Back when I’d been going to high school the first time, math had been my least favorite class. In fact, I’d down right hated it. Now, as I ran down my algebra test, I realized that some things hadn’t changed.

Of course, there were some differences too. Back then, math hadn’t really made a lot of sense to me. Once you got past addition and subtraction, the numbers started to get confusing, and trying to solve for X only resulted in my getting frustrated. There was a reason I dropped out of school rather than graduating.

However, as ironic as it was, math now frustrated me for an entirely different reason. It was too damn easy. The numbers made sense now, and they fell into place with an ease that still surprised me. Now, solving for X, Y, and Z, was about as easy as adding one plus one.

I quickly finished my test, pretty sure that I’d gotten a perfect score. Thanks to being an exemplar, it was like I had a calculator built right into my head, along with a clock, a constantly running camera that I could replay at will, and who knew how much else.

There were times, when I no longer even recognized myself and the person I’d become, and not just physically. Sure, it was still weird as hell looking into the mirror and seeing a cute little girl staring back, or looking up at everyone around me, since I was usually the shortest person in the room now. However, as weird as that was, it was nothing compared to realizing that I was a lot smarter than I used to be, and that I no longer even thought the same way I had as Big Al.

“Things change,” I whispered, staring down at my tiny girlish hands. They were a lot different than the big, grease stained hands that I was so used to seeing. I’d never see those old hands again, any more than I’d see my old face. “No use crying over spilled milk. This is the way things are now.”

Most of the time, I didn’t bother worrying about my changes and what they meant, since I knew quite well that I’d gained a hell of a lot more than I’d lost. I was young and could start over. I was strong, healthy, and powerful. Hell, I was even smarter than before. And most importantly, I was now in a position, where one day, I might be able to help Rachael and others like her.

But still, every once in awhile, it hit all hit me particularly hard, and unfortunately, today was one of those days. Taking this math test and acing it like this, really made me think about how much I’d changed. And it made me worry that I’d changed too much, and that I was losing too much of what had made me the person I was.

“I’m turning into a damn stranger,” I grumbled to myself.

I’d never been one for a lot of self-pity, especially when things weren’t as bad as all that. So, I mentally pulled up my big girl panties, then took my test up to the front of the class. I had better things to do than wasting time by feeling sorry for myself.

Once all the tests were turned in, the girl beside me asked, “How did you do?”

Erin Carrew, or Cauldron as most people called her, was a pretty and slender redhead, who liked wearing bracelets with ‘Wiccan’ symbols. Or at least, that was what she’d said they were when one of our other classmates had asked about them.

“I think I did pretty good,” I told her wryly.

Erin gave me a flat look. “You’re an exemplar, so you probably got every question right…”

I just shrugged at that, not wanting to come off as bragging. “Maybe.”

“It’s not fair,” Erin grumbled. “You exemplars get it so easy…”

“Life isn’t fair,” I pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “If it was, I wouldn’t be stuck looking like I was in grade school.”

Erin had the grace to look a little embarrassed about her comment, though I could see where she was coming from. For the most part, exemplars did tend to get a lot of advantages over most other people, and not just in one area. When it came to athletics, academics, and usually even in looks, it was hard for normal people to compete with us.

With a sigh, I rubbed my temples, wishing for a good stiff drink. Being an exemplar was great in many ways, but the old me would never be able to compete with who I was now. This all made it too easy to forget where I came from, and I didn’t want that.

“Well, I still wish I was an exemplar,” Erin grumbled. “Maybe I can make a potion or something…” Her eyes seemed to gleam with excitement as she was obviously imagining what it would be like to be an exemplar, and probably one that looked like a supermodel.

“Probably not a good idea,” I commented. I’d heard a few stories of devisors who’d tried turning themselves into exemplars, usually with less than pleasant results. Then again, there had also been some successes, which would only encourage more people to keep trying.

When class ended, Erin said, “Maybe one day, I can come up with a potion that will help you look older…”

Erin reached out to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I quickly pulled away. That obviously hurt her feelings a little, though she tried not to show it.

As Erin’s codename of Cauldron might suggest, she was a low level mage who specialized in making potions, though as I understood it, a lot of this was just infusing spells into the potions. However, Erin was also an esper. Specifically, she was a psychometrist, so I was careful not to touch her, because I didn’t want to risk her somehow reading that I used to be a fifty year old man. It would be a lot better for me if that little fact never got spread around campus.

“That’s really nice of you to offer,” I told Erin with a smile. “But with my BIT, even if you did find a way to make me look older, I’d just snap back.”

“Oh,” Erin responded with a sigh. “I guess I didn’t think about that…”

“Thanks for thinking of me anyway,” I told her, as I picked up my bag and started for my next class.

My next class was Power Theory with Dr. Quintain, who literally wrote the book on the subject. He wrote the book we used in class, did a lot of the power testing around school, and was apparently one of the top experts on the subject in the world. However, he was also the most boring teacher I’d ever encountered, and could even put a hyperactive kid, loaded up on devisor coffee, to sleep with one of his lectures.

I took my seat next to Amy, who was not only my former roommate, but also my closest friend at this school. In fact, she was the only one here that I’d trusted with my secret, that I was really damn near old enough to be her grandpa.

Amy was a good kid, but she’d been given a pretty shitty hand at life. Like me, she used to be a guy, but where my changes gave me a second chance at life, hers were likely to kill her eventually. Still, she never lets that slow her down, and usually doesn’t bother feeling sorry for herself.

“Hey,” I greeted Amy with a nod. Then I looked to Sapphire, who sat on the other side of her and gave that girl a friendly nod as well. “How are you two doing?”

“Not too bad,” Amy responded with a smile. “Last night, I finished modifying a couple of my devises, so tomorrow, I’ll be able to show them off to my mom…”

I chuckled at that. “Parents Day is going to be interesting,” I agreed, wondering what my daughter Melanie would think of the school. My son Rich had already been here a couple times, and last month, Rachael had even been here for a couple days, but Melanie had never seen the place.

“Yes,” Sapphire agreed with a faint sigh. “Interesting will be right.”

“Do you have family coming?” I asked, curiously.

Sapphire nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled a little. “I’m looking forward to seeing them, but it might be a little…awkward.”

With that, Sapphire pulled her cloak tightly around herself, which was something she did whenever she was feeling self-conscious or nervous. The cloak was actually made of blue scales, which had come from her. Apparently, Sapphire was born with GSD, which she’d inherited from her mom, but when she’d manifested as an exemplar, she changed a great deal, losing her GSD and becoming what she called a ‘pretty’.

Suddenly, a voice called out, “Woo hoo…”

I looked over and saw Mischief, who’d suddenly appeared at her desk…literally. Knowing her, she’d probably teleported straight from the classroom door to her desk.

“You seem like you’re in a good mood today,” Amy said to the hyperactive blonde girl.

Mischief just grinned broadly. “Imp is back to normal.”

I blinked at that, but before I could say anything, another student asked, “Is Ms. Imp EVER normal?”

Mischief responded by sticking her tongue out at the speaker. She looked like she was about to say something more, but Dr. Quintain called for everyone’s attention, then immediately went into his lecture.

“Well,” I mused to myself. “If nothing else, this should calm Mischief down for a bit…and put her to sleep…along with everyone else.”

--------------------

Crystal Hall, Friday late morning, Oct 26th, 2007
Roulette:

Lunch. It was one of my three favorite meals of the day, though usually less for the food in the Crystal Hall cafeteria, than because of the company.

At the moment, I was sitting at my usual table with Alyss, my former roommate in Poe, and Sapphire, who lived down the hall from me in Hawthorne. These girls were my two closest friends at Whateley.

“You said earlier, that you upgraded some of your devises,” Alyss said, taking a bite of her lunch. “What did you mean?”

I brushed my long purple hair back out of my face, grinning as I did so. Then, I reached for my belt and unclipped a small devise that was currently connected to it. A moment later, I set the devise onto the table in front of me. It was a gold metal disk, about half an inch thick and four inches across.

“What’s that?” Sapphire asked, giving my devise a curious look.

“It’s a battery,” I explained rather proudly.

“A battery?” Alyss asked, giving my devise a skeptical look. “It doesn’t look like any battery I’ve ever seen.”

“Because I made it,” I reminded her. “When I’m in energizer mode, like I am today, I can charge it up. Then, I can use this to power some of my other devises…”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Alyss told me, staring at my disk with a thoughtful expression. “But it doesn’t look like it would fit anywhere in your other devises…”

“It won’t,” I admitted with a sigh. “Well, not most of them.” Then I grinned at her again. “But this plugs right into a recharging station that I finished yesterday, along with a few other batteries I made. Then, all I have to do is plug my devises into the recharging station, and I can recharge them.”

Alyss picked up the battery and looked it over. “Good way to make use of your energizer power, when you don’t even have it anymore.”

“I thought so,” I agreed. “Now, I need to figure out how to redesign my batteries and future devises, so I can just plug the batteries straight into them, without a recharge station.” I shrugged at that. “One step at a time.”

“I imagine your mom will be impressed when she sees your batteries and recharge station,” Alyss told me.

“Probably not,” I admitted with a sigh.

My mom was a high level devisor, and could build stuff like this with barely any effort. I was only a part time devisor, and then, not even an especially high one. When it came to making devises, I couldn’t really compete.

Alyss reached over and put a tiny hand on my shoulder. “Trust me,” she told me with a knowing smile. “Your mom will be proud.”

At that moment, I was suddenly reminded that Alyss was a lot older than she looked. Not only was she a parent, but also a grandparent. Since she only looked like she was about nine or ten years old, that was easy to forget.

Sapphire nodded at that and said, “I hope so…” However, I had a feeling that at the moment, she was referring more to herself and her own mother than to me and mine.

Once we finished eating, the three of us got up so we could head to our next class together, BMA. I just hoped that I didn’t have to spar against either of them today, because not only did I hate having to fight with my friends, but my record against both of them was pretty bad.

We were just starting to leave our table, when Sapphire ran into another girl. “Watch where you’re going,” the other girl exclaimed, glaring at Sapphire with a look of contempt.

“You walked into me,” Sapphire responded with a scowl.

I looked at the girl who’d collided with Sapphire. She was tall, absolutely gorgeous, with emerald green eyes, and long black hair. One look was enough to know that she was an exemplar.

“Exquisite,” I said, not only describing the girl but also naming her.

Exquisite was another freshman, though we didn’t actually have any classes together. I didn’t know much about her, other than that she was supposedly a spoiled rich girl, who lived in Melville, and that she was a mid-level exemplar. What little I did know, came from the flow of gossip, which seemed to be the lifeblood of the high school social scene for girls.

The other girl smirked, as though pleased that I knew who she was. However, her eyes swept over all three of us, settling on Alyss for several seconds longer than Sapphire or me. That seemed just a little odd, since I was the one who spoke, and Sapphire was the one she’d collided with. Then again, Alyss tended to stand out, not only due to her youthful looks, but also for her gothic lolita fashion.

“Keep out of my way,” Exquisite said in a snobbish tone, giving Sapphire a look of contempt, which she then shared with the rest of us too. After a moment, she walked away.

“She was pleasant,” I commented wryly.

“About as pleasant as shedding your skin,” Sapphire responded with a shudder. “That’s the one thing I don’t miss about my old body.”

“I’d imagine,” I responded a little awkwardly.

Alyss looked in the direction that Exquisite had gone, scowling a little as she did so. “I’ve seen her hanging around with that brat, Starbright, so I shouldn’t be surprised by the attitude.”

“That does explain a few things,” I agreed with a sigh.

Starbright was a classic ‘mean girl’, who’d taken a dislike to Alyss, and had bullied her quite a bit, until Alyss figured out how to fight back. Over the last month, Starbright had continued insulting and badmouthing Alyss, though she hadn’t been nearly as bad as she used to be, mostly because she was afraid of my tiny friend’s humiliating retaliation.

After this, the three of us went to our next class, where we promptly changed and took our places on the mats. I was actually halfway looking forward to BMA today, because I was in energizer mode, which meant, that I had a power that was useful for fighting.

When class began a few minutes later, Ito called out, a couple names, and immediately afterwards, Tolman called out, “Roulette and Aegis.”

I stood up and looked at Aegis, who was pretty decent when it came to sparring in class. Of course, I’d also seen him in a real fight, where ironically, he did much worse. Apparently, being in a real fight made him forget everything he’d learned in class.

“At least today, I should be able to hold my own,” I quietly mused.

However, a moment later, Tolman said, “Aegis, you may use your powers. Roulette, you may not.”

I groaned at that, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Since my powers were so changeable and unreliable, Ito and Tolman had been teaching me to rely more on my skills than my powers. And unfortunately, that meant having me spar a bit more, without using my powers.

Aegis gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’d prefer a fair fight, but…” He looked to Tolman and shrugged.

“This is NOT going to be fun,” I muttered, looking at Aegis, who was bigger, stronger, and tougher than me, and that was without his even using his powers. With them, there was no way I could beat him. “Might as well get this over with.”

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Friday afternoon, Oct 26th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was sitting in the Poe common room, with a small stack of books piled up beside me. I’d stopped by the campus library after my last class of the day, and I figured that I’d be able to drop them back off when I was done with dinner.

“Another cookbook down,” I said, setting an Italian cookbook down into the ‘just read’ pile.

I didn’t do a lot of cooking myself, but I have helped Amy in the kitchen a few times, and if nothing else, this will give me something else to talk with her about. That girl loved to cook.

Before reading my final book from the stack, I glanced around me, taking in my surroundings. I wasn’t alone in the common room, but I’d been a little too distracted to notice anyone else until now.

Team Kimba had been in here earlier, but after a brief talk with Gwen, the green haired Sidhe girl who could make people hallucinate, they all left. However, two other people had come in, without my even noticing until now.

Dana, the tall and statuesque redhead, was sitting next to Jinx, who was her former roommate and current girlfriend. I didn’t know Dana all that well, since she’d arrived at Whateley a bit later than everyone else, but I got along with her pretty well.

When Dana had manifested, her power somehow turned her into a younger copy of a supervillain, who had then adopted her as a sister. There were a few people who gave Dana a hard time because her ‘big sister’ was a supervillain, though I certainly wasn’t one of them. If anyone could sympathize, it was me.

“Hey, Dana,” I said, getting her attention.

“Yeah?” Dana responded, giving me a curious look.

“Is Pinball going to be here tomorrow?” I asked. If it had been anyone else asking that, Dana might have thought they were messing with her, but she knew better from me.

“No,” Dana responded with a shrug. “Jackie’s laying low for a bit, and doesn’t want to risk showing up here so soon…”

“My parents are coming though,” Jinx offered excitedly. “I can’t wait to introduce them to Dana.” Dana blushed at that.

“How about you?” Dana asked me. “Do you have any family coming tomorrow?” Though she didn’t specifically mention it, she was obviously referring to my daughter Rachael, who was better known by her codename of Lady Havoc.

“I do have a few people coming,” I admitted. “But unfortunately, they don’t let people out of prison just to visit…”

“Your mom was here last month,” Jinx pointed out, making me fight back a chuckle at the fact that everyone seemed to think that my daughter, was actually my mom. Of course, correcting that misunderstanding would mean revealing the truth, which would be even more awkward.

“Carson pulled some strings to get Rachael here,” I responded with a sigh. “And somehow, I’m pretty sure she won’t be willing to do it again, just so we could visit.”

“Probably not,” Dana agreed.

However, Jinx just grinned. “You never know.”

I gave the two of them a nod, while picking up the last book from my pile. This one was a book of poetry, the Collected Works of Robert Frost. I wasn’t very interested in poetry, which I’d always thought of as a bunch of fancy nonsense, but I was trying to expand my horizons a bit.

Once I was finished with my book, I closed my eyes and mentally went over what I’d just read. This was a trick I’d picked up in order to help organize and understand what I learn. After all, what good was a photographic memory, if everything was too mixed up and confused in your head to find it easily.

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” I said, grabbing my stack of books. “Time for dinner.”

“Say hi to Amy for me,” Jinx said.

“Will do,” I responded.

“And tell her to send more of her cookies,” Jinx added with a grin.

“Definitely,” Dana agreed, grinning even more broadly. “Or those espresso brownies she made…”

I chuckled at that. “Sure, I’ll let her know.”

Then with a brief wave, I left Poe, slinging a pack full of books over my shoulder. Instead of heading straight to Crystal Hall, I began walking towards Hawthorne, so I could meet up with my friends.

I was about halfway to Hawthorne when my entire body suddenly exploded into searing agony. I screamed and collapsed to the ground, unable to move, as it felt like every inch of my body was on fire at once, both inside and out. Then, just as quickly as the pain started, it stopped.

“What the hell was that?” I gasped, remaining on the ground since my body felt like a limp noodle.

“Are you okay?” someone asked. Looking up, I saw Exquisite was walking towards me, looking rather smug. “I saw you trip and fall…”

“Just peachy,” I responded with a grimace, as I slowly got back to my feet.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re all right,” Exquisite replied in a tone that implied otherwise. Then, she turned and started to walk away again, pausing just long enough to say, “Oh, by the way… Starbright says hi.”

My body still felt weak and wobbly from that sudden attack of pain, otherwise I might have gone after Exquisite to demand she explain what she meant. Instead, I remained where I was, glaring at her back, certain that she had more than just a little to do with what had just happened to me.

--------------------

The Quad, Friday afternoon, Oct 26th, 2007

Naomi Pryce found an empty table in the Quad and took a seat, her every movement being graceful and feminine. She was absolutely gorgeous and knew it, so positioned herself to show off that beauty to anyone who happened to look her way.

A minute later, a girl called out, “Exquisite.”

With a well-practiced smile, Naomi looked up at Starbright and said, “My friends call me Naomi.”

“My real name is Traci,” Starbright said in response. “Traci Hoffman.”

“That’s a beautiful name,” Naomi said, trying to sound sincere.

Starbright smiled at that. “Thank you. And thank you for what you did to that little brat, Ribbon…” Then, she smirked, admitting, “It was fun to watch.”

“It was nothing,” Naomi told the other girl with a dismissive wave. “Friends help each other. Maybe next time, you’ll be able to help me.”

“Of course,” Starbright responded with a smile of her own.

