A Rousing Origin

by Ephemeralen

Whateley Universe. The origin story of Rouse. Mutant powers are funny things. Sometimes they're awesome. Sometimes they suck beyond reckoning. Cameron Endel was one of the lucky ones, but even with fun powers, one can still end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and lose everything. And yes, there is plenty of Gender Bending along the way.

2. Rouse 02

(And now for Issue Two. Rouse has survived her first adventure and figured out her powers, now what's she going to do with them?)

---

It was the middle of the night, and Cameron stood naked in front of his dressing mirror. It was weird seeing himself like this. He looked almost the same as he had before he'd changed, but at the same time there was a whole world of difference.

He looked older by a year or two, he thought, his skin was peachy smoothness without blemish, body hair, or facial hair, just like his girl form. His hair was exactly the same splay of black with an emerald forelock. His muscles were more toned, his shoulders maybe just a little wider, his hips a little narrower. No more love handles. No more belly-bulge when he hunched over. His penis was thicker, and straighter. All his parts were symmetrical now.

Feel. Heal.

Cameron flexed her hands and wiggled her toes. Her stance felt different with the difference in the distance between her hip joints, as she naturally shifted her balance with the redistribution of weight. The pull of her breasts was noticeable in the moments after she switched forms, but her body was strong like an olympic athlete and the weight was nothing to that.

Feel. Heal.

Cameron flexed his hands and wiggled his toes. His extremities barely changed at all. His hands and feet were delicate for a guy's, but not overly so, while being large for girl, but again not overly so. There were subtle differences, but his hands felt mostly the same in both forms.

His face was his face, just slightly optimized and with the perfect complexion. Feel. Heal. Her face was evocative of her male face, but different enough that it wasn't obvious Cameron was the same person in both forms, though the relation was obvious. She was her own opposite sex twin.

Cameron sighed, idly fondling herself. She could switch sexes on a whim, whenever she wanted. It wouldn't have been the first thing she thought of if someone had asked her what kind of superpower she would like to have, but it was kind of... awesome. To say nothing of it being a bizarre side-effect of an even more awesome power.

A hand slid down to cup her folds. Now that she could turn back into a boy whenever she wanted, what doubts she'd had could no longer endure. Cameron liked being a girl. Not full time, but maybe half the time. At least half the time. After all, she'd had years of boy-time. She had a ways to go to catch up on her girl-time. Cameron giggled.

---

Sunday, May 13th 2007
Berkeley, California
Roof of Police Headquarters

Detective Shaun Gallagher of the SFPD Paranormal Crimes Division led his team down the boarding ramp of the SFPD's one operational dropship, and out into the blazing afternoon sun. Detective Gallagher recognized Detective Helena Aiden waiting for them on the Berkeley PD helipad and held his hand forward in greeting. They shook.

"Welcome back to Berkeley," Detective Aiden said. "I was pleased when the Chief decided to call you in on this one, Detective Gallagher. I look forward to working with you again."

Gallagher twitched a smile. "Likewise. Are you lead on this case?"

Detective Aiden nodded. "And I was first on the scene."

"Allow me to introduce my team," Gallagher said, gesturing to the four people behind him. "The distinguished gentleman on the left is Doctor Malcom Donland, our forensic specialist. The excitable young woman next to him is Scyelen Gail, our practicing mage and fan of all things creepy. She can stare into the face of a thing that would damage the sanity of you or I, and coo about it being adorable. I've seen her do it."

The girl in question beamed brightly. Detective Aiden gave her a strange look.

Gallagher gestured towards the tall, beautiful, asian-featured woman next to Scylen. "This is my second, Detective Deidra Tayler." He indicated the collected-looking black man with an air of dangerous grace. "And this is Special Agent Vaughn Dubaku, on loan from Karedonia."

"Karedonia?" Detective Aiden blurted in surprise.

Agent Dubaku inclined his head. "I am, so to speak, a diplomatic experiment. I have enjoyed lending my expertise to this team for the past two months. They are growing with me."

"'On me'," Deidra corrected out of the corner of her mouth.

"Tell me about the case," Gallagher said, stepping forward and gesturing for Detective Aiden to lead them inside.

Detective Aiden led them into the building. "Quintuple homicide in the upscale suburbs. A large geometric pattern burnt into the floor where the bodies were found. No apparent cause of death, though two of the victims appeared starved, superficially. We have two teenage witnesses in custody, a John Sampson and a Marien Bass, both claiming to have been abducted and ritually raped by a mutant calling herself 'Rouse'. We're running the codename through our DPA linkup. No hits yet."

"What were the results of the witnesses' physical examinations?" Donland asked as the six of them crowded into an elevator.

"No results," Detective Aiden groused. "Both their parents are refusing to allow them to be examined medically. Religious objections."

"Can I review their statements?" Scyelen asked. "Oh, I wanna see your photos of this pattern first, though."

"If the living witnesses cannot be examined, I would appreciate access to the deceased, if you would," Donland requested.

"Of course," Detective Aiden agreed. "I've been working on identifying the victims, fingerprint searches are still running, and we're also running a facial matching search based on a sketch of this 'Rouse' woman. We've set up a case board in the primary conference room."

The elevator dinged open, revealing a wide open room full of messy desks, ringed by glass offices. Detective Aiden led them to the largest of the glass offices. There was a small conference table with a laptop docked at each end, and a large electronic whiteboard on the long wall. Several series of photos were on display, showing the crime scene, the victims, and a detailed sketch of a lovely young woman with a messy splay of dark hair.

Deidra whistled when she saw the sketch. "This is the suspect? Yummy."

Gallagher whapped her on the back of the head.

"Changes the profile, boss. Attractive bisexual women are by far the rarest perpetrators of premeditated serial rapes. This makes it far more likely that her actions were purely a means to some other, apparently mystical, end," Deidra continued without missing a beat.

"I'd be happy to show you to the morgue now, Dr. Donland," Detective Aiden offered.

"Well then, lead on my dear," Donland said amiably.

As Detective Aiden and Donland headed out, Scyelen skipped up to the whiteboard and tapped the folder showing images of the crime scene, expanding it. She skimmed through the photos, making thoughtful noises. Agent Dubaku sat down in front of the laptop that wasn't running the whiteboard. He didn't appear to do anything, but a series of popup windows flickered across the screen, detailing a wireless access negotiation.

Gallagher and Deidra pulled up copies of the witness statements off to the side - the electronic whiteboard really was very large.

Time for the PCD to do their thing.

---

Cameron sat on the living room couch, watching his dad pace and rant. Dad was fine last night when Cameron had tested his newly discovered healing powers on him, but ever since Dad woke up this morning he was kind of freaking out. Cameron was starting to worry about him.

"...and the biomedial implications if it's an augmentation of the natural cellular repair processes as most mutant regeneration is thought to be, it would confirm so many theories about aging. But the speed! Chemical energy and delicate molecular replication processes simply can't move that fast. And raw material! The reaction produced no waste at all. Stars above, the metaphysical implications if it's not based on the natural tissue regeneration mechanisms are astounding. The implied computational cost alone ought to vindicate several highly controversial parts of Pattern Theory..."

Cameron sighed. Well, Dad was having a few good ideas while he was ranting maniacally about Cameron's ability to cure old age with a touch, at least.

---

"Fascinating," Dr. Malcom Donland intoned as Detective Shaun Gallagher and Scyelen Gail entered the morgue.

Scyelen bounced to Donland's side where he was examining the chest cavity of the emaciated female victim. "Whatcha got, Doc?"

"Ah, well Miss Gail, I believe I know how these unfortunate folks died even if I cannot imagine what caused it," Donland said, holding up a tissue sample. "Very strange, even by our standards, Shaun."

Gallagher raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"We have two unrelated causes of death among the five victims," Donland explained. "Despite appearances, our emaciated fellows here did not starve to death. Indeed, on a cellular level they're remarkably healthy."

"Annabelle and Alan, according to the witness statements," Gallagher said. "Unknown last names. No prints in the system."

Donland nodded. "Well, Annabelle and Alan here both died from massive internal hemorrhaging, caused by abnormal macroscopic thinness in their organ tissues. Note a complete lack of damage or deformity in the organ structures, other than the ruptures caused by their own weight or fluid pressures."

"Freaky. Lemme see," Scyelen said as she pulled on a pair of gloves.

"As for our more normal-looking fellows," Donland continued, moving to another slab, "at first glance they appear to have died of perfectly ordinary heart attacks. However if we take a closer look at their cardiovascular systems, we find no sign or heart disease or any other malady. I thought perhaps local electrocution, but there were no signs of electrical burns either. I can find no mundane reason for these three to have died."

"The cute guy's prints were in the system," Scyelen supplied. "His name was Lars Verren and he's a Tee-Aay in Yew-Cee Berkeley's Bonewitz Center for Magical Studies. Gallagher's gonna send me and Detective Aiden over to the campus to ask about him soon as we're done here."

"There is more," Donland told them. "I cannot be entirely certain, but I believe the large fellow here was a high-level mutant before he died. A warrant to perform an MID lookup may be in order."

Gallagher nodded. "Scye?"

"I'm reading a planar resonance on the skinnies," Scyelen reported, "but that could mean all kinds of things. We already know Mr. Verren there was possibly a practitioner, and I don't think I can tell you more than that. Sorry boss."

"Go meet up with Detective Aiden and head to the campus," Gallagher instructed. "I'm gonna get us that warrant."

"Sure thing, Gallagher!" Scyelen ran off excitedly.

---

Dad had wound down a bit, and while Cameron found his wild speculation and theorizing interesting, she was more immediately concerned with the moral implications of being a walking panacea. A shiver crawled down her spine and she felt her heart beat heavily in her chest.

Thudump. Thudump.

Out there, in the wide world, three living, thinking, feeling human beings died every time her heart beat. Lives, minds, annihilated with the decay of the brain, if not carried off by a soul to waste away in the abyss or to be enslaved by a god.

Thudump. Thudump.

Even with super speed, Cameron couldn't save more than a small fraction of those lives, and she wasn't any faster than an ordinary human. But her healing was instant, required little effort, and she didn't need to sleep. She could save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. She could restore the entire population of a hospital to perfect health in one night.

No hospital staff would let her do that.

She would do it anyway. Cameron could knock a person unconscious with a look. Even if she was caught, her girl self didn't legally exist, and she could heal herself twice in a row quickly enough to conceal her male identity, unless someone was staring right at her face when she changed. She doubted she could break out of a jail cell, but no one who wasn't the Golden Gate Guardians would be able to get her into one in the first place, more or less.

I guess, technically, doing this would make me a supervillain, Cameron thought, shaking her head wryly.

Cameron went to look up online where the nearest hospitals were.

---

Later that day, Detective Gallagher's team gathered in the case room to compare leads. Gallagher tapped a set of files that had popped up, displaying them for the others to see. There were two MIDs and two UC Berkeley student IDs.

"Scye," Gallagher said.

Scyelen jumped up. "Two of our victims were students at the Bonewitz Center for Magical Studies. According to the attendance rosters I got a look at, Jill Hayes was in both of the classes Lars Verren Tee-Aayed for."

"They knew each other," Detective Aiden added. "Several students and their professor recalled seeing them together outside class."

"Oh, we stopped by the scene so I could do some scrying," Scyelen said, "but there were no clear traces I could detect. The ley lines in the area were kind of, um, wrinkled? I couldn't get a very good image without major prep time."

"So?" Gallagher prompted.

"Ah," Scyelen put a finger in the air, and then she slumped. "I dunno, boss. All I could tell was that major mojo went down there."

"Not very specific, Scye," Gallagher pointed out.

Scyelen pouted, and Gallagher patted her on the head.

"Agent Dubaku," Gallagher intoned.

Both of the MIDs enlarged. The first had a clear border and showed a figure in a black cloak with his face in shadow, blood-red fingerless gloves visible on his hands.

Codename: BLOODWROUGHT
Ratings: Wizard-3 / Esper-2
Techniques: Enchantment! Not enchantment.
Weak vs. Devises. Normal human weaknesses.
Affiliation: Black Swans

The second had a yellow border and showed a man that looked like GQ's version of Rambo.

Codename: SLAMJAM
Ratings: Exemplar-5 / Martial Arts - intermediate / Pistols - advanced / Assault Weapons - advanced / Sniper Weapons - intermediate
Techniques: Getting it done. Not asking questions.
Weak vs. Magic. Psi.
Affiliation: None listed.

"Lars Verren was also a mutant mage known among crafters of magical items as Bloodwrought," Agent Dubaku reported. "The name has a fair lot of notoriety for being an economic source for... creative cursed objects, among weekend dabblers. Jules Tate, codename Slamjam, was a registered mercenary. He also had a sizable reputation as reliable high-end muscle for hire. I was not able to find anything concrete on this so-called 'Black Swans' group, as our warrant did not cover secondary searches."

Detective Deidra Tayler whistled. "Think we may want to up the threat estimate on this one, boss."

"Deidra," Gallagher said.

"Our skinnies' full names are Alan F Jacces and Annabelle O Heath," Deidra reported. "They were both sixteen, and juniors at Maybeck High School. No records. Their parents have been notified."

