Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Victoria

---------

“I’m sorry, what?” She was looking at me like I was a lunatic, her curly hair obscuring half of her freckled face as she lowered her book to stare at me.

“I mean, you can do it right?” I asked. It had started out as an annoying, niggling question in the back of my mind, but after I stumbled on those pictures… I was just so curious.

“Probably, I guess?” Her voice was still incredulous. In a way, I got the sense that she’d rather be having any conversation other than this, but I wasn’t sure who else to talk to about it.

She had to have had similar thoughts before, that was the nature of powers. If her control over the human body was nearly as good as it seemed to be, and I had theories that it was much stronger, then there’s no way she hadn’t wandered down this path before.

“So… how would you do it then?” I asked. I believe this is what mom would call “a leading question”. Or maybe not. I’m not a lawyer. But maybe, if I got her talking about it, she could open up to the idea of actually trying it.

“Wha- I don’t know, Vicky! I’ve never really thought about it.” I recognized that look, the way she tensed, searching for something else to look at as she leaned away. She had “never thought about it” in the same way that she had “never bought books from the adult romance section”. Liar.

“Oh come on, if I’ve thought of it, you have.” I nudged her with my elbow and she sat up on her bed with a huff. “Tell me! You understand all this biology stuff better than I ever could.”

She sighed, overly dramatic and whiney. “Fine. I guess…” She set her book aside, and leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. “First there’s the issue of mass, which means somebody would have to eat a lot, or better yet, I’d do it over a few days, then I’d need to integrate two extra shoulder blades, not to mention attachment points alongside the muscles to actually control all of that which would mean a second set of pectorals. After that, I can just build two arms like normal. Boom, four arms.”

Damn her. She acted engaged, but she was still trying to deflect, to satisfy me. I knew about tinker fugues, studied them in classes, and even walked in on Kid Win making his hoverboard. Judging by the way she was nibbling on her lip and wringing her hands, she was on the edge of one, or at least something similar, seeing as she wasn’t actually a tinker… or was she? Questions for later. Anyway, stop holding back and fugue damnit. 

Alright. Clearly my sister was well versed in the arts of mental combat. Time to break out the big guns. “Wanna give it a try?”

I watched as her faux engaged expression blue screened, eyes widening slightly as she considered my question, and froze. There was a few seconds of silence before she seemed to regain her composure. “What? No!”

“But why not?” Now I was starting to sound whiny. Reel it in Victoria. “Your power is so cool, why wouldn’t you want to give something like this a try?”

“Not all of us can run around having fun with our powers, Vicky. Some of us have to be responsible.”

“That is explicitly not true.” I retorted immediately. “Literally all of us use our powers for dumb mundane nonsense, all the time.” She went to fight me on that but I cut her off. “Pelham laser seared sausages? Parian’s puppet shows? Armsmaster’s coffee machine? It’s real, I’ve seen it.”

Her accusatory hand, raised to strike my arguments down, fell limply as she pouted. “Carol doesn’t…” She muttered weakly.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, crossing my arms. She nodded, slightly more confident. “When was the last time you saw her use a lightsaber as a nightlight?”

“Like three days ag- Oh…” She groaned and flopped back. “Fine, maybe I don’t use my powers enough. One problem. Who the hell do I even try it on? Do you know how much of a pain it would be to find someone to consent to that?”

“Use me.”

It was an innocent enough sentiment. I brought up the idea, and I wanted to see it come to fruition. I was also, maybe, attempting to manipulate my sister into giving me extra arms because of my own curiosity. Therefore, I should be the test subject.

Innocent or not, the look of horror that crossed over her face was real. I cut off whatever attack was about to happen by wrapping my arms around her, and giving her a hug. “Sorry.” I mumbled into her ear. “I didn’t realize that it was that scary for you.”

“I don’t like thinking about this stuff.” She wrapped her arms around my waist. I could feel her trembling, and I glanced down to see her eyes were squeezed shut. After a few seconds, I let go of her and she settled back down on the bed, glancing at me sheepishly. “Would you really let me try something like that on you?”

“Totally.” I smiled back at her. “I barged in here and brought it up. It would be bad etiquette to not volunteer myself.”

“Etiquette? Really?” She was smiling again as she looked at me for real this time, and I grinned back, before we both started laughing.

As we calmed down, and I regained my breath, I finally managed to punch down the hint of nervousness in my gut that had been rising since she rejected me the first time. “So, when do we start?”

She paused, and looked down again. “Are we really doing this right now?” I bit my lip and nodded. If she was up for it, then I was going to take the opportunity before we could back off and pass this off as a joke. “Okay… Well, I’ll need biomass. If you can grab…” 

She rattled off a bunch of things and I listened intently before jumping to my feet and leaving the room. She followed me out, and we split off as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Mom and Dad were out for the night, and probably late too. We should have plenty of time to get it done.

Five minutes later, we were back in her room. She had pulled out an empty plastic storage box from her closet and opened the lid before dumping the things she grabbed. Mostly some old pieces of meat from the chest freezer in the garage. I dumped a bunch of branches from the tree outside along with the accompanying leaves into it, and then opened the first of two gallons of water and started to pour it in over the mixture. It was kind of like soup… really gross soup.

“Are you sure you can do it with all of this stuff?” I asked. “It kind of just seems like a lot of garbage.”

“It should work.” She muttered. “When it comes down to it, the body is proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, with a few minerals and other things tossed in. Atomically, it’s a bit more complicated, but that’s not my specialty, so I’m not gonna try and explain it.” She picked up a half submerged branch and I watched as her eyes glazed over for a second before the whole thing crumbled turning into sludge that stopped before it fell into the tub and curled around her arm.

“Holy shit,” I blurted watching her as she jumped partway through putting her hand into the water. “You can use your powers on plants?”

Her face scrunched up like it does when somebody says something really stupid, or needlessly offensive… I figured this was the former. “Yes? You didn’t know that?”

“We kind of all just assumed your power only worked on people, animals at most.” I gave a nervous shrug. “What else can you use your power on?”

“Everything.” She muttered, before going quiet again. 

Ugh, when are you gonna learn to shut your mouth, Vicky? I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “We don’t have to worry about that right now. What are you doing with the soup?”

She snorted, then shook her head. “Soup? Whatever. I’m using the protein in the leaves to create digestive enzymes, which I’ll use to break down all of this into a slurry of non-specified biomass made up of unique stem cells. Technically, your arms won’t be animal, but also won’t be plant, because I’m functionally creating an entirely new kingdom of life that your immune system shouldn’t recognize as life, meaning your body won’t reject it immediately.”

I nodded to myself slowly, “Wow, that sure was an explanation. Question. How? Second Question. The fuck?”

Amy flinched slightly, then glanced up at me. “It was… the easiest way to deal with it given the situation?”

I gawked at her for a few seconds, before just shaking my head. “I’m going to pretend that what you just said answered literally anything, and let you get back to it.”

I went and sat on the bed, and watched as she stared intently into the emerging brown slop in the tub. A few minutes later, she nodded to herself and stood. She was soaked up to the arm, until the slime covering her peeled away and dropped back into the tub. “I was thinking…”

I waited a few seconds until she didn’t continue. “Thinking about what?”

“Well, I really don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want to mess up or be unable to go back or…” She raised her arms like she could say it better with her hands, before letting them fall. “I don’t know, I guess. I was just thinking, why don’t we put some guidelines in place? Like a time limit between when I give you the arms, and when I have to revert them? Or maybe a… a safeword?”

“A safeword?” For some reason, I recognized that, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember from where. “Like, what do you mean? What kind of word?”

“Well, it's the kind of thing used in certain circles, uh… Like, a really weird word you’d never say normally, but it means that if someone says it, that everyone has to stop.”

I wasn’t sure what kind of circles would need something like that. Maybe like full contact combat sports or something? “Okay, I guess something like that works…” My eyes darted around, searching for anything that I could use as inspiration, and settled on the tub of biomass. “Gingerbread?”

Amy blinked at me, and then shrugged. “Fine, gingerbread. That seems like it should work. Um, can you start the timer, for half an hour maybe? I think we can get started.” She seemed nervous, wringing her hands in front of her as she didn’t keep her eyes on me, like she was expecting the Protectorate to break in at any moment and arrest her. But she wasn’t doing anything wrong, so why be afraid?

“So, what do you need me to do?” I asked as I pulled out my phone and set its timer to thirty minutes, but didn’t start it yet.

“I guess it would be easiest if you lay down, and I’m probably gonna need access to your back.”

“Gotcha,” I tossed my phone onto the bed before reaching down, pulling my shirt over my head, and then went and sat down.

Amy was hunched over the tub, tugging it over toward the bed, though she looked to be struggling if her flushed face was any indication. I reached forward, and grabbed one side and pulled it the rest of the way with forcefield assisted super strength. Amy stood, face still looking like a strawberry as she gestured for me to lay down.

I followed her instructions, doing my best to get comfortable as I lay down on the bed, hands beneath my chin like I’m ready to get a massage.

“I’m probably gonna need to unhook your bra…”

“Go for it.”

Hesitantly, I felt fingers finnicking with the hook until she managed to undo it, and I pulled my arms through the holes before relaxing.

“Okay… I’m going to start.” She said, voice shaky. “You should feel everything go numb in a few seconds, like when I normally heal you.”

I had already taken hold of my phone, ready to start the timer, but paused. “Actually, can you not numb me?” I asked hesitantly. Amy was quiet for a few seconds, so I continued. “Don’t let anything hurt, but you always numb everything… I kind of want to know what it feels like when you use your power.”

“...Okay. Just remember the word if anything gets too weird.” I nodded and started the timer, relaxing as I felt one of her hands on my back, trying not to flinch. There was something about her hands that was… terrifyingly exhilarating.

A moment later, I felt a large, cold, wet ball of the material land on my back. A few seconds after that, I noticed through my power’s perception that my forcefield became disrupted over the few inches the material was touching, and I shuddered as the chill finally hit me.

The cool, liquid sensation started to push into my skin, and then into the muscles of my shoulders and back. The creeping chill filled much of my chest as I breathed slowly to not panic, feeling as it spread within me. I couldn’t help but imagine what was happening. Was my skin peeling away, or was it molding into something else? I could still feel Amy’s fingers, touching something that I didn’t really recognize as my skin, but still had nerves. It was like she was dipping them into water, but the water could feel, and I was the water and…

I shuddered again as I thought about the power that I was under control of. Amy was functionally inside me. She could reach a few inches forward and grab my heart, or flick her wrist and separate my spine from my torso. More of that biological material landed on me, and once more it began to add onto the weight of the fluid flesh on my back.

It was weird and unbalanced, below my main shoulders in a configuration that guaranteed that it wouldn’t be properly supported by my back, at least not how it was currently set up. The cool tendrils of change snaked around the sides of my torso, and carried their sensation to my chest, wrapping around my ribs as something began to take a distinct shape within me.

Meanwhile more material was piled on, and I was beginning to feel the boney sensations of my new shoulder blades, not connected and therefore useless, but I could still feel they were there as the earliest nerves began to take shape in order to help circulate blood flow to the area.

Like clay, she continued to mold me, the tingling in my chest settling as the twisting ache across my back grew in intensity, not enough to hurt, but just enough that it felt tender and sore.

Amy really was powerful, huh? It had been maybe fifteen minutes since I brought up the idea of doing this, and she was already making the change. What could she do with more time, with more effort? What if she stopped holding back? What could she do to me? What could she turn me into?

I felt her hands pull away suddenly, and yet I knew she wasn’t done yet. It didn’t feel right for her to be done yet.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, turning my head to look at her without getting up, just in case it would cause problems.

“You… You were scared, and I think kind of disgusted.” I could just faintly see her in the corner of my vision. She looked ashamed of something, like she had just gotten caught doing something bad. “I wasn’t sure what to do so I stopped.”

“That’s so bullshit, even Dean doesn’t get to read my emotions.” I chuckled, trying to keep the feeling light, but it didn’t seem to help. “It’s fine,” I turned a little more, so that I could actually look her in the eyes somewhat. “I didn’t even say ‘gingerbread’, so you’re alright.”

She flinched before sighing. “You aren’t supposed to say it at all.” She crossed her arms, pouting. “Not unless you’re saying it for real, otherwise it ruins it.”

“Sorry, I have no idea what I’m doing here.” I turned back to face forward, and relaxed again. “Anyway, keep going. It's a little scary, but I’m actually enjoying this. It’s kind of like a really intimate massage.”

“...Right.” She muttered, voice cracking a little. She really must need more validation in her life if she was struggling to accept that compliment. Maybe I’d take her out for lunch or do her homework as payment for helping me out.

Her fingers touched down on my back, and this time I managed to resist shivering. She started to touch something else, sculpting something that I could sense, but only in a blurry, indistinct way. It was lengthening, warming up, sapping less and less of my heat as the mass came to life more and more, my body reaching equilibrium with it.

She continued to sculpt it… me. Wow, what a thought that was. I noticed that it was becoming more solid, longer, her fingers dancing up further away from my torso. Occasionally, she would move it this way or that, and I’d feel the tug all the way into my spine. Pins and needles were starting to slowly build near the small of my back and tingle outward as she set something limp and warm against my back, and started working on something else.

Oh. That was one of the arms wasn’t it. I almost swore I could even feel the fingers touching me around the base of my spine. She had finished one, and was now slowly working on the other, massaging liquid sinew and not-meat into solid tissue, something hard pushing against my back as whatever she was using for a bone analog was slotted into wherever the socket for my new shoulders was.

The tingling got more intense as she worked, dull warmth settling against my skin as the remainder of the material she was working with was pushed into the new constructs. I once more calmed my breathing as it felt like a whole army of spiders were having a kickline on my back. That made me shudder, even just a little, and I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to void my memory of that entire thought. If there was anything mundane I was happiest about when it came to my power, it was the fact that bugs couldn’t touch me anymore.

A moment later, her hands came away again. Did she sense me being disgusted again? I was about to tell her that it was okay when she cut me off. “I think I’m done,” She said. “They’re still disconnected from your conscious control, I can, uh… turn them on if you’re ready.”

Holy shit it was actually happening. The sensation of changing was an intense one, and had been frankly incredible, but actually getting to mess around with a changed body? That was the real thing I was interested in. “Do it.”

Her hand set down on the small of my back, and immediately I noticed how I could feel her pressing against something I couldn’t feel, and yet I could feel it pushing against me. It was such a bizarre sensation, but deep down it felt so weirdly taboo, yet interesting.

Any other thoughts I had were cut off as a rush of impulses suddenly kicked down the doors on my senses and inserted themselves like they owned the place. The dull prickling I had grown almost accustomed to was slowly replaced by little jolts of electricity as sensitive new flesh felt around my surroundings, patting against the sheets and tapping against the skin of my back as I… Oh my, I was controlling them. I awkwardly managed to lift my bra up so that I didn’t flash Amy as I sat up, and tried to reach back to get the straps back in place, only to find that my new accessories got in the way of… everything.

I couldn’t get the straps in place, because they didn’t fit around my new shoulders, I couldn’t reach back because they got in the way of my front arms, and… I needed a mirror. I stumbled off the bed, and found my way to Amy’s dresser, moving stuff aside to uncover the glass, and nearly dropping my bra as all my arms tried to move in unison. This was so weird.

Finally, I looked at myself. I was… me still. That was good. What distinctly wasn’t me, were the two limbs extending from my back. Both looked like human arms, though the color was slightly off when compared to my skin, slightly lighter and tender looking. I tried to get them to move, and once more nearly exposed myself to the room as my original arms tried to mirror the movement.

Eventually I got them to stretch to the side and took a moment to examine how it looked. They were a bit thinner than my normal arms, likely lacking the muscle I had developed over the years, and they were already quite cold, the room’s chill starting to prod at the tips of the fingers. I noticed as I thought about it that my forcefield didn’t extend around them. “That sucks.” I muttered quietly.

“What does?” I turned to see Amy facing away, sitting on her bed. Why was she… ah, right. Still shirtless. She was probably a little embarrassed, though it wasn’t anything either of us had never seen.

“My forcefield. Doesn’t seem to enclose anything that’s not Vicky. Oh well, still pretty neat-” I turned back toward the mirror and accidentally slammed my toe against the corner of the dresser. I recoiled slightly, noticing that it broke my forcefield. Wow, that would have been a bad one. I amend my previous statement about bugs. Being virtually immune to toe stubs is way better than- “Correction!” I said excitedly as my forcefield popped back up, the blank spot on my back filling in as the invisible film spread over my arms. “Apparently, I just had to turn it off and back on again because it works now.”

“Huh, that’s weird.” I heard Amy mumble to herself, and went back to staring at myself in the mirror, a big goofy grin on my face. This changed everything. Not only could I get transformed, but my powers stayed to encompass my new form! This was so freaking cool.

I tried to move my other arms again, giving up and just dropping my bra. Amy wasn’t looking anyway. I brought all my arms forward, and clapped four hands together before trying to separate just the top two, my original arms. With a not small amount of focus, I managed it, letting them fall to the side, and then started to focus on my auxiliary hands.

It was sort of surreal, just how sensitive my new fingertips were as I sensed my breath and the cool air of the room brushing across them. I spread the fingers apart, silently cursing as I noticed my main hands spreading much the same. Eventually I just groaned.

“Is something wrong?” I turned to see Amy facing a little more toward me, but with a hand up to cover her eyes.

“No… yes. They work fine, mostly. It works alright, but I can’t coordinate this many hands, and it’s frustrating.” Four hands clenched and relaxed as I spoke. “I guess it makes sense.” I muttered, defeated. “People already have to learn how to use their arms normally, and it takes them years as a baby to get there. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to do it in a couple minutes.”

It was annoying, sure, but this was one of the more basic things I had wanted to try. And just because I couldn’t do it now didn’t mean I’d be unable to forever. With a week or so of practice, I might get really good at using multiple arms! Hell, that training might even carry over to any other transformations… Assuming Amy wanted to do anything else. I really hoped I hadn’t annoyed her with this.

I glanced back at her to see the telltale wrinkles on the side of her face that indicated she was deep in thought. A moment later she nodded to herself and abruptly stood. “I think I can fix that.”

“Really?” Could she actually, and how? What could she change that would suddenly give me the ability to coordinate twice the number of limbs as before? The realization hit me like a truck. “Wait, you’re not going to use your power on my brain, are you?”

