Question Divergent Arrivals

The first chapter of this story is available on Archive of Our Own:

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• Sections of this text have been adapted from:
  • Away From Home ,
  • Mom, I Don't Feel So Good ,
  • Unexpected Consequences ,
  • Enter The Chaka , or
  • Welcome To Poe .

• Some knowledge of the original stories up to this point is assumed.


• And, yes, this world isn't quite the one that those stories depict...


• Special thanks to Malady for acting as a sounding board, beta-reader, and editor.

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Sunday, September 3, 2006

Nikki Reilly

Nikki knew it was just nerves yet he still found himself fretting over how he looked.

It has been over a day since he had said goodbye to his Mom and boarded a train on his first leg of the trip. The novelty of the journey had long since worn off and, at first, anxiety about the idea of someone seeing him had crept back in. Yet as he'd spent time shut in the sleeper cabin reserved for him, boredom had undermined Nikki's nebulous fears.

"...they're going to think I'm stupid." Nikki murmured to herself as she stared into the small mirror over her cabin's skink. "That I'm being a pervert."

Violet eyes stared back to him out of the mirror, delicate features framed by crimson hair making what could have been a fearful look into something which only seemed worthy of protection.

It wasn't his face.

But it was his face… now. And it had been for almost six months.

Nikki bit his lip then stopped as he tasted the lipstick that he'd so carefully applied. Putting on makeup while the train had moved had been a challenge, but he felt that his third attempt was acceptable.

"If I got any more practice then I'd qualify as a beautician." He told the face in the mirror and it briefly smiled. The expression was a fragile thing though and soon faded.

Trying to channel her worries about good impressions more constructively Nikki checked the look of his pants and top. The loose red top managed not to clash with her hair and the black pants were tight but not quite leggings. Part of him worried that it was a little 'boyish', but even with the restricted view shown by the mirror he looked unmistakably like a girl.

Without meaning to, Nikki glanced sideways towards his bag and thought of the silvery dress bundled up inside of it. His mother had bought it for him to make a good impression with, but he'd nervously decided against it.  It looked a little too good and coming across like some rich girl with her nose in the air might have helped hide her real gender, but wouldn't have helped make any friends...

Nikki shook his head, the motion making him feel the still foreign weight of his long hair bundled up into a bun.

"If I make any friends then they'll be my friends." He told himself and the room at large. "They'll like me because they like me, not just because I seem pretty."

He pressed his lips together as the words, even as he spoke them, somehow felt wrong. As though he was somehow missing the point of something...

A change in the motion of the train made Nikki sway for a moment, easily catching himself despite the handicap of the raised shoes he wore. He could tell that it was slowing down and that meant that he was out of time to make any other last minute adjustments.

Taking a deep breath then letting out again, Nikki used the rhythmic breathing to steady himself just as Leon had coached him. The weekly sessions with the wizard had only covered the basics of magic, but he'd managed to weedle a few related things out of the man which had turned out to be useful.

Nikki felt his face warming a little as he considered just how he'd 'weedled' those extra things out of Leon. They hadn't actually done anything, the man had been too principled for that, but Leon had been interested in how Nikki's mutation was manifesting. And Nikki had been far too embarrassed to say just how those firm yet gentle hands had felt as they checked his ears...

There was a small jolt as the train came to a halt, yanking Nikki's thoughts out of the tangled knot of feelings which he still hadn't managed to handle.

Another deep breath pushed those emotions into a box and locked them up until later. Nikki grabbed up his duffle bag and felt himself smiling a little at just how light it felt. In it were books, clothes, magazines, and all the junk that he'd packed to keep himself busy during the trip. It should have been heavy but his new body was strong now despite how slender it looked, 

"-wich Station!" A voice was calling out as Nikki opened the door to the small cabin. "Call For Dunwich Station. Disembark Here For Dunwich Station!"

There was quite a bit of bustle for such a small station and a relatively empty train so Nikki lingered in the doorway until the worst of it died away. Looking along the corridor he could see the knot of people gathered at the bottleneck of the exit from the train but, all too quickly, people and their baggage alighted and cleared the way.

The cabin that had seemed so confining for the duration of the trip now seemed comfortable and familiar territory to Nikki, making him reluctant to leave its 'safety'. However he steeled himself as he watched the passenger disembark  and, when the door appeared clear, finally forced himself to casually follow their example. 

Half a year of experience wearing female clothing in public didn't help calm Nikki's nerves as he stepped onto the platform at Dunwich, already half expecting someone to scream 'pervert!' at him and everyone to stare or jeer or...

Nikki breathed the cool air as he walked along the platform and forced his attention onto the details of the station around him. It was old and ratty, not dirty but simply worn down with time and use. From what he could see it hardly qualified as a station with only the single platform, old fashioned hand trolleys for baggage, and the small stone building that served as the station house.

The mural though, Nikki decided, was a nice touch. He could remember seeing pictures of artwork like it  and, to his faint surprise, he could remember that they were due to something called the WPA. However not even his improved memory, which had gotten so much better since his change, could help him recall what that stood for when he had never known it.

“So, are you guys, like, going to Whateley Academy?”

Nikki had been paying attention to the station and deliberately not to the people around him so the question took him by surprise. For a moment the background noise of the world rang inside of his head and lines, far more than he'd seen back home, flared into visibility, but he quickly forced them away.

Only three other people were still on the platform. Over by the ramp down from it, Nikki could see a man struggling to get a trolley with a wonky wheel to go straight but of more immediate concern were the two other teens who had approached while his thoughts were drifting.

It was a girl who had cheerfully asked the question. Nikki found her gaze running over the girl, drinking in the sight of dark chocolate skin and a lithe build which her clothing did little to hide. The crop top the girl wore helped show off a washboard stomach while worn denim shorts left her long muscular legs on clear display. The shorts were tight, tight enough that Nikki couldn't imagine how the girl had gotten into them without something ripping...

Even as he reflexively gave a small nod, Nikki couldn't help but think that certain music videos hadn't actually been exaggerated when it came to showing 'black bootie'.

“Yeah. It’s my first year here.” The other teen said and when Nikki looked there was a tentative smile on the boys' lips.

Thankfully for what remained of Nikki's ego he wasn't as startling attractive as the girl. There was potential though, Nikki could see that, with fine features and a build which brought to mind a dancers'. He had also opted for jeans and a top, which made Nikki briefly thankful that she hadn't overdone things by wearing the dress, but his were full length pants and a muscle t-shirt.

“Me Too! Kewl!" The girl said with an eager nod of her head, the glitter on her nails flashing as she accompanied her words with hand gestures. "My name’s Toni Chandler! And you are?”

“Hank." The boy replied with a vaguely bemused smile.  "Hank Declan.”

The boy seemed tolerant of Toni's sheer energy, but Nikki was already finding it exhausting and part of him cringed at how much attention it was drawing… and a different part just felt that it was wrong that the attention was not being directed at him.

The pair were looking at Nikki expectantly and he suddenly realised that they were waiting for him to answer. He paused, giving the question more thought that it perhaps deserved, then decided to avoid using Nikki for now. Not after the trouble he'd had.

“Fey." He managed to get out, the words almost sticking in his throat as he wished for half the confidence that Toni was displaying. "Call me Fey.”

"Gotcha." Toni replied with another nod, "So... any idea of what we’re supposed to do? Do we wait for someone to come get us, or do we call the school?”

Nikki faltered at that question. From what he could remember the itinerary had just talked about 'going from Dunwich by bus to the Academy', but he hadn't thought to ask about further details. He didn't even know if there was a regular shuttle bus, if someone was going to get picked up, or if they'd have to contact the school directly.

“I’m not sure." Hank admitted, freeing Nikki of the need to answer. "How about this- you go ask at the counter, while I look for  our stuff.”

“A man with a plan. I like that!" Toni declared then gave a grin, "Fey, you stay here with Hank and make sure he doesn't run off. Get to know him, get to 'know' him, or whatever. Clothes stay on for now though!"

With that Toni was rushing off towards the depot itself, not quite running but her strides eating up the ground surprising fast. Nikki watched as Toni vanished inside the build then winced as they actually heard the 'ding!' of a bell being struck far too enthusiastically.

"Do you think that it's too late to get back on a train?" Hank joked, breaking the silence.

"I don't think that would work," Nikki replied, still feeling vaguely overwhelmed by Toni's presence. In that short conversation the girl had seemed to exude more energy that he used in a week. "She'd probably jog after it, carry you back, and consider it light exercise."

Hank paused then offered, "I think that she'd actually consider it a fun exercise."

Nikki gave the boy that and just nodded back. Looking along the platform she easily spotted where a small pile of bags and trunks, including two she recognised, sat.

"I think that I've found it." Nikki stated, pointing towards the pile. "Should we try to get those onto a trolley?"

"Do you want to get the trolley or should I?" Hank replied.

"You had better." Nikki decided after a moment, "I'm not sure I want to trust my stuff on a trolley which Toni might be pushing. And if you have it then we can claim that it's the job of the 'big strong man'."

Nikki had meant that as a joke, but for some reason Hank's face went slightly pink at the words. Seeing that blush made Nikki's own face feel warm in response.

"I- I'll go do that." Hank muttered, stumbling over the words slightly.

For want of anything else, Nikki found her feet taking her to where the pile sat. While not precisely tossed off of the train the bags were jumbled together in no particular order other than being wherever the guard had placed them.

It didn't take long until Hank returned and, between the two of them, they began piling the luggage onto the trolley. It wasn't too obvious but while Nikki didn't have too much trouble with lifting things, Hank barely seemed to notice the weight of even the trunk stuffed with books which Nikki had brought along.

Hank didn't say anything though so Nikki decided to not bring it up. It wasn't as if he was yelling out about his powers to a stranger he'd only just met.

"Guess what, guys!" Toni declared and Nikki found himself yet again surprised as the girl just seemed to be there, "There's actually a 'special waiting room' for us."

If she does that once more then I'm going to put a bell on her like a cat, Nikki promised himself.

"A 'special waiting room'?" Hank echoed, stepping back from where he'd taken a half step between Toni and Nikki. "Any relation to 'special ed'?"

Toni cackled at that reply.

"No idea, but it's where we gotta be if we want to get picked up." She explained, "Apparently they let us group up rather than do trip after trip."

Toni paused then gave Hank a smile lascivious enough that Nikki found himself reacting to it.

"I'm sure that a Big. Strong. Guy. like you can manage that trolley?" Toni asked, but it obviously wasn't a question.

Hank, who seemed to be doing worse as the center of Toni's attention, could only nod in response. For his part Nikki studiously kept his gaze raised, not wanting to see how well Hank's jeans showed off his 'reaction' to that.

"Good boy." Toni murmured huskily then, without warning, the act vanished and only the energetic girl from before remaining. "Come on, Fey!"

A hand latched onto Nikki's wrist and he briefly had a choice between following along and literally digging in his heels. With the shoes that he wore, and Toni's overall energy, he decided that resistance would be pointless and chose to go with the flow.

Nikki felt like a piece of driftwood caught in the wake of a very fast boat the way he was being more or less propelled along by the force of the other's personality and actions.

Fortunately he had the reflexes and balance not to fall over as Toni 'power walked' towards the stone station building. A glance back showed that Hank was following along more slowly and that he was giving Nikki a sympathetic look.

Or, if Nikki was reading it right, a look which said also 'better you than me'.

Nikki stopped just inside the door when Toni released her, rubbing his wrist absently as he looked around the room. Taken as a whole he wasn't that impressed by where he'd been brought.

The ‘special waiting room’ consisted of three ratty plastic covered couches, and a couple of even rattier looking plastic covered chairs, a coffee table with magazines that the local dentist had probably thrown out, a shelf of books, a pay phone, and some vending machines for hot drinks, soft drinks, candy and snacks. About the only thing which stood out was one of the old 'Aunt Sam' parody posters up on one wall, the iconic stars-and-stripes bikini clad figure perpetually claiming that she wanted you. Nikki was half sure that it was old enough to be one of the originals.

The sole provision for keeping school age kids from dying of boredom was a very old pinball machine, which two boys were busy hogging. They were dressed for traveling, so Nikki guessed that they were going to Whateley too.

One of the boys glanced over towards the door, spotted Nikki, then nudged his friend. The other boy swore under his breath as he lost his ball but, when he looked where the first boy indicated, gave Nikki a broad smile.

The expression reminded Nikki uncomfortably of Alan and, rather than meet the gaze, he hurriedly looked elsewhere. He found his arms drifting upwards and deliberately forced them back down again, ignoring the almost tangible memory of an ache from his right breast.

"Are you going in?" Hank's voice sounded from behind Nikki and, without meaning to, Nikki reflexively reached for the lines before realised what he had done. By then it was too late and he could feel the power humming in his mental grip.

"Sorry about that." Nikki murmured to the boy then moved out of the way, focused less on the room and more on disentangling his 'grip' before he ended up producing a hobgoblin.

"No problem." Hank replied as he passed Nikki.

"Hey, Fey!" Toni called and Nikki almost fumbled the lines. Without meaning to, he'd grabbed onto not a single simple line but a knot of them, a nexus, and it was hard to safely let go. "Come on, sit down and get comfortable. You gotta meet Rip here."

Toni patted the seat next to her to indicate where she wanted Nikki then gestured towards a Hispanic girl sitting on the other side whose classic ‘Aztec princess’ looks were set off by a strip of scarlet hair down the center of her head.

'Rip', if that was really the girl's name, looked over then gave Nikki a smile hastily replacing her previous expression.

“Hi. You’re for the Whateley School too?” Rip asked, having a California accent with a hint of something else.

First one line then a second and a third settled back to where they should be, letting Nikki give his entire attention to the people around him. Before Nikki could reply to the question though Toni chose to answer for him.

“Yeah." Toni told Rip, "Any idea of when the bus for the school is due?”

“Well, when I got my travel arrangements, they said that they were expecting me at four," Rip replied with a shrug. "So I don’t think that they’ll be here much sooner than that.”

The clock on the wall claimed that it was only a quarter past three...

Nikki sighed, hearing Toni echo it with a sigh of her own. He consoled himself with the fact that at least it wasn't actually cold in the waiting room.

“Okay crew," Toni announced, "The rest of you better grab a seat and settle in, we’re gonna be here for a while.”

Nikki hesitated as he eyed the seats and considered what he was wearing. The idea of a skin allergy to plastic sounded stupid, but he'd found out the hard way just how annoying it could be. All those artificial blends were one problem, but he's already made the mistake of sitting down on a plastic chair in a short skirt once.

He was determined not to make that mistake again.

It was a relief when, during Nikki's hesitation, Hank took the initiative.

"Don't mind if I do," The boy said as he carefully lowered himself onto the seat behind Toni. The black girl pouted momentarily then looked over Hank and seemed to consider her disappointment. 

He nodded in a friendly manner to 'Rip' then offered, "I'm Hank Declan."

"Fey." Nikki offered when the girl looked over towards her. "Sorry, I'll stand for now. I've been sitting down on the train for long enough that stretching my legs feels good."

That got a snort of laughter from Rip.

"Oh, I know how that goes." She said, "Going coast-to-coast isn't a short trip."

Nikki nodded and was about to ask about that when Toni chose that moment to butt in.

"So, 'Rip'?" She asked, "That's shorter than Elena Nevada-"

"Elena Neva Natividad Amicella Lucita Obregon." Rip interrupted and Nikki could see why she chose to go with the much shorter nickname. "It's way too long so I go by 'Rip'. Which is just short for my handle: Riptide."

With a wide grin on her face, ‘Rip’ cupped her hands in front of her, and a mist formed. The mist quickly condensed into water, formed a tiny wave in Rip’s hands, and then dispersed into mist again.

“Hiisst!” Hank hissed at Rip. The expression on his face was surprisingly serious.  “I don’t think that it’s a good idea for us to go flaunting our powers, at least not until we’re sure of what the score is around here.”

“Aaahhh... what’s the use of having special powers, if you can’t have any fun with ‘em?” Rip waved off Hank's worries then looked at the three of us. “What can you guys do?”

"Nothing I can really show off here without making a scene." Hank replied, keeping his voice low. "Strong, tough, and I can fly."

"Well, you could maybe show off by knocking some sense into those two over there?" Toni offered then turned to give the pair by the pinball machine a gimlet eye, "I can hear what you've been saying about my bud, Fey.."

Nikki had noticed the pinball wizards sneaking looks at him and exchanging comments. His hearing was better than it had been, but he had been deliberately trying to ignore the two in hopes that they would let it drop soon enough. Apparently that hadn't been the case.

It was also the case that at least one of the pair felt the need to double down.

"You have to admit that she looks like the kind who'd look even better with her ankles beh-"

Nikki closed his eyes, trying to block out what was being said, but he noticed it when the teen's voice abruptly cut off.

Toni was staring straight at the boy, her smile there but rather more predatory that it had been before. Hank had also stood up and while before he'd seemed like a nice guy there was something about his stance and expression which spoke of potential PAIN in the immediate future.

"-ankles up and resting her feet so it's a shame she didn't sit down" The teen tried, glancing sideways to his friend for backup but receiving no sympathy from that direction.

There was a brief silence then Hank slowly sank back down onto his seat followed by Toni pointedly looking away from the pair.

"...so, water?" Toni asked Rip, "I guess you can do a lot more with that than water pistols or making some guy look like he's pissed his pants?"

"Uh, sort of?" Rip replied, seemingly put off by the sudden switch back to 'ebullient Toni' after that brief show of 'scary Toni'. "It gets complicated."

"We got time," Toni said airly, "And it sounds sorta neat."

Nikki took a calming breath again and, while listening with half an ear to the conversation, took the opportunity to try settling his feelings. His shielding to block out the lines and 'voices' of the world around had failed him and, rather than trying to just reinforce it, he decided that rebuilding from scratch was the best idea.

Focusing on his breath, Nikki allowed his mind to slip into a special kind of focus.


Nikki left part of his attention on the ongoing conversation, just enough to make affirmative comments and make it seem as though he was taking part, but most of his mind was focused on checking the lines of magic and power in the waiting room. There were a lot of them, most old, and connected to living beings who had once been in the place, she noted. Lines from living creatures held a lot of yellow and gold, she had learned, and the yellow slowly leached out as the creatures ranged upwards in intelligence.

Additional lines from individuals were just that -- individual. Nikki carefully traced a few of them, but held back his direct 'touch' for fear of what that might do to those the lines were attached.

Rip’s lines were a deep, cool blue with bright silvery highlights. Probably something to do with her control over water, Nikki decided.

Toni’s were an almost incandescent orange and positively vibrated with barely suppressed energy. That, Nikki had to admit, fit the girl almost perfectly: energy, energy, motion, and yet more energy.

Hank’s were a strong, but muted brown and simply radiated quiet strength waiting to be called up. Feeling curious, Nikki followed the lines more closely in an attempt to see what was behind the strength. However it didn't take long before he gave up, pulling back slowly as that 'quiet strength' began to give the impression of a mountain looming above his head.

Nikki let out a shuddering sigh as the passive air of 'danger' faded then turned his attention elsewhere.

The pinball wizards were predominantly light green and pale purple respectively, both shot through with threads of bright pink, which was curious, but not that disturbing. Nikki reminded himself again to actually start noting down some of what he saw of the lines as simply remembering wasn't helping make sense of them. And to possibly grab a color chart from somewhere so that he had names to link to what could be frustratingly similar hues...

A bony finger poked Nikki's shoulder, knocking him out of the light trance and forcing him to pay attention to the part of the world which wasn't lines and power. Suddenly he found that Toni was in front of him, having stood up at some point while Nikki was looking elsewhere, and was now grinning at him.

"So…" Toni said slyly, "Looking forward to your wedding night?"

Nikki's mind went blank and he stared blankly at the back girl, having no idea what she was talking about. Behind Toni, Rip looked to be on the verge of laughing while Hank had a hand over his face as though he regretted everything.

"...ah?" Nikki asked, utterly confused and not appreciating the sudden images which thoughts of a wedding night brought to mind.

"Well," Toni began, "When I asked if you liked Hank, you nodded. And then when I asked if you liked him you went 'uh-huh'. And then when I asked if you were planning a wedding with him…"

Nikki felt her face growing hot and, after checking that he didn't have hold of any lines, wished that the floor would just open up and swallow him whole.

"But since the fun part of getting married is the wedding night, the start of the hon-ey-moon…" Toni continued, stretching out the last word even as Nikki felt his blush getting worse.

"'Rip'?" Nikki asked, looking past Toni towards the second girl. "How would I have to pay you to drown Toni? Or maybe me…"

"I think that drowning her might count as 'public service'." Rip replied in a deadpan, "Not sure if the courts would agree though."

"Agh! I am slain by your hatred!" Toni cried out, melodramatically clutching at her heart. 

Despite the circumstances, and the images of Hank still lurking in the back of his mind, Nikki couldn't help but follow the motion and let her eyes linger where Toni's hands rested. The tight top that the black girl wore was doing much to empathise Toni's modest endowment...

Nikki almost settled back into calming breathing again as he tore his gaze away, but after what had just happened he didn't want to risk slipping into a light trance again.

"Toni, just sit your butt back down here." Rip said with amused tolerance. "Don't make me get Hank here to smash you like he almost did with those two."

"Don't bring me into this." Hank said, smiling a little, "And I'll have you know that I didn't even consider 'smashing' those guys." He gave a mock sneer, "After all I have taste in partners..."

Toni immediately cackled and a moment later Nikki found himself letting out a giggle at the joke.

In a single smooth motion, Toni stepped back to her seat then assumed a cottequish attitude as she batted her eyes towards Hank.

"Oh, my darling!" She simpered, "Please tell me that I am higher in your regard than those louts…!"

"Grow a few inches and you might be higher." Hank replied even as he pointedly didn't look towards Toni.

"A few inches!" Toni asked, switching to faked outrage as she made a point of staring down at her own chest, "I've already got them beat in that department."

"Anyway…" Nikki interrupted, already seeing where this was going and not wanting to give Toni a chance to keep the conversation going in that direction. He hadn't known the girl for long, but it was obvious that unless reined in she'd charge off at full speed. "I take it that your superpower is never having to breathe?"

"Naw," Toni replied and Nikki inwardly relaxed as she took the bait. "It's… Well, sort of hard to describe?"

She looked around then gestured to the book that Rip had been reading, now closed and left on the girl's lap.

"You done with that? And it's from over there?" Toni asked, nodding towards the shelves. Rip gave a nod back, a gesture silently offering the book to Toni. An offer which she accepted.

In a smooth motion which Niki found hard to follow, Toni plucked the book from Rip's lap then tossed it across the room. Somehow, against what Nikki thought should happen, rather than the throw causing it to open and fall short the book somehow remained closed and spun in mid fight before lodging itself in a gap on the shelf.

"Tada!" Toni crowed and Nikki ever so politely clapped.

"It isn't quite in." Hank commented and Toni pouted.

"Gimme a break!" She grumbled. "It was cool though, right?"

"Very much so," Hank replied, making a show of patting Toni on the head as though she was much younger. "Good girl. A very nice try."

Toni ducked away from his hand after the first pat and, while it was hard to tell, Nikki was sure that Toni was blushing a little.

On her part Rip seemed rather more enthusiastic.

“COOL!" She exclaimed, looking between Toni and the book then back again. "How did you DO that?”

"For me, life is like a kung-fu movie." Toni explained confidently, lounging back in her seat as though it was something far more comfortable than a plastic waiting room chair. "I can do a lot of the shi- tricks that'd take special effects to do in them. It's just real for me."

“Y’mean you can do all that ‘Matrix’ stuff, with running along walls, dodging bullets and hanging in mid-air when you’re about to kick the shit out of someone?” Rip asked and, while he didn't want to show it, Nikki found himself impressed by the idea.

“Uhm, run along walls- Sure." Toni replied, leaning back a little further as Rip leaned in closely. "Dodge bullets- I dunno. Testing it sounds like it could hurt. Hang in mid-air- Get real. I can’t stop bullets in mid-air, neither.”

“Eh, y’can’t have everything.” Rip turned to address Nikki, moving away from Toni who seemed uncertain whether she appreciated the renewed distance or not."Hank mentioned his earlier, but you got anything to bring to this show-and-tell?"

Suddenly Nikki felt all too aware of the lines of power nearby and the knot, the nexus, which she had accidentally seized earlier.

"Nothing I could really do without blowing our cover. Nikki answered before honestly prompted him to add. "Not reliably anyway."

Rip seemed content to accept that and silence briefly fell over the group.

"Well, if none of you have much to say then I can talk a bit." Rip stated just as the lack of conversation began to feel awkward. "Any of you like surfing? There's some great surfing back where I come from: Redondo Beach."

Apparent Nikki wasn't the only who blanked on where that was as Rip gave an exaggerated sigh.

"It just outside Los Angeles." Rip said tiredly, "That's not too important though. The important thing is the waves..."

Nikki learned a lot about Rip over the next half an hour, willingly or not. He'd thought that Toni was talkative, but once Rip was on a roll she seemed to never stop as one run-on sentence merged into the next. He learned about how her parents ran a beachside shop in Redono. About just how many times her older sister had 'borrowed' money for condoms without asking. About how Rip had almost gotten herself lynched when she'd accidentally calmed the waves during a surfing contest...

More teens had started to filter in over time, but few actually remained in the waiting room and none actually disturbed the small group. The barrage of information, and some pieces of too much information, was wearing Nikki down even while Toni seemed to be happily soaking it all up.

As it was the arrival of a train, and the door to the waiting room opening shortly thereafter, seemed as though it would be a welcome distraction...

"Pretty."

Nikki had no idea who it was who said that, or if he had been the one to say it, but the word covered exactly what was on his mind. He had noticed that mutants seemed to be good looking, from Rip's elegant features or Toni's self-proclaimed 'hot bod!' to Hank's dancer's build, but now he was confronted by two examples who… which...

The blonde girl wore a trench coat which somehow did little to actually hide the outline of her figure. Nothing hid her face, her lips, or her piercing blue eyes and the combination of exposed beauty and her concealed face brought to mind the delightful idea of the girl slowly opening the coat to reveal that she wore nothing beneath it.

Shaking her head to dismiss that fantasy, Nikki made the horrible mistake of letting her eyes shift to the other prominent figure in the group. In the boy's case, Nikki couldn't single down a key feature which captured his gaze and stole his breath. The loose sweats that the newcomer wore failed badly to hide a build not too dissimilar to Hanks, but it was the small things which made so great a difference. The shoulders, those hands, the way he moved, the gleam of amusement in grey eyes...

"Woah!" Toni exclaimed, "Nice ta see ya there!"

"More for the Academy?" Rip asked casually as the three of the four came closer, one girl stopping by the vending machine and looking over the contents with a critical eye.

Nikki suddenly realised that he'd been staring right at the boy who was looking back. On his part the boy didn't seem offended, but just gave a smile in return which made Nikki feel even… worse.

Warmth filled Nikki's face and, to his discomfort, other places. It wasn't the first time that he had felt like this and the 'massager' in his luggage was proof that he thought that he'd grown used to the differences from when his body was male. Yet there was a difference between fantasies, private moments, and reacting to another boy.

The last member of the group, a slightly younger and Asian looking girl, shot Nikki a vaguely concerned look. All Nikki could do was shake his head in return and try to calm herself. It didn't help that he could hear Toni flirting, tag teaming speaking to both the girl and the boy. What was she going to do? Date them both…?

Nikki took a deep breath then let it slowly out, focusing on that as he tried to block out both the continued conversation and the suddenly mental image of the three to-

He took another deep breath, held it, then released it again as he felt his cheeks burn.

The lines in the room were just where Nikki had last seen them and those attached to the people who had been there before remained the same. However the newcomers presented a different form of distraction which he gladly seized upon.

