Morgan: You think I could come over sometime this week and talk to your family about New Wave?

  Me: Are you kidding? Of course! You know Carol likes you and Melody and she’s always nagging us to have people over anyways. That whole family dinner thing.

  Morgan: Thanks. I’m not giving up after everything. I know I’ve got options out there. I want to stay local for Mel. Just be me though. She’s still furious.

  Me: Ames and I have gotten into some bad ones before. Give her some time. She still loves you.

  Morgan: I know. That was my plan, let her cool her jets.

  Me: How are you holding up? You’re all recovered, right? Don’t push yourself.

  Morgan: Been going through tissues, but more mad than anything. Healed up but my power’s acting out wicked. Started feeling pretty bad little while ago.

  Me: Acting out? How?

  Morgan: IDK, pushing? Hard 2 desc. Have 2 fite 2 keep it off. BRB going 2 b skick

  Me: Hope you feel better soon.

  It ever do that before, or is this new?

  Morgan? You there? Don’t ghost on me that makes me nervous.

  Morgan: Smthg wrnog

  need help

  NO PRT R EMS

  just u

  Me: OK!! OMW! Where??

  Morgan: Mt new plce |Location|

  I flew up off my bed and glanced over at my closet. The thought of getting into costume crossed my mind, but she’d said she didn’t want any PRT or emergency services, so I figured discretion would be better. Plainclothes, it is. My heart rate was elevated, and I was really worried. The mention of EMS indicated this was something emergency-worthy, and it was unlike Morgan to ever ask for help like this. I did have one big conflict I had to figure out, though.

  She had asked me to come alone, but she’d also said she was sick and from the sounds of things, getting worse. Time was essential in an emergency, but I wanted to respect her desire for privacy. Things related to powers were, by their very nature, pretty intimate and struck close to home when it came to emotions and vulnerabilities. I made up my mind. I’d rather ask forgiveness than ask permission in a situation like this.

  My door slammed against the reinforced stopper with a loud “Bang!” as I yanked it open to dart over to Amy’s room.

  Carol yelled sharply from downstairs: “VICKY!”

  “Sorry, Mom, got excited!” I yelled down the staircase.

  I barged straight into Amy’s room. She was sitting on her bed with her laptop on her lap and practically threw it into the air while going “AH! Vicky KNOCK FIRST!”

  Another sharp yell from downstairs: “VICKY!”

  I spun and closed the door gently, then faced Amy. I dropped the volume of my voice: “Amy, we gotta go right now, someone needs help. It’s an emergency.”

  She frowned at me and said, “You know today’s an off day, are you trying to piss off Carol and get us grounded?”

  “Amy, now’s not the time, it’s Morgan, she needs help, I think she’s hurt, maybe bad. Come on, we gotta go. I’ll just lie to Mom and tell her we’re late to a movie or something.”

  “Morgan?” The look that crossed over Amy’s face told me her protest had ceased. She clapped the lid of her laptop closed and set it on her desk, then got up to go to her wardrobe.

  “No costumes, we’re going for a movie, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Well, let’s go then. Am I dressed alright?” She looked down at her yoga pants and sweatshirt.

  “I don’t think she cares right now, Ames! Come on.” I spun back around in my hovering position and opened the door to go downstairs, Amy hot on my heels.

  “Hey, Mom, we’re heading out. I totally forgot that we changed movie showtimes to be earlier, so we’re running way super late already.” Mom peeked her head back and looked around the doorframe from the kitchen to the living room.

  “You didn’t mention going out for movies?” She asked.

  “Right, we were going to go later, so I was going to ask then, then M&M changed the ticket times, sorry!”

  “You have money?” Dad asked from the sofa.

  “What are you watching?” Asked Mom.

  “Yep!” I answered Dad.

  “Murderous Hobos,” said Amy.

  Nice save, Amy. Leave it to you to know what’s actually playing right now.

