[Fiction] Skin Deep

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle gives the thumbs up to Meghan and does a slow and lazy corkscrew as the pair proceeds forth.

Suburbia gives way quickly to the beaches, with luxury hotels climbing towards the sky. Miles of white sand stretch out below, dotted with sunbathers and vacationers, and after a start Danielle realizes that some of these beaches have a very light dress code...

Beaches. I have memories of beaches.

She shifts her gaze back where she's going, just in time to dodge an oncoming bird that squawks angrily at them as it passes. Danielle flips the bird the Bird. "Same to you, tweety."

The bay opens up, waves lapping gently at the shore, and beyond that, the highrises of downtown Rio. Danielle brushes a stray bit of hair out of her face and flies on her side, her gaze half on where she's going and half on the nova beside her.

[Mithril]

Meghan returned Danielle's look as they flew in formation over the open harbor at highway speed. She's not even getting a workout, Meghan noticed, I'll bet she's holding back just so I can keep up. Not my fault that this is all the faster a falcon can fly.

A lightbulb illuminated in Meghan's mind as she scanned the opposite shore with her extra-keen falcon's vision.

I can take on the abilities of the shapes I assume, she thought as she checked out a topless sunbather on the far shore, still over a mile away, So what if I were Knockout-shaped? I hope this works, or I'm going swimming.

Meghan pulled into a slight climb and then began her change, abandoning wings and talons and keen vision for the human form of her companion, replicated in lightweight metal.

Man, she's got big breasts, she thought.

Wingless, Meghan began to fall in a long arc toward the water. Meters above the wavetops, she found what she was looking for in her mind, and to her surprise, she began to fly again, this time with her arms stretched in front of her.

"Ah ha ha!" Meghan laughed, as she jumped forward with a newfound burst of speed. Unshackled from the mental limits which she had put upon herself, she raced forward at 300 kilometers per hour.*

"Catch me catch me catch me!" Meghan laughed over her shoulder in delight, suddenly leading the chase.

(*186 miles per hour)

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle's eyebrows shoot up. She can do that?

But then she smiles. "Oh, it's a race now, is it...?"

She stops for half a second in mid-air, as if revving up, and then zips forward, matching Meghan's speed, her hair whipped straight back in the roar of the wind.

She comes up behind Meghan, finding herself in the uneasy position of staring at her own butt, or at least a silvery recreation of it. Well, it's not my butt, it's her butt. It's just shaped like my butt.

It's a nice butt.

... stop those thoughts right now, Danielle.

Danielle pulls up alongside Meghan, now clearly putting in far more effort.

[Mithril]

Meghan spared only a quick glance for Danielle before returning her concentration to the rapidly-looming spires of the glass and steel canyons of Rio de Janeiro's financial core. She was flying four times faster than she ever had before, and the sensation of speed thrilled and terrified her at the same time. Meghan was no stranger to playing in the canyons of Rio-- it was second only to loafing on Nova's sofa on her list of hobbies, but every one of her dozens of previous visits had been at a much more sedate pace. To her, the difference in experiences was like the difference between shooting someone with a gun and just throwing a bullet at them.

Meghan picked out a wide boulevard which pointed at the beach and aimed for it. The wide white sand beach passed under them so quickly that she only had the barest impression of Brazilians at play before they plunged into the shadowy man-made canyon.

Meghan led Danielle down the center of the boulevard, fifty feet above street level. Through alternating bands of light and darkness they traversed a score of city blocks before Meghan had fully grasped what she was doing.

This is nuts, Meghan thought, unsure if she'd be able to turn a corner at this speed without swinging wide and smashing into a high-rise.

"Going up!" Meghan whooped, and she pulled into a vertical climb, following the side of a glittering office building upward like a glass highway to the sky. Fifty storeys later, she and Danielle burst back into daylight, surrounded only by the tops of the tallest buildings. Meghan allowed her momentum to bleed away, and after a moment, she hovered in place-- a thoroughly unique experience for her.

Meghan looked down past her feet at the city below. She waggled her feet and was struck by how utterly strange it felt to be standing unsupported so high in the air.

"Oh, wow," Meghan gasped to Danielle, wide-eyed. "You do this all the time?"

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle grins. "As often as I can. It's like a dream, isn't it? Just point and you start going there." Her cape flutters in the breeze along with her hair. "I go up in the sky sometimes, you know? Just to think."

She glides over to the top of the nearest skyscraper and sets down. "You were really moving! A lot faster than before. Uh... is it 'cause you look like me? And... I'm not that big, am I...?"

Oh, you are. You know you are.

