a computer and those people come after me again? This can’t go on record. For all I know, they’re still after me.”

She let out a sigh. “I’m doing my best to humor your paranoia, Miss McKinley, but even my patience wears thin. I’ll have a friend in the FBI look up this Dr. Zander Rice person, if it will suffice. Beyond that, do you want us to put this house and you under surveillance in an attempt to keep you safe?”

My head shook rather violently. “Nah, I’ll pass on the ‘Big Brother’ angle, thanks.”

“That’s what I suspected. Again, good day to you, Miss McKinley.”

She and the goon trudged out of the room, heading towards the exit. Olivia turned to me. I now noticed that familiar scent was back. Obviously, I hadn’t been paying enough attention before.

“Well, there are some things I need to go over with you. First, the code for the security system. It would be bad if the house were left unprotected, don’t you think?” Olivia began. “But, before that, I guess it gets pretty lonely and boring if you’re going to be around the house a lot.” She pulled a card out of the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. “Here. It’s a charge card to get you by for a while. I’ll have Becky dropping off food and such, but I think we’ll take her off clothing detail.” She winked.

Making sure the federal agents had left the house, I spoke to her in a low voice. “The Hayabusa really is a nice ride. Also, kelly green is really a nice color on you. And, seriously, thanks for the Triumph. I love that thing.”

Her eyes shot wide open. “How did you…?”

I put one finger up to my nose. “This got really good when I manifested. The nose never lies.”

Marked Target ~ Chapter Nine ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Lex and Olivia have an anti-climactic discussion. Agent Helligan begins her investigation. Talon saves a young girl from a situation that would scar her for the rest of her life, sparking a contemplation that could change Lex's outlook. Though, by how much?

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Green Arrow and Agent Helen Helligan are trademarks of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic, once again, has been brought to you by the wonderful talents of Danni Shinya Luo (even if she gets the claws in the wrong place).

Author's Note :: This chapter really didn't take very long. I knew what I wanted to do with it, so it came from brain to fingers pretty quickly. The hope is that a few questions from the previous chapter are answered here. Thanks, always, to EOF for Olivia's appearance. Also, thanks to EOF, Drakira, and Lilith for being betas. Your input is invaluable. The rest of you, enjoy the read.

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Chapter Nine:

Olivia released a defeated sigh. “Boy, Speedy going to be pissed.”

About to say something, everything came to a halt like blaring music suddenly ended with a record scratching. “Wait, that’s it? You’re not upset that I discovered your secret?”

She shrugged and shook her head. “Not really. Should I be?”

My eyes glazed over, my jaw drooped, and my head bobbed up and down. “Um… yea? I thought that’s how it worked? Y’know, the ‘secret identity’ is supposed to be the all-important thing. If somebody finds out, it doesn’t seem to go all that well. Y’know, like in the comic books?”

A sigh escaped her lips. “Well, when you've seen the stuff I've seen... Let’s just say nothing surprises me, anymore.”

I smirked in surrender. “Touché.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “So, how’d you do it, anyway?”

“Um… well, my nose is really good, now. I can smell a lot of things. Some of those things, you don’t ever want to smell, trust me. It’s one of my abilities, I guess. I learned some of the ins and outs of it living with Posse. Different people smell different. I learned that the hard way.”

“So, you can tell different people apart, just by their scent?”

“Yea, especially women. The particulars of that are a little too gross to go into. Trust me, every woman has a very distinct scent unique only to her. Men are a little harder to pin down, but they’ve got a distinct smell, too.”

“Okay, so, can you track people with your nose, like some kind of freaky bloodhound girl?”

I shrugged. “I guess. I dunno. I’ve never tried it.”

She seemed to be rolling a few thoughts around in her head. Then, a contemplative smirk stretched across her lips. “I may be able to use that. Barring that, if you so much as…”

I threw my hands up in surrender. “Hey, my lips are sealed. I will go to my grave swearing that Green Arrow and Olivia Queen are two mutually exclusive people.” Another sigh escaped. “I kind of owe you quite a lot, anyway.”

“Speaking of that, do you like the house?”

A pleasant smile played on my face. “Yea, I do, actually. It’s big, it’s pretty, and it feels comfortable. It’s just sad that I’m the only one here, most of the time.”

“Well, it’s yours. I bought it a while back and I’ve never used it. I’ll send a lawyer when the DMA is ready to do all your paperwork to transfer it to you. Same with the motorcycle. It’s yours.”

“Why are you doing this?” It begged to be asked, so I might as well have asked right then.

She winked. “I’ve got a good feeling about you. Besides, you’ve had a string of bad luck. Your whole life was torn out from under you. Believe me when I tell you that I know just how you feel. Some people really helped me out when I really needed it. Consider this my ‘Pay It Forward’ moment, okay?” Tears had formed in her eyes, but she was fighting them back. Must have been some tough memories coming to the surface.

“That must have been one hell of a helping hand.”

“It was. It really was.” Wiping her eyes, she glanced at her watch. “Look… do I call you ‘Lex’ or ‘Talon’ from now on?”

“Stick with ‘Lex’. All my friends call me that.”

Another smile played on her face. “Okay, Lex. I have to get back home or a certain tutor will have my head. Take care and I’ll see you soon. Okay?”

“Yea, thanks for everything, Olivia.” I held up the QPhone she’d given me. “You have my number.”

Laughing, she nodded and slipped toward the door. Recovering from a cerebral flatulent, she gave me the code for the security system and showed me how to use it before she left. My stomach took that moment to protest and I moved to the refrigerator to find something to fill it with, feeling utterly famished.

The trek out to the little hole-in-the-wall town had been a long one. Fatigue was written all over her face and made readily apparent by the dark circles under her eyes. Sitting in the center of the bench-style second-row seat of the government sport utility vehicle allowed her to keep her case files on her right and her laptop on her left. The leather upholstery kept them both from sliding around too much. This was typically how she arranged things when out in the field.

Reviewing the case file in her hands, Special Agent Helen Helligan went over her notes one more time. The day before, she had met with an intriguing young woman. Well, she was more aptly described as “some girl in her mid-teens”. The tale that teenage girl told was probably better suited for some novel and placed somewhere on the New York Times Bestseller list. However, one phone call to Dr. Henry McCoy, a highly respected scientist, had confirmed that she was, indeed, a metahuman. Thus, the newest Special Agent In Charge (SAIC) in San Francisco had to follow up on all the claims. After a plane ride from California to St. Joseph, Missouri, and then a long drive through the fields of “America’s Bread Basket”, she’d had about all she could take of this wild goose chase. She let out an exasperated sigh and closed the folder, rubbing her eyes.

The bald man in the passenger seat turned to her with a concerned look. “You okay, Helen?”

Glancing up, she shook her head. “No, Jim. I’d rather be back home than gallivanting around somewhere in the middle of the country. How much longer?”

He glanced up at the navigation unit in the dash. “Only another five miles. Not long.”

She wiped her face with her hands. “Has anyone gotten on the horn with the local authorities so they don’t assume we’re coming in and stepping on their toes?”

He thumbed toward the driver. “Sanchez took care of that yesterday, while you were on the line with Dr. McCoy.”

“Hank.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She yawned. “We should check into our lodging, immediately, when we get into town. I think the team could use the rest, especially the drivers. We’ll set out tomorrow morning around oh-nine-hundred.”

The black-haired Latin-American man behind the wheel bore a smile. “Copy that.”

That was the easy part. The team of six, in two SUVs, descended into the small farming town of Falls City, just barely north of the Kansas border. There was no Holiday Inn or Motel 6 in this little shantytown. The only viable option was an older roadside motel, a relic from the 1960’s. Checking into three rooms, the team unpacked the vehicles and settled in for the night. Agent Helligan breathed a sigh of relief. Being the only female member of the team, she had a room all to herself. She may be underestimated by perpetrators and undervalued by her superiors based on her sex, but she liked not having to share the room. Once setting her things into reasonable locations, she stripped down and fell onto the bed. Sleep came quickly.

The following morning, she awoke early and ran through her routine: shower, dress, and awaken the team. Today, she didn’t want to seem too imposing, so she dressed casually in a simple white blouse, black slacks, black flats, and her black jacket. Clipping her badge on her belt and her sidearm into its appendix carry position, she gathered her things to be placed in the vehicles. The men were already packing the SUVs. It seemed they might have wanted to be here less than she did. Once everything was packed, they piled in and began their trek to the target location.

Navigating through the small town almost felt like taking a trip back in time. Thankfully, they had GPS navigation or they’d likely get lost. Most houses and people looked about the same. Street signs were small and difficult to read. Their trek took them across half of the little hovel to a house likely built during World War II. They slowed to a stop at the curb.

Agent Helligan keyed the microphone in her sleeve. “Okay, boys, listen up. Alpha squad will make contact. Beta, you’re on street watch. We don’t want to intimidate these people or they may not cooperate.”

“Copy that, Alpha Lead. We’ll stick down the street and remain on standby.” A man’s voice confirmed.

She glanced at the bald man and the Hispanic man. “Okay, boys. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we’re back home. Let’s do it.”

The two nodded, then all three piled out of the SUV while the secondary team drove further down the street. Agent Helligan took the lead as they walked up the dilapidated path to the front door. The house had definitely seen better days, like most on this block. Once getting onto the porch, Agent Helligan cleared her throat and knocked on the door. Getting prepared, she pulled her ID wallet out of the inside pocket in her jacket. In a moment, footsteps approached the door and it swung open.

A man in his later forties opened the door. His jeans had several tears and grease marks on them. He wore a plain white tank top and the red trucker hat covered the horrible mullet nicely. She was tempted to roll her eyes when his took in her form with lust behind them.

“Well, well… what can I do for you, darlin’?” The redneck asked. His accent seemed to match that of his birthplace: Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

She shoved her identification in his face. “Special Agent Helen Helligan, Department of Metahuman Affairs. Are you Mr. Randall McKinley?”

He stood straight, taken aback by her credentials. “Feds? The hell do you want? I ain’t done nothin’ wrong!”

She let out a sigh. “No, Mr. McKinley. You aren’t under suspicion for committing a crime. We’re DMA, not the FBI. We’d like to have a few words with you and your wife to ask you some questions regarding an investigation.”

“What sorta investigation?”

“Your son’s case has been reopened, Mr. McKinley. We have suspicion of foul play. May we come in and talk about it?”

“Lawrence? That boy is dead and in the ground. Has been for about a year, now. What the hell did you find?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the evidence in an open investigation, Mr. McKinley. It’s classified. May we come in?”

He scowled. “Fine, but you upset my wife with this and you’re out on your ass, Fed or not!” He spun around and stormed into the house.

The man was hostile already? This didn’t bode well. Agent Helligan and her two colleagues crossed the threshold into the house. The living room was quite small and only contained a recliner chair, a sofa, an old television stand with the device on top, a bookshelf filled with assorted VHS tapes, and a plant or two for good measure. Behind the sofa, Mr. McKinley crossed into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He removed a brown glass bottle, released the metal lid, and took a quick swig.

“Mr. McKinley, I would advise you not to be under the influence of alcohol while we are conducting this investigation.” Agent Helligan warned.

He nearly growled at her. “Aw, hell, woman! I will do what I want when I wanna do it under my own roof! You come into my house! I’ll do as I please!”

A woman appeared from somewhere else in the house. “Randy, what the hell is going on? Who are you talking to?” Her accent was neutral, concurrent with her birthplace: Madison, Wisconsin.

He pointed at Agent Helligan. “The bitch with a badge that thinks she can tell me not to have a beer in my own damn house!”

With a shocked expression on her face, she turned to the three agents. Her hair was long and a dark brown color. Her eyes were an interesting shade of green. She wore a long gray T-shirt and sweatpants. Agent Helligan noted that she stood about five-feet-six as well as the rest of her physical description. She seemed much more cordial than her husband.

“What can we do for you three officers?” She asked almost sweetly.

“Agents, ma’am.” Agent Helligan showed her identification to the woman. “I’m Special Agent Helen Helligan, Department of Metahuman Affairs. We’re here because the investigation concerning your son has been reopened.”

Instantly, the woman sank onto the couch. “Lex? What did you find?”

“Some new evidence came forward and we’re not at liberty to discuss it. May we ask you a few questions?” Agent Helligan took her notepad out of the inner jacket pocket.

She looked somber. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

“When was the last time you saw your son, Mrs. McKinley?”

Tears began to well up in her eyes. “About… two, maybe three years ago? There was no open casket at the funeral. He was…”

“He was burnt to a fuckin’ crisp, that’s what!” Randall shouted from the kitchen. “They could only tell it was him ‘cause of his teeth, or somethin’ like that.”

That stunk of foul play. Agent Helligan continued the questioning. “What caused his estrangement?”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “Randy and Lex… had a fight.”

“The little fucker tried to tell me what to do in my own house.” Randall belched.

“Could you elaborate on that, Mr. McKinley?” Agent Helligan probed.

“Fucker tried to tell me how to handle my woman. He broke my rib. Took months to heal. I put him up on charges.” He took another swig of his beer.

“Randy dropped the charges…” Another tear, added by a sob. “…if Lex promised never to come back.”

“And, he didn’t…” He belched again. “…‘til he was dead.”

“Where did they say they had found your son?”

A tear rolling down her cheek, she sniffled. “Some big lake over some pass. I don’t really remember that much.”

Taking a long swig of the beer, Randall sighed. “Kittitas County Sheriffs was the ones that found him. Just up in the mountains by some lake with a funny name. Started with a ‘C’, I think.”

Agent Helligan’s eyes bounced between the two. “Kittitas County? You’re certain?”

“Only funny name that I remember. Too many injun names up there.” Another belch.

Taking notes, Agent Helligan could tell there was a lot more to this family than she anticipated. She also had evidence to follow up on and get to the bottom of.

Her eyes darted between the couple. “Did you know about the kidnapping?”

The woman meekly nodded. “Yes. His girlfriend, Julia, called us the next morning after it happened and she was hysterical. I told her to call the police. She wouldn’t talk to Randy.”

“Bitch doesn’t know her place, that’s why.” Randy belched again.

Agent Helligan stood. She’d had enough. “Mr. McKinley, if you do not cease with your offensive expletives and alcohol consumption during this investigation, I’m afraid we’re going to have to detain you.”

He scoffed. “Oh, you’re gonna make me, honey? I’d like to see you try. Maybe you’ll learn what it’s like to be handled by a real man.”

Agent Helligan glanced at the bald and Hispanic man. “Sanchez… Williams… Subdue this man.”

The bald man smiled. “With pleasure, ma’am.”

The two men bolted into action, crossing the living room quite quickly. Randall squealed and yelled as they tackled him to the ground. Mrs. McKinley screeched at the two men, begging them not to harm her husband. The scuffle lasted only a few moments. When all was said and done, Mr. McKinley was cuffed and forced onto one of the chairs in the kitchen.

Agent Helligan keyed the mic in her sleeve. “Beta team, move in. Bring the doctor.”

“Copy that, Lead.” The voice in her earbud responded.

“Who’s moving in? Who are you talking to? What’s going on?” Mrs. McKinley sobbed.

Agent Helligan moved and placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about, ma’am. Your husband decided to be hostile and we subdued him. If he remains calm, no further action need be taken. As per our investigation, a doctor is going to come in and swab the inner cheek of you and your husband. We need to establish parentage with your son so we can more positively identify him.”

“What? What are you talking about? Lex is gone!” She was bawling, now. “He’s dead!”

“Mrs. McKinley, we reopened the case because we suspect foul play. We cannot do our jobs properly without collecting a little evidence. Will you submit to the DNA testing?” She nodded. “Good. Do we have your permission to exhume your son’s body, should the need arise?”

“I…” The woman sobbed. “I…” another sob. “Fine…”

“Thank you, Mrs. McKinley. We will do our best to truly get to the bottom of your son’s loss.”

“I ain’t submittin’ to nothin’! You ain’t gettin’ shit from me!” Randall yelled.

Agent Helligan rose and glared at Randall. “You wish to further impede this investigation, Mr. McKinley? Do you really want Obstruction of Justice, Hindering a Federal Investigation, and Tampering with Evidence to be on your record? That is entirely up to you. I warn you that they are all felonies and carry a maximum sentence of thirty to forty-five years.”

He recoiled, finally. “No… I guess not.”

