When the storms rage as never before…

Danny was face to face with an abomination, the rabid Beta addict was trying to tear through his chest–and yet he felt no pain. Instead his whole body quivered and shifted, and he found that his confusion was actually slightly greater than his terror. Finally he managed to scream…but he didn’t recognize his own voice.

“HELP! Help me, please! Help!” he called, but in the dense green fog it felt like he was alone for miles in every direction. Danny tried to defend himself, pushing through the disturbing feeling of his own body feeling foreign, and he managed to jam the long, wand-like Alpha vacuum between himself and his crazed attacker.

This only seemed to make the ashen-faced madman angrier, and he shifted to attacking the vacuum as if it were an entirely new enemy. Danny’s arm felt like it would break as the two bloody, savaged hands tried to tear the device from him, but all at once the movement stopped, and for a second he was only aware of his ears ringing.

The weight of the broken man fell onto Danny, and he was shocked by how light it felt. It was almost effortless to throw the addict off of him, and he quickly felt at his own chest, trying to assess the damage…but there was nothing. His suit and uniform were both ripped, but miraculously–impossibly–his skin was whole.

He saw the shadows of two guards stepping out of the fog. They both ignored Danny, one kicking the Beta addict who had several bullet holes in his back, and the other checking the downed guard. “Shit, he killed Louis,” he pressed a finger to his ear. “Team, we have a scavenger attack in Grid 3, report in.”

At last the other guard moved away from the body, and gave Danny an appraising glance. “Hurt?” was all he said, and Danny just shook his head, holding a hand over his chest. The front of his suit was clearly shredded though, and the guard tilted his head–his face was impossible to read behind the military gas mask and helmet.

“Looks like he got you pretty good. If you weren’t wearing such a baggy suit you’d probably be shredded. Duct tape is in the truck, patch up, then back to work,” he said before turning to the other guard and looking for threats. Danny raced off toward the truck, happy to be away from the body of the man who’d tried to hollow him out like a pumpkin.

Everything was confusing though, and his mind raced in every direction. He was sure he felt his chest being raked by those awful fingers–the pain was still fresh in his mind. And his ears–one second they were ringing like he’d never hear again, and then they were fine.

He got to the truck, and quickly found the tool box. He had the duct tape out in seconds, and started stretching it over his chest. He knew the storms shouldn’t do anything to him as an Adept, but it was one thing to ‘know’ that, and another to see the green fog seeping into his suit.

He paused, however, as he realized the guard had been right. His suit was loose now, though if anything it had been uncomfortably tight before because of Danny’s height. What the hell was going on?

Danny quickly finished patching his suit, then–feeling foolish–he quickly went to the truck’s cab, and looked in the mirror. It was hard to see his own face through the small window of the baggy helmet, but he didn’t need many adjustments before he caught a glimpse of his own hair–which had gone from simple brown to spikey and blonde.

Through the blur of the fog it wasn’t as easy to make out his facial features, but it was still immediately clear that he wasn’t looking at himself. He was looking at Eric Palmer. He nearly threw up in his mask as his chest heaved and heart faced.

It wasn’t that he looked like Eric in particular–though that did sting. There was something uncanny about looking in a mirror and seeing someone else’s face. He immediately started pawing at himself blindly, as if trying to wipe off some food, but there wasn’t any real logic or expectation behind it, he was just panicking.

“Hey!” Captain Donovan’s voice called out. “Get back to work, Mackenzie! I already lost a guard today, I damn well better not miss quota on top of it!” Something about the surety of the command snapped Danny’s mind back into focus, and he hurriedly resumed his patrol.

One, he counted, while his rapid breathing threatened to make him lose consciousness. Two, came the quiet thought, as his heart–Eric’s heart?–hammered in his chest. Three, am I losing my mind? Four. He passed Glenn, and could tell that he really was shorter than he had been.

His gauge turned orange, and Danny mechanically switched on the vacuum. Though it made some horrible noises, clearly having been damaged in the attack, it still seemed to work. Danny woodenly continued his slow trek through an unseen street, feeling lost in a daze.

Time passed, and his body slowly felt less foreign. Now it was more like he’d woken up stiff from too much exercise, and stretching the muscles was providing some slow relief. The attack had been so sudden, and been interrupted by such crazy circumstances that it felt unreal somehow.

Danny felt renewed alarm when he almost bumped into another student, and saw it was the real Eric Palmer. He tried to hide his face, but the other boy just mumbled “sorry,” without looking up from his gauge. This job made them all into zombies Danny supposed.

The rest of the day was comparatively uneventful. He skipped the sandwiches, although it was even harder than he expected, feeling like he was starving to death, but he wasn’t willing to risk taking his mask off. He mumbled something to the Captain about being too freaked out to eat, and the man didn’t even bother to reply.

