A/N: just a quick look at the other possibility.

The car swerved across the street with the exact sort of sound rubber scraping across pavement usually made.

[Danger: 4 Seconds To Impact.]
[Perception Acceleration - Active.]
[Spiritus Avatar Activation]
[Cross-Reality Copy Complete.]
[Full Manifestation Postponed. Reason: Insufficient Resources.]

[Interim Manifestation Selected: VF-1X Super Valkyrie Plus.]

* * *

Annette was quite aware of the car swerving out of control and that her own car was in the way.

Then her own little battered Ford Impala came apart in a way that was not expected. Also the car headed their way was coming apart in the exact same manner as something happened.

Then there was a feeling of acceleration going straight up. Also very unexpected.

"Mom. You okay?"

"Taylor, where are you?"

"I'm the 'plane'. Hang on, I'm cruising."

"You're what...?" asked Annette Hebert even as the vehicle shuddered and shifted around. The acceleration eased off enough she could catch her breath and determine that she was not dead. Also that she was in something like the cockpit of a fighter aircraft except with even more controls.

"I'm currently a VF-1X Super Valkyrie. Ahem. Welcome passenger. You are currently flying at a height of 12,750 feet and a speed of 750 miles per hour. Thank you for flying Taylor Airlines."

"You're a planegirl?" asked Annette.

"Not exactly," hedged Taylor's voice.

"Can you change back?" asked Annette.

"Yeah, but we're currently at 12,750 feet and going at 750mph. Which is a long way from top speed but still."

"What IS your top speed?" asked Annette.

"I don't know, but if those two F-15 approaching are any indication, I may have to find out."

"Can I talk to them?" asked Annette.

"...hang on. I think if I do this and this," mused Taylor's voice.

* Colonel Hayate PoV *

"Difficult to see them, some sort of anti-radar field?" asked Haruno.

"Tinker probably, it IS over Brockton Bay," I noted. Might be Nazis. I haven't shot down any Nazis and that would be one check mark off my bucket list.

There was a crackle and squeal from my radio.

"What was that?" asked Haruno.

"...well, don't panic," said an unfamiliar woman's voice. "Nobody expects you to figure out everything when you've been a planegirl less than a half-hour."

"I think I've got it working now. Had to disable scramblers that would automatically code everything," said a young girl's voice.

Oh, this just put the hastily scrambled flight from Concerning to Amusing didn't it? A new planegirl? Have to get video of her landing, those were always awkward the first time.

I clicked the toggle and sent. "Unknown aircraft, you are approaching restricted airspace. Please identify."

"I think that worked. Ah. You guys are the F-15s approaching? Ah, over?"

"Affirmative, we are coming alongside."

"I thought it was a modified F-14 but it doesn't quite look right," said Haruno.

"Haruno, lead towards home airfield. Unknown aircraft, please follow. We can sort this out at base. Do I understand correctly that vehicle is actually a planegirl avatar?"

The little girl's voice answered. "This is just what I could manage when my Mom was in danger. I'm a lot bigger but this was the best I could do right now. I'm really hungry."

"Well, we DO have some experience with planegirls so we can address that when we get to base," I told them. Base was monitoring so if they weren't all asleep at the console, they'd have an idea of what to do with a new avatar. Yeah, we were all briefed on what to do with new ones. Some of the clips were funny, so we actually stayed awake for the video. Well, that and they confiscated my book at the door.

"Roger Wilcow," responded the little girl, who was probably the plane.

Not sure what it was, but there was that submarine dog over in Germany who was some futuristic sort of vehicle. Heard that dog liked blowing up Nazis, which made him a very good boy.

So maybe she was some sort of future fighter aircraft? I could see the way the wings moved as we accelerated and then shifted again when we slowed down for...

"Going to Gerwalk mode for landing," said the little girl plane.

What the actual hell?

"Colonel, did you see?" asked Haruno.