Agent Helligan smirked. “Good.” A knock came to the door. “In here, boys. Mrs. McKinley’s on the couch and Mr. McKinley is subdued in the kitchen. Do whatever you need to.”

The door swung open and three men entered. Two were federal agents, like her team. The third was a man in his late forties. He stood a full six feet tall, his hair was graying quickly, he wore glasses on his face, his mustache and goatee were finely groomed, and his lab coat made him stand out a bit.

Agent Helligan glanced at him. “This is Mrs. Sarah McKinley, Dr. Hamilton. Careful with Mr. McKinley in the kitchen. He’s a bit resistant.”

Dr. Hamilton nodded. “Dually noted, Agent Helligan.” He knelt down before the woman. “Mrs. McKinley?” She didn’t respond. “Sarah?” Now, she glanced up. He gave her a warm smile. “I am Dr. Emil Hamilton. I’m going to take a small cotton swab and scrape it against the inside of your cheek. It won’t hurt at all, I promise. Can you open your mouth for me, just a bit?”

She complied. He set to work immediately.

Nervous, my fingers danced over the number pad on the touch screen. Yes, my phone was that nice. Everything involved touching the screen. I pressed “Send” and put the speaker up to my ear. Sitting on the huge, comfortable couch in the TV room, I placed a fingernail between my teeth as I listened to the dial tone. It had been a while since we’d had contact. It really was about time this conversation took place.

The other end picked up. “Uh… hello?” A man’s voice came clearly through the speaker.

Tears welled up in my eyes almost immediately. “Hey, there. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Who is this?” He sounded very confused. “I don’t know anybody at this number.”

“No names, Brickhouse. They might have you bugged.” My voice was starting to sound hoarse, tears still building. Damn hormones.

He gasped audibly. “Holy shit… where the fuck have you been?!”

“Who is it?” Steven asked, barely audible with the electronic distortion.

“I can’t say who she is. They could be listening!” Mike told him. From the noises in the phone, he turned his attention back to me. “Anyway, where the fuck have you been?”

“I went to the place on the card. There was a bump or two, but it’s looking up, now.” I sniffled.

“Yea? How’d the meeting go?”

“Pretty damn good, actually. It looks like I’ll have something of a life, soon.”

“Well, that’s definitely good news. Anything else?”

I let out a sigh. “Kinda freaked out, actually. Had a visit from the Feds.”

“You’re shitting me. How’d that happen?”

“Someone arranged it. I guess it was all right. They’re going to get to the bottom of a few things.”

“Well, that sounds fine. How are you calling me, anyway?”

“A gift. I got a house, too, and a bike. I don’t know what to think about it all, yet.”

“Is it sounding to you like it is to me? Y’know, too good to be true?”

My eyes darted to the ceiling. “Yea. It’s all a little too convenient, y’know? Okay, so I have a nice, warm bed to sleep in. I live in a really fucking nice house. And, I have a motorcycle that makes me feel like my old self again. All of it was just handed to me without a second thought.”

“Yea, I’d be smelling a rat, too.”

I shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll see. She’s really sweet, though. One hell of a good benefactor, even with my paranoia.”

“Well, don’t do anything stupid.”

“When have you known me to do that?”

“Touché.” He let out a good breath. “I’m really glad you called. We were all worried about you.”

The dam broke and tears rolled down my cheeks. My voice trembled through sobs. “I miss you guys, too. So much that I can’t put it into words. I know I should let you go, now, but I really don’t want to.”

“Hey, sweetie, the feeling’s mutual, over here.”

“I’ve got shit to take care of. I’ll call you when I can.” I sniffled again. “For the sake of preventing a trace, I gotta go, now.”

“I understand.”

“Love you guys… all three of you.”

“Love you, too. I’ll pass the message along. See you soon.”

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I pressed the “End” button graphic. Dropping the phone, my face fell into my hands and I bawled like a little girl.

The streets of San Francisco can be unforgiving when you’re lost. Let me tell you, navigating over steep hills with that bike could be a bitch, especially at red lights and stop signs. In my own defense, Seattle was about 3 times the size, in square miles, of San Francisco, but I knew Seattle like the back of my hand. San Francisco was still pretty new to me, even if it occupied less square mileage. All I really had to do was get to Market Street and I’d be fine, but that was proving to be the Herculean Effort of the Day. Spotting a convenience store, I pulled onto the lot, shut down the bike, took off my helmet, and headed inside. Ignoring most anything else, I made a beeline for the maps. In a former life, I might have been satisfied in the adventure of being lost. Right now, I didn’t have the luxury. The map would have to do. Besides, it’d help me learn the city much faster.

After paying for the map and moving back toward my bike, I heard a very shrill noise. I stopped dead in my tracks, listening carefully and making sure it wasn’t some fluke. The noise hit my ears, again–though, louder, this time. It was a scream. It was a woman’s scream. No, scratch that. It was a young girl’s scream. My eyes darted around me and I moved my head, hoping to triangulate the location. All around me, people simply went about their business. The scream came again. It was somewhere off to my left. Turning, I spotted a man in his mid-thirties about to climb into his hybrid car. I strode up to him.

“Excuse me, but did you hear that?” I questioned him.

“Hear what?” Was his reply.

“That scream. It sounded like a young girl, I think.”

He scoffed. “Honey, that happens a lot more than you think.”

My eyebrow raised at him. “You’re not going to call the police?”

“What am I going to tell them?” He mocked a phone call in a sarcastic tone. “Uh, yea, officer. I just heard some little girl scream at thus and such intersection. Can you investigate?” He scoffed again. “Please, spare me. I have my own problems to worry about.”

A growl rose in my throat and my eyes narrowed. “Fuck you, too, Mr. Heartless Ass.”

He flipped me off as he fell into his car. “Have a nice day, bitch.”

The scream came again. Urgency welled up within me and I spun my head around. Something had to be done about it and I doubted the response time of the police for one suspicious scream. Without much thinking, I jumped on my bike, started the engine, revved it up, and peeled off in the direction of the scream. There wasn’t enough time to consider putting my helmet on. Besides, I wanted to be able to hear if the scream came again. I had set the helmet against my crotch and held it in place with my thigh muscles. It worked in a pinch.

Three blocks over, I traced the source of the scream to an alleyway between what seemed to be two apartment tenements. Three-quarters of the way down the alley, two young men seemed to be pushing a young girl in a school uniform between them. She appeared to be Latin American. One of the boys seemed to be African-American. The other seemed to be of European descent. Both of them wore attire that gave off a not-so-friendly vibe. At the end of the shoving, she screamed again while landing in the arms of the African boy. The expression on her face and the smell in the air told me she was terrified, while the boys seemed to be filled with lust.

Grabbing the clutch and twisting the throttle, the bike let out a quick growl. Kicking the transmission into first gear, I jolted into the alleyway. For good measure, I pulled the clutch and twisted the throttle another couple of times, allowing the bike let off another couple of roars. That got their attention. The didn’t release their captive, but they both watched me as I rolled into the alley and came to a stop. Not averting my glare, I kicked the stand out and rested the bike upon it. Cutting the engine, I rose from my seat.

The European boy wolf-whistled. “Damn, girl! You look fine! Wanna party?”

Leaving the helmet on the seat, I sauntered away from the bike toward them. “It would seem that you two already had one planned.” I leveled my glare at them. “Let the girl go.”

“Ain’t that a bitch!” The African seemed to chuckle. “Biker girl thinks she’s gonna walk up an play hero?” He scoffed. “Bitch, get on your ride and go home. You got no business here.”

“You’ve made it my business. I will give you fair warning: let the girl go and you can head home without a hospital bill.”

“Who the fuck you think you are, little girl?” The European boy snarled.

Continuing to advance on them, I also growled. “I have given you fair warning.” I balled both my hands into fists. “Let...” Snikt. Right claws extended. “The girl...” Snikt. Left claws extended. “Go.”

Fear, surprise, and anger danced over both of their faces. The African threw the girl to the side. Both of their crotches dampened as the telltale scent of urine filled the air.

“What kind of freak bitch are you?” The European screeched.

“Fuck this shit! You’re on your own!” The African turned and bolted the opposite direction from me.

“Hey, fuck you, man!” The European followed suit.

My glare stayed on them as they barreled out of the alley then disappeared around the corner. Once they were out of sight... snikt... the claws went away. My expression softened as I glanced down at the girl. She jolted backward as I slowly knelt down beside her. Her chronological age might have been twelve or thirteen, but at that moment she looked about six years old.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” I tried to cajole her in the most maternal tone I could muster. My experience with Alina had taught me a few things. “I’m not going to hurt you and those bad boys are gone.”

Fear still played on her face and filled the air around her. “Who… who are you?”

Keeping the maternal tone, a reassuring smile creased my lips. “I am called Talon. I’m a friend.”

“A-Are you a superhero?”

I had to chuckle. “Not exactly.”

“But… but you saved me.”

“Yes, I did. I heard you screaming and nothing could keep me away.”

Her face scrunched and the tears welled up in her eyes spilled out. She jolted forward and embraced me in a hug of desperation. She nearly knocked me over, actually. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Then, instinct took over. Wrapping my arms around her, I reciprocated the hug and softly petted the back of her head.

“Thank you, so much!” She bawled. I could feel it as the sobs wracked through her body.

“You’re welcome.”

For a few moments, I let her cry on my shoulder. I’d probably have to use a little conditioner on the leather, later, to prevent water damage. That didn’t really matter all that much, right now. The sobs subsided until they reduced to sniffles and she pulled away from me a little. I gave her another reassuring smile.

“What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Briseida Contreras,” She stated in Spanish pronunciation. “My friends call me ‘Bri’, though.”

“Mucho gusto, Bri.” With all the “Spanglish” bouncing around with Posse, I’d picked up a few things. My eyes darted around the alley. “Will you be able to get home okay or would you rather have a ride there?”

Her lip quivered. “I’m still scared.”

Another smile creased my lips. “Okay, then. You get to ride with me. No one will hurt you on my bike.” I winked at her.

She seemed to like that idea. Her fear seemed to melt away almost immediately, replaced by excitement. She spun around, grabbed her backpack, and then took my hand in hers as we walked back to my bike. Once we got there, I pulled out the map and asked her to point out her house. After she did so, I did my best to plot a course for that destination. It was a good twenty blocks away, so it took a little calculating. After folding the map back up, I helped her slip on the helmet and fastened it to her head. It was a little loose, but it would have to suffice. I could heal quickly if we crashed; she wasn’t so lucky. Setting her on the bike, she situated her skirt underneath of her so it wouldn’t flap up in the wind. I nodded at that tidbit of wisdom.

Soon, the bike roared to life and I carefully maneuvered it down the alley. Her arms were wrapped around me pretty tight, but hearing the sounds of her delighted screeches told me she was enjoying herself. Keeping a firm record of the course in my head, the bike bobbed and weaved through traffic along the route. My hair wasn’t cooperating too well without the helmet keeping it in place, so a few strands whipped me in the face. Soon, we were in what looked to be a low-income housing area with townhouses sandwiched so close together that their walls merged into one another. Apparently, this was the Ritz, compared to other housing options.

Slowing to a stop outside the house she kept excitedly indicating was hers, I carefully eased the bike into a parking space and shut it down. All around me, I could hear Mariachi music blaring out of stereos, Telemundo blasting from televisions, and the air was filled with all manner of authentic Mexican cuisine. We were in the southern end of the Mission District, after all.

Once the kickstand was down, Bri hopped off the back and I slid my leg over. As I finished getting the helmet off of her and setting it on the bike, she grabbed my hand and began leading me to her house. When the door swung open, my nose was assaulted with the smell of freshly made tortillas, refried beans, and salsa. Letting go of my hand, Bri left me in the front entranceway, began to rattle off greetings to her family, and went into a huge tale. It was all in excited and shrilled Spanish, so I didn’t catch any of it. A man who was taller than me, but still classified as short by typical male standards, rose from the couch and desperately tried to listen to the girl. She addressed him as “Papá¡”, her father. He had his dark hair cut short, he wore a thick mustache, and he had the good tan most Latinos had. A woman suddenly entered the room as he crossed over to me.

“ ¿Hola, mija, que onda?” She asked Bri. Then, the shrill tale began again, entirely in Spanish. Considering her apparent age, I conjectured she must be Bri’s mother.

“ ¿Quién eres táº?” Her father asked me.

My face went blank. “Oh, sorry. No hablo espaá±ol.” I butchered the language, but he got the point.

He looked defeated. “Pardon me. I forget.” He shrugged. “Who are you?”

A shy smile found its way onto my face. “Oh, I’m Talon, seá±or. I brought your daughter home safe. Something happened in an alley, she screamed, and I chased the boys off.”

Concern found its way onto his face. “What happened?” Thankfully, his accent wasn’t very thick at all.

“Well...” I lowered my voice. “They tried to take her innocence.”

His expression flashed to anger. “What?!” He spun around. “Mija! You explain, now!”

Bri jolted at his exclamation and spun to face him. Slower this time, she told her tale. Again, it was all in Spanish. I could catch a few context clues based on French, but most of it was lost to me. Her father seemed to relax as she continued. Tears welled up in her mother’s eyes. The woman glanced up at me and mouthed “thank you” without interrupting the story. I nodded to her. At the end, her father wrapped her in an embrace, seemingly very happy that she was safe and sound. Then, he turned around to me with remnants of tears in his eyes.

“Muchos gracias, seá±orita. I cannot tell you how much it means...”

I waved him off. “It was no trouble, Seá±or Contreras. I heard her scream and couldn’t stand by and watch. Those boys will think twice before messing with her.” I turned to the girl. “Bri, the next time they give you trouble, tell them you’ll call me to set them straight, okay?”

With a grin, she nodded. “Okay, Talon! I will! I’m gonna tell everybody at school how they peed their pants when you had those knives come out!”

Her mother looked confused. “Knives? What knives?”

“It’s an ability I have, Seá±ora Contreras. I’m a metahuman.”

“Like that Blue Beetle chica? She’s the only Latina that I know.” Her grandmother finally spoke from the kitchen.

I had to stop for a moment. Damper had mentioned her, but I’d never seen her in action. I had no frame of reference to work from. “I’m not sure that I know about her. I’m still very new in town.”

Her grandmother scoffed and started rambling off something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand.

Bri’s mother stepped forward. “Thank you for helping our daughter, Talon. We will not forget this.”

I smiled and nodded. “You’re very welcome. Make sure she has a friend to walk with, though. I’d rather not see her get hurt and me not be able to be there.”

Her mother nodded. “Neither would we.”

I waved to them all. “You all have a good night. I have to go.”

“Thank you, Talon!” Bri screamed.

Again, I smiled as I made my way out the door. “De nada, kiddo.” Again, I butchered it, but I was trying pretty hard.

I closed the door behind me and walked out to my bike. There was a sense of fulfillment that rushed through me as I mounted the bike and pulled on my helmet. That felt really good. I had single-handedly averted disaster in a young girl’s life. There just aren’t many words to describe it, really. The bike roared to life and I continued down the road. I no longer cared that I was lost. I’d find my way home, eventually. For now, I just wanted that feeling to linger for a little while.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Ten ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Talon reacquaints herself with the members of Posse. Agent Helligan's investigation continues and seems to come to a head. Lex receives a little surprise as she plays the game she was working on at Orion Software. Then, receives quite a shock.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, and Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Green Arrow and Agent Helen Helligan are trademarks of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic has been brought to you by the enigmatic Joshua Middleton.

WARNING:: There is a depiction of domestic violence in this chapter. I don't think I have to reiterate how much I abhor such things, but it keeps in line with the character who is the perpetrator. Thankfully, it is quite brief.

Author's Note :: This chapter took a little bit of tweaking. Some of my science had to be corrected. Thanks to EOF and Lilith for keeping my facts straight. It's a bit of a slow chapter, action-wise, but it's got some good info.

Contest :: Find my obscure reference and you get to beta Chapter 11. Good luck! xD

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Chapter Ten:

Getting a little lost wasn’t too bad, really. At the very least, I was in the correct part of town that I wanted to be in. In no time at all, the surroundings became familiar and I knew just where I was heading. The engine purred like a happy tigress as I piloted through the streets of the Mission District toward Bayview/Hunter’s Point.

