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| Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41362] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:27  |
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 AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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The character in this fan fiction is based on a character I played in a RPG on a forum back in 2006. I decided to dust her off and make some changes so as to fit her into the Whateley Universe.
This is fan fiction for the Whateley Academy series. It may or may not match the timeline, characters, and continuity, but since it's fan fiction, who cares? It is not to be considered Canon (unless the Canon authors decide that they want it to be {curtsies deeply in their direction}). Really, I will be happy if anybody likes this at all.
If there are any similarities to characters in this story and actual persons living or dead, I want to meet those people. Well, not if the dead are zombies, unless the meeting is not in my home. The last one left such a mess on the carpet and it took days to get the smell out. And if the dead are vampires, they would probably want to meet someplace else. They don't seem to like all the statues of the various deities that we keep around.
It was the twentieth of January 2007 and Dawn Llewellyn had been in New York city since the day before New Year's Eve. She had come to New York because she had known that the city would revel in its usual New Year's Eve party, no matter what had happened before, and she had felt the need to be there. She still didn't know exactly why she had stayed in the city this long though. She put it down to having grown up in the country (even if quite some years ago), and still finding such a large city interesting.
Dawn was walking on the sidewalk, trying to maneuver through a typical New York lunch time crush, when a murmuring started off in the distance. Soon she could hear people shouting excitedly "It's them!" Just who 'them' was became clear as she managed to get close to the edge of the street and look down it to her right. Coming down the street in some sort of open top hovering craft was the Amazing Three. Dawn noticed that, actually, there were four people in the craft, if you counted the baby that Galaxy Girl was holding in her arms.
As she watched them approach, a furtive movement close to her and to her left caught her attention. She looked over and saw a man take what looked like a blowpipe out from under his coat. That it was a blowpipe was confirmed when she saw him slip a odd looking dart into one end, take a deep breath, raise the blowpipe to his lips, and puff out his cheeks in preparation to using the blowpipe. With horror, she realized that he was aiming at the Amazing Three. Acting instinctively, she yelled "Look out!" and at the same time swung her left arm in such a way as to knock the end of the blowpipe into a sharp downward angle. The dart flew out of the end of the blowpipe, hit a manhole cover in the street before them, deflected back up, and hit her in the left thigh.
The initial impact hurt, but the adrenaline rush kept Dawn from noticing it much as the crowd around her reacted to the attempted attack on the city's most famous heroes. But before the crowd could do too much damage to the culprit, the Amazing Three were standing there in person. "We saw what you did." said Galaxy Girl as Dr. Amazing pulled the dart from her thigh and examined the projectile. "The force screen around our grav-car might have stopped that dart, but it is really meant to protect against high velocity projectiles, energy beams, and the like. So thank you." Dr. Amazing looked up at the man that was now being handcuffed by a policeman. "This had some liquid in it that it injected into her," he said pointing at Dawn. "If you tell us what it was, the police might not turn you back over to the crowd."
Even as the people around him made ominous threats, the man stood proudly and said, "It was something designed to turn your own mutant natures against you! It is too bad that this poor deluded woman stopped me. When I received the dart and blowpipe in the mail, it said that the stuff in the dart would make one of you burn yourself up!"
Just about then, Dawn noticed how warm she was feeling. "Um, I don't feel so good ..." she managed to get out just before passing out and falling down, her purse falling partially under her. Dr. Amazing spoke quickly as he hurried back to the grav-car "Brock, get her in the grav-car, grab her purse too, we need to know who she is. Melinda, after you get in, call ahead to Metropolitan Hospital Center and tell them we have a burn-out case coming in."
They sped to the hospital, and came to an inertia defying-stop at the Emergency entrance. Orderlies already had a special gurney that had equipment built into it to start the cooling process. The unconscious Dawn was rushed to the emergency anti-burn-out area as quickly as possible. Even then, as they cut away her clothing prior to putting her into one of the special cooling tanks, the heat that was starting to radiate from her was noticeable. The lid on the tank hissed shut, hiding her from view, and the cooling equipment clicked into action. Various LCD screens showed Dawn's vitals, and one showed how much cooling was having to be done. The attending doctor looked shocked at what that one showed after Dawn had been in the tank for about ten minutes. He turned briefly to the Amazing Three, who had came in the room right after Dawn, and said "According to this, if she wasn't in that tank, there'd be nothing left of her but ash by now! And the amount of cooling needed is still going up!" They watched the screen until finally the amount of cooling leveled off. Then after what seemed like an hour, the amount of cooling started to decline. The doctor looked relieved and said "She's over the worst now. Once the cooling drops back to ambient, we can transfer her from here to one of the private rooms we keep for new mutants. We probably won't even know what changes she is going through until sometime after then, though." Dr. Messing took out what he used as a cell phone and punched some buttons on it while he said to Brock "Look in her purse and find her identification. I'm going to make what arrangements I can without knowing what she is becoming." He then said into his phone "Hello, Liz? This is Amos Messing. I have some disturbing news, and I also have somebody that is going to be needing some training at Whateley ..."
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Dawn awoke in a strange place. Or was it a place? Everything was grey. Even when she got to her feet and looked behind her, all she saw was featureless grey. She couldn't tell where the horizon was, or if there even was one. The 'ground' beneath her was the same grey as the 'sky' above her. "Where am I and how did I get here?" she said out loud just to have something to hear in what had been complete silence. She turned in surprise when a voice came from behind where she was facing "To answer the second question first, I brought you here. As to the first question, well, that's a bit complicated.
There was a woman sitting on nothing, when Dawn knew that nobody had been there before. "You brought me here? Why? How? And who are you?" Then Dawn let out a gasp of surprise as she realized that the woman had the appearance that Dawn always imagined she should have looked like. The woman smiled and said, while counting off on her fingers, "In order. To have a talk with you and offer you a bargain of sorts. Very easily, since it is only your essence, your soul, your spirit, or whatever you want to call it, and your mind that are here. And last but not least," and with that the smile vanished, to be replaced with a sad look, " I have no name, yet. I guess you and I will have to come up with one."
Dawn felt her usual urge to comfort somebody when they were sad, and walked over and hugged the woman. While comforting her Dawn said, "Well, I see that you have taken your appearance from my image of myself. My first name is the word for the start of one day. Since I have a feeling that you are more than you seem, how about Spring?" The woman lifted her head from Dawn's hug and said "Spring ... I like that." She then gently disengaged herself from the hug and said "I need to tell you more about what is going on here. I have been able to observe your reality for a length of time that would seem impossibly long to you." "Wait," said Dawn, " my reality? Then this is a different reality?" Spring laughed softly, "It's a bit more complex than that, this is a conjoining of several realities, or as some would call them planes. They merged into a hyper-dimensional gordian knot of planes, or a ultra-plane if you want a simplistic term. What you currently see is because I am screening your perception from the true appearance. You could not look on it and remain whole, unless ... well, that is for later. But what you have to also know is that this ... I am this ultra-plane."
Dawn gave Spring a stunned look, then said "But ... you're the whole ultra-plane? I mean, I never heard of an intelligent reality." Spring said "Well, I don't know if any others like me exist. The only place that I can see out side of myself is into your reality." Dawn's curiosity overcame her amazement as she asked "Why would that be?" Spring said "Well, up to a certain point all I could see were all the parts of myself and the life forms in me. None of them ever reached anything beyond what you would term a clever animal intelligence, no matter what I did to encourage that they do so. I can't really tell you how long that state lasted, because I had no exterior reference for time as your kind experience it. Then a kind of tear formed from energies clashing on a world that was in a plane outside of me. I looked through the tear, and saw a war going on. One side included some humans and beings that resembled humans, but the other ...", she made an expression of distaste, "They appeared nasty to me, and their actions showed that their natures were worse than their appearance. There was some sort of enormous power building, and I could sense that the nasty side was about to be banished from the world and the plane I was seeing. I made certain that they wouldn't come into me. I didn't want their sort of intelligence inside me. After the battle was over, the first side had been pretty well destroyed too. There were some of the types of beings on that side that survived, and went on to form new populations. I continued to watch through the tear, and found that I could see everyplace on your world. I watched the humans especially, because they had qualities I liked. A sense of humor, curiosity, compassion, and even love. I could even hear them through the rift, and learned to understand their languages. Later, when they developed radio and television, I could actually see the inside of the devices, and formed ones in me to pick up their broadcasts." Spring paused a moment and gave a sigh. "I tried to communicate back to your kind, but it never worked. I even duplicated radio signals and tried broadcasting back through the tear, but nobody seemed to pick them up. Then I formed a small hope. All through the ages of humankind, I had seen the ones with different abilities, the mutants, appear. The hope came when I saw one type could communicate with entities, a type of avatar, start to appear. I kept hoping that one of those type of avatar that could communicate with me would come along."
Spring gave Dawn a wry smile. "Then I felt your mutation start, and I waited until it developed enough that I could call you to me. The burn out that your body was experiencing had stunned your mind, and I used that time to read your mind and find out all I could about you. For that invasion of your privacy, I apologize." "Hey," said Dawn with a grin, "I am sort of invading your space too, you could say. Even if you did bring me in here." She paused for a moment, then said "You mentioned offering me a bargain of sorts earlier. What did you have in mind?" "Well, I am lonely here, and I would like to use you to actually experience life on your world. I would have a link to you so that I could do so, but you would be firmly in control of your body, unless I see something that threatens you before you do. In return, I will do what would normally be called imbue you with powers that your body can currently handle. But I think that with time, your body would be able to handle more or even different powers, and I could imbue you with them too." "Wow ...", said Dawn, "that sounds great. And I would love to be your friend as well as letting you experience human life through me. However, while I feel that I can trust you, a friend of mine once told me that if I ever met a really powerful entity, I needed to take some precautions." Dawn's face took on a very serious look as she said, "I have repeat a pledge three times for you to swear to, and you must agree all three times. Then I have to say some stuff to finalize it." She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she asked "Do you swear by all that you ever have been, all that you are, and all that you ever will be that you mean no harm to my home reality, my home planet, or humanity, and that you do not mean to enslave them?" "I so swear.", replied Spirit. This procedure was repeated two more times. Each time it was said a feeling of some sort of nonphysical pressure grew. Then Dawn said "Thrice asked, thrice answered, I invoke the rule of three. As you have so sworn, so mote it be." The pressure vanished and there was a not-sound that left the impression of a immense bell tolling once. Spring looked at Dawn and said "Are you sure that you aren't a witch?" Dawn answered, "My friend that I mentioned did teach me some stuff, but it is all learned, not innate."
Dawn lost her serious look and said "Now I have an idea. Since you read my mind, you know that mutants have to have a MID, which is a disadvantage as it can be used to find out their powers and weaknesses. I have an idea that would work around that somewhat. Now, since you have my knowledge, what I came up with involves something I've seen in anime called a Magical Girl. Here is what I have in mind ..." As Dawn continued to explain, first Spring started smiling, then giggling, then laughing out loud. She knew that she had chosen exactly the right person. This was going to be fun! After the explanation and some following cooperative discussion was over, Spring hugged Dawn, and then merged into her. Dawn 'heard' Spring's voice in her mind "Now that I am linked with you, I can let you see the real me." With that the grayness gave way to a kaleidoscope of shifting colors and beauty. Wherever Dawn looked, there was an awesome vista that would have shattered an unprotected human mind and soul, just because of its pure glory. "..." Dawn was speechless, this incredible being had chosen her to link with. She would have fallen down in worship, but Spring's mind voice said "No. You called me friend, and that is what I want to be to you. Don't worship me, just think of me as just a very different form of life." Dawn found herself nodding, then started to answer out loud before realizing that she didn't have to. Instead she directed a thought at Spring "You must have been very lonely. I will do my best so you never regret choosing me." "I won't regret it. At least as long as we can have fun." With that they both started mentally giggling.
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When Dawn awoke back in her physical body, she was in a bed in a hospital room. As she sat up in bed, she saw various equipment keeping track of her heartbeat, etc, and some IV bags feeding into a needle in her arm. She found the call button and pushed it. In a short time, a nurse came in and said "Well, you're finally awake. That's good, it's been a month since you were brought in. There are some people that will be very glad to see you. But first, you should see yourself. You got lucky in the mutant lottery, honey." The nurse wheeled over the table that food was served on, and pressed a latch in its side. A part of the top popped up and the nurse opened it the rest of the way to reveal a mirror. It was really only large enough to show her face. The face in the mirror was that of an about 15 year old beautiful girl with bright, leaf green eyes. Dawn had been expecting this, but still faked a show of surprise as she reached up and touched her face. "C..can I get up and go to the bathroom?" she asked. "Sure honey, just let me disconnect this stuff so no alarms go off and have a crash cart being brought in here." After she was disconnected from the equipment, Dawn walked into the bathroom while rolling the IV stand with her, but instead of examining herself as was no doubt expected she directed a thought, "Spring?" "I'm here Dawn." Dawn tried to send Spring the mental equivalent of a hug, and felt a warm, comforting feeling over her own body.
Walking back out into her hospital room, she was surprised to see that the nurse had left, but the Amazing Three were there. "How are you feeling, Ms Llewellyn?" asked Dr. Messing. "Please, call me Dawn.", she said, "And I feel absolutely great, if a bit surprised at being a teenager." Dr. Messing nodded, and said, "You'll find some other changes too. I did some background searches on you, and I know that ...", he hesitated. Dawn said "That I wasn't born with a girl's body? That's okay Dr. Messing, I am, or rather was a transsexual woman. I know that could be found if you dug into my past, even if I've been living as myself, as a woman for a decade. If you are trying to tell me that I am completely female now, well that is the answer to one of my fondest dreams." Melinda shifted the baby she was carrying and smiled at Dawn "What Amos hasn't told you is that he's already contacted an old friend and got you in at a special school for mutants, Whateley Academy. You won't have to worry about any expenses, it is the very least we can do since you took the dart meant for one of us." "I don't know how to thank you," Dawn started to say. But Brock cut her off "Naw, kid, it's us that are thanking you. Doc here," he gestured at Messing, "managed to find enough of the drug that was left in the dart to analyze it. Any of us three would have died. And we might have taken some of the city with us, it would have caused our powers to go haywire and overload." "Won't it be late for me to be starting at Whateley?", asked Dawn, "The nurse told me that I've been here a month, so that would make it the twentieth of February." Melinda answered, "Normally that would be true, but the headmistress, Mrs. Carson, has agreed to make room for you. You might only have special tutoring for what is left of the semester, but that will just leave you in a good position for the start of the next one. Oh, and you are coming to stay with us at the Kirby building during any break that is long enough for you to do so. I know that legally you're an adult, but you look like a teenager, so we are your 'official' guardians." Dawn got a little teary eyed at that "You being so nice to me.", she said and she proceeded to hug each of them in turn.
It was on the morning of the third of March when Dawn found herself riding up to Shuster Hall, the administration building, in a normal looking car. It had been decided that while taking Dawn to Whateley in the Trike would be quicker, that more mundane looking transportation method would attract less attention to her. And since she was a new face coming in at an odd time, she would have a lot of attention already. She got out of the car as did Melinda who had driven her there. As they went in Dawn thought to Spring "Here we come Whateley, ready or not!" When they went in, they came up to a desk where a woman with a severe demeanor was sitting. She looked up, obviously ready to say something acrid, only to swallow it and give a sort of smile when she saw Melinda. She changed whatever she had been going to say to "Go right back, Mrs. Carson's expecting you." They went back, and Melinda knocked on a door. "Come in.", came the reply. The expression of the stern looking woman behind the desk in the room they entered softened immediately upon seeing Melinda. "Mel! It's good to see you again so soon after the last time.", she said. Then her gaze fell upon Dawn, and if anything, her expression softened further. "And you must be Dawn, the girl who acted to protect the Amazing Three. You were already special before you changed." Dawn felt herself blush. She had found that her emotional reactions were now that of a 15 year old. Which meant that coming here to Whateley had been a very good idea. Mrs. Carson continued, "We found you room space in Whitman Cottage. One of the residents, in fact the one that you'll be rooming with, Diamondback, will be here shortly to show you to your room. Your things arrived yesterday and are already in your room. I'll arrange somebody to give you the required campus tour as soon as you are unpacked. You'll have today and tomorrow to get settled in. On Monday morning, you'll have powers testing. After lunch you have an appointment with your counselor, Dr. Bellows, both to discuss some tutoring for you and just to see how you are adapting." Just then there was a knock on the door. "That must be Diamondback now dear. Go along and get unpacked." Dawn smiled warmly at Mrs. Carson and said "Thank you Headmistress Carson. I know that I will enjoy learning here."
Dawn opened the door and went out to find herself facing a girl that was a giant snake starting just below her waist. "Hi," said Dawn, sticking out her hand to be shaken, "I'm Dawn. And you must be Diamondback." Diamondback looked a little nonplused at Dawn's nonreaction to her as she shook Dawn's hand. "Hi. Um, aren't you at least a bit startled?", she asked. Dawn giggled "I spent New Year's Eve in Times Square. Now there you would have seen some startling things. Besides, you look like a Naga, and I think that's cool." Diamondback found herself smiling as she started to lead out of the building. Normally, she liked to keep to herself, but there was something about Dawn that just made her feel like she was going to be a good roommate, and perhaps friend. She said to Dawn, "You can call me by my name, Sandra." When they entered Whitman cottage, Sandra lead Dawn over to a door and knocked. When a woman answered the door, Sandra said, "Mrs. Savage, this is Dawn, my new roommate." Mrs. Savage smiled at Dawn and said, "Welcome to Whitman. The most important house rule is that no boys are allowed upstairs, or even downstairs unattended. You'll find a book with our other rules, and the general rules for Whateley in your room. Please read it."
When they got up to their room, Sandra found herself telling Dawn about Psydoe, her previous roommate, and her instinctive fear of Sandra, as she helped Dawn unpack and put her things away. Dawn stopped and gave Sandra a hug, which Sandra found comforting. "It doesn't sound like it was your fault, or her's. She just probably got some prey instincts along with the doe part of her. And you do look formidable. But I bet you are really a nice person." said Dawn during the hug. Sandra was then sure that she had a new friend now. She said to Dawn, "I like you. If anybody start's giving you problems because you are new, just let me know." Dawn giggled as she broke off the hug. "Thanks," she said, "but if most people give me problems, I have ways of taking care of myself. But I'll keep that in mind."
Just as they finished putting away the last of Dawn's things, there was a knock on the door. When Dawn opened the door, the stern looking girl standing there said "I'm Judicator and I've been tagged to show you around." She muttered to herself "As if I didn't have plans for a Saturday." Dawn held out her hand, smiled and said "I'm Dawn, and I'll try not to take too much of your time." As they left the room, Sandra called after Dawn "Look for me at lunch in the Crystal Hall, I have some other friends I'd like you to meet." As they walked out of Whitman, Judicator raised her eyebrows. "You've already got Diamondback introducing you to her friends? There must be something really special about you.", she said. Dawn shrugged and said, "Not really, I'm just a naturally friendly person who doesn't judge people by appearance. I have the attitude that a friend is just a stranger that you haven't met yet. And I've found that I'm a pretty good judge of character. If I make a mistake, well, then I learn from it and distance myself from the person that took advantage of my friendliness." Judicator looked at Dawn in a new light, found herself smiling ever so slightly and said, "By the way, my name is Elizabeth." They continued a friendly conversation as Elizabeth led Dawn on the official tour of campus.
When Dawn got to the Crystal Hall for lunch, there were already quite a lot of students already there. She went through the line and picked out some rare roast beef, some mashed potatoes, some green beans, and some fudge squares for dessert. After getting a glass of cola, she looked around until she saw Sandra over at a table with some others. Dawn smiled, walked over, and sat at the table between Sandra and a pale skinned girl with metal appearing eyes. The girl had small lines of energy crawling over her skin every time she moved. Turning slightly to face Sandra, Dawn said "Hi Sandra, how was your morning?" Sandra answered, "It was better after meeting you."
One of the other people at the table, a boy, had white eyes, and was dressed in a garish mismatch of colors, including a moiré pattern on the back of his shirt. Next to the boy in the colorful clothing, there was a boy who was what appeared to be a velociraptor with a black box hanging on a cord around his neck. There were two girls sitting on the other side of Sandra. They each had three eyes, four arms and a long lizard's tail. Dawn could feel an aura around them that was trying to make her afraid. Dawn "Hey Spring, can you deflect that fear aura from me? I'm sure that those girls aren't doing it on purpose, and they could probably use a friend that doesn't feel it." "You got it.", Spring thought back. The fear went away like a switch had been thrown. Dawn then asked Sandra "So these are the other friends you wanted me to meet?"
Sandra actually gave a big smile and said, "Dawn, these are the other members of the Outcasts. Sitting on the other side of you is Eldritch. Sitting on the other side of me are Phobos and Deimos. Next to them is Razorback. The snappy dresser next to him is Jericho. Everybody, this is Dawn, my new room mate I was telling you about." "Telling us about, it was more like you were almost singing her praises.", said Jericho. He noticed that Dawn had taken them all in stride, including his clothing. He asked Dawn, "So, why is a pretty like you being so nice to us and gracing us with your company?" Dawn answered "I don't judge people by their appearance. Sandra is a nice person, and I was sure that anybody that she called friend would be nice too." She then giggled and said "I have to say Jericho, you have an interesting taste in clothing. I am sure that other's reactions to it amuses you. Does it also keep everybody off balance around you?" Jericho smiled and said "You're a smart one. I like you already." He asked the rest of the people at the table, "What do you think peeps? Shall we make her a member of our exclusive group?"
Phobos and Deimos, through their empathic powers, had both detected when their fear aura had stopped having any effect on Dawn. The fact that she had not reacted from their appearance was also a plus. And any friend of Sandra's was a friend of theirs. "I vote yes.", the said practically in unison. Razorback used his voder to say "Yes." Eldritch nodded her approval, while noticing that the occasional discharge that reached Dawn didn't make her wince. Jericho said, "Then welcome to the Outcasts, Dawn. Although you may wish that you weren't a member later. Some of the other students here go out of the way to avoid any of our members." "Well that is their loss.", replied Dawn. The rest of the Outcasts then told her their first names. After that was finished she thought for a moment and then said, "I don't have a code name. There is a reason for that and there is more about me than you've seen. If you can't come observe my power testing Monday morning, we'll have to find a place where I can show you without any unwanted snoopers." "Well, we do have a meeting place. Why don't we go there after lunch?" asked Sandra. With that the group got down to eating while still having a discussion.
Across the cafeteria, Sara Waite kept sneaking glances over at the new girl sitting with the Outcasts. There was something about her that hinted of other dimensions. And that was something Sara was experienced with. She would have to meet that girl later, and have a talk with her.
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:31]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41363 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:28  |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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Dawn spent a lot of the rest of that weekend with her new friends, even when not at meals. She really felt bad about keeping some things back from them during the private meeting that they had held on Saturday evening, but she knew that what they didn't know couldn't be pried from their minds by some telepath. She was safe herself from such prying by the very existence of Spring's link with her.
She had noticed that during each meal, a girl over at another table kept glancing her way. Finally, at breakfast on Monday, she asked Spring "Spring, do you see anything odd about that girl over there that keeps looking this way? She seems to at least sense something about us. I'd have to actually meet her to get a feeling about her character." "Looking at her just through the tear, I can tell there is something about her. Let me use some of my senses through your eyes and I can tell more.", Spring replied. Dawn said, "It still sounds strange to me for you to call it a tear. I mean you stabilized it and all. But, as for you using me to look at her, okay, go for it."
Dawn's vision swam and then for a few moments, she saw lines of different types and colors everywhere. Also, everybody in her line of vision seemed to have several outlines of different colors around their bodies. The girl that had been glancing at Dawn had something in addition. There seemed to be a connection from her to someplace outside of normal reality. Also, the girl's human form seemed to coexist with a form that looked like one of the types of beings that Spring had shown Dawn in Spring's memory of the war that had first created the rift between this reality and Spring.
As Dawn's vision returned to normal, Spring said "She is of the type of beings that were banished from this reality in that ancient war. But I sense that she is different from them also. She doesn't seem to have the same drive to conquer, warp, or destroy. In fact, I seem to pick up a sense of ... protectiveness?" Dawn smiled slightly and said "Well then, I'll have to make a point of meeting her sometime this week." Spring made another observation, "The girl at that same table with the red hair and pointed ears is one of the type of beings that were on the opposite, 'winning', side of that war. Just the fact that they seem to be friends tells me that there is more than even I am seeing here."
After Dawn finished breakfast, she headed to powers testing in the lower levels of Schuster Hall. When she reached the correct level, she saw a desk with a boy who was paying more attention to whatever was on the computer screen in front of him than to his surroundings sitting behind it. "Excuse me," Dawn said, "my name is Dawn Llewellyn and I was told to report here now for powers testing." The boy looked up from his computer with a sheepish grin. "Sorry," he said, "I just got grabbed at the last moment to fill in here today. I'm afraid that if I didn't do something to take up my attention during all the waiting, I would fall asleep. My name is Daniel. You are supposed to see Dr. Pollard first. He will get your vital statistics before the testing. He'll show where to go from there, but let me show you where he is." He got up from behind the desk, towering over Dawn. He was well over six feet tall, but beyond that Dawn couldn't guess, since she was just five feet six inches herself. He lead Dawn down the hall to one of the doors, and opened it. "Hey Dr. Pollard, your morning appointment is here." he said as he waved Dawn in.
Dr. Pollard referred to a folder in his hands and then greeted Dawn as she walked in, "Ah, you must be Ms Llewellyn. You're actually a little early, but that is good since there is nobody else scheduled for this morning." Dawn smiled at him and said, "Please call me Dawn, Dr. Pollard. It seems strange to have a doctor being so formal to a teenager." "But then, you didn't start out as a teenager it says here.", he replied. "Even so," said Dawn, "I was never one to be formal even before I got rejuvenated." She giggled a little, "And I find that I am acting as if my age fit my appearance." Dr. Pollard couldn't help but smile at her even as he made a note of her statement, "Well then, let's get all the boring medical stuff out of the way so we can go see what you can do."
After Dawn's height, weight, body temperature, blood pressure, etc, was measured, a blood sample was taken. Dr. Pollard noted that the puncture wound from the needle slowly but measurably started closing. He lead Dawn to one of the testing rooms where two other men were waiting in front of a series of instrument banks. "Dawn, this is Dr. Hewley.", he said while pointing at one of the men, "And this is Dr. Shandy.", while pointing at the other. "I'm glad to meet both of you.", said Dawn, "Um, there is one thing before we go any further. All of the tests, including the ones that you just did Dr. Pollard will have to be done twice. See, I'm apparently a type of Avatar called Imbued. But the Entity that empowered me wasn't satisfied with anything simple." "What do you mean?", asked Dr Hewley while looking more interested than he had been before she said that. "Well She has a sense of humor.", said Dawn while at the same time saying to Spring "Let's make sure they believe the story we planned, and remember to actually keep my abilities while looking like this reduced while in here. In fact, it would probably be a good idea not to even let them know what my powers can really do in my 'hero' form, so reduce them too. I wouldn't put it past them to have had sensors scanning us the moment we came down to this level. I'm sure glad that you assured me that they won't be able to detect that you are actively communicating with me through our link." "You don't have to worry about that. Not even a high level mage could detect our 'talking' as long as I don't want them to. It might be a good idea later though to find some that we can trust with our secret.", replied Spring. Dawn wrapped a lock of her black, shoulder length hair around one finger as she looked at the three doctors who were waiting for some more explanation. "I do have abilities in this form, but not a lot. But She linked more abilities and powers to another form that I have to summon." Dawn sighed slightly as if saying the next was a little embarrassing, "The other form also effects my personality and such. While I am a friendly person, that form is beyond 'perky' and ..." She trailed off and said "It would probably be better for you to see for yourselves. But I want to see what I can do without summoning her first." All three doctors noted how Dawn referred to the other form as if it was a different person. Dr. Pollard made a note to tell Dawn's advisor about that before she saw him that afternoon. He asked Dawn, "Do you have an idea of how powerful the entity that empowered you is? That way we can give you an Avatar rating." Dawn replied, "I have no idea. At the time I was 'meeting' her, I had no standards around me to compare her to. And it isn't like you expect to meet any type of entity." Dr. Pollard nodded, "I see, well tentatively we'll list you as an Avatar/Imbued three, just to be middle of the ratings."
Dawn walked through the door into the testing room proper. Dr. Pollard's voice came through a speaker, "Dawn, please go over to the 'weights' first. Dawn went over to what looked like the bar to a barbell, but instead of standard weights on it, it had beams of energy connecting it to a machine that had a part that jutted out over the bar. She squatted down, and grasped the bar. She stood up, lifting the bar, as the readouts in the room with the doctors gave the weight that was being applied to the bar. They told her to put the bar down, and pick it back up several times as the machine increased the apparent weight of the bar. She managed to get up to four hundred and fifty pounds, but the strain was apparent on her face. "That's good enough Dawn." said Dr. Pollard, "Now the treadmill." After she got on the treadmill, the belt started moving. It would reach a speed, hold it for awhile, then speed up again. The end results showed that Dawn could maintain a steady speed of thirty miles an hour, with a short sprint speed of double that. When the treadmill started to incline upwards, Dawn started loosing traction at an incline that was about fifteen degrees greater than a trained athlete would have done so.
The testing continued, showing that Dawn had a rudimentarily danger sense, but it only allowed her to dodge about twenty percent more of the balls than normal. They did the standard psi card test, but Dawn scored within statistical norms. None of the other tests showed anything unusual, except the ones dealing with intelligence. She could flip through a book she had never seen before as fast as she could turn the pages, then tell you anything that you asked about it. When she did that with two books on connected topics, she could also tell you the connections, and the implications of those connections. She had never seen a Dis-chess set before, but upon having the rules explained to her once, could only be played to a draw at best.
After that set of tests, Dr. Pollard said "Okay Dawn, we have rated you as Exemplar three physical and seven mental, you also are a Esper one because of your danger sense. Now, you mentioned another form with more abilities, which would also make you a Shifter 't' due to one other form, 'f' due to a full form shift, 'c' due to it having more powers, and 'w' due to it being a controlled change. Does you mass change when you shift?" "Yes", Dawn answered, "I loose 26 pounds and 4 inches of height." "And where does the extra mass go?", he asked. Dawn just shrugged, "It's like it just vanishes." "Okay, that adds an 'e' to your Shifter and makes you a Shifter five. Would you please change to your other form?", Dr. Pollard asked.
Dawn stood in the middle of an empty spot in the testing room. She sighed, then lifted her right arm straight up with her fingers pointing at the ceiling and called out "Angel Power Cuteness Activate!" Immediately, shafts of rainbow light rose from the floor around her. The spaces between the shafts of light were then filled with silver sparkles to the point that the silhouette of Dawn was all that could be seen. The silhouette could be seen rising up in the air some. There were lesser silhouettes indicating that the clothing that she had been wearing unraveled into strips, with the ends of the strips vanishing into nowhere. The silhouette of the girl shortened and changed some. Then silhouettes of strips appeared out of nowhere and weaved them selves around the silhouette of the girl inside. There were some more silhouettes that appeared full formed and slid onto the one of the girl inside. The silhouette of the girl then lowered to the ground. The silver sparkles went away, as did the shafts of light. Standing where Dawn had been was a different girl. She was five foot two. Her hair was to her mid back and was a shifting rainbow of colors. Her eyes were silver with a gold starburst around the pupil. Her skin was a bright rosy pink. In place of the Whateley girl's school uniform that Dawn had been wearing, she was wearing a sleeveless blouse that was white with gold and silver Celtic knot work on the front in a triangle with the points at the shoulders and waist. She had a silver belt with a rainbow moonstone in the center at the top of an alternating silver, white and gold skirt with a dagged hem that ended just above her knees. Her footwear was silver mid-calf boots. She had a platinum headband with a small opalescent gem of unknown type centered on it, a silver choker type necklace with a large fire opal in the center and matched silver bracelets with teardrop shaped lapis insets. She was so cute looking, that she threatened to send even non-diabetics into insulin shock.
