I come out of tinkering fifteen minutes before my alarm goes off, not quite finished with my laptop but unable to do anymore without specific tools and materials. I need to figure out what to do about my mom; I can't keep avoiding her, despite how much I want to.

With about ten minutes 'til she gets home, I go out and sit on the couch, texting my sister on the way about having to talk to Mom when she gets home. After a few minutes, my sister responds with a confirmation. Checking my pocket, I notice I have the second math watch with me. I'll give it to my sister, no matter what my mom says. My sister comes out of her room a few minutes before my mom gets home, and stops upon seeing me.

Before she can say anything I stand up and say, "Hi, I'm Willow. I'm your big sister, I suppose." My voice is filled with excitement and anxiety. "I uh, I got powers. I made a device that changed me into a girl."

My sister just stares at me, and after about a minute just responds, "Okay. How did you get powers? Was it from what mom did?" I just nod, not really wanting to speak.

"I made a second one, if you want it?" I say instead of talking about mom. "I can show you how to set it up after we talk with mom?"

"Sure, but what are you gonna tell mom? She's gonna want you to join the Wards." She says, pursing her lips Her voice is filled with concern.

"I uh, I have a plan?" It's phrased like a question, though I didn't intend it like that. Right after I finish speaking, I hear the door unlock, and my chest tightens with anxiety as my mom opens the door. As my mom walks in she stops and stares at me. Her eyes show a vague recognition of me, probably thinking I'm a cousin or something. Her mouth opens and closes several times, before she closes the door and moves to sit down.

"H-hi mom, I'm a girl and my name is Willow. I'm your daughter." I say, anxiety filling my voice. She continues to stare at me. "I got powers, and-"

She cuts me off. "You're joining the Wards."

"If you let me finish, you would hear me say I'm not joining the Wards. The PRT would limit me to fighting and that's not what I want to do. I want to help people, so if you try to force me into the Wards I'll run away." I say, anxiety warring with conviction. "If you try to force me into the Wards, you'll never see me again. I turn eighteen in a week."

This causes her to stop for a moment before continuing, her expression hardening. "For the next week, you're still a child. So you're joining the Wards."

I stare at her for a moment before standing up. "Fuck you." I turn to leave to my room and hear my sister get up to follow me.

"We aren't done yet," my mother says.

"Yes, we are. Congratulations, you're gonna have one less kid," I say with a small amount of venom.

We get to my room and I lock the door. I move to my computer and send a message to Cranial. Saying I need to get out of my house, because my mom is gonna force me into the Wards. And that I have stuff I don't wanna leave behind. I pull out the second device and hand it to my sister, "Register User," and prompt her for her name.

"Oh uh, Eva."

"User Eva registered," the device responds.

"It should be intuitive, now that you're a registered user." A muted flash of light goes off and my sister is still here, but changed.

"I uh, I need to go," she says, and unlocks my door and before leaving turns to look at me. "Good luck."

I close and relock my door before moving back to my computer, checking it I see a response from Cranial saying they can open a portal and bring a few boxes through. I don't have anything super fragile that I wanna take. So I shoot a response back saying just that and that I'm turning off my computer to start getting it ready.

I do exactly that, turning off my computer I start unplugging everything and getting it all ready. Vwoooom, the sound of a portal opening up causes me to look behind me and I see Cranial, with a few boxes they walk through.

"You have a lot of Mecha models," they say, walking through with the boxes.

"You can put them in the boxes, just be gentle please," I say while finalizing my computer stuff. I move over to my handheld game consoles and start putting those in a box. "Am I good to take some of this through?" I ask.

"Yeah, the portal leads to the room we were in before," they say.

I start taking stuff through and putting it against the wall. I put my computer under the desk and my monitors on the desk. I see Cranial, also putting the boxes against the wall. I go back and grab a box absolutely filled with stuffed animals, and take that through. After about 15 minutes of taking all my stuff through, I grab my less shitty laptop that I was modifying before and begin moving to the portal. I hear my mom knock on the door and call out to me. I ignore her, and hear her try to open the door.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Cranial asks.

I stop just before the portal and look at my door, my mom trying to get me to open the door. "Yeah, I'm sure. I don't wanna be here anymore." I step through the portal, and right before it closes, my mom kicks the door in. The portal snaps shut with a vwoooom, leaving me looking at a black wall. "No going back."