Naomi watched her new ‘friend’, knowing that if she was going to achieve her goal of becoming the queen of this school, like she’d been at her old one, then she’d need to gather more ‘friends’ like Starbright. Between her beauty, wealth, and family connections, it wouldn’t take much to gather just the right people, to help her achieve her goal.

As Naomi had long ago learned, the best way to ensure the loyalty of her people, was a combination of the carrot and the stick. Do them a few favors and make them think that she was their very best friend, and at the same time, let them know what she’d do to those who crossed her.

Naomi had been working on Starbright for the last couple weeks, and had finally hooked her. Now, she’d done a favor for the other girl, by hurting one of her enemies. And in the process, Naomi had also demonstrated her own power, which was now hanging in the air as an unspoken threat of what would happen, should Starbright ever anger her.

“Well, thank you again,” Starbright said. “That was the best entertainment I’ve had in a long time.”

“Of course,” Naomi responded with a predatory smirk. “What are friends for?”

--------------------

Saturday morning, Oct 27th, 2007
Roulette:

Parents Day. Parents Day was the one day of the school year, where Whateley’s gates were flung open, and visitors were invited within en masse. It was the one day a year where parents and other family members could come and see where we went to school, and what all the tuition was spent on.

Today, my mom was coming to Whateley, and it had been two months since the last time I’d seen her. This was the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing her in my life, which includes that month she spent as a statue, back when I was nine, due to a stasis beam accident.

I was excited about seeing my mom again, as well as nervous. I wasn’t sure what she’d think of me, and what progress I’d made so far at Whateley. After all, my powers were so erratic, that it was difficult making any real progress with them.

Mom had called me about half an hour ago, letting me know that she was on the bus to Whateley. Now, I was hanging out near the parking lot, waiting for her to arrive. I wasn’t the only one with this plan, as a number of students were gathered nearby, waiting on the bus with their family members.

I didn’t have to wait much longer before my mom arrived, though to my surprise, she wasn’t alone. Right beside her was another woman, who was 6 foot 4, with an amazonian physique. I shouldn’t have been surprised, because Beth was not only Mom’s best friend, but had been her roommate back when they’d both been students here at Whateley.

Then, I saw one more person, who’d been hidden behind Beth. “Kara,” I cried out in surprise.

Kara was an attractive brunette, who usually played down her looks, as she was doing now. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, as usual, and today, she was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.

Not only was Kara my best friend outside of Whateley, and my oldest friend, she was also my girlfriend. And as with my mom, I hadn’t seen her in two months.

“Amy,” Kara exclaimed, waving to me.

I hurried towards them and Mom immediately grabbed me in a hug. As soon as she released me, Beth and Kara grabbed me too. I wanted to kiss Kara, which would have been a little awkward in front of Mom and Beth, but I wasn’t out of the closet here in Whateley. It was hard enough being a Thornie at times, and I’d seen the way some students treated those who were openly gay.

“So, this is your new school,” Kara said with a grin, looking around with a look of eagerness. “I could go here…”

“You’d have to manifest first,” Beth pointed out with a grin.

“How are you doing?” Mom asked me.

“I’m doing all right,” I assured her with a smile. “I haven’t had a burnout in a week.” Then, I gave her a thoughtful look and asked, “How about you? Have you been taking care of yourself?”

Mom looked a little self-conscious at that. “Don’t worry about me…”

I gave Beth a curious look, since I trusted her to tell me the truth. Mom was a high level devisor, and when she got into her groove, she tended to block out everything else, including such things as eating, sleeping, and showering. For most of my life, I’d taken care of Mom, but with me away, that responsibility fell to Beth.

“I’ve been looking after her,” Beth assured me with an amused look.

“Good,” I said.

“You know,” Mom pointed out wryly, “I am an adult woman, and am perfectly capable to taking care of myself…”

Beth and I shared a look. But before I could say anything, Beth commented, “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you. Once you start working on one of your devises, everything else goes out the window until you’re done.”

It was obvious that Mom wanted to argue with that, but she didn’t. Instead, she changed the subject. “So, Amy, have you made any interesting devises?”

“A few,” I responded self-consciously. Then, I reached for the holster on my belt and pulled out the only devise I currently had on me. “I have this…my needle gun.”

Mom accepted the weapon and looked it with a gleam of interest in her eyes. “A miniaturized coil induction gun,” Mom mused, ejecting the clip and adding, “firing flechettes.”

“Small and non-lethal, so I can carry it around school,” I explained. Then I saw Mom looking at one of the flechette’s and quickly told her, “Don’t touch the tips. They’re all coated with a poison that a friend makes…”

“Poison?” Mom asked in surprise, quickly pulling her hands away.

“A paralyzing agent,” I quickly added.

Mom nodded at that as she slapped the clip back in. “I wouldn’t imagine something of this size would have much range or accuracy…”

I grinned at that, puffing up a little with pride. “I cheated…”

“I thought that being a devisor was all about cheating,” Beth pointed out.

“Yeah,” Kara agreed. “They’re always breaking the laws of physics…”

“True,” I agreed. “But I used magic.”

“Magic?” Mom asked in surprise.

“I put a spell on my needle gun,” I explained. “It’s an old spell, that was designed to go on bows and crossbows, to increase the range, accuracy, and penetration. Apparently, that spell doesn’t work on regular firearms, because it’s the gunpowder in the bullets that causes them to shoot, rather than the gun itself, but it works great on this thing.”

Mom just stared at me as if she couldn’t believe that. “You can’t put magic spells on a devise… That’s just…cheating.”

“Amy already said she was cheating,” Kara pointed out with a laugh.

“It works though,” I said.

I wasn’t an especially powerful devisor or mage, but unlike most mages or devisors, I could actually work with both…just not at the same time. If I could use magic to compensate for the weaknesses of a devise, then why shouldn’t I?

“Why don’t you show us around?” Beth asked me. “I want to see how the old school has changed since the last time I was here.”

“Yeah, show us around,” Kara added.

I gave a wry smile and mused, “I wonder if I can get campus job credit by playing tour guide…”

Since there were a lot of things to show them, I decided to start off by showing them my dorm room. It wasn’t very impressive, but I had absolutely no doubt that Mom would demand to see it sooner or later.

We hadn’t gone very far, before Mom pointed to a section of lawn and commented, “Look… You can’t even tell that the crater was ever here…”

“You’re just lucky they didn’t make you fill it in by hand,” Beth replied.

Kara and I shared a look, then burst out laughing. There was obviously a story behind that, and we were going to have to nag Mom and Beth until they told it to us.

As we approached Hawthorne, I saw that we weren’t the only ones arriving. There was a large creature, or at least, that was my first impression. My second thought was the realization that she was a mutant with severe GSD.

From the waist up, she was mostly human in shape, though she was larger in proportion than a normal woman. If she was shaped like a normal woman, then judging by her top half, she would have been about seven feet tall. As it was, her top half was covered with black scales, including a lot of long thin ones that came from the top of her head and seemed to simulate hair. In addition, there were noticeably clawed fingers, and slitted-yellow eyes.

Then, from the waist down, her body was that of a massive black scaled snake. Her tail swept back and forth like a sine wave as she slithered along, making it difficult to tell exactly how long it was, but I guessed it was about thirty feet long.

“Wow,” Kara whispered from beside me as she stared at this snake woman. “She’s…extreme.”

“Ebon Scale,” I said in realization. I’d seen pictures of this woman before, and knew exactly who she was here to see.

A moment later, I heard a loud cry of, “MAMA,” as Sapphire ran out of Hawthorne and threw herself at the snake woman. They grabbed each other in a firm hug.

“My little Sapphire,” Ebon Scale said, looking absolutely delighted to see her daughter.

“Sapphire is one of my friends,” I said, to explain why I’d stopped at this scene. Since Sapphire was one of my closest friends, I wanted to introduce her to my family.

Suddenly, several voices began chanting in a sing-song tone, “Sapphire has no tail. Sapphire has no scales…”

Sapphire stepped back, looking a little hurt at that. It took me a moment longer before I could see three more snake girls, all of who looked just like Ebon scale, but much smaller and with different colored scales. From their top halves, they looked like scaly little girls of about seven or eight. These were obviously Sapphire’s little sisters, who she’d mentioned a time or two.

“Leave your sister alone,” their mother chided them in a sharp tone. “It’s not her fault that she lost her scales or tail.”

“But she turned into a pretty,” the green scaled snake girl grumbled. She pronounced ‘pretty’ as if it was an insult or dirty word.

I really didn’t like seeing Sapphire being teased, even by her own little sisters, so I decided that it was time to interrupt. I hurried towards them, while Mom, Beth, and Kara followed close behind.

“Sapphire,” I called out to get her attention.

My blue-haired friend turned and gave me a look of relief. “Amy.” She puffed up a little, looking proud as she gestured to her mother. “This is my Mama…”

“And this is my mom,” I said, gesturing to her. “And this is Beth and my best friend Kara, from back home.”

“Hello,” Sapphire greeted my family, while I gave my own polite greeting to her mom.

“So, you are Amy,” Ebon Scale said, giving me a curious look, which was also more than a little intimidating. “My daughter has told me of you…”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said politely.

“And these are my sisters,” Sapphire added, glaring at the three girls. “Emerald, Ruby, and Opal.” Since one had green scales, one had crimson, and one had white, it was pretty easy to guess which was which.

“You have pretty hair,” Opal told me. When he sisters glared at her, she exclaimed, “Well, it is pretty…”

“Um…thanks,” I responded while Kara giggled.

We all chatted for a couple minutes, but it was polite small-talk. Then, Sapphire and her family left, so she could show them around the school.

“Your friend has an interesting family,” Mom said once they were gone.

“Definitely,” Kara added. Then, she gave me a suspicious look, asking, “So, just how close of friends are you two?”

I blinked at that. “Um… I mean…”

Kara burst out laughing. “Gotcha.”

“Well,” I responded after a moment. “If SOMEONE would manifest and come to school here, then she could keep an eye on me herself…”

Kara’s response was to stick her tongue out at me. “Now, show me where you live…”

“Hawthorne,” Mom said, giving Beth a look. “This cottage had a bit of a reputation back when we were students here.”

“It still does,” I said in a casual tone, as I started for the door.

A few minutes later, we were in my dorm room, which had been set up for my unique needs. My bed was connected to a bunch of sensors, which kept track of all my vital statistics and notified some on call medical people if I went into a burnout in the middle of the night.

Of course, there were a few other modifications to my room, most notably, a fine chain mail curtain that slid out around my bed. This had only been added a couple weeks ago, and acted as a faraday cage to protect my room if I happened to turn into energizer mode in the middle of the night, and lost control. It had happened once, and only once. This same curtain would also protect me if I happened to lose control of my telekinesis while I was asleep too.

“Do you really need all this?” Kara gasped in horror at the sight of my bed, and the setup around it.

I shrugged at that. “It’s mostly a just in case thing,” I assured her. However, Mom still looked worried. “There are on call doctors, if I need them.”

“And what do you have over here?” Beth asked, pointing to the other side of my room, where I had a small work table set up, along with a few other odds and ends.

My eyes went over my belongings, and I felt nervous and eager to show off at the same time. I glanced to Mom, then shrugged. With that, I pulled out my rail gun, which was a much more powerful weapon than my needle gun, but a lot more awkward to carry around.

“A rail gun,” Mom said with a smile, as she began to examine it with a professional look. Mom made a lot of rail guns, so she was a bit of an expert in them. “Very nice.”

I looked over at several metal spheres that were sitting out on my work bench, but decided not to show them off. After all, these were just upgraded version of the first devise I’d ever made, and all three of them had seen it.

“What’s this?” Kara asked, pointing to a pillar that was two feet tall, with four gold metal disks plugged into the side of the pillar. There were spots for several more disks to go, once I made them.

“This is my recharging station,” I explained proudly. “I can use it to recharge my devises.” Then I pulled out one of the disks and added, “And this is a battery that I can charge up with my energizer power, so I can use that to recharge my other devises, indirectly.”

“That sounds practical,” Mom said. “Do you have any more devises?”

“Not really,” I admitted self-consciously. “I don’t have a lot of time in devisor mode, but I do have a few ideas that I’m working on.”

“And what’s this?” Kara asked, pointing to what appeared to be a large crystal ball, though it was made out of some kind of marble or granite. I wasn’t sure what it was made out of actually.

“That’s another battery,” I explained. “For essence.”

“So, this is a magic battery,” Beth said, giving the object a curious look. “I know mages who used things like that…”

“Witchling sent it to me,” I admitted. “Whenever I switch powers, I lose any essence that I’ve built up, so she gave me this.”

Since I was currently in my wizard mode, and had been gathering essence since before I woke up this morning, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate. I put my hands onto the stone sphere and pushed my essence into it. Now, even if I went into a burnout, the essence would be safe for later use, instead of lost for good.

“I don’t build up enough essence to do any big spells,” I admitted, “but this lets me save up what I do get, so I’m starting to learn a few tricks.”

“That’s good to hear,” Beth told me.

Kara grinned, and in her best Hagrid voice, said, “Yer a wizard Amy.”

“Only part time,” I responded with a grin. “But it’s pretty hard to get the hang of. I’m used to being around devises, so those tend to come a lot easier.”

Mom smiled at that, looking rather proud. “I look forward to seeing whatever you make next.”

Since I was done showing them my room, we began to leave so I could take them to the next stop on this nickel tour. However, I didn’t miss the worried look that Mom gave towards my bed.

After stepping out of my room, I saw Caitlin walking down the hallway. “Caitlin,” I called out to get her attention. As soon as I had it, I said, “I’d like you to meet my mom…” Then, to my mom, I said, “This is Caitlin, my RA.”

“Nice to meet you,” Caitlin told my mom politely.

“And this is Beth and Kara,” I added, “close family friends.”

Caitlin nodded at that, though her eyes went to Kara for a moment before she smirked. Caitlin knew that I used to be a boy, and that I still liked girls, and even had a girlfriend back home. It didn’t take much for her to figure out what Kara really was to me.

“And nice to meet you too,” Caitlin said, before turning her attention back to my mom. “So, you’re the one who makes those singularity grenades…”

“I do make singularity bombs,” Mom said, giving Caitlin a curious look.

“I gave her a demonstration with that singularity bomb you sent me,” I told mom. “And as much as I loved having that thing, it probably isn’t a good idea to send that kind of thing through the mail.”

“You mailed Amy a bomb?” Kara gasped in surprise.

“Why are you surprised?” Beth asked with a chuckle. “This is Liz we’re talking about.”

“Well, those things are impressive,” Caitlin told mom.

Mom beamed proudly. “Thank you.”

After talking with Caitlin for a couple minutes, we left Hawthorne, and I suggested, “How about getting lunch?” Then I grinned at Kara, “You’re gonna love Crystal Hall.”

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Saturday morning, Oct 27th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was just outside the front entrance of Poe, leaning against the wall and wishing I had a cigar with me. Unfortunately, I’d left all my cigars up in my room, and even if I did have one, I certainly wouldn’t smoke it right here.

Since I didn’t have a cigar to smoke, I occupied myself by playing with a long strand of ribbon that I’d manifested. Since I could make ribbons like this anytime I wanted, this had become something that I tended to do whenever I was bored, or just wanted to occupy my hands.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait much longer before a portal suddenly appeared in the air, a short distance away. I stood up straight and began to smile. A moment later, a young man stepped through the portal.

“Rich,” I said, greeting my youngest child and only son.

Like Rachael and myself, Rich was a mutant, and he had the power to teleport over long distances by creating these portals in the air. In fact, that was why he had the codename of Shortcut, though he was smart enough not to have gotten involved in either the hero or villain lifestyles.

“Alyss,” Rich waved to me, flashing a grin as he did so.

A second figure stepped out of the portal. This was an attractive Asian woman, who wore a pair of sunglasses, which helped to hide her glowing green eyes.

“Min,” I greeted the woman.

Though she was dressed in civilian clothes, Min Hinaka was a superhero known as Mystery Woman, and she happened to be dating my son. I figured that the reason she’d come along with Rich, was because she was a Whateley graduate.

Then, two more people came through the portal, right before it closed. One of them was Melanie, my daughter and eldest child. And with her, was my granddaughter Kaylie.

Kaylie was a cute girl, just shy of thirteen years old. She was also going through a goth phase, so was wearing mostly black clothes. In fact, Kaylie was the one who’d introduced me to the gothic lolita fashion style that had become my trademark here at Whateley.

“Alyss,” Melanie exclaimed, running over and giving me a hug. “It’s good to see you again…” Then, she paused and admitted, “I almost forgot how small you are now.”

“Tell me about it,” I responded with a snort. “I have to use a step-stool, just to get to the top shelf in my damn closet.” Then I paused, remembering who I was talking to. “Pardon my French…”

Kaylie giggled at that. “Some things never change.”

Since Kaylie wasn’t coming over to give me a hug, I went over to her instead. “You’ve grown,” I announced, annoyed by the fact that my granddaughter was not only taller than me, but getting even more so. “You need to start drinking coffee, to stunt your growth, so I won’t have to keep looking up at you…”

Kaylie laughed again, while Rich said, “A little too late for that.” Then he grinned mischieviously and said, “That sure is a nice dress.”

“You like it?” I asked, twirling around like my daughters used to do when they were little girls. “If you want, I can make one for you…”

“Um…no thanks,” Rich said, taking a nervous step backwards while I just grinned evilly.

“How about a nice ribbon for your hair?” I asked. “Pink?”

“Stop teasing Rich,” Melanie told me, though she couldn’t hold back her laugher.

I looked to Melanie. “So, Kimberly didn’t come…”

I was disappointed at that, since I’d been looking forward to seeing my younger granddaughter. Kimberly was just seven, and still young enough that she loved wearing princess dresses, which is something that Kaylie had grown out of. I had been planning to surprise her with a new dress to wear around the school.

“She wanted to come,” Melanie told me, almost apologetically, “but Mark and I decided that it would be best to leave her behind for today. We thought that this place might be a bit too much for her at the moment, so she’s spending a day at the zoo with her father instead.”

“I can always bring you home to visit her later,” Rich assured me.

With a nod, and a smile to hide my disappointment, I said, “Well, come on in and I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

A couple seconds later, I led my family to the front entrance of Poe, where Mrs. Horton was waiting. I gave some polite introductions, then we went inside and to my dorm room.

“This is where I hang my hat,” I said, gesturing around the room.