"Just lead her in," I told Haruno, ignore that the jet had just shifted parts around and was coming down on legs where the engines had been.

How the hell did THAT work anyway?

Well, that was Someone Else's Problem. He had things to do and to talk with Haruno about keeping operational chatter to a minimum.

* Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts *

"A new planegirl? So young - so she's a small aircraft?" asked General Kilroy. Wasn't that how it worked with shipgirls? The more massive the ship the more mature they looked. With planegirls it seemed to be something about ordnance.

"No sir. She downloaded this to my phone," said Captain McCloud, showing the General a screen.

"She's... a carrier of some kind?" asked the General before he got to the scale. "What?"

"She's begun filling her stores, so she's technically a shipgirl who has access to supply functions and recycling facilities," said Captain McCloud. "With your permission, I can see about getting her back to Brockton Bay. Her mother assures me that there are a lot of scrapped ships and other abandoned materials we can requisition for her."

"Check out the information, if this is accurate..." General Kilroy glanced at his watch. "I have a meeting ahead of me, and if this is accurate and not Tinkertech, I want to bring this up. We need to get her signed up before Costa-Brown tries to get ahold of her."

"Hasn't she given up yet?" asked Captain McCloud.

"She still fights periodically, and this particular one would catch her eye," grumbled General Kilroy. "I have no doubt she'd look at that fighter jet and start going off about Tinker technology. If we can prove it is replicable we have a better chance of fending her off."

"Yes sir, give my regards to General Hammond," said Captain McCloud.

"Honestly, considering some of the stories I've heard of Hammond, getting his advice sounds like a damn good idea," admitted General Kilroy. He nodded at the Captain, dismissing her.

He tried to remember. The closest shipgirl he could remember was Memphis over in Philadelphia. Light Cruiser. Very fussy according to what he'd heard though he'd never met her. If this new girl was some sort of carrier, having someone like that around to ease her through the whole manifesting process might be a good idea.

They only had one planegirl stationed at Westover and she was Chinook, but she was on mandatory down-time due to her last physical.

Maybe they should introduce the two. Chinook had been active for two years now, so was pretty settled onto the whole planegirl existence thing. She certainly knew how much food and supplies were required after first manifesting (he preferred THAT term to anything the Parahuman community used for their stuff, precisely because the PRT insisted on using their own terms) and making sure the new not-a-parahuman was squared away.

* Brockton Bay *

"That's the sixth time you've gone over the footage," noted Uber.

"That's the best frame there," countered L33t. "Look at that. Cloud of parts from two cars, the drunk driver skidding across the freeway on his butt, then the pieces come together into a giant robot."

"It's not that big," countered Uber.

"Which is when the little girl vanishes and the cockpit forms around the adult," noted L33t. "At which point the robot shifts around into a fighter jet and takes off at high speeds. It's a Transformer!"

"More than meets the eye to be sure," agreed Uber. "It's interesting, but we've had shipgirls and planegirls for awhile now."

"But this one turns into a giant robot!" declared L33t. "Think of what would happen if we got her into a game of Smash Brothers."

"She's a planegirl. That's military. We don't bother military because their Rules of Engagement have a lot less wiggle room," pointed out Uber. "PRT will try and arrest us. Mess with the military and there's a good chance you'll just get shot."

"True that. Federal agencies don't have much of a sense of humor. Military requires three authorizations and a confirmation from a higher-rank to crack a smile," opined L33t.

There was a brief silence between the two as L33t edited footage and Uber played Command & Expand.

"Some of the shipgirls seem all right," said Uber eventually.

"You've got a poster of USS Anchorage," pointed out L33t. "Bias."

"Oh, and it's not like your wallpaper on that computer isn't of C-130?" countered Uber.

"Dude, first off, she's got a lift capacity and she was an engineer and massive nerd BEFORE she avatared. Awakened. Manifested. Whatever they're calling it now," defended L33t.

The conversation quickly devolved into comparisons between shipgirls, planegirls, and whatever the giant robot was.

