Bound - Part One free porn video

Bound Part One By: Light Clark Author's note: Hey everyone, normally I do this kind of thing at the end of the story, but I'm just too eager to get to this announcement to wait that long. My first properly published book, The Demon King of Gen'ric, is finally out! Written in the light novel style with lovely art by the talented Tony Kuusisto, it tells the tale of the great and terrible Kxyzvalendarizandun. Except, after a bumbling summoner botches his resurrection - she's - not particularly great or terrible and finds herself having to go by the name Kix. Naturally, she wants to get back to her proper self, but she finds herself in a nothing, little, out of the way village with no resources except for an endless supply of insufferable peasants with which to vex her. She can't even incinerate them lest they rise up and destroy her. What's an ancient evil to do? Well, if you'd like to know the answer to that question, you can find my new book on amazon right here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MV9YFN7 Anyway, thanks for indulging my little spiel and onto the story you originally clicked on. Warning: This story involves some mental manipulation which I know can be disconcerting to some readers. It's also set in the Whateley universe, but doesn't require you to know any of the characters or plots from that universe. It only borrows some basic world details and thematics. Chapter 01 - Day 1 "Can't believe they're making me ride the damn bus," I grouched as I flopped into a window seat with a sigh. It was just so ridiculous and stupid. "I know! You'd think with the amount of money our parents are paying we'd all get private limos or something," a boy remarked as he plopped down in the seat next to mine. He looked around fourteen to fifteen like I was, with dirty blonde hair and mature, attractive features. "I'm Doug, by the way." "Aaron," I replied coolly, turning to look straight ahead. For a few moments, Doug just nodded, clearly expecting me to add a little more to the conversation. "Fair enough," he said, finally realizing that I had no plans of continuing. With that realization came a shift in his focus, moving it away from me and too slouching down in his seat in an attempt to get comfortable. He was just about finished fidgeting when a backpack slammed into his shoulder prompted an exclamation of, "Hey!" "Sorry!" another boy blurted immediately. When I glanced over, I noticed he looked younger than Doug, short, lanky, and with a sort of kiddy-looking face. Given that our destination was a high school, though, he couldn't be much younger than I was. "Whatever, just make sure it doesn't happen again," Doug warned the other boy. Nodding rapidly, the immature-looking kid offered a quickly stammered, "Yes, of course. Sorry again," as he pulled his backpack close to him and hurried past us. From the corner of my eye, I could just see him slide into the row behind me. Once the interruption was gone, Doug turned to me to remark, "What a nerd, right?" but he got nothing except a disinterested shrug from me in response. The lack of engagement had him scowling slightly as he peered at me in confusion. It was then that I felt a faint tickle in my thoughts which I recognized as a psychic probe. Anger flashed within me as I flipped on one of my powers. Psychic ability flooded me instantly, and I used that ability to slap at the probing psyche quite forcefully, though, not forcefully enough to dislodge it. The strike caused Doug to wince and jerk back like he'd been physically slapped. Tossing a sharp look at the other boy, I hissed, "Do that again, and it'll hurt a lot more than that little slap." Immediately, I felt the intruding psyche retreat, allowing me to flip my power off. At the same time, Doug raised his hands in defeat. "Sorry! I was just trying to figure out if I'd done something to upset you. You weren't talking, and girls usually like me." Thanks to that remark, it was my turn to wince. Much to my frustration, people often mistook me for an attractive girl. While I was pretty tall for my age at five-eight, I had a slim build that easily passed for a flat-chested, narrow-hipped girl, something that was not uncommon among fifteen-year olds. My face was androgynous too, with high cheekbones, large gray eyes, and shaggy steel-gray hair. Even my voice hovered somewhere in ambiguity, making me sound more like a girl than a guy to a lot of people. My name didn't help this issue any, being as androgynous as the rest of me. "It's Aaron with an A not an E," I clarified with irritated pointedness. It took a moment for Doug to realize what that statement implied, but when he did, all he could do was stare at me for a few moments in disbelief. That was also something that I was annoyingly familiar with. People seemed to have a lot of trouble grasping that I was a guy. "Well damn, man ... sorry about that," Doug finally said. "It's just you look so ..." "I know," I sighed. It was not the first time that I'd been through getting hit on like that. "Let's just drop it, and we can spend the rest of the bus ride in awkward silence." "Yeah ... I guess that's pretty much inevitable at this point, isn't it?" Doug replied a bit sheepishly. From there, we slipped into the predicted awkward silence which suited me just fine. I didn't really want to talk to anyone else, anyway. It wasn't long after that awkwardness before the bus got underway, carrying its load of students out of town. Our destination was a boarding school by the name of Whateley Academy. It was an unusual school, designed to teach unusual students with preternatural gifts - mutants to the everyday media, although, from what I understood, there were other superpower variants there as well. As the bus rolled along, I looked out the window trying to ignore the chatter of the other kids. Most of them were fairly new to their powers, excited by and terrified of them, much like they were by the school they were going to. I didn't share those feelings, though. I'd had my powers for almost five years now, having manifested far earlier than was the norm. Likewise, I had no interest in the school I was going to attend outside of my frustration at being sent there at all. "Uh oh," a male voice said from behind me, penetrating through my efforts to ignore my surroundings with its concerned tone. One got used to responding to things like that pretty quickly as a mutant. Flipping on another power, I used it to shift my vision so I was looking at the seat behind me without having to move from my own. Sitting back there was the boy who had run into Doug earlier, and another boy next to him. The first boy had a small metal sphere in his hand which had a blinking red light on the top. "What'd'ya mean 'uh oh'?" the second boy questioned, looking warily at the sphere in the first boy's hands. "It's not supposed to be blinking like that. That means it's armed," the first boy explained. "Armed?" the second boy asked. The first boy nodded. "Yes, to explode. In about five seconds actually." "Five seconds?! Shit, get rid of it!" the second boy exclaimed. "Oh! Right!" the first boy concurred, reaching over to fiddle with his window to an effort to get it down. Naturally, it didn't so much as budge. Growling in anger, I flipped on another power while standing up and shifting my vision to look at the aisle next to the boys. With a puff of black smoke, I vanished from my seat, appearing in the aisle of the bus. As soon as I arrived, my hand lashed out, snatching the orb from the boy's hand before I shifted my vision again. Another burst of black smoke, and I was out in the air over a field. Gravity had just enough time to start taking hold when I dropped the orb, shifted my vision back to the bus, and teleported for the third time. Reappearing in the bus, I jerked as I regained the little bit of momentum that I'd lost during my brief excursion. The very next moment, a ball of fire burst in the sky a good fifty yards out into the lightly wooded landscape the bus was driving past. The explosion drew the attention of everyone in the vehicle toward it, eliciting awed gasps from those who hadn't been close enough to realize that the explosion was almost them, and slack-jawed looks from those that were. I, however, did not look at the explosion. Instead, my hand lashed out again to grab the owner of the bomb and slam him against the wall of the bus. "What the fuck were you thinking bringing that on the bus, you fucking devisor piece of shit!" I spat furiously. "Oh, I forget, your type don't think, at least not about anything or anyone that isn't one of your stupid fucking toys." "I-I ... uhm ... I ... " the boy stuttered, unable to even manage an apology. The boy's useless stammering only fueled my rage. "You what?! Were hoping you'd kill everyone here?! Because why the fuck else would you bring a fucking bomb with you?!" For emphasis, I slammed the boy against the side of the bus again, putting a little more of my considerable exemplar strength behind it. I got the gasp of pain I was looking for. As my outburst played out, the bus was silent, with the other kids just staring at the scene before them. Some were only just now realizing that the pretty explosion they'd been gawking at had nearly engulfed them. Others showed the same anger on their faces that mine did, though, not quite as intense. Tossing a final warning glare at the devisor, I vanished in a puff of smoke one last time. Reappearing at my seat, I plopped down, glowering with barely contained rage. Flipping my powers back off, I slumped into the seat and stewed for the rest of the trip. *********************************************** *********************************************** "Home sweet home," I sighed sarcastically as I finally stepped into my new room. It had been a very long day, and I was glad to be somewhere private at last. The only good thing about Whateley so far was the fact that I had a single room. After the bus ride, security had been waiting for me and the devisor, who was apparently named Cameron. They'd dragged the two of us to their offices where I'd spent much of my afternoon answering the same questions over and over again. Apparently, nothing I'd said was enough to get me in trouble, because they let me go eventually. I certainly hoped that devisor brat got some sort of punishment for what he'd done, though. Once that was out of the way, I'd finally gotten to handle check-in stuff. I'd apparently missed some kind of group tour of campus while I was stuck dealing with security, but to me that was a bonus. Having to walk around with a bunch of other students sounded awful. I'd managed to get my ID and my room assignment which was all that mattered to me. Finally, I got my first look at my new room. It was not an attractive place, decked out as it was in hideous, beige tile. The tile, a carefully engineered ceramic, was heat resistant and non-conductive, a necessity for my housing. It would hopefully be up to the test of keeping me from destroying anything when I lost control of a power. "Either that or I could just stop losing control of my powers," I muttered as I plopped onto the bed. While that would be nice, I knew it was very unlikely that it would happen. I'd been trying for years to learn to stop losing control and my haywire rate hadn't gone down at all. Every day or two some power would just lock itself on and stay on no matter what I did to try to turn it off. It was very frustrating. "Welp, guess I better give myself that tour I missed," I decided, flipping on one of my powers. Clairvoyance was certainly the least flashy of the abilities I possessed, but it was one of the most useful. It let me just sit in my room and look out at the word, like I had a little invisible camera I could send anywhere I wanted - well anywhere within about a mile or so. Of course, such a power would be quite dangerous in the hands of just about any other boy, especially at a co-ed school like Whateley, but one of the little idiosyncrasies of my body was that I just wasn't interested in those things. Instead of trying to peep on girls in the shower or some other lewd activity, I did exactly what I'd set out to do which was to explore the campus. It would make it a lot easier to sleep in late and teleport to class at the last minute. "Pretty nice looking place at least," I mused as I finished my self- tour. "Not that that really means anything. It took security hours to assess a situation that literally took me less than five seconds to resolve. If those pricks had been on the bus, we'd all be crispy husks right now." Thinking about the incident earlier brought back my aggravation with it. That stupid kid had literally built a bomb on the bus out of spare parts in his bag. "Why am I even surprised? Devisors are all fucking insane," I huffed in exasperation. "I should just be glad it was something that could be gotten rid of so easily. Could've just as easily have been something that leveled the whole state. Can't believe they don't lock them all up." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 02 - Day 2 As I came out of a teleport, I found myself right in the middle of the psychiatrist's waiting room. As was my usual when going anywhere, I was exactly on time for my appointment with the shrink. However, there wasn't a nurse or secretary around to tell him that I'd arrived, and I wasn't about to risk peeping in on someone else's session just to find out if Dr. Bellows was busy with someone or not. "Strike one, doc," I muttered as I plopped into a chair to wait. I absolutely hated it when people were late. With agonizing slowness, several minutes ticked by before, finally, the door to Dr. Bellows office opened, and a girl walked out. Behind her came what I could only assume was Dr. Bellows, himself, an older man who I had an instant dislike for. "Ah, you must be Aaron, come in and sit down," the man greeted pleasantly, waving me toward his office. I narrowed my eyes at the doctor slightly to show my displeasure. "You're late," I spat acerbically. Before he could respond or make excuses, I vanished in a burst of black smoke, appearing on the couch in his office. "I try not to be, but I'd never send a patient away just because they needed to go over a few minutes," Dr. Bellows replied, seeming unphased by my antics as he stepped into his office and closed the door. "Want to start by telling me a little about yourself?" "Not really. What I really want is for you to tell whoever decided I needed a shrink that I don't need one after all," I responded. "That way we can both stop wasting our time." Nodding slowly, Dr. Bellows took his seat and looked at me. "So you don't feel like you need to be here?" "Of course not. I'm fine. In fact, I'm great! Not a worry in sight!" I replied sardonically. "I see, and is that why you had the incident at the coffee shop before you came here?" Dr. Bellow asked. I shrugged. "Power mishap. I have those, as I'm sure whatever file they gave you on me will attest." "Yes, you do, but strangely almost no instances of property damage like that. In fact, it was the first public incident for you in years. From what I understand, you usually just teleport away when one of your more destructive powers goes haywire," Dr. Bellows noted. I shrugged again. "Just didn't manage that this time." Dr. Bellows nodded. "I see. And how about the incident on the bus from yesterday?" "You mean where I saved a couple dozen students from being killed by one person's idiocy?" I questioned sarcastically. "I'm still waiting for my medal, actually." My lack of seriousness didn't affect Dr. Bellows. He just continued to sit there calmly, analyzing me. Even the jokes and sarcasm probably told him stuff about me. It's why I hated shrinks, they were like psychics except I couldn't kick them out of my head. "Look, doc, I know what this is about, but it's not my first time losing people. I've been through this all before," I told him. "I'm fine. Really." "Well then, since you are fine, why don't you tell me about your adopted parents," the shrink suggested. "I'm sure it's all in the file," I dissembled, having no interest in discussing that. Dr. Bellows shook his head. "I want to hear what you have to say about them." I clenched my jaw slightly against the emotions. "They were great people." "Tell me more," Dr. Bellows pressed. I took a moment to swallow and clear my throat. "They rescued me, took me into their home, gave me a family after I'd lost my own, loved me when no one else did," I paused to take a deep breath. "It couldn't have been easy - I was such a mess back then - but they didn't mind at all. They put up with everything, and helped me through it. They were all I had ..." Tears welled up in my eyes. "And now they're gone." *********************************************** *********************************************** Head downcast, I trudged along the path from the psychiatrist's building toward Hawthorne. I could have just teleported, but walking had a meditative quality to it, thanks to the rhythmic movement of the steps and knowledge that each one brought me closer to a goal. I couldn't get that by just teleporting back to my room and lying on my bed. Much to my embarrassment, I had cried while talking to Dr. Bellows. Even given the reason, it still embarrassed me. It was childish, something a little boy would do, not someone who should be on his way to becoming a man. Not that I was any closer to that outcome than I'd been five years ago. A gasp of pain pulled me from my melancholy. Down the path, a pair of boys had cornered a third against a tree. The cornered boy, Cameron, had his wrist held by one of the others, who seemed to be twisting it in a way that looked quite painful. Flipping on a power, I vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing only a couple feet away from the altercation. "What're you doing?" "Well hey, if it isn't the hero," Doug, the boy not holding Cameron, greeted. "You're welcome to join us, if you'd like." "We're just getting revenge on the little nerd for nearly killing us," the other boy added. "I'm sorry! Please! It won't happen again!" Cameron begged, trying futilely to tug his wrist free. I frowned slightly at the sight, peering at the boy holding Cameron. He was pretty big, a couple inches taller than me, and muscular for his age. "Hey, big guy. You a brick?" The guy turned from his captive to look at me. "Yeah, why?" A devious grin spread across my face. "Because then I won't have to hold back as much when you refuse to put the devisor down." Both Doug and the brick shot me incredulous looks, but it was the former who gasped, "Wait ... are you serious? You were about ready to tear this kid apart yesterday." I shrugged. "I'm pretty sure he learned his lesson already. At least as much as his type ever learns anything. So you gonna drop him or are we gonna fight?" "Shut it, shrimp, before I shut it for you" the brick threatened, tossing a glare at me for emphasis before turning back to Cameron. "Y'know, that's a good idea. Why don't you try and come over here and shut me up, you big lout," I remarked, flipping on another power. Psychic ability surged into me again, but this time, I wasn't using it to swat away an unwanted probe. Instead, the power surrounded me in a psychokinetic shell that would augment my already considerable physical abilities. Apparently at the limit of his tolerance, the brick released Cameron and spun to face me. As he did, he brought his fist around with him, driving it at my face with as much force as he could possibly manage. It punched through nothing but black smoke as I vanished. Coming out of the teleport behind the brick, I reached out to tap him on his shoulder. "Over here, buddy." "You little shit!" the brick spat, spinning around with a backfist aimed at me. Smirking at his pitiful efforts, I ducked under the ponderous swing. Staying low, I did a quick turn, kicking my foot out along the way to slam into the brick's knees. I could tell from the hit that he was a pretty tough fellow, but that didn't stop his feet from flying out from under him, leaving him to crash into the ground with a loud grunt. "Had enough yet?" I taunted as I leaned over him. Already scrambling back to his feet, the brick growled a furious, "You're dead, fucker!" While I could have stopped him, I let the boy get back up, smirking at him all the while. "You're gonna have to do a lot better than this if you're planning to kill me." The brick charged forward, roaring out his rage. A wild haymaker came right along with him, no doubt intended to wipe the smirk from my face. I ducked right and forward as I swept my left hand up to send the haymaker over my shoulder. The next moment, my right hand darted in, slamming into the brick's solar plexus with enough force to lift the guy a few inches into the air, knock the wind from his lungs, and crack a couple ribs. I yanked my hand back again, letting the big brute crumple breathlessly to the ground. Once he was down, I stepped back to survey my handiwork. "Security!" an adult, male voice yelled. "Break it up!" Keeping the smirk on my face, I turned to see a security patrol approaching. "You're right on time, officers." *********************************************** *********************************************** I leaned back in my seat with what I was certain was a very smug expression plastered on my face. Sure, I was in the security office again, and this time I was almost assuredly going to get in trouble, but I didn't care. That asshole had deserved a few broken ribs. "Hey ... uhm .. thanks," Cameron, who was currently sitting next to me, stammered out. I rolled my head over to look at him. "Thanks? For what?" "You know ... stopping those guys from beating me up," Cameron explained. "You were there?" I asked, trying my best to not crack up while I feigned not remembering him. Cameron seemed stumped by that question for a moment. "Uhm ... yeah?" "Huh. I had no idea," I told him, shrugging a little. Obviously confused, Cameron placed a hand over the lower half of his face, deep in thought. I didn't need to flip on my psychic abilities to tell he was going back through what had happened, trying to figure out how I could have not known he was there. "But ... but the whole fight was about getting them to let me go." "Well, that's just silly. Why would I fight over something like that? It's not like we're friends or something," I pointed out. "Quite the opposite really. I hate devisors." It was at that moment, with Cameron utterly stumped by my nonsensical responses, that a security officer called, "Aaron Kleid. You're up." "That's me!" I called back, hopping out of my seat to follow the security guard, snickering the whole way. A short walk later, I found myself dumped into an office where an older gentleman waited for me. "Ah, Mr. Kleid, I wish I could say it was nice to have you back," the man greeted. "I'm Franklin Delarose, chief of security." "Chief, huh? Let me guess, you're the one that's going to give me my medal?" I joked. "Sadly, no, although I do appreciate you handling the bomb," Chief Delarose replied. "I'm much more concerned with you seriously injuring another student, especially after your apparent rage over the incident on the bus. Should I be expecting this sort of thing to occur on a regular basis?" "Well, I'm no expert, but you are chief of security at a school for mutants, so yeah I would think you should expect the occasional devisor bomb or brick fist fight to happen from time to time," I replied smartly. Chief Delarose's features hardened. "I don't find anything humorous about this, young man, and neither should you. Now, tell me how this fight started." I shrugged dismissively. "I saw some guys acting like jerks, and I decided I didn't like it. I gave the big guy a chance to put Cameron down, he chose to take a swing, so I put him down instead." "That's all there was to it?" Chief Delarose asked. I nodded. "That's all there was to it. Are we good here, then?" "There will be a punishment for you and the other boy for fighting," Chief Delarose told me. "Once that's sorted out, you'll be free to go. It seems to be a pretty straightforward affair, so it shouldn't take long." "Great," I said, turning to go. "I'll be out in your little waiting area if you need me again." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 03 - Day 3 A sharp stab of pain shooting through my temples yanked me into the land of the waking, the sign of an uncalled for power activating all on its own. Almost immediately, a heat started to build in my chest, spreading through my body with feverish speed. Activating a different power, I teleported to the center of the room to get away from anything flammable. The reason for my caution arrived a moment later as a corona of flames engulfed me from head to toe. The orange blaze lit up my previously dark room with its brilliance, casting harsh shadows along the wall which danced as the inferno swirled around me. In the center of it all, I lay there, gasping at the agony that tore at my body. It wasn't the fire itself that hurt me - after all, the flames sprang into being far enough from me to touch neither flesh nor clothes. No, it was the broiling heat from within that seared my senses and assaulted my body. It coursed through me, like molten metal in my veins, an impossible agony that, when it had first happened many years ago, I thought would kill me. I knew it wouldn't, though, that all I had to do was persevere until the fire burned itself out, and I would be okay. That was not an easy task, though. Throughout the torrent of agony the flames forced upon me, it was impossible to have any sense of time. Each moment bled into the next in a perfect stream of torment. All I could do was huddle there, curled up in a ball, gasping for whatever breath would make it to my lungs as the fire raged on around me. The torture seemed to go on for so long that I wondered if maybe this time was they would kill me after all. Then, as suddenly as the flames had come, they vanished, plunging the room back into darkness. The pain within me dimmed as well, leaving behind a dull ache. Exhaustion followed closely behind, leaving me to flop onto my back, panting and sore. "God damn ..." I hissed breathlessly. It was several long minutes before I managed to muster the strength to rise from the floor. Once I had, I glanced about for a moment, checking to see what kind of damage I had wrought upon my surroundings. The tile seemed to have done its job, keeping me from burning through the floor or ceiling, like I'd once done a couple years ago. I'd also managed to get far enough from what little stuff there was in my room to prevent the uncontrolled blaze from incinerating anything. "Good enough ... " I sighed, staggering over to flop onto my bed. There, I took a couple long deep breaths as I looked up at my clock. Class was less than an hour away. I could function pretty well on low sleep, but that just wouldn't be enough after an intense haywire like that. It was going to be a rough day. "Shit ... I have power testing too," I grumbled in annoyance. Whateley, for some asinine reason that I couldn't deduce, required every student to go through power testing with them, regardless of if it had been done before or they'd been using their powers for years. The tests were rigorous to the point of obnoxious and then some, leading to an exhausting experience even when well-rested. "Fuck this place," I muttered as I yanked my blankets back up and closed my eyes. I needed to get whatever rest I could because it was going to be a very, very long day. *********************************************** *********************************************** For the third time in the last two minutes, I found myself yawning as I struggled to keep my eyes open and my mind focused on the teacher's prattlings. It had been tough to stay conscious through the classes I'd had so far, but this one was proving especially difficult. It was a course in powers theory which was fine. Unfortunately, it was also aimed at giving students new to their powers a basic understanding of how various abilities worked and what other abilities there were rather than going into greater depth. Given how long I'd had my powers, that sort of curriculum was not very useful to me, but I'd been stuck in the class regardless. As it had turned out, my being there had proven to be very slightly more useful than I would have thought. I'd picked up my knowledge about powers through a hodgepodge of random anecdotes and intuitive understanding more so than any kind of dedicated tutelage. As such, some of the things I'd thought were right, were actually wrong. With perhaps ninety percent of the information the teacher said being things I'd already known, it made the class boring and repetitive, but if I slept, I'd miss the other ten percent - the actually useful part. In any other class, I'd have said 'screw it', and zonked out, but power theory was one of the only subjects that actually interested me. "Aaron, could you demonstrate your warper ability for the class?" the teacher asked. My head snapped up at the sound of my name, bringing me back awake after having nodded off. "Huh? Demonstrate? Sure," I mumbled, blushing slightly in embarrassment. Flipping on the appropriate power, I vanished in a puff of smoke only to appear sitting on the teacher's desk at the front of the class. "Ta da!" I declared, dipping forward at the waist in a little bow. Just as I'd dipped as low as I could manage in the awkward sitting position, I vanished again, reappearing back in my seat and flipping off the power. "How's that, teach?" "Splendid. Now, try not to fall asleep again," the teacher replied, causing several of the students to snicker at my expense. Just as amused by the teacher's remark as the rest of them, I laughed too as I settled into my seat to listen again. For all that it had been embarrassing, the little exchange did help wake me up and give me some focus. It was a lot easier to pay attention to the lesson after that. As the class drew to a close, I flipped on my clairvoyance and teleportation, shifting my vision from the classroom to the lines in the cafeteria. The moment the class dismissed, I vanished from my seat, appearing in line. Years of being a warper had made me incredibly intolerant of not just people being late, but waiting of any kind. Lines were especially frustrating with the way they inched along. I was glad that I had a power that let me get to the cafeteria before the place filled up. Hurrying through the line, I paid for my food then warped myself straight to one of the empty tables and flipped off my powers. Ravenously hungry, I tore into the meal with a vengeance. Like many physically oriented mutants, I had a large appetite, at least compared to baselines - although by energizer standards I was actually a bit of a light eater - so my tray was piled full of food. It was pretty good too - for cafeteria food. Even with the large portions, I was finished scarfing down my meal before most other students even made it through the line. That left me free to get out of the place before anyone tried to talk to me or attempt any other forms of pestering. Cleaning up after myself quickly, I flipped on some powers and teleported back to my room for a much needed power nap. *********************************************** *********************************************** Slouched in a chair, I propellered my lips in annoyance as I glanced around the thoroughly uninteresting waiting area. Much like with Dr. Bellows the day before, whoever was in charge of my power testing was late. It was even worse this time, because I was so cranky from a day without enough sleep. Finally, after several minutes, an older man stepped into the waiting area and smiled at me. "Aaron Kleid?" "That's me," I said, hopping up from my chair. "Right this way," the man told me, gesturing for me to fall. He waited until I fell into step with him to speak more. "I've gotta say, I'm rather excited to do your testing." I chuckled at that, doing my best to hide how people's interest in what I could do bothered me. "They always are. Are we doing the full suite today or just my native abilities?" "We'll start with native, then have you go through the relevant tests with your other powers," the man explained. "Did you bring someone along for me to demonstrate on?" I asked. The man nodded. "Yes, I got one of the other students to volunteer." That was a good sign about how this would go. The very first time that I'd done a power test, there hadn't been another mutant there, so I'd been unable to demonstrate, and had been required to come back later. I had not been happy about that - not that I'd been happy to be tested the first time. A short walk brought me and the power tester to the lab where a cute girl around my age stood waiting. "Aaron, this is our power donor for your test," the man introduced us. "A pleasure," I said, offering my hand to the girl which she shook. "I'm told you have an interesting power," the girl replied. I shrugged. "A lot of other people find it more interesting than I do. By the way, are we starting with that?" "Yes, if you don't mind. We wouldn't want to waste her time," the tester said. "Alright, I'm going to have to touch you for a little while now, just on the shoulder, though," I told her. The girl nodded. "Alright, ready." Eager to get this over with, I reached out and rested my hand on the aide's shoulder. Closing my eyes, I focused intently on the girl in front of me, clearing my mind of everything else. It took considerable concentration to activate this particular power intentionally. Several long moments ticked by as I focused before suddenly a jolt of energy shot through me, causing my muscles to jerk. The jerking stopped almost immediately, but the energy didn't dissipate, making me feel suddenly wide awake and raring to go. It was a sensation I was familiar with, so I flipped the newly gained power off, feeling the energy vanish with it, then let my hand fall from the girl's shoulder. "Did you get it?" the tester asked. "Of course, but she's a speedster, so I can't demonstrate until we establish my baseline speed," I informed him. "Do I need to stay then?" the girl inquired. I shook my head. Unlike most power mimics, I had no limitation on how long I kept an ability. It was one of the reasons why my power fascinated so many people. "I have it until I decide to get rid of it now, so there's no need for you to stick around," I told her before turning to the tester. "What are we doing next?" The man in charge of the testing looked faintly disappointed, like he'd expected some kind of huge burst of light or something similar when I'd mimicked the girl's power. I was rather glad to disappoint him. There were too many people fascinated by my ability already. "Well since we need to set up a baseline useful for testing if you gained her speedster abilities, let's start with running speed," the man told me. I made my way to the treadmill while the girl excused herself. Once there, I had the tester set it to what I knew would be a vigorous jog to start and began running. As I did, he slowly increased it to seek out my maximum. "So you said you have her power until you get rid of it. Is there not some kind of time limit?" the tester asked while I ran. "No time limit that I've found," I replied. "All the borrowed powers I have currently, except for hers, I've had for years." "And there's no adverse side effects to the people you take powers from?" the tester asked. I shook my head. "Not any that anyone's ever told me. Most don't even seem to notice I've copied them." The man made a few notes before continuing. "Your previous test says that you copy all of a person's powers at once, can have up to seven people copied at a time, and copy the powers at equal strength to the original." "Right, though, I can't copy a lot of powers," I explained, starting to huff a little as the speed pushed me from jog into a full out run. "Pretty much anything that would change my physiology is a no-go, like exemplar traits beside my own, PK shells that are non-adaptable to shape, GSD-based abilities like claws, and the like." More notes were taken as the questioning ended to focus on the test. The man pushed me to my limit on the treadmill, making note of the final speed. Without even slacking off, he had me flip on the girl's speedster abilities and demonstrate my sudden ability to run even faster than I could have on my own. After the treadmill was a seemingly endless string of tests and demonstrations. Even worse, I had to do most of the physical tests twice, once with my default abilities, which were just a fairly high- level exemplar, and then a second time with my relevant borrowed powers activated. Eventually though, after many many hours, the tests finally ended, and I teleported myself back to my bed and instantly fell asleep. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 04 - Day 6 "Ah ... " I sighed as I leaned back against the tree with my eyes closed. There was a nice breeze today which had convinced me to spend my lunch break outside rather than back in my room like I usually did. It was perfect weather for a lazy afternoon nap - not that I really needed one today. It just sounded nice. I was just about to nod off when a scream yanked me fully awake again. "What the hell?" I growled angrily before sitting back up and orienting on the noise. The scream was courtesy of a girl on one of the paths who had her hands clutched to her skirt like something had flipped it up. I almost dismissed it as the wind, until I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. Bounding along the path a short way from the girl, was a rather odd looking contraption. It seemed like the horror movie baby of a teddy bear, a toolbox, and a swiss army knife. The bear was around two feet tall, clearly robotic given the stiff jerky way that it ran, and had hands which had been replaced with a dizzying array of flip out tools, from a screwdriver to a monkey wrench. "What the hell?" I repeated this time far more confused than angry. For a moment, I wondered if I hadn't just fallen asleep and started dreaming. "Out of the way!" a male voice shouted. Looking over revealed Cameron, red-faced and huffing for breath as he raced along the same path the tooldy-bear must have taken. "Of course," I hissed, eyes narrowing in frustration. An abomination like that causing trouble just had to be because of a devisor. Flipping on my warper ability, I hopped to my feet and teleported into the way of the bear. As it tried to swerve past me, I reached for the little thing, but my hand was met with an array of tools that raked at me like claws. They weren't sharp enough to hurt or anything, but it did prevent me from getting a grip on the machine as it raced by. "So that's how we're going to play this," I muttered, shaking out the hand that had been raked. Flipping on another power, I felt energy flow into me as I muttered a grim, "Fine. Let's play." Another teleport put me back into the bear's path, but this time I was ready for it. Once again, it tried its dodge and rake technique, but I just grabbed one of the tools, an allen wrench it seemed, and yanked the robotic nuisance off the ground. "Bye bye, bear," I told it, right before a surge of power rushed out from my hand. Sparks danced along my fingers as I shunted electricity into the bear, which spasmed and smoked from the overload. Finally, it fell limp in my hand, and I dropped it back to the ground. A few moments later, Cameron trotted to a stop in front of me. He folded over instantly, hands on his knees as he gasped desperately for air. "Thanks ... Aaron ... for stopping ... it ..." I gave him a little shrug. "I just like breaking devisor toys. What the hell was that anyway? Some kind of franken-teddy?" "It's a ... disassembler," Cameron wheezed. "It's supposed ... to just ... take stuff ... apart." "But you messed up, and it decided to go on a stroll through campus," I remarked, getting a nod from Cameron. I tossed a disapproving glare at the boy for that, but he was still too busy gasping for air to look up. In fact, his face was looking kind of purplish. "Are you alright?" I asked, my anger turning to mild concern. My answer came in the form of Cameron collapsing. "Shit." Flipping off my energizer power, I turned on my clairvoyance as I yanked Cameron up from the ground. Immediately, my vision changed to the school's medical center. The next instant, we both vanished in a puff of smoke. *********************************************** *********************************************** "What an idiot, chasing after a bear without his inhaler," I muttered as I appeared out of my teleport back by my tree. Sitting down once more, I returned to lounging in the breeze. "At least he didn't die for it." Leaning back, I closed my eyes and flipped all my powers off. Dealing with Cameron had consumed about half of the time I'd had, but I was determined to enjoy the other half. There just weren't enough nice days in the year to waste them. "Well, look who it is," Doug's voice greeted. It seemed that the day was conspiring to prevent me from enjoying it. Annoyed, I flipped on my clairvoyance, so I could look at Doug while he talked without opening my eyes. "You here to complain about me beating up your friend?" "Not at all, and he wasn't really my friend anyway," Doug replied. "I'm actually here to talk to you." Trying to emphasize my disinterest, I gave Doug an exaggerated yawn. "Really? That's nice ..." "Yeah, you're a pretty interesting guy, and I like interesting people," Doug remarked. "I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot what with the whole y'know ..." "Mistaking me for a girl you wanted to hit on?" I snarked, determined to make this as difficult for him as possible. Doug chuckled nervously. "Yeah ... no offense, but you're like a decent pair of boobs from being a really cute girl. It's really too bad you're a dude." I sighed in exasperation. "Sure sounds like you're trying to offend me." "Sorry," Doug apologized. "But still, now that I know better, I thought maybe we might get along." "What makes you think that?" I asked. "Pretty much all you know about me is that I don't like talking, don't like people being jerks, and I can punch out your friend. Actually, you don't seem to know that first one at all, since you're still talking to me." "I'm persistent like that," Doug responded smartly, as he plopped onto the ground near me. "Besides, I don't like people being jerks either, and you beating that brick so easily was awesome. We might disagree on the talking part, but no friendship is perfect." Sighing, I flipped off my clairvoyance and opened my eyes to peer at Doug. "What are you really after, Doug?" "The truth?" Doug asked rhetorically. "At a school like this, I'm thinking power is a big deal. Now, I'm not a slouch or anything, but you beat a brick in a fist fight with ease, and you had the psychic skills to fend me off too. You've got real power." "And you want it," I completed the logic. It wasn't a surprise to me. "Well, yeah sorta," Doug admitted. "I like to surround myself with useful people, and you definitely seem like you'd be useful." For a moment, I just peered at Doug. I didn't really want any friends, certainly not ones who were just using me, but I was strangely tempted. I couldn't even say why, but I could say that tempted wasn't enough. "Well, at least you're honest about it," I joked. "Still, not happening, though." Doug snapped his fingers. "Damn. Oh well, see ya around then, I guess." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Ah shit," I cursed under my breath as a sharp stab of pain shooting through my temples made the classroom around me vanish, replacing it with a lovely view of the sky. The view was momentarily dizzying, but I quickly collected myself, closing my eyes so that no one thought I was staring. It wasn't the first time that my clairvoyance had locked itself on while showing me some disorienting view. It was still a huge pain, though. Not only did having the power locked on give me a headache, but it effectively rendered me blind for as long as it remained active. That wouldn't have been a problem in my old, familiar home, but Whateley was far from familiar to me. Rather than pay attention to the closing notes of the class, I spent the rest of the period carefully going over the map of Whateley I'd built in my head the first day I arrived. Having never walked most of the distances, I wasn't one hundred percent certain of how many steps to take, but I had rough ideas. The biggest problem would be the one non- static thing on any walk - other people. Once the class finally ended, I waited patiently for the bustle of other students clearing out to die down. From there, it was a simple matter to stand up from my seat, gather my things, and get started. It was easy enough to navigate through the desks to the door, and open it into the hallway. That hallway, though, was a more treacherous beast. I relied heavily on hearing to avoid people while I was blind, and there were too many students hovering around chatting for me to rely on that. Holding one hand slightly out in front of me, I stepped out into the bustle, and started moving. I fell into the stream of students pretty easily, using my extended hand and quick reflexes to make sure I didn't run into anyone or anything. It wasn't long before I spilled out of the building and onto the paths of campus. These were a bit harder to navigate, because they lacked guiding walls, and didn't have the consistent flow of other students to follow. As such, I kept far to the ride side of the paths, using the grass to keep me from straying too far to the center. "Aaron!" Cameron's voice called cheerily, followed by the sounds of the boy jogging up to stop in front of me. "You know, you really shouldn't be running. You suck at it," I remarked, coming to a stop as well. Despite their current uselessness, I opened my eyes, and dipped them slightly, so they were looking at where the shorter boy's eyes should be. Meanwhile, Cameron chuckled at my comment. "Yeah ... Thanks for that by the way. Not only did you stop my rampaging bear, but you probably saved my life too." I shrugged. "I already told you, I like destroying devisor toys, and if I hadn't helped you someone else would have. Nothing to thank me for. Now, if you'll excuse me." "Oh, sorry," Cameron muttered as I heard the sound of him stepping out of my way. With the obstacle handled, I started walking again, only to hear the sounds of Cameron walking beside me. "What do you want, Cameron?" "It's just, I've never seen you walk to class before," Cameron noted. "In fact, I've only seen you outside twice before now." I shrugged again. "Normally, I just teleport around, but I decided to walk today. Why are you keeping track of me, anyway?" "The gray hair makes you easy to spot," Cameron responded, seeming satisfied with my explanation. "Speaking of teleporting, you seem to be able to do a lot more than that. Most mutants only have one or two traits, but I've seen you exhibit at least three." Clenching my jaw, I took a moment to think about how to handle that comment. I really didn't want to explain that I was a power mimic, but then again, maybe I wouldn't have to ... "That's quite the mystery then, because I only have two traits." "What? No. You've shown at least three. Warper when you teleported the bomb out of the bus, at least exemplar or PK when you trounced that brick, and energizer when you fried the bear," Cameron countered. "Trust me, I only have two traits," I told him, starting to enjoy the game. For a couple of moments, Cameron was silent, probably deep in thought. "Maybe you're both an internal and external energizer and you used internal to generate the force to hurt a brick somehow?" Grinning, I shifted my upheld hand over in front of him and flipped on a power. A moment later, an orange flame burst into being in my palm, dancing in the wind. My grin widened as I heard Cameron gasp in surprise. "Remember, only two traits," I told him as I flipped the ability off and the fire vanished. "But ... but you just created fire!" Cameron exclaimed. "That has to be at least three, if not four!" I shook my head. "Nope." "Hmm ..." Cameron hummed thoughtfully. "It's like a riddle, then? What has two traits but exhibits more than that?" I shrugged. "Maybe." "If it's a riddle, it must be a trick answer, something that hides the truth ..." Cameron mumbled. "I got it! You're an avatar, and the other stuff is done by your spirit!" I sucked air through my teeth. "That's a good guess ... but nope, sorry." Cameron clicked his tongue as he tried to think. "Darn. It was a good guess, though?" "Yep," I told him. "So that means I was close ..." Cameron muttered. "It must be another trait that gives powers, like an imbued or a devisor serum or ..." he trailed off for a moment, and I could practically hear him smile. "Or a power mimic!" Doing a mix of a sigh and a chuckle, I nodded. After all, Cameron had played the game, so he deserved the reward. "You are correct, I am a power mimic." "And the other trait is ... exemplar?" Cameron asked. "Yep. And ... this is my stop," I said as I tapped the door to Hawthorne with my knuckles. "Thanks for playing, you've been a great audience." Before Cameron could respond or try to invite himself in, I slipped through the door, making sure it closed behind me. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 05 - Day 9 "Stupid shrink and his stupid mandatory sessions," I muttered as I walked slowly toward the psyche offices. I could have just teleported to my session like I had the week before, but walking, slow and monotonous, made the inevitable seem further away. Even if it wasn't really further away at all, I valued the illusion. After all, I didn't want to talk about the things that haunted me. I just wanted to forget them. "Hey you!" an unfamiliar male voice yelled, as footsteps started jogging toward me. "Gray-haired girl." Sighing in frustration, I turned to see who was interrupting me while muttering under my breath, "I've really gotta stop walking places. It brings out the crazies." Jogging over was a boy around my age, but a little taller than I was. He had raven-black hair and piercing, blue eyes which he was currently using to glare daggers at me. The guy looked vaguely familiar, but I didn't remember doing anything to him that might piss him off. "You're that bitch that broke my brother's ribs," the boy spat furiously. Now that he'd mentioned it, I realized the guy did sort of have a resemblance to that brute I'd beat up. He must be seeking revenge or something equally nonsensical. "Look, I don't have time to waste beating some sense into you. Can we do this some other time?" "You didn't give that option to my brother! You just jumped him out of nowhere!" the boy growled. That ludicrous accusation had me blinking a couple of times in surprise. "Uhm ... yeah ... that didn't happen. I gave him a clear warning to drop the kid he was picking on, and he threw a punch at me instead." "Liar!" the boy exclaimed. I rolled my eyes at the idiocy of siblings. "Believe me or don't, I don't care, but I'm not in the mood for teaching you a lesson so ..." I flipped on my clairvoyance and teleportation and vanished in a puff of smoke. The next moment, I stood in Dr. Bellows waiting room, right before a sharp stab of pain shot through my temple. "Shit," I cursed as my teleportation ability locked itself on. Most of my powers were either a nuisance when locked on, like clairvoyance or telepathy, or painful, like pyrokinesis and electrokinesis. Teleportation, though, was an obnoxious mix of both. It was like the most nightmarish amusement park ride ever invented. The world kept snapping in and out of focus as I teleported over and over again, each teleport leaving me in a different location in the waiting room. It was a confined space, so I couldn't go very far, but that didn't make it any less nauseating as the world whirled about in my vision. Around and around I went in a dizzying torrent of sights that was enough to upset even the most stalwart of stomachs. After a minute or so, the teleportation stopped, leaving me standing in the center of the room. Falling to my knees, I doubled over, clutching at my stomach and trying very hard to not vomit all over the carpet. "Ugh ..." I groaned, exhausted by the excessive power use, and tortured by the nausea it had brought with it. "I fucking hate that one so damn much." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Are you alright?" Dr. Bellows asked as I plopped heavily onto the couch. "You look exhausted." "Well I'm glad your powers of observation are good enough to see the painfully obvious," I grumbled acerbically. Like usual, Dr. Bellows just sort of ignored my snark and continued on calmly. "And why are you exhausted? Have you not been sleeping well?" "I sleep great, doc. Like a baby, in fact," I assured him. "I just had a power malfunction, though, and they can be quite exhausting." Dr. Bellows nodded in understanding. "That actually is a good place for us to start today, if you don't mind. Why do you keep powers stored when you have such frequent control issues with them?" "Well, back when I had no powers stored, my mimc ability would go haywire instead and randomly store a power from anyone nearby that had one - a power that would immediately malfunction," I explained. "It's a lot easier to deal with known malfunctions than something I can't predict." "Of course, but you only need to have one power stored to prevent that issue correct?" Dr. Bellows postulated. "Why not just store only a single power that has a relatively mild haywire, and save yourself a lot of stress." I shrugged. "I like the powers I have." "They are impressive in both breadth and strength, but hardly the most powerful copies you could find, especially here or among the many mutant friends that I'm sure your parents had," Dr. Bellows noted. "From what I understand, you also don't have all of your slots filled, which I can only assume is intentional. Those don't seem like the actions of someone only interested in the power they bring." I narrowed my eyes at the doctor, quite unhappy with his logic. He had me stuck again, in a position where the only answer I had was one I didn't want to talk about. I could not respond at all, but that would just mean that I'd be trapped in these sessions longer. "They all belong to people I care about ... ones that aren't with me anymore," I finally admitted. "Like mementos to keep them by your side?" Dr. Bellows surmised. "Yes," I confirmed. "If I got rid of them, I would never be able to get them again." Dr. Bellows nodded. "Well, two are your adopted parent's abilities, but where do the other three come from? Your original family?" I shook my head. "No. They're from when I was ... kidnapped. They're the powers of the three other kids who were with me at his place." "You must have been very close, enduring that together for almost two years," Dr. Bellows commented. "They were all older than me, so they were always trying to cheer me up, took care of me when he left me too weak to care for myself, even taught me things," I replied, choking up a bit at the memories. "We were like brothers and sisters, until he butchered them." "That must have been very hard on you," Dr. Bellows told me. I snorted derisively at that. "Hard on me? When I was rescued from that nightmare, I couldn't speak, couldn't stand up for myself, couldn't sleep through a night. I couldn't even do anything for fun. I just sat in a chair and stared for hours. So yeah, I guess you could say it was hard on me. Just like it's hard on me to have some pompous know-it-all drag me through the whole mess again while he pretends to understand." With that, I activated my powers and teleported out of the office. It was the only such teleport either, but the first in a series of many. When I finally came to a stop, I found myself in an empty field somewhere miles from campus. It had taken several jumps to find the place, even using my clairvoyance to greatly extend my teleportation range. The distance suited me just fine, though. I needed some place far away from everything and everyone After a quick glance around to double-check that there was nothing important nearby that I might break, I flipped all of my powers on once. Immediately, I could feel the incredible strain that put on me as my body struggled to provide the huge amounts of energy it required to maintain them all simultaneously. Ignoring the discomfort, I sheathed myself in my PK shell, using it to hover a few feet from the ground. Next, I brought forth an aura of fire, its flames swirling around me in bright orange light. I wasn't finished with that, though, as I brought out the lightning, making arcs of electricity crackle across the flames. For a few moments, I just floated there, wreathed in all their powers, feeling it suck away what energy I had left at an alarming rate. I was already exhausted, but I held on for as long as I could, keeping everything burning as brightly as possible. It was the closest thing I could get to having them with me again. Finally, when I knew I was at my limit, I focused on my PK shell and shattered it. As the shell broke, it sent out a rippling wave of force that carried the fire and lightning in its wake. The wave of death moved with incredible speed, tearing apart the land and leaving nothing in its wake but a blackened mess of dirt and rocks. By the time the wave's strength had been spent, I was in the middle of a field that had been reduced to a black crater. Without my PK shell to keep me aloft, gravity took hold of me again, and I fell to the ground. Exhausted, my legs buckled as they hit, dropping me painfully to hands and knees. I punched the ground weakly in frustration before I flopped onto my back to look up at the sky. "I miss you guys." *********************************************** *********************************************** When I finally teleported back to my room, a man named Louis Geintz, was waiting there for me. Actually, he wasn't really a man, just some sort of psychic projection that the actual guy created to interact with people. I'd seen what he really looked like before - a giant mollusk squid thing that lived in a tank in Hawthorne's basement. It was gross. "What do you want, Fubar?" I asked snarkily, intentionally using his codename in an effort to be disrespectful. He certainly lived up to it. "I'm sure you didn't think you could teleport out of your mandatory psychiatrist session to tear up the countryside without someone coming to talk to you afterwards," Mr. Geintz remarked. "Given that I was the one monitoring you to make sure that you didn't do anything too ... reckless while you were away, it seemed fitting for me to be the person to do so." I waved a dismissive hand at Mr. Geintz. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, tentacles. Just tell me the punishment you guys have cooked up and get out of my room." "How do you think we should punish you? Your interaction with other students is limited and confrontational. You rarely leave your room outside of attending class. You don't seem to do much at all, actually," Mr. Geintz commented. "Well, other than you seem to be doing a very good enough job of punishing yourself." "You could always expel me," I suggested. "You'd probably consider that a reward or at least a success," Mr. Geintz countered. "No, for the moment, the only punishment is that you will apologize to Dr. Bellows and make up the session with him later this week. We'll have to talk to whoever owns the land you destroyed to see if there will be anything else." I smirked at that. "And if I don't do that?" "We'll see," Mr. Geintz said enigmatically before his illusionary self vanished. I snorted derisively at the scare tactic. "We'll see. Ha! I'm tempted to call their bluff just out of spite," I muttered to myself as I flopped onto my bed. "What're they gonna do? Scowl at me? What a joke." Closing my eyes, I took a long deep breath. "I suppose it wouldn't kill me to apologize, though," I told myself. "I was kind of a jerk, even if he was being a jerk by bringing up stuff that I didn't want to talk about." Rolling over onto my side, I sighed heavily. Apologizing would be the easy part, of course. The hard part would be going in for a makeup session, or even just another session period. I'd be expected to talk, and I didn't want to talk. Talking wouldn't fix anything. Talking wouldn't undo everything that had happened. Talking about it was just whining, like a little kid who was unhappy about not getting a toy he wanted. I was sick of it - sick of feeling helpless as the world did what it pleased with me. "Next time I'm not going to lose," I told the world. "I'm going to beat whatever you throw at me." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 06 - Day 10 "Damn it, Aaron! Get in line like everyone else!" the guy I'd just teleported in front of in the shower line yelled angrily. "Like I've got time to wait in line like some ... " I shuddered at the thought. "... normal person." With that, I closed the door to the stall in the whiner's face, and set about getting ready for the morning. Yanking off the clothes that I'd slept in, I tossed them on the towel hook - since my towel was waiting back in my room for me. Starting up the water, I grinned at finding it still nice and warm from the last person to use the shower. It only took a little fidgeting to get it just right. Never one to tarry for long, I took only a couple moments to enjoy the perfect temperature before I started going about the process of cleaning myself. Everything went quite normally right up until I rubbed a hand over my chest. When I did, my nipple protested as my palm caught it, sending a twinge of pain through me to show its displeasure. Confused, I glanced down, wondering what the problem could possibly be. The nipple in question, as well as its counterpart, was a more vivid pink than usual. It also looked a little swollen, getting me to poke at it curiously, only to have my fingers squish slightly into the flesh on my chest. That occurrence baffled me as much as the nipple hurting had. My chest was normally nearly perfectly flat, like the ten year old boy my physiology resembled. It was just my rib cage with the faintest hint of pectoral muscles over it. That definitely wasn't the case anymore, though. There was something soft there now which seemed sort of fatty to the touch. However, it was just around the nipple and areola, exaggerating the swollen look of them. "What the hell?" I muttered, truly confused by what I was looking at. I hadn't received any chest injuries recently that might cause swelling like that, and it wasn't like I could gain weight. I'd tried to do so in the past, but my BIT had refused to let it happen. I didn't have any allergies either, and it was highly unlikely that I was sick. Plus, I hadn't had an illness since I'd manifested. For several moments, I just stared at my chest, trying to figure out what could possibly have caused the swelling. Nothing I came up with made any sense, though. It seemed like it should be impossible, but the evidence was right there in front of me. "I guess I go see a doctor?" I mused uncertainly. I knew that Whateley had doctors on staff in the medical center, and I had to assume they were good at dealing with weird mutant issues. "Maybe they've seen something like this before?" Hurrying through the rest of my shower, I grabbed my things and teleported back to my room. Quickly, I dried off and pulled some clothes from the dresser to throw on. Once I was dressed, I immediately teleported over to the medical building. "What seems to be the trouble, hon?" a nurse asked sweetly when I went up to check in. "I'm not sure. Something weird with my chest," I explained. "I have no idea what it is." The nurse nodded, probably quite used to complaints from students that were weird and unknown. She took my student ID from me and got all my information before taking me to a room to wait. It seemed like a pretty well-equipped place, not that I was all that familiar with regular medical facilities. Unlike any doctor's office that I'd ever been to, I didn't have to wait long, before a tall, slender woman with thick honey-blonde hair entered the room. "Good morning, Mr. Kleid. I'm Dr. Ophelia Tenent," the doctor greeted as she came into the room. "What can I do for you today?" "Well this morning, I noticed something weird that I can't figure out," I began. "My nipples are swollen and sore, but I haven't been in any fights, I can't remember being exposed to anything weird, and I haven't been sick since I manifested." "And that was ... wow five years ago," Dr. Tenent remarked as she looked at my medical history, surprised by how long ago it had been. "You manifested when you were ten?" I nodded. "Yep, though, it took about a year for my BIT to get me looking like I do now." Dr. Tenent pursed her lips together in thought. "Hmm exemplar too ... well let's take a look shall we?" With a shrug, I pulled off my t-shirt to let the doctor look at my chest. She grabbed a tall stool and rolled it over in front of me to sit on, before leaning in to examine me. I watched her as she poked and prodded at my swollen chest, feeling mildly self-conscious the whole time. Looking like I was either still ten or a girl had always made me pretty embarrassed about my body, even when it was a doctor doing the viewing, and that was without there being something weird going on with it. After a short while, Dr. Tenent leaned back in the stool, furrowing her brow. "Well that doesn't make sense. You said you've looked the exact same for about four years now?" she asked, getting a nod from me. "And the swelling is brand new?" I nodded again. "Definitely. I just got in the shower this morning and boom there it was." Folding her arms, the doctor just peered at my chest for a few moments, making me feel even more uncomfortable. "Well ... it looks like a mild case of gynecomastia," she finally said as she grabbed my file and quickly flipped through my medical history. "But your past blood work had prepubescent hormone levels, you've had a stable BIT for years, you don't have allergies, and you've said that there's been no recent trauma, so it's hard to imagine how it could have happened. Maybe some kind of reaction to magic or devisor tech. We'll have to run some tests to figure it out." The mention of devisor tech had my jaw clenching. I had no idea what gynecomastia was, but it didn't seem like it was a good thing. The whole situation had Cameron written all over it. "What's gynecomastia?" I asked guardedly. "It's a not uncommon condition in boys your age where they have some breast development," Dr. Tenent explained. "In normal cases, it's usually mild and temporary, but I've never seen a stable exemplar develop the condition." I blinked a few times in shock. "I'm growing breasts? Like a girl? You're kidding, right?" "I wouldn't joke about a patient's health," Dr. Tenent replied. "Of course, it's not certain that's what it is until we run the tests." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Weird ..." I mumbled as I lay on my bed poking at the puffiness on my chest. The way the flesh squished under my fingertips was just so bizarre that I'd been poking at them pretty much non-stop since getting back from the medical center. I still couldn't figure out how they could have possibly gotten like that. For her part, Dr. Tenent seemed to be as confused by my chest as I was. Test after test had turned up negative. There'd been no evidence of foreign substance, nor of some kind of magical spell, nor of trauma that could cause such a change. The only thing the doctor had been able to find out was that my blood work did show elevated levels of hormones - girl hormones. That news was about as devastating as news from a doctor could be to me. I'd rather have learned I was dying than learned that I was going to look even more like a girl than I already did. The frequency that people mistook me for a girl was already infuriatingly high enough, and breasts would certainly make it a lot worse. At least for now, they were small enough to hide easily, while I figured out some way to fix this - and I was going to fix this. "They must have missed something," I told myself. It's not like this kind of thing just happened for no reason. There was a cause out there somewhere, and I was pretty sure its name was Cameron. Maybe that stupid bear of his had done this somehow, or the bomb, or some other weird invention cooked up by his crazed devisor brain. I hadn't been able to see while we were talking the other day. He could have had some devise with him that was behind this. It could be someone else, too though. Doug was strangely interested in me, and there was that brick I'd embarrassed. His brother had clearly wanted revenge. There were plenty of other people on campus too. I hadn't exactly been nice to anyone since coming to school. "Whoever's responsible, they're gonna regret messing with me," I growled, clenching my hands tightly into fists. "I'll make them undo whatever it was they did to me, and then I'll probably still rip their heart out and shove it down their throat for good measure." Even as those words left my mouth, I forced my currently impotent rage to cool itself, so that I could think. After all, even if I did have a list of suspects, I didn't really have any idea how to figure out which one was behind what was happening to me. The school was unlikely to tolerate me using force to extract the information, and the idea of torturing or bullying people didn't sit well with me anyway. I could use my telepathy to try to gather information, but Doug, and maybe some of the others as well, had defenses against that kind of thing. "Cameron doesn't seem like the type that would do anything bad on purpose," I mused. "Accidently though ... Maybe if I get ahold of all the devises I've been around, the school might have some way to test them to see if any of them are responsible for this. He might even just give them to me if I ask. He has been excessively grateful to me. Maybe the favor will get him to stop thanking me too. That'd be nice." Starting with Cameron seemed like a good plan to me. He was the most likely culprit, and the most likely to cooperate with me too. I wasn't really sure what to do about the other possibilities. Doug probably knew the names of the brothers who were mad at me, though. I could possibly check him and get the information at the same time. "What's he going to want in return, though?" I remarked, considering whether it was worth it to owe Doug a favor or not. Other people could give me the information, too, and at less cost. Doug probably knew their abilities, history, and all sorts of other little details, though. He seemed like the type to do his research about anyone he associated with. "Spending time with him might get him to slip up, too, if he's the one responsible." Thinking for a moment, I finally nodded. It felt like I'd come up with a good course of action to take - at least for the major suspects. If it turned out none of them were responsible, then I wasn't sure what I would do. It seemed unlikely that would happen, but if it did, I would just come up with another plan. There was no way I was going to just let this slide. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 07 - Day 11 "God damn ... " I groaned as once again a stabbing headache woke me from my sleep early. This time, I felt static building around me, and an antsy twitchiness that made it hard to hold still. Much like with the fire haywire, I teleported out to the center of the room to get away from anything that might get destroyed. The teleport finished just as the haywire hit, sending jolts of electricity coursing through me. It locked up my muscles, causing them to jerk and spasm as current surged and faded inconsistently. I must have looked like a fish on dry land with the way I was flopping about as I rode the lightning. Sparks raced over me as I lay there, searching for something to ground them, but the ceramic tile proved as resistant to electricity as it had been against fire. That meant the energy had nothing to do but race through me over and over again, until the edges of my vision dimmed from the strain it was putting on me. Then, the electricity just abandoned me, leaving me to flop limply onto my back, gasping for breath. "Fuck ... " I whined, exhausted and aching. I was supposed to start searching through suspects today, and naturally, my powers decided to haywire and destroy my energy. It would be hard for me to even make it through my classes after going through it, but there was no way I was going to slack off and not start my investigation. I wasn't going to let whatever was doing this to me keep doing it just because I was tired. Rolling over, I struggled to my feet, and glanced at my clock, glad to see that it was undamaged by the electricity. Things were a little better than the last time, in that I had a couple hours until classes started. It wouldn't be ideal, but I could get some sleep before then at least. I wouldn't have time for a nap during lunch like the last time a haywire had ruined my sleep, though - not if I wanted to catch my suspects when they actually had time to talk. "It's probably one of Cameron's half-functional inventions anyway," I muttered as I made my way over to my bed, plopped back on top of it, and tugged my blankets up. "I'll find him, round up all of his toys, and have the whole thing solved in time for me to still get a nap in during lunch." *********************************************** *********************************************** A long yawn gripped me as I watched the entrance to the cafeteria. Occasionally, I would flip on my clairvoyance to look inside as well, just in case I had somehow missed Cameron walking in. "Does he not eat?" I wondered aloud. I'd been leaning against the tree for half of lunch break already, but neither entrance nor interior showed any sign of the devisor. "Doug might know where I could find him," I mused, flipping my clairvoyance on again. I'd spotted Doug inside earlier, chatting at one of the tables, so he was easy to find now. He seemed to be a pretty popular guy, given the way everyone at his table was hanging on his every word. That wasn't much of a surprise, though. Not wanting to waste my whole lunch period, I flipped on my teleportation and vanished in a puff of smoke. The next moment, I was standing inside the cafeteria right behind the seated Doug. "Excuse me, but I need to borrow Doug for a moment," I apologized to the table as I rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. A puff of smoke later, and we were both back outside by the tree. "Whoa!" Doug gasped as he suddenly no longer had a chair to sit in. He would have fallen painfully to the ground, but I snuck my hands under his arms and easily pulled him to his feet. Once he was upright, I kept a hand on Doug's shoulder to keep him steady while he oriented himself to suddenly being in a different place and standing instead of sitting. It typically took people a few teleports before they started getting used to it. "Try not to vomit," I told the other boy, thankful that he was facing away from me at the moment. "I'll keep that in mind," Doug muttered, as he got his bearings and turned to face me. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this ... abduction I guess would be the right word for it." "I need some information, and I figured, since you were so keen on being my friend, you wouldn't mind helping me out," I explained. Doug nodded thoughtfully. "I don't mind doing favors for my friends, as long as they are willing to reciprocate." "I had a feeling you'd think that way, so I am willing to owe you a favor if you can give me something useful," I commented. "I need to know about two things. One, I need to know where to find Cameron, since he doesn't seem to eat lunch like a normal person. Two, I need some information on that brick friend of yours and his vengeance-obsessed brother." "What did that little shit do this time to get you chasing after him, make another bomb?" Doug inquired. I clicked my tongue at Doug. "Tsk tsk, Do you really want to waste your favor on that question?" "Withdrawn," Doug said immediately. "Cameron lives in Emmerson. That's probably your best bet to find him. I can get you the room number too, if you give me a couple minutes. As for the brick, his name is Andy and his brother would be Mal. Mal's a wizard and very protective of his younger twin. I'm not surprised that he wants to get back at you for hurting him." The news that Mal was a wizard got a slight wince from me. If there was a mutant power out there besides devising that could be responsible for what was happening to me it would be wizardry. Luckily, wizards tended to be slow and not very good at fighting, so if it came to blows between me and him, I would probably be able to beat him. It did make me wish I was a little further along in my magic class, though, so that I knew more about it. "You know where I can find them?" I asked. "Yeah, they live in Melville with me. That's how I met Andy to begin with," Doug answered. "They're kind of snobs. I think they're from some rich family and are used to just getting everything they want. Be careful, 'cause they don't fight fair." I smirked confidently at the warning. "Neither do I." "I remember," Doug replied, chuckling. "Is that everything you needed?" I nodded. "Yep. That's it." "So, about my favor then ... " Doug began leadingly. "Using it already?" I asked, surprised at the possibility. I'd figured Doug would hold onto something like that for as long as he possibly could. Doug shook his head. "No, not yet. I'm just wondering what the limits on it are." "It's a favor, Doug, not a contract that lets you make me do whatever you want," I told him. "If you need something, ask, and I'll tell you if it's something that seems fair." Doug sighed. "Damn ... oh well. Still worth it." *********************************************** *********************************************** Hovering thanks to my PK shell as I teleported in, my shoes were spared from being soaked in the water and suds that covered the entire carpet in the hall of Emerson. In the middle of the soapy mess, was Cameron, red-faced, panting, and sucking on his inhaler. Beside him was what I could only assume was the culprit behind the catastrophe, something that looked like the cross between a hoover vacuum, a lava lamp, and one of those spark globes that you can put your hands on to get the arcs to shoot to your fingertips. "Does anything you build not go haywire and destroy everything?" I joked as I floated toward him. Cameron actually had to give that question a few moments thought before he could answer. "It's about fifty-fifty, I'd say." Laughing, I just shook my head at him. "You suck at this inventing thing, man. Why do you even bother?" Cameron shrugged. "I come up with something and then I just have to build it. That's how I ended up here at Whateley, actually. My parents were tired of me taking apart all their appliances and then using them to build things that wrecked the house. I guess people can only take so much of, 'oops my machine accidently blahed your blah', before they get sick of it." "Well I'm certainly sick of it, and I haven't had to see too many of them yet," I remarked, unconcerned by the wince that Cameron gave in response. "In fact, that's sort of why I'm here." "Oh no ... did another one of my things get out? I couldn't find my pulse screwdriver this morning," Cameron asked, concerned. "Glossing over what exactly a pulse screwdriver is ... if something had gotten out it would have been a few days ago at least," I informed him. "You see, I recently found out I have an ... unfortunate medical condition that it shouldn't be possible for me to have, so I'm trying to figure out what's responsible." "And you think one of my inventions might be what caused it?" Cameron finished the thought. I nodded. "Exactly. I was hoping you could turn over your stuff to the school, so they could test it or something to see if any of it could have done it to me." Absently, Cameron nodded, clearly deep in thought. "Yeah ... sure ... what's the matter with you anyway?" My eyes narrowed at the question. "It's private." "Sorry, it's just that I don't remember any of them being able to impact human physiology, you know, outside of whatever physical force they are capable of applying ," Cameron explained. "I thought maybe knowing what you had might jog some memories." Clenching my jaw, I took a long deep breath. "I have a ... hormonal imbalance. That's all." "Hmm .. not ringing any bells, but sure you can borrow whatever you want to have tested," Cameron responded. "It's really the least I can do after all the help you've given me." I groaned as the devisor once again started to thank me. "Don't start that again. I wasn't helping you. I was protecting people from you." Cameron shrugged. "Which has been really helpful. I don't want anybody getting hurt from one of my creations. That would be awful." "Whatever," I huffed dismissively. "If you really don't want people to get hurt, you should try installing some kind of killswitch in these things so you can turn them off when they go nuts on you." "Oh, I have," Cameron assured me. "Funny thing is that it almost always breaks whenever one of them goes on a rampage. I thought maybe the design was faulty, but the killswitch never breaks on my designs that function properly. What are the odds right?" Closing my eyes, I rubbed at the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the headache I was getting from just talking to Cameron. God, I hated devisors. "Y'know, with devisors, I'd guess the odds of that are just about a hundred percent. It seems like with you people anything that can go wrong does." "Yeah, I guess," Cameron concurred. "Still, it's pretty awesome to be able to just visualize something in my head and then make it a reality - even if it does break half the time." "Not everything that people can imagine should be made a reality," I replied darkly. "I'll be back after class to gather up your stuff and take it wherever it needs to go to get tested." Cameron nodded. "I'll try to have it all ready for you by then." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 08 - Day 12 "Nothing? You're sure?" I questioned, both surprised and frustrated by the man's answer. "Yeah. For a devisor this stuff is all pretty tame - simple robotics and explosives mostly," the lab guy told me. "The only thing really special about it is that he makes it work with such random junk parts. Unless you're allergic to steel or something, there's nothing in here that would cause any kind of physical reaction." Pursing my lips in anger, I repressed the urge to just smash all the devises. It's not like I really wanted to give them back to Cameron, even if he wasn't the one behind what was happening to me. I'd probably end up having to smash them when they went haywire, anyway. Still, it would be better to save my rage for the person that actually deserved it. "Argh! Fine! I'll take it all back to him," I growled in exasperation. Without even bothering to thank the guy, I walked over to the pile of devisor crap and started teleporting it all back to Cameron's room. It took a couple of trips to get all of it, but that was still only a few minutes of work for me, so it hardly mattered. Once I was done, I teleported to outside the cafeteria and leaned against a tree. With Cameron apparently uninvolved in my woes, it meant I needed to focus on the other suspects, the revenge twins and Doug. The revenge twins would be easier to investigate and were more likely to be the culprits anyway. After all, I'd met Mal literally the day before I noticed the new ... growth in the bathroom. He could have put some kind of curse on me or something. The tests they'd run hadn't shown any sign of magical interference, but that didn't mean much. There were probably ways to hide such things. "I guess the quickest way to do this is just confront them," I mused, as I switched my vision to the inside of the cafeteria. It didn't take long to find the two brothers, hanging out at a table with a few others. "Here goes." Vanishing, I reappeared inside the cafeteria, not far from where the twins sat "Hey Mal, Andy, I've got time to straighten you two out now!" I called out to get their attention. As I did, I flipped on my psychic ability, but didn't use it to sheathe myself in a PK shell. Instead, I focused on Mal, using it to read his thoughts while we talked. If he'd used any magic on me, he'd hopefully think about it at some point. Both boys stood and turned to face me, angry expressions on their faces. "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face after what you did to Andy, scum," Mal said threateningly. I couldn't help but smirk as I read Mal's thoughts about the various things he planned to do to punish me. They were all laughably easy for me to avoid, and I was pretty sure several wouldn't even hurt me. There weren't any thoughts about putting a curse on me, though, which was frustrating. "How about this, Andy, you tell your brother what really happened, and I won't have to embarrass you both in front of all these people," I suggested. "Well ... any more than I already am, anyway." "I did tell him the truth," Andy growled. "You sucker punched me!" I snorted out a laugh at that. "Sucker punched you? Are you for real? You literally threw three punches before I even punched back. Don't believe me? Ask Doug or Cameron, they were both there." "Trust your pet and that traitorous worm? Ha!" Mal scoffed. "You're just afraid to face our wrath!" Closing my eyes, I rubbed at my temples, using my clairvoyance to keep looking at them just in case they foolishly tried something. Sighing, I opened my eyes and shook my head at the two idiots. "Je-sus, just go ask security to look at the footage then. I know they caught the fight on camera. Or do you really think that I've got the whole school on my side?" Andy's resolve wavered ever so slightly. "He's just stalling, Mal." All I could do was sigh as I saw Mal's thoughts turn to violence. "Don't try it, buddy," I warned him, before he even started casting his spell. It didn't stop him from doing it anyway. Flipping off my clairvoyance, I switched out telepathy for the PK shell and turned on my energizer ability. Energy rushed through me as I teleported forward. I appeared a couple steps in front of Mal, spooking him and causing him to lose focus on the spell he was casting. Seeing me so close, Andy lunged, coming at me with a full on tackle. I could have just teleported out of the way of the clumsy tactic, but I was tired of these two idiots' useless shenanigans. Thrusting my hand out, I tapped Andy on the chest. As electricity raced from my hand into his body, Andy was left jerking and twisting in the current. All his muscles quickly locked mid tackle, leaving him to tumble forward. I stepped out of the way, letting the ground catch the big guy. After a loud thump, he lay there twitching in the aftereffect of the shock. Flipping off my electricity, I turned back to Mal, who had started casting again, as soon as Andy was down. My left hand lashed out, grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him into the air to the sound of straining seams. There, I gave him a shake for good measure, spoiling his efforts to use his magic. "As you can see, I didn't need a sucker punch to beat your stupid brother. You two ever mess with me again, and it's going to be a lot worse than this," I told the wizard, right before dropping him painfully on his ass. Then, I raised my hands above my head and waited for the inevitable shout of 'Security!'. *********************************************** *********************************************** "Look, Sergeant, we've already been through this. I confronted the twins about Mal mouthing off to me the other day. He started casting a spell, one that I knew was hostile because I was reading his mind at the time, so I defended myself. Andy got involved as well, so I shocked him, and shook some sense into Mal. Then, I just waited for you guys to show up. That's it," I repeated myself to the security officer who seemed quite certain I was lying to him for some reason. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. It's not like I wasn't at least partially at fault in my story. "If you had a problem with the Bauer boys, why didn't you go through the proper channels?" the sergeant questioned. Rolling my eyes, I sighed in exasperation. "Learning how to resolve conflicts on his or her own is an important skill for a young adult to learn, wouldn't you agree? That or maybe I did it because you're a bunch of useless idiots that can't even manage to take a statement without turning it into a god damn day long affair. Fuck, I could have served whatever punishment you guys decide to cook up for me in the time it's taken you just to write down the six sentences I just told you." The sergeant glared at me like he wanted to throttle me. Good, I felt the same way about him at the moment. "I think I have everything I need, Mr. Kleid." "It's about damn time," I snarked, rising from my seat. "I'll be outside if you forget anything." A quick storm out of the sergeant's office brought me back to the security holding area where I plopped down to wait. I knew from my previous experiences with security that this wouldn't be the end of it. If there was one thing about them, it was that they were very very thorough. I didn't have to wait long before Chief Delarose came out and beckoned me. I followed him to his office where he closed the door and took his seat. "So ... another week, another fight." "At least I didn't break any of his bones this time," I remarked flippantly. "True. In fact, you seem to have selected the most effective, non- damaging method for taking him down quickly that you could have, which leads me to ask, why fight in the first place?" Chief Delarose asked. "You could have easily just avoided them with your teleportation, but instead, by your own admission, you sought them out." I shrugged. "I wanted to put an end to any ideas they had about getting revenge." "Well, after what happened, I'm sure they're even more pissed at you," Chief Delarose replied. "I don't buy that as a reason, anyway. If that was your thinking, you would have dealt with them when Mal first confronted you. I think you wanted something else out of this, and I need to know what." I hated it when people used logic. It made it so hard to play games. "I was investigating a personal medical issue. I needed Mal focused on his revenge against me, so that I could see if he was behind it." "So you picked a fight with him," Chief Delarose concluded. "Well, I was hoping he wouldn't actually be stupid enough to try to fight me, but I misjudged how insane those two are," I explained. "He wouldn't believe me or any of the other people who were there. He wouldn't even go to you guys to look at the tapes of the encounter. Crazy people." Chief Delarose nodded. "I see. Thank you. That's all I needed from you." *********************************************** *********************************************** As I paced back and forth in my room, I kept shaking my head, not liking how things had turned out. I didn't mind getting in trouble, nor having to help out with maintenance stuff as my punishment. No, what bothered me was that I'd gone through the two most likely suspects for my weirdness and both were innocent. "I guess this means Doug did it?" I mused, not really feeling it. The psychic didn't seem to have the power or the motivation to do something like this. The only thing that even made him a suspect was that he always commented on how girly I was, and I happened to be becoming girlier. "He's going to be a tough nut to crack, too," I reminded myself. Unlike the others, who were mostly inept and easy to interrogate, Doug was a psychic and a naturally sneaky person. I probably wouldn't be able to read his thoughts without him noticing, and if he was the culprit, he'd probably expect such a tactic, since he knew I had psychic abilities. No alternatives presented themselves to me, though. I'd have to read his mind to have any kind of certainty. If he got mad about it, I could always owe him another favor to make up for it, although I was pretty sure I was going to regret that first favor. "I guess I should also start thinking about what I'm going to do if he isn't behind my changes either," I commented. "Maybe I missed something with the other two?" That didn't seem too likely, but maybe Cameron was more evil than I thought. After all, I'd just asked him for his devises, so he could have hid the one that did it to me. Plus, he was a devisor - they're just naturally evil. "Once I finish with Doug, I'll go check Cameron again." Nodding in satisfaction, I finally stopped pacing. Things weren't ideal - ideal would've been having caught the culprit already - but I had a plan to work with. I glanced down at my chest to the bumps which were a little larger than when I'd first found them. They weren't really visible through my shit, yet. I still had time to find out who was responsible and deal with them. Once I did, I could get back to normal, or maybe even better than normal if whatever they used on me could be configured to my liking. Either way, I was going to find them. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 09 - Day 13 "Anyway ... I'm sorry ... I guess ..." I muttered insincerely. "I appreciate the apology, but I'm partially to blame for pushing you so hard," Dr. Bellows replied. "Perhaps we should lay off such heavy topics today." I shrugged. "Alright. What are we talking about then?" "What do you want to talk about?" Dr. Bellows asked. I shrugged again. "Nothing really." "Hmm, well it would get dull to just sit here silently for an hour," Dr. Bellows commented. "Why don't you tell me about how school is going?" That prompted a third shrug. "Fine ... I guess. Some classes are fun, some aren't. Security is getting on my nerves. That's about it." "Why is security bothering you?" Dr. Bellows inquired. "They're just really slow, not like in response time, but in how long it takes them to resolve something," I explained. "I don't like wasting time, and they seem to love it." "I remember you were upset the day we met because I ran a few minutes over with the student before you," Dr. Bellows noted. "Have you always had trouble with things like that?" The question had me furrowing my brow in thought, trying to remember when I'd started having such issues. I would have thought it was related to when I'd gotten teleportation, but it went back further than that - further than I could remember. "I don't know ... I guess." Dr. Bellow started talking again, but I didn't hear what he had to say. My attention was focused on the sharp stab of pain that shot through my temples. Immediately, I activated my clairvoyance and teleportation in preparation to teleport back to my room. Luckily, the power that locked on was not one of the ones that required that. It was my psychic ability. "Is something wrong?" Dr. Bellows asked. "Power haywire," I answered, relaxing a little bit. My psychic ability just provided uncontrolled telepathy while activated which was easy enough to handle, although it got a bit loud in crowds. I looked up at Dr. Bellows expecting to hear his thoughts, but they didn't spring into my head like I'd expected. Instead, I felt a mild warmth, too mild to be my pyrokinesis, but enough to make me feel uncomfortable. "I guess since you're still here, it's not a bad one," Dr. Bellows postulated. "I don't know ..." I mumbled, rubbing at my head. The heat was making me feel really light-headed and dizzy. "It's never ... done this ... before." My answer elicited a look of concern from Dr. Bellows. "You don't look so good." Breathing heavily, I slumped forward in my seat. The haywire wasn't just making me hot and dizzy, it was also sucking energy like crazy. Haywires used a lot of energy in general, but I'd never felt so tired during one before. It didn't seem to be stopping either. Fighting through the strange experience, I tried to stay focused, so I could figure out what the hell was going on. Only my psychic ability was active at the moment, all the others having turned off at some point during the haywire. This clearly wasn't telepathy, what usually haywired, which meant it had to be one of the other two abilities in that slot - psychokinetic abilities or healing - but I didn't know which one. Vaguely, I noticed that Dr. Bellows had risen from his seat. He was talking, but I didn't have brain space to listen at the moment, not while I was trying to figure out what was going on. He was on the phone, anyway, not speaking to me. Concentrating was difficult, especially as my eyelids kept fluttering open and closed like I was on the edge of sleep. Dimly through it all, I could tell that my body felt weird, alive and squirmy. That seemed like my healing ability, but what could a healing ability possibly do during a haywire. I had no injuries to heal. Could it be damaging instead of healing somehow? The next thing I knew, I hit the floor with a loud thump, apparently having nodded off at some point there. Such a mild fall wasn't enough to really hurt or anything, but it did jolt me back to consciousness. It also apparently served as the herald of the haywire's end as I felt the power flip off and the heat rapidly dissipate. "Help is on its way," Dr. Bellows told me. "No need ... I think I'm alright now ..." I huffed, as I pushed myself up to my hands and knees. "Haywire's over and I'm not dead." "That's great, but it still couldn't hurt to get checked out," Dr. Bellows pointed out. Nodding, I pushed myself upright, rolling back to sit on my butt. "Sure ..." I sighed, rubbing at my head with one hand. As I sat there, I noticed Dr. Bellows looking at me. For the first time since I'd met him, he seemed to have lost some of his cool and was just staring at me with an expression on his face that looked a lot like shock. "What?" "I don't want to alarm you, but you didn't have ... breasts before your haywire did you?" Dr. Bellows inquired. It took me a couple of blinks before his question finally registered and I looked down. The front of my uniform's dress shirt was distended fairly obviously by a pair of mounds that were considerably larger than the barely existent swellings I'd had when I'd checked my chest that morning. At least, they still weren't large, somewhere around average size or maybe even a bit smaller than that. At least now, I knew what a haywire healing might do. Slouching wearily, I spat, "Ah, fuck." *********************************************** *********************************************** I could not have been more red as I stood there naked while Dr. Tenent examined me. Even before shit had started going wrong, being naked in front of anyone had been rather embarrassing, but it was far more so now. My body had swapped pre-pubescent boy for clearly-pubescent girl. My male genitalia, always small, was now gone, replaced by a gross looking ... thing that bore more resemblance to a wound than a proper