“What? No!” She almost shrieked. “Never! I was going to make a small nerve cluster on your spine with embedded instincts that would filter your impulses and let you control them better.”

“Oh. I was spooked for a second there, thinking you were going to break your rule and all.” I chuckled, before I realized that she still wasn’t looking at me. I rolled my eyes and brought my arms around to cover my chest.  “You can look.”

She dropped the hand, glancing at me, eyes darting down for the faintest instant, then back up. I immediately held back the urge to reassure her about growing into herself, or being happy with her body. It had never really worked in the past. Too bad she couldn’t modify her own body, though maybe it was for the best.

She walked back over to the tub, scraping up some of the remnants and pulling it together into a ball before walking over and stepping behind me. This time, I couldn’t help but watch the mirror as she worked it into a weird, stringy white mass and pressed it to my back. I looked on in fascination, the sensation of my skin peeling away quite apparent as a white strip was exposed, and then red, living muscle unwound to reveal an irregular structure I couldn’t quite get a good angle on to see. Maybe I could get her to record this some time. It was fascinating to watch.

The tissue in her hand was pressed against my spine, just above and between the two protrusions that I recognized as my extra shoulder blades. A tingling feeling raced up and down my spine and I tensed, gasping as everything went tight for a few seconds, before it all relaxed, and I could breathe again.

“Okay, try it now.” I watched Amy step back in the mirror. I took a deep breath, and dropped my left main arm, then my right, then the left extra arm, and then the right. I closed one fist, expecting the mental tug of matching it with what my mind perceived as the same arm, even if it was bodily separate. I started to open and close my hands rhythmically, smiling as it all worked well enough, with maybe just a tiny bit of delay on the extra arms. Getting more confident, I reached over with one of my extra arms and picked up a bottle of lotion from where it was sitting on her dresser. I passed it to one of my main hands, then to the other, then to my other extra hand, then around the back to the original, and set it down again.

I laughed watching the process, partially in the mirror, partially by just looking down and seeing the limbs move. It all felt so easy and instinctive now. What couldn’t Amy’s power do? When I glanced over at her, I saw that she was smiling, still a little embarrassed, but happy all the same. 

“This is so freaking cool!” I said, walking over and wrapping her in a big four armed hug. She yelped, briefly trying to fight the embrace, but she would have no such luck as I picked her up and spun her around. “Seriously.” I continued as I put her down. “This has to be the most awesome thing since flying. Thanks for humoring my weird interests.”

“Uh… no problem.” She turned away quickly, face once more bright red besides the dark spots of her freckles.

I spent the next little while floating around the room, bouncing on the balls of my feet as I tried out throwing punches like this. Unfortunately, it was quite awkward. Two might be better than one in most cases, but striking power wasn’t one of them, and the extra weight made my movements feel off balance. Ergonomically, this wasn’t optimal. However, for lifting things? That was still quite good. I lifted a few things above my head, bracing them in three or four points, making it much easier to balance, even picking up her whole bed, a task that would have probably broken the frame in half if not for the increased support. I might actually be able to pick up cars effectively like this!

My fun was cut short however, when the alarm on my phone went off. I groaned immediately, remembering the caveat she had laid out. “Five more minutes?” I asked, desperately.

“Nope,” She seemed relieved for the time to be up. “I said thirty minutes, that’s all I’ll do. If we do this again, we can maybe do more, especially if you find a shirt you can actually wear, but for now, get on the bed.”

I pouted the whole way over before laying down face first and relaxing once more. The process of removal was a good deal less invasive than integration. The cool tendrils of my extra pectorals slid free from where they sat on the front of my ribcage, leaving a void I didn’t realize could be emptied, and then the arms themselves were slowly detached, going more and more numb as nerve connections came undone, and she separated them from the rest of my body. Once that was done, the limbs just peeled away like two gigantic stickers, once more leaving me feeling hollow, a little cold, and comparatively weightless. Even if they had maybe totalled twelve pounds in total, it was still twelve pounds that I no longer had.

I sat up, putting on my shirt seeing as it was right there, and trying to not think of the itch of what I had, and was now missing. Amy was holding the sum total of everything she had put inside me, which almost looked like a harness of sorts with how the brownish muscle-like tissue that would have been my pecs wrapped around the front while everything else was firmly affixed to the back. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison. 

She dropped the whole mess into the tub, and slid it toward the wall before turning to face me. “So… I guess you enjoyed that?” She asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Super cool experience.” I rolled my shoulders, still almost expecting the second repeated motion further down my back, but obviously it didn’t come. “How was it for you?”

“It was weird, I think.” She rubbed the back of her head, walking over to sit next to me. “On the one hand, it was actually super fun to toy around with things, but it feels kind of wrong to treat somebody’s body like that. Like it’s disrespectful to you.”

I frowned, reaching over to give her a side hug with only one arm this time. “Don’t say that. It was my idea, and it’s good that you enjoyed yourself. I’d feel bad if I was the only one getting anything from this.”

She smiled, a look that felt all too rare nowadays. “Okay. Then I guess, yeah, it was pretty fun.” Amy looked up at me after a moment of hesitation, her bright, amber eyes searching and inquisitive. “And you weren’t grossed out or anything?”

I went to shake my head, then paused. “Not in a bad way?” I replied, trying to look reassuring. “It was a little intense at times, and kind of surreal, but it was fun all the way through, even during the weirder parts.”

She nodded, going quiet, and I matched her. Tonight was incredible, satisfying in a way that I hadn’t ever felt before. I had gotten to experience something very few, if anybody else, had ever experienced. And it had been just as empowering as the pictures made it look! I had to find some more inspiration, find something else that would be just as cool. Which really just led to one more question.

I turned to look at my sister, and she raised an eyebrow as I smiled, leaning close enough that she’d not quite feel uncomfortable despite being on the edge of it. 

“So when are we doing it again?”

Chapter Text

Amy

---------

I slowly trudged up the stairs to my room, desperately trying to not think about just how exhausted I was. I tried to run over the faces of the people I had healed today, but couldn’t really focus on any specifics. It was getting harder. How was it getting harder? 

It was because I had given in, wasn’t it? I let Victoria convince me to experiment, and it felt so good! I wanted more, to tinker and toy with bodies and let all the ideas in my head spill out. The extra arms thing was small compared to what I was capable of, the beautiful- horrifying creations I could construct.

I pulled my robes over my head as I tossed them onto my desk chair, leaving myself in a t-shirt and gym shorts as I slumped into bed, face down. This sucked. I didn’t want to touch anything. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to really even open my eyes again. I had taken way too much joy in that little moment of experimentation, in toying with Victoria’s body, and these thoughts were my punishment. What more was there to-

I jolted as there was a knock on my door. “Hey, Ames. Are you there?”

“Yeah…” I mumbled through my pillow and started to sit up. She didn’t even ask before opening the door and peaking in, catching me as I managed to get upright on the bed. “What’s up?”

She stepped into the room, holding a steaming bowl. “Mom and Dad went out for a patrol tonight, so they made enough for leftovers. I was waiting in the kitchen but you must have walked right by.”

She walked over and sat on the bed, handing over a bowl of chili with a spoon in it. She had already put crackers and shredded cheese into it. I smiled, feeling the worries drift away as I started to mix everything up. She could be an idiot, and selfish, and maybe overbearing at times, but Vicky still cared, and that was what mattered.

“So how was the hospital?” She asked, sitting back.

“It was alright.” I replied quietly, taking my first bite and letting the warmth radiate through me. Things were quiet for a bit as I slowly ate and she just sat next to me. She was so close. I wanted to lean into her, to cuddle with her and feel her arms around me. It was all I had ever wanted. To feel loved.

“So I was thinking…” I swallowed the bite in my mouth and looked at Vicky as she spoke. “Mom and dad won’t be home for a few hours. Do you maybe want to do a few more modifications?”

I stiffened slightly. We had mostly not talked about it. When she brought up doing it again at the end of the first session I had been pretty wishy washy with my answer. I wasn’t wholly sure I wanted to do it again, no matter how fun it had been. But here she was… asking, and I was so unsure if I was willing and able to continue this.

“What do you have in mind?” I mumbled. I had no idea where her obsession came from, but I could sense her excitement.

“I have a couple ideas…” I continued eating spoonfuls of my soup as she rubbed her chin in thought. “Like, the four arms were cool, but I don’t think they’re the most practical, because the human torso doesn’t feel right for that many limbs.” I nodded slowly. “So maybe something less intrusive, for now? How about, like, a tail?”

I froze, spoon in my mouth, images of fluffy appendages racing through my mind. “Hmmmm,” I set the pretty much empty bowl aside. I must have been starving. “And what, you want fluffy ears as well?” I asked.

“Can you do that?” She responded, just a little too quickly, before toning down her excitement. “Because that would be cool, too. Just to… you know, try it out and all.”

Was this a fetish yet? Was my sister forcing her fetish on me? Why did I enjoy that thought so much? “I guess so. Let me grab the tub.” I slid off my bed and walked over to the closet, pulling out the storage box that I had placed the extra biomass into again. Victoria helped me pull it out and open it up, revealing the brownish sludge.

“Is there more in here than before?” Vicky asked, leaning over my shoulder to peer into the mass.

“I’ve… been occasionally using it as a trash can.” I admitted sheepishly as I reached down and took in the state of it. It was a little dry, but it would still work. I hesitated, the barest hint of worry creeping in. “Are… Is doing this okay? This doesn’t make us bad, does it?” It was a difficult question to ask. I wanted this. I enjoyed this. But I also wanted to be allowed to enjoy this.

“Of course it is,” She sounded more confident than me, but when I looked at her, I could see hesitation. “We’re just messing around, right? There’s nothing wrong with having fun with your power if both of us are enjoying it.”

“Then why are we hiding this?” I had to cover my bases. I wanted to do it, but if it was wrong, then we shouldn’t. But if it was okay, if Vicky could just tell me that it was okay, then I could handle it.

“Because…” She trailed off, and I saw the doubt cross her face, followed quickly by a blush. “Well, I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of embarrassing. Not like this is weird or anything, but I don’t know if I’d want to go showing it off. It’s private, like our own little thing, right?”

Something sounded distinctly not right about that. Something about hiding this from other people being all the evidence I needed that it wasn’t okay. But this was Victoria. She would never do anything bad, and she would never hurt me, so was this not right? I honestly didn’t know.

“Okay.” I pulled out a basketball sized mass of the weird material. It was decently heavy, but not enough that it was difficult to hold. “Um, so you want to try out a tail?” I asked, starting to arrange harder mineral structures within the goo to create more vertebrae.

“Yup, what do you need me to do?”

I could once more see the excitement in her smile as she turned to face me. She really enjoyed this. She liked when I used my powers on her. On one hand it made me happy, and on the other, it made me sick. Not of her, never of her, but in myself for liking it so much.

“Um, I’m gonna need access to your back again,” I started, turning to look down at the blob, and considered what I was going to do. Tails were actually pretty easy, inherently, much easier than extra arms, and humans already had the attachment point and the nerves mostly set up minus a good few eons of atrophy.

I just had to create the shape and put it in place… I turned to see Vicky lay face down on the bed again, and my eyes slid down toward the swell of her rear. Seriously, first her prancing around topless, now this? Ugh, why did she have to be so hot, and why did I have to find her so hot?

Doctor-Patient mode, Amy . It had taken me months to cultivate the separation, to not be embarrassed or disgusted by the bodies of the people I healed, and it never quite worked on Vicky, but it was better than nothing.

“I’m going to have to pull down your shorts a little, if you want to set the timer. Fifteen minutes for this first tail, maybe?” I kept my voice totally devoid of emotion, trying not to let through just how horny- horrified I was looking at the small strip of skin from where her shirt slid up to reveal her lower back.

“Got it. No problems here.” I saw her start messing with her phone and decided to start planning out my options as I reached over and gently started tugging down the back of her shorts. Luckily, her underwear was just low enough that it could stay on without much issue. Now for the question of morphology.

If I wanted something organically optimal, then I should focus on the options held by other primates. Which actually didn’t mean much because monkeys and apes were pretty different and… oh fuck it.

I placed a hand on her back and allowed my mind to start sequencing her genes, using a small blip of something distinctly not human to reorient myself and find the commonality. It didn’t surprise me to see it, mostly because pretty much everyone of European descent had it, even if I ended up emailing an Anthropology professor at the University to figure out what it was. 

The species currently known as Homo sapiens, haven’t had tails in a little over 20 million years, which might make one think that no such information existed within the genetic make up. But that wasn’t how evolution worked, life didn’t care about the arbitrary walls and demarcations we used to separate man from beast, dog from cat, or microbe from tree. It didn’t scrap stuff and rebuild, it just stuck more stuff on top of the previous layer until the things that once were have either been replaced or changed beyond recognition, and all that nonsense, all that junk, it still theoretically held info from all the way back when we were all the same cell.

Now all that was functionally useless and indecipherable, even to me, but the comparably short jaunt back to whatever primate last had a spine that extended past their hips? Child’s play.

Granted, it wasn’t like I was going to get Victoria to grow that tail, but I could use it as a decent blueprint for something similar but better rated for something with her proportions.

Having finished outlining my plan, I placed my hands back into the ball of biomass, and started to shape it. Mineral deposits along with collagen-like strands of protein arrayed themselves in a central column, slightly tapered in one direction, then started to array sinew around it to allow for a full range of movement. The mass elongated, surpassing two, then three feet, and stopped at about four feet in length.

I took a deep breath as I set the whole thing to begin producing fur, and moved back over to Victoria, spying the timer on her phone as she shifted around, looking a little restless. It had barely taken me five minutes to do all of that. Why was this so much easier than healing?

I knew the answer to that, but didn’t pursue it any further. I really didn’t want to think about it. I pressed the slightly thicker end of the tail to the spot just above Victoria’s butt, trying my best not to touch anything too intimate. Regardless of the fact that I could intimately see everything with my biosense didn’t make being this close to the real deal any less weird.

Using my biokinesis, I slowly unfused the segments of her coccyx, and began to add further articulation as I bent it backward, ensuring that any muscles attached to it could still function alright. I checked on Victoria, seeing that she seemed mostly okay, minus breathing a little heavier, and a surge of dopamine as I worked. She really was excited about this, huh? 

With all of that set up, I parted the thin bit of skin, fat, and muscle between the bone and where the base of the tail sat, and fused them into one another. The cluster of nerves within both were connected, establishing a link along with an instinct package to ensure she could control it easily, like with the arms, though this one was much easier to construct.

I opened everything up, letting the tail come to life, and circulating some extra energy into it to finish the fur growth, before pulling my hands away. “Okay, it should be done. How do you feel?”

“It’s weird,” She murmured. “But not as much as the extra arms.” I watched as the tail lifted up and started to wave back and forth, getting a feel for itself before Victoria stood up off the bed and glanced over her shoulder, trying to get a look at it. Much like her hair, it was platinum blonde, and almost seemed to augment her radiance. “Cat?”

It took me a second to realize what she asked. “Uh, no. Closer to monkey, actually.”

“Huh, cool.” I watched her start walking back and forth, and then begin bouncing up and down a little. It took me a minute to realize she was testing her balance, the tail instinctively swinging out in the other direction in response to her leaning one way or the other, though a few times she vastly over leaned, and had to catch herself with her flight.

Then she went over to the mirror to get a closer look at it, and even used it to pick up a few miscellaneous items I had sitting on my dresser, passing it from tail to her hand, and then back.

The whole time, I tried to focus on what seemed off, what could be changed to be more effective or optimal. Vicky had her flight, but most people couldn’t use that to compensate, so what would I change if I put a tail on a person in the future?

I was broken from my considerations as Vicky floated over and smiled at me, mischievously. “Uh, what’s wrong-” I yelped as she slid forward in the air, and the tail swung out and lashed around my waist before suddenly lifting me into the air with absurd strength.

She laughed as she pulled me close, holding her hands behind her back as she pulled me tight up against her front. It honestly wasn’t that comfortable, but I couldn’t really consider that fact right then and there considering how much I was pressing against her chest. “Yeah, this is way cooler than the arms, I think.” She said before wrapping hers around my back in a hug which provided a lot more support. “Thank you, so much…”

“It’s nothing,” I mumbled, returning the hug gently. “It’s what sisters are for.” This was the thing that made life worth living. The warmth that pushed away all the urges and thoughts, the need to take things for myself. Because no matter how much I stole, it would never match up to somebody willingly giving me this warmth.

Victoria set me back down as the timer went off, pouting slightly, but we had already established the rules. 

I popped off the tail and set it down on my lap, partially curled up when she asked another question. “Seeing as we only went for a little bit, could we try another? Maybe try some ears too?”

I hadn’t reset her tailbone yet, which meant attaching another would be easy. “What did you want to try?” I asked.

“Maybe… a cat tail and ears?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and watched her flush red. “What? It’s pretty close to a monkey tail, so it would be less work for you.”

I put up my hands defensively. “I didn’t say anything. Do you want the ears to actually function?”

After a moment, Vicky nodded. “Well, yeah, why else would I ask for them?”

I took a second to wonder if she was messing with me, or if she was actually just that naive. “Fair enough,” I said quietly, and started to thin out the tail on my lap, while also having it shed all its fur back into the bin, and had it produce something much more silky and smooth, still matching Vicky’s hair color, though with occasional stripes of darker, almost orange fur.

I draped the disembodied appendage around my neck and dipped a hand back into the off brown sludge gathering up a heaping handful that seemed like enough, before standing again. Turning around, I watched as Victoria seemed to be practically vibrating with anticipation.

“Let me reattach the tail, and then I can do the ears, just a warning, it’s gonna be weird.” I was already beginning the basic composition of flesh and cartilage in one hand, but stopped as Vicky sat up, and I took the tail from around my neck, and brought it to the base of her spine, once more trying to ignore just how easy it would be to grope her. With all the work already done for me, it only took me a few seconds to get everything rigged up and programmed.

I watched as it stiffened before starting to whip into motion moving back and forth before settling into a relaxed wave. “Okay, I like this one too, but it’s a bit more energetic,” Vicky mumbled as the tail twisted and brushed against her cheek, leaving her grinning like an idiot as she looked back at me. “So, why are the ears gonna be weird?”

