My Super-powered Diary Chapter 12 Neogenesis By Amethyst When Maddock Ainsley gets involved in a rescue operation with his unit things go horribly wrong and his life is forever changed. Can the newly minted Merida cope with being a girl and a teenage super hero?

It was nearly dinner time when we returned to Anaheim and met the rest of the family at the entrance to Disneyland. They all seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, but they were trying not to gush about it too much as we ate dinner at a nearby pizza place. Finally, once we had climbed back into the SUV for the trip home, I couldn’t take them dancing around it anymore. “Ya dinnae ‘ave tae feel bad aboot enjoyin’ yuirselves. Tink an’ I ‘ad plenty o’ fun wit’ Andy, right Tink?”

The fairy nodded her head vigorously from where she was seated in Mei’s lap. “I watched them shoot at some targets, we ate lunch, then Merida got me some lost things that weren’t lost, and then we went to something called a ‘classic car show’. There were the most amazing and beautiful carriages there. Oh! And Merida said I can help her tinker with her mustang carriage when she gets it back.”

“Mustang? Ya don’t mean Dad’s old Shelby do you?” Mom asked, turning around in the front passenger seat. “I don’t know why ya didn’t sell that after we got our inheritance, it hasn’t run in over a decade. Ya could have gotten good money for it since the body is in good shape, and findin’ the parts to restore it is probably going to cost a good portion of your inheritance. You’re not touchin’ yuir new college fund for that young lady.”

“Yuir jus’ still pissed ‘cause Da’ would’nae let ya turn it intae a hover car,” I taunted her.

“Hey! That would have been cool and you know it. I still could if ya want me to,” she offered hopefully. “I could put a fusion engine in there, add all sorts o’ gadgets an’ weapons. James Bond would wish for a car like it.”

“The ‘ole point o’ restorin’ a car like tha’ is tae make it jus’ like when it left the fact’ry,” I argued. Then I placed a predatory grin on my face and made a counter offer. “I tell ya wot though, if’n we kin find another car o’ the same make an’ year wit’ a good frame, then we kin scavenge parts from tha’ one fer me an’ Tink tae restore the Brittany Blue one, an’ then we kin all work t’gether tae soup up the other an’ paint it Candyapple Red. I get tae keep both o’ them though.”

Mom leaned back in her seat and seemed to think deeply about it for a moment, “I’ll start lookin’, an’ ya can keep them both if ya pay for the other frame out of yuir inheritance, but I get to drive both o’ them whenever I want until ya turn sixteen.”

“Ya got yuirself a deal,” I agreed, grinning broadly as my heart pitter-pattered in excitement.

“Awesome! We’re gonna have a flying super car!” Shu squeed excitedly. “We’re gonna have the bestest super hero team ever!”

“Super-what-now?” Tasha asked in confusion.

“Super. Hero. Team,” Mei replied casually, enunciating each word as if it should be obvious to all of us. “We all have powers, a tragic origin story, and we’re going to a school to learn to use our powers, so of course we’re going to use them to help people.”

“No offense,” Tasha began uncertainly, “but none of us, except Merida and maybe Vanessa, really have the abilities suited for becoming a super hero. Merida is going to have trouble with control though, and that could be dangerous if she’s put in an emotional situation, which is likely to happen when you run around looking for danger, and Vanessa is going to have to have water nearby to be really effective.”

“That’s what training is for, Merida can teach us all how to fight, we’ll learn other things in school too,” Shu countered with a pouty frown. “We may not have what it takes to be heroes on our own, but when we work together we can do anything. Merida is our powerhouse, but you have a sixth sense and you can teleport Tasha. With the right training and gear you could be awesome in a fight and help keep us all safe, and you can help us all stay in contact without radios too.”

