Mrs. Carson looked over the application. As the cover letter warned her, there were some serious gaps in the personal information. But they were actually not that significant at the moment. He'd realized he couldn't hide the city, so he'd just listed the school district for the school. She had to admit that for anybody going to a public school that was usually all that was really needed short of actual transcripts.

The info on his powers was woefully inadequate. But what he'd given was good enough to justify checking things out if it was true. And that "retainer" justified a fair bit of risk, especially given that he had stated in the cover letter that he was willing to find things for the school, as long as doing so wouldn't get him into any sort of trouble.

The way he'd put that was interesting. He seemed to have a fair bit of sense to go with a decently developed sense of paranoia. Let's see "no legal, ethical, physical or spiritual risks, as well as the right to decline jobs for other reasons" essentially, if the school thought it was a risk or if he felt there was a problem. Not bad for a teenager.

Hmm, he suggested a percentage of value for things he located for the school and offered a percentage of things he found on his own while at school.

He wanted to become an emancipated minor. And help recovering/keeping his personal possessions if his mother was difficult about it. Plus help with storage or transportation of his things.

Hmm. He noted there was another possible legal problem he couldn't discuss until things were settled. Civil, not criminal. He just noted that it involved something he wanted that couldn't be discussed until then because it'd give away his identity.

Well, they'd have to see what that was about before she could offer anything.

On the whole what he'd revealed about schooling was adequate. If his talent checked out, he was quite correct that he'd be at a lot of risk if the wrong people found out.

Re-reading his contact details, she had to admit that he was being fairly careful. She'd leave him a short voice mail, as requested and marked the time she'd given him to call her back on her appointment book.

***

Meanwhile George had been working out how to best deal with getting operating cash and some gear.

He first went over the "questionable" money. First step was a standard one he'd been too busy to bother with the night before. He "looked" for counterfeit. He wasn't surprised to get a few. Those went in the burn bag with the other things he needed to dispose of.

Next he tried for anything with serial numbers being looked for by the authorities. He didn't care if those were stolen, or if they were being used to trace drug buys or something. He didn't dare spend them. They got tossed in a small box to be dealt with later. He figured that if he got into Whateley, he could pay them with those without any trouble. But until then, they were a liability.

He still had plenty of money left. Good.

Not enough for a car, even if he had a license. His bike was OK for local stuff, and a scooter wouldn't help. Fortunately he'd been moving most of the stuff he cared about into the fort for months. There was still stuff he hadn't moved. A lot of clothes that weren't important and some stuff that he figured mom would notice.

He was glad that even though mom's ideas about his property rights (and privacy rights) were mostly that he didn't have any, she didn't believe in maliciously destroying his stuff. That at least made her better than some parents he'd read about on-line.

On the other hand, that didn't mean that she wasn't likely to just give away or throw out his stuff if she thought he'd taken off.

"Enough wool gathering... I need to get some food."

The energy bar and coke that'd been breakfast had been a while ago. And he had other stuff to do as well. He stuck some money in his wallet and grabbed his pack along with the bag with the jewelry and coins he'd accumulated recently.

He stuffed the bag in the pack and locked things up. Then he walked up the stairs from the lower bit of the back yard and quietly checked the back door of the house.

Drat. Still locked. He snuck back to the fort and unlocked his bike. He decided that with the house still locked up, it'd be a bad idea to risk getting his mother's attention by taking it through the yard. So he went downslope a bit to the shelf on the hillside and rode along that. It was almost as good as a road. Heck, John had used it as one to haul the heavier stuff for the fort.

In few minutes, he was at a point where the shelf was more or less even with the top of the slope. there was a gap between houses there and George rode through it to the street.

Some time later he locked his bike to a rack in front of a storefront that proclaimed they bought gold and jewelry. Entering the shop, he waved at the owner.

"Good morning Mr. Katchurian."

"Ah, if it isn't young Mr. Kelly. I take you've found more rare treasures for me?" joked the older man.

"Well, hopefully rare and precious."

"One can only hope, young sir."

With that George opened his pack and took out the bag. Mr. Katchurian spread the contents on a cloth under a light and magnifier.

In a short time, the two were haggling over the worth of the pieces. It was a friendly exchange. The old man rarely had the pleasure of a good haggle. So few Americans understood how to haggle. And not only had the boy picked it up quickly, he was a worthy opponent.

Besides, nothing he'd ever brought in had ever turned up on the stolen property list the police circulated to pawn shops and others who dealt in small valuables. That alone would have been worth giving the lad a better deal. But being able to actually haggle...

After the jewelry and a couple of watches, George brought out a few old coins.

"I'm sorry, but I think you'd do better with a coin dealer. Especially for that double eagle."

George shrugged, he'd half-expected to be told that, but sometimes the old man would want something for himself. He collected the money after doing the expected amount of complaining about having been robbed.

George smiled as he biked off to the coin shop that Mr. Katchurian had recommended shortly after he'd started selling things to him.

The coin shop bought a few of the coins and said the others weren't worth anything special. They even offered a decent price for the gold coin, but between the way they looked at him and the papers he had to sign, he knew that it'd be a bad idea to try selling any of the other coins from the hoard to them.

He ducked into the restroom at the burger place and slipped most of the cash from the jewelry and coins into his shorts. Uncomfortable, but the best he could do in a hurry.

He got a chicken burger and rings for lunch. He read some while he ate.

Once he was a mile or so farther down the street, he turned on the "clean" cell phone.

Huh. He had voice mail already. He listened to the message from Mrs Carson and noted that there was a callback number attached. He turned off the phone and put it away.

He got back on the bike and rode another mile before stopping at a park to pull out a map. He was glad he'd read up on cell phones. Knowing how the system worked, he looked for cell coverage for the clean phone. A bunch of triangles appeared.

The ones downtown and near the malls were way too small. They'd be able to locate him within a few yards, even on a phone without GPS. There were some big cells near the edge of town he lived on, but he wanted to avoid that.

Hmm. Come to think of it, if he never called from around there, that'd be a flag too. This was messier than he'd thought. Not like the "use once and destroy the phone" bit he normally did for tips.

Let's see, he'd done the courier bit yesterday from NE of town. There were good spots NW of town. but the hills would be a pain. West wasn't so bad....

He finally marked eight spots on the map and flipped a coin three times to pick one. It was going to take almost an hour to get there. But he could make it with some time to spare he thought.

He made it with time to spare and hunted around for a comfortable spot with some cover. Once he found one, he sat down dug out his book again. He did take the precaution of setting his alarm.

It seemed almost no time before the alarm went off. He crossed his fingers and called the number.

A short time later he turned off the phone and looked at the notes he'd written. A lawyer's name and contact info. And the bones of what looked to be a fairly decent agreement with this Whateley place.

With a sigh he turned the phone back on and called the lawyer. The secretary wasn't very interested until he mentioned Mrs. Carson. All of a sudden there was an appointment slot for him. After hours no less.

Oh well, it gave him time to take care of a few things.

***

Back at the fort, he put away some groceries. Then he dug out the "burn bag" and went into the workroom. He switched on the exhaust fan for the small forge/furnace. Then he turned on the propane and hit the igniter.

Once it was going OK, he adjusted it so there was a hot flame. Then he took a medium sized crucible and emptied the bag into it paper first, then the phones he needed to destroy. He topped it off with some scrap copper, chunks of limestone and pieces of coke.

He got out a heavy leather apron and a safety shield for his face. Then he pulled on some heavy gloves. Using tongs he lowered the crucible into the furnace.

Before it could smoke much he took an odd sort of pipe with a valve and stuck the end in the crucible. When he cracked the valve, the contents of the crucible flared up. As he increased the flow of oxygen it burned with a glaring white, smokeless flame.

After a couple minutes, he turned off the oxygen and used the tongs to add more coke. Then he covered the crucible and waited patiently When he lifted the cover the crucible was half-full of glowing liquid.

He set the cover down on some firebrick to cool. Then he shut down the furnace. He'd take the crucible out later when everything was cool.

He straightened things up and put what he could away. Then it was back into the main room. He undressed and used a sponge and the sink to clean up as best he could. He dried off with a towel and got dressed in the best looking clothes he had handy.

Not that they were that great. A button up shirt and slacks instead of jeans. A sweater and matching jacket finished it off. Pretty much what he'd worn for his last school photo.

He checked the time and figured he'd need to leave in about an hour and a half.

"Guess it's time to do some homework..."

His talent wasn't that great with homework. If he needed a fact in the book, he could find the right page. But he could remember that sort of thing before he'd started finding stuff. And it wasn't like he needed it that much for facts. His memory was a lot better these days.

Best it could do with other stuff was let him figure out which section of a book (or which book for some classes) he needed to go over.

He still had to work out things himself, but it definitely helped to be able find what would let him figure out the answers.

***

All too soon the alarm went off. He checked the workroom and the furnace was cold. He still used the tongs to lift out the crucible and place it on the firebricks. He tilted it on its side and gave it a couple of sharp raps with a chunk of wood. After the second a slug of metal and slag popped out.

He carefully reached for it. It was barely warm. Good enough. He set it aside with some others. He'd remove the slag and melt them into an ingot when he had some more. Copper didn't bring much, but it still sold.

And it made a good way to get rid of stuff he didn't want to just throw in the trash.

He put away the crucible and cover and grabbed an overgrown messenger bag he'd packed earlier. After locking up he was off on the bike again.

He arrived at the lawyer's office with 15 minutes to spare. He locked up the bike and went to the door.

He took a couple of deep breaths and reminded himself that his talent had started him on this path. He had to trust that. Then he opened the door.

"Mr. Kelly?" asked the receptionist.

"Um, yes..."

"Mr. Dixon will be with you shortly. If you'd like to take a seat?"

George sat down a bit nervously.

It was only a few minutes before a man in a suit came out.

"Mr. Kelly? I'm Morgan Dixon. I hope I can help you."

"Um, George, George Kelly. Just call me George, please?"

"Certainly."

Dixon led George to an office. He waved George to a chair in front of the desk as he sat behind the desk.

"OK, I'm told that you are in a bad home situation and want to be emancipated. Mrs. Carson said it would appear that you can support yourself. There are other points, but those will do for a start."

George swallowed. "Y-yes. Things are not good at home. I'd rather get a few other things settled before we go into details. And yes, I can support myself if I am allowed to deal with money as if I'm an adult. It's rather hard doing so if you have to worry about someone deciding you aren't allowed to have the money."

Dixon nodded. "Yes, that can be a problem. My first question is if you are breaking the law to get money. If you are, I won't turn you in, but I can't help you either."

"No. At worst, I owe the state some taxes. At least as far as I know.."

George paused. "I know that it's going to cost money if you can help me. And while I sent Whateley something that I assume they are paying you out of, I'd rather pay you directly."

"We can do that if you'd like. And it would avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest."

George opened the bag sitting next to his chair and reached in.

"Which would you prefer? Cash or gold?"

So saying placed a rubber banded bundle of bills on the desk and then took a paper wrapped cylinder out and set it next to it. He unfolded the end of the roll and shook some gold coins onto the desktop. He slid seven of the coins over next to the bills.

"That's five thousand cash. The double eagles are worth around $800 each for just the gold content as of yesterday."

Dixon's eyebrows tried to disappear into his hairline.

"You got this legally?"

George sighed. "Yes, given that you know about Whateley, you must know I'm a mutant or something. I 'find' things. I stick to stuff that's been lost or that doesn't have an owner."

George looked around the office.

"There's some change under that table." He pointed.

"And there's something in that file cabinet over there..."

George squinted a bit and moved sideways a little.

"... I think it's some papers or something that fell behind a drawer. Looks like papers or a file folder, but it's at the back and a bit under the bottom drawer."

Dixon looked startled. He gave George a speculative look, then he went over to the cabinet and with some effort managed to get the drawer out. He fumbled around and drew out a dusty file folder from inside the cabinet.

After looking at it and checking the inside, he sat back at the desk.

"Well, that was definitely a lost item. I think it's something that's been there since one of the senior partners died."

Dixon sat back and thought for a minute.

"Some lost items may not actually be legal for you to keep if you find them, but that gets fairly technical. For now, I think I can accept your money, as long as you aren't digging in people's yards or something."

"Uh, no sir."

There ensued a discussion of George's home situation. With the bills and gold sitting on the desk untouched all through it.

***

"No, no!" George objected. "I can't risk you not being able to get me out. It's bad now, but endurable. If we try and fail, mom will take it out on me. That'd be a lot worse."

"Well, there are ways of doing that, but it'll take a lot longer. It might be months."

"I can handle that as long as I know I'm getting out."

More discussion ensued. Much more discussion.

"OK, let me get this straight. You'd like to find a way to actually own this 'fort' of yours?"

"Yeah, and the land it's on. Being able to add some stuff to it as well would be good. I've got a lot of good memories of it, and I'd like to keep it if I can."

Dixon looked thoughtful.

"Well, that's not my area, but I can think of a couple of folks to check into it. "

George sighed. Oh well, he hadn't expected it to be easy.

"How about the agreement with Whateley?"

"They faxed me something this afternoon, I assume it was after your call. I've worked up a contract of sorts. Until we get you emancipated, you can't legally sign it. But as a dodge, I'll hire you as an office assistant. I think we can get your mother to sign that."

George nodded. "Yeah, as long as she thinks it's not much money she won't care."

They finally agreed that for now he'd be listed as an employee, but he'd have a "company" card that would tie back to the "retainer" he'd sent Whateley. And ID so he could say he was buying it for "the boss".

"Once we get you emancipated, we'll set up a company of your own and move things over. It'll make taxes and things easier on everyone. Meanwhile, we should have the card and ID for you in a couple of days."

He handed George a form. "Get your mother to sign this and that'll cover the legalities for now."

"OK, it may be a few days."

"As long as it's before the end of the month, things should be fine."

They covered a few more things and Dixon showed George to the door.

George had a lot to think about on the way home.

George got home from school and checked the front door of the house. It was unlocked. He thought to himself that this time hadn't been too bad. Only four days.

As usual, his mother acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He sighed to himself and went to his room. He changed and did his chores, then went down and hauled dirty laundry up from the fort. Laundry and showers were things that he missed when he was stuck in there.

After dinner he crossed his fingers and dug out the form.

"Mom, I've got a part time job lined up, I just need you to sign this."

She asked a few questions, but fortunately wasn't interested in details that could have been a problem, just in whether or not it'd interfere with his schoolwork.

He'd had long years of practice at spinning things so she'd believe them so it wasn't too hard to get her to sign and not ask inconvenient questions.

He took the signed forms to the lawyer after school the next day. Mr. Dixon looked them over and nodded.

"OK, these will do. And here's a bit of a bonus for you. The card and ID arrived yesterday. They should be enough for most things you buy. But for anything odd or pricey, you can print up a purchase order."

That led to being shown how to log in on the computer in a spare office and create a PO.

George wasn't sure if he'd ever need to do that, but he figured it was better to be ready. So did Mr. Dixon.

Mr. Dixon was still working on finding a way to get George emancipated that wasn't riskier than George was willing to deal with.

George knew he was probably overly paranoid about it, but a lifetime of dealing with his mother told him that a failed attempt would be really bad for him.

Things were a bit odd on the property front. Seems that the county records for that area were messed up.

"That's why there are so many oddly placed vacant lots in your neighborhood. Ownership of some places isn't clear. Most of the records are good enough for the tax folks, but not good enough for a title search to come up clear. So folks won't buy places with a title that's as uncertain as some of these are."

Mr. Dixon continued, "It's rather odd. The city and county are losing out on property taxes because of the houses that got torn down after being unoccupied for years. You'd think they'd want to get things cleared up."

They went on to deal with some things George needed help disposing of, and more guidelines on how to stay within the law while "finding" things.

The next couple of weeks settled into a routine. School, spending time at the law office actually helping a bit with filing and other things as Mr. Dixon thought it best that George actually be able to perform the tasks he was supposedly being paid for, and expeditions to "find" things.

He was still amazed that he'd actually contacted the school, much less the lawyer. It was way out of character. He was usually a lot more paranoid than that. With reason.

He'd lost count of the number of times he'd been betrayed by "friends". Or by his mother.

He couldn't bear to remember the details of the worst. The bitch in seventh grade had taken several weeks to become his good friend and get him to trust her enough to tell her his innermost thoughts.

Then the next day, she was back with the bunch of "in-crowd" girls that she'd formerly hung around with and they were all using what he'd told her in confidence to humiliate him.

It hurt so much he couldn't even remember what it was he'd told her. It didn't matter anyway.

He'd found a few people he could trust. A few teachers and the shrinks he'd had to see after some problems in school.

Hmm. Maybe that was why he'd given this Whateley place a chance. And Mr. Dixon reminded him of the good teachers and the shrinks. He knew he still needed to be careful though.

***

Then came the day that he overheard a conversation between Mr. Dixon and a private eye he sometimes used.

"Well, Paul? Any luck?"

"Morgan, I know it's in there somewhere. We both know it has to be. But I'll be damned if I can figure out where he hid it."

"If we can't locate that will, his family is going to take everything from his partner."

"Oh, it's like that, eh?"

"Yes, he figured they'd try to go after things and since they threw him out for being gay back when he was a teen, he didn't want them getting a cent."

"So why are we looking for the will? I thought you lawyers always kept copies."

"I normally do. But Adam was kinda paranoid. He was afraid it'd get stolen from my files."

George knew he shouldn't be listening, but the office door was open, and the cabinet he was re-filing some folders in wasn't that far away.

He could understand why the guy they were talking about wouldn't want his family to get anything. They sounded worse than his mother.

Pity about the will though. He suddenly realized he could feel the "pull". Something was off in that direction. Oh, it must be the will...

George had a dilemma. He knew he could find the will. And it was the right thing to do. But he wasn't sure if the private eye could be trusted with his secret.

Finally, he stuck his head into the open doorway and knocked on the door.

"Mr. Dixon? I couldn't help overhearing. I..." He ran down, not sure what to say.

Morgan realized what was going on. "Mr. Drake is very trustworthy. I assume you are thinking about offering to help?"

Paul started to say something, then stopped an instant before Morgan held up his hand. Morgan smiled at that.

George was torn between a desire to help and his long habit of keeping secrets. At last he shook himself a bit and spoke.

"Yes, I think I can help find the will you were talking about."

Morgan turned to Paul and explained, "George is a mutant I'm doing some work for. He 'finds' things."

"I'm forgetting myself. George, this is Paul Drake. He's a private investigator and a friend."

George found himself shaking hands with Mr. Drake, "Call me Paul"

"So, how do we do this, take you out to the house and have you poke around?"

George had thought about this before he'd made the offer to Whateley to find things for them, so he had an answer ready.

"I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it. Do you have pictures? A floor plan? Anything like that?"

Both of the men looked a bit surprised. "You can work from stuff like that?"

"Yeah, I tried it after reading something about dowsers who could work from a map."

Morgan said, "Well in that case, lets start with a map just in case I'm wrong about it being in the house."

George grabbed his map from his bag.

"What exactly am I looking for? Details usually help. Like what's his name? Adam something?"

"Adam Rockford. It's a will. A dozen sheets of legal sized paper..." supplied Morgan.

George pointed to a spot on his map.

Mr. Drake looked surprised as he said "That's where the house is all right."

"I may be able to get it closer."

George brought up Google maps on Mr. Dixon's computer and zoomed into the right part of town. He got the map zoomed in all the way then switched to the satellite image.

A few minutes later they were looking at the images he'd printed. An overhead shot, plus several angles from the street level view. George had carefully drawn small Xs on each image.

Shaking his head Mr. Drake left with the pictures.

***

The next day, Mr. Drake was back.

"I still couldn't find anything, but I took some photos and even have some video."

They looked at the photos and George finally pointed at a patch of floor in the den.

"You sure that's where it is? That's a hardwood floor and I don't see any way to hide a panel in it without the seams showing."

"No, it's there."

"Then how on earth do we get at it?"

George blinked. When Paul asked, the glow shifted.

"Um... When you asked that it shifted to here..." George pointed at a wooden grating set into the floor a short distance from where he'd pointed before.

"Oh. Of course. The cold air return. But I checked that already. I'll give it another check."

An hour later Paul was back in the office holding a odd plastic envelope.

"This is a neat trick, I'll have to remember it."

At their inquiring looks he explained. "Most folks when they hide something in an air duct, just lay it on the bottom a ways inside. That's what I checked for."

They nodded and he continued.

"But this envelope has a sheet of that stuff they make magnetic signs out of glued to the inside. So it sticks to the top of the duct. And you can't see it. Not only that, it's the same width as the duct. So you don't notice the edge either if your arm brushes against it while reaching in to check for things."

With that last comment he offered the envelope to Morgan, who opened it and withdrew a document.

"Yep, this is the will I drew up. Adam's relatives are going to be very disappointed."

George couldn't help muttering "Gee, I'm so sorry for them."

That got a chuckle from the other two.

"They aren't very likable at that,"commented Morgan. "But that reminds me. I'm going to tell Adam's partner that we had to call in a special consultant to find the will. That should get you a nice bonus out of this. We'd likely not have found it without your help."

Paul chimed in, "You certainly deserve it. And I think I could use you on other things as well, if you're willing?"

George thought about it. It was the sort of thing he'd expected to wind up doing anyway. He sighed.

"OK, I suppose so. But I've thought about this a lot. And I've got some conditions. I figure there are things I can look for safely, and things that'd be liable to get people upset enough to figure out what's going on. And once that happens I'll either be dead or locked up somewhere doing this for the government or criminals. Either way, no thanks."

"So, I've come up with a few rules. First off I won't look for criminals. Lost people, yes. Kidnap victims, maybe. And if I find out that someone is lost because they want to be away from the folks looking for them, I'm likely going to offer the money back."

"Looking for things, I want to be sure the person actually has a right to whatever I'm looking for. Don't want to find something then have it turn out the person I found it for shouldn't have had it in the first place."

Name: Ronald Sutherland
Aliases: [redacted]
Code name: [FF used for reference purposes]
Ratings: [unknown]
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: unknown
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

FF01 First Step

He carefully pushed open the basement door and felt for the first step.

The boxes in his arms swayed a bit as he approached the bottom of the stairs. As he walked over to the table something seemed not quite right. He set down the boxes and gave the table an odd look. It looked shorter.

He glanced down at the floor and stared in shock at the six inch gap between his feet and the floor. And then stumbled as he fell those six inches.

He couldn't have been standing on air. Could he?

But when he fell it felt just like the jolt when he'd gotten to the bottom of the stairs and found out he was still one step up...

---

FF02 Discoveries

A while later, Ron was in his room with the door closed. He raised his foot gingerly, like someone about to step onto something they weren't sure would hold their weight.

Then he shifted his weight slowly. And raised the other foot, until he was standing on air.

This time, he wasn't startled enough to fall. He walked around a bit, then tried a few things. First he climbed up more invisible stairs. He couldn't go too far as the ceiling in his room wasn't that high.