I yanked my eyes away from the sinuous motions of the tail and looked her in the eyes. “Well, I can’t use my power through your hair, which means I’m going to have to put this,” I held up the biomass I had been configuring for her new ears. “Into your body, and then move it around your skull slowly and then form them up through the top of your head.” 

After a few seconds, Victoria nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.” She glanced down and started another fifteen minute timer.

“Do you want me to numb you? It might feel super gross…” She shook her head, and smiled at me, decision clearly made. “Remember the safeword.”

“Yup, do your worst, doc!” I felt my heart hiccup and the grin was replaced with sudden worry as she reached out and took one of my hands. “Ames, it’s okay. I’ll be alright.”

I took a deep breath, and matched her eyes as I set the ball of biomass against her collarbone, slowly filtering it into her skin, and then I dipped into a facet of my power that I rarely used.

Technically, I was a thinker thanks to my ability to scan biology and intuitively understand it. But that ignored my actual thinker ability, which tied into the second half of that. I had a sort of… encyclopedia in my brain that had the “baseline” blueprints of pretty much every living thing on Earth, which I could draw upon for general shapes and structures without having to build them from the ground up. This was… literally the first time it had ever been useful. And I was using it to give my sister cat ears. I would be mad if I wasn’t really damn happy that this was my life right now.

I watched as Vicky shuddered, veins starting to stand out on the side of her head, along with occasional bulges of more concentrated material as I guided it all to the top of her head, parting her hair as I built the foundation of her new ears.

I took the occasional break to check on Vicky. Pulses of dopamine, higher than average serotonin, and slightly increased core temperature. None of it was worrying, and she seemed to be doing alright, but I never focused on any of the signs long enough to put together what they meant. She was happy, to at least some extent. That was a good thing, and I needed to focus.

I tugged cartilage into shape as her hair started to part around the first one, then a second fleshy bulb that pushed out from the top of her skull. She squirmed a little in my grip, but didn’t actually put up any real resistance as I leaned a little closer into her, focusing as I made sure that both of the organs were constructed properly before allowing them to unfurl, thin golden fur beginning to sprout across their surface.

Given their positions at one and eleven o’clock on her skull, the best way to integrate them logically, would be to just open new holes and link them into her brain manually, but that would mean using my power on her brain, which was not allowed now or ever, so that means running the ear canals down the side of her head and linking them in with her old ears and… Done.

Holy shit that was easy. Like, it normally took me ten to fifteen minutes to fix or rebuild complex sense organs, and I just did two of them in… Three minutes? What the hell, power? I made sure everything was connected and finally pulled my senses out of my biosense only to realize my face was inches away from Victoria’s, and I was practically on her lap. She looked a little nauseous, and was blinking and shaking her head a little as I slipped off her and let her stand.

She took a few steps, her tail tense as it jolted back and forth, and she tottered back and forth for a few seconds before she seemed to right herself, shaking her head.

“Everything okay, Vicky?” I asked, worried I had messed something up. One of her ears flickered, twisting nearly ninety degrees toward me as I talked, and her head followed a moment later.

“Yeah, I think so, just… Weird how many more sounds I’m picking up now, and they all feel so precise.” She brought her hands up, but hesitated. “Like, I can’t see with my ears, but if somebody dropped something in the house, I think I might be able to pick out exactly what room they’re in. Like, I can hear that I left the ceiling fan in the living room on. Does that make sense?”

“I guess?” I replied. Ultimately, I couldn’t really relate. I couldn’t use my powers on myself, so this experience was something I uniquely would never have. I also wasn’t paying too much attention, considering how stuck on her extra features I was. They were certainly cute, but… Were they really her style? Maybe something more tiger or lion would be closer to Vicky’s speed, or maybe-

“You know, of all of these, the ears are something I could actually see being useful in combat.” Of course that’s what she was thinking about.  “I’d probably be a lot more aware with something like this, hey, you can do eyes too, right?” She turned just in time to see me glaring at her. “What? Is it the cape stuff? Is this not the time?”

“It’s fine,” I replied dryly, watching as she turned around and squared her shoulders, before going into a boxer’s stance and starting to throw a few punches, using her flight to weave from motion to motion, tail once more flicking out in either direction to counter balance her motions. This was just the type of person she was. She cared more about cape stuff than anything else… and I was helping grow that. This was the person I fell in love with, and for once, it felt like we had a greater commonality than just our sisterhood.

“You know, Ames.” I watched as Vicky stood straight up, tail matching her posture, with a slight curve near the tip. “Can we just… skip the timer? I kinda just want to mess around with a bunch of other tails and stuff.”

I debated just telling her no. The timer was a limiter, and a necessary one. It would make sure that I was forced to roll back anything that I did after a certain point. So long as I had the timer, none of this could be permanent.

I looked up into Vicky’s eyes, seeing the almost pleading look. She clearly wasn’t impressed by my limits and rules. She never had been, telling me to do more of this, or practice that, or come with her somewhere. I knew why she tried to do these things, because she thought she was helping, but we were different people. Complimentary, perhaps, but different.

But maybe, just this once, I could concede on my rule. “Fine, but I get to pick your next set of ears and tail.” 

“Thank you!” She walked back over to my bed, and dropped onto her knees next to me, picking up her phone and stopping the timer early. “Alright, whatcha got for me now?” She asked, turning back toward me.

I took her hand, and once more dipped into my encyclopedia, looking up the structures needed to properly replicate what I was going for. I stiffened the tail, shortening it up a little and using the reabsorbed matter to start producing much longer fur before turning my attention to her ears. I started to thicken the cartilage while also ensuring the structures were a bit less stable, causing them to succumb to gravity and flop forward with their now more rounded tips, and once more, I reprogrammed the hair matrix so that the fur was much closer to her natural hair, long and silky with the color being a bit closer to a dirty blonde.

I opened my eyes to see Vicky pouting slightly as she stared at me. “This tail is kind of uncomfortable.” She shifted awkwardly as I took my hands away trying not to smirk as I looked at the floppy ears atop her head. She reached up, messing with them and seemed to only get more confused as she hopped to her feet, and went over to the mirror.

I watched her tail, stiff with long silky soft fur draping down from it as it waved back and forth casually, tugging her hips along with it until she made it to the mirror and looked at herself. There was a moment of stillness as she twisted to look at her tail, then back at her face with her ears, and then spun to stare at me. “Did you turn me into a golden retriever?”

I finally broke into a snorting, giggling fit as she tried to give me her best death glare, only for her tail to start wagging uncontrollably, and her face to flush as she tried to grab at it and stop its movements. Only then did I start laughing in earnest as she paused, and her frown split into a grin, and she joined me, the appendage moving freely as we both gave in fully to the mirth of the moment.

“Okay, I’ll admit.” Vicky managed between gasps as we started to settle down, her tail still not quite having fully relaxed. “This was pretty great.” She smiled as she looked at me, and I had never felt so warm in my life, and I took a moment to just gaze into her wonderfully blue eyes and never want to leave… “Well come on! Let’s try something else.”

We spent the better part of the next hour galivanting through various options, first of which was giving her a true wolf tail and ears, leading to her trying to give her best howl. It was… admittedly pretty weak, all things considered.

Then I gave her a long haired horse tail with tall, tapered ears extending from the top of her head, which only led to her teasing me about a horse girl phase I had apparently forgotten I had. And that led me to remember memories of… riding with somebody else. With a man who wrapped his arms around me and-

I cut off the memory as Victoria pulled me into the next idea, and then she had deer ears and a brown and white tail that twitched to and fro, at every stimulus, but that idea was quickly abandoned when she downright begged me to give her a towering pair of bunny ears and a matching tail that stuck out right above her butt. The degree to which I wanted to stick her in one of those stupid old waitress uniforms was overwhelming, and I knew she could rock one.

We had finally started to lose steam as she was sitting on my bed in her latest configuration. “I don’t think it looks bad per se, but I don’t think it fits you.”

“What, why not?” She hugged the absurdly fluffy tail as it wrapped around her front, teasing her own chin with the white tip. Her long, tapered ears occasionally flicked with excitement.

“You’re neither mischievous or serene enough to be a kitsune,” I replied, shrugging like that was all there was to it. “I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is.”

“How dare you!” She laughed, giving me a short shove. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me eight more tails? It might change your mind…” 

“Nah, I think I’ve seen all I need to.” I took a deep breath and winced slightly, my hand coming up to the side of my head reflexively as a spike of pain pushed through my head.

“Amy? Are you okay?” I opened my eyes to see Vicky leaning toward me, a hand hovering just above my leg. Her face was suddenly filled with concern.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I just… headache. I’ll be alright. I just used my power too much.”

 She hissed, “Ooooh, Thinker headache… Wait, you can get thinker headaches? Since when?”

“Only when using my power in specific ways, I think.” I replied. Honestly, I was unaware that such a thing really existed. Brockton Bay wasn’t really known for its high level thinkers, after all. “It’s okay, really.”

“No no, we’re done for the night,” Vicky said. “Can you take off my ears and tail? If not, I can sleep with them on, I don’t mind.”

“I can get them.” I said, taking her hand, and pretty much brute forcing them to get them to just pop off and separate. She shuddered slightly, once more, but that warmth in her chest was still there. I made sure everything was back in place before giving Victoria the all clear.

She took her now discarded appendages and dropped them back in the bin before sliding it into the closet out of sight. “I’ll go grab some aspirin, it might help with your headache.”

I nodded a thanks as she left the room, and I found myself flopping down into bed and pulling the covers up over my shoulders. I had been tired enough to fall asleep an hour and a half ago, but being with Vicky had practically reenergized me for the time we were messing around. Even if I felt a little cold now, I had felt so loved and so warm, and those memories were enough to carry me through the night.

A few minutes later, Vicky walked back in with a glass of water and two small tablets. She helped me take them, sitting on my bed as I sipped at the water to make sure the medication went down.

“You know, Ames, I had a lot of fun tonight,” She said quietly. “I know it might be kind of weird, but I’m happy we can do this together.”

“Yeah, I liked it too.” I replied at a similar volume. I took another sip of water before continuing. “It’s fun to use my powers on something more creative, I suppose. I think you were right about this being good for me.”

“Of course I was.” She smiled at me, catching my gaze before sitting up. “Sorry about the headache, I’m gonna go to bed. Try to get some sleep?”

“I will,” I replied, smiling as I watched her leave. For once, just this once, the guilt was outweighed by satisfaction, and warmth, and joy. And as the light was flipped off, and the door closed, I found myself able to lay down and sleep easily.

Chapter Text

Victoria

---------

“Since the accident, Jacked has been staying at the Philadelphia Parahuman Asylum, with the hope that possibly in the future something could be done to fix him.”

I finally blinked for the first time in probably a few minutes as the documentary went to commercial. Not a moment had passed until I was deep in contemplation. What would that cause? To be a tinker without being able to tinker. And that was besides the fact that he looked rough in the pictures and there was the question of if he’d even survive without being able to do maintenance on his creations.

He was… Well frankly, kind of an idiot. But in a tragic way rather than a funny way. But seriously, foresight. Tinkertech required maintenance, what would you expect to happen if you integrated it heavily into your body, and then were unable to deal with it? Maybe I just didn’t understand tinkers. I guess what he needed was a healer, it just sucked that they were so rare…

“Hey Amy, do you think you could heal him?” I asked, finally turning to look at her. She was sitting on the other edge of the couch, partially dozing off.

“Hmm?” She sat up a little, blinking at the TV then at me. “Heal who?”

“Jacked,” I replied. She just frowned, looking confused. “The guy from the documentary. You know, the one it just finished talking about?” She looked back at the screen, eyebrows furrowing. “Did you really fall asleep?”

“I just dozed off for a little bit.” She sat up further, stretching as she yawned. “What were you asking about?”

I tried to bite down my own yawn, but failed getting cut off before I could even start speaking. “Jacked,” I said finally. “He’s a tinker who replaced his limbs, but he got hurt and can’t fix them. I was wondering if you could fix him.”

“Probably, I haven't really run into anything I couldn’t fix . ” She glanced at the TV again as the commercials continued to go by.

Right, because Amy was way stronger than me. It was… a difficult thing to think of. I mean, I had things that I could do that she couldn’t, of course, like my super strength and my flight, granted she might be able to make herself something that could fly given…

“What about Case-53s?” I asked, suddenly derailing my own thought process as the question occurred to me. If she could help them, then that would change everything-

“The what?”

My hopes ground to a halt. I turned and stared at my sister, who seemed only vaguely paying attention to the conversation. “Case-53s, the people that have powers that change their bodies?”

“You mean like Crawler and Alabaster?” She asked, then looked slightly offended, as if I’d ask her to heal monsters.

“No, er… I don’t know about Alabaster, but no, I don’t think either of them are Case-53s. More like Weld, from Boston.”

“Probably not,” She said, once again not really looking at me or anything else in particular. “Isn’t he made of metal? I can’t really use my powers on that.”

“Not him specifically, there are others… Ugh.” I flopped back as she continued to not focus on what I was saying. “Forget it.”

“I was paying attention!” She straightened suddenly, finally turning back to me. She looked… genuinely upset out of nowhere. “Can you finish what you were asking?”

I shrugged. “There are other Case-53s that are still biological. Boston has another one named Hunch, and I think there’s another in San Diego named… Gully? I was wondering if you could help people like them.”

Amy actually seemed to consider it this time, before just shaking her head. “I have no idea. I haven’t ever touched one of them before, so maybe, but maybe not.”

That was a little disappointing, but understandable. It was still good to consider though. Given the things Amy had shown her power to be capable of in our experimenting, I doubted there was much she couldn’t really accomplish. I just nodded to her as the next program came on. It was some late night talk show about cape fashion around the country. Once upon a time, I had enjoyed it, but now it grated on me because it was a bunch of people who didn’t know anything about being a cape talking about how people should dress. Maybe I could try and get on it one day to tell them what was what.

I picked up the remote and changed the channel, looking for something else to watch. Nearly a minute of clicking through things, and I was at a loss, settling on the nightly news as I continued to contemplate things.

Eventually, a question finally slipped. “Do you think you could stop Crawler?”

Amy just shrugged. “I don’t want to fight people, and I don’t even think I could touch him if I could. Doesn’t he like, spew acid at everything?”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” I slipped deeper into thought. It was a little infuriating that someone with such a useful power was not only a villain, but one of the worst. If I had that ability, I wouldn’t care how monstrous it made me. I’d be throwing myself at Lung, and Endbringers, and the Slaughterhouse Nine, because being virtually immortal means that you could face down things nobody else could handle.

I looked back at Amy. She was watching the news, but didn’t look too engaged. Was that level of modification something she could manage? I doubted she could replicate his healing factor in someone else, but the durability? The redundancy? Hell, if not Crawler, what about Aegis? What were her limits?

I considered asking if we could try something like that, but she was… weird about the transformations. Hell, she was weird about her powers in general. Nobody else, either in studies or anecdotes or my own experiences, ever seemed so reluctant to use their abilities, even the Case-53s.

Maybe if I got Amy to relax a bit, then she could enjoy her power. She already seemed more relaxed than normal when we were experimenting-

“Alright, girls,” I turned to watch mom walk into the living room, wearing pajamas. Her blonde hair was still wet from her shower. “I’m going to head to bed. Don’t stay up too late, we have that team meeting tomorrow morning at your aunt’s.”

“Okay,” We both said in unison as she nodded and turned to walk back toward the stairs and walked off.

I turned back toward Amy as we were left the sole people in the living room. She was still staring at the TV, her gaze bored, and I couldn’t help but continue my train of thought.

“Hey Ames, would you want to… experiment some more?” She looked at me, eyebrows knitted together as I realized what that might have sounded like. “With your powers, I mean,” I corrected, trying not to blush.

“Uh, I guess?” She glanced toward the stairs, then back at me. “I suppose we should go upstairs.”

She started to stand, but I shifted over, gently touching her arm. “We don’t have to. Mom and dad are going to bed, so we should be okay, right?”

“Okay…" She seemed hesitant, but willing to follow along. "What do you want to do?” She turned away from the TV, any engagement forgotten.

“Maybe some small stuff?” I offered. I needed to go slower, let her set the pace. Maybe I’d ask her to think of something she’d want to try. “You can do cosmetics right?”

“I can…” She trailed off, frowning. “Nothing permanent though, and I don’t want to change your face or anything because I might not get it right and-”

“Ames, it’s fine.” I set a hand on her arm, cutting her off. “Simple stuff. What about… Eye color? You can do that, right?”

“Yeah, but why change something that you can’t see?”

“Mirrors.”

“Fair.” She held out her hand, and I set mine in hers. “So, what were you thinking? Green? Purple? Silver? Star shaped?”

“I think- Star shaped?” She shrugged. I hadn’t even considered changing the shape of my eyes on top of the color. “How about for now, let’s do… Gold.”

“Of course,” She mumbled, just quiet enough that I didn’t think she realized she said it at all. 

I bit back my annoyance. I wasn’t that predictable, was I? “Want me to start the timer?” I asked, pulling out my phone.

“Hmm? Yeah, please.” Her eyes had glazed over, her lips moving slightly as she furrowed her brow. “How about since this is small stuff like last time, you just set it to an hour, and I’ll revert everything at the end?”

“Sounds good to me!” An hour? That was twice as long as with the arms, and we didn’t even make it that long with the tails. I punched in the time, and hit start. “Ready to go whenever.”

I watched her eyes go glassy again, and then started to feel the tingling across the surface of my eye, like someone was prickling at its surface, poking and prodding away, and making everything feel slightly dry before my eyes started to water. I tried to keep my eyes open, even as I was blinking away tears until she pulled her hand away.

“You know you don’t have to keep your eyes open, right?” She said, placing her hands in her lap as I wiped away my tears.

“I figured it would make it easier for you.” I finally finished clearing my eyes and looked around. Nothing felt different.

Amy snorted. “I don’t need to see your eyes to use my power.” She looked me right in the eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable with her intensity before realizing she was probably just checking her work. “Alright, now go check a mirror and tell me how I did.”

I got up, and walked around the couch, heading to the downstairs bathroom. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but feel more and more giddy as I walked, eager to see the results. The moment I was in front of the mirror, the excitement redoubled as I took in the change.