“And I can too be effective without water, Cat three shapeshifting and invulnerability here,” Vanessa pointed out acidly. “I can take damage and I keep my legs for almost six hours now, not to mention all the other things I can do with my shifting. Besides, Shu can always store a bunch of water, weapons, and other gear for emergencies too, so she’s not useless either. Mei’s got her summons to help too. With the right training and gear we could be a force to be reckoned with if we decide to go that route.”

“It’s not like we dinnae ‘ave a Tinker ‘andy tae help wi’ gear, weapons an’ such either,” I added, looking pointedly at Mom. I wasn’t really one hundred percent on board with the idea, but I wasn’t going to dismiss it either since the twins seemed so eager. They’d probably try to do it without us if we weren’t on board, and I’d rather us do it with them so we could help them do it somewhat safely. There was also that nagging feeling that it would be good to be in action again, using my powers and training to help people.

Tasha raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay I get it, but it’s going to mean a lot of work for all of us if we’re going to do it right and keep ourselves as safe as possible. That means training, secret identities, codenames, and costumes. If I can get some art supplies I can help design costumes, I kinda want to go to art school when I graduate.”

“Look girls, I know that you’re probably going to do this no matter what I say, and as the token human in the family I can’t really do much to stop you, but please if you do this keep each other safe,” Andy pleaded with a worried expression reflecting back at me in the rear-view mirror. “Try to wait until you have some training and control over your powers before going public, and if you get in over your heads don’t be afraid to call for help or run away.”

Mom reached out and put a hand on Andy’s shoulder, trying to look reassuring. “Honey don’t worry, once Tasha has some costumes designed I’ll make sure they’re made from the most protective materials I can come up with to keep them safe. I have some ideas for non-lethal weapons too. Ya know, I toyed around with the idea of becomin’ a hero too when I first got my powers, but I didn’t ‘ave friends with powers or the resources back then. I never got to the point o’ makin’ a costume back then, but now I guess I ‘ave my power armor for that. I did ‘ave a codename though, I called myself Gadget-Girl.”

“I already decided tae call maself Flare,” I said with a grin.

“Psyche,” Tasha quickly supplied, which made me suspect that she had just been playing devil’s advocate before and had already been giving the hero thing serious thought herself.

“Of course I’d be Aquarius,” Vanessa offered through a face-splitting grin.

Shu was giggling and bouncing excitedly in her seat as she contributed her own name. “Ooooh! Call me Packrat!”

“I can’t think of a good name,” Mei said with a pout after some thought as we were stopped at a red light. “Maybe you can all come up with one for me while I’m asleep.” Then golden light filled the vehicle as her powers flared and she passed out with a second pixie in her lap looking around in confusion and concern.

“Dammit!” Mom cursed. “I think we have to make a rule about no genesis in the car. She really needs to stop doin’ that until we know whether it’s goin’ to do her lasting harm.”

“Genesis… that would be a good name for Mei,” Tasha said thoughtfully as Andy put the SUV in drive once again and the rest of us stared at the new pixie in Mei’s lap.

The object of our scrutiny was a slender girl pixie, with slightly pale skin, blue eyes, snow white hair, and blushing cheeks. She looked around in what seemed like wonder and a little trepidation before giving Mei a look of concern and turning to the other pixie. “Is she going to be okay Tink?”

“She’ll be fine Peri, she’s just sleeping,” Tink assured her. “I guess that happens when she tries to bring one of us here from Pixie Hollow, she did the same when she brought me here, but everyone told me she would be okay and she was.”

“Periwinkle this time?” Vanessa asked staring at the new arrival.

“Of course,” Shu countered as if it were all perfectly normal and understandable. “Peri is Tink’s twin sister so Mei wouldn’t want her to be without her. That would be like her and I being forced to be apart, and neither of us would like that at all.”

“Wot’s Tink mean by bringin’ ‘em o’er though?” I wondered aloud as I watched the events in the rear seat from over my shoulder and tried to get a better look at the new arrival.

