Leaping across buildings was a wonderful feeling. But flying? That was even better. Even though I wasn't the one doing the flying and merely enjoyed myself as the passenger, it still felt quite amazing. I envied Flare.

Then, I realized I could probably make my own wings using my power. Considering my power didn't care much about the law of conservation of mass when I thought back on how I regrew my arm, wings would totally be possible. Though I had no idea if they would even function properly. Would I need to create intricate nerve networks going through them? Would they be strong enough to even lift me? And more importantly, I already had a lot of experience with having body parts I shouldn't have. Would having wings feel similar? Cat ears felt normal at least, but that might have been because I wasn't fully human anymore. For now, I put the idea of creating wings into my mental box of 'test later'. For now, I simply enjoyed the view.

We landed near the northern Neo Warden HQ and approached it. There were two large men outside in guard uniforms. They stared at us as we approached, one of them reaching to his ear and mumbling something while patting the holster on his waist with the other hand. The other man simply stared with arms crossed.

"Hey! We're Phoenix and Ink of team BlackBird! Rook said we should come to give a statement on what happened in that bank." Our team's winged speech specialist informed them.

The man with crossed arms nodded and gestured to the door while the other one kept eyeing me nervously. His hand didn't leave his holster. Seriously, why couldn't people just relax around me?

Anyway, we entered the building and looked around. There were benches on the side and a few men in guard uniforms with batons and guns strapped to their waist. Further in, there was a stairwell to the left and a few elevators to the right. And in the middle, a receptionist lady manning - or womanning? - the desk, focused on something in front of her. When we entered, however, she raised her head and scanned us. I didn't know whether to be sad, annoyed, or amused when her expression turned from serious to meek for a second when her eyes met mine. Though it turned right back into the typical professional 'I won't be bothered by anything' face. I had to hand it to her.

"Hello! Phoenix and Ink here! Rook said he wanted us to give a statement on what happened in the bank!" My friend said.

Honestly, we had already gotten a dynamic going. Phoenix was the bright - literally - and cheerful spokesperson while I was the looming unknown danger in the background. Almost like a bodyguard. If you wrong my firebird girl, you won't like what's coming next. That sort of thing. What an odd thought. It was always the other way around. She had been protecting me.

"Yes, I have been informed. Just a little moment." The lady tapped something on her keyboard for a while before turning to us again.

"Please take the elevator." She pointed to the side. "Rick here will escort you." She nodded to a nearby guard.

The guard joined us as we walked to the elevator. He pulled down his helmet's visor and let the eye scanner do its job. The machine then pinged and the doors opened. We walked in and the door closed behind us. A silent hum accompanied us as we ascended.

"So, what's it like to be a guard?" My companion beamed at our escort.

He didn't answer and kept standing like a statue without moving at all. Truly professional. That is if I ignored his eyes sometimes darting to me and his hands sweating.

Honestly, it was getting annoying. Everyone except for Flare was low key scared of me. Even trained guards who were half a person taller than me. It wasn't so bad before. I thought I already remedied this problem.

And then it hit me. For some reason, I went back to the full face coverage of black roots, instead of just face paint style. Back in the bank, my face got hurt quite a bit, and I couldn't heal it if I didn't let the roots reach those spots, so I kept my entire face covered. And I probably got used to that afterward, doing it unconsciously.

So, I let the roots retract a bit and only left some of them for the face paint style.

"Better?" I asked the guard.

Once again, he didn't answer. But he did breathe out through his nose a bit louder than usual, making it sound like a sigh of relief. Good.

The elevator pinged once again and the door opened. We stepped out and Rick, the man who was scared of a teenage girl, lead us to a room that had a 'meeting room 3B' written on the door.

I briefly wondered whether meeting rooms 1A through 2B and 3A were occupied, this one was picked at random, or they were trying to impress us with how many meeting rooms they had.

The inside was exactly what I expected of a meeting room. A large table surrounded by several chairs, a whiteboard, and a projector.

"Please wait here. Someone will come shortly to debrief you." Our escort said, surprising both me and Flare that he was capable of speech.

"Sure, Rick!" My friend grinned.

Rick then went back through the door and closed it behind him, leaving us alone in the room. We picked out two chairs next to each other facing the door and sat down.

"So Ink. Gaming night today?" She smiled. "A lot has happened, but I still wanna meet your online friends."

"Hmm, sure. We can go to the mall tomorrow morning I guess." I agreed.