“You have a roommate,” Kaylie said, noticing the second bed.

“Yeah,” I responded with a chuckle. “Martina is a good egg, but her previous roommate had an issue with her, so she moved in here with me…”

“What kind of issue?” Rich asked curiously.

I gave him a wry look. “Her mom is a supervillain.”

“Cool,” Kaylie exclaimed.

“Well, she probably won’t find many people more sympathetic to that than you,” Melanie said.

I nodded at that. “There are a few villain kids around the school,” I explained with a shrug. “Hell, there are a couple others just in this building.”

Melanie looked a little concerned at that, perhaps worried that that these kids might be a bad influence on me. I snorted at that. As if someone like Martina or Dana could ever be a bad influence on me. If anything, it’s their parents who should be concerned about me. For some reason, that thought made me want to grab a beer and a cigar.

I kept the tour of Poe Cottage pretty short, partly because I didn’t want to interrupt anyone else’s privacy by tromping past their rooms, and partly, because I didn’t want to explain any of the ‘unique’ features of the building, like the ones in the women’s showers, not that I’d ever been able to make use of them. That was one of the many downsides of being prepubescent.

Once we were done with the tour of Poe, I decided to show everyone the rest of campus. Kaylie was amazed at the sight of Crystal Hall in the distance, and gasped in amazement.

“What is THAT?” Kaylie demanded.

Min smirked, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she glanced to me, letting me explain.

“Oh that,” I responded with a smirk. “That’s just our cafeteria.” She gave me a look of disbelief, so I had to rub in it. “They’ve got waterfalls inside…”

“I’ve been to this school a few times,” Rich said, looking impressed as well. “But this is the first chance I’ve actually had to look around…”

“It’s…impressive,” Melanie said.

I nodded agreement. “Hell, you’re only seeing the surface…literally. There’s a crap ton of stuff hidden underground…” I paused, remembering that my granddaughter was there and apologized for my language, “Pardon my French.”

Then, I let out a sigh, thinking about Rachael, and how different things might have turned out for her if we’d known about Whateley. If she’d come here, they might have taught her how to control her diedricks, or at least found a solution so that she didn’t end up going on killing sprees. This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d had these thoughts.

“I wish things had been different,” I quietly mused to myself. “But if wishes were horses, we’d all be wearing hip waders.”

When we reached the Quad, there were a lot of people gathered around. Students were bringing their families to see the Crystal Hall, along with the other buildings that held the classrooms.

While we were looking around, I noticed Dana and Jinx sitting at a table in the Quad, along with an older couple. Well, older is relative, since they both looked about ten years younger than my real age. Still, the woman resembled Jinx enough, that I guessed they were her parents.

“Those girls live down the hall from me,” I said to my family as I made my way over.

“Alyss,” Dana greeted me with a grin. Her eyes went to Rich and Melanie, and she asked, “Are these your parents?” Rich, Melanie, and Kaylie all burst out laughing at that.

“Not exactly,” I answered.

Dana stared at me for a moment before giving a knowing nod, though she was clearly making the wrong assumption. The story going around school was that Rachael was my mom, which made me the daughter of Lady Havoc. It wasn’t true, of course, but that was a lot more believable than the truth.

“This is Rich, Melanie, and Kaylie,” I said, introducing them. “And Min, who actually went here.”

“This is Dana and Jinx,” I said, using Jinx’s codename on habit, since almost nobody actually called her Amanda.

“And this is my mom and dad,” Jinx added proudly, gesturing to the couple with them.

“Aren’t you a little young for high school?” Jinx’s mom asked me, giving me a curious look. Kaylie began snickering, while my kids just smirked.

“I’m a little older than I look,” I explained, deciding not to mention just how much older. “Part of my powers makes me look younger than I actually am.”

I got a look of sympathy at that. “Oh, you poor thing. I know how difficult that can be for girls your age…” Kaylie snickered again.

Then, Dana suddenly froze, and was staring off to the side with a grim expression. I followed her gaze and saw Starbright, the little bitch who’d caused me a lot of problems during my first month or so at Whateley.

Starbright was walking beside a woman, who was gorgeous, blonde, and busty. From her looks, she was probably an exemplar, and though she looked a little young to be Starbright’s mother, you couldn’t always tell with exemplars.

“You having problems with Starbright too?” I asked Dana.

“No,” Dana responded with a shake of her head. “That woman she’s with… I heard Starbright was bragging about her sister coming to see her, but I didn’t know her sister was Super Star…”

“Super Star?” Kaylie asked in confusion. “Is she a hero?”

“Technically,” Dana responded with a snort. “More of a pain in the butt than anything.”

I nodded at that, having heard the story of how Dana came to Whateley, and got on the wrong side of the MCO and a group of heroes. I imagined that Starbright’s sister must have been one of them.

Min gave Super Star a curious look, obviously curious about the woman who shared the same profession as her. However, she made no move to go and introduce herself.

Suddenly, someone nearby called out, “Hey, is that Boob Job?”

My eyes went to the speaker, a woman about Melanie’s age, then I looked to where she was staring, but all I saw was Amy, who was walking past with two women and a girl. I wanted to introduce Amy to my family, but she was just a little too far away.

“Can we go sit down for a bit?” Kaylie asked. “I don’t feel very good…”

“You can have my seat,” Jinx offered, immediately getting up.

“Thanks,” Kaylie responded a little awkwardly.

Suddenly, Kaylie let out a loud gasp as glowing green mist began to emerge from her skin and hair. She staggered back in fear and confusion, while everyone else jumped back away from her. Everyone except me that was.

“Kaylie,” I said, carefully moving closer.

“What’s happening to me?” Kaylie cried out, staring down at herself with a look of wide-eyed terror, as the glowing mist started to swirl around her body.

“Honey,” Melanie started, taking a step towards her daughter, though I gestured for her to stay back.

I stared at the swirling green gas, not sure if it was dangerous or not. Since I was the most durable of anyone there, it was a lot safer for me to check it out than it was for anyone else.

“I think you’re just manifesting your powers,” I told Kaylie, trying to calm her down.

“That’s what it looks like to me too,” Min commented with a reassuring smile.

That made my granddaughter gape at me a moment, though having an explanation for what was going on, seemed to calm her down. Rich and Melanie still looked concerned, but they relaxed a little too, especially since Kaylie didn’t seem to be hurt, just confused.

None of us were really surprised by the idea that Kaylie could be a mutant, because we’d been expecting it. A couple months ago, a psycho villain called the Marquis, had told us that Kaylie was a mutant who had yet to manifest. Since a part of his powers was to sense other mutants, we’d taken that notice seriously. And since there were already three mutants in the family, including myself, we didn’t think it was quite as big a deal, as we once would have.

“You’re gonna be fine,” I said, now close enough to touch Kaylie. I reached out and took her hand. When nothing happened, I gave her a hug to calm her down. While I did this, the glowing mist faded away. “See… Everything is just fine…”

When Kaylie pulled away from me a few seconds later, she stared down at herself and whispered, “I’m a mutant?” She seemed both excited and nervous at the same time. It was no surprise, because she’d seen how impressive mutant powers could be, but she’d also seen what Rachael’s power had done to her.

“Um…congratulations,” Dana offered awkwardly.

“Welcome to the club,” Min said, trying to be positive about the situation.

“Oh, honey,” Melanie cried out, grabbing her daughter in a firm hug.

Rich stood back, watching Kaylie with a worried expression, probably thinking the same things that I was. After all this waiting, Kaylie had finally manifested, but we had absolutely no idea of what her powers entailed, or what problems they might cause.

“What are the chances?” Rich asked me. “While we’re visiting a school for mutants, Kaylie manifests as one…”

My eyes went to Jinx, who looked a little self-conscious. “Probably a lot better than you’d think.”

--------------------

Crystal Hall, Sunday late morning, Oct 28th, 2007
Roulette:

Normally, Sunday lunch was a quiet affair, as everyone was relaxed from the weekend, but today was different. Yesterday had been Parents Day, and though the parents had departed the campus, most students were still excited from seeing their families again, even if they might not want to admit it.

“It was nice seeing Mama again,” Sapphire said as she took a bite of her pizza. “But I could have done without seeing my sisters.”

I chuckled at that. “They seem like they’d probably be a bit of a handful…”

“It was easier to deal with them before,” Sapphire grumbled, adjusting the blue scaled cloak that she nearly always wore. “Now, they don’t respect me anymore…and they keep teasing me.”

With a sympathetic nod, I said, “I’m an only child, so I’ve never had to deal with siblings.”

“They can be…trying,” Sapphire said wryly.

“All kids can be trying,” Alyss commented with a chuckle.

“So,” I asked curiously. “They’re triplets?”

Sapphire nodded. “Yes, they came from the same clutch of eggs. Only one of their clutch failed to hatch, while I’m the only one in mine that did…”

Alyss and I shared a look, while we considered how strange it was for Sapphire to have been hatched from an egg. Even here at Whateley, that was a bit odd. However, neither of us said anything about that to Sapphire.

While Sapphire excitedly talked about the news she’d heard from back home, I thought about my own family visit. It had been great to see Mom and Beth again, and especially, Kara. The only real problem was, that we didn’t have much privacy. Still, the two of us had managed to find a little before the day was done, enough for us to do a little kissing.

“How is your mother doing? Sapphire asked me, making me blink as it took several seconds to realize that she’d changed topics.

“She’s doing all right,” I answered wryly.

Yesterday afternoon, Mom ran into one of her old classmates, from when she’d been a student at Whateley. The man had insisted on calling her Boob Job, which was a variation of her actual codename of Boom Job, and it had pissed her off. When my mom gets mad, the often went into a diedricks episode, and yesterday was no exception. She’d screamed at the man, threatened to turn him into a pile of ash, and then ran to the devisor labs to build a new incinerator gun, while her would-be target ran off.

By the time Mom finished with her new devise, she’d been exhausted, so Beth had literally flung her over a shoulder, and carried her to the bus. It had been quite a sight, but nothing unusual, since I’d grown up with my mom doing things like this all the time.

“At least I get a new incinerator gun from the deal,” I commented wryly. “Too bad it will probably stop working before I can find a use for it, but at least it will give me some parts to work with.”

“At least your mom’s episodes don’t actually turn violent,” Alyss pointed out, obviously thinking about her daughter, Lady Havoc. I nodded agreement, knowing that my mom’s situation could easily be even worse.

“So,” I asked. “How is your…cousin doing?” I knew that Kaylie was actually Alyss’ granddaughter, but Sapphire didn’t know, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that Alyss wanted spread around the school.

Alyss gave me an appreciative look. “Kaylie is doing all right, though she’s still a little freaked out over manifesting…”

“I imagine,” I told her, feeling sorry for the girl, because I could definitely relate. “Manifesting can be a little…confusing.”

Sapphire nodded emphatically. “Definitely.”

“We still don’t really know what her powers are,” Alyss explained, “but they don’t seem to be dangerous.”

Sapphire gave Alyss a curious look. “Is your cousin going to be coming to Whateley?”

Alyss shrugged at that. “I don’t know yet. She only showed her powers for the first time yesterday, so no one has really had time to discuss it yet.” Then she paused for a moment before admitting, “And I don’t know how we’ll afford her and I both. If worse comes to worse, I’ll leave so she can come…”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” I quickly assured Alyss.

I know that she was really an adult, or at least, that she had been, but she still needed school just as much as everyone else. From what she’d told me, she’d dropped out of high school the first time around, and it would be a horrible shame if she had to do that again. Especially when there were so many things she needed to learn. And more importantly, she was my best friend at this school, and I couldn’t imagine being here without her.

Just as we were finishing up with lunch, someone called out, “Hey, can we sit here with you?”

Looking up, I saw that Breakdown was the one who’d spoken, and that Voodude and Downpour were with her. My eyes immediately swept the table to make sure that I didn’t have any devises out. Though I liked Breakdown, and generally got along with her pretty well, she did have a bad habit of taking apart any devise or gadget she got her hands on.

“Sure,” I responded, gesturing for them to join us.

“The more the merrier,” Alyss added.

If Sapphire had any problems with sharing a table with four poesies, and a former poesie, she didn’t show it. She merely nodded agreement.

“So,’ I asked, looking at the newcomers. “Did your parents show up yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Breakdown responded with a grin. “It was awesome. They were really impressed by the school, and my brother was totally trying to mack on Sharisha, but she wasn’t having none of that.”

All of us poesies and former poesies chuckled at that, leaving Sapphire as the only one who wasn’t in on the joke. Sharisha was one of the sophomore girls in Poe, and was a strict lesbian. Breakdown’s brother never would have stood a chance with her, and his even trying, probably pissed her off.

“And he was totally drooling over Fey too,” Breakdown added. Then she paused for a moment before admitting, “Dad did his own share of staring too, yesterday, so Mom had to smack him upside the head.”

“My mom came,” Downpour offered in a quiet voice, though she didn’t found very enthusiastic about that.

“What did she think of Whateley?” Alyss asked. Downpour merely shrugged. I glanced up to make sure that no rainclouds were forming overhead. With Downpour, that was always a risk.

“My folks couldn’t make it,” Voodude said, looking a little disappointed. “So, I hung out with my buddy Chris, and his family, all day instead.” He grinned at that. “His mom brought some awesome cookies.”

“Cookies are good,” I offered.

“You make great cookies too,” Breakdown told me with a grin, obviously hoping for more.

Alyss gave me an amused look. “Speaking of which…”

“Sorry, but no cookies tonight,” I said, getting a vaguely disappointed look from Sapphire. “I plan on making a big batch of clam chowder tonight.” That seemed to get Sapphire’s attention again. Then, I added, “I need to bribe my cottage mates to put up with me.”

“She does,” Sapphire added with a grin and a wink. “We still haven’t forgiven her for what happened when she let Team Awesome steal those devisor brownies…”

“I didn’t ‘let’ them do anything,” I pointed out, only to earn some laughs from around the table.

Alyss gave me an amused look. “Good luck trying to keep those kids out of your kitchen while you’re cooking. As for me, I’ve got some work to take care of this afternoon in the garage.”

Breakdown suddenly blurted out, “Hey, did you guys hear that one of the teachers got jumped yesterday?”

“What? I asked in surprise. “What happened?”

“I didn’t see it,” Breakdown said, “but Cindy was there, and she told me about it this morning. Apparently, one of the parents attacked the Imp… You know, that crazy supervillain art teacher…”

“Again?” Voodude asked. “I heard that she got into some kind of major fight last weekend, and came back to school on Monday, all busted up.”

This signaled a change in topic, and we began sharing some of the various gossip and rumors we’d heard about the Imp, who was well known around campus as one of the most eccentric teachers around, if not the most. I didn’t have any of her classes, but I’d still heard a few stories, though I had absolutely no idea of how much of them were true. Somehow, I suspected that there was more than a little exaggeration involved, because I couldn’t imagine any teacher launching a prank war against campus security, and getting away with it.

It was another half hour before I was able to finally get up and leave Crystal Hall, but it was with a grin on my face. Whether they were true or not, some of those stories had been pretty funny.

--------------------

Sunday afternoon, Oct 28th, 2007
Ribbon:

Spending Sunday afternoon in the garage, with my head under the hood of a car, was almost like old times. In fact, between that and the grease all over my hands, I almost felt like I was still ‘Big Al’, the best damn mechanic in Pittsburgh. Of course, as soon as I looked to anyone else, and had to look up to meet their eyes, that illusion was broken.

Since I was in the garage, safety rules took precedence over fashion, which meant that I’d ditched my trademark frilly dress, in exchange for a mechanic’s overalls. My clothes were a much smaller version of what I used to wear while working, back when I’d been Big Al. This made me look a lot more professional, though the cute skull clip in my hair probably offset that impression a little.

“Hey, Alyss,” Ringo called out to me. “Can you give me a hand here?”

“What do you need?” I asked, going over to where Ringo was working on his car.

“I need to get this bolt tightened,” Ringo explained, pointing down into the engine. “But my hand is too big to fit in there with the wrench…”

I was well familiar with that problem when working on engines, even though it was one I no longer had. As it was, my hands were now tiny little girl hands, which meant that I could easily reach into the tight spaces that I’d never been able to before.

“No problem,” I assured Ringo, before climbing up under the hood.

Once I was finished helping Ringo, I looked over his car and shook my head with a sigh. I definitely needed to get my own project car to work on. As it was, I did a lot of work on the campus vehicles, which was actually my official job, but I also spent a lot of time helping out anyone who needed it. That was fun, but nowhere near as satisfying as working on your own car.

There were a few kids beside Ringo, who were scattered about, working on their own projects. It amazed me that kids this young, could know so much about cars. Hell, some of them knew even more than I did, and I’d been working on cars for nearly four decades. I was pretty damned impressed by some of them, who’d actually designed and built their own cars from the bottom up.

Some of these kids made me feel old and obsolete, since they were working with automotive technology that I’d never even heard of, and were not only designing the next generation, but several generations ahead. Even with my exemplar brain, there was no way I could keep up with some of these gadgeteers and devisors.

Fortunately, I’d come to realize that even in the garage, age and wisdom, with a little added treachery, could trump youth and energy. Most of these kids were so focused on the electronics and newfangled technologies that were packed into newer cars, that they overlooked the old-fashioned basics of troubleshooting and car maintenance. And those happened to be areas that I excelled in.

There was only one person in the garage who seemed to share my appreciation for the basics, and that was a young woman named Donna. Donna was an odd duck, in that, while she wasn’t a student, neither was she faculty. She had a job, helping to maintain the campus vehicle fleet, but there was no need to hire an outsider to do something like that, when there was cheap student labor, like myself.

“Donna,” I greeted the woman, as I approached her and the car she was working on.

A single look was enough to show that she was just checking for tire wear, air pressure, and rotating the tires. This was boring but necessary work, the kind of thing that most of these kids simply didn’t have the patience to deal with.

“Need a hand?” I asked.

“Sure,” Donna responded with a smile.

We didn’t talk much as we worked, at least not this time. However, there had been plenty of occasions where we did talk, and where I actually took Donna under my wing to show her a thing or two. I was pretty sure that my knowledge and experience, combined with my youthful looks, both amused and confused her. The lady had a great understanding of basic car theory and maintenance techniques, but when she first showed up, she’d had an almost complete lack of knowledge about anything newer than 50’s technology. Fortunately, she was sharp and was picking up on things pretty quickly.

