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Author's Note: Here's chapter 6 of Syryn's Song. Thank you as always to all my readers for the comments, kudos, and thinking that my work is worth reading. Also thanks to the Big Closet team who work tirelessly to give us all a wonderfully supportive venue to read and post TG fiction ~Amethyst.
 

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Chapter 6: Birthday
 

The next month passed in a blur of day long training sessions, and band practices most of the evenings. We were training even when the members of Aegis were off on missions, since we pretty much knew our routines by now. It was exhausting, but we were getting damn good as a band and not too shabby with our powers either. I had a lot more control over my abilities now and the daily workouts were keeping me in excellent shape as well. Ian and I were also going steady now, though we were taking things slow since he wanted to make sure I was ready for a physical relationship before going that far.

In other news, the website for the Battle of the Bands had announced the twelve entrants who would be competing for the title and the two thousand dollar prize. We were there, but so was Red Prophesy. The other bands consisted of Unsafe Company, Torpedo Agenda, Naked Effigy, One Dagger Mutiny, Invader Edict, The Cramps, The Metal Dolls, Drunk Uncle, Black Malice, and Nuclear Bong. While I was pleased that we had been selected I also noted that we were near the bottom of the list and all the other bands were hard rock or metal.

“How long?” I asked Tessily as I pulled myself from the pool on Friday August sixteenth, following another rigorous day of training followed by underwater meditation. She had had me following our training each day by meditating and performing the various mental exercises she had taught me under water until I absolutely needed air. It usually helped me to relax after all the physical training and pushing my telekinetic abilities to their limits, and it was really helping me to hone my mind as well. My control and precision with my powers was really improving since she had started training me two and a half months earlier.

“One hour and thirty eight minutes,” she responded with a smile as she handed me a towel. The smile was replaced by a look of uncertainty though as she paused briefly before speaking again. “Candice, before you return to your abode to prepare for your meeting and practice there is a matter that I would like to discuss with you. Would you mind joining me in my sanctum?”

I already had a lot on my mind with getting the band ready for the battle of the bands in two weeks, worrying about who was going to be our agent and manager, it being my first birthday as a girl, and my upcoming meeting with Liberty and Blackout to discuss the progress of my team. Now I had something more to worry about it seemed. With the uncertain expression on her face I wondered if I had done something wrong. While Tessily usually took everything seriously to some degree, there was this determination in her eyes I had only seen rarely. Whatever it was she wanted to speak to me about, she wasn’t sure if she should bring it up, but she was making herself do it regardless.

If it weren’t for the seriousness and uncertainty in her expression I might have just written it off as her wanting to do something for my birthday. I had already been surprised with an impromptu party and gifts from all my band mates this morning: John and Mai had chipped in to get me a really nice mic stand tor my wireless mic, Leslie had bought me a diver’s watch, Amy had gone shopping with Kim to get me a silk bathrobe that matched my hair, and Ian had gotten me an acoustic guitar, with a promise that he would start teaching me to play when we had free time. The Fae though still didn’t follow a lot of human customs though, so that couldn’t be it. No, Tessily wanted to talk to me about something serious, I could feel it.

I looked up at the clock over the pool, as I began towelling myself off, and saw that it was only three thirty, and that only made me more worried since we usually didn’t finish for the day for another hour or so. That meant I still had an hour and a half before my meeting, but what could she need to speak with me about so badly that she would deliberately cut practice short? Pushing my worries aside and firmly clamping down on my empathy so my feelings wouldn’t leak out when I spoke, I nodded. It was probably better to get whatever it was out of the way. “Sure Tessily, it looks like I have enough time for it,” I told her with as much of a smile as I could muster.

Once I was dry, and had put my new bathrobe on over my bathing suit, the Fae woman led the way out of the pool and toward the elevator we used to go from the sub-levels to the apartments. This elevator was in the corner of the building furthest away from the main and side entrances, away from the prying eyes of any visitors and hidden by hologram emitters that made it look like a normal wall. Blake had made sure nobody would be able to see it and it only opened to the voice commands of team members whose voice prints had been registered.

Once we were on the ground floor, I followed her to the one bedroom apartment she lived in. I had never been in her home before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from her living space, especially with her allergy to many synthetic materials. She had only been freed from her curse and living here under the name of Tess O’Brien for two years now, so I doubted that she had embraced human culture yet. The longing in her voice whenever she spoke with me about her people made me doubly sure of that.

She opened the door to the apartment and I wasn’t really all that surprised by what I saw. The living room was well lit with hardwood floors and was dominated by the green of various potted plants, herbs, and even some growing vegetables that gave the place the feel of almost being in a forest or jungle. Seriously, the room was filled with them, like some indoor garden and the only furniture was in the centre of the room; a pair of wooden garden benches and some large sitting cushions in dark blue that I figured were cotton and filled with down. A quick look around told me that the kitchen was left more functional, but I figured that her bedroom was much the same as what I was looking at now.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I told her honestly as I finished getting a look at everything. I took a deep breath of the scents of the flowers and other plants around me as I did so and couldn’t help but smile. It was very relaxing, and probably helped her feel as close to being at home as a Fae living in New York City could.

She smiled as she responded, “Thank you Candice, and please make yourself comfortable.” Some of the uncertainty seemed to leave her as she took a seat cross-legged on one of the cushions and breathed in the subtle scents of the plants around us. She had explained to me when we first started training that the Fae have very acute senses, which was why Blake had fitted the pool with an advanced automated sea salt filtration and cleaning system rather than a regular chlorine one.

I decided to sit on the cushion closest to her, copying her own pose as I got right to the point. I needed to get this over with before it made me even more nervous than it already was. “So you wanted to talk to me about something?”

