=::= One Month Earlier =::=

"C'mon dad," I pleaded. "Just tell me!"

She shook her head, "I'm sorry I even let on that it was possible hon. I don't want to go into it, and there's other more important things to work on."

"But dad," I tried to reason with her. "Think about what it'd mean to be able to help other people? Like think about trans people? If we could use our shape-shifting to help them, that'd be huge! Maybe even life-saving? If we can do stuff like that, wouldn't it be like a crime to keep it to ourselves?"

She sighed again, "You'll never be able to do it Melody, so what's the point talking about it? Just let it go hon. Let's focus on your lessons, ok?"

We'd been doing these lessons every day for the past ten days now and I was actually starting to get bored of them. Like I sure, learning how to magically change my body was neat and all that? But a big chunk of that novelty wore off last weekend when I accidentally made myself an eight year old kid. And that led to a first-hand understanding of how our physical body can affect our mind.

Which in turn led to dad spending the next few days explaining how that worked and ways to avoid it and protect ourselves from being overly influenced by the shapes we take.

It wasn't so critical most of the time, but as I'd found out the hard way big changes in our age could mess with our head. And it was even more serious if we took non-human forms. Like before I tried shifting into an animal or something, I needed to know how to protect myself so I wouldn't get too overwhelmed by the experience.

Now it was Sunday, the last weekend in June. Two days ago Kelly and Craig finished high-school while I remained absent with a made-up medical problem. Dad provided some official documents from the hospital, but the school hadn't decided yet if I needed to write my exams or if I'd be excused and graded based on the rest of the year.

And finally dad took another week off from work so she could stay with me and mom while she continued my training, which was kind of a mixed blessing. Like it was good that I was getting trained on the important stuff, and it was great having dad with us again. And despite what she and mom said, every day she was still here I got my hopes up even higher that her and mom were getting back together.

Like ok Alison was still sleeping in the guest room, and I worried that maybe mom would feel too awkward about being intimate another girl. Or a girl who looked half mom's age anyways. But then I couldn't help noticing how mom and dad seemed to be getting physically closer as the days went by. There were hugs, kisses, casual contact, and lots of cuddling in the evenings in front of the TV. And all that made me really happy.

On the other hand, I wasn't even getting weekends off from dad's lessons. So today instead of another boring lecture and more boring practice, I asked dad something I really wanted to find out about. Something that would maybe let me help my friends someday. Friends like Kelly.

And I wasn't ready to give up so easily this time, so I forged ahead with what I wanted to know.

"If I can't do it anyways then what's the harm in telling me? Like seriously, I'm curious and I want to know. So just spill it. Please?"

Dad sighed once more then finally gave in.

"Fine," she stated. "I'm only going to say this once though, then we'll drop the subject and never speak of it again."

"Ok!" I smiled as I sat next to her on the sofa.

Dad frowned, "First I'm going to explain why we don't talk about this, so you'll understand the big picture."

"Like I've already told you," she began, "There's a few other supernaturals who have the power to change their form. Werewolves are natural shifters like us, but they have only two or three forms they can shift between. And they can't directly change other people, but they can infect people to make them into werewolves too."

She continued, "Witches can't naturally shape-shift, but they can temporarily or permanently change change their appearance using powerful spells. Unlike us, they can also use those spells to alter the forms of others. Usually it's considered a curse, but depending on the circumstances it could be a blessing instead."

"Then there's angels and demons," she said with a frown. "I don't know too much about either of them, but I'm positive they can naturally shift to disguise their appearance. I don't think they can change other people except in certain specific circumstances? For demons that would certainly involve a contract or pact, so the only people who'd be changed would be those who were willing to bargain with a demon to get it."

"And the reason I'm telling you all this," she said as she got to the point, "Is to say that among the supernatural population we're relatively rare, but we're also considered fairly harmless. We can't change other people, we can't infect them. All we can do is change ourselves. So they generally ignore us."

I frowned, "So if it's impossible for us to change other people, then why all the secrecy? Like if it can't happen, why's it a big deal?"

Dad sighed, "Because it has happened. It's not impossible, but it's extremely rare."

She took a deep breath then explained, "As far as I know, only one shape-shifter has ever managed it. This was back in the nineteen twenties, almost exactly a hundred years ago. And at first, they used it rarely and in beneficial ways. I've told you we can extend our lives by shifting to a younger form whenever we please? And we can also avoid disease and heal injuries by changing to a healthy uninjured body. In the beginning the shifter in question used their abilities like that. They healed some humans who were close to them, made them younger to extend their lives."