She smiled a big smile at the doctors, who were still glancing in disbelief between the read outs and the window into the testing room, and said in a sweet voice that was noticeably higher than Dawn's had been, "Hi! I'm Cutie Angel! I'm so glad to meet you!" She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet slightly and kept glancing around the testing room, still with the smile on her face. After a moment, Dr. Pollard cleared his throat and then said "Um, well Cutie Angel, would you please go to the 'weights'?" "Sure thing Doc!", she said and walked over to the bar. "You might want to save some time and start off where Dawn left off.", she suggested with a bright smile. Cutie Angel then proceeded to lift the bar easily at the four hundred and fifty pounds level. "Oh, come on," she said with a cute pout, "put some weight on it." She kept putting the bar down and lifting it again as the machine kept increasing the apparent weight. She picked up to four thousand five hundred pounds easily, but she couldn't pick up one ounce more. "That's enough for now Cutie Angel, would you do the treadmill now?", asked Dr. Pollard. "Okay, but it is more fun to fly than to run." she said as practically skipped over and got on the treadmill. "Um, we'll let you fly later. And you'll have to tell us what else you can do so we can test it.", replied Dr. Pollard. "Okay! But I'm gonna hold you to the flying part!" she said. She started running on the treadmill, and rapidly increased her pace. The end results showed her sustained speed was three hundred miles an hour, and a short sprint speed of seven hundred miles an hour. The incline test showed that she could run up a seventy five degree incline without loosing traction.
The danger sense testing showed that she could avoid one hundred percent of the balls until the number being fired at her exceeded six hundred. Then she got hit very occasionally, but it was obvious that she didn't feel the impacts. The psi card test still showed a result within statistical norms. They tried to do the intelligence test, but Cutie Angel would get fidgety and distracted by things as she read a book. It seemed like she had a high intelligence, but also had a degree of Hyperactivity/Attention Deficit Disorder. The Dis-chess result proved interesting, because as soon as her opponent had made their first move, she promptly announced how many more moves she would have check in. If the game was played out, she was invariably right. She then said while bouncing on the balls of her feet, "This game is boooring. Can't I fly and show you the other neat stuff I can do? Please?" All three of the doctors found themselves smiling as Dr. Pollard said "Go ahead and show us your flight. There isn't enough room in there to get up a high speed, but there is a series of hoops floating in the air to form a sort of 'obstacle course' to test flight agility."
Cutie Angel nodded enthusiastically, then what looked like giant, sparkly, rainbow colored butterfly wings sprang from her back. She leaped into the air, and started flying. The wings flapped as she flew, but there was no way that they could have been responsible for the speed that she was showing even in the comparatively limited airspace of the testing room. She weaved in and out of the hoops, and did various aerobatic maneuvers, including a Immelmann turn. The doctors noticed that the apparent wings passed through the material of the smaller hoops, but the instruments showed no effect on the hoops. She was obviously enjoying herself, and kept giggling a lot. Finally Dr Pollard called out, "Cutie Angel, could you please land and tell us the other things you can do?" "Okay.", she said as she dived straight at the floor at high speed, only to pull up and land softer than a feather at the last moment. The wings disappeared and she said, "I'm really, really hard to hurt, have three different kinds of attacks, a way to confuse somebody, a way to change a person that only lasts about an hour at most, and I can heal other people!" The part about her being hard to hurt reminded Dr. Pollard, and as he left the observation booth he said, "Just a moment, I have to do the standard medical part on you. I have the equipment on a cart, I'll bring it in." He returned, pushing the cart into the testing room. He took a portable height and weight scale and placed it on the floor. Using it and the other equipment, he recorded Cutie Angel's vital statistics, and then started to take a blood sample. Cutie Angel said, "Wait a moment doc.", and cutely wrinkled her nose and bit her bottom lip in concentration. "Okay, take your sample, but hurry." He took some blood, and the puncture wound sealed as the needle was withdrawn. "I can see that we will need to test your regeneration,", said Dr. Pollard, "but why were you concentrating?" "So you could take the blood. Try a different needle on me now." she said. He did so, but the needle wouldn't penetrate. "Wait, this means that you aren't an Exemplar?", he asked. "No, that is Dawn. My powers work differently." "We need to test your regeneration.", he said. "Okay doc." she said. She picked up a scalpel from the table, concentrated again. She then made a long and deep cut down one of her arms before Dr. Pollard could stop her. The wound only bled for a few moments, then started closing. In about ten minutes there was no indication that she had been cut. Even the blood that had flowed from the wound had been absorbed by her skin. Dr. Pollard took a bit of a shaky breath, then as he returned to the observation booth said, "I want to try a different test with the 'weights'. We have some long aluminum handles that can be attached to the middle of the bar on the 'weight' machine. Would you attach it and then use the far end of the handles to lift the bar?" "Sure thing doc!" she replied. After attaching the bar, she said "Ready to lift." Dr. Pollard set the machine at four thousand five hundred pounds, and then said "Okay, lift it." She did so, and the long aluminum handles didn't bend at all, even though they were only rated to lift fifty pounds. "You're a TK superman with regeneration!", said Dr. Pollard. She leaned her head slightly to one side and raised one eyebrow as she looked back through the window into the observation booth at him and asked, "I'm a who that does what?" He laughed and said "Somebody will explain it to you later."
"We'll need to go to another testing room for you to show us your attacks.", said Dr. Pollard. Cutie Angle skipped along after him and said "Okay, but one of my attacks only works on living things. It doesn't do any lasting harm though, it just knocks them silly for awhile." "We have some bricks that volunteer as attack subjects for non-lethal attacks for extra credit. We'll get one of them down here.", Dr. Pollard said as they reached another testing room, "But let's see your other attacks while waiting for one to get here." In the room they had entered, there was a line of series of targets with bull's-eyes on them. The material of each target being harder to damage as you went down the line. Cutie Angel nodded and said "You wanna see my ranged physical or my ranged energy attack first?" "Do your physical one first.", said Dr. Pollard. Cutie Angel then cried out, "Bow of Cuteness!", and made a motion holding a bow with one hand while drawing and releasing it with the other while aiming at one of the targets. As she did so, a physical arrow made of pink crystal sped toward the target and pierced it through the center of the bull's-eye. She repeated this with each harder target, and pieced their bull's-eyes in turn, until she got to the one made out of the same armor as MCO heavy suits. The arrow hit the bull's-eye of that one but barely made a ding in the material, and then fell to the floor. The other arrows had vanished after leaving a hole through their respective targets, but the last one remained. Cutie Angel turned back toward the doctors and said "If you want to look at one of my arrows, I won't dismiss that one." "Wait, you mean they don't automatically disappear?", asked Dr. Pollard. "No, they'd stay around if I didn't dismiss them.", she replied. "Does it take energy for you to keep them here?" asked Dr. Hewley in an intrigued tone. "No, none at all.", she replied. Cutie Angel walked over and picked the arrow up, then walked back and into the observation booth and handed the arrow to Dr. Hewley. He took the arrow as if it was something very precious, muttering to himself about tests that he would have to run on it.
After she walked back out into the testing room, Cutie Angel asked "Do you want me to use my energy attack on the targets the same way?" "No," said Dr. Pollard, "we'd rather you direct it at that special target that is instrumented so we can get energy readings on your attack." "Okay.", she said with a cute shrug. She turned toward the target indicated, flung one hand out, pointing at it, and cried out, "Sparkling Rainbow Retribution!". A beam of rainbow energy sprang out, hitting the target. Sensors that had been provided by Circe, as well as more 'mundane' ones, registered the energy. The 'mundane' instruments indicated that the beam was raw energy. Circe's indicated that it was raw magic. The target started heating up and having various types of energy arc off of it as Cutie Angel kept up the beam hitting it. After ten minutes it reached a temperature of two thousand degrees Fahrenheit and the arcing beams were causing collateral damage to surrounding normal targets. Then the beam sputtered and went out. Cutie took several deep breaths, then said in a slightly shaky and disappointed sounding voice, "That's as long as I can keep it going." Dr. Pollard dragged his gaze from the readouts and said, "T..that was just fine, Cutie Angel."
Just then, a slate black, tall young man walked into the observation booth. "Hey Dr. Pollard, I was told that you need a brick.", he said. Dr Pollard turned toward him and said "Hello Slab. It was your turn for 'target duty'?" Slab shrugged, "I didn't have anything better to do anyway. What do you want me to do." "That girl", said Dr. Pollard while indicating Cutie Angel, "says that she has a stunning attack that only works on living things but doesn't cause any lasting harm." "Well, let's see what she's got.", said Slab as he went into the testing room. Cutie Angel smiled at him and said, "Hi! I'm Cutie Angel. What's your name?" "I'm Slab, and I'm here for you to show off your stunning attack.", he replied. "Okay", she replied, "don't worry, it won't hurt for long." Slab thought that was funny until Cutie Angel cried out, "Angel Slap!", jumped up, and gave him an open handed slap across his left cheek. Slab went down, out for the count, with a glowing red handprint where she had slapped him. Dr. Pollard said "He's not hurt is he?" "No, not really.", she replied, "His cheek might sting for awhile and he might have a headache when he comes to, but he'll be just fine." "How long will he be out?", asked Dr. Pollard. "Um, I donno, maybe about an hour?", she said.
Dr. Pollard sighed and said, "You mentioned that you have a way to confuse people. Do you need somebody to do it to?" "No, you can tell better how it would work if there is somebody to confuse, but I can do it now." she said. She then flung both hands out as if scattering something and cried out, "Cute Chibi Surround". Ten ultra cute chibi forms of herself, each a different solid color, appeared and started running around, leaping and giggling, and weaving in and out. This kept up for about 5 minutes until they just vanished into nothing. Cutie Angel said, "For them to stay longer than that, I would have to start putting more energy into them." Dr. Pollard had been glancing back and forth between the readouts and the testing room. He said, "We want to test the ability that you said you have to heal others." A wheelchair with a boy with his leg in a cast was pushed in by another student. Dr. Pollard asked him, "Are you sure you want to do this?" "Yeah," said the boy, "if it works, it'll be better than being stuck in this cast." The other student pushed the wheelchair into the testing room. "Hi! I'm Cutie Angel! Don't worry, soon you'll be all better." she said with a smile. She then made a motion as if she had blown the boy a kiss and cried out, "Cute Bandage of Love!". Pink sparkles surrounded the boy in the wheelchair. He said, "Hey! it feels like I'm getting hundreds of tiny, motherly kisses." After the display died away, the student in the wheelchair said "My leg feels fine now!" He then noticed something else, "I had a small cut on the back of my left hand, but it's gone and there's no scar!" Dr. Pollard said "Take him back to the Medical Complex and tell them I want that leg checked. We need to know if it is healed, and if so, how well. Tell Dr. Tennant I'd like her to give it a look over too."
Dr Pollard then said to Cutie Angel, "That just leaves your ability to change other people. You said that it would last at most an hour. Can you make it last a shorter time?" "Yes, and that would probably be better for me too, I'm getting tired." she replied. Dr. Pollard thought for a moment, then said, "Use it on Slab, he is still out and won't even know that he was changed for awhile." Cutie Angel protested, "But I already knocked him out! It doesn't seem fair to him to change him." "Please?" asked Dr. Pollard. Cutie Honey rolled her eyes and said, "Okay, but I'm only going to have the change last a minute." She made a motion with both hands like she held a ball, then made a motion with one hand as if she threw the ball while she cried out, "Heavenly Cute Transform!" A globe of silver sparkles launched toward Slab and engulfed him, it then shrank and vanished. Where Slab had been was an unconscious small purple kitten with a sparkly violet collar on. In exactly one minute, there was a flash of light, and Slab was back to his normal form. The three doctors were talking excitedly to each other over what the read outs had shown. Cutie Angel waited, fidgeting for awhile, then said "Hey Doc! Do you still need me?" "Um, no, that is all. Thanks Cutie Angel, we need to go over all the results to decide exactly how to rate you." She smiled and said, "Okay! See you around!" Then the transformation sequence that had happened when she appeared occurred in reverse. After it died down, Dawn was standing there, once more dressed in her Whateley girl's school uniform. Dawn said "If you don't need me either, I'm going to lunch." The doctors just waved vaguely in her direction while still discussing the results of the testing. Dawn just shook her head and left to go to the Crystal Hall.
Dawn ate lunch with her friends, and told them about some of the testing she had undergone. Since she had told them about her other form at their meeting after lunch on Saturday, and even let Cutie Angel introduce herself to them, she also told them about some of the testing that Cutie Angel had went through. Dawn shrugged and said, "Hey, don't ask me to explain her. If the powers testing doctors can't, who can?" That set them off all laughing at the confusion that the testing doctors had been left in. As they finished, Dawn said, "Can you imagine the ribbing I am going to get when it eventually gets out that I turn into a 'Magical Girl'?" Jericho had been taking a drink and did a classic spit take, spraying Sandra as a result. "Ewww!," Sandra said as she wiped herself off. "Gee Jericho," said Dawn with a twinkle in her eyes but a deadpan expression on her face, "I didn't know that you had a drinking problem." This set them all off laughing again.
After she had finished lunch, Dawn headed over to Dr. Bellows's office. When she got there, there was a sign on the door that read, Dr. Alfred E. Bellows MD PhD. Upon seeing his full name Dawn giggled. She knocked on the door, and heard ""Come in." Upon seeing what Dr. Bellows looked like, Dawn gave a quick glance around his office, and noted the ornate, wide bottomed, long necked bottle sitting on a shelf. As she shook Dr. Bellows's hand, she said, "Hi Dr. Bellows, I'm Dawn Llewellyn. I'm glad to meet you. I do hope that Major Nelson and Major Healey aren't still giving you headaches." Dr. Bellows laughed, "I love to meet a fan of the show." "I loved it, but I always felt sorry for poor Jeannie. She was trying to follow the rules and customs of the Djinn, but just kept getting in trouble for it. And Major Nelson was so clueless that when she fell in love with him, he didn't realize it at first.", she said as she sat down in a chair that he had indicated. Dr. Bellows was looking at her oddly. "Is there something wrong?" she asked. "Well ...", he hesitated, "I have the ability to get a read on people through physical contact. But I couldn't get anything from you at all." He indicated a folder on his desk, "There is nothing in your powers testing that would explain that." "Spring, I want to tell him. My feelings say that we can trust him and that he could be our friend as well as our counselor.", Dawn said. "I think you're right, go ahead.", Spring replied.
Dawn looked at Dr. Bellows and asked "I can explain that. I am going to assume that you read how I ended up mutating. But I need to know is everything we discuss protected under doctor-patient confidentiality, and is this room totally secure?" Dr. Bellows nodded, "I read how you acted to protect the Amazing Three. The stuff in that dart was something nasty that we thought was long gone. We're hoping that there was just a small amount of it that somebody that had a grudge against the Amazing Three found. Otherwise it would mean that somebody is somehow making it again, and that would be very bad. To answer your questions, yes, and I hope so." Dawn asked, "Spring, can you make certain this room is safe from all snooping? "Not a problem Dawn.", Spring said. A curious deadness filled the room, as noises coming in through the door and window, that had previously been present but not really consciously noted, were cut off. The sunlight coming in through the window took on a odd quality, as the lights went out to be replaced by a sourceless glow. Dr. Bellows sat forward in his chair and asked, "What did you just do, and how?" Dawn smiled and said, "I did nothing except ask a friend to secure the room." She took on a more serious look as she said, "Dr Bellows, Dr. Messing told me that the stuff that changed me was something called Ultra-X-Amine. He also warned me that I could mention its name to only certain people. You were one of them. I am going to tell you some things that I would normally ask you to tell nobody, without asking me first. But I realize that a situation may come up where you have to, so I trust you to use your best judgment." Dr. Bellows was a bit startled that Dawn had been told the name of the drug, but her serious look indicated that what else she had to say was on a level with that information. "I will keep your secrets, unless in my best judgment it absolutely can't be helped." he said.
Dawn took a deep breath then proceeded to tell him all about Spring, including the fact that Spring kept an open link with her at all times. She also revealed that Cutie Angel wasn't really another personality, but that she was just putting on an act. She didn't tell him that her powers' levels had been deliberately lowered for the testing. But she did decide to show him something that she hadn't shown in power testing, something that neither her or Spring had expected. She reached out and made a motion as if wiping off a window with the palm of one hand. A small view of a part of the inside of the 'ultra-plane' that was Spring appeared. The part was one that could be seen by a person not linked to Spring without damaging their unprotected human mind and soul. It was still glorious and awesome. "Dr. Bellows, meet Spring.", Dawn said. "I am pleased to meet you Dr. Bellows.", came Spring's voice through the view. "Ummm ... I am honored to meet you Spring." he said. Dawn then made the wiping motion again, and the view vanished.
Dr. Bellows took a little while to recover, then said, "Dawn, I am flattered by your trust in me. If it got out that you are even still in two way contact with an Entity like that, much less that you can open a portal to her, there would be people that would try to kill you just on general principals." "Spring is no threat to our world.", said Dawn, "I used an oath that would turn her own being against herself if she broke it. That was the only thing I could think of that I figured could harm her." "Besides," she continued, "she was so lonely when I met her. I just couldn't say no. It would have broken her heart." Dr. Bellows looked at Dawn and said, "I think you might be too caring for your own good. I also have a couple of questions. Your folder mentioned that even before your change, that you got hunches that you should be someplace or stay somewhere a while longer. It also mentions that you were an amazing judge of character if you talked to somebody for awhile. Have you ever considered that you might have been a very low level mutant before being hit by the dart? It would explain the extreme reaction you had to the drug." Dawn looked thoughtful, and said "I had never thought about it. I guess it is remotely possible." Just then, the ambient background sounds returned, the sunlight coming through the window went back to normal, the glow vanished, and the lights went back on.
Dr. Bellows nodded and said, "We need to discuss what tutoring we can get you in which subjects. Even though it is March already, your powers testing indicated an Exemplar seven mind, so I am certain that we will be able to catch you up so you could attend some classes. I have a series of tests here to see how you place currently. I didn't see any notations that you have ever taken any sort of self defense class. I did notice that you indicated that you have had some training in magic." "Yes, but it is all learned. I had a teacher that used a combination of some eastern training and some western. I draw the power for what magic I can cast through the seven chakra points of my own body, using the points as representatives of the power sources that they stand for. I also learned to center myself. My teacher said that the last would also be useful if I ever did take any martial arts." Dr. Bellows said, "Well I don't know much about either magic or martial arts. We'll have to have some one in the Mystic Arts department evaluate you tomorrow to see where you are in that. Now here are the tests to see how you place otherwise." With that he handed Dawn the first test and a pencil. She took both, glanced at the test, and then started writing. She sped through each test, not having any problem with any. When it got to the physics test, she frowned when she got to a problem on the last page, crossed something out with a notation, then wrote something more under that. The math test actually made her laugh when she finished it. She glanced up at Dr. Bellows and asked, "Is this as far as the math test goes? It didn't even get to indefinite integrals, differential equations, matrix math, or" Dr. Bellows broke in and said, "Yes, that is it. I'll have to ask somebody in the math department about if they can test you further."
He then looked at the time and saw that she had completed all the tests in eighteen minutes. It took him longer to evaluate them than it had for her to take them. When he finished, he sat back, sighed and said, "Dawn, you test beyond where our normal curriculum goes in every subject. You even caught an error on the physics one, explained why it was unsolvable as written, then wrote out what the problem should have been and solved it. I'm going to have to show these results to the heads of the various academic departments, and see if they have any suggestions. However, there are classes here specific to teaching you how to understand your own and others powers. These classes are called Powers Theory, and there is a lecture and a lab. We can get you a tutor for the lecture to get you up to speed. And as for the lab, you could probably just start attending it tomorrow. Normally it is a extremely high demand class, but we will squeeze you in. Your 'other form' will have to take the Flight class. I'll either have to wait and see if it can fit in with whatever other schedule you end up with, or put you in the one of the alternate Flight classes that were put into the curriculum back in 2006. There is one that the lecture is from 5:45 AM to 6:45 AM Monday through Friday, and the lab is from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM on alternate Saturdays. And there is another that is from 3:45 PM to 4:45 PM Mondays through Fridays, and its lab is from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM on alternate Saturdays also. And I think you should take martial arts. I have already asked Sensei Ito about getting you a tutor for that." "Can I just get the book for the Powers Theory, and maybe look over the class notes of the two students that are doing the best in the lecture? I should be able to catch up that way.", said Dawn. Dr. Bellows smiled and said, "You probably can at that, I'll see to it." "And I'd like to take the morning Flight class.", she said. "Then you can start the lecture portion tomorrow.", he said.
Dr. Bellows stood to shake her hand before she left. "I already made you an appointment at the Mystic Arts department tomorrow morning, at 9 am. And you will meet whoever your martial arts tutor is at 2 pm tomorrow at the Eastman annex of Laird Hall. I should have some answers for you about other courses, if any, by Wednesday, so let's meet then at 2 pm. Although you seem to be taking your rejuvenation amazingly well, I want to see you next week to talk about you and how you feel. How about next week, say Thursday at 5 pm?" "That will be fine Dr. Bellows." she said as she left.
When she joined the rest of the Outcasts for dinner, they were disappointed but understanding about her not knowing her schedule yet. "It must be hard coming into school this time of year." said Janine as her twin nodded. Dawn shrugged and smiled as she said, "At least I met a great group of people like all of you." Jack made a noise and started signing. Dawn had by now learned sign language, so she was able to tell that he said "Stop it or you'll make me blush." This set her off giggling, which soon had the rest of the table laughing. After that as they continued their dinner, Dawn said, "That one girl over at that table there," she pointed in such a way that it would be hidden from those not sitting at the Outcast's table, "has been glancing at me every meal since I got here. Does anybody know her?" "I know of her.", said Jericho, "She is Sara Waite, code name Carmilla. I hear that she is a demon princess. But the girl she is sitting next to is Nikki Reilly, code name Fey, who is a really good sort. Since they seem to be friends, Sara must be okay." Dawn nodded and stood up, saying "I think I need to have a talk with her." After she had dropped off her tray, she walked over to the table where Sara sat and said "Hi, my name is Dawn. I've noticed that you keep looking at me. Would you like to go someplace and talk?"
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:49]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41364 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:29 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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Sara Waite's eyes tracked the girl named Dawn's every movement. "Girls, tell me something...that person right there, do you sense anything odd about her?"
Nikki looked and frowned. "I can see some kind of swirling energy...what is that?"
"Man, that girl's Ki is mad whack!" Toni scratched her head. "Is she even alive?"
"Destiny's Wave seems to think she is, although yes, her Qi is...odd. There is something about her that is outside of the Tao." Chou frowned as well. "Which shouldn't be possible."
Jade looked to her 'sister', Jinn. "How about you? She looks normal to me."
"I can see the glow of mutant energy about her, but it's...twinned, or doubled somehow. Like she's actually two people. Could she be like us?" Jinn's voice had an odd tone to it.
"Looks like we may find out, darlings, she's coming this way."
And indeed, Dawn seemed to be headed right for the Kimba table!
"Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but I noticed you keep looking my way." The comment was general, but everyone got the feeling it was addressed to Sara.
Sara smiled cryptically. "And If I am?"
Dawn smiled. "I don't really mind the attention. You interest me as well, perhaps we could talk for a bit?"
Sara rose. "I think that would be just lovely. I'll see you girls later." The Demon Princess walked over towards Dawn and hooked her arm around the other girl's. "Shall we?"
Dawn smiled as Sara led them away.
As they left, Nikki shook her head. "Aunghadahail says the girl is shielded somehow...no ordinary spell could affect her."
"And since when was any spell you cast ordinary?" Toni teased, and the other girls laughed.
"Why I'll have you know..."
-
Sara led the strange girl towards Hawthorne Cottage. As usual, no one interfered with her progress, although she did get an odd look from Mrs. Cantrel. Once down in the basement, they were confronted by a rather ordinary-looking young man.
"Hello Sara, who's your friend? She seems quite interesting." Louis smiled.
"I don't know if she is a friend or not just yet, Louis, but her name is Dawn."
"Dawn Llewellyn to be exact, Sir." Dawn really couldn't attempt a curtsey with Sara on her arm, but she tried to be polite.
"Please, call me Louis...although most people call me Fubar, which is just fine."
"Ah...Fubar? Does that stand for...?" Dawn giggled.
"Indeed it does." The man grinned.
"Well for an astral projection, you don't seem very fouled up."
Louis blinked. "It isn't, at least, not to my knowledge. How did you know I'm not real?"
"I noticed some motes of dust move through you, it kind of gives you away."
"Wow. That's terribly observant of you. I don't recall anyone mentioning that before...you're a very interesting girl, Miss Llewellyn. Normally I can sense at least surface thoughts from other people I meet, but you're not broadcasting a thing."
Sara interjected. "Louis here is a very gifted psychic. Too gifted sometimes, if you ask me."
Louis just grinned. "Say! You don't happen to play chess, do you, Dawn? It's hard for me to play most people, since they give away their moves."
"Regular chess, quad-Chess, or dis-Chess? I'm told I'm good at all three."
Louis got a lustful look on his face. "You must play me sometime, then!"
"Alright, but only if I get to meet the real you. I don't care how monstrous you think you look." Dawn felt her smile widen.
"If you say so...I won't blame you if you change your mind though. Well, I gotta go, I'll see you ladies later." And just like that, he vanished.
"I think he likes you." Sara nudged the other girl.
Dawn blushed. "Really?"
"Oh dear...you pull off that innocent look far too well. Come along, then." Sara led them to a door. Runes and glyphs covered the door and it's frame. Dawn found that she recognized many of them. There were others, hidden at first, that appeared to crawl and writhe, changing even as she looked at them.
As their meanings invaded her mind, Dawn pushed the knowledge to a distant corner of her brain. She didn't need to deal with -that- just now! As Sara led her through the door, however, Spring spoke to her.
"Dawn, I can't see you anymore! Something is strange about the threshold to this room!"
"But we're still linked?" Dawn asked silently.
"Yes, it's as strong as ever, I can feel you, but my vision is blocked. This worries me."
The room was much larger than it could possibly be. The walls and ceiling were made from massive obsidian blocks, and more crawling sigils were etched into these. Dawn pushed their meanings away, just as she had with the door. She noticed doors and passageways leading out of the room, which itself was vast and cyclopean.
"...I just hate transdimensional architecture," Dawn muttered. "Oh well, at least it's got proper angles and geometry." She shifted her attention to the furniture. There was a huge four poster bed made of obsidian with blood red silk sheets on it. The chairs, desk, table and bookshelf were also made of obsidian, while the floor was covered in a soft, blood-red carpet.
Looking to the bookshelf, Dawn made mental notes of the books that were there. One book in particular, bound in human flesh, and inked in human blood, seemed to shift away from her gaze. Dawn smiled grimly. She had once encountered another copy of that work, and, with careful, painstaking care, used an expensive ritual, banishing it from the earth, where it could no longer hurt anyone. Since all copies of the book were linked, this one naturally feared her. She'd have gotten rid of this one as well, with Spring's help, but since it belonged to Sara, that would be rather rude.
Even touching the binding of such a tome was dangerous, but apparently Sara was unaffected. Interesting.
-
For her own part, Sara was simply watching her guest's reaction to the Lovecraft Room. She did notice the Necronomicon's bizarre reaction...she'd never seen anything like that before. "Well, this just proves that you are quite interesting."
Dawn simply smiled at her before replying. "I'd thought the same about you before seeing this room and it's contents...now I'm certain of it."
Sara frowned. "I don't get it. What is it lately with people who aren't afraid of me?"
"I don't believe you really want to be feared, Sara. At least, not by most people. Although, I think you enjoy having certain people fear you."
"Ok, you're not reading my mind, and I don't think you could get all that if you were an empath. So...how?"
Dawn shrugged. "I'm usually a good judge of people, that's all."
"Usually?"
Dawn's normally friendly eyes became flinty. "Once, someone I thought was a friend turned out to be fooling me. They pretended to be my friend, and tricked me into using a spell to open a Gate."
Sara caught the way Dawn stressed the world 'Gate' and shivered. "What...happened?"
"Whatever was on the other side took them. I didn't see it, because a voice from somewhere asked me to close my eyes. Then whatever was beyond the Gate pulled the Gate closed. The voice then said this was not the Being beyond the Gate's time. I...hope that time never comes, even though it was merciful towards me. I resealed the Gate as best I could."
Sara noticed a lone tear trickle down Dawn's face. "You....weep for them, even though they used you, and would have unleashed a terrible horror upon the world?"
Dawn hugged her arms to her chest. "It's just...they could have been someone special to me."
Despite herself, Sara gave the other girl a hug. For a long moment, they clung to each other, until Dawn's smile returned.
"Alright, your turn...why do you keep looking at me during dinner?"
Sara shook her head. "I don't see how you are still sane after the things you've encountered."
"Oh, we're all mad here." Dawn grinned, mimicking the voice of the Cheshire cat from the old Disney movie.
Sara shook her head. "You remind me of Bowie, my roommate."
Dawn blinked. "Someone else actually lives here with you?"
Sara just smiled. "She's no ordinary girl, but neither are you. In your case, I can see that you have a transcendental nature. You're not completely of this dimension, in fact, it's almost as if you're standing in a gate between this world and another."
"Hm. So, being that part of yourself hails from a dimension beyond this world, you're naturally concerned and curious."
Sara stiffened slightly, before relaxing. "How do you know so much? And please, don't start quoting Lovecraft, I get enough of that from Bowie."
"I prefer Poe anyways. Lovecraft was talented, but something about his prose just turns me right off. Hm, how to explain this. I have a 'friend' who showed me that this is but one of your forms, as well as your connection to the Outer Realms. She also told me that you and the girl Fey, should be natural enemies, as your kind once fought hers, eons ago, in a great war. But she could sense that you're different than your cousins."
"Wait....you've seen my true form?"
"Is it really your true form? I don't really think so. It's made from the stuff of another dimension, but it's just a different kind of flesh. I would say that your true form is defined by your inner self."
Sara took a step back. "You are...definitely different. But you have yet to tell me about yourself. Where does this gateway you stand in lead to?"
"Spring, I want to tell her. I think se can trust her."
"I agree. She would be a much better ally than an enemy."
And so Dawn told Sara about her past, and Spring...even her persona of the Cutie Angel.
"I'd show you a part of Spring, but opening the gate fully here from inside this room would not be a good idea."
Sara's eyes widened. "Ah yes, please don't."
"If a normal reality or plane consists of multiple layers of different dimensions, as stated in pattern theory, Spring, being formed from a knot made of a...rather large number of different planes that intersect, curl around each other, and in some cases overlay each other, would, upon entering this place, result in a....very large number of dimensions coming into contact with another very large number..."
"By very large, you mean?"
"1 followed by 10 to the 100th power of zeros."
"Erk....a googol plex?"
Dawn nodded.
"Wait, you know of Pattern Theory?
"I think there's almost all that there is to know about it. My memory contains every book and published paper on the subject, even those unpublished or suppressed, as well as the novel Incongruity."
"And you understood it all?"
"I believe so. I also see connections with it and studies in other fields. But if these connections were ever written down...some Wizard or Deviser might get some odd ideas...and that eons ago war would end up looking like a firecracker going off."
Dawn sighed. "A downside of expanded intellect is that I can not only figure out the best results, but the worst ones as well. I'd rather not, but it would be irresponsible to ignore them."
"You really don't much sound like a teenager when you talk like that."
Dawn grinned, hands on her hips. "I'm just as much a teenaged girl as you are!"
To Sara's surprise, when Dawn began to giggle, she joined along. And she wasn't the giggling type.
"I think we're going to become good friends, Dawn. Would it be alright if I explained to my other friends about you and Spring?"
