X-Man
by Babs Yerunkle
From the "X-Men Evolution" universe, beginning
after the end of the first season.
Chapter 11: Real trouble
Logan drilled me mercilessly on rolls, blocks, and basic
punches. Unarmed combat seemed to have evolved a bit since I'd had basic
training. He finally got me started on a solo practice routine he called a "kata."
Sort of a modern version of shadow-boxing. The trick was to perform all the
moves with absolutely perfect style. Later I would work on improving my speed
and force.
He also tried my new armor against a practice dummy. This
time I cheered. The bullet penetrated, but the cloth didn't break. It still
made a nasty puncture on the front side, but it didn't explode out the back.
Which meant that the wound might, it just *might* be survivable.
After that, Logan made sure that I performed all
calisthenics and kata with my armor on.
*****
Dr. McTaggart was still angry about the pusher incident.
"So, *girl*," her voice caressed the word, making
sure I didn't miss her heavy-handed emphasis, "how are you adjusting to a
more feminine waist? Feeling a little more vulnerable, perhaps? A little less
prone to macho idiocy?"
"Honestly," I admitted, "I've been able to
keep my mind off that. Baggy clothes conceal a lot. I admit, when I let my
mind dwell on it, it's a bit disturbing, but it actually makes me feel more
like a freak than a woman. Rogue didn't really have a waist this narrow, did
she? The girl's figure certainly wasn't anything to boast about."
I saw immediately that the honest approach had not been the
proper one to take. So much for the "trusted therapist" role.
"Yes, she *has* a waist that is exactly that size.
Maybe you never noticed. Maybe you were always comparing yourself to other
girls. But Rogue is an attractive girl, with a bright future ahead of her. I'm
not going to let *you* ruin that for her."
"Attractive girl?" I snorted. "Come on,
Moira, let's be honest. She had a face that could crack a mirror. That chin?
Please. The hair? Bride-of-Frankenstein scary. And while I concede that you
might be right in the waist, perhaps even the hips, it's not like she had much of
a figure topside."
"How DARE you!" Her face was flushed, and I
suddenly remembered what a mistake it was to rile her Gaelic temper. "A
young girl, just going through puberty – do you have any idea how much
psychological pressure is put on young girls? Your stupid male-dominated
ideals, sometimes the only thing it seems to notice is the size of a girl's
bosom! Something a girl is judged by, but unable to alter, excepting those
girls that are so desperate that they have quack doctors hack them up into some
perverse image more appropriate to the brain-dead men that presume to judge
her!"
I belatedly realized that "little Moira" wasn't
all that chesty, herself. But it was too late. I might as well try to stop a
freight train with my bare hands.
"And the hell that we call puberty – every single girl
develops too fast, or too slow, or has the stabbing knife of doubt that her
body won't be good enough, somehow. How could a MAN ever understand?"
And then, like lasers targeting on me, her eyes fixed on my
own chest.
"I wonder… you've spent at least *some* time in your
natural form. How much is your subconscious ready to accept?" Her smile
was suddenly quite malicious.
"Now Moira –"
"Don't you DARE 'now Moira' me!" She spoke the
word that triggered the post-hypnotic command, and I found myself unable to
speak back.
"When a young girl's breasts first begin to bud, it is
simultaneously sacred and terrifying. She knows that she is on the cusp of
womanhood, but not there yet. She is filled with uncertainty. I think you
should share those feelings, and become *intimately* familiar with them.
Remember when your breasts first began to grow, when your nipples became so
large and sensitive? Not full size, not yet. Just under an 'A' cup."
Her tone changed, and I recognized the voice of command, seeping into my
subconscious. "A young girl's breasts, newly formed, the buds just
starting to bloom. A double-A cup, with more on the way. Partway there, and
one step closer to home, girl."
It was payback for touching myself there yesterday morning.
Somewhere in the traitorous depths of my mind, something was *not* holding me
back or preventing this change. I felt a swelling on my chest, as things
grew. I had my shirt on, so there was little visible change on the outside.
But inside, I *knew*. I could feel myself.
And it was different. Terrifyingly different. I could
ignore the waist. Perhaps that was dieting. But this – I felt tender, and
heavy, and extremely aware of two huge and sensitive nipples atop two soft
round mounds of *me*. Intellectually, I knew there was little enough there,
but psychologically I had just crossed the line from "man's chest" to
"breasts". Part of me wanted to wrap my arms over myself, feeling more
vulnerable than if someone were kicking at my testicles. Part of me was
crying, because unlike the waist, I couldn't ignore this. But the biggest part
of me wanted to shed tears of relief. It was the girl inside of me, and to
her, this felt completely *right*.
*****
Morning exercise was more practice fighting against Evan,
with Logan supervising.
"Knock yourself out, kid," he told me. "You
want to play with the big boys? They hit a lot harder than your friend Spyke."