Deidra tapped the whiteboard and brought up three Maybeck student IDs, and then enlarged one depicting a scrawny baby-faced boy with black hair. "Based on the statements from our two witnesses, and some cross-referencing with the Maybeck attendance roster, I also matched their description of 'Brian', one of the witnesses slash possible victims that fled the scene. This is Brian Farnell, seventeen, also a junior at Maybeck. Attempts to secure an interview got me nothing but angry accusations of making crank calls." She brought up a fourth student ID, this one for a Berkeley High student. "I also tracked down the last witness, the 'Katie' girl our witnesses described. This is Katie Guteriez, fifteen year old sophomore at Berkeley High. We should talk to her too."

Gallagher gave her a nod. "Speculation?"

"I'm starting to feel like there's something majorly hinky about the story our first two witnesses are selling," Scyelen opined. "I've been all over the photos of the crime scene, and I just can't figure how a ritual rape fits into whatever the perp was trying to work, and why there'd be three very different outcomes for the victims, though without knowing what they were trying to do, I can't say for sure."

"What has me confused is what a mutant mercenary and a low-rent supervillain have in common with a bunch of ordinary high school kids," Deidra said. "Scye's right. Something doesn't add up."

"My instructors were fond of saying, confusion is most often a symptom of reasoning from false assumptions," Agent Dubaku put in.

Gallagher nodded. "Deidra, Detective Aiden, pay miss Guteriez a visit. Scye, you and Agent Dubaku go talk to mister Farnell."

"What about you, boss?"

"I'm going to have a talk with miss Bass and mister Sampson," Gallagher said.

---

Cameron pulled a black cotton undershirt from her dresser and sat back down at her computer. She carefully followed the on-screen instructions for making a Shirt Ninja mask. Just because her girl self had no legal identity, didn't mean it was smart to flaunt her face for the hospital security cameras.

---

"I'm sorry, Detective," Jason Sampson said over the phone. "My son has made his statement. He's been through a harrowing ordeal, and we would appreciate it if we were left alone now." Click.

Gallagher ground his teeth, and went back into the case room. He'd been sitting and going over the files for about twenty minutes when a keyword alert popped up. He tapped it, and it expanded into a faux-live news feed.

Gallagher sat bolt upright. The image showed John Sampson with his arm around Marien Bass, standing in front of an upscale church, talking to a woman in a suitvest and skirt holding a microphone.

"...that's right Jenny, I'm here with two brave survivors of this shocking, unnatural crime," the reporter was saying, "and their caring parents, who've been gracious enough to let us speak."

"Those sons'a'bitches," Gallagher breathed.

"Mister Sampson," the reported said. "Could you tell the folks at home what happened to you?"

John Sampson nodded solemnly. "We were snatched off the street and rendered unconscious by what looked like a girl, but was revealed to be an unholy deviant from God's plan with unnatural powers. She identified herself as 'Rouse' when we woke up, stripped of our clothing and possessions and chained up in a cement room." John showed off the welts on his wrists. Welts that hadn't been there when he'd been interviewed by Detective Aiden.

Marien spoke up in a quavering voice. "Rouse held us prisoner... did unspeakable things to us... forced me to feel unspeakable things... defiled us... The others didn't survive. She is a godless deviant monster. We only made it out because the Lord is with us."

"I'm sure He is. You're very brave to do this, miss Bass," the reporter said. "Do you think you could describe this 'Rouse' for our viewers?"

"She was this tall," John answered, holding out a hand. "Skin tone just a little, um, richer than mine, but less tan. Messy black hair with a bit of bright green in the bangs. And a figure she probably sold her soul for. We've provided the police with our description, and they made a sketch."

"Thank you, mister Sampson," the reporter said, turning towards the camera. "If you see a woman matching this description, please do not confront her, but call the police immediately."

The clip ended, and Gallagher growled at the fools who were compromising his investigation. They were being played. He wasn't sure why, or by who, but he would damn well find out.

---

There was a knock at Cameron's door, and her dad's voice, sounding worried. "Cameron, you need to come watch this. There's something on the news about you,"

Cameron dropped her Shirt Ninja practice and opened up. "What kind of something?"

Dad blinked. "Back to being a girl?"

"Yeah...?" Cameron glanced down at herself. "Why?"

Dad just shook his head and waved her to follow. She came upstairs where he had a newsclip paused. He played it, and Cameron saw John and Marien together, giving an interview that blamed Cameron for the abductions, accused her of rape and murder, and implied they'd told the police the same thing. They made no mention of Wandless or the other real culprits at all.

Cameron's jaw worked soundlessly. "Those... those bigoted, lying, hypocritical, fundie faithtards!"

Dad gave Cameron a worried look. "I take it this is their idea of righteous anti-mutant action?"

Cameron sighed. "They pulled that story completely out of their ass and there's nothing to back it up but their word. The police have got to have the bodies. They've done as much damage as they can do, already. I've got better things to do than make martyrs of them."

"That's probably smart," Dad said.

"Dad?" Cameron began.

"Huh?"

"I need to go do something. It has nothing to do with them," Cameron said, pointing at the screen, "but it's probably big time illegal, and probably dangerous."

Dad look very worried. "Is it some sort of superhero clear-your-name thing? Because, Cameron..."

Cameron was shaking her head. "No, it's nothing like that. It's... are you sure you want to know? Plausible deniability, and all that," Cameron tempted.

"Oh no, you don't get away with that until you're eighteen," Dad said wryly. "I'm responsible for you, so, where are you going?"

"Hospitals," Cameron admitted. "Think about it. I may be useless in a superbattle," Cameron thought back to the fight with Wandless, "or only niche useful, but I've got a very real, very profound power to save lives. Directly. Easily. Costlessly."

"And you're worried about bureaucracy getting in the way if you go above board," Dad guessed.

"Among other things," Cameron said. "I also don't want my legal identity linked to - "

Cameron cut off as Dreya came out of her room with an armful of empty soda cans. Cameron shared a look with her dad, a silent agreement that they wouldn't mention this to the flaky one. Cameron shifted, and went back down to his room to prepare.

He'd travel as his male self. It was early evening, and there was nothing suspicious about him riding the BART. Cameron got out a pair of scissors and went into his bathroom. He carefully sheared off the lock of emerald green hair and tossed it in the trash. He was going to need to get in the habit of doing that anyway, when he went back to school.

Cameron went to his dresser and stripped off his shorts and t-shirt. He put on his heaviest cargo pants, the ones with actual pockets that he hardly ever wore, but were as nondescript as cargo pants came. He wore nothing under them. It was just easier to go without underwear when he knew he'd be shifting in his clothes, and it wasn't like he had to worry about chafing anymore. He kicked his normal t-shirt into the laundry basket and grabbed two of his plain black cotton undershirts, putting both on one under the other.

Cameron stuffed a third undershirt into the largest thigh-pocket of his pants and put the scissors in another pocket. He left his normal Nike' running shoes and dug out a pair of soft boots he'd gotten when Dad had taken the family skiing. His normal shoes had a distinctive tread. From that same trip, Cameron also had a reversible windbreaker that was green one way and blue the other. He turned it so the blue was on the outside and put it on.

Heading out through the front door down in his room that he normally never used, Cameron stomped up the creaky wooden steps, adjusting to the slightly-too-small boots, and let himself into the garage. His dad was fairly organized, so it didn't take more than a minute or two to find a crowbar and a pair of bungee cords to conceal it on his back under his jacket.

Cameron mentally reviewed his routes and targets, marveling at how good his memory had become. He left the garage and started walking.

---

Brian sat in his room, stewing. He was grounded with no internet for the rest of the week. He'd tried to explain to his mom why he'd been out so late, but she refused to believe that he was being serious. It wasn't like he'd had plans or anything, but it was still monumentally unfair.

And cutting off his internet access as a punishment for staying out late? What kind of insane troll logic was that?

Brian sighed. The one bright spot was Rouse, and her promise. He wished he had some idea when she would show up, or even just some sign to reassure him that she actually would. In spite of his best efforts, there was a fierce hope burning inside him.

Sex! Actual sex! With a girl! A totally awesome amazingly gorgeous girl with sexy superpowers that already took his virginity. Brian was beyond anxious. The thing they did down in that basement barely counted, it felt like. He wanted to lay down in bed with her and run his hands all over her skin and kiss her everywhere and savor every moment he was inside her, then cuddle with her and stare into her eyes and learn all about her hopes and dreams and fears. And more ands.

Brian let his forehead fall onto his desk with a loud thunk. "Getting way, way ahead of yourself there, Bri-bri."

The faint sound of the doorbell came from elsewhere in the house. Brian shot upright, his heart pounding. Could that be her? She wouldn't ring the doorbell would she? Firmly reminding himself to maintain some fucking dignity, Brian calmed down and cracked his door open to see if he could hear.

There were muffled voices. Was that a girl's voice? Fortunately he wasn't left guessing long.

"Brian!" his mom hollered. "Get your butt out here!"

Wincing, Brian hurried down the hall and out into the den. It definitely wasn't Rouse. His mom was standing with her arms folded across from an animated girl in a white labcoat and straight black hair in cliff-bangs. Looming behind her was a crisply-dressed black man that made Brian think, mister Murray.

"Brian Farnell?" the man that really reminded Brian of Christopher Judge in Stargate asked.

Brian slowly nodded. "Yeah...?"

"We're with the Pee-Cee-Dee," labcoat girl announced brightly, presenting an official-looking badge. "You can call me Scyelen, and that's Vaughn. We're investigating an incident that occurred on Saturday. I know it's probably hard for you, but we'd really appreciate it if you told us what happened to you last night."

Brian's mother gasped. "You mean you weren't just being a smartass about that?"

"I told you I was being serious. You didn't want to hear it," Brian complained, then after a brief pause. "Does this mean I'm not grounded anymore?"

"We'll see, and watch your tone."

"Ahem," Scyelen said, giving Brian an expectant look.

"Ah, right," Brian began. "Well, I was out on my way to Gamestop, when this blonde woman tapped me on the shoulder. Um, the bad guys called her 'Daydream' I think. Anyway, as soon as I looked at her I just kinda zoned out, and the next thing I knew I was knocked out, and waking up in some basement chained to a wall along with two other guys and four girls. Um, there was a guard. A big older guy called, um, 'Slamjam' was guarding us. I think the others said something about seeing him driving the van..."

Brian trailed off as Scyelen and Vaughn shared a very meaningful look. Scyelen pulled a folder out of her labcoat and showed Brian two morgue mugshots.

"Are these the people you saw?" Scyelen asked.

"Yeah, that's Slamjam and Daydream," Brian confirmed. "Hey, um, how'd you even know I was there? We all agreed we wouldn't... um..." Brian flushed, realizing he'd just fucked up royally.

"Mr. Farnell," Vaughn intoned, "are you aware that fleeing the scene of a crime is legally a punishable offense?"

"Ah, no?" Brian squeaked.

Scyelen rolled her eyes. "In your case we can probably let it slide, no worries. So what happened next?"

"Um, well, the guy, Slamjam, let us alone for a bit, and the seven of us, um, talked trying to figure out what was going on, other than being kidnapped, I mean," Brian said.

"Seven?" Scyelen asked intently. "You and six other teenage victims?"

"Uh, yeah...?" Brian confirmed, realizing a second too late that he might have just given Rouse away.

Scyelen leaned forward. "We know about you, Katie Gutierez, Aron Jaces, Annabelle Heath, John Sampson, and Marien Bass. Who was the seventh?"

Brian gulped. He didn't want to break his promise, but he didn't want to lie either. Scyelen pulled a sketch out of her labcoat and Brian sagged when he saw Rouse's face.

"It was her," Brian admitted. "She calls herself Rouse. She... she saved us."

Scyelen's eyes went wide. "She was one of the victims? She didn't rape you?"

Brian choked. "Whoa, hold on, what? Nobody got raped! Rouse just, um," Brian glanced aside, "um, I'm not comfortable talking about this in front of my mom," Brian diverted.

"Brian!" his mom snapped indignantly.

"Mrs. Farnell, this could be very important to our investigation," Vaughn said levelly. "I hope that you would wish to avoid obstructing us in bringing a dangerous criminal to justice."

Brian's mom scowled. "My son is still a minor. I have rights. You can't talk to him without my permission."

"Mom, please," Brian groaned.

"Why?" she demanded. "What are you trying to hide from me?"

"It's none of your business!" Brian insisted.

"I'm your mother!"

"You're a selfish untrusting troll! First you drove Dad away and now you're driving me crazy!"

"Don't you dare repeat your father's lies in my house!"

Scyelen put two fingers in her mouth and made a whistling noise they probably heard in Canada. Brian winced and his mom clapped her hands over her ears.

"Mrs. Farnell, leave the room now or we'll come back with a warrant to arrest you for obstruction," Scyelen bluffed, suddenly all kinds of menacing and creepy.

Brian's mom tried to stare her down, but in only a few moments she walked, pale and stiff, into her bedroom and shut the door. In a moment, Scyelen was all smiles and sweetness again. Brian sighed, and steeled himself.

He told them the whole story, everything he could remember, except Rouse's real name. Scyelen's eyes lit up with a frightening intensity when he described the thing that sliced him open and would have eaten him if not for Rouse. Vaughn pulled out a tablet computer and took furious notes when Brian described Wandless, and made a sketch right there. Scyelen gasped as though she'd just gotten the answer to a big puzzle when Brian confessed their failure to save Annabelle. They made him try to remember exactly where the door to the basement was, since they hadn't found that yet.