[Mithril]

Meghan followed Danielle to the rooftop and sat on the edge, her legs dangling in the open air.

"I'm not sure how it works," Meghan said distractedly. "When I change my shape, sometimes I can take of the abilities of the new shape, sometimes I can't." She turned to look over her shoulder at Danielle. "I really wish I could find a pattern to it or something, so I'd know ahead of time what is possible and what is not, but I can't. I just have to experiment."

Meghan sighed. "For now, I guess when I want to go really fast, I'll have to look like you-- not that I mind, of course!" she smiled.

[Magnum Opus]

"Right, gotcha. Yeah. Wish this lump of head-meat came with an owner's manual. The Mazarin-Rashoud Node For Dummies. A reference for the rest of us, telling us what exactly we can do. But that's wishful thinking, I guess."

Danielle sits down next to Meghan on the rooftop's edge.

"Hell of a view. Wow."

[Mithril]

Without moving from where she sat, Meghan reverted to her usual form, becoming shorter and lighter-framed compared to her companion.

"Definitely a great view," she agreed, "I was skeptical of moving to Rio at first. I mean, I figured it would be just touristy stuff smacked up against third-world squalor or something, and there is a little bit of that, but it's not like I thought."

Meghan looked at Danielle. "How did you figure out your own abilities?" she asked, "Was anyone helping you, or did you just know somehow, or did you have to fool with it? Nova and Neil were pretty helpful to me, in a general way, but I had to figure a lot out on my own."

Meghan sat up straighter and became more animated suddenly. "Oh, hey, same question for your Eufiber too," she asked. "How do you tell it what to do?" Meghan peered closely at Danielle's outfit. She'd never taken the time to get acquainted with Eufiber, aside from seeing it on some of her nova friends and acquaintances from time to time.

[Magnum Opus]

"How I got acquainted with my abilities? Well, I just intuitively knew, what they were and what I could do. How far I could push myself took some time, though. There were a few paraphysicians on that Japanese fighting show, and recently I stopped by the Rashoud clinic they have in Vancouver so I could figure out exactly how it all works.

"It's complicated stuff. There's a lot of different things I can do, and sometimes it feels like there's a new explanation for each one. My strength comes a little out of gravity refraction, for example - I put a gravity field around something when I lift it and it holds together. My body's got some previously undiscovered hormones in it which they think might be how I changed... you know, parts... so quickly. It's complicated. I've been spending more time with a headshrinker trying to figure out why I erupted the way I did, because this - " She gestures, indicating herself. "Came as one hell of a big shock."

"As for the eufiber, well, you know how you can sorta feel that energy returning into you when you're at rest? It's kind of like the opposite - to use the eufiber I just sort of put that energy into it, like putting my hand inside a glove. Then it does pretty much what I will it to do. It's great stuff. Emulates anything. Jean jackets, spandex, denim, wool, leather..."

... it does emulate leather. I wonder. Could it...?

[Mithril]

Meghan cocked her head to the side and looked again at Danielle's outfit.

"That's got to be the coolest thing ever," she said, "um, aside from never needing clothes in the first place, I mean."

On a number of occasions, Meghan had allowed herself to be worn by other novas. She wondered what it would be like to be the one wearing something alive.

That would be a switch, she thought, I wonder how I would go about asking.

[Magnum Opus]

"Oh yeah. It's great stuff. My Swiss Army outfit. It unfolds into a nail file and a memory plug too..."

If it can emulate leather... and leather is basically treated cow flesh...

She holds up a hand, and studies it intently. She concentrates, and her white glove begins to turn the same color as her skin. Not quite satisfied, Danielle starts to try to emulate the texture as well, replicating the nails, the pores, and the folds in the knuckles.

Wow. It can emulate human flesh too...!

She looks over at Meghan for a long, long moment.

And any nova can use this suit by attuning themselves to it...

And as alone as I feel I don't think it's a tenth of what she feels, because of how she looks...

She licks her lips nervously. "... did you... want to try it out?"

[Mithril]

"Yes." Meghan replied quicky. She realized that she had unconciously leaned closer to Danielle, and Meghan laughed and sat up straight again. Meghan nodded.

"Yes," Meghan said again almost inaudibly this time, lowering her head and looking at her own body. After a long silence she murmured: "I'd like that very much."

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle nods, and pulls her widgets out of her 'belt.' Then she shifts her weight, and holds out her hand, as the colony retracts from all over her body, crawling up her arm and into an inert ball sitting in her palm. Meghan notices that she isn't wearing anything at all underneath the suit.

