I left the school through the front gate again, because I didn't feel like dealing with everyone I'd meet in there. The wind was still gusting heavily, but it lacked the payload of snow now, thank goodness.

Burning a hole in my pocket were ten whole attribute orbs. I needed to think about how to allocate them. Funnily enough, my Strength was actually somewhat lacking now, and it was a pretty important stat to me. I guess it was time to fix that? I'd think about it while I peeled myself out of this armour.

I entered my commandeered house through the back door and kicked off my boots. Then, I trudged up the stairs and entered the bedroom.

Thankfully, as far as the armour went, April had known I might need to get out of it on my own, so she'd tied the knots of the laces so I could pull one and it'd slowly come undone. That gave me some room, but the laces had still been done up nice and tight. Crap. I was going to need help…

Hold on.

With a laugh, I accessed the internal thought construct that was my class and inverted it. My body glowed gently, and all physical attributes blurred into a silhouette for a moment, and I shrank down into my Kaia form. Suddenly, the armour wasn't so tight anymore!

From there, it was easy to worm my way out. Standing in the bedroom like that, I could suddenly smell myself, and oooh boy. Time to fix that.

After wiping myself down with some frigid water from the bathtub, I grabbed some of my spare clothing—Jeans, a small bralette, a black tee, and one of those puffy jacket things, all except the bralette of which were too big for me—and got dressed.

Now I just needed some food… gosh I was hungry. Thankfully, I'd had the foresight to stash a large tupperware box full of granola bars and jerky out under the snow by the back door. It was within my protective wards, but still out in the frigid elements where it wouldn't spoil.

I decided, on the way down, that I would put three orbs into Strength, and three into Toughness. They were very important stats for me, and I wanted them to be a lot higher than they were now.

After I was done, my Strength came out at five, while my Toughness rose all the way to six. The changes hit me like a grand piano from three floors up, and I dropped to my knees. Thankfully, I didn't have far to fall in my current form.

My muscles seemed to tighten and ripple, and my skin had something crawling under it. In two seconds or so, everything settled, and I felt mercifully normal again. Intrigued, I poked at the skin of my arm. All the fluffy little hairs were there like normal, and I got all the usual squish from my muscle… but I thought I could see some sort of woven lattice right beneath my skin. It was so faint, I could only really see it if I really stared intently and looked for it, but it was there. If I had to guess, I’d say it was an aspect of my increased toughness.

As for my strength, I decided to take some random vase from where it still sat on a cabinet and squeezed. At first, my strength seemed to be the same as its pre-storm levels, but unlike back then, I just didn’t seem to hit an upper limit on my strength. Pretty shortly after I crossed past my old strength, the vase shattered. I picked up a piece of it and pinched it between thumb and forefinger, and again I just kept increasing the strength I was exerting. It began to crumble, but I kept pinching and pinching, until it was nothing but powder. Well, holy shit. I mean, it wasn’t the best test—I wasn’t throwing any cars around—but dayum. I was happy with that.

The last four orbs I put in my pocket. I’d think about them while I ate some food, because I was hungry.

The rear of the house had this sort of mini-patio area, with generic white painted pillars that held up a small roof, while stairs led down to ground level. Half of that patio was outside of the protective wards, and it was in that space, leaning against a pillar with the smuggest fucking grin ever on his face, that I found Scott.

“Well, hello, Kaia,” he smirked, raising an eyebrow.

I froze, staring at him in wide eyed panic. “What… how…”

“I followed you,” he said with a cocky little shrug. “I’m still very confused and light on details, but when— When Silver was acting just like Kaia… I mean, that crossed arms and pout before we went into the library? That was peak Kaia. Then, the way you started calling me Scotty, and by that time I was already really conscious about how similar your mannerisms were, so I just kept seeing the similarities. I had to follow you and see where you went… and since I’m Scotty the Shifty, well…”

“The tank didn’t see the rogue,” I sighed, slumping against the door to close it behind me. “Fuck.”