The silver haired elf nodded and took a deep breath before speaking. “Candice, since I began training you, you have been reminding me more and more of my own people. It is not just your appearance, but who you are inside as well, the way you value life, and how you have learned our fighting style so quickly. We are ready to go well beyond the basics that I have been teaching you so far, and my feeling of kinship to you deepens each day. My kerridae has long since vanished and I have yet to find any others that remain…” She paused uncertainly before she finally said, “That is why I have brought you here, to ask you if you would be willing to undergo the Minari an Ciele.”

Tessily had taught me some basic words from the Fae language, but I had no idea what she was talking about. It didn’t seem like I was doing anything wrong, but I had no clue what she seemed to want from me either. All I did know was that kerridae was the Fae word for a community of Fae, she had explained it once after using the term by mistake and told me that in English they could be referred to as a troupe. “Huh?” I inquired, oh-so-cleverly.

“My people can produce children only very rarely,” she said with a sad look on her face. “Each child we did have were great treasures for our kerridae and loved by all, but many of us who did not have children still longed for one of our own. Long ago we began taking in orphans and stealing away children who were unwanted or badly abused. Sometimes we would leave a Changeling in the child’s place for a time to give us the time to get them away safely. I know that some of the Yiantuul-sair, Fae that have embraced the darkness, took infants as well. These were not children of our own though, they shared neither our blood nor our clan marks, so we came up with the Minari an Ciele to create a stronger bond with our adopted children.”

“You want to adopt me?!” I blurted out as I realized where this was going.

She nodded slowly. “Not in the human sense of the word, but yes, and I thought that this would be an appropriate day to ask you. I asked Tara about this and it would not be recognized here in the human world unless we have the documents and certificate for an official adoption. She has offered to help with that process, should we choose to do that though. Since we are both in her system and you were legally a ward of the state she could attain those documents and alter our files accordingly. What I speak of though is more of a magically binding vow, on my part only; you would have no obligations other than those you choose to place on yourself.”

“What exactly does this involve?” I asked. Technically and legally I had no parents now, and my birth mother had made it quite clear that she didn’t consider me her child, or even human, anymore. Also, the thought that Tessily thought enough of me to ask this was very flattering. I had come to like her very much during our time together. Sure most of that time was training, but she was always encouraging and caring and I thought sometimes that she worried about me more than she let on. She was teaching me a lot of things about her people that didn’t fall under training my powers as well, and we had done a lot of bonding.

“There would be an exchange of a small amount of blood from both of us, a few drops would suffice,” she explained, watching my face for my reaction. “Then I would use a spell to activate the magic in my blood to give you the mark of my clan. If we do this I will not be able to take another adoptee for another fifty years. I believe that I am making the right choice with you though; you are so much like one of my people, and you are trying to develop your powers, but you do not wish to abuse them. I do not think I could possibly choose a better child for myself.”

I stared at her for a moment as I considered what she was saying. I was of course deeply flattered that she thought so highly of me and had come to care for me so much in such a short time. There was also the revelation that she was choosing me, despite the fact that she could not do so again for fifty years, if that was true then she would never have offered if she weren’t certain about this. A few drops of blood didn’t really bother me too much, but this mark she mentioned had me curious. “What is this clan mark? Is it like a tattoo or something?”

After a moment’s thought she nodded. “Some could see it as that, but all Fae are born with the mark of their clan. These marks show that we carry the magic of our clan’s lineage, in the case of a child with parents from two clans they show what clan that child is aligned to, and they allow us to use the ability unique to our clan. There are many clans and each clan has a different ability, such as the Changeling’s shape shifting and the Pixies ability to take a pixie form to fly and increase their magical energy. Having the mark of the Royal Clan you would gain our ability, though it would not be near as powerful as it would in a true Fae.”

“And just what is your clan’s ability?” I inquired, wondering why she had not explained it along with the other two clans she had used as examples. “You’ve never mentioned it before and the only magic I’ve ever seen you use is on your arrows.”

She answered my unspoken question first. “I told you of the Changelings and Pixies first because, of all the clans, your people seem most familiar with them. As for the mark of my clan, it has very little use in the world of modern humans. You see Candice, ours is the power to command creatures of magic, including other Fae.” She sighed sadly and looked away before taking a slow breath and returning her gaze to me. “The other clans believe that our mark only inspires loyalty and confidence, but in truth it is far more than that. When we command a magical creature it will obey without pause. Fae and other intelligent species bound to magic can sometimes resist us, but only if they are very strong willed and the command feels wrong to them. Only others who wear our clan mark and non-magical creatures are completely immune though.”

“That sounds like an easy ability to abuse,” I said with a frown once I had stopped staring at her.

“It is,” she agreed, nodding soberly. “That is why I have chosen to never use it on another sentient creature, especially one of my own people. I would rather my people follow me because they wish to, not because I have commanded them to. If I make an error in judgement my people should be allowed to question that error. My elder sister Minira did not feel as I did though, which was why our father chose me to lead our people before he died. I fear for what has become of my kerridae under her rule. Ours is not so much a clan as a royal lineage, each kerridae has one, and we two are the last of that line unless she has had a child during my long absence.”

“I hope we can find them someday,” I told her sincerely, reaching out to comfort her by taking her hand in my own.

Tessily shook off her sadness and smiled at me. “I shall not give up on finding my people, but I feel like there is one with me here now. Do you have any other questions about this?”

“I was wondering how having that mark will affect me. I’m not Fae, but I’m not exactly human either,” I said while tapping one of my pointed ears.

“My father adopted a human while I was a young girl,” she spoke with a pensive expression. “She could not command Fae, but in time she became very adept at commanding less intelligent magical creatures, such as elementals and she had a unicorn she was very fond of. The mark made her inherently magical as well and I suspect that the same would be true for you, so experienced magic users will probably be able to sense something different about you. You would be able to sense them as well though, and see magical creatures shielded from the sight of mortals. You do not need to worry about physical changes, if that is your concern.”

