Amelia, Ch 213
"Have to admit, for a cold recruitment, this works out really nice," Taylor said as she plopped down next to me in bed. She and her dad had worked out a sort of Sunday tradition where she stayed there Saturday night and they spent most of Sunday together. Weekends were sort of a dead time at the base anyway. I usually spent that time with Riley. Or sometimes I just got a nice day off from talking to former supervillains about world threatening crisis. There was a lot to be said about vacations. At least things are getting better, I told myself. Fallen gone, Teeth gone, more and more groups joining our alternative-to-the-Protectorate alliance. Other than the Elite, there no longer were any human threats on this continent that would require our direct intervention. It was nice.
"Definitely could have been worse," I agreed, snuggling up against my partner. Mutant plant spiders just didn't compare. Although Snowball had decided its new place was on Taylor's lap. The thing was cute, in a weird sort of way. I idly scratched between its large, shiny, and numerous eyes.
"Knock knock, lovebirds!" Lisa shouted from outside our door. "I'm coming in! Please have your pants on this time!"
AnnoyancePride. "She only ever does that when she's bringing a visitor," Taylor observed. I, meanwhile, had sent the command for the door to open. Riley rushed in first, while Lisa and Arianna stood in the doorway. ConcernWorrySecrecy.
"Snowball! I've been looking for you everwhere!" Riley chided the gigantic albino spider. It seemed excitedly happy to see her, in as much as the thing had no actual emotions. It quickly hopped off Taylor's lap and scuttled energetically toward its creator. "See, isn't he adorable?" Riley picked up the easily four foot long imitation arachnid. Arianna seemed only slightly put off by the display.
"Umm... sure..." the girl gingerly reached out and patted Snowball, which resulted in much happy purring. "This is easily the cutest spider in the world. I think. Either that or it's the most horrible cat?"
"It's actually made of plant material," Lisa informed. "It's never been a cat or a spider or any other animal. Pretty much a walking Chia pet."
"You made this out of a plant?" she looked at me like I'd just performed a miracle. I guess, in a weird way, it was.
"See, told you she can do pretty much anything," Vicky answered.
"So, umm, what's going on?" Taylor glanced from Lisa to Arianna and Riley. I felt the same concern. We sorta didn't want the newbies around the child formerly known as Bonesaw. That was never the recipe for anything good.
"Relax," Lisa replied. "She's okay with it. Easier to get it out of the way. Like ripping off a bandaid."
"Yeah," Arianna agreed. "Riley's adorable. You two must be so proud."
"Proud?" Taylor asked. ConfusionMisgiving.
"Of your daughter, yes," Arianna replied. "I swear I won't tell anyone that you two created a test tube baby with each other and then accidentally accelerated its growth to the point where she was a teenager."
What? I blinked. ConfusionHorror.
Vicky started laughing hysterically, followed quickly by Lisa. "What have you been telling the new girl?!" I yelled.
"I'm just. Messing around," Arianna said as she laughed so hard that she struggled to speak. "I know. Bonesaw. Not a deal. Can't. Breathe. Pay up."
"Please tell me you got that on camera!" Zach shouted from the other room.
"The fuck do you actually want?" Taylor sighed. ResignationAnnoyanceAmusement. She couldn't hide the smile on her face. Honestly it was kinda funny. I would be getting my revenge, of course, but I gave up pretending not to smile.
"Well, I was just going over new identities with Arianna here, and she's kinda got an interesting request," Lisa informed. "Not a difficult one, but pretty major for us to take care of before all the paperwork is created and passed through the PRT."
"Alright, what do you need?"
"Umm... Vicky said you can change everything, right down to the DNA if you wanted?" for the first time since I met her, she seemed hesitant. One would imagine everything else, plus or minus Bonesaw, would be the scary part, but not in this case.
"Pretty much," I replied. "It's a little imprecise at that level. I can't really predict the changes or understand them. All I do is decide I want the results to be permanent, and my power handles the rest. I also won't be able to change you back to your original genetics afterward. I might be able to get close, but certainly not exact. Too many variables in the code, plus junk DNA, plus innumerable other factors. Once we do something like that, there really is no changing you back."
"But that's okay because we already have your DNA on file for your clone, plus the brain scan," Riley volunteered. "We've had some bad luck with our revival tech and incorrect genetics. Without your original code, we might not be able to restore your powers when we bring you back."
"Good to know," Arianna agreed. "So, umm... you'd be able to turn me into a boy?"
"I... sure?" I answered. "You know you don't need to go to that extreme. I could even make you cosmetically male without doing genetic alterations. A lot easier to reverse that way."
"No, I want the full package," she answered. "Err, no pun intended this time."
"You're absolute certain you want to do it like this?" I asked.
"Ever since I was twelve years old," she insisted. "You're just correcting a mistake nature made. Can you do it?"
RealizationUnderstanding. "Oh... sorry for being so obtuse about it," I apologized.
"Hey, I don't like to talk about it much, either," she shrugged.
"Look at it this way," Vicky added. "We go in, kick ass, walk away with the supervillian mob boss's daughter, and suddenly add a new heroine on our team. Strike me as something people are gonna figure out. This is the best disguise ever. And it's not even like this is a life altering decision or anything. If he doesn't like it, he's back to being a she in a day or two at the most."
"Yeah. It'll be a little more complex than what I usually do when working on people," I told her. Him? Whatever. "The Yggdrasil is easy because it's customized to respond to my power perfectly. You're not. So, first, how old are you?"
"Just turned twenty, why?" she asked.
"There are laws about this sort of thing," I answered.
"Which we'd probably break anyway," Vicky added. "Like I said, this job has the best perks. Ever. Of all time."
"Probably," I admitted. I appraised Arianna. She was pretty tall for a girl, maybe a little taller than Taylor. A nice face, pixie style haircut that suddenly took on a new meaning to me. A fair amount of pudge. Not a huge amount and with her height she carried it nicely, but I'd guess her weight at around a couple hundred pounds. Yeah, there was certainly mass enough to work with. No need for extreme measures to do what needed to be done here. "So, any preferences?"
"Well... I've already got the Italian thing going for me," she started. "So... think you can do a young John Stamos? Sure, he's actually Greek, but close enough."
"Umm, maybe if you get some pictures?" I offered.
"You don't know who I'm talking about, do you?" she looked disappointed.
"Not even a little bit," I admitted. I looked over at Taylor, who simply shrugged.
"Great," she sighed. "Now I feel old. So, uh, will the process be difficult?"
"Not really," I answered. "You have the mass I need. The rest is the easy part. I can't just pull matter out of nowhere when using my power, and fusing other lifeforms together gets ugly really fast."
"So, if I asked you to make me taller, it wouldn't work?" she sighed unhappily.
"Not without it hurting like hell and taking an hour or two," I told her. "But I can tweak your growth patterns a little. Minor growth spurt, not much different than all the others you go through as a teenager. You'll have to wait a few months to get the extra height, but we can totally make it happen."
"Sounds good to me," she agreed.
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A/N- I keep making that RvB reference. No one ever spots it.