Donna had a lot of odd quirks, and things that didn’t make much sense, such as with the unusual way she often phrased things, or with the strange gaps in her knowledge. Thanks to my exemplar memory, I was able to actually remember these little oddities, and they added up. However, I had plenty of my own secrets, and saw no reason to go digging into hers.

Once Donna and I were finished checking and rotating the tires, we did the same for two more vehicles before I decided that I was done for the day. “I’ve got to get going so I can get cleaned up for dinner,” I told her, using a dirty rag to wipe some of the grime from my hands. “I’m a growing girl and can’t afford to miss out on meals.”

“Just don’t go growing too much,” Donna told me with an amused look. “Once you put the weight on, it’s hard to get back off.”

“Not a problem I have to worry about,” I assured her with a wry smile. Being an exemplar, getting fat wasn’t something I’d ever have to worry about, assuming I ever even grew.

“I’m going to stick around a little longer,” Donna told me. “I’ve got a little more work to get done before I can call it a day.”

I gave her a nod of acknowledgement. “Later then.”

After this, I went to the restroom, where I stripped out of my coveralls and tossed them into the garbage, washed my hands and face real good to get off the grease and grime, and then I manifested a new dress. One of the advantages of my powers, was that I never had to worry about getting my clothes dirty.

As I left the garage to start back towards Poe, my thoughts turned to yesterday and the visit with my family. While it had been great to see Rich, Melanie and Kaylie, I’d definitely been disappointed by the absence of my other granddaughter, Kimberly. However, even more importantly, was the fact that Kaylie had finally manifested as a mutant while here. That worried me, because I remembered quite well what had happened with Rachael.

“Please,” I quietly prayed to any deity who’d listen. “Don’t let her have diedricks like Rachael. Don’t do that to my family again. Don’t do that to Kaylie…”

At the moment though, we didn’t know what Kaylie’s powers entailed, other than being able to make some kind of glowing green fog around her body. That might be the only thing she gained from being a mutant, but I had a feeling that this was only a part of it. We’d have to wait to find out more.

Yesterday, after Kaylie’s little display, we’d rushed her over to Doyle for a checkup, and they hadn’t found anything wrong with her. Of course, she’d only just manifested, so there hadn’t been much time for unusual side-effects or symptoms. Those could take a lot longer to show up, if there were any. But on the surface, everything looked good.

Once we were done with Doyle, I’d wanted to take Kaylie to the power testing people, to see if we could get a better idea of what her powers actually were, both those guys were pretty busy. Since it was Parents Day, they were busy dealing with lots of visitors, most of whom had questions about how all the power testing was done. I was just amazed that they hadn’t demanded Amy stay there all day, helping them. After all, her campus job was helping out in the power testing labs, and being their guinea pig. Then again, her family had come to visit, or they might very well have made her work.

“I’d better call Mel when I get back to Poe,” I mused aloud. Maybe they’d learned more about Kaylie’s powers by now. “And I’d better talk to Kaylie too… She’s probably worried to…” Or excited, I silently added. After all, getting powers was the kind of thing that she’d probably be pretty happy about.

Then, I suddenly noticed two girls in the distance, who were both watching me. Starbright and Exquisite. My eyes narrowed at the sight, and I remembered my encounter with Exquisite the other day. Her appearance and behavior, right after that sudden attack of pain, had been pretty damn suspicious, even before she’d mentioned Starbright. It had been pretty obvious to me that she’d somehow been involved with my attack, and I’d only become more certain of it since then.

My right hand went to the thick metal bracelet around my left wrist, which was matched with an identical bracelet on my right wrist. Not only were these bracelets decorative, but they were also weapons. They were made of ebidium, a super-dense metal, which made each of them weigh about thirty pounds. If I threw them, or simply tied them to ribbons and swung them at people, they could do a lot of damage. Admittedly, I’d never use them against those girls, because even if they were nasty little brats, I still didn’t want to hurt them. At least not physically. But still, just having weapons like those on hand, made me feel just a little more confident in my ability to handle threats.

Neither girl made any moves to come towards me, seeming satisfied to watch from a distance. Because of that, I made a show of smoothing out my dress and continuing my walk back to Poe, as though I didn’t have a care in the world.

When I arrived at Poe, I was surprised to find several students in the common room, with fabric, styrofoam, and all sorts of other random materials, all spread out around them. For a moment, I just stood there, taking in the sight and trying to make sense of it all. After several seconds, I realized that this resembled the scene of my costuming classroom, but with much cheaper materials.

“What in the world are you doing?” I asked aloud.

“We’re making Halloween costumes,” Angel offered.

“See what I’ve got,” CeeCee exclaimed as she stood up and showed me what she had so far, which mostly looked like some poorly sewn scraps of cloth. I couldn’t even tell what her costume was supposed to be, so just smiled politely. After raising three kids, I’d long since learned that sometimes, the truth was the last thing you wanted to say.

I looked at CeeCee for a moment, trying hard not to notice the fact that she was way too developed for a girl her age. With a body like that, she could have passed as a stripper, rather than a high school freshman. Hell, instead of Crimson Comet, her codename should have been Jailbait, not that I was going to tell her that. As it was though, she was just one of the exemplars around, that actually made me glad I no longer had a libido. If I did, then Whateley could have been pretty damn dangerous for a dirty old man like what I used to be.

“Hey,” Cindy said, her eyes seeming to gleam with excitement. “You’re just the person we need.”

“I am?” I asked.

“She is?” CeeCee added.

Cindy smirked. “You’re an expert in making clothes, so you’re just the person we need to help us…”

“That’s true,” Angel agreed. My RA turned her attention to me, and I could see the wheels turning. “You’ve been taking those lessons with Cecilia Rogers…”

“She’s only worked with me a couple times,” I protested. “It’s not like she’s teaching me a regular class or anything. She’s more like an occasional tutor…”

Cindy just grinned, pointing out, “That’s a lot more than any of us have spent with her. And besides, your whole power is all about clothes…”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Fine, I’ll try to help you guys.”

“Great,” CeeCee exclaimed, nearly bouncing with excitement.

“Have you seen Danika around?” Cindy abruptly asked. “I’m making her a sexy Cat in the Hat costume, and I want to make sure it fits...”

I blinked at that. “Does Danny know that you’re making a costume for his female half?”

“Of course not,” Cindy responded. “It’s going to be a surprise.”

“Oh, I’m sure Danny will appreciate that then,” I said with a chuckle. In fact, I could imagine Danny taking one look at the costume, and then running the other way as fast as he could, while his sister pulled out a camera and took pictures of the whole thing.

“Hey,” Cindy protested. “It’s a nice and tasteful costume. It’s not like I’m trying to dress her up as some kind of anime catgirl, like what Wondercute wants to do…”

“Because a sexy Cat in the Hat is so different,” I commented wryly.

“So, what do I do with my costume now?” CeeCee abruptly asked, nearly shoving the mess into my face.

After taking another look at it, I let out a sigh and admitted, “It would probably be easier for me to just make an entirely new one for you…”

With that, I held out my hand and manifested a new costume, based loosely off her design, but made to better fit her body, not to mention, look a LOT nicer. CeeCee froze and stared at the costume with a look of amazement, right before she squealed in delight.

“That’s great,” Cindy said, looking impressed.

With a shrug, I responded, “Yeah, but it only lasts for a day, so I’d have to make another one on Halloween…”

“Ohmygod,” CeeCee squealed. “You’re gonna make me a new costume for Halloween? That’s awesome…” Then, before I could say anything, CeeCee yelled out, “Ribbon is making Halloween costumes!”

I face-palmed at that, suddenly feeling like I’d been set up, just like the time when Rachael had quick talked me into letting her keep a kitten she brought home. I had a feeling that by the time I was done here, I’d need to break into my stash of booze.

--------------------

The Quad, Sunday afternoon, Oct 28th, 2007

Naomi sat at a table in the Quad, the one that she’d claimed as her own. Every queen needed a place to hold court, and this was the one she’d chosen for herself. Or at least, it was the one where she intended to start from, before working to a more exclusive environment.

At her old school, she’d been the social queen, with numerous ‘friends’, whom she’d bought with her money, beauty, or social influence. Naomi intended to claim that same position here, though she was smart enough to know that it would take time and effort. After all, it had taken years to build her previous court, and she was starting over again, as a freshman.

When Naomi had first arrived at Whateley, she’d come with a strategy. She would find the ruling clique, ingratiate herself with them, and become a member. Then, she’d position herself and eventually take over. However, that strategy had failed, once she realized that there was no single ruling clique. Instead, there were various smaller groups and cliques, each with their own court and circle of influence.

For a time, Naomi had examined each of these groups, trying to decide which one might suit her needs the best. From what she’d heard, the Alphas had once been such a group, but things had changed, and they were no longer the exclusive club they’d once been. Instead, they’d become a club of riff-raff, run by some redneck from Alaska. Naomi couldn’t imagine trying to ingratiate herself with someone like that.

The New Olympians had potential, until Naomi looked into them a little more closely. They were close knit and didn’t bring in new members, which would be quite a problem in itself. In addition, there were already a couple of strong personalities in control, and she didn’t see much opportunity to position herself where she needed to be, while Imperious and Majestic were there.

Venus Inc, the school modeling club, had also seemed like a good possibility. However, Naomi didn’t care for the idea of modeling, or debasing herself so that men could drool over her as though she was some cheap steak.

And then, there were the Golden Kids, the club of students with wealthy parents. She nearly drooled at the thought of all the contacts she could make with them, though admittedly, her family’s wealth wasn’t enough to really impress any of them. If she had joined, she’d probably be counted as one of the least wealthy members, which was not the kind of impression she wanted to give.

Finally, Naomi had decided to form her own clique, and build her power base from scratch. It would be a little more challenging than joining an existing group, but much more satisfying in the long run.

To Naomi’s right, sat her first new ‘friend’, Starbright. Naomi had spent a lot of time working on Starbright, and preparing her for this position. And the other day, Naomi had cemented Starbright’s loyalty, by hurting one of her enemies. She’d demonstrated the benefits of her friendship, and had provided a warning of what happened to her enemies at the same time.

“This is a start,” Naomi mused, smirking to herself as she did so.

“It was really awesome to see you teaching that brat a lesson,” Starbright said.

“It was my pleasure,” Naomi told her, not for the first time. “I know that you can’t get close to her, without her suspecting something. Friends do things like this for each other…”

Starbright nodded. “My sister is a superhero, and she says that you have trust your friends to watch your back.”

“Your sister sounds wise,” Naomi said, carefully keeping her voice even and friendly. “Friends are good to have, which is why I’m trying to make a few more.”

Then, almost as if on cue, two boys came into the Quad and walked straight towards her table. Naomi smiled faintly at that, but made sure not to seem too eager or excited.

On the left was Nicolas Boussard, better known around the school by the name of Gravmax. His father was Michael Boussard, the CEO of Paralink, a company that put communication satellites in space, and leased bandwidth on them to different companies. Gravmax wasn’t especially powerful, but his family was wealthy and had a lot of business contacts. Someone like him could be a very useful ‘friend’ to have.

The boy who’d come over with Gravmax, was an athletic and preppy looking boy of African descent. This was Devon Roth, also known as Iron. His family was well-off, but not in the same category as Gravmax or herself.

“Exquisite,” Gravmax said, taking a seat, while Iron sat down a moment later. “Starbright.”

“You’re prompt,” Naomi said. They’d agreed to meet up to talk at a specific time, and Gravmax had arrived exactly when he said that he would. “I can respect that.”

Gravmax had a somewhat smarmy look at first, but his expression turned a little more serious. “My father always says, being punctual is a mark of being professional.”

“A good philosophy,” Iron agreed. “But I don’t think we’re here to discuss philosophy.”

“No,” Naomi agreed with a smile. “We’re here to discuss a possible friendship.”

Gravmax nodded at that. “I heard about what you did to Ribbon, and I have to admit, I have someone else that I’d like to see receive the same treatment.”

“Oh?” Naomi asked, though she already knew who Gravmax had in mind. She’d done her research on him. “This would be Roulette, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Gravmax responded with a deep scowl. “That bi…girl has made a habit of mocking me, and making false accusations.”

“Of course,” Naomi replied, careful not to show her skepticism over the ‘false accusations’ claim.

“The girl is relatively harmless,” Gravmax admitted, “and easy to defeat.”

Starbright burst out laughing. “I heard how she shot you full of needles, and left you paralyzed on the ground.”

Gravmax glared at her, a look of anger flashing on his face. “She got lucky…”

“Of course,” Naomi said. “Everyone gets lucky sometime. And from what I’ve heard, you’ve drawn a little too much attention with your encounters, so you can’t afford to be seen going after her.”

“Precisely,” Gravmax agreed. “And I understand that you can help with this.”

“Yes,” Naomi replied with a smirk. “I can. I’m not above getting my hands dirty in order to help a friend…figuratively speaking. The question is, are we friends? I’d like to be.”

“I’ve found that it’s always good to have friends,” Iron said, looking to Gravmax.

“Yes,” Gravmax responded with a predatory smile. “I think I’d like that too.”

Naomi smirked, pleased to have added a new ‘friend’ or two to her court. Of course, she’d have to work on Gravmax and Iron, to help build their loyalties, but in the end, having them as friends and assets would likely be well worth the effort.

--------------------

Monday morning, Oct 29th, 2007
Roulette:

Shifter class. Shifter class was one of my most interesting and relevant classes, yet also, one of my most frustrating. This was because, unlike my other powers which rotated, I was always a shifter, albeit a power shifter. Unfortunately, it was the one power that I seemed to have absolutely no control over whatsoever.

I’d been taking this class for two months, and while I’d learned a lot about the theory behind how shifter powers worked, it hadn’t done me any good. I still couldn’t control my power shifting any more than I could the first day I’d manifested it. That made this class an exercise in frustration.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one who was frustrated with this class. Iron Rose sat a couple seats away and was scowling intently as she often did. Rose was a somewhat Amazonian Hispanic girl, who happened to be completely bald, due to a side effect of her powers.

While Rose was a shifter, her powers were about turning herself into metal, so she became strong and tough. Other than that, she couldn’t seem to shift into any other forms, which made this class about as useful to her as it was to me.

“Today,” our teacher announced, “we’re going to talk about transmutational shapeshifters. What I mean by that, is shifters who seem to change the very material and nature of what their bodies are made of.” He gestured to Rose. “Iron Rose is a perfect example of this type of shifter…”

“Just great,” Rose grumbled, not happy with the way everyone in class was staring at her.

“You should be happy about that,” Danny offered.

Like Rose, Danny was a poesie, and I’d first met him when I’d been a resident of Poe myself. Danny was an avatar as well as a shifter, and he hosted some kind of cougar spirit. A female one. So not only could Danny turn into a cougar himself, but he could also turn into a hot and sexy cat girl.

“This one should be easy for you,” Danny added, while I nodded agreement.

“Who knows,” I told Rose, “you might learn something new about how your power works.”

Rose rolled her eyes, then ran her hand over her bald head. “Not likely.”

I shrugged at that, then turned my attention back to the lecture, which was just starting up. In spite of the fact that this probably wouldn’t do much good for me and my particular powers, it was still an interesting subject.

Rose was brought up to the front of the class and asked to demonstrate her power. This wasn’t the first time, since all of us had demonstrated our powers in class on multiple occasions, except myself, since I had absolutely no control over when I shifted.

Once Rose was up in front, her entire body seemed to transform into iron, making her look like she was a statue. I didn’t understand how she could be metal and still move around, but I supposed that this was the purpose of the current lecture.

When shifter class ended, I immediately started for another class that was usually pretty frustrating for me. Devisor class was always interesting, because I’d grown up around a devisor, so most of this was old hat for me. However, since I was only in devisor mode once or twice a week, I rarely had the right power to make full use of this class.

“Yo, Amy,” a friendly voice called out to me as soon as I arrived. “You bring any goodies today?”

“Not today,” I told Monkeywrench. I looked at his desk and the materials he had set up in front of him. “I see you’re still working on your banana gun…”

Monkeywrench just grinned at that. Since he had GSD that made him resemble a monkey, including a brown furry body and a long prehensile tail, he liked to play it up for all he could. That meant, half his devises were related to bananas in one way or another.

“I’ve almost got it perfected,” Monkeywrench told me. “Now, can I get you to make some banana bread for me?”

“We’ll see,” I replied with a grin. “But I do have a new batch of devisor brownies ready…”

That got Monkeywrench’s attention, along with that of everyone else within hearing distance. Devisor brownies were just brownies made with espresso and devisor coffee, so they packed a LOT of caffeine. Since devisors on a building binge tended to work non-stop until they were finished, these were a tasty alternative to the devisor coffee that most consumed. My devisor brownies had turned out to be quite a hit among this crowed.

Just then, one of the other devisor girls hesitantly came towards me. Balderdash was petite and plain looking, which was something of a stereotype for the female gadgeteers and devisors. Unfortunately, she was also meek and lacked any real self-confidence, which was an even bigger problem for her.

“Um, Amy,” Balderdash hesitantly asked me. “Can I buy some of your devisor brownies…” Then, before I could answer, she nervously explained why she wanted them. “I need stay up late for a project, and I really don’t like coffee…”

I frequently used my devisor brownies to trade for parts and favors from other kids in the labs. Balderdash didn’t really have anything I needed at the moment, but it would hurt to get a little goodwill.

“Sure,” I told her with a smile. “I don’t have the brownies on me, but I can probably get you some during lunch.”

“Thank you,” Balderdash said.

Once Balderdash went back to her desk, Monkeywrench asked me, “So, what are you working on?”

I grinned in response. “I’ve got enough parts to make three more batteries, and today, I happen to be a devisor again.”

“Time to assemble,” Monkeywrench announced with a grin.

With a nod, replied, “Yep.”

Of course, I also had some vague ideas of other devises that I’d like to build, so tonight, I’d probably sit down and try to come up with a list of parts that I’d need to build them. That way, I’d have a project to work on until the next time I turned devisor.

Today, devisor class was not only interesting, but productive. I finished putting together three more batteries, which would really help the next time I turned energizer. When class finally ended, I was actually disappointed, since it always felt good to make some progress with my powers.

I walked out of the classroom with my new batteries in hand, looking forward to testing them out, once I had the correct power. And while I made my way towards my third period, powers theory class, I thought about how I could improve my batteries and recharge station.

