Title: Mirror, Mirror
By: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I don't own YJ - kind of a good thing, cause I'd probably mess it up.
Words: 2,300+
Notes: Not meant to offend anybody.
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M'gann can control every organ in her body, every bone, every muscle and fibre, down to the very last cell. Her nose can be as long or wide as she wants, and her eyes can be any colour she desires. If Artemis changed her body suit to match the climate of the destination they were heading to, she would do the same, knowing that this would be an advantage to both her and the team. If Zantanna bewitches her age for a mission, M'gann will age her own cells to appear older, or create new cells to be younger.
She doesn't just do this for missions. Her hair can be styled any way she wants because each strand is as organic as the rest of her body. The latest Teen Sensation magazine tells her that loose buns are the new hairdo, and the moment she sees her cheerleading squad wear them, M'gann moves all of the particles in her body to form a cute, little hairball on the top of her head.
She supposes that if she were a regular human, she'd be as toned as Artemis due to the training, but how could she be sure? Both her green Martian form and her humanoid form were based off of a character in a TV show. She naturally didn't have a small figure like her teammates and it bothered her that she would never know if she were truly attractive because white Martians were shunned on her home planet.
Teen Sensation magazine says that sandals are in and flats are out.
M'gann doesn't have much time to go shopping, so she looks up pictures on the internet whenever she can. She makes sure she has them on her feet the next day at school – all the girls on the squad are jealous and ask her where she gets them. Her reply is always off of the internet, because it's true, that's where she got the idea for them in the first place.
It makes her feel wonderful though, to always be in style and to know that when girls looked at her, it was with envy or admiration that she dressed so well.
"Urgh, look at these thighs," one of her friends says in the change room before practice.
M'gann has just pulled her skirt on, and after a brief moment of looking at her own legs, she peers over to the other side of the room where the group of girls were staring at the girl poking at her legs, watching as it wobbled back and forth. Looking back down, M'gann extends her fingers, tempted to do the same to her own legs when she was interrupted.
"Come on, Megan! It's time for practice!"
Feeling her face grow hot as if she was caught in the act, M'gann straightens herself and runs after the girls to the field. Practice was the same as it normally was, with Conner waiting on the benches patiently as she did her routine flips and twirls. She faked her enthusiasm throughout the day, even when she was walking hand in hand with Conner back to the mountain. When she gets there, she flies to her room without addressing any of her teammates, who've also just arrived, and locks herself in.
M'gann lifts one leg up, bending her knee and resting her foot on the edge of the bed. She pokes her thigh and sees them jiggle.
Hello, Megan! This is no good, she thinks. It's going to be hard for the other girls to catch me if I'm too heavy.
M'gann stands straight in front of the vanity and focuses on her legs. She proceeded to age the cells in her thighs to the point where they all die, making her legs seem leaner than before. Satisfied, M'gann twirls in front of the mirror one last time before leaving her room to prep for dinner.
Teen Sensation magazine claims that seventy percent of guys prefer girls who are tanned.
The girls invited M'gann to the salon with them after school and she agrees. Of course, she had assumed that they were only there to get manicures and pedicures, or maybe the cucumber on the eyes thing that she saw on a movie the other day. Instead, they had decided to get the desired bronze glow via tanning bed.
She was nervous at first, unsure of the process, but the others convinced her otherwise. In fact, she was the only one who had never been in a tanning salon before ("No wonder you're so pasty, Megan!"), but she trusted them when they told her it was safe.
She stepped into the strange pod-like machine, strangely reminded of Superboy's stories of what he used to sleep in before the team had broken him out of Cadmus. There was an odd light emitting from it, but M'gann was told that her eyes were going to be covered anyway. The storeowner had provided her with a bikini to wear, which felt odd against her skin as she had rarely worn real clothes before.
"You're going to love this, Megan. Trust us," one of her friends said and M'gann nodded, waiting for the pod to enclose around her.
It was like being on fire. The heat in the tiny compartment sucked the moisture from her body, and she could feel her body involuntarily twitch and cringe at the feel of the lights on her. Struggling to get free, her voice managed to get through to the owner of the salon, who pulls open the bed.
"Are you alright?" the woman asked.
Her breath was quick and she was wide-eyed, shocked at the process humans put themselves through each day. Her friends had already entered their beds and were out of sight. To the salon owner, M'gann says, "Sorry, I just remembered I have something to do – I gotta go. Could I get my clothes back, please?"
The owner nodded, confused, but returned the Martian's clothes before letting her escape. When she gets back to the mountain, her teammates were too busy training to notice her panicked state, and she goes into her room before any of them could greet her.
Looking in front of her mirror again, M'gann focuses on her skin cells to produce melanin. Her reflection showed a bronzed, redheaded girl who seemed out of place for M'gann, but she ignores it. It wasn't until she got the awkward stares from Kid Flash and Robin, who had instantly stared at her when she left her room that made her regret her actions.
"Uh, M'gann... Are you okay?" Robin asked.
"Yeah, babe, you look a little... orange. Is that normal for Martians?" Kid Flash added.
With a quick gasp, M'gann floats back into her room. She takes one last glance at her tanned figure, just a few shades lighter than her own hair, before changing back into her regular, Caucasian skin. She wasn't satisfied with her appearance now. It was too plain; too Megan. She was a Martian, capable of looking like anything she wanted, but now she couldn't even escape her own school persona because she couldn't tan.
