Title: Life Span

Genre: General (I actually don't know what genre to classify this as)

Rating: K+

Warnings: None, really. Perhaps mild language. Oh...well, there is a warning actually. This story is...odd. Please don't flame it. It's just an attempt at a different perspective of Magenta's powers.

Pairings: None, really, though there are slight implications at the end as to Zach/Magenta.

Summary: Magenta finds herself musing over her past; how she came to be, and what her power really is.

Notes: In the movie, we see that Magenta is a girl who can shape shift into a guinea pig. But no one said that's what she really is...

Oh, and I think this is one of the first Sky High fics that mainly revolves around Magenta. Hurray!

Also: I wasn't sure whether or not Maj is her real name and Magenta is her nickname, or Magenta is her real name and Maj is her nickname. I went with the latter on a whim.

Disclaimer: YES, I own Sky High. Betcha didn't see that coming! ...Okay, no I don't.

"Hm."

That was all I said: just "Hm," as I flipped through the pages of the copy of Caring for Your Guinea Pig Layla had given me for my birthday two days ago. It wasn't exactly the most interesting stuff in the world. No offense to Layla, of course...she's a very considerate girl. But I think she should've realized I didn't need this.

Maybe I should've introduced myself first before going into a rant about bad birthday gifts and clueless friends who just don't Get It. My given name is Magenta. My friends like to shorten it to Maj. Guess they're too lazy to pronounce the extra two syllables.

I shouldn't've said that. They're really great people. They've been with me through thick and through thin, even though I've never been in a situation yet that really calls for that kind of emotional support.

But enough about that.

I stifled a sigh as I placed the book ontop of my nighttable and gave it an extra pat before curling up atop my bed. This room...it was really magnificent, or at least it was to me. Better than anything I could've imagined having or even deserving. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes--or Mom and Dad, I guess--are way too lenient with me... Sometimes I'm afraid they might be spoiling me.

Maybe I should've explained that a little better.

You see, I'm not really their daughter, despite them claiming I am, and despite me going along with it. They found me wandering the streets one day. I can only imagine what it must've looked like to them; a destitute, outwardly Hispanic girl with bright purple hair, traipsing aimlessly through the torrential downpour without a single destination in mind...

Well, when they found me, they took me into their house and warmed me up and called Children's Social Services and did their best to try and find out who I belonged to--or, maybe I should say, who my "parents" were. But no matter what they did, they couldn't find anyone who would 'fess up to being my legal guardian. I stayed with them for about two weeks while they reported finding me to all sorts of authorities, but the fact that I wasn't even registered as a person in the government's eyes, let alone someone's daughter, resulted in big issues.

The obvious choice was to give me in to foster care. But you know what? I think I grew on them while I was there, even for that short amount of time. Maybe it was my dry, sarcastic sense of humor, or the way I told things like they were without sweetening them up, or...I don't know. I really don't know what it was about me that they liked, but apparently they liked it enough to adopt me, and that was that. Or maybe it wasn't even like. Maybe it was pity. Honestly, I don't even care all that much what drove them to do it by now. I'm just grateful.

And then, a year later, they discovered my "super power"--shape-shifting into a guinea pig--and were ecstatic to find out that they'd obviously adopted a daughter who'd once been the offspring of super-status parents. It was Dad who suggested enrolling me in Sky High. He told me he'd gone there for a year, but the fact that he had no super powers was unnerving, so his parents took him out before Sophomore year and put him into a regular high school for the remainder of the three years.

But, like he said, it was obvious that that was where I should go, so they signed me up as soon as possible.

Of course, they don't know the truth behind it. They don't know that I'm not really a girl who shape shifts into a guinea pig.

I'm a guinea pig that shape shifts into a girl.

I know, you're probably laughing, or rolling your eyes, or saying "What, is this chick crazy?" But I'm not. Not crazy, I mean. Think about it. If the idea of a nearly-invincible man with super strength doesn't strike you as insane, why does a guinea pig who turns into a human strike you as anything less than normal in this messed-up world?

I should go back to the beginning...where I was born, I mean. How I came to be.

I guess I will.

I was born in a place called Insoluble Industries--in their lab. From what I've come to understand, that place is supposed to be pretty shady. They performed all sorts of experiments there, and very often, experimented on animals. I was one of the unfortunate little guinea pigs born and bred inside the Industries that they were going to perform tests on. They altered my genes so my hair would be partially purple, so as to differentiate between me and the other guinea pigs, and they named me # 0692. That's a whole lot of guinea pigs.

But the scientist also gave me the affectionate little name of Magenta. I can't really blame him. I wouldn't want to be called # 0692, and I'm sure it would've been hard for him to remember us all by our names, too.

We were each tested on with toxic wastes and radioactive chemicals--you know, to see if animals could obtain the same super powers that humans sometimes did. The red one, Ruby, was supposed to have the power to alter atoms. The red one died before anyone could find out if it--I should be respectful and say she, actually--did.

The yellow one, Daisy, was supposed to be super-fast. And she really was. She sped out of her cage and around the lab so fast no one ever found her again.

You're probably wondering what I was supposed to do. Well, me, I was supposed to change forms, just like I'm supposed to now. I was supposed to be able to turn myself into any mammal of my choice, as long as I was familiar with what they looked like and their genetic makeup.