I breathed a sigh of relief before replying, “Good, I think one traumatic physical change was enough for one lifetime. So, other than possibly getting the attention of magic users and gaining the ability to see and command creatures that no longer exist, there’s nothing to worry about?”

“Nothing that I am aware of,” the silver haired Fae woman agreed, “but your assumption that magical creatures no longer exist is incorrect. There are many magical creatures on other planes, and even some still on our world, but they prefer to live in natural places with a high concentration of magic. They would avoid cities like this, unless summoned or drawn to a large source of raw magical energy or a powerful force of nature.”

I took nearly fifteen minutes then to consider things very carefully, since I didn’t want to just jump into a decision like this. Tessily merely waited quietly and I figured that she knew me well enough by now to know that I needed to do that. She really seemed to want this though, and I had to admit that I felt a sort of kinship to her. It wasn’t just the pointed ears or that we would both look strange to normal people without a disguise, it went much deeper than that. We had similar values and the more I learned about her people the more interesting it was to me. There was also the fact that we had both been cast out by the only family we had and we both knew what it meant to lose our purpose in life.

I knew that it was stupid of me, but sometimes I still missed my birth mother and wanted to call her or try to see her. At the same time though, I still felt the anger at her betrayal and abandonment of me when I needed her the most. Since we had come to New York Aegis had become like a new family for Leslie and me both and while Leslie had found a caring mentor in Lisa, Tessliy had been that and more for me; teaching me all sorts of things, offering advice when I needed it, or just being there when I felt down about my differences and alone in the world. Leslie was like a sister to me, but Tessily had been my mother figure in this strange new family of ours. What was the harm in making that role official to her if it made her happy? We didn’t even need to make it a legal adoption unless we both decided later that it was something we wanted.

Then there were the aspects of agreeing to take her mark. Tessily was a magical being, but she didn’t seem to have mages coming out of the woodwork to attack her so that didn’t really concern me too much. I was going to have to get used to getting attention anyway, looking like I do and choosing to become a rock star/superhero. Seeing and commanding magical creatures probably wouldn’t even be an ability I’d be able to use much, though that might fall under the same decision-making category as a condom: I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. I also respected Tessily’s restraint while possessing such an ability. It takes a damn good person to be able to command other people to do your bidding, but not do so for moral reasons.

Finally I nodded. “How do we do this?”

First Tessily had me choose where I wanted the mark to be, while she prepared a few things. She was born with hers on her upper back, but since the ritual would allow her to place it anywhere on my body we both wanted to choose a spot where a tattoo wouldn’t look too out of place. We decided on my right shoulder and she used a small knife with a narrow blade to make a small incision. Then she made a small cut on her right hand as well and placed her slowly bleeding hand against my shoulder to mix our blood.

What followed next was Tessily chanting something in the Fae language with a look of concentration on her face. I had no idea what she was saying, but I had this intense tingling sensation where her hand met my shoulder. When she finished she used a wet cloth to wipe the blood off our skin. There wasn’t near as much as I had been expecting though and when I checked my shoulder in the small hand mirror she offered me there was no sign of a cut on my light blue skin. In its place there was what looked like a black and gold tattoo, roughly three inches in diameter, of a six pointed star entwined in leafy vines.

“That’s kind of cool,” I said as I looked at it. I could feel a sort of warmth fading from the mark and looking at Tessily I could sense that faint warmth fading from her as well. Was that what magic felt like? I put down the mirror and smiled at her, “So what happens now?” I asked uncertainly.

Tessliy seemed to get what I was talking about without me having to say it. She wrapped me up in a hug before speaking. “We go on as we were before; I will teach you more about our people and our language, in addition to the combat training and assisting you in developing your powers, and should you need me for anything else I shall be here for you. There are some things we could do to spend time together outside of regular training as well if you would like.”

“That sounds nice,” I agreed. I meant it too, I liked Tessily, I felt even more connected to her now than I had before, and spending time with her outside of training would help me to figure out if I might want to make this adoption official.

She reached behind the cushion she was sitting on and produced a small wrapped box. “Thank you for this; I cannot express properly how much this means to me. I had Lisa help me purchase something for you; I am told it is a human custom to give gifts on the date of a loved-one’s birth.”

I looked at the small box wrapped in light blue paper and tied with a pink ribbon uncertainly for a moment before beginning to open it. “Thank you, you didn’t need to do that, you’ve given me enough since we met.” Once I had the box unwrapped and opened I discovered a simple silver bracelet with something engraved on the inside. “Hanun lien”? I asked curiously. It wasn’t a Fae term that I had heard her use before. Sometimes I couldn’t be sure whether or not she needed a reminder that I wasn’t actually one of her people. Her desire to adopt me using that ritual showed that she knew it consciously, but sometimes she needed to explain the Fae terms she used so casually around me.

“It means ‘treasured child’,” the Fae princess explained as I put the bracelet on my right wrist, “it is a term of affection my people use for our adoptees.” She hugged me and then got gracefully to her feet. “Now, you had best go prepare for your meeting with Lisa and Nick, I do not wish for you to be late because of me.”

It turned out that my meeting with Liberty and Blackout was nothing to be too concerned about either. When I arrived at the situation room after a very quick shower, wearing a pair of jeans and a halter top, I found Lisa and Nick without their masks and relaxing at the large shield shaped table with cups of coffee. It seemed that this was just going to be a casual meeting. “Take a load off birthday girl,” Lisa told me with a smile as I sighed in relief. I took a seat to Lisa’s right and as I was getting comfortable her smile became even broader as caught sight of the new mark on my shoulder. “So Tess actually asked you did she? She’s been fretting about it for days, worried you would say no.”