"Hey!" Evan yelled. "I'm no slouch."
"Really? Then let's see what you can do."
"Oh, great," I mumbled. I mentally ran a
double-check over the scale armor under my loose clothing. I intended to keep
my armor advantage a secret for as long as possible. More importantly, I had put
a triple-thickness over my sensitive new growths. I don't know what it was,
but I was feeling incredibly paranoid about my chest. I tried to wrench my
mind away to the task at hand.
Evan began maneuvering on his little skate-board. I
remembered when those had first been popular, back around the time the suburbs
were being invented. It was hard to imagine a use for one in a serious combat
situation but it did seem to give Evan a considerable amount of mobility.
I suppose I had better start thinking of him as "Spyke"
when he's dressed for combat.
Our battleground today was an urban wasteland. The Danger
Room had used its magic to create a replica of a paved urban blight. This left
plenty of broken ground, lots of cover, and plenty of alleys for Spyke to zip
in and out of on his little skate-board.
The sound of traffic spun me one way, then a sense of
something turned me back in another direction. I saw movement, fast, and swung
my arm up in a block. A trio of bone spears were rocketing toward my chest! I
knocked one aside and took the impact from the other two. My armor blunted the
blow, but both breasts were hurting like I'd been kicked by a horse. It was
all I could do to stand up. And while I was dealing with the bone spears,
Spyke was zooming up to me on his skateboard. I spun and blocked, but his left
had been just a fake. He got me in the gut with a right uppercut which knocked
me back and laid me on the pavement. By the time I was on my feet again, he'd
vanished into an alleyway.
I rubbed my chest, terrified that he'd done some permanent
damage. Barely thinking about it, I reinforced the chest armor some more. I
realized that I had created a solid plate that ran down to the bottom of my
ribcage, and the breast portion significantly enhanced the shape of my
insignificant assets. I quickly flattened it back down (while retaining the
thick armor).
My gut stung, too. How had a simple punch managed to do so
much? I thought back, realizing that his fist had been covered in knobby bone.
He was using his own version of brass knuckles! But two could play at that
game. I'd teach him to hit a gir-- guy when he was down. I concentrated,
forming hard, bony reinforcements on my own gloves, with boney knobs above my
first two knuckles. They needed proper backing, to distribute the force over
the surface of my fist…and now I had a set of brass knuckles, too. Only these
were far worse than the old gangster favorite.
A burst of covering noise from the "city" and
Spyke began another run. This time I managed to tuck and roll away from his
spears. I burst to my feet as he closed and managed to land my fist in *his*
side. He gave a grunt of surprise and swung hard at me, smashing into the side
of my face. We both rolled in opposite directions – Spyke clutching his gut
and me trying to get to my feet, waiting for the spinning to stop. Why was I
engaged in this bloody madness?
It was bloody madness – literally. As my vision cleared, I
realized that blood was pouring out of the gash on my face. I quickly grabbed
a sterile cloth from mid-air and wrapped my face, trying to staunch the blood.
Now that I was taking hits to the face, I began to consider the stupidity of
the standard X-costume. A high-contrast pattern and an unprotected head and face.
Not exactly what I'd wear when rushing the enemy's foxholes. Now that I
considered it, I realized that Wolverine's costume was much lower in contrast,
better at camouflage, and included a helmet. I snorted, realizing that Logan
was no idiot. I wondered at all the lessons he was trying to teach me.
Spyke was just beginning to skate away, giving me a few
moments. I concentrated, wrapping my head and face with silk, leaving only the
area over my eyes clear. Then I created a hard chiton-shell helmet, matching
the armored bikini top and bottom I still wore. Finally, I covered it all with
scale-cloth, and then loose silk, disguising the whole affair. I fancied that
I looked like Douglas Fairbanks, doing his classic sheik act. Now that I
thought about it, that wouldn't be a bad look. I modified my baggy outerwear
to match the loose, body-covering silks of an Arab, complete with swirling
cape. Or perhaps I looked more like one of those Japanese spy-assassins. That
thought led to another, and as I ran to a building, I let my clothing take on
the color and rough pattern of the faded brown brick I leaned against. With my
head and face covered, the camouflage was even better. The cape and loose
clothing helped to soften and obscure my human outline.
There was a burst of city noise, and following it, sure
enough, Spyke came rocketing out on his skate-board. This time, he had to look
closely to find me. Shame I didn't have a distant attack – I could have nailed
him. I'd have to work on that.
"Cute," he said, finally spotting me. "That's
not bad. It isn't going to save you, though, ninja-boy. You're going down."
He started to accelerate toward me.
I realized that I still had a lot of learning to do. I had
no strategy. This was too different from my war experience. I had no weapon,
no safe destination to run toward, and no objective (aside from survival).