Just then, someone bumped into me, which was annoying but nothing unusual. Suddenly, my entire body exploded in a searing agony, which seemed to hit every one of my nerves at the same time. A cry escaped from my lips, even as I collapsed to the floor.

Seconds later, the burning pain was already fading, though other sensations took its place. I was weak, and aching, and…burning up. I let out a gasp of dread as the familiar symptoms of a burnout rushed up on me, and then everything turned dark.

--------------------

Monday afternoon, Oct 29th, 2007
Ribbon:

Back when I’d been in high school the first time, history had been one of the few classes that I’d actually liked. In fact, it had been my second favorite class, right after auto shop. Sure, I hadn’t been able to remember the names and dates worth a crap, but I had liked the stories, and had always found it interesting that those stories were mostly true.

History was my final class of the day, and still one of my favorites. My teacher was Roland Williams, a tall and stocky man in his fifties, with greying red hair and a beard. He was gruff, grumpy, and not well liked by the students because of that, but I could relate to the man. Honestly, he reminded me a bit of my old self, from before the cancer and my rebirth as Alyss.

The school rumor mill said that Williams used to be a superhero, and if that was the case, it would explain his cold attitude towards some of the students, myself included. However, even more interesting, were the rumors that he actually had some kind of feud going on with another teacher, and that Carson was the only thing keeping them from brawling in the Quad. That seemed like a typically sketchy rumor, but it was certainly a more interesting one than most.

In spite of the fact that this was one of my favorite classes, I wasn’t paying attention today. Instead, I kept looking at the clock, even if it was only the mental one that was running in the back of my head. Being an exemplar, with the whole mental package, some part of my subconscious actually kept track of the time, accurate enough that I only had to adjust for a couple seconds of drift, about once every week or so.

At the moment, I was worried about Amy, who’d suffered a severe burnout this morning. I’d gone to visit her in Doyle during lunch, but she’d been unconscious, and they weren’t letting any visitors in. I’d spent the rest of the day worrying about her, though I wouldn’t be able to go and see her again, until this class was over.

As soon as the class ended, I grabbed my book bag and raced out the door, going straight to Doyle. In mere minutes, I’d reached Amy’s hospital room, and was relieved to find the door open. That was a good sign.

“Hello,” I said as I stepped into the room.

I hated hospital rooms, since they reminded me of the time when I’d been confined to one, and when I had never expected to see the outside of a hospital again. However, in spite of that, I was still willing to face the hospital and all the memories it brought back, to see if Amy was all right.

“Alyss,” Amy greeted me from the hospital bed, where she was sitting up. She gave me a wry smile. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“You are definitely spending too much time here,” I told Amy, while letting out a sigh of relief that she seemed to be doing all right.

“They’re talking about giving me my own reserved bed,” she joked. “I mean, this is my home away from home. Well, actually, that’s my room in Hawthorne, which makes this my home away from home away from home.”

I snorted at that. “Now, you’re just making me dizzy.”

Amy gave me another wry look. “And how do you think I feel?” She let out a sigh and shook her head. “And I went a whole week without a burnout. I knew the streak would have to end sometime.”

“How are you feeling?” I cautiously asked, coming closer.

Amy brushed her purple hair out of her face, letting out a sigh. “Not too bad now. You know how quickly I recover from these…”

I nodded my agreement. Most of the time, when Amy went through her micro-burnouts, she’d shake it off in just a minute or so and be perfectly fine. However, on occasion, her burnouts would be a little more severe, resulting in her being rushed to Doyle. I worried about all of her burnouts, but these ones especially. One day, she probably wouldn’t recover. One day, one of these burnouts could damn well do some serious permanent damage, or even kill her. It was a very real concern, and one she didn’t like to talk about.

“Today, it was…different,” Amy said, staring at the wall with a thoughtful look.

I scowled at that, wishing I had a cigar with me. This was the perfect time to light one up, since taking a few puffs was always a good way to calm down.

“Different, how?” I finally asked.

Amy turned to look back at me, fixing me with her purple eyes, which were a similar color to my own, just a couple shades darker. “Today, it didn’t feel the same way it usually did when it started. I mean, I usually feel it building up for a couple seconds, but today, it was…different.”

“I think we established that,” I replied wryly. I manifested a ribbon in my hands and began running it through my fingers.

“There was no warning at all,” Amy explained carefully, as if trying to decide how best to phrase things. “One moment I was fine, and the next, all I could feel was this horrible pain. It was like I was on fire… No, like someone had injected acid into my veins, then set me on fire. It was only like this for a couple seconds, before it started to fade. And then, I was hit with my usual burnout…”

“Only you would talk about a ‘usual’ burnout,” I said grimly.

While I said this, I was focused on how she’d described that sudden surge of pain. I couldn’t help but remembering my own attack of pain on Friday, since this sounded like the exact same thing.

With narrowed eyes, I asked, “Did you happen to see Exquisite around when this happened?”

Amy paused for a moment, looking thoughtful for several seconds before nodding. “Yeah, I bumped into her, right before this happened.” She turned her attention back to me again, her expression now serious. “Why?”

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Amy was actually pretty sharp, and that if you give her a couple pieces of the puzzle, she was good at picking out the picture. However, in this case, I only had a couple pieces of the puzzle myself, and didn’t know how to explain what I was seeing.

“On Friday,” I grudgingly explained, “I had a sudden attack of pain, just like what you described. Exquisite was there, and she told me that Starbright said hi.”

Amy’s eyes narrowed at that. “I see.”

“I’m pretty sure Exquisite was behind it,” I admitted. “So it stands to reason that she got you too, probably because we’re friends.”

Amy closed her eyes for several long seconds, then let out a long sigh as she opened them again. “I’m not a very powerful psychic,” she said, “but at the moment, my esper senses are screaming that we have a new enemy…” Then she paused and gave me a wry smile. “Or maybe that’s just my common sense.”

I couldn’t help but bark out laughing, with a very unladylike snort. “You just might be right,” I admitted. “I know that Exquisite has been hanging around Starbright lately, but I’ll see if I can find anything else out about her. I might not be a psychic, but my common sense is pretty damn sharp.”

“So,” Amy asked, abruptly changing the subject. “Anything interesting happen in Power Theory?”

“Not really,” I responded with a chuckle. “Though I heard that Aegis got his ass kicked again during lunch, pardon my French.”

“Again?” Amy asked wryly. “Who was it this time?”

I smirked a little, knowing that I should feel bad for Aegis, but sometimes it was hard. That boy was always picking fights above his weight class, though I had to admit, his heart was usually in the right place. It was just too damn bad that his head wasn’t.

“It’s not who beat him that’s interesting,” I explained with another chuckle. “It’s the fact that he was rescued by your friends in Team Awesome.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding…”

“Yeah,” I continued with a broad grin. “I imagine that getting rescued by a couple little girls, would be even more humiliating than getting your ass beat… Pardon my…”

“You’re pardoned already,” Amy said with a roll of her eyes. “You know, you don’t have to watch your language around me, right? I’m not going to get traumatized from hearing a dirty word or two.”

“Habit,” I responded with a shrug. “Besides,” I paused to glance around, making sure that nobody was close enough to hear, “I grew up with the rule that there are certain things you aren’t supposed to say around women and children, and even though I might be one myself now, that still hasn’t changed…”

Instead of being offended, Amy just looked amused. I knew that I was an odd duck, by damn near everyone’s standards, but Amy accepted that without any problem. Hell, even knowing about my history, and about Rachael, didn’t freak her out in the least. Admittedly, she had a few quirks of her own, but there was a reason we’d become good friends.

I remained, talking with Amy for another half hour before I had to get going. I said my goodbyes and made my way back to Poe, keeping my eyes out the entire time for any glimpse of Starbright or Exquisite. Fortunately, I didn’t see a sign of either of them.

When I reached Poe a short time later, I went into the common room and looked around. There were half a dozen residents, sitting around and doing their thing. Erin, Victory, and Lexi had a couple books open in front of them, and they looked as though they were studying. On the other side of the room, Angel, my RA, was chatting away with Lily.

“Martina,” I said, greeting my roommate, who was the last person in the room. She was sitting by herself, typing away on her laptop.

“Hey, Alyss,” she responded, giving me a nod. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” I told her. “I was just over checking on Amy. She’s in Doyle again.”

“I heard about her burnout this morning,” Martina admitted, looking concerned.

“Is she doing all right?” Angel asked, looking towards me. “I was planning to go see her after dinner.”

“She’s doing all right,” I answered with a sigh. “She said that they’ll probably release her tonight. After all, she has a lot of monitors built into her bed at Hawthorne, so they can still keep an eye on her that way.”

“That girl has it pretty rough,” Lily said with a sympathetic expression. Victory and Lexi both nodded their agreement.

I looked around the room again, scowling slightly as I did so. When I’d come here, it had been to see if I could find Zoe or Ayla. I figure, either of those two would be the most likely to know what I needed, though it wouldn’t hurt to ask those who were here.

“Do any of you know much about Exquisite?” I asked.

“I know she’s not a pleasant person,” Erin offered.

“She’s one of those rich snobs in Melville,” Victory said. “You know, one of those girls who looks down on everyone else.”

“She’s a mid-level exemplar,” Martina offered. “An exemplar four I think, but I’m not certain.”

“And she’s an energizer, I think,” Erin added, suddenly catching my attention. “I saw her zap someone a couple weeks ago.”

“Zap someone?” I asked.

However, it was Martina who explained, “She can hit people with some kind of bio-electrical burst, that sets off all the pain receptors in their nervous systems at once.”

Now, Martina really had my attention. “Really”

Erin continued, “Yeah, that’s about what I saw. Some guy was hitting on her, so she zapped him with this blast, and suddenly he’s on the ground screaming.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding to Martina and Erin, before I turned and left the room.

I’d been pretty sure that Exquisite was behind those attacks of pain that Amy and I had both suffered, and it was nice to have that confirmed. That meant, she really was gunning for the both of us, though I wasn’t sure if Starbright had put her up to it, or if she had another reason. However, what I did know, was that her attack on Amy, had caused my friend to go into another burnout and end up in Doyle. She could have killed Amy, and I wasn’t about to forgive her for that.

A Little R&R 3 part 2

Author:

Morpheus

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Fiction

Genre:

Superheroes

TG Universes & Series:

Whateley Academy by Maggie Finson, et al

TG Themes:

School or College Life

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Crystal Hall, Tuesday late morning, Oct 30th, 2007
Roulette:

I was sitting at my usual table for lunch, surrounded by my regular cast of unsavory characters. However, along with Alyss and Sapphire, today, we also had Monkeywrench eating with us. Monkeywrench had come over, mostly to talk to me about a project he’d been working on, and to ask if he could get some devisor brownies from me. Since we got that talk out of the way quickly, my furry friend had joined in on our other topics of conversation.

“Come on,” Monkeywrench exclaimed, gesturing to the notebook I had open beside my tray. “You shouldn’t be bringing school work into the cafeteria. It’s sacrilege…”

I closed my notebook with a wry smile, knowing that it was pointless to keep it open at this point. I hadn’t been able to look at my class notes since everyone had arrived, and the conversation had really started.

Sapphire gave me a curious look and said, “I assume that you’re an exemplar today.”

“How did you guess?” I asked her curiously.

However, it was Alyss who answered, “Because that is the only time you try reading your class notes at lunch.”

“True,” I admitted with a shrug. “That’s when I makes the most sense to do so.”

When I was in exemplar mode, I had the mental package that came with it, which included a much improved memory. I wasn’t sure how it really worked, but it seemed that as an exemplar, my brain stored information more efficiently, so that even when I was no longer an exemplar, I could still pull up that information easily. Anything I learned or memorized as an exemplar, I could still make use of later on, so I’d been taking advantage of this to do most of my studying for class, when I was in exemplar mode. I didn’t get the same kind of benefits as a full time exemplar, but this did make it easier to get good grades.

“How’s Kaylie doing?” I abruptly asked Alyss. “Have you learned anything new about her powers?”

Alyss puffed up a little bit with pride. “She can make some kind of glowing green fog, that’s pretty hard to see through…”

“So, your cousin is a manifestor?” Sapphire asked curiously.

“It looks that way,” Alyss said, though she paused a moment before admitting, “But Min…a friend of the family, thinks that it might actually be some kind of psychic effect. Kaylie is scheduled for testing, so they should find out more then.”

“That’s good,” I said, knowing that Alyss was worried about her granddaughter, though she wouldn’t admit it aloud. Considering the fact that being a mutant had ruined her daughter’s life, it was no surprise.

Alyss gave me a knowing look and asked. “What about your friend Kara? How’d she like Whateley?”

I blushed a little at that, since Alyss knew that Kara was not only my friend, but my girlfriend. “Well,” I answered with a wry smile. “She keeps hoping she manifests so she can come here too…”

Sapphire burst out laughing. “Yes, this is an interesting school…”

“The more the merrier,” Monkeywrench added. “This school is more exciting than a barrel full of…me.” He grinned broadly while I rolled my eyes.

Once we were all finished eating, we got up and began to go our separate ways. Or at least, Monkeywrench went his separate way, since Alyss, Sapphire, and myself, all had BMA together next period, and usually went there together.

As we were starting to leave, Alyss gently elbowed me in the side, then gestured towards another table. I looked over and saw a group of students sitting together, which caused me to suddenly start scowling

Gravmax, the spoiled rich boy who’d become my own personal nemesis at Whateley, simply because I wouldn’t fall into his arms or kiss his behind, was sitting there with his friend Iron. However, it wasn’t the sight of Gravmax that surprised me, or even the fact that he and Iron were eating lunch with Exquisite. What surprised me, was that Alyss’ own nemesis, Starbright, was with them too.

I didn’t say anything until we were outside Crystal Hall, then I mused, “It seems our problems have teamed up.”

“It sure looks like it,” Alyss said with a deep scowl and a narrowing of her eyes. Most people didn’t know her well enough to see her hands clenching into fists, or to realize just how pissed off she was at that moment.

“What do you mean?” Sapphire asked.

“Starbright and Gravmax were sitting together,” I explained in an even tone. “It looks like those two have become friends…”

“Birds of a feather, and all that,” Alyss grumbled.

Sapphire just smirked, pointing out, “Some snakes eat birds…”

I looked Sapphire over and smiled faintly, knowing that whatever happened, she had our backs. Sapphire didn’t have the same kind of problem with Gravmax that I did, but she certainly didn’t like him either. He’d attacked her before, while he was coming after me, and she’d shown him her displeasure, and made it clear that she wasn’t someone he should mess with. I was confident that she’d be happy to do so again.

“The birds aren’t really the problem,” Alyss said with a deep scowl. “It’s the fact that they’re flocking together, and seem to see us as newly washed cars, just waiting to get crapped on.”

“What?” Sapphire asked, seeming confused by Alyss’ metaphor.

“Last week,” I explained, “their new friend Exquisite, jumped Alyss and took her down…” Sapphire gave a start of surprise, then looked to Alyss. “And then yesterday, she seems to have jumped me too…”

“She caused Amy’s last burnout,” Alyss growled, which was strange coming from such a cute little girl. “Pardon my French, but that little bitch could have killed her with that damn stunt…”

Now, Sapphire looked angry. “I see,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes and pulling her blue-scaled cloak more tightly around her. “If our enemies have united, then we must remain united as well.”

“They haven’t come after you yet,” Amy pointed out.

However, Sapphire merely responded, “They will. And I will not turn my back on the few friends I possess.”

I smiled at that, feeling a lot more secure since Sapphire and Alyss were both watching my back. “You know,” I mused aloud, “I’ve always wanted to say this…” When my friends both gave me curious looks, I announced, “All for one, and one for all…”

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Tuesday late afternoon, Oct 30th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was sitting on the floor of my room, with a half dozen library books scattered about around me. These were all books on clothing patterns and costume designs, which could all come in handy due to the nature of my power. However, today, I was looking these ones over for one specific reason. Halloween.

Halloween was tomorrow, and unfortunately, thanks to CeeCee, half the cottage thought that I’d volunteered to make everyone’s costume. It was annoying, and though I could have put my foot down and refused, I hated to disappoint all these kids. And admittedly, some of my best memories, were of watching my kids show off their Halloween costumes, and taking them trick-or-treating, and this brought back some of those memories.

Looking over the books, I let out a sigh. I had absolutely no idea what kind of costumes most of those kids would want, and the only thing I was able to actually manifest would be the fabric parts. Hopefully, these costume designs would help me provide for as many of those kids as I could.

“And if they’re not satisfied,” I said with a snort, “they can get bed sheets and cut holes in them for eyes, like I did when I was a kid.” The memory of how excited I’d been with such a simple and poorly done ghost costume, brought a smile to my lips, even four decades later.

Suddenly, there was a lot of noise coming from the hallway outside, yelling, screaming, and thumping. I’d raised three kids, and at one time, I would have gone running out there to see what mischief they were up to. However, I remained where I was, doing my best to ignore the ruckus, even though I was curious.

“Not my zoo,” I muttered to myself. “Not my monkeys.”

I was a student here, just like everyone else. This wasn’t my problem, and it sure as hell wasn’t my responsibility. But in spite of that, the mature and responsible parent in me still insisted that I should get off my ass and go do something. By the time the noise actually began to settle down a few minutes later, my curiosity couldn’t be denied any longer.

“Probably Wondercute, chasing Danny or that white buffalo down the hall again,” I grumbled as I got back to my feet.

When I opened the door, I froze, seeing white fluffy goo, spread all down the hallway. The floors, walls, and even ceilings were covered with the stuff. For several seconds, all I could do was stare at the mess in horror, thinking about how much of a pain it would be to clean this.

“What the hell happened?” I finally managed to demand.

There were a couple girls standing in the hallway, splattered with various amounts of the white goo. Jade was completely covered with the stuff, though she wiped her face off enough that I could see an almost manic grin on her face, right before she ran down the hallway, right through more of the white goo.

“BELTANE,” Angel screamed out, running for the stairs.

“Beltane hit Jade with another prank,” the halfway splattered Cindy said with an exasperated sigh. “I wish those two would stop these pranks…”

I stood there and stared at the mess, having to remind myself that if Beltane did this, then this stuff would probably fade away pretty quickly. Still…

“What is this stuff?” I asked in disgust.