I wasn’t really surprised that Tessily would have talked about her desire to ‘adopt’ me with Lisa. As the only two female members of Aegis, the two of them tended to spend a lot of their off time together and had become very close over the past two years. If she would have discussed it with anyone it would have been Lisa, and Lisa had helped with the gift as well. “I wasn’t sure what to think at first,” I admitted, “but she’s been a great teacher and more to me and I’ve come to like her a lot. We have a lot in common.”

“I’m glad you two have found a sort of family in one another,” she said candidly. “This whole team is a family, but having a tangible family bond can mean a lot when things get hard. Tess is very proud of you, you know.”

Nick nodded in agreement. “So are we, of all of you kids. You’ve all really put a lot of effort into your training since you joined us. Tess says you’ve got the basics of what she can teach you down. She wants to go on to a few more advanced things, but we can probably cut your training for your powers and the physical stuff down to a few hours a day, and add an hour of team training for all of you. After lunch you’ll all be free to study and have some free time for other things.”

“Study?” I asked, wondering what they were talking about.

Nick handed me a silver flash drive. “That has a database of super villains known to operate in the New York area, both Hyper and otherwise, as well as some that we have encountered on missions, and any who are wanted by federal authorities. The data contains known aliases, powers, weaknesses, and combat strategies should you encounter them. Some records are more detailed than others, but they all have photos and names that you can familiarize yourself with. There is also data on various criminal organizations and on organizations that we believe may be exploiting innocent Hypers, including what we have on the Right Hand.”

“Unfortunately, with the latter we have little more than suspicions at the moment, but we try to keep a close eye on their dealings if we can,” Lisa added with a sigh. “You’ll also need to start learning how to use all of the equipment Blake has for you as well.”

“I thought this meeting was to discuss my team’s progress,” I said, blinking in confusion.

“It is,” Lisa agreed with a nod, “you’re all ready to move on to team training. Tessily gives us glowing reports of your progress and Leslie is doing as well as you are. We’re still working on finding the upper limit of her speed, but she’s just as strong as I am and her control over both is progressing nicely. Her shadow walking ability only seems to have a range of around one hundred feet, but it doesn’t seem to require line of sight. She would make a frightening thief with that ability; if it’s in her range and there are shadows anywhere she can get in and out without a trace.”

Nick spoke next. “As for Decibel, John isn’t as powerful as the rest of you, but he’s a hard worker and he’s done well with the hand to hand combat lessons. His sonar sense is his most powerful ability; he can sense a quarter being dropped from almost fifty feet away and tell you what side it landed on every time. The sonic shout seems to be an extension of his ability to manipulate sound. He manipulates the sound of his own voice and it doesn’t appear to be limited to only volume, so we’ve had him trying to use the ability in different ways.”

“What kind of applications could there be for that?” I asked in interest.

“Depends on how much range and fine control he can develop,” the large man answered. “It’s possible he could create sonic shockwaves or make people pass out or get sick. We’re trying to help him find ways to use it both offensively and defensively without harming civilians.”

“We mostly have Jason working with Mai when she’s not doing physical training,” Lisa told me after a long pull at her coffee. “He’s teaching her to make more convincing illusions since that’s his specialty. She already had some training in martial arts, and even Nick here thinks that she should be fine with an hour or two of practice each day. She’s a lot like you in that she fears losing control so she was reluctant at first to try using her powers in offensive ways. We do have her working on it though, and I believe we’re starting to make some progress in that area.”

None of that really surprised me at all. She had mentioned that her grandparents had had her study martial arts while she was living in Japan in order to teach her discipline, and even though she seldom used it she still practiced. Given what had happened when Mai’s powers activated the first time though, I figured it was going to take her a while to be comfortable training to use them for more than just lightshows and party tricks. Of us all she had the most emotional baggage connected to her powers, so the fact that they were making progress was very promising. “So, what about Ian then?” I asked.

“Ian’s sound mimicking ability is amazing, when he’s mimicking a person not even a voice print analyzer can tell the difference between him using his ability and whoever he’s copying. I don’t see much use for it though, outside of pranks or possible infiltration purposes. He has gotten much better at activating and deactivating his force field, but even after two months it has had a few surprises for us; I still have a bruise from yesterday,” Lisa muttered rubbing her side.

I stared at the red headed Hyper beside me. Lisa had Category four invulnerability and strength; hurting her at all was damn near impossible. “He bruised you?! How the hell did that happen?”

“His force field is nearly Category four, so we thought it would be safe for Lisa to use close to her full strength sparring with him,” Nick quickly began to explain. “He usually just depends on his force field to stop whatever is directed against him, he hasn’t really been in a serious fight with it except your tussles with H8 and the Right Hand so we wanted him to start sparring with it active. Lisa got in a solid hit and he hit her back just after, hard enough to knock her off her feet.”

My incredulous stare was now directed at both of them. “It would take at least Category four strength to do that, he’s just got normal physical abilities.”

“He wasn’t using his strength, he was using mine,” Lisa replied cryptically before she began to explain a few seconds later. “We had Blake run an analysis of the video footage from the training room and it seems his force field is an energy field that he generates around himself that absorbs all energy directed at him. It doesn’t just stop punches and bullets; it absorbs all the kinetic energy from them. It’s not just kinetic energy either, but any energy directed against him while his shield is up; heat, radiation, all sorts of things. His field devours it all.”

“So what happens with this energy once he’s absorbed it?” I wondered aloud, thinking that it probably had something to do with why he was able to use Lisa’s strength against her.

“He seems to store it for about ten seconds before it begins to dissipate harmlessly,” Nick said with a smile. “But if he hits back or throws something within those ten seconds, all the energy absorbed is released in that action as pure kinetic energy equal to the energy he’s absorbed.”