The younger girl had a line which was a iridescent grey tinged with pink and, strangely, seemed ready to split apart as though it was a thread on the verge of fraying. One part of it somehow had split, something which Nikki had never seen before, and instead had attached to the stuffed lion which the girl held in her arms.

The girl who had paused by the vending machine, and who was currently piling up selection after selection, had an orange line akin to Toni's. It was different somehow, less vibrant in a way, but it still gave the impression of speed and energy.

The blonde… Nikki paused, forcing himself to focus on the lines rather than staring once again at the girl.

The blonde had a line which was slender yet flexible, rooted in the same brown that Hank's line possessed then slowly transitioning to the brilliant blue of the summer sky. For a moment Nikki was tempted to spend a little more time admiring her… no, studying it. Yet he managed to turn away to look towards the last newcomer.

And received a shock when he found someone standing between them, looking back at him.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed the presence of the young woman who Nikki found himself staring at. She should have been noticeable given that she wore an abbreviated semblance of a Victorian style dress, as modified to meet the standards used in costumes for a porn movie, over a body which was lush and curved.

:Greetings.: The woman said with a smile, the words somehow reaching Nikki without sound being involved. :Was there something which I could... help you with?:

Nikki opened his mouth to reply then closed it again, unwilling to be caught speaking to thin air.

:Please do not be concerned.: The figure offered with a faint curve of a smile on her lips, apparently catching Nikki's concerns. :While I do not have the time now, I would be overjoyed to discuss your wants later. In a... more private venue.:

Despite the distraction of the woman's appearance, Nikki retained enough awareness to notice that the woman was standing partially in the low waiting room table. Leon hadn't taught Nikki much about interacting spirits, and this was obviously one of some description, but what he had been taught could be summed up as "Don't!".

"-Sinclair." The young girl finished saying as Nikki actually listened to the sounds around him once more. Apparently a round of introductions had begun during his distraction.

"Just call me Boone. Jacob Boone." The boy offered with a smile and Toni laughed.

"Hey! Hank, he's stealing your trick!" Toni exclaimed as she elbowed Hank.

On his part Hank utterly ignored the jab to his side.

"It is a classic." He told Boone who nodded.

"If it's good enough for a 'double oh' agent then it's good enough for me." The other boy replied with a grin.

"But do you have an Aston Martin with all the gadgets?" Hank channeled with a smile of his own.

Boone's grin widened and those around him watched the back and forth as though it was a tennis match.

"Not personally, but I've helped work on one..." He said teasingly.

"Should I call you 'Q' then?" Hank parried.

"Oh do pay attention, Mister Declan." Boone replied, mimicking the sort of posh English accent which Nikki had only ever heard in movies.

The two boys, along with Rip surprisingly, laughed at that before Boone began to give a rather technical explanation about what he apparently 'helped' with. The three, with an occasional comment from the blonde girl, seemed rather enthusiastic about the matter but Nikki couldn't never find it in himself to share that sort of interest.

After a few minutes of attempting to follow along Nikki gave up and drifted away from the group clustered around the seats. After a few moments of digging in his bag he managed to find his purse and extract enough change for a drink.

Nikki stared at the vending machine with money in hand, trying to decide between the options on offer behind the glass. Many of the items were already sold out and he was left with a choice between Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi, Vanilla Coke, and an aggressively generic brand of 'Cola' in a grey can.

"You doin' okay there?" Toni asked quietly, sending Nikki's heart rate through the roof.

"Can… Can you please not do that?" Nikki asked in return, shoving several coins into the machine to prevent himself from doing something more violent.

"Sorry, sorry." Toni replied and actually seemed a little apologetic. "Just wanted to check up on you a bit. Not gettin' too much there for ya?"

"...no." Nikki said, but the answer seemed unconvincing even to his own ears.

"Look, I know I'm 'all that' then some but if I'm too much for you then don't worry." Toni stated with no real modesty but a degree of sincerity. "It's just… I noticed you zoning out a couple o' times."

Nikki stayed silent, not sure what to say in answer to that.

"If it's private, I got it." Toni added. "Just want ta check it weren't something more serious."

"Just some issues with the world in general." Nikki explained, jabbing a button with one finger then glaring at the machine when it made a rude sound rather than dispensing a can. "There's too much… Too much I can hear. And I'm still not used to the exercise to block it out."

As though simply saying that had brought more of the world to his attention, Nikki found himself hearing the things that he normally pushed away.

The conversation behind him was still ongoing, having moved onto the issues of ejection seats and tunnels. The vending machines and the lights hummed softly on different notes, the subtle sounds registering as 'synthetic' to Nikki. The plastic flooring beneath his feet spoke of things long dead, mournfully speaking rotting airlessly for years. The stone of the building and the ground beneath it were deeper, lower, and a bass theme backing everything else. The-

Nikki took a breath, deep and filling his chest, then slowly released it as he forced the world away just as Leon had taught him.

"You sure you're okay?" Toni pressed and Nikki could feel a tinge of concern before he blocked that out as well.

"I will be once I get a drink." Nikki assured the girl, glancing sideways to give Toni a smile which he didn't really feel. "Although if this thing doesn't actually deliver then I'm not sure how okay it will be."

Toni folded her arms in front of her, adjusting them a moment later to help push up her bust, then gave Nikki a mock glare.

"I'm gonna hold you to that one." She told Nikki firmly. "You keep not feeling so good then you just say the word. Don't think anyone here'll have issues if you need space. Or if you just need a seat."

Nikki nodded, not trusting his voice. With a final piercing look Toni turned and headed back towards the seats.

"Hey, guys, enough with the geek stuff!" Nikki could hear Toni chiding the others, "Let's talk about something actually fun."

Turning back to the machine Nikki actually looked at it before giving a sigh. Digging into his purse again he added more change until, finally, the can he'd wanted fell to the bottom of the machine with a loud 'clunk!'.

The can was pleasantly cold in Nikki's hand and felt even better when he pressed it against his cheek. Not quite wanting to return to the seats yet, where his duffle awaited, he took a moment to look out of the window.

In the time since he had arrived the crowd outside had grown significantly. There had only been a few waiting earlier but now there were between twenty and thirty teenagers, assumedly all intended to travel to Whataley, milling around with varying degrees of awkwardness.

Most of them looked normal enough; well, except for the chubby kid who wouldn't take that weird looking knit cap off, or the gangly boy who was at least 6'6" tall and all of ninety pounds, or the girl with weird blue-gray hair that grew up in spiky clumps that sort of crested back along her head. 

Nikki stood there for a while, people-watching while trying not to stare, but the sudden sound of music gained his full attention. Outside a girl in a skirt was bent over a boom-box, fiddling with it even as she demonstrated to all and sundry that 'going commando' was her chosen option.

The cool metal of the can against Nikki's face helped keep down the blush that he knew was trying to appear. It was both a relief and a disappointment when the girl straightened with a bubblegum pop now blaring out of it.

"Anyone else want to dance?!" The girl called, the intervening glass muffling her voice slightly but doing nothing to conceal the broad-grin on her face.

"HELL YEAH!" Nikki didn't even need to look around to recognise that it was Toni who'd yelled.

Glancing over, Nikki saw Toni and Rip both grinning while the 'Sinclair' girl and Boone were both covering their ears.

"Come on, everybody. Let's go!" Surprisingly it was Rip who said that, but Toni didn't appear to want to argue with the sentiment.

The ensuing mad dash had the pair heading for the door, somehow dragging the blonde girl in tow. Nikki could guess what might happen next and preemptive took a step away from what appeared to be their path, holding up his drink by way of explanation when Toni directed a pout at him in passing.

However he didn't move away when Boone, Sinclair, and the girl with an armful of snacks joined him at the window.

"I'm a speedster and she's making me tired just watching her." The Hispanic 'snack' girl commented as Toni started arguing with the boombox's owner about the choice in music.

"Do you think that 'sugar rush' is a valid mutant power?" Boone offered in return. It was hard to make out the details of the conversation but it seemed to involve the terms 'pop-and-lock'. Or perhaps 'line dance'.

"Toni does seem… inexhaustible?" Nikki offered, wondering if this could actually be blamed on the line he'd seen that was connected to Toni. After a moment he decided that it couldn't be purely to blame. Or perhaps he was confusing cause and effect.

"She's very friendly?" Sinclair offered, obviously trying to join in. While the girl didn't sound nervous, the way that she clung to her stuffed toy spoke volumes to Nikki.

The boom-box owner demonstrated a twirling dance move, one which made her skirt flare up not quite enough to show 'too much', and after a moment Toni mimicked it before offering a move of her own.

The impromptu duel, what Nikki could only classify as a dance version of 'dueling banjos', continued for a while and drew more of an audience from the crowd outside. It was only when someone else stepped forward, demonstrating a sort of 'spin on your head' breakdancing move which the boom-box owner flatly refused to attempt but which Toni impressively managed, that it finally broke up into dancing.

"Do you think that I could join them?" The Sinclair girl asked tentatively, breaking the silence which had fallen over the four. "I'm nowhere near as good as them, but it did look fun…"

A glance up at the time showed Nikki that was approaching four.

"I think it's time to head outside anyway," Nikki stated. "And I do need to double check my trunks…"

It occurred to Nikki that, at some point when his attention had been elsewhere, that the 'sounds' of the world hadn't been as intrusive while he had been watching. Cautiously he let himself 'listen' a little and was only vaguely surprised to discover that most of the noise seemed to be drowned out by a particular theme.

"I should grab my bag," Boone admitted and Nikki wasn't sure how the boy had ended up standing right next to him. The sound that Nikki could hear from the boy was hard to describe, sweet yet with a demanding rhythm behind it…

"Did you see where your trunks got dumped?" Boone asked.

"Hank moved them for me?" Nikki offered, jolted out of his contemplation by the question. "I was sure that he put them close by."

It didn't take long for those in the waiting room to find their bags and, once outside, a pile of trunks and cases was easily spotted. All the while Nikki inwardly castigated himself for being so distracted. He knew that just moving across the country shouldn't have made everything so hard to ignore, and so easily to be drawn into, but...

"Hey, Fey!" The voice jolted Nikki out of his thoughts and he looked up, seeing Toni grinning back at him from close to the boom-box whose owner was fiddling with it again. Toni gestured to him, "Come on and join in!"

Nikki paused, trying to figure out a polite way to say 'no', but Toni seemed to take that silence as a 'yes' instead. The black girl darted over, latching onto Nikki's wrist, and started tugging him towards where the other two dancers waited.

"It'll be fun…" Toni wheedled as they drew nearer.

"I-I'm not good at dancing?" Nikki offered, mentally scrambling for a reason not to take part. Some of the crowd of waiting students were actually looking at them now and dancing would only draw even more of the attention that he didn't want.

"Tsh!" Toni made a dismissive noise, "I've seen how ya walk; real graceful when you're not thinking about it. You'll be moving that booty of yours like the best of us if you stop worrying so much."

Steeling himself, Nikki stopped and almost literally dug in his heels. His shoes weren't helping, to the point that he almost lost his balance, but after dragging him for a half pace Toni came to a halt.

"I'm sorry, Toni, but I do not want to dance." Nikki stated as firmly as he could and looking directly into the girl's eyes. He felt that he must have done something right as the words sounded firm, unyielding, and commanding even to his own ears.

"You're sure about that?" Toni asked, her playful insistence having vanished.

"Very." Nikki stated.

"Then feel free to just watch then." Toni replied and Nikki was startled by how easily she had agreed. Something of that must have shown on his face as she gave a laugh, "I just wanted to help you get over your… whatever. You just want to watch? Then just watch my sweet ass as give ya the show of your life!"

Toni gave a wink, released her grasp around Nikki's wrist, then spun on her heel and walked away. No, Nikki realised, it wasn't a walk. It was a saunter or a sashay and he found his eyes drawn down by the motion of her hips.

Nikki swallowed and looked away, the image of just how well Toni filled her tight and deliberately worn denim shorts burnt into his mind. It was one which he was sure would come back to haunt him in future.

"Please, leave that off!" A woman's voice called.

A tall adult Asian woman holding a clipboard emerged from the crowd, giving a nod to the boombox owner as the teen slowly stood without starting the next song.

"Thank you," The woman said to the girl before turning to address the crowd.

“Okay, listen up everybody!" The woman announced, her voice carrying easily along the platform. "I am Mrs. Shugendo; I’m the Dean of Students at Whateley Academy. I'm here to ensure that those of you who are going to the Academy actually get there today."

"Instead of getting lost?" An anonymous voice called from the crowd, generating a ripple of laughter.

"That has happened before." Mrs Shudeno replied, still projecting her voice. The woman cut a somewhat impressive figure, especially given the tight white blouse she wore, but Nikki found that the way she spoke was more attention grabbing. "Please don't make it that I have to hunt along the roads for those who chose to 'hoof' it. Or spend hours on the phone checking up for 'missing' students who are already here."

When there were no further interruptions she continued.

"There are two shuttles here to take you to the school. I’m going to call off your names alphabetically and direct you towards one of them." Mrs Shudeno told the gathered group, "When I call out your name, let me know who you are, then grab your luggage and go out to the appropriate van."

"Can I-" Someone began to ask then broke off as the Dean held up one hand.

"I know that you have a lot of questions- but, unless it’s an emergency, save it for when we get to the school.” Mrs Shudeno informed the students.

Something about her tone gave ample warning that there would be consequences for those who pestered her about something which wasn't an emergency. A small part of Nikki wondered with morbid curiosity just what would happen if someone had challenged the woman.

Nobody did so, after a moment's pause, she checked a clipboard then announced the first name, "Ambersley, Mark?"

Nikki realising that it would be his turn all too soon and hurried back over to where Boone was waiting with their baggage. Boone had a bag slung over one shoulder now and, as Nikki came, close, passed the other boy his own duffle.

There was a brief moment of contact as the bag exchanged hands, giving Nikki a fleeting chance to register the warmth of Boone's touch, which Nikki did his best not to react to. It was just a touch, he told himself. And just an accidental one at that!

Nikki blamed his girl body entirely.

"I'm afraid that I'm going to have to leave your other bags up to you." Boone said, somewhat apologetically, even as he nudged the trunk by his feet as though to indicate why. "If we're not on the same bus then I'll see you at Whateley sometime?"

"Sure?" Nikki replied, at a loss for words.

"Boone, Jacob!" Mrs Shudeno called from behind Nikki

"Here!" Boone yelled back then strode forward, pulling his trunk along by way of a long strap.

After the boy was out of sight Nikki managed to begin making himself calm down. That boy, Nikki decided, was far too pretty and that was playing havoc with his… reactions. He firmly pushed the issue to the back of his mind, leaving it as something to unpack at some future date if ever at all, and focused on manhandling his two trunks close to the buses.

It took a surprisingly short time before Nikki's name was called. Or, to be specific, that "Fey!" was called for. The names up to that point had been a mixture of real, or at least plausible, sounding names and what could only be codenames. At least Nikki knew that "Fey" was his chosen name and hoped that nobody actually had called their child "Boom-Boom".

On her part Mrs Shudeno barely gave Nikki a second glance, simply marking his name off of the list, then directing her towards the furthermost bus before repeatedly calling for "Greentouch! Has anyone seen 'Greentouch' here?"

Two trunks and one bag, Nikki decided as he slid the second trunk into the luggage compartment of the bus, had seemed far easier to handle when he'd had the help of his mother and a trolley to get them onto the train.

"You okay there?" The blonde girl from earlier asked Nikki as she slid her own small suitcase in with the trunks.

"I'm fine," Nikki answered ruefully, "The weight… the weight isn't the issue. It's the bulk?"

"Oh, I know how that goes." The blonde said, and the trenchcoat that she still wore at least helped Nikki's eyes from latching onto anything too incriminating. "It's not so bad for the PK bricks, but Exemplars? Playing nice with things like 'leverage' is compulsory. I once tried to carry a bed across campus by myself."

"The most I've tried was to move a mattress and that was before all this." Nikki replied, gesturing to himself. "The way it flopped everywhere was the problem."

"Exactly!" The girl said brightly then oh!ed, "Sorry, I'm Angel."

"And you're both in the way." An annoyed male voice stated from behind Nikki who belated realised that he'd stopped to talk in just the wrong place.

"Sorry about that." Nikki said as he stepped out of the way. The boy in question seemed to pay that apology no heed, instead focusing on stowing what looked to be a… golf club bag?

Turning his attention back to Angel, Nikki tried to give her an apologetic smile.

"I'm Nikki," He said, reflexively extending a hand, "Or, well, I think it's 'Fey' now?"

"It's generally safer and better to u-" Angel began, but cut off as she accepted the offered shake.

A few seconds after she made contact though the girl yanked her hand free from Nikki's without warning, letting out a pained hiss.

"Tha-" Angel began then cut herself off with a sharp shake of her head. "Sorry. My mistake."

Angel turned and walked away without saying anything further, leaving Nikki staring at the blonde's back in confusion while having no idea at all what was going on. Without really thinking about it he followed her onto the bus, but hesitated when Angel headed far to the back and sat down amidst a small knot of other girls.

I can ask later what I did, Nikki told himself even as he felt an unaccountable pang of guilt. Not wanting to intrude on Angel, he slid into a window seat about half way along the bus. He was certain that he hadn't done something with the lines, and there had been no obvious hobgoblins popping up, but somehow...

"Hey there, girl!" Toni announced as she suddenly just dropped into the seat next to Nikki. "Saw you coming on and, hey, thought you'd want some company so came over to join ya."

"Thanks?" Nikki offered, having rather mixed feelings about Toni's abrupt presence. He wasn't sure if the sudden distraction was worth a third near heart attack of the day due to her pulling off her 'ninja' trick yet again. "Are you sure there's nobody else you'd want to sit with?"

"And miss out on your glorious presence? Toni asked with a grin. "How could I miss out on that?"

It was a cheesy and deliberately overblown line, but Nikki found himself smiling back at the almost infectious enthusiasm that the girl exuded.

"I'll try to take that as a compliment," Nikki offered in return. "And, please, feel free to bask in my reflected glory."

Toni laughed, loud and uninhibited, as though she didn't care who heard her.

"And now you're gettin' it." Toni cackled before twisting in her seat to full face Nikki and letting the laughter fade, "So, you up to talkin' 'bout where you come from or family or stuff? Or should I figure out something fun to natter on about?"

"Something else would be better." Nikki admitted, but the moment that the words escaped his lips he knew that he'd made a mistake.

"Right. So did anyone at the station catch your eye?" Toni asked, an almostly predatory gleam appearing in her eyes. "Or maybe you saw a hot guy on the trip here? I was watching this show a couple of nights ago and, wow, there was a guy in there who you wouldn't believe."

Boone passed by behind Toni and Nikki managed to catch the boy's eye briefly. He gave the unfairly attractive boy a pleading look, but received only a helpless shrug in return which wordlessly said 'What could I do?' before Boone moved further down the bus.

Nikki tried to keep a smile on his face as Toni continued to release a torrent of words, innuendo, and rhetorical questions. The endless energy that he'd felt from Toni seemed to be challenged into the girl's half of the 'conversation' and, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Nikki began to suspect that the continuous babble from Rip earlier on was about to have a rival.

Exposure to Toni was apparently something best taken only in small doses and the trip to Whateley Academy looked to be an all too long one…

Sunday, September 3, 2006
Jacob Boone

I hadn't really grasped the sheer size of Whateley Academy when I'd read about it.

My first glimpse of the campus was when the bus turned off onto a private road, but things still didn't really click then and the fieldstone wall we were approaching was low enough that it looked more symbolic than anything else. If it had been taller then I might have gotten a better idea of just how much of it there was and the area it encompassed.

To be fair it was hard to get much of an impression of the landscape when there was a girl pressing up against you to look out of the window. Regardless of everything else in my life, or which had happened before, I was a teenager and the feel of her body pressing against my arm was pretty distracting.

"Hey, were those gargoyles?" She asked as we passed through a gate, twisting to try looking back along the road.

"I have no idea." I replied, resisting an urge to do something about the girl who was almost literally on my lap. "You can probably ask someone after we stop."

That got a pout for my trouble as she settled back into her own seat. Under other circumstances I might have taken her up on the unsubtle hints, but I drew the line at not starting anything with someone who forgot to actually tell me her name.

It was a pretty good pout though and, in an effort to ignore it, I turned my own attention entirely outside. We passed by several large red brick buildings, ones which matched what I recalled seeing featured on the brochures, without my 'neighbour' making another attempt to get my attention, and then several smaller ones before slowing to a stop outside one final building.

People started getting up as soon as the bus stopped, but I was wise to that. As far as I knew there was no reason to stand up then look stupid waiting for everyone else to get off so I took a moment to study the place outside.

Like the other buildings that we’d just passed, it was four stories tall, four if you counted the attic with the dormer windows, and made of dark red brick with white trim in some sort of style which seemed familiar but that I couldn't place. There was some sort of plaque near the door, but there was no way to read it from that distance...

:I would say that the style appears to be a blend of the Colonial and Federal styles.: An all too familiar voice commented inside my head and I suppressed a sight.

I never should have looked through that book on architecture. I thought mournfully. And I still don't get why you are interested in that, Flower.

:A lady of culture and refinement should know of such matters.: Flower replied airly. :Polite conversation is an art which requires a broad foundation.:

The girl next to me had gotten up, inserted herself into the flow off the bus, and there weren't many people left so I slid into the aisle seat to wait for my chance. Thankful my 'lodger' decided not to make any further comments and fell silent again. Flower had a literal inside view into my mind and, despite the impression I tried to give to both the world and myself, I was damn nervous.

:I assure you that I perceive no reason for you to be quite so alarmed.: Flower commented. :Might I suggest indulging in some stress relief at the first opportunity? A number of your fellow students would be happy to assist in sating your vulgar desires.:

Desires which you eagerly aid and abet. I reminded her as I pulled my bag down from the overhead space. The impression that I received in return was that of an almost feline smile.

Fortunately for my nerves, waiting until (almost) last meant that there was no real problem walking straight off the bus and joining the milling crowd retrieving their other bags from the luggage space.

With so many people so close together, and eager to be the first in line, being jostled or bumped was only to be expected. However from various reactions, and a few actions that I glimpsed, some of those present were happy to use the closeness as an excuse for a straying hand.

:I am still surprised by how often you are surprised by such things.: Flower informed me as I watched a very attractive redhead suddenly stand straighter with her cheeks suddenly flushing crimson. :Such things are the way of the world. And my own presence allows you even further leeway.:

A space opened up in front of me and, rather than think of a response to Flower, I squeezed into it. The luggage compartment of the bus seemed cavernous, but half the other students had visited it before me so it didn't take too much effort to pull out my trunk and suitcase.

Carrying them was, however, more of an issue. I now had a heavy piece of luggage in each hand along with a strap around my neck which seemed intent on strangling me.

"Do you need some help, Boone?" A voice asked and I had to look up to figure out why it seemed familiar.

"Could you just move the bag around my neck a little further around, Jade?" I asked the girl who I'd met on the train.

My first impression after meeting Jade was a fairly good one and she proved that my judgement wasn't totally wrong by helping to rearrange things. All the luggage that she had was a single backpack and if I hadn't known more about her then, until common sense kicked in, I'd have been jealous that she had such a light burden.

"Thank you." I told her once the strap was no longer causing such an issue and we'd moved somewhat free of the crowd that was now trying to funnel itself into the building.

"You're welcome." Jade responded. "Do you need any help taking things in?"

I considered that, and Jade's slight figure compared to the three bags I had, then just shook my head.

"It's kind of you to offer," I assured her as I adjusted my hold on the case."But I think that I can handle it from here."

The hesitant smile that Jade gave in return was adorable. Combined with how delicate seeming she was there was the temptation, which I entirely blamed on Flower's lingering influence, to push things further. To try to flirt with her and see how far things could go.

"You better hurry in," I told her as I quashed that urge. "I suspect they'll try to give some sort of welcome speech. You should probably try to get to the front so that you can actually see what is going on."

"Oh!" Jade exclaimed then, after a brief hesitation, gave a small wave. "I'll see you later then."

I paused to watch as she scamped through the crowd, the stuffed lion that she'd animated on the train visible from its position atop her backpack. She was so goddamn cute, Hollywood grade cute or even possibly anime grade kawaii, that I was having problems thinking of her as entirely real.

:If you were honest with yourself then you would acknowledge that you are having the same issue with many other things.: Flower pointed out. :Were not Jade, Whateley Academy, and this world at large once purely fictional to you?:

:They were.: I admittedly inwardly as I started to pull my case and trunk along on their wheels, doing my best to compensate for the one wonky coaster on the trunk. :Being pushed into this world and living Jacob's life still seems surreal though.:

:Do you feel that it was a fool's bargain?: Flower inquired even as I felt her lending me a little of her strength, making it feel far easier to handle my belongings.

:Assuming I don't get killed, or worse, it looks to be a good one so far.: I replied as I came close enough to the door to see the bronze plaque marking this as 'Poe Cottage'. :I got a lot out of it, including having you stapled to my soul, but the problem isn't that I read stories about Whateley Academy. It's that things here don't quite match the stories that I remember.:

Stepping inside Poe led directly to a foyer, complete with couches and a front desk, that wouldn't have been entirely out of place at a hotel. It was a little too worn and 'lived in' to exactly match that impression, but the mass of teenagers with their bags who were present only added to it.

"Can I have your attention, please!" Mrs. Shugendo, the woman who had collected us at the station, called out and once againI was impressed by the way she made her voice carry. "Can I have your attention, now!"

The last word was distinctly louder than the previous ones and it finally seemed to do the trick as there was silence after she spoke.

"Thank you and welcome to Whateley Academy!" Mrs Shugendo announced, "Now, you’ll get the formal Welcoming speech from the Headmistress along with all the other Freshmen, but this little talk is just for YOU."

Her gaze swept across the room, checking that everyone was paying attention, and now I had no problems at all seeing her as a dean at Whateley.

" Now, the reason that you were all told to come here a day ahead of the other Freshmen, and the reason that you’re being put up in this dormitory is that you all have something in common that sets you apart from the other students, even beyond your individual mutations."

I was paying attention to what was being said, but my eyes had strayed to the crowd and when the dean had said that several of those present tensed as though to flee or otherwise went very still.

"You are what is currently called ‘Alternative Sexuality’ types." Mrs Shugendo stated then seemed to decide that she wasn't being blunt enough. "You are Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, or so obviously Asexual or Bisexual that it is an issue for you."

If she had stopped there I could swear that several of those present would have made a run for it, but instead she swept on. As it was, it was good that we were all young enough that heart attacks were unlikely and a stray corner of my mind wondered if they had prepared for that-

:Focus, Jacob!: Flower chided and I forced myself to pay the speech the attention it deserved.

"We won’t condemn you for this; you didn’t really have a choice in it, any more than you chose to be mutants. We're not going to be hypocritical like so much of the rest of the world who indulge on one hand then condemn such behaviour in public." Mrs Shudendo promised, "We realize that it’s hard going through adolescence. We realize that it’s even harder when you’re a mutant. You have enough to put up with; you don’t need the extra aggravation of being branded a quote sexual deviant unquote."

An angry look crossed her face so briefly I wasn't sure that I hadn't imagined it.

“Unfortunately, homophobic bias is so deeply ingrained in the American, Canadian and British school systems, and to a lesser extent in the European schools, that letting you go around openly declaring that you’re Gay or Lesbian or Bi or Transgendered is just asking for trouble."

A few of the students nodded unconsciously in agreement to that.

“While we are very proud of the fact that you were brave and honest enough to admit your... persuasion on your admittance forms, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to ask you to curb that honesty." The Shugendo said and a murmur ran through the crowd at that request. Or perhaps at her hesitation. "We will have to insist on this as it’s a matter of your continued safety. There are students here who have been victimized quite cruelly. And, unfortunately those who have been hurt that way tend to be the cruelest of all, when they find someone that they can pass that pain onto."