We were silent for several seconds, and during that time I took a very keen interest in my bare feet. Fuck, but it was cold. With a sigh, I looked back up at my friend. His cocky grin was gone, replaced by a look that was like, one part concern, one part curiosity, and one part irritation.

“Why haven’t you told us?” he asked quietly. “It is you, right? You’re Silver, somehow?”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nodded. “I’m Silver. I can transform into her whenever I want, but I can only stay as her for about a day before I have to rest as Kaia.”

He grunted in acknowledgement and picked at the paint on the pillar while he thought. “Kaia… we accepted your gender swap like it was nothing, why wouldn’t we be chill with this?”

Biting the inside of my lip, I could only shrug helplessly. “It’s a long story…”

His frown deepened for a second, but then he seemed to come to some decision and he stared me dead in the eyes. “Will you tell the others?”

Groaning, I flipped and bonked my head against the door. Then I bonked it again for good measure.

“H-hey, there’s no need for that,” Scott said with concern.

I turned and gave him a look. “My toughness is six now, Scotty. It’s the door you should be worried about.”

That got a bark of laughter out of him. “Okay, point taken.”

Would I tell my friends, though? I guess, if Scotty knew about my secret identity, then I really should tell the rest of the crew. Even that thought conjured a spike of pure fear, and I swayed on my feet. Fuck. Fuck this was… oh god, and what about Chloe. No, I wasn’t ready for that. That was too scary.

Although, the sheer terror I felt—rational or not—helped me realise that telling my friends might not be so bad. I knew that they’d support me, even if they got pissed. Chloe on the other hand, she was so damn unpredictable. You never knew how she’d go on something, and keeping my secret was just too damned important for my mental and, frankly, physical wellbeing.

“Fine,” I said, with a decisive nod. “Could you go and grab our crew?— oh, and April too.”

“April?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in question even as his expression softened with relief.

“She figured it out the moment she met me,” I laughed wryly.

Scotty chuckled. “Damn, okay. Uh… how do we get into the house, though?”

“I’ll set the wards to let you through.”

 

While I waited, I retrieved my food from its hiding place under the snow and flopped in the lounge, waiting for everyone. Goddess, but I was so fucking nervous. Would some of them hate me? Would all of them hate me?

No, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t hate me. I was just getting myself worked up, panicking while I waited. Everything would be fine. I could figure out how to soothe the problems and… ugh, but what if I couldn’t?

A knock sounded at the back door and I just about jumped out of my newly toughened skin. Oh fuck! They were here!

Shaking, I stood up and approached the door. Five seconds passed as I stared at it, until they knocked again.

I opened it and turned away at the same time, waving them in and avoiding eye contact. If anyone noticed my reluctance, they didn’t say anything.

“Wow,” Ollie said. “This is Silver’s place, huh? Pretty fancy. Where is she?”

I didn’t say anything—just led them into the lounge where I sat down heavily in one of the seats. Idly, I found myself amused that the oversized clothing I was wearing now would fit when I shifted into Silver.

“How’d you get Silver to let us in?” Alec asked, sitting on the sofa nearest to me. Immie joined him, crossing her legs as she did so. Camillo was on another sofa, joined by Ollie and Scott, who proceeded to jab and poke at each other until everything was settled.

April, who’d entered last, was giving me a piercing, but gentle look. She walked around until she was beside me, then sat down on an ottoman that was probably meant for the person in my chair.

“Is this what I think it is?” she whispered, leaning over to rub my back soothingly.

I nodded, unable to speak around the golf ball that appeared to be lodged in my throat.

“Where is Silver, anyway?” Ollie asked, twisting around in her seat. She managed to clock Scott in the face with her elbow, which he shoved aside with a frown.

“I've been lying to you all,” I blurted, suddenly and very forcefully.

Everyone stilled and as one, focused on me. I swallowed again, and began to pick at a small exposed thread on the chair. Where the fuck did I start this explanation?

“The day of the… Apocalypse, Storm, whatever, I had… I had an angel crash-land in my backyard. Mum and dad were in town, Marc is… was on the east coast.” I said, launching into my explanation whether it was finished baking or not. “That angel, she said she'd been fighting to stop the Storm, but she failed and got hurt in the process. She was dying, nothing could be done… but she could pass her angelic spark on...”