My eyes were in fact, gold, crazy how that works, huh? But less like the platinum sheen of my hair, and more like the bright and bold metal of my tiara. Not to mention that it also seemed slightly metallic, shining in the light of the bathroom.

I leaned back with a grin and took in the whole picture, taking myself in from top to bottom, considering the appearance… and then frowned.

“Is something wrong?” I jumped slightly as Amy peaked in through the door, likely seeing that I was suddenly less content with the look.

“No… er, no. It looks perfect, but…” The bright gold eyes mixed with the bright platinum blonde hair, mixed with my bright complexion and pearly smile meant that, well, everything was shiny and over the top. Normally the softness of my light blue eyes cut through that in a way that made everything much less intense, but now, that softness didn’t exist, only a harsh metallic shine.

“Too much gold, huh?” I watched Amy’s reflection walk into the bathroom and stand next to me. Her eyes were bright, an almost fiery amber that was easily her most striking feature. She could pull it off because the rest of her was comparatively understated, with her skin being broken up by dark freckles over most of her body, and her hair being an unremarkable brown.

“Yup,” I replied after a few more seconds of comparing us. She must have figured that would happen, hence why she was acting so smug. I held out my hand. “New color, you mentioned purple?”

She set my phone down on the counter and took my hand. Once more, she zoned out, and I started to feel the tingling in my eyes. Despite what she said, I used the opportunity to keep my eyes open and watch the transformation in real time. The gold pigment slowly broke up, fissures of pale blue cutting through it as it separated into chunks and floated away.

The prickling returned and I once again did my best to bear it and watch the progress as the last of the shimmering gold vanished, leaving me with a washed out version of my normal eye color. A moment later, like paper dropped in wet paint, violet washed across the iris, swirling in whimsical patterns for a few seconds before it settled into peaks and valleys of light and dark.

I blinked away the tears once more, and took in my visage now. If blue was soft, and gold was gold and metallic, then purple was regal. The hue was utterly unnatural, like something I would expect a god or a ghost to have, and the deep tone when paired with the brightness of everything else left me… fascinated with my own appearance. It really wasn’t me, but one small shift in color felt like it changed everything, twisting a soft smile into something smug and commanding.

I glanced over at Amy to see that she was staring at me too, up until I grinned and she finally blinked and glanced away. “What do you think?” I asked.

“Too much power,” She mumbled simply. I laughed as she blushed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. 

“Yeah, I can see that.” I looked myself in the eyes again, wondering how I would look in a crown and fur collar. Not that I’d ever want to be one, but could I pull off being a queen? Probably. I already rocked a tiara, after all.

I glanced at Amy, wondering how she would look in a royal outfit. I struggled to imagine it, her overall bearing and posture not really what I would expect if I looked at a monarch. She was too hunched, too frazzled, too uncaring. I’ve gone on too long with this train of thought.

“Alright, enough eyes for now. What else can you do?”

Her fingers tightened around my hand and she shrugged. “Literally anything? I could change your hair color, but we should be careful with that because I’ll have to make it all fall out and grow in a new color. I could give you freckles like mine, though I don’t know why you’d want that. I could make you taller, but anything big would mean grabbing the tub from upstairs.”

She really liked second guessing herself, huh? I hummed in thought for a moment. Cosmetics could be important for helping capes changed in more esoteric ways. If she was able to cover signs of power usage up, then maybe… “If you can do freckles, does that mean you could do tattoos?”

I watched in the mirror as her eyes widened slightly. “Huh, yeah I could do something like that. Though melanin is pretty restrictive, so I’d either have to synthesize different pigments or-”

“Okay, let’s just start with black. You can do black right?” She nodded. “Awesome. So maybe something on… where do people normally get tattoos?”

“Arms, shoulders, and abdomens usually,” She replied. “All across the back, sometimes around the hips and…” She shuddered before finishing. “Down the legs too. Pretty much anywhere.”

“Okay, let’s start with my arm.” I turned to face her, keeping my hand in hers as I bared my arm to the mirror and pushed my sleeve up so I could see all of it. “Can you do a pattern, or maybe a-”

“Vicky, I’ve never done this before,” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Give me a minute to test stuff.”

I shut up, and watched both her and my arm, jumping back and forth as there was a slight tingling in my skin, and the first dark line emerged, turning into a meandering swirl that traced its way along my skin before blooming out into a large dark circle.

“Okay, what do you want?”

“Can you do… a star?” Despite the fact that her eyes were unfocused, they still rolled. But nonetheless, the dark blob of pigment reshaped itself, coming to five separate points until it was star shaped. “Cool! What about words?”

Again, the pigment twisted, breaking apart and spreading, and this time thinning out into lines that traced them out into three separate characters. YES. I snorted as they started to change again, each of the symbols twisting and inverting one at a time.

I glanced over at her to see her grinning like an idiot, then glanced back to see that she had finished. AMY. Ah, she wrote her name on my arm. She turned to look at the mirror, admiring her handiwork while also looking a little embarrassed.

“Could you do my name?” I asked then after a moment she was silently focused again more inky darkness emerging across my skin, slowly twisting into letters and then taking shape across my bicep. She took much longer, moving from one letter to the next and painstakingly ensuring that everything was laid out perfectly before moving on. Victoria . The script was flowing, connected, almost like calligraphy, unlike the bold font she had used before.

“Sorry,” She muttered as she finished, then turned to look at it in the mirror. “I got a little carried away, I think.”

“No, it looks good!” I assured her as I tiled my arm back and forth looking at the whole thing. It was… sorta trashy to be honest, having my own name tattooed on my arm, but that didn’t mean the script was any less incredible. “I didn’t really think you were that artistic.”

“I haven’t really doodled or drawn in years…” Her voice was still quiet, almost dejected. She started as I squeezed her hand reassuringly, and then smiled.  “Do you want to see something else I can do?”

I almost agreed immediately, eager to see what she had in store next, but hesitated. “You’re not gonna get another headache, are you? And you’d tell me if you already had one?”

“No, of course not. I only get them when I use my power in a super specific way. Now do you want to know my other thing?” I looked her in the eyes, looking for any hint that she was lying or in pain, then nodded when I found nothing. “Okay, so there’s this compound called luc-”

I cut her off by raising a hand, stopping her from quashing my suspense. “Don’t explain it. Surprise me.”

She paused, looking up into my, in hindsight, still violet eyes, and nodded. I glanced back at the mirror, and watched. Strangely enough, I was getting more and more eager as time went on. Yes, this was supposed to be experimentation, but if you’re not giddy with excitement while power testing, then you’re just power testing… or was that about baking? But still! I was enjoying seeing the blotches of pigment take form, and feeling the tingling across my skin, and holding her hand… In a sisterly way.

Slowly, I watched the dark pigment lighten up, fading until it was only faintly yellow instead of the bold black it had been. And now I was… disappointed. I glanced over at her, and she was grinning as blinked her way out of her power induced stupor, and glanced in the mirror. For a single moment, she frowned, eyes going from my confused face, to the tattoo, and then she smiled again.

“Wait wait wait, I got this.” She reached over, dragging me a step as she didn’t let go of my hand before reaching toward the light switch and plunging the room into darkness.

For a second, I felt my throat tighten. I wasn’t really… afraid of the dark like mom was. I didn’t see her as any less for it, and I didn’t really ask about the details, but I knew, at least a little bit, why she hated it. But that didn’t change the fact that I grew up in a house that had a nightlight around any corner with a family member that insisted on always having the lights on in any room she was in. Suffice it to say, being in a pitch black room was still a little spooky, and I might have tightened my grip on Amy’s hand just a little bit more.

And then, I saw it. On my arm, in that same flowing script, that had been dark and bold a moment ago, was my name, but glowing gold. It wasn’t that bright, but as my eyes adjusted, that small point of light warmly illuminated the sink in front of us and the outline of my face in the mirror.

I stared for… probably a lot longer than I’m proud of, wanting to touch it, but also not wanting to cover the soft glow or let go of Amy’s hand in the dark room, and she didn’t seem that eager to let go of mine.

“I’m guessing you like it?” Amy was quiet, just beyond the dull light, a ghost in the room if not for our single point of contact.

I smiled. “Yeah, I do? Can you do more?” I turned to look at her, barely picking out the wrinkles on her forehead. “Like, what about my tiara over top of it?”

I saw the reflection of the light in her eyes bob up and down as she nodded, “I can do that, one second.” I turned back to the mirror and watched as a tiny glowing spot emerged just above the center of the word, perfectly symmetrical as was everything else. Slowly it crept outward with an almost liquid flow as it circled my entire bicep, then bloomed around the origin, lines of radiance splitting into five points and jutting up from the center. “There, how’s that?”

“It’s pretty… Even if it's a little tacky to have my own glowing name tattooed on my arm.” I glanced toward her, even if I couldn’t really see her too well in the dark. She was still there, I wasn’t alone.

“Yeah, I think I could pull it off better,” I snorted, imagining Amy with such a bright tattoo, or with tattoos at all. “Here, what about… this.”

I started to feel tingling on my other arm and shifted to point it toward the mirror, even as it forced Amy to shift her hand to not get turned with me. I was briefly spooked by the bright glowing red that bloomed across my arm. Tracing its way in that same flowing calligraphy like script, letters emerged one right after the other. I was surprised when the third one wasn’t what I expected, and watched closely as the rest of it came into shape. Amelia. Just below it, a red blob formed of glowing ink, stabilizing and sharpening until it formed a cross.

She had leaned closer, and I couldn’t help but wonder why she looked so wistful as she finished it up. It was no less amazing than my own, but she seemed so sad. And why did she use her actual name? She normally hated being called Amelia.

“Hey Ames, you okay?” I asked, shifting just slightly enough so that I could see her face from the glow. Her eyes seemed sad, unfocused, but not like she was using her powers.

“Yeah, ‘m fine.” She was quiet. It wasn’t a new thing from her. She sometimes would just get like this. Quiet and withdrawn, sometimes after a team meeting, or after dinner. Sometimes she’d get really quiet for days at a time and just not interact with anybody outside of the hospitals. I could usually get her to talk to me, but never for long. It reminded me a little too much of dad, now that I thought about it. “What do you think?” She seemed embarrassed.

“I think it's beautiful.” I knew that tattoos of names weren’t always the best, but the script was genuinely beautiful, and she needed the compliment. I saw the shadow of her lips quirk upward, before curiosity finally got the better of me. “Why’d you use your full name?”

I felt her fingers go stiff in my grip. “I… don’t know. It just felt easier to do the full thing, I guess.” I could tell it was an excuse, that she didn’t actually know, and probably didn’t want to. 

For once in my life, I let it go. “So how does this work?” I asked, moving onto a different subject, hoping to get her to relax more. That’s what this was supposed to be about, getting her to relax and enjoy using her powers.

“Well there’s this compound called luciferin…” She began explaining how bioluminescence works, talking about enzymes and biochemistry, and a lot of other stuff I didn’t fully understand, and I was pretty sure she didn’t either, but the more she talked, the more comfortable she became as she drew more symbols and patterns in gold and red and blue and green down my arms, slowly illuminating the room more and more until I could see her clearly, coated in a multilayered hue.

“You’re gonna be starving in the morning,” She was saying as I watched the violet of my eyes begin to glow, flecked with metallic white. She had redone much of her work after a point, leaving my arms a canvas of nebulous clouds and glowing golden speckles. “I’ve taken a good chunk of your dinner to do all of this.”

“Eh, Aunt Sarah makes big breakfasts,” I replied, marveling at the cosmic patterns as flickers of light started to appear one by one at random across my collarbone. “What can you do with my hair?”

She hummed to herself for a moment, the emergence of stars pausing as she considered. “I could probably change the matrices to produce hollow follicles, and then set it up so they’re filled in part with bioluminescent compounds which would…” She cut herself off, and tapped my phone revealing the timer. Nine and a half minutes. “Shit, nevermind.”

“Huh, time flies. I take it there’s not enough time for all of that?” I asked as she frowned, and seemed to reconsider her options.

“Not really, especially because I’d have to remove your current hair and get more to grow in. I don’t think you have enough extra energy to do it anyway.” She sighed heavily. “Well, I think I’ve got something interesting I could do, if you’re interested?”

“Sure, nine minutes. Lightning round!” I watched a smile break out across her face, multicolored as her skin reflected the light of my own.

She started running her hands up and down my arms, then over my shoulders, and then muttered to herself as she walked around behind me as the palms of her hands slowly started to glow. Then she reached up, forcibly pushing my gaze back forward toward the mirror, and placed her hands on top of my head.

I shuddered as she ran her fingers through my hair, slowly drawing it through one hand then the next, gently combing at it as I watched whatever was glowing in her hands stay behind, deposited into my hair, turning the platinum blonde into an incandescent white gold, it’s shine magnified by its normally fair color.

After about five minutes she pulled away, and stepped to the side, leaving me to look at myself in the mirror. Suffice it to say, if I saw myself on the street, I’d probably assume I was in a breaker state of some form. At just a glance, the nebulous, star speckled, patterns across most of my upper body made me seem celestial, and the glowing violet sheen of my eyes only reinforced that. But with the hair? I looked like I could have just fallen from space with how it glowed like the blazing tail of a comet. I wanted to see what it looked like from below, how I would appear streaking across the night sky, how people would look at me.

But the image wasn’t complete. A closer look revealed the patterns to be detailed, but stagnant, merely a painting rather than a true depiction of the cosmos. My face and legs had no decoration, meaning that despite my luminous gaze, I was still certainly human. It didn’t mean it was less impressive, only more mundane. A fantastic appearance, but nothing truly out of this world.

I floated off the ground a few inches, taking myself in all the same, watching how my hair moved as I flipped around and upside down and let it fall under gravity’s influence. It was like liquid starlight pouring from my head, and I couldn’t help but tear up a bit looking at it as the alarm went off.

Amy swiftly dismissed it as I flipped back over and landed in front of her. A moment later, she gave me one final look, and flipped on the light. In an instant, the radiance I had embodied vanished. In the mirror, my eyes looked a little more vibrant than before, but not too much. The cloudy swirls across my arms, chest and neck turned into long faded tattoos that lacked the vibrancy to really be understood given their indistinct design.

They weren’t bright enough to shine under the white light of the LED bulbs in the bathroom, ultimately leaving everything muted. Still, I smiled and glanced back at Amy as she walked over toward me, and held out her hand.

“That was a lot of fun,” I said as I placed my hand in hers. “Even if it was just cosmetic stuff.”

She snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like, it wasn’t practical in any way, like the arms or the tails and ears.” Already the pigment on the finger of my left hand was vanishing, leaving my pale digits no different than normal.

“The tails and ears were practical?” She asked. Up to my wrist was bare, and in a few more seconds, so would everything up to my elbow.

“Hell yeah they were!” The memories of just how much my senses and balance were improved by such a small change was remarkable, and I had flight! Imagine what Uncle Neil or Mom could do with something like that! “I think we should really consider bringing that up to the team at some point. It could really help in the field.”

“Right…” My left arm was clear now, and the wave of cleansing started to work its way across my collarbone. “Let’s talk about that another time, preferably when I don’t feel like I’m about to fall asleep mid sentence.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” I stretched, arching my back as I yawned. “You don’t have a headache or anything, right?” I asked once I finished.

“Nope. Only happens when I access my powers…” She succumbed to the yawn as well. “...encyclopedia a bunch. I rarely have to, so it doesn’t happen often.”

Encyclopedia? “I haven’t heard about this part of your power before. What’s that about?”

“It’s the thing that lets me understand stuff that I’m not touching. I can’t be bothered to explain it right now.”

I glanced down to see the last of the colors fading from the hand Any was holding, and a glance toward the mirror showed my eyes had reverted to their blue. I looked back at Amy to see that she seemed exhausted, though not in her normal way. She seemed happier.

“Alright, that should be it.” She let go of my hand before clasping them in front of her. “The bacteria I used to make your hair glow should all die off in a few hours, but let me know if it's still glowing in the morning.”

“Thank you, Amy.” I wrapped her in a hug, and after a short pause, she put her arms around my waist to return it. “That was really cool.”

“I’m happy you enjoyed it.” And there she was, putting my enjoyment ahead of her own. That was okay for now. She clearly enjoyed this as much as I did, if not a whole lot more. She could admit it later, when she was more confident and awake. 

I released her from my hug before taking my phone back, and walking out of the bathroom. She didn’t wait before waving goodnight and walking up stairs. I took the time to turn off the downstairs lights and the TV before heading up myself, making sure I made enough noise on my way up that mom could hear me and didn’t worry. She had scared the hell out of me the first time I floated upstairs quietly and she threw open my bedroom door half an hour later wondering why she hadn’t heard me come up.

I found my way to my bedroom, plugging in my phone, turning off the lights, and flopping onto my bed. After a few moments, I couldn’t help but stare at the still glowing locks of my hair spread out across the pillow in front of me. I reached up, and toyed with a few strands, watching as the glow rubbed off onto my fingers, and the pillow. Not truly luminous, but close enough. After a few minutes, I closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Victoria

---------

I stepped into the house, holding the dress bag up with one hand to make sure not to fold it and wrinkle the contents. I closed the door behind me, and stepped into the foyer, and tugged my shoes off, still not lowering my arm as I walked into the living room, heading toward the stairs.

“Whatcha got there, Vicky?” I paused, glancing over at Mark. He was sitting in the recliner, eating a chocolate bar from the big Halloween candy bowl sitting on the end table. He was in costume, though it was totally clean and the helmet was sitting in his lap. On the TV an old horror anthology was playing, with the narrator introducing the next story.

“Amy’s costume for the party tonight,” I replied smiling. It was always nice to see him excited, and it seemed like being in costume was helping.

“Amy’s?”

“Yeah, we decided to get each other’s costumes,” I explained. “It’s kind of a trend going on this year.”

“Sounds fun. What did you get her?”

I blushed a little. “It’s a surprise, can’t risk her overhearing before she sees it, you know.” I shrugged sheepishly as he frowned. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you see it before we leave.”

Arm still raised to keep from disturbing the costume, I walked up the stairs finding my way over to Amy’s room and knocking. “Ames, it’s me, are you there?”

“Yeah, one sec!” A few seconds later, I heard footsteps come over to the door before it swung open, revealing Amy with a simple t-shirt and sweatpants on. 