It was painful for me to remember how 'mutie panic' stood, in this world at least, alongside 'gay panic' and 'trans panic' as keystones to several successful legal defences in various trials. For charges of murder as well as more intimate assaults... but specifically not when non-payment to a brothel was involved.

"Keeping a secret can be painful as well as difficult. Even more so when you're living in the same room, or sharing the same building with, those you don't want to know." The dean told us, "Thus we have Poe Cottage, a place where you don’t have to worry about the kids down the hall finding out, because they already know about you, and you already know about them. However it's more than for your own personal comfort..."

She trailed off, leaving all of those present to wonder what exactly she meant.

"In our society, homosexuals and ‘fellow travelers’ are still considered fair game for that sort of thing." Mrs Shudendo reminded us pointedly then followed on from that. "Given the abilities that students at Whateley have? A ‘Gay Bashing’ could turn deadly, even Apocalyptic. It is, simply said, easier for all involved, if it simply doesn’t become an issue. If your sense of pride demands that you come out of the closet, then you have a right to. But please, have consideration for the other people here at Poe, and don’t reveal the overall status here.

"Because if you do?" This time it was hard to miss the change as a crooked and vicious expression which appeared on Mrs Shudendo's face. "Then once everyone else is done with you then your ass is mine... and not in any of the fun ways."

The Dean of Students for Whateley Academy, and it was definitely The Dean with a name deserving capitalisation, looked out over us while giving us all a moment to absorb that before she continued.

"There are reasons that you were brought here a day before the more.. mainstream Freshmen, and they are twofold." She explained in a less intimidating manner and I knew I couldn't be the only one who breathed a sigh of relief at that. "To give you a day to get used to the campus before the others get here, and so that you will sort of be part of the background when they get here. This will give you a certain... credibility that should allow you to make connections more easily-"

Mrs Shugendo broke off as a tanned blonde girl raised her hand. In my opinion the girl was brave to do that, possibly unhealthily so.

"Yes? You have a question?" The woman asked with a nod towards the girl.

“Ma’am," The girl began and I mentally gave her points for remembering to be polite. "You’ve just pointed out that everyone here is queer or something like that. So, how is that gonna affect how we’re paired up when it comes time to choose roomies? I mean, the brochure kept mentioning roommates like it was a given..."

She made a face at that as if the idea was inherently repugnant. I could somewhat see why she felt that way because, as Jacob, I'd grown up as an only child and sharing my space felt off. In my other life though I remembered going to boarding school where shared rooms was the norm.

:You really should regale me with tales of that part of your life.: Flower murmured, having picked up on my thoughts. :I am being eaten alive with curiosity and wonder if any are similar to those stories about 'that one time at band camp'.:

"Poe is a co-ed cottage, what other schools would call 'dorms', along with Melville and Hawthorne." Mrs Shugendo explained although, given the mixed composition of the students in the entrance lounge, that wasn't hard to realise. "By default your initially assigned roommate will be a pairing of the same gender, that being Boy/Boy or Girl/Girl."

"Of course, like the other coed cottages, you can request to have a specific roommate whatever their gender if you both agree." She gave a smile, one plainly of amusement. "Whatever your actual preferences I would suggest sticking to those pairings though. You'll find that it vastly simplifies the issue of contraception."

That comment generated a ripple of embarrassed laughter from those listening which cut off as her expression became more serious again.

"Speaking of contraception, various forms are available on campus, both here in Poe and in the infirmary." Mrs Shugendo continued, " There you can obtain, or we can arrange, something suitable for your powers. A lot of mutants don't realise that they have different reactions to drugs, or even immunities to such, than a baseline human and that can apply to both the male and female version of the Pill. For that matter most condoms don't stand up well when, for example, both those involved are Exemplars. And, really, remember to use lube!"

There were a few laughs there, but they sounded more nervous than anything else.

"However, I must remind you that non-consensual Carnal Relations involving students, whether between opposite sexes or the same sex, is Strictly Forbidden at Whateley." The capitals were clearly audible, making the words stick in my mind as she stressed the point. "Any homosexual student caught breaking that rule will be punished as severely as any heterosexual student doing so!”

That brief glimpse of The Dean vanished again as she chided us.

"For goodness sake, if you really can't get laid normally in a school full of other horny teens? Then you obviously need to work on your... 'game'." She paused quite deliberately then added, "I have a long list of 'chat up lines' in my office that you could use as inspiration. Those of you who need a warning about coming too close to crossing the line and need to be warned will be 'invited' to recite those in public as part of a detention."

Nobody seemed to know what to make of that 'threat'. I knew that I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not. The silence stretched out awkwardly until a dark haired boy finally broke it, half raising his hand even as he asked his own question.

“What are the rules about using your powers openly, like flying for instance?” He asked, "Or for using them in private in the dorms if I want to help carry some trunks for people."

“Those questions, along with many others, will be handled by the Headmistress at her Freshman’s Orientation speech in two days." Mrs Shugendo replied with a shrug. "In the meantime, just try to keep a low profile outside and use your common sense within Poe itself. If nothing else that should keep you from tripping into some of the more senior students.”

:I am rather impressed by this woman's presence.: Flower said, speaking up again even as the Dean fielded several other questions. :Do you think that she would be open to private lessons? Spending some time with an experienced, and apparently dominant, 'oriental' would be an educational experience for you.:

:Flower…: I warned then paused, searching for an argument that Flower would actually pay attention to. While she did put on an act, with her 'faux Victorian' person, at her heart she had a rather inhuman set of priorities. :I don't think that she'd be interested in students. And she is 'Mrs' so obviously she has someone there to satisfy her needs.:

:You could always opt to share the love with her lady or gentleman partner.: Flower said in a whimsical 'tone'. :You can't say that you aren't tempted by that idea, whatever role you might play within it.:

The image which her words painted was vague, but my imagination was all too happy to fill in all sorts of possible details. Having over two decades worth of memories as an adult did nothing to help hold back the effects of teenage hormones combined with the 'adjustments' inherent to being the host to a spirit of lust.

:Just think about it…: Flower teased.

"-Mrs Horton." Mrs Shugendo finished, stepping aside to yield her place at the center of attention to a woman who looked like any other suburban matron that I’ve ever met. And yet, there was something about her impeccably maintained person that suggested that she was completely unfazed by being the focus of a group of super-powered teenagers.

Belatedly I realised that I'd missed some of what was being said and, pointedly ignoring the cajoling voice in my head, I tried to focus on what could be important information.


By the time Mrs Horton finished explaining all the details of 'life in Poe Cottage' my attention had wandered from her to the other students. It wasn't as though I wouldn't find it useful to know details such as how to check out books from Poe's small library, that guests weren't allowed past the lobby-lounge that we were standing in, or that food not kept in the 'studio coolers' in our room was fair game.

However it was far more amusing to watch and see who reacted when we were told things such as that we would be personally responsible for our own laundry. And mildly informative as to who hadn't read the details listed in the information packet on Whateley.

“In other words, it’s your own fault if you stink”, Mrs Horton finished up.

Those words seemed to act as a signal as three students already in uniform moved towards the front even as Mrs Shugendo took over from the 'House Mother of Poe'.

“Your heads are quite ready to explode from information overload, and you're probably bored out of your wits, so let’s get you broken down into groups that we can actually work with." She announced then indicated the trio beside her. "These three are Steve Rossiter, Belle Forbes, and Rosalyn Dekkard."

At each time one of the three gave a nod as though to draw attention to who was who. Steve was a blonde guy who looked like he'd be a great quarterback and Rosalyn had the lush curves of a homecoming queen or a porn star. However I already knew who I needed to pay attention to and so studied the third of the group.

Belle Forbes was a svelte young woman with sapphire blue eyes and ravenswing black hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Her face was long and angular, with a long straight nose. She might have been harsh looking, if not for a touch of wry humor about the eyes and mouth. For some reason her mouth was what really caught my attention and I found myself 'admiring' her full lips.

"These three will be your Student Guides for today." Mrs Shugendo told the crowd, "You can also go to them for help after today, but you do so at your own risk and potentially your own expense. They’ll show you around, answer your questions, and get you sorted out as to your sleeping arrangements. And so, I’ll leave you with these words - There's always a bigger fish in the sea."

After delivering that malaphor she gave us a small nod then turned away, leaving us in the hands of the three students who began reading names one by one off of lists on clipboards. Rather than speak over each other they each called out a single name at a time, obviously to give the student in question time to approach.

"Jacob Boone!" Belle called out when it was her turn, surprisingly me somewhat as I didn't realise that I'd be first on the list.

:Did you expect that she would be calling for 'Hannah Abbot'?: Flower teased playfully.

:Well, she does have an English accent so she could have made a Harry Potter reference.: I replied even as I grabbed the handles to my case and trunk then started over towards Bell.

"Jacob?" Belle asked more quietly as I drew close then smiled when I nodded to her, "Just wait here while I get the rest and we'll head off together."

Before I could respond to that Belle raised her voice and called out, "Toni Chandler!"

Six students, and five more names, later there was a cluster of us standing together even as the other two guides continued to alternate as they called out names. From the look of things our group was in the decided minority compared to either of the others.

"Ahem!" Our guide cleared her throat for attention, interrupting Toni as she ribbed Nikki about 'not being able to spell'. The cough managed to get the attention of both girls though and, once we were all looking, Belle spoke.

"Welcome to Whateley, pleased to meet you and all that jazz- hope you don’t mutate into giant slugs.” Her voice had a cultured ‘Public School’ English accent of the kind which made me feel somewhat nostalgic. The hint of deadpan in her tone was a nice touch though. “Don’t laugh- it’s happened. I’m Belle Forbes, as those of you with short term memories that exceed 15 seconds should well recall."

She paused then grinned. It was a nice smile, warmer and a little mischievous.

"Just between us,” she added conspiratorially, “My name isn’t Belle, it’s Kendall. But, my ‘code name’ is ‘Beltane’, so everyone’s taken to calling me ‘Belle’. Don’t worry, I can't be buggered if you call me Belle- well, not unless I’m having a really bad day. Then I might like to be, but won’t commit to anything I can’t make good on.”

That got a bark of laughter from Toni, a blush from Hank, a sound like an 'eep!' from Jade… and an intrigued :Hmmm…: from Flower.

"Should we table that discussion for later? Or, later, use a table for it?"

It took having everyone staring at me to realise that I'd been the one to say that and that I'd said it aloud. There were a few scandalised, or embarrassed, looks being thrown my way but Belle just laughed.

"Unfortunately I'm playing guide today and not 'naughty girl guide'." She chided me lightly, "Try catching me another time and we see about entering… negotiations. Now, leave your bags here and let's be off."

It took a moment to divest myself of my bags and I was all too happy to do so. Around us the other two guides seemed to have finished calling out names and had begun leading their respective groups off in different directions. Rosalyn had taken the girls upstairs while Steve already had most of his group out of the door. Moving at a relaxed pace, Belle led us after Steve's group but turned us towards the main buildings while they went in a different direction.

“Very well, Fresh-things,” Belle sang as we made our way along the path, “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to have to discuss some rather personal things, and we don’t want the others listening in, and vice-vicious. So, Rosalyn will show the Dykes in training around the cottage, Steve will show his little nancy-boys around the grounds, and I will show you changelings the school buildings. And then we rotate.”

Belle glanced back, letting us see that she had a rather acid smile on her face. “Ah, the light dawns! Yes, m’lovelies, you are all in this group because you are, one way or another, defecting to the enemy in the War between the Sexes.”

“Or, we were drafted by the wrong side!” A blonde and vaguely punk short girl, Ayla I believed Belle had called her, grated out.

"I'll take that and raise you 'not sure if a double or triple agent'." I shot back and got a glare which was both angry and confused in turns.

Belle just waved off the comment airly as she continued to lead us in the direction of the Administration building. “Yes, yes, I’m sure that it was all very traumatic. Now keep up, keep up! We are on a schedule!”

It didn't look to be a long walk to the main campus building and, to be honest, I didn't really mind following along behind the others. If nothing else it offered a rather pleasant view and, given the sway to her walk, at least Belle was aware of that fact as she led from the front.

"So, umm, are you turning into a girl?" Billie, the blue haired girl, asked as she literally drifted back to join me. Her feet weren't touching the ground but she seemed to misunderstand the sideways look I gave her. "I don't mean that you look bad, but you're already rather pretty and if you're midway I'll… I'll stop talking now if you want me to?"

Part of me was surprised at how nervous she seemed. I didn't think that I had done anything to intimidate her and, from what I remembered in the stories about her, 'Tennyo' hadn't been one to scare easily. At least not by anything which didn't specifically stomp on her fears…

:Mphff!: Flower giggled in the back of my mind.

:Stop laughing, Flower!: I grumbled at the spirit. I was pretty sure that Flower hadn't actually stopped, but at least she did me the courtesy of not letting me hear her doing so.

"It's fine." I assured Billie, "I'll go over it when we do the meet-and-greet I'm expecting but, basically, I'm a 'serial defector' and keep flip flopping whether I want to or not. It can get pretty annoying."

:You didn't seem to object when…: Flower began in a sly tone, but I firmly blocked out her voice.

And I definitely didn't blush.

"Does it hurt?"

I mentally blinked as Billie asked that question, her face showing the concern that she obviously felt. It wasn't one that I expected.

"Not inherently." I replied, pausing just long enough to show that I was actually thinking it through. "It happens fast and often enough that I don't directly notice any more. If I'm wearing the wrong thing though then that can cause problems."

Billie thought about that for a moment then her hands came up protectively in front of her breasts, an unspoken question on her face as she winced.

"No, not that way." I told her with a chuckle. "I've had a good shirt give way, and stretched one tight fitting t-shirt, but nothing as bad as that. Managed to give myself a nose bleed once-"

I broke off as I saw that Billie had started to smile.

"-no." I repeated waggling a chiding finger at her. "It happened because I changed midstep and ended up tripping into a door. And, no, I'm not a cabbit who forgot to phase through it."

Billie laughed at that and it was a pretty nice sound.

"You're not declaring 'Miya!' so I'll give you that." She said as though offering an olive branch. "You recognise how I look then?"

"I know enough to duck for cover if you have one gem on your wrist and try summoning something. And to run if a redhead kid calling herself your mother turns up." I told her dryly. "Although I take it that this isn't deliberate cosplay?"

"I'll talk about it at the meet-and-greet too." Billie said, looking away for a moment. "Let's catch up with the others then?"

I hadn't even realised that we had fallen behind, but once I looked I could see that the gap between us and the rest had opened up during our brief talk.

"And this isn't a plot by you to get me alone?" I chided as I increased my pace. "I'm so disappointed…"

We hadn't fallen that far behind and as I hurried along the brick walkway I could hear Belle pointing out three distant buildings as Hawthorne, Twain, and Whitman. By the time I actually rejoined the group she had just finished naming the three 'cottages' which we passed as Dickinson, Emerson, and Melville.

"I'm so glad that you could join us once more." Belle called back to us in a dry tone, calling our renewed presence to the attention of the others. I fidgeted under the massed gazes as she continued. "Did the two of you have a... good time together?"

"We weren't gone that long." I protested back, more for the sake of form than anything else.

"That depends on how fast off the mark you are." Belle responded. "In my experience young men can be eager to shoot... ahead."

:Oh, I like this one.: Flower murmured. :Be sure to take up her offer of sodomy sometime and prove your endurance.:

I could almost feel the heat of Billie's blush and I knew that my own face was going red. However I felt that such a comment couldn't go without a response.

"While I'm impressed by your assessment of my seduction skills," I told her, "I think that you're being a little insulting to the lady in question. After I'd need a longer to properly appreciate her in the way she deserves and we weren't gone for hours…"

Belle made a show of looking at the blushing Billie then gave a slow nod.

"That is an attitude that I approve of." She acknowledged, "However I feel that you may be overestimating your own stamina. But enough of that for the now."

We crested a small hill and saw the campus spread out below us.

I wasn't an expert in architecture, but there was an obvious spread of styles between the various buildings from one brutally plain concrete structure to another which said 'City Hall' to my eyes… and which had a huge sparkling glass geodesic dome at the end.

“That, Fresh Ones, is Schuster Hall, administration, classrooms, and that dome is called The Crystal Hall." Belle said as she gestured to the large building and the nearly incongruous dome at one end. "It’s where the dining room is and tends to be where most students with free time hang out."

Someone's stomach growled, although I wasn't sure whose it was, and Belle laughed.

"You might be happy to know that we’ll be having dinner in the Hall," She told us, "After our meal I’ll give you a thumbnail tour of the classroom areas, and show you where to find the offices and important areas such as the restrooms, first aid stations, and gaming areas.”

We continued along the pathway in near silence until reaching a wider, flagstone-paved square in front of the imposing, if strange looking building. There were stone and metal benches scattered all around the square, and a small fountain with water burbling away in it occupying the center while there were statues around the edges.

Belle stopped in front of one statue and turned to face us, the rest of us coming to a halt in a loose huddle around her. Someone bumped against my side and I was surprised to see that it was Nikki. The redhead gave me an apologetic smile and I nodded back to her, giving way as she moved further away from… one of the benches?

“This is the statue of Noah Whateley, the man who founded this school back in 1878." She informed us and I gave the statue a second look. The man in question was old with longish hair, a beard, deep penetrating eyes, and the 'bulge' which I had noticed seemed omnipresent in this world's statues of men.

"They only put this thing up because a school is supposed to have a statue of its revered founder." Belle 'confessed' without a qualm. "The highest position that any graduate of the original school ever reached was a Congressman for Vermont. Anyway, after about eighty disappointing years of producing complete non-entities, the original Whateley Academy shutdown by his grandchildren and put up for sale."

Belle gave a shrug as though to say 'What can you do?' before continuing.

"In 1966 it was bought by Utopia Project, a group of mutant superheroes, who wanted a remote place to train emergent mutants in how to use their powers. They kept the name, apparently so that the school would appear to have a long and presumably illustrious history.”

Belle took a long breath and gave us a long measuring look. “Very well, now that we have that tiresome bit of trivia out of the way, let’s get down to it, shall we?"

Unconsciously I nodded and made a mental note of the name which she had mentioned. For some reason it vaguely rang a bell in regards to superheroes…

:I'll be sure to remind you.: Flower promised.

"First, we’ll tour the Administration and School buildings, so that it won’t be a complete shock to you." Belle began to explain when nobody attempted to answer the obviously rhetorical question. "Also, this will give the girls a chance to get their luggage upstairs and choose their rooms, without tripping over us. After a decent interval of viewing the torture chambers, we will return to Poe, and you will lug all of your stuff up the stairs and pick your cells."

"Getting right into the bondage stuff?" Toni, and of course it had to be Toni, quipped. "Please, be gentle with me…!"

"I will admit that the idea of a gag for you is certainly increasingly in appeal now." Belle responded smoothly then continued with her obviously preplanned speech. "Anyway, when all of that’s settled, we’ll thrust out again. This time to tour the grounds, athletic fields, and the combat training areas.”

The possible joke about 'places to get hot and sweaty' immediately came to mind, but I held back on it. However it seemed that wasn't what was meant to be in the forefront of people's minds.

“Yes, training areas for combat."Belle grinned as she savored a direct hit. "No, you haven’t been kidnapped by a mutant terrorist cell, or drafted into the military. Whateley’s policy is that the students are left completely to their own devices to make up their minds as to subjects such as politics and philosophy."

She paused, allowing that 'reassurance' to sink in.

"However, given the nature of many mutants powers, the bellicose nature of humanity in general and the viciousness of Anti-Mutant militants in particular, it is quite likely that (whether you want to or not) you will be faced with situations where you will have to fight." Belle said and while her joking manner was still in evidence there was an added air of grimness to her words. "And it would be a criminal waste of all this expensive education if we let you graduate, just to let you die a week later because you couldn’t defend yourself.

"There's something else too?" Toni said, staring intently at Belle. "Some reason you're talkin' about this straight off."

"Indeed there is." Belle acknowledged. "For, like it or not, even more than being a mutant or being of an ‘Alternate Sexuality’ we are a group apart."

Even the finger quotes that Belle made didn't make anyone laugh.

"Whether as a matter of deep-felt conviction or as a matter of our mutation forcing it on us, none of us will remain the gender to which we were born in." Belle stated it as fact rather than supposition. "Others may sympathize, but even the gays and lesbians don’t really understand. So, while we’re here, we’re going to have to rely on each other much more heavily than the other students do."

At some point in her speech Belle had folded her arms beneath her breasts and stood up straight as if gathering authority to herself. However now she relaxed and quite deliberately let her arms fall to her sides, perhaps symbolically abandoning that 'authority'.

"Now, having seven transgendered students is a trifle unusual, especially at the beginning of the year. Normally, we only have three or four changelings at the beginning of the year, maybe with half as many showing up later in the year. Still, the rule is that those like us room together at least for the first year and help each other out. With seven of you, we have the makings of a nice little team." She gave a snort of amusement, "At least, that’s what we’re going to try for."

"When you said room together..." This time it was Jade who spoke first. She looked a little pale and her voice betrayed her worries. "I thought that it was two people to a room, not all of us in just one dorm?"

That made Belle laugh, causing Jade to shrink back a step, but she was shaking her head as she did so.

"Oh, I didn't mean to imply that." Belle answered, giving Jade what was probably meant to be an encouraging smile. "Getting along with one other person is likely to be hard enough. I'd have hated the idea of sharing even a larger room with more than that."

"But you wouldn't now?" I asked, blurting out the words without meaning to.

"It depends on who it was and what else we were sharing." Belle told me, "More seriously though having some personal space, even if shared with one other person, is very important. Which brings us to what I wanted you to do while we were out here, out of earshot and away from inquisitive minds: introductions."

Belle held up a hand as if you stall any potential protests.

"Now, this might be a little painful for some or all of you." She said earnestly, "But if we are going to trust each other then there has to be a starting point. I’d like each of you to introduce yourself, tell the others about your background, how you feel about your change, what you want to make of that change, and- Whateley’s version of ‘what’s your major?’- what your mutant power is. Let me start off."

The slender girl stepped forwards, moving from her place at the edge of the crowd to closer to the midst as though symbolically 'joining' us.

“My name is Kendall Forbes, and I was born in the outskirts of Bristol." She announced, "That is in Britain, specifically the south west of England. I was born into a 'perfectly respectable' family and, in keeping with the sacred tradition, my parents packed me off to a ‘Decent Boys’ School’ the first chance they got."

She grinned suddenly and, really, that sort of expression fit her face far better.

"What they didn’t realize was that I wanted to be packed off to a 'Decent Girls’ School. And not just because of the chance to get close to the lovely ladies." Belle confessed, "At any rate, when I was in my Second Form, I started seeing wispy things floating around. I started having nightmares about a ghoul that I called ‘Gnashitty Rippit’, a foul thing with a wide befanged mouth and grasping betaloned hands."

Belle made a vague gesture in the air and a shimmering cloud began to take shape, gradually condensing into something resembling a cross between slime ghost from Ghostbusters and far too many moray eels. It twisted in the air, turning this way and that as though trying to escape unseen bonds so it could leap towards the nearest living thing.

"Then one night, I woke up in my bed, and lo And behold!, there was Gnashitty Rippit, floating over my bed, licking his chops." The cloud matched actions to the words and, even though I knew what was really going on, I felt grateful when I felt Flower tense as though ready to jump to my defence.

"The damned thing chased me all over the school!" Belle exclaimed with a scowl. "Finally it cornered me, with nowhere to escape, and all I could do was scream at it to go away. .. and strike me down, if it didn’t!"

With a near 'pop' the so-called Ganshiity Rippit vanished and Belle switched back to a more casual tone of voice. Across from me I saw Hank flex his hands, forcing his hands to unclench from fists, and Nikki seemed to have zoned out for a moment.

"It turned out that not only did I have complete control over Gnashitty, but I had actually created him, out of that wispy stuff floating around." She told us flippantly. "That ‘stuff’? It's called ‘Ectoplasm’, and I have the power to gather it up, mold it into whatever form that I want, and set it to doing things."

Belle paused and an evil little smile appeared on her face.

"Now I, being a sane, stable, responsible young man of fifteen summers who had been teased quite horribly for being a 'baby about bad dreams', did the sane and responsible thing." Belle informed us ever so innocently. "I immediately started one of the most horrific hauntings in the modern history of England. Severed heads floating down the halls, blood dripping down the walls, gawd-awful screams in the dead of night, horrible things turning up in the Masters’ beds-”

A misty look of nostalgia swept over her face and she trailed off with… a blush?

:I do believe that she is actually aroused by the memory." Flower commented and I wasn't sure who worried me more, that reaction from Belle or that my 'lodger' sounded intrigued.

“Lord it was wonderful!" Belle chirped, "They wound up sending Gray Wizard, one of Britain’s foremost superheroes (and a bit of All Right, if I must say so!) in to investigate. It took him a solid week to figure out that it was me! I’ll give him this, he is a sharp one- the only reason that it took him that long was that his scryings indicated that a girl was behind it all."

Someone made a questioning sound, I was pretty sure it was Jade, and Belle took that as her cue to explain.

"Y’see, I’d discovered that I could also use the old Ecto to disguise myself-” Belle swept a hand down in front of her, and suddenly turned into Marilyn Monroe, dressed as she was in that scene in ‘The Seven Year Itch’ where the gust from the grating blows her skirt up.

‘Marilyn’ cooed at us, and there was just enough time for me to register that she was possibly not wearing anything beneath that dress before that hand swept back up, and Belle was back, grinning evilly.

“At any rate, the Wizard took me aside, explained that I was going about it all the wrong way, and set me up with an interview with an agent from Whateley. He even explained it all to the Mum and Dad… although that ended up with him being the one to give my backside a thrashing later on because they couldn't be sure that they had the real me." Belle explained as her grin widened even more. "But, before that, they sent me to a specialist to see that I was doing alright… but found out that puberty was throwing me a few surprises. The beginning of breasts for one."

I knew I wasn't the only one whose gaze was caught when Belle quite deliberately 'hefted' her breasts as though to illustrate the point.

"It seems that by disguising myself as a girl, I was affecting my body so that it was conforming to the image that I was projecting. The doctor told me that if I kept disguising myself as a girl, that it could even make me redo puberty as one!" She gave a solemn nod as though to underscore the seriousness of the situation. Something which was undermined by the way that her grin was still firmly in place. "So, naturally, I started disguising myself twenty-four/seven and they had no choice but to enroll me here at Hogwarts as a witch in Slyt- I mean, Whateley as a girl at Poe.”

Belle posed for a moment before relaxing.

“Now, it’s your turn.” She looked over the group of us slowly until her gaze landed on me. I felt slightly proud that I didn't flinch at that.

"Well, you're one of those in the minority so why don’t we start with you?" Belle informed me while gesturing me forwards, "Come on now, don't be shy. You're with friends… and me too."

"You don't mind if I hold back from putting on the same show, ma'am?" I asked and Belle shook her head.

"I would dream of trying to hold you up to my gold standard." She assured me then shifted to chiding, "And why are you calling me ma'am?"

"Because you mentioned about using a certain name meant you 'can't be buggered'." I told her back, being sure to keep my tone absolutely casual. "And I may have plans for that ass of yours…"

Behind me someone made a choking sound while Belle just stared at me blankly. For a moment I was sure that I'd managed to offend her with my audacity, an action which I was suddenly worried would herald a reappearance of ‘Gnashitty Rippit’.

Then she laughed and it seemed that there was no substance to my worries.