My friends were quiet, listening with confused interest and a growing suspicion.

“I… suddenly, I was a girl, a tall, hot, angelic woman with so much power,” I said, faltering as I remembered that first day.

“You can't be serious, you're saying… what, that you and Silver are the same person? We saw you before you became Kaia, we saw… I mean…” Alec said, his confusion boiling over into frustration.

Immie, who was more composed than Alec, nodded, leaning forward. “Yeah, how’d you manage that? Unless I'm missing something drastic, it ain't possible to be two people.”

“I can…” I began, but then I just sighed and leaned back into the seat. “Watch.”

Then, with my mental hand trembling, I flipped my class inside out. The dull glow of my transformation lit even my eyelids with soft silver moonlight, and when it was done and I opened my eyes, my perspective had shifted upwards several inches.

“There,” I said softly. “I can transform.”

They were all—even Scotty—stunned speechless. Ollie's eyes were so wide I was half expecting them to pop out and roll across the carpet. Alec’s face had drained of colour, and his mouth was hanging open. Immie’s expression was set in stone, and Camillo… he was just shaking his head.

It was Ollie who broke the silence. “Why? Why didn't you tell us?”

I shrank in on myself as I heard the raw hurt in her voice. Fuck.

“I…” I began, but my throat felt so dry and I stopped.

“Yeah, why? We're your friends, your besties, how could you—” Immie began.

April spoke up, cutting her off and surprising the hell out of me. “A ‘boy’ turned into a beautiful girl, thrown into the shit, monsters trying to tear her throat out, people to be saved. There was a lot going on, and that's just what was happening outside her head.”

I nodded and raised my hands. “I'm really sorry. It just sort of… happened. I was scared, the gender thing, it was scary and… and new, and fuck but I was trying to figure out why I liked it so much. It was— I was a mess. Then it was just… I rode the status quo.”

Alec shot up all of a sudden and stomped over to stare out a window, gripping the sill like it was a liferaft that'd insulted his mother. Immie followed his path with her eyes, before setting them on me again. They were cold— no, they were hurt.

I did not feel like being Silver right then, so I flipped myself back into Kaia and pulled my legs up to my chest. “When I'm Silver… everyone wants a piece of me. They want me to save someone, they want me to teach them, they want me to fix shit that can't be fixed… or they want me to die. At first I was scared, and goddess knows it was fucking stupid to be scared to tell all of you, but I was. I mean, you're… you're my friends. I'm… shit, I'm sorry, I…”

I was crying now, but I choked back the tears and continued. “Please don't hate me. I'll—”

“If you say I one more damn time,” Camillo murmured angrily, but softly, like the first slow flames of a titanic forest fire. “Kaia, you've been through a lot, that's obvious, but for the love of god, think about how we're all feeling?”

I wilted under the intensity of his tone, but nodded silently. He was right, I was being selfish, I should've thought about how they were feeling. I should've thought about—

“Are you all out of your fucking minds,” Scotty practically screamed.

Everyone stopped and stared for the hundredth time this conversation. He stood and marched the three feet it took to stand dramatically in front of Camillo. What the… Scotty never lost his cool like this. The worst he did was twist his jokes into the realm of malice.

He shoved a finger in Camillo’s face. “Sorry to say this, buddy, but it is about her. We're her friends, yeah, and aside from April who figured it out herself, we are the first people she's trusted with this secret.”

Alec, who'd turned around when Scotty started yelling, got a baleful glare. “Yeah, it sucks that it took her so long, and she can make it up to us later for that, but come-the-fuck-on, people. This is some real, scary, intense shit. This isn't some cute little high school secret, this is a core part of her identity that—and let's be real here—she still hasn't figured out. So swallow that, frankly—” he gave Camillo another pointed look, “—selfish instinct to throw a pity party and calm the fuck down so we can talk this through. Okay?”