"If you really trust them, but if it gets out...I'll become a target. I mean, I have an open link to a powerful entity, something a Class X entity might see as nigh omnipotent! She is probably, should she exert the power at her command, at least as strong as one of the Outer Gods. Even though I only have certain abilities with set limits due to our link, just the fact that Spring has limited access to this reality through me might freak them out. They'd try to seal Spring away....and she'd be alone again. I couldn't stand that."
"I can't think of many people that would worry about someone like Spring being lonely. That alone makes you special."
Dawn hugged the other girl. "I think you're special too."
"Why, thank you...well I have some things to tell you as well. Once upon a time, I was an author named Michael Waite. I wrote the book on pattern theory, as well as the novel you mentioned, Incongruity. I have another name, but I prefer not to use it, and that is Kellith."
Dawn made the connections instantly. "Daughter of the Gothmog, descended from Shub-Niggurath? You sure don't take after the Old One."
Sara opened her mouth, then shut it. "You aren't kidding about the connections you can make! You're like Bowie...but worse! But how..."
"The sigils on the walls."
"You can read them?"
"I can now," Dawn sighed. "At first, no, but my mind made the connections for me. I could probably even pronounce them, but I'm not about to. I try to keep dangerous knowledge like that partitioned off from my normal thoughts...I don't want the knowledge to influence who and what I am."
Sara shook her head and put her arm around the other girl's shoulders, as she led Dawn out of the room.
"I think this is going to be the start of a wonderful friendship."
After walking a short distance from the Lovecraft room, Dawn turned to Sara. "I could show you a part of Spring, if you wanted to see her."
Sara nodded. "I'd like that, please."
Dawn reached out and made a motion with her hand that looked a lot like wiping condensation off a fogged window. A small rent in space appeared.
Sara looked through it, seeing only a part of the vastness that was Spring. Even her mind, attuned as it was to the unknowable, could not fully grasp what she was seeing. She was reminded of that oft-quoted passage from Ezekiel, referring to wheels within wheels. Each plane that made up Spring's 'body' was linked to the rest, spinning, moving, and rotating like some vast clockwork engine. Simultaneously alien and hauntingly beautiful, Sara could only stare in wonder as Spring's movements created a sort of ethereal music that was not heard, but experienced.
"She says she is pleased to meet you, Sara." Dawn smiled. "She's afraid you're not ready to hear her true voice."
"I am equally pleased to meet you, Spring. I can honestly say you are the most wonderful, beautiful thing I have ever encountered."
"She thanks you for the compliment." Dawn made the same motion to seal the rift.
Quietly, Sara led Dawn out of Hawthorne. As Dawn headed towards Whitman, Sara waved to her.
-
Dawn heard the sound of boy's voices, screaming taunts and insults as she passed Crystal Hall. Following the sound, she saw four muscular boys kicking another boy whose body was covered with plating that greatly resembled the shell of a turtle. Even though he didn't seem to be hurt much by the boys, Dawn didn't care for the scene one bit, and went to the nearest emergency call box, activating it.
A crisp male voice emanated from the speaker. "Security, what's the problem?"
"There are four bullies beating on another boy about 20 feet from this phone!"
"We'll send someone over, don't leave the scene!"
As she hung the phone back up, however, she saw one of the bullies, obviously tired of simply beating on his victim, produce a pick-like weapon out of thin air! Dawn couldn't take the chance that the poor boy's shell would stand up to that. Campus security wouldn't be here in time.
Even though she knew there might be witnesses, she lifted her right arm straight up, fingers pointing outstretched to the sky.
"ANGEL POWER CUTENESS....ACTIVATE!"
Pillars of coruscating light rose from the ground at her feet, bathing her in every color of the spectrum. The space between each pillar was filled with motes of silvery light, so that only Dawn's silhouette could be seen, rising into the air. Strips of shadow came off of her body, as if her clothing was being unraveled. Her outline shortened and transformed. Strips of light wound around her body, weaving themselves into uniform of Cutie Angel!
The unseen forces slowly lowered her to the ground, and the pillars faded, along with the argent lights.
Cutie Angel leaped into the air, effortlessly covering the 20 feet of distance, and landed on her feet in the midst of the boys. She snatched away the boy's weapon, and, somehow resisting the urge to make a speech (something about 'punishing those who would harm an innocent on such a lovely evening'), she raised her free hand into the air. Arcs of lightning appeared in the sky as she shouted "Angel Slap!" and smote the boy across the cheek with her open hand.
The boy was thrown back and landed hard on the ground, a glowing read handprint visible on his face.
The other bullies turned towards her, only to be met by another attack... "Cute Chibi Surround!"
A swam of mini-Angels assaulted the boys. Some clung to their legs, others jumped onto the boy's heads, using them like trampolines.
One mini-Angel even took a perch on a boy's shoulder, one finger wagging as she scolded him with a child-like voice. "What would your mother say, young man?!"
Before long, a group of security officers arrived, just as Cutie Angel helped the turtle-shelled boy up. "Are you alright?"
"Hey, what's going on here?" One of the officers spoke up.
With a snap of her fingers, Cutie Angel dismissed her diminutive avatars, allowing the other security officers to take the unconscious bullies into custody, while calling the infirmary to pick up the fourth boy, who was still feeling the effects of a devastating Angel Slap.
"He's not really hurt, he should come to in about an hour." She flashed a dazzling smile towards the officers.
The armored boy spoke up. "Thanks for the save, Miss. I'm ok, just a bit shook up."
"Hey, there was a girl who called this in, have you seen her?"
"Oh, just a moment!" Cutie Angel reversed her transformation sequence, much to the amazement of everyone present.
Dawn brushed her clothing off (for some reason, little silver sparkles clung to her whenever she transformed). "Sorry about that, I'm Dawn Llewellyn, and I'm the one that called you. I know you said to wait, but that boy there", pointing to the slap victim "pulled a weapon out of thin air, I felt I had to act quickly."
"Huh. Well I can't blame you, but that means we'll need you to sign a statement. Please come by the security office tomorrow. You also." He said, pointing at the boy.
"Hey just in case those idiots have friends, can I walk you to your dorm?" Dawn looked to the armored boy.
"Thanks, that'd be great. Oh I'm Derek, but most people call me Carapace."
"Pleased to meet you, Derek!" She shook his hand. His skin felt leathery and rough, but it was cool and dry. "I wish it had been under more pleasant circumstances, though."
As the two walked towards Twain, they talked. Derek seemed amazed that Dawn genuinely didn't care about his appearance! Once inside the lobby, Dawn gave the boy a friendly hug. "Drop by and say hi sometime, I hang out at the Outcast table."
As she left, Derek frowned realizing he'd -felt- the girl's hug. He didn't feel much of anything through his shell. He just stood there with a goofy grin on his face until one of his friends came along.
"Derek?! Earth to Derek?! Wake up man, you look like you've just seen a ghost or something!"
"Not a ghost...an angel." Derek whispered softly.
-
When Dawn got back to her room, she found a note waiting there for her from Dr. Bellows, informing her that she had been enrolled in the Avatar Intro class, starting tomorrow. Later that night, as Dawn did a little surfing on the internet, her mind finished making connections involving pattern theory, the sigils in the Lovecraft room, her personal style of magic, and her ability to open a portal to Spring's realm.
The implications left her momentarily stunned. She quickly pushed those thoughts far away, sealing them off in the rapidly growing section of her brain she'd come to call 'The Vault'.
"That's it, I need sleep." She turned off her computer and set her alarm so she would be up in time for Flight class. It took several minutes of meditation before her body stopped trembling, and she was able to slip under the covers and rest.
As she slept, Dawn dreamed. Dawn found herself standing in a meadow full of wildflowers. Standing across from her was Cutie Angel.
"You know sis, reading that icky stuff on the walls of Sara's room didn't show your usual intelligence. You realize that even knowing that stuff could make changes in you.", said Cutie Angel with a slight pout.
"Wait. You're not real. I just put on an act when I change to make other's think that I become somebody different.", said a shocked Dawn.
Cutie Angel shrugged. "With your new mind and the stuff that is seeping in from Spring, I'm at least as real as you are. But how much is that saying? What is real and what isn't?"
"That makes no sense. I have a physical body and ..."
Cutie Angel cut her off "Matter is just a bunch of sub-space quantum foam held together by the zero-point energy and given shape by certain trans-dimensional patterns. So, again, what is real? I have a body now too, even if I was supposed to not have my own mind."
Then Dawn caught something that Cutie Angel had said "You said stuff is seeping in to me from Spring?"
"Sigh. You didn't think that the link could go both ways? That doesn't say much for your ability to see the connections between stuff. Here, I will show you one of the things that have leaked. You hid this even from yourself."
There was an untold time of chaos. A sense of gathering tension. Things collided in ways that were indescribable. There was something like pain. Then a brilliant flash of sense of self lit up all of Her being. "I AM. I THINK. I FEEL. I EXIST." She then settled into her new awareness.
Dawn reeled back from that image, it still ringing through her own mind. "That's ..."
"Yeah I know. There are no words for it. You just experienced Spring becoming aware, from her point of view."
Dawn didn't think her legs would support her right then and sat down in the wildflowers. "So ... What does you being real and me getting leakage back from Spring mean?"
"The first, that it will be easier to be Cutie Angel. I will still know the new things that you learn and versa vice. But it will be like two people learned it, not just a copy. And we will diverge even some more with new experiences, even though the other will know about the experiences. The second ... I don't know. An entity like Spring hasn't been encountered before, at least as far as I know. We may become more like her in some ways. Or she may become more like us in some ways. Or both. Or neither. We are in unexplored territory here sis. And like it said on ancient maps "Here there be Monsters."
Dawn awakened from the dream by her body's need for the bathroom. After she finished and went back to bed, she thought about the 'dream' she had just had. After awhile she drifted back to sleep, and spent the rest of the night dreamless.
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:53]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41365 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:29 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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Dawn noticed there was something in her mailbox in the lobby as she was about to leave Whitman for her flight lecture class. Taking it out, she saw that it was a schedule, listing her as having Flight lecture at 5:30 am, Avatar Intro at 8 am, a magic class (to be determined today at her Meeting at the Mystic Arts department) at 9 am, meet with her Martial Arts tutor from 10 am till 11:30 am, "Special independent studies" (whatever that meant) from 1 to 3 pm, Powers Theory lecture and lab during the last period with the lecture being Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the lab being Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and Flight lab on alternate Saturdays from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM. This gave her seven classes, but left a empty period from 3 pm till the start of Powers Theory.
She arrived early at Laird Hall where the classes would be held. Mr. Buttons was already there.
"Sir? I'm Dawn Llewellyn, and I'm supposed to take the flight class?" she said.
He looked up, "Ah, yes, I got a note about you. You're going to be at a bit of a disadvantage coming in mid-term like this." He handed a copy of the textbook. "We will be using that book, and I will ask one of the better students if you can look at their class notes."
Dawn gave him a bright smile "That will be great sir." She took the book and just glanced briefly at each page as she turned through it. "Sir? On page 297, it says that Skylift Ambulance aircraft always have the right of way. What if you have healing abilities and can get to the scene first?"
He stared at her, his mouth agape. "You read the entire book just like that? And you can remember it well enough to ask an intelligent question? ... This is going to be interesting and refreshing having you in class. But to answer your question, you should contact the people in the Skylift aircraft and clear it with them, then go ahead. Speed is usually of the essence if they call in one of those aircraft."
The other students started filing in, and there was one girl with large feathered wings that went up to Mr. Buttons. "Dawn, this is Angel, my student assistant for this class. Angel, I think we have a true gem here in Miss Llewellyn."
"I will try my best to not disappoint either of you." said Dawn as she shook Angel's hand.
"Can you describe your flight for us and the class?" Mr. Buttons asked.
"Well, I change into somebody else and she is actually the one who flies. But we sort of share knowledge between us, even though she isn't really me." Dawn replied.
"I'm not certain I follow you." said Angel.
"sigh. I guess it is easier to show you." she said as she stepped back a little.
She lifted her right arm straight up, fingers pointing outstretched to the sky.
"ANGEL POWER CUTENESS....ACTIVATE!"
Pillars of coruscating light rose from the floor at her feet, bathing her in every color of the spectrum. The space between each pillar was filled with motes of silvery light, so that only Dawn's silhouette could be seen, rising into the air. Strips of shadow came off of her body, as if her clothing was being unraveled. Her outline shortened and transformed. Strips of light wound around her body, weaving themselves into uniform of Cutie Angel.
The unseen forces slowly lowered her to the ground, and the pillars faded, along with the argent lights.
"Hi! I'm Cutie Angel! I'll be the one flying!" she said.
Mr. Buttons recovered a bit faster than Angel from seeing the change, and asked "Can you demonstrate your flight in here?"
"I'll be glad to!" she said as rainbow butterfly wings appeared from her back. She leaped into the air, and zoomed around as best she could in the confined air space of the room. She landed and the wings vanished. "How's that?"
"I think I need an aspirin." said Mr. Buttons. "You were going kind of fast for such a small room."
"Naw, that was nothing. You should see me outside where I can really cut loose." she said with a big, beaming grin, as she bounced on the balls of her feet. "But I better let Dawn come back now."
After the transformation had reversed, Dawn said "Sorry about that, she is a bit much to take for some people this early in the morning. But she is like that all the time."
"I was right, this is going to be an interesting class indeed." he muttered before getting down to teaching the class.
After the class, Dawn headed over to the Crystal Hall, even though it was early. Once there, she saw Derek eating at a table with Slab and some other people. "Hi Derek.." she said after walking over, "I hope that any bruises that those jerks gave you last night are feeling better. I'm going to go get my breakfast and eat it at the Outcast table. I don't know if the others will be in this early, but I have a class at 8 am. And I feel like taking my time eating this morning. I hope to see you around!"
"Who was that?", asked Slab, as he had never seen Dawn, only Cutie Angel.
"sigh Probably the nicest person you'll ever see. She honestly doesn't care what people look like. She walked me back to the hall last night, after her other form saved me." he said with a goofy grin..
"Other form?", asked Slab
"Yeah, you'd have to see it to believe it." he said. "Hey, I just realized that I don't know the name of her other form. Dawn and her are definitely somebody that we should tell Thuban about though. A pretty that really doesn't care about appearances. And rescued one of Faction 3 without hesitation. Even at Whateley that is rare."
Dawn sat at the Outcast's table, enjoying her breakfast.
Eldritch came over with her tray and sat down besides her. "Morning Dawn, what are you doing here so early?" she asked.
"Oh, I have flight lecture from 5:30 to 6:30. How about you?" said Dawn.
"They want me over in the Mystic Arts building this morning. They found something they want me to look at." she replied.
The two girls ate in companionable silence for a while. Dawn finished up her food, just as Jerico and Razorback came over to the table. "You know, I think you outdid yourself with today's outfit." Dawn said.
"It's nice to have somebody that appreciates my attention to detail in my choice of clothing" he replied. The outfit he had on defied description, and one poor soul that got a good look at it made a hasty retreat towards the restrooms with one hand clamped over their mouth.
"I'm sorry, but I have a class at 8, and since I want to get there early, I'd better head over there." Dawn said as she stood up. After she dropped off her tray, she headed over to Kirby Hall where the Avatar Intro class was held.
When she got to the class room, she found that the professor, an agless looking woman was already there.
"Excuse me, Professor, but I'm Dawn Llewellyn and I'm here for the Avatar Intro class." Dawn said.
The woman looked up, and Dawn had a curious sensation of seeing two beings there at one. One was the professor, but the other one looked Egyptian, had a spotted dress on, and there was a papyrus plant floating above her head. If the professor looked agless, this being looked timeless. Dawn blinke her eyes several times and the odd double vision faded.
"I was told to expect you, Dawn. I am Professor O'Mahoney. Oh, and Seshat knows that you saw her." the professor said.
"Seshat?" Dawn said "The ancient Egyptian Goddess of Knowledge? No wonder they have you teaching this class."
Wordlessly, the professor handed Dawn a text book, and some pages that had been photocopied out of a sudent's notebook. Dawn read the book and then the notes before looking back up at the professor. "Do any of the students in this class see if they can get around you being the Avatar of a Goddess of Knowledge?" she asked.
"Not more than once." the professor replied with a smile. "The third desk from the left end of the fourth row is empty. Please use it for class."
Dawn sat down at the desk, and soon other students started coming in. Some gave the new girl curious looks. Dawn quickly kept her eyes down after she realized that she could see the entity of each of the Avatars that had one. That felt like some sort of invasion of privacy to her. After the professor closed the door, some seats to Dawn's right were still empty.
"Class, we have a new student with us, Dawn Llewellyn."
After that class was over, Dawn headed downstairs to find the Mystic Arts department. At first she didn't see anything, but then she smiled and said "Of course." to herself. She closed her eyes, and muttered some words under her breath while lightly touching first her left eyelid, then her right, then the position for the 'third eye'. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a glowing sign floating in midair, pointing the way to a door that had not previously been visible.
As she entered the room, she saw two woman and a girl that looked about eleven. "Hello, I'm Dawn Llwellyn, I was told to come here." she said to them.
One of the women, whose hair was moving on its own said "Hello Dawn, I'm Dr. Ophelia Tennant, this, "She indicated the other woman, "is Circe. Oh, and you've found us while we are talking to another unusual case, this young woman is Lexi Morris."
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:33]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41366 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:30 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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"I'm pleased to meet you Circe, Dr. Tennant, Lexi." said Dawn with a friendly smile. "I know that the way I power the magic I cast is not what is considered usual by most. But if you don't mind me asking, what is so unusual about yours Lexi?"
Lexi shrugged and said "Not much, really, just that because I used to be somebody else, the 'then me' and the 'now me' came to terms,. I know all the stuff that they learned , but I have nowhere near the power they did. Circe and Dr. Tennant are just trying to determine why , and if if there is a way to safely bring my power back up to what the 'then me's' was."
"Wow, that must be disconcerting. It sounds as bad as my having a part of my mind that is automatically working on making connections between stuff I learn or see. Some of those connections and their implications, I'd rather not know. But I can't turn it off." said Dawn.
"That sounds as interesting as your unorthodox way of powering your magic.", said Dr. Tennant. "We may want to study that also."
"Okay," said Dawn, "just as long as you don't ask me to share all the implications that part of my mind has come up with. There is stuff there that I don't even trust myself to know, and I keep it partitioned off in a deep layer of my mind."
"You partition your mind?" asked Circe. "Won't that cause you problems?"
"If it does, they wouldn't be as bad as the 'problems' that some of what I lock away would cause." Dawn said.
"There was more than one reason we wanted to talk to you Dawn." said Dr. Tennant. "We received notice from Dr. Pollard that your, umm, 'alter ego' had some powers that registered as magical in nature. The powers testing people aren't really up to the nuances of that, so we would like to see them too. I am particularly interested in the healing that she did. I examined the boy she healed. He is probably the healthiest person on earth right now."
"Well I want to study her ability to transform others into harmless forms." said Circe. "Even if the transformations she does are strictly temporary, it sounds like a power I have."
"Cutie Angel would need somebody to use those two powers on in order to show them too you. And one of her other powers is kind of destructive." said Dawn.
"Cutie Angel?" asked Lexi. "Is that your code name?"
"It's more complicated than that, you'll see after you meet her." said Dawn with a grin.
"Well first, we'd like to see your method of powering your magic." said Dr. Tennant. "Would you do some for us?"
"Sure, that'll be no problem. Since I mutated, I haven't done any magic other that making it so I could see magic in order to find my way to this room." said Dawn.
"You have a spell that allows you to see magic?" asked Lexi.
"Yeah, it came in handy quite a few times back before I mutated." said Dawn. "After an incident I'd rather not discuss, I kept running into situations where I encountered stuff that was magical, but not of the sort I'd want in my house. Or really, even on earth."
Lexi heard a slightly bitter, but also sad edge to Dawn's voice, when Dawn said the part about an incident that Dawn would rather not discuss. She also saw a brief look of old pain in Dawn's eyes for that moment.
Dawn shut out the hurtful memories. She started doing the steps that she had used before her mutation, but now with the full speed of her Ex 7 mind. She fully centered herself, and then opened up her seven major chakra points. She drew power in through them in sequence stating with her base chakra and ending with her crown chakra. She then connected her chakras with a thread of power that grew as it passed upwards through each one. She threaded and looped the power through itself and her core. Once she felt that she had enough for what she had in mind, she closed her eyes briefly and visualized the sealing circle, symbols, and diagrams that she would need to draw, along with the places in them that she would feed magic into.
Somebody gasped in surprise and Dawn opened her eyes. There, glowing on the floor was the sealing circle, symbols and diagrams that she had been visualizing, made up of pure magical energy.
Dawn was stunned. Nothing like this had ever happened before. She didn't lose her hold on the spell though, as she had found out when first learning magic that to do that could be a bad thing. Instead, she said the few words in an arcane language that finished the casting, and summoned a minor water elemental into the circle. The elemental took on the form of a young girl formed of water that was constantly flowing. The elemental was too minor to have much of a mind, and just looked around at all the dry area like a kid in a candy store. Dawn waited just long enough for the others to get a good look, then dismissed the elemental and ended the spell. After that, she sort of stood there with a look of amazement on her own face.
"From your expression, I gather that wasn't exactly normal compared to how you used to do magic?" asked Dr. Tennet.
"No, I had brought chalk and the other things I needed to make the circle and all with me in my purse. I never had anything like that happen." said Dawn.
"The way that you power your spells is unusual." said Circe. "I think the new developments in how the spell manifests itself without materials is due to your mutation. But I don't think it is because you have a Wiz type mutation. You just do the steps so fast in your mind, and pour some power into them as you do so, that the effect is much the same as if you did have a Wiz mutation. But you should be careful. Since you use your own body to summon the energy into, and turn it into magical energy in your mind, trying to cast too powerful a spell could be very bad."
"By very bad, you mean?" asked Dawn.
"It could be like using a electric cord rated for 10 amps to connect to a 1000 amp power supply. Of course, it might not be that bad, it could just Change you ..." said Dr. Tennet.
"Ulp ... Okay, note to self, don't try real powerful spells." said Dawn while acting like she was holding a pen and writing on something.
That got a laugh from the other three there. Then Dr. Tennant said, "Can you, ah, summon your alter ego and let her show us what she can do? I have a student in an adjoining room that has a sprained wrist. That should be good enough for the healing."
"And I have a 'volunteer' for her to demonstrate her ability to stun and to transform others on. It was either that or serve detention with me ..." said Circe with an ominous smile.
"Okay, here goes." said Dawn.
She lifted her right arm straight up, fingers pointing outstretched to the sky.
"ANGEL POWER CUTENESS....ACTIVATE!"
Pillars of coruscating light rose from the floor at her feet, bathing her in every color of the spectrum. The space between each pillar was filled with motes of silvery light, so that only Dawn's silhouette could be seen, rising into the air. Strips of shadow came off of her body, as if her clothing was being unraveled. Her outline shortened and transformed. Strips of light wound around her body, weaving themselves into uniform of Cutie Angel.
The unseen forces slowly lowered her to the ground, and the pillars faded, along with the argent lights.
"Hi! I'm Cutie Angel! What did you want to see first?" she said.
Lexi blinked and looked at the different girl that was standing there bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. Lexi glanced at Dr. Tennent and Circe, only to see that they were taking it in stride. Shrugging to herself, she decided to watch quietly.
"Just a moment" said Dr. Tennent as she walked over to a door. She opened it and motioned to a student waiting in the next room to come in.
The girl had their right wrist in an Ace bandage. There were also some slight abrasions on the knuckles. She looked warily at Cutie Angel. "Dr. Tennant, are you certain this is a good idea?" she asked.
"Trust me on this. And you wouldn't need healing if you hadn't tried to punch a Brick." said Dr. Tennant.
"But he deliberately tripped me. And then laughed about it." the girl said.
"I'm certain that you dancing around holding your wrist after punching him will deter him from that in the future." said Dr. Tennant in a wry tone.
"Hey, don't worry! I'll make it all better!" said Cutie Honey. She then made a motion as if she had blown the girl a kiss and cried out, "Cute Bandage of Love!". Pink sparkles surrounded the girl, and she got a surprised look on her face.
"Hey, my wrist doesn't hurt anymore. And I feel really good!" she said.
Dr. Tennant unwrapped the Ace bandage and examined the girl's wrist, noting that the abrasions were gone also. "I want you to report to the medical clinic for a complete work up. I'm certain that they'll find that you are almost impossibly healthy right now."
After the girl left, Dr. Tennant said "That was definitely a healing spell. But not one like I've seen before. And it was of a very high order too. I think it could pull somebody back from the brink of death. Or maybe even from a little beyond that brink."
Cutie Angel just shrugged. "It does what it does. Don't ask me how."
"I don't think we need to see your arrows or your beam power, but I would like to see your, ah, chibis before we see your slap or transform powers." said Circe.
"Okay!" Cutie Angel said. "Cute Chibi Surround!" A swam of mini-Angels appeared and ran around randomly, jumping over the others, and doing antics that were funny as well as distracting. After a short while, Cutie Angel snapped her fingers and dismissed them.
"Interesting, they appear more magical creations than simply being the results of a manifestor mutation." said Dr. Tennant.
Cutie Angel just smiled and said nothing, looking around the room and bouncing on the balls of her feet some more.
Circe walked to the same door that Dr. Tennent had went to previously, and motioned to somebody in there. She had that ominous smile on her face again. A large boy with bulging muscles walked in. He had a rebellious expression on his face, but obviously knew better than to disobey Circe.
"This is the volunteer for your slap and your transform. He is also the person that the girl you healed hurt herself by punching." said Circe.
Cutie Angel lost her smile for a moment. She walked wordlessly up to the boy. She then raised her free hand into the air, and shouted "Angel Slap!" and smote the boy across the cheek with her open hand.
The boy was thrown back and landed hard on the floor, a glowing read handprint visible on his face.
"He'll come to in about an hour. He isn't really hurt." said Cutie Angel in a flat tone. "Now I'll transform him. Since you'll probably want to send him to the clinic just to be sure, I'll only change him for a minute."
She made a motion with both hands like she held a ball, then made a motion with one hand as if she threw the ball while she cried out, "Heavenly Cute Transform!" A globe of silver sparkles launched toward the boy and engulfed him, it then shrank and vanished. In his place was a chibi version of himself that would only be about two feet tall at the most if standing. The chibi version also looked plump instead of ripped, and was wearing a green coverall with little white rabbits embroidered on it. After a minute passed, there was a flash of light and the boy was back to himself.
"Hmm," said Circe, "that wasn't magic like mine. In fact I'm not certain it was magic. If it wasn't I don't know what it was though."
"If you don't mind, I'll go now." said Cutie Angel. "I don't like being around bullies like him."
The transformation sequence happened in reverse, and then Dawn was standing there. "Was there anything else you wanted from me?"
"I have a request." said Lexi. "There is something about you that speaks to me of order. Since I am an Order mage, I'd like to talk to you more sometime."
"Sure," said Dawn with a friendly smile, "I'd like that."
"We don't need anything more from you right now Dawn." said Dr. Tennant. "But I have an idea, why don't we list this period as a 'special projects' class, and you and Lexi can talk during it. Either Circe or I will be there occasionally during the class, and we can also test what both of you can and can't do right now, and teach you some new things."
"That would be great." both Dawn and Lexi said at exactly the same time. They then looked at each other and Dawn started giggling. Before long, Lexi, Circe, and Dr. Tennant were laughing.
After leaving that class, Dawn went over to the Eastman annex of Laird hall. She entered the room that had been listed on her schedule. There was a man there with spiked blonde hair and hazel eyes, who seemed to favor the color green and dressed more like a skater punk than an instructor.
"Hello, I'm Dawn Llewellyn, I'm supposed to meet my combat tutor here?" she said
"My name is Glenn Sterling. In my class you will address me by my first name. Not sir, not teacher, not sensei, none of that." said the man.
"That's fine with me Glenn." she said.
"I assume that you have had no formal training in fighting." he said.
"None whatsoever." she said. "I found other ways than physical force to deal with 'situations'. And I'd really rather not fight in any way unless it is the absolute last resort."
"While that may be admirable, it is also likely to get you hurt bad. You have to recognize that non-physical responses just won't stop some people. And also learning fighting will help you avoid getting sucker punched. You'll learn to avoid attacks, as well as to give back, hopefully better than what you got." he said.
Dawn nodded slowly. "I can see your points. But I don't have to like it. I will do my best though."
"That is what I expect. Your best. And don't hold back." he said.
"If you really want my best, can you go through some defense and attack forms without an opponent, I am very good at observing. I realize that won't give me any muscle memory, but at least I'll know the forms intellectually." she said.
"You know about muscle memory? And, hey, you aren't talking like a typical teenager right now, what gives?" he asked.
"I have read a lot about fighting recently, and even seen diagrams describing the moves, but that isn't the same as watching somebody do it. And I am far from your typical teenager." she said with a friendly smile.
"Okay." he said, "if you want to see, watch closely." he said and then started sticking, kicking and dodging as if fighting an unseen opponent. At one point, he tucked himself into a roll and ended up besides a table with various edged blades on it. He grabbed one up and started using it like he was now facing a similarly armed opponent.
After awhile he stopped and said "So what did you hope to learn from watching that?"
Dawn smiled, then centered herself. She drew on her chakra a bit, but not like when she did magic. The energy that she pulled in now, she fed through her center and then diffused it though out her body. This was something that the person that had taught her how to draw on her chakras said could help with physical activity.
Dawn then started going through the same motions as Glenn had. She went through every motion very slowly the first time, including the roll and then the blade fighting. She then went through them all again, faster. And again faster. And again still faster. After about a hundred repetitions, she was moving faster than Glenn had when he demonstrated them. She then stopped, put the weapon back on the table, and faced Glenn.
"You're not even breathing hard." he said, "And I find it hard to believe that you didn't know this stuff before. Let's see what you've got." He then moved into attack stance.
Dawn stood motionless before him, deeply centered, and let her mind notice everything about him and her environment. When he started to move to attack, she immediately deflected it and used a throw to put him on the floor. He bounced back up and attacked again. This time, Dawn trapped his right arm in such a way that it used his own strength against him. While still holding his arm trapped, she did a sweep kick that put him on the floor again.
"Okay, hold it. Are you certain that you didn't know any of this before?" he asked.
"None of it, on my word." she said "I'm just a very fast learner now."
He laughed "I'll say. Well, the good news is that you don't need a tutor. The bad news is that I'm going to drop you into Sensei Ito's beginning martial arts in mid-term. He won't like that."
"I'll make certain and beg his forgiveness for the disruption of me coming into his class this late." she said.
"You might as well go on to lunch. I really don't think I can teach you anything else. I am going to try and be there tomorrow when you start in Sensei Ito's class." he said.
Dawn walked over to the Crystal Hall. It was still a bit early, but Razorback and Jericho were already at the Outcast's table. She took her tray and sat down there.
Nothing exciting happened during lunch, the other Outcasts came in a bit later, and they all just ate and chatted amiably. When she finished, Dawn took her tray and dropped it off.
Her schedule listed the library as the place that her 'Special Independent Studies' was going to be held. She walked in, and up to the librarian and said in a soft voice, "Hello, I'm Dawn Llewellyn, I'm supposed to have 'Special Independent Studies' now in the library?"
The librarian just pointed at a door. Dawn walked over and knocked. "Come in." said a female voice from inside.
When she entered, Dawn saw a young looking woman who smiled at her. "You must be Dawn. I'm here just to explain what this 'course' consists of, and then I'll be leaving."
"Um, okay. So what is this course?" asked Dawn.
"It's very simple. You just use that computer over there," she pointed to a desk with a high powered looking desktop computer set up on it, "to study what ever you want. It has links installed to every database, on-line accredited college, and legitimate e-library, and even some places that are normally not available to the general public. It will keep a log of where you go on-line. So no gaming or just surfing. Okay?"
Dawn smiled "That's great! I mean thank you!" She went over, sat down and booted up the computer. She was so deep in seeing what all she could use it to study, that she didn't even notice when the woman left.