We then chatted for a few minutes about Arc Lords Online again, before someone finally entered the room. To our surprise, it wasn't Rook, but Bloom, the green-skinned, green-haired plant themed heroine. Even her costume was a mixture of leafy green and bark-like brown. I have actually read several conspiracy theories saying that she wasn't even human - or hybrid - at all, but a plant that somehow gained sentience. Crazy people.

"Hello. I'm Bloom. You must be Phoenix and Ink, right?" She gave us a friendly smile.

"Hello! Yep, that's us!" My winged companion returned it.

She nodded and seated herself opposite of us.

"It's always a pleasure to see new faces around here. Even though you aren't going to be joining us, you're still doing good by being heroes."

"Thanks!"

Then, she took out a recorder and showed it to us.

"Now then. The standard procedure is to record the entire debrief so that other people can listen to it back. Do I have your permission to record this meeting?"

Friendly, encouraging, and still professional. I already liked her.

"Umm, sure." Flare looked at me for confirmation and I gave her a nod. "Let's do this then!"

The heroine nodded, clicked a button on the device and a little red light lit up.

"Today is the twenty-second of September, two thousand three hundred fifty-one. It's one sixteen PM. I am Bloom, and with me here are Phoenix and Ink, the new independent heroes."

What a detailed introduction. Were the date and time necessary? I was sure the recording itself would have such information automatically assigned.

"We are here to discuss today's events at the Northern Neoarx bank, involving the villains known as the Liberators." She then looked at us with a smile. "Could you start with how you became a part of this incident?"

"Right. So. We were walking down the street, minding our own business-"

From then on, my partner took care of all the talking. How everything went silent, how we went on the roof and met the bank clerk, how he led us downstairs, and then all about the fight itself. I supplied a few comments here and there. Especially for the fight, since, now that I actually realized it, I was the one who knocked out every single one of those villains. Two of them even twice.

Unlike Valkyrie, Bloom wasn't shocked when we told her I survived a point-blank explosion that ripped my arm and ear off and even getting shot between the eyes. She was more impressed with my abilities and my quick thinking. Of course, I didn't tell her the exact details of how my powers worked, only told her that my roots can heal me - which explained how I survived the explosion - and that they can also reinforce parts of me - which was how I stopped the bullet. I didn't mention being able to move my internal organs.

Phoenix on the other hand was very happy to describe what she could do in great detail. Even more detailed than when she described it to me. Apparently, her temperature isolation was some sort of invisible field that only she could see. She could create a whole bunch of them and freely shape them, expanding them and shrinking them at will even if they were already far away.

The molten ash she left in the bank after the battle was scooped up by the police and was going to be studied, and then neutralized by Frostfeather. Right. Somehow, we completely forgot about cleaning up after ourselves. If her temperature fields stopped working without her around, that could have caused damage or seriously hurt someone. Phoenix felt pretty guilty after that. Negligence was bad. Luckily, it seemed like the fields stayed on indefinitely until she canceled them.

Click went the recorder.

"Thank you for your statement." She once again gave us a warm smile. "Now that as that. Onto the next thing I needed to address."

She pulled out a little flash disc and showed it to us.

"Umm?" Phoenix tilted her head.

"This is a copy of a security camera recording from the bank." She explained.

"And why do we need it?" My friend asked, puzzled.

"In the middle of your fight, Ink got shot, and pretended to be dead by turning back into her human form and canceling her power."

A cold chill went down my spine. I realized where she was going with it.

"Your face is clearly - well, I can't say clearly. But even from the awkward angle and with all the blood in the way, your face is visible in the recording."

Fuck. I messed up. My identity was revealed before we even had an official debut.

"Now, don't worry. The reason I'm showing you this is to tell you that somehow, for some mysterious reason, the original recording was destroyed and this is the only remaining copy." She put the flash disc on the table and slid it over to us. "The rest of the cameras were damaged by explosions before you were shot, so they haven't recorded your face."

I stared blankly at the flash disc, and then at Bloom. Was she covering for me?

"Even if you aren't joining us, you very much saved Prism and Threadmaker. We'll respect your privacy and won't reveal your identity to anyone." She paused. "Which, to be honest, we aren't even sure what it is, actually. Your face didn't match with anything in our registers."

Right. Because I wore the face of a guy up until a few days ago. At most, people have seen glimpses of the new me, or maybe the security cameras around the mall would have caught it, but other than that, my face shouldn't have been anywhere.