She looks a little embarrassed, but only a little. She hands the ball to Meghan. "Well, you got me to take my clothes off," she says with a slightly shy grin, taking a quick look around to reassure herself that they are, in fact, on the tallest building in the downtown core.

[Mithril]

Meghan watched the Eufiber colony retract into its more compact shape, her eyes widening more and more, until it seemed as if they would break beyond the confines of her face.

"You're not wearing any underwear," Meghan said, pointing a slender finger at Danielle. Her expression shifted into a wicked grin. "Kinky," she purred huskily.

Meghan gingerly plucked the colony of Eufiber from Danielle's palm, and then froze. She expected it to be unusually pliable, maybe even viscous and warm, but she was not prepared for the sensation that it was a living thing. The colony resonated, somehow, with her own body. It felt more than alive, it felt as if it were somehow adapting itself to her own body's unique something.

"Oh, wow," she said, still holding it in her upturned palm, "this is way more amazing than I had ever imagined." Meghan rocked her hand back and forth, rolling the colony in her hand. As it rolled around, the point where it touched her hand felt like some kind of conduit, from her consciousness to something alien, but sympathetic.

Meghan slowly imagined the colony softening and flowing over her hand, and to her surprise, it instantly picked up her thoughts and did so. Meghan raised her hand before her face and turned it over, watching in fascination as the light played off the surface which continued to change its shape.

Meghan smiled serenely and closed her eyes.

"Let's do this thing," she said with certainity.

The colony spread rapidly over her body, stretching itself paper-thin as it nestled into every gap and fold on her metallic surface. The sensation was simultaneously erotic and comforting.

My God, she thought, no wonder Flicker lets me do this to her all the time. Meghan opened her eyes, and was surprised at how dark it had gotten.

"Eyeholes," she said, her voice muffled by the film of Eufiber over her mouth. The living colony responded, peeling away from the surface of her eyes.

"No wonder novas go on waiting lists for this," Meghan said to Danielle, so lost in the experience that she failed to notice that Danielle was still buck naked, "this is astonishing. What else does it do?"

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle laughs at the initial comment, blushing a bit more. "There's no underwear on Earth that's as good as this stuff. Never rides up, gives you all the right support, fits just right. And I didn't anticipate taking off my clothes again."

She watches Meghan play with the colony and then watches it slide over her like an oily river. She feels a brief shiver of remembered sensation. Oh, she looks like she's having fun. She stifles a giggle as she hears Meghan's muffled voice and then watches her create eye-holes in the fabric.

"Well, I can tell you what I've been doing with it which is more or less just practicing. Seeing all the shapes and textures I can do with it. I can't do those things I've heard some people can do, like make big long tendrils out of it, but in addition to that shiny look it normally has, I can make it look like nylon, wool, cotton..."

She coughs. "And... I think it can do flesh. Not like leather flesh - human flesh."

Silence hangs in the air for an uncomfortable moment. Then Danielle sets her shoulders, sitting up a little straighter. "I don't mean to offend. I hope you know that. It's just - as much as I love what I can do now, I'd love it if I could go back to the way I was before even if I couldn't bench a car or fly through Rio. Not forever - just for a little while. Just enough to appreciate it. I figured, maybe it'd be the same for you."

[Mithril]

"The way I was," Meghan whispered meditatively.

Is that possible? she thought. For Meghan, time slowed, and the world narrowed down until she was alone with her thoughts. She closed her eyes, and allowed all other thoughts to drain away, until she was consumed by only one idea.

The way I was, she thought.

Her form shifted. Underneath the eufiber, nails reappeared on her fingers, and her toes emerged from her smooth feet.

The way I was,

Meghan's stylized bob hairdo divided into ten thousand indididual strands, and the Eufiber frantically followed suit, coating every strand with an impossibly-thin sheath.

The way I was,

Meghan's skin dimpled and became irregular. Her navel reappeared, as did the bumps on her spine.

The way I was,

Meghan's vulva and nipples formed beneath the Eufiber.

The way I was,

The Eufiber changed color and texture, turning to the pale color of a girl who got not enough sun, peach colored on her arms and face, pale white in other places. Her hair turned brown, tinged with a trace of red that hinted at Irish blood in a distant generation.

Meghan opened her eyes slowly, and looked first at Danielle, afraid to look down at herself. She tilted her head inquisitively.

"Did it work?" Meghan asked in a whisper.

[Magnum Opus]

"Beautiful," Danielle whispers.

"I - I mean, yes. It worked. Wow. If it wasn't for your eyes I could never tell...!"