"Oh, I'm going to have to keep an eye on you." She said, wagging a finger in my direction. "You like to dream big, boy-oh?"

"I'll be keeping an eye on you two," I replied, looking Belle slowly down then up in the way that Flower had taught me. Given that she actually blushed at the attention I was apparently doing it somewhat right. "And you'll definitely be in my dreams…"

"Can't you just get on with the introduction and flirt later?" The blonde punk girl demanded, interrupting Belle's possible response.

"Raincheck?" I asked Belle, pointedly ignoring Ayla.

"Certainly." Belle agreed then stepped back with a small bow, leaving me as the center of attention… and I froze as I realised that everyone was looking at me now.

:Relax, head up, breasts out, and remember to breathe.: Flower advised softly.

I did as she bid and it took me a moment to realise that I actually had breasts once more. The transition, as was usually the case, had happened so smoothly that I hadn't noticed. That nobody had reacted was proof enough that the usual 'issues' with the change were still in effect.

"If you didn't catch it earlier, I go by Boone." I told the expectant listeners. "My mother is a mutant as well, although she didn't expect to have me, and she has honestly no idea who my father might be. I grew up with her doing her best not to panic that she was 'doing it wrong!' somehow in raising me."

My impression of my mother's worried voice, which I remembered hearing her use when phoning Auntie with Questions!, got a few smiles.

"I came into my powers about the way that we expected and, initially, it looked like Mom would be teaching me what I needed to know." I explained, "She was a Devisor who made cars. I was a Devisor and I started to get interested in metals and parts…"

I trailed off, briefly feeling nostalgic for events which I remembered but which arguably never happened. It was the Boone whose history I'd joined who had been so happy to finally be able to share that with Mom.

"I take it that something happened?" Hank asked, pulling me out of those thoughts.

"Yes, there was." I replied then hurriedly added. "Nothing hugely horrible… not except from certain points of view. I'm not sure how much of the weirder stuff you all know about, but I ended up having a run in with a spirit."

Nikki was unconsciously nodding at my words, obviously following along, but for some reason Ayla was now looking at me rather warily.

"She approached me, spoke with me, and… Well, they think I had an Avatar rating. A low one but a rating." Spotting Jade's confused expression, and assuming that she wasn't the only one ignorant, I offered, "That means that I had the potential, as a power, to 'host' a spirit. It would get some power and a safe place for a lifetime while I'd get some of its abilities and powers."

I paused for a moment, taking a steadying breath before continuing.

"I wasn't much of an Avatar. So Flower, the spirit, decided to make room for herself... and apparently broke a few things in the process."

I saw Belle flinch at the idea while Nikki merely winced and most of the others looked blank. I carefully avoided the absence in the back of my mind where the memory of the bonding should have been. Flower and I had made sure to lock that away before I ended up with nightmares.

"I'm not sure if it helps or not that Flower is a lust spirit of some kind." I admitted and this time I could see that it was Billie making a strangled sound. "She won't tell me too many details about herself and, despite the show she puts on, doesn't think 'human' too well. But she's certainly happy to fix up anyone I ask her to, apparently under the assumption that one more healthy person is one more person I might want to fuck."

"How does that make you a 'changeling' like the rest of us?" Toni asked, "I mean, ya didn't say you were a…" She paused, trailing off then giving me a more focused look.

As a girl I had a body which while not what I had wanted I was determined to be at least realistic, if not entirely thrilled, about. Even with the loose clothing I'd worn on the train there was no concealing that I had a figure which could be easily described as 'talented'. If I was being more honest with myself then 'thicc' and 'big titties' might be other unfortunately accurate descriptive terms to use.

"That's part of what she broke," I told Toni. "My gender flipflops from time to time, whether I want it to or not. Beyond that what gender I am gets… confused. I've been hit on as a boy by a non-homosexual boy, been a girl in a boy's showers without getting a second glanced, and all between that."

I gave a snort of laughter, "Frankly, I think that the administration decided to drop me in Poe after the third time they 'corrected' my listed gender and finally noticed what was happening."

:You should permit me to introduce myself.: Flower stated, speaking up again unexpectedly. I wasn't sure that it was the wisest of moves but I didn't feel so strongly about it that I was willing to deny Flower the chance...

"Is changing your gender and healing all that Flower does 'for' you?" Belle prompted, breaking me away from what I belated realised was a potentially dangerous line of thought.

"She adds her physical strength to mine, but she isn't that impressive at the moment." I admitted, "She'll fix me up unasked, effectively giving me a Regen rating, and is a 'backseat driver' who pipes up to heckle me or point things out the obvious."

:Would I do a thing such as that?: Flower asked oh so innocently.

I didn't deign to answer that question.

"At least you can fall back on your Devi-" Belle began then seemed to catch sight of my face, "Is there something wrong?"

"She broke my devising too." I admitted then realised how that might come across, "Not broke broke. I can make things, a wider variety than I used to get ideas for, but they now have to have at least a shade of Flower's influence."

:My dearest host, I would request a chance to defend myself.: Flower said sharply, sounding vaguely offended. :You have made our partnership sound terribly lopsided.:

Someone had obviously asked me something as everyone was looking at me expectantly as though waiting for an answer.

"I'm sorry, I was paying attention to my 'peanut gallery'." I said with my best apologetic smile.

"You can actually talk to her?" Jade, perhaps unsurprisingly what I knew of her actual power, was the one to ask that.

"Getting her to not talk is the real trick." I replied and that got a few nervous laughs. On her part Belle was still watching me with a carefully blank expression. "To be fair to Flower, she has been promising that there's more that she can do for me once she is more fully recovered from… something?"

Leaving the issue of Flower's promises and potential I tried to move on.

"Sudden changes in powers are rarely good so my mom wasn't sure what to do. She was rightfully terrified that I was going to burnout or something." Inwardly I winced at the memory of the fear in Mom's eyes. "She got in contact with people, asked around, and after some not so minor disasters managed to arrange for me to come to Whateley."

There was a pause in which nobody said anything before I added, "That's about it."

"When you said 'fix' to what extent does 'Flower' manage that?" Alya asked and I was happy to have an answer to that.

"I got slammed into a wall hard enough to break several bones, including damage to my spine, with several shards of metal embedded in my guts." I informed her, "It took about… seven or eight minutes until she was done."

Since I was looking at Ayla I caught the slight widening of her eyes.

"'Minor disasters'?" Toni echoed my previous words with a grin.

"I was being stubborn about trying to make things as I did before." I told her with a rueful smile for an incident that I didn't really feel I should be smiling about. The incident had been terrifying. "Pro Tip: devise engines don't like being poked by someone who no longer knows how to make them work."

"Gotcha." Toni replied with a nod. If she meant anything more to than that I didn't catch it.

"I haven't tested it to that extent with anyone else for obvious reasons," I said, returning to explaining matters to Ayla. "But I've been told that it'd apply equally to fixing others. Although there are a few… side effects."

"Side effects?" Belle asked with a raised eyebrow, a trick which she must have practiced.

"Growing arousal and lingering horniness." I bluntly stated. "Flower, as you'll find out if you ever get to talk to her, won't admit to weakness but her nature seems to slosh into people. She also seems to view fatigue as something to fix."

"Should I ask how you get around that when she's healing you?" Belle inquired.

"My secret is that I'm always horny…" I replied with a grin and a vague feeling of disappointment that nobody would get the reference.

"Promises, promises…" Toni interjected with a brief leer which quickly faded. "Sounds like you had a little trouble, but nothing as bad as some guys have it then?"

"Nobody tried to lynch me and the biggest problem I had was someone trying to escort me out of the lingerie department for going into the female changing areas as a girl." I assured her.

"...you mean for being a boy? Or that they knew that you really were one?" The black girl questioned.

"In hindsight even they were confused about it." I told her with a shug of my shoulders. The motion reminded me that I needed to dig a bra out of my bag.

"Are there any other questions for Boone?" Belle looked over the group only to be met with, at most, shakes of the head. "Then I think we can hear from Hank next…"

Taking that was a cue I moved out of the way, swapping places with Hank as he moved to the forefront of the crowd. In the back of my mind Flower stirred and I wasn't surprised to have her speaking up once more.

:It is within your rights to hold your cards to your chest, oh landlord of mine.:" Flower began slowly. :However these introductions are intended to engender a degree of trust. There is more that you could have shared.:

:And start by admitting that I know them as fictional characters?: I asked her doubtfully, :I really can't see see any way of that turning out well.:

:Then I shall simply reserve the right to say 'I told you so'.: Flower murmured then, when I didn't dispute her words, fell silent once more.

As I settled myself to listen to the introductions of the other 'changelings', beginning with the tale of Hank's harrowing escape from some 'misinformed' mutant hating soldiers, I tried to tell myself that everything would turn out alright.

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Jade Sinclair

Under other circumstances the "Welcome to Whateley" introductory tour around the campus would have left Jade gaping in astonishment.

The group that she was part of had been shown so many things from underground reactors and secret tunnels to hidden training halls! It was everything she could have expected from an elite secret school for mutants and a small part of her was filled with questions about if she could learn to ninja or if anyone would really miss a little bit of that pile of gold...

However even the wonders which they had been shown hadn't managed to pull the majority of Jade's thoughts away from the revelations about the other freshmen. There was an ugly knot of jealousy in her stomach and, every so often, she found herself sneaking sideways glances at the others as they walked back along a brick path towards Poe.

Hank was talking at Ayla, who was nodding along with an amused look of tolerance, but Jade didn't dwell long thinking about him. The idea that Hank would want to be a boy, especially if they had been a girl to start with, was hard to wrap her head around. However, the boy seemed happy enough though with the change, and since he didn't seem to be faking it, Jade decided that she'd try to be happy for him too.

Ayla… Ayla was someone who Jade both sympathised with and was confused by. Being stuck part way between genders, so close and yet so far, sounded horrible to Jade even if Ayla wanted to go in the opposite direction from her. The way that the blonde dressed was punk but, underneath that layer, Jade could see hints of a beautiful girl.

It had been all that Jade could manage to not laugh at the disgruntled expression on Ayla's face when the other had admitted to having shrunk a little with the change. Being tall would be nice, Jade would admit that much, but Ayla had complained about 'losing two and a half inches!' and that wasn't much.

"...to Hawthorne for detention, but don't feel put off. If you have a friend who is a resident, then feel free to visit." Belle was saying as Jade's attention wandered back to the older girl, "So long as you pay attention to the hazard warnings, they're good about that sort of thing. Better than Poe, but the Thornies tend to have physical rather than mental problems. Which, by the way, is part of our cover story."

As soon as they got to Poe, Jade was determined to drag Belle off somewhere private. Bell's elegant figure, her just wide enough lips, her breasts which weren't too large but big enough…

Jade wanted Belle's body.

Something about that line of thought bothered Jade and, reviewing it, she found herself blushing. That… that magazine she had read on the train had obviously corrupted her. No, Jade corrected herself hurriedly, she wanted to have Belle's body in the sense of her own looking like it. And Belle had admitted that it only took the use of her 'ectoplasm' for a while to turn a 'boy' into a beautiful girl.

Jade chewed on her lip as she thought over the issue. While it would be nice if Belle just helped freely, that didn't seem likely. After all, Mrs. Shugendo had mentioned that the guides would be helping just for the day rather than keeping on doing so. And Belle's description of the process sounded as though it had taken quite a while...

"You can use the paths if you want to go running, but we have a small gym in Poe and there are other facilities around campus." Belle informed Boone, answering a question the girl had asked while Jade was tangled up in her own thoughts. "The campus as a whole is monitored, but there are always holes, so watch out if you make enemies and have a routine of going jogging."

"Jogging is going to have to hold off until I get a better sports bra." Boone replied, something which had Belle making an up and down motion with both hands and throwing Boone a look. "Yes. All too much so. I haven't confused myself yet, but I'm avoiding running and jumping jacks for now…"

The brief exchange confused Jade and she made a mental note to think about it again once Jinn returned to her. With too much to think about, she'd cast Jinn into Simba again. The plushy was in her backpack, which Jade had brought with her out of habit rather than leaving in Poe. Jinn was paying attention for Jade and if occasionally a small plush paw had to nudge her on track… Well, nobody had mentioned anything about it.

Jade was distracted enough by her own thoughts that she didn't dare pay too much attention to Boone. The other girl had a still developing body of the type which Jade had only seen on magazine covers, and not the women's magazine covers. Mostly.

Boone’s appearance made Jade's unwanted parts respond, and that really wouldn't do. Even though Jade had admitted her lack of change, she didn't want to have, draw attention to, or think about them, and especially not be tempted to touch those parts.

Thinking about pretty people brought Jade's thoughts around to the one member of the group who could compete, in a different way, with Boone in terms of looks: Fey.

Where Boone was lush and distracting, Fey seemed delicate yet strong. Her red head caught the eye so easily like some sort of Hollywood star stepped straight off of the screen. At a few stray moments, Jade wasn't sure if she wanted to just goggle admiringly, or hurry her off somewhere to keep her safe and dress her up like the prettiest of all possible dolls-

Nikki glanced back over her shoulder at Jade and the younger looking girl hurriedly shook her head as she realised that she'd been staring at the redhead. On her part, Nikki didn't seem offended and turned back, looking towards Belle while pointedly ignoring Toni who seemed to be enjoying verbally jabbing in hopes of provoking a reaction.

Looking at the pair, Jade wasn't sure that Toni realised what reaction she was actually getting.

Actually, now that she thought about it, Jade wasn't sure that Toni actually understood any of the reactions she was getting. The black girl was open to the point of oversharing, seemed to have endless energy, and was always smiling. But, beyond that, Toni… Toni moved too well.

Jade watched Toni as the other girl turned around, walking backwards in front of Nikki without missing a step or a beat in her ongoing chatter. Even as the cut down shorts, 'bootie shorts' Jade thought that they were called, and her top tried to draw attention to Toni's body in one way, it was all too easy to see how athletic the girl was. She was good looking, but underneath everything else, Toni had lean muscle and moved like a tiger with boundless energy-

"If you like her, then you should tell her."

The quiet comment took Jade off guard and she almost stumbled. Lost in her own thoughts, she'd forgotten about the last member of their little group of 'changelings' who had been beside her and matching her pace.

"...I'm sorry?" Jade offered politely, looking sideways towards Tennyo. "I.. I don't know what you mean."

Tennyo gave a smile which showed a hint of cute fangs even as her golden eyes gleamed in amusement.

"You don't need to be so polite about it." The girl told Jade, "From what I've seen Toni would take it as a compliment at worst."

"I'm not interested in her like that." Jade protested with a blush. "And, anyway, I don't have... the 'parts' I'd want to have for things like that."

She made a gesture towards waist level and hoped that Tennyo would leave the matter be. Just thinking about things like that made Jade want to squirm with embarrassment.

"Of course." Tennyo agreed tolerantly, reaching over to ruffle Jade's hair briefly. For her part Jade squawked in protest and half ducked but, despite that, didn't actually move away as the pair continued walking.

Jade had wanted to sit next to Tennyo on the bus, but hadn't managed to squeeze in before some boy had taken the seat. Her first impression of Tennyo had been surprised recognition and, even now, a sideways glance confirmed that impression.

"Um, can I ask you a question?" Jade asked after a few moments.

"I think that you just did." Tennyo replied with a smile.

Jade did the mature thing and stuck her tongue out briefly in response, prompting Tennyo to laugh.

"That's not what I meant." Jade complained.

"Go ahead." Tennyo replied with a soft laugh.

"Did you really come to a school for superheroes cosplaying as Ryoko?" Jade blurted out then tried to tack on an explanation. "She's a character from this anime, Tenchi Muyo, and she's really cool but you've got blue hair and the eyes and… and you're floating again!"

Tennyo blushed and hurriedly dropped so that her feet at least touched the ground. She had, apparently without realising that she'd been doing it, started drifting along a few inches about the path.

"Thanks." Tennyo murmured, "I don't want to be told off for that again."

"You're welcome." Jade replied then paused. "It was cosplay, wasn't it? That's dressing up as characters for anime or manga or shows and Tenchi Muyo isn't a really new one, but it was neat-"

Jade broke off as Tennyo held up a hand for silence, feeling her face growing hot as she realised that she'd started to babble. It wasn't her fault that she'd enjoyed looking through the collection that her mother had left behind and that there was a chance that she could finally talk to someone about them.

"...I'm sorry." Jade said quietly, "It's just that you look so much like her that I didn't think it could be a coincidence."

Tennyo looked at Jade with a strange look on her face. Proud and arrogant, but it was a fragile look that could just as easily turn to tears at a moment’s notice.

"You mentioned that you changed because of your brother," Jade said slowly as pieces clicked into place. "And I know you said that you didn't want to talk about much of it…."

There was a definite wince that Jade spotted and, after a moment of furious thought, she decided just what to say.

"You should own it." Jade informed the blue-haired girl.

"...what?" The response accompanied a complete blank look.

"You should completely make it your own." Jade said with as much conviction as she could muster. "If you have to look like Ryoko, then don't be embarrassed about it. You should be the biggest baddest 'reformed space pirate' ever. Laze about in mid-air, get half marbles and stick them on your wrists, see about trying to get a lightsaber. If anyone asks, then claim that you're not a copy of Ryoko, Ryoko is a lesser version of you."

In Jade's opinion, it wasn't right that such a cool-looking girl was so sad and hurting about herself. From what had been said earlier, and 'burn-out' was a term that she'd have to look up as it sounded terrible, 'Tennyo' hadn't had a nice time.

Mustering up as much of her courage as she could, something which seemed so much easier than addressing her own worries, Jade nodded as though agreeing with herself.

"There's only one thing about how you look that you need to worry about." Jade informed the now stunned Tennyo. "And that's if your hair is naturally like that, or else you're going to be spending lots of hair spray to keep it up."

Jade paused, thinking over what she had just said, then realised that there was an important thing that she hadn't added.

"That's a worry. Your hair looks really soft, and it'd be horrible if it looked worse because you didn't take care of it right." After her speech, she waited for Tennyo to actually absorb what had been said.

"Billie." The word seemed to slip out of Tennyo.

"What?" Jade asked, confused by the random word.

"You can call me Billie." Billie said simply, smiling even as her eyes seemed to glisten. Looking into them Jade could see that they were slitted like a cat's, like the real Ryoko's was, and she had to hold back from saying something about how cool that was. "It's the least I can do for my first, and only, fan."

Jade's lips pressed together as she caught a hint of 'woe is me!' in those words. Obviously just her saying things wasn't enough and so, drastic measures were needed.

"Boone-senpai!" She called out, making Tennyo… no, Billie jerk back. The cry seemed to catch other people off guard given their reactions, but more importantly, Boone actually heard and looked back. "Billie thinks that she's horrible. Say something nice about her!"

"Just one thing?" Boone responded, stopping in place to allow those behind her to catch up. "It's hard to pick just one, but if you give me a moment…?"

The girl made a show of looking over Billie, her gaze frank and assessing.

"She has the second-best breasts here." Boone finally said.

"Second-best!" Jade protested even as her face warmed again. "Why is she second-best?"

"From what I've seen, they're nicely-sized, bouncy, and don't need a bra." Boone told Jade. Even as Jade forced herself not to look in Billie's direction she heard a quiet strangled sound from the other girl. "However, I'm basing this on what I'd seen at a glance and, obviously, I've had a chance to examine my own in detail. Unless that is an offer to let me compare and contrast…?"

"You can check mine next, if you want!" Toni called back from beside Nikki. "Gotta get back that second-place position 'fore I can challenge for first."

"Sorry, the judge's decisions are final." Boone jibed. "You'll have to wait until the next contest to challenge."

"Uh-uh!" Toni disagreed with a shake of her head. "I'm gonna have to appeal to a higher authority... Hey, Belle! What do you think?"

Somewhere during the conversation the group had ground to a halt with their guide looking back at the 'changelings' with a bemused expression on her face. However, now that she had been called upon, Belle made a show of considering the question.

"What do I think of the matter?"Belle mused, "Well, if I was forced to render my opinion I'd say that it's rude to consider such 'unsightly swelling' the epitome of breasts. They're just such Unsightly. Sacks. Of Fat."

Despite the deadpan and oddly emphasised way that she'd spoke the words it was obvious to Jade that there was no real heat in Belle's 'glare'. Jade heard a choking sound from beside her and, glancing at Billie, saw that the blue haired girl was trying not to laugh.

Maybe it was a quote? Either way Jade didn't get what Belle was referring to.

On her part, Toni let out an exaggerated squawk of protest.

"Hank!" Toni cried, turning to the single male of the group. "You're my last resort. Tell this gal who doesn't know what's good that bigger is better and mine are the best."

Hank's face was a little red as Toni literally held up her breasts as though to present them to him. Taking a deep breath he opened his mouth to say something then stopped as though he had reconsidered.

"Well," Hank said finally. "They do say that more than a handful is a waste..."

Toni melodramatically clutched at her chest and fell to the ground as a ripple of laughter ran through the group. Jade joined in even as she felt embarrassed by what Hank's words could mean… although the idea that she didn't have to have that much was one which she tucked away. After all modest goals were something easier to aim for.

"Now that's a clever boy," Belle said with amusement, "And one who I'm sure we can get to judge the next round of this little game. However, we do need to move on…"

There seemed to be general agreement with that, since they resumed walking. Or, Jade noted, most of them started walking again while Billie returned back to drifting along the path.

"Billie?" Jade hissed then, when there was no response, tried again. "Billie!"

The second attempt got the other girl's attention and she looked at Jade quizzically.

"Feet." Jade murmured and after a moment of confused enlightenment dawned.

"Thanks." Billie said in a chagrined tone as her sneakers once more made contact with the ground. "I just keep forgetting that I'm doing that."

"I can remind you, if you want?" Jade offered then felt bad about having been so forward.

"If you could? Then that'd be great." Billie replied with obvious relief. "But you don't need to do it if you don't want to."

"It's the least I can do." Jade assured her only to get a more focused look from the other girl.

"You really don't have to." Billie tried again, "It's something I should be remembering anyway, not making you do for me."

"It's fine." Jade said with a smile. "I won't always be there though, so you better remember yourself. Or get your cabbit to remind you!"

Billie laughed at that and Jade felt a wave of relief that she hadn't pushed things too far.

"I'll try not to push my cabbit too far." Billie promised Jade.

"...you have a cabbit? An actual cabbit?" Jade said as multiple ideas came together when she saw that Billie was embarrassed. There had been something in the Whateley application form about 'creating living creatures' but the idea of a cabbit made hundreds of questions suddenly come to mind. Did it like carrots? Would it actually 'miya!' like in the series?

"Yes-" Billie began then held up a hand before Jade could blurt out all the things she wanted to ask. "But it's not real. It's just a stuffed toy."

Jade caught herself starting to pout, disappointed at the lack of a fictional creature which would have been oh so cute, and Billie gave her a smile which flashed her tiny fangs.

"Can I see it?" Jade asked then beamed at Billie's nod. "I didn't know they actually made toy ones."

"As opposed to real ones?" Billie asked with a hint of amusement. "It's tucked away in my luggage somewhere, and might not have gotten here yet. They were having problems with it at the station."

"I can wait." Jade promised, feeling a little lighter at the idea of being able to hug a cabbit… even if it was 'merely' a plush version. And the mental image of Billie hugging a toy like that was just adorable…

"Actually, I don't think that I can." Jade said as she reconsidered, spontaneously grabbing Billie's hand and dragging her along as she sped up her pace. "Come on, the faster we get there, the faster I get to see the kawaii!"

As Jade pulled Billie along, overtaking Toni until she sped up to keep pace, then the trio of runners were dodging around the cluster of Boone, Nikki, and Hank. Jade decided that today was a good day. The teasing and the flashes of embarrassment were nowhere near enough to spoil the glow she'd gotten from earlier when, in front of everybody, she'd admitted that she wasn't a proper girl… and been told by everyone that she was if she wanted to be.

"What's the rush?" Toni asked, easily keeping up due to her longer legs. "And why are you smiling all of a sudden?"

"We need to hurry to get to the cuteness!" Jade exclaimed even as she kept smiling on the inside. "Billie's got a plushy which I have to see and promised that she'd let me hug it."

"I never promised that." Billie commented, not quite laughing.

"Close enough!"

Jade hadn't released Billie's wrist for the entire run back, but looking at them would’ve given the opposite impression. Jade was panting for breath while the other girl wasn't the slightest bit out-of-breath. It wasn't fair and, in Jade's opinion, being able to fly was just cheating.

With that in mind, she felt perfectly justified in staggering through the entryway, just barely glancing at the haphazard pile of luggage to make sure that Billie’s stuff was there. As Jade reached the nearest couch, she finally let go of Billie so she could collapse onto the comfortable cushions.

"...I regret nothing." Jade mumbled into a cushion. She heard a laugh from behind her, apparently in response before the couch shifted as someone sat down beside her.

"Maybe it would have been easier if you had left your backpack behind before going on the tour?" Billie asked, reaching to unfasten the straps, then jerking back as Simba emerged from the open top and swiped at her with a stuffed paw.

"Growl!" The Jinn-possessed toy announced, moving as though guarding the bag.

"Did you just say 'growl'?" Billie asked incredulously.

"Ye- I mean- Grrr!" Jinn replied, deliberately fumbling her response.

"Don't eat her." Jade 'ordered' her other half even as she focused on breathing slowly and deeply. "You don't know where she's been."

"I wouldn't eat such a fine young lion." Billie joked, playing along. "Well, not without thoroughly washing her first."

On her part Jinn let out an overblown 'Yip!' at the implied threat before diving back into the backpack, being sure to leave her hindquarters outside it and clearly visible. On her part Jade reluctantly sat up, being surprised when she felt a hand helping to steady her.

Billie gave a smile then pulled her hand back once the smaller girl was upright once more.

"Why did you bring that bag?" The blue-haired girl asked. "I mean you don't need to answer, but I'm curious."

"To be honest?" Jade asked then, when she received a nod back, admitted sheepishly, "I've been carrying it around so much that I forgot that I had it on."

"Silly girl." Billie chided with a slow shake of her head. "Silly, silly girl…"

All Jade could do was sit there and smile. It felt… different to just be told off like that. It was good to be called a girl, for someone else to again say that she was a girl, and 'silly girl' was far enough from 'stupid boy' that she didn't cringe in anticipation of a hand or foot admonishing her for being stupid...

"So," Billie began, pulling Jade from the unpleasant direction that her thoughts had been taking her. "Have you thought about who you want to have as a roommate?" 

Jade's mind went completely blank at the question. It was something that she should have considered, something that she should have thought about during the tour, but the idea just hadn't surfaced. After all, the entire day still seemed vaguely unreal to her.

"Well, at least you have a few minutes to think about-" Billie said, obviously seeing the uncertainty on Jade's face, but she was cut off as their guide arrived.

"And here we are," Belle announced dramatically as the others trailed after her into the cottage. "Having come full circle back to Poe once more."

The British girl raised an eyebrow at the sight of Jade and Billie sprawled out on the couch then actually pouted as the rest of the group similarly collapsed onto the soft furnishings.

“Come, come,” Belle chided them. “It wasn’t that bad. You'll get used to walking around the campus soon enough. Everybody does… eventually."

When there was no enthusiastic response she continued.

"Oh, do buck up. After all there is something else you all need to do." Belle said with evident amusement. 

Several groans were heard and a cushion mysteriously flew through the air, forcing Belle to sidestep and dodge. When she looked in the direction that it had come from Toni was sitting primly up, a cushion on her lap and an expression as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

"No need for that." Belle stated. "All you still have to do, is pick rooms and who you'll be sharing with, then move your bags upstairs. Once everyone has that done, I’ll leave you be for the rest of the evening.”

Biting her lip, Jade looked around the room to see what her options were.