A few minutes later, the area became incredibly familiar. On one side was housing complexes, either tenements or single-family homes. On the other side, it seemed there was nothing but older warehouses and run-down factories. Such was a reality in a West Coast shipping hub, I deduced. The same couldn’t be said for Seattle, but San Francisco had been around a little longer and there was that whole gold rush thing back in the middle of the 19th Century. As I pulled up to the familiar building, I grabbed the clutch and twisted the throttle a couple of times. This had become a fun way to announce my arrival. Pulling the clutch and brakes, I slowed to a stop just outside the door.

A moment later, the engine cut off and Damper stepped outside. “Horale! Look what the cat dragged in!”

Thumper tumbled out behind him. “Where the fuck you been, chica?”

I pulled off my helmet and threw my head from side-to-side for a second. This had been done in a few movies and I was performing it without even considering that it was the “this girl is hot” reveal technique. Giving them a smile, I set the helmet on the handlebars. “Well, been dealing with the feds, that’s what.”

Damper stumbled backward. “You ain’t bringin’ them here, are you?”

I scoffed at him and climbed off the bike. “Why would I do something stupid like that?”

“Good, ‘cuz I don’t wanna have to kick that ass of yours. It’s too fuckin’ sexy.” Thumper winked.

My eyes rolled. “Geezus, Thumper. Can we have one conversation where we don’t talk about my ass?”

He shrugged. “I can’t help it, chica.”

Damper smacked the back of his head. “Lay off, man.” Then, his eyes hit the chrome. “Where’d you get the sweet ass hog, though?”

“Damper, it’s gotta be a Harley to be classified with the ‘hog’ title. This baby’s a Triumph.” I lovingly patted the gas tank. “It was a gift, though. The last couple days have been pretty busy.”

Some air escaped his lips, almost like a reverse gasp. “Got that right. Come on inside. We’ll talk about it.”

Pulling the keys out of the ignition and stuffing them into the waist pocket of my coat, I followed the two of them inside. The smell of finely grilled hamburgers with all the garnish hit my nose and my stomach girgled. Esteban was working his magic, again. The three of us stepped inside. Bonita happily greeted me with a hug. Probe glanced over and waved at me. Scour looked up from his movie to give me a nod. Esteban was back in the kitchen, so I don’t think he noticed me. Typical day with “the family”. I plopped down onto the couch next to Scour who quickly explained what movie he was watching. However, Damper shut it off and tossed me a cold bottle of beer. I caught it without even looking at him or seeing the bottle. Yep, business as usual.

Damper planted one foot on the TV stand, leaning on his bent knee while he opened his beer. “So, seriously, where the hell you been? I know I told you ‘come back when you’re ready’, but I didn’t think you’d be gone for three days.”

Twisting open the metal top, I took a swig of beer before answering him. It’s not like I could get intoxicated with just one. “Well, robbed a liquor store and tried to get drunk, but it didn’t really work out. I had some good shit, too. Green Arrow came along, didn’t like my drinking, shot an arrow through my vodka and spilled it all over me. Then, she decided to put me on house arrest. I didn’t want to end up with the cops, so I went with it.”

Thumper furrowed his brow. “The self-righteous blondie got you? Fuck, that sucks.”

I knowingly nodded to him. “The next day, she took me out to Berkeley to see that Dr. McCoy I told you guys about. He’s cool shit, though. He ran a crap load of tests most of the day.”

“Did he find anything?” Bonita wondered.

I shook my head. “Nothing bad, really. He couldn’t really come up with anything after just three hours, though. It takes a lot longer for shit to work out.”

“Eggheads take forever with anything.” Scour snorted.

“Yea, but, they gotta know for certain about this kinda stuff, right, Talon?” Damper added.

“Yep. Genetic testing takes a little time.” Tilting the bottle upward, down went another swig. “The day after that, I met some chick from the DMA. I dunno what to think about that, though.”

“Chill out, Talon. DMA is on our side… unlike the rest of the Feds.” Esteban reassured me, appearing from nowhere in the kitchen.

I shrugged. “She said they were going to go through and confirm everything, but I can’t help being a little paranoid. After what I’ve been through in the past year, you would be, too.”

“Chica’s got a point, ese.” Damper agreed. “You got people you don’t know showin’ up and it makes ya think. Badge could’a been fake, too.”

“That’s what I said.” I acknowledged, taking another swig. Glancing around the room, my eyes took in each of their faces. The idea that came to my mind was a long shot, but worth asking. “Hey, you guys ever think of getting out of here? I mean, I got this big house, now, and I’m the only one in it. It’s huge and there’s plenty of room for you guys in it. You guys took me in when I needed it. I feel like I need to return the favor.”

“Thanks, Talon, but…” Bonita began, looking somewhat somber.

“No.” Damper shook his head. He threw up his hands, indicating the warehouse around us. “This is our home, Talon. Yea, we took you in. You needed to know you wasn’t alone. We ain’t goin’ nowhere. It’s cold, out in the open, and needs a lot of shit cleaned up, but it’s home.” He mentally took a step back. “Wait… you got a house?”

I shrugged. “A gift, like the bike, from Green Arrow. I also got a phone. The bitch has connections, I’ll give her that.” Then, a sigh escaped my lips. “So, not coming to live with me, huh? I guess I can respect that.”

Thumper chuckled. “Gonna have to, chica. We ain’t leavin’ here.”

“Well, then, all of you had better come and visit me!” Giggling, I barked the order. Then, my gaze fell on Bonita. “Especially you. Just because I won’t be living here doesn’t mean I don’t want to see that baby or that you can’t drop her off when you need ‘mommy time’.” I winked.

Bonita grinned. “Yea, I’m game for riding ‘bitch’ on your bike so we know where the place is.”

Damper shook his head. “No… no… there ain’t gonna be no lesbian fantasy in my head!”

Everybody shared a laugh. It was interrupted by a strange tone and vibrating sensation in the inner pocket of my jacket. Perplexed, I pulled out the phone.

“Shit. I’ve got a call, guys.” I excused myself before pressing “Send” to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Greetings, Talon. I do hope that I haven’t caught you at an inopportune moment.” The male voice on the other end was vaguely familiar.

“Hank?”

“The very same. Were you expecting someone else?”

I shook my head as if he could see it. “Er… no, but… how’d you get this number?”

“We have a mutual acquaintance at the Department of Metahuman Affairs, it seems. On that point, are you available to come in to my lab? It is imperative that we gather one more DNA sample from you.”

I glanced back at my friends. Every one of them had a confused expression. “Um… I guess so?”

“Excellent. I should expect you within the next hour or so?”

My head bobbed up and down. “Sure… I guess.”

“Salutations, Talon. Drive carefully.”

The line went dead.

The waiting was always the worst part. Three days ago, she and her team had visited the McKinley household in Falls City, Nebraska. Yesterday, she had made phone inquiries to all the reported acquaintances: Micheal Deutsch, Steven Kinsig, and Rachel Maddingly. Running their names didn’t take much out of her day. They didn’t even have misdemeanors. Micheal and Steven had been married in Canada, but such wasn’t legal in the United States, so she couldn’t legally acknowledge the union. A pity, really. All three were cooperative, but understandably protective of their young friend. She wasn’t certain if they were withholding any information. At the same time, the body of Lawrence McKinley had been exhumed and the forensic pathologist was performing the autopsy. Today, Agent Helligan wasn’t doing much besides sitting around the FBI field office in St. Joseph, Missouri, and awaiting word from any number of studies currently underway. She hated playing the waiting game.

She let out a sigh after hanging up from the call to the investigating officer at the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Department. They had discovered the scene after a fire was reported by a hiker in the area near Cle Elum Lake, just over the Snoqualmie Pass. Once they responded to the scene, they had found some camping gear and a body. After the initial autopsy, they confirmed the identity of the victim to be Lawrence McKinley and the cause of death to be smoke inhalation. So, a report of kidnapping goes to Seattle Police Department and Lawrence was actually out camping? It had holes big enough to drive a eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer through. She let out a groan as her head fell into her hands, wondering why she always got the tough cases.

The sound of a knocking on the door of her temporary office brought her back to reality. Glancing over, she caught sight of a man in his early thirties, wearing a lab coat and wire-frame glasses. Carrying a bundle of papers, he seemed cheerful.

“Oh, Dr. Farnsworth, please tell me you have good news.” Agent Helligan groaned.

“You don’t know the half of it.” He forcefully set the papers down on her desk. “You were right to think there were huge holes in the investigation. The dental history is an exact match, all the way down to removed wisdom teeth and a single filling in one of the top molars. It’s mind-blowing how exact, too.”

“Okay, that we knew. The good news?”

He smirked. “They aren’t even the same nationality. I don’t know who that body in my morgue is, but it’s not Lawrence McKinley. The bone structure is all wrong. Sure, it’s a male who would stand at five-feet-ten and falls somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-seven years old. On the flip side of the coin, the man on my table is Hispanic with some inherited Aztec bone structure. Didn’t you say that Lawrence McKinley was part Sioux?”

Agent Helligan nodded. “Yes, that’s the history his mother told us.”

“Right. The John Doe on my table had black hair. Given the photographs on the fliers from his mixed martial arts promotions, Lawrence had brown hair. Also, if you take into account the loss of water, skin, fat tissue, and even muscle tissue from burns that bad, the guy we have wasn’t even in the same weight class as ‘The Animal’. We’re lucky if he was about one-fifty-five.”

Grabbing the bundle of papers, her eyes scanned over the details. “Well, that confirms it. Did you run some tissue samples and DNA to identify our John Doe?”

He nodded. “Yea, but it’ll take a while to get back from the lab in St. Louis. Their database goes nationwide and our resources are much more limited, here.”

She shrugged. “DMA is officially backing out of that investigation. I’ve got other worries. You can pass it along to the SAIC for the FBI, here.” Smiling, she handed the bundle back to him. “Thanks for being so thorough, Doctor. Your reputation precedes you.”

He smiled. “Thank you, Agent Helligan. You’re too kind.”

The phone rang, ending their conversation prematurely. She pointed at the phone and he nodded, leaving the room. Letting out a sigh, she crossed back to the desk, sat down in the chair, and picked up the receiver of the phone.

“Agent Helligan, here.” She answered routinely.

“Helen, this is Director Harkin. How is your day going?” The man on the other end responded.

“Well, sir, we caught our first break. We have a John Doe in the morgue that I’m passing on to the FBI for identification. Other than that, there’s some character witnesses, but no solid evidence, yet. Why do you ask?”

Director Harkin sighed. “Well, I’m sorry, Helen, but we can’t authorize an operation into Washington State. This investigation is already costing too much and the FBI can’t spare the manpower for surveillance, right now. Besides, the only lead on this place is the word of some teenage girl in California. We can’t risk it.”

“I understand, sir. Did you manage to get anything from the Google satellite that passed over the area yesterday morning?” She nibbled her lip in anticipation.

“No, Helen. The area was overcast. We’ll have to wait another couple of weeks before there’s a photographic satellite in that area. The Pacific Northwest is notorious for cloud cover. No guarantees, even when the thing passes.”

Her heart sank. For the sake of the girl’s concerns, she wanted to confirm that site. “Would I have authorization for a field op? This girl is paranoid, sir. She’s convinced that whoever kidnapped her is still after her. After reviewing the police report from the day seven men were killed under the convention center, I’m inclined to believe her, sir.”

He sighed again. That wasn’t good. “No, Helen, I can’t authorize that. It’s enough that you’re encroaching on the jurisdiction of the SAIC in Lincoln and Kansas City. I’ll talk with the SAIC in Seattle and see what he’s willing to do. I cannot promise anything.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Helen. Now, wrap up what you’re doing there and head back to San Francisco. I have a sense we’re going to need you active in the area.”

“What would give you that impression?”

“We have several actives in the area, Helen. Take your pick: You have Green Arrow, whom we haven’t confirmed to be meta or not. You have Blue Beetle, who is not confirmed meta but does have some powers. There is also that Zatanna character to consider. You have Posse operating in the area and tied to three persons of interest. Now, you have this Talon character that is the only one that has admitted to killing people. I’m not condemning that action, but we haven’t confirmed it to be self-defense or not. I know you dislike the analogy, but we need our watchdog back in her yard. I suggest you get to it as soon as possible.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll wrap it up as soon as I can.”

“See that you do. Good-bye, Agent Helligan.”

One click and the line went dead. She let out a long sigh as she placed the receiver back into its cradle. Her head fell upon the desk and she closed her eyes, letting out a defeated sigh. That was disheartening. It wasn’t much of a surprise, however. Given all the budget cuts coming out of this Congress, she was amazed this little field operation had even been approved. She would count her blessings in being able to do her job, though. Before she could relax, the phone rang again. My, this was a busy day.

“This had better be good news.” She grumbled into the receiver.

“Well, hello to you, too, Helen.” The man on the other end greeted facetiously.

“Dr. Hamilton?” She shook her head. “Sorry. I just set down a call with bad news. Tell me yours is better?”

“You would be correct. After receiving Dr. McCoy’s overnight package, the past two days have been remarkably fruitful.”

“Lay it on me, Doctor.”

“Well, I now have indisputable evidence that our charge in San Francisco is a metahuman. I have the results to put into the file. You’ll be pleased when you receive the packet. Furthermore, I ran the DNA for the father, mother, and that body in the morgue.”

“Let me guess: there’s no relation?”

“Did Dr. Farnsworth already speak with you?”

“Yes, nearly ten minutes ago. However, you have the DNA proof and he has the autopsy as proof. Anything else?”

“Miraculously, I received a blood sample from the real Lawrence McKinley from his primary care physician in Seattle. It took some doing, but I’m very glad we were able to procure it. When compared to our girl Talon, it wasn’t an exact match. If anything, they are genetically siblings. Honestly, I anticipated that. After investigating Sarah McKinley’s medical history, she was deemed infertile because of complications during delivery. She has only given birth to one child.”

“That seems a bit vexing, Dr. Hamilton.”

“I am aware of that, Agent Helligan. Thus, I dove back into the DNA samples. I was able to connect Lawrence, Talon, and Sarah through their shared mitochondrial DNA. Lawrence and Talon both link back to Sarah as their mother. Given that she only had one child, I can say with certainty that Talon is Sarah’s daughter.”

A smile grew on Agent Helligan’s face. “Well, she’ll be pleased with that news, I’d wager.”

“There is one thing that still vexes me, however. I could not connect Randall McKinley to Lawrence or Talon.”

Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean, Doctor? What are you telling me?”

“When I compared the samples and conducted a paternity test through the nuclear DNA, there was only a one-percent probability that Randall McKinley is Lawrence or Talon’s father.”

“That’s… odd.”

“I agree, Helen. I don’t know who the father of Lawrence or Talon is, but I do know for absolute certainty that it is not Randall McKinley. Also, neither Randall nor Sarah have the meta gene to pass down to their children. Whomever the father of Lawrence is, and Talon by proxy, they are either an active or dormant metahuman. That’s the going theory, anyway. We still have not concretely determined what is causing these metahumans or how the nucleotides sync up to create the meta gene, but we’re moving forward with the idea that one parent must be meta–giving a fifty-percent chance of producing a metahuman child.”

Letting out a sigh, her head fell into her free hand. “So, we’re looking for another metahuman who could possibly be the father?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. However, given the number of metahumans manifesting these days, there are several records to sift through. It could, feasibly, take weeks or even months to compare all the DNA samples to determine who the father is. That is, of course, if we even have those records. The father could even be an unknown and undocumented metahuman.”

“Anything else, Doctor?”

“Beyond questioning Sarah about her sexual history so that we might narrow down the possibilities, there isn’t much more that I can do. Dr. McCoy has more physical evidence waiting for you to review once you return to San Francisco.”

“Thank you, Dr. Hamilton.”

“You’re welcome, Agent Helligan. I hope the rest of the day fares well for you.”

Needless to say, the trip back to Falls City was not an enjoyable one. For one thing, it was four hours through some of America’s most boring terrain. For another, Agent Helligan had too much time to contemplate the news she would have to deliver to the McKinleys. She would be fooling herself is she wasn’t dreading Randall’s reaction to Dr. Hamilton’s findings. Thus, she instructed Sanchez and Williams to carry their tasers, just in case.