Tomorrow I'd have a better plan – if I survived today. It was a shame I couldn't
use my cloak like a bullfighter's cape. If I could maneuver him into running
into the wall, it might finish today's fight. Or it might catch on his spiky
fist or shoulders, slowing him down.
And that gave me the idea. My mind formed the image of a
net – black silk, so that it would be strong, but hard to notice. It formed in
my hands. As Spyke zipped toward me, shooting spears from his arms, I flung
the net wide and rolled to the side. One of the spears grazed my side, but it
wasn't incapacitating. Spyke shot past and into my net. I couldn't have
managed better if I'd planned it. I rolled over, coming up to grab the
fabric. A tug and Evan was off-balance again, falling from his board but not
losing his feet. He spun, trying to get free of the net, but only ended up
pulling it away from me. That was perfect. I created more out of thin air,
creating more net as fast as he could spin away. Before he realized what
happened, he was wrapped in even more of it. I pressed in, feeling where
strand lay against strand. With a thought, the strands merged. I reached
forward, touching the net, and as my fingers touched the fabric wrapping Spyke,
my mind could control it. Strands melted into strands, and they all fused with
the fabric of his uniform. In moments, he was tied into his own costume, and
wrapped round and round with silk netting. I spun around him with a thicker
netting as he struggled to break free. It was too late for him. I moments I
had him wrapped tighter and tighter. He finally thought to "go porcupine"
to force me to keep my distance, but it was too late. He was tied.
"Halt," Logan's voice drifted out. In moments, he
was striding toward us.
"Get me out of here!" Evan called from inside my
cocoon.
"Not bad. You got him trussed up like a turkey."
He looked at Evan. "Looks like you dropped the ball, kid, letting a
rookie catch you like that. I thought you were tougher than this."
"He got lucky!"
"Uh huh. Well, maybe you'll do better tomorrow."
Logan then turned to me. "How's your face?"
I "vanished" my headgear.
"Ouch. Better have Doc McTaggart look at that before
school." Before dismissing us, he looked at me. "Not bad, kid. I
like the innovation. Keep at it. And you really need some attacks to go with
your defenses. But still, not bad."
Buoyed by the unexpected praise, the walk to Moira McTaggart's
office was almost pleasant.
*****
She smirked. "You look like hell, *girl*. What
happened?"
"Logan's training," I admitted. Then couldn't
help myself from bursting out, "what did you *do* to me? It's like
everything he did was coming straight for my… straight for those *growths* you
gave me." I almost felt myself on the edge of a stronger, more desperate
emotion. "You have to check, to make sure that idiot hasn't done any
damage to m-- to Rogue."
Her smirk shifted into a condescending smile. "That's
more of the attitude I expect. Pull up your shirt and I'll have a look."
I'd looked at myself intently in the mirror, last night.
Aside from the larger nipples, (objectively) there wasn't *that* much there.
No matter what it felt like. Why should I be so nervous about exposing my
chest, to a woman doctor? Still, I had to force myself to dissolve the armor
and pull up my shirt.
Her fingers, tracing over my barely-formed mounds, were
quite intense. I had to squeeze my eyes shut, as she palpitated around one
bruise. And circling each nipple with her thumb, that was just cruel.
"Some nasty bruises, but it doesn't look like any of
the breast tissue is damaged. Still, I order you to wear a training bra from
now on. On second thought, make that a padded training bra." She smirked
again. "And be sure to massage the area, at least once a day."
*****
Seeking out the very back of the room in speech class, I
realized that I was picking up some rather bad scholastic habits. Still, I
needed the stretch-and-relax to speed my healing. I'd done better today than
yesterday, but I was still recovering from yesterday's beating. Besides, I
needed a chance to work on my face. I'd managed a couple of facial shifts, and
the results had been dramatic. Instead of an ugly gash, there was now only an
angry red line. I hoped that a few more shifts might have it reduced even
further, so that I wouldn't have a scar. I'm not quite sure how I was going to
get things back the way they were supposed to be, but in the back of my mind
was the thought that Rogue would never forgive me for giving her a scar. But
speech class wasn't the place to do face-work – that needed a dark room. Maybe
they'd have another movie in French class. Instead, I did just the body work.
My fight this morning was obviously tougher than I'd expected, since I was a
bit stiff. "Relaxing" alone almost wasn't enough. I had to actually
push (it's difficult to come up with the right term to express the effort) to
assume Rogue's natural body.
That damned bra was even more disconcerting. I'd checked a
dozen times to make sure that nothing showed outside my many layers of clothing
(and manly-sculpted, concealing armor). But I couldn't avoid the feeling
inside. No more than I could avoid feeling that damned bra around me, cradling
me, protecting me, every moment of the dammed day. Even worse was when I had "relaxed"
into Rogue's body. The bra automatically flowed into an appropriate design for
her natural size, which seemed to be something on the order of triple-D, at
least, so far as it felt on the inside. I needed something to distract me, and
class was definitely not working.