Then he tried walking down. Soon he was able to treat whatever it was more like a ramp than a set of stairs.

He walked back up until he was a foot above his bed and after a moment of thought dropped to the bed.

He started to get off, but then tried to crawl up onto a ledge in the air. That worked too. He was lying down a foot above the bed. Not bad.

He thought about the way it felt when he walked or lifted himself onto a chunk of air. He couldn't exactly describe it. Then he felt an odd sensation. And felt the bedspread under him.

"Hmm. I didn't fall. I guess I sort of floated down," he thought.

He got off the bed and walked on air again until he was a couple feet up. Then he tried to re-create the feeling. He knew when he had it because he started to sink slowly to the floor.

It hadn't taken any effort. In fact he felt sort of tingly. He repeated it a few more times from higher in the air. His muscles felt much like they would if he'd been going up real stairs. But when he "floated" down, he got more of that tingle.

Floating down had felt sort of like releasing something. A sort of tension. Yeah, that was it. Sort of like letting go of something you'd been pushing on. Like a spring or something.

He tried "pushing" back. And started to rise into the air. Cool!

Just staying there didn't seem to take any real effort. Well, there was a sort of feeling of pressure or something, but it wasn't exactly an effort to maintain it.

Hmm. He pushed that way and went up. What if he pushed this way?

He drifted sideways.

"Omigod. I can fly!"

Late that night, he snuck out and tried it away from the houses.

Flying sideways was easy. Going up was harder. Going down was no effort at all, though control was harder.

By the end of the week, he was moving as fast as his bike. Maybe faster.

He noticed that gliding down gave him that tingle. Flying up seemed to drain it. And he was pretty hungry after doing a lot of flying unless he did more down than up. Living at the top of a several hundred foot hill, he could do that. If he wanted to walk back up.

Even doing a lot of flying over the valley took something out of him. Just not as much as flying up did.

After a month or so, he was flying fast enough to feel the air moving past. Felt sort of like sticking his hand out the car window on the freeway. He'd also found that it was easier to "push" while riding his bike than it was to pedal. He still pedaled, so it wouldn't be obvious.

He even managed to drag his bike along while flying a few times in the daytime. He'd ride it to someplace where he didn't think anyone would see and then fly it along below the treetops.

It wasn't easy, but it was easier than pedaling the same distance.

The wind was getting to be a pain. And hitting bugs was no fun either. It was really hard flying fast as a car. Then he had a thought. Could he "push" the wind away from him?

He kept trying and one day it "clicked" in his head. It suddenly got a lot easier to fly. He could not only feel the "pressure" of maintaining altitude and the "push" of flying, he could feel a sort of pressure against a sort of second skin.

The wind was gone. But he could feel the air pushing on that skin. He could feel it as a sort of rounded bubble around him. Sort of a teardrop shape.

He tried flying through some tall grass slowly at first, and then faster. He could see it pushed out of the way by the bubble. Neat.

He tried several more passes through the grass, faster and faster. It was really odd feeling the grass whipping across the bubble. He could feel the impacts, but it didn't hurt or anything.

There was a sudden jolt and it felt like something a lot bigger and harder had whacked into part of the bubble. It slowed him down and angled his path up and to one side.

He slowed down and circled back.

He'd hit an old fencepost hidden in the grass. A steel pipe several inches across, set in concrete.

He stared at it. The post was bent sharply and the concrete was pulled partway out of the ground.

He landed and got rid of the bubble.

"Unh!" Good grief. He couldn't even budge the post. And he almost ripped his hand trying.

"Wait a minute..." It was a crazy idea, but why not?

He tried to get the bubble back. And wound up floating a foot or so off the ground. He could feel it as a sphere around him.

"Okay, so far so good." Now he tried to reshape it. To pull it back to his skin. He could feel it trying to shift and then it suddenly snapped into place. It felt weird, but he could move and it moved with him.

He got back on the ground and tried to shift the pipe. No luck, but at least it wasn't messing up his hands.

It was definitely really strong, well. actually "tough" was more like it. He stopped.

Or maybe strong was the word. After all, that pipe looked like it'd been hit by a truck. And it wasn't anything more than his .... force field or whatever it was. And his "pushing".

But if it was that strong, and moved with him...

It took a few tries, but he got the skin-field to not just move with him, but to reinforce his movements. Sort of like powered armor without the armor. Just like in some of the stories he'd read.

The pipe creaked as he braced against the base and pulled. And it straightened out.

He stared at his hand. Other than the effort in his head of making the field reinforce his movements it hadn't even been all that hard.

He reached out one hand and with a bit of (mental) effort, ripped it out of the ground.

He said, "Wow. Just like Superman."

And promptly fell over from all that unsupported weight at the end of his arm.

He was startled and grabbed the pipe harder as he went over. Then he noticed that he'd crushed the end of the pipe. "Oops. Gotta be careful."

He scratched his head trying to figure out why he fell over. Well, ok. It was obvious that the chunk of pipe and concrete weighed more than he did. By a fair bit.

But if that was the case, why hadn't he just pulled himself off the ground when he tried to pull it out of the ground?

He tried to pick it up again. As it came up, he realized he was "bracing" himself somehow.

He let it drop and stood a foot off the ground and tried again. He could feel the bracing and a sort of increase in the pressure that he felt from standing on air.

(This should have been the first Glimpses. Oops.)

Spotted in flight

Date: [redacted]
Time: 0135 PDT
Location: [redacted]

"Ding!"

The bored radar tech looked at the display to see what the automated system was upset about this time. One glance and his boredom vanished.

"Holy shit!"

He slapped a large red button on the console and as a klaxon sounded, he spoke rapidly into his mike.

"Security alert! Our mystery bogie is back..."

The display showed something that was performing low level aerobatics over open countryside. And doing so in cheerful disregard of not only flight regs, but several physical laws.

"Yessir. Just like before. No IR signature. Radar return says it's really small or stealthy as hell..."

"Well, if it isn't stealthed it's smaller than an ultralight, sir. But ultralights don't maneuver like that."

Half to himself the tech muttered "Hell, nothing maneuvers like that"

Meanwhile fighters were scrambling and security teams were deploying on the ground to pre-plotted locations. The bogie had popped up a number of times over the last year. And it seemed to favor certain locations. The ground teams were deploying to surround the ones where it looked like there'd been a landing.

Team 7 was well hidden in the brush around a large clearing in the forest. While there'd never been any evidence of whatever it was when they'd searched after previous occurrences, it was still thought to be landing site since the target had been lost in the ground clutter only to reappear at the same spot later the same night.

"OK, HQ says it looks like we're the target. Get ready."

Weapons, cameras and other instruments were readied.

It was a moonless night and in the countryside the night vision gear didn't help as much as it might. They were afraid to use IR in case it could be detected.

A small dark shape suddenly came into view against the sky and drifted down. Just as it reached ground level, the team leader spoke "Go!"

Several jets screamed overhead as the clearing was lit brighter than day and an amplified voice roared "Don't Move!"

For a moment those on one side of the clearing had a clear view of a very scared looking young girl in a Supergirl outfit hovering just above the ground. And of a young boy in her arms.

Then the boy grabbed her hand and the clearing was empty.

The team leader swore. "Not mutants again! Why can't it ever be aliens..."

Name: [redacted]
Aliases: [redacted]
Code name: Blip
Ratings: [unknown]
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: unknown
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

Hi, my code name is Blip. Not terribly imaginative, but at least it's not taken. It's even kinda descriptive.

Powers testing has me classed as a warper, but they still aren't really sure what I do. Well, that's not true. What I do is pretty obvious. It's how I do it that they aren't sure about.

I teleport. And a few other things but it's my "blipping" that's the biggie.

That's what I called it as a kid. Yeah, yeah. I'm one of the mutants who manifested as a kid.

They say that's not unusual when you've got really strong abilities. That must by why my girlfriend, Flying Fox manifested early too. Though neither of us found out about the other's powers until we'd had them for a few years.

Oh. I guess I forgot to mention that. We've known each other since we were four or so. We lived across the street from each other.

Anyway, my first blip was when I was 9 or so.

Most teleporters do it the first time because they are trying to get away from something. Not me. I was trying to get to something.

I'd gone riding my bike into the woods. We lived at the edge of town and there were miles of trails. I suddenly realized it was getting late and I was a lot farther from home than I probably should have been. I wasn't scared. Except maybe of the trouble I'd be in when I got home.

I was tired too. I got off the trail to sit down for a minute. I didn't know what to do. I was sitting on a log and wishing I was home in my room.

Being tired I was a bit spacey or something. Anyway, suddenly I could sort of see my room, only it wasn't exactly seeing it. I still wished I was there and then I did something I can't really describe. And then I was sitting on my bed instead of the log beside the trail.

Surprised the heck out of me. I'm glad I didn't yell or anything, because the next thing I realized was that I was naked!

I scrambled off the bed and got dressed in something fast. Before I could think about things much, one of my folks heard me and called me to dinner. Luckily they didn't ask when or how I'd gotten home.

After dinner I checked and my bike wasn't in the garage. So I figured I really had left it (and my clothes) out in the woods. Waited until mom and dad were asleep before I did anything but think about it. And I didn't think too hard, because that's how I'd gotten in this mess in the first place.

I grabbed my flashlight and was about to see if I could get back to the bike. Then I stopped and wondered what I'd do if the flashlight didn't go with me. To say nothing of what I was wearing.

So I quietly moved a chair across my room and then sat on the bed and tried to think of myself in the chair. Took me a few minutes, but I could "see" it the way I'd seen the bedroom.

It was kinda weird because my eyes showed the room from one direction and my head "showed" it facing the other direction. Anyway, once I had that I tried to recreate whatever it was I'd done before. I knew what it felt like, but it's like trying to explain how you know how a vaulting dismount will go before you do it. You know what it feels like, you know your body is going to do it, but you can't explain it to someone who's never done a vault.

I fumbled a bit and then I got it. I was in the chair. And the moonlight coming in the window showed my PJs hanging in the air for a split second before they fell to the bed.

So. I knew I could do it. I just had to figure out how to take my clothes with me. I knew it had to be possible because there were a few teleporters even I had heard of and they could do it.

Now, I know that the fact that someone else's abilities let them do it didn't mean mine would let me. Especially given that my first two tries hadn't taken my clothes with me. Which they tell me is really unusual for a teleporter. As if anything about my powers is that normal. Even for a mutant. But back then I didn't know all that.

I thought about trying to practice carrying the flashlight, but watching my clothes fall told me that was a really bad idea. So I looked around for something that'd fall quietly if I dropped it. I grabbed a pillow off my bed, sat down in the chair and tried to blip back. to the bed.

This time I got the "image" immediately. And blipped almost as soon as I got it. But the pillow went "floomp" to the seat of the chair.

Took about a dozen tries before I was able to carry the pillow with me. There was a knack to "holding on" to it.

After an hour I was able to blip with my clothes. Or even with just some of them and not others. But once I'd gotten the knack, it was actually harder to leave something behind than take it with me.

After porting a couple times with the flashlight and a small knapsack, I tried for where I'd blipped from the woods. I got there OK, but it was quite a surprise. You see, it wasn't until I arrived in the dark under the trees that I realized whatever I was "seeing" as target, it didn't involve light. I'd been able to see my target, but not that it was dark. For that matter, as I found out when I turned on the flashlight, I hadn't been able to "see" or "feel" or whatever the skunk that'd been examining my clothes!

Fortunately, while I and the light startled it, it decided to leave rather than spray. That was a close one.

I brushed off and shook out the clothes I'd left behind on my very first blip. Then I stuffed them into the knapsack. Then I wondered what I was going to do about the bike.

I walked down the trail a ways and tried getting an image of the spot. I thought I had it and blipped back and forth between it and the bike a few times.

OK, now to try moving the bike. I grabbed it with my hands, and then tried to grab it with my head the way I had the clothes and the knapsack. Something didn't feel right.

I tried blipping down the trial. It wasn't working. I "pushed". And found myself standing there without the bike. I blipped back.

I really didn't want to leave the bike there. Even if I could blip back out to it in the morning, it'd take forever to ride it home. And I might need it tomorrow.

Hmm. Maybe if I picked it up?

Yep. That worked.

OK. I decided I'd better blip to the garage and make sure there was room for the bike. I wrapped the t-shirt I'd been wearing that afternoon around the flashlight to dim the light.

A quick look around showed me the best spot to blip in with the bike. So I went back, got it and blipped back to my room. A quick change into my PJs and I was back in bed trying to figure out what to do now that I was a mutant.

I decided I'd just better be careful. I was trying to figure out if I should tell my best friend when I feel asleep.

We zipped off over the scrub lands at insane speeds and Connie was doing all sorts of weird maneuvers. It was neat. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw water ahead of us. I knew I'd seen mountains below us. We must have been most of the way across the state.

We slowed down and I could see a meadow surrounded by woods below us. We were heading right for it.

We'd slowed almost to a stop and couldn't have been more than a few feet up when these blinding lights came on and a loudspeaker or something thundered out "Don't Move!"

Connie was frozen, with me still in her arms. I grabbed one of her hands and hoped it'd work. And blipped us to that spot in the woods where I'd first blipped.

Connie was still going "Wha?" when I managed to get her attention.

"Connie? I'm a mutant too..."

Name: Dorothy Gayle
Aliases: D'artagnan "Art" Gayle
Code name: Blip
Ratings: [unknown]
Techniques:none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

Name: Ronald Sutherland
Aliases: Constance "Connie" Sutherland
Coden name: Flying Fox
Ratings: [unknown]
Techniques:none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

When I woke up I wasn't sure if it was a weird dream or something. Blipping out to where I'd left the bike the day before proved it wasn't a dream.

I took care of my chores and went across the street to Ron's. We were supposed to go out to the Renn Faire this afternoon, and I didn't want to miss it. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have spent the day trying to figure out what I could do with my newfound gift.

Ron had his stuff too, and we looked through some of his comics while we waited for our ride. Neither of our parents were into the Faire, but fortunately some friends of theirs that they trusted with us were into it.

I think our folks mostly let us hang out with House Blue Frog because it kept us out of their hair. I think somebody told us once that our folks used to be really into fandom, and the SCA and stuff like that. That's when they were part of the Frogs.

They'd gotten more into their jobs and stuff (Gerard once said they'd "gotten all boring") but their friends in the House had babysat us and stuff since before we could remember. So we got to go to neat stuff and our folks didn't pay a lot of attention.

We spent a lot of weekends at tourneys, the Faire or even cons sometimes. And during the week we got to "help out" (read get free lessons) with some of the classes folks in the House taught. Ron and I both like gymnastics and fencing. There were other things Ron liked and I didn't, and vice versa.

Our folks didn't mind because they didn't have to pay for it and we were learning stuff. Of course, sometimes we were a little misleading about who was doing what, but never mind.

Anyway, we were going to the Faire. We each had outfits and stuff, but as usual, we wore our mundane clothes to and from. We had good reasons and everybody in the House knew.

The ride was a lot of talking about all kinds of stuff interspersed with music and folks dropping out of the conversations into books (fiction, stuff for projects, all sorts of things. What do you except from geeks? :-)

At last we were there. We did some fetching and carrying while the House set up. Then we ducked into the back of Gwen's booth and changed into our outfits.

Ron and I traded clothes bags. That was one of the things the folks didn't know. At the Faire and some other events, I didn't have to be Dot. I could be young D'artagnan! And Ron could be Lady Constance.

What can I say, we really liked that old version of The Three Musketeers.

Our folks put up with me being a tomboy. Connie. I mean Ron (yes, he picked the name partly because it sounded like Ronnie, which his folks call him a lot, so it was easier to answer to) had it harder.

While his folks didn't pay a lot of attention, he couldn't get away with dolls or girl clothes. Luckily we're the same size. So I've loaned him a lot of the frilly stuff mom keeps pushing on me. And I've been known to "forget" a doll or two at his place.

Mostly, when we are at home we manage by spending a lot of time playing with each other. I can put up with dolls so he can play with them, and he'll put up with army men and stuff for me. We just have to fake liking/not liking if the folks are around.

There are a lot of "different" folks in the House. Our folks aren't against folks like that. Not exactly for them either. But we were pretty sure they'd not react well to their own kids being "like that". So were the folks in the House when they caught us a few years ago.

They had a long talk with us and finally decided that they wouldn't stop us as long as we were careful. And they wouldn't tell our parents either. But they wouldn't lie either. I think a lot of the House just figured that if they let us alone, we'd get bored soon enough. I think a few suspected the truth.

Anyway that's why we both had blue feathers we couldn't wear. A gift from some of the Clan Blue Feather folks in the House (Clan Blue Feather is a sort of unofficial GLBT group in the SCA. Wearing a blue feather signifies that you are GLBT).

Anyway, in very little time, I was dressed as a (very) young swashbuckler, and Connie was wearing a wench outfit. I was almost jealous in that Connie could use that outfit all day. I could only use mine to show off a bit or if they had some kid fencing stuff. Otherwise, I'd have to change into a page outfit or an apprentice outfit for most stuff.

Still, Connie often changed several times anyway.

We had fun. I did some boffer fighting. We both ran errands and helped some of the House folks who had booths with things. That got us some spending money. Not a lot, but most of the "work" was stuff we liked doing anyway.

As usual, we switched back the last hour. I spent it working on some embroidery. Ron spent it helping a smith. Earlier in the day, it'd been the other way around. This way, though we could each honestly say we'd worked on some of the stuff we brought home but had to leave at the other's house.

And it's not like I loathed embroidery. Or Ron loathed working with the smith. Ditto for a lot of other things. I didn't loathe girly stuff. I was even sort of adequate at cooking and sewing and all that. And Ron was OK with a lot of guy stuff. But we each really preferred the stuff the other was "supposed" to be doing.

I did make one experiment that day. I'd bought something I was afraid might get damaged in the van, so I ducked into a biffy and chanced blipping home to my room. I stuck it in the closet and only then did I realize what a risk I'd taken. It wasn't just that the folks might have caught me. It was that not only would they have caught me, but they'd have caught me in a boy's outfit. I can get away with that in mundanes, but I know better than to try it with other stuff (let's just forget about my asking to wear a pirate outfit the Halloween before, OK That did not go well)

So I blipped back to the biffy, and made a promise to be a lot more careful in the future. I almost forgot about the other reason I'd tried. It wasn't until we were home that I realized that I'd blipped something like 30 miles with no more effort than it'd taken for the few miles between home and that bit of woods the day before.

I'd already been fairly sure I could blip to places I'd already been to before I made that first trip. The garage seemed to prove that. Some experimenting the next several nights proved that. I could get to a lot of places. But I needed to have a fairly strong memory it seemed. And it didn't always work.

Well, if I could get to someplace it always seemed to work. It was just that I couldn't get to some places that I thought I should be able to. Like the classroom I'd had at school last year. Spent lots of time there. So why couldn't I go there?

I'd been sticking to local stuff for the tests. Then I got a major clue. I decided to blip to the biffy I'd used at the Faire. I blipped and listened carefully. Then I cautiously opened the door. Only to find that I wasn't at the Faire! I was at a construction site somewhere!

I walked over to the fence, took a good look at the ground on the other side and blipped. Much easier than trying to climb it. Then I went looking for a street sign. Once I found it, I memorized it and blipped home.

I wrote down the intersection and tried to find it the next day. Finally had to use Google. It wasn't in town. It was in a small town on the other side of the Faire.

That worried me. At first I was worried that I could have wound up anywhere. But no, I had arrived in a biffy. Come to think of it, there were a couple of bits of graffiti I remembered from the Faire. So it was the same biffy.

OK, I'd blipped to the biffy, not to where it had been. That was sorta reassuring. But at the same time, it meant I had to be a lot more careful, because I might not wind up where I expected if I picked something that could be moved as a target.

Then it hit me. They were remodeling some of the classrooms. Maybe that was why I couldn't blip to my old one. They'd changed something enough that it didn't match what I remembered.

That did turn out to be the case when school opened. But it wasn't until a lot later that I realized something I should have about this sort of thing.

I was cautiously exploring more places I remembered (and my memory seemed to be getting better). I managed a beach on the coast we'd been to once or twice. And a park in Vancouver BC I remembered from another vacation. Both were 300 or so miles.

The real biggies were the Statue of Liberty, a park in the Bronx, and a couple places in Washington DC, all places I remembered from a trip when I was 4. That raised my range to 3000 miles!

I also discovered that while vacation photos helped for places I'd been to, photos of places I'd never been didn't.

A pair of binoculars let me blip to places, I could see, if I could see them "well enough". Ronnie's telescope worked a couple of times, but it was hard to find places I could see well enough when I dared try.

I tried some web-cam sites, but they didn't work. I guess it's not enough to see the spot, I need to "know" where it is with respect to me or something.

So, for several years, I spent some of my spare time on my bike (I'd finally found that if I was careful, I could port it while riding it. But I definitely had to be moving, and the landings were a bit rough sometimes) riding away from spots I'd been trying to learn new spots so I could start from them next time.

I could do that in broad daylight a lot of the time, because I'd pick spots that were off the road as the end spot on a trip. That way I could walk back onto the road and if anybody was driving by, the wouldn't wonder how I got there. I could have done 10, 20, even 30 miles a day just by riding. But a lot of times, the roads would be clear far enough that I could get a good look ahead with binoculars and blip a mile or two.

Even so, there were a lot of places I wanted to see, and it was gonna take forever to get to them all.

All that changed one night when Ronnie asked me to meet out in the woods.

When I got there, he was wearing the Supergirl outfit I'd had to wear the last Halloween. She looked nice in it, but really nervous too.

"Art?" (when it was just us, or folks who understood, she called me Art. It sort of came from D'artagnan)

"Art? I need to tell you something. It's kinda strange and I hope it won't mess things up between us..."

It couldn't be stranger than my weird stuff. At least that's what I thought.

"I... I'm a mutant." My jaw dropped. I'd been trying to figure out how to tell her, and it turns out that she's one too?!

She mistook astonishment for something else and started to tear up. I quickly hugged her and tried to reassure her. But I decided to let her finish telling me before I dropped my bombshell.

"So what's different? And why are you wearing this silly costume?"

She smiled at me. and, then, to my surprise, she picked me up in her arms like I didn't weigh anything!

And then we were flying!

She started low and slow, zipping between the trees until we got to the rim of the valley. Then we swooped down into. it. I should have been scared. But I trusted her.

All of a sudden the wind in my face cut off, and we were moving even faster, judging by the few lights and things I could see.

"I've got some kind of forcefield thing. It cuts the wind and streamlines things."

All I could do was say "oh wow".

We were really zooming along following the river but still not too high. I checked a map later, we must have been a hundred miles downstream when she zoomed straight up. I'd have been scared, but I couldn't feel us moving., everything was rock steady.

We zipped off over the scrub lands at insane speeds and Connie was doing all sorts of weird maneuvers. It was neat. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw water ahead of us. I knew I'd seen mountains below us. We must have been most of the way across the state.