“There also seems to be a limit to how much his field can absorb and redirect before it needs to shut down and recharge,” Lisa added. “It could last all day if he’s not getting attacked, but when we were seriously going at it in the training room today it only lasted twenty three minutes before it turned off. It took over half an hour before he was able to activate it again. A Cat 5, or a medium to high range Cat four using their full power, would probably be able to overpower him with his field fully charged, but we’re not sure what would happen in such a case. The shield could just collapse like it normally does when depleted, or it could react more violently.”

Well that was an interesting aspect to his power; I had been worried we would need to come up with some sort of weaponry for him in case he had to fight people like Ogre, with both strength and invulnerability. “So, what about Amy?” I asked, concerned about my latest recruit.

Nick appeared to consider his answer for a moment before answering with a faint smile. “After getting to know her a bit I’m forced to admit that you were right, she would want to help you in the field regardless of whether we want her to or not and there’s not much we could do to stop her. At least with her being willing to listen to your orders and by giving her specific duties with the team, you’ll be able to keep tabs on her. Overall, I have to say that I’m very happy with her progress. She seems willing, even eager, to follow the conditions you set on her and she works hard during our sparring sessions. I still worry about putting a girl that young in a position where she could be in danger, but between her immunity to all toxins and viruses and her excellent control of her teleportation portals she should be safe enough with the gear Blake and Brianna are making her.”

“So there you have it,” Lisa said with a grin, “you’re all ready to start team training sessions. Now go eat something before Blake drags you off to his lab to show you all your new gear.” The pair had no other information for me except to let me know that we would begin our new lesson plan the next day, so I was free to go back to the apartment Leslie and I shared to make some dinner before our meeting with Blake. I began mentally filing away all the new information I had on my friends’ powers and limits as I made my way there.

Leslie wanted to know all about my ‘adoption’ over dinner once she noticed the new mark on my shoulder and I had explained it. I was worried that she might be a bit jealous of the bond I was forming with the Fae, but she merely laughed when I voiced that concern. “Candy, I’m just happy for you. Besides, I’m Liberty’s protégé, and I think that’s just as awesome as being the adopted daughter of a Fae princess. When I first got my powers I wanted to be just like her and now she’s teaching me, it’s a dream come true, so don’t worry about me your Highness.”

I managed to not spit out the bite of chicken I had been chewing and quickly swallowed as I groaned. “Please don’t call me that, especially where Mai could hear. She’d probably send me another candy-gram to congratulate me or something.”

“Don’t be silly, this is Mai we’re talking about,” my roommate disagreed. “She’ll wait until you’re not expecting it before she uses that joke again. She’ll probably do something with light constructs; she’s trying to get them as realistic as possible. Before you got home from your meeting with Nick and Lisa I answered the door to a sparkling vampire, so I’m betting it’ll be something to do with elves, fairies or royalty when she gets wind of this.”

“A sparkling vampire? She really went there?” I asked, shaking my head.

She nodded seriously. “Yup, she even had Ian in on it. They were both staying close to the wall beside the door and she had him ask if Bella lived here. She must have had him watch part of one of the movies, because he had the voice dead on. I might have even believed it if the lips were moving in sync with the voice.”

“If those two are working together, this is going to take pranking to a whole new level,” I muttered.

“We can always fight back,” Leslie suggested. “My shadow walking and your powers could lend themselves to pranking too, and Amy and Blake would help out too. We’d have to plan carefully though, if it’s too obvious that it could be done with telekinesis she’d catch on.”

If I had been looking in a mirror I’m pretty sure that the grin I was wearing would have threatened to split my face in half. “I’m in. I’ll leave the planning up to you though, since I’m sure you already have some ideas in mind.”

“I do, I just need to do a bit of research when Blake finishes with us tonight,” she said, returning my grin.

“Sweet, now let’s get going, I want to see what surprises Blake has in store for us,” I told her once I finished the last bite of my Caesar salad. We both stood up and I telekinetically floated our dishes to the kitchen sink as I thought that a night off might be good for all of us, even if it hadn’t been intended. We had all been working hard all day and practicing most nights since our band/team had been officially formed and some time for ourselves would be nice, even if it was just going over costumes and gadgets and such with Blake. He had mentioned that things might take several hours and something about having us meet someone, so he wanted us to have the whole evening free.

Five minutes later the five of us were all gathered in Blake’s lab waiting for the grand reveal. Leslie and I arrived to see the others already there waiting for us. Before he could start though, I asked, “Blake, do you think you can adjust my second skin pendant for me?”

“Yeah, that’s easy, what do you need done? You want a tan for summer or something?” he asked.

I pointed to my new clan mark and explained, “I thought it might be a good idea to make it so that this doesn’t show while I’ve got the human look going. Call me paranoid, but it wouldn’t be good for someone to notice that Candice Graham and Syryn both have the exact same tattoo in the exact same place.”

“You’re probably right, better safe than sorry,” he agreed with a nod before examining the mark. “I should be able to program it so that the black and gold in the area of the mark default to the same color as the rest of the skin for your disguise. Nobody should be able to tell the difference, though it may take a few tries to get it right.”

“Whoa, wait, you got a tattoo? If you wanted to get a tattoo for your birthday you should have told me. And why didn’t you take me with you?” Mai blurted out.

“Tessily gave it to me today, it’s a Fae thing,” I explained while Blake took the pendant to his work bench and began fiddling with it. “It’s not really a tattoo, it’s kind of a magic mark passed down through her clan. That’s all I can really tell you though, apparently her clan doesn’t talk about their mark much, even with other Fae clans.”

Mai frowned at me in confusion. “If that’s the case though, why would our resident Elf Princess give that mark to you? Unless…” Her face lit up with a smile as she put two and two together and she nearly crushed me in a hug. “Congrats Candy! I’m so happy for you!”

They all wanted what details I could give them and ten minutes later, when I had finished explaining everything that I felt that I could; Blake had adjusted my pendant twice. The third time he had me put it back on there was no trace of the mark in my human guise. “Thanks Blake, you’re awesome,” I told him sincerely.