Luckily, her friends don't comment and they continue to go on with their day-to-day lives.
"Are you really going to put that much dressing on your salad, Megan?"
She looks up from her lunch and stares at her friend confusingly. "What's wrong with dressing – it's yummy!" She smiles, but doesn't receive the same expression on her friend's face.
"That's a lot of calories there. I mean, I get that it tastes good and all, but you gotta be careful with your figure if you want to keep up with cheerleading."
M'gann nods understandably, now slightly disgusted by her food and pushing it aside. She reminded herself not to put any dressing on her salad next time, despite it being one of the tastiest things she's had since she came to Earth.
Looking at her mirror again after school, M'gann pokes at the flesh on her hips. "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips," she recited the television program she watched the other day. Within a blink of an eye, the meaty flesh was gone, and her fingers trailed along her hip bone. With a smile, M'gann leaves her room.
Teen Sensation magazine wants all teens to know supermodel, Jezebel Jet, slipped into her size one skinny jeans, just two months after giving birth to her baby boy!
"Wow, Megan. Lookin' good!" One of the guys called out in the hallway, another giving her a whistle afterwards. This makes Conner growl, mutter words under his breath, and wrap his arms protectively around her. M'gann, however, smiles appreciatively before glancing down at the short shorts that only she could fit into when she went to the mall with her friends – Conner doesn't understand why she doesn't just make the shorts herself, but M'gann tells him it's a girl thing and he wouldn't understand.
She loses her balance a lot during training that day, and hears the machine announce, "Miss Martian: Fail." She soaks in Black Canary's advice on trying holding her ground more, but still finds it difficult to hold her place on the floor firmly when Artemis does a series of kicks and punches in her direction. She's sore that night, but ignores the aching pain all over her body the next day at school.
"Megan, you would look so gorgeous in that dress if you wore it to the Spring Formal dance!" One of her friends point at an image on the school's computer during lunch time – they were supposed to be researching and finishing a project.
M'gann looks up from her untouched lunch and is easily excited at the sight of the beautiful, turquoise dress. She makes a mental note to try it out later at the cave.
"Sucks that it only comes in two sizes... Whoa, this is tiny! Why would anyone sell a dress that small?"
She looks at the numbers on the screen before confidently announcing, "I think I can fit into that."
Her friends look at her in disbelief. "Girl, it doesn't matter how much you diet. There is no way you can fit into that dress."
M'gann shrugs, but is adamant on being able to fit into the dress on the screen, despite being able to morph the dress herself without having to buy it online.
When M'gann arrives at the cave, she heads straight to her room again. Her arms, her legs, and her waist become more slender than before and she doesn't leave the room until she's satisfied and convinced that with this new body, her friends wouldn't doubt her fitting into that dress.
Conner was really pushy later that night, pestering her to eat more food when she was clearly not hungry. Following this, Conner begins criticizing her friends. M'gann thinks he's just too clingy and doesn't want to share her with others. She doesn't talk to him for the rest of the night, or the next day at school.
When tickets are being sold for Spring Formal, Conner doesn't ask her to go with him. M'gann doesn't care – her friends set her up with the cute guy from the football team when they find out she and Conner weren't going together.
"No girl with a body like yours should go to a dance alone, Megan," one of her friends explained. Her other friends just nod along, but were still peeved that Megan wasn't able to hold herself up in the pyramid earlier that day during cheerleading practice – she couldn't carry the weight anymore.
Black Canary tries talking to her at the cave after school about peer pressure, but M'gann barely listens to a word that woman said. She was too busy wondering how much flesh she could take out from her neck and cheeks.
Two weeks later, M'gann avoids Black Canary because she finds it annoying that both she and Conner were trying to take her new Earth friends and hobbies away from her when they obviously made her happy.
M'gann slips onto the turquoise dress that she bought with the money she borrowed from her uncle, claiming it to be for a new cheerleading uniform the school was making her buy. She was glad that even the tiniest dress was easily slipped on, but became upset when the sleeves wouldn't stay on her shoulders. Turning to the side, she could see the outlining of her ribs peaking from the dress, which wouldn't hold due to the lack of her chest. Her feet wobbled slightly, unaccustomed to the high heels her friends picked out for her, and she told herself to make the bones in her ankle a little stronger so they'd hold.
She was paler. It was a lot harder for her to keep her skin peachy and sometimes caught them turning as white as her original skin colour; she reminded herself to drink some more coffee to stay energized. Besides, a cup of coffee or some other energy drink filled her up more than regular solid foods did. It bothered her slightly that her hair wasn't as sheen as before. She didn't know why it was harder for her to make them shiny, but ignores the thought because she figured no one would notice under the dim light of their school gym.
She doesn't bother adding flesh to her body anymore. People see skin and bones all the time on supermodels and don't say anything! Besides, more people noticed her this way.
M'gann looks at herself on the mirror one last time before she leaves.
"Perfect."
Teen Sensation magazine says: you're too skinny – curves are the way to go!
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Please review, not just add it to favourites or alerts (though those are loved too!). I'd really like your opinions on this story - any suggestions would be appreciated.
Notes: Sometimes someone can say something without meaning to offend you or make you feel down. Sometimes, someone can say it to hurt you and make you feel worse. You shouldn't. Each person is unique on the outside and inside; one person's opinion of what beauty is, is not the same as another person's perception, and shouldn't affect your own beliefs of what true beauty is. Remember, you're all beautiful. :)