"So, I'm assuming your power can completely change how you look?" She gave me an inquiring look.

"Something. Like that. Yeah."

"I see. That's pretty clever. A disguise on top of a disguise. You really are intent on protecting your identity, aren't you?"

"I guess?"

Part of me didn't want to tell her that this appearance was now permanent. If they simply assumed I kept completely changing my appearance and stopped looking for who I was, that would be for the best.

I grabbed the flash disc and pocketed it.

"Alright. Before you leave, can I ask you one last thing?"

"What is it?" My companion quipped.

"Even though you won't be joining us, would you be willing to work together with us?" The plant themed hybrid glanced at my companion. "Your powers in particular would be extremely useful for our engineers. Sometimes, the machines and devices overheat or have a meltdown, if we had you around as a sort of safety officer, it would be a lot less dangerous for them."

"Oh. Uh. Sure? I mean, I'll think about it." My friend seemed to be caught a bit off guard. As was I.

"Thank you." The heroine then turned to me. "And Ink. Honestly, I have read and heard a lot about what people say about you. But don't get discouraged. You are a great hero and deserve much respect. Ignore the people who judge the book by its cover."

Now she seriously caught me off guard. And also jumped to the top spot of my favorite heroes. That was the first time, aside from Flare, when someone told me I was a great hero. Every other time people looked at me and declared me evil.

"Uh. Thanks."

"No need to thank me. It's the truth." The radiant smile never left her face. "Now, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Umm, I don't think so?" Phoenix looked at me and I shook my head.

"Then, let me escort you outside again."

We stood up and left the room. Unlike Rick, the chicken statue, our new escort was much more talkative on our way down the elevator. She told us about her experiences as a hero, what to avoid and look out for. She, like Rook, also warned us about the Dragon Maw, saying that they were known to kidnap relatives and friends just to get powerful hybrids to work for them. I kept it all in mind. And was very grateful that they would keep my identity secret.

We said our goodbyes and left the building, Phoenix scooped me up in her arms again and we took flight. I had quite a bit to think about during our flight.

I expected the debrief to be more like an interrogation, but it turned out to be pretty relaxing. Especially with Bloom doing the debriefing. She was just so nice. That's such a rare trait to come by these days.

But more importantly, the debrief gave me a chance to reexamine the entire incident in the bank in great detail. What went wrong, what we could have done better, how I should have reacted to what, and so on.

 

---

 

"So. What was the first mistake we made?"

"Umm, I didn't warn you in time about the bomb?"

"No no, even before that."

"Uhh." Flare furrowed her brows. "I don't know. Things were going pretty well until you got blown up."

"Flare, I meant even before the fight."

"Oh? Uhh. I'm not sure?"

I kept myself from sighing.

"We weren't prepared at all. Not even talking about the costumes, but." I raised my hand and touched my thumb. "We had no way to restrain the villains once we knocked them out, and that's why I got shot later." Then I touched my index finger. "We knew they had a bomber but failed to take it into account, just because nothing was blowing up yet." Then the middle finger. "We didn't prep more signs to communicate, for things like 'be careful!' or 'I found what we were looking for!' or 'I'm fine, I'm just playing dead.'"

"Well. Yeah. True. But to be fair, we had no idea one of us would have to play dead. That would be pretty specific."

"Right, but we saw how useful that would have been."

"Yeah yeah. Definitely." She nodded with a serious expression on her face. "You know Chris. You're really much better at this strategy thing than I am. You should totally be the leader!"

"Uh. Well. Alright? It's just the two of us though?"

"Yeah, for now! But maybe others will join. You know maybe Elsie would if we asked her!"

"I was pretty sure she didn't like danger though?"

"That's true. But with us two protecting her, it won't be as dangerous, right? She doesn't even need to get close with her power!"

"Hmm true. I guess we can ask her. But I'm not counting on it." I nodded to myself. Elsie's powerset would round up our group very nicely, but as I said, she really doesn't like danger and outright refused to join the Neo Wardens once.

"Anyway, back to what we were talking about." I caught her attention again. "Tomorrow, when we go shopping to finish our costumes, we also need to get zip ties for restraining knocked out baddies. We're then gonna need to research all villains in detail and think of ways to counter what they do. And lastly, more sign language."

My companion nodded seriously.

 

---

 

"Ah man, too much information! I'm not gonna remember everything!" Flare held her head theatrically.