As the teacher droned on about the beauty and natural flow
of speaking in iambic pentameter (or some such drivel), I turned my mind again
to my battles with Spyke. Perhaps there was a method to Logan's harsh
training. The two of us were physically fairly normal. Sure, Evan was a
natural athlete, but he wasn't super-strong or super-fast or capable of
shooting force beams. He was a normal human who could create whatever bony
weapons his mind could imagine.
I, on the other hand, was a normal man (granted, at the
moment I was a woman from the neck down), who could create whatever fabric and
bone weapons *my* mind could conceive. We were in an arms race of sorts. I'd
be disappointed if Evan didn't have a little better armoring tomorrow. I
grinned to myself in anticipation. Now, what could I do to surprise him? He
needed some payback, for those shots to my boobs.
First, I refined my "brass knuckles." These would
amplify what I'd been picking up from Logan about how to make a more effective
punch. The trick was to use the bony part of the first two knuckles, rather
than the whole fist. This reduced the surface area and gave a much more solid
striking surface. Over time, I was told, I'd build up a thick callous to help
protect my knuckles. But I could skip that, and design it right into my gloves.
I'd make the projections like teeth…incisors. Pointed conical projections that
just might have enough strength and power to crack the bone armor I'd expect
them to meet. Which meant that I had to have the proper support and
reinforcement in my glove to allow me to perform the equivalent of punching
into rock, without hurting my hand.
The tooth idea reminded me of something else. Was it only a
day ago that I'd changed partly into cat-shape? I didn't have any confidence
that I could manage that in battle, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to. Aside
from the surprise of the transformation, the main combat advantage had been the
claws. I'd gained the *shape* of a cat-person, but not the musculature or
reflexes. On the other hand, claws…
I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the claws of a cat.
The nail-like material had to have a certain structure and grain, so that the
claws flaked away from the front edge, sharpening themselves. And to attach
them securely to gloves, I'd want to anchor them to the whole finger length.
But if the claw caught on something, the glove should give way first. I
certainly didn't want to lose a finger! After a bit of experimentation (it was
easy to conceal my hand from the rest of the class), I had a rather nice design
that started at the knuckle, arched forward over each finger-tip gaining
thickness and mass, until it ended in a large claw projecting an inch and a
half beyond my fingertip. It was hard to flex my fingers and I couldn't close
my hand into a fist. Which meant I had to decide between slashing or
punching. And creating the claws was just a little bit draining. Not
terribly, but I could tell that I wouldn't want to be making them come and go
throughout the battle. If I did, I'd be too drained to use little tricks like
the net I had created. But as I continued to experiment, I realized that it
was *creating* the claw material which was draining. It wasn't *shaping* the
material. So if I could make the material "flow" back up into my
gloves, I'd have ready-to-use weapons. With a little playing around, I colored
the claws black, and flowed them up onto the top of each finger like a thick
scale over each finger segment, where they had the side benefit of providing a
mild armor for the top of my fingers. With a little practice, I could pop them
out in a fraction of a second. It looked rather frightening. Hiding my hand
and watching the effect, it looked as if huge inch-and-a-half long flat black
claws suddenly erupted from my fingertips, as fast as a cat might eject them.
A second later, they vanished just as quickly, leaving normal human-looking
gloved fingers, and no clue as to where the claws had gone.
This left me smugly pleased. I wasn't sure exactly how I
would use these against Evan – the claws seemed a bit too brutal to use in
normal practice – but I liked the feeling of having a weapon of my own. And
the next time he targeted my chest, *he'd* be the one hurting. Now, what could
I do about attacking from a distance? Evan had his spears or quills or
whatever-the-heck he called those bone projectiles. I could probably fashion a
similar item from wood and bone. Synthesizing it might take some time and
effort, but how could I fire it?
I idly created a small dart, playing with various
configurations. Something like an classic bar-room dart, with a bulbous wooden
body, a triple-feathered tail, and a long pointed noise crafted of wood with a
tooth-enamel sheath. It might give someone a nasty poke, but it was hard to take
it seriously as a weapon. I toyed with it, stretching the wood in my hand like
clay as my mind shifted and shaped the structure I'd created. Perhaps a
straight shaft like a dart, with more of an arrowhead on the front. That's
what I needed – something like a bow to fire this out of.
Of course.
*****
Evening exercises included warm-up calesthenics, some "kata",
and a five mile run. After I dragged myself back to the mansion, Logan (who
was still fresh, despite pacing me the entire way) had me run through the kata
again, and critiqued every time that I was sloppier than before the run. He
warned that tomorrow he'd start awarding extra running time for each slip I
showed because of the fatigue.