Finally he was done, and the PCD team left in a hurry.

---

Cameron carefully scanned the street outside the diner for cameras. The hospital he'd chosen loomed across the street, and he'd finally found a place to shift. Cameron went into the diner and slipped towards the back and snuck into the woman's restroom. As soon as he was inside he shifted.

Pulling her jacket off, Cameron turned it inside out and slipped it back on, the green side outward. She pulled the extra undershirt from her pants pocket and tied it around her head. Adjusting her pants on her now-female hips, Cameron checked herself in the mirror and took a deep breath.

Cameron let herself out of the bathroom, immediately focusing on anyone she could see and numbing wakefulness. A half-dozen diner patrons slumped over their meals, and a waitress fell and cracked her head on the edge of a chair. Cameron ducked down to brush her fingers over the waitress and Heal her as she strode passed.

Breaking into a sprint, Cameron quickly crossed the street and headed for the ambulance dock. It was wonderful to be able to to run like that without getting flushed and out of breath. She sprinted across the tarmac with enough speed that the cadence of her stride smoothed out and barely set her breasts wobbling.

There were a pair of EMTs stocking an ambulance in an open garage to the side. Cameron numbed them into unconsciousness without slowing. A security guard at a desk just inside looked up in alarm when Cameron crashed into the swinging doors, flinging them open. Another pair of EMTs appeared from the side just in time to fall with the guard to Cameron's numbing.

Cameron waited to see if anyone else would come to see what the noise was about while she helped herself to the security guard's keycards.

Cameron went room by room, numbing anyone she happened across unconscious and healing every patient she found, briefly shifting for the male ones and then shifting back. For some it was simple, a touch and she moved on. For others there was collateral damage. A number of formerly-elderly men and women had things like pacemakers or steel hips that exploded out of their bodies like bomb shrapnel when Cameron healed them. There was more than a little damage to the walls and one room's window was just gone, but it only took Cameron an hour to get through the whole building.

There were police cars surrounding the exits by then. It seemed an ambulance had driven up while Cameron was busy and the drivers found everyone knocked out. It barely slowed Cameron down. She turned the corner to the exit and numbed, causing the uniformed men and women to topple like dominoes. A couple got shots off, but by then Cameron was sprinting out the doors, focusing numbings on the source of the gunshot sounds.

Several police cars with flashing lights and sirens screeched around from the other sides of the buildings, but Cameron numbed the drivers, sending the cars crashing into the parked cars in the parking lot in a very satisfying way. Cameron used her crowbar, which hadn't gotten any use yet, to smash in the side windows of the police cars so she could give them all a healing touch. She moved fast, darting from car to car.

Done with that, Cameron scanned the area one last time for pursuit and ran. The girl with the green jacket and ninja mask vanished down an alley. A few moments later, a black-haired boy in a blue windbreaker emerged from the other end of the alley, slipping a pair of scissors and wisp of something green into his pocket.

---

Monday, May 14th 2007
Berkeley, California
PCD Temporary Case Room, Berkeley Police Department

"Alright, let's review the facts, people," Detective Shaun Gallagher ordered, sipping his morning coffee.

"We have two conflicting stories, between four witnesses," Agent Vaughn Dubaku stated. "Two witnesses claim our suspect, Rouse, was a fellow abductee that acted to protect them and defeat a team of four previously-unknown agents of the Grand Hall of Sinister Wisdom, three of whom are in our morgue right now. Two witnesses claim that Rouse was the abductor, and the lone perpetrator. Both sides agree that Rouse had sexual contact with them, while conflicting on the presence of consent. One side claimed the presence of a supervillain called Wandless, while the other implied her absence."

Agent Dubaku gestured, and an MID displayed on the electronic whiteboard. It had a clear border and showed a tall bronze-skinned woman in motorcycle leathers under a billowing black hooded cloak that shadowed her face.

Codename: WANDLESS
Ratings: Exemplar-1 / Wizard-2 / Psi-2 / Martial Arts - intermediate
Techniques: Telekinetic melee weapons. Force bolt. Shatterbolt. Hypnotic voice. Tazer touch. Spell eater. Ghost step.
Weak vs. Normal human weakness.
Affiliation: Black Swans

"Well," Detective Deidra Tayler said, "even if Farnell and Guteriez are telling the truth, Rouse is still guilty of at least statutory rape, extenuating circumstances not withstanding."

"Not necessarily," Detective Helena Aiden disagreed. "Rouse is not in the Dee-Pee-Aay database. Since she doesn't have an Em-Ey-Dee, maybe she's younger than your profile suggests. Maybe she's a recently-manifested minor."

Dr. Malcom Donland stepped in. "Forensic analysis identified seven individuals from Dee-En-Aay recovered from seminal and vaginal fluids found in the house's basement. Interestingly, six of those samples match our four living witnesses as well as mister Jaces and miss Heath, and the seventh does not match any of our samples."

Donland taps a file waiting on the edge of the whiteboard, displaying a nanoprint.

"If Rouse is our seventh victim, she is indeed an oddity," Donland continued. "What you are looking at, is the distinct Ex-Ex-Wye chromosome of Klinefelter syndrome. Now, for a Klinefelter to present as female, let alone functionally female, is incredibly rare, but given that Rouse is an admitted mutant, perhaps it is still more likely that this sample belongs to her than to anyone else."

"The fluid samples were all found in the basement," Deirdra pointed out, "while the magical workings appeared to take place entirely in the dining room. Can we assume those were separate events?"

"The layout of the casting diagram fits with the virgin sacrifice story moreso than the ritual rape story," Scyelen opined. "Maybe. I think. But I knew there was something hinky about those two."

"Vaughn. Deidra. Scyelen. I want you to conclusively determine the involvement, or lack thereof, of the Grand Hall," Gallagher ordered.

Just then, all of their phones made noises that announced a text message, ordering them to report for a briefing. Gallagher shared looks with his team, before shrugging wordlessly and leading the way to see what was going on.

---

Tuesday, May 15th 2007
Berkeley, California
Endel Residence

Cameron stared at the house on Google Street View. It was a long blue one-story, overgrown with trees, and it was only a few blocks away. Cameron could jog there in five minutes without crossing any major streets.

He was deliberately male as he let his thoughts dwell on Brian. Cameron wanted to test himself, to make sure agreeing to sex with a boy hadn't been some confused reaction to Cameron's inexperience being female, some psychosomatic gender identity shift.

But that wasn't the case. Being male while he thought about it didn't change what he thought about it. Would it be different if Brian wanted the male Cameron instead of the female Cameron? A little, yes, but Cameron didn't think it should be. That was just pop culture stigma that had rubbed off on Cameron growing up, not something he should let influence his decisions.

Cameron shifted. Technically, what she actually did was apply her healing power to herself, causing her form to reset to the opposite sex for some unknown reason, but Cameron had been simply calling it shifting for brevity's sake.

Dressed in a sports bra and sweatpants, Cameron put his shoes on and headed upstairs.

"Hey, Cam," Dad called from his home office, sounding amused. "Come check it out. You made the news again."

Cameron obliged, watching the clip over her dad's shoulder, titled Supervillian Attack on Hospital! It showed a tough-looking grey-haired man ducking under the police line, followed by a tall asian woman, a gothy girl in a lab coat, an older man, and an imposing black guy. The reporter was talking about the Paranormal Crimes Division from San Francisco coming in to investigate the incident, and cut to various bystanders talking about how glad they were that their dying relative is suddenly young and healthy, or how the whole thing was wack and the people who got healed ought to be quarantined, and variations between those opinions.

Cameron sighed. "I suppose I should wait to make sure all the people I healed aren't going to be quietly 'disappeared' before I do this again. Now that I've... played my hand, things are going to get nucking futz, I bet."

"I don't think it'll be that bad," Dad said, examining his own rejuvenated hands. "Aren't I supposed to be the cynical one?"

"The student has surpassed the teacher. Be proud," Cameron snarked.

Dad snorted and closed the tab. Cameron left him to his work and went out to the living room. Dreya was in the kitchen, making herself dinner. She saw Cameron and laughed, rolling her eyes. Dreya did that every time she saw girl-Cameron, ever since she found out Cameron could shift at will. Cameron flipped her off and stepped out the back into the yard.

It was a small yard, a grass-covered plateau on the side of the house, opposite Cameron's room. The sky was dim blue in the direction of the ocean, and the stars were just coming out.

Cameron turned away from the street and broke into a run. She vaulted up the fence and dropped twenty feet into the back yard of another house. She leaped and pulled herself to the top of that yard's fence, and then followed it like a balance beam. Sticking to fences and backyards as much as she could, Cameron eventually made her way to the blue house she'd looked up. Brian's house.

Cameron perched on the fence, legs dangling. She was nervous. Her impulse to blunt honesty was warring with her sense of self-preservation. She'd planned on showing Brian that she wasn't always a girl, but that was before her female identity became a person of interest, and she needed her male identity to stay separate. Now she didn't know what to do.

Maybe she could just be vague. Tell him that she's a shapeshifter and sometimes becomes male, and ask if that bothers him, and then go from there.

Cameron hopped down into the yard and went to each of the windows, peeking in through the blinds. On the far side of the house furthest from the street, Cameron saw a pair of hands holding a Nintendo DS, playing a Pokemon game. She leaned until she saw the face attached to those arms. It was Brian, reclined on top of his bed.

Cameron was surprised to find herself smiling, almost eager for what she was about to do. Was she attracted to boys after all? That would be great, but it still didn't seem like that was the case. Cameron remembered having a crush on a girl in middle school, and this didn't feel anything like that.

Brian didn't stir any base desire in her, unfortunately, but the idea of giving him the sex he wanted with her did provoke a... a vicarious thrill. It wasn't pity. It was empathy. Grinning with the relief of having solved an introspective mystery, Cameron knocked on the glass.

The blinds were yanked up, and Brian gaped as his face flushed. He broke out in a crazy grin and fiddled with the window for a moment before he got it open. Luckily, there was no screen.

"Rouse! You're actually here," Brian enthused in a loud whisper.

"Yeah," Cameron agreed. "Who's in there besides you?"

Brian glanced over his shoulder at the closed door set in a wood-panel wall, between shelves full of manga, paperback novels, and DVDs. "Uh, my mom. Last I saw she was in the den. It's just us that lives here, though."

Cameron nodded, and extended a hand. "Give me a hand up?"

With Brian to brace against, Cameron climbed catlike through the window and stood up in Brian's room. Brian was looking at her and around at his room nervously. The bed was under the window, which Cameron closed. One end of the room had a desk with a laptop next to a dresser, and the other end had an old TV and a Playstation 2.

"Kewl room," Cameron reassured him. "Wanna show me around the rest of the place?"

"Ah, it would probably be really bad if my mom knew you were here," Brian hedged, fidgeting with his hands.

"I figured," Cameron said. "That's the point. I want to use my power to put her to sleep so she won't interrupt us, but I don't want her to see my face and I don't know where she sleeps."

"Oh," Brian said, then his eyes went wide. "Oh! Some police people came by asking about what happened. They thought you were the bad guy! They know what you look like. They have a drawing of your face. My mom was there. She saw it."

Cameron sighed. "That figures. John and Marien were on the news calling me a sexual deviant and an unholy abomination. I ask you, why couldn't they just go fuck each other instead of fucking with me?"

Brian's jaw dropped. "They really did that? Those... those..."

"Hypocritical faithtards?" Cameron offered with a smirk.

Brian stopped and then burst into boyish giggles. "Yeah. What you said."

There was a knock on the door and an annoyed woman's voice. "Brian? What are you doing in there?"

Cameron spun, focusing a numbing on the source of the voice just as the knob started turning. A moment later there was a muffled thump. Cameron brushed by Brian and opened the door to reveal a thin middle-aged brunette unconscious on the floor. Cameron crouched down and scooped the woman up into her arms.

"Can you show me where her room is?" Cameron asked.

"Uh, yeah," Brian said, pointing down the hallway. "It's through the... damn you're strong."

Cameron smiled and shrugged as she followed Brian's direction. "You're mom's not all that heavy. It's not like I can pick up a car or anything like that. There are probably baseline humans stronger than me."

"What's it like?" Brian asked. "To be able to do things like just make people fall asleep with your mind?"

"It's like it gives me options," Cameron said as she went into the room Brian pointed towards. "If there's something I want to make happen, there's so many more ways I can do it now than before I got my powers."

Brian pulled the covers back and Cameron set his mom down in the bed. They got her reasonably undressed and Cameron gave her another burst of numbing as they headed out and closed the door behind them.

"So..." Brian said, shuffling nervously, his expression a mix of hesitancy and need.

"So, um, there're some things we should talk about," Cameron said, taking Brian's hand and leading him back to his room.

"Ah, okay," Brian said. "What kinda things?"

Cameron sat down on Brian's bed and kicked her shoes off. "Well, the main thing I'm worried about is, I can shapeshift. Some of the time, I'm, well, a boy. And I can see how that might bother a straight guy like you."

Brian flinched, pulling his hand away, and Cameron watched him visibly force himself to relax. "Ah, um, but you're not really a boy, right?"