urine exit. That wasn't the extent of my issues, either, as I now had a slight rounding to my hips and thighs as well as modest breasts to complete the effeminate picture. "This was the result of some kind of psychic healing ability going haywire?" Dr. Tenent asked. "Uh huh," I confirmed. "That power has never gone haywire before. Normally, it just sort of stimulates cell regeneration in the person it's being used on, much like temporarily giving someone a regeneration trait. Nothing like this." "Well, if your BIT has changed somehow, as it would seem it has, then this would be regenerative," Dr. Tenent noted. I frowned at the news. "BIT's aren't supposed to change, though, right?" "Right, it would be like someone changing their DNA," Dr. Tenent explained. "Harder even, since BITs will actually resist and attempt to reverse DNA changes that don't either remove the exemplar trait entirely or overwrite it with a completely different one. You haven't had any other power issues have you? Ease of bruising, weakness, or something like that?" I shook my head. "No nothing outside of this one haywire. I haven't really tested anything since it happened, though." "It would probably be a good idea to do a quick run through your abilities to make sure then," Dr. Tenent instructed. "Can I put my clothes on first?" I asked, really wanting to not be naked anymore. Dr. Tenent nodded. "Of course." Dressing quickly, I went through my abilities, by first copying and releasing Dr. Tenent's power, then activating all my stored powers. Nothing seemed amiss with any of them. They all responded when commanded, and functioned normally. It was a little harder to test my exemplar nature, but I didn't seem to be any weaker, slower, or less durable. "Everything seems fine," I announced once I'd tested as well as I could. "Curiouser and curiouser," Dr. Tenent mumbled. "At least you don't appear to be in any danger from the changes." The fact that the changes were slowly turning me into a girl certainly seemed dangerous to me. I couldn't help but think that turning might not have even been the right word either. I didn't have my ...thing anymore. Did that mean I was already a girl? I shuddered at the thought. Dr. Tenent peered at me for a moment before continuing. "Given that this is clearly more than gynecomastia, doesn't seem to be abating, and thanks to that haywire, is already fairly far along, it might be time to talk about what you are going to do going forward." "What do you mean?" I asked. "What I mean is that you seem to be well on your way to becoming female," Dr. Tenet proclaimed, confirming my earlier fears. "That's going to mean some changes for you. We'll help you through it." I narrowed my eyes to glare at her. "I don't need help with that. Just figure out how to fix it." "I'm not sure there is a way to fix this, Aaron, not that I won't keep trying to figure one out," Dr. Tenant told me. "It's not the end of the world or anything, though. You wouldn't be the first mutant to change genders. You're just going about it in a different way than most." "I don't care what other people have been through!" I growled. "Someone did this to me, and I'm going to find out who and make them change me back." Dr. Tenent's features gained a sympathetic cast to them. "Not everything is someone's fault. Sometimes, things just happen." *********************************************** *********************************************** All I could do was sigh as I sat on the roof on Hawthorne and looked out over the campus. The sun had set a while ago, so lights lit up the grounds in a way that might be considered pretty by some. It was hard to enjoy the view, though, when I was too focused on trying to not think about how I needed to pee. I didn't want anything to do with the thing that lay between my legs. I felt a faint presence in my mind right before I heard a man chuckle beside me. "Are you planning to just never pee again?" I rolled my eyes. "What do you want, Fubar?" "Just checking on you. You've been up here for hours," Mr. Geintz replied. "There some reason I can't sit up here?" I snapped sharply. "For you, not really, though, it is generally frowned on," Mr. Geintz informed me. "You will need to come back inside by curfew, though." Leaning forward a little, I clenched myself up tight as a shudder ran down my spine. "Good to know." "Which do you think is going to be more embarrassing, dealing with your changes or wetting yourself at your age?" Mr. Geintz remarked. "Bite me," I huffed, wishing there was some way I could make him leave me alone. I obviously didn't want company. That was the whole reason why I was on the roof, after all. One would think he'd take the hint. That just got another chuckle from Mr. Geintz. "Look on the bright side, at least you're not stuck in a giant tub for the rest of your life. I have to do it in my air. Isn't that gross?" The next shudder that ran through me was because of just how gross that sounded. "I get it, you've got it worse than me. You'll have to forgive me for not jumping for joy. Less bad is still bad." "Bad or less bad, staying out here isn't going to change things," Mr. Geintz responded. "It's not like you can hide from yourself." "I can sure try," I muttered, tired of people trying to get me to be okay with things. "Suit yourself. Just make sure you're back inside on time," Mr. Geitnz told me before his presence vanished. Once he was gone, I shuddered again, finding it very hard to even sit still anymore. "Fuck it. It's better than peeing my pants," I muttered. Activating my clairvoyance and teleportation, I teleported into a bathroom stall to relieve myself. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 10 - Day 14 The moment my alarm pulled me from sleep, I shoved myself out of bed, flipped on my power and teleported myself to stand in front of my dresser. Forgoing a shower, I stripped out of the clothes that I'd slept in before pulling on a clean outfit. I glanced in the mirror, hoping the baggy t-shirt was doing a good enough job of hiding my recent developments. I could see faint shadows of them under the fabric even when I hunched forward, but hopefully no one else would notice. Not wanting to let my paranoia have a chance to get to me, I activated my clairvoyance, pictured where I wanted to go, and vanished. The next moment, I appeared in the hall outside of Doug's room. Without even waiting, I raised my fist and banged it on the door good and loud. Undoubtedly, I'd disturbed more than just Doug's slumber with the noise, but I was not spending another day with these changes. It took several moments before the door finally opened to reveal a very sleepy looking Doug. "Aaron? You look different." "No, I don't," I denied immediately. "We need to talk, now." Without waiting for a reply, I grabbed Doug's shoulder and we both vanished, appearing outside in the gray of predawn. Doug lurched unsteadily at the sudden shift, but I held him tightly to prevent him from falling. Luckily, he didn't vomit either. While the contents of the boy's stomach stayed down, his mouth did spew out an angry growl of, "Damn it Aaron! Stop doing that!" "Sorry, but I'm not wasting time just so that you don't get a little motion sickness," I shot back. With some trepidation, I flipped on my psychic abilities to use my telepathy to read Doug's mind. "Hey! What are you doing?!" Doug shouted, clearly aware of my psychic intrusion. I shook the boy's shoulder roughly to shut him up. "I need to know if you did anything to me, and this is the only way to be sure." "Did something to you?" Doug questioned, his confusion mirrored in his thoughts. "What are you talking about?" Rather than answer, I just glared at Doug suspiciously, focused on his thoughts and searching for any sign of deception or foul play. Try as I might, there was no hint of complicity to be found, though. He didn't even seem aware of what I could possibly be so worried about. "It wasn't you," I sighed as I pulled out of the other boy's mind, part relieved and part frustrated. I was glad Doug wasn't the culprit, but that just limited the possibilities even more. "You going to tell me what the hell this was all about now?" Doug demanded. "I suppose I owe you that much after dragging you out here," I muttered. "Someone did something to me. I'm trying to figure out who so that I can get them to reverse it." "You're going to have to give me more than that," Doug told me. Wincing, I tried to decide what to do. I didn't have to give him anything, if I didn't want to. I could just teleport away. Still, maybe he could help. He had connections, was a telepath as well, and he'd been helpful so far. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell someone what was going on. "Fine," I finally huffed, crossing my arms. "Somebody did something to me that messed with my BIT somehow. I gotta find out who, so that I can get them to fix it." "You do look different! I knew it!" Doug exclaimed, peering at me to try to find what was different. "What'd they change about it? Is it something gross?" I gave a half-hearted shrug. "It's pretty gross to me." "Are you going to tell me what they changed?" Doug asked. "Or am I going to have to do what you did and go into your mind without permission." Immediately, my eyes narrowed threateningly. "Try it and you'll be unconscious before you can read a thought." "Then tell me!" Doug insisted. "Ugh fine!" I whined. "I'm sort of turning into ... a girl." Doug blinked in surprise. "You're kidding." I shook my head. "I wish." "I mean, with you, how would anyone even tell?" Doug joked. "Watch it!" I barked in warning. "I can still rip out your intestines and feed them to you." Doug raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry! That must be pretty rough. I certainly wouldn't want it happening to me." "Yeah, neither do I, which is why I need to find out who did it," I replied. "Problem is, it doesn't seem to be anyone that makes sense. I read Mal's mind and yours, so I'm pretty sure neither of you are behind it. I had Cameron's gadgets tested, but I still need to read his mind to make sure." Doug snorted. "If Cameron is your only suspect then you probably need to get some new ones. He's too much of a fuck up to be the mastermind behind something like this." "You never know with devisors," I told him. "I'm going to check him out again just to be sure. In fact, he's my next stop." "Well at least someone else is having their Saturday ruined," Doug remarked. "It's probably not him, though. I'll do some digging, see if I can't figure anything out for you." "If you tell anyone about what's happening to me, you'll wish it was your intestines I was feeding you," I threatened. Doug nodded. "Don't worry. I promise I'll be discrete." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Uhhhhh ... " Cameron droned at a loss for words. It was not difficult at all to see why the boy was struggling to form words at the moment, what with me having him shoved up against up against a tree so that I could glare into his eyes while I read his mind. No amount of looking or mind reading revealed any hint of foul play from the devisor, though. It was just so damned infuriating. "Damn it! You're not responsible either!" I yelled as I flipped my psychic abilities from telepathy to a PK shell and punched my free hand right past Cameron's head to crunch it into the tree. There was a resounding crack as it struck, but I didn't put enough force into the punch to actually damage the tree. Cameron stared wide-eyed at the arm that could easily have squashed his head like a grape if it had been aiming for it. "And I'm glad I'm not. Jesus." "This doesn't make any fucking sense!" I complained, ignoring Cameron as I spun away from him to pace furiously. "Someone has to be responsible for this. People don't just randomly change after four years of being exactly the same. It just doesn't work like that." "Is this still about that thing you thought my creations might be causing?" Cameron asked. Finally, some of the other boy's words penetrated my thoughts, leading me to stop my pacing to turn and look at Cameron. "Huh? Oh ... yes. I haven't found a culprit yet, so I thought maybe you were hiding a devise from me, but you weren't. Sorry if I scared you or anything. I'm a bit on edge right now." "It's okay. I'd be pretty upset too if I thought someone was messing with me," Cameron replied. "Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe I could create something that would fix what's wrong." "No!" I blurted immediately. "No random unknown devises - especially not yours Mr. fifty-fifty chance for it to go horribly wrong. You might turn me into a frog or inside out or some shit. No, I need to find the person who's actually behind this. They'll be able to undo it, and then I can throttle them for putting me through this nightmare." Cameron nodded slowly. "Uh huh ... and what's happening to you again. The other day you said it was some kind of hormonal imbalance. That didn't sound so bad." "It's pretty damn bad when it's turning me into a fucking girl!" I snapped, realizing too late what I'd just revealed to Cameron. When I finally did, my face flushed bright red in embarrassment. Thankfully no one else was around to be listening in on our conversation, because I'd probably have started on a murder rampage rather than let that information get out. "Wow ... " Cameron gasped with a stupefied look on his face. "That's uh .... I mean ... well ... you know ... it's ... uhm ..." "Oh, shut up!" I commanded harshly, not wanting to hear whatever asinine thing the devisor would probably say once he'd finished with his inane babbling. The directive served to get Cameron to close his yap and stop mumbling. Wanting to make sure it stayed shut, I leveled a threatening finger at him as I warned, "You'd better not tell anyone about this, either." Cameron immediately shook his head. "No ma'am, err sir, err I mean .. I won't tell anyone!" "Good because next time I won't miss your head," I promised darkly. "Now, let's get you back to your room and never ever speak of this again." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Someone has to be responsible," I muttered as I peered down on campus from atop Hawthorne. This time, it was during the day, so there were people milling about. There weren't all that many, but each person I saw became a new suspect for my paranoia. One of them had to have done this to me. "But which one?" Without some idea of who to suspect, I really didn't have any kind of plan to figure out who might be responsible. I could have just started running around peering into people's minds, but I got the feeling that the staff would stop such an activity. Besides, even in the midst of my frustration, I wouldn't stoop to abusing my ability like that. Reading Cameron and Doug's minds had already been pushing it. I'd been taught better than that. Other than that lunacy, though, nothing really came to me. I didn't know all that many people on campus, but maybe I could start seeking out anyone with a connection to me - the other kids on the bus perhaps or classmates or whatever. It would probably take a while to investigate so many people, but if that's what it took, so be it. I could check out my classmates in class on Monday, and maybe Doug knew some of the other people who were on the bus. "I already bugged him once today. He's probably not going to be in the mood to help out after that," I muttered. "Besides, I don't really want him to see me like this." At the moment, the idea of being seen at all bothered me, but Doug seeing me especially so. He was one of the only people that knew what was happening to me. That made it all the more embarrassing as he snuck looks at me to try to see how much I'd changed. "Shit!" I cursed as I felt a sharp stab of pain shoot through my temples. Immediately, I flipped on some powers and teleported to the center of my room, right before fire engulfed me. Even as the burning agony shot through me, I couldn't help but be relieved. Haywires were a pretty big part of my life, so I was used to them, and at least it wasn't a repeat of the healing one. I doubted I could have handled changing more than I already had. Meanwhile, the fire swirled about me, lapping harmlessly off the ceramic tile while searing pain burned through my veins. It burned away the thoughts of relief as well, replacing them with nothing but a timeless agony. Agony or not, all I had to do was endure and eventually it would end. That knowledge was, as always, little comfort as the pain dragged on and on. Finally, the flames cut out, replaced by a powerful wave of exhaustion that had me crumpling limply to the ground. "Are these getting longer?" I complained as I lay there trying to recuperate from the ordeal. "If they've gotta be such a pain they could at least get it over quickly." Naturally, there was no answer to my grouching, so I just continued to lie there for a while, staring up at the ceiling of my room. My thoughts were equal parts worry and loopy, swapping between the various suspects I had to pursue and the changes I was suffering through, to weird dream-like thoughts that vanished if I focused on them too hard. "Guess I'm sleeping this day away," I finally said, rolling over so that I could force myself back to my feet. A short stagger later and I was face down on my bed, ready for a much needed nap. It didn't take long to arrive. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 11 - Day 16 "None of us found anything?! Damn it!" I cursed, furious at the lack of progress. "Sorry, Aaron. People seemed really neutral on you, other than some minor good favor for what you did on the bus," Doug explained. "A couple people noted that you're funny in class sometimes, and that's about it. The most common reaction I got was surprise when I used male pronouns." I glared at Doug for that remark about my androgyny - not that I really was androgynous anymore. I hadn't changed too much in the few days since the healing haywire, but it had done plenty to remove what little masculinity I'd had. Now the rate of people who assumed I was a girl was probably at a hundred percent. "I couldn't find anything either," Cameron told me. "Some of the other devisors have stuff that could change you, but none of it's missing, so you couldn't have been exposed to any of it." Tired, cranky, and frustrated, I rubbed at my temples, trying my best to not just snap at these two. They were trying to help, even if they were useless, idiotic, bas- ... It wasn't their fault that they hadn't found anything. Clearly whatever was behind this was much more elusive than I'd originally anticipated. I wouldn't let that stop me from finding it. "I'm going to need to come up with some new angle to investigate. Any thoughts, you two?" I asked. Both of the boys just shrugged a little, causing anger to flare inside me again. Of course they didn't have any ideas. Cameron was useless, and Doug had been giving me weird looks since we'd sat down to talk. After all, he'd thought I was cute enough to hit on when I was a guy, so he was probably thrilled that I was going to have all the right parts. Like I'd want to be with him whichever gender I was. "Maybe it's not someone actually trying to do this at all," Cameron proposed. "What if it's a reaction to something here at school? There's lots of crazy tech on campus. Maybe some of it is putting our radiation or something that doesn't have any adverse effects on the rest of us but impacts you?" I shook my head. "They tested me for all sorts of things like that, looking for environmental causes." "Maybe it's not anything's fault," Doug postulated. "One of the girls at my brother's school manifested a year back, came back for her senior year looking like she was a female bodybuilder. Stuff like that isn't that uncommon." "I manifested years ago, though, and I've looked the same since. It doesn't make sense for me to just change now," I countered. "I'm telling you guys, someone is behind this." "We'll keep looking then," Doug conceded. "Maybe we'll get lucky." I managed a slight smile. "Thanks. I'm going to do a little snooping around. I'll find you guys after classes are done." "Good luck," Cameron offered. Finished talking, I activated my powers and teleported back to my room. With no one to bother me, it was the perfect place for me to sit while I used my clairvoyance to look around. It would be a much more thorough scan than I did while familiarizing myself with campus, too. I wouldn't any- "Ah, you're back. Dr. Tenent left a message saying that she wanted to see you," Mr. Geintz's voice said inside my head. "What about?" I questioned, having little faith that Dr. Tenent had anything useful to say to me. "Something about a test she wanted to try," Mr. Geintz replied. "She couldn't give me any details." I was already teleporting to the medical center before his second sentence. *********************************************** *********************************************** "You didn't have any stored psychic abilities active, correct?" Dr. Tenent asked, after the test was over and she'd had time to talk to the person that had given it to me. I shook my head. "Of course not. You told me to turn all my powers off, not that I'd have them on for a medical test without being told to anyway. Why?" "Because the test was more of a power-related one than a medical one, specifically to test psychic activity, and you were very active," Dr. Tenent explained. Frowning, I shook my head again. "That's not possible. I don't have any psychic abilities of my own." "Not according to the test," Dr. Tenent countered. "The person administering said that you seemed to be psychically linked with someone. The link might well be the cause of your changes." "Linked with ... ?" I started to question before trailing off. Anger quickly replaced confusion. "Doug." "Aaron cal-" Dr. Tenent started to say, but I was already gone. A puff of smoke announced my arrival next to Doug who was just walking out of the cafeteria to go to his class. "Hello, Doug," I greeted before resting my hand on his shoulder. The next instant, the psychic and I were in my room in Hawthorne, forcing Doug to lurch to a halt mid stride lest he walk right into my door. He might as well have just done it, though, as I used my hand on his shoulder to spin him around and slam him forcefully into the barrier. "What did you fucking d- " I started to yell when a stab of pain shot through my temples. I staggered back from Doug, expecting a power to lock on and haywire. I even shifted my vision to an open area outside in case it was something dangerous that would require me to teleport away. None of my powers locked on, though. "What the hell's going on, Aaron?!" Doug demanded. Shaking my head, I tried to clear the painful headache, but it wouldn't leave. "What did you do me?!" I answered his question with one of my own, clutching a hand to my head. "Do to you?! Nothing! You just fucking grabbed me out of nowhere, slammed me against a wall, then backed away like someone had hit you in the head with something hard," Doug told me. Clenching my teeth against the pain, I forced myself upright so that I could glare at Doug. "Dr. Tenent just ran a test on me that says I'm psychically linked to someone - a link that's turning me into a girl." "And you think I'm the one you're linked to?" Doug questioned. "You tell me," I hissed. "I just slammed you into a door, and then all of a sudden, I've got a headache so bad I can barely see. I doubt that's a fucking coincidence." Doug held up his hands, attempting to appear non-threatening. Of course, for a psychic, it wasn't like his hands were his weapons. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Aaron. Read my mind if you want." "Ha!" I scoffed. "Clearly you have some trick that hides what you're really thinking otherwise I would have caught you sooner. I should have suspected something like that." "Jesus, you're nuts!" Doug insulted. "Why the fuck would I want to turn you into a girl?" "You tried to hit on me when we first met!" I pointed out. "That doesn't mean I'd want to turn you into a girl!" Doug countered. "You weren't that cute, even when I didn't know you were actually a dude. There are lots of girls, real girls, that are way hotter - especially at this school." That remark penetrated my anger enough to get me to frown. He did have a point that there were plenty of exemplar beauties parading around if he wanted them. "You wanted my power too." "Yeah, but it would be a lot easier for me to get you to use it by becoming your friend than it would be if I pissed you off by turning you into a girl," Doug argued. "But then why am I linked to you?" I inquired. "Are you sure it's to me?" Doug asked. "Earlier you just said 'someone'." Scowling in thought, I pondered that question. My headache, which had started when I'd shoved the other boy, was starting to abate. Other than my own suspicions, that headache was the only clue I had that it was Doug I was linked to. "I'm not certain ... but you're the only psychic I know and I still don't think that headache was a coincidence." "Well, can we at least get them to run some sort of test before you try to rip my guts out and stomp on them?" Doug suggested. "Alright," I muttered, reluctant and suspicious. "But no tricks." *********************************************** *********************************************** Wringing my hands nervously, I tried not to think about what was wrong with me. Surely Doug was the one that I was linked to, and with that clear, the doctors would figure out how to fix things. Everything was going to be fine. My assumption that Doug was my psychic buddy was far from unfounded. Dr. Tenent had had us tested. What had followed was a string of people, psychic experts, doctors, and some people I wasn't sure what they did, all there to see the results and talk in hushed tones. After what had seemed like an eternity the stream of people had finally stopped running. Meanwhile, the adults had dropped Doug and I in a waiting room so they could discuss what the tests had uncovered. Thinking about the psychic drew my attention toward him. The handsome, blonde boy leaned back casually in his chair, tilting his head from side to side in boredom. It was infuriating that he could be so calm at a time like this, but it was no surprise. He wasn't the one turning into a girl, after all. Maybe he wouldn't be so casual if I turned him into a pile of ash. One of Doug's head tilts brought his gaze into line with mine. "Something on my face?" Realizing that I'd not only been staring but been caught doing it, I jerked my gaze away immediately. "Just a whole lot of stupid." Doug chuckled at that. "Really? None of the other girls ever complained." The use of the word other replaced my embarrassment with rage. "I'm not a girl, damn it!" "Really? Cause that shirt doesn't do as good a job of hiding your boobs as you think," Doug teased. Turning back to the boy, I narrowed my eyes threateningly. "You think you'll still be making cracks like that when I break your jaw?" Doug rolled his eyes. "Can you just relax like a tiny bit? You made fun of me first, remember?" I sighed heavily. He was right. I'd let far worse comments than that slide in the past. "Sorry. Just wound a little tight right now." "That's no surprise, but that's no excuse to be trying to bite my head off. I'm rather attached to my head," Doug replied. "Hey you two, Dr. Tenent is ready for you in her office," a nurse cut into the conversation. Eager to hear what the doctor had to say, and not really interested in talking to Doug anyway, I hopped from my seat and hurried over to the nurse. The psychic was significantly slower, annoyingly holding us up for a few seconds. Eventually, though, the nurse led us back to Dr. Tenenat's office where the doctor was waiting for us. "Hi. Have a seat," Dr. Tenent greeted, waiting for the two of us to sit before she continued. "Well let's start with what we know, Doug is indeed the person you are linked to." I tossed the other boy a smug look at the news confirming my suspicions. He seemed far more nonchalant about it, though, just nodding slightly. Seeing that made following through on that jaw breaking threat seem awfully tempting. "And that is basically all we know for sure," Dr. Tenent continued. "We have no idea what the link is for or what kind of information it is sharing. It's very active, though, and it seems likely that it's also responsible for your BIT changes. Best guess is that your BIT was always intended to be overwritten, hence the androgynous features and gray hair and eyes. They were likely just placeholders." "So we just cut the link and I'll go back to the way I was?" I asked hopefully. The fact that Dr. Tenent paused for a moment was all the answer I really needed, but she elaborated anyway, "We have no idea what severing the link might do. Forcibly removing psychic presences can cause some serious mental strain, and whatever this is seems to be embedded pretty deep. It might cause some sort of mental breakdown if cut. Also, there's no guarantee it would even fix anything. It seems more likely that you'd stay as you are now, if the link was broken, than it does that you'd reset to your old state." "But there's a chance it could work," I insisted, my hope turning to desperation. Dr. Tenent nodded reluctantly. "Yes, it's possible, just unlikely. Attempting would endanger both your lives, though." "I don't care about that," I told her. "Break it anyway." Finally concerned about something that was said, Doug jerked upright in his seat. "Hey! I care!" "Who cares about you?! You're the one who did this to me!" I snapped. "Calm down," Dr. Tenent instructed firmly. "We're not really sure how to handle this situation. However, given the fact that your BIT seems ready made for change, it's likely this link originates with you, Aaron, and is your optimal state. There was some talk that the lack of this bond was the impetus behind your haywires." "But I'm still having haywires as frequently as before," I argued. "Yes, but given that you don't seem to be finished changing, it's likely that the link isn't complete," Dr. Tenent explained. "All the more reason to break it now!" I exclaimed. Leaning back in his seat, Doug rubbed at his temples. "Jesus, man, do you really want to risk both our lives just so that you don't have to be a gender that two thirds of the people you meet already think you are?" "That's easy for you to say, you selfish little prick," I growled. "Doug could you excuse us for a moment. I would like to speak with Aaron alone," Dr. Tenent cut in. With a nod, Doug rose from his chair and turned to go. "Sure thing." Once the other boy was gone, Dr. Tenent turned her attention to me. "Aaron, I can't imagine you were all that happy with how you were before this started. You were pretty much non-functional as a male. You had no secondary sex characteristics, an appearance that was more female than male, and no ability to procreate or engage in intercourse. Physically you were basically a child, and would have been for the rest of your life without something like this coming along. This could be a real improvement in your life, so I have to ask, are you upset because being a girl is that appalling to you or because you've spent years putting up with people mistaking you for a girl and you don't want them to be right?" I very nearly reacted in anger, but it was a serious question, so I paused to give it serious thought. For years, I had fought against people's misconceptions, so it was possible that that was affecting my thinking. There was also the fact that the doctor was right about my not being happy with my appearance, anyway - always feeling like a kid compared to the other boys. This could fix that problem, give me a chance to be as grown up as everyone else, just as a girl instead. That last part seemed like a big deal, though. "I don't know," I finally mumbled noncommittally. "I think it would be best for you to have an answer to that before we attempt anything that endangers your life," Dr. Tenent told me. "Don't you?" With a glum nod, I mumbled, "Alright." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 12 - Day 17 "That's certainly quite the wrinkle," Dr. Bellows commented as I finished explaining my current medical situation to him. "Yeah ..." I mumbled, thinking that it was definitely more than a wrinkle. It was a catastrophe that I had no idea how to fix. "Do you have any plans for how you're going to handle it?" Dr. Bellows asked. I shrugged. "Dr. Tenent believes I should give it a try to see how bad it really is rather than trying to insist on taking what some might consider extreme risks to fix it. There are some upsides, but I don't know ... being a girl ... sounds kinda gross." "Well, why don't you go through the upsides first," Dr. Bellows suggested. The suggestion brought a frown to my face. I didn't really want to talk about any of this stuff, but that was sort of the point of these sessions, getting me to talk about stuff that I didn't want to talk about. Besides, I could use another perspective, because, right now, this was feeling like too much for me to handle on my own. "Well ... " I finally began. "There was a lot wrong with the way I was that prevented me from experiencing some things, and the doctor thinks that stuff will probably be solved given my changes so far. People always used to mistake me for a girl anyway, so now I'd just be meeting that expectation rather than constantly having to resist it." Dr. Bellows nodded. "And the cons?" "Having people treat me like a girl, having to act like a girl, having to deal with a girl body, y'know basically just being a girl," I explained. "You said people already treated you like a girl anyway," Dr. Bellows pointed out. I tilted my head from side to side. "Until they learned the truth, maybe, but they usually get it right after that. For the most part everyone I interact with at school knows I'm a boy now, so it would be a big change." "Certainly other people will treat you differently but it might not be as significant as you think," Dr. Bellows responded. "As for the next thing, what do you think girls 'act like'?" "Y'know ... all prissy and talking about boys and liking shopping and stuff," I told him. "And you don't like that stuff?" Dr. Bellows furthered. Scrunching my face up in disgust, I shook my head emphatically. "Hell no!" "What do you like then?" Dr. Bellows inquired. I shrugged. "I don't know, boy stuff, video games, martial arts, action movies, that kind of thing." "I know girls that like all of those things," Dr. Bellows noted. "I also know girls that hate the things you mentioned before." "Sure, but people would think I was weird," I explained. It was Dr. Bellows turn to shrug. "That's certainly a possibility, but does what people think actually matter to you? People thought you were a girl before and you had no problem correcting them on the matter." "I guess ..." I conceded. "What about the last one, 'having to deal with a girl's body'? From what you've told me, you basically have that now, right?" Dr. Bellows asked, getting a nod from me. "How does it feel?" I shuddered. "Awful. I have to worry about people noticing my boobs, and have to be super careful that no one sees me in the shower and -" "That's not what I meant, Aaron. Those things all stem from you hiding it," Dr. Bellows cut in. "I want you to tell me how it feels just having the body. Pretend that everyone already knows and has accepted you as a girl. Does your body bother you." Looking down at myself, I tried to think about the situation the psychiatrist had just proposed. For the most part, I'd only worried about hiding and avoiding my changes, so I hadn't really thought about them much. I had pretty much the same build I'd had before other than slightly wider hips and having breasts. The former wasn't that big of a deal, but the latter were kind of weird. However, despite their oddity, unless I was doing something really active like fighting, I often forgot I even had them. The new equipment wasn't quite as convenient as the old stuff, but other than looking a little gross and weird it wasn't so bad. "Kinda?" I responded uncertainly. "Care to elaborate on that a little?" Dr. Bellows suggested. I shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I don't like it. Some of it is weird, but it's not really bothersome or anything. It's just mildly more annoying than the way I used to be." "More annoying?" Dr. Bellows questioned. I nodded. "Yeah. Like ... having breasts, other than the fact they jiggle a little, is fine I guess. I'd rather not have them, but I can live with them. The new ... uhm ... stuff ... " I paused to blush. " ... down there is just, y'know, not as convenient and a little funny looking, otherwise it's not, like, horrible. That's really all that's changed." Dr. Bellows smirked slightly. "Doesn't sound like it really bothers you all that much." "Well, it still sucks!" I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. "Of course," Dr. Bellows agreed. "However, for the moment you are letting this progress, correct?" I nodded in affirmation. "Yeah ... I guess." "Alright, then at least for the time being, you are a girl," Dr. Bellows stated. Hearing that sentence was more shocking to me than it probably should have been. The psychiatrist was right, though. I had girl parts and I wasn't actively doing anything to get rid of them. The knowledge that I was actually a girl now, and possibly would be for the rest of my life, was not pleasant. "It might be a good idea to start making the adjustments that come with that," Dr. Bellows continued uninterrupted. "Nothing too drastic, of course. It would probably make sense to stop using the mens' facilities, you might want to familiarize yourself with female clothing, and hopefully, Dr. Tenent explained the biological differences to you." "Huh?" I muttered, only sort of hearing what he was saying. "You want me to shower with the girls and dress like them too?" Dr. Bellows nodded. "Having to hide seems to really bother you, so I think you might benefit from eliminating things that require you to do that. The girls uniform is basically just a skirt instead of pants, although you'll probably want appropriate undergarments as well, and we certainly wouldn't want you to have to shower with a bunch of boys like you are now." I blinked a few times. "But I can't shower with the girls, and I don't know anything about their clothes!" "You'll fit in better with the girls than the boys, and perhaps one of them would be willing to help you out with the clothing stuff," Dr. Bellows noted. "You could also ask the attendants at the store for help." Slumping forward, I covered my face with my hands. "This is even worse than I thought." *********************************************** *********************************************** "I can't believe I'm actually doing this," I muttered under my breath as I teleported just inside the campus store. Cheeks burning with embarrassment and shoulders hunched forward, I made my way toward the clothing section. As I walked, I noticed that several students worked at the store, making things even more embarrassing for me. I made sure to steer away from them, hoping they wouldn't notice me while I looked for an adult who could help with this task. They would be a lot less likely to make fun of me. My search culminated in my finding a woman who was part of the staff. "Uhm ... excuse me ..." I mumbled nervously as I approached the woman. "Oh hi, what can I do for you, miss?" the woman greeted cheerily. With some effort, I managed to look the woman in the eye while I spoke. "Well it's just ... I need a ... " I winced, "... a bra ... and I've never worn one before." The woman's gaze dropped appraisingly to my chest before she nodded. "You're right you do need one, and I'd be glad to help you pick some out and explain things along the way. First we'll need to figure out your size." "Uhm ... thanks," I replied. The woman gestured for me to follow her, so I fell into step as she led me to a dressing room. From seemingly nowhere she procured a measuring tape and turned to me. "Now, take off your top, so I can measure you." Hands shaking nervously, I worked to unbutton my shirt and peel it off. By the time I was finally out of it, my face was beat red, and the embarrassment had only just started. The woman came around me behind me, and carefully posed me to remove my terrible posture, before she slipped the tape around my chest and rattled off a few numbers. I had no idea what the numbers meant, but apparently the woman did as she had me wait there while she vanished. I didn't have to wait long. "Alright, so I have a few different styles and sizes for you to try so we can see which ones fit best," the woman announced as she returned. My jaw went slack as I saw the bras that the woman had brought with her. They were all pretty small looking, not a surprise given my modest bust, but they were a wide array of very girly pastel colors, and some even had bows or effeminate patterns on them. It was enough to make me shudder. "Now then, they can be a little difficult to get on, so I can hook them for you if you'd like," the woman offered as she handed me the first one to try. Looking at the garment like the woman was offering me like a slimy rotting fish, I reached out gingerly and grabbed it. I knew my arms went through the straps, so I did that, situating the cups over my breasts. There were these little hooks on the back that seemed to be designed to latch into the holes on the other side so I reached back and fiddled with them for a bit before they finally hooked. Once hooked, the garment was uncomfortably tight and awkward. I didn't approve. I also didn't approve of my reflection in the dressing room mirror, which looked far too much like a cute fifteen year old girl - even if that was what I was. "Well that's a start, but you can't just snap the hooks and call it quits," the woman told me. I went perfectly stiff when the woman's hands touched me. She quickly adjusted the straps and the band of the bra, before reaching around front to grab my boobs and fit them properly into the cups. It made the thing a lot less uncomfortable, but I was too frozen in shock and embarrassment to really notice that. "Hmm ... not bad," the woman mumbled, while I stood there rigidly. "Take that one off and try this one." Numbly, I reached around behind my back and, after a brief struggle, unhooked the bra. Sliding it off, I exchanged it for the next one the woman handed me and put that one on. From there, she repeated the process of adjusting it for me, giving me tips as she did. The whole affair was done several times before we ran out of bras to try on. "Well bad news is you're in between sizes, so it's going to be hard to find stuff that fits well, but you're young so buying them a little loose so you have room to grow is probably best," the woman explained once the nightmare of a fitting was over. After fiddling with the various bras I'd tried on, she handed a few of them to me. "These are the ones that seemed to fit you the best." "Okay," I answered hollowly. "There are some other colors out on the shelves, so pick out the ones you like and maybe some underwear that matches if you don't already have some," the woman suggested. "And let me know if you need any more help." I nodded slowly. "Uhm ... thank you ..." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 13 - Day 18 All I could manage was a heavy sigh as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. "I can't believe I'm gonna go out like this." After deciding to skip out on a shower that morning rather than brave the girls' facilities, I'd dressed in my new clothes from my shopping trip the day before. It included a cute white bra and panties with little pink bows on them, which were thankfully covered. The clothes covering those garments were somewhat better at least. I was used to my shirts being baggy and ill-fitting, but the blouse I wore was not either of those things. It fit my slim frame quite well, doing a poor job of disguising my girlish figure. Unwilling to try a skirt, I'd forgone one for pants even though that wasn't the norm for girls in warm months, so at least the bottom half wasn't bugging me. Part of me wanted to just switch back to my old baggy clothes, but I resisted that urge. It wasn't because I particularly wanted to wear this stuff, but giving into that desire would be cowardly, and I refused to lose to fear. I'd deal with this no matter how embarrassed I was about it. Forcing myself to look at my reflection, I took a long deep breath. "I can do this. It doesn't matter if I'm Aaron with an A or an E. If people have a problem with it, I'll just make them keep their damned mouths shut." I punched my fist into the palm of my hand for emphasis. "Still the same old me." Flipping on my powers, I teleported to my desk in my first class and immediately plopped into my chair. By this point, people in the class were used to me just popping in, so nobody really paid much attention for the first few moments I was there. However, eyes started to slowly drift my way, and a few whispers started to be swapped around as the teacher started class. I endured the attention, doing my best to appear as nonchalant and relaxed as I always did - no change in posture, no blush, nothing. Altogether, the attention didn't last very long before people started turning their focus to either the teacher or whatever their friends were talking about. I didn't know whether I should be happy with the fleeting nature of the attention or not, but I'd sort of expected it. After all, most people just knew me as Aaron, a name that, when spoken, could be a boy's or a girl's and so they'd just made up their own minds about what gender my androgynous appearance indicated. Only kids in Hawthorne, which tended to be outcasts, and the few people I'd gotten to know since coming to school knew for sure what my gender was. Now, that they could clearly see I was a girl, thanks to my blouse not hiding my breasts, the ones who had thought I was a boy were just mildly surprised before correcting what was to them just a mental mistake. "It's better than them thinking I'm some kind of perverted freak, I suppose," I whispered under my breath. It would certainly mean that I'd have fewer people to beat up. That would mean getting in less trouble, but it also meant not having people to take my frustration out on. I decided to call it a wash and turn my attention to the class. *********************************************** *********************************************** "So you're psychically linked to Doug and that's why you're changing? Fascinating ..." Cameron summarized what I'd just spent half of lunch explaining to him. "I mean ... it would be if it weren't happening against your will," he quickly added when he saw my scowl. "Do they have any idea what you'll end up looking like?" I shook my head. "Nope. They seem to be pretty mystified by the whole thing honestly. I can't even get a decent time frame for the changes 'cause of a haywire jumping things forward." "I actually have an idea about that," Doug spoke up. "I mean ... you're BIT is changing because you're linked to my mind right? What if you're turning into my dream girl?" The very thought that I might be anyone's dream girl sent a shudder down my spine. "I don't know. You got a thing for tall, scrawny, gray- haired girls that can kick your butt?" I joked, trying to not let anyone see how this topic bothered me. Doug laughed. "Actually, tall and ass-kicking is definitely my type. Not sure how I feel about the gray hair, though. It's a little dull. It should be longer and lighter. You'd definitely need to be curvier too - especially ... " He cupped the air in front of his chest lewdly, "... up top." I snorted derisively. "Keep dreaming, asshole. I've already got more 'up top' than I want." "Well at least nobody actually did this to you," Cameron commented. "That has to be a relief." "I guess," I muttered, shrugging. "If someone had done it, I could have kicked their butt and fixed it. Now, the school doesn't want to risk our lives trying to undo it, so I'm stuck dealing with, and I don't have anyone that I can punch for it." "Well you can always punch me, but that might kill us both," Doug remarked. I tossed a glare Doug's way. "Don't tempt me. After the nightmare that was bra shopping I'm pretty ready to die." "Is the girl stuff really awful?" Cameron inquired. I shrugged. "It was kind of embarrassing, but whatever. I'm not going to let wearing a bra get to me. It'll take a little getting used to, but at the end of the day, it's just a piece of clothing." "Man, I can't believe you're so cool about this. If I'd just found out a couple days ago that I was stuck as a girl, I'd be flipping out," Cameron replied. "Gotta learn to roll with the punches, Cam," I told him. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to let being a girl change me or anything. Still the same person. Just got a few different bits than before." "What if you start liking boys, though?" Doug questioned. The topic of liking boys, or even anything, got a pensive look from me. "Hmm ... I don't know. I never liked girls or boys before. All that kissing and stuff was just kind of icky." "Wait, you really didn't like either?" Doug asked. "Right," I told him. "Just one of those things that was weird about me. I mean, I can tell when someone's good-looking, but they're good-looking like a sunset or a sports car or something, not in a 'I want to suck on their face' kind of way." "Wow ... you're missing out," Doug responded. I shrugged. "Well hopefully this whole new BIT thing will fix that for me, so I can finally figure out what everyone else finds so fascinating." *********************************************** *********************************************** Hands up before me in loose fists, I took several long deep breaths, feeling the way my body moved. After letting out the last of those breaths, I burst into motion unleashing a flurry of punches on the air. A trio of jabs was followed by a quick right hook that had me spinning around for a back fist. Immediately after that, I fell back, pretending to block a few attacks before finally ducking an imaginary blow. Out of the duck I rushed forward again, right hand leading with a gut punch before twisting suddenly, kicking out a foot as I did, for a reverse roundhouse kick. The series over, I rolled my shoulders a little, and returned to taking deep breaths. I'd been at the practice for a while now, testing out one of my other purchases from the day before - a sports bra. The garment wasn't comfortable, but it was amazing at eliminating the annoying jiggle that was a byproduct of my new breasts. With it on, it felt just like I was a boy again while I fought. "Where'd you learn to do all that? My martial arts instructor has barely shown us anything so far," Doug's voice cut into my introspection. Having thought I'd found a pretty secluded spot out behind one of the campus buildings, the sound of a voice caused me to start in surprise. Immediately after, I spun to face the blonde boy, in a way that was clearly threatening given the way that he lurched back a bit at it. "What are you doing here, Doug?" "I'm taking in the show," Doug joked, "but, I guess originally, I came here looking for you." "And how did you know that I'd be here of all places," I asked, wiping a bit of sweat from my forehead. "It's not exactly a place you just walk by." Doug frowned slightly at the question. "This is going to sound weird, but I just sort of had a feeling that something was this way, so I walked over here, and I found you. I think it might have something to do with that whole link thing." "Well great, now you'll be able to find me for whenever you want to cash in that favor," I told him. "Don't abuse it, though. I like my privacy and I don't want you constantly poking your nose around me." Doug chuckled. "Don't worry, trying to chase down a warper that doesn't want to be caught is not on my list of fun activities. It's just a hell of a lot easier to wait for you to come to me." "Yeah well with the whole 'what's happening to me' thing sorted out, there's not a lot of reason left for me to do that," I muttered. "Really?" Doug asked, surprised. "I kind of thought that you, Cameron, and I were getting along pretty well. It's not the most prestigious circle of friends, I'll admit, but it's not the worst." "I don't want friends, especially not a damned devisor and the guy who's the reason I'm turning into a girl," I countered. "I only put up with either of you because I thought you might either be behind it or be able to find out who was." Doug sucked air through his teeth. "Harsh. It does make me wonder why you hung out with us today at lunch, though. You even explained what was going on to Cameron." I shrugged. "You guys were helping with the investigation. You deserved to know how it ended up getting resolved." "Why are you so dead set on not having any friends?" Doug asked. "I can't even imagine living like that. I like having tons of friends." "Yeah, but to you 'friend' is synonymous with 'tool'," I joked, before turning away solemnly. "As for why I don't want them ... well ... " I sighed. "I've lost everyone that I was ever close with - two whole families. I'm not eager to lose any more." Doug's eyes widened in surprise. "You've lost - two - whole families?" I nodded. "Yep. Well ... it depends on how you count. It could be two or three. I don't really remember my birth family, but they were slaughtered when I was kidnapped at the age of ten. The three older kids who served as my brothers and sister for the time I was in that man's clutches were killed by my kidnapper. Then, my adoptive parents, the people who rescued me, were killed while doing their duty as heroes. That's how I ended up here." By the time I finished, Doug was just staring at me with slack-jawed disbelief. "Damn. That's ..." "I know," I cut in before he could start with the sympathies. "Anyway, now you know why I don't want any friends." Doug shook his head. "Not really. Going through something like that would be hard enough, but doing it without any support ... I can't even imagine." I shrugged. "Well then it's a good thing it happened to me and not you. Now, if you'll excuse me ... " I didn't finish the thought or wait for Doug to reply. I just flipped on my powers and teleported back to my room. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 14 - Day 21 "What a shitty week," I muttered as I sat on my bed propped up against the wall, tugging on a rather snug bra which was currently pinching my boobs. It had been a common complaint of mine as I'd trudged through my first week as a girl. After my talk with Doug about my family, I hadn't spoken to him or Cameron again, instead returning to my old habit of rushing through lunch before teleporting back to my room. After all, there really wasn't anything for the three of us to talk about anymore. The mystery was solved, so I had no need for their help, and neither had any particular need of me. I'd checked on them a few times during the week with my clairvoyance and they'd always seemed to be perfectly fine. Things were just better this way. Now, Saturday had come around, and I was just sitting in my room with nothing to do while the time slowly ticked away. I'd already practiced fighting for the day, and all my homework was done. I could've played around on my computer, but I just wasn't in the mood, and there was no way I was going to go out and socialize. Flipping on my clairvoyance, I started drifting my vision around campus to see what all the other students were up to during their time off from classes. Unlike me, most people had taken the opportunity to have some fun, so there were all sorts of activities going on around the school. Notably, there was what appeared to be quite the little get together that had Doug, the social butterfly, flitting about at the center of it. "He would throw a dance party," I mumbled in disdain even as I watched the event. I couldn't hear the music, but I could see several people bouncing around to what seemed to be a beat. What was the most surprising thing about the whole affair, though, was when I spotted Cameron hanging around at the edge of the party. The nerd was leaned up against a tree, clutching his drink like he was a man in fear of death as he tried to not stare at the pretty girls. I couldn't help but laugh at the embarrassed look on his face. "I guess Doug brought him along." Leaving Cameron, I turned my vision back to Doug, wondering what he had planned for the devisor. Mad science could certainly be useful, if one was willing to put up with the mad scientist and the risk of malfunction. If the psychic didn't have something in mind already, he probably would soon enough. For a while I just watched the party, seeing all the people smiling and laughing. I kept tabs on Doug and Cameron a lot too, watching the former work his way smoothly through the crowd and the latter trying to hide in the middle of a party. Occasionally, I even read lips, partly for practice and partly to figure out what people were talking about. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The good times lasted a while, but not forever. I couldn't hear the noise that caused everyone to turn, but I filled in the gap with a record scratch mentally when it happened. A quick switch of perspective showed exactly what the problem was, a big, older guy with a wet spot on his shirt glaring intimidatingly down at Cameron who had an upturned plastic cup in his hand. "That's not good," I commented as I watched the scene unfold. The guy was yelling, furious about his ruined shirt and throwing all sorts of insults Cameron's way. It was too hard to read the devisor's lips with him seeming to be mumbling under his breath, and not even forming complete words. I'd seen the boy try to apologize enough times to have a pretty good idea of what it sounded like anyway. For the second time since I'd started observing the party, I was surprised as Doug slipped himself between the big guy and Cameron. He was trying to be smooth, to defuse the situation and get everyone back to the party. The big guy didn't want to be placated, though, demanding that the devisor be taught a lesson about bumping into people. Given that I hadn't seen Cameron move from his spot all party, and he was still by that same tree, I was pretty sure it was the big guy that had bumped into someone, but those kind of people always seemed to think it was someone else's fault. Meanwhile, Doug kept trying his best, but it wasn't working. The big guy just got angrier and angrier, his gestures growing more grandiose and frenzied by the moment. I'd been in enough fights to know what that meant. In preparation, I flipped on my warper ability, stood up, and waited. Focused on the big guy, I missed what Doug said to finally send him over the edge. It really didn't matter, though. I saw the guy lose it and start winding up for a punch that undoubtedly would have flattened the psychic. The next instant, I appeared at the party, standing next to Doug. A quick tug yanked him back behind me as I stepped into his place. Some power juggling turned my clairvoyance off while simultaneously wreathing me in a PK shell and sending a surge of energy rushing through me. Just as I got all of that finished, the big guys' fist came crashing in to crack loudly against my outstretched palm. "Tsk tsk tsk," I clicked my tongue at the guy. "Come on now. This is a party. Not a street brawl." "Get outta my way, you little bitch!" the guy snarled, as he tried to free his hand from my grasp. I just shook my head at the big guy and sent electricity surging into him. Instantly, the guy's struggles turned to an uncoordinated spasm as the electricity snapped all his muscles taut. A moment later, I cut the current off, causing all those tight muscles to promptly relax. Without them providing resistance, the guy flopped limply to the ground at my feet. Turning to Doug, I tossed the guy a smirk and smug, "And now we're even," before flipping my powers around and vanishing with my victim in tow. I figured I might as well save security the trouble of coming to round us both up. *********************************************** *********************************************** A knock on my door pulled me from my attempt to get to sleep earlier. Flipping on my clairvoyance, I looked out into the hall to see Doug standing there. The sight elicited a heavy sigh, but that didn't stop me from hopping off my bed and walking over to pull the door open. "What do you want, Doug?" I demanded impatiently. "Hey, I just thought I'd come by and thank you for what you did, even if it did cost me my favor," Doug explained. "That fight could've ruined the whole party, not to mention my dashing good looks." "Well, not a lot of the latter to ruin, but you're welcome, I guess," I replied. "That it?" Doug shook his head. "Not exactly. Something's been bothering me since then that I want to ask you." "Well spit it out already. I've got stuff to get back to," I ordered. "I'm sure ... I'm sure ..." Doug delayed. "Anyway ... How did you know I needed to be saved from a punch in the face, Erin?" I shrugged. "I was just looking around for something to do and happened to glance at your party at the right time to see the fight brewing. Saw a chance to even up, so I waited around to see if the guy would throw a punch." "Ah," Doug sighed, nodding. "Why do you ask?" I inquired. "Don't tell me you thought I was checking up on you." Doug chuckled self-consciously. "Actually, I kinda did. Silly, huh, thinking you might actually miss having friends around?" "That is silly," I responded, ignoring the intended sarcasm. "But hey, I expect such silliness from you. I mean ... standing up for Cameron? That was pretty silly too." That remark got a true laugh from Doug. "Yeah, not one of my better plans. I thought inviting him to that party might cool him up a little, so he wouldn't be quite the social burden to keep around, but I think it might have made it worse." Doug shrugged. "No big deal, though, I can afford to take the hit to keep a devisor as my friend." "Y'know, I'm starting to wonder if that whole using everyone thing isn't just a facade you use to appear disinterested," I commented. "You seem to be awfully willing to stick up for these friends you're just using." Doug grinned. "That's all part of the scheme. It's important to keep your minions happy. That way they don't realize that it's actually all for me. Like take our little deal. I just answered a couple of your questions with information I already had, and it got you to protect me from getting my face rearranged. I call that a good deal." "You also spent several days helping me figure out what was wrong, though," I pointed out. "Did I?" Doug asked rhetorically. "Or was I gathering information anyway, and just threw a couple of questions about you into the mix? I learned a lot about a few prospects I was considering, outed this one bitchy girl for hiding her real bra size, and I got some brownie points with you. It was a productive few days for me." I couldn't help but smirk at that revelation. "Somehow you've turned the simple act of making friends into the stock market, trading people around like they were commodities." "I know! It's great!" Doug declared. "By the way, after what happened at the party, your stock is on the rise, and I'm still looking to add it to my portfolio." "I bet you are, but it's not happening," I replied, jabbing a thumb at my chest. "This is one business that is never going to be openly traded." Seeming to be sizing me up, Doug spent a moment looking me over. "I don't know, I like a challenge and there's gotta be something out there you want." "Getting my dick back would be nice," I admitted. Doug burst out laughing. "Damn, you have no idea how weird it is to hear someone who looks like a cute girl say that." "You have no idea how weird it is to be told I look like a 'cute girl'," I quipped. "Fair enough, still, outside of that, there has to be something you want," Doug pressed. Suddenly suspicious, I peered at Doug, trying to figure out what was going on. "Why are you so insistent on being my friend, Doug? There are other powerful mutants here, probably even a few that are a lot more powerful than I am." The psychic shrugged. "Maybe, but I've already got a lot of time invested in you, and for the most part, you've been pretty fun to hang out with - when you aren't threatening to kill me for stuff I didn't do anyway. Plus, how many students are there that can literally teleport between me and the punch that's about to cave in my skull?" "I'm sure there are at least a few," I told him. "And as you may recall, you actually were at least partially responsible for the one thing I threatened you for." "Hey! There's no proof that this whole link thing isn't entirely your doing. You could've wanted to be a girl," Doug retorted defensively. "I accept no responsibility for any of it. " I raised an eyebrow at that. "Watch it Doug. You'll go from tolerable to me helping the next guy who wants to punch you in the face pretty quick with comments like that." Doug grinned. "At least then I'd know you cared." Rolling my eyes, I let out a heavy sigh. "And on that note ..." I began right before I took a step back and slammed the door to my room in Doug's face. *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 15 - Day 23 With an elbow on my desk, I rested my chin in my hand, struggling to pay attention through the lecture. My teacher was working some examples on the board, examples I didn't need, so it was a very challenging task to not nod off. I wasn't even tired, I was just that bored of listening to the droning. As I sat there looking blankly forward, my mind started wandering. I wondered if someone else on campus was listening to a more interesting lecture at the moment. I could use my clairvoyance to peek in on a few classrooms and read lips to see. It might be fun or at least not so mind numbingly dull. Deciding it couldn't hurt, I flipped through a couple rooms, treating the classes like channels on a TV. It took a few before I finally stopped on a class. I didn't pay attention to the teacher in that class for long, though. Instead, my vision drifted over to Doug who sat there carefully taking notes. That was no surprise. The guy knew the value of information, so he'd naturally work hard to acquire it. He was probably one of those over-achieving types that always did all their homework, even the optional ones, and got perfect grades. If he wasn't good-looking and charismatic, he'd probably get derided for being a nerd as much as Cameron did. "What a dork," I muttered under my breath before flipping my vision back to my own class. I took a quick look at the board to see if the teacher had done anything even remotely noteworthy while I'd been zoning out - nope, not a thing. Sighing, I was just about to go back to 'channel surfing' when a sharp stab of pain shot through my temples. My vision immediately switched to my room in Hawthorne as I stood up. Without even waiting to see if it was going to be one of the harmless ones, I vanished. The next instant, I appeared standing in the center of my room right before my psychic abilities locked on. Immediately, suffocating warmth flooded me, like I'd just been stuck in a too hot sauna, leading me to groan, "Ugh ... not again ..." Rubbing my head with one hand, I staggered over to my bed and flopped onto it. Sucking in deep heavy breaths, I gasped against the heat. The intense mugginess was soon joined by exhaustion as the haywire sucked energy from me like a man dying of thirst sucks down any water he can find. Dimly through the haze of heat and weariness, I could sense some other things that were wrong. Breathing was hard, my chest tight and unwilling to take the deep breaths I so desperately wanted. Also, my whole body seemed to itch, causing me to squirm about on my bed in spite of how tired I was getting. Worst of all, it all just dragged on and on. Eventually, the stuffy heat faded away, bringing me some relief. I stopped squirming, slumping into the bed, feeling utterly spent. Unwilling to do more than breathe, I just lay there for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness as I slowly regained some energy. After some unknown amount of time had drifted away, I came out of one of my brief naps with enough clarity to think and enough energy to attempt to rise. Rubbing at my eyes with one hand, I stretched to loosen my muscles. However, that wasn't the only thing that loosened as, with an audible pop, my blouse loosened as well. The popping sound drove away any last remnants of sleep from my thoughts, bringing me fully awake. Already thinking about that area, it became very obvious that my blouse and especially my bra were painfully tight. "What the hell?" I muttered in a voice that sounded a little off to me as I sat up and looked down at my chest. The sight that awaited me was one of my blouse, several buttons now undone to show most of my chest and bra. On my chest, my previously modest bust had ballooned outward, overflowing the small cups of my bra. The effect made them look even larger, especially since they had enough volume to force the band off my rib cage in the front. No wonder it hurt. "Fucking damnit," I growled as my hands darted up to quickly undo the remaining buttons on my blouse. Stripping it off, I tossed it aside and reached around behind my back to deal with the bra next. This proved a challenging task as the garment was already stretched to its limits. Trying to suck in my chest, I grabbed the bra and tugged, forcing the item to squash me down even more painfully. When I finally managed to get the damned thing unhooked, I took a long deep breath in relief. My relief didn't last long, though, as I tugged the ill-fitting garment off and tossed it away as well. Without it obscuring and constricting my chest, I had a clear view of my rather swollen breasts. They were far from modest now, seeming huge to me as I stared at them. I reached up to cup them, and where once they'd easily fit into my palms, they now overflowed my hands with extra flesh. Furious, I released my breasts and slammed a fist into the wall. The durable ceramic took the hit without breaking, but did little to alleviate my anger. Thrusting myself from the bed, I noticed a less extreme snugness from my pants and underwear as well as far more pronounced bounce from my chest. Quickly removing the rest of my clothes, I stormed over to the mirror to assess the damage. Bloated boobs were not the only thing that had changed. My slight hips had rounded out considerable, and had been joined by a noticeable butt. My legs had a little more flesh on them as well, adding some shape to the previously scrawny limbs. It wasn't just my body either. My face seem a little different too, a bit more mature, and my hair was not only noticeably longer, almost long enough to brush my shoulders, but the new growth wasn't the same dull steel gray as the rest of my hair. Instead it was a vibrant silver. Seeing my reflection not only fueled my anger, but gave it focus. Grabbing one of my old boy's t-shirts, I tugged it on. It fit nearly as poorly as the blouse, baggy everywhere but my chest, which it outlined perfectly. My nipples even poked through. I was too angry to care about that, though, and just grabbed a pair of shorts to throw on and flipped on a couple powers. My vision jumped straight to Doug, and I vanished from my room. Appearing right behind the boy in his classroom, I put my hand on his shoulder, and whisked us both away again. We came out of the jump out behind Hawthorne on the far edge of campus, and I released Doug so that he could fall unceremoniously onto his rump. He grunted in pain while he fought the disorientation that came from being teleported. Not giving him time to get his bearings, I grabbed shoulders and yanked him back to his feet only to push him up against the wall. "What the fuck did you do to me, you fucking shit?!" I demanded. "What are you talking about, Erin?" Doug mumbled, shaking his head to try to clear the last of his nausea. "This!" I shouted, stepping back from him to gesture down at my body. Doug's eyes popped wide the moment he got a good look at me. For a long unblinking moment, he just stared at me in my ill-fitting clothes which were doing a poor job of hiding my newly curvaceous figure. "Whoa ..." "Look familiar?! Cause it fucking should!" I spat with unbridled rage. "It's everything you fucking wanted, isn't it?! Better hair, more curves, big fat fucking tits!" Thanks to my furious gesticulations my breasts bounced quite prominently in time with my tirade. Dumbfounded, Doug just kept on staring for another moment. "This is unbelievable ..." The complete lack of answer only enraged me further. I cocked my fist back, fully intending to break Doug's nose. I even got the punch started, but midway to his stupid face a blinding pain stabbed through my head. Punch ruined, I fell to my knees, clutching at my head. "Fuck!" I wailed as the agony continued for several horrible seconds. When it finally passed, I slumped forward onto my hands, panting for breath. "You alright?" Doug asked. "No I'm fucking not, you fuck!" I hissed, still furious even after the pain. Doug squatted down in front of me. "It would probably help if you calmed down a little and explained what's going on." "My psychic ability went haywire again and locked my healing on," I explained. "When it ended, I looked like this - exactly like you said you wanted the other day at lunch." Cupping his chin with one hand, Doug furrowed his brow in thought. "Right ... right ... just after I shared my dream girl theory. Huh, guess I was right about that." Lifting my head, I glared at Doug. "That's all you've got to say?!" "What do you want me to say, Erin?" Doug asked. "That I'm sorry? I can, if it will make you feel better, but it's not like I can reverse this." "You told me you wanted me to look like this, just tell me you want me to look like I did before all these changes," I directed, finally pushing myself up so that I sat on my butt with my legs folded under me. Doug gave me a skeptical look. "I don't think that will work." "And why the hell not?" I demanded. "Because it would be a lie. I prefer how you look now," Doug answered. "This link thing is psychic and uncontrolled, right? I don't think it would accept a lie." "I changed exactly like you said, though," I argued. Doug shook his head. "No you didn't. Sure you've got the curves, boobs, and hair, but your face and voice are a little different too - more mature and clearly female. I didn't mention either of those things." That point brought a frown to my features. Doug was right that he hadn't mentioned either of those things, which meant that verbalizing things wasn't necessary. There was no way for me to know what might change or when. There might be nothing of me left by the time it stopped. It might never stop. My shoulders slumped in defeat. Reacting to my obvious despair, Doug reached out and tapped me on my shoulder to get my attention. "Hey, this probably isn't what you want to hear right now, but you look amazing." "Thanks," I muttered sarcastically, rolling my eyes for extra emphasis. "What I mean is that, if this is changing you to be attractive to me, then it's probably done, because you're ... wow," Doug explained. I chuckled sardonically. "Great ... all I've got to do is get used to being your walking wet dream. I bet that'll be loads of fun." "I mean, is it really any worse than where you were before?"Doug asked rhetorically. "Better a hot girl than a scrawny one, right?" "Easy to say when you're not the one with the tits on your chest," I retorted. Sighing heavily, I shook my head in dismay "I'm going to have buy all new clothes again ..." Doug laughed. "Well if that's the worst you have to deal with, I'll think you'll get through this." Straightening himself up, Doug offered me a hand to help rise. "Now come on, you've got stuff to do, and I've got a class to get back to that's probably wondering what the hell just happened to me." I took the offered hand and let Doug pull me to my feet. "Yeah well you deserved to be as shocked by something as I was by what happened." "I suppose that's fair," Doug agreed. "Next time, though, you could just find me during my free time and talk to me like a normal person, rather than just teleporting in and snatching me like some kind of terrifying predator snaring its prey." I shrugged. "Maybe, but it wouldn't be as fun." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 16 - Day 24 "I had a growth spurt?" I explained uncertainly. The saleswoman who had helped me pick out my first bras nodded slowly, staring at my chest the entire time she did. "No kidding. Well, we're gonna have to measure you again to get your size." "I kinda figured," I replied, certain that the experience would be every bit as embarrassing as it was the last time. Like before, the woman led me to one of the fitting rooms where I disrobed. Once I was naked, I had to endure the ordeal of getting measured again, which was if anything worse than the last time. When that was done, she left me alone to find some bras for me to try, returning a few minutes later with some options. After trying the bras on, and the woman giving me her recommendations, I was free to wander about the store selecting the various articles of clothing that I needed. Of the stuff I'd bought the week before, only the skirts still fit, which meant pretty much buying a whole new set of uniforms. At least I managed to find tops that would button over my chest, though, the buttons did strain a bit. Selection complete, I bought my clothes and teleported everything back to my room. Now, that I had clothes that would actually fit, I stripped out of the casual boys clothes I'd worn for shopping and dressed in one of my new uniforms to get ready for class. The uniform, with it's loose, knee-length skirt and conservative, though still snug around the chest, blouse, did a decent job of at least obscuring how much I'd changed from the last time people had seen me, but, it wasn't going to keep people from noticing. To most people, this change would be more drastic than the one that had turned me into a girl in the first place. If I was being honest with myself, it probably was a bigger deal to me too. "This is gonna suck," I muttered as I checked my reflection in the mirror. I may not have had sexual interests of my own, but I'd seen what kind of things drew the attention of those who did, and I definitely had those things. I wouldn't be able to just slide by on being androgynous like last time. People were going to stare, and talk, and pester me, regardless of the fact that I just wanted to be left alone. Standing there in front of the mirror, I fidgeted with my clothes, trying to get them to sit as comfortably as the stuff I'd worn before coming to this school. I'd known that this place would be awful, that I'd hate it, but I hadn't imagined anything as bad as this. My worst fears back then were having to talk about how I felt and having to sit through boring classes. "You can't put this off forever," I told myself. I'd only been given the morning to get some new clothes, and I was already in enough trouble for snatching Doug in the middle of class the day before. Technically, I still had about half of lunch break before class that I could have used to hide in my room like a coward, but that wasn't me. I wasn't going to let this beat me. Thrusting my chin up and my shoulders back, I flipped on my clairvoyance and teleportation and selected my destination. A puff of black smoke took me from my room and placed me in the cafeteria, right next to the table that Doug, Cameron, and several other people had chosen to spend their lunch hour. "Hey," I greeted neutrally. My sudden appearances always garnered me some attention. People were just naturally drawn to a puff of black smoke bursting out of nowhere to leave a person in its wake. Normally, that attention was fleeting, focused on me only long enough to see who I was before the onlookers returned to what they were doing. This time, people stared. Foremost among them was Cameron, who looked like his eyes should fall out of his head, they were so wide. "Hello, Erin," Doug replied casually as his gaze drifted over my body. "I see you found some clothes that fit." "Yeah, no thanks to you," I retorted acerbically as I slipped into a seat. Cameron finally managed to blink when I sat down. "W-What happened?" "Haywire power," I answered simply as if that could possibly explain anything. All it did was make Cameron look confused. "It turns out my hypothesis the other day was correct," Doug spoke up, keeping it ambiguous, "and one of her powers accelerated the changes." "You mean about her turning into your -" Cameron started to say. I glared threateningly at the devisor. "Finish that thought, and it will be the last one you ever have." Cameron's mouth shut fast enough that his teeth clacked against each other. Averting his gaze, he hunched over, as if my glare had actually caused him to wither. "Sorry ..." Ignoring the apology, I turned to Doug. "So, how did your class take me snatching you?" I asked in a falsely sweet voice. "I think they were more surprised that I actually came back from it alive," Doug answered, chuckling. "How much trouble did you get into for it?" "A lot," I told him, refusing to share the details of what exactly that entailed. Doug grinned. "Well, maybe it'll get you to stop doing it." *********************************************** *********************************************** Yawning as the class ended, I stretched my hands over my head, glad that the day's classes were finally over. My cheeks immediately flushed as I saw practically every male eye in the classroom glue to my chest which was thrust out proudly by the pose. Sighing inwardly, I just pretended not to see the stares and finished my stretch. That kind of attention had been common throughout the afternoon, but I tried to tell myself it was harmless enough - just people looking at a pretty girl. Guys did that kind of thing all the time. The problem was that the pretty girl was me. Sighing as I finished the yawn, I stood up and flipped on my powers. A moment later, I was standing outside next to a tree that was just off of one of the walkways. There, I plopped back down to enjoy the weather and think. "What a day," I muttered, leaning back against the tree. There'd been attention sure, a lot of it, but also some weird rumors and a few lewd comments. Everyone had been trying to figure out just what had caused my change. Had I done it intentionally? Had someone done it to me? Was it even real or some kind illusion or padding or surgical enhancement? I might have been oblivious to the rumor mongering, if I hadn't happened to 'overhear' some people speculating by reading their lips. Having not been in a real school since grade school, it was my first experience with such things. I didn't know what to think about it or how to respond. Was I supposed to care what conclusions they came up with? Was I supposed to set the record straight? Was I supposed to just ignore it? For some reason, the idea that people might think that this was all fake or intentional bothered me. The former seemed like an insult, like people trying to put me down, and I didn't like letting people have that power. The latter bothered me even more. I was born a boy, and wanted to still be a boy. Barring that, I at least wanted to not be some perverse dream girl pulled from some asshole's subconscious. Nothing about this was what I wanted, everything I cared about got taken away. "That's not a very lady-like position," Doug remarked, pulling me from my thoughts. "You're about half an inch from flashing everyone." "Huh?" I mumbled before looking down. At that moment, I was leaned back against the tree with one leg stretched out straight and the other bent, so my knee was up and my foot rested flat on the ground. The posture caused my skirt to slide down and reveal basically all of my thigh. Only the fact that I'd rested my hands in my lap kept my skirt covering my panties and even then only just barely. "Oh, whatever," I muttered, shrugging while trying not to blush. "Like I care." Doug joined me in shrugging. "The tomboy thing does suit you pretty well. In fact, I was surprised to see you actually wearing a skirt today." "I don't like the way my pants fit on these stupid hips you saddled me with," I grouched. "What was so wrong with my old ones?" The question got Doug chuckling. "Hard to explain to someone who's never been interested in girls. Best I can say is that I prefer women that look like women, not like little boys." I rolled my eyes, and gestured at my chest. "I don't think that was going to be an issue with these around." "Probably not, but the total package is better," Doug replied. "Speaking of, what are you doing sitting out here with all these people around to stare? I would have thought you'd have gotten back to your room as quick as you could after classes were over." "I'm not going to let a few perverts force me to hide in my room," I told him. "I wanted to sit out here, so I did. If they want to stare, whatever. People have been doing it all day anyway. I'm used to it." "Uh huh," Doug agreed, clearly dubious about the truth of that statement. "If you're used to staring, what about other things?" I furrowed my brow at him. "What other things? You mean the rumors?" Doug shook his head. "No, not those. I've cleared up most of the bad ones for you anyway," he replied, before bending down to sit next to me. "I mean other things, like guys getting too close," he explained, bumping his shoulder against mine to show just how close he was. "Does that bother you?" "Of course not," I huffed, turning my face away from him. "I see," Doug said, nodding slightly. "What about something a little more adventurous?" he inquired as he leaned forward to rest his hand on my upright knee. I shrugged, trying to appear disinterested. Being so close to another person sure was stuffy. It made a nice day feel sweltering. "Whatever." "Is that so?" Doug mused, slowly sliding his hand down along my thigh. The hand got about halfway down before my hand shot out to grab Doug's wrist and stop it. "If anyone had tried that today, they would have lost their hand," I hissed. Absolutely furious, I was tempted to make that a reality for Doug, but instead I just shoved his hand away from me. Doug chuckled. "I bet they would have." "Why are you even here, Doug?" I grumbled, not enjoying having the boy making fun of me. "Do you not want me here?" Doug asked. "Why the hell would I want you here?" I demanded. The psychic shrugged. "I don't know. I just assumed you did, because you picked a spot to sit that was right along the path from my last class to my dorm. It's not a particularly nice spot or anything, so I thought you were waiting for me." Looking up showed that Doug was right. Without realizing it, I'd picked the path he used every day to get back to the dorm. What a stupid thing for me to do. "Well, I wasn't. I just liked the spot." "I see," Doug replied. "Well, no worries. I can go if you want to be alone." "I do, but ..." I began. "You're already sitting, so I guess we could talk for a while, since it's so important to you." Doug smiled. "Thanks." *********************************************** *********************************************** Chapter 17 - Day 25 "You did not have two girls fighting over you in their bikinis, you liar," I denounced as Doug and I walked out of the cafeteria. "Okay, so maybe the bikini part was embellished, but they were fighting over me," Doug insisted. "They were vicious too. One of them wouldn't come out of her house for almost a month because her face got clawed up so bad. Of course, my parents didn't think it was as awesome as I did. They decided I needed to learn some self-control, so next thing I know, instead of getting to start high school with all my friends this year, I'm getting shipped off to some mutant boarding school in the middle of nowhere." "Do you slip suggestions into people's heads a lot?" I inquired. Doug shook his head. "I used to, but not really since coming here. The first person I tried to use my powers on caught me immediately and slapped my brain." I laughed at that. "Well I'm sure you deserved it." "Maybe. I'm glad it happened, regardless," Doug responded. "If not, I might have tried it on someone less forgiving." "At the time, I was more upset about you mistaking me for a girl," I reminded him, before sighing. "I guess I was the one that ended up being mistaken." "That's what makes life so fun. Nothing is ever certain," Doug noted sagely. I was just about to reply when a sharp stab of pain shot through my temples, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Flipping on my powers, I prepared to teleport back to my room. Right before I did, though, my clairvoyance locked and my vision was replaced by a close up of an ant hill. "Something wrong?" I heard Doug ask. Frowning, I shook my head. "No." There was a brief pause which I could assume was Doug giving me a skeptical look. "Come on. Just tell me." I let out a heavy sigh. "Fine. One of my powers went haywire." "Really?" Doug asked, clearly surprised. Another momentary break followed before he commented, "I was expecting something more dramatic." I chuckled. "Some of them are. It depends on the power. This one is pretty unnoticeable." "Which power is it?" Doug inquired. "My clairvoyance," I informed him. "When it haywires, it locks my vision on some random thing, effectively rendering me blind until it releases." I felt air move in front of my face from what I was pretty sure was Doug waving a hand in front of me. "Huh. That's gotta be inconvenient." I nodded. "Very. Especially since my teleportation requires vision of my destination to work." "Oh my, so you have to walk around like the rest of us. It must be so horrible for you," Doug remarked with false sympathy. "How will you ever survive?" Rolling my eyes, I shook my head to show I wasn't amused. "I do just fine, but if you don't mind, I use the grass to help guide me, so I need you out of my way." "Oh, well if you need a guide allow me," Doug offered. The next moment, I felt his hand grab mine, causing me to immediately yank it away as I growled, "Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" "Relax, Erin. It's no big deal," Doug told me. Annoyed and flustered, I turned my head away from him. "Fine," I mumbled, gripping his hand with my own. "But you'd better not lead me into anything embarrassing." Doug gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. I'll take good care of you." Feeling weird, I just nodded and let him lead the way. The day seemed hotter than I'd thought it was, making it a little hard to think straight. I could feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest too, making me wonder if something was going wrong with this haywire. I'd certainly never felt this way during one before. It might be best if I went back to my room instead of to my afternoon classes. "I was wondering if you're busy after class today?" Doug spoke up after we'd been walking in silence for a bit. I shrugged. "I don't know. I'll probably just go back to my room and mess around." "Why don't we hang out then?" Doug suggested. "My roommate will be busy with something, so we can have the room to ourselves and watch a movie or whatever." The suggestion caught me off guard, leaving me struggling to find an answer. "Uhm ... I ... don't know ..." "Come on. It'll be fun," Doug replied. "Plus, it'd be nice for us to do something together besides eating lunch." Frowning slightly, I considered the offer. Staying in by myself all the time did get a little boring, so maybe it would at least break the monotony. If it was as dumb as I thought it would be I could always just leave. "I guess ..." I conceded reluctantly. "Great!" Doug exclaimed in delight. "Do you think this haywire thing will be done by then? If not, I can meet you outside your last class." "It should be," I told him. "Besides, I can walk around just fine on my own." "Of course," Doug concurred. "I'll meet you at my room then." *********************************************** *********************************************** "Why did I ever agree to hang out with him?" I muttered as I paced back and forth in my room after class. "It's not like we're friends or anything. He's just someone to talk to while I eat lunch. I talk to Cameron then, too, and I'm not going to watch a movie with him." Sighing, I plopped on my bed and buried my head in my hands. "I should just blow him off. Maybe then he'd get the hint that I don't want to be friends, not now, not ever," I told myself, before groaning. "Ugh, I agreed to do this, and he did sort of help me out earlier. I can't just flake on it. That's not me." Rubbing at my eyes, I took a long, deep breath before standing up. "If I keep things cordial he won't misunderstand. I'll just watch one movie and get out of there." Nodding to myself, I took another deep breath and activated my powers. My vision quickly switched to Doug's room in Melville where the boy was sitting in his desk chair tapping his desk impatiently. He was clearly waiting for me, which was no surprise since I'd been arguing with myself about whether I was going to go or not for quite a while. "Let's do this," I mumbled. The next instant I was gone. "Hey," I greeted neutrally as I came out of the teleport in Doug's room. The unexpected sound got Doug to start a little in his seat, but when he turned to face me he smiled brightly. "Hey yourself. I was starting to think that maybe you weren't gonna show." Shrugging, I just turned away from him to go plop on his bed. "I said I'd come, didn't I?" Doug chuckled as he grabbed his laptop and stood up. "That you did, but you didn't seem too enthusiastic about it. Is my company that bad?" I shrugged again. "Not bad. More like barely tolerable." "Such praise!" Doug exclaimed sarcastically before plopping onto the bed beside me and resting his laptop in his lap. "Do you have a movie preference?" "No, whatever's fine," I muttered, more focused on how little space there was between my hip and Doug's. Did he have to sit so damned close? Sure we were watching on a laptop, but it was huge, with a screen that looked bigger than my computer monitor. Nodding, Doug clicked a few times to get the movie open. "Alright, I think I've got one for you that you're gonna like." The movie opened with a car chase full of action and intense music. Always a fan of those things, I leaned back against the wall to watch. It wasn't looking like this was going to be so bad at all. "You want a pillow?" Doug asked, grabbing his own pillow to stuff behind his back. "I've got a spare one in the closet." "Sure," I replied. Sliding the laptop carefully onto the bed, Doug got up without stopping the movie. I glanced over to watch him walk over to the closet and grab a second pillow, one that was larger than the one he'd had on his bed. On his way back, he offered it to me with a casual, "Here ya go." "Thanks," I told him, stuffing it behind my back. Soon enough, we were both back in position and watching the movie again, which was definitely a good one. I glanced over at Doug, wondering if he'd guessed what kind of movies I liked or if we just had similar tastes. He seemed to be enjoying it as well, but it was so hard to tell with him what was genuine and what wasn't. Naturally, the psychic chose that moment to glance my way and our eyes met briefly. Immediately, I jerked my head forward again, trying hard to focus back on the movie. Reaching up, I tugged a bit at my blouse. The room felt kind of stuffy, so I popped open a few buttons to help me cool off. Feeling something brush against my shoulder, I jerked in surprise. Turning to look at Doug, I saw he was already facing me, leaning toward me in fact. Our faces were only a few inches apart. My heart raced, as I just sat there frozen as he drew closer. Before he got much closer, I thrust my hands between us and shoved him back. "What are you doing?!" I shouted defensively Doug's eyes widened in surprise at my reaction. "I was trying to kiss you." The honest admission was as startling as the attempt had been, leaving me momentarily dazed as my mind whirled. When it finally latched onto a thought, it was one that had me muttering out a quick, "I ... I should go," as I flipped on the powers I'd need to get the hell out of there. "Erin wait!" Doug called out just before I would've vanished. Tense and nervous, I almost ignored Doug's words and teleported away anyway, but I stopped to demand, "For what? For you to try again?" "I'm not going to try to force myself on you, Erin. Hell, I couldn't even if I wanted to," he told me, chuckling. "I really just thought you'd enjoy it. That's all." "Why would I enjoy it?!" I demanded incredulously. "You're a guy!" "So?" Doug asked. That response dumbfounded me for a moment. I'd thought it was a pretty good argument. "And I used to be one." "You did," Doug concurred. "That doesn't bother me, though." I blinked a couple of times. "It bothers me." "It does? You're definitely a girl now, and it's not like you were attracted to girls or boys before right?" Doug questioned. "That doesn't mean I'm into boys now!" I argued. Doug nodded in concession. "That's true, but since you've never been attracted to someone before, you wouldn't know what it feels like, right? You might like boys now and not know it. I thought I'd try and show you a little bit of what you've been missing out on. If you don't like it we can always just stop." Frowning slightly, I tried to figure out what I should do. Doug had a point that I wouldn't really know what it felt like. It's not like a kiss was that big of a deal, even if it would be my first one. There was something appealing about the idea, too. Maybe that meant I wanted to? "A-Alright," I stuttered nervously, flushing in embarrassment. "You can kiss me if you want." "Are you sure? It's alright if you don't want to," Doug replied. My blush grew all the deeper at having to repeat myself. "I want to." "Okay then," Doug said. An awkward moment passed between Doug and I as neither of us really knew how to go about it. Attempting a kiss now was a lot less natural than Doug's first attempt had been. He got up the nerve, though, and started to lean in again. As he did, he raised his hand, trailing his fingers along my cheek before sliding them around to gently cup my head. The moment our lips touched, something rushed through me, an electricity that simultaneously excited me and calmed me. Anxiety vanished, and I pressed into the kiss eagerly, relishing the way it made me feel. It was like there'd been something missing inside me that was finally there. I felt complete. After several long moments, Doug and I finally parted, gasping for breath. "How was it?" he asked. "It was ... uhm ... nice ... " I mumbled, looking down shyly. The boy reached out a hand to cup my chin and tilt my head back up to look at him. He didn't say a word, just leaned back in to kiss me again. I didn't resist it. *********************************************** ***********************************************