They pulled up in front of the familiar house and she could feel the anxiety well up inside her. She was happy to have the backup, but it was just the one team, this time. Budget cuts can be a real pain, sometimes. Letting out a sigh and not saying a word, she nudged her head toward the doors and all three climbed out of the SUV, again. They strode up to the door and Agent Helligan knocked once more. There was a shuffling of a chair inside and footsteps came to the door.

When it swung open, Randall once again beheld the federal agents. “Back again? What the hell do you want, this time?”

“Sorry to bother you, again, Mr. McKinley, but there’s been a break in the case that we need to discuss with you.” She replied as cordially as she could muster.

He stepped away from the threshold. “Make it quick. I gotta work, this afternoon.”

Nodding, she and her backup followed him inside. The only difference was that Mrs. McKinley was in the kitchen and the smell of their lunch filled the air. The three agents stepped into the house and Williams closed the door behind them. Mrs. McKinley moved to where she could see and carried a bewildered expression.

“Back so soon, Agent Helligan?” The woman asked.

Letting out a sigh, she folded her arms in front of her at the wrists. “Mr. And Mrs. McKinley, we have some good news and some bad news. First and foremost, the person you buried last year was not your son. We have confirmed it by autopsy and DNA evidence. We don’t know who the man is. The FBI will take over that investigation.”

Tears welled up in Sarah’s eyes. “You mean…?”

“Yes, Mrs. McKinley, your child is very much alive.”

The dam broke and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, thank God!”

“My boy is alive?!” Randall seemed to scoff. He sat back down in his chair and continued eating his breakfast.

Agent Helligan cleared her throat. “However, as per the duties of my office, I can announce that your child has an active metahuman gene.”

Randall dropped his fork, jumped up, and stood next to his wife. They were both very perplexed.

“What?!” They chorused.

“Now... you’re tellin’ me that my boy ain’t just some kinda fag, but he’s also one o’ them fuckin’ freaks, too? That ain’t good news!”

“Randall!” Sarah glared at her husband.

“That may be premature, Mrs. McKinley. There is the bad news. You see, when comparing your DNA to your child’s, neither of you carry the metahuman gene. In order for it to even be present, we believe that one of the parents must be a carrier of that gene. Incorrect or otherwise, that is our current running theory. Mr. McKinley, I’m sorry to say that, according to our lab results, you are not the father of Lawrence.”

“What?!” The rage exploded within him at that moment. Before anyone could react, he spun around to Sarah and shoved her into the refrigerator. “You filthy fuckin’ whore!” He coiled his fist and punched her across the face. “You cheatin’ fuckin’ bitch!”

In the next second, Sanchez and Williams jumped into action and grabbed Randall before he could further assault Sarah. Agent Helligan felt a pang of guilt run through her body. This is exactly what she didn’t want to happen. While the men subdued and cuffed Randall, she strode over to examine Sarah. It wasn’t immediately apparent what injuries she sustained, but there would likely be some bruising on her cheek.

“You get your shit and get the fuck outta my house, whore! I never wanna look at your ugly ass face as long as I live!” Randall screamed, writhing against his captors. “You’re dead to me, you hear! Dead!”

“Mr. McKinley, that’s enough! Unless you want a few hundred volts passing through you, I’d shut the fuck up!” Sanchez warned.

Randall glared at him. “Fuck you and that fuckin’ bitch!”

Agent Helligan spun around with malice on her face. “Get him out of my sight, gentlemen, and take him into custody for assault and battery!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Williams replied with something that sounded like a growl.

Mr. McKinley was dragged out of the house while Agent Helligan did her best to comfort Mrs. McKinley. This had dissolved into chaos and she knew she wouldn’t hear the end of it. It was going to be a long trip back to San Francisco.

Three weeks. Had it really been that long? Here it was, the middle of March and I had heard nothing from that agent from DMA. Didn’t they say something would happen within a week? I really hate it when government types get their timetables all screwed up.

For the first few days, it wasn’t too bad. I gathered up all my clothes and everything from the Posse Hacienda. The clothes and teddy bear got immediately thrown into the brand new washing machine. They stunk to high heaven, anyway. I hung out over there for a little while. It was nice to catch up. Bonita seemed to enjoy the ride on the rear seat of my motorcycle back to the house. She loved the house, too. Once she knew where it was, the others did, too. It was a little weird, though. They wouldn’t sleep over. They wouldn’t eat my food. They wouldn’t even let me wash their clothes. Bonita thought bringing over Alina’s laundry every week or so wouldn’t hurt anything, though. At least the baby would get fresh, clean clothes. Scour and Thumper loved the TV. They came over just to be able to watch it. We found out that I had cable.

After that first week, I was pretty much bound to the house. Expecting Agent Helligan to show at any moment, I didn’t want to stray too far from the place. So, I had to figure out something to do. There was really only one thing that I knew would keep me in the house, pass the time quickly, and keep me well entertained: gaming. I was still in diapers when I picked up my first NES controller and it’s been a love affair ever since. Thus, I endured the trip to the “mall” at the bottom of Nob Hill. Lost in the jumble of buildings housing stores like Tiffany & Co. or The Apple Store, I’m glad my new smartphone had an application that led me to GameStop.

The moment I learned that Microsoft had made a Star Wars Xbox Kinect bundle, I had to have it. I mean, the console was decked out like R2-D2, complete with authentic sounds, and the controller was designed to be his counterpart, C-3PO. The game, Kinect Star Wars, was likely crap and I wasn’t a big fan of the peripheral, but it was definitely a “must have”. Every nerd girl has to have her toys, right? It had been a limited edition, but they still had one in the store. With the card Olivia had given me, I purchased it and about twenty games I had wanted to play for a long time. Chief among those, the game that had been my labor of love while working at Orion Software, Shadows of the North. It was an action RPG that could be compared to Dragon Age II, but we had a bigger variety of dungeons than BioWare had put into their title. We didn’t like the “copy & paste” ideology that they seemed to implement in their game.

For the next two weeks, I spent nearly every waking moment playing the game I’d worked so hard to bring to release. With the main story quests, side quests, and one-off adventures, the game lasted a good sixty hours–like any decent RPG should. Seeing the full realization of all that conceptualizing, coding, animating, and decorating was like a dream come true. It was just gorgeous in all its high-definition splendor. Given Rachel’s concept art, a few elements of the terrain were very familiar. Also, my code to animate the grass when the wind blew worked like a charm. There were no glitches, either, so hats off to the QA department. After taking on the final boss, I delighted in watching the credits roll and seeing all the familiar names scroll past the screen. There was a surprise at the end of the credits, though. At the very end, the screen faded to black and an image of my old self centered on the screen. Above a candid photo of me in the lounge at work, the text read: In loving memory of Lawrence “Lex” McKinley. Below the picture, it read: June 14, 1985 — March 17, 2011 … May you be making the scenery as gorgeous in heaven as you did for us. The tears flowed freely. I didn’t know whether to hug them all or punch them all in the face.

After finishing that game, I moved on to refreshing my memory of what had happened in Dragon Age: Origins before diving into the story of Dragon Age II. I had the Ultimate Edition with all the downloadable content included. It was going to take me a while to get through the game. That’s one reason I enjoy RPGs so much, they’re an investment of time. I had all the time in the world until I heard back from Agent Helligan.

So, there I was on the couch with the C-3PO controller in my hand and wearing my Punisher T-shirt over a sports bra and panties. My hair was still a tad damp from my shower, but nearly dry. I had resolved a long time before then that going around without some form of bra was somewhat uncomfortable. So, with a sports bra, my boobs were comfortably contained and their jiggling protests at my movement were kept to a minimum. Gallivanting around Ferelden, I hacked and slashed my way to victory while falling in love with the adorable nitwit Alistair. There were guffaws at all the drunken jokes at the expense of Oghren, giggles at the annoyed detachment of Morrigan, a laugh when Sten wanted cookies, and snickers whenever Shayle saw a bird or talked about smashing people’s heads in as the “girly” thing to do.

Wait… did I just say ‘falling in love’ and ‘adorable’ in reference to a guy?

Big Ben beckoned, interrupting my thoughts on the matter. Pressing the “start” button and bringing up the pause menu, I quickly let out a breath that vibrated my lips. It had been at least a week and a half since the doorbell had beckoned me. The first thought that came to my mind was the possibility that Bonita was bringing the baby over. At the very least, that curved my reluctance to answer Big Ben’s call. My bare feet clapped against the hardwood floor as I meandered toward the entrance area. With a bored look on my face, I twisted the knob and opened the door to the outside world.

Again, the badge was thrust in my face. “Agent Helligan, DMA. May we come in, Talon?”

“Sure, but the goons should stay outside.” I answered in my monotone of disinterest.

The typically “always serious” special agent actually smiled. “I have a surprise for you, young lady.” She even winked. Then, she looked me up and down. “However, you could have dressed a bit less casually for the occasion.”

When she strode into the house, a brunette stepped forward from behind the two goons. As soon as our eyes met, I knew exactly who this new woman was. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, but I would never forget that face.

“Hello, sweetheart.” She greeted, tears forming in her eyes.

My own eyes shot open very wide. “Mom?!”

Marked Target ~ Chapter Eleven ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Lex enjoys a fateful reunion with someone from her past and must confront all the ramifications of it. Agent Helligan and a lawyer help iron out the details. A long awaited heart-to-heart finally occurs. Lex shows her mettle to those who would doubt her.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, and Jennifer Walters, SheHulk, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Agent Helligan is a trademark of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic for this chapter was lovingly created by Phil Noto.

Author's Note :: Yes, it's been a long time since there's been an update. I'm really sorry for that. You can check my blog posts if you want the details (what little I provided). It's been a rough go.

This chapter and this posting would NOT be possible without EnemyofFun. Were it not for a file transfer on Skype, I still wouldn't have the part I'd actually written of this chapter. Thank you for your continued support and the occasional shoulder to cry on. Asari Adept is STILL the best class in ME3 multiplayer. :P

Of course, not one word of this story would exist without the idea from Lilith Langtree. Thanks for letting us play in your sandbox, hon. ;)

The beta readers for this chapter were Valentine and Joe_Q, who both found the reference in Chapter 10. It's been a while and they had to go back to read ALL TEN CHAPTERS, thus far, to accurately beta THIS chapter. You guys ROCK! xD

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Chapter Eleven:

Standing there like an idiot for a moment, I was nothing except dumbfounded. Even though I hadn’t seen her in about three years or so, it was as though my eyes were seeing this woman for the very first time. Ever since this whole thing started, it seemed as though my whole perspective toward everything had changed. My mother was now an inch taller than I was, rather than four inches shorter. She may have been approaching fifty, but not a single gray hair blemished her chocolate locks. Even filling with tears, her eyes were a stunning green. Now, I knew where I got my eyes from. There wasn’t time to reflect on how I’d managed to miss that detail. Her slender form approached me and thoroughly embraced me.

For a moment, I was overwhelmed with shock and hesitated. That was fleeting as I was filled with a sense of comfort, security, and familiarity. There was a great deal of love in my mother’s embrace. Also, there was a sense of regret, happiness, and relief in there somewhere. I have no idea how I knew that. I could just feel it in the way her muscles gripped around my form. Slowly, tears formed in my eyes and my arms slipped around her. My head turned and rested on her shoulder with relative ease. Interestingly enough, I could even tell this was my mother by her scent. I have no theory on that, either.

I didn’t want it to end, but my mother released with a sniffle. “Let me look at you.” Next, her hands were gently caressing my face and pushing my hair back. Her smile broadened. “There you are. You’ve got your grandmother’s hair, my eyes and chin, along with your grandfather’s little ears.” She nibbled her lower lip. “I don’t know where that forehead, that nose, or those lips came from. They’re not from me, though.” She glanced down at my chest. “And, those are definitely not mine.”

Blushing, I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest, blushed deeply, and whined at her. “Mo-ommm…” There was no doubt, now. Only my mother could embarrass me like that.

She seemed to giggle. “I’m sorry, Lex. It’s been a while and a few things have changed, okay? Humor me?”

Letting out a sigh of defeat, I grumbled. “Fine. Just… close the door, would you?”

As I spun and began heading to the parlor, she pushed the door closed and grabbed my arm. “I don’t think so, young lady. You’d best get upstairs and at least put some pants on.” She lightly and playfully swatted my rear end.

Surprised, a squeak escaped my lips. Spinning back to her, my brow furrowed. “Is that a request or an order? I’m not a child anymore, Mother.”

She put her hands on her hips and smirked at me with a raised eyebrow. Oh, it was an order. “Not from where I’m standing. Now, get up there and do as I’ve asked, please?”

Okay… maybe a suggestion? She had always been rather vexing. I let out a groan. “Fine.”

My feet slapped against the hardwood floor, again, as I trudged toward to the stairs. Behind me, her footsteps echoed slowly. She was obviously scanning the house with her eyes and taking her time getting to the parlor. Once arriving in my room, I started rifling through the clothes on the floor to grab a pair of jeans. Everything was pretty clean, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Even with my hearing, I could barely make out the small talk going on between Agent Helligan and my mother. They spoke in rather hushed tones, so I could only hear mumbles. Grabbing a random pair of blue jeans and shimmying into them, I was back downstairs pretty quickly.

Upon arriving in the parlor, there was another surprise waiting for me. There was another brunette in a suit sitting and talking with Agent Helligan and my mom. Her hair was lighter than my mother’s, as was the shade of green in her eyes. Unlike the federal agent whom was clad in a pantsuit, this woman wore a navy skirt suit with suntan nylons but the sensible pumps were there. She had her hair tied up in a messy bun and black plastic-framed glasses adorned her face. Her perfume had a sweet smell and was, thankfully, very light.

Obviously, I entered the room with a puzzled expression on my face. The three of them stood. The new girl was a few inches taller than my mother, but that could have been attributed to her heels. Thus, I brushed off her height, for the time being. Agent Helligan nodded toward the new girl who smiled at me.

“Talon, this is…” She began.

The tall woman approached me, holding out her hand. She looked pretty young to me. At best guess, she was in her very early twenties. “Jennifer Walters. Pleasure to meet you.”

She got a guarded expression rather than my hand. “Who let you in my house and why are you here?”

“I let her in, Talon. She is here as legal counsel.” Agent Helligan informed me. “For you.”

“A lawyer? Do I need a lawyer?” My questioning eyes darted between my mother, Agent Helligan, and the woman whose hand was still held out for me to shake. “How are you a lawyer, anyway? You look a little young for that.”

She smiled. “I get that a lot, now.” A quick breath escaped her lips. “Well, has anyone laid out your particular rights and responsibilities according to the Metahuman Classification and Protection Act of 2011 or any subsequent laws passed by the California legislature?” The lawyer woman asked.

My expression went blank. “Well, no, but…”

“Precisely why I’m here. Let’s try this again, shall we? I’m Jennifer Walters and I’ll be your legal counsel, today.” She smiled again.

Finally, I shook her hand. “Generically, I’m known as Talon.”

“Well, Talon, that’s one of the things we’ll be discussing, today. If you’d like to take a seat next to your mother, we can begin the whole process. Sorry, but there’s quite a bit of paperwork to go through.” She looked genuinely remorseful.

Agent Helligan sighed. “Yes, there is a bit of paperwork. I’m sorry it cuts into your reunion with your mother, but it must be done.”

Letting out a sigh, my feet trudged their way into the parlor and I sat down on the couch with my mother. To my left sat Ms. Walters. To my right sat Agent Helligan. Giving me a meek smile, my mom slid her arm over my shoulders. I couldn’t really tell whether she was trying to comfort me or she was just touching me to show a little affection. Did it really matter?

Agent Helligan cleared her throat. “First of all, Talon, I would like to inform you that the claims that man made back in Seattle about your funeral were correct. Everyone you knew was informed that you had been killed in a fire while camping.”

My eyes quickly blinked a few times. “Wait… so, Julia was right when she was all in hysterics when I kept insisting I was me?”

Agent Helligan nodded. “Unfortunately, that is correct. Whoever took you faked your death.”

I could hear my mom sniffle. “It was terrible, Lex. We were so sure we’d lost you.”

Tears welled up in my eyes and my head turned to her. “I’m sorry, Mom. That must have been really hard for you.”

Her grip tightened around me, confirming my suspicions.