  Carol made a face at the answer and sighed. “Fine, but you four need to start watching less trashy movies.”

  “Thanks, Mom! We gotta go! Seeya! I’ll text you later, we’re probably gonna hang out on the boardwalk after and get some food!”

  That gives us extra time if we need it.

  Amy and I pulled shoes on really quickly before darting out the door.

  I heard Dad as we were closing the door: “You know we used to watch some pretty trashy movies…”

  Scooping Amy up into a princess carry, I waited for her to throw her arms around my neck before I took off. Almost straight up to get my bearings, and then northeast. We’d be there momentarily. I just had to gauge where exactly her apartment was. It took me entirely way too long to locate it without the help of my phone.

  Landing, I set Amy down and knocked on the front door. There wasn’t any response. I knocked a few more times. Nothing. I tried the handle. It was locked.

  “What should we do?

  I frowned and texted her a few times. The send receipts were all marked as ‘delivered’ and not ‘read.’

  “I think we’re going to have to break in. Not that uh, it would be hard, but maybe I should try and minimize damages.”

  We went around to the side of the apartment facing away from the street, and I flew up to the second-story window.

  Careful, we don’t want to shatter the window.

  Pressing very carefully on the frame, I lifted the sliding portion of the window until there was a “Ping!” from inside, and the locking latch snapped off. Sliding it open, I dropped back down and helped Amy up and through the window before coming through myself and closing it behind us. I don’t think anyone saw us. We were in an upstairs bedroom, and the door was shut.

  “We can’t afford to get into trouble again, Vicky.” Amy was looking at the broken window hardware on the floor.

  “She’s our friend, she isn’t going to care, she asked me to come over to help her, and she might be hurt pretty badly.” I cleared my throat and called out, “Morgan?” towards the door. Again, no response. I took the lead and opened the door.

  The wave of smell that hit my face when the door opened made me want to gag. Coppery blood, combined with the acidic reek of vomit. It was bad, the kind of smell that you would get in the hospital that the antiseptics mostly covered up. I glanced back at Amy, and she had a look of determination on her face.

  “Come on, let’s go,” she said. I nodded and we headed out onto the landing and towards the source of the smell, which was coming from downstairs. The lights were on, and there was some music from a video game or something playing in the background. I’d no more gotten to the bottom of the stairs and started to look around when I saw her phone on the floor, next to a pool of blood and bile. Morgan was in the center of it, sprawled on her side with one arm stretched out over her head like she’d been reaching for the phone.

  She looked bad. Really bad. Her sports bra and running shorts were soaked through with blood, her hair matted and stuck to her face with filth. Her skin was ashen, she was slick with sweat, trails cutting through the grime. Her eyes were open but vacant, lips tinged blue. She was breathing fast and shallow. Her breath was gurgling, her nose bleeding, and there was pink foam on the floor in front of her mouth.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” Amy was hopping up and down, one foot and ripping her shoes off, and already had her sweatshirt tossed on the staircase.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “I don’t have a change of clothes, Vicky! You want to go home looking like we’re the murder hobos?!”

  Aw shit! She’s right. I’ll just keep my forcefield up.

  “Right, sorry.” I floated forward, heart pounding, hovering just an inch above the sticky floor. “Morgan? Can you hear me?" My voice cracked. "Morgan?”

  She shook, then coughed a wad of foam up. Her eyes rolled around some before finding me as I came to a stop in front of her and kneeled down on the cheap linoleum flooring.

  “V-Vic. Hey. M’lil unner the weather.” Her speech was slurred, and she grimaced as another shudder ran through her; she clutched her abdomen with her free hand.

  “Hey, don’t worry, I brought Amy over with me, we’re going to get you all fixed up right away, okay?”

  Her lips turned up a little, and she said: “‘kay.”

  Amy came right over and kneeled in the blood and muck and placed her hand on Morgan’s thigh. She was wearing only her underwear. She screwed her face up in concentration for a moment, then pulled her hand back. “W-what? How? Huh?”