Dawn reluctantly tore herself away from the computer when it was getting close to time for her to head for Powers Theory. She headed over there, and got there just barely early enough to introduce herself to the professor. Since she hadn't undergone the combat testing yet, he had her just observe this class. "We'll have a special combat testing session, there are also some others that need to do it or re-do it due to their powers changing." he told her after class ended. "It is scheduled for later this week, so until then, just come to class, watch and listen. Tomorrow is the lecture part of the class anyway."
As Dawn headed towards the Crystal Hall, Derek walked up to her. "Um, Dawn, there is somebody over at Twain that really wants to meet you. His name is Thuban, and he is sort of the protector of all of us that look really different from normal. People like me."
"Oh Derek, any body that judges others by looks is worse than stupid." she said. "But sure, I'll go meet this guy."
When they got to Twain, they went from the front door quickly down to the basement. In the back of a basement room, there was a pitted and ancient appearing bronze metal disk that was six feet tall and a half foot thick. It looked like it would weigh several tons. On it were carved images and Chinese ideograms. Dawn read what they said and gave a little smile as basically it translated loosely to 'Here be the Dragon. Beware those that enter with ill intent.' It rolled to one side with a echoing rumble.
After walking through the circular hole in the concrete wall that had been behind the disk, she saw a gigantic cavern. There was a man that looked like a living statue on a ledge. He held a rope that went through a pulley that had been bolted to the cavern ceiling. There was a small chair dangled from the rope, just beyond the ledge.
"Sit in the chair and I will lower you." the man rumbled. "It isn't safe to wander off of the path, so you'd better stick to it."
Dawn shook her head as she was lowered down to the path, nearly fifty feet below. "More trans-dimensional architecture. I think that Whateley would give even Escher a headache."
When she got all the way down, she saw a path that had been carved through the tunnel floor, winding between stalagmites. There were some pools of water in places, with lights placed deep within them, causing the water to glow in blues and greens. As she walked towards the silk pavilion in the center of the cavern, torches lit themselves as she approached.
A sibilant voice came from behind the silk curtain 'door' to the pavilion. "Dawn Llewellyn, pleassse enter."
When she walked in, she saw a man that had a golden scale-like pattern on his skin. He looked like he would be not quite six feet standing up. He had a muscular whipcord body. He wore an elegant long-sleeved white dress shirt that had European courtly ruffles at the collar and cuffs, and tight black pants that were tucked into mid-calf boots with a mirror shine. He had claw-like points on his fingers, a set of f golden spines instead of hair, sea-green slitted eyes, and a protruding jaw and muzzle.
"Sssince you claim to not care about appearance" he said, "I will not conceal myssself from you. You're one of the prettiesss, one of the attractive mutantsss, why did you protect Carapace?"
Dawn noticed that Thuban was sitting in a chair made up of stacks and piles of coins that were held together somehow as she replied, "I was there, and he needed help. I would help anybody being picked on by bullies."
"Ha!" he exclaimed. "I know that onesss that look like you alwaysss have a reassson. Does it make you feel good to help people that look like usss in Twain?"
"You want to know why?" said Dawn as her eyes turned hard. "Before I mutated, I was the victim of prejudice, fear, and hatred because of what I was. I made an oath to myself back then that I would never judge people by appearance. Which, by the way, is exactly what you are doing! You are just as bigoted as those you call pretties. Okay, people can be unthinkably cruel when it comes to anybody different. But not all people are like that! No Matter What The Person LOOKS LIKE I WILL NOT JUDGE BY THAT!"
Dawn was in Thuban's face, and yelling at him during that last. Thuban found himself pressing against the back of his chair. For some reason he felt deathly afraid for a moment, and could almost swear that her eyes changed to show a tiny part of something beyond description, but that gave the impression that all of the parts that showed were spinning, moving, and rotating like some vast clockwork engine. He also seemed to experience a sort of ethereal music. The view and music was both beautiful and terrifying. He felt as if he were in the presence of part of something that he was much less to than a diatom was less than a human.
This lasted only seconds, then Dawn stood back, her eyes returned to normal, and she said in her normal voice "Since you obviously don't want 'my kind' around, I'll leave now." She turned and started to walk away.
"Wait," he said, "I'm sssorry. I misssjudged you. Forgive me?"
Dawn stopped and turned back toward him. "Okay. I can understand being protective of people. I get very protective of those I call friend."
"Then I would be your friend Dawn." he said "I need all the help I can get protecting Faction Three from thossse that do judge by appearance." He clapped his hands, and a burly minotaur looking boy carried in a table full of food.
"Won't you join me for dinner?" Thuban asked. "I will tell you sssome of the reasssonsss that I tend to judge ssso harsssly."
"I would be honored to dine with you." she said. "And maybe I can think up some ways to help that nobody else has yet."
After she finished dinner, Dawn left by the same route that she had come in by. She got back to Whitman Cottage and saw a box in her mailbox. She picked it up and took it to her room. When she opened it, there was a copy of a version of GEO that wasn't supposed to be released for three days. The only other thing in the box, was a piece of paper with the word 'Enjoy' typed on it.
Dawn was a bit suspicious of the 'gift' and decided that she would give the disks a good scan with some software that Dr. Messing had installed on the laptop that he had given her. She used it in place of the Whateley supplied computer.
She decided that she really couldn't concentrate on it right now due to the emotional outburst she had had with Thuban, and put the disks besides her laptop. She then took off her school uniform and put on one of her nightgowns and went to bed. In a few moments, she was asleep. This night was free of any strange 'dreams'
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41367 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:34 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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The next morning, Dawn woke up early to go to her flight lecture. As she was getting ready, she noticed something new on Sandra's side of the room. Someone had made a nude sketch of Diamondback, and the artist had really captured the Naga-girl's beauty.
Even more surprising, the sketch seemed to have a magical aura about it. Something about the magic felt familiar to her, but she couldn't place it. That, as well as the high-quality, made Dawn resolve to ask her roommate about it later.
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Nothing really spectacular happened during flight class, and Dawn headed over to the Crystal Hall for breakfast. She noticed Derek and paused by his table. "Hi Derek, I just wanted to thank you for leading me to Thuban's lair. He and I had...an interesting talk."
Derek blinked and mumbled through "You're welcome."
Dawn flashed a smile at him. "See you later then!"
"...there should be a rule against anyone being that perky in the morning." Slab grumbled.
"Well, looks like you'd better get used to her. Thuban said she's probably going to be helping Faction Three."
"The hell?! She's a damn pretty!" Slab exploded.
Derek shrugged. "Yeah, but he says she knows what it's like for us. He wouldn't go into details, you know how he is..."
-
No one was at the Outcast table yet, so Dawn sat down quietly to eat. A very handsome, if overly confident-looking young man sauntered over. "Hey doll, I saw you eating here yesterday. Why are you wasting time with those freaks? You should come over and sit with me; hell, if you play your cards right, I might take you out someplace."
Dawn looked over at the boy, noting that Eldritch had quietly stepped up behind him. Dawn smiled without warmth. "I'll thank you not to call my friends freaks. About the only way I'd sit with you is if I was on a diet and needed to kill my appetite! I could smell your bigoted, chauvinist ego a mile away!"
She paused while the boy's face turned all sorts of interesting colors.
"And by the way, a warning. If you don't move right now, you might be the one who gets 'taken out'."
"Why..you...b..."
"You should listen to the lady." Eldritch spoke up, her voice full of quiet menace. "If you don't, she's right; you will regret it."
The guy turned, took one look at Eldritch, gulped and left rather quickly.
Eldritch sat down with a satisfied grin. "Ah, there's nothing like scaring the daylights out of a jackass. But hey Dawn, as much as I appreciate your sticking up for us, that guy looks like he could be trouble for you."
Dawn shrugged. "I'm not worried. If he bothers me, I'll let Cutie out to play with him."
"Heh. She'd probably turn him into a paisley baby penguin. Would serve him right."
Dawn giggled at the thought as she finished her breakfast. She rose. "Well, guess I'll see you around."
"Take it easy, hon."
-
On her way to her Avatar Intro class, Dawn dropped by the campus store to purchase a gi for Sensei Ito's class. She browsed a little, then hurried up and got to class.
Though the class was interesting, nothing really noteworthy happened. At the end of class, as Dawn was leaving, the Professor called her over.
Dawn waited patiently until the other students left. "Is something wrong?"
"In a way, yes. The Avatar rating that you were to be given for your powers testing was far too low. I contacted your testers and told them they should consider you to be in the 5+ range."
Dawn blinked. "Uh...really?"
The Professor sighed. "It's like this. What Seshat has told me, and what you told me in confidence about yourself and Cutie Angel will remain between us. And if they get most of your powers wrong, that's not really going to be a problem for you. But it's very important to get your Avatar abilities as precisely mapped out as we can; there are unique dangers Avatars can present to themselves and others. Please trust me on this."
"Of course I will, it was just a bit of a shock. Thank you."
"You're welcome dear. And if you ever need to talk to someone who understands your situation...just drop by my office when I'm not teaching." The Professor got up and gave Dawn a hug, which the girl gratefully returned.
"Thank you...that would be nice. I hate hiding secrets from my friends, it's not right or fair to them." Dawn felt her eyes mist up, this had been bothering her a lot.
"There, there, dear. You're not intending to hurt them, if anything, you're protecting them. The time will come when you can reveal the truth, and I'm sure they won't blame you."
Dawn nodded. "I....I think I do need to talk to you more. But I have to get to class."
"Of course, dear."
-
Dawn found Lexi had gotten to their 'class' first. Rather than sit in a chair, the smaller girl had brought a cushion to sit on. She had laid out a white cloth on the floor, and was writing mystic symbols on it with a black Sharpie. Dawn recognized the design; it was a fairly advanced Thaumaturgic circle. Despite the crude materials, it could function as a portable 'clean table', as the cloth would repel outside magical influences.
Lexi was humming a song under her breath, and to Dawn's senses, the girl seemed to be surrounded in a white glowing aura. She waited for Lexi to finish.
"Oh! Hey Dawn, sorry, I just got a little caught up in my work." Lexi grinned.
"Not a problem, what are you working on, exactly?"
"Well, I was thinking about what you did yesterday, to skip so many steps in your working. So I thought I'd perform a few experiments, but I didn't have the time to ward the whole room."
"Well...about that, I wasn't expecting what occurred. I'm certain Circe is right, I'm not skipping steps, it's just...somehow doing them in my head is enough for me to add power to the working. I don't even do it consciously, there's a part of my mind that just makes connections and crunches through data without my full awareness. In fact, it works so fast, it's actually a disadvantage."
"Huh? I mean, I thought I was smart, but I can't do anything like that. Explain it to me, Professor."
Dawn flashed the younger girl a smile. "Ok, um, well, you've read the Sherlock Holmes stories, right? Whenever he lacked a problem that interested him, or let him use his full intellect, he'd start doing drugs, like his infamous 'Seven Percent Solution' of water and cocaine."
"How does that apply to you, exactly?"
"Imagine you were even more intelligent than Holmes. You work through problems so quickly you can find the first ten million prime numbers in a hundredth of a second. You have to constantly try to keep yourself occupied. A mind that craves being used in a way a junkie craves their vice of choice. If it gets bored, you can become wracked with depression. You can't slow it down. And the only time it rests is if you meditate, sleep, or in my case, change into someone else...and sometimes not even then."
"Jesus. Everyone else must seem slow and dumb to you."
"No, it's not quite like that. How can I put this. I don't really think I'm any smarter than you are, Lexi, in fact, I'm pretty sure my roommate, Sandra, is smarter than me. It's just...it's like there's a supercomputer grafted into my head, and what would take you months or years to figure out, I can do in fractions of the time."
"Sandra...oh yeah! That's right, you're Diamondback's roommate!"
"Oh, you know her?"
She nodded. "Yeah, we ran into each other at the library, one thing led to another, and she let me do this sketch of her..."
Dawn blinked. Ok, -that- was a connection she hadn't made! "That was you? The nude sketch?"
Lexi blushed a little. "Uh...yeah. Clothes just get in the way sometimes, and her muscular structure really interested me."
"So wait, she was dressed while you did that? Lexi, I'm not sure how you could get her body structure so exactly."
"Well, you have a part of your mind that figures things out for you, right? I guess I'm the same way, but it's not devoted to mathematics or problem solving as much as it is art. My creative brain, I guess you could call it. I just sort of 'feel' how someone's body is put together. It only works when I'm drawing, which occupies my attention."
"Hm...just now when you were working, you were humming something. And your aura was all lit up."
Lexi blinked. "Really?"
"I guess we're almost opposites then. You have to occupy your mind to engage the creative side of your mind. And I have to occupy my rational side to do, well, anything else." Dawn smiled.
"Hm. You may be onto something. I really regret doing all my best work alone now. I think if I'd trusted someone before, in my old life, I would have gotten a lot farther. Even though I'm a Rational magus, the fact is, magic is an intensely creative force. Magicians who are also artists are very powerful. Magic is like poetry, really. It has rules, but they're more like, suggestions or guidelines."
"So wait, a spell is like a poem?"
"Or a song. Each spell is a series of notes. Anyone can sing along, or copy someone else's work. But if you have an ear for music, you can take a spell apart, and put it together in a whole new way."
Dawn could feel her mind begin to make connections. "So the magic words, the reagents, it's not rules, but a way to bring your creative impulse to bear on the spell itself?"
Lexi stopped. "Yeah...say...that's a novel approach. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to eliminate these things from a spell at all! I mean, that's the Hermetic approach, find the minimum necessary elements to make a spell work. But what if you attacked it from the other side? Went out of your way to add more personal flair to a spell?"
"It would take longer, but the spell would end up more flexible, if what you're saying is correct."
"Well, not necessarily longer, if you're efficient about it. Like, maybe it's simply a matter of substitution. Magic lives, it breathes, it's a creative force, so instead of doing the same thing over and over again by rote, what if you changed it up a little bit every time you cast it? You could get a feel for the places the spell is flexible, and where it isn't."
"Now you have my mind in full gear. But I'll have to think about this a bit longer. And we're almost out of time."
"Bah, figures. I was just thinking too, a song that is also a spell. Hm..."
Dawn couldn't resist the impulse to ruffle the other girl's hair. "Don't think too hard now, I think I see steam rising."
"Funny, Dawn." But Lexi beamed at her.
"Say, about that sketch, it had some magic about it. I can see now that it was yours."
"Well, at first, that didn't surprise me, I mean, young mages often put magic into things they do. Earthmother and Circe were chuckling about this new student, Roberta, who accidentally infused magic into the ink she was using to fill out her registration forms, which gave Mrs. Hartford a hell of a time putting her information into the computer."
"But that's not what you did, is it?"
Lexi frowned. "Sandra's really attached to that sketch. So I didn't know quite how to tell her this, but I think what I did was make the sketch into a magical 'map' of her true self. Which means it's potentially dangerous if someone else got a hold of the thing, it would be like knowing her True Name, or holding her Talisman...assuming she has one, of course."
Dawn's eyes widened. "So that's why it seems so real!"
"Yeah, from a magical perspective, that sketch IS Diamondback."
"Lexi! How could you not tell her!" Dawn was shocked that the other mage could be so careless.
"....I...you don't understand. Eldritch was the first one who noticed it was magical, and she made a comment about how she could figure it out, but she might destroy it...and Di snatched the paper back so fast it practically broke the sound barrier! The way she looks at it....it would hurt her to lose it. A lot."
"I'm sorry for snapping on you, Lexi. I do understand. For her, it's like looking into a mirror, but a very special one...one that shows her true self. She needed to see that, I think, but..."
"But it can be addictive too. Yeah, we need to do something to make sure no one can get hurt, her especially. Damn it..."
Dawn gave the smaller girl a hug. "I can handle it. If you trust me?"
"Huh? Yeah, hell Dawn, I couldn't imagine you hurting anyone...well unless you got REALLY angry. You and December would get along pretty well I think."
"December..?"
Lexi nodded. "She's the leader of the group I normally hang around with, the Heartbreakers. She's really nice, like unbelievably so, to the point you don't want to upset her. Some kind of projective empathy trick, she really can't control it."
"So...you're saying she's a nice person...and she projects that out to other people?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh don't get me wrong, she's got a mind like a steel trap, but she's good people."
"I'll have to try and meet her sometime. Well, yes, after lunch I'll swing by our room and see about warding off that sketch. You realize, if you can do that, you have a dangerous weapon at your disposal, all you have to do is draw someone..."
Lexi paled. "Holy shit...that's not something I want to do...I think I better go talk to Circe..."
She got up quickly and ran out so fast she left her stuff behind.
Dawn sighed. Sometimes her mind made connections she wished it hadn't.
-
After that, she headed for Basic Martial Arts. It was a green flag day, so she opened her chakra points and channeled energy into her heart, lungs, and leg muscles, allowing her to sprint at very high speed. Once there, she hurried into the women's locker room and changed into her gi before seeking out Sensei Ito.
When she found him, he was talking to a tall African-American woman. Dawn waited politely to be recognized, then bowed formally. "Sensei, my name is Dawn Llewellyn. Glenn Sterling told me to report to you, and I hope my entering your class at this time will not be a disruption. I simply wish to learn, and I promise to do my best, and try to not do anything that will reflect badly on you."
Sensei Ito grinned. "Well, it's good to have a student who takes things seriously. If you try your best, all will be well. But you must also not hold back when I call on you to fight!"
He peered at her intently. "Your ki is...unusual. Are you somehow altering it's flow?"
"No Sensei. However, if I had intent to fight, I could."
"One should always have intent to fight, even if you do not choose to. Otherwise, you may not be able to react in time. Show me!"
Dawn centered herself and opened all seven of her gates, spreading her ki through her body.
The old man's eyes bugged out. "How long can you keep that up?! Most people would be unconscious or worse right now!"
"As long as I wish to, Sensei."
"Even while performing other tasks?"
"Hai, Sensei. Only if I'm meditating, sleeping, or I change am I incapable of this."
"...change?"
"Hai, Sensei. I can....summon...another being that takes my place. We share knowledge and training, but she is her own person."
"Interesting. I will want to meet this other being later. Hm. This is Sensei Tolman, she will also be instructing this class. For future reference, you see that cage there? We call it the 'capture cage'. If you or someone else is placed inside it, you must act as if it nullifies your powers, even if you think such a thing is impossible. Now, take your place on the mat, and keep your gates open. I will call upon you later."
"Hai, Sensei!" Dawn bowed to him, and sat on the mat in seiza position, maintaining her energy flow.
This could be dangerous for some, she understood that. Unless the ki flow was kept in careful balance, you could draw more energy than your body could produce. It would grant a momentary burst of amazing ability, but injury or death could easily result. Thankfully, her expanded mental abilities let her control her energy flow without conscious thought.
After the rest of the class entered, and also took the seiza position (glancing at the 'new girl', of course), a very pretty Asian girl came in and walked up to Sensei Ito. Dawn could feel the girl had a deep well of ki from here. She assumed that Sensei Ito had strong ki as well, but the old man was able to conceal it.
Either the girl could not mask her ki, or had not yet learned how to do so. Either way, Dawn knew that even with control of her body's chakra gates, she couldn't match such a reserve in a protracted battle.
"I am here to assist as you see fit, Sensei."
The old man. "That is well, Chou. Please, demonstrate your techniques to the class, as well as your Light Foot style."
"Hai, Sensei." The girl replied. She then moved to the center of the mat and began her kata, facing off against an unseen opponent. At one point, she ran up to the wall...ran UP the wall, kicked off of it, and backflipped, landing on top of the capture cage. She then flipped off the cage in a move that ended in a wheel kick before completing her demonstration.
Dawn watched closely. She thought she could duplicate the girl's maneuvers, but she made it look so easy...!
"Enough! Now, you will face off against an opponent." Sensei Ito gestured to one of his students.
The young man was of average height, but had a muscular build. He moved with a fair amount of grace as he took a position facing Chou. They bowed to one another, never taking eyes off their opponent.
"Hajime!"
The boy lunged forward with a powerful attack.
Delicate hands grabbed his arm and gracefully hurled him onto his back. Exposed, the boy took several hits before he was allowed to stand.
Angry, he rushed the slender Asian girl. Again, the lightest of touches, and he found himself hurtling into the cage, crashing into the bars of it's back wall.
And then it was over.
"You have just seen that a baseline does not need to be as experienced as I am to defeat a mutant. Sufficient skill and training can be all that you need. Chou, I would like you to face our new student. Dawn, to the mat."
The two girls faced one another, and bowed respectfully. Dawn extended her senses, becoming one with her opponent, and the world around them.
"Hajime!"
Energy flowed to the heart, the lungs, and the muscles. Dawn threw punches at inhuman speed, her hands making snapping noises as they tore through the air. Despite her speed, Chou easily deflected the force of her attacks.
Dawn switched up, using low kicks. Chou snagged a foot, and threw her opponent.
Dawn twisted her body in mid-air, landing on her feet. Now Chou was on the offensive, but Dawn countered with a Light Foot technique, planting a foot on her opponent's head.
Chou rolled away from the downward thrust, and sprang up so fast it seemed that she teleported, grabbing one of Dawn's legs. Bending forward, Dawn struck a nerve on Chou's wrist, only to have the Asian girl counter with her other hand, flinging Dawn into the cage.
"I...concede." Dawn found herself breathing hard, and was forced to close her chakra gates to allow her body to build up energy once more. She just didn't have the reserves for this level of combat!
At the same time however, she felt euphoric, and a warmth seemed to emanate from deep within her muscles.
Sensei Ito frowned. "I was not expecting such an advanced technique, are you certain you belong in this class?"
Dawn caught her breath. "Sensei, I was able to learn by watching Chou fight...I am a very quick learner, and can notice the slightest muscle movements of my opponent. That is how I can read moves so quickly."
"Hm, so if you could not see your opponent?"
"That is my weakness, Sensei, that, and I cannot match Chou's reserves of ki."
"It is good that you recognize these weaknesses. We can build on this, and overcome them. If you learn so quickly, I will have you watch others as well."
"Thank you, Sensei."
Dawn rested up for the rest of the class, watching the other students. Chou came up to her quietly.
"Your display was very impressive. But I am curious. The way the Qi in your body moves, I have only seen such a thing in one other."
"Oh? Who is that?"
The other girl smiled. "My friend Chaka. She has great control over her Qi, it is a gift of her mutation."
Dawn nodded. "It's not easy to maintain the flow of energy through the chakra gates. The stronger your ki, the harder it becomes. They are the internal reserves of your body, opening them can allow you to perform superhuman feats, but if you draw too much, the cost is high. You must keep the flow in balance at all times not to exhaust or injure yourself."
Chou frowned. "So this technique can cause my friend harm?"
"That depends on how good she is as manipulating her ki. I don't have nearly the energy you do, but I can spread it throughout my body in any way I need."
Chou nodded. "I am still learning how to do such. Still, I would like to see you spar with my friend, and I know she would enjoy the challenge. She is much better barehanded than I."
"I noticed that, you use a sword, then?"
The Asian girl smiled.
"I'm glad you didn't use it, I think I would not have done nearly so well!" Dawn grinned sheepishly.
"A lot of people would be itching to prove themselves, I like that you're more cautious."
"I have no illusion that I am the best, or can become the best. There's always more to learn. Overconfidence is what gets you killed."
"That sounds like something Destiny's Wave would say."
"Hm?"
"She is my weapon, and my first teacher. A sword, imbued with an enlightened spirit."
"A magic talking sword? Well, this -is- Whateley..." Dawn grinned.
After class, Dawn showered and changed before lunch. She headed towards the Outcast table, but noticed Chou and Sara over at what she had learned was the Team Kimba table. She waved, and they waved back.
"Uh oh, Dawn's made friends with the TK's! Gonna ditch us now?" Jericho sounded like he was teasing, but Dawn couldn't be sure.
"No way, I like you guys. Besides, those guys are trouble magnets, from what I've heard. That's a headache I don't need."
Everyone laughed at that.
-
Unknown to Dawn, she was being watched intently by a certain talented young martial artist.
"No offense Chou, but if I wasn't watching her, I wouldn't believe it. How the heck did she get to that level of chi manipulation? Her reserves are really shallow."
"This is, however, to her advantage, from what I gathered. If she had more power, she could not keep them open like that."
Toni nodded, frowning. "Yeah, well, not at first. She'd first have to deepen her chi, then work on manipulating it. It's just weird. Most teachers try to get you to build your chi as much as possible, then teach you how to manipulate it on more than a basic level. That's just backwards!"
"She is self-taught, she was able to use a Light Foot technique just by watching me."
That got a smile out of Chaka. "Oh yeah? Girl after my own heart. I definitely want to take her on now. But damn, weak chi or not, all seven gates?"
Ayla looked over. "What's all this about chakra gates? You two been watching Naruto or something?"
Toni made a face. "As if! Although...come to think about it, that goofy looking kid from that show...he can open a few of his gates, and it damn near kills him."
"You mean Rock Lee?" Chou brightened.
"Yeah! I like his style...well, ok, not his style, style, but just how he's all about hard work. He's a good example, his chi is really strong from all that training, so opening just one gate can turn him into Superman, but it can burn him out fast."
"So the gates are like...dams?"
Chaka nodded. "Pretty much. Every human, and mutant, has an internal reservoir of inner chi that's only useable in life or death situations. Scientists think it's just adrenaline, when a 98 pound mother lifts a damn car off her kid, but no, that's her body opening it's gates, letting the inner chi flow. Keeping them open, though, and like I said, you run out of juice, and your body stars consuming itself for more power."
Chou made a face. "Ick. So is her technique good or bad?"
"For now...good. As she trains more....not sure. Sensei Ito wants her to keep her gates open, from what you said, so he must have an idea. For now though, that's how you beat her. Wear her down. If she wants to copy you, that's fine, just use the moves that burn the most chi."
"You make it sound like it's a video game."
Chaka grinned. "Isn't it?"
-
Dawn left Crystal Hall early, swinging by her room. "Spring, I need your help with something."
"Of course, Dawn, what is it?"
"This picture here, it appears three-dimensional, but..."
"Yes, I see. Parts of the image extend into higher dimensions. There's a great deal of information here."
"Yes, that's all information about my roommate. Do you think it's possible to close access to that information, without destroying the picture?"
"Yes, all you have to do is..." The rest of Spring's statement was a stream of data that Dawn didn't fully understand on a conscious level. And she wasn't sure she wanted to! She simply went along with what Spring said, and tried not to think about it.
"There's another problem. Looking at the picture seems to be somehow addictive to my roommate."
"It's understandable, without realizing it, every time she looks at the sketch, she learns more about herself than she ordinarily could without extensive self-reflection."
"I don't want to deprive her of that, but can we, I don't know, slow the process down some? I don't mind her getting a quick burst of insight, but I don't think it's healthy for her to see herself that clearly."
"An excellent analogy. Why not just make the extra-dimensional portions of the image less clear? So that she has achieve a higher level of enlightenment and clarity to see them?"
Dawn nodded. "I like that, it becomes more inspirational at that point."
Another massive data stream later, both she and Spring were satisfied. With that, Dawn headed for the library.
-
After her 'Special Independent Studies' (a class that she still wasn't sure exactly how they planned on grading), Dawn headed for her appointment with Dr. Bellows. Once in his office, she sat down.
"Hello Doctor. Do you have the results of my testing?"
"Such as they are, yes. However, they want to study you some more, but I convinced them to wait a few weeks first."
"More testing?!"
He chuckled. "Yes well, they got so excited when you showed them Cutie Angel that they forgot to do your 'stress testing' as it were. How you can stand up to physical harm, heat, cold, electricity, that sort of thing."
"Hm...well cold doesn't seem to bother me, but..."
"They also want to use a new scanner on both of your forms."
"About that, Dr. Bellows..."
"What's wrong?"
"Something I didn't think could happen...happened. Cutie developed her own mind, just like that. If I change into her, it's not me anymore. I mean, I know what she's done, but it's like my mind is asleep."
"Is it perhaps something like Disassociative Identity Disorder?"
"No...um...I'm not sure. It seems to be a combination of factors. She just sort of 'came to life' on me. We can communicate in my dreams. So yeah, it's more than just a part of me that decided to go play by itself."
He chuckled at that. "Nice turn of phrase. However, one thing you must consider. Cutie is an idealized part of yourself, a person that, deep down, you wanted to be. So it's still not inconceivable that she is some part of you come to life. And even if not, this could have another impact on you."
Dawn blinked. "Such as?"
"You created her as a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy. You could turn into a 'magical girl' and fight for justice and love...or however that works." He teased lightly, then sobered.
"But now that dream is gone. Oh you remember what she did, but is that any different than watching a TV show or movie about this heroine?"
Dawn frowned. "...you're right. That is something I wanted."
"Exactly. And you wanted it for a reason, to help you cope with your life and your past. As Cutie, you were joyful, exuberant, even playful. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you didn't have a happy childhood."
Dawn didn't say anything. What could she say?
"So here's Cutie Angel. Innocent, young, pure of heart. She hasn't been hurt by the world. And she's powerful enough that she can't be hurt the same way you were. She was to be your second childhood. A perfect one."
"Please! Stop it!" Dawn couldn't help herself. She'd worked out what he was saying...and she couldn't deny it. It was true. And realizing that she'd lost her chance...hurt.
"Dawn, I'm sorry. I wish you could have had your dream. But this isn't the end. There's another way to relive your childhood, and that's through your children."
"My...children?"
"Well, in a strange sort of way, Cutie Angel is your child. You brought her into this world, and the fact that it wasn't intentional changes nothing. If anything, she's your inner child brought to life. By watching over her, and guiding her as she becomes her own person, maybe you can learn to see the world through her eyes?"
Dawn sighed. "You're right, but...it's not going to be easy."
"I know, and we can talk more about this next week."
She nodded. "Thank you...oh um...the powers testing."
"Yes, it's a beautiful mess. As Dawn, you've been tentatively listed as an Avatar 5, Esper 1...that's your slight danger sense...Exemplar 4 for your physical package, and faux-Exemplar 7 for your mental. Oh and they're thinking Warper-i."
"Huh? That's what...dimensional warping?"
"Yes, but they couldn't accurately grade it. They think that you're not so much as shape-shifting into Cutie as exchanging yourself for an extra-dimensional entity, like Captain Marvel."
"Which one?"
"Ah, Mar-Vell?"
Dawn nodded. "Yeah, I remember him, Rick Jones could turn into him with some special armbands, and he'd switch places with Captain Marvel. Now what's with this faux-Exemplar rating?"
"You're a very intelligent young woman, Dawn, but there's some doubt if you're really an Exemplar 7. You have a host of advanced mental traits, to be certain, but using the Wechsler scale, intelligence is described as 'the capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his or her environment'. Are you really smarter than a particularly bright student, or is it that your brain mutations, that allow you to think faster, combined with your greater maturity and experience, given your actual age, that gives you the appearance of being more intelligent? We can't accurately test that. So we're forced to say 'subject can approximate Exemplar-7 mental ability'."
"I suppose that makes sense, but...what's the real difference then?"
Dr. Bellows smiled. "We have no idea. So when you do go up against an Exemplar-7 mind, be sure to take notes and let us know how it turns out, would you?"
Dawn groaned.
"Now as far as the Warping goes, it's fairly clear that while Cutie Angel seems to have a host of powers, what the testers have decided on is that they're really dealing with an entity that partially exists in this dimension, but at the same time, also exists in a dimension where physical laws, as we know them, are replaced with 'Cutie Angel can do whatever she wants.'"
That did sound pretty close to the truth!
"Because we can see that she appears to be an Energizer, Manifestor, Esper, Regenerator, Healer, and Telekinetic, but those are basically 'pseudo' traits."
Dawn shook her head. "What about Exemplar?"
"Well, in theory, she has to have at least the same physical traits as you do, if not greater, and we assume the same mental package, even then, it was obvious your behavior was affected. Now, well, we'll have to test her again."