We slowed down and I could see a meadow surrounded by woods below us. We were heading right for it.

We'd slowed almost to a stop and couldn't have been more than a few feet up when these blinding lights came on and a loudspeaker or something thundered out "Don't Move!"

Connie was frozen, with me still in her arms. I grabbed one of her hands and hoped it'd work. And blipped us to that spot in the woods where I'd first blipped.

Connie was still going "Wha?" when I managed to get her attention.

"Connie? I'm a mutant too..."

We both sort of fell apart for a while. After we pulled ourselves back together, we told each other about our powers. And we both apologized for taking so long to tell.

We were both pretty rattled by whatever had happened. I blipped us back home and Connie borrowed some of my clothes. We retrieved her stuff from the woods later after deciding that if we left it there, somebody might find it and that'd lead folks to us. It was scary sneaking up to where we started, half expecting to find someone waiting for us.

She was afraid to fly for days. But we finally decided that she'd used that spot too much. And figured that she'd been picked up on radar. Which meant that we were probably safe since she'd never flown above the valley rim until she was a long ways off. Mostly because she'd been afraid of running into planes from the airport or the "local" (20 miles away) airbase.

We found that as long as she was flying, even hovering, I could blip both of us. So her practice sessions had me blipping us somewhere before she did much of anything. And us keeping an eye out for things.

We hid the Supergirl outfit and the outfit I'd been wearing that night in a cache near one of my more isolated blipping sites. Later, we set up a stash that was really in the middle of nowhere by having her fly me (sticking really close to the ground) to a spot.

So we'd blip out, change, blip somewhere else, then fly around.

Several times we got buzzed by planes that we were pretty sure were fighters. We both wore masks, so even if they got pictures it wouldn't matter much.

We'd usually blip out after getting spotted. We'd try to get low to the ground and slow, but a couple of times we were high and fast. The first time that happened I was scared we'd come out of the blip moving that fast. But we didn't.

I was happy about that but I wished I understood what was going on.

Connie said she'd been noticing an odd feeling sometimes. And when she did, a lot of times the planes showed up.

I wondered if it had something to do with radar. Just a wild guess, but with the tingles and "pushing" she'd already told me about, being able to somehow "feel" radar wasn't that weird.

A few nights later, we'd decided to try a spot near Washington DC. I had only agreed because I could blip us out pretty fast, and Connie had convinced me her forcefield was really tough.

Sure enough, almost as soon as we were in the air, Connie complained of the itch again. I And a plane zipped by only minutes later. Connie complained that it was worse.

I think I said something like "Well, find a way to scratch it. Or push it away or something."

She said "I wish I could" and started dodging around, just to try to avoid the plane.

All of a sudden she made a zig and said "Ahh. That feels better."

I saw the plane fly by a ways off. A lot farther than they normally did once they showed up. Pretty soon it was obvious he couldn't find us.

Well, whatever she did seemed to stick. She never felt that "itch" again. And after not getting buzzed for a month she insisted on trying to get noticed. I finally agreed that she seemed to have it down after she scared me half to death by flying back and forth over an airbase (not the local one! I talked her out of that!) without getting noticed.

Once that was behind us, we made a great team. She could fly us places, and I could memorize the spots to blip back to. A GPS unit used up a lot of our savings, but let us go pretty much anywhere.

We've been to a lot of odd places on earth. And set up "clubhouses" in a few of them.

Name: Ronald Sutherland
Aliases: Constance (Connie) Sutherland
Coden name: Flying Fox
Ratings: flying, strength, PK (contact?) levels uncertain
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

"OK, we need you to change into this gown for the medical tests."

Connie reluctantly went behind the screen and took off her hat and the dress." "What about my underwear?"

"You can leave that on for now, but it'll have to come off for a few things."

She shyly stepped from behind the screen. The first thing they noticed were the fox ears that had been hidden under her hat. As she stepped away from the screen, they noticed her bushy tail sticking out from the gap in the back of the exam gown.

Being Whateley, Dr. Tennant merely raised an eyebrow.

"When did you grow the ears and the tail?"

"Umm. I didn't exactly grow them...." Connie swallowed then went on in a rush. "You said anything weird from the exam would be confidential, right.?"

"That's right. We may have to tell your brother some things because he's your legal guardian. But otherwise it's locked down."

"O-okay. Don knows about this stuff anyway."

"So tell me about the ears and tail?"

The body parts under discussion twitched. "Well, it started out as a way to hide my identity in case I got spotted..."

Connie explained about how she and Blip had almost gotten caught by some people.

"We figured that they didn't get a very good look at us, and we were a long ways from home anyway. But it got me thinking. The masks on the costumes we came up with were good, but I wanted something that'd really send them off on a wild goose chase. Then i saw a foxgirl at a con and decided I liked the look."

"By then I'd discovered that my 'skin' field could hold things and shape them some. I was already using that to hold the mask and cape. And for some other things... " she blushed.

"Anyway I could hold the ears and tail in place that way. With some practice I could move them some. Now I don't really have to think about it, I just do it. I can even sorta feel with them."

"That's a new one. So they're a disguise?"

"Yeah, except these days it feels more like taking them off is the disguise. It really bugs me to have them off."

"Well, in that case, let's keep them on right now. I'll want to examine you without them, but we'll make that as brief as we can."

There was no problem with checking Connie's eyes ears, nose or throat. Dr. Tennant stuck a disposable thermometer strip under Connie's tongue and had her cross her legs. Then Dr. Tennant tried the reflex test with the little rubber hammer.

Connie's leg barely twitched. Dr. Tennant made a note. Then she took the strip out of Connie's mouth and wrote down the temperature.

"Your reflexes seem a bit off. Your leg barely twitched when I tested it.."

"Well, you barely touched it..."

Dr. Tennant raised an eyebrow. "I hit it as hard as I'm supposed to for the test."

Connie suddenly got an "Oops" look.

"Uh, try it now."

Dr. Tennant tried it again and this time got a normal response.

"What did you do?"

"I had my field up. It sort of affects how I feel things. I still feel things, but I don't get bruises or stuff."

After this Dr. Tennant wasn't surprised to run into trouble when she tried to get Connie's blood pressure. Once the girl "dropped the field" on her arm the readings were normal.

"OK, Now I need to take off your underwear for the breast exam and gyno work-up"

Connie froze for a moment and then went behind the screen and came out in a few minutes with just her exam gown on.

"Please sit on the table and drop your top."

Blushing Connie did so.

The doctor noted that the girl's breasts looked a bit odd. Something about the shape. Ah, There didn't seem to be any sag. Though there was something about the nipple...

A thought struck Dr. Tennant. "Please drop the field you are using on your breasts, Connie."

Connie hung her head and her breasts sagged a bit. Much to Dr. Tennant's surprise they seemed to deflate a tiny bit as well.

"Ah, you were enhancing them a bit with your powers. Well, don't worry, some girls just take a bit longer to develop."

Connie just kept her head down and sniffled a little.

"There, there. It's OK. I need to fell them now. Pay attention to how I do this. You need to be able to give yourself a self-exam every so often."

Dr. Tennant kept control of her face as her fingers told her that these weren't normal breasts. She couldn't find the structures she expected. It was almost like a boy's chest except for the amount of tissue.

"OK, you can put your top back up."

As Connie pulled the top of the gown back up Dr. Tennant checked Connie's file. Ah. it had sex listed as complicated. That might explain things. She decided to finish the exam before asking more questions. She'd likely have a better idea of what questions to ask then.

"OK, now turn sideways and scoot towards this end of the table."

Seeing how nervous the girl was, Dr. Tennant said "You've never had a gynecological exam before, have you?"

Connie shook her head.

"It's alright, I'll take it slow and be gentle."

Dr. Tennant helped the girl get onto the stirrups. Once Connie was positioned properly, Dr. Tennant raised the hem of the gown.

At first glance, everything looked OK, but when she started to gently probe, she met a lot of resistance. And the girl flinched.

"Connie, I'm not going to hurt you. Please trust me. And let go or whatever it is you do. I need to see whatever's really down here." She paused. "Or would you rather have a male doctor?

"Oh god, no. Please, no!"

Dr. Tennant moved so she could hug the girl. "Easy, it's OK. I think I know what you've got down there and it's OK. I just had to ask you about another doctor."

She held the girl until she seemed calmer.

"OK, I know you don't like this much, but can I look at you down there now?"

Reluctantly, Connie nodded her head.

When Dr. Tennant got to the foot of the exam table, this time she could see the folds that had been there before had been created by carefully arranged folds of Connie's scrotum. Her penis was starting to poke out a bit as well.

With a gloved hand she gently stretched the penis out. It seemed about normal for a boy just starting puberty. Small, but unlikely to be an enlarged clitoris. Especially with a urethra in the normal position for a male.

Moving slowly and carefully, she palpated the pubic mound. Yes, there were a pair of lumps where she half expected to find them.

"You pushed your testicles up inside, didn't you?"

Connie whimpered "Y-yes."

"It's alright, but I need to examine them. It shouldn't hurt much to get them back down, not anymore than it does when you push them up. How long has it been, dear?"

"A-a couple of days. The ... the stuff on the web said I shouldn't leave them up inside for more than a few days at a time..." Connie said it a small voice.

"Can you do it, or should I?"

"I.. I can do it."

With that, much to Dr. Tennant's surprise, the skin on Connie's pubic mound developed a couple of dimples and she could see the testicles pop back into their normal location.

She bent down for a closer look as she gently felt them. 'That's odd," she thought, "after a couple of days, that tucked skin should be sweaty". Instead it was clean and dry, She bent closer and sniffed. Not a hint of odor either. Hmm.

She helped Connie out of the stirrups, and had her go through the "bend over and cough" check as well as a prostate exam..

"Connie, you were born a boy, weren't you?"

Connie hung her head again, "Yes, ma'am"

"It's OK. You aren't the first transgendered student we've had here. Now, I have to ask Is this more of that disguise stuff like the ears and tail, or is it something more?"

"I.. I want to be a girl. I can kinda shape things right, but I wish I was right."

Dr. Tennant gave the girl a hug.

"Think you can handle my looking at your ears now?"

Connie nodded. The fox ears were really quite good. If it wasn't for there not actually being an opening into the head they'd have been perfect. And the hair around them hid that fairly well.

"I need to look at the skin under them. What do you need to do so I can?"

"I just need to let go of them. Then you can just pull them off. Be care not to set them down on anything dirty. It gets itchy if I get anything stuck under them."

"OK, any time you re ready." Dr. Tenant had gently grabbed the tips of the ears, one in each hand. They twitched when she touched them.

"Are you sure these are fake?" she exclaimed.

Connie smiled. "Yeah they're fake. But I can sorta feel them, and I've been practicing for years.."

"That's right you manifested early didn't you?"

"Yep. You can pull them off now."

With that the ears went limp and with a gentle tug they came off.

Dr. Tennant carefully examined the bare spots on the girls scalp that appeared when the ears were gone.

"Do you shave the hair here? It's a very good job. "

"Huh, oh no. I used to, but the hair just doesn't grow there anymore."

That got another raised eyebrow. And much closer look at the bare spots. Which seemed to be mildly indented. Hmm.

"Does this hurt?" Dr. Tennant asked as she carefully probed at the bare spot.

"No, but it sort of tickles."

There was a definite depression, but it wasn't soft. Or rather there was some soft tissue there, but the bone underneath was firm.

"There's something a bit odd here. Not wrong, just unusual. I think we'll need a few X-rays."

"Well, OK, I guess. Can I have my ears back?"

Dr. Tennant smiled. "I think that'll be fine."

She picked the ears back up, and as she moved them into place, it was almost like a magnet as they got close to the right spot they lined themselves up and twitched.

"That was odd. Do they always do that?"

"Oh yeah, I can feel where they need to be."

The doctor made a few notes.

"OK, now I really want to look at your tail. Let's see. How about you bend over the table again?"

Connie sighed. "OK" She slid her feet to the floor and assumed the position.

Dr. Tennant noted that the gown which should have spread open in that position was still covering the girl's buttocks.

"Are you holding on to the gown, dear?"

"Oh, yeah, I do that with skirts and stuff so I don't accidentally flash guys. "

The doctor couldn't resist joking. "As opposed to deliberately flashing them?"

Connie giggled, then replied "Good girls don't flash boys."

"Um-hum" was all the reply Dr. Tennant gave that.

"Well. I need to look at the base of your tail, so if you'd let me get at it..."

To her surprise, instead of falling away the way the gown normally would, it spread itself.

"My, that must be handy in the bathroom" she commented as she examined the base of the girl's tail.

It looked natural. A small patch of fur, thin on the edges and getting thicker as it became the base of the tail.

Some probing around the base showed that it seemed to attach to the base of the spine. And that the coccyx was aligned with the tail rather than pointing down like it normally did in humans. That was odd.

She gently grasped the tail. Hmm. It felt like there were bones in there. Muscles too from the feel as it twitched.

"OK, can you let go of the tail now?"

As she asked she felt it go limp and come loose in her hand.

To her surprise, only the center of the patch of fur came with it. The skin exposed was clean & dry. No feel of adhesive or anything. It felt rather thin over the bone. And was apparently very ticklish.

As she went to replace the tail she asked "What did you make these from anyway, they're quite realistic?"

"Oh, just some plastic and fake fur."

"It must have been very hard making the bones in the tail."

"Huh, what bones? It's just fake fur!"

That stopped the doctor. She felt the tail again. Yep, there was still some structure in there that felt like bones and tissue under the fur.

"Connie. Sit up."

When the bewildered girl had turned around and sat down, the doctor hand her the tail.

"Here. Take your tail in your hand and feel it."

Connie started feeling and got a surprised look. "But it was just fur.."

"It's more now. You've also got a small patch of matching fur around where it attaches. And there's something odd about the way the bone there goes too. I think we need to schedule more tests to check this out."

"I... Is something wrong with me?"

"Hopefully not. But some mutants who use their powers to alter their forms sometimes wind up making their real forms match the changes. I can't say that's what's happening here. It's not usual for it to happen with your sort of powers, but it bears checking out."

Connie looked thoughtful. "Would that mean I might get real girl parts too?"

"Maybe. If you are changing to match this disguise of yours it could happen. But we really don't know what's going on or even if anything is going on."

"Well, I want to be a girl. And having the ears and tail is OK, even if it messes up being able to hide by taking them off. So I guess I can live with that if it happens."

"My you are just full of surprises, aren't you. I think you'll want to think that over some. We'll have someone you can talk all of that over with."

"Go ahead and get dressed, then we'll go get you some blood tests and those X-rays. And if there's time a couple other things."

The blood draw was interesting, The tech bent the needle before Dr. Tennant thought to ask Connie to drop her field. After that it went OK She noticed that there was no bleeding after the needle was withdrawn and made a note that they'd need to check the girl's healing rate.

The skull X-ray was a surprise. Connie's head showed up as 100% opaque to X-rays.

Connie looked at it and said. "Oh. I bet that goes with not getting sunburns..."

"I can see a lot more tests in your future, young lady. Do you think you can turn it off so he can get X-rays?"

It took a couple of tries, but soon there were several X-rays of her skull and the base of her spine.

"Drat. I can't quite get enough detail. We'll have to schedule you for an MRI or CAT scan later. Well, hopefully an ultrasound will go quicker."

Indeed, the ultrasound wasn't a problem. But while getting the images was easy, interpreting them was going to be a bit more difficult.

***

"Connie? I want to get the scans before we talk about your results from yesterday."

"OK, I guess."

There were the expected problems with the CAT scan until Connie let her skin field pass the X-rays.

The real surprises were the MRI and the PET scan.

First try at the MRI Connie noted a slight resistance as she walked up to the machine. She didn't think anything of it. But when the magnets switched to full power the loud clunk startled her. And she startled the tech as she popped out of the machine at a very high speed.

She was able to stop before she hit the wall. Barely.

After some arguing, she convinced them that she hadn't flown out. She'd just brought up her field.

Eventually they figured out that when she strengthened her field she'd forced out the magnetic field from the machine. And that had pushed her out of the machine.

The PET scan was where thing got weird. They had her drink the custom radioisotope mix.

"Okay, what did you do? You have to drink the stuff or we can't get a reading!"

"But I did drink it!"

She lowered her skin field. Still no readings.

After some discussion, they decided it would be safe to give her a dose of a different mix that was used for a different type of imaging study.

They checked the mix with a Geiger counter. And as she drank it the count rate dropped.

Much consternation.

They finally tried placing her in a well shielded room and taking readings as they X-rayed her with a portable unit. The X-rays went through, proving her field was down. But they got no radiation count from her. Not even the normal background count.

Name: Dorothy Gayle
Aliases: D'artagnan "Art" Gayle
Code name: Blip
Ratings: warper (teleportation) level unknown
Techniques:none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

Art wasn't really thrilled with the medical tests. Not that they were all that bad.

The physical exam was no fun at all, but he'd known there was no way around it.

They didn't like his low body fat, but when he'd explained why he was doing it, they agreed to let him continue until they could get results from some pysch stuff. But he was warned to come into the clinic immediately if any of a long list of things happened.

Powers testing made up for it though.

Well the written stuff at the start was kinda boring. Except when the questions were too hard.

The physical tests were a pain for the most part. He was strong and fast, but only a bit more than most folks. The dodgeball had been kinda fun at first. But eventually there were too many to dodge.

Testing his teleportation was more fun. They had him blip to different places in the lab and then to a few places on campus.

"Okay, that's pretty good. Now we need to try for range..."

"I sorta thought you might so I had Connie help me with a little trip after we found out where Whateley was. Got a phone number I can call you at?"

Someone dug out a business card with the school's number on it and wrote the extension on it.

"Do you have a GPS or something that won't get too freaked out by getting moved a long ways? Even after the mods we made, Connie's still takes a few minutes to resynch after a long blip."

A tech handed Art a box.

"Great, I'll call you in a minute...."

With that, Art vanished.

"Wait, we didn't set up a location..."

A few minutes later the phone rang. A tech answered it. She listened for a moment and turned with a weird expression on her face.

"Dr. Shandy? It's the main switchboard. They've got a collect phone call for you...."

The doctor got up to go to the phone just as the tech finished. ".. from Australia."

Several voices chimed in "Australia!?"

Dr. Shandy took the phone from the tech. " This is Dr. Shandy. ... Yes. Where in Australia? Perth? And the caller is... Blip? Yes, I'll accept the call."

Someone slid a laptop with a map of Australia showing on the screen onto the desk.

"You really shouldn't have done that without clearing it with us... What? ... Yes, if it's synched up you can jump back..."

As the doctor was speaking, Art appeared in the room holding the GPS.

"Sorry, I figured it'd save a lot of time."

"Well, I suppose it did. You couldn't jump much farther away, could you?"

"Actually, no. Not unless I want to get really wet. And actually, I can't exactly get a "fix" on a chunk of ocean."

At the puzzled looks, Art explained. "I worked it out on the maps Perth is the only decent sized city anywhere close to the opposite side of the world. I could have gone about 25 miles away to the SW tip of Australia, but that wasn't worth the trouble. No phones, anyway. And the actual 'other side of the world' is over 300 miles out to sea from there."

"Max range of over twelve thousand miles...." that was one of the techs.

"No. Only around eight thousand, I rather doubt that he's following the surface of the earth on these blips of his."

After this they decided range testing was kind of pointless. Which was what Art had hoped for.

Name: Ronald Sutherland
Aliases: Constance (Connie) Sutherland
Coden name: Flying Fox
Ratings: flying, strength, PK (contact?), gadgeteer(?) levels uncertain
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

"OK, let me go over the test results the State Patrol sent us. You can fly, you've got super strength and some sort of force field. And you're good with equipment."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well, what can you tell me about the flying? Any idea what your maximum speed is?"

Flying Fox hesitated this was one of the things she didn't want to let them know everything about.

"I'm not really sure."

"Well, can you give me any sort of guess? 20 miles an hour? 50? 100?"

"No. I mean I'm not sure I have a top speed. The farther I go the faster I go."

He wrote down "Constant acceleration?"

"OK, that's a bit unusual. How about some info on a long trip?"

"Sure. I have a track file for the flight here saved on my GPS!" With that she dug her much modified GPS out of a belt pouch.

It took a few minutes to get software and protocols sorted. While a tech was dealing with that Dr. Hewley asked her about the trip.

"Well, it took about 15 minutes to get from Spokane to New Hampshire, then I had to wait for Don to call to let folks know we were here. A couple minutes after that we were landing in the quad."

Dr. Hewley looked boggled. "Wait a second. Spokane? Isn't that in Washington state?"

"Yeah over near the Idaho border."

"And it took you 15 minutes..."

"Well, we weren't in that much of a hurry. So I didn't 'push'."

"Push?"

"Yeah, it's kinda hard to describe, but if I 'push harder' I build up speed faster. "

Looking a bit dazed he said "You weren't pushing hard and you flew 3000 miles in 15 minutes."

"Oh no. It's only twenty-two, twenty-three-hundred miles. Twenty-five-hundred, tops!"

He dug out a calculator. "That's 9000 miles an hour!"

"Well, yeah, that's the average. I was doing a lot more than that at the halfway point when I had to start slowing down."

"Oh, of course you'd have to start slowing down halfway.." He drew several underlines under the note about constant acceleration.

Then something else caught his attention. "You said 'we' and something about 'Don calling'?"

"Yeah, I was flying my boyfriend and my brother Don here so we could take care of stuff like the testing."

"How did you protect them during the flight?"

"Oh, they were inside the field so they were fine."

"Oh that force field of yours? How's that work?"

"I'm not really sure. It's just that when I was learning to fly early on, the wind kept bugging me and running into bugs... Ick!"

"Anyway, one day something sort of clicked and I had this 'bubble' around me. It was a lot easier to fly. It changes shape to minimize air resistance. I can carry stuff inside it too. It does something with things like air and stuff so I can breathe and don't get too hot or cold."

He wrote a note asking for Security's records of her approach and handed it off to another tech. The first one had the flight track from the GPS downloaded and handed it back to the girl.

"That sounds useful. We'll have to come up with some tests on that. I guess we won't be testing the limits of your flight abilities in the lab."

Connie gave him a "Duh!" look

"How did you start flying?"

"Well, I didn't start flying. I was carrying a big box down some stairs and missed a step. I got across the room and discovered I'd been walking about six inches off the floor. I did the walking on air thing for a few weeks before I started to fly. Well, At first I sort of glided down. Learning move up without walking up imaginary stairs or something was hard."

Another note, "atypical development of flight powers".

"I got real tired doing that at first. Especially if I flew fast. And I was hungry all the time. "

"That's fairly normal for a lot of
energy intensive powers. But you said 'At first'?"

"Yeah, One day it just got easier
Sort of like getting a second wind."

More notes.

"Sometimes when I'm flying really fast or working really hard I get a sort of 'third wind'..."

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

---

Yes, I've been told that her speed violates the rules for the Whateleyverse. I didn't know that when I originally wrote it, and I kinda need it for some things planned for the future. So just consider this a more alternate than usual alternate Whateley.