“Regardless of that tragic event, your mother gave us permission to exhume the body. We quickly learned that it wasn’t Lawrence McKinley, at all, but a clever fake aimed to detract any further investigation. Dr. McCoy and Dr. Hamilton collaborated and were able to prove that you are, in fact, this woman’s child.” She motioned towards my mother. “Her medical records told us that she only ever had one child, so the deduction from there was rather simple. With that in hand and empirical evidence from other metahumans, we have confirmed your identity.”

“Oh, thank the Maker…” The game had rubbed off a little, but that didn’t change my elation and relief. “I’m really me.”

Now, the lawyer spoke. “Yes, you are legally whom you claim to be. Now, since you are a metahuman, Agent Helligan is now authorized to process your legal paperwork. This includes a new birth certificate, identification cards, immunization records, school records, and even a passport, if you wish. All of that was outlined in the MCPA as her duties.” Agent Helligan handed her a small bundle of paperwork. “This packet, here, includes all the necessary documentation to start that process. You may choose a new name. I would advise discretion because this will be your legal name from this moment forward.” Her eyes met mine and she handed me the bundle. “Have you given the prospect any thought?”

I shook my head. “Honestly? Not really. I mean, I’m not really married to my old name. First, I hate ‘Lawrence’. Second, I’m not a fan of ‘Alexander’, either.” I glanced over at Mom, who was reviewing the papers. “Sorry, Mom.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay, sweetheart. ‘Lawrence’ was Randy’s idea, anyway. Even I didn’t like it.”

Agent Helligan smiled. “Well, neither of those is hardly appropriate, now.”

My mom’s gaze met my own. She, too, bore a smile. “You know I love you, Lex, but it was always a dream of mine to have a daughter. I think every woman secretly dreams of having a little girl to bring up in the world.” Tears welled up in her eyes again. “I never regretted having you, Lex. Not for one minute. It looks like I finally got my wish, though.” She sniffled. “I never would have willingly wished this upon you. Just know that, okay?” Her hand squeezed my shoulder.

Suddenly, there was a tempest of emotion inside of me. Thoughts of my childhood came flooding back to the surface. I had dreamed of being a mother, some day. Sure, the thought of sleeping with a man repulsed me, still, but it was a dream. When I was a child, I didn’t know the mechanics involved. It was really a pipe dream. Growing up was a little awkward, but I’d somehow found a way to cope with the maelstrom inside. Conflicting feelings had hit me from all sides that I’d never been able to pin down. That is, not until all of this had happened to me. In some ways, I still acted like a guy. That was probably going to be a given. For some reason, though, I never really fully hated the transformation from tall, muscular, mid-twenties guy to short, small-statured, teenage girl. At the very least, I made a cute girl.

The dam was insufficient. Tears rolled down my cheeks. With the hormones coursing through my veins and the tempest of emotions, it was inevitable that they would fall. “Mom… I’m not sure how else to put this…”

“You know what I was going to name you, had you been born the way you are now?” She smiled, interrupting me. I shook my head. “Laura.” She let out a sigh. “That doesn’t really seem appropriate, though. It’s dated. A girl your age would get lynched with a name like that.” She took her arm from over my shoulders and took my hand. “What do you think of ‘Lauren’? It’s more appropriate for a teenager, these days.”

A meek smile creased my lips. “I’d like that, Mom. It seems only fitting for you to name me.”

“I hadn’t thought of a middle name, though.” She lamented. “There wasn’t really the time…”

“Alexis.” My reply was swift and automatic. At her questioning look, I nodded. “Blame Rachel for that one. It was all her idea. She used it so she could still call me ‘Lex’, but in reference to a girl’s name. Call me crazy, but I kinda like it.”

“Lauren Alexis…” She mulled over the name, trying it on for size, I’d wager. “That really sounds nice together like that.”

“Very well.” Agent Helligan commented. “So, it’s to be ‘Lauren Alexis Kinney’, then? That’s very nice.”

Again, I blinked. “Kinney?” My eyes darted to my mother for confirmation.

She nodded. “That’s right, honey. We’ll be using my maiden name. As it turns out, Randall isn’t really your father, after all.”

“Oh, thank God!” I breathed. “Mom, not to jab a blunt spoon through your heart, but you’re better off without that asshole.”

“He was a good man… once. I loved the man I knew before we got married. I stayed with him because I didn’t know anything else.” She squeezed my hand gently. “I’m sorry I put you through those things merely because of my own insecurities.”

More tears. Fucking hormones. “You didn’t do it, Mom. Randall did. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

Ms. Walters took a breath. “Right. I hate to break it up, ladies, but we’ve got quite the ordeal to undertake. Ms. Kinney, if you’ll go ahead, fill out the required spaces, and sign the appropriate pages, we can move on from here.”

My mom took a pen provided and began to fill out the forms.

“I know this must be hard on the both of you, but I want you to know that you have the full support of the DMA on this.” Agent Helligan explained. Her gaze fell on me. “Now, Lauren, I want you to know that this information is going into an individual file through the U.S. Marshal’s Witness Protection Program. It will all remain in paper format. It will not be converted into computer files until you give the authorization. That’s not going to be my call to make. When you feel safe and don’t feel that people are actively searching for you, any longer, then you just say the word and we’ll get it all sorted out. Does that sound like a plan to you?”

My brow furrowed. It was a little weird hearing the name my mother had just bestowed on me being used for the first time. “So, it’s my call to make about when to put it into the computer? Wow. Thanks.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. I know there’s an atmosphere of distrust. Given what you’ve been through, I can’t say that I blame you. I just wanted you to know that I understand the reasoning for you paranoia.”

“What changed your mind on that?”

“The lengths these people went through to fake your death and attempt to cover up what was really going on struck a messy chord. We still don’t have a positive I-D on that facility you mentioned, but give it time.” She turned and dug into her briefcase once more. She pulled out a rather sizable file folder. “For the sake of your safety, I had some friends go through and create a whole new identity for you. Other than the name, they’ve established everything. Everything you would imagine could be in a sixteen-year-old girl’s file is in here.”

“May I examine those, Agent Helligan?” Ms. Walters asked.

The agent passed the bundle to the lawyer. “It’s a whole new life for you. It even comes with a stipend from Uncle Sam, to the tune of $15,000.”

The lawyer mumbled from the paper work. “Article 2, Section 4, Subsection C of the MCPA: A stipend to be awarded to newly confirmed metahumans shall be given under the discretion of the local Special Agent In Charge and determined by the SAIC and Director on a case-by-case basis. A one-time-only award shall be given to cover expenses associated with any and all anticipated metamorphoses.”

Agent Helligan nodded. “Exactly. Very astute recitation, Ms. Walters.”

The lawyer glanced over the frame of her glasses toward the federal agent. “I am very good at what I do, Agent Helligan.”

I blinked. “So, what does this all mean for me, exactly?”

“A new beginning.” Agent Helligan smiled. “This is the start of a new life for you.”

Ms. Walters thumbed through the pages. “Yes, well, everything is in here. It has a new birth certificate that states Sarah as the mother, but doesn’t list a father. There are immunization records, a passport form, and school records as well. Apparently, you’re on your way to a 4.0, young lady. I wouldn’t tarnish that. It also states that you’re to be transferred as a sophomore into Jack Kirby Central High School after Spring Break.”

“What?!” My mother and I chorused.

“For your protection, Lauren, we have made arrangements for you to attend school. There are U.S. Marshals watching the house and we have a detail that will be ready for surveillance at the school. For the sake of safety, we thought it best for you to procure the identity of an average teenage girl. It’s the best I could come up with.” Agent Helligan explained.

“But… I’ve graduated high school! I’m the Class of 2003 at Falls City High! I graduated from the University of Washington in 2007, magna cum laude I might add! Why do I have to go back to High School?” This was starting to piss me off.

“Do you not believe those men are still after you? If so, the best thing we can do is everything possible to keep you safe. Do you want to be cooped up in the house all day or would you rather develop some semblance of a social life? This is a second chance at life that most would kill for.”

Rising angrily, my glare zeroed in on Agent Helligan. Tears rolled down my face at record pace, but I didn’t care. Even if my voice went shrill, I had to get this out. “I don’t want a new life, Miss Federal Agent! I want my life back! I want to go back to my home! I want to hang out with my friends, again! I want my naive sense of security back! I want my dream job back!”

Sobs were beginning to overtake me. “Do you know that ever since I first laid eyes on Super Mario World that I knew what I wanted to do with my life? Ever since I picked up a Genesis controller and rolled around a level as Sonic, I knew that. When I first touched Golden Eye, I wanted to know the code they used to transfer the ricochet and explosion animations into paintball splatter! I wanted all of that!”

A huge sob forced me to take an audible breath. I could feel my knees start to buckle as sobs rippled through me. “I want to hold the only woman I’ve ever truly loved in my arms, again. Life doesn’t mean a goddamn thing without what we shared together.” A sobbing, defeated sigh emitted from deep within the bowels of my resolve. “I want the lives of those seven men back. Not just for myself and my own conscience, but for their families and their friends.” The river of tears continued, I sniffled. “I want all of that back. You can’t give it to me and neither can your measly fifteen-grand.”

Nearly limp, my body sank back down onto the couch. I could feel my mother’s arms wrap around me in a comforting embrace. For a few moments, nothing was said. The heaviness of the mood in the room engulfed us all. Finally, Agent Helligan cleared her throat.

“Lex, I cannot begin to comprehend what you’re going through. I’m sorry if I have seemed to not be compassionate about your plight. You expressed that you don’t feel safe. I wanted to give you that, but it appears that we’ve gone about it the wrong way.”

I felt a hand gently land on my knee. When I looked up, Ms. Walters was right beside me. “I can comprehend it, Lex. You see, I am a metahuman, as well. Looking at me, you’d probably never guess that just last year I was a forty-six-year-old man. I was five-feet-eleven, had a good build, and shared my bed with beautiful women who were just as attracted to my looks as my money. I was a successful attorney at an up-and-coming firm with a mountain of cases under my belt. In my short tenure, I had made partner and enjoyed the perks. Today, I’m three inches shorter, twenty-six years younger, very female, and in an entry level position at a different firm. Thankfully, I’m not paid at a twenty-percent reduction most female employees face in my line of work. Believe me; I get all of your anger and frustration.

“From a purely legal standpoint, Agent Helligan is doing everything she possibly can to ensure your safety without having to sacrifice too many comforts. I would whole-heartedly object to her or the U.S. Marshals placing you on some kind of house arrest. You’ve done nothing wrong, in the eyes of the law. The attack at the Washington State Convention Center has been ruled as self-defense, but we can’t announce that publicly–not with people trying to track you down, anyway. Until something can be done about the people tracking you down, there are limited options. The Witness Protection Program seems the most logical step.”

My mother’s arm tightened across my shoulders. “I’m right here with you, Lex.”

I glanced back at her. “So… why your maiden name, then? Why didn’t Randall come with you?”

“That man is currently awaiting trial for Assault and Battery, visited on your mother. He attacked her right in front of my team and me in the next instant after we told him that he wasn’t your actual father.” Agent Helligan explained. Was that venom in her voice?

My forehead fell into my palm. “Wow, he really was a fucking bastard, wasn't he?”

My mother spun and glared at me. “Lauren Alexis!” She blinked. “Wow, that really rolled off my tongue easier than I thought it would.”

My eyes darted between the three of them. “So… who really is my dad?”

Agent Helligan shrugged. “We don’t actually know.”

“It’s not in any of your paperwork.” Ms. Walters confirmed.

“I…” My mother began. “Well, if it isn’t Randall, then I’m not entirely sure, honey.” Then, something hit her. “Wait… just before he and I were engaged, I did my residency at a hospital in Toronto.” She blushed. “There were three men that I slept with while I was there. I was young and impulsive.”

“Why didn’t you mention any of this before, Ms. Kinney?” Agent Helligan raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t really think it was all that relevant, actually. I was a stupid young girl, then. Besides, I only ever got their first names, anyway. They were one-night-stands.” Again, she blushed.

My stomach wretched, “I think I’m going to be sick…” My mother’s chiding glare met my eyes. “Oh, come on! I don’t want to be privy to my mother’s sexual exploits, thanks!”

“In that case, Ms. Kinney, why don’t we step into the other room? We can talk about those details while Ms. Walters explains some of the legal jargon to your daughter.” Agent Helligan suggested.

Three days passed. My mother moved into the room across the hall from me. A team of U.S. Marshalls and DMA agents moved into three apartments in the building across the street. My mind was still trying to grapple with all the details of what was happening. Ms. Walters had gotten a hotel room downtown rather than commute from Los Angeles to help my mom and me through all the paperwork and legal ramifications of my new reality. Like waves on a beach, the whole episode seemed like a torrent at first and then calmed down to a nearly unnerving placid.

As one would expect, my mother spent a day or two waiting on me hand and foot, doting on me every chance she got. Without a second thought, I dove into my video games again, making a desperate attempt to shut it all out and find some sense of normalcy where none existed. Naturally, my mother scolded me for wasting time and brain cells on the “pointless” activity, then asked me to take the trash out. Figures. I’m not going to lie: it was nice to have some of her home-cooked meals again. I had sorely missed them.

One morning, though, seemed different. My eyelids fluttered open to the gentle beams of sunlight dripping through the window. My body still didn’t feel like moving, so I lay there for a few moments to let my brain catch up and my body to get with the program. One of the many things about my mother moving in was the assault on my olfactory system. It definitely smelt like a woman lived in the house. Granted, I did use “womanly” shampoo, conditioner, and body wash when I showered and that was in the air. On the other hand, my mother had felt it necessary to pummel the place with some kind of floral scent, too, as if the air somehow needed feminizing. I don’t think it would have bothered me so much if my nose weren’t so bloody sensitive.

Grudgingly, I rose from the bed, scratched my scalp absently, and trudged toward the bathroom. After doing my “business”, I trudged downstairs like a zombie looking for their next meal. At that moment, the strong scent of roasted and percolated Arabica beans hit my nostrils. Wonderful! There was coffee. With a tired smile, I continued my impression of the walking undead toward the kitchen where I was greeted with a large cup of “Joe” and my favorite creamer sitting atop the breakfast bar. My mother was behind the counter in the actual kitchen and greeted me with a smile.

“Good morning, Lex.” She almost sang like a nightingale.

“Mornin’,” came my lower-pitched, exhausted reply. “You’ve never made me coffee in the morning. What’s the occasion?”

She poured herself a cup, sweetened it with a little creamer, and then leaned over the counter. “Julia told me quite a few things about you that I didn’t really know about after you left home. The fact that you like coffee in the morning was one of them.” She smiled, taking a sip. “I thought we’d have a little heart-to-heart, this morning.”

My eyes didn’t meet hers; they were too focused on pouring the creamer into my coffee and stirring. “Um… what about?”

Her tone became very serious. “Don’t get me wrong, Lex. I love you dearly and I’m very happy to know my child is alive, after all.” A sigh escaped her lips. “I have cleaned this whole house, done all the laundry, vacuumed all the carpet, even cleaned your room and tidied up a bit.”

Setting the creamer down and pulling the cup to my lips, my eyes finally met hers. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.” I took a sip.

Her eyes lowered. “I’m ashamed to admit it, honey, but I’ve been avoiding you.”

That engendered an instant confused expression. “What for?”

Another sigh. Great. “You really have changed a lot, honey… and I’m not just talking about your body. I’ve been noticing… little things that are different than the child I knew. I’m not going to lie to you. This whole thing is very strange to me. At first, I was just happy you were alive. Now that things have settled down, the gravity of the situation has taken hold.”

A scoff escaped me. “Tell me about it.”

She gave me a smirk that seemed to convey ‘Will you take this seriously?!’ “It’s not every day that a mother is told the son she raised is now her daughter and she has to live with that reality.”

“You’d be surprised, Mom. There’s more than a few people that I’ve met who have gone through exactly what you have.”

“That may be, but it’s new and a little… can I say ‘weird’?”

A sarcastic chuckle was the first thing out of my mouth. “Yea… you can say that. It’s weird for me, too, okay? I mean, you should have seen some of the promo photos that were taken of me when I was in the MMA circuit.”

“The what?” A lot of confusion was written on her face. Apparently, nobody told her about that aspect of my life. I considered it a pity that no one saw fit to tell my mother what I did when I wasn’t at work. I mean, I worked pretty hard for all the accomplishments I’d made and my own mother wouldn’t even have known about it? That got to me, more than a little.