Well, that at least, Cameron could answer honestly. "No. I'm not part boy, or think of myself as a boy, or anything like that" I don't really think of myself as a girl, either, but I don't think I could explain that so you'd understand.

"And, um, you're not going to ever, like, turn into a guy while you're with me, are you?" Brian asked.

Cameron chuckled. "I wouldn't do that."

Brian smiled weakly. "Oh, um, I guess I don't really mind, then. Was that, um, the only thing?"

"It was the most important thing," Cameron said. "The other thing is, I can't promise to be exclusive to you. Now, you saw my healing powers, and I'm pretty sure they work on everything, so you don't have to worry about, like, catching anything. I'll probably always be the cleanest girl you know."

"But," Brian began, then sagged. "Okay. I can live with that, too."

Cameron smiled and nudged him. "Come on, what would you do if you found yourself with a superpower that eliminates all the health risks of promiscuity?"

Brian grinned. "Yeah, I can kinda see your point."

"And look on the bright side," Cameron said. "I'm a lesbian, remember? Guys can come on to me, but I won't be coming on to any guys. If I come on to anyone it'll be girls."

Brian gave her a smile, then turned hesitant. "So, can we, um, are you gonna..."

Cameron figured he was talking about sex but was trying not to be rude by asking outright. Cameron bent down and stripped her socks off, then stood up and stripped off her sports bra and sweatpants. Brian's eyes were huge, nervous and hungry, as Cameron sat back down on the bed next to him, completely naked.

"Brian?"

He looked up and swallowed, meeting her eyes.

"If we're going to be friends, I want you to forget everything you've ever been told about how to respect a girl's physical boundaries," Cameron said intently, her voice trembling a little with the need to say this properly. "I'm here because you desire me. I will never think less of you for acting on that desire, and I will never get upset at you for touching me."

"Um, really?" Brian asked hopefully.

"Really," Cameron said warmly. "I wouldn't be here, otherwise. Now, are you going to get naked, or what?"

Brian grinned sheepishly, quickly shucking his jeans and t-shirt, leaving him in a pair of boxers tenting around his erection. Cameron pulled the blankets back on his bed and laid down on the sheets on her back, letting her limbs spread, relaxed and open. She focused a rousing on herself, and in seconds she was wet and aching to be filled. Brian hesitated for a moment, before dropping his boxers and climbing onto the bed.

"Wow, um," Brian said, blushing. "This is going to sound weird, but I think I was too busy being attracted to you to notice how attractive you are. Your body is so... it's a little intimidating."

"You don't need to be intimidated," Cameron said gently. "You're better looking than I was before I got my healing powers."

"Oh. Really? That's hard to imagine."

Brian rested a hand flat on her belly. His hands slid over her skin, exploring the contours of her waist, ribs, and hips. Cameron sighed happily. She wasn't used to being touched at all, and it really did feel good. Brian moved over her so he was straddling her torso as his hands slid onto her breasts and played with her squeezablely soft flesh. Cameron stroked her thumbs along his surprisingly-hairless thighs.

In fact, he had almost no body hair. A light sprinkling on his forearms and shins, and above his pubes, and that was all. Cameron was sure he'd had more hair than that when she'd seen him down in that basement. Was it a side effect of the healing? That would be interesting.

Brian's hands went to the sides of her breasts, squeezing them up and together as he dove in with his face, kissing and licking and suckling. He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth.

"Ohh... fuck," Cameron breathed, reaching down to her slit.

Cameron's fingers dipped into her moist heat as Brian switched nipples. It was like there was a string that ran from her nipples down her abdomen and into her clit, every suck sending a jolt of pleasure. It was a wonderful sensation and so utterly new. Cameron trailed a wet finger up and over her clit, and that set her off.

She let the moans, trembles, and twitches take her without resistance. Brian pulled back to look at her, his expression slack and unreadable.

"Did you just, you know, get off?" Brian asked.

"A little bit," Cameron told him. "And I didn't even use my powers once you started touching me."

Brian grinned bashfully

"I didn't know what having my breasts suckled would feel like. No one's ever done that to me before," Cameron said. "Let me tell you, it was awesome."

"Kewl," Brian said, glancing down at his aching erection. "So, um..."

"Whatever it is, you can say it, no matter how you think it sounds," Cameron assured him.

Brian looked around at nothing in particular. "Oh, okay, I was just wondering if we could have, you know, actual sex now, and if you'd be on top?"

Cameron smiled understandingly and nodded, scooching over. "Here, lay down."

Brian twisted down into the space next to Cameron, laying on his back. His erection bobbing slightly where it jutted up over his waist. Cameron felt a perfectly natural thrill of heat shoot through her as she put a leg over his body and slid on top of him, and his hardness poked her buttcheek and his hips rocked under her. She wanted to feel them chest to chest, so she laid flat on top of him instead of sitting up on her knees.

Brian sighed in pleasure and wrapped his arms around her. His hands went everywhere, sweeping up and down her back, following the contours of her spine, and groping her butt. The look of blissful awe on his face tugged at Cameron's affections, and when he lifted his head to kiss her, she closed her eyes and opened her lips, mentally stomping on the part of herself that whined about him not being a girl.

Cameron wriggled, trying to seat the head of Brian's shaft in the cleft of her opening while she re-readied herself with a gentle rousing. She finally reached back and grabbed him. Brian broke their kiss with a sharp intake of air. Cameron pulled her legs up, knees dragging over the sheets, and sat up just enough that her nipples were tickling the bottom of Brian's ribs. His hardness filled her, slipping through her inner labia and squeezing between her walls.

Brian groaned, his eyes rolling up as Cameron sat up the rest rest of the way, sinking down until nothing of his erection was visible. She sat on him like that for a while, eyes shut, etching every detail of the filling sensation into her deepest mind.

Cameron felt fingers stroke around her breasts and fondle her. She looked down into Brian's flushed face, alight with nervous joy, and her hips twitched forward all on their own, sending a spike of pleasure through her. Brian's hardness twitched inside her, tugging on some instinct that exulted not merely in being penetrated, but in being penetrated by a living partner.

"Um, are you gonna use your powers on me to make sure I don't go off too soon?" Brian asked hopefully.

Cameron nodded and took his left hand in her right. "Squeeze my hand harder the closer you are. When you want to cum, let go of my hand entirely. That work for you?"

Brian nodded eagerly, and Cameron started riding him. It was slow at first, as she focused a feather-light rousing on his erection and numbing on his orgasm response. She kept the biokinetic touch faint as she sped up and Brian started bucking his hips in time with her. His hand clamped down hard on hers, and she put a little more strength into her numbing.

The sight of Brian panting and writhing in pleasure was actually turning her on all on its own. Cameron applied a slight numbing to her own orgasm response and settled in to ride Brian until she just got bored.

That turned out to be for a lot longer than she'd have guessed.

It was nearly three hours later. They were both drenched in sweat. Brian was a thrashing insensate mess with a death grip on her hand, and Cameron was in a blissful zen of continuous motion and pleasure.

Brian suddenly threw her hand away as hard as he could and grabbed her hips in a grip that would have been painful if she wasn't so worked up. Cameron reacted as she'd been ready to do, barely even thinking about it, and roused both of their orgasms.

A bomb of ecstasy went off in Cameron's gut, lighting up her whole body. She screamed. Brian screamed. White out.

When Cameron came back to her senses, she was sprawled limply on top of Brian with her nose in his neck and her thighs out at a right angle from her body. She kissed the sweaty skin under her lips just 'cause it was handy, and felt Brian shudder. He'd gone flaccid and was only barely inside her, and she could feel their gooey fluids trickling down.

"Water," Brian croaked.

Cameron giggled weakly. "Yeah. Soon's we can get up."

Slowly lifting herself off the exhausted boy, Cameron went to her knees and then backed up off the bed, standing on wobbly legs. Her whole body ached and thrummed, but it was a very satisfied feeling even if she was uncomfortably tender between her legs. She offered Brian a hand and pulled him to a sitting position. Brian swung his legs off the bed and winced, hissing in pain.

"Damn I'm gonna be sore," Brian moaned, staring at his lap. "Putting clothes back on is going to be agony."

"Ah. I suppose this is why sex is only supposed to last about seven minutes, on average," Cameron offered, moving gingerly. "Want me to heal you?"

"Yeah," Brian said. "Definitely."

Cameron nodded. "Close your eyes."

Brian complied without comment. Cameron shifted and then brushed Brian's forehead with his fingertips. Brian's body rippled subtly. The sweaty sheen on his skin vanished. His genitals were suddenly dry and no longer raw. His slightly cracking lips were suddenly soft and moist again. Cameron quickly shifted back.

"Okay," she said.

Brian looked up at her. "Huh. That's strange. My body suddenly feels like what we just did happened weeks ago."

"Aw, man, you're right," Cameron said, feeling the same thing. "My healing cures sexual satisfaction? What a rip!" Cameron sighed. "Okay, that's hardly fair. It would be unreasonable for my powers not to have some drawbacks."

Brian stood up and reached hesitantly to touch her. Cameron rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, planting it firmly on her left breast. Grinning sheepishly, Brian stepped close and slid his arms around her waist. His erection swelled against her thighs as her breasts squished against his chest. Cameron smacked herself with a quick rousing, and the sudden flush of arousal helped her melt into him and return his kiss eagerly.

Stupid brain with its defective androphilia. Maybe she could train herself to use her biokinesis automatically whenever anyone touched her, but that could get awkward when Cameron was male. Meh. Maybe autonomic arousal was overrated.

Brian pulled back and grinned. "So, I guess we're going again after we get some water?"

"Sure," Cameron said warmly. "You're still thirsty?"

"Not as much as I was before the healing thing," Brian said, "but... yeah."

Cameron nodded and followed him out into the hallway. She peaked in on Brian's mom while he went into the kitchen. The woman was still fast asleep, but Cameron numbed her some more just to be safe. Cameron heard the refrigerator open and close. Brian came back, gulping down water from a frosty plastic bottle. She finished off the rest of it when he offered it to her.

A thought occurred to her. "Hey, close your eyes again."

"Huh? Okay."

Cameron did a quick shift-heal-shift, then asked, "How does your thirst feel?"

Brian blinked. "Huh. I'm not thirsty, but I also don't feel like I just drank a bunch of water. Hey, that's kewl."

Cameron grinned. "That's what I thought. I haven't had to use the bathroom since I discovered my healing, and I've eaten, like, once."

"No way," Brian said.

"Way," Cameron said, heading back to Brian's room.

Brian followed her. "Damn. I don't even know what to say to that."

Giving in to an exhibitionist whim, Cameron crawled straight onto the bed, letting her butt stick up and give Brian a clear view. "Hey, watch this."

Cameron focused a rousing on herself, taking herself from almost nothing to soaking wet in about ten seconds. She kept the rousing up and her whole sex throbbed with a swelling pleasure until she spasmed into orgasm, letting herself tremble and moan. She folded her arms, letting her upper body down to the sheets as she looked back at Brian.

His eyes were locked on her apex and he was hard like steel. "Holy fuck, that was hot. I think you just gave me a new fetish."

Cameron grinned. "Oops?"

"Can you really do that to anybody?" Brian asked.

"Yeah, if I want," Cameron admitted.

Brian's eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment, then he blinked and looked at her, gaze sliding between her smiling face and her upturned rear. Gulping, he reached for her hips. Cameron closed her eyes and enjoyed it when his fingers massaged her folds and then were buried inside her. Brian withdrew his fingers after only a few moments, and Cameron felt his greater thickness prodding at her and then slowly sinking all the way into her.

Cameron let this one go without biokinetic influence. After all, it wasn't even midnight yet. They had all night and it wasn't like they would need to sleep, or conserve their stamina. She could scarcely believe how utterly wrong her first impression of her powers had been. She wouldn't trade her powers for Champion's.

---

Cameron went to visit Brian every night for the rest of the week. During the day, she kept an eye on the news, official and unofficial, to make sure there weren't any hints that things had turned nasty for the people she'd healed, and looked up hospitals, clinics, and travel routes to decide on her next target.

Once it was late enough that Brian's mother wouldn't get suspicious about her missing evenings, Cameron jogged over there and snuck in. She numbed his mother to sleep, and spent the rest of the night naked.

She always gave Brian a last really strong wakefulness rousing right before she left in the morning, and that seem to be enough to prevent any problems for him. Having sex was always the first thing they did, but between their bouts, sometimes they'd talk about GEO and other games, or their favorite books, or watch anime together on Brian's TV.

On friday, Brian joked that Cameron was his Magical Girlfriend. Cameron cracked up at that, but it also got her ranting about how the guys in those stories who stubbornly rejected a girl's sexual advances 'for her own good ' were always portrayed as the chivalrous hero, even though that thinking was just as guilty of degrading the girl's personhood as it was to treat the love interest's vagina like the hero's property. And just as bad for boys, was how the male characters who didn't do this were instead beaten to a bloody pulp by the female characters every time they expressed any interest at all.

Fortunately, by then Brian was comfortable enough with Cameron to distract her by tackling her flat onto the bed, mounting her from behind, and fucking her silly. Cameron approved.

---

Saturday, May 19th 2007
Berkeley, California
Roof of Police Headquarters

Detective Helena Aiden shook Detective Shaun Gallagher's hand. The case was in danger of going cold and the PCD had responsibilities in their own city, but they'd given her a solid foundation to work from. Still, she liked them, and liked working with them. She was sorry to see them go.