I didn’t wait before stepping into the room, pushing past my sister abruptly and finally laying out the bag. Even with super strength, holding my arm up at an angle like that was still uncomfortable.

As I rolled my shoulder, I spun around to see Amy looking a little startled as she closed the door. “Is that mine?” She asked, stepping over toward the bed.

“Yup, and I’m so proud of it! You’re gonna look great.” I watched as she made it over to the bed, looked down at the bed and frowned.

“Vicky, this looks really nice…” She unzipped the front and felt the fabric of the outfit. “And what’s this symbol on the bag for?”

“Funny story,” I started walking up beside her and looking down at the flowery almost gothic looking “P” that was stamped onto the bag. “Parian, that puppet cape that performs at the Boardwalk occasionally? She was doing a big promotion, making custom Halloween costumes to order for people!”

“I didn’t know she actually made outfits,” Amy muttered, picking up the cape and rubbing it between her fingers. “This had to be super expensive.”

“It… wasn’t cheap, but it’s for a good cause!” I assured her. “She was telling me when I went in to pick it up that she might have gotten enough money and publicity to actually start her own store now! I also got it a little cheaper because I picked it up so late.”

“Well, okay…” She pouted a little before zipping the bag back up and picking it up. “I guess I have to put it on, because you picked it out.”

“Amy, stop worrying! You’re gonna look fantastic.” I eased the bag out of her hands and laid it back onto the bed. “Now, what’s my costume?”

Amy paused, and glanced away, a little nervous. “Well, I was thinking, with how much we’ve been experimenting with my powers…” Her fingers clasped in front of her. “That I could make your costume?”

I nodded slowly, letting it seem like I was considering it. 

“That might be fun,” Were the words that came out of my mouth. The ones in my mind were closer to, “ Fuck yes! She picked up on my hints, she figured it out, hell yeah! I’m gonna have the coolest costume ever!”

“You’re okay with it?” I nodded, and then watched as Amy visibly relaxed, before wandering over to the closet and dragging out the now much heavier tub of biomass she had slowly been accumulating since we started, dragging it out into the center of the room. “Should I do this before getting cleaned up and changed, or after?”

I considered it for a few moments, and then grinned. “Definitely after. I’m sure it won’t be too messy, right?” In all honesty, I had no clue, but the image was something I really wanted to see.

“Okay, I’ll go shower quick,” She walked over and picked the bag back up and hurried out of the room.

In the meantime, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through messages. Even if Dean and I were on a break, we were used to working around it, and this party was just another extension of that… Granted, the reason for the break this time was because I had wanted Amy to “choose” my costume instead of him, but if he couldn’t handle me wanting to spend time with my sister, then that was his problem. And anyway, he had realized he was being petty and still let us come to the party anyway.

We still had over an hour before the party would really be getting started, which gave us plenty of time for Amy to get ready and change me into whatever my costume was going to be.

I was a little excited, mind running with whatever she had planned. How scary was she gonna go? Surely she could go pretty far into body horror territory, but would she? Or would she aim for a cool monster? Something scary in an intimidating way, or maybe just skip something scary all together, and go right to something cool. She had never really liked horror movies, especially since getting her powers.

I scrolled through the PHO app on my phone for a few minutes, finding the seasonal tag for Brockton Bay and looking at the costumes other people were showing off. I even saw a few people shout out Parian as they showed off. Secretly, I really hoped she did well enough to open up that store, because I definitely wanted to get a dress of my own from her one day.

The water had shut off a couple minutes ago, and I was eagerly waiting for Amy to return only to get a text message instead.

Hlep

Well that’s troubling. I hopped to my feet, and left Amy’s room, walking down the hall to the bathroom, and knocked on the door. “Amy, am I okay to come in?”

“Yes, please.” She sounded somewhat muffled and particularly defeated.

I opened the door, stepping into the still slightly steamy interior of the bathroom. Half the costume was set out, and half of it was on Amy. The stockings and skirt with its one slitted side looked to be alright if a bit low, but the top was disheveled and a little stretched, revealing the bottom of the garments beneath it and the top of the collar was bunching at her neck.

She was leaning against the sink, and looked ashamed as she glared at herself in the mirror, before turning to the side to look at me. “I thought I could do it myself, but I think I messed something up.”

I bit back a sigh as I walked over. “Here, let me check it out.” She straightened up with a huff, her arms not quite able to lay at her side.

I tugged at the stretched and rumpled upper garment, getting Amy to lift her arms so I could take it off, and look at what happened beneath it.

“Amy, you’re supposed to tighten the corset so that it's snug. Nothing else will fit otherwise.” I started to shift it so it was in a better position when I noticed something else. 

“It was uncomfortable,” She muttered, almost letting her arms fall before I nudged her to keep them up.

“Well of course it is, you forgot the chemise!” I undid what little had been tightened on the back of the corset and reached around her front, and finicking with how the corset fit into itself.

“Wait, what’s a chemi-” Amy squeaked as I finally got the fittings undone and pulled the garment off her, leaving her chest totally bare. Her arms came down in an instant to cover herself. “Vicky, what the hell?”

“Oh grow up, we’ve seen each other topless before.” I set the corset aside and walked back over to the bag, finding the dark, silky undergarment that was supposed to go under it, and handed it to Amy.

She pouted before shuffling to the side and facing away from me as she put it on, smoothing it out, and then spun back around. “Alright, what now?”

“You have the skirt on too low. It’s supposed to tighten around your waist, over the corset.” She looked at me, furrowing her brow, until I gestured for her to take it off too.

With a groan, Amy loosened the belt and dropped the skirt, leaving her in just her underwear and a pair of patterned lacy stockings. After shifting awkwardly for a moment, she picked up the skirt and folded it up, placing it aside as well while I grabbed her corset.

Pulling her over to the mirror again, I fit the corset around her waist and bust again, making sure it was snug. Luckily it seemed like Amy’s clothing centric incompetence was more to blame for it not fitting right that anything with the garment itself, because with my help, I was able to get it secured and tightened it down just enough that it was snug around her.

“How’s that feel?” I asked, looking at her in the mirror, and gauging how it fit. The corset itself was totally plain, and dark in color, but that was okay, because the rest of the outfit was supposed to fit over it, and it shouldn’t be visible anyway.

Amy turned back and forth patting it and her waist… Damn, when did Amy get curves? I could actually see that she had hips when she wasn’t wearing baggy shirts or her robes!

“I guess it’s not that bad.” Ah yes, that was Amyspeak for: ‘I was wrong, and this is actually amazing.’

“Alright, time for the top.” I went back to the bag and pulled out the blouse, then got Amy to raise her arms so I could help her into it. The part around her chest fit tight against the corset, the hem just high enough that the undergarment was out of sight. The sleeves were loose, only going down to about mid bicep, while the collar was low and wide, leaving pretty much all her freckled shoulders and collarbone bare.

Then went the skirt, tugged up and belted around her waist on the corset rather than beneath or below it, raising the bottom hem brom ankle length to part way down her shins instead.

I watched her move around a little, tugging on the slitted side to keep it from opening about halfway down her thigh.

“This is a little too revealing, Vicky.”

“No it isn’t,” I responded, pulling out the lace gloves, and smiling. Parian did such a fantastic job! It had all the little floral symbols stitched in as well. “I could have made it way more revealing. And this way, you get to show off a little! You look incredible.”

She looked down at herself, moving and letting her bare thigh out a little, then looked up into the mirror. “Really?”

“Of course!” I handed her the gloves and watched her start to tug them on. At first I had debated full gloves, but found that I liked Amy’s hands too much, and covering them up felt wrong. So instead, it attached only to her middle finger, leaving the rest bare.

She put on the other, staring at how the delicate lace covered her skin, and tracing the symbols. She squeaked in surprise as I dropped the hat, the final piece besides the shoes and cape, on her head.

Adjusting the rim, I straightened out the long pointed tip, then let it flop down under its own weight, then leaned down to look at Amy’s eyes in the mirror. “There, costume assembled. Amy Dallon, witch of Brockton Bay!”

She peaked out from beneath the hat, looking herself over and seemed to finally put together how she actually looked. “Oh my god, really Vicky?” Normally her frizzy hair would make her look unkempt, but now, held beneath her hat, it actually added to the look.

She did her best to pout, but judging by the blush, she seemed to be enjoying the costume still.

“It’s good! Seriously, I think it fits you super well.” I saw just the barest hint of a smile in the mirror before she tilted her head down so that the brim of her hat cut off my line of sight. “Now it’s my turn!”

I took the clothes bag and led Amy back to her room, where she opened the tub of biomass, and started to feel around it. “So I had a couple ideas, but seeing as you went ahead and made me dress like a witch, I think I know exactly what I’m going to do.”

She didn’t get me to lay down this time, instead getting me to drop everything but my underwear as she pushed a blob of biomass to my stomach, and started to incorporate it. At the same time, the pigment began to leech from my skin around her fingers, leaving my midriff almost marble white.

I felt the familiar tingle of her power around where her fingers gently brushed against me, watching the creeping ivory work its way across my chest and down to my legs.

“So, what spell are you casting on me tonight?” I asked eventually as my collarbone was claimed by the spreading white, and it started to spread across my shoulders. 

“It’s a secret…” Her slight smile faltered, and her hand pulled away. “Uh, the safeword still applies. If I do anything you don’t like, or you want me to revert you, just say it.”

“I figured. You can keep going, though.” After a moment, her fingers touched back down, settling on my midriff gently as she pushed her hat back a bit so the rim was at an angle and crouched down to pick up another blob of living goo.

“Okay, I’m gonna really get started now. It might get a bit weird.” I gave a short nod, and started to notice the tingling across my body as the ivory white finished covering my skin.

A moment later, I felt my jaw tingle, a slight ache pushing its way through my gums as my teeth pushed against each other, extra mass pushing into my canines as they grew more robust.

It… hurt. I’ll admit that. Toothaches suck, and going through weeks of effort in moments, even if Amy was made sure I wasn’t agonizing, still fucking hurt. But it was so exhilarating at the same time.

A grunt squeezed out between my clenched jaw as I craned my neck and the strain finally eased away. I exhaled heavily, and probed the back of my teeth with my tongue, finding that my incisors and canines were more robust, and quite sharp. Was she going with Vampire?

“Okay, next thing.”

Before I could even start to wonder, pressure surged in the front of my head, and I briefly wondered in horror if she was messing with my brain before I realized it was shallower than that. My skull was changing. Bulging and pushing, something building up a long my brow and starting to make my face tingle. And then stars danced behind my eyes as the skin of my forehead split.

My knees gave out and Amy barely managed to catch me. “Vicky! Shit, I’m so sorry, you don’t normally make me turn off your pain and I thought you-”

“I didn’t say the word,” I growled, looking up at her and blinking away tears. I reached up to brush some away and felt something hard beginning to protrude from the front of my head. “Keep going.”

She looked the slightest bit haunted, as she rested her hand on my shoulder again, and I couldn’t help but smile. With her big goofy witch hat and the whole outfit, she looked so frazzled, and maybe a little crazy, but at the same time, her standing over me was its own brand of interesting.

The pressure returned to my scalp and I decided to breathe, letting out tiny groans as more of whatever boney thing was emerging continued to push its way out. My entire upper body convulsed from any sharp movement of the keratin, peaks and valleys of ache and relief pushing me this way and that. I clenched my hands into fists and bit down even harder, the visceral sensation of my new fangs rubbing against each other helped me to bear the sensation.

I gasped finally as the pressure relented, and Amy’s hand came away. With the constant feeling of my skull splitting open done, I could actually feel the slightly lopsided weight now of something sitting on the front of my head, not too dissimilar to my tiara, besides being a little bigger and heavier. I suppressed my forcefield for a few seconds, and then let it back out, feeling as the object became enveloped and supported.

I used a combination of flight and Amy’s help to get back to my feet, and sighed as she ran a hand across my back, soothing where the muscles had gotten a little sore from me being too tense.

I went to turn toward her mirror to check myself out when Amy stopped me. “No looking till I’m done. I don’t want you to ruin the surprise.”

“You needed me to get you dressed, I don’t see how this is even remotely fair.” But still, I let her turn me away as she stepped behind my back.

“It’ll be way better if you don’t see it until I’m finished.” I could hear her kneel near the tub, occasionally grunting as the slightly wet sounds of flesh merging together and she made something.

I heard her stand with a huff, clearing having picked something up as she wandered back over to me. A hand landed on my lower back, giving me the tiniest of shivers as goosebumps broke out across my lower half. And then I felt the sensitive tingling of my tailbone moving, reorienting. A tail? Definitely not a vampire then.

The room temperature mass of flesh pressed to the base of my spine, and the internal structures started to connect, an exchange of blood and sensation as lightning worked its way up my spine, and I felt the alien instincts start to connect as I came to understand the appendage intrinsically.

It was different from any of the ones we tried, fleshy, and maybe a little scaly, with something soft like fur at the end. I waved it back and forth a little, just brushing past Amy’s skirt as she walked back to the tub. So unique feeling, just what was she going for-

“What kind of wings do you want?”

My musings were cut short as I considered her question. “What?”

“Well, I was thinking of scaly, dragon-like ones, but apparently I can do pterosaurs as well. Or bat. Unless you want feathered angel style wings, but…”

“Yeah, no to that, for sure.” I hummed, rubbing my chin as I considered what would be the best. I didn’t need them to fly, so I could focus on aesthetics. But it was also kinda cold, and while my power helped a good bit, something without an insulating layer could be bad. And if I couldn’t do feathers… “Bat sounds good.”

“Okay.” She huffed again, and walked back over. “I’m gonna have to take off your bra, like with the extra arms.”

This time, I just reached back and undid it myself, tugging on the clasp until it undid itself, and fell free, pulling it off and baring my back to her. More cool, wet flesh found its way to press against my skin, and started to worm its tendrils beneath my skin. Muscles were pushed aside and rearranged as once more, warmth filled my chest.

The new muscles grew, swelling inside me and pressing against my ribs as I took a deep breath. I found my new tail curling and flicking and back and forth, the tip brushing past Amy’s ankles, making her fidget awkwardly, but damn it, I really couldn’t control the thing, and just like before, it was super expressive.

Regardless, I did my best to quell my excitement as new shoulders began to be shaped from my flesh and the reserve biomass, drawing them out further and further, kneaded and stretched like dough in the hands of a baker.

I could feel the first flickering connections spark into life as her fingers elongated spindly bones and wrapped them in nerves and blood vessels and muscle and flesh. The “arms” spread into fingers, the individual digits of which dwarfed any other bone in my body in length as Amy went through and elongated them one by one, and as she finished, it was like a spark of lightning, one that made me jump and try to move the limb, but they weren’t under my control yet, and so I was at Amy’s mercy.

I fidgeted and twitched squirming and trying to stay still as my tail curled, and my fingers clenched into fists. It would have bitten my lip, but given the straight up fangs inside of my maw, I wasn’t sure I wanted to try.

It was finally, after minute after agonizing minute that I felt the tingling of sprouting of thin fur across the surface of two separate but equal appendages, that I finally managed to take a deep breath to slow my heartbeat.

“Are you okay?” Amy stepped around my front, and I gave my new limbs and experimental stretch.

“Yuuuup!” My arms joined in, going out to either side as I took in my wingspan. It had to be almost ten feet, which almost made the rest of me look small in comparison. From what I could see there was some sort of patterning in the blonde fur, but I couldn’t quite tell.

I rolled my shoulders, all four of them, doing my best to articulate my wings and check to see that everything was working before folding them back in behind my back. They were honestly awesome, even if I didn’t need them in the slightest.

“Um, I can do some finishing touches,” Amy muttered, looking down at my ivory white hands, while averting her eyes from anything else above my waist. “But you might want to check yourself out first.”

I nodded, making sure I wasn’t about to slap Amy before I spun around and looked at the mirror.

I almost yelped in surprise as I took in the figure looking back at me in the mirror. Lithe and athletic, muscle standing out in contrast to the absurdly pale skin, was a demon, nay, a devil. Her eyes were glowing a deep purple, and she had demonic wings extending from her back, which now that they were spread again, I could firmly see the pentagrams outlined in gold fur onto the white background. 

Across her forehead, weren’t horns like I might have expected, but instead, a veritable crown with five points spreading out across her brow. But from the tip down, the surface seemed almost cracked and chipped, the ivory flaking away to reveal an almost metallic gold color beneath them. Her hair was a platinum blonde mane that fell past her bare shoulders and… and she was… I was beautiful. And also hot as fuck! And I looked so dangerous and intimidating and… This was amazing.

“I debated giving you hooves,” I watched Amy step around my side, pushing her hat back to brush away the light sheen of sweat on her brow. “Which is why I made the tail so heavy, as a counterbalance, but I figured that might be going too far.”

“Yeah, maybe a bit. I would be down to try that at some point though.” I looked back down at myself, just the slightest bit embarrassed at my own partial nudity, but Amy had seen it before. “I take it this isn’t the extent of my costume though, so what else have you got?”

“Right, of course.” Amy blushed, walking back over to the tub. “I have some ideas, but I’m a little light on biomass, so I might have to improvise. Um, you know a lot about fashion, how do backless dresses keep support?”

Right, the wings. I couldn’t have anything that strapped on with them in the way. “Usually a combination of being tight around the hips and waist, and bracing around the neck or shoulders.”

“Got it, I think I can do something with that.” She stayed knelt in front of her tub, hands moving back and forth for a few minutes while I got a little distracted and started to float around, feeling how the tail and wings interacted with the air while I moved. It was interesting, but I couldn’t quite tell and… I’d need to test this for real.

It took Amy about ten minutes, at which point, I had awkwardly settled down onto her bed and was looking through my phone again. Speaking of which, laying on my wings was incredibly uncomfortable, which meant I had to lay on my stomach.

“Got it, I think. I really hope you like it, at least.”

I glanced over to see Amy holding up a dress… Oh wow there was a lot going on there. To accent my body, the main colors were purple and black, with the skirt going from a gradient of the latter to the former. But it was covered in gold filigree and lacing, almost like jewelry that was sewn into the garment. The top was in a similar style, but where it wrapped around the neck, it was trimmed in black fur.

I had apparently gotten to my feet as I gawked at it, taking it in my hands and feeling the top. It was somewhat rigid, capable of providing adequate support on top of the interior, seeming silky and comfortable.