“I was a fighter, Mom. MMA is ‘mixed martial arts’. You know those Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Dam movies?” My brain struggled for a frame of reference she would understand.

“I guess so? I think Randy used to watch some of them, but they were really violent and really not up my alley.”

I shook my head and let out a sigh, grasping for straws. “What about Karate Kid?”

She perked up. “Yes, I liked that movie.”

My smile couldn’t have expressed my elation at finally arriving at our shared frame of reference properly. “You know when Daniel goes to that tournament and finally takes on the Cobra Kai boys that had been bullying him through the whole movie?”

“Yes, and Mr. Miyagi does that thing with his hands to heal Daniel?”

“Right, we’re on the same page.” I set down the cup of coffee to offer visual aids with my hands. “Well, MMA is like that, but the ring is shaped like a stop sign, The Octagon, and the guys all have really good muscle tone. Two muscle-bound men wearing shorts, padded fingerless gloves, and special boots battle it out for points. There’s a whole tournament and everything.” In my voice, there was a tone of regretful reminiscence. I really, truly, missed having my fights. “I was really good at it, Mom. Some said I was well on my way to the national championship.”

“You really did all this… fighting? What did your boss say?”

I smirked. “He was more jealous of my battle scars than how it affected my work performance, which it didn’t. It was pretty rough. I had bumps, bruises, abrasions, and the occasional cut in odd places on my face. It sometimes drove Julia crazy with worry, but I really did enjoy it.” A reflexive sigh escaped. “To go from that to…” My eyes and hands indicated my new body. “…this? Yea, it was really rough… and weird. So, I get it.”

She shook her head, sipping more coffee as I wrapped my hands around my own cup again. “I told you, Lex, that it’s not just your body. It’s not about the fact that you’re a little shorter than me, or that you have breasts on your chest, or your much narrower waist, or your widened hips, or your meaty legs, or the vagina between your thighs. There are other things, too.”

My right eyebrow rose, signaling my curiosity. “Like what?”

“Well, your voice is much higher, but the way you speak is different. You speak melodically, now. You don’t just swagger into the room, anymore, you sachet. And, that thing you were doing with your hands? That’s new, too. There’s others, but we don’t have all day for me to list them out.”

I let out a giggle as I took a sip. “You’ve been watching me, then?”

She immediately pointed at me, as if accusing me of something. “See? You never used to ‘giggle’.” She shook her head. “I’m getting off topic. My point is there are a lot of things about you that are really… feminine. It wasn’t like that before, so it’s a little jarring. It’s almost like… I have to get to know the child I raised from a baby all over again. Does that make sense?”

My eyes lowered. There was some power in the universe that really wanted us to have this conversation. In a way, I was glad for it, but still pretty scared. My eyes lowered as if I were embarrassed by the whole thing. “Well, Mom, in all reality, I was… kind of always like this.”

She furrowed her brow, immediately recognizing how important a step I was taking. “What do you mean by that, sweetheart?”

Feeling her hand touch mine in a comforting and supportive gesture really helped. “I never felt like I could tell anyone. I always bottled it inside. Regardless of whether I enjoyed it or not, I originally got into MMA to beat the feelings out of myself and, in a way, punish myself for not living my life how it all should have been. In some small way, I kinda had a death wish because I blundered into the whole thing without any training expecting it to turn out like street fighting.”

Her voice became somber. “You could have talked to me, honey. Did you not know that?”

Damn hormones. Tears started building up. “I didn’t feel safe in that house, Mom. I didn’t feel safe in Falls City. There was a trans man, a girl becoming a guy, in our town that was brutally beaten, raped, and shot–execution style–all for being himself in that small town. Once I heard that, I freaked out. That’s why I got into the ‘You-dub’ and moved to Seattle, in the first place.”

From the tone of her voice, I could tell she was tearing up, too. I couldn’t look at her, though. “I’m sorry, sweetie… I didn’t know.”

“I wasn’t ready to tell you, yet.” I sniffled. “I did my best to keep it all inside and not let anyone know. Mom, I loved Julia. To a point, I still do, but the relationship started as a farce. I only really got with her to appear ‘normal’.”

“So… you had to make yourself appear as the toughest, most manly guy on the block so you wouldn’t be a victim. Is that it?”

My shoulders moved slightly in an attempt to shrug. “I guess so. That… and try in some way to convince myself that I was a ‘manly man’ in the first place.”

For the next couple of hours, we continued the back and forth question and answer session. It was the first time I’d really ever been open with my mom. I told her everything, including the dream of being a mother some day. She listened and tried to be as supportive as she could. After a bit, we moved from the kitchen area to the couches in the parlor and just kept the conversation going. It had moments of laughter and moments of tears. I told her about the kidnapping, the ‘imprisonment’, my escape, the time with Mike and Steven, and everything that had happened in San Francisco. She wasn’t thrilled about the drinking story, but laughed about Green Arrow breaking the bottle of vodka all over my clothes. All in all, it was the best conversation we’d ever had because of all the honesty flowing between us.

“So, when did you start wearing panties?” My mother asked as we were winding down and she pointed out my sleep shirt’s inability to cover everything up when I sat ‘Indian style’.

Glancing down, I pulled the shirt down between my legs and blushed. “Well… about the start of my period, I guess? I think we both know that they’re kind of a necessity, at that point.”

“So, the transformation really was that thorough, huh?”

“Yes… much to my chagrin, most of the time.”

She let out a remorseful sigh. “I really have missed a lot, haven’t I?” Her serious eyes met mine. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ll have to make it up to you, somehow.”

“Why are you apologizing? It’s not like you knew anything. I told you, Mike and Steven had to put me through some pretty rigorous testing before they were certain I was me. The people who kidnapped me made everyone, including you, believe I was dead. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

She chuckled. “Oh, really? A gay man taught you how to use a maxi pad and you call that sufficient?”

My blush darkened. “Not really, at first, but I got the hang of it.”

“Well, honey…” She set down her empty coffee cup and leaned a little closer to me. “When we had your… funeral, I met with that lovely young woman you were so in love with. She was very much in love with you, too. We shared a lot of things together. Mostly, it was all the memories. From what she and I talked about, I would say that I succeeded in teaching you to be a gentleman. I’m glad for that.” She smiled and rubbed my cheek with her thumb. “It seems that now I have to teach you how to be a lady.”

My eyes rolled, my body fell back against the sofa, my hand smacked my forehead, and I let out a groan. “Oh, just great… as if my life couldn’t be any more complicated…”

Her only response was to giggle… hysterically.

A week passed and it seemed my life was beginning to smooth out into some semblance of a ‘normal’ routine. My mom and I continued to have our morning coffee and chat session. All the paperwork was signed, notarized, copied into Ms. Walters’ file, and sent off to some vault at the U.S. Marshal’s office. Once Agent Helligan dropped off my check from the government, my mother insisted on some “mother-daughter shopping time”. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but doing this sort of thing with my mother was really weird. Thankfully, I got to keep a few “boyish habits”–as my mother called them–because a tomboy girl was relatively acceptable. Getting fitted for some bras and shopping for underwear was awkward for both of us, thankfully. When my mother had me sitting in a makeup artist’s chair, I wanted to just hide somewhere. The lessons were going well, I guess.

Finally getting some time to myself, a thought crossed my mind. Mom had gotten me some workout clothes after she learned how important Kung Fu really was to me. Of course, she suggested I take some yoga classes, but that seemed like taking a step too far to me. My assumption that yoga was too “girly” was obviously unfounded. Still, slipping on a sports bra, some workout leggings, and an oversized, three-quarter length shirt that hung off my shoulders was comfortable enough. At the very least, I could stuff some shoes in my saddlebags while all my leathers fit on over top of the whole outfit. As I scurried through the house toward the garage, my mother spotted my outfit and insisted on tying my hair back into a ponytail. She’s gotten into a bad habit of messing with my hair every chance she got. When she was finished, I was excused.

I needed to do a workout. I needed something I knew as routine. Everything was just coming at me from all angles all at once and I was unprepared for it. Not having a computer and the internet accessible was a hindrance. Shifu never advertised online, in the newspaper, or anything. If someone trained with him, it was because they’d heard about him from another student or they lived in the neighborhood around the academy. Having been plucked from the grapevine about where to go gave me no other option than to scout the neighborhood. After slipping on my leathers and jumping on the bike, I started my search. Regrettably, I hadn’t really learned too much about the area. There was nothing but Gold’s Gym, Bally, and 24-hour Fitness in the area I lived. Fucking yuppies.

I searched the Marina District. I searched the Richmond District. I searched the Market District. I stayed away from the Castro District knowing that any gyms there would be populated by a majority of gay men and that’s not an environment I wanted to get in the way of. Stopped at a light four hours later, I spotted a run-down looking place on the eastern side of the peninsula. The building was wedged between an old dollar store and an antique mall. It looked like it had once been painted proudly in some combination of white and black tiger stripes, but all the colors had faded with age and the paint seemed to be peeling. The whole front visage had windows, but the dust had engulfed those years ago. I could barely make out the sign stenciled on the front door, but the place looked promising to my eye. I can’t explain why.

Thankfully, the place had a small parking lot across the street, so I left the bike there as I walked with my workout bag to the front entrance. From the look of the place, it was probably a good idea I left my leathers on so I looked a little tougher. Amazingly, the helmet didn’t mess up my hair too much. My mom was a genius. Stopping at the door, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It’s always jarring to enter a new gym. The current stock of regulars will always size you up like a slab of meat. I would be prepared for that. Inside, the sound of men grunting, punching various sand bags, landing on a boxing ring, and weights being lifted filled the air. Unfortunately, the smell of sweating men filled my nostrils. I tried my best to block it out. With another breath, I swung the door open and walked inside.

Off to the far left of the entrance sat a rock climbing wall. Further back from that was a free weight area. To the far right, it seemed like someone had constructed a dojo in Japan and just dropped it into the place. The center, of course, was the regulation boxing ring. The place went from the sounds of activity to a deafening silence. The men all seemed to turn around and look at me in some kind of slow motion. I could hear someone’s footsteps approaching and my eyes turned to the sound. It sounded like a rather burly man, at least.

“Welcome to the Wild Cat Gym. How can I help y…” The large man with slicked back black hair with some graying around his temples looked down at me and immediately got angry. “Oh, fuck me! Not another one!”

In all honesty, even for someone like me, the guy was intimidating. The only sign of his aging was the aforementioned gray hair. He was built like an ox. His face, though, looked like Sylvester Stallone’s if Rocky’s bouts in the ring actually showed on it. His nose was beat to hell and there was a scar that crossed over his left eye. He wore a black muscle shirt and woodland fatigues that looked like he originally bought them in the 1970’s, or something. Both his hands were wrapped in boxing tape. From the condition, it didn’t look like he ever took the tape off.

My right eyebrow rose on its own. “Excuse me? Is that how you greet all potential customers?”

He violently shook his head. “No. Not gonna happen. There are no girls allowed in my gym! You better turn around and walk that sweet little ass back out the door!”

I dropped my bag and immediately pointed an accusing finger at him. “First of all, fuck you! Second of all, I just walked through the door and suddenly I’m being harassed? Not gonna cut it, Mister! You ever heard of discrimination?!”

He seemed to puff up like a silverback gorilla preparing to charge. “Little lady, this is a fighter’s gym. I have trained some of the best boxers, wrestlers, and MMA fighters in the last three decades. I don’t train anymore. I certainly don’t train girls.”

Even though I was beyond pissed off, my eyes did lighten up a little. “Serious? A fighter’s gym? That’s just what I’m lookin’ for!”

He started laughing and half the room joined him. “Missy, I said I train fighters! You look like a god damn cheerleader. There’s no cheerleading coach here.”

A second later, my memory clicked. He was clearly hazing me. The guys at my first gym did this to me when I came looking to train. It’s all a grotesque display of masculine territorial defense and a test of mettle, to see if the “new guy” is up to the challenge. In a way, it was almost like reverse psychology except I was getting the impression this guy really didn’t like me. A cocky smirk started growing on my face.

“Fine! We’ll settle this!” My eyes darted into the main room then back up at the man. “I’ll take on any one of these pussies and make them my bitch!”

Every last one of them laughed but it was the man in front of me who continued to speak. “Are you fucking serious? These boys will murder you, girly.”

“Well, let’s see it, then! Prove it!” I was on to his little game and I think it frustrated him more. Good.

He pointed into the main room with his thumb. “You’re gonna get into that ring with one of these fighters and expect to live?”

“Fuck your bravado and put your money where your fucking mouth is, big man!”

He laughed again. “Well, it’s your funeral. There’s no ladies’ locker room. You’ll have to change in the…”

“No need.” I slipped off my jacket. “I came prepared.”

Another laugh. “Yea… prepared to hit the dance studio…” He continued laughing as he trudged down the hall. “Come on, Flash Dance.”

Reluctantly, he led me down the arrival corridor lined with trophy cases that were stuffed full of various rewards and the pictures of past legendary fighters who had won the awards. I recognized many of them, but a lot of the older ones were a mystery to me. He took himself seriously, though. That much was obvious. When we arrived in the main area, the ring dominated the space. Everyone remained silent and the ring was cleared rather quickly. He spun at me with a smirk.

“You need me to hold the ropes for you, girly?” His condescendence drizzled out the sides of his mouth.

“This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve got it.” My glare reached him but it didn’t faze him.

Setting my jacket on top of my bag and slipping off my boots, I shimmied out of my leather pants and received a few wolf whistles from various people in the room. Ignoring them for the time being, I proceeded to wrap up my hands and wrists to avoid needlessly risking any damage to them. All truth told, I was scared out of my wits and pretty embarrassed to be in the room with these men ogling me. There was no reason to bother with my shoes, for now. Instead, I popped in my mouth protection. With effortless ease, I climbed into the ring over all three ropes. The owner huffed at me and leaned against one of the support poles in the corner.

As I stood in the ring, my eyes met… well, my eyes. Across the room and hanging on the back wall was a promotional poster of me back before all this happened to me. My muscles seemed to want to tear out of my flesh and the look on my face was the face of danger and intimidation. Now, my muscles had never been all that big–not like Mike’s, anyway–but they looked huge, compared to the me of right now. They had rubbed me down with Vaseline and then sprayed water to make it look like I was super sweaty. I looked like a total badass in that poster. With a smile growing on my lips, my nerve returned. I knew where I’d been and what I’d become. I needed this for my own sake and some dumbass man wasn’t going to take that from me.

A Hispanic man stepped into the ring. He wasn’t more than two or three inches taller than me, but he was certainly bigger. Even without the Vaseline and water, the man had beads of sweat on his skin and his muscles were clearly defined. He’d been training for a big fight, from the looks of him. All he had on were his boxing shorts and his hand wraps. My loins responded in an uncomfortable manner, but I shook my head to focus on the fight not what my crotch had in mind.

“This here is Lenny, little lady. He’s one of the biggest stars, right now.” The gym owner announced. “You beat him and I’ll let you play with the boys like some weird ass lesbian.”

Lenny smirked. “You ain’t nothin’ to me, bitch. You’re just a stepping stone.”

My eyebrows rose in unison. “Who was he training to fight, Mighty Mouse?”

“Right, smart ass. He was trainin’ to fight The Animal, before that man’s untimely death.” The owner pointed at the aforementioned poster. “That right there was the scourge of the West Coast MMA circuit and probably would have been the national champ. You ain’t in his league, but Lenny was. Good luck. If I have to call an ambulance instead of a hearse, I’ll call it a good day.”

I scoffed and glared at Lenny. “Let’s see if you really were in The Animal’s league, pipsqueak.”

“You’re dead, bitch!”

The bell sounded and we both lunged at each other.

Marked Target ~ Chapter Twelve ~ by: Danielle Krieger (c) 2011 Lawrence "Lex" McKinley lives about as average a life as one can with metahumans popping up everywhere. Well, as normal as someone who spends their free time as an MMA fighter really can. He's about to get the shock of his life--the punch he never saw coming. In this installment: Lex's mettle proven, she gets a job offer. A family emergency erupts out of nowhere and Lex shows just what kind of person she is.