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  She mumbled something under her breath, but I couldn’t quite make out.

  Did she say cancer?

  “Her organs are toast. Some of them are dead inside of her.”

  I wasn’t a doctor, but that sounded bad. “You can help her, right?” Amy was the closest thing I’d ever seen to an actual miracle worker. She’d saved people with huge chunks of their bodies missing before. She reached out and put her hand back on Morgan’s thigh and closed her eyes.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "What's this? She's a changer?" Amy opened her eyes, frowning, hand still pressed to Morgan's skin. "There's... a core. In her chest. It's connected to..."

  "No," I said slowly, tilting my head. "She's a brute."

  Amy shook her head, voice firm. "No, she's for sure a changer. I've seen brutes. This is different. She's got a structure. Systems layered beneath her organs, like vines wrapped around them."

  She grabbed Morgan's wrist and moved her ruined, shredded hand aside. Then, without hesitation, Amy wiped a thick swath of blood from her lower chest.

  That's when I saw them.

  Twisting, curling tracts of blue skin wound across her side and abdomen like thorned vines. They linked together around circular and elliptical points... some kind of anchors? They ranged in size from coins to full palms.

  Fractal patterns. Alien. Ordered. Beautiful and horrifying all at once.

  Amy’s brow furrowed. She looked shaken, confused. “There’s something happening in her body,” She murmured, more to herself than me. “But it’s… interrupted? Is she causing it, or fighting it?” Then more forcefully, to Morgan: “Morgan. Are you using your power right now?”

  Morgan’s head rolled slightly as she struggled to focus. Her voice came out slurred and raw: “N-nuh. Can’t let it out. Can’t let it out.”

  She sounded delirious to me.

  Amy leaned in until she was nearly face-to-face with her, her voice sharp and urgent. “Hey. Hey! You have to let it out. You’re going to die if you don’t.”

  The poor girl drew in a gurgling breath, then a sob. Deep, wet, soul-wracking.

  “I don’t–I don’t want to be a Case fifty-three!”

  She hacked, a choking cough, red flecks sprayed across the floor.

  Amy slapped her cheek, hard. The crack echoed through the apartment.

  “You’d rather die and leave Melody alone instead?”

  I flinched; the venom in Amy’s voice stung even me.

  Whatever fight Morgan had left in her fled. Her bloodshot eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head once. Then she went slack, completely limp. She looked dead.

  “She’s passed out,” Amy snapped, already shifting gears. She didn’t even look at me as she rattled off orders. “Vicky: towels, washcloths, paper towels, anything absorbent. Bucket or two of hot water if she has them. Bleach, floor cleaner, soap. Then go grab takeout. A lot. Big family-sized meal. I might have to use my power; I’ll need the calories. We’re going to be here a while.”

  I blinked, thrown off for half a second. Amy was on fire. I’d seen glimpses of this side of her in emergencies, but never like this. Never this focused and in control.

  Pride welled up in my chest.

  I nodded and moved fast, already mentally tallying what she’d need and where to look for it.

  Morgan’s apartment was pretty spartan. She hadn’t been here long, but she had stocked the essentials. I grabbed half a dozen bath towels, as many hand towels and washcloths, and bundled them in a sheet like a makeshift satchel. Paper towels, a big pack, went in next. Cleaning supplies, most fresh and unopened, were all tossed into the pile.

  Pots were small, but I found three. She clearly didn’t cook much. For water containers, I grabbed her mop bucket, the crisper bin from her fridge, and the ice bucket from the freezer. I filled them with steaming hot water, sink and tub running at full blast. By the time I brought them to Amy, she’d already soaked half the pack of paper towels, mopping up blood and vomit.

  She pressed her hand to Morgan’s thigh every so often, maybe checking vitals, maybe more.

  “Trash bags,” she said, brisk but calm.