He spent the rest of the day trying to be himself again. He willed his body to change, thought about how he was supposed to look, tried to remember the exact feeling of his body shifting, but nothing worked. It was a nightmare, and Danny felt powerless.

When they finally loaded back into the truck, he hurried to a corner and turned away. By now everyone knew that he’d been attacked, and he refused to make a sound when a couple of the students prodded him about what had happened. Danny spent the entire ride home terrified of being found out, and trying to hide every inch of the face that wasn’t his own.

Thankfully everyone was in a hurry to get a late dinner when they arrived back at the Farm, and they’d given up asking him questions. Danny lingered in the change room until he was the last one out, then raced across campus. Vincent will know what to do, he kept telling himself.

His friend’s dorm was empty when he got there, but that was fine. He devoured a bunch of the hoarded food, incapable of stopping himself, then just sat and waited. When the explosion rocked the building his panic reached new levels, only to be topped when a bunch of students started shouting ‘fire’.

Danny resolved to wait until the last possible moment before leaving, knowing that Eric would be outside somewhere. He even had to do an embarrassing job of hiding under the desk, covered in laundry, when a guard started banging on doors and checking for students. Thankfully the man barely put his head through the door before turning around.

***

“After about an hour I figured I wasn’t going to burn to death…though that may be better than being stuck as Eric Palmer for the rest of my life,” Danny finished, still refusing to look up, even after the long story had been told. Vincent looked back at his friend, his own exhausted mind barely able to handle the new information.

He’d been fighting his own fatigue for so long, but hearing the fear in his friend’s voice–well, Eric’s voice–was enough to keep him awake and lucid for a little while longer. He went and sat on the bed, looking at the person who was and wasn’t Danny Mackenzie. Vincent opened his mouth to ask a question, then stopped himself. This is Danny, try harder.

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“How…are you feeling?” he said instead. Eric’s face turned to look at him with a decidedly Danny-like expression on his face.

“Not awesome?” he answered, and Vincent nodded in understanding.

“Have you checked your K-Device since you transformed?” he asked, now that he’d been a good friend. Danny looked surprised, then fished the device out of a pocket.

“No, I didn’t even think about it. I was focused on how to convince you I was really me,” he answered, while the device reset in his hands. A moment later his eyebrows rose. “I’m a…’Mimic’?” he said, with some confusion. “I’ve never heard of that…whoa, it says it’s a ‘restricted’ Class.”

He looked up at Vincent, “Since when are there ‘restricted’ Classes? How can you even restrict a Class? Don’t we just manifest some power set then…you know, deal with it?” Vincent’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

That was a really good question. His own mind had immediately gone to the information being restricted, but that didn’t make sense. He’d been so caught up in Gary’s attack and his own unusual abilities, that he hadn’t stopped to consider what it meant. He knew this deserved deeper consideration, but honestly he wasn’t capable of that right now.

“We’ll deal with that part later. What does your skill say?” Vincent asked. Danny spent a moment scrolling and reading, before his eyebrows went up.

“Whoa,” he said finally, and Vincent waited. When Danny still didn’t speak, Vincent started to realize exactly how little patience he had at this moment.

“Danny, read it out loud,” he said in a less than friendly tone.

“Oh, sorry Vince. It’s just…whoa,” he appeared to be reading it again silently, then finally shook his head with wonder. “I can copy another person’s appearance–obviously–but that’s not the cool part. My KD has something called ‘Mastery’, and it explains how the skill evolves.” Vincent nodded again, tempted to snatch the device from his friend’s hand, but knowing that would shut the display off.

“Dude, it says that I’ll be able to copy powers! Isn’t that insane?” Vincent’s eyes widened, and he forgot about sleep for a moment. That was insane.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that, before,” Vincent said, connecting dots in his head. His own Class information hadn’t been complete, and didn’t include information on how his skill would evolve. If Danny’s did, that meant the NGG was definitely aware of Mimics…that was a sobering and disturbing thought.

“That could mean any Hero out there isn’t really the Class we think they are!” Danny said, once more going down a different path from Vincent, but a valid one. “Think about it…we might not have even met the real Legacy!” That sounded more like wishful thinking, but still: he wasn’t wrong.

“That’s an incredible Class, Danny. I’m really happy for you,” Vincent managed, again trying to channel his inner Lucia.

“Thanks!” Danny said with Eric’s grin, then his face fell. “But I still don’t know how to change back. And it doesn’t explain what happened when I manifested. I’m sure my chest was cut up, but I was fine when I looked at it…” he trailed off, but Vincent had personal experience with this part, at least.

“That was just the Manifestation. Manifesting is essentially all your stored up energy bursting out at once. It unlocks your powers, and also throws your body into overdrive for a few minutes. Don’t count on it happening again,” Vincent said, knowing Danny needed to hear the warning.

“Aww, lame. I was hoping I had super healing. I trip on just…so much stuff,” Danny replied, and Vincent smiled. It was good to see his friend making jokes again, he knew Danny had been through his own nightmare today, but he’d get past it. Now they both needed sleep.