"You know, you make her sound like she's ridiculously powerful."
"I don't think that she is, it's just that she seems that way. She has a lot of versatility, but not infinite power. And, of course, we don't yet know how much power she can bring to bear. Her transformation and 'Angel Slap' abilities actually pushed forward a theory that she's actually a Wizard, albeit one who uses mana from another dimension."
"All I'm getting is that my MID is going to be seven feet long and a big confusing mess. So much for people underestimating me."
He grinned. "Oh they probably still will. But yes, we're going to guess high on most of your powers for now, just to be safe. The sad truth is, you're still not even on the top ten list of Whateley's most dangerous students."
Dawn blinked. "That's kind of scary, if you think about it."
"I have, and it is."
"Bleah. Oh! I do appreciate you sending my schedule to my dorm yesterday."
"Headmistress Carson's insistence, actually, you have influential patrons."
"Ugh. I'd rather not get by on 'who I know'." Dawn made a face.
"That's rather admirable, some people would take advantage of their connections."
"That isn't me, I don't really play those kinds of games."
-
After that marathon session, Dawn left for her Powers Theory lecture. Somehow, Filbert Quintain managed not only to fail to interest her 'logical mind', but put it to sleep! So instead of having to occupy herself from going crazy....she had to occupy herself from using her desk as a pillow!
She was happy to leave the class and unwind a bit before dinner.
Finally, she headed back to her Cottage. Once in her room, she turned on her laptop, and looked up everything she could find online about GEO. Having done that, she used the program Dr. Messing had given her to scan GEO. Then, she started another program that she had labored on extensively, that would create a folder on her hard drive that would be magically warded, both from internal and external influences.
Once she had those programs up, she scanned the GEO disks to make sure they were clean, then installed the program into the warded folder.
After that, she ran GEO.EXE...or tried to. Instead, a popup window appeared. "Input Error: Program cannot access needed input data. Please disable wards."
She blinked. What the? GEO received input magically? Well if that was the case, so be it. She reinstalled the program in a normal folder, but used a spell to shield her mind from magical or psionic intrusion.
The game started asking her various questions, which she answered truthfully. After she was finished, instead of a character selection screen, a message appeared saying:
Welcome to GEO, Dawn
Then a single class was displayed.
She was tempted to shut down the program right then and there, but curiosity got the best of her. How did they know who she was? Why only one class choice? It was a Good-aligned class, which suited her, but...this was a mystery.
She chose the name 'Sylvia' and adjusted her stats and skills. She soon became so engrossed in playing she didn't even hear Diamond come in.
It wasn't until her alarm went off that she realized she'd been up all night playing. She quickly got her character to a safe place and logged out.
Thankfully, lack of sleep didn't really affect her anymore, although she'd probably want a nap later that afternoon. Ah well. Time to face the new day.
-
Little did she realize what was in store for her...
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 02:58]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41368 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:35 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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Flight lecture class went by as usual and Dawn went to breakfast. She greeted Derek as she went by his table, and sat down at the Outcasts table to eat. Eldritch soon joined her with a grim look on her face.
"Dawn, I need to tell you something. That jerk that you told off yesterday has started a rumor about you. You see, he told people that the reason that you weren't interested in him is because you are a lesbian."
"That's just silly. I'm not a lesbian. I'm bi."
Eldritch choked on some of her breakfast. "You say that out in the open?"
"Well, it's true. But what difference does it make? I have never understood the big fuss people make over who you choose to love in a romantic way, or in some cases even be friends with. Male, female, both, neither, baseline, mutant, 'pretty', GSD, it's all just packaging. What really matters is the person inside."
"Yeah, but this is high school. It could get pretty nasty for you, bi or lesbian."
"Anybody that uses only that to try and define me isn't worth worrying about."
"It could get to physical violence."
"From what I've heard, just not being in the right 'in group' here can result in people having violence used on them."
"True ... but, just be careful, okay?"
"Yes mother."
"Mother!? Why I ..."
Dawn giggled at Eldritch's sputtering. "Sorry, but I couldn't resist."
Eldritch tried to give Dawn a hard stare but couldn't keep it up. She just shook her head and went back to eating.
After breakfast, Dawn went to Avatar Intro class. She had found that after the initial exposure, she could keep herself from seeing the entities that were being hosted by the others in class. So she could relax now and be her normal friendly self. Class ended without incident, and she headed over to her next one
Dawn once again found that Lexi had gotten to their 'class' first. Lexi had a small lute like instrument, and would strum a chord or two, consult the notebook to her right, then write something in the notebook to her left.
"Hi Lexi. Working on that song as spell idea?"
"Oh, hi Dawn. Yeah, but I'm not getting anywhere with it yet. Oh, and thanks for pointing out the damage that I could do with my drawings. Circe said that she can work up an amulet that will let me still draw realistically and from my heart without making a magical image that could be dangerous to the one I sketched. I would have to take the amulet off to make a magical sketch like the one I did for Diamondback."
"That is a good idea. Did you want to watch how I do my magic again today."
"Yeah, I still want to see that. I think that I can emulate some of what you do."
Dawn started to draw in outside power through her chakra points. But she had already been drawing internal power from them and diffusing it throughout her body as Sensei Ito had told her to keep doing yesterday. The result both amazed and frightened Dawn. The outside power mixed with her internal power, and she could feel a rapid increase. Her body started to physically glow a little from the power being diffused through it, and she also felt like she could punch out a tank. She quickly dropped both of her draws on her chakra points until the extra energy had dropped back to normal.
"Dawn, what was that? Are you okay?"
"Y..yeah, I think so. That was another thing I didn't expect. And I think that I need to talk to somebody about it. I have a bad feeling that it could be dangerous to me. Let me try with my magic again."
This time, without her drawing her internal power at the same time, the outside power flowed into her chakra points. She was able to use it in what was now her normal way to power her spells and show them to Lexi.
After leaving that class, Dawn drew on her internal power through her chakras, and ran as fast as she could over to BMA. She changed as fast as possible and sought out Sensei Ito. She had been moving so fast that she was out of breath, and a bit of fear showed in her eyes.
"Sensei Ito? There is something I must speak to you about. I think it is dangerous to me."
"You are very troubled. What is it?"
Dawn told him about what had happened when she had drawn external power in through her chakra points at the same time that she had been drawing internal power from them.
"You were right to drop that so quickly. And yes, it could be dangerous to you without training."
"Can you train me where it isn't dangerous, Sensei?"
"I could. But there is one on campus that would be a better teacher for you in this particular matter, Chaka. It is both because she is your age, and because she has a gift for sensing and using ki. She herself is still learning, but the best teachers stay students all their lives. Even I am still learning. I did not expect the result that you just have told me about. Thus I have learned something new. I will have to do some studying to find out why it happened. Chaka can help you more than I can in the meantime with that problem. But it does not excuse you from this class. You will have to find another time to learn from her. I will send a message to her to contact you."
"Thank you sensei."
"Yesterday, you mentioned another form. I would like you to take that form for class today."
"Hai sensei, but Cutie Angel is more than just another form. She is another person."
Dawn decided to use the full 'anime' type transformation. She lifted her right arm straight up, fingers pointing outstretched to the sky.
"ANGEL POWER CUTENESS....ACTIVATE!"
Pillars of coruscating light rose from the floor at her feet, bathing her in every color of the spectrum. The space between each pillar was filled with motes of silvery light, so that only Dawn's silhouette could be seen, rising into the air. Strips of shadow came off of her body, as if her clothing was being unraveled. Her outline shortened and transformed. Strips of light wound around her body, weaving themselves into uniform of Cutie Angel.
The unseen forces slowly lowered her to the ground, and the pillars faded, along with the argent lights.
"Hi! I'm Cutie Angel!"
Sensei Ito stared at her. "You have no ki that I can sense. What are you?"
"I'm Cutie Angel, I fight for justice and love. Oh, and for pretty sparkly things. Oh, and bunnies. And butterflies!"
"Um. Please take a seat by the mat until called on."
"Okay!" She skipped over to the side of the mat and actually did sit in the seiza position, even though she kept fidgeting.
As the rest of the class and Chou had entered, they also stared at Cutie Angel. She just smiled and waved at them. After all were seated in the seiza position, Sensei Ito started choosing pairs of them to fight.
After some bouts, he motioned to Cutie Angel and to a lithe girl to take the mat.
"Hajime!"
The girl moved at Cutie Angel in a blur, it was clear that she was a speedster. However, Cutie Angel just jumped up out of the way and her wings appeared. She swooped down and gave the girl a light tap on the nose.
"Tag! You're it!"
Cutie Angel led the girl around the mat, swooping up and down. Sometimes she flew so low that she almost brushed the mat. She kept teasing the girl, who was getting madder and madder.
Finally Cutie landed and made a 'bring it on' motion while smiling brightly at the girl.
The girl ran full out at Cutie, who redirected the rush so that the girl ended up in the Capture Cage.
Sensei Ito closed his eyes and started muttering in Chinese ...
Chou recognized the move that the strange girl had used to redirect her opponent's rush. It was one that Chou had used the previous day when Dawn had been there. Then she remembered what Sara had told Team Kimba about Dawn and her alter ego, Cutie Angel. But this girl couldn't just be Dawn in another form. Her body language was completely different. This was a mystery that she intended to solve later.
-
Dawn spent lunch talking and joking with her friends at the Outcast table. They talked about inconsequential things.
Two martial artists were watching Dawn closely from the Team Kimba Table, as was Sara with a puzzled frown.
"I am sure that Dawn was telling me the truth about her just putting on the Cutie Angel persona as an act. But from what you say Chou, something has changed that."
"Yes, that was definitely not the same person. Everything about her, not just her appearance was different."
"Yeah, well Sensei Ito sent me a message that he wants me to meet with Dawn sometime real soon. It seems that something unexpected happened and he thinks that I may be able to help her figure it out. The note didn't go into details, it just said to ask her about it."
"Well Chaka, you wanted to face off against her anyway."
"Yeah, but not as some kind of student teacher."
"The best way to learn is often to teach."
"Destiny's Wave, has anybody ever told you that you sound like a fortune cookie?"
"Not if they were ... wise."
-
Dawn spent her next 'class' looking up everything that she could find about using the seven main chakra points to see if there was anything that she didn't already know. And she found that there was a lot.
After quickly reading everything that was available, she decided to do some research about Sara and her kin. She trusted Sara, but didn't know Sara's dad. And Sara's grandmother? yuck On one of the restricted sites that she had been given special access to (it belonged to some company named ARC), she found a wealth of information. Some of it even was about Sara/Kellith.
As she was reading it a popup box opened with a message ~This is the ARC website administrator. I see that you have the proper permission to view this, but your IP address isn't on file. Please identify yourself.~
>My name is Dawn Llewellyn, I am a student at Whateley and they set me up with this access. I was looking up Gothmog and Shub-Niggurath. I have met Sara and become friends with her.<
~The information that you are researching is dangerous, especially for a high school student, mutant or no~
>I am not your 'typical' mutant high school student. Let's just say that I had encountered things from Outside even before I mutated.<
~And you're still sane and functioning?~
>Functioning, yes. Sane? That is a matter of opinion. I'll just say that I am not about to try and bring any Great Old Ones back. In fact, I banished of a copy of the Necronomicron once.<
~Say, would you like a job here after you graduate? We can always use somebody that can do that sort of thing.~
>I'll think about it, but probably no. Thanks just the same.<
~No problem. Just be careful with this sort of stuff.~
>I always am. But thanks for your concern.<
~Happy reading. But you should probably ask before looking in the folders that have warnings on them.~
>Gotcha, will do<
After that, Dawn continued her reading for the rest of the 'class'.
When Dawn reached Powers Theory, the professor motioned for her to come up to the front.
"Dawn, I had all the class time allotted for when you showed up on Tuesday. Can you show the class your powers now?"
"Most of my mutant powers are not the type that I can show off, like a sort-of Exemplar 7 mental rating. And I'm an avatar. But those sort of things aren't flashy and don't lend them selves to demonstrations. But ... I also change into somebody else. She could show you some of her powers, but others of her powers would be ... inconvenient to demonstrate in this large a class."
She lifted her right arm straight up, fingers pointing outstretched to the sky.
"ANGEL POWER CUTENESS....ACTIVATE!"
Pillars of coruscating light rose from the floor at her feet, bathing her in every color of the spectrum. The space between each pillar was filled with motes of silvery light, so that only Dawn's silhouette could be seen, rising into the air. Strips of shadow came off of her body, as if her clothing was being unraveled. Her outline shortened and transformed. Strips of light wound around her body, weaving themselves into uniform of Cutie Angel.
The unseen forces slowly lowered her to the ground, and the pillars faded, along with the argent lights.
"Hi! I'm Cutie Angel!"
The professor and the class stared at her. "um. Oookay. Can you show us some of your powers?"
"Sure! Watch this!" She sprang into the air, her butterfly wings made up of rainbow light appearing, and flew around the classroom, just over everybody's heads, giggling all the time.
She then landed, and picked up the heavy teacher's desk with one hand by one of its legs.
After sitting that down she asked "I'd need somebody to demonstrate some other stuff I can do on. Anyone?"
No one even stirred. Even the professor stayed still.
"No? Aww, too bad. Guess I'll be going then."
After the reverse transformation was over, Dawn said "Sorry, she is always a bit hyper."
"Ah ... yes ... Well, we'll continue with class now."
Dawn stayed a little after class to talk to the professor, and then headed over to the Crystal Hall, arriving a short time later than she normally did.
As she went over to the Outcasts' table she saw a beautiful girl sitting there talking to her friends. From what Dawn heard, the girl was talking about the student code.
"Oh, hello, I don't think we've met."
The girl turned around and looked at Dawn and gave her a winning smile. "Miss Llewellyn, it's a pleasure to meet you, my name is December."
As she shook December's hand, Dawn felt a twinge of feeling that she hadn't felt in a long time. Dawn took a seat next to December. She noticed that December kept her attention on the whole group.
"First of all, let me state this is not an attempt at poaching. My sources tell me that Dawn has not yet officially joined any team, so I'm just feeling her out. If the Outcasts feel they have a claim on her, please, let me know now, I wouldn't want there to be bad blood between us."
Jericho grinned. "Huh, what? Say that again in English?"
Dawn blinked at her. Her mind was racing making connections. December needed Dawn for something that Dawn could do with her powers. Or was it her that she really needed? She already could tell that December was smart. So ... maybe December needed Cutie Angel for one of her powers ... Dawn felt a little disappointed at that thought, and that surprised her.
"Simply put, I'm on a recruitment drive, and Dawn here has an ability my team sorely lacks."
Razorback signed. 'I've seen you guys, no offense, but you need some muscle.'
"No offense taken, Razorback. However, the truth is, I've done some extensive study on how successful superteams are formed, and there's actually some powers sets that have a higher priority than the ability to throw parked cars at enemies."
Sarah asked "What's that?
Dawn listen as December explained and expanded on her theme. Dawn found herself listening to December's tone as much as her words. She watched every little move that December made, even the unconscious ones.
The discussion continued for some time, then Jericho said, in an impressed tone, "Jeezus, December, you could teach a class on this stuff. Um, actually...can we put this on hold. I mean, I know you were here to ask Dawn to join your group but...this is stuff we can use. If you wouldn't mind, could we go someplace in a bit and maybe, I dunno, take notes?"
Dawn could see December thinking for some moments before saying "I'd be happy to,"
-
After they had went to the library, and December paid for use of one of its conference rooms, the others took their seats. Dawn looked at an antique globe for a moment before sitting down.
Jericho grinned and said "Damn, this is like the last act of a mystery. I'm just waiting for the detective to say 'I guess you're wondering why I called you down here tonight'."
December grinned and played along by saying "I guess you're wondering why I called you down here tonight.." Everybody smiled. She then said "But seriously, you said you wanted to take notes?"
Jericho pulled out a small recording device. "Got it."
December started explaining her analysis of what made up a good team. Dawn found her self drinking in the sight of her. Dawn heard the other's questions and comments, but they didn't seem nearly as important as December.
Dawn could tell that there was some sort of field effect from December, but it didn't bother her. She kept giving December penetrating looks occasionally, trying to see beyond the 'lecture mode' that December was in, to the girl inside.
Dawn's attention was caught when December asked "Excellent. So that's covered. Now, who's first on scene?"
They looked at each other and debated it for a few minutes, then Dawn raised her hand.
"I can..um...fly.
The others were surprised, even though Dawn had 'introduced' the rest of the Outcasts to Cutie Angel. That had been before Cutie Angel had ... well, 'come to life'. She was certain that she had mentioned that Cutie Angel could fly. Maybe they just hadn't thought about that.
"So alright, we know Dawn can fly to the scene. She'll be your first set of eyes and ears. Other concerns...can she carry someone safely at high speeds? Can you afford to keep her in reserve to gather intel and coordinate your movements, or is she a big gun that you want to deploy as your advance assault? You could maybe give her a camera harness so you can see what she sees easily enough, but if she's too busy fighting, that's only good for a small burst of information."
Razorback grinned. 'So that's why you wanted to talk to Dawn, you need a flier.'
December bowed her head gracefully then smiled. "You got me dead to rights. And now that you know, you're probably not going to want to let her go. But that's fine, I'm enjoying your company, and helping you has it's own rewards."
"Like what?" frowned Deimos
"Well, for starters, I won't feel the urge to flee in terror when I get near your table in the future."
Everyone laughed at that.
"Shoot, Jericho's fashion sense does that to most people." Phobos quipped.
"I don't mind it. So he clashes a little..."
That got more than one surprised chuckle.
"But seriously, it's not that bad. Actually, it's a good thing if you think about it. Jericho is highly visible...you think it's an accident that superteams use colorful costumes instead of camouflage? You always want to know where your teammates are. Besides, in order to come up with outfits that shocking, Jericho has to have a great deal of fashion sense."
The Outcasts showed shock, awe, confusion, and disbelief. December hurried on.
"Well think about it. He knows what doesn't clash, he has to. He knows what's in style, and what looks good, again, he has to, in order to concoct such awful outfits. A designer naturally knows what looks awful, it's what they want to avoid. Jericho simply chooses to use his skills to do the opposite; he embraces the freakish and eye-popping. But I'll bet he has an excellent sense of taste, despite his unique way of looking at the world."
"Damn. Busted again. Heh, very PC of you, 'unique way of looking at the world'."
December stood and took a bow.
The discussion continued for awhile, with the large bulk of it being December lecturing.
At the end, Jericho stood and applauded, and the rest followed suit. December took another bow.
"Thanks, Professor, that was a great lecture."
She grinned. "I'm glad you found it informative. If you want, take some time to work on this by yourselves, then if you want, I can go over your plans and let you know what I think."
Diamondback smiled. "We'd like that."
Jericho turned to Razorback. "Man is Eldritch going to be mad she missed this!"
Razorback just nodded and signed. 'Good thing we recorded it.'
"Oh yeah...just gotta keep the recorder away from her, that's all!"
-
Afterwards, Dawn and December walked back towards Whitman slowly.
"I appreciate what you did. You didn't have to offer to help them."
She smiled at Dawn. "No, but I enjoyed it. Besides, I found out quite a lot. Like, for example, why you're going to say no."
Dawn sighed. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine hon. These are your friends. I wasn't sure how committed you were to them, now I know. I also know you have a long way to go before you're fully accepted. If you ever are. It's a hard road, and I want you to know I'm rooting for you."
She looked at December for a moment. "You're lonely, aren't you?"
"My, I didn't know you were an Empath as well."
"No...I'm not...at least, not like that. I just feel things about people."
She smiled. "Is it a power or a talent? If the result is the same, the answer is somewhat irrelevant. Yes, even though I have a great group of friends...I am lonely. I have a plan for my life, and it doesn't leave much room for companionship, sadly. I knew this, and I made that choice, because my dream demanded it. Not to mention, well...you don't seem bothered by it, but a lot of people would have a hard time being close to me physically. Not only am I cold to the touch, but I can't live in a warm environment. At all."
Dawn frowned. "So even though you're beautiful....you're an Outcast too?"
December grinned. "Yes. They'll figure it out eventually. Being pretty doesn't make life easier. But let's be reasonable, the girls are quite the lookers. I mean, Diamond..." She fanned herself.
"You like girls." Not a question, just a statement.
December nodded. "I do. And that hasn't been easy for me either. But one day, maybe, there'll be someone for me."
Dawn hugged her and found herself being held back.
They finally stepped apart. "Thank you, Dawn."
"I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"It's nice and brisk tonight, so I'll be okay. Really, I'll be fine up until about 74 degrees or so. That's when I start suffering from heat exhaustion. It's just uncomfortable before that, I'm sweating and miserable."
"Can't they do something about it?"
"Oh, I have a special bodysuit that keeps me cool, but it kind of limits what I can wear. No bathing suits for me."
"Well, the least I can do is let you meet my other self. I mean, she's the one you wanted, not me."
December tilted her head to one side. "What do you mean?"
Dawn smiled. "I'll show you." She stepped back, and glowing columns of rainbow light rose from the ground, surrounding her. The spaces between were filled with motes of silvery light, which obscured her from view; only a shadowy form could be seen inside.
There was a silhouette of Dawn's clothing unwrapping itself, vanishing, as her body changed, becoming shorter, even as her figure became more interesting. A new outfit formed on her, and then the lightshow ceased. She slowly descended a few inches to the ground and smiled at December.
"Hi, I'm Cutie Angel!"
December's eyes roved over her body like a diabetic in a candy store.
"You really aren't her, are you?"
She smiled. "Nope. I mean, I used to be, but now I'm not."
"Is that a problem? I mean, you only come out when she lets you, right?"
She shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. I sleep mostly when she doesn't need me."
December looked away.
Cutie Angel hugged December, causing her to blush
"Ah...um..." .
"You like me?" Her voice was full of wonder.
"Who wouldn't like you, Angel? You're...perfect."
She laughed. "Maybe, but I wouldn't be good for your team. I'm a bit um...you know...out there?"
"I like out there."
"Me too!"
"So you can really fly?"
"Yep! Watch this!" Twin rainbows extended from her back, and she lifted off the ground.
"I don't need the wings, but shh, I think they look pretty."
"They do." December smiled at her.
"Want to fly with me?"
December nodded. So Cutie Angel flitted around behind her, and wrapped her arms around December's waist.
Cutie Angel lifted off the ground, going straight up until she cleared the rooftops.
December was laughing and crying at the same time.
After awhile, she set them down and December kissed her forehead. "Thank you, Angel."
She looked at December oddly, and reversed her transformation without a word. Dawn put her arms around her then, and December choked back a sob.
"December...what's wrong? You...you're shaking."
She shook her head. "It's just...she's so wonderful. No wonder you created her."
"Oh hon..."
"I'll be alright. I think I need to get some rest, that's all." December gave Dawn what she could tell was a forced smile.
"I'll see you around?"
December nodded. "Definitely, I can use more friends."
-
After walking away, Dawn found a bench and sat down on it. First one tear trickled down one cheek, then another down the other. Soon Dawn was crying freely with her hands pressed to her eyes. She finally gained control of herself and dried her face. It figures she thought I go and find somebody that touches my heart ... and they fall for Cutie. Heh. Cutie has my 'perfect childhood'. and now ... no I mustn't dwell on that. Calm ... I have to be calm.
After sitting awhile longer, she got up and went back to the Cottage and her room. She tried to distract herself by playing GEO, but kept seeing December in her mind, and feeling her hug. Finally, she gave up and went to bed. It took over two hours of meditation before she finally fell asleep.
-
Dawn 'zombied' through the next day until lunch. Oh, she would answer questions that were asked of her. But she didn't start any conversations and had a far-away but sad look in her eyes. Everybody that had met her before this could tell that something was wrong, but not what. And Dawn wasn't telling. She'd just shake her head, give a sad smile when asked, and say "Personal problems. Nothing anybody else can help with."
She trudged into lunch later than normal for her, only to hear conversations buzzing. As she went by a table, she heard somebody say something about December.
"Excuse me, but what was that about December?"
"What's that to you?" asked one of the girls there.
"I met December last night, and I already think of her as a friend." Dawn said, almost having to bite her tongue to keep from saying more.
"Well ... okay. Some jerk-off from her past came by. December ran out in tears,"
"What! Who! I'll ..."
"Whoa! We have first dibs on him. But we'll let you help us if we do anything."
"How long ago did December run out?"
"Not long but "
Dawn didn't wait to hear more, she turned around and ran out of there faster than she had ever run before.
Dawn looked for December in several places. She found December, just in time to see a girl that she had been told was called Majestic put her arms around December. Then a cloud formed around them and floated them up to a window that they entered.
Dawn stood there with a stricken look on her face for awhile, tears trickling down her cheeks. First Cutie Angel, now Majestic?
Dawn turned and started running. She didn't know or care which way she was running. She was just trying to get away.
But she couldn't out run the refrain of "I never even had a chance with her" that kept repeating louder and louder in her mind
She ran out into some woods, and kept going until she couldn't take the emotional pain anymore.
She collapsed to her knees, hands to her eyes as tears streamed down. Then she threw back her head and screamed. The scream seemed to pierce reality.
A tornado of argent light of every color sprang up around her. It was wound so tight that there was no room for any silver sparkles.
When it died down, a different girl knelt there. She stood up and stretched "Finally! About time I got out of there!"
She was much taller than Dawn, and much better built, but looked about the same age. She was wearing a dull black full body outfit that left from her neck up, and her hands, free. Although it covered everything else, it left little, if anything, to the imagination.
Her eyes were an ever changing chaos of colors with no whites or pupils. Her hair was the color of almost dried blood. What of her skin showed looked like there was a banked fire just below its surface.
On the end of her long fingers were claw like fingernails. The toeless shoes she wore showed that her toes were equipped the same. There was a sense of strength about her, but instead of seeing muscles ripple when she moved, you would see them flow.
She sniffed the wind, and her curiously mobile ears tilted forward to listen. She turned her head in one direction and then gave a smile that was full of menace and showed that all of her teeth were pointed.
She turned into a shaft of silver smoke and headed in the direction that she had been facing, faster than a bullet
-
Sara was sitting alone in her room. Bowie was out playing chess with Louis. Suddenly a rustling started in the books on her bookshelves.
Sara got up and approached them curiously. One of the 'safe' ones fell out of the bookcase and onto the floor. It then opened and the pages flipped as if turned by an unseen hand. Once a page with a large blank space was displayed, it stopped.
A scritching noise started, as if somebody was writing with a quill pen. First letters, then words started appearing in the blank space, written by nothing.
When it finished, Sara picked up the book and read the new writing there.
The Fourth Outer God has found Her gate. The Fourth Outer God has found Her key. The gate and the key are one. Time and space have no meaning for the Forth Outer God. Her Chosen Many-in-One wields a portion of Her power. When the time comes Her Chosen Many-in-One will act in the Fourth Outer God's name. The Old Ones shall cower before the Chosen of the Fourth Outer God. There shall be a Dawn of a new age.
Sara looked up. Dr. Otto was still on campus. She had to show him this. And she felt a dreadful feeling that she knew what it meant ...
-
In one part of the forest, a group of three weres had run into five Voo Doo weres. The weres had so far managed to keep the abominations at bay without getting scratched or bit, but they were tiring. And any damage they dealt the Voo Doo Weres would just heal.
A shaft of silver smoke entered the area and turned back to the dangerous looking girl.
She smiled and tore into the Voo Doo Weres. The first she sliced its head into several pieces from top to bottom with one blow of one hand. Another she hit on top of the head so hard that it crushed. Another she kicked and tore it in two at the waist. Another she played 'taffy-pull with its arms until one of them tore off at the shoulder. The last one she tore the head off of and threw the head up into some branches. She licked the ichor from her finger claws and said "Yummy"
The Voo Doo Weres started to pull back together (except for the one that can't reach its head) and she said "Goody. You want to play some more."
She moved so fast that she blurred, turning into a whirlwind of destruction, sending gobbets of Voo Doo Were sailing in a lot of directions.
When the gobbets start oozing back towards each other, she snarled "So you want to cheat?"
She pointed at each gobbet, and they burst into a blue white flame. After the flame was gone, the earth where each piece of Voo Doo Were had been laying was baked into a very hard ceramic-glass-like substance.
She then effortlessly leapt up and retrieved the head she had thrown into the branches.
She reattached it to its body. She held the Voo Doo Were as it swiped at her to no effect
She fixed her eyes on it. "Go back to the one that made you thus. The one that sent you here. Tell him that I hunt here now. And if he sends more of you here, then I shall hunt him."
She then took the Voo Doo Were, and tossed it far away, actually clearing the tree tops with it.
"Thank you, if you hadn't come along "
She turned her eyes on them and they stopped and backed up.
"I didn't do it for you. They didn't belong. They were Wrong."
She then turned back to the silver smoke and went looking for more prey ...
-
Late that night, Dawn woke up in bed, all dirty and smelly.
She stumbled to the showers. It took a long time under the shower and a lot of scrubbing to clean herself.
She had to throw the sheets that were on her bed out.
She didn't remember anything after running into the forest. Had she skipped the rest of her classes? How had she got back to her room?
She put all that out of her mind and distracted herself by playing GEO for a few hours.
-
The next day Dawn still wasn't being quite herself. Her friends were worried about her.
"C'mon Dawn. Friends help friends. Tell us what is bugging you." said Sandra at lunch.
"I ... can't ... All I can say is that I've fallen for somebody that I have no chance at all with. And ... I don't remember part of yesterday."
"Not to downplay your feelings, but that second part sounds serious. Maybe you should go to the clinic, or try to see Dr. Bellows?"
"I ... don't know. Something seems to be telling me that either the clinic or Dr. Bellows wouldn't be a good idea right yet."
"Dawn, we are all worried about you."
"I know, and I'm sorry for worrying you. It's just that ... nobody can help me about who I love. And it could just be that I was so stressed out over that part that I just crawled back to my room on autopilot."
"Well, if you do need to just talk, I'm available." said Sandra.
"If you are going to start 'girl-talk' about relationships, I think that Razorback and I will go." said Jericho.
"Nuh-uh, you two will sit right there and not budge."
"But "
"No buts. Sit!"
"Ma'am, yes Ma'am!!"
That broke the mood and resulted in a fit of laughter around the table.
-
The rest of the day passed, without incident. Dawn spent it using the computer in the library to do more research until dinner.
After dinner Dawn felt herself getting unusually sleepy. She didn't usually need much sleep, but she figured that maybe everything was just wearing her down. So after dinner she went back to her room.
She changed clothes and went to bed. After she was sound asleep, glowing columns of light sprang up around her from the bed, the spaces between the columns were full of silver sparkles. The transformation continued and Cutie Angel was soon laying on the bed. She opened her eyes and got up.
She went to the window, opened it. crawled out onto the ledge, jumped and flew away. Her wings were not in evidence and she had a serious look on her face that looked out of place.
She didn't know how she knew which way to go, but she did. It was like she was following an invisible thread that lead her on.
She arrived in town and hovered over a fancy restaurant. After some time she saw December run out of it.
December sat down on a bench and started crying
Cutie Angel landed softly in front of her and waiting with a worried look.
Dess looked up "...Angel? Why are you here?"
"I felt that you were hurting. You were hurting yesterday too, but I couldn't...I mean...Dawn was awake. But she's asleep now."
"Wait, you mean you came here...and she doesn't know?"
Cutie Angel sat next to December, her feet not quite touching the ground, so she swung them in a very childish way.
"No. I'm my own person...sort of. When she's awake, I can't leave, but...I needed to be here!"
Then she hugged December, and said "Let it out, please. I want to know everything!"
Cutie listened as December told her about Troy, and Tansy, and June and Imperious. About Amy and then....
She told Cutie about the other night, and how she'd fallen in love with an Angel.
She looked up at December, those odd eyes of hers filled with tears. "I want to be with you."
"It's impossible, Angel...you're not even your own person, you're something Dawn created!"