“Marshmallow,” Cindy answered with a groan. “I am NEVER eating another marshmallow again…”

Peacock, also known as Lina, was standing near Cindy, and she was just as splattered with white goo. “It was the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man,” she said with a look of wide-eyed disbelief. “Right out of that movie, but…human sized.”

I blinked at that. “You’re kidding…”

“I wish she was,” Cindy said. “The damn thing came running down the hall, chasing Jade. At first, I thought Gwen was making me hallucinate or something…”

Lina nodded agreement. “Me too… That, or making one of her illusions…”

“And when Jade turned and fought back with her Kitty Compact thing,” Cindy continued, “BOOM. Marshmallow guy exploded.”

While I stood there, just processing that mental image, Mrs. Horton showed up and demanded, “What in the world is going on here now?”

Since Cindy and Lina began giving our house mother the explanation, while our RA was apparently going to chase down and strangle the culprit, I decided to make my escape. I manifested some hip waders to protect me from the marshmallow, then made my way through the sticky mess. Once I was clear, I stripped out of the waders, tossed them into the trash, and departed Poe for less chaotic pastures.

A short time later, I met up with Amy and Sapphire, and we went to Crystal Hall together for dinner. However, while going past the Quad, I saw Starbright sitting at one of the tables, along with her new friends. Starbright saw me too, and had a look of smug satisfaction on her face. If I’d had any doubts before about her part in Exquisite’s attack, they vanished in that instant.

“It looks like the brat pack might be a regular thing now,” Amy commented wryly, glancing towards the group.

“I hope not,” I responded gruffly. “I have a feeling those kids would be regular hemorrhoids if they were.” At Sapphire’s blank look, I explained, “A right pain in the A…butt.”

Thankfully, none of the kids decided to come over and harass us, though all of them, not just Starbright, watched us with expressions of smug amusement. Exquisite even made a show of ignoring us and doing her nails instead, though she didn’t bother hiding the smirk.

“Perhaps we should have a talk with them,” Sapphire said, opening her mouth wide enough to show her fangs.

“Probably not a good idea,” I grudgingly pointed out.

“For one thing,” Amy pointed out, “we’re outnumbered. For another, if we go over to them, and something happens, security might see that as us being the ones to start it.”

Sapphire growled, “I hate it when you’re reasonable, especially after what that girl did to you…”

Instead of going over to their table, the three of us just flipped them off instead, then calmly continued into Crystal Hall. We got into line, right behind Aegis, who was obviously not in a good mood. For one thing, he looked exhausted, and for another, he also looked like he’d been sucking on a lemon.

“Are you okay?” Amy asked Aegis, giving him a worried look.

Aegis spared me a wary, or at least, a half-suspicious glance. It was no secret that he didn’t really fully trust me, because school rumor said that I was the daughter of a supervillain. However, in spite of his reputation for attacking anyone he thought of as a criminal or potential criminal, he’d never come after me. Probably because I looked like a kid.

“Define okay,” Aegis responded with a deep scowl and a shake of his head. Then, he abruptly asked, “Have you ever felt like you were stuck inside some old cartoon?”

Amy, Sapphire, and I all shared a look, then simultaneously shook our heads. “Not really,” I said.

“I’m just lucky that lunatic didn’t drop an anvil on my head,” Aegis muttered. Before I could ask him what he meant, he wandered off to go sit with Voodude, who was waving for him.

“That was…odd,” Sapphire said, while I could only nod agreement.

“That guy gets weirder every day,” Amy added with a shrug. “But who am I to judge?”

“Who are any of us?” I asked. None of us was quite normal, even by Whateley standards.

A minute later, the three of us were sitting at our usual table, and talking as we ate. We started off discussing our problem children, and speculating on whether or not they’d try coming after us again, as well as how they might do so. From the smug looks I’d seen, and from what I knew of those kids, I was pretty sure that we could expect more trouble. However, before long, we turned our attention to a series of other topics, which were more amusing.

Once we were finished eating, Sapphire told Amy, “You will have to go back to the cottage without me, for now. I met a girl named Garafena a few days ago, and we were going to meet up tonight to talk about…things.”

“What kind of things?” I asked curiously.

Sapphire gave me a faint smile. “Scales, fangs, and venom. You know, the usual.”

“Well, have fun with that,” Amy told her.

“I’ve got an errand or two of my own to run too,” I said, “so I guess I’ll see you two tomorrow.” Then I paused, adding, “Unless you want me to walk back to Hawthorne with you…just in case they try something.”

Amy smiled at that. “I’m in exemplar mode today, and I have my needle gun…” She patted her belt, where the weapon was holstered. “I’ll be fine.”

“All right, then,” I responded. “Just be careful you two, and keep an eye out.”

“Will do,” Amy promised.

After this, the three of us left Crystal Hall and went our separate ways. Amy made her way back to Hawthorne by herself, Sapphire went to wherever she was going to meet this Garafena girl, and I made my way down to the tunnels, while keeping a close watch to make sure that nobody tried ambushing me again.

It didn’t take me long to reach my destination, one of the tunnel branches that had no cameras or security watching. Once I was there, I leaned back against the wall and waited. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.

“Alyss,” a boy greeted me as he came down the tunnel branch to where I was waiting. “That sure is a nice dress you’re wearing tonight.”

“Thank you, Shine,” I responded with an amused smile. “I made it myself.”

Once the pleasantries were out of the way, I reached into a hidden pocket in my dress and pulled out an envelope, which I handed to the devisor. In return, he gave me a bag, which contained two bottles of his ‘finest sippin whiskey’.

“You make the best hooch on campus,” I told the boy with a grin, which he returned.

“And thank you,” Shine responded. “Ah always try to do my grandpappy proud.”

For a moment, I watched the young devisor, suddenly wondering what things would have been like if Rachael had focused her devisor talent on booze rather than robots and weapons. I might have had a still in my garage instead of a tank, and there might have been trouble with the ATF rather than the heroes.

With a shake of my head, I told Shine, “Always nice doing business with you.”

“Same to you,” Shine replied with a cheerful grin. “See ya next time.”

With that, I gave a brief curtsy, then hurried out of the tunnels and back toward Poe, where I hoped to end the evening with a nice glass of something strong and tasty.

--------------------

Hawthorne Cottage, Tuesday evening, Oct 30th, 2007
Roulette:

The main common area of my cottage was always lively and boisterous, full of life and energy. Admittedly, most people would call it chaotic, which would often be accurate. When you had a cottage full of people, who had problems controlling their powers, there was bound to be a little chaos at times.

At the moment though, most people wouldn’t see much difference between the Hawthorne common area and that of the other cottages, except perhaps for Melville. Those rich kids might very well have maids and butlers to take care of theirs.

Adore had claimed the TV and was watching news, though Achoo kept trying to steal the remote so he could change the channel. At least, that was what he appeared to be doing, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was just using that as an excuse to get closer to Adore, so he could try checking out her cleavage a bit more closely.

Jimmy T was off to the side, where he was caught up in a rather loud discussion with Olympia. She seemed like she was on the verge of going into a diedricks episode, but she was a bit high strung and always came off that way to me.

Caitlin was sitting off by herself, and though she had a couple of her class books sitting out beside her, she was ignoring them, and instead, she was sharpening a knife, with a rather intense expression on her face. Caitlin was usually a bit intense, but at the moment, she seemed even more so. Tomorrow was Halloween, and I was pretty sure that this was the cause of her current mood. Last year, the school had actually been attacked on Halloween, and I would have thought that to be the cause, if I didn’t know that Caitlin hadn’t arrived at Whateley until sometime after that.

And then there was me. Like Caitlin, I was sitting by myself, with several of my class books scattered around me, since I’d come out here to study and take advantage of the benefits of being an exemplar. But also like Caitlin, I’d become a little distracted and was working on another project.

My needle gun was sitting out on the coffee table in front of me, with the clip full of needles removed and placed beside it. On the floor, I had the stone sphere which served as a battery for my essence. It was pretty heavy, since it was, after all, a bowling ball sized rock. But at the moment, I was strong enough that it was pretty easy to carry it out here so I could work.

I had been reading over some of the notes from my magic class, along with some sections of the class books, when I remembered that I needed to do a little maintenance on one of my spells. Unlike some of my classmates, I wasn’t really a natural when it came to magic, even when I was in wizard mode. I liked magic, and loved fantasy movies, but it didn’t come easy for me, so I had to work hard in order to make any real progress.

At the moment, I was an exemplar, not a mage, which meant that I wasn’t collecting any essence, though I did have some essence stored, from the last time I’d had the right power. Unfortunately, even though I did have a supply of essence available, I still couldn’t cast spells as well as I could when I was a mage. Ms. Grimes had told me that this is just psychosomatic, and that my wiz power only gave me a boost in gathering essence, not in actually casting spells, but it felt real to me. I guessed, actually being in wizard mode, gave me a bit more confidence in my spell casting abilities, which in turn, made it easier to do.

Fortunately, I wasn’t trying to cast a spell from scratch, merely recharging an existing one with more essence. So with great care, I began transferring some of the essence from my stone battery, into the spell on my needle gun. The spell, which made my needles fly further and more accurately than they would on their own, was a useful one, since it made my devise a bit more practical to use. However, as with most things, there was a downside. In this case, each shot fired used up a bit of essence, so I had to keep recharging the spell, just like I had to recharge the battery on the weapon itself.

“That should do it,” I mused. “Now I’m ready in case Gravmax tries anything again…”

“Is that punk messing with you again?” Caitlin asked, looking up from where she was sharpening her knife. Jimmy T suddenly looked to me as well.

“Not directly,” I admitted with a sigh. “He’s got someone else doing it for him now.” Then I held up my needle gun and slapped the clip in. “But that’s what I’ve got this for.” Of course, I still needed to get some fresh venom from Sapphire, but that wouldn’t be a problem.

“If you need any help, let me know,” Jimmy T offered, before turning his attention back to Olympia.

“Thanks,” I told him.

“You know,” Caitlin said, giving me an evil grin. “If you want some damn good entertainment, try getting Gravass to pull one of his stunts on Anomaly. Noms will wipe the floor with him, with five arms tied behind her back.”

“That might be worth trying,” I responded with a grin of my own.

With that, I aimed my needle gun towards the wall, but didn’t fire. I didn’t even remove the safety, since I was smart enough to not go shooting the thing inside of my cottage, especially when my RA was sitting right there. My needle gun felt good in my hand, especially as I imagined using it on Gravmax and Exquisite. Especially Exquisite, after what she did to me yesterday. Then with a sigh, I holstered my needle gun and began to gather up my belongings.

“Now,” I said as I picked up the stone sphere, “if I could make portable batteries to store my essence, the same way I do the ambient electro-magnetic energy I gather, I’d be set…”

Caitlin looked up again. “You need some essence batteries?”

“Portable ones,” I responded, nodding to the sphere. “I certainly can’t carry this thing around with me, especially when I’m not in exemplar mode…”

“Essence batteries aren’t that hard to make,” Caitlin told me, sheathing her knife as she did so. Then she flashed me a smile. “If you want, I can show you how…”

“Really?” I asked in surprise, though I immediately realized that I shouldn’t have been. Caitlin was supposed to be some kind of prodigy when it came to making magic items, so I should have realized that she’d know how to make something like this. In fact, I suddenly felt stupid, for not thinking to ask her about essence batteries before this. “That would be great.”

“Sure,” Caitlin told me. “It’s no problem… Just let me know the next time you’re in finger wiggler mode, and we can do it then.”

Thank you,” I told her with a nod and a smile, before making my way back to my room for the night.

--------------------

Tuesday evening, Oct 30th, 2007

Naomi stood back and silently watched as the blue haired girl left Whitman and started walking across campus. The girl called Sapphire was one of those freaks in Hawthorne, and was obviously trying to get back to her cottage before curfew.

“There she is,” Naomi commented, though there was no need to since the others could see that for themselves.

Gravmax, Iron, and Starbright all stood nearby, watching Sapphire with her. Earlier, they’d seen her go into Whitman, and they’d waited for her to come out, just so they could catch her alone.

Naomi didn’t have any personal issues with the blue haired thornie, any more than she’d had with Ribbon or Roulette. However, the girl would get a taste of her exquisite pain nonetheless, just as the other two girls had. After all, Sapphire was friends with both of those other girls, and what better way to hurt them, then to go after their friends?

Any one of Naomi’s new ‘friends’ could have taken out Sapphire, but beating that freak wasn’t really the point of this exercise. The real point was buy more loyalty from her new ‘friends’, to reinforce the idea that she was someone they could trust and rely on to have their backs. Soon, it would be time to call on them to help her achieve her own goals, and to help deal with those who stood in her way.

After a moment, Naomi’s eyes went to Iron, and she frowned slightly. So far, she’d been going after the girls whom Starbright and Gravmax had grudges again, but she hadn’t done any such thing for Iron. From what she knew, there were a lot of people Iron didn’t like, such as, nearly anyone with GSD. However, he didn’t seem to have any specific and personal grudges, other than against a teacher who’d humiliated him at the beginning of the school year.

There was no way that Naomi would go after a teacher, or risk bringing the entire school faculty and administration down on her head. She didn’t have nearly the power or influence needed to survive that kind of attention, and probably wouldn’t until after she graduated. She would have to find a different carrot for Iron, but there would be time for that later.

“Watch out for that one,” Gravmax warned her with a smirk. “She spits.”

“Disgusting,” Naomi responded, before she turned and began walking towards the blue haired freak.

Naomi intended to come at Sapphire from behind, where the freak wouldn’t be able to see her. She knew exactly where the nearest security camera was, and where it was pointing. Once she was in the right position, she could act, and the only thing that security would see, would be her walking near Sapphire, right before the freak tripped and fell on her face. Her powers caused pain, but no physical injuries, so there would be no real evidence of her attack. Naomi had long since learned the value of covering her actions and creating reasonable doubt against any possible accusations. This would be far from the first time that she had gotten away with something like this.

A minute later, Naomi was positioned in the perfect spot, close enough where she could use her powers effectively, and with her back to the camera, so security couldn’t see what she was doing. Crimson sparks shot between her fingers, right before she held her hand outward, firing a surge of crimson electricity at the freak’s back.

Suddenly, Sapphire leapt to the side, an instant before the pain burst would have struck her back. She snapped around, swirling her strange blue cloak, and hissing, “I don’t think so…”

Then, Sapphire opened her mouth and spat out a spray of green liquid. Naomi reacted immediately, raising her arms to protect her face. Several drops struck her arm, and almost immediately, her arm began to go numb.

“Filthy rat,” Sapphire snarled, before she turned and hurried away.

“My arm,” Naomi gasped. Half her arm was numb, as though she’d been given a shot of novacaine.

“I told you she liked to spit,” Gravmax said as he came up, smirking.

For a brief moment, Naomi was tempted to hit him with a pain blast and wipe that smirk off his face. That would teach him a lesson. However, that would undo all her efforts to buy his loyalty, and she didn’t want that, at least not until she had better leverage on him.

“I’ll stop her,” Gravmax stated, holding his hand out, though Naomi suspected that the freak was already out of his range.

“No,” she in a cold tone. “Not here. Not now.”

Sapphire had embarrassed her in front of her new ‘friends’, and that couldn’t be allowed to stand. Naomi would have to deal with Sapphire even more harshly than she’d originally intended, just to save face. Unfortunately, this was neither the time nor place for that.

Naomi had known that sooner or later, she’d have to make an example of someone, just to build her reputation as a woman who shouldn’t be crossed. It looked like the opportunity to make that example had come a little sooner than she’d expected. That was no problem though, as Naomi had always been a firm believer in seizing any opportunity that presented itself to her.

“Well, that went well,” Starbright said sarcastically.

Naomi scowled, knowing that she would have to deal with this setback soon, before her new friends lost faith in her. She would NOT lose the progress she’d already made. Not now.

“Do you know the best thing about Halloween?” Naomi asked.

“The candy,” Starbright responded immediately.

“No,” Naomi responded with an evil smirk. “The costumes.”

--------------------

Wednesday morning, Oct 31th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was sitting in my Power Theory classroom, though class was a little late in starting today. Quintain was sitting at his desk, distracted by some paperwork and reports that were spread out in front of him. Every time he began to say something to suggest that he was about to start the lecture, he’d look at the paperwork again and get distracted. Honestly, our teacher was a lot more interesting at the moment than he was when he was actually trying to teach.

Amy and Sapphire sat near me, though both of them wore grim expressions at the moment. Last night, Exquisite had tried jumping Sapphire, the same way she had Amy and myself, though this time, she’d missed. Sapphire had managed to escape, which would normally be worth cheering about.

“She wasn’t alone,” Sapphire said, keeping her voice low so we wouldn’t easily be overheard. “Starbright, Gravmax, and Iron were nearby…watching.”

“They’ve come after all three of us,” Amy pointed out in a calm tone. “Or at least Exquisite has. Why? What did we do to her?”

“She’s friends with Starbright and Gravmax,” I responded with a shrug. “They probably asked her to.”

“Then why me?” Sapphire asked with a grimace.

Amy chuckled, and pointed out, “Well, you did spit on Gravmax before, and he could be holding a grudge from that…”

Sapphire smirked at that. “And I would happily do so again.”

Suddenly, Mischief jumped up onto her chair and exclaimed, “I LOVE Halloween… It’s totally the best holiday ever…”

“What about April Fools?” Darqueheart asked in a wry tone.

Mischief’s eyes seemed to light up. “April Fools is awesome, but you can’t dress up and go trick or treating, but if you could, that would be really cool too. Maybe next April Fools, we should all do that to make it even more fun…”

Darqueheart let out an exasperated sigh, muttering, “I should have known better…”

“Halloween is definitely the best,” Monkeywrench insisted with a broad grin. “What other night can you go around knocking on people’s doors, with a mask over your face, and extorting candy from them?”

“And I have a totally awesome costume for tonight,” Mischief exclaimed, letting out a loud ‘squee’ that reminded me of my granddaughter Kimberly when she got carried away. “It’s gonna be the best… And I’m gonna wear it to go trick or treating in the village, cuz teachers have got to have the best candy…”

While Mischief and Monkeywrench continued to excitedly talk about their plans for tonight, Aegis sat there in stark contrast. He looked grim and drained of spirit. Whatever had been bothering him last night, was obviously still weighing on his mind. Considering the fact that he’d gotten his butt stomped on Monday, and was then rescued by some little girls, I imagined that he was probably still bummed about that. Hell, I know that I would have been humiliated if that had happened to me.