Name: Constance (Connie) Sutherland
Code name: Flying Fox
Ratings: flying, strength, PK (contact?), radiation shielding? levels uncertain
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

The less said about most of the powers testing the better.

The written stuff was just boring. So were the card guessing things. The surprise attack bit (Xavier test, I think they called it) startled me, but I'm really glad I pretty much keep the skin field up all the time. That would have hurt if I hadn't been protected.

Then there was the dodgeball from hell. They wouldn't let me just stand there and let the balls bounce off. And I couldn't dodge all that well. But I finally figured the trick of bracing myself so I wouldn't move and batting them out of the way with my hands and arms.

***

"OK, let's see how much weight you can lift"

Connie bent over and picked up a large barbell. She lifted it easily, with no hint of strain.

"Got anything heavier?"

A short while later, after running out of free weights (they only went up to four tons) they had her working with a cross between a Nautilus machine and a mad scientist's idea of a heavy duty press.

They had her rest, and she couldn't lift the weights she'd just lifted. That surprised everyone, including her. But she was able to work back up to it.

The next time they had her rest, they were surprised again when she was able to easily lift a weight she'd strained to lift just before.

"What did you do differently?"

"I'm not sure. The first time I thought we were done, so I relaxed. This time I..." she paused searching for words, "it's hard to describe. It's like when I go down, I can sort of feel something building. Or when I've been pushing hard to fly. There's something like a pressure or a tingle or something. But it's different for when I float down and when I'm flying or lifting..."

"And this applies to what just happened how?"

"Oh, sorry I got distracted thinking about it. Anyway, this time since I knew there was more lifting coming I just let it? Made it? keep building."

More weight lifting ensued.

Connie had gotten what she called her "second wind" early on and now there were alarming creaks coming from the unit.

"Please stop, Flying Fox. We need to come up with a different way to test things to find your actual limit."

Another tech spoke up. "It looks like as long as you expect that you'll have to do more work you just keep getting stronger."

"No, it's more like her power just keeps building when she's using it or expecting to use it. But if she 'relaxes' it drops back to zero fairly quickly."

Connie looked thoughtful. "That might explain some stuff... So if I can just learn to keep my power up, I'll be stronger?"

"Could be. But until we do some more testing and get a handle on where your power is coming from, you should be careful. There might be side effects."

"Yeah, and there's something really weird about her power curve..." muttered someone.

"Well, we need to test your force field now. Apparently it stops x-rays?"

They started by trying to x-ray her hand. And wound up in the med labs with a completely underexposed patch that perfectly matched her hand.

Next they tried having her use the "bubble" form of the field. That was awkward. Finally they had her floating in midair in the classic superman flight pose with one arm stretched out in front.

The bubble was opaque to x-rays as well.

"Great. That means we can test more things without worrying so much about you, because we can just aim so stuff that makes it through the field will go past you."

It was quickly determined using a devise that could create coherent beams of various radiations that her bubble stopped everything from ultraviolet on up through high energy gamma rays. Completely.

"Where's it going? There's no scatter, it just hits the field and goes away!"

They tried upping the power. No effect.

Someone suggested that as long as they had thing set up, they might as well try going up in wavelength.

The first pass through the visible and IR bands showed new effects. The light went through as if the field wasn't there. The IR disappeared.

This prompted someone to dig out an IR camera. And discover that the field was blocking IR. When it was up, it was a black spot on the image. When it was down, the girl glowed in IR just like a normal human.

Then they tried cranking up the power on the laser. As expected, the field still absorbed the IR wavelengths. Then they hit the visible wavelengths.

Surprised yells from one of the techs drew everyone's attention. There was a bright spot on the sensor the beam was aimed at. It stayed there even as the beam power went up. But the spot stayed the same brightness. About as bright as sunlight someone figured.

That led to someone wondering about radio frequencies. About the time it occurred to someone to just hand the girl an RF meter and move in a transmitter, some else had thought to check the data Security had given them.

"Hey! She didn't show up on radar when she flew here!"

Connie blushed. "Um, yeah. I don't do that anymore. I had a really bad experience when I was younger. Almost got caught by somebody. I don't know what I did, but I quit showing up on radar after that."

Lots of questions.

"No, I don't know. I just sort of 'learned' or something. Just like when I got sunburned the first time I flew really high."

More questions. Most of which Connie answered with "I don't know."

They finally went for the more normal tests for force fields. Her field was very tough. But some of the readings were odd.

As Connie walked towards Crystal Hall she heard a sneering voice call out "Hey, It's the fox bitch again!"

She'd already been having a bad day. Her classes were a lot harder than at her last school, and she had more power testing coming up after lunch.

The testing worried her. There were things she didn't want them to find out...

She was jerked out of her thoughts as someone grabbed her tail and yanked.

"Hey, bitch! Look at me when I'm talking to you."

It didn't really hurt, just startled her a bit. But it was the last straw.

She spun around and glared at the boy. It was one of the ones that'd been harassing her all week.

She decided she'd had enough. She'd already checked and it was a green flag day. So she didn't need to worry about anybody seeing anything.

"Listen, idiot. I've had about enough of you and your buddies. Why won't you go bother somebody else?"

"Awww. Is the bitch on the rag?" taunted another of the boys.

She flinched. He didn't realize just what a sore spot he'd hit. Connie wanted to cry at the reminder of what she'd never be.

Her flinch drew laughter and more taunts. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, the predators circled for the kill. Only these predators didn't realize what they'd gotten themselves into.

Her fox ears went flat on top of her head and her tail stood straight out and bottled as the fur stood on end.

She fought the impulse to lash out at them. She took a breath and reached out to a watermelon sized chunk of granite next to the path. She put one hand on top of it, flexed her fingers a bit and lifted it as if it was so much styrofoam.

Bringing it up to waist height she took it between her hands and squeezed. Still with no visible effort she looked straight at the ringleader and said in a flat voice "I'm not a bitch. I'm a vixen."

As she spoke she was sort of rolling the chunk of rock between her hands and with some alarming cracking noises it got smaller and smaller.

"You don't want to make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

With that she turned and tossed the now grapefruit sized and glowing rock over her shoulder. The concrete of the path cracked as it impacted.

She walked off towards the dining hall again as the smoking sphere of something that used to be rock cooled. Her ears were back up and her tall swished from side to side as she sauntered away.

The boys were stunned for a moment. Then one started to reach down to poke at the sphere.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you".

The boy turned to see someone from Whateley Security looking amused.

"Why not?" asked the boy.

"Well, I don't recall you being invulnerable or a regen, so if you're fond of your fingers, you might want to poke it with a stick or something else you won't mind losing."

The boy stepped back looking nervous. The security man picked up a fallen branch from under a tree and poked the sphere. Smoke and flame erupted as the wood contacted it.

"See what I mean?"

He pushed harder with the stick and barely managed to get the sphere to rock a bit in the depression it'd made in the walkway. He nodded to himself and keyed the mike on his radio.

"Security? Evans here. I need someone from the labs to do a hazmat pickup. One of the freshmen. Flying Fox, just turned a quarter ton of granite into a lump the size of a grapefruit. And it's hot enough to glow yellow...."

"Yeah, it's sitting on the path about halfway between Poe and Crystal Hall."

***

The hazmat team quickly scanned the sphere sitting on the cracked concrete walkway.

"No radiation hazard..."

"Surface temp 1000 C and dropping..."

"No magic signature..."

"Okay, looks safe to move."

The guard watched as they used a couple of crowbars to lever it into a heavily insulated box sitting on its side. Once the sphere was inside they carefully tipped the box upright and closed the lid. A small front loader rolled up and chains from the bucket were attached to lifting lugs on the box.

The head of the team turned to the guard. "They want this down in the lab, pronto. They also want you to write up what you saw.."

With a sigh the guard followed them to the lab. Paperwork...

***

The powers testing boffins were poring over the reports.

"Elemental composition looks about right for something that started out as a chunk of the local granite. But the molecular structure is pretty weird."

"Yes, but allowing for the pressure and heat, you'd expect that."

"Why's it so hot?"

"Compression, friction, pretty much what you'd expect from forcing normal rock into a hyper-dense state like that"

"How dense is it, anyway?"

"About 140 grams per cubic centimeter. More than 6 times as dense as platinum"

"Good grief. The earth's core isn't that dense!"

"The pressures involved...."

"We're still trying to figure out what sort of pressures were involved. But as you can see, this means her powers have still more aspects we hadn't expected."

"OK, we need a list of things that need to be investigated based on this incident. And we need to see how much of it can be worked into her testing after lunch..."

"I think Medical should check out the bit about how her ears and tail reacted."

"Why, well, supposedly they are props. But from this, it sounds like they are part of her."

"OK, send that along to them. And be sure we get an examination of her hands as soon as she gets to testing. I want to know if there's any sign of damage from the heat."

"Right".

"Next, the report says she picked up that boulder by putting her hand on the top and grabbing it. Even with super strength she shouldn't have been able to get a grip on it that'd work. Not unless she sank her fingers into it. And that'd have caused a lot of cracking and spalling, right?"

Heads nodded.

"Then she brought it up to waist height and started using both hands to squeeze it. And how did the guard put it? 'Rolled it between her hands like a lump of clay'. That shouldn't be possible It'd shatter under the pressure long before it started compressing."

"Maybe it's another aspect of her force fields? That'd explain how it wound up spherical, too".

"OK, list that as tentative explanation and figure out how to test it."

"Uh, boss? I just realized we overlooked something."

"What?"

"You said it was a granite boulder about yea big, right?" He held his hands out to indicate the size.

"Yeah?"

"And we figure it weighed about the same as the sphere does, right? A quarter ton or so?"

Someone chimed in "257 kilos".

"Right. How much does she weigh? 40, 50 kilos?"

"Yes..."

"Ever see a crane try to pick up something that weighs more than it does? Unless it's properly braced, it falls over. She just stood there and didn't fall over even with a rock weighing five times what she does at the end of one arm."

Much frantic discussion ensued as the subject of their discussion ate lunch.

***

Connie decided to indulge herself a bit. She was attempting to devour a bacon-mushroom cheeseburger and onion rings in a "delicate" manner. Well, at least somewhat more ladylike than some of the other bricks.

Between sips of her chocolate shake she wondered what they had in mind for this round of powers testing. She was interrupted by her boyfriend appearing next to the table.

Poor Art. He was looking longingly at her burger. He had a salad. And she knew his drink was likely a diet soda. They both knew why he was being so careful with his diet. Maybe the doctors here could help him some. At least now that Don was their guardian, they had a chance. Not like either set of parents...

She took his mind off the food by telling him about her latest attempt to discourage the idiots who were bothering her.

"Well, if they don't get the hint from that..." was his comment once he quit laughing.

"Yeah, well, I hope you don't have to go as far as that knife trick you came up with. That's a bit dangerous."

"Still better than a blip with the knife into them"

She nodded.

"Not like they can bother you much. They'd have to be able to catch you."

"Connie, you know as well as I do, that if it looks like I'm running away, it'll get worse."

"OK, OK. I get the point."

"Have those idiots from the school radio station gone after you yet?:

"No, I think Alice unnerved them a bit, and since I'm the older sister, lord only knows what they'd think I'd do."

Just then, as if summoned by the mention of her name, Alice came up with her tray and a wicker basket.

She was a cute girl who looked about 12. The gingham dress she was wearing only emphasized it.

"Not the Dorothy outfit again!" complained Art.

"I told you not to give it to her." said Connie. "And where'd you dig up the wig?"

"Oh, Don got it for me." replied Alice.

Art snickered. "You know your brother gives her anything she wants."

"Like he's got a choice!" Connie shot back.

Alice just ignored them and started to eat her lunch. She noticed a few boys watching. She smiled sweetly and caught the eye of one at a nearby table as she peeled a banana. Maintaining eye contact, she slowly pushed it into her mouth. Then she let it out again. All the while looking ever so sweet and innocent. Like she had no idea what it looked like..

Art and Connie just ignored her. They'd seen it before.

But all the boys (and a few of the girls) at nearby tables were transfixed watching this sweet innocent girl ever so innocently do something frankly obscene to the fruit.

Once she was sure she had the full attention of enough boys, she let the banana out again, licked the end, and then still smiling innocently, bit the end off. All the boys cringed.

Alice continued eating as if she hadn't noticed any of it.

Art commented, "I'd say that was going to get you in trouble on of these days, if I didn't know how many times it has already."

Alice smiled. "It's only trouble if you can't get out of it."

Connie shook her head. "Sometimes sister, you freak me out."

Alice shrugged.

Art asked "So, did you and Don come up with code-names yet?"

Alice nodded.

"So what are they?"

Alice smiled. "Oh, I'm Lolicon, and Don is Bishounen."

She'd timed it perfectly. Both Art and Connie had their mouths full. The spray was impressive.

---

I'm putting these at the end now otherwise they'd take over the teaser.

Name: Constance (Connie) Sutherland
Aliases: Ronald Sutherland
Code name: Flying Fox
Ratings: flying, strength, PK (contact?), radiation shielding? levels uncertain
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

Name: D'artagnan "Art" Gayle
Aliases: Dorothy Gayle
Code name: Blip
Ratings: warper (teleportation) level unknown
Techniques:none
Weak vs.: [unknown]
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

Name: Allison "Alice" Sutherland
Aliases: none
Code name: Lolicon
Ratings: [redacted]
Techniques: Lolita, age inappropiate behavior, kawaii, [censored], [censored],[censored], [redacted]
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: family, [redacted]

Ok, things are going to slow down for a bit. Most of what I've been posting was already written and only needed editing/rearranging.

Now I'm getting to new stuff (or at least newly completed/expanded) and things are likely going to be more spaced out.

Also, my muse decided that now was the time to take the note (and a couple paragraphs of actual story) I had for Don & Alice and go with them.

Don and Alice are *different*. VERY different.

I suspect that many people aren't going to like their background a lot. Alas, they are what they are. And their background, interests, etc are a big part of how they wind up at Whateley as well as how & why they have their abilities.

Also, I still remember what it was like growing up with similar interests & inclinations. Showing that it's not the end of the world if you are weird in ways that may make others uncomfortable, but aren't affecting them may help somebody.

But this does mean that there are going to be some dark spots in their story. I'll use the appropriate cautions when those bits come up.

Then again, you already know that they *survive* those spots.

Please bear with me.

Warning. This chapter and following chapters in its "thread" will contain some sexual situations, BDSM and other "kink". Nothing that outrageous, but there will be some.

***

He found it while exploring the woods one day.

He thought he heard voices. Between that and the twinges he was getting from his bondage he decided it was best to get off the trail.

He'd decided to try getting closer to the foot of the cliff. He couldn't be sure through the trees, but it looked like there wasn't a talus slope here.

It was odd, he'd have sworn there wasn't a place like that around here. He'd been digging through the local woods for years and surely he'd have noticed?

To his amazement, he suddenly stepped into a cleared area. Just some moss on the ground, then a bunch of waist high stones in a arc from the cliff. It was odd. Not only wasn't there a talus slope, but the stones weren't the basalt that all the local rock was.

He was just noticing the stones inside the arc and the large opening in the cliff when he heard the voices again.

"I'm sure I saw someone! And they were naked!"

Oh hell, he'd gotten spotted. In a panic he ran through the arc of stones and ducked into the opening in the cliff, praying that they wouldn't look there.

As soon as he crossed the arc of stones, his panic vanished. He still ducked into the cave or whatever it was. He was catching his breath as a feeling of safety came over him. He was still worried, but it was distant.

He still kept looking out to the woods frequently, but he felt safe enough to look around. He could see that the arc of stones continued into the cave. It seemed to be an oval.

Looking closer he could see shapes carved into the stones. Maybe some sort of writing? It didn't look like anything he'd seen before.

The shape of the cave was weird too. It was a smooth arc. Sort of like a quarter of a sphere, except stretched a bit to follow the oval.

There were several yards clearance between the stones and the wall. About the same as the clearance between them and the underbrush outside. Weird.

Then his attention was drawn to the elephant in the room. Well, not an elephant, but something that should have been just as obvious. But he'd only noticed them after entering the cave.

There were a number of roughly humanoid statues(?) carved out of the same stone. As well as some large low blocks of stone (his mind thought of them as altars) and some stone chairs. More like thrones.

Before he could take a closer look at anything he heard the voices again. He ducked behind one of the altars and peeked over the top. Only a moment later several people came out of the woods.

Oh, this was bad, he recognized a couple from school. Damn. If they spotted him, his life would be hell.

But to his surprise, they just looked around blankly. They didn't seem to see the clearing and stones!

One said, "Well, nothing here but a bunch of fallen rocks from the cliffs. If you weren't seeing things, he must have slipped by us."

And with that they turned around and walked away.

He slumped to the ground in relief. He didn't know how or why, but they'd missed him.

The feeling of safety swept over him again. Somehow he knew it was connected to what had happened. So he tried to send back a "thank you".

The safe feeling surged. Then there was a pause. And he had an urge? No, not that more of an impulse, Like he was thinking about something but with no pressure to decide one way or the other.

Without really knowing why, he unwound the painful bindings on his genitals. The returning circulation was only a bit more painful. Then he took a deep breath, then started rebinding things. But tighter. So tight it almost took his breath away. Tighter than he'd ever done before.

He had to breathe deeply for a couple minutes as he adjusted to the pain. It was still a "good" pain though.

Then he moved carefully to the top of the altar block he'd been hiding behind. He was not surprised to see that the top had a hollow shaped like a human carved into it. He worked himself into place so he was laying flat in it.

To his surprise, it was actually comfortable. Yet at the same time the pain seemed to intensify. Normally he'd have expected it to be decreasing as things got a bit numb. But it wasn't. It kept on throbbing through him.

He was getting aroused. Which just made things worse, given how tightly he was bound. He just laid there and endured it. Soon he was floating from the endorphins. Without thinking about it, his hands moved to his chest and started tweaking his nipples. Softly at first, then harder.

He kept switching from soft to hard and back again. His arousal grew, and finally as he squeezed and twisted as hard as he could, he orgasmed,

Bound as he was, this caused a new and quite intense pain.

He wasn't sure how long he laid there overwhelmed by the combination of pleasure and pain.

At last, he felt a sort of nudge and carefully sat up and worked his way off the altar stone.

Without knowing why, he walked to the back of the cave, where an idol that was both male and female at the same time stood. There were basins of water to either side of it. Water seemed to be bubbling up into them and then flowing off to the ground. Part of his mind went "so that's why there's moss."

He stood in front of one of them, and slowly unwrapped the bindings once more. He could see traces of blood where skin had gotten pinched between the windings. Once they were free, he dropped the bindings into the water without knowing why he did.

Then he reached out and took a handful of the water and wiped it over his body. It was very cold, but refreshing at the same time. As he got to where he'd been bound, he could see that not only the sweat and blood washed off, but the pain went away. And when he checked, he couldn't find anyplace where the blood had come from.

When he looked at the cord he'd used for binding, it looked different. He reached into the basin and lifted it out. It was clean. Not only of the blood but the dirt as well. And it looked like new.

He knew he should have been freaked by all this, but he just accepted it. And he could swear that there was a sort of thankfulness mixed in with the feelings of safety.

He wanted to explore this place further, but from the look of the shadows outside, it'd been an hour or more. Regretfully he tied the cord around his waist (easiest way to carry it and still have his hands free) and started back towards the woods and the trail.

He hesitated a long time before stepping into the woods. Every sense was alert. He didn't want to run into anybody. One close call was enough.

He worked his way back to the trail, and then after looking carefully both ways, he headed down it to where his clothes were hidden.

He ducked into the brush several times, but they were all false alarms. Soon enough he was dressed and headed for home.

When he got there, his brother Ronnie and Ronnie's friend, Dot were there. Playing with Ronnie's GI Joes again.

He felt sorry for both of them. He knew about their gender problems and had helped cover with the folks a few times.

He was a bit envious as well. At least they could pass. He'd managed to get a few things that fit, but he was obviously a guy in them. Puberty had sucked. Mind you it wasn't that he didn't want to be a boy. It was just that sometimes he wanted to be a girl for a while.

He'd not told the kids because he figured they wouldn't understand. It was pretty clear to everyone but their folks that the kids were 100% the opposite of the sex they were "supposed" to be.

Besides not understanding, he didn't want to remind either of them of what would probably happen when puberty hit. It'd be painful enough then.

He shook off the unpleasant thoughts and went to put the cord away with his stash of "toys". He stopped when he set it next to the other lengths that'd been cut from the same piece. It was clean and looking brand new next to the other pieces. But that was impossible.

He hid the stash and sat down in front of his computer to think. The whole thing was impossible, Wasn't it?

He thought some more about the strangeness of the stones and the cave. Y'know, it'd looked like they'd been there before basalt flows that made up the cliffs.

He fired up the computer and did some searching. Then sat back appalled. The Columbia River flood basalt formations were hundreds of thousands of years old!

---

Name: Donald "Don" Sutherland
Aliases: none
Code name: none
Ratings: normal human
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

He's Ronald Sutherland (aka "Connie")'s older brother.

Note that things will probably get a bit more explicit in later installments of this branch of the stories.

I will note that this is not being done gratuitously, there are reasons why their is sex & BDSM involved in this story. And not necessarily the ones you think.

A bonus post.

For some reason, a lot of folks have a problem with Peeper & Greasy. And some of them do something about it.

Alice vs Peeper & Greasy

"Peeper! Peeper!"

"What is it Greasy?"

"I finally got a camera into Poe!"

"What? I thought you said they weren't working."

"I know, but I started getting a signal from one of the microcams. I think it got caught on something and just started working when someone jolted it loose onto something else."

"Well, let's see the signal...."

Greasy called up an image showing part of a dorm room. A girl's dorm room if the clothes visible on the bed were any indication.

Peeper was about to say something when a figure moved into view. A girl in a yellow bathrobe and her hair wrapped in a towel.

From their viewpoint all they could see was her back.

They stared as the robe was tossed onto the bed revealing a completely naked body. the girl bent down to grab something off the bed. Her head went out of the frame, but from the side there was no doubt that it was a girl.

Her breasts were small, but definitely there. She turned as she bent further. They had an excellent view of her backside and between her legs before she straightened and pulled up a lacy pair of black panties.

She got something else from the bed and turned again. Her head went out of the frame, but they had an excellent view of a pair of A cup breasts as she put on a sexy black bra.

Her breasts jiggled as (they guessed) she did something with the towel in her hair.

She stretched deliciously and reached over to the bed. Then she stepped back and her face was in the frame, just above a printed sign.

HI BOYS.

I HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED THE SHOW.

JUST ONE THING...

She flipped the sign just as both recognized her.

I'M 12.

CAN YOU SAY CHILD PORNOGRAPHY?

HOPE YOU ENJOY JAIL.

Greasy was going "Oh shit! Oh shit!" as Peeper screamed at him to delete the files.

Just then there was a knock on the door.