* PRT ENE HQ *

"Superdimensional effects," mused Armsmaster as he looked over the imagery, going for frame-by-frame analysis of the event recorded in dashcams and traffic cameras.

"That does appear to be the case," agreed Dragon. "The outer shell is anchored in this reality with the inner parts switched out for various functions."

"Interesting, if I could duplicate the effect it would allow multiple functions from the same equipment loadout just switching from one configuration to another," mused Armsmaster. "That would be extremely efficient."

"She's a robot-girl or planegirl, so she's liable to end up in the military unless the Chief Director's latest attempt goes through," said Dragon.

"Maybe. 'When one appears, more nears.' Or so the internet says. Once you have one of a type, there are others that immediately follow. We could luck out and have someone already in the PRT or Guild manifest," noted Armsmaster.

"Unlikely. The odds of ghlkblrk vrt vrt vmmm..."

"Dragon? What was that? Dragon?"

* Saint *

"AHHHH!"

"Fire extinguisher! Where's the damn fire extinguisher?!"

"It's on fire too!"

"Why is everything on fire?!"

"The camouflage field generator just melted!"

"Get to the suits!"

"They just took off!"

"How could the suits frigging TAKE OFF?! They're not capable of doing that!"

"TELL THEM THAT, GEOFF!"

"THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SNARK!"

"EVERYTHING'S ON GODDAMN FIRE! INCLUDING THE FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM! IT BLOODY WELL IS TIME FOR SNARK!"

"Everyone to stop yelling. Truck is not on fire. Load supplies not on fire, move to new base. Is simple, ya?"

"I've got to get the laptop first!"

"The room collapsed! If it survived we can come back for it."

"WHY?!"

"It look like fire started in fire suppression system. Is bad design I think. Tinkertech not known for reliability, yes?"

(BOOM!)

"Porta-potty just explode. At least three on East side."

"Well crap."

"Yes, is now over half equipment in yard. We leave now, yes?"

* Ayr, United Kingdom, Sept 9 2005 *

Isla McDonnough hadn't paid much attention to all that crap about parahumans and these 'avatar' things. They were a long way from Ayr after all, just more madness of big cities and their big problems. Not that Ayr was small or anything, about 45,000 people called it home after all. Compared to some of the little towns and villages not that far off it was huge.

So suddenly having gone from 61 years old to 20-something was more than a bit startling. She'd known what that crushing pain in her chest was, there'd been enough warnings over the years.

It was just that she hadn't expected quite this ending.

[Cardiac Arrest Interrupted]
[Spiritus Avatar Activation]
[Cross-Reality Copy Complete.]
[Full Manifestation: 57 Minutes to Complete. Reason: Insufficient Materials Nearby.]
[Full Manifestation: Seaview]
[Current Manifestation: Flying Sub]

Wasn't 'Seaview' over on the Isle of Wight? She thought she had a bottle of Mermaid Gin setting in her collection. Bloody weird pop-ups in her head like some new-fangled TV where you had to go through five or six screens of pop-ups just to watch the local news.

Huh. Well, she looked like she was twenty or so. Had a bit more up top than she remembered but she wasn't going to complain. Felt a need towards the ocean and frankly wasn't all that averse to a dip in the pool at least.

* Taylor *

With her mother safely out on the tarmac, and radar showing absolutely no problems nearby, Taylor let it go.

"You look older," observed Annette Hebert as the not-quite-a-fighter-jet shifted to become her daughter again.

The mechanic who'd come running up on their landing adjusted his glasses before speaking, but his voice betrayed his excitement. "That's to be expected actually. Both shipgirls and planegirls have that whole appearance-altered thing going for them."

"The way they always seem to look like they've been prepped to be models at a photo shoot?" asked Annette Hebert. "I've heard of that. Emma complained about that a couple of times."

"I wonder how she'll feel about this then," said Taylor as she held out a hand and a large weapon shimmered into existence above her before she dismissed it again.