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DISCLAIMER :: This is a retroactive continuity. A “ret-con”, if you will. It follows other stories in Lilith Langtree’s “Comics RetCon Universe”. The story is mine, but some of the characters are not. This is a RetCon of X-23, from Marvel Comics’ X-men (with a special guest appearance from Dr. Hank McCoy). Laura Kinney, X-23, Dr. Henry Philip “Hank” McCoy, Beast, and Jennifer Walters, SheHulk, are trademarks of Marvel Comics. Agent Helligan is a trademark of Detective Comics. All rights reserved. The pic for this chapter was done by an artist only known online as Lone Wolf.

Author's Note :: Yes, it's been a long time since there's been an update. I'm really sorry for that. Sometimes, life just really gets in the way. I will say that Ch. 13 is already in the works, so won't be too much longer before there's another update.

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Chapter Twelve:

The moment the bell tolled, the two of us combatants wanted each other’s hide. Certainly, I questioned Lenny’s motives in attacking a woman so fiercely but I had something to prove. My brain was completely in the zone.

Without any thought, I leapt into the air and thrust my feet forward, coming in contact with his chest. It was typically something I did when battling an opponent bigger than me. It let them know immediately that I was dangerous. He let out a grunt as he flew backward a foot or two and landed on his ass. I flew back almost uncontrollably, but I’d executed this move so much that my body knew exactly what to do. I fell back on my hands and bent my arms to absorb the impact, then sprang forward, swung my legs, and landed upright on my feet. The spectacle was usually well received by martial arts movie watchers in the crowd. On my feet once more, I immediately took a stance and squared off at my opponent. He seemed a little dazed and rather confused as to how I was on my feet and he wasn’t.

“Holy fuck! You see that?” One man shouted on the ring’s perimeter.

“I saw it… still don’t believe it. That’s one o’ Animal’s moves, right there. Where’d this chick learn that shit?” Another replied.

“I dunno, but you see the stance?”

“Yea, I know… Animal’s stance. This shit is crazy, yo. You think she knows him?”

“It’s not just Animal’s stance, dude. That’s fucking Crane Style! Somehow, this chick knows some Xiao Lin!”

A thought crossed my mind, which only fueled my anger at that commentary. He was giving away my moves and my fighting style right in front of my opponent. This was going to be a tricky fight. I tore off the shirt that I had worn over my sports bra and threw it at him.

“Can it, meat! Let the man figure it out for himself! Don’t give away the Golden Goose, asswipe!” I screamed at him in my shrill voice.

All the other men whistled like hungry wolves. Meanwhile, Lenny took it upon himself to make the most of my distraction, perform a leg sweep, and knock me on my back. My head hit the mat of the ring pretty hard, dazing me for a second. My response was to push off the ground, land on my feet, hop up, and swing my leg around. My foot came in contact with his jaw hard enough to disperse most of the saliva in his mouth. The nearby crowd protested being spat upon. I bore a smirk as I entered my stance, switching the tone a little. I was angry, so Tiger Form was fitting, I’d say. Lenny wasn’t so smug, any more.

Out of anger, he turned and launched a punch at me. Bad move. With clawed hand, the punch was easy to deflect, but I had to add insult to injury. In one swift moment, I blocked the punch, launched a palm strike that connected with his collar bone, swept my foot under his legs, toppled him to the ground, and came down on his chest with a knife hand strike. I let out a grunt that sounded like I said “dooj” and jumped back up to my stance. I think I heard his collar bone and a two or three ribs crack. He was not in good shape, no matter how you sliced it. He lay there writhing on the ground for a good few moments. I wanted him to stay down and end this madness, but I’d insulted his masculinity. He lumbered back up and got into fighting stance once more. Do they never learn?

One… two… three frontal kicks he launched at me that I blocked with some trepidation but not much. Then, the finale was a strong roundhouse kick aimed at my stomach. It was a classic Tae Kwon Do move. He expected to beat me in my prime with Tae Kwon Do? The roundhouse was difficult, but not impossible to deflect. One hand grasped his ankle and I bent my other arm so that the flat of my forearm impacted with his thigh. He flew away from me with a yelp. That’s a bruised hamstring, ladies and gentlemen.

As a fighter, you learn that taking blows may hurt and some bleed but you learn something from the encounter. Frankly, I was a little disappointed. So far, the only thing I’d take away from this fight was going to be defensive wounds, if that. I wasn’t going to learn anything and that was rather disappointing.

“You fucking little whore!” Lenny screamed as he limped into his stance.

My eyes narrowed on him. “That’s it! No more Miss Sugar and Spice!”

I jumped out of my stance and launched myself at him. It’s not a move in any martial arts repertoire. It was improvisation on my part. He didn’t know what to do, so I just impacted with him and we fell to the mat of the ring together. He lay flat underneath me and I straddled his midsection with one arm pinning him with his injured collar bone and the other poised to punch him. As an equally unexpected move on his part, I felt his hands firmly grab both cheeks.

“Yea, that’s exactly where I like my women.” He grinned like a school boy.

I growled. “You have less than three seconds to remove your hands from my ass. One!”

“Or what, sweetheart?”

“Two!” SNIKT! The blades erupted from my knuckles.

His hands released and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. “Holy fuck!”

“That’s enough!” The gym owner called out.

The crowd, who had been cheering wildly at my final move, fell silent the instant sunlight bounced off my blades. None of them had any idea what was going on. The owner strode up to Lenny and I, grabbed me by the shoulders, and threw me off the man. Snikt. The blades returned to my forearms and the wounds they caused healed almost immediately. Lenny scrambled to his feet and limped out of the ring. The owner stood over me with an expression that I couldn’t decipher, though he looked pretty pissed off.

“You’re meta, aren’t you?” He asked in a very plain tone.

Feigning behavior of a “proper lady”, I stood and wiped some of the dust off my ass. “Yea, I am.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “I haven’t seen anyone fight like that in a long time. Who were you?”

Letting out a sigh then shaking and lowering my head, I pointed at the poster on the far wall. They both glanced at the ‘George of the Jungle’ look-alike. “That was me.”

He turned the poster, then back to me. “Bullshit. The Animal, Lex McKinley, is dead.”

My eyes returned to his. “Can you think of a better cover?”

His expression didn’t change. “Why’d you come here?”

Another sigh escaped. “I used to be somebody… somebody I can’t be, anymore. With all the shit that’s happened in the past year or so, I wanted a small snippet of my old life back. This was the best place I found.”

One of the commentators from ringside climbed onto the ropes but remained outside them. “Wildcat, either she studied Animal through and through for months before coming here or you’re lookin’ at him. She pulled shit I’ve only seen him pull off, shit that made him the formidable fighter he was. If she’s meta, that could be Animal.”

The owner’s head nudged toward the man. “That’s Jamal, my top trainer. He was training Lenny when Lex died.”

“Lex isn’t dead. I’m Lex. I just can’t be very open about it, okay? It’s fucking dangerous for me.”

“You in some shit?” Jamal asked.

“Yea… somebody kidnapped me about the time I changed. They still want to find me and bring me in. I don’t know why, but they managed to fake my death rather convincingly, so they’re pretty dangerous.”

Jamal shook his head. “Damn, girl. You better hide.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” My voice showed my aggravation by rising in pitch, slightly.

“So… if you are who you say you are and whatever you say happened actually happened… why risk exposing yourself by showing up at my gym?” The owner–‘Wildcat’, Jamal had called him–asked again.

I let out another sigh. “I told you: to get something of my old life back. I can’t just sit around the house playing video games all the time until school starts. Besides, all this smothering my mom’s been doing is driving me fucking nuts.”

“What’s your name?” Wildcat wondered.

“Lauren Kinney, a-k-a Talon, sir.”

“Tell you what, Talon: You come back tomorrow and we’ll have a sit down with Jamal. Work for you?”

“What’s this talk about, anyway?”

“He’s givin’ you a job. Take it.” Jamal nodded fiercely.

I smirked at Wildcat. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The anxious elation inside me built to a point where I wouldn’t be able to take it once I got home. I’d probably blurt out the good news the moment I saw my mother. A gym was going to give me a job. I could keep my skills fresh and, even though there was no way the national MMA association would let me fight anymore, I could at least bring up the next crop of fighters. There was a lot to process and a lot of planning to go through, but I didn’t care about any of it, yet. At the moment, I was just thankful none of the cops had stopped me for speeding.

After hastily yet carefully parking the bike in the garage, I actually skipped into the house. I rounded the pool table with my boots clopping against the hardwood floor. Mom wasn’t in the parlor or the kitchen. Pausing to reflect on my perplexity, my ears caught the sounds of some movie or program running in the TV room. That was pretty odd, considering that I’d been the only one to utilize the space as of late. Still bearing the confused expression, I slowly walked down the corridor to the room. Oddly enough, my mother was lounging on the sofa when I came in. In one swift motion, she grabbed the remote, muted the television, and sprang up with a smile on her face the moment she saw me.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re back!” She swiftly wrapped her arms around me. Clearly, she was excited about something. She let me go just as quickly and stood back a step. “How did it go?”

I snapped back into reality. “Oh! Pretty good, actually.” My eyebrow rose. “Since when do you watch TV?”

She shrugged. “Since I’ve already done the chores three times this week and I’m not catering to Randy’s every whim.”

Good point. “Okay, well, good for you.” My smile returned. “I got a job, today.”

“Really? I thought you were going to go find somewhere to work out some?”

My turn to shrug. “Well, yes… and I did. They also offered me a job. I told you, I’m pretty good at the whole fighting thing. They saw that and I’ve got an interview tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure the owner’s gonna hire me.”

Her hands quickly fell onto her hips. Oh, here we go. “Are you sure that’s a proper occupation for a girl your age? You couldn’t get a job as a barista or something like that?”

My eyes automatically rolled in their sockets. “Geez, Mom! I thought we talked about the ‘typical girl’ thing and agreed that I’m not that kind of pedigree?”

Her whole posture slumped. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying.”

“Well, not really, no. I’ll give you an ‘A’ for the effort, but the ‘uber-girly daughter’ thing isn’t going to go the way you want it.” I smirked. “Welcome to parenting.”

She frowned. “This isn’t my first pony show, young lady.” I giggled as she playfully slapped my shoulder. “Now, there’s something I want to tell you. First…” she spun around to the coffee table, picked up a rectangular electronic device, and handed it to me. “…you forgot your phone and some girl named Olivia called?”

My eyes widened. “Oh, yea? What’d she have to say?”

“Call her when you get a minute, which you don’t have, yet. Second, I hope you don’t mind, but I used your phone.”

I shrugged, taking the phone. “That’s no big deal, Mom. Who’d you call?”

“Your grandmother. Honey, I have a decision to make, but I’d rather you had input into it.” She seemed a bit depressed and weighed down.

“O… kay… what?”

“Well, technically, this is your house and I know we’re supposed to be pretending you’re a regular sixteen-year-old girl, but I know you have been an adult for a while.” She let out a sigh. “Honey, your aunt Debbie isn’t doing so well. I tried to call her, but her phone is disconnected. I guess Randy kept me isolated far too long. After talking to your grandma, I heard that they foreclosed on your aunt’s house. She and your cousin Megan are living out of the van, right now…”

There was only one response to that. My face instantly shifted to a more serious expression. “Done. Where are they?”

A tear sparkled in her eye as she smiled. “That’s how I thought you’d react. Megan, your cousin, has been using the computers at school to talk with your grandma. That’s the only way they’ve had to communicate, so far. She goes to Western High School. You’ll have to get there before school ends so you stand a chance of catching up with her. I’d go with you, but I’m really scared of that motorcycle.”

Taking a step toward her, I kissed my mom on the cheek. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’m on it.”

She meekly grinned. “That’s my girl. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Without a response, I rushed back out the door.

It was a really dumb idea to rush out the door without knowing where the school was located. However, having a smartphone does have its advantages. The traffic was terrible, given the fact that some of the schools let out earlier than others. Secretly, I hoped that traffic wouldn’t be this bad after my final dismissal bell rang. Still, the heavy traffic gave me a chance to stop at lights and check my route to the school on my phone. Trying to do so while driving a motorcycle was just asking for a nasty accident that I really didn’t need.

Unfortunately, I was on a time crunch. At the time my mother told me about the whole thing, I had about twenty minutes to get down to the school before it was dismissed for the day. California law allows for motorcycles to ride along the painted traffic lines between the cars, which gave me a speed advantage, but I still had to adhere to traffic lights. Those things are the bane of my existence when I’m in a hurry. I would believe I’m not the only one that carries the sentiment.

If getting to the school was a nightmare, talking to the staff about Megan’s whereabouts might be impossible. The weight of trying to remain anonymous was starting to sting a bit. Also, I wasn’t technically an adult, anymore. I could ride my motorcycle with my license, but couldn’t actually excuse my cousin out of class on my own. This would require some thinking and a little cunning on my part. Parking in front of the school was a no-go because there were already parents waiting to pick up their kids and they were strategically positioned on the curb. So, I improvised by driving up the sidewalk and parking near the bicycles. In a rush, I shut off the engine, slid off, and bolted inside. My helmet was coming off as I hit the doors.

Thankfully, the layout of the school was predictable. The office had a little window I could poke my head through to talk to one of the staff members and it was right by the front doors. As luck would have it, none of the adults were in the immediate vicinity, just a skinny blond girl who was being groomed to become someone’s secretary in the near future. I strode up and rang the little service bell on the counter. She glanced up at me and suddenly appeared disgusted.

“Yea, can I help you?” She sneered.

“Um… hi… I’m looking for Megan Kinney? There’s an important family matter and my mom sent me to find her.” My reply came in my best ‘sweet young girl’ impression. Somehow, I don’t think it worked, considering my biker leathers.

She was unimpressed. “How old are you, anyway? Aren’t you, like, no more than a sophomore? You know you can’t get her out of school, right?”

I nodded. “I know, but isn’t there, like, five minutes left until the bell?”

She gave me a sigh of annoyance and rolled her eyes. “I guess so.” She turned to her computer and typed in a few things. Nothing would give me greater joy than to punch her smug little face, but I was trying to play nice. After a few moments, her gaze returned to mine. “Well, she’s got Drama, right now, but she’s probably helping build one of the sets on the stage. A girl like her isn’t actress material. If you run, you might catch her before school ends.”

My eyes darted from one hallway to another. “Right… which one?”

She pointed at the hall directly behind me. “All the way to the end on the left.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a smile, she returned a facetious one. I loathe high school.

Turning one hundred eighty degrees, I started jogging down the hallway. It was quickly becoming apparent that the length of the hall was just asinine. The thing seemed to be about half a mile long! My breathing was a little quicker when I reached the double doors that read: “Stage”. I think they were supposed to be utility doors for loading and unloading of large set pieces?

Opening the door might have been a suicide move, on my part. Four guys carrying a slab of plywood yelled at me for getting in their way. Rolling away from them, I was now in a seriously busy and rather crowded backstage area. It seemed to me that the school would be putting on a rather large production relatively soon. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be one of the typical productions like Peter Pan or something like it. I shook my head, wiping away the thought. Then, another thought occurred to me: I hadn’t seen my own cousin in about five years, now. There are a lot of things that happen to a blossoming young woman in that kind of a time frame. I may not be able to recognize her. Next best thing: find the teacher.

Through the sea of students, my eyes finally rested on a middle-aged man with a bit of a belly and some gray hair starting to show on his scalp and in his full beard. He seemed to be barking orders at one of the students carrying a clipboard. I didn’t have enough knowledge of theater to be able to discern what job she might have had, but she seemed in charge of something. It didn’t matter. I’d found the teacher. Cautiously, I walked up to them and waited for their conversation to end.

Not skipping so much as a beat after barking at the girl with the clipboard, he turned and looked directly at me. “Who are you and what are you doing on my stage?”

Yep, I jumped a little in surprise. “Well… I…”

“Out with it, young lady! I don’t have all day! I’m very busy, right now!” Now, he was barking at me. He had a cadence and inflection that were strong, but he wasn’t yelling. So, why did I feel like I was being heavily scolded?

Glancing at the activity, I nodded. “I can see that.” My eyes returned to an annoyed expression on his face. “I’m looking for Megan Kinney? Is she around?”

He let out a sigh and rubbed his temples. “What’s this about?”

“An urgent family matter? I can’t really go into it, sorry.”

He pointed at a girl with crimson red hair dressed in all black. “She’s right there. If you need to take her, go ahead. There’s only a few more minutes left in the day, anyway.” His eyes met mine again. “Do you even have a hall pass, young lady?”