He just grinned and motioned for us all to join him at his work bench. “My pleasure Candy, and since we’re on the subject of you and Tessily, I might as well show you that first.”

“Show us what?” I asked in anticipation. If he was willing to delay his grand reveal by over ten minutes to adjust my pendant than whatever stuff he had to show us was going to be really cool.

He decided to fuel the anticipation even more by explaining first. “A while back Tess came to me saying that you needed a sword worthy of you, but explained that you were both adverse to something that could do a person lasting harm. She wanted something that you could wield like a sword but could be used to disarm and disable only. I got to thinking about your telekinesis and I couldn’t resist…”

“Would you just show us already?” Amy said, rolling her eyes and trying to hide a smile.

Blake pulled the sheet off his workbench revealing our costumes neatly folded and a wide array of gadgetry before he pointed to a metallic tube about an inch in diameter and six inches long. It was mostly black in color with a quarter inch wide silver band around one end and the visible side had a small dark red button half an inch below the band. “Be my guest Candy, just point the silver end away from you and press the red button to activate or deactivate it. It’ll be coded to your DNA when you touch it so that only you can use it.”

I reached out for the device with my mind and it flew into my hand. Once I made sure the silver end was pointed away from me and anyone else, I pressed the button. There was a humming sound as the weapon activated and a pink beam of light nearly three feet long emerged from the end. I stared at it for a long moment, but it was John who spoke first. “You made her a freaking pink lightsaber?”

“It’s not a lightsaber, though it is an elegant weapon, I call it the stun sword,” Blake corrected with a grin. “It can’t cut through people or steel doors or anything like that. The color is for show and so you can actually see what you’re working with, but the beam is actually contained in a shaped electromagnetic force field that resonates at a frequency which temporarily disrupts the signals that the brain sends to the muscles along the central nervous system. If you hit someone on the knee with this for example, they wouldn’t be able to move anything below that knee for ten to twenty minutes. It’s just like if their leg fell asleep so it’s harmless, temporary, and has no lasting ill effects. It runs on a quantum flux power supply, so it won’t run out of power.”

I gave the weapon a few experimental swings and grinned back at the Tinker before turning it off. “Blake, have I mentioned you’re my favorite inventor?”

“I’m your only inventor,” he replied with a laugh as he pointed to a similar black and gold tube on the work bench. “This is for you Mai and before you ask, no it’s not a lightsaber too.”

“Awwww, what it is then?” she asked sounding disappointed as she picked it up and looked it over.

He sighed as he said, “I’ll admit, that there are some issues with this device. With all the gear I needed to install for two variable field projectors instead of one set projector, and to make it respond to your powers there were some features I couldn’t install without making it quite a bit bigger. First, the power supply isn’t as big or as powerful, so the more punishment the field takes the quicker the stored power will dry up and the field will collapse, though it will recharge on its own within a few minutes or so. Second, because of the smaller power supply I can’t get it to resonate at the same frequency as Candy’s, so it won’t disrupt the nervous system like hers does. You can use it to make solid light constructs though. So, it’s whatever you want it to be, within reason.”

“Still sounds cool though, and I like the thought of making some constructs solid.” Mai looked at the device in confusion for a moment, “Ummm, there’s no ‘on’ switch and what do you mean by ‘within reason’?”

“It’s always on, just not always active, it responds to you focussing your power through it,” the Tinker quickly explained. “Just focus your power to create an object in the hand holding it, but try to keep the shape fairly simple. It should react to the light passing through the projectors and create a force field around the shape of the light construct. You can probably manage a riot shield and basic swords, spears, staffs, or other simple weapons and defenses as long as you don’t go overboard on the details.”

A focussed look passed over Mai’s face and suddenly pale blue light erupted from both ends to form a staff. She tapped me on top of the head with it, and it felt solid enough, though it was kind of warm and tingly. Then she laughed and stuck her tongue out playfully at me, “Double-bladed for the win Candy.”

I stuck my own tongue out right back at her as Blake gestured to a pair of sturdy looking black knee-high combat boots with a low heel and a series of silver buckles up the front that looked a lot like a pair I had in my closet. He handed them to my roommate as he said, “Leslie, you were complaining that your shoes weren’t able to handle the strain of you running at your full speed right?”

“Yeah, my running shoe budget has been insane the past month,” my best friend grumbled. I think that I’m getting a good handle on my strength, though my full speed is still uncertain. We think that since its Cat three that I could probably hit the sound barrier and I’ve gotten close, but it’s hard to get good with my speed when my shoes keep melting and burning my feet. It takes a half hour for my feet to heal afterwards.”

“You could hit the sound barrier? I didn’t know you could go that fast,” Ian said, looking impressed.

Blake shrugged as he gave his input. “A Cat four could go at least three times that fast and a Cat five speedster that can fly could possibly reach light speed, since they wouldn’t have to worry about friction as much. It’s not so impressive compared to that, but still it’s pretty cool. Those speedsters probably have to be invulnerable to handle the stress on the body though. Dr. Park thinks that’s why Leslie has the healing and why her bones are denser; otherwise her bones would break at top speed or whenever she hit something too hard and she would have windburn all over any exposed parts of her body when running too fast. As for your shoes melting though, these boots won’t Leslie; they’re made of a super-Kevlar of my own design and are reinforced with carbon fibres.”

“That’s awesome Blake, now I can start going full out, I’m putting these babies on right now,” Leslie replied happily as she got out of her running shoes.

Keeping up with the theme of ladies first, Blake decided to reveal Amy’s gear next, picking up a pair of black gloves and what appeared to be a dozen bright green glow bracelets and a dozen pink ones. “Amy, I thought I’d go along with the theme of your codename and give you something useful at the same time. Put these on and I’ll explain how they work. Make sure each of the beads is connected to one of the grooves along the underside of your forearms.”