My God, just look at her. Okay. Watch your mouth. Think about what you say for once. I think she's going to be sensitive about how she looks.

She thinks back briefly to the incident with the men in the car.

I know I am.

"Yes. It worked. You look great. I guess you can't coat the eyes, but otherwise it's amazing...! Here, I think I have a mirror or something shiny somewhere here."

She digs through her personal belongings for a few moments, then pulls out her phone. "Here, it's got a camera on it and you can swivel it around to look at yourself in the viewer."

[Mithril]

Meghan only half-heard what Danielle was saying. As she listened, she turned her hands over and over, and looked at her palms and her fingernails, and admired the faint lines of veins under her wrists. She wiggled her gingers gingerly, and watched how the skin creased in the correct places. Meghan looked down at the rest of her body, still fascinated. She touched her bellybutton, and marvelled at the way it stretched when she lightly poked at it. Meghan wiggled her toes and felt the breeze between them.

Despite her nakedness, Meghan felt nothing awkward about sitting on a high rooftop in front of the also-naked Danielle.

Meghan accepted the phone from Danielle and adjusted the swivelling camera lens so that she could use the phone's screen as a mirror. What caught her attention first was her hair, hanging past her shoulders and framing her narrow face with dramatic auburn waves. She tilted the camera in her hand, panning the view upward, and she brushed her fingertips across her lips.

"That's really--" Meghan began to say, and then stopped abruptly. When she spoke, her silvery-metal teeth and tongue glared harshly in contrast to her human guise.

All at once, the illusion shattered.

Tight lipped, and with a trembling chin, Meghan looked into her own eyes on the screen. Blank and inhuman silver orbs stared back at her, framed incongruously in pale skin and dark eyelashes. Meghan held out Danielle's phone.

"Take it," she said quickly, her voice cracking.

Meghan's heart did not begin to pound, because she had none. Meghan's breath did not come in quick gasps, because she did not breathe. Meghan's stomach did not turn over, because she lacked one. What she could do, however, was cry. A single silvery tear, like a drop of quicksilver, escaped the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek, leaving a curious glimmering silver stain on her freckled cheek.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle reaches for the phone. "Meghan? What - "

Her teeth. Her teeth aren't coated either. And she looked into her eyes...

Oh God. It's that much worse when you can see the cracks.

"Hey," she says awkwardly. "Hey, we - we can coat your teeth or something, and get you sunglasses... I..."

Her face crumples. God dammit. I wanted her to be happy. That's all I wanted. I didn't want her to feel this way.

She takes Meghan's hand in hers as she removes the phone. "Oh, Meghan," she says, her voice full of empathy. "It's okay. No one's here but us. You can let it out."

[Mithril]

Meghan jumped to her feet, and turned in a circle, her arms held out. The roofing material crunched underfoot.

"It's not me!" she shouted with her eyes clenched shut, now shedding silvery tears like rain. Her hands were closed fists, and she felt her fingernails biting into her palms.

"This isn't who I am!" Meghan sobbed, shrieking the words as loudly as she could, still turning aimlessly, and the Eufiber responded. The texture disappeared, becoming smooth and doll-like again as every surface detail disappeared.

"I'm not like that anymore," Meghan whimpered more softly, and her toes disappeared again, as did her fingernails and her hair. Her eyes flattened into oval panes, and the Eufiber collected itself in her palm, pooling there like a sweater unknitting itself into a ball of yarn.

"That Meghan's gone," Meghan said morosely. "I can remember her, but I can't feel her anymore." She hunched down onto the rooftop, her arms wrapped around her knees, and hid her face and continued to sob, her shoulders shaking in time to her anguished gasps.

"She's in here," Meghan whispered, touching her head. Then she tapped her heart, "but she's not in here."

This body is all I have left.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle slides over next to Meghan, putting her hands on the metallic girl's shoulders. She sighs with sympathy.

I just wanted you to be happy, Meghan. I didn't mean to hurt you.

I can't know a tenth of what you're going through. Not a tenth. I wish I could make it better. I wish I could take that wonderful heart and mind and put it in a better place.

I'm so sorry that listening to you is all I can do.

The words don't leave her mouth. Danielle decides that maybe now's the time to use her ears instead. She holds Meghan as closely as the metallic nova will let her.

[Mithril]

For a long minute, Meghan hunched on the rooftop, her face buried in her knees. She contentrated only on Danielle's touch, and let the rest of her emotional turmoil fade from her mind, to be dealt with another time.

"Okay," Meghan said quietly to Danielle, "I don't suppose I could talk you into never telling a soul about what you just saw."