  I returned with the bags. We worked in tandem, scooping up sodden towels and stuffing them into the plastic. That’s when she looked up at me. “Sorry, I got excited,” Amy said, brushing a damp lock of hair off her face. “It’s just, it’s different when it’s a friend and someone you care about, not another patient on a chart. I really didn’t want her to die. She was minutes away from being a corpse.”

  I leaned in and hugged her around the shoulders, my forcefield keeping any gunk off me.

  “Amy, I’m really proud of you,” I said, giving her a squeeze before pulling back. “Your power kicks ass.”

  Amy blushed furiously and replied: “I haven’t really done much yet. Her– I think she’s like me, Vicky.”

  “She can heal people?”

  Amy’s talking about her power. Voluntarily. This never happens.

  She shook her head. “Not like that, I mean… sort of? Her power’s healing her, but not the way a brute regenerates. It’s changing her. Like how I can modify a microbe to help instead of harm? She’s doing something like that, to herself.”

  Amy paused, then added, quieter: “But it’s… weird. Some of it feels familiar, but it’s all wrong. There is a scale and complexity I can barely read. And what I can see? It’s like nothing I’ve ever touched before.”

  I frowned: “Different how?”

  Amy's response came quickly: “It’s not human biology. I’m not even sure it’s all carbon-based. And some of the materials… I think they’re being made by that core in her chest.”

  Not human.

  It sent a chill up my spine.

  But Amy didn’t seem worried. So I nodded. She was the expert here.

  I tied off a third black trash bag with a triple-knot. That was almost the entirety of the mess on the floor and a good chunk of what had been on Morgan. Amy grabbed the mop bucket and a tan hand towel, wrung it out, and started in on cleaning her up.

  “You should probably go out for the other stuff. Oh, and take those bags with you. Can I ask a favor?” Amy asked me.

  “Of course, name it.”

  “I know it’s out of the way, but can you drop the bags off behind the hospital? There’s a fenced-in area near the loading docks: barbed wire, big brightly-colored dumpsters. Biohazard disposal. It’s where we toss anything medical.”

  She hesitated. “There’s nothing dangerous in her fluids, not really, but I’d rather not risk BBPD stumbling into it somewhere else and thinking it’s a crime scene.”

  Good thinking. “Yeah, that’s smart, I can do that, it’ll delay me getting back a bit since I’ll have to go do that first before getting any food. You sure you’ll be fine here alone?”

  “I’ve got my phone,” she said, swabbing Morgan’s neck. “And she’s not waking up anytime soon. Her body’s burning everything it’s got on repairs. Just grab her keys and lock the door behind you.”

  “Got it. Any food preferences?”

  Amy rocked her head from side to side, thinking. “Smoke Pit BBQ? I want my usual. And probably a couple of pounds of pulled pork, or a chicken or two, for Morgan. Or both. She’s going to need a lot of protein.” She glanced up at me. “Can you afford it?”

  I thought about it. Smoke Pit was a little pricy for dine-in stuff, but you could get big orders of meats at pretty good prices.

  “Should be fine! I can hit an ATM if I have to, and I doubt Mom or Dad will notice since we said we’d be going out and doing some shopping.”

  I found her keys on the coffee table in front of her couch. I went over and gave Amy another quick hug from behind, made a mental checklist of the stops I’d need to make, and grabbed the trash bags. They were probably heavy, but nothing Glory Girl couldn’t handle. Making my way to the front door, I pulled the deadbolt back and looked back at Amy to see her watching me leave.

  “Call if you need anything, or if anything comes up, please? I’ll be back as soon as I can, but I think I need three or four stops for everything.”

  “I will. Promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I nodded and stepped out, locking the door securely behind me. I took the trash bags around to the back of the apartment before taking them to the air and starting my trip.