*****
"Feeling more like a girl now?"
I nodded vigorously, not daring to think what else Moira
might do if I upset her.
"What should we do today? Maybe you'd like to return
to full size?" She gestured to my chest, making her meaning abundantly
clear.
I didn't respond either way. Honestly, I was torn. Double-A
I could conceal, even if I already felt huge. "B" would be pretty
difficult. But part of me was so desperate. So I said nothing.
"Maybe somewhere else, then." She gave the word
of command. "Hips unchanged, but thighs and legs, long and lean. Back to
normal, back like Rogue. One step closer to home, girl."
I was surprised to note that my legs were actually growing
*longer*. Hadn't Rogue been shorter than me? And my arms seemed to be growing
longer, to match. I looked at my hands. Men's hands, or women's? It was hard
to tell.
With a thought, I adjusted my clothes to cover my altered
frame.
*****
My bath that night was disturbing. My arms were
surprisingly slender. My legs, oddly, weren't the spindly shapes I'd
expected. My calves were muscular and well-formed, and my thighs looked quite
athletic, even if somewhat unusual in shape. I wasn't sure what it was, but
they were different, somehow.
Then there was the narrow waist. Obviously the result of a
bad diet.
Fortunately, I still had my normal male equipment in the
crotch region. It was a significant psychological comfort. So Jackie said the
parts didn't work? Everything certainly *looked* proper.
I sat down in the water, wincing as the hot liquid lapped
against the one change I couldn't ignore.
They weren't really that big.
But sometimes, they felt so HUGE. I knew they were there.
My God, I couldn't seem to forget about them. How was it that the entire world
had failed to notice? Not even Kitty had noticed, even when I was wearing my
nightshirt. And I was almost as large as her! Well, nearly.
Not that I was getting neurotic about it or anything.
With my right hand, I reached tentatively over to touch my
left breast. Yes, it was real. It looked so pretty that I wanted to cry. I
touched the small mound, stroking my hand over myself, delicately. Was my
shape right? Was I supposed to be so… pointy? I thought breasts were always
rounded, curved. Not shaped like an almost concave cone. They looked so stuck
on. I was just a boy, with these stuck-on breasts. They were the only part of
my body that looked good, the rest was just rotten.
I could relax right now. Then my whole body would look
right. But I didn't dare. I didn't trust myself.
Instead, I just sat there in the tub, stroking my tender new
flesh, and wondering what I was turning into.
*****
Next morning Logan had another sparing session with Evan.
"I've got some ideas," I admitted to Logan, "but
I'm afraid they might be a little too dangerous. I don't want to kill the guy,
or even leave him with scars."
"Hey, easy!" Evan said. "Is this supposed to
be training or dueling? Yeah, I'm all in favor of non-lethal."
Logan smiled. "Maybe it's time to take things to the
next level. Good. This is sooner than I'd expected."
Evan and I looked at each other, not understanding.
"Today," Logan told us, "you're both on the
same side. You face off against the living dead, just like out of the movie.
Score is determined by who can take out the most zombies. But for these
zombies, either a bite or a scratch infects you with the zombie virus. I'll be
monitoring in the control room, so we can tell for sure. Any scratch or cut is
a forfeit."
"I'm cool with that," Evan said, shrugging.
I nodded. I'd been practicing my entrance. I held out an
arm, creating a sheet of thin black fabric that draped down like a cape. As I
swirled the fabric over and around me, it temporarily hid me from the eyes of Evan
and Logan. Behind the temporary wall of cloth, I changed my clothes, feeling
them flow and alter over my body. The armor bikini (with quadruple-thickness
protection for my sensitive chest area), the scale armor, the padded helmet,
and the loose baggy outfit that covered me and concealed everything except my
eyes. "Behold…the Rogue!" I intoned.
They both looked suitably impressed.
"Snappy entrance, kid," Logan admitted. "You
might work on the codename. The idea is to use something other than your real
name."
"Uh huh. Like 'Jean Gray'?"
"Bad example. Anyway, set up however you want, and we'll
run the exercise." Logan strode out the door.
"Good outfit," Spyke told me. "You got armor
under there?"
"You better believe it."
"Hmmm, maybe I should make *me* some armor." He
concentrated for a moment, then thick spiky plates began to form over his body
– helmet, shoulder pads, arm and calf guards. "Whoa, that really takes it
out of you."
"Nice armor, though," I told him. Even if it
*was* obviously first-pass. My guess was that Evan would be spending his class
periods today designing better armor, much as I had done. "How do you
want to do this?"
"Well," Spyke said, "I've got the distance
attack, the mobility advantage, and the close-in attack. I'll use my board to
tear past them. And you – you can do whatever it is that you do. Sneaking
around or something, I guess."
"Hmmm. We'll see. Okay, let's go."