[Magnum Opus]

"Not a soul, Meghan." She squeezes affirmatively. "It doesn't leave this room - er, this roof, anyways."

She lets out a sigh. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to upset you, I really didn't."

I wonder if I should suggest contacts and maybe some false teeth...

No. I don't think she wants to even consider trying that ever again - no matter how good we can make it.

[Mithril]

"Not your fault," Meghan replied. She gracefully rose to her feet, unfolding like a carpenter's rule. Meghan took a long look around at the rooftops, then turned to Danielle, who was still right by her side.

Man, I haven't had a fucked-up episode like that since Cleveland, Meghan thought, resisting the urge to shake her head violently as if to shake the uncomfortable idea from her head. For her first two weeks in Cleveland after her eruption, she'd been nearly inconsolable, but since then-- up this this point-- she thought she'd gotten over it.

I guess I never did make peace with myself, Meghan mused. She shoved the thought aside. Maybe later.

"Let's hit the beach, what do you say?" Meghan suggested softly. "A really crowded one, I mean."

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle slowly clues in to how not-clothed she is. She gingerly touches the eufiber colony, re-attuning it to herself. It crawls along her body, reforming into a one-piece bathing suit.

"Everyone's gonna be staring at us, you know," she says, pensively. "You for being, well, you... and me for being, well, me. Especially in something like this."

She rubs the bridge of her nose. "But I guess we'd both better get used to that sooner or later, huh?"

Some of us more - a lot more - than others.

"Sure, I'm good for that." She smiles earnestly. "Lead on."

[Mithril]

"Let's go to Ipanema then," Meghan said, pointing at a crescent of white bracketed between hotels and the sea, "It's kind of a happening place, and there's a good mix of locals and tourists, so there'll be some stuff in English too." Meghan's sublimation of her emotional outbust was nearly complete, and only the barest hint that she'd been upset was detectable. In another moment it would disappear entirely.

Meghan leapt fearlessly over the edge of the skyscraper, and shifted her form to her favorite falcon shape as she fell, leading the way to the beach.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle proceeds to pick up her various gadgets, then stops for a moment, rubbing her forehead.

I'm about to go out to a public beach, with this on. What the hell am I thinking? God - how does she do this?

She looks out over the empty rooftop for a moment as she sticks the devices into an improvised fanny pack.

She has to do this. She'd go nuts if she didn't do this. Is that what's happening to me? Am I going to drive myself insane if I don't deal with it?

She thinks back to the truck, and how it was really a scene she'd seen in a hundred movies, and how none of them seemed that funny when it was happening to you.

Because she's used to being judged and dismissed based on her looks. I think they all are. Women, I mean.

And I can't put on a male suit any more than she can put on a... a meat-suit. She deals with what she's got. Maybe I ought to, too. Try and get used to it. It's not like they can hurt me, right?

She makes a decision, and steps off the ledge, the entire thought process taking only a second. She flies towards the silvery falcon.

I can't help but notice she suddenly doesn't look like me any more...

[Mithril]

Ipanema was busy as usual, but not crazily so. The beach was dotted with locals and tourists, and an acrade of stalls and vendors in semi-permanent tents lined the beach, offering everything from sunblock and swimsuits to smoothies and snacks.

Meghan picked out a relatively open section of the beach for her landing and dropped nimbly to the white sand, returning to her usual teenaged girl shape as she touched down. She was followed only a moment later by Danielle, who lightly landed a step away.

She's getting a lot better at that, Meghan thought with a smile.

"Welcome to Ipanema," Meghan said to Danielle.

All around them, heads swivelled as if on gimbals, drawn by the sudden appearance of two flying novas on the beach. Frisbees sailed into the sea, forgotten, volleyballs thudded gently to the sand, and for a moment the only sounds were the waves and the music that played from countless radios.

"E menina titanium!" someone shouted.

"Quem e seu amigo?" asked someone else, "e incredible!"

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle took in the vast number of people on the beach, all staring at her - no, she corrected herself, at the two of them. She spared a glance at Mithril, again taken by how the sun refracted off of her flesh.

She could pick out about one word out of eight from the assembled beachgoers. She unconsciously folded her arms. "Ipanema... okay. It's, er, nice..."

She scrunched the sand between her toes. The beach. A beach, again. Is she trying to tell me something?

"I'm nude here. New! New here. What did you want to do first?"