“Perhaps we should discuss our own Halloween plans,” Sapphire suggested, glancing over to where Mischief and Monkeywrench were still going at it.

I chuckled at the sight, deciding that this would be a much more enjoyable topic than the one we’d been using. “I’ve got a lot of plans for tonight,” I said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, they all involve making costumes for other people. I kind of got drafted by my cottage.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Amy said, though she didn’t look very sympathetic. Then, she let out a sigh, admitting, “Kara sent me a princess costume, so I’m kind of obligated to wear it…”

She rolled her eyes at that, and I could see her annoyance. However, since Kara was her girlfriend, and she’d want to keep the other girl happy, she would indeed have to wear it, at least long enough to get some pictures taken.

It was about this time that Quintain finally got himself together, and announced, “Today, we will be discussing the biological adaptations that many energizers develop as supporting aspects of their specific powers…”

I immediately yawned, more out of habit than anything else, and shifted in my seat to get comfortable. This was bound to be another boring lecture, especially since I’d already read and memorized the book that Quintain was quoting from. However, as Amy let out a yawn beside me, I smiled, thankful that at least I wasn’t suffering through this alone.

--------------------

Wednesday afternoon, Oct 31th, 2007
Roulette:

Power Lab. I was in my sixth period Power Lab class, which was probably my favorite class of the day, because regardless of which power I had, this class was still practical and relevant. Each day, I practiced with my power du jour, which could mean assembling a devise, casting a spell, or like today, playing with Legos.

I was a low level Package Deal Psychic, which meant that my telekinesis wasn’t very strong. I had a ten yard range, and I could only lift about twenty pounds. Because of those limitations, I focused on improving my fine control, so I could make better use of what I did have.

At the moment, I was building a car out of Legos. It was a pretty simple structure, though it was still a bit of a challenge to assemble, because I was doing it entirely with telekinesis. I concentrated on a small brick and moved it through the air above my desk, before finally settling it down into place and ‘pushing’ it in. Lifting the pieces was easy, but controlling them that precisely took some effort.

“Not exactly something that most devisors would be proud of building,” Alyss said, nodding to my car.

“I’m not a devisor right now,” I pointed out with a wry smile. “Besides, can most devisors build something without even touching the pieces?”

Alyss chuckled at that. “Still, you should at least try to make a car with a little more style…”

That made me roll my eyes. “Well, would it be more devisorlike if I gave it a hover conversion?” And with that, I used my telekinesis to lift the entire Lego car off my desk, and let it just hover there for a few seconds before setting it back down.

To my surprise, Alyss gave a visible shudder. “Sorry,” she explained. “That movie brings back some bad memories…”

I blinked at that. “Bad memories?”

Alyss nodded, then shook her head. “After Rachael saw that movie, she decided to build a time machine of her own, and used my project car as the base.” She let out a deep sigh, musing, “She was a beautiful, nineteen-seventy-two, Plymouth Barracuda.”

“She built a time machine?” I gasped, staring at Alyss in surprise. Even my mom had never been able to build one of those.

“She TRIED to,” Alyss admitted with a scowl. “When she testing the damn thing, it immediately overheated and melted into a puddle of slag…” Alyss shook her head and let out another sigh. “That was such a beautiful car. What a waste…”

I burst out laughing at that, then said, “Devisors.”

“You’re a devisor,” Alyss pointed out.

“Not today,” I reminded her with a smirk.

“Miss Morgan,” our teacher abruptly called out, making Alyss look up. “Miss Maguire…” I blinked and looked up as well. “Less talking and more practicing.”

Alyss turned red but nodded and hurried back to the corner where she’d been practicing with her manifestor abilities. She’d been making new clothes, trying different patterns, styles, and colors, mostly in the form of Halloween costumes. As a bonus, since it was Halloween, she’d already said that anyone who wanted a costume, was free to take it.

After watching Alyss for several seconds, I turned my attention back to my Lego car. The car itself was pretty much finished, so I began to practice taking it apart instead. That was a little easier than putting it together, since I didn’t need to be so precise, but it still kept me busy until the class ended.

When class was over, I said goodbye to Alyss and promised to meet up with her later. She still had one more class to go, while I was done for the day. Of course, I had additional Power Lab classes on most Saturdays, so I couldn’t really tease her about that. At least not much.

A short time later, I was back in Hawthorne, where I immediately rushed to my room and changed out of my school uniform, and into something a little more comfortable. Jeans and a t-shirt, with a logo for the Trailblazers. I wasn’t a big basketball fan, but it was still good to support my home town, especially when I was so far away. Of course, I wouldn’t be wearing these clothes for too long, because in just a little bit, I’d have to switch over to my costume.

“Costume later,” I announced, to nobody in particular since I was by myself. “Treats first.”

I’d already made a large batch of cookie dough ahead of time, but had refrained from baking it, since people were less likely to steal the dough than they were the cookies. I immediately began scooping the dough out onto cookie sheets, so that there’d be some treats for tonight.

The first batch of cookies had barely been put into the oven, when the air was suddenly filled with a high pitched ‘squee’ of delight.

“COOKIES,” Miranda exclaimed as she ran into the kitchen. “Amy’s making cookies…”

A moment later, the other members of Team Awesome rushed in behind her. Ember, Morgan, and Revekah joined Miranda in staring at my large bowl of cookie dough, with expectant looks. They looked like they were about the same age as Alyss, around nine or ten years old, but where Alyss’ looks were deceptive, theirs were not.

“You’ll get some cookies when they’re done cooking,” I said, giving the girls a warning look. “Do you want a trick or a treat tonight? Your choice.”

There was a moment of consideration before Ember said, “Treat. We want treats.”

“Lots of them,” Morgan added excitedly.

“It’s Halloween,” I pointed out wryly. “Trust me, there will be more than enough treats to go around.” All four kids immediately began to cheer at that.

Once I was finished with the cookies, I gave a few to Team Awesome, but only after they said ‘trick or treat’, and then sent them on their way. I put the rest of the cookies out on the counter, so any residents could help themselves.

Since the treats were out of the way, I went back to my room and switched into my costume. It was a violet and purple ‘princess’ dress, with gold trim. Kara had sent it to me as a present, so I was obligated to try it on and send her pictures.

“Me in a dress,” I said wryly. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

I’d been born male, and had happily spent most of my life as a guy. But that said, being a girl wasn’t that bad. Sure, it was a bit weird at times, but there were some good things to come with it, such as Kara’s attention. She was a confirmed lesbian, so before my change, I never would have had a chance with her as anything more than a friend.

“Got to keep the girlfriend happy,” I mused as I took a selfie. “But Mom and Beth are going to tease me when they see the pictures…” There was no doubt, that Kara would share any photos I sent her.

The dress came with a coronet, but after putting it all on, I decided to add one extra touch of my own. It was something that I’d been working on as part of a Halloween costume, before Kara decided that this would be my costume instead.

I went to my work bench and picked up one of my floating spheres, which I’d modified. I’d covered the sphere with a clear plastic shell, which had been made in a very specific shape, and then stuffed with LEDs. None of those modifications required devisor tech, since they were merely cosmetic additions to my devise.

“This should do it,” I said, activating the devise, which then floated up into the air and positioned itself directly above my head. Thanks to the plastic shell and LEDs, it now looked like I had a large light bulb floating above my head, making it appear that I had a brilliant idea. “Well, I think it is a brilliant idea, even if it doesn’t exactly go with the princess theme.”

Once I was dressed and ready, I met up with Sapphire, who was dressed as a vampire. A vampire with blue hair at that, though she didn’t need any props for the fangs since she had her own. However, what did surprise me, was that she’d left off her usual scaled cloak, in exchange for a stereotypical vampire cape.

“Looking good,” I told Sapphire, who smiled back, making sure to show her fangs.

“And you look nice as well,” Sapphire told me, smirking a little since she was one of the few people outside Poe who knew that I used to be a guy. She obviously found the idea of me wearing a dress, to be amusing. I responded by sticking my tongue out at her.

“Now, I have a brilliant idea,” I announced, glancing up to my light bulb. “Let’s go to the party and have some fun.”

--------------------

Poe Cottage, Wednesday late afternoon, Oct 31th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was standing in the middle of the common room, which was packed with every single resident of the cottage. Well, that wasn’t actually true, but there were enough of them lining up for my help, that it certainly felt like everyone.

Cindy stood in front of me, my next ‘customer’ for costuming services. I looked her over, then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. A moment later, I manifested a blue dress, right onto her body. It was immediately recognizable as Cindrella’s dress from the old Disney cartoon.

“Thank you,” Cindy exclaimed, swirling around in the dress while admiring it. I just smiled at her reaction. “This is great…”

“The only thing you’re missing,” Lina said from behind her, “are the glass slippers…”

Cindy gave her a wry look. “Really?” Then she held her hands up, and a pair of glass slippers appeared in them. “That is where MY powers come in…”

As soon as Cindy stepped aside, Lina took her place. I expected her to ask for a peacock themed dress, which would match her hair color and codename, but instead, she held up a prop lamp, and gold me what she wanted. Mere seconds later, she left, dressed as a genie.

After this, Jody, AKA Plastic Girl, and Flux lined up. “Okay,” I said with a wry smile. “What can I do for you?”

I went through a few more ‘customers’, though some of them seemed to have the wrong idea of what I can do. “I can create fabric and costumes,” I had to say, more than once. “I can’t do anything about props or makeup. You’ll have to take care of that yourself.”

“I can help with the makeup, honey,” Ricardo volunteered from the corner, where he’d set up a small table with a rather large makeup kit, and a collection of wigs and other props.

Ricardo was a Hispanic boy, who was so flamboyantly gay that he came off as a bit of a stereotype. Adding to that impression, was the fact that he wanted to become a professional makeup artist after he graduated.

Before long, I found myself face to face with Gwen, the green-haired elf girl who was rooming with Dana. I didn’t know Gwen very well, but she seemed like a pretty nice kid.

“If you don’t mind,” Gwen told me a little hesitantly, “there’s something I have in mind.”

“Sure, what is it?” I asked curiously. After she told me, I grinned. “Oh yeah, I can do that.”

With that, I reached out to touch Gwen, manifesting a costume right over her current clothes. A moment later, she was wearing a green Peter Pan outfit, which went well with those green pixies she always had flying around her.

“Thanks. This looks perfect,” Gwen told me with an appreciative smile. Then, she looked me over and asked, “Are you going to wear a costume too?”

I glanced down at myself, knowing how I looked with my gothic lolita dress and fashion. It was an unusual look, which made me come off as both cute and creepy at the same time. This was actually intentional, since it toned down how creepy I tended to come off otherwise. That was a side effect of having the mind and experience of a fifty year old man, inside the body of a ten year old girl.

“For me,” I told her wryly. “Every day is Halloween…”

After this, I only had to provide costumes for a couple more people, before I was finally done. My last customer was Electrode, who wanted an Electra Woman costume. Fortunately, she had pictures to let me know what she meant.

The second I was finished with Electrode’s costume, I hurried out of the common room, before something else could happen, like Wondercute showing up and dragging me off into whatever mischief they had in mind. Unfortunately, that kind of thing was pretty likely, ever since they’d declared me to be an honorary member.

I went back to my room, grabbed a glass and poured myself a finger of Shine’s ‘sippin’ whiskey. The stuff was pretty damn good, especially for being made by some kid, who was more than half a decade too young to drink legally.

“Now, how should I spend my Halloween?” I mused.

My thoughts turned back to Gwen and what she’d asked me, about whether I’d get a costume for myself. I hadn’t dressed up for Halloween in decades, so the idea was a bit odd to me. Then again, I dressed up every day, so this shouldn’t be any different.

“But what should I wear?” I asked myself, thinking aloud. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any options. Hell, the problem was, I had too many options to choose from.

Then, an idea suddenly came to me, and I began to grin. I’d have to find a prop or two, but I could make most of it with no problem.

“Good thing Hardwyrd and I talked about some of his favorite video games last month,” I said with an evil grin. “Or I never would have known about this one…”

Once I made my decision, it only took a few seconds to remember the pictures Hardwyrd had shown me, and to design a costume based off them. Then, it was a simple matter of manifesting the costume it around my body.

I was now wearing an Alice in Wonderland costume, or at least a version of one. I had on a dark blue dress, with a sort of white apron on the front. However, this version of Alice required a few other additions.

As soon as I had my new costume, I went to take care of the final touches. This meant going to the kitchen and grabbing a knife, and then finding Ricardo so he could splatter me with some of his fake blood. Once this was done, my costume was finished. I was now Alice, from the American McGee’s Alice, a horror video game version of the old story.

I looked over my costume and smiled in satisfaction, knowing that Kaylie would definitely approve. In fact, I might have to take some pictures, just so I could see the look on my granddaughter’s face.

Since I had my costume and everything was ready, there was no reason for me to hang around any longer. In fact, sticking around only meant that there was more chance of Wondercute grabbing me for some of their hijinx, so I left the cottage and went to the campus party.

Students filled the area, most of whom were wearing costumes. There were even a few teachers mixed in among them, though they were a little less extreme with their costumes. In fact, most of them were making sure that they were still at least somewhat recognizable, so they could keep their authority and properly chaperone things.

An entertainment stage was set up, and at the moment, the Outcasts were playing. I knew Monica because she lived in Poe, and Caitlin because I ran into her a lot of the time when I went to visit Amy in Hawthorne, but I was less familiar with the others. However, they played pretty well. They weren’t Lynyrd Skynyrd or Led Zeppelin, but who was?

For the next fifteen minutes, I just wandered around, trying to see if I could recognize the costumes around me, the people wearing them, or spot any of my friends. There were a wide variety of costumes, and some of them were pretty impressive, making me try even harder to figure out who was wearing them.

Monkeywrench was easy to spot, because his costume only consisted of a red t-shirt and a red baseball cap. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be dressed as, and he was too far away for me to easily ask.

Rapier was dressed as Zorro, so he could actually use one of his rapiers as part of his costume. It was actually a pretty good idea and suited the kid, who seemed to have something of a fixation on swashbucklers.

I got a quick look at Aegis, who was dressed up like a cowboy, with a white hat of course. I just hoped the kid didn’t go challenging anyone to a gunfight, or any other kind of duel. That boy meant well, but while his heart seemed to be in the right place, his head rarely was.

Then, I saw a group of kids who were all wearing some pretty hefty costumes, which made it impossible to identify who they really were. That only made me more curious, about whether they were people I knew or not.

One of them was wearing a medieval knight outfit, which included a full helmet. He seemed to be looking right at me, but it was hard to be sure. He reached out and gently touched another student next to him, who was wearing the black costume and white mask from the villain of the Scream movies.

Though I was vaguely curious, I didn’t really care enough about those students to give them a closer look. However, as I went to walk past them, a girl in a feathered dress, with a bird mask and feathered headdress, raised her hand. Suddenly, there was a burst of brilliant light, right in my eyes, leaving me completely blind.

I cried out in surprise and pain, grabbing for my eyes. However, someone shoved me, and they were obviously strong, because I was flung back with ease and slammed into the ground. A moment later, I suddenly felt heavy. Extremely heavy.

“Shit,” I snarled, recognizing Gravmax’s power. That meant the blinding light must have come from Starbright.

Before I could do anything else, even let out some good profanities, my entire body exploded into pain. I hadn’t even been able to pull myself off the ground before this hit, but if I had, I would have collapsed back down anyway.

“You should have learned your place,” the girl in the bird costume…Starbright hissed.

A girl in a white dress and cloak, with a golden metallic mask over her face, stepped forward and held out her hand. There was a burst of red electricity, and suddenly, my entire body exploded into agony again.

--------------------

Wednesday evening, Oct 31th, 2007
Roulette:

The campus party was in full swing. Live music was playing, and everywhere I looked, there were people with interesting costumes. And since this was a school full of mutants, some of those costumes could be quite impressive. With devisors, magic users, and shapeshifters in play, nearly anything was possible.

Sapphire and I walked through the crowd, taking in all the sights and admiring she diversity of costumes. Some of the costumes left me with absolutely no clue as to who was wearing them.

“How are you doing that?” someone asked, pointing up at the ‘light bulb’ that floated over my head.

“Trade secret,” I responded. Then, I couldn’t resist exclaiming, “I’ve got a great idea…”

“Me too,” Sapphire said. “Let’s go find something to eat…”

“Don’t you mean someONE?” I asked, looking over her vampire costume.

Sapphire just grinned at that, making sure to flash her fangs. She absently reached to her vampire cape as if to pull it around herself like she often did her scaled cloak, then paused when she remembered that she wasn’t wearing her normal cloak.

“That’s an interesting costume,” Sapphire commented, indicating a girl who was wearing some kind of bird costume, which was much nicer and more tastefully done than most.

There was a boy next to the ‘bird’, who was dressed as a knight. I assumed he was a boy because of his shape, but it could very well have been a girl in that armor costume, though I was almost certain it wasn’t.

A couple seconds later, the ‘knight’ stepped forward and held out his hand. Suddenly, I felt incredibly heavy and collapsed to the ground, barely able to move. Sapphire dropped down to her knee with a grunt, but didn’t go all the way down. As an exemplar, she was a lot stronger than I was, especially at the moment.

“Gravmax,” I gasped, immediately recognizing the power.

Gravmax was hitting Sapphire and I both with his powers, though he was obviously holding back a little. If he’d been hitting us as hard as he could, Sapphire would be pressed against the ground as firmly as I was, while I’d be crushed to death.

Just as I was about to cry out for help, another costumed figure stepped forward, a woman in a white cloak with a gold metal mask. She snapped her hand out and red lightning shot out from her fingers, hitting me and Sapphire, sending a burst of searing agony through my entire body.

This wasn’t the first time that Exquisite had zapped me with her pain attack, so I immediately recognized how it felt. Fortunately, this time, I didn’t go into a burnout, at least not yet.

Once the pain receded enough, I looked up and glared at my attackers. There were four of them, all dressed in costumes, which included masks that covered their entire faces. However, I knew who they were now, masks or no masks.

“You will learn to respect your betters,” Gravmax said in a low voice, which wouldn’t carry too far.