  First stop: the hospital. I found the dumpsters Amy was talking about and deposited the bags. Thankfully, they’d sealed up decently well, and I didn’t have to deal with the oppressive smell. I did hold my breath opening the biowaste dumpster, though.

  Next was stopping at a local grocery store to get another jumbo pack of paper towels, to replace what we’d used. I grabbed a bungee cord from the housewares aisle. After checkout, I popped holes in the packaging, threaded the cord through the cardboard tubes, and looped it to make it easier to carry one-handed.

  One less thing to juggle.

  Last stop: Smoke Pit. The line was long, no surprise, it was always packed. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have called ahead, but my head was elsewhere. I grabbed a takeout menu, marked down the order, and handed it to the counter girl. She told me it would be 15 to 30 and took my number for a callback. I was worried about my friend. She seemed convinced she was turning into a Case Fifty-Three.

  C53s were the PRT classification for monstrous or nonhuman parahumans. “Monstrous” had been the old term, but even before I got my powers, the official name had taken hold: named after the case file number from the first known incident.

  They weren’t just inhuman in appearance. They were strange in other ways, too. None of them remembered where they came from. No childhood, no family, no past. Most just showed up somewhere one day. Fully functional, able to talk and think and move like any normal adult, but with nothing from before that moment.

  I didn’t know any personally, but New Wave had dealt with a few over the years. Some, most, went villain, but not all.

  It was possible, in theory, that becoming a Case 53 meant losing your memories. Maybe something went wrong during the transformation. Parahuman Studies at BBU, which I was enrolled in, had floated the idea that the memory loss came from the same brain rewiring that created powers. Like… trauma breaking the person, and something in that break wiping everything clean.

  But Morgan already had powers. She’d triggered over a year ago. She’d been a Ward.

  It didn’t match up. None of it made any sense.

  Thinking of the stories from my family made me think back to the conversation we were having about Morgan talking about New Wave. I winced a little.

  Mom was big on optics. Borderline obsessive about it, honestly. She never let Amy or me forget how important it was to present ourselves well, to uphold the image of the team. If Morgan really was mutating, if she didn’t look human… I couldn’t imagine Mom being on board with her joining.

  Then again. Maybe. She was cunning when it came to strategy. Playing the long game. If New Wave wanted to differentiate itself from the PRT, welcoming someone like that might be a power move.

  I fired off a few texts to Amy to check-in. She replied quickly: everything was fine, she was keeping watch, and Morgan was out cold. “Super cool stuff going on,” she added cryptically.

  My phone buzzed with an SMS from the restaurant that the order was ready.

  I texted Amy and relayed the message that I’d be back shortly. Heading into the take-out area, the waitress had a handful of bags, each stacked with trays, tubs, and containers. There was a 4-pack of 2-liter sodas with the order too. The cashier, a young woman with a pixie cut, looked at me, blinked twice, then blushed.

  “Are you… Glory Girl?”

  I smiled. “Yup, that’s me.”

  We took a selfie in front of the takeout counter, and I threw a sideways peace sign. She was so excited that she was practically vibrating afterward.

  Cashing out completed, I loaded up the half dozen bags of food and drinks in one hand and then made my way outside. Lifting off, I grabbed the roll of paper towels I’d left hooked on a nearby rooftop antenna and flew back.

  My phone vibrated as I was landing, and I dropped the paper towels to fish out the keys and check the message.

  Amy: Try to be quiet when you come in, she’s only lightly sleeping now. And don’t freak out about the way she looks. It’s… pretty dramatic.

  Me: Coming in now.

  I put the key in the lock and unlocked the door as quietly as I could and made my way in. Closing and locking the door behind me, I turned to bring the food into the kitchen.

  The apartment was definitely converted from a commercial space. The first floor was all open: living room blended into the kitchen, high ceilings, deep layout. Besides a tucked-away bathroom beneath the stairs and a pantry along the back wall, there wasn’t much in the way of separation. Just a line where linoleum met carpet that divided the kitchen from the living space.