“Is it okay?”

“Yes!” I responded immediately, before realizing how anxious Amy looked while she faced away from me. “It’s great! Serious, super good. Wanna help me put it on?”

She nodded enthusiastically, and the process began. It actually seemed to be partially alive still, which let her open the back and wrap it around me before fastening everything back into place, which stopped my wings from getting in the way. A minute or so of tightening and adjusting got it to fit as well as anything I’d ever had professionally tailored. Seriously, was there anything Amy’s power couldn’t do?

It was in fact, tight around the waist, while the skirt had three openings, two splits on each hip midway down my thigh, and an opening on my back to free my tail. She did the final touch ups, trailing gold and black pigment up my legs and arms to give me faux leggings and gloves, though the actual details of what was represented were pretty rushed and indistinct, even if I could tell they were similar to her own lace print accessories. I had the perfect pair of heels for this.

These were topped with gold colored bands with five jagged points like my horn crown thing and, god this entire ensemble was so over the top, and so damn awesome! Suck it, Dean this was so worth the break.

“Shit,” I walked over and grabbed my phone. It was six-thirty. The party was supposed to be starting at six-thirty

“What’s wrong?” Amy clasped her hands in front of her, trying to peek at what I was looking at, before her hat almost fell off, and she lurched to catch it.

“We’re… kinda late.” I said, looking around for my purse before my hand brushed past something in the skirt, which I checked and… pockets? Pockets! I paused in my frantic energy, indicating the opening. “I’m giving you the greatest Christmas present, seriously, you’re the best.”

She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I give it pockets? Why would you wear anything without…” Her hands started searching her own skirt, frantically patting around. “Oh what the fuck?”

“Not sorry, let me grab my shoes.” I rushed toward the door of her room, and realized very quickly that I was a little bigger than normal. Not actually any taller, but my mass had increased by maybe fifty percent? Maybe closer to thirty, but still, I almost tore right through the door frame when one of my wings caught it and had to stop and slow myself down before rushing across the hall to my room.

By the time I had donned my gold and black sandal heels with their braided ankle strap, Amy had come out of her room having put the shoes of her costume on, simple, black flats, and had managed to affix the velvet half cape around her shoulders which was connected by a simple gold brooch shaped like a star. She was also trying to stuff her phone and wallet into a simple brown purse I had seen her use maybe five times ever.

“Ready to go?” I asked, almost wishing I had some earrings now that I was thinking about it, but there was such a thing as too much, and I was probably a little ways past that at this point.

Amy looked at me and gawked a little, as if the few seconds of us being apart was enough for her to have completely forgotten what she had turned me into. But she broke out of it quickly enough. “Yeah,” she muttered in a small voice.

We moved down the stairs, and judging by the fact the doorbell had just gone off, I was guessing Mark was at the door giving some kids candy, so I started to lead Amy toward the back door, not wanting to get in anybody's way.

“Girls, are you heading out- Oh jeez!” I froze, turning to glance at mom as she peeked out of the kitchen. She was also in full costume, with the top half of the mask pulled back. Her eyes were wide as she looked me up and down.

“Yeah we were… Um, surprise by the way?” I spread my arms, flaunting my form a little, and doing a small turn. 

“You know, when you talked about ‘experimenting’, I’m not sure this is what I expected.” She took a sip from a mug of what smelled like apple cider.

“Okay, fine, maybe this one was mostly for fun, but what’s the point of superpowers if you can’t enjoy doing cool and stupid shi- stuff?”

Mom raised an eyebrow, looking me up and down once again, and I spread my wings a little, which seemed to spook her just the smallest bit.

“Hey, you weren’t trying to slip away- Oh my god!” I glanced to the side as dad stepped into the hallway after us, his helmet tucked under one arm, and a bowl of candy in another. “You look... interesting Vicky.”

“I mean, yeah, I do, but like,” I leaned to the side and gestured toward Amy, who had pulled the cape around her shoulders to hide her upper body. “Ugh, really Ames?” Before she got the chance to respond, I pulled the cape over her shoulders so that her arms were revealed along with the rest of the top as well as her waist and hips and- Why did this girl insist on hiding herself so much!

Dad was nodding to himself with a smile, seeming to approve, but mom just tilted her head at Amy. “Is there any particular reason you chose to turn your sister into a demon?”

“Uhhh,” Amy tweaked her hat a little. “Because I’m a witch, and witches need their helpers?”

Mom looked mildly horrified, but once again dad just shrugged. “It’s sound logic. If they’re going together, they might as well share a theme.”

She turned to face him, snorted, and snatched a piece of licorice from the bowl before walking back toward the living room. “Be safe girls, and have fun at the party.”

Both of us said our goodbyes before hurrying out the backdoor. Once we were in the open air, I turned and grinned. “Well, my master,” I said to Amy, leaning forward with a grin that caused her to magically transform into a strawberry. “Shall we make haste to tonight’s engagement?” I spread my arms out, offering her a ride.

Amy’s blush broke as she snorted with laughter. “You suck at that.” I frowned, but she dropped into my arms all the same. “But yes, let’s go.”

The moment she was secured, I bent my legs, spread my wings, and pushed off… and made it all of five feet into the air. Turns out, flying with wings is weird , especially when you’ve been flying under your own power for years. Luckily, thanks to that, I caught myself, and dramatically faked flapping up further and further, holding Amy in a bridal carry.

Overall, when my flight was all encompassing and self propelling, the wings and tail didn’t actually help that much, but the way they resisted against the wind was interesting in its own way, like having a built in parachute.

I soared up and up, far above the city as I beelined straight toward Dean’s house, though went noticeably a lot slower than I normally would, because Amy couldn’t handle the chill and G-forces like I could. Actually…

I brought my wings in and wrapped them around her, totally encompassing her in my forcefield, making sure to keep the chill out completely. I felt her shivering and the tight grip she had around my neck and waist relax. Only as I started to approach the house of the Stansfields did I let my wings unfurl again, using them to slow myself down gradually. The first time I had carried Amy somewhere, I had stopped way too quickly, and she had almost thrown up. She had just barely peaked out from under her hat at what was going on when I dropped.

Funnily enough, even though I couldn’t really fly with them, I could glide with them, which I had a bit of fun doing as we descended toward the house. Emphasis on I had fun. Amy squealed briefly and buried her face in my collarbone as I finally turned my flight back on, and gave a few dramatic flaps before landing on the driveway up to the house. Several people standing outside in costume saw me come in, with one guy shrieking as he cowered behind his quieter, but no less startled girlfriend.

I deposited my little witchy package on the ground, and she immediately stumbled a few feet, legs shaking before she whirled on me. “Don’t do that, Vicky! You know I don’t like going that fast”

I couldn’t help but snort as she tried to look angry in  that costume. “Oh come on, thanks to my incredible flying, we’re only…” I pulled my phone from my dress pocket. “Fifteen minutes late.”

“Ugh, let’s just get this over with.” Amy muttered, straightening her hat and skirt before marching toward the door.

---------

Amy

---------

“You know, you’re not supposed to be trying to get a party ‘over with’, right?” Vicky said as she followed after me.

I honestly had no idea how she convinced me to do this. Actually, I knew exactly how she did. I knew how much Vicky liked being transformed, and I knew she really wanted me to “make her a costume”, because she’s really not that subtle.

I also, maybe, really enjoy shaping her body, and since we’ve stopped hiding some of the extra parts of my power, Vicky has really wanted to show off, even if I was less eager, but the opportunity to make her happy really outweighed what I wanted to do.

“For you? Maybe. But I’ve already had my fun for the night.” I waved broadly at the house. “The rest of this is just… bleh.”

“Well of course you’re not gonna have fun if you go into this feeling like that.” She stepped up next to me as we made it up to the door, but paused before knocking, and looked me straight in the eyes, dancing, vibrant violet against ivory and gold. “Can you promise me that you’ll try and have fun? Find something to do?”

I sighed. “Fine, I’ll try my best.” It felt like promising to let her down, but if I didn’t, it would ruin her night because she’d be so focused on what I was doing, and even if that sounded great to me, it would be unfair to her.

She smiled, a familiar and comfortable movement for her that was made predatory and menacing because of the massive canines and sharp incisors that currently filled her mouth… I really should have thought that through. On the bright side, if she kisses anyone tonight, they might get severely injured! God, what the fuck is wrong with me.

Victoria turned and knocked on the door, leaving us to wait in anticipation… for all of fifteen seconds before it opened up, revealing the foyer of the Stansfield's house, and… Dean. He was dressed in some lavish prince costume, complete with a doublet and epaulets and what I kind of hoped was a fake sword on his belt, but I wouldn’t be surprised if not.

He was looking away as he opened the door. “Hey, welcome to- Holy shit!” The entire friendly greeting broke the moment he actually looked at the both of us, or more specifically, once he glossed over me and settled on Victoria. He blinked a few times, tilted his head to the side and his mouth fell open for a moment. “Vicky? Is that you?”

“Yup!” I let her walk past me and right into the house like she owned the place, which, given how much time she’s spent here, might not even be totally false. She stopped just inside the door, and I slid inside surreptitiously as those around the entrance turned to gawk at her, and she let her wings unfurl completely. “How do I look?”

Dean continued to sputter, while a girl in a really nice seafoam dress with red hair was briefly stunned, and then looked utterly furious. Eventually, the rich boy superhero finally managed to get his wits about him. “How did you- where did you even…”

“Okay, so you know how I kinda blew you off for the costume swap this year?” She got a little closer to him, her voice dropping quieter, but not quite into a whisper. “Amy’s been experimenting with her powers, and I wanted her to ‘make’ me a costume. Isn’t this great!”

He looked at Vicky for a few seconds, slack jawed, then glanced at me, frowning, and then back and Vicky and blinked before shaking his head. “You didn’t want to go with me, because you brought your sister as a date?”

“What? No! Why would I bring Amy as my date?” They kept talking, wandering further toward the corner, and I took that particular sentence as my cue to leave, taking a wide berth around the red headed girl who seemed to be trying to not have a meltdown watching Dean and Vicky talk.

“Nice costume, Amy.” I almost didn’t recognize the person wrapped in mummy bandages, and even with the voice, I probably wouldn’t have if not for the slight bit of red hair I could see peeking out from the edges of the bandages.

“Oh, hey Dennis. Um… how’s your evening been?”

“Pretty alright,” Her replied. “I already drank too much punch waiting for enough time to go by that I can sneak into the den and start playing video games, and now I’m just lounging around. And the punch hasn’t even been spiked yet because-” He dropped into a whisper and leaned forward. “ The boss would lose it, and has Carlos watching over us.”

“I feel like getting incredibly drunk at teenage parties is how a lot of mistakes are made.” My reply was honestly pretty half hearted, but at this point, if I sat here and talked, I could ignore the fact that I was wandering around alone at a party.

“Well what’s youth without mistakes?” Dennis asked.

I wasn’t quite sure if it was meant to be rhetorical or not, but I answered anyway. “Safe and stable and doesn’t result in you ending up in prison or dead before you turn eighteen?”

Dennis just stared at me, his eyes only barely visible behind the bandages. “You know, you’re a real downer sometimes Amy.”

“So it would seem.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Dean introducing Vicky to the redhead, and despite Vicky’s big toothy smile, I could tell something was off in the way they looked at each other.

“Did you really transform Vicky?”

“Yup.” I realized that I was parched. Even if I didn’t have to be super active, using my power could get exhausting, and I hadn’t drank anything in probably almost two hours.

“That’s really cool, what else can you do- Oh okay, talk to you later.” Partway through his response, I wandered into the kitchen, quickly hurrying over to a water cooler and grabbing a disposable cup which I started to fill.

The moment it was more than half filled, I pulled it away to take a sip, stepping backwards and right into someone. I almost tripped over them, catching the sight of a black fedora landing on the floor as I stumbled, but they caught me, holding me upright until I got my feet under me, and made sure I hadn’t spilled water everywhere

The person I had bumped into was picking up their hat and dusting it off as they babbled. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” I turned to look at them, barely catching a glimpse of brown hair before the shorter girl put the hat back on.

“Uh, yeah, I think so.” I looked her up and down, confused by the outfit. “Um, who are you?”

“Ah, I’m Madison. Emma, Dean’s date invited me to come along.” She toyed with her hat for a few seconds before getting it just right by some unknowable metric.

“Oh…” Dean’s date? Was that why Vicky was so mad? “Um, what are you dressed up as? A gangster?”

She snorted. “What? No, I’m the boogeyman.” In response to what had to be a totally baffled look from me, she continued. “Haven’t you heard? There’s some woman that covers up conspiracies all around the planet, and the one feature anybody remembers is her clothes. A well tailored suit, and a fedora.”

Ah, this girl was crazy. Or just a little too drunk on PHO creepypastas. Either way, this definitely wasn’t the company I was interested in keeping tonight. “Oh, that’s cool, I guess.”

“Mhm.” She nodded, and I slowly slid away, sipping at my water as she went and filled her cup.

There were a few other people in the room, some I recognized and some that I didn’t, though whether that was due to costumes or general unfamiliarity, I wasn’t sure. So I instead wandered over and sat next to a window, watching as a moth bumped against the glass repeatedly.

People were loudly conversing in the foyer, and I could hear Vicky’s voice among them, talking, but too indistinct to understand what she was talking about. Madison wandered over and started to chat with Dennis where he was standing in the short hall leading to the kitchen.

The moth finally stopped its relentless quest to get through its glass barrier, falling still, and I took another sip of water as I slumped against the window frame. I had been here for all of five minutes, and I was already sitting in a corner not interacting with people. So quickly I fell into old habits.

I heard voices start to get a little louder as Dennis and Madison stepped aside, and stepping into the kitchen came Vicky, turned sideways so as not to tear everything off the walls as she walked with her wings. Madison tried to fawn over her but Vicky just smiled and passed her with only the barest hint of attention.

The moment she was in the kitchen though, the accumulated people in the room all turned to gawk at her. It wasn’t surprising. Vicky could turn heads when she was a normal, albeit stunning, teenager. Now she was a walking fairytale creature, resplendent in ivory and gold with a larger than life silhouette thanks to her wings and the tail that jerked back and forth behind her.

People started over to her, greeting her, a few girls I didn’t recognize, a taller guy with tan skin and some pretty good zombie special effects that made him look seriously messed up, who gave her a pretty cordial greeting, and a short girl in a rather generic bright green alien costume that could be nobody other than Missy, who was probably way too young to be here, but somehow slipped in all the same.

Actually… That zombie guy must be Carlos, and I’d seen plenty of abrasions and lacerations- Holy shit that wasn’t a costume. Er, it was, but more in the way Vicky’s was a costume than in the way anybody else’s was. You know what, that took commitment. Good for him.

As Vicky spoke, she seemed to realize that they weren’t just really good special effects as well, and the two had a weird bonding moment as they compared their power influenced costumes, before separating and Victoria started to talk to Missy more seriously, who was oohing and awing over her horns and her wings.

“It’s all so real feeling! I mean, because it is, right? But still, I’m so damn jealous.” She didn’t even really seem to notice Vicky slowly working her way over to me until she was right there. “Oh, hey Amy. You look cute.”

Ah, cute. Because that wasn’t demeaning at all. Not like I’d really expect much else given everything. “Hey Missy. How have you been?”

“Pretty alright. Kind of a lame party though if you ask me. I thought these things were supposed to be exciting.” I considered trying to tell her that it was very possible that things were being kept “PG” because of her, but felt that wasn’t going to help anybody out. “Hey, do you think you could make my antennae real?” She bumped one of the long green appendages that was attached to a band on her forehead. “That would give my, uh, parents a freaking heart attack!”

“Uhh, I’m not actually comfortable doing stuff like that with anybody but Vicky yet.” It was the best response I had available, and not necessarily untrue.

“Ah, that sucks. The reactions would have been priceless.” She shrugged and turned back to the walking embodiment of all that was hot and incredible standing right in front of us. “See ya around, Vicky.”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later, Missy.” Victoria turned back to face me and frowned. “Why are you just sitting in here?”

I just shrugged, not really trusting myself to verbally respond.

“Ames, you promised you’d try and have some fun. You can’t really do that sitting in the kitchen alone.”

“It’s only been like five minutes…” I glanced up at her, then frowned seeing the slight restrained annoyance in her face. She wasn’t mad at me, but she was mad about something. “What’s got you so mad?”

The concern she was pushing to the forefront quickly shattered. “Ugh, Dean decided to bring Emma freaking Barnes as his ‘partner’ because I didn’t want to do the costume trade with him this year.”

I waited for her to elaborate but it didn't happen immediately. There was a knock on the door, and Victoria looked at me again. “Emma Barnes? Alan Barnes’ daughter? Mom’s coworker? I swear I’ve told you this story.”

I thought about it, but Vicky tells a lot of stories, most of which range from “random cape nonsense” to “frivolous teenage drama” and I’m usually not really awake enough when she’s talking to remember much more than that she’s talking to me. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Ah, well she’s a model, and she bullied a disabled girl during a show a while back, calling her names and making fun of her and shit.”

I almost spit out the drink of water that was in my mouth. That had been a lot more serious than I was expecting. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, I know right!” There was something suitably surreal about seeing the imposingly beautiful form of demon Vicky freaking out like this, like a being of her stature shouldn’t concern herself with such mortal things. “She never even said sorry or acted like she felt bad. Hell, she had the gall to look down on us because we stood up for the girl. Like what the fuck is wrong with you?”

I put a hand on her arm before she got any closer to looking like she was going to wring someone's neck. “Yeah, that really sucks. Though I’m sure Dean’s smart enough to notice if she’s really that bad.” The obvious subtext went unsaid.

There was another knock on the door, a little louder this time. “Yeah, you’re right. I know he’s just trying to get back at me a bit, but it’s still infuriating.” She extended a wing, wrapping it around my shoulders like an arm and drawing me into a side hug. It was a distinctly unique experience, and exceptionally warm.

She released me after a few seconds and sat back up. “Now go, find something to do and enjoy yourself. I’m gonna go try and figure out how to navigate with these wings in a way that doesn’t destroy every wall hanging in the house.”