[Mithril]

"I like to swim," Meghan said, forgetting what had happened the last time she swam on a beach with Danielle. She took Danielle's hand and led the way down the beach toward the surf, ignoring the numerous handheld and mobile-phone video cameras which were now pointed their way. Despite being made completely of metal, Meghan could still enjoy the feel of the warm sun on her skin, and the smell of sea air.

As they skirted the edge of an impromptu beach volleyball game, the ball thudded into the sand at Meghan's feet. She scooped it up and tossed it back to its apparent owner, a lanky teenaged boy in board shorts with zinc oxide smeared on his cheeks and nose.

"Thanks!" the boy called, catching the ball. For a moment he hesitated, following Meghan and Danielle with his eyes, then he found his resolve. "Hey!" he shouted after them.

Meghan stopped and looked over her shoulder, coyly.

"Em Ingles?" she asked.

"Nao capaz the Portugese," he replied with a laugh, "I'm Blake, from Canberra. Do you and your friend fancy a go?"

Meghan glanced at Danielle, then back to Blake. Before she could respond, he spoke again, taking a step toward them and pointing over his shoulder at the volleyball net.

"Volleyball, I mean," he clarified. On the other side of the net, another wiry teen with a smear of sunscreen and spiky blonde hair had approached the net, and he listened with great interest.

Oh, God yes, he thought, Please let them say yes.

[Magnum Opus]

"Volleyball?"

Uncomfortable memories of high school swam before Danielle's mind's eye - down to his gym strip, everyone yelling at him because he was a little bit poor in the hand-eye coordination department. Spraining a finger on a serve...

Of course, that was then. Things may have changed.

"I'm up for it. I gotta warn you though, I'm pretty fast. I could probably - "

Take all three of you on at once?

Danielle let the unintentional innuendo die in her throat. "Probably... you know, yeah, volleyball sounds good to me."

She imagined his gym coach dealing with a volleyball to the crotch spiked in at over a thousand kilometers per hour, and smiled to herself.

[Mithril]

"Awright!" Blake drawled, ducking under the net with the ball tucked under his arm. He and his spiky-haired friend exchanged a high-five at their good fortune. Blake walked to the end of their side and scuffed at the sand, steadying his footing.

"We'll volley a point for first serve, how's that?" he asked, serving the ball underhanded. It arched high across the net in a gentle curve.

Meghan was closer to the ball, and bumped the ball to Danielle, almost losing her footing. Danielle took the bump and expertly set to Meghan, who had scrambled to the net. Meghan leapt as high as her five and a half foot body would allow, and met the set perfectly, spiking the ball straight into the sand at Blake's friend's feet.

"Holy shite, Connor," Blake laughed, identifying his friend, "you just got owned by a girl!"

Meghan squealed in delight and jumped into the air for a two-handed high five (high ten?) with Danielle.

Connor stood gobsmacked for a moment, then retrieved the ball, palming it under the net to Danielle.

"I see how it is," he said, nodding ruefully and reassessing the odds. He turned around to face Blake. "Don't hold back, right?"

Blake crouched down to receive the next serve, his jaw set. He grinned fiercely and stabbed a thumbs-up to Connor.

Meghan took the net as Danielle walked back to serve to start the match. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that the impromptu nova-on-baseline girls-versus-guys match was beginning to attract attention.

[Magnum Opus]

Damn. This is easier than I thought it would be!

Danielle was only peripherally aware of the gathering crowd. In her mind she was replaying a dozen failed high school games, and where others heard the pounding surf, she heard the squeak of sneakers on hardwood.

If I had this body in high school I'd have been a king! ... well, a queen.

Danielle served - and winced as she applied just an ounce too much force. The ball sailed up in the air for a long moment, on an easily intercepted path.

She could dial back most - not all, but most - of her paranormal abilities, and so never ran the risk of squeezing someone too hard or reacting too quickly, or being unable to sleep when her mind needed to dream more than her body needed to rest. But she could still misapply her normal - and considerable - strength. Okay, she thought. Maybe not that easy.

Connor intercepted the ball, setting up the play for Blake, who leapt into the air and thumped it over the net. It went wide, arcing back to Danielle, who deflected it to Meghan awkwardly...

Meghan managed to keep it in the air off the first bounce, but she missed the second. It landed in the sand with a dull chuff.

Blake and Connor whooped as one. "Fuck yeah!!"

Danielle winced inside. Great. I still suck.

[Mithril]

Meghan tossed the ball under the net to Connor, who was taking his place to serve.

"No problem, no problem," she pattered to Danielle, "Just finding our groove, right?"