Spyke took off fast, sliding away like an ice skater. I
focused my mind and created a longbow – three feet of laminated wood pulled
tight with a catgut string. Fortunately I had had the foresight to examine a
few real bows before our little skirmish session. Another thought created an
arrow out of the air. It was a great trick, but I could feel the mental
fatigue building up. My clothes had been virtually no effort. The scale armor
had been more difficult, taxing my system, but I'd prepared that before the
session and worn it like long johns under my regular clothes. The bow had been
a strain, though, and I could tell that each arrow would be a further drain.
Still, I wasn't sure what else to do.
I strung the arrow and stood, waiting for a target.
It wasn't long before the first zombie came shambling out of
an alley, heading vaguely in my direction. It looked like an undead
stockbroker, with decaying gray skin and a three-piece suit that was half
covered with dirt. It must have just clawed its way free of the grave. I
pulled the arrow tight and let fly. To my surprise, the arrow struck true,
penetrating deep into the thing's right lung. The undead stockbroker gave an
inarticulate but furious moan of pain, but made no other sign that it had been hit.
It continued shambling forward, aiming more directly toward my position.
I called up another arrow, and shot, aiming for the head.
This time I missed, the arrow probably a foot-and-a-half away from the target.
I called up a third arrow – it was noticeably harder to do
this time. Before I could shoot, Spyke came zooming down the street on his
board. An bone spear shot out from his arm and pierced the thing between the
eyes. With a splash of gore, its head burst open and it collapsed to the ground,
dead.
"Yes! That's one for me and zip for you! I think I
remember this from the movie. You have to destroy the brain of these things,
otherwise they just keep coming."
Before Spyke could vanish down the street, more zombies came
staggering out of the alleyways. Spyke flicked his arm, sending shards of bone
into their heads with astonishing accuracy.
"That's three-zip," he called, vanishing down the
street.
By now there were more and more of the zombies, slowly
filling the streets. I took aim carefully, aiming for the face, between the
eyes. I loosed the arrow and…my aim was perfect. I got it right in the face,
and the shot worked perfectly. My zombie slowly collapsed to the ground. It
was less graphic than Spyke's bone-shard-to-the-head shot, but it worked
equally well.
By the time I looked around, I realized that there were
probably fifty zombies slowly marching toward me. I called up another arrow
and almost couldn't do it, the effort was so great. There was no way that I'd
be able to hold out against fifty of these things. I needed defense. I looked
around, before realizing that I might do better from the roof of the building
at my back. There was no exterior ladder or fire escape but…maybe there was a
way up. With a mental twist, the head of my arrow stretched and changed to
form a large grappling hook. Clearly, *altering* wood and bone took very
little energy, it was *creating* that was hard. With another thought, I formed
a thin, coiled, silk rope, bound to the back of the arrow. I used my bow to
fire the creation up onto the flat roof of the building behind me, hoping that
it would catch something strong enough to hold my weight. To my slight
surprise, the plan worked perfectly. The arrow seemed to catch, and even a
couple of firm yanks were unable to dislodge it. The thin line of silk it
trailed ruined some of the power and aim – I could tell I'd need a lot more
practice – but my shot was still good enough to hit the broad side of a barn
(or rather, the top of a three-story building).
I started climbing. A thin ribbon of silk is damn tough to
grip, but with a thought I could bind the silk rope to my gloves, providing a
no-effort grip. And as the tension was released on the rope, I could mentally
twist it into a knot, giving me a foot-hold as well. After a moment I
abandoned the foot-knots and used concentration to bind the edge of my shoes to
the rope. With a little practice, it was almost as easy as climbing a ladder.
Before I knew it, I was over the edge to the top of the building. I hauled up
my rope, vanishing it as I pulled it up, shifted my cloak and clothes to match
the color and pattern of the building top, and settled in to see how to
approach this problem.
Spyke came zooming by once more, splitting the heads of
another pair of zombies. He was way past me in body count, but working his way
deeper and deeper into trouble. From my vantage, I could see the main paths
gradually filling up with the shambling dead.
How was I supposed to fight off a near-infinite army of
darkness? Bad movies springing to mind, I had visions of chainsaws strapped to
my arm and firing off a shotgun like a pistol, with a cool-looking but
impractical one-handed grip. Maybe Cyclops could mow these guys down, but I think
the endless waves I could see in the distance would overpower even him
eventually. And Wolverine would slice through dozens of them, only to be
buried under the bodies. From my third-story vantage, I could that there was
just no end to these things!
It gradually dawned on me that I'd been played for a
sucker. Or perhaps the lesson to be learned here wasn't quite what we thought
it was. There were so many of these things that keeping score by "body
count" didn't matter a bit. The only thing that mattered was avoiding the
"forfeit." Or putting it another way, the only real goal was
figuring out how to escape in one piece. Which meant I had to rescue Evan
before he got body-counted to death.