"My team's reports are on file, and updated profiles for Rouse and Wandless are archived on your server with the Eff-Be-Ey's files on the Grand Hall," Gallagher told her. "Good hunting, Helena."

She smiled as he released her hand and turned to board the SFPD dropship.

"I was so useless on this case," Scyelen sighed as she headed up the ramp with Detective Tayler. "Even with the hospital break-in, the security cameras were worth more than me. At least Doc had fun examining the quote-unquote victims..."

The boarding ramp sealed shut with a hiss. Helena backed away as the dropships engines spun to life. She looked away from the wind, and saw something strange. A figure was silhouetted against the setting sun on a distant rooftop. Helena hurried around the helipad to get a better look, but the figure was gone.

---

Later...
Oakland, California

Having decided that hitting two hospitals in Berkeley in a row would be too obvious, Cameron had taken the BART down to Oakland. He'd pulled the same stunt as last time with a nearby bathroom to cover his change, and now she was racing across the street at a sprint, clad in green jacket and shirt-ninja mask.

This place had more security than her last target, but she was methodical as she moved into the building. No one was left awake to raise an alarm.

Like last time, she went room to room, healing everyone she found. However, one of the patients she came across was a recent amputee, and she was worried that healing him might be fatal. Cameron paused to consider. The man was somewhat overweight, but Cameron could only guess if the man had enough excess mass to make a new leg.

There was an intake of breath behind her. Crap! Situational awareness much?

Cameron spun around, already focusing a numbing on the thickset woman in a security uniform, but the woman threw her hands up and yelped, "Wait!"

The woman was already swaying into unconsciousness by the time Cameron realized that she wasn't acting hostile. Cameron darted forward and caught the woman, easing her gently to the floor and Healing her for her trouble. The effect was interesting. The woman's mass redistributed, shrinking her somewhat bulbous belly to fill out her curves and harden her muscles. Cameron helped herself to the woman's keys.

Cameron left the maimed man. He probably would have survived, but that wasn't a risk that was Cameron's to take. She hurried through the rest of the building. This time, when she left, she didn't even have to flee a fleet of police cars.

As Cameron headed home on the BART, he realized that he owed that security woman. She had to have known Cameron was in the building, from a security monitor or something, and she'd chosen to confront Cameron in person instead of raising the alarm. Why had she done that?

---

Sunday, May 20th 2007
Berkeley, California
Farnell Residence

Cameron lay on her back, with Brian sprawled and spent on top of her. He didn't bother to support himself or roll off of her. He knew by now that she could take his full weight comfortably.

"Rouse?" Brian asked idly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how were you a virgin when we met? I mean, I'm not so full of myself that I'd think there's something special about me, especially 'cause you keep saying you're a lesbian, and even with me you're so... wanton."

"It's always the quiet ones," Cameron deadpanned.

Brian snickered, dropping a kiss on her breast. "I don't get it, though. I can't be the first one that wanted you."

"Um, actually, you were," Cameron admitted. "I told you my healing power fixed me up to look this good, but that wasn't even two days before the, um, Incident. So it is just that you got to me first."

"Oh," Brian said thoughtfully. "What about who you wanted? Was there anybody?"

Cameron looked away. "There was a girl. My big crush. I admired her for ages, ignoring everyone else, but when she found out about me liking her, she just started avoiding me like the plague."

"Aw, sorry," Brian murmured. "I know how that goes."

Cameron shook her head. "So yeah, that's how I was a virgin when we met."

And she still felt like she hadn't really been with a girl. She'd told herself that she'd lost her virginity to Annabelle, and that would be enough to satisfy her self-image as a gynephile. But with Annabelle and the others it had been abrupt and one-sided. It barely counted. Being with Brian was nice, but every time her hands went roaming over his chest and hips or he spoke in his boyishly masculine voice, she had to fight down feelings of disappointment.

It really sucked that she couldn't risk being seen in public while she was a girl. Stupid self-righteous faithtards. Cameron grumbled.

Brian lifted his head from her shoulder. "Huh?"

Cameron gave him a little smile. "Nothing. Just wishing I wasn't a wanted fugitive, so I could maybe meet a girl. There are, like, lesbian hang-outs, clubs and such, aren't there? With my powers I could actually seduce somebody."

"Isn't using your powers like that a little, I don't know, sketchy?" Brian wondered.

"I really don't think so," Cameron said. "The only things I can control are involuntary anyway."

Brian shrugged. "If you say so."

"Not like I can actually go somewhere like that, though," Cameron sighed.

Cameron suddenly recalled an image. Brian, laying in a pool of blood, and her healing him. Only, the first attempt went wrong. It went female. If only... Wait. Why not?

"Brian?" Cameron started slowly.

Brian propped himself up on his elbows. "Yeah?"

"Would you, um," Cameron glanced aside, "would you maybe let me turn you into a girl? Just for a little while?"

Brian stared. "Wait, what? Turn me - you can do that?"

"It's part of my healing power," Cameron explained. "So... would you?"

Brian crawled off her and sat up, folding his legs. "Ah, I don't know."

Cameron sat up next to him. "You are into Yuri, aren't you? Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"Well, maybe in an abstract way," Brian hedged, "but actually being turned into a girl? That's not the same thing at all."

Cameron leaned over and kissed him, feeling encouraged when he returned it. "How about a trade? If you let me turn you into a girl for an hour or two and make sweet lesbian love to you," Cameron grinned teasingly, "I'll do something weird for you that you want to do."

Brian was silent for a long moment. "Well, I guess it could be okay, and there is... it's not something weird exactly, but it is, um..."

"What?" Cameron asked curiously.

"Um, rough? I've always wondered what the big deal is about, um, deep-throating," Brian admitted. "It'd be kewl to know first-hand."

Cameron considered. Brian's request certainly wasn't something she was eager to do, but it would be good to know if she could, and if it got him to agree... "I'm willing to give it a try."

Brian grinned bashfully. "You're really great, you know that? Do you have any hang-ups at all?"

Cameron gave him a quirky smile. "Oh I have plenty. Just not about sex."

At Cameron's prompting, Brian stood up off the bed and Cameron roused him to hardness as she settled on the edge of the bed in front of him. Cameron made two discoveries. First, that her biokinesis worked on her gag reflex, and second, that even without a gag reflex having a penis jammed down her throat was more than a little unpleasant. She was trying to enjoy it, she really was, but even with a rousing pushing her to orgasm, she just couldn't convince those parts of herself that her throat was an erogenous zone or that having her face in a boy's crotch was any fun.

Breathing wasn't very doable either, but Cameron held on as long as she could, trying to swallow Brian's glans. She roused him to orgasm before it got unbearable. He clutched her head to him as his erection spasmed violently. The orgasmic pulses were a lot more noticeable and, oh pun, in-your-face like this. She could imagine the appeal if one was an androphile. She didn't taste anything, since she was swallowing half his length already, but she felt the warm fluid slide down into her stomach. Ick.

She roused her own climax to distract herself, but that made her slip on her control of her gag reflex. Cameron pulled off, coughing badly.

Brian knelt down. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Cameron managed. "That was just the kinda fun that's not."

Brian snerked at her reference. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Feminize."

"Okay, that was awful," Brian chuckled.

Cameron winced playfully. "Yeah. Way funnier in my head."

"So..." Brian trailed off.

Cameron tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Do you have a mirror?"

"Yeah. Why?" Brian wondered.

"Where?"

Brian got up and went to his closet. He pulled the door open, revealing a full length dressing mirror on the inside of the door. Cameron stood and followed him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He leaned back into her breasts as she settled her chin on his shoulder. It was a cute image of an attractive young couple that stood in the mirror.

"Do it," Brian murmured.

Feeling a thrill of excitement, Cameron loosened her embrace so Brian's shifting flesh wouldn't bruise her. She healed him, and his flesh rippled. In an eyeblink, Brian was a slender and sexy girl, maybe two inches shorter as mass redistributed to hips and breasts. Cameron stared, grinning.

"Oh damn," Cameron exclaimed, hugging Brian to her. "You are really cute."

Cameron had started getting used to not feeling any natural attraction when she was with Brian, but now that he was girlified, she was getting turned on just looking at them in the mirror. Her hands roamed up to Brian's breasts and down to Brian's new slit.

"Oh, this is just too weird," Brian breathed in a cute feminine moan, rocking her hips against Cameron's fingers.

Cameron trailed kisses up and down Brian's neck as her fingers worked. "Go with it. You're hot. I want you so bad right now."

It took a while, but Cameron kept going until Brian climaxed without any biokinetic help. The new girl trembled against Cameron's body. Cameron turned Brian around and kissed her eagerly.

Somehow, they got back to the bed. Brian laid flat on top of Cameron as they made out passionately. Cameron ran her hands and lips over every bit of the new girl's skin she could reach. Their hips curled forward, squishing their clits together, and Cameron roused them both continuously, blurring their making out into one long pseudo-orgasm, a slow spasm wracking them every couple seconds.

At some point, Cameron found herself kissing down around Brian's breasts, and Brian twisted around until they were sixty-nining with Cameron on top. Fingers joined tongues, growing more and more forceful until Cameron felt Brian's entire hand slide through her labia.

Cameron wasn't sure how long it was before they simply collapsed from exhaustion, but it could easily have been several hours. They lay in a wet tangle, buried to the wrist in each other's vagina, panting breath tickling each other's mons.

Eventually, Cameron found the strength to drag her body around and snuggled into girl-Brian, kissing her softly and sweetly. Cameron had a satisfied smile on her face that wouldn't go away.

"That was... different," Brian breathed. sHe blinked. "I mean, obviously it was different, but I mean you were different. That was... different. You were..."

"I was...?" Cameron prompted gently, with an amused smile.

Brian grinned tiredly. "I guess there's no doubt you really are a lesbian. That raw lust... you've never been like that before. I think it was worth turning into a girl just to have you like that."

Cameron giggled and kissed the smaller girl. "It was a nice treat. But I still like you as a boy, even if my hormones don't. I still like sex, even if my base lust is snoozing on the job."

"You know, I've never heard anyone talk about sex the way you do," Brian said in a wondering tone. "Even... even in porn stuff, there's usually this juvenile it's-great-because-it's-nasty attitude, which always baffled me. But you don't act like that at all. You don't act like sex is something you only do because your body drives you to it."

Cameron gave Brian a smile. "Yeah. Everyone I've ever met or heard talking about it was always all twisted up about sex in one way or another. I think that it's mostly 'cause there's a lot of myth and incoherent misinformation about sex floating around, and most people never even notice how confused they are. Even you were, a little, even though you knew better, intellectually."

"Huh? I was?" Brian questioned.

"Don't you remember the first time I came over?" Cameron asked. "Even though you knew we weren't doing anything wrong and I had already agreed to have sex with you, you still kinda acted like your desire was something you needed to protect me from, at first."

"I was just... well..." Brian protested, trailing off. "Oh. Good point."

"I like it when you look at me like a starving man after a steak," Cameron said gently. "I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't. I think sexuality is a valuable thing, in itself. Look at the animal kingdom and the human's place in it, physically. Every creature has its niche, some thing that its body is better suited for than any other animal. Think about what the human body is better suited for than any other animal on earth. Why shouldn't everybody get to enjoy the thing their bodies are best at? Maybe I don't think there's enough sex in the world, and I wanna do my part to correct that."

"Even if you're not participating?" Brian teased.

"Especially if I'm not participating," Cameron laughed. "I'm only one person. I can't fuck everyone." Cameron sobered. "Just like I can't heal everyone."

Brian didn't say anything to that. sHe just snuggled into Cameron's arms, and held her close.

---

Monday, May 21st 2007
Berkeley, California
Maybeck High School

School. It was hard to believe that it had only been ten days since he'd last been here. Cameron felt like everything that happened had been only a long dream, at times.

Cameron had cut off his emerald forelock, put on his old clothes, and skipped washing his face. He was still two and a half inches taller and there was no way to really hide his now-perfect complexion, but he was counting on nobody looking closely enough to notice.

His improved memory continued to make things easier for him. It wasn't like he ever bothered to take notes before, but he could remember the minutia well enough now that notes would have been completely redundant. He used to routinely doze off in class and skipped doing homework whenever he could get away with it, and still maintained a C average. Now he'd probably drift up to a low A without even trying.

Cameron got a surprise at lunch. He was walking towards a table when he saw none other than Brian sitting at a seat in the corner of the cafeteria. All this time they'd gone to the same school, and Cameron had never realized. He thought about going over and sitting with him, but the idea of being male around Brian was... uncomfortable. And hadn't Cameron promised Brian?

Sighing wistfully, Cameron went to eat at the opposite end of the cafeteria.

PhysEd, or Gym if you prefer, was a revelation. Cameron knew he was stronger and faster. He'd thought about being able to match an olympic athlete. But he hadn't really internalized just how far above his classmates that put him. Class started with four laps on the quarter-mile path around the grounds, and Cameron was so far ahead by the time he realized how many people he was passing that he had to sneak in an extra lap to avoid drawing attention to himself. Even with the extra lap, he cut his best time in half.