Toni had turned as though to speak with Nikki, but the redhead had jumped off the couch as though she was a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She latched onto the arm of a startled Boone and, with no more warning that that, dragged her over towards Belle.

For her part, Toni gave a shrug before getting up to speak to Ayla. Jade couldn't hear what the black girl was saying to the blonde, but Ayla at least seemed to be listening to it.

On his part, Hank seemed to be searching through the bags rather than seeking out a partner and, without warning, a horrible thought came to Jade's mind. Not that there was anything wrong with Hank, but… but Jade had put in detail on her application form about her change. Or lack of change.

I told them the whole ugly truth, she realized as a chill ran down her spine, and Hank had said that he was 'almost entirely a boy' now. And everybody else was still changing so they might think it was easier to just put the two who had 'boy bits' together in the same room...

Jade tensed, barely holding back a whimper. They couldn't, could they? They wouldn't, would they? They… might?

She was suddenly terrified that they would. She didn’t want to room with a boy. She didn’t want to be a boy. She wasn’t going to be! Somehow, she was going to be a girl! She didn’t care what it took, she was going to become a girl and she couldn't just be in a room with a boy!

"I think that everyone has paired off." Billie said, making Jade jump as she suddenly remembered that the other girl was right beside her. "Would you… Well, it might be dangerous because I'm not great at controlling and I've blasted things a few times and…"

The nervous babble actually helped calm Jade a little. Looking at Billie she thought about what she knew of the girl, about how nice she'd seemed.

Jade wasn't sure if it was desperation or the truth, but she thought that could see something in the other girl’s incredible cat-eyes. Someone she could trust. Someone that, maybe, she might be able to confess the truth to. Someone that could help her, and be her friend.

She realized that she hadn’t had a real friend since her mother had died. The closest had been the other members of the dojo.

“Tennyo-san,” she said, tentatively and formally as she interrupted the stream of words. “Would you allow me to be your roommate?”

“What? You'd want to...?” The blue-haired girl reached back to rub the back of her neck. Jade recognized the embarrassment-gesture, it could have come from the streets of downtown Tokyo... at least according to the anime which she'd watched.

Jade gave a slow and quite deliberate nod, hiding her own worries even as she tried to make her intentions clear. She could feel her heart racing but kept as still as she could manage.

"I wouldn't mind sharing a room with you," Billie began with obvious reluctance and Jade did her best not to cringe as she waited for the other shoe to drop. "But there's something you might want to know."

"I've told you my secret already." Jade said, lowering her voice despite no one being around who hadn't heard her announcement during the introductions. "Is there something you didn't say that I'd need to know? Did you have a bad experience with shorter girls? Have nightmares which might keep me awake? Prefer dubbed anime over subbed?"

Jade had made sure to add that last 'objection' in the same tone as the other two, trying to lighten the mood and help Billie want to open up. When the blue-haired girl laughed she knew that she'd managed it. Success!

"No, no." Billie said, the smile which she'd only just gained fading again. "It's not that. It's what could be a problem for you. I mentioned that I sometimes have a little problem with energy blasts?

"I remember you saying that." Jade replied, "If you're worried about my stuff though? I don't have much and it'll be fine if you replace anything which gets damaged."

Even as she said that Jade made a mental note to actually get some more spare clothes. Girl clothes and enough that she wouldn't be alternating between washing a set and wearing the other. Although getting to buy them would come before that...

"That's not it." Billie said with a slow shake of her head, sounding all too serious about the matter. "I’m not so sure you want to be rooming with someone who might accidentally kill you.”

It seems as though the other girl was serious about the danger, but Jade wasn't as worried about that as she was about other things: the chance for revelation and rejection, despite the earlier acceptance. And the opportunities that it offered? The chance for a sister, the chance for a real life as a girl, they all demanded this. A little danger was nothing in the face of her dreams.

“Please." Jade said, trying to put her sincerity as was possible into the words."I understand the danger. May I be your roommate?”

Jade didn't have much pride when this much was on the line. If Billie wanted her to then she'd be happy to get down on her knees and beg for a chance at having a safe place with a girl she could trust-

“Well, if you’re sure.” Tennyo said, interrupting the cycle of worries before it could gain momentum. Giving Jade a lopsided grin, she slapped the smaller girl on the back in an obviously male fashion then faked an accent straight out of a cowboy movie. “Glad to have you on board, kid.”

Words failed Jade entirely so, instead, she just lunged forwards and hugged the other girl as hard as she could. Billie was stiff when the hug began, making it feel more like Jade was embracing a statue than a person, before seeming to relax. Jade felt a hand touch her hair and held the hug for a second longer before stepping away.

“Thank you,” was all she could say before her throat choked up. To cover up her emotional outburst, Jade gave a nervous laugh. "Sorry, it's my first time getting an actual head pat."

Billie stared at Jade for a moment then glanced at her own hand as though it had betrayed her before looking back at Jade again. Finally she gave a laugh.

"Sorry?" Billie offered, seeming so nervous that it was all that Jade could do not to give her another hug.

In the back of Jade's mind there was an urge to tease Billie more, just to see her blush and… squirm, but she pushed that firmly down. It definitely wasn't the time to think about such things, not when there was even the smallest chance of the other girl reconsidering sharing a room together.

Even if it was the duty of a 'little sister' to tease her 'big sister' when given an opportunity...

"If we're going to our room, shouldn't you get your bags?" Jade asked, hoping to get the both of them settled in together as soon as possible. It felt a little manipulative though and Jade resolved to make it up to Billie as soon as she could.

"I only have the one." Billie remarked as she drifted, quite literally, over towards the waiting pile of luggage. “There's more on the way, but they messed up my bags at the airport in Concord. They said that they’ll probably get here sometime tomorrow.”

"So, sometime next month at the earliest then?" Jade offered with a smile, keeping pace with Billie as the other girl picked through the mass of luggage in obvious search for the item in question.

"Something like that." Billie agreed before giving a soft 'ah!'.

For her part Jade was impressed with how Billie casually gripped two trunks stacked atop each other and lifted them out of the way in order to pluck a large carryon duffel from where it was half hidden behind them.

“You sure got Ryoko’s strength.” Jade commented then couldn't resist adding teasingly, "Do you have her taste for sake too?"

Billie scowled and it was all that Jade could do not to flinch back. She hadn't been trying to upset the other girl.

“Look, can you drop the whole ‘Ryoko’ thing?" Billie demanded then took a breath, calming herself continuing in a more moderate tone. "I mean, I know what’s happened to me, but it’s a lot to deal with, you know? I need some time to learn how to be Tennyo, before I spend too much time walking in someone else’s shadow. And I don't like being reminded that I look like my brother's favourite… a girl that my brother liked."

It was all too obvious what Billie had been about to say before she had censored herself, but Jade blushed nevertheless. She's always thought that TV and movies exaggerated how things like that happened, just as they did with violence and guns, but she'd found out otherwise since setting out on her own.

“Yes, Tennyo-san.” Jade said, giving a half bow.

“And that’s another thing! What’s with all this ‘san’ business?" Billie grumbled even as she put the trunks, held almost forgotten in her hands, back down. "You don’t have any accent. Are you really Japanese?”

"This one is Japanese in her hear-" Jade broke off into giggles at the look on Billie's face.

“Seriously though? My mother was. But for me this is actually the first time I’ve been out of Kansas. Ever since my powers arrived though, it’s like my memory has been getting better and better.”

At least, when she was Jinn. And Jinn’s memories carried over to Jade. It was odd how she found she could think over memories as Jinn, even vague ones from years before, and have them seem so much clearer even after Jinn came back to her.

“I’m remembering more and more of Okasan. Honoring her by trying to become a little more of what she was." Jade continued as Billie nodded in understanding, her expression softening as the previous irritation faded."So I’m not really Japanese. Technically, I’m nisei, but culturally I’m more like sansei or worse. I guess I’m trying to capture a little bit of my lost culture back.”

"Sorry, you've lost me there." Billie said apologetically, “Nisei? Sansei?”

“Second-generation and third-generation Japanese." Jade explained, the rote phrase coming easily. "Although since my father wasn’t Japanese, I’m not sure exactly where I’d fall.”

"Hopefully somewhere that I can catch you." Billie joked then shrugged, "If you want me opinion? Probably where you want to, but other people will object whatever you decide. Some folks are just jerks about that sort of thing and I don't think that it's different in Japan."

Jade grimaced then realised what she was doing and forced the expression into a cuter pout.

"That's… probably true." She admitted then pushed her thoughts about the topic to the back of her mind. "I think that we'd better pick a room now. Before they all get taken?"

Toni was still talking to Ayla, probably trying to talk her into sharing a room, but given how fast talking and forward the black girl was it didn't seem as though she'd need to keep talking forever. Jade saw Billie glance in the direction of the pair then nod.

"I think that we should…" Billie said then trailed off, a faint smile appearing on her face. "Since we're going to be roommates though?"

Billie's feet touched down on the carpet and she put down her bag as she turned to face Jade. 

"Please take care of me." Billie asked as she gave a small bow. After a moment she straightened up and asked, "Well, I learned that from anime but it's the right thing to do?"

Jade wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or not and a blurring of her vision told her that she was on the verge of crying. She'd been willing to beg to be Billie's roommate and now the other girl was doing this just for her?

"It… it's the right thing." Jade got out then, resisting the urge to just hug Billie to bits. "Thanks. Um, now we should talk to Belle?"

Billie picked up her bag again and nodded, "Sure."

If Jade took a moment to wipe her eyes with her sleeve as they pair headed to the guide. And if  Billie noticed then she tactfully said nothing about it.

“There aren't many good choices left.” Their guide informed them as she checked her clipboard. “Two-sixteen, the corner room on the north, and two-thirteen, in the middle on the north. You’ll be bordering Boystown with that one, but the walls are thick enough there won't be a problem with noise."

To Jade the phrasing implied that there would be some sort of other problem. That is other than being that close to boys who might be icky for reasons beyond just being boys.

"There's nothing else?" Billie asked.

"Well, there is two-oh-two." Belle acknowledged. "It's on the south and there's nothing wrong with the room itself... but the carpet needed to be replaced after last term and there may be a smell of glue lingering. A little."

It was odd how Belle seemed almost sheepish about the issue, but Jade pushed that aside and thought back to what Juanita and Angle had talked about on the train-

"We want two-oh-two." Jade stated firmly.

“What’s the big deal?” Tennyo asked, looking surprised.

“Do you want a good room on the south, where we can get some sun, or a cold room on the north?” Jade asked, putting it as clearly as she could.

Tennyo looked at her as though that was a stupid question. Which in a way, Jade admitted, it was. “From the way you’re describing it, a good room, with sun.”

“And the corner rooms are supposed to be extra cold because they catch the wind two ways...” Jade pointed out.

"I can attest to that." Belle chimed in with a melodramatic shiver. "The wrong sort of day in winter and you can wake up with your breath showing on the air."

“That wouldn't be nice," Billie began slowly, "But I don’t really want to stick it to poor Ayla. She looks like she’s already had a rough ride."

"I'm sure that Toni will generate enough warmth? She is sort of hyper?" Jade pointed out, trying to talk Billie around to her point of view. It was good that her roommate was nice but why did it have to get in the way? "And… and they'll have extra insulation from her ego taking up space?"

The moment Jade said that she realised it was stupid and ducked her head, already expecting to be told how much of a useless idiot she was. Instead, much to her surprise, she heard a snort of half-suppressed laughter from Billie and a quiet giggle from Belle.

"That's a... very good point." Billie said, failing to keep a straight face. "And perhaps the friction between the two will help?"

"Definitely." Jade agreed blindly. She hadn't actually talked to Ayla and just listened to the introduction that the girl had given. "And if it's that bad they can get more blankets or something?"

"If they actually think to ask, then they could get a heater from storage." Belle pointed out. "I was going to point that out to you if you picked the room. However, I suspect that Ayla would buy her own rather than rely on the beaten-up old things that the school would offer."

"Two-oh-two is ours then?" Jade pressed, looking at Billie hopefully.

"Gah!" Billie said, holding up a hand as if to ward off the look. "Enough with the puppy dog eyes. I submit. I submit! We can take the room."

A giggle escaped Jade's lips and she found herself smiling.

"Sign us up please, Belle-san!" She chirped to the guide who, with a smile of her own, noted down the assignment on the clipboard.

"That was 'weapons-grade cute'." Billie mock complained. "You must never use that again."

"And give up the secret technique inherited from my ancestors?" Jade asked with equally false horror. "I would never shame them in that way!"

"I double that you inherited that from your 'ancestors'." Billie grumbled.

"My ancestors had eyes and I got mine from them." Jade pointed, "Therefore I inherited the 'Cute Animal Eyes Technique' from them."

"Before you continue with this display of impeccable logic," Belle said dryly, "Could I suggest that you go to your room and do so in comfort?"

The two new roommates exchanged looks.

"Shall we?" Jade asked.

"Of course, roomie." Billie drawled then offered her arm to Jade who linked her own with it. "Now, off we go!"

Beyond a small brass name plate on the door, little differentiated room 202 from the others along the same corridor. The sight of a lock made Jade hesitate briefly but, with Billie there with her, she felt brave enough to try the handle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the door opened easily enough, revealing a room which looked completely normal. From about waist-height upwards, the walls were a sort of ochre yellow, not a very attractive color, but it had been applied competently with no signs of peeling or blistering. Below that were vertical slats of wood stained green of all colors and Jade wrinkled her nose a little at the contrast.

"I can't see anything really wrong with it." Jade said slowly as she peered inside, briefly eyeing the beds, dressers, desks, and the wardrobes. It was better than she was used to, but the memory of Belle's hesitancy about the room made her paranoid.. "But-"

"It'll be fine!" Billie interjected with a sigh, stepping directly into the room. "And if it isn't? We can always say something or just put up with it."

In the face of such 'bravery' Jade couldn't help but trail after Billie into the room. Moving to the bed which her new roommate hadn't already sat on, she let her backpack slip off her shoulders and onto the bed. Jade felt the mattress bounce under the weight, but the feeling of relief as she finally put down her bag helped her such minor details.

"Glad to sit down finally?" Billie asked from her side of the room, already digging the contents of her own bag out and laying it on the bed.

"Yes!" Jade replied, resisting the urge to just sprawl out on the bed and rest. 

"It’s been a long day for me too." Billie acknowledged, eyeing a thong with apparent confusion before setting it to one side. "The flight wasn't bad but it felt way too long. I take it that the train was like that for you?"

Before Jade could answer, a low grumble sounded and it took a moment before Jade realised what the source of the sound was.

"I think that's the sound of your 'Master's voice'." Jade teased, feeling better for being in a room rather than in public. One which she could call her own. "Since dinner obviously wasn't enough, but do you want to get everything before seeing if anyone has any snacks?"

"That sounds good to me." Billie replied, still sorting through the contents of the bag. "I'm tempted to leave this until later, but it's probably best to get it done with first. Not that I have all my stuff to put away..."

As Billie's words faded out into indistinct grumbling, Jade forced herself up off of the bed, deciding to follow her 'big sister’s' good example. She carefully set the now immobile plush Simba on the pillow, giving it a spot where it could 'supervise' the unpacking, and briefly reviewed the memories which Jinn had returned to her while they were on the stairs.

There wasn't that much that Jinn had seen that Jade hadn't noticed, not when she had mostly been peeking out of the backpack, but there were a few things which seemed odd. All the other changelings had their own arrays of colors which weren't proper colors, mostly that odd ultraviolet shade which seemed to mean powers, but that was something to consider later.

Jade paused, her hands on Jinn's body suit which was uppermost in the backpack, as she 'remembered' how there had been an ultraviolet figure near Boone during parts of the tour. Leaning against him, leaning in close as though saying things…

She hummed softly. Could that be the 'Flower' that he had talked about?

"Anything wrong, Jade?" Billie asked from where she was trying to get a jacket to properly stay on a hanger.

"No, oneesan!" Jade called back, pushing the thoughts aside. "Just thinking things over."

The next item was Jinn's rubber Madonna mask, and that was something that she wasn't quite ready to explain, so she reached beneath it, pulling out her one good dress and inspecting it for wrinkles or creases. When Billie no longer seemed to be paying attention, Jade laid the dress out on the bed, then shrugged out of her jacket, pulling out the mask and tucking it beneath the jacket, which she 'carelessly' put on the bed.

Fortunately, nothing else in her bag seemed dubious, at least in Jade's own eyes, although she carefully didn't think about the issue of Cosmopolitan still tucked away in a side pocket. Tucking everything else away took a short amount of time, although, when she was done, Jade found herself frowning at how much empty space was in her underwear drawer.

"Do you think that there is somewhere on campus I could get a few things?" Billie asked, seemingly also concerned about her own underwear. "They weren't making any promises that I could rely on about my bags and I will need to change…"

"I th-" Jade began then corrected herself, "Yes, there is. The prospectus said about there being a store on campus for things and that there's 'regular access to Dunwich' for others."

"That's a relief." Billie said then glanced at Jade contemplatively. "Do... do you want to come with me? Just in case you need anything."

The pitiful state of her own funds, despite the 'donation' from earlier in the day, made Jade wince at the tactfully phrased question.

"I'll have to check a few things first." Jade temporised then she applied her palm to her forehead. "Doh! Baka! I can ask Belle if she can help or knows who I need to talk to about my scholarship."

"Just so long as you ask today." Billie reminded her teasingly, "Today she's our guide. Who knows about tomorrow?"

Jade nodded then glanced back at her bed, seeing nothing left on it to put away except for Simba sitting as a guardian. As she did so though something new on Billie's bed caught her eye.

There was a stuffed cabbit, just casually sitting in the middle of Tennyo’s bed.

Jade recognized the toy from the Tenchi Muyo! animé series. Half cat, half rabbit, the cabbit has been more like Ryoko’s sibling, psychically bonded to her. If she recalled, the cabbit could take three forms, the cat-rabbit shown in the toy, a sort of cat-girl, and a gigantic crystalline spaceship. But hadn’t Tennyo said she was trying to forget about the whole Ryoko thing?

For a moment she wavered between the idea of saying something, perhaps even going over to push Jinn in the toy, and not. It would have been cute, oh so cute, but the way that Billie had been supportive conflicted with that. If Billie, and the others, were going to be so nice about things which were uncomfortable for Jade then it wouldn't be fair for her to poke what was obviously a sore spot for the other girl...

"Are you coming, Jade?" Billie called from the door.

"Just a minute!" Jade called back as she went back to her own bed, kneeling to fish her good shoes out from where she had placed them beneath it. "There you are..."

Rushing over to the door, Jade gave Billie an apologetic smile as they headed out into the corridor. The penny loafers weren't heels or really girly shoes, but they were definitely a girl's shoes and Jade had been happy to see them in the charity shop. They'd work well with her Whateley uniform, but for now Jade had an alternative use in mind.

"Dare I ask why you brought those?" Billie inquired with a nod towards the shoes in Jade's hand.

"Because I don't feel up to singing for our 'after supper'." Jade replied, doing her best to act mysterious. Given the expression on the other girl's face she didn't exactly nail it.

Before Billie could inquire further a dull thump caught the attention of the pair.

Over by the stairs a red-faced Boone was finishing manhandling a large trunk out of the stairwell, obviously straining to lift it. As the two watched, the boy caught his breath then began moving it forward, shoving it along the carpet rather than trying to carry it himself.

"Need a hand?" Billie asked as she drifted over. "Or are you trying to be all manly about this?"

Boone just chuckled at the light teasing.

"If you can help with it I'd be grateful," He told her, "I don't think that it'd be 'manly' to reject help when offered it, although I'd feel bad if Jade tried to carry this by herself."

The boy paused, giving Jade a considering look.

"Unless you can animate this and make it head to my room by itself?" He asked, "In which case I'd just politely thank you, lest you take my ingratitude as a reason to have it go back down the stairs again."

The trunk itself was large enough that Jade could have fit into it with room to spare, no bending required, and possibly fit a twin in at the same time. And given that Boone wasn't a small boy...

"I think that it's bigger than I can manage." Jade admitted, mentally correcting that to 'heavier'.

"Is it that bad?" Billie asked as she grabbed hold of the trunk then effortlessly lifted it. "Huh. It isn't."

Boone and Jade shared a look as Billie experimentally hefted the trunk. An unspoken Did she really just..? from Boone was answered by a small nod and a roll of Jade's eyes.

"I've got other bags, but I thought that a couple of trips would be easier." Boone told Billie, "This is the important one though, and so if you don't mind not dropping it…?"

Billie looked surprised then seemed to notice for the first time that she'd shifted to holding the trunk in a one handed grip, something which the handle she was using seemed to barely tolerate. Flushing, she took hold of it properly.

"I'm sorry about that." She muttered then asked in a clearer voice. "Where's your room?"

"Just along this way." Boone told her, slipping past to lead the way. "Thanks for this, though."

"It's no problem." Billie said more cheerfully as she followed along behind him. "If this is the 'important one', then what's in the other bags?"

"Mostly clothes and such." Boone admitted, "This one is mostly my tools and a few pieces of projects."

Jade was trailing along behind the tow, but was taken by surprise by the statement. The entire trunk was 'tools'? How many did he have? And how many did he need?

"Just those?" Jade blurted out her thoughts without meaning to.

"Oh there's some skirts, a couple of shirts and blouses, and a dress." Boone admitted unthinkingly, "Things I didn't want to fold, but nothing that I couldn't do without."

There was a short silence as Jade tried to wrap her mind around the idea of Boone being so casual about such things. She was a full girl, but she knew how important dressing the part was when you wanted to not show off any boy bits-

"You said 'blouses and shirts'?" Billie asked, "You have different ones for both forms then?"

Jade was sure that if she had been in a cartoon, then an actual lightbulb would have lit up above her head. Boone had told everyone about how he switched genders without meaning to, and he'd been a girl earlier, yet somehow that knowledge had slipped her mind.  Unconsciously, Jade frowned as she tried to pin down how it had evaded her, but nothing stood out.

Somehow it had just been How Things Were...

"-that's for my uniform." Boone finished, "Otherwise I have to either wear something loose enough for both sides or be careful how I move. If it fits as a boy then the buttons might strain as a girl. It fits as a girl? I have to be careful with how I move my shoulders or it rips."

"That's got to be expensive." Billie commiserated with a wince.

"Eh, I've known how to sew for a while." Boone told her with a shrug. "My Mom's ability with a needle and thread is… limited. And I've weakened some of the seams so it won't be the fabric which tears."

Before any further questions could be asked Boone stopped.

"Here we are." He said as he pushed open the door to the room. "My 'Home, sweet home substitute' for the year… and Nikki's as well, I'd guess."

Beyond a suitcase and a few bags piled up on one of the beds, Jade could see no sign of Boone's roommate, but Jade assumed that Nikki was fetching something else from the foyer.

"Is this okay?" Billie asked as she placed the trunk carefully down by the foot of the unoccupied bed.

"That'd be fine." Boone reassured her, "Thanks for helping me with that."

"It was no trouble at a-" Billie began, but Jade decided that her 'big sister' was being too generous for her own good.

"Actually, if you want to say thank you?" Jade asked sweetly, "Maybe you can get Billie a snack or something?"

"Didn't we just have dinner not too long ago?" Boone asked in confusion.

"Billie's stomach disagrees with that statement." Jade said dryly then did her best not to giggle at the way that her roommate went red.

On his part, Boone didn't bother not trying to laugh.

"I don't have any food here beyond half a roll of mints. And maybe a somewhat squished Mars bar." Boone said half apologetically as he calmed down, "But there are vending machines downstairs and, in any case, I need to head there to get the rest of my bags."

"Some potato chips would do." Billie replied with a half-hearted glower. "The machines should at least have those. It's not as though you can drop in some coins and get a cheeseburger or something."

"I think I saw some through the glass earlier." Boone admitted then glanced at Jade. "Do you want anything too?"

"I had enough at dinner." Jade admitted. It wasn't that long since the meal and, despite the distraction of being in 'Crystal Hall' and the conversations at the time, she'd eaten enough to fill her up. "Thank you for offering though."

"You're welcome," Boone commented as he headed back along the hall with the two girls accompanying him. 

Silence fell over the trio as they walked and stretched out for long enough that Jade started to wonder what she could say to break it. In the back of her mind she couldn't help but wonder if she had said something wrong.

"Are you going to tell me yet what the shoes are for?" Billie asked, making Jade jump as the blue-haired girl unexpectedly spoke up.

"Not if you're going to startle me like that!" Jade complained and, yes!, she had managed to pout rather than glare. However her success was lost a moment as the feeling of doing the right, and girly, thing made her smile instead. "...I was going to make them dance."

"The shoes had my curiosity, but now you have my attention." Boone remarked. "How literally do you mean 'dance'?"

"I was thinking about tap maybe?" Jade admitted uncertainly, "They're not the right sort of shoes, but I had some lessons when I was younger."

Boone looked back at Jade and she couldn't quite read the expression on his face.

"...sorry, I just had the image of you animating those like something from a cartoon." Boone explained, shaking his head as if you remove the mental image. "Kicking at a door rather than knocking then doing a dance in front of whoever opens it. Maybe with a hat laid in front of it."

Jade thought about that then giggled.

"I don't actually have a hat," Billie offered, "But if either of you know anyone who might?"

"Not unless Nikki has one, and she seems more of a sun hat or beret sort of person." Boone replied then grinned, "Now, what I do have in that trunk you helped me with are a couple of pairs of gloves. And I'm pretty sure I could improvise a cane of some description…"

"No bow tie?" Jade asked then was surprised at the fact that she'd said that aloud.

"Billie?" The boy asked, looking towards the blue haired girl. "Be very proud of your little sister here. She's a smart one."

"I already knew that." Billie responded fondly then added in a faux boasting tone, "After all she wanted to be my roommate!"

Jade found her face heating up and, with the shoes in her grip, was forced to press the back of her hands against her face in an attempt to cool the blush.

"Billie…!" She whined. It was embarrassing, far too embarrassing, but Jade couldn't find it in herself to ask the two to stop. They were teasing her, treating her like someone's little sister, and it felt right.

"Okay, okay." Billie allowed with a soft laugh, "I'll stop for now."

"Because there's more important things to do?" Boone asked slyly, "Such as, say, a snack run."

"Exactly." Billie said shamelessly. "Now lead on, oh huntsman, for we seek the Holy Grail!"

The two had lost Jade already, quoting or misquoting something that she didn't know at all, but that was okay. The two were having fun and doing their best to include her in it, people had accepted her, and she was now officially installed in a room at Whateley.

What could be better than this?

With a burst of energy Jade lurched forward, going from standing still into a run as she felt just so happy that she just had to move. She dashed forwards to the stairwell then turned back, impatiently gesturing the two forwards.

"Come on!" She called to Boone and Billie, "We haven't got all day."

The pair shared a look, but it was Boone who spoke first.

"This isn't the same without the coconut shells." He told Billie who nodded in response.

"It definitely isn't." She replied then gave a mock sigh, "But how would we fit horses in a corridor like this?"

"With difficulty and a crowbar?" Boone answered.

Okay, Jade thought to herself, maybe things would be a bit better if she knew what the heck the two were talking about...

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Nikki Reilly

Nikki let out a sigh of relief as he just dropped himself onto the couch in the lobby of Poe cottage. The seat cushions bounced him upwards slightly in retaliation and, in the back of his mind, he heard the tiny voices of metal springs protesting.

But it didn't actually bounce him off the couch, which meant he was finally off of his feet and could let his eyes rest...

"You okay there, Niks?" Toni asked cheerily from right next to him.

"Yes." Nikki replied, reluctantly reopening his eyes and seeing Toni's smiling face. "Just a little tired. Some of that was interesting, but it was like going shopping with my mom.