"I have tonight. I know that's not enough, but can't we be happy for a night?"
December opened her mouth and shut it.
"....ok."
"Yay! It'll be great, you just watch!" Cutie Angle picked her up then, and in clear sight, lifted December into the air on her rainbow wings
They snuck into December's room, and Cutie Angle became very aggressive. She pushed December onto the bed, and jumped up, straddling her waist.
Her eyes glimmered in the low light. "You've been hurt so much...let me heal you."
December nodded. "Please..."
Cutie Angel made a strange gesture, and rainbow lights surrounded the both of them, and their clothing vanished.
Then she leaned down and took a nipple into her mouth and started to suck on it.
December groaned with pleasure.
-
They lay together in my bed. December brushed Cutie Angel's hair gently.
She smiled at December and rubbed against her body.
"...I feel so happy."
December nodded. "Me too."
"Was it worth it, even if this is our only night?"
"Yes. Yes it was."
"I love you, December."
"I love you too, Angel."
-
After December fell asleep, Cutie Angel got up. She folded December's clothes neatly on a chair.
She then pulled a piece of bright yellow stationary out of nowhere and a pen.
She wrote a note to December, calling her Dess, and when finished, pulled a rainbow sticker out of the same place she had gotten the stationary and put it on the note.
She snuck out of Dess's room and up to Dawn's. Being careful not to wake Sandra, she let herself in, and laid down on the bed. She then triggered the reverse transformation.
-
When Dawn awoke in the morning, she felt very good. Also very horny. She sat up in bed, and found that her nightgown was torn in several places and she had lipstick marks all over. Even there??!!
She grabbed her bath things and hurried to the showers.
When she came back to her room, Sandra woke up and looked over at her.
"My, my girl! You do have a glow. Somebody got some good loving last night."
Dawn blushed. "But ... I went to bed right after dinner ... and slept until just a little while ago."
"Then I want to have some dreams like you must have had!"
-
Dawn had a good idea what had happened this time. Somehow Cutie Angel had manifested herself. And went to be with Dess ...
She didn't know what to think about that and turned it over and over in her head all that day
-
Monday morning, after flight lecture, Dawn had just sat down in the Crystal Hall to eat breakfast when her world was struck another blow.
"Hey! You! You said yesterday that you feel like a friend to December, right?"
""Um, yes? Jane, isn't it? I'm Dawn."
"Dess is in the clinic. She got jumped last night by Tansy and some other Alphas."
"WHAT?!! Why... I'll "
"Hold it! They are in the clinic too. Seems that Dess just about turned them into bloody blocks of ice."
"I couldn't care less about them. How is Dess?"
"Don't know right now. All of us that are her friends are going to the library to meet. Come along."
-
As she sat in the meeting room, Dawn couldn't help blaming herself. She should have been there. Or Cutie should have. Or something.
Dawn didn't pay attention to much that went on in the room, even when Imperious and Majestic came in saying that they wanted to help.
That is until Jane's cell phone rang.
After she hung up, she said "December's parents are here. They're pulling her out of Whateley. Scuttlebutt is, a lot of other parents are going to start doing the same thing."
Dawn let out a choked sob and ran from the room.
Lexi got up and went out after her.
Dawn ran hard, but finally found a bench and curled up on it. She started crying with sobs that wracked her whole body
Lexi dropped down next to her and gave her a hug
After awhile, Dawn had at least calmed down enough to talk through her tears.
"Cutie Angel ... She has her own mind. ... She forced the change while I was asleep and went to see December ..."
"Yesterday morning ... when I woke up ... clothing was all torn ... lipstick marks all over me ... really horny ..."
"But ... I ... I like Dess too. I... I haven't had a chance to tell her ..."
"If you are ever going to tell her, Dawn, now is the time."
Dawn kissed Lexi on the lips. Deeply And then ran off towards the clinic.
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 03:18]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41369 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:36 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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Dawn slowed down as she neared the intensive care ward of the medical center.
Dr. Tennant was talking to a man. Well, Dr. Tennant was doing all the talking.
The man slowly watched Dawn as she walked by. She noticed he had blazing orange eyes.
Dawn looked through the windows into the four rooms there. One of windows was cracked. Inside there was a petite blonde who might be December's older sister sitting near her bed. Dess was lightly dozing.
Dawn walked quietly into the room and looked down at Dess. She drank in the sight of Dess and said softly but with a worried tone, "How is Dess doing? Will she be okay?"
The young woman looked up and smiled. She looked a lot like Dess, with the same bright blue eyes. She nodded. "She was just napping, did you want to talk to her? She's very worried about her friends, which one are you?"
"Dawn Llewellyn. I met Dess just the other day. ... but ... well ... sigh It is complex. I liked her a lot, even just hearing and watching her talk to the rest of the Outcasts about the dynamics of building a good super team. It has sort of become more than that since then. And ... I ... um ... well, lets just say that my 'sister' Cutie Angel loves her ..."
She nodded. "She's been talking about Angel....I was hoping to meet her. She sounds like a special girl. I'll give you two a few minutes alone, I was getting hungry anyways."
She got up and walked towards the door.
The door opened and the man with the orange eyes looked in, but the woman gestured at him in sign language, and they both left together.
Dawn reached down and gently smoothed an errant lock of hair off of the side of Dess's face, trying not to wake her.
She said in an almost whisper that Dess could hear if she was awake "Oh December ... Dess ... you look so fragile laying there. sigh I don't know if I'm the one that should even be here. It's Cutie Angel that you love ... not me ... Heh I'm jealous of Cutie ... that has to be a new one."
A tear trickled down one cheek as she said "Whatever happens, I'll be there for you. You know Cutie will be ... Oh Dess ... How could I fall in love with you ... I can't stand the thought of you leaving Whateley. "
Dess stirred a bit. "Mom...?"
"No Dess, it's me Dawn. I ... I couldn't stay away."
Her eyes opened They were glowing softly, like there was a light behind them. She smiled at Dawn. "Dawn, I'm glad you're here." She sat up a little. She winced as she did so.
"You shouldn't try to move. You are hurt bad. I ... came here to tell you that ..." Dawn trailed off, not certain that she should continue.
"It's alright. I've been through worse, trust me." She sighed. "Dawn...I owe you an apology."
"There is nothing that you need to apologize to me for ... really ... I figured out about what Cutie had done when I woke up ... The lipstick marks, the tears that somehow transferred to my nighty after Cutie changed back ... the really, really, horny feeling I had at the same time that I felt a 'glow' ... but it is alright with me. I just wish that it had been me ... um ... I mean ..." Dawn blushed at that last
"Still, I feel like I took advantage of you...and that's the last thing I ever wanted."
"It was probably Cutie that took advantage of you. ... She seems to have a forceful personality ... " Dawn felt both relieved and disappointed that Dess had missed the meaning of what Dawn had said.
"Well um, I did get a few questions about the bite marks." December giggled. "But...I don't know, now everything is mixed up and crazy."
Dawn raised an eyebrow at the mention of bite marks. She wished that she could remember what had gone on, but all she remembered was a very good but vague dream with no real details.
She reached out her hand and softly held Dess's hand. She tried to lighten things a little by saying "High school ... mutant powers ... teenaged feelings ... and you expected it not to be mixed up and crazy?"
"Well, these things just don't happen to me. Just to other people...I...I'm usually in control, and now I'm not. And it scares me."
"If I even think about Tansy...oh hell..." There's a rush of a familiar power, and chill wind briefly flows through the room, frosting up the windows. "Damn it!"
"Shh, it is alright. She will get hers. Not that you didn't mess her up good already. But it isn't enough." Dawn's eyes took on a hard look. "If she pays for what she did to you for the rest of her life and twelve reincarnations after, it wouldn't be enough."
She gave a little sort-of smile that would have scared a shark. "But maybe I can fix it where she'll do just that ..."
"No...I don't hate her, just what she did. In a way, I feel sorry for her....she needs to be the center of attention, it's an obsession with her. Stupid empathy, huh?"
"And Dawn...I know how you feel. About me. But how would Angel feel?"
"I ... I ... " tears started trickling freely down Dawn's cheeks. "I don't know. I wouldn't mind, I'm polyamorous. And sharing your love would be better than not having it at all."
"But ... Cutie ... I don't know. She is a separate person, not just a put on now. Even I don't understand how that happened, but it did. And I feel towards her like a sister ... I could change and you could ask her?"
"The last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt her. Or you, for that matter. I wish I could sit you both down and talk to you at the same time."
"So do I. But the only place where she and I ever talked to each other was in a 'dream'. "
"If I was a telepath like Dad...ah but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I could wish away this whole mess. As it is, I'm scared. My powers are out of control, my parents want to make me leave Whateley...and all my friends. It doesn't seem fair, I've finally found someone who loves me and now...now..." Dess started to cry. There was a sense of power being drawn from somewhere...
And it started snowing lightly in the room.
Dawn felt like her heart was tearing in two.
She had to do something, but what?
Suddenly, some of the data that Spring had supplied for dealing with the extra dimensional and higher-order dimensions of the sketch of Diamondback that Lexi had done appeared before Dawn's mind's eye. Then a few of the symbols that Dawn had seen in Sara's room appeared there also. She somehow combined them, drew in some power from outside through her chakra points, and also somehow drew power mightily from the link to Spring.
"Dawn what are you doing?"
Dawn didn't answer Spring, but reached out and twisted something in a way that she couldn't explain.
She could feel something happening, but she could also tell it wouldn't last long. She didn't know if this would work more than this one time. But maybe once would be enough.
She felt a burning pain, and staggered back from the side of the bed. Reality flickered and wavered for a moment.
Then, there were two for a while.
Cutie Angel stood besides a sweating Dawn. Dawn gasped to catch her breath and said "This won't last long, but will it do?
Cutie Angel looked at Dawn in wonder and then turned towards Dess.
"...how did you...I...I felt that..." Dess shook her head.
"Thank you, I know that took a lot out of you. Angel...Dawn brought you here because you're very important to both of us. I love you very much, and I'd never want you hurt."
She took in a breath. "Dawn feels about me the same way you do. And I wanted you both together so we could discuss that."
Cutie Angel reached over and held Dess's hand. "I would like that. " She then reached over with her other hand and held Dawn's hand. "Thank you sister."
The instant the three come into contact, it's like a circuit being completed, and the girls start glowing with soft light.
"...what the...?"
Dawn's mind made the connection. "Dess ... somehow you're drawing power from the same entity that we do."
"....um...please explain? I feel like...there's something just behind me, that I can't see, and it's so big...I feel really tiny compared to it...."
Dawn reached out with her free hand and made a motion as if clearing moisture off a window.
A portal that showed a small part of Spring opened. "Dess, meet Spring. I am an Avatar and Spring imbues me so I can summon Cutie. Cutie's powers are multi-dimensional in nature. Spring is an intelligent 'ultra-plane'"
Spring's voice came through the portal "So you are the other one drawing from me. I was wondering who it was and if I should do something about it."
"...oh...wow...you...you're so..." December winces a little. "One second, I have to block her off, she's overloading my empathy."
Dawn hurriedly makes the wiping motion again and closes the portal. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"No, no, it's ok. It's just that she's so....everything!"
"Yeah, she has that effect. I actually spent some time 'inside' her, not in body, but if she hadn't been linked with me before she showed me her true self ... well ... "
"I can imagine. Plus I was getting some feedback...it's like she was feeling what all three of us were feeling."
"urg ... Feedback on that scale can't be good."
She leans over and gives Angel a kiss on the cheek. "I wish we had time for that too." She grins at Dawn. "Your little sister isn't as innocent as she looks."
Cutie Angel giggled.
Dawn said "Yeah, I gathered that. But then I don't know if anybody is as innocent as Cutie looks."
"Please, bring Spring back, we need to sort this out."
Dawn reached out again with her free hand and made the wiping motion. The portal opened again.
Spring said "I am sorry if I caused you discomfort. You mean so much to both Dawn and Cutie Angel that is the last thing I would want to do."
"It's alright, Spring. I just needed to shield myself. You're nothing like I've ever encountered before. Now, how is it that I'm drawing power from you? I didn't intend to, please believe me."
Spring's voice had a gentle tone. "I do believe you. It is probably because you and Cutie Angel had intercourse."
Cutie and Dawn both blushed at Spring's statement. Dawn then thought about it and said "But for that to happen, you'd have to either be an Avatar or a warper ... "
"I'm not either, well, not that I know of. But what's been happening around me isn't normal either. Before, all I could do is thermal subtraction...conjuring wind and manipulating water particles? That's just weird."
"....is it chilly in here for you girls?"
Both Cutie Angel and Dawn shook their heads. "I don't really notice temperature any more." said Dawn.
"And I've never noticed it since ... well ... um ... becoming?" replied Cutie Angel.
"I normally don't notice anything except warm temperatures...but...I'm feeling it now. Strange. Ok, so um, being intimate with Angel did this? Then should we put a stop to it? I mean, in a roundabout way, Spring, you saved my life, but I don't want to be a leech, and really..."
"I don't mind." said Spring. "It isn't like I miss the amount that you are using. The only reason I noticed an extra draw is that I am aware of every part of me. Just please be careful."
"...yeah, but also, I don't know how to control it. Earlier I had a nightmare and I froze up the whole room."
"Control can be learned. If you want me to, I can sever or just restrict the draw from my side. If I restricted it, you'd only be able to draw a certain amount" said Spring.
"I think restricting it would be best for now, if you don't mind. Maybe Dawn can teach me how to control this. I don't know, I won't deny I really needed your help earlier, but it kind of scares me too. I could have killed them...."
"In fact, if June hadn't been there, I would have. I wanted to...and that's not me, that's not who I am."
Dawn said "Anybody could react like you did if pushed too far. I don't even like to feel anger, much less hate. But once ... " She couldn't finish, but turned her head away as is ashamed to face the others.
"This calls for a group hug. Sorry Spring, I'm not quite sure how I'd hug you, so please accept the thought." She holds her arms out to the other two girls.
Dawn and Cutie both moved into the hug, and there was the feeling of all three of them being held by immaterial but caring arms.
"I have restricted the flow as you asked. You will still have to learn how to control your new power level. Dawn could be a good teacher there."
"Thank you...all of you. I...feel so lucky. And happy." She kisses Angel, then looks to Dawn, hesitantly.
Dawn leaned in and gave Dess a kiss. She held the kiss for quite some time, and ended it reluctantly, pulling very lightly on Dess's bottom lip with her teeth as she pulled back.
December's eyes glistened. "...wow.....I feel warm...wait. I feel warm?" She puts a hand to her forehead. "I'm not burning up either!"
Cutie Angel smiled at Dawn and said "It's about time that you did that sis!"
Dawn looked worried. "You feel warm? Are you okay? Should we call a doctor?"
"No I feel....good." She smiled.
Dawn staggered back suddenly. "That's good ... but I ..."
Cutie Angel dropped Dess's hand and held Dawn. "She's kept me here too long. I guess it's back to time-share. I'll see you later Dess. If you want, I'll heal you the next time I see you. I love you."
December hugs Angel tightly. "I love you too, honey. Sleep well."
Reality flickered and wavered again and something untwisted.
Then there was one where there had stood two.
Dawn looked at Dess and said "Sorry... but ..." her eyes rolled back and she crumpled to the floor, out cold. As she did so, the portal to Spring faded and closed.
"Holy shit!" December got out of bed, careful of her IV and picked up Dawn, putting her in the bed with her.
"It's ok Dawn, I got you. And I'm not going to let you go." She put her arms around the other girl, oblivious to the world around her.
The door opened. There was some commotion outside, but the door was quickly closed again.
December felt the light touch of her father's mind as he contacted her. 'Dear, what are you doing with another girl in your bed?'
Without speaking, she replied. 'Isn't it obvious, Father? I'm in love.'
'Oh is that all.' He got a punch in the arm for that comment from the tiny blonde next to him.
"Francis! This is a special moment in our daughter's life. Try not to ruin it?"
He rubbed his arm. 'That hurt, you know.'
December choked back a laugh and spoke quietly. "This from the man who wandered into Gizmatic's 'Maze of Death' and called it a 'walk in the park'?"
'Well it was a park, and I did walk in it...much safer than Central Park at night, let me tell you.'
Joanna walked over and touched her daughter gently. "Honey...I know you don't want to leave. You have friends here, and you've met someone special. But we're worried about you...I...we...could have lost you."
December sighed. "I know Mom. And you're right to be worried. But we knew this day would come. I have to learn to fight my own battles. I mean, isn't that the point of being here? And tell me that you both didn't have problems when you were here?"
Joanna sighed. "Oh did we ever. But that was for different reasons. Some people knew that I used to be a boy...and they didn't understand. Your father got it worse than I did, once we started dating."
'Only because the instant I used my telepathy on someone, they'd scream "Mind Rape!" at the top of their lungs.'
"That's not what I said." The two adults shared a look.
"Augh! Ok you two, get a room of your own."
'Seriously December, we're worried. And so is your Godfather.'
December froze...well not literally. "Uncle Parry knows? Oh no...what did he do?"
"He sort of gave Elizabeth an ultimatum." Joanna blushed a bit.
December swore in Russian. She always felt it was a good language
to curse in.
'I can understand you, you know. You get that dirty mouth from your mother.'
"Oh I don't recall you complaining about my dirty mouth that night in Arena '66..."
"MOM!!!"
"Ow, my ears." complained Dawn as she opened her eyes. "I don't remember asking for a wake-up call."
"...sorry. Um...honey, I want you to meet my parents."
"Um, hi, I'm Dawn. Sorry about this. I sort of over-extended myself so Dess, Cutie Angel, and I could talk.
"Dawn, this is my father, Francis, and my mother Joanna. Yeah, I know she looks more like my sister, good genes."
Francis nodded, while Joanna smiled warmly. "It's good too meet you, dear."
"It is good to meet you too. um Maybe I should get out of the bed?" Dawn said with a slight blush.
"You look comfortable there, it's fine. But honey...I thought you said the girl you liked was Angel?"
"Umm ... maybe I should be the one that tries to explain."
"Please do hon, you're the brains of this outfit."
"Oh my, we are in trouble then." said Dawn with a giggle. "Um, see, Cutie Angel is ... well ... I sort of summon or turn into her. She has her own mind, so I'm not certain which way to say it. She is my sister ... sort of."
"So let me see if I have this right...dear, you're in love with two people who share the same body?"
December shrugged helplessly. "It sort of happened?"
Francis tried to hide a smile.
"Well your father is amused at least. Actually, now that I think about it, it reminds me of how we met."
Francis signed at her.
"Good point, long story."
"Dawn, I better get this out of the way. Not only are my parents mutants, but ... um ... they're actually ... well, Dad is called Willbreaker, and Mom is known as Levine. They're um ... super villains."
Joanna leaned against her husband, who put an arm around her.
"I don't care, they are obviously wonderful parents to have raised you. But ... well, that will make it interesting if and when they meet my legal guardians, the Amazing Three ..."
Francis got a sour look on his face, while Joanna giggled.
"Oh my, that will be quite the family reunion. Francis is still a bit touchy about Dr. Messing and his 'psionic reflector'. As you can imagine, it's no fun being hit by your own mind-blast."
"Ouch ... Migraine headache to end all migraines wouldn't even be close, would it?"
"We had to keep him away from December for two days, she would cry anytime he was near."
"I'm kind of odd like that, I started getting my powers early."
December brushed a wayward lock of hair out of her face.
"Say, um, Mom, Dad, if you want...I think you can turn up the heat in here. I've been next to Dawn for awhile now and it's not even bothering me. And she's...very warm." December smiled.
Dawn automatically put an arm around December and hugged her. "Dess ... can you feel my emotions? I know that telepaths can't read even my surface thoughts. Louis told me so."
"Mhm, I do. But only the really strong feelings."
"The really strong ones?" Dawn said with a blush.
She thought about that for a moment. "I guess that's why you have such a way with people, you project your feelings, and others pick up on that."
She glared at her mother. "No Mom, I'm not going to tell you what Dawn is feeling."
Dawn blushed harder
.
"Oh our baby is all grown up." Joanna gushed.
Francis signed.
"I understand, Dad, I really do. You all want me safe. I can't make promises, but you know much worse can happen in the real world too."
"Wait, if I project my feelings, does that mean I am an empath after all? But ..."
Dropping that line of thought for later, Dawn said "If you do take Dess out of Whateley, I am coming with her, wherever you take her."
The two adults looked at each other, then back at the girls.
"Hm, well you'd be welcome of course, dear, but that might be a problem with your guardians. Look, we talked about this, and Elizabeth....that is, Mrs. Carson, is having a meeting with the concerned parents after classes today. Honey, they say they can release you any time, there's no internal bleeding, thank God. So how about we do this, we'll get you back to your room, then we'll go to the meeting, and we can talk afterwards, say over dinner?"
Dess nodded. "I think that's best."
Then Joanna grinned at Dawn. "But remember, she's still a bit banged up, so be gentle with her when we leave you both alone, alright?"
Dawn blushed so hard that it seemed that it should be able to be seen from space, then said in a meek voice "Yes mother... I mean ... um ..."
She moved so fast that if Dawn blinked, she'd have missed it, with only the slight wind from displaced air for evidence. Joanna hugged the girl tightly and kissed her forehead.
"Welcome to the family, dear."
"Oh yeah, Mom's a speedster. Guess I should have mentioned that."
Francis just rolled his eyes, with a look that said 'Oh great, another mouth to feed.'
"I guess that I need to tell my guardians ... I am so not looking forward to that conversation, even if it is going to be over the phone."
"We may need to hire a negotiator. Or an army." December grinned.
"Or two or three armies." agreed Dawn.
"I'm sure your Uncle Parry would loan you at least one, dear. He's eager to see you again, you were so young the last time."
"Mm...yes, not sure if you caught that, Dawn, but my Godfather is Lord Paramount."
"Oookay. Any other 'family members' I should know about before I call my guardians?"
"Well, Mom and Dad get along with a lot of other 'empowered professionals' as they like to call themselves. I hesitate to call Mr. Wilkins an 'Uncle', even though we've visited him once or twice."
Dr. Tennant came in then. "Sorry about the ruckus, we can get you out of here soon, honey. Although...assuming you're staying, we'll be pulling you out of classes tomorrow for some serious powers testing. Dr. Polland was already here sniffing around."
"Dr. Polland? Oh he's good. Maybe we should let them, honey." Joanna looked to her husband.
Since she sensed an opportunity, Ophelia added, "Oh and Dr. Otto is here as well, they're testing some other very unusual cases this week; he was called out for one in particular, but he's so interested in the others, he hasn't left yet."
Francis nodded in approval.
December had a thoughtful look on her face. "He's not here for Distance, is he?"
Dr. Tennant shook her head. "No, but that is one he's interested in. I don't think you'd have met Bowie yet, she's been keeping a low profile since she got here."
"Sara said Bowie is her roommate. I wonder why they want to test her?" mused Dawn out loud
"Some of that's confidential, all I can say is Bowie possesses some very rare mutations."
"Rare for here? I'm not certain that I want to know then."
Dr. Tennant walked up. "Here, let me get his IV flushed and out of you." She busied herself at the task.
"Say, Dad....there is something else. Troy is here."
Joanna sucked in a breath and her father looked uncomfortable.
Father and daughter looked at each other, and Dawn could get a sense that they were somehow communicating.
December looked very upset, almost angry, then she sighed, looking down. "So that's it, then."
Francis reached for his daughter, but she flinched away. "Not...not now. I forgive you...but...I need a little time."
"What's wrong love?"
Francis looked like he'd been struck, and he quietly left with the doctor. Joanna looked worried and followed them out.
"...well...it's a long story..." She related the story about Troy and the assault.
"Anyways....my Dad was pissed. I think he was going to do something bad, but he and Mr. Kennedy are old friends, they were roommates here at Whateley. It turns out that Troy has Diedrick's, and my rejection set him off. Which is no excuse....and he knew it. He was wracked with guilt when Dad saw him, and they were afraid he'd hurt himself."
"So...Dad erased his memory. And the Kennedy's promised to keep Troy away from me."
"...apparently they broke that promise, which isn't Dad's fault."
"So...I don't know what to do, he doesn't realize how much he hurt me, the stupid jackass."
She sighed. "And...as much as he did hurt me...if they gave him his memories back...I couldn't do that to anyone, let them realize that they did something monstrous."
She looked towards the other room across the hall. "Not even Tansy."
Dawn's eyes hardened during the story. Dawn started calculating n-dimensional topological problems in here head to calm down. Slowly her eyes returned to their normal kind look. She gave Dess a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "And they say that I'm too nice"
"Yeah, I think something's wrong with my villain gene. Then again, if this had happened to Amy, or Jane...or God help them all, you...I'd put that girl at the top of my 'Special Projects' list."
"Isn't that messed up? Hurt me, and I can forgive. Hurt my friends, and I'll destroy you."
"Sounds a lot like me, actually. I am not a violent person. But what I want to do to Tansy, and now Troy ... well, it scares me." said Dawn.
Dess sighed. "But this morning, baby, I...I don't know how to explain it. Spring's power was flowing through me, I felt invincible, like a God. I was full of this righteous anger...I wanted them to suffer! And that's not me! I'm not like that...."
She finished softly. "...am I?"
Dawn gave Dess another kiss on the mouth. After finally ending it, she said "No, you're not. Even if I wasn't in love with you I'd think that you are the nicest person that I have met here. And that includes all those that I have made friends with."
"You're so awesome, Dawn, I mean that. Are you sure you want to settle for me? I have this plan to take over the world, you know."
"Being with you isn't 'settling'. And if you take over the world, all I ask is for you to still let me love you."
"Well, of course, that's the whole point."
About then Dr. Tennant came in with a wheelchair and some spare clothing. "Here hon, you get dressed, and Miss Llewellyn can wheel you up front when you're ready."
Dawn reluctantly got out of the bed. "Dr. Tennant, um, Cutie Angel could heal Dess ... that is if you think it would be a good idea."
"By all means, we were trying to get Prism or one of the other student healers in here after class anyways. Most of the injuries are minor. Tansy though...you put a serious scare into her, we're having to keep her sedated." She frowned.
"Oh God, what have I done?" Dess got a stricken look on her face.
Dawn hurried to hug Dess and gave Dr. Tennant a frown that more than matched hers.
"You did what you had to in order to survive. Look, Miss LeMaire, I'll be honest. We all know what happened. People are going to say things about what happened, and about you, that aren't true, and you'll have to deal with that, I'm sorry to say. In times like this, it's almost impossible to ever provide enough 'evidence' one way or another. But I'm a Doctor...among other things. I can tell from the injuries, you were assaulted. They could have seriously harmed you. If it wasn't for my Hippocratic Oath as a Doctor, I'd probably have refused to treat those students."
"Thank you, Doctor. But please, don't hold back on any treatment. I...I just want to put this all behind me."
"Well that may be hard in Mr. Harvey's case. He was healing nicely, but the minute he woke up...he managed to escape the infirmary, Security is trying to track him down now. So when we release you, you'll be given a signal device, in case you see him."
December blinked. "Aries? Why would he run like that?"
Dr. Tennant's voice got low. "There are some powerful people lining up over this issue. Mr. Harvey's family...isn't."
"So you think he's trying to protect them, by running? That's never the answer."
Ophelia just nodded. "Ok, see you up front then." She walked out.
Dawn lowered her arm from the hug that she had been giving Dess and said softly "If you ask her to, Cutie would probably heal the others also. She wouldn't like it, but for you ... "
"I'd like that. But only if it wouldn't exhaust her. Help me get dressed? I'm still a bit stiff."
Dawn helped Dess into the bathroom so that she would be hidden from the windows, and then started to help her get dressed. She couldn't resist a few gentle caresses across Dess's bare flesh as she slipped the clothing onto Dess.
"Mmm...that feels good."
Dawn could see however, some nasty bruises on December's body, marring her fair skin.
Dawn stepped back, and the transformation sequence to Cutie Angel happened quietly and quicker than when in public.
Cutie Angel then whispered ""Cute Bandage of Love", but instead of making the motion of blowing a kiss, she kissed December deeply. Pink sparkles swept across Dess's body, leaving unbruised skin behind.
Cutie Angel broke off the kiss, and said "How do you feel now dear-heart?
"....wow." She was blushing deeply.
"I feel really good...um...but really worked up too."
"Hmm, what could we do about that?" Cutie Angel asked with a mischievous grin.
"Maybe save it as a present for Dawn? Or can't you wait till you get back to your room?"
"I...um...I better try to wait. If I don't explode first! You don't know what you do to me."
Cutie Angel giggled. "And what you do to me."
December smiled bashfully.
"Some of the places that you left lipstick ..." Cutie Angel trailed off with a smile.
"Ah...well...just because that was my first time doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. I have...a lot."
She then smiled. "I guess that means I have to delete my soft-core collection off my hard drive."
"Hmm, maybe we should check it together first, and see if we get any new ideas ..."
December rubbed up against her lover, making a soft purring noise.
Cutie Angel stroked December's hair. "If you want me to heal the others like Dawn said, I will. Then we'd better get you back to your room before the doctor comes back in to see what is taking so long. And I think that I had better be the one to escort you back, just in case anybody gets any ideas about attacking you again. Dawn can come back once you are safe in your cottage."
"Ok baby." She looked down for a moment. "Are you sure you're alright with this?"
"I'll do it, but I don't have to like the ones that I am healing. I'm doing it for you, not for them."
"No, not that...I mean...us...Dawn.."
"Oh ..."
"Honey, if you're doing this for me, please, be honest. I want to know how you really feel. Nothing can come between us, nothing! I...I won't accept that."
"Dawn is like my older sister in some ways. But in others ... she isn't. I love you more than my very existence. And ... I sort of love Dawn too. This is the only way I see for us all to be happy. Am I messed up or what?"
"No more than I am. But promise me. If you start feeling that we're growing apart, or you feel jealous about Dawn getting more attention...tell me. I'll make it right."
"I promise."
December pulled Cutie Angel into a hug and kissed her lovingly. "Okay...we better go now, or Dawn is going to end up with torn clothes again."
Cutie Angel giggled. "And with lipstick marks in some strange places?"
"No, actually, I think I might try nibbling on you for a change."
"I think I'd like that. Then I get to leave the lipstick marks?"
"I really wasn't thinking about Dawn when I did that though. I guess kissing you between your legs was a bit much." She grinned as they walked out of the bathroom. "I just wanted to leave you with a memento."
Cutie Angel led Dess to the wheelchair. "Even though you're healed, you'd better sit in it or the doctors and nurses will get all upset. Give me a few minutes to heal the others. Then I'll be back for you."
"Ok beautiful."
Cutie Angel walked out of the room and down the hall, she stopped just long enough at the doors to each of the others rooms to use a Cute Bandage of Love on them from the hallway
Then she walked back to the room Dess was in and said "All done. Let's get you out of here sweetheart."
"Thank you. I'll have to think of a special reward for you."
"Hmm, I can't wait." said Cutie Angel as she pushed the wheelchair to the exit of the clinic.
Once outside, she scooped Dess up out of the wheel chair and said "Why walk or ride, when you can fly?"
The rainbow butterfly wings appeared from Cutie Angel's back and she started flying them back towards Whitman cottage.
"I love this. Flying is amazing, how can you stand being forced to walk?"
"It is hard. If I had my choice, I'd fly everywhere. It is so much more fun!"
"Yes it is! I wish I could fly."
"I remember something from a movie ..." Cutie Angel carefully maneuvered Dess until they were just touching at the fingertips, but Dess was otherwise unsupported. She grinned over at Dess as she took a long-cut back to the cottage. "How's this?"
"It's amazing...just like Superman."
Cutie Angel giggled "That is where I got the idea. After they told her that some of the things that she did when me resemble things a 'pk superman' does, Dawn read up on everything that they could do. She thought that she should know all that so nobody would know the difference. And I know what she knows.."
"Is that really what you do? So you have a force field and everything?"