Dad sighed again, "Unfortunately they let this power go to their head. They started 'helping' people without being asked, without consent. They started thinking they knew what was best for people. Then they started using their talent as a weapon, on people that they deemed in need of punishment. They became a menace, and they demonstrated to the rest of the supernatural community that we weren't so harmless after all. And in the end, they had to be stopped."

"Wow," I said softly. "But how did they actually do it?"

She was quiet for a few moments as she just stared at me. The stern look on her face was obviously meant to impress on me how serious this was.

"Before they spiralled out of control, they tried to teach a few other shifters how to do it," dad finally said. "Nobody else was able to replicate the effects though."

Her tone and expression both became dark as she added, "Because it's so rare as to be almost impossible, because no-one else was able to replicate their results, that also meant no other shape-shifters were able to help their victims. We had to approach... Let's call them an elder council of witches. We had to ask for outside help, to clean up their mess and make things right."

She sighed, "That put our kind at risk, it made us a threat in the eyes of other supernaturals. The council agreed to help, and to leave the rest of us alone, as long as we guaranteed that problem never happened again."

I nodded slowly, "Ok. I get it now. So how come nobody else could do it? Do you think maybe they lied about how it was done, when they were trying to teach people?"

Dad shook her head and sighed, "No. That was before they became a menace, and they genuinely wanted to share their discovery. Unfortunately it was determined that the problem was one of strength. It took too much energy to change another person. More than any other shifters were capable of. The one who was able to do it was simply that much stronger than the rest of us."

She added, "You remember what I told you about doing changes that were too big, or trying to change too much too often? Some shifters who attempted this ended up hurting themselves. Nothing permanent, but it's a painful and unpleasant experience. Like a migraine combined with the worst hangover ever."

There was another long pause while she stared at me, before she finally gave me the answer I'd been looking for.

"The actual method is frighteningly simple. The only limitation is that it takes too much power to actually do it. According to them, they just needed physical contact with the subject. The more the better. Then it was just like using our shifting ability on ourselves, except they focused it outwards on the other party. The same focus, the same concentration, the same meditative process, but pushed outwards. That's all it took."

She added, "Because it took so much strength to achieve, the shifter wasn't able to do it very often. No more than once every couple weeks, if that. Which was fortunate, because otherwise they might have harmed even more people."

I found myself staring at her with wide eyes as that sank in. It really was unbelievably simple. If you knew how to change yourself, you knew how to change someone else. The only barrier was whether or not you were strong enough to actually do it.

And what dad didn't know, what I'd been keeping to myself almost from the beginning, was I already figured out I was a lot stronger than I was supposed to be.

After those first few days, those first three changes, dad was worried about me over-exerting myself. She fussed over me and told me what symptoms to watch for, but they never happened. And when I saw dad getting worried that I wasn't showing the expected signs I started to fake them so she'd feel better.

I pretended to be tired or exhausted, and I pretended to get headaches. I'd do some changes while she watched, then claim to be tired and went to lie down in bed. And instead of resting, I'd keep on practicing while dad thought I was sleeping.

Then she'd tell me how strong I'd be in a few more years, she'd describe what she could do and how it only took her a couple hours to recover. Then I'd go back to my room and do that stuff in private, and be fine twenty or thirty minutes later. After just a couple weeks I was already stronger than my dad, and I kept that to myself because I didn't want her or mom to worry.

"So um," I asked in a nervous voice, "What eventually happened to the shifter who figured all this out?"

Dad sighed, "They were killed. That was the only way to stop them. Then the whole thing was covered up, buried as deep as possible, so nobody else would ever find out what they did or how they did it. That was what the council ordered."

"So how do you know all this stuff?" I asked with a frown. "If it was buried and covered up and everything?"

"I was there," she replied quietly. Her eyes were on mine again as she added quietly, "I was one of the group who helped hunt them down, and I was with them when they died."

Dad continued softly, "If it happens again, if another shifter someday comes along who's strong enough and figures out the trick, and if they get caught changing people against their will, that person would be hunted down too. Not only would they be harming their victims, but they'd be putting every single one of us at risk as well. They'd have to be stopped, for the good of us all."

"Oh," I said quietly as that sank in.

She was still watching me, and after a few seconds another question came to me.

"So how'd you get involved with that person you were talking about? How come you were on the team that tracked them down? Are you some kind of supernatural cop or something?"

Dad shook her head, "I was involved because I knew the shifter in question. I was one of the handful they tried to teach their technique to."

"Oh," I frowned. I was almost afraid to know the answer but I asked, "Were they a friend of yours?"

There was a pained look in dad's eyes as she shook her head again. "They were my older sibling."

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