"Not the best time to be showing off sexy underwear?" Toni joked.

Briefly Nikki considered throwing a cushion at her before deciding against it. It was all too likely that the girl would just dodge it, then that would leave Nikki with one less cushion… unless he got up to fetch it back again.

"Not quite." Nikki replied in his driest voice. "It's more that I just didn't realise how large the campus was. I knew it, but now I'm actually feeling it."

“Come, come,” Belle chided them. “It wasn’t that bad. You'll get used to walking around the campus soon enough. Everybody does… eventually."

For some reason, nobody, not even Toni, in the group of so-called 'changelings' deigned to give a response to their guide's words.

"Oh, do buck up. After all, there is something else you all need to do." Belle said with evident amusement.

Nikki managed not to groan at the idea of yet more walking and threw Toni a pleading look. Somehow the black girl caught onto the idea and, with a flick of her wrist, the cushion which had been on her lap went sailing across the room towards Belle… who deftly side-stepped it without even looking.

Nikki half-heartedly glared at Belle while, beside him, Toni did her best attempt at presenting a picture of innocence.

"No need for that." Belle chided them after her utterly unfair, in Nikki's opinion, display of dodging prowess. "All you still have to do, is pick rooms and who you'll be sharing them with, then move your bags upstairs. Once everyone has that done, I’ll leave you be for the rest of the evening.”

Nikki's mind was half preoccupied with vengeful fantasies against the one who had made him do so much walking. That things other than revenge were involved with those fantasies was something that he didn't plan on mentioning to anyone. Neither was that following Belle, and keeping the literal 'rear view' presented by the guide, had been his primary way to keep his mind from how the walk was becoming a pain in the rear… and other parts of his legs.

"Hey, Nikki?" Toni began to say just as the implications behind Belle's words sank in. "I was wonderin-"

"Sorry!" Nikki exclaimed. "I need to-"

Everything seemed to slow down for Nikki as he ticked off her options. Jade and Billie were standing close together, having gotten on well, and despite everything, Nikki didn't have the heart to tear the smaller girl away from her obvious first choice.

Toni was Energetic and an Extrovert, in mile-high flaming letters, and having nowhere to get away from her endless enthusiasm was something Nikki could not imagine going well.

Ayla was a Goodkind and, despite the blonde actually being at Whateley, Nikki felt vaguely nervous about her. Or him, given the earlier introduction, which was another reason to not want to share a room.

Hank was obviously out, due to being a boy, which left...

"-speak to Boone!" Nikki finished then, with a burst of desperate speed, sprang up off of the couch like a startled cat and darted over to latch onto Boone's arm.

"Can I help you with something?" Boone asked, tilting her head slightly to one side to look quizzically at her new 'attachment'.

"...um…" Nikki paused, trying to get his suddenly derailed train of thought back on track.

Nikki slowly realised that he hadn't actually thought this through properly and he was holding onto the girl's arm, her breasts pressing against his grip and her lips so near...

The single word 'Cute…' drifted through Nikki's mind, but Boone seemed content to wait until the redhead managed to focus once again.

"Ah, yes?" Nikki said finally, feeling both disappointed and strangely proud of himself at having not let his gaze drop from Boone's face while he was unfocused. Giving Boone the sweetest smile he could muster, Nikki asked, "I was wondering if you would like to be my roommate?"

The question seemed to catch Boone off guard and she hesitated. The memory of Toni mentioning that she was a morning person surfaced from the depths to which Nikki had consigned most of the babble from during dinner and, with that in mind, Nikki tried to turn the smile up a notch-

"OUCH!" Nikki yelped, losing his grip on Boone as both hands went to try to protect his chest from the unexpected pain which had shot through it.

"Are you okay?" Boone asked, obviously concerned.

"Yes, I just…" Nikki found himself blushing and lowered her voice. "Something pinched my… you know?"

Surreptitiously he looked around, scanning the room for the presence of a hobgoblin even though he was sure that he hadn't created one. Thankfully there was no sign of any, but even one incident with a knot of magic such as 'Slappy, the Spanking Squirrel' had been one too many. 

"Breast or nipple?" Boone asked then laughed as Nikki felt his face heat further. "You can say the words, you know."

"Nevermind." Nikki said quickly, "But about being my roommate…?"

"If you're sure that you could put up with me?" Boone asked and Nikki quickly nodded. "Then I'd be happy to share a room with you."

"Thank you." Nikki replied earnestly. "There were other options, but you seemed to be the best."

"Rather than the 'least worst'?" Boone asked as she stood up.

"...can you imagine being woken up every morning with Toni showing off her 'get up and go?" Nikki said, dropping her voice to a murmur. "I'd be exhausted by the second day, let alone by the end of the term."

For some reason Boone's lips pressed together as she obviously tried to suppress a smirk.

"Her 'get up and go'?" She asked in a carefully bland tone.

"I think that us 'getting up and going' would be the smartest move." Nikki replied then, seized by a bold impulse, took Boone's arm again. "Please?"

"I already said 'yes'." Boone reminded him, but allowed herself to be pulled up off of the couch then over toward Belle.

However as Nikki did that he felt her hips object and, despite himself, let out a soft hiss of pain before powering through it. After all, it wasn't the first time that he'd felt his body objecting recently.

"Are you okay?" Boone asked, leaning in closely to murmur the question into Nikki's ear.

The sensation of warm breath against his ear made Nikki inhale sharply, but not due to discomfort. Ever since the changes had begun, his ears had been oddly sensitive and the feeling sent vague tingles through his body which warred with the aches.

"Just a bit sore." Nikki murmured back, not wanting too much of a fuss made. "My hips are still changing and that was a lot of walking around…"

"Do you think healing would help?" Boone interrupted, "Because, really, I will burn every pair of pants you own if this is you trying to 'macho' through pain."

"...it might help." Nikki admitted quietly, not sure what to think of the 'threat'.

Wordlessly, Boone slipped her arm out of Nikki's grip but then, rather than moving away from him, moved her arm behind the redhead as though about to put it loosely around Nikki's waist. Her hand pressed against the small of his back, its presence unnaturally warm, and the tingle of something 'pressed' against Nikki's shields.

Nikki bit his lip as he felt the 'pressure' then, on impulse, let it in.

As a reward for this, a hot but not unpleasant pressure seeped into his body through the point of contact. It wasn't painful at all, but instead felt more like the heat packs which his mother had given him when the aches from his changing body had been too much and left him laying miserable in bed.

:Ah, there is the problem!:

The voice came from close by and definitely wasn't Boone's, but before Nikki could try to place it, something seemed to 'pop' in his lower half. Nikki half-stumbled, briefly reliant on Boone's suddenly supportive arm, and an ache which he'd been doing his best to ignore for weeks was abruptly just gone.

"Can I help you?" Belle asked, drawing Nikki's attention to the fact that they had actually arrived in front of the guide.

"I think so." Boone told Belle cheerfully, obviously deciding to do the talking for them both. "Nikki just approached me with a proposition and, really, it's best to get a room assigned for that sort of thing."

"I'm sure that it is." Belle said dryly, "You'll be sharing a… room then?"

Heat rushed to Nikki's cheeks as the implications of that phrasing hit him. Words failed him and all that emerged from his mouth was a strangled sound. It didn't help that Boone's closeness, the warmth, and the sudden lack of pain were all strangely stimulating.

"That's a 'yes'." Boone helpfully translated.

"I'll take it as a 'yes'." Bell agreed then gave a sly smile even as she ticked something off on the clipboard, "Just so long as you both remember what means 'no'. Perhaps a safeword would help?"

"My mother recommended using 'kayak'." Boone replied, his voice carefully level. "She offered a lot of advice, but I think that was some of the best she gave me."

"How so?" Belle asked, sounding vaguely intrigued.

"It's short, but not too short," Boone explained even as Nikki tried to work out how they were talking about this in the open. "And if a word like that comes up during sex then you really should stop."

That answer managed to draw a brief burst of laughter from Belle.

"I think that I can agree there." Belle told him, "But, before it gets to that point, I think that you should head up to room two-oh-two and unpack."

"I take it, that's our room?" Nikki managed to ask as he desperately tried to stomp out the thoughts which were in the back of his mind.

"Actually, it's mine-" Belle joked then grinned as Nikki felt her face heat again. "No, seriously, that’s yours. You technically have the first pick, but that’s the best one, so I put you down for it."

"Thank you." Boone said and Nikki nodded in agreement. 

"Don't mention it." Belle said, but nodded in return. "Oh, before I forget, I do need to speak with Fey there about something."

Boone paused, looking between the other two, while Nikki just felt confused. He couldn't think of anything that Belle would need to talk to him about. Not unless there was going to be a warning about sharing a room with a girl, but that couldn't be it...?

"Privately." Belle stated in a firmer tone.

"I'll start trying to get my trunk upstairs." Boone told Nikki, "I may have to ask Hank for a hand, if he can push aside a jeep then he can probably handle it. I'll see you up in our room, or when I come back for the rest of my gear?"

Reluctantly, Nikki released Boone's arm and, to his surprise, the soothing warmth didn't vanish. Instead, it lingered, still eating away at the minor aches and discomforts which had built up through several days of sitting in a train followed by the seemingly endless walk around campus.

Belle didn't take Nikki far, simply retreating to one of the nooks around the edge of the lobby while remaining outside the sight of the others. A small gesture did something to the area around them too, something which made Nikki's skin tingle and the world softly hiss on the other side of her shields.

“First off, you’re obviously a magic type. With the codename, and your looks.” The guide began, her expression completely serious. “And I have to ask you a question here. You don’t have to answer, but it might help if you do.”

“Ask.” The redhead nodded, feeling a familiar rush of fear about revealing what he was and could do with that. There had been an informatively gruesome book which Leon had made him read through that described things which could be done to, or with, a novice mage. “I’ll do my best to answer you.”

"Right." Belle said then her expression firmed. “Would you mind telling me a few things about the glamour which you're wearing?"

“A glamour?!” Fey responded with shock. “What kind of glamour are we talking about?”

The older girl's expression softened a little.

"It's purely your own business if you're choosing to be more… attractive." She said delicately. "As a changeling, preferences can be a touchy subject, but we won't hold it against you-"

"You don't understand." Nikki said, trying to get across his honesty even as he fought her own shock. "I'm not wearing a-"

"You're using it again." Belle's words stopped Nikki midword. "It isn't purely magical, it feels like there is an empathic component as well, but you just 'pushed' it to a higher level briefly."

“I wouldn’t do a thing like that... I couldn’t..." Nikki said vehemently. Illusions were one thing, he used one to encourage people to overlook his ears. But messing with people's feelings? "W-What is it doing?"

"It enhances your femininity, grace of movement, and overall - umm - sexiness.” A little pink appeared on Belle's cheeks but she forged onwards. "I generally like guys, not girls, not that I’m real excited about the idea myself just yet, but I could feel it. When you smiled at that other girl, I could feel the attraction radiating from you like heat from a furnace."

Belle took a moment to meet Nikki's gaze, "Guys will go absolutely gaga over you even without that. With it, you're going to be a real heartbreaker around here. And when you felt sorry for yourself just now? It tried to make me want to protect you, cuddle you, and keep you safe."

"That's… just wonderful. If you can give me a moment?" Nikki muttered then, at Belle's answering nod, closed his eyes trying to sense any trace of the so-called glamour.

Carefully Nikki lowered his shields, seeing lines of power fading into view and feeling his ears twitch as he once more could 'hear' the sounds of magic around him. It was background noise for the most part, music which he didn't really understand even after far too many frustrating sessions trying to do just that, but gradually he placed the loudest and closest sources and blocked those out in search for the 'glamour'.

The elusive woodwind sounds wound through Poe cottage were easy to eliminate. A deep almost primal bass beat, bringing to mind dance clubs and techno music, shimmered out from under his skin, but Nikki decided that was Boone's still active healing effect. Belle herself was a surprisingly smooth jazz, sounding almost like saxophones of some description...

“I can’t feel it," Nikki said finally as he finished his attempted 'sorting' and raised his shields once more. Opening his eyes, he looked at Belle then complained in frustration. "Even when I actively look for it, I’m not aware of it.”

“I believe you, dear.” Belle gave her a friendly smile and a light pat on the shoulder. “It has to be part of your change, something that you just do. Though being able to turn it off once in a while would sure make life easier on you."

Belle gave Nikki a smoldering smile, one which made the boy both want to whimper and to really want to have his old parts which didn't just warm and ache at such looks.

"Unless you really like the idea of all that attention you’re going to be getting…?” Belle teased, "Being at Whateley should give you a chance to experiment. I'm sure that you can find a boy, or two or three, who'd be happy to help. Or a girl as well?"

Nikki twitched at the idea and forcefully suppressed the images which came to mind.

“How can I turn off something I can’t even find?” He asked, trying not to be too demanding with his tone. "I can't just keep getting people to… to like me like that!"

“We can work on that later, Nikki.” Belle assured him. “I just wanted to make sure that it was something unconscious and not deliberate. I'll make a report and you'll probably have a Mystic Arts teacher for a tutoring session. Maybe a Psi Science teacher too, if need be. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be more than a fleeting effect, so they'll not be rushing, and you don’t need to be worrying."

She reached out, lightly stroking Nikki's cheek, and he froze at the way that the touch tingled.

"You know, some T-Girls go to great lengths to make themselves more attractive to the guys." Belle murmured then smiled as Nikki's face went red. Then the fingers found Nikki's ear and he wasn't sure if I wanted to pull away, sink into the ground, or melt on the spot as it felt… it felt…!

"You say you aren’t doing it on purpose, and I believe you. Those who do it deliberately usually go for an effect with far greater intensity." Belle told the redhead. "Now close that pretty mouth of yours before someone is tempted to put it to work, okay?

The hand moved away and Belle laughed as Nikki failed to suppress a keening whimper of protest.

"I'm going to die if people keep doing that!" Nikki murmured under his breath, trying to regain his composure. The soft touch of Belle's fingers had brought up memories of sessions with Leon and pretending that his dispassionate exploring touch wasn't anything to be bothered about.

“Nah, the administration really frowns on students killing each other, hon.” Belle told her with a grin. "Just find someone to help you get used to it and I'm sure you'll be fine. There's a senior girl over in Whitman who had an issue with people grabbing her tail in the corridors. And not because it hurt..."

"She…?" Nikki began, his mind going to all sorts of places.

"She didn't cry out in pain." Bell clarified then seemed forced to add, "Well, except for that one time with a door, but getting anything slammed in one isn't fun."

Nikki thought about how sensitive his ears were and the idea of them being caught in something and winced. Yet, at the same time, part of him seemed to imagine what a firmer touch could be like and-

"I have some clip-on earrings you can try sometime." Belle interjected, "However, I should get back to dealing with the room assignments. We can maybe pick up the conversation later on, though if you’d like.”

“I sure hope so.” Nikki told her with real interest. “Anything that can help me with what I’m turning into, and controlling the stuff that goes with it will be very welcome.”

"And the earrings?" Belle asked with a smile.

"I… I'll think about that." Nikki stammered, his face warming again as he actually did his best not to think about that.

Belle looked at the redhead thoughtfully and for long enough that he began to fidget, suddenly feeling self-conscious. It… it was normal not to want to try out things like that immediately, wasn't it? Or had something changed about her appearance…?

"It's not unexpected if you're hesitant about trying things." Belle said in a not unkind fashion. "If, or when, you do become 'interested', I would suggest doing some experimentation by yourself alone first, so that things don't feel quite so strange and overwhelming."

Nikki nodded quickly, not trusting his voice nor really knowing what to say about that suggestion.

"Since you are new, at both magic and 'love'," Belle offered, making finger quotes in the air around that last word, "I should give you a pair of specific warnings: avoid the Goths because of magic, and the Cheer Squad because they're the Cheer Squad."

"That's… not that helpful?" Nikki pointed out slowly, "If the Goths are kids into the occult then how do I avoid them when I either look like I'm from Tolkien or have a glamour that they might notice just by it being a glamour. And 'because they're the Cheer Squad'?"

"The Goths to worry about are generally not in any magic classes for a reason. And in some cases are banned from even borrowing any books on it." Belle replied, "They want to use magic that they don’t have, and some of them are so ungodly jealous enough of those who do have it that once in a while they do stupid stuff trying to steal it."

At Nikki's sudden change in expression, Belle hurriedly elaborated.

"Not all of them are like that, most of them are just goofy kids playing at being witches and such." She told him. "But a few aren’t playing, ok?”

Nikki knew how jealousy could sour people, he'd felt jealous about the football players and athletes at school who'd hogged attention from the girls, so he could somewhat understand that. And he'd watched enough True Crime shows on TV to know it could get much worse.

"And the Cheer Squad?" He asked, unsure if he wanted to know.

"They'll get you a boyfriend. Or series of." Belle stated in a deadpan.

The blush which had faded, returned to full life on Nikki's face and he raised his hands as though to defend himself from the idea. On her part, Belle giggled at his reaction.

"Oh, it's not that they mean anything bad." Belle told Nikki with a hint of a smile. "They wouldn't mind control you into it or anything, not unless they want the Psychic or Mystic Arts Departments to have words with them, but they can be rather persuasive at making girls want to fit in with them. The head cheerleader, Astra, is a Paragon and would do her best to help you… in her view."

Nikki didn't find that explanation as reassuring as Belle perhaps intended it.

"What would she do?" He asked carefully, doing his best to ignore the thought of a 'cheerleader getting her way' which sounded far too much like the plot of a porn movie.

"In general, a Paragon is someone whose power allows them to intuitively know how to accomplish a given task or action." Belle told Nikki, "By and of itself that isn't a bad thing. However, Astra would try to 'help' you get over your 'shyness'. She might not know why her words would work, but she would know what to say. For example, after a while, you might become convinced that people would find out your secret if you didn't go along, that it wasn't as bad as it could be, or that it was good to get a 'reaction' like that from a boy even if you weren't interested in them. You see what I mean?"

Nikki nodded slowly, inwardly squirming at the entire idea.

"If you were sure that you were interested? Then they would be all too happy to teach you some skills before finding a 'starter boyfriend' for you." Belle continued. "Whateley can't exactly compete in sports against most other schools, so they resort to matchmaking to keep themselves busy. It is technically all harmless, but if you're ever sure that you want to get hold of a boy? One who'll be good to 'practice' with and won't cause you trouble? Go to them."

Nikki wasn't sure if his face was trying to pale or turn red and, in the end, he settled for just feeling rather faint at the suggestion. Part of his mind wasn't as against the idea as he had expected and was trying to provide images of a friendly cheerleader 'helping' matters in a hands-on manner.

"Thank you for the warning then." Nikki answered faintly, falling back on politeness as he did his best to quash that treacherous line of thought.

"You're welcome." Belle assured him then grinned, "After all, that sort of advice is free of charge for today.”

“Just out of interest…" Nikki asked hesitantly. "What would that advice have cost me tomorrow?”

Belle made a show of considering that question carefully.

"Why don't you ask me that tomorrow?" Belle suggested disingenuously. "I'll be sure to have an answer for you then."

Despite his recent upset, Nikki managed to give Belle a rather unamused look which only prompted the older student to smile.

"More seriously, there is a trade in favours." Belle said off-handedly, "Not official in any way, I'll hasten to assure you, but certain people in the various cottages are known to keep track of what services can be obtained. Or paid for if you are offering one. However it's probably best not to contact one of the fixers while you're still sorting out things in your own head.

"What makes you think that I haven't already?" Nikki asked reflexively.

"My dear, you're a changeling like me." Belle said with a sad shake of her head, "If you somehow have your head in the game already then you're breaking a streak which is at least as long as Whateley has been around. We're part of the reason for Poe's reputation as having crazies."

"That… I'll keep that in mind." Nikki said, at the last moment thinking better of claiming that he was an exception. It would, after all, have been a lie.

"You do that." Belle commented then added, “Oh, and just one more thing?"

"Yes, Detective Columbo?" Nikki replied then eeped as he realised that he's said that outloud.

"Well, my pretty little geek." Belle stated, "I mentioned that mind control wasn't allowed? Well, that is true in the lasting, lingering, or larger sense. The faculty seems to consider minor compulsions and influence as being good to help train resistance to such influences."

"That is, minor in the view of the victim, of course." Belle clarified, "Judging that is meant to be practice for the users. It still means that those who attract attention, and you will attract attention given your glamour, can get pranked a few times until they’re immune. My advice is to have a spare set of underwear in your bag in case you 'forget' to wear any and, as you're a changeling, to triple check which bathroom that you're walking into."

"I'll do that." Nikki assured her then, before Belle could pull out yet another thing to make him squirm, said, "I should probably go move my bags though before Boone wonders where I've wandered off to."

Belle smiled, obviously seeing through Nikki's minor deception to the real reason that he wanted to get away, then made a gesture. The almost forgotten tingling on his skin faded and the volume of sounds from the world around them returned to normal.

Nikki took a step away from Belle before pausing and turned back for a moment.

"Thank you." He said quietly.

"You're welcome." Belle replied with a smile.

Heading towards the pile of remaining luggage, Nikki reminded himself of which pieces were actually his own, and tried to balance that against how much he could carry in a single trip. The overnight bag that he had for the train wasn't an issue and he could probably take the suitcase at the same time, but the trunk full of books could probably wait until he had both hands free...


"I'm going to have to do something nice for Boone." Nikki announced to the empty dorm room as he dropped his bags on the bed. "At least if she knew the room would be like this…"

The room hadn't appeared too impressive at his first glance through the door. It held the furniture that he'd expected a room intended for two students to have, but not a single thing more than that. The walls were painted an average shade of off-white and even the carpet was an unexceptional darkish grey.

It crushed under a veneer of mundanity every last one of  Nikki's hopes of what an academy for mutants would be like. At least until he had stepped inside and suddenly all was forgiven.

Nikki took a deep breath, inhaling the sun-warmed and ever-so-dusty air, then let it out again slowly. The room was warm, and in not merely the physical sense. It felt like a muffling blanket which eased the 'pressure' on his shields' which the mystic sounds of the world always exerted.

It felt like somewhere that he could actually relax...

A thought went through Nikki's mind and he shot a guilty look towards the door.

"I had better do some unpacking." Nikki told himself, doing his best not to blush. "Yes, just some normal unpacking. Get a few things put away before going back down for everything else…"

Standing up again, Nikki dug around in his pockets for the key, then unfastened the small padlock holding her suitcase closed. He started to open it, then, feeling nervous, went over to make absolutely certain that the door was shut, before returning to the case.

The lessons his mother had given him on care for clothing were still rather fresh in Nikki's mind, and he made sure to follow them rigorously as he unpacked. Skirts were hung up in the wardrobe, blouses slipped onto hangers, t-shirts folded nearly into drawers, and-

It's mine so it's fine. Nikki tried to convince himself as he began transferring the underwear, bras, panties, and even the negligee that Mom had insisted on, from the case, directly to a drawer. Nobody is going to call me a pervert for touching it. For having it. For wearing it.

If it had been up to him, he'd have tried to get by with normal underwear. but those didn't fit properly anymore. And the first time that he'd unthinkingly put on boxer shorts after changing, had ended minutes later with a rash in places that Nikki wasn't comfortable thinking about, let alone applying a soothing cream to.

Allergies to most 'modern' materials had left him with a restricted wardrobe and, as it turned out, while silk boxers were a thing they ended up being more expensive than his mother was willing to pay.

"At least that got me out of trying on spandex." Nikki told the room and he couldn't help but smile as nothing seemed to respond to the words. The background static which permeated the walls, something akin to the soothing sounds of the sea, dampened the normal response.

Emptying most of the suitcase didn't take long, but, as its contents grew less and less, Nikki couldn't help feeling nervous. He felt his ears twitch, a response which his younger brother had mercilessly teased him about, but he couldn't get them to stop.

Nikki took a steadying breath, letting the soothing hiss of the 'sea' grow louder in his ears, then carefully picked up the last rolled up t-shirt in the case. The t-shirt which he had carefully been avoiding, and which, unlike the others, made no attempt to unroll as he took it over to the dresser. There was already a spot waiting for it, there at the back of one dra-

Rat-a-tat-tat!

A yelp, which he would forever deny was a panicked squeak, escaped from Nikki as he literally jumped around, looking at the door in a panic as someone knocked on it. Whoever had knocked at least had the manners not to barge in, but that left him standing there with only a t-shirt hiding the shape of the toy...

Nikki desperately rammed the 'item' into the chosen spot, then slammed the drawer shut as fast as humanly possible. Flushed, and having no desire to explain the gift that his mother had ended up giving him, he hurried towards the door.

"Coming!" Nikki called even as he reached the door and opened it only for a familiar face to be revealed on the other side.

"Hey there, neighbour!" Toni exclaimed with a grin, "Fancy meeting you here… Not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Interrupting?" Nikki said hurriedly, "No. Not at all. Um, did you want something? Because I'm just trying to unpack and…"

"I just wondered if I could grab a couple of hangers." Toni interrupted, "I was doing my stuff but, hey, we don't have any."

"Hangers." Nikki repeated blankly.

"Yeah, hangers? Like for coats or stuff?" Toni explained then gave Nikki a closer look. "Are you okay? You're a bit flushed and… Well, I wasn't interrupting anything? Like you 'christening' the room or your new bed or that roommate of yours…?"

Magic, Leon had told Nikki, supposedly came instinctively to sidhe and especially to high sidhe as he appeared to be becoming. With a blush burning on his face, and the only thought in his mind to give Toni what she wanted to make her go away, Nikki grabbed for the muted sense of the nearest line and simply willed the magic to make it happen...

And the moment after Nikki did that, he knew that it had been a big mistake.

A strand of the line which he had latched onto, knotted in on itself, twisting under the imperative which he'd given it in a way which didn't quite form into the unstable magic of a hobgoblin. Nikki frantically reached to try and stop whatever it was doing, but the 'spell' moved too fast as it swept out of her mental grip and moved into the room.

"Something wrong?" Toni asked, her joking tone suddenly missing as she seemed to pick up on Nikki's expression. "Just t-

Toni broke off mid sentence, shifting a half step to the right as something shot through where she had been standing a moment ago. Numbly Nikki saw that, behind Toni and in the corridor, a hanger lay on the floor where it had bounced off of the wall.

"Nice shot!" Toni exclaimed with a grin which quickly faded. "Look, if you don't want to lend me any more I'll just take that one and go? I don't need that- Oh shit!"

Toni literally threw herself to the side as blurs whirled past Nikki, arcing in their flight paths to get through the doorway without hitting the redhead then back around in the corridor to make another pass. On her part their dark skinned target had seemed worried at first but then, as she seemed to get a handle on their speed, her smile re-emerged.

"Now, this?" Toni said, gesturing to the half dozen flying hangers whirling around her as she dodged nigh effortlessly. "This is pretty cool. Just wondering though, are you actually mad about me asking or is this one of those 'squirrel' moments?"

"...it's a squirrel moment." Nikki admitted helplessly, struggling to keep his mind in the state to see the spell while speaking. "I can probably undo it if you give me a minute?"

Without warning Toni's hand snapped up, plucking one hanger out of the air, and for a moment Nikki could see the 'spell' struggling to make the hanger move before a tug ripped it free from the spell's grip.

"Nah, it's cool." Toni replied, flipping the hanger into the air before catching it again when it showed no signs of renewed independent motion.  Two more flung themselves at Toni, and with a twist of her body, she somehow slipped between their flight paths. "Easier than carrying them, right? Unless they're going to burst to life again in the middle of the night or something."

Nikki took a breath, focused on the knot of essence, and tried to make sense of what he could see and hear of the magic. Despite having pulled from the line there was very little actual power to it and, from how it looked, it had been lessened when Toni tore the one hanger free of it.