"This is security, open up."

Back in her room, Alice and Connie were laughing themselves silly.

"Wonder how long it'll take them to find out that's a recorder attached to their door?" asked Connie.

***

A few days later...

"What are you doing Alice?"

"I'm getting ready to send Peeper and Greasy some more pictures"

"Not like the last set!"

"Oh no! These are just me and Teddy."

"Where did you get a teddy bear with a ... Never mind, I don't want to know!"

***

Still later...

"Hello Peeper, I'm Alice's big brother, Don."

"Eep!"

"Oh don't worry, I don't interfere with her private life...."

"whew".

"Just thought I'd let you know that I think you're cute too."

This is a timeline for the Glimpses characters. It'll have other info as well, at least until & unless it becomes necessary to split things.

Note that info will be "as revealed so far".

Significant events

Sat, April 1, 1989	Donald Sutherland born
Fri, June 11, 1993	Ronald Sutherland born
Tue, September 21, 1993	Dorothy Gayle born
Thu, February 28, 2002	Flying Fox powers manifest
Fri, June 28, 2002	Blip powers manifest
Sat, June 21, 2003	Donald finds stone circle
Sat, August 7, 2004	Don & Alice origin event
Fri, September 7, 2007	Connie, Art, Don & Alice start at Whateley?

---

Name: D'artagnan "Art" Gayle
Aliases: Dorothy "Dot" Gayle
Code name: Blip
Ratings: warper (teleportation)
ESP (clairvoyance?) level unknown, [redacted]
Techniques: fencing, gymnastics
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

Costume: Zorro outfit, with mask, without hat

Teleportation to anywhere he's been or can see. Cameras & photos don't work, Binoculars & telescopes can work. Has to know where target is relative to him to use "seen but not visited" teleport.

Has ability to "see" target area. Not normal eyesight. Some sort of ESP?

[redacted]

---

Name: Constance (Connie) Sutherland
Aliases: Ronald Sutherland
Code name: Flying Fox
Ratings: flying, strength, PK (contact?), force fields (contact & centered) levels uncertain, [redacted]
Techniques: fencing, gymnasticss
Weak vs.: unknown
Backup/ Team affiliation: family

Costume: Zorro outfit, with mask, without hat, in russet brown that matches her hair & fur.

"powered armor" effect is force field based. Logarithmic response.

[redacted]

---

Name: Donald "Don" Sutherland
Aliases: none
Code name: Bishounen
Ratings: EX-1?, ESP-2, [redacted]
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: family, [redacted]

Name: Allison "Alice" Sutherland
Aliases: none
Code name: Lolicon
Ratings: EX-2?, ESP-2, [redacted]
Techniques: Lolita, age inappropiate behavior, kawaii, goth, [censored], [censored], [censored], [redacted]
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: family, [redacted]
Age: [redacted]

Costume: varies. Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy, Magical Girl, Wednesday Addams, etc.

The ESP-2 is that they can duplicate physical "skills" after seeing them once. This doesn't mean they can learn a martial art from one move. It does mean that they can duplicate a kata (adjusted for their body size & shape) after seeing it once. Ditto for dances, and some sleight of hand (they have to be able to actually see the motions).

More properly, they will know how to move to duplicate the kata, gymnastics, routine or whatever. But they are still subject to their body's limitations on strength & flexibility. If they aren't strong or flexible enough they'll know without trying. But they'll also know the optimum way to "train up" to the required strength & flexibility.

They've actually gained a lot of strength from duplicating some mime routines (floating in freefall for example).

This ability was actually intended to [redacted], but turned out to be of much greater application.

Early on they picked up dance moves, some combat skills and gymnastics from watching Dot & Ron. Since then, they've made a point of watching gymnastics videos and dance videos. They've picked up some martial arts stuff, but it's pretty scattered and random. Ito will not be impressed. But they'll pick up anything they get shown in class.

This helps a little with sex, massage, etc. But only a little because you need to learn to "feel" not just what your body is doing, but what their body is doing. It still helps quite a bit.

[redacted]

Morgan is not progressing, so I figured I'd repost something I wrote for the Crystal Hall fan-fics.

---

Hi. I'm Jessie Craighead.

I can recall exactly when my life came apart. That bitch, Lenore Schippers, was ticked off that I'd beaten her onto the girl's basketball team. Especially when the coach told her that even if she had been better at the game, she was worried about her being able to maintain her grades

OK, I can understand being upset about that. But she had to drag her father into it. Mr. Schippers was head of the local MCO office and Lenore gave him this sob story about how I had to be a mutant to have beaten her out and have a 3.8 GPA on top of it.

I thought I was embarrassed when I was told I had to be tested for all this stuff. I was wrong. Real embarrassment was when they dragged me out of gym class saying I was a boy!!

I knew I hadn't had a period yet, but we just thought I was a late bloomer. Turns out I have a genetic condition called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. CAIS for short.

It means that even though I've got XY chromosomes my body doesn't respond to testosterone or other "male" hormones at all. So I developed mostly as a girl from back in the womb. I don't have a period because I don't have a uterus. I do have a vagina and small breasts. And wider hips than most boys. In short, until they did the testing, even the doctors thought I was just a girl who was developing a bit slowly.

Between that and that fact that I have some of the metagene complexes (like 5 percent of the population does) that was enough for Mr. Schippers to get me classed as a mutant. Even though I don't have any trace of actual abilities. I'm good at athletics, but that took a lot of work. I'm smart, but I still have to work at things.

Being declared a mutant was bad. But worse was that he got a judge to agree that I was a boy, regardless of what I look like.

Y'see, I live in Ohio. And some years back a man died without a will. His family wanted his estate. And challenged his wife's right to inherit. They claimed the marriage was invalid because his wife used to be a man. And the judge ruled that regardless of surgery or anything else, if you were XX you were and always would be legally female. And if you were XY you'd always be male.

I understand that the wife's lawyers even tried to bring up folks like me, but the judge ignored the evidence. So the judge Mr. Schippers went to ruled the precedent applied to me. And that made me legally a boy.

Mom and dad are still trying to appeal the decision, but it may take years. Meanwhile I had to get all my school records changed and get a new ID card. The MID card the MCO gave me doesn't help either. It says I'm a boy and that I'm an exemplar-1. The doctors mom and dad have taken me to say it's more likely that I'm not a mutant at all, but there's no real way to prove it. We're appealing the MID stuff anyway, but they say the odds of being able to fix it are pretty low.

Because everyone heard the news, I kept getting called "pervert" and worse by folks who thought I was a boy pretending to be a girl.

I'd always been a bit of a tomboy because I like sports. But I thought I was 100% girl. Now, I get hassled if anybody recognizes me and I'm wearing anything remotely female.

I don't even want to talk about having to take boy's PE. At least the coach let me change in his office and since I had it as my last class of the day, I could skip the showers.

I couldn't be on any of the teams either. That hurt.

We live in a fairly small town so going to another local school is out of the question. Ironically, mom and dad moved here because they thought it'd be a better place to raise kids.

It got so bad that they asked around and heard about Whateley. I'm not real thrilled about it, but at least nobody will be hassling me about being a mutant. And I can go as a girl.

Anyway, that's how I wound up here in Poe.

---

Life here at Whateley isn't too bad.

Well, I'm still having to "explain" to folks here in Poe that my sex hasn't actually changed. Regardless of that stupid law back home.

At least nobody outside the cottage knows about it. Of course, they think I'm some sort of head case. I know the cottage needs the cover story, but I don't have to like it.

Then again, it does mean I get more slack for being depressed and stuff, so I guess it's a wash.

Classes aren't too bad. I managed to talk them out of Powers Lab, since I don't have any. They said I still needed Powers Theory though. I guess I can see their point. It'll help me understand the other kids, and might even help with figuring out a way to prove I'm not a mutant.

They suggested putting me in the "Survival" class for PE instead of Basic Martial Arts. But after thinking about it, I decided that I wanted to be able to do a better job of fighting back if I get cornered in a bathroom or something on a visit home.

Anyway, since Whateley doesn't have any sports I can compete in, this'll at least keep me in shape.

I was not happy to find out I'd have to go through Powers Testing.

It turned out to not be that bad. Everybody was fairly nice, not like the jerks doing it for the MCO.

Pretty much the same results as before though. Physically and mentally I'm really good for a baseline or really sucky as a mutant. No regen (ouch). No danger sense (really ouch!)

And I can think of a few jerks from my old school I'd like to put through that dodgeball thing.

In the end, they said that nothing says I'm a mutant, but that they can't prove I'm not one. (something about not being able to prove a negative)

In a fit of perversity, I decided on my codename: Normal Girl

Hey, if I can't make a joke about it, I'd have to cry.

---

Yeah. I was out of school for a few days. Had to go back to Ohio for the trial.

Back before I got into Whateley, and I was still living with the mess back home, I got arrested after someone called the cops when I used the women's restroom at a restaurant.

Another shining example of tolerance and sensibility, that.

It was months ago, but the trial only came up now. Our lawyer figured there'd be some arguing. He was going to challenge the whole premise of the "man in a women's bathroom" bit.

Only it all went out the window when the prosecutor put the woman who'd made the complaint on the stand. I just stared at her when she said that she'd seen my penis through the gap in the stall door.

My attorney just let her dig herself deeper then when it was time to cross-examine, he asked her to repeat what she'd said.

Then asked why she hadn't been charged as a peeping tom. While the prosecutor and judge were spluttering, he picked up a folder from the evidence he'd had ready to submit.

Then he said she couldn't actually be guilty of being a peeping tom, anyway because she was obviously lying. Which made her guilty of perjury.

The woman yelled that she wasn't lying. The prosecutor was objecting as well. And the judge didn't look very happy.

That's when he slid the folder in front of the judge and asked to have it admitted as evidence.

It was a report from several doctors explaining my "condition" in detail. And as he put it "My client does not now have a penis nor has she ever had one."

The stupid bitch actually yelled something about how he was lying, that she'd heard all the news about how I was a boy pretending to be a girl before the prosecutor could shut her up.

There was a lot of arguing, and our lawyer had to call up the doctors who'd written the reports. They even had to threaten to produce photos and let them have doctors examine me.

That last was when they tried to claim I'd had sex change surgery.

They wanted to drop it then, but our lawyer told them he'd still be filing suit for false arrest and suing the lady. As well as forcing them to file perjury charges against her.

They tried keep a disturbing the peace charge but we pointed out I was minding my own business. And that there was no way it'd have caused less fuss if I'd gone into the men's room.

We wound up with the charges dismissed, but the judge weaseled out of ruling that I could use women's bathrooms and other facilities. He didn't say anything about my having to use men's one's though.

Since they didn't find me guilty of anything, we can't appeal. So we've still got to wait on the case about my sex under state law.

---

(yes, this one's in third person)

Today, Sensei Ito had asked those who had weapons to bring them to class.

Jessie got a number of strange looks when she showed up with an odd looking stick. Some of the girls recognized the stick as a field hockey stick. And a few of those that did got worried looks on their faces.

Sensei Tolman and Sensei Ito had been having the students demonstrate their weapons by sparring with them.

Sensei Tolman motioned over Jessie.

"Are you sure you want to call that a weapon?"

"Hai, Sensei!"

"Very well. It's your funeral. Whenever you are ready..."

With that Jessie managed to snake the stick out and almost trip up Tolman. Things degenerated from there.

As you'd expect, Tolman held her own fairly easily.

"Alright, that's enough."

She looked over Jessie carefully.

"Where did you learn to do that with a hockey stick? I seriously doubt that most of those moves are legal."

"Our coach wanted us to know what to look for if the other team tried fighting dirty. And she said that we couldn't learn to defend ourselves if we didn't know how to make the moves ourselves."

"She sounds like an interesting woman. I have to wonder where she learned some of those tricks though."

"She said she wanted us to be able to go against the school she went to. Someplace in England.. St. Trinians, I think it was."

"Ah. That explains quite a bit"

---

Sherry had dragged me down to the Workshop. Seems the guy she was so interested in and that she'd told me would be a good addition to our study group was probably down there and had forgotten he was supposed to meet us to study.

Sure enough, he was in the middle of a cluster of guys in lab coats arguing about something. after listening for a bit, I was able to piece together that some gizmo he'd built was ready for testing, but because they weren't sure it'd work right he couldn't just flip the switch.

"So where is this gadget? And what's the deal?"

He pointed at a door on the other side of the room. I peeked in and there was this wall with a viewport in it a few feet from the door. It was just sort of freestanding (but braced). I could see this box sitting on a table a dozen feet from the wall. I guess the wall was the blast shield one of them kept mentioning.

I walked around the wall and looked at the box. I could see a toggle switch sticking up from the top. That was what the fuss was about?

I went back into the other room and looked at Sherry who was obviously getting impatient. Right. The guys were still arguing. Something about remote triggered solenoids?

I stuck fingers in my mouth and gave a LOUD whistle. That got their attention.

"I know how to trigger it safely."

That got a lot of snorts.

Okay, if that's the way they want to be...

"Don't believe me? I'll show you." With that I strode back into the other room.

I took another look at the box and the table. The table was bolted to the floor and the box was in some sort of holder bolted to the table.

"George? It's safe to touch this, as long as I don't flip the switch, right?"

"Yes, but...."

"Watch and learn..." With that, I dug into my purse and pulled out a sewing kit. I carefully knotted the end of a thread around the thickest part of the toggle. I set the spool down, then dug out the tube of superglue I had for repairing add-on nails. A quick bead of glue went over the thread, binding it to the toggle.

I walked back to the blast wall and reached up to set the spool on the top. Then I got behind it, picked up the spool and unrolled another 6 feet of thread and cut it.

I handed the end to George and said "Wrap that around a pencil or something and pull when you want to flip the switch. Then come over to the library to study with us." Then I looked at Sherry and we both walked out the door.

Once we got out into the hall, Sherry lost it. "Devisors and gadgeteeers. You know they'd have spent hours designing some fancy trigger, don't you?"

I nodded. "Or getting a TK to flip the switch."

I swear, sometimes having powers seems to get in everyone's way.

Well, I've got a costume now.

Costuming class was a bit odd at first, but what the heck. It wasn't that hard. And I could use an "easy" class or two.

I went with the skintight bodysuit as a base. With strategic reinforcing. After one of the other kids let slip something about the combat finals, I got serious about reinforcing things and making sure I could still move well while getting some protection.

Plus, it'll be easy to hide under a lot of my clothes.

I have to admit I stole part of the look from the classic Catwoman catsuit.

I got my "symbol" from daydreaming in geometry class. We were covering "normal" lines. Which led to someone making a joke about my codename.

So I got to wondering about what would be "normal" (in the geometric sense) to a girl.

Pretty soon I'd doodled the standard female symbol vertically bisected by a line that was an extension of the "plus" symbol at the bottom.

On my costume, the "normal" is hot pink (and done with electroluminescent fabric) so it will glow. But only when I want it to. The rest of the symbol is a darker pink against the sky blue of the suit.

Needless to say, that part of the outfit is the most heavily reinforced.

Still working on the utility belt. Smoke pellets and a few things like that. I'm working hard in BMA, but I know I'm not up to a stand-up fight with most of the other kids. So I'm going for stuff that's good for escape and evasion.

Thinking about a shoulderbag like some versions of Batgirl have. You just can't fit much stuff into those tiny belt compartments.

Costuming got strange today.

One of the other girls was designing an outfit that had an armored breastplate. She'd designed it with the typical armored cups for her breasts.

This lead to a long lecture from Mrs. Ryan.

Seems that this is a horribly bad idea. She explained that doing it that way means that a strong impact on your chest gets focused into the area between the cups. Which can lead to a shattered sternum or worse.

So even if it looks funny, the "uniboob" look is safer.

She also noted that side impacts with improperly anchored rigid cups can drag them sideways which results in your breasts getting painfully squeezed between your chest and the edge of the cup.

All us girls winced. A couple of guys laughed.

This lead to a lecture about protective cups for guys. She pointed out that they had it even worse if a sideways blow hit their cup. I was careful not to laugh.

Then she pointed out that besides needing to be well anchored against such things it was also a good idea for their cups (and breast protection for women) to not be overly rigid.

Yes, it'd hurt if it flexed too far. But she noted examples of numerous heroes (and a couple heroines) who'd been badly injured when hit with enough force to shatter the protection.

Several of the guys turned green. And none of us girls looked a lot better. Having jagged shards of armor driven into sensitive parts of our anatomy is not anybody's idea of fun.

Armor that deforms rather than shatters is right up there with Edna Mode's "No capes!" rule!

Apparently there's an entire class for the folks that go into full armor and power suits on how to design things to be easier to get out of when parts are bent out of shape. Who knew?

Sensei Tolman has me working with a staff. She figures the skills I showed with the field hockey stick will transfer more easily.

After watching someone else plant the end of their staff and use it as a pivot point I got an idea.

Which is why I'm out here on my roller blades with my helmet, elbow and knee pads and the rest.

Yep.I can use the staff to do different maneuvers. A bit painful learning what I can't do with it while on skates. At least nobody was around to see me mess up.

Getting back towards the central part of campus I ran into those crazies doing Parkour. I'd seen them do it before.

Hmmm. Around here they are pretty much stuck using trees, benches, statues and like like to bounce off of.

What the hey.

I jump in and start using my skates and staff to try to follow along where I can. I had to skip some stuff they did, but I did a few things they couldn't.

Y'know. This is fun.

I took a deep breath before walking into the locker room. I was nervous, but I could do it. I hoped...

I'd actually gotten about a dozen feet inside before the yells started. I ignored them and headed on over to the cage to get a basket.

I'd almost made it when this huge guy blocked my path.

"Aren't you a little confused girlie? This is the boys locker room."

I looked up at him and said "Yeah, I know."

He obviously hadn't expected that response. Some other guys were making comments about "Maybe it's a dare or something?" when we were joined by Coach Adams.

"What's going on?" he demanded. Then as I turned, he recognized me. "Oh, it's you. I didn't think you had gym until next period."

I shrugged. "They had a problem with one of my other classes and changed my schedule,"

He sighed. "OK, I'll deal with it. You're sure you want to do this?"

I shrugged again. "It's not like I can use the other locker room. And I'm not going with the 'medical excuse' bit."

He looked unhappy, but nodded. Then he looked around at the audience that had gathered.

I looked at them too. Then back at the coach. "Look, just do it like we talked about, OK?"

He gave a "are you sure?" look and I nodded.

With a "it's your funeral" look, he turned back to the crowd.

"Listen up! We've got a bit of an unusual situation this year. Mister Howe here has a medical condition. As you may have noticed, he's got breasts."

There were a lot of muttered comments and a few not so quiet ones.

"Yes, He."

As they continued expressing disbelief, I thought "The hell with it", and stepped over to a vacant spot at one of the benches and dropped my pack. Then I pulled down my pants and underwear and faced them. I didn't have a huge cock or balls, but they were definitely unmistakable when I turned around.

"There! Are you guys satisfied that I'm a guy now?"

Things had obviously departed from the coach's script. He tried to salvage something.

"Akers! Go get Howe a basket. Now!"

The big guy who'd stopped me shook himself and went over to the cage. I just continued undressing. By the time he got back with the basket I was taking off my bra.

He goggled a bit at my boobs. They're a nice size, C or B cup depending on the bra.

I stopped and glanced around at all the guys who were (as I'd expected) staring. I stood up straight and threw my shoulders back a bit. Then I turned slowly.

"OK, everybody get a good look? Great. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta dress out."

I turned back to the bench and hung up my clothes on the hooks under the shelf.

Then I dug into my pack and pulled out my PE uniform. That'd been the subject of some negotiation, though not nearly as much as which locker room I'd use had been.

I quickly pulled on a jock, then a dark blue sports bra (to match the colors of the boys PE uniform). Shorts & shirt followed. And with the loose shirt on, I was no longer of that much interest.

It only took a couple more minutes to get my athletic socks and my sneakers on. Dressed out, I turned and stuffed my pack on the shelf above the bench.

I was expecting something to happen and it did. Somebody reached out as I went by and tried to cop a feel. Since I'd already discussed it with the coaches before school started, I wasn't worried about getting in trouble when I grabbed his hand and put him in an armlock.

"No groping! Got it?"

He was looking upset when the coach (who hadn't left the locker room) spoke up.

"What he said. No groping. You'd get upset if any of the gay guys tried groping you. And don't try to pretend there aren't any here."

I chimed in, "You can go ahead and look. Just try not to drool, OK? Hell, if I've got time and you ask I might even pose. But look, I'm just a guy with something extra. I didn't ask for them and they can be a nuisance sometimes. But they're part of me, OK?"

That seemed to settle everybody for a bit and we got out into the gym without any more problems for the time being. I was sure there'd be more, but I'd just have to deal with them as they came.

---

I suppose I should explain what's going on. I'm Morgan Howe, and I'm a guy. Mostly.

I don't claim to be normal. I'm a bit of a nerd and suffered for it a bit in grade school. At least until my folks enrolled me in some self defense classes. I'm not great, but good enough to deal with the usual bullying. Mostly by avoiding or defusing things, Sensei would kick my ass if I picked fights. Ending them is fine. Starting them, not good.

Anyway, things were fine until last year. Puberty had started to hit. My voice didn't break but I did start growing hair. And my junk was getting bigger. But about the time I noticed changes down there, I seemed to be putting on some weight up top.

The first real clue that something was wrong was when I got nailed in the chest during a sparring match and wound up curled into a ball on the floor. Something was obviously wrong, so I got to see our doctor.

She said that some fat buildup on the chest wasn't uncommon in guys during puberty, but the very tender "lumps" under it weren't. It was one of those I'd gotten nailed on.

After some checking, and some very strange tests, the doctors determined that even though I was a guy, I was growing breasts just like a girl. Some weird genetic thing. Apparently, some stuff in my body reacts to testosterone as if it was estrogen. The breasts are the big thing.

There are a few others though. My hips seem to be going somewhat female, though it's a bit early to tell on that (and both mom and my grandmothers had fairly narrow hips anyway). Looks like I'm getting female body hair patterns though.

They suggested surgery to deal with the breasts, but nobody is real thrilled with that. Especially since they are still growing.

And then there's the other thing. Once I got over the "my body is being freaky" thing, I actually wasn't that bothered. Truth to tell, I was more worried about how people would react to me than I was about the changes themselves.

I had to have a bit of a talk with the folks about that. I'd been getting into my sister's clothes for ages. When we were smaller, it was partly her using me as a big doll. But I kinda liked them.

I'm not one of those guys who thinks he should have been a girl. Dressing up was fun, and I liked it. But I was OK with my body.

When we got older, sis let me have some of her older clothes. Mom & dad didn't realize for a while, but when they did finally catch me, after discussing it with us, and ensuring that I hadn't been swiping Sally's stuff, they decided it was weird, but tolerable.

Yes, my folks are like that. They were considered weird growing up, and many folks would still say they're kinda strange. SF fans, SCA, and other odd hobbies tend to get you looked at that way.