Tasha’s voice slipped into my mind in response to my query. *If Mei is imagining them as the fairies from the movies then they probably have some very basic memories based on what she knows of them, memories of certain events in the movies and general life in Pixie Hollow based on Mei’s own assumptions. Things Tink has said since being here, and the fact that she’s so close in appearance and personality to the Tink from the movies, seem to lend themselves to that theory, so it’s probably easier for them to think they were brought here to a new home rather than having been created from nothing. Maybe it’s some sort of coping mechanism and we should just let it be for now.*

I turned to see Mom and Andy nodding in front of me, as if in agreement, so I let the subject drop. Once Vanessa had managed to make a rough robe to cover the new naked fairy from a piece of Kleenex, things were quiet except for the two chattering pixies for the rest of the home. They seemed to be very happy being together and it sounded like Periwinkle shared Tink’s sense of adventure about their new situation, though I did catch her casting the occasional worried glance at her creator.

Once we were home and I had placed Mei in bed to be watched over by her twin and the fairies, the rest of us gathered downstairs to discuss the pixies and Mei. “I’m not sure what to do about this,” Andy said slumping into the couch with a sigh. “The fairies seem harmless enough, and maybe with two of them she’ll have it out of her system now, but the way she passes out each time can’t be good for her.”

“I’ll have to run some tests and scans to be sure of it myself,” Mom agreed with a shake of her head. “Her powers aren’t like anything I’ve seen before; pushing them to the extreme like this repeatedly could cause long term issues, or it could be like working a muscle, making her abilities stronger and less strenuous as she does so. I’m going to do every scan and test I can think of, and I’m going to ask Mystech for copies of all the biometric readings and other data from Mei’s testing, to look at things from a physician’s standpoint and to see if I can figure out how her powers work.”

“Wot aboot Tink’s health? An’ the new one…Percy?” I asked uncertainly. “They’re actual livin' people now, e'en if’n they’re only six inches tall, so should’nae we treat ‘em like it? Mei’s no' the only one who could ‘ave issues.”

“It’s Periwinkle, or Peri, Mer,” Vanessa corrected before turning to Mom and Andy. “She does have a point though, they’re living sentient beings and they’ll have the same needs as we do. You should have seen poor Tink trying to use the toilet this morning, they need things that are fairy sized. They also have some weird quirks that the fairies from the books and movies don’t have, like how they seem to actually make pixie dust instead of having to get it from the dust fairies, and the thing with Peri’s wings.”

“Peri’s wings? They look fine tae me ‘Nessa, they’re jus' like Tink’s,” I countered in confusion, wondering if maybe I was going to need a primer on pixies.

“But they shouldn’t be fine, even just going by the Secret of the Wings. Winter fairies would get weakened and their wings could get injured or break by spending too much time out of the cold and we’re in LA and its summer. It’s freaking hot, even the AC only manages to keep it moderately warm, and she hasn’t complained or seemed put out once, in fact I saw her looking at her wings a few times in confusion, like she’s waiting for something to happen,” the mermaid pointed out.

“I have a theory about tha’,” Mom offered. “Mei can’t possibly be thinkin’ about every single detail about something as complex as the fairies when creatin’ them. She probably has a pretty good idea in mind, but I think tha’ her memory an’ subconscious fills in the blanks. I think it’s why they have general memories, an' if she subconsciously doesn’t want them to suffer, as they would if they couldn’t fly or in Peri’s case stayin’ too long out of the cold, then she tweaks them so that they won’t. Fairies are inherently magical creatures in any mythos ya look at, an’ their abilities an' mere existence indicates tha’ they are magical so havin’ them generate their own pixie dust isn’t really much of a stretch.”

Tasha nodded in agreement before adding her own two cents. “It’s heartbreaking that Tink and Peri can’t live in the same place after they found one another in that movie, I don’t think that Mei would want that, I mean the whole reason she summoned Peri was so that she and Tink could be together. Why would she do that with them both having a weakness that would keep them apart? On some level, conscious or otherwise, she had to want to get rid of that weakness.”