"I think if you manage to grab the rest it should just go away on its own." Nikki offered uncertainly. "If you can do that anyway? I could try to undo it but I haven't had much luck with that yet."

This time Toni's smile was more reassuring.

"It's fine. Everybody messed up and you warned us all about this sort of thing maybe happening." Toni said in a more reassuring tone even as she continued to avoid the spinning hangers. "I should tell you about the time I gave all the guys at Hapkido boners. Even the ones actually not looking at me."

"Giving them ones when they looked was easy." She gave a laugh then stood straight, pushed out her chest as she 'boasted', "Anyway, it's not as if these are any sort of threat to the great Toni Ch- FUCK!"

Standing still was perhaps the not wisest of moves while being targeted by multiple 'attackers' and one in particular had managed to come in 'low' then zoom upwards. Toni had perhaps misjudged its distance, or perhaps its skill at avoiding accidental collisions, as the end of the spinning hanger had clipped her breast as it passed.

Nikki could only cringe in sympathy as Toni clutched her left breast, the t-shirt that she wore proving to provide little protection.

"No more Mister Nice Girl!" Toni declared and lashed out as the hangers spun past again, both hands moving as she knocked one from the air to the floor then caught two others with a loud slap of wood on flesh. "And, Jesus' balls, that stung."

The hanger on the floor twitched as though about to move then went still as Toni placed a foot atop of it.

"Is that all of them?" Toni asked pointedly. "Four is plenty even if it ain't the death of me."

Whatever Toni meant by that went over Nikki's head, but when he looked he couldn't see nor hear anything of his botched 'spell' bar a few fading echoes.

"I think so." Nikki told her. "And I am sorry about that… Um, you can keep the hangers?"

"To the victor goes the spoils." Toni agreed, rubbing the inside of one forearm against her 'injured' breast as she kept a firm grip on the hangers. "I'll speak to you later… and sorry for bothering you if you were trying to get your head on straight."

Nikki mutely nodded, watching as Toni picked up the hangers which lay on the floor then began to walk away.

Before Toni vanished from sight though the black girl turned back, a wicked smile on her face, and Nikki found himself cringing preemptive in expectation of whatever terrible thing the girl would say.

"See ya later!" Toni called back. "If you really want to relax, ask your roomie for a 'hand'. That's gotta be better than using that toy you'd had in hand…!"

Nikki felt his cheeks burn at the moment and his voice abandoned him before he could even attempt to deny the accusation. He stood there, utterly speechless, as Toni vanished from sight then, when he finally managed to move all, close the door, slide down with his back against it, then let out a mortified whimper.

He simply sat like that for a time with the sheer embarrassment of what had just happened and Toni's parting words leaving his face burning. How could she have said that? It wasn't as though he… as if he... 

Nikki buried his face in his hands again and wished that the ground would just open up and swallow him whole.

:Even if it did, that would just startle the people downstairs.:

An involuntary giggle escaped the redhead's lips at the stray thought. He could all too easily imagine people in the lobby, perhaps standing around chatting, when the ceiling suddenly opened and he fell from it with a scream only to land safely on one of the couches...

"Oh, god, what was I thinking there?" He asked the empty room then, with a sigh, forced himself to his feet. "Attacking someone with clothes hangers?!"

Nikki glanced over towards the wardrobe which had its doors open, the interior holding the few items of clothing which he had already hung up… but notably no remaining unused hangers. The thought of actually finishing unpacking his clothes, and perhaps 'borrowing' a few hangers from Boone's wardrobe before his roommate actually got up to the room, passed through Nikki's mind but was dismissed almost immediately.

A break, a cold drink, and not thinking about what was now in his underwear drawer seemed like better options by far...

Nikki pushed himself away from the door, to his feet, reflexively straightening the hoodie that he wore, then cautiously headed out into the corridor. Fortunately, it appeared that Toni had not returned to lurk there and Nikki breathed a sigh of relief while pointedly ignoring the mark on the wall which definitely wasn't where the first hanger had struck.

A moment later, he blushed then turned on his heel, heading back into the room to actually bring his purse with him.

It was a vague surprise to Nikki when he saw Boone, barely half away up and struggling to lift a trunk from one step to the next, on the stairs while he was on his way down. Despite having the body of a girl, years of 'be nice to girls' had still left their mark and he paused.

"Do you need a hand with that?" Nikki asked carefully.

"Nah." Boone replied then took a deep breath, something which made her breasts heavy noticeably beneath her top, before lifting the trunk up to the next step and letting go again. "It's just slow going. Didn't… didn't want to bother anyone about it.

"I could help though?" He tried. "It can't be that heavy."

Boone looked at Nikki and, feeling his face grow warm again, Nikki did his best to look back without letting his gaze stray below the neckline again. The girl gestured to the trunk with a flourish and, taking that as a sign, Nikki stepped in and lifted it.

Or, at least tried to, before the actual weight registered.

"What on Earth do you have in there?" Nikki exclaimed, moving the trunk up one step, then a second, before setting it down. Rubbing his hands where the handles had bit into them, he continued. "Rocks?"

"Metalworking and mechanical engineering tools." Boone replied back dryly only to hold up her hands defensively against Nikki's incredulous look. "I asked during the tour and, apparently, the registration for workshop spaces isn't open tonight so I'll have to keep them in our room until tomorrow. Or whenever I do get some space assigned."

Nikki flexed his hands again and stared at the trunk. He could lift it, he had found that his body had been getting stronger even as he'd become more of a girl, but despite the urge to get along with his roommate he didn't really want to have to haul it up the stairs…

"Um, hang on." Nikki said as something occurred to him. "Won't you have to just bring that back down again?"

"Yes." Boone said flatly, her face such a picture of overblown misery that Nikki couldn't help but laugh.

"There, there." He said, patting her on the shoulder. "I could try to help with magic but I'm not really feeling up to it."

The 'flying hangers' were far too fresh in Nikki's thoughts for him to feel comfortable attempting another spell just yet. It didn't help that there was a horrible image in his mind of trying to 'magic' the trunk up to their room and it promptly taking the direct route there with no care for any intervening barriers.

Expensive barriers called 'walls' and 'floors' which would not leave people happy with him...

"I'll leave you to do that then." Nikki said, "I'm just going to grab a drink, maybe some snacks, from downstairs. Do you want anything?"

"Not while doing this, but if you could grab me a bottle of Coke or something for later?" Boone asked.

"Sure." Nikki replied, starting to smile at the girl then freezing as his mind unprompted produced the image of her lips wrapped around the top of the open bottle.

"Is everything okay?" Boone asked.

"...yes." Nikki managed to say hastily. "Yes. Perfectly fine. You do want a Coke though? Rather than a Pepsi or anything weird?"

"I'd ask for an Iron Brew," Boone replied then pursed her lips, something which really didn't help Nikki's mind move to a different line of thought. "But you'd probably not get the joke about girders."

There was a pause. Part of Nikki was still thinking about Boone's lips and the bottle, but while the idea gave him warm feelings, it also left him feeling all too keenly the absence of pressure 'down below'.

And that the warmth that he did feel was… different.

"Coke, it is then." Nikki said, breaking the awkward silence. 

"Sure." Boone replied then turned her attention to the trunk, "And I'll get on with this. If it wasn't for these stupid stairs then the wheel would actually help…"

Nikki left Boone as she broke down into dark arcane mutterings, heading down the stairs to the ground floor before he could make a mess of yet another conversation.


The lobby to Poe Cottage was quiet, the near-silence broken only by the soft hum from the row of vending machines that Nikki stood in front of. The lights overhead were bulbs, not tubes, and so the high-pitched whine which so often bothered him in other places, was missing.

Nobody else was present, and the absence of other people, combined with the impersonal feel of the lobby, was strangely relaxing to Nikki as he browsed the contents of the machines. There were things that he had expected, such as the cold and hot drinks from separate machines, but where he had assumed there would just be snacks, there was so much more.

He ran his fingers slowly over the glass and, on the other side, packets of aspirin, midol, condoms, and The Pill for both genders lay in wait. However beside them, in the same machine, were things which seemed out of place, such as beef jerky and something called 'Kendal Mint Cake'.

Nikki bit his lip, a bad habit that he'd fallen back into in recent days, and eyed the price. The 'Mint Cake' had his curiosity, but for all it looked like some sort of candy, the price was higher than he expected one to be. And then there was why it was placed in the machine which held medication and stationary... Although, it also held jerky...

"I'm too curious for my own good." Nikki muttered to himself as he fed coins into the slot then punched the code for the mint "candy".

As he watched the machine dispense the bar, he could see a reflection in the glass like a ghost. The red-haired girl who looked back, seemed tired. Stressed. In need of a brea-

:She is pretty.:

The random thought made Nikki snort and, in the glass, the girl gave a twisted smile which broadened a little even as he admired it. He pursed his lips and she pouted. He tried a grin and she smiled in a way which seemed as though it would light up the room.

Yet it still wasn't his face. And, because of that, the girl scowled.

Nikki shook his head and knelt down, scooping the candy bar out of the tray before standing again. Even doing that was different now, as he was aware, in a way that he didn't used to have to think about, of how crouching made his skirt move.

It was easier to just move on to the Coke machine, with its red and white surface not allowing a proper reflection, rather staying to think things like that. After punching for a Coke once and hearing the bottle tumbling down inside the machine, the red light came on, showing that it was now out of regular Coke, Nikki deliberately distracted himself by dithering between Diet Coke and the Vanilla kind...

A hand tapped on her shoulder and Nikki did his best not to jump in surprise. He was sure that he would… that he would have heard anyone approaching, that being the sole benefit of his ears, but somehow he'd been taken by surprise.

"Just a minute." He said, keeping his gaze on the machine while trying to calm his racing heart. "I just need to get a second bottle."

There was a tap on the shoulder again, but Nikki pointedly ignored it as she hit the Diet Coke button and waited for the bottle to fall.

When whoever was behind him tapped his shoulder for a third time, Nikki gave into her irritation and spun around to give them a piece of his mind.

Yet, somehow, there was nobody there.

Or, to be more precise there was no body there. Instead, a pair of gloves, a pair of shoes (as a glance down revealed), and a pair of sunglasses of all things were happily floating in midair.

"Uh…" Nikki began as words failed him. He tried to think of something sensible to say. "If you drank a coke, would it be invisible too?"

That, Nikki chided herself inwardly, was not a sensible thing to say!

The gloves turned palm up in the air, moving up, then back down again, and Nikki could all too easily imagine some unseen person shrugging. Swallowing hard, he wracked his brain for something else to say which wasn't quite as brain-dead.

"Sorry if I'm in your way." Nikki said, stepping aside to give access to the machine. "Um, I don't remember seeing you at… I mean, I didn't get introduced to you earlier? You're a new student too, aren't you? Um, or are you a senior?"

A small treacherous corner of Nikki's mind decided to add two and two together before informing Nikki that the person in front of her was, in all likelihood, naked except for their gloves and shoes. And the sunglasses of course.

Nikki promptly stomped that line of thought flat even as he put his hands, still holding the candy and Coke bottle, behind his back lest he accidentally touch something inappropriate.

"If you can't talk," Nikki said, trying to fight down a rising blush as the mental images that his stupid brain was continuing to produce, "Then we might have a problem. I don't actually know any sign language…"

The quiet sound of a giggle from the direction of the stairwell interrupted Nikki. He automatically glanced over, only to spot the short girl from the introductions, Jade if he remembered correctly, was peeking out from the stairwell. A moment later, Boone's more familiar face glanced around the corner, meeting Nikki's gaze with his own and giving a vaguely sheepish smile in return.

The shorter girl, Nikki suddenly remembered, had the power to 'bring things to life'. Things like a pair of gloves, a pair of shoes, and a pair of sunglasses...

"Are you real or actually a prank?" He pointedly asked the 'figure' in front of him. Nikki was fairly sure of the answer already, but it never hurt to be sure.

There was no verbal response but the gloves spun around in a brief orbit before spreading their fingers in a gesture which almost screamed 'tada!'.

"That isn't really much of an answer." Nikki commented dryly.

"I'm sorry, but it seemed funny." Jade offered as she drew close, giving Nikki a vaguely apologetic smile.

"And if you do need to blame someone, then feel free to blame me." Boone offered before reaching out to ruffle Jade's hair, prompting a yelp of protest from the girl. "Not that it is my fault, but since we are sharing a room, I'll be in easy 'blaming distance'."

"Is blaming distance actually a thing?" Billie asked, tilting her head to one side as she came to a stop next to Boone. It took a moment before Nikki realised that the blue-haired girl's feet weren't actually touching the ground. Again.

It was something that Billie had done a lot during the campus tour and the novelty of seeing a girl hovering so casually, had long since worn off for Nikki.

"I think it has to do with the radius of the fallout." Boone bantered back. There was a smile on his face even as he mimed an explosion with his hands. "After all, if she's going to blow up someone…"

"I'm not a nuclear weapon." Nikki commented, doing his best not to think of how that brought to mind thoughts of his dad. And some rather strange, and disturbing, conversations. Trying to distract himself, he twisted off the cap of the coke then took a sip.

"But aren't you too hot to handle?" Boone oh-so-innocently asked even as he let his gaze roam slowly down, then back up, Nikki's body. "Although that sounds like something to test…"

Nikki swallowed his mouthful of cola carefully, managing not to choke or splutter on it when the words registered, then very deliberately gave a casual shrug.

"Well, my mom did tell me that I'll probably grow up to be a real bombshell." He said, trying to push away the mental image of Boone 'handling' him.

"That makes it sound like your mom is fine with all of…?" Billie trailed off and gestured towards Nikki.

"She is." Nikki groaned and only realised his mistake a moment too late.

"How is that a problem?" Jade asked in puzzlement, looking at Nikki as though expecting an answer. Beside her the other two 'changelings' seemed similarly curious. "It's not… It isn't that you have problems with your father?"

"I live with my mom and haven't… Well, dad's been busy, so I haven't seen him since before I started to change." Nikki told Jade. "My mom is… Well, she's a little too enthusiastic about having a daughter instead of just sons."

"Is that 'sudden shopping trip!' enthusiastic or 'tips on one-night stands'  enthusiastic?" Boone asked, looking sheepish when he was stared at. "I did mention that my mother is fine with the change. To be fair, she always gave me advice on pickup lines and what not to do on dates. It's just that now she's giving me the other side of things."

"You make it sound as though she gave you everything short of a step-by-step guide to giving the perfect blowjob." Billie joked then blinked when Boone didn't respond. "...she didn't, did she?"

The blush which appeared on Boone's face was, in Nikki's opinion, quite fetching, but she was very glad that she'd not been drinking when Billie asked her question.

"I've been pretty sure that I'm bisexual, and not in the physical sense, for a few years. So she just gave me a refresher course after the change." Boone said, "...and is that my Coke there?"

For a moment, Nikki was tempted to deny Boone that distraction and press the topic himself. However, he was feeling merciful and, besides, Jade looked as though she was about to faint, given how red she was turning.

"It is." Nikki graciously allowed, wordlessly handing over the unopened bottle when Boone extended a hand for it. "And now, so that I can avoid imagining about my mom telling me things like that, may I ask why you decided to try giving me a heart attack with 'Miss Invisible Man' there?"

"It seemed like it'd be funny?" Jade offered weakly.

"It wasn't from my side." Nikki remarked.

"Do you think it will be when she goes busking at people's doors?" Billie asked in return, then continued when Nikki gave a questioning look. "We thought it'd be a way to meet up with people again. A knock on the doors and then a little 'dance routine' to break the ice as we gather everyone up again."

"That would be funny." Nikki admitted as his mind presented him with an image of just that. "Isn't it a little early though? I mean, I haven't finished unpacking and I'm pretty sure that Boone has a couple more things to take up to the room."

"Don't you mean our room?" Boone asked oh-so suggestively and with a hint of a smile.

"Yes." Nikki replied shortly, doing his best not to fall for the bait.

He took a deep breath, for a moment letting the lines shimmer into his sight and the background thrum of Poe cottage to rise in volume, then spoke again.

"If someone happened to give us a hand with the remaining bags then we could all then go 'busking' after that." Nikki said, trying to compromise.

He did want to finish getting unpacked then just rest in his room, away from people, but if that wasn't an option, then getting a hand with things would be nice.

"I have an MP3 player in my bag and some mini-speakers?" Nikki offered in an attempt to sweeten the deal. They had been part of his last Christmas present from dad and despite using it on the train, they should still have power. "We could pick out some music to dance to and play it through that."

"Group huddle, guys!" Jade announced, drawing the other two down and together. Nikki's hearing was far better than it used to be and so he listened with bemusement as the short girl literally murmured "Whisper whisper plot plot!" to Boone and Billie.

As Nikki watched Boone gave a slow nod then replied, at the same volume, "Plot plot conspiracy?"

"Scheme plot whisper murmur!" Billie muttered and that was too much for Nikki.

The three 'conspirators' looked over as one at Nikki as a sound escaped from him.

"Have you finished with your huddle yet?" Nikki asked, blushing even as he did his very best to pretend that it was someone else who had laughed.

"Yep!" Jade chimed, amusement gleaming in her eyes. "We're going to take you up on your ever-so-kind offer… but it's going to cost you!"

The floating gloves raised up a single finger as though to object, then slowly lowered it again as though it was reconsidering the matter.

"For lending you the speakers?" Nikki asked, far too amused by the byplay to let things drop even as matters reached the point of surreality. "And what will it be costing me?"

"On my part, maybe that Coke you promised me is enough?" Boone offered with a smile, waggling the bottle that he had been given illustratively. "For some reason, I think that you can bear to part with it."

"Some  snacks that you might have to spare would be good enough for me." Billie offered which prompted a look from Boone. She shifted slightly then shrugged off the glance, "I know dinner wasn't that long ago, but I get pretty hungry nowadays."

Nikki turned his gaze to Jade and raised a single eyebrow. It was a trick that he'd practiced ever since he'd realised that his ears were pointed and he liked to think that his version was good enough to make Leonard Nimoy proud.

"For my part…" Jade began dramatically, pushing herself up on her toes in an attempt to loom which Nikki found absolutely adorable. "You'll have to loan us your MP3 player and the speakers. Plus music!"

"And I thought that she was the sane one." Boone murmured, under his breath but audible to Nikki.

Pressing his lips together, Nikki was forced to pause rather than burst out laughing as the sheer… sheer something in Boone's tone pushed the scene to new heights of absurdity.

"Let me get this straight." He said when he was sure that he could say so with a straight face. "The price for loaning you something to play music on is… to loan you something to play music on?"

"You have to admit that it's an equivalent cost." Boone replied with a chuckle. "Completely balanced. The extras are just to take into account your likely poor musical taste."

"My 'poor musical taste'?" Nikki repeated to confirm.

"Given how big your other ones are?" Boone asked rhetorically. "We'd be able to see if you had an ear for a good tune."

Billie groaned at the pun and Nikki brought the hand holding the Coke bottle up in an attempt to cover his face. With his eyes covered, Nikki missed Jade's reaction but doubted that it would be any better than theirs.

"...Jade? Billie? Either of you want to swap roommates?" Nikki joked. "This one seems to have a horrible sense of humor and I don't want to find out if it's contagious."

"My manly, or womanly, talents don't make up for that?" Boone asked, sounding not at all hurt by the accusation.

"Well, I thought it was funny." Jade offered, prompting Nikki to uncovered his face and look towards Billie.

"If you swap with Boone, then we can both be free of those punsters." He told the blue-haired girl with a straight face.

"Sorry, but I like this one." Billie responded, shaking her head then reaching down to ruffle Jade's hair. An action which caused a token 'hey!' of protest even as the shorter girl grinned. "After all she takes up less room."

"Doesn't that depend on how you fold her?" Boone asked oh so innocently.

"Hey!" Jade protested again then waggled a finger as Billie made a show of giving her a considering look. "Nope, you're not doing that!"

"That's fair enough," Boone agreed and Nikki found himself nodding along with the comment… at least until Boone continued. "It's gimps who get tucked away for easy storage, not 'Mistress!' types like you."

Nikki choked on air at Boone's words, hardly believing that he actually said that, and given Billie's suddenly flaming red cheeks, she quite agreed. As for Jade...

"What's a 'gimp'?" Jade asked, seeming to be honestly confused. "And wouldn't it be better to be a wife than just a mistress…?"

The Coke bottle in Nikki's hand made a sound of protest as her grip tightened around it and he forced himself to ease off rather than accidentally pop it. Swallowing hard, he looked to Billie, hoping that she would deal with this.

'Why aren't you saying anything?' Nikki tried to ask with her eyes.

Enough of the meaning managed to transmit between them that it was easy enough for Nikki to interpret the small shake of Billie's head as 'I'm not touching that!'.

"I could explain-" Boone began and Nikki frantically shook his head. Jade seemed innocent in a way, but more than that, he really didn't want to hear Boone explain in detail about sex. Not unless he wanted his blush to turn terminal.

"-but I have a better idea about who could answer those questions." He finished, having obviously decided to change his wording, then gave a lazily evil smile. Something about the expression made Nikki feel a little… warm.

Which obviously was just from the potential embarrassment.

"Oh?" Jade managed to pack curiosity and more than a little evil of her own. "Who do you mean?"

"Belle should still be around." Boone stated and suddenly the true evil of his plan hit Nikki. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing at the sheer evil of his room mate's suggestion. "She is meant to guide us and answer our questions today, so why not ask her?"

Jade nodded slowly, "But what about-"

"I can deal with the music setup." Billie assured her roommate, grinning now. "After all, the 'dancer' can stay here and help while you go and ask Belle your questions."

"If you're sure?" Jade asked and the other three nodded in unison. "Okay, I'll be back in a bit then."

The trio watched in silence until Jade had vanished from sight, until Nikki could no longer hear Jade at all. It was Boone who let out the first snort of laughter and that seemed to set off the other two.

"I should be angry about your ruining her innocence."  Billie remarked through her giggles, "But… Well, she is our age?"

"Belle is going to kill you for this." Nikki warned, feeling himself in complete agreement with Billie. "But I'm suddenly so very glad to be your roommate and I can assure you that I have your back."

"I'm glad you feel that way," Boone responded even as Billie gave Nikki an odd look. "Is there a particular reason why though…?"

"Because if I'm behind your back then you won't be aiming that evil at me."

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Jacob Boone

"The hat was a great idea!" Jade exclaimed with a brilliant smile on her face. "Thank you, Boone."

Judging by the expression on Billie's face as we exchanged look, she was as amused by how enthusiastic Jade was about all of this as I was. The blue-haired girl was floating along beside us, having once more given up on mundane forms of locomotion, as we wandered along looking for a likely door for Jade to repeat her previous act at.

"If you're busking, then isn't it normal to put one down for whatever change people can spare?" I offered. "Not that you seem to have gotten much money compared to other things."

"Two candy bars, a bag of raisins, and a can of 'Dr Pibs' isn't much in and of itself." Nikki commented as the redhead walked beside us. "I would have expected a little more money, dollar bills at least, given how good the dancing is."

"That would be because there wasn't a pole involved." I replied, deliberately acting as though it was a casual comment and moving on immediately. "Do you think that we should go upstairs and try with the seniors?"

"I could try borrowing a curtain rail." Jade answered, seemingly confused even as I heard a brief choking sound from Nikki's direction as she got my meaning. "But maybe going upstairs would be good? I mean, not to try to get money, but just to check in with Quickie."

I honestly wasn't sure if Jade actually was that oblivious or not, but for the moment I was going to simply roll with it.

"'Quickie'?" Billie echoed in disbelief. "Someone took 'Quickie' as their codename?"

The animated gloves and shoes which had been walking ahead of us spun about to face us and, even as it continued on in what was a 'backward' direction, gave a spread hands 'shrug' then made some obscure gestures.

"She picked it and then nobody told her until it was too late to change." Jade replied, giving a nod towards the gloves as though they had been making coherent motions rather than random gestures. "Oh, Jinn says that she is a bit tired though. We have been doing this for a while…"

"That's true." I agreed, "Although the dance with Hank was pretty impressive."

"You're just saying that because they went up the wall." Billie commented.

"Does that make it any less impressive?" I asked. "I know I couldn't do that."

"True." Billie said then glanced at a nearby wall thoughtfully. "Hmm…"

"You may not want to do that." Nikki warned, obviously guessing at Billie's intentions. "Hank was flying but he must have had a lot of practice. Otherwise he could have put a foot through the wall."

"But it isn't just plasterboard!" Jade protested, coming to Billie's defence. "We're at a school for mutants, if it was just that then they'd have to replace it all the time."

"And how do you know they don't?" I challenged, "It could be cheaper that way than using something tougher and help keep the brick-types used to fragile walls."

The gloves, and now I realised that Jade actually was calling them 'Jinn', waved in a 'hold on!' motion. It shouldn't have been easy to judge what they meant, but Jinn was doing a remarkably good job given her limitations. Although I couldn't figure out why Jade had skipped doing whatever she did to give Simba a voice.

There may have been a mention of it in the original stories, but it had been literally years and a lifetime ago since I'd read the stories showing her point of view.

"If we found enough people who could do that… Do you think that they could re-enact Thriller?"

The question caught the attention of all of us and, as one, we turned to look at Nikki. The girl started to blush, apparently not having meant to say that outloud, but pushed on.

"It could be something for Halloween?" Nikki suggested. "Just something fun and silly to do then rather than the stuff for little kids that Halloween is."

"If you think that Halloween is just for kids then you definitely haven't seen the same costumes that I have." I offered dryly and, surprisingly, it was Billie whose face turned crimson. "Although Halloween was something I was planning to put some effort into this year."

"You were?" Jade asked, blinking cutely in confusion. "Why would you want to do that… Beyond it being Halloween and the candy?"

"Well, we won't be here for Christmas nor New Year." I pointed out, "Halloween is the only real holiday which falls squarely into the semester and it's far enough in that I should have a hang of what I can get away with in terms of costumes."

"There's Thank-" "What do you-"

Nikki and Billie both broke off, exchanging glances as they silently tried to figure out who would speak first. In the end though it was Billie who ended up breaking the silence.

"There's Thanksgiving too." Billie 'reminded' me.

The side of me which hadn't been born in America was unimpressed by that suggestion. Conversely, the part of me which remembered growing up in the country… was even less impressed.

"An actual holiday." I told her. "One where people dress up, party, and enjoy themselves. Rather than just putting in far too much effort before having to order delivery to get what they need to put everyone into a food coma."

"...did you have a bad experience with Thanksgiving?" Jade offered delicately into the awkward pause which had lingered after my words.

In hindsight, I had perhaps put a little too much vitriol into what I had said. However the memories of past Thanksgivings made it hard to think well of the holiday. The phantom tastes of a bone dry 'bird', a marshmallow and sweet potato casserole which had literally caught fire, and a gravy that required application of a knife to serve lingered unpleasantly on my tongue.

I'd actually gotten horribly drunk at a far-too-young age on that one trifle...

Belatedly I realised that we had come to a halt and the three girls were looking at me with equally expectant expressions with varying degrees of concern.

"Only in terms of what I was meant to eat." I assured the three. "My mother… she tried to cook. She really tried."

"Bad?" Billie asked as her expression shifted to one of amusement.

"The best meal I had on Thanksgiving was when she hit on the guy at the drive thru and he brought extras along once he found someone to take over his shift." I informed them. "The worst… Well, I'm pretty sure that Alya would call it 'theoretically edible packing material'. Or possibly have a heart attack on the spot if someone expected her to eat it."

Jade giggled at that and Billie laughed. We had all heard Alya waxing eloquent at dinner about the food available at Whateley. Those comments had been complimentary, but it was easy to imagine her words taking a different tone if faced with something 'subpar'.

Nikki, on the other hand, was giving me a quizzical look.