I quickly shook my head. “No, I don’t. I don’t even go to this school.” I started moving toward the girl. “Thanks, though.”

He grumbled and stormed off. My, if it were possible for men to get PMS, I’d say that teacher was experiencing some of the symptoms. Carefully, I made my way over to the girl who seemed to have relatively the same build as me. She wore a black hoodie with a skull and crossbones on the back, dark black jeans with some gray-ish stress marks manufactured into them, some hefty boots, and it looked like she had a wallet on a chain. Her hair was up in a ponytail to keep it out of her face as she worked, I deduced. She was sitting on her knees and, from the looks of things, working with a drill on something that looked like a wood frame. I carefully approached her.

“Megan?” I asked with inflection enough to convey that I wasn’t sure it was her.

“Yea, what do you want? You’re, like, the third person to come up to me in the past few minutes. This frame will be done when it’s done!” She responded in an obviously annoyed tone. She didn’t even turn to look up at me. She just kept working.

“Well… I have a message… from your aunt.”

Now, she stopped and looked at me. “And… who are you?” I couldn’t help but notice her green eyes were only a shade or two lighter than my own. From her makeup job, she really carried the Goth look pretty well–almost better than Julia, in some respects.

I tried to smile. “Someone who knows what’s up.” A part of me wasn’t sure it was safe to bring her up to speed. “I need to talk to you, but not here. The less people gossip, the better, right?”

“I have got to get this done soon or Mr. Burleigh will have my head by the end of the week.”

“The guy with the gray hair and the PMS?”

She smirked. “So, you’ve met him.”

I nodded. “Yea, he told me where to find you and that you’re cool to head out early. There’s a family emergency.”

Her eyes widened. “It’s not my mom, is it?”

I quickly shook my head. “No, it isn’t. As far as I know, she’s okay.” She breathed a sigh of relief while I glanced around us. “Let’s not talk about this here, though?”

She frowned. “Right, just lemme put this drill away and get my backpack?”

“I’m good with that.”

She stood up and I followed her for a few minutes. While backstage, it was like running a gauntlet. Now, I’m pretty sure I know why I never got into drama class. If you weren’t one of the pretty and popular kids, you were stuck with “technical theater”. A stage hand, basically. Once we made it into the shop area and she put the drill away, she grabbed her backpack and we exited from the wide open loading door. After walking about fifty feet down the sidewalk, there was no one around but the two of us.

“You wanted to be alone, now we’re alone. Talk.” She requested.

A sigh escaped. “I know about you and your mom, Megan. That’s why I’m here.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. She looked like she was frightened and pissed off at the same time. “Who told you about that?! Was it ‘little miss perfect’ Kristen?! I’ll kill that girl, I swear!”

“Good god, Megan! Take a chill pill!” I barked right back. “No, it wasn’t anything like that… I told you, it’s a family thing. Run with that.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me how you know about me and my mom!” She defiantly crossed her arms.

A grumble escaped. “You’ve been talking to grandma and she told my mom.”

Now, she looked utterly confused. “Wait… your mom? Grandma? Who the fuck are you? I’ve never seen you at any of the family gatherings. I know those people, which is why I avoid them like the plague.”

“It’s a really long story and I’d like to get to your mom so we can have a chat.”

She stepped up and got right in my face. She was the same height as my mom. Man, I really hate being this short. “Look, I asked you who the fuck you are, bitch. Now, are you gonna tell me or do I scream for the cops?”

I simply placed my hand on her stomach and pushed her back a step. My face was in a scowl when it met hers again. “I’m Sarah Kinney’s kid, okay?”

She scoffed. “Yea, right! Aunt Sarah had a boy, which you clearly aren’t. She only had one kid and he’s dead, now. Besides, her name isn’t Kinney, it’s McKinley. Nice try.”

“Not anymore, it’s not. I told you, long story. Suffice to say, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Randy will be getting a divorce… by way of his incarceration.”

She laughed. “Uncle Randy’s in jail? Serves the fucker right! What’d he do, this time?”

“He attacked my mom right in front of a federal agent.”

“Whoa, slow down… federal agent?”

The bell rang and kids were starting to pour out of the school’s exits. “I told you that it is a long story, okay? Now, can we walk or are we gonna air all the dirty laundry in front of everybody?”

She scowled, but gave me a reluctant nod. I growled, but was relieved that we were moving again. Neither one of us uttered a single word until we approached my bike in front of the school. That was an interminable dead silence. Her eyes lit up and her mood shifted quite a bit once she saw the thing. It was like she was seeing all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me you had a motorcycle?” She seemed rather indignant.

I reached to hand her the helmet. “You didn’t really give me time. You’re wearing the helmet. Trust me when I say that I have a better chance of surviving a crash without it than you do.”

She looked confused again. “Okay…” Then, a thought seemed to cross her mind. “Wait, won’t we look like a couple of lesbians with you driving and me riding ‘bitch’?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care if you don’t. After all, this is San Francisco. How weird a sight would it be?”

“Touché.” She took the helmet from me. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Tal…” My head shook the pseudonym from my brain. “I mean… Lauren. Lauren Kinney.” I swung my leg over and set the bike upright. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s at about 49th and California, parked next to Golden Gate Park.” She slipped the helmet on. “Just don’t kill me, okay? I’m only sixteen.”

“I know.” I smirked. “Just lean with me and not the bike. You’ll be fine. Does she still drive that old van from the 90’s?”

“Yea… how did you… nevermind. Just drive careful.” She slipped onto the seat behind me.

The moment the bike growled to life, she wrapped her arms around my ribs in a death grip. Having her breasts pressed firmly against my back was the strangest feeling. I had given Julia rides on a motorcycle before, but now it seemed very different, somehow. I mean besides the fact that the pair of breasts now belonged to my cousin. Shrugging off the thoughts, I engaged the clutch and slowly applied acceleration. Thankfully, I knew San Francisco well enough to get to the park from where we were. Driving carefully wasn’t that big of an issue, either. Technically, it was rush hour, now.

After a grueling half hour, we were through some of the worst traffic and headed up one of the long avenues that form the border of the park that so desperately tried to be a West Coast version of Central Park in Manhattan. The thing was huge and had lots of trees, okay? Thankfully, Megan’s grip had loosened up as she became more comfortable with my driving and being on a motorcycle in general. As we drove past 45th Street, I slowed down a bit and kept my eyes open for my aunt’s van. It was one of those Astrovans that Ford put out in the 1990’s that ushered in a whole new era for the suburban soccer mom–taking them out of station wagons and into minivans. It was an all right construction and had plenty of space; it just wasn’t very pretty to look at.

Finally, at almost 50th street, the gray and blue van began to stand out amongst the other vehicles. Thankfully, I found a handicap ramp that I used to get up onto the sidewalk and head toward the van. I could see the expression on my aunt’s face as she sat in the driver’s seat: confusion. Naturally, she was a woman approaching forty with long black-ish brown hair and her eyes were blue rather than green. I couldn’t really tell what she was wearing from my vantage point, but it didn’t matter that much. A moment after I shut down the bike, I heard a door slam and footsteps round the van.

“Megan Kinney, what have I told you about riding with strangers and who is this girl?” The woman shouted at her daughter.

Megan quickly slipped off the bike and removed the helmet. “Mom?! What the hell?! Chill, okay?”

‘Bad idea’, I thought.

“I most certainly will not, young lady!”

By this time, I had swung my leg off the bike and turned to the woman. “Aunt Debbie, please calm down. I know this is going to be confusing…”

She turned her enraged gaze at me. “I think I would have remembered if I had a niece that looked like you! Who are you?!”

“My name is Lauren. I’m Sarah’s kid.” I breathed slowly. This was going to take a while to sink in.

My aunt laughed. “Fat chance! My sister gave birth to a boy who is now dead and buried.” Tears formed in her eyes. “Gawd, I miss Lex…”

Megan seemed just as somber as she lowered her head and fidgeted with the helmet. “I do too, Mom.”

Tears flowed freely and she spoke hysterically. “For you to invoke the name of my dead nephew at a time like this… it’s just sick!”

I stepped up to her and made her meet my eyes. “Aunt Debbie, look at me!”

We stared into each other’s eyes for a few minutes. Besides the birds and traffic, there was silence for the duration. Then, she seemed to step back a little bit. I could see certain realizations starting to tick into place within her psyche. There were still certain things that her intellect just wouldn’t let her believe, however. That would be a hurdle.

“Those… those are Sarah’s eyes…” She seemed to be piecing things together. “But… you can’t be hers. She could only ever have Lex. Her body just wouldn’t let her.” Then she lost it.

“I said that, too, but she won’t listen to me.” Megan added with a shrug.

A sigh released from me. “I can’t really explain it to you without proof. Right now, that’s not really what’s important. I know what’s going on here and I came to bring you and Megan home. I will not have family living on the streets when I have the means to prevent it.”

My aunt scoffed. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of scheme to try and tell me I’ve won millions of dollars and all it’s going to cost me is everything I own? How am I supposed to know that you won’t lead me and my daughter to some man that will sell us as sex slaves, huh?”

“Mo-oom! Geezus!” Megan protested. “I thought I was a little skeptical and paranoid about this, but you took it to a whole new level, there!”

It was my turn to huff. “You’ve heard about the metahumans, right?”

They both turned to me and chorused. “What?!”

“Metahumans? Oh, come on! You haven’t watched the news in more than a year?”

“I watched that Jade girl on television at school.” Megan shrugged.

“So, you’ve heard about Tera, Booster Gold, and all the rest, right?” My eyes darted from one to the other. “And, you’ve heard what happens when a new metahuman manifests, right?”

“All I’ve ever seen was guys turning into girls.” Megan caught on pretty quickly.

“Yep, that’s about how it goes.” I sighed. “Well…” I bent my arm across my chest and flexed my fist. SNIKT! “I’m one of them, but I’m one of the good guys.”

They both seemed to jump back when the claws extended. I can’t really blame them, though. It is pretty freaky how quickly they extend. My aunt seemed fairly scared and confused. Megan was that way to for a moment, then her eyes lit up as she gazed at my claws.

“That’s actually kinda cool…” She commented.

“That’s not the cool part. Remember when I said you needed the helmet more than me?”

“Yea?”

I released my fist. SNIKT! I held out my fist in her direction as the sores healed. Her eyes lit up again.

“That’s actually pretty rad, right there. Does it hurt?”

My head quickly nodded. “Oh, yes it does!” I shrugged. “I’m pretty used to it, though. I’ve had them for about a year, now.”

“Wait… a year? That’s about the time…” My aunt’s eyes started to widen in surprise.

“About the time Lex went missing? Keep following that thought train, Aunt Debbie.”

“So… you’re a girl… you’ve got powers, I guess… you actually kinda look like Aunt Sarah, too.” Megan thought aloud.

My eyes returned to the stunned woman. “Aunt Debbie, I’m gonna need you to follow me back to the house. Mom’s waiting for you and probably worried sick about me. She hates my motorcycle.”

Megan giggled. “If she’s anything like my mom, I bet she does!”

My hand reached out toward Megan. “Can I have my helmet back, now?”

She blinked a couple of times. “Aren’t I riding with you?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but my aunt Debbie beat me to the punch. “You most certainly are not, young lady!”

My finger pointed at Aunt Debbie, but my eyes were fixed on Megan. “You should listen to your mom. She didn’t like you riding on the bike in the first place. I guessed she’d rather have you in the van with her. Besides, I’m gonna need to call and your mom shouldn’t use the phone and drive.”

“Wait a minute…” Aunt Debbie began. “You’re driving a motorcycle and you don’t want me to talk on the phone and drive?”

I merely pointed at the helmet. “That’s got Bluetooth. I’d never dream of holding a phone up to my ear and trying to drive a motorcycle. I’m a little attached to living. However, I can talk through the helmet and give you guys directions to where we’re going.”

My aunt folded her arms and shifted her weight onto one side of her hips. That’s body language for: 'don’t you dare leave me in the dark. “And just where are we going?”

“My house. Didn’t I just say that a minute ago?” My eyes darted between them as they remembered my words. “Right. Helmet, please. Aunt Debbie, grab everything you have, get it in the van, give me the phone number, and we’ll head out…” I stopped just then. “Sorry… um, please?”

Reluctantly, they began following my requests. Within minutes, both of them were in the van and I started the bike.

The drive back to the house was only arduous because of the annoyingly high amount of traffic. I had to take it a bit slower than I would have liked with a van carrying two bewildered souls behind me. Like the tortoise, we took it steady and slow until the locale of residential streets allowed for opening up the throttle a little more. Given moments like this, my brain began working out coding that might turn into a more comprehensive application for driving directions that didn’t involve many major thoroughfares in the middle of rush hour. Instead, base it on driving strategies only the locals might know about. I may call it “Average Joe Driving Directions” and sell it on iTunes for five bucks a pop, or something. You can take the girl out of programming, but never take programming out of the girl.

Finally back to the house, I cordially instructed my aunt to occupy the garage on the opposite side of the house from where my bike was typically parked. Everyone agreed that now was the time to do any unpacking at all. Instead, I guided them into the living room where my mom was waiting with happy wails, hugs, and tears. It’s been years since my mom has seen any of her family members face-to-face, so I can imagine the whole experience was quite surreal for her. Megan and I exchanged glances, nodded, and non-verbally decided that leaving the two sisters to their reunion was the best course of action at the moment. Besides, all the high-pitched screeching was really starting to hurt my ears.

With eyes surveying every inch of her surroundings, Megan followed me upstairs to my room. Even with the spirited reunion going on downstairs, it was fairly quiet upstairs. The only thing that usually defied the distance alone was the smell of whatever my mom happened to be cooking at the time. Slipping off my jacket and letting my torso really breathe, I flopped onto the bed quite unceremoniously. Megan seemed quite uncomfortable as if she were intruding when she leaned on the doorframe glancing at me with half a smile on her face. Her eyes gave my room a more thorough scan than the rest of the scenery up to this point.

“It’s good to see Aunt Sarah in a good mood.” She finally spoke after a rather uneasy silence. “I still don’t know who the fuck you are, but I’m glad I got to see my aunt. Thanks, I guess.”

A way too feminine and rather unimposing grumbling sound came out of me, signaling my mild annoyance. “Do you know how many fucking times I’ve had to prove myself to people in the last… I dunno… six months?” Swiftly, I lifted my upper body off the surface of the bed.

Her eyes wandered around the room. “Well, I can tell ya one thing: this doesn’t look like a girl’s room. And, before you lash out and go all ninja bitch on my ass, I don’t mean that there is an apparent lack of pink and frillies. I gave up on that shit when I was six.” She let out a sigh. “There’s just… I dunno… that certain ‘air’ that somebody might expect that says pretty clearly: ‘Danger: a teenage girl lives here! Enter at your own risk!’. Is this making sense or am I talking out my ass?”

I simply shrugged. “Seems legit, I guess. It’s my little cave, but I don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to it. I guess I’m just waiting for another shoe to drop on my head that implodes the planet… or something.”

“It’s been like that, huh?”

I shot her a deadpanned glare. “Yea, you could say that.”

She nibbled her lower lip. “You… wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.” A sigh escaped my lips. Suddenly, something donned on me. “Megan, remember when you were eleven and stole my black nail polish to give your Barbie doll a Goth makeover?” A smile stretched on my lips. “You had her hair caked in the junk, her eyes looking like Ken was a dick, and even tried to do her nails?”

She started to giggle. “Gawd, I sucked at makeup back then. Mom had to throw the thing away, laughing at the sight of it and almost wanted to cry as the last vestige of me being a little girl was going out with the trash.”

“Yea, good times…”

She stopped. At that moment, a light bulb flickered to life in her brain and she looked at me with that look people get when they’ve stumbled on something profound. Her eyes slowly traveled over my body, cataloging every little nuance. Slowly, she stepped into the room and moved over to the bed. Tears started welling up in her eyes. The bed bounced ever so slightly as her butt landed on it right next to me. Her eyes darted over every little feature of my face.

“Lex?”

All I could do was nod in response.

In the next half second, her arms wrapped over my shoulders and half her body was dropped on top of mine. She laid her head on one shoulder as her body began to quake with each sob. Gently, I wrapped my arms around her and stroked her hair. Now, she knew. She had her cousin back; albeit, in a very different capacity. Try as I might, nothing could hold back my own tears, so I cried right along with her.