“You should be able to wrap them around your waist like, no, more relaxed than that, almost like another skirt. Yeah, like that.” She managed to let them hang and gently settle them beneath her arms in a way that coincidentally pushed her bust up just the smallest amount, then gave me a thumbs up before wandering off deeper into the house, hips swaying as her tail waved back and forth.

I went to take another drink and was startled by yet another knock, the loudest it had been yet. Deciding to sate my curiosity, I straightened my hat and wandered back to the foyer, entering at the same time Dean did from the other side, looking somewhat flustered as he moved to the door to greet whoever kept pounding on it.

I watched along with a few others as he stopped the new group, the leader of which, a blonde girl about my height, was explaining something about invitations and how she knew him from somewhere.

Eventually, he just let the group in which totaled six people. The main blonde was dressed like a generic catgirl, but with an obnoxious striped purple and pink dress, though she was honestly rocking it. Behind her was another girl, taller with long, curly hair who was wearing a dark formal outfit and enough makeup to totally wash out her face, making her almost corpse white. Whether the slouch and the dead stare was her being in costume or her costume being in her was probably debatable.

Behind her were two people that seemed to have paired costumes, a pretty boy in a circus lion tamer outfit with dark curls peaking out around the edges of his hat, and a coiled whip on his belt. And then there was the lion, which was a butch looking girl with auburn hair wearing a cheap lion costume who looked totally uncomfortable about being here.

Bringing up the rear was the tallest member of the group, a black guy with his hair in cornrows and wearing a big coat and a hockey mask… Huh, I guess I miscounted. There were only five.

They started to break apart, fanning out into the house in multiple directions, with the vampire girl walking toward the kitchen where I was standing. I decided to get out of the way and find somewhere to relax.

And then more than an hour went by of me bouncing from place to place on the Stansfield’s ground floor, purposefully avoiding Vicky every time I heard her coming because I didn’t want her to see me.

Which is how I ended up in one of the dens, sitting on a recliner in a dark room watching some horror movie from the early 80s. Apparently, as somebody more interested in the film explained, it had been taken out of distribution when capes started emerging due to fears of something or another, but I hadn’t really been paying attention to the disclaimers.

The lion girl was cradling the Stansfield’s greyhound, Frankie, in her lap, holding him tight as the tension in the current scene built as a super suspicious dog was led into the kennel for the research base, leaving it alone with all the others.

A dark skinned girl in a costume that was some weird mix of Teeth wannabe and fishnet body stocking mixed with a rather scary looking metal mask was on the other side along with the black guy in the hockey mask. There seemed to be some sort of tension between them, as they leaned away from each other and occasionally leered. I didn’t recognize either of them, but from the way they kept looking at each other, they either wanted to fight or fuck, and I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to be here when they decided.

I tuned back into the movie as all the dogs started to bark and break into a frenzy directed at the suspicious one and- Oh my god it’s face just split open! I started to pay more attention as a long tentacle tongue came out of the resulting hole, and its skin spit to reveal numerous flagellum which started to noisily writhe. Insectile limbs broke from its back, lifting it up as one of the dogs tried to tear its way out.

And then from some sphincter on its other side, it sprayed out a clear fluid, making the dog retreat from its escape attempt. What was it? An irritant? A corrosive? What kind? Was it chemical or enzyme based? What about both? And how did it spray out? How did it build the pressure? So much to think about!

Only as the scene cut away and I found myself annoyed that I was deprived of such stimulating visuals did I realize just how engaged I had become, the blueprints for similar things already on the forefront of my mind, wondering how to make them and what to test them against.

I abruptly stood, crossing my shaking hands, and quietly excused myself from the room, but I hardly made it a few feet before the girl in the part stripper part headhunter costume called out. “Awww, is the little healer afraid of a bit of gore?”

She was clearly trying to get a rise out of me, but I ignored her, continuing out as the girl in the lion costume started to cuss out the girl for interrupting.

And now I felt sick, because the ideas were running rampant and I just wanted to experiment more and test things and make something and…

It was all too much. I only faintly paid attention to that Madison girl running from a room bawling her eyes out as the vampire girl scolded her garish cat girl friend about something I couldn’t quite hear and didn’t care to listen into.

Eventually, I found my way back to the kitchen, and leaned against the window again, looking down at my costume. It was good looking. Vicky had to have spent a bunch of money on it, and Parian a lot of time, and here I was wasting it with not only my body but with my actions. It made me feel bad, like I was letting everybody down. It was also the only thing stopping me  from falling into a panic attack, given that the firm restraints of the corset almost reminded me a hug, and that in turn reminded me of Victoria.

“Amy!” I jumped, glancing to the side to see the devil I had just spoke of walk into the kitchen. Despite what was supposed to be an ivory complexion, her cheeks, neck, and collarbone had turned bright red. “What are you doing in here?”

She didn’t sound angry or disappointed, more like genuinely asking the question and a little excited to see me. She walked over, hips swaying to a gratuitous degree that still looked natural thanks to the tail swinging in parallel behind her. She paused to grab a ghost shaped cookie and stuffed it into her still terrifyingly razor sharp mouth.

“Uh, just taking a break,” I muttered, walking over toward the water cooler, trying to act like that was my plan all along. “I got a little thirsty…” My heart wasn’t in the lie.

She let me get my water and then beckoned me over to the counter where she was sitting, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and jostling me a little. “So, how’s it been?”

“It’s been fine,” I repressed the tiniest jolt as one of her fingers brushed my bare shoulder, and I got a look at her biology. “Vicky, why are you… how are you drunk?”

“Uh, alcohol? How else do you get drunk?” She snorted, then flinched a little as she noticed me glaring. “I’m like, barely buzzed. Trust me, I can handle my booze.”

Taking in her biology, she was… right. If she was normal size, she’d be smashed, but with the blood having to cycle through all the extra mass of her wings and tail, she was actually keeping her blood alcohol content lower than it otherwise would be. The flush seemed to be more the result of her having just been moving strenuously and… thank god, she wasn’t just… doing stuff.

“Okay.” I took a sip of water and sighed, hands still wrapped around the disposable plastic cup.

After a few seconds of us just sitting like that, somebody else walked in, though I didn’t pay much attention to who. “You know you’re the best sister ever, right?”

I just shrugged, not wanting to respond verbally. Not wanting to lie to her anymore.

After a few seconds, I saw somebody walk around the other end of the island we were leaning against. The cat girl once again. Now that I was looking… The costume’s colors were ridiculous, but the work on her little dress and accessories were actually pretty well made, by my incredibly amature eye.

“Hey girls, enjoying the night?” She grinned at both of us as we nodded, slightly hesitantly. “Great, fantastic, I’m having a blast honestly.” She held up a cookie, this one shaped like a crescent moon. “You know what I wish this party had? Gingerbread.”

I almost choked on my water, and I felt Vicky tense, alarm rushing through her body.

The girl continued to grin, the edges of her mouth spreading just a little bit wider. “Yup, gingerbread cookies. My grandma used to make them every fall. Would have made everything perfect.”

Her frankly uncomfortable smile didn’t fall as she bit into the cookie and gave us a wave, walking out of the room.

“That was weird,” I blurted out the moment we were alone again. “Kinda scared the shit out of me, to be honest.”

Victoria chuckled. “Yeah, me too.” Her fingers tapped on the counter for a few seconds before coming to a stop. “Hey, Ames… come with me.”

“Wha-” I was cut off as she grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me through the halls, then down into the basement where the music was at its loudest. I hadn’t come down here yet because of the noise, and I was already getting uncomfortable because it was warmer and stuffier than anywhere else in the house, and we were only halfway down the steps.

It was hardly the den of debauchery that one might expect, but I could smell a bit of alcohol, people were sitting about chatting and moving and being generally way too close to each other. The guy in the lion tamer costume was sitting on a couch and playing video games with Dennis, who had pulled off a bunch of his costume and was sweating like crazy.

“Bullshit!” The redhead dropped the controller. “How much of this fucking game do you play?”

“Doesn’t matter when you’re trash.” The pretty boy set his controller aside and stuffed a slice of pizza into his mouth that came from… somewhere.

Vicky pulled me through the area, and I couldn’t help but spot how everybody turned to watch her. Even hours into the party, she was still turning heads, because her appearance was just so striking. And I made this. I changed her. They were admiring my work… But it was Vicky wearing it. She was the one that made it work. Even though my costume was just as well made, even constructed by a different cape, nobody paid attention to me.

Victoria continued to drag me along, grabbing two sodas from a cooler before sitting me down on a sofa and plopping down herself. “Drink,” She passed the can to me, and I shifted a little bit, undoing the front of my cape to help try and cool down before opening the can and taking a sip of the sugary liquid and trying to not think about how tight my throat felt.

Somebody came over, a girl I might have recognized from Arcadia and started chatting with Vicky, who was sitting somewhat awkwardly on the couch to let her tail free, but despite the angle, she made it look almost effortless, like she had grown up with all her appendages as they were. 

I only really started paying attention again when the girl walked away and Vicky tugged me back in. “Amy!” She whined. “Why are you pouting so much? You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself!” I wanted to respond, to say something, but nothing I could think of made any sense. Nothing was a good answer. “What do you need me to do to help you have a good time?”

I looked up at my sister, with her absurd crown shaped horns and golden eyes and flushed alabaster skin, and I couldn’t help but realize that despite it all, she was still just Victoria.

“Can you just stay here?” I asked, then immediately felt the guilt in the pit of my stomach swell. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to take care of-”

She cut me off by enveloping me in one of her wings, the soft thin fur on the inside like a light blanket. “Don’t worry about it.” She dragged me in, and suddenly her arms were wrapped around me. “I’ve had my fun for tonight… my master. ”

My face exploded into a blush as she whispered the words directly into my ear, and I reflexively grabbed the hat and tugged the rim down over my face as Victoria started to laugh.

I could faintly smell booze on her breath, and her entire body felt so warm, compounded by just how insulated the basement space was, and the scent of her body slowly infiltrated my mind, poking at all the right points to remind me that this was Victoria. My Victoria. And I was still Amy, still her Amy. And we were here, and close, and everything felt so comfortable.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I remembered feeling happy and content. And it was something I’d never forget.

Chapter Text

Amy

---------

Shorten the femur, make it a little more robust, strengthen connection to hip joint, normally doesn’t require full ball and socket articulation, but I’d keep it for convenience sake. Keep the material in the body, repurpose to elongate tibia… Fibula fuses with tibia into a singular bone, only useful for muscle attachments… huh, I didn’t know that. I’d have to check if that had its own name, or if it was still just a tibia.

Not important right now. I had a lot more bone and muscle and tendons and such to work with in order to finish. The bones of her foot had to get way longer, same for her toes, though at least I could keep the density at roughly human levels due to the fact that she wasn’t going to need to fly… er, with wings… in a natural way.

The leg shuddered in my hand, and I snapped out of my trance, pulling my hands away to check on Victoria as she squirmed. “Are you okay?”

Her voice was a little breathy as she responded. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s just, weird feeling so much change at once. You can keep going.”

“You know, this would have probably been easier if you let me just make the legs separate, and swap yours out for them once I was done.” I said, looking up at her, and gently taking hold of her leg again.

I started to change her again, grabbing a blob of extra biomass, and pressing it to her ankle, starting to incorporate all of it, using it to extend the bones of her feet and toes. Digitigrade legs were so weird, and weirder yet was the fact that they were far more common than plantigrade.

“So, how do you-” Victoria shuddered. “How can you even come up with this stuff? I wouldn’t even know where to start. Or is this that encyclopedia you were talking about?”

I hummed to myself, continuing to work. The toes didn’t need to be so long, because she wasn’t quite so weighted forward when compared to the animals I was drawing from. Also, she’d probably want the ability to grab things with them, so something more raptorial would probably be better. After all, she could fly, so why would she need to run on them. And that wasn’t to say she couldn’t! In short bursts, these would probably be even better than her normal legs and-

“So how does that even work?” Victoria was asking, occasionally twitching in response to the biomass rearranging her bones. “You just ask a question and your power answers it?”

I finally stopped focusing as I finished the leg up, and pulled back. It was a bit longer than her other, and the posture would be entirely different, but with the long talons, and broad spread of toes, she might be able to balance… as if I wasn’t going to be doing the same to her other leg… though her short thighs looked weird without the feathers that would normally be covering them if they were on an actual animal.

“Amy!”

I snapped to attention at the sound of Victoria’s voice. She had sat up and was staring at me. “Huh, what’s up?”

“That Encyclopedia thing you were talking about the other day. I was asking how it worked, especially if that’s the thing that gives you headaches.”

I hadn’t really actually thought about how it worked, mostly because I never had a need to use it. “I guess, any time I need a rough blueprint of something that exists in nature, my power gives me a general understanding of how that lifeform works. Like, for example, I could just think about it for a little bit, and get access to bee or ant pheromones that could make them docile. Or I could find the blueprints to make myself seem like a dog or cat in heat to lead animals toward me.”

“Huh, I didn’t think your Thinker power was so strong.” Victoria flopped back, and brought her completed leg up, pointing it into the air as she flexed the long toes, curling them into a ball and relaxing them again. “Is there… stuff like that that works on people?” She asked hesitantly.

I froze as I grabbed her other leg. Almost immediately, human neural recognition structures and glands from both humans and other animals started to pop into my mind, thoroughly describing how the compounds within would induce specific reactions in a neurotypical person-

I swallowed, biting back the information. “Humans have a lot less resources placed into our smell or hearing. We’re much more visual, and we have much less refined instincts, but there’s still certain chemicals that can make people uneasy or afraid, and there’s ways to stimulate happiness, and all sorts of psychoactive compounds found in plants…”

I had sat up so I could look at Victoria as I talked, but saw her face fall as I explained. “Sorry, uh, is something wrong?”

“No, just thinking about stuff.” She didn’t meet my eyes, and I felt my heart go cold. “So, what’s the inspiration for these?” She wiggled one of her clawed toes in my face.

I shoved it away, trying not to grin as I kept changing the other leg. “Cassowaries, ostriches, and eagles, mostly. All birdlike, but with different traits that should be plenty useful, without being too cumbersome, thanks to some other modifications.”

She nodded, and I kept working for another few minutes, things sliding into place and elongating, before the general shape was worked out and finished. I stepped back, taking in my completed work. Her legs beneath the knee, which was actually her ankle, was scaly and hard, with the toes turning into dull talons, that spread out into a four digit claw, three in front, one in back.

Victoria sat up, awkwardly moving her legs to test out the weight before hopping to her feet. She yelped in surprise as she nearly tottered forward, and I lunged forward to catch her, even as she slowed herself with her flight.

I managed to stand her up, and she widened her stance, testing her balance a bit more. “You know, I think I’d want a tail if I were going to seriously try this. Something weighty too, to help me stay upright while I move around.”

“Okay, we’ll keep that in mind.” I stepped to the side as she waddled past me, then started bouncing from one foot to the other. “Anything else to note?”

“You sound like a doctor,” she replied, hopping up into the air, and not coming back down. “Power testing should be a little fun, you know. Especially for the person testing their powers.”

“I am an honorary medical practitioner.” I watched her float around the room, and pause over my desk. “And most of this stuff is pretty easy to me. Not much fun to it, given that you’re the one getting to experiment with the results.” 

She reached down with her new talons and grabbed at my jacket where it was hanging on the back of my chair. After a few groping attempts, she managed to catch the collar and pick it up, passing it to her hand, before dropping it again.

“Well at least one of us finds this stuff easy.” She grumbled, floating over toward me. “Without the built in coordination stuff you did with the arms and tail, this is hard to get the hang of.”

“I could fix that, if you want?”

“No, I should probably get into the mindset of having to actually figure out the inhuman parts,” She replied, closing one claw into a ball, then the other, and opening them again. “It’ll probably make future transformations easier to work with.”

I wasn’t quite so sure how true that was, but I wasn’t going to shoot her down. If it really ended up being necessary, I’d always be here to make things work better.

And contrary to my earlier statement, I was having fun. The transformations themselves were easy, yes, but seeing Victoria smile as she walked around the room, poking at stuff with her new feet, occasionally picking stuff up and slowly putting them back down.

“So, what would make this fun for you?” Vicky tried to do a kick, but the way her hips were oriented, made the whole movement difficult unless she did a simple push kick or more of a clawing motion.

“I don’t know.” I tried to think of ideas, but all of them felt so wrong. Anything that would make me enjoy this more would be taking advantage of her. “I guess, I’m fine just watching you have fun.” 

“Oh, don’t be that way! You haven’t even offered one idea yet since we’ve been doing this.” She landed on the ground. “There has to be something you’re interested in doing with your powers. Like, it’s statistically improbable that you have nothing you’d want to do.”

Of course there’s things I’d want to do, to you, to Carol, to everyone. But I can’t do those things. I just shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“Oh…” I glanced up to see her frowning as she looked off toward the wall. 

What did I say this time? She was pursing her lips, clearly trying to think of something, and I had no idea why she looked so determined all of the sudden. “Maybe you could try picking up… me?”

Victoria’s eyes widened. “Right, I’m so dumb, of course I should try and pick up a person. That’s what these are meant for!” She looked right at me, and hopped into the air, spinning around, and I squeaked as she landed on my shoulders, tightening her talons on either side of my head, tight enough to be firm, but not squeezing enough to hurt. “Alright, you ready?”

I hesitantly nodded, feeling weird that her weight was almost bearing down on me, even if she was clearly keeping herself aloft enough that it barely weighed anything. Slowly, I felt the talon’s dig into my skin as she lifted up, and my own weight pulling down against her grasp, but soon enough, I was off the ground and dangling, with Victoria hanging over me, squatting in a way that placed her lower half uncomfortably close to my head.

It was always interesting to be weightless, but in this instance, it was mostly just uncomfortable. There was no support, so my shoulders hurt a little, and the rest of me just dangled awkwardly. I preferred being in her arms so much more…

We floated back and forth for a moment before Victoria leaned forward and looked down at me. “How do you feel?”

“It’s a little uncomfortable,” I replied honestly, and Victoria floated over, setting me on my bed. I took the moment to roll my arms, before looking back up at her. “Sorry.”

“No, I should have thought that through.” She leaned back in the air, considering her new legs, and rubbing her chin.

“We can move on to something else, if you want?” I offered. There were plenty of other legs to try, and we had only really done a set of cat-like paws so far before this. Surely there was other stuff to do.