You can probably imagine that, being in a laboratory full of rodents, there weren't many animals to observe and mimic. Somehow, I don't think the scientist caught onto that. But there was him. He was a mammal. So, being that the only other species around me was the human one, I mimicked his genetic makeup. I turned into a human.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not like Travis, that kid in Hero Class who can just look at you and suddenly turn into a copy of you. I could never do that. I alter my DNA so that I become a different species. That's all.

So, he was pretty intrigued to find that I was able to turn into a human, albeit a human with bright purple hair. In fact, I think he was overjoyed. He started bringing me into rooms with other animals to see if I could observe them and turn into them, too.

For some reason, it never worked. Maybe I didn't have the willpower to turn into a different animal--or maybe, because I was so young still and had spent so much time trying to shove my body into the form of a person's, I didn't have the stamina to try and learn any other animals' shapes. I did take the time out to examine other humans and found myself imitating their customs, though. I learned how to talk, how to use a plastic fork, and how to dress myself. I learned how to make sarcastic comebacks and how to do mathematics. And I even found out that I could talk while I was in guinea pig form, too. Apparently I was more "intelligent" (you can practically hear me rolling my eyes right now, I bet) than the other guinea pigs, and I was using that intelligence to find out more about humans. I wanted to be a human. I wanted to be a person...

This wasn't what the scientist wanted me to do. He was infuriated.

He started yelling at me to "straighten out my priorities" or else. He reminded me that just because I kept trying to sneak into my human form, which resembled a teenage Hispanic girl, that I wasn't really a human. He reminded me that I was a guinea pig--better yet, that I was his test subject, and I was to do as he said and not as I wanted.

Along with human intelligence, I must've acquired human sentiments, because it really hurt to hear him say that. I knew that I wasn't an actual person, but I really, really wanted to be one. I would sometimes sit alone in the lab in my human form and just stare down my skin, and run my fingers through my hair. I wanted this more than anything... The human experience was considerably more enjoyable than the guinea pig one. I wanted to keep it forever.

So, can you blame me for what I did? I fled.

One night, he locked up our cages, turned out the lights, and locked up the lab before leaving it. I turned into a human while still inside the cage, which caused the feeble bars to snap. They were enough to hold in three or four rodents at a time, but not the full form of a human girl. A human girl... I look like a jerk right now, grinning my head off at the thought of that, but it was a comforting one, to know that I could turn into a person whenever I wanted to.

So I managed to break out of the cage. The door was one of those kinds where you could unlock it from the inside without the alarm going off, so I did. I carefully closed it behind me once I'd sneaked out, and for fear of security cameras catching sight of me, I slipped back into guinea pig form and raced down the hallway. When I finally found an opening--the security guard was just locking up--I slipped out past him and scurried down the block as fast as my inconvenient guinea pig legs could carry me. Once I was sure I was out of sight, I changed back into a human, and picked up from there.

I hadn't realized that I'd have nowhere to go, and once it finally hit me, I was pretty bummed. And then it started raining, too, which sucked even more. Well, at the time, it didn't bug me. It just scared me. I'd never been outside of the Industries before; I'd never seen the sky open up and pour like that. The whole experience of being outside the building for the first time excited me, even if I was starting to slowly panic about where I could go.

But as you know all ready, I didn't have to panic all that long. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes found me, and...well, to tell you what they did from there on would be repeating what I've all ready told you, so I won't. The rest is history.

And now, here I am, presently inside the made-up bedroom my saviors--my parents--have given me. It's a lot more comforting than the looks of that bright, white lab I lived in a year ago. Hey...a year ago. I'm two years old all ready. Wow.

Of course, none of my friends knows what I really am. I guess there were always opportunities to bring it out into the open, but I never cared to. I was always afraid that they would look at me differently if they knew I was born a guinea pig and not a human; if they knew my power (my only one as of yet) was turning into a girl, not a rodent.

My parents don't know either. They think I'm just a shape-shifter, and that I'm not able to turn into any other animals yet because my power still needs time to expand. As true as it is that I'm a shape-shifter and my power has room for development, I'm not a teenage girl like they think I am. I'm an animal. I was born an animal. They wouldn't love me the same way if they knew it.

As nice as Layla was trying to be in giving me Caring for Your Guinea Pig, all it's done is instill even more concerns in me. According to that book, the average life span of a guinea pig is 5.5 years. Does that mean I'll only live for five and a half years, too? Or will I age like a normal human would while I remain in human form? As far as I've gathered, my initial human form was to turn into a teenage girl, and while I continue living as a teenage girl, I continue aging like one. But that's actually just a theory, because as far as I can see, I haven't aged a bit since last year. Maybe I shouldn't expect to see changes so soon, but I'm still worried. What if I look the same when I'm a Senior as I do now? People are going to start asking questions... My parents are going to worry, and my friends are going to ask me about it...

I just have to sit here, hoping that I won't kick the bucket in four years' time, and hoping that I'll age like anyone else around me would and not stay looking the same forever. But now that I think about it, if I only live to be five years old, that'll work out for me, because then maybe no one will ever notice that I can't age. That is, if I really can't age.

I don't know. This is annoying. I'm going to sleep.

Maybe I'll call Zach in the morning and tell him about it...he always manages to cheer me up.

Hope that was okay! Constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!