"You don't need to. We'll go over it again later. Just remember the main points."

"Alright sure." Then she looked at me hopefully. "But now, we wanted to have gaming night, right? It's already dark outside."

She was right, of course. We spent the majority of the afternoon discussing the city's villains and how to go about beating them, as well as general strategies against opponents with unknown abilities. That was work, more or less. But all work and no play was bad for the mind.

"Yep, you're right. Umm, you didn't bring your laptop, did you?"

"Actually, I did! Before we even went out to anti-rob the bank!"

"Oh, really? Nice! Let's get this started then."

I turned on my desktop and connected to the game as I waited for Flare to do the same with her little machine. She borrowed a chair from the kitchen and sat next to me, putting the laptop on my desk.

The first thing I did, seeing as Brock was online, I shot him a message, asking whether he was ready for a night full of slaying monster-shaped pixels on the screen.

'Readier than ever! Just a few minutes till sis comes back from the toilet.'

As always, no tact at all. I felt bad for Sally.

'By the way, I forgot to mention it, but I'm sorta different now. You know, starstorm and all.' I typed.

'Oh? You got hit? Damn, I'm glad you're still okay. You know, Sally also got hit, and she wouldn't stop complaining about her glowy hair LOL.'

Sally too? I couldn't help but feel lucky that all of us, me, Flare, and Sally got hit but didn't turn into monsters.

'Uhh, yeah. I'm different in another way. You'll see.'

Part of that nasty anxiety returned. My sex had changed. What would those two say to that? They were always relaxed about everything, but that didn't mean they would be fine with this as well.

'Alright.' 'Oh, she's back.' 'Gonna start the call then.'

The popup appeared on the screen and my hand froze. Again, that anxiety. Once I pressed the 'accept call' button, they would see me through my camera. They would see who I really was.

Flare was really perceptive, she noticed my mental struggle and put a hand on my shoulder, giving me an encouraging smile. And that alone sufficed. I shook off the anxiety and steeled myself for what was coming.

I pressed the button.

Two heads appeared on my screen. A boy with messy brown hair and a girl with very shiny white hair. Both pairs of their blue eyes stopped when they saw me.

"Umm, hello?"

"Hey, uhh. I'm Chris." I waved at the screen awkwardly.

"Wait what?!" Yelled Sally.

"Holy cow. The starstorm turned you into a girl?!"

"Yeah. Well, no. Well, kinda. My power did this." I took a deep breath. "The truth is, I'm transgender. I only really found out after I changed. And the thing is, my power can heal me. So, it kind of automatically happened."

I stared at the screen after I finished, waiting for their reaction. They stared right back, their mouths agape.

"Hey, you know what? That's actually pretty cool!" Brock finally replied with a grin.

"I mean, I can now say that my guy friend magically transformed into a cute girl! Just for me!"

It was most definitely not just for him. Sally seemed to agree with me and elbowed her brother.

"Shush you pervert. But he's right Chris! You're so cute now!" She beamed at me.

Again, calling me cute. This time, I did my best to keep the blush off of my face. Unfortunately, my best wasn't enough. Even with the lighting, they could see it on the other side.

"Wait. So are you still Chris? Or did you change your name? Are youuu Alice? Lucy? Victoria?"

"No, you can still call me Chris. I'm just. Christina, not Christopher." I said with a wry smile.

"Okie dokie then!" Brock smiled.

"But still! How are you so cute?! Is it the lighting, or is your face completely smooth?!"

"Oh, uh. It's smooth alright." I touched my cheek. "My power got rid of everything I didn't want."

"Whaaaaat?! That's cheating!" The girl on the other side said with mock anger.

"Isn't it?! I envied her the moment I saw her!" Flare suddenly jumped into the conversation - and camera view - and put her arm around my shoulders.

"Oh, and hi! I'm Flare! Her best friend!" She added helpfully.

"Oh yeah, Chris did say he was inviting someone over." Brock nodded to himself.

"Yes. She invited me over. "Flare emphasized the pronoun.

"Ah, sorry. Force of habit. Yes, she."

"So? What kind of power turns a guy into the cutest girl in the world?" Sally didn't want to drop the subject.

"Well, don't get startled. But it's this." I let the roots crawl on my face.

"Holy shitballs!" The boy exclaimed.

"W-well, it's true that the best skincare products don't look the best on their own."