“Yeah, just give me a second.” Her eyes darted around the room, and then settled on me, then on the bed. “Got it, stork method!”

“I don’t think storks carry stuff with their-” I was cut off as Victoria landed on one end of the bed, wrapping a bundle of blanket in one talon, then going to the other side fast enough that she almost rolled me off, and grabbed the other end of the blanket.

I glanced up just fast enough to see her grin and pull both sides of the blanket together around me, wrapping me in a bundle as she lifted up into the air again. I yelped as I went briefly weightless, and found myself airborne once again, held up only by Victoria’s claws, flight, and my blanket.

“How’s this!” Victoria twisted across the room, stopping suddenly, and leaving me to sway almost precariously.

She spun me in a circle, just fast enough that I briefly went almost vertical. I almost shrieked, but looked up at her grin, and felt… safe, despite just how crazy and probably dangerous the situation was. I started to laugh even as I yelled for her to stop, and she lowered me back onto the bed.

“Okay fine,” I managed to say through the chuckles, pulling myself from the blankets as Victoria floated down next to me. “That was pretty fun.”

“See! This is what power testing should be about.” She crossed her arms, looking particularly smug. “It’s so much better when you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Yeah yeah,” I looked back over at her and felt like I understood what this had been about. My thoughts flickered back to years ago, to seeing her flat on her back in the middle of a basketball court. Seeing her make no effort to get back up as she looked at me, at us, at Carol and Mark not even acknowledging her, and I hadn’t been enough. “You’re smarter than me, you know that right?”

“What?” She turned back to face me, a frown on her face.

“Just… I’m not that smart, you know. My power makes healing and transformations easy, it tells me what to do, but without them? I don’t think I’d know anything about the human body.” Was this sappy sounding? Was it coming out of nowhere? I really didn’t know, to be honest. “I always feel kind of bad when you talk about hero stuff, and cape stuff, because I just can’t keep up, and I want to be excited with you, but I don’t understand a thing you’re talking about.”

Victoria snorted. “You’re not dumb, Amy.” She turned to face me on the bed. “And you don’t need to understand everything, I’m just happy you’re here to listen.”

She wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and I felt bad again. Not dumb, huh? Then why can’t I even comfort you without you turning it back on me?

Had I been wrong? After all, why would Victoria be anywhere near as fucked up as I am? She’s a hero, and she’s pretty and has friends and Carol and Mark actually love her- Or was she faking it? She always forced herself to be strong, to be amazing at everything she set her mind to, so that she would be noticed, so that she could be recognized and important, and most of all effective . So that people would love her, and I loved her, but was she okay? Was I enough?

It would be easy to check. She was already touching me, I could just… look at her head, not even touch anything, just look at it. And I could probably tell what was going on up there. No, she was my sister. I could put together her feelings the normal way, the human way. I could talk things out with her, and then-

There was a knock at the door, and both of us stiffened. “Girls, what are you doing in there,” Carol called out, and then the knob turned, and the door swung open.

Both of us had been too shocked to move, to hide, to even consider hiding what was going on. We just stared at the door as Carol stepped in, frowning. She was wearing her work clothes, and shouldn’t even be home yet.

She glanced at the two of us, then took in the specifics of the room, the tub still mostly filled with brownish biomass, the disheveled bed, and most importantly, Victoria, her legs still morphed into something bird-like, and animalistic.

After a quiet silence, and her grimacing, she looked back up at the two of us. “What the hell did you do?”

My throat was too closed to even manage to say something, but Vicky clearly didn’t have that issue. “We were just doing some power testing!” She lifted one of her legs. “Amy’s power is super-”

Carol brought up a hand and silenced her. “Power testing is a team activity,” She said, her tone stern. “If you want to come up with ideas, or propose a time to train or practice new things, you should bring it up during a meeting, not do it in secret without letting people know. What if someone got hurt?”

“Amy’s right here. ” Victoria hopped to her feet, er… talons. “We can be careful-”

Carol waved her hand, shaking her head as she stepped back out of the room. “We’re not having this conversation here.” She glared directly at me, “Put her back to normal, then come down stairs, we can talk in the living room.” She closed the door and walked out.

Victoria huffed and sat back down, picking up her phone as I reached toward her. “Sorry, I’ll fix everything-”

“No!” She snapped, pulling away. I flinched back, and she suddenly looked guilty. “Sorry, but no, we’re gonna go talk to her, and I’m keeping these.” She tapped her thigh and stood up.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I replied, standing up hesitantly as Victoria thumbed through her phone, focused. “She seemed really mad, wouldn’t it be better to just do what she wants?”

“Most of the time, yes, but I think she needs to see this for herself.” She seemed to find whatever it was she was looking for on her phone and walked out of the room, looking a lot more comfortable on her talons than she had been moments before.

After a moment, I followed her, already feeling the pit of nerves in my gut. I hated when Carol got mad at me, but normally, if I just did what she wanted, things were fine. But getting yelled at, and then doing the opposite? It made me feel queasy.

I made my way down the stairs, watching Victoria holding the railing in front of me as she descended carefully, her feet too large and awkward for the stairs, but she managed well enough.

I could hear Carol talking in the next room, agitated and annoyed, though I could also hear Mark talking, much quieter, much more subdued.

I didn’t get much of a chance to hesitate, because Victoria stormed right on in without a care, and I hurried after her, not wanting to be behind.

Mark was sitting in his chair, listening as Carol stood and talked about something I didn’t quite catch before she stopped and looked over at us as we entered. Immediately, her eyes darted down to Victoria’s legs, and she frowned. “Didn’t I tell you to fix that?” She asked, looking right at me.

“I told her no,” Victoria replied, then kept speaking as Carol tried to say something. “I want you both to see this, what her power can do if she opens up a little more. She has some crazy potential!”

Mark turned to look at us, and then did a double take as he saw Vicky’s legs, and started to stand as he looked at her. “That… is not what I expected when you said they were ‘experimenting with Amy’s powers’.”

“It’s incredible, right?” Victoria replied. She bounced up and down on the talons, before pulling out her phone. “I have all my notes about everything we’ve done. This is one of the more extreme modifications, but there’s been more.”

She handed over her phone, and Mark took it, squinting as he looked at it. Carol glanced over his shoulder, then frowned. “How long have you two been doing this?”

“Like, a month, but we’ve only had a couple sessions.” Victoria replied.

“And you started with extra arms?” Mark asked, sounding genuinely baffled as he scrolled through Vicky’s phone.

“What, have you never wanted to know what it’s like to have extra arms?” At that, Mark just shrugged and nodded, as if understanding totally.

“That’s not important,” Carol replied. “The problem is that they did potentially dangerous and permanent body modifications without supervision. Just look at her!”

Mark paused, lowering the phone. “The legs do look weird without feathers.”

“I knew it!” I blurted out, and everyone turned to look at me, as I mumbled a quick, “Sorry.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Carol sighed, sitting on the arm of the couch. “Girls, you need to understand that there are times and places to use powers. Just because New Wave merges personal life with superhero life doesn’t mean that we should run around using our powers all the time. Experimentation needs to happen in the proper environments.”

“This is the ‘proper environment’.” Victoria snapped back. “There was a study we read in my Parahumans Science class last month, it talked about how natural experimentation in relaxed and domestic environments leads to better returns than in laboratory settings. The only better place to do this would be in the middle of a fight, and that’s way less safe than our bedrooms!”

Carol paused at that, clearly not ready for such a thought out argument. “I… I still believe that you should have told us, and the team that you were doing something like this.”

“Fine,” Victoria crossed her arms. “Mom, Dad. Amy and I have been experimenting with her powers, transforming my body in certain ways in order to test power interactions and potentially useful modifications for fieldwork and combat.”

It hurt a little to hear her say it like that. It had always felt like fun, like a bonding experience between siblings, rather than something so formal. But that was the way Victoria thought about things, everything looped back to capes and being a superhero. She even cultivated a friend group based on people who might be useful to her in the future of her career.

“And these include…” Mark frowned as he stared at her phone. “A set of cat ears and a tail?” He looked at Victoria, and then at me, and I blushed. Vicky didn’t seem to catch the implication.

“The increased senses could be a game changer, and we haven’t even considered better eyesight or smell. Imagine being able to do the job of a search and rescue dog, but better! And then there’s the increased balance-”

Carol finally cut her off. “Victoria, you’ve made your point. I can believe that you thought this out, and thought you were doing the right thing. But a lot of this stuff, it sounds more like you’re finding excuses to goof off, then really doing power testing. Not to mention that you went behind our back to do this.”

Vicky looked crushed, and for the first time in the arguments struggled to put words together. “I… wha- I was not goofing off. ” She sputtered. “I kept notes, we have rules and precautions to keep things safe, a time limit, a safe word, Amy’s constantly-”

“I’m sorry, a what ?” Mark asked, looking up in shock.

“A time limit?”

“No, after that.”

“Oh, the safe word?”

Mark didn’t say anything, and instead just looked at Carol, who’s eyes widened after a few seconds. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Victoria,” Mark started quietly. “I don’t think that word means what you think it does.”

Now Victoria looked firmly on the back foot. “It’s just a word that one of us can say if anything goes wrong or one of us becomes uncomfortable. It’s like tapping out while wrestling."

Mark just sighed, then looked at me, and seemed to realize how much I’ve been blushing. “Amy, can I ask where you heard that term, and why you chose to use it in this context?”

“Some people in the hospitals talk, and I heard some things from one of the nurses…” I decided that the floor was the most interesting thing in the room at this point, and chose to start tracing the texture of the carpet. “And I thought that it transferred in this situation,” I mumbled.

Mark took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he glanced back down at the phone, and scrolled a little more. “You know, I would have thought Green, Yellow, Red would be better for- Ow!”

Carol had jabbed him in the arm, and turned to face me again. “Clearly somebody at the hospital needs to watch what they’re saying around young girls. And Amy, while it’s smart that you’re being safe, you really should have been doing this with supervision and team approval. Understood?”

“Yes, mom.” I replied quietly. 

The living room got quiet for a few seconds. Victoria was still looking pretty confused about stuff, Mark was scrolling through her notes, and had started to ask about why the cosmetic changes we had done last week were important for field work, which led to Vicky starting a tirade about appearance and fashion. Carol stayed eerily quiet, just listening until there was a knock at the front door, followed by the sound of it opening.

We all glanced over to watch as Sarah and Crystal walked into the living room. “Now what was this team emergency about- Why does Victoria have bird legs?”

Crystal finally got to an angle to glance down and her eyes widened. “Holy shit, that’s crazy! How did that happen?” She pulled out her phone, raising the camera to point at us, only for Sarah to push it back down.

“Amy and Victoria have been ‘experimenting’ for almost a month now,” Carol said, standing. “Victoria has been allowing numerous changes to be done to her body, supposedly for the sake of testing field applications of body modifications.”

Sarah was still staring at Vicky’s legs as she shifted her weight back and forth. “And these modifications include?”

“Extra arms,” Mark began. “Numerous tails, both prehensile and not, several different styles of animal ears, apparently with significantly better hearing, various skin pigmentations, including bioluminescent ones, eye color changes, and even hair enhancements.”

“Wait, Amy, you can give tattoos?” Crystal asked, hope in her eyes.

I had just started nodding when Sarah turned on her daughter. “No. You’re not getting a tattoo, power created or otherwise.”

“What?” She whined. “You let Eric dye his hair blue, but I can’t get one tattoo?”

“Hair dye isn’t permanent, Crystal.”

“Neither are Amy’s tattoos, clearly!”

They stared at each other for a moment before Sarah just shook her head, “We can talk about this later.” She turned back to face all of us, only glancing at Victoria’s legs for a moment. “I’d ask if all of this was true, but I’m looking straight at the evidence.”

“I just wanted to help the team,” Victoria muttered. “And I wanted to be able to show that it would be worth it by the time I brought it up.”

Things were quiet for a few seconds, before Carol leaned over. “Sarah, they had been keeping this secret from us, and had even developed rules and limits to hide it, and… and a safe word.”

“Huh,” Crystal muttered. “I would think Green, Yellow, Red would work better-” She stopped as Sarah glared at her.

“Regardless,” Sarah said finally. “This is a pretty serious breach of trust. We, as a team, need to know how each member are using their abilities, for communication and cohesion. How long until you decided to tell us? Would you have tried to go on a patrol with a modification first? What if something went wrong? We supervise testing so that we can work better together.”

Vicky shifted again, looking down at her talons before nodding. “Okay, got it. You know what, this is good! I can demonstrate to pretty much everybody why this is so great.”

She walked over to an end table and brought her leg up, gently wrapping the claw around the lamp that was on it and lifting it up. She then held up her hands to show they were totally free, before placing it back down. I glanced around, nervous as Mark and Crystal seemed impressed, but Carol looked toward Sarah, who seemed the opposite.

Victoria swallowed, and then I watched her lift into the air. There was a moment where she looked like she was bracing to be called out for flying in the house, but everyone just watched her as she floated a foot off the ground. I gave her a thumbs up and a smile, and she nodded, shifting over until she was above Mark’s recliner, and placed a single talon on top of it. After a moment of shifting her position, she tightened her grip, not cutting into it thanks to the dull claws, and floated straight up, lifting the entire chair with her, and then holding it out in front of her.

That got much more of a reaction. Mark and Crystal outright clapped as Victoria set it back down and landed, whereas Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Your forcefield spreads to the modified parts?”

Victoria nodded excitedly. “ Yes! It seems that my power can recalibrate and recognize any changes as extensions of ‘me’, so anything Amy changes, gets super strength and invincibility.” She turned and looked at Carol. “Imagine being able to fight with four swords instead of two,” then to Mark, “Or having better shaped arms for throwing your grenades,” then to Sarah and Crystal. “What about eyesight as good as a hawk so you could perfectly aim at longer ranges? We could be better than ever!”

The four others in the room all glanced at each other quietly before Sarah spoke up at last. “We’ll have to consider it at our next meeting, so get all of your notes straight, and you can make your arguments then.”

Vicky nodded, then paused. “So, can we continue to do... this?” She asked, looking first at Sarah, and then at Carol.

After a few seconds of silent consideration, Carol spoke up. “As long as you stay safe and careful, and keep track of the things you test, I think that you can continue to do these experiments.”

Victoria smiled at her, then at me, and I felt my heart rate pick up. Just as she went to say something, a rapid beep started to ring through the living room.

Mark held up Vicky’s phone, which showed a completed timer. “Ah, shoot.” Vicky took the phone back and silenced it as I stepped toward her. “Can we go for another thirty minutes? I had other stuff I wanted to try.”

“The timer’s the timer,” I replied, shaking my head, and I watched her face fall. “Sorry, but maybe another time?” That seemed to cheer her up again, as if I reminded her that there would be a next time.

And wasn’t that a thought! Sarah and Carol knew, and they were okay with it! We could keep going, they didn’t think I was a monster. Not yet, at least. It made me feel a bit guilty again, as I looked at Vicky, that she still somehow trusted me, knowing what I could do to her. But she was having fun, we were having a good time, and if I could just keep it to something sisterly, then maybe I could handle it.

I gestured toward the staircase, and started to follow Victoria up to my room. Carol and Sarah had stepped away and were chatting, while Mark had taken a seat again.

“Remind me to tell you two about Green, Yellow, Red!” Crystal called out as she headed toward the front door, receiving another glare from her mother as she fled.

Back in my room, I turned, ready to fix Victoria, only to feel her arms wrap around me. “Thank you,” She muttered.

“I didn’t even do anything,” I replied quietly, not able to return the hug thanks to the angle. “I wish I could have helped you convince them.”

“You were there, that was enough.” She pulled away, and flopped down on the bed, holding her legs up. “Alright, give me my legs back. These are fun, but definitely not for me.”

“Well, they’re not really for walking, you know, at least not for humans.” I knelt, touching her thigh, and beginning to restructure bones, lengthening and thinning her femur out, recreating her fibula and making her tibia much smaller, reducing the size of her toes and ankle, one at a time, and bringing everything back to being Victoria. Fleshy, supple, beautiful Victoria.

I paused to look up at her as I finished her first leg, and she gave me a reassuring smile as I tossed the remaining extra biomass into the tub, and moved onto the next. And then… I had a thought.

“We’re gonna keep doing this, right?” I asked.

“Well, I’d certainly hope so,” Vicky replied. “Even outside of the power testing and stuff, this has been one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. And I’d love to be able to go out in public with something, even if it was just a small change.”

“Okay, so I can… I can sort of make all of the biomass-” I held up a blob of the stuff I had pulled from her foot as it had started to come back together into something approaching human. “Into you. I’m not sure how this version would hold up over long periods of time, but sort of like a virus, I can turn some of the material into genetically you, and that way, any time I alter you with stuff, it will just be more you.”

“I think I understand what you’re saying. Won’t that make it more difficult to make modifications to the rest of New Wave though? Because then it might be rejected?”

“You’re basically all related,” I deadpanned, and she nodded in understanding. “It should be easy enough to make the smallest changes to make sure things match up for them, and maybe I’ll keep some of the current batch. It will just make your changes easier and more streamlined, and they’ll be able to last a lot longer. If you want?”

She hummed for a moment. “Sure, let’s do it. If we can make everything go smoother, and that makes stuff easier for you, then that sounds good to me.”

I ran a hand across her leg, and felt her shudder from the motion once again as I drew the specially made biomass up into my hand and around my fingers along with the smallest amount of her blood. From there, I continued to modify, focusing on a single cell that became something of an embryo, to which I fed Vicky’s genetic information, and structured it with one purpose. Consume the biomass I had created, and reproduce itself into stem cells of Victoria Dallon. And once I had it started, I tossed it into the bin.

“There it goes,” I muttered, and turned my attention back to her leg, doing the finishing touches and ensuring everything was in place before I got up and stepped away.

Vicky got to her feet, and I helped keep her steady as she took a few seconds to reacclimate to having human legs again. “Well, I’m hungry. Until next time?”

I nodded as she stepped out of my room, and I flopped onto my bed. This was the closest me and Victoria had ever been. I was so excited, so happy, and as I lay down, I felt paradoxically relaxed. It was like stretching a muscle that was bundled up for years and years, and even if it wasn’t going as far as it could, it was still far more comfortable than where it had been. I silently thanked Victoria right back, and let my mind wander for a bit.