But as kids growing up, it meant that we got allowed to try a lot of stuff. So my crossdressing was treated more as a "be careful about outsiders" than some horrible perversion.

So they kind of understood why I didn't consider growing breasts to be the end of the world. Though they did ask some pointed questions to see if I'd been taking something to grow them. I'm not sure they were 100% certain I hadn't been until the medical tests came back.

The real problem was that since the tests indicated that I'd still be a functional male, and I didn't want to change that, there were going to be problems.

Fortunately, it'd been fairly late in the school year when this started, and I was able to make it through the end of the school year without being too noticeable. A medical excuse for the last month got me out of PE.

But that wasn't a long term solution. I was going to have to deal with locker rooms in the future, so there wasn't a lot of point to continuing with the medical excuse thing. But by the start of the next school year, there was no way I was going to be able to hide things.

So we started a long round of discussions with the school. Fortunately the state & local laws about discrimination helped. They definitely couldn't just say that I couldn't attend. On the other hand, as far as the laws were concerned, I could not use female locker rooms as long as I had male genitals (oddly, I can use female dressing rooms at stores and female bathrooms as long as I'm presenting myself as female.).

The possibility of finding a room I could change in separately was considered, but showers were going to be a problem, regardless. So we wound up with me using the boys locker room and hoping for the best.

Fortunately, I'm not that body shy. So getting looked at wasn't going to be a problem. Getting groped or worse was a possibility. Even if I can defend myself, fighting is frowned on.

Heck, we'd had to argue a lot to let me do things like that armlock without running afoul of the "no tolerance" policies on fighting.

So, anyway, that's how I wound up here.

---

I got through the class OK. Probably because being the first day they were starting things out easy. I figured the real problems were going to be when we got to stuff like football and wrestling.

Anyway, there was a lot of standing around between some fitness tests and the like.

A few girls wandered over to talk to me, because they recognized me from other classes and were wondering why I was with the boys (having an androgynous name has been a blessing at times, but right now it's not).

I went for honesty and explained the situation. Got a mix of sympathy and shock. Oh well, I never thought this was going to be easy.

Guys wandered over too, asking some questions. Mostly about why I hadn't gotten rid of them (I gave excuses about gotta wait, and not liking major surgery). A few were curious. And I think a couple of those were considering hitting on me.

And there were a few "you some kind of queer?" encounters. Which got a "Right. I'm queer so I grew breasts to look more like a girl? Get real." response.

Of course, the one thing I know I'm going to get really tired of repeating is "No, I didn't do this on purpose. It's some weird genetic thing."

At last it was time for showers. Oh joy.

As had been prearranged, I waited until there were two coaches in the locker room before I headed into the showers. Slick floors are no place to try fancy moves, so I was most at risk there.

As expected, I had a lot of eyes on me. So I looked around and posed for a moment before going "OK, I really have to shower now."

That got most of them to go away. I just tried my best to get clean without looking too much like a show. Looking at a few of the guys, I had to "accidentally" pinch a nipple to distract myself.

Damn. I really am bi. Not gonna make things easier.

---

I may or may not continue this. Depends on my muse. Who is being a pain.

My muse has been kind. More of Morgan's first day in High School.

---

The rest of the day I got more odd looks and the occasional question from other kids. Obviously word was spreading.

It was mostly girls with the questions. And I was indeed getting tired of the same ones over and over.

The looks seemed fairly evenly split between guys and gals, though more of the guys tended to have the looks that implied trouble in the future.

A few of the girls seemed to figure I was ok, in spite of my oddity. At least they were willing to talk to me in spite of it. One was in several of my classes. Christine (call me Chris) Watt. We'd gotten to talking in the first one we shared and had compared schedules.

She came up to me in the hall as we approached English class (which I knew we shared).

"So, I hear you're a guy?"

I shrugged.

"Yep. That a problem?"

She thought for a moment as we looked for seats in the classroom.

"Let's grab these two." She pointed at a pair of empty seats next to each other off to one side of the room. I followed her over.

After we sat down she looked over at me.

"No. It's a bit different from what I expected, but I guess I'm OK with it."

She suddenly snickered and I looked a question at her.

"Sorry, I was thinking that I'd have to change my plans. I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go over to the mall and check out some stores with me, and then maybe hang at my place."

I glanced around and noticed that nobody else was sitting close to us yet. I quietly replied "You don't have to change your plans unless you'd rather not have me with you."

She looked surprised.

"Hey, I like shopping for clothes. And do you think any guy would pass up a chance to hang out with you?" I joked.

Chris started to say something then stopped and looked at me funny.

"That's a girls top you're wearing isn't it?" she said quietly.

"Guilty as charged. Guy stuff doesn't fit very well unless I go for really baggy."

We had to quit talking then as the teacher called roll. After that there was the usual "what you'll be learning this semester" stuff and signing out our textbooks. Finally she gave us a reading assignment and like most of the first day classes had, left us to our own devices while she dealt with some paperwork.

Chris and I weren't the only ones carrying on quiet conversations then.

"So you're serious about wanting to go check out the stores?"

"Sure, you never know when you might find a cute outfit. Or some nice accessories. And trying stuff on is fun."

"I thought you said you were a guy!"

"I am. Let's just say I'm dressing down so I'll have less trouble until folks get used to me."

"O-kay. But won't there be problems in the stores?"

"Nope. As long as I look fairly girly, the law says I can use the changing rooms. Heck, I can use the bathrooms. Just not locker rooms."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. We had to go through all that when we found out I was gonna look more girl than guy."

I slipped her one of the copies of the laws that I had in case anybody tried to argue things. A pain, but better safe than sorry.

We agreed to meet get together after 7th period.

I knew that after school would be the real test. That's when I expected that somebody would start something. Hopefully I could keep Chris out of it.

We had 7th period together too, so we left the class and I stopped for a minute.

"I think it's time for a bit of misdirection. Come on."

With that I led her to a nearby bathroom. She squeaked a bit as I headed in, but followed. Yes, it was a girls bathroom. That's what I used unless I was dressing to emphasize being male. Which I hadn't today. I'd gone for more of an androgynous look and not tried to hide my breasts.

Fortunately, the bathroom was empty. While I used one of the stalls, I heard Chris talking on her phone.

I was busy digging things out of my pack. I switched tops, and swapped my slacks for a pair of tights. I got my shoes and socks back on, then fastened a short skirt.

When I stepped out of the stall to do my makeup I heard a gasp from Chris.

I did a twirl.

"You like?"

It was quite an outfit. But it was also something I could move easily in.

Skintight black top with sleeves down to my wrists. Leaving no doubt about my breasts. Black tights. (hey, I've got great legs) black ankle socks and my black canvas shoes. The kind with the crepe soles. They give great traction. Good for running or fighting.

Oh yes, the skirt? Bright red.

As Chris stared, I used the mirror to apply a really bold makeup job. I definitely didn't look like a guy. More importantly, I didn't look much like I'd looked all day at school.

Just for the hell of it, I put on some jewelry. Earrings, a pendant and some bracelets.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked a stunned Chris.

"Oh. My. God. I can't believe that's you."

"Well, it is. Think anybody will recognize me?"

That snapped her out of it a bit.

"Maybe, Probably not though." She paused and eyed me again. "Damn, I think I'm jealous. You look better than I do."

"I seriously doubt that." I tried to leer at her but she just laughed.

I took off the jewelry, explaining "Just in case I do get recognized, I don't want to risk getting any of it grabbed in a fight."

We headed out. First we hit her locker. Then we hit mine.

And that's where my planning failed.

I should have hit it before changing. We later figured out that somebody had seen me at it earlier, and been waiting. Worse, they were bright enough to hang back when they saw the very different me getting my books from it.

First thing I realized was when we got outside. We were just at the edge of school property when I heard running feet and someone yell, "Get the faggot!"

I tossed my pack to one side and spun around to face the attackers.

There were three of them. I managed to feint and draw one out of position and nail him as I stepped past his rush. I heard the sound of blows off to the side but I couldn't spare the attention, I had to deal with another one who wasn't coming in as stupid as the first.

I'd blocked a few blows, and was trying to maneuver to get an opening when I heard more feet running up from behind.

"Oh great, I'm surrounded" was going through my mind just as a voice shouted "Police! Freeze!"

I kept an eye on my opponent just in case he did something stupid. Luckily, he wasn't that dumb.

"OK, young lady, you can step away from him." said the voice.

I carefully stepped back and to the side so as to stay out of the line of fire if the cop had his gun out. In doing so I was able to turn to see the rest of the scene.

There were three cops. The guy I'd hit first was just getting up. With a cop watching him. And much to my surprise, the third attacker was curled up on the ground with Chris standing over him. An older cop was moving in on him.

The cops separated us, and cuffed all three of the attackers. I had to give a statement. So did Chris. I noticed that the two younger cops took our statements, and the older one just watched from off to the side.

I'd recognized one of the guys from my PE class. I guessed the other two were his buddies. He'd been one of the guys who thought I was queer.

After getting our statements the two younger cops loaded the three guys into the back of their car and drove off. I was picking up my pack when Chris and the older cop came over. Chris looked kinda nervous.

The cop said "You don't have to worry, we saw the whole thing. You probably won't even have to testify. You had some pretty nice moves. You kept yours busy long enough for us to get there and end things."

"Uh, thanks, I just hope the school won't come down on me and Chris for fighting."

"Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that. They aren't likely to do that to the police chief's daughter, so they can hardly do it to her friend, now can they?"

"Eep."

He grinned at me, "Especially when the chief saw the whole thing."

I just stared. Chris looked at him and went "Daaad!"

My life flashed before my eyes, The police chief's daughter. Eep.

I guess he could see that I was panicking.

"Easy, I don't have any problems with you being friends with Chris. We've had a couple of folks transition on the job here, so I'm kinda familiar with this sort of thing. Though from what I understand, you aren't exactly transitioning, are you?"

"Uh, nossir."

He smiled. "You don't have to call me sir." He held out his hand. "Andrew Watt"

I took it and replied, "Morgan. Morgan Howe."

"Well, Morgan, I've got to get back to work, but maybe we can talk later. Have Chris give you my number so you can call me if you think there's going to be trouble. You're lucky that Chris called me today."

With that he was off to his car.

Chris looked at me and said "Sorry, I called him because I was kinda worried that something like this might happen."

"It's OK, you were right. But how'd you manage to nail the huge guy.?"

She laughed, "What, you think my dad would let me run around without having to go through a self-defense class?"

We wound up talking about it as we headed off to the mall. Turned out we both went to the same dojo, just different classes.

As soon as we got to the mall, Chris dragged me into a bathroom and got me to put the jewelry back on. I decided it was probably safe enough there, so I went along.

She also did a few things with her makeup "in self defense" she claimed.

We spent a couple of hours prowling the stores and tried on quite a few things.

I realized it was getting on towards dinner time and pointed out I'd need to be heading home.

Chris suggested calling our parents and seeing if I could have dinner at her place. I wasn't sure about facing her dad again, but she talked me into it.

I'd already sent my folks a text letting them know there'd been a problem after school but everything was OK.

So after she checked with her mom to make sure it'd be OK, I called home and asked dad if I could have dinner with my new friend.

"Dad? A friend who's in a lot of my classes asked me to have dinner at her place..."

"Oh, you actually made a friend? And with a girl at that. Well, if it's OK with her folks. Just behave, OK?"

"Thanks dad, and I wouldn't dare misbehave."

"Oh?"

"Her dad is the chief of police.... "

That got a chuckle from dad. "I'm sure there's a story there. You can tell us about it when you get home. What about your homework?"

"We don't have much and since we share a lot of classes we're going to work on it together."

"Well, if you really do work on it, you don't have to be home until nine. Just be careful on the way home."

I knew what dad meant. The more I looked like a girl, the more careful I had to be if I was alone especially after dark.

We chatted a little more then Chris and I headed for her house. Turns out it was only a mile or so from my house and on the same bus line. That'd make getting home easier.

I mentioned that to Chris and suggested she come over to my place the next day.

Before we left the mall I used a bathroom to redo my makeup. I got rid of most of the jewelry too. When I was done I looked a lot more like a girl that a mother wouldn't mind her daughter being friends with.

Chris pouted. "Aww, I wanted to see what mom would do when she saw you!"

"I'd rather be able to visit you again. Shocking your mom isn't worth it."

---

 

"Mom, I'm home!" Chris shouted as she practically dragged me through the front door of her house.

"It's a good thing your father gets home late from work or you'd have missed dinner!" came a reply from another room.

Chris shot back, "It's not late if that's when he's scheduled to get off, mom." But she was smiling so I guessed this was some sort of family joke or something.

Her mother walked into the room about then.

"I assume this is Morgan?"

"Yes, ma'am. Morgan Howe."

I hesitated, then continued, "And, I should tell you. I'm a boy."

She smiled. "My husband had already told me when he called about that fight you two were in. But I'm glad you were honest enough to tell me."

Turning to Chris she said, "And yes, that means the usual rules about boys. If you go up to your room together, leave the door open."

"Mooom!"

Her mom just laughed. "What, you think I didn't notice how you were being so careful to not mention what sex Morgan was when you called me?"

I just grinned and said "Busted!" to Chris.

We did go up to her room and study.

Ok, we got out our books and talked a lot while she showed me her room. Much to my surprise it was a lot closer to my room than to my sister's room. As she told me about things I realized that she did a lot of stuff with her dad. I guess that explained the "guy" stuff.

Mind you, it was a lot girlier than my room. But she also had stuff I wouldn't have expected. like the pics of her holding up some fish she'd caught.

We were still discussing teachers more than the assignments when her dad got home. A few minutes later her mom stuck her head in the door.

"Girls, time for dinner."

As we started to get up, she looked at me and said "Sorry, Morgan..."

"It's ok, when I'm dressed this way, calling me a girl is fine. Just try not to do it when I'm in guy mode, ok?" I smiled to show there wasn't a problem.

Chris laughed. "If guy mode is what you were wearing at school today, you'd better expect to get mistaken for a girl a lot."

We were almost at the table by then. Chris's dad looked up.

"Oh, you weren't dressed that way at school? I'd wondered about that. I see you toned down the look since I saw you earlier too."

Chris's mom wanted to know about the look her dad had seen, they both wanted to know about what I'd been wearing in school. I promised to show them after dinner.

That didn't get me off the hook though. Everyone wanted to know more about my day at school. (Oh god, what were my parents going to be like when I got home?) And Chris's folks wanted to know about what we did after school.

That led to a raised eyebrow from Chris's mom.

"You were trying on clothes at the stores?"

"Uh, yes?"

Chris's dad broke in. "Relax, Anne, it's legal. It's just women's locker rooms and other places involving nudity that Morgan has to stay out of."

"Uh, yeah. That's right."

He shook his head. "We've had the laws for close to 10 years, and we still get calls every so often from idiots in mall security when some busybody complains."

He chuckled. "Don't tell anyone, but that's going to change rather drastically soon. One of the busybodies actually hung around after claiming that a 'man' was in the women's restroom. I happened to catch the call as I was going through Dispatch."

"Would you believe that she actually said she'd seen his penis? While he was in a stall?"

We all looked puzzled. I was kinda squicked by the thought of somebody trying to see what I had in a bathroom.

"So I had the operator tell her to wait there with mall security until we got there. When the officers arrived they arrested her as a peeping tom. The t-girl she'd accused was more than willing to press charges. Funny about that."

"Anyway, once that hits the news, I expect the nuisance calls about trans folks in bathrooms and dressing rooms are going to drop a lot."

Chris chimed in "Well, I don't think Morgan has to worry about that. Even in his underwear you can't tell..."

Anne gave Chris a look. "You've seen Morgan in her... I mean his, underwear?"

Oops. I tried to defend Chris.

"They're kinda short of changing rooms, especially in the afternoon. We sorta had to share a few times..."

Chris added "We both had our panties and bras on. It's not that different than bikinis, mom!"

Her mom started to say something then looked at Mr. Watt.

"I can see we're going to have to come up with some changes to the rules, dear."

"We'll discuss it later. But I don't think there's a problem with what they did."

He looked at Chris. "Just don't go any farther, young lady."

Then to me, "Steve says you're trustworthy, and I trust his judgement. Even so, anything the two of you do is going to get looked at under a magnifying glass until you become old news. Sorry, Morgan, but that's the way it is..."

Steve? Who was... Oh, yeah. Sensei Rogers first name was Steve.

Then I started to think about what he'd said. Urgh. He was probably right. My folks and I had figured there'd be some problems, but it hadn't sunk in that any friends would get dragged into things too. This could really suck.

"Chris, maybe I should stay away from you..."

She reached across the table to grab my hand.

"Morgan, I can take care of myself. And I'd feel awful if I left you to face all the jerks by yourself."

"But..."

"Look, doesn't Sensei say that it's better to have someone to watch your back if you are facing multiple opponents?"

I wanted to argue, but she was right. Still...

"Yeah, but he also says that people who haven't trained together get in each other's way."

"Well, there's a simple solution for that. We just have to train together!"

Her dad said something about needing to see how that'd fit with other things she did.

Thankfully, talk shifted to other things.

After dinner, we went back to Chris's room. I grabbed my pack and ducked into the bathroom. I decided I could leave the tights on but quickly swapped out the skirt and top for the slacks and blouse I'd worn at school.

A quick check in the mirror reminded me to remove the jewelry and makeup. A few minutes later I walked back downstairs to give Chris's folks the promised look at what I'd been wearing at school.

From the top of the stairs I called "I believe you've met Chris's girl friend Morgan..."

As I reached the bottom I finished "... I'm her boy friend Morgan."

Chris's mom looked a bit surprised. Her dad had this look on his face.

"Boyfriend, huh? I better get my shotgun..."

Mrs. Watt went "Andrew!" at the same time Chris went "Dad!".

I was about to freak when he winked at me.

He shrugged and said "Hey, I gotta try to intimidate boyfriends or they'll kick me out of the Fraternal Order of Fathers."

"Maybe I should rephrase that. Hi, I'm her male friend Morgan."

"Ah. That does make a difference," joked Mr Watt.

His wife commented, "You know, you really don't look all that 'male' even in those clothes."

"Well, I have a choice between wearing super baggy stuff, wearing stuff like this that fits, and binding my breasts. Not only is binding a royal pain, but the docs say that doing it long term damages the breast tissue. So that isn't really an option."

"Well, you don't seem to mind wearing girly stuff, so..."

"So why didn't I wear the other outfit at school? Simple. Wearing this I got stopped in the boys locker room. Can you imagine if I'd worn that skirt and top?"

Chris started snickering.

Her mother went "Boys locker room?"

"Yeah, I'm still legally a boy and no matter how I present, I have to use the boys locker room unless I want to have certain body parts I'd rather keep chopped off."

Mrs. Watt blinked. Then gave me an inquiring look.

"That must have been, um, 'interesting'. Walking into the locker room, I mean."

"Oh it was."

I proceeded to recap things from my entry into the locker room, until the end of the school day.

Mr. Watt pointed out what I'd done wrong in changing before going to my locker. Chris and I both did the face palm bit when we realized how I'd screwed up.

I went and changed back to the skirt and top, with the bolder makeup. Chris's mom gave me a look but didn't say anything.

Chris and I went back to her room to finish our homework. We actually got it done in spite of the time we spent talking about other things.

Chris was teasing me about showering with "all those hunks" in PE. I guess I blushed or something. She wanted details. And she was leaning in close so we could talk more quietly.

I suddenly found my panties very uncomfortable.

"Uh, Chris? Could we talk about something else? Please?"

"I'm not embarrassing you am I?"

"Err, no, but..."

Then she noticed the way I was squirming and the pained look on my face.

"Oh. OH!"

She pulled back and I dashed to the bathroom to "adjust" things. I wished I could do more than that, but not in her house!

We both blushed and had trouble looking at each other when I got back.

Fortunately(?) we were pretty much done with the homework, and it was getting time to leave. So I packed up my stuff and we said our goodbyes.

When I got downstairs, Mr. Watt offered me a ride home. Even though I suspected he wanted to talk to me about something, I still accepted. The buses after dark weren't the safest place in the world, and besides, if he wanted to talk to me, he'd probably find some other way if I avoided him this time.

Sure enough, once we were in the car he started talking.

"You seem to be a pretty good kid. I don't have a problem with you hanging around Chris. My wife has a couple of reservations about the way you look in the makeup you're wearing now."

I started to explain, but he stopped me.

"I know, you were trying to look as different as you could. That's actually not always a good idea. If you get too noticeable, people will take a second look. Or a third."

He paused. "Of course, with you getting caught out today, you might as well give up on trying camouflage."

I sighed, "Yeah, but I still need to work up to wearing stuff like this at school."

"Those idiots already know, and they'll spread it around fast enough. You might want to reconsider your plans."

I nodded.

"But getting back to you and Chris, Anne and I have decided that as long as the two of you are friends, you'll probably wind up needing to change around each other. So we're going to allow that as long as both of you keep your panties on. And if you're over at our place, that's the one time you two can be behind a closed door together, ok?"

I nodded again. They were being a lot more reasonable than I'd have expected.

"Also," his voice kind of trailed off like he was nervous or something, "if you and Chris wind up as more than just friends, we're ok with that. But if you do, the rules are going to have to change."

"If you were both girls, we wouldn't worry as much. But since you are still a guy, mostly, you could get her pregnant. That would not be a good thing."

His tone made it clear that this was something very much to be avoided.

We arrived at my house not long after that.

---

 

Yet another thrilling installment in the life of The Boy With Something Extra!

After introducing the chief to my folks, I ducked into my room to dump my stuff. I could hear him telling them his version of the events after school. Good. That meant I wouldn't have to go through it.

Ok, who was I kidding. Mom & dad would still want to hear my version.... But at least this way they'd be more likely to accept my version. Not that they didn't trust me, but hey, they were parents. They were always gonna be worried that I hadn't tried hard enough to avoid a confrontation.

When I came back to the living room, they seemed to be done with the attack. Good.

Mr. Watt turned towards me and said "You know, I could sign off on you carrying pepper spray given this afternoon's attack, if you want. My daughter carries it."

"Thanks for the offer, but it might be a bit too tempting to use it instead of trying to defuse things. Besides, someone at my last school got nailed in the face with some once. A supposed 'joke' by a jerk."

I shook my head.

"Didn't work out too well for the jerk. Y'see the guy he nailed wore glasses. And had bad allergies...."

Mr. Watt nodded. "And so he was used to dealing with teary eyes and milder burning. Plus the glasses kept most of it out of his eyes, right?"

"Yep. Just made him mad. Pity the jerk could outrun him."

"And that is why we tell new officers to not rely on pepper spray." He chuckled as he said it.

Mom spoke up. "Morgan, maybe you should carry it anyway. It's not just bigots you have to worry about. As pretty as you are and the way girls styles are, somebody might try to rape you if you are out at night...."