"Sort of, with me it is a bit more complex. I am sort of an other-dimensional being that has a human mind. So no classifications really are going to fit. Dawn is still human if a mutant ... well, okay, mostly human."
"Well remind me to be careful about biting you then!" December giggled.
"I can turn off the force field. As you should know from the other night. The scratches on my back didn't just appear there ... "
"Ooh..I did that? Sorry baby...it's just...mmm..the things you do to me."
"And I'll have you know that I am 100% non-toxic and biodegradable"
"You're also very sweet. In more ways than one."
"Maybe we had better get to the cottage... It feels like it's getting kind of warm up here ..."
"And here I was wondering how we'd pull off having sex while flying." Dess shot her lover a wicked grin.
"Don't tempt me ... please. Besides, do you want to give a show to who ever might happen to look up?"
"Let them look. I've got an angel, what do they got?"
Cutie Angel zoomed them straight up, until the campus was a dot. She then slowed down, and stopped in mid air, hovering.
"See, this is one advantage of being an other-dimensional being. Let's see most pk supermen do this." She then pulled December in for a deep kiss that went on and on.
When she broke the lip lock, she said "We'd better cut this short ... As much as I'd like us to join the 'mile high club', it is sort of 'Dawn's turn'."
December leaned in close. "I love you so much... sigh but you are right"
Cutie Angel flew them down to Whitman Cottage and landed. She backed off from Dess some, reversed the transformation, and then Dawn was standing there.
"Shall we go in? Oh, and your room or mine?"
"Mine, I don't have to worry about a roommate."
They walked in and to the stairs leading down to the basement where Dess's room was.
"It is awfully quite. I wonder where every body is?"
"I don't care. Here's my room." said Dess as she unlocked the door.
Once inside. Dawn smiled at her. "I want to do something for you." She started moving as she hummed a tune to herself. After a moment, she started unbuttoning her blouse, and removing it, then proceeding to her other clothing. As she removed each piece, she threw it towards Dess. She moved in a way that matched the tune she was humming.
Dess suddenly recognized the tune as one called "The Stripper." As she watched Dawn disrobe herself, Dess was very glad that warm temperatures didn't hurt her anymore. Because it sure was feeling hot in that room.
After finishing removing all her own clothing, Dawn stopped humming the song and moved in for a kiss. She then gently undid and removed Dess's clothing.
When all their clothing was in a heap, Dawn moved to the bed and lay back on it.
"Would ... you be the ... aggressor with me? Please?"
"You don't have to ask twice love." said Dess as she moved towards the bed.
-
They were laying on the bed together, just cuddling, when a knock sounded.
"December, your father and I are here to talk to you."
"Eeep ... " said Dawn as she started to get dressed in a hurry.
Dess started to get dressed more leisurely "In a moment mother."
After they had dressed, Dess let her parents in, but then moved back to the bed.
"Come here love." she said patting the bed next to her.
Dawn lounged there and took Dess's arm with a dreamy smile.
"Oh, honey. You two look so sweet together."
Dess shot her father a look "None of your business. And don't forget that you're the one that taught me to shield parts of my mind. Even from you."
Dawn blushed, but didn't loose either her hold on Dess or her smile.
As Dess's parents filled the two in about what had been going on in the meeting with the faculty, the 'student's revolution', and the outcome, Dess picked up the phone and ordered a dozen pizzas. A girl teleported in, holding a stack of pizza boxes, and placed them where Dess pointed, took the payment and (large) tip and happily teleported out.
Then Jane, the rest of the Heartbreakers, and some others came into the room.
December smiled at her assorted friends. "Hey guys, great job saving the school. Pizza?"
She gestured to the dozen pizzas she'd ordered for the victory celebration.
Jane blinked. "Ok, I get that your parents saw the whole thing, but how the heck did you know to order pizza?"
She smiled. "Hello? Mastermind here! No seriously, all of you, thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me. I demand hugs from all of you right...well not you, Imperious. It looks like June is pretty happy with you at the moment, let's not ruin it, shall we?"
Everyone laughed.
Then she did relent and gave Imperious a big hug. "I heard you were amazing."
"It was the least I could do. June explained to me what you did, for her sake. So I found I needed to do more than just apologize."
"And of course, saving Whateley furthers your own agenda."
Imperious grinned. "But of course."
"Well you know what this means, don't you?"
The tall boy got an odd look on his face. Obviously he didn't.
"From now on, we're arch-rivals. Pizza?" She offered him a slice with a dangerous smile on his face.
Imperious wisely declined.
Dawn snuggled up to Dess's side. She gave Majestic a look, put one arm around Dess, and mouthed the word "Mine".
Then the celebration really got under way.
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 03:04]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41370 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:37 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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The sun rose slowly over the Whateley campus. A mechanical rooster crowed, only to be shot at by several ingenious Deviser weapons including at least one energy blast. Most of the students woke groggily at this point and prepared to begin their days.
The rest slept a few minutes longer, when a certain student's sound system began playing the latest Brass Monkey single, turned up to eleven.
That pretty much destroyed any notions of sleeping in.
In other words, things were back to normal at Whateley.
-
Dawn rose early, her depression of the previous two days completely banished, leaving her even more bright and cheery than normal. She kept humming softly to herself, and even sang during her shower.
During her flight class, a few of her fellow students grumbled about annoying morning people. One of the Devisers whipped out a portable computer and rated Dawn's smile at 12,000 candlepower.
As for Dawn herself, she ignored the grumpiness around her, enjoying this wonderful feeling in her heart.
-
At breakfast, she made her way to December, and gave the serene young woman a kiss. "Good morning, beautiful. How are you today?"
"Much better. Especially now. See you after class?" December's smile seemed to match Dawn's own.
"Of course!"
As Dawn walked off, she could hear Jane talking to December. "Ok, who are you, and what did you do to our evil mastermind?"
Whatever the answer was, she was soon too far out of earshot to hear it.
-
The Outcasts, traditionally slow movers in the morning, hadn't even made it to the table when Dawn finished eating. So, she taped a note to the table.
Sorry I missed you guys, have a great day! -Dawn
Without thinking about it (or even realizing that she'd done it), Dawn reached into thin air and produced a smiley face sticker, which she put on the note.
-
She was the first student at Avatar class, and greeted each student as they came with a smile and a 'good morning'. Nobody could keep a frown on their face for long, when presented with the cheerful young woman.
After class, three of the new students came up to her. The obvious ringleader was a tall, willowy girl with fair skin and blonde hair. Her ice blue eyes completed the 'Nordic Princess' look.
Her companions were a much smaller girl, and a wiry boy who was also below average height.
The blonde girl smiled. "Hi, Dawn, right? I'm Bobbie, these are my friends Bree and James. We'd like to talk to you if you have the time. Well, actually, it's not just us..."
Dawn nodded. "Each of you has a spirit bound to you, I saw that before. Tell you what, I'll talk to the three....um...six...of you at lunch, if that's alright?"
"Avatar stuff is kind of confusing, huh? Sounds good to me, thanks a lot."
-
Dawn found Lexi hard at work, humming to herself. She had a large piece of blank sheet music and was carefully placing notes on it, while consulting a large tome that Dawn had never seen before.
Dawn gave her friend a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Good morning, Lexi! Isn't today wonderful?"
Lexi blushed. "Heh..judging from this morning, it looks like you and Dess are an item now."
"Are we ever!" Dawn smiled happily.
"Huh. I wonder if I look like that when I think about Alison? So how did you work out the problem with you and Cutie Angel?"
"We're going to share December."
"Wow. Well I'm glad you're happy. Now, I need your opinion on something. When using music as a medium for your magic, what do you think is more important, the notes, or the lyrics?"
Dawn and Lexi quickly got into a very interesting conversation on the topic.
-
Dawn's bright and cheery attitude actually managed to throw off her opponent, who found themselves tossed into the capture cage for their lapse. She then helped her opponent up. "I'm sorry, I hope you weren't hurt!"
"Uh...no...I"m fine.."
"Dawn! Would you apologize to an actual enemy?"
"Hai, Sensei, if I thought I had hurt them."
The senior instructor rubbed his forehead. "...this is going to be a long day." He then walked off, muttering in Japanese.
-
Dawn made her way to the Outcast table. "Hi everyone!" She gave everyone a hug, which was generally pretty disturbing. Eldritch was too stunned to even recoil, but to her amazement, contact with Dawn had no noticeable effect!
Jericho grinned. "Well, somebody's in a good mood! Ah Spring, love is in the air."
"Oh swell. Now instead of Emo Dawn, we get to put up with Super Happy Dawn." Deimos grouched.
Phobos elbowed her sister. "Be nice, I like her this way!"
"Bah. I thought her alter ego was bad."
Dawn just smiled at Deimos. "Is it really that bad, hon?"
"Yes!"
Dawn laughed. "Oh very well...anyways, some of the Avatars wanted to talk to me, so I was going to eat with them anyways. As long as nobody minds?"
"Go ahead hon, I don't think these guys could take any more of your cheerfulness anyways." Diamondback grinned.
"Man, Razor, how are we ever going to get along without Dawn? It's almost like there wasn't a time before she started sitting with us!" Jericho teased.
"Oh! You guys....are the best! See you later!"
Dawn walked away happily.
-
"Ok, you guys can call me a grouch, but is anyone here really disturbed that she isn't sitting with us?"
When nobody replied, Deimos got a satisfied grin on her face.
-
Bobbie waved her over, and Dawn went over to sit with the three Avatars. "Hello again, so what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"Well first of all, we should probably fully introduce ourselves. I'm Freya, this is Verdandi, and that is Dvalinn."
Dawn processed their other identities quickly. A Valkyrie Queen, a Norn, and a Dwarven Smith. An interesting group, to say the least. James/Dvalinn seemed only marginally interested in the conversation, he was poring over diagrams and a chart displaying runes and astrological signs. She wished she could get a closer look at it, it seemed very interesting!
Brianna/Verdandi spoke up. "First of all, we were curious how you perceived our spirit-selves. That's not a normal Avatar ability."
Dawn shrugged helplessly. "I do apologize, I guess it was rude of me, I had no idea I could do it at first. I'm apparently not a normal Avatar....but I've figured out how to avoid 'peeking'. I really felt like such a voyeur!"
Bobbie smiled. "I'm sure it's not that bad. So what exactly is your Avatar rating?"
"Well...supposedly I'm at least a five."
James looked up. "Avatars only go up to five, and that rating is pretty rare."
"I don't understand it either, Professor O'Mahoney was the one who told me."
Bree spoke up again. "The other thing we were wondering about was the entity you're in contact with. It doesn't seem like a normal spirit-Avatar connection."
"She's not exactly a normal spirit either. I call her Spring, she claims she didn't have a name when I first encountered her."
"A spirit with no name?" Brianna frowned.
"She said I was the first sentient being she'd ever met."
"Interesting. Say, you seem fairly intelligent, maybe you could help us understand some of what the Professor had to say?"
"Sure thing!"
-
They talked for the rest of the lunch period. Finally, they all rose to go.
"Well I'll see you around, I hope we can be friends."
Bobbie nodded to Dawn. "Same here. Take care now!"
"Bye!"
-
Once Dawn left, Bobbie looked to her two friends. "I'm hoping she can remain a friend. Is she as dangerous as you say, Bree?"
The smaller girl nodded. "Verdandi is certain of it. Just as she's certain we cannot let her know the truth."
"....she has no idea what she's linked to. Are you sure?"
"It's the only way. We cannot tell her. "
-
As Dawn settled down at her computer, she found a note on ARC stationary. Apparently access to the ARC servers was temporarily suspended do to a security issue. "How odd." Dawn frowned.
There was a knock on the door. "Oh, um, come in!"
Sara Waite entered. She was dressed conservatively, which gave her a more innocent appearance, but one look into the sultry half-demon's eyes confirmed that she was anything but. She was trailed by a girl with short, bright red hair. One of her eyes was as green as Dawn's, the other, the pale yellow of a wolf's eye. Something about the girl struck Dawn as familiar.
Behind them was an older man wearing a very nice suit.
-
Sara didn't like having to do this. She liked Dawn, but she had questions that demanded answers. She was glad to have Bowie with her, although she wasn't sure if even a God-Slaying Wolf could stand up to the power Dawn represented.
Bowie sniffed the air. 'She smells right.'
"Hello Dawn, I hope we're not bothering you?" Sara smiled. 'Right in what way, Bowie?'
'I....she smells like mother.' Bowie's mindspeech had a quality of awe about it. The girl had remembered something about her past!
"Not at all, who are your friends, Sara?" Dawn 'heard' a strange sound in the background, like faint whispering. She wasn't sure what to make of it.
"This is Bowie, I think I mentioned her in passing." Sara gestured to her roommate. 'Bowie? You remember something about your mother?'
'....only a feeling. What she smelled like, the feel of her holding me. This girl is related to my mother somehow.'
"Oh yes, you're roommate. Hello Bowie, I'm glad to meet you!"
"Bowie can't talk, unfortunately. I hope you aren't offended, but she has to use telepathy to communicate." Sara explained. 'I'll try to find out more about her background, Bowie. I know how important this is for you.'
"Oh well, she could talk to me if she wanted?"
Sara shook her head. "Bowie is a rare type of telepath, she can only use her powers on other telepaths, or very strong espers."
"Oh I see. And this gentleman?"
The older man smiled and offered his hand. "Dr. Otto, I work for ARC, Sara asked me to join her because of some interesting information she uncovered recently."
"Oh? What kind of information?"
Bowie handed Sara a heavy-looking book that had a Hello Kitty bookmark between it's pages. Opening it, she offered it to Dawn, indicating a passage.
Dawn read it and...
-
Dawn read it and gave Sara a puzzled look. "I don't understand?"
"You don't make the connection?" Sara realized something was very wrong here.
Dawn looked at the page and....
-
Dawn looked at the page and shook her head. "Not really."
"It is possible that you're blocking out what you're seeing?"
Dawn frowned. "I don't understand."
Dr. Otto spoke up. "We believe that this passage may indicate the entity Sara tells me you are connected to."
"Spring? The new key and gate?"
"No Dawn. The key and the gate would be you. Spring would be the fourth Outer God."
Dawn thought about that for a moment...
-
Dawn thought about that for a moment then scoffed. "I'm sorry, Sara, but that's ridiculous. Any of the three Outer Gods would cause insanity or worse merely by glimpsing them! I was with her for a month, I'm obviously not insane!" A note of anger crept into Dawn's voice.
Bowie slowly drew out her chain from the backpack Sara had given her. Dawn gave no indication that she even noticed it's presence. Quietly she stepped forward and wrapped the chain around Dawn, who didn't even react.
Sara and Dr. Otto exchanged a worried glance. Dawn seemed to have simply stopped moving, and her eyes seemed glassy.
"Bowie, what did you do?"
'Her mind has been bound. She won't be able to tell you the truth. I thought if I bound her with Leyding, it would free her mind.'
"She didn't even seem to notice the chain. Why is that?"
Bowie shook her head. 'Someone told her not to. I can't get into her mind, it's not open enough for me.'
Sara nodded. "And her connection to Spring blocks my efforts as well. Doctor?"
"There's nothing we can do for now, save take a different approach. I'm curious, how is the chain binding her, exactly?"
"Leyding was made to bind the powers of a God-like being. Dawn by herself isn't strong enough to overcome it...yet."
Bowie hugged Dawn gently and gave her a kiss on the cheek before removing the chain.
-
"I'm sorry, Sara, but that's ridiculous. Any of the three Outer Gods would cause insanity or worse merely by glimpsing them! I was with her for a month, I'm obviously not insane!" A note of anger crept into Dawn's voice.
"Think Dawn, you've encountered things beyond explanation before." Even knowing the truth, Sara had to try.
"Indeed, and each of those encounters was more intense than the one before it. Isn't it possible that you slowly built up a resistance to the Old Ones?"
"No...I've shown part of Spring to others, and they weren't driven mad. She's not evil! Can't you see that?!"
"Calm down, Dawn, no one is saying that Spring is evil." Sara tried to soothe the girl.
"However, you only showed a part of Spring to others, maybe it's not enough to affect others?"
"I'm sorry, Doctor, you're wrong."
"Dawn, something odd is going on. Something big is coming. I just don't want you to be hurt. Could you sever your tie to Spring?" Sara pleaded with her friend, even though she realized it was futile.
"What?! You can't be serious!"
"I'm afraid I am, Dawn."
"I can't believe this. Have you seen anything that would lead you to believe that I or Spring is a threat?"
"No, however..."
"No. If you want to keep an eye on me, fine. But I'm not cutting my tie with Spring. Even if she was this 'fourth Outer God', she could just choose someone else anyways, right?"
Dr. Otto nodded. "You're correct. And if you are chosen, it's not like we could do anything about it."
Sara smiled. "I'm sorry if we upset you, Are we still friends?"
Dawn hugged Sara. "Of course, you're just worried about me. I can see that, but honestly, it's ok!"
Sara nodded.
Dawn looked to Bowie and....
-
Dawn looked to Bowie and....
-
Dawn looked right past Bowie. "It was good meeting you, Doctor."
He nodded.
-
When they left, Dawn felt very confused. Her earlier good mood was gone. What was going on?
-
"What happened in there?" Dr. Otto frowned.
"I got the strangest sense of deja vu more than once. Bowie?"
'....there was another presence in that room. My girl-mind is confused, but my wolf-self says that the flow of time was altered.'
Sara relayed the information to her friend.
"That's it then. Dawn Llewellyn is now on ARC's Priority One list."
Sara blinked. "I thought I was on that list?"
"You are, but I think we can agree this is more pressing."
As they left, Bowie looked longingly back towards the room. Something was there, she was sure of it!
-
A young girl with fiery red hair and bright green eyes looked on sadly as Bowie left. "My Bowie...how I wish I could reveal myself to you. But this is all for you. My children and my children's children." Steeling her will, she looked to the door.
-
At dinner, Dawn sat down quietly at the Outcast table. The others noticed the change in her immediately.
"Hey Dawn? You there?" Jericho tried to get her attention.
"Oh...hi Jericho...everyone. Sorry, had something on my mind."
"Man don't tell me you broke up with December already!"
Dawn blinked. Had she mentioned who she was seeing?
Seeing Dawn's confusion, Diamondback spoke up. "I hope that wasn't a secret, Dawn. Lexi told me about it earlier."
"Oh...um...well no, I mean, students aren't supposed to...you know, so I don't want everyone to know..."
"Relax, your secrets are safe with us. And if someone starts spreading rumors, Razorback will eat them."
Razorback showed off his teeth in what might have been a grin. It was disturbing, regardless.
"Thank you, Razor. No, we're fine, someone told me about this crazy idea they'd had, and I've been trying to work it out in my mind."
"If it's bothering you that much, maybe you should stop thinking about it?" Eldritch advised.
"Good idea!"
They spent the rest of the meal talking and joking.
-
After she ate, Dawn went over to the Heartbreaker's table, only to find December wasn't there.
"Um...where's Dess at?"
The small girl with the thick glasses...Amy, replied. "Oh Imperious came over and asked Dess to share her thoughts about this student tribunal thing. He had a good idea, but I guess he's shaky on how to make it work."
"Yeah, she said to tell you she's sorry she had to go." Jane added.
"Ah. I understand. I just miss her. Well thank you." Dawn walked away.
-
Jane frowned. "I don't like it. They just met a few days ago."
"I think it's romantic." Jenny smiled.
"You think everything is romantic!" Jane looked upset.
"Hey, Jane, come on...we should be happy for them, especially Dess." Amy adjusted her glasses.
"I...sorry Jen. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing."
"It's alright. It's good that you worry about her, she's lucky to have a friend like you. But maybe you have a point. I mean, what do you guys know about this Dawn girl."
"Eh, I'm still gathering some intel. She's got some really high up people supporting her."
Amy looked down. "I...saw her once, when my glasses were off."
Everyone looked to the green-haired girl.
"I saw multiple images of her, all superimposed on each other. Their arms were in different poses, almost like one of those Hindu statues. To you, she looks like a normal three-dimensional girl, but her existence extends out into many more dimensions than that. And then I was aware of something ... someone ... looking back at me, so I put my glasses on quick."
Jane pushed away what was left of her food. "I think I just lost my appetite. I'm going to have to talk to Lexi about this. Excuse me."
-
Dawn went back to her room and lay on her bed. She was restless, but didn't feel like doing anything, not even playing GEO. She changed into her nightgown and started to meditate. Instead, however, she fell asleep.
A tornado of argent light sprang up around her, and when it faded, Dawn was gone, replaced by the dangerous looking girl that had taken Dawn's place the other night in the woods.
She stood and stretched. "Mmm...so much better. I'm tired of being cooped up in that silly girl. Now, let's have some fun!"
She opened the window, transforming into a shaft of silver smoke, and flew off towards the woods.
-
Perched on the rooftop, a pair of girls watched the devil-girl depart. They communicated wordlessly.
'You were right on the money, M. But how did you know?'
'Mrs. Potter, of course. She needs some of us to be her agents. Something is disrupting her vision."
'What? How?'
'She says it's like there are two possible futures, each equally likely, yet totally unlike the other.'
'Great. That explains why I haven't gotten any insights from beyond either.'
'Tell Louis. He needs to know about this, Renee.'
'Yeah, yeah. What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to play with some ninjas.' The girl vanished, as if she'd never been there.
Chaos Renee Black Butterfly Constantine frowned. Mages! They were all the same. Too damn mysterious for their own good! She made her way to the stairs.
-
Christopher, aka Counterpoint, aka Ares/Mars, was having a blast with his new powers. Ember had somehow filled a void that he hadn't even been aware of! He'd been tracking down the strange undead werewolves and destroying them. He'd dropped the Manifestor power he'd 'acquired'. He no longer needed it to create his 'Red Sword of War'. The flaming sword was far superior, in his opinion.
Especially since it left no evidence of his kills save for a fine layer of ash on the ground.
For some reason, a few of the undead had been allowed to persist in the forest, but he had no use for them. Such hideous monsters had no place in the kingdom he intended to rule! So he'd been tracking a group of them for the past hour or so.
Hearing a noise in the clearing ahead, he burst onto the scene, and to his astonishment, saw a pretty (yet obviously inhuman) girl had gotten there first.
She had clawed fingers and toes (not unlike that bitch, Carmilla, actually) and fang-like teeth. She was employing all three to tear into her chosen prey. And prey they were, the zombies had no chance.
Counterpoint smiled, remembering a long-ago night when he had a dalliance with some of the Maenads.
After a few minutes, the girl sighed. "Bored now." With a casual gesture, she caused the remains of the zombie werewolves to burst into blue-white flame.
Once there was nothing left but charred ash, she turned and looked at him with eyes that were pure chaos; an ever-changing maelstrom of shifting colors with no whites or pupils. She walked towards him, her every movement sultry and seductive.
She reached up and ran a clawed finger under his chin. "Why hello there, tall, dark, and handsome. Would you like to hunt together some time?"
He grinned. "Very much so."
She leaned in and gave him a smoldering kiss, then, with an impish smile, she turned into a shaft of silver smoke that wafted above the treeline.
-
Christopher grinned. Now that was the woman he wanted for his queen! "She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be."
The air crackled as Ember agreed with his master.
-
She reformed back on campus. Her ears twitched as she heard voices. She moved closer, and observed a boy kissing his girlfriend goodnight outside of her cottage. As soon as the girl was out of sight, she walked up to the boy.
The boy stared at her as she sidled up to him.
"Forget her, lover boy. I can show so much more....pleasure."
She kissed him, and lustful emotions washed over him. His feelings for the other girl melted away in an instant.
She led him into the woods to have a different kind of fun.
-
Several young boys and girls succumbed to her seduction that night; by the time she felt sated, she'd lost count of the relationships she'd irrevocably destroyed. She writhed in pleasure at the thought of it. Evil was so delicious!
-
Sara was studying in her room when she got the strangest feeling. Was there another lust demon on campus? She went over a mental checklist. Sure, there were the succubi, but they were fairly harmless. Especially that new one, what was her name...it started with a B....Beth? Bethany? Ah, it didn't matter. No, this was something right up her alley.
"Bowie, wake up."
Bowie stirred. Her girl-self would take a few moments to awaken, but her wolf-self always slept lightly, and was ready to answer her Alpha's call.
"Someone is hunting in my territory. Care to take a walk with me?"
Bowie nodded. 'I am ready.'
The two headed out into the night.
-
Dawn woke up early. Her clothing was in shreds, and she was covered in blood....and other fluids. She smelled of sex and other things too wrong to contemplate. Before Diamond could notice, she fled to the showers. What had Cutie Angel done? She tried to remember and....
-
"Nothing to see here, Dawnie. Go back to sleep."
-
Dawn woke, feeling refreshed. She decided to skip her shower and got ready for her day.
-
The first half of the day passed quickly, with Dawn being able to get a kiss from December in the morning. Really, she should avoid public displays of affection, since there were technically rules against it, but no one seemed to mind.
Or if they did, Dawn was too caught up in her own happiness to notice.
-
Sara kept watch from the table she and her pack more or less shared with Team Kimba.
"Jeez Sara, are you ok? You ain't even touched your goat." Toni waved her hand in front of Sara's face.
Absently, Sara let some tentacles extend from her arm and devour the essence of the animal. "Yeah, I guess. I'm worried, something is happening around here, and I don't care for it one bit."
Toni followed Sara's line of vision. "Dawn, huh? I need to talk to her myself, be right back."
Chaka dashed off before Sara could even ask about it.
-
Chaka closed her brow chakra; she was all too familiar with the tangible aura of fear and paranoia that kept most people far away from Jericho's crew. She honestly believed his bad fashion was intended to be a sort of warning sign, to keep people from finding out first hand.
"Sup guys, don't mind me, I just had something to talk to Dawn here about."
Dawn looked over. "Oh, Chaka...what's up?"
"Ito-Sensei said you had a problem that I might be able to help with?"
"Yes, that's right. Can we meet after classes?"
"Sure thing, just head for the Eastman annex, there's a room we can use there."
"Thank you very much for helping me."
"No prob, hon. This is like extra credit for me, and besides, Sara and Chou say you're good people."
Jericho groaned once Chaka left. "Great, first December, now this. Everyone wants to steal you away!"
"What? Oh relax, you're my friends, I'm not going to leave you."
"She's got a point, I mean, if she didn't bail on us to be with her....girrrrrlfriend...." Phobos grinned.
"Oh you!"
Deimos grumbled something quietly.
Jericho nodded. "But speaking of December, I know she said she'd drop by in about a week, but do you think you could ask her if she's up for another lecture? That girl has some amazing ideas."
"That depends. How much mint chocolate chip ice cream can you get your hands on?"
-
Dawn was on her way to the library when she felt a sensation of wrongness. She followed her instincts, which led her to a small clearing just off campus. There was nothing visible to normal sight, but her enhanced senses showed her the remnants of a magical circle on the ground. In the air above the circle was a scar, a warp in reality. It was wrong in ways she couldn't describe.
Using the power that she used to open and close portals to Spring, Dawn reached out with one hand and motioned as if wiping a window clear of mist. With each pass, the warped space smoothed and healed.
Satisfied, she nodded to herself and turned to go. She nearly jumped when she realized a young man was standing there. His features were a mix of Asian (Japanese, she thought) and Western ancestry. He had indigo eyes and his dark hair had a violet tint to it (she noted he was overdue for a haircut as well).
He was slender, but even under his uniform, she could tell he was in excellent physical condition. And handsome! She knew she'd seen him somewhere before, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
"Um...hello?"
He smiled. "Hey. I was just watching you. I'm glad someone was able to fix that. I wasn't really sure what to do about it."
Dawn blinked. "You could see it?"
He made a so-so gesture with his hand. "More like feel it. I'm a space warper, part of my ability lets me sense these things."
Dawn's mind put a name to the face. "Ah! You're Kei Shisome!"
He nodded. "The same."
"Dess mentioned you, I guess you're a superhero?"
He chuckled. "Sort of, yeah. But she talks about you a lot more."
Dawn blushed. "Well...."
He held up a hand. "Hey, you don't have to explain to me. I have someone very special in my life as well. Anyways, I came out here to see if I could fix this myself...I was thinking, if I could fold space around it, and seal it off..."
"Oh! Yes, that would work. I mean, things would be a little strange around here, but it would be a lot safer."
"Strange in what way?"
"Well, I'm not sure how your powers work, but what you'd be doing is creating a permanent warp in space, right? The curvature of space would make it to where no one could actually reach this spot. The closer they got, the farther away it would seem, and eventually, they'd sort of 'bounce' off of it in a random direction."
"Um...would that be dangerous?"
"Not too badly, at worse, they might be pushed a few hours into the future, or end up in another part of the woods."
"Time travel? No thanks, I try not to mess with it."
Dawn laughed. "Oh you'd need a powerful gravity well to travel through time..."
"Yeah, remind me to tell you about the time some Deviser tried to make off with a submarine...but anyways...if you can fix this, maybe you can help me with another one."
"Another one?"
"Yeah. One of the other Heartbreakers, this kid Noah. He...she...ugh...I swear, why aren't their pronouns for the gender-confused?"
Dawn smiled sadly. "Because most people are too full of hate or fear to care about that sort of thing."
"Yeah well, I'm not like that. Anyways..he can sort of make rifts in reality and use them to teleport. There's one near Whitman, it's not as nasty as this, but it's pretty darned odd."
"Take me to it, please."
-
As they neared Whitman, Dawn could feel it, she went right towards the spot, and healed it like she had the other one. It didn't take nearly as many passes with her hand. "What a mess! Someone needs to tell this Noah not to tamper with things he doesn't understand!"
Kei chuckled. "Isn't that why we're here? To learn about our powers?"
"Well I'll have to talk to him myself..."
"I just wish I could figure out what you're doing. I mean, I feel it, but it's so damn strange.."
"Well if you've confused Distance, you must be doing something unusual."
Kei and Dawn turned at the new voice. A plainly dressed girl was standing there. She was pretty, but in a sort of 'girl next door' way that didn't stand out very well in a place like Whateley.
"Oh hey Emily, what's up?"
"Well I do live here, you know."
Kei chuckled. "This is Noah's sister, Emily. Emily, this is Dawn."
"Dawn? As in December's....?"
"Yep."
"Oooh! Hi!"
Dawn frowned. "Why is it that suddenly everyone knows me?"
Kei laughed. "Well, December has a lot of friends. She's that kind of person. And you, well, you've made a huge impact in her life."
Dawn blushed. "She's wonderful."
"My, isn't she sweet? So Kei, what's the deal? Still worried about Noah punching holes in reality?"
"I'd like to know why you aren't!"
"Well I happen to have an expert at my disposal."
"Expert?" Dawn's intererst was piqued.
Emily's form seemed to blur. Her hair became somewhat unruly, and her clothing changed. She was now wearing a white tee-shirt under a blue button-up shirt. Over that, she was wearing a blue pin-stripe suit coat, matching slacks, white-and-red sneakers, and a rumpled brown trench coat.
"Oah, well now! Let's have a look see, shall we?" Reaching into a pocket of her trenchcoat, Emily produced a pair of 3-D glasses and put them on. "Oh that's brilliant! Brilliant! You just went right around the problem, and edited the local Pattern!"
Dawn blinked. While it wasn't as dramatic as her own transformations, she was struck by the parallels. Emily had somehow become someone very different, yet still her. "Wha...?"
Kei shrugged. "Em is a sort of Avatar. She can channel different personas and access their abilities."
"Quite right, that! This one is The Professor."
"Ah, pleased to meet you. So you can see what I'm doing? Do you think you could show Kei how to fix it?"
"Hm." She took off the odd glasses. "Not really, no. Mr. Shisome here can bend and warp the local pattern, but editing it is a bit much. At least, not without a very massive power source. I don't suppose either of you has an interstellar star ship with a warp drive handy?"
Dawn noticed Kei seemed a bit startled by that question. Odd. "Not me!"
"Uh...I think people would have noticed if I did."