With that, he stomped over to me, then looked around, saw there wasn't actually anywhere he could sit while backing me up, and plopped himself cross-legged on the floor. “Plus, did you see that shit? She goes from teeny tiny halfling to giantess in two heartbeats. You can't tell me it doesn't look a little goofy.”

I frowned and stared at the back of his head. He flipped me the peace sign over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Ollie said softly, meeting my eyes. “So we're the only ones who know? Everyone in this room?”

I nodded.

She blew out a slow, thoughtful breath. “Alright. That's fair. I mean, I still think you're an idiot for thinking we'd do anything other than support you, but…”

Immie cleared her throat when Ollie trailed off. “But like, seventy percent of the time being scared doesn't make sense.”

“An irrational fear is still a fear that has to be overcome,” April said in her soft, warm voice. “Take it from someone with a couple extra years under her belt, this ain't worth malding over, now that y’all know the truth.”

“Hold on,” I said, raising a hand to stall her. I looked at Camillo and smiled tentatively. “I think… I think both Camillo and Scotty are right. It’s understandable to be upset, and super justified, but it’s also… well, it was hard to work up the courage to tell you. I was so scared. There was a tiny, anxious gremlin in my head always whispering about how maybe you’d all hate me or whatever. I’m not saying that to be… ugh, I don’t know the word, but I’m explaining this to you all so you know that it wasn’t… argh, I don’t know how to put this.”

I kicked the ground with my heel out of frustration, and the whole floor groaned in protest. For some reason, that made Alec snort with laughter. He grinned sheepishly when I glanced at him. “Sorry, it’s just kinda funny. So you still have all the strength from being Silver, but when you’re Kaia too?”

Embarrassed, I nodded. “Yeah. We cleared the library dungeon today and got a bunch of orbs. My Strength is at five now.”

He whistled. “Sheesh, that’s crazy.”

I nodded for a second, then clicked my fingers as I figured out how to say what was on my mind. “That’s it! I’m explaining the fear and anxiety that I was dealing with because I want y’all to know that it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I was fighting battles in my head, and I wasn’t winning them. So yeah, this is my apology, I’m really sorry. I should’ve told you all way sooner, and I fucked up.”

One by one, I saw my friends relax, although to differing degrees. Camillo still looked like he wasn’t quite happy, but everyone else seemed, well, if not happy about it, then at least they weren’t taking it personally.

A new voice cleared its throat in the silence following my little speech, and I looked over to see… Cynath. She was just manifesting a bust of herself, but she gave each of us a look. “I highly suggest you accept her apology.”

That made my friends suddenly very alarmed. Not many people had experienced Cynath enough to be even remotely comfortable in her presence, and my friends definitely fell into that category.

“W-why?” Immie squeaked.

Cynath bared her teeth. “This new, transformed world we all live in is not one to be kind to the fractured ṣābu—Squad. Enemies—familiar and foreign—will test the bonds of your camaraderie. Take this moment, learn from it, and through it grow stronger.”

“Cynath,” I groaned, cupping my face in my hands. “You’re so extra. Chill, please, and stop threatening my friends. They deserve to have time to think things through.”

“I have enough power to sear the Earth’s skin with my moonlit fire,” my goddess said snippily.

Looking up and rolling my eyes, I gestured to the floating head and tits that was the visual manifestation of a goddess of war and lust. “Oh, and when I wasn’t worrying myself sick about how to tell you all about my secret, she was babbling away in my head, or tugging me in the direction of objectives she wanted completed, or—”

“You’ve been busy,” April said sweetly, patting me on the arm. To Cynath, she smiled, “Thank you, wise goddess. We’ll definitely take your words to heart.”

Cynath huffed and vanished, leaving the room… well, calm. The word calm, of course, was doing a lot of heavy lifting. Scotty was still a little pissed at everyone, Immie just looked sorta sad, Ollie was struggling to wrap her head around everything, Alec was—if I had to guess—hiding his hurt behind amusement and anger, whichever was easiest at the time, and Camillo… he kept frowning and shaking his head.

Goddess, but I really, really fucked things up by not telling them about Silver.