  Pretty dramatic is a pretty dramatic undersell.

  Amy was sitting on the floor, leaning against something very large, and very blue, absently petting it. It dwarfed my sister. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

  The uncanny valley hit me like a sucker punch. Amy looked up as I hovered a few inches off the floor, brought a finger to her lips, and smiled. She pointed toward the kitchen counter. I nodded, a little numb, and she turned back, resuming the petting. Her fingers slid through something that looked like–

  Tentacles. Wriggling, slow-moving, lazily coiling tentacles that responded to her touch. Some twined gently between her fingers.

  I set the paper towels down and floated over to the kitchen with the load of food, trying not to make too much noise as I unpacked. Plastic grocery bags crinkling and paper takeout sacks weren’t exactly subtle, but I managed. Once everything was laid out, I drifted back, circling around for a better look. I lowered to the floor beside Amy and kept my voice low.

  “Is that… her?”

  Amy glanced over and bobbed her head once.

  “Are you sure?”

  Amy shot me a look like I’d just asked her if water was wet.

  I held my hands up, palms out. “Okay, okay.”

  “I’ve been here the whole time,” she whispered. “I watched her change. This is Morgan. The real Morgan.”

  The real Morgan?

  My eyes flicked back to the shape. Massive, alien, calm, and sleeping.

  Amy resumed stroking her head–if that was what it was–running her fingers through thick tendrils that shifted like seaweed underwater. They responded to her touch, slow and gentle, brushing against her hand as if they recognized her.

  She was still humanoid, mostly. Two disproportionately large arms were folded up over her head, surrounding it. Each one was longer than I was tall, and her forearms were easily as wide as my torso. Her hands were enormous, four thick fingers tipped in curved black claws the width of my upper arm. Amy was nestled against her shoulder and armpit, barely noticeable in comparison.

  Her shoulders were strange. Not just broad–massive–but bulbous, capped in short, conical spikes like polished horn.

  Everything below that was partially hidden beneath a drape of wings. Six of them, insect-like, covered her body like a blanket. They were mostly transparent, but with an oily, opalescent sheen that made the overlapping layers shimmer like frosted glass. The effect was oddly beautiful. Hypnotic.

  Two huge paws stuck out from the bottom of the wing-drape, along with a thick, muscular tail. The tail was absurdly long, long enough to reach across the kitchen and loop back again. It tapered slowly, ending not in a point, but in three articulated claws like a bird of prey. From the top of her tentacles to the tips of her toe claws, I guessed she was easily fifteen feet long. Maybe more. The tail doubled that length, easily.

  I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “She’s… big.”

  Amy nodded. “She’s starting to rouse from sleep. She should be waking soon.”

  That pulled me out of my daze. “Amy, get away from her. Before she wakes up.”

  She gave me a look. “I don’t think she would hurt me, Vicky.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Think about when I first got my powers. I wasn’t used to my strength. She’s going to be dealing with that, and she’s got extra limbs.”

  Amy frowned, then nodded. “Good point.” She stood up, wincing. “Ow. Leg’s asleep.” She hobbled over to the couch. “Would you swap with me? I think having someone close might help. And… you’re tougher.”

  “Uh- yeah, sure.” I took up a spot right next to Morgan near where she’d just vacated. Just in case, I kept my forcefield up.

  She began to stir almost immediately. Her tail twitched, scraping lightly across the floor. Then her arms uncurled, stretching out over her head, past the vinyl, and into the carpeted space like tree limbs. A long, muffled yawn echoed from somewhere deep inside her chest, followed by a crackling cascade of pops and crunches all the way down her spine.

  Somewhat nervously, I reached out a hand to her shoulder. “Hey, Morgan? It’s Victoria, Amy’s here too. Did you sleep well?”

  Her chest rumbled, growled, deep and low, and I felt it in my chest and in my bones.

  I drew my hand back before it made contact.

  Oh shit.