"Well in that case, we'll have to tell Noah not to do that without Rhadamanthus. That old land-wyrm is a lot more savvy about these things."
"Rhadamanthus?"
"Oah, long story that, very long." Emily's form wavered again, returning to normal.
She giggled. "Wow, you have this really weird expression, Dawn."
"It's just...you call him The Professor? Because he seems a lot like..."
Emily nodded. "Yes. Well, what can I say, I really admire The Doctor. And I think David Tennant is so cute!"
Kei coughed. "That's my cue, later ladies."
"Bye Kei, good to meet you!"
He waved as he seemed to vanish, only to appear much farther away. "Wow! I mean..."
Emily nodded. "Yeah, if you really look for it, you get the impression of a shadow moving along the ground when he does that, but other than that.."
"His warping is smooth, no real feeling that he's damaging the local space at all."
"Oh if he wants to, he can really rough things up. I've seen him manipulate space so much, anything in the area starts moving in slow motion."
Dawn frowned. "His powers shouldn't do that..."
"Yeah? Well, I don't feel like dragging the Prof back out for now."
"Too bad, I haven't gotten to see much of the new season."
Emily put an arm around me. "Then you'll have to drop by sometime, I have it on Blue-ray."
"Oh, that sounds like fun!"
-
As the two girls wandered off, a red-garbed ninja watched unseen. He...or was it she...narrowed his (her?) eyes and left to make a report.
And watching the Kusaragi genin was a young man with blazing red hair and bright green eyes. "Flawless."
-
Dawn reached the Eastman Annex to find Chaka waiting for her. The coffee-skinned girl was dong a handstand with one hand, the other hand held out straight. Dawn could feel ki flowing through the girl's body, and flowing out of her hand, while energy from the ground flowed up her other arm.
Chaka's reserves of ki were very well-defined, she got the impression of Toni's ki coiling up like a spring....or a snake!
"Um...what are you doing?"
"Oh, just an idea I got from a show I was watching, Return of the Condor Heroes. It's supposed to be a technique to cleanse the body, like of toxins or disease. Does it look like it's working?"
Dawn opened her brow chakra and let energy flow through it. "Kind of, yes. But what is that energy you're pulling in?"
"Earth ki."
"Um...Chaka...the Earth..."
Toni flipped onto her feet. "Yes yes, I know, but that's what it feels like to me. They say I'm an energizer, and I'm somehow taking energy from Earth's electromagnetic field and turning it into usable ki. Go on, tell me that makes more sense than the Earth having it's own ki field."
Dawn kept quiet. Chaka had a point.
"Anyways, come on, you can tell me the problem."
"It might be easier to show you."
-
Once the two girls were inside, Toni led them into a small training room. Dawn demonstrated opening up all of her chakra points.
"Wow, that's some serious control!"
"Thank you...anyways, I used to be able to mix my ki with outside energy to help with my spells, but I've been having some problems with my ki flow."
Toni closed her hand, leaving two fingers extended, and reached out towards Dawn. She moved her hand slowly, as if it had become some sort of sensory device.
"Ok. First of all, that's impressive. I can't even control all my gates yet, and my mutation gives me some unreal control of my ki. I can see the problem with your internal flow. Your ki reserves are growing, and that's more energy than you're used to working with. See, when your normal reserves increase, so do your potential reserves. I guess the best way to explain is, your gates are only so big, and as your ki grows stronger, it won't be able to fit through them, the energy will flow back on itself."
"Ugh...can I do anything about it?"
"Well, yeah. You just can't keep all the gates open like this. You have to let your ki settle in various points, you can't just let it diffuse throughout your body any longer. Now, explain the magic problem."
"Okay. The original way I was taught to use the seven major chakra points was as foci to bring in power from outside of me, from sources that I envisioned them as representing. It turned out that I have a very good and unusual visualization. I don't just envision one point as representing one source, but go one step farther and have that source represent all such sources by using the similarity law of magic."
"Okay, I actually understood that. But the amount of power that you could draw in ..."
"Yeah, both Circe and Dr. Tennant warned me about drawing in too much power that way. But the problem is that when I do both the internal and external draw, the energies mix and the amount of energy in my body starts to climb rapidly. The one time I did it, I actually started to glow even though I dropped both draws as soon as I felt the increase."
"That sounds so not good. Okay, drop your internal draw and do the external one like you were going to do some magic."
"Okay."
Dawn did so, and Chaka watched closely.
"That's just mad whack. I see what you are doing but there is no way that you should have been able to just learn that. I mean not unless you practiced for a long time. And I mean about fifty years."
"Um, I learned it before I mutated. And I learned it in a few months."
"No ... way ..."
"Yes, and the same person told me how to draw on my internal energy through my chakra points and use it."
"And how long did that take you to learn?"
"um ... one day ..."
"You're shitting me!"
"no"
"Girl, either you had a teacher that could do the impossible or you were already a mutant of some sort, or something."
"Well, the person that taught me just sort of came up to me one day and said that they could teach me. And after they were satisfied, I never saw them again."
"Huh... Well, drop that pull and go back to the internal one."
Dawn did so and Chaka watched again.
"I see what you are doing. But I don't know how you can do it. I can do it. But ... it is part of my mutation. In fact, I can probably do your outside energy draw too now."
"Hey, that reminds me. Chou said that you can learn moves by watching somebody else do them?"
"Yeah. My mind runs so fast that I can see the slightest muscle movements. And part of my mind automatically makes connections between things. So if I watch somebody do something, I can repeat it. That is, if I have the ki for it. I ran out of ki while imitating some of Chou's moves. I don't think I would even try to imitate any of yours."
"Aww, but it would be so much fun to watch you try."
"You are an evil person."
"I've been told that before. Okay, now, while still drawing on your internal power, draw some external power in too. But just a little."
Dawn did so and once again felt the rapid build up of energy through out her body. A slight glow started emanating form her skin after a moment.
"Okay, drop both."
She did, and felt the slow decrease of energy.
"That ... shouldn't be possible. Those are two different kinds of energy. Hey, wait, I've been called a ki magician. I wonder."
Chaka walked over and poked a couple of points on Dawn's body, then held Dawn's head between her palms.
"Okay, do both again."
Dawn did so and felt the energy start to build. This time, she felt it curdle around the points that Chaka had poked, and it seemed to flow out of her and into Chaka's hands.
"Drop them again."
Dawn did so and the extra energy flowed out into Chaka's hands.
Chaka let go of Dawn's head and poked the same points that she did before.
"Well Dawn, I got good news, bad news, and a theory."
"Um, the bad first."
"Even with me training you, it is going to take years for you to learn to control that double flow. And that is just because you are such a fast learner."
"The good news?"
"You can still do either seperately. And in a life or death situation, you might as well do both at once."
"And your theory?"
"Either you were already a mutant, or your teacher did something that lets you channel and control your ki like you do. There is no way that a baseline could have learned that as fast as you said that you did."
"If I had been a mutant of that level, I wouldn't have had a chance. I would have burned up when I mutated. Trust me."
"Okay, that means that your 'teacher' did some whacked things to you . Maybe a spell or something. But there is no way that the way you can tap and use inside or outside ki is baseline normal. Not unless you spent about half a century learning each type."
"Why would somebody want me to be able to tap and use ki like I do?"
"Dunno. Maybe they just liked you. I mean it hasn't done you any harm. And I'm going to do my best to make certain that it stays that way."
"I thought that you said that it would take years for you to teach me how to control the combination of inside and outside ki."
"Yep. But I'm going to do my best. And so will you." Chaka grinned.
"Uh...yes Sensei?"
"Heh. Smart girl."
-
That night, Dawn got undressed. She didn't bother putting on a gown, because she knew it would just get ruined again. As she lay down, she transformed into Cutie Angel, defender of love and justice...who had some very lustful thoughts about a certain young mutant.
It should go without saying that she and December had a lovely evening together.
-
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Dawn awoke. She felt awake for the moment...and very aroused. Getting dressed, she got up to play some GEO and try to take mind off of December's mouth nibbling on her soft skin, her hands tracing patterns around her nipples...gah!
She got a little farther in the game, but then she gave up. She lay down and went back to sleep.
Strange light began to surround her again, and she began to....
-
Standing on the roof, a beautiful woman with fiery red hair and bright green eyes shook her head. "No, not tonight. Let Dawn have sweet dreams for a change. She snapped her fingers.
-
Dawn curled into a fetal position, and she began to snore lightly, dreaming about being with her lover.
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 03:06]
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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| Re: Friends in Strange Places (repost) [message #41371 is a reply to message #41362 ] |
Fri, 10 June 2011 02:38 |
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AmyAmethyst
Messages: 26
Registered: November 2008
Location: *taps you on the shoulder... |
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The next morning, Dawn managed to not annoy too many people with her happiness during her flight lecture. Although there were still grumblings about 'morning people'.
-
"Good morning Love." said Dawn as she kissed Dess. "I hope that you have a wonderful day. I'll be thinking about you all day."
"And I of you hon."
-
"Dess, that is just disturbing. I think I'm going into sweetness overdose."
"Ah, leave them alone. sigh It's so romantic."
"Romantic or not, I still say that we don't know enough about Dawn."
"I still stand by what I saw when I looked at Dawn without my glasses. Lexi, are you going to ask Dawn about it?"
"Yes. I don't like the thought that she would hide something like that from us."
-
After leaving the Heartbreakers' table, Dawn went over to the table that Derek was sitting at.
"Hi Derek. I'm sorry that I haven't stopped by the last few mornings. I just ... had a lot on my mind. How are you doing?"
"Uh, fine, fine. And it is okay. At least you're nice enough to remember me."
"Oh Derek, you are a nice person. If somebody meets you and doesn't remember you, then they have a problem."
"ahh thank you ..."
Dawn's eyes took on an odd look and a strange glow came from them. In an odd voice that had many over and undertones, she said "Tell Thuban that something comes that he must help face."
Her eyes returned to their normal appearance, and in her normal voice, she said "Well I'd better get my breakfast. Take care Derek."
-
After she walked off "What the hell was that?!"
"I..I don't know. But I don't think it was Dawn, in fact I don't think that she even knows that just happened ... and I think that we had better pass that message along to Thuban. And I mean right now."
-
Once again Dawn finished before any of the other Outcasts showed up. So she left them another note.
Hi! Sorry I missed you at breakfast. You all should really get up and enjoy the mornings! It is so beautiful today.
I'll see you all at lunch. Hugs!
Dawn
Once again she pulled a sticker out of thin air without realizing it. It was a sparkly rainbow this time.
-
Nothing of note happened in Avatar Intro. The three that had talked to her at lunch the day before kept stealing glances at Dawn, but she didn't notice.
-
"She is changing. The Other parts are getting stronger."
"I don't like this. She is such a nice person."
"All we can do is hope that her niceness influences what she is to become. And there is more." said Bree/ Verdandi, "Loki is somehow involved in all that is going on."
"Loki? Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I tried to consult the Well of Mimir to gain more knowledge and to see into the future, but ..."
"What is it?"
"It has been moved somehow."
-
Dawn found Lexi waiting for her with a serious look on her face.
"Good morning Lexi. Is something wrong?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
"I don't have any idea what you mean."
"Right. You don't know that you occupy many dimensions at once and that something very powerful is watching over you."
"Many dimensions at once? Why that sounds like what ...
-
"Many dimensions at once? ...
-
"Oh that is just silly. What gave you that idea?"
Lexi looked puzzled. "You know, I can't remember. Ah, forget it. You want to work on a song as magic some more?"
"Sure!"
-
Dawn threw the brick boy into the cage and embedded him between the bars.
"Stop! Dawn, in a real battle against a very tough opponent such force might be needed. But you could hurt another student during class. If he was not also a regenerator ..."
"I .. I'm sorry Sensei. I didn't expect that. I didn't mean to throw him so hard."
"Control is as important as skill. You must learn to always be aware of how much force you are using. 'I didn't mean to' wouldn't stand up in an MCO inquiry as to why you spread a minor criminal over a brick wall."
"ulp ... yes sensei ..."
-
"You're quite again today Dawn. Is something wrong?"
"no ... yes ... I don't know. I used a lot more force than I meant to doing a throw during martial arts class. Sensei Ito said that I need to learn control. But ... I've always had control over how much force I used before ..."
"Maybe you're just getting stronger. It happens with exemplars."
"maybe ..."
-
The access to the ARC sites was still blocked. Dawn was looking at some other sites. She had already completed several university degrees on-line and the certificates would arrive in the mail soon.
As she worked on the computer, her eyes took on the odd look and the strange glow again. She opened a special site and started writing and compiling a program on-line. She then launched the program where it would find a back door into the ARC computers. It would copy all and any information about Dawn that was already there and new information on her as it was entered, and send it to another site. She then closed the special site and returned to what she had been doing. Her eyes returned to their normal appearance.
-
Dawn walked into Dr. Bellows' office.
"Hello Dr. Bellows. You said Monday of last week that you would want to see me again now"
"Yes Dawn. I want to talk to you about how you feel about being a teenager again."
"Really Dr., I feel like a teenager. I don't think I react like an adult to anything anymore.."
"Does that bother you?"
"No. It feels natural. As if this was the first time that I was 15."
"Hmm. Well, in one way it probably is. I can't imagine that your first time being 15 was very pleasant for you."
"Um, no. But I'd rather not think about it, much less talk about it. That is in the past. I just want to enjoy the now."
"That sounds like a teenager alright. So, are you having any problems?"
"None that I can think of, and certainly nothing that my friends don't help me with. Especially Dess."
"Dess? You mean December LeMaire? I have heard rumors that you and her were an item now."
"Actually, it's her, Cutie and I ..."
He raised an eyebrow. "So what? You and Cutie Angel ..."
"Um, take turns ..."
"And that is working?"
"Wonderfully so far." she said with a happy sigh and a dreamy smile.
-
"So Dawn. Are you going to train with Chaka again after dinner?"
"Yeah. I'm not about to try and skip out on a session with her. She would probably hunt me down. And then drag me to the session."
"She isn't that bad, is she?"
"Well, not the dragging part. But I bet that she would give me a lecture right in public about my skipping. And it wouldn't be pretty."
"You might be right there."
-
Chaka looked worriedly over towards where Dawn sat. "I tell you guys, she wasn't even curious about who her 'teacher' was. Even after I told her that they had done something to her that let her use ki like she does."
"That fits in with some things that I noticed when Dr. Otto and I talked to her." mused Sara.
"It sounds like she is under a sort of Geas."
"Mind explaining that to us non-magical folks?"
"A Geas is a category of spell that can force somebody to do certain things, or it can keep them from doing certain things. There are many types of Geas. What you have said sounds like there is one on Dawn that literally won't let her think or wonder about certain specific things."
"That doesn't explain the time-stutter." said Sara.
"No, and that has Aunghadahail worried."
"And when old Unga-Bunga is worried, we'd better all watch out."
"You do know that she is going to get you someday for calling her that?"
-
That night was Dawn's time to be with December. They both enjoyed it immensely.
Afterwards, as they cuddled before Dawn left, Dawn bit her upper lip and got a serious look on her face.
"Dess, I have to talk to you. I haven't had a chance to tell you about my past ..."
"Of course, Dawn. My time is your time."
" sigh You might not want me around anymore after you hear everything. But I have to be honest with you. I love you too much not to be. It will take some time. This is going to be hard ... probably on both of us."
"The first thing is that before I mutated, I was a lot older than I am now, decades older . The second is that I wasn't born in a girl's body. I was born physically a boy. Not only that, but at about the age of 5, an 'incident' happened that resulted in my parents telling me that I had to act like a boy. That I couldn't act like a girl. They didn't beat me or anything, but they were very firm about it."
"That pretty much made my childhood, teenage years, and such ... sheer hell. I couldn't be me. I couldn't make myself act like a boy. So I was ... nobody. A sort of automaton, almost. I didn't display emotion or anything. But somehow others could still tell. I was shunned by some, made fun of, picked on, called names, or beaten up by others ... Really, the worst pain wasn't the physical. I wanted to be friendly. But I was so afraid that if I got even that close to anybody that they would see the real me and recoil in horror."
"So I was always alone."
"I was about 20 when I met the one that taught me magic, and how to use my chakra points in two different ways. They taught me well, and didn't care that I was what I was ... they even were friendly, accepting ... like family should be."
"But after they left, I was alone again. Not that I had much time to wallow in self pity. Strange things started happening. I started encountering outré beings and circumstances. I even found a copy of the Necronomicron. Luckily, I recognized it without touching it. After a lot of hard work and careful, painstaking care, I used an expensive ritual to banish it from this world."
"Then I met somebody ... He seemed to know about me at once. And not care. He became my friend. And ... more than that. I loved him ..."
"Oh, I realize now that the 'love' was a large part plain gratitude at finding somebody that could see the me inside the male body and appeared to accept me ... but it felt real. It was nothing compared to what I feel for you though ..."
"Our love was restricted to cuddling and kissing. He said that he didn't want to make me uncomfortable by caring it further ... ha ..."
"After we had been ... close for a year or so, and facing even more outré things, he told me that he had found out about a place where a Gate could be opened. A Gate, that if I opened it, the Being beyond would make me a full female. And that then he and I could be husband and wife."
"But it was all a lie. He actually abhorred me. He planed to use the Being's power for himself.
"I opened the Gate. As he was demanding power for himself from the Being, a voice from somewhere other than the Gate warned me to close my eyes."
"Whatever was on the other side took him. Then it pulled the Gate closed from it's side. The voice said that this was not that Being's time. I...hope that time never comes, even though it was merciful towards me. I reversed the ritual that I had used to open the Gate. You might be surprised at how often doing something so obvious actually works ... Then I added seals of my own. And finished up with a sort of 'nothing to see here' cloak over the area where the Gate had been."
Dawn pause a moment to dry the tears streaming down her face and to take a shuddering breath.
"After that, I pretty much retreated back into my shell for a while. That is until I finally got everything done so I could start living as myself. I had to do it the hormone and surgery route. I couldn't afford what deviser drugs or the like that were available then."
"Once I was living as myself, I could be friendly like I wanted. But ... I was afraid to let anybody really into my heart. I always still kept a part of me shielded from the outside."
"Then one day, the 20th of January of this year, I was in New York City. And the Amazing Three were coming down the street. A guy next to me tried to use a blowpipe to shoot a dart at them. I knocked the end of the blowpipe down, but the dart hit me instead ... What was in it was meant to make a mutant's abilities run wild and destroy them. It almost killed me in burnout. And during that burnout is when I met Spring."
"After I woke back up, I was as you see me now. A teen aged girl mutant. And that is in every way. I think like a teenager, I feel like one, I act like one. The 'old me' might as well be somebody else's memories except for their emotional impact."
"And then I met you ..."
"I felt something from the first. But it had been so long since I had felt anything even resembling romantic love that I didn't realize what it was until ... you had fallen for Cutie Angel."
"I have been letting you see more of me, feel more of my emotions than I ever have with anybody. But ... I want to open even that part that I have always shielded from the outside to you. I ... want to be as open to you as Cutie is ..."
"That is if you still want me."
Dawn opened all of herself. She let her emotions flow completely freely, which she had never done before. The brightest of her emotions was her unconditional love for Dess.
December smiled softly and pulled Dawn close. "I'm glad you told me this. I knew you were holding something very large back, and I understand why. I...somehow realized you were older than me, but from what you just said, you were never a man to begin with. Which makes it a non-issue...but..."
She kissed Dawn passionately before continuing. "The truth is, I'm something of a miracle child. I shouldn't have been born at all, my parents, they couldn't have kids, so they ended up getting help from a Deviser. Something about the remnants of a Y-chromosome in Mom's DNA. You see, she was born male as well, until her mutation kicked in. Her and Dad told me the story so many times when I was younger, about the difficulties they had admitting their love for each other. Their 'impossible' love, they called it. I accept you, Dawn, for who you are."
Dawn found herself crying, and Dess held her close until everything was alright again. Then, kissing her lover good night, Dawn slipped upstairs to get some rest.
-
Later as she slept, the shift to the dangerous appearing girl occurred again.
"Time for some more fun. I need to find some more people to seduce."
-
As she left her 12th tryst that night, a voice called out behind her.
"I want to talk to you."
The demon-girl turned around.
Sara was there with Bowie. Sara was dressed in a leather and black lace outfit that accentuated as it covered.
"I like your taste in clothing."
"Yours isn't too bad either. But who are you? And what are you doing here?"
"Who am I? heh Good question. I'll get back to you on that. What am I doing here? Having fun."
"Having fun? You are destroying relationships."
"Like you care, lust demon. Besides the angst they feel when they don't see me again but have broken up anyway tastes soooo delicious."
"I do care."
"More fool you." the demon-girl looked over at Bowie who had been standing stiffly besides Sara with a chain looped over one shoulder. "You ... you are a hunter too. We should seek prey together sometime."
"A hunter?" Sara quirked an eyebrow.
"Yes. I also hunt that which Does Not Belong. That which is Wrong. And End it, after playing with it awhile."
"So you don't just destroy relationships and seduce people."
"No."
"So what sort of things do you hunt?"
"Ask the ones that are human and beast both. They saw."
"I think that you should come with me."
"No. Now isn't the time." She turned into a shaft of silver smoke and shot off into the woods..
"Damn, I can't keep up with that." 'Bowie can you track her? Bowie? Bowie?'
'Sorry. It is just that ... she is an alpha female like you but she did not challenge you. And no, I can't track smoke.'
'Alpha female, as in like in a wolf pack?'
'Yes and ... she smells right too.'
'So ... she is kin to you also?'
'Yes ...'
-
Reforming from the silver smoke, the demon-girl watched as Counterpoint finish off some Voo Doo Weres with his flaming sword.
"Well done."
"You! I have been searching for you."
She seductively sauntered up to him. "Well, here I am."
He grabbed her and kissed her roughly. But she returned as good as she got.
"What is your name, you sexy devil?"
"Hmm, sexy devil. I like that. So that is now my name, Sexy Devil."
"I want you."
"I am too much for one person."
"I am a God! And soon I will be King of the Gods!"
Sexy Devil laughed dangerously. "What you call gods are as nothing."
"How dare "
"Shhh." She silenced him with another smoldering kiss. "If you are nice to me, then someday I may show you. For now, why don't we enjoy each other?"
"I ... yes."
The black bodysuit seemed to melt into her body, leaving her nude. It could then be seen that all of her skin had the same appearance, like there was a banked fire just below its surface. She took one clawed finger and slit his clothing off of him.
They sank to the ground together, lost in their lust.
-
Sexy Devil was walking back across campus, looking for a few more students to seduce, when she saw a girl that looked about 11 that had raven's wing black hair and pale skin.
"Well hello there." she said. "Would you like to have some fun?" She sidled up to the girl in a sensual and seductive manner.
"No thank you. I have a girlfriend." said Lexi
"But I can show you so much more pleasure." Sexy Devil said, and then grabbed Lexi and gave her a kiss.
Lexi felt some sort of effect that was trying to make her forget Alison, to make her want nothing more than to have sex with the demon-girl.
She threw Sexy Devil back with a magical blast of pure force. "Creo Psi!"
"I said I had a girlfriend! But since you are so hard up ... 'Chains of Pleasure'. Hope you enjoy that, bitch."
Sexy Devil's eyes got very wide. Her legs seemed to give out on her, and a loud moan of pleasure escaped her mouth. She sank to the ground lost in the throes of orgasm.
"Heh. I'm going now. Enjoy."
As soon as Lexi was out of sight, Sexy Devil forced herself back to her feet, even though she was still obviously feeling the effects of the spell.
She took one hand, and plunged it into her body. She pulled it back out, holding a tangle of strands of colored energy.
As soon as the tangle was free of her body, the effects of the spell vanished.
She studied the tangle, then took her one finger of her other hand and started tracing each strand. After she had traced each one, she used the claw on that finger to tease each strand loose of the tangle, and ... ate the strand. It burned a little, but she was able to digest it.
When she finished, she smiled. "So that is how she did it. A wonderful spell. I'll have so much fun with it. Heh. I may even let the boring girl I live in know it ..."
Whatever else she was going to say was lost as she held her stomach. "Ohh...Order magic always gives me indigestion."
-
Later Dawn got out of bed while still asleep, went and showered, dried off, and went back to bed. She slept until her alarm went off.
-
Dawn was picking at her breakfast at the Outcasts' table, for some reason her stomach seemed kind of delicate this morning, when a young man came up to her and said "Dawn Llewellyn? They want you back at powers testing today. You have been excused from your classes."
"But Dr. Bellows said that he got them to put it off a couple of weeks."
"Yeah, well, they must have changed their minds back. All I know is that I was told to make sure that you got the message. You're supposed to head over when you finish breakfast."
" sigh I guess that means now then. Just let me put my stuff back in my locker."
-
Dawn found her locker. Or what was left of it. The door had been smashed in and had the words 'Dyke', 'Lesbo' and 'Freak' spray-painted on it in day-glow orange and violet. Everything inside the locker was painted in those two clashing colors.
She stood there for a while. Everybody else was in class so the hallway was otherwise empty.
She felt anger. An emotion that she tried not to feel. A spell formed in her mind. The Principle of Contagion figured heavily in it. This paint had come from spray-cans, the spray-cans had been held by somebody. The spell pulled all the paint off of her locker and its contents, and sent it back to the one that had held those cans. After the paint was gone, another spell repaired the door to her locker.
She put her backpack into her now pristine locker, and locked it. Then she headed off to powers testing.
-
Dawn was led to Dr. Pollard. "Hello Dawn. We need you to put on this special outfit for the testing this time. We'll have you change back before you change to Cutie Angel. We'll need her to put an outfit like it also."
Dawn couldn't help running her hands down her body after putting on the black bodysuit. It fit very snugly but was also very comfortable. It seemed to almost remind her of something for a moment, but she shook her head, smiled and stepped back out of the changing room.
"Okay, we're going to be doing your 'stress testing' as it is, on both you and Cutie Angle . How each of you can stand up to physical harm, heat, cold, electricity, that sort of thing. We also want to use a special scanner on both of you and Cutie Angel."
"Yes, Dr. Bellows had told me about it. I just thought that it wouldn't be for another week or so."
"Well, the special scanner arrived early and we have been using it on some other, um 'special cases'. We won't have it for long."
"Oh, okay. That's why I'm being tested now."
"Yes, first we will do the stress testing."
-
"Well Dawn, the stress testing has shown some surprising results."
"Really? Surprising in what way?"
"Well, first, your resistance to physical harm is higher than we expected from your Exemplar 4 rating. You don't react to environmental heat unless it gets above 350 degrees Fahrenheit. And you don't react to cold down to -260 degrees Fahrenheit. You can take about 5,000 volts of electricity at 200 watts without getting more than a tickle. You can survive a partial vacuum of a quarter atmosphere or an overpressure of 4 atmospheres. Magical energy seems to just soak into you without effect at the levels that we have available here. We'd have to get a high end Wiz like Fey, Dr. Tennant, Professor Grimes, or Circe to test that any more."
"um wow ..."
"We have tested others that have higher resistances than you. But you have an odd mix. That just makes us want to use the scanner on you more."
Dr. Pollard led Dawn to another room where a strange looking devise was sitting. There was a cylindrical chamber with an opening on one side as part of the item.
"Just step into the chamber."
"uh okay." said Dawn as she did so.
A section slid, sealing the chamber as various lights started glowing and blinking on the strange machine. Odd whines, chirps, and other noises emanated from its workings as it warmed up.
Soon, a synthesized voice said "ready for phase 1 scan"
"scanning"
After a few moments, "ready for phase 2 scan"
"scanning"
This repeated the same way through ten phases. Then there was a longer pause, then "ready for omni-scan"
"scanni ... error...error...Error...ERror...ERRor...ERROr...ERROR"
"scanning aborted, initiating emergency shut down in 3...2...1...shutdown."
The noises from the machine stopped, the lights went out, and the section slid back, revealing the opening again.
"um What happened Dr. Pollard?"
"Don't worry Dawn. This thing is a devise and doesn't always work like it should. We have the results from the first ten scan cycles, they will give us as much info as if you spent all day getting CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs and the like."
"Oh, I was afraid that I had broken it somehow."
"No, it would take something truly incomprehensible to overload its omni-scanner function."
"Now go change clothing and we'll have some lunch brought
"Okay."
-
After they finished lunch. "Please summon Cutie Angle now.
After the transformation sequence had finished, Cutie Angel said "Hi doc! So, you going to try and find out what makes me tick?"
"Well, I'm afraid that all we can do today is your stress testing. The scanner is still down. We have the deviser that built it taking a look at it, but so far even he is having trouble fixing it.'
"Aww, too bad. I wanted to see if I had cotton candy and lollipops inside me."
"um ... you are kidding, right?"
Cutie Angel giggled. "Yep, but you should have seen your face."
"Right... Would you put on this suit please?"
Cutie Angel held the black bodysuit in one hand. Pink sparkles covered it and her. Then she was wearing the black bodysuit with her normal costume nowhere to be seen.
"Like this?"
After checking the instruments to make certain that what Cutie Angel now wore was indeed the special suit, Dr. Pollard rubbed his temples and said "That ... will be just fine."
-
After the stress testing, Cutie Angle did the pink sparkle change to replace the bodysuit with her costume and put the bodysuit on a chair. The Doctors were still pouring over the results.
"So doc, did I pass the test?"
"Um. You might say that. Could you please bring Dawn back? I was told that you know what she knows anyway."
"Were my results that bad?"
"No, no, nothing like that."
"Well ... okay, but only because you said please. But first," she reached out into thin air and pulled a gold star sticker from nowhere and put it on Dr. Pollard's lab coat, "you get a gold star for today!"
After the reverse transformation, Dawn asked "What is it Dr. Pollard
"Well, if your stress test results were surprising, Cutie Angels are amazing."
"I'm afraid to ask ..."
"Let me sum it up. She has normal, if not enhanced, tactile sensations, but no sense of pain. Her resistance to physical harm itself, is incredible. She can stand in a active volcano without breaking a sweat. Or on Pluto without feeling the cold. Electricity just flows around her, no matter how much voltage and wattage it has. She doesn't really seem to need to breath. She doesn't notice whether she is in a hard vacuum or a hundred atmosphere overpressure. Magic ... we are going to need new magical sources ... she somehow drained them once the magic touched her."
"ulp ... "
"Oh, we have still seen other people with higher resistances in heat or cold. Or that don't need to breath. And that can stand up to vacuum or enormous overpressure. The electricity, well, we aren't certain how to rate that, as it didn't seem to be actually touching her. Again, it is just the odd combination ..."
-
After Dawn had left, Hillary wandered up and asked "Say Doctor, how do you suppose she did that thing with the suit...and is that a gold star?"
Doctor Polland's eyes widened. "Quick, we need to test this sticker NOW!"
Just then the deviser that had been trying to fix the scanner came out with a few choice words "@#$%*^*+*&! What ever you were trying to scan exists in so many dimensions that it overloaded the Omni-scan. It broke down when it got over a million dimensions."
-
"Hi Dawn, I was told that they dragged you off for more testing."
"Dess! I didn't expect you to be waiting here for me. I'm not complaining, mind you."
There was a long kiss and cuddle.
"Mmm, that was nice. I've got a surprise for you hon. How would you feel about flying to Boston for dinner and us spending the weekend together there?"
Dawn gave a happy squeal. "Really! Oh Dess! That sounds wonderful." She hugged Dess and gave her a kiss that made Dess very glad indeed that warm temperatures didn't bother her as much as they used to.
"My...." December grinned, fanning herself. "This is going to be an interesting trip! Come on, I already packed your things, Sandra let me into your room. Not that it matters, tomorrow, we're getting you all new outfits!"
The two girls held hands as they walked towards December's rented limousine.
-
From a distance, a tall man with blazing red hair watched the young lovers. "Odin, you son of a bitch. To think, I almost didn't recognize my own daughter. But why here? Why now?"
A stranger is merely a friend that you haven't met yet.
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