Connor tossed the ball high and leapt after it, punching it hard with his closed fist, aiming for the back corner. Meghan was there, ready to bump the ball to Danielle, but the impact knocked her over backwards onto her metal keister. Nimbly, she sprang to her feet in time to see Danielle taking a defensive shot, punching the ball over Blake's hands toward the back of the boys' court.

Connor dove for the ball, but could not reach it in time. He slid across the sand, his outstretched hands still a foot away from where the ball splatted into the white sand. Connor slapped at the sand and clambered to his feet, underhanding the ball to Meghan.

,,

"Somebody score a point already!" an onlooker shouted with a South Asian accent, and his exhortation was echoed with a smattering of cheers and laughter.

"You hear that?" Meghan asked Danielle, as she took her place to serve. Danielle nodded and hunched down, ready to spring into the air.

Meghan tossed the ball gently and slapped it over the net, in a high arc.

"Got it got it got it!" Blake shouted, squatting under the ball and bumping it to Connor, who was camped at the net. Blake's bump went long however, and sailed over Connor's arms and back into Danielle and Meghan's court. Danielle was right there, and she leapt skyward.

"BOOM!" Danielle shouted, as she pounded the ball hard with her fist. With a sound like a gunshot, it smashed into the sand in the middle of the boys' court and stuck there.

As one, the crowd drew in a surprised breath.

In the momentary silence, Meghan laughed.

"Ha haaa! One - zero," Meghan said, grinning broadly.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle bounces from one foot to the other, smiling. Connor gave her the stinkeye. Blake stayed more or less cool.

The crowd gave them plenty of space, having seen the power of Danielle's supersonic spike. The game began in earnest.

Blake and Connor were good - used to working together. Their synergy helped make up for the edge that Meghan's stamina and Danielle's speed provided. With each scored point, whoops and hollers went up from the crowd. In the distance, Danielle heard the rustle of a van door being opened and several dozen pounds of camera equipment being hustled out.

God, a camera crew...

she heard them conversing rapidly into a microphone in Portuguese. She picks out one word out of eight. "... novas... titanium... ball game..."

She misses an easy deflection, distracted, and the game is suddenly 13-14, in Blake and Connor's favor.

Conner gave a determined grin as Meghan went to serve. He deflects the ball, passing off to Blake. Blake bounces it over the net, and it's deflected by Danielle, who punts it - just barely - over the net. It makes a whiff noise as it clears the net. Conner bunts it up, Blake sets it up for a spike...

And it barely makes it over the net as well.

Meghan deflects it, setting things up perfectly for Danielle. She grins as she leaps up into the air. Connor and Blake get half a second to develop very worried expressions on their faces...

And then Danielle spikes.

The ball hits the ground like a missile. The bow wave from the impact sprays sand everywhere. For a long moment, everyone is covered in sand, looking stunned.

Then everyone looks to the ball. Or what used to be the ball - it burst on impact, and is about as lively as wet mud.

Danielle looks deflated as well. ".... oops..."

"Here, now, that was our ball! Hell's your problem?" Conner barges under the net, looking furious. "That's bloody great. We get to 14 points and you pull a stunt like that - "

"Ease off, aright mate?" Blake ducks the net, coming to stand behind his friend.

"I'm not bloody easing off! Nova bitch can't stand to lose so she breaks the ball - "

Danielle's eyes widened. Her lips thinned. "What did you just say?" she says, in the soft tone of voice of the truly upset.

[Mithril]

One of the unspoken rules of friendship is that when your friend is in a fight, whether they are right or wrong, you stand by them. If they are in the wrong, then the time to address that is later, in private. Accordingly, Meghan stepped into the nascent fracas without even considering why.

"Oh no you did not just go there," Meghan said crossly, shaking her head as she advanced past Danielle. She interposed her body in-between Danielle and Connor, unafraid, and found herself looking upward to Connor who stood a half-head taller than she. "It's our serve. Why would we break the ball when we were about to win, tell me that."

[Magnum Opus]

"I - that is - " Connor stammered, his imagination suddenly replacing the ball with his head. His tanned complexion went chalk white.

"I'm sorry I broke the ball. I didn't mean to." Her voice was even as a ruler. "But you do not call women 'bitches,' you understand?" Danielle looks down her nose - literally - at Connor, only peripherally aware of Meghan and Blake.

One good tug of his shirt and he's sucking seawater... and he'd deserve it.

"I - "

"Sorry. Sorry about that. He didn't mean anything by it. Frustration's just speaking, right?" Blake clapped a hand on Connor's shoulder. "He's not like that, aright?" Blake had the look of a man handed a ticking bomb and trying to pull all the wires out at once.