I laughed a bit at that. Comparing this power to a skincare product. Typical Sally. If I told her this 'skincare product' prevented a bullet between my eyes from killing me, what would she say?

"Anyway, you got hit too I heard?" I asked her.

"Uhh yeah. Fae hybrid. My power is really weird. I can like, see shapes all around me and I can move them and turn them into physical barriers."

"Huh, interesting." I nodded, thinking about the description she gave.

"Let me join the party! I got hit too!" Flare gleefully supplied.

"Oh really? What do you do then?"

"Rega hybrid! I can make superheated ash and isolate temperature!"

"Now that. Sounds really interesting." The only boy of the group nodded. "Hey, have you guys thought about joining your local heroes?"

"We did, but actually." My friend gave me a smirk. "We decided to become independent heroes instead!"

"Ooo, ballsy. I like it!" He turned to his sister. "You know Sally here also thought about becoming a hero. The heroes here are doing a terrible job though. I heard the southern wall got damaged even."

"Yeah, I don't know. It feels like New Madison is on its last legs. They try to hide it with big publicity stunts and stuff, but it's obvious how pretentious it is to anyone who lives here. I thought about actually helping out as a hero, but I'm still not sure about it." The girl with glowing hair said sullenly.

"Hey it's gonna be fine. I'm sure the heroes will step up their game after what happened." Her brother tried to soothe her.

"I wish we could help you somehow. "I said with a sigh.

"We're fine! You do your best as heroes in your own city! We'll manage over here!" Sally said with determination.

"We'll do just that! Good luck over there!" Flare encouraged them.

"Alright, enough moping around! Let's get this show started!"

And so we did. I walked Flare through the character creation screen while I navigated my own character towards the potion shop and bought the gender change potion. Yes, my past self created a male character, because I felt like making it female was somehow forbidden. But now, I had no problems having a female avatar. In fact, I refused to continue as a guy. Both in the game and in real life, as things would have it.

While we were finding ourselves in the game and guiding Flare through the tutorial, I sneaked out to the auction and bought a specific set of accessories. Just to make fun of myself again. Once all four of us met up in the middle of a town square, everyone noticed what I was wearing.

"Hey, cat ears? Tail? Really? Aren't you going a bit too far with the cute and girly style?" Sally said, a bit annoyed now.

"Nope. I'm a Felice hybrid, so this is only making it more realistic."

"Oh, what?! So, you're not just a cute girl, but you're a cute catgirl?! Where does this world's unfairness end?!" Again with the theatrical performance.

"Show us! I totally wanna see you with cat ears now!" That was the pervert of the group.

"Eh, fine. But I'll show you my full appearance as a hero, alright?" I said, smirking.

"Sure, sure! Show us!" What an impatient man.

And so, I rewarded him. With a face full of what the internet called the 'eldritch horror from nightmares'. Blackness crawling on my face, yellow glowing predator eyes staring right at the camera, and a little smile as a bonus. The cat ears were more of an afterthought.

The resulting reaction made me wonder whether he broke some kind of record for male voice pitch height as he fell off of his chair. His sister in turn just stared in horror.

"What do you say? Some people on the internet called me an eldritch horror from nightmares. How rude some people can be, right?" I grinned. Which made the unmoving girl flinch.

"What the fuck?!" The guy rose up again in the background. "A hero?! Are you sure you're a hero looking like that?!"

Rude. Also, Flare, cease your giggling. The fact that you aren't scared whatsoever of this is even weirder.

"Sometimes I look like this, but it doesn't have as much of an impact." I said while reverting to the face paint style.

"Okay, that's MUCH better. But still!"

"Hey, you don't choose what powers you get!" Flare defended me.

"She's right." Sally came back to us. "Also, I retract any statement I said that even hinted about being envious of you."

Now that, somehow, felt even ruder than Brock's reaction.

"Let's just play the game." I shook my head. "Are we gonna go to some beginner dungeon or let Flare grind some XP first?"

"Alright. Uhh. We could do a dungeon. There was that feature that temporarily boosted lower level player's stats so they could play with their higher level friends."

"Oh, that sounds perfect!"

"Yeah, but apparently it doesn't work that well. Sometimes the stats revert back in the middle of a dungeon." Brock shook his head. "Damn bugs."

That last statement made me stop, and remember our morning adventure with Flare. I shared a glance with her seeing as she had a similar reaction. We then shared a wry smile.

"Yeah. Damn bugs."