Dad and I just winced. That was one of the realities of being able to pass that neither of us liked to think about. We did, because we weren't stupid. And mom had given me the talk about what girls had to watch out for. Creepy and kinda sad. But it was the way the world worked, damn it.

After glancing at my folks, Mr. Watt nodded and said "Ok, I'll get the paperwork done tomorrow and get it run over to the school. You ought to be ok until the end of classes anyway. I'll have Chris take a spare spray with her tomorrow."

"Okay, I guess. I still don't want to use it."

"Well, that's good," quipped dad, "because we hope you never need to use it."

The chief spoke up again. "Pity you hurt your leg when those guys tried to jump you. Hopefully you won't need that cane for to long."

At my puzzled look, he pointed towards my purpleheart cane that was over by the door.

"But I ... Oh."

I could see dad get it about the same time I had. An excuse to carry the cane at school might be good. It was nice. Large head, thick shaft and textured for a good grip. It was more intended for hiking, but it'd made a good accessory for a few con outfits so I'd made a cover for the brass 'spike' on the end so it wouldn't ruin floors and being rubber it gave a decent grip on even smooth floors.

But besides being decorative, being purpleheart, it was a hard fairly dense stick. It'd work ok as a single-stick or even just a club. Best of all, I'd actually taken it to the dojo and practiced with it some, just in case.

Mom still looked a bit puzzled but I caught dad mouthing "later" at her.

Mr. Watt coughed. "I'm afraid there's one other thing you should consider. From talking with Morgan, I gather that the plan was to start out mostly stealth and slowly go more feminine until she could wear things like what she's wearing now?"

"Uh, yes. I take it you don't think that's a good idea?" asked mom.

"Oh, it was a fairly good idea. Unfortunately, Morgan getting spotted by those Neanderthals this afternoon has probably ruined any hope of stealth. I know their parents bailed them out just before I left work. But even with the warnings to keep away from Morgan, I think we can be pretty sure they've been spreading the word to everyone they know."

I sat down hard on one of the chairs. This was so not good.

Mr. Watt left a bit later to let us have a family discussion. He did mention that unless something came up, he'd have a couple of officers hanging around the school in the morning and when we got out.

My folks decided that they wanted to hear about my day before discussing things..

There wasn't much to describe until PE, and I've gone over that already. I didn't even edit that much in telling them. After all, when we lived closer to Portland we'd gone to the nude beaches nearby, and even ridden in the World Naked Bike Ride there every summer.

So it wasn't like they were surprised by my lack of modesty in the locker room.

I had a harder time telling them that after the shower, I thought I might be bi. I didn't think they'd be upset or anything, but even with parents like mine, it's hard to talk about your sex life.

After hearing the details about how I probably got spotted dad commented that I'd blown my cover. Neither he nor mom had much to say about the fight.

Mom did ask a few questions about what Chris and I had done at the mall.

After I finished, there was a long pause while they thought things over. Well, they exchanged a bunch of looks too. I'd love to know how that worked. I'd long ago figured that they were communicating stuff when they did it.

Mom was apparently elected spokesman.

"Morgan, I think Mr. Watt is right. The plan to femme up gradually is toast. So, we think you've got two choices. Either go for full on girly girl, or just dress like the girls do."

I thought about it. Well, ok, I'd sort of been thinking about it some already. But now I was actually trying to make a decision, not lay out options.

"I think girly girl might be a bit much. It's fun, but it's also a pain sometimes. So I guess that means 'normal girl' type stuff."

Mom and I discussed some possible outfits. Dad mostly stayed out of it, except for a couple of comments about the way guys might react to a few of them.

He and mom exchanged some more looks when my blushes made it obvious that I was actually sort of hoping for some of those reactions.

Somehow I wound up with both of them hugging me.

"Look, we aren't that surprised that you're starting to be interested in boys. We know that most TVs are straight, but then again, most of them don't have your weird hormones. So we've been trying to be ready for whichever way things went."

I wasn't surprised by their reaction. I'd been fairly sure the folks'd be cool if I was into boys, but there's still a big difference between being "fairly sure" and actually being told they were ok with it.

"Glad to hear it. I just hope most people will be understanding. Especially since I'm pretty sure I like girls too."

Dad quipped, "Well, yeah, that is what bi means, pretty much."

We watched a bit of TV together and I went up to my room. I made sure I had everything I'd need for the next day. Books, assignments and a few other things.

Then came the hard part. Going through my closet to figure out what to wear. After a bit of thought I realized that I didn't want to wear anything too nice, because if somebody was dumb enough to jump me in the halls, it might get ruined.

For that matter, I could think of a few "harmless pranks" that could mess things up too. Yuck.

Hmm. I decided that I needed to pack a complete spare outfit, just in case. Have to be something that wouldn't take a lot of space though.

I finally got an outfit picked, as well as a spare set of clothes.

A while later I was in bed thinking over the day. I managed to not think too much about the fight and the jerks. But I kept coming back to Chris. And a few of the hunks in PE.

What I did after that is none of your business. But I fell asleep with a pleasant glow and a smile on my face.

---

Next morning, I woke up before the alarm. I thought about going back to sleep, but a glance at the clock told me I'd feel less rested when the alarm did go off. So I got out of bed and started getting ready. At least I got to take my time in the shower.

The shower was nice. Unlike the day before, I could use my regular body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Mmmm. Lavender.

Drying my hair took a bit, but it was worth it. I took another look at the outfit I'd set out. Yep, I'd do it.

So I carefully parted my hair and then braided it into a pair of pigtails. I tried it with the butterfly hairbands, but that was a bit too over the top, so I just used a pair of plain ones that matched one of the colors on the skirt.

When I got downstairs, my sister was eating breakfast. I guess she had an early class or something.

She took one look at me and laughed. "You aren't really going to wear that to school are you?"

"Actually, yes. My cover got blown yesterday, so I figured I might as well scrap the slow build-up and just go with stuff I'd like to wear."

"Ok, I get that. But still, wearing that?"

"Hey, I might as well play some mind games. It's not like it'll piss off the bigots anymore than my just existing will."

Sally just shook her head. "I'm almost tempted to give you a lift, just so I can watch the reactions."

"Thanks, but I want to take the bus so I can ride in with Chris."

"Oho, a new friend already. Is he ok with you?"

"She is just fine. We went shopping together after school last yesterday."

"Ok, so she's a girl friend, not a girlfriend?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I'm not gonna rush things."

She got me talking about yesterday since she'd missed most of the excitement because she'd been doing some studying with friends from her college classes.

Suddenly, I realized it was getting late. I said goodbye and grabbed my stuff. I even remembered to grab the cane.

In a few minutes I was waiting for the bus. I got a few odd looks, but I think that was more for the outfit than because anybody recognized me.

When Chris got on she was obviously looking around for me. When she spotted me she tried not to laugh. A few snickers slipped out as she sat down next to me.

"I can't believe that you have this much less that you wore it."

"Hey, it doesn't violate the dress code at school. And I got it for Halloween, but I figured it'd be a great mindfuck today."

"Right. You being a sweet innocent Catholic schoolgirl. I don't think so."

I smiled back at her and gave her my best innocent look. "Just wait till we get to school. It gets better."

I put on my best "innocent" look and used my "little girl" voice. Looking up with "puppy dog" eyes I said, "Mister, we're trying to raise money for our school..."

I was doing my best to look like a cute, earnest young Catholic schoolgirl trying to make her quota in the fund raiser.

I continued, after the brief pause, "...would you like to buy a blowjob?"

The explosion was incredible. Worth every bit of my effort.

---

Sure enough, I got some weird looks when we got off at school. Some were for the outfit. Others were not so good.

I could see when one of the jerks from the day before (who hadn't been in the attack) spotted me. There was a stir in the bunch of guys who were oh-so-casually hanging around him.

Fortunately, there was also a stir nearer at hand where the school resource officer (read: cop assigned to the school) had been chatting with a couple of other cops. They didn't move much but it was really clear that they had their eyes on the group that had started over towards me.

I turned towards Chris and saw she'd been looking at the cops and the jerks as well. She dragged me over towards a collection of kids I didn't know. Well, OK. I barely knew anybody at the school. but most of these weren't even in the "I think I recognize that face from one of my classes" category.

"Guys? Morgan and I need to go to the office to take care of some stuff. We'll fill you in at lunch. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for trouble. He's the guy that everybody was talking about after his PE class yesterday."

There were a bunch of nods and several "oh, that's him" doubletakes as they reacted.

Meanwhile, Chris tugged on my arm and we set off to the office. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the school resource officer following us.

In the office, Chris led me over to one of the secretaries. "Hi, my dad was going to send over some paperwork for Morgan here?"

The secretary asked "Last name?"

"Howe. With an E."

"Right, here're the papers. And the resource officer was looking for you.."

From behind me came a voice. "And I've found her."

He continued, "why don't to two of you join me in my office for a minute?"

There was barely room for the three of us in his office, but we did manage to get in and sit down with the door closed.

He nodded at me, "Why don't you open that envelope and check things. And while you are doing that, can I take a look at that cane of yours?"

I shrugged and passed it over.

While he examined it, I looked at the papers. There were the forms I expected for the pepper spray (two copies) and a laminated plastic card, Not wallet sized, more like paperback sized.

I signed the forms where marked and slid one copy across the desk to Officer Murtaugh.

The card was kind of interesting. It had "Office of the Chief of Police" on it and under that it cited the relevant state & local laws about TG folks. It also listed a section of the laws regarding public indecency, with one bit highlighted. Took me a sec, but I realized that it was the section that made it ok for women to go topless.

Officer Murtaugh coughed and I looked up.

"Ok, the form is in order. I understand that Chris has a spare unit for you?"

Chris dug into her bag and came out with a pepper spray that was rather obviously the same sort police used. At Murtaugh's nod she passed it over to me.

"OK, from what I've heard, you aren't likely to do anything dumb with it. Just remember to be careful and not let it get swiped. And if you need it, use it. Those idiots yesterday have friends, and some of them aren't bright enough to learn from what happened."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know the type. In their minds it's my fault that their buddies got arrested."

He looked at Chris. "That goes for you too, I'd really rather not have to explain to your dad about you getting hurt."

He passed my cane back. "That's a nice cane, hope you won't need it for long."

Then he continued as if a new thought had come to him.

"With what you are carrying," he glanced pointedly at the cane, "I should check to see if you understand the rules about escalation of conflict."

"Let's see. If somebody tries anything barehanded, I'm escalating if I respond with any sort of weapon, including the pepper spray."

"Right so far."

"If there's a bunch of them or I'm cornered, I can use the spray. And if they've got a weapon, like a knife or a baseball bat, I can use a weapon to defend myself."

"Right again."

"And if guns are involved, all bets are off."

He frowned. "Yeah, but I hope we never have to deal with that."

"Me too. Sensei seems to have skipped the whole dodging bullets bit."

That got a laugh.

He gave me another look, "If you don't mind me asking..."

I figured where he was probably going, and saved him the trouble.

"No, I was dressed a lot different yesterday. Pretty androgynous."

"OK, that explains why I didn't notice you then and didn't recognize you getting off the bus. But I heard you were dressed differently when you got jumped."

"Yeah, I made the mistake of changing in one of the bathrooms before going to my locker after 7th period. We think they were watching the locker and spotted me getting my stuff to take home. "

"And the outfit you had on then probably just made them more determined to teach you a lesson," he finished for me.

"Most likely."

He glanced at the clock. "Well, I'd better get you out of here while you two still have time to get to homeroom."

He reached across the desk and shook my hand.

Just for the heck of it, when I got up I curtseyed to him. He shook his head and Chris snickered.

We headed off to home room. We had different ones, but at least they were in the same part of the building.

I was just thinking that the girl sitting next to me looked vaguely familiar. And she was looking over at me.

We got interrupted by the teacher calling roll. It didn't take long to get to me.

"Morgan Howe?"

"Here."

"Hu Lin?"

"Present," responded the girl I'd been wondering about. And she was definitely looking at me with an odd expression.

I took a chance. "You're one of Chris's friends aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. My name's Lin..."

I interrupted. "Traditional naming, Family name first, right?"

I'd surprised her a bit. She nodded. "Yes, my parents get really insistent about that. Makes for loads of fun breaking in new teachers and school staff."

"I bet. I've had a taste of that sort of thing getting ready for school this year."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? I can't imagine why."

I shrugged. "Beats me. Just because I'm a bit more developed than the other guys in gym class..."

Neither of us could keep a straight face.

After the announcements Lin gave me an appraising look and stated "Your last name is Howe? You're gonna fit right in."

Then all she'd tell me was that I'd find out at lunch.

Morning classes were a bit more interesting as the teachers were actually teaching us something. Even if a lot of it was review from the year before.

Things were "interesting" in other ways as well. My outfit was drawing all sorts of attention. Some of it was just folks shaking their heads at the look. And there was a fair bit of WTF? Looks. But there were also the folks who suddenly got this sour look on their faces. I tried to make mental notes of those for the future.

I asked Chris about the "you'll fit right in" comment Lin had made. She just told me to wait until lunch.

So, at lunch I'm sitting at the table with Chris's friends.

"Morgan wants to know why Lin and I think he'll fit in."

Lin grinned and the others got this slightly puzzled look.

Chris started pointing at people.

"Hu Lin"

"Chris Watt"

"Rob Wynn" (a guy)

"Ron Ware" (a very cute guy)

"Kaye Wye" (a girl)

She paused then pointed at me.

"Morgan Howe"

The others started grinning like loons. As I obviously didn't get it, Chris pointed at folks again.

"Hu. Watt. Wynn. Ware. Wye. Howe."

"Arrgghhh!" was my response.

After the laughter died down, someone asked about the Catholic schoolgirl outfit. I explained that it was something I'd planned on for Halloween, but figured it'd be a good mindfuck today given the way things had gone.

I got some smiles but some of them seemed to think that it wasn't that great. So I decided to get evil.

I got up and walked over to Ron Ware. I stood in front of him with my hands clasped behind my back, doing my best to look shy and uncertain.

I put on my best "innocent" look and used my "little girl" voice. Looking up with "puppy dog" eyes I said, "Mister, we're trying to raise money for our school..."

I was doing my best to look like a cute, earnest young Catholic schoolgirl trying to make her quota in the fund raiser.

I continued, after the brief pause, "...would you like to buy a blowjob?"

The explosion was incredible. Worth every bit of my effort.

As the laughter died down one of the other guys was saying "I wanna hang out around her school!"

Someone else commented "You know, someone might get the wrong idea about you after that joke."

I thought about it for a moment as I sat back down next to Chris.

Screw it. I put the innocent look back on my face.

"And what wrong idea would that be?"

"Ummm... that you are into guys?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet."

That got me a look from Chris. I took her hand and said "I am into girls."

Someone asked "Are you two..."

"We're just friends right now."

Ron decided to change the subject. "From what I heard you've got PE next period. Boys PE."

So I had to recap the bit about my anatomy and how that plus the laws stuck me in Boys PE.

I even passed around the laminated card Chris's dad had gotten for me.

There was a lot of headshaking over that. Especially after somebody spotted the part about it being legal for women to go topless.

I chimed in, "Heck, under state law it's legal to go naked in public as long as you aren't doing anything sexual. And I don't think the city or county have any ordinances that override that.Unlike Portland."

Kaye wanted to know how I knew that.

"From going to Rooster Rock and Collin's Beach on Sauvie's Island when we lived near Portland. Among other things."

Rob asked "Those are the nude beaches, right?"

I just nodded.

"So that's why you acted that way in the locker room." said Rob who I suddenly realized was one of the guys in my PE class.

"Pretty much. Being naked's no big thing. And I figured if I didn't make a big deal of things, I'd get most of the fuss over with quicker."

Lin asked "But isn't it still weird having the guys looking at you?"

"It doesn't bother me that much. If I wasn't worried about some of them attacking the freak, or someone deciding I was 'asking for it' and trying to grope me or worse it'd be fine. But with that to worry about it is a bit tense."

"Wouldn't it be easier in Girls PE?"

"Maybe.But the law won't let me. And I know some of the girls would take one look at my crotch and be afraid I'd try to rape them."

I sighed. "I don't have problems with being nude. But a lot of folks have reactions to nudity, especially for someone like me that make problems. It's their problem, but I have to deal with it."

We finally got on to discussing stuff other than me for the rest of lunch.

Say what? It started becoming clear that she thought I was wearing fake breasts or something. I tried telling her they were real, and dragged out the plastic card Chief Watt had given me. But she just wasn't listening.

Finally, after yet another "take them off!" I'd had enough. I reached down and yanked the top off over my head.

"There, I've taken off the only thing I can take off. Or do you want me to take off my shorts too?"

---

Chris had just talked me into going with her to her class at Sensei Roger's dojo Wednesday after school. She'd argued that it'd be easier to talk to him in person about changing things.

I got up to bus my tray. I was going to dump it and come back to talk some more so I left my pack under the table.

Probably a good thing, because I'd dumped the tray and was only a table away when I heard a yell of "Look out!" from Chris.

I'd just started to turn when a large body slammed into me and I was soaked with something very cold and wet.

I rolled to my feet ready for an attack and I saw another of the jerks from PE. And a couple of empty super-size cokes in his hands.

He was smirking as he said "Why doncha watch where you're going fag?"

I looked down and my outfit was soaked. I was mad but knew better than to start a fight.

"Me watch where I was going? You were behind me. And had to be way too close to run into me."

He was starting to argue when a teacher walked up. He claimed I'd stopped and he'd run into me. I gave my side.

Then Chris's friend Ron came over and showed his cell phone to the teacher. At which point the teacher shifted from "regrettable accident" to "stupid prank".

Seems Ron had gotten a couple of shots. And the first showed the guy obviously sneaking up behind me. The body position, especially the way he was holding the drinks made it clear he was up to no good.

The capper was the second shot. Ron had been lucky enough to catch the guy dumping the drinks on me as he slammed into me.

That made teacher willing to listen to the rest of Chris's friends about the smirk on the jerk's face and him calling me a fag.

I think that is when the teacher put it together and realized who I was. And why I'd been "pranked".

"Prank, hell. It's 'assault with intent'!" That was from Chris.

"Mr. McCoy, it sounds like you're back to your old tricks. This is a new record for you. Only the second day of school and you've managed to assault someone." That was the teacher.

McCoy still wanted to argue. Then one of the girls held up her phone and smirked. "My phone has video."

He sort of shrank a bit at that.

"I don't think we'll need that, Mr. Ware's photos are likely enough. But hold onto it. Or drop by the office later and leave a copy with the vice-principal."

He turned to me and asked "Do you need to go home or something?"

"No, my next class is PE. I'll just go in early and rinse this outfit out in the showers. I was afraid somebody would try something, so I've got some spare clothes in my pack."

"Well, if you're sure..." With that he dragged McCoy off towards the school office.

First thing I did after the teacher was out of sight was grab Ron and plant a kiss on his cheek. "That's for being so quick with your camera."

Then I grabbed Chris and smooched her. "And that's for the warning, even if it didn't work."

I got sort of swarmed with folks offering sympathy as I grabbed my pack. Rob offered to escort me, since he was in the class anyway. I accepted because having someone to cover my back was sounding really good about now.

Most of the others followed me as far as the locker room entrance.

Rob and I went in. I picked a bench close to the showers and started taking things off.

"Rob, would you put my pack and shoes over there?" I pointed to the shelf at the other end of the bench.

The top, tie and skirt were off quickly. I just dumped them on the bench. It was cleaner than the floor anyway.

Damn. The soda had managed to soak through to my underwear. The bra and my panties were wet and sticky too. And it had to be coke. So the stains were brown. At least my socks were OK by some miracle.

I finished stripping down and walked over to stick my socks into my shoes.

My hair was wet too, so I took out the hair bands and stuck them into a side pocket on the pack.

I turned to Rob, "Keep an eye on my stuff OK?"

"No problem!"

I noticed where he was looking. Not at my stuff.

"My stuff is over there. You can look at me later."

He blushed. Aww. So cute.

I grabbed my wet stuff and took it into the shower. I hung things over one shower head. I turned the next one over on cold, and started rinsing.

Once I'd gotten them all rinsed out (and thoroughly wet) I took them back to the bench and hung them from hooks. I'd have to get a hanger or two from a coach and see if they had someplace safe to hang them.

Then it was back to the shower to rinse out my hair.

I took a couple of towels to dry off and wrapped a third around my hair.

About that time Coach Adams showed up. I explained about the incident in the cafeteria. Sure enough he was able to dig up a couple of hangers for me to put my stuff on. He said he could hang them in his office. He took a couple more towels to put on the floor under them.

I said I'd pick them up after 7^th period. And asked if he could get our baskets for me and Rob.

Once we had our baskets, we both changed into our PE uniforms. By then my hair was fairly dry. Still really damp, but not dripping. I knew I shouldn't but I braided it into a thick french braid down my back. And put both scrunchies on it, just in case.

It'd probably have been better for my hair to let it dry in a loose ponytail or something, but being wet, it'd have been slapping me and then frizzing out all over as it dried. Not what I wanted in PE!

We still had about 10 minutes before lunch was over. Coach tossed us a basketball and told us to go out into the gym and stay out of trouble.

So Ron and I were playing one-on-one basketball when other kids started filtering out into the gym.

After a few jump shots I was really glad I was wearing a sports bra.

I guess word was getting around. The worst I got was a few glares during the class.

At the bell, I went in and stuck my PE stuff into the basket, turned it in and took a shower to get the sweat off.

Then I dug out my backup outfit and realized I had a problem. I'd packed a pair of cycling shorts and a cycling top. Both a bright green. That wasn't a problem. The problem was that I hadn't thought I'd need backup underwear.

Well, I had to make do with what I had. I made sure I was really dry. Then I pulled on the shorts and the top. Then I sat down and put on my shoes and socks.

Rob was looking at me. "You're gonna wear that?"

"It's all I've got. I though something might happen, but I didn't think it through. I didn't think to include underwear."

"Yeah I can tell." Rob had an odd look on his face as he said it.

I grabbed my pack and headed over to the bathroom to use a mirror.

Oh hell. My boobs were very obvious. The top wasn't quite painted on, but it was pretty obvious that they were real. They looked nice though.

I stepped back. And caught a glimpse of my shorts. They were fairly tight too. Not tight enough that you could tell my religion, but still, no chance of mistaking that I was 100% guy down there.

This was not good. I mean, I kinda liked the look, but I bet it was skating way too close to the edge with the school's dress code.

Sigh. Worst case, I'd point out the cafeteria incident and claim (truthfully) that I didn't have a lot of choice about what to wear.

I ran into Chris on the way to English. She took a look at me and gave a wolf whistle.

"Day-um. You look good enough to eat."

I blushed. Then I blushed even more when she gave me a hug and a kiss that probably broke the school rules about PDAs (Public Displays of Affection).

Even worse, as she let me go, I could tell that the shorts were a lot tighter.

From the way a few folks I could see were holding their cell phones, I suspected I was about to be famous. Wonderful.