"Naw, I'm not. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." His face added, please don't kill me. Danielle could see the sweat on his skin, already thick, grow that much thicker, and his posture changed just enough to let him know he was in fear of his life.

You saw novas on the TV, after all, and they weren't always cutting the ribbon at a shopping mall - sometimes the cutting was a bit less friendly. She'd been playing a game about those kinds of novas not too long ago. They only looked big and awesome on a TV screen. In person, they just looked big.

Danielle flexed her fingers, a dozen frustrations bubbling away and one very convenient target in front of her. If she chucked him into the ocean it'd be no great loss, would it? Just...

How many times did you mutter that word under your breath? Even if you didn't mean it. Guys just hear it on the radio when Mephistafoleez uses it every third verse and it sticks inside. Just let it go.

But dammit -

She felt tremors going through her muscles as the rage started to subside. Yes, it sucks that you have to be the bigger person. But you could kill him with one punch. You'll always have to be the bigger person, because really, is this worth hurting someone over? Just set it down. Anger's like a bag of bricks. Just let go of it.

She relaxed. "All right. I believe you. No worries. Now - anyone got a ball I can play with?"

Scattered snickers rang out from the crowd. Danielle groaned. "A volleyball."

Silence reigned for a moment. Danielle rubbed the bridge of her nose. "All right, I broke it. I'll go out and get a new one - "

"Naw, you didn't break it. It was an accident." Connor looked sincere. "Game was worth it. You two play well together."

"Oh yes. Good game. Great game." Blake holds out a hand for Meghan to shake.

[Mithril]

Meghan accepted Blake's handshake. As she always did when shaking hands with someone new, she watched his eyes to see how he reacted to the touch of her living metal flesh. Blake tensed slightly beforehand, then quickly relaxed again, but only Meghan noticed it.

"Good game," Meghan said with a smile. She turned to Connor, who was quickly recovering his composure. "You too, good game. Good to meet you."

At courtside, the impromptu audience was already beginning to slowly reluctantly dissipate in ones and twos.

"That's it?" someone mused to a friend, "Fourteen-fourteen tie and it's 'good game?'"

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle examined the ball, prodding it with her foot. She felt a little cold.

If that had hit someone...

"Uh." Connor coughed. "I, uh, I feel like shit for askin' but - "

"I can get you the money. You take Canadian dollars?"

"Canadian?" He laughed. "Really! Naw. I was just wonderin' if you wouldn't mind signin' the ball?"

Danielle blinked. Then she smiled. "Sure! Uh..." She patted down her bathing suit. "I have a pen. I know it - "

"I've a sharpie. Here." He handed her a pen. "So you're Canadian, eh?"

There is a moment if the life of every Canadian traveling abroad, when they run into someone who thinks they are a comedian in general and hilarious about Canada in particular. There are two ways most Canadians deal with this, and Danielle chose the first one.

"I am. Born and raised." She scribbled To Blake and Connor - thanks for the game! 14-14 forever. Knockout on it. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched his gaze, and true to form, it began to travel downwards...

She handed him back the ball, and his gaze met her eyes. He smiled. "Aw, unreal. Brilliant. Thanks... 'Knockout.' Huh, I hadn't heard of you."

Oh, I like him already. He hasn't heard of me. Thank God -

"I'll have to Google you when I get home."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"Listen, uh - me an' Blake, we're gonna hit the clubs now. Did you wanna come 'long?"

Oh God, oh God, I see where this is going. "Uh - "

"I hope I'm not bein' too forward here - "

"No, no, it's just, that I'm, uhm, taken. Spoken for."

"Oh." He looked at Meghan, and his eyebrows slowly went up. "Ohhhhhhhh. Well, uh, jsut thought I'd try my luck, right?"

"Right."

"Right."

Well, this is awkward.

Connor coughed. "Well, have fun bein' in a country where the sun shines, eh?" He smiled and winked.

[Mithril]

That's a fascinating bit of insight, Meghan thought. Why is it I'm the last one to find out that I'm dating Danielle?

Meghan wrapped her arm around Danielle's waist and gave her an affectionate pat, while surrepticiously watching Blake and Connor for reactions.

"Oh definitely," Meghan chimed in, leaning against Danielle's side and pressing her cheek to Danielle's shoulder, "we're inseparable these days. We'd be bad luck for you two clubbing anyway-- everyone would think we're your dates and then you'd have no luck at all."

"Oh, yeah, it's best this way," Blake said, unable to believe he'd actually said it.

Meghan turned back to Danielle, and looked up into her eyes.

"Shall we?" she asked, indicating the surf.