“There isn’t much you can do right now, Danny. You’re probably having trouble transforming because your powers aren’t stable yet–the best thing you can do is go and get some sleep. I’ll walk you back to your room, and make sure Eric doesn’t see you. I bet you’ll wake up as yourself. If not, we’ll both be in better shape to deal with it tomorrow morning.”

Danny nodded, stood up, then paused. “Wait, how come you look like shit?” he asked.

“I had to kill a super guard today,” Vincent said, then moved toward the door. Danny’s jaw fell open.

***

Lucia waited until the cafeteria was clearing from breakfast, then found a spot near the door to linger. The students slowly started filing out as she pretended to read a book. She needed a lead, and she was running out of time. This was her best plan, and she would have been embarrassed if Vincent or her friends knew that.

But the truth was that she’d hit a deadend. People were already losing interest in the Gamma theft, and there hadn’t been any new rumors. If she didn’t solve this soon, it would be too late. So this was the plan. She was a Psychic, and proper telepath or not, listening for stray thoughts was the best shot she had.

They came flooding in as she let herself relax her defenses, but it was the same as always: they were fragmented, and she had almost no sense of who was thinking what thoughts.

Instructor Smythe is such a Legacy fangirl…

If he says one more word I’m going kill him…

She is so damn hot, I bet if I told her–

He’s staring at me again. Creepy sack of–

Gonna get her, gonna get her, gonna get her…

Please don’t look at me, just keep reading…

Lucia’s eyes came up at those last thoughts, and she looked over to see Kristy and Elena exiting at the same time. Kristy didn’t even glance in her direction, but…but did she look stronger? Her uniform was tighter than Lucia remembered, and there was something else strange that Lucia couldn’t place.

Kristy glanced in her direction, and suddenly the thoughts were a scream.

SHE KNOWS, SHE KNOWS!

Lucia forced the smile from her lips, then looked back down at her book. A moment later though, she changed her mind. Kristy she could deal with later, but Elena was a conversation for now. She put a hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder, and felt a shudder when she did.

“Oh, uh, hi Lucia,” said the brown haired girl that had been her friend for years. Had she really thrown it all away so quickly?

“Hey Elena, we keep missing each other. Neither of us have class right now, let’s walk and catch up.” The girl glanced at Kristy who was striding away with clear purpose, then looked at her own shoes as she replied.

“Of course, that’s…that’s a great idea. We haven’t talked since you–we haven’t talked in a while. We should catch up,” Lucia smiled without warmth, then led Elena away from the rest of the students.

“So how have you been?” she asked with false cheer.

“Okay, I guess,” Elena replied, though her head was whipping side to side as if looking for an exit in the open courtyard.

“I would have thought you’d want to congratulate me on Manifesting. I could be a Hero in a few years,” Lucia said. She had a small plan for this conversation, but it was mostly gambits. Even if Kristy was the one who took the Gamma–the only obvious explanation for her suddenly gaining so much muscle–that didn’t mean Elena was part of it.

“Oh right, I just thought you’d want…space, you know? I know you’re not the biggest fan of the NGG, and well, I guess I should have checked in on you,” she finished. Lucia was trying to walk and stare at her former friend at the same time, and it was worth it. Elena had always been a bit awkward, but this was next level.

Time to figure out which it was. Straining her Psychic senses as best as she could, Lucia started poking. “So is Kristy the only one spreading these rumors about me, or have you helped?” Elena stopped short, and her eyes widened.

“I would never! Do you really think that little of me?” The girl seemed genuinely hurt, but Lucia was low on sympathy at the moment.

“So you only became best friends with the girl making a career out of trying to ruin my life? What little life I have left, that is.” Elena looked away, blushing.

“I tried to stand up for you, I swear. Kristy is just. She’s jealous, you know? And you’ll be gone soon, and I’ll be alone, I just…I’m sorry.” They were still walking, and Lucia was still trying to get a sense of whether the girl was telling the truth. She just needed to hear one clear thought. Time to try something serious.

“I guess I just never realized how close you were,” she said, then focused as hard as she could. “Next you two will be trading clothes. Kristy is pretty big, but I bet you two could still swap sweaters.”

NO!

The thought was a scream, and it took all the concentration Lucia had not to react. “Look,” Elena said, sounding surprisingly calm, “I apologized, and I meant it, but now I’m going to go. Take it up with the person who you actually have a problem with, okay?” She brushed past Lucia. “I’m just trying to survive,” she muttered.

Lucia let her go, and went to lean against a nearby tree. She let out a long sigh. That was so sloppy, I can’t believe it worked, she thought. But it had. Elena knew. Just the word ‘sweater’ had been enough. Elena knew that the Gamma thief had worn a sweater as a makeshift mask. She knew it was Kristy.