Once Amy had put on the elbow-length gloves, and the bracelets over them, Blake reached out to tug experimentally at one of the bracelets, grinning as the single black bead that adorned each brightly glowing bracelet seemed to be stuck to her glove. “These won’t come off for anyone but the person wearing the gloves, at least not without a lot of strength or effort, so despite being wide enough to easily fall off, they won’t if you’ve properly docked them. The gloves contain microchips which control the nanites in the bracelets.”

“So ummm… what do they do besides look bitchin’, and not fall off?” Amy asked as she easily removed one of the bracelets and examined it more closely.

“The nanites in each bracelet generate their own power and do four things, the first being giving off that bitchin’ glow,” the inventor replied with a grin. “The second is that once the green ones are detached from the gloves they will shatter on impact and release a super-adhesive spongey foam which will safely and harmlessly encase the target and prevent them from moving. The pink ones will do the same, only they contain a solvent to dissolve the foam in case you hit the wrong target or use them on a non-combatant for some reason,” he assured her.

“So what else do they do?” Amy asked, looking over the bracelets.

“The bracelets might shatter on impact, but those beads will regenerate them good as new over time. Or else I’d probably have to make hundreds of them for you,” Blake said with a grin. “And last, but not least, if you clap your hands, the gloves will send a signal to the beads from any bracelets you’ve thrown that are within two hundred feet, calling them back to your gloves, so be ready to catch. The signal range is only two hundred feet or so, so if a bead is out of range it will lose the signal and revert to a dormant state until reconnected with one of the gloves.”

“Cool, can you put that last feature on my keys?” Ian joked.

“No, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me once you see what I’ve cooked up for you Ian, I put a lot of thought into this one,” he responded as he took a second pair of gloves, these ones black and purple, off the work bench and handed them to Ian. “Like Amy’s, these gloves are made of the same material we made the rest of your costumes out of, but yours contain micro devices in the palms which should allow you to spread your force field over whatever you’re touching. I designed them to copy the data of your own biometrics and overlay it on the person or objects in question. Essentially it tricks your force field into thinking they are an extension of you and covering them as well. This will likely cause your field to drain faster though, relative to the amount of extra mass you’re extending it to. I figured that this could help you protect innocent bystanders, but we’ll have to test them out.”

“That sounds pretty sweet,” my handsome boyfriend admitted as he put the gloves on. Once he had them on, he placed his hand on Blake’s shoulder and after a few seconds of concentration the familiar green glow of his force field covered them both. “So what now? Do we have someone hit you to see if you’re protected?”

“I’d have Leslie do it, but she could cause serious harm to me if the field isn’t really protecting me, maybe I should…” the inventor began to answer uncertainly as he started to try to solve the problem.

Mai didn’t give him time to say anything more than that before grabbing one of Leslie’s discarded sneakers and tossing it at him as hard as she could. The shoe bounced off Blake’s head, but he only looked pleased when he saw the shoe fall from his forehead to the floor. It was Ian who gave her a dirty look. “Really Mai? Who throws a shoe?!”

“What?” The light user said trying to look innocent. “He didn’t even feel it, and it’s not like it had a heel, besides he said he wanted to test it.”

“Don’t worry about it Ian,” Blake said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t feel a thing so the field worked fine. There was no harm done, and it wasn’t really all that dangerous even if it hadn’t worked. You can turn your field off now.”

“Well if it didn’t bother you than I guess that I can let it go,” Ian replied with a sigh. He got that concentrated look on his face again and after several seconds the green glow around the pair faded.

“It saved me a lot of time coming up with a way to test it actually, so now I can show John what I have for him.” Blake moved back to the workbench and picked up a metallic black faceplate with a metal band to secure it to his head, red tinted lenses where the eyes would be, and some sort of extremely intricate metal mesh in a triangle covering the area of the mouth and nose. “Here, put this on John.”

John took the faceplate and placed it over his head, adjusting it to fit comfortably over his face, and suddenly metal strips and wires were flying from the band and the sides of the mask, reaching out to become a form-fitting helmet that covered his entire head. Then, what I assumed to be a built-in and modified version of my hairnet, spat out some foot and a half long dreadlocks. “Whoa… dude, you look like the bastard child of Darth Vader and the Predator. It’s kind of working for you though,” Ian teased his best friend.

“Very funny,” John replied drolly, his voice sounding much deeper with an electronic tinge. “It feels weird, but not as heavy as I thought.”

“That helmet is made of a titanium-tungsten mesh, it’ll stop bullets, and the face plate is a lightweight alloy that should be able to handle the vibrations from your sonic shout. It will also allow you to narrow or widen the effected area of your sonic shouts to affect one person, a small group, or a large area as needed. It’s all voice-controlled and also contains all the features that I put standard in the rest of your masks, as well as a built in air-filter. Just say ‘remove mask’ when you want to take it off,” our resident genius explained, looking pretty pleased with himself.

“So what are those standard features? And what about those of us who aren’t wearing masks?” I inquired with a look at Amy.

“The lenses in the masks have a light amplification mode, infrared, a mode called ‘shades’ that will protect from flashbangs and such, and a HUD that works on voice commands to switch modes, display GPS information, locator information, or data files when needed. They also have built in earbuds and microphones which can be set to either “Performance” mode for concerts or “Ops” mode for silent communication. For you and Amy I’ve come up with headbands with retractable visors that have all the same features. Your costumes are resistant to small arms fire, water resistant, insulated against heat and cold, and contain a GPS tracker that will let you all know one another’s locations at all times.” He broke out in a huge grin as he gestured to the gear on the worktable, quickly adding, “I’ll let you all get suited up and meet me down in the hanger so I can show you the really cool stuff.”