We headed into the classroom and were halfway to our seats when the teacher (an older lady who'd struck me as being a bit of a tight-ass) screeched at me.

"What are you doing? I will not have this sort of thing in my class!"

"Huh?" was my ever-so-brilliant response.

She pointed at my chest and started yammering about "Take those off. I don't approve of you fakers."

Say what? It started becoming clear that she thought I was wearing fake breasts or something. I tried telling her they were real, and dragged out the plastic card Chief Watt had given me. But she just wasn't listening.

Finally, after yet another "take them off!" I'd had enough. I reached down and yanked the top off over my head.

"There, I've taken off the only thing I can take off. Or do you want me to take off my shorts too?"

There was dead silence for a minute. Then she went batshit crazy. She screeched at me to put my shirt back on and scribbled something on a form and ordered me to go to the office.

As I was turning to leave, Chris handed me her phone and whispered "video".

I got to the office and handed over the form. I'd glanced at it and it was a bunch of BS about disrupting class and indecent behavior.

I sat down and waited. It wasn't long before I was called into Mr. Burns office. He looked me over.

"I thought we'd agreed that you were going to try to keep a low profile?"

I protested, "It's not my fault. Some jerk dumped cokes on me at lunch, and I only had this to change into. And then Mrs. O'Riley started going nuts on me."

"That's not what her note says."

I passed over Chris's phone. "A friend in the class passed her phone to me and said something about video."

I continued, "I have no idea how much she may have caught, but I was just walking to my seat when Mrs. O'Riley started screaming at me. I think she thought my breasts were fake and wanted me to take them off. She wouldn't listen when I tried to explain."

I took a breath. "And, okay, I finally kinda lost it at yet another 'Take them off' and pulled off my top."

"That's a serious offense, Morgan. I'd hate to see you get arrested over this."

"Hold it. I don't want to play rules lawyer. But first of all she was breaking the law by refusing to accept my gender presentation. Even if they were fake, I'd have every right to wear them. And second, I didn't violate any laws being topless. It's perfectly legal. I've got the cites for both..."

I dug out the card, ready to pass it over.

He started to say something, but I interrupted. "OK, I'll cop to a possible dress code violation with this outfit. But I didn't have a lot of choice about it. And yeah, I suppose you could gig me for disrespect and for another dress code violation for taking off my top. But just what was I supposed to do?"

Mr. Burns visibly collected himself. "All right. Let's hold off until I see what's on the phone."

So I sat back, worried as he found the video and played it. It sounded like Chris had caught it almost from the start. Good.

Mr. Burns set the phone on his desk.

"This is quite a mess. I hate to admit it, but even though you shouldn't have taken off your top, I can't blame you too much. And Mrs. O'Riley was certainly out of line."

He thought some more. "I daresay that your friend won't be the only one who recorded the confrontation either."

He sighed.

"Go back out and sit in the office. I'm going to talk to Mrs. O'Riley."

So I went back out and sat down. I dug out a book and started reading. I did notice Mr. Burns talking quietly to Miss Allen, who then paged Mrs. O'Riley to the office.

She looked triumphant and gave me an evil look as Mr. Burns ushered her into his office and closed the door.

Even through the closed door, I could hear the raised voices. Couldn't tell what they were saying, but it was definitely heated.

Things quieted down. Then a few minutes later a very shaken Mrs. O'Riley came out of the VP's office followed by Mr. Burns.

He spoke. "I believe you owe each other an apology. You first Mrs. O'Riley."

She started to turn towards him to protest, but reconsidered.

"I don't approve of what you are doing. It's unnatural. But I should have let you explain."

"Ma'am, it's not unnatural. I've not done a thing to cause my breasts to grow. It just happened. That's the way my body is. No drugs, no hormones. They just grew. Unnatural would be having them chopped off."

I got a sharp look from Mr. Burns, but he didn't say anything.

Mrs. O'Riley looked gobsmacked and muttered, "But that's not possible. God wouldn't..."

I interrupted her. "It is possible. Contrary to popular belief God, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it is a lot more flexible than people. Male and female aren't the only possibilities. Just the most common ones. Even in humans. Something like one in a thousand folks have some sort of intersex condition. Mine is just a lot more obvious than most."

I don't think I convinced her, but maybe she'd at least think about things now.

Mr. Burns looked pointedly at me.

"I'm sorry about taking off my top and what I said, but I really couldn't see what else to do."

She didn't look any happier at that than I had at her "apology" but I guess Mr. Burns realized that it was as good as he was going to get from either of us.

"OK, now I want both of you to go back to class and try to put this behind you. With that he handed me Chris's phone and went back into his office.

Mrs. O'Riley and I headed back to her classroom. Neither of us spoke and we walked a good ways apart.

When we reached the classroom, I sped up a bit and held the door for her. I still didn't like her, but it didn't hurt to be polite.

There was dead silence as we entered the room. She went to her desk, and I went to my seat. As she turned to the whiteboard I quietly passed Chris her phone.

I survived the rest of the day OK.

After 7^th period, Chris and I went to the gym and I got my (still pretty damp) clothes from the coach.

Chris and I got on the bus to my place without any trouble. Thank god.

We'd barely gotten on the bus when my phone and Chris's started going off.

I grabbed mine and I had a text from Sally. "Looking hot bro!" with an attached pic. I pulled up the photo.

Oh god. It was me in the hall outside English, right after Chris had given me that kiss and hug. My shorts had been a lot tighter than I thought after that kiss. My cock looked huge and my boobs were prominent as well. Looked like my nipples were hard enough to cut glass, even through the top.

I texted back "Where did you get that?"

Sally's response was "you're all over Facebook and Tumblr"

"I'm doomed."

Chris looked up from her phone.

"Somebody told you about the posts?"

I just backed up a bit and showed her the pic.

"My sister sent me that."

"Wow. That looks better than you did before I kissed you."

"Not helping."

"I wonder if the pic is good enough to blow up to poster size?"

"Really not helping."

"Aww. You'd look great on my bedroom wall."

"Yeah right up until your mom & dad see it. Then I'm dead and you'll be grounded for life."

Chris gave it some thought. "Nah, probably only grounded until college."

I made a face. "I'll still be dead though."

"Dad wouldn't do that. He'd probably just maim you a little."

---

When we got to my place, I had to introduce Chris to Dad. I was hoping that'd distract him from my clothes. No such luck.

"That's an 'interesting' look, Morgan. Care to explain it?"

I gave him a short version of the bit at lunch. "And I had to change into the spare clothes I'd brought with me. Only I hadn't thought they'd get my bra and panties too."

"Poor planning on your part..."

"Yeah, Dad, I know. It's no excuse."

"Bet you remember spare underwear in the future."

"Yes, Dad, I will."

"At least you didn't get in trouble for what you are wearing."

I tried to will Chris to keep quiet. She did, but I guess something in our expressions tripped dad's radar.

"You did get in trouble for wearing them?"

"Uh, not exactly..."

Explaining the confrontation with Mrs. O'Riley to dad was not fun. Even less fun was when I let slip about the video on Chris's phone while describing the bit in Mr. Burns' office.

Naturally, dad wanted to see the video. At least Chris knew better than to argue.

"Okay, I agree with Mr. Burns. You shouldn't have flashed your teacher. But I can see why you did it. Don't make a habit of it. OK?"

Whew. Now if only mom is as reasonable when she gets home.

Fortunately, that was the end of the Parental Inquisition. Well, at least until later.

Chris and I headed up to my room followed by a warning to not do anything dad wouldn't do.

I couldn't resist throwing back "Oh, like that's a limit."

One of dad's stress balls bounced off the back of my head, followed by a laugh.

When we got to my room, Chris tossed her bag on the bed and some of the books slid out. I recognized a paperback and turned to her with a grin.

"So, Chris, you're one of those Longknifes?"

She stared at me for a second and then spotted the book that'd fallen out.

"Ah, another fan?"

"Yep. I heard Mike Sheperd talking about the books at Orycon. I even got lucky and found copies of the prequels."

"Prequels? What prequels?"

"Well, you know how Kris talks about things her grandfathers got up to in the 'old days'?"

"Yeah?"

"One of the dealers had these three books by Mike Moscoe sitting next to the Kris Longknife books. I picked one up and saw from the cover blurb that it was about one of her grandfathers. Seems Mike wrote some books under a different pen name that he used for background when he started the new series."

"There are more books?!"

"Just the three."

I went over to the shelves and dug out my copies of They Also Serve, The Price of Peace and The First Casualty.

"You can borrow them, but if anything happens to them...."

"You'll kill me?"

"Worse, I'll sic Kris's grandfathers on you."

"Hey, no fair fighting dirty."

"If you aren't fighting dirty, you aren't trying."

Chris packed the books into her bag while I fired up my computer to check how bad the online gossip was.

She said, "Wish I could check my accounts."

"Ask and ye shall receive."

With a grin I pulled an older desktop out of the closet along with a keyboard, mouse and an old LCD monitor.

There was (just barely) room for both of us to sit at the table I was using for a computer desk.

The good(?) news was that there was only the one pic of me in the hall. The bad news was that it'd spread fast. Worse, they'd posted a link to the hi-res original.

Chris grabbed a copy in spite of my pleadings. And after thinking things over a bit, I grabbed one for myself.

But why did that person have to have a good camera in their phone, and worse, be able to use it well. I don't think they could have gotten a clearer shot if I'd posed for it.

Bad news was that there were several different shots of me topless in Mrs. O'Riley's class. Mostly not that good due to angle or blurring. But a couple were fairly clear.

Worse, someone besides Chris had been taking video.

This was so not good.

I got drawn out of my visions of doom when Cjris started laughing.

"What's so funny?"

A URL popped up in the chat window and I clicked on it.

What??? It was yet another post of the pic from the hall. Only this person was claiming I was a girl with a packer in my shorts!

They had a link to the video and pointed out stuff that "proved" my breasts were real and natural. They also pointed to some stuff about my waist and hips that "proved" I had to be a girl. So "obviously" my cock & balls were fake.

I was sputtering when Chris told me to hit refresh. I guess she'd sent the URL to some of her (our?) crowd from lunch. There were several comments telling the original poster they were wrong. Including one that I assumed was from Rob.

"No, he really is a guy with breasts. He's in my PE class ad I've seen him in the showers and changing. It's some weird genetic thing. His bod is going female but his crotch is all guy."

"Gee, Rob, thanks ever so much for that" I muttered.

Chris and I were discussing what we could do about stuff like that "girl with a dick" post when I heard mom get home.

So we tabled it and got out some homework because I'd pointed out that as soon as mom had changed and de-stressed a bit, she'd want to talk to me... no us about my day at school.

---

The Kris Longknife books are some fun SF/Adventure with a good female protagonist. One who is way too human. And the Mike Moscoe books I listed are indeed effectively prequels to them. They've even been re-released under his Mike Sheperd name in 2013.

This occurs in early summer shortly after Morgan's current school year. Consider it a "teaser" for the future. No real spoilers.

---

It sort of started when we attended a family reunion in Oregon. I met a cousin who lived there. Nothing special about that.

Not until I saw her head for the mens locker room at the pool in the park the reunion picnic was in.

"Morgan! Whoa. That's the guys locker room!"

I got this long suffering look. "I know, Melinda. Legally, I am a guy. Look, I can explain everything later."

He(?) paused. "That is, if you still want to hang around with a weirdo."

I was a bit surprised, but shook my head. "No, I've got my own weirdnesses. I can hardly get upset at you for being weird."

I headed for the womens locker room wondering if he could possibly be as weird as I was. Then again, he (still having trouble wrapping my head around that) was wearing a sundress that made it pretty obvious that he had breasts. Sure looked female to me.

I changed into my suit. Well, I took off the shorts and top I was wearing over my suit. I had my reasons for not wanting to be naked in the locker room.

I went thru the showers and headed to the pool area. I spotted Morgan coming out of the mens locker room.

She... He was getting a few looks, but seemed to be ignoring them.

I noticed there was some sort of plastic card clipped to the skirt on his suit bottom.

One of the lifeguards started over towards him but I saw another stop him. The guy looked surprised, but went back to the pool.

Obviously something going on here.

"OK, Morgan, what the hell is going on? You are using the mens locker room, a lifeguard stopped another one from going after you for using it. I know you said you are weird, but..."

He sighed. "Look, a lot of folks know about me, but even so I'd rather not discuss it in public, OK? But if you want, we can talk about after we go back to the picnic. Deal?"

"Okay, but you better not be messing with me."

I was a bit annoyed so I just took a few steps to the pool and dove in.

As I was swimming, it occurred to me that Morgan and I were wearing the same kind of suit. A two-piece that looked like a one-piece, with a skirted bottom.

The sort of thing you usually saw on younger kids or older women. I knew why I wore one, the skirt hid things just in case.

Was it possible that Morgan had the same problem? But how would that make her a boy?

After about half an hour I was cooled off nicely and a bit tired of swimming. And dealing with some of the rowdies.

I carefully climbed out of the pool and looked around. I spotted Morgan and caught her.. no his, eye. I pointed towards the locker rooms. He nodded and climbed out.

I was almost to the entrance of the locker room when I heard loud voices towards the mens entrance.

I backed out and saw Morgan arguing with someone. Looked like another lifeguard. I didn't recognize him as one of the ones I'd seen when we entered the pool area. I guess they changed shifts while we were swimming.

"I don't care what you say young lady, you aren't going into the mens locker room."

Morgan was trying to show the guy something on that plastic card, but the guy was ignoring it.

"Look, I'm a guy, I'll get arrested if I use the womens locker room!"

"Yeah, right. You a guy. I don't think so."

Morgan got really exasperated. And looked around. There weren't many people near the entrances, and I was the only one looking over at them. He saw me and gave me this "sorry" look.

Then before the guy could stop him he pulled his suit bottom to his knees. I didn't get a good look because of the angle, but I thought I saw a cock and balls. Given the reaction of the guy, I'm pretty sure that was what he saw too.

"You... you... pull those back up and get out of here!"

Morgan pulled up the bottom and headed into the locker room. And I stood there stunned for a second before heading into the women's locker room.

Once inside I dried off in a daze, I took off my top and put on a bra and my top. Then I wrapped the towel around my waist and dropped my suit bottoms. I dried off without without uncovering anything then worked a pair of panties up my legs, then a pair of spankies to help hold things in.

After that I dropped the towel and put on my skirt.

I wrapped the wet suit pieces in the towel and stuffed the roll into my beach bag.

Morgan was waiting outside.

"Sorry you had to see that. Every once in a while I run into an idiot that doesn't believe my ID or the carry letter."

"Carry letter?"

"Something Mr. Watt put together for me. He's the local police chief. It tells folks that regardless of my having breasts, I'm legally a guy and have to use the mens lockers. It also tells other idiots that if I'm dressed up female I can use womens bathrooms and dressing rooms at stores."

"Huh? How the heck does that work?"

"It's the way the state anti-discrimination law is written. Transgendered folks get to use bathrooms and dressing rooms that match how they appear, but they weren't willing to allow it for places like locker rooms. I'm not exactly trans, but it applies."

"You aren't trans?" I felt a surge of hope.

"No, I'm..."

I interrupted him. "You've got a weird genetic condition that makes part of your body react weirdly to hormones while the rest reacts normally?"

He stared at me like I'd grown another head.

"Yeah. Everything but my... my genitals... is developing female, but they are developing male. But my hormones are the normal levels for a guy."

Oh. My. God. Maybe I wasn't a total freak after all. I went for it.

"Morgan. I've got normal female hormone levels. But my... my clitoris... developed as if I was a guy."

He looked stunned. There was an empty picnic table nearby. I dragged him over.

He asked, "So it's sort of like a ... " he swallowed, "... like a cock."

I nodded. "Sort of. I don't pee thru it, but it's got a shaft and foreskin and everything. It's about six inches when it's hard."

He shook his head. "Oh lord, that must be hell in the locker rooms."

I giggled. "Like you have it any better with those tits?"

I think we were both getting a bit odd from the shock.

"Oh, it gets worse. I'm bi, so in the showers..."

"I can imagine. Heck, I don't have to. There are a few girls in my PE class..."

We wound up doing a lot more talking and then dragged our parents together and got them talking.

Seems Morgan and I have two common ancestors on different branches of the family. Both of them from Roswell, NM. Which has everyone in the families wondering.

Morgan and I both got a few more tests, and apparently we share an odd cluster of genes.

Anyway, after the dust settled, my folks decided that since the schools back home weren't all that friendly, and dad had been looking at some jobs in the area...

And that's why I'm starting at Morgan's high school this fall.

George entered the Nurse's office. "Hello? Sister Catherine sent me..."

"I got a call from the office. But I was expecting George Watson."

"Um. That's me."

"George? That's an unusual name for a girl."

"Uh, I'm not exactly a girl..."

Her eyebrows raised as she looked over the child.

"We can talk about that later if you want to. Right now, I need to check you over to make sure you survived that paddling." She paused with a grin, "Or am I talking to your ghost?"

That managed to get a smile and a small laugh out of George.

"No, ma'am. I'm alive. I'm just not sure how well I'll be sitting for a while." He winced as he reached back to try to rub the area under discussion.

"I'm going to have to examine the um... 'affected area'. Which means you'll have to get at least partially undressed, dear. Since you say you 'aren't exactly' a girl I could get one of the male teachers in here to make sure everything is OK while I examine you?"

George was uncomfortable with the idea of the exam, but having one of the few male teachers seeing him that way, and in this outfit... No.

He swallowed and said, "N-no. I'm OK with it just being you, ma'am."

The nurse nodded. "OK, in that case, go over to the exam table while I lock the door so no one walks in in the middle of things."

George went over to the padded table and watched as the nurse locked the door.

She turned back to George. "I think the easiest way to do this would be for you to bend over the table, flip up the back of your skirt and lower your underwear enough for me to see the affected area. Think you can do that?"

George looked nervous, but nodded.

"OK, let's be about it."

As George bent over he muttered, "Funny, you don't look like Duchess Harrington..."

He discovered he'd said it a bit louder than he'd intended when the nurse said, "No, and I don't have a treecat to help me either. Pity, it'd come in handy."

George couldn't help snickering at that.

"Enough of that, let's see the damage."

George slowly pulled up the back of his skirt while trying to wrap his mind around the nurse liking his favorite books.

"Well, I guess you weren't kidding about not exactly being a girl. Unless you swiped your brother's underwear for some reason?"

"Uh, I don't have a brother..."

"Just wondering... Now, please lower the underwear "

As George awkwardly tried to comply, she asked "Would it be easier if I did it? I'm afraid you might fall over. This isn't the way I'd normally do things... and it's not working very well."

"I guess it might work better if you did."

"All right then." She carefully grasped the left and right sides of the waistband and pulled backwards, sliding her fingers under the waistband so it wouldn't drag across his buttocks as she lowered the briefs.

She let go when they were halfway to George's knees.

"OK, you are pretty red, but there's no bruising. Which is pretty much the way it should be after a paddling. You might want to straighten up carefully and gently poke at things to see if any spots are extra sore. If there are they might need looking at."

As George carefully straightened up, the nurse got a brief flash from between his legs. "OK, not physically a girl anyway. Mentally, I'm not so sure." was her thought.

After a few tentative feels around his butt George said. "It's all pretty sore, but nothing seems to be extra sore right now."

"OK, be sure to come back if anything gets extra sore before the end of the day. I'll give you a note for your teacher."

As she was saying this George had reached down and carefully pulled his briefs back up.

"Now, that I've checked to be sure you are physically OK, we need to deal with the dress code stuff." She opened a cabinet and took out several uniform skirts.

"See which of these come closest to fitting, then change into one of them."

At George's look of embarrassment she said, "Either try them on over the skirt you are wearing, or you can use the back room." She pointed at the doorway to a small room with a bed.

George chose the back room. As he disappeared into it, the nurse started the paperwork. The report about the exam was the easy part. She just noted that there was no apparent bruising or other injury. Which meant that it was within the guidelines.

She wasn't sure what she'd be putting down on the "psych" part. She wasn't a trained therapist, though she'd had some training to help spot students with emotional problems. George seemed to be in fairly good shape, all things considered.

But a boy suddenly coming to school in a girl's uniform, especially with decently applied makeup wasn't exactly normal. Then again, in spite of what many in the Church thought, it wasn't wrong either, just out of the ordinary.

She was still thinking about the few notes she'd been able to make when George came back out wearing one of the loaner skirts. He was taller than the typical girl his age. And a lot of it was in his legs. Which was how he'd gotten in trouble. His sister's skirt's hem had been a lot farther above the knee on him than it had been on her. Because of this, the loaner skirt, which was almost ankle length on typical girls was mid calf on him.

She ran a critical eye over him. The makeup still had to go and the blouse was still badly wrinkled. She came to a decision.

She got up and hand him a box of wipes. "Here, these should get that makeup off without too much trouble. You can use the bathroom. Pass out your blouse, and I'll see if I can touch it up with the iron I have in the closet."

A short while later, a much more presentable George was standing before the nurse.

"Well, you look much more presentable now. Even without makeup."

She continued, "We need to talk about a few things, if you can. You should sit down. But do it slowly, and even if it hurts don't bounce back up, that'll just make it worse. Just keep going down slowly."

George took her advice. It was painful, but bearable. Sort of like getting into a too hot bath.

Finally he was sitting down. He tried to squirm to get more comfortable and quickly found it was a bad idea.

The nurse gave him a sympathetic look.

"OK, now I'd like to ask you some questions. You don't have to answer, but it'd help if you can. Help you as well as the school staff."

George looked uncertain. "Uh, OK, I guess."

"First off, you don't normally come to school dressed as a girl, do you?"

"No, ma'am." George hung his head.

"It's not anything to be ashamed of. Remember, you got paddled for the makeup and other uniform errors, not because it was a girls uniform. OK?"

George risked looking back up. The nurse seemed to be serious.

"Now, did someone make you wear that uniform?"

"No..."

"I didn't think so, but we needed to know."

"This wasn't the first time you've worn girls clothes is it?"

George was scared of admitting it, but then again, if he didn't admit it he was afraid things would keep on like they had been. Or get worse. The struggle was clear on his face. Finally he answered. "N-no."

"Could you tell me about it?" The nurse was very careful to not push. She knew she had to convey the impression that she'd be willing to listen, but not come across as demanding an answer.

After a halting start, it came pouring out.

George had been interested in girls clothes almost as long as he'd known there was a difference. But he'd been afraid to say anything. Eventually, he'd started sneaking chances to dress up.

It'd all built up and last night something had snapped. He still wasn't sure it had been the brightest thing he'd ever done, but he'd done it. And now he had to live with the results.

"What am I gonna tell mom & dad?"

The nurse held his hand. "The truth is good."

George stared at her. He couldn't...

"Your parents are good people, aren't they?"

George nodded slowly.

"Well, then they aren't going to do anything bad to you."

George still looked uncertain.

"I imagine this will be a bit of a shock to them, but are you really afraid of what they might do?"

George started to answer and then stopped to think...