---

After school, Cameron went after his next target. This was the first time he'd done this in daylight, so he'd chosen somewhere lower-profile than a major hospital. It was a retirement and nursing home. He found a place to shift, put on her disguise, and walked right in. As always, she was numbing wakefulness in anybody she ran into.

Cameron healed a dozen residents in the common area, then took keys from the nurses and let herself into the rooms one by one, restoring decrepit and ailing men and woman to the prime of health.

She was feeling good about her choice of target when she walked out the back door without fanfare. She headed for home, looking forward to visiting Brian that night.

---

That was the pattern that Cameron repeated over the next several days. She looked up every retirement home that she could get to and get home from in a single afternoon, and picked one at random each day.

When she went to visit Brian each night, Cameron maintained her custom of having sex with him first thing, but later in the night Brian usually let her turn him into a girl again for a while. Cameron was becoming worried about how attached she was getting to Brian. It was obvious that he wasn't comfortable being a girl outside intimacy with Cameron, but otherwise... he was quickly becoming her one and only friend.

Cameron continued to avoid Brian in school, for two reasons. First, it was dangerous for there to be any link between Cameron Endel, highschool boy, and Rouse, female supervillain. Second, she didn't want Brian to get the wrong idea about her. If Brian knew she'd spent most of her life as a boy, how could he not jump to the conclusion that Cameron was more boy than girl. So Cameron avoided him, but she wished she didn't need to.

The news was continuing to follow her hit-and-run healings, and being predictably sensational about it without actually saying anything of substance. Cameron wasn't sure how, but they seemed sure that the ninja healer and Rouse from the kidnapping incident were the same woman, and they were still calling her a supervillain, much to her and her dad's cynical amusement. The reports were frustratingly vague on what was being done to catch Rouse. She was hoping that meant she wasn't a high priority for any agency or superheroes, she was very much waiting for the other shoe to drop.

---

Saturday, May 26th 2007
Berkeley, California
Police Headquarters

Patricia had lost count of the days. So much time slowly recovering from her near-death, and to build up her strength. Then a blur of days as she searched and researched and laboriously prepared the big spells she was going to need. She knew she wasn't in the most stable state of mind, but she had a plan.

Stepping through the roof access, Patricia released essence in a spell she habitually kept ready. Her image, her perceptible presence in the world, was snared by the magics and delayed, slowed and left behind as Patricia stepped out of it. The spell drew more and more essence the further she separated from her image, but she was back to her full strength and had essence to spare.

There was nothing to stand between her and the information she needed.

---

Breaking News LIVE from Berkeley...

A two-story suburban house was blazing aflame as firefighters blasted it with water under a setting sun. The large oak tree in the yard had been twisted into a sickly mockery, its branches warped to spell out, THE SCALES WILL BE BALANCED.

Impaled on jagged wooden spines under these words were the still-burning bodies of John Sampson and Marien Bass.

"Firefighters have been battling this inferno for over half an hour. Unfortunately, the heroic efforts of these brave men have been met with little success. The fires appear to be unhampered. Police teams and paramedics are going door-to-door, evacuating as much of the surrounding neighborhood as possible. It is strongly suspected that the fire is supernatural. Experts agree that whoever or whatever did this could not have left their warped message in the manner they did through any known natural or artificial means. There is some speculation that these murders by paranormal arson are retribution for a statement made by the victims two weeks ago, from the controversial supervillain, Rouse."

An explosion shook the camera. Firefighters scrambled to keep up.

---

Sunday, May 27th 2007
Berkeley, California
Endel Residence

"Caaaam! Cameron! C'mere!"

Cameron looked up from GEO at her dad's bellow. She took a moment to log out, and headed up to see what was going on. She found him standing in front of the TV, showing the local news channel. Cameron saw the burning message, and the names scrolling by at the bottom of the screen, and a frisson crawled down her spine.

"They're saying those were two of the kidnapping victims from back when, with you," Dad said when a shot of the two burned bodies came up. "The ones who were blaming you for the whole thing, right after. They were targeted. The parents say they were tazered but left alive."

Cameron was sweating. "Shit. What are the chances this was about them pissing off someone who had nothing to do with the supervillains I killed?"

"This just in, we're getting reports of another fire, apparently bearing the same ominous message..."

Cameron and her dad watched for several tense minutes, until the news crews got a camera to the second fire. It was a fellow abductee to mister Sampson and miss Bass, they reported. It was Katie.

"I guess that would be zero," Dad said weakly.

Cameron was paralyzed. She had no good guesses about who was hunting down the escapees, or why, and she knew better than to wildly speculate. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know if she should even do anything. She didn't know anything!

Cameron took a deep breath, and then froze again. There was one thing. Five survivors, three now killed dramatically. Oh fuck, if they found Katie, they could find...

"Brian."

"Huh?"

Spinning around, Cameron tore out the backdoor without elaborating. Fortunately, she was already dressed for her nightly jog over to Brian's house. She didn't jog this time. She sprinted for all she was worth.

Fences and backyards flew by as she moved like she'd never moved before. She fell a few times, but a quick shift then shift back and she barely slowed down. She arrived at Brian's house and didn't even slow down, crashing through the sliding patio doors in an explosion of jagged glass.

There was a scream as Brian's mom fell off the sofa. Cameron numbed her to sleep as she raced down the hall and kicked Brian's door open. She found him sitting in his desk chair, playing Final Fantasy X with headphones on. He jumped in surprise and pulled the set off his head.

"Whoa! Rouse? You scared the - hey my door!" Brian greeted her.

Cameron grabbed his shoulders. "The others are dead. Murdered. Publicly. We have to go, now."

"Hey whoa what?" Brian sputtered as Cameron pulled him to his feet. "Who's dead?"

"John, Marien, and Katie," Cameron stated. "Burned to death in their front yards, only hours ago. Now come on!"

Brian paled. "Oh Madoka, I'm next is what you're saying."

Cameron nodded. "Put on something you can run in, and pack an overnight bag. Please hurry."

"What about my mom?" Brian asked as he put on his shoes, grabbed his backpack, and started stuffing clothes into it.

"The other parents were all left alive," Cameron said. "I think it'll be safer if we just leave her."

Brian zipped up his backpack. "Okay."

---

The interesting thing about flying the way Patricia did it, was that neither of her powers alone were enough to get her anywhere. She could lift herself telekinetically, but it was exhausting to carry her full bodyweight for any length of time. Likewise, she could magically weaken her gravitic links, but moving around up in the air drained her essence very inefficiently. Put together, though...

When she found the house, Patricia spotted something suspicious. The patio doors were smashed inwards. She was about to float down and investigate, when two figures emerged into the backyard. Patricia pulled up into the darkening sky.

With a startled gasp, Patricia recognized the young couple. Not only had she found the boy, but she'd lucked into finding Rouse as well. The dark fates smiled on her. Patricia followed them from above, and saw them scramble across several dozen properties until they entered the sublevel of another house.

Circling the house, Patricia noted the address and retreated. She'd thought long and hard about how to destroy a powerful regenerator who can kill with a look. She had spells to prepare. And then, Rouse was going to pay!

---

Shutting the door, Cameron touched Brian and healed. He rippled, becoming female. Brian gave her a questioning look, then heard movement coming down from upstairs.

"Disguise," Cameron said as she pulled her inside door open.

Dad was reaching for the emergency key above the doorframe. His hand dropped back to his side.

"Hey, Dad," Cameron said. "This is... Bree. She's gonna be staying over."

Dad stared for a long moment. "Is she...?"

"Let's just pretend she's a neighborhood friend having a sleepover?" Cameron suggested.

"Cameron," Dad warned. "I'm going to trust you on this, but I need to know you've thought this through. We can't go to the police for the same reason we didn't need to. No one knows you're Rouse. However, I'm guessing Bree here isn't a wanted supervillain, so why exactly is she here and not under police protection?"

Brian - or Bree, for the time being - winced.

"Um, there are pretty much two possibilities here," Cameron said. "Either the method that the killer used to find the others is something that will lead to me, or it's something that won't. In the first case, Bree probably would be safer in police custody, but only marginally safer. In the second case, she's in the same amount of danger in police custody, and almost no danger hiding here."

Dad nodded slowly. He introduced himself to Bree, and told her to let them know if she needed anything. He gave Cameron a last worried look before seemingly resigning himself and heading back upstairs. Cameron shut the door and turned to her guest.

"So," Cameron said. "Welcome to my evil lair, Bree."

She snerked. "Your dad knows about you? And he's that kewl with it? Man you're lucky. But, why 'Bree'?"

"It was the closest feminine name to Brian that I could think of off the top of my head," Cameron explained as she idly slipped her sports bra off.

"Ah, yeah, I suppose it'll do for a cover. I mean, I really wouldn't want to be called Brian in front of anyone but you when I'm like this, anyway." sHe waved a hand down her body.

Cameron nodded, sitting on the edge of her bed to pull her socks off. "And it's another level of misdirection. If you're a girl named Bree, and you call me Cameron, we don't have to worry so much about anyone seeing you or overhearing us. Like my flaky little sister."

"You just want me to stay a girl," Bree teased.

Stripping off her sweatpants, Cameron grinned impishly. "Well duh. But that doesn't make the other stuff any less true."

"It's okay," Bree said. "I can deal. For a while."

Naked now, Cameron pulled back the covers of her bed and lay back, her legs sprawled wide. She ran a hand down between her legs and stroked her vulva, giving Bree a grateful smile. Bree glanced back at the door as she suddenly hurried to catch up with Cameron's state of nudity. Bree crawled over Cameron and sank down on top of her, kissing Cameron tenderly.

"You know, your bed kicks my bed's butt," Bree noted, pressing on the sheets a few times.

Cameron giggled and threw the covers over them. "You know, I haven't used it in weeks?"

Bree ducked her head into Cameron's shoulder, yawning hugely. Cameron gave Bree's wakefulness a rousing out of pure habit and wriggled around under her, getting comfortable. It was really comfortable. She'd forgotten how much better her bed was than Brian's.

Cameron and Bree snuggled and kissed and made gentle love, as the hours of the night slipped by.

---

It was just after dawn when the power went out. Cameron's computer setup clunked and went silent, as the floor lamp and ceiling bulb flickered out. Cameron raised her head from Bree's breasts and glanced around in the near-darkness.

"Power outage?" Bree wondered.

"Looks like," Cameron commented.

Cameron took Bree's nipple back into her mouth... and the world exploded.

"AAAHGH!" Bree screamed as the deafening blast of heat and force flipped the bed and smashed them into the wall.

They crumpled to the ground in a heap of bruised limbs and scorched skin. Cameron scrambled up painfully, and saw the dissipating ball of black fire in the center of the room. She recognized that fire.

"No! She's dead!" Cameron breathed. "She was dead."

Cameron double-shifted to heal herself, then hauled Bree to her feet, healing her on the way up. The ceiling was already on fire and smoke was filling the room from the top down. Cameron ran to the door, but hit an invisible force field that flared into eriee black fractal patterns where she touched it. She pounded on the barrier but it showed no sign of yielding.

"Who?" Bree demanded.

"Wandless! That fire was the same stuff she threatened us with, remember?" Cameron dashed to her front door but smacked into the same force field when she tried to open it. "Fuck!"

Bree yelped as she dodged falling bits of burning drywall. Cameron hurried over and healed her again. It was already getting hard to breathe, and that was as much due to heat as it was to smoke. Cameron tried taking shelter in the less-flammable bathroom, only to hit the force field again. Cameron picked up her end-table and tried to break the windows, but the force field covered that too and the table smashed into kindling.

Bree started coughing. Cameron grabbed her and healed her again, then dragged them both down to the floor where the air was still clear. A massive chunk of burning drywall and wood crashed over Cameron's back, smashing her head into Bree's shoulder. Cameron shook it off before it burned her too badly.

"Where are our clothes?" Bree exclaimed.

Cameron pointed to the scorchmark on the floor were the magical explosion had gone off, then went for her dresser. Her dresser that was very on fire. Cameron pulled a drawer out and dumped it to the floor, but that just spread the flames.

There was a loud groaning creak and crack, and Bree shouted, "Look out!"

Bree shoved her out of the way as most of the ceiling came down in a raging inferno between them. Bree's scream of pain was cut short as she was buried. Cameron shifted desperately, flickering from male to female, trying to stay intact with the burning mass of debris pinning her down.

"Bria - Bree! Bree!" Cameron called between shifts.

There was no answer. Cameron swore. Pushing them apart like that. Cameron appreciated the intention, but it was probably the worst thing Bree could have done, because now Cameron couldn't reach her to heal her.

More debris fell, and the flames got hotter. Cameron could tell he was losing mass even though she was healing as fast as he could, shifting twice a second. Each shift loosened the burning matter on top of her, but not enough for him to wriggle free.

Cameron started getting light headed. Every gasp of pain or grunt of effort cost him oxygen. Constantly healing, reordering her body at what must be the molecular level, let him hold his breath under the flames and thickening smoke for what felt like hours and days, but she still ever so slowly asphyxiated.

He couldn't shift. His flesh was burning, and there was agony, but it was so far away. He couldn't...

---

Friday, June 2nd 2007
Berkeley, California
Burn Ward Lobby

Detective Shaun Gallagher and his team met Helena at the doors, and exchanged greetings.