"She hit on someone at a drive through?" The redhead asked incredulously.

"The guy taking our order, yes." I acknowledge and it was hard to read the expression she made. "Better food, but not the most 'amusing in hindsight' fast food story I have about a holiday."

I started walking, heading forwards towards the stairs, and after a moment Billie overtook me again.

"You can't leave us hanging like that." The still floating girl protested with a smile. "What's this better story?"

"That's for me to know and my roommate to weedle out of me." I told her with a grin. "I do have to give her some advantage over you peons."

It was then that Jade caught up with us, her shorter legs apparently making it more of a push for her.

"You won't tell me, senpai?" She asked, obviously playing up her 'sadness' as she gave me a mournful look. However I'd seen her using 'puppy dog eyes' before and I was stronger than that.

"...I'll just say that 'Big n' Tasty' doesn't do takeouts." I told her because I was far too weak against cute girls.

"'Big n' Tasty'... That's the place that was trying to compete with Hooters, isn't it?" Nikki asked, a sideways glance at her showing me that she was blushing.

"The one with the 'smallest size is large'." I acknowledged.

"They don't do child portions?" Jade asked, apparently confused and innocent. And I really couldn't tell if she was faking it or not.

"It applies to their food and drinks too." I agreed then decided to hold back a bit. Nikki was turning a little too red now for some reason. "Mom told me that it was one of the few places she knew which would let you order a keg of beer to your table. Assuming you gave them warning anyway. And their tables are strong enough to dance on."

"That just opens up so many questions," I heard Billie comment. "Although I think that I can guess at most of the answers."

We had reached the stairs and I hesitated.

"Do we actually want to go up and bother the seniors?" I asked the group, suddenly feeling uncertain. "It would be a way of introducing ourselves, but… Well, I'm not sure how protective of 'their' floors they would be."

"What's the worst that could happen?" Billie asked with a shrug.

"A brick, one who actually has the issues which Poe students supposedly has, takes a swing at one of us." I said flatly. It was hard to remember the details of the stories after so long, but I was pretty sure that there was one girl at Poe who really was like that. "Then splat. And, at best, I have to get Flower to piece back together an arm, ribcage, or skull…"

Immediately after I spoke I regretted the words as Billie flinched visibly. If I could have taken back the words then I would have. Seeing her cringe like that was terrible, and I had no idea how I'd managed to trigger that reaction.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who took Billie's reaction badly as Jade immediately stepped between us. Her head was held high and her body language screamed that, rather than being a skinny young girl, she was a wall that anyone wanting to get at Billie would have to go through.

"It wouldn't be that bad." Jade stated firmly. "Nothing bad is going to happen like that."

"Whateley wouldn't have someone here if they were that violent." Nikki stated, her tone calm with just a hint of pleading for peace. "They'd probably just tell us to come downstairs again."

"If you do want to go up then we could ask the first person we see up there which room was 'Quickie's." I offered, "Knocking on random doors just seems a little… intrusive."

Billie seemed to be calming down again, but I deliberately tried to not look directly at her. It seemed best to give her a chance to settle herself without anyone staring.

"And Angel." Jade countered, her stand not having eased in the least. "She'd be happy to se-"

Jade broke off, blinking several times as she looked at me. It was a reaction that I'd gotten used to, the moment where someone's brain finally registered that I wasn't the gender they thought I had been.

"-to see the rest of us?" Jade finished weakly.

"She was okay with me on the train." I pointed out. "I don't think that she's androphobic so, worst comes to worst, I can just stand well out of arm's reach so there's no chance of accident contact."

"That would work." Jade nodded, finally relaxing and the impression that getting too close would have her introducing me to the walls and/or floor fading. "She was nice about things and I didn't hold… Well, she won't hold you being a boy against you."

"I think that I'm missing something here." Nikki asked, looking between the two of us.

"In ten words or less? 'Impossibly pretty girl with wings and an allergy to boys.'." I told her with a grin to show that we hadn't been deliberately leaving her out. "It seems to act… funny towards us changelings though. Or at least in regards to my changes."

"Maybe we could give her a miss then?" Billie asked somewhat hesitantly, finally speaking up again. "Or I could go with Jade to see how 'Angel' is."

"If you want company then I could go along and just hang back a bit." I offered, but Jade just shook her head.

"You've helped already, but this is something for just the two of us." Jade told me, smiling a little again. "You know how a roommate is a very special person in your life and there are things that you wouldn't do if someone else was around."

"But isn't Jinn going to be with you? I believe that would make it a threesome..."

The comment so caught me by surprise that it took several moments for me to realise that it was Nikki who had said those words. The girl in question was blushing horribly, a hand raised to cover her mouth as though she could somehow block out the words which she had already spoken.

As Jade had just said, a roommate was important if only because they most definitely knew where you slept. With that firmly in mind, and my suspicions about what had prompted those words from Nikki, I did my best to cover for my roommate by being a distraction.

"Jade?" I asked, drawing attention to myself with that question. "Do you realise that you have responsibilities in this case? We wouldn't want to leave Billie alone with your sister so you'll have to act as a chaperone for them."

"A chaperone?" Jade echoed, obviously wondering where I was trying to take this.

"Of course!" I said cheerfully, "Jinn is obviously a lovely young girl, she is your sister of course, but I have the feeling that she doesn't know the etiquette of being a respectable lady."

I leaned forwards and, in a stage whisper, explained, "I have it on good authority that, at this present moment, she is wearing neither a bra nor undergarments. What if Billie saw something! The shame of it."

Jade actually put her hands either side of her face and forced her eyes wide.

"Oh no!" She said oh-so melodramatically. "It would ruin their reputation. Whatever can I do?"

"As I said, you need only be their chaperone and it will be fine." I 'assured' Jade, "After all, you have an immaculate reputation. I'm sure that your word that Billie hasn't seen even a square inch of Jinn's bare skin will be enough for anyone."

"Isn't that right, Billie?" I asked while turning towards the blue-haired girl.

As I turned, I noticed in passing that Nikki had calmed. Or, at least, she wasn't blushing and looking as though she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. That was 'mission accomplished', but I decided to let matters play out a little longer.

"Curses! You've foiled my evil plan!" Billie cried, joining in the silliness and giving a melodramatic stomp which actually hit the carpet. "Now I can't force her to marry me!"

I was impressed by the way she managed to put her tone and expression into the act though. The only way she could have managed a better impression of faux villainy was if she had somehow had a moustache to twirl.

"As amusing as this is," Nikki interjected, "I think that you may want to tone down the act. Given where we are, don't you think that some 'future superhero' may hear you say that and take it the wrong way?"

I'd started this small skit to help Nikki escape her moment of mortification, but now an evil thought surfaced in the back of my mind. A thought that I couldn't resist at all.

"I doubt that and I feel that I can prove otherwise." I announced then, making sure to telegraph my motions, 'stalked' towards Nikki. "I'm sure if I happened to scoop you up just now and whisk you away to my room then nobody, just nobody, would do anything to stop me."

"And that we are sharing a room makes no difference?" Nikki asked, not quite laughing.

"That doesn't make it any less my room." I informed Nikki then 'lunged' in slow motion, bending down and scooping her up into a bridal carry. "Now, ahem… bwhahaha! I have you in my clutches."

While I did my best not to show it, I was already regretting having picked up Nikki. She wasn't a huge girl, but to be perfectly honest I was a rather scrawny example of a boy. With Flower still absent, I didn't have the boost which would have made carrying Nikki back to the room an easy task.

"'Oh no, she's being kidnapped!'" Jade and Billie said in unison, something I had no idea how they pulled off.

"Being kidnapped?!" A voice asked, startling me to the point that I almost dropped Nikki.

Turning, with her in my arms as a burden, wasn't as easy as it should have been, but I managed to move enough to see a somewhat 'soft' looking boy in a lacy blue nightgown standing nearby. Judging by the expression on his face, he had only caught the last things said… and he seemed to feel obliged to do something about it.

"Yes, I am spiriting her away." I said, going for overly dramatic sarcasm to get my innocence across. "You see how easily I stagger while carrying an Exemplar who could probably tie my arms into a bow or turn me into a frog, relying on her terror of the long fall to the carpet to prevent her from escaping."

The boy looked at us blankly as Nikki helpfully arched her body and placed the back of one hand to her forehead in the 'woe is me!' position. In the back of my mind, a metaphorical argument (as opposed to a literal if Flower had been present) broke out about whether to mention to her how that pushed her breasts to better visibility through her hoodie or to encourage her to do that more in future.

"...if you're really going to have your wicked ways with her then remember: the vending machines downstairs have the condoms." He informed us.

Nikki gave a mortified squawk of protest, but the boy in the nightgown just smiled.

"What are you doing up here though?" The boy asked, glancing between the members of our group as though trying to decide who precisely to ask.

"...this is where we have our rooms?" Jade offered in confusion.

"But this is the Third flo…" The boy started before breaking off with a wince. "I'm on the wrong floor again, aren't I?"

"Yes?" Jade told him, sounding somewhat sympathetic. "I take it this is a… um, problem for you?"

"Sometimes." He responded, pouting in a way which didn't quite suit his features. Instead of 'cute', it came across as though he'd just bitten into a lemon.

It was becoming increasingly obvious to me that standing there holding Nikki in my arms wasn't going to be viable forever. However the arrival of someone who did actually belong in one of the upper floors offered an opportunity.

"If you are going back up, could you escort Jade, Billie, and Jinn up there?" I asked as politely as I could. "They're doing a little door-to-door busking and we were just discussing if it would be okay just to barge up the stairs or not."

I nodded towards Jade and Billie as I named them, but Jinn gave a helpful wave of a glove which made the boy do a double-take.

"Busking?" He asked. It was obvious that he had more questions than that, but Jade holding out her hat full of goodies to show its contents seemed to answer most of them. "Ah."

He thought for a moment then smiled and struck a pose.

"Never let it be said that Mega-Girl is against the performing arts!" He declared, "I shall accompany you all to where potentially appreciative audiences await you… so long as I can grab a camera out of my room first."

"Done!" Jade declared then waggled a warning finger at 'Mega-Girl', somehow keeping hold of the burdened hat with one hand. "No take-backsies now."

"That said," I dryly added, "I won't be joining you. After all, I seem to have a redhead who I need to spirit away to my evil liar… a.k.a. our room."

Mega-Girl, and given my own gender issues I wasn't going to comment on the seemingly mismatched name, looked at me then gave Nikki a quizzical look. I couldn't actually see Nikki's face given how I was holding her, but the helpless and put-upon sigh she gave spoke volumes about what her expression had to be.

"Good catch." Mega-Girl announced. I honestly had no idea if he was speaking to me, Nikki, or the both of us. "Now, oh traveling buskers, let us be off. I have a camera to grab and you have people to boggle… I mean 'show off your skills' to."

"See you all tomorrow!" I called as the boy herded Billie, Jinn, and Jade towards the stairs, but I wasn't sure if they actually heard me or not.

"Do you think that we could be backup dancers?" Jade asked and that was the last thing I caught from the tr- the quartet as they disappeared from sight.

"Is it a good thing or not, that we aren't getting caught up in that?" Nikki asked quietly.

"I'm not sure." I replied honestly. "It sounds as though they're about to escalate… but it would be hilarious to see.

"H- She did mention a camera." Nikki mused, correcting herself as she stumbled over the pronoun. Something which reminded me that I should actually ask the redhead which one she, or he, wanted people to use.

"True." I said noncommittally.

There was a moment of silence before she spoke up again.

"Would you mind putting me down?" Nikki asked politely. "I can get to our room perfectly well under my own power."

"Gods, yes." I said, hurrying to comply and give my aching arms a rest.


The problem with returning to our brand-new dorm room was that we were immediately confronted with the repercussion of one of our past choices.

Namely the bags, cases, and trunks which we hadn't finished unpacking.

"Do we actually need to unpack everything now?" Nikki asked almost plaintively and I had to clamp down on the chivalrous urge to agree.

"Technically we don't have to do it all now." I allowed and Nikki gave a sigh of relief. "On the other hand, if we put it off… Well, we'll probably keep putting it off. And I'd prefer that the first time I'm living away from home, I don't end up living out of my trunks for a few weeks."

Nikki nodded then sat down heavily on her bed, bouncing for a moment on the mattress. Whatever else you said about the furniture supplied by the Academy, the beds were certainly bouncy…

"You're sure that you couldn't do it for me?" She asked, although I could tell that the question was more rhetorical than serious.

"That depends on if you want me rummaging through all your stuff or not." I gave it a moment for that to sink in, Nikki's sudden blush signalling that she had got it. "After all, some of it might fit me."

That got a decidedly unladylike snort.

"I don't think that any of it would fit you." She pointed out. "You're taller, wider, and… I have no idea what cup size you a-"

Nikki stopped, the glance that she'd unconsciously thrown in my direction suddenly becoming an irritated glare.

"That is annoying." Nikki commented, "I know you told everyone about your problem, and it's obvious that you're a boy just now, but I still tried to look at your… you know. What you don't have just now."

"Boobs." I supplied and she gave a fractional nod. "Don't be shy about using the words in private. It's not a dirty one, not that dirty anyway, and we do both have them. Even if it's only part time on my side."

"Sometimes I wish that I didn't always have mine." Nikki offered the confession as a verbal olive branch.

Realising that just standing there was unproductive, I moved over to my trunk, rolling the cylinders of the combination lock even as I replied.

"That has its own issues." I informed her. "I keep misjudging how much 'space' I need, even after managing to 'boobslap' a guy who was a little too far into my personal space."

Nikki shot me a look and I held one hand up to about chest height.

"He was only twelve or something and was standing too close when I turned around in a hurry." I explained, twisting my upper body illustratively. "Pow! I actually knocked the glasses off of his face!"

"You didn't!" Nikki said, obviously trying to look aghast, but equally obviously failing as she held back her actual reaction.

"I did. So I was standing there, clutching my boob and trying to apologise," I continued. "As he knelt down and was scrambling about for his glasses, but I was wearing a skirt so when he looked up…"

It was at that point that Nikki's self-control failed her and she started laughing.

Having somewhat lightened the mood, or at least having successfully distracted my room from the thorny issue of my precise gender, I turned to the harder task of dealing with the luggage on my bed. It was one thing that Mom had taught me: put luggage on the bed so you have to empty it before the bed can be put to use.

Admittedly, now that I was a teenager myself, I suspect that she didn't mean sleeping on a bed…

On the other side of the room, with a put-upon sigh, I heard Nikki starting to move about as she took my efforts as a suggestion. On my part, I started on the laborious process of actually shifting my underwear, of both types, into the unoccupied chest of drawers.

After a few minutes, I moved onto the t-shirts, both the normal-sized ones I'd had for years as well as the newer ones with more 'give'. Technically the smaller ones fit me regardless of my gender, but I wasn't entirely comfortable with some of the looks I got when wearing a t-shirt which was being stretched out across the chest.

I'd actually had to get bras twice since I had first changed and, apparently, I was definitely on course to take after my mother in terms of figure. Or, possibly, after Flower and that was another thing entirely...

"Nikki?" I asked as I unrolled a t-shirt and attempted to fold it up to put away. My back was to the redhead, but I didn't bother to turn to face her. "How are your hips?"

"My hips?" Nikki asked in confusion, "Why… Oh! They haven't been hurting again. If that is what you were wondering?"

"I would have been surprised if they were hurting now." I admitted as the t-shirt went into the drawer. "I did leave Flower with you to make sure that everything was okay."

There was a moment of silence, during which I eyed the black dress which had been rolled up and tucked into my suitcase. It wasn't one that I remembered and, frankly, it was the final piece of evidence needed to confirm that my mother had tampered with my luggage.

"You did mention that was how your healing worked." Nikki replied, sounding calmer but a little quieter. "Did she find something which needed her to stay with me for so long?"

"Flower does tend to linger with people unless I need her help with something else." I told her. "In this case… Well, she might have decided to stay with you to spread out the side effects." I wanted to leave matters there, but honesty compelled me to add a few words more. "Or just to delay them for longer."

"...what sort of side-effects, exactly?"

Nikki was quiet, and sounded worried, and in a way which made me want to reassure her. Turning around, I saw that she was sitting on her bed with a pile of clothing on her lap and a concerned expression on her face.

"It can vary, but nothing too bad." I hastened to assure her. "Flower is a spirit of lust and when she heals someone it generally leaves them with a surge of… well, horniness, for a while? It isn't as if she was regrowing something or piecing your spine back together."

"Your spirit can do that?" Nikki asked, obviously startled enough by that fact to ignore the other parts of what I said.

"I'm not sure if she can if it has a chance to heal, but she managed to fix me up and I was in a bad way." The memory of the engine, the test, the overconfidence, and the explosion tried to surface and I forced it back down as firmly as I could… and Nikki, for some reason, flinched.

"Would you like Flower back now?" Nikki asked, stretching out a hand as though to pass my lodger back to me.

"It's fine, Nikki. Flower can snap back to me whenever she wants to. I think she's taking things slow though." I said with a shake of my head. "I mean I could force it, but she probably wants to make sure that your hips are okay… and she's probably waiting until you're asleep before finishing it off."

"The idea of her doing something to me in my sleep is rather worrying." Nikki said, lowering her hand and moving it to her hip as though to feel what was going on.

"You'd prefer to be awake when there's a little 'pop' as things get forced into a better position?" I asked, making the popping sound with my lips. "Also if you're asleep when she leaves, it's likely that you'll just have some 'interesting' dreams as the side effect."

I crushed the corner of my mind which tried to add to that 'Terms and conditions apply. We hold no responsibility for lingering arousal or newly induced sexual interests.'. I was quietly hopeful that Flower wouldn't do much tweaking while poking about in the nooks and crannies of Nikki's body, mind, and soul for things to 'fix'.

When Nikki didn't reply, I turned back to my clothes. I had moved onto hanging up my good pants, which seemed to need only a thorough ironing to get rid of the new creases, when she spoke again.

"Are my hips really that big a thing?" Nikki asked as she slotted yet another of her books onto the rapidly shrinking space available on the room's set of shelves. "They have widened over time, but…"

Suppressing a surge of book envy, I tried to think about how to phrase the answer so as not to worry her unwarrantedly.

"It could be." I allowed as casually as I was able to manage. "Changing gender, for most people, is a pretty dramatic thing. As I recall the pelvis is quite different for men and women. It's even what they use to tell the sex a skeleton is when they find a really old one."

"That's… interesting to know." Nikki said distracted, crouching down to put away another book. "I think that I've heard of it before though. "

"CSI?" I asked automatically, turning back to my own belongings despite the desire to see Nikki bend over while putting those books away. "Just so long as it wasn't 'Agents of the MCO'."

That got a snort from her.

"Please don't insult my intelligence and sanity." Nikki chided me.

I chuckled then turned back to my own efforts, the two of us getting on with our respective tasks in companionable silence for a time. However, as I had fewer and fewer things left to put away, a topic which I needed to discuss with Nikki came persistently to mind.

When I finally was done and let myself fall flat on my bed, I couldn't put it off any longer.

"Nikki?" I asked, staring up at the ceiling. "We need to talk."

"That's usually something I'd be worried about hearing." Nikki joked, and I glanced over towards her. She was laying on her own bed with some sort of novel in front of her and even, or especially, as relaxed as she seemed she was beautiful.

"What are you reading?" I asked, curious about the book.

"That's what we need to talk about?" Nikki replied, giving me an amused look.

"No, but it's a random distraction I latched onto so I could avoid the topic." I told her. "So, the book?"

"It's… it's a book my mother gave me." Nikki said, stumbling over the first words. "I didn't read it on the train, but she'll ask me about it tonight on the phone, so I wanted to finish it off."

"What sort of book?" I pressed, metaphorically scenting blood.

"A romance novel." Nikki answered reluctantly.

"Cool." I commented, leaning my head back and giving Nikki a chance to relax before I 'pounced'. "Girl porn."

"What?!" She shrieked then spluttered. "It's not… It's… I…"

"That's what my mom calls it," I told her, grinning up at the roof. "The ones she had me read went that way too. When you're in the right mindset, some of them can be quite interesting 'one-handed reading'..."

I'd expected it, but the pillow which hit me still took me half by surprise.

"I am not masturbating." Nikki started and her blush was adorable.

"Given I can see both of your hands? True." I told her as I sat up, picking up the pillow and placing it on my lap. "You're not humping your pillow either and your legs aren't crossed tightly enough for that…"

The blush on Nikki's face was deeping, but she took a deep breath and seemed to pull herself back under control.

"Was there a reason that you needed to ask about that?" She pointedly inquired.

"I was trying to get onto the topic of sex and masturbation." I told her, resorting to bluntness lest I otherwise wander away from the topic again. "You see, I have certain... responsibilities towards Flower."

There was a moment of silence, then the blush, which had been starting to fade, returned with full force. Nikki stared at me with wide eyes and her mouth fell slightly open as words failed her.

Before Nikki could regain her wits, or perhaps bombard me with something else, I held up a hand to stop her.

"I'm not demanding that you help, but letting you know what I might be doing." I explained, hoping that I could manage to get through this without misunderstandings. Flower's influence, both on her current host and on the 'world' at large, helped, but…

"She is a spirit of lust after all." I stressed the keyword. "I just owe her a certain amount of… expressions of that."

Nikki made a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a cough, but continued just staring at me with wide eyes.

"So, to be blunt, I'm going to need to at least masturbate to supply her with that." I said then let out a sigh. "It's probably going to be embarrassing for you, but it's not as if I have somewhere else to do that sort of thing. But, if you can be honest with me, is the idea really so bad?"

A shudder ran through Nikki as she visibly forced her brain to reboot enough to answer the question.

"It's-" Whatever Nikki was about to say was lost as she stopped and frowned. "It isn't that a horrible thought? But… Well… It should be?"

"It's one of the passive benefits I seem to get from Flower." I told her as she tried to sort out her own thoughts. I had done that often enough to recognise it in someone else. "Or perhaps that she 'engineered' into me. It's not as extreme as the gender thing, but when it comes to lewd actions… Well, you can see what happens."

Nikki started to nod then suddenly went still, her face going slightly pale.

"...you're a guy." She announced in what, in other circumstances, would be a stupid statement. In my case though, it was a fact which often needed to be checked.

"Currently, yes." I agreed amiably. "That may change in the near future. Hopefully not while I'm 'busy' though, as that always throws me off."

"No, you don't get it." Nikki said, starting to sound a little panicked. "You're a guy."

"Yes and I'm pretty sure that you know how that feels." I assured her, "You said as much during your introduction."

"You're a guy and we're sharing a room." She said, then covered her face with her hands.

"You're worried about the assumptions that people will make?" I asked, and received a whimper which I took as a 'yes'.

"Nikki?" I asked and when there was no response I tried again with a little more emphasis. "Nikki!"

The redhead finally looked up and I caught her gaze, looking directly into her eyes.

"I would promise that I'll try to stay as a girl in the dorm, but I can't guarantee that." I said slowly, not breaking eye contact. "Whoever I roomed with would have similar problems, as I'm not going to be able to stick to a single gender. And given that we're in Poe? Haven't you thought about how most of the rooms are single gender… when so many of the residents prefer their own?"

Nikki took a moment to mull over my words and I waited patiently for her to finish processing it. When the pause drew out for a little too long and it became obvious that the redhead was caught up in her own thoughts, I decided to intervene.

"Since we are talking about issues now, could I ask you a question?" I said, startling Nikki out of whatever snarl of reason she had been caught in.

"Didn't you just ask me one?" She asked in return, managing a weak smirk.

I expressed my opinion on her joke with a mock glare, and Nikki made a show of an oh-so-innocent expression.

"To be a little more serious," I said, giving her a vaguely withering look. "I wanted to know what pronouns you'd prefer me to use for you. I'm fine with referring to you as a boy in private, if that's what you want, but after the talk we were given earlier about being outed..?"

Nikki gave another nod then carefully slid a bookmark into her novel before laying it on her pillow.

"I'm honestly not sure." She said with a sigh, slumping a little when she sat. "I remember being entirely male, and I'm familiar with being called a boy, but it feels like just… habit now? It doesn't bother me, but somehow I'm not as attached to the idea as I should be."

I felt inclined to go over and comfort Nikki, to reassure her that everything would be okay...but I set that line of thought firmly aside. I'd had plenty of practice deliberately ignoring some of Flower's 'suggestions' and the same mindset seemed to apply now.

"It's entirely up to you," I noted. "I'll admit that it can be hard to think of a cute and stacked redhead as 'boy', but it's not as if I have room to talk about that sort of thing."

"How do you prefer to be referred?" Nikki asked, as a hint of a blush colored her cheeks in response to my compliment.

"I take it that 'Sir' or 'Hubby' aren't valid answers there?" I asked drily. "Or, on appropriate occasions, 'Mistress!'"

"No, but 'Worm!' and 'Minion' are options." Nikki told me, and I couldn't help but smile at her actually managing to return a verbal volley.

"To be serious though?" I waited until Nikki nodded before continuing. "You can use whatever pronoun feels more comfortable. People get confused, and I'm not going to blame them for using the 'wrong' one when I'm the one changing at random."

Nikki nodded again, "I can see your point…"

"You don't agree?" The doubt in her voice confused me. "Why?"

"It's about who you are or want to be." Nikki replied, "It's as though… Well, Jade is a girl. She/her and words like that. Regardless of what someone looking at her body might claim."

The combination of her words and the way Nikki was looking at me made me feel oddly touched. And, to be honest, distinctly awkward, as I examined my own feelings about what gender I would want to be compared to the changes forced upon me.

"The same could apply to you." I pointed out to avoid having to think about my own issues. "If you declared that you were a boy, that you wanted to entirely be a boy, then I'd support you in it. Either way, it doesn't change that you'd be staring at my ass."

"I would not!" Nikki protested, taken by surprise by my lewd statement.

"Is there something wrong with my backside?" I asked with a faux-offended tone. "I've been told that it's tight and firm as a guy and a plush booty when I'm a girl."

There was a moment when I thought that Nikki was going to insist that we actually clear up the issues which, admittedly, I had been the one to bring up. Fortunately she had mercy upon me and instead played along.

"I'm not sure what to think about it." She answered, tapping her chin as if in thought. "I haven't actually spent too long inspecting it…"

"Now, that is a problem with a solution." I told Nikki with a smile. "Give it a few nights and you'll have had plenty of time to take a proper look at 'it'."

"How bold of you to assume that I would be deliberately staring at you over the next few days." Nikki jibbed although I had no idea what reference she was making despite it clearly sounding like one.

"I was simply stating a fact." I explained with a smile. "After all, we are sharing a room, and unless you go out of your way to avoid seeing anything… and that is even without the showers or when I go to bed."

"The showers?" Nikki asked blankly even as her blush returned. "What would the showers have to do-"

My roommate broke off mid-word.

"Boone?" She asked slowly. "Which showers are you going to be using?"

"Well, that depends on which stall happens to be free." I replied then snapped my fingers, "And I'm ever so disappointed that there's individual stalls in the showers. So many opportunities which are now forever lost."

"And about going to bed?" Nikki asked, obviously abandoning the issue of the showers as a lost cause.

"Would my sleeping in the nude bother you?" I asked as innocently as I could manage. "And it is probably a little too warm to be sleeping underneath the covers."

"You're joking." Nikki stated flatly. "You have to be joking."

I maintained my innocent look and silence.

"Please tell me that you're joking?" She half asked, half pleaded. The blush on her face and the way that she was now looking anywhere except towards me spoke volumes about how she felt about the idea.

"Boone, tell me you're joking."

Smiling to myself I picked up a book from the stack on my bedside table and stretched out on my bed, my back to Nikki as I pointedly ignored her.

"Boone!"