The look of my costume hadn’t changed since Modiste had designed it for me and other than the stun sword there were no apparent additions to it, except the leather jacket with the team logo on the back and my emblem over the heart, but I decided to forego wearing that for now, since it was warm and we were inside. I was slightly confused by the added headgear though. It appeared to be a black circlet and was roughly a quarter inch wide with attached ear buds and a microphone. I placed it on my head and it settled over my ears loosely before suddenly tightening securely around my head. I tried to just shrug it off, put in the ear buds, and adjusted the mic before leaving to join the others.

Leslie, or rather Twilight, was waiting for me in our living room and I had to admit that Modiste had been right about the dark and mysterious vibe. Soon we had met up with the other’s and I walked arm-in-arm with Riff, who had also decided not to wear his jacket, as we made our way down to the hangar where the Ladybug was usually parked. Beside the Ladybug was a similar, slightly larger ship painted black with our band logo emblazoned on the sides. Blake just grinned at the shocked looks on our faces and gestured grandly before saying, “This is the tour bus; it flies just like the Ladybug and has the same capabilities, but I made it a bit bigger and removed the forward passengers’ compartment so I could add a retractable docking ramp for the skybikes and make room for a kitchen and six small dorm rooms. I thought that when you make it big, it could be your little home away from home while on tour.”

“That is so fucking awesome Blake,” Rave blurted out.

“Is this what you’ve been working on with Travis, Phil and Dr. Park for the past two months?” I asked, still looking at the ship in awe.

“Well this is one of the things,” he admitted, “but it wasn’t really too hard since we just had to alter the design of the Ladybug a little. Let’s go inside so you can meet the other one.”

I was unsure what he meant by that, but we followed Blake into the tour bus. First he showed us the docking ramp, which already had the skybikes secured in place and the helmets hanging on hooks. Next he took us to show us the small med-bay that matched the one on the Ladybug, the kitchen beside it, and the small dorm rooms opposite them. Between the med-bay and the kitchen there was even a small dining table bolted to the floor with six chairs and a very pretty ginger-haired woman in business attire sitting at one of them.

The woman looked up at our approach, immediately standing up and greeting us with a big smile. “This is Sasha,” Blake told us. “That’s short for Synthetic Administrative and Support Humanoid Assistant; she’ll be your manager, backup pilot, and she’ll be supervising Amy’s homeschooling as well.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you all,” the apparent android said, still smiling. “I’m very eager to get to know you all and I’m looking forward to seeing to all of your needs. I have been programmed with knowledge of business, the music industry, piloting, public relations, human behaviour, psychology, culinary arts, housekeeping, twenty four different languages, and over two hundred other subjects that may be of use to you.”

“You built us a robot manager?” Mai asked as we all looked over her curiously, “she looks so real.”

“Technically I’m an android,” Sasha replied in Blake’s stead. “Being very lifelike is important to my purpose as your manager and I’m hoping to add to that realism as we interact and I learn more from you about being human.”

“It’s nice to meet you Sasha, I’m sure you’ll do a great job and welcome to the group,” I said smiling back at her.

For the next few hours we familiarized ourselves with the tour bus and the various features of our new gear and got to know Sasha better. The android was extremely eager to help us in any way that she could and it turned out that her AI was a sort of sister to Phil, recovered from a damaged suit similar to Travis’ own that had been recovered from the surface of the moon. Blake had been working with Dr. Park, Travis, and Phil to expand its programming and integrate the suit’s systems and the AI itself into the realistic android body that we were now talking to. She also had many of Phil’s abilities, in addition to the new programming that she had received.

Once we had decided to call it a night I was ready to head back with Leslie to our apartment when Ian asked, “If you don’t have anything planned, do you think that you could come over to my place for a bit once you’ve changed out of your costume?”

“Sure,” I replied with a smile. It wouldn’t been the first time I had gone over to my boyfriend’s place to spend a bit of time together before bed. Sometimes we would just watch a movie and snuggle or I would just sing something unrelated to the band while he played guitar. So after I changed back into my normal clothes I wished Leslie a good night and left our apartment to go down the hall and knock on Ian’s door.

Ian had changed back into a pair of jeans and a casual t-shirt and as he opened the door I could see that the living room was dark, save for some candles on the coffee table. My boyfriend took me by the hand and led me to the couch, kissing me tenderly before showing me a small cake with a single candle on top amongst the mass of other candles on the table. “My mom baked you a cake,” he admitted sheepishly, “but we didn’t really have time to eat it this morning. I put one candle on it, because it’s your first birthday as the new you, but there’s seventeen others on the table for your time as Ken.” Then he gestured to the cake and whispered softly, “You should make a wish.”

I hesitated for a moment. Everything that I could possibly want right now I already had, I realized after some thought. I had a caring and understanding boyfriend, good friends, a great band, and even a mother who loved me now, so what else could I possibly ask for? There was only one thing that I could think of, to utterly destroy Red Prophesy at the battle of the bands. So I blew out the candle on the cake, careful to not blow out the other candles on the table. This was Candy’s birthday after all, ken had died over two months ago and those other candles should stay lit for a while longer in his memory.

Ian produced a small wrapped box and handed it to me as I looked at him suspiciously. “You already gave me a gift,” I objected, “two if you count both the guitar and lessons.”

“I know, but those were from your bandmate and friend, this is from your boyfriend,” he told me with a smile while softly caressing my cheek with his free hand. “Open it, when I saw them I couldn’t help but think of you.”

My hands were shaking a bit as I opened the wrapping and then the box itself. Inside rested a pair of silver earrings; each one was a tiny mermaid holding a turquois crystal that matched the color of my eyes, supported by a delicate chain maybe three quarters of an inch long. I could feel tears coming to my eyes as I thanked him with a passionate kiss and he just held me in his arms for several minutes. Then we each had a piece of cake and snuggled in the candlelight as we talked about the events of the day and I eventually fell asleep in his arms.