“As for their needs as livin’ sentient beings, I’ll do some tinkerin’ tomorrow an’ we’ll give them both a physical an’ set up Peri wi’ some real clothes tonight,” Mom said thoughtfully before turning to me. “Merida I want ya to bring Mei and the fairies to my lab, I’d like to run some scans on Mei while she’s still unconscious from her efforts, it might give me some clues to why it’s takin’ such a toll on her.”

I powered up and went to fetch the twins and the fairies, carrying Mei to the lab where Mom was waiting and putting on a pair of latex gloves. She had me put Mei in one of her scanning beds and turned it on. Then she put Tink through all the various scanners and machines that she had used in my physical a few days earlier. While she was doing that Shu and I talked to Periwinkle who looked decidedly confused and worried. “Dinnae worry Peri, Mom’s a doctor, she’s jus’ goin’ tae make shoor tha’ yuir all healthy, same as she does wit’ us. An’ dinnae worry aboot yuir wings either, we think tha’ the magic Mei used tae bring ya ‘ere made it so ya dinnae ‘ave tae stay in the cold.”

The white-haired pixie sitting in Shu’s lap breathed a sigh of relief before looking back at her wings again, “Are you sure?”

“Mom kin prob’ly dae some tests tae find out for shoor,” I replied, trying to reassure her and keep her distracted while Mom ran her tests on Mei and Tink. “So Tink is a Tinker fairy, wot kinda fairy are you?”

“I’m a Frost talent fairy,” she said after a moments hesitation and glancing toward Shu for reassurance. She and Shu seemed to be hitting it off fairly well and I had to wonder if part of that was because Mei wanted her twin to have a pixie pal too, as much as she wanted Tink to have her twin. The fairy flitted out of Shu’s lap and touched the paper sheet on the classic doctor’s examining table where a thin coat of frost slowly spread out to cover the entire sheet of paper.

“Tha’s impressive,” I said with a smile. I wasn’t just reassuring her either, and the thought crossed my mind that an ability like that could give Mei and Shu a few extra options in combat, even just used as a distraction.

Mom finished running Tink through the scanners and then it was Peri’s turn. Their internal biology was actually pretty similar to a human’s except for the extra muscles in their back that allowed them to control their wings and their small size, and they both seemed to be in good health. After telling us that she was going to keep Mei in the scanner overnight for long-term observation, Mom put Peri in another type of scanner, apparently the same one she had used to make Tink’s clothes. “This device will take yuir measurements to the micron an’ import it to the costume maker so we can produce some clothes fer ya,” she explained. “Ya fairies are pretty tiny so it doesn’t take long to make several outfits fer ya, as long as they’re all of the same design. I’m settin’ it fer the same lightweight, flexible material I came up with fer Tink’s clothes.”

She had Shu find the design for the clothes that Peri wore in the movie, designed one to match it in the costume maker, and it soon started popping out a dozen copies of the same outfit; an aqua strapless dress, dark icy blue pants, and aqua colored shoes with white pompoms on her toes. After Peri was properly attired, Mom asked Tink and Peri for their permission to run some tests on them in a transparent, temperature controlled box. Peri seemed to have no trouble in either the heat or the cold, though she needed to put a protective coat of frost on Tink’s wings when the temperature got below zero.

Once we were done the tests and Peri was assured that her wings should be safe it was starting to get late so Mom sent us all to bed for the night. As I climbed under my blankets I thought over the day I had had. As days went it had been a good one, one of the best since I had Activated, and I thought that maybe, just maybe I could get used to my weird new life if I could be the kind of girl I wanted to be. I tried to fall asleep with that happy thought in mind. It even worked to some degree. It wasn’t until nearly o-five-hundred that I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming and shaking from another nightmare of my Activation, and my bedroom exploded.