We were at the outer edge of the party, but there were still a lot of students around, though none of them made any move to interfere. In fact, most of them didn’t seem to even realize that anything was wrong. As far as they knew, Sapphire and I had just tripped and fallen. As for the flash of red electricity from Exquisite’s attacks, those were largely hidden from view of the spectators, by the way she and her friends had positioned their bodies.

“Vermin,” Sapphire spat out from beside me, snarling furiously. “You cowardly vermin…”

“No,” Exquisite responded in an arrogant term. “It is YOU who are the vermin… Now, wiggle on the ground like the worm you are…”

She fired another pain blast, this time targeting Sapphire alone. Sapphire screamed again while I struggled against the heavy gravity, desperately trying to get free. Unfortunately, it did no good at the moment, as I simply wasn’t strong enough to fight Gravmax’s power. If I couldn’t be stronger, than I’d have to be smarter.

With a grimace of anger and determination, I focused on using my telekinesis, and grabbing the helmet that Gravmax was wearing. I took a deep breath, then simultaneously twisted the helmet and shoved it away, while Gravmax was still wearing it. The distraction worked, because Gravmax dropped his power.

Sapphire had recovered from her second bout of pain even faster than I would have expected, and leapt right at Exquisite, spraying some of her neurotoxic venom in the process. Exquisite held up her cloak, letting it take most of the spray. Between that and her mask, I doubted that a single drop had gotten onto her skin. And before Sapphire could actually reach the white clad girl, Starburst fired a dazzling burst of light, right into Sapphire’s face, blinding her long enough for Exquisite to kick her in the side and send her flying back.

I frantically grabbed for my needle gun, which was currently stored in a pouch at my waist. I couldn’t pull it out as quickly as I could from my normal holster, but at least I had it on me, and a few seconds later, I had it out and opened fire. I shot at Exquisite, though a boy in a black Scream costume jumped between us and took all the needles. They bounced off him without doing a thing.

“Iron,” I muttered, knowing that he had a PK shell, which would protect him from my needles. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything stronger at the moment.

Since Iron was protecting Exquisite, and I couldn’t do anything against him, I swung and opened fire on Gravmax and Starburst, who were a little further away. But suddenly, my needles all hit an invisible wall and fell to the ground, several feet short of them. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. Gravmax had created one of his heavy gravity fields in front of him, and as soon as the needles hit it, they were pulled straight to the ground with some heavy Gs.

Sapphire was already back on her feet and was going straight for Gravmax, forcing the boy to snap around and deal with her. A moment later, she dropped to the ground again, grunting in pain at the intense gravity. Starbright joined in, blasting Sapphire with a dazzling burst of light to keep her blinded, and at the same time, making it difficult for any of the onlookers to get a good look at what was going on. I was about to try shooting at Gravmax and Starbright again, to help Sapphire, when a crackle of red electricity struck me, causing me to collapse in screaming agony.

“It’s time for you and your friends to learn what happens to those who cross us,” Exquisite said in an excited tone, as though she was enjoying this.

Exquisite blasted me again, and fire burned through my entire nervous system at the same time. I would have screamed, but my throat had frozen from the agony. Then, I felt a twisting and churning inside of my body, and a moment later, the pain abruptly stopped. I remained on the ground, feeling weak and wobbly, but the pain was gone.

“What’s going on here?” someone demanded.

I looked up and saw a cowboy, with a white hat, standing there as though he was about to reach for his six-shooters. I blinked and suddenly realized that this was Aegis, in his Halloween costume. And at the moment, he was trying to face down my attackers. I felt a surge of relief, since someone had finally decided to get involved and help, though that was followed a moment later with a sense of dread, since it was Aegis, and he had a less than stellar record when it came to fights.

“Mind your own business,” Iron said, right as he punched Aegis and knocked him back. Before Aegis could do anything, he received a burst of light in his eyes, followed by blast of red electricity.

I could see a familiar glow through the air, and especially around Exquisite and Starbright. At that sight, I instantly knew that I’d somehow changed powers. I was in energizer node now. With a faint smile, I got back to my feet.

Exquisite saw me getting up and snapped around, commanding, “SIT,” as though I was a dog.

My response was to start immediately pulling ambient electromagnetic energy to me, concentrating it into a glowing blue sphere between my hands. Exquisite fired another of her pain blasts at me, but the energy in her red electricity was caught within my power and drawn into the sphere I was forming. I smiled at that, wishing I could actually see the look on her face.

Iron immediately came at me, and I tensed, knowing that he was a lot stronger and tougher than I was. However, Ito and Tolman had been pushing me like crazy in BMA, and for once, it seemed to pay off. I snapped around, avoiding his punch entirely, and then countering with one of my own. However, it wasn’t my fist I drove into his side, but the ball of energy. It exploded as it hit Iron, knocking him back with a shower of sparks.

Starbright was still giving a dazzling light show, which kept the onlookers distracted by the ‘fireworks’ while also blinding them to most of our fight. However, Gravmax turned his attention away from Sapphire and focused on me. I still couldn’t do anything against his powers, and my needle gun was on the ground, several feet away.

“I don’t think so,” a new voice exclaimed, right before Gravmax’s feet were yanked out from under him and he fell flat onto his face.

Alyss stepped forward, her hands still holding a pair of ribbons, with the other ends tied around Gravmax’s ankles. She was wearing some kind of Alice in Wonderland costume, but she was completely splattered in blood, though I didn’t know how much of it was real, and how much might be part of her costume. However, she was also pissed, which made her into a particularly terrifying sight at the moment.

“It’s bad enough you snot-nosed punks jumped me,” Alyss snarled. “But then you had to go after my friends too… Someone needs a damn good ass whoopin…”

With those words, Alyss moved forward and grabbed one of Gravmax’s legs. From her dark expression, I was suddenly afraid of what she might do to Gravmax. Alyss was a lot stronger than anyone seemed to realize, and she could literally rip Gravmax’s limbs off one by one of she wanted. I didn’t care much about that jerk, but I had no doubt that if she did hurt him like that, then she’d never forgive herself.

“Alyss,” I called out. “Don’t…”

My tiny friend glared at me for a moment, and I could see her fighting with herself. Then, she reluctantly nodded, though she still looked pretty pissed. Without saying a thing, she picked Gravmax up, and casually tossed him at Iron, just as Iron was getting back to his own feet. This caused both boys to fall over.

Exquisite raised a hand towards Alyss, obviously intending to blast her, but Sapphire was suddenly there, grabbing Exquisite’s arm. My blue-haired friend hissed at Exquisite, flashing her fangs, and looking like the vampire she was dressed as.

“Get her,” I called out to Sapphire.

Sapphire and Exquisite began punching and kicking at each other, and they seemed to be evenly matched. Sapphire was an exemplar four, and it looked like her sadistic opponent was about the same level. But then, red sparks began to form around Exquisite’s hand, just as she was about to punch Sapphire again.

“Look out,” I cried in warning.

Sapphire seemed to see the glowing fist, because she lunged forward and bit Exquisite’s arm, right in the bicep. Exquisite let out a yelp of pain before pulling back, with her arm dropping to her side, almost lifeless. A second later, Exquisite’s legs collapsed beneath her, and she fell into the ground, not moving.

“You KILLED her,” Starbright accused Sapphire, who merely smirked and made a show of licking her lips. Then, she suddenly spat out a spray of venom at Starbright, though it was a light spray compared to what she’d given earlier, because she’d likely used up most of her venom already. I knew that Starbright’s costume would protect her, but the brat still screamed and backed away.

With Alyss having shown up, and with Exquisite now being down, our opponents seemed to have realized that they’d lost the advantage. Iron grabbed Exquisite and flung her over his shoulder, then hurried off into the crowd. Gravmax followed right behind, while Starbright, let out an even more dazzlingly bright burst of light than before, and ran off as well.

“What the hell was that all about?” Aegis asked, staggering towards us with a dark and somewhat hopeless look on his face.

“Thank you for helping,” I said. Aegis hadn’t done much, besides providing a distraction, but I appreciated the fact that he’d at least tried.

Aegis stared in the direction our attackers had run off in, and he looked as though he was about to cry, and was barely holding it in. “Not again,” he muttered, seeming to be talking to himself rather than any of us. Then, he took a deep breath, and his expression became one of grim determination. “I’m going to get stronger, even if I have to make a deal with the devil…”

“What are you talking about?” Sapphire asked, though Aegis was already wandering away.

“Come on,” I said to my friends, looking around at the confused and still somewhat blinded onlookers. “Let’s go…”

--------------------

Wednesday evening, Oct 31th, 2007
Ribbon:

I was standing outside, just a short distance in front of Hawthorne. My fists were clenched tightly, and I REALLY wanted to hit something. After I was ambushed, and then damn near tortured, I’d been so furious that I came damn close to doing something unforgivable. If it hadn’t been for Amy…

“Those little bastards jumped me,” I said with snarl.

“The same thing happened with us,” Amy responded with a scowl of her own. “As you saw.”

With a nod, I wiped the blood from my lip. I had plenty of fake blood splattered on me as part of my costume, but this was the real stuff. This was my blood. While Gravmax and Exquisite worked together to keep me helpless, Iron had given me a few swift kicks. If he’d kicked any normal kid that way, he would have killed them. Fortunately for me, my head was pretty damn hard, and I healed like crazy.

Normally, Iron wasn’t the kind to get physical when he messed with people. From what I knew of the kid, he was a rich snob, who really looked down on kids with GSD. However, he normally only insulted people, and avoided using his fists. I didn’t know if he’d gotten physical today because he was trying to prove something to his friends, or if he’d just gotten caught up in the moment. What I did know, was that he’d made a big mistake tonight. All four of those punks did.

“We knew they were going to be a problem,” Amy stated in a grim tone. “We just didn’t know how bad they’d get.”

“Or how ballsy,” I added. “They jumped us right out in the open…”

“We need to go to security,” Sapphire announced. “We need to report them…”

Amy shook her head, then stared down at the floating sphere, which she held in her hand. I knew that she’d used it as part of her costume, but it had been pretty badly damaged during the fight. After a few seconds, she let out a sigh, then looked up and met my eyes, before looking into Sapphire’s.

“They knew what they were doing,” Amy said with a deep scowl and a thoughtful look. “They all wore full face masks, and costumes that hid their body types. Even if security saw what happened, they wouldn’t be able to identify the people who jumped us.”

“But we know who they are,” Sapphire protested.

“Yeah,” I agreed, seeing where Amy was going with this. “But we can’t prove it. It’s just our word against theirs, and they can claim that they were off somewhere else, playing cards or something…” I scowled at that, remembering a time, a very long time ago, when some of my friends in Humanity First had done the same thing. “Hell, they’ve probably got people lined up to vouch for them.”

“They could claim that they’re being framed,” Amy added. “And we can’t prove it…”

Sapphire scowled at that, and she pulled her torn vampire cape closer around her, the way she usually did her scaled cloak. When she seemed to realize that she wasn’t wearing her usual cloak, she released the cape, and seemed more awkward and uncomfortable.

“But they used their powers,” Sapphire protested. “We heard their voices…”

“And all that can be faked,” Amy pointed out. “I know at least three people in the labs, who have voice modulators of one sort or another. There are a ton of bricks around campus, and everything else could easily be mimicked with magic, devises, or some other power. I mean, any strong telekinetic could make it look like they had Gravmax’s power.”

Sapphire let out a sigh, seeming to deflate. “So going to security would be useless…”

“Worse than useless,” I admitted in realization. “We’d probably end up getting detention for brawling on campus, even if they couldn’t prove who our opponents were.”

“Those jerks picked the perfect night to pull this,” Amy said with a scowl. “They can walk around campus in costume, and no one thinks twice about it…”

The three of us stood there for nearly a minute in complete silence, fuming at what had happened. We’d been jumped for no good reason, and they’d hurt us all bad. Exquisite’s power was nasty, making me shudder at the very memory of being hit. For some reason, she’d picked a fight with us, and until the end, she and her friends had actually been kicking our asses.

“So, what do we do now?” Sapphire asked.

“We can take the fight to them,” I said, clenching my fists again. I might have to hold back against those kids so that I didn’t hurt them, but I could still teach them a lesson or two.

Amy gave a pained smile. “And have them claim that we jumped them for no reason? If we go picking a fight, security would probably be all over us. They picked the one night, where they could pull this off without getting caught. We won’t have that advantage.”

“Damn,” I spat out in frustration. I really wanted to hit something. HARD. “Excuse my language, but we can’t let them get away with this shit. Trust me, if they know that they can get away with it, it will only encourage them to do it again, and probably more.”

Amy and Sapphire both nodded agreement, though we were still stuck on the fact that we didn’t know how we could retaliate, without coming off as the bad guys and getting in trouble. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. I had a tendency to lose my temper and do stupid things, though I’d been working hard on controlling that, ever since I’d manifested. Over the last couple months, I’d been doing a damn good job too. However, this was pushing me to the breaking point.

“We know that they’re after us,” Amy said grimly. “We know that they’ll probably come after us again, especially after we hurt them. But now, we’re onto them, so we watch our backs…and each other’s…even more closely. The next time they try something, we’ll be ready.”

“The next time they try something,” I promised, “I’m gonna kick their little asses good.” I paused at that, looking back and forth at my friends before giving an apologetic smile. “Pardon my French, again.”

Sapphire gave me an amused look. “I think that for tonight, speaking French is perfectly appropriate.”

“Ditto,” Amy agreed, giving me a wry smile. “At least one good thing came out of tonight.”

“And what’s that?” I asked, unable to see any good coming out of this, other than that we knew how serious our enemies had become. They’d escalated our conflict to a whole different level, and there was no way any of us were going to forget that, or forgive. And the thing that confused me the most, was that I still didn’t have any reason why they’d go so far.

“I switched powers,” Amy announced, as though this was a big thing. “I shifted from psi to energizer mode.”

“That bitch pushed you into another burnout,” Sapphire hissed.

However, to my surprise, Amy shook her head. “No, she didn’t. I switched powers, without going to sleep or through a burnout. This is the first time that has EVER happened to me…”

I stared at Amy, realizing how big a deal that was to her. Ever since she’d manifested, she’d only switched powers while sleeping or going through a burnout. She’d never had any luck whatsoever in actually controlling her power shifts.

Amy began to grin with excitement, in spite of everything that had happened tonight. “This means, that there’s another way to change my powers. If I can figure out how it happened this time, then I might be able to actually control when and how I shift modes.”

“At least something came out of this,” I said, feeling happy for Amy. It was about time she had some good news about her powers.

“Yeah,” Amy nodded, though her smile turned back into a scowl. “But we also have some serious enemies now, and we’ll need to figure out how to deal with them.”

“I can bite them,” Sapphire said with a smirk. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Then again, considering the way she’d dealt with Exquisite, there was a pretty good chance she was serious.

“Probably not the best solution,” I reluctantly told her. “They probably taste horrible.”

Amy nodded at that. “If there’s one thing I learned from my mom, it’s that when you have a problem, sometimes the best solution is straight out overkill.”

I chuckled at that, since that was Rachael’s philosophy as well. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Not yet,” Amy admitted. “But we’ll figure something out.” Her eyes narrowed and she smiled a faint but cold smile. “I don’t know why those four decided to gang up on us, but whatever the reason, they’re going to learn that they made a big mistake.”

--------------------

Wednesday evening, Oct 31th, 2007

Naomi wiggled her fingers experimentally, relieved that she could do so again. She’d spent the better part of the last hour paralyzed, unable to move her body at all. It had finally worn off, though her fingers and toes still had a residual pins and needles sensation.

“Are you okay? Starbright asked from beside her, actually looking concerned.

“Yes,” Naomi answered with a forced smile. “It’s worn off, so I can move again.”

“I can’t believe she bit you,” Starbright said. “That’s just disgusting…”

“What else would you expect from one of those thornie freaks?” Gravmax asked from a short distance away.

Iron nodded agreement. “There are too many freaks in this school.”

Naomi scowled as she remembered Sapphire, the freak who’d previously spat on her, and had then bitten her an hour ago. A sneer formed on her lips, and she imagined how she was going to hurt the girl, who dared to do those things to her. Nobody got away with humiliating her like that. Nobody. Especially not some thornie freak.

At first, Naomi hadn’t felt any personal enmity towards those three girls. Everything she’d done, had simply been to buy the loyalty of her new ‘friends’. However, that had changed, and she now wanted to see all three of them hurt and humiliated, for her own satisfaction.

Her eyes swept over the other members of her group, considering how each of them had fared tonight. She’d been paralyzed and humiliated, though Gravmax hadn’t fared much better. He had bruises over much of his body, or at least, he’d complained about that. It was his own fault though, for letting that little brat sneak up on him like she had. Her eyes narrowed, and she admitted that she may have made a mistake in judgment herself. After they’d dealt with Ribbon, they should have left her tied up somewhere, so she wouldn’t have been able to interfere.

“A lesson for the next time,” Naomi mused to herself. “I thought we’d scared her away, but it seems that she’s a lot more stubborn than expected.”

Tonight was supposed to have been a key moment for her, and for establishing her future position at Whateley. This was intended to cement the loyalty of her new ‘friends’, as well as create an example of what happened to those who crossed her. Unfortunately, tonight’s results were definitely mixed.

Naomi and her ‘friends’ had succeeded in hurting those girls, and in demonstrating how dangerous she was to cross. However, they hadn’t made either of those points quite firm enough. They’d hurt those girls, but not enough to break them. Not enough to turn them into useful examples. That would definitely need to be corrected, and after tonight, Naomi would enjoy doing so.

However, there was one aspect of her plans that had worked out, though not quite the way she’d intended. Naomi had planned to consolidate her group, while solidifying her position within it, and she’d done just that. They’d fought together, and that common experience would help to bind them to her. They all had a common group of enemies, which would continue to bind and give them direction.

“Sapphire. Ribbon. Roulette,” Naomi said aloud, getting all three of the others to look at her expectantly. “We hurt them tonight. We hurt and humiliated them, showing them that we are not to be trifled with.”

“We didn’t hurt them enough,” Gravmax stated while a look of hatred passed through his eyes.

“Obviously not,” Naomi agreed. “That just means we will have to finish the job another time.” She smiled, a faint and cruel smile. “For now, we focus on making some new friends and becoming more powerful. When the time comes, we’ll crush them…and anyone else who gets in our way.”

The End