"Hey, Spikey!" I yelled, as he zoomed past once
more. "Come on up! I think we have trouble."
"Yeah, whatever. Just let me run up my score a few
more points." He whipped his arm, firing off a few more darts of bone.
"I think your exit just got closed off," I yelled
down to him.
"No way, man, I'm too fast for – shit!" He kicked
down on his board, trailing sparks from the back end and coming to a halt. "How
many of those guys *are* there?"
"Well, I can't get an exact count from up here," I
yelled back, "but it looks like somewhere between one and two million.
And they're all headed this way."
"You're shitting me."
I winced at his language. "Nope."
He skated over to me while I dropped a rope down to him.
The rope I dropped had convenient foot-loops to help him climb. I wanted to
make an actual rope ladder, but I'd need wood for the rungs and that was just
too much of a strain. After Evan reached the top I pulled the ladder back in,
but instead of vanishing it, I morphed it into a thick band of cloth that
flowed around my waist wrapping tight like a cummerbund. I got a kick out of
stretching my powers to make the material flow like water. More importantly,
changing the shape of the fabric was virtually no effort, but synthesizing it
was a mild strain. If I kept a bank of raw material close at hand, then I'd
save a lot of effort. Maybe that was the answer to my arrow problem, too – I
just needed to keep some wood close by, so that I could flow it into arrows.
"Holy shit!"
"Watch your mouth, Spyke."
"But…look at them! It's like the whole city has been
turned into zombies."
"Uh huh. We were tricked. The game here isn't racking
up a nice body count, it's to keep from forfeiting. Or to put it another way,
this isn't a shooting gallery, it's 'Escape from New York.'"
He pointed at the skyline. "That isn't Manhattan.
Looks more like the Midwest."
I shrugged. "Same principle." I paused to look
over the sea of bodies slowly converging on our position. "Any
suggestions on how we get out of here?"
Spyke set his board down in disgust. "Well, *this*
thing's useless. You're right – the streets are clogged. We're going to have
to go from roof to roof, at least for the next few blocks."
And with that, there was a large click. The city wavered
around us like a mirage, then vanished, showing the gunmetal gray walls of the
Danger Room.
"That's it for this morning," Logan's voice came
over the speakers. "Nice job, I was expecting you both to fall for the
trap and fall under the weight of bodies before you figured it out."
Evan raised his eyebrows and looked toward me. "Thanks,
man. I think you saved me from that."
I shrugged. "No problem. And you *did* beat me on
body count."
"Yeah, only 'cause you saved me from the dogpile."
Logan unsealed the door and stepped into the room. "Not
too bad, but we'll pick it up here, tomorrow morning. Top of the building,
exact same situation."
I gave him a sideways smile. "That gives me time to
plan strategies."
"Good," Logan replied. "You'll need 'em.
Oh, and one other thing – don't mention this little exercise to the others. I
haven't sprung it on them yet."
Evan and I shared a look. "We wouldn't *dream* of
spoiling it," he said, "provided we get to watch!"
"Deal."
*****
As usual, the gang took separate transportation to school.
Scott drove Jean in his convertible, Kitty turned down a ride from Lance and
joined the rest of us on the bus. Evan whispered to me on the bus about the
morning's workout. Kurt tried to squeeze close and overhear, but we kept away
from him.
I kept glancing at him oddly. Was he looking at my chest?
No. Was he going to accidentally put his hand on me? On my-- No. Why was I
obsessing over this, instead of just listening to him?
"Kitty and 'Crawler – they'd ace the escape."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Either one of them.
Heck, either one of them *alone* could probably rescue most of the rest of the
team." Kitty could pull along at least two people into her weird
intangibility, and Kurt could teleport people in shifts. The zombie battalion
was so slow that you could outrun them on foot, provided that you didn't get
slowed down by constant fighting.
"What about Scott and Jean?" I asked.
"Dogmeat. Jean can sort of levitate, but she can't
keep it up for long. And Scott – he's got to run out of power eventually."
"I don't know," I said. "He's got a *lot* of
power. If he really cut loose, he could blast an escape corridor. He might
have a good chance."
"We'll just have to see," Evan said, grinning.
*****
As soon as I was hunched in place in the back of speech
class, I "relaxed" and let my body slowly ooze back to its rest
state. Like always, I had to keep my face looking like "Jerry," but
the trench coat concealed everything else. I was starting to realize how much
I depended on the relaxation. Holding just my face and throat in place was so
much easier. It was getting harder and harder to convince myself to shift back
to full headache mode. On the other hand, I wasn't ready to walk around in
public in a girl's body. But Moira was right. Breasts, even starter breasts
like mine, they changed my whole outlook. And when my body expanded into its
full fifteen-year-old shape – it felt so right. Something inside me despaired
each time I shifted back to "Jerry." But the rest of me was too
stubborn to admit defeat without a fight. So sitting still in the back of
class – I could cope with being a girl in private. Temporarily.
Inspired by this morning's training, I experimented with a "wood
bank." I currently wore a set of arm bands on my forearms (hidden under
the long sleeves of my shirt). If I "fortified" those with a little
extra wood…I concentrated and it happened. The band on my right forearm now
had thick inlays of dark mahogany. Now that the material was there, it was
almost no effort to manipulate it. With a little thought, the wood turned into
an almost liquid form, flowed up my arm, across my shoulders, and down onto the
band on my left arm. With a little practice, it was easy.
My armor was the same way. Leather, chiton scale, tooth
enamel – I could pool all the matter into a lump on my forearm, then "flow"
it over my body in less than a second. Once I had the pattern worked out, it
was almost a subconscious process. Which meant that I could walk around in
normal cloth, and then with a thought I could "armor up" – and it
would all happen under my clothes with no one the wiser. With all this junk
concentrated into arm and leg bands I felt like I was wearing a set of training
weights, but that was probably a good idea, too.
After I had that adjusted to my satisfaction, it was time to
think about the next part of my plan. I pulled out a small vial from my
jacket. Inside was a small spider that I had deliberately picked up on the way
into school. I let it free, and watched as it quickly scurried to the end of
my desk. As I'd hoped, it dropped off the edge, lowering itself down on a thin
thread. It quickly reached the floor and scuttled away to freedom.
I gently touched the thread of spider silk and let my mind "see"
the fabric. In a way that I can't quite explain, there is a template deep
inside my mind. Once I understand a material, like silk, I can synthesize it
and materialize it out of thin air. I can create it in single strands, in
twisted threads, in braided rope, woven fabric, cut, processed, and dyed to my
pleasure. I already knew silk, cotton, wool, and many other fabrics. It
seemed like I had woken up with that knowledge, but in truth, I think that it's
just the fact that I was close to those fabrics on the first day. By the time
I thought to study them I had already subconsciously learned their molecular
pattern.
Spider silk was different. It was similar to silk, but it
had a different pattern of atoms. It was irregular and a little rougher,
strand-by-strand, than a comparable run of silk. But now that I could "see"
both of them in my mind, I could spin a thread of both to compare.
As a thread and as a woven swatch of fabric, the silk
definitely felt smoother and more elegant. But the spider-silk was both more
elastic and, ultimately, nearly twice as strong. That meant tougher clothes,
stronger armor, and thinner ropes. It also took dyes and colors as well as
silk.
I had also been "watching" very closely as the
spider first deposited the thread. The question was: could I duplicate the
adhesive glue that the spider had secreted? I concentrated on my fingertip.
Threads and fabric were easy, almost trivial. Wood, bone, enamel, and hard
objects were completely different, and they exhausted me. What about a little
drop of glue? I could do oil and musk, sweat and even a sort of wax. I
concentrated on the molecular pattern I'd sensed as the spider had released its
drop of glue. A subtle pattern, mixed with oils and other fluids, just…so.
It worked.
On my fingertip, there was a tiny drop of spider-glue. I
pressed my thumb and index finger together, then realized that I couldn't pull
them apart. My fingers were stuck tight. A thought dissolved the compound,
but it worked!
I began to experiment.
*****
By the end of class, I could create a strand, thread, string,
or full rope, with a generous dollop of glue on the end. The glue remained
sticky for several minutes, but clung tight the instant something solid broke
the surface. And like fabric, I could completely control its creation
mentally. I could stick the pages of my book so solidly that no one would ever
open it, or dispel the goo and return the book to normal. I could fling a
string against the wall and stick it hard enough that I couldn't tug it loose
without pulling myself over. I suspected that I could do a "human fly"
crawl up the side of a wall by sticking and unsticking my hands and knees, and
it wouldn't wear me out if I just commanded the glue to "unstick" and
flow back to me with each step.
I'd also adorned myself with heavy, ornamental arm and leg
cuffs, and a wide leather belt that had thick rectangles of hardwood decorated
with bits of ivory and mother-of-pearl.
And lastly, I'd figured out how to create a trapeze-like
pulley arrangement for sliding across a horizontal rope. It used carefully-crafted
hardwoods lubricated with beeswax. My escape plan was ready.
So before the bell could ring, before everyone could start
to look around, I "tensed" the internal lines of power to pull my
body back into normal shape so I could get up and walk out of class.
Nothing.
While I'd played around with my little experiments, my body
had finally ovulated. I was in the middle of class, and I was stuck – in a
girl's body.
Continued in Chapter 12, " Girl Half " appearing NEXT Sunday!
since 04/06/03