"I'm sorry it was necessary, but I'm glad to have the Pee-Cee-Dee involved again," Helena told them. "Where are Miss Gail and Agent Dubaku?"

"At the scene. Scye's all excited 'cause she feels like she's making up for a failure on the abduction case," Detective Tayler told her.

"What's the status of your witness?" Gallagher asked.

"His name is Cameron Endel, fifteen, no record," Helena said. "The good news for us, is that with no next of kin, I was able to get a warrant for the hospital to give us the details of his condition..."

---

"We don't know how he survived," the doctor told them. "I'm told the fire department pulled bones out of the ruin that were barely recognizable as human. The fact that Cameron Endel survived with only 2nd and 3rd degree burns is... miraculous."

"Can we talk to him?" Deidra asked.

"I'm afraid not," the doctor said. "With unhealed burns this severe it would be inhumane to allow mister Endel to regain consciousness for even a few minutes."

---

"We've identified Richard Endel and Andreya Endel, but the third set of bones is a Jane Doe," Helena summarized. "I think our Jane Doe was Rouse. Cameron Endel survived because our killer wasn't concerned with him. The families were all left alive in the previous attacks. The father and sister could have merely been collateral damage."

"What about Farnell?" Gallagher asked.

"His residence wasn't hit," Helena said. "We've got an undercover SWAT team on stake-out, but according to the mother, mister Farnell went missing after a break-in only hours before the Endels were hit."

"Why would our killer change their Em-Oh like that?" Deidra wondered.

"Let's find out, shall we?" Gallagher said.

---

Elsewhen...

It wasn't quite a dream, and there were stirrings that weren't quite thoughts. Just a pervasive sense of wrongness. A weight crushing down, smothering. Resist. Push back.

---

Thursday, June 28th 2007
Berkeley, California
Burn Ward

"It's too soon! He can't wake up!"

"Increase his sedative dosage by fifteen percent!"

Smothering...

"We're already over the maximum safe dosage!"

"Why is he suddenly developing a resistance now?"

"We have to risk a higher dosage. If he wakes up now, the pain could send him into shock and kill him."

"It's not affecting him!"

Pain. Burning aching agony. A desperate whimper. Pain. Big pain. Very big pain! Cameron's eyes snapped open on a scene of men and woman in scrubs and white uniforms or coats looming over him. He was in pain like nothing he'd ever felt before. There was no way to resist the impulse.

Cameron shifted. The doctors and nurses yelped and recoiled as needles and tubes and stuff ripped out of her body, shredding cloth and bandages. She lurched up, gasping, and took a slow breath in relief. Then she realized that she looked like Rouse and the doctors were getting up.

Crap. She shifted again, but figured that was probably a futile gesture. The doctors were all staring wide-eyed. Yeah, definitely futile.

What the fuck was going on? The last thing he remembered... Oh. Fuck. Brian! His house! Wandless was alive! How long had he been out?

One of the nurses hit the panic button. Yeah, that was his cue. Cameron knocked everyone around him out with a numbing and started tearing bandages off. He found some basic hospital-issue scrubs in a cabinet and put them on. He still needed shoes, so he checked his feet against the shoes of the unconscious doctors and nurses until he found a pair he could run in.

Cameron emerged into the hall. He recognized the place. It was one of the hospitals he'd hit. Ironic. He fled, numbing anyone who got in his way.

---

The woman in a leather jacket with a badge and gun on her hip found Cameron sitting listlessly on the curb across the street from the burned out ruin of his house, elbows on his knees and chin on his hands. Cameron couldn't find it in himself to care. The secret was out, and he didn't have anything left to protect anyway. The woman didn't say anything. She just sat down next to him, mimicking his posture.

She watched him for a long time. "Life really spits on ya sometimes, huh kid?"

"I don't suppose anyone else survived," Cameron replied.

"I'm sorry, no," the woman said. "But the supervillain responsible won't be hurting anyone ever again. She was called Wandless, and she was killed in a superbattle only days after this happened."

"Are you sure?" Cameron asked dully. "She was dead the last time I saw her, too."

"Oh yeah," she said wryly. "I'm sure."

Cameron sagged. That news was a huge relief, but it just left him empty. The worst part was that he wasn't even mourning, exactly. He was lost. He had no idea where to go from here, so he didn't go anywhere. He just sat there. It made him feel despicably selfish.

"My name's Detective Helena Aiden," the woman said, "but you can call me Helena. Can I call you Cameron?"

Cameron shrugged.

"So..." Helena hedged. "Would you answer a question for me?"

"What's the question?"

Helena turned towards him. "There was a girl with you, when the fire happened. We couldn't identify her. Can you tell me who she was?"

It occurred to Cameron that they still didn't know that he could gender bend other people. That might be a secret worth keeping. "I know who she was, but telling you... that's more complicated."

Helena studied him for a long moment. "Until today, we thought she was Rouse. But your escape from your hospital room was caught on camera. As soon as you healed, it was obvious you were Rouse, and that Rouse was a shapeshifter pretending to be a girl."

"I wasn't pretending," Cameron growled.

Helena was silent for another stretch of moments. "Off the record, who was she?"

Cameron finally tore his eyes from the burned ruin to look at her. "I thought that was a reporter thing."

"I'm flexible," Helena told him.

"Off the record," Cameron said. "Brian Farnell."

The detective frowned at him. "Brian Farnell was male."

Cameron reached over and poked Helena's hand. "Yes, he was."

"Holy Fuck!" Helena leaped to her feet, patting down her suddenly male body.

Cameron shifted, and reached for man-Helena's hand. Another healing and the detective was back to normal. She stared down at her body, then looked up at Cameron with a shocked expression. Helena's eyes narrowed.

"I'm sorry if you had any scars you were fond of," Cameron said. "They'll be gone now."

"Okay." Helena swallowed. "That does explain everything rather neatly."

Cameron stood up and dusted off her butt. "It doesn't explain how Wandless found me in the first place, or how she survived the first time we met, you know, when she tried to feed me to an eldritch abomination, and a pair of religious nuts I rescued tried to blame the whole thing on me."

"We do know. Wandless ranted about the whole story before she died. I don't believe you're a bad kid, Cameron," Helena said. "Maybe you haven't been very smart about it, but you've got major league power, and you've been using it to do good."

Cameron quirked an eyebrow. "It's interesting how you say 'smart' when you mean 'legal'."

Helena snorted. "I'm a cop. We have to pretend they mean the same thing, around civilians."

"Is that what I am, still?" Cameron wondered.

"Well, you're not under arrest," Helena told her. "Rouse was wanted on several charges of vandalism and Bee-En-Ee, but... statute of limitations."

Cameron blinked. "How long was I...?"

"It's June the twenty-eighth," Helena informed her.

"Crap," Cameron summed up.

Helena put a hand on Cameron's shoulder. "Come on, I'll give you a ride."

---

Monday, July 2nd 2007
San Francisco, California
Bay Area ARC Outpost

After that, some things happened, but the only parts worth noting were when Cameron met a case worker from the Arkham Research Consortium. Her name was Jeanette Greyson, and she told Cameron that she was there to help him with the paperwork and such of inheriting his dad's bank accounts and stuff.

Jeanette was a thirtyish auburn-haired woman, pretty, but just a little overweight. Cameron thought she looked very huggable. Apparently she was also a mutant, but, "just a Gadgeteer Two," which in her case just meant she was really good at modding consumer electronics.

She offered Cameron a place to stay in the ARC facility in San Francisco while they got everything worked out. Cameron was wary, but she really didn't have anywhere else to go. The room they gave her was small, but comfortable, like a miniature hotel room.

"We have a budget to provide this kind of aid to mutants in need. You won't need to repay us for merely staying at the facility for a few weeks," Jeanette had explained. "The thinking is, mutants who need this kind of help, and don't get it, become distressingly likely to use their powers in immoral and illegal ways to survive, and many powers can be extremely destructive."

So Cameron had gone with Jeanette to San Francisco, and now she was looking around the accommodations. The hospital had let her keep the scrubs she'd borrowed, since she had literally nothing of her own.

"Check the closet," Jeanette advised. "There should be a few sets of generic exercise shorts and tops, male and female, that you can wear until you can get something of your own."

Cameron went and looked. There were full outfits, including underwear, socks and shoes. The similarity to Cameron's high school gym clothes could be forgiven. Cameron glanced at Jeanette, then shrugged and stripped off her scrubs.

Jeanette politely averted her eyes. "Ah, would you like some privacy?"

"If that would make you more comfortable," Cameron diverted.

"But I'm... that's not... but you're... I'm not... but I meant..." Jeanette didn't literally go cross eyed, but the effect was similar.

Cameron had to giggle as she went into the small adjoining bathroom and fiddled with the shower controls. Shifting alleviated most of her hygiene needs, but she figured she was still due for a wash. She went back out to wait while the water got hot, feeling kind of inclined to try flirting with Jeanette, just to see if she could figure out which way Jeanette swung, but the older woman was gone and the door was closed. Oh well.

---

Tuesday, July 3rd 2007
San Francisco, California
Westfield Shopping Center

Jeanette took Cameron to the downtown mall. They went through twice, with Cameron in two different disguises. On the first run, Cameron was a blonde girl with glasses, and on the second run, Cameron was a brunette boy in glasses and a baseball cap.

"I see we're going with the Clark Kent school of disguise today," Cameron deadpanned when Jeanette told her the plan.

A massive dent was put in Cameron's savings, but they managed to completely replace Cameron's wardrobe, and equip her with a moderately powerful laptop. Cameron spent most of the night downloading and installing the open-source versions of as much of her lost software as she could find, just to have it there.

---

Wednesday, July 4th 2007
San Francisco, California
Bay Area ARC Outpost

"So, what's on your mind, Cameron?"

The man asking had been introduced to Cameron as Doctor Issac Parr. He was jolly-looking guy, and according to Jeanette, a telepath. That was proven accurate. Doctor Parr winced as soon as the question was out of his mouth, as he obviously picked up on Cameron's annoyance with open ended questions like that.

"Okay, well why don't we start with something easy? How are you getting along with Jeanette?"

Cameron figured she didn't need to talk out loud. The big advantage of a telepathic shrink was that she didn't have to struggle to construct english phrases that matched up accurately to her mental and emotional experiences. And she liked Jeanette. The woman had a personality that fit with her huggable looks. Cameron had hugged her a few times, in greeting or farewell, as both a boy and a girl, and she still wasn't sure about Jeanette's orientation. The woman was being kindly, yet professional. Cameron missed Brian. She missed sex. Cameron was pretty sure that she was just latching on to Jeanette as the only friendly figure in her life after losing everyone she knew, but that didn't seem like a bad thing.

"It's, ah, perfectly natural, Cameron. You have suffered a huge loss recently. It is natural that you would develop feelings, but I'm noticing that you are framing your interactions with Jeanette in a sexual way. Are you aware that your ages, and the fact that she's your case worker, make that highly inappropriate?"

One would think a professional telepathic counselor would have a broader view of sexuality than that. And she didn't see how the way she thought about Jeanette was 'framing their interactions' whatever that meant. Cameron turned her head and looked the man over. Doctor Parr was pudgy, his gut straining against his belt and bulging over - though a healing would mostly fix his figure. There was nothing about him that was sexually appealing in the slightest, to Cameron, but that didn't mean she didn't see him in a sexual light. If he came over to her, dropped his pants, pulled down her shorts, and spread her legs, she wouldn't object. She found sexuality fascinating. Why wouldn't she consider and encourage that aspect of the people she interacted with?

Doctor Parr was looking a little red in the face. "Sweet mother mary, you're actually sincere about that. Ahem. Um, I think I'm going to recommend a series of followup sessions. Clearly you have some issues to work through. Perhaps you're using this unhealthy fixation on sex as a coping mechanism..."

Cameron snorted. These were hardly new revelations. She'd known this stuff about herself since the first time she really thought about the Perversion Potential of her Powers, and to a lesser extent long before that. So to speak. Cameron really didn't see it as perverting her powers. Sex was what the human body was for, after all.

"Eh... perhaps not, then. That does make me wonder. If you do relate to everyone through sexuality, how did you feel about your immediate family?"

They were her family. They were just there, but she didn't interact with them much at all. Huh, maybe that was why she never went out of her way to interact with her family. Interesting insight.

"Do you think this attitude is interfering with your ability to mourn your father and your sister?"

That wasn't it at all. It was just that people died every second, and every single one of those lives was a precious thing, lost. Cameron's family was just a tiny drop in that river. Yes, the deaths of the people close to her affected her more than the deaths of strangers on the other side of the planet, but that didn't make them any more tragic, because any death was already an infinite tragedy.

"That's... a rather bleak outlook. I take it you don't believe in an afterlife?"

"I don't believe in an ontologically fundamental afterlife as even a coherent idea," Cameron said aloud. "If a human consciousness continues as a soul after their body dies - and we live in a world with plenty of evidence that this does in fact happen to at least a handful of people - that's not afterlife, that's still just life, albeit of diminished quality."

"Ah, then is that how you justified killing in self-defense?"

Killing in self-defense was its own justification.

"Hmmph." There was a long pause. "Let's move on. I'd like to talk about your gender identity. I'm told you can physically shift between the sexes at will. Is it possible that your habit of spending most of your time female is a way of distancing yourself from your loss?"

Cameron rolled her eyes and sighed.

---

Friday, July 6th 2007
San Francisco, California
Bay Area ARC Outpost

They wanted to test her powers, so Jeanette took her down to the cavernous underground gymnasium they had under the building. It was well lit, and mostly grey concrete, with fiberglass partitions around various sets of equipment.

A pair of research techs met them outside the elevator. Their names were Julia and Jules, and they were apparently twin siblings, and both mutants. Specifically, low-level Exemplars with a high-fidelity empathic link that let them each feel everything the other did. Cameron immediately wondered how that affected their love lives. Maybe she'd ask if she saw an opening.

The first thing they did was study Cameron's shifting. They had her shift a bunch of times while they took various measurements. The results mostly confirmed what Cameron already knew. She could switch between two set forms, and only her whole body at once. Her internal organs and body chemistry changed in addition to her outer shape, but her mass couldn't change. It was entirely under conscious control. But the DNA test was a surprise. It seemed that Cameron's DNA didn't change when she shifted, and that she wasn't XX or XY, but XXY.

"These results put you squarely at Shifter Three," Julia told her.

Jeanette and Doctor Parr both volunteered to be test subjects for Cameron's healing. Julia and Jules were excited to start with, but after the test where they stuck a bunch of pins made of various materials into Cameron's arm and her healing absorbed some up to where they emerged from her skin, and flung others out of her like bullets, they both looked like they were majorly geeking out. They were practically squeeing about Cameron being a, "Healer Six," but then a DNA test showed that Jeanette and Doctor Parr's chromosomes changed along with their bodies when Cameron gender bent them.

Julia and Jules then had Cameron gender bend them, or at least, they had Cameron try. Cameron was shocked to discover that she couldn't. She could heal them both just fine, but unlike with everyone else, it didn't matter which form Cameron was in when she did. Julia and Jules studied the effect on themselves, and on Jeanette again.

"Healer Seven," the twins exclaimed at each other. "She's a frakking Healer Seven!"

After the twins calmed down, they moved on to testing Cameron's biokinesis. They had Doctor Parr, who was looking much fitter after Cameron's healings, put up his strongest psychic shielding, and then told Cameron to try to influence him.

Once she was done with that, Jules and Julia had an intense technical debate, and then had Cameron try to affect a bunch of chemicals in vials and beakers. That turned out to be mostly a bust.

"A Telekinetic One with chemical dexterity, obviously, but you don't seem to control it directly," Jules mused. "There's a level of abstraction between the effect and the control wiring in your brain, which makes you a specialized sub-variant of telekinetic. Your nickname for it, 'biokinesis', is accurate enough for casual conversation, I suppose."

---

Sunday, July 8th 2007
San Francisco, California
Bay Area ARC Outpost

Cameron stared at the brochure Jeanette had handed him off the top of a thick packet of forms that now sat on the little desk in Cameron's room next to his laptop. "Whateley? You mean that's actually real?"

"Very much so," Jeanette assured him. "I was too old, by the time I figured out I was a mutant, so I've never been there, but a lot of personnel at ARC went to school at Whateley."

"Kewl," Cameron said, looking through the brochure. "But, uh, this seems like it would be expensive. How am I going to pay for this?"

"Just being a displaced mutant is enough to get you in on scholarship," Jeanette told him. "As far as I know, all you'd need to do is sign up for a part-time job with their work-study program, and you'll be set for a full four years."

Cameron leaned his chair back on two legs, and glanced up from the brochure to catch Jeanette's eyes lingering on his shirtless torso. That was a point in favor of her being an androphile. Cameron had asked her outright at one point, but she'd figured out that Cameron was trying to determine which form Jeanette found more attractive, so she'd firmly diverted the subject.

Cameron dropped the brochure and picked up the admission forms. Name, age, sex... "Heh, 'complicated', well I don't think my gender is complicated, but everybody else seems to think so."

"Huh?" Jeanetted leaned over his shoulder to see what he was talking about.

She put her hand down on the back of his chair. Cameron moved subtly so his bare shoulder brushed Jeanette's hand. He was actually kind of enjoying the subtle flirting. It wasn't something he'd ever had the opportunity to learn before. He was expecting the novelty to wear off fast, though.

The thing was, he didn't really want to seduce Jeanette. He wanted to crawl into her arms to be comforted. So nudging her with his biokinesis until she lost control and gave in to passion wasn't as appealing as it might have been if he was just horny, because he didn't want her to lose control.

Cameron grabbed a pen and started filling out the form. "That makes me think, though. Legally, I'm still Male with a capital Em, right?"

"Er, yes," Jeanette said. "Your legal identity hasn't changed, as far as I know."

"It can be, though, right?" Cameron asked, flipping a page. "Like look at this, 'my mutation has caused me to become more...' And I would check feminine, but the fact that the question is even there makes me think that not everybody who answers it can go back and forth at will like I can."

"Well, I can look into it for you, if you like," Jeanette said. "Why would you need that, though? You keep saying that you're equally boy and girl."

"Well, I'm thinking like this. Do I want to be known as the perverted nerdboy fag that turns himself into a girl?" Cameron shifted. "Or as the eccentric bisexual girl that can turn herself into a boy sometimes? The double standard exists, and I can't just ignore it, so given that, I think the choice is obvious. If I'm officially a girl, it'll be much less often that I'll have to... defend myself in cruel and unusual ways."

Jeanette winced. "I don't think that's... well, maybe you're a little right. I'll see what I can do."

Cameron smiled at her. "Thanks."

---

Monday, July 16th, 2007
San Francisco, California
Bay Area ARC Outpost

It was Cameron's sixteenth birthday. Cameron didn't want to make a big deal about it, but Jeanette still went out of her way to find out what kind of cake Cameron liked. They were sitting in the large lounge slash breakroom, cutting into a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and bits of white chocolate sticking out of it.

It was a good cake.

---

Saturday, August 4th 2007
Upper Atmosphere over the Central United States
ARC Suborbital Shuttle

The view was a lot more impressive than from a normal airliner.

It turned out the primary ARC facility with all the best personnel and equipment was in New Hampshire. They had wanted to study Cameron's healing further. Cameron was going to be getting a modest salary in exchange for playing lab rat until fall term began at Whateley.

Cameron had shifted to boy-form and kissed Jeanette goodbye. Cameron had made sure it was one hell of a kiss, with roaming hands, plenty of tongue, and all the biokinetic skill he had. There had been frowns of disapproval all around, but Cameron was unapologetic.

Cameron had made them promise to bring in people who actually needed healing to study her healing on. She never thought for a second that they would have let her continue her breaking-and-entering habits, but that was a compromise she could agree to in the short term.

---

Poe Cottage Freshmen Arrival Day
Dunwich, New Hampshire
Dunwich Train Depot

The Grand Miskatonic Shuttle would be delivering fellow incoming students over the course of the day. Cameron had been dropped off with her luggage to wait with the other students. She was directed through a wooden door with a pane of frosted glass in it, to find the designated Whateley arrival waiting room.

Inside, Cameron found an arrangement of old plastic covered couches and chairs, an assortment of vending machines on one wall, and an ancient-looking pinball machine next to a payphone.

It was still early, so there were only three other kids already there. One girl was an eerily ethereal beauty in a flowy midnight blue dress, with big aqua eyes, pale skin, and stringy raven hair. The girl caught Cameron's eyes as soon as Cameron walked in, and stood, moving with an effortless fluid grace. She was maybe an inch taller than Cameron, and a hair more slender. The girl walked right up to her and gently wrapped her arms around Cameron.

"Um, hi," Cameron said, wondering what was going on. "Are you sure you're hugging the right girl? I don't think I know you."

"You don't know me, Cameron Endel," the girl said in reassuring tones, her breath tickling Cameron's neck. "I am Purgatory. So many people. So many thoughts. They all blur together, echoing each other. Do you know how much your echo stands out from the din?"

"Oh. You're a telepath?" Cameron interpreted, taking that last comment to mean that there was something about her own mind that Purgatory had been drawn to from afar.

"I am the sum," Purgatory said, stroking Cameron's back. "Of my parts. Of your parts. Of everyone's parts."

Cameron blinked as she thought that over. It sounded like she was reading everyone's thoughts all the time. She didn't sound boastful, just matter-of-fact. Did that mean she had no choice in it? Damn. But she couldn't possibly mean literally everyone in existence at once. A range limit was implied.

"Eighty miles," Purgatory whispered. "No choice."

Cameron's mind blew. Holy fuck, how was she sane? Maybe she was lying, and the whole thing was just a bizarre come-on, or a trick.

"Like minds blur together, overlap. I don't lie to you. You overlap less." Purgatory pulled back to look her in the eye. "But this is a come-on. I want to be your friend. There is a void in your heart that I would fit into. I know this. I knew everything about you that you do as soon as you entered my awareness, and you know more about yourself than many."

"That sounds... incredibly dangerous to admit, actually. Why are you telling me this? What if I freaked out because you knew all my secrets?"

Purgatory smiled coyly. "I knew you wouldn't. You do not conflict with yourself. You do not flinch from your own thoughts. You explore your thoughts without shame, wherever they may go."

Cameron blinked. Okay, that was pretty convincing. And she was right, Cameron doubted there were very many people who wouldn't be bothered by having a friend that would know their every errant thought. Also, she'd just done a better job analyzing Cameron than Doctor Parr had after weeks of so-called therapy. Cameron suddenly wondered just how many people knew what Purgatory had just told her.

"Too many," Purgatory whispered. "I come to Whateley, not for knowledge, but for shelter."

That made sense to Cameron. And she did kind of want to be Purgatory's friend now. If it was true that she already knew everything about Cameron that Cameron did and came to her anyway, Cameron could be completely unrestrained with her.

"You understand," Purgatory said with a gentle beatific smile. "And you can call me Tory, if you want."

"Okay."

It was too bad they were in a public place. Cameron still hadn't ever had sex as a boy, and while that wasn't really a big deal to her, it wasn't something she wanted to pass up either. Purgatory would be willing, or she wouldn't have wanted to befriend Cameron in the first place.

"I am," Purgatory said softly. "We will."

An uneasy tension settled over Cameron, but it was tempered by Purgatory's promise and her arms which still enfolded Cameron. She really hoped Purgatory wasn't misleading her. Confronted with it, she did want someone to be close to. She wanted it desperately. She also wanted to have sex with Purgatory as soon as possible, to the point that it was making her edgy, even though she wasn't particularly horny. Cameron didn't actually think Purgatory was being insincere...

Purgatory interrupted Cameron's thoughts by turning them until Cameron's body blocked the view of the rest of the room, and worming her hand down the front of Cameron's pants. Her fingers settled in Cameron's folds, and she smiled like she'd just figured out something important. Cameron blinked and realized she was smiling back, and not at all in a lustful way. Her uneasiness was gone.

That was.. odd, right?

Purgatory extracted her hand and resumed their embrace. "What you were feeling a moment ago, it was remarkably similar to the discomfort many people feel at the idea of getting involved sexually without emotional intimacy. You're inverted. You aren't comfortable getting emotionally involved without sexual intimacy."

"Oh," Cameron breathed. "That's... it's not supposed to work like that, is it?"

"I think, for you, an emotional connection is a more special thing than sex," Purgatory said. "Imagine a social butterfly, makes friends easily, but fickle, every friendship dissolved by circumstance or bordom, yet sexually is utterly exclusive and loyal."

Cameron did so, and it wasn't pleasant. That kind of person always made a sickly knot form in her gut for some reason.

"Now imagine a dedicated porn model," Purgatory said. "Uninhibited, glad to have sex for the money, for the art, or just because someone asks, unhesitating with sexual partners she may never meet again, yet unreservedly open and trusting about her thoughts and feelings with a select few who return that trust and loyalty."

Cameron... liked the thought. That was the kind of person she admired and... wanted to be. Huh. She didn't know if that was a surprise or just obvious in retrospect, but that was exactly the person Cameron wanted to be.

Purgatory smiled into Cameron's neck. "Confirmed. An inversion. You see?"

"Yeah, I guess I do," Cameron murmured. "Sex and friendship. One is interesting and fun, the other is sacred. It's just a matter of which is which."

Purgatory pulled away and gave Cameron a gentle push towards the nearest sofa.

---

It was very strange, getting to know a telepath, but in a good way. The two girls snuggled up on the old sofa to wait, and Cameron just let her mind wander. Purgatory would comment almost at random, and the result was something that almost resembled an enjoyable conversation.

As the time passed, the waiting room filled up as a series of trains arrived. Cameron started paying more attention to the other possible Whateley students.

At exactly four o'clock, a tall asian woman came in.

"Okay, listen up!" she called out. "I am Misses Shugendo; I'm the Dean of Students at Whateley Academy. There are two shuttles here to take you to the school. I'm going to call off your names alphabetically. When I call out your name, let me know who you are, and then make your way out to the vans. Now, I know that you have a lot of questions, but, unless it's an emergency, save it for when we get to the school..."

---

ROUSE
Shifter-3 / Healer-7 / Telekinetic-1f

PURGATORY
Exemplar-4 / Esper-6

(And with that, Rouse is off to Poe Cottage. Purgatory is with the lesbians, rather than